#not only did i have to find a graph generator

[cube-cumb3r]

Now here are the graphs everyone's actually been waiting for.

Results for: 7 deadly sins rankings, Sexiest Flower and most Edible Rock.

(Perhaps there will also be a bonus chart at the end..?)

Here are the (current) results.

ROCK EDIBILITY

Rock #1 (Vanadite) was the most edible, followed by Rock #6 (Beryl) which was also the Least controversial rock (least stdev), which I would interpret as responders could generally agree on the edibility of Beryl? I saw someone mention it looked like rock salt or himalayan salt, this might be why?

The least edible rock was Rock #4 (amazonite), followed by Rock #5 (Fluorellestadite-Hemimorphite), which was also the most CONTROVERSIAL ROCK! Its edibility score had the highest stdev, people could apparently not agree on how edible it is. I personally think it looks like ice-cream, with the little specks of vanilla bean in it, I was quite surprised people didn't wanna eat this thing.

And in the middle are Rock #2 (Agate) and Rock #3 (Kämmererit). I was expecting Kämmerit to do also better in all honesty, it looks like rock candy to me!

The differences in these rock-edibility scores are not enormous though overall.

(What I also wanted to do was do some sort of scatter plot comparing the average percieved rock "edibility", and then where said rocks fall on the mohs hardness scale to see if there's any kind of connection, but that's a project for another time.)

What I DID do is create an additional variable called "Average rock edibility" (terrible name) which is the average of the all the scores a responder gave to ALL rocks, to see if there's a certain demographic more keen on eating rocks overall.

The answer is Tumblr seems more keen to eat rocks. Folks from SurveySwap and SurveyCircle seems the least keen on eating rocks.

Now onto actually interesting findings, if you do a scatterplot comparing this avg. rock edibility score, to a responders age you get this beautiful scatterplot, which is perhaps not the most impressive scatterplot the world has ever seen, but R-Sq is 20.5%! (=20% of variation in rock-edibility is explained by age, which is not a lot of course, but it's interesting) On average, for each additional year in age, you will rate your rocks 0.07 points less in terms of "Edibility". (Clarification for those not well-versed in statistics, this means nothing)

I'm sure there's more to say about rocks, but now let's move on to,

Flower Sexual Appeal.

The SEXIEST flower was Flower #4 (Gloriosa/Fire lily), followed by Flower #6 (Catherine-wheel pincushion). I don't have any good commentary on this, I just think some introspection for us all is in order.

The most UNSEXY flower was Flower #5 (Dandelion), which also happened to be the least controversial flower, everyone rated this flower as "Unsexy". (Sorry dandelions). The second least sexy flower was Flower #3 (Rose). Perhaps people don't find "classic" flowers exciting?

In the middle was Flower #1 (Daffodil) and Flower #2 (Wisteria), the latter being the MOST controversial flower, which is interesting as it's ended up the middle! This means it's likely many responded either gave Wisterias either a very high or very low score, and they ended up cancelling each other out? Did not expect Wisterias to be polarizing, I must admit.

Now, similarly to the rock-edibility score, I also made a variable for flower-sexualappeal, and these two scores are unsurprisingly slightly correlated with each other (R-sq 27% I think? I don't remember), if you're keen on eating rocks, you probably also want to fuck flowers.

Interestingly though, age has much less of an effect on flower-sexualappeal, (this line is clearly just skewed by that outlier at the end,) the R-Sq of this regression line is only 5% (Which is even more nothing than the relationship between age and rock-edibility) But then also, this question is at a later point in the form, so maybe I'm just missing the demographic that submitted the form early here. But more unsurprisingly, these scores look similar to the rock-scores when divided up by where responders found the form. I'm sure there's even more to find that I haven't found yet.

Next up,

SEVEN DEADLY SINS RANKING.

Here it is in table form, in order of highest rank to lowest. But as intuitive as it is, it's very boring, so here is an exciting sideways bar chart!!

(In retrospect I realize I should've made the horizontal axis start at 2.5 for easier legibility, but oh well. It's also from yesterday, so the information in the next chart might differ slightly.)

The bottom ("totalsumma") is the same information as table above, but I've also chosen to include the avg. rankings among responders who describe themselves as "cisgender", "transgender" and "neither" respectively, which is interesting because they rank the sins differently!

Cisgender respondents rank "Lust" the highest, and Transgender respondents rank "Sloth" the highest instead! Other than that, both these groups rank similarly to the overall average.

However, people who describe themselves as Neither have very different rankings compared to the overall average.

This is the same information as in the chart above, but just people who answered "Neither", sorted from highest rank to lowest. (For this chart I had the sense to make this chart a bit more legible too.)

I find it super interesting how people who answered neither on average ranked "Lust" the lowest? I suspect maybe people who describe themselves as neither trans nor cis, are also more likely to be ace-spec? But I cannot confirm this bc I haven't found a good method of parsing through the responses in the gender and orientation questions.

BONUS CHART!!!!: IS THIS A SANDWICH?

Here is a summary of the amount of people who responded that, yes, this is a sandwich, ranked from most sandwich to least sandwich.

I was a bit surprised that hamburger was so high, I don't personally see hamburger as a sandwich. I was also surprised toast was so low! So, naturally I asked, maybe this is a regional thing? LET'S INVESTIGATE!

Now. I am aware this chart is barely comprehensible and is painful to look at. But I'll point out some interesting things.

First and foremost, there are not that many respondents from Asia and Oceania who made it this far into the form, so take the results from those regions with a grain of salt.

Secondly, I was definitely right that on average, a larger %age American responders seem to think that Hamburgers are a sandwich than European responders (though 80% of Europeans still think hamburgers are sandwiches, so maybe I'm the outlier...). Also, the difference in %age of American vs. European responders who consider toast a sandwich seems quite dramatic! It does seem to indicate that what you consider a sandwich might be regional, no?

THIRDLY. I have created a new variable that I've chosen to call "Sandwich radicalism", which is pretty much how many of the options you consider to be sandwiches (the less conservative you are with what you consider to be a sandwich, the higher your "Sandwich radicalism"). Here is the average "Sandwich radicalism", based on location.

There's too few responders from Asia and Oceania to say anything about them, but comparing Europeans and Americans, it does seem that Europeans are a bit more sandwich-radical, doesn't it? Well I did a 2 sample t-test and the difference was not statistically significant , , , so I have yet to find a use for this new special variable. :(

That's all I had to say about this for now, next up perhaps I'll look into the stats on rock-paper-scissors?

Does anyone want to do my new google form

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for deceiving a psychiatrist with lies to get diagnosed with a psychological disorder so i could get attendance accommodations at school where it was really nazi strict and evil forced attendance and they would fail me for not going to class EVEN THO I DID EVERYTHING TO THE TOPS?????? Sick fucks tbh. May those “educators” burn in torment💖 i wasn’t allowed to have my anxiety/agoraphobia/aversion/truancy/YOUTHFUN absences excused bc of the fasc policies in place as a standard in our christofascist bluemaga joe biden hillary fucked bernie in the ass dry clinton fake woke coopting bullshit society. so because of their nazi policy i had to find a way to get accommodation bc clearly i couldnt be in class every day in a row and needed leniency, not academo nazi policy, i was like. Fuck it let me get my papers for that accommodations letter approval. Bc like i had already been going to the counselors for stress and general social bullshit So since i wasn’t allowed to use that for accommodation i hd to make sooo many months long appointments w this far af psych and i didnt have a car and what an added stress. They were like “we dont got a car to pick you up like a normal fucking doctors place. Take the bus!” Ok die first. Next fucking help me!!! I did the meds they really sucked bc i guess i didnt need it and it was all side effects, no benefits, and i was like FUCKING DIAGNOSE ME!!! after reading the DSM5 and “practicing whats wrong w me” so that they are like . Hm yeah that sounds bad. Then IN THE END IT WAS A FUCKING PERSONALITY INVENTORY THEY USED TO ASSESS MY ILLNESS. IT WAS A BAR GRAPH. It was bullshit service in the goddamn american healthcare system and then bullshit actual healthcare bc it was fucking fake. Dumb psych couldnt even tell i wasn a liar???? DUMBASS BITCH LOSER FAGGOT CUNT SCUM. I remember how they made me wait AND CHARGED ME WHEN I MISSED AN APP BC IT WAS SO FCKN FAR AND ANOTHER BC I TOOK A NAP. CHARGING UR POOR MENTALLY ILL CUSTOMERS??? They can explode forreal💖and so can the dumb school policy bitches who couldnt just let me get my A had to be like ohhh cant accomodate u even tho u hve a 98 u are gonna fail :/ DIE ON FIRE SCREAMING YOU SCUM BITCH!!!! <-me to that professor nazi. May she be tortured. ANNMYWAY im sorry to everyone who’s gone thru academic ableism and abuse by this bullshit system!!!!! my school ended up being transphobic and zionist so i transfered anyway bc i dont want that bullshit on my titles. I’m glad i got my classes accomodated tho! I only wonder if im legally beholden to that diagnosis or if we can just be like fuck that doctor. Hm. Like i lied 😂 ffbsjfbsjfbjsnfjekfnsjs FREE ATTENDANCEE THOOOOOOOOOO it should be like that always for everyone. Kill every nazi teacher forreal. And kill teachers who dont give free B’s. Fuck your grade curve bitch. Fuck your admin. FUCK IT ALL!!!!! And i know its possible bc ive had actually good teachers. Hmmm the nazis WISH they could hide!!!

[mecachrome]

landoscar ao3 stats — 2023 overview

notes

retrieved ~sometime in march 2024

methodology: scraped metadata for every fic in the landoscar tag and...... that's it. however one important constraint is that all temporal data is date updated (not posted), so the above timeline isn't exactly a true representation of fic growth but rather how many fics were last-updated at that time. of course this is still its own reflection of fandom health in a way since dead fandoms don't update old fic but well... it's just not quite the same!

this is just info about general trends, fic content, tags etc... so nothing about kudos/comments or any authors specifically

i decided to focus solely on fics last-updated in 2023 (unless otherwise mentioned) because i wanted a tidy set that i can maybe compare & contrast in a year's time, because i expect a lot of details to look different then (tho as stated above this set isn't exactly static... 🤷‍♀️)

ngl i had to re-scrape a bunch of times because i forgot about it for like 3 weeks and then there were 100 new fics 😭 so if there are some minor discrepancies across the post it's because of that halfskh.

also i wanted to include more global comparisons (aka how 814 stack up against the f1 rpf tag in general), but this is also considerably difficult in some contexts since i can't exactly scrape 31,000+ fics can i... or i didn't even want to entertain the thought of trying to do so!!!

why did i do this? who knows.

anyway here's some viz T__T

ship growth

as evidenced in the opening graph, landoscar have been a very fast-growing ship over the past year — although interestingly enough they didn't really start growing substantially until july / the ~better half~ of the 2023 season. here are two views showing their "growth" (by date updated) alongside two other ships on the fringes of the f1 rpf top 10 (sebchal & galex):

landoscar are very much on-track to surpass them and officially enter the top 10 soon, likely before mid-april ❗️ :o

ship characteristics

onto the ship content — another thing i was mildly curious about was how landoscar differs in certain areas from other f1 ships, or the f1 rpf "global" average you could say. for example, here's a breakdown of rating popularity in their ao3 tag:

seeing as explicit is their most common rating, and that i don't necessarily expect this to be true for all ships/fandoms, i compared these percentages with the general f1 rpf tag to see whether some ratings are more commonly represented in 814 fic than average, which produced interesting results:

do lando ships simply skew more HornyTM in general? is it oscar? a secret third thing??? who knows... actually i think it would be fun to do more analysis in this direction but that can wait for another time!!!

similarly i also wanted to see which ships are the most "public" on ao3, as in have the highest share of fic that isn't user-locked... i will refrain from peppering in my feelings about the 4th wall too heavy-handedly but i was curious to see whether some sort of perhaps... er, generational gap (?) of sorts between ships that are more public vs. not could be identified. however i don't pretend to have any takeaways from this LOL i conclude absolutely nothing. (for ref landoscar is currently 72% public, vs. a global avg of 63%)

note that this graph is current stats, not filtered for 2023

looking at relationship tags, i also wanted to know whether landoscar suffer noticeably from Second-Ship Syndrome, so i tallied the first-tagged ship of every fic to find out. i know this doesn't necessarily mean that it's always the "main" ship but it's a good enough approximation. the results were quite positive!

filtered to top ships with count of >1 only

i then also calculated the number of ships tagged for each fic to discern the profile of multi-shipping in 814 ficdom; i did have to do a little bit of string standardization (all instances of implied / background / hinted collapsed to hinted for simplicity's sake + removal of other redundancies), but otherwise i left everything mostly untouched.

as you can see, landoscar also have a fairly promising amount of OTP: TRUE fic:

by the time you get to the fics with 10+ ships tagged, landoscar are less likely to be the primary ship, which makes sense just on a basic statistical level... this is also a very small sample size though

i also lazily tallied the 10 most common ships that weren't NOR/PIA or NOR & PIA to diff their shares of the 814 tag vs. of the general f1 rpf tag, to see which other pairings are more represented in the 814 tag than on average (because lestappen are the most popular by pure count but this is also true of fandom in general, so it would be a misrepresentation to say that their popularity is out of the ordinary):

maxiel's gap isn't really that surprising since i think that, generationally, in terms of when both pairings were teammates there is quite a gap; with carlando—actually let me tally this again but including all instances of "implied" and "past" as being part of the same ship, since that's how ao3 tag-wrangles as well:

Aha ! obviously as a direct ship there is competition between 814 and other lando or oscar ships, but this difference is somewhat less pronounced once we include all formats. tbh none of this really means anything but i thought i'd add it anyway... (it's also very possible that there are several errors in this, in which case my b 😔)

before we move on to additional tags, there are a few more basic characteristics of 814 fic we can calculate. i realize i never offered an overview of Super Basic Stats, so here are a few:

plus, looking at word counts, here is a distribution of those in 2023-updated fic, which shows that a majority of 814 fics were under the 5k mark:

85% of landoscar fics were under 10k & nearly 97% under 25k

i don't really have any reason to believe that landoscar's wc stats differ significantly from average ? so this is kind of just Data To Have Data, and it most likely reflects normal ao3 trends in general... but i thought i'd include it anyway because i already made it lol. similarly, here are word count distributions but stratified by rating:

& same info but heat map view:

i feel like this is also probably something you'd find across fandom in general — that gen fic is likely to have a higher share of under 1k works, since Building Up to sexual content often takes... Literal & Metaphorical Foreplay ! and the longer a fic is the more opportunities an author has to include a sex scene or other explicit content (ofc, not necessarily just porn but also graphic violence & so on). but i thought this was fun to visualize haha

additional tags & aus?

back in my old f1 rpf stats post, i made a table comparing fluff/angst "ratios" (not exactly a direct ratio because of how tag wrangling works, but an approximation) of the most popular f1 ships, and now that landoscar are somewhat popular i thought i'd first do an update:

also current data, not 2023 to make things easier

just like before, simi are one of the most fluffy ships and brocedes are by far the most angsty, but it's interesting to see 814 also extremely high up on the charts, with far and away the lowest % of angst. will be exciting 2 see how that holds or changes as the seasons progress !

finally, i also wanted to do a bit of au/additional tag analysis because you can kind of see this when you use additional filters on ao3 but the previews are limited and get bogged down by the prevalence of *checks notes* Fluff, Angst, PWP, Anal Sex and what have you. which are nice stats to have and all but what of the rest !

disclaimer that the set for these tables is a biiiit outdated because by the time i'd wrangled everything i was like I Am Not Changing It Again. unfortunately i clean my data with shoddy queries and regex functions in googsheetz...

there were 48 tags with at least 10 instances from 2023 fics, shown below, with ones that are (some ~vaguely) nsfw in red just to kind of get a rough sense of which tags get commonly used in M/E fic:

getting a bit too much into small sample size / specific fic territory so if you're an author i sincerely apologize for that... do not mean 2 put u on blast... TT__TT but i also tried to tally the most popular aus people write for 814, which is a bit dubious because people tag in really different ways and i had to accommodate for a lot of string formats but ... it's close enough ! (?)

i feel like this is very little interesting info but idk what else to add so i will stop here for now... well!!! if you made it to the end i hope u learned something or even vaguely enjoyed reading T__T and most of all thank you :')

[blingblong55]

Worth it- 141 & Laswell

pic credits: @gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot (left)and @ave661 (middle)

Based on a request: Wait, wait, first of all hope you're doing well and make sure to drink a glass of water if you haven't already. Cozy? Yeah? Okay, Can I request something (you can choose whether it's a HCor not,etc etc) on how TF141 would react to meeting a teen boy around 15-16, who's like a genius in engineering, mathematics, and physics? Like the boy could legitimately build a rocket if he had the time, help and materials. Maybe the meet him because he got in trouble with the government for unknowingly making a weapon? Maybe he made it for a class assignment and it was stolen without his knowledge? Whatever you think makes sense here. Leaving space for you to enter your own creative thoughts, just the general idea of it. The boy is based on a character of mine from a book I'm writing, his name his Michael, but ofc you can switch that up however you wish. Have fun with this one Ignore if it doesn't sound fun to ya <3 ---- M!Reader, genius!reader, platonic!relationship? ----

A/N: drank enough water, thanks for the reminder <3

Y/N, the name of the unknown internet user that had been chased by many governments and caught by the one and only Task Force 1-4-1.

You created something so dangerous that no one believed Laswell when she told her bosses the age you had when you started all this. You created the one thing most geniuses working for the government didn't know existed outside of the numbers and graphs they had done for it. At first, the FBI had named you un-sub A. Now, they can finally put a name to the unknown face.

How were you caught? Well, it wasn't easy, let's start there. When all this mess began, you were no older than fifteen. You are practically a ticking bomb to the government so when they heard that someone was asking the right questions to chemists around your city, they began to search for you. Laswell at the time was on a small break from work but the journals you had left in your parent's home when you ran away one rainy day.

In the journals, Laswell found all she needed to have a task force assigned to find you. She called it Operation Mikey, the name was just to fill in the void of the one thing she couldn't find, you.

Your parents weren't much help in giving your name, hence why Mikey became a temporary replacement. With them high off any drug and you on the run with the rest of your journals, Price was tasked with finding you and making sure you were secured in their care.

For three months, you ran away. Moving to different cities and continuing your research of the chemical weapon you fabricated in your bedroom, the same one Laswell had locked in a laboratory somewhere in the capital of the country.

In month four, you found an abandoned building in the middle of the desert. That's where your laboratory, if you can call it that, began.

For months after that, you collected data and it wasn't until nine months later that Soap found you trading chemicals with some scientist that you were caught.

Once you were brought in, they had realised so much about you. You were way younger than what their profile had thought of, much more intelligent than they'd think a person your age was and so skilled in engineering, mathematics, and physics.

"Why didn't we find his information sooner," Laswell questions her bosses. "Kid was never even registered by his parents." The man on the phone answers. "How the hell did he even get this kind of education then?" She asks again but you had that answer.

"My parents just bought me books and hired a weird guy from the street to teach me anything," you respond and Price chuckles. "Bullshit, kid. Now tell us, how the hell did you get all of these journals?" He points to the evidence bags. Your research of months now being read by other scientists.

"I am the creator of them, not let me go," you protest against Ghost's grip on you. "No chance," Price barks. "What's your real name?" Laswell asks you. "Y/N," you answer knowing it was either this or get thrown in some federal prison.

"And you created this weapon? do you have any idea how dangerous it is to create something like this? How many people it would take to create a mathematical concept and then make it into a physical form?"

"It's not that hard, lady," you answer with an attitude. Were people this dumb?

It took hours, lots of bribing and one request from Soap and Gaz to give you food for you to open up. What? you are a teenager who needs enough food for growth, of course, you'll talk once they give you food. Talking and having to dumb it down took hours though. After all, how can you explain to hardheaded soldiers about probability theory, and why it mattered so much to your project that it took ten trials and two journals worth of failed work to get?

Laswell was more than impressed, no seriously, she was like a proud mother listening to you explain every page and even give notes in only a way that a teenage boy would to idiotic adults like them. She thought it was so adorable how a boy your age would throw nerdy jokes into the explanations and how she watched you be the only one to laugh at them.

Ghost would often smile when you'd give a snarky comment to Price. Don't get him started on the chuckles he let out when you threw a few old man jokes at Price or made comments on Soap's weird hairstyle. The comments towards Gaz were funny but also adorable how you tried to find more reasons to get him annoyed.

Price thought of his son who was about your age when you'd get excited over your most recent discovery for the weapon you had created. It was nice to know that behind all that matter in your head, you were still a kid. It was even nicer when you'd make the jokes no one understood but secretly, Price's nerdy self understood some jokes.

Gaz saw his younger brother in you, which is why even when you made jokes at his expense, he would let them pass. The way you looked at him when having to explain things was nice in some way but it was way funnier when you called Soap the smart one of all four for being able to understand the way bombs work better than anyone and then have Ghost shake his head and tell you, "that man is just a muppet, don't believe what we tell you about his work."

Soap was fascinated by you for sure. Just like Price, he understood some of the jokes, even the cheesy puns you made about certain elements. He liked you, it was something fresh from the people he usually deals with.

The team, for the past few days, grew to adore the nerdy man you are. Yeah, you teased and even called them out on wrong facts but it was new. It's good to have someone so intelligent and be so honest with them this time. What was funny is that you know so much about many topics few understand but you don't know much about real life outside of the nerdy realm you live in. It's a nice feeling when passing by Laswells office you find a framed picture of the day Ghost and the other men of the team taught you about hunting and even how to play baseball, something you sucked at in the beginning but have gotten better over time.

It's like having four funny, serious, and cool dads and an amazing mum whilst being taken care of at the base the team called home.

A/N: I hope this was somewhat okay and good luck on your book!

Tags: @liyanahelena @mangowafflesss @froggy-anon @jinxxangel13 @enarien @sae1kie @queen-ilmaree @avidreadee123 @ikohniik @konigssultwithghost @luvecarson @a-goose-with-a-knife @foxface013 @marshiely @sleepyycatt

[cassolotl]

Results of the nonbinary name survey

Hi folks, just thought I'd throw together a quick report about nonbinary names based on the recent survey.

The survey ran from 4th until 13th May, and there were 5,179 usable responses. For this one I won't share the full spreadsheet of all responses, as it contains potentially identifying information. Having said that, you can find a spreadsheet of the information I can share with you here. Every name entered only once has been redacted.

Most popular names

Let's kick it off with the main reason I did this survey, finding the nonbinaryest name:

Alex was #1, with 1.6%, which is 1 in 62 nonbinary people.

Here's the full top 10:

Alex - 1.6% (83)

Jay - 1.2% (64)

Sam - 0.9% (49)

Charlie - 0.7% (36)

Max - 0.7% (36)

Ash - 0.6% (33)

Robin - 0.6% (33)

Rowan - 0.6% (31)

Kit - 0.6% (30)

Eli - 0.6% (29)

Name length

I'm familiar with the stereotype that nonbinary people choose names by taking 3 letters from a bag of Scrabble tiles, or that nonbinary people take letters off their given names until it's one ungenderable syllable, and I would like to take this opportunity to add that these are both excellent ways to create new names. :D

This graph takes a rolling median name length from the whole list, and it shows that generally speaking the most popular names tended to be shorter:

The average name length was 5.1 characters long.

This seems to support the stereotypes, but I feel it's worth mentioning that we can't know for sure whether it actually does, because for all we know, binary people's names might show these kinds of patterns too.

Number of names per person

Participants could enter as many names as they wanted, in a list separated by commas. That made it pretty easy to count them, and it turned out like this:

That's fairly straightforward, most people have only one name.

Problems with survey design

Overall I definitely feel that the survey had some flaws. I knew in advance that there would be some people who have more than one name that they like more or less equally, but for some reason the first question I came up with assumed that you have one name that you like most and then required a single answer from a list stating how that name happened to you - leading the respondent to a different section based on that answer.

What if you've got two or more names that you like equally, and one was given to you by your parents when you were born that you use for work, one is a nickname based on that name that evolved between you and your family and friends as you were growing up, and one is a name you chose yourself and your closest friends call you that? That's pretty much an impossible question, isn't it?

And there were several other questions in the survey that took that approach, making the data from those questions basically useless.

I didn't think it would cause problems for so many people, but it did, and I have learned my lesson there.

However, there was a question asking you to list all your names, and that's what I used to make the ranked list. I don't see how people with more than one name that they prefer completely equally (i.e. those people who would be thrown out of the survey by an impossible required first question) would prefer different names from people with one name only, so I think the ranked list is probably approximately okay, and same for the number of names per person graph and the average name length.

Implications

I haven't decided yet, but I definitely think there's scope for doing this survey annually - but separately from the identity/titles/pronouns survey, for anonymity reasons. It could be fun to track popular nonbinary names over time, similar to the popular name lists for babies that are usually split by boys'/girls' names. It might be a bit meaningless unless I collect country data as well though, which is why the list currently reads very....... American..........

Now that I've learned a lot from a big and not-so-well-designed survey run on my personal account, I'd feel more comfortable designing something a bit more fit for purpose, and running it from the @gendercensus accounts to hopefully get more participants.

~ Fin ~

[deliverusfromevillll]

A Sticky Situation [Mammon/F!Reader]

❝ What fuckin' nonsense have ya' been telling y'reself this entire time? ❞

warnings ⨾ blood, descriptions of gore, guns, gunshot wound, choking, swearing, arachnophobia (the irony), established prior connection, soft mammon, sexual content, unresolved sexual tension, resolved angst

terms ⨾ ❝ Drakon ❞ the Latin word meaning "dragon." ❝ Bogan ❞ Australian slang meaning (in negative connotation) someone who's a bit of a nerd or geek, holds no dress sense and/or has poor social skills.

notes  ⨾ I am very much not Australian so when I looked up slang and could not find ANY concrete definitions for anything: I was in major pain. Anyways quick thing because [F/n]'s lore might seem confusing. I created an entirely different race of "humanoid" dragons that acted as the knight/official guards for the Ars Goetia incase of extermination/assassination attempts. [F/n] retired from her position as knight for an unnamed Goetia. This entire chapter was originally 13K words but I felt as though the plot arc with the Goetia drifted way too far from the original point of this fic since it was so, so needlessly lore heavy for a reader insert and made this 100x more angsty like you have no idea. Especially since this is only meant to be two chapters. This chapter was cut down for your reading pleasure! If you would like to be part of the process in between me brainstorming and posting ( as I am currently looking for beta readers ) and/or generally would like to see WIPs feel free to join my discord ( NgT88bybyY ).

[02]

As always minors DNI.| 6.3K words

[F/n] and Mammon's relationship is unique.

He was her boss, and she was his secretary.

Running the errands, info graphing, and scheduling his business appointments when due. But it wasn't so simple.

With his artificially friendly attitude in public, behind the scenes he was nothing but cynical— snarky and demanding. Hardly surprising for the king of greed.

[F/n] was no fan, she made it clear.

Despite the lethal glares and threats she managed to shoot a quip or a snark in return each time. It initially prompted a warning hiss or a growl, an insult or a threat.

Then he resorted to shredding through his confined costume to intimidate her one time after they both seriously got into it. Neither party was satisfied in not having the last word.

Despite however many threats were hurled nothing ever came about them.

[F/n] desired the experience the job gave her and Mammon found her too entertaining to simply let go.

[F/n] and Mammon's relationship is undeniably unique.

But damn, there was no shying away from the fact [F/n] did her job exceptionally well. The best in all of Hell. And that's another one of the handful of reasons why he tolerated her.

"Y'er getting on my nerves lizard." Mammon seethes with a false smile.

He sulks leaning away, poisonous puff of green air seeping though his teeth.

[F/n] raises a brow at him, eye roll following. "I need you to work with me here, asshole." [F/n] adjusted herself, turning towards him.

"If you wanna reduce the immediate damage Asmodeus and his little lapdog made we need to start advertising the twins asap. What's bothering you right now?"

Mammon huffed. "The leftover Fizz merch— sales are declining incase ya' haven't seen mate. I'm losin' money."

[F/n] clicked her tongue.

"Whatever doesn't sell now we can resell in a few weeks as vintage or some other bullshit with a higher price tag. You have any idea how much these loser collectors will pay to get their hands on discontinued merchandise?"

That's all it took for Mammon to light up, snatching [F/n] with his top hands in excitement.

"Y'er a bloody GENIOUS!" He shakes her, dropping her instantaneously. "We could double —no— TRIPLE our profits thanks to these degenerates! Ahh I taught ya' so bloody well!"

Mammon splays his hands towards the imaginary dollar signs in the air, clapping eagerly.

"And that's why I love ya' doll!" He shouts with a hefty grin, giving her a final charmed glance as he turned to make way towards the awaiting camera crew. Robo-Fizzies chasing after him with lighting sticks and microphones.

[F/n] catches herself after his stare, the spines on her tail rattling flustered. Her posture eases before anyone else can see as she flicks her tail in response.

Damn did she hate whenever he said things like that.

It's almost as if he knew the effect he had on her, doing and saying things that would purposefully rile her up. [F/n] refused to acknowledge any part of it, counteractive to the very obvious blush on her completion.

Through the commotion, Mammon smiled charismatically in [F/n]'s direction as their eyes met again. This was going to be a long shoot.

"That went better than I expected." [F/n] mumbles. Mammon appearing in a green cloud next to her. Bells chiming happily.

"Why'dya say that? Doubted me?" He rung.

"Well for all the years I've known you— Accepting you got fucked is definitely not something you're known for... You're taking losing your star clown better than I thought."

Mammon chuckles in amusement.

"Star clown? I am the star clown. With or without him I'll still make a fuck ton o' money." He nudges her. "With y'er— uh, our ideas and my reinforcement I don't see any issue mate."

[F/n] looked very, very, unconvinced. Mammon thinks for a moment before shrugging.

"At the end of the day you are my most valuable asset after all."

"What a way to make a girl feel special Ammo." Her eyes roll.

Mammon only giggled for a moment, attention immediately stolen upon taking in a familiar scent.

The smell of coffee meets his nose as they walk before the café in his estate. It takes him no time to decide he's in the mood for another cup of coffee.

[F/n] could already tell by the expression on his face. However unconvinced about giving the bug even more caffeine after his last.

Mammon playfully puts on a puppy-eyed expression as he bends town to her level.

He shoves his face in front of hers, frowning, the green glow of his pupils becoming brighter. "C'mon doll, ya'd say no to my lil 'ol face?"

His smaller spider eyes make a show as he frowns with an exaggerated pointed lip.

She sighs, gently pushing his face away. "Enough with the eyes. I'll be right back... Not like you'd let me say no anyways asshole."

Like a cat that ate the canary, Mammon smiles triumphantly as he took a moment to get seated on one of the empty tables outside the shop.

He enjoys the smell of coffee beans while searching in her direction through the large glass windows. He watches her make some hand motions towards the menu.

Letting out a big yawn, he blinks blearily. He could use a nap after all this.

Exploiting his employees was hard work after all.

Mammon observes her pull out her wallet, swiping her card. His smile becomes gentler, enamored at the idea of her willingness to spend her own money on him.

He became increasingly aware the expression he wore, quickly clearing his throat to look more serious.

It takes the café worker a second to hand her the single cup of coffee alongside a paper bag. He waves her goodbye with a bold wink, [F/n] unable to hold her laugh.

Mammon gritted his teeth. He conditioned his employees not to unnecessarily pester him, or her, especially when they were out together. Seems like one of them hadn't learned this yet. He took a mental note.

He was about to get up from his seat until [F/n] audibly shut the door behind her with a small jingle. She takes a seat across from him as he leaned forward and snatched the drink from her hand.

"'Bout fuckin' time cunt." He grumbles.

Mammon takes a sip of the cold coffee, ignoring his irritation as the sweet contents hit his tongue.

Or at least he tried to, the sweetness of it tasting rather dull part in due to his thoughts.

"Was this made by that fuckin' bogan?" He wonders.

His hand tenses, squeezing the drink at his palm slightly.

"I got you this." [F/n] mumbled, scooting the bag towards him.

Mammon snaps his attention towards back towards her, pausing to glance between her then the baggie before fishing through it. He pulls out a small box, opening it to reveal a cream colored pastry.

It takes him a moment to collect his thought.

Confused, he asks, "Why the cake, doll? Ya' know all I wanted was my coffee."

"You were feeling like shit earlier." She puts it simply.

Mammon shifted from the cake to her in his peripheral vision.

She was worried about him. Had him in her mind. Considerate about how he felt, albeit she wouldn't admit it out loud.

He couldn't help but grow a fat smile, genuine smile, as he scoots closer towards her.

"I'm starting to think ya' actually care about me, love." [F/n]'s eyes widen for a second.

She looks away from him, scoffing.

"Don't overthink it. I don't want to deal with you when you're in a mood."

Mammon takes a small bite, savoring the even sweeter taste. Humming with delight, he takes another portion of it with the plastic spoon, leaning forward to bring it to her mouth.

[F/n] glances between the cake and Mammon, who's unashamedly eagerly watching her.

"I-I don't—"

"Ahh don't fuckin' be like that mate. It's good, try it!"

The dragon takes a bite, flushed, as she ate the piece in silent agreement. Her tail sticking to her leg somewhat embarrassed.

He was right, the pastry was fluffy and flavorful. Not that she expected any different, that was the reason why she bought it for him. She would've never anticipated this however.

Another spoonful reaches her lips, she accepts it without complaint this time. Expression easing. Her tail wags behind her in satisfaction.

Mammon carefully scoops more, bringing it to her face once again.

[F/n] quickly swallows the bit already in her mouth, shaking her head this time.

"I bought it for you, I'm eating more of it than you are. You're being a little bit too charitable."

"Yeah but who's to say I'm not getting anythin' out of feeding ya', love?" He dotes.

[F/n] felt the tips of her ears warm, tail flicking.

Mammon soaks in her flush, turning to take another sip of his coffee. His eyes follow the direction of his lips for a glance before returning at her image.

He freezes for a moment, brows furrowing. Mammon checks the cup again to ensure he saw it correctly. [F/n] immediately notices his expression drop and leans over to see the source.

A phone number was written just under her name with a heart.

"Aw how cute!"

Mammon gags. "Cute?!"

"Yeah, first time someone has done that for me. It's kinda sweet!" [F/n] reaches for the cup, Mammon hisses as he holds it further away.

"Doll, there's no bloody way you're actually interested in this cunt. He's some fuckin' nobody workin' below minimum wage!"

"Oh please, you sound jealous, he was really n—!"

Mammon immediately crushes the cup in his grip, indifferent feeling the coffee spill onto his glove and trickle to the table. He reaches over to grab [F/n]'s extended hand to move it away as he leans towards her features.

His face was centimeters away from hers, sharp breath tickling her features.

"I ain't the sharing type." Mammon growled.

The cup gets engulfed in a green cloud, vanishing as the smoke dissipated. [F/n] glared at the spider, brows furrowed in uncertainty.

He was acting like this again.

"Fucking hell, I didn't want any of your coffee. I just wanted to see the goddamn number."

Mammon blinks, head tilting. He mutters something under his breath as he stands, breaking eye contact.

She thought he was upset over sharing a drink? Far from it, but he wasn't going to clarify if that's the conclusion she came to.

Still holding onto her hand, he strings her up as he gets out of his seat.

"Better ya' don't. This cunt wouldn't even be able to take care of ya'." [F/n] rolls her eyes. Though it didn't go unnoticed, as Mammon grimaced.

"It's impossible to find anyone at all when you scare everyone off." She growls lowly.

"Don't fuckin' hiss at me doll. I'm savin' ya from the embarrassment."

"The embarrassment of what exactly?"

"Of goin' out with the lower class, hells y're considered a knight for the Goetia ain't ya'? Y're not gonna get anythin' worthwhile in some random mutt."

[F/n] swats her tail very irritably, yanking her wrist back forcefully.

A loud tear following in the process.

"I can be with whoever the fuck I want and feel like, I'm not some goddamn princess."

Mammon looks at his glove, seeing as the motion of her pull had tore through the material. It was a reminder of how sharp her scales were.

It wasn't deep enough to cut his actual skin. But the damage on his glove was done. A rush of anger at her defiance. 

He sneers, looking between the café and her short figure. A cloud of green exits through his teeth as he grips her by the neck, lifting her effortlessly to his face.

[F/n] grabs his wrists, squeezing equally as hard, as her wings flutter behind her to give herself some leverage and room to breathe.

She looks genuinely shocked for a moment, though it only took a second for her to regain composure to glare at the sin with bared teeth. Scales began to form on her complexion. 

Mammon stares deeply into her eyes with a menacing smile. His miniature eyes emitting a soft glow.

"REMEMBER Y'R PLACE BENEATH ME BEFORE I REMIND YA'."

He let's her go, watching as she wobbly lands on her feet.

I gust of wind hits his face as she flapped her wings to soften the fall. The scales that covered her face immediately erase as the tension breaks with a longer sharp inhale of air.

They had instantly gained the attention of everyone around them if they hadn't already, silence deafening.

[F/n] felt humiliated. Hurt. Used.

Defeated, for once.

"I don't fuckin' pay ya to run 'round with y'r bitch hormones. I hired ya' to serve me and me only."

[F/n] bites her lower lip, her claw reaching up to feel where his met her throat.

That was the first time he'd ever grabbed her like that. Sure he'd scream and threaten her before, even swung at her at times however each time he did so slow enough to miss.

He'd chuck random items in reach sometimes knowing she could just dodge or fly out of the way.

It never crossed further than that.

Now to be grabbed by the neck? That was new.

The trace of his hand lingered warningly as she tried to sooth over her bruised skin.

She looked up at him, tail tucked in between her legs.

He would only ever harm people he saw replaceable. His subordinates. The realization came crashing down on her incredibly hard.

He could've just as easily killed her in that moment, snapped her neck and that would've been it.

Did their history mean nothing to him? 

What changed?

"Fuck you..." It came as a whisper.

Unsure of whether he heard that or not, he chose to ignore it either way in favor of her tail.

He pointed at it, releasing a laugh as if it was the most amusing thing he'd seen.

It felt nauseating. One moment he was warm: the next, cruel.

Despite all the time spent, she concluded he never saw her as anything further than another form of entertainment.

An animal he can poke and prod for a reaction. Even in her state of shock all he did was laugh. The sound echoed in her head.

A familiar tone rings, buzzing. And Mammon instantly snaps out of his laughter.

He fishes through his pocket to pick up his phone.

His alarm was going off.

"Ahh fuckin' bitch— meeting is about to start." He groans, recovering quickly.

"C'mere." He demands, forgiving the glare she shot at him as he pulled her arm so forcefully she knew she'd bruise.

Mammon teleports the two of them into his office.

The jiggles of coins chime as he lands into his web, [F/n] perched beside him.

Her eyes widen slightly, trying to adjust herself in a better position. She tugs on one of her wings stuck into the webbing with an irritated scowl. He quickly removed the damaged glove and snaps a new one in its place out of thin air.

Mammon, who's busy with a drumstick he seemingly pulled from nowhere, nonchalantly untangles her wing in a simple swipe.

He stops chewing for a second to give her a toothy smirk: [F/n] returning a huff.

"Oh come off it will ya', ya' bitch?"

"We need to talk."

Mammon, who doesn't give it any thought, takes another bite of his food.

"More bitchin'." He imagines.

"Some other time."

[F/n] looks away from him, curling her tail around her leg to try and provide some sort of self comfort. She felt disappointed.

Despite all the breakthroughs made in their partnership, he still treated her like an object. His object. Something he was free to do whatever he wanted to. Truth be told, it stung deeply.

It was the only thing she could think about lately.

There was no denying Mammon grew incredibly on her, she only wished he felt the same in return. Maybe then he wouldn't be so needlessly mean.

Was it something she did? Something she didn't do?

There was no point in even thinking about it, [F/n] didn't want to be embarrassed again. She refused.

Security open the doors of his office, and in come a small group of incubi.

The one leading the group takes a quick bow before the two, tipping his hat while smiling on his way up.

Both watch as they fill the room, trotting with some briefcases in hand. The thumps of their boots semi-absorbed into the carpet they walked on.

"What an honor to see Mammon and his little butterfly, even more so present our wonderful idea to." He starts, slowly pacing left and right.

"We all know about the massive, massive, slaughter that came of the drakon specie during the first war with heaven. Terrible thing really." He smirks.

[F/n] raises her brow, crossing her arms further.

"A bigger shame would be to allow the fun of them go." The incubus pulls out his phone to project a screen before them.

[F/n] and Mammon look less than impressed.

"I present to you the dragon dildo, made with real dragon scales! The synthetic crap can't compare to this." He chuckles, arms extended either way.

The incubi look impressed by their own work. "Dragon scales are the hardest material in all of hell. This thing would be fucking indestructible! It's every horny sinner's dream!"

Mammon yawns, waving a finger.

"And how exactly are ya' going to farm real scales? There's hardly a handful of drakons in all o' hell left mate n' the survivors are all considered royalty."

"Well my good sir, that's where we were hoping you would come in. Seeing as you already possess one of them. I'm sure the king of greed wouldn't mind parting with it in turn for a greater profit."

[F/n] leans out of her seat, seething at the disrespectful implication. "Are you stupid or suicidal?"

The incubus hands one of his partners the briefcase, who held it sideways.

"Oh but my dear, you are very valuable. Your title as knight is only a benefit you see. You can be a brand on its own with how infamous your status was."

He starts unclipping the handles of the case.

"My title was granted to me because of how efficient I was in fighting angels. You— I'd MOP the floor with you."

Mammon tugs her back onto his side. His expression doesn't say much, however, the hand planted around her thigh possessively said it all.

"Y're gonna die for wastin' my time." He snarls, grinning wildly.

Mammon snaps his fingers and in rushes his security of robot Fizzarollis.

[F/n] felt him squeeze her thigh as he presses her deeper into his side. Her initial anger melting as her heart beats faster in reaction. [F/n] stares up at him, his image burning into her mind.

Her hand rested on his chest— able to feel his warmth, his breathing, it felt too intimate.

She felt his heartbeat at her fingertips, beating a tad bit faster than usual.

Then, she remembered. She thought his claim over her was nothing more than superficial, for looks, all this to keep her obedient and lull her back into his claws until the next time she slightly agitated him.

She looks back at the group, frowning.

"Shame, really. I was hoping you'd cooperate for your sake." The incubi frowns.

He opens his briefcase, incubi's devilish smile doesn't go unnoticed.

[F/n], unable to say anything in time, connects two and two as a familiar glint reflects off the metal brandished.

Breaking out of Mammon's grasp, she straddles him and extends her wings— covering as much of him as she possibly could.

A glowing bullet hits [F/n] directly the bend of her wing, the jolt of pain sucking the wind out of her as she slips onto Mammon's stomach.

The incubi's angelic revolver smokes at the barrel.

Security tackles the gunman.

They struggle to get each of his henchmen into cuffs, but with increasing numbers it quickly becomes apparent the gunman along with his goons has no chance.

Mammon immediately moves to shield [F/n] with his body, placing her onto the web. They both look at wound, [F/n] hissing as she tries to stretch her injured wing.

"Fuck— A-Are ya' alright? I didn't think..."

"I'm fine Ammo, he just nailed my joint. That's it." She interrupted, groaning.

His face turns between her injury and her expression several times. He looked worried. His eyes glossed. 

[F/n] frowns.

Electricity flies off of Mammon, turning to look at the commotion behind him. Panic quickly turns into rage as he bursts out of his confined costume with a deafening yell.

The room fills with green.

Sounds of screaming immediately follow.

Mammon smashes some of the incubi into the floor, completely crushed under his weight. He makes sure to smear them in, grinning like a Cheshire cat as he does so.

Those unfortunate enough not to cease on impact were left wailing in agony: taking a fistful of the carpet in a hopeless attempt to pull themselves away with a gaping hole going through their back to their stomach..

It was messy.

The blood from their bodies popped similarly to that of water-balloons. It was a gross, alleviating sight. [F/n] could take comfort knowing sinners like these wouldn't be able to come after her again.

After having his fun, Mammon darts his head towards the remaining incubus.

His mini spider eyes radiated a toxic green as he slinked over. The two robo-fizzies who had captured him meekly raised him towards Mammon: who instantly snatches the man and brings him towards his eye level.

"PLEASE N—"

"B̴͍͚̀E̴̯̘̊G̴͈͍͝ ̸̯̩̌F̸͖̗̈́Ò̸͉́Ṛ̶̪͆ ̶͓̑͒Y̷̥͌͂Ŏ̴̖̩̒U̷̲̳͆͌Ṙ̶̟̂ ̸̦͓͂L̶͍̺̈́Ḯ̸̬F̶̨͓͋̅E̵̩̦̋."

Before even giving him the chance, his please come strangled into whispers as Mammon squeezes him in his fist.

He exhales a large green cloud onto his pitiful expression as he attempts to gasp for air, coughing violently in response. A crack erupts.

Mammon drops him to the floor, watching as he contorted with a deafening scream. Observing him cry for a moment: he does the same as he dealt with the ones previously, popping him like an unwanted pimple.

His breathing labored, the high coming down upon realizing he was the last of the group.

Mammon raises one of his bloodied spider legs out of a fresh carcass, inspecting it, grumbling something under his breath.

The security group of robo-fizzies seem unsure on how to proceed, each of them timidly watching awaiting orders.

"The fuck are ya' looking at? Get this cleaned up NOW!" He roared.

The robots scrambled, tumbling over each other as they struggled to organize themselves.

Mammon slinks back towards [F/n], expression instantly softening.

She lets out a whine, yanking out the glowing particle as the pain of it courses through her back. "Gods fuck that hurt..." [F/n] bit her tongue, aimlessly tossing the bullet at the floor.

"Shit, let's go get ya' patched up beautiful." He mumbles, taking her carefully into his arms as if she'd shatter entirely at the slightest bump.

"Fucking— OW!"

"Ahh can ya' fuckin' hold still for a minute mate!?"

Mammon quickly wraps a thick webbing around her wing, using a splint to keep it straight in place.

[F/n] squirms, suppressing the acid-ball forming at her throat. Mammon makes his final wrap as he sticks the web onto itself, hands gently caressing her wing.

He sighs.

Neither of them say anything for a moment. The silence deafening as the reality of the situation sinks in.

He frowns, gently letting go of his work.

Moving to cup her cheek as he turns her expression towards him even gentler, afraid he would somehow shatter her.

"Why the face? What's the matter beautiful?"

There it was, again, the rapid beating of her heart over his artificial pet names.

"Nothing. Just... I can't fucking believe I got shot right in the elbow." She mumbles, sparing a glance at his handiwork on her wing.

"Normally my scales are able to tank angelic bullets... Maybe I'm becoming weak." [F/n] sighed.

"I, uh, well ya'know... That bullet would'a sent me to the bloody hospital. Cunt aimed for my head." Mammon swallows.

He drags a finger under the fabric of his neck, pulling on it momentarily.

"And honestly... I think y're the only bloody demon crazy enough who'd ever do anything like that for me."

He strokes the webbing gingerly, feeling the material brush against the rest of her scales. He paused.

Mammon tenses slightly as he rehearsed his next sentence in his mind dozens of times, feeling awkward as the very unfamiliar phrase leaves his tongue.

"So —uh— I appreciate ya' more than ya' think..."

It falls silent as her face hues.

Though it doesn't bother him remotely, continuing to massage around the bend of her wing.

If only he were consistently like this. Then it would make the signs so much more visible.

Visible he actually wanted her.

[F/n] swallows thickly, doing her best to calm the trot in her chest. She knew despite everything if she could go back in time she wouldn't change the outcome of it.

Even in the chaos of it all she cared too deeply about him to imagine him hurt. With that, the wave of knowing she completely lost to him finally came crashing down on her.

Their game of chess was finally concluded, he won, and that's why she needed to get out.

"Mammon we really need to talk."

Her wing pulls away from his petting, curling back into its usual space. He seemed disappointed as the warmth of her injured limb left his grasp.

"What about?"

Her lips quiver, the frown on her expression breaking through the poker face she tried to maintain. Her eyes water, tail curling.

She thinks of all of their mishaps together. To when she first agreed to work with him, their first banter, their first success together, how they progressively got more and more comfortable with each other.

She went from someone behind the scenes to being his only companion. He was a hothead, but so was she. But their differences felt too great: the hot and cold treatment was driving her crazy.

"We need to end our contract."

Mammon blinked. Frozen.

He slowly clenches his fists impossibly hard.

"Why? Was it because o' that fuckin' incubus? Y-Ya' watched me kill 'em. I promise next time I—"

"It's not that. None of that."

"Then what is it? Fuck changed?"

"Mammon as much as I love being here with you and working alongside you, I just can't be around you anymore."

It was obvious he didn't understand, his pause with unsure searching eyes sought to try and read the static expression she did her best to maintain. 

"I'm sorry."

Mammon felt himself burn. He felt his insides ignite with such intense desperation with a feeling he didn't entirely recognize.

Even knowing her more basic tasks could be given to someone else to fill just as easily did nothing to reassure him.

Hells he didn't feel this lost when Fizz quit his position. He got over that so insanely fast. It was deeper than that.

This was the only person he remotely cared about in all of hell resigning.

The idea felt so unreal.

"I'm so sorry." [F/n] repeated.

The click of her boots echo as she walked towards the double doors of his bedroom. Like a whisper, she faded.

Mammon watches as her tail hovers just above the ground. Immediately noting how she didn't just drag it as she normally would. The low rattle it'd make was erased, as if she wanted to create the least bit of noise possible.

Why? Did he scare her?

Nonsense. She was the only one who wouldn't cave to his ridiculous disrespect despite his threats. And though it did get in his nerves initially, it grew on him and made everything in his life new again.

He enjoyed hearing her voice.

Hearing her talk about frivolous, nonsensical, shit. Enjoyed observing the smallest things about her.

Like the way she would hide the joy in her expression but unable to maintain the same façade in her eagerly wagging tail.

Or the way her wings would flutter for a second whenever she was blushing.

Or when she would get too excited her hair would pulse the color of her element. And how whenever she's extremely upset her clear complexion starts forming scales as if she were ready to morph.

Or how she sometimes has difficulty not tearing clothes due to the sharpness of her claws. She would always let out a loud groan and a few swears before deciding if it were salvageable.

He felt electricity course through his body. His eyelid twitching.

[F/n] hugged herself, shutting the door behind her as she power walked through his manor.

She used her sleeve to wipe away the tears before they could spill. Quietly whimpering to herself to alleviate the ache in her chest.

She doesn't get very far however, before snapping out of her emotions as a loud bang interrupts her.

[F/n] points her gaze backwards, watching the doors fly open while cracking at the force of his push.

"OUR CONVO AIN'T OVER!"

She backs up hesitantly as Mammon runs at her. The thumping of his soles grew louder, seemingly indifferent at the idea he may trample her.

Clouds of swamp green smoke exit through his teeth. He halts just before her, punching a hole through the wall next to them to release his rage. Chips of brick and dust recoil along with his fist.

"You— YA' THINK YA' CAN JUST JOG OFF?" He growled, leaning down as he stared at her.

"Whatever idea ya got in that pretty lil' head o' yours, toss it. I won't break our contract. You are MINE."

[F/n] sighed, eyebrows furrowed as she shook her head at him.

"You don't get it." Her disbelief erases as her head comes to point towards his.

She snaps her fingers and out manifests a golden sheet between them with both their signatures held within the bottom. 

"It's written agreement in our contact that only requires the consent of one party to break it."

Mammon felt a drop of sweat come down his neck.

He froze. The pain grew.

And she was right, the section she was referring to glowed faintly among the rest of the text as she highlighted it. Demanifesting as she withdrew her hand.

"A rule you imposed since you were initially skeptical about my performance in your estate."

"I- I... Fuckin'..."

It goes silent.

The rush of anger evaporated from his body with the sparks. Feeling at a loss on what to say, Mammon swallows thickly as he blinks.

He reaches a hand to clutch the material over his chest, squeezing it.

His gaze eventually trails back to hers.

His mind returns to the thought of massive their height difference was. She was so small compared to him. It made his heart chirp. His hand comes up to erase the flustered look looming on his features.

Mammon recollects himself as best he can in a pathetic attempt. He brushes his hat shakily, the bells chiming as the material bounced back.

"So then tell me why—?"

[F/n] growls, pressing her claws into her palm.

"STOP!" She shouts at him, quickly wiping away at the corner of her eyes. "D-Don't make this needlessly complicated."

Again with the tears, only this time she couldn't prevent them.

Mammon frowned, reaching out to her. He wanted to console her, wipe away those tears. It pained him knowing he was the source.

The tip of his index finger brushed against her cheek unable to get far.

[F/n] swatted away his hand. And that hurt him.

"You fucking... g-goddamnit you fucking dumbass... Can't you see what's going on?" She hissed stomping a few steps away from him.

"I fell so hard for you, and it fucking blows because I can't just have you." She turned towards him.

[F/n] gestures to herself angrily through her cries. "Do you fucking get it now?! I'm in LOVE with you— that's why I need to get the hell away from you. I want to be something more to you but you'll only ever see me as your subordinate."

She shouted, adrenaline coursing through only heighted by her emotional outburst.

Mammon grabs her despite her struggling with his lower pair of hands, leaning over and forcing her to allow him to clean her face.

He absorbs her tears through the material of his upper pair of gloves with gentle strokes.

She grips his wrists with enough force that'd dislocate them if he were any other sinner. He felt her tremble against him.

How could he not notice her pain before?

How long ago did she start feeling this way?

There was a pool of regrets swimming in his chest and among them the biggest was not erasing her doubts sooner.

"What fuckin' nonsense have ya' been telling y'reself this entire time? I'm smitten with ya' dollface."

"You're a king sin— hell you outed Asmodeus for dating someone beneath him, how am I any different from that? People would think you're a hypocrite."

"Ya' think I give a remote fuck about what these cunts think? I'm the richest fucker in all o' hell, I didn't get here caring about what some bitch thinks o' me. I don't really give a flying shit about Asmodeus fuckin' some circus imp."

[F/n] immediately becomes less resistant to his advance. [E/c] eyes staring up at him in disbelief.

She searched desperately for any indication he was lying.

Mammon cups her jawline.

"I dunno how ya' haven't realized how obsessed I am with ya'... Thought it was reaaal obvious: I mean for fuck's sake I don't wanna be anywhere without ya'. Everything I do is with you." Mammon sighed nervously.

He lifted her in her arms, bringing down his face to gently set his forehead onto hers.

He didn't entirely recognize it before, but now that the cat was out of the bag it was so painfully apparent.

Everything he did was by her, to her, and for her. He found himself more temperamental and bored in the situations he had to exist without her. The cogs in his head finally spun, blushing for a mere moment as he finally admitted it out loud. 

"I'm obsessed with ya princess. I'm fuckin' crazy over you."

If her heart pounded any faster she was sure she'd pass out.

Her eyes glued to the tiny white slits in the sea of bright green within his eyes.

They both glance down at each other's lips then back at their gaze.

Immediately realizing what the other was doing, they both smash into each other desperately. Mammon felt a firework go off in his head. She was putty in his hands. A little butterfly caught in his web.

He growled.

[F/n] caresses his features, brushing her thumbs over his cheeks and pulling him closer.

A surge of electricity runs through his expression and tickles hers affectionately. It courses her hands and down her arms eagerly. 

Mammon drags his bicolored tongue across her lips, pushing himself in at the slightest gap.

Their tongues dance and with no protest Mammon explores his new territory. Their teeth clatter, Mammon doing his best not to pierce her.

The taste of coffee and pastries still lingered strongly on his saliva. Their tongues dance, aching. It's as if they couldn't get close enough to one another, both feverishly pushing into each other craving every bit of contact the other could provide.

Pleased with her submission, he makes way back into his room.

Massaging her ass with his upper pair of hands and grabbing onto her heels with the other. [F/n] releases a muffled moan.

Mammon breaks the kiss first, glancing at the spirit trail that still connected them. He licks the drool from his lips, savoring their long overdue tension-breaker.

He steals a few more pecks before taking a seat on his bed, holding onto her. He brushed a strand of her [h/c] hair out of her face.

Mammon chuckled softly, enamored with the bright hue on her complexion: gaze hungry.

Mammon stares at her. Unmoving. As his breathing very audibly becomes heavier.

It takes him a painful few seconds to snap out of his own trance.

"As much as I wanna fold ya' in my bed and have ya' take care of my stiffy— y're injured and need to rest princess."

"Oh come the fuck on Ammo, I'm fine!" [F/n] pouts, huffing while trying to feel him up through his clothes.

She slinks downwards to attempt and grind against the growing tent underneath his layers of clothes to entice him.

Mammon with every bit of self control in his body, has none of it, interwinding her hands into his instead with force as he pulls her back up to steal another peck.

"I love y're excitement but I will hurt you."

"You're no fun."

"You'll fuckin' get what you want later... Needy whore."

He scoots closer into bed.

Mammon snaps his fingers. A puff of green surround both of them, clearing quickly to reveal he had changed them into their sleepwear. He smiles softly.

His blanket flies over them as he adjusts more comfortably, plopping [F/n] on his chest.

[F/n] coils into a ball, purring happily while nuzzling herself into the crook of his neck. She quickly settles. His hand reaches to pet her hair lovingly, listening patiently as her purring gradually became more distant overtime until she drifted off entirely. 

Mammon sighed with satisfaction, captivated, only then closing his eyes. "Y're gonna stay mine forever." 

[oathena11-writes]

DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN NANOWRIMO

Time to talk about something I haven’t really talked about before.

Nanowrimo. You know the challenge to write 50k in a month? That starts in November, and usually people start coming out of hibernation to start planning for that now.

And to plan, they often find their way to the forums to find others who are gearing up and thinking about turning October into Preptober.

Only… the forums are closed this year. Why is that?

Well… https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSYcdosGLoPFI_Dc--vuC9Bl4-OUFGcmHgBRt2aHSRVWBPc6su4AMFY5iDgZGyC379Zm8C7zhBd2zuf/pub

Wait sorry that’s a long document though as someone who has been keeping up with this since late October 2023 and knows a lot about what’s going on, this is the most accurate summary I know of offhand.

So… short version? NaNo has been crumbling for a while, between dismissing people’s dislike of the 2019 redesign, not handling conflict well in general, leaving MLs feeling unsupported and unappreciated, and allowing a culture to grow in which a forum mod became the sole moderator of a fast moving teen forum.

This forum mod was accused of grooming. Several people compiled evidence to show why they believed that. The staff at NaNo did nothing. They claimed an investigation happened but no action was taken for months.

I read through a thread where many concerns were discussed and barely listened to. I watched many members of the community went from hopeful and believing in the organization to angry and disheartened over the course of several months after being treated like children, being told things would happen that never did change.

Then things came to a boiling point in November, and the Board got involved. They shut down the forums and started investigating. We had hope. Then they started treating us the same way the staff had.

There are currently no known MLs as all were removed before April, as they need to be vetted and go through some training, only there’s no word on when that is going to happen.

There were barely any proper events during April and July, and some events NaNo advertised were hosted by their sponsors.

There’s a lot more that I could get into, but I think the more I try to explain the more likely I am to get it wrong and there is enough misinformation about this controversy out there.

For now, the latest is this post on zen desk about AI.

Yeah… I have no faith left. Do not even look at NaNo’s official site. They don’t deserve to think they’re getting people to participate. Especially since all they want is money these days.

If you’re looking for a substitute word tracker, I highly recommend trackbear.app. It’s still in beta, but I’ve been using it all year, and I enjoy it. There’s a goals option that includes the graph and par line we all enjoyed with NaNo, and there’s leaderboards to have fun with your friends.

[incognitopolls]

most active time of day on tumblr since it's after work or school for the majority of people in the US and catches the night owls in most of Europe as well. // And not one thought for the rest of the world, it's mostly third world countries, anyway 💀

My earlier response wasn't about "blah blah I only think the US and UK use the internet," but I am sorry if that's how it came across.

My response was about social media and maximizing engagement numbers. One oversight on my part was that Africa has many of the same time zones as Europe, and should have been included in my statement. However, It's generally understood that tumblr is most heavily used by Americans and Europeans; I did some searching and although it's hard to find very much concrete numerical data, people generally agree that the most active time on tumblr is between 5pm and 1am Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5). This information is frequently given to writers and artists on tumblr as advice to help increase the visibility of their work.

Taking a look back through past polls on this blog, here's one about what you call your parents and what area of the world you're from. Out of 8,600 responses, the Americas (North and South) account for 60.6%, and Europe accounts for 28.3%. All other surveyed regions combined (Asia, Africa, and Oceania) make up 11.1% of responses.

Here's a graph of this blog's activity for the last month.

It's hard to see– I wish tumblr made it easier to collect data– but each of those peaks is between 8pm and 11pm EST (UTC-5). Some of that is from the polls posted on each of those nights, but most of the polls on this blog tend to steadily gain notes over the course of the week, not all at once as soon as they're posted– those peaks in activity are mostly from people interacting with polls posted on previous days.

My decision to target Western time zones with the timing of these polls is based solely on the fact that this is what results in the most responses and widest spread of any given post. Again, if I have been dismissive of any area of the world, I apologize.

Just for you, here's a geography poll.

[shepherds-of-haven]

Among the inner circle, who does Riel have the easiest->hardest time reading? I assume it's a pretty negligible difference at this point just because everyone interacts so regularly, but does Chase's chaos energy successfully throw him off?

It absolutely does! I would say it generally goes like this, though it may not be a super linear scale and resembles more of a scatterplot graph:

Shery (displays all of her emotions prominently)

Briony (ditto to Shery, though sometimes her motivations/backstory can add some complexities)

Red (easy for Riel to read his emotions, not as easy for him to read his strategies or logical lines of thought)

Ayla (pretty much the same as Briony, her emotions seem easy to read but the actual thoughts she's thinking behind them and the context/backstory she comes from make her a bit more opaque at times than expected)

Halek (his poker face makes it hard to gauge his actual emotions, but his behavior falls within enough of a pattern/predictable routine that Riel can still successfully "read" him or plan for what he's going to do or say without having to know his exact thoughts)

Trouble (similar to Red, where Riel can easily read his emotional state but not always his plans or actions: Trouble can be unpredictably really smart and level-headed or really impulsive at different times, so he consistently surprises Riel, who has a hard time predicting exactly what he's going to do next)

Lavinet (dependent on the situation; hardest to read when she's actively politicking. Court training makes her harder to read than the average person, but she's not a completely closed castle)

Blade (Riel needs more data on Ket facial expressions and body language, so he's not as confident with Blade as with most people, as the cultural differences can make a really big difference. He can't always read Blade's thoughts or feelings unless Blade is caught off-guard, but Blade's behavior is also governed by a rigid enough pattern that it can become easier for Riel to predict, except in areas where his skillset overtakes Riel's (for example, don't ask Riel to predict what Blade is going to do in battle))

Tallys (similar to Blade, Elven mannerisms and body language do differ enough that Riel is hesitant to say with confidence he knows exactly what Tallys is thinking/feeling, plus with her age, experience, and general composed personality, he finds her the most difficult person to read in the Shepherds, with one notable exception. He's well aware that his mortal experience is so vastly different from her own perspective that he won't act like he can know exactly how she thinks so lightly)

Chase (he hates the chaos man. he hates him. Chase's body language and topography make NO sense and can be so detached from his actual emotions that he's just impossible to read accurately. lackadaisical slouch when he's seethingly angry?? half-lidded smile and boneless draping over the couch when he's actually plotting Awful Things?? and let's not get started on his general unpredictability, off-the-cuff improvisation, and chaotic impulsiveness and complete lack of logic. he operates off of Vibes Only, except the Vibes are undetectable to anyone else but the ones plugged into the awful Chaos dimension. If Riel were tracking the linear flight patterns of, like, bumblebees moving from flower to flower, Chase is a dragonfly. oh he's going to land there--WHOOP he did a 98 degree turn at the last possible second and ZIPPED straight up into the sky for no discernible reason! Riel insists through gritted teeth that it's impossible to read someone's thoughts when there are no thoughts going on in their head at all. Even Chase can't explain how his mind works, so how are you expecting Riel to??

Most people's thoughts, to Riel:

Chase:

[adrialae]

VALORANT AO3 Stats 2: Ships

(Part 1: Popularity)

I lost my motivation to make graphs for the top ships/tags like I was planning to, but I did notice some interesting things I thought were worth pointing out. (I'll also link the spreadsheet for anyone who wants to see the numbers.)

Interesting Thing 1: This actually wasn't included in the spreadsheet, but I was quite surprised the F/F fics outnumbered every other category considering... the general state of AO3. I think this is the only video game fandom I've been in where that's true, including the game in which 80% of the main cast is female.

2: Considering the top 10 relationship tags for each character (platonic relationships included), Brimstone and Astra* had exactly zero relationships in which they themselves were involved. To me, this seems to indicate that they mainly appear in the background of fics that focus on other characters, so they might actually be less popular than the fic counts alone indicate.

*I think Harbor/Astra should have shown up on Astra's list, tied for sixth, but it didn't and I'm not sure why. (details)

3: Nanobomb (Killjoy/Raze) was in the top 3 ship tags for every character except Deadlock, for whom they were fourth.

4: Remember when I said y'all were horny for Chamber? The top "additional tags" weren't super interesting because they were quite similar across the board, but I did notice that he had Smut in fourth (it was usually in spot 6-8). He was the only character who had more Smut than Hurt/Comfort or Fluff and Angst, and three of his top ten tags were sex-related.

5: Relatedly, /reader ships showed up for five characters. Four of them were Chamber, Sova, Harbor, and Iso. The last one was KAY/O - Chamber/Reader made it onto his list too, probably because there weren't that many KAY/O-centric fics.

6: Fade had the highest proportion of fics tagged with one specific relationship, with 42.5% of her fics featuring Fade/Neon. Iso and Raze were a close second and third. Additionally, Fade's second most popular relationship tag was Fade & Neon.

I think I've reached the limit of things other people might possibly find interesting, but here's the spreadsheet if anyone would like to take a look at it! (No promises about readability, though.)

[floralfractals]

Hi everyone, I wanted to write a quick update to you guys :)

I made this blog in March of 2021. At the time, I followed my first math course on fractals and dynamics, and had just discovered a tool to make my own awesome fractals. This blog started out as a place to share the art I was making as a coping mechanism during covid, but as I quit making them after a few months, this blog died pretty quickly. In 2022, I decided to start posting regularly again (mostly just shitposts though), just so that the effort I put into this blog wouldn't go to waste.

Then, in the beginning of this year, I started writing my thesis. I posted one (1) shitpost about him (my well-known and popular son), and got 10s of thousands of notes. Every morning I would wake up to another crowd of people who loved the graphs, or were baffled by them, and I got showered in asks to elaborate on him.

Truth be told, 2023 has been a very heavy year for me. A lot of things happened in my personal life, and I lost a dear friend to suicide. It became so difficult for me to keep writing on my thesis, and the project that should have been finished in June this year has now been taking 4 months too many. My mental health has suffered greatly, I haven't been able to take any breaks, and life has just been generally difficult. I have spent nights not being able to sleep because I wanted to finish my bachelor's thesis so bad, but my supervisors would keep demanding more work, more edits, and more drafts. At some point, I even considered quitting my studies and finding a job.

The community has helped me to keep going. Mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike who sent me genuinely interested questions, made me laugh in the notes, created fanart (??? I'm still baffled by this but the people who did this are the coolest in the world) and generally made me feel for the first time that mathematics isn't a universally hated subject. On some days, the only reason I was able to keep going and the only thing keeping me from experiencing burn-out was the support I got through this blog.

Today, 10/12/2023, I turned in my thesis. Thank you so much for your support!

[boringkate]

Any time people go on about anti trans hate and violence being on the rise (which I'm not outright disputing bc fuckin idk it sounds pretty plausible (my understanding is that just hate crimes in general are up) (people are increasingly radicalized by right wing social media etc) (tho I'd argue the average person is more chill than ever about queers in general)) I get thrown off by them leaving out how the trans community is also on the rise.

Like.

If the trans community is over nine thousand times larger then there'd have to be over nine thousand times as many hate crimes just to maintain the same level of danger for individual trans people.

Which obv the people saying this stuff are incentivised to leave out. Because either they're saying it to fear monger and justify their own paranoia (if you're a white girl living in montreal then you aren't gonna get full on murdered by a stranger just for being a tgirl lmao be realistic) or they're saying it to garner pity from the cis (we deserve rights specifically because we're just so murderable!)

Like check this out. I don't know how to find decent statistics on this stuff, but here's a pic that came up when I did a duckduckgo image search for transgender hate crimes graph.

Very scary!!! Except it definitely felt like the number of trans girls out in the world also got multiplied by like AT LEAST two point five from like 2013 to 2020.

"But that chart only goes up to 2020 and it's gone up since then! Very scary!"

So has the number of people transitioning (again)! It's raining girl dick out there, babe!!!!

[solottrpgchronicles]

1d. First Day at the Lab - Outliers

Name: Ren

Day: 1

Funds: $ 100

Today is my first day working at Ar Leith Labs - I can't believe I finally landed a job!

To be honest, I didn't look too deeply into what they do at Ar Leith Labs - I basically sent my curriculum to every neuroscience research lab that was hiring. Now that I'm here, I can't even find a pamphlet explaining the research in detail.

Ok, I'll be professional and go introduce myself to my coworkers now; either them or the PI can tell me more about the job.

---

There are only two other research assistants in my group: Leanne and Perry; neither of them seems to be the chatty type, at least not with me. I was looking forward to meeting my PI, but Leanne told me that she has never shown her face around here.

Right then we heard the PI speak; it felt as if she was standing right next to us. This lab must have a pretty technologically advanced speaker system!

The PI's voice welcomed me and introduced herself as C.N, just her initials; she invited me to get acquainted with the lab environment, and help my coworkers out with anything they might need.

I found it a little odd that she's not meeting us in person, but maybe there's an excellent reason for it. I don't want to pry, especially not on my first day.

Nobody was available to give me a tour - lots of work to do, which is fair - so I walked around the lab by myself, studying the equipment. I didn't recognize any of the machines, except for the obvious desktop computer in the corner. That one even looks a little old, in contrast with the rest of the devices.

Leanne noticed me looking at the computer and asked if I know how to code; heck yeah I do, I took a few classes and I'm pretty ok at it! So she asked me to write a bit of code to generate graph data for her latest research data. It's strange that they don't have software for that already, but I decided to avoid asking any questions.

I took this opportunity to look over the data, hoping it would clarify what kind of research we're supposed to do here, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Oh, well.

I couldn't recognize the OS the computer is running either, but it seemed loosely based on Unix. I was making good progress until I started testing my code; I got the error "Unable to find or open '/Brain/TemporalLobe/Hippocampus/MISTAKE.png'". I'm 100% sure I never referenced this file, and what a bizarre name!

I immediately thought this must be a prank - Leanne and Perry must have planned this as a funny welcome for me. I resolved to laugh and tell them it was a cool prank; that would show them I'm chill.

Unfortunately, they kept insisting they didn't know what I was talking about. They looked annoyed, so I assume they were being truthful. Alright, time to debug.

A quick search of the codebase and external libraries for the file path in the error message yielded no results. I tried looking just for "Mistake.png" and got nothing once again.

Interestingly enough, though, "Ren/Brain/" exists, except there's only a "temp" folder in there. Maybe I don't have the right access levels to see other folders? There doesn't seem to be a root user either.

I bothered Leanne and Perry to see whether they have access to the other folders - they don't, but they have their own users on this machine, with their own "/Brain/" folders. Also, my code wasn't available to them. They said the users were already set up for them when they joined, just like mine; IT support must be incredible around here.

In the end I decided to share the code with Leanne's user, in the off chance it would work for her. It did, just like I hoped, and Leanne got her graph.

I don't fully understand, but... great. Maybe I should talk to the IT support people, or take a few more coding classes.

---

The rest of the day was spent on boring menial tasks.

I bet my coworkers think I'm more trouble than I'm helpful, but hey - they'll change their minds, soon enough. After all, I didn't graduate top of my class just to be ignored at my job.

Luckily, at least C.N. already sees potential in me: before I left for the day, she said tomorrow I'll be tabling at an event called "The Gathering"! My first table, and on day 2? I can't wait!

I forgot to ask for the address, but I bet I can find all the info I need online. I'm obviously being tested, and I will show initiative, dependability, and bring a ton of new participants for the study!

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

This is a playthrough of a solo TTRPG called "Outliers", by Sam Leigh, @goblinmixtape.

You can check it out on itch.io: https://far-horizons-co-op.itch.io/outliers

[mariacallous]

Let’s say you just searched Google to learn more about this new AI Overview feature that everyone’s talking about. If your query triggers an AI Overview—and not every query will—then you might see an AI-generated summary of this very article at the top of your results. These new AI Overviews in Google Search present users with AI-generated answers to queries that are culled from information on the web, and they’re presented in a way that gives you the answer you seek without ever requiring you to click on a web link or even learn the names of the publications that the AI used as sources.

Google has already released a nascent version of AI Overviews within something called the Search Generative Experience, but it was only available to users who opted in. However, at the company’s I/O developer conference this week, Google announced that the newly renamed AI Overviews is now receiving a wider launch; everyone in the US who uses Google to search the web or ask a question will now see AI Overviews at the top of their results—again, if their question can be answered by a summary.

Can I Turn Off AI Overviews?

What if you’d rather just see web links? Unfortunately, AI Overviews are baked into the default search results page now. You can’t opt out of seeing them in your results. While there’s no way to fully disable AI Overviews for your Google account, there are a couple of methods you can use to get a search results page filled with web links.

First, there's the manual method of selecting a special filtered view after each individual query. After landing on the search result page topped with the AI Overview, click on the More tab—it should now appear among other filter options like Images, Videos, Shopping—and click Web. You’ll see a results page just showing links to actual websites.

Second, you can install a browser extension that automatically forces this web-only view of the search results page. Developers have been hard at work since I/O; there are already options available for Chrome and Vivaldi, as well as add-ons for Firefox. Other browsers will likely get extensions soon.

What's in an AI Overview?

When can you expect your query to trigger an AI-generated summary of the results? “AI Overviews appear for complex queries,” says Mallory De Leon, a Google spokesperson. “You'll find AI Overviews in your Google Search results when our systems determine that generative AI can be especially helpful–for example, when you want to quickly understand information from a range of sources.” During my initial tests, it felt like the AI Overviews popped up almost at random for queries, and the summaries appeared for simple questions as well as more complicated asks.

According to De Leon, the AI Overview is powered by a customized version of Google’s Gemini model that’s supplemented with aspects of the company’s Search system, like the Knowledge Graph that has billions of general facts.

One of my core hesitations about this feature as it rolls out is the continued potential for AI hallucinations, more commonly known as lies. When you interact with Google’s Gemini chatbot, a disclaimer at the bottom reads: “Gemini may display inaccurate info, including about people, so double-check its responses.” There’s no such disclaimer added to the bottom of the AI Overview, which often simply reads, “Generative AI is experimental.”

When asked why there’s no mention of potential hallucinations for AI Overviews, De Leon emphasizes that Google wants to still offer high-quality search results and mentions that the company did adversarial red-teaming tests to uncover potential weak points for the feature.

“This implementation of generative AI is rooted in Search’s core quality and safety systems, with built-in guardrails to prevent low-quality or harmful information from surfacing,” she says. “AI Overviews are designed to highlight information that can be easily verified by the supporting information that we surface.”

Knowing this, you might still want to click through the webpage links to double-check that the information is actually correct. Though it’s hard to imagine many users, who are often looking for quick answers, will spend extra time reading over the source material for Google’s AI-generated answer.

Liz Reid, Google’s head of Search, recently told my colleague Lauren Goode that AI Overviews are expected to arrive for countries outside of the United States before the end of 2024, so over a billion people will likely soon encounter this new feature. As someone whose job relies on readers actually clicking links and spending time reading the articles, of course I’m apprehensive about this change—and I’m not alone.

Beyond concerns from publishers, it also remains unclear what additional impacts might trickle down to users from Google’s AI Overviews. Yes, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI tools are quite popular in Silicon Valley tech circles, but this feature will likely expose billions of people, who have never used a chatbot before, to AI-generated text. Even though AI Overviews are designed to save you time, they might lead to less trustworthy results.

[edwardianmumbo]

Verbal Terminology in Autistic Tumblr Survey Results

After quite a long while (and for that I apologise) I’ve finished the results of a survey about the descriptivist uses of the terms Nonverbal/Non-Speaking and Semiverbal/Semi-Speaking in Tumblr’s Autism Community. This survey was originally intended to cover more, and just be a fun side project that unfortunately ended up with many flaws throughout the whole process. I'll go into specifics more at the end in the “Further Notes” section!

All that to say, I heavily implore you to do your own research and listen to others outside of this survey about these terms. Admittedly I think this survey is best taken as a small peek into how a very small group of people currently use these terms, in a fun non-informational survey format. (Also this was my first time doing image ids, so well i tried my best they might be really bad and for that i apologise in advance!!)

Demographic Questions

[image id: a bar graph called “What Would You Call Yourself” with the options going top to bottom the graph says Nonverbal at 16 (3.5%), Semiverbal at 118 (25.9%), Someone Who temporarily Loses Speech or Temporarily Can’t Talk at 308 (67.7%), Verbal or At allistic Level at 171 (37.6%), and Hyperverbal at 95 (20.9%) end id]

First things first I looked at the different ways survey respondents identified personally, and at a base level we can see most people said they had varying speech levels. The next highest given types overall were Semiverbal and Speaking Autistics, with Nonverbal being the least used term among survey participants. Due to this being multiple choice I also looked at what group of responses where most common:

[image id: a bar graph of Unique Term Use Types. The highest is Temporary Only at 141 respondents. The next Highest is VT (Verbal and Temporary) at 60, followed closely by Verbal Only at 59. The rest in order of highest to lowest is Semiverbal Only at 41, ST (Semiverbal and Temporary) at 33, TH (Temporary and Hyperverbal) at 29, Other Combinations at 21, VTH (Verbal, Hyperverbal, and Temporary) at 19, Hyperverbal Only at 18, SVT and STH and VH are all tied at 8, SV (Semiverbal and Verbal) at 6, and finally Nonverbal Only at 4 respondents. end id]

This graph more clearly shows that a majority of responders would consider their verbal speech levels to change, but only a minority of that group also considers themself Semi or Non-Verbal. You can all also see how a majority of responders considered themself either as just temporarily losing speech or a combination group using the Verbal option, which highlights a potential bias in the future questions. (Also the other section is for all combinations that got under 1% of respondents individually!)

[image id: A pie chart pf praticapent’s age groups. The highest at 56% is 18-29 year olds, with 13-17 place at 38.2%. The rest have the percents cut off but in order are 30-29, Under 13, and then 40+ year olds. End id]

Most responders fell in the age ranges of 13-29. This seems to follow general Tumblr trends after a quick search, but possibly leans a few years younger then the general user base. The lack of older adults taking the survey is unfortunate as some of these terms have been around for a while, and it’s always a plus to get an all ages response on surveys like these.

[image id: A pie chart titled “Where did you find the survey”, The top choice being “Another Tumblr Blog” at 59.1%, and the 2nd “Nd Culture Is” at 37.1%. You can see the slices for “From Someone I Know” and various Other Responses in the pie chart, with the other responses blurred out in the index sheet. end id]

This graph is admittedly a bit worthless, as I made it before deciding where I was going to post the survey to, so a decent amount of people, both those who selected “Another Blog” or Other mentioned getting it straight from the og post or a reblog of it. So needless to say i wasn’t quite exact enough by what i meant in this question (which was to see how far it spread vs any bias from just my “in-group” so to say), but it does does imply that that the survey didn’t make it far from the groups I posted it in. Which is expected with how little "promoting" was done during the survey period.

NonVerbal / NonSpeaking

[image id: a multiple bar graph showcasing the correlation between how responders self identified vs how they define Nonverbal. Going from top to bottom is The Fully Always option chosen by 3 from Nonverbal Only, Masking with no chosen responses, Little to No Speech at 2 from Nonverbal and other Terms Users, Allow Temporary at 9 from Nonverbal and other Term Users plus 7 from Nonverbal and Temporary and an intentional Nonverbal Only Responder, then All Above with 1 Nonverbal and Temporary plus a Nonverbal Plus Response, Followed lastly by Other Definitions with no responses. End id]

Before going over this data I want to reiterate that the survey had very few nonverbal people taking it, so this data is not going to be all possibly not even most, nonspeaking people’s option on defining those terms. Next The N Plus section on the graph includes the N and T groups as well as other responders who marked themself with more than just the Nonverbal role. That said it seems that the greater community tends to lean towards the “Someone who has periods or is always not able to speak and/or can't speak well” option, and well quite a few nonverbal autistics agree, there’s a group especially among those who only consider themselves nonverbal who prefer defining it as those who always can’t speak fully ever. This matches with trends i’ve personally seen in the nonverbal tags of nonverbal people preferring definitions that centre on the lack of verbalness, even completely or most of the time vs speaking autistics using more broader terms, but again with such a lack of nonspeaking people involved there is no solid reliability to the data.

SemiVerbal / SemiSpeaking

[image id: a multiple bar graph showcasing the correlation between how respondents self identified vs how they define Semiverbal. Going from top to bottom is Partly All with 8 from Semiverbal Only plus 7 Semiverbal and Temp and 10 from Semiverbal Plus, Next is Inbetween with 24 from Semiverbal Only and 42 from Semiverbal and Temp plus 53 from Semiverbal Plus, Lose Speech has 5 from Semiverbal Only plus 6 from Semiverbal and Temp and 8 from Semiverbal Plus,All Above with 2 from both Semiverbal and Temp plus Semiverbal Only, Context-Based with no responses, and finally Other with 1 from Semiverbal Only plus 2 from Semiverbal and Temp and 3 from Semiverbal Plus. end id]

Like The Nonverbal Section, The S Plus section on the graph includes the S and T groups as well as other responders who marked themself with more than just the Semiverbal role. Otherwise, from this graph we see an overall trend of including anybody “between nonverbal and verbal” regardless of how the respondents identified themself. There also seems to be less of a disconnect between those who are semiverbal vs the greater community when compared to the results of Nonverbal, although whether that is a bias of the survey or a general trend is hard to tell. Most respondents who chose Other seem to have given either an all of the above answer (which I might have manually included???) or mentioned a definition using the idea of always struggling with speech but at different levels.

Further Notes

One thing I really wish I had done was involve more nonverbal and semiverbal people in the whole process of making this, i think looking back there’s definitely moments were you could tell this was made by a speaking autistic and I really didn’t do nearly enough to include and uplift the voices of those who this survey was literally about. In a similar vein I forgot about pretty much every non-autistic community who uses these terms, but also didn’t make it clear enough that it was unintentional, leaving not only countless voices unheard but accidentally ostracising those whose voices are equally as important as what this survey managed to cover.

Alongside that I was very unclear in what some questions meant to the point even future-me wasn’t sure what the data was for, plus I bit off much more than I could chew, making for a messy at best survey experience. As such survey taker’s might notice not every question was given space here, and that is simply because I couldn't process the data in a timely manner.

I did however let people opt-in to sharing further notes about how they use these terms and will share some of those under the read more with no individual commentary so as to let people speak fully for themselves:

There is a gap in the language available to describe autistic difficulties with speech. Verbal should describe the ability to use language, written or spoken, but in the context of neurodivergency almost always describes speech only. Non-speaking would be a more appropriate term and would free up nonverbal as a term for autistics who struggle with written and spoken English (as in syntax or language in general, not spelling). This has been talked about in high support need circles but is not mainstream.

I think we should look to the wheelchair users for language design, specifically the differences with the language around full time wheelchair user and ambulatory/part time wheelchair user

i wish mostly speaking people would find other ways of explaining their experiences without using nonverbal/nonspeaking people's language. we already have a much harder time communicating and when our language is taken or used in different ways that makes people confused about the meaning and they assume that the experience of mostly speaking people is the same as mostly or fully nonverbal/nonspeaking people. when actually the overall experience is very different

I am not sure exactly where I fit within being verbal but losing speech and struggling to speak almost always, or if I am semiverbal. I think the lines between all of these terms can be blurry, but I think it's bad how verbal autistics who lose speech occasionally (and often talk about being able to push through this and force themselves to speak - which is how I feel almost all the time) have taken these terms which makes it very hard to find content from people whose experiences with speech are similar to mine or who are nonverbal. I think it's connected to how in general lower support needs autistics take most of the space in the autistic community and it can feel isolating for people like me who are higher support needs.

And well this survey was about English specifically, I want to share what this survey respondent said about how the terms work in their language and how that affects their usage of these terms:

third of all: the alternatives to that, such as "losing speech", "having verbal shutdown", or "going mute"... simply do not work in some languages. and as proof, let me show you my beautiful native language, that being ukrainian!

"losing speech" = our word for speech equals our word for talk. when losing speech, i CAN talk - but not by using my voice.

"verbal shutdown" = our word for shutdown is not being used in the same way as in english and there is no good alternatives.

"going mute" = our word for mute has a very long and complicated and problematic history, and is not something most people would be comfortable saying!

so, that means that i am left with absolutely no phrases to use in my language - because the only one, that being "going/becoming non-verbal" which is translatable and has the same meaning - is not an option anymore.

[the-final-sif]

Thank you for answering, do you think this will be a similar thing to covid? Now I don't have facts or sources other than one disabled advocate on social media but I heard something about one of covids less popularized effects being something about brain degeneration? Or something loosely connected to that. And because of how poorly covid was handled in the US it ended up affecting a lot of people including the children. Or maybe it was something about how the pandemic never truly ended over there and people stopped wearing their masks too soon. I can't remember, but if you know more of it or have any idea what I'm talking about, how comparable do you consider the two situations? Thanks in advance

So I haven't really seen anything about brain degradation, but there is current research into acute covid-19 infections disrupting the blood brain barrier.

It does appear to happen in severe cases, but it's specifically severe cases as far as all of the research I've seen. It's also not really unique to covid-19. To my knowledge, there's a lot of viruses that can trigger a similar response, like Influenza or West Nile. This is generally what causes the most severe forms of these diseases, the BBB gets disturbed, and this triggers inflammation in the brain which fucks with a lot of shit.

This topic is really complicated, and again, research is still ongoing. Part of the current issue with active neurological studies for COVID-19 is kinda similar to CTE research, you can only really tell how bad the neurological damage was after someone's died and you can yoink their brain out to have an in depth look. This means a almost all of the more indepth studies on COVID-19 in brain tissue are from people who are dead. Usually from COVID. So there's a strong bias towards the most severe cases.

That being said, I actually don't think this is particularly comparable to the severity of lead poisoning on people through the 1950s-1980s. Part of which is that children, while they did catch COVID-19, didn't usually get severely sick. They also didn't tend to catch COVID-19 as often in the first place. That's not to say neither happened ever, just that it's comparatively quite rare.

Meanwhile, effectively 100% of children had lead blood poisoning at a level of clinical significance for most of the 1950s-1980s.

Literally, I am not even kidding, this research is from 2015 but it's still extremely informative,

Like, their graphing of blood levels displays this really well,

I apologize, you may have to click on it to see, but this is graphing out our entire population in the US and led blood levels in early childhood (note, while people who are old enough to not have been born or been children in the 1950s would not have had CHILDHOOD lead poisoning, they still would've been at high risk for exposure to adult lead poisoning which can still fuck you up). S

For quick reference on blood lead poisoning btw, the CDC level used to be 10 μg/dL (light blue and above), but as since been lowed to 5 and then 3.5 μg/dL as a reference level. This is part of no amount of lead being safe, but above 10 μg/dL is bad. Above 20 μg/dL for children is "hey so we need to do a full medical exam of this child, do an environmental hazard investigation of your home and get a hazard team response specifically to help you get lead of your house". Meanwhile above 45 is "we may need to hospitalize this child".

That's the scale I'm talking about when I say everyone in the 1950s-1980s had childhood lead poisoning. It was everyone. COVID-19, while bad, isn't everyone. It isn't even close. BBB disruption, according to the research I could find, only occurs in some acute illness of infections that happen. This is still bad, but nowhere near the scale of lead poisoning.