#not to get into the semantics of what it means to be organic or whatever

[fernspirals]

Having a weird time. My roommate expects everything to be communal but I pay for most of the groceries and I can’t financially support his eating habits

[sweetcloverheart]

One of the things i love about steven universe—so much of the show is straight up dedicated to inadvertently showing you lore, and then giving you those “aha!” moments once those puzzle pieces come back into play.

With miraculous ladybug on the other hand, it almost comes across like the writers think of their own lore as…a nuisance? Wrapping every episode’s plot up in a 22-minute bow will prevail over any silly “lore” about 85% of the time. Even if that lore is super important!

Oftentimes it feels like they just kinda throw whatever at the wall and only keep what sticks, too. I think I wouldn’t find unification AND the power up potions AND the entire class getting a miraculous AND all the time travel stuff AND the semantics behind sentimonsters as flimsy as it currently is, if only the story had introduced all of this to the audience in a more purposeful way.

So much of the show is dedicated to the same exact song and dance we’ve been doing since season 1 and it all comes back to the episodic “akuma of the week” issue. It sticks the writers in a perpetual rut. Things change… but never much.

Precisely! There's no build up, no hint dropping, no anything! Stuff just happens and we move on to the next ep, or gets retroactively explained an entire two seasons after the event no longer has meaning. For all they like to fall on "watch the previous episodes" when folks ask questions, the show just seems...completely uninterested in doing any world building for that to help - it'll just drop in or remove stuff whenever it feels like it and then acts like that's how it always was or pretend a thing they literally just introduced doesn't exist.

(And what lore they do feel like sharing, is placed sporadically in mediums a good majority of the fandom would not consider buying/investing in to find it; The origins of the Kwami are in a short mini comic and the start of Gabriel's grand plan to become Hawkmoth is in a mini cutscene in a videogame only a small handful either played or datamined. Unless you are obsessive over the media or a habitual rabbithole-diver (like myself), you're likely never going to know where to find this info, or that it's even available.)

And it's frustrating, because there is genuinely a lot of interesting lore in the story (implied or otherwise) that should be expanded upon, but it always gets shoved aside for stuff that doesn't matter (like do they realize how many of those stupid Chloe Salt eps in S5 could have been better used/dedicated to explaining the Sentilore more? Or how LB and CN unlocking unlimited power spamming could have been build up to with hints and loredrops rather than Noroo going "Guess they've grown up now." no explanation of how that even works? Or how we still don't have a episode dedicated to the Order that doesn't involve indirectly mocking them for being "Old Fashion" via Su Han? ).

On the one hand, I feel like part of that's the fault of it being episodic+initially a toddler show - they only have so many minutes for the plotline and half of it has to be dedicated to ensuring a "lesson" for Marinette is inserted somewhere there. They likely are limited to how much lore they can insert at a time. There's also the issue of their "Episodes can be watched by themselves" guideline and other annoying Status Quo enablers (like the "Adrien is Perfect, the world is flawed" rule), because they're clearly limiting what the writers can do with the world/characters in a bad way (hard to have an interconnecting overarching plot when you purposely make your timeline such a janked up jumbled timeywimey mess that even Alexander the Great couldn't cut through it), but they refuse to toss them out.

On the other hand though - we're 5 to 6 seasons, a movie, and several specials in with a good 2/3rds of the magic system being supported/provided by fanon and headcanons. At this point, you should be more than able to properly organize your episodes so they can explain your universe and how it works in them.

[respectthepetty]

10 QL Girls I Want Carnally

Because @twig-tea hit me with the tag in their 10 QL People I Want Carnally list sprinkled with women as @negrowhat requested, let me slide up in here to show some appreciation for only the ladies because the amount of GLs we have leaves me thirsty, and these women look like a beautiful stream in the dusty desert.

Honorable Mention - Namtan's Characters [Pluto]

I don't understand the plot of this upcoming series. Namtan is playing twins and one or both of them love May (played by Film). Full disclosure here, I don't give a fuck about the plot because I'm going to watch it regardless. I'm always showing up for Namtan (and Film and Clize). When I'm being offered beautiful women in a GL plot, I do not question the gifts God bestows on me.

Honorable Mention - Jung One [She's Makes My Heart Flutter]

Fucking Korea and its short ass shows! I only had this precious babygirl for one hour, and I would murder for her. I would treat her so well that she would never feel nervous about another thing in her whole life. She is like Jim from Moonlight Chicken, just trying to help her niece and run her bar, but I'll be like Wen and WORK FOR FREE because that's how much I want to be in her bed warming her up at night. Money ain't the only way to pay me for my services.

Hydration Station

Maya & Rose [Laws of Attraction]

Choke me. Maya AND Rose are my ideal throuple with me being the third. Silvy had me hot and bothered in her scenes with Joong and New in The Warp Effect (bisexual reawakening), and Organ had me hot for mommy in Never Let Me Go, so Laws of Attraction giving me both in a Be Gay, Do Crime plot was heaven sent. Watching them manipulate and beat up men, knowing they were going home to each other is the energy I need from all my GL plots.

Yuna [Semantic Error]

She rides a bike and has beanies for every occasion. She'd let me wear her hoodies. She'd let me wear her beanies. She let me ride her bike. She'd let me ride her. Her entire demeanor lets me know what's up without her even having to open her mouth, and I've already signed up for a two-month subscription before I even approach her. Whatever she wants to do, I'm down whenever including going down wherever.

Tee [GAP]

Let me say this with my full chest "FUCK, SAM!" If I was Mon, as soon as Tee would've asked my name, it would have been "Sam, who?" because TEE COULD GET IT! I'd let Tee fuck me in front of all her friends and God on that table. Tee's game was unmatched. No hate to Sam being inexperienced, but Tee obviously knew thangs and was more than willing to share her knowledge, anytime, any day, anyway. *bites knuckles*

Phai [My Dear Gangster Oppa]

I don't fuck with cops. But . . . girl definitely knows how to use handcuffs. And the way she always told Muffin to shut up did things to my sacral chakra that told me that even though I don't fuck with the police, I would 100%, without a doubt, fuck the police(woman).

Proud [7 Project]

This is going to be a theme in this list because I don't just want Proud from 7 Project, who deserved so much better than that horrible story. I want Samantha, the person who played Proud. Sammy has been in everything for a solid decade now. She deserves the lead already, and I deserve to watch her and those beautiful lips of hers make out with another girl again! 2024, do me and my girl right.

Luna [Sleep with Me]

She has problems sleeping. Like an actual medical diagnosis. Not even trying to take away from the seriousness of her condition but . . . I've heard intensive physical activity is good for sleep. I'd be more than willing to test this scientific theory out by fucking all night long. It couldn't be just once though. In order to prove a theory, we'd have to do it a couple of times. I'm great at pulling all-nighters and being an enthusiastic participant for *science*

Cher [GAP]

GAP gave me so many beautiful women, and all of them were mean to Sam. Blessed. But my favorite Mean Girl was Cher. I had her for only a few seconds, but I would leave my SO on vacation if I saw her walking through the resort. Her AND her girlfriend could get it. Call me. Beep me. If you wanna reach me.

Ray [Club Friday]

This bitch was crazy. And I. Loved. It. But playing crazy is apparently what this actress does best.

As Ray, she was wildin' out trying to have a baby between her husband, her husband's boyfriend, and her ex-girlfriend, and as Anthika in Midnight Museum, she was wildin' out trying to resurrect the savior. And you know what? I would proudly stand next to her and commit queer wrongs every day instead of demanding she come to her senses if it meant she was making me come every night. Ooookay.

Mayris [The Sign]

Is she open to a two-night stand with a girl? I don't know, but I'm sure the hell gonna try to persuade her.

Ink [Bad Buddy]

There is a reason everyone loved her in that show. In Magic of Zero, Pa was trying her damndest to get Ink to remember her, and girl, same. If I had a girl like Ink, I would be the brattiest bitch. I'd pout until she gave me all of her attention. I'd be pissy if she even looked at someone else. I'd want her all to myself and she'd have to lose her job because I'd keep her in the bed ALL DAY. Well, not the bed. We could pull a Pat and Pran and fuck on the couch, the kitchen counter, and outside after drinking.

The One to Rule Them All

Sine Inthira, the person, not the character.

I want this woman carnally. She could tell me to shut up in front of my friends and God, and I WOULD DO IT! She could say something that went against all my feminist beliefs, and I would not give one fuck. I would ruin my life for this woman. I would be peak toxic for this woman. Why The Eclipse cast her as the teacher and tried to make me feel bad for Khao's character was the rudest thing to ever happen in my bisexual existence, but I know where my heart lies because I was telling Ayan to shut the fuck up and let my beautiful angel speak.

LOOK AT HER! If y'all ever hear of an American sitting in a Thai jail after chasing after this woman, know that American is me because my ass will not be sane if I see her in person.

I'm only tagging one person in this list of women I want carnally.

💙Daddy💙

@dribs-and-drabbles, I'd love to know who you want helping you break in that bed after you move it in this weekend. You've been so focused on shared clothing when all I want to know is whose do you want to take off.

[hackedmotionsensors]

i didn't reblog the post but I do agree that the terminology for zines has gotten completely twisted.

ON THE OTHER HAND I don't think that selling them for say 20$ (which is what i sell my sketchbooks for) is unreasonable or unfair to still call a zine. I need to cover my costs of printing and the time I put into putting them together. yeah I can TECHNICALLY get a printer and print them myself but with the cost of printer ink and the lack of space its easier for me to just pay for someone to do it professionally but I'm also NOT making them at like....the HIGHEST QUALITY, LIBRARY BOUND, HARD COVER, IT COMES WITH A THOUSAND DOO DADS AND GIFTS. its just sketchbooks ofpreviously existing doodles and a few new sketches or sketches that I had before and colored in. Its essentially like selling a full print but in carryable size with some notes from me.

Its a zine but I call it a sketchbook because the idea of zines has changed for a lot of consumers. Thats not their fault bc those zines or anthologies DID start out in the "lets make a big ol book together because we are all horny for Reigen" kind of thing. A lot of times they're projects made from passion. I HAVE noticed that there's been a turn in the whole process of making them that both stresses out artists, requires kickstarters, and all sorts of shit that should be considered Artbooks. ARTBOOKS have always been on the higher end of things. There's nothing wrong with considering an anthology thats proper bound, and for a certain amount on a kickstarter you get extra things like stickers, charms, whatever.

But zines SHOULD go back to being simple little things. The cost to buy them shouldn't be lost UNLESS the artist wants it to be. If you print at home or using a schools printer and just print a bunch of cute little zines yourself then that should also exist and you can set your price point for whatever you want.

Its all semantics and personal preference at the end of the day but I do think that...yknow it wouldn't hurt if we could start calling the big project 50$ range books that often get run into the ground from bad leadership (or fun stuff like the organizer of the thing runs off with the money to play genshin) ...something other than zine. Like Artbook or Anthology. Or even Collection lol

Zine should be a small thing that you collect for fun and doesn't require a committee, a new discord channel, and a contract to make sure your organizer doesn't run off to play gacha (I'm sorry it still makes me laugh)

ALSO another thing about zines is that often times they were originally made to be alternatives to really closed minded book sellers. Like...its where a lot of the OG star trek fanfic/porn came from. Its a place to have your ideas put down. To explore narratives. Essentially Doujinshi can also be considered A TYPE of zine in that it literally means self published (not NECCESSARILY that its...yknow...bl or waifu porn lol Sometimes its just manga that artists put out before they can get published)

But lately there are a lot of zine projects (again...more actually like anthologies or art collections) that are REALLY REALLY closed minded even when the subject is SHIPPING.

So even the nature of CREATING the zines has changed a lot.

So yeah I agree with that post that I forgot to reblog. My only REAL gripe is that it doesn't mean that you should undercharge your work because you didn't print your zine at home or hand craft it like a youtube diy video. I did enough of that at art school I am not gonna bind a book or try to cut pages ever again if i don't have to lmao. CSP even has a zine preview so I can see the pages in 3d as if they were bound before printing lol

[smiirp]

Bad faith? Have you read what you wrote?

Let's take a look at your new example of "50-person art collaboration that will only be affordable to middle class kids with middle class disposable income." None of these things make these kinds of zines "a new and alien graft on an old medium" because none of these things push it out of the "self published magazine" category. It is not "alien" from zines of old because creators can use new technologies and tools to do it, or because there are so many people who want to participate that you have to curate the selection. If Kirk/Spock shippers of the 60s had the means and methods to make bigger, shinier, collaborative zines, some of them probably would have because the spirit is in publishing something yourself with whatever tools are available. We have more tools now, so we have more kinds of zines.

It is is perfectly possible to make a post promoting and discussing more accessible forms of zine-making without also insinuating that other methods are some kind of perversion of the true, pure form. You could also discuss how fairs, festivals, conventions and online spaces force very different zine forms into a shared context where one is devalued over the other. But if you try to start this conversation about these differences and changes in zine format and culture by boldy stating that the new forms aren't actually zines or by claiming people who participate in other forms of zine making "exploit the connotations of amateur, punk production values" of a practice they have equal claim to, you will get people arguing with you about semantics because that's a load of shit.

Zines are not defined by production value, and fanzines cannot "exploit" the name of traditions they are directly carrying on. The examples you posted yourself prove this. They show that there is no "foundational meaning" of the form that you're claiming to preserve because zines are a FORM they are not defined by content any more than any other forms are. And the examples you added are all ancestors of all the shiny, submission based, kickstarter backed projects you hate whether you like it or not.

Hey, If this post reached only 5 people I wouldn't give a shit about your bizarre take, but I don't want people's introduction to zines and zinemaking (which your post now is for some) to give them the false idea that people who make 8-pagers are making the good, pure zines and people who contribute to or organize or buy the more elaborate projects are masquerading as zine makers when they're basically just cousins.

the whole point of a zine is that it's cheap to produce, amateur and homemade. if you're being asked to apply to participate in a print project, it is not a zine. if the final product is being printed and bound professionally, it is not a zine. if you are being asked to enter into any kind of licensing agreement more complex than "my work can be reproduced as part of this publication" it is not a zine. nine times put of ten if the final product costs more than $5 you have left zine country. im so serious about this.

[justlegalmarketing1]

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[nat-20s]

Weird Girl Table <3

Here’s twenty different weird like quirks/personality traits/ hobbies you can give your female characters to give them a lil’ pizzaz. a lil spice. Feel free to roll on a d20 for selection or peruse at your leisure!

1. Has been low key trying to solve the JonBenét Ramsey  case for the past ten years. She is not into true crime overall and has no personal connection to the event. She just thinks it’s a thing she should do.

2. Has a slightly concerning PhD level knowledge of parasitology. Bonus points if she’s not involved in science in any other way.

3. Keeps newts and lizards in her pockets, will give one to you if you have her favor or are like. A really nice cashier

4. Refuses to wear clothes that are not made of Lycra.

5. Has an unironic love and passion for eating objectively disgusting foods. Frequently cooks those wack gelatin based recipes from like 1950s

6. Personal life motto is “memento mori”. Bonus points if she’s not goth in any other way

7. Meant it when she said #scenekid4lyfe. Will truly be scene for life

8. Her pipe dream is to be in Jackass she thinks she DESERVES it

9. Has a “thing” about glass eyes. You get to decide what “thing” means

10.She simply cannot resist the siren’s call of ridiculous roadside tourist traps. She will go two hours out of everyone’s way to go see the largest ball of twine or whatever

11. Will sometimes use a Russian accent for several days at a time. She is in no way Russian.

12. Her second language is one she made up with a childhood best friend and she is EXTREMELY fluent in it. The language has LORE and GRAMMAR and SEMANTICS that would make Tolkien weep.

13. Has such a strong inflation fetish it’s genuinely interfering with her day to day life

14. Has such a strong inflation phobia it’s genuinely interfering with her day to day life

15. She’s working on the process of slowly turning her house into a theme park. It is not going well.

16. Makes shipwrecks in a bottle. Personally wrecks the ship herself via water and shaking after completing the regular ship.

17. Is a respected breeder of an unconventional animal. Dealer’s choice on what said animal is. Again, bonus points if nothing else about her is animal related.

18. Has a VERY successful etsy shop making photo-realistic genitalia (and occasionally other organs but mainly genitalia) out of polymer clay + resin

19.Religiously devoted to the idea of Atlantis being real and filled with merpeople. Hates the Disney movie atlantis because if you have to go FIND atlantis you don’t truly have faith in Atlantis

20. A groupie but not for a band. A groupie for the openings of office supplies stores. Like goes on roadtrips for them. She rarely buys anything from said stores except maybe t-shirts

[roseyturtles]

is your Bencade post meant to be like, an Evil Power Couple AU? because Arcade is not a very warlike or violent person, and he wouldn't be antagonistic enough to want to "strike first in self defence". Maybe Benny would be, but Arcade would NOT. (agree to disagree if you want, but that's just how i see it!)

You're right, Arcade is by no means warlike (unless you go by the op companion ai and that's not a good judge of character.) What he IS, is idealistic. And that's the funny thing about idealism. You put it in the right circumstances and it can twist into much more perverted versions of itself.

Gonna put this under cut because it's a long theoretical chain of events explaining my thoughts.

As we know him now, no, Arcade would never decide to go on the offense against another faction. But let's assume for a minute that he and Benny, in all their ambitions and knowledge and collective political influence, managed to bring freedom to the Mojave. No NCR, no House, no Legion. Arcade would be happy to let the people rule themselves as just another citizen himself, but Benny is much more power-hungry and takes House's old throne. Of course, seeing this and knowing his political partner, Arcade follows him and decides to stick by his side instead, knowing he's prone to overly cruel decisions.

And what would you know it, all that power at his fingertips means that helping organize council meetings, redistributing wealth, and keeping raiders at bay is a much easier endeavor! It's easy enough that with a little reprogramming, the Securitrons can assemble a tiny citizen's militia as well as defend the people with their own numbers. They don't have to worry as much about inside squabbles or starvation or people who would take advantage of a power vacuum because there is none. They're able to make as close to a utopia as they can get in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

But all the while the realization is beginning to sink in that this model of government isn't sustainable. Two figureheads actively abdicating their political power while still maintaining an iron grip over the Mojave's only major military force? That's an opening just waiting to be exploited by the likes of a scorned NCR, or whatever rises in the east after the Legion. But what alternative do they have? Give the immense power of the securitrons to the Mojave Council? To any smaller individual factions inside it? And what if they don't use the securitrons when and where necessary---or worse, what if they do? No, The Mojave needs people who want the best for everyone, not just their own interests, to handle such forces. Even the Followers follow too strictly their pacifism to be effective. But that still doesn't change the basic problem that outside forces bigger than them aren't going to stay put like they have.

So he talks with Benny, his only real equal anymore, about the situation, about what-ifs, worst-case scenarios, because admittedly, just for the dam, the Mojave is inevitably going to be the center of another war if they don't do something about it. And Benny's solution is surprisingly straightforward. They attack. Whoever wants to take over their little commune isn't going to listen to diplomacy or gift baskets or any of that prissy nonsense, he tells Arcade. They only speak one language, and that language is guns. ("Only guns? No energy weapons?" "Yeah, yeah, sure, doc, semantics." "Because if they speak the language of energy weapons too, that makes them bilingual." "Shut the hell up, you know what I mean.") And as much as Arcade hates it, as much as it goes against everything he stood for as a practicing physician, he knows Benny is right. No one likes war, least of all him, but out here it's just another fact of life. The least he can do is make sure it never reaches the doorstep of the people he's sworn to protect.

Which is how he ends up in a military position at all, because like hell is he letting Benny do it, what is he, insane? Inevitably, the NCR tries to strike back. Inevitably something sickening rises in the east. Inevitably Arcade's hand is forced and he pushes back against opponents. And then again. And again. Enough that it exhausts and hardens Arcade, who has at this point spent years at the top of the food chain. By this point he's doubtlessly either been ousted from the Followers for his use of the securitrons or simply has drawn away from them over time because he deems his work protecting the Mojave as more important, leaving him only with an enabler. One he listens to more and more, especially with his own anxieties gnawing away at him. Is that just another little tribe or something more to worry about? Is that war dance for them or for another smaller conflict? Why are these people organizing like this? Better show their hand just to be safe. Better make sure they know not to come near. Better make a proverbial barrier around the desert, just to keep its citizens safe.

And maybe Arcade hates what he's doing. And maybe it twists his stomach and makes him lose sleep. And maybe that only makes his paranoia worse, put in charge of this necessary evil. And maybe he mistakes one thing for another and maybe he fires on people he shouldn't have and maybe in some sick way it feels good and maybe he wouldn't trust anyone else to do this and maybe this is for the best and maybe he has to do this and maybe he's right and maybe he's right and maybe he's right and maybe-

Anyways.

You're right about Arcade being a good man. It'd take years to have this happen. But it's not so far off you can't track the line of thought from point A to B and that's what's fascinating about it.

[plotholes-and-spellingerrors]

I think the thing is that, fundamentally, there's no such thing as running an "AI" locally. (I'm assuming that when you say "AI" you're referring to the "generative" models where a user makes a natural-language request, e.g. "re-organize my business", and the model outputs an org chart or something.) The problem is that these models require so much compute that you basically cannot run them on a personal computer. If you saw that post going around talking about Windows quietly turning on constant system snapshots to run it's AI assistant, the article pointed out that some features were only available on machines with specially beefed-up processors and memory, and even then, internet connectivity was vital because it was sending data back to Microsoft to be processed - that was part of the privacy/security risk, that images potentially displaying passwords, etc., were being stored on Microsoft servers. The point being, you need massive server farms to ingest, store, and analyze the data that these models are being built on - and it never ends, or the model becomes stale. And even once you have the model, calculating a response is also incredibly resource intensive. That's why every single Google AI result takes so much more water and electricity than the entirety of the actual search results combined.

I have shared the link before, but I am begging people to listen to the "Data Vampires" miniseries from Tech Won't Save Us. They make clear very early on that the reason Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are pushing AI so much is because they are data center companies: they make money every time a service uses their data centers. And you know where ChatGPT and MidJourney results are being processed? On Microsoft and Google and Amazon's data centers. In fact, a lot of the "money" that these companies are investing into GenAI orgs is actually just donating server usage to them, to get them locked in on those servers, which will then need to be paid for. So the GenAI companies have to find a way to get people to pay for AI services, because they're paying for AI compute power.

The other thing, and I cannot stress this enough, is that these are not knowledge models. They are very sophisticated duplication models. If you say to the "AI", "Make my workflow simpler", it doesn't have a semantic understanding of what "simpler" means (and it certainly can't ask for clarification). All it can do is look at its massive data set and try to predict a version of whatever it is outputting that is associated with the string of letters "simpler", based on a bunch of stuff that has previously been labeled as "simple" (or similar words). So you might get a work flow that has fewer steps, for example, but what the "AI" might not realize (because it doesn't have a concept of what any of the steps are) is that maybe it's actually added that are meaningless, maybe it's just shuffled some steps to it looks like there's fewer but actually it's just hidden a couple... or maybe it's eliminated some vital error-checking steps that 98% of the time result in nothing (it looks like a waste of time, so simplify it out) but 1.7% of the time catches something minor (oh good, that would have wasted resources to fix) and 0.3% of the time catches something mission-critical (this error could have brought us to bankruptcy/court/prison). And keep in mind, the person asking an automated system to simplify their business workflow is NOT the person who designed the workflow and knows what needs to be in there (if they were, they wouldn't need a computer to tell them how to fix it) - they're the person trying to not need to pay someone to design the workflow.

And for that matter, a lot of what happens when some "AI" system is inserted into a process is that it's still doing the same task (just at a much higher computational requirement, and potentially wrong), but it looks simpler because the human user is only clicking one button rather than five.

And look, I'm all for automating tasks that are repetitive and time-consuming for a human - that's the whole point of computers in the first place. But a truly effective and efficient replacement for human work is one that was designed by people who are intimately familiar with the required tasks and thinking deeply about how to make their jobs easier.

You know, these techbros love to make it sound like humans are just bad at making systems, computers will be so much better at it, but I think that's a lie they tell because they want to make one generic product and get everyone to buy it. That's the promise of "general artificial intelligence" - it's one system that can do everything. But what else in life works like that? Do you put your clothes and your dishes in the same washing device? Something that does a lot of things well is typically very simple. You can fry an egg and boil water in the same pan because it's a bent piece of metal sitting over heat. An espresso machine, however, will have a harder time with the egg. Good software generally focuses on doing one thing - the difference is whether that one thing is simple and can be applied to a lot of different things (Firefox renders web content, it just happens that you can have all kinds of stuff on the web) or if that one thing is extremely specific (Audacity edits music and GIMP edits images - audio and images are both data types that Firefox can show you, but can you imagine what a mess GIMPdacity would be?); the problem is that this specialization requires human effort, and these techbros do not want to PAY for human effort; the problem is that this specialization means that you have target audiences, and these techbros want to sell to a general (read: bigger) audience. And conversely, those byzantine systems that are so terrible? Often it's not because people are just dumb, it's because either the job is a very complicated one, and the system is tailored to success in that task, or because someone wanted a general system that accomplishes all kinds of things, and often what they want accomplished is METRICS so that the efficiency of the business can be micromanaged. But that's another story for another time. In short, don't ever let someone who is trying to sell you bullshit tell you the lie that you couldn't do better on your own.

Anyway, IDK if this is really even what OP meant, it's just where my mind went. If you put up with me to the end, thanks for reading.

MAN, can you imagine the clusterfuck of working at a company that’s become reliant on an AI layer between itself/its employees, and knowing how to do their jobs and use their systems and stuff? Like when that AI layer goes down, poof, you’re all hosed. And they don’t strike me as super robust…

I guess there are ways of training and running them locally, but they’re so seductive they’re definitely going to be deployed in places that aren’t up to the task of maintaining them in a sane state. Like… damn… cutting headcount in favor of relying on AI is like. A raccoon stuffing its head into a yogurt container. This is gonna be killing off organizations in a few years.

Unless AI gets good at destroying preexisting fucked up byzantine workflows and replacing them with simpler, human-friendly ones. That would be okay. But it is gonna irrevocably destroy a lot of records and botch a lot of database migrations on its way there.

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Well, it wasn’t every day you found out you were working in an extension of hell — Charlie was by now well aware that Hades wasn’t hell, but she retained the right to continue to privately call it whatever she liked — but in the end it did not matter all that much. Once she had recovered from the initial shock all she had had to do was accept that apart from none of the guests being human, none of her co-workers were either. Well, no longer mortal at least.

It didn’t change her day-to-day too much. Whether Cassandra was just an exceptionally organized receptionist or a clairvoyant had no effect on either her job or their friendship. And the fact that Marsyas actually did have hooves, instead of very clunky boots, could hardly have any impact either. The only thing Charlie had resolved on was her suggestion to Echo that they both learn sign language, which she very enthusiastically accepted, but they were both so busy that would probably take a while.

So, no, when she requested a talk with her manager it wasn’t to resign, as he had feared.

“Of course not, chief,” she smiled. (He had explained that neither the name Damastes, nor Procrustes really suited him any longer and he had not yet found another one.) “What do you take me for? As long as the working conditions are good I am more than willing to work in an outpost of hell.”

He was clearly too relieved to argue with her about semantics.

“But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” she continued. “Working conditions.” She fixed him with a determined expression. “We need more front of house staff. Specifically, I need someone to train to do at least part of my job, especially when I can’t be here.”

“Ah, well,” the manager said. “I am sure that will not be a problem. Provided, perhaps—” His broad shoulders stiffened a little. “You could possibly conduct the recruitment process personally…”

Charlie thought back to her own job interview and kept her face carefully neutral. “Of course, sir, if you think that is best. And I do have some thoughts on that point,” she immediately added.

The manager actually smiled. “By all means.”

“Normally I would never say this, but, don’t get someone from hospitality.” She gave him a pressing look. “I’d say customer service experience desired, but the required education should be a classics degree.”

If she was going to ever get all the nonsense in this hotel under control she really needed some help. And if her help knew about the Ancient Greek nonsense, she could teach them about the hotel nonsense.

“A...classics degree,” the manager repeated, writing it down. “I have never heard of this.”

“No need to look it up,” Charlie said. “But trust me, it’s going to make a world of difference.”

He nodded. “As long as it means your continued employment.”

She smiled. “Oh I don’t intend on leaving.” This was her hotel.

The End

[Hotel Olympus on Tumblr | Hotel Olympus on AO3]  

[baeddel]

astrology, tarot, interpretation

so i saw a little more of the magic argument... i think the post people are talking about is so-and-so’s ambiguous answer to the question ‘do you really believe in the tarot?’ and it reminded me that they got a similar question saying ‘do you really believe in astrology?’ which they gave a clever answer to, which was to say that it has been shown, you can look it up, that your astrological chart has no influence on a person’s personality, their behaviour, or the course of events, which it is possible to show with statistics. however, they say, astrology has a social and cultural reality, such that people do hold astrological beliefs, and they will act on those beliefs, and so you can gain access to those beliefs through the study of astrology. it’s clever, but it doesn’t work. the reason it doesn’t work is that if people did act on those beleifs with any consistency then it would show up on the same statistics we were just talking about. so astrology doesn’t even predict people’s beliefs about astrology.

i believe this is because there is no theoretical basis for astrology that is very widely accepted. reading the Picatrix will not reveal much of anything about the sunday horoscope. there is no astrology, there are astrologies, with diverse intepretive criteria, and these astrologies develop in immediate social atmospheres (societies, magazines, websites, friend-groups). some things, like the calculation of charts, are widely accepted, but little else is nailed down. even within a single interpretative atmosphere astrology is not a consistent method. it is more like a style of reasoning, a semantic field for posing thoughts, which the other members can respond to from their own interpretation. this contest of interpretations is something the devout find satisfying.

why do people find it satisfying? usually it’s explained with a reference to things like confirmation bias, and i don’t mean to suggest that things like bias don’t exist, but it’s obviously not a completely satisfactory account of the whole phenomena either. it’s easy for anyone who hasn’t been deeply involved in those communities to dismiss it as a game of cons and rubes, but if you have been there, and aren’t there now, you long for a satisfying non-realist account. for myself when i was very involved i could never ‘get’ astrology. i would go to my friends who were good with it and they would give me advice, and i trusted them, but if i wanted to learn it myself id be very frustrated, because i couldn’t find out where it came from. i would read the Picatrix and the Greater Key of Solomon, but it’s really an oral tradition. but who’s oration do you listen to? i wanted to find the firm foundations of the discipline and find things out for myself. i felt stupid. and i was stupid—more precisely, an idiot, like “Jaroslav Hašek’s good soldier Švejk, who, when he saw soldiers shooting from their trenches at the enemy soldiers, ran into no‐man’s land and started to shout: ‘Stop shooting, there are people on the other side!’” it was my need for solid foundations that kept me from seeing what the others found satisfying in the interpretive atmosphere.

sometimes its an amusing social fiction (‘oh, i’m such a gemini’), sometimes its a way of organizing the year (make sure you finish whatever you’re working on before mercury goes retrograde!). sometimes its an easy way to ask your witchy friend for help. it’s very rarely a straightforward inquiry about the truth.

anyway, astrology isn’t my thing. but the tarot is still interesting to me. on a certain level the tarot is necessarily true, the same way flipping a coin is true. it really did land on heads, and you really did pull the Wheel of Fortune. there is already a kind of wisdom in fa which requires no occult explanation: “[it’s] not that they take [drawing lots] to be superior to human wisdom, but that one may eliminate private interest and resentment by these means” (Shen Dao). it’s like automatic writing, serialism, and other creative forms of self-displacement. the tarot adds to these means a vivid symbolic language, but then it hands the hermeneutic key back to the operant. it invites you to step out of your head, then it invites you to step back in. why not play this game?

[sanguine-arena]

phony court | misc drabbles #3

desc: Thatcher Leichenberg would rather be anywhere than where he was right now. After his first career fatality on a player from the Alekov Valiant, Nikita Asetov, Thatcher is forced to attend a disciplinary hearing from the CSHL Department of Player Safety.

cw: no major warnings, though there are mentions of the death of a teenager

wc: 1,620

tags: @thetruearchmagos , @isherwoodj , @elijahrichardwrites , @jezifster , @hottubraccoon , @rsdan , @aquil-writes

Thatcher Leichenberg really wished he was anywhere but where he was right now.

He watched the phony court of league officials and their so-called “unbiased” arbitrators mull over the summary of the gruesome details of his latest offense against league policy. He watched them get their bearings on the situation at hand, some of them rapidly flipping through the papers almost in shock, and he was almost certain at that moment that some of them hadn’t even heard a vague idea of the case’s details. Despite the fact that they’d so  graciously  informed him and the whole Kongsplass Thunder organization that, three days ago now, during the Thunder’s last game he’d somehow violated league code “Whatever”, subsection “Who Cares”, specifically the infractions listed and numbered as “This League Is Getting Soft” and “I Stopped Listening Ten Minutes Ago”.

Well, that’s what these things always sounded like to him, anyway.

If he were honest, Thatcher always stopped listening once the League’s player safety office started throwing their convoluted jargon around at him as if it should mean something to him. As if the needlessly complicated semantics of the supposed rules this league had weren’t a topic of discussion better suited for his agent, who sat right next to him at their desk in the current moment. Thatcher leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed as he boredly awaited the council’s decision to finally get things going.

It was already bad enough that they made him get up super early and that they made wear this stupid gray suit.

The least they could do is hurry up with getting the hearing started.

“Mr. Leichenberg.”

Ugh. Thatcher caught himself thinking immediately after the Safety Commissioner’s voice finally spoke up. The stuffy formalities of these people were grating on his ears, and he was surprised he didn’t instantly burst out in hives at the sound of it.

“Mr. Leichenberg. As you already know, we’ve called you here today to discuss your actions in the last game the Kongsplass Thunder played against the Alekov Valiant, three nights ago now.”

If Thatcher never heard his last name butchered out loud again, it would be too soon.

“Yeah, I’m aware.”

Thatcher could feel his agent’s eyes on him instantly, as well as the silent nudge to curb his attitude that came with it. The older man at the head of their desk stared Thatcher down with an attempt at intimidation that made him want to burst out laughing. There was a long pause from him, and a soft sigh that preceded the next words he would say.

“We are here because a check you laid on one of the Valiant’s players, Nikita Asetov, resulted in the loss of his life after he was taken to the hospital.” the man paused again, seeming to hope that the news would shake Thatcher in some way. The only response he got was a slight cock of Thatcher’s eyebrow, but it was one more of intrigue than shock or worry. “Were you aware of this before today?” “Nope.” Thatcher said the word plainly, not even turning to his agent who was certainly sitting on the edge of his seat, hoping he wouldn’t have to jump out of it to defend him in the next few minutes. “Didn’t know the kid died.”

He could see all four of the league’s figureheads for their take on player safety staring him down now, and he wasn’t sure if they were more shocked at the fact he didn’t know that Nikita Asetov was dead, or that he didn’t really give a shit that Nikita Asetov was dead. They were silent, clearly stunned from the straightforward response.

“Mr. Leichenberg,” the older man who seemed to be purposely butchering his name spoke up again, and Thatcher could see him swallow hard before continuing on. “In the video footage we have of the event, we see you take several strides towards Mr. Asetov, before eventually jumping into him and your shoulder makes contact with his head. He falls to the ice, and does not get back up.” Thatcher looked to his agent, who jumped into the conversation before he could even think of a response.

“Hold on a second,” he said, his tone firm and as pointed as his gaze on the Safety Commissioner was. “That’s not what happened. At all. Mr. Asetov was skating with his head down, and my client made a normal hit on the boards to knock him off of the puck. If Mr. Asetov has his head up, he likely would’ve been able to better brace himself for the hit.”

The Head Safety Commissioner looked to Thatcher, his jaw tightening at the challenge.

“Would you agree that this is what happened?” “Yeah, of course,” Thatcher said, barely holding back a scoff at such a stupid question. “That kid never had his head up. It doesn’t help that he’s smaller than me, but I didn’t charge him. I  definitely didn’t take ‘several strides’ towards him to make that hit.” “Mr. Leichenberg,” a new voice spoke up, an older woman who Thatcher always swore was wearing a scowl on her face every time he’d seen her. “The video simply doesn’t support that recounting of events. You were about forty feet away from him when you started skating towards him, and Mr. Asetov had already gotten rid of the puck by the time you got there.” “Am I not allowed to finish checks anymore?” Thatcher’s voice showed the most aggression it had all morning now, though it was nothing more than mild annoyance at the moment. “Listen, that kid never had his head up every time I played him and always bitched whenever anyone touched him. He was gonna have to learn that this isn’t minor hockey eventually.”

Thatcher watched as he lost the favour of a second person in the phony court, though he couldn’t say he was going to lose sleep over that fact.

The third of the group, a fresh face he’d surprisingly never seen before today, decided to try his hand at talking to him next.

“Mr. Leichenberg, you do understand that Mr. Asetov was only sixteen years old at the time of the incident, correct? And that he likely isn’t very used to the physicality of the League as a result?” “Nope, I didn’t.” Thatcher said it plainly once again, and his flippance towards the idea of having accidentally killed a teenager sent chills down the spine of everyone else in the room outside of Thatcher himself. “He definitely acted like it, though.”

“Also,” his agent interjected again, leaning forward in his seat to get a better look at the four who sat across from them. “Why should he have to tone down his style of play if there’s a teenager out there? Respectfully, Mr. Asetov should either have been down in the minors or his teammates should’ve done better at looking out for him.”

With that, Thatcher lost the favour of a third member of the phony court.

The fourth and final of the council straightened himself out in his chair, as well as the papers on their desk about the case. He looked to the three others sitting with him, all three equally as astounded at the responses they’d gotten thus far. He would be the last to try and get the message of how severe the situation was across to Thatcher, though odds weren’t looking so good.

“Mr. Leichenberg, your callousness towards the situation is, quite frankly,  alarming.” he said, the heavy judgment in his voice making Thatcher want to laugh in his face. He gave an exasperated exhale at seeing Thatcher roll his eyes in response. “Your actions during that game were a horrifying display of wanton violence that ended the life of a young man. I don’t understand how you can sit here and be okay with what you did, knowing how it ended.”

Thatcher couldn’t hold back the quiet laugh that wanted to come out for much longer, and with it, he lost the favour of the entirety of the phony court.

“Because of this, we are forced to take extra disciplinary action against you.” the older woman spoke up again, her tone almost as uncompromising in its convictions as Thatcher’s had been all morning. “You will be fined five thousand dollars, and you will also be suspended for 7 games without the pay you would have received for those games.” “Oh, come on,” Thatcher couldn’t help but say it out loud, the tail end of his exasperated laughter still hanging on by a thread. This was something that made his agent flush red with equal parts anger, shock, and embarrassment, and he stared down his client with wide eyes and his mouth slightly agape. Thatcher’s eyes almost rolled into the back of his head at how righteous these people sounded, all because they currently sat at a slightly higher table than he did. “This league has gotten so soft. I apparently can’t finish checks anymore. I accidentally kill a guy and I’m the problem? You guys have never had a problem with me making that play dozens of times before, but now that it happens to kill some kid who didn’t know to keep his head up, you’re gonna throw the book at me? You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”

“Mr. Leichenberg, that sort of behaviour won’t be tolerated-”

Thatcher got to his feet, shoving his chair into the desk as hard as he could.

“Thatcher, sit down- ” his agent started, immediately cut off by Thatcher’s continued outburst.

“This league is a fuckin’ joke.”

With that and the heavy, stunned silence that followed, Thatcher shook his head, leaving the room without another word.

[dreams-and-honor]

MASSIVE LORE DUMP, AS PROMISED, I'm high as shit so I hope I conveyed my vision wel

using my tag list just in case

Tag list: @dearly-beeloved @camellias-and-coriander @rebel-wolf13 @sunstar-of-the-north @lysandreslittlechatot @goldenworldsabound @edencantstopfallininlove @adoredbyalatus @dorothys-wife @faerie-circle-ships @kylars-princess @little-miss-selfships

Okay so as far as I've got, everything started when some "heavenly matter" fell to Earth. It was humanoid but possessed no organs or indicators that it was at all a sapient being.

So of course it gets dragged off and every researcher on the planet NEEDS to get their hands on it. So humanity does its thing where "we don't know what it is but let's find out what we can do with it.

A few month or a year later comes first contact with aliens who show up and are like "So that stuff came here, right?" And once the semantics of 'holy fuck, aliens' wore off humanity was like "oh the heavenly matter? Yeah, neat stuff, been playing around with possibilities, why?" And the aliens are like "Do you want space kaiju? Because that's how you get space kaiju." "What does THAT mean?" "You'll find out if you don't stop fucking with it."

And then they leave and of course humanity doesn't listen. And then giant space kaiju DO start showing up. Which means humanity does what humanity does and tries to build giant robots. Giant artificial cyborgs is more like it. Whatever they're mechs. Later the call them Angels seeing as how they're made out of the "heavenly matter"

They're supposed to be fitted with an AI but the AI keeps getting rejected. Lo and behold, the thing has created a brain and has it's own consciousness. This proves to be extremely interesting and troublesome because there is little to no communication. It may as well be a newborn baby. An AI program is created to give them an instant crash course in the basics of humanity but it's still difficult to communicate with them because they can't speak (no vocal chords) and they can barely move on their own. Eventually one manages to tap into a network (what kind I do not know) Bluetooth style and requests a neural link with a human being. It will be absolutely permanent, there will be a person in your head at all times, and the connection can't be broken until both of them die.

Sounds good let's do it.

So they start trying to link the Angels up with people but they find out that compatibility is difficult to discern. After a while it's discovered that certain people with cognitive degeneration or imbalanced brain chemicals take to the link almost immediately. THAT'S a secret they keep under wraps, along with the fact that it's a legitimate treatment that works at the price of you never having personal privacy again.

Anyway, a company is born called -gestures bc I've got nothing rn- that becomes the face of the project. It's made up of multiple nations of the world as to discourage the Angels as weapons of war. Which would eventually have happened if the space kaiju didn't actually show up.

The ones that had been neutrally linked to an Angel were instructed to enter the (very gross and squishy and slimy) inside so that a full neural link could be completed. And then it was monster ass kicking time. The Angels made perfect weapons against the Kaiju and the aliens from first contact came by like "we have literally never seen anyone crazy enough to do what it is you're doing, teach us because these things have been wrecking us forever,"

And so the corporation expands all over the world and out into various civilizations through space.

And so being a pilot is COOL now, you're a hero, a sports star, a celebrity and public figure. There are usually three to five pilots in one base (which is the building they keep the mechs in as well as a building so huge it's literally a self contained community for employees and pilots to live in for the sake of convenience. Anyway the company is like the biggest deal on the planet.

The way they scout for pilots is to find someone with an abysmal psych case file and cross reference it with their cognitive ability. Then they swoop in like "I know life's hard sweetie? Don't you want to be healed? Don't you want to be a star?" And suddenly there's a new idol to fawn over. The Angels are just as popular, sentient mechs are hype as fuck. the pairs go on becoming full on celebrities.

The neural link itself is a two way mental connection between the Angel and the pilot. They hear feel and see the same things and hear each other's thoughts. It's the ultimate commitment because it can never be broken.

When pilots are out or need their Angel's presence without lugging a giant 40 foot tall (absolute MINIMUM, They can go as big as 80 feet) mech around, they have a neural Bluetooth speaker attached to their own person because they do meetups and talk shows and all that other bullshit.

Anyway, Sariel is an aerial unit, so he's got big angel wings (shhhh let's not think about the mass production EVAs for a second) and he's only 40 feet tall. He's got charm but in a rough sort of way. He's kind of a jackass but a playful one.

I'll talk about my insert on the design art.

So uh

I got got by this post

so...

potential new oc f/o just dropped 👉👈

ABSOLUTELY ripping off the concept of religious themes in mecha series, he's like... a giant sentient mech. That has flesh also? And his designated name is Sariel.

I need to put like, an actual plot together because I need a convoluted narrative to make a dynamic

But yeah >:I

tag list: @dearly-beeloved @camellias-and-coriander @rebel-wolf13 @sunstar-of-the-north @lysandreslittlechatot @goldenworldsabound @edencantstopfallininlove @adoredbyalatus @dorothys-wife @faerie-circle-ships @kylars-princess @little-miss-selfships

[scarlettundrhett]

a temporary abundance by fleet_off

Relationship: Vegas/Pete

Words: 1070

We don't know Vegas like that.

Vegas suffers, Vegas makes suffer. We know Vegas angry, broken, crying, grinning his predatory smile.

But Vegas on a sunny morning together with Pete, relaxed, redeemed and peaceful, that's not how we know Vegas, but that's how we want to know and love him.

Saturday morning settles over them in languid golden hues and the scent of fresh congee on the stove, glutinous and savory. They make a drawn-out affair of their breakfast simply because they can, because Macau doesn’t wake up until noon on weekends and because it feels nice to exchange inconsequential words between bites of porridge and sips of rich dark coffee.

Paradise can sometimes be just a moment, a morning when time stands still.

Such a golden moment we have always wished for Vegas and Pete. They are the couple that has seen only longing, regret, blood and and death. Get some rest!

Death has always been powerful in the lives of both. A bodyguard lives to die instead of his master. Vegas was the frontline soldier of the family, everyone is puzzled why he is not dead yet.

Life used to be the means to a messy end, bodies tools given in service to a name larger than either of them. They are still learning what it means to live for living’s sake, to be made of flesh and openly want for all the things living flesh wants. It hurts because it matters. Such is living, and there is joy in being alive.

They sit on the couch together after their meal, the food a warm weight in Pete’s stomach. Pleasant soreness, the mark of the well-used and well-loved, curls in his wrists and the backs of his thighs. He feels the urge to flex and stretch, but his head is hazy with the indolent catlike sleepiness that comes with satiety--he does not want to lift it from Vegas’s thigh.

Fleet_off is a magician. He stops time and we hold our breath. We see only Vegas and Pete lying on the sofa on a sunny morning. The past suffering is not faded out, it is not magicked away, but it has lost its dark power.

There are days, too, when the emotions go numb and dead in Pete’s chest and he can only puppet himself with wire-jointed fingers and a painted-on smile no matter how Vegas tugs at his strings to bring him back. Days when Vegas locks himself in the cage of his own brain and takes the keys with him, leaving Pete to batter his fists bloody against an unresponsive steel door. (…) Today, they’re in one of those temperate stretches where they’re both human and present enough to be good to themselves and each other, their silences familiar instead of fraught.

Then comes a passage that has sparked a semantic discussion in reader comments about the use of the word "pretty“. Unfortunately, I'm not a native speaker to guess at all the secondary meanings of the word. Don't people call men pretty? Is there an underlying pejorative message when one does?

Pretty, Pete thinks but doesn’t say. Vegas wouldn’t appreciate that specific compliment--is sensitive, sometimes. There’s probably a wound there that Pete hasn’t yet picked open. Someday he will find it, either by chance or by willful design, and will probe with blunted fingernails underneath Vegas’s skin to fish out whatever lead or rusted blade hides underneath this particular bit of damage. Once he has done that, once he has kissed what is torn and licked him clean again--only then will he tell Vegas that sometimes he freezes Pete’s breath in his throat just by how pretty he is. But they are enjoying a quiet morning, today, so he can find other ways to express the sentiment.

The author works his magic, we let ourselves be enchanted and wish the couple the happiness of normality on the sofa with a teenager, Macau, who endures all the tenderness with the annoyed but loving disregard that only teenagers can show.

[goji-pilled]

it is done! also take a guess at which magical girl anime i watched before writing this entire five part fic!!!

It was a beautiful day outside. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming. On days like this, kids would be scrambling out of their houses to meet up with one another. They'd meet up and do whatever inane activity they had planned for themselves. Teens would be loitering around places like the mall or the food court, and adults would relax in their homes as they abandoned work for rest.

Nagisa "Tomoe Charlotte" von Seckendorff would argue semantics about whether or not she counted as a teen, but she didn't have the desire nor energy to do so when she woke one Spring afternoon. She was in her bed in the bedroom she shared with Yuma, her side of the room littered with knick knacks and impromptu purchases during her years growing up. In comparison Yuma's side of the room was much more organized than Nagisa's, but every surface of her side was covered with cutesy memorabilia and photos of their family.

Deciding to get out of bed and face the consequences of her actions - which, now that she thinks about it, she can't remember much of from yesterday - Nagisa made herself decent in her polka dot pajamas and went downstairs. Wracking her head around trying to remember yesterday, the Sweets Girl didn't recall much other than it was one of her really bad Witchy days before she entered the living room.

On the couch was a sight that ached her heart. Lying almost dead to the world was her Nakano, dressed in some sort of mish mash uniform of a yukata and suit. Rushing over to Ka-chan's side, Nagisa gave her partner a once over to make sure she wasn't dead.

A cough sounded off behind, startling the teenager into shifting into her uniform and aiming her trumpet at the perpetrator. Sitting in the recliner was her aunt Akemi Homura, black frame glasses perched on her nose with her hair let loose, cascading down her purple turtleneck and into her jean covered lap. Patting one hand on the arm of her chair Homura signaled Nagisa to come closer. Not wanting to upset her aunt Nagisa did as she was told, sitting down sideways next to the recliner and resting her head back; thin fingers brushed through long and tangled silver hair, a comforting feeling she often misses.

"You had a bit of an episode yesterday after your date with Bushida Nakano." There was something off with how her aunt said the word 'date' but Nagisa let that sit in the back of her mind. "From what Yuma told us, you two just got out of the theater when you were sucked into a Witch's barrier."

Hmmm yes, that sounds about right. It was some sort of holy sky plane made up of clouds and water. Nothing in sight but more clouds and more sky beyond the horizons.

"From then on all Yuma would allow herself to say was that you two-" she raised her hand from Nagisa's scalp, pointing a finger at the (ugh) magical girl, "had gotten into some sort of fight. Care to share your side of the story?"

That-that was wrong! It had to be! They were stuck in that false heaven and Nagisa did everything she could to get them out! She faced that Angel Witch that wiped a whole team of magical girls, and took it down by herself! Then the barrier vanished and she turned to take Nakano and-

"Stay away from me, witch!"

"Ka-chan it's me! I'm still your Nagi-chan!"

"Did I mean anything to you?!"

"Nagi-chan… if you're in there somewhere… I'm sorry…"

"I- I hurt her." It wasn't a question, or a denial, but it wasn't acceptance. It was just a fact.

"... I see." Homura stood up from her favorite seat and stood in the center of the living room. Turning she changed into her magical girl uniform from one nanosecond to the next, her outfit having changed to take on aspects of all their own uniforms in remembrance, in homage and in love. Lifting her left hand she stopped time, the hourglasses on her kite shield pouring different colored sand through the clockwork machinations of the temporal and spatial shield.

With so many years of experience and growth Homura didn't need to have physical contact with whoever or whatever she wanted to bring in her stopped time, but she placed a hand on Nagisa's shoulder anyway. A sign that she would listen and play impartial judge, while also being a harsh critique to help her recognize her faults. It was one of the things she loved about her Aunt Homura, never sugarcoating tragedies or mincing words unless she very crucially needed to. Violet eyes looked into heterochromatic orange and red, silently pleading for the child to explain.

"I-I got mad. Today was gonna be one of those days and I- I thought going out with Nakano could help me. But when that-" a clenched fist, gritted teeth, "Witch hurr Ka-chan, I lost it. I shifted halfway and I just went hard against it. It was already on its last legs, but I made sure it wouldn't pull off any final gambits, or try some sort of kamikaze attack. I… I ate through the Witch." Homura place her hand open one of her niece's own, rubbing circles across the back and her knuckles. "I had it in my mouth - the Grief Seed. And I wanted so badly to just…"

She couldn't say it out loud. To admit it to someone so precious and dear to her, to admit that she nearly took the life of a Witch and made it her own. Her aunt's grip tightened but she never interrupted, didn't show nor feel any signs of repulsion. Homura nodded for her niece to continue.

"When we got out Ka-chan said t-t-to stay away. She was s-so af-fraid of me. I went to where I was, uh, born to calm myself down, like I do during bad days." It was a terribly kept secret that the Witches of the Holy Septet went to the places where they died as a human and were reborn as witches. Oktavia very rarely went to the train yards, but Nagisa always went to the hospital. "Yuma showed up and tried to cheer me up, but then…"

She couldn't hold it in anymore. Tears flowed freely down her face, blubbering sobs escaped her mouth as Nagisa cried her heart out. Her aunt, bless her soul, wrapped her arms around the crying girl and awkwardly rocked them back and forth before settling themselves down on the carpeted floor. She didn't know how long she cried for, but a quick glance at Homura's shield showing the green hourglass still flowing told her it at least hadn't been half an hour.

"Sniff. When Ka-chan showed up, she wasn't herself. She fought Yuma, and tried to kill us because she thought we weren't us. She thought a Witch got us and replaced us, or something. She asked a long time if we could even do that, but I didn't know, so I told her to not worry 'bout it…

"Aunty I- I think… I tried to kill Ka-chan."

It horrified her, and it disgusted her even more. Nagisa knows she wasn't a saint, hell she'd argue she wasn't even a good person in some cases. But to think that she would take the life of someone so dear to her…

Her aunt coughed again, handing Nagisa a tissue packet from deep within her shield. Thanking her aunt, she remained silent as she awaited Homura's super-scary-but-caring psychoanalysis of her date night yesterday.

"Nagisa-chan, you understand that you are a person who isn't separated into two different halves of a single whole, correct?" Yeah, she nods, it's something that Mama gets on her case about sometimes, but she knows Mama sees it differently than her. "Then you also understand that your more negative parts are… greatly exaggerated during those days that are more difficult for you, yes?"

Huh? That was a thing? She never really noticed anything different or "exaggerated" about her darker parts. Sure she got moodier and angsty during those days, but she wasn't all that different in comparison with her other vent days. Her face must've shown some confusion because her aunt smiled, and oh boy! It's a coin flip whenever Homura smiles "I know more than you, but I'm helping you even if you don't know it" smile.

Mama hated that smile.

"My little mouse, you know who you are. You know what your wish was, and you know what title you bear as the Sweets Witch. You most likely already understand what I mean. We all have our vices, and some of us have traumas that we have yet to overcome and move past. We need to face the darkest parts of ourselves if we are to grow and take the next steps forward, easier than we could have the days before."

Standing up Homura made her way to the stairs, stopping at the foot to look back at her child. Nagisa couldn't recall ever seeing  such a serene and shy look on her aunt's face.

"If you ever need help concerning… matters of the heart, you can always come to me.

A-And the other others! All of us, really. We've all had hardships and such, in our relationships and-"

"Thanks mom."

The blush on her cheeks was worth seeing the happy and prideful smile on her honorary mom's face. When Homura climbed up the stairs the stasis was dropped, Nagisa's senses being assaulted by the Spring day outside. Turning to the girl laying on the couch, Nagisa thought back to yesterday and her aunt's words.

…

…

When Nakano came back to the living she wished she died that night. Her arms felt like they were still pinned to her sides, her ribs still felt like they were crushing her lungs and heart, and there was an ache in her bones she couldn't shake. Things were a bit blurry in her mind, concerning all the things she did yesterday.

She remembers talking to a small white cat-rabbit creature, offering her to make real any wish she so desired and then being sliced in twain by her weird tonfa gauntlets. Then she marched her way to the hospital, all on autopilot as her mind was still a jumbled mess that revolved around witches and magical girls and wishes and Nagi-chan.

Nagi-chan…

Right, she entered another labyrinth, hunting down the Witch that killed her friend. Then she found Yuma-chan and she-

She-

She killed Yuma-chan… She killed Yuma-chan!

Oh god, what had she done!? She was hunting a witch, and Yuma-chan was there, and she punched her and threw her and cut off her-

A nice red and green stain marred the carpeted floor of the Kaname-Akemi household (name still in the works) mixing into the steel grey wool. Once Nakano finished upchucking her lunch from yesterday, she spiraled into a manic despair. What was she gonna do? How was she gonna explain this to Sakura-san and Tomoe-san? Hi, I signed a contract and tried to kill the Witch that killed Nagi-chan!? Also I may have accidentally killed Yuma-chan!?! And that Witch is ProbABLY STILL ALIVE-

Suddenly her thoughts vanished, her descent into madness screeching to a halt as they were taken out of her mind and made space for the absent thought of "I hope I can clean up that puke before it stains". Turning her head she saw Nagi-chan holding a Grief Seed up to a really tainted Soul Gem, the darkness disappearing enough to show the brilliant azure shine of the gem.

"Hoo boy, I think that'll keep me going until next weeks brunch. Or maybe tonight's dinner." Nagi-chan place the Soul Gem on the table in front of the couch, its shine color the floor underneath the glass. Turning on her stool Nagi-chan had a pensive look on her face, her eyes darting between the front door and Nakano. Just as she thought her friend would run out of the house she heard a deep breathe be lout out.

"We need to talk."

Oh god.

Doing her best to sit upright, Nakano lifted herself up with her elbows before realizing, oh yeah, her arms are kinda mush at the moment. Seeing the magical girl struggling Nagisa took initiative and helped her friend get into a comfy sitting position. Taking the seat next to Nakano, the one where some spittle had landed on the cushion, Nagisa sat on her bum and looked into her friend's caramel eyes. There was an awkward silence between the two, one trying to open their mouth to say something, anything, before shutting their mouth.

Then the silence was broken.

"Please forgive me." / "I'm so sorry!"

Apparently they still shared the same brain cell. They attempted to try and forgive each other, interrupting themselves to absolve themselves from forgiveness, to eventually trying to absolve the other of any wrong doing, to shutting the fuck up because they were going nowhere fast! After another tense moment of silence filled the air between them, Nagisa disgruntled at their apparent exceptional coordination and Nakano perturbed by her friend's willingness to forgive her. Her! The person that murdered her sister!

After a deliberate moment, Nakano decided to air out her dirty laundry. Starting out small she opened her mouth and said,

"I killed Yuma-chan."

Small, fucking small you stupid ignoramus that wasn't SMALL!

Ignorant of the Warrior's anxiety the Sweets Girl let out a chuckle before going into a full belly laugh. Startled was Nakano's first feeling when she heard her friend laugh at Yuma's death. The second disturbed followed by guilt, worrying if she had made Nagi-chan go mad somehow during all of yesterday.

"HO, man! Heh heh, haaa… If you really wanted to kill Yuma, you should've aimed higher." Leaning over to the table - and ignoring the squelch that sounded out from the puddle she put her foot in - Nagisa grabbed the Soul Gem, Nakano's Soul Gem and gave it a once over. Then looking her friend dead in the eyes, the gremlin sent a smirk her way before leaving a chaste kiss on the crystal blue of the gem.

Nakano suddenly felt a great warmth flood her chest, a warmth born from love and devotion to another person. When that feeling subsided she placed a hand over where her heart was and felt cold. Then she felt as though something had hit her funny bone as she started to let out giggles, noticing that Nagisa was now tickling her gem.

"Yeah, it turns out the name "Soul Gem" is very literal." The gremlin decided to show mercy and place the stone back onto the table, far out of the owner's reach. "Whenever a girl makes a contract with Kyubey - it's a little white mix between a bunny and a cat - whenever they sign a contract, they don't realize they've put their soul somewhere else.

"It's not the end all be all though. You can transform the rock to take the form of a ring, or even a necklace or earrings. We've been messing around to see if there were any limits to the whole 'hiding in plain sight' angle."

That was a… lot to take in but Nakano supposed that made sense, with how Nagi-chan made becoming a magical girl sound like she'd probably freak out without the proper heads up.

Wait, but if Yuma-chan's also a magical girl then…

"How close was I, to k-killing Yuma-chan?" At that she saw Nagi-chan grimace. Her friend turned her back to her, and then pulled her hair around to point around the center of her nape.

"Her gem is right around there." She lowered her finger a tiny bit, just below where Nakano imagined an egg shaped was. "Your knife arm thing cut through her neck just under it, left her a nasty scar." Turning back around Nagisa saw the guilt welling up behind the Warrior's eyes, tears threatening to fall. She figured this was a good enough time to kill three birds with one stone.

"Ka-chan, you still with me?" A nod and some tears. "Okay, cuz I need you to stay calm and relaxed. Ahem. Whenever a magical girl uses their magic, for whatever reasons they have to, their Soul Gem grows darker. They'll need to hunt a witch and harvest its Grief Seed in order to purify the imperfections. If they don't then eventually…" Grabbing the azure gem on the table once, Nagisa placed the gem firmly in her lap as she placed a hand on her chest.

Stretching out her arm Nagisa pulled her Grief Seed out from her chest. She could the distraught and confusion eminating from the gem in between her thighs. Grabbing the gem she hurriedly clinked the two gems together and sipheoned the corruption from Nakano's soul once more. Once she felt the corruption stop growing at an exceptional rate Nagisa handed the cleaned gem back to its rightful owner; she stared at what once was her own Soul Gem before decising to let loose in a spar with her moms later.

"They turn into Grief Seeds - like mine - and transform into witches, the natural end state for all us magical girls. Obviously, since I'm still here with the people that I love, that's a load of shit." She could've sworn she heard her Mother yell 'language' up above them  but she didn't care. What mattered right now was her friend who was holding back even more tears. Oop, no, wait, she was frowning now. Yep, that's a pissed off Nakano if she every saw one!

"If that's the case then why didn't you mention it beforehand?! W-Why did you go amd kill that other Witch from before!? If she was a magical girl then she deserved to live as much as either of us, as anyone else!" Of, and there lies the problem…

"Ka-chan… I'm one of the lucky ones." Handing over her Grief Seed to Nakano, Nagisa prepared herself to lay down the hard truth. "Whenever we turn into a witch, there is a very brief period of time where we can get, reminded of who we once were. If our friends or family help us remember, we become 'domesticated' for lack of a better public term. But there are some of us who don't have people like that, people who cared about us.

"People like who didn't have anyone before? It's a miracle if we even become cognizant of ourselves while we're witches." And wasn't that a thought that plagued her every night? The thought that the only person she could remember before her rebirth as Charlotte was of a meek and shy girl with braids, the girl who was now her honorary aunt and mother figures, could've had and would kill her before even thinking of reaching out after…

She didn't like thinking about it.

"Even then… there are still problems. Sometimes we get days that just… Imagine if you had to relive every shitty little thing that happened to you before you died, and then had to resee all of it over and over and over again. And you feel all of the dark and disgusting things you felt during all of that, and you couldn't control it, couldn't just let it all go… We get days like that where we're nearly full Witch.

And I… I said things to you yesterday… that came from a very real and dark part of me. And… I have a feeling you know exactly what I mean."

She felt her heart be filled with even more guilt from her friend's soul, this dreaded conversation they didn't want to have. God, her family really was fucking cursed, huh?

"...I meant it when I said that I would always stay by your side. I never went back on my word."

"I know you didn't… but that's the shitty thing. I knew that you didn't see in that way like I did you. You mean so much to me Ka-chan, and you still do, but that day… in my labyrinth, I realized something… awful.

"When was the last time I called you something with possesiveness? When was the last time I didn't call you 'MY Ka-chan' or anything like that? When did I start treating you something a thing and not as my friend?"

There was a heavy and awful silence between them now, the birds having gone silent in the trees and the munchkins down the street having had their fill of the outdoors. Twiddling her thumbs together, Nakano looked at the morose girl next to her side, at the disappointed and self-loathing girl that never noticed her poor treatment towards her friend, to the person she loved.

"...I know you never meant to treat me like some sort of prize. I was someone who could give you something you never had. Something you never thought you could ever earn, so you believed you had to take it by force. I get it Nagi-chan."

The surprised and hopeful look on Nagi-chan's face kindled a fire within the Warrior's. Perhaps they can salvage their relationship.

"I may not love you in the same way you love me Nagi-chan, but you're still important to me. I know that I want to stay by your side, and be with you through all the good and bad days. I want to be there with you, by your side as we grow old with the world.

"So! How's about we stick together. Through thick and thin together. After all, I made a promise to stay by your side. I made my wish for your sake too, to help you."

Nagisa's heart was hurt that day, but it slowly mended itself together afterwards, knowing that her friend will still stay by her side, despite it all. Even if she may never feel the same love she has for Nakano be sent her way, it was worth it. Love was worth fighting for, worth living for.

i feel like i could've done more, but I'm content with this. tune in next time when i write another fic in Inbox of Our Own!

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!! HAPPY END WOHOOOOOOOO LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[danco110]

“We agree that life should flourish. We disagree on the optimal number of limbs.”

The Selesnyan elf glanced over at the Simic vedalken who had just spoken. The shaman rolled her eyes. “On that, at least, we can agree.”

“Yeah. But, uh…” The vedalken met the elf’s gaze. “You guys in the Selesnya think it’s four, right? Two arms, two legs?”

“No, twenty- Yes, four!” The elf grew annoyed, but the vedalken only grew more curious.

“Well, the reason I ask is: aren’t some of you guys centaurs?”

The elf’s eyes widened, and she immediately backpedaled. “Uh, well, I was mainly referring to-”

“Also, what about those plant hydra things you use? Phytohydras, you call em, right? They have plenty of limbs to go around.”

“Look, you’re arguing over semantics…”

“Some of your dryads are grown into their trees-”

“All right, I get it!” The elf’s reddened face angrily stared down the scientist. “It was a bad analogy! My deepest apologies!”

The vedalken raised an eyebrow. “A bad analogy? Do you perhaps mean, ‘a biased and insufficient system for determining whether or not a living organism deserves-’”

“That one! Sure! Whatever!” The elf raised a glowing hand. “Look, let’s just cast this spell, okay?”

“Okay, sorry,” the vedalken answered nervously. “But, do you think I have a point?”

The elf conspicuously glanced around to look for any eavesdroppers, and found none. When she finally spoke, her monosyllabic answer was almost silent. “…Yes.”

“Aha!” chimed the vedalken. “So there is some sense in there!”

“Cast spell. Now.”

“Sure thing, partner.” The vedalken prepared to cast the spell while looking over at the elf, and could nearly see the steam emanating from the woman’s pointed ears.