#public dollars belong in public schools

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[scottguy]

A strong public education system is at the heart of a strong economy.

Education isn't charity. It's society making sure we have enough engineers, doctors, researchers, and scientists to help us and to discover and invent things that keep America strong.

Poor education = poverty. Poverty is expensive to taxpayers. Education is cheap in comparison.

The rich want a two class system of "haves" versus "have-nots." But soon that will backfire when there aren't enough educated Americans to fill ALL the crucial jobs.

The wealthy 1% of Americans can't possibly be enough to fill 100% of the highly skilled jobs.

(The rich are so short sighted.)

[nachobsns]

honestly really need to curb my phone addiction and i’ve been looking into dumbphones lately as an alternative for when i’m out and about and like. say what you will about brand consumerism but i am a simple man and the barbie phone is calling to me

[hopeastrz]

AQUARIUS THROUGH THE HOUSES: where you’re rebellious, the most outstanding and peerless individual.⋆🫐⋆𐙚₊˚⊹🪼♡

CHECK OUT SEPTEMBER SALE: fixed price on any and all of my readings 17 DOLLARS only.

Aquarius is the sign of sudden changes, the sign of unpredictably and where we may feel like we don’t belong or have no desire of following the crowd, that’s why we end up getting repelled by that thing, and find ourselves breaking the rules to make our own path.

NOTE: enjoy this post and don’t forget to reblog, thank you for your support, lots of love xoxo!! ₊˚⊹౨ৎ🩵.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 1ST HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° ON THE AC.

You may have felt the need to constantly change yourself, always have something unique going on, either a new hairstyle, haircut and maybe even naturally you have a unique face, you don’t follow the current fashion style, you have a distinctive sense of style and may prefer to wear vintage things from the past like, wear 90s makeup, or you have a keen eye with you spot trends before they even become a thing. you’re also the type to break traditional beauty standards and public image rules, that may be because you’ve been told and maybe even forced from a young age to act a certain way, project a certain persona of yourself or to possess certain mannerisms, that’s why you hate being picture perfect or just ordinary, you seek uniqueness and rebel in being yourself!, (having pluto on 11th or 10th house may cause that)

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 2ND HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 2ND HOUSE.

Very unique way of handling money, you may have grown fed up with your parents perspective of money for example like: ‘you need to hard work for you money,’ or ‘money is so hard to get that’s why we’re financially unstable’, which stirred this untamed desire within you to challenge it and come up with new ideas to get money, you may work a unique source of money and you may love to keep old antiques!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 3RD HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 3RD HOUSE.

You have always felt that you don’t belong in your community, your school (you’ve been unlike your peers, you didn’t follow them, which may have resulted in you being bullied or becoming a loner), or the place you grew up in aka your community and your place on the social pyramid, that’s why you took the matters in your own hands and sooner or later you’ll have this urge to change everything, you may feel this need to climb up your social status which could result in you moving to a rich neighborhood for example, change your environment entirely. You may also be the most unique sibling, they may be your step siblings or you just don’t look like them!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 4TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 4TH HOUSE.

You didn’t want to follow your family’s path for you it seemed, you didn’t want to be like them or you just wanted to be very unique, your mother may have had some expectations for you but you didn’t want to even meet them. This placement may be prominent in the charts of new money wealth makers, you may change your family status drastically, and you may not want to be dependent on them or their resources.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 5TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 5TH HOUSE.

Very distinctive talents, you date the most unique people and maybe even have a very distinctive taste, you go to many underrated artists concerts, visit unique or unknown places during your vacations and also have some real different interests.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 6TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 6TH HOUSE.

You have a unique routine or a specific lifestyle, your parents may have been chaotic, which made you seek discipline in your life, or very strict which made you seek freedom, either way you have a very unique routine in the gym and in your daily life!, also you may have some unique pets and work ethic!, you may be known as the most creative one between your coworkers.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 7TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 7TH HOUSE.

You are uniquely independent, the most distinctive partner, someone who came to break marriages stereotypes of your family or this generation!, you may hate the idea of codependency,having a traditional partner or relationship, which may result in you preferring not to marry at all!, there’s just something about marriages that you see worthless or just unnecessary, and you may prefer to be on your own, your freedom is your one and only love, since you may be traumatized by your own parents marriage. (Scorpio on the 4th house!.)

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 8TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 8TH HOUSE.

Well well, the usual, you may have some unique kinks or sources of income, in other words your job may pay you some money but it won’t be your main source of income, you may know some unique taboo stuff or are interested in some real dark and underrated practices!, you also may be a very unique partner in bed!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 9TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 9TH HOUSE.

You may feel like you don’t belong to your country, the era you are born in or you may feel very close to another culture than your own. Another thing is that you have been living in another country than the one your parents or you were born in!, I’ve seen this placement occur daily with natives who chose to immigrate and save their families or their own future. Also you may studied a very unique, specific major or went to a unique and underrated university.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 10TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 10TH HOUSE.

Your job is unique, and also your reputation, you may have a very weird and almost taboo public image, which may have nothing to do with the real you!, people say the most flabbergasting things about you, and the rumors you may hear about you make you question everything thing seriously from how bizarre they are lmao, also you may have a unique job of career!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 11TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 11TH HOUSE.

You’re the most unique one in your friend group, or you just don’t befriend people who look like you, in my head i pictured a group of friends full of rockstars and then there’s you all sunshine and rainbows lmao. You also may have some very rebellious dreams you chase, things that people may feel like they’re impossible for you to achieve!, like to be a millionaire or billionaire!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 12TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 12TH HOUSE.

You are the most unique when it comes to being spiritual, like these people are the best when it comes to spiritual advice or guidance, your parents may have been so religious or quite the opposite so you had to become spiritual on your own and make your own path, also you guys sleep.. weirdly????, pls stop tossing and turning😭!!.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Uncle Sam paid to develop a cancer drug and now one guy will get to charge whatever he wants for it

Today (Oct 19), I'm in Charleston, WV to give the 41st annual McCreight Lecture in the Humanities. Tomorrow (Oct 20), I'm at Charleston's Taylor Books from 12h-14h.

The argument for pharma patents: making new medicines is expensive, and medicines are how we save ourselves from cancer and other diseases. Therefore, we will award government-backed monopolies – patents – to pharma companies so they will have an incentive to invest their shareholders' capital in research.

There's plenty wrong with this argument. For one thing, pharma companies use their monopoly winnings to sell drugs, not invent drugs. For every dollar pharma spends on research, it spends three dollars on marketing:

https://www.bu.edu/sph/files/2015/05/Pharmaceutical-Marketing-and-Research-Spending-APHA-21-Oct-01.pdf

And that "R&D" isn't what you're thinking of, either. Most R&D spending goes to "evergreening" – coming up with minor variations on existing drugs in a bid to extend those patents for years or decades:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3680578/

Evergreening got a lot of attention recently when John Green rained down righteous fire upon Johnson & Johnson for their sneaky tricks to prevent poor people from accessing affordable TB meds, prompting this excellent explainer from the Arm and A Leg Podcast:

https://armandalegshow.com/episode/john-green-part-1/

Another thing those monopoly profits are useful for: "pay for delay," where pharma companies bribe generic manufacturers not to make cheap versions of drugs whose patents have expired. Sure, it's illegal, but that doesn't stop 'em:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/competition-enforcement/pay-delay

But it's their money, right? If they want to spend it on bribes or evergreening or marketing, at least some of that money is going into drugs that'll keep you and the people you love from enduring unimaginable pain or dying slowly and hard. Surely that warrants a patent.

Let's say it does. But what about when a pharma company gets a patent on a life-saving drug that the public paid to develop, test and refine? Publicly funded work is presumptively in the public domain, from NASA R&D to the photos that park rangers shoot of our national parks. The public pays to produce this work, so it should belong to the public, right?

That was the deal – until Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. Under Bayh-Dole, government-funded inventions are given away – to for-profit corporations, who get to charge us whatever they want to access the things we paid to make. The basis for this is a racist hoax called "The Tragedy Of the Commons," written by the eugenicist white supremacist Garrett Hardin and published by Science in 1968:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/10/01/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-how-ecofascism-was-smuggled-into-mainstream-thought/

Hardin invented an imaginary history in which "commons" – things owned and shared by a community – are inevitably overrun by selfish assholes, a fact that prompts nice people to also overrun these commons, so as to get some value out of them before they are gobbled up by people who read Garrett Hardin essays.

Hardin asserted this as a historical fact, but he cited no instances in which it happened. But when the Nobel-winning Elinor Ostrom actually went and looked at how commons are managed, she found that they are robust and stable over long time periods, and are a supremely efficient way of managing resources:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

The reason Hardin invented an imaginary history of tragic commons was to justify enclosure: moving things that the public owned and used freely into private ownership. Or, to put it more bluntly, Hardin invented a pseudoscientific justification for giving away parks, roads and schools to rich people and letting them charge us to use them.

To arrive at this fantasy, Hardin deployed one of the most important analytical tools of modern economics: introspection. As Ely Devons put it: "If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’"

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Hardin's hoax swept from the fringes to the center and became received wisdom – so much so that by 1980, Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole were able to pass a law that gave away publicly funded medicine to private firms, because otherwise these inventions would be "overgrazed" by greedy people, denying the public access to livesaving drugs.

On September 21, the NIH quietly published an announcement of one of these pharmaceutical transfers, buried in a list of 31 patent assignments in the Federal Register:

https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2023-20487.pdf

The transfer in question is a patent for using T-cell receptors (TCRs) to treat solid tumors from HPV, one of the only patents for treating solid tumors with TCRs. The beneficiary of this transfer is Scarlet TCR, a Delaware company with no website or SEC filings and ownership shrouded in mystery:

https://www.bizapedia.com/de/scarlet-tcr-inc.html

One person who pays attention to this sort of thing is James Love, co-founder of Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit that has worked for decades for access to medicines. Love sleuthed out at least one person behind Scarlet TCR: Christian Hinrichs, a researcher at Rutgers who used to work at the NIH's National Cancer Institute:

https://www.nih.gov/research-training/lasker-clinical-research-scholars/tenured-former-scholars

Love presumes Hinrichs is the owner of Scarlet TCR, but neither the NIH nor Scarlet TCR nor Hinrichs will confirm it. Hinrichs was one of the publicly-funded researchers who worked on the new TCR therapy, for which he received a salary.

This new drug was paid for out of the public purse. The basic R&D – salaries for Hinrichs and his collaborators, as well as funding for their facilities – came out of NIH grants. So did the funding for the initial Phase I trial, and the ongoing large Phase II trial.

As David Dayen writes in The American Prospect, the proposed patent transfer will make Hinrichs a very wealthy man (Love calls it "generational wealth"):

https://prospect.org/health/2023-10-18-nih-how-to-become-billionaire-program/

This wealth will come by charging us – the public – to access a drug that we paid to produce. The public took all the risks to develop this drug, and Hinrichs stands to become a billionaire by reaping the rewards – rewards that will come by extracting fortunes from terrified people who don't want to die from tumors that are eating them alive.

The transfer of this patent is indefensible. The government isn't even waiting until the Phase II trials are complete to hand over our commonly owned science.

But there's still time. The NIH is about to get a new director, Monica Bertagnolli – Hinrichs's former boss – who will need to go before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for confirmation. Love is hoping that the confirmation hearing will present an opportunity to question Bertagnolli about the transfer – specifically, why the drug isn't being nonexclusively licensed to lots of drug companies who will have to compete to sell the cheapest possible version.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/19/solid-tumors/#t-cell-receptors

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[cynicalclassicist]

Why do we think that the GOP hates education?

[lisisdead]

⭐ SPIDER-SONA INTRO ⭐

⭐Lysander Ponomarenko⭐

I will make a post about his younger sister later :D

Here's his lore:

Lysander Ponomarenko is a 15 year old Half Ukrainian half Mexican boy, he grew up without his biological father because he left him at the age of 4. His mother loved him dearly but sadly couldn't spend enough time due of work. Lysander would get bullied at school but he would stand up for him self and got often into fights at school. He was and still is a creative kid, he loves technology, to draw, create stuff out of paper etc... Once he turned 11, his life turned upside down. He went to the grocery store to buy some stuff for his mother, later he came back and saw his mother dead on the floor and some armed men who worked for alchemax were there and a Man sitting on the sofa waiting for him.

Lysander didn't take it well and was about to attack the Man then the armed men grabbed him before he could do anything. Then the Man introduced himself as the CEO of Alchemax and that he is the biological father of Lysander.

Lysander didn't believe it and said that he is lying but it was true, but then he gets knocked out.

Little lab rat

Lysander woke up in a laboratory cell, seeing his father behind the glass, Lysander gets mad and started banging the Glassed window telling him to let him out but his father didn't listen, in fact he didn't care, he needed more people to use as his little lab rats.

His father wanted to experiment with DNA of Spiders... So he did the experiment on Lysander..

The experiments were traumatic for Lysander, he was beaten up a lot, he had to consume lots of scientific substances (mostly of them were drugs too) and Lysander tried escaping many times but failed ...

Freedom

2 years went by, Lysander was a successful experiment. But Lysander wasn't healthy in his mind.. He was Angry, hurt, and tired.. One day Alchemax got set up on fire, and Lysander took this opportunity to run away, and so he did. Then he saw his father getting burned and begged Lysander to help him but Lysander and stood in place watching him burn. Lysander after watching his father die, he ran out of the building and he ran away as fast as he could, but with a few stolen things.. Then his new life started ...

The new Anti Hero.

Lysander got into an alleyway and sat down on the floor, Panting. Then it started raining Lysander looked at a puddle seeing his reflection for the first time in 2 years, he was terrified to see that he has red eyes.. fangs and those nasty scars .. he couldn't go out in public like that! Then out of anger, a web shot onto the wall from his wrist, then he remembered that he has retractable claws on his finger tips and toes from the experiments he went through. He got curious about it and started testing out his abilities. After sometime, Lysander started getting cold, he knows he can't live like he used to.. he needed to hide himself, he also needed steal stuff to survive.. and fight for his life, first he needed to steal some clothes.. Then an idea came in his mind: how about to make a suit to hide himself as he needs.. He started stealing clothes from hot topic and accessories. Later on he found an old basement somewhere in the city, there he found an old sewing machine, he then started making his Spider suit.

After sometime he finishes making his suit, he liked it, then he looks at the desk and saw the things he stole from alchemax, it was a watch thingy that didn't belong to alchemax.. but he found it... and it looks very futuristic.. he decided to test it out later..

On the same night, he put on his Spidey mask and decided to rob a bank as a start for his new life.

He sneaked inside and got a few of good cash but then Black cat appeared, she was the cities hero and she wanted to stop Lysander so they fought.

Lysander lost the fight and escaped but he hid a few dollars in his pockets, and he was proud of it.

A few months later Lysander found the address of his biological father, he wanted to destroy his father's mansion. So at night he snuck inside a window to a random room, the house was very silent until he heard a cry inside the room, he squinted his eyes and saw a 2 year old girl, she looked similar to him..well a little. Lysander picked her up and started comforting her, he looked to his right and saw a picture of his father and his new wife. Lysander was mad, not only his father abandoned him, he also had a family behind his back! Lysander also realised that the little girl is his half sister and only relative left, so he took her under his wing, he later found out that his sisters name is Ileana. He started taking care of her. He had to leave the mansion because he heard the police break in because some neighbor saw Lysander climb up the window, so he left with his new sibling.

Who the hell are you!?

A year later Lysander became the recognisable anti hero. Mostly fighting Heroes sometimes even bad guys.. yada yada yada.. (He was 14 at the time and Ileana 3).

One day Lysander found out about Multiverses and alternative dimensions! Thanks to the watch he found and an idea crossed into his mind... He could destroy every alchemax facilities in every single dimensions... But little did he know about cannon events..

He then tried creating a portal by using the watch and he succeeded then he opened the portal and teleported into an alternative dimension, of course he didn't leave Ileana behind so he took her with him. He teleported into an alleyway, the second he got out, someone attacked him from behind. To Lysander's suprise it was a Guy.. in a Spider-suit?... He never thought there would be more Spider-Men or Women. Lysander pinned the strange spider person and they gave up, and he introduced themselves as Max, he was the one and only Spider-joker here, then they both talked with eachother and Lysander told him about his plan and Max agreed.

A few dimensions later they managed to destroy 5 Alchemax facilities in different universes.

As they 3 got into a different dimension they met another spider person, she swinged to them and asked who they are, Lysander introduced himself, Ileana and Max, the girl was polite and she introduced herself as Agata Rutkowska. The 4 got along and Lysander told Agata his plan and she agreed to the plan. Lysander teleported to a different universe then landed in an alleyway.

Lysander was not paying any attention to Max, Agata and Ileana while they were eating their Bagels they stole from a previous dimension, but then someone teleported behind Ileana, Agata and Max then grabbed them three from behind, dragging them into the portal. Lysander looked back and they were gone, Lysander got scared, he started worrying for his sister, Agata and Max.. then his Spider senses started ringing.. then someone touched his shoulder.

Lysander jumped and looked behind him to see a.. Spider-Man from the future?... he tried to talk with Lysander... but Lysander hit him and started running away.

The Spider-Man was chasing Lysander.

Lysander tried to trick him with his abilities to create illusions and shapeshifting but he wouldn't get tricked, as if he knew what abilities he has..

While being chased the Spider-Man wanted to pin Lysander into the wall but he accidentally scratched his eye with his Talon, traumatising Lysander.. He didn't mean to but Lysander ran away..

A few hours later Lysander got into a dead end in a forest and he started hiding from the Spider man.. but he got caught.. the mans mask retracted, Lysander couldn't see his face properly but before he knew it the Spiderman bit his upper arm and paralysed Lysander and he gets knocked out. The Spiderman immediately took care of Lysander wounds, feeling bad for what he did .. the Spider-Man picked up Lysanders unconscious body and summoned the portal and brought him into the Spider society..

Where am I?...

A few hours later Lysander woke up in a electric field cage and saw The Spider-Man from before standing Infront of him without his mask, He introduced himself as Miguel O'Hara and that he doesn't mean any harm to Lysander but Lysander didn't listen and started screaming, hissing trying to break out from the cage, Miguel tried to lecture him but it didn't work. Lysander started yelling at him, asking where his sister was. Miguel sighed and called Jessica drew to bring Ileana here and a few minutes later Ileana ran to Lysanders cage and hugged the cage (because she couldn't hug Lysander since he's inside the cage). Lysander calmed down but was still glaring at Miguel.. Lysander asked Miguel if he could talk to his Friends, Miguel sighed and agreed. Miguel brought Lysander to the go home machine, where Max and Agata were about to go there. They chatted for awhile but then, Max and Agata got sent back to their own dimensions....

Later, Miguel started lecturing Lysander about cannon events and even told him on how he broke a cannon once and ended up loosing his daughter, Lysander didn't listen for the most part but felt a bit bad about the daughter (Gabriella, Miguel's deceased daughter).

A month later Lysander managed to break out from the cage and silently to escape, after he ran out he was surprised to see a futuristic dimension and a place with plenty Spider people.. then Lysander started running away but he didn't manage to get too far because Miguel picked him up from behind. Lysander glared and took out his claws, Miguel didn't budge because he himself has talons and could damage Lysander pretty hard. Lysander didn't gave up and started kicking Miguel and yelling to put him down and called him an old hag many and many times but Miguel ignored him and brought him back into his lab and locked him back in. But that didn't stop Lysander for trying to escape, he tried it 3 times but failed miserably.

A few weeks while being inside the cage he was staring at Miguels monitors out of boredom (his cage was placed in a corner of his lab but close enough to see Miguel's monitors), He saw a Video of Miguel and his Daughter playing foot ball, and more videos of them spending time like father and daughter would.. Miguel was happy and the girl too... then something clicked in Lysanders mind, This was an actual fatherly relationship, that Lysander never got.. Lysander started sobbing silently.. feeling bad a little about Miguel for loosing his kid... but he also finally saw an actual fatherly relationship that he never received... Lysander started looking at Miguel a bit differently.. he started seeing him a father in Miguel the more he knew him.. but Lysander can't tell him that... He's afraid of rejection...

Another year later.... (Present time)

Lysander is now 15 (Ileana is now 4). He is apart of the Spider society now. He does missions sometimes and he can finally come back to his dimension whenever he wants or his sister.

Miguel took also Ileana under his wing aswell. Lysander likes being in the HQ.. He met different spider people, He is a bit distant from them but would allow himself to talk with them sometimes. He still likes doing trouble, and sometimes even annoy Miguel to the point where he starts beating his ass up. Miguel started teaching Ileana some Spanish, Ileana likes Miguel and calls him Papá, unlike Lysander, who's scared of getting rejected.. Miguel also started mentoring Lysander, and training him to fight better! He also reunited with his old friends.

Lysander upgraded his suit, by adding more accessories and painting his top and adding more upgrades to his pants.

While Lysander was minding his own business or training, his hair, especially his bangs would block his view and it would annoy Lysander. Miguel noticed that, and he called Lysander to his Lab. Lysander came and Miguel sat him down on a chair, Lysander was confused and asked Miguel what he was doing until he saw Scissors in Miguels hand. Miguel told Lysander that he will cut Lysanders hair. Lysander was skeptical about this and didn't trust Miguel doing that, but knew it was the only way to get rid of the annoying bangs, so he gave in, and Miguel started cutting Lysander's hair. A few minutes later Miguel finished and he gave Lysander the mirror and Lysander was surprised that Miguel didn't fail.

Lysander is now Living a better Life...

Lysander's age is 15!

Lysander's birthday is at 01/08/****

His Anti hero name is: Spider-Man (or Bloody silk)

He is Half Ukrainian half Mexican! (Is mostly on Ukrainian side)

He has a small crush on Felicia Hardy (the black cat from his dimension) but doesn't show it.

He is based of myself IRL mostly about my feelings, hobbies and a bit more.

His design is Based of Clawdeen wolf, inspired by Miguel O'Hara.

He hates Fish (just like me)

His favourite foods are mostly Ukrainian foods.

His favourite colours are: Red and Black.

He speaks Ukrainian, English, German but doesn't know much of Spanish since his father never taught him, but knows some phrases and cusswords.

Lysander's hobbies are: Drawing, Painting, making graffiti, making technology, Crafting, cooking/baking, swimming, fighting and stuff he finds interesting (mostly hobbies of creativity).

The Pins on his backpack were made by himself, yes ofc he added V2 because it's his favourite character in ultrakill.

Lysander is analytic.

He speaks in a vulgar language (curses a lot).

He is aggressive.

His Abilities are: Shapeshifting, Illusion manipulation, changing his voice, Claws, Fangs (they only get venomous when he sucks blood), good vision, hearing and smell, Spider sense, Intelligence, organic webs and immortality.

Lysander has to drink blood (he is NOT a vampire, spiders drink blood or juices from their victim), or else he might faint or feel aggressive due of need of blood. By drinking blood he also gains his venom.

His venom is emerald colour.

He can make spider noises (like purring and hissing)

His Pupils and iris Dilate (grow big) when ever he is excited or scared. And they can shrink when he's mad or scared.

He is also sensitive to sunlight, his eye white gets red and he tears up.

Lysander got muscles after training a lot.

He hates anime (JS like me)

Lysander adores the game ULTRAKILL (V2 is his favourite) and is addicted to the game, he even owns a V2 plushie.

He comes from the same timeline as us, he is also in a lot of fandoms like Ultrakill, Fnaf, murder drones, mouthwashing etc..

In his Spotify playlist, there's lots of his favourite Songs and some songs define Lysander and his story and his feelings.

He sneaks out often from the Spider society HQ and likes making graffities talking bad stuff about his biological father.

He can finally sleep properly there in the Spider society.

When he was 5 he wanted to be Emo and to this day he still is one.

He took Dr*gs like Alco*ol and w**d because he's immortal and he thought he could do whatever he wants since he's immortal in addition he was in an awful depression.

He has a long coat to keep him warm.

He sometimes paints his hair.

The reason Miguel is more nicer with Lysander is because he found out about Lysander's dimension and he learned a lot about him without Lysander knowing it, and still keeps it a secret.

Lysander gets jealous easily.

Lysander rarely smiles.

In his dimension some of the Heroes in Marvel stories are Villains and some of the Villains from marvel stories are heroes. And most of them are Emo.

Lysander comes from earth 2320

He has ADHD and PTSD (due to trauma)

He claims himself as the anti hero version of Spider-Man.

He is afraid of Spiders and gets disgusted by his own web.

He paints his claws black sometimes.

Lysander has a piercing and wears a golden earring to match Ileana.

He still continues making trouble and sometimes saves people.

He steals food very often from the Spider society's cafeteria.

He has a younger half sister Ileana!

Lysander loves swinging around the city with his younger sister

Miguel does take Lysander and Ileana out to the Mall.

Ileana calls Miguel "Papá" unlike Lysander, he is still afraid of calling him that, if he did, he could get very emotional and start crying since he is scared of rejection.

Lysander would always comfort Ileana when she gets a nightmare.

If Gabriella (Miguel's deceased daughter) would be alive he'd treat her as his own sister.

Lysander is still grieving from his mothers death, and can't stop looking at a photo of him and her.

[othernaut]

Character Creation Challenge, Day 16: Thirsty Sword Lesbians

You ever find yourself on Aphrodite's Subway Car? I'll do my best to explain.

It doesn't have to be in the literal subway, but you have to be in public, and you have to be at least kind of trapped. Aphrodite can bless a theater, a lecture hall, and you're just going to have to deal with it. The curse begins, as all curses do, with you noticing there's a curse in the first place. Going, fuck, everyone's hot - it's only going to get worse from there.

I sat down and there they were, three girls going somewhere they needed to cosplay. Multicolored vinyl, articulated tails and ear-tips. They'd lean close, fix each other's makeup. Clawboots squelching on the tile. Fuck, I'd think, it's not fair, but it just keeps going. Rain-flecked retro-goth in a full lace skirt and inadequate umbrella, sopping the droplets off her shoulders with a cloth handkerchief. Clean-shaven silver fox in a tailored black peacoat keeping firm verbal command on a pair of leashed, shark-mouthed wolfhounds. Comfortable be-sweaterevested creature curled up with their knees by their ears, reading a college textbook and smiling helplessly at the confirmation of secret things. Simple little things, unassuming and quiet, who through the endearing reflection of their soulful eyes gazing out of the subway windows evoke a beauty that can be neither denied nor withstood.

And me, in an old t-shirt, with a bit of a paunch, with my three moving boxes on an autotrolley and a head full of increasingly uncontainable gremlin thoughts. Fuck me, I need to figure out this bisexual thing.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I care so much. I can never just enjoy a good thing, like a subway car full of hot people. I am the centering factor. I'm always discordant, obviously so, like if the disco ball dropped onto the dance floor and, whoops, it's full of warm custard.

The subway lets me out at Mayrose and I exit the underground into another place I don't belong. Leon's place is in one of those nice parts of town. The too-nice parts of town. There are joggers. First thing I'm confronted by is a little corner bar selling caffeine-free organic energy shots printed with you-can-do-it affirmations. The charming streetside cafes don't have dollar signs on their menu, everything is in italics, a plate full of olives is 33, I don't belong here, I don't belong here, I don't belong here and everyone can tell.

There's a twitch, a rotation of the steel-wafer plates along my right arm. My blayde, linked to biometrics, senses a cortisol spike and is readying for sword reconfiguration. I try to calm down. I keep my eyes focused on the snack wrappers and cigarette butts in the gutter, the ones they haven't gotten to yet. I follow the AR map without looking up at the street. Three more blocks to Leon's. That'll be a whole other situation, won't it? I've never even met Leon in real life, and -

I used to be better. It's been like this ever since they shut down the manga cafe.

I used to hang out there in high school, but I only started living there when I dropped out. It was the only place in Neon that had a Japanese setup, meaning that instead of having everyone in a common area with a shared desk, you could rent private rooms. They had a vending machine with all the ramen flavors you couldn't get over here, sake sometimes, weed sometimes. The restaurant next door had a promotion where you could order from the PCs and they'd deliver right to your room. And the prices were cafe prices, not hotel prices. You could lock your door, share a bathroom, sleep in there for nine bucks a night. I paid more for my dorm room and it made me want to kill myself.

Yeah, if you listened, you could hear it. The other people. It's a city, there's going to be other people. But the VPC in my blayde linked up with the PC at the cafe and let me play my own games without needing to scrabble around for environmental processing. I could sink into other worlds, where I was someone else, where I had figured everything out already and interact with others on my own terms. I could tailor what I looked like, block people and never have to see them again, dream privately in the public square. I could do it for over a year, actually, until MC Development bought the entire retail block and jacked the rents to an unaffordable level.

Leon's house was nice, congruent with the others, had a side entrance. He meets me with his boyfriend in the kitchen and hugs me, big and loud. Immediate mimosas, gossip, hour and a half of furry drama as my moving boxes wheel themselves downstairs to the room I would be borrowing until I figured this shit out. The room was clearly a mother-in-law suite, sponge paint pink, untouched since Leon inherited the place. He invites me out to the bars that night; telling him I just want to settle in takes every watt of social battery I have left.

Before Leon, I'd been crashing with Marin. She was welcoming, too, but she worked weird hours, liked to bring people back from work, and only had a couch to share. I'd be sitting in the living room, still in my pajamas, trying to get some job done while she was flirting with a co-worker in the kitchen. Before Marin, I'd been... scrounging, quite a bit. Some hotels, they stopped hiring receptionists, did all their booking either online or through this vending machine thing, and you could finesse those. They'd contract out their cleaning on one-week gig cycles, so if you got in at the right time, you could stay for six days free and no one would know. But if the manga cafe was precarious, this was actively teetering. There's feeling like you don't belong somewhere and then there's literally squatting.

Leon talks me out to the bars anyway. The obligation isn't something explicitly stated, but I can feel it tight around my throat. It's a basement place, gay as shit, cheap drinks, loud music. Leon introduces me around, but he sees an old boyfriend and is immediately back into the furry drama, leaving me alone with my drink and my blayde. It's so, so good here and I feel so, so bad for wanting to be anywhere else.

There's a girl at the bar, big and tall, wrapped in biker leathers. She's got a forelock done in that responsive smart-dye; it changes color with the RGB along the edge of her neon claymore. She sees me staring off into the middle distance. Smiles with lips painted the color of wet asphalt. Dips a tongue into her drink and takes a sip. I die and explode and am reformed in an infinite cycle of unmaking and remaking. I love you. I have always loved you. I wish I was just playing video games.

Back in the manga cafe, they had these games pre-loaded onto their PCs, and I said fuck it and started an account on Heaven's Hollow. It was overwhelming at first, a Korean-style MMO where numbers fly at you all the time, contextless, and you get alerts every two minutes when someone buys a hundred-dollar microtransaction or hits a major achievement. Leon and Marin were some of the first people to take me in, actually, showing me where to grind, how to improve, what things meant. It was a good game, everyone said. It'd get easier, and before I knew it, it'd feel just like home.

Fuck. I hope these things are universal, or... what? Nothing will ever feel like home. I need to figure this shit out. I need to have it all make sense. I need that stupid, hot biker lady to stop smiling at me before my heart bursts in my chest.

I will sit with my drink and my terror and wait to be someone else.

*****

Name: Mox Radium Playbook: Techno Witch Setting: Neon City 2099 Archetype: Turbo-Isolated Hyper-Weeb Aesthetics: Reserved demeanor, secondhand clothes, modular transforming sword.

Stats: Daring +0, Grace +1, Heart +0, Wit +1, Spirit +1 Playbook Trait: Curiosity (Socializing is new to me, and the only way I know to learn is by doing. Select four Trials, clearing a Condition, marking XP, or taking a String on someone involved if I complete one, then striking it through. When I complete all four, reflect on what I've learned and pick four more; if I complete them all, contemplate whether my character's story has ended.) Trials: Throw away something comfortable to pursue a dream Kiss someone dangerous Experience an altered state with a friend Shock someone with an unwelcome truth

Playbook Moves: Techno Friends: I can speak with machines, code, and the built environment and may influence them with Strings like other NPCs. Near my home, or anyplace I have spent a long period of time, techno friends are always there if I need them. Familiar: I have a small machine as my loyal familiar. I can always connect with it and perceive the world through its senses. When my familiar helps with Defy Disaster or Emotional Support, take +1 to my roll. Familiar: Tiny Gundam. Awaken the World: When I am in a safe place and attempt to commune with a place or non-sentient machine, roll +Spirit. On a 10+, I choose one; on a 7-9, I choose one but the GM will offer me a hard choice or success at a cost: Cleanse it of hurt, corruption, or sickness; Alter its behavior, ecosystem, or atmosphere to one of my choice; Make it dangerous to a certain person or creature, or a type of person or creature. If I do this while rushed, or have three or more Conditions, it works for a time, but later becomes broken and ruined.

Truths of Heart and Blade Love Conquers All: When I become Smitten with someone, say why, give them a String, and answer: What is a clear challenge to being with them that I'm overlooking because of my naivete? Clear-Hearted Insight: When I Figure Out a Person during physical conflict, I may additionally ask one of the following questions, even on a 6-: What makes you feel loved? What do you hope for the future?

*****

I think I've got a curse.

I got Thirsty Sword Lesbians through one of those itch.io mega-bundles for charity (I actually think I got it off of two of them, now that I think about it). I went, "Neat!" and promptly did nothing at all with it because there are more RPGs for me to appreciate than moments within my limited human lifespan. Between then and now, though, I've heard it absorb a lot of praise. It's got some Ennies under its belt; it seems to tell the sort of story that gets a lot of people very happy.

And yet, I am cursed. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a romance-fighting Powered by the Apocalypse game built to promote that specific sort of tension where swords clash and passions burn, where the will-they-won't-they becomes as much about kissing as it does about stabbing. It's very, very good about building up this kind of moment, actually, and about baking in the kind of enthusiastic consent and willing, uncoerced buy-in that this sort of things needs in order to be successful and healthy to run as a game.

And it's just... not for me.

I think this came through a little bit in the fiction, how I can appreciate Thirsty Sword Lesbians for what it's trying to do while acknowledging that it is, fundamentally, not my cup of tea. It makes excellent use of PbtA to tell precisely the stories it wants to tell - cool, I don't like PbtA. It's a joyful celebration of romance within a genre that frequently has either nothing to do with romance or problematic interactions only - cool, I don't like romance. It's like a Clamato caesar, beautifully assembled out of flavors that don't appeal to me, for a palate I will never possess.

Which dovetails into the gay stuff, actually, and becomes the part where I need to make some sort of social commentary. Because there was this creeping unease I got when reading through Thirsty Sword Lesbians that, once pinned down, resolved as a lesser version of the lack of connection I feel with a lot of LGBT+ spaces. I mean, I'm here, bi as the sky is high, but a lot of the more public and community-oriented ways to engage with that bi-ness takes the form of things I just have no interest in. I don't want to go to a parade with half a million people, actually, and I may die if I'm made to. I don't want to flirt with strangers, go to bars, or get insulted at a drag show. I don't want to read gay romance novels, and this has nothing to do with the gay part, the romance genre just doesn't click with me. I'm glad that you found a cool lesbian indie pop star to enjoy, I just don't like pop music.

And you can't help but kind of question your belonging like this. Bisexuality already has this weird, fraught connotation to a lot of people, and mixing that in with my usual, "How about I just play video games, bisexually?" situation amplifies this feeling of being an outsider even among the outsiders. People do try to welcome me, pull me in, introduce me to all the things I've missed, but the format this takes is usually exactly the thing I don't click with. There's nothing that feels quite the same flavor of bad as having to turn down people who want to genuinely engage with you because the goblins in your brain would rather go on a foraging hike. A bisexual foraging hike.

I feel like I'm making myself sad for no reason, and I don't want to, as this is a genuinely good game and it can tell excellent stories, just... not for me. And this isn't exclusion, nor is it seclusion, but a secret third thing that I don't have a name for yet. I want people to have fun with their toys. I'll just... I'll just be over here, playing with my complex stat tables. Don't worry, I'm still having fun.

Next up: JRR Tolkien, save me from ludonarrative ambiguity.

[tiredlittlewriter]

High & Low 🧡🧡Sannoh Rengokai Headcanons🧡🧡 for the main 6 + Naomi some happy, some sad

Remember: These are my own hcs and you don't need to agree with me! Just don't be rude or I'll make fun of you♡ I love my Sannoh Boys

Cobra🧡

- Constantly tired, but a happy tired now that the whole Kuryu thing is over

- Can do a handstand for 30 seconds

- Hates carrots unless Naomi mixes them really really well into whatever he's eating

- Speaking of food :[ has trouble eating anything he doesn't make himself or made by Naomi and even then... Yamato has to make sure he eats or sometimes he won't

- Passed out from that more times than he would like to admit

- Definitely undiagnosed depression. He doesn't think anything is wrong with wanting to self-sacrifice himself all the time. Noboru checks up on him anyway

- Cried when Smoky died (not in public though, someone needed to be strong)

- A great singer but only sings when he's drunk at karaoke

- Member of the alphabet mafia, which letter? Don't worry about it

◇◇

Yamato🧡

- A big baby, cries at movies

- Would clap at the end of a flight

- Empathy king!! Whenever someone is going through something he knows how to comfort them or give pretty bad (or good) advice

- Everyone in Sannoh respects women ofc but Yamato walks the girls of the Sannoh area home if need be. His big frame comes in handy

- Bumps his head on things

- Massively protective over Noboru and Chiharu. He sees them as one in the same sometimes, loves them a lot

- Despite all of the Mugen/Amamiya beef being squashed, he and Hiroto spar every now and then

- Doesn't drink a lot (only a social drinker) because he's afraid of being addicted to something the way his mom is pachinko

- Absolutely no way he didn't have a crush on Cobra for at least a little bit. I mean. Come on

- Alphabet mafia amen

◇◇

Noboru🧡

- Most normal Sannoh member (this does not mean much)

- Would probably try to go back to law school, he'd want to learn how to protect S.W.O.R.D on a different front

- Has nightmares about the day he found his gf. He's moved on from the event but the way he saw her stuck with him

- A ball of anxiety

- Sucks at cooking

- Knits when he's stressed (has a lot of scarves would you like one please take one he has too many)

- Semi-speaks English

- Works at a nearby library

- Forced Chiharu to get his GED

◇◇

Dan🧡

- mmm I don't have very many but

- A pretty solid painter, painted the sign for his shop

- Joined Sannoh because he felt like he felt that he finally had a place to belong

- Doesn't have that much family

- 2nd best cook of the Sannoh boys (Cobra is first best but not by much)

- Owner of at plenty Noboru Anxiety Scarves and puts the ones he doesn't want up for sale in his shop

- Plays the lottery and won 100 dollars once (spent it on Sannoh and never told them)

◇◇

Tetsu🧡

- Adhd all the way babey

- Oya High alumni (tell no one)

- Has at least 2k followers on insta

- Keeps airing Sannoh's business on socmed 😭😭

- Jailbroke an iPhone once before forgetting how to do it

- Is religious (not one of Those Types) and prayed for S.W.O.R.D whenever they had major fights

- Goes to Nameless City to help rebuild and bring food incognito (Rude Boys just pretend they don't see him)

- He's cringe so he probably has had a crush on the same girl since middle school

- Likes to scrapbook

- Stays watching horror movies

- PDA King if ur in Sannoh you've hugged him at least 10 times within the month

- Lowkey bumps to the Mighty Warriors music on Spotify

◇◇

Chiharu🧡

- After officially squashing the beef with Furuya, they got along as well as you can when it is Big Loud Angry Guy and Please Don't Guy

- Can and will eat you out of house and home

- Works part time at Yamato's shop

- Giving him the highest honour I can bestow (Trans)

- Told Sannoh and cried and then Yamato cried cause Chiharu was crying and Tetsu decided that was the best time for a selfie with everyone's ugly ass cries

- Kizzy probably knows

- Although not the sharpest tool in the shed he's really good at puzzles and riddles

- He's never really forgiven himself for betraying S.W.O.R.D

- Lightest of the boys, Cobra has thrown him before

- Considers them his family, since his own kinda gave up on him after dropping him at Oya

♡♡

Naomi🧡🩷

- "I am not a nurse" she says as giving stitches to her boys

- She's a certified women kisser idc argue with the waaaaallll

- Really loves her boys no matter how mean she is to them

- She's a Sannoh girl, of course she knows how to fight a bit

- She knew she couldn't go up against the White Rascals but if someone tried to rob Itokan all they'd be leaving with is an ass whooping

- Keeps trying new styles with her hair, did a side shave

- Probably has an infinity tattoo for her brother

- Has a custom made motorbike

- Forget Sannoh being protective of Naomi, Naomi is protective of her hoodlums and will in fact talk mad shit to anyone who disrespected them

- Has a running tab for each gang that happens to eat there, White Rascals has the lowest one because Rocky always pays + a nice tip and Oya has the highest because they have 5 dollars between the entire school

[confessions-official]

So in 8th grade (22-23 school year) I applied to this local private high school that was very neurodivergent-, disability- and queer-friendly. I got in and I got almost a full ride scholarship, we would have to pay a couple thousand dollars but my dad was getting a pay increase and my grandma has some money so it all worked out!

And then the school fuckin closed.

Deadass they were just like “yeah we lost an investor there’s nothing you can do we know it’s too late to apply to other private schools you’re on your own sorry.” I now attend a public high school where I hear the r slur repeated regularly and only once have I heard someone push back against its use (shoutout to my algebra teacher).

I go to the wikipedia page for my county, city and neighborhood somewhat often. I ended up going to the “education in [city]” part of the city’s page. And it still listed the school as a private high school, right next to other active private high schools.

I had a totally normal response to this, and like a non-spiteful, non-hating bitch created a wholeass wikipedia account to add a comment regarding the school’s closure to the talk about the page. I had never done this before and it took some work but by god I fucking did it.

I’m still really pissed about the school shutting down and I’m probably always going to be pissed about it. Because it was this place that said “we’ll accept you, we want you to succeed” and meant it genuinely, and you could fucking SEE it in the school environment because the kids there were nice. Probably because they had also been treated awfully by students at previous schools for some part of their identity and they didn’t want other people to have the same experience. And then suddenly the school was like “actually, never mind” and really didn’t help at all. Just kinda threw us to the wolves. That’s not going to be able to go on the actual wikipedia page and I know that the school shutting down wasn’t on purpose to make me feel bad about myself but I do kind of feel like that. Not because “ugh I have to go to school with the regular low born common folk” or whatever but I hear the r slur used constantly. Nobody says anything. It’s never brought up. The school will talk about being discrimination free and everybody belongs there, but you know what? I’ve heard people being incredibly racist towards Black people and nobody does shit about that either. So I guess it’s just fuck you no matter what kind of minority group you belong to.

Anyway. People irl don’t seem to understand me but I figure on Tumblr someone will. I’m just very tired.

 

[partisan-by-default]

Public Dollars Belong in Public Schools (facebook):

Things that didn’t kill kids today: *Books *Drag Queens *Pronouns

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[sailorsally]

Misha attended Northfield Mount Hermon school in Massachusetts. A very fancy (expensive) prep school. But Misha only went there on a local poor kid scholarship, he didn't pay. And it was from eighth or ninth grade onward, so he would've been at least 12 or 13 before he experienced the wealthy side of New England life. He's said that he met Darius there when he was 12 (and Vicki there when he was 15) and Darius used to bring an extra lunch to school for Misha because Misha didn't have much to eat. Darius also gave Misha clothes because he didn't have much in that regard either. Prior to getting that scholarship, Misha and his little brother and mom were homeless, living in a tent in the woods at one point, in an office with no windows at another. Misha and Sasha attended various public elementary schools. As I understand it, Misha also got a scholarship to study at the University of Chicago after high school. But he did also say that he and Vicki were "hundreds of thousands" of dollars in debt before he got the gig on Supernatural (much of that I assume was student debt, as they both got BA's from UofC and Vicki went on to do a Masters and PhD too. Expensive!) The White House internship was also unpaid (until 2022 when Pres Biden signed a new spending bill that set aside money to pay WH interns. But when Misha did his internship in the 90s it was unpaid.) I don't think he met his (very rich) friend Phillip until after college, sometime in his 20s.

yeah, this makes sense (even if I have no idea who Philip is). idk if you are the same anon from the earlier ask but everything you wrote just confirms Misha didn't grow up wealthy. Going to a fancy private school isn't the same as being rich. I think Misha's college diary shows very well what his attitude to those rich privileged kids was like at the time. He certainly didn't feel like he belonged with them in any way.

[happyinjection]

HC Novel ♦️7 Never No Dollars “Pre flop ~Prologue~”

People sometimes ask me about the appeal of collecting antiques. Personally, I believe it is merely a hobby, but at the same time it’s also my life’s work that I can’t stop doing.

It is difficult to put it into words, but the greatest value of an item lies in the spirit, or perhaps we can also call it the energy, of said item’s creator or successive owners which resides in it. In a way, it contained condensed history. The concept is not plausible by those with lower education or class.

Antique collectors are countless in number. Most of them are those who are considered to be rich.

On the surface, I’m the headmaster of Rummy College, a prestigious private boarding school for boys in Fourland Kingdom. However, in the end, I work under the board of directors. So I don’t get paid that much.

Antiques are made to be unique. If you miss the chance to acquire an item once, the next opportunity will only come when the wealthy owner dies and their family sorts out their belongings, or when they lose their mind and give it away for charity, or when they go bankrupt. When such an opportunity comes, usually the price has soared high.

Therefore, in order to compete with other antique collectors from around the world, it is necessary for me to form a few underworld connections. Even so, I’m first and foremost a teacher, hence I won’t take part in their terrible deeds. That said, I have no control over the happenings without my knowledge. I simply use money or some other convenience in exchange for antiques I want to get my hands on.

I’m talking about “the cards”.

At a glance, they seem to be no more than trump cards of somewhat good quality. However, the truth is there is no antique more valuable than these cards in the entire Fourland Kingdom. Their rarity, lore, and even purpose—they are all surpassed by none. I paid a fair price for the risk, thankfully the broker was an idiot and agreed to seal the deal.

In this Kingdom of Fourland, we have a folklore—or perhaps a myth is a better word. Every citizen must have heard of it from their parents or grandparents in their bed when they were children, and listening to it they would fall asleep peacefully.

In other words, everyone knows about the cards, yet only a few are aware that they actually exist. Isn’t that romantic?

—Fourland Kingdom as we know it is a nation made up of four states. In the past, when this place had not yet earned its name but was instead called Trapla Island, the four states were separate countries and were repeatedly in conflict with each other. Combined with the invasion of foreign enemies, the four states were at the edge of destruction.

During such a time, a figure stood to prominence, a boy who would eventually become the first king of Fourland and his 52 knights.

The boy alongside the 52 knights fought with all their might to unite the four nations. Unfortunately, the knights lost their lives in the midst of their battle.

It was then Lala Waldenklein[*] demonstrated her powers. Lala is a mage who accompanied and led the boy to become the first king. She magically transformed the souls of the fallen knights into cards and gave them to the boy who survived. With the cards and supernatural powers at his disposal, he splendidly defeated his enemies.

—Such is the folklore in essence. It gave rise to the publication of a lot of thick fantasy novels, but not many were interested in reading them.

The number of cards is equal to the number of knights, as there is one for each. Since the number of cards matches, those cards are said to be the origin of trump card games in the Fourland Kingdom.

Although they appear to be nothing more than ordinary trump cards, the cards grant supernatural abilities to those whom they have chosen to be their holders, rumors say.

It seems that some people have started calling these cards the “X-Playing Cards”.

The existence of X-Playing Cards would confirm the existence of the supernatural powers they hold. If possible I want to see it with my own eyes.

Long story short—I’ve managed to acquire two cards.

Still, to prove whether or not they are the real deal is easier said than done. The day after I got my hands on them, I put the two cards on the large table in the headmaster’s office, and while leaning back into my leather chair I stared at them in utmost admiration.

The cards would never get damaged. I’ve tried to fold them and set them on fire, but in the end they continue to reflect the light like a mirror.

I left the windows open. The grids of anti-intruder bars were decorated with a pattern of lions which can also be found on the grassy fields of Rummy College. After I was appointed to be the headmaster, I had started displaying my collections here, so the bars were only recently installed. Through the gaps, a cool breeze was blowing.

Someone knocked on the door. It’s true that I had scheduled a meeting with the vice headmaster. 

“Come in,” I responded, and the door flew open.

I felt a particularly strong gust of wind. Had the cards not been right in front of me, I wouldn’t have minded the wind at all, because nothing would get blown away.

—Before I knew it, there was only one card remaining on the table, while the other had vanished without a trace.

For a split second, when he caught my distraught expression, the incompetent vice headmaster whose only talent was to lick my shoes appeared to be very afraid for his life.

I burst out laughing. But it wasn’t because I saw the hilarious reaction of the vice headmaster.

The cards were created from the souls of the 52 fallen knights. They were made using the mage Lala’s supernatural abilities. So if the cards can also magically disappear, isn’t that just one wonder among many others?

I still had one card in my possession, so there was nothing to be down about. 

The cards are by no doubt real. That knowledge alone had brought me immeasurable happiness.

♠️♥️♦️♣️

TL notes: I’m not a professional translator so feel free to tell me if you spot any errors! Please do not repost this translation anywhere. In the case of any problem occuring in the future, I may take down this post. Also bear in mind that I’ll be updating at a suuuper slow pace. [*] I might not spell her surname right, will fix it once the official comes out.

[sophieswundergarten]

Sophie's really bad and also currently incomplete "Summary" of The Sofa Book

@nobody33333333 Here you go

I'm putting this under the cut because Moth said he might want to read it at some point. Everyone else is welcome to my insanity.

Also, fair warning, because I'm really bad at summarizing things so there's going to be a lot of touch and go with how detailed this is

I found this book in a bargain book bin several years ago in a local grocery store and my mother bought it for me because I thought it looked interesting.

I was right.

But it is also so many other things.

And it has an unprecedented number of references to other media, namely The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and A Wrinkle in Time, by my count

So, there's these three kids: River, Freak, and Fiona. River's parents died in a car crash, when he was little, and that also gave him a limp. River arrives at the bus stop one day to find a sofa just. Sitting there. (It is worth noting that the sofa is coloured similarly to Mr. Benedict's green suit. And that there is a possible bloodstain on one of the cushions)

River's friend Freak is sitting on the sofa, and soon their other friend Fiona shows up. Fiona is the only one of the trio to have a phone, but she also refuses to be seen with the boys in public because "girls mature faster than boys and [she] really [needs] to be with people [her] own age" and she tells the boys not to take it personally, it's just that emotionally the boys are both six.

Fiona's a lot of fun.

She also constantly wears very strange outfits with extremely clashing colours. No one mentions this to her.

So, the kids deduce that the couch probably belonged to "old man Underhill" since it's technically outside his driveway. Fiona suggests looking for loose change in-between the cushions. They find a peanut shell, a gum wrapper, a plaid sock, a weird coin that has two different people's heads and words in an unknown alphabet, a green crayon labeled "ZUCCHINI", and a fishhook that River discovers because he jams his hand into the couch and gets stabbed.

They save all of these things "for posterity", which is a good thing because Fiona then finds out that there are collectors out there who will pay a lot of money for it so she sets up an online auction.

Background information that is important: The town they live in (Cheshire) backs up to a coal-seam fire wasteland called Hellsboro, which has been burning for twelve years and was caused by some kind of accident at the Rodmore Chemical plant, the abandoned building at the center of Hellsboro. The three kids are the only people who live in the houses near Hellsboro, and the rest of the city is several miles away.

Also, phones and other technology are sold by the company Disin Tel, and basically every food is made by Agra Nation. And there are huge town-wide flash mobs that happen every so often, which the participants deny ever happening. This is a common argument with the kids as Fiona takes part in the flash mobs and the boys are annoyed she keeps pretending it never happened.

The crayon auction has now jumped to over seven thousand dollars, and the kids are freaking out. The bidding war is between GORLAB and Alecto, but River points out that technically they don't own the crayon, and should check with Mr. Underhill first.

They end up speaking to him through a speaker in the front gate of the Underhill house, at which point we discover that this man is, in fact, not Mr. Underhill. Mr. Underhill died at age 97 in a tobogganing accident. This guy is named Alf.

They mention that they found the crayon in the sofa, to which Alf replies "Oh, that sofa. I was wondering where it had gotten to. I didn't realize if was missing until yesterday even when I tried to sit down. Imagine my surprise."

Alf also references the fact that his pneumatic mail slot apparently ate the mailman's hand, but that's not relevant.

Alf suggests they meet after the kids get out of school to discuss the mattter (Dropping a few very specific details about the kids' lives that he has no way of knowing), and the kids agree.

River gets back to the gate early, and takes a nap on the sofa. He has a very strange dream involving his irritated and pedantic English teacher wearing a suit made out of the sofa upholstery. This is not, in fact, his English teacher, but rather "the sofa's spokesperson".

There is then a very confusing explanation about a place called "Indorsia" that is described as being like a landscape "on the inside surface of a giant, hollow sphere", which is where the sofa's from.

The sofa is a piece of "smart furniture", which means it "keeps itself clean; it digests stains; it can change its color to match the drapes" and also it grows from small, sugar-cube-like objects. This "makes it easier to pack if you're being pursued by storm troopers".

It takes a year for the sofa to grow to full size, and this sofa in particular has nanotech factories in both armrests, which can copy small objects once given a sample. (Such as replicating spare change)

Also, (And here you are, Bods) the sofa is the only entity in either their world or Indorsia to have the ability to tesser

This means it can teleport, with a maximum range of two miles and the need to recharge, but nonetheless quite impressive as it figured out how to do this on its own.

And it powers itself to do all these things by eating dust bunnies

AND WE'RE STOPPING HERE FOR TONIGHT BECAUSE I NEED TO GO EAT. I WILL TRY AND FINISH LATER, IF ANYONE'S INTERESTED :)

[mariacallous]

Earlier this week, WIRED published a story about the AI-powered search startup Perplexity, which Forbes has accused of plagiarism. In it, my colleague Dhruv Mehrotra and I reported that the company was surreptitiously scraping, using crawlers to visit and download parts of websites from which developers had tried to block it, in violation of its own publicly stated policy of honoring the Robots Exclusion Protocol.

Our findings, as well as those of the developer Robb Knight, identified a specific IP address almost certainly linked to Perplexity and not listed in its public IP range, which we observed scraping test sites in apparent response to prompts given to the company’s public-facing chatbot. According to server logs, that same IP visited properties belonging to Condé Nast, the media company that owns WIRED, at least 822 times in the past three months—likely a significant undercount, because the company retains only a small portion of its records.

We also reported that the chatbot was bullshitting, in the technical sense. In one experiment, it generated text about a girl following a trail of mushrooms when asked to summarize the content of a website that its agent did not, according to server logs, attempt to access.

Perplexity and its CEO, Aravind Srinivas, did not substantively dispute the specifics of WIRED’s reporting. “The questions from WIRED reflect a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of how Perplexity and the Internet work,” Srinivas said in a statement. Backed by Jeff Bezos’ family office and by Nvidia, among others, Perplexity has said it is worth a billion dollars based on its most recent fundraising round, and The Information reported last month that it was in talks for a new round that would value it at $3 billion. (Bezos did not reply to an email; Nvidia declined to comment.)

After we published the story, I prompted three leading chatbots to tell me about the story. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude generated text offering hypotheses about the story’s subject but noted that they had no access to the article. The Perplexity chatbot produced a six-paragraph, 287-word text closely summarizing the conclusions of the story and the evidence used to reach them. (According to WIRED's server logs, the same bot observed in our and Knight’s findings, which is almost certainly linked to Perplexity but is not in its publicly listed IP range, attempted to access the article the day it was published, but was met with a 404 response. The company doesn't retain all its traffic logs, so this is not necessarily a complete picture of the bot's activity, or that of other Perplexity agents.) The original story is linked at the top of the generated text, and a small gray circle links out to the original following each of the last five paragraphs. The last third of the fifth paragraph exactly reproduces a sentence from the original: “Instead, it invented a story about a young girl named Amelia who follows a trail of glowing mushrooms in a magical forest called Whisper Woods.”

This struck me and my colleagues as plagiarism. It certainly appears to satisfy the criteria set out by Poynter Institute—including, perhaps most stringently, the seven-to-10 word test, which proposes that it’s “hard to incidentally replicate seven consecutive words that appear in another author’s work.” (Kelly McBride, a Poynter SVP who has described this test as being useful in identifying plagiarism, did not reply to an email.)

“If one of my students turned in a story like this, I would take them before the academic dishonesty committee for plagiarism,” said John Schwartz, professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin’s journalism school, after reading the original story and the summary. “I find this just too close. When I was reading the Perplexity version, I just thought, there’s an echo in here.”

Perplexity and Srinivas, the company’s CEO, did not respond to a detailed request for comment in which they were presented with the criticisms experts made of the company for this story.

Bill Grueskin, professor of professional practice at Columbia Journalism School, wrote in an email that the summary looked to be “pretty much ok” for a chatbot identified as such, but that it was hard to say because he hadn’t had time to read the original WIRED story. “Quoting a sentence verbatim without quote marks is bad, of course,” he wrote. “I'd be pretty mortified if a news org ran an AI summary like this without disclosing the source—or worse, pretending it came from a human.” (Perplexity, of course, isn’t claiming this material came from a human.)

Perhaps luckily for Perplexity and its backers, this is a literal academic debate. Plagiarism is a concept pertaining to professional ethics, important in contexts like journalism and academia where being able to identify the source of information is of fundamental importance but of no legal significance in itself. If a rival studio releases a film containing a reasonable chunk of footage from Inside Out 2, Disney would sue not for plagiarism but for copyright infringement; similarly, a letter Forbes reportedly sent Perplexity threatening legal action is said to mention “willful infringement” of Forbes’ copyrights. Here, legal experts say, Perplexity is on somewhat safer ground—probably.

“In terms of the copyright, this is a tough call,” says James Grimmelmann, professor of digital and information law at Cornell University. On one hand, he argues, the summary is reporting facts, which cannot be copyrighted; but on the other, it does partially duplicate the original and summarize the details found in it. “It’s not a slam dunk copyright case, but it’s not trivial, either. It’s not frivolous.”

Grimmelmann sees a host of potential issues for Perplexity, among them consumer protection, unfair advertising, or deceptive trade practices claims he believes could be made against a company that says it respects the Robots Exclusion Protocol but doesn’t follow it. (The standard is voluntary but widely adhered to.) He also thinks it could be vulnerable to a claim of misappropriation of hot news, in which a publisher argues that a competitor summarizing its material before it’s had a chance to commercially benefit from it, or in a way that undermines its value to paying subscribers, is infringing on its copyright. Perplexity’s evident ability to circumvent paywalls “is a bad fact for them,” he says, as is the fact that its system is automated.

Grimmelmann also says that Perplexity may be forfeiting the protection of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This is the law that, among other things, protects search engines like Google from liability for defamation when they link to defamatory content because they are services passing on information from other content providers; as he sees it, Perplexity is similarly shielded as long as it accurately summarizes material. (Whether AI-generated material enjoys 230 protection at all is a matter of debate.)

“They’d only get in trouble if they summarized the story incorrectly and made it defamatory when it wasn’t before. That’s something that they actually would be at legal risk for, especially if they don’t credit the original source clearly enough and people can’t easily go to that source to check,” he says. “If Perplexity’s edits are what make the story defamatory, 230 doesn’t cover that, under a bunch of case law interpreting it.”

In one case WIRED observed, Perplexity’s chatbot did falsely claim, albeit while prominently linking to the original source, that WIRED had reported that a specific police officer in California had committed a crime. (“We have been very upfront that answers will not be accurate 100% of the time and may hallucinate,” Srinivas said in response to questions for the story we ran earlier this week, “but a core aspect of our mission is to continue improving on accuracy and the user experience.”)

“If you want to be formal,” says Grimmelmann, “I think this is a set of claims that would get past a motion to dismiss on a bunch of theories. Not saying it will win in the end, but if the facts bear out what Forbes and WIRED, the police officer—a bunch of possible plaintiffs—allege, they are the kinds of things that, if proven and other facts were bad for Perplexity, could lead to liability.”

Not all experts agree with Grimmelmann. Pam Samuelson, professor of law and information at UC Berkeley, writes in an email that copyright infringement is “about use of another’s expression in a way that undercuts the author’s ability to get appropriate remuneration for the value of the unauthorized use. One sentence verbatim is probably not infringement.”

Bhamati Viswanathan, a faculty fellow at New England Law, says she’s skeptical the summary passes a threshold of substantial similarity usually necessary for a successful infringement claim, though she doesn’t think that’s the end of the matter. “It certainly should not pass the sniff test,” she wrote in an email. “I would argue that it should be enough to get your case past the motion to dismiss threshold—particularly given all the signs you had of actual stuff being copied.”

In all, though, she argues that focusing on the narrow technical merits of such claims may not be the right way to think about things, as tech companies can adjust their practices to honor the letter of dated copyright laws while still grossly violating their purpose. She believes an entirely new legal framework may be necessary to correct for market distortions and promote the underlying aims of US intellectual property law, among them to allow people to financially benefit from original creative work like journalism so that they’ll be incentivized to produce it—with, in theory, benefits to society.

“There are, in my opinion, strong arguments to support the intuition that generative AI is predicated upon large scale copyright infringement,” she writes. “The opening ante question is, where do we go from there? And the greater question in the long run is, how do we ensure that creators and creative economies survive? Ironically, AI is teaching us that creativity is more valuable and in demand than ever. But even as we recognize this, we see the potential for undermining, and ultimately eviscerating, the ecosystems that enable creators to make a living from their work. That’s the conundrum we need to solve—not eventually, but now.”