#smart speech translator

[junemary]

Fengcui are ridiculous. They're fully making out at this point but they REFUSE to acknowledge it out of pure spite they NEED to get the upper hand the other one must be the one to confess first!!!! Can you imagine? Sticking you tongue 5 inches down someone else's throat and still have the guts to say to THEIR FACE that they're coming onto you and you don't get it- have they fallen for you? Ooh how interesting, maybe elaborate on that? No? Well fuck you then. And then they do it again. And then they sacrifice themselves for each other MULTIPLE TIMES. Only to share the most disgustingly sweet romance that is CLEAR to everyone around them yet it remains!!!! Unspoken!!!! Even to each other!!!!

[reinabeestudio]

Even after so many years, I still worry that when I use English, my words will come out weird because of culture differences. So I speak in a very casual way to sound friendlier (and it's faster to type ngl).

I know that barrier will never be fully lifted (languages are very nuanced after all). But it's one of the reasons I like writing, I can speak in a more natural way and it doesn't weird others out as much.

[mikurulucky]

I kinda wanted to try and start a new Tomodachi Life save file, but I don't want to delete my current one on my 3DS, so off to Citra I go!

Funnily, when I gave Johan's mii his name, the game pronounces it like it's pronounced in the French version with a j sound lol. So ya have to use the pronunciation setting in order for it to be pronounced in the usual way.

Though in my attempt at making him in Tomodachi Collection, I just stuck with the French pronunciation for him and Peewit. His French pronunciation kinda feels more natural to me when transliterating it into Japanese and I feel like Peewit's French name, Pirlouit, would be a bit easier to adapt into Japanese.

[meilleurchoix92]

Have you ever encountered the frustrating language barrier while exploring new countries? Well, worry no more! Thanks to cutting-edge technology, we now have the perfect solution to overcome this hurdle effortlessly - language translators. These amazing devices support multiple languages and offer unique features that will make your international interactions a breeze. In today's video, we're thrilled to present the Top 5 best language translators that you can get right now, empowering you to break free from language barriers and enjoy seamless communication during your travels. Let's dive in!" THE TOP 5 BEST TRANSLATOR PEN 2023

[kittyfrisk9]

IdeaDpxDc—There are better ways to meet someone.

Note: Sorry, I don't know English, so please use a translator. I apologize if you don't get the idea.

Dead On Main. Soul mates.

---

"Exactly... what does this ring do?" The shining ring was still attached to his finger. This wouldn't worry him if it weren't for the fact that, with each passing minute, the ring emitted more light, and that can't be good.

The cult leader refused to speak. He wouldn't even look at him, seeming particularly attentive to the material the floor was made of. Very funny that now he was scared of him when, an hour ago, he was giving a very cliché speech about how humanity was doomed because it would summon the evil of evils.

It wasn't very smart of him to perform his summoning precisely in Gotham City, home of the Dark Knight.

Red Hood was getting impatient. He placed the hand without the ring on his weapon; if words didn't work, a real threat to his life would. And this didn't really break Bruce's 'no killing' rule because the gun was only loaded with rubber bullets. However, just as he was about to advance and shoot the guy, he saw Batman grab the leader's tunic collar and lift him up.

The man, of course, screamed in fear. "Speak, what does that ring do?" No jokes. Batman's voice was deeper than usual, showing that he was upset, no, rather angry.

Or worried, but Jason could never consider that possibility. For the moment, he was only surprised, although it didn't show through his helmet.

"I-I don't know," the leader replied. Poor guy, he seemed about to cry. Batman, not content, tightened his grip even more; he wasn't willing to tolerate a lie this time.

Red Robin raised an eyebrow. "You managed to gather a bunch of magical artifacts for your summoning and you don't know what they do?"

The man looked away. "No..." The rest of the cult members also looked away. Very brave and stupid of them to all agree to lie to the bats. Jason himself wanted to mock them, but the ring kept shining. He couldn't mock when the ring kept shining and he didn't know what it meant.

From the communications, Robin could be heard. "Tt, this wouldn't be happening if Hood hadn't put on the ring." Jason suppressed a growl.

"Kid, I didn't put on the ring. This thing stuck to me the moment I touched it." It was true. In the middle of the operation to stop the ritual, Jason had pulled the ring, which at that moment was a kind of necklace by the chain that ran through it, from a member who was wearing it. The ring in his hand began to glow and suddenly teleported to his ring finger, then stopped shining. It was when everything calmed down that the ring began to release a different, but constant light.

Approximately ten minutes have passed since then, he thought as he looked at the ring, ignoring all the magical stuff; it was actually a very simple ring. Suddenly, the ring began to blink.

Oh, no. That couldn't be good.

Batman, fed up with the leader's silence and his followers, threw the man meters ahead. "Oracle, call Zatanna now, we need more information about the ring," he ordered as he approached the man who was in pain from the fall. The guy, terrified by the violent aura of the Dark Knight, tried to retreat.

Finally, Nightwing stepped between the man and the brutal beating he would receive if he didn't speak.

"It's okay, B, calm down." With his hand on his father's shoulder, Dick tried to ease the atmosphere. "I understand your concern. We are all worried about what the ring might do to Hood. But we can't let fear and anger control us. Hood is important to all of us. He is our brother, your son. We can't lose our cool now. Let's call Wonder Woman. If no one wants to talk, she can help us with the lasso of truth."

Total silence. Jason didn't know what to say; he didn't think his family would react like this over a blinking ring. That is... he doesn't know. Suddenly, the ring's light began to blink faster.

Batman, after Nightwing's words and seeing the change in the ring, understood that he couldn't waste time with someone who wouldn't talk. "You're right, thank you Nightwing." Looking at the others, he said: "We need to act quickly, we don't know the effects the ring might have on Hood. We need to take him to the cave for a thorough analysis, no discussions." The last part he said looking at Jason. "Until then, don't try to take it off or use it."

Jason scoffed, as if he would.

"Oracle, you heard, call Diana. Red Robin and I will take care of the rest of the cult. Nightwing, take Red Hood to the cave." Batman began giving orders as he reached the leader and began dragging him towards the rest of his cult. The leader, in a failed attempt, tried to resist. "Agent A, please prepare a stretcher. Understood?"

Everyone nodded.

On the other hand, the touching speech and the strange family moment of the bats seemed to soften the heart of a girl from the cult, who in a whisper said: "The ring, nothing will happen to him." Although she spoke quietly, everyone present heard her.

The leader, panicking that the information would be revealed, exclaimed: "Catrina, shut up!" However, he was struck by Batman, who was already fed up with the guy.

"What do you have to say about the ring?" he asked.

The woman hesitated to speak. "We thought of using the ring to subdue the king of the dead and make him listen to our orders..." She paused, not knowing how to continue. "There is a real legend about the ring. A long time ago, a witch wanted to know who her soulmate was, so she created the ring. This allows one to be guided to their soulmate through the red thread. I think everyone already knows what the red thread is." Nervous, she looked around. Only Nightwing nodded, and that was enough for her to continue telling. "Well, the witch's red thread connected with a prince. Unfortunately for everyone, the prince was not happy that his soulmate was a witch. So he had her killed." The girl looked at her hands; that part of the story was sad. "The witch was angry, but still wanted her soulmate to accept her, so she rewrote the ring's original purpose. It was no longer something that united you with your soulmate, but now it was something that allowed you to subdue your soulmate... uh, this." She pointed to a book that was lying in a corner. "With another spell, in fact, it can be used to subdue anyone, even a king of the dead."

With the whole story already told, Red Robin asked: "So, what is the ring doing to Red Hood?"

"It's tracking his soulmate. I... didn't get to put the other spell on it. I could only activate the ring's primary function. Your brother will be fine."

That definitely changes things. Jason swore he could hear his heart beating. A soulmate, wow. He admits he's read many romance novels and maybe once dreamed of it, but for it to actually happen, wow.

Suddenly, the ring stopped blinking. Five seconds later, everyone saw a red thread shoot out from the ring's gem. It quickly moved in one direction, went through the wall, and kept going. The process was like a fishing rod when it catches a fish.

"Does this mean it already found its soulmate?" Red Robin asked. Astonished by the red thread, he tried to touch it but his hand went through it; apparently, the thread was intangible to anyone else.

"Yes," the cultist also seemed astonished.

Jason felt a look on him, turned, it was his brother. Oh no, not that look, he knew that smile; Dick would tease him so much in the coming days. For his part, Batman sighed in relief. Well, it wasn't such an extreme danger, but it was still dangerous. "Agent A, cancel the stretcher." He never imagined this would mean a soulmate case. "Oracle, don't cancel the call to Zatanna or Wonder Woman, we need to verify the information. We'll stay here until the police arrive."

How nice it would be if everything ended like that, right? With Dick joking with Jason, Tim analyzing the thread, Barbara laughing at the turn of events, Bruce relieved and Damian surprised. However, one must remember the story.

The witch changed the ring's original purpose. Unexpectedly, the thread began to retract, as if it had caught something. It did so so quickly that Jason grabbed his hand in pain. It was then that everyone had a bad feeling. The wall the thread had previously passed through suddenly exploded, the noise and dust alerting everyone, especially when once the chaos disappeared, something horrific could be seen.

An arm. A fucking arm. Apparently freshly torn from its owner. Oh, no. What did it do to his soulmate?

...

Somewhere else in the world, somewhere in the United States, Danny gasped in pain. What the hell? What was that? Ancients! Where is his arm?

---

Note: Sorry, I don't know English, so please use a translator. I apologize if you don't get the idea.

Edited on 06/21/2024 - Note two: Thanks to redflagshipwriter, who continued this idea below. And to Sakuravalelp who made me laugh with the complement.

[noxiatoxia]

Something Important About Hinata...

The way Hinata speaks in the Japanese version of SDR2 is a big deal for his character, and what contrasts him so well from Naegi Makoto.

Before we jump into that, I must briefly explain how Naegi talks, as it is integral for the comparison.

Naegi is very mild-mannered. His self-pronoun of choice is ボク (Boku) in Katakana. While the only self-pronoun in English is I/me/my, Japanese has many, all written in different ways, and these pronouns tell you a great deal about the character's personality.

In this case, what does this say about Naegi?

Naegi using Boku as opposed to Ore - another male pronoun - shows he's very mild-mannered. Boku is more polite than Ore is, and makes him appear more soft, polite, and less boyish than a number of his other male classmates who do use Ore.

Boku can be written in Hiragana ぼく, Katakana ボク, and Kanji 僕. So why Katakana for Naegi? What does it show?

It can show many things, but in Naegi's case, it emphasizes that he, above all else, is a teenager. Yes, all his classmates (minus Hagakure) are, but when I say it emphasizes this, I mean it shows he embodies what a teenager is. He's young, but he's not a kid. He's a little awkward; he's not fully mature in how he reacts to the world yet. He's hip and trendy, and maybe a little moody. Combine this with Boku, and you are told all you need about Naegi out the gate as soon as he says "My (ボク Boku) name is Naegi Makoto": he is a mild-mannered growing boy, probably up to date on the latest trends, probably a little awkward and soft-spoken, nicer than most males his age, and maybe even a bit naive.

These are all things that we learn to be true as the game goes on, but just by his pronoun alone, we can tell these things about Naegi.

Furthermore, there are different styles of speech, such as what particles you use. Some are more masculine or feminine, some speech styles are more rude. In Naegi's case, he uses gender-neutral particles, once again hinting at his mild nature.

So, what about Hinata?

Hinata is the opposite. We can tell from the get-go based on his self-pronoun.

He uses 俺 (Ore) in Kanji.

As said, Ore is more rude and man-ish than Boku. Right out the gate, the audience knows Hinata is going to be more rude, boyish, and assertive than Naegi.

His particle choice, compared to Naegi, also is mostly masculine, and he employs ruder speech options. Again, this paints Hinata as someone much more outspoken, forceful, and meaner.

This was no accident. In fact, it was a core part of his character, stated in the SDR2 art book:

"No, that's wrong!"* The boldness of this catchphrase is truly what makes Hinata who he is. Each time he says it in a Class Trial, it feel more self-assured than the last. In the last killing game at Hope's Peak Academy, the protagonist was a well-behaved, un-masculine person, which caused some issues, and he was even criticized at a point for being "too arrogant for Naegi-kun". Kind men are fine and all, but for a protagonist, I want someone a little more fired-up!

*In English, both Hinata and Naegi's phrases are translated the same. However, Naegi says sore wa chigau yo, while Hinata says sore wa chigau zo. Yo is gender neutral, while zo is masculine and can sound ruder, hence this being the line that "Makes Hinata who he is".

But...why Kanji?

Using Kanji for a self-pronoun in a character signifies many things. In Hinata's case, it tells us he's intelligent, mature for his age, probably acts more grown-up and pragmatic than boys his age. It can also be a sign of being dignified, almost noble-esque. For example, Togami also uses 俺.

But...it's strange, right? Because while Hinata is smart and is more pragmatic, he is also pretty obviously still your average teen. In fact, it's something he laments: he's painfully normal.

So...should it not be オレ, Ore in Katakana?

After all, almost every teen boy protagonist in media uses オレ, or a form of it (like Goku, who uses オラ Ora, a "Southern" version of Ore, still in Katakana). Would it not make more sense for Hinata to then use オレ?

I actually don't think so.

Besides personality differences that could warrant the use of Kanji, I think the usage of Kanji is most purposeful as a subversion of expectation. Like I said, generally speaking, most teenage male protagonists uses オレ. Pick up any shounen, and the protag will likely be using オレ.

In my opinion, by using 俺, the same self-pronoun, just written in a different script, it imparts something very small but very noteworthy to the audience: something is off about this otherwise normal teenager.

Hinata talks about how he's painfully normal, but then, why not the painfully normal pronoun?

Out the gate it gives this off feeling. Ever so slightly, something is wrong with the guy that shows he's not as normal as he claims.

And then, Chapter 6 happens.

It's incredibly clever foreshadowing, all just by changing how the character says "I".

To add on...when Hinata underwent the Kamukura project, they truly ripped everything from Hinata, including how he speaks.

While Hinata uses 俺 Ore, Kamukura uses 僕 Boku in Kanji. I've already explained both Boku and Kanji script, so you can probably put them together. But in short, it shows Kamukura is far more mild, less assertive and less masculine. He is intelligent, regal, far above everyone else, but is polite.

More interesting is the way Kamukura speaks. He talks closer to Naegi, using gender-neutral particles instead of rude or masculine ones. However, he is even more polite than most characters, as he uses Keigo.

Keigo is "polite speech", and as it suggests, makes a character sound polite and formal. Characters like Tsumiki and Sonia use it.

In Kamukura's case, this makes him sound...like an academic paper. He is mild-mannered, he is polite, he is intelligent. The way he speaks gives the feeling of a reporter on the news, a scientific paper, an essay - someone who is there to relay information, not his feelings or opinions. Which is funny, seeing as he can't help but give his opinions in calling everything boring. I think that contrast shows, despite Hope's Peak's best efforts, Kamukura is still human.

It is still a far cry from Hinata, who's manner of speaking alone exuded so much personality, so much feeling, and a whole lot of self-expression.

Finally, I'll cap this post off with a fun fact: Kamukura probably was never going to have red eyes.

This is just a theory, but there is interesting pieces of evidence to support this.

In all versions of SDR2, early beta sprites are used for nearly every truth bullet. If a truth bullet is using a character sprite (such as a testimony truth bullet), it most likely is using an early version of the sprite by accident. This can be seen with Souda, Sonia, Nanami, Tsumiki, Komaeda, etc.

With this pattern in mind, here is the truth bullet with Awakened Hinata on it:

Beyond the fact he's missing the red eyes, you can tell it's a very early version as his shoulder and hair aren't as spiky as they should be.

They hadn't quite edited the sprite yet. But, I find the lack of red eyes interesting when compounded with a strange piece of merch I talked about here.

I won't repeat the details as you can check the post out if you'd like, but I will show the photos again.

Considering early beta versions of sprites are sometimes mistakenly used in Danganronpa merch (and other beta sprites were used in this merch line, such as Komaeda's), this makes me assume this, too, is a beta Kamukura sprite, and he was originally intended to have Hinata's eye color.

[radiant-reid]

Code-Switching

super small blurb but this idea came about because of mom on tiktok raising her kid in french and english.

There's nothing better after a long day of work than coming back home to your family. You couldn't want much more in your life than living in the perfect townhouse with your beautiful little girl and handsome husband.

Spencer stayed home today and you can hear jazz music in the living room while you slip off your shoes at the front door. Having a baby is a good look on him, but so is his modified work schedule that allows him to do all his paperwork and consults from home.

You hang your coat on the coat rack. It's not yet warm enough outside to go without one, but the sun is quickly coming.

"Bonjour." You greet Spencer with a kiss as you walk into the kitchen.

He's cooking something that smells amazing, as usual. Although many people wouldn't believe it, his culinary skills are impressive.

"Hi, beautiful." Spencer smiles just seeing you. "How was your day?"

"It was great." You tell him. "Being home is better though."

He nods. "We missed you. Can I get you a drink or do you want to go change?"

"I'm okay." You assure him. "Where's Eloise?"

"She was in the living room." Spencer frowns slightly, looking over the kitchen island counter for the little girl.

Her building blocks are still there but before either of you can start worrying, two hands wrap around your ankle, and a little giggle leaves her lips. "Mamá!"

"Hola, bebé." You cheer, reaching down to scoop her up to rest against your hip in a hug. "Cómo estás?"

"Bien." She replies with a nod.

Before you can press some more Spanish words out of her, Spencer speaks, directing her attention to the dinner cooking. "Excusez-moi. Voulez-vous du riz ou des pâtes avec votre poulet?" He asks her. You can tell his speech is slowed, allowing her to hear each syllable and understand it.

Eloise looks at you instead of her dad. "Quiero pasta, no arroz." Then she looks to Spencer. "S'il vous plaît."

You grin at Spencer, who's matching your excitement. He'd done the bulk of the reading about how to properly raise a baby to speak multiple languages. He speaks French to her, you in Spanish, and everyone else she is around in English. It isn't a perfect system but you've stuck to it. Her level of fluency and words in each language fluctuate, but it's not bad enough to warrant concern.

Until now, she has barely shown any code-switching. Occasionally, she'll throw in English pronouns to Spanish or French sentences, but until now, there haven't been any combinations between Spanish and French.

"Eres una chica inteligente." You tell her with a smile. Eloise can't tell exactly why you're so pleased with her, but she mirrors your expression.

"Très intelligent," Spencer adds, kissing her cheek. He follows her direction, reaching up to grab some pasta to cook for tonight's dinner.

"Smart." Eloise translates the word like it's second nature to her. You suppose it is. And it's a word that describes her to the fullest.

[tac-the-unseen]

Poly!The Lost boys Nest Headcannons

Centered around Mate!Reader

Mostly sfw, but the last three are nsfw

•Vampire Nesting is a traditional practice categorized as a mating/courting behavior

•When vampires meet their future/current mates a repressed part of their biology activates. This includes many different behaviors including nesting.

•Bats naturally use scent to attract their mates as well as fluttering their wings, vocalizing desire, and grooming each other

•This translated into vampires as Cologne/perfume scenting, gentle touches, romantic speech, purring, buzzing, and brushing/combing hair

•Once courting turns into romantic relationships Vampires begin to set up a nest for their mate to stay in

•When David, Dwayne, Paul, and Marko begin to experience these nesting behaviors they all connect and start the process for you

•Before they met you they were all just mated to each other and built a nest for each new attention to their partnerships.

•David built one for Dwayne

•They both worked together to make a new one for Paul

•And when Marko came along the three of them remade the nest for him too

•Now all four of them are deconstructing their old nest to make it new for you

•This involves a lot of collecting materials, making new materials, and, of course, shouting

•They all work together to construct the pile of soft fabrics and furs and shape it to hold all five of you with extra wiggle room

•They make it pretty clear that you're not allowed to help but you can contribute some clothes, blankets, and an occasional opinion

•They ask if you want to have the nest on the ground or elevated slightly

•Which basically means ‘do you want two smushed together mattresses on the floor? Or do you want two bed frames pushed together?’

•Marko will sew the mattresses together so they can't come apart

•Whenever you get too close to the area, you are kindly redirected somewhere else

•”You can watch Darling, but you can't step into the nest quite yet.” Dwayne would say softly while shuffling you off to a dresser or bean bag you can sit on

•It was quite amusing watching them shout at each other for being in the way of putting something in the wrong area

•”You can't put the blanket all the way down there! That makes it useless!” Marko would snap at Paul

•”You're putting to much of your stuff near the top! Leave room for the rest of us!” Paul would complain at David

•It was a complete back and forth, with even Dwayne raising his voice when Marko kick some of his contributions out of the way

•What was funnier was the tone shift when you spoke up. One moment they're yelling about some and when you chime in they become softer with you. That only added when they immediately start yelling at each other again.

”DON’T FUCKING MOVE MY SHIRT!”

“THEN GET IT OUT OF THE WAY!”

“What if you just layed your shirts side by side instead of just throwing them out?”

“Good idea, Love! You're so smart!”

“HEAR THAT YOU SHITTER? THEY SAID NOT TO MOVE MY STUFF!”

•All of them are in snippy moods, so it's best just not to get in the way

•Once everything is in place they finally let you into the nest. They wanted you to be the first one, so not only could you get your scent all over it, but to allow you to make adjustments.

•Once everything is to your liking they ask if they can join you. As soon as you say yes they're on all sides of you.

•Kissing, cuddling, purrs, and buzzing all around while they push you into the soft fabrics

•They also make sure to give you the rundown of nest culture and etiquette

•”I know we typically don't give a fuck about rules, but these ones we care about.”

•The basic run down is:

-No one is allowed in the Nest other then you and them

-No one is allowed to even touch the Nest other then you guys

-Things can be taken out at anytime for almost any reason but for the most part you should just leave that to them

-You have the right to kick anyone out of the nest at anytime

-This is a where you'll sleep when your in the cave

-The nest is basically your sanctuary and they'll treat it as such

•All of this told to you sporadically and in-between several acts of affection

•For the first couple of days of there being a new nest, whenever you're in the cave they want you in the nest

•They will actually pick you up and put your there (it's a bit frustrating at first but it only lasts about four days)

•You bet your ass the sex is spectacular too

•They will bring you food and water, read to you, massage you, and even go down on you constantly ‘just so the nest gets all of your scent’

•All and all royalty treatment

Thanks for reading <3

[typewritingyip]

The Arcturus Missions

Part Thirty Six - Reprieve

Part Thirty Five

———

Arcturus mission log, update eight, time frame between seven and fourteen months post launch.

Limited contact with the crew, mission trajectory nominal. 

…

Classified document, code required.

Access granted.

Arcturus crew one has been labeled as MIA, since July 24th with no contact. Connection number increasing, now estimated at 17 years, 4 months, 16 days, 7 hours, and 10 minutes. Counting up.

Life support across suits was last labeled as stable, updated two months ago.

Relay satellite has launched, estimated contact, unknown.

Pilots projected to be living, food supplies expected to run out within the initial six months, adjustment required. 

Contact with pilots, not anticipated, mission labeled inconclusive failure.

…

Disconnecting from the server.

—

To be perfectly honest, he knew he’d drank far too much last night. Hound had at least been smart about it, taking a small amount and hardly finishing it. No, he had wanted to try the twins' liquor and now was facing the consequences.

His head was killing him, even in the dark comfort of the bedroom, a set of snorers nearby just caused enough sound to be painful.

It had to be after sunrise sometime, though days in Iacon seemed both longer and shorter than they did on Earth. At least now that they’d seen half of the seasons the strange planet had to offer.

Sliding off the cott, Breakdown held his face in one of his hands, stumbling towards the door. A cool shower would do him some good and he knew it, maybing a cooling pack too, yeah that could feel nice.

Notably, the normal cybertronian presence was not in the room which wasn’t entirely abnormal. Prowl was a busy mech, one that would come and go without fanfare to the point it was hard to tell if he were there or not. Though if Jazz was sleeping, he tried to be nearby. 

When the door slid open, the light was painful and he winced. Holding a hand in front of his eyes, Breakdown shuffled into the living room.

Not really noticing the two mecha sat there, both watching his pained movement in shock. 

Prowl was staring at him and was at a loss for words, from what Jazz said none of them were really meant to be alive in the morning. It had been a figure of speech but none of the humans were meant to be up before mid-day at least.

Dragging a hand down his face, Breakdown groans and glances around, frowning a bit, “De miy kostyum?” He looks up and freezes like a deer caught in headlights, Prowl’s optics cycle twice, trying to process what he said while Soundwave continued to just stare. 

It was bad enough that Sunstreaker had been caught out of his suit on a mission in front of Bluestreak, but Bluestreak was a drop in the bucket something that was bound to happen. Being out of the suit in front of Soundwave was probably the worst case scenario. 

His suit was nowhere in view, his assistance suit with it, along with his translator. Even as the pair started to speak he couldn’t even remotely tell what they were saying. Shuffling out of the room was not going to be possible, the way Soundwave seemed to be watching every move even behind his visor. 

Taking in a slow breath, he turned to go back towards the bathroom, his head still aching especially as his heart raced.

He was only stopped by Soundwave’s foot falling into his path, he stared up slowly, taking another slow breath, “I need through.” His voice was still rough, but at least Prowl understood, who was now standing behind him, talking with Soundwave.

This conversation was starting to feel very one sided. 

The yelp he let out through was not a sound he’d typically make, Prowl’s hands were strangely rough as they hoisted him up into the air and to eye level with them both, “Breakdown, I apologize for the miscommunication. Jazz stated that you all would, well, be sleeping like the dead for quite some time.” His world was spinning unpleasantly. 

“Normally, I would be, but they are snoring.” Prowl nods a bit and looks to Soundwave, saying something else incomprehensible before raising his voice to the mech, it was like a bat striking the base of his skull. Unpleasantly loud and far too close, “Please, my head. I am simply trying to get my suit.” With a light jossel he was set back down behind Soundwave, the bathroom door open.

Stepping inside, the door was closed behind him. It was painfully bright in the bathroom but at least his suit was in here, though it wouldn’t help with the explanation it would at least help with some of the understanding. He shuffled over painfully.

—

To be fair, Prowl honestly did think that the humans were going to be asleep for a while, so to watch Breakdown walk out of the room, clearly in pain, was not in his plan. Especially since Soundwave had insisted on them talking this morning in person. 

He had no idea what the poor dying man said, but Soundwave was entirely too focused, “Soundwave.” Prowl tried, standing and following him as he attempted to block Breakdown from reaching the refresher. 

Grabbing up Breakdown was instinct, the sound Soundwave had made was far too familiar. Either the sound of deep interest or the noise when he laid eyes on his cassettes, neither was a good thing. 

Ignoring Breakdown in his grasp, Prowl leveled his gaze at Soundwave, “Soundwave, this is not something to be looked over or asked about, let him into the refresher, then we will talk.” Shaking his head slowly, Soundwave shifted his stance some, “No. Soundwave: want to know why Prowl is harboring an organic.” Prowl tried very hard not to roll his optics.

With a glance back to Breakdown, he vented, talking quietly to the man in English. The poor man looked sick, clearly feeling unwell. Listening to him for a moment before nodding and looking back to Soundwave.

”Soundwave, you need to let him through. Once he is able to obtain his suit we will be able to speak more clearly.” Soundwave shook his helm slightly, “Soundwave: concerned, why there is an organic here. Iacon is not safe for organic beings.” Gritting his denta lightly, Prowl sucked in a vent.

He couldn’t help it, these were Jazz’s friends, those who served as his brothers in arms, shaking his helm, “I will explain, but he is in pain and needs his suit!” His other servo reached out and activated the door lock as Breakdown spoke again. His voice was pained.

Prowl, shoving around Soundwave, set Breakdown behind him in the refresher before closing the door again, turning back to a glowering Soundwave. He straightened and glared right back, “These organics are under my protection.” Soundwave’s visor cycled slowly, “Organics? Prowl: remarked in the plural?” Cycling his own optics, Prowl swore.

—

New Kaon was really something else, if Sunstreaker thought that Iacon was an interesting place then the culture shock of New Kaon was staggering. 

When they first came to the planet, it had just been for the fight, a there and gone sort of day. Like his first trip to New York, that had been a chaotic few days but this had been such a fast turn around it wasn’t even funny. 

Now though, they were able to walk through the city together. Bluestreak was just as excited, not having seen New Kaon this close before either. Walking side by side and hand in hand, it was almost like they were getting some time off.

Truthfully, they were meant to be monitoring the system but it was off shift for the pair of them and it was nice to be able to walk through the city together. 

Bluestreak was smiling, looking through the street stalls with wide eyes, and Sunny was smiling stupidly. 

He wasn’t entirely sure of when everything happened or how they were going to make it work, but this was part of life he’d shoved to the side when he became a pilot. It had been a rough relationship after another, and no one liked dating a pilot. This was different though, this had come so easily.

Looking at Blue, Sunny was still wearing his stupid smile, “So, they built this place during the war for the wounded and such, a place to at least call home when they had to leave Cybertron.” Nodding slightly, he squeezed Blue’s hand lightly, Blue turned and smiled at him, “Even in our darkest hours, it seems we try to find the light.” Blue took his breath away.

”Wow.” He really couldn’t manage much more than that, Bluestreak’s face burning but still wearing a smile, “You know a lot for a place you’ve never been.” His voice was almost quiet, but the soft tone left no question of how stupid his face probably looked. Bluestreak’s eyes almost lit up, “It’s all interesting, you know?” Nodding a bit, Sunstreaker fell back into a comfortable silence, listening to Bluestreak intently.

They could walk through the city all day, just them together and Sunny didn’t think it would even make him tired. He hardly would even notice his draining implants or the ache of the connection from overuse, it all just felt secondary.

Maybe it was stupid or ridiculous, they should be resting or eating but he was learning so much and getting to spend more time with Blue. More time than just over a camera while they both pretended to sleep, while his 

He was getting to learn about his world for once, not the other way around.

Blue smiles at him and shakes his head, “You’re lost in thought Sunny, come on.” He looks up, “Hmm?” Chuckling, Bluestreak shakes his head, “Come on Sunny, there’s supposed to be a really nice cafe over this way and I’m starving.” Chuckling lightly, he followed, keeping hold of Blue’s hand. The war felt a million miles away even just for that moment. 

They might have been sent to their deaths, but life seemed to be funny in that way. It gave him more to live for here than he’d had on Earth. 

Tucking himself against Bluestreak’s side, he put the thoughts of Earth aside, the ones of overuse on the back burning and smiled, content to be here in New Kaon with him. Not worrying about a thing.

—

He thought he would have gotten used to the bitter cold of North Iacon with how often they went there but no, he sat at the heater with Jazz, trying not to freeze to death. North Iacon was miserable and he’d never understand why anyone would choose to live up here, though it wasn’t like many did.

It apparently was a mining sector, not unlike where headquarters was on Earth. Half the hangers were built off of old mining tunnels that had been re-braced to hold the suits so they wouldn’t be able to be scanned from above.

Sideswipe was shivering and miserable, even with the layer of thermals, his assistance suit, the mech suit, and the heater. Sometimes it was just hard to get warm. Jazz on the other hand, seemed nearly perfectly fine. Then again, he was from farther north back home, somewhere near the Great Lakes he was pretty sure. 

Elita and Chromia were standing at a different heater, speaking quietly with Prowl since their temporary relocation had landed them so far north, “Bet it’s warmer in Paraxus right now.” Sideswipe glanced towards Jazz, hoping for something.

The way the man spoke about Paraxus, it reminded Sideswipe of how he spoke of Miami or how any of the others spoke of home. Pinging Jazz, he smiled at the camera as Jazz’s own smile filled one of his screens. He certainly didn’t look as cold as Sideswipe felt. 

“It was snowing the last time I was in Paraxus, so not much different. Sorry Sides.” Groaning, he rested his head on his knees, “Sunny gets to be off on warm New Kaon, but we’re stuck here in the cold. This fucking sucks.” Jazz laughed.

Shrugging a bit, Jazz sighs after he stops laughing, “It’s just our turn, plus Elita is trying to figure you out. She’s volunteering for these positions to make you grow closer with everyone. It’s what she does, you should have seen what it was like when Nickel became her medic.” Shaking his head a bit, Sideswipe sighs a bit.

He wasn’t sure if that was the worst case scenario or not, glancing up and over at Elita, then towards where the others were patrolling, he couldn’t help but smile a bit. Jazz tried to hide his grin, “This is why we were placed the way we were, somehow he can tell.” Glancing up, Sideswipe shakes his head a bit, “Sorry?” Jazz smiled, “Joan, Optimus, he can just… tell who we’d fit well with. Even though we obviously fit well together, Hound could see we were on the verge of getting each other killed, hell we could all feel it.” Looking back down, Sideswipe sighed.

He knew that they were right, every time it was mentioned, he knew. In the last few months he had felt as close to peaceful as he could when away from the crew. Other than for the overuse, which sucked. His implants ozzed everyday and the smallest inconvenience almost sent him into a blind rage. But Hound had been right to split them up.

The standing peaceful feeling outweighs the constant anxiety and the burning rage he felt whenever the skin around his implants became inflamed or he caught a glance of Bluestreak.

Being split up made it easier to ignore the overuse, when it wasn’t dislocating his joints or causing his skin to peel and bleed. Even then, he wasn’t worrying over his brother every moment of the day, “Yeah, I saw the change too.” Jazz’s voice was quiet, smiling softly. 

“I didn’t realize it, you know, I was too focused on being mad.” Jazz hums and nods, but looks to Elita and Chromia, “But?” Sighing, Sideswipe nods a bit, “But, we’re all doing better after those first few weeks.” Shoving his shoulder, they laugh. 

Sideswipe could be bleeding out from his implants at this moment, if he wasn’t freezing, but he didn’t care. Standing, he pats Jazz’s shoulder before jogging over towards the others. Cold be damned. 

—

Central Iacon wasn’t as cold as the North, at least according to Sideswipe, Hound had yet to experience it himself.

He honestly should be eating or sleeping or doing literally anything other than being in his suit, with them shipping back out in a few hours, but there was to much to do in Iacon. Specifically, with Mirage. 

If Mirage hadn’t asked, he’d probably be asleep right now but they were out in the market near the spires. He’d never been that close to the spires before and if they looked big from the apartment, they were huge from just under them. Casting a shadow across the streets that everyone around seemed far to adapted to.

Sighing a bit, Hound kept looking around at everything in the stalls, rolling his shoulders a bit while his implants drained. To be fair, the overuse had lessened by a lot since unlocking his old class coding and going through the crash, but it didn’t get rid of everything. At least he wasn’t scratching the skin off in chunks anymore, he’d gone to papery thin for a while there. 

It was a terrible way of putting it, but he was starting to feel human again. Other than when he was connected, then he felt larger than human. 

The coding between hunter and striker was so different, it was staggering. One felt like just controlling the suit, moving through and using it like the giant weapon it was. The other felt like it was an extension of yourself and he’d honestly forgotten the feeling after the coding had been, effectively, shut off. 

Being able to wander through Iacon, just about like everyone else, made it far more desirable to do than it had been before. Before, all he wanted to do was stay in the apartment with the others, now he truly got to see Cybertron from almost a cybertronian perspective.

”Hound, do they have polish on Earth?” Humming in question, he glances up at Mirage, who was holding several tins, frowning down at them. Tilting his head slightly, he chuckles a bit, “Uh, yeah, I guess.” Both car polishes and fancy lotions rushed through his mind. 

For the briefest moment he could smell the engine grease that had always been on his fathers hands and the soft scent of lotions his mother had worn before she passed, trying to hide the smell of hospital from him. 

Okay, so maybe not all of his overuse symptoms were easing. The hallucinations and flashbacks were starting to grate at his nerves.

”Well, you either have polish or you don’t, so do you?” Sighing a bit, he shrugs and nods, deciding it was the easier answer, “Yeah, basically, but uh there seems to be a lot more selection here.” Mirage glanced up, still holding several tins, “Well, which one smells nicest to you?” He gestures at the table and Hound stares for a long moment.

In his head, he was swearing, glancing over each polish trying to figure out which label, “Uh, Well, I’ve noticed your kinds olfactory sensors are significantly more acute than ours. We can only smell when something is toxic or specifically damaging to our systems. Uh, fight or flight. I guess.” It was a stupid answer, it was a very stupid answer but the only one he had.

Without even looking, he knew the stare he was getting from Mirage was just another one of horror. 

Sighing, Hound looked over and Mirage did have that face, “Would it make you feel better to hear that we weren’t exactly able to smell before becoming a pilot?” Frowning a bit, Mirage looks down at the polishes, “Do any of these smell dangerous to you?” And Hound stalled.

A smile started to take over his face, moving over and taking them one at a time, scanning the materials in them.

”This one, the others are fine.” Nodding a bit, Mirage grabbed up the two that had been fine before going to the checkout, Hound’s heart was pounding and racing. 

Mirage smiled at him, carrying the polishes in a small bag, offering his free hand. Hound’s mouth was dry but he took Mirage’s hand, heading back out into the marketplace. How could something so small make his throat tighten, make his heart race. Looking at Mirage, he couldn’t help but smile just a bit more, “Thank you, for asking.” 

Nodding a bit, Mirage smiled some, “Well, I don’t exactly want to smell toxic or dangerous to you, or put any of that on you the next time we get caught up in a sandstorm.” Unable to hold back the laughter, Hound nodded, grinning. 

—

It was rare for them all to be in the same place anymore. Of course it happened, but certainly not like it did those first six months, today though was something more of a requested R&R. 

They didn’t know when exactly it was, but it felt like a while, it had to have been a year since they left Earth and that deserved some time away from the front. With each other, Jazz of course included, it reaching nearly his sixth year away from home. 

Time seemed to move so much faster than before, back on Earth. Maybe it was just them losing track of the traditional twenty-four seven scheduling, or the trips to other planets as if traveling to different times zones, no one could be completely certain about how long they’d been there. 

The Odyessy’s systems had shut down months ago, the poor ship sitting amongst the war ships of Cybertron, waiting to be able to reach the stars again, but they didn’t have much use for it now. So much of it gutted and brought to the apartment or stored in their own cockpits, it had been the vessel they needed to get here but that was all. 

Unfortunate tax dollars are going to waste, but thirty lightyears away from Earth was it really?

When they had all met up in the apartment, Hound knew exactly where he wanted to take everyone, desperately not wanting to stay there and watch the world go by a second longer. 

It shocked him when Sideswipe knew where they were going when he turned down an alleyway, clearly thrilled about it too, “Oh please, as if I wouldn’t find the one place in Iacon that played music from Earth.” Jazz’s head whipped around, “What?” Smiling, he nodded, walking his suit backwards, “Oh yeah, I found it by accident. It only plays 80’s crap but still, its music in English.” Coming up behind him, Jazz rests his hands on Hound’s shoulders.

”And why are wwe all just finding this out now?” Cue of, why hadn’t he been told first, sighing but smiling, Hound shrugs, “We’ve all been busy. This place is a bar, not like we can go in a buy anything.” Jazz grumbled while Sunstreaker and Breakdown spoke quietly. 

The bar was familiar, oddly so even to those who hadn’t been before. It reminded Hound of some of the dives that were common around headquarters. 

With a light wave from the bartender, they move to sit on some deep looking couches, surrounding a low metal and glass table in a semicircle. Jazz was staring around in awe, breathing slowly.

Lionel Richie’s voice filled the air around them.

Smiling, Hound sits back, “Mirage, Prowl, and Bluestreak will be here after their meeting.” The reaction was mixed, but nothing could darken his mood for the moment.

Jazz was humming along with his eyes closed, Breakdown was leaned back with a grin on his face, Sideswipe had an arm around Sunstreaker, talking about god only knows what.

For him, Hound was able to sit back and listen, just enjoying the feeling of familiarity. Keeping his eyes closed, he reaches out and picks up his water pouch, clearing his throat.

He had to wait to hear everyone turn, “It’s been around a year since Arcturus one took off from Earth and we have completed half of our mission.” Sideswipe whistles and Sunstreaker cheers.

Chuckling, he shakes his head a bit, “Jazz, finding you made the mission worth it even before we met the Cybertronian’s. Meeting them has been the most,” Hound pauses before the others start to speak up.

“Interesting?” Sunny shifts a bit, shrugging slightly.

“Chaotic.” With a high five from Jazz, Sideswipe adds, grinning.

“Insane, more likely.” Breakdown adds, chuckling while receiving pats on the back.

Shaking his head, Hound chuckles, “Mission critical event. We’ve made friends here, with aliens, none of us thought that possible and you made it possible. So, to Arcturus One and Jazz, we’re here to kick Quintesson ass and save Earth. For the first time in decades, we’re succeeding.” Clutching his water pouch, he raises it, “To Earth.” And a chorus of voices joined him.

Def Leppard’s tones followed, bringing a grin to Hound’s face.

Opening his eyes, the grin turned into a light smile as Mirage came through the door, b-lining for the bar. Prowl and Bluestreak followed, though splitting off.

Jazz was up and over to Prowl in nearly an instant, “It’s playing music from home. Come listen.” It wasn’t hard to see how Prowl tried to hide a smile, Sideswipe watching, his visor darkening as if narrowing his eyes. 

For the moment, it was easy to get lost in the music.

———

A/N

So this takes place from around a month and a half or so after the attack on New Kaon till around five months after. I just wanted to add a few bits before getting back to the story proper.

I promise there will be more with Soundwave finding out about the humans, I think it’s going to be a “Arcturus Negative One” story more so, try to tell it from Prowl’s perspective but we’ll see how that goes.

To make that long story short, he promises to keep the secret so don’t freak out.

Anyways, this chapter kicked my ass. I wanted to put so much into it, it’s nuts. Part of it was I was getting over from being sick, had a busy week, etc but I hope you all enjoy it!

TAGS

I want to thank @keferon for the amazing AU, and for letting me write the longest mecha pilot jazz story currently posted on Ao3 (It’s only up to part 26 on Ao3, which is just shy of 80k words)

@lunarlei68 @whirlywhirlygig @loop-hole-319 @pixillandjester @alek-the-witch @not-a-moose-in-disguise @goddessofwind8water @neurologicalglitch @dersereblogger @pixel-transformers @mrcrayonofdoom @wireplaces @twilightfreefaller @original-blog-name-2 @devilangel657 @robbin-u @miniartistme @starwold @tea-enthusiasm @valeexpris606 @celticdoggo @bird599 @agentsquirrelsgotrobots @aquaioart @thatwandercat @artdagz @seisha974 @halenhusky309 @leethepiper @cat-cassette @blue-wrens @sirassban @cosmique-oddity @garbageenthusiast @xervias @azulabutterfly @fryseem @spring-mc @echo-circuit @aghostsnail @wooblewooble @ask-glory-haddock-and-others @nonsscrapheap @magichats @iminahole247 @omgflyingderpywhale @thetrexartist @naaaafam @elegantmantaray @emichusai @waterlilykitty @diabolichare @ham4ponyo @osqindaxend @sunnyvibesanddoodles @ratatatata248 @ijustneedausernaneplease4444444 @sprook-children @fooolisher 

[43501]

How would Near show affection to his lover? Like.. Do you think he’d be the type to cuddle or call them sweet names? Or would he be rather emotionally distant…

One of my favorite subjects! Thanks for the ask!

(Since you're whispering in my ear for Nearposts, I suspect you've already seen these, but if you haven't: Near Romance Headcanons Part 1 // Near Romance Headcanons Part 2)

Need to advise that my answer will be a combination of pointing to things in canon that inform my opinions, and pure headcanon. Death Note's canon and extrinsic materials give us very, very little indication of what any of these people are like in their personal lives (except L, who has an entire DS game where you can romance him, and I am forever jealous).

What kind of person is Near?

Want to start by saying that I think the common fandom perception of him as an emotionless person is wrong. He definitely feels things - very strongly at times, even (speech at the Yellow Box, calling the president a "maggot", that very, very good scene in the Relight where he calls Light after the SPK is killed and just sits there seething in silence while covered in blood) - but he's always in control of himself. That's one of his defining character traits, after all.

I don't know why this omitted from the English translation, but the Japanese text under the "personality" section of his character bio in HT13 describes him as "a dry person". Also worth mentioning that in Japanese, Near is maintaining a super high level of formality in his speech at all times. He's always ending sentences with -masu or -desu, even when he's talking to Mello.

Like, the only really telling thing we get about him as a person is a meta comment (from Ryuk, of all people) in HTR13 suggesting he might be distant from others because he's sensitive. I think we are supposed to infer that he intentionally isolates himself from others to maintain his peace and clarity of mind. By the way, the original Japanese version of this says "due to being too smart and sensitive, they cut off contact with the outside world", so the Viz English translation is faithful.

HTR13 explicitly says he "had no friends at Wammy's House" but this is obviously self-imposed. Linda tries to get him to go outside and play with the other kids and the fact that the other guy on-panel is like "don't bother, Linda" means that this is probably a regular occurrence... plus, we see the panel of everyone crowding around Near to look at his test results. They would probably try to be his friends if he'd allow it, but he seems to hold them at bay.

He values Mello a lot, though. He has zero hesitation about inheriting the title of "L" together with him and working collaboratively (and in the anime adaptations, honestly reads a touch disappointed to me when Mello storms out of Wammy's House). His original line to Mello during the reunion was "welcome home, Mello" (okaerinasai) ... why did they change that? He's quite passionate in his speech to Light at the Yellow Box, giving Mello the credit for solving the case and almost directly saying "he makes up for what I lack". It's implied he recovered Mello's belongings and eats Mello's chocolate in remembrance of him. He keeps Mello's finger puppet and just like... sits around wearing it, years later.

I think this is the in-text proof we get of the "he's actually kind of sensitive" comment from HTR13. Also the C-Kira one-shot where he falters and knocks over a tarot card tower when Halle correctly surmises he's agonizing about what the original L would do in the situation (and then he apologizes and dismisses them, asking to be left alone for the rest of the day). In general, his emotions are displayed through his props. In part because manga is a visual medium, in part because that's actually how he expresses himself... sitting in the shadow of those huge "L" shaped card towers. Taking great care with making Mello's puppet because he "liked him". Breaking his own toys whenever he gets frustrated.

All of that to say that I think, if we're trying to make inferences from canon:

Near is certainly capable of warmth (and I'd even argue genuine attachment and admiration for a person), but his expressions of affection are likely to be low-key.

His social skills are extremely low. At least at first, he's not going to know what he's supposed to do in a relationship. It might even take him a while to realize he has more-than-friendly feelings for a person in the first place.

The suggestion that he has a "sensitive core" somewhere under all of that leaves a lot to the imagination. There's a ton of ways this can be interpreted.

By the way, this didn't fit in with any of the above but I wanted to mention a scene I really like. Only in the TV anime, Near tries to stop the Task Force from pursuing Light when he flees the Yellow Box. When Aizawa tells Near "I'm not going to follow your orders", Near seems genuinely aghast and embarrassed for a moment lol. It's not a strictly necessary scene (it's not in the original manga or the Relight) but it's nice to see Near shocked out of his element for a second, a humanizing moment.

Actually Answering Your Question

Now I'm going to forget about all of that and answer with what is in my heart, as someone who has been unreasonably attached to this character for 17 years.

Most of his expressions of love are indirect. He's the world's greatest detective (implied to still be quasi-FBI in present day) and provides financially for his partner - it's a very practical, down-to-earth show of love and very Near-like. He's very creative and always making stuff. He'll definitely make things in the image of his partner - finger puppets, sculptures, plushies - and keep them nearby. He's a careful study of everyone and everything in his life, so he knows you back-to-front. Gifts relating to your interests/hobbies will show up at your door at random, he definitely expresses affection by way of gift-giving.

Yes, he's very cuddly. Once a trusting relationship has been established and he feels he can open up. In keeping with his tendency to express his bigger, more complicated feelings in ways other than words, he relies on physical affection as a shortcut. It makes him feel at peace. Sometimes it lulls him to sleep. The first times you hold him, it feels like you're touching a thoroughly touch-starved person. Something he does a lot is hide/bury his face in the crook of your neck. He also twirls your hair through this fingers like he does with his own hair, like you might be an extension of him.

Kissing is much the same. For the most part, it's very loving, pure and chaste. Impossibly gentle kisses on the back of your hand, your forehead, your cheeks, your lips. Those hot, open-mouthed kisses, all tongue and teeth, are a more occasional thing. It always makes his head spin a little, lol.

Sex is infrequent but intense (at least emotionally, for him, I think, especially the first few times). He's pretty straightforward about his desires, but a touch awkward about it still. I don't personally view him as asexual (this is a whole essay unto itself so I won't elaborate), but he could easily do without it also. It's low on his list of priorities.

I struggle to see him as someone who uses sweet names on a partner, but I honestly think you'd get a "dear" or maybe even "my dear" once in a while. It fits with him still being a little bit formal, even in his private life, and it's the address he went with for the back of Mello's photograph instead of writing "To Mello" or something more impersonal...

In the case of a long-distance relationship which doesn't have a face-to-face component, I think his letter-writing is thoughtful and surprisingly ardent. He can be more honest (perhaps a touch poetic) when he has distance and time to compose his thoughts and feelings and put them to a page. There's a Near x OC fic I really like that runs on this premise. He doesn't talk like this in person or on the phone, though.

He doesn't distance himself from his partner per se, but there's always a sense that he's holding back a bit or there's something unsaid. Like there's a little tiny part of him always just out of reach. He doesn't say "I love you" unprompted (though he'll say it back if you do first). He's never going to be one for grand gestures. Even if he loves you, he still needs a lot of alone time (both for himself and in service of his work) and appreciates you respecting his space.

[ruinofchimera]

Hi, I'd like to know your opinion. Why do you think Peter betrayed the Marauders and blamed Sirius?

By the way, I hope you are very well.

Thank you for the perfect cue. Time to roll up my sleeves and dissect the bane of the Harry Potter fandom: Peter Pettigrew.

Why did he betray the Marauders? I like the phrasing. Because behind it, the real question to ponder is lurking. Did Peter ever betray his friends, or did he just betray the Marauders, the twisted idea of inclusion that he never really had? Oh, don’t get me wrong—there’s no denying that James and Sirius were practically the poster boys for friendship. No argument there. We’ve all heard that tear-jerking speech from Sirius: “I’d rather die than betray my friends.” And fair enough; Sirius had every reason to be an emotional wreck—he was talking about James, the only person he ever truly gave a damn about. Sure, we don’t know everything about their golden years, but what we do know makes it painfully clear: James and Sirius? They were a two-man act, a bond so tight it was as if they shared the same heartbeat.

But where on earth did this idea come from that someone else—anyone else—was ever part of that special bond? The books paint a pretty stark picture if you care to look. There was the alpha pair leading the charge, while the other two trailed behind, playing supporting roles. Look at how they chose Pettigrew to be Secret Keeper in the first place—not because they thought he was capable or smart, but because they figured no one would suspect him. Translation: “We don’t think you’re much good for anything, Peter, but hell, no one else does either, so maybe that’ll save our skins.” And yet somehow, fans cling to this rose-colored myth of brotherhood. Four souls, brought together by some unshakable bond of loyalty. Let’ get real here. There’s a very good chance that Peter didn’t even see James and the gang as friends. He was just along for the ride, hanging around like a dodgy uncle at a family reunion.

People love to reduce Peter’s Animagus form to a symbol of cowardice and betrayal, but they miss the real significance of what a rat actually represents—survival. And at his core, that’s exactly what Peter is—a survivor. Strip away all the noise, the grand ideals, and lofty heroics that everyone around him seemed so fond of, and what you’ve got left in Peter is raw instinct. He wasn’t guided by some deep-seated belief or conviction. No grand moral compass pulled him one way or another. He’s the embodiment of the quintessential “baby boy” trope—the “please take care of me” type. (Sorry, Regulus, but the Chalamet fancast isn’t enough to hold the title. Hand over the badge.)

What Peter craved more than anything was protection. It didn’t matter whether it came from James Potter or the Dark Lord himself. The man just wanted someone bigger, stronger, meaner to pat him on the head.

Pettigrew was already used to playing second fiddle to James and Sirius, who were so full of themselves they practically had their own gravitational pull. So when Voldemort strutted onto the scene, another powerful, arrogant tosser demanding followers, was it really such a massive shift for Peter? Hardly. It wasn’t life-changing. It was just a change of scenery. He did what he was best at: finding the biggest bully on the block and pledging his allegiance to survive. Sirius and James had been grooming him for it for years without even knowing.

It’s easy work, bashing Peter. Man’s got a face like a rodent and a spine to match—hardly the makings of a tragic anti-hero, is he? Sorry, Peter, but “pretty privilege” isn’t swooping in to save you like it did for Slytherin Skittles. If Pettigrew had even a hint of good looks, we’d have a library of fanworks trying to paint his redemption. But with a face like that? Not a chance. Instead, we get a convenient scapegoat for the fandom to rally against, letting the poster boys soak up all the angst. The sacred friendship betrayed! A tale for the ages, and people can boo-fucking-hoo about it for eternity.

As you can see from my lengthy ramblings, I’m doing just fine—so no worries in this department.

[seelestia]

we missed you, welcome back!

i had a thought for a few days now and then i saw that you were back and i just had to share this

so imagine that you wake up in teyvat one day and you speak a different language bc they probably don’t speak english in teyvat, and no one understands you, but then there’s the smart haravatat ppl like alhaitham and faruzan (idk if there is anyone else) who use their smart language brains to figure out how to talk to you, i think that would be super cute

.💭

BRAINROT ANON— my comrade on tumblr, i missed you too!! i'm so honored that you thought of me aww :') you knew i'd be glad to brainrot with you anytime!! /gen. i focused less on how they communicate with you, but rather more on the events surrounding this concept. hope ya don't mind! so good to see you again <3

extra note: this was written from a platonic pov! yk those movies where a protagonist helps out their 'otherworldly' companion to go back to their home world? yeah, that's what i'm going for here. movies like 'home' and 'cj7' came to mind immediately. that's us and faruzan!! oh, and alhaitham is here too, i guess. /j

-

imagine waking up one day to find yourself transported to the middle of the hypostyle desert. the sun burns, scorching hot on your skin then suddenly, it's gone? oh no, some strange turquoise lady is peering at your face with disapproval. you suspect she thinks you're a reckless traveler who forgot to bring ample supplies to a place like this. “███ ███ ████ ███?” she says and you realize you don't understand a word.

[translation: did your water storage run out?]

imagine the confusion on faruzan's face when you mumble a few sentences? noises? grumbles? she specializes in semiotics (and ruins), not speech pathology so how is she supposed to know? anyway, she graciously takes you in! and brings you back to her residence. yes, yes, how generous, applaud her later but she cannot hand you over to the akademiya just yet. (who knows what they'll do with you? you're obviously not of this world.)

imagine trying to communicate with faruzan using other means besides language. one of them includes pointing at the fresh apple slices on her kitchen counter. she gives them to you and notes how you say 'tenk yu' (?) which she takes as a sign of gratitude. of course, she also jots it down in her notes alongside her observations. how interesting.

and she manages the grand feat of roping alhaitham in, somehow someway. he's a youngster (everyone is a youngster if you're one hundred years old at this point) far too solitary for her liking — plus, notoriously hard to convince but that helps: he's someone who won't tattle! that's her logic here. she even had to invite him over for dinner and introduce him to you herself! ugh, she really had no more funds left to spare... so this better works.

it did, oddly. alhaitham's first instinct is to question and his deductions conclude that you are far too genuine (for lack of a better word) for all of this to be a ruse. the way you pointed at his fit and gave him a thumbs-up he assumed that you meant to say you thought it's “cool”.

alhaitham observes you; when you speak, none of the words sound familiar to his experienced ears and trust him, his quota of languages exceed many. he is not here to brag, so don't twist it. nor do you seem to understand anything whenever he or faruzan speaks. you don't even react in the slightest when he mentions or addresses you directly, only a tap on the shoulder works. it's safe to assume you do not know teyvatian language.

the guy in gray green turns to madam faru with a hum. she taught you to refer to her that way. it took hard work and lots of apple slices. “██... ██ ███ ████ █ ████?” he asks.

[translation: so... do you have a plan?]

“██ ███ █████!” she puffs out her chest in determination.

[translation: in due time!]

he sighs.

you blink, eternally confused.

[rat-rosemary]

Tags by @7ynnn

Now. Patches is fucking smart alright? No matter what anyone says, she's not just a little fry, she knows she is very smart and she knows how the world works

Above anything else, she knows how humans work.

Sure, the tail is new, but she recognizes the suits her humans would wear when taking her out to swim in the ocean from far away. And she also knows that this is deeper and farther away then they ever went, and that humans dont do good underwater for long periods of time

So she grabs Dream and immediately starts shoving him up, and Dream immediately recognizes her because this is a thing Patches did when she decided someone had been in the water for too long, and follows along

(Patches accidentally got trained/trained herself to do drowning rescue missions)

It's a shock to see Patches, but even with all the adrenaline and fear there's still so much joy in Dream in seeing her. She's healthy and strong and she's grown so much...

It's also a shock for the hunters. It takes them a good bit to figure out how to balance themselves to get above the water like Dream and Patches, but when they do its so find him without the thing on his face, making an odd noise and holding Patches like she's pup

It's messy afterwards. Dream is really mad and Patches is mad because Dream is mad, and they only manage to talk because Patches won't let go of Dream

They manage to have a conversation with Patches acting like Dream's translator

(I just realized I never said this, Dream and the hunters can't really communicate. The mermaid language hasn't been translated yet, + human speech doesn't do great underwater, and mermaids in captivity and their team's make new languages to communicate with each other, normally being 90 written symbols and body language)

Then Dream tries to explain to Patches that she can't come with him. She can get a life so much better with her people, something him and the rehab center could never give her. Patches is not listening tho, and Dream's hands are tied.

If he runs now, Patches will definitely follow, and even if he loses her there's no telling what could happen to her if she insists on searching or gets lost. But Dream can't stay either. His tails battery will run out, his air tanks will run low. There's nothing he can do but let her come along

NOT YOU FIVE YOU FIVE ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE I CANT BELIEVE YOU GRABBED ME

Dream immediately contacts his supervisors and the rest of Patches' old care team when he gets back home.

This isn't an international incident yet, as long as no other mers saw anything and Dream can get the hunters to stop, but it's close. He's spends the night up being coached on what he needs to do, and the next day he leaves with a rescue team nearby in case anything happens again.

Patches' case is re-evaluated. They cannot take her back, specially since she has formed familial bonds with other mers (Naomi and Milo might be stupid and annoying, but... who will stop them from being stupid if she's not there?) But a new schedule is drafted for Patches to get monthly visits from her old care team

[cirilla-fiona-riannon]

Vampire Wedding Epilogue

Translations may not always capture the exact nuances or tone of the original text. Expect grammatical errors and inaccuracies.

In the cabin, where the distant sound of the waves could be heard, erotic breaths and lewd, wet sounds echoed.

How much time had passed while we remained deeply connected?

When I ran my tongue over her sweaty skin, Mitsuki's body shuddered as if struck by electricity.

I slid my lips over her chest and lightly nibbled on her earlobe.

Mitsuki: "Ah...ngh..."

Drake: "Does it feel good?"

Mitsuki: "Nnn...Yeah...ahh..."

Her entire body had become extremely sensitive from being thoroughly pleasured, and even the slightest touch elicited a response.

Mitsuki: "Ah, don't touch that."

When I cupped and kneaded her breasts, she clung to me tightly.

Drake: "Heh, do you really hate it?"

As I caressed her breasts and took her nipple into my mouth, she let out an even sweeter cry.

Mitsuki: "Ah, ahh..."

Drake: "When you make that face, it makes me want to do even more."

Mitsuki: "Francis..."

Hearing her call my name sent a thrilling sensation up my spine.

Drake: "Haha, that's nice. I want to hear more."

Drake: "Come on, call me again."

I whispered coaxingly and lightly bit the nipple I had in my mouth.

Mitsuki: "Ah, Francis…”

Drake: "No matter how often I hear it, I never get tired of you calling my name in that voice."

With a soft, wet sound, I pulled away from her, and she looked up at me with tear-filled eyes.

Mitsuki: "Francis, call my name too."

Her speech, slurred with pleasure, only fueled my desire further.

Drake: "I don't remember teaching you to beg like that. But if you want it so badly, I'll call you. My Mitsuki."

Mitsuki: "Ahh."

Desire surged within me, seeing her smile happily with blushing cheeks.

Drake: "Mitsuki, Mitsuki."

As I called her name, her body grew hotter, and I moved against her, my tongue trailing along her neck in response to my impulses.

(I want to make her cry out more and make her melt. I want to fill her with nothing but me.)

I sank my fangs into her hot skin, and her arms, wrapped around my back, tensed and shivered.

Mitsuki: "Francis."

The intense aroma and taste were sweeter than the finest wine, melting my consciousness and amplifying the pleasure.

Drake: "Mitsuki, I love you."

With a whisper, I thrust deeply into her, and she arched her back.

Mitsuki: "I love you too, Francis. I love you too."

Her tear-filled eyes, overwhelmed with intense pleasure, pierced through me.

(No matter what happens, I will never let you go.)

Feeling her tears as the most beautiful sight, I held her precious body tightly.

Drake: "Fawn, are you cold?"

Mitsuki: "I'm fine. The breeze feels nice."

The sea breeze gently caressed our lingering, hot skin.

While embracing her from behind on the boat, gazing out at the night sea, a pale blue light ran through the particularly dark waves.

Mitsuki: "Hey, look! It's the light we saw before."

Where she pointed, the blue light spread, coloring the waves.

Mitsuki: "It's so beautiful. I wonder why it glows."

As she gazed at it in wonder, I stifled a smile and leaned in close.

Drake: "That light is actually from tiny creatures in the sea."

When I said that, she blinked in surprise.

Mitsuki: "Really?"

Drake: "Yeah, they're called bioluminescent plankton. They're so small you can't see them with the naked eye."

Drake: "When waves disturb their gathering, they react and glow."

Drake: "Some say it's the light of dead souls, but it's really the brilliance of countless tiny lives."

Mitsuki: "I didn't know that! You're so smart, Drake."

Drake: "Well, I learned all that from Galileo."

I grinned, and she let out a light laugh.

Mitsuki: "Honestly, Drake, I was impressed by how much you knew about the sea."

Drake: "I do know a lot, but no matter how much time I spend at sea, there are still many things I don't know."

Drake: "That's why the more I learn, the more fascinating it becomes."

I leaned in and playfully kissed her as she chuckled softly.

Drake: "You really are like the sea, Fawn."

Mitsuki: "Huh?"

Drake: "You still show me so many sides of you that I don't know."

Drake: "The more I get to know you, the more I'm drawn to you."

Drake: "And before I knew it, I couldn't let go."

Mitsuki: "Me too. The more I get to know you, the more I love you."

Mitsuki: "I'm sure I'll keep loving you more and more."

I kissed her again, and as we parted, she suddenly pointed at the sea.

Mitsuki: "Look!"

The pale blue light had formed a single line, stretching straight in the direction of the bow of the ship.

It seemed to go on forever, as if guiding us.

Drake: "Haha! I've never seen the light do this before."

Drake: "How about we follow it as part of our honeymoon, Mrs. Drake?"

Mitsuki: "Mrs. Drake?"

Blushing, Mitsuki nodded happily.

Mitsuki: "That sounds fun! Let's go!"

Drake: "Yes, your Majesty."

Drake: "Let's uncover the secrets of the sea together."

Guided by the blue light, the ship charted a course toward the horizon, venturing into the unknown.

Part 1 ╎ Part 2 ╎ Premium ╎ Masterlist

[cardinalarts]

I'm back at it again with another Pokémon Colosseum rant. And by rant, I mean the insane ramblings of the only person in the world who cares about GCN Pokémon this much. I'm not here to whine about Bulbapedia again (for now). This time, it's an inconsistency in the game itself. And it all revolves around Duking's daughter, Marcia.

When you first talk to her in the secret room of Duking's house, she has a very formal speech pattern, "I'm pleased to meet you" and "We're quite busy" being the main examples. Their ages are never specified, but we see in XD that they must be either adults or teens (It'd be weird if they're running a news organization as teenagers, but we can write that off as anime logic), so since it's been 5 years they're probably somewhere in the ballpark of 11-13 years old in Colo, and also very smart for their age.

EXCEPT

During the rest of the Pyrite portion of the game, Marcia's speech patterns are completely different. Her only worry regarding Plusle is whether Miror B. is "being mean to it." She calls Rui "big lady" and later on says something like "Big people, please take care of Plusle." (I don't know if I got the wording exactly right, but it was something like that), which sounds much more childish than her previous dialogue. I was trying to figure out the reason for this, and I think I found an answer. Here's what that "big lady" line was in Japanese.

Disclaimer: I don't speak Japanese. But I do have Google! And what Google tells me is that "お姉ちゃん" means "onee-chan." If you've ever watched an anime in your life, I'm sure you already know what that means. Typically, translators tend to localize it as "big sis." Genius Sonority, however, did not have typical translators. These are the same people who wrote such stellar dialogue as:

As for why she was speaking so formally in her earlier dialogue, my best guess is that they just translated it too literally to the point it sounded robotic. The original, based purely on what Google Translate gives me, wasn't really that different.

So, in summary, Colosseum's localization team translated "onee-chan" as "big lady" just so 20 years later I could deal with the headache of trying to figure out how to write Marcia's dialogue for my fanfic. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

"Open" "AI" isn’t

Tomorrow (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

The crybabies who freak out about The Communist Manifesto appearing on university curriculum clearly never read it – chapter one is basically a long hymn to capitalism's flexibility and inventiveness, its ability to change form and adapt itself to everything the world throws at it and come out on top:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007

Today, leftists signal this protean capacity of capital with the -washing suffix: greenwashing, genderwashing, queerwashing, wokewashing – all the ways capital cloaks itself in liberatory, progressive values, while still serving as a force for extraction, exploitation, and political corruption.

A smart capitalist is someone who, sensing the outrage at a world run by 150 old white guys in boardrooms, proposes replacing half of them with women, queers, and people of color. This is a superficial maneuver, sure, but it's an incredibly effective one.

In "Open (For Business): Big Tech, Concentrated Power, and the Political Economy of Open AI," a new working paper, Meredith Whittaker, David Gray Widder and Sarah B Myers document a new kind of -washing: openwashing:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4543807

Openwashing is the trick that large "AI" companies use to evade regulation and neutralizing critics, by casting themselves as forces of ethical capitalism, committed to the virtue of openness. No one should be surprised to learn that the products of the "open" wing of an industry whose products are neither "artificial," nor "intelligent," are also not "open." Every word AI huxters say is a lie; including "and," and "the."

So what work does the "open" in "open AI" do? "Open" here is supposed to invoke the "open" in "open source," a movement that emphasizes a software development methodology that promotes code transparency, reusability and extensibility, which are three important virtues.

But "open source" itself is an offshoot of a more foundational movement, the Free Software movement, whose goal is to promote freedom, and whose method is openness. The point of software freedom was technological self-determination, the right of technology users to decide not just what their technology does, but who it does it to and who it does it for:

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

The open source split from free software was ostensibly driven by the need to reassure investors and businesspeople so they would join the movement. The "free" in free software is (deliberately) ambiguous, a bit of wordplay that sometimes misleads people into thinking it means "Free as in Beer" when really it means "Free as in Speech" (in Romance languages, these distinctions are captured by translating "free" as "libre" rather than "gratis").

The idea behind open source was to rebrand free software in a less ambiguous – and more instrumental – package that stressed cost-savings and software quality, as well as "ecosystem benefits" from a co-operative form of development that recruited tinkerers, independents, and rivals to contribute to a robust infrastructural commons.

But "open" doesn't merely resolve the linguistic ambiguity of libre vs gratis – it does so by removing the "liberty" from "libre," the "freedom" from "free." "Open" changes the pole-star that movement participants follow as they set their course. Rather than asking "Which course of action makes us more free?" they ask, "Which course of action makes our software better?"

Thus, by dribs and drabs, the freedom leeches out of openness. Today's tech giants have mobilized "open" to create a two-tier system: the largest tech firms enjoy broad freedom themselves – they alone get to decide how their software stack is configured. But for all of us who rely on that (increasingly unavoidable) software stack, all we have is "open": the ability to peer inside that software and see how it works, and perhaps suggest improvements to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBknF2yUZZ8

In the Big Tech internet, it's freedom for them, openness for us. "Openness" – transparency, reusability and extensibility – is valuable, but it shouldn't be mistaken for technological self-determination. As the tech sector becomes ever-more concentrated, the limits of openness become more apparent.

But even by those standards, the openness of "open AI" is thin gruel indeed (that goes triple for the company that calls itself "OpenAI," which is a particularly egregious openwasher).

The paper's authors start by suggesting that the "open" in "open AI" is meant to imply that an "open AI" can be scratch-built by competitors (or even hobbyists), but that this isn't true. Not only is the material that "open AI" companies publish insufficient for reproducing their products, even if those gaps were plugged, the resource burden required to do so is so intense that only the largest companies could do so.

Beyond this, the "open" parts of "open AI" are insufficient for achieving the other claimed benefits of "open AI": they don't promote auditing, or safety, or competition. Indeed, they often cut against these goals.

"Open AI" is a wordgame that exploits the malleability of "open," but also the ambiguity of the term "AI": "a grab bag of approaches, not… a technical term of art, but more … marketing and a signifier of aspirations." Hitching this vague term to "open" creates all kinds of bait-and-switch opportunities.

That's how you get Meta claiming that LLaMa2 is "open source," despite being licensed in a way that is absolutely incompatible with any widely accepted definition of the term:

https://blog.opensource.org/metas-llama-2-license-is-not-open-source/

LLaMa-2 is a particularly egregious openwashing example, but there are plenty of other ways that "open" is misleadingly applied to AI: sometimes it means you can see the source code, sometimes that you can see the training data, and sometimes that you can tune a model, all to different degrees, alone and in combination.

But even the most "open" systems can't be independently replicated, due to raw computing requirements. This isn't the fault of the AI industry – the computational intensity is a fact, not a choice – but when the AI industry claims that "open" will "democratize" AI, they are hiding the ball. People who hear these "democratization" claims (especially policymakers) are thinking about entrepreneurial kids in garages, but unless these kids have access to multi-billion-dollar data centers, they can't be "disruptors" who topple tech giants with cool new ideas. At best, they can hope to pay rent to those giants for access to their compute grids, in order to create products and services at the margin that rely on existing products, rather than displacing them.

The "open" story, with its claims of democratization, is an especially important one in the context of regulation. In Europe, where a variety of AI regulations have been proposed, the AI industry has co-opted the open source movement's hard-won narrative battles about the harms of ill-considered regulation.

For open source (and free software) advocates, many tech regulations aimed at taming large, abusive companies – such as requirements to surveil and control users to extinguish toxic behavior – wreak collateral damage on the free, open, user-centric systems that we see as superior alternatives to Big Tech. This leads to the paradoxical effect of passing regulation to "punish" Big Tech that end up simply shaving an infinitesimal percentage off the giants' profits, while destroying the small co-ops, nonprofits and startups before they can grow to be a viable alternative.

The years-long fight to get regulators to understand this risk has been waged by principled actors working for subsistence nonprofit wages or for free, and now the AI industry is capitalizing on lawmakers' hard-won consideration for collateral damage by claiming to be "open AI" and thus vulnerable to overbroad regulation.

But the "open" projects that lawmakers have been coached to value are precious because they deliver a level playing field, competition, innovation and democratization – all things that "open AI" fails to deliver. The regulations the AI industry is fighting also don't necessarily implicate the speech implications that are core to protecting free software:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech

Just think about LLaMa-2. You can download it for free, along with the model weights it relies on – but not detailed specs for the data that was used in its training. And the source-code is licensed under a homebrewed license cooked up by Meta's lawyers, a license that only glancingly resembles anything from the Open Source Definition:

https://opensource.org/osd/

Core to Big Tech companies' "open AI" offerings are tools, like Meta's PyTorch and Google's TensorFlow. These tools are indeed "open source," licensed under real OSS terms. But they are designed and maintained by the companies that sponsor them, and optimize for the proprietary back-ends each company offers in its own cloud. When programmers train themselves to develop in these environments, they are gaining expertise in adding value to a monopolist's ecosystem, locking themselves in with their own expertise. This a classic example of software freedom for tech giants and open source for the rest of us.

One way to understand how "open" can produce a lock-in that "free" might prevent is to think of Android: Android is an open platform in the sense that its sourcecode is freely licensed, but the existence of Android doesn't make it any easier to challenge the mobile OS duopoly with a new mobile OS; nor does it make it easier to switch from Android to iOS and vice versa.

Another example: MongoDB, a free/open database tool that was adopted by Amazon, which subsequently forked the codebase and tuning it to work on their proprietary cloud infrastructure.

The value of open tooling as a stickytrap for creating a pool of developers who end up as sharecroppers who are glued to a specific company's closed infrastructure is well-understood and openly acknowledged by "open AI" companies. Zuckerberg boasts about how PyTorch ropes developers into Meta's stack, "when there are opportunities to make integrations with products, [so] it’s much easier to make sure that developers and other folks are compatible with the things that we need in the way that our systems work."

Tooling is a relatively obscure issue, primarily debated by developers. A much broader debate has raged over training data – how it is acquired, labeled, sorted and used. Many of the biggest "open AI" companies are totally opaque when it comes to training data. Google and OpenAI won't even say how many pieces of data went into their models' training – let alone which data they used.

Other "open AI" companies use publicly available datasets like the Pile and CommonCrawl. But you can't replicate their models by shoveling these datasets into an algorithm. Each one has to be groomed – labeled, sorted, de-duplicated, and otherwise filtered. Many "open" models merge these datasets with other, proprietary sets, in varying (and secret) proportions.

Quality filtering and labeling for training data is incredibly expensive and labor-intensive, and involves some of the most exploitative and traumatizing clickwork in the world, as poorly paid workers in the Global South make pennies for reviewing data that includes graphic violence, rape, and gore.

Not only is the product of this "data pipeline" kept a secret by "open" companies, the very nature of the pipeline is likewise cloaked in mystery, in order to obscure the exploitative labor relations it embodies (the joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians" comes out of the South Asian clickwork industry).

The most common "open" in "open AI" is a model that arrives built and trained, which is "open" in the sense that end-users can "fine-tune" it – usually while running it on the manufacturer's own proprietary cloud hardware, under that company's supervision and surveillance. These tunable models are undocumented blobs, not the rigorously peer-reviewed transparent tools celebrated by the open source movement.

If "open" was a way to transform "free software" from an ethical proposition to an efficient methodology for developing high-quality software; then "open AI" is a way to transform "open source" into a rent-extracting black box.

Some "open AI" has slipped out of the corporate silo. Meta's LLaMa was leaked by early testers, republished on 4chan, and is now in the wild. Some exciting stuff has emerged from this, but despite this work happening outside of Meta's control, it is not without benefits to Meta. As an infamous leaked Google memo explains:

Paradoxically, the one clear winner in all of this is Meta. Because the leaked model was theirs, they have effectively garnered an entire planet's worth of free labor. Since most open source innovation is happening on top of their architecture, there is nothing stopping them from directly incorporating it into their products.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/leaked-google-memo-admits-defeat-by-open-source-ai/486290/

Thus, "open AI" is best understood as "as free product development" for large, well-capitalized AI companies, conducted by tinkerers who will not be able to escape these giants' proprietary compute silos and opaque training corpuses, and whose work product is guaranteed to be compatible with the giants' own systems.

The instrumental story about the virtues of "open" often invoke auditability: the fact that anyone can look at the source code makes it easier for bugs to be identified. But as open source projects have learned the hard way, the fact that anyone can audit your widely used, high-stakes code doesn't mean that anyone will.

The Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL was a wake-up call for the open source movement – a bug that endangered every secure webserver connection in the world, which had hidden in plain sight for years. The result was an admirable and successful effort to build institutions whose job it is to actually make use of open source transparency to conduct regular, deep, systemic audits.

In other words, "open" is a necessary, but insufficient, precondition for auditing. But when the "open AI" movement touts its "safety" thanks to its "auditability," it fails to describe any steps it is taking to replicate these auditing institutions – how they'll be constituted, funded and directed. The story starts and ends with "transparency" and then makes the unjustifiable leap to "safety," without any intermediate steps about how the one will turn into the other.

It's a Magic Underpants Gnome story, in other words:

Step One: Transparency

Step Two: ??

Step Three: Safety

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ih_TQWqCA

Meanwhile, OpenAI itself has gone on record as objecting to "burdensome mechanisms like licenses or audits" as an impediment to "innovation" – all the while arguing that these "burdensome mechanisms" should be mandatory for rival offerings that are more advanced than its own. To call this a "transparent ruse" is to do violence to good, hardworking transparent ruses all the world over:

https://openai.com/blog/governance-of-superintelligence

Some "open AI" is much more open than the industry dominating offerings. There's EleutherAI, a donor-supported nonprofit whose model comes with documentation and code, licensed Apache 2.0. There are also some smaller academic offerings: Vicuna (UCSD/CMU/Berkeley); Koala (Berkeley) and Alpaca (Stanford).

These are indeed more open (though Alpaca – which ran on a laptop – had to be withdrawn because it "hallucinated" so profusely). But to the extent that the "open AI" movement invokes (or cares about) these projects, it is in order to brandish them before hostile policymakers and say, "Won't someone please think of the academics?" These are the poster children for proposals like exempting AI from antitrust enforcement, but they're not significant players in the "open AI" industry, nor are they likely to be for so long as the largest companies are running the show:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4493900

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

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/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en