#so i imagine certain concerns we have irl might still exist but be more manageable reduced or even nonexistent

[enchantedbride]

The First Meeting, In a Cafe  (Leon/Joey Shorts 1/???)

Tagging: @lovely-selfships, @foreveryours-mouse, @charliedoyleloves

(Let me know if you wish to be tagged in this series or any other self-ship writing of mine! I’m more than happy to do it so the people who want to see my stuff can find it more easily.)

Fandom: Pokemon SwSh

Rating: SFW

Warnings: None (But later stories will includes depictions of struggling with depression and mentions of past self-harm, suicidal ideation, and childhood emotional abuse and will be tagged when said topics come up)

There was an unsteady rhythm to the rapping of her fingers against the table as her eyes anxiously flitted back to her phone. The side patio of the Cafe had less of the chatter from other patrons as inside, but that was simply replaced by the patter of footsteps against the sidewalks and the occasional dull whir of an engine as a vehicle sped by. The smell of coffee drifted outside from the side door, causing a small sigh to escape her.

Lee was getting close to being half an hour late. She was already sweating bullets about this situation before, but the fact he was late made it worse. 

Joey wasn’t sure to begin with that coming all the way to the Galar region to crash with a friend she only knew online was a good idea. Luckily he seemed more than happy to meet up with her in a public place so they could meet each other in person before she committed to this. 

And should he turn out to be a creep, she had a friend of hers keeping a watchful eye. Not that she thought Lee was likely to be a creep, but on the off chance, it was better to be prepared.

That might not be necessary though if he didn’t even show up.

“Blas?” Claudia, her Blastoise, shifted impatiently in her spot next to her at the table. The two had been together practically since Joey’s infancy, so it took little effort for Joey to understand her partner Pokemon’s state.

“I know. It’s really getting to be late. He sent me a text saying he was running late, but still.”

“Blastoise...”

“I’m starting to wonder if this was worth it,” Joey thought aloud. “On the other hand, I guess I am glad for the change of scenery. Even if it winds up being for only a couple of days instead of a few weeks.”

Motostoke had a charm to it, with it’s steam-powered moving platforms and the the little shops that lined the streets. Some buildings were newer, styled much like the modern towering skyscrapers of Castelia City back in Unova from where she came. But many were older and not imposing in the same way, with brick and stone exteriors. 

It would be dishonest of her if she didn’t admit she wanted to explore the place more.

I shouldn’t even really be on this trip, though, she scolded herself. If it weren’t for the fact I literally can’t go back to work for the next few weeks, that’s where I would be. Where I should be. 

Joey turned her gaze back to her coffee, starting to get lost in her own thoughts again. She would wait a little while longer. But only a little while.

A few moments passed, and the relative quiet was interrupted by the sound of a stomach gurgling. 

“Blas...Blastoise?” Joey looked up to see Claudia’s expression shift to something that appeared more pained as she briefly patted her belly.

“Oh dear,” Joey remarked, “Are you hungry, Claudia? It is past lunchtime now.”

The Blastoise nodded in agreement. “Blas.” 

“I know Lemon treats are your favorite, there were some in the case back inside. I could get some if you like?”

Claudia nodded with more enthusiasm at the suggestion. 

“Okay. I’ll be right back. Can you mind the table while I’m gone?”

“Blastoise!” 

“Thanks, Claudia. I’m really sorry about all of this.” Joey got up from the table and pushed in her seat, taking her phone with her but leaving Claudia behind. She only planned to be gone for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the line inside told her that it might be longer then that. 

Joey sighed, briefly looking back before she glanced down to her phone.

No new DMs, she observed. The last message displayed was from fifteen minutes ago.

Sorry Helix, I’m running late! I’m having trouble finding the Cafe. I promise I’ll try to be there as soon as possible.

Joey got in line and began a second waiting game in addition to the one she was already playing. If Lee does show up, it’s going to be a bit strange to start calling each other by our real names, she thought. Up until now, we’ve only known each other by our internet nicknames. 

They also didn’t know what the other looked or sounded like. It might very well be quite the surprise for both of them. Although if Joey were being honest, she wasn’t quite sure what to expect. 

Lee had been a kind, goofy and excitable sort in the several months the two corresponded. But what stood out with him was his ability to support and encourage others and to take difficult situations with grace. His friendship had been invaluable to her. 

Perhaps this was a major part of what made her nervous. He’d come to be an important fixture in her life. If things didn’t turn out well or he wasn’t as he appeared, it would hurt. 

Joey continued to wait as the line slowly dwindled and she moved closer to the counter little by little. Occasionally she would look at her phone for new messages, but there was nothing. Otherwise she kept her focus on the lemon treats as they sat at the front of the display case by the service counter. 

They look delicious, she thought. Claudia’s going to love them!

She was nearing the service counter, and eventually it was her turn to order. She asked for a pair of lemon treats and paid for them before they were taken from the case and handed to her. Joey stepped to the side to let the next person approach, and turned to make her way back to the patio. But then, she heard a voice from near the front door of the cafe.

“Excuse me. I didn’t see you there, please forgive me.”

“Oh, Champion! Don’t worry about it. Please, go ahead. I was actually about to go sit down.”

Joey turned her head. Champion? Her eyes briefly went wide. Recognition flared up as she saw a tall man perhaps a little bit younger than her with long violet hair close the door behind him and make his way further in. 

Oh! That’s the champion of the Galar Pokemon league, Leon! Joey found a big grin pulling at her face. Lee’s such a big fan of his and collects all sorts of merch. I bet he’d be so stoked if he knew Leon was here. 

Joey observed him for a moment, noticing that he started to walk off to the side and pull out his phone. Catching herself a moment, she chided herself mentally a bit for being nosy and tried to redirect herself to go back to her table on the patio. She began her stride, but found herself stopped as she felt her phone begin to vibrate in the pocket of her sweatshirt.

Joey pulled out her phone to see a notification lighting up the screen.

It’s Lee! Talk about timing...

She opened up her phone too see the text in detail. 

I’m finally here! Again, I’m so sorry for being late. Where are you sitting? I’ll come find you. 

He’s here? She looked over but saw nobody had come in since Leon. Maybe he came in just before? There were a few other people who came in while I was waiting in line. 

I’m actually just got a snack for Claudia and was about to head back to the table on the patio, she typed back in reply. Why don’t you wave and I’ll come find you? If you see a  gremlin in an Umbreon hoodie coming towards you, that’s me. 

Joey kept her phone in hand, while holding the bag of lemon treats in the other. She began to look around the cafe for someone waving there hand. It was a moment or two, but eventually her eyes caught sight of someone waving their hand, and a pair of amber eyes looking back at her.

A startled response briefly overtook her and she blurted out in response to seeing who was waving back at her.

“WHAT-” she stopped as she spotted multiple gazes now pointed in her direction, almost crumbling inward in embarrassment.  She began to approach, clutching her phone and treats tightly as her feet briskly brought her forward.

The person waving at her was Leon. And she couldn’t brush it off as a coincidence when he was the only one waving and he was looking right at her. Joey excused herself as walked past someone in the line. This can’t be right, she argued with herself. Lee can’t be Leon. It doesn’t make sense!

She finally stopped in front of him, attempting to compose herself. Her reaction probably didn’t come as that much of a surprise. But he probably thought it was because she didn’t expect the friend she’d been corresponding with all these months was a celebrity. But it had more to do with the fact she didn’t expect someone to collect their own merchandise. 

And perhaps the fact she had more assumptions about him than she thought.

“Are you Helix?” he asked. She wasn’t very good at reading people, but she could at least gather that he was anticipating her response.

“Yeah,” she replied, “In the flesh. Although I generally go by Joey in real life.” She began to put her phone back in her pocket as she tried to meet his eyes as closely as she could without causing herself discomfort. Eye contact was always hard for her, but she especially didn’t want to obviously be avoiding it for the moment. “Are you Lee?”

“Joey,” he repeated her name with noticeable enthusiasm and a smile before his expression shifted to a more apologetic one. “It’s nice to meet you in person. I want to apologize again for keeping you so long. If it weren’t for Charizard I probably wouldn’t have gotten here.” He blinked in realization before he cleared his throat, almost as if he was nervous. “I’m Lee. Or Leon, as you’ve probably figured out.”

“You know it fits in a lot of ways,” Joey admitted as the reality of the situation began to sink in, “But, certain things don’t add up. Namely, I wouldn’t have thought you would be an avid collector of your own merch!”

Leon chuckled.

“I wasn’t at first. I started getting it for my little brother, Hop in the beginning. But I was so impressed with all the things my fans created that I guess I started wanting some for myself as well.”

Joey nodded. “I see. So ChampionHour was a way for you to quietly look for things you thought Hop would like and then it became a way for you to quietly interact with your own fandom and various Pokemon centric groups online.”

“I guess it did. I mean, I have a more public account that I use in a more official capacity but... yes.” Leon answered as his eyes wandered towards the side door. “So you said your table was out on the patio?”

“Yeah. Guarded by my three thousand pound Blastoise. Can’t miss it.”

“I see,” he laughed. “You mentioned Claudia would be with you for security. I understand why. All the same, I’m glad to meet both you and your partner Pokemon. Did you bring any of your other Pokemon with you?”

“Corti’s in her Pokeball but everyone else is back at the hotel or in the box system,” Joey replied as she gestured to her pockets. Cortana, or Corti for short, was Joey’s Raichu, and her other closest partner besides Claudia. “And I’m glad to meet you too. Although to be honest I was worried you weren’t going to show up, and well... as is obvious, I didn’t put two and two together.”

“Honestly I’m not surprised and I don’t think you should fault yourself. I think a lot of people wouldn’t have thought to consider it,” he answered as he followed her outside. “Especially with a nickname as blatant as Lee. Actually I chose it because it’s the nickname Hop calls me.”

“I see. That makes sense considering you originally made your account to look for stuff for him,” Joey considered.

“And again, I really am sorry,” he repeated, “I’ve never been great at finding my way around, even in places I’ve been to a million times. But I shouldn’t have kept you waiting. I understand if you’re miffed.”

“I am a little, I won’t lie,” she confessed. “But you’re here now and I accept your apology. So don’t worry too much about it, alright?”

“I’ll try not to.” He smiled. “Also I’m glad you didn’t wait to get something for yourself.”

“Oh this?” Joey held up the bag. “Oh I mainly got this for Claudia. But... I should probably eat too.” At that moment Joey felt her stomach softly burbling. 

“That sounds like a good idea,” he replied with a small chuckle. he looked up and his smile widened. “Ah! I see my partner has found yours just fine.”

“Hm?” Joey looked over to see that next to Claudia was another Pokemon. Specifically, a Charizard. “Oh! Right, you mentioned your Charizard helped you find your way here.”

My friend Lee is Leon, she processed. And that’s his Charizard talking to Claudia. Whatever I might have expected deep down, it wasn’t this. 

Charizard and Claudia appeared to be having a lively conversation, although both quickly looked up when Joey and Leon came to the table. Claudia huffed at Leon before she tilted her head sighed softly towards Joey. Charizard snorted looking quite amused.

“I know Claudia. He did say he was sorry though,” Joey answered her Blastoise. “It looks like you and Charizard are both mutually annoyed from the looks of it. Can I take that as a sign the two of you are getting along?”

Charizard let out a low rumble of agreement. 

“Thanks for getting us here, Charizard,” Leon said to his friend before addressing Claudia, “ I should say sorry to you too, though.”

“Blas.” Claudia nodded in acceptance before her eyes caught the paper bag with treats. “Blastoise! Blas?”

“Yeah! I got us both one. Here-” Joey pulled out a treat from the bag and handed it to Claudia. “Thanks for being so patient, friend. Hope it’s good!”

“I haven’t exactly made a good first impression, have I? I know you’re already nervous about the prospect of staying with my in my loft over your leave.”

Joey frown, finally visibly averting her gaze. “To be honest, I think I’d be nervous whether you were late or not.”

“Because we never met in real life until now. Although I imagine knowing who I am now probably doesn’t help things.”

“Well...” Joey began to rub the back of her neck. “Maybe a little.”

“You don’t need to downplay it,” he assured her, “But I know you well enough to know you won’t treat me differently because I’m a public figure and a celebrity, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I guess there’s no sweeping that under the rug, huh?” she sighed. “I guess there’s a bit more to talk about than where I’d be sleeping and what’s off limits in your fridge if I agree to this.” 

At this Leon laughed. “You can take anything in my fridge you like,” he replied, “There are more things to talk about yes. But what I said before we agreed to meet here still holds true. You’re my friend and I want to help. But I also want you to be comfortable. If for any reason you decide your not comfortable, I want you to assert yourself, okay?” He was gentle but firm. “That includes asserting you’d rather return to Unova.”

A moment of clarity cut through the haze of unreality she was feeling at the situation. He was talking just like her did in their DMs with each other. Only the difference now was he was physically here and she could hear his voice. 

That was perhaps unreal in its own way. 

He really was her friend, Lee. 

“I appreciate it,” she replied. “So, then, I guess we should figure out what to talk about first then.”

[shiny-procrastinates]

(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 5

part 4 here

Hello everyone and welcome back to this... thing. Last time, we met Tsuruno, who I forgot to mention is voiced by the TrySail member we hadn't seen yet, Natsukawa Shiina. After meeting Tsuruno, our girls join Yachiyo in investigating the rumor of the Seance Shrine, that they in fact find, and left off with them meeting the people they were looking for. Are those the real deal? Guess we'll have to watch to find out.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record S1 episode 5

Rather than going back to where we left off right away, we are first treated to a flashback to the person Yachiyo asked to meet. 

and of course, that inverted "sayonara" there in the background doesn't mean anything, nope.

Just by this little scene, we can guess that the person Yachiyo's searching for was also interested in the rumors about salvation. Yachiyo, however, doesn't wish to be saved like this person does. So what exactly happened to Yachiyo's friend?

Back to where we left off, Yachiyo and Iroha meet the people they had written the names of. Iroha runs after and hugs Ui, but the situation is quite strange. When Iroha takes a step back, this Ui starts repeating the ad about Kamihama like a broken record (haha, record). It's really unsettling. Iroha realizes this is a fake, looks around, sees the people that had disappeared and when she looks back Ui's fake is gone.

Iroha, that's a pretty concerning color your Soul Gem has right now...

While she's off doing that, Yachiyo confronts the Mifuyu that appeared to her. Hey, this one's actually behaving like a person, at least.

Yachiyo says she can't just believe she's real, so Mifuyu tells her some things that probably only the two of them should know, making Yachiyo have to concede that at least when it comes to memories she's the real deal.

That's kinda mean to say when you're the one who went ahead and disappeared.

Yachiyo questions Mifuyu about why she disappeared and asks her to come back but Mifuyu says she can't leave the shrine because her body has become too used to it. What is this, the underworld?

Mifuyu invites Yachiyo to stay instead, and Yachiyo is... hypnotized by the little pinwheel? I guess, but Iroha snaps her out of it.

Obviously, this Mifuyu was also a fake. Really raises the question on why this one is so life-like when Ui's was a walking ad.

For some reason, Yachiyo can't see the creepiness of the fake. She insists that they have to leave, but the fake Mifuyu refuses to. Seeing that, Yachiyo starts doubting she's the real Mifuyu again.

...really, what is up with that pinwheel? Yachiyo stares into it again and is, uh... cursed? I guess.

Seeing that, Iroha threatens the fake Mifuyu, who decides Iroha's the reason why Yachiyo won't stay so she has to erase her.

Mifuyu jumps around with her chakram hula hoop, boasting about her relation with Yachiyo, before attacking.

Can't really screenshot this but Mifuyu's movements while dodging Iroha's bolts are really nice, she’s like a ballerina.

...also, Iroha, your aim sucks. Though nice job noticing the hoop was also a boomerang.

...well, guess you're the one who has a void to fill in now. (this shot’s so nice)

being meguca is suffering.

Yachiyo defeats the fake Mifuyu with a fair deal of colateral damage to her sanity points. She cleans her Soul Gem with great difficulty, but the amount the Grief Seed she had in hand could clean was not enough. So Iroha comes in and uses her own spare one (which I think is the one she received from Yachiyo in ep1) to finish cleaning it. Yachiyo protests this but Iroha says she can't just abandon her.

When that's done, Tsuruno comes in to join them. Shes says the familiars outside suddenly disappeared, so she got worried and came here.

It seems like since they defeated the fakes, the master of this barrier decided to deal with them itself.

The girls try to put in some damage, but not even op Yachiyo's attacks manage to make a lasting effect. When Tsuruno loses her flames, Yachiyo creates a bullet hell and tells them to find a way out while she distracts the thing, but apparently Iroha's still on the "need to get stronger" mentality and refuses to back out, only to get wrecked.

Uhhhh... That's not very good. Are we losing our protagonist only five episodes in?

...this face is kinda heart-breaking. It's actually honestly impressive that she didn't witch out right then and there considering how unsettling fake Ui was and how her Soul Gem was already impure by then.

Iroha passes out, so Yachiyo carries her and Tsuruno and her make a run for it.

While they do that, Iroha's having some weird near-death experience (...I never died so I can't affirm it's weird). She sinks further and further, getting caught up in bandages and then, when she comes face to face with her own reflection, bandages cover her eyes and that reflection gains a creepy white mask(?).

Suddenly, the bandage materializes irl and we get a Elseve commercial-- I mean, no, Iroha witches-out...? Kinda...? Her hair has spawned a witch.

The animation on Iroha's hair here is really nice.

Hey, nice haircut!

The witch(?) of the Seance Shrine doesn't seem very happy to have a companion though, so it tackles Iroha's witch, which in turn binds it with its bandages and starts pecking.

Who'd win, an elephant lizard or a weird birb doll?

Just... absolutely brutal.

Iroha's witch tears apart the master of this barrier, and the Seance Shrine fades, delivering everyone back to Mizuna Shrine, including the people who had disappeared... and Iroha's witch. Wait, weren't witches supposed to only exist inside Labyrinths...?

Not satisfied with snacking on the rumor's monster, Iroha's witch decides Tsuruno is next on the menu but, before the restaurant girl can become food, a certain veteran comes in with a bang. Literally.

Iroha's witch gets a second hole in her body and spews Iroha out before fading. Then-

wait...

SPEWS IROHA OUT?

That's not how witches work!

Mami thinks that Iroha is a witch pretending to be a human, so she's determined to eliminate her (to be fair, she only saw Iroha with the witch, so...). Yachiyo, however, tells her to step down, and you could almost see the sparks flying between them.

Yachiyo and Tsuruno manage to make Mami give up on shooting Iroha, so Mami changes the subject to what she had heard from Kyuubei.

Yachiyo, I don't think this is the best time to be picking a fight...

Mami confirms that she's aware of what's going on and Yachiyo says it's none of their problem, and she should keep her territory's problems on her own territory. Geez, Yachiyo, calm down. It's not like she tried to shoot one of your friends or- oh.

Yachiyo: “You must be at least this tall to enter Kamihama.“

Mami did say she didn't want to pick a fight with Kamihama's magical girls, so she decides to retreat quietly for the day, but not before leaving some veteran advice for Tsuruno:

Which girl, Mami? Yachiyo or Iroha?

Leaving this cryptic piece of advice, Mami takes off, as well as the chibi Kyuubei, that she conveniently didn't see.

Inside Iroha's mind, she's freed from being a temporary mummy and instead starts having a weird dream.

In the near future, you'll get targeted ads in your dreams.

"I didn't sign up for this."

Iroha can't catch a break.

When she wakes up, Iroha's in an unknown room. She notices that her Soul Gem is completely clean now. Very suspicious.

I may or may not have an absurd amount of screenshots of this place to use as reference for drawing.

Iroha does some exploring and finds Yachiyo, because this is Yachiyo's place. Yachiyo says she carried her there since she was unconscious, and asks if she wants to call her parents, to which Iroha just shakes her head quietly. Of course, Iroha's parents aren't around so there's no real point in her calling them. Convenient in this situation, but kinda sad all around. Yachiyo doesn't pry.

Iroha realizes she must've been there a while and makes to leave immediately but Yachiyo points out it's past the hour public transport works (even in the near future, huh). While Iroha's visibly troubled, Yachiyo suggests she just stay over for the night.

...now Yachiyo I get telling a middle schooler to not walk about this late at night, but isn't that the time most magical girls act? lol

Dunno what this is but it looks good.

While Yachiyo prepares dinner, Iroha asks if there's anything she can help with, but Yachiyo just tells her to go rest some more, which she does.

"I have school tomorrow!" "...oh, it's Saturday." This is so relatable. Even when you're not at school anymore.

I shouldn't be that long since Iroha's parents left, but as expected it must be really lonely being all alone like this, with no friends and only an empty room reminding her of what she lost. Poor Iroha (man, how many more times will I have to write this...).

Sometime later, Yachiyo comes to call Iroha for dinner, but...

Yachiyo repeats her phrase from the begging of this episode, but with more parts now.

Yachiyo had told Iroha just the episode before that Iroha was held down by her past but, as it turns out, Yachiyo is even more so. These two's suffering is actually very alike: Both lost someone that meant the world to them, and now are searching for their lost parts while bearing their loneliness.

It's a short scene, but it's quietly one of the best ones until now in my opinion. It's beautiful, and does a great job in starting to touch upon Yachiyo's true nature. Even the kinda on-the-nose shot of her being "trapped" by the window is good. 10/10 on this one.

Oh, also, if I had to give one difference between Yachiyo and Iroha in this context, it'd be that while Iroha is adamant that her sister existed and that she'll find her somehow, Yachiyo's way of talking about Mifuyu don't sound like she thinks they'll meet again sometime, despite her searching for her. From my point of view, there are two reasons for this: one is that Iroha might just break if she ever stops believing. Could you imagine? Realizing the sister you've traded your soul for, your only friend and most important thing, never actually existed. That's a one-way ticket to despair if I ever saw one. The other one is that Yachiyo, like fake Mifuyu touched briefly on, has been a magical girl for years now. Whether she knows the truth or not, it's easy to imagine that the longer you live as one the more aware you are of how easy it's to die in this path. If Yachiyo has seen a lot of other magical girls fall around her in all those years, it's quite possible a part of her believes Mifuyu is missing because she's dead. Which is... very tragic.

Well, anyways...

"There's no place for you here."

It's particularly ironic to have this title card show up just after a scene where Iroha's sleeping on Mifuyu's room.

Also, DON'T LEAVE YET.

I did it again, I forgot there were after-credit scenes, again!

Somewhere else, Momoko's team was getting their butt handed to them by a witch and Kaede, the only one left standing, despairs and does the same thing Iroha did.

Kaede, however, doesn't get the benefit of being knocked out like Iroha, so she very understandably freaks out.

"Could I be a witch?" I mean, technically...

One thing Kaede has got right, though: This is definitely not normal.

When magical girls witch out, their Soul Gems are supposed to turn into Grief Seeds, but here not only Iroha and Kaede's Soul Gems were perfectly fine, they were even purified for them. I vaguely remember Sayaka summoning Octavia in Rebellion, but I don't think this is it either. Well, it's a good thing for the girls so not that I'm complaining but what the heck is going on here?

...of course, I already know the answer to this, but making you curious is my job :v

With all of that said (and put all in that this was looong), I hope to see you guys tomorrow as we watch episode 6 and try to put together the pieces of the many puzzles Magia Record has given us. See you next time!

[aion-rsa]

What Are NFTs and Why Are Comics Companies Selling Them?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

With an announcement from collectible maker VeVe, the world was introduced to the first officially licensed DC NFTs. “What is VeVe?” you might ask. Or possibly “What is an NFT?” 

Excellent questions, friends! We will do our absolute best to explain them in clear, concise terms to you right now. 

Here are simple answers to complicated questions: NFTs are ecologically devastating vaporware created to part very dumb, very wealthy collectors from their money, made by stoned libertarian math nerds trying to prove a point they think is profound but is actually just very banal. Veve is no different than any other secondary huckster that springs up around a particularly successful snake oil economy.

As for why DC is getting in bed with them, it’s hard to know if the company is trying to just be cutting edge or if it’s because AT&T took on a shitload of debt buying Warner, and like anybody with creditors breathing down their neck, they need to make several quick bucks or else. 

THE NEXT EVOLUTION IN COMICS HUCKSTERISM

Two full decades after Metallica teamed up with record labels to make sure we didn’t own anything we purchased digitally, a group of rejected Captain Planet villains came up with a workaround: NFTs.

NFTs use blockchain, a distributed AI accountant that requires ENORMOUS amounts of processing power to work properly, to assign certificates of ownership and record transactions. Accepting the pitch behind blockchain technology requires one to step back to an absurdly abstract level, then a zoom back into the extremely micro. 

Every transaction between two people is built around trust: I trust that you are giving me the thing I’m paying for, while we both trust that the currency I’m handing you has a (relatively) absolute value which will allow it to be traded for other things. Blockchain purports to eliminate that trust: it uses a distributed ledger that anyone can see and confirm to record our transaction; it uses an algorithm to make sure every copy of the ledger is the same; and it assigns tokens to each transaction that can be given a value. 

NFTs add in an absurd additional abstraction: ownership of digital media. I have always had the ability to, for example, produce an animated reaction gif from a television show and sell that animated reaction gif to you for a fixed sum of money. You would be an idiot for purchasing that reaction gif for several reasons: anyone else could make the exact same gif and you could find it in iMessage’s search engine, for one. But nothing in the past has ever prevented this transaction from occurring. 

The “innovation” around NFTs is that it uses blockchain technology to “prove” “ownership” and “authenticity,” a sentence that is so heavily caveated that to express it correctly in writing makes the writer look like a conspiracy theorist. The NFT assigns a ledger value to the piece of digital artwork, and then that ledger value is what is sold between parties. It is a non-fungible token – unlike Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, the idea is these art pieces’ tokens’ inherent value doesn’t change (hence the non-fungible), while cryptocurrency is a token whose value is relative to other less imaginary currency. 

This has led to some frankly embarrassing sales online. Jack Dorsey, the vacuous and bizarre founder of Twitter, is auctioning off his first tweet, something that already happened, that you can find with one simple Google search, for millions of dollars. Beeple, an artist the internet assures me is real, auctioned off a digital JPEG collage of all their previous works for $69 million. Jose Delgo, a comics artist from the ‘70s that very few people remembered until this happened, has made almost $2 million selling NFTs of his own artwork, spurring DC to email freelancers to remind them that they should not be using DC characters to try and skate atop this obvious bubble. Not because of the catastrophic environmental impacts caused by the blockchain algorithm, mind you. No, it was because AT&T needed to get some of that sweet, sweet tulip money.

THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS MOSTLY POOR PEOPLE

Joanie Lemercier, a French artist and climate activist, has sold six NFT pieces so far. The act of accounting for those sales – assigning a token, then transferring ownership of that token from Lemercier to the purchaser – was 8.7 megawatt hours of energy. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire energy consumption of his studio for two entire years. 

The algorithm used for NFTs, like the one used for Bitcoin, other cryptocurrency, and all blockchain transactions, requires computers perform a certain volume of complex activity to access the ledger. That’s how it prevents fraudulent transactions – by making the barrier to writable access so high that it’s functionally impossible. 

Of course, as demand for these transactions increases, so too does the computing power needed to record them. Hence the massive power consumption from Lemercier’s sale. Bitcoin transactions, especially since Elon Musk invested heavily in them to drive up their price (presumably the “pump” part of “pump and dump”), now use more energy annually than the entire country of Argentina. 

Here’s the catch: in a perfectly green, zero emission energy environment, this wouldn’t be a huge problem. Unfortunately, as anyone who has gone outside in the past 18 months has noticed, we’re not quite there yet. And while adding another Argentina to global power load isn’t the same as adding another China, it is still a significant drain on existing grids, and if it’s not timed and sited right, it’s using very dirty power (it’s fairly complicated, but the short version is electricity generation generally gets dirtier as demand increases).

So when Grimes auctions off a certificate of creation for her digital artwork, she’s triggering a set of computer actions that put a massive stress on the power grid that churns out oodles of negative environmental consequences, which according to study after study fall disproportionately on poor people and people of color. 

Or! Instead of auctioning off something that clearly doesn’t exist, maybe she’s just using fracked natural gas as laundry detergent for mafia cash.

DIGITAL MONEY LAUNDROMAT

Let’s say I was a certain very sadistic, very fictional, black mask wearing crime lord of an American city and I have $1 million in cash lying around that I made from my operation’s drug business. If I suddenly bought a house with that million dollars, the authorities would notice that large transaction (probably through transaction reporting from the bank handling the sale, or the property exchange paperwork that runs through City Hall) and start sniffing around to find out where that money came from. 

The same goes if I were to purchase IRL fine art through an auction house. The auction house would ask questions about where that money came from, and if it didn’t like what it found, it would report it to the authorities. Same for buying cars, or businesses, or lots of other real life transactions. 

Now replace bank, city hall, and auction house with “a bunch of computers playing tic tac toe against each other on a 1025 square board” and try and guess where the reporting comes in. We don’t have to wait for an answer, that reporting doesn’t exist. 

NFT transactions are the perfect confluence of the shadiness of art dealing with the shadiness of off-book dark web money-moving. They’re not all money laundering, but they are easy enough to use as money laundering that the authorities are getting concerned. 

PRECARITY, PANDEMICS, AND COMICS ART

So why are comics people doing this? To start with, we mean actual people, and not people in the legal sense of the word (corporations).

It’s not hard to see the eye popping amounts of money changing hands and understand why at least some of them are getting involved. But it’s equally easy to look at the economics of the pandemic era of comics creation and at least sympathize with the pull. Comic page rates have been largely stagnant since the 1980s – penciler page rates in recent years are actually lower than the modest demands made by creators during the abortive effort to unionize in the 1970s.

With that money being so limited, most artists relied on the sale of original art, sketches, and sales at conventions to help make ends meet. So the last year has been exceptionally tough on them. Add to that the trend towards digital art, where there’s no actual physical page produced for the comic, and it’s not hard to imagine a hard up artist, one year into not seeing another living soul except for when the grocery clerk brings a bag of food out to their car, seeing someone coming along waving a conservative five figures at them and not explaining the extremely convoluted yet catastrophic environmental impact of the proces, saying yes to the quick cash.

To their credit, many comics creators are repulsed by the idea. Several have expressed serious concerns with NFTs on Twitter, with Doomsday Clock artist Gary Frank expressing “bewilderment” at the idea of his art being used to sell one of these things, and Marsha Cooke, widow of New Frontier great Darwyn Cooke and manager of his estate, going so far as to ask DC to stop using his art in them. 

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Hopefully the companies involved (or thinking of getting involved) with NFTs listen to their creatives. Nothing more honors the spirit of Batman than using his image to help give a pallet of Bratva money a quick scrub. 

The post What Are NFTs and Why Are Comics Companies Selling Them? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[theconservativebrief]

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution (or, at the very least, since the dawn of The Jetsons), Americans have been seized by the anxiety of being replaced by robots. In some service industries, these concerns have proven prophetic. But the technology is still far from perfect (see: the massive temper tantrums on social media over CVS’s automated self-checkout), and even though one report has predicted that robots could replace human workers by 2030, most people can rest assured that their jobs are safe for the time being. Most people, that is, but sex workers.

In Rolling Stone, writer Breena Kerr profiles Aura Dolls, a sex doll brothel in Toronto where clients can pay $120 an hour and an additional $90 per half-hour to do whatever they want to the six dolls on staff (provided they do not “make any extra holes” in them, though one wonders what would be the occasion for doing so). Brothel employees clean up the dolls between appointments to prepare them for the next customer.

NurPhoto via Getty Images

Aura Dolls is not the first sex doll brothel of its kind: There are similar establishments located in Barcelona, Moscow, and Turin, Italy. Such sex doll brothels have also been erroneously referred to as “sex robot brothels,” even though most do not possess such artificial intelligence.

Due to their high cost (a customizable Real Doll, for instance, starts at $5,999), sex dolls in general are still considered expensive novelty items. Legally speaking, they also exist in a somewhat gray area: Though they don’t technically violate most state prostitution laws, the moral opposition to sex work in the United States is so intense that it would inevitably serve as a barrier. Plans to open a brothel in Houston, for instance, were scrapped after the city council amended an existing ordinance to forbid business patrons from engaging in sexual congress with inanimate objects.

For these reasons, sex doll brothels are far from commonplace. Nonetheless, there’s been major outcry over the mere prospect of sex doll brothels, particularly in the legal sex industry in the United States. (Prostitution is illegal in the US except in a select number of counties in Nevada, where it is highly regulated.)

Allissa, a sex worker at the legal brothel Sheri’s Ranch in Nevada, is outraged that unlike legal brothels, which cannot openly advertise for fear of violating solicitation laws, sex doll brothels would ostensibly be able to openly advertise on billboards (as one recently did in Vancouver). She also believes they would pose a serious safety threat.

“If any guys start using these brothels, the dolls can’t consent and they have no limitations,” Allissa told Vox. “We’re very clear about what can happen and not happen during a party. And if sex dolls were to become popular, clients would think that [a lack of limitations] was normal.”

On the surface, this seems like an obvious concern: When presented with the choice between a flesh-and-blood woman who can consent to sex and a $6,000 hunk of silicone who can’t, logic would seemingly dictate that any man who opts for the latter is more likely to harbor some problematic views of women.

But this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. Sex doll brothels could potentially serve as a viable option for clients who may lack the social skills necessary to form meaningful relationships with humans. “Patrons [who] may have some sort of social anxiety or perhaps are disabled, who might not be comfortable with the social interactions of a human sex worker, would benefit greatly due to this service,” an Aura spokesperson said, adding that the brothel has received a number of inquiries from visually impaired people and the hard of hearing.

Sex dolls could also potentially serve as outlets for people with non-normative sexual preferences (think a taste for violent or nonconsensual sex) who don’t wish to harm a living person, or people in monogamous relationships who want to sexually experiment without actually committing infidelity. It would be unfair to characterize all of these people as misogynists eager to enact their twisted rape fantasies on unsuspecting hunks of plastic, just as it is unfair to characterize everyone who buys sex (an estimated 14 percent of American men) as brutal and exploitative.

“The dolls can’t consent and they have no limitations”

It’s safe to say that many sex workers’ primary objection to sex doll brothels isn’t moral or philosophical, but economic.

It is true that it costs less to masturbate into a rented hunk of silicone than it does to have sex with a legal prostitute. Allissa wouldn’t tell Vox how much she charged for a party, citing solicitation laws, but generally speaking, while sex workers’ rates vary widely according to many factors, a typical “Girlfriend Experience,” or more intimate sexual encounter, costs about $1,000 per hour at Sheri’s Ranch competitor the Moonlite BunnyRanch, and it’s not unheard of for an in-demand sex worker to charge far more than that.

That’s a far cry from the $120 an hour quoted by Aura Dolls, but brothels also tend to take a hefty commission from their workers (at Sheri’s Ranch, it’s 50 percent). They also aren’t responsible for the bulk of employee costs, which saves quite a bit of money on the management end: Allissa says she pays for room and board when she works at the ranch, as well as her own drinks, condoms, sex toys, and her hair and nails.

When you consider the level of cleanup involved in ensuring that sex dolls are up to hygiene standards for repeated use, it makes sense that the maintenance costs for a sex doll brothel would be fairly high.

“Due to the costs of hiring cleaning staff and employees to make sure the dolls are in tip-top condition every single use and making sure they are thoroughly cleaned along with the maintenance of the products and facility, [running a sex doll brothel] is not as cheap as one would imagine,” the Aura spokesperson said.

NurPhoto via Getty Images

Of course, sex workers provide a service that has far more value than any provided by sex dolls. In a world that encourages men to suppress and tamp down their emotions, it’s not uncommon for sex workers often act as impromptu therapists for their clients. “A lot of my job has to do with nonsexual intimacy. I’m creating a connection with them,” says Allissa. “They talk to me about their troubles … it’s a lot of genuine human connection. I do have clients who don’t have sex at all and they just want to cuddle and talk to me.”

A sex doll could not perform emotional labor on that level, or provide any of the other less tangible benefits of flesh-and-blood companionship — but at the same time, neither can your iPhone, or any of the other myriad technological advances that make our lives both infinitely easier and a lot lonelier.

It’s going to be a long time before sex doll brothels become mainstream, if they ever do. Still, as technology around AI improves and brands start developing sex dolls that are able to convincingly replicate human sexual response, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that sex dolls could one day join the ranks of vibrators and other sex toys, which now enjoy a certain mainstream respectability and are considered supplements of, rather than threats to, a healthy and safe sex life. Even Allissa says they could potentially be used as a training tool during parties, or a way to school male clients on how to give women pleasure.

Prostitution is called “the oldest profession” for good reason: There’s always been high demand for paid sex, and there likely always will be. But that doesn’t mean the industry is totally impervious to change. So far, we’ve seen strip clubs and porn movie theaters shut their doors due to the ubiquity of free internet porn. If sex dolls and robots ever become sophisticated enough to convincingly replicate IRL sex, who’s to say that a handful of brothels in rural Nevada won’t suffer the same fate?

Time and again, when confronted with the choice between convenience and affordability and the less tangible benefits of emotional intimacy, humans have opted for the former. There’s no reason to think that the sex industry will prove the exception to the rule.

Perhaps surprisingly, however, that’s not what Aura Dolls says. “We believe that there will always be a demand and market for human sex workers as it is considered one of the world’s oldest professions,” the spokesperson told Vox, perhaps unwittingly echoing other mega-corporations’ arguments in favor of automated workers. “We do not foresee it to be replaced anytime soon.”

Original Source -> Sex doll brothels are now a thing. What will happen to real-life sex workers?

via The Conservative Brief