#this isn’t a post i’m aiming to spark debate with

[jouno-s]

the sheep do not deserve the absolute shredding they get from the fanbase 😭 it isn’t generally the fault of the fans, i blame it more on whatever the fuck bones studio did to fifteen in the anime adaptation bc fuck knows that was all over the place, but man i wish people were a little more sympathetic towards them

yes they absolutely ordered chuuya around like a dog and yes they stabbed him. we can agree that was bad. but i feel like you really have to consider the context

the sheep are separate from other organisations in bsd in that they are formed entirely of young orphans who are likely mostly traumatised. they live on the streets and also have to cope with larger organisations like the mafia lurking around— they are scared and rightfully so

i always think back to the lines in storm bringer where it mentions the sheep drinking alcohol under a bridge. they’re clearly all very troubled kids who are struggling just to survive

yeah i don’t think that cornering and stabbing chuuya was right but i don’t hold much blame over their heads for the things they did when it’s obvious that it’s their situation making them so scared and paranoid. the sheep weren’t just some average toxic friends that were out to get you, they were traumatised kids trying to survive

[bereft-of-frogs]

so this last gifset has got me thinking about the Loki series and its relation to other Marvel films, and this sort of feeds into the debate around costuming and whether or not he should have gotten a bit dramatic costume change. I know people have been getting heated that Loki stays in the same TVA costume throughout the series, but I don’t think the dramatic costume change actually would have fit in the series and I don’t think it would have satisfied audiences.

Because the climax of Loki isn’t like Wandavision, or Falcon & Winter Soldier or Ragnarok: it is Captain America: The First Avenger.

Stick with me here for a minute.

First off, I don’t think a big costume change into a cool new outfit would have actually fit into the series. The costume changes in the other MCU films come at a moment of transformation, largely about accepting something about themselves. It’s a visual representation of the internal character journey. Sam reckons with the complicated history of the United States and the supersoldier program, and becomes Captain America despite the struggles he’s sure to face. Thor gets his literal glow up (slightly less a costume change) when he learns that he didn’t need his hammer to unlock the power within him. Valkyrie gets her old costume when she stops running from her past and her trauma. Wanda gets her new outfit in the finale when she accepts that she has the power and responsibility to control her magic and not be controlled by it.

The climax that Loki builds towards is also one of self-acceptance, but in a much more subtle way. He doesn’t have to accept the weight of his power or responsibility; as the first episode shows, he’s already aware that the things he says about other people are really weapons he’s wielding against himself. Through the series, he works to accept that those attitudes have been a limiting factor, keeping him trapped in the role that (Kang) has cast him in and that he desires to move on from that role, and change the way he thinks about others, and then by extension himself. The final stage of that takes place during his and Sylvie’s confrontation in Kang’s creepy (cool) castle beyond the end of the timeline.

And a costume change at that moment...yeah would have been really distracting.

Which I think is the point of that quote from the costume designer, that seems to have sparked some of the discourse - about not letting a costume ‘distract’. But it’s true. Honestly, any appropriate thematic moment would be undermined if it were accompanied by a big flashy costume change. The stages of the character journey happen gradually, and every moment I can think of where Loki undergoes a part of that internal transformation (watching the reel of the end of his life, connecting with Sylvie on Lamentis, admitting why he cut Sif’s hair, etc...), would have been made significantly weakly by interrupting the performance to change costumes. It would be a big tonal shift as well. Both Wandavision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier were much more classical superhero/MCU movies (outside of WV’s internal sitcom). This was much more...weird (in a fun way). It would have been a big tonal shift, imo, to shift from the quieter, stranger mood that Loki was aiming for to have suddenly a more traditional superhero/magical girl transformation moment.

I think the only place a costume change would made any sense would have been when they were about to fight Alioth and at that point...I don’t know, it would have felt a little superfluous. Like it would have been a purely aesthetic change, which, y’all know me, I’m all about aesthetics for aesthetics’ sake lol, but I can also understand why they decided to keep everyone in the same costumes. (No one changes costumes in the series. The only thing is Sylvie loses her cape....wait, and Loki loses his jacket, and....ohhhh.) Like I guess it could have been a bit more like Captain Marvel, when it’s in the quiet of pre-battle but Captain Marvel also had a thematic reason for changing the colors of her suit (to break away from Kree influence now that she’s remembered and accepted her past and her true identity). Like, it’s possible it could have been fit in there, but it certainly wasn’t essential for the theme or the character development.

And I think they may have wanted to keep him in the TVA costume to set up the ending, as we see in this parallels between the ending of Loki and the ending of The First Avenger.

And ok, I might be going out on a limb here, getting on the tinfoil hat, but so much else of this show has been so intentional that I can’t help think this parallel might have been on purpose. The series and the movie end with their characters in a moment where they’ve lost something profound, in a perilous new world. Steve gets a couple costume changes in his first film, but they’re a little more gradual as the Captain America costume becomes more functional and less about the spectacle. (That’s also more about how others perceive Steve and his symbolic vs functional value as Captain America.) And they’re not part of the emotional climax, which is centered around his final sacrifice and then his waking up in that new world, which sets up his character journey through the rest of the series of films, as a man out of time, trying to find his place. (Cap does get the thematic costume change, but in Winter Soldier, when he returns to his symbolic roots after breaking free from SHIELD/HYDRA.) In the final scene, which is the most important for his character arc going forward, he’s in his SHIELD-assigned pajamas. Drab, sort of boring, in a similar muted color scheme to the TVA costumes. Which is also where we find him in Avengers. And...where Loki is left at the end of the series, in a similar color scheme, similar ordinary costume, out of place, in a frightening new world with strangers, and a cosmic threat beyond imagining.

Anyway. I hope this makes sense. I feel a little like I’m wearing a tinfoil hat, and I definitely had to under-develop or quickly summarize some of the supporting points to avoid turning this into a really long post, but...

it’s almost like Loki is being set up to be the ‘man out of time’ in Phase 4.

[tldr: I actually do think that a costume change would have been distracting at any of the appropriate thematic points, and I think they might have been purposefully keeping Loki in the TVA costume to set up a parallel between the ending of the series and the ending of Captain America: The First Avenger, making Loki the new ‘man out of time’ in Phase 4 of the MCU.]

[cblgblog]

Sorry I’m advance but one of my other favorite accounts just reblogged a Tony scene and people are talking about Civil War and how it made them Stan Tony, and how when they watch that movie they hate team cap👀 Then someone was all about how he was sleep deprived and how much pressure he was under and couldn’t understand how people didn’t like Tony because. Someone literally said that when someone says they don’t like Tony in Civil War they say “did you watch the same movie as me.” I’m baffled. Oddly enough someone else said, “he just wants to help everyone.” Sorry for the rant but I think people forget about what the accords are and what it would mean for people. Side note, I hope you’re having a great day/night 😀

No sorry needed!

I feel you man, I do. Honestly, I’ve unfollowed people based on similar posts when I was in especially Done moods, so.

Look on the one hand, the movie would’ve been a narrative failure if everyone was in favor of one side or the other, right? The whole point of the damn thing—besides giving the Mouse overlords more money—was to spark discussion, debate. Which, yeah, we’ll call that the tame description for what actually happened. But just, the thing was meant to split the fanbase so in that regard…winning? Thanks, I guess?

Film is also very obviously subjective, different strokes for different folks, so yeah, ten people can watch a movie and none of them are gonna see the exact same film. Let’s try to remember that this is, in theory anyway, a good thing. I just read a professional film review yesterday where I had the same reaction. What film were you watching, dude? Incidentally his reviewing partner said the same thing.

So honestly, no, they weren’t watching the same film as you or I or anyone else, because everyone brings their own biases and experiences and knowledge and interests into a thing, and that’s always going to flavor how it’s viewed. Again, let’s try to remember that this is good. In theory. Heavy on the theory.

That out of the way? Let’s get into Tony specifically so his uber stans can find this and scream at me on anon as though I just shot RDJ with a nuke.

Oh yeah, he was stressed. Oh, he was sleep deprived. Yeah, I’ve heard that. And that it’s Pepper’s fault, if she hadn’t left the poor baby, if she was there to rein him in, he’d be fine dammit, leave the baby alone!

Here’s the thing. You know who gets a pass on their shit behavior when they’re upset or tired? Actual babies. Actual babies and toddlers, and children, up to a point. Because they actually cannot always help themselves. Their bodies and brains are different, they have not learned better.

When you’re a 50-year-old man who’s supposedly the world’s bestest superhero, who wants, wants to be in charge of protecting the whole world? You need a little more self-control than that. The sleep deprived excuse works if you snap at someone before you’ve had your coffee, not for this. Roseanne Barr didn’t get to blame Ambien for her racism, Tony doesn’t get to handwave CW away because oops, I was tired.

Really? You’re a superhero, dude. Most of your teammates are tired too, that’s part of the gig. If you crash and burn this badly without your afternoon nap, fucking hang up the armor and go back to your billionaire playboy lifestyle.

Speaking of that, sure, right. It’s Pepper’s fault because she left him. Put aside the argument on whether that was justified or not (cough, it was and she should’ve stayed away even though they are adorable together). It’s not Pepper’s job to keep Tony sane. It’s not any partner’s job to do that for anyone. If she wants out, she has a right to that, without Tony going off the rails and blaming it on her. Seriously, he says part of the reason he backed the Accords was to “split the difference” with Pepper.

Dude. You were an asshole and you lost your girl. You destroyed all your suits, turned an emotional and mental corner in IM 3…and then relapsed 4 minutes later I guess because Whedon. Either way, Tony admits himself that he does not want to stop. So instead of doing that, or finding another partner who can accept that, you back an unjust international law that pits you against your team, your supposed friends? Go to therapy, have a pint of ice cream, cry into your pillow, send her more of those strawberries you sent her in IM 2 that she’s allergic to. You don’t go trying to change international law in ways that could ultimately affect millions of people because your girl left you.

Honestly—and thank God they didn’t do this but—the only way the Pepper excuse works in excusing his behavior in any way is if she’d died. Or been severely injured like Happy in IM 3. Still wouldn’t be okay, but, like Quill messing up their chance to stop Thanos because Gamora died, it would’ve been more understandable. Understandable, not excusable, and the way the MCU treats their women as manpain fodder, we’re probably legit lucky we didn’t get this.

As for him wanting to help everyone. He does in fact want that, I think. The problem is that his need to feel like he’s doing that is stronger than his rational mind, or his want to actually help in a constructive way.

Tony is too smart. He’s dumb as hell in many instances, mostly involving people and relationships, but he’s also too smart, and he’s been told for too long that he’s smart, and he’s bought into it. Ultron. Suit of armor around the world, protects the world, no more alien threats. It’s a simple concept on paper that fails in execution. So there are people with dangerous powers. Okay, we’ll make a set of laws to keep them from being dangerous, problem solved. But again, it isn’t.

Tony is not used to problems he cannot solve. He’s a genius, right? He can fix anything. He should be able to fix anything. That’s how he feels. But not everything is zeros and ones and circuits, things that can be fixed mechanically like his armors can. The people he wants to protect are not built that way. But he needs to feel like he’s doing something, because he’s terrified of what happens to the world if he doesn’t. So he creates these simple solutions to complex problems. The suit of armor, the Accords. They sound good in theory, but the problems they’re trying to solve are bigger than they are. And Tony, way back in IM 1, he sat back for years, clueless that his weapons were being used for bad things. He says it to Cap in CW. When he found out what his weapons were being used for, he went in and stopped it. Whether or not he should’ve known that already is a separate issue here. The point here is that when he found out, too late or not, he went in and did something about it.

Tony needs to do something about it. Again, go back to Cap in AoU, Tony’s nightmare sequence. Steve asks Tony why he didn’t save them. Tony’s ultimate nightmare is that he sits back and does nothing, and his inaction causes everyone to die. Which is where you get Ultron. Something he came up with because of what he saw in space in Avengers 1, then doubled down on in AoU. It’s where you get the Accords. Oops, he caused someone to die, he killed Charles Spencer. Must do something about that right now so it doesn’t happen again, and he won’t have to feel this guilt. He should be collaborating with others to come up with solutions (no Bruce in AoU doesn’t count because Bruce was dumb there), or at the very least, taking more time to think through the repercussions of the things he puts out there. But he doesn’t, because he’s got his savior complex that tells him that he alone can and must fix this, and because he’s too dumb to realize how not-smart he is in certain areas.

“We need to be put in check. Whatever form that takes, I’m game.”

Isn’t that what he says in CW, or something very close to it? Whatever form that takes. That’s the issue, right there, whatever form that takes. Realistically, yes, there should be laws regarding people with powers, the same way there are special laws pertaining to people who carry guns, or people who are licensed to fly planes. You have a thing/can do a thing that not everyone else does, so there are regulations pertaining to that thing. Laws change with the times, they always have. Some new technology comes up, eventually there will be laws that regulate it. As there should be, honestly. The issue with the Accords, Steve’s issue with the Accords, was not the basic idea. He says as much. He says that it could work, but there would have to be safeguards. Safeguards that are not in the Accords that Tony wants him to sign.

It's not a matter of oh, fuck the law, there should be no law governing these people, they’re above it. The problem is that the law as it’s presented here is unjust. There’s what, a month between Lagos and Ross coming by to tell them about the Accords? A month is not enough time to properly analyze such a big issue, Especially when you’re reacting out of fear, which is what happened with Lagos. People died because of an Enhanced person, an Avenger, in this case. Lawmakers don’t want that to happen again, they especially don’t want the political shit storm that comes with it. Damn, we look like we were asleep at the switch here, not having anything to throw at this problem earlier. Quick, let’s throw together this thing so no one can say we’re not addressing the problem.

Patriot Act of 2001, anyone? 9/11 happened, the public were rightfully terrified, the US said oh man, these are unprecedented circumstances, we’ve never had this before. Don’t worry though, we’re on this, we’re protecting you. The reality being that that bill simply gave the government too much power, most of it being used against people who were not actually threats, and it’s debatable, to say the very least, whether or not that law helped more than it hurt.

No law is perfect. No law ever will be. It’s not possible. We still have to strive for perfection though, have to aim there so that the laws we get are as close to fair as possible. Tony’s a big deal. If not for his “whatever form that takes” attitude, he might’ve been able to use his influence to pressure lawmakers into coming up with a fairer bill. Hey, I’m me, the public loves me, I will endorse this bill publicly and work on getting the rest of the team to sign, but you need to change this and this and this first, or no deal. Instead, he took the easy way out, the quickest, easiest way for him to feel like he’s atoned for his sins without actually doing anything. Whatever form that takes.

Tony’s not wrong because he backs the creation of a law that addresses these things. He’s wrong because he says himself that he does not care what that law does, specifically, so long as it exists. He’s wrong because he violates said law upteen times during the movie, while preaching to team Cap about what assholes they are for not backing it. He’s wrong because he cares more about feeling as though he’s tackled a problem than he does about taking the time to make sure that the thing he’s proposing is actually a good idea. He’s wrong because of what he does with Bucky, though that’s honestly a separate issue, for the purposes of this discussion.

Anyway, that was longer than I ever wanted it to be. Damn. Next time you see a comment about CW being the reason people stan Tony, just remember there are other people out there who stopped stanning Tony because of that movie. Everyone’s entitled to see a piece of media however they see it, and although the Tony stans are often the loudest, there are plenty of like-minded people out there who share your take on events. Block who you need to, unfollow who you need to, blacklist what you need to, and don’t let them get you down.

Hang in there, and have an awesome day :)

[ingek73]

01-22-2112:00 PM

‘Time is running out’: Prince Harry calls for social media reform after U.S. Capitol riot

In a Q&A with Fast Company, The Duke of Sussex responds to social media’s role in the Capitol attack and explains why the next step must be to hold social platforms accountable.

[Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images]

BY KATHARINE SCHWAB

LONG READ

Over the past year, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have become increasingly outspoken advocates for healthier social media—a topic that is clearly near to their hearts, given the horrendous vitriol and harassment they have faced online and in the press.

By partnering with organizations that aim to understand technology’s impact on society and vocally critiquing the state of online life in the media, the couple are using their clout to push for change in the current digital ecosystem. In an essay for Fast Company last August, Prince Harry called on business leaders to rethink their role in funding the advertising system that underlies the misinformation and divisive rhetoric that’s often shared on social platforms.

“This remodeling must include industry leaders from all areas drawing a line in the sand against unacceptable online practices as well as being active participants in the process of establishing new standards for our online world,” he wrote.

Now, social media is facing an inflection point, just weeks after a violent mob stormed the Capitol in an attack that was conceived, plotted, and stoked primarily online. Powerful platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube responded by suspending Donald Trump’s accounts, while Amazon and Apple cut ties with Parler, a social network that was used by the rioters. But experts and regulators believe that more must be done to reform social media.

Against this background, Prince Harry is once again imploring people to pay attention to the problems social media have wrought. In a wide-ranging interview with Fast Company, he explains why social platforms must be held accountable for the Capitol attack and the circumstances that enabled it, and why we must remodel the digital world before it’s too late.

FC: Six months ago, you wrote an essay for Fast Company in which you asked companies to take action to ensure the meaningful reform of our “unchecked and divisive attention economy.” How has your perspective on social media’s role in society changed over the last few weeks since the attack on the U.S. Capitol?

Prince Harry: When I wrote that piece, I was sharing my view that dominant online platforms have contributed to and stoked the conditions for a crisis of hate, a crisis of health, and a crisis of truth.

And I stand by that, along with millions of others who see and feel what this era has done at every level—we are losing loved ones to conspiracy theories, losing a sense of self because of the barrage of mistruths, and at the largest scale, losing our democracies.

The magnitude of this cannot be overstated, as noted even by the defectors who helped build these platforms. It takes courage to stand up, cite where things have gone wrong, and offer proposals and solutions. The need for that is greater than ever before. So I’m encouraged by and grateful for the groundswell of people who work—or have worked—inside these very platforms choosing to speak up against hate, violence, division, and confusion.

FC: Why is this topic so important to you? How was your outlook affected by the well-documented online harassment you and your wife have faced in the U.K.?

PH: I was really surprised to witness how my story had been told one way, my wife’s story had been told one way, and then our union sparked something that made the telling of that story very different.

That false narrative became the mothership for all of the harassment you’re referring to. It wouldn’t have even begun had our story just been told truthfully.

WE ARE LOSING LOVED ONES TO CONSPIRACY THEORIES, LOSING A SENSE OF SELF BECAUSE OF THE BARRAGE OF MISTRUTHS, AND AT THE LARGEST SCALE, LOSING OUR DEMOCRACIES.”

PRINCE HARRY, THE DUKE OF SUSSEX

But the important thing about what we experienced is that it led to us hearing from so many others around the world. We’ve thought a lot about those in much more vulnerable positions than us, and how much of a need there is for real empathy and support.

To their own degree, everyone has been deeply affected by the current consequences of the digital space. It could be as individual as seeing a loved one go down the path of radicalisation or as collective as seeing the science behind the climate crisis denied.

We are all vulnerable to it, which is why I don’t see it as a tech issue, or a political issue—it’s a humanitarian issue.

From an early age, the guiding principle in my life has been about the duty to truth, the pursuit of compassion, and the alleviation of suffering. My life has always been about trying to do my part to help those who need it most, and right now, we need this change—because it touches nearly every single thing we do or are exposed to.

FC: Where do we go from here? What do you think needs to change to create an online atmosphere where truth, equity, and free speech are all prioritized?

PH: I ask the same thing every day and lean on the experts to help give guidance on how to reform the state of our digital world—how we make it better for our kids, of course, but also for ourselves—now.

The avalanche of misinformation we are all inundated with is bending reality and has created this distorted filter that affects our ability to think clearly or even understand the world around us.

What happens online does not stay online—it spreads everywhere, like wildfire: into our homes and workplaces, into the streets, into our minds. The question really becomes about what to do when news and information sharing is no longer a decent, truthful exchange, but rather an exchange of weaponry.

WHAT HAPPENS ONLINE DOES NOT STAY ONLINE—IT SPREADS EVERYWHERE, LIKE WILDFIRE: INTO OUR HOMES AND WORKPLACES, INTO THE STREETS, INTO OUR MINDS.”

PRINCE HARRY, THE DUKE OF SUSSEX

The answer I’ve heard from experts in this space is that the common denominator starts with accountability. There has to be accountability to collective wellbeing, not just financial incentive. It’s hard for me to understand how the platforms themselves can eagerly take profit but shun responsibility.

There also has to be common, shared accountability. We can call for digital reform and debate how that happens and what it looks like, but it’s also on each of us to take a more critical eye to our own relationship with technology and media. To start, it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Consider setting limits on the time you spend on social media, stop yourself from endlessly scrolling, fact-check the source and research the information you see, and commit to taking a more compassionate approach and tone when you post or comment. These might seem like little things, but they add up.

Finally, there’s a responsibility to compassion that we each own. Humans crave connection, social bonds, and a sense of belonging. When we don’t have those, we end up fractured, and in the digital age that can unfortunately be a catalyst for finding connection in mass extremism movements or radicalisation. We need to take better care of each other, especially in these times of isolation and vulnerability.

FC: Since the Capitol riot, big tech companies from Twitter to Amazon have exercised their power by making determinations about who gets to use their products. Do you think companies should have the power to make decisions about who has access to some of the most prominent platforms on the internet?

PH: We have seen time and again what happens when the real-world cost of misinformation is disregarded. There is no way to downplay this. There was a literal attack on democracy in the United States, organised on social media, which is an issue of violent extremism. It is widely acknowledged that social media played a role in the genocide in Myanmar and was used as a vehicle to incite violence against the Rohingya people, which is a human rights issue. And in Brazil, social media provided a conduit for misinformation which ultimately brought destruction to the Amazon, which is an environmental and global health issue.

In a way, taking a predominately hands-off approach to problems for so long is itself an exercise in power.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about Speakers’ Corner, an area in London’s Hyde Park which is home to open-air debate, dialogue, and the exchange of information and ideas. I used to go past it all the time.

This concept of a ‘public square’ isn’t anything new—it can be traced back to the early days of democracies. You get up there and speak your piece. There are ground rules. You can’t incite violence, you can’t obscure who you are, and you can’t pay to monopolise or own the space itself. Ideas are considered or shot down; opinions are formed. At its best, movements are born, lies are laid bare, and attempts to stoke violence are rejected in the moment. At its worst, intolerance, groupthink, hate, and persecution are amplified. And at times, it forces lines to be drawn and rules or laws to emerge or be challenged.

I THINK IT’S A FALSE CHOICE TO SAY YOU HAVE TO PICK BETWEEN FREE SPEECH OR A MORE COMPASSIONATE AND TRUSTWORTHY DIGITAL WORLD.”

PRINCE HARRY, THE DUKE OF SUSSEX

I’m not saying we should abandon technology in favour of Speakers’ Corner. Rather, it’s that we should avoid buying into the idea that social media is the ultimate modern-day public square and that any attempt to ask platforms to be accountable to the landscape they’ve created is an attack or restriction of speech. I think it’s a false choice to say you have to pick between free speech or a more compassionate and trustworthy digital world. They are not mutually exclusive.

With these companies, in this model, we have a very small number of incredibly powerful and consolidated gatekeepers who have deployed hidden algorithms to pick the content billions see every day, and curate the information—or misinformation—everyone consumes. This radically alters how and why we inform opinions. It alters how we speak and what we decide to speak about. It alters how we think and how we react.

Ultimately, it has allowed for completely different versions of reality, with opposing sets of truth, to exist simultaneously. In this, one’s understanding of truth does not have to be based in fact, because there’s always an ability to furnish some form of “proof” to reinforce that version of “truth.” I believe this is the opposite of what we should want from our collective online community. The current model sorts and separates rather than bringing us together; it drowns out or even eliminates healthy dialogue and reasonable debate; it strips away the mutual respect we should have for each other as citizens of the same world.

FC: How do you plan to use your platform to push for change when it comes to hate speech, algorithmic amplification, and misinformation in 2021? Since you’re not a trained expert on these topics, why do you think people should listen to your perspective?

PH: I know enough to know that I certainly don’t know everything, especially when it comes to tech—but when you see this as a humanitarian issue, then you see the spread of misinformation as requiring a humanitarian response.

This is why my wife and I spent much of 2020 consulting the experts and learning directly from academics, advocates, and policymakers. We’ve also been listening with empathy to people who have stories to share—including people who have been deeply affected by misinformation and those who grew up as digital natives.

What we hope to do is continue to be a spotlight for their perspectives, and focus on harnessing their experience and energy to accelerate the pace of change in the digital world.

FC: Your Archewell Foundation has collaborated with several groups and institutions that aim to rethink technology and study its impact on people. As a philanthropist, why are you supporting research efforts within this space?

PH: If we’ve learned anything, it’s that our dominant technologies were built to grow and grow and grow, without serious consideration for the ripple effect of that growth. We have to do more than simply reconsider this model. The stakes are too high, and time is running out.

WE HAVE TO DO MORE THAN SIMPLY RECONSIDER THIS MODEL. THE STAKES ARE TOO HIGH, AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT.”

PRINCE HARRY, THE DUKE OF SUSSEX

There are a lot of incredible people and digital architects thinking about—or already working on—innovative and healthy platforms. We need to support them, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it can make commercial sense. And we have to look at the state of competition and ensure that the landscape doesn’t indiscriminately squeeze out or incentivise against fresh ideas.

I believe we can begin to make our digital world healthier, more compassionate, more inclusive, and trustworthy.

And it’s time to move from rethinking to remodelling.

FC: Given your concerns about divisiveness, misinformation, and hate speech online, how have your views on using social media yourself changed over the last few years? How do you approach it now and are you planning to make any changes?

PH: It’s funny you should ask because ironically, we woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago to hear that a Rupert Murdoch newspaper said we were evidently quitting social media. That was ‘news’ to us, bearing in mind we have no social media to quit, nor have we for the past 10 months.

The truth is, despite its well-documented ills, social media can offer a means of connecting and community, which are vital to us as human beings. We need to hear each other’s stories and be able to share our own. That’s part of the beauty of life. And don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that a reform of the digital space will create a world that’s all rainbows and sunshine, because that’s not realistic, and that, too, isn’t life.

There can be disagreement, conversation, opposing points of view—as there should be, but never to the extent that violence is created, truth is mystified, and lives are jeopardised.

We will revisit social media when it feels right for us—perhaps when we see more meaningful commitments to change or reform—but right now we’ve thrown much of our energy into learning about this space and how we can help.

FC: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to build a healthier online ecosystem?

PH: Optimistic, of course, because I believe in us, as human beings, and that we are wired to be compassionate and honest and good. Aspects of the digital space have unfortunately manipulated (or even highlighted) our weaknesses and brought out the worst in some.

We have to believe in optimism because that’s the world and the humanity I want for my son, and all of us.

We look forward to being part of the human experience—not a human experiment.

[metamorphicrocky]

Will you ever do a fic about that little cato baby au with Gary getting his robot arm shot?

yo I went HAM on this one. don’t know what happened. but either way, this fic takes a slightly different turn from when I talked about this headcanon in another post, which is now apart of the au canon. so enjoy!!

"Dad, what's that?" Little Cato says as he points to an oddly shaped object.

Gary shrugs. "I don't know, bud."

"Do you think I could eat it?"

Gary takes a second glance at it and instinctively pulls the kid closer to him. "Seeing as how it's made out of metal, no."

The kid at his side deflates, his ears drooping in the way that makes Gary's heart melt at how cute it is.

"But we can get a snack if you want," Gary says, smiling knowingly. And just as he expected, his boy lights up and jumps onto his arm in his excitement.

"Can I get fish?!"

Gary laughs as he picks up Little Cato. "Absolutely not. I am not letting you eat another live animal in public again, or ever, to be honest."

"Booooo," Little Cato whines.

He sticks his tongue out at his dad, and in retaliation, Gary does the same while tickling the kid's neck. Little Cato laughs as he flinches away from the attack, making Gary smile fondly.

His boy opens his eyes, then he gasps and shoves his hands on Gary's face in his haste to look at something over the man's shoulder. "I want that!"

"Little Cato, get off of me," Gary says muffledly because his kid is currently squishing the hell out of his face. The boy does as asked, but he's still bouncing in his dad's arms over whatever food he saw. Gary turns and his mouth drops open at the stand he sees. "Oh my god, are those waffles?!"

"Ooh, waffles! They sound fun!" Little Cato says, his mouth watering.

Gary wastes no time in walking over there to scan the menu, and holy crap, they have so many different waffles. This is the best thing he's seen in a while. He stands in line and debates between literally every option on the menu because they all sound so good, while Little Cato saw chocolate and immediately decided on that one.

As Gary goes back and forth between choices, a man approaches him and taps his shoulder. He turns to see an absolute brute next to him, and he can already sense trouble.

"Are you Gary Goodspeed?"

Gary scoffs, trying to hide his nervousness as Little Cato looks around to find other people the brute might be with. He is so thankful that Nightfall thought of training the kid to do this. "You think I look like him? Jawline's way different, pal. I'm kinda honored though, that someone could mistake me for a famous bounty."

The brute snarls in response, and Gary is very stressed at the moment. Little Cato pulls at his collar to get his attention. "Dad, can I have your second gun? Or maybe your seventh?"

Gary feigns confusion over the question. "Buddy, not right now."

Little Cato fake pouts. "But I only have four!"

"We'll talk about this later, when I'm not having a conversation, okay?" He adjusts his hold on his son in case he needs to shield him from harm or let go of him quickly.

"Are you sure?" Brute sneers. "I don't know of many humans who have Ventrexian sons—especially small orange ones."

Cover's blown, time to run. Gary taps Little Cato two times on the shoulder, then promptly drops him as he whips out his gun and shoots the brute right in the chest. He grabs Little Cato's hand and books it back towards the Crimson Light as fast as he can through the crowd, avoiding shots from four people on his seven and two. Waffles will sadly have to wait for later.

"Keep going, I'll catch up!" Gary shouts as he pushes the boy forward so that he can stop and aim at their pursuers. He fires a few times, but he misses them. Damn, these busy markets are not good for gun fights.

Okay, this won't work. He gives up attacking and sprints to catch up with his boy who, of course, slowed down to wait for him. He waves the kid on when he catches his eye, and Little Cato nods and starts to run again.

Gary is still catching up when he sees someone burst through the crowd, gun blazing, and pointing right at Little Cato. It fires, and all of Gary's instincts kick in as he leaps to cross the distance between him and his boy, wrapping his body around him as a shield. Gary grunts as the shot hits his robotic arm, causing it to burn the nerve connections.

He doesn't let the pain stop him though, so he picks up Little Cato and fires at the one who shot him, finally hitting his target. He books it back to the ship in record time, letting his boy jump down and run to get back up as Gary finishes off the enemy. He is so glad that the kid listens to him.

There's six people approaching now, but with Nightfall, HUE, and Fox joining the fight, the problem is taken care of quickly. When all of the bounty hunters are down, Gary lets out a relieved sigh.

"No injuries?" Nightfall asks.

Gary thinks about how his arm was hit, but it can't be bad. He just nods as he walks into the ship and is quickly met with a certain little cat jumping at him. Gary catches him flawlessly and plants a giant kiss to the kid's forehead.

"You did so good, Spidercat! Just like we taught you!" Gary praises, ruffling his hair.

Little Cato smiles. "Is your arm okay?"

Gary waves off the kid's concern. "Yeah, that's what robot arms are good for. Taking damage and it not hurting."

He motions for the crew to follow him because he is going to get those damn waffles if it's the last thing he does, ignoring the way he feels his arm jitter slightly. And the little jolt of pain where the arm connects with his skin? Nothing to worry about there.

----

Gary was wrong. So very wrong.

His arm hurts so much.

The first day, he barely noticed anything other than mild discomfort. By day three, it was more frequent short-circuiting and stronger pain. Now it's day seven, it's unbearable and constant. When he's around the others, he has to put all of his focus into forcing his arm to stay still instead of spasming like it wants to do.

Right now he's in his room, his jacket off because the pain is making him very hot. He's leaning against the side of his bed, his face scrunched up in pure agony. Gary can see the sparks flaring around the damaged spot, the wires exposed and burnt. He's genuinely surprised that it's still working, to be honest.

He laughs at that, but moving only makes it hurt more as the arm is jostled. Gary bites down a scream, not wanting to alert anyone of what's happening. He can...deal with this. Yeah, he can do this.

A sharp flare shoots through his arm, sending pain radiating through his entire left side. It's so painful that he barely has time to think before he's grabbing the pillow off of his bed and screaming into it at the top of his lungs. His side is on fire, and he knows that if he even dared to look at his shoulder, it would would look like hell. Tears are pooling in his eyes as he pants and screams over the non-stop searing pain.

There's nothing he can do to stop it, other than removing his arm. Which will not be happening, because it's too important to him. The clasp of friends....

A stronger jolt of pain distracts him from his thoughts, and he shouts, "Fuck!"

Okay, this is insane. Why is he doing this?! If he just removes the arm, everything will be better. But, Avocato—no, arm needs to come off—was his best friend. This arm was when their friendship started.

Another surge of agony. "Shit!"

Gary screams as loud as he can into the pillow, letting out all of his frustration. Fine, he'll...stick with the arm. If he has time to do something like this every day, this will be manageable.

"Dad?"

Gary freezes, but another wave comes. He doesn't even have the strength to try to stop it, so he screams again.

"Dad! What's wrong?" Little Cato screams.

Gary lifts his head up, tears pooling in his eyes, to see his boy standing next to him with a look of horror on his face. Huh, how did he get over here so fast, Gary wonders.

"Nothing, Spidercat," Gary groans. "I'm fine."

More pain, but now Gary's screaming isn't muffled by a pillow. "Ahh! Fuck fuck fuck!"

"Dad," Little Cato cries. Gary really looks at the kid after that, and oh no, he's crying. His little chest is moving rapidly, and Gary can't have the kid panicking right now. "You're hurt!"

"It's just some pain, bud. It'll pass soon," Gary grunts.

Little Cato presses his mouth into a thin line, and since he has no concept of personal space, he lifts Gary's shirt to see his side. The kid freezes, bursts into full on sobbing, and runs out of the room screaming for Nightfall.

He's probably just overreacting. Yeah, it can't be that bad—!

Oh.

Oh shit.

Gary stands up, but the pain lacing his left side forces him to brace himself against the wall as he hobbles out of the room, intending on meeting Nightfall halfway because the red lines branching across his skin definitely do not look okay. He grunts as he enters the hallway, stopping to lean against the wall and hold his side.

"Gary!" Nightfall shouts, running up to him. She looks concerned, and Little Cato is standing behind her nervously, tears streaming down his little face. "What happened? Little Cato couldn't really tell me anything other than—!"

She's cut off when Gary lifts his shirt with a huff. She stares at it in shock, and then looks back up at Gary's face to see his guilty expression. "I messed up. Like, super badly. It's my arm—SHIT!"

Nightfall's face hardens, and she carefully wraps an arm around him to keep his upright. "Little Cato, can you go grab the arm repair kit and bring it to the medbay for me? The one I showed you a while ago."

His kid nods, putting on a brave face, and he glances at Gary worriedly then runs off to do what he was asked.

Gary sighs as they start making their way through the ship. "You shouldn't have involved him in this."

Nightfall glares at him. "Too late, you already did."

He muffles another scream as they walk into the medbay, Little Cato already waiting with the tools. Nightfall sets him down on an operating table and begins working silently at removing his arm while it glitches out.

Little Cato continues to stand there in worry next to Gary's right side, so he holds his good hand out for his kid to hold as a way to comfort them both. Damn, his kid is so tough, watching him get his arm removed.

The process of taking it off is a lot shorter than putting it on, so Nightfall is done within a few minutes. She rubs some sort of salve on his shoulder and side where it hurts the most, and she is most definitely doing it hard as a way for him to know how pissed she is at him. Which is totally understandable. She wraps bandages around his shoulder to keep the the port from being exposed, and that's it. All done.

Gary sits up slowly, trying to adjust to the weird feeling of having nothing in where his arm should be. Sure, a prosthetic felt different from the real deal, but it was pretty close to the original. But now, there's nothing.

Cautiously, Gary places his remaining hand on his shoulder, rubbing a little bit of the tension away.

"Do you want your shirt back?" Nightfall asks, a hint of exasperation in her voice.

He shakes his head. "I'm sorry you had to do that," he says quietly, looking her in the eye.

"I'm not upset that I had to do it," she says, crossing her arms. "I'm mad that you let this go on for, I don't know, about a week? You could have damaged your nervous system! Honestly, you'll be lucky if your body doesn't reject a new prosthetic after all the damage your nerve endings took!"

Gary blanches at that. "I might not be able to get a new arm?"

"Yeah. That was really stupid of you," she states angrily.

Gary feels the tears start to come, so he buries his face in his hand and takes in a stuttering breath. "I didn't want to lose it. It's just...Avocato put it on. And that was when our friendship started...damn, I'm so stupid for doing this."

A small hand is placed on Gary's knee, and he turns to see Little Cato looking up at him with those big eyes of his. "You don't have to lose it. You can keep it! Like one of those sou-thingies you talk about," he says softly.

"A souvenir?" Gary asks, receiving a nod in response. He laughs a little at that. "Yeah, buddy, you're right."

Nightfall places a hand on his good shoulder. "Gary, I don't think Avocato would have ever wanted you to value your broken arm over your own safety. But you did it, so now you have to be prepared to handle things if your body can't support a new prosthetic."

Gary frowns, but then Little Cato jumps up onto the table with him and sits in his lap, giving him a hug. He awkwardly hugs back, wanting to wrap two arms around his son but only having one that responds to it.

"I'm glad that you're okay, though. Well, for the most part." Nightfall smiles, and he smiles tiredly back. "I'll go look for a place to get you a new arm while you relax and get some rest. Take painkillers if you need them."

She walks off, leaving Gary and Little Cato sitting together. The kid still looks a little frightened, and Gary cards his fingers through his fur to calm him down. Little Cato leans into the touch just like he always does.

"I'm sorry that I scared you, buddy," Gary apologizes. He plants a quick kiss to the kid's forehead. "How about we go watch a movie though?"

His son lights up, instantly jumping down and grabbing Gary's hand to drag him to the common area. If passing the time until he gets another arm is like this, he thinks he'll be able to make it.

----

Gary really needs to stop jinxing himself. Every single time he thinks something won't be bad, it turns out bad. Fantastic.

He can't wear shirts. He puts one on every day, and then immediately takes it off because the empty sleeve bothers him more than the missing arm does. Isn't that pathetic? He knows it's been annoying everyone to see him shirtless for the past few days, but he doesn't care.

And he can't pilot the ship. He needs two arms. Gary currently has one arm. The only good to come out of that is teaching Little Cato how to fly and seeing how much the kid loves it. Plus he's too small to sit in the seat without something to boost him up, so he sits on Gary's lap as he tells his boy what to do. Instructing is harder when he can only demonstrate some things, but he's making it work.

Cooking is a struggle. Nightfall has had to help him every time when he needs something done that Little Cato isn't allowed to do. She says she doesn't mind it, but he knows how much of a burden he's being. It really sucks.

He's never really thought about how he's missing an arm until now. When it first got ripped off, he was so hyped up on adrenaline and in shock to even process it, and the new one was put on right after it happened so it barely crossed his mind. But now he has to think about it, how he has to tell himself not to try to move something that isn't there. The confusion he feels is really something else.

However, the worse part of all is that he can't pick up his son. Or wrestle with him. Or play cards without getting frustrated. Or sleep with him because the kid moves around and accidentally touches his shoulder a lot. And he knows that he wouldn't be able to protect him properly if they were in danger.

Gary can't be a good father like this, and it's crushing him.

Currently, Gary is sitting in the pilot's seat. He can't do anything, but this is usually where he likes to be anyways. He's not wearing a shirt, and he just wants to melt into the seat and disappear right now.

"Hey, Dad. Psst."

Gary turns around to see Little Cato peaking into the room, hiding behind the doorway. "Yeah, bud?"

"I wanna show you something," he whisper-talks conspiratorially.

Gary stands up with a smile and walks out into the hallway to see the kid hiding something behind his back. Gary raises an intrigued eyebrow at it and kneels down to be at his son's level, but Little Cato just winks.

"You gotta close your eyes. And gimme your hand," Little Cato instructs.

Gary does as told, and he feels Little Cato grab his hand and put something made out of fabric in it. He is definitely confused, so he opens his eyes to see...his shirt?

"Spidercat, did Nightfall tell you to make me put a shirt on?" Gary asks in confusion.

The Ventrexian shakes his head. "No, look at the left side."

Gary glances at it, and instead of an empty sleeve, there's just more shirt. It's poorly sewn together, but the patch that replaces the sleeve does it well enough. He looks between the shirt and his kid in surprise, Little Cato smiling proudly.

"Did you make this?" Gary asks in disbelief.

His son nods. "Yeah! You didn't like how the sleeve flapped, so I cut it off and made that! Put it on!"

Gary sits down so that he can grab the bottom of the shirt and slip it over his head, sliding his arm through it and pulling it down. Getting dressed has been a struggle, and he never thought before how difficult it could be with only one limb.

The shirt fits fine, obviously. It was one of his shirts to begin with, but the addition Little Cato made? Wow, it feels so much better now.

"Do you like it?" His son is smiling so brightly, and Gary is just completely overwhelmed by how good of a kid he has.

"Spidercat, I love it. I mean, just look at this craftsmanship! Stitched together perfectly!" Gary praises.

Gary drags the kid closer to him, pulling him into a hug and ruffling his hair. Little Cato hugs him back, wrapping his arms around Gary's neck. For some reason, just having a shirt that doesn't make him feel wrong energizes him, so he wraps his arm around his son snugly and stands up.

Even though it was his idea, Gary is still surprised that he managed to pick the kid up. Little Cato gasps excitedly over this new development, staring at his dad in elation. "You picked me up!"

"Yeah, I did...," Gary trails off happily. "Wait, I'm gonna put you down and try something."

He sets the kid down, and Little Cato can clearly see where this experiment is heading by the way he's bouncing on the balls of his feet. Gary takes his arm and wraps it around the boy's stomach, then swings him up to rest against his hip.

They both look at each other in surprise and laugh excitedly. Little Cato wraps himself around his dad like an octopus to make it easier to be held, and Gary starts walking around with the kid in his arm.

"You know, I think I'm getting good at this," Gary says cockily as a joke.

Little Cato nods. "I think it's cool!"

"What's cool?"

"That you're still awesome even without your cool robot arm! I wouldn't be able to bake cookies with only one arm," Little Cato says innocently.

Gary stops and stares at his kid in mild shock. How is he so sweet? How? It literally seems impossible to have this nice of a child.

"That is really nice of you to say, son."

He would give Little Cato a fist bump if he could, but a quick kiss on the forehead also works.

If he can't get another prosthetic, he thinks that it won't be as bad as he expected it to be. Especially if he's got his boy to help him.

----

"Are you nervous?" Nightfall asks, walking alongside Gary, Little Cato holding his hand and Mooncake trailing behind.

Gary shrugs. "I mean, a little bit? I want a new robot arm, definitely. But if my nerves are done for, I think I'll be able to handle only one arm."

Nightfall smiles, and Gary smiles back.

"Can I pick the arm?"

The two adults laugh at Little Cato's question, but Gary still nods his head. He laughs again when Little Cato pumps his fist in excitement over the news.

Together, they walk into the prosthetic shop and are immediately hit with the sight of a lot of limbs, some more metal in nature and others looking way too real. Gary grimaces at that, but Little Cato just starts trying to poke everything.

"You Gary?" the shopkeeper asks. Gary nods, and the man starts sizing him up. "Well, you weren't kiddin' 'bout missin' an arm."

Gary's face scrunches up in confusion. "Well, yeah! This is your whole thing, guy, why would I lie about that?"

"Just not often y'see a whole arm, s'all."

The weird man waves Gary forwards, so he follows after him reluctantly, holding Little Cato tight against his side because the kid really wants to touch everything in sight.

"Dad, I want a robot arm," Little Cato says as he passes one that has several different gun options on it.

"Yeah, no, not happening, buddy. It's not as fun as you think it is. Especially the losing an arm part."

They enter a room with a bunch of different pieces of equipment in it, and the shopkeep gestures for Gary to sit down.

"Lemme see th'spot," he grumbles.

Gary removes his jacket, which he is much more comfortable in after some adjustment, and takes his shirt off to leave his shoulder port exposed. The man hums to himself as he looks at it, and then places a piece of machinery onto it.

Gary is about to ask what it does, but the moment he opens his mouth, the man interrupts, "Checkin' ya nerves. I'm not gonna fit you for an arm that don't work."

The man fiddles with the device as Gary holds Little Cato still in his lap because he knows that the moment he lets go, the kid is going to run and try to eat or touch something he shouldn't.

After a few minutes, the man takes it off and looks at what it says, mumbling indiscernible things under his breath. Then he drops it on the table and turns towards Gary, all four of his eyes piercing his gaze.

"So, good news or bad news first?"

"Good news!" Little Cato shouts, his tail swishing in anticipation.

"Well, ya can get an arm." Gary feels all of the tension in his body drain, relief rushing through him immediately. "Bad news, not today."

"What? What do you mean not today?" Gary asks.

The guy shrugs. "Nerve damage. Ya messed 'em up real good, but they should heal eventually. I'd give it 'bout a year."

Mooncake nuzzles up against Gary's face, humming sadly. Little Cato and Nightfall look crestfallen as well, but Gary doesn't feel too bad about it.

He can do this.

They pay the guy for seeing him and walk out into the daylight. Little Cato is hugging Gary's left leg, and it somehow makes walking feel more normal now that there's more weight on that side.

"Gary, are you sure that you're okay with this?" Nightfall asks.

He nods. "Yeah, it's a small problem compared to everything else going on in our lives, right?"

"It's going to make you unbalanced when you fight, and it gives you a disadvantage," Nightfall insists. "You'll have to get used to a whole different method of piloting."

"I...think it'll be okay, Nightfall." Gary gives her his best reassuring smile, and she rolls her eyes at him fondly.

"You got this, Dad!" Little Cato shouts.

Gary smiles at the bundle on his leg. "Heck yes I do, Little Cato! Now, I am going to go show you all how I can still win at cards!"

Little Cato sticks his tongue out to taunt Gary, and the kid's smile makes him think that he was being an idiot stressing before. Arm or no arm, that won't change how he can parent the kid. Plus, maybe it is kind of cool.

"Can we race back to the ship?" Little Cato asks, shaking Gary's leg.

Gary laughs and leans down to stare the kid down. "Don't think I'm gonna go easy on you, Spidercat."

"You're on!" Little Cato yells.

Nightfall rolls her eyes again, but she still gives them a countdown. And when Gary wins to Little Cato's dismay, he really feels like this'll be alright.

[drabblesaf]

what you did in the dark - Mieczyslaw Stilinski Smut (Void) - pt 2

REQUESTED: Yes, requested by an anon and three lovely users!!

“p2 please !” - @one-thread-can-save-a-life “Ooooh I love it! Do more!” @fox-in-a-mousetrap-8 (also thank you for the rb! <3) “pls do a pt 2 of bury a friend omg its so good” – anon “Ok hi, I need a part two of the bury a friend imagine for Stiles, like now please! It’s so good, oh my lord.” - @alopix861

Well, ask and ye shall receive!

WARNINGS: unprotected sex, biting, blood, choking

SUMMARY: You knew that Stiles was possessed, but you had no idea to what extent. You would learn soon enough, when the fox took more of an interest in you…

NOTES: So this one was again inspired by a song, but it wasn’t a Billie song (I was debating using bad guy buuuuuut I found a slowed version of “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark” by Fall Out Boy which I thought worked much better). You can listen to that here!

Thank you to everyone who liked, reblogged and asked for more – I literally posted that yesterday on a whim, and the response was amazing! (Also, thank y’all for allowing me to write more Stiles because I love and miss my boy <3)

Hope you enjoy, and you can find pt1 here!

Be careful making wishes in the dark, dark Can’t be sure when they’ve hit their mark, And besides, in the mean-meantime, I’m Just dreaming of tearing you apart

I had been trying to deal with what Stiles had said to me that day. At least, I’m sure he said it - rather, whispered it - to me as his hands wrapped around my waist, yet there was no warm breath in my ear. It was as though he had spoken in my mind, invaded my thoughts, and etched his words into my brain.

“My darling (Y/N), you should never trust a fox. No matter what.”

The words had been going around in my mind all day, and the weirdest thing was that nobody else had heard them. In fact, it was just as though everything was normal, as if our friend hadn’t been possessed by a fox spirit. An evil fox spirit at that.

So when I was heading home, I definitely wasn’t expecting Stiles to offer to drive me back to mine, “As thanks for everything you did for me yesterday. Even if we did end up falling asleep.” The ride back was nice, some old 80s song playing on the radio, and I was alone with my thoughts.

As we pulled up to my house, I turned to Stiles to thank him, but was instead met by his lips crashing onto mine. He tasted like the spearmint gum he always chewed, but also faintly of chocolate from the muffin he’d eaten for lunch earlier that day. He pulled away briefly, trying to catch my reaction, to which I responded by kissing him again, crawling onto his lap carefully (so as to avoid the steering wheel jabbing me in the back) as his arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me in tighter to him.

I’m in the de-details with the devil, No the world can never get me on my level, I just gotta get you out the cage, I’m a young lover’s rage, Gonna need a spark to ignite

After a while, Stiles mumbled, “Shall we take this inside?” to which I nodded, breaking apart if only for a few seconds in order to get inside the house. As soon as we were in and the door was closed, our lips reconnected, tongues dancing a deadly tango. In the back of my mind, Stiles’ words were still playing on repeat.

No matter what.

No matter how good his lips felt against my own, no matter how much his hands ignited sparks everywhere he touched me, no matter how much I wanted this, craved all of this, I shouldn’t have trusted him. However, at the point we were at, I didn’t really have much of an option.

“Bedroom?” Stiles said, lifting me up so my legs were wrapped around his waist. I nodded, pointing up the stairs.

“First door on the right.” The thrill that ran through my body was intense, and had the dark-haired teen not been holding me securely, I would have fallen over then and there. We crashed into the door, him kicking it closed behind us, throwing me onto the bed and removing his shirt.

The writers keep writing what they write, Somewhere another pretty vein just died, I’ve got the scars from tomorrow and I wish you could see That you’re the antidote to everything except for me

In Stiles’ eyes, there was nothing but darkness when I looked at him. “Oh, kitten,” he tutted. “What did I say earlier?” He said that last part as he grabbed my chin, forcing me to keep looking at him.

“No matter what,” I whispered, and he nodded. 

“Exactly. No matter what, you should never trust a fox. But, seems like you forgot about that part, overcome by your attraction for the boy, the host. Hmm, you should hear how he’s screaming currently, begging me not to hurt you. Don’t worry kitten, I’m not likely to hurt you anytime soon, as long as you do as you’re told and don’t try to do anything stupid or reckless. You can do that for me, can’t you?” 

I nodded, and he tutted again. “Ah, ah, ah, use your words.”

“Y-yes Sir,” I stuttered out, and he smirked.

“Good girl kitten. Now, I think you need a bit of a treat, but only if you comply with being marked. Can’t let anyone try and get their hands on you, y’know,” he said, before moving to my neck, tugging at my t-shirt for me to remove it. My eyes widened as he began to nip at my neck, biting as though aiming to leave pierced marks through my skin, drawing blood as he did so.

With every suck, bite and nip the teen underwent, I squirmed slightly beneath him, trying to not enjoy it but finding arousal building in the pit of my stomach. I felt something prickle at the corner of my eyes as I fought the tears that threatened to spill out, until Stiles said, “Let it all out angel. I thrive off your fear, could eat it up for days. And my goodness, kitten, you have so. Much. Fear.” He shuddered slightly, as if relishing the fear he was consuming from me, and kissed further down until he reached the hemline of my pants.

A constellation of tears on your lashes, Burn everything you love then burn the ashes, In the end everything collides, my childhood Spat back out the monster that you see

When Stiles reached the hemline, my breathing hitched slightly, and he chuckled. “Hm, do you deserve a treat kitten? You did let me consume your fear, even if it meant I had to go further than planned. Do you want me to repay the favour for you?”

“Fuck, please Sir, I need it so bad,” I whimpered, and he smirked. 

“As you wish. Well done kitten, for remembering to call me by the correct name as well,” he said in a satisfied manner before pulling down my underwear and diving in to attack my pussy. He gave fast licks to the clit, sucking harshly on it to the point where I may have exploded. However, almost as soon as he’d begun he withdrew, shoving his own pants down and off and palming himself, eyeing up my needy form in bed.

“Y’know, you look so good like this, an absolute wreck all for me. But it isn’t all for me, is it kitten? Part of it is also for the host, isn’t it? Well kitten, I will show you how much better I can fuck you than him. Get you screaming out his name because I look just like him. You’ll be thinking of his cock every time you fuck me. Except, that’s just it. You’re fucking me. So I want to hear you screaming out Sir, understand?”

I had no time to give an answer as he pushed straight into me, causing me to cry out in agony. If he had truly taken on Stiles and possessed him as he said he did, then Stiles was hung. He was stretching me out to a painful degree, but didn’t seem to care one bit. “Did I mention I also feed off your pain?” He said, grunting as he thrusted into me harshly. “That’s right kitten, I live for your pain. Give it all to me. I know you want to. Give yourself to me.”

He kept thrusting into me, and after a while I had gotten used to the pain, moaning instead as the feeling he was causing felt amazing. I felt lightheaded, almost swooning, until he pulled me up onto him so I was straddling him, legs around his waist and one hand wrapped around my throat.

“Want me to cum in you? Want me to fill you up with my seed? We’re going to be together for a long time (Y/N)...let me fill you up with my cock,” the teen growled, nipping at my ear as I felt my pussy tighten around him, causing him to release with a groan and bringing about my own release shortly after. He removed himself from me and lay me down carefully on the bed. My whole body was on fire from that session, and as soon as he left I heard a voice in my head before everything went dark.

“See you soon, kitten.”

[stevensavage]

Indie Authors Versus The Money

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve's Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Right now you want to sell your books.  Maybe it's a future career.  Maybe it's a hobby that pays (like mine).  Maybe you're just trying it out.

Either way, you want to sell.  As I noted in There's No Honor In An Unread Book, your goal is to reach the right people.

And to do that, you're up against many things, but one of those things is money.  Namely money other people have and spend to sell their books.  If you have a lot of money, well then good on you, but this isn't for you (except to say, hey use that cash to help out others too).

You may think "wait, I'm up against other indies and self-publishers" with cash and worry about that.  Let me ruin your day further by noting it's also you being up against publishers and marketing departments and everything else companies large and small have at your disposal.  When you're trying to promote your works, you're up against organizations older than we are.

It sounds overwhelming.  But we've all seen and heard of success stories out there.  Sure there's a ton of survivor bias there, but there are people to learn from.  People who inspire us and give us hope.

Right now I'm not going to focus on that inspiration, I'm going to focus on what people are throwing money at to sell their books and such.  You can either throw money at those things, or if you're like most folks coping with the world today, how you work around your limits.  Forewarned is forearmed, so roll up the sleeves on those forearms and get to work.

Here's where money is getting spent.

Advertising

It's easy to throw money at advertising on Google, Amazon, and More.  You can, with diligent research, at least break even at advertising if not make a profit.  It's just other people and companies can buy advertising at a loss if they need to in order to drive up sales and get reviews.

Advertising also has a feedback effect.  If you advertise your book or product and people buy it then it gets into recommendations.

My cheap suggestion?  Study up on advertising and aim to get to the break-even point at least to get your book out there.

Book Tours

Publishers can send people on book tours.  It's a great way to get attention on authors.  Other authors can send themselves and do their own book tours at indie book stores, conventions, and more.

Book tours are mixed bags in my experience - some sell some don't.  Do them if you want.  It's just to do it cheap, you'll want to line it up yourself with local stores.  I like the idea, but I'm also the kind of person that likes to meet people.

The only challenge is that a lot of Indie stories are fussy about what they carry - usually amazon print books are a no-no.  That leaves Ingrahm Spark or Lulu for print.

I also do a lot of public speaking at conventions and libraries.  I use that to meet people and network.

Covers

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a good book cover can wrap many, many more up in a single image.  Good covers sell, as I have found the hard way.  People can throw money at a good book cover.

If you're not going to do that your options are to learn to do it yourself (which is useful), get someone to help you (which is nice but can be exploitative), or use a premade cover service (like GoOnWrite, which I adore).  I find you can do pretty well with these if you're careful.

Giveaways

You've probably seen newsletters like Bookbub that promote book giveaways - for a fee.  I can't speak directly to how effective they are, but they keep going and I hear good thing.  It's just they cost - you guessed it - money.  Also they usually only promote if there's a discount.

It's hard to top these for sheer volume.  You can of course give away books to friends and newsletter subscribers, or use things like ProlificWorks.com (which still costs but not as much).  It won't get you a huge blitz, but still.

Reviews

Book-wise you can pay for reviews.  This may sound unethical (and there's debate about it), but the model is simple - companies or publications keep a staff of reviews around and farm out entrants to them if they're interested.  Similar models have existed for decades.  I'll leave you to decide on the ethicalness of the situation.

But people are using this.  You can throw a few thousand dollars at a review service and get a lot of reviews.  So guess what, you compete with that too.

The cheap solution of course is to get as many reviews as possible.  Ask friends.  Ask family.  Ask fellow authors.  Go to sources of reviews and review sites and ask for reviews.  Offer free copies of your book.

Some people are throwing money at reviewers.  If you can't or won't, it's time to get tactical.

In Summary

People are going to throw money at promoting their books.  If you don't want to do that, can't do that, or disagree with some of the approaches, you need to work around that.

One thing I can definitely suggest is to team up with your fellow authors.  Share tips.  Promote each other.  DO giveaways together.  One thing that's free is friendship.

You'll probably make some pretty awesome friends and you can plot together.

Steven Savage

www.StevenSavage.com

www.InformoTron.com

[chibi-chaos]

Scar or Mark?

This seems to be something which people are split about, some have concluded that by the end of Season Six Keith has a scar, while others have concluded it’s a Galra Mark. Some people understandably are debating on it still.

For me I had first thought that it had been a scar... but then a second time round of watching I’m leaning to it being a mark.

I won’t demand that you all say it is, this isn’t the aim of this post, the aim is to present as much of the facts and evidence for both sides as to help you guys conclude or reinforce your opinion, maybe see something different.

And thus with Netflix not allowing screen captures of the laptop screen I set off on the internet searching deep into google images and youtube to find the evidence required to make this. I’ve linked the videos which I have used so that you can take a look as well.

1. How Scars have previously been portrayed.

Looking at Shiro’s trade mark scar gives us a good idea as to how the creators of Voltron depict scarring, it’s sets in a way our ‘standard’. While there are times where Shiro’s scar is either missing or not consistent, close ups give us a few ideas. The scar is ragged, thin on the edges and thickening in the middle, it’s not a smooth line. Additionally it’s coloured with more of a pink tint to it when compared to Shiro’s skin.

This is depicted the same in the scene were Keith’s scar/mark appears.

Where Shiro’s mark is jagged Keith’s is smoother, it’s got clean lines. And with this they both seem to be of the same colouring - making it potential for an argument either way.

2. How Korlia’s mark is depicted.

Korlia’s mark is a few shades darker than her skin tone, it curves out from her cheek to her eyes and can be seen on her jaw linking to the back of her neck. Keith’s mark or scar on the other hand is curved the opposite way and as of now I have not seen any images where it’s on his jaw and neck.

At the same time it can be argued that while the mark/scar is the same colour of Shiro’s scar, it’s also what you would get if you made a colour a few tones darker from Keith’s skin. Which could be supported by this image at the end of the season (captured from this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-8DYEPUjYY).

3. What if I told you that the mark/scar appears before that close quarters sword fight scene?

This is actually a late add on discovery which occurred as I watched this youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_4brD8MyHc) at 0.25 speed - I admit I was using the skip button since there’s only so much patience in me. But while doing so I encountered an image of the mark and for a moment thought I had missed the fight - until I realized that it was actually about half a minute before the fight.

This image appears at 4:07, and for a few frames you see clearly that same scar/mark. However as quickly as it appeared - it disappeared. Now this might have been a slip up by the creators I dunno, but it seems more likely of a mistake to forget the mark (like what has happened with Shiro).

But then it might have possibly reappeared. I cannot say that this is definitely the scar/mark because it’s so faint - but there seems to be that same shape on his cheek at 4:39.

4. How does the appearing the disappearing characteristics fit in? The eyes.

One of the well known moments of Season Six was when we noticed Keith’s eyes changed as he fought Shiro or Kuron early on into the fight scene. Keith’s eyes are clearly human, the sclera is white, and his iris are their normal shape.

However in few frames later the sclera is tinted yellow and the iris have become slits.

5. The fight scene

The first thing to notice about the close quarters fight is that these eyes return, at the same time as the mark/scar appears. The second thing to notice is that while the swords are very close to Keith’s face, neither of them actually come into contact of his face on screen. Thirdly, the when the mark/scar appears it’s blurry, it becomes fully formed at the same time as we see Keith’s eyes change, and then it seemed to change from a red hue to a more purple hue.

But also to consider is the sounds, Keith does sound like he’s in pain, even more so when he’s off screen. And Shiro’s sword at the same time as it emits possibly sparks, seems to make some sort of sizzling sound (though for me if there was contact I would have expected considering the blades angle, that it would have also cut/burnt a bit of Keith’s eyebrow and bangs as well).

Thus it is possible to say that it is a Galra mark that appeared due to the stress Keith was under, that it ‘woke up’ some recessive genetic trait he inherited from his mother.

While it’s also possible to still say that it’s a scar which he could have gotten due to exposure to the sword adaption on Kuron’s arm, causing a burn which can be reinforced by the sizzling sound which Kuron’s sword makes and Keith’s cry.

And before I sign out let’s take a moment of appreciate how beautiful this episode was, animation wise as well as Keith.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Being someone new to the fandom after following the series for a long time, I was curious: Why do fans seem to argue so much about if the series are canon or not? Personally I find them interesting but.. Less canon, I guess? Than the movies, but I still enjoy watching, and I'm super happy people love it bc any new content is great. Yet browsing the tags I keep finding people complaining that the shows are/aren't canon in a way that really makes you feel bad if you disagree? I'm just confused :/

Hey there, friend! Any new content is a great thing indeed, I’m with you there! It’s something I’m rather thankful for. Whether or not everyone is invested in new material, there’s something cool to say on the matter that we have the blessing of being given more material to experience within our fandom franchise.

Before we begin, I’ll plop links to my prior posts on the RTTE canon discussion (mostly my opinion on the matter, which is canon =/= consistency):

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

And another good post (not mine) about different angles of analyzing a story:

[Watsonian and Doylist]

Sorry that you’ve had a potentially unpleasant experience browsing through the tags for this matter! I absolutely love the HTTYD fandom to tears and love the people in it, but yeah, this is a major point of contention within the community sometimes. 

I’d say that as with anything in any fandom, when there’s material some people like and some people don’t, there’s going to be discussion, disagreement, and sometimes butting heads over it. Some people adore Race to the Edge. Some people don’t. Some people take it seriously. Some people don’t. That’s okay and awesome! We’re all allowed our preference, and frankly communities are better places when people don’t all have the same brain about a matter. Not everyone’s going to like the same thing or look at something from the same angle and that’s the entire point about being unique human beings. We need different perspectives, and if we know how to handle different perspectives, we grow and develop and have better times because of it.

What it does mean, though, is that some fans find RTTE to be full of contradictions to the timeline of the movie trilogy. They’ll talk about how Hiccup’s characterization doesn’t make sense in the context of HTTYD, GOTNF, and HTTYD 2. They’ll talk about how in a world that was supposed to be at peace for the five years between movies one and two, there’s way too much chaos for RTTE to be “real events.” They’ll talk about how Hiccup encountering a Bewilderbeast or dragon trappers or lots of other dragon riders couldn’t happen before the events of HTTYD 2, because then it contradicts his reaction when he learns about Valka the mysterious dragon rider. And other such commentary. It’s hard to get into it all, here. 

Some people who take this position about RTTE being contradictory to [other] canon enjoy RTTE or have casual fun with RTTE. They may or may not call the show canonical. If they don’t call it canonical, it’s because they don’t see it as consistent with the rest of the franchise. Perhaps most of the people who take this position (I say this anecdotally though) don’t enjoy RTTE and don’t accept it… and probably don’t call it canon. While people do try to make logical arguments about the canonicity of RTTE, I know that many peoples’ emotional feelings toward the show get in the way of how they analyze it. It’s how lots of humans work, after all; if we don’t like something we’re less likely to accept something. But regardless, many people take the position that RTTE can’t be canonical because it seems riddled with contradictions compared to HTTYD, GOTNF, and HTTYD 2.

Others don’t see contradictions, try to smooth over contradictions, or don’t care about contradictions. People who call RTTE canonical are most likely people who like the show - again, showing how emotions get intertwined in our arguments, even when we’re trying to argue through logos. XD Most people who say RTTE is canonical either point out it’s really not as contradictory as others say… or if they’re like me… say that canonicity isn’t about consistency at all. Consistency is irrelevant to whether or not something is canonical; canonicity is about whether or not it was officially produced. And in the case of RTTE, it’s definitely not a fanfiction, it’s not made by some independent group of people without official studio authority… RTTE was produced and distributed by DreamWorks on official channels like Netflix, so it’s canon. For many people, it’s silly to revoke RTTE as canon, because whether or not you like the material, or whether or not you consider it consistent with the rest of HTTYD material, you shouldn’t be denying that official material is official material, right? 

The debate can get a little more in depth / complex than that, which you’ll see in the links. But that’s the gist of the main positions.

Honestly sometimes people talk past each other in this fandom discussion. People ARE, after all, using one word “canon” in several different ways - to talk about consistency, to talk about being officially produced, or both in one. (You can also talk about whether or not it’s as Big as the movies, aka a greater canon versus lesser canon thing). The different perspectives have valid points. But sometimes this turns into equivocating, and it’s largely because we’re specifically using the word “canon” to talk about: 

Consistency

Official production status

And then some people try to go after arguments of each, conflate the two issues into one, try to argue both things at once, and all sorts of various tangles. XD 

It’s basically the word “canon” has become problematic, because some people like RTTE, some people don’t, some people take RTTE seriously, some people don’t, some people think RTTE is contradictory, some people don’t, and we’re all trying to use one word to describe that. And we’re trying to use a word that has a lot of “power” behind it. The word “canon” is a pretty serious word - after all, it’s a word that elects whether or not something should be “included” (to some degree or another) in our fandom. So people don’t like hearing RTTE is or isn’t “canon,” given the power behind the word. The word “canon” elicits emotion. To call RTTE not canon could feel like an insult to the show, or to call RTTE canon would feel like inattentiveness to the movies, etc., depending on your position. Even with me, I admit I’m always working on pushing down a pet peeve I have when people treat canonicity as continuity.

I’ve given my piece on what the word “canon” means multiple times, and haha of course I think I’m totally right ;) XD, but given as I’d rather enjoy myself celebrating material I love rather than fall to a topic I consider a sometimes petty discussion (I say this with all love, fandom friends), I’ve elected to quit talking about this at all. It’s a topic I don’t need to be in and a topic I’m honestly tired of seeing. I’ve found a solution. I’ve quit using the spark-word “canon” altogether. I use the synonym “official materials.” I’ve made it quite clear with this synonym what I’m talking about, and no one can say RTTE isn’t official materials, whatever their opinion is on consistency.

Regardless, what’s important is that we all have fun enjoying the things we love. Fandom communities are about coming together and relating to materials we enjoy. If two people like RTTE, we can have fun with it! If two people don’t see eye-to-eye about RTTE, we can squeal about the movies excitedly! That’s truly the core of what it means to come together. 

To be a fandom community and have fun!

And really, even if the HTTYD fandom can get a little bit sour about the RTTE sometimes, all fandoms have their disagreements, and I’ve really found it to be an awesome community filled with lots of positivity, too. Hope you have fun in the fandom, friend, and feel free to shout about RTTE with me if you want!

But yeah that’s more or less why it’s gotten contention. “Canon” is an emotion-evoking word because it has a lot of “power” for what it means about the status of RTTE. Please, no one take my post, reblog it with your opinions on the matter, and spark up another round of debates. That will make me very displeased for you to take my post for that aim. Thanks for understanding!

Hopefully this explanation helps!

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 102 Thoughts

Any of you ever watch Imagine Me & You?

In it, some small child whose name I can’t remember asks what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. The answer given by one of the romantic leads whose name I remember slightly better but am pretending not to is that they can’t both exist.

Taking all bets, folks.

First thing’s first, and oh my gosh, it actually comes first in the chapter! What witchcraft is this!

That’s way more visually appealing in the manga, but. ...I mean, looking at it, all of my reasons seem very silly, because that is horrible and I could probably be spending this time making it better, but I’m not going to, so now we’re all sad.

It’s a metaphor.

(it wasn’t supposed to be)

Anyway, the in-universe confirmation that wow, this is all a bit much, are you sure any of this was a good idea? is greatly appreciated. Expected, on some level, but when the story starts going dark places, it’s easy to distrust the motivation. So I remain a mostly unhappy camper at this getaway, but canon taking a moment to pause and wonder why someone thought this was a good plan is nice.

I’m going to get lost in questions and character stuff very quickly, so for the sake of making sense of what is going on in The Plan, bullet points are my new friends.

Jaws and Cartman are were contained

Scouts are closing off the streets and killing enemy combatants

Civilian casualties are considered un-ideal--officially

Lamps are being positioned on high buildings

The plan is contingent on disabling the War Hammer Titan ‘in time’

Eren nomming the War Hammer is in his book as a Good End

Survival is emphasized over everything else

My guess is that no one wanted this (whatever it is) to turn into a Titan brawl. If everything had gone according to plan and stayed that way, Pieck and Galliard would be imprisoned, no Marlyean soldiers would be left alive within the internment zone, and the War Hammer and an impressive number of prominent government officials would be dead.

Currently, the Panzer Unit is live, Galliard’s running about, War Hammer is not contained, and the Beast Titan is here.

The Beast Titan would have appeared either way (like the lamps, which have me wondering if Armin is showing up), because no steps were taken to contain him. Both sides have been counting on the Beast Titan to be available in the coming something or other.

Zeke has been kept in the shadows as far as a lot of his feelings on things. He disdains war and copes by treating it as a game, and he loves his family. The inner workings of all of that isn’t readily available, making him a potential wildcard. Since Eren’s taken up baseball, the thought of something being up with him has been a topic of active discussion.

If things went as planned, the Survey Corps + Eren would have unfettered access to Zeke. Titan holder, primary instrument of the most vile Marley offenses, and someone with royal blood. Only two people alive can say that last one, and one of them is presumably still an ally to her military.

Confronting Zeke is a reasonable plan in most every category you could ask for. Wanting to face him in isolation makes perfect sense, and you can’t say that about many of the known quantities here. My questions are if what he knew what he would be walking into, if Eren wants something different from what the Scouts want out of him, and if Zeke’s commitment to Marley’s side is as plain as it looks.

Since the Yeager boys have been so hush hush about what they’re up to lately, I’m not very interested in speculating (Zeke’s face has Isayama lines, but to be fair, a lot of people just died, and he does dislike war), but I am looking forward to the answers.

...Well, I say that. However

If nothing comes of Galliard trusting Zeke’s presence to be a good thing while his frame emphasizes light next to Pieck’s silent shadow... I will be disappointed. If anyone’s keeping score, Eren’s frame is more of a midtone shadow. I believe Pieck’s is darker, but that could be an optical illusion since her frame is descending into darker tones, and Eren’s lighting is evenly dispersed within his frame.

And since there’s only three panels left on the page, the other people having flashlights on their faces are Magath and his surviving troops and Gabi.

Symbolism.

Or not, but I’d like it to be.

Let’s move on to angry children, also known as Gabi and Floch. With Gabi first because oh hell, kid. Kid. Her friends are dead. People she saw every single day on her way to achieving her greatest pride are dead. There’s no rhyme or reason to it that she understands, or even maybe could understand, given what Marley’s done to her, she’s still alive, and she’s angry.

We’ve seen that anger in the exact person it’s aimed at. Hopefully Gabi learns a thing or two from it, preferably without getting killed in the process. Her cousin’s still MIA (Reiner is either having a horrific mental breakdown, going to go full Warrior mode and make everyone’s awkward planning more awkward by exploding out of the ground, or unconscious, and all of these choices make me feel really bad for Falco--who is a character who can still have a worst day of his life instead of stopping to debate which one was truly worst), and...

Gabi may have no problem committing war crimes to win a fight, but she’s a child who wants to be a Warrior so she can help her cousin. She’s not innocent in the usual sense that children are, but she is a child, and she has a very soft heart.

Sasha spares her life, but Gabi’s living a nightmare, and the devils of Paradis brought it to her.

-rewards Sasha a “You Tried” star-

Our other angry child should know better, but even though it hasn’t been explicitly stated, it’s basically been established that therapy does not exist in this world. Floch is where he was four years ago. He’s upset at the injustices he’s suffered, and willing to lash out at anything connected to what’s responsible.

Jean’s best feature as a leader has always been understanding people’s weakness. But I think with Floch, he’s found something of a barrier to communication. We’ve seen Jean try to talk to him before, and if their interaction here is anything to go by, he hasn’t stopped. Except as much as Jean knows about personal weakness, hate isn’t something I think he gets.

Arguably, it’s because he knows so much about personal weakness that his feelings don’t fester into something dangerous (Connie has a similar moment when he says he understands why someone would kill Sawney and Bean).

Jean sees the big picture. He knows there are more victims than just them here.

Floch sees his personal pain, and bleeds all over everyone. He’s destroying a zone full of people who have been more warped and abused than he has any empathy for, and feels he’s in the right because look at what they’ve done to us.

And look at what their side has done to someone like Gabi.

I don’t think the two situations are the same, thanks to Marley’s copious awfulness getting into every potential interaction both sides of Eldians can have, but the emotional response is easy to see:

These people did a horrible thing.

They should be punished.

Only the root cause of everything goes so much deeper than all of that, and it’s not something that can be fixed by lopping off flowers. Gabi is like. twelve, and her emotional trauma just happened. Floch is like. twelve, and he was getting by just fine before the mess he survived four years ago.

And it is painfully obvious how much that specific event has trained Floch’s thinking. He wants Erwin to survive the Serum Bowl because Erwin is the devil humanity needs to break them free of their cage.

He’s grown up since then. Humanity doesn’t need Erwin to be their devil. Humanity just needs a devil.

Look. Eren?

Floch_is_agreeing_with_things_you_did.

Mikasa is not.

Regardless of what this plan is, you have made your mistakes and they are many, and the first statement does keep in mind that those mistakes might very well be the whole point but come on.

This chapter is hard to read, and I really wanted to open this post saying thank you for Mikasa Ackerman’s existence, because I don’t think I have ever been more grateful to see her.

I haven’t bothered obfuscating how much I loathe Marley. I think their conduct is evil, and the world would be better off if they got wiped off the map. All those angry child feels from above are actively present when I consider what they’ve done with their nation.

One of the recurring... is it a theme? It feels like a theme, but it’s also sort of just a random thing I’m pointing out, and the language I want to use implies things about the story that I’m not sure is really an objective. In any case, something we see over and over again in this series is that monsters are human.

Gabi watches a whole squad of soldiers get demolished. Among them is a man who watches the gate she passes in order to train to be a Warrior. He treats her as a child more than an Eldian, and knows enough about each individual Warrior candidate ask about their progress and laugh about Falco’s crush.

He’s a human being.

The children he’s being friendly with have been coerced into indentured servitude and live in internment camps that are under constant watch, where leaving is punishable by--well, people like him. He’s a cog in an abhorrent machine. One small piece that helps keep it running.

Humans do evil things. You could probably have a lot of fun arguing that a human’s capacity for evil is part of what makes them human. Evil monsters aren’t always creatures beyond understanding or sympathy. Sometimes they’re just people who take the easy path that someone else burned down a forest to make.

You could also argue that part of what makes a human human is their capacity for goodness in the midst of evil. The guard spends the last moments of his life trying to keep a little girl safe.

I don’t like Marley, but I like seeing the sparks of decency in people start a flame. You want to believe that if people can be good to each other even when they’re covered in muck and sin, that goodness deserves a chance to make it out alive and flourish. You want to think that if everyone could just be convinced to be their best self, the world would be okay.

A lot of sparks are snuffed out during this attack.

Marley getting wiped off the map without devastation and heartbreak is a nice pipe dream, and I might still daydream about it or hand-wave things in fics, but regardless of my personal angry child feelings, there’s too much death here to feel good about any of this.

So I really, really appreciate that Mikasa Ackerman exists. She’s here for Eren, and she’s actively participating in this operation, but you can see her heart breaking at what’s been done. People are dead. Civilian people. Children. This is something that’s happened, and there’s no fixing it. There’s only pain at the result.

Mikasa is the stoic badass. But all she’s ever wanted is for her family to be at home with her. However she counts them, they’re what’s nearest and dearest to her heart. She has extraordinary combat skills, and if she could go the rest of her life without needing them, she would be happier.

Someone suggested that one of the Scouts present could be the little girl that Mikasa saves in Trost. I have no idea if that will pan out or not, but I love the idea.

The anime’s handling of Mikasa deciding to live during Trost is what hooked me in this series, but the moment with that little girl is one of my favorites for her. She charges in, kills a titan, threatens a dude, and leaves. Perfect hero is perfect even with only that, but the little girl and her mother, instead of running to evacuate now that they can, stop and thank her. And Mikasa turns back and salutes them.

Their salute in this world is meant to represent offering up their hearts to humanity. Mikasa has select few people she loves beyond all else, but whenever she steps in to fight, she does so wanting people to be safe. She feels her responsibility towards her comrades more keenly and openly than many of the characters we’re familiar with.

Mikasa’s line about the world being cruel, yet beautiful, is one of the more memorable ones in the series. As a theme, it’s marvelous, but as something that comes out of a character’s head, it’s... very gentle and touching. The world is cruel, but while it’s being cruel, there’s still warmth. Even from people who are now gone.

Mikasa is a kind person who gives small children her time and nearly cries at her friend’s joy when he finally gets to play in the ocean. She’s known terrible cruelty at the world’s hands, but she also loves the world’s beauty. It isn’t an empty acknowledgment. She sees it, and she feels it, and she fights for it.

What Eren just did is... abominable. She loves him, but... hell, every beautiful panel of Mikasa and Eren before the War Hammer gets back up is a testament to how much pain he’s caused, and how much heartbreak is involved.

Mikasa is compassionate, and this arc... really needs that.

Even if now I’m wondering if “Too Little, Too Late,” is referring to her instead of one of the larger sides. That title really works for anything you want to stick it to, since the phrase is basically shorthand for “everything’s fucked.”

This series has gotten painful in ways I didn’t exactly need it to.

Monthly serials hurt.

[outtacommission]

anon said: YESS MATT IS HERE AND I'M GIDDY AND HAPPY but as for a prompt what if when Pidge found him in that place he was in, he was actually pretty sick? So she has to defend him or help him get better or just keep him from getting worse while she takes him back to the castle?

words: 4.5k

i actually hate this but it got so long and i finally cut it off so i’m gonna post it. i’m so sorry i go so long without posting fic and when i finally do it’s this shit, but i hope you enjoy regardless. i loved the prompt! the fic just...didn’t happen the way i wanted it to. ah, well. 

EDIT: here’s the Ao3 link in case anyone prefers that!

“This must be some kind of spy facility,” Pidge mutters, eyes taking in the geometric patterns and fluctuating levels of an unfamiliar orange-tinted screen.

There isn’t any more time to decipher what the data could mean, though, as pounding footsteps suddenly approach and a masked figure reflected in the screen flings itself directly towards her.

With a gasp of surprise, Pidge rolls away just in time to dodge a spinning staff that the figure swipes at her. She’s on her feet again in less than a second, sprinting for a column and launching herself backwards off of it with a boost from her jetpack. She’s aware of her pursuer coming after her again, swinging the staff with skill, but they seem…a bit slow. She should be able to take care of them without much trouble.

As she descends to the floor and the figure spins to face her, she throws out her whip. Her enemy blocks it with their staff, wrapping the cord around it and pulling her to the ground. They charge again, stabbing the butt of their weapon straight down at her chest, and with more force she’s sure it would have been a powerful move. But their movements seem strangely sluggish and weak, like they don’t have enough energy to put the force needed behind them to make them especially threatening. Maybe she caught them while they’re tired.

She rolls away again and the figure towers over her, raising the staff above their head with two hands. Pidge is sure she sees their arms shaking.

“What have you done with my brother?!” she yells.

They hesitate at the question. Pidge doesn’t think; she takes advantage of the moment and flings her whip at the masked head, hitting them squarely in the face and earning a pained grunt. The mask goes flying and the person falls to their knees. Bayard reverting to the katar, she launches herself at them again, aiming a powerful swing directly at the head.

And then they turn, and Pidge sees their face for the first time.

Matt.

Somehow she stops her momentum. Somehow the sight of wide, familiar eyes freezes her in place.

It’s… It’s Matt.

It doesn’t seem real. For so long, years, she’s dreamed of seeing his face again. And now it’s…he’s right in front of her and it doesn’t seem real. Honey brown eyes, pale skin marred by a long, thin scar, wheat-colored hair that’s longer and limper than she remembers but it’s still… Oh, god, it’s him.

It’s him. He’s alive, he’s here. I found him.

He’s looking at her with an expression that probably mirrors her own. Eyes wide, mouth agape, chest heaving with labored breaths, disbelief coloring every feature.

“Pidge…?” he whispers hoarsely, like he hardly dares to believe it.

“Matt?” she echoes.

He stands, slowly and with difficulty, stumbling a bit, and she can’t take her eyes off of him. Likewise, he doesn’t seem to be able to look away from her, either. For a few long moments, she stares at him and he stares right back.

And then it’s like they reach the same conclusion at the same time. His face crumples with emotion as tears gather in her own eyes, and they’re falling into each other’s arms.

Pidge weeps. He’s warm and solid beneath her arms, tangible and real and so very alive. His ribcage hitches with sobs and any minute she expects to wake up and find this is a dream. She’s had this dream so many times. But she’s never been able to feel this much, to touch the gritty fabric of his clothes or smell the sweat and faint mustiness emanating from him. His voice has never been this clear and perfect.

She found him. He’s here. He’s here.

She squeezes her eyes shut and tears pour down her cheeks in rivulets. “Oh my gosh,” she gasps. “Ever since the Kerberos mission… They said you were dead, but I knew in my heart that you weren’t.”

His arms tighten around her shoulder. “I can’t believe you found me,” he says, and his voice is the most wonderful thing she’s ever heard. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

He pulls back then, hands coming up to touch the sides of her helmet. He smiles—he smiles—the brightest, sweetest smile she’s ever seen, even as his own tears pour down his face.

She can’t help but return it. “The thought of you and Dad kept me going, inspired me to do the impossible.”

“Okay,” he says with a bit of a laugh, hands moving down to her shoulders. “But seriously, how’d you’d get this far into space?”

“It’s a long story,” she says, ducking her head. She opens her mouth to say more, but then Matt coughs.

And he keeps coughing. It seems like he’s trying to suppress them, but they still sound wet and painful. A hand comes up to cover his mouth and his face screws up as if he’s in pain, and he begins to sink to the floor.

“Matt?” Pidge braces her hands on his shoulders and tries to support him as they both kneel on the ground.

The coughing passes after a few more moments and suddenly he looks so tired—exhausted. And she realizes now that those slow, sluggish movements she���d noticed (and planned to take advantage of) during the brief fight were Matt’s slow, sluggish movements. And that’s…probably not normal.

Something is wrong with him.

She hadn’t noticed before, but now that the rush of disbelief and overwhelming joy from their reunion is wearing off, it’s obvious just how not okay her brother is. His eyes are bloodshot and glazed over, ringed with deep fatigue. His entire expression is a bit dazed, and now that she’s really looking, his cheeks seem too flushed. He looks pretty terrible.

And he’s shaking. Full-body, head-to-toe trembling.

Concern quickly begins to override the multitude of other emotions currently filling her. “Matt? Are you okay?”

For a moment, he looks surprised at the question. “Huh?” Then, slowly, he lifts a hand up and stares as it trembles, like he’ll find the answer in his open palm. “Oh. I’m…” Another cough rips through him and he rubs at his eyes. “I’m just a little under the weather right now. I’m okay, though, don’t worry.”

Pidge’s brows draw together. She reaches up to move his bangs aside and can feel unnatural heat through the fabric. “Oh, you’re burning up,” she says, cupping his face in both hands.

She’s pulling up her wrist monitor, intending to scan him for viruses, but he stops her with one hand. “I think it’s Ryskan fever.” His voice is so ragged, so weary. “It’ll suck for a little while, but it’s not dangerous.”

“Are you sure?” She searches his face intently for evidence of the contrary.

“Yeah.” He smiles, but it isn’t particularly reassuring.  

“What a touching reunion,” a deep, gravelly voice says from the shadows.

Pidge and Matt both jump and spin to face the direction it came from, nerves suddenly alight.

“Who are you?” Pidge demands, summoning her bayard from her armor.

There’s a dark, menacing figure shrouded in the darkness of the tall room. While Pidge can’t decipher any features, he’s obviously big and most likely powerful. She’s not intimidated. She can’t afford to be now—Matt is here, and he needs her protection.

“Who I am is not important,” the stranger says. “I am here to collect the bounty on your brother Matt. But a paladin of Voltron and the Green Lion? What a day.”

Pidge drops into a fighting stance. “Stand back, Matt.”

But Matt, once again, mirrors her perfectly, readying his staff and saying, “Stand back, Pidge,” at the exact same moment.

She looks at him in surprise for a mere second before hardening her gaze into a glare. “No, I’ll take care of this. Get somewhere safe.”

He blinks. “But—”

“It’s not up for debate!” she yells. “You’re in no condition to fight right now, so let me handle this! I’ll be fine, trust me.”

He must see the resolve in her eyes—either that or he must be really be feeling awful, because after a brief hesitation, he nods reluctantly and lowers his staff. God, he looks so tired.

Her focus is ripped away from him quickly as the bounty hunter growls and charges forward, flinging off his cloak to reveal a muscled, reptilian body and two whips sparking with purple electricity.  

Pidge activates her jetpack and leaps into the air as the weapons come slinging towards her. She immediately slings her own bayard back towards him, but he narrowly dodges it. She’s hoping this will be a quick fight, but this guy looks tough, and he wields those whips with enough skill for her to know he’s had a lot of practice. She’s going to have to think her way around this one.

As she descends back to the ground, bolts of agony suddenly light up every nerve and her body convulses. She screams without meaning to, and gravity slams her to the ground as her jetpacks gives out.

For a moment, she can’t get up. Her muscles ache and twitch with the residual electricity and it takes a while before she can push herself up on trembling arms. She grunts with frustration; she has to get up, has to protect Matt. He’s weak and vulnerable and—

“Stay away from my sister!”

She freezes. Oh, please don’t tell me…

When she looks over her shoulder and sees a cloaked figure stumbling towards the bounty hunter, dread fills her stomach. “Matt, stop!”

But of course he doesn’t. He charges right in like he doesn’t care what happens to him. He probably doesn’t. He’s probably in the same mindset she is—to protect family at all costs.

As he swings his staff down, the hunter spins his whips effortlessly to create a shield, and Matt’s weapon glances right off. “You’re both worth more to me alive, but I’ll take something over nothing,” he growls.

The whips come up again and he flings them forward with impressive strength. Pidge watches in horror as they both wrap around Matt’s shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides, and electricity courses through his thin body like lightning.

Pidge won’t soon forget the scream that comes from his mouth.

With a growl, she finally gets to her feet and shoots her bayard at the lizard-like alien with renewed strength. Matt’s down; she can see his limp body on the floor in the corner of her eye, and this time, she won’t let this guy have another chance to touch him.

Her bayard lodges itself exactly where she wanted it to—in a beam on the other side of the room. As the alien turns to smirk at her for what he probably thinks is a mistake on her part, she uses the grappling line to propel herself at him feet-first. She lands a solid kick to his head, and swings herself up onto a low beam.

He takes a moment to recover, and growls again. “You’ll have to do better than that!” His whip wraps around a beam and suddenly he’s joining her in the rafters. He charges her again, and it quickly becomes apparent just how much stronger he is. She’s agile enough that she’s not overpowered, but his blows are too forceful for her to withstand much of.

One particularly powerful flick of his whips sends her toppling off of the beam, plummeting to the ground below. She’s able to activate her jetpack and prevent the impact, but the bounty hunter is right on her tail. She sprints away from him, mind racing frantically for a solution to this battle. She can’t overpower him, but maybe there’s some way his electric whips can be used against him.

As if reading her mind, Matt’s raspy voice suddenly calls out, “Pidge! The panel!”

She knows what he’s talking about immediately. Without even blinking, she reaches out to rip off the cover of a panel in the wall as she passes it. And no sooner has she removed it than the hunter’s whip comes lashing out and snags on the uncovered machinery.

“What?!” he roars, yanking on it unsuccessfully.

“Hey!” Matt yells from the other side of the room.

Once again, Pidge can only watch helplessly as her brother comes running right into the fight. She doesn’t have time to react before the alien is flinging his free whip at him. He’s able to duck out of the way, and the whip wraps itself around a metal pillar instead. He jams his staff into the ground, pulls it back with strength Pidge didn’t think he still possessed, and lets it go. It collides with the line of the whip, and the bounty hunter yells as he’s electrocuted, crackling bolts jumping over his body.

Pidge seizes the moment. She hurls herself at him, pulls back her bayard, and throws the hardest punch of her life. It’s enough force to send the hunter flying back, and he lands on the ground, unconscious.

She doesn’t move from her position for a few moments, just stands and tries to catch her breath.

It’s over. They’re safe, for the moment.

And then Matt groans, staggers, and falls to his knees.

“Matt!” Pidge grabs his shoulders to stabilize him before he slumps over. “Are you okay?”

He coughs harshly, a wet crackling sounding in his lungs, and pushes his knuckles into his eyes again. “…Relatively.”

She glowers. “I told you to stay out of the fight. You said you’d stay out of it.”

“You were in trouble. He hurt you; I couldn’t stand by and watch.”

Pidge opens her mouth to scold him again for scaring her, for acting so recklessly when they’d only just found each other after so long, but something stops her. She isn’t in a place to berate him for this, because she would have done exactly the same thing in his position. Plus, there are more important things to worry about right now.

“You haven’t changed,” she says. “You’re still an idiot.”

Matt laughs a little, which then turns into another bout of coughing. He doubles over and presses a hand to his chest, groaning. “You might have a point.”

Pidge frowns. “We need to get you out of here.” She pulls his arm over her shoulders and they stand slowly.

Matt sways. “I can’t just—I can’t just leave. I have a job here.”

“Are you nuts? You can’t work right now, Matt. You’re coming with me.”

He doesn’t protest any further as she leads him out, and she doesn’t know if it’s because he knows she’s right or if he’s just too out of it to say anything more.

He leans on her heavily as they make their way to the exit, and though he’s wearing what seems to be several layers of clothes, she swears she can feel the heat of his fever through them. A glance at his face shows that he’s sweating a lot, too.

A strange mix of emotions swirl within her. She’s still stunned that she’s found him—after almost two years of vague leads and dead ends and tracking and decoding and what felt like endless searching, it’s actually all paid off. She’s sure she’ll spend a long time just staring at him, ensuring that he’s actually still here.

Then there’s the fear that stems out of that disbelief. He’s here, but for how long? He said his illness isn’t serious, but his appearance says otherwise. Memories of being four years old and taking midnight trips to the hospital because Matt had gotten violently and unexpectedly sick flash through her mind, even though she hasn’t thought about those times in years. He hadn’t exactly been the healthiest boy when they were children, and although his immune system is up to par now, Pidge can’t help the dread that chills her breast at seeing him like this, especially after they’ve been separated for so long.

But there’s relief and determination, too. Matt is with her now. She can take care of him. She can make sure he’s okay. And that’s exactly what she’s going to do.

—

He’s quiet on the trip back in the Green Lion. He’d ogled a little bit when she’d first brought him to where it was parked on the outskirts of town (cloaked, of course), but nowhere near as much as he would have if his brain wasn’t fogged up by fever. She resolves to show him around it properly when he’s well. For now, she mostly just listens to him cough from his spot on the floor near the accelerator chair.

When the Lion lands and the hatch opens, the team converges around the entrance with hopeful smiles on their faces. She’s glad to be back with them, and gladder still that, this time, she can give them good news.

Well, not quite as good as she hoped. Matt’s condition is inexplicably deteriorating at a concerning pace, though Pidge suspects it has something to do with the fact that he obviously overexerted himself in the fight on top of getting electrocuted. He’s slumped against the wall, shivering in his cloak. Sweat dots his brow and a look of discomfort mars his face.

“Matt,” Pidge prompts softly. “We’re here. Wake up.”

His brow furrows, but he doesn’t open his eyes. “Huh…?”

“We’re at the Castle of Lions. Let’s get you in bed, okay? Can you stand?”

He blinks heavily several times before her words seem to register. “Ah, yeah.” Then he pulls in a sharp breath and presses his palms into his eyes.

Panic rolls through Pidge’s stomach. “What’s wrong?”

“My eyes.”

“Your eyes?”

“Hurt.”

She pulls his hands away from his face. “Open them?”

He squints through a heavy grimace and she can just barely see how red and irritated they look, even more so than before.

Her anxiety ramps up another few notches. “We need to get to the infirmary, now.”

It takes several tries, but she helps Matt rise slowly from the floor and steadies him with an arm around his waist. He coughs violently as they make their way down the ramp, entire body hitching with the force. He sags against her bonelessly and it takes considerable effort on her part to keep him upright.

Everyone is waiting when they finally emerge. The mice run to greet her but she’s regrettably too preoccupied to greet them back. She gives her team a sad smile. “Hey, everybody.”

The sight of her practically carrying an unfamiliar body out of her Lion predictably makes them all pull up short with surprise. Their smiles disappear and are replaced with alarm.

“Pidge? Who is this?” Allura asks.

“My brother. Matt.” She adjusts her grip on him as he slips a little further. She’s too small for this. “Look, I’ll explain everything later, but he needs help.”

Towards the back of the group, there’s a soft murmured, “Matt?” and then Shiro is pushing his way past Allura and Coran, a look of hope and concern on his face. He hesitates only a second before rushing to them and pulling Matt’s weight from her, effortlessly scooping him into his arms. He studies Matt’s face briefly before turning his worried gaze to Pidge. “You found him.”  

She nods.

Shiro looks like he’s struggling to believe it, to come to terms with the fact that he’s holding his long-lost friend in his arms, but it’s not a moment before his mouth forms a straight, determined line. “Let’s get to the infirmary.”

—

No one asks for the story until Matt’s settled in a bed and his vitals are being monitored.

“It does appear to be Ryskan fever,” Coran muses as his eyes scan the data.

“What is that?” Shiro asks, deep concern on his features. “Is it dangerous?”

“Not particularly, no.” He flicks through a few screens. “It’s a fairly common disease that manifests slightly differently in varying species. Unfortunately, from Matt’s case it seems to be more severe in human beings, but this is the first time I’ve seen it afflict one. It’s similar in Alteans, though not usually quite this debilitating—annoying, more than anything. But he’s displaying the same symptoms. It will probably take a while to recover from, but in a couple Spicolian movements he should be over the worst of it. Luckily, we have some medicine for it that can be administered through an injection.”

Pidge releases a long, noisy breath.

Coran gives her a reassuring smile. “He’s going to be just fine, with a lot of rest. Don’t you worry.”

“Thanks, Coran.”

They move away from the bed, and she tells them what happened at the rebel base. She doesn’t mention the graveyard—yet, anyway. It’s probably information they’ll want to know at some point, but her emotions are still raw and that’s really not something she wants to revisit at the moment. Especially not with Matt lying unconscious in the infirmary. For now, she recounts the fight with the bounty hunter and all she’s learned about the freedom fighters. The rest can come after Matt’s recovered.

“You did a great job, Pidge,” Shiro says. “I’m proud of you.”

She nods. “I’ll feel better about it once he’s better.”

“Me too.” There’s a vague wistfulness to Shiro’s face and voice, enough to make Pidge wonder what he’s thinking about.

They haven’t talked about Matt a lot together—she knows Shiro’s missed him, but now she’s wondering exactly how close they’d been before the abduction. He seems more shaken up about seeing her brother again than she would have expected.

“Pidge?” Hunk says cheerily. “Are you hungry? I was about to start dinner before you got here.”

She smiles softly. “Thanks, Hunk. But I think I’m gonna stay here for a little while.”

“I’ll bring you something, then,” he says with a light pat on her shoulder.

“Let us know if anything happens,” Lance says, more solemn than usual, before following Hunk out the door.

“Coran and I had better get the castle ready to move again, now that we’re finishing up here,” Allura says.

“Right,” Coran adds. “But I’ll be back here in a tick if you need me for any reason at all. Okay?”

“Okay.” Pidge gives him a smile too. “Thanks.”

Once they’re gone, she’s alone with only Shiro and her comatose brother. She releases a heavy sigh and sinks down in a chair next to Matt’s cot, suddenly extremely tired.

“Are you alright?” Shiro asks in his fatherly tone.

“Yeah. Just exhausted.”

“I think you should try to get some rest. Matt will be okay for a while.”

She shakes her head emphatically. Leaving Matt’s side right now is absolutely unthinkable. “I just got him back. I’m not going anywhere.”

Shiro huffs a breath out through his nose. “Okay. I won’t ask you to, then. But you need to take care of yourself too, alright?”

She folds her arms on the side of the bed and rests her chin on them. “Mhm.”

He briefly places a hand on her head. “I’ll come back to check on you in a little while.”

When the door slides shut behind him, Pidge’s thoughts become loud in the abrupt silence. She’s drained and weary from the rollercoaster she’d just been on, but her emotions have yet to settle. She won’t feel any kind of peace until she can talk to Matt about…well, everything. Where he’s been, what he’s been doing, if he knows anything about Sam. She wants him to know about what she’s been doing too. She wants to show him the castle, her Lion.

That will have to wait a while, though. Mostly she just wants him to get better.

For a while, she watches him sleep. He looks so much older, so worn and weary, but maybe that’s just the illness. She’d stripped him of his cloak and armor, leaving him in only the thin tunic and pants he was wearing underneath, and Coran had placed a strip of cooling fabric on his forehead to soothe the fever.

But without anyone to talk to, the exhaustion eventually overpowers the lingering onslaught of emotion. When sleep comes, she doesn’t fight it.

—

“Pidge?”

She feels warm. Secure. Doesn’t want to move.

“Pidge.”

When she feels herself begin to move out of sleep, she groans and nuzzles her face deeper into her arms. She’s not ready to wake up.

“Katie.”

That…isn’t normal. No one calls her Katie, ever. The only one who even knows that name is Shiro, and that’s definitely not Shiro’s voice. That means…

Her head flies up, glasses askew on her nose. “Matt?”

He’s awake. The cooling strip is gone from his brow, and he’s looking at her through groggy eyes, heavily-lidded and still bloodshot.

Pidge leans in closer. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

“I—” He breaks off into a coughing fit, his whole body straining under the force. “I’ve been better.”

She frowns and presses the back of her hand to his sweaty forehead. “I think that’s an understatement. You’re still burning.”

He falls back against the pillow with a groan. “S’alright, this…this doesn’t last long. I knew a guy who had it once and it didn’t…last long.”

“Uh…about that.” When Matt looks at her curiously, she averts her gaze. “Coran—our advisor—says it looks like Ryskan fever is more severe in humans compared to other species. He says it’s likely that it’ll take you a while to get over it.”

Confusion spreads over Matt’s face for a second before he closes his eyes and sighs wearily. “Figures.”

“But you’ll be okay,” she’s quick to add, taking his hand. “You’re with us now. I’m here. I’m gonna take care of you.”

“Yeah.” He smiles shakily. “I’m so…so happy to see you, Pidge.”

That wave of emotions swells in her throat again and she desperately tries not to tear up. “I’m happy to see you too. You have no idea. I’ve been searching for you for so long.”

He makes a happy noise. “You always could be stubborn when you wanted t’be.”

She laughs. “Now we just gotta find Dad.”

“Right.” Matt closes his eyes again, looking ready to fall back asleep. Pidge is prepared to let him, maybe go see about the dinner Hunk mentioned, but a second later Matt’s eyes reopen. “Hey…am I delusional or…or was Shiro here earlier?”

Pidge grins. “Yeah, that was real. He’s here.”

Now the confusion’s back. “Wh…why? Why’s he here…?”

“He’s a paladin of Voltron, too. He’s worried about you.”

“Oh…”

“I’ll tell you all about it when you’re better.” She pats his shoulder. “For now, get some sleep.”

Matt’s eyes are closed once more. “Mhm.”

“I love you, Matt.”

He’s already asleep.

She’ll tell him again when he’s coherent. She’ll tell him over and over and over. For now, she bends over and presses a kiss to his forehead, then finally leaves in search of a much needed dinner.

[dipulb3]

1619 Project faces renewed criticism — this time from within The New York Times

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/1619-project-faces-renewed-criticism-this-time-from-within-the-new-york-times/

1619 Project faces renewed criticism — this time from within The New York Times

Some of the angst is chalked up to the usual sniping that happens when a reporter, in this case Hannah-Jones, becomes a “star,” in newsroom parlance.

But there are substantive critiques too, and they were surfaced in an unusual column by Bret Stephens, a Times op-ed writer with a conservative bent.  

The column touched such a nerve that A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The Times, issued a statement of support for the 1619 Project on Sunday night.

Sulzberger, told staffers that he had gotten questions about whether the opinion column represented “an institutional shift” in support for the project

“That couldn’t be further from the truth,” Sulzberger wrote in a Slack channel accessible to all staff. “It is a journalistic triumph that changed the way millions of Americans understand our country, its history and its present.”

After praising Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for heading the project, Sulzberger said that the 1619 Project ranks as “one of the proudest accomplishments” the paper has had during his tenure as publisher.

“It’s also sparked a national conversation unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and that makes it a natural subject for an opinion columnist to write about,” Sulzberger added. “I believe strongly in the right of Opinion to produce a piece even when — maybe even especially when — we don’t agree with it as an institution.”

In other words, the project continues to have the full weight of the Times behind it — despite scrutiny it has received from some historians, including some who support the effort overall, and from conservative commentators who have aimed to undermine the project’s core purpose.

Last month President Trump referred to the project as “totally discredited,” which is not true.

He said “this project rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.”

In the words of The Times, the project “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”

Many staffers at The Times are enormously proud of the undertaking and see it as a symbol of the news organization’s agenda-setting power.

There have been grumblings, though, about Hannah-Jones’ sometimes defensive posture and her occasional battles with critics on Twitter. Last week, before Stephens’ column came out, she wrote in a tweet, “In 1894, the NYT called Ida B. Wells a ‘slanderous and nasty-minded mulattress’ for daring to tell the truth about lynching. 100 years later she earned the Pulitzer Prize. These efforts to discredit my work simply put me in a long tradition of [black women] who failed to know their places.” (The next day, however, she noted in a tweet, “There have certainly been some astute (and certainly more good-faith and intellectual) critiques from the left. I have found many of them interesting and have relished the way they help me challenge my own thinking and hopefully keep growing.”)

Stephens’ column, published on Friday, acknowledged the ambitious nature of the 1619 Project and defended it from critics who have characterized it as anti-American. 

But Stephens pointed to debate about the project among some historians and argued that editors at The Times, “however much background reading they might have done, are not in a position to adjudicate historical disputes.”

He said “the 1619 Project is a thesis in search of evidence, not the other way around.” And he concluded that the 1619 Project “has given critics of The Times a gift.”

Stephens’ column was widely praised by conservatives. For a period of time on Saturday, both the column and the original 1619 Project link were on the paper’s most-emailed list. The column remained on that list as of Monday afternoon.  

Some supporters of the 1619 Project ridiculed Stephens for writing it. In an extraordinary move, The New York Times Guild went as far as to excoriate Stephens in a tweet over the weekend.

“It says a lot about an organization when it breaks it’s own rules and goes after one of it’s own,” the guild tweeted. “The act, like the article, reeks.”

The guild later deleted the tweet, saying that it was “tweeted in error.”

“We apologize for the mistake,” the guild added.

Jake Silverstein, the editor of The New York Times Magazine, where the project originated, wrote on Twitter that “while we disagree strongly with Bret’s column, we welcome debate about the historical analysis The 1619 Project rigorously advances. I’m proud of the fact that over the past year, the project has had such a profound impact on discussions about our history. We stand behind this work entirely.” Silverstein called Hannah-Jones a “national treasure.”

Stephens, who won the Pulitzer Prize while at The Wall Street Journal, has been one of The Times’ most controversial figures since moving to the newspaper in 2017.

Earlier this year, Stephens also expressed disagreement with The Times when he wrote a piece defending a controversial column by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton. The Times ultimately said that Cotton’s column shouldn’t have been published and the episode led to the resignation of James Bennet as editorial page editor.

Hannah-Jones did not respond to a request for comment about Stephens’ newest column.

But in an appearance on “Reliable Sources” last month, she said the project is not going anywhere.

“We are expanding the project into TV and film, as well as books,” she said. “Vast numbers of Americans have appreciated this work. It has not made them hate their country. It has made them better understand their country. And really what the 1619 Project is a charge for us to work to live up to the majestic ideals of our founding.”

Hannah-Jones isn’t the only star reporter at The Times to draw scrutiny from within the paper in recent weeks. Rukmini Callimachi, a reporter at The Times who focuses on extremism, has faced questions about her work after the subject of her hit podcast “Caliphate” was recently charged in Canada with perpetrating a hoax. Ben Smith, who writes about media for The Times, examined the criticism leveled against Callimachi in a column on Sunday.

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Teens Are Going Viral With Theatrical History Lessons on TikTok. These History Educators Are Thrilled.

It’s no surprise that teens are trying for their 15 seconds of fame via TikTok. After all, the short-form video program only allows in-app recordings of up to 15 seconds. But while users often gain millions of views on the social media app by participating in goofy memes and dances with popular background music, a new trend has emerged — and, shockingly enough, they are history reenactments.

Brooke Pavek, a 17-year-old high school senior from Jacksonville, Fla., is pretty sure she got a 100 on a Cold War exam in her International Baccalaureate history class. But this isn’t just any history student. Pavek has amassed more than 78,000 followers and 3.5 million “hearts” on TikTok by sharing her history knowledge in the form of funny, theatrical 15-second clips. And she’s using her notes from Advanced Placement (AP) history classes to make them.

Pavek is one of a group of teenagers doling out their own history lessons online. “I take a lot of notes from those classes to make the videos, trying to fit the audio to those topics, and those key ideas in order to basically help kids learn,” she says. Some of her TikToks were included in a viral Oct. 25 Twitter thread that highlighted some of the trend’s most popular snippets.

Pavek started her account to help other students study for AP classes (what’s a better mnemonic than one involving a hip-hop song?). Some historians and educators say they’re delighted to see kids clearly enjoying history class.

“In order to be this irreverent and this playful with a subject, you have to gain some mastery of it. So the hardest thing to do is to synthesize something — to summarize it in a sentence. And these teenagers have done it in 15 seconds. It’s not the whole story, but it’s certainly a really aggressive and exciting way to look at it,” says Alexis Coe, a historian and author of the forthcoming You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington.

Courtesy Brooke PavekBrooke Pavek, a high school senior who uses TikTok for funny videos about history, dresses up as Maximilien Robespierre, an important figure in the French Revolution.

One of Pavek’s most popular videos tells the story of how the League of Nations, an international organization formed after World War I, began. “U.S. showing up to create the League of Nations,” reads the text flashing across the screen, as Pavek dances toward the camera. “The U.S. when France and Britain expect them to join the League,” comes next, as Pavek dances backward.

Of course, the video quickly aims to retell a much longer story. Though U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had first proposed the league in his January 1918 “Fourteen Points” speech for a vision of peace in Europe post-World War I, the U.S. never joined the league. (Those 14 points served as the basis of the Treaty of Versailles.) Wilson battled the Senate Majority Leader, Republican Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, who was opposed to the League of Nations, and Congress never voted to join. “Most historians hold that the League operated much less effectively without U.S. participation than it would have otherwise,” according to the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Historian.

While a TikTok tells the story in simpler terms, Grace Leatherman, the executive director of the National Council for History Education says this interpretation of history is “as good as you can do” in a short clip, and it should inspire students to do more research on their own. “I don’t know how else you would explain the League of Nations in 15 seconds,” Leatherman tells TIME. “But that certainly shouldn’t be all a student learns about it. This is a helpful tool, it’s a great way to help summarize and identify some of these key things, but obviously we certainly want students going deeper.”

But where is the line between interpretation and inaccuracy? “That’s what we do with history, is to try to figure that out,” says Leatherman. “So I think that’s wonderful, if they make a TikTok that describes key ideals about a time in history, but I would want to make sure that student is also looking at a variety of primary documents.”

Beyond your textbooks, she recommends using the Library of Congress and National Archives Leatherman highlights the importance of using a variety of sources to learn about history to help your understanding of a subject.

One example of a video that shares key ideas of a subject, rather than a specific snapshot of a moment in history, depicts European settlers intruding on native peoples who are “minding their own business.” It’s one of Coe’s favorites.

Another viral TikTok hit focuses on the colonization of Africa, illustrating a complex topic — European imperialism — through different dance moves for different European nations. Sharoon Bi, a high school senior from Lincoln, Neb., demonstrates how European colonizers began to impede on the lives of Africans in the 1400s.

colonization of the continent of africa, 1400s pic.twitter.com/xZlFUPSnu7

— nadia jaferey (@nadiajaferey) October 25, 2019

While the video depicts Spain, Britain, Portugal and France all invading in the 15th century, history books tell a different story. Only the Portuguese invaded African nations in the 1400s. But the British, French and Spanish followed suit in the subsequent centuries. “By the early twentieth century, however, much of Africa, except Ethiopia and Liberia, had been colonized by European powers,” Hunter College Professor Ehiedu E.G. Iweriebor wrote in an essay for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library.

Bi, 17, didn’t realize that he’d gotten the dates wrong when he first posted the video. But he’s glad that commenters pointed it out. “I’m happy that they said it, because that let me know I should do more research,” he tells TIME. “For me, it was an actual learning experience.”

Despite the fact that historical accounts can inevitably can spark debates on the internet, both Coe and Leatherman had a lighthearted perspective on the videos — accurate or not. Coe says the overall point of the clip gets across so powerfully that it supersedes factual accuracy. “The message that he’s trying to communicate is really important here, and even in the act of fact checking what he’s saying, [students] are learning,” says Coe, who adds that these videos fill her with “pure joy.”

“This makes me so hopeful for the future,” she says.

The videos also demonstrate a student’s unique interpretation and understanding of history — and many history teachers nationwide are starting to use TikToks to assess students, according to Leatherman. TikTok is just one way “that students can show us what they know,” she says.

Pavek’s contemporary history exam on Thursday may not have happened through TikTok. But on Friday, as views continue to rise, she won’t be spending too much time on her phone. She’s headed to tour a college where she hopes to major in history, before getting her Ph.D.

Naturally, her dream job is to be a history professor.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[watermelonoperator]

>Oh lads we got someone here that fancies themselves a debater 😂😂

given you’ve degraded to petty jabs I’d say that you’re not much of one yourself, you do you though. Although your mini essay on why bisexuals are homophobic seems to say that you fancy yourself one too

>My comment "you dont choose your sexuality" was aimed at your comment "if they hate gays they wouldnt be bi" (hatred of someone doesnt change your sexuality and your sexuality doesnt assure your political alignment. I'm not wrong when I say you cant change your sexuality because you cant.)

I wasn’t implying that sexuality was a choice but unlike you I’m reasonable and I can understand how you might read it that way, especially given that you seem rather hostile to everyone that may disagree with you and therefore would tend to find the worst way to interpret their arguments. I’ll reiterate what my point was further down.

>And my other comment about wlw and to "go join a community..." was aimed at the reblog by op and the bi women talking about their attraction to men in wlw spaces that was already alluded to previously in the post,

As someone else already pointed out to you, bisexuals are wlw

> So you did nothing by admitting you're neither bi nor a woman except admitting that you have zero experience on the issue and thus your opinion on the matter is worthless (woops).

Who says I have no experience? I know a heap of bisexuals from both genders, I’ve dated two of them. I also know a fair few lesbians. In any case not being bi or a woman doesn’t make me blind. This is just you trying to find a way to score non existent points. The main reason I pointed this out was to show that there was no personal bias as I’m not inherently on either side. The whole thing that sparked my first reply was your ever present poor logic

I do want to point out the irony of you, in your attempt to argue against me, arguing /for/ the exact thing the op was arguing /against/ - the belief that bi people are nothing but half gay / half straight (double woops 😂).

The way I worded that was from a purely predicate standpoint I’m well aware that being bi isn’t just some half n half of gay and straight. I figured maybe if I worded it like that I’d get it through your thick skull but apparently not since you lack logical functions

>If it's true that bi people are simultaneously gay and straight at the same time, and its (apparently) true that they cant be homophobic because of their gay half... then following that logic, they CAN be homophobic because of their straight half. schrodinger's homophobe. If you're bi then youre both gay and not capable of homophobia and yet straight and capable of homophobia at the same time. You just shot your own argument in the foot.

Schrodinger’s homophobe? Now you’re just pulling shit out of your ass. And once again a poor use of logic.

>Let's clear things up though. Gay means *exclusively* homosexual. Bi people are not gay because they are not exclusively homosexual. They are not gay they are bi as in bisexual not homosexual. Homophobia is both the hatred of gay (as in exclusively homosexual) people AND same sex attraction itself. Bi people get hit with homophobia because of their same sex attraction, and it's because of this that they were included in gay communities to begin with. Bi people are also capable of being homophobic because they're not homosexual and can hate gay people. Not all bi people are homophobic, but if you hate gay people you are.

Alright, since you were so kind let’s assume you’re right for a second and follow that train of thought.

If a bisexual hated gays, it would stand to reason that they’d hate their own gay tendencies yes? So then it stands to reason they’d cut the entire gay part (part, not half) out of their lives and try to pass as straight, sure the urge might be there but they’ll ignore it. In which case you wouldn’t be able to tell anyway. If they are openly proclaiming they’re bi, they’re not homophobic because they’re quite clearly ok with their own gay tendencies so why would they suddenly hate it in others? That’s not homophobia because they’re ok with themselves doing gay shit, so the problem isn’t with gay stuff. At worst it’s just hypocrisy not homophobia.

>and if you think "gay people should have a space where they are allowed to celebrate and focus entirely on their same sex attraction (which is oppressed) without people derailing it to talk about the opposite sex attraction that's literally expected by the rest of the world and isnt oppressed at all" is a ""biphobic"' statement, then you're probably just a homophobe. Follow along this time?

Gay people do have those spaces, at least they do where I live. My university has at least one that I know of, and a women’s space too.

Some gays are oppressed, the fact you can openly run around declaring you’re gay like you are means you’re not one of them. The ones in the Middle East that are being stoned to death and thrown off buildings for being gay are the oppressed ones

Most people on this site that cry about being oppressed aren’t actually oppressed given that they’re able to spout whatever shit and vitriol about their so called “oppressors” with no censorship or consequences.

As for why I think you’re a biphobe, probably because you’re telling them to fuck off from wlw spaces for daring to not be exclusively gay.

>#this really is the last time I’m reblog gong this post

Good

Let’s be honest, the only reason people push the “You’re either in a het or homo relationship.” is because they want to further exclude anyone who isn’t explicitly in a homosexual relationship from the LGBT+ community.

They say “Heterosexuals have no place in the community.” to people who are bisexual but not in explicitly m/m or f/f relationships. 

They say “Heterosexual relationships have no place in the community.” to people who are bisexual but not in explicitly m/m or f/f relationships. 

They want it to exclusively be the Gay ™, Lesbian ™, or Trans ™ community. And even trans is on shaky grounds because you have to be the Right Kind Of Trans ™ in the Right Kind ™ of relationship. It’s an exclusion and shaming tactic by guilting and trying to convince bisexual people that they aren’t “really” apart of the community unless they are in an explicitly homosexual relationship and only have homosexual relationships. 

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.

Editor’s Note: This post is another entry in the Prepper Writing Contest from JD. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today.

There is nothing that sparks heated debate on the internet like the topic of which weapons are the best for (………..) purposes. However, when buying small arms for the purposes of a survival situation, there are some models that have advantages over others. Two of those models are the Glock 17 and the AR-15. This isn’t an article about which guns to buy, it is merely my personal thoughts on why these two weapons have advantages over others.

//

The AR-15, America’s rifle. There is more  aftermarket support for this rifle than perhaps any other on the market. That means you can outfit the weapon to your personal situation. Different optics from short to intermediate range red dots to long range scopes. Lasers both visible and infrared. Night vision capabilities. It’s endless. And I haven’t even gotten into changing uppers. You simply push out 2 pins pull the upper assembly off and drop on a .50 bmg upper! Or numerous other calibers. There was at one point a crossbow upper made by PSE available. I think this model has been discontinued, but I’m sure can still be found for sale with a little research.

But the main point of why the AR makes such a good choice is because of its capacity. The standard 30 round mags offer serious firepower. They are plentiful and very inexpensive. I am a fan of the Magpul products. Mind you, I am not affiliated with Magpul in any way. I have never had a Magpul mag fail me in the thousands upon thousands of rounds I’ve shot using them. And if one did, for around 9 bucks I’ll just get another one.

The Magpul 60 round drum

The Magpul 60 round drum is a very nice piece of gear. Well made, very rugged, and well designed. Having 60 rounds of ammo on tap is quite a force multiplier. My opinion of it is, it’s not so you can shoot more, it’s so you have to reload less. Think about it, if you fired 2 rounds per second, which is a pretty slow cadence, that’s 30 seconds of very well aimed fire. Not the spray and pray you see in the movies. That is the capability to keep offenders pinned down while your buddies maneuver and flank the offenders. 30 seconds doesn’t sound like a long time, but how far can you run in 30 seconds? The average person in decent shape can cover a lot of ground in 30 seconds. These drums also are a great option for defensive positions. Having 3 men strategically positioned with a few of these drums each, can lay down some serious accurate fire. The drums also have the advantage of being a storage device. In other words you can load them and leave them loaded until you need them. They are a bit of a challenge to load for some people. But after you’ve done it a few times, it gets easier. They are also not fast to load, so these are something you want to have loaded ahead of time. For those who money isn’t an issue, there are belt fed uppers available, combined with a bump fire type stock like the slide fire, and you have what’s called simulated full auto. All 100% legal without the NFA paperwork. Yes, most of us would love to own a Dillion aero mini gun, but being next to impossible to own, the belt fed offers some nice capabilities.

The Glock 17 is probably the most issued sidearm in the world. There is a reason why. It’s because they work. There are only 34 parts to a Glock. They just don’t have much to go wrong with them. The 9mm has also come a long way in its effectiveness. Modern 9mm hollow points don’t  give up much to its bigger brothers the .40 and .45.  Like the AR, the aftermarket support is huge. More so than any other high cap polymer framed pistol. They are also inexpensive. For what a high end 1911 costs you could buy 2 Glocks with holsters, mags, and ammo. Now, I’m not crapping on the 1911. They are still nice guns and I enjoy shooting one from time to time. But for a purpose built fighting weapon, it does not beat the Glock. Why? Aside from the weapon working in all kinds of dirty conditions, again it’s capacity. The Glock 17 holds in a flush fit mag, 17 rounds. With the gun topped off 18. That is more than double the capacity of the 1911. For those of you who subscribe to the mentality that, if you can’t get it done with 8 rounds then you have seriously screwed up, we are not talking about dealing with the meth head mugger in the alley. Potential situations I’m referring to are something like an active shooter, a mall shooting dealing with other shooters who may be skilled, a SHTF situation where you may be dealing with a mob of thugs wanting to steal your stash of food and have their way with your women. I could go on. The weapon is also easy to shoot. There are no decockers or safeties to deal with. Aim and shoot.

Getting back to the capacity advantage, there are other companies out there now making Glock mags. Magpul makes not only the 17 round mags but also a 21 and a 27 round magazine. Glock factory makes the 33 round mag. Elite tactical systems makes a 31 round mag, a 27, 22, and a 17 round mag. Yes I know you won’t carry concealed a 27 or 33 round mag, on your person. In a bag however, it gives you that advantage of being able to put lots of bullets down range. The 21 round mags offer a great compromise in capacity and concealment. If you decide to buy the more compact versions of the gun, i.e. The 19, or 26, you can still use the model 17s mags. Yes they stick out of the bottom of the grip but gives you the piece of mind you’ve got enough ammo to handle most any situation.

The fantasy of getting into 100 round gunfights is just that, a fantasy. Or is it? Remember the westgate mall shooting in Kenya? A group of gunmen stormed the mall and killed over 60 people. The concert shooting in France in 2015, nearly 100 killed. We are living in different times. I personally think a more realistic SHTF situation would be possibly getting caught in one of these attacks. I mean let’s face it, a pole shift or climate change is the least of our worries. These bad people are out there, and they hate us and our way of life. Capacity is king. Well, second only to shot placement. Arm yourself with weapons that give you an advantage. You don’t have to carry Glocks or AR-15s, whatever you do decide to pack, have the skill to be effective with them. Think about this, if you were caught in one of these type situations, which would you rather have, a weapon that packs 8 shots or one that packs 18?

I know which one I’d want.

The post The Capacity Advantage appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[sparkpulse-blog]

Let’s Talk Headcanons: Sparklings, Part 1! How is babby formed?

Whelp! This is going to be a fun one! After having a blast explaining it to a few people, only to realize that my hands are cramping afterwards, I’ve decide to write out my personal sparkling headcanon for all to read. “Children” have existed, so to speak, in the Transformers franchise since about 1986, when The Movie introduced a few nameless robotic kids running around and laughing happily right before Unicron devoured their world (really, though, why did they show those kids...) and then, later in the film, an orphaned youth the Autobots found on Quintessa... Wheelie. While no explanation of Wheelie’s birth was offered, it’s fairly well-known that the official bio stated that his parents were killed when their ship crashed on the planet. Iiiinteresting...

Later on, the Beast Wars franchise made frequent references to “ancestors,” namely that Optimus Primal is actually a direct descendant of Optimus Prime. Bayverse introduced the idea that Transformers could potentially hatch from eggs... and then, in comic media, gave us breast-feeding Megatron... um? Let’s be honest here, the part of the fandom that is aware of that factoid... well, at least some of us aren’t sure if want. Transformers: Animated teased us with a glimpse of an infant-looking protoform that would become the techno-organic Sari... but never actually got to explain where she came from. And then IDW’s special Silent Light gave everyone a sudden flood of information compared to the brief touches of the previous continuities. We actually got an explanation of what Cybertronian babies could look like, how they could develop... but still no explanation of how they’re made. Well, we know me! That’s where my processors kick it into overdrive!

So right off the bat I’m going to start by disappointing fans of pregnant robots or eggs... I do not subscribe to either, thank you very much, Michael. To me, part of the fascination of Transformers is that they are machines that live, and think, and feel... they are not organic beings, even though they have life. They are alien robots from another world. And I love looking at all the ways that they could be like us, but I also love the ways they could be different...and I feel like the differences should really, really take precedence when it comes to young. Fortunately there’s something I can hinge my theory around... the fact that a Cybertronian’s soul is synonymous with it’s heart, a real, physical thing it holds inside of itself. The spark is a source of fascination and, yes, some romanticism for me... and I see it as the inevitable source of any life that is created between two lovers. So let’s get started on how the babe is made!

If you read my post about sparkmates and sparkbinding then you might have noted, at the end, that I hypothesize that sparklings get their name because they come from interactions between spark-bound sets.This, of course, makes them more rare in some continuities than others, hence why Whirl needed affirmation that he was holding what he thought he was holding. The process starts thus; in the act of spark-merging/bonding/sharing/whatever verb you prefer, of course, energy gets passed back and forth between the two (or more) partners. It gets shared, it builds, it passes back and forth. If the push and pull of energy is even, with all partners contributing equally, then everything gets spread around evenly, a great time is had by all, and you have a happy couple or trine all curled up together purring and feeling loved by the end of it.

However, what happens when the push and pull is not even? Sometimes a partner can get too excited and either push into their bondmate or pull against them, trying to draw more of their lover’s energy towards themselves. When this happens, of course, there goes that lovely balance... one spark inevitably ends up taking in an excess of energy and gets a bit of a buzz. If the connection is broken before the balance is restored, one of two things will happen... either the over-fed partner will be highly energetic for a while, until the excess dissipates... or the excess will begin to concentrate on or around the spark, condensing to a point where it forms a bud. A ‘bud’ is a growth on the spark where the energy collected from the bond partner or partners hasn’t quite broken up. It’s a little too “solid” for the spark to break it down... but growing it from there is another story entirely. Essentially, once a bud forms, a Cybertronian has conceived.

Clearly this visual is totally unnecessary, because this is a pretty simple concept, but I was really having fun doodling sparks so there we go.

Now at this point a Cybertronian has conceived, yes, and can proceed to make a baby... but! They aren’t doing it alone! This isn’t like most organic species where the biological father of an offspring makes it to conception and then the mother takes it from there... a Cybertronian carrier cannot carry the spark to term alone, namely because a lone Cybertronian can’t generate the spark energy to feed the bud by themselves. Buds do not grow on their own. They stay the size they are for however long until more energy is given to them... and this, of course, is done by the Cybertronian sire or sires engaging in yet more spark-sharing with the carrier, this time more deliberately pushing energy into the carrying spark. The sire is now deliberately feeding energy to their mate, and only through that excess energy can the bud begin to grow. There is no set time for how long this can take. A bud that is not fed can last for years affixed to the parent, and will happily grow again once it’s fed regardless of time passed. On the flip side, if the parents decide they really, really want this kid out fast, well... the more contact, the faster it grows. At this point, it all comes down to planning.

As a note on planning, or the lack thereof rather, it is actually pretty uncommon for a Cybertronian that is part of a pair to conceive by accident. It can happen, but it takes one partner being either particularly pushy or particularly clingy, in excess, for that to occur. Accidents are a bit more common with trines, however, when two partners can overpower a third without realizing it.

So now there is a budding new spark, and parents to feed it and make it grow... but no body to put it in. And there will not be a body until one is provided... Cybertronians are not mammals, they don’t create tiny Cybertronians inside of themselves. This is where a bit of outside help comes in... as we discuss the birth and development of sparklings in the next post, because this one is fragging long enough already!

So before I round up part one, let’s have some random headcanons about carrying that hopefully won’t expand this too much...

Sparklings usually share a closer bond with the carrier, since they were more connected to that spark than that of the sire(s) while being carried. With that in mind, a carrier who puts more time and energy into a hobby while carrying is more likely to be able to share that hobby with their offspring later.

Carrier activity and stress levels are two of the most important factors that can influence the growth of a new spark. Because of this, while many Cybertronians would prefer a heavily-armored parent carry, just as often a smaller bot with a less stressful day-to-day routine will be the one to carry. Many Cybertronians believe that parents with high stress levels can lead to young with anxiety issues, so quite often the siring parent will go to great lengths to assure their partner’s comfort. Oddly, there is no actual evidence to support this.

A spark with a bud is really, really obvious when you look into the chamber. Like, visibly so. At the very least, it means less tests are required to determine if a spark-merging took... aiming a few energy readings at the bud is typically more than enough to confirm.

While the debate rages as to whether listening to classical music during pregnancy does anything for a human, for a Cybertronian it actually does seem to have a positive impact on the budding spark and how well it stabilizes itself as it grows. What nobody can figure out is whether this is because of the music itself, or if the bud simply picks up on the parent spark’s positivity about doing something good for the baby...

And that’s it for this post! I have no idea how long part two is going to take to prepare, so wish me luck!