#and also had to use illustrator. for the first time. with no instruction.

[toasttedbaguels]

rough night for guy that forgot to finish one of their projects until a day before the deadline

[dearmash1975project]

It was fitting that Brian was the first person I spoke to for this. It was his letter, after all, and the age written on it (age 11), that touched me so deeply that it sparked this whole project. I’ll keep my methods on how I tracked him down close to the vest, so as not to illustrate how easy it is to find anyone in this digital age; needless to say– getting an email back that read “Dear Lily, Yes I did!” was thrilling. We scheduled to speak on the phone and did on July 15th, 2024.

{Interview continued under the cut}

Brian Nores was no longer 11 when we spoke on the phone. Between the passage of time and the life that fills the mind since age 11, he didn’t remember writing the letter until my email.

An email, he told me, that his partner advised him not to answer as it was “probably a scam.” Thankfully for me, Brian is “always getting himself into trouble” and answered my inquiry about a letter he may or may not have sent while living at X address in 1975. In hindsight, his partner was definitely right for being wary.

Brian credited his late father for the letter’s existence and described memories flooding back after reading the words he wrote nearly 50 years earlier. Not long before he wrote the M*A*S*H letter, Brian was a boy scout who wanted to quit. His father instructed him that he could quit, but he had to write a letter to the scout master explaining why he wanted to leave the troop. His dad ‘never let him off the hook for that,’ and it was likely this instillation of values that gave Brian the confidence to speak his mind after the fateful episode aired. [In a fascinating ending to the boy scout anecdote– Brian, who still lives in the area, was at the local frame shop years later where the owner recognized his name and produced the letter, which the scout master was having framed.]

When I asked if he remembered the episode he responded how anyone who has seen it would; he remembered it very well. He recalled being “disturbed” and “shocked” by it. In a world before spoiler alerts, he explained, “the whole world saw that episode and reacted in real time.” As an 11-year-old, but also as an American youth raised on American narratives of war, he remembered expecting Henry to “go off into the sunset” and be okay.

“For me, M*A*S*H ended after that episode.”

Brian watched occasionally after season 3 but had no idea the series continued for as long as it did (M*A*S*H aired from 1972-1983). “It was never the same, certainly.”

Brian was in 5th grade in 1975, and at his young age he had never seen something on TV that disturbing. He told me he reached out to an old friend to discuss the letter, and they reminisced about their lives at that time. “Age of innocence” was the term he used with me. At that point in his life, he had never lost any relatives or experienced any hardships. “The most shocking thing that I had experienced prior to that was a large earthquake in ’71.” For Brian, this episode marked one of the first experiences he had had with death.

It's an extraordinary level of influence to have, that the simple ‘writing off’ of a character can have such an impact on a young life. We often characterize television as a sort of hobby, one that has less of a cachet than movies; but the mechanism by which media compels our emotions is the same.

Brian reflected more on this impact when telling me that The Mary Tyler Moore Show was his favorite series, and he recalled crying at the finale in 1977. He remembered thinking “How could they end this?”

To Brian, television was “taken a little more seriously then.” With one TV, there were fights over who got to hold the clicker when you sat around the set as a family. “You got one chance to watch it.” He explained. “What a different world we live in now.”

Brian still lives in the area where he grew up and drives past his old house and “down memory lane” often. He is still close to two of his childhood best friends. He shared with me some of his thoughts on aging, a topic that still feels “surreal” to him. “Only recently have I started to experience change. Restaurants etc. going away. Everything that we grew up with has changed. TV, movies, roads, politics. I don’t like this!” He laughed. “You look in the mirror and think.”

Brian had no idea that his letter ended up in the archives of our country’s National History Museum. “Really surprised” is how he described his reaction to the news; one of the aforementioned childhood friends was “blown away.”

“What it said to me (...) was that it reaffirmed/reinforced some of the things that my dad told me. Doing the right thing and following through.” Brian shared.

“What a difference it can make. That this moment is occurring because I spent a few minutes writing.”

~~~~

Thank you so much to Brian for granting me this interview.

Subject photos courtesy of Brian: Letter-era Brian/current-era Brian, Huntington Library Garden, California.

Accession information: Photo taken by me, 3 July 2024. “Letters from viewers regarding the death of Henry Blake.” Box 22, Folder 4. M*A*S*H Television Show Collection, 1950-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. https://sova.si.edu/record/nmah.ac.0117/ref359?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=NMAH.AC.0117&i=0

[bohoteacher]

Navigating Betrayal: Reconciling Admiration with Disillusionment

Like many Neil Gaiman fans this month, I've been shocked and distressed by the news regarding the SA allegations. I won't go over the details, as they're readily available online. I'll start by saying that I believe the accusers, and even the most lenient interpretation of events is still troubling enough to discredit Gaiman. For a long time, I didn't know what to say. I was just shocked and, somewhat naively, felt betrayed. I don't typically idolize actors, authors, or other public figures—I'm here for the characters, they're who I love and believe in. So, how did I end up believing in this man and his rhetoric?

I only had a parasocial relationship with him, which is to say no real relationship at all. But I took his Masterclass on writing, spent hours taking notes, and learned from him. I feel betrayed by someone I saw as a beloved teacher. I know this is insignificant compared to what the women who came forward experienced, but it's a valid feeling, and I needed time to process it. My initial reaction was to throw out and discount everything he’s ever written or done—of course it was.

This isn't just about my love for Good Omens, although how can it not be? I learned so much from this man—about writing, about not being too hard on myself, about the creative process. I read his books to my middle school classes, and we all learned how to be better people from them. Today, I saw and bought Instructions, a children’s book by Neil Gaiman illustrated by Charles Vess, from the used bookstore where I volunteer. It was a used copy, so no royalties will go to him. It’s a beautifully illustrated book where the main character walks through a land that clearly symbolizes life, learning lessons like saying please and "if any creature cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain." How could someone write this and then do what he did? I asked myself. "What an evil hypocrite," was my first thought. But then I recalled a line from another author, Stephen King. In The Stand, a character is described as "awake at the lectern, but asleep at the switch," meaning they know the right thing to do and can talk about it, but in the moment of choice, they act without integrity.

I don’t know if I’m making sense, but I think it’s too easy to label Gaiman as simply evil, as if he intentionally manipulated us by saying the right things just to make us read or watch his creations. The reality is likely far more complicated. Within this man is the amazing, thought-provoking, life-affirming wisdom that many of us have tried to live by, but also the hard, thoughtless, selfish cruelty that led him to abuse young, vulnerable women. The wisdom does not justify the abuse, and the abuse does not nullify the wisdom.

I think it's too simplistic to say Gaiman is despicable and always has been, hiding it from us all along. This doesn't acknowledge the complexity of human nature—that there is potential for both good and bad within us all. As it’s said, possibly by Terry Pratchett or possibly by Neil Gaiman, “It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

Gaiman is a man who has done some fundamentally good things and some fundamentally bad things. I can’t forget either one.

This is just my opinion. I know some people want to cancel him, while others want to exonerate him. You do you. As for me, I will continue to love Aziraphale and Crowley. I will continue to read and create fan-fiction. I will continue to find comfort and wisdom in books that have meant so much to me over the years. But I will also remember that they were created by a very flawed man whom I can no longer trust.

I understand that opinions on this matter vary widely. I know some people might feel that not discarding everything associated with him is wrong, but this is where I stand. I’m not looking to debate this or be told how I should react. I just needed to process my thoughts in writing and move forward in the way that feels right for me.

[commodorez]

Cactus fascinates me, does it run on code similar to an existing instruction set or is it completely original on that front?

What can you do with it? What's it's storage?

Both the Cactus (the original wooden prototype from years ago) and the new PCB Cactus(es) are essentially derived from a minimal 6502 computer design by Grant Searle for their core logic. Here's what that would look like on a breadboard:

There isn't much to it, it's 32K of RAM, 16K of ROM containing Ohio Scientific's version of Microsoft BASIC, a 6850 ACIA for serial interaction, some logic gates, and of course a 6502 microprocessor (NMOS or CMOS, doesn't matter which). You hook it into a terminal and away you go.

Grant's design in turn can be best described as a distilled, modernized version of the OSI Challenger series of computers. Here's an OSI-400 and a Challenger 4P respectively:

The left one is a replica of the 400 circa 1976, also called the Superboard. It was affordable, endlessly reconfigurable and hackable, but ultimately very limited in capabilities. No BASIC, minimal monitor ROM you talk to over serial, but you could connect it to a bus to augment its features and turn it into a more powerful computer.

Whereas the OSI C4P on the right from about 1979 has more RAM, a video card, keyboard, BASIC built in, serial interface, cassette tape storage, and that's just the standard configuration. There was more room to expand and augment it to your needs inside the chassis (alot changed in 3 years for home computer users).

Grant's minimal 6502 design running OSI BASIC is a good starter project for hobbyists. I learned about the 6502's memory map decoding from his design. I modified and implemented his design on a separate cards that could connect to a larger backplane.

Here are the serial, ROM, RAM, and CPU cards respectively:

Each one is 100% custom, containing many modifications and fixes as I developed the design. However, that's only half of the computer.

I really wanted a 6502 machine with a front panel. People told me "nobody did that", or couldn't think of examples from the 1970s but that seemed really strange to me. Especially since I had evidence to the contrary in the form of the OSI-300:

This one I saw at VCF West back in 2018 illustrates just how limited of a design it is. 128 bytes of RAM, no ROM, no serial -- just you, the CPU, and toggle switches and LEDs to learn the CPU. I was inspired the first time I saw one in 2015 at VCF East, which is probably when this whole project got set in motion.

Later that year I bought a kit for a miniature replica OSI-300 made by Christopher Bachman, and learned really quickly how limited the design philosophy for this particular front panel was. It was a major pain in the ass to use (to be clear, that's by OSI's choice, not any fault of Christopher in his implementation)

So... I designed my own. Took awhile, but that's the core of what the Cactus is: my attempt at experiencing the 1970s homebrew scene by building the computer I would have wanted at the time. Over half of the logic in the Cactus is just to run the front panel's state machine, so you can examine and modify the contents of memory without bothering the 6502. I added in all of the things I liked from more advanced front panels I had encountered, and designed it to my liking.

Here's the original front panel, accompanying logic, and backplane connected to the modern single board computer (SBC) version of the machine:

And here's the new Cactus SBC working with the new front panel PCB, which combines the logic, physical switch mountings, and cabling harnesses into a single printed circuit board.

So, what can you do with it? Pretty much the same things I do already with other contemporary 1970s computers: play around in BASIC, fire up the occasional game, and tinker with it.

I've got no permanent storage designed for the Cactus as yet, it's been one of those "eventually" things. The good news is that a variety of software can be ported to the hardware without too much trouble for an experienced hobbyist. A friend of mine wrote a game called ZNEK in 6502 assembly which runs from a terminal:

Right now, you have to either toggle in machine programs from the front panel from scratch, burn a custom ROM, or connect it to a serial terminal to gain access to its more advanced features:

Here's it booted into OSI BASIC, but I have also added in a modern descendant of Steve Wozniak's WOZMON software for when I need to do lower level debugging.

I've also got a video card now, based on the OSI-440. I have yet to implement a keyboard, or modify BASIC to use the video board instead of the serial connection. Even if I did, screen resolution is pretty limited at 24x24 characters on screen at once. Still, I'm working on that...

Anyway, I hope that answers your question. Check the tags below to see the whole process stretching back to 2017 if you're curious to learn more of the project's history. I'm also happy to answer any more questions you might have about the project.

[tanuki-kimono]

Cw: We are going to talk here about periods, and sex education in the past. Read this note according to your own sensibilities :)

How women dealt with periods during Edo period, article by shunga enthousiast Shungirl who made a paper pad following instructions found in makura bunko 枕文庫 - ie ancient sex books illustrated with erotic ukiyoe.

One of such makura bunko is 渓斎英泉 Keisai Eisen's 閨中紀聞-枕文庫, first published in 1822. It details Chinese remedies recipes for menstrual pains and irregularities, give tips about sex, and information about menstruations and pregnancy. From a modern point of view, some beliefs are outdated, but it was then such a bestseller it went through several reeditions.

Several words were apparently in use during Edo era to designates menstrual period: keisui 経水, gekkei 月経, tsukiyaku 月水, etc.

When girls went throught their first period, their females relatives or nannies would taught them how to deal with them. One method was to use paper as sanitary products (please note people without easy access to paper probably dealt with periods differently).

__________ 御馬 paper pads

Sanitary pads, such as the one recreated above by Shungirl, were then called mima 御馬 (probably as a pun on true "mima" which were then fine horses own by noblemen, or attached to sanctuaries as mounts for gods etc) or simply ouma お馬 ("honorable" horse).

Ouma were made from inexpensive recycled paper called Asakusagami 浅草紙. Sheets were folded 8 times, tied with twisted paper strings (koyori 紙縒), and then wrapped with another layer of folded paper. It was secured once again with paper strings.

Part of the strings could be left long so to tie around the waist, or/and pad was hold into place by wearing fundoshi 褌 loincloth (which would also help prevent leaking on inner tights).

Asakusagami quality was low (it was also used as toilet paper) so paper pads had to be changed often, meaning you had to fold quite a lot of them to go through your period!

Shungirl folded the pad above following instructions found in the book 実娯教絵抄, which provided several other "models":

__________ 詰め紙 paper tampons

Another method for dealing with periods were tampon-like paper bundles which were inserted into the vagina, the 詰め紙 (tsumeshi? I am not sure of the reading).

This method may have first appeared in red-light districts (?). Beside its use for periods, prostitutes also used those tampons as method of contraception (OP has an interesting article on this subject).

By the end of Edo period and into Meiji, paper tampons were widely used even by women who were not prostitutes - despite voices branding this method as unsanitary.

__________ About girls' coming of age rites

Menarche (first period) was an important milestone for girls, and was celebrated as such via specific rites (shochō o iwau 初潮を祝). Those differed a lot from places to places, and also depended on social status.

Celebrations would concern close family, but often spread to wider community who could received for example a festive meal (sekihan 赤飯) for the occasion (some Edo era senryû poems stress how mortifying this publicity could be!).

Interestingly, some traditions were also pretty sweet: in some places, mothers would sew 3 stiches into their daughter's underskirt (koshimaki 腰巻き) as a good luck charm, hoping their periods would last only 3 days <3

Those rites were part of coming of age traditions (seijoshiki 成女式) which marked the start of a young woman adulthood. Another example is the blackening of teeth (ohaguro お歯黒) which usually started around 16-17 years old.

Celebrating menarche publicly was a way of advertising that the girl was no longer a child and would "soon" be a bride. Yet, if menarche often took place around 13-14 years old, in reality it was somehow unusual to have girls married so soon!

Before marriage, especially in non-noble/samurai families, young women often started their sexual life via flings or yobai 夜這い ("night crawling" ie pseudo-secret nighttime encounters) before any wedding actually took place.

[sanjisluvbot]

Isekai Yandere Strawhats Chapter 2

Previously| next

The days turned to weeks and weeks to months soon, that world was a thought of the past. Y/n had continued to her regular life going to school, hanging out with friends, and having her biggest worries being what time her assignments were due.

She didn’t throw away any of her old books or posters with those characters on them instead she put them in a box under her bed. Just so they were right beneath her feet if she ever wanted to return and fantasize about maybe a different time, maybe if things would’ve gone differently. 

The seasons were beginning to change March would soon become April. It had only dawned on the girl today that a year had passed since she first started that journey. Sitting by the window as the birds chirped in glee, Y/n finally had some time to dive into her memory.

A year ago Y/n had just met the straw hat pirates. She appeared in their life so suddenly, and little did she know they would become so easily enamored. She laughed to herself in disbelief then rubbed her hand through her bangs, “ How could I be so stupid?” she said to herself.

Opening her curtains for the rays of the sun to wash over her reminded her of tanning with the girls on the Sunny, in the beginning, it was just so sweet, wasn’t it?

With a sigh, she got up from her bed and waltzed over to grab her remote from the desk turning on the TV hoping to drown out the memory of a certain someone. The shows were white noise as the face of Trafalgar Law was all she could focus on. 

A call from her mother had made her jump and she quickly made her way out of her room. “ Yes, mother?” She said walking into the living room. Her mother smiled and handed her a letter. The envelope was black with no writing on it and the seal was yellow with a small bear on it.

Y/n bit her lip, not wanting to get too excited in front of her mother and for herself, who knows if this letter is from who she thinks it is?

She thanked her mother and quickly made her way back to her room shutting the door with her back. The pit of her stomach grew butterflies and nerves flared inside of her. She turned off her TV and sat on her bed using her thumb to unseal the envelope.

There were two letters inside marked with red and blue at the tips of the corner. Pulling the blue one out first she swiftly opened it and began reading.

Dear Y/n, I wonder what you’ve been doing all this time. I know you got back home safely, I can feel it in my bones. I debated on whether or not I should just go see you myself but I figured it was better to let you enjoy your time with your family for now.

I have been able to avoid clashing with BlackBeard thanks to you and I have been able to gather more research on this gateway between our worlds. I won’t go too in-depth in this letter but I can say that we have a lot to talk about once we meet again. After you left the strawhats also left me alone without a word or a fight. Within the next month, we will meet but it will take some effort on your part as well. Please read the next letter for additional information. 

L. 

Y/n felt ecstatic, finally after months of wondering what happened to Law there was an answer, directly from him at that. She tossed the note beside her pulled out the red-tipped letter and began reading.

There were instructions and illustrations explaining how to open a gateway directly onto the polar tang where they could travel with ease. It was a method without shifting that wouldn’t be so strenuous on both parts.

At the end of the letter, there was a small warning, “ It will take time, over a month on your end to make sure that the gate is stabilized so as soon as you read this you should get started.”

With a smile on her face, she followed both letters back into the envelope and began to follow the instructions. The instructions were relatively easy but there was a reason she needed time.

Step one, keep the mirror on your door as clean as can be that will be the gate. Step two, ensure any other mirrors are not facing the gate including your television.

Step three, keep your curtains open as the sun will help charge up the portal. The other steps were simple as well, don’t keep anything plugged in at night, and keep a diet consisting of greens. 

Y/n had a new pep in her step and everyone around her noticed. Y/n had smiled more often and life at home seemed like a fantasy for her parents, they never had to ask her twice to complete chores or help out with anything around the house.

The first week of April swings by and exam season is brewing up, Y/n spent time studying with her friends in the library. " Y/n me and y/f/n are going to get drinks real quick."

The girl waved her friends off too focused on her current textbook. A minute passed before she was interrupted again by a text message. Her mother was telling her she needed to pick up something for dinner, she sighed and decided to take a break from studying and possibly find a book she could take home.

Out of interest Y/n took to the supernatural fantasy section. Wondering if she could find any books relating to portals and how they work.

At the top of the shelf there was a black hardcover with the words open your mind written in script on the spine. Reaching up she grabbed it, ‘ Open Your Mind written by N.R’. The book seemed to be brand new, the pages crisp and the cover silky smooth.

Returning to her seat Y/n began to read. Her friends soon returned and hours had passed as Y/n fell into the fantasy world of N.R. The book was about a women who had a found family and was able to discover the mysteries of her world. The chills ran down her spine when she realized how similar it had been to one piece.

Although there weren’t any pirates Y/n couldn’t shake the feeling of having heard a few similar stories within her favorite series. Bitting her lip she closed the book on the third chapter, not wanting to spoon herself while with her friends.

Y/n tucked a strand of her behind her ears and told her friends she would be off as it was getting late. Waiting for the bus questions popped into her head.

There is no way one of them could be here right?

Law made sure they didn’t have a way back right?

It’s been so long since she was filled with this much anxiety. The cool spring breeze wouldn’t cool her nerves and the palms of her hands filled with sweat.

The bus finally came and she stepped on seating herself in the single seats. Her head rested on the window and she silently watched the cars zoom by leaving colorful glares.

🏷️: ( new tag list, reply to be added to next update )

A/N: Welcome back to the drama!!! I’m so excited to begin this new journey again and I am so happy everyone enjoyed the first part. I don’t currently know how long I want this part to be but I will have a schedule in my Masterlist of when I will update.

Extra: What do you think about the letter?

[ikeoji-subs]

Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 2 Eng Sub

VS SMELLS and VS AGE GAP RELATIONSHIPS

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translation notes:

about Fish Cake Man (7:28)

As we state in the subtitles, this guy’s monologue isn’t something we’re equipped to translate and if we did, it probably wouldn’t make much, if any, sense to English-speaking viewers. We learned from Snow’s Japanese friend that he's a comedian who is famous for doing this particular bit. After we had already finished most of the subtitles, I rewatched seasons 1 and 2 of the show and found that he was also in the other two seasons. In the first season, when Mob is explaining about how he's a side character and intends to keep it that way, he looks at a gardener on his university campus who is pulling weeds, illustrating that the world of BL needs to include some people who are unlikely to ever become main characters. That’s this dude. He appears again in season 2, when Mob is scouring the university for signs of Kikuchi after reading his goodbye letter. In every appearance, he's shown wearing the same sort of nondescript work clothes and cap and seems to work in some kind of maintenance or cleaning capacity at National BL University. –Towel

His name is Nou Misoo (脳みそ夫) which means brain tissue. I believe there's a pun here I'm missing but you can check out his sillyness on youtube, instagram or tiktok. –Snow

about “the gods decided to smite me” (10:24)

The first version of this line said that Mob “received divine punishment” for his Mob Move. That was already a great line! But I thought it had the potential to be a little more specific and evocative in an English-speaking context. At first, I was just trying to think of something a bit more specific to replace “received.” I thought of a few possibilities, including “I was smitten by divine punishment.” But since “smitten” is barely used anymore except to describe someone who's in love, it had the wrong connotation. Then I thought about how another tense of the same verb, “smite,” avoids those connotations and has a kind of King James Bible quality. But if I was going to say “smite,” I’d have to change the sentence from passive voice to active voice (which is generally best anyway) and give the sentence a subject who is doing the smiting.

I thought a unitary, capital-G God would make it sound a little too Biblical, possibly tipping it over into sounding overtly Christian. I knew that some religious traditions practiced in Japan, like Shintoism, included multiple gods. So I tried “the gods decided to smite me.” This seemed to balance out the Old Testament-ish aspect of “smite” a bit. The end result seemed more vivid than the earlier version, and it seemed like something Mob would say.–Towel 

about “select shop” (11:30)

Observant English speakers might notice that when the guy who used the same shampoo as Mob talks about where he got it, he uses a term made up of English loan words. He says he bought it at a “serekuto shoppu" (in English, a "select shop"). While both parts of the word are borrowed from English, the term you get when you put them together isn’t commonly used in the US. I ended up replacing it with “boutique,” which gets across some of the meaning. But I’ll explain in more detail here. 

It turns out that a “select shop” is a kind of smallish shop with carefully curated items that all fit a certain aesthetic. A business like this might be called a “lifestyle boutique” in America, but it’s slightly different from any business model used widely here. The big selling point of a shop like this is the fact that they’ve already vetted and coordinated these products. Their offerings are tailored for a particular niche, so that if you’re into the general idea a select shop is going for, you’re likely to be interested in a lot of what they’re selling. The items for sale will also have been hand-picked by a professional who’s able to find just the right thing in a way that a typical consumer wouldn’t be able to. 

You can imagine what kind of college student would not only shop at this sort of place but declare it proudly. Even if Mob was going to fall in L with a B, this guy would be a bad fit.–Towel

about “a listless ne’er-do-well” (19:04)

The more literal translation of this part goes “a man like this, without ambitions or vitality.” It’s a nice turn of phrase, definitely, but I thought if I could localize it a bit it might evoke more of the right feeling. I thought it would be more typical in English to express this in terms of an adjective plus a noun describing the kind of person he’d appear to be, rather than saying he was without these qualities. From “without ambition” I got “ne’er-do-well” and from “without vitality” I got “listless.”–Towel

Tag list: @absolutebl @bengiyo @c1nto @come-back-serotonin @lurkingshan @my-rose-tinted-glasses @porridgefeast @sorry-bonebag @twig-tea @wen-kexing-apologist

[dweamofsweep]

Cyborg 009 Tribute Anthology Story 4: "Eight Rooms" by Torishima Denpou

An account of Jet Link's experiences with Black Ghost in the time leading up to the 00-Numbers' escape -- mostly focusing on him and two of his friends from the Jets who were also recruited by Black Ghost and being modified to fly.

Scans and Google Translation on Drive

Or read below the cut! As per usual I tried to clean it up a bit, but left anything I couldn't really make sense of. This one's a little long but enjoy - a tad morbid at times though...

Eight Rooms Torishima Denpou

How did Jet Link become 002? This is the unknown story behind the development of the Zero Zero Number Cyborg.

Jet Link (002) has the ability to fly freely in the air with the flight units equipped on his legs. He was the leader of a gang of delinquents on the West Side of New York, but after stabbing an opponent in a fight with a rival group, he was called out to by the Black Ghost Gang while on the run, and converted into a cyborg.

When the Black Ghost Gang went on a "human hunt" for cyborg experiments, they had the following conditions: "They must be of a different race… and of a different age… and they must not cause much trouble when abducted" (Original Story). Though they are both from America, Geronimo Jr. (005) is a Native American compared to the white Jet. He is a cyborg with reinforced skin and a million horsepower of superhuman strength. He is silent, calm, and has a proud spirit. In the original illustrations from the beginning of the series, 005's protective suit was painted green.

Torishima Denpou was born in Osaka Prefecture in 1970. He made his debut in 2011 with "Kikai-tachi no Do" (The Perfect Attendance Student), which won the 2nd Sogen SF Short Story Award. He won the 234th Japan Science Fiction Grand Prize for his collection of stories "Kikai-tachi no Do" (2013), and the 640th Japan Science Fiction Grand Prize for his first original full-length novel "Yadokari no Hoshi" (2019). His works include "Run (lol)", "Kensei no Mushi" (a renamed paperback edition of "Octologue Torishima Denbou Works Collection" published in 2020), "Nufuretsun the Musician", and "Travel Letters Collection: Yukiatashi Shi Asatte" (co-authored with Takayama Haneko and Kurata Takashi), among others.

A strange figure floated in the grey expanse of sky. It was about sixty feet above the ground, swaying up and down and side to side but maintaining its position. We held our breath and looked up at it. Its upper body was wearing a flight suit, but from the waist down it was a mass of scrap metal with pipes, pumps, and combustion chambers all protruding, making it look like a bronze statue on a pedestal. From a pair of nozzles at the bottom, high-temperature, high-pressure gas was blasting out with a roar, forming a thick trunk that spread like a cumulonimbus cloud all over the launch pad and the surrounding sandy beach. "Tony's thing is pretty stable this time," I commented, and Kevin nodded, "Yeah, he beat me to it," and then said, "But it's still really noisy. You could do a better job of muffling it," as he looked around the paved area known as the control area on the war-torn beach. Large equipment covered in cords was lined up in a haphazard fashion, and researchers were measuring various things. Dr. O and Dr. G were standing next to the control desk closer to us, staring at Tony with binoculars.

"Good job, Tony Kaczynski. Much better than your last flight. Keep it up," Dr. O said into the radio microphone in German-accented English, then directed instructions to one of the researchers. "Pauman, try increasing the amount of fodder a little. No, let's avoid the lottery. Keep an eye on the TQ value too."

Let's talk! Our artificial hearing is highly sensitive, so it can pick up voices even from some distance away. However, when researchers talk to each other, they often use code words to prevent secret information from leaking, and sometimes they even use languages ​​other than English that I can't understand, so it's often hard to understand what they're saying. They are of various races, but judging from the chatter I can overhear, it seems that quite a few of them are scientists from countries that had lost the war. It seems that the doctor and several other researchers had worked on research and development of V2 rockets at the German Army Weapons Office during the war, and memories of the hardships of that time would sometimes pop up in their conversations.

Kevin yawned loudly, and I yawned too. "By the time I got here, I was exhausted from all the work I had done on the maintenance shed."

Suddenly, Dr. O turned around, looked up at us, and said, "You should be more aware that you have been chosen by Project Nurnurzwei. Air superiority will be the key to future wars. You will be the vanguard of that war."

"This?" I said with a wry smile, looking down at my whole body as I stood on the transport cart. From the waist down, my legs were equipped with a different type of twin thruster unit from Tony's, and were more than one size larger than normal legs. Kevin's thruster unit, standing next to me, was slightly smaller, but more deformed than mine, and both of us were completely misshapen.

He was a long-legged circus clown.

I couldn't help but think that it would be far more realistic to ride a rocket as my bare flesh than to float in the air in this ridiculous, patchwork body that could barely walk on its own.

Suddenly, a dangerous sound of gunfire that sounded like a machine gun rang out, and I looked over my shoulder. I couldn't see because of the high protective wall, but they must have been test-firing a new weapon. The protective wall joined a cliff of almost the same height, and beyond that I could see a low mountain with a ridge lined with what looked like radar antennas.

Tony slowly descended, weakening the thrusters, and everyone was on edge. One of the test subjects had lost his life in an explosion of the thruster unit during the previous landing. He was a Turkish man who had been brought in via a different route from us, and we hadn't yet become acquainted with him.

The landing covered the area around Negira in smoke, and everyone gasped in admiration. "That was a splendid landing," Dr. O said, and the surrounding researchers applauded.

Tony said with an excited look on his face, "This time, I'll walk with these big legs," but we tried to stop him, saying, "Hey, it's dangerous, so stop," and "It'll be a repeat of what happened last time." The last time he tried, he fell like a chess piece and suffered a mild concussion. But surprisingly, Dr. X said, “He can try it.”

"The moving parts have been improved since then. Let me try it. That's great, Dr. G."

Dr. G, who designed the walking mechanism for the Beard Launch Unit, is silent as he plays with his white beard. He snorts and nods to the researcher in charge of operating the launch pad's arm.

Tony lifted one of the two totem pole-like launch units, which were still spewing smoke from all over, with an unsettling creak, and sent it one step forward, lowering the guard pipe-like tip of the nozzle to the floor. Just as he was about to take the same step with the other one, its whole body tilted heavily and began to fall - "Damn it!" Tony spat out, throwing both hands in the air - and was immediately grabbed by the arms of the launch pad on both sides and placed on a transport cart on the paved road.

"I thought they had improved it," Dr. O muttered dissatisfiedly.

"It's an unreasonable request from the start to use such bulky thruster units as legs," Doctor G retorted in Russian-accented English. This doctor, who is in charge of integrating and coordinating the construction of our bodies, was once a brilliant scientist at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Perhaps he gave up his position to come here because of the excellent research environment and treatment. "Besides, no matter how smoothly we can move, with this size you won't be able to fit through the passageway," he said, spreading his arms wide with his short body. "You have to do something about the thruster units first. You boasted that you would definitely make them small enough to fit into normal legs."

Tony was carried over to us, upright on a transport cart, and said, "While I was floating in the air…I wasn't feeling bad," he said, smiling at us, then looked confused when he saw the two doctors' grim expressions.

"Of course. We've been working day and night to miniaturize it to the size of a normal leg." There was no lie in Professor O's words. Looking closely, his face was paler than our artificial skin, and you could see how exhausted he was. "But to make it happen without compromising, we need to develop a new fuel. If your lover, Professor M, could figure out the optimal reaction method for Odin's blood--"

Tony whistles. “She must be the one who came to the flight test the other day," Kevin says, frowning for some reason. I'm sure he's a regular. I didn't remember him.

"Stop it. How many times do I have to tell you we're not lovers?" Dr. G became restless and rubbed his big nose.

"It doesn't seem like an intimacy to me."

"I'm just asking for a little advice - no, no. Anything that doesn't relate to flight tests.

Please send it to me.”

"Anyway, you're closer to her than anyone else. Please urge her to speed up his research…" Dr. O raised one hand and put his face close to the radio microphone. "Now, let's move on to the next test. Jet Link, I'm counting on you."

My transport cart moved forward on the sand, and the tips of the two arms connected with my waist and lifted me up.

Then -- I can feel the weight of my legs putting a great deal of strain on the joints -- slowly lowered onto a launch pad that is also used for missile test launches.

I slide the protective covers over my eye sockets forward, covering my eyeballs. My vision blurs for a moment, but I soon get used to it. After adjusting the width of my legs and straightening my posture, I try to ignite the propulsion unit, repeatedly moving the vague illusion of a control console that my auxiliary brain has in my mind, but perhaps I'm not concentrating enough, as it didn't respond as well as it did last time.

"It seems the projection within your consciousness still needs some adjustment. For now, please use the control console on your waist.” I can hear Doctor X's voice through my ears, and I grasp the receiver-like control console and press a switch.

The thruster unit on my lower body began to tremble violently――― A golden light spread from the soles of my feet, and smoke began to swell up like rainclouds. Just as I thought my body was beginning to float, it suddenly began to tilt to one side, and I quickly operated the stick on the control console, but now it was shaking back and forth――――

"The arm is supporting you. Just calm down and get used to it."

I was swaying back and forth like a bad surfer -- I could see Tony and Kevin laughing -- and while I was struggling to keep my balance, I felt the sensation of the nozzle rising up in the soles of my feet, and they were twisting and squeezing me as newly formed organs.

"Good, your attitude is stable. Keep going up."

I squeeze out the fluid from both my legs, and the force pushing up from below makes my back tense.

Hearing the arm let go of my body, I feel a sense of freedom, but at the same time, loneliness at the loss of my lifeline. Looking down, white smoke is expanding and covering the area. Dark depressions that look like explosions remain here and there on the beach. I stare at the various displays on the virtual gauges, which float vaguely in my field of vision like the shadows of floaters. The fuel capacity is already decreasing. Doctor O says there's nothing to worry about, but I can't shake the fear that the fuel filling my legs will ignite.

The launch pad and the doctors are seen receding into the distance below.

Six meters, seven meters—the numbers on the display went up, but it didn't match the height I could see below me. I was annoyed that metric units were the standard here. On the other side of the protective wall, the ruins of the city, a training ground, came into view, and an explosion of flames rose from the road on the left. The roar of the rocket unit prevented me from hearing the explosions. Fifteen meters, twenty meters—further beyond, a mountain ridge reminiscent of a camel's hump peeked out. Simple buildings stood sparsely on the mountainside, but I couldn't tell which one was the one we were living in.

"Now, descend about ten meters."

Umm… about 30 feet. I eased up on the jet and went down. My back stiffened as I tried to keep my balance. I was told to go up again, and I did.

As I went up and down as instructed, the heat from the thruster became unsettling. My waist and neck felt like they were being burned, and the smoke from the engines was filling my field of vision.

I was shocked when I saw the display on the device. It was obvious that the temperature of the legs was unbelievably high, but the temperature of the whole body was also not something a human could bear.

"Doctor! The body temperature is--" I cried out, and Doctor G's voice said, "It's within the capacity of your body's structure. Don't worry, your homeostatic functions will catch up soon and you should feel better." Soon I noticed that some organ had begun to pulsate in my abdomen. Gradually the heat subsided, and my thirst subsided.

“That said, your sympathetic nervous system response is a bit extreme. There is room for improvement.”

My body temperature has gone down and I feel better, but it's still much higher than normal. I realize that my bare flesh cannot withstand this test.

“Here we go again.”

The doctor's voice returns, ordering them to rise and fall.

Once you get the hang of it intuitively, simply moving it up and down feels unsatisfying and a little silly.

"Feeling good. That's all for today. Land on your feet."

Bracing myself, I reduced the output of the thrust unit while adjusting the direction of the nozzle and began to descend carefully.

The guard pipes surround the nozzle, and the rocket lands safely on the launch pad. The weight of the rocket's body is suddenly transferred to the rocket's body, but is relieved by the shock-absorbing action. The smell of burning chemicals from the floating smoke fills the air. Through the blurred view, the sound of the researchers clapping can be heard.

Once the vibrations in the legs subsided, I was lifted up by an arm and transferred to a transport cart, which then moved along the paved road. As Kevin passed by, we drove to the control station and watched as he was placed on the launch pad.

Kevin, who was smaller than us, began to tremble as his legs shook and he began to rise, spreading smoke with a thunderous roar. He remained suspended in the air at about his own height, floating from side to side. His face, which had looked calm, turned into a pained expression as if petrification was spreading throughout his body.

"The temperature in Section D is rising rapidly!" the researcher called out.

The doctor instructs the researchers, but there is a dull explosion from Kevin's right leg and flames rise up. He is lowered onto the launch pad by an arm, and the researchers immediately surround him and spray foam from a fire extinguisher.

"It seems that cooling the combustion chamber is difficult with this model," Dr. O said wryly.

"For now, we should make it a GT engine and reduce the amount of oxidizer."

"Not yet! We are being asked to operate outside the atmosphere."

The doctor and Dr. G argue in English, which is not each other's native language.

"At least use AB cooling---"

"Then I'll be disposable! This is why I can only think of replacing my body with parts.

Monmonha.”

"Have you forgotten that you are only alive thanks to a replacement heart!"

Before the end of the war, a researcher had said that Dr. O had been shot to death to destroy evidence. Was that rumor true?

Afterwards, we were carried on a transport cart to a one-story maintenance shed near the cliff at the foot of the mountain, and each of us was made to lie down on a large maintenance bench that looked like a noble's bed.

Here, researchers led by Dr. G swarmed around us with strange tools in their hands and began removing the leg-like thruster units. Sensing someone's gaze, I looked towards the wall, where Dr. O was gazing thoughtfully at the thruster unit with his hand on his chin.

It often takes too long to remove them and we often get bored with it.

"It's too much work to spend so much time changing the landing gear every single time we do a flight test," Tony complained, and Kevin agreed. "You know what? I only had a quick glimpse today."

"You guys, why don't you read a book? Some subjects do that during maintenance. You can even use the library if you do that."

In response to the researcher's words, I replied, "I took a look once, but all they had were technical books related to science and the military," and then I said something that had been on my mind for a while.

"In the first place, why bother making the legs into launch units? Wouldn't it be better to just carry them on your back? That way it wouldn't take as much time and there wouldn't be as much danger. You wouldn't have to worry about the size either---"

"Don't be stupid!" Dr. O yelled, coming towards me with a pale face.

"It's the likeness that counts! Don't you realize how much money has been spent on it?"

"Your competitor is a former colleague of Dr. X. He's pushing forward with a space program across your country---"

Doctor X raised his voice even more after hearing what the researcher said to us.

"The space program that they rushed into after being overtaken by their enemy country is nothing more than a cover-up, with their fragile bodies stuffed into a giant iron box and then launched!"

"But astronauts do incredible amounts of training to prepare their bodies for space," Tony said.

"No matter how hard we try, we can't surpass the limits of humanity. If we venture into space alone, we'll be doomed. We'll have no choice but to stay quietly inside the iron box. That way we won't be able to achieve the harvest that will come someday."

"So you want us to dunk on a satellite from here into space?" Tony laughed.

"What do you mean, harvest?" Kevin asked warily.

"It's a critical moment that will determine the future of humanity. To be worthy of the harvest, humanity itself must transform into a new body suited to space. Otherwise we will―”

"Oh, shut up already!" Doctor G stood up from behind my thruster unit. "I've had enough of your mystical nonsense. Doctor X, can you please stay outside until I finish this job?"

"It's blissful to not know anything." Dr. ○ shook his head from side to side like a military doctor who has noticed the death of a wounded soldier, then turned and left.

After about two hours of having the flight unit removed, I began to feel uneasy, even though it had felt so foreign. Next, the fitting of the prosthetic leg, which had a slender curve and looked almost identical to a normal leg, began. Multiple thin cables were connected one by one, and the joints on the thigh were fitted and fixed from the outside with several long hinges. After a while, my calf began to spasm. This was the initial movement indicating that the nerves had begun to work. Unlike the walking mechanism of the thrust unit, which transmits power through hydraulic cylinders, underneath the skin were bundles of elastic artificial muscles, the same as those in the upper body.

I sat up, twisted my waist, and pushed both of my prosthetic legs out of the bed. My knees bent smoothly, and my feet touched the floor. I tried to stand up. At first, I felt a strange sensation of numbness, but as I moved up and down, I gradually got used to it. I tried to move the nozzle of the ejection unit, and I ended up puckering my toes.

"It's easier to move around than this morning, and it feels more natural." I always felt a disconnect with my prosthetic leg, and when I stayed still, I would sometimes feel an uncomfortable tingling sensation that I couldn't bear.

"Maybe it's a new leg?"

"They look the same though," said Kevin, whose transplant had just finished, standing up and shaking his legs up and down.

Dr. G looked at the movement with narrowed eyes and said, "The outside is the same, but the brain that processes the nervous system has been replaced."

"What? So there's a brain in the leg?" Tony, whose attachment had not yet been completed, said as he lay down.

"It's true, it's easier to move than before." Kevin gradually increases the speed of his feet, and finally begins to perform his special skill, tapping, with a brisk rhythm.

"Wow, that's impressive," said Dr. G with a rare exclamation of admiration.

An attendant in camouflage uniform appears, and we follow him out of the maintenance building. We go around to the back and find an area resembling a weapons graveyard, with rusted parts from aircraft and tanks scattered in piles. We go down a flight of stairs from an entrance that resembles a half-buried subway station. A long underground passage appears, and at the end are two men with bare metallic upper bodies walking awkwardly behind the attendant. They must be from Room 004, two doors down. We continue on. When we reach the elevator lobby, the third door from the right is open, and the three from before are waiting inside. One of them, a grey-haired man, is walking towards us with a pile of soot-covered metal.

He holds an arm in front of him that looks like an awkwardly connected tube, and presses the opening/closing button with one of his fingers, which also has a tube shape. A book was peeking out from his pants pocket. ”Exodus'' written by Leon Uris.

“I wonder if it was you who made that explosion sound.Are you test-firing a new weapon?'' Tony asked. The gray-haired man glanced at him with pale eyes, but remained silent with his thin lips drawn together.

"Aren't these guys robots after all?" Kevin scoffs.

“Would you all shut up? We're told not to talk to anyone in the other room,'' says our attendant. According to Instructor R, this is to avoid the risk of leaking secrets from other departments when engaging in special operations in different countries.

The man's hand moves intermittently and leaves the open/close button, and the door closes.

The elevator starts moving. There is no floor number display, and I still don't know what floor it is on. For a while, the only sound I could hear was my own breathing.

Even if it is rising, could it have exceeded its current height just now?

The brass elevator arrives and the doors open. Near the front is a door with a brass plate engraved with 〈003〉. This number represents not only the room but also the project. We started walking to the left of the passage, and the other three started walking to the right. When we arrived in front of Room 002, the room of Project Nurunurzwei, according to Dr. O, the attendant placed something that looked like a lighter under the doorknob and unlocked it. As soon as the three of them entered, the door closed and locked again.

Tony turns on the ceiling light. It was a bleak room with no windows, exposed concrete walls and floors, minimal furniture and fixtures, and a projector and film cans.

Kevin and Tony sat down on the couch. They said, "We can finally take a breather," but I actually felt like I was suffocating.

I was extremely thirsty. I took three beer bottles from the small refrigerator in the corner of the room, closed the door with my foot, handed them to them, and sat down on the sofa across the low table. Each person picks up a bottle and pops the lid off with just their thumb.

"Don't you remember Jeff?" Tony said.

“Well, he was able to open the lid with just his fingers.'' I could see the proud look on Jeff's face. “Ah. You can’t do that. You’re laughing at us, saying we’re stupid.”

Jeff was stabbed to death six months before he came here. We all assumed it was the Sharks’ work. I take a sip of beer. The bitterness spreads, and a fine, bubbling sensation passes down your throat. I was lucky that that feeling didn't change, but I couldn't get drunk as much as I used to, probably because of the artificial organs.

"If I had the body I have now back then, the Sharks wouldn't have been my enemy. I could have driven them all back to Puerto Rico."

Tony says so, but we’re on this island in the middle of nowhere, far from the Westside.

Now, I couldn't remember clearly why we started fighting with the Sharks. We were both immigrants. Why did Jeff have to die? What were we angry about?

"You were no match for them in your previous body. That's why you had to run away, and you ended up like this,” Kevin said, laughing irritably. He probably still had feelings for her.

The sensation of stabbing Pedro of the Sharks comes back to my hand. Even though my bones and muscles have been completely replaced with artificial ones, it hasn't disappeared. That day, we Jets just happened to run into the Sharks. The skirmishes had been going on for a while, and with Jeff, it wasn't a surprise that it could have happened at any time. Before I knew it, Pedro and I were facing each other with knives in our hands - as soon as Pedro fell, the sound of sirens rang out, and we all ran away at once, but I was chased by the police and had nowhere to run. That's when the scouts from the organization appeared. They said, "We'll get you out of here. And not only that, we can give you power - looking back, it was a very sudden and suspicious offer.

I was put in the back seat of a car, and with a partition and black windows blocking out the view, I was taken to a place I didn't know for about half a day, and locked alone in a room like a storeroom in the basement of an old building. Three days later, I was suddenly taken to a place that seemed to be a munitions factory in the middle of the night, and was taken to a place called a runway.

When I got on the Lopera plane, I was surprised to see Tony and Kevin sitting in my seat. Turns out the day after the incident, another conflict broke out, resulting in several deaths on both sides, and they were scouted during the escape.

"Hey Jet, don't apologize. I love the way my body is right now…Except for my legs,” he said, laughing.

I accepted the offer not only because I was upset, but also because I was fed up with the town and myself and wanted to get away from it all.

Suddenly there was the sound of a baby crying.

"Didn't you hear that just now?"

"Oh no… I'm hallucinating again the sound of a baby crying. I'm starting to miss the time when my mother was comforting me.

Isn't that right?"

"You idiot," I said, throwing the bottle cap at Kevin and leaning back on the sofa.

There was a sound of the door unlocking, and it opened. The cart entered on its own, unfolded a long, thin arm that had been stored next to the tabletop, and placed dinner plates filled with food on the table from inside. The attendant told me that it was a type of robot originally made to lay mines. I felt uneasy every time this thing handed out food.

The dinner plate is divided into two compartments: bread, chili peppers with sausage, and a sausage.

The meal consisted of pieces of bread, a salad of steamed vegetables, cut fruit, etc. Attached to the side like a paper napkin was a mark sheet.

"Today's off."

The reason Kevin said that was because the ration was a hydrocodile combat ration. It was made by another company in the organization for export to the military forces of various countries, and was sometimes served as a sample like this.

"Well, there's still a lot of it."

When the wagon leaves, we start eating with plastic forks in hand. For a while, the only sound we can hear is the sound of chewing. Our artificial organs are powered by the power reactor, but the parts of our bodies that remain physical still need calories. Not only that, but even if all of our organs were replaced with artificial ones, a person's mind would not be able to function properly without the input of information such as taste and texture from food, Dr. G said.

"I wonder if responding to the scouting call was really the right decision," Kevin suddenly muttered.

"Here we go again. We got powers," Tony replies, annoyed.

"The strength to levitate in the air and open a beer bottle with your bare hands?" Kevin snorted.

“So, you’d rather be thrown in jail and have to eat stinky food for years. I guess it’s better in moderation.”

"How is this different from a prison? The door is locked and you can't go out freely. The attendants are always following us around like prison guards. And as for this food…"

"We're classified, so it can't be helped. It's for our own protection."

No, this place might be worse than prison, I thought to myself.

"Hey Jet, you've been awfully quiet lately."

"You're still worried, aren't you? This guy is surprisingly quick to jump to conclusions. I thought it was just a coincidence. You looked so hard, but there was no wiretapping device anywhere, right?"

"It's not that. I'm just a bit tired."

For a while now, there have been many incidents where it seemed like something was leaking information about the room. If we complained about a shortage of room supplies, they would be delivered right away, and if one of us let slip that he was feeling unwell, an unexpected inspection would suddenly be carried out. There was also one time when the three of us had a good time badmouthing an attendant, and the day after that, that attendant's attitude became obviously harsh. I had thoroughly searched the room, thinking that there might have been a listening device installed, but couldn't find one. However, that wasn't the only reason why I had become less talkative.

"At least you can't drink beer in prison," Tony retorted, putting the bottle to his mouth.

"No Heineken. I want Pabst Blue Ribbon," Kevin yelled.

"I don't care about beer, but I'd rather have kielbasa than this sausage," I said.

"I'd like to have pierogi and bigos. Koptuka and golabki. I'm starting to want to go home," said Kevin.

All of these were familiar foods in our neighborhood.

"Oh man, you're homesick," Tony said, stirring his chili beans with his fork. "I'm not. I was so bored of all those places."

As we were eating and talking about pointless things, Tony suddenly laughed, "I never thought there'd be any love affairs between those boring doctors. Especially Dr. G and Dr. M."

Kevin leaned back in the sofa and sighed in annoyance.

"I actually liked her a lot. But she was just a boring old man's woman."

"What, that plain woman? The women in the next room are much better. You see, there's a girl who looks like the actress in 'Parisienne' that we all went to see the other day---"

"She's obviously a whore! I saw her walking around upstairs in a fancy dress.”

"Hey, stop talking like that!"

The memory of my mother being mocked like that came back to me and I became angry.

"What's the matter, Jet? You've become really sensitive. Everyone on this floor is a test subject like us, which means you've got a scar on your shin. And her face is way too perfect. I bet it's an artificial creation for espionage or something. But at least the doctor is flesh and blood."

"Well, she’s an ice queen,” Tony said.

I was getting tired of their conversation. I marked all my marks on the exam sheet with low marks, and today…

"I'm tired, so I'll go to sleep first," I said, retreating to the back of the room. I lay down on the bottom of the bunk bed on the right. The mattress was like a hotel mattress and was comfortable to sleep on. A Turkish man had previously slept on the top bunk.

As I leaned against the wall, unable to sleep, I heard a clattering noise, the room went dark, and I began to hear gunfire and explosions along with the sound of a sewing machine-like projector. They were probably the war records lent by the instructor. They all seemed to have been edited by the organization. That was about all the entertainment we could get.

Depending on the intensity of the projector's light, countless letters of text appear on the concrete wall, as if faintly scratched. They appear to have been written with a sharp object by the test subjects who had lived in Room 002 before us. After noticing this, I gradually read the letters as I fell asleep. The handwriting was all over the place, with some indecipherable characters that looked like Chinese or Arabic, and some messy writing that looked like it had been written by a young child who couldn't move their hands well.

/My whole body hurts so much I feel like it's going to fall apart. I can't stop feeling nauseous. /Today I'm suffering from severe dizziness and lightheadedness. /I've complained to the doctor about my digestive problems and he's adjusted them. At the moment I can't excrete without medication. /I've had diarrhea for about two weeks. /Are you okay? I wonder if it's gotten better. /I haven't been able to sleep for days because I can't get rid of this tingling feeling in every corner of my body. Tomorrow I'll be injected with a drug that calms excessive nerve activity. They say they'll replace the artificial nerves in my limbs soon. /I feel sick. My vision keeps getting distorted. The skin all over my body is starting to fester and the pain is so bad I had to have pain blockade done. /As I thought, my lymphatic system is blocked and the lymph nodes are distorted. I'm tired of going to the infirmary every three days. /I haven't had any feeling in my skin since my last surgery. I don't even notice when I hit something and make a hole in my skin. /My hands and feet are in violent convulsions, and I can't even think about it. Make a movement that doesn't seem right.

Some of the notes appear to be conversations, but they may just have been added by later residents.

I wonder just how long they've been researching this. I realize that the reason this body can move so smoothly is thanks to the many test subjects that have been there up until now. After the first major operation, there have been numerous repeat operations and adjustments. About a month ago, another department had reportedly achieved new results, and the skin on his entire body was replaced. The new skin material is strong and elastic, and it even has the ability to sweat and regenerate to a certain extent. Immediately after the operation, his senses became too sensitive, though, and they had to make the adjustments more restrained.

The sound and light of the projector disappear, and the letters become invisible. Where are the former test subjects now?

"There'll be lectures again tomorrow. How tedious," "I actually quite like it. Don't you think what Instructor R has to say makes sense?" Tony and Kevin said these things as they climbed into the bunk beds opposite each other.

As I finished breakfast, an attendant appeared. When I went out to the aisle, another attendant appeared a little ahead.

A man stood there, and four women in protective suits were emerging from Room 003. Tony gave a faint whistle.

"Am I being glared at?" Kevin asked in a low voice. The women's gazes were certainly harsher than usual, and it felt as though they were all focused on Kevin. For some reason, the eyes of one of them looked familiar. Where had they met?

"What are you doing? Let's go."

Urged by the attendant, the women started to walk, and we followed behind. We passed Room 004, then Room 005, and when they started to climb the stairs between Room 006 and Room 007, I realized from her profile that she was the assistant who had been beside Dr. G during the surgery. While the other assistants were handing over surgical instruments and operating the equipment, she simply turned her eyes above the mask towards us, and only occasionally whispered in Dr. G's ear, which caught my attention.

There were training rooms and lecture halls lined up on the upper floors, and today I was in the fourth lecture hall on the left from the staircase. There were only chairs lined up in the windowless space, and about twenty subjects were sitting there. Native Americans, blacks, Asians, Arabs, Hispanics - there were probably people of various races there to intervene in the conflicts between countries. Private conversations were strictly forbidden, and even with so many people there, it was incredibly quiet.

We passed the attendants who were standing guard at the wall and took a seat near the front.

I took a deep breath. Maybe it was because of the air conditioning, but I felt a little drowsy as soon as I entered this room.

Footsteps were heard from behind, and Instructor R, wearing military uniform and wearing black-rimmed glasses, appeared in front of the front wall where the whiteboard was hung.

"So today, let's start by talking about the difference between conflict, civil war, and war."

Instructor R began his lecture in a calm tone, and I began to lose my attention.

From the first lecture I attended, I was wary that this might be the kind of ideological reform that a dictatorship would carry out, so I tried to avoid listening to what he had to say as much as possible.

Tony commented, "That sounds very interesting to me," and Kevin said something I'm tired of hearing: "You weren't so quick to jump to conclusions before." That may be true. But the instructor's seemingly cheerful eyes didn't reveal any emotion like our artificial eyes.

But even if I made it through the lecture like that, at night, as I was falling asleep in bed, I would suddenly find my lips moving and silently repeating the words of the instructor that I had pushed aside from my consciousness.

I wondered if this was due to my auxiliary brain. Just as I was wondering if this would continue forever, I heard the sound of a baby crying from somewhere, and the noise brought me back to reality.

A nurse occasionally comes and goes from room 001 next door, so perhaps it's a childcare room.

When I once suggested that to Tony and Kevin, they laughed and asked me why there was a nursery here. They said they had never heard any crying in the first place.

The instructor is now talking while writing letters and lines on the whiteboard.

"Humans have an eternal war instinct. Do you believe that? If it weren't for that, you wouldn't have come here."

No, my lips are moving. The words I heard from my instructor before are coming back to me.

Certainly, that may be true. The conflict between the Sharks and Jets was like a territorial dispute between countries. Until that decisive day, boredom, anxiety, and anger were always swirling among us, and we couldn't calm down. We were always waiting for something to happen. Unable to wait, we wandered around the other person's territory as if it were our own. If war is an instinct, then peace is something different and explosive--At that moment, I heard the baby's cry again, and stood up. With everyone's eyes on me, cold sweat rolled down my forehead. This was far from Room 001. I wondered if something was wrong with me after all. "What's wrong?"

“No, sorry.” I said as I sat down.

"You seem a bit restless these days, but I hope you'll listen to me without worrying," the instructor said with a smile, without scolding him.

After the lecture, we waited for the crowd to leave before getting up from our seats. The two of them were grinning and teasing me, saying, "What are you doing? Just listen." As we went down the stairs, a Latin man with long black hair was facing an attendant in front of Room 007. I wonder if he had been in the lecture room before. It was a face I'd never seen before. The toe of his right leather shoe was a little chipped.

"Are you going to leave me with an unfulfilled heart?" the man said to the attendant, gesturing dramatically.

"Really, he's always such a pain. Enough with that little drama, just hurry up. Go into your room.”

The man raised his arms to his shoulders as if to say that the man was worthless and walked through the door.

I was beginning to get a rough idea of ​​which face was in which room, but I wasn't sure how many people were in Room 007. Perhaps because of a high turnover rate, I kept seeing new faces of different races— but for some reason, most of them seemed to speak British English.

We returned to Room 002 and a cart soon arrived, carrying a row of round tins along with dinner plates: new film footage.

As we were eating, Tony and Kevin started talking about their past heroic deeds. I wonder how many times we've told these stories.

"Jet was amazing back then. You led the others and stormed into Joey's store right away."

"Yeah, that was funny. They broke the display window and knocked over the shelves full of merchandise one after another. Lollipops were scattered everywhere, and the customers who stepped on them started dancing…"

Through the green beer bottle, I can see all the trouble I caused in the past and my spine stiffens.

"Johnny loved cameras and he used to take a lot of pictures. When Jet saw the developed photos, he suddenly stood up and said, 'Joey had another store, didn't he? Let's go and raid it now.'"

I took a deep breath and said, "I guess I was just really drunk," and let the story go. Thinking back on the blurry image of myself pushing over a shelf or kicking someone, I felt like I was possessed by something, and it was so hideous that it made my chest ache.

"We have a new film, let's watch it together today," they invited me, but I made the excuse that my artificial organs were not working well and went to bed. It was no lie, I had a terrible heartburn.

As I gazed upon the letters engraved on the wall, sleepiness began to overcome me - and before I knew it, my lips were once again tracing the words that Instructor R had said today.

The leader of this organization has been pondering how humanity, unable to escape from this war instinct, can avoid destruction. To achieve this, he needs the enormous framework of the Cold War.

This is made up of countless proxy wars and civil wars, and it is this organization that maintains the balance between them.

Those words even bring back Tony's excited voice.

--- This is good. From now on, we will be able to take control of the war instinct that has been twisting us around so much.

Perhaps there really was no other way to maintain peace. Just as I was about to become convinced of this, the sound of a baby crying came again, bringing me back to my senses.

---No. Don't be swallowed up.

Yes, it's strange. Peace that is premised on the masses of people who just want to live their daily lives being killed, injured, and suffering…

No, it's not peace or balance….it's nothing….civil war is a…testing ground…demonstration ground for new weapons….and a liquidation ground for old weapons.

I was almost sucked into the organization's philosophy. I had to be careful. Even as I kept this in mind, I felt uneasy. Were all the words that were running through my head just now my own?

After about ten days of nothing but lectures, the next flight test was scheduled. In the maintenance shed, Dr. G and his team removed the artificial leg and carefully installed the jet unit, which had different piping from the previous one.

This time, all three were the same model.

Kevin was the first to stand on the launch pad. The rocket unit started to fire, and his whole body started to rise. There was less smoke than last time, and the noise was somewhat reduced. Kevin rose to a height of 100 meters. Following the instructions of Dr. O, he moved forward horizontally while maintaining his posture, and then started to move in a circle.

"Good. Excellent," said Dr. X, holding the radio microphone, with a satisfied look on his face. "However, this is still only as high as the Saturn rocket itself. It's stable, so please rise another 100 meters."

Kevin increased the power and continued to climb. From the ground he became the size of a bean and reached 200 meters.

When I expanded my vision, he saw us and gave me a playful look. Kevin returned as if he was riding an invisible elevator down, and then it was me.

This time I was able to ignite the rocket unit inside the chamber.

I feel strong pressure and heat under my feet as I ascend. Today, I can see the explosions on the training ground on the other side of the wall. Is it the expressionless man from Room 004 again? Ten meters, twenty meters -- I'm starting to get used to the metric system of distances -- forty-sixty. Everything outside gets smaller -- I finally reach a hundred meters. It's not as scary as I thought it would be.

The doctor asked me to try moving horizontally. I felt my body rising and falling as I changed direction. The sense is interesting.

This time, I was told to climb until I was told to stop, and I increased the output. The vibration of the legs increased, and the altimeter changed faster at the edge of my shaking vision. My whole body was exposed to the strong wind. "That's fine, just maintain the altitude," I heard a voice say, and I was surprised to see the display. I had reached 300 meters, surpassing Kevin.

Beyond the training ground was a forest dotted with numerous facilities and ponds, all surrounded by an ultramarine sea. I was disappointed to see that it was an isolated island, just as we had been told. I felt once again that this nested prison was cramped, and when I averted his gaze to the distant sea, I saw a long, thin white shadow. It looked like a container ship. It would be impossible to cross the sea with the fuel of this thruster unit, but maybe I could make it to the ship - just as I was dreaming of this, I was told to come back. I reduced the thruster output and slowly descended - even if I managed to escape, how would I survive day to day with legs that could not even walk? And besides, how was I going to maintain this body covered in artificial organs without the facilities and doctors here? It would soon become dysfunctional. Just as I was laughing at my delusions, my flight suit started flapping violently.

I noticed that the wind was getting stronger.

"What's wrong, you've strayed quite a bit."

"The wind speed is increasing rapidly.”

Looking down, I could see that it was indeed further away from the launch pad than I had expected.

"Link, can you control it?"

I try to resist by adjusting my body and the direction of the nozzle, but in a vertical position My entire body is exposed to the wind and inevitably swept away.

"There's no other way. Just land on the sand."

There was no other choice. I carefully made my way down, but just as I thought I was approaching the beach, a cloud of dust rose up in a great wave, and I was as if I was being engulfed in a tornado. My body tilted forward and my shoulders dug into the sand as I landed. When I stopped moving, I spat out the sand that had gotten into my mouth. A strong wind soon blew away the smoke and dust, and I could see the launch pad about 300 meters away, and a transport cart on caterpillar tracks heading towards me. I noticed that the sand was wet, and looked behind me, where large waves were crashing on the shore. The wind was blowing sharply.

is increasing in strength.

"Today's flight test will be stopped here," Dr. O's voice rang out.

Tony had been in a bad mood since they'd gotten back to their room, which was understandable, since all it had taken was a long time to replace the leg, and then another long time to put it back together without doing anything.

As for me, I was trying to push out the grains of sand that had gotten into the gaps between my eyeballs and were making a rattling noise, so I made water come out from inside and wiped them with a towel, but I looked a bit funny.

Tony's usual grin seemed to return slightly.

For days afterwards, the wind was so strong that the sound and vibrations could be heard through the walls, and instead of flight tests, a lecture on the world situation was held. Normally I would have diverted my attention, but the organization had an accurate grasp of the world situation even behind the scenes in order to cause proxy wars and civil wars and continue them for the long term, and while I was wary, there was a lot to learn. The twisted feuds between various countries that have continued for a long time are mind-boggling.

As I walked down the stairs after finishing my lecture, I noticed an attendant in front of Room 007, standing there in a daze facing a man who appeared to be of Polynesian descent. Was he another newcomer? No, I felt like I'd seen him somewhere before… Just as I was trying to remember, the attendant suddenly came back to his senses, his face twisted in anger, and he shouted, "Stop with those nasty pranks. Are you trying to be a ghost? Get over it."

"What are you talking about now? You've been calling us subjects ghosts behind our backs for a while now, haven't you? Hey, you guys know that, right?" he said in British English, suddenly turning towards me. Indeed, I had occasionally heard the word ghost.

"That's why I'm showing myself as I wish. I think it suits the name of this organization and the name of this island. Or do you feel guilty about something?"

If we were ghosts, this would be limbo.

"Stop it right now! Stop it!"

"Would you be satisfied if I confessed that my brother poisoned me? Yes, my brother was having an illicit relationship with your mother. Will you take revenge? Revenge…" The man's tone suddenly became dramatic.

"I told you to stop!"

"Hey, what are you doing? Hurry up and walk away," the attendant said, nudging me on the shoulder. "You were distracted too," I replied, and was nudging again, so I had no choice but to start walking.

“What is that?” says Kevin.

"I feel like I've seen that guy before," I muttered,

"You know, a long time ago, during our flight test, a man was driving right in front of us and drowned in the ocean.

The man who was discovered---"

"Ah, that was him.” I nodded. "Thank goodness. I guess he was resuscitated."

"But that's strange. Wasn't that man in Room 008?"

Tony's voice reminded me that the toes of the man's shoes were also peeling off.

In the next flight test, a thruster unit with a slightly slimmer outline was attached. "Another new model that can't even walk," Kevin complained, glancing to the left. Just when I thought he was looking at Dr. G standing there, a woman's voice came from behind the equipment next to him. "Your children are growing up nicely."

Because of the previous experience, Tony took on the first flight test. When the engine started to burn, the smoke was so low and the noise was so low that it seemed like a malfunction. However, he was surprised to see that the engine began to rise at a much faster speed than before. It quickly reached a height of 100 meters, but the doctor kept asking for another 100 meters, and another 100 meters.

"Dr. O, aren't you being too impatient?" "They're urging us from above to put it into action as soon as possible," I heard a researcher operating the equipment near me say in a hushed voice.

When Tony reached a height of 500 meters, Dr. X ordered him to climb further. However, for some reason, Tony suddenly began to descend.

As he walked beside the transport cart returning with Tony on it, Dr. X asked in rapid succession, "What's wrong, Tony Kaczynski? The flight seemed stable, but was there something wrong that we didn't know about?"

"Sorry. My body suddenly started shaking and I couldn't stop. I'll do it better next time."

I'm sure it would be difficult to endure such a high altitude. I was next, so I stood on the launch pad feeling nervous. As soon as the rocket started to eject, I was pushed up with a tremendous force. I flew, cutting through the air with my body, and in no time I was 500 meters high. Without any structural support, I was floating higher than the Empire State Building.

I could see almost the entire island surrounded by the sea. On the other side of the mountain was a long runway, a plaza lined with fighter planes, and a hangar. I felt anxious when I was brought here on a windowless propeller plane.

It comes back to life. There are shipyard-like facilities, as well as submarines and battleships moored there. The buildings scattered across the island are hard to see from directly above, blending in with the natural scenery. This is probably intentional.

I was told to continue climbing from there. On the way, I saw several pigeon-sized birds with black spots on a silver background fly away from the edge of my vision. They were disturbing the birds' habitat.

From there, I rise 500 meters, to 1,000 meters in altitude. In feet, that's about 3,280, which is about the same height as the Catskill Mountains that my mother took me to when I was a child. Because my body and senses are in homeostatic mode, I don't feel cold. The scenery of the island is densely packed, and the buildings scattered on the mountain look like nothing more than breadcrumbs. I guess I'm more tolerant of heights than I thought. Or rather, the higher I go, the less afraid I feel.

With a satisfied voice, Dr. O told me to return and slowly descended. Next, Kevin also successfully flew to 1,000 meters.

On the way back, I got in the elevator with the man from Room 004. The other man was gone, and his metallic arm had taken on a much more human outline.

Three days later, in the flight test, we aimed for even higher heights. Things were the same for me until halfway, but when I reached a height equivalent to the Grand Canyon, Dr. X warned me, "Careful, it's a stratocumulus cloud. It's 700 meters thick." As soon as I looked up, I saw a thick layer of white.

I entered the tectonic cloud. Visibility was zero and I lost our sense of spatial orientation. In the midst of a panic, I continued to adjust the direction of the nozzle, relying only on the attitude indicator of the virtual instrument. When I finally escaped from the cloud and bathed in sunlight under the vast blue canopy, the dazzling brightness gave me a refreshing feeling that I hadn't felt in a long time.

Directly below me, clouds with undulating patterns spread out, and it seemed unreal. I was already well over 2,000 meters above sea level. Since we were high enough, we decided to start training in horizontal flight. The doctor told me to be careful because it was easy to rotate horizontally because there were no wings, so I carefully leaned my body forward, but I backed away and moved both my legs as if I was struggling, and my whole body started to rotate. I moved my limbs to return to the original position, but I rotated even more incoherently, and I couldn't even understand what the situation was. I couldn't even capture it with the attitude gage, and I didn't have time to listen to the communication. It seemed to be falling diagonally while rotating violently. Driven by impatience, I stopped the thruster unit for a moment, and reignited it when my body became vertical. I finally regained stability and descended, dragging my fear with me.

The doctor rushed over to the launch pad and slapped me on the back enthusiastically.

Kevin flew to the same height, then circled the island three times in steady level flight, while Tony finally got up to a thousand meters, then gave up again and came down, muttering repeatedly that he wasn't scared of heights, he wasn't scared of heights.

In our next test flight, Kevin and I got 5,000 meters, and Tony got 1,500 meters.

It was a little chilly in normal mode, but the temperature was about 10 degrees below zero, and I felt the artificial skin on my face getting tight.

After finishing the tests for the day, as Doctor X was checking the thruster unit, I asked him a simple question.

"Even an uneducated man like me can see that there's no way it could fly that high or stay afloat for long with the amount of fuel that fits in its legs. It's only going to take up more space than it needs, since it's not drawing in any air from the outside. What on earth is this thing called the Blood of Odin that you all call it?"

"It seems you’re not completely ignorant," Dr. X said, pushing down his sunglasses. "That's just a temporary name - well, you could say it's a gift from God. It's based on a completely different principle than existing energy," he said, laughing suggestively. "Even this is just the cream of the crop. Dr. M will be the one to make it even more efficient."

That night, Tony and Kevin had a fight over a trivial disagreement about their past heroic deeds.

On our next test flight, Tony remained at 1,000 meters, but Kevin and I improved on our records by leaps and bounds. We flew through low, mid, and high clouds until we reached 8,000 meters, and then I climbed a precise 849 meters.

I couldn't help but laugh: I had reached the height of Everest without having climbed the mountain.

The temperature was nearly minus 40 degrees, but the heat from the thruster unit was circulating throughout my body, keeping my body functioning. Before I knew it, I realized that my breathing had switched to a closed system. At first, I felt short of breath and was worried, but I gradually got used to it. At this altitude, the air pressure was only about one-third that of the surface, making it difficult to breathe normally.

I once again attempted level flight. After trying various directions for my limbs, I was able to find a position that would increase my lift. Flying through the sky with a view of the sea of ​​clouds stretching as far as the eye could see, the vast ocean peeking through the gaps, and islands floating there like sea turtles was an indescribably exhilarating experience.

Kevin, who must have had the same experience, returned to the surface and as soon as Dr. G approached him, he turned furious and tried to punch him, but was stopped by the researchers. Dr. G didn't seem surprised, and said, "I know, I know. I was monitoring you. It was painful, wasn't it?" "Just as it was," the doctor repeated to calm Kevin down as he spoke for Kevin's thoughts. "And it's still painful now. That's right. There was a delay in your lung function switching over to a closed system. We need to check your respiratory system immediately." Kevin's eyes rolled back. "Take him to the maintenance shed. Hurry!" Amazing.

Kevin was hospitalized for a few days and returned safely. He was in a good mood, so I wondered what happened, but he said that when he was coming back here, he saw Dr. G and Dr. M arguing in the hallway. Dr. M's name is Julia, I heard, he said with a grin.

For a while afterwards, the lectures were painful. Now, less than half of the students are taking the course.

The people remaining had decreased to just 100. Perhaps they had died in an accident, or been sent to the battlefield. The thought that it would not be surprising if I, too, disappeared like that at any time made me uneasy.

Room 002 was quiet. Kevin had heard the attendants whispering that one person from each project would be used as a prototype for a cyborg soldier. Tony didn't take it seriously, thinking he'd probably misheard something, but he remained quiet.

As I was falling asleep, the words of the instructor came back to me, but I brushed them off by asking myself questions like I was having an auditory hallucination. But one night, I was seized by the sensation that I was talking to someone else.

At that moment, the voice in question said, "Yes, it's me speaking. I'm Ivan. I'm the only test subject in Room 001." And it frightened me to death.

"You mean they're using in-ear communication? But it shouldn't work between subjects yet."

With that thought in my mind, Ivan replied.

"This is the voice that my thoughts cause to affect your brain, resulting in your consciousness as your inner voice." According to Ivan, shortly after he was born, his father, a Soviet neuroscientist, underwent surgery to enhance his brain function, which not only gave him an extraordinary level of intelligence, but also enabled him to communicate thoughts through telepathy. Ivan did not like this organization, and while keeping his ability to communicate thoughts a secret, he apparently continued to send thoughts into the minds of the subjects in an attempt to nullify the ideological correction carried out in Instructor R's lectures using language, environment, and an auxiliary brain.

When I asked Tony and Kevin if they had avoided the ideological correction, Tony said that he was too sympathetic to the content of the lecture.

Kevin only had partial responses and it didn't work. It seems that with other projects, only a few subjects were able to communicate like me.

"Hehe…hahahaha," I couldn't contain my laughter.

"What's the matter, Jet? Have you gone crazy?" and "Stop laughing like that. It’s not like you,” the two of them said, looking put out of their minds.

As they said, maybe I was going crazy and creating a personality in my head that didn't exist.

The next flight test would involve overhauling multiple organs and replacing the thruster unit at the same time, so I headed to the maintenance yard two hours early. There were more doctors and researchers there than usual.

The reason they put the anesthesia mask on our faces without shutting down our nervous system was to protect our secrets from ourselves.

When I woke up, I had a large scar from my epigastric cavity to my lower abdomen, and some parts were starting to close up. Beyond that, I could see my prosthetic legs, and was disappointed to see that they hadn't been replaced yet.

"Eh? So we're just going to install the rocket unit now?" "We can't do this," Kevin and Tony groaned.

The doctors looked at each other and told us to get into our flight suits and head to the launch pad.

As I walked along the paved road, I asked Dr. G, who was standing next to me, "How is it? Is it easy to walk?"

"Yes, I can move very naturally. I feel more connected than usual," I replied. Perhaps it was thanks to the overhaul. The doctors nodded in satisfaction. I thought today would be mainly spent testing the walking of the prosthetic leg, but Dr. O urged me, "Let's start with Jet." "What are you doing? Get up to the launch pad quickly."

Feeling confused, I climbed up the steps to the launch pad.

Not knowing what to do, I just stood there like a singer whose mind had gone blank on her first stage performance, when I was told that those legs were the new propulsion unit, and I cried out, "No matter what, there's no way I can fly with those ordinary legs… the fuel!”

Tony and Kevin also looked at the doctor with quizzical looks.

"I told you I would make it so that it would fit on a normal leg. Thanks to the research of Dr. M and the accumulated data from your flight tests, this has finally come true. Now, take off your shoes and use the internal controls to expose the nozzle."

Half-believing, I did as he said and raised one foot. It looked like a normal sole, with a hollow arch. While I was looking at the control panel inside my mind, trying to grasp the sensations of an organ, my heel suddenly started to hollow out, and at the same time the nozzle came out, causing me to gasp. It was much smaller than the nozzle of the previous thrust unit, but it could be moved more delicately.

One of the researchers came over carrying a pair of high-top boots. They were designed to aid in flight, and the iris shutters on the soles of the boots would open when the nozzle was exposed. After putting on the boots, Dr.

“Now, we will begin the flight test of the new thruster unit.”

I tapped my feet on the floor of the launch pad several times, exhaled slowly, and operated it from within my mind. As I held my position, feeling uneasy, I felt a burning sensation in my calves, like the feeling in your throat when you drink straight bourbon, and jets began to shoot out from the soles of my feet - and just as I thought that, my body began to rise up as if blown away, and a laugh escaped from the back of my throat. I stumbled wildly like a tightrope walker, but gradually I began to get the hang of how to balance. I rose at an unprecedented speed. I had doubts about whether I would really be able to fly the same distance on these legs as before, but as if I had turned into a ballistic missile, I was zipping through one cloud of mist after another, and before I knew it, I was high in the air.

We were a thousand meters up. And yet, "The fuel gauge on the virtual instrument isn't dropping as much as it used to…"

"That's probably true. Now that we only need reactants, our range has increased significantly."

Perhaps due to the shape of the legs, it was easier to transition to level flight and keep the body stable. Realizing a dramatic improvement in my abilities, I returned when I reached an altitude of 2,000 meters.

After the flight test, we were thankful to be released without any need for a landing gear replacement, just a few checks in the maintenance shed. Even after returning to the room, I still couldn't believe that we had flown in the sky on just these legs, which were still hot. We were more cheerful than we had been in a long time.

"With this, we might actually be able to dunk on a satellite in space."

Kevin said this and began performing a light-hearted tap dance, while Tony and I watched him intently, sipping our beers.

Now that we were able to move while remaining as rocket units, combat training also began, including flying. We put on olive drab protective suits and engaged in repeated mock battles against multiple small fighter planes at a training ground resembling a ghost town inland from the island. I don't know if the small fighter planes were self-propelled or remote-controlled. They were about the size of a child, and with their six thin legs they could easily move through any type of rubble, spasmodically aiming the muzzle of their assault rifles at their targets and firing accurately. Even though they were dummy bullets, if they hit their target they would make a hole in the artificial skin, and since pain blocking is prohibited during training, it meant that we had to endure a fair amount of pain.

We moved quickly while hiding in buildings, and attacked the small fighter planes when we found an opening. Whether we were escaping or sniping, the key was to use the rockets effectively. Tony was the one who achieved the most success in the mock battle. As if to relieve his frustration from the flight test, he quickly disabled the enemy plane, and was disappointed that he wasn't up against a human. While we were in the maintenance shed undergoing treatment to quickly close the holes in our artificial skin, he was practicing his shooting and honing his skills.

They also began to hold mock battles with subjects in other rooms.

I guess the fact that we can now reveal some details about our individual projects means that our ideological correction is complete.

Because the man in Room 008 was so stubborn, he kept low and moved swiftly, dodging our attacks with ease, so the fights often ended without a conclusion. The two giants in Room 005 approached slowly, holding huge anti-tank rifles that normal humans would have difficulty lifting on their sturdy bodies. Once Kevin was hit squarely in the belly, losing so much of his artificial skin that it could not be restored by regeneration, and he needed a skin graft. His large size made him an easy target, but his skin seemed to have a different composition from ours, so it did not cause any damage. Once when I fled into a narrow, complicated alley, he let go of his anti-tank rifle and approached me, which frightened me. He collapsed the wall of the building I was hiding in with his body, picked up a chunk of the wall the size of a car with both arms, and threw it at me. If I hadn't quickly escaped into the air, I would have been in danger. The output of his artificial muscles is on a different level than ours.

The man in Room 004 was the most skilled in fighting. His shooting was flawless, and every time a mock battle started, we were hit right away. Even Tony didn't last long. Once, I was lucky enough to fire multiple shots at his arm, knocking the assault rifle flying with the impact. When I approached him with the gun pointed at me, he raised his metallic right hand as if asking for a handshake, and suddenly fired bullets from all five fingertips. I was caught off guard, hit by a dummy bullet all over my chest, and writhed in pain. We began to call him the Grim Reaper.

"Your attack the other day was splendid. It left a nice scratch on the armor," Ivan passed this message from “Heinrich” as I lay in bed resting with my eyes closed.

As combat training increased in the schedule, lecture time decreased, and I was no longer bothered by Instructor R's voice when I was falling asleep, but the fictitious personality Ivan, which I had apparently created while resisting ideological reform, told me various things about the organization and the other subjects. There were multiple factions in the organization, such as those who believe in a higher being and those who are profit-oriented and merchants of death themselves, and it was not a monolithic organization. I could only smile wryly at my other personality, who had made up every detail, including the circumstances of how the subjects were brought here and their names. Perhaps an auxiliary brain was also involved, nurturing various memories, unconscious desires, and assumptions as seeds - the reason for the sudden increase in subjects in Room 007 was that one subject, who was actually a stage actor, was changing the cell arrangement of his artificial skin to become various characters, and as a result of his research, our skin was also able to regenerate. Apparently the women in Room 003 were information-gathering test subjects with farsightedness, clairvoyance and radar capabilities, and it was likely this association was brought to mind by suspicions of wiretapping in the room and the gaze of the assistant during the surgery. It was clear that the name of one of them, Françoise, came from my memory. After all, it was the same name as an actress in a French film I had previously seen with Tony and the others. To top it off, the person who was connecting everyone through Ivan and trying to put a certain plan into action was Dr. G, the one who had transformed us into the way we were, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of self-confidence.

I was astonished at this unconscious opportunism. The title of the book the Grim Reaper was carrying came to mind. It was exactly what I wanted.

After the day's combat training, we were exhausted and eating dinner in our room. Just as Kevin said, "I'm going to have to drink a Pabst Blue Ribbon already," the fire alarm started ringing loudly.

"Fire has broken out. 00 Project subjects are to evacuate through the emergency exit," an announcement was made, and the sound of the door unlocking was heard.

Stepping out into the corridor, the place was filled with smoke and extremely hot. The smoke exhaust system must have been working as the smoke started to flow in one direction and dissipate, and behind the three women in Room 003 and the two large men in Room 005, I saw a red pillar of fire erupting, scorching the ceiling. Within the flames were figures. One was lying on his back, the pillar of fire emerging from his abdomen. The other was kneeling beside him, engulfed in flames with his hand outstretched. Was it the Asian man I had seen before? Perhaps he had been caught in the crossfire while trying to help. Each time the pillar of fire shook, I could see figures on the other side of the corridor, distorted by the heat. They were probably from Room 007 and Room 008.

The Native American in Room 005 tries to approach, but is thrown back by the flames. The Arab in the same room pulls him by the arm, saying, "Let's go."

"Evacuate immediately through the emergency exits." The announcement was made again, and the subjects looked back at the flames.

I walk quickly. The emergency exit is on the other side of Room 001.

The Arab suddenly turned his attention to Room 004 and knocked on the door, shouting, "Hey, you too, run." Now that I think about it, I haven't seen the gray-haired man. The black-haired woman in Room 003 put her hand on the Arab's back and said, "He's out training right now. Come on, let's go."

There was no way either of them would survive the flames. Just as I was thinking this, a voice rang in my head.

"I'm sorry, but Lorenzo is no longer breathing. The high-pressure furnace went out of control. However, the other, Chang, is fine. His body is extremely fire-resistant."

A woman who seemed to be a nurse walked next to me holding a baby with a pacifier in its mouth and said, "It's okay, Ivan. Those people will put out the fire." It sent a shiver down my spine.

Looking back, I saw attendants rushing to the other side of the pillar of flame with fire extinguishers in hand and starting to spray the fire extinguisher. I turned my face back and stared at the baby.

"Surely the voice in my head is really…

"I told you, I'm in the next room.” Perhaps it's just my imagination, but the voice now sounds like a child's. My eyes meet with the woman from Room 003 who was nearby. Those eyes that seem to see through everything---

"What do you mean evacuate? The emergency door is still locked." Kevin, who was the first to reach the emergency exit, grabbed the metal lever and applied force. The lever twisted and turned, but the door did not open an inch. "Damn it."

"I'll do it," a huge Arab man said from behind him, and he swung his arms down, making a bronze-like bang as the iron door was dented.

"Fire extinguished. Evacuation order lifted. Return to your rooms!" one of the attendants ordered in a loud voice. The other attendant was communicating over the walkie-talkie, "Yes. These are Project 006's ghosts, Beta and Gamma. We're taking them to the medical room."

"What a fuss," Tony said, noticing the baby. "You're kidding, there's really a baby? Maybe it's Dr. M and Dr. G's child."

The nurse glared at Tony, but when Ivan started crying she started to walk away, comforting him. The others were starting to go back to their rooms.

There was still food left on the plate on the table, but it looked burnt and I didn't feel like eating it. I lay in bed, smelling the burnt food in my nostrils, and thought about what Ivan had said.

"You won't have to bother with me for a while," Ivan suddenly said. "Due to the side effects of the brain surgery, I can only wake up every fifteen days. Don't worry, our plan will continue in the meantime. First, we need to apply for use under the pretext of flight tests to secure the test aircraft. We're sure we'll be contacted by our allies in some way."

It was strange to think that I was floating at the height that passenger planes fly.

It's easy to fly. I'm circling at an altitude of 10,000 meters, pressurized, with my breathing system switched to a closed system. Directly below me is a sea of ​​clouds with a dense cauliflower-like texture, and here and there, enormous cumulonimbus clouds protrude like strange structures. It's like looking at the palace of the gods.

In the next flight test, there are plans to attempt to soar into the stratosphere.

After receiving the order to return, the rocket stops thrusting and begins its free fall. A hazy ocean comes into view through the clouds. Looking down from this height, there is no land to be seen. A glimpse of curling hair flickers at the edge of his vision. As the isolated island, which was nothing more than a dot, begins to grow in size, the rocket returns to a vertical position and begins thrusting again. Although it sways from side to side, it regains stability and adjusts its direction, slowly landing as if it is being sucked into the rectangular launch pad that is rapidly approaching.

I was even more moved when I saw Kevin take off in his place. Like a magic beanstalk, the smoke rose vertically and increased in speed, before disappearing from sight. Even if I thought I had caught it for a moment by expanding my vision, a slight deviation would cause it to slip out of my field of vision.

Hearing a commotion behind him, he turned to look at the control room. Dr. O and Dr. G were losing their composure, and just as I wondered what was wrong, they began to raise their voices.

"Hey, Mr. Warner! Don't answer me! Kevin Warner!"

“He continues to deviate to the north-northwest."

" This is a remote island in the middle of the ocean.You should know that too. If you stay like this, you won't be able to come back. Eventually, you'll reach the sea--"

People were exchanging opinions such as, "The nearest island is probably Island X -- there's not enough reactant left to get there…"

"Hey, could it be Kevin…" Tony said in a high-pitched voice, and I looked back at his clouded face in shock. Kevin was always feeling nostalgic for his hometown. Was it an impulsive act? Or had he waited until his thruster unit was indistinguishable from his legs before taking action? Perhaps he was heading for a ship like the one he'd seen before. Just as I was thinking of keeping quiet about that,

"Investigate the ships sailing along the coast,"

"A Liberian-flagged container ship is sailing 30 kilometers ahead."

"There's no other way. Forcefully transfer control of your body to the auxiliary brain, activate Z-consciousness, and automatically return to your original position in the shortest possible distance. There should still be enough reactive material."

“Did you hear?" Tony whispered. "Oh, I didn't know there was such a mechanism in the auxiliary brain," I replied. This would mean that Ivan and the others' plan would not work.

All we could do was wait with bated breath. It felt like a long time had passed.

"That's strange. It's going off course. It's not slowing down. It's not processing the orders properly.”

"The Z-sense may be causing a conflict. Please continue to correct the course."

I cast my eyes into the distance, searching for Kevin's shadow.

"We've seen it," a voice says, and a little later we see Kevin's small shadow flying horizontally. He's heading toward the mountain. Dr. G and some of the researchers run toward the underground passage.

"Do something, we can't lose this valuable test machine."

"No. I can't correct the direction."

Kevin shot smoke and charged towards the mountain with the force of a cannonball, and then an explosion erupted from the side of a building on the ridge, and a crash rang out.

Kevin died that same day. His brain shell was intact, but his brain was severely damaged. His body would become a valuable specimen for the project.

"Unlike you, he seemed to fit in well with this organization. I imagined that one day we would travel around the battlefields of various countries and enjoy reunions from time to time," Tony said, drinking his Heineken. "Don't wake him up."

So without replying, I put the empty bottle down and took another one out of the fridge.

Even though I realized that Ivan wasn't my other self, once I stopped hearing that voice, it felt like half of my brain had gone to sleep and I couldn't think clearly.

Kevin's death did not change the scheduled date for the next test flight.

Taking off from the launch pad, I flew at an unprecedented speed, trying to shake off the vortex of grief that was threatening to engulf me. At an altitude of about 4,000 meters, a cone of steam like a dance skirt spread around my body.

As I passed through layers of clouds, I suddenly realized that I was over 10,000 meters above sea level. 10,500 meters - 11,000 meters - I wonder if it's okay to call it the stratosphere from this point onwards. The temperature was minus 50 degrees. I felt my skin twitching from the sudden change in temperature. Even though my senses were much duller in normal mode, the harshness of the extreme cold was transmitted to me as pain.

You can see the unobstructed expanse of the deep blue universe and the mysterious curved surface of the earth, bathed in light. There are no people, trees, cities, or any living things, and the smooth sea of ​​clouds and surface of the earth are like primordial foam.

As we continue to climb, I'm a little surprised at the temperature displayed on the virtual gauge. I thought the temperature would get lower as we gained altitude, but it seems to be returning to normal.

Suddenly, the doctors' voices of joy burst into my ears along with a static sound. It was hard to hear, but it seemed they were saying that we had passed the stratopause. We had finally passed an altitude of 50,000 meters and entered the mesosphere. The only sound coming from the earphones was intermittent static. The light detection display showed that before I knew it, the amount of harmful solar radiation had increased. My whole body was exposed to piercing light. It was an environment where no flesh could survive, and a space suit would have been necessary.

How much time had passed?

As I was enveloped in a meditative solitude, as if I was witnessing the moment of creation, I heard the deeply moved voice of Dr. X. It seemed that communication was being restored.

"You bring back memories of the rocket projects we were involved in. And you are a human being with a will. You yourself, a human being, have achieved this. It won't be long before you reach the Kármán line."

Frustrated at having my alone time interrupted, I mutter sarcastically, unable to keep my mouth shut, "Cyborgs can't really be called human."

"Such thinking will soon become outdated. In the future, artificial limbs, organs, and muscles will become as indispensable as glasses," Sato tried to advise him. "You probably don't understand that yet. You may be the ones to take over the human race.

I shut off the launch unit and begin free-falling in a prone position. I feel as if I am simply floating in the air, caught in a strong wind, without any speed. However, my altitude continues to drop at an incredible rate. Every now and then, a mass of air crashes into me, almost chipping away at my body. Soon the world begins to revert.

It regains countless details and loses its mysterious quality.

As we approached 10,000 meters, my ears suddenly started to ring. Several voices were heard.

There is some noise, but I can't hear it clearly.

I screamed as I fell at two hundred kilometers per hour.

"What on earth is going on?!"

"At normal power output, there is a possibility of an explosion. If we reduce power and slow down, we will be able to withstand it, but for safety, we will use the parachute built into your back. We have an airbag vehicle ready just in case. Once we reach an altitude of 1,000 meters--

"Please calm down and listen. We've found an abnormality in the piping system of your left leg," Dr. O began.

"Understood"

I continue falling as if embracing the wind. Even at an altitude of 10,000 meters, if I keep falling I'll reach the ground in just three minutes. It's an unbelievable short time.

The string first pulls the paper on the abdomen of the flight suit, peeling off part of the suit from the back. You can see that the back is exposed. Then, when I try to deploy the parachute inside my body, a loud explosion is heard and a shock runs through my whole body, and my vision turns red. I’m engulfed in swirling flames - just as I realize this, I lose consciousness.

Thinking I heard a voice, I opened my eyes, smiled at the hazy world, and passed out again.

"Link, wake up, Jet Link!"

A voice called out to me. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. I smelled something burnt. I quickly looked around my body. The flames had disappeared, and my left leg, which was missing up to the knee, revealed its soot-covered internal structure. Smoke was pouring up towards my waist.

"Open the parachute! The parachute!"

Looking at the altimeter, I saw that we were below 800 meters.

"What do you mean it can last for that long?" I shouted, internally activating the parachute release mechanism and preparing for the recoil - but nothing happened. "The parachute won't release!" I tried to release it again and again. "It's no good!"

"The shock of the explosion may have caused a malfunction. The only way to kill the momentum is to use one foot to inject air. Aim for the airbag car on the beach."

"But the wind is picking up. What if we can't control it? Wouldn't it be safer to head out to sea?"

"In the sea, it's the same as crashing into the ground. Suddenly, the voice changes from Dr. O. It's Instructor R.

When you get off the bag car, go to the sand or forest as much as possible. Hold your legs and---"

With determination, I began to thrust with just my remaining right foot. My body shook a little but stabilized. It felt good. It felt like I was riding a wave and going down. Carefully maintaining my balance, I slowed down. It was as if I was grappling with the gigantic Earth - the moment I felt that, I was thrown over my shoulders and launched into a spiral spin. It was an incredible spin. I could hear some kind of voice in the back of my ears, but it was all scattered into meaningless sounds. My feet shook as well.

No matter how hard I moved, I couldn't turn it around and I lost consciousness again.

--- I open my eyes. Countless transparent balls scatter upwards. I'm underwater. In the distance, the bright surface of the ocean is swaying. They move away from me in an instant.

Breathing had switched back to a closed system.

Even after crashing into the ocean, this structure allowed me to survive with just a missing left leg. No, that doesn't seem to be the case exactly. I can’t move at all.

A depth gauge appears at the edge of my vision. Thirty meters deep -- I sink helplessly -- I increase the brightness of my vision -- fifty meters, sixty meters -- a colorful fish I've never seen before passes before my eyes. I don't know if it's real or an illusion -- seventy meters, eighty meters -- it's already too deep for even divers to dive.

The fading oxygen supply won't last long. I feel dizzy, and the blood drains from my head… Just as I feel a strange emotion at how even a body so artificial can drain my blood, I lose consciousness.

Where am I? Is this death? No, I can still see the sign.

Depth: 620 metres.

Something flickered at the edge of my vision. A shadow that looked like a living thing. It was wriggling and approaching me.

Could it be a dolphin or something? Can it really dive that deep? No, it looks like a human figure.

But it couldn't be a person. I was running out of oxygen and was having an illusion.

He approaches, swinging both legs in a graceful arc. I realize he is the agile man from Room 008, whom I have fought in mock battles a few times. Come to think of it, Ivan had told me he was a test subject specialized in underwater activities. I wonder how he knew I was here.

The man approached me, swinging his legs widely, picked up my body, which was as stiff as a plaster statue, and began swimming upwards.

When I woke up in the intensive care unit, my eyes were covered and I couldn't see anything. I tried to move my body, but I had no feeling below my neck. I groaned in fear, and then I heard Doctor G's voice say, “You’re awake?” He said that the impact of the crash into the ocean and water seeping in from damaged parts had caused malfunctions in various parts of my body, so he had deprived me of my senses and was in the process of overhauling my entire body. Realizing that I still barely knew how my own body worked, I asked him to remove the covers from my eyes. After a moment of hesitation, the doctor did so. I hesitated, but…

I gasped. All I had was my head and chest, connected to multiple life support systems.

The rest of my lower body was lying on the bed. The woman from Room 003 was standing next to the doctor, using her special vision to look inside my body and point out the damaged areas one by one.

I was strangely awake as I watched various prosthetic devices being fitted and cables being connected, and then I was put to sleep with anesthesia because they were going to start a procedure on my nervous system. When I woke up, apart from the visible seams of the skin, my body was back to normal. I was basking in relief when Dr. G said,

"You've heard from Ivan. We've been planning our escape from this island for months."

I couldn't help but look around the room.

"Don't worry. All communications in this room have been cut off to prevent them affecting the equipment."

"Even if we tried to escape, the auxiliary brain had something called Z consciousness, and it was forcibly controlling our bodies.”

"I took this surgery as an opportunity to remove the Z-consciousness from your auxiliary brain. I have done this on others whenever I have had the chance," the doctor stroked his white beard. "A new subject recently underwent surgery to become an integrated cyborg that combines the advantages of all 00 Projects. This will be the benchmark for future combat cyborgs."

"You're taking the best of both worlds," I muttered, remembering the words of the test subjects carved into the wall.

"That's why we can't just leave you here. And that includes you guys, of course. Also, this plan wouldn't work without the test subjects' abilities. Ivan will wake up in a few days and start speaking to all of you. Be prepared."

The days of flight testing I had spent with the doctors had become invaluable.

I still didn't fully trust Dr. G and the other subjects.

Even after I was restored to normal, I remained hospitalized in the intensive care unit to adjust the neural transmissions throughout my body. As I lay in bed staring at the impersonal ceiling, I imagined the many things this organization could potentially do to people all over the world.

I was surprised when Tony suddenly came into the room. He stood next to me, looked around my body with amusement at the number of cords connected to it, and said, "At that time, I thought you were completely dead."

"Yeah, me too---I'm glad I was able to come to this room."

A few days ago, the cyborgs were given permission to freely roam the second level of the facility, and the restrictions on ear communication were lifted.

"Now, each project has only one person, and they are all called by their 00 number."

"Just one? You're still here."

"I've come here because today is my last day on this island."

"Finally? To some country… will you be sent?"

"Yeah. As a special agent, it's not a bad idea to continue the proxy war in a flashy way. Well, on a battlefield somewhere."

Tony said and left.

The figure moved as if it could see every bullet's movement. It dodged attacks with incredible speed and instantly returned fire. Sometimes it was impossible to follow the figure, and the next time I saw it, it was in an unexpected place.

We lay side by side on the cliff in our olive drab protective suits and watched in amazement as a mock battle between the Project 009 test subject and miniature fighter planes.

All the small battle machines stopped moving. The doctors walked among the smoke rising from the small battle machines, clapping their hands.

"The test is over. You're perfect." "Congratulations 009." "You're amazing." "Absolutely brilliant."

The subject, called 009, seems wary of the doctors.

"---And over there are your companions. Let me introduce them---"

When one of the doctors raised his hand towards the 00 numbers,

"Would you keep your hands up?” 007 rang out in the same voice he once uttered on stage. With that as a signal, we all aimed our assault rifles at them. 004 pointed his guns at them, while 003, who was next to him, was holding 001 to his chest and relaying various information he had detected, such as the location of personnel and weapons in the surrounding area.

"Hey, stop joking," said one of the doctors I didn't know,

"Hehehe… I wouldn't do something like that as a joke," says 007 as he fires a bullet precisely at the man's feet.

"Link, we have accomplished miracles together that are beyond human understanding!" I hear the voice of Professor O.

"Are you out of your mind?" and "There's no way I can escape from this organization," the doctors screamed, so we fired warning shots at them.

"Wait. We should take a hostage," 003 suggested, and I clarified my position by saying, "I think 003 is right. Anyone will do," and then mentioned Dr. G's name.

When Dr. G started to walk away with a stiff face, 003 called out to 009, "Come over here." The other doctors hurriedly tried to stop 009, encouraging him to fight with us. We told the confused 009, "Trust us," and "You're one of us," without any lies. It was as if the conflict swirling inside his motionless body was visible.

Suddenly, 009 looked up in surprise, and 001 waved his hands in response and began to babble. 009's face became more determined, and he stepped forward.

The “joint exercise” scheduled to take place after this will likely be a real battle.

END

[taylor-titmouse]

Shrinking Violet is out! another of @petitemortality R/L Monroe's wonderful erotic shorts, with another cover by yours truly >:) i've been saying it on nearly every promo post i make for this but if you're one of the people who has wanted me to write f/f, you're legally obligated to read this one. below is the sales copy, and then below that some discussion of the process for designing the cover!

Nobody at college knows that shy, nervous Maya had a 'bad boy' reputation in high school - and Maya is the only one who knows tough, rebellious Nasrin used to be a sweet-tempered teacher's pet. Mutual attraction is rekindled when their paths cross again, but the two find their old dynamics have been flipped on their head. Maya finally knows what she wants, and Nasrin is bold enough to give it to her...that is, if she can bring herself to ask. Will their first time be perfect the second time around? 7k words, EPUB and PDF format. This is the second in the Fuck Yourself Friday series of shorts. New stand-alone erotic stories are released on the last Friday of every month. FYF 1: Go Fuck Yourself These stories contain explicit sexual content, and are intended for 18+ audiences.

Contains: -F/tF -transfem sub -outdoor sex -praise kink -soft penis stimulation -non-penetrative sex

THUMBNAILS

this one was very straightforward with the request: "the image I have in my mind for a cover is someone's fingers knotted in a skirt spread out against wildflowers. but more in the sort of gripping your own skirt gently kind of way, somewhere between anxious and excited if that makes sense. I'm thinking like you know the classic soft grunge tumblr aesthetic photo vibe. type of shit you'd post next to a closeup of a skinned knee in long socks"

very easy instructions to follow! so while i usually prefer to do 3 thumbnails, i only ended up with 2. there's only so many ways you can depict a hand on a skirt, after all. and we decided that we wanted to continue with the style i established with the first one, with silhouettes, lineless art, and bold textures. we liked the first one more, but wanted to get some leg in there.

i proposed adding black pantyhose to the narrative to make it work on the cover (i have changed prose to match what i drew for illustrations Many times) but we went with bare leg in the end

FINISHING

so i didn't actually do a sketch for this one, just went straight to rendering. as we all know i use gradient maps a lot in my work, so i gave lee a choice between a bright, springy palette, and a wetter, darker palette. i also offered it with the border, or with the skirt going over it. personally i like the skirt going over it, but the border keeps it consistent and more book-cover-y, so we went with that. lee chose the darker palette, which suits the story much better

but the font didn't fit! too vintage for the story, which takes place in modern day.

fonts time :^)

we went with the third option for the contrast. and also added a raindrop to the flower (which got moved to the right petal in the final draft). gently touching petals, wetness, This Is Yuri.

and the final result is as above!

anyway you should all read this story, it's incredibly sweet childhood-best-friends-to-lovers and in itself a love letter to trans femininity. i highly recommend it, and it's only $3!

go and get it!

[yuzurujenn]

[2024.10.15] BRUTUS November 1, 2024 issue No. 1018 - Beautiful Architecture and Windows

OPEN MY WINDOW Open your own window. Hanyu Yuzuru special photoshoot.

Yuzuru Hanyu Hanyu Yuzuru / Born in Miyagi Prefecture in 1994. He won two consecutive gold medals in men's singles figure skating at the Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics. He has also won numerous World Championships and Grand Prix Finals. In 2018, he received the People’s Honor Award. After turning professional in July 2022, he became a producer and held three solo shows, including "GIFT" and "RE_PRAY." He also has a picture book titled "GIFT" (text: Yuzuru Hanyu, illustrations: CLAMP).

What do you see from your window, Hanyu-san?

One summer day in a house studio, Yuzuru Hanyu was sitting by the window. He gazed at the garden, which glistens in the quiet sunlight shining through the trees. Behind the sound of the shutter, Erik Satie’s "Gymnopédie No. 1," which he had selected from his iPhone playlist, was playing on the portable speaker.

"During shoots, I always choose a song that suits the situation and the intention for each shot. Since turning professional, I've had more opportunities to be photographed not just as an athlete, but as a person and an artist, and each time I am reminded of how many people put in a lot of time and effort to create a single photograph. When I heard that today’s theme from BRUTUS was 'windows,' I approached the shoot as if I were trying to fit myself into a crafted story."

At the beginning of the score for "Gymnopédie No. 1," the performance instructions read, "Slowly, with sorrow." The gentle yet melancholic melody resonates with the struggles a skater must have faced both physically and mentally, before and after achieving glory. Hanyu-san, what do you see from your window?

"When I used to live in Toronto, my house was on a high floor of a building, so I could see the whole city. It was raining in the areas covered by clouds, but I often saw rainbows in the gaps between the clouds where it wasn’t raining at all. That scene left a strong impression on me. I also can’t forget the view I saw from the airplane window during overseas trips. Whether it was on my way to Europe or coming back, I can’t recall clearly, but the plane was flying above the clouds, and only the moon shone brightly amidst the surrounding darkness. The brightness of the moon made it impossible to see the stars, and that scene was so beautiful that I rested my forehead against the window and gazed at it for a long time."

A town in the rain and with a rainbow. Darkness and moonlight. Even these scenes seem to suggest the journey he has taken so far. During the photo shoot, Hanyu was photographed from both inside and outside the window, but which side does he prefer?

"Personality-wise, I guess I'm the type who likes to keep to myself. I'm an introspective person, and I've often thought deeply about myself and people since I was little, so in that sense I might be the type of person who prefers to close the window and focus on being alone. However, I believe that even the most sociable and cheerful people need personal space and sometimes want to close all the windows. But those windows must have handles on them, so that when the time comes, someone else can open it for them, or they can open it themselves… That's what I was hoping to express in that window-shoot I did earlier."

He announced his transition to a professional career in July 2022. It was a declaration of his unwavering commitment to move forward. Although he stepped away from the competitive world where he compared himself to others, his battle with himself continues as he strives for even greater heights. He has already achieved three solo shows, a first in the figure skating world, all of which were a huge success. If we were to compare Hanyu to a house, would it be that he didn’t move to a new house when he turned professional; rather, the house itself remains the same, but the direction the window opens and the view from it have changed?

"Well, it’s true that my fundamental personality hasn't changed at all from before I started skating to the present. I have always been inquisitive and curious, often wondering, 'What is a human being?' In that sense, it is the same house. I probably have windows facing all directions, and I probably hang blackout curtains over them. Sometimes I want to feel the morning sun coming through the east-facing window, and other times I don't want to see anything and keep all the curtains closed. I think humans, myself included, are very selfish and interesting, and sometimes we wish to be part of society, and sometimes we just want to shut ourselves away in solitude. When I'm on tour, I might close the curtains. I want to block out the noise around me, concentrate on myself, and deliver a good performance. Afterwards, I'll secretly lift the curtains to see how the audience reacts (laughs)."

In his solo performance tour "RE_PRAY" from 2023 to 2024, Hanyu himself became the protagonist of a role-playing game, blending skating performances and videos to express a world of opposites, such as success and failure, life and death, light and darkness, and game-over and continue. This unprecedented ice show struck a universal chord with audiences from all walks of life, touching their hearts. What’s next for Hanyu, who always exceeds the expectations of his fans?

“I can’t reveal the details... but I’m constantly thinking about new songs and programs. I said earlier that I haven't changed, but since I became a professional, the way I spend my time has obviously changed, and I don't have time to just sit idle anymore. This year I turn 30, and every day I reflect deeply on what I’ve worked hard for nearly 30 years and the meaning of my existence now.”

After the interview, we returned to the studio for the rest of the shoot, where we could hear Matsutoya Yumi's "Yasashisa ni Tsutsumareta Nara" playing in the background. "Open the curtains..." Perhaps now is the time to open windows in various directions and take in new input in anticipation of the next step. I tell myself that everything I see is a message.

Source: BRUTUS November 1, 2024 issue No. 1018, pg 65 Info: https://brutus.jp/magazine/issue/1018/ https://x.com/gucci_jp/status/1846128889573032006 BTS: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_MEmG5MwL0g / https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lAnWsArkHYw

[lomappreciationblog]

You know him, you love him - appreciation post time for our favorite succulent in this house, Li'l Cactus!

While our shy little cactus normally stays put in his flowerpot in the bedroom, a couple of quests show him moving about, as he plays a role in "Daddy's Broom" (as an accidental jerkass lol) and in his own starring quest, "Li'l Cactus."

He also makes an appearance in "Fluorite" as part of Florina's dreamscape - because it happens in the desert, so I think this is the developers having fun, haha.

As far as concept art goes - surprisingly, for a relatively simple character design, Li'l Cactus had a couple of possible designs.

Nao Ikeda also designed Li'l Cactus, and as can be seen here she made at least 7 designs with different design elements. Probably the only thing they have in common is having a flower on top and being a cactus!

I'll start with the lower and bottom notes here:

I drew a variety of different types in accordance with Inoue-san's instructions that he should look more suspicious than cute.

Originally, I got the order to make "a cactus that looks more suspicious than cute," so I did some trial and error with that idea in mind. But in the end, Ishii-san liked it and said, "I wanted him to have something unique, but I guess cute is better," so we went in that direction. [laughs] (Ikeda)

Koichi Ishii is the Mana series' creator, while Nobuyuki Inoue is the writer for Legend of Mana. It's surprising to find that the original vision for Li'l Cactus was "suspicious" rather than the cute one we ended up getting, but that's how thing goes, you want a concept but find out something else works better in practice. It's why I like reading developer logs, it's rather comforting to know things change, and mostly for the better, and even years after, as the audience, I still love Legend of Mana, so I know their decisions back then worked.

Nao Ikeda's specific notes for the designs are:

Flower is inverted (number 1) Chattering, ripped paper body (for number 3) Standard Halloween style (for number 5) The main character is like a samurai, so he fills a supporting role as a ninja...(for number 7)

Of these designs, number 7 is pretty similar to what we eventually ended up getting. If I had to guess, the comment on the main character being like a samurai might be because Mr. Kameoka designed the male hero's lower garment being a skirt-style hakama, but I'm not sure. It's funny to think about though, a samurai Shiloh and ninja Li'l Cactus, can you imagine?

For the revised design, we have this other collection of illustrations and notes:

The final version of Li'l Cactus shares the space with the concept art for Faeries and Pelican, but they will be discussed in their own posts in the future, this is long enough as it is.

The bottom note regarding Li'l Cactus:

Li'l Cactus went through a lot of twists and turns from his first design on the bottom left. He's a cute character, and I felt that his expressions were unique. In the actual game, his cheeks became much simpler.(Ikeda)

It seems great care was put into Li'l Cactus's eyebrows especially, there's another note specifying and even giving a sample:

The tails of the eyebrows are higher than the ends of the eyebrows and are called "bat brows."

The final art in game is made by Shinichi Kameoka, and his commentary on another page in the art book says this:

I wanted him to have a funny face, so when making his design, I gave him a wide forehead and set his eyes apart.

Like Nao Ikeda mentioned, in the final design Li'l Cactus lost the cat whisker-like patches on his cheeks, and he doesn't have quite the same Pikachu eyes in Nao Ikeda's design.

Li'l Cactus also has the honor of making appearances in other artworks for the game:

I don't know where this illustration has been used, as my first time seeing it is in the art book. If I had to guess, some magazine or other publication that was Japan-only. Hmm...I checked with the unlockable gallery in the HD version of the game and this illustration wasn't included, but there IS a stand-alone illustration of Li'l Cactus writing on his diary in the game gallery that isn't in the art book.

Archiving official art is a pain when they're scattered like this - and I can't screenshot the gallery because the game disables the screenshot button there. I did take a picture with my phone and try to edit it so there's less warping on the screen, though.

I'm sure many others have seen this other illustration, you can find this one in the gallery for the HD version of the game.

For comparison I took a picture of that one, too. The art book version is VERY small, and it's kinda hard with light bouncing off the page so I compensate by taking pictures in less harsh lighting, but it does have the side-effect of darkening the page instead.

Fun fact, according to Mr. Kameoka's commentary on this illustration, it was hard because he didn't know the final sizes of both Li'l Cactus and the female protagonist would compare in the final game.

Now, for other art appearances - Li'l Cactus, like majority of Legend/Dawn/Children of Mana's cast, also appears in Nao Ikeda's special Mana anniversary art! (she designed characters for all those three titles)

She included his cheek patches and Pikachu eyes.

The art book also featured congratulatory messages for the Mana series from its main illustrators over the years, and yes, both Shinichi Kameoka and Nao Ikeda included Li'l Cactus in their messages.

It's rather heartwarming to think that the humble little cactus is beloved by both of the major illustrators for Legend of Mana, huh?

While he was designed for Legend of Mana, Li'l Cactus also makes appearances in other Mana media and is a mascot of sorts for the series alongside Flammie and Rabite. An official account for the Mana series, Seiken_PR, occasionally shares artwork with captions in line with Li'l Cactus's diary writings. Here's the Valentines' illustration made this year!

So cute - you know, I always loved that the Mana series gets such good art.

I think L'il Cactus also appears in Sword of Mana as far as game appearances go, but I can't remember for sure and it's been such a long time since I played the game on emulator, but I haven't finished it...really should get back to it someday, though.

[polo-drone-073]

Oh, oh, oh

This Golden Army Christmas will be remembered.

But will there continue to be a joint Christmas Party with Gold Bros. and Polo Drones (more correctly one should say Polo Drone Unit, or short PDU) in the future? Or will there be strict instructions beforehand about what is allowed and what is not allowed during the party?

What happened?

First of all, it was a Christmas Party, like every year. Everyone was happy to be able to celebrate together, the PDUs even had their pleasure unit activated for the entire evening, including permission to... (there's no need to go into too much detail).

The Christmas Party went great, the Christmas Dinner was very delicious. And the drinks were intoxicating, perhaps too intoxicating.

The later the evening, the merrier or more intoxicated the members of the Golden Army were. And now the intoxication led to something that often happens at the end of a football game but shouldn't happen between Gold Bros. and PDUs. Or was it the PDU's secret plan?

What happened was that jerseys were swapped. Okay, the Golden Jersey is very intoxicating, but it has a completely different effect on the Polo Drones, who were usually members of the Golden Team before.

But the shiny black latex polo shirt of the PDUs has completely different powers. Powers that the PDUs must definitely be aware of, but not on this evening.

“What kind of magic?” the reader who has little knowledge of the Polo Drones will ask himself. The magic lies in the fact that it releases powers that support the drones in their daily work, but for a human or Gold Bros it irrevocably opens the door to a new world. Entering this world behind it - to stay with the image - is mandatory for the person who opened the door.

As a result, the unplanned jersey led to an increase in the Hive.

This photo was taken after the Grand Malheur.

Why are there so few PUDs to be seen - recognizable by their shiny black latex pants? Well, the magic of the polo shirt is just the first step. More follow, which are also very labor-intensive for the drones. Consequently, most of them are missing from this picture.

You can also see how cocky the people were at this party by looking at the 4 Gold Bros balancing on the narrow balustrade.

Some of the Gold Bros probably noticed what was going on just in time and are still standing there with their upper bodies bare.

The youth organization's Christmas Party also seemed to be in good spirits but not quite as lively.

Two comments:

1. The Gold Bros who have now become PDUs are not lost. On the one hand, they will perform useful tasks as drones and on the other hand, they can temporarily return to their gold status on special occasions. They usually play even better than before because with drones, discipline, focus and control (not just through the hive but also self-control) are characteristics that are trained very intensively.

2. Actually, like every year, the Tumblr Gazette was planning a large, detailed and heavily illustrated report on the Christmas Party of the Golden Army, which has to be called one of the most honorable brotherhoods today.

Unfortunately, all of the image agencies represented on site, such as ChatGPT, Leonardo and Copilot, provided the shocking images and our reporter on site could do nothing other than confirm what is described above.

---- So if you are interested in this great brotherhood, then contact our recruiters @brodygold, @goldenherc9, or @polo-drone-001. Please understand that they are now on Christmas vacation. But we guarantee that they will get in touch with you asap. Something else about the Gold Bros. What used to be a pure football team has developed into a (virtual) sports club. Other sports have also been established and are playing successfully in the respective leagues. You can ask the recruiters which departments there are.

[nerdygaymormon]

Matthew 25:14-30 - Parable of the Talents

Jesus tells a parable that says the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by a man going on a long trip. He calls together his servants and entrusts his money to them while he is gone. He gave five talents of silver to one servant, two talents of silver to another, and one talent of silver to the final servant—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip.

The servant who received the five talents of silver began to trade the money and earned five more talents. The servant with two bags of silver also went and earned two more. But the servant who received the one talent of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.

After a long time, their master returned and he wants an accounting of the funds he left with them. The servant who was entrusted with five talents came forward to say he used it to gain an additional five talents. The master replied, "Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Let's celebrate together."

The servant who had the two talents came forward to say he had used it to earn two more talents. The master also congratulates him and invites him to celebrate together.

Then the servant with the one talent of silver said, "Master, I knew you were a harsh man as evidenced by you harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering straw you didn't set out to dry. I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth to keep it safe. Here is your money back." The master calls this servant wicked and lazy and asks if you knew that I'm such a harsh man because I take profits I didn't work for, why didn't you deposit my money and at least earn some interest on it?" Then the master ordered the one talent of silver taken away from this servant and given to the servant with the ten talents.

The master goes on to say that those who use well what they are given, will be given even more, and they will have an abundance. But for those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Kingdom of Heaven is like this.

————————————————————

First thing we need to make clear in this story is that a talent of silver is a LARGE amount of money. Some scholars estimate a talent was worth 20 years of wages for the common worker. Let's imagine someone who earns $25,000/year today doing work like cleaning houses or doing yard work, using that comparison would make a single talent worth $500,000.

Right from the beginning, this story is not what we would expect, the master leaving huge amounts of money with his servants for them to manage on their own with no instructions or supervision.

————————————————————

I've heard this parable used in two ways. One is to say we are each to work as hard as we can because we know God is harsh and demanding. The word "talent" in the story means an amount of money but in English the word "talent" means an ability or aptitude, and thus many say that whatever natural talents we have, we must develop and use them for Jesus (like he's an investor and he's bought shares of our company in expectation of dividend payments), or else!

Another interpretation is that this isn't about working as hard as you can and only then are you valuable to the Lord, instead this is actually about grace. The Lord gave them huge sums of money and no rules about how to use it, they are enabled to act. The one who gets called lazy and wicked is the one who didn't try new things, who doesn't take risks, who does nothing but hide what he was given. Even if we have a fear of risk, there's low-risk options for us, but we must do something, even if not everything works out.

Let's take our body as an example of something given to us. We only have the use of it during this mortal life, then God takes it back.

In the first interpretation, we must exercise hard and eat right and care for our body, make it into the best, most-healthy version of itself so that we can use it to do good works for the Lord. In the second interpretation, we are given a body and it's up to us to experiment with it in different ways and that is how we grow. We get to try playing different sports, training our hands to play a musical instrument, experiencing the pleasures of sex and the pain of injury, we are to take risks, even if some of those risks don't pay off, because that's how we grow.

————————————————————

What would be a queer interpretation of this story?

Telling queer people not to “act” on their queerness is akin to telling us to bury our talent and to go back to the Lord without doing anything with it.

Queer people are told to hide who they are. Gay, bi, and pan people have the capacity to love, but too often we're told we shouldn't, to bury that desire and instead return it unused to the Lord. Trans people are told not to explore their bodies and ways to change it to fit who they are on the inside, that God would rather we return our bodies unaltered and unexplored. This feels like the opposite of what this parable is teaching.

Also, we know Jesus uses the money in the story as a metaphor, elsewhere in the scriptures we're told accumulating riches is problematic, we're to use what money we have to help others. What would be examples of "investing talents" that God would view as profitable? How about helping queer people to overcome the shame they were taught? What about fighting for equity and justice for groups, like queer people, who are not treated fairly in our power structures?

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@the-blue-fairie @meadow-mellow

"Turning Esmeralda’s mother into the G*’s accomplice, Hugo also wrestles a genre away from the French women who used historical novels to insert forgotten mothers, daughters, sisters and wives into the stories of kings. And in taking the historical novel away from French women, Hugo further reinforces his own paternal authority in a genre that had a long tradition of circumventing it. Upon the graves of G* and mothers, Hugo succeeded in creating a work that made nostalgia an effective political tool, as it translated part of France’s history into a new kind of poetry. Soon after Hugo published the second edition of Notre-Dame de Paris in 1832, François Guizot began organizing efforts to restore the old cathedral to her former glory. As Minister of Instruction, Guizot also asked Hugo for help in a restoration campaign, which many of his contemporaries believed was the political progression of Louis-Philippe’s Versailles museum, an aesthetic attempt to unite present and past so as “to promote loyalty to the state and to the regime” (Samuels 86). Hugo was appointed to the Comité historique des lettres, philosophie, sciences et arts shortly after he published “Guerre aux démolisseurs” in 1832. His role was to convince local governments of the importance of saving historical monuments, so that their architecture and stories would assure the perpetuation of a “mémoire nationale.” It was also understood that Hugo would continue to pen the kind of passionate plea he wrote for Notre-Dame. Guizot knew that if French history and its monuments were to survive, it would be thanks to romantic writers like Nodier and Hugo, whose stories were helping France reconnect with its estranged past."

"As discussed in earlier chapters, mothers and G* were partners in crime in Notre-Dame de Paris and Carmen. In the absence of fathers, who go missing from these early G* plots, mothers shoulder the responsibility of transmitting the past’s lessons to their children. When they are unsuccessful in accomplishing this mission, unable to symbolically represent and communicate the past, they become as dangerous as the Gypsy characters. Their failure to give their children proper hindsight ultimately leads to their children’s deaths. Esmeralda’s mother, Paquette la Chantefleurie, is not only responsible for her daughter’s kidnapping (because she leaves her front door open to Gypsies) but reveals her daughter’s past much too late in the progression of the plot to save her life. By the time Esmeralda learns the story of the amulet she wears around her neck, she has already married herself to an unlikely future with Pheobus. Like Paquette, Don Jose’s mother is also unable to keep her son looking backward. Although her memory makes him nostalgic for home in the first pages of his story, her voice is never a strong enough reminder of what he has left behind. Eventually, Don José turns his back on his past and his beloved Navarre to follow Carmen into a future of crime, murder and death. In both cases, Mother’s incompetence becomes a narrative fêlure in which the historian-writer can insert his voice and assume author-ity over his text. In the absence of fathers, Hugo and Mérimée become the paternal voice in the conclusion of their texts, symbolically rooting an unwilling and uncertain present in a safe and familiar past. Their conclusions inevitably illustrate how important Father is, since mothers (and brothers in the case of Notre-Dame de Paris) are incapable of giving children the precious gift of hindsight – a necessary defense against the uncertainty of the present and future."

(Taming the G*: How French Romantics Recaptured a Past, Elizabeth Carter Hanrahan)

[nocompromise-noregrets]

five good things

What the hell, it's time for one of these again I think. Let's see.

I am actually rather looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow, after three weeks off. This basically never happens. XD I love my jobs, but I always love my time off more. This time, though, I feel like I've had enough time at home, and I'm looking forward to getting back to work on all my various projects and pet things.

I finally finished installing the lighting in Lego Rivendell after a WHOLE YEAR! I really enjoyed building the model over the holidays last year, but the lighting kit was really fiddly to install and the instruction photos weren't particularly clear, and it really rather sucked the joy out of it. However, it only took a couple of hours to get it finally finished, and now it looks amazing. Photos at some point! I have a display case for it, although of course it's been sitting gathering dust for a year so it needs a good gentle brushing-off first, and I need to figure out where all the bits that got knocked off while I was fitting the lights need to go back on, which is more or less impossible given the length of the instructions. Then I need to rebuild the smaller sets I had because they all got smashed when the missus pulled an extension cable out of my hands before I was ready over the summer, and THEN I might manage a few fic illustrations or something XD

I'm having enormous fun with a very delightful AU that @malkaleh and I are working on in Discord, most of which is never going to see the light of day but it is so much fun pinging ideas back and forth and bits of it are going into something I've been working on over the holidays and I am loving it! <3333333

I've also been having enormous fun with my friend over in the Måneskin fandom - we've been writing a collaborative fic, then she suggested something for me to write in the same 'verse, and then I've been absolutely devouring an unfinished work of hers which she began back in the summer of 2021, picked up in the summer/autumn of 2023 and hadn't quite managed to finish. I read and loved the first few chapters about a month ago, and then finally managed to free myself from my own talkative muses long enough to be able to read the rest and comment flailingly - and then the last few days we've been brainstorming an ending and she's finished it this morning! I am delighted, it's been so much fun. I've really missed this sort of collaboration, and I've missed writing with her so much, she always has the funniest ideas. It's been going on for 15 years, and I am so glad we're in a fandom together again!

The missus and I are preparing to have a really thorough declutter and sort the house out properly this year. I am very much looking forward to it, although it's going to be long and stressful and a lot of hard work and, doubtless, arguments XD

I've finally finished the second block of my MA course, which is cause for celebration because I have not enjoyed it. It's been a whistle-stop tour of various theoretical concepts in linguistics and it hasn't been at all clearly written. I also struggle to grasp most of these things - theoretical concepts are not my thing, I need concrete examples - and also Chomsky's universal grammar sounds like absolute bullshit to me; an innate template for learning language? Give me a break. Language is acquired from interaction and I can't help feeling that there's some sexism at work here because who do children traditionally interact most with? Heaven forfend women's work gets credited. I do need to read the history of women in linguistics that was mentioned in the first block, but I just haven't had the brainspace yet. Anyway, I've ploughed through it over the holidays and am now about three weeks ahead, and I just need to get the assignment done. I am reminding myself that this course is an introduction to linguistics so as to give us as many avenues as possible to choose from when we specialise, and I don't have to be interested in everything, and I don't have to understand what I'm not interested in, as long as I can do the assignments well enough, and I think I can. Well, they haven't released the final assignment yet because it's a new course, they're releasing the course material and assignments gradually, which I will absolutely be complaining about, because we haven't been able to look at the final assignment and figure out what we need to be concentrating on, whereas students on future presentations will get the whole lot up front. But ANYWAY. Block two is done, and once I've got the assignment out the way I can move on.

We went for a lovely walk in the Forest of Dean with my parents on Friday - it was freezing cold and very sunny and we went round part of the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail which was absolutely delightful. Photos under the cut! I am something of a modern-art-and-sculpture nerd, in a fairly specific way (I can't describe what I like but I know it when I see it); I took LOADS of photos in galleries in Finland and I still haven't sorted them out to post here, but I am DETERMINED.

I have made progress on my I-am-not-going-to-sabotage-myself-any-more, as reported elsewhere, and have got myself tickets for Soul Asylum and Damiano David (I am going to be a very old person with an identity crisis in a sea of screaming young persons but actually I do not care XD ), and am contemplating seeing Bloodywood in Bristol just after my birthday.

I've been learning Italian via Duolingo, having finished (boom-boom!) the Finnish course before I went to Helsinki and become a little bored with the daily review; I had a bit of a go at Swedish given how much of it I come into contact with in Helsinki, and then got thoroughly distracted, probably to nobody's surprise XD but I'm greatly enjoying spotting the echoes of Latin, and the faint similarities to the French I learned 30-odd years ago. And I've started spotting words in Måneskin's lyrics and that's always an awesome feeling, when something suddenly makes sense :D

I think that's probably enough for now. I am not fond of January Photos of the sculptures we saw in the Forest under the cut!

We only saw three or four out of the 18 on the trail, but I'm going to go back for a walk round the whole route when the missus is out there on her mountain bike :D So...more later, maybe!

[boxturret]

Slizers vs Throwbots: Regional differences

Its well known that the Slizer line was changed quite a bit for its release in North America. The line was renamed Throwbots, the individual set names were all changed (Honestly this seems to be an okay change, as apart from Judge I quite like the new names, and this doesn't seem to be an uncommon opinion), and the setting was changed.

One very subtle change that I've had a hard time tracking down was the actual art for the sets. I managed to acquire copies of the instruction booklets for every set, Slizer and Throwbots, and have scanned them all, and they can be found HERE.

What follows is comparison between the Slizer and Throwbots instruction booklets.

8500-Fire Slizer/Torch

The Slizer version features a humanoid fire being, but the Throwbots version removes the face entirely, though this being can still be found on the 6 pip disc art. In fact its the same illustration, just mirrored.

8501-Ice Slizer/Ski

The Slizer version features an ice outcropping with an evil looking face. The Throwbot version erases the face.

Though this creature doesn't appear in the discs, a similar concept of an avalanche with a face does, on the 6 pip disc.

8502-City Slizer/Turbo

This is the first one to not have any changes that I can see.

Every piece of Slizer art features the main set, and in the background one of the enemies the Slizer would face in its region. For City Slizer it seems to the be city itself, this large building featuring a monstrous face. For whatever reason this face was deemed not necessary to remove, perhaps because it was positioned mostly behind the logo.

The instructions use the cover background and the face can be seen more clearly there. Notably Flare Slizer uses the same background for its instruction book.

Turbo's 6 pip disc doesn't feature a malevolent building, but instead a truck intent on running them over.

8503-Sub Slizer/Scuba

Again, this one was not altered, perhaps it was found that removing the evil eyes off the giant jellyfish was counterproductive. A modified version of this art (or is the cover version the modified version? Hard to know what came first) can be found on the 6 pip disc.

This same creature also appears in the small comic on the poster I believe was included in some Slizer sets. Its delightful.

8504-Judge Slizer/Jet

Again, no change. Unlike the other's Judge doesn't feature this, or any creature on its 6 pip disc. This star monster is featured in the comic though, seeming to be the target for the disc launching game, of which Judge is the...judge of.

8505-Jungle Slizer/Amazon

Finally, there are more differences. The Slizer version features Jungle Slizer slicing this evil tree, complete with mouth, eyes, and hands, in half. The Throwbot version simply removes the eye light, the facial features are still there. The 6 pip disc features them fighting a different type of plant, something more modelled off a Venus Fly Trap. The 5 pip disc though does feature them chopping a seemingly not evil tree in half.

8506-Rock Slizer/Granite

This is one of the more subtle ones, way in the background there's a rock formation that resembles a skull. In the Slizer version it features slightly glowing eyes, the eye glow is removed in the Throwbots version. The 6 pip disc art features Rock Slizer facing off against a similar stone face with glowing eyes.

8507-Energy Slizer/Electro

Finally we come to Energy. This one I think is one of the more odd ones, as the Slizer version features this evil cloud zapping Energy with arms made of lightning. The Throwbot version removes the red eyes, but everything else remains the same, the mouth, the lightning arms, the zapped Electro. This exact art appears on the 6 pip disc.

To my knowledge there was only one set of discs, so despite the changes made to the packaging the Throwbots's discs featured all these creatures that the modified box art didn't want to show, its very odd.

And this is where the version differences end, for the instructions at least. After this, with the release of 8520, though they still changed the name, Millennium Slizer vs Millennia, they stayed with one instruction book for both, the back of the booklet even featuring both line's logos, and both names for each set (though you can see they are using the Slizer box arts).

Then by wave two proper there was no more name divergence, and the logos and names were left off the instructions entirely.

One has to wonder if the successor series, Roboriders, featuring the names of the characters printed right on their face pieces was an attempt to stop this whole naming issue coming up again.

I just wanted to have all this data in one place, I've spent a lot of time searching for the different versions and its quite hard to find good images, even leog's own site isn't consistent, featuring okay versions of all the Slizer's instructions, then this awful uncropped vertical scan of Electro.

So now everything is at least in one place and in consistent quality.