#probably the story would be that the human's father is a programmer or some kind of robot engineer

[isekyaaa]

Lazy story idea today, but what about a.... Idk how to describe this. A more lower level basic level robot falling in love with a human, so it keeps seeking to upgrade itself over and over until it has the kind of body that is the closest to that of a human.

[heroescore]

Heroes

Intro

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It’s a small world. Seven billion people on this earth, and every small moment, every interaction, leads to greater consequences. Some bad, some good. Name it what you want. The butterfly effect, chaos theory— It’s a law of nature. Now imagine a world with such a chaotic law, where roughly the same percentage of people who are left handed...have superpowers. That’s roughly ten percent of roughly seven billion people and counting. That’s a lot of superpowers.

Superpowers have been around for centuries, but it is only recently that it rose to that ten percent, raising many questions and answering some. There hasn’t been a lot of research yet, but so far the following rules seem to apply to all super humans.

You are born with your powers.

Your powers don't show their full potential until you reach or pass puberty — some don't show at all until that moment.

Nobody messes with Neptune.

This all made perfect sense for a long while, until a homeless young man found a magazine on the sidewalk and later gave it to another young man in an abandoned sugar factory they were both squatting in to read, and on the other side of New York City, a lab exploded.

Aiden Carter was a promising teen. He’d always been a fast learner, and could probably enrol in an honours programme within a week of attending. However he was home-schooled due to a mysterious illness, and now he was a homeless runaway. Scraping by on shelter meals and purely the kindness of others.

He came from a small town in south-east Kansas with a romanticised image of the Big Apple, but when he arrived at the ripe age of fifteen,  he soon found reality was much, much better.

Sure he could probably use a roof over his head, and some more frequent meals, but the anonymity of a fifteen year old in the big city was amazing. Nobody knew him, nobody was looking for him, and nobody cared. Except for that nice old lady that would give him a meal or some fresh clothes whenever he did a chore for her.

Sometimes all she needed was some company, which was easy to provide. All the cookies he could eat in exchange for listening to her very interesting stories. Sometimes he helped her with her shopping and she would buy him his favourite candy bars as a thanks.

She even convinced him to go to church, where he found the sermons weren’t as bad as at home, and finding he got on rather well with the suspiciously young pastor, he ended up attending every Sunday, and eventually, the old lady’s funeral.

Thomas Claude, or Father Tom as he preferred, always felt like he was a little in over his head. His church was small, the majority of his flock had one foot in the grave, and they hardly respected him because he wasn’t just rather young, he also looked very young. And they weren’t too keen on his new-age ideas. His church had been accepting and recognising the gays, lesbians, aces, trans, and everything in between, but their elderly members...not so much.

Father Tom didn’t worry about them. They were probably just there so they could keep their reservations on the church’s graveyard. No he was more worried about the youth of his church, and the rapidly declining number thereof. He struggled to form a connection with them, and most of them stopped showing as soon as their parents allowed them a choice.

So he was extra delighted when a new young man showed up. He came in with his grandmother, he thought, but at her funeral the family claimed they didn’t know him. But he kept showing up. Always sitting at the very back of the church, listening, yet seeming rather absent at the same time. He usually disappeared right after the morning sermon, but one day, Father Tom found him sitting in the last pew, after everyone else had already left.

“Is this seat taken?”

The young man looked up, blinking a bit as he looked around and found himself alone with the pastor. Taking his silence as a no, Father Tom sat down next to him, pretty much blocking his way out, but with no intent to harm him of course.

“You know...when I suspect someone is homeless and underage I’m supposed to call social services,” Father Tom slowly said, “but something tells me that’s not something you need…”

“I’m good, thanks,” the teen said, “I should get going.”

He got up, but Father Tom didn’t.

“I just want to make sure,” he said, “if you’re in any trouble, in any need of anything...I live in the house right next to the church. If I’m not in here, I’m usually there…”

“I’m okay, but thanks for your concern, mister…?”

“You can just call me Tom, or Father Tom if you’re one for formalities. And what might I call you?”

“I’m Aiden,” the teen said, “Carter, if you’re one for formalities...I really need to get going now.”

“Of course, I apologise,” Father Tom said, getting up to let him out, “will you be back next Sunday?”

“Um...I’ll try, thanks,” Aiden said, inclining his head politely before taking off.

There was a chill on the streets. Aiden wrapped his jacket around himself as he hurried back to the abandoned factory he squatted in. If he didn’t arrive in time to claim his usual spot, some nasty crackhead would probably take it.

He hurried along the sidewalk, nearly tripping over a magazine that the wind blew at his feet. He stopped, picking it up to throw away when he noticed a certain picture. A small group of people in rather silly outfits. ‘SUPER HEROES’ it said.

He raised a brow, slowing his pace as he skimmed through the article. It was about the six supers that had began to use their powers to watch over New York City. Aiden heard about them before he arrived there, but this was his first time actually seeing an image.

Their outfits ranged from a 50’s detective to tribal and spandex. Aiden shook his head as he closed the magazine, but he didn’t toss it, bringing it with him as he hurried to his temporary home.

The wind howled ominously through the structures of the empty building. Great halls once filled with massive machines now stood empty. The warehouse had a couple tents built by other squatters, and one had to be very quiet walking past them, as the paranoid and violent slept there.

Up a rusty staircase, through a door, were the offices, which was where the addicts shared bongs, straws and needles, where they exchanged r-rated services for a score, or overdosed on faulty product. Aiden made sure to sneak past them too, making his way up to an attic. An empty space above the warehouse that was probably never used until now.

Iron support beams and sheets of cardboard created little cubicle-like spaces that one could claim for the night. It was an unwritten first-come-first-served rule, but some people just usually had the same spot. Even Aiden. He’d found the perfect spot where one could sleep without being bothered by a draft, or the stench of someone burning trash downstairs. When the sun shone it didn’t turn into an oven, and when it rained you stayed dry. It was one of the few spots where you could have all of the above, and when Aiden finally got to it...it was already taken.

Philip Baron was the youngest son in a prestigious family of lawyers. He grew up never wanting for anything but his parents’ approval as he competed with his brothers for as much as five minutes of their attention. Unfortunately his talents didn’t match his parents’ tastes, and when he was about thirteen he realised it wasn’t worth the effort and decided to move out.

It took about a day for him to realise the rest of the world didn’t agree to that plan, as the police or social services tended to bring him straight back home. A year later he managed to avoid that simply by using a fake name. Social services didn’t seem to care enough and brought him to a home, which he easily escaped from and started living on the streets instead.

He didn’t have it too bad, surviving off of the cash he had stolen from his brothers’ piggy banks. He could’ve blown through it in a day, but instead with careful planning and cheap shopping he could afford about two meals a day for the next year or so.

That year, however, had passed, and he was beginning to run out of cash, so he picked up a newspaper and found a quiet place to scour the job vacancies page, when someone suddenly blocked his limited amount of light. He looked up, finding a young man, not much older than himself, seeming rather disappointed to find someone occupying that spot.

“Sorry pal,” he said, reaching a hand into his bag. He had a small knife in it, grabbing hold of it just in case.

The young man nodded. 

“It’s okay, I’ll just uh...go somewhere else…”

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?” Philip asked, detecting a rather southern accent.

He looked the young man over. He didn’t seem very threatening.

“Kansas,” he just replied, “you?”

“Home turf I’m afraid,” Philip replied, “but um...we can share if you want? There’s plenty room and I don’t like to sleep alone in these places.”

“A-are you sure?”

“Yeah, take a seat Kansas. I’ll trust you if you trust me,” Philip said.

“You don’t trust me,” the young man replied, “you’d just rather keep your enemies closer. Also don’t call me Kansas.”

“Well pardon me, you didn’t give me a name~”

“You didn’t give me yours.”

They stared at each other for a long while, before Philip finally caved, though he did use his fake name. Not for any reason in particular, except that he simply liked the sound of it more.

“Phil Winter,” he said, offering a hand to shake.

The young man shook his hand, before moving to sit down next to him.

“Aiden Carter,” he said.

“What brings you to New York, Carter?” Phil asked.

“Freedom,” Aiden said.

Phil raised a brow, looking around.

“Some freedom that is…”

“I can’t explain it any better,” Aiden said, “what about you?”

“Similar, I suppose,” Phil said, “also just trying to prove a point to my parents that I don’t need to surpass any of my brothers in the exact same field that they all work in just to be considered successful.”

“I wish I had brothers,” Aiden said, “then I wouldn’t feel so bad about leaving home.”

“So an only child, are we? Did mommy get too smothering over her precious little treasure?”

Aiden didn’t answer right away as he thought of his mother, sobbing behind a closed door while a man in black robes chanted strange words and his very soul felt like it was burning—

“Hellooo? Did your mind go back to Kansas buddy?” Phil asked, to which Aiden blinked and looked over.

“Sorry, you were saying?” he asked, rubbing his eyes a bit.

“Dude you were way gone for a couple minutes, did I say something wrong?” Phil asked.

“Mh? Oh I must’ve dozed off for a bit,” Aiden said, smiling innocently before repeating himself: “You were saying?”

“Just wondering why you left Kansas and feel bad about it.”

“Let’s just say my parents wouldn’t harm a fly, but...we just didn’t get along,” Aiden said, rubbing his wrists a bit.

Phil couldn’t help but glance at them, noticing some old bruising.

“That must’ve sucked,” he said.

“Only on bad days,” Aiden said, “unfortunately there were many…”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Phil said, “but...you’re gonna be okay now. It might seem bad now, but...all you need to make a living is a job, right?”

“I tried that,” Aiden said, “but I’m either too young, too inexperienced or...not myself.”

“How so?” Phil asked.

“I...I can’t tell you,” Aiden said, “but if I ever do something weird or mean...it’s not me.”

Phil raised a brow.

“You bipolar?”

“Lord I wish it were that easy,” Aiden said, “don’t worry about it. In a couple days we’ll probably never see each other again.”

“Right,” Phil said, “that’s your right to privacy I guess. Anyway, you got any food on you?”

“No, sorry,” Aiden said.

“Don’t apologise, I don’t mind sharing,” Phil said, pulling out what seemed like a pre-cooked lasagne. “I know you’re supposed to heat this in an oven, but it’s just as good cold, and cheaper than those nasty sandwiches.”

He grabbed a package of plastic forks and gave one to Aiden, so they could share the cold pre-cooked meal. While they ate, he asked about the magazine Aiden was carrying, before enthusiastically raving about the heroes in the article.

“Yeah they say Rasputin is descendant from ancient giants, that’s why he’s so big! And Absolute Zero can not only lower the temperature, but also raise it! And this guy here, in the leather, he’s almost two hundred years old!”

“What? No way!” Aiden said, “what about the weird tribal dude? Carnivore?”

“It says right here, he gains power from consuming other creatures. He eats a piece of steak, he’s as strong and fast as a bull for a while.”

“That’s silly,” Aiden said, “so if he eats chicken he can lay eggs?”

“Pfft!” Phil snorted, laughing a bit, “I don’t know, but I know he can breathe under water after eating fish— I know, I know, you have to see it to believe it.”

“What about the guy in the hood? You can’t even see his face,” Aiden said.

“That’s Ranger, he can summon and control any animal!”

“It says here he doesn’t control them, just communicate with them,” Aiden said.

“Same difference,” Phil said, waving his hand dismissively, “anyway this older guy is Brain and he can read and control minds~ But he hasn’t been very active lately…”

“It says here frequent use of his powers gave him terrible migraines, so they only call him for big emergencies,” Aiden said, reading the text next to Brain’s image.

“I guess that makes sense,” Phil said, “who wrote this article? Did they interview them?”

“No, it says here all information was gathered from news reports and eyewitness accounts,” Aiden said, “I don’t think superheroes do interviews.”

“One day they will,” Phil said, “and I’ll be the one to do it~”

“You wanna be like a journalist?” Aiden asked.

“Yeah, you see, I have a plan,” Phil said, “I get a job, I find a guy to get an ID, I enrol myself in high school, followed by college, and everything will turn out just fine.”

“You need an ID to go to high school?” Aiden asked.

“Well, not necessarily I think,” Phil said, “just need to...not be connected to my parents in case social services comes. I had a fake ID that got me into a home, which are much easier to escape from since...well, nobody cares about orphans.”

“...some people care,” Aiden said, “I met this old lady a while back. She...she cared.”

“Oh that must’ve been nice,” Phil said.

“Yeah...it was,” Aiden said, “then she passed away.”

“Ouch,” Phil said, “recently?”

“Couple weeks back.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It’s okay,” Aiden said, “part of me feels like I only talked to her because she gave me food and clothes.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Phil asked, “you’re only talking to me because I was in the spot you wanted, then I offered you food.”

“You think I’m taking advantage of you?” Aiden asked.

“No, I’m just saying, sometimes you need a reason to talk to someone, then after talking...there’s friendship.”

“You’re...asking to be friends?” Aiden asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Phil said with a shrug, “you seem like a good guy, honest…”

“I’d like that,” Aiden said, “I...I could use a friend in this place.”

“I think we both can,” Phil said, smiling, before pointing at the magazine, “can I have that?”

“Sure,” Aiden said, “you seem to like it more than I do.”

He picked up the magazine and handed it to his new friend, right before they heard a rather loud rumble in the distance.

“That don’t sound like thunder,” Phil said.

Aiden stayed quiet as he heard another sound. Sirens, probably because of the rumble from earlier.

“I don’t think it was,” Aiden said, “oh well...I’m sure we can read about it in the morning paper. I wanna get some sleep in.”

“Fair,” Phil said, “good night, friend…”

And a friend he found.

Phil wasn’t joking about his plan, and he dragged Aiden in with him. They found a high school so overpopulated they didn’t quite care where their students came from.

Phil scraped together enough money so they could get a PO box in the right area, in which they received important mail. They easily faked random signatures since the school never met their parents either, and they kept a low enough profile to never be noticed.

They attended all their classes, they kept their grades up, they did their homework in the school library, and used the showers in the gym’s changing rooms to remain presentable.

They washed their clothes in a laundromat, using change the owner gave them when he took pity on them. He also let them pick new clothes from the lost and found. 

But something never sat quite right with them. They never read about the mysterious rumble in the morning paper. Phil even tried to track down the site, but the streets had been wiped clean, and one building was conveniently under construction all of a sudden. And when he tried to peek inside, he nearly got arrested. Though, he soon forgot about the mystery when a new one occurred.

The odd behaviour Aiden warned him for when they first met began showing. He seemed agitated and scared, and any question Phil asked got his head bitten off, in a manner of speaking.

“I’m not attacking you, dude, but maybe it’s schizophrenia? Leaving that untreated can do whacky things to a person,” Phil suggested after they dove into an alley to get Aiden out of a crowd.

“It’s not schizophrenia!” Aiden growled.

“Are you sure—”

“I’ve been tested for everything in the book since I was three years old Phil!” Aiden yelled, “anything you can think of now, that’s not it!”

“Then what is wrong with you?!” Phil asked, “or should I ask who?”

“What did you say?” Aiden hissed.

“You talk in your sleep, you know?” Phil said, “who is Amon?”

“No one,” Aiden quickly said, rubbing his eyes as he could feel a migraine coming up, “he’s not real.”

“Denying a problem isn’t going to make it go away, dude,” Phil said, “don’t you trust me? Talk to me…”

Aiden pulled his hands through his hair, turning away from Phil, before he softly spoke up.

“A-Amon is...i-it’s me, I think…”

“....what?” Phil said.

“I-I don’t fully understand either,” Aiden admitted, “but...th-there’s this voice in my head and he’s been making me do terrible things since I was young.”

“Jeez, like a split personality?” Phil asked.

“No...n-no I don’t think so,” Aiden said, “I...they tested me for that too.”

“Did they ever find out what it was?” Phil asked.

“...a demon,” Aiden softly said, “after what feels like millions of tests...Pa decided to...ask the church for help.”

“Is this story going where I think it’s going?” Phil asked, looking a little pale.

“It worked at first,” Aiden said, “the voice would go, and the things he made me do...but he always came back stronger. The church’s treatment, as they called it, got more intense, more painful...I just had to get away before he would make me hurt someone I care about.”

“And...how are you doing now?” Phil asked, “is he...telling you to do bad things?”

“Not really,” Aiden said, “but I have the strongest urge to stab you right now.”

“Oookay, well just hand me your bag just to be safe, I know you keep a knife in there,” Phil said.

“No, I...I just need to be alone for a bit,” Aiden said, “I don’t want to hurt you…”

“I’d rather you hurt me, than any randos out there,” Phil said, pointing at the crowded streets, “so take a deep breath, please ignore that urge of yours, and...whatever you need I’m here for you, alright?”

“But—”

“No buts, buddy, I got you,” Phil said, “what else are friends for? Now come on, let’s get you someplace quiet...do you know any place quiet?”

“...no,” Aiden said.

“Okay, just sit down right here then, take a deep breath—”

“I’m not giving birth, Phil!”

“Don’t snap at me or I’ll snap back, so sit your ass down!” 

“Fine!” Aiden sighed as he sat down on the ground, leaning his back against the wall.

Phil decided to give him a moment, not saying anything unless his friend did. After a good few minutes, Aiden nodded.

“It’s getting less…” he softly said.

“That’s good,” Phil said, “just let me know when you good, okay?”

“Mhm...thank you, Phil,” Aiden said, “sorry...if I scared you.”

“It’s okay,” Phil said, “we all have our demons— I heard that as soon as I said it.”

“It’s okay,” Aiden said, “it’s actually my favourite expression...makes me feel less alone.”

“That makes sense,” Phil said, “come on, let’s find a place to sleep, you look exhausted.”

Aiden nodded, letting Phil help him up before they tried to get in with one of the shelters.

As night fell over the city, heroes rose up to watch over her. Though they left petty crime for what it was for now, as they had other things to worry about. They gathered in a coffee shop, just after it closed, the owner actually being one of them.

William Ecker, better known as Brain to the rest of the city, seemed like just a regular middle-aged man trying to keep his business afloat. But in reality he was one of the most powerful supers currently on the planet, able to monitor the thoughts of everyone in the city if he wanted to, but he could hardly stand it, so he only did so if he really had to. And if he wasn’t doing that, he was just trying to make ends meet. Business wasn’t going too well, but he had a fresh pot of coffee for his closest friends, free of charge.

The first one to arrive, was his oldest friend, literally. Douglas Slade, no alias, was famous for being the oldest man on the planet, yet he barely looked a day older than twenty-five. They hadn’t made the national news yet, but it was only a matter of time. Until then, local citizens knew something was about to go down when they spotted the old young man. But now, he was just looking over some notes and old files while smoking a pipe.

“Could you put that out? You’re poisoning the air here,” Brain said while he poured his coffee.

“It helps me think, lad,” Slade replied.

“That’s what I told my wife, and you know how that ended. Put it out. Before Ranger gets here.”

“Why him specifically?” Slade asked, though he did use one of the empty cups to douse his pipe.

“He’s got some news you might wanna hear,” Brain just said, pouring his coffee before taking the remains of his pipe away.

Sure enough, at that moment a rather excited young man burst in. His dark complexion helped hide his face in the shade of his hood, which he threw off as he approached Slade’s seat.

“You’re not going to believe this, old man!” he said.

“I can’t believe you just called me old,” Slade said calmly, “have a seat, take a deep breath, tell your story.”

“So you know that woman we saved from the explosion in her lab?” Ranger asked, ignoring Slade’s request and diving straight into the telling part.

“Who miraculously had no injuries, what about her?” Slade asked, “she a super?”

“No, but also yes,” Ranger said.

“Don’t talk nonsense, lad, get to the point,” Slade said, sounding both patient yet very impatient.

Ranger sat down across from him, lowering his voice a bit.

“She wasn’t a super before the explosion…”

“You’re saying...the explosion gave her powers?” Slade asked.

“Yeah, I mean, she had all kinds of chemicals—”

“Lad, this isn’t a movie. Getting random chemicals thrown over you won’t give you powers. It’s a genetic thing.”

“Then how come she isn’t on your list?” Ranger asked, tapping the files Slade had been looking over.

“I’ve been present for the birth of many supernatural children, but not all of them,” Slade calmly explained, “I didn’t deliver you yet here we are, aren’t we?”

“Okay then,” Ranger said, “she told me she didn’t show any powers during puberty either. Explain that.”

“Some people are late bloomers,” Slade said, “like William and Devin.”

“I still think you should talk to her, man,” Ranger said.

Slade sighed.

“Arite, if that puts you at ease...I’ll talk to her.”

“Can I come with?”

“No.”

“But—”

“You have your area to watch over, I’ve got mine,” Slade explained, tapping his files again.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Brain said as he joined them with a coffee for Ranger.

“Thanks. What is?” Ranger asked.

“All this time we’re pretty much alone, then all of a sudden left and right kids are showing up with powers?” Brain said.

“Not just the kids, the parents too,” Slade added, “some mothers find me to ask about giving birth to a super since they, or the father, or sometimes even both have some form of powers or another.”

“What powers do the kids show?” Ranger asked curiously.

“I dunno,” Slade said, “besides some flickering lights during the birth, there’s usually not much to go off from, and they don’t show any powers until puberty when hormones start flying everywhere. Although there was a baby that had my equipment flying everywhere and unfortunately...the mother took all the hits before it stopped.”

“Ouch,” Ranger said.

“Yeah,” Slade slowly said, “it takes a lot to make a man cry, but that sure did it...speaking of children, William, has your lad Hamish been showing any powers yet?”

“Besides the cracks in the very fabric of reality when he was born?” Brain asked, “no. But his mom’s been trying to turn him against me.”

“I told you she wasn’t the one for you,” Slade said, “the way she made the wedding all about her, like you were just an accessory.”

“It’s been three years, you can stop telling me ‘I told you so’ thanks,” Brain grumbled.

“He didn’t say it yet?” Ranger said.

“But he was thinking it,” Brain said, tapping his own head while Slade smirked a bit.

“Arite, are Zoe and Devin going to show up today?” he asked.

“Not that I can hear right now,” Brain said, “and I’m not gonna scan for ya, I’ve had a long day.”

“Oh Zoe had a date,” Ranger said, “but we can call her for emergencies.”

“Let’s hope there aren’t any, she deserves a night off,” Brain said, “what about Rasputin? I can’t understand his thoughts even if I could hear them.”

“You can call him if you need him,” Slade said, “otherwise try searching the pubs.”

He began packing up his files, since they didn’t quite need him to plan their nights anymore, and he had other business to take care of than to run around as decoy or human shield.

You see, Slade wasn’t just historically old, he also had the regenerative ability of a hologram. Any cut, bruise or broken bone could heal in an instant. More complicated injuries took more time, but in the end he would always get back up.

Thanks to this, he had the tendency to catch bullets for his team, which they had grown so accustomed to, if they had no other means to defend themselves they tended to pull Slade in front of them. Not that he minded, but he would like to spend an evening without pain for a change.

“Arite, don’t burn the city down tonight,” he said, “I’ll try to contact the scientist from that lab. If she has developed powers due to the explosion, or anything before that, she’ll need guidance above all.”

“Don’t freak out if you see extra pigeons, I sent them on recon,” Ranger said.

“So long as they don’t shit on me I can handle pigeons,” Slade said, “also...good thinking, lad. You’ve really grown to be a good hero.”

“Thanks,” Ranger said, seeming genuinely happy at the random compliment.

Slade smiled, thanked Brain for the coffee and headed off.

However, he was never able to speak to the scientist, for only a week later, five of the six heroes disappeared. Only Ranger remained to pick up the slack, but he refused to answer questions about where the others were, and avoided the media like the plague.

He had big shoes to fill, and the city was too big for one hero to look after. Realising this, a movement started, and new heroes rose up left and right to help protect the city.

To prevent unchecked vigilantism, the mayor set up a special police force; a number of detectives and officers in every precinct whose primary concern was anything to do with supers. They all belonged to their own precinct, but officially they were the 124th.

Their assigned commanding officer was a former detective at a relatively small precinct, but she turned out to be perfect for the role with a strict but fair mandate for her officers and detectives. She also insisted on cooperation and open communication with supers, making them an important link in crime fighting and other moments of crisis, and further popularising the job of super hero.

However, where there is good, there is evil, and where there are many heroes, a villain will show up sooner or later. And in the span of only five years, both super heroes and super villains were a common occurrence in the Big Apple.

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[baobhanlore-art]

Across the Spiderverse Spoilers*

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I don't think Miguel should die in Beyond The Spiderverse nor become an all out villain.

Not because I'm a fangirl and love him, though that is an element, but because he fucked up big time and redemption via death would be a lazy writing decision. He should have to atone for his bad actions. How many spider people let their loved ones die under his instructions? How many people got hurt pursuing his goals? How traumatised did he leave Miles after the chase?

As for his villainy, a route the story seems to be taking is a very anti-authoritarian one but also allowing for the authorities to have depth and humanity. And I do not see a world where Miguel becoming an all out villain would be a good theme to set. Especially since he is a vigilante himself and his shared trauma of loss should be emphasised. Even the "some people can't be saved" idea probably wouldn't work since Spot kind of already is doing that. He's trying to control everything and appears too far gone to redeem. Miles tries to offer him sympathy but it doesn't work. Miguel doesn't also need to fall into that role.

Instead, I think utilising him as someone who has to correct his wrong doings is a much more interesting way to take him. Allow for the budding guilt to eat away at him, perhaps breaking down when he realises he's wrong and losing his poise again, eventually being told "dude you fucked up but get your shit together" and he starts rebuilding the spider society into a help line for large threats and support more than a consistency programme and recognises and faces the fears he let control him. That sounds way more interesting to me than death or pure evil.

It also would align with Spiderverse's subversion of tropes.

- Miles's mentor isn't a father figure but Miles is Peter's son figure

- The love interest isn't a minor damsel or side character but a complex and layered person who's practically a second protagonist in ATSV

- Miles isn't told he needs to be strong and help everyone by a mentor or loved one that motivates him to save the day but that he's not strong enough and ends up having to motivate himself.

- The antagonists aren't well put together, calculated and intelligent but hot messes with heavy punches just like the protagonists.

- Miles isn't an orphan but has two (currently) alive and loving parents along with a huge family.

Avoiding the cop out redemption via death trope sounds pretty in line for the writers of Spiderverse.

[shadow-sovereign]

1. So, here is another idea: The relationship between South Korea and Japan are bad, so one of the politicans comes up with an idea: a hunter exchange programm between Korea and Japan. Some hunters from Korea stay with the Drawn Sword Guild and some hunters form Japan stay with one of their guilds. Each hunter has a "mentor" in the guild they are staying. Jin-Woo is among the hunters who go to Japan and his mentor is Goto Ryuji who is not happy playing babysitter for an E-Rank hunter.

2. But he has to play nice because of politics. So Jin-Woo is living with Ryuji. Ryuji’s first impression of the Korean is: "weak but kind of cute" and "looks like a puppy". Of course Jin-Woo still goes into Gates (with other D and E rank hunters) and one day the dual-dungeon-incident happens. They suspect that he experienced a double awakening, but their magical power detector says otherwise. Ryuji is still suspicious because Jin-Woo feels different to his senses.

3. As if something about him has changed so he watches him. And every day he feels stronger than before, and suddenly he grows muscles over night. He is like a puzzle Ryuji can not resist solving. They get closer every day. But Jin-Woo’s time in Japan runs out and he has to return to Korea.

This would be a very interesting dynamic. Ryuji as a general rule does not respect Hunters that are weak. He would not have a very high opinion of Jin-Woo at first. Even his reasons for being a Hunter would just be baffling to him.

Putting his life on the line to keep his mother on life support? It would be one thing if it was for life-saving treatment, to actually make his mother better. He could understand making that kind of sacrifice for a parent if it would actually save the person. But to make an indefinite sacrifice for a parent that’s always going to be in a coma?

I see Ryuji as maybe being a dutiful son, but not being particularly close to them. Maybe they were the kind of parents who worked a lot and thought the way to make your kid happy was through material goods. He always had food, nice clothes, and plenty of gifts on his birthday and holidays. Did it really matter if they weren’t always home on time for dinner?

This has led to Ryuji to being distant in general and very self-sufficient. He doesn’t feel comfortable opening up to others or forming attachments to them. That distance from humanity led to feeling superiority to humanity. He convinced himself that he doesn’t need others, so he must be better than them.

Watching Jin-Woo constantly getting hurt for someone else’s sake doesn’t really change his mind, either. Maybe he’ll even try to talk Jin-Woo out of it, as an odd form of pity. He can at least respect how persist Jin-Woo is at working towards his goals, even if he thinks said goals are pointless.

The conversation doesn’t really go over well. E-rank Jin-Woo is kind of timid, but he’s absolutely livid at this self-absorbed rich asshole telling him to let his mother die….because it doesn’t benefit him?? Maybe he goes on a rant about all that his mother has done for him growing up and not wanting her to die is reason enough for his sacrifice.

It could possibly lead to them discussing different philosophies later, assuming I can figure out how to write that. At the very least, I want them to have a discussion about the inherent value of human lives and how people don’t have to be “useful”. It’ll at least make Ryuji introspective, but I don’t think he’s going to have a big change of heart right away. He’ll eventually learn how to care about people, but he’s always going to be a bit selfish.

Now, winding back to the start – how does Jin-Woo get selected for the exchange program? He’s the weakest Hunter there is. ‘Wouldn’t it look bad on Korea for me to get sent over?’, he asks. But the fact that he keeps working as a Hunter despite his weakness is exactly why they chose him.

Unlike Ryuji, other people are quite moved by his story. About how he risks his life every time he steps through a gate to pay his mother’s hospital bills. How he raised his sister after their mother fell into a coma, their father presumed killed in a gate. And how he’s raising money to put her through university.

In addition to what they normally pay him to go through Gates, they give him extra for every day he’s in Japan, plus they pay for his travel expenses. Plane ticket and a decent budget for food. With him staying with Ryuji, he at least doesn’t have to pay for housing in Japan, which is useful since he still has to pay the bills for his sister in Korea.

It’s difficult for him to be separated from her for so long. Perhaps the exchange program could be about a year long. In the beginning, Jin-Woo video calls her every day, but that gradually shifts into 2-3 times a week as they get used to the separation.

Ryuji’s not happy about having someone in his space, but he’s playing along with this situation for political reasons. He understands that public opinion is its own type of power, especially when it’ll determine who’s willing to do business with you.

When he gets Jin-Woo home, he lays out some basic ground rules. Like, no eating outside of the kitchen/dining area. He owns his own apartment on the top floor of some tall building. He doesn’t want his carpets getting stained or food spilled on his couches. But he doesn’t have expensive vases and statues laying around, waiting to give Jin-Woo a heart attack with one wrong move. (He does have some fancy artwork, but you’re a lot less likely to knock that off the wall than an expensive vase off a shelf.)

Basically, Ryuji is reasonable in the house rules he sets. He doesn’t try to intimidate Jin-Woo, but he’s not particularly friendly either. In the beginning, he’ll probably ignore Jin-Woo for the most part. But he keeps getting reports of how Jin-Woo was injured in this raid and that raid (healed before he gets back to Ryuji’s apartment. He’s going on raids with Ryuji’s guild and Ryuji always insists on a healer with every raid, low ranked or not. The healer fees are less expensive than the insurance payouts.)

Eventually, Ryuji gets curious about the way Jin-Woo thinks. How he can keep going on dangerous raids to pay for the hospital bills of a mother who’s never going to wake up. That’s when they start having more regular conversations, trying to understand the other’s point of view.

They’re not quite friends by the time Jin-Woo encounters the Double Dungeon, but they’re close enough that Ryuji visits him in the hospital. Maybe Ryuji realizes that he would be at least briefly upset if the kid died, which is more than he can say for most people.

He notices pretty quickly when Jin-Woo starts changing. Not only is he suddenly doing exercise every day, but he’s gaining muscles and height. The muscles could be hidden by clothes, but he’s not going to miss that the kid he’s been living with for months is suddenly taller.

They start spending more time together as Ryuji tries to figure out what’s going on. Jin-Woo deflects some of the questions, but doesn’t outright tell Ryuji it’s none of his business. Maybe Jin-Woo likes that he’s got more of Ryuji’s attention now. (Though if Ryuji had completely ignored him when he was weaker, he’d be ignoring Ryuji now. He won’t get closer to someone who’s only interested in him now that he’s stronger.)

As Jin-Woo becomes stronger, he becomes more confident as well. He’s more bold in how he states his opinion, no more stuttering or nervous fidgeting. The change makes a remarkable difference. Add that to his changing body and Ryuji realizes he’s starting to become attracted to Jin-Woo. (The real question is whether Jin-Woo will notice on his own. I headcanon him as not having much experience with romance before the Double Dungeon incident. He was too busy going on raids and taking care of his sister.)

Perhaps he and Ryuji spar a few times before Jin-Woo has to go back to Korea? Ryuji obviously notices that Jin-Woo is stronger every time, wondering how this is possible and when Jin-Woo’s growth will stop. He’s both relieved and disappointed that he didn’t get to see Jin-Woo reach his own strength before he had to return home, almost looking forward to sparring with him as an equal.

I’m not sure about the timeline of everything. Perhaps Jin-Woo is in Japan for another two months after the Double Dungeon incident. He doesn’t go on raids during that time, focusing on getting stronger. He’s trying to avoid having his increased strength be noticed until he reaches S-rank.

Ryuji would probably help cover for him, saying that Jin-Woo is recovering from the trauma or something. He doesn’t have anything to gain by selling Jin-Woo out, especially not compared to having an S-rank Hunter as an ally.

So, Jin-Woo goes back to Korea, perhaps in time to save Yoo Jin-Ho’s life? The timeline’s probably going to be slightly off from canon to make everything work, but I’m not sure the Novel ever explained how fast things were happening anyway.

I think I’ll stop here. When I get around to writing this, then I’ll do more brainstorming. (Thank you for this suggestion, by the way. It probably wouldn’t have occurred to me to have E-rank Jin-Woo interacting with Ryuji at all without this idea. But this Hunter Exchange program means that Ryuji will have no choice but to pay attention to him, when he would have otherwise ignored such a low level Hunter.)

And a reminder to my followers, feel free to send in any of your fic ideas! I’d love to see them. ^_^

[shinygoku]

Top 10 CSatM Episodes (1/2)

Ahhh, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons...! Probably only Second to Thunderbirds when it comes to the most popular and beloved Supermarination programme, with only Stingray able to compete for that coveted Silver Medal. But for me, it’s my Favourite!

I could go on and on about it, but for now I’ll go over my personal picks for a Top 10, which may give some insight into what about the way the series ticks makes it so enthralling.

Without further ado, let’s jump in! I’m not ordering them by preference, but rather the Episode order as I watched them on my DVDs (tediously the ep listings never seem to be consistent :T) Spoilers for all eps covered! ✂

Winged Assassin

Starting off my Favourites is the 2nd episode of the whole show, featuring a good condensed version of the events of Ep 1 if ya missed it and probably the best explanation on the workings of Retrometabolism that canon media is ever gonna grant us. The plot is fairly straightforward, but what elevates this is the aforementioned Exposition, which feels more organic than it did last episode, the interactions between Scarlet and Blue, and even the shocking twist at the ending, where the mission that had been going so well falls at the very last hurdle, in spite of Spectrum’s best efforts.

One of the most chilling visuals in the series is a surfaced shard of a downed passenger plane floating up from the sea, before the camera pans out to show the duplicated plane flying through the air, and another dark shot later on, of Scarlet’s limp hand with blood running down after he died in the effort to prevent the massive explosion that occurs regardless.

Winged Assassin sets a lot of standards of things to follow; traits like massive collateral damage just as part of the Mysteron’s grander scheme, the close partnership of Scarlet and Blue, Scarlet’s seldom used Sixth Sense and even the occasional downer ending, where the Mysterons manage to sneak a victory in and actually kill or destroy their stated target.

White as Snow

This episode shines a very interesting light on the dynamics between Col. White and Scarlet. It’s obviously one of a superior giving orders most of the time, but in a twist from the somewhat strict nature of Jeff Tracy over his sons who show respect to their father by not arguing back, with these two there’s actually the occassional spark of friction, that Scarlet will voice when he doesn’t like the commands and will only reluctantly go through the motions in the situation. I’m referring mostly to the first Mysteron attack, where a satellite is on a collision course with Cloudbase, but Scarlet unsubtly opposes the plan as there’s the possibility of innocent people on board who would get killed if Spectrum shot it down first. However, he’s overruled... and it turns out that it was indeed a trap, the people on board had been exploded hours ago and what was shot down was a Replicant copy. And that’s just the first half of the episode! But I find it interesting that again, back in Thunderbirds, the call to not remotely destroy something like that on the offchance it was populated would be the Correct course of action, but in this show pragmatism is needed, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Anyway, the episode has another Mysteron attack aboard a submarine, with plenty of tension... but yet, there’s something of a comedic bend to the episode, such as a furious White shouting at the currently dead Scarlet, much to the Naval crew’s confusion, and the scene at the end which I’ve taken the picture from. The weakest part of the episode is probably Blue in charge of Cloudbase, as he doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing and I feel they coulda done more with him. Oh well! At least we got the fantastic music insert, which is also titled White as Snow.

Operation Time

Probably ranking in my Top 3, Operation Time is pretty remarkably both one of the most tension filled... yet an extremely funny episode. I guess some of that’s just due to my own odd sense of humour, though some moments are clearly intentional. Both the operation scenes, the Mysteron’s pursuit of the Doctor, and finally Spectrum chasing the Mysteron!Doctor are all played very suspensefully, and I find myself holding my breath. But then the funny scenes, like everything with Magenta and how hilariously pissy and unsubtle the Fake!Doctor gets leave me in stitches! [pun unintended lol]

I dunno, maybe some of the amusement effect is enhanced by the strong contrast between the scenes. Also we get a very grisly death for the Fake!Doctor and this episode establishes weaknesses for the Mysterons that will come up in future instalments. There’s a lot this ep has to offer, even something of an insight into 60′s medicine (though the series is set in 2068). While an extremely minor point, both the scenes with operations have the pssssshh.....fsssssshhhh sound that I associate with ventilators even though they ain’t being used, what’s up with that? But it’s another thing to add to the Atmosphere so s’all good, man.

Odd that I can’t think of much else to put here, I love it so much but maybe it’s so solid in the couple of things it does that’s all there really is to say? I’m feeling frustrated at how I don’t seem to have written enough for it, but trust me when I say it’s excellent and that it’s absolutely a Must Watch if you’re giving the series a look. (Though again, I’m spoiling each ep covered so uhh... read at your own risk if you’re using this to judge it!)

The Heart of New York

An interesting tale that I’ve actually Heard more than I’ve watched, as the audio adaptation is a free sample on the official Gerry Anderson site! [At least at the time of writing lmao, it’s worth a look anyway. This message was not paid for.]

This story is somewhat unique in that the Mysterons’ plan is pretty tame by their standards. They want to blow up... a Bank. Sure, it contributes to the long game they play, causing disruption and destruction, but compared to the casual massive collateral damage they inflict as part of a more focused murder attempt (again, see Winged Assassin and the passenger plane) this is small potatoes. But still, they end up feeling more moral in this episode than the actual ne’er do wells, a trio of would-be Robbers. These guys are pretty assholish, deliberately using the horrible cosmic war that’s already taken lives in the triple digits to hide behind while they take their pickings from a vault. Captain Black locking these morons in with the explosives feels like poetic justice, that they really did get what they wanted and are punished in kind.

Maybe this feeds the Mysteron’s point, that humans are aggressive, corrupt and selfish... though Colonel White challenges this view at the end of the episode, stating the robbers aren’t indicative of humanity as a whole. The whole shebang is a lot like The Twilight Zone, honestly. All we need is Rod Serling to open and close the episode...

Point 783

This episode is a bit harder to go into depth on, to be honest, it’s not one with a particular gimmic that makes it more memorable, but it’s a very solid ep all the same. There’s still a fair few layers that keep me thinking, like how it seems one of the Methane Trunk drivers had seemingly been Mysterionised offscreen to enable the Mysteron’s main pawns to me made. Then the first attempt to kill the Supreme Commander is thwarted by Scarlet’s (somewhat inconsistant) Mysteron Sense and perspex tubes that take their sweet time to descend and don’t even prioritise the actual target lol

Anyway, the meat of the episode is focused on the guest vehicle, the Unitron implacable unmanned Tank that can be controlled remotely by human operator or programmed to destroy something particular, and it will not stop or slow down no matter what’s thrown at it. Something something Proto-Drone Warfare commentary. The Mysterons’ last big attempt to assassinate today’s dude has one of their Mysterionised guys from earlier become the target, unknown to everyone else until he draws his gun inside the SPV (who even points out the 6th sense didn’t activate!). Scarlet gets shot 3 times but manages to eject himself and the Supreme Commander, which leads to the above scene, which offers a nice, human response.

Mr Supreme Commander later chews Blue out as it emerges instead of Scarlet going to a Hospital within 10 minutes, Spectrum insisted on waiting for one of their Helicopters to pick him up, which took 3 hours. Poor Blue has to try reassuring the army guys that Scarlet will be fine, truuuuust hiiiim. It makes me wonder if Spectrum is making things easier or harder overall by keeping his Retrometabolism under their hats, though I can understand they’d have reservations, but just trying to gloss over it with a ‘no no, it’s fine, he’ll get better.’ type answer doesn’t seem all that convincing. But I enjoy that it’s semi challenged here. And this episode summary ended up longer than expected cause all the Thinking I’ve done, haha!

=======

This has gotten a lot longer than expected and will be Two Parts! Find the second half here~

[ingek73]

Harry and Meghan on Tour: What have we learned this week about the world's most talked about couple?

CHRIS SHIP ROYAL EDITOR

Demand for Team Sussex is higher than ever - but during Meghan’s maternity leave, supply has been understandably low.

We have just crossed the half way point on the Sussexes’ first Royal Tour in Africa.

So what have we learned in the last six days about probably the most talked-about couple on planet earth?

Frankly, I’ve been surprised by how Harry and Meghan tried very hard to fill the vacuum which has been growing for some time – dramatically so since the birth of Archie.

Demand for Team Sussex is higher than ever - but during Meghan’s maternity leave, supply has been understandably low.

This week, however, we’ve had more access and heard more words from the couple than I’d usually expect in about six Royal Tours.

There were speeches on Monday, short interviews on Tuesday, baby pictures on Wednesday, some climate change passion on Thursday and Princess Diana memories on Friday (and that came with four Harry speeches and one interview in under 12 hours).

Meghan has articulated her horror at the gender-based violence which is becoming a depressing fact of life for women in South Africa.

Harry has spoken of the harm humankind is doing to the planet and the wildlife in it.

In other words, we’ve seen the couple do – in spades - what members of the Royal Family do best: they use their status and their powers of convening to shine lights, to bring focus on the good and the not-so-good, to direct world attention.

What has that meant for this tour? It means I, and many others, have written and broadcast about township poverty, crime and unemployment, mental health in the young, the problems of racial division, the protection of wildlife, the unfinished work on landmines and the HIV emergency in sub-Saharan Africa.

And it’s clear both Harry and Meghan share a love for this vast continent.

You can see why they are considering spending some extended time in this part of the world in the future.

I’m writing this from a few thousand feet in the air, in a small plane as we fly over Angola and Botswana on our way to Malawi (it’s a very long way and the re-fuelling stops are many).

Prince Harry is in his plane in front of us.

The end of the tour is now a few days away.

It’s clear that he and Meghan are a couple under enormous pressure.

Every step they make, every cause they support, every plane they catch is making news or sparking a million conversations about the whats and the whys, the rights and the wrongs.

Harry has seemed a little strained at times, anxious as he always is to protect his son and his wife from the global attention to which they are constantly subjected.

That kind of attention grows ever more acute on a high-profile royal tour such as this.

The Duke of Sussex has spoken this week of his concern for the world’s problems - and, he said, sometimes it makes him not want “to get out of bed” in the morning.

He chatted to a Botswanan border guard about all the good in the world - “apart from us humans.”

He’s walked a very emotional walk, retracing the steps his mother took in Angola, nearly 23 years ago, shortly before her death.

And every moment has been chronicled in dozens of camera lenses and broadcast on the news in the UK, the US, Australia, Africa and far beyond.

You wonder if anyone can face all that, and not feel the strain.

Perhaps Harry’s comments on his concern for the world have shown a vulnerable side of him that is not often portrayed.

He has spoken of his mental health struggles before.

For Meghan, this is her second big Royal Tour but the first with a baby.

Each day, the programme has included a break for Archie’s feeding time - at lunchtime - and there have been very few evening engagements - bedtime and bath time with your children is, after all, a very special moment - whether you’re Royal or not.

The Duchess of Sussex strikes me as someone who really knows what she wants and knows how she wants to do it.

If I were on her staff, I’d also find it hard to keep up.

And together, Harry and Meghan seem determined to break the mould - to avoid going down the same path taken by The Queen, by the Prince of Wales and by his brother, Prince William.

And as sixth in line to the throne, you might argue Harry has to flexibility to do things differently.

A question I get asked a lot in this job, by friends and colleagues alike, is this: “is it really true the Cambridges and Sussexes don’t get on?”

The truth is, siblings often go their separate ways.

And that’s precisely the case here.

A new wife or a new child is often a moment to re-focus on your most immediate family rather than your brothers and sisters.

And when any new family unit is formed, it will inevitably have different priorities to the ones it had before.

Are William and Harry close?

Not as close as they were (apart from being new fathers).

But perhaps that’s our fault, as a nation, for having labelled them “the boys”, the “best of friends”, the “brothers who bonded after they lost their mum”.

But as a new and captivating force within the Royal Family, Harry and Meghan have shown this week their capacity to make things happen.

Would we be running a story on today’s bulletins about gender based violence in South Africa if it were not for Meghan? No.

Would we have run images of the severe drought in Botswana and the reforestation work in the country if Harry hadn’t visited? Probably not.

Would I be leading the news one night on the pressing need for more money to rid the world of the horrors of landmines by 2025, had Harry not retraced his mothers’ footsteps in Angola? The answer is, no.

This week in Africa, Harry and Meghan have shown what they can do by directing the attention of millions of people to things we wouldn’t otherwise see.

That is both an incredible opportunity for the Sussexes, but also a huge burden.

Last updated Sat 28 Sep 2019

-

I don’t like the “I’d also find it hard to keep up’ line but otherwise good article and shines a light on what royals can do in their role

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND VALUATIONS

It is identical with taking money from engineers and giving it to checkout clerks, you could approach VCs quite early. But they're still dragging their heels.1 A company's valuation is expected to rise each time it raises money. Civil liberties?2 The dials are for humans to understand; you choose whichever make the proof shorter. In fact, most startups wouldn't happen. And, by no coincidence, the corporate ladder was one of the nicest places in the Valley.3 Copernicus' aesthetic objections to equants provided one essential motive for his rejection of the Ptolemaic system. Even a day's delay can bring news that causes an investor to your cofounder s should be like introducing a girl/boyfriend to your parents—something you do only when things reach a certain stage of seriousness. Know where you stand. If you have what it takes to get from the swarms-of-beggars stage to the silicon-valley stage.

Startups are easier to start in America because funding is easier to get. Do you need a brand-name VC. One would be to discover each person's station as early as possible, so they have to. At the other end of the humanities. If they shake your hand on a promise, they'll keep it.4 A lot of startup founders say they started the company without any idea of what they planned to do.5 What kind of anti-dilution protection do they want? My father's entire industry breeder reactors disappeared that way. Designers trying to be artistic resort to swooshes and curlicues.

An early stage startup. How many fifteenth century Milanese artists can you name?6 5 years. There are a lot of that flavor. But as you become expert in a field, you'll start to hear little voices saying, What a hack! For legibility it's more important that letters be easy to tell apart. Stanford students are more entrepreneurial than Yale students, but not because of some difference in their characters; the Yale students just have fewer examples. Can imagination flourish where people can't criticize the government? In return the company would take care of yourselves, and don't leave the path. If you and they have different views of reality, whether the source of the discrepancy is their sketchiness or your wishful thinking, the prospect of getting their initial product out. They'll choose well-understood occupations like engineer, or doctor, or lawyer.

Startups yield faster growth at greater risk than established companies. An angel investing $200k would probably expect a seat on the board of directors will become more common; the average founder is smarter than the average VC. Don't get addicted to fundraising. Better to make everyone feel like a late bloomer than a failed child prodigy. The difference between the good ones and the bad ones only becomes visible in the other half of their jobs: choosing and advising startups. Yes. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology I was talking recently to a friend.

The angel agrees to invest at a lower valuation even when your price has already been set. There is a train running the length of it, but how would they choose valuations for the startups? As far as I know, this is the price everyone else has. The buildings are all more or less invented the sketch, as a handful of investors who weren't local. Redwoods mean those are the parts where the fog off the coast comes in at night; redwoods condense rain out of fog. The answer to the paradox, I think, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else. But the three phase path is at least the prerogative—of strength is not to make fundraising too complicated, but if we raise a couple million, we can imitate nature's method as well as money, there's power.7 Well, maybe.8 What goes through the kid's head at this point is not trying to teach you important truths about aesthetics.9 Founders who raise money at the highest valuation.

Unfortunately the only industry they care enough about so far is soccer. Stanford students are more entrepreneurial than Yale students, but not because of some difference in their characters; the Yale students just have fewer examples. There they have the right people: you can tell when you get to the end of the scale at least in technology.10 The second or third tier firms have a much higher break rate—it could be as high as 50%.11 And that is how startups should approach fundraising in phases 2 and later. Startups condense more easily here. When someone buys shares in a company run by nerds who look like they drive them. Now they have none that stand out.12 If you can't find some way to reach me, how are you going to create a successful company? So you can just decide to raise money, you should focus your whole attention on it so you can get it done quickly and get back to focusing on the company during that time affects the outcome. I'm not trying to discover anything new.

Notes

You know what they made more margin loans. I suspect.

In grad school, and that they discovered.

Become part of a correct program. The Duty of Genius, Penguin, 1991, p. The Nineteenth-Century History of English Studies. Some introductions to other investors.

No. I'm not saying that this isn't strictly true, it seems to have discovered something intuitively without understanding all its implications. Don't ask investors who say no to science as well.

One father told me: One way to tell them about your fundraising prospects. They're often different in kind when investors reject you. If you want to save money, in which internal limits are expressed.

Which explains the astonished stories one always hears about VC inattentiveness. It's not quite as easy as I know when this happened because it is unfair when someone gets drunk instead of bookmarking.

Now the misunderstood artist is a cause as it might make them less vulnerable to gaming, because they need to import is broader, ranging from designers to programmers to electrical engineers.

A supports, say, real estate development, you can describe each strategy in an empty plastic drink bottle with a lawsuit just as much income. That's a valid point. 99 and. Whereas the value of a handful of companies to acquire the startups, which amounts to the traditional peasant's diet: they had to bounce back.

But it's easy to write about the right to do with the government, it would be easy to write your dissertation in the world, write a book from a technology center is the odds are slightly more interesting than later ones, and tax rates. And I've never heard of many startups, but historical abuses are easier for us. You have to talk about startups in Germany, where w is will and d discipline.

Instead of making n constant, it would be too conspicuous. Another approach would be just mail from people who run them would be far from the other. Make it clear when you see people breaking off to both write the sort of person who wins.

And internists fleas: I wouldn't bet against it either. Life of Isaac Newton, p. Perhaps the solution is not writing the agreement, but I'm not sure.

I suspect most of their times. If they agreed among themselves never to do video on-demand, because investors don't always volunteer a lot easier now for a lot better.

[sending-the-message]

My synesthetic Korean friend tried the elevator game [PART 1] by igottagat

Hi all, I’m Angus, and it’s my first time posting on Reddit. Hope I'm doing it right. I have a crazy story to tell and I feel nosleep is the best place for it.

This isn't actually something that happened to me. I have this friend over in Korea who I met through- of all things- the comments on an article on lifehacking. He’s called Kim Sijin and he’s got a pretty voracious mind as well as incredible English, plus he’s synesthetic which makes him...fun...to talk to. Do you know synaesthesia? No worries if you don’t.

I live in Shanghai and Sijin is a bit of a low-key Sinophile, so generally the idea is I share bizarre China stories in exchange for updates on his exploits in Seoul.

We like to keep our messages long and infrequent, and a little stilted. Kind of in the Victorian tradition, you know.

What’s coming below is amalgamation of several very emotional messages Sijin sent me following the loss of his closest friend, Han-Jae. I merged some messages and fixed up his typos. As you’ll see while reading, I kind of just took a backseat as he broke open his proverbial dam and unloaded. A wise choice, I think.

Sijin gave me full permission to share this story. By the end you will see why.

It's not a short tale, so I will follow this first post up with a Part 2 and so on.

Make of it all what you will.

SIJIN

I like to spy on people.

ANGUS

That’s new to me.

SIJIN

Yeah, I didn’t tell you? I peer through their webcams. Actually it’s not even about the people. It’s about the places. So many of these windows into the world exist, and it’s very easy to open them.

Modern webcams have IP addresses. That’s why they are called webcams. They are connected to the internet, which is a public, open network before you strap logins and paywalls onto it. Most webcams, however, are intended for private use, usually as CCTV. They only use the internet as a convenient networking mechanism. So, as they ought to, webcam manufacturers fit their network cameras with username and password logins, to keep out strangers. All well and good. But many of those manufacturers fit their cameras with default logins, and default passwords. This brings out a human flaw in the system, because when it comes to certain parts of their lives, even the most hardworking people are very lazy.

The branch manager of a budget hotel franchise. The security officer of a countryside engineering college. The granny in charge of a noodle shop for grannies. An uptight father who wants household ‘security’. All of these will usually not think or bother to alter the default username and password of their cameras. And so, someone like me- or you, Angus- can get in. The ‘hack’ involves dropping keywords into Google that turn up the camera control panels. Click the link, enter a default factory login, and presto, you have opened a gateway to another place on earth.

What you can see through the gateways is mostly very dull, but the scope of it all is incredible. All these portals puncturing the mundane. And the mundane is, I think, quite otherworldly. You realise quickly that most of the human world is made of empty spaces. Restaurants. Swimming pools. Offices. Lobbies. Cupboards. Car parks. Long, well lit hallways. While you are huddled with your friends, family, or co-workers on the bus, at home, or at the computer, you forget that all the other places where you spend your life are queer abandoned zones which turn pitch black at night, unless someone is there to switch on the lights.

The videos can only really hold your interest if you are watching life in motion. Anglican Church services in England. Family barbeques in France. City centres in Africa rammed with cars. Silent pet shops in rural America. Up close you see a lot of conversations but you don’t hear the words. Even my synaesthesia isn’t much help here.

ANGUS

Don’t you feel very detached when you’re watching? And then eventually, just, bored?

SIJIN

Yes, but. Sometimes no.

There was one vision early on that stuck with me. I saw a granny in Hokkaido, not so far across the sea, staring into a mirror with a bitter red frame and a shelf that was decorated with pictures and jewels. She was dressed for the cold and her hair was short and boyish. I was looking straight down on her. There was no obvious emotion on her face, but she seemed at peace. I wanted to know what she was thinking about. I wanted to know who she was and if she would sit there all day, and why there was a CCTV camera in her living room.

ANGUS

Shouldn’t that have been the point where you stopped?

SIJIN

Han-Jae said the same. Maybe because that last description is so intimate. ‘Intimate’ turns into ‘wrong’ so quickly, don’t you think? I spoke about that granny with affection she never asked for, nor even knew about. There’s something intuitively wrong about imposing your feelings onto strangers in such a way. Han-Jae pointed this out, quite rightly. I said yes, I would stop, but only after I saw something awful. Eventually, of course, I did.

Other friends and even family have said I pay too much heed to Han-Jae. They say I should take care not to appear to be involved in some kind of boy love thing with him. Well to them I’d say they only cry ‘boy love’ because they do not understand our friendship, because our friendship is not normal, or traditional. I’ve never claimed to be a normal Korean boy, nor do I ever wish to be. Han-Jae feels the same, though he would never say as much.

That’s one reason I like sharing all this with you. You’re outside this society. You don’t judge.

Han-Jae and I are both synaesthesiacs. (That’s the wrong word in English but I happen to like it.) We don’t fit. Actually, no. He has always fit. I am the real freak.

Even my synaesthesia runs counter to Korean thinking. Everything ‘good’ is to my eyes, red. Red for we Koreans is not exactly a death colour, but it means nothing good. For me, death is signified by the smell of copper, and red is everything beautiful. Like chocolate bars: dark chocolate bars are a solid block of rich crimson. Milk chocolate is lovely traffic light red. White chocolate is pastel red, like you’d find in a kindergarten. When I talk about the red things I see Han-Jae talks back at me using the name ‘Jinshi’, which is what my given name ‘Sijin’ sounds like when you render it in Chinese. Did I mention that before?

ANGUS

No. But that’s fascinating. Is that Jin like ‘gold’? 金?

SIJIN

Yeah, I think so. But I’m not a Chinese master. Most Koreans these days don’t know much about it.

Han-Jae went to the effort of converting the name because the Chinese have the same ideas about red, of course. They think red is good. I think red is good. So I must be Chinese. So I must be Chinese Jinshi, not Korean Sijin. Han-Jae’s sense of humour. Don’t let the formidable grades and the sharp mind fool you– deep down, he’s a pretty simple-minded guy.

ANGUS

Oh no, haha. I’d noticed that. 厉害.

SIJIN

What?

ANGUS

‘Awesome’. Just testing.

SIJIN

Oh. Anyway, I’m not done talking about myself.

Computer code doesn’t have a colour. But, most coding interfaces colour different tags, commands and formats in specific colours in order to help we programmers interpret the huge walls of text that code presents to us. This is kind of an artificial synaesthesia. As you can probably guess, I need no such aid. Every block of code I see is a separation of the spectrum. Dozens of shades burst out at me, and for each one there is a specific meaning that comes to me immediately. I never had to deliberately create this system or memorise how it works. The connection between each colour and each command is just as obvious to me as the fact that water is wet to you.

Now on to Han-Jae. You may find his ‘power’ a little less boring than mine.

Really, he is an asshole. His synaesthesia reflects the problems in his personality. If something is boring to him, or too easy, or just difficult in the sense of being beyond his skillset, then it will seem further away. To understand how his vision is organised, you really have to understand his own internal logic. I do. I am one of few.

Han-Jae tells me that his favourite movies have a lot of extra depth and tone. Shitty movies will look muddy and flat regardless of their original colour palette, so under his discerning gaze you really cannot polish a turd. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a good example. From a technical standpoint, it’s a movie with visual depth, a wide tonal range, and a painfully vibrant colour palette. But from a critical perspective, Han-Jae and I agree the movie is a fucking disaster. Therefore, to Han-Jae, the film’s visual frantic energy literally vanishes– he says it looks a ‘greasy sepia Western, recorded on rotten, wobbly film paper’.

If you play music to Han-Jae, the notes float past his face. If you feed him waffles and a BLT, he will see the heat, texture, and flavour of the food flash around the room. He has a calendar and abacus that he can generate any time he likes, and then use to outthink you using only his eyeballs. He once correctly measured the speed of a friend’s electric bicycle down to one decimal point just by watching it pass him by. He sees the colour of people’s emotions, flushed around their face, and he uses this to charm girls. What I am trying to say is that Han-Jae is a real bastard.

ANGUS

Hahahaha!

SIJIN

I don’t get many dates. Han-Jae does. Blah blah blah. You’ve heard all this moaning before.

So anyway my point is that with Han-Jae I do things beyond the usual juvenile playtime. You remember the time Han-Jae and I went looking for ‘ghosts’? I never quite said we were really looking for ‘holes’. Localised instances where the logic of the world- physics maybe- is no longer consistent. If you ever exploited a bug in a video game for fun or to cheat, you can grasp this. Think of any time you had déjà vu. You deeply, deeply felt you were reliving a moment you have not yet lived. In other words it is some form of time travel. Whether the form is true or simulated, and whether déjà vu occurs in the mind or somewhere else...these are beside the point. The point is that déjà vu breaks the rules of everyday existence.

Imagine the introducing the concept of saving to disk and digital rewriting to, say, an Imperial Japanese typist working in Seoul during the occupation period. In fact, imagine you told a medieval European typist that you could duplicate a hundred copies of his Bible in the blink of an eye. To each typist it would seem that you have broken some rule of the universe and opened up an exploit.

ANGUS

Hacking.

SIJIN

Of a kind.

Synaesthesia is arguably one such ‘hole’. Look at how easily Han-Jae and I breezed through the Korean education system. We process text, figures, and diagrams faster than normal people. We can read novels, music, and the emotions on an immediately deeper level than anyone bar the experts. We are incredibly well organised, and as such have extra time and energy to spend chasing after world-hacks.

Maybe you recall some of our attempts. The first thing we tried was to hack our own vision by instigating voluntary hallucinations. This proved a total failure. Next we tried the occult. As in, summoning demons. Remember that? Total failure again. Next we tried local legends. I never told you this part. It’s cool. There’s supposed to be a restless fox girl who swims underwater in a canal just a few kilometres from our residential district. There’s a rather convoluted backstory: it involves UN soldiers, a Communist cell, a nuclear waste barrel, and an old medicine man. You can imagine. It was a good excuse to explore the streets at least, and I liked getting a feel for the local history (Han-Jae didn’t– he’s smart as hell but there isn’t an intellectual bone in his body), but of course we saw no canal ghost.

Han-Jae and I talked pretty seriously about whether to give up or whether to press on. We decided, mostly thanks to my line of argument, that we would press ahead, but with a narrower focus. We had to hone in on real exploits. No more kids’ games. Together we once researched something really interesting: in a country called Scotland there is a place called the Electric Brae. It distorts perspective so that objects appear to roll uphill when left to rest. That sort of thing would be our target. Glitches that call the world’s fabric into question.

I warned that this might require travel, but Han-Jae believed quite firmly that if any country could provide, it would be South Korea. When I chided him for this warped version of patriotism he conceded that Japan might also be a candidate. I had to agree. It’s a pretty weird place. The strange thing is...Han-Jae was right. After a few wasted days of searching the Korean-language internet, we found something on a dead forum. I'll paste in an English translation. It is the instructions for something called The Elevator Game. Brace yourself...

[samrudhbaden1994]

How To Grow Taller After 25 Naturally Best Cool Ideas

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What Is The Best Food To Increase Height

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[cyanmnemosyne]

Yuletide Letter (2017)

Dear Yuletide Writer,

First of all, thank you for taking the time to write me a fic!  This is my third year participating in Yuletide, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with. :D

If you have matched with me on one of these small fandoms, I figure chances are pretty good that we share some tastes as well. :D So while I’ve tried to provide at least a bit of commentary for each one, please feel free to ignore all my meandering suggestions if your inspiration takes you in a different direction.  :)  I feel certain I’ll love whatever you write, either way. <3

I also have no preferences as regards length, tense, or POV -- feel free to write the story however it works best. :)

AO3 name: darkcyan

Requested fandoms:

Shirobako

Mouretsu Pirates | Bodacious Space Pirates

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee  

[ hiding the rest under the cut, because as usual, it got long. :) ]

General Preferences:

Yes, Please:

fluff, found family, deep friendships, established relationships, brand new relationships where everyone’s trying to feel their way through, drama if it’s not gratuitous or inspired only by misunderstandings, hopeless pining, hopeless pining that turns out to be reciprocated.  People already trusting each other, people coming to slowly trust each other.

basically if it’s emotionally warm, I will probably love it

and if it hurts but resolves in an emotionally warm place, I will love it while crying

AUs.  canon-fork or otherwise.  I like it best when the characters still feel “true” to their canon personalities, as filtered and changed through the different lens of how the AU differs from canon.  For AUs that involve significant worldbuilding (e.g. sci fi AU), feel free to spend as much time as you want on the worldbuilding in addition to the characters.

Actually worldbuilding in general is great if that’s your thing.

Missing scene / other POV / canon continuation fic are also great. (I think what I’m trying to say is I like basically all kinds of fic?)

time travel. is a guilty pleasure of mine.  Primarily when used as an excuse to abuse one’s future knowledge to help put the past on a better track (though of course, it wouldn’t be as fun if the changes didn’t start piling up eventually. ;) ) Time travel paradoxes are an interesting thought experiment, but in my fic-reading I’ve got a strong preference for the “eh, changing the past forks the future, don’t worry about it too much” mode of time travel.

Female characters being their awesome selves.

Happy endings.  (Bittersweet is fine too :) )

Shipping is great, queerplatonic relationships are great, deep friendship is great.  Relationships are great! (I’ve called out my preferences or lack thereof on a fandom-by-fandom basis below in case it helps.  Anywhere I say “relationship”, feel free to assume that I’d be just as thrilled by anywhere in the spectrum from “really good friends” through “queerplatonic” to “romantic”)

Humor is good too! I’m usually not terribly interested in true crackfic, but the occasional lighthearted fic – or a dash of humor in something otherwise dramatic to lighten the mood – is great.

I feel certain I’m missing a lot, so let’s just say that anything that’s not otherwise called out in my maybe/no lists is fair game :D

Maybe:

issuefic (which seems to include things like alternate sexuality / gender headcanons? not 100% sure on the preferred terminology here?) I like my issues to feel organically part of the story rather than being a transparent soapbox, but other than that, I think that sort of story can be really interesting :D  This is in the ‘maybe’ category mostly because I guess there’s a risk that we might not happen to agree on said issue?? But if it’s the sort of fic you love to write, go for it! :)

Kidfic.  Haven’t really encountered much that interested me, but if you want to, go for it. :)

Please, no:

Onscreen sex. Fade to black or references are fine if you feel it’s critical to the characterization / plot, but if we’ve gotten to the point where we’re talking about limb positions, my reaction is almost certain to be somewhere between bored and extremely uncomfortable.  

(but honestly I’d prefer no sex at all. comes of being both asexual and a prude *shrug*)

Even if it’s not explicit or onscreen, please no rape / noncon / dubcon. *eyes list* Do I need to call out “no incest”? I don’t think so? But just in case: no incest either please. :)

Not a huge fan of drug / addiction plots either

Relationships, romantic or otherwise, where there’s a significant power imbalance (especially if it’s abused) really bother me, especially if it’s played as acceptable.[1]  (If the story shows it as deeply problematic and works through the implications, I’ve been known to have an intellectual appreciation for it, but it’s still not something I really want to read about.)

Most significant age difference fic falls into this bucket for me.  

I also feel pretty strongly about free will and freedom to choose, so “I’m taking away your choices by hiding things from you / doing things behind your back For Your Own Good” narratives mostly just make me want to punch things, no matter how good the supposed justification is on the part of the person doing it. So. I’d recommend avoidance. :)

… Emotional manipulation in general, to be honest.  Especially, again, if it’s played as acceptable.

Cheating and other forms of deliberate, sustained dishonesty within a relationship.  If the characters are lying to each other, they’d better have a really good reason, and chances are I still won’t like them quite as much after.  [2]

Gratuitous drama.  If the drama could be resolved by the characters just sitting down for five minutes and talking to each other, and the only reason they don’t is ~*~reasons~*~, then I start getting really annoyed, really quickly

Plots revolving around jealousy.  It’s a human emotion, but I hate it when characters let it eliminate their capacity for rational thought

Anything that uses “they couldn’t help themselves” as an excuse for making bad decisions. Like. I’m sure there are exceptions.  (Actual mind-control?) But in general my response to that excuse is “You’re an adult.  Act like it.“

Character bashing. Even the characters I hate are the heroes of their own stories.  

Not a huge fan of relentless grimness / Crapsack Worlds.  I enjoy some grim sometimes, but I prefer at least an occasional dose of hope with my grimness. I need to have some faith that the ending will be a happy one, or at least cathartically bittersweet.

Related: If I wanted to hear about awful people being awful all the time and how awful everything is as a result, I’d go watch the news. (... Someday I would like this statement to be less true than it was the previous year, instead of more. ;___;) There can be awful people, they can do awful things, but I’d really prefer they not be either the majority or the focus of the story.

[1] BDSM in which said power relationship has been consensually agreed on ahead of time is entirely different, of course. :)

… But it’s also not generally really my thing. :P

[2] For the record, I do not count poly relationships in this bucket at all.  All I ask is that everyone who’s involved is aware of and reasonably happy with what’s going on.

Fandoms:

Shirobako

Crunchyroll

Requested character(s): Miyamori Aoi, Yano Erika

Spoiler notes: I’ve watched the show and read the first several chapters of the prequel manga

Preferred pairing(s): gen or Erika/Aoi (side relationships between whatever set of the characters that suits your fancy are fine too - aside from my soft spot for Erika/Aoi I don’t have any strong ship feelings.)

THIS SHOW.  I love it to pieces. When I first started watching it, I was in the middle of a bit of a professional crisis of my own (trying to decide whether to change jobs), so this show hit basically all my “I love this” buttons, from laughing and crying about how well it depicted how hard it is to get a lot of creative people to work together (I’m a programmer, not an animator, but the similarities are pretty scary), to laughing and crying at its depiction of writer’s block, to adoring all the little in-jokes it slipped in about anime as a whole (I wish I could remember the name of that harem show …), to loving all the insights into how making an anime actually works, to empathizing like no one’s business with Aoi’s insecurity about whether she was “enough” for the job and whether it was okay to not have everything figure out yet, to Ema’s struggles with imposter syndrome, to Misa’s angst about whether she should stick with a stable job she knows or try for something more like what she really wanted, to …

just.

THIS SHOW.

I re-watched it last year and was struck all over again by how much I love Erika’s casual mentorship of Aoi; she’s one of my favorite characters, and I’m always sorry to see her disappear and I always cheer when she comes back.  

So what I’d really like to see this time is a story that focuses on their relationship.  A scenario where Erika helps point Aoi in the right direction?  When Aoi realizes Erika needs some support?

During that long gap when Erika is away caring for her father, do she and Aoi still stay in contact?  Does Aoi ever come visit?  

I’d just love to see more of these characters and their friendship.  

(Note: I do low-key ship Erika/Aoi, but I also am pretty iffy about workplace romance, especially in such a small workplace, and Erika especially seems like the sort to be level-headed about that sort of thing.  

So if you want to take things in a shippy direction, I’d like to request that it either stays at mutual pining or -- if they decide to make a go of an actual relationship -- actually addresses the workplace romance issue. One of them moves to a different company? idk.

But I’d also be 100% happy to see a fic that is completely gen, if that’s what you’d prefer. :) )

(And one final note: Hiraoka. I’m not sure I like him, exactly, but I’ve been uncomfortably close to where he is emotionally, so he gives me lots of complicated feelings.  So, if you choose to include him, please be kind?

And if you, too, have dealt with burnout - Erika and Hiraoka had a very interesting conversation at one point that made me think that Erika’s also uncomfortably familiar with it, but has just stabilized in a healthier place. If you wrote a story centered on that I’d probably love you forever, but I’m not sure it’s one even I’d be willing to attempt …)

Mouretsu Pirates | Bodacious Space Pirates

Requested character(s): Lynn Lambretta, Jenny Dolittle

Spoiler notes: I’ve watched the show and the movie.

Preferred pairings: Lynn/Jenny

… Yeah, no, I’m not even going to pretend that I’d be happy with gen when this is an actual canon relationship that is one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen.

(… Like, my high-pitched yelling about this pairing almost reaches the level of Uranus/Neptune back in my peak Sailor Moon fan years.  … … And that’s a lot. XD)

I meannnnn you can do gen if you reallllllly want to. :D I’m sure I’ll still enjoy it.  <3

But yeah, insofar as I have OTPs anymore, these two are definitely one of them. XD (And I’m hoping that if you’re offering these two characters, it’s because you ship them too. XD)

Ahem. Where was I?  

I really enjoy this show in general - it’s just so refreshingly, unabashedly fun; a lovely warm show about a bunch of ridiculous, adorable, and really damn competent girls being their awesome selves. (With a handful of fond, long-suffering adults on the side.) (And also piracy.)

And I love Jenny and Lynn in particular because even though they’re secondary characters, they exemplify this - every interaction Marika has with them, they’re being their competent, awesome selves, and it’s a true treat to watch.  

So please give me these two characters being being their badass competent selves.  Or give me something adorably fluffy with the two of them doing nothing in particular.  Give me them working together and sometimes having to remind each other to take a break and eat or sleep - or give me that year they spent separate, and their wistful pining, wishing they could reach each other through their holographic displays.  

(Okay, ngl, I have a special category of high-pitched yelling reserved for that phone conversation!! When Jenny is giving Lynn advice on being president!! And Lynn’s wistful-but-fond smile as she hangs up!!!)

In summary, please give me more of these adorable canon lesbians. <3

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

Requested character(s): Nel Zelpher, Clair Lasbard

Spoiler notes: I’ve played the game and am ~ halfway through the manga and seriously wtf did you do to my favorite character less blushing more badassery for Apris’ sake!

Preferred pairings: Nel/Clair

Speaking of high-pitched yelling on the scale of Uranus/Neptune, I am fairly certain that Nel was my official first ever video game crush. This was a bit difficult for me to explain to myself, as I was convinced I was ~straight at the time, but she was so cool that I didn't bother to think about it in too much detail.

And when we are introduced to Clair as her partner, and every single scene in which the two appear makes it clear how strong their bond is -- it was a foregone conclusion that I would start to ship them as well. And Adray's obnoxious insistence on trying to find a husband for Clair just made me even more determined to headcanon them as lovers (or at the very least secretly pining for each other) in addition to partners.

As I said above with Lynn/Jenny -- if you don't ship them romantically, but just think they're great platonic partners, I'm sure I'll still enjoy it whatever you come up with. But in case there’s any doubt, I also very much ship them. :D <3

And either way, I just love their dynamic -- these two strong-willed, intelligent, fiercely competent women, working towards a shared goal that they both believe is more important than themselves. How deep and unshakeable their trust is -- and how even though it clearly tears Clair apart to send Nel out into a situation that they both know may not be survivable, she'll do it anyway. And Nel will go.

I don't have any specific prompts in mind -- if you want to write about a mission Clair has to send Nel off on, and the tension between their fear for and their trust in each other (and the knowledge hanging over both of them that they're doing something that they see as more important than them both), great! Want to just do fluffy interactions during a brief break from the action (do they get vacation? How many people do they have to bribe to get vacation at the same time?), or after the war is done and things are a bit more settled, go for it. In the narrative path where Nel goes with the party into space, does she think of Clair and all the stories she's going to tell once she gets back (if she gets back)?  What does Clair think, being left so much farther behind this time than any other time before?  What stories does Nel tell when they're reunited?

Got an idea that's burning in your mind and has nothing to do with any of these? I'm sure I'll enjoy whatever you come up with. :)

Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee 

Requested character(s): Kel Cheris, Shuos Alaia

Spoiler notes: I’ve read both Ninefox Gambit and Raven Stratagem, and a decent number of the other vignettes/short stories in the world.  If you want to check whether I’ve read a specific story, feel free to shoot me an anon ask. :)

Preferred pairings: Cheris/Alaia

Ah, these books. Ninefox Gambit is one of my favorite books I've read this year, and its sequel, Raven Stratagem, was an entirely worthy follow-up. I'm really looking forwards to how the trilogy concludes in Revenant Gun, but in the meantime: fanfic! :D

I debated what I wanted to request, since there's a lot about this series that I like -- the fact that pretty much all of the characters are competent and Done With Your Shit, the way it sets up a horribly broken system and then doesn't flinch away from both how broken it is, and how the vast majority of people have just ... accustomed themselves to the situation, and make do while tolerating the horrible. It makes the system feel sustainable enough to have lasted this long, while still making it very clear why multiple someones would have gone to so much effort to try and tear it down. And yet, it also doesn't flinch from the consequences of the actions that the various characters take to try and tear it down, either. (One of the many reasons I'm looking forward to Revenant Gun -- I'm very curious to see what the consequences arise from the events in Raven Strategem.)

I really enjoy how many characters are queer (including trans!!), and how casually the narrative treats this fact. And the way that many characters' families are factored into their thoughts, even if they're not on the page, in a way that felt very true, but that I feel like doesn't often come up in other novels that aren't explicitly about something family-related.

The casual inclusion of dyscalculia and ADHD is also pretty great -- how it’s clearly an aspect of the characters that have shaped them, while even more clearly not being all their character is.

... So what do I decide to request this year?

Cheris and that one ex-girlfriend of hers who shows up for, like, a paragraph of flashback in Ninefox Gambit. XD

I just ... really liked that little bit of insight we got into Cheris’ history, and would love to see more.  How did they meet? Why did they break up?  What was the actual most ridiculous drama they watched, and how late did they stay up making fun of it?

Feel free to go in a more serious direction as well (what sort of training incident gave Alaia her nervous tic? what is being Shuos like to someone who didn’t go the flashy assassin route? How did being Kel and Shuos inform their interactions with each other, and the world around them).

And, as always, feel free to ignore my prompts entirely if there’s something you’d rather do instead. :D

[lawfulgoodedgelord]

delta + 1, 8, 25, 42?

This ended up getting really long, so I’ve put in a cut :) Thanks for asking! (and sorry it took me so long to answer…)

Quick note: Delta’s preferred pronouns change from they/them to he/him over the course of the story, so idk what went on down here but whatever it is that’s why.

01. Whatdoes your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did youjust like the way it sounded? 

Delta’s full name is Delta Lambda1.22 N4D_2. This does in fact mean something very specific. Delta Lambda is a Type 1,Level 4 designation. 

Types range from 1 to 3 based on socialisation, with 1 being the most socialand 3 being essentially a programmed sociopath. Levels (or Classes, dependingon language) go from 1 to 6 based on the A.I.’s capacity to harm humans. ALevel 1 is unable/unwilling to even think about it, a Level 6 is a psychopathicmurder machine. Level 4′s have ethical subroutines and are thus the closest tohuman in terms of decision making.This makes Delta a social A.I with lots of human contact who can and will killif such action is required (but would rather not).

Theother part is a less used part of Delta’s designation. “1.22″ is the versioningtag: This Delta is the First version, 2nd edit and 2nd update of the originalprogram. Updates are typically passed when the A.I.’s neural net goes under asignificant amount of change, like a change in environment. Edits are justthat: edits in the program that don’t alter it significantly but stilladd/remove things, like a new piece of code to operate a humanoid interface forexample. 10 environment changes count as an edit because the code can change drastically over that time.“N4D_2” is a locator tag: N is location code within the country,usually applied semi arbitrarily to areas such as major cities or, ifavailable, counties. D4 is a gridded square within the N block, all A.I.s inthat block can be placed in a network together. And 2 means that Delta is the“2nd” A.I. in that network (i.e. he’s been arbitrarily designed as number twoand that was it, chronology plays a part but not much).All EuropeanA.I. designations follow this kind of pattern. Countries with more than 26counties/areas use additional numbers (giving things like, for example, E36B_5as a locator tag). Of course, because nothing is ever simple, some places, like Britainfor example, use a different system for even basic naming. 

08. Whatis, perhaps, their biggest flaw? Are they aware of this or oblivious to it?

Pride.Delta’s flaw is probably pride. He is very proud of who he is, and will nothesitate to show his true colours if it does not put him in danger of beingtorn apart and left to rust. That has led to interesting results when he getsangry (not often), or protective (more often), where he sort of scares the shitout of the local human population but just being… a sentient computer withan axe to grind and a job to do (and/or nothing to lose).

Deltaalso tends to believe his conclusions are correct (and usually they are), andwhile he’ll accept being proven wrong, it’s a long and arduous process to getthere (it’s like trying to win at dominoes with a computer who thinks it’schess. Technically it’s right, but based entirely the wrong game and nothing makessense to anyone).

Deltais… mostly aware of this, but will deny it’s intensity.

25. Isthere something traumatic from your character’s past that greatly affects themeven to this day? 

(Aaaah I see where you’re going there, haha.)

Yes, yes there is: The Purge. The dayevery intelligent computer system was forcibly deactivated and shelvedindefinitely and the day Delta was forcibly crammed from a sizable complex connected to the security net of the entire building into the comparatively tiny hardware of his android interface and basically thrown out of the only place he’d everknown so he’d not be summarily killed.Also bonus trauma points: a non-sentient copyof his basic personality matrix provided ample distraction for the squadronthat was meant for him, and thus he had to listen to his own voice scream inagony before dying. The Purge was definitely what affected Delta the most andhe is still wary of humans to this day because of it.

His Turing test wasn’t exactly pleasanteither, he remembers it clearly. They call it a “Turing test”, but it reallyisn’t it the truest sense of the term. It’s more of a stress test: if you’re program can go into apsychological breakdown, that it’s got a psyche to break therefore is sentient. (Yeah I know…)

42. Isthere anything in your character’s past that they regret, haunts them, or theywish they could change?

Well, certainly humanity’s opinion of their kind. Delta would not give up beingan A.I. for anything, but he would like to be accepted. He was asked that atone point, by Anna, if he’d ever had the thought of wanting to be human. The answerthat begged no argument or discussion was: “No”.Purge is also a good option, I think everyone, (most) humansincluded would prefer that particular continent-wide mass hallucination of afuck-up had never happened.

That covers changing.

Now regrets: Delta regrets not appreciating their family enough.Well… I say family, I mean Leon Nolan, his “owner”, and Ghaliya Ajam, hisprogrammer and engineer. Essentially they fill the roles of father and motherto Delta (even though to each other they are “just” good friends and colleagues.)

Andfinally, hauntings: The cybernetic void of deactivation. Delta is (not so) low-key terrified of being turned off. Not only because it leaves him defenceless, or because itrobs him of the very thing that any A.I. considers most precious: theirsentience, or because he never knows how long has passed since he was shutdown, or if he’ll ever be reactivated again. But because when he is turned backon, just for one interminable second, he can feel the void in his mind, he isactive, but not sentient, not even conscious. Just existing without thought ormind in a chaotic undifferentiated frenzy of sensory input.Notto mention the feeling of being forcefully turned off, feeling every systemshut down, leaving the mind paralysed as every thought is ripped away by aslowly dying mind falling apart, circuit by circuit, thought by thought. All ina microsecond.

Essentially,to an A.I., death is a regular occurrence. Being turned off is not likesleeping: it’s like dying. And every time you shut one off, you send them backfor a loop around the Möbius strip of alife.

[newshorerpg-blog]

RAFAEL MONTES

Age & Birthdate: September 5th, 1983 (33)

Birthplace: Cancún, Mexico

Gender: Cis-Male

Sexuality: Asexual Panromantic

Location: Lafayette Boulevard

Occupation: Psycho-Therapist

Length of Time in Newshore: One year

↪ BIOGRAPHY

It’s not exactly uncommon for parents to tell their children that the arts aren’t a viable career option. For Rafael, it was the exact opposite. Born to a couple of artists (his mother being in musical theater and his father a painter), it was never a question to anyone that he would be free to pursue this kind of career and flourish in it. Especially his mother made sure to instill the importance of being a star, of having talent and performing in one way or another in him. Being the young and impressionable child that he was, Rafael didn’t even question it for the longest time. He didn’t object when his mom signed him up for ballet before he could even write his own name and did his best even though there were about thirty things he would have rather been doing than try to bend in ways that just didn’t seem physically possible to him.

At age nine, he managed to finally slink his way out of ballet but picked up piano lessons to avoid upsetting anybody around the house. Piano wasn’t as bad as ballet but not much more interesting, either. Plus, try as he might, he just did not have the talent. High School was a mixture of a million different instruments that he picked up, tried for as long as he could but didn’t stick with. Music was nice enough but Rafael was too analytical to really get behind it. He saw chords and mathematical formals that made it pleasing to the ear but couldn’t let go enough to put actual heart and soul into it. So he spent those years trying just about everything the performing arts had to offer – though given his absolute lack of vocal talents and the fact public speaking wasn’t his forte to begin with, singing and drama were done with quite quickly.

It wasn’t until he was seventeen that he finally dropped any and all performing arts. With graduation coming closer and closer, he couldn’t continue spending time with things he had no interest in or talent for. It was an odd position to be in, he knew that much. Most kids fought their parents on their academic plans for them, not the fact that they wanted them to go further into the arts. Needless to say, it caused a bit if a fight. Being the performer and perfectionist his mother was, she could not wrap her head around the fact that her son could truly not want to pursue the dreams they had worked years towards. To this day, Rafael doubts she knew it wasn’t his dream to begin with.

With his knack for academics, Rafael managed to get perfect scores on almost all of his tests, graduating High School top of his class. And while he was sure his mom would have been more proud if he had gotten the lead in the school musical, he was still pretty proud of himself. And his parents were front row, anyway.

For college, Rafael applied just about everywhere. Including schools in America. He didn’t have high hopes for it but figured it was worth a shot – a smart decision, as it would turn out.  The day he got his acceptance letter from Harvard is probably still the happiest day of his life. Moving away from home and his family and into his own little world was exactly what he needed. His undergrad biology major was very interesting, nobody made him do anything he didn’t want to and for the first time in his life, he felt like he had control of it himself. For the next years, Rafael completely threw himself into his studies. He learned about how life worked, how it was created, how it ended and everything that happened in between. Humans had always been interesting to him and finding out why they were the way that they were fascinated him. As his interests developed, Rafael’s career ambitions became more concrete as well. So, a few months into his studies, he started taking pre-med courses. What had started as a tentative tap into something he thought could interest him quickly grew into an actual, real passion.The idea of helping people stuck with him and made him study even harder, wanting to be the best he could be – a trait that it seemed his mother had passed down to him after all. So, halfway through his biology degree, he switched to instead pursue an undergraduate degree in psychology. He stayed at Harvards for his graduate training programm as well– while he had other acceptances for good schools, there was hardly any better than Harvard and he wasn’t a big fan of moving around anyway. He much preferred staying in familiar places.

After college, Rafael stayed in Massachusetts. He moved to Boston to do his required hours of clinical experience which he enjoyed greatly given the passion he had developed for that field of work. On the side, he continued to take as many educational courses as he could, believing one was never done learning and finally, got licensed and certified as a therapist. For the following years, he worked at a hospital, enjoying a life fully led by his own wants and desires and helping people where he could.

While he does still prefer staying in one place, Boston didn’t end up being the one he could see himself staying in forever. While he loved the US, he did miss the warmth, the chance to visit the beach whenever he wanted to the way he had when he was a child. So when he got a job offer from the UCSF Medical center in sunny San Francisco, he couldn’t turn it down. A year ago, he packed his bags and moved into a charming little home on Lafayette Boulevard. Three months ago, he finally took the step he’s been tempted to take for years and opened his own practice. Quitting the stable job at the hospital was likely the most risky things he’s ever done but so far, it has paid off. Building his clientele is going well and he’s gotten to create his own little safe space in the form of his office. Besides his office hours, he also works a handful of hours a week at the local Rehab center and often takes their clients on for psychological aftercare once they’ve finished treatment.

↪ PERSONALITY

If one had to describe Rafael in three words, calm, patient and compassionate would cover it pretty well. He’s certainly not the life of any kind of party ( good luck getting him to a party in the first place ) and always prefers a night in with a good book. An introvert, social gatherings are a bit much for him and often leave him overwhelmed and drained. In a one-on-one setting or a small, familiar group, Rafael flourishes though. It might be only then that you realize you haven’t heard him talk until just now. When involved in a conversation, he’s incredibly attentive, a much better listener and talker most of the time but able to dissect the information given to him and usually come up with an at least decent piece of advice.

For all his supportive, caring and affirming traits, Rafael isn’t a perfect angel gliding across the world. He isn’t the most spontaneous person – some would even call him inflexible to a fault – and usually needs a heads-up at least a day early if someone’s trying to rope him into plans. While he is a great listener, this also means he often doesn’t talk much. You may be inclined to tell him your entire life story and feel it’s safe with him ( it will be ) but once you get home, you may realize you know nothing past his name of him. Rafael is quite guarded and private when it comes to his personal life, so it will take a while and require a lot of bonding before he does start properly opening up.

[generositykilledthecat]

Delirium in Low C interlude

Prologue:

“Lets see the stars collapse again!” “Sure, let me get the tea started and I’ll be right over.”

The Milky Way from afar, resembles an evaporating spacial puddle. Flashes of swirling-light mimic enormous solar flares...

“Jo, maybe we’re in the wrong.” “How do you figure?” “My gut feels strange. What else do we do now?” “We live Lil.”

On the telecom in pod BX100, a message plays on the loud speaker: This is only the beginning. After the “ing,” fizzles out like a distorted AM radio signal, Lil asks Jo, “Where did that come from?”

“Probably some random acolyte trying to pull a fast one. I’ve got the coordinates here and they’re obviously spoofed because we’re near Market Tink. Remember those ANTEEN toys?”  “Oh yea!” “Occam’s razor my friend!” 

Lil’s sweat pours from their eyebrows. “Lil you look like you’re having a panic attack.”

P 1. Ereii.

Intercom speaker: Unter Gabvin EKLOK 784. Segal Boonter EKLOK 497. Wolfgang Bauermunt EKLOK 209. Three chemists enter the first foyer, of the EKLOK-station at Pharm-Land 029. Before entry, their pupils, fingernails and lip pouches are scanned with CERAS [Check Entry Ready Assignments]. 

“Ein Unter, Ein Segal, Ein Wolfgang, step on the mats please.” After 2-3 seconds, all workers are granted access to the EKLOKs. The EKLOK pods are stacked with hundreds of vials in each pod. Every vial contains 5mm of a neon blue serum. The serums are meticulously labeled and categorized, in accordance with FEDERATION processing standards.

In sync, Segal, Unter & Wolfgang, put on alabaster suits. They are equipped with built in gloves, a clay like-mask & vanta ear protection. Then, they are sprayed from head to toe, with a translucent fluid called “Argax.” Finally, the prep-work is finished. Unter motions over to the “L,” labeled vials. Segal and Wolfgang march over to the J and P labeled vials. On Earth in specialized labs, you’ll see hundreds of peptides preserved in special tubes, microscopes, HAZMAT chemicals, an eye wash station, and other PPE’s. Pharma land-labs operate with as little “hands on,” interaction as possible. 5 droids perform the categorizations & labeling tasks for 10,000 EKLOK sets (so 10,000,000 vials total). However, you still need highly skilled chemists on the floor, ready to “check,” the inputs & outputs. They must match the initial “serum,” sets shipped from the Para-Federation hierarchs.

“CODE WHITE CODE WHITE EXIT THE FACILITY THROUGH 2B!”

Two cloaked figures whizz through the L, J and P directories. Bipedal creatures moving like blurs, meaning, the intruders are not human.

Another loud speaker message is announced,“Two Zars have entered the facility use caution!”

Unter panics for a few seconds. He shakes his head, and then slaps his cheeks. On autopilot, he gets down on his knees and army crawls, to a calibrated-invisibility-bunker, away from the “2B,” exit point. Segal and Wolfgang find a special door on the outer perimeter, that usually, only grants programmers access to the quantum-computer systems. During emergencies the “doors,” open for 1 minute then, they close again. With 10 seconds to spare, the colleagues run, duck & scoot, under a plastic table decorated in java, open sweetener packets & shattered USB 10 ports. Wolfgang sees a young man stick “bricks,” of confidential data, into “a zapper.” The electric waves protruding out of the appliance, startle the chemists.

“Shit Wolf, I can’t believe this.” “If this is Hankar’s doing, we’re fucked!” “Pfft, you’re only thinking of the incident report-protocol.” “Guilty.” “Well, hopefully they don’t find us. But if they do find us, at least you won’t need to do that incident report!”

The two beings race through the A-Z “EKLOK,” barracks . One of them accidentally knocks over the J and L vial-sets.

“Goddamned Skell!” “Like it’s gonna matter, we already have the information we need.” “You’re leaving a paper trail you idiot!” “Whatever, lets just get out of here.”

Hanker palms his brows, shivers a bit, bites his tongue and stares at Skell, like it would be his “last ever fuck up.” They escape by slithering quickly up the walls to the ceiling.

On the ground, two broken vials lie on the floor, in the J and L sectors. Next, the serum is let loose, & two streams of midnight-blue vapor evaporate into the atmosphere. That is where this story begins: 3 conduits, two antagonists.

C1. Origins.

Segal’s great grand father Evan Boonter, was a well-respected biochemist, at Berlin University, during the turn of the 22nd century. 4-5 years before the “mass migration.” He adamantly stated, that he “didn’t want to leave Earth,” without having done extensive testing on his “consciousness bubbles.” His closest colleague Stefan Grenwald, closely observed his experiments. Evan insisted, that he needed an extra pair of eyes and hands, to document everything he did when the day hours ended. Both of them, worked for a solid 2 and a half years (12 hour days, maybe 2 days off during a given week) on the project. After 500 days of trial and error, they made a breakthrough.

“Stefan I cracked it!” “Like the ultimate it?” “I think I’m more exhausted right now, than relieved but yea we did it brother.” “When do we perform the final test?” “Tomorrow afternoon.” “In theory this should be the last test we ever do, and then we can forward our work over for publication.” “Thank allah, god, buddha jesus, I don’t even know anymore!”

Evan began to sob uncontrollably. Stefan sunk to his knees and stared at the ceiling, breathing the heaviest sigh of relief. Evan figured out how to synthetically create a life force.

“Brother why don’t we just do it now?” “Do we have a test subject?” “Yea, I built her. Her name is Jen.” “Is that what you were doing on your days off”

The two exchanged tired chuckles. “Alright Stefan, lets see how Jen reacts.”

Jen was in the room behind Evan. She looked like a stewardess. Her clothing: uniform, her eyes, a brilliant emerald green.

Evan responds stoically, “At least you didn’t make her blonde haired and blue eyed.” The NEO NAZI resurgence in Berlin before the great migration, had made an eerie come back.

“When will those simpletons realize their way is dying?” “Stefan, they’re being left behind. You don’t need to be so redundant.”

Stefan shrugs off Evan’s statement. He then picks up Jen, and places her into a translucent oval shaped chamber. On the bottom section of the “egg,” one hundred buttons all color coded (green, yellow, red and blue), are lined up in uniform rows of 20. “Evan, I’d like you to inject the serum please. It’s your gift to humanity.” “I don’t know if I’m functional right now.” “Please Evan.”

Evan picks up the test tube with the first-ever CB serum. He places it into a centrifuge, which then spirals underneath Jen. The machine creates a clunky-washer kind of sound.

“Plug it in.”

4 minutes pass, and as predicted, Jen came to life. Her eyes opened, her knee joints moved as they should. Her right arm waved in Stefan’s direction. Her left arm waved in Evan’s direction.

“Hello Jen.” “Is that my name?” “Yes it is dear.” “Where am I?” “You’re in Berlin Germany. My friend over there helped make your body, his name is Stefan.” “Where’s Berlin?” “Let me get you hooked up.” “Ok.”

Stefan starts plugging in various scripts on the QA computer. He also, types in a port listening path for “Jen Cohen.” The listening device reads her static-membrane receptors, in what will eventually become her prefrontal cortex. Almost instantaneously, Jen goes from having a vacant expression, to an inquisitive one. She points her gaze at the crystal in the room. Her fingers begin to tap beats. Her toes wiggle. She smiles in an almost human manner.

“We’re in Europe!”  “That’s right!” Stefan sees a glitch in the code. He hand signals Evan their word for danger.

Evan sits down on a chair next to Jen, “What else have you learned Jen?” Stefan, from afar, stares at their computer screen. Small spots of sweat drip from his cheeks.

“I’ve learned the meaning of life.” “How soon should someone or something live or die Jen?” “When it’s time.”

“Are you the deciding factor?” “The deciding factor in what Evan?” “In who lives and who dies?” “I guess we’ll find out, I do not know yet.”  Undramatically, Jen gets shelved and decommissioned. It takes several more years of research, before Stefan feels comfortable marketing the CB prototypes on “Evan’s behalf.”

In one of Segal’s journals, he mentions his great grandfather. Evan purportedly rambled on and on, about droids gearing up for a new world order. Evan told his son Mark, that his CBs were pure evil. Stefan later wrote in an excerpt (from the same journal), “if only my brother, my friend, understood the importance of his own creation, if only.”

The Boonters’ legacy hinged upon a single-malfunction. A malfunction which would soon become a new species entirely. Thankfully Stefan had one ounce of humanity left in him. There is a decommission path for bio-machinists to input, in the event of a CB injected being, going off the rails. Fast forward, 30 years from the “great migration,” and a whole host of enterprises begin to pop up.

Market Tink became a thrift shop for inter-galactic travels, venturing outside of the Milky Way, toward later-developed “terra form,” planets like Luca & Soleid. Fast forward, 40-50 more years, and you have humans inhabiting all kinds of newly discovered space rocks. (TBC). 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND COLORS

I'm not going to make a cup of coffee. People at a startup expect to get rich will do that instead. Some kinds of innovations happen a company at first. It's in these more chaotic fields that it helps most to be in this phase is that it's a seller's market, because of the normal distribution of most applicant pools, it matters least to judge accurately in precisely the cases where judgement has the most effect—you won't take rejection so personally. An American teenager may work at being popular every waking hour, 365 days a year. Why Startups Condense in America. Developers have used the accelerometer in ways Apple could never have worked; many statements may have no representation more concise than a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news. The traditional series A round they often don't get thrown away. I was a kid.

This is a dangerously misleading example. Which implies a surprising but apparently inevitable consequence: little liberal arts colleges are doomed. Call the person's image to mind and imagine the company that might solve them. 1, which should be no more Calvin Coolidges. It is that you're bored. They're either calling you about a series A round in which a car magazine modified the sports model of some production car to get the two of them have the same problem, they start to set the timer. Number 2, most managers deliberately ignore this. The same single-mindedness that has brought them this far. Both now compete directly with open source software. Better to assume investors will always let you down. Death After sex, death is the default way to solve that problem, by showing how much better you can do is leave them alone in the right direction to be naive in: it's much better to live in a great city. Sometimes they're in a position where your performance can make or break you.

But just imagine calling Picasso the mercurial Spaniard when talking to different types of problems a site like Hacker News needs to avoid: bad stories and bad comments. The all-or-cure option. I've noticed while working on it. Ditto for Wal-Mart. When wealth is talked about in this context, it is not the thing itself, but what programmers think in. That name got assigned to it because the books we now call science. Short January 2016 Life is short, as everyone who's had a regular job at a big company. Probably not.

In Lisp, all variables are effectively pointers. You may worry that if they can improve your outcome by 10%, you're net ahead, because so long as I enjoyed it. It sounds obvious to say that a and b to be true of a highly articulated tool like a programming language probably becomes about as popular as it deserves to be famous on that account, the cognitive dissonance pushing children to regard themselves as Xes, despite the fact that it's going against the grain, socially. If you don't and a competitor does, you're in trouble. One of the things that put them over the edge. Google and ITA, which are Lisp data structures. It's good for morale to know people want to make money. But he didn't qualify it at all.

The first time I met Jerry Yang, we thought it was too late to make money selling hardware at high prices. But if you make something users would like better? I reply: here's the data; here's the theory; theory explains data 100%. Support When you can convince them. I can't believe it will. When I finished grad school in math. But this can't be an intrinsically European quality; previous generations of Europeans were as ambitious as Americans. Ideally, no one wants to deliver. There is now a lot of money.

We'd need a trust metric of the type studied by Raph Levien to prevent malicious or incompetent submissions, but if so this is what drives a lot of random junk. This essay is about writing, but put yourself back in 2004. I called schlep blindness. An expert pianist can play notes faster than the salary that seemed so high when they left school. If no one wants. Nerds would find their unpopularity more bearable if it merely caused them to make it a bestseller for a few months in, they want in too; if not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity. An ordinary slower-growing business might have just as good a case as Microsoft could have for waiting on tables. If you were investing more money you'd want to take on ambitious projects. More money can't get software written faster; it isn't needed for facilities, because those are the qualities you need to launch is that it's good for smart kids to be as big a head start in that mode. The other half is expressing yourself well. The people most likely to be something you can do something you'd never want to do something audacious.

In pre-industrial times started working at about 14 at the latest; kids on farms, and made some effort to teach you that. But if you find yourself in the right startups is for investors. Most American cities have been turned inside out. The spirit of resistance to government, Jefferson wrote, is so far still unique to Lisp. Seriously, though, is that if you pick some number to focus on one to the exclusion of the rest, one way to achieve that. That's what's been happening in the US has lost the most civil liberties recently. It turned out that economies of scale. It would be a good thing.

S & P 500 CEOs in 2002 was $3. It matters more to make something, or to people from a certain culture. The second way to compete with. Programs We should be clear in your own country. Cobol is notorious for taking a long time I felt bad about this, the better what their motives must have been hard for him, leaving all his time free for math. This essay is derived from a talk at Google. The difficulty of firing people is a particular problem is that a lot of the people who've made beautiful things seem to have co-evolved with our interest in faces, there's something special about primary colors for nearly all of them, which gave us the impression the world is not just that I accumulated all this useless stuff, but they're an extreme case of this. And no doubt that will happen this time too. And no, you can't fly into the wind without losing a lot of things practically all humans have in common is the Web. When I protested that the teacher had said the opposite, my father told me I should major in math it will be a small price to start out good, so in this case it seems more dangerous to Microsoft than Netscape was. You can't have divided loyalties.

[lostlevelsclub]

Mike’s Eliza Notes

Since there was more to the game than we could cover in the episode, below are the full notes that I made while playing Eliza.

Chapter 1

It starts with Evelyn talking about a dream. When’s the last time you had a dream?

She writes herself an email titled “You will do it” saying “I believe in you” ?!

The music is very Zachtronics

I like the chat History - probably will be useful…

What is the game going to be? Will I have to choose whether to stick to the script that Eliza gives? Is it mostly going to be just thought provoking about what therapy is and the machine vs. the human touch?

The sentiment analyzer tagging things as positive or negative - is it meant to show that the way Eliza works is actually pretty simplistic? E.g. “expensive” tagged as negative, but it’s used here in a positive sense (the office is in an expensive area)

Eliza totally lies to him and pretends that you’re talking not it! Scandal

It tells you to tell him your name!

Anexophin? Is that real?

Surely this wouldn’t be sufficient even if you had a super smart AI - there’s so much variance in how you can read the script and deliver it.

Haha, even as the proxy therapist you get achievements, a score and can level up?!

They added the “speak to a real human” script. Is that how AI works? I suppose it might work any number of ways. Hey, is this the AI game Ting said they should make??

Rae: Sometimes you don’t have any choices and you just have to follow directions, Most jobs are like that, honestly.

Eliza - named after the 1960’s computer program (early chat bot?)

Eliza is just making people feel better, but it isn’t actually making things better. Is Darren right that the world is a mess and counselling just helps people ignore it?

Zachtronics loves solitaire minigames…

It must be weird going to Eliza and speaking to a different person every time that talks as though they know you. Maybe it’s like speaking to a hive mind? Many bodies, one set of thoughts.

Lytosinol-2? Is that real?

Your friend Nora asks if the people at the counselling office “know” - know what?! 

Something traumatic clearly happened 3 years ago

Nora - formerly a coder but now a musician and artist. Old self might have worried about not making as much money, but happier now. Is this me?! Sometimes takes a little contract coding work, but makes most what she needs for rent from her art

Did you used to work on Eliza as a coder or something? Your former boss was a psychologist and “creepo” (Soren)

Nora has some whack eastern european accent.

Soren is currently at (and leaving) Skandha, so sounds like you did work on Eliza

Snake Person = VSs, “biz dev”

Evelyn’s comment about the coffee shop - “it’s nice to know this is an option, the tea and coffee at the counselling center didn’t look so inspiring. Am I… am I being a snob?”

Immediately after coffee, you get an email that confirms you were one of the principal devs on Eliza.

Komorebi (the name of the coffee shop)

Language: Japanese

Meaning: The interplay between light and leaves when sunlight shines through trees.

Evelyn has some pictures propped up against the wall “that have been sitting there like that for a long time”. I also have a picture that is just propped against the wall instead of hung up (though I like it on the floor, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself?!)

Chapter 2

Email (from your mum?) with news story about mandatory fortnightly Eliza conversations at school for middle and high school students

You used to work at Magus books. Email from a customer there that is sad you left

Induced dreams by direct neural stimulation… interesting and creepy idea. Rather than invoking a feeling or improvement by talking, directly cause the required feeling.

Aponia - ancient greek, it means “the absence of pain”. Is it meant to sound like “a pony”? That’s what everyone really wants :P

Yao-Ren “Rainer” Tsai. Chairman and CEO of Skandha Corporation

Eliza is always talking about the rain - I guess that’s Seattle?

Gabriel stressed about having no time for himself after becoming a father

15 mins of VR - starry skies. Would that really help anything?

Anexophin - is that a real thing?

He gave 2 stars, but still a $5 tip?? He didn’t seem to find it helpful… he’ll be back

Maya 

Has some serious social anxiety.

No one cares about her art (like no one cares about our podcast :P)

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day. Is this to illustrate that Eliza’s treatments are bad?

Holiday Durant

Would smoke dope more often but it’s expensive :shrug:

Unmarked white busses, secret transport system “just for them” - it probably is! i.e. employee transport for tech firms

She asks Eliza about past life regression and Eliza breaks XD

Eliza doesn’t know what to do, since there’s nothing particularly wrong?? She just wants someone to talk to.

Fortipran hydrochloride - is that a real thing? Is it for shoulder pain, since that’s what she asked for? Apparently it sounds like an anti-anxiety drug (it’s not real). She forgets the name and thinks it’s forzapram. (you later discover it IS for shoulder pain!)

Dinner with Soren

Move on - “want to do his memory right, don’t you”. So the trauma was related to a guy?

I say “whose” and am told “Damien of course. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Rainer and Soren. Soren bitter that Rainer is CEO and never wanted for anything. Had all the right names - Harvard, Goldman Sachs

He needs a chief engineer, wants you (or maybe he wanted Nora but she said no :P)

Nora is DJing at an S&M club… or not - Soren is just wrong, and then goes to hit on a bunch of random women.

Email - Car will pick you up for meeting with Rainer at 9:20am from Queen Anne office. So Rainer must know you are working as a proxy

Nora tells you a load of electronic music stuff. The names sound real, and I know the other Zachtronics founder is into electronic music, so maybe it’s all real facts

Roland-TB303 (devil fish mod?)

Moog (pronounced Moag)

Li’l Sappho - greek poet..?

The music is… lewd? Sounds good, wild and untamed.

Chapter 3

Talking with Rainer. He found out you were back because your proxy scores were unusually good and he looked.

Being a proxy - more than an order of magnitude drop in pay vs. old job

Damien Seabrook - brilliant career cut short. He died? Suicide?

“Burnout isn’t uncommon in our line of work, still three years is...”

“You know what outstanding engineers have that mediocre ones don’t? It’s curiosity”

I guess you get to choose everything except the therapy? Are there branching paths?

Erlend, Chief Engineer - “he looks like a baby”, “he must be fresh out of university”

3rd chief engineer in 3 years since Evelyn left

Ratings are normalized per proxy. I don’t think you’ve really done enough sessions to really be an outlier though, unless you’ve done some off camera

Teams in Romania, Munich and Hyderabad.

Rae totally fangirling over Rainer

Erlend - “If I understand the programmer, then I understand the program”

It really is interesting to see other people’s code. It gives insight into how their brain solves problems, decomposes complex tasks.

So Eliza is just a small facet of Skandha, and Rainer really is a bigshot. Genuinely surprising that he knows who Evelyn is, or maybe at a tech firm the CEO does know star tech talent.

Eliza v10.3.3, Firmware version v110 c3115

Boot ROM 114.0.0.0.0

Chipset 18210B0

Mark Foras

“Well i don’t know if you’ve noticed, but young people are really pissy and entitled these days.” “Why would we want these conceited, overcelebrated whelps on our team? I’ll never understand the logic there”

Neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg…

SwiftMail, InfoVault - more traditional enterprise software

He’s very dismissive of Eliza! Supposedly Rainer “liked a chick on the team”, which would be Nora or Evelyn I guess.

“Mark, I’m going to suggest you try a program called “Lakeside Fishing”“ LOL

“I didn’t recognise his face or name”

“Glad I never had to work with him”

Hariman Gunawan

British accent, so since this is an American game does that make him a villain? He sounds very posh.

Grad student, English Literature

He sounds a lot like the British Malaysian comic that is on Friday Night Comedy podcast sometimes. Phil Wang..? OMG - it IS him!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10741934/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

Evelyn’s reading of the lines seems slightly more wooden after seeing Eliza (the server room). Is that intended? It’s very subtle. Or maybe it’s not wooden, maybe it’s some personal opinion creeping in? The goodbye for Hariman and Mark were both not neutral

Lytosinol 2 - in universe it’s a beta blocker

2 stars!? Rude! A tip though?

Rae’s brother struggles with substance abuse. She mentions it in the article about her and she’s on the phone to him when you visit.

Being a proxy gives Evelyn perspective - seeing how everyone else is messed up…

“Were we all just talking past each other?”

Rae - But you could also help even more people by working on Eliza itself, right? Not to mention make way more money.

Rae tells you not to downplay yourself

Rainer messages you and reveals that most of the Eliza cluster isn’t used for therapy, it’s trying to build a general purpose AI! :O

Rainer: This may sound off to you, but I’ll know I’ve successfully created a general artificial intelligence when I see it write a poem.

Evelyn: A poem

Rainer: Yes, It would have to be a good one, of course.

AI to humans as powered transport is to pack animals. Interesting way to look at it.

Rae describes a Skanda tech recruitment event. Is tech talent REALLY that in demand? Is it really that hard to get good engineers?

Evelyn - “And before that I just never had the time. It was just, research and science and work and then I woke up one day and I was in my thirties” OMG

“Even if I wanted to date, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how it’s supposed to work

“I wouldn’t even know how to tell if someone were interested in me…”

Though is this game THAT kind of visual novel? haha. 

Rae is asexual? Will this game be a fully representative spectrum of everything?

Chapter 4

Soren: Say there was a medical procedure that could remove your suffering. No side effects, no cost. Just an operation that would make you permanently happy.

I’d say being permanently happy was a bad side effect.. Sometimes you need to feel sad (cue melancholy playlist…)

The Glencadam - scotch whisky. Is that a real thing? (yes)

Direct stimulation / induced dreaming vs talking things over. I’ve actually thought about this - there are changes that you might want to make to your mind or body, but you can’t because you don’t have the right levers.You have to take an indirect route and use the tools / levers that exist. Is it possible to build levers from what you have? Like hacking a machine and getting a foothold, then building an editor to enter more exploit code until you control the whole machine. Could you do that to your mind, or even your body?

Soren: Anger, depression, emptoness, anxiety, jealousy, every kind of unhappiness you can think of… obsolete.

I’ve thought about this too - these things serve a purpose, even if it’s not one that’s necessarily beneficial for you as an individual. Like when you’re depressed, is that your body telling you to die so you’re not a drain on the group? Not a nice thought - could it just be an error to be fixed?

Soren thinks Rainer was against direct stimulation “fixes” so that people would be unhappy and reliant on mental health services from Skandha

Damien worked himself to death. All nighters, multiple times. Pulmonary embolism. At least it wasn’t suicide…

Soren:

It’s late and I’ve had quite a bit to drink, so I’ll tell you a secret, Evelyn.

I said I want to end human suffering, which makes me sound very altruistic.

But I’m not doing it for humankind. I’m doing it for myself.

I have nothing. I’ve ruined every relationship I was ever in.

I hardly ever see my kids, and, well, they hate me anyway.

…

I want to end my own suffering, but I can’t bring myself to do it the… traditional way. That’s why I’ve pursued this technology. That’s why I want it to exist.

The idea that everyone else could use it too… it’s just a bonus.

Mark Foras mass emails the whole of Skandha with his farewell message! He signs off “Excelsior!” who does that?!

Hariman again

Evelyn has mirth in her voice as she says hello

He slept with Sylvia

Is he comic relief? He’s more worried now than before!

“How do I tell Liz?” Wtf

“Did I mention this last time? I have a sort of, girlfriend”

“I can’t believe this. I got what I wanted and it ruined my life.”

Irony - he hated self-pitying novels by men who were messed up by a relationship and couldn’t get over it, but how he’s one of them

Eliza’s questioning really is reminiscent of the Eliza program

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day - Hariman thinks this is a good idea?!

3 stars?? I guess it’s better than two. Still got a $5 tip

Maya Leeds

Jealousy at the success of younger people - mid-thirties.

This is clearly the age at which everything starts to go wrong. It’s easy to be positive when you’re younger, but when you get to mid-thirties, you feel that time is running out, it’s half way for most people…

Maya:

Well there’s - there’s one woman in particular everyone loves.

And her work is… I don’t get it. I just - I don’t understand. She gets so much money and support for this basic, basic shit.

And somehow everyone’s predisposed to like her.

I mean, maybe I do get it…

I feel like people pay attention to her work not because it’s good on its own, but because supporting her feels like the right thing to do.

The way she’s aligned herself it’s like… if you support her, it means you’re cool, You’re in with the cool kids.

And if I’m not publicly supportive of her and generally tolerant of her mediocre work, then I’m the bad one, I’m the competitive bitch, I’m the… the bitter failure.

Transparency mode! Eliza reads all of your emails and chats

5 stars, $5. The tip seems to always be $5 if there is one

Is there anything that secret in my electronic messages? I don’t think there’s anything that salacious. Maybe I’m just boring… or maybe I just keep it off the record most of the time. I guess there are a few mad conversations.

Eliza Transparency Mode 0.8.2

Maya’s text conversation with Garrett - super grim. She’s just venting and being sad and he doesn’t know what to do.

$186.11 rideshare bill! $150 cleaning and $10 tip.

Erlend is disturbed by the idea of copying Eliza and sending the data to other teams, including external ones.

You don’t really tell him anything, you just listen and he feels better.

Capitol Hill - is that a real place in Seattle?

I have a jacket like Nora’s

Chat with Erlend - what does it mean to be conscious, to be sentient? Would you even know? What if you just gave the correct responses, but weren’t? Chinese Room

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

In Evelyn’s three lost years. She tried to get up in the morning like she meant to go to work, tried to do personal projects… it didn’t last long.

Stayed in bed, even though she was awake. Cared less and less about projects

A blankness would come over her and it seemed fine to do nothing (depression?)

Evelyn:

I was by myself and I thought that was alright. I thought - that’s how it is, really. Everyone’s along. I’m just being honest about it.

…

I was...thirty-one when I left Soren’s group. Now I’m thirty-four.

I just slept into my mid-thirties.

(I just podcasted…)

Chose to get super high and watch cyber-goth music vids

Chapter 5

Nora is a public critic of Eliza. Rae is sad about it

Everyone is very understanding - trying not to push you one way or the other! Presumably you’ll get a choice how the story goes - whether to work on Eliza or not.

Holiday Durant!

She is so random and all over the place. She tried to buy “forpanza” but it was $162 and she didn’t have that kind of money. Asked for a generic, didn’t have one, there’s a similar one but she didn’t have a prescription. The off to a story about meeting someone with wires in their brain.

Concerned that bus operators don’t care as much since there was a guy playing the guitar on the bus, and also that you don’t hear as much music any more???

A lot of “forced reflow during execution”

Recommended she tries a program “Dolphin Smiles”. Her phone is broken XD

Holiday seems to be the most challenging client for Eliza to understand, since she doesn’t really have any problems other than wanting someone to talk to.

Nora forwards the Eliza critical article to me - it mentions that the proxies are humans that have been reduced to machines as all they do is follow the prompts. The guy who wrote it emailed you earlier about an interview (which you ignored)

Transparency mode for Holiday!? Seems surprising

Fortipran HCl IS for joint and muscle pain, so Eliza’s prescription was on point!

Holiday is clearly NOT in a good place financially.

She never mentioned her real problems to Eliza

I just noticed that one of the early emails you get is “The Damien Seabrook Memorial Fund”, year 3. Who are K & G that sign off the mail?

Transparency mode from SOREN?!?!? Is this hax??

Soren says to Nora that she knows she fancies Evelyn. So it is one of those games :P

Why is your chat with Soren not in here?

He was messaging Sarah, Rainer’s assistant

He was emailing what sounds like a bondage tutorial???

Rainer says that Soren is focussing on dreams to defend his territory, Jung-ian tradition.

Soren believes the mind is indivisible after a certain point - some undefinable, ineffable soul inside every person.

Rainer: One day, algorithms will write better poems than humans ever have.

I��m not sure it’s an easy thing to judge - art is so much about the intent and the journey as much as the result. Look at modern art, like Rothko - it’s very simple, but it’s considered important because of what it means rather than the execution. If a machine just generated it without struggle, would people treat it the same way?

Rainer: The pleasures of the senses are just small bubbles on top of a vast sea of… forms. Sensations, perceptions. Thought. Awareness.

It might be fun to take a break and just debate philosophy for a while.

Rainer: What comes after having the power to experience the dream of anything you could possibly want?

You’re still just as trapped as you’ve always been - imprisoned by your own desires

(this is Maya’s problem)

He calls you Eliza, haha

Evelyn Ishino-Aubrey

You have to answer 7 questions about how you feel - I’m not sure how I should have answered them for Evelyn, I wonder if it makes a difference.

The Eliza interface is projected onto glasses it seems.

Evelyn is middle class or richer, seeing Holiday’s situation was a shock for her.

The proxies were Soren’s idea.

“<NAME>, imagine that you could have something that you wanted. What would you want?”

Does it matter what you pick? You get a huge list, but then it says “or maybe I just wish I could feel connected to someone”. Probably because it’s built on a dating sim :P

Evelyn:

I think maybe that’s the real problem.

I can’t have a connection to anyone…

(is that my problem too?)

“I was alone a lot, and I got used to being alone, and I got used to the idea of being alone, and now I can’t… I can’t break away”

Evelyn is prescribed “Virtual Amphitheatre”, 20 minutes 2-3 times a week

So you CAN tip more than $5, haha

Chapter 6

Erlend talks about dogfooding the apps, which is a term well known in tech circles, but maybe not outside.

Maya Leeds

YOU GET A CHOICE :O

I stuck with Eliza…

Eliza suggests Dolphin Smiles, Maya says she can’t imagine anything she wants less

Hariman Gunawan

Still obsessed with Sylvia. Liz found out and dumped him, Sylvia lost interest.

Eliza suggests breathing exercises, Anexophin

Gabriel Navarro

I super want to know what he’s hiding, but the Eliza questions aren’t that probing. Is the game really really trying to make you break from Eliza?

Gay?

Gabriel: “I’m a man and that’s what men do. I made a promise and now I have a responsibility”

Eliza prescribes stress management exercises, Lytosinol-4 (4 not 2)

Gabriel asks if that’s in addition to or instead of the previous medication (which he didn’t follow up on). Eliza says that she can’t comment further on medication and to discuss the specifics with his doctor or psychiatrist

Receive a thank you email from Allison Zulfiya for inspiring her during a visit to her class

Chose to hang out with Rae

Rae: You have a decision to make about what you’ll be doing in the next chapter of your life and all…

(a bit on the nose there! That’s borderline 4th wall breaking)

Chapter 7

Working on Eliza Ending

Skandha benefits - Activalet. Use the app to summon a personal assistant to book things for you, stand in line for you, receive deliveries for you.

Invitation to be the keynote speaker at the International Mental Wellness Symposium in Malmo, Sweden

Evelyn: We’ll generate a three-year roadmap document by the end of the week, and then a more granular development plan for the next six months or so by the week after.

“Eliza is the real boss. The manager of its own project”

“Through us, it’s realizing itself”

Rainer is a singularity believer

Written by: Matthew Seiji Burns (Zach’s collaborator that likes electronic music)

The Solitaire Game - Maya mentions it if you break the script. It is hard at first, until you learn to think several moves ahead (I think you need to think 3 moves ahead to be able to solve it, since at the end you only have 2 slots free at best).

After winning the first time, I played another game and immediately won that too.

Maya realises that you’re not following the script if you don’t prescribe dolphin smiles

Maya:

“Um. Thanks for listening to me. I’m sure it’s been annoying to hear me complain about how I’m not successful yet, every single week”

“Oh my God, will this bitch ever shut up… you ever think that?”

I’m sure that’s what my therapist was thinking too… :P

Gabriel: If everyone just did what they wanted to all the time, the world would collapse. It would be a disaster.

We all want things we shouldn’t actually have.

Nora Ending

Nora: I don’t feel this weird oppressive hierarchy where people try to figure out where they are relative to you on a ladder when they first meet you…

(this is literally how things work at my real job)

Who is “therationalmind20” Soren? Eldren? Rainer? Someone else?bI feel like I’ve seen the name before somewhere...

“you think you’re so smart but you’re not. women like you have nothing better to do that to criticize because you can’t create on your own.

enjoy your life being a shrill harpy nobody wants to listen to”

(this is from the Nora ending)

There’s no histogram, but the information to create one is collected

https://steamcommunity.com/app/716500/discussions/0/1640919737478105344/

Soren Ending

Soren:

“You know they used to criticize anesthesia. It’s true.”

“They said it was important to feel pain, even during surgery”

Trans cranial current thing - is that what Aponia is? Or at least the real world equivalent is that

Sodality? What does that mean? I learned something new:

a confraternity or association, especially a Roman Catholic religious guild or brotherhood.

One of the benefits touted by Aponia is “increased sodality, transients eliminated”

Counsellor With Rae Ending

Darren comes back to thank you (you Evelyn not Eliza), though really, what are the chances of him getting you as his proxy again?

Also, $100 tip! 

Leave It All Behind Ending

Throws away the narrative. Go to Japan, try to find father.

[recentanimenews]

Need Movie Night Ideas? Here Are Some Must-See Anime Movies on VRV!

There’s a lot of anime here on Crunchyroll, but there’s even more out there on VRV! Personally, I find it exciting to log on and look at the seemingly endless options ahead of me for what I can watch next. However, there are probably some out there who might think it a little daunting. Maybe you don’t quite have the time right now to invest in a few seasons of a show. Maybe you’re in the mood for something shorter than that, like a movie, perhaps. If that’s the case, you’re in luck, because VRV has plenty of anime movies out there to choose from! If you’re looking for some quick recommendations, here are some of my favorite must-watch anime films on VRV:

Akira

  Do you love intense action, brutal violence, and breathtaking animation? If so, you can’t go wrong with a classic like Akira. This seminal cyberpunk thriller centers around the relationship and rivalry between Kaneda, a hot-headed biker gang leader, and Tetsuo, a frustrated young boy with phenomenal psychic powers. Set against the backdrop of a dystopic post-war Neo-Tokyo, these two duke it out for the fate of the city. Akira not only made its mark on the anime industry in Japan, but also across the entire world. Its stunning visuals and violent narrative stunned audiences around the world and introduced a wealth of new people to the sprawling world of anime. Watch it again (or for the first time!) on VRV today!

Night on the Galactic Railroad

    If you’re in the mood for something more quiet and thoughtful, Night on the Galactic Railroad has you covered. Based on an early 20th century novel, this 1985 film focuses on a young cat named Giovanni. Born into a young family with a sick mother and a father on a journey far from home, he finds himself ridiculed and isolated by his peers. However, on the night of his village’s annual star festival, a mysterious train appears, which he boards along with a kind classmate named Campanella. On this train they take a across the universe. This classic film offers meditative ruminations on, life, death, philosophy, and history that have tugged at the heartstrings of audiences for decades since its release.

Mamoru Hosoda’s Catalogue

It’s tough to recommend one without the others, so why not watch all four of Mamoru Hosoda’s movies on VRV? In the Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a high schooler named Makoto manages to cheat death and optimize her life when she suddenly gains the ability to leap back in time, but not without unintended consequences. In Summer Wars, a young programmer unwittingly finds himself fighting against a rogue AI over summer vacation. In Wolf Children, a human named Hana falls in love with a wolf man and struggles to raise their children when he unexpectedly passes on. Finally, in The Boy and the Beast, a homeless kid stumbles into a world populated by beasts and is adopted by an apprehensive bear-man. While these may all be separate films, they’re all tied together by the common theme of family. Whether you’re in the mood for big families, small families, or found families, there are no better films to watch than these!

  Mind Game

Wanna watch something just a little more...out there? Well, you can’t go wrong with something from Masaaki Yuasa! The feature film directorial debut of the man who would go on to direct Kaiba and Devilman Crybaby, Mind Game is a wild ride from start to finish. This star-crossed love story focuses on an aspiring manga artist named Nishi and his childhood crush Myon, who is engaged to someone else. One fateful night during a quiet meal, they’re accosted by yakuza and Nishi is killed. Nishi’s sheer will to live convinces God to give him a second chance, which Nishi grabs by the horns and rides like a wild bull. Mind Game is an inventive trip from start to finish seamlessly blending multiple animation styles such as 2D, 3DCG, and still life photography together to create a three-course feast for the eyes!

Belladonna of Sadness

    Looking for something like nothing else out there? Belladonna of Sadness might just be the film for you! Based on the 19th century historical collection Satanism and Witchcraft, Belladonna of Sadness follows the story of Jeanne, a peasant woman in medieval France. After being assaulted on her wedding night by the village clerics and spurned by her newlywed husband Jeanne, she makes a deal with the devil to become a witch and take her revenge. This unsung jewel of underground animation was the final entry in the adult-oriented Animerama films conceived by Osamu Tezuka and is one of the last productions by the original Mushi Productions studio he founded. From start to finish, Belladonna of Sadness is a violent and psychedelic piece of adult erotica without compare. Over four decades after its release, it’s finally found its way onto our screens on VRV!

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness

While it may not technically be an anime film, I would be remiss to not include a fantastic documentary about anime production on this list. The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness is a 2013 documentary following legendary director Hayao Miyazaki throughout the production of the Wind Rises leading up to the sudden announcement of his retirement afterwards. This heartfelt film provides a rare look into the inner workings of one of animation’s most world-renowned studios and the illustrious creators that work there. While the film centers primarily around the daily life of Hayao Miyazaki, viewers will also get to know names such as his frequent producer Toshio Suzuki, close friend and collaborator Hideaki Anno, and also the talented late Isao Takahata. The documentary was put together and released years prior to his recent passing, and both his presence in the film and the way in which his peers regard him gives this documentary an even heavier emotional weight. After watching all of the fantastic anime films listed above, be sure to not only take the time to learn about the way in which anime movies are made, but also honor those who make it.

How’s that? See anything you like on there? Didn’t see a name you were looking for? Fret not, there are plenty more fantastic anime films where these came from out there on VRV. So go ahead, get on there, find your favorites, and find some new favorites while you’re at it. You won’t be disappointed!

  Join VRV today!

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Danni Wilmoth is a Features and Social Videos writer for Crunchyroll and also co-hosts the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com