#Importance of AV system

[invested-in-your-future]

The Portrayal of DID in Ave Mujica

(I have to preface this by saying that I am approaching this from a narrative writing standpoint and from my own personal delving into psychology overall. The subject topic is complex and the medical knowledge on it is ever-evolving, so if any of my notions are outdated, I am very, so very sorry.)

(I also understand that the topic of trauma and DID might be a triggering experience to some people, so caution is advised.)

(The discussion will also have open spoilers about the show and as such is tagged with spoiler tags.)

If there's one thing I would never expect when watching a music show, it is for it to turn into a deeply introspective psychological drama about flawed characters grappling with anxiety, mental wellness, toxicity and so on.

I did something like this a few times before and I can't help but want to explore and convey my thoughts on the character writing and handling of dissociative identity disorder within this show.

Now, Ave Mujica's predecessor, MYGO (to which Ave Mujica is a sequel), did play with the portrayal of neurodivergent-coded traits and still remains one of the best attempts at that overall, but a lot of that could be written off as subtextual.

So Ave Mujica portraying DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) in a textual way comes as a surprise.

What's even bigger surprise is the lengths the show goes to make the portrayal feel authentic and how up-to-date the overall knowledge within the writing is.

Now, for starters, some explanation is needed.

What is DID?

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a type of dissociative disorder that usually develops in early childhood due to traumatic experiences—most often emotional or physical abuse or neglect.

The conditions within the environment lead to a child failing to integrate into a unified identity due to compartmentalizing their trauma and various other facotrs. In layman's terms, "distancing themselves" from their own psychological trauma.

The key aspect to understand is dissociation, a concept that is crucial to DID but NOT limited to it. To quickly explain what dissociation is—to handle specific amounts of stress and trauma, the brain copes with the information via "disconnecting" one's sense of self from perception.

Dissociation is actually a very common reaction to trauma and can manifest in different ways without it being DID (hence dissociative disorders being a whole branch of stuff)—like, for example, dissociative amnesia, where a person might forget selective memories associated with a traumatic event.

Grief tends to sometimes lead to dissociation, especially during the early phases, too.

Another common example is depersonalization, which involves "perceiving yourself as an out-of-body observer," which usually involves an altered perception of time too, with time slowing down or speeding up or the concept of time losing meaning.

Both of those can manifest as part of DID, but can also exist separately—for example, derealization and depersonalization can be symptomatic of PTSD.

DID in itself as a concept is about a person at a young age failing to integrate into "one".

The way a child's growth goes is that the mind reintegrates and parses those their experiences and traumas shaping their identity. Experiencing dissociation doesn't instantly mean DID, because dissociation by itself is a common trauma-parsing mechanism, as I said before. A child can experience trauma, neglect, or abuse without it leading to DID.

In the case of DID, the child fails to integrate, the trauma/abuse/neglect instead leading to compartmentalized elements working together—a system.

It's important to note that trauma doesn't create alters, as it's been thought for a while. It's not something fake or "split" or "created"—the system is all the alters as equally "real"; it's just that alters themselves might have different traits of the identity.

While alters are identities, they aren't necessarily separate people—they are a system. Alters might differ from each other, and have separate memories, and skill sets, but every alter is part of that system. Alters don't appear out of thin air as separate entities and it's better to view a system as an entity comprised of equally real alters functioning together, with the "primary" one (the one that's out for the longest periods) being often called "the host".

Thus, alters can be subtle and almost indistinguishable from the host. And even if they have distinct personality traits, most alters would have an awareness to "fit in" by not standing out, instead internalizing them and trying to mimic the host personality (because it's "normal").

There isn't a secret evil spirit or a ninja assassin living in a person—portrayals like that (ex: the movie "Split") are extremely harmful because they perpetuate a toxic stereotype that just isn't true.

There's no "real personality and fake personalities" and so on. The current understanding of DID is a child at a young age, due to internal and external factors, failing to integrate into a singular identity.

Now depending on how young we talking, the person might have had a personality-before or might not have at the point DID develops, but the concept of "original/core" personalities is currently considered antiquated.

And just like alters aren't "created," they can't "die" either.

Now that this covered basic terminology and information, I can actually discuss about the show itself.

First, let's talk about Mutsumi and her character.

Mutsumi

From the very first appearance in MYGO, the characterization conveys the personality of someone who is stoic, internalizes her emotions, and has trouble communicating with others—her first spoken line in the show is ambiguous.

Mutsumi is a stoic, shy student who had been in a band together with her childhood friend, Sakiko, and three other people. The band imploded after her childhood friend suffered from circumstances she felt she couldn't share with others and disbanded it.

The character is often coerced or influenced by others to do things for them and plays more of the role of an observer.

It becomes quickly obvious that Mutsumi herself is extremely uncomfortable with this role—not only blaming herself for the band's breakup but also feeling awful about her friends' mental well-being afterward.

Meanwhile, Mutsumi's childhood is no better—as a child of a star actress and a famous comedian, Mutsumi didn't have what one could call "a normal childhood.". Her parents had surrounded her with wealth but at the same time had adopted a completely hands-off approach, which led to her feeling neglected and alone. For example, she doesn't even call her mother and father dad/mom/father/mother/etc., instead opting to refer to them by their first names like friends would do. The mother is also enamored with being an actress—for example, one of the things she would offer her daughter's friends visiting would be to watch movies she starred in.

The show makes sure the audience gets a sense of the scale of her home life—a luxurious house filled with servants where her mother is a star rather than a parent.

What's more, due to the circumstances of her parents she's constantly compared to her mother and father and their talents, with expectations placed to follow in their footsteps. This ends up with her feeling like she has nothing of her own in her life—whatever praise or expectation is placed upon her ties to The Star Actress and The Comedian instead of who Mutsumi is as a person.

As a result, she values the bonds she has formed with other people a lot. She cares deeply about her childhood friend (whose family circumstances are the actual reason for the band breakup), and she cares about the one other bandmate who had kept in touch with her (the person who is mainly keeping in touch due to selfish goals though).

So when her friend decides to create a new band, Mutsumi feels responsible to support her and help her.

Unfortunately for her, her friend is going through a lot emotionally, and the entirety of the new band consists of a lot of openly toxic individuals.

Thus she is placed into a situation where she has to juggle the neglect and distance she feels at home, the expectations her suffering friend is placing upon her, the expectations the world has for her due to her parents, and the pressure from being a member of an extremely popular band—a tough deal for someone who from the beginning had trouble expressing herself.

But hey, at least since the band has the whole pseudo-visual-kei thing going for it, she will be able to wear a mask.

Which is where her journey through Ave Mujica starts.

Ave Mujica and DID

The first notable thing we see happen is her struggling with an interview, reinforcing the idea that she has trouble expressing herself.

Ironically, this is another case where someone else ends up speaking over her.

The episode ends with the first notable trigger for her emotional state worsening, which is one of the bandmates going off-script and ruining the whole "secret identity" thing by unmasking them live on stage to an audience of hundreds if not thousands.

Considering her character set-up and her issues and insecurities, this is about the second most terrifying thing to Mutsumi in the entire world.

As the bandmates argue and blame each other over what had happened, the show then proceeds to take time to showcase how the pressure and the stress of what had happened affect her psychologically and emotionally.

This is a character who had been defined by the impostor syndrome caused by the neglect of her parents and comparisons society draws to them due to their fame—essentially getting doxxed live to an audience of hundreds if not more.

The show then dedicates its runtime to showcase how this character is slowly ground down by the building up pressure and anxiety, the dam breaking due to the traumatic experience—especially when she flubs an interview, causing even more tension and pressure.

"Don't speak out; play your role; don't make mistakes; be perfect or people will hate you."

The show makes sure to slowly build tension and highlight the growing anxiety and the increasing levels of dissociation the character experiences from the world around her as she goes through interviews and photoshoots—interactions that only worsen her mental state by anxiously comparing her to her parents or reminding her of the mistakes she made, as numbness overtakes her.

The anxiety, the stress, and the tension within all build to the point of insomnia as the character retreats to the one place she was implied to feel safe in throughout the show—the rehearsal room at home where she would spend time alone playing her guitar.

Because, again, as implied, her parents don't exactly pay any attention to her beyond showering her with wealth, and everyone else views her as an extension of her parents. So for her this is one spot that is truly hers.

And even that spot has now been taken because her mother had offered the whole band to use the rehearsal room. It's no longer just her space.

Depression, anxiety, and insomnia are but a few of the things that both influence and happen as a result of dissociative disorders

The show highlights the character's worsening physical state due to her deteriorating emotional state, to the point that the character has trouble walking down the hallway.

More importantly, the people around her—her band, her parents, her friend—they don't realize that. If anything, they put more pressure on her shoulders, they tell her to not stand out, to play the role to perfection, to not ruin the performance or further ruin the band's reputation.

The pressure and tension build to the point where the show depicts the first on-screen dissociative episode for the character.

Experiencing dissociation from gazing into a mirror is actually pretty common, as is the idea of recognizing your reflection as someone else. It's not limited to DID, however. There are common experiences where people suffering from anxiety might feel a sensation that they are looking at a stranger for example. Gender dysphoria might also elicit a feeling that the reflection is "wrong".

The show also showcases another common DID symptom: losing large chunks of time as the character finds themselves jumping from the changing room to the middle of the scene without knowing how she had gotten there.

The scene also involves the character witnessing(and more importantly, recognizing) multiple of herself. While the most common way for the host personality to perceive alters is auditory, visual perception is also possible, as are all other senses.

The series of visual hallucinations ends with a character making a mistake live on stage and experiencing a complete dissociation as she slumps onto a stage prop chair motionless like a doll with strings cut..

Essentially, this is a moment when no one is in control. The host personality has experienced complete dissociation, but neither the host personality nor any alters are "behind the wheel.".

Now, to this point, the idea is still subtextual (barely) in that the story shows but doesn't tell what is happening.

However, what comes after this grows more and more textual.

The dissociative episode and perceiving multiple of "you" leads to the character experiencing even more vivid hallucinations.

This time, however, the character directly acknowledges and converses with an alter within her mind-space.

Having a healthy and proper way of communication between host and alter(s) is actually crucial to functioning as a healthy system and living with DID.

Most of the conversation, however, happens within mind-space, as the character relives her past experiences and memories as if she were watching them as an observer, with the alter narrating her life's story.

The mindscape is often metaphorical so the alters don't necessarily always appear human, but they always would be "humanlike", because the brain perceives the alter as alive. The form alters might take within the mindscape is often dependent on the kind of trauma a person has suffered.

The story as narrated by the alter establishes the reason behind why the character values playing the guitar so much—because it's something truly hers, something she had learned on her own and something that is in no way "because of her parents".

But she feels like she's not good enough.

She can't be expressive, she has trouble communicating her emotions, and thus her playing skills, while technically perfect, lack that self-expression capability.

She can't make the guitar sing.

And thus due to impostor syndrome, she concludes that being "wrong" somehow is why the bands she gets involved with on her friend's behalf keep breaking up—why her best friend keeps suffering.

A person suffering from anxiety, trauma, and neglect, someone who has issues expressing themselves, would often wrestle with issues of self-hate and depression and Mutsumi is no different there.

Experiencing one's own memories from an outside perspective, as if watching a movie or seeing themselves from outside observing something is once again quite common in terms of DID.

As the toxicity within the band keeps growing and her friend keeps suffering, the character's anxiety and stress build further, the auditory and visual hallucinations intensifying.

Just a reminder that while this goes on and Mutsumi slips in and out of her mindscape, her best friend, her parents, and the whole band are completely unaware of any of this. In their minds, the dissociative episode she had experienced was "her acting out" or "acting" or just being "closed-off".

This is the first case where the alter has a direct and open back-and-forth conversation with the Mutsumi, rather than narrating her life like before.

Alters within a system often end up serving specific purposes—because they are more comfortable doing something the host alter isn't. Sometimes it's a single memory the host can't parse or a personality trait.

The alter in question showcases worry for the host's well-being—A Protector.

The alter represents worry over the character's own well-being and where the current stressful self-destructive path may lead.

(Important Note: I do feel the need to say that alters do not neatly fall into classifications and there's not some "class system" for Alters that is always true. There are many complex reasons for how alters within a system can be and there's a lot still unknown, as is true with the overall human mind. Since alters aren't created or "split", an alter merely providing a specific role doesn't mean they exist solely for that role, as it becomes clear with the case within the show too.)

The alter believes that if Mutsumi stays with the band, she will experience the full brunt of the band imploding and the alter also perceives Sakiko as someone who is not healthy for the character—toxic even.

Mutsumi however reaffirms that she wants to support her friend no matter what, to always be by her side.

Eventually, however, as the days go on, and the band keeps arguing, the character ends up tying together what is happening now with a traumatic event in her past—her best friend's previous band imploding in a similar fashion.

The character draws parallels between the two situations—between two traumatic experiences—which further worsens their wellbeing.

As a side note I do love Dutch-angles and how universal they are in conveying things going wrong somehow or being unsettling.

All of this leads to the final straw—a confrontation with her best friend, where the character ends up being accused of "not being good enough" and "not supporting her like a friend should".

Why can't she smile or talk or be more social?

Now I do feel the need to interject and say that while her friend is completely in the wrong here, things aren't that simple. Sakiko also has her own issues, depression, traumatic experiences, and absolutely horrible life—all of which she is unable to properly parse and thus turns towards alienating everyone who cares for her rather than showing how hurt she is.

This is the final straw, the moment where the anxiety and traumatic experiences build up to the point where the host just wants to escape.

A moment where subconsciously she'd want to turn to the someone for help.

This is also the first time this alter is properly given a name (one of Mutsumi's stage persona, Mortis).

The scene is eerie and haunting, but it has to be—sleeping is as close as the situation can get to ego-death.

(Because, like I mentioned before, parts of a system can't "die".)

Once the stage play starts, both the bandmates and the audience are treated to a performance that is unlike the character's usual self.

Mortis fulfills their role, shielding the host from a traumatic experience, taking it up to themselves to do something the host would suffer trying to do. In this case, it's to pretend everything is fine and play the role her best friend expects her in the band—to smile and to talk and to help keep it together.

From this point on, Mortis is in control.

She smiles, is social, and delivers efficient jokes to lighten up the mood—she pays attention to the wellbeing of other bandmates and is extremely expressive.

It needs to be noted that the bandmates and parents STILL have no clue. The other bandmembers barely knew her for a month so they don't really see anything wrong with the change in how the character behaves. If anything they see it as an improvement.

Mortis is doing everything they can to do what the host was too anxious to—to be a perfect actress, supportive and caring for the band, and nurturing an environment where the band stays together.

There are a few problems, however.

For starters, Mortis doesn't know how to play guitar, at all.

It's a skill and talent the host alter developed and as far as systems go not everyone would have access to the same memories, experiences, or skills and it's possible for alters to develop different skills than the host too.

And second of all, as the one who wants to protect Mutsumi, Mortis feels disdain towards the main source of Mutsumi's anxiety and depression—her childhood friend, Sakiko.

In Mortis's eyes, the dissociative episode the host suffered and the extreme amounts of anxiety and stress are all because of Sakiko.

This comes to a head in a scene where Sakiko, after spending a whole episode feeling uneasy because of how different Mutsumi is now, decides to have a one-on-one talk with her about what's going on.

It's in this scene that the show textually acknowledges DID.

What finally tips her off is that Mortis refers to her differently than Mutsumi would.

This scene also provides a direct affirmation of the fact that parts of a system don't "die"—they might however go dormant and "fall asleep".

As a side note, the scene does contain ominous framing, but it's mainly due to it mainly being from Sakiko's POV. The writing, however, makes it extremely clear Mortis isn't a villain as much as someone protective of Mutsumi and spiteful towards Sakiko due to her neglect of her best friend—and that Mortis isn't entirely wrong to blame Sakiko for this.

This is kind of surprising because that's pretty "new" information as far as the medical topic of DID goes. People used to think alters could die due to a faulty understanding of the idea stemming from the older now debunked theories as I mentioned before.

The reality, however, is, that alters aren't really something "different" nor "created/split"—a system has the same brain, and the same biological functions, which means the brain can't perceive itself as "dead".

DID develops at a young age due to neglect trauma or abuse. It doesn't suddenly happen because of some extremely tragic event as fiction often depicts it (the tragic events however can cause the host to dissociate and push specific trauma onto an existing alter).

The show, once again, acknowledges that too!

The scene basically spells out that Mutsumi's DID developed at a young age as a result of parental neglect and anxiety. Note that the show doesn't imply Mortis "having been created" ever.

Mortis basically spells out what Mutsumi wouldn't have been able to say—she speaks of the stress the band had caused Mutsumi and how Sakiko's neglect and toxicity ended up causing her to retreat into sleep.

(Once again have to add this: Alters can differ in terms of their thoughts, species, speech patterns, gender orientation, etc. Alters even can have different heart rates, eyesight, and how they respond to allergies.)

Mortis is resolute to protect Mutsumi and her band, but she's also a child—one that can be very blunt in the ways Mutsumi isn't and also naive in the way Mutsumi wouldn't be.

She can't help but detest Sakiko for her toxicity and the trauma it has caused.

She bluntly states that Mutsumi ceding control to Mortis is Sakiko's fault and if Sakiko keeps acting this way instead of actually parsing her problems, Mutsumi might never return.

Mortis isn't merely "a role protecting someone". She is childish and she is, in a way spiteful and she has an opinion about Sakiko that Mutsumi might not agree with.

There's a struggle there because the dissociation between the two alters is too big—there's a lack of communication as once Mutsumi gets to interact with Mortis again, the two are talking past each other.

Mortis is way too focused on what Sakiko had caused and on how it had hurt Mutsumi, while Mutsumi is still ever so focused on how much Sakiko herself is hurting and ignoring her own problems.

It's somewhat common for alters to communicate their memories or experiences with each other via mindspace creating a filing system of sorts as some described it as a computer with a search bar or a cabinet.

The show makes sure to highlight the dissociation currently between Mutsumi and Mortis and the communication between the alters having been strained due to conflicting motives and viewpoints on their mental wellness and how much a person Mutsumi cares about affected it.

The show also doesn't shy away from the problematic treatment of mental wellness in the world and how often it gets sensationalized.

The first major example is the public's reaction to Mutsumi dissociating on the stage—the band is flooded with demands to REPEAT that "performance". In fact multiple show appearances and stuff set that as a condition for the band appearing at all. To the public there's not even an ounce of worry that this was something real—to it couldn't have been anything but acting. Which is actually a common toxic reaction towards systems in the real world. Even within the Ave Mujica tags there were people screaming how "Mutsumi must be just pretending to have it".

Even one of Mutsumi's teammates mistakes her dissociation and Mortis for masterclass acting talent and is STILL haunted and feeling inferior by it even after she KNOWS what actually happened.

The characters also use the outdated term "split personality" when conversing about Mutsumi and Mortis and a majority of the cast doesn't "get" what this is and are way out of their depths—Sakiko blames herself for "having broken" Mutsumi, Umiri and Uika just completely don't care, Nyamu feels insecure and the MYGO cast are also just as out of their depths even though they display far more empathy.

It's a sheer contrast to one character who has no direct connection to Mutsumi but is known for her blunt nature and ends up recognizing both Mutsumi and Mortis as individuals (even asking for the name of each alter when they exchange introductions) and befriending Mortis.

Likewise, when Mutsumi and Mortis end up arguing over their motives and goals and falling down the stairs, the first reactions the onlookers have is to...snap photos and film the situation because it's a famous person and maybe this is some performance too! A completely cold and cruel audience of observes that keeps snapping photos even as another characters desperately begs them not to film this.

And of course, it gets shared and goes viral on social media.

Overall so far the representation of DID and overall mental-wellness issues in Ave Mujica (and MYGO) have been the series highlight and I certainly hope the show continues to treat the subject matter with care and research needed as it further delves into the character.

Another highlight is the variety of issues and insecurities the other main characters are facing—from Sakiko's complex traumatic experiences and implied self-harm tendencies, to Uika's obsession, to Nyamu's insecurities to Umiri's complete emotional disconnect and compartmentalizing to the point others see her as lacking empathy (even though that last scene implies it's not completely true, so we don't really know what's exactly going on there).

Ave Mujica, if it lands, is shaping up to be one of the best shows in a while when it comes to character introspection and psychological themes.

[dgiterart]

Twisted Macross (twst AU)

In 2XXX AD, in a remote part of the Milky Way Galaxy called the twisted wonderland, the galaxy is threatened by the mysterious Blot Syndrome, which infects people and causes them to commit violent acts like suicide bombing!

An interstellar enterprise known as NR(night raven) form Macross flight has come up with a way to counteract the spread of the Blot and that way is:

[More info under the cut! ]

At the same time as this great disaster in the galaxy, an elite variable fighter unit known as the " dark knights" of the "kingdom of nacht", having found a way to exploit the blot, openly declare war on the new United Government .

In order to counteract the spread of the blot and put a stop to this disaster the NR has started tactical sound units of (TWISTED MACROSS ) project:

This project is consistent of forming different Idol units with people capable of creating powerful "bio-fold waves" with there singing that help calm those infected with the disease and for them tour system to system in hopes to quell the symptoms of the disease.

Along side these idol units there are also the Macross fight unit that helps them in this adventure

But the important question is that which side are you in..

Rules/how to join:

Draw you oc as a idol/Macross pilot/ dark night

You can also make idol units with you fellow artists/friends

Can add info of your characters or there race(there are different race in macross series you can check the wiki)

You can talk about there unit and music style

Use this logo for the AU

Please tag me or use the tag #twstmacross

you can also check Pinterest or the macross wiki for some outfit reference in macross style(includes the pilots/ dark nights and idols)

Also here is the a drive containing Macross Delta songs

Idols/units:

Ave Heart (Elay & Yura)

Bunni (HeartCatch) @dollie-ballerina

Macross pilot :

To be added....

Dark knights:

To be added..

In the making process:

Idia by @bridgoetta

Temporary Tags: @oya-oya-okay @quartztwst @rizdoodles @lovelyllamasblog @liyuviq @hanafubukki @anbaisai

This AU is heavily influenced by the Macross delta series which i love with all my heart it was one of the first animes that got me in to Jpop and anime music

Intro post

[oneirophasia]

I like thinking about how The Murderbot Diaries could be adapted. I enjoy the conceit that much or all of the footage/animation is technically in first-person - but, true to character, Murderbot frequently prefers to hijack drones and other environmental cameras as an emotional distancing mechanism, allowing changes in POV to communicate its emotions without forcing Murderbot to explicitly comment on them. :D Visual media obviously want less narration than literature (sometimes to its detriment), but fortunately Murderbot has the excuse of lacking a Watson or anyone else it's willing to talk to, especially for half the first book, so there's plenty of justification for a minimal level of snarky cyber-noir commentary. The tonal contrast between its internal monologue and everything it actually says is important!

Treating the "camera" as an explicit extension of Murderbot's perspective also slightly simplifies the problem that a lot of the action and dialogue happens in a way that's tricky to convey passively in only two senses. For one, people talk to each other regularly not just vocally, but over the feed. How can that distinction be made clear to the audience without constantly having to say so? Audio is the most obvious choice; maybe the dialogue has processing effects that give it a subtle electronic tint. Earlier scenes could establish the convention by showing augmented humans continuing to talk by closing their mouths and using subvocal jaw movements, accompanied by the processing change, setting up that association to use without the visual cue later. It'd be important that the effect be distinctive without making the dialogue incomprehensible, since music and sound effects would also still be part of the mix. But "the feed" isn't just one feed, either - not everyone uses the same public channel, and sometimes that's plot-relevant. I remember in Rogue Protocol there was a moment where Murderbot has a brief conversation with someone - I think it was Abene? - which starts vocally, then moves to the feed, then to a private channel. The same people are speaking, or else you could use that to imply the change, but it's important to the audience that other people in the group who aren't currently speaking can only hear some of it. How do you communicate that efficiently? "Sounds digital" is one thing, "sounds digital but in two or more distinct and consistent ways" is another level and outside my limited AV knowledge. (If Murderbot is narrating when other people are around we might also need tone for "asides no one heard but the audience", but that isn't anything new at least.)

That's relatively trivial compared to the broader problem that Murderbot, specifically, is constantly talking to and hacking computer systems. That's at least half of its job and plot participation, but it's also a core part of its characterisation as an insubordinate non-human that makes it a compelling protagonist, so "just write it out of the script" would clearly betray the spirit of an adaptation. I don't know if you've thought about how much effort directors went to until someone (possibly on Sherlock) figured out how to just present text messages on-screen in a dynamic and legible way? This is worse. Viewers don't necessarily need as much information as readers get, but I just finished Exit Strategy and was paying attention to what I was actually imagining visually while Murderbot:

Remotely contacts a gunship using false authentication so it won't notify its human crew

Casually disables security devices and erases itself from recordings

Distinguishes systems by which organisation they belong to, how much access it has to them, and whether they have an active human operator

Sorts personal memories to edit into a highlights reel

Briefly redirects a secure call at a critical moment

Fakes a glitch in decorative holography

Exploits the perimeters of security systems that don't directly communicate with each other to evade pursuit

Monitors transit traffic to deduce enemy movement and change plans accordingly

Hijacks all the drones in a large room and blocks attempts to regain control

Reclassifies enemy combatants mid-engagement

Secures a pilot bot in the middle of being destroyed by killware

Creates bait to lure said killware into a subsystem that can be physically disconnected

Good thing I was imagining a broadly POV camera framing anyway, because none of this is happening physically, and Murderbot isn't experiencing it through human-analogous senses. The challenge is to communicate all of that without impeding the story it's meant to support, without the advantage of being able to control pacing through text. The usual trope for creating visual interest in the visually-unexciting activity of "using a computer" is to portray it as happening physically anyway in a metaphorical cyberspace, but I don't think that actually works in this case, because remember: a lot of this happens during climactic action scenes, and blocking fight choreography can be disorienting enough as it is without also constantly flickering into virtual reality just long enough to flip an imaginary switch. It makes more sense to me to represent it as more of an augmented reality overlay, which... the problem there isn't really that that sounds like creating an entire imaginary UI, which isn't different in principle from set design making sure all the buttons are labelled consistently on the spaceship console, the problem is that usually the audience isn't watching through the console. You'd need to treat the HUD elements as normal and use them at least often enough that when they become important the audience will be ready to follow along without exposition, but cluttering the screen can be distracting enough when you're playing an game and is probably even worse in a non-interactive medium.

[remotepixel]

Hey! Could I request smth where the reader is living in the avengers tower (maybe they had like a near death experience which made the avengers freak out and keep them there for their ‘safety’). Obviously with little to no connection to the outside world they start to feel isolated and depressed, so their yandere(s) gets them a pet to cheer them up.

With a focus on Tony (and maybe Steve but i don’t mind if not) and the other avengers are aware of what’s going on but either don’t see anything wrong with it or don’t want to cause any trouble.

Hi, thank you for requesting!!

TW: yandere themes + kidnapping as part of the plot.

-If the avengers are already obsessing over you, there’s no way you’re getting out of a near-death experience without a side of kidnapping. They probably already debated over the topic before (after years of constantly seeing the worse side of humanity their protective instincts were strong) and this was simply the last straw.

-Tony himself would be a big advocate for this. He’s already paranoid enough and the idea of losing you is not one he wants to consider. Although Steve would be more apprehensive, he’ll probably be convinced. He tries not to come across as overbearing, unlike another already mentioned member, so this isn’t ideal, but he would be lying if a small, overprotective part of him didn’t like the suggestion.

-On the other hand, you’re not as enthusiastic. Since you’re now under their care, you’re also isolated from everyone but them. Depending on if this was a ‘full on’ kidnapping or some weird agreement with the parents that you didn’t know of, they legally can’t, or don’t want to, let you out of their sight.

-Sure, the tower has anything you could want: your personalised room, hundreds of games for every console, an AI system that can instantly change anything to your preference, etc, etc, but it doesn’t compare to having your freedom.

-After a few weeks, you don’t seem any happier. You don’t laugh at Tony’s comments, or seem interested in whatever Steve is going on about, in fact you seem bored of them. So, time for plan B (well plan insert-letter-way-down-the-alphabet because they’ve tried countless times before this with no luck): a pet : ).

-Although seeing you happy is one of the best things for them, the undivided attention you are now giving to that pet is not.

-Tony would be the most jealous out of the two. Like, he paid for this animal, you’re not going to thank him? He doesn’t give me animal lover vibes either, so this was definitely ‘I’m doing this for you, you better be grateful’ moment (like he didn’t lock you here in the first place).

-He’d probably make one of the other avengers babysit it for an hour or two, enough time for you guys to hang out without you being distracted or missing it.

-If he’d desperate/the others aren’t around, he’d move your pet into his lab so, when you start looking for it, you’re forced to see him. He’d act all innocent like ‘wow, didn’t even notice’ but it’s clear by his ramblings about this ‘being a sign you should stay and hang’ that this is definitely his doing.

-Steve’s a bit more open. He knows you weren’t doing well before, and understands that this pet obviously means a lot to you. Instead of treating it like a common enemy, he’d use it to get close to you.

-He’ll offer to walk it outside sometimes, buy it new toys, etc. He’d probably make homemade treats and convince you to help him as a little bonding moment. I think he’d even grow to liking the pet in general, not just for you (which might give him extra brownie points).

-While this is all going on, the other avengers are conflicted. Both Steve and Tony are important (and probably the most popular) members of the team, and going against them would be difficult, even if they don’t necessarily agree. Depending on timelines (e.g. Civil war), this may even bring the two closer, and the others may not want to go back to the constant fighting.

-Either way, no matter their opinions, the other avengers don’t get in the way. They’ll help out if needed, and would likely step up if things were wildly out of control, but, if this is the way of keeping the peace, so be it.

[demonicbaby666]

Anywhere, Everywhere

One shot | Supergirl Masterlist | Masterlists

Fandom: Supergirl

Pairing: Supercorp

Genre: Angst, fluff and smut

Words: 4.1k+

Warnings: 18+, minors DNI, fingering, oral sex, idiots in love

Summary: Lena's been avoiding Kara, and she's not entirely sure why. But after too many cancelled lunches and meet-ups, Kara decides to find out.

A/n: Listen, this wasn't exactly proofread immaculately, but I'm low-key off my game, so I hope it's still an enjoyable read.

Kara always knows when Lena is stressed. She can hear it in her voice, see it in the slips of her always solid stature, feel it in the rapid thrums of a once steady heartbeat. 

It isn’t unusual for the brunette to be stressed, what with her being CEO and constantly juggling project after project. However, what is, is her sudden reluctance to seeing Kara. The journalist has repeatedly tried to arrange lunches, dinners and movie nights. Anything and everything she knows usually alleviates some of the extraordinary pressure that comes with Lena’s day-to-day workload. It’s just that Lena says she’s busy or agrees, then cancels at the last minute with the increasingly frequent excuse of ‘I’m overloaded at work’, adding a less-than-reassuring ‘another time, I promise.’ 

For what it’s worth, Kara does try not to take it to heart. She’s more than privy to work seizing control of every aspect of her life. It’s only that there’s been a silent agreement between herself and Lena that they manage to find time for one another, no matter the circumstances. So, for the life of her, Kara can’t work out what is so important to Lena that trumps spending time with her best friend. But she decides enough is enough. She’s going to get to the bottom of this, even if it means exerting a little more force than necessary. 

“Miss Luthor isn’t seeing anyone at the mo-” before Lena’s assistant has time to finish, the super is past her, barging through the doors into Lena’s immaculately clean office. Everything is in its place. The only thing that appears to be in disarray is Lena, who sits at her cluttered desk. There are mountains of paperwork surrounding her, and one would assume there is no order to them, but it’s Lena, after all, so there most certainly is a system in place. 

“I’m sorry, Miss Luthor, I tried to stop her.” The sullen assistant says, looking rather down on herself. 

Razor-sharp eyes flicker up to the commotion bursting through the doors. Lena takes in Kara and her flustered assistant. The blonde appears fine, but Lena can see beneath the surface. Kara is on edge. She can see and feel her best friend's eyes studying every inch of her for anything out of the ordinary. Hell, Kara’s fingers and legs are twitching, like she’s holding herself back from jumping Lena right then and there. 

She takes a moment to brush through her hair and release a well-needed exhale before standing up and walking to the pair. 

“It’s alright,” the brunette says to her assistant with a smile. The poor thing looks like she needs it, “For the future, it’d be best to let Kara be the exception to my no-visitors rules.” She takes a brief pause and looks at the blonde as she finishes talking to her assistant, ushering her out of the room, “I wouldn’t want to put you in the crosshairs of her wrath when she’s being denied something she wants.” 

The door hinges creak to a halt, and the two are alone. As the CEO predicted, Kara doesn’t wait a second, blurting out, “Lena, what’s going on?” 

It comes out rushed and is likely too fast for anyone to understand. But Lena lets out a resigned sigh before answering, proving she’s so in sync with Kara that her jargon and fast-paced ramblings are a second language at this point.

“Nothing is going on,” she brushes off the question, sashaying back to her desk to haphazardly look over the stacks of papers, “I’ve been busy, that’s all.” 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Kara tries again. 

She knows. The CEO knows she’s been doing precisely that. The reason Lena is so averse to owning up to her actions is simply that she’ll have to tell her best friend the actual reason she’s been dodging all her calls, texts, and meet-ups is because she is undeniably and insanely head over heels for her. And that isn’t an option. 

It started small, crept up on her without her knowledge. She’d stare at Kara and find herself lost in the way her smile made her cheeks jut out like a little chipmunk. She’d watch wisps of soft blonde hair fly about in the wind whenever Kara came to her rescue and became drunk with the need to run her fingers through them. She’d crave Kara in such a primal way it no longer felt like she was missing a friend when Kara wasn’t there, but a piece of herself. 

It was the amalgamation of all these small quirks that began to drive Lena crazy. She told herself to ignore it. To ignore the butterflies in her stomach whenever Kara's name was mentioned, to ignore the sickening fright that arose every time the blonde went on a mission, ignore the overpowering urge to engulf Kara into her arms and never let her go. 

Then, one night, when the two shared a parting hug, Lena came to the conclusion that being in Kara’s arms - feeling her strength and warmth and the safety provided - was her everything. Kara was her home. The smell of sunshine and honied tulips meant that the walking embodiment of joy was around the corner. Kara was her safe place. But Kara was also her best friend, the most important person in her life. 

When she realised the cons vastly outweighed the pros of fessing up to her true feelings, Lena made the tough decision to suffer in silence rather than do anything to jeopardise their friendship. After that night, her relationship with the woman in question suddenly became both too much and not enough. It was happy yet melancholy, fun yet draining. She felt filled with so much love, but none of it was without a chestful of aching yearning. So naturally, she pulled back. 

Still, reminding herself of her justifications does nothing to alleviate the guilt she feels. The hurt evident on Kara’s face is not lost on Lena, and she’s filled with the need to reach out and fling herself into those strong arms because if anything can put a smile on the blonde’s face, it’s a hug. Alas, she can’t. She can’t because if she does, she’ll never want to leave Kara's welcoming embrace. She’ll get too comfortable in the arms of someone always willing to catch her. So Lena stands her ground- or rather, remains seated. 

“Honestly, Kara,” she starts, “It’s work being-”

Lena, however, isn’t granted the opportunity to finish because Kara speeds over to her, spins her chair and grasps firmly onto the sides. If Lena hadn’t known her best friend possessed abilities, she’d have been somewhat worried. But she also knows better than to think Kara would ever think to lay a hand on her.

“Stop lying,” the blonde said firmly, eyes burning the lies straight out of Lena’s mouth. 

Her tone of voice sends shivers down Lena’s spine, and she has to hold back a whimper. The authority Kara wields in times like these is downright illegal. During missions, outings, and interrogations - especially interrogations - when Lena is granted the pleasure of seeing Kara in an all-too-tight suit and wielding her power of submission, the CEO often finds her body her worst enemy. 

When she’s with Kara, she’s on fire. She’s electric. She’s embarrassingly and uncharacteristically so fucking turned on she’s having to squeeze her legs together and fuck herself to exhaustion the following evening. It’s a constant cycle of shame, and the cycle begins anew with the object of her desires so close, so close. She cranes her head up. Too close. 

There’s a sudden meekness in Kara as her crystal-blue eyes look intently into Lena’s greens. “Have I done something?” she asks, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. 

The blonde is leaning over her, and her grip on the arms of the chair hasn’t loosened at all - Lena figures this out when she tries and fails to push herself away from the proximity of Kara’s scolding warmth. 

“It’s not you,” the CEO mutters, her resolve fizzling away as the pout on Kara’s face grows more and more prominent. 

The moment is becoming increasingly charged, and Lena can’t stand it. The truth is right in reach, but a lie begs to save her. Kara is, as always, patient. Silent. Waiting. Lena feels sick. Tears are beginning to sting the back of her eyes, and Lillian’s words echo in her head. She’s telling her to show no weakness, to stop being so pathetic. She’s a Luthor, for god's sake. 

But Kara is so close, maybe closer than before, and she doesn’t know if that’s her doing or the blonde’s. For a brief moment, her eyes flicker south. She watches as lips part and hears Kara’s breath hitch. Their eyes are on each other again, and Kara is leaning in. No, they’re both leaning in. The air between them is thick and hot, shared as they take turns to warm the other's lips with shaky breaths. 

Lena can smell Kara’s sweet perfume and the floral laundry detergent on Kara’s clothes. She closes her eyes. The peppermint lingering on Kara’s breath is sharp as it travels up Lena’s nose; the scent awakens her senses and pebbles her skin in susceptive goosebumps. They’re so close. Too close. 

A blaring ringtone bulldozes the moment, snapping the two women apart at an alarming rate. They stay stark still, staring at each other in astonishment as the room fills with an uncomfortable heat, and Kara’s phone seems to get louder and louder. 

Kara is the one to break their heated staring contest, turning to her discarded bag on the couch and reaching for the pesky device. 

With her jaw clenched and her feet pressing firmly against the ground, Lena turns to her paperwork. She tunes out the sound of who she assumes is Alex talking to Kara and shuns herself for letting whatever just happened to happen. 

From the corner of her eye, the brunette sees Kara pacing. She looks like she’s composed herself, nonchalantly humming and nodding along as she carefully listens to the information being fed to her over the phone. Lena can practically see the cogs turning in the super’s head, and her thrumming heart and clouded mind grow envious of how Kara seems to have moved on so quickly from the heated moment that arose only seconds ago. 

The call is over, and silence engulfs the office. The tension is palpable; it’s suffocating. No one speaks, and Lena keeps her eyes on legal documents, pretending not to notice Kara staring, waiting. 

“I should go,” the blonde finally says after sighing and turning to place her phone back in her bag. 

Lena doesn’t so much as look up because she knows if she does, she’ll break. She’s letting Kara leave. She’s letting the one person she loves and will always love walk away for what feels like the last time. 

“Be safe,” is all she can mumble as Kara exits. 

And then she’s crying.

————————————————

Lena’s lying on her couch after spending most of the evening bawling. Her eyes are sore, and her throat burns from the scotch she’s been nursing. It fails to calm her, and she’s not even tipsy, just painfully tired from an exhausting day. 

Unaware that she had fallen asleep, Lena awakens to find herself wrapped in a pair of strong arms. Her head rests on Kara’s chest alongside her hand, and she can hear a steady heartbeat thrum under her ear. 

It’s always been like this. The pair have never shied away from intimacy. Hugs, cuddles, and the occasional kiss have always been common occurrences. But now it feels different. Of course, it’s still comforting - it’s Kara, after all - but it’s filled with longing for more. Lena doesn’t want a parting kiss on the cheek, a momentary hug, or to cuddle during a movie while subconsciously counting down the minutes until the film ends and Kara has to leave. She doesn’t want temporary. She chastises herself for being greedy and ungrateful for wanting more but can’t help it. Once she tasted what it felt like to be complete, loved and untroubled, it became impossible to give it up. 

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on,” Kara whispers delicately into Lena's dark hair, absentmindedly drawing circles over her back. “Even if it takes all night.”

“Oh, Kara,” Lena concedes and looks up, “you have no idea what you do to me.” Her thoughts come swiftly to berate her - curse her for slipping up and revealing too much. 

Those blue eyes stare at her, and a faint smile paints soft pink lips. There's so much warmth in Kara’s eyes that Lena can’t even feel the breeze coming in from the open balcony doors (which certainly weren't left open on the off chance Kara decided to drop by). Her heart hammers against her chest, and the longer Kara stares, the faster it gets.

Hands come up to cup the brunette’s face, and her best friend bites her lip before heavily exhaling, “Then tell me.” 

“I can’t,” she tries to turn away, but Kara holds her still, “I can’t lose you.”

“You never will. No matter what,” the journalist whispers, her gaze honest and sure, thumbs caressing the sharp curves of Lena’s jaw, “What can I do to prove that?” 

“Kara,” her heart is racing so viciously that Lena thinks she may pass out; her palms are sweaty, and her head is spinning. She’s making a mistake. Kara’s soft lips are right there. She looks down. Kara’s eyes do the same. A thumb traces her bottom lip, and the CEO is no longer thinking straight. Lena wants this. She needs this, “Kiss me.”

She watches her best friend's expression change from soft and warm to desperate and dark. 

“Where?” Kara husks, “Where do you want me to kiss you, Lena?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere.”

Kara momentarily untangles herself from Lena. She moves on top of her and rests her hands on the armrest behind the brunette's head. Her lips hover over Lena’s neck before slowly lowering herself to kiss the perfumed skin. 

“Here?” Kara whispers hotly, sucking the Luthor’s pulse point into her mouth and leaving behind a faint hickey.

Lena moans and nods as Kara moves higher, behind her ear, where she presses her lips down firmly, “Here?” 

“Yes,” the brunette contently sighs. 

Kara moves again, hovers over Lena’s lips and waits, “Here?” 

Lena can’t take it. She grabs Kara by the back of her shirt and yanks her down, meshing their lips together with a frenzied kiss. 

Every single dream, fantasy and hope are surmounted the moment their lips meet. Electric currents run through Lena’s body right down to her stomach, slowly filling with a swarm of butterflies. 

Feeling Kara over her has Lena desperate for more. She pulls her closer, eating up the minimal space between their bodies. Her hands roam freely, finding the bottom of Kara’s shirt. She untucks it from the confines of the blonde’s slacks and runs her fingernails along sculpted abs. The move earns her a groan, and she takes this as an opportunity to slide her tongue into Kara’s mouth and finally taste her. 

She’s sweet, just as the CEO thought she would be. The taste of sugared doughnuts still lingers in the blonde's mouth, and Lena can’t get enough of it. She’s greedy, unapologetically so, swirling her tongue and lapping up every centimetre of Kara she can get. 

Somehow, as their make-out session grows more and more passionate, Kara’s thigh has managed to find itself between Lena’s legs. The unintentional or intentional pressure has Lena subconsciously moving her hips, moaning as the pangs of pleasure spur up from her clothed cunt to her stomach. 

The cherry on top that forces Lena to moan far too loud for her liking is Kara’s hand slipping under her nightshirt and lightly tracing the skin below her breasts with her fingertips. It seems Lena’s reaction doesn’t go unnoticed because, in a gust of wind, they’re in her bedroom. The mattress presses against Lena’s back, and Kara is atop her. 

“Are you okay with this?” Kara asks, suggestively tugging the bottom of Lena’s shirt. 

“God, yes.” 

“I don’t want to force you. If you want to wait and talk and maybe work things out and…” Kara rambles on, and though Lena usually adores this quirk, her body is thrumming with need and desire, and if it’s not sated soon, she feels she may implode. 

“Darling,” Lena smiles and reaches out to brush Kara’s cheek lightly, “I want you to fuck me.” 

The journalist's cheeks flush, but a playful smirk appears over her lips right before she rips Lena’s top off and devours her neck. She’s marking it all over, and Lena doesn’t care one bit. In her mind, she knows she’ll look at the marks in the following days and treasure the claim Kara is laying waste to her body. 

Lena places her hands on Kara's forearms, and a content hum echoes through the bedroom. A smile blossoms over the CEO’s lips as she relishes finally being able to run her hands over bulging biceps, and she doesn’t even try to resist the urge to squeeze. 

“I knew you were into my guns,” Kara gloats, making a show of flexing.

“Mmmmhh,” is all the Luthor offers, clearly too busy to offer a witty comeback, and Kara can’t help but chuckle as she pecks at Lena’s neck. 

“Guess I should get them out more often.” 

Despondently removing a hand from Kara’s forearm and placing it on the back of her head, Lena guides the super back to her puckered lips, “Less talking, more kissing.” 

Kara’s resounding smile is wiped off her face when Lena decides to take matters into her own hands and connect their lips together. This time, she doesn’t hold back, plunging her tongue into Kara’s mouth and dominating the kiss. 

Their kiss is only broken a few times to remove articles of clothing that grow more and more offending as their body temperatures rise and the pair become increasingly impatient to lay their hands upon each other. The moment the pair find themselves sufficiently naked, Kara pulls Lena into her lap, causing the CEO to let out an uncharacteristic squeal. 

She’s quick to hide her adolescent slip-up, burying her crimson blush in the crook of Kara’s neck and hears a muffled bark of laughter. When she eventually finds the courage to emerge from her makeshift cacoon of shame - aided by Kara’s gentle fingers running through her hair - Lena can’t help but smile at the pure adoration in those azure eyes, and her embarrassment becomes pliable and soft. She melds their lips together, and all emotions running through her body, aside from desire and love, make themselves scarce. 

Kara’s hand slides between the two women’s bodies and moves up Lena’s thigh, right to where she’s needed most. She lightly circles Lena’s clit, prying a small moan out of the brunette, and Kara takes this as a sign to keep going. With one finger, she traces the entrance to Lena’s sex, gathering up her wetness before slowly entering her. Receiving a gasp from the woman above, Kara begins a steady rhythm, thrusting in and out. 

“I need more,” Lena whines and Kara is all too happy to oblige, pushing another finger inside Lena’s tight channel. 

“God, you’re stunning like this.” Kara growls. Eyes transfixed on Lena’s full breasts, she takes a nipple into her mouth and sucks hard. The CEO shudders against her and encourages Kara to repeat the action on her other breast, guiding her head sideways. 

Emboldened by Lena’s responsiveness, Kara becomes playful. Using her teeth, she latches onto the nipple in her mouth, causing the woman above her to gasp before tenderly lathering it with her tongue in a swirling motion.

“Fuck Kara,” Lena pants, her hips grinding in tandem with Kara’s ministrations, “More.” 

Kara quickly follows the order, wanting only to satisfy Lena’s every desire. She tightens her grip around Lena’s waist and pounds her fingers deeper and faster, repeatedly hitting a particular stop inside the brunette that has her crying out. 

Lena can feel Kara moving her hips, using the full momentum of her body to fuck into her. The muscles in her stomach are tensing as she gulps in heaps of air between pleasure-drunk moans, and she thanks the lucky stars that Kara's skin is impenetrable because if it weren’t, the poor woman’s forearms would be covered in angry scratches. 

Hands clasp Kara’s shoulders as Lena pushes herself up, leaving only Kara’s fingertips inside her, and then she drops back down, sheathing herself onto those deliciously svelte digits.

“That’s it,” Kara huskily encourages, moving her lips from Lena’s breasts to her neck, where she begins peppering kisses over darkening blotches of red, “You look so pretty fucking yourself on my fingers.” 

Lena’s head snaps back as she utters a curse, and she forces herself to rise again and repeat the movement.

“I-I’m close,” the CEO stutters, her body shaking in anticipation, “God, Kara, I’m so close.”

Lena’s getting impatient, losing control of her hips, and her thighs begin to shudder uncontrollably. She’s struggling to keep a steady pace whilst balancing on the precipice of her orgasm, and, always attentive, Kara is quick to pick up on this. Using her thumb to press down on a severely neglected clit, Kara focuses, careful not to hurt the brunette; she relies on her superstrength to guide Lena’s body up and down. 

“Yes, Kara, just like that,” Lena gasps, her orgasm teetering just out of reach.

The Luthor uses what strength she has left to nestle Kara out from the burrow of her neck, her hand tangling in silky golden locks as she fights off her vehement need to cum in favour of staring at her lover. 

She can hear the wet sounds of her pussy being filled over and over, and instead of feeling embarrassed or ashamed, looking into Kara’s eyes, she feels elated. Kara has done this to her, her Kara. She’s worked her up to the tipping point, and she’s about to carry her over the finish line - literally. 

The pair stare at each other for mere seconds before crashing their lips together. The knot in Lena’s stomach unfurls, and a warmth spreads through her limbs as she moans into Kara’s mouth. 

Lena’s back arches and her expression contorts with a mix of relief and pleasure as her orgasm washes over her body in pulsing waves. She falls slack against Kara’s shoulder, listening to the blonde whisper sweet nothings into her ear as she regains control over her breathing. 

“My turn,” Lena murmurs, sucking lewdly on Kara’s earlobe. 

With steady hands, Lena pushes Kara’s shoulders until she’s lying flat on her back. There’s a predatory look in her eyes that makes the super think she’s about to be trounced finally, and she doesn’t mind one bit. 

Lena uses her tongue to taste her way down milky skin, leaving a shimmering trail from neck to thighs. The sight that greets her tells her all she needs to know, and that’s that Kara is worked up. An unwavering need to be inside Kara overcomes Lena, and she doesn’t hesitate to act.

The first lick has her tastebuds exploding. Kara’s sweet and salty and probably the best thing she’s ever tasted. So, she takes her time, listens to the litany of soft moans coming from above her, and keeps her tongue consistently skirting along where Kara wants it most but never offers the relief the blonde so desperately wants. 

“Lena, don’t tease,” Kara whimpers, canting her hips in hopes of getting Lena’s mouth around her aching clit. 

“Oh darling, when have you ever known me to play with my food,” Lena taunts, not waiting for a response before she stiffens her tongue and thrusts it inside Kara's dripping entrance. 

“Lena!” Kara cries out, gripping the bed sheets, as opposed to Lena’s hair, which she’s sure she’ll rip out, “I’m not going to last long.”

Thighs clamp tightly over Lena’s ears, muffling the sweet erotic sounds coming from above her. With a steady hand looped over Kara’s thigh, Lena tugs her closer, slipping a thumb over the blonde’s clit. She gorges herself on the supple flavours flowing down her chin until she hears a series of curses before hips fly from the mattress, and Lena’s name is echoed throughout the bedroom. 

“Come here,” the journalist sighs, letting go of torn bedsheets and reaching out to pull Lena close enough so that the smell of her own arousal fills her nose. 

“Hi,” Lena murmurs softly - sweetly - onto Kara’s lips, leaning down to finish her greeting with a deliberate kiss, basking in the intimacy the two had just shared.

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[fearlessjournalism]

hello and welcome back to saying things people already know about av characters but I feel like saying it again anyway! today’s episode is ms shapiro because I think she’s just really interesting, and so many things have to be true at once for her character to work. like yes she did seem to genuinely have a positive effect on a lot of people’s lives AND when you’re a teacher trying to get most of the class through the curriculum, it becomes really hard to work around one student being disruptive, so it’s easy to see dylan’s presumed guilt as a “greater good” problem AND the school system fundamentally is not built to accommodate students like dylan (which doesn’t 100% excuse his behavior, but quoting @deathlikelead bc he put it better, “at his age you have to take some responsibility for yourself, but it's really hard to do that when you've never been given the tools and nothing is set up to help you learn them”) and that’s a system which shapiro didn’t create and only has limited options within (especially, again, when she has to pay the most attention to the majority of students who need to get through things like standardized testing) AND ultimately none of that excuses what she does to dylan’s life.

like pretty much everything up until the “I'm sorry that I suspected you vandalized the cars. I was wrong about that, but I don’t believe I was wrong about you” line in the finale is at least in the category of “ok I can see where you’re coming from, even if it’s obviously bad to jump to those conclusions or lie to supplement the already circumstantial evidence surrounding a student” but that line is just SO fucked up. and yet I don’t think it has the same impact if those first three points from above weren’t true. she’s not flatly evil, so I think on some level the audience still wants to give her at least a little benefit of the doubt, and then that’s used to make this final judgment feel like a betrayal to us the way it feels like a betrayal to dylan. like in a lesser show she could’ve been a really flat antagonist, but the way av does it still allows the broader system to be the most important issue without excusing the things this one character has done wrong.

[wanderersrest]

The Devil That Is Capitalism

Content Warning: this post is going to potentially be talking about a whole smorgasbord of dicey topics including child abuse, child sexual abuse, child soldiers, war crimes, death, fates worse than death, politics, militarism, casual mention of suicide, and, of course, capitalism.

Also Spoiler Warning for Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

Reader discretion is advised.

Mobile Suit Gundam has always been a series about the horrors of war. To me, though, one of the more fascinating things about the series is that a lot of the wars in the various timelines stem from some form of unchecked capitalism. Though I haven't watched every series in the franchise yet, I do think one series in particular stands out in its portrayal of capitalism and its woes: 2015's Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. Strap yourselves in, because this is going to be an extremely long post, and make sure that you've read the content warning at the top of the post.

Oh, and it might help to read my Spoilery Rant on Iron-Blooded Orphans. It is informed, in part, by what I'm about to say in this post. And also make sure you read the context post about Gundam and its thematic ties to capitalism. And you might want to open up TVTropes' character page, because there are going to be a lot of nouns thrown around.

Left For The Wolves

Iron-Blooded Orphans begins with our titular orphans, the Third Company of the Chryse Guard Security organization (CGS), being chosen to escort one Kudelia Aina Bernstein from Mars to Earth so that she can meet with the leaders of the Earth economic blocs and negotiate the freedom of her nation of Chryse. After they are left to die by their superiors when Gjallarhorn, the protectors of the Earth sphere, attack, the Third Company manage to pull through using an old Mobile Suit that CGS had been using as a power source: the ASW-G-08 Gundam Barbatos (ehe intensifies). Once the dust settles, the members of the Third Group stage a violent coup against their owners and rename themselves Tekkadan: the Iron Flower That Never Wilts.

And right away, we can see how capitalism shapes the Post-Disaster timeline. The fact that children are not only forced to pick up undesirable jobs in order to just barely eke out a living, to say nothing of the fact that those who become child soldiers are forced to undergo surgery to have the Alaya-Vijyana System implanted into them. And, uh...

Getting the AV Implant is not good. IF the surgery is successful, then you are now capable of piloting the tank-like Mobile Worker. But due to the fact that the Alaya-Vijyana System has been outlawed by Gjallarhorn, the only people who perform it by the time Iron-Blooded Orphans are back alley doctors. And if your body rejects the AV System, you'll only be paralyzed from the waist down. If you're lucky.

So it's either that or, in the case of Atra, it's brothel work. The only thing that saved Atra was the fact that she was too young to do anything serious, so she was relegated to cleaning and dishwashing. But it isn't unheard of for these Martian street rats to be used for the other unsavory acts, as we'll soon find out.

Pitting the Poor Against One Another (Featuring Ein Dalton)

Another aspect of Iron-Blooded Orphans that exemplifies the worst parts of capitalism is how the systems put in place by capitalism will pit poor people against other poor people. The best example of this in action in IBO is everyone's favorite ball of rage: Ein Dalton.

Like the orphans who populate Tekkadan, Ein is a member of Gjallarhorn who was born and raised in Mars. Of course, due to its nature as a colony of the Earth Sphere, citizens of Mars are generally treated as second-class citizens. And even though he is a soldier of Gjallarhorn, Ein is treated just like the street rats of Mars. It is important to note that when Ein is introduced, the only person who really respects him as a human being is his direct superior Crank Zent.

And Crank ends up committing suicide by Tekkadan. And then Tekkadan, the people who killed Crank, end up commandeering his Mobile Suit for their own purposes. This ends up setting up a good amount of bad blood between Ein and Tekkadan, which lasts for the rest of the first season. And it's a real shame for Ein since, in theory, he and the members of Tekkadan have a shared upbringing as Martian citizens. But because Ein is working for Gjallarhorn, he is placed in an organization that treats him as a second-class citizen. And only two people in this organization treat him with respect: the now deceased Crank and Gaelio Bauduin, who takes Ein under his wing immediately after Crank's passing.

This kind of exploitation that pits marginalized groups against one another is a key component of capitalism and its more sinister cousin, imperialism. Since Mars is treated as a place that has lots of resources, the people don't matter. The people only exist to help extract said resources. So this, coupled with Ein being stuck in an organization where one of the few people who treat him as a human being is killed off for rather selfish (but really understandable) reasons, he ends up loathing the people whose struggles are most sympathetic to his own.

So when a mortally wounded Ein gets strapped into the EB-AX-2 Graze Ein, it makes sense in a really sad way that he is reduced to a screaming mess of a mechanical monster. And boy, if I had a nickel for every time Iron-Blooded Orphans introduced a screaming mechanical monster, well... you should just start calling me Doofenschmertz. But more on that soon.

It's All About Who Has the Power and the Money

Moving on to Gjallarhorn itself, we can see how capitalism and the status quo has made the organization complacent. Our first introduction to Gjallarhorn includes the head of the Mars Branch being bribed by Kudelia's father in an attempt to bring her back home. The Mars Branch head decides that killing her along with everyone who is trying to give her passage to Earth. So right from the get-go, we know that Gjallarhorn members are willing to commit crimes all because no one will really stop them. After all, Gjallarhorn have basically been the one true military power in the Post-Disaster timeline for more than 300 years at this point.

Gjallarhorn at this point is a corrupt and hollow shell of its former self. At this point in the Post-Disaster timeline, the organization has gone from a group that protected humanity from the Mobile Armors to an organization that protects the status quo at all costs while protecting the worst of the lot. The attack on CGS at the beginning of the series is a great example of this, and it doesn't stop there.

Gjallarhorn is guilty of election interference due to their involvement with economic bloc nation Arbrau's elections, as they had place Tomonosuke Makanai under house arrest in an attempt to keep him from being elected. Gjallarhorn is also guilty of committing multiple false flag operations, which I will talk about later. There's also the fact that one of the heads of the Seven Stars married off his son to a child, though in that case that is largely to make said son look bad (and we'll touch on the son soon).

And nothing exemplifies Gjallarhorn's descent into decadence more than at least two heads of the Seven Stars, Carta Issue and Iok Kujan, being glory hounds who will sacrifice all of their men just to look good. Both only look out for themselves, with the latter in particular being a detriment to not just his enemies but his allies as well. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Iok actively screws everyone over by being the biggest failson the series has to offer. And Iok's stupidity rears its head at one of the worst moments imaginable: the awakening of the Mobile Armor Hashmal. And the worst part about this? Hashmal isn't the biggest monster the series has to offer.

The monster is also not Gundam Barbatos, or really any of the Gundam frames, for that matter.

The Real Monster Was Rustal Elion

One of the more maddening takes that's pervasive one places like Reddit is the idea that Orga and McGillis are the bad guys. Like we all just forgot that Rustal Elion exists? Or for that matter Nobliss Gordon, Jasley Donomikols, or Iok Kujan?

And the real irony of this is that, contrary to what Gundam is famous for, Iron-Blooded Orphans is one of the few Gundam series where there are actual, capital V villains. Yes, our protagonists are violent even by the standards of Gundam protagonists and will do whatever it takes to win, but they're all creations of the systems of violence that capitalism have produced. And yes, that does include resident Char Clone McGillis Fareed (though, as I have said before, I can understand if someone said he was a villain too). It turns out being a street urchin who is adopted by a man who would proceed to sexually abuse McGillis is going to mess you up mentally. That's why, in their final confrontation, Gaelio can only look on McGillis in pity. It doesn't absolve McGillis of any wrongdoing, but it does make sense why he wouldn't trust anyone with his plan of dismantling Gjallarhorn. Doubly so when Gaelio all but states that he would have joined McGillis in his cause had the latter just opened up to the former.

But people like YouTuber Boofire191 will swear to you that the "protagonists" are the bad guys. Right...

Because performing multiple false flag operations as a justification for committing multiple war crimes makes you a good guy, right? Because that's something that both Rustal and Iok have done, twice in the case of Rustal specifically, three times if we count him as also being Iok's superior.

Or murdering civilians in cold blood just to get a rise out of your rival? That has Jasley written all over it. Oh, and Iok is also partly responsible for this as well as killing off unarmed civilians on top of hiring Jasley.

Or, for that matter, trying to have a Martian politician assassinated? Nobliss tried to pull this off with Kudelia in season one. Heck, Nobliss' whole MO is fighting for Martian independence in such a way that he can also make a profit while doing so. That's why he ultimately sells Tekkadan out to Rustal in season 2.

Or what about awakening a mobile armor even though your enemies are literally telling you not to? Because Iok sure didn't care about the fact that he could potentially awaken the nightmare of the Calamity War. His foolish mistakes end up costing everyone everything, including Rustal.

Yes, really. Iok is so much of a failson that he manages to ruin Rustal's plans. Because remember: Rustal's end game is not just restoring the status quo. It's restoring the status quo in such a way that he, Rustal Elion, would be the new head of the Seven Stars. Of course, Iok screws this up in the best way he ever could:

By slowly getting slowly crushed to death by Akihiro and the Gusion Rebake Full City.

I single out Rustal, by the way, for one very specific reason: he's the only one of these villains who is still alive by the end of the show. Jasley gets his just desserts when Tekkadan leaves Teiwaz (which I haven't even mentioned, good lord) for the sole purpose of getting revenge for Naze Turbine and company's demise at the hands of Jasley. Nobliss Gordon is gunned down in a bathroom stall by an older Ride Mass, which makes for a fitting end for a greedy corporate fat cat like Gordon. And that slimeball named Iok Kujan... is crushed to death in the most satisfying of manners by the GOAT, Akihiro Altland.

I had to bring it up again. Iok's death always sparks joy in me.

But Rustal is not defeated. And this is important, because Rustal represents the status quo. This is why my point about Iok screwing things up even for Rustal is so important: with at least four of the Seven Stars families out of commission, it is all but impossible for things to continue the way they are now. And remember, Rustal still wins in the end. He gets to save face as the hero who stopped the Devil of Tekkadan, all while people don't hear about the war crimes he committed just to do so.

And don't forget: the people Rustal won against were almost exclusively children. He slaughtered children in the name of the status quo.

Conclusion

To tie it all together, everything in the Post-Disaster timeline is about power. Money speaks volumes in Iron-Blooded Orphans, and it's what sets Orga and Tekkadan on their path to fame, infamy, and ruin. Tekkadan's arrival onto the scene, alongside the scheming of one McGillis Fareed, sets us up for a situation where people who could shake things up are appearing. And if there is anything capitalists hate, it's anything that rocks the boat.

In a way, Rustal Elion ultimately serves as the setting's equivalent to an immune response. These dangerous entities have appeared and are threatening the status quo, so it is up to Rustal and his Arianrhod Fleet to crush them. And like an immune response, whether it be a real one or the kind seen in Cells At Work, his response is ruthless. But it isn't enough, and he is ultimately forced to compromise.

And that, to me, is a fitting end to a man obsessed with power.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

As promised, I will explain the Hallelujah thing.

So the word is actually a composite word, in that it is made up of "hallel" and "Yah." The latter is one of the better known names of G-d (and for this reason some traditional Jews won't say the whole word of hallelujah outside of prayer or religious study) but the former deserves a little more investigation. A simple translation of it is "praise" or "glory," and so most translations of this into English are fairly faithful to the Hebrew.

However, I think knowing the context adds some shades of meaning to it that are important. Hallel in Hebrew is spelled הלל (hay-lamed-lamed) or (effectively) H-L-L. Written Hebrew doesn't include vowels (unless they are added in using the pointed Hebrew system) so the word written out traditionally would read: HLL, despite (obviously) being pronounced with the vowel sounds. It is for this reason that I'm not terribly a fan of the linguistic drift of "alleluia," because it drops the hay/ה sound at the beginning, which is very important to the word being legible and diminishes the name of G-d at the end by denoting it using a common suffix. It also means that the people saying it almost certainly do not know the origin of the word and the root word Hallel.

In any event, it's worth noting that there are a number of words in Hebrew that refer to praise (especially in a religious context) but this one specifically refers to the Psalms (Tehillim), which share a root in Hebrew.

To say Hallel is to say Tehillim - specifically Psalms 113 - 118. These are typically sung with a lot of ruach (spirit) and joyful melodies, and are reserved for happy occasions. This is one reason why I find the fact that we daven Hallel for Av, the saddest month on the Jewish calendar, when we intentionally lessen our joy upon starting it, so compelling and so Jewish. (More on that here.)

Hallel isn't just praise. It's Psalms sung from the heart, from a place of joy and resilience.

[c-infinity-83]

can y'all tell me about hatena? :0 i think it has something to do with flipnote animations but i never had a 3ds or anything, so i don't know much about it :'] but i see y'all talk about it sometimes!! :0

mhm! So flipnote studio was actually an app on the dsi! it was for animating indeed, and while it was very simplistic in design people made a LOT of cool animations with it! for example, a couple of flipnote artists we really looked up to back in the day were EpicGuitar and ShinyEevee:

they were SO popular on hatena dude. Epic especially, I think the two of em (they're brothers and they shared a ds to animate) were like The Most Popular animator on american hatena at one point but wdr Exactly fndndndjdjfjd

but ANYWAYS. Hatena was our first social media, it's where we met our bff of like. over 10 years? when did we meet exactly??? in 2013 I think JESUS IT'S BEEN LIKE 11 YEARS @primordial0riginator ??????????? I'm getting off topic but what the fuck time flies! so yeah hatena's pretty important to us cuz not only did it kickstart our love for animation and helping us take art seriously, we also met like. Our Best Friend In The Entire World there!

Back to hatena though it was like. Hell sometimes HDJSJSJDKDDKS you'd go to check the most popular flipnotes and of course see The Big Popular Famous Guys (Epic, ShinyEevee, Gizmo... God who else. I'm having a mind blank fbdhshxjfjdb) but also sooooo much spam because hatena worked on a. "give this flipnote Stars" system where you could just sit down and spam click a button and give a flipnote an infinite amount of gold stars? which were like... Likes fhdjsjdjdsjd.

There were other stars too though. Green stars, you got those for correctly reporting theft of flipnotes as compensation! There were also blue, red, and purple stars! Blue and red stars you had to buy, same with purple stars I think, but you could gift em all out after you bought em. Getting any coloured star was seen as a badge of honour or some shit, ESPECIALLY purple stars. If you got a purple star you were FUCKING. AMAZING. you were like, talk of the town for a bit. Those fuckers were EXTREMELY FUCKING RARE. probably because they cost a shitton.

Actually scratch that, I just googled it and apparently they were so rare because you could only get them in the most expensive stars pack (you could buy coloured stars in packs btw!) and they weren't even guaranteed to show up, what the fuck? Not to mention this app was full of children and young teens, barely any adults posting flipnotes, so you KNOW everyone's parents were like.... Nnnahhhhhhh to buying coloured stars HSDNSHSJSJDSJ. We vividly remember ShinyEevee getting a purple star and we were SO happy for him tbh

And!!! speaking of stars even more, they could be used not just on flipnotes but to buy custom themes for your creator room! A creator room was like. Your profile. You could customize it after you hit a certain milestone (something like having a registered active account for more than a week idr exactly) and good LIRD they had tons of themes to choose from HFDNDKDKDKXJZ i remember a fairly cheap one we saved up for iirc was a galaxy theme? it was. very pretty and only costed green stars. I'm sure there were themes out there that needed purple stars to be purchased but Whateverrrrr HDDHDJDHDJD

uhhhh what else. The most popular type of flipnote was the AMV, animated music video. You'd see tons of people's furry ocs lipsyncing to Whatever Popular Pop Songs have been playing on the radio recently and if you were lucky those flipnotes would be Unlocked, meaning you can download them and change them—obviously this was a huge sign of trust because people WOULD ABSOLUTELY STEAL YOUR FUCKING ART FHFHCJDJDDJFJ but anyway. People would leave their notes unlocked all the time so others could spin em off and use the audio to animate to.

There were AVs, Animated videos, which were like. not music videos obvs but short comedy tidbits? Like. using the audio from family guy or SpongeBob instead of music. Those were popular too ofc but not as much as AMVs; a few creators were known for their AVs moreso than their AMCVs though! and usually people did a mix of both cuz AVs didn't take as long to animate than AMVs did cuz people put E F F O R T into making AMVs usually JEHDJDSJDJDU

There were PVs, picture videos, where the animation was very limited. Nowadays ig those are called animatics! Usually set to music, and the music was generally vocaloid. Not much to say about em tbh

uhhhhjjj what else... We remember people would "import" flipnotes too. Usually really well animated Japanese flipnotes. Idk how they'd do it, but they'd get onto japanese hatena somehow and download tons of popular flipnotes from over there and repost them (with proper credit... sometimes.) to american hatena. those also got super popular usually!

I think that's it tbh! It was a nice and sorta niche community that made up a lotta people's childhoods. Hatena itself shut down in 2013 or 2014, and was quickly replaced with Sudomemo, which... Hoo lord. Sudomemo is its own can of worms HDDHSJDJDJDSIDK. Lotta good animators over there too but afaik it's either DEAD dead now (as in, not active at ALL) or it's also been shut down? Not sure tbh. But yeah! There's the basics of what hatena was, there's tons of video essays out there going into more depth if you're ever curious though!

-Jimmy

[veevee-the-artist]

Remake/Remaster ref sheet of my Skeksis oc; SkekMier the Miner

Info!

Name: SkekMier

Title: Miner/Prospector

Pronouns: Them/They

Counterpart: urAor the Paleontologist

More info undercut

All of Thra knows the Castle of the Crystal is filled to the brim with beautiful gemstones and weapons made by the finest metals. Most of these high quality resources found within these castle walls can be contributed to a single hard working skeksis, skekMier.

SkekMier spends much of their time away from the castle, too busy with work. Their only company within the mines are their vast crew of hard working Gelflings and Podlings. This Skeksis contents themselves with toiling away at the ground and harvesting Thra’s greatest treasures. Most gems and ores that are dug up within the mines are refined by SkekMier before getting sent off to the castle be used for other projects.

However, some rare occasions, Mier keeps the more unique items to themselves. The Emperor doesn’t need to know about these gems or metals… Not like he visits them anyways! 

Mier is one of few skeksis that still retains the use of their second pair of arms, putting them to great use. Twice the Hands? Twice the pace of the work!

SkekMier commands a small army of Gelfling and Podling miners. While some are exiles from all seven clans, most are born into the company and live their whole lives in the Quarry. They all work alongside with the skeksis. In the tunnels, refining the metals, cutting the gems, and more.  Rarely SkekMier allows their crew to venture away from the mines and more so allows anyone to leave. Less Gelfling means less workers...

Being rather strict, Mier upholds a tight schedule. No one is above punishment. Those who does not comply with a slap across the head and a lengthy lecture about the importance of system structure. However, while strict, SkekMier do in fact have a soft spot for their Gelfling and Podling crew. Most of them have been born and live their lives in the Quarry. SkekMier sometimes is there to witness the births and the miner also witness deaths...

aving spent trine after trine surrounded by them and away from their Skeksis kin, the miner does have a better opinion of the two and quietly disapproves the way their kin thinks. Even to the point of getting into rare heated arguments with their kin. The Skeksis of the Castle may rule Thra but these mines are SkekMier domain and these gelflings are theirs! Still expects them to follow schedule though.

Whenever one of the castle skeksis goes to visit SkekMier, they have to be careful about not interrupting their schedule. Mier will not hesitate throwing fists at their kin too. Most of Thra depends on their work for stone, metals, and gems. This is a very busy and slightly stressed out Skeksis

SkekMier is on neural terms with their urRu, they avoid talking to the other but there is no hatred between the two halves.

[dailyanarchistposts]

A.2.11 Why are most anarchists in favour of direct democracy?

For most anarchists, direct democratic voting on policy decisions within free associations is the political counterpart of free agreement (this is also known as “self-management”). The reason is that “many forms of domination can be carried out in a ‘free.’ non-coercive, contractual manner… and it is naive… to think that mere opposition to political control will in itself lead to an end of oppression.” [John P. Clark, Max Stirner’s Egoism, p. 93] Thus the relationships we create within an organisation is as important in determining its libertarian nature as its voluntary nature (see section A.2.14 for more discussion).

It is obvious that individuals must work together in order to lead a fully human life. And so, ”[h]aving to join with others humans” the individual has three options: “he [or she] must submit to the will of others (be enslaved) or subject others to his will (be in authority) or live with others in fraternal agreement in the interests of the greatest good of all (be an associate). Nobody can escape from this necessity.” [Errico Malatesta, Life and Ideas, p. 85]

Anarchists obviously pick the last option, association, as the only means by which individuals can work together as free and equal human beings, respecting the uniqueness and liberty of one another. Only within direct democracy can individuals express themselves, practice critical thought and self-government, so developing their intellectual and ethical capacities to the full. In terms of increasing an individual’s freedom and their intellectual, ethical and social faculties, it is far better to be sometimes in a minority than be subject to the will of a boss all the time. So what is the theory behind anarchist direct democracy?

As Bertrand Russell noted, the anarchist “does not wish to abolish government in the sense of collective decisions: what he does wish to abolish is the system by which a decision is enforced upon those who oppose it.” [Roads to Freedom, p. 85] Anarchists see self-management as the means to achieve this. Once an individual joins a community or workplace, he or she becomes a “citizen” (for want of a better word) of that association. The association is organised around an assembly of all its members (in the case of large workplaces and towns, this may be a functional sub-group such as a specific office or neighbourhood). In this assembly, in concert with others, the contents of his or her political obligations are defined. In acting within the association, people must exercise critical judgement and choice, i.e. manage their own activity. Rather than promising to obey (as in hierarchical organisations like the state or capitalist firm), individuals participate in making their own collective decisions, their own commitments to their fellows. This means that political obligation is not owed to a separate entity above the group or society, such as the state or company, but to one’s fellow “citizens.”

Although the assembled people collectively legislate the rules governing their association, and are bound by them as individuals, they are also superior to them in the sense that these rules can always be modified or repealed. Collectively, the associated “citizens” constitute a political “authority”, but as this “authority” is based on horizontal relationships between themselves rather than vertical ones between themselves and an elite, the “authority” is non-hierarchical (“rational” or “natural,” see section B.1 — “Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?” — for more on this). Thus Proudhon:

“In place of laws, we will put contracts [i.e. free agreement]. — No more laws voted by a majority, nor even unanimously; each citizen, each town, each industrial union, makes its own laws.” [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 245–6]

Such a system does not mean, of course, that everyone participates in every decision needed, no matter how trivial. While any decision can be put to the assembly (if the assembly so decides, perhaps prompted by some of its members), in practice certain activities (and so purely functional decisions) will be handled by the association’s elected administration. This is because, to quote a Spanish anarchist activist, “a collectivity as such cannot write a letter or add up a list of figures or do hundreds of chores which only an individual can perform.” Thus the need “to organise the administration.” Supposing an association is “organised without any directive council or any hierarchical offices” which “meets in general assembly once a week or more often, when it settles all matters needful for its progress” it still “nominates a commission with strictly administrative functions.” However, the assembly “prescribes a definite line of conduct for this commission or gives it an imperative mandate” and so “would be perfectly anarchist.” As it “follows that delegating these tasks to qualified individuals, who are instructed in advance how to proceed, … does not mean an abdication of that collectivity’s own liberty.” [Jose Llunas Pujols, quoted by Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, p. 187] This, it should be noted, follows Proudhon’s ideas that within the workers’ associations “all positions are elective, and the by-laws subject to the approval of the members.” [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 222]

Instead of capitalist or statist hierarchy, self-management (i.e. direct democracy) would be the guiding principle of the freely joined associations that make up a free society. This would apply to the federations of associations an anarchist society would need to function. “All the commissions or delegations nominated in an anarchist society,” correctly argued Jose Llunas Pujols, “must be subject to replacement and recall at any time by the permanent suffrage of the section or sections that elected them.” Combined with the “imperative mandate” and “purely administrative functions,” this “make[s] it thereby impossible for anyone to arrogate to himself [or herself] a scintilla of authority.” [quoted by Max Nettlau, Op. Cit., pp. 188–9] Again, Pujols follows Proudhon who demanded twenty years previously the “implementation of the binding mandate” to ensure the people do not “adjure their sovereignty.” [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 63]

By means of a federalism based on mandates and elections, anarchists ensure that decisions flow from the bottom-up. By making our own decisions, by looking after our joint interests ourselves, we exclude others ruling over us. Self-management, for anarchists, is essential to ensure freedom within the organisations so needed for any decent human existence.

Of course it could be argued that if you are in a minority, you are governed by others (“Democratic rule is still rule” [L. Susan Brown, The Politics of Individualism, p. 53]). Now, the concept of direct democracy as we have described it is not necessarily tied to the concept of majority rule. If someone finds themselves in a minority on a particular vote, he or she is confronted with the choice of either consenting or refusing to recognise it as binding. To deny the minority the opportunity to exercise its judgement and choice is to infringe its autonomy and to impose obligation upon it which it has not freely accepted. The coercive imposition of the majority will is contrary to the ideal of self-assumed obligation, and so is contrary to direct democracy and free association. Therefore, far from being a denial of freedom, direct democracy within the context of free association and self-assumed obligation is the only means by which liberty can be nurtured (“Individual autonomy limited by the obligation to hold given promises.” [Malatesta, quoted by quoted by Max Nettlau, Errico Malatesta: The Biography of an Anarchist]). Needless to say, a minority, if it remains in the association, can argue its case and try to convince the majority of the error of its ways.

And we must point out here that anarchist support for direct democracy does not suggest we think that the majority is always right. Far from it! The case for democratic participation is not that the majority is always right, but that no minority can be trusted not to prefer its own advantage to the good of the whole. History proves what common-sense predicts, namely that anyone with dictatorial powers (by they a head of state, a boss, a husband, whatever) will use their power to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of those subject to their decisions.

Anarchists recognise that majorities can and do make mistakes and that is why our theories on association place great importance on minority rights. This can be seen from our theory of self-assumed obligation, which bases itself on the right of minorities to protest against majority decisions and makes dissent a key factor in decision making. Thus Carole Pateman:

“If the majority have acted in bad faith… [then the] minority will have to take political action, including politically disobedient action if appropriate, to defend their citizenship and independence, and the political association itself… Political disobedience is merely one possible expression of the active citizenship on which a self-managing democracy is based … The social practice of promising involves the right to refuse or change commitments; similarly, the practice of self-assumed political obligation is meaningless without the practical recognition of the right of minorities to refuse or withdraw consent, or where necessary, to disobey.” [The Problem of Political Obligation, p. 162]

Moving beyond relationships within associations, we must highlight how different associations work together. As would be imagined, the links between associations follow the same outlines as for the associations themselves. Instead of individuals joining an association, we have associations joining confederations. The links between associations in the confederation are of the same horizontal and voluntary nature as within associations, with the same rights of “voice and exit” for members and the same rights for minorities. In this way society becomes an association of associations, a community of communities, a commune of communes, based upon maximising individual freedom by maximising participation and self-management.

The workings of such a confederation are outlined in section A.2.9 ( What sort of society do anarchists want?) and discussed in greater detail in section I (What would an anarchist society look like?).

This system of direct democracy fits nicely into anarchist theory. Malatesta speaks for all anarchists when he argued that “anarchists deny the right of the majority to govern human society in general.” As can be seen, the majority has no right to enforce itself on a minority — the minority can leave the association at any time and so, to use Malatesta’s words, do not have to “submit to the decisions of the majority before they have even heard what these might be.” [The Anarchist Revolution, p. 100 and p. 101] Hence, direct democracy within voluntary association does not create “majority rule” nor assume that the minority must submit to the majority no matter what. In effect, anarchist supporters of direct democracy argue that it fits Malatesta’s argument that:

“Certainly anarchists recognise that where life is lived in common it is often necessary for the minority to come to accept the opinion of the majority. When there is an obvious need or usefulness in doing something and, to do it requires the agreement of all, the few should feel the need to adapt to the wishes of the many … But such adaptation on the one hand by one group must be on the other be reciprocal, voluntary and must stem from an awareness of need and of goodwill to prevent the running of social affairs from being paralysed by obstinacy. It cannot be imposed as a principle and statutory norm…” [Op. Cit., p. 100]

As the minority has the right to secede from the association as well as having extensive rights of action, protest and appeal, majority rule is not imposed as a principle. Rather, it is purely a decision making tool which allows minority dissent and opinion to be expressed (and acted upon) while ensuring that no minority forces its will on the majority. In other words, majority decisions are not binding on the minority. After all, as Malatesta argued:

“one cannot expect, or even wish, that someone who is firmly convinced that the course taken by the majority leads to disaster, should sacrifice his [or her] own convictions and passively look on, or even worse, should support a policy he [or she] considers wrong.” [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 132]

Even the Individual Anarchist Lysander Spooner acknowledged that direct democracy has its uses when he noted that ”[a]ll, or nearly all, voluntary associations give a majority, or some other portion of the members less than the whole, the right to use some limited discretion as to the means to be used to accomplish the ends in view.” However, only the unanimous decision of a jury (which would “judge the law, and the justice of the law”) could determine individual rights as this “tribunal fairly represent[s] the whole people” as “no law can rightfully be enforced by the association in its corporate capacity, against the goods, rights, or person of any individual, except it be such as all members of the association agree that it may enforce” (his support of juries results from Spooner acknowledging that it “would be impossible in practice” for all members of an association to agree) [Trial by Jury, p. 130-1f, p. 134, p. 214, p. 152 and p. 132]

Thus direct democracy and individual/minority rights need not clash. In practice, we can imagine direct democracy would be used to make most decisions within most associations (perhaps with super-majorities required for fundamental decisions) plus some combination of a jury system and minority protest/direct action and evaluate/protect minority claims/rights in an anarchist society. The actual forms of freedom can only be created through practical experience by the people directly involved.

Lastly, we must stress that anarchist support for direct democracy does not mean that this solution is to be favoured in all circumstances. For example, many small associations may favour consensus decision making (see the next section on consensus and why most anarchists do not think that it is a viable alternative to direct democracy). However, most anarchists think that direct democracy within free association is the best (and most realistic) form of organisation which is consistent with anarchist principles of individual freedom, dignity and equality.

[ciaran]

sorry to burst into your asks rudely like the koolaid man, i'm the worst, but because 1. you reblogged my post about the Damaged Character whose entire life is a long con, and because 2. your mo du fic has broken me and reshaped me in so many ways i don't even know how to say all of them…i am wondering…if you will tell me…who are aunie and aves???? THANK YOU I'M SORRY SORRY BYE

hello! for some reason i can't access your blog or find the post rn but hi! I'm so glad you read and enjoyed my mo du fic!!

Aunie and Aves are two guys from the inside of my head that mostly lived in a friend's dms for a few months. they live in a space setting dominated by 2 empires, an old empire that was supplanted by a new one—Aunie is a high-level govt official & aide to a third or seventh prince, Aves is just. his brother who goes to the gym a lot & is functionally shackled to Aunie for life by Aunie's deliberate design. Aves knows that Aunie has him trapped by Aunie's side forever but Aunie won't tell him why, leading to an accumulation of massive resentment and hatred over the course of many years.

Aunie, in his role as aide, also handles a portion of the New Empire's information systems that feed to the prince he serves. his excellent management of the system has led the prince to rise in power, correspondingly increasing Aunie's reach and the importance of the information that flows through him. he is, on the surface, a meanly polite and cold man, sadistic, self-controlled, frighteningly intelligent, and utterly unemotional. he carries out his duties of manipulation and extraction of information without any regard for the human cost of what he trades in. this is how his subordinates and superiors know him.

this is not how Aves knows him; Aves recalls his brother as a warmer and softer person, who truly loved Aves and stood up for him, intelligent but not as cruel with it, closed off but not frosty. he certainly was not so mean. Aves thinks Aunie is paranoid, weird, bitchy, and weirdly aggressive, to the point of madness, a control freak of the highest degree. he never breathes a word about work, never engages in polite or casual conversation with Aves, even though they share a one bedroom flat on the third prince's spaceship. he responds to questions with snappiness and irritation, and to requests with derision and mockery. he works late into the night, sleeps little, and hogs the bathroom whenever he's in the room. he brutally frightens away anyone that Aves tries to make friends with. he's a demented and consistently awful jailer and Aves hates him to the core.

the thing is that Aunie is a traitor; he's spying on the New Empire for the Old, which, through his parents association with the Old Empire, implanted a tracker in himself and Aves rigged to blow up on command. they have always leashed Aunie with Aves and the threat to Aves life, which continues to maintain a stranglehold on Aunie's decisions long after his own life has ceased to seem worth living to him. he's terrified of being discovered, of having his lies unfurled, of being known as a traitor. he has no loyalty to either Empire but both of them could kill him or his brother, and he can't let that happen, so he spies on one for the other—all the while accumulating information that he can use to sell out the Old Empire to the New if it comes to that, knowing that his own life would be beyond saving but hoping that Aves gets to get out. he loves Aves to the point of sickness, but knows that if anyone gets wind of Aunie's real feelings, the thousands of people he's screwed over and the official might of two Empires might judge Aunie's crimes great enough and his lies deep enough to warrant hurting his brother to get to him. he wants his brother to feel no affection for him, and no love, so that he can peacefully cut the threads between them and die alone in the hands of either Empire if it comes to that (probably tortured to death but that's fine).

the other thing is that the best way would always have been for Aunie to just. never publicly associate with Aves, never see him again. it would have been easy to leave Aves behind on the planet they came from, and monitor him distantly. but Aunie could never ever bring himself to do that. from the moment he became a spy for the Old Empire and realised that his life was going to consist of nonstop lying he chose the path of absolute selfishness and decided that he was going to keep Aves close at ALL costs, even if it meant that Aunie's job would be harder and even lonelier, even if it meant his brother would hate him, because he wanted hate and close quarters over fading love in distance.

Aunie's not dumb, he's really smart, he's calculating and careful and he's kept these charades floating for years. but he's also REALLY dumb, he's violently attached to a man who, by his own doing, hates him deeply, and he's so scared of what will happen if he gives up that he keeps pursuing his path even when it's become clear he should have given up already. he has no morals and no principles. he's selfish and scared of dying, and even more scared of his brother dying. lying takes a toll on him, but he's cut himself off from feeling the costs of his actions because if he lets the guilt in now he'll collapse on the spot and combust. he's paranoid, increasingly broken, and after a certain point, erratic and untrustworthy. he wants his brother to himself, and resents anyone his brother likes because he wants to be them and Aves can't be happy like that in front of him—but he also wants Aves to feel safe and cared for, while doing very little to facilitate that because there's never a way or time to do it. he hates himself and lies to everyone, including himself, and he will never change ❤️

[vignellicenter]

Please join us for our next Open Houses! March 20-21, 2024 10am-4pm.

The NYC subway map that never was. Or at least it was never implemented.

The NYC Subway graphics are some of the most requested artifacts from the Vignelli archives. We acquired this unique “verbal map” aka “The Directory” aka the “How to get there” map in 2022. Our archivist put it on display for the first time in 50 years at our Open Houses in September 2022!

 “The Verbal Map described how to reach a destination, which train to get, where to change, and when to get out.” – Massimo Vignelli [comment on Michael Bierut’s essay “Mr. Vignelli Map” for Design Observer]

Printed on very glossy paper in full color, this map is large like the station size maps. Printed in two parts [top and bottom] each half measuring 29.5” x 47.5”.

In the Graphic Standards Manual on Page 3 “Diagram of Basic Sign Distribution” it describes the various maps to be installed:

Maps: System maps (implemented, the famous one),

neighborhood map (not implemented),

‘How to get there’ map (not implemented but we have the prototype!)

From the Graphics Standards Manual on page 75, “The Directory”:

“The directory is designed to help a passenger find his “Destination” and “How to get there” quickly and easily. Each station will have its own directory listing all other station alphabetically and numerically. Each station will be followed by the color disc designating he trains that stop there. If there is no direct train, transfer information will follow the station name. This directory will be placed at all important points in the subways station both inside and outside the turnstiles.”

We also have the Dekalb Av Signage Study “analyzed and completed by Joan Charysyn and Virginia Macintosh” for Unimark International in 1971 which shows a mockup of the various maps and states “A directory and three maps will eventually be in use in all subway stations.”

Be sure to join us for our next Open Houses and see what other surprises you can discover! Learn more opn our events page: https://www.rit.edu/events/vignelli-center-spring-open-house

Image descriptions:

Detail of “verbal map” aka “The Directory” aka the “How to get there” map

image of entire map

Video clip of map

Photo of Open Houses with logo

vintage 35mm slide of detail of “verbal map”

NYCTA Graphics Standards Manual pg. 75 “The Directory”

NYCTA Graphics Standards Manual pg. 75 “The Directory”

Slideshow of Dekalb St study: coversheet, Directory from Grand Central, System Map, Neighborhood map, and 5 Boroughs map

Vintage 35mm slide of 57th Street station signage

Vintage 35mm slides of 57th Street station signage

[max1461]

Birds aren't dinosaurs (Aves are a subset of Dinosauria, but these are not synonyms of the former), but whales are fish and bats are birds

No, I think this position is weak.

Let me began by setting the scope of the debate here, as I see it. A question like "are birds dinosaurs?" has several distinct possible senses, and we should make clear which one we're discussing.

The first, and the simplest, is a substantive question about biology: assuming some fixed semantics for the term "bird", and some fixed semantics for the term "dinosaur", is the former a subset of the latter? This is obviously the most interesting and important sense of the question, but it is not the one we are concerned with here. It is also settled: given that the phylogeny of Aves with respect to Dinosauria is known, for any reasonable sense of "birds" and "dinosaurs" that you fix, the answer will be determined. What we debate here is thus not in any sense the biology of birds and dinosaurs.

The next possible sense is as a terminological question about some formal system of classification in biology: according to such-and-such classification scheme, are the "birds" a subclass of the "dinosaurs"? This is a question perhaps of niche interest to biologists working with a given classification scheme, but is again not of so much interest to us (and you are right to implicitly distinguish it in your anon from the question we are truly trying to get at, by using terms such as Aves and Dinosauria as you have).

Next is a lexicographical question: in the actual usage of English speakers, is the term "birds" used to refer to a subset of those things referred to by the term "dinosaurs"? The answer to this question will of course vary by individual and may have an interesting sociolinguistic dimension. For the average English speaker the answer is of course "no", but perhaps in some subcultures of paleontology enthusiasts the answer is "yes". I bet you could publish an interesting linguistics paper on semantic drift of everyday words as mediated by "jargonic" senses of those same words. But, again, this is not the question we are interested in here.

The final possible sense of the question "are birds dinosaurs?" is a kind of pseudo-normative one. "Is it Correct to call birds dinosaurs?". This is the same type of question as "are trans women women?", and answers to it have the same form. It is, in some sense, thick; there is a normative component difficult to disentangle from a descriptive one. It is this question that I am concerned with, and it is within this scope that I assert "birds are dinosaurs but people are not fish".

On this pseudo-normative question, there are several naive positions that I see quite often. One is yours, which I would call a "vulgar intuitionist" one. It asserts that in everyday language, it is Correct to classify animals by naive or superficial similarity, as was done for most of history. Often, defenses of this position rest on appeals to a kind of populist or democratic impulse. But I personally think it's a rather unsophisticated viewpoint.

The other commonly cited position is what I would call a "vulgar scientist" one, which asserts that the Correct way to classify animals is precisely that which conforms to the formal system of taxonomic classification used in biology. As stated this is actually ill-defined, because there is no singular formal system of classification used in biology. But such subtleties are not usually appreciated by advocates of vulgar scientism about words for creatures. This is analogous to the vulgar scientism which asserts that gender must be defined according to one's chromosomes.

Finally, there is a playful position, which I mostly see from biology enthusiasts, that I might term "absolute monophyleticism". This position asserts, more or less, that all everyday terms for classes of organisms should be extended to monophyletic groups (i.e. they should be taken to represent the smallest clade containing all organisms referred to by the naive term), and that this extended usage is Correct. This is the viewpoint that gets you "humans are fish". I admit that I think this is fun, and I'm sympathetic to it, but I also understand why people find it a bit twee and reject it.

My position here is somewhat subtler. First of all, I should note that I don't believe in the concept of Correct usage in any ontological sense; I am a nihilist about linguistic correctness as such (this roughly the philosophical content in the position commonly described as "linguistic descriptivism", which I endorse). But, I believe that something which looks a bit like linguistic correctness often arises as an emergent property of ethics and/or aesthetics, to whatever degree we are willing to indulge it. Cf. my belief in referring to people by their preferred pronouns. Sometimes this emergent correctness has greater normative force (as in the pronoun case), and sometimes it is weaker (as in the birds/dinosaurs case). But that's ok, because we are here to have fun, and so the weakness of the normative force is no obstacle. Though the issue is not of any particular importance, I am very inclined to say "no, birds really are dinosaurs, I'm not just being twee".

I think that in cases like these, "correct" usage arises out of a kind of dialectic between (at least) the several naive positions I articulated above. Formal systems of biological classification should have some influence, and popular usage should have some, and a certain sense of aesthetics or joie de vivre or free-spiritedness should have some. It would be very silly to call birds dinosaurs just because it is fun to say that dinosaurs are still alive, just because that sounds cool. In particular, it would also be self-defeating. If we are redefining the term "dinosaur" just to make it true that "dinosaurs are still alive", then "dinosaur" ceases to be something which would be cool to be still alive. But if, on other grounds, the argument that birds are dinosaurs is very reasonable—in other words if it is not pure fancy to say "birds are dinosaurs", but expresses some genuine truth—why not allow ourselves to say it? Why not set aside our stuffiness or, on the other extreme, our ironic detachment, and allow ourselves to put front and center that truth precisely because it is a truth that pleases us? The argument that we shouldn't appears dismal and joyless to me.

Thus, humans are not fish. But there really is a lot of truth in "birds are dinosaurs". The exclusion of Aves from Dinosauria is quite arbitrary on biological grounds, and I contend far more arbitrary than its inclusion (and thus the interpretation of Dinosauria as a clade) would be. It is frankly and straightforwardly more natural, given the perspective afforded to us by our biological knowledge, to call birds dinosaurs. And so what is holding us back? Nothing but tradition, the fact that the meaning of "dinosaur" which we all grew up with does not include birds. Appeal to tradition is a fine ground on which to support a particular usage of a word—the consistency in the meaning of words is, after all, what allows us to communicate in the first place—but in light of the biological "situation on the ground", I find it no stronger an argument than to say straightforwardly that the world would be a bit more vibrant a place if we let ourselves call birds dinosaurs, if we let ourselves internalize the truth in the claim that birds are dinosaurs, and on these grounds I believe it is correct to call birds dinosaurs.

[delafiseaseses]

Y'know, I ay said it in a while, but if you believe any group needs t' believe in X, Y or Z to be "really" part of that group. You are bigoted against that group. Yes, even if you are 'one of them'.

I've seen plenty of autistic people I highly disagree with, I've seen plenty of non-binary people I don't agree with, even fellow it/its users, I've seen plenty of lower-class people I don't agree with and so on and so forth.

I have never ever and would never deny them those aspects of themselves. Even if they believe things that actively are harmful t' those demographics.

Let's get a bit deeper than those general statements for a sec, imagine, if you will, the worst autistic person you can imagine proudly ableist, looks down on higher support needs and other people similar to them for strugglin' with different things and even dismisses their own traits is still autistic. Constant use of the R word and other demeaning language like that.

I'd, and I hope you'd, think them an arsehole, I wouldn't touch 'em with a 10 foot barge poll. I'd block 'em an' hope I never see 'em again, but I wouldn't try and pretend they weren't one of us.

In fact, I'd say if you say some people aren't "really autistic" it's an example of dehumanising both yourself and the rest of us. Because autistic people are, well, we're people. An' the truth is that people are on a whole deeply flawed. People will be self-destructive, self-contradictory and even actively dangerous to themselves and their own people. It doesn't stop 'em bein' from said demographic.

If we all 'ave t' be perfect, all up t' the arbitrary standards of someone, those standards become a tool of oppression "Oh you can't really be autistic, you're so articulate/you can read social cues/you keep eye contact/you're way too confident/whatever the fuck." will inevitable lead to "I'm gonna cut your benefits/support/not accommodate you/you get the idea because you're not really autistic." if the above described arsehole in spite of their own tendencies has serious issues with somethin' and needs some help for it the help should be available. Even if the hypothetical arsehole would reject it that'd be their choice as a person, y'know?

Also, less important, it's jus' better form t' go after ideas and actions rather than look for personal attacks. If you can't explain why somethin' is bad or dangerous, y'might miss the danger if it is packaged a different way.

For example, if someone says shit like "All autistic people are innately more class conscious because they see through the bullshit social systems." that's also the exact bollocks I'm talkin' about. 'Cause not every one of us is gonna be class conscious or even willin' t' acknowledge classism even exists.

Rambled quite a bit, but I 'ope I've explained those thoughts prop'ly.

[phading]

Hi, it's me!

Okay, so there’s probably a lot you don’t know about me. So just in case you’re in the least bit interested:

I try very, very hard never to read incomplete fics. Purely selfish, and the result of reading far too many heart-grabbing stories that never got finished. If you need kudos or encouragement or anything else to continue, I’m here and over the moon excited to read anything you’d like to throw at me. Just let me know what you want in return - comments, critique, suggestions, hugs, encouragement, emojis, whatever ...

I posted one fic a chapter at a time, and I doubt I’ll ever do it again.

Characterization is everything.

If you’ve noticed an absence of Brains, Grandma, Lady P, Havoc, etc… in my fics it’s because I don’t give a twit. Perhaps one day I will evolve beyond this simplistic state.

I suck at prompts, challenges and deadlines. My muse is never in the right headspace at the right time.

I have a ridiculous need to keep it believable when really, the stuff that goes on in the show – no matter how much I adore it – is often somewhat miraculous.

It’s the future, people, I’m allowed to invent things.

In real life, I write kids’ books.

To the best of my knowledge, I’m the oldest member of the Thunderfam. Challenge me if you think you can claim the title.

The first thing of importance I ever wrote was a full length Star Trek Next Gen novel which I submitted to a few select New York publishers (oh, the innocence of youth) . Surprise, surprise, many of them actually read it and sent back comments written on famous restaurant napkins.

So, in light of all of the above, I’m once again doing my own thing. Inspired by the recent “10 opening lines from 10 recent fics” post I’m changing it up to “10 opening lines from 10 WIPs”.  I mean, seriously, I’m a newbie here and have far more WIPs than I do finished fics. So here’s what’s – pray to the anti-depression, anti-chronic pain gods  – coming up …

A WHOLE LOT OF SUPERFICIAL The uniform discarded in a heap on the floor outside the showers was expected – the purple neoprene wasn’t. (Virgil, Scott, shaping up to be humour)

THE LAST ZOO ON EARTH “Say again, John. I thought you said we have a situation at a zoo.” (All brothers, major rescue, major whump, pissed off Gordon)

THERE ARE NO CANNIBALS ANYMORE “Sir! I need you to calm down!” (Hurt Virgil, this one could go graphic in a hurry)

IT DOESN’T HURT Virgil glanced up from the piano keys, searching for inspiration but instead witnessing his fish brother's spectacular dive off the board – a dive that would leave his re-built back in shambles. (Fishtank, chronic pain)

TIGHT ROPE “I’m sorry, John, but if she’s dumb enough to try and pull off this ridiculous stunt, I see no reason why we should save her from her own stupidity.” (rescue gone sideways)

STARSTUCK Alan Tracy had been looking forward to this moment for a very long time. (Hurt Virgil, guilty Alan, Thunderbird 3 whump)

STELLAR “Hey, John, what’s this?” “It’s personal, that’s what it is!” (Guilty John, comatose Gordon, poetry, John has a secret)

CASPIAN John Tracy blinked open his eyes, breath catching when he discovered the most beautiful thing in his universe mere centimetres from his face. (John, OC-John’s lover, angst, Marks and Wings, John is not only a telepathic Ave but he’s bi!)

PSYCHOTIC MEDIUMS The probe entered Earth’s solar system broadcasting a symphony of alien sound that instantaneously drove the half-a-million or so humans who were listening insane. (Virgil centric, angst, sci-fi)

THE JOHN-CODE “Hey, Eos, you wanna help me test this new game?” (Alan, John, Eos, virtual games gone wrong.)