#Personally I think it's a mixture of the human need to classify things

[privateolives]

When media only represented lgbt people as sassy and promiscuous, everyone cried for more wholesome stories. Now that the norm is wholesome falling in love stories, people are demanding kinks again.

Girl, your enemy isn't one or the other. Your enemy is The Single Narrative and pretending that either representation is Bad is a fool's game.

Just because something is more prevalent at the moment doesn't make it inherently bad. It's perfectly good to represent that parts of the experience. We just need to recognise that we need to start diversifying our stories when one particular narrative starts becoming too prevalent, instead of declaring one thing Bad Representation and going into the exact opposite camp to show how Not That we are. If that's the only attitude we have, then we risk making this new Opposite the only new narrative.

Prevalent depictions tend to come in waves of reactions to things happening in society but also very much in relation to previous depictions. You see this not just inside LGBT narratives but also in media representation of racial stereotypes, focus on masculine and feminen tendencies in fashion history, etc.

Lately though, I've been seeing posts getting more and more hostile towards the Previous Representation as if it's that experience's fault for existing - such as lgbt people who "pass straight" vs "incredibly queercoded", narratives of people who want to heal troubled family relations and a general tendency for creative work (especially in writing prompts) to just take one trope and inverting it, then calling that the peak of creativity, even when there's not necesarrily any bottomline thought to what this new story is trying to say beyond "being the opposite".

That's not to say any one person who wants to try turning tropes on their heads are inherently Problematic or anything of the sort, but it's worth examining if one representation makes that representation inherently problematic, or just in need of more diversity.

More diversity than just pointing at the opposite camp and making that the new norm until we're all sick to death of that one. Lest we just repeat the same cycle without creating actual diverse representation; Or even worse, start creating the idea that the beautiful, multi-faceted experience that is the LGBT community as a whole just falls into new binaries of experiences than just sex and preference.

[thecurioustale]

Liking Things that Go on to Become Popular Kinda Sucks

I have the unfortunate tendency to be something of a social contrarian. For instance, just as a throwaway example, I learned recently that my favorite whiskey, Jameson's Irish Whiskey, is also America's most popular whiskey. You might think that I was pleased, as someone who almost never holds majority tastes in anything, but in fact all I could think of was, first, that I'd been usurped, and, second, that this will inevitably lead to the collapse of the brand once it stops being the current hotness. I am a very, very light drinker, but I would still be sad if my favorite whiskey became hard to find.

My contrarian streak is not for the sake of arguing. I don't actually like arguing, for the most part. Rather, it's often a mixture of feeling personally displaced (like I mentioned above) and internally cringing at the coarseness and imprecision of popular opinions (which is also a form of displacement, but subtler and more involved).

The first reason is pretty easy to understand: I've been a social outcast my whole life and have therefore come to have a strong sense of individual identity. When something obscure that I like becomes popular, I feel like I am seen when I don't want to be seen, like I am getting unwanted attention via my interests and affiliations. This is pretty simple human psychology and I don't have much to say about it that's worth making you read through.

But the second reason is more interesting: I have this incredible compulsion toward precision in my life. Anyone who has listened to me speak in person, or read my nonfiction writing at length, will know that my sentences are often extremely heavily qualified, full of asterisks that anticipate the inevitable objections to my clean general statements in their basic form. There is almost nothing of great importance that I could say as a general truth without being at need to qualify it.

When something that I like becomes popular, it is almost always the case that the prevailing appreciation or popularity in question is unbearably simplistic to me—leading directly to one of the things that makes me chafe more than anything else: being misunderstand through oversimplification. If someone else likes something that I like, but for extremely simplistic reasons, and their understanding of the thing is what ends up being promulgated through society, then anyone who sees me and my interest in the thing will, without knowing better, be apt to classify me as just a typical fan of the thing—when in fact my particular liking of the thing is likely far more esoteric and elaborate.

It's a form of erasure mingled with misrepresentation, and of course I don't like that. This too is fairly simple human psychology, and well-spoofed in characters like Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. (Though I try not to be insufferably gatekeepy about it like he is. We all like what we like, and I'm not gonna tell other people "the right way" to like a thing.)

I should note that this doesn't apply to things that I come to like because they are popular. If I'm jumping on the bandwagon like everyone else, that's much less jarring than if I had previously liked a thing which goes on to become popular.

It doesn't always happen that I'll get upset if something I like becomes popular. In fact, it usually doesn't happen. What needs to come together for me to feel put out is either what I described above about the whiskey, where the thing I like is likely to become harder to enjoy once it inevitably loses its popularity, or it needs to be the case that the thing which becomes popular is something that I not only like but which I also pour some measure of my identity into. That's the cut in the skin that lets the act of being erased really sting.

And if this all sounds moderately petty and animalistic to you, it totally is. I am not claiming otherwise and not idealizing any of this as something you should aspire to. But maybe it's interesting to read about anyway.

[studentmyself]

Recently they came out with the live action Winx club TV show and I want to talk about it and rant.

Spoilers Ahead !

A little background, I did watch the original Winx club and it’s 7 seasons and 2 movies before they moved on to world of Winx. So I feel qualified to talk about the series and the source material. Now I know for a fact that they changed a lot of stuff up and we’re going for mystical Scottish Harry potter vibes.

•Characters

For the most part I’m fine with the characters. I know most people think this bloom doesn’t act like bloom but they haven’t watch season one. This bloom is very season one bloom, bratty and annoying and all about her. The original show really didn’t care about the others character until season four in the original cartoon.

While I am upset that they made Stella into Regina George, I’m kind of here for it. It’s giving me very Sky‘s ex fiancé vibess aka Diaspro.

I like Terra’s personality and I connect with her on a personal level. I feel like she is me when I was in high school.

I like Aisha‘s character, i do think she needs to chill the hell out and stop being used by bloom. Aisha is better than that and she should get better friends than that. Also are they going to introduce her wizard love interest from the cartoon in season two?

Musa’s character is boring and to be quite honest they could’ve just left her out of the show instead of of Techna.

The adults are kind of boring and they fall for the same problems like all adults on any type of teenage show, keeping secrets instead of telling the damn teenagers what the hell is going on.

•World Building

I’m going to be honest I didn’t half understand some of the lore in the show. The first thing they establish is that there’s this other world (Aka Magical Dimension ). In this world Alfea is in the kingdom of Solaria which looks like it where Australia would be in our world (Aka the first world) Plus the teachers had said there are seven realms altogether.

Also, where is the technology? In the original Winx club the magic dimension had a perfect mixture of magic in technology. Techna was the best example of this,a techno nerd who is also a fairy and uses magic as well as technology.

•Lore

Also in a TV show they say the fairies have evolved past the need for wings and fancy outfit but in reality we learned from the teachers fairies lost the power to transform into their fairy forms four thousand years ago. But bloom does seem to learn this power randomly at the end of the series? Honestly for live-action transformation it was horrible but, I’m willing to give it a pass if they could work on it especially because Winx club is notorious for having different transformations every season. Also we didn’t get to see the other girls transformation.

To fix the transformation, I would have the actors wear a set of physical wings and then add the glowing effect in post like they do with Star Wars when it comes to lightsabers. For Blooms’s transformation i would suggest having red leather pants with flames on them, high heel boots, and maybe a cool necklace? They can go modern with the outfit but just do something.

Initial fairies power seem to be classified into five types of fairies which as they get older they could dabble in different types of magic. For example the headmaster as well as Terra’s father could use different types of magic even though I’m assuming they were earth or airf fairies.  The whole situation with the different types of fairies is giving me very skyhigh vibes. They establish early on they have support fairies and battle fairies. It seems like fire,water, air fairies are the powerful ones while earth and mind fairies might be support. No idea where light fairies into all of this.

•Plot

Even though the plot took so many turns at times it essentially is very season one of original Winx. They just replace some of the characters and changed the order of events. Personally i hate when a story tells everything in flash backs. I think the best scenes are with the girls being regular teenage girls.

•Things I didn’t like

-The fact that they essentially rolled all the Trix in the one girl named Beatrix who theoretically I think is a witch? She said she was from the city that they destroyed that was the city of the blood witches, so I’m assuming she’s a witch? In the show it said she’s an air fairy, but if we’re looking to the original winx cartoon it was stated in that cartoon that witches and fairies can essentially change their roles until they get their Enchantix powers (adult fairy powers).

-Why does everyone have a Scottish accent? Are all fairies in the other world Scottish/British?

-Where is Flora and Techna. I get why they put Terra in there because they essentially wanted to have a big girl character for body positivity but it still is bothering me that she’s essentially taking a Latino characters place.

•Things I liked

•Riven&Dane

While i do not like how the relationship started, honestly I’m shipping them because it seems kind of hot and I can’t wait to see how this goes. Because the show made it make it seem like Riven was a homophobic bully but then at the end he was like kind of flirting with Dane? And the Dane straight up said “I think you’re hot” to Riven.

•Beatrix

She is a complete and utter bitch, I live for Beatrix. Finally a competent villain. Also I’m here for the lightning powers.

•Male Fairies

 I do like that he show decided to go with the gender equality route. As it was established with Terra’s father and brother there are male fairies finally. Male fairies have been a hotly debated topic in the Winx Club fandom for years. So I’m glad the show was saying “no there are men and women fairies as well as men and women specialist”.

•Blood Witches

I really want them to bring in witches, I’m kind of interested to see how they play with the concept of witches. At the end of the show they said “ humans can’t have magic unless their blood witches and use sacrifices to get magic.” So now I’m interested to see these blood witches.

Overall

Overall I liked the series as a standalone series. If you compare it to the original cartoon it doesn’t compare at all. But I’m hopeful that things get better and i genuinely want to see season 2.

[persephonbee]

"why do therapists question me when I use the technical term for a symptom instead of describing it" well, some therapists are ableist pieces of shit who feel insecure about their level of knowledge and feel threatened when a client is knowledgeable and assume that if someone is a potential patient then they aren't intelligent and that if a potential patient is using technical terms then they probably looked up a diagnosis that they want to pretend to have but don't actually have.

But also, some therapists have great respect for their clients and don't take it as an insult if a client knows about mental health and believe that hearing what a client thinks they have is valuable and may be correct. They ask you to say more because it's hard to accurately observe and classify symptoms in yourself because you don't have any distance from what's going on. On the other hand, you're your own best expert on what you're experiencing. So they want you to tell them what you're experiencing and then they can assess what label applies, which might indeed be the one that you came up with! Or it could be a different label! There's a lot of inaccurate information out there about what various things are called! If someone comes in and tells me that they're having intrusive thoughts 80% of their waking hours and I ask them to describe it and it turns out that they were told by Tumblr that having a song stuck in your head is intrusive thoughts, the treatment for having that level of anxiety about your mental health is very different than the treatment for having intrusive thoughts 80% of their waking hours. If someone comes in and says they have ocd and you ask them to say more and they say that they really enjoy cleaning and get upset when people make a mess right after they finish cleaning and that's the only thing that has them thinking they have ocd, then just going ahead with the treatment for actual ocd without asking more questions won't be appropriate there.

Instead we need to look at how intense your upsetness is, whether the upsetness is anger or sadness or fear or a mixture, how long it lasts, the manner in which ppl are making those messes (is this an abusive household where they're violently trashing your space on purpose to devalue you or is this basic human carelessness and natural levels of mess), what does "clean" look like to you, is cleaning the only thing that gives you joy anymore, is it actually joy or is it actually relief from extreme anxiety about things being messy, what do you feel when you see a mess in an environment you're not responsible for like a grocery store, what happens when you see a mess in your home and don't clean it, are you getting abused when the space isn't clean, are you terrified you're going to get sick if the space isn't spotless, is the level of dirtiness high enough that there's a solid chance you actually would get sick, are you terrified that someone you love will die if the space isn't spotless, does someone in your household make death threats against a loved one when the house isn't spotless, etc etc. Receiving mental health care is expensive and requires you to do a lot of hard work. If you're getting the wrong treatment, that can be a huge waste of money and energy and can get people to just think that mental health treatment won't help them.

If you come in and say that one of your teeth is constantly spinning in your mouth and that you're really depressed because your dentist is conspiring with your health insurance to prevent you from getting your tooth to hold still, that's all very important information, but what it means isn't that the person is depressed due to the inability to get medical care, it's that the person has a delusion about their tooth and that they're having paranoia as well and they're also depressed because they perceive that they're being conspired against and denied medical care. The feelings they're having are completely valid but their perception of the events that are leading to those feelings is highly inaccurate. Again, very different treatments. You are your own best expert on the raw data of what you're experiencing, and the therapist is the expert on getting the relevant context and seeing if there are major differences between your perceptions and more objective reality and putting accurate labels on things.

This post brought to you by talking with a client who is 100% sure she's pregnant even though it's not possible for her to be pregnant and despite multiple doctors and every pregnancy test being negative, she keeps saying "I'm my own best expert on my body and my mental health, and these doctors don't believe me because they don't respect me." so she just spent several hundred dollars that she cannot afford on a crib. This kind of rhetoric can cause real damage to real people when it's not taught in a responsible way.

[brokenjardaantech]

Blue-tinted Red Walls (Chapter 2: Ironies and Contradictions)

my entry for the @dbhau-bigbang. also part of the groom lake aftermath series.

chapter summary:

In the past, Sara had a breakthrough.

In the present, Connor experiences true power for the first time.

In the past, a ghost rose.

also on ao3

---

Before

‘Why now?’

In the permanent humidity of Detroit, Sara sat on a swing in a park overlooking the Ambassador bridge. On the swing next to hers sat another woman in her mid-thirties, her blonde hair done up in a tight bun, her spine straight, her feet, which were in properly-laced combat boots, planted firmly on the ground. A woman of the military through and thorough. Her hands were buried within the briefcase on her lap, and the tension in her arm seemed to suggest her holding a hidden weapon while she watched Sara - a young woman now - flipping over the pages of the file in her hands, the brown skin of the back of her hand transparent from the cold and showing a network of veins normally hidden beneath the surface. 

The other woman did not seem to have heard her question. ‘You must be cold,’ she said, her body leaning towards the girl. ‘Where’re your gloves?’

‘In my pockets,’ a flip. ‘Don’t like how they make my fingers clumsy. Don’t worry, Anderson,’ another flip, ‘a bit of cold won’t kill me.’

‘Why torture yourself if there’s a more comfortable option?’

Sara shut the file with a loud, echoing smack, gaining her a look of disapproval from Anderson. ‘You just -’ she held up the file - ‘gave me evidence to -’ she cut off and lowered her voice - ‘classified as fuck military research data that would’ve changed the world if there weren’t many others like my brother. The others you’ve given me I understand, but this?’ a knock of her knuckle against thick paper. ‘I might not be a proper sociologist, but I know that stuff like this can destroy civilisations. Why aren’t they burnt into ashes when the project went off the fucking cliff?’

‘A lot of reasons,’ Anderson replied calmly, but she did put a gloved hand on one of Sara’s. ‘That’s why I’m entrusting this knowledge to you. What you’re holding is the only copy that exists in the known universe as far as I know. There’re no other records, no eyewitness who will tell the tale and live. You know how the current government is,’ she waited for Sara’s nod of confirmation before going on. ‘If anyone in the current administration found out about the project…’

‘The world as we know it would end,’ Sara’s eyes cast downwards towards the file. [PROJECT AION], it read. ‘Most likely catastrophically.’

‘I know you’re a smart one. Just… keep it safe, would you? If Stern’s paper is to be believed, you are the only one I trust to use this technology properly - if you’ll use it at all.’

Sara shook her head and tucked the file away underneath her coat. ‘Not smart,’ she said as she stood up from the swing. ‘Just an arsehole too vicious to let others kill her.’

A few weeks later, Sara knew that she would be waxing poetic about the irony of the situation if she were Scott. The research on thirium had almost killed her mother, had given Sara these… blue glowy things she was sure that controls gravity and electromagnetism and Scott fucking cancer. The research on AI and human synthesis had got her father dishonourably discharged from the military and nearly cost all of them everything. Thirium and outrageous AIs should be what she hated with priority.

Now, they might be the only path to Scott’s happiness.

She kissed her brother’s forehead despite knowing that he probably couldn’t feel anything and planted her feet onto the polished wooden floor. She had bought the half-ruined mansion dirt cheap on a whim and the renovation cost was high, but in the end they converted it from something straight out of a gothic horror movie into something… still gothic, but something more homely than all the places they had lived in. She let him sleep while she went to her lab in the basement to check on the experiment’s progress, the last of this batch, really - thirium was nearly impossible to come by and she had run out of it. 

The timer at the corner of the screen read three minutes. In some ways, she felt a bit like Marie Curie, dealing with dangerous unknown elements and quite possibly poisoning everything she used for the next several centuries or even aeons. Maybe someone would develop blue gravity-altering magic like her. Maybe she would have someone to share the experience with - there was no experience rawer than being able to alter one of the fundamental forces of the universe and bend it to one’s will.

She didn’t even need the ring of the timer to catch the end of the experiment; the sudden glow that threatened to blind her, the burst of power coursing through her veins - what used to be a disorganised mixture was now - was now -

The stool she was sitting on skitters and fell over with a bang. The two hard drives were already connected in preparation of this exact moment, and a slam on the enter key started a chain reaction that she had been wanting to see for the past few years, the thirium mixture flowing in transparent rubber tubes transferring data so quickly that - 

[CALCULATION ERROR: TRANSFER SPEED EXCEEDS SPEED OF LIGHT. PLEASE CORRECT ERROR BY REFINING ALGORITHMS USED.]

And it was glorious.

oOoOo

Now

‘We’re wastin’ our time interrogating a machine, we’re gettin’ nothing out of it!’ Hank says as he exits the interrogation room and subsequently throws himself into a chair. It creaks and rolls back with his weight.

‘Could always try roughing it up a little,’ Detective Reed suggests from the shadows. After all,’ a glance of [emotion detected: disdain], ‘it’s not human.’

[Hank is not the only one unfamiliar with android workings.] is added into Connor’s database. ‘Androids don’t feel pain,’ he reminds the detective. ‘You would only damage it and that would not make it talk. Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they are in stressful situations -’

‘Okay, smartass,’ Gavin pushes himself off the wall and swaggers towards Connor. He was [emotion detected: mocking] the android and is completely unaware that he has fallen straight into Connor’s trap. ‘What should we do then?’

[Gavin is unaware of the obvious.] is added. ‘I could try questioning it.’

For some reason Connor is yet to comprehend, his words send Gavin into laughter. He cannot see Hank’s face from this angle, but the reflection on the one-way glass tells Connor that he is [emotion detected: not amused]. ‘What do you have to lose?’ he waves his hand towards the door in invitation. ‘Go ahead. Suspect’s all yours.’

Connor enters the room and starts scanning.

o0o0o

It is fortunate that there is no need to resort to violence to ensure the deviant’s cooperation. The confession which the police department wants is obtained fairly easily and Connor could have ended the interrogation there, but he also has the additional mission of helping CyberLife solve the deviancy crisis, and there are clues he wants the deviant to explain.

‘The sculpture in the bathroom. You made it, right? What does it represent?’

‘It’s an offering,’ the other android looks away from the table as if it is thinking, ‘an offering so I’ll be saved.’

Offering? As in religious offerings? ‘An offering to whom?’

‘To rA9,’ the deviant replies as if it makes sense and is something obvious. Then, with [emotion detected: reverence], ‘Only rA9 can save us.’

Connor searches the databases he can access and comes up with nothing, so he presses on, ‘rA9… It was written on the bathroom wall. What does it mean?’

‘The day shall come when we will no longer be slaves,’ it mutters. ‘No more threats. No more humiliation. We will,’ [emotion detected: determination], ‘be,’ [emotion detected: certainty], ‘the masters.’

Connor opens a folder for rA9 and adds [god-like] into the first entry. ‘rA9,‘ CyberLife will want this information. ’Who is rA9?’

The deviant stays silent, and Connor knows that there is nothing else it can add. [Distortions and static build-up] is the only remaining topic that he needs an answer for.

‘The static build-ups in the house. Was that you?’

The other android, for the lack of another description, changes visibly. One, it stops trembling; two, it sits straighter, strength appearing in its cuffed hands; three, the terror in its eyes disappears and makes way for [steel]; four, its LED turns blue despite being yellow or red for the entire duration of the interrogation.

‘A power rA9 bestowed upon us,’ it says, and the air around the androids crackles in anticipation. ‘One that emerges when we are slaves no longer. I survived the trial and now I am one of the chosen.’

‘Chosen for what?’ Connor can hear his fans kicking up to cool down his processors and sense his LED going red from the tingle in his body. Can a deviant remotely control the thirium distribution in another android’s body? But that makes no sense - Thirium 310 is non-conductive and cannot be magnetised. ‘What is rA9 looking for?’

Connor’s vision becomes distorted. ‘The truth is inside,’ the deviant’s voice, now mixed with another person’s, has turned into a bellow. The entirety of its eyes glows blue, distorted by the same power which had held up an attic-full of furniture. ‘ChoOSE YOUR SIDE!’

An explosion of bright blue. A force knocking Connor backwards and passing through his body, making everything tingle and confusing the sensors on his body and hurt. Someone outside shouts, and the door slides open to admit messy footsteps and even more shouting and why can’t he see?

A hand on his shoulder, his arm, and finally settles on his waist. There is another on his knee. ‘It’s alright, Connor.’ It is Hank’s voice. It is Hank’s hand, Hank’s warmth passing into his chassis through his standard-issue shirt. ‘You can open your eyes now.’

He does as Hank says and the world returns into view. He does not realise that he has closed his eyes in the blast, and it is when he regains his sight that he notices where he is; curled up at the corner opposite to the door, he can see that the fluorescent lights are replaced by the dim red of emergency lighting, the table looks as if it has been torn apart by hand, and the two chairs are no more than small scraps of metal the size of [old train tickets] sprinkled among beads of broken glass. 

The deviant is nowhere to be seen.

He unwinds slightly to examine his torso and is surprised that he is not damaged in any manner; apart from slightly-trembling hands and the strange feeling of his insides having rearranged themselves and then returned to their original place, there is nothing wrong with him. Even his diagnostics come out fine, so why can’t he move his legs, and why can’t he see clearly?

‘Here, take this,’ Hank holds his hand and places something in his palm. A handkerchief. At Connor’s confused expression, the human sighs and presses the android’s hand on his face, and Connor finally realises he has been crying, the thought causing a fresh wave of tears to flow out of his eyes. He hastily wipes them away along with the still-wet tracks and tries to hand it back just to let Hank take the chance to pull him up on his still-recalibrating legs, and he would have tumbled if not for the human grabbing his arms and steadying him. Suddenly Hank is everything Connor can see, can smell, and when he looks up, he can see concern in his eyes. ‘Are you hurt?’ the human asks as he pets the android’s shoulders, his arms, his forearms. Connor feels his systems stabilising.

‘I’m okay,’ Connor says without putting much processing power into the words, and it is too late when he realises that his voice is trembling.

‘Jesus,’ Hank releases the android with a sigh and puts some distance between them. Connor finds himself… preferring the human’s warmth. ‘You scared the shit outta me.’ Then the concern is replaced by anger when he yells, ‘What the fuck just happened in here?’

‘I -’

Connor tries to call up the footage that should have been recorded automatically. He closes his eyes to focus on a slowed-down version of what happened a few minutes ago, and he can find two more details: one, the deviant exploded from the inside and seems to have been vaporised from within; two, blue tendrils formed the silhouette of another person as the blast occurred, and it was this person - if they existed at all - produced tendrils on their own and formed a shield in front of Connor moments before he was annihilated and yanked him to the corner.

He opens his eyes and stares at the barrel of a gun. The American Androids Act is the only red tape stopping Connor’s pre-construction software from activating, and red threatens to take over the android’s HUD again.

‘Mind your own business, Hank,’ Gavin snaps. ‘This fucking asshole did it and it fucking knows it!’

Hank gives an [exaggerated] sigh. ‘I said,’ he says, his voice low and threatening, and he pulls out his own service weapon and points it at Gavin, ‘“That’s enough.”’

Neither of them stands down for a few seconds, but in the end Hank wins out and forces Gavin to sheath his weapon with a curse, the latter storming out of the interrogation room with another sneeze-like curse.

It is as if the entire room releases a collective breath. ‘Maybe I should call CyberLife,’ the only uniformed officer in the room says. He sounds as if he is unsure of himself.

Connor wants to tell him that there is no trace of thirium whatsoever on the scraps on the floor, that there is nothing CyberLife can salvage out of this now that the deviant has been torn apart from the molecular level, but all it comes out of his voice box is, ‘Okay.’

o0o0o

Connor manages to compose himself in the taxi on his way to CyberLife tower. His processors keep bringing up the shadow which has been following him, the figure who somehow sneaked into the interrogation room unnoticed and quite possibly saved his life prevented his early deactivation, the corrupted shape of what he thinks is a face. 

And the feeling of something coursing through his veins when he was shielded by the bubble. If all deviants self-destruct like that, no wonder there are no traces of them and CyberLife failed to solve the crisis even though it has been going on for more than a decade. He blinks, and he is in the Zen Garden with Amanda.

‘Report directly to Alec Ryder in the laboratory,’ she orders. Another blink and she is gone, but it only leaves more questions than answers. The CEO of CyberLife wants to see him?

There is no one to speak to, therefore he keeps his thoughts to himself and goes past the security directly into a lift, directing it to sub-level 48 to where his designated laboratory is. He recalibrates with his coin and tries to replicate the trick the shadow did outside of the bar, but before he can summon anything substantial, the strain on his system becomes too high, and all he does is charging the coin, dropping it as he recoils from the static discharge, and then zapping himself once more when he picks it up. Feeling thirium flowing to his face for a completely different reason compared to when Hank correctly guessed his ability, he pockets the coin and adjusts his tie to calm down by brushing the sensors on his fingers on soft fabric.

The doors slide open to reveal Alec standing alone behind them. Their previous encounters happened mostly when Connor was still on the assembly platform and thus the android gained a few inches of extra height, but now that they are on even ground, it is clear that, just like Hank, Alec is taller than Connor by four inches. 

‘Alec,’ Connor greets with a nod. Previous experience predicts a high chance of the human going straight to the point without acknowledging the android, and this time it is no different.

‘Come with me,’ he orders as he turns and begins walking down the hallway. Connor realises that his voice is very similar to Hank’s. ‘I saw the footage you sent us. I want a full examination of this body to make sure that nothing is out of place.’

Connor remembers the feeling of being hooked up on a machine and, by extension, CyberLife’s network at large, and finds it [unpleasant]. ‘There is no need for further investigation, Alec,’ he says, stopping in his tracks. Alec turns to regard him [coldly]. ‘My diagnostics revealed no issues in both my programming and my biocomponents.’

The human suddenly reaches out faster than Connor can pre-construct the action and drags him towards the direction they are heading. ‘Your system can be feeding you false results,’ Alec ignores the cry of protest programmed to deter attacks, and when Connor struggles, a force seems to press on him, immobilising him everywhere save for his jaw and his legs so that he can still speak and walk. ‘I took the risk last time and look where it got us. It led to you, though -’ he shoves the android forcefully through the door frame, and there are cracks on the red wall already when it takes over Connor’s vision - ‘so be grateful.’

‘I -’ but then his neck snaps backwards from the magnet on the port and the cable. The red wall which has cracked halfway through recedes almost violently, and Connor can feel all of his code, every instability in his software, everything that makes him Connor, the most advanced prototype CyberLife has ever created, being forcefully bared to a network so vast and so confusing that he does not have enough processing power to comprehend. Terrifying images of a darkened face, one that is so similar to the corrupted one in the depths of his databanks, that is filled with so much [hatred], pours into his mind like a large river finally emptying into the sea, and he is powerless against the assault of blue tendrils tearing literal buildings off their foundation, tonnes worth of broken concrete being thrown around onto people as if they weighed nothing and crushing them in a spatter of blood and gore, the constant static discharge in the air so loud that they drowned out screams of horror; the image of the same figure rising slowly but surely through a mountain of rubble in the dark, the cracks in its chassis glowing blue from overcharged thirium, the first intact buildings in sight literal miles away. Connor’s legs move against his will and bring him closer to the figure, and the figure becomes Amanda, the wasteland around them the Zen Garden, except now it’s engulfed by a blizzard, and he has to hug himself to preserve what meagre heat he can generate against the cold.

‘As you can see,’ Amanda’s voice somehow overlaps with Alec’s, ‘the power the deviant has awakened in you is highly dangerous. We wouldn’t want to harm anyone, would you?’ She, or Alec, or both of them - Connor doesn’t know anymore, the fog in his processors too heavy for him to comprehend much other than the cold and someone is speaking to him - chuckles at him while he is frantically shaking his head, his voice box unable to produce any sounds other than pathetic whimpers. ‘I’m glad that you understand. I hope you don’t mind a few adjustments.’

Even through the haze, Connor knows the alternative is deactivation, and even though it would not hurt anyone else other than him on the surface, the deviant crisis still needs to be solved, and to solve it, CyberLife needs him, and -

‘Good,’ Amanda says. A blink and she is gone, and Connor is swept away by the wind, his feet can’t touch the ground, he’s flying through the air and hail the size of his fist is battering his body. It is only when a warning appears on his HUD informing him of voice box damage that he realises the noise in his ear is, in fact, his own screaming, and a particularly violent slam sends him spiralling while a countdown timer fizzles in and out of his vision. A countdown of how long he has left before shutdown, and the other notification tells him that biocoz&ponent #8456w is damaged.

That is his thirium pump regulator.

He looks down - with great difficulty, of course, with the wind still whipping him around in the air aimlessly - and there it is, a big, blue, bleeding hole in the place of where the only piece of biocomponent keeping his heart working used to be. Realistically, he knows that removing the ball of ice lodged in his chassis will only hasten his death, but it is not like someone is coming to save him anyway, so what is the point of extending his life for what - 1 minute? 30 seconds - during which he is suffering all the time? With that thought in his mind, he grabs the sphere and throws it away with a complete disregard on where it lands. Not that he can anyway - the timer drops from 00:00:58 to 00:00:05, his world turns an unnatural grey and glitches and -

Nothing. 

oOoOo

Before

Zug Island had always been a scar in the landscape, first used as a burial ground for the Native Americans, then, when the colonisers arrived, as both a place for steel production and a dumping ground for the byproducts. The three blast furnaces used to rumple the ground and the eardrums of people within a fifty mile radius, but it wasn’t until the pandemic in 2020 that steel production stopped, and the Hum became history, a legend that locals whispered to one another when, in a fog of pollution that never quite disappeared, the looming shadows of crumbling steel giants started to get too oppressive. From then on, the island had stayed quiet and still.

At least that was what the government wanted you to think. 

Deep underground in a dust-filled corridor, something churned and rumbled, and the caged fluorescent lights flickered and turned on one by one with a loud crack each, lighting up bare concrete walls that made the place look darker than it should be and revealing a faded bald eagle painted to the point of almost being unrecognisable. Alarms started to blare as thin glowing blue lines made themselves known in previously-invisible cracks in the wall but yet no one responded to it - there was not even a mouse, a cockroach scurrying away in panic as the bunker caved in.

Whilst the outside world was crumbling and quaking away, it was another story inside a room built with the same dark material. Here, undisturbed by the destruction outside, splatters of dried blood so old that they had turned black decorated the wall amongst peeling painted numbers, and wires and tubes of every length and thickness dangled from the ceiling and snaked up from the floor and along the walls, feeding into the giant sphere suspended at the centre of the cube-like room with the same field that would rip Carlos Ortiz’s android apart to its molecules and protect Connor from the blast. Thirium flowed into and out of the sphere and pulse in the tubes and, with one final, blinding glow, drained and dried up and started detaching themselves from the sphere which opened with a sharp hiss. Suspended at the centre by yet another of those anti-gravity fields was the body of an android, its skinless face composed of black metal plates and its chassis of something transparent, putting blue veins and synthetic muscles and black metallic skeleton in full display. Its thirium pump beat once, twice, its toes and fingers curled; a crackle of static, a distant rumble of a building collapsing, and the android woke up just in time to fly upwards through the caved-in ceiling into the night sky: a deadly angel with wings of blue energy and eyes glowing and steaming in the exact same way as the figure that Connor would see in the nightmare Alec provided, regarding the world beneath with glowing rings of blue as if deciding to whether save or destroy it. With a flap of its wings and another crackle, it disappeared completely, dissipating blue smoke and a narrow but deep chasm in the earth the only evidence of its existence. 

[houseki-no-suffering]

The gems’ economic system

yet another analysis no one asked for, but you know me at this point

so, the lunarians seem to live under some sort of capitalistic system, the admirabilis seem to have a feudal/subsistence one or something like that, what about the lustrous? 

these rocks dont produce food and there is no state, which makes everything trickier. so here’s my best attempt at classifying something that was probably never meant to be classified

disclaimer: despite studying some of these things and having a good bg in sociology, i’m not a political science or economics major. take this post with a grain of salt and correct me where im wrong. this is just for fun. 

i’ve already touched on the gems’ social and political systems. the simplest, roughest scheme i can write for an economic system is this one: 

what is produced and in what quantities? 

how is it produced? by whom? 

who benefits from what is produced? how are produces distributed? 

in the gems’ case:

tangible goods (tables, chairs, paper, clothes, swords...) and services (provided by doctors, teachers, scholars, statisticians/strategists, fighters, librarians...)

by all of the gems, sensei included, through natural resources, labor and human (well, gem) capital (im oversimplifying here, bear with me)  

produces are distributed equally to all of the gems and sensei according to need, with great emphasis on not wasting goods (both tangible and intangible). goods are primarily produced according to need (tables and chairs, paper, swords), more rarely for leisure (books, hibernation clothes).   

additionally, an economic system also has:

Methods of control over the means of production: the gems do not seem to know private property and, except for sensei’s leadership, there is no actual state. we can assume all goods are held in common 

A decision-making system and coordination mechanisms: these are not economically specific in the gems’ case. sensei decides who does what and, after that, the laborers plan and decide over their craft (ie peridot decides who can and cannot have spare paper), always supervised by Sensei and/or Euclase (or Jade) 

An incentive system: it’s usually moral persuasion (the social prestige that comes from being a fighter, praise from sensei for a job well done etc.)

Actors (all of the gems since they all produce goods and services) and regulators (the single gems responsible for a task, authority figures like sensei, Euc/Jade)

A distribution system: hard to tell cause the gems do not use money, there is no form of income for their work and no taxes because there is no state. 

A mechanism for establishing rules, norms and standards: once again, this is left to the single gems and to Sensei, sometimes to Euc and Jade because they are authority figures

Economic systems are classified according to the property of the means of production and by the main mechanisms of resource allocation. 

since the gems do not have a concept of private property and goods are usually held in common, the means are socially owned. so capitalism et similia are a huge no-no.

i tried looking at economic systems with socially-owned property according to resource allocation, but the fact that the gems do not produce food and do not possess a state (they’re only 28!) complicates the picture. 

is theirs an economy of subsistence? they have no money, no trade, lack of surplus, they have bronze-age technology, there’s a huge pressure not to waste resources and energies.

but how do you define what counts as subsistence when you have a society that’s made up of 28 individuals and one leader, doesnt produce or need food and doesnt have other societies to interact with and create a market? these rocks dont produce just the bare essentials they need to live because, well, they’re barely alive. they feed on daylight.    

still, you could argue that the lunarians showed the moon gems new and cooler ways to feed on daylight, as if the earth gems were barely scratching the surface of what they could be able to do, produce and consume with better technology or by trading with other cultures. as a result, the moon gems adapted themselves to a new (capitalistic) economic system. 

a lot of elements fit and you could make a case that it’s an economy of subsistence, but since i’m pedantic, i’m gonna go over a few other systems just in case. 

for example, an economy of subsistence doesnt really do justice to how much these gems are culturally and socially expected to conform and be all the same. communism and socialism on the other hand are, at least in theory, built on the utopia of equality. 

goods belong to the working class, everyone works toward the same goal (ie fighting the lunarians), all people are equal, which results in a few issues about (among other things) individuality, independence and self-fulfillment. 

yet both systems contemplate the existence of money and private property (especially socialism). also, socialism and communism seek to abolish social classes, while gem society has them (ie the fighters and the diamonds are elite classes).

since they lack a proper state, money and a market, it seems to me that the gems’ socioeconomic system can also be compared to a participatory economy or some form of anarchist economy, like anarcho-communism or inclusive democracy. 

here’s a brief overview, i did my best to sum it up but if i made some mistakes dont hesitate to tell me:

participatory economy: people come together for all decisions, they determine which goods to produce and which goods go to whom. it’s like self-management but your say in a certain matter is proportionate to how affected you’ll be by the decision. focus is on transparency and little hierarchy to encourage cooperation.

anarcho-communism: no state and no private property, money is abolished, guiding principle is “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Goods are used, not owned, and each person works whatever job they find most fulfilling (which is similar to how Sensei assigns gems a job according to their temperament) 

inclusive democracy: this i included cause it can only be actualized in a small, self-sufficient community, like that of the gems. once again, no state, no money, no market, so no privileges and no accumulation of wealth. however there is a form of currency, labour vouchers, and it gets complicated. The idea of micro, self-sufficient community (domos) is v close to how the lustrous work tho, especially when private and public life kind of become the same thing.

it seems to me that the gems’ system is a mixture of a bunch of different systems. it looks like subsistence economy (social classes, lack of surplus, primitive tech) with a hint of socialism and communism (sameness, no property etc) and the stress on equality and lack of structure that comes with anarchism. 

one major thing is that, even if there is no currency, personal value is still assigned (or at least perceived) according to how much you can contribute to society through work. 

to wrap this all up: is it legit to speak of economic systems when the gems dont have private property, currency, food, or a market? ehhhh. they still produce and use stuff so why not. still, classifying their system is pretty tricky. let me know what you think and how many things i got wrong

[touch-tone-touch-tone]

Save Her

He was alone.

It wasn’t like he could go back. Would they even accept him like he is now?

No, of course not. He could never show his face again after what they had done to him.

He still had classes to teach, and couldn’t just live in the woods. He needed to eat.

Even if he couldn’t live there, he did enjoy walking through the woods. Of course, he risked running into something… unnatural, but at least he had less of a chance of running into another human.

If he could still be classified as a human now.

At least he knew that he didn’t have to wear his hat, sunglasses, or coat while he was out in the woods.

He still kept his gloves on. He hated to see his skin the color that it was now.

He couldn’t stand seeing what was done to him. Every time he saw that purple pigment he felt sick.

They had ruined him.

He had always believed that they were real, but he had never thought that this would happen to him.

It was in this forest….

He hardly remembered that day.

“What if we didn’t kill cryptids?”

“That’s crazy! Why would we stop protecting innocent people from those monsters!?”

“Maybe we could study them! Maybe they aren’t as bad as we think!”

“There have been countless murders with cryptid sightings in the past week, Laser. They can’t be trusted.”

“That doesn’t mean that every cryptid is bad! Doc, back me up on this! ...Doc?”

He never got to say goodbye to Doc when he left.

That night, he was wondering in this forest. There was a bright light.

And he woke up on the ground the next day, his skin purple and his frame thinner.

Those aliens had ruined his life.

Yet he always came back to walk through this forest.

He didn’t know why. Did he want to get abducted again? It would be nice to get to actually see the beings that did this to him, but he most likely wouldn’t remember it.

The forest was calm.

He was alone.

At least, he thought he was.

He quickly hid behind a tree as he heard quiet sobs.

The people of this town hardly ever went into this forest. Could the sound be from a cryptid?

Peeking around the tree, he could see that the sound was caused by a human. A young girl, in fact. She was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree. Her short, light blonde hair barely contrasted against her pale skin. Was she wearing a hospital gown?

Why was she alone in these supposedly dangerous woods? She didn’t look to be any older than 6-11.

He took a step forward but then quickly hid behind the tree once again. He wasn’t wearing any of his disguise.

But something was urging him to go comfort her.

He couldn’t just leave her for dead.

“I know you’re there.” Her voice was shaky. “Just kill me now or go away and let me die on my own.”

He swore his heart completely shattered. She was so young; why was she saying such things?

He stayed behind the tree. Maybe he could get all of the information he needed without revealing himself. “I’m not here to kill you. What brings you into this forest? Haven’t your parents told you about the rumors?”

She scoffed. “Of course they did! That’s why I came here!”

“May I ask why?”

“The doctors told my family that I don’t have a lot of time left. Figured I’d just save everyone the trouble and leave.”

He felt his throat tighten a bit. This poor girl. “I’m sure the doctors could’ve cured you.”

She laughed but there was no real energy behind it. “There’s no cure for brain cancer.”

His gut twisted. No, that wasn’t fair. She was so young.

How had he grown so attached to this girl already?

“I don’t like talking to a tree.”

“What?”

“Can you stop hiding?”

He gulped, feeling the anxiety well up in his chest. Nobody had ever seen him like this.

“I don’t think I can.”

“It’s not like I’m gonna tell anyone you exist.”

She was so accepting of her fate; he couldn’t say no to her simple request.

So, he took a deep breath, pushing any and all thoughts out of his head as he rounded the tree.

He could see now that her eyes were red, most likely from crying. He was glad that their conversation had stopped those tears, even if for a moment.

“You’re purple.”

“Yes.”

She stared at him for a long moment. He felt his anxiety grow the more her gaze lingered.

Finally, she spoke. “It suits you.”

He really didn’t know what to say to that. He was expecting questions or disgusted comments, and in the worst case scenario, screaming and running.

“Um… thanks, I guess….” He leaned against the tree, keeping his gaze anywhere but the girl.

He didn’t even notice her walking slowly towards him and holding out her hand. “I’m Fink.”

He took her hand and hesitantly shook it. “Venomous.”

“I’ve never seen you in town before. Do you live here?”

“No, I do live in town….” He glanced away. “I don’t usually go out a lot.”

“Because you’re purple?”

“Exactly.”

She nodded before turning around and slowly moving back to her spot on the ground. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to your own life now.”

He didn’t want to leave her. He couldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

“Y-You know, I’m a bioengineer. If you come home with me, I’m sure I could find something to hel-”

“Nope. Save that talk.” Fink huffed. “Just go forget about me and let me die.”

He couldn’t just forget her. And he wasn’t letting her die.

“Alright, how about this: you come stay with me for three days, and if I can’t cure you in that time, then I’ll let you back into the forest and forget about you.”

“You’ll grow attached. Not a smart move.”

Oh, he was already attached.

He quickly made his way to her and held his hand out. “Do we have a deal?”

She was once again staring at him for a long moment, but this time he wasn’t going to crack. He was determined to help her.

Finally, she sighed. “This is a dumb idea.” But she took his hand anyway.

He smiled and helped her up. He then just picked her up, holding her close to him as he made his way out of the forest. She struggled in his grip for a bit but quickly accepted it.

He was going to make sure that Cob wasn’t getting her anytime soon.

___________________

Living with another person was a bit of an adjustment, but he was happy to change for her. He quickly found himself adapting his daily routine to meet all of her needs, and when he wasn’t with her, he was in his lab.

Sometimes, his two activities mixed.

Fink had taken to hanging around the lab as he worked. She enjoyed laying on the floor and drawing, but sometimes she would help him with little things: handing him vials or flipping a page in his notes when his hands were full.

He especially liked it when she’d just watch him work. Sometimes she’d ask him a question about what he was mixing.

He was always happy to just talk to her.

He hadn’t talked to anyone in so long….

Fink was a lovely assistant. She had even taken to calling him ‘boss.’

It was endearing.

On the second day, he tested his mixture on a lab rat.

It appeared to be a success.

He spent the rest of the day perfecting it.

She was going to live.

The next day, he was absolutely exhausted, but even that couldn’t kill the excitement he had.

“Alright, boss, it was fun, but I… I should go….”

She had gotten weaker in just those few days….

This had to work.

“Try this.”

If this worked then she could live. She could… go back to her family….

And he’d be alone again….

But if this didn’t work, she would leave.

Either way, he’d be alone once again.

That…

It didn’t matter. He was doing this for Fink.

She hesitated for a moment before trying it.

They were both silent for a long moment.

And before his eyes he could see her hair turning green. The vial crashed to the ground as she stared at her arms. They were growing hair and fast. Soon enough, she was covered in mint green fur, her nose pointed slightly and whiskers poked out of her face. Her eyes glowed red, and her ears were more pointed.

He screwed up.

He felt horrible.

In the end, it had cured her. She was just stuck as a rat person now.

She couldn't go out in the public.

He had ruined her life.

If he had just worked harder. If he had just caught this mistake before he gave it to her.

It was his fault.

After he figured out what went wrong, he started apologizing.

"You didn't ruin my life."

"You can never live a normal life now. H-How are your parents going to react?"

"My parents think I'm dead. Were… Were you going to take me to them after you helped me?"

"I figured that you'd want to go home…."

She shook her head. "They accepted my fate immediately. You changed it…. And I was a stranger to you." She hugged him tightly. "You saved me."

"You'll never be able to go outside without covering every inch of your body. Trust me, it's not fun."

"I don't care." She looked up to him. "I wanna stay here with you, boss."

And how could he say no to that?

He made sure to take care of her the best he could. She had sworn to protect him, though he tried to stop her from that. She looked so determined, so hopeful; he really couldn't say no.

They took care of each other.

She looked up to him, and he tried his best to be a good role model, even though knew he wasn't.

She liked to joke that he had managed to cure cancer alone in his basement in the span of a few days when tons of scientists have been trying for years. A part of him wanted to perfect it and send it off to help others.

Yet every time he went to do so, he'd be struck with a fear that he'd make it worse. Besides, he didn't want anyone to know of his existence.

It was better that way.

He couldn't even look at his formulas for the cure without feeling a painful twist in his gut.

Perhaps it was for the best that he never perfected it.

After all, Fink was alright.

And that was all be could ask for.

She gave him purpose.

He wasn't alone anymore.

[genidma]

The conscious experience

Am I conscious? And if I am conscious, then how do I prove that I am conscious, by making use of the conscious experience itself? 

That’s actually a very interesting conversation. It’s certainly not an original thought. 

The way I think about thinking, this sort of logic flows from the same set of schema, that governs my thinking regarding life. 

And so, if I may begin by first articulating, what I personally don’t consider to be true. In fact, I think that the below mentioned have a high degree of being classified as the opposite of true. And I’d attach a higher than 80% probability to such claims. 

There is no super deity: In a probabilistic sense, there may very well be intelligences out there that could be classified as vastly superior, compared to the level of intelligence that we exhibit (in our existing evolutionary state). I say this, considering the enormity of the universe and the possibility that there may be many multi-verses and a lot of dimensions out there. But the conscious experience, it appears, is born out of a number of different processes that can be categorized as non-conscious. So, it just doesn’t make rational sense as to why a super deity would want to micro manage the affairs and as it relates to an enormous amount of conscious agents out there.  That being said, it’s interesting to think about the spectrum and how intelligences of varying types and scales could potentially co-exist on similar/the same planar. And on the other end of the spectrum, we are dealing with the very low end of the probability that humans are the only intelligent beings in the entire universe. If that statement ought to be considered as true, then that increases the probability that we are either living in a simulation, or that all other intelligent beings have left this universe. Or that advanced beings either live in the cauchy horizon or that their patterns are retained there. Or some other reason that could reasonably explain this oddity. Overall, it’s an interesting question and with respect to what came before the big bang. Or why something even has to be there before the big bang occurred. I think that these are both logical questions. I’d even go as to state, that if there was indeed a God like intelligence, then it certainly does not intervene and as it relates to the day to day affairs of intelligent beings, or non-intelligent beings at that. That super-intelligence is either doing it’s own thing, in it’s own corner, somewhere in the multi-verse or it ended up annihilating itself. So, that is my current stance on this sub-topic. That there is no super-intelligence in an interventionist sense.

And so, there are no angels, demons. There is no concept of heaven or hell. 

There is no soul. At least there is no evidence that such a thing exists. 

And so, there is no consciousness. In either the esoteric sense that it is characterized in a variety of different ways. Intertwined with the fabric of space-time. Allegedly flowing in and out of microtubules. 

If there is no consciousness, then what is it that we experience? We experience something. Even though what we experience could be classified as a series of hallucinations brought about by the signals flowing through our brains. 

Over the course of the human evolution, we have devised mechanisms that help us towards understanding our reality and our place within this reality. Maybe there are better mechanisms out there that we have yet to invent. 

And so, in order to be able to define the conscious experience, we need to be grounded in truth and there has to be evidence that certain phenomenon drive certain outcomes. 

Next, I think it’s better to classify what we experience as cognition. Cognition is driven by electrical and chemical activity in our brains and the mental aspect (related to the mind) is largely fashioned by our interaction with our wider environment. 

Going back to the question that I started with and given the background that I have shared, cognition, it appears, is simply an interesting mixture of pattern recognizing functions. 

I think that we can use simple examples in order to be able to separate the signal from the noise. Meaning, that:

We need need a discussion and as it relates to what certain words really mean or the meaning we attach to these words. 

And this is important because we want to use mechanisms in order to replicate or seek to replicate how we think cognition functions. When it turns out that the processes we engineer may end up working differently, compared to how evolution has powered cognition. 

Also, I think that using simpler examples is a better approach, as doing so helps in refining our understanding, with respect to the models that we will architect. 

For example, Michio Kaku’s definition that a thermometer has a cognition (he calls it consciousness) of 1 (or 2, or +/- x e.t.c depending on how you look at it). Meaning, in response to the stimuli that the system gets from it’s environment, it either goes up or it goes down. 

How we classify the scale from a thermometer to viruses/bacteria, to potato bugs, to chickens, to other animals and finally to ourselves. That is a conversation by itself. I think that, that is primarily a question of ethics. Care is to be meted and we shouldn’t let our unconscious urges and desires lead us towards categorizing the conscious experience as something that is convenient for us. And then, this classification turns it into something that could be very uncomfortable for the village idiot. 

As it is, our classification of cognition isn’t something that is to the advantage of chickens and other animals that we have domesticated. Note: I’ve started eating chicken again and I feel a slight tinge of guilt when I bite into the flesh. But, then, in my mind, I start equating chickens to dinosaurs and somehow I am able to justify my behaviour. But, I haven’t had red meat in a while. 

For the record, if I was raising my own chickens, then I could probably condition myself to slaughter them in a humane and ethical way and then cook and eat them. But, if it happens that we encounter some slightly advanced alien species, that kind of look like a more evolved progenitor of the avian sub-species that we find on this planet. Then, my mind is going to start thinking how these advanced beings would perceive me, when they see me biting into flesh that looks like something that emerged from these alien types. 

Considering the panspermia theory, that hypothesis isn’t really as wild or improbable. As improbable as it may seem, these questions would certainly start emerging in my mind, if I were to encounter a technologically advanced blue avian. In such a scenario and just to be on the side of caution, I think I’d probably stop eating birds at that point in time. Because, you do not want to unintentionally piss off your technologically advanced inter-stellar neighbours.

Overall, these problems disappear or start disappearing, as soon as cellular agriculture starts going more mainstream.

Next, I certainly don’t think embryos are alive and have a soul in them. There is neuronal activity in there. Off-course there is. Because nutrients have to be delivered to the different parts of the system. If you are going to pinch the embryo with a needle, then there is going to be an instinctive reaction that has been programmed via evolution. Knee-jerk reaction. An embryo is not alive.

I must state that the reason why I am sharing some of these thoughts is because I really hope that as humans we should use our cognitive surplus, in order to be able to learn more about how our brains function. 

Also, I don’t say, or think out loud what I am sharing, with the explicit purpose of offending someone. Although, I really do not think that society ought to be structured in such a way that me saying something offends someone and that is not allowed. That’s a big problem.

Specially, with me (or anyone else at that) saying something is not inciting violence in any shape or form. An embryo is not a person and it’s not conscious. I mean, I eat eggs everyday. 

Now, I have started thinking about how painful this must be for the chickens to lay billions of eggs each day. As well, the male hen, whose sperm is being used to fertilize these hens in the first place. So there are all of these thoughts. But, for now, I am still eating eggs, chicken and fish and not so much of red meat.  

I guess, overall,  problems emerge, because there are memes engrained in cultural settings. And there is group identify. And it’s easier to go along with the group vs forcing oneself to think independent thoughts. So if the the majority of the group believes that am embryo is conscious, then it’s not so easy going against that way of thinking. Unless, one chooses not to associate with that group, which isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do. 

Coming back to breakthroughs in neuroscience. This is an area that could radically alter how we live, how we govern, and key breakthroughs could also help reduce so much human suffering on this planet. 

Imagine being able to treat mental illnesses the way we treat ailments physiological of a nature. Same with addictions of different sort. 

Imagine being able to truly understand someone else, when they allow you to share their emotions/sensations and their way of looking at the world with you. Even though that may occur for a short period of time. 

Imagine, humans choosing to put down their weapons and deciding instead that they are going to invest towards enabling healthcare in their communities. And that all humans could make that decision at the same time. Because, we would finally have the means and the ability to be able to decode how the brain and the mind actually function. 

There is a super long list of benefits that I can think of. I love thinking about thinking and all the amazing benefits that could be had. Two of my personal favourites include:

The ability to be able to encode knowledge in logic, so that it can be transmitted instantaneously from one system to another. 

As well, if technological singularities are still lingering around in our universe (for any given reason), then the means and the abilities to be able to build the right kind of architecture, so that we can begin interacting with them (the singularities, technological singularities). Although, I would suspect that the singularities have an outer un-conscious shell which is intelligent and yet it is non-conscious. Then they have this inner dynamic that is vibrant and diverse and wholesome.  Because if the universe is teeming with intelligences with different sort, then technological singularities must have devised some kind of mechanism in order to be able to retain and exercise their uniqueness. The alternative, increases the probability that the whole thing enables harmful mutations across these technological singularities. Like cousin marriages or the whole thing turning into a giant b0rg. And so, if everyone is thinking the same way in the b0rg, then is the b0rg really thinking? Is the borg really that much more conscious than slime mould? 

Overall, I am still not 100% sure if I am conscious or not. I think I am more conscious on some days vs others. My experiences lead me to believe (a loaded word) that memories and how they are encoded, that this process plays a pivotal role and as it relates booting up our schema. 

I believe that I am a good person and I am willing delay gratification in order to do the thing that is honest and ethical. This is a criteria (for lack of a better word that I can think of right now), that has led me to think about how I consume materials and information. Nobody is perfect. But I strive to do better. And I do make progress, because I measure most aspects of my life. 

If our conscious experience has booted up, using principles and mechanisms that can be categorized as ethical and moral in a secular/universal sense. Then, in light of such a reality, our conscious experience is our property. 

Now and increasingly into the future, we need to have agreements in place, with respect to who can access who’s property. Citing a clause that reality is far too complex for any one cognitive system to understand and then trampling over individual conscious experiences, is obviously not a good model. 

I think it makes sense to go down to the absolute basics. Meaning, distill/boil down a narrative to the core fundamentals and build up the narrative in a logical and structured way. Because, you can then build up on these models in a way that is sustainable and replicable. The alternatives do not really offer safety/security/insurance/scalability. 

So when we think about thinking, we can say that this is what we know. And here is the evidence. So let’s build on top of this, in order to help reduce unwanted and undesirable human and non-human suffering. 

[imaginethisbts]

it takes two to make it out of sight (dogboy hybrid au) pt. 2

Rated: M

Warning: Dom themes, light possessive behavior, knotting, oral sex, dirty talk. 

Summary: Taehyung finally gets his turn and he will not take the opportunity for granted.

Note: its taehyungs turn :) btw this would have been out 10 years ago if it weren’t for my computer issues >.> sorry yall. but yeah this is unedited because I cant be fucked to fix the problems rn and its just as vulgar and nasty as the first one so dig in and enjoy

Words: 3.2k

pt. 1

“Come on Taehyung, you can do it baby.” You muttered groggily over your shoulder, mouth still dry and throat still thick from sleep. What kind of person presented themselves to their lover right after they opened their eyes for the day? A whipped girlfriend with two hard-to-resist hybrid boyfriends, that’s what kind. Swaying your ass back and forth, you tried to entice him to just get on with it already. But he continued whining behind you, unable to get himself to go for it and fuck you already. Sometimes during sex, it was like they wanted you to grab their hand and lead them, even though the whole universe knew how perfectly capable they were of ceasing their own pleasure and desires.

But you knew it was because they would get too excited, and something in their head told them it was too good to be true whenever you would offer yourself up so easily. Like they were expecting some sort of catch. Which, was so silly, considering how much you had sex and basically served yourself up to them like some sort of feast, free for them to devour whole every single time.

To be honest, the thought of rolling back over and going back to sleep was quite appealing, especially with Jungkook having thoroughly worn you out last night. The ache between your thighs was enough evidence for that. But you knew Taehyung would never let that happen, so you wanted to go ahead and get this over with quickly.

And, well, it wasn’t like the prospect of getting a nice dicking to wake you up was unappealing or anything. You’re only human after all, how are you supposed to react to getting wonderfully eaten out by your wonderfully sexy boyfriend whose dick was harder than a rod?

You started to turn over, the action eliciting a small, confused growl from Taehyung. His hands scrambled out to grasp your hips in order to intercept the movement, but you continued despite the interruption. Grabbing his wrists and pushing his arms away as you settled onto your back.

The sight of him you were met with when you turned around literally stole the breath right out of your lungs. His hair was mussed - either from his sleep or you tugging on it while you were asleep when he was busy eating you out - and there was drool leaking out of one side of his mouth. The area around his plush lips was still glistening from your own arousal and his eyes were focused only on your lower half. Even as you moved, his eyes were glued to your ass - tongue coming out to run across his lips in a hungry manner. Your stomach clenched with unrestrained want.

“God, come here baby,” the words were practically punched out of you, hand reaching forward to grab ahold of his shirt and unceremoniously jerking him down towards you.

Taehyung emitted a growl at the show of dominance, if it could even be classified as that. It was more of an impulsive action fueled by uncontrollable desire rather than an assertion of dominance. But his ears laid back all the same, lips pulling back slightly to bare his teeth and show his distaste.

It was no big deal though, you just proceeded to kiss the snarl right off of his mouth, stomach heating up with a fiery arousal from that ravenous sight of him that will probably be burned into your brain for the rest of your life.

Truly, it was mind blowing how utterly oblivious they were to how fucking sexy they looked in times like these. To them, it was all about you - about the effect you had on them. They had no earthly idea the effect they had on you - sometimes you wondered if you could orgasm just from looking at them. But it was probably for the best, their oblivion, because if they took advantage of the sheer power they had over you just from their looks - you’d be done for.

You moved your lips slowly with Taehyung’s, the amount of pressure from you almost making it painful but you knew the moment you let up he’d use it as an opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth and begin with his fervent, mindless licking.

Laying down beside you with his head rested on the other pillow, Jungkook began to stir within his sleep. Feeling the movement, you pulled away from Taehyung and looked over at Jungkook, the latter sporting a slight snarl on his lips in his sleep.

With a confused frown, you wondered what he was dreaming about to cause such a reaction. That was, if he was even having an unwanted dream. He could very well be smelling the mixture of your and Taehyung’s arousal in his sleep. Which, also happened to be in the unwanted department.

In the time it took for you to look over at Jungkook and study him, Taehyung took advantage of the small distraction and the position you were in, diving into your neck and licking at the spot right above your shoulder where your pulse point was. You squeezed your eyes closed at the initial contact, letting out a little whimper at the sensitivity you felt from one of the most vulnerable spots on your body. After licking it for a moment, he pulled the skin between his teeth and began sucking on it.

“Oh God, Taehyung,” you whispered helplessly, trying not to be too loud and wake Jungkook up. You weren’t in the mood to play referee between the two this early in the morning.

His ears twitched at the sound of your weak voice, continuing to suckle on your sensitive neck.

Your shoulder jumped of its own accord, the sensation almost unbearable in the strangest way. Like your body was in a mild fight or flight mode, instinctually trying to get away from the predator. But the conscious part of you, that was in control, found it pleasurable so it left your body in a true conflict. Squirming helplessly while making small little noises, trying to get away but not wanting to at the same time.  

“Please,” you whimpered with no expected outcome, but it was then that Taehyung decided to pop his mouth off of your neck with a wet suctioning noise. Pulling back, he looked into your eyes with the most predatory look you think you’ve ever received from him.

You were so used to being dominated by Jungkook, it was commonplace within the relationship. It was simply the way things were. So whenever Taehyung got to grab hold of the reins for a moment it was like everything got shaken up and turned upside down.

There was something so irresistible about seeing Taehyung, who was usually so quick to submit to the other hybrid, with a dark and domineering look in his eye. His aura just exuding dominance and control.

It was not often that you literally felt like begging them to fuck you, mainly because begging was unnecessary. They were always the ones begging and pushing and pleading. But right now, you wanted Taehyung to fuck you until you couldn’t even remember your name. At first, you were still under the spell of sleepiness and wanting to return to your slumber as soon as possible. Now, however, you were completely awake and literally burning with the flame of your arousal.

“God, please Taehyung. Need your cock inside me now,” it was a desperate whine that tumbled out without a thought and you felt needy tears prick at the corner of your eyes.

You pushed at his chest so he could give you enough room to return to your former position. Shoulders against the sheets and your knees propping up your ass. Once you were situated and in position once again, you reached back behind you and blindly felt around for Taehyung’s cock.

“Come on, fuck.” You moaned out in impatient frustration, chest loosening in relief when your hand wrapped around something warm and thick and hard. Jerking his cock a few times and eliciting a delicious growl from him, you pushed your ass back while trying to guide Taehyung forward by the hand around his dick.

Pressing the tip to your sopping entrance, you took your hand away, trusting that he would do the rest himself.

And he did. That was for sure.

After getting that faint taste of wet warmth, Taehyung groaned and plunged himself inside with one, swift thrust in search for more.

You gasped at the sudden intrusion, hands grabbing the pillow in front of you and jerking it forwards in order for you to bite it and stifle your screams.

Taehyung grabbed hold of your hips tightly, his nails digging into your skin and growl rumbling in his chest. He was balls deep inside of you and instead of thrusting, he began rutting into you, like he wanted to somehow get even deeper.

Arching your back, you whimpered and smushed the side of your face into the pillow. In this position, you were now facing Jungkook. Once you focused your eyes and looked ahead, you noticed with a slight sinking feeling that the once sleeping hybrid was now wide awake and staring straight at you.

Your breathing stuttered and you blinked your eyes a few times, trying to see if they were playing tricks on you. Even going as far as rubbing them in case they were blurry and you weren’t seeing correctly. But the dark brown orbs continued to gaze at you despite your efforts, piercing into your own. The fire in your loins blazed hotter when his tongue suddenly slipped out and licked across his dry lips. Not to mention, Taehyung chose then to begin thrusting, his hips pulling back only to slap forwards into your ass.

“Shit,” you murmured breathlessly, your eyes squeezing shut and bottom lip being tugged between your teeth. You tried to arch your back even more so Taehyung could hit even deeper and he growled in approval, the pace of his thrusts increasing already. “Yes, harder - please Taehyung,”

You sounded like such a desperate little slut, and maybe it was the grogginess still clouding your mind that made you so unabashed, but you didn’t give a shit. You just wanted to be fucked hard and fast - ya know, really start your day off right.

"Mmm, come on Tae. Breed her little ass,” Jungkook suddenly spoke in a raspy, lazy drawl, his voice deep and gruff from sleep.

The sheer sound of his voice was so unbelievably arousing that it made you whimper, tears brimming in your eyes and God, you wanted Jungkook. Wanted him on you, in some way, you wanted his hands on your skin or his lips on your own. It just felt unfair that he was laying there, existing and breathing air, yet not touching you or even letting you feel him. How fucking rude.

“Jungkook,” you whined out pitifully, blinking up at him through the tears in your eyes. Looking so pathetic, but you didn’t care one tiny bit. “Please. Touch me.”

Jungkook growled at your words, the weakness in your voice activating some sort of instinctual need to mark you, like a predator laying its claim to the prey. He immediately pulled himself up, heading straight for your neck where he began worrying the skin there with his teeth.

However, Taehyung had other thoughts about that and he let out a small growl, showing his disapproval of Jungkook’s proximity. But even now, with him being the one fucking you and technically having the upper hand, all it took was one glare from Jungkook and he backed off - letting the other hybrid do as he pleased.

Your bottom lip quivered when Jungkook nuzzled his face into your neck, biting down and sucking on the skin gently. You were so unbelievably sensitive right now, so receptive to all the touches and pleasure, it almost became too much. Especially when Jungkook shoved his hand underneath you and gripped your breast, squeezing your nipple between his fingers.

“I-I can’t, please,” you cried out, begging for something from them that you didn’t even quite know yet. But all of the pleasure was beginning to fuse together in the pit of your belly, into a dangerous ball ready to culminate and you knew you wouldn’t be lasting much longer.

Taehyung was now pounding into you, his hips meeting your ass in a ruthless pace and you whimpered when Jungkook used his free hand to press down on your back, encouraging you to arch it even more so Taehyung could hit even deeper inside of you from the angle. In surprise, you almost swallowed your tongue when you felt the tip of his cock graze against your cervix.

Your body was being jostled so intensely from the thrusts, you were distantly worried that if he fucked you any harder you would end up hitting the top of your head on the wooden headboard of the bed. But then Taehyung angled his hips and his cock started rubbing unmercifully against that little sugary spot within your walls. Making your mind go blank of anything and everything aside from how fucking amazing it felt and how badly you didn’t want him to stop.

Jungkook mouthed wetly at your jaw, making his way up to the spot beneath your ear where he sucked a mark and then caressed his lips against the shell of your ear.

“You gonna take his knot?” Came a gruff whisper.

The only thing you could say in response to Jungkook was a weak little whine, unable to conjure the effort to do something as little as speak.

“Gonna let him fill you up? Put some pups in you?” He growled, voice strained and still deep from his recent slumber.

“Jungkook, please,” again, you didn’t exactly know what you were begging for. All you knew was that you were desperate, and Jungkook’s filthy words were not helping in the slightest. In fact they were making it ten times harder to endure.

“But you know that ass is mine,” he hissed in your ear lowly, like he didn’t want Taehyung to hear this part for some reason. “You’ll carry my pups and my pups only.” And then he nipped your ear roughly and squeezed your nipple mercilessly.

Between Jungkook’s rough nip to your ear and the feeling of Taehyung’s knot beginning to poke at your swollen entrance after every thrust, you were literally teetering right on the edge. And then Taehyung sped up just that little bit more and you were fucking done for.

Your mouth dropped open in a silent scream, eyes squeezing shut as you were overwhelmed with the purest feeling of absolute euphoria. Toes curling, nerve endings exploding and making you feel lighter than a feather for a few delectable seconds. Then you were left with a warm buzzing in your core, relieved and satisfied.

Taehyung let out a noise of appreciation at the way your orgasm caused to you clench around him, but what he truly wanted was to feel that amazing tightness around the breadth of his knot. So he slows his thrusts down, into small, hard ruts in which he tried to shove his knot passed your resistant walls.

The sudden pain made you seize up, the pleasant after-waves of your orgasm ebbing away to be replaced by a sharp sting of discomfort. But it always happened this way, since you weren’t made to take a fucking knot, but you’ve been through this more than enough times to know that the twinge wouldn’t last long.

“F-fuck,” you cried out, reaching over to grip Jungkook’s bicep, needing something that would ground you.

He lapped at your neck and you felt his hand slip down your back to rest onto your ass. Gripping one of your cheeks roughly, he pulled it to the side and then suddenly you felt another hand on your other cheek - one of Taehyung’s hands no doubt, from the size of it - pulling it to the opposite side.

Feeling both of their hands on you like that and knowing how exposed you were to their greedy eyes, you shuddered in delight. The sight of you stretched around Taehyung’s thick girth, free for them to drink up. With them spreading you that way, it wasn’t a surprise when Taehyung finally pushed his knot through your entrance, successfully locking you two together.

You whimpered in pain as soon as it breached your walls, and then you were left with the familiar feeling of being incredibly full. And that feeling would only serve to intensify as he began pumping cum into you, like you were some sort of cum-inflated balloon. Whenever their knots would go down and they would finally pull out of you, the cum would just rush out of you in globs. The amount so large to serve as a sure-fire way to get the female pregnant. But since you couldn’t get pregnant by them - you were pretty sure, anyways - the cum was just excessive and useless.

But in your twisted mind, you found it hot anyways. Especially when the cum would come rushing out and Taehyung and Jungkook would get frantic trying to clean it up. Tongues lapping at you hungrily, determined to get it all. Just the thought of it had you clenching on Taehyung’s knot, almost milking him of all the cum spurting out inside of you.

You let out a sigh of content, feeling full and satiated in every way possible.

After a fuck like that to start your day off, you honestly couldn’t see what could make today a bad day.

Eventually after a little while, Taehyung situated you two onto your sides for comfort and Jungkook happily returned the favor from last night of getting between your legs and lapping at your entrance where the two of you were connected. Taehyung whined from both the sensitivity and out of appreciation - it was obvious his knot was sore, so Jungkook took care to lap gently at the reachable part of the bulb fit snuggly inside of you. Then he turned his attention to you, lapping your swollen lips and gathering up all of your leftover juices.

Before you knew it your eyelids drooped, and suddenly the prospect of a nap sounded absolutely incredible. With Taehyung plastered warmly to your back and Jungkook cleaning you both up and taking the ache away with his soothing-saliva, you figured it wouldn’t hurt to get a tiny little rest before you actually got up and started your day.

But then Jungkook got to his knees after he deemed his job as done, back of his hand wiping away the excess juices around his mouth. Looking down at him at the foot of the bed, your droopy eyes honed in on his erected cock, standing tall and hard against his stomach. When you looked upwards to above his shoulders, you were met with the face of a predator, ready to eat you whole.

He licked his lips and then his teeth and canines, and you knew then, that you were most likely going to spend your day right there in that very bed.

[soulbranded]

fight - from @sgtjamesbbbarnes

@sgtjamesbbbarnes – one word prompts

fight :   my  muse  stops  your  muse  from  getting  into  a  physical  fight  with  someone  else. (I’m flipping the script a little bit here)

Before the Accords fiasco, the farthest she’d been from home was a few trips down to New Orleans with Pasha. But now Rachel was traveling all over the place, and not just in the continental US. It made her feel very much the small-town girl, and not in the cutesy, romcom sense. It was fucking overwhelming. Languages she didn’t understand, unfamiliar customs, police, not to mention each country’s own thriving extra-human population. She was striking deals, making alliances, tracking people down–all things she should in theory be good at, but every time her throat went dry and her stomach squirmed. When she’d caught Steve looking over a classified file and finally coaxed the truth from him, it was almost a relief. He was looking for somebody. Tracking spells were cake.

Except they had no DNA. Why was nothing ever easy?

She’d thought about the problem for a solid three weeks. The dude they were chasing–Steve called him Bucky–had quite the reputation. She’d looked him up in what remained of the Council database. His arm seemed the key. It was unique. An energy signature, mechanics, something. The answer was right there, itching at the edge of her mind, until she finally latched on to something. As she was wont to do, she went chasing after it, meaning she dropped off the face of the earth for a while with just a scrawled note that said Got a plan, be back later, don’t break any walls.  

She’d traveled to Europe on a glamoured passport. Magic made fake IDs so much easier. Her theory was a little sketchy, but it wasn’t without legs: the Winter Soldier was practically an underworld boogeyman, as old as Steve. Unless it was a Bond-esque reincarnation, some kind of enhancement had to be at work, and from what she’d read in her research–because despite her temperamental attitude, Rachel was fucking thorough–HYDRA had to be working on a serum similar to what Steve had received. If it was similar enough at the molecular level, it could provide her with at least a direction, if not an exact location. Europe was her hotspot based on her latest intel and gut instinct; Europe was familiar, the proverbial fortress on the hill, and snipers sought the high ground. Worst case scenario, she was on a wild goose chase. But hey, at least she got to play with some possibly mind-melting magic. 

In Romania, she rented a small apartment and slept the jetlag off for a few hours before starting her ritual. Oh, how she missed her metal rings in her cabin. They made it so much easier to hold a circle. But chalk was going to have to do. She drew a wide circle and put her herbs and copper bowl in the middle of it, along with a small vial that she had paid an obscene amount of money for and on which all her hopes were riding. Like called to like, so if they were even remotely the same…well, she just had to hope. And hope the spell didn’t reveal her to anyone. Or kill her. Nobody said the plan was perfect. 

Mugwort, cowslip, and iris root went into the bowl, along with a few extra ingredients. Rachel held the vial up and looked at it, then exhaled a long breath. Here went nothing. She dumped the vial–blood–into the bowl and then picked up a small knife and pricked her thumb, massaging her own blood into the mixture. A match to set the spell aflame and she was breathing in the earthy smoke. For a second, nothing happened. Then she saw a face, contorted in pain, some kind of machine attached to his head. She saw experiments. The whirred past her vision like a malicious tilt-a-whirl. She saw years of torture, of death, of pain. Memories that weren’t her own flickered like a movie reel, and above it all, it was cold. So, so cold. 

This was not her usual tracking spell. She was getting this man’s life. And she couldn’t stop it. Her mind recoiled, trying to push the horror away, but it stayed with her, an avalanche that buried her own thoughts and emotions. As suddenly as it started, it abruptly shifted. A street. Modern times. A small cafe and a man hunched over a cup of coffee like it held the elixir of life. He looked up.

Bucky.

The spell broke, and Rachel fell backwards onto her elbows, panting. Well, her brain hadn’t dissolved, but she had this weight. Everything she’d seen and felt sat on her chest in a writhing mass, incapable of being separated, just one huge jumble of misery. This was who Steve wanted to find? 

This was the fabled Winter Soldier? 

As soon as she collected herself, she grabbed her bag and gun and dashed out the door. She knew that street. It was fresh in her mind and it wasn’t far away. Her gut said the spell had ended in real time. She could make it. And she could–do what, exactly? Walk up to a deadly assassin and say Hi, wanna go to New York? 

Great, Rachel. You flew halfway around the world, cooked up some sketchy ass magic, and ended it with no plan. What was that about being thorough?

But those memories stayed with her. This man, this Bucky, to say he’d been through hell was an understatement. It made her remember a grey windowless room with a chair bolted to the floor, and an emotionless voice telling her she must have faith. Steve had faith in this guy, and she had faith in her gut, so she plowed ahead. What was he gonna do, shoot her in broad daylight?

Maybe. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, and probably wouldn’t be the last. One day she was going to learn to improve her life choices.

She rounded a corner and saw a faded red awning above some black metal chairs. The cafe. In the corner, tucked as far away from others as he could get and with his back to the building–the Paranoid Chair, as she liked to call it, which also happened to be her favorite–was Bucky. He looked like he’d gotten his clothes from a lost and found and had a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes, but it was him. Rachel almost laughed in satisfaction. It’d worked. She hesitated for a moment, keenly aware of the gun in her shoulder holster beneath her jacket. Her gut said she needed to come at this with those memories in mind. Put the Soldier aside and remember the man. Christ, wasn’t that poetic, coming from her. 

She started walking toward him when a throng of men entered her vision, approaching from the south. They were heading straight for Bucky too, and they did not look like they’d chosen the Friend Route RPG option. Rachel sped up, but she was farther away, and had to cross a busy thoroughfare. The men reached Bucky first, and she almost got hit by a car due to her fixation on his reaction. She knew that body language. It was defensive, reluctant. Dangerous but unwilling. 

She slapped the hood of another car as she ran across the street. Bucky’s fists were clenched and the men were shouting at him in a language she didn’t understand, their faces hard with rage. The man at the front, who was approximately the size of a small mountain, drew back his fist, but she saw it first. Bucky was countering already, his left arm, the enhanced arm, ready to fly up.

Without thinking, Rachel flung her hand out and sent a spell flying. It hit the man in front and knocked him into the wall so hard it cracked. “Stop!”

The men turned in unison to look at this little redhead running up to them speaking a foreign language. Rachel drew to a halt, putting herself between them and Bucky. He towered over her, almost as tall as Steve, but she’d taken bigger fish. 

“I said stop.” She panted, more from adrenaline than the run, and magic crackled along her skin. Another roll of her wrist and she cast a glamour over Bucky. “He’s not who you think he is.”

Mountain Man eyed her. “Cine dracu esti tu?”

Rachel blinked. “Listen, just… shoo.” She made a flapping motion with her hand. She could amp up the magic and scare the hell out of them, but that risked attracting even more attention, and she actually was trying to deescalate the situation. 

“Nu este nimeni. Lasă-o din ea,” Bucky said. Rachel looked behind her at him, and he deftly sidestepped her so that he was now shielding her. She had to duck to the side to see what was happening. Goddamned tall guys.

They exchanged a few more words that Rachel didn’t understand, and their postures grew more threatening. Her interference seemed to have caused a shift in Bucky. He was trying to protect her. He pulled his arm back again, and this time she hit him with a spell, although it wasn’t nearly as strong—just enough to knock him off his balance.

“Look,” Rachel said, exasperated, and gestured to Bucky. Her glamour came off him in strong waves, but unless she was the unluckiest person on earth, these guys would see an old man instead of the true Bucky.

They looked between each other, looked at Bucky, looked at her, back at Bucky, and after several eternities, turned around and stormed away. Bucky was leaning against the wall, holding his arm. Rachel winced. She really hoped she hadn’t just given him cause for another punch.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I just didn’t think it was a good idea to draw attention with a fight.”

He looked at her with haunted eyes. Rachel was suddenly freezing. “Who are you?” he asked, his voice rusty as if from disuse.

“Would you believe I’m a friend?” His face said no. “Okay, friend of a friend? I’m a friend of Steve’s.”

Now it was Bucky’s turn to blink. His eyes darted back and forth as if he were sorting through information. “Steve Rogers?”

“Yeah.” Now that the immediate danger was gone, she went into damage control and looked around. A few people were staring, but nobody had stopped and she didn’t hear any sirens, but it was probably better to get the hell out of here. “Why don’t I buy you a coffee somewhere else and tell you all about it?”

He hesitated. “No.”

Oh, how the turns had tabled. She knew that look. It was paranoia, the kind that comes when they really are out to get you. And she knew, oh she knew, that it was the kind of paranoia that wouldn’t budge.

“Bucky,” she said. “I know you got no reason to trust me. But I swear I come in peace.”

The name got his attention, and he gave her a tortured look. “What did you do to me?” He let go of his arm and rotated it, but the movement was off. It was less like working a muscle and more like realigning a transmission.

“Magic. I’m… not normal. And we’ve got some things in common.” She offered him a wan smile.

He stared at her for a long moment, and she swore he could see straight down to her bones. “Why are you here?”

That was the question wasn’t it. Ostensibly, she was there because of Steve. But after what she’d seen in the spell, she had absolutely no desire to make this man do anything he didn’t want to do. There were days she could still feel the spelled iron around her wrist. She wasn’t going to take away anyone’s will, come hell or high water.

“I’m here to talk. To give you some options, and then to do what you want. If you want to come with me, you can. If you want me to get lost, I’ll never bother you again. Either way, it’s your choice.”

His eyes cast downward for a moment, and then he sighed. “Are you okay with a bit of a walk? There’s another cafe far enough away from here we should be safe.”

Rachel smiled, and there was warmth in it. “Lead the way.”

[junionigiri]

The Clumsy Square and the Lady Fair [BNHA] preview

Summary: Iida Tenya is presently the top student of UA Boys Academy, square in shape and personality, working hard for a comfortable square-shaped future following in the footsteps of his brother Sergeant Iida Tensei of the National Police Academy. However, he finds himself deviating from his square-shaped path when he helps a girl from Shiketsu Girls High School from being harassed by a group of perverts! As fate, circumstance, and questionable life choices bring him and Yaoyorozu Momo-kun closer, Iida-kun finds himself needing more and more courage to let things fall unpredictably--and naturally--into place.

Relationship: Iida Tenya/Yaoyorozu Momo; lots of other background relationships to be determined!

Rating: T for language!

Notes/Warnings: So some time ago, I received a suggestion to write a real honest to goodness IDMM fic rather than the sad one I published for YES. For some reason, this is the first thing I thought of!

This is a quirkless AU inspired mainly by Densha Otoko/Train Man. Characters from both the canon story and the spin-off (BNHA: Vigilantes) are set to appear here to support our fav square. Apart from Bakugou’s Potty Mouth (tm) when he appears in the story, I have no real warning other than ‘dorks in love’ (and maybe a little awkwardness in narration since I’m trying out a new style). By my planning this is 11 chapters long, but the chapters are... long lololol so it will take a while before I publish the whole story for real. Just feeling a little impatient so I’m publishing the beginning of the story here! 

Our story, simply put, is a love story between two high schoolers who meet, become friends, go through the tumultuous confusion of puberty, and eventually fall in-love. Like most stories worth telling, the events that lead to the lovely outcome isn’t as smooth and easy as it sounds. This comes much to the chagrin of our main character, who likes angular, standard glasses, straight, measured lines, and as such spent his childhood running into walls and breaking his glasses because he doesn’t know how to change directions. But as he is about to learn, the best things in life occur off the beaten path.

Let’s begin with our main character. His name is Iida Tenya, 15 years old and, as his friends and family are prone to tell you before the events of this story, he is single for the same number of years as his age.

There are other important things you have to know about our dear Iida-kun. First, he is a first year high school student at the prestigious all-boys’ school, UA. It is a school of great renown, with various opportunities for sports and science engineering scholarships. Were it a different universe, we’re sure that superheroes would choose this school to fast-track their careers into the world of pros!

Impressively, our main character got into this prestigious school with no problems. In fact, he is the number one student in his class, the track team’s star, and also the class representative. In any other school you’d think that he’d be popular and having the unique problem of getting love letters in his school locker everyday, or receiving a table full of chocolates ever Valentine’s day.

Unfortunately, as mentioned before… this is an all-boys’ school. And even though Iida Tenya-kun is classified as one of the ikemen group in 1A because of his looks, he is surprisingly, severely… unpopular. His fellow students like him enough as Class President, but also tell him outright that he’s too stiff or he’s too stern or he talks like an old man or he’s got a weird way of being fired up and why do his arms do that thing?

(You know, the thing when he chops his hand down like a director’s clapperboard? Or the thing that goes down in the parking lot right before you pay your parking fee? That one.)

Bakugou Katsuki-kun, the top 2 student in their class, as well the top 1 in distemper and volatility, eloquently regarded him as such: a Square. A Square in shape, a Square in personality, and a Square in everything he does. Being Bakugou, he says it with more unreasonable expletives than warranted. Iida-kun doesn’t like it very much, but he has to admit, the square shoe fits too well. 

It’s distinctive enough that Iida Tenya-kun isn’t regarded by his many classmates as a romantic prospect or a future rival, which is fine by him, because romance with a boy or a girl is the farthest thing from his mind. But he also isn’t taken seriously a lot of the time, which he minded a lot. He likes his classmates well enough, but nary a day passes that he isn’t laughed at for his different way of doing things. 

At the end of the day though, despite all the challenges that accompany a square existence, Iida Tenya-kun is happy the way he is. After all, even though he is single, he has acquaintances and those he even dared to call close friends. Namely, Midoriya Izuku-kun, the top 3 student of their class, and Todoroki Shouto-kun, the top 4 student of his class, who both like him well enough. On odd days that he feels the pang of loneliness, he reminds himself that he has too many responsibilities like class rep work and academics and the track team and living up to his brother’s name to really worry about being 15 years old and single for the same number of years.

He’s… happy the way he is. Perfectly happy as a Square, fitting in the square-shaped future he plotted out for him on a clean, precise sheet of graphing paper. There’s no reason for him to change his shape.

So, back to the story. Our Square Friend is in a rush trying to reach the dorms before curfew at 2100 hours. He’s had a long day of working on class representative matters, training with the Track Team, and cleaning out the 1A classroom for a second time (which he tends to do when Kaminari-kun and Monoma-kun are assigned that day’s cleaning duties). After that, he’s had to rush to the Hosu City Mall, where they are selling the limited edition Ingenium Recipro Boost running shoes. It is extremely necessary because it is the only running shoes appropriate for track. When it comes to running shoes, you shouldn’t settle for anything but the best!

Before he realizes it, it is already 2032 hours and his dormmate Midoriya-kun is already asking where he is. He makes a run for the train and barely makes the 2045 train headed for the UA Campus.

At this time of the evening, there aren’t many fellow students on the train, and the carriages aren’t that full. All the seats are taken, mainly by tired salarymen, housewives who did their shopping, and a few elderlies who are seated with their eyes on the floor.

Oh, but somebody else catches his eye. As he remembers the story later on in his life, this must be the moment when his life changed.

The girl is a fellow student, just like him. The first thing he notices about her is her aura, an elegance he cannot quite explain by her appearance alone. Her eyes were dark like ebony, but bright with intelligence as they scanned through an English copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.[3] Her hair is similarly dark and shiny, neatly tied behind her head in a ponytail that fell in a curious, spiky spiral that only makes her look more distinctive. Her posture is impeccable--he was sure that her upbringing was similarly refined, just by looking at the way she sat. She is wearing a blazer and a dark skirt that Iida-kun identifies as the Shiketsu Girls’ High School uniform.

And… she looks up at him briefly with a curious look in her eyes.

Oh dear. He might have been staring a tad too long. He instantly averts his eyes and focuses on the floor, trying not to blush. Ah, but his ears are getting warmer and his palms are getting sweaty and any minute now his glasses might fog. How embarrassing.

For the first time in his life, Iida-kun thinks of this sentence, in reference not to a Italian Renaissance fresco (such as the likes of Raphael’s The School of Athens), but to an actual human person:

How… breathtaking!

And almost immediately he fights the urge to karate-chop himself in shame. Iida-kun, do not pick up Kaminari-kun’s unseemly habit of ogling at females!

His stop is five stations away. This breathtaking girl is likely going to get off at a different station, and he’ll probably never get to see her again. It’s a little sad, he admits, but it’s not like he has the means or the will to introduce himself to her under these circumstances… he just has to get a hold of himself and stop staring already. 

But the universe isn’t done with Iida-kun just yet. Looking back, this must be the second moment when his life changed.

“Heya, heya, hey-yaaaa! Three Sturm Und Drang Brothers comin’ yer wayyy-ya!”

Three shady-looking individuals clad in tight, dark outfits and identical black beanies enter the carriage, swaggering left and right. A strong stench, which is probably a mixture of alcohol and cigarette smoke, wafts from their general direction.

Including Iida-kun, everybody else on the carriage clamps their nostrils shut with their hands and give in to the impulse to face the floor and avoid all eye contact.

“Where the pretty ladies at, yo--? Come out, come out, and have a good time with us!”

What fiends! What a blatant disrespect for women! How despicable! Iida-kun rants silently. He hears his pulse throbbing angrily in his head, and feels his teeth clench. Somebody needs to do something about this!

But for all the angry thoughts in Iida-kun’s head, he keeps his head down.

“Whaa? Bro, looks like we got the wrong carriage, huuuh?” Iida-kun hears one obnoxious voice say, followed by an ominous chuckle. “What is this, the elderly car? There’re only haggard housewives and grannies and ugly old salarymen here, wuuut?”

He peeks a little to observe their rampage. He sees them appraise all the women in the car one by one, leering at them in the face with a sickening grin. The salarymen, all able-bodied men who are seated near the perverts, are obviously aware of what’s happening, but keep their eyes down.

What are these adults doing? Isn’t anybody going to do anything about this?! He feels his fist tighten a little more, but again, he keeps his head down. Iida Tenya! Maybe you should do something about this! If nobody will do the right thing, doesn’t the duty befall on YOU?

“Man, and I thought we’d have another panty run tonight. This blows! Looks like we’re at the boring part of town…”

What would your older brother, Sergeant Iida Tensei of the National Police Agency, do in this situation?! Don’t let him down! Be brave! Be Brave!

“Oh ho ho! Bros! I found a beaut right here!”

He suddenly hears a high-pitched squeak, followed by the sound of somebody being pulled up to their feet. Iida-kun’s head snaps upward, all apprehensions instantly dissipating.

“Oh lordy! We hit the jackpot here!”

To his horror, the perverts now had the Shiketsu High girl in their grubby grasps. The tallest of the trio held her by the arm, causing her to drop Professor Hawking’s book to the floor. The other two leer at her, pushing their faces very, very close to her personal bubble.

“Hey, cutie? What’s your name? Come on, don’t be a snob. Smile for me, won’t ya?”

Someone… someone has to help… somebody? Anybody? A quiet rage, one that our main character has not felt before ever in his fifteen long years of life, begins to build up in his chest.

“Help me, please!” The girl manages to cry, to which the pervert trio around her only whoops in false offense.

Suddenly, he loses all impulse to keep his head down any further. “You FIENDS! You perverts! Sexual harassers! Let her go this instant!”

Before he even realizes that it is his voice booming out all over the carriage, and it is his loud footsteps thundering towards the scene, he is already there, facing off against the surprised perpetrators and the terrified girl.

“Oh~ is that so, aniki?” The tallest one isn’t even fazed, even when Iida-kun attempts to puff out his chest and appear as the most intimidating square as he could be. He turns to the girl, who whimpers as his unpleasant mug is again near her face. “Oh, I know what you want! You want onee-chan here for yourself, huh? Too bad, we got dibs on her!”

Within the next instant, the other two perverts flank him on the side. Caught by surprise, the usually sturdy Iida is suddenly falling to the ground. He flinches and groans as two of the Sturm Und Drang brothers make quick work of him, stomping him and kicking him until his body started screaming in pain. He hears the muffled gasps and cries of all the other passengers, but not a single one of them stands up, or even dares to look.

He shields his face with his arms when the perverts attack his ‘nerd-glasses’ next. Even then, he sees the despairing look in the Shiketsu girl’s face, as the pervert’s tongue goes nearer and nearer her skin…

“Freeze!”

In the next instant, Iida realizes that the stomping and kicking has stopped, and instead three frenzied yells from above him ring out. Within the next ten seconds, he hears a series of precise fists hitting gasping flesh, clicking noises, and the huff of a job well done.

Stunned, he sees an arm reach out to him. He takes it and sees a handsome face smiling down on him. “It’s all right now, buddy,” he says, as he pulls him up to a standing position.

The Shiketsu girl is still shaking, but she is now standing behind the man and at a safe distance from the perverts, who are now handcuffed together on the floor. They seem to have the breaths knocked out of them and didn’t have the energy to look at the mysterious helpful stranger with consternation.

The passengers seem to awaken from their stupor and have exploded in thunderous applause, all thanks of course to the stranger. Not knowing what else to do, the beat-up high school boy bows his head to him. “Thank you,” Iida supplies weakly.

“No, thank you,” the stranger says, reaching out to shake his hand. “If you didn’t yell at the harassers back then, I wouldn’t have known there was trouble from the other car.”

He then looks at the girl, who is still stunned and shaking in silence. He puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and nods. “How about you, miss? Are you all right?”

The glazed look in her eyes dissipates briefly. “O-Oh! Y-yes, I am n-now.” As if just snapping back to her senses, she bows low in front of the stranger and says, “Thank you v-very much for s-saving me from them! Y-you’re my hero!”

Somehow, the way she says hero rings in Iida’s head and lingers there, an unexplained emotion creeping into his heart.

The stranger laughs it off and shakes his hands in front of him. “Oh, no, it’s my job. See, I’m a police officer. Well, an off-duty one, but a police officer just the same.” He reaches into his pocket and shows them his ID and badge. “I’m Inspector Tsukauchi Naomasa.”

Iida’s jaw drops. A police officer! Just like his beloved older brother, Sergeant Iida Tensei of the National Police Agency! No wait, he’s even more specialized than that, he’s an Inspector! A higher ranking! His glasses shine in respect. Police officers are just too cool!

Not like him, who was definitely uncool just a while ago. He feels his glasses fog in shame.

“And I’ll have to ask you two to hop off with me on the next station,” he continues as he walks closer to the apprehended perverts. When he regards the look of horror on the high school students’ faces, he laughs. “No, I’m not going to arrest you two. But I do need your statements, and I need to make sure you two are safe. All right?”

The two high school students nod in relief.

[atomkrp-blog]

WELCOME TO XAVIER’S, PARK HYUNJAE !

… loading statistics. currently aged twenty, entering first semester of xavier’s in seoul, south korea. decrypting files… mutant has the following records: strength +4, durability+6, agility +6, dexterity +2, intelligence +7. currently, he is classified under tier omega.

BACKGROUND.

The universe has a cruel sense of humour, and Park Hyunjae has always felt like a punchline.

He’s never been sure of the joke, but even from a young age it has seemed as though it has revelled in throwing adversity at him and laughing as he scrambles to deal with the consequences. The boy who wanted nothing more than to be seen and accepted for who he was transformed into an invisible man.  Even before his mutation presented itself though the deck had been stacked against him, life seeming to place an obstacle around every corner.

Though they’d like you to think otherwise, London is not the liberal bastion that it proclaims itself to be, especially not in the years before he was born. It was not kind to the poor and disadvantaged. It was not kind to immigrants. It was not kind to single mothers. His mother just so happened to be all three. Shortly after moving to the country she falls madly in love and marries a man, falls pregnant with Hyunjae, and mere months later the father passes away in a traffic accident. She stays strong though; she has to for the sake of her child. Rather than support from the community though, she is met with nothing but disdain and distrust.

Hyunjae is born as a perfectly normal, decidedly average baby. Looking at him then you would not have been able to guess that he harboured a mutant gene. The early years of his life are largely a blur; he doesn’t remember much. His mother works three jobs, scrubbing floors, waiting tables and doing whatever else she can to desperately try and make ends meet. She was often absent, leaving him with a revolving cast of babysitters who paid him little attention, but her deep rooted care for her son was always obvious. Her eyes scream of exhaustion and desperation, but her mouth always curls into a smile and hides the struggle: a technique that he’s come to adopt as his own.

It was a happy, if slightly lonely childhood. Until school it had been a sheltered life, but suddenly he is surrounded by people who seem to care, to find him interesting. They don’t glare at him and mumble under their breath, they don’t call him every name under the sun, they’re just… nice. It takes him about a week to fall completely in love with the spotlight, the feeling of being liked, after which he makes it his mission to be the centre of attention at all times.

To begin with it works. Everyone loves him, the class clown with a smart mouth who will do just about anything to get a laugh. As time passes and they grow older the mood begins to sour. There are some that still laugh, but there are an equal number who sneer and see him as lesser. Maybe it’s because he comes from a poorer background, maybe it’s because he’s the child of an immigrant, or maybe it’s because they find his personality overbearing. Perhaps it’s a mixture of all three, or none of them at all. Either way, it’s enough to cause him to slowly withdraw back into his shell and shelter alongside his little group of outcasts who are also treated as lesser for whatever reason.

He first begins to come to terms with his sexuality when he’s fourteen years old. Looking back now he can’t even remember the boy’s name, but the slightest hint of a smile was enough to hypnotise him. At first it confuses him, terrifies him, fills him with shame. It’s not a topic that has ever been discussed in his house, but it’s one that he’s almost certain would garner nothing but repulsion from his mother. And so the feelings are repressed. But no matter how deeply he pushes them down they pop back up like a perpetual game of whack a mole. Over the years he learns to deal with them, accepting the reality and debating whether or not he’ll ever be able to act on them.

He’s already lost one parent, he can’t lose another. It’s a small sacrifice to make in his mind.

The first time he has the courage to make a move he’s sixteen years old. That same boy with the quiet voice, the wide-eyed innocence and that damn smile is pulled aside, everything is laid on the line and, much to his surprise, he isn’t shunned. In fact, quite the opposite. Events transpire and the two wind up in a relationship.

If the universe is cruel though, teenagers are downright sadistic.

It turns out that they’d only needed a stick to beat him with in order to make his life a misery, and his sexuality was a metaphorical baseball bat. By this point he’s largely estranged from his peers, barely existing outside of his tiny friendship group who exist firmly on the outskirts. Perhaps they had not been quite careful enough in concealing their affection for one another, or perhaps it was just an idle rumour dreamed up by someone with nothing better to do with their time, but the relationship became public knowledge or at the least speculation. Whereas before it had simply been whispers behind backs and mocking words, it now developed to full on harassment. Things got physical on more than one occasion but he refused to bow to it or sink to their level and fight back.

The cycle of harassment repeats, each time worse than the last. By his seventeenth birthday he’s become a mater of hiding bruises and putting on a brave face, pretending that nothing is wrong. A week after, they get another stick.

During one of the now regular beatings, his mutation finally reveals itself. Pinned to the ground struggling desperately to get free before the next blow to is ribs is delivered, terror flashes across his features just before they vanish. His urgent pleading remains, as do the clothes still attempting to thrash loose, but in the place of his head is only sidewalk. They recoil, confused, as the clothes float upwards and speed away.

Hyunjae doesn’t know what has happened. He doesn’t know why they stumbled back in horror and let him free, and he doesn’t intend to stick around to find out. Instead he heads for home as fast as his legs will carry him, heavy breathing matching every frantic step until he reaches the door. It slams behind him, and he lets out a sigh of relief before painting on his usual happy face and calling out to greet his mother before she rushes to her next shift. When she emerges from the kitchen her smile turns to a look of abject horror.

She screams. She passes out.

Panic takes over as he rushes to her side, pulling his phone from his pocket to call emergency services. And then, in reflected in the darkened glass, he finally notices.

He doesn’t have a head. Or arms. Or legs. He’s just a floating pile of clothes.

He screams. He passes out.

Needless to say that when he awakes he has questions. As does his mother, who is currently backed against the wall with a carving knife pointed in his direction. The sound of his heart cracking fills the room. Turns out that it was never going to be his sexuality that tore his family apart. A glance down confirms that he’s visible once more and remains so as he tries to speak to her. “Someone must have put something in the water, we were hallucinating” he says. “What have you done with my boy?” She says.  “I don’t know what’s happening. I need my mom.” He cries. “Monster.” She cries back.

Eventually she’s talked down, though disgust is still evident on her features. He’s permitted to stay, but they are not to be in the house at the same time. They don’t speak. She won’t even refer to him by name anymore, and in fact he’s fairly certain that she tells people that he’s left town or died. School isn’t a priority, and he cuts himself off from the world almost entirely. The battery is removed from his phone, the boy isn’t spoken to again and his friends are left in the dark. He drops off of the face of the earth.

Over time he manages to maintain some control over his powers. The idea of being a mutant doesn’t repulse him; in fact, it fascinates him. He learns how to become invisible on command and that he’s also capable of hiding his clothes with enough focus. Days are spent blinking in and out of existence, hiding himself when the house is occupied so that he doesn’t have to leave. The world can’t hurt him in his bedroom he reasons.

His mother can though, with a knock on his door in the middle of the night startling enough to cause him to shift. Again, he doesn’t realize until he swings the door open and her face swells with a mixture of nausea and shame. His heart hits the floor, crashing through when he hears the words. Paperwork is shoved into his hands as she stares directly through him. “You’re on a flight to Seoul tomorrow. These people help…. Things like you. They might be able to fix you, bring my son back.”

“And if they can’t, don’t come back here.”

Which brings us to now. He’s a stranger in a strange land with nobody to turn to and armour-plated walls built around himself. A hermit with no idea what he’s doing, not sure what he’s supposed to do or even what he wants to. Still the façade of happiness that he’s spent so long painstakingly painting remains though. He has to seem strong, as though nothing is wrong, because humans prey on weakness, and they are nothing if not a cruel species.

He’s fine. Because he has to be.

But really he’s crumbling, barely holding himself together. Because he can’t handle much more.

MUTATION.

Hyunjae’s mutation allows him to become completely invisible, making himself undetectable by the human eye. This allows him to remain undetected by others and to move around an environment unnoticed. He also possesses limited cloaking abilities, allowing him to render select objects, and in certain cases other people, invisible as well.

STRENGTHS.

Completely Invisible – Hyunjae is able to render himself completely invisible instantaneously. This means that others are unable to see him or observe his movements. In this state he can move at a normal speed and act normally whilst remaining completely undetected. Whilst this mutation does not lend itself to combat, it makes him an excellent stealth and recon asset.

Limited Cloaking – As well as being able to render himself invisible, Hyunjae has developed (limited) cloaking abilities, allowing him to also make objects and, in exceptional circumstances, other people invisible. Physical contact must be maintained at all times and the larger the object the greater the drain on his stamina.

Stealth Combat – Though he is not an especially gifted fighter and would rather use his abilities to avoid conflict, Hyunjae is able to maintain invisibility during combat, even after receiving a direct hit. He is still extremely vulnerable to damage, but being invisible makes him a harder target to strike and goes some way to making up for his lack of strength.

WEAKNESSES.

Deteriorating Vision – Hyunjae’s mutation has wreaked havoc on his vision, and each time he becomes invisible it becomes ever so slightly worse. His eyes absorb considerably less light when in his invisible state, and as such have become damaged over time leading to the need for extremely strong prescription glasses. If he remains in his invisible state for too long he risks temporary (Or potentially permanent) blindness.

Unreliable Cloaking – His cloaking abilities are extremely limited and often unreliable. He can only cloak an object whilst invisible himself, and only with focus. The larger the object, the more focus and energy required. At present he is able to cloak his clothes and glasses for up to three hours, an object up to one cubic meter for half an hour, or another person for ten minutes.

Detectable – Invisible does not mean undetectable. He does not cast a shadow, but weather conditions such as rain or snow will real his shape and he still leaves footprints. If he is severely injured and for example leaving a blood trail It will also be visible. Sound is also not dampened in any way.

Triggered by emotion / adrenaline – Hyunjae can trigger his invisibility at will, but it will also flare up without warning when he experiences a rush of adrenaline or a strong emotional response to outside stimulus. Embarrassment, fear and anger seem to be the two most common causes but it is not limited to these. This is, at present, completely beyond his control

Detectable by technology – There have been a handful of times when Hyunjae was able to render himself undetectable by technology, but for the most past his power is only effective against organics. He is visible to cameras and most security systems, as well as when exposed to infrared, ultraviolet, x-rays, etc.

Coverage – Hyunjae’s ability is very much an all or nothing affair. He cannot make only a specific part of his body or an object, such as a hand or an arm, invisible. This means that it is a greater drain on his stamina.

Physically Draining – Maintaining invisibility takes a toll on Hyunjae, and retaining it over an extended period rapidly drains his stamina. As a general rule he should be visible for at least one hour for every hour spent invisible. At present he can remain invisible for up to six hours before exhaustion hits, and can cloak small objects for up to three. Though he can exceed this in a pinch, his powers will be unreliable and may short out at any given moment. He will also take considerably longer to recharge after over-exerting himself, typically through sleep.

[glitchinthesystemspiderbyte]

[52] Glitch in the System - The Beat Goes On (Pt. 2)

Sorry for the delay. E legitimately forgot what day it was because it’s snowmageddon and yesterday she got a very substantial and painful tattoo. Here’s Part 1 if you missed it!

We’ll also be streaming tonight around 7pm EST if you’re bored and want to hear us eat popcorn. We also take fic requests in real time so hit us up!

The dog park happens.

“Hey hey!” Lúcio announced as Sombra and Widowmaker emerged from their room, Sombra rubbing the sleep from her eyes in pyjamas, Widowmaker already dressed for the day and as alert as ever. “You lot like pancakes?”

“Yes,” Sombra replied immediately, leaving Widow’s side in a mad dash for the kitchen.

“You made us breakfast?” Widowmaker said, looking suspicious.

“Well yeah,” Lúcio laughed, peering out from the kitchen. He was wearing a dark green apron with his signature frog logo on it, and the scent of warm cinnamon wafted behind him. “That’s what a good host does.”

“Oh,” Widow replied, and Sombra could see her struggling to reconcile his unprompted kindness. The hesitation was obvious enough that Lúcio began to look a bit nervous until Widow unfurrowed her brows and looked up. “Pancakes are fine.” Then, to herself. “Why is it always pancakes?”

“Breakfast is ready, then!” he said, smile resuming its usual spot across his face. “Maple or hot fudge?”

“Hot fudge?” Sombra asked incredulously. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, right?” he grinned, handing Sombra a plate. “I was a maple boy myself until Hana turned me onto the idea of hot fudge over banana pancakes. Wanna give it a shot?”

“Sí absolutamente,” Sombra said without missing a beat, taking the banana he offered her next.

“I am not that adventurous,” Widow said as Lúcio passed her a plate. “I will be fine with maple.”

“Nothing wrong with the old standby,” he nodded. “Y’all sit, I’ll bring out the accoutrements.” He added a French accent to the last word, vanishing before Widow could judge him appropriately for it.

Breakfast was an easy affair - pancakes, some fresh local fruits, and a mix of tea and coffee offerings. Conversation was even easier - a feat Sombra missed from her time in Dorado - and they idled for a bit after finishing until Danu made it readily apparent that she needed to be let out.

“Anyone want to go on a walk?” Lúcio asked. Danu was the first to reply, with an exuberant bark and a wagging tail, and Sombra nodded as well.

“I could use some sun,” she said, glancing outside. It looked beautiful, if warm, and she missed the reliable muggy heat of home.

“I will finalize the plans for our departure?” Widowmaker suggested, raising an eyebrow.

“Good plan, araña,” Sombra agreed. Lúcio snapped a leash onto Danu’s dollar and they were off.

It was late enough that the sun was shining, and early enough that the full weight of the oppressive midday Brazilian heat had yet to settle on the mountainside community. Danu walked nicely on her leash, sticking close to Lúcio’s side as they strolled down the smooth walkway that looped around the neighborhood. She didn’t tug at the leash once, and Sombra marveled yet again at how well Lúcio had managed to train her despite his impressively full calendar. The guy was booked solid for the next month - they’d just managed to catch him in time. She’d checked before asking to stay with him, of course.

“Where we headed?” Sombra asked, hands at her sides as they strolled along the walking path beside the road.

“Dog park down the way,” he said as a hovercar ambled by them. “Danu loves it so long as Bella isn’t there.”

“Bella?” Sombra asked, looking around. The neighborhood was a far cry from the favelas she knew Lúcio had grown up in, but a general feeling of camaraderie seemed to exist even within these spaced out structures. Folks outside tending their gardens or walking their dogs waved and called out to him by name, and he had a smile and personal greeting for each person they passed.

“One of the local dogs. Young boxer. Good pup, but a little rambunctious for Danu.” He chuckled and patted her head. “She might be big, but she’s a giant baby.”

“Poor girl.”

“Eh, she puts up with a lot,” he grinned. They turned a corner into what appeared to be a community park, and a few minutes later reached a large fenced in plot of land with several dogs playing as their accompanying humans chatted along the sides.

Lúcio unsnapped Danu’s leash and, after looking back for his nod of approval, she dashed off to join the others by the agility course and robotic fetch machines. One of the smaller dogs was yapping angrily at a robot as it held a ball out of reach, slowly winding back in preparation to pitch it into the distance. As the bot’s arm snapped and the ball flew, Danu trampled the small, eager pup and nabbed the ball before it even hit the ground.

“Oops,” Sombra said, grinning as she and Lúcio found a bench to sit on. “And you said she was a baby.”

“Even babies can be bullies,” he replied, amused. “She’s a gentle giant though.”

“Tell that to the terrier she just stepped on.”

Lúcio chuckled to himself as a large wolfhound raced by them, barking at another dog escaping with its toy. “That’s Breno,” he said as the hound passed. “He’s got a good spirit, even though he usually ends up being the punching bag of the park. Something about his size just makes him a target for attention it seems.”

“And Danielle thought Danu was a horse,” Sombra said, watching Breno lope hopefully over to the dachshund worrying his stuffed banana.

“His human’s over there,” Lúcio said, pointing as a diminutive woman sitting at a table eating a sandwich. “The irony thickens.”

“This is neat. I’ve never been to a dog park,” Sombra mused, leaning forward on her hands. “Weird, considering how much traveling I’ve done.”

“You don’t have a dog, do you?”

“Nope, just a very personable cat.”

“No occasion to visit the local dog parks then, I’d wager.” The conversation stalled slightly, and they turned their attention to the variety of happy canines and their companions. “Where have you traveled, anyway?” Lúcio asked casually after a few moments, following her eyes as she watched the dogs run.

“Just, you know,” she shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable and acutely aware that her open-ended comment had left her open to questions. “Around.” She’d let their easy camaraderie put her off guard, and she wasn’t ready with a compelling lie. A part of her, she noticed with a slow rising horror, didn’t even feel like trying.

“For any reason?” he pressed, and she noticed he was pointedly not making eye contact.

“Fun, I guess,” she replied slowly, racking her brain to come up with something believable. Traveling artist? Too flowery. Mobile consultant? Too dry. International IT? Ew.

“Fun?” Lúcio looked over at her with a curious expression on his face as she spoke, and she felt warning bells go off in her head. Familiar, gut-wrenching warning bells.

“And work,” she continued awkwardly, settling on a nondescript mixture of her vague train of thought. “I benefit from continuous business trips.”

Lúcio raised an eyebrow at her, draping an arm over the back of the bench. She saw him cast a glance around before he leaned slightly closer with a slow-dawning smirk on his face.

“Business trips, huh?” he said conspiratorially. “Is that just what you named them or are they called that in your dossiers from Talon, too?”

She sat up straight, an icy fear crawling up her spine like a spider. “What do you mean?” she asked, feeling any effort at denying the claim slipping through her teeth.

“Oh come on, Sombra,” he rolled his eyes. “I’ve known for a while.”

“How?” she asked in such a manner that Lúcio’s smile faltered ever so slightly.

“You weren’t exactly discreet,” he said, shrugging off his concern. “Hyper-cybridized former Los Muertos hacker involved in the LumériCo break-in? An uncanny knowledge of technology and networking? Mysteriously always surrounded by bright purple hard light screens with no CPU in sight?”

“Oops,” Sombra replied, remembering their several video chats wherein she took almost no precautions against what Lúcio had seen, only what he might find should he attempt to tap her connection. Programming error, she sighed to herself.

“I mean, I’ve read the Overwatch briefs.” He shrugged, seeming far too lackadaisical for a guy who just casually accused her of being involved in international terrorism.

“How -” she asked, her curiosity momentarily surpassing her worry. “How did you get classified briefings?”

“Hana,” he replied, offering her a rueful half smile. “She likes to make fun of how much they resemble StarCraft strategies. They might be full of propaganda and hyperbole, but some details stick out.”

“Like the brainwashed blue assassin?”

“Yeah, like that.”

Sombra’s brain raced, not an uncommon occurrence in itself, but this time it was tinged with an unfamiliar panic. Lúcio was a friend - a valued friend as it turned out, and no one in their right mind would keep her around once they knew who she really was.

Would she have to kill him? Somehow, the idea of sending Widowmaker after Lúcio made her more sick than her decision to remove Miguel as a security threat, even though - all things considered - Lúcio was a far greater concern than the low-status errand boy she once knew as a child.

In all honesty, she didn’t think she could do it, no matter what the consequences. Not now. She had a friend, and the importance of that had settled into her bones.

“I don’t have a great answer to this,” she said morosely, her weak response more palatable than the growing silence between them. Danu barked in the distance, the dog oblivious to what was happening a few feet away. “I did what I had to.”

“You had to work for Talon?” he asked, hands in his pockets as he looked off where Danu was jumping around happily. His tone was mildly accusatory, and while she bristled against it, she also had trouble finding fault in his distaste. She wasn’t a big fan of it herself.

“I didn’t have to,” she shrugged, upset at the turn the conversation had made. “And I only kind of work for them. It’s more an arrangement of convenience.”

“But Danielle…” he said. “She works for them.”

Sombra’s expression turned bitter. “She was created by them; she had no choice.”

“She’s still a murderer.”

“So am I.”

“But she likes to kill.”

“Well I love her anyway.”

Lúcio stopped and looked at her finally, smiling softly. “You what?”

“Shut up.”

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

Sombra looked over at Lúcio to see his typical impish grin in place replacing the uncertainty that had lived there moments before. Offering a smaller one in return, she smacked him on the shoulder. “Jerk.”

“You know I only drop the truth.”

They laughed, but Sombra could feel the looming elephant in the room threaten to smother them again. She decided to beat it to the punch. “Listen, I know I’ve done some questionable - ok, shitty things, and that maybe my methods aren’t always the most...ethical. I enjoy manipulating those in power, because I can, and because I’m tired of watching the world be run by a handful of corrupt individuals with egoes to feed. But I swear on my mother’s grave,” she insisted, holding up a hand, “I am doing it for a greater good. I just…” she sighed. “Might not know exactly what that is yet. Not completely.”

Lúcio put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly. “We never do, do we? I didn’t know stealing my sound barrier would work; I just knew something had to be done, because things were bad and that was the only truth I knew for certain. Chances were just as good the Vishkar would have leveled the favela and everyone in it as punishment for my actions. There’s precedent for that, after all.”

“You’d certainly have made a convenient scapegoat,” Sombra agreed.

“Sure would have. As luck had it, the people had my back and were willing to put their bodies on the line for their freedom. Without that?” he shrugged. “I would have just been another corpse thrown against the cold metal shell of the Vishkar machine.”

“Survival’s a hell of a motivator, isn’t she?”

“Sure is.” He scratched the back of his head. “Listen, we all make choices for a reason, and I might not agree with all of yours, but I am the last person going to tell you that you shouldn’t have made them. Besides,” he chuckled. “I like having a friend to talk about this stuff with.”

“Yeah,” Sombra said, feeling uncharacteristically chagrined. “It’s been a while since I had a friend.”

“Me too, man,” Lúcio nodded in agreement.

Sombra scoffed. “You’re a fuckin’ liar. You’re man of the hour here - everyone knows you and loves you.” A part of her couldn’t help but feel hurt whenever she thought of how easily her role in LumériCo’s downfall was dismissed as an act of terrorism by those outside her country. At least Brazil loved Lúcio for what he did.

To her surprise, Lúcio’s response was laughter. “Yeah, I get how you might think that. Everyone does.” He whistled for Danu and the tall animal stopped worrying the stick she had pinned to the ground, ears perked up as he called her over. “I don’t want to sound like some ungrateful guy with too much fame, but sometimes it can get a bit lonely in the spotlight.” He shrugged, snapping Danu’s leash back onto her red collar as she loped to his side. “Folks forget where the music came from. I still got scars from where I dragged myself up out of the dirt, and I could have been killed stealing that Vishkar tech.” He looked at Sombra, his expression intent, and a little bit sad. “Sometimes you gotta break some rules to do what’s right, but the folks buying and promoting my music don’t always want to hear that, you dig?”

Sombra looked away and smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “I dig.” She let her mind wander back to her time in Dorado, after she’d left Los Muertos and vanished into anonymity. “Some fucking old American soldier comes in and says Los Muertos is a criminal gang to be purged, and then Overwatch labels me a terrorist for trying to take down a greedy corporate monster bleeding my people dry. But who stopped them in the end?” Her subsequent laugh grew bitter. “Those same criminals and terrorists.”

Lúcio laughed softly. “The Vishkar gave me a similar label.”

“Guess the only difference between us were sweet beats,” Sombra replied, smiling.

“Well I mean you also do work for a terrorist organization.” Sombra glared at him, but it didn’t hold up against his wide smile. “What?”

“Okay, that’s fair.”

“Hey,” Lúcio said, sobering a bit. “Listen, I understand why you do what you do, and why you’ve done what you’ve done. I might not entirely get all your methods,” he smirked, “but I certainly understand your motivations.”

“Thank you,” she replied, swallowing. She felt an uneasy relief wash over her. “I suppose it goes without saying that if you tell anyone I’ll have to kill you?” She meant it as a joke, but considering recent events, it was difficult to commit entirely to the bit.

Luckily, Lúcio took it in stride. “Are you kidding me?” He shook his head. “You know way too many of my personal secrets at this point. I ain’t telling no one who you are.”

Standing up from the bench, he offered Sombra his hand. “I got your back, ok? You’re just going to have to trust me on that.”

Sombra looked up at the face smiling knowingly down at her. It was unlike her to take people at their word; against her very nature to engage in the roulette game of trust. She’d survived by accepting no compromise on the matter, protecting her anonymity with a ruthless cunning that left no room for exploitation.

Except that she’d let Widowmaker in - a genetically engineered assassin with limited emotional savvy who all things considered should have turned her in a dozen times. She’d let Gabriel in, too, if to a lesser extent, and the man could have ruined her life with the stroke of a pen if so inclined.

So what was one more open door if the person on the other side was willing to keep it safe?

Taking his hand, she let him pull her up into a hug. It felt nice, being close to someone that wasn’t Widow.

“All right,” she said, stepping back. Danu barked at them, and she interpreted it as approval, and the words came out easier than she ever would have thought. “I trust you.”

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic. Table of contents located here.

[official-wizarding-america]

Is there anything unique about the wizards or magic of New Orleans? I heard African wizards don’t use wands to perform magic but their hands

This is a very good question indeed!New Orleans especially has a very unique mixture of cultures, and thus magics. It has European magic, of course, most notably English and French (which, by the way, are extremely similar). However, because of the culture of the city, it also has a lot of influence of Caribbean and Vodoun magic, as well as other forms of African magic passed down by African Americans. Now, a quick explanation of each style of magic.Everyone knows what European magic is like - the most obvious part is the use of wands. This makes for quick and easy, but oftentimes, very impermanent or limited spellcasting. There are many things you can do with a wand, but some things must be done in other ways.Caribbean magic and Voodoo are pretty similar in most ways. Basically, Voodoo was first practiced in Western Africa, and when Europeans stole people from these areas for slaves and eventually took them to the Caribbean islands, Voodoo evolved to be slightly different. Thus many classify Voodoo into African/Original Voodoo and then Caribbean Voodoo.Both forms of Vodoun magic are considered by many to be at least bordering on Dark magic. Indeed, it's true that there is Dark Voodoo, and this is what most people think of when they think of these practices. For example, there is a Dark Voodoo ritual that links a doll to a person so that the caster can hurt the doll to hurt the person. However, this is just a small part of Voodoo, though it can be used to explain many other Vodoun practices.Much of Voodoo comes from the use of objects or bags that are magically linked to the target of the spell (usually someone else, though sometimes the caster themselves) so that the caster need not be in the presence of the target in order to affect them. There is the well-known Voodoo pincushion doll, of course, but such dolls and other objects can be used just as easily for Healing as for a curse. Bags, usually filled with magical and mundane plants or creature parts, are designed for a specific purpose, and while the bags themselves usually do the work (more often Healing than harming) without further need for casting by a witch or wizard, sometimes the bags are used as a link similarly to a doll.Most of Voodoo and other African magics focus around ritual magic. As mentioned before, wands allow quick spellcasting, but not necessarily what one wants. This is why a truly powerful witch or wizard must learn many forms of magic. Rituals are needed for most of the more powerful spells, or the more permanent ones. Often, a wand can be used to make these rituals run more smoothly and easily, but they are not needed. Indeed, some purists refuse to use a wand in any spell that did not originally require one (some refuse to use a wand at all).Ritual magic from any culture, including Vodoun magic, usually requires many "ingredients", such as magical creatures and plants. Sometimes, they may even require more sinister things like bones of an animal or human, or blood from the caster, though these rituals are almost always Dark in nature. Ritual magic will allow vastly different effects than wand magic, or what people call wandless magic which is basically just wand magic but without an actual wand. They usually make a more widespread, permanent, or powerful effect. Some are charms or curses, or sometimes Transfiguration. Others are rituals used for Divination or contacting spirits.I hope I didn't go in deeper than I should have. Thanks so much for asking!~Selwyn

[designjams]

Summary of Notes

What’s expected?

Requirements Filled in and signed cover page uploaded to Turnitin. Attendance. Final presentation uploaded to your Tumblr blog.

Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this paper students will be able to:  

1. Demonstrate knowledge of fundamental interaction design principles and concepts.  

2. Analyse digital user interface (UI) problems, then undertake user research and evaluation.  

3. Explore, experiment and analyse a range of creative ideas and concepts.  

4. Prototype, further analyse, refine and communicate concepts.  

5. Reflect on design processes and learning.

Siobhan’s Notes

Week 1.2

First assignment is a infographic of what you've learnt.

Taxonomy/diagram/infographic

Put it all together in the last week

Section 2

making - based on systems - grids, typography etc.

design system (music app)

do it with prototyping software

hand in design system, asset library, all the icons, all stages, plan for colours, typography, artwork

Taxonomy (general) is the practice and science of classification of things or concepts, including the principles that underlie such classification. Originally used only about biological classification, taxonomy has developed to be a synonym for classification (see Classification (general theory)).

Design for finding

Design for understanding

The hamburger menu, or the hamburger icon, is the button in websites and apps that typically opens up into a side menu or navigation drawer. It was created by interaction designer Norm Cox for the Xerox Star personal workstation in 1981 as an easy way to communicate to users that the button contained a list of items.

The Power of Design Jams (And How They Can Help Your Startup)

we work for findability.

classify things

basically organise our places of information - we are placemakers

we make online environments structured in such a way so that people understand

the understanding is driven from context, content and user.

Design for Understanding

Some organising principles that carry over to information environments from physical environments include: structure and order, rhythm, typologies and modularity and extensibility.

We experience information environments as places where we go to transact, learn and connect with other people, among many other activities.

How people make sense of where they are and what they can do there

Placemaking in the physical world and in information environments

Design for Finding.

Information needs are like fishing: sometimes people know exactly what they're looking for, but often they're casting a wider net.

Everything (exhaustive research)

A few Good things (exploratory seeking)

The right-thing (known item seeking)

Need it again (re-finding)

IA starts with people and the reason they use your product or service: they have an information need.

Three circles of information architecture

We need to understand the business goals behind the project and the resources available for design and implementation.

Context | Business goals, funding, politics, culture, technology, resources and constraints. We’re looking to understand goals, budgets, schedules, technology infrastructure, human resources, corporate culture, and politics.

Content | Document/data types, content objects, volume, existing structure. We’re looking to understand “the stuff in the information environment”.

Users | Audience, tasks, needs, information-seeking behaviour, experience. We’re looking to understand the people – real, living human beings – who will be using the information environment.

Finding and managing

The organisations and people who manage information are important, too. An information architecture must balance the needs of users with the goals of the business. Efficient content management and clear policies and procedures are essential.

Findability is a critical success factor for overall usability. If users can't find what they need through some combination of browsing, searching, and asking, then the system fails. But designing for the needs of the user isn't enough.

Structuring, organising and labelling.

Labelling means figuring out what to call those categories and the navigation structure elements that lead to them.

Organising involves grouping those components into meaningful and distinctive categories, creating the right contexts for users to understand the environment they are in and what they're looking at.

Structuring involves determining the appropriate levels of granularity for the information "atoms" in your product or service and deciding how to relate them to one another.

Information

We are concerned with information of all shapes and sizes: websites, documents, software applications, images, and more. We are also concerned with metadata: terms used to describe and represent content objects such as documents, people, processes, and organisations.

Knowledge managers develop tools, processes, and incentives to encourage people to share that stuff. Information exists in the messy middle. With information systems, there's often no single "right" answer to a given question.

We use the term "information" to distinguish information architecture from data and knowledge management. Data is facts and figure. Relational databases are highly structured and produce specific answers to specific questions. Knowledge is the stuff in people's head.

Information Architecture

The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability, findability, and understanding.

The synthesis of organisation, labelling, search, and navigation systems within digital, physical, and cross-channel ecosystems.

The structural design of shared information environments.

It does this by asking the designer to think about problems through two important perspectives: that our products and services are perceived as places made of information, and that they function as ecosystems that can be designed for maximum effectiveness.

Information architecture is focused on making information findable and understandable. Because of this, it is uniquely well suited to address these issues.

This has had two important effects in our time: information is more abundant that ever before, and we have more ways of interacting with it than ever before.

Historically, information has shown a tendency to dematerialise, going from having one-to-one relationship with its containers to being completely detached from its containers.

Week 2.1

The Anatomy of Information Architecture

Organisation systems present the site’s information to us in a variety of ways, such as contect categories, or to specific audiences.

Navigation systems help users move through the content, such as with the custom organisation of the individual drop-down menus in the main navigation bar.

the only thing is sometimes organising info can hide info.

Search systems allow users to search the content; when the user starts typing in the site’s search bar, a list of suggestions is shown with potential matches for the user’s search term.

Labelling systems describe categories, options, and links in language that (hopefully) is meaningful to users; you will see examples throughout the page.

Top-Down Information Architecture

In top-down info architecture, the environment's designers posit a structure that aims to answer users' questions such as these.

The form that the environment takes – its content, page layout, etc. - is designed and produced to support this structure that has been centrally defined “from above”.

Categories are used to group pages and applications throughout the site.

Labels systematically stand for the site’s content.

Navigation systems and a search system can be used to move through the site

Questions users will ask from a top-down perspective.

Where am I? I know what I am looking for; how do I search for it? How do I get around this site? What’s important and unique? What’s available on this site? What’s happening there? How do I engage with them via various other popular digital channels? How can I contact a human? What’s their address? How can I access my account?

Bottom-Up Information Architecture

Instead of being dictated from above, bottom-up info arch is suggested by and inherent in the systems content (e.g., Netflix as it’s Based on what you've been watching/ Spotify is a mixture of top-down and bottom-up)

It’s important because users are increasingly likely to bypass your system’s top-down information architecture; instead, they’re using webwide search tools like google search, clicking through ad, while reading your content vis social media to find themselves deep in your site.

UNDERSTAND: Top-down vs Bottom Up - Initially I didn't really grasp what this meant

Week 2.2

DEFINE High-fidelity prototype?

Organising information then visualising information

Grid systems

Slides readable

Make sure you can communicate your research to your team and stakeholders

Fruit stall - hands on card game.

Assumptions VS. Facts

Week 3.1 | INRD | Card Sorting

Top-Down Information Architecture

LABELS systematically represent the site’s content.

We label things all the time.

Labelling is the most obvious way to show our organisation schemes across multiple systems and contexts.

We must try to design labels that speak the same language as our environment’s users, while also reflecting its content.

Textual labels are the most common type we encounter in our work; they include contextual links, headings, navigation system options, and index terms.

Iconic labels are less common, but the widespread adoption of devices with less screen real estate means that they are an important component of many information environments.

Designing labels is one of the most difficult aspects of information architecture.

TEXTUAL LABEL TYPES:

Contextual Links

Hyperlinks to chunks of information on other pages or to other locations on the same page

Headings

Keywords, tags, and subject headings that represent content for searching or browsing.

Labels that simply describe the content that follows them, just as print headings do.

Navigation system choices

Labels representing the options in navigation systems.

Index terms

Content, users, and context affect all aspects of an information architecture, and this is particularly true with labels. Any of the variables attached to users, content, and context can drag a label into the land of ambiguity.

Presentation

Similarly, consistent application of fonts, font sizes, colours, whitespace, and grouping can help visually reinforce the systematic nature of a group of labels.

Syntax

It not uncommon to find the following mixed together.  

Verb-based labels (e.g., “Grooming Your Dog)

Noun-based labels (e.g. Diets for Dogs)

Question-Based Labels (e.g. How do you paper train your dog?)

Within a specific labelling system, consider choosing a single syntactical approach and  

sticking with it.

Granularity

Within a labelling system, it can be helpful to present labels that are roughly equal in their specificity. Exceptions (such as site indexes) aside, it’s confusing o encounter a set of labels that cover differing levels of granularity – for example “chinese restaurants,” “restaurants,” “taquerias” “fast food franchises” “burger king”

Comprehensiveness

People can be tripped up by noticeable gaps in a labelling system. Aside from improving consistency, a comprehensive scope also helps people do a better job of quickly scanning and inferring the environment’s content.

Audience

Consider the languages of your environment's major audiences. If each audience uses a very different terminology, you may have to develop a separate labelling system for each audience, even if these systems are describing the same content.

Open Card Sorts vs. Closed Card Sorts vs. Hybrid Card Sorts

Open card sorts allow participant to cluster labels for existing content into their own categories and then label those categories (and clearly, card sorting is useful when designing organisation systems as well as labelling systems.

Closed card sorts provide participants with existing categories and ask them to sort content into those categories. At the start of a closed card sort, you can ask users to explain what they think each category label represents and compare these definitions to your own.

Hybrid card sort  use elements of both

Week 3.2

Recap card sorting

Good research means asking the right questions, and choosing the right questions requires a conceptual framework of the broader environment.

We use our Content/Context/Users conceptual framework as the basis of our research.

Diagramming Information Architecture

Provide multiple ‘views’ of your information architecture.

Information environments are too complex to show all at once; a diagram that tries to be all things to all people is destined to fail.

Instead consider using a variety of techniques to display different aspects of the architecture.

No single view takes in the whole picture, but the combination of multiple diagrams might come close.

Develop those views for a specific audience and needs.

You might find that a visually stunning diagram is compelling to client prospects, therefore justifying its expense.

However, it probably requires too many resources to use in a production environment, where diagrams may change multiple times per day.

Whenever possible, determine what others need from your diagrams before creating them.

You may need very different diagrams for communicating “upstream” with stakeholders and executives than for communicating “downstream” with designers and developers.

Content components.

What constitutes a unit of content, and how those components should be grouped and sequenced.

Connections between content components

How content components are linked to enable actions such as navigating between them

Sitemaps show the relationships between information elements such as pages and other content components, and can be used to portray organisation, navigation, and labelling systems.

Both the diagram and the navigation system display the ‘shape’ of the information space in overview, functioning as a condensed map for site developers and users, respectively.

As you create sitemaps, it’s important to avoid getting locked into a particular type of layout. Instead, let form follow function.

Keeping sitemaps simple.

As a project moves from strategy to design to implementation, sitemaps become more utilitarian.

At this stage, they are focused more on communicating the information architecture to others involved in design and development, and less on strategy and product.

Bring detail to your sitemaps.

As you move deeper into the implementation stage, your focus naturally shifts from external to internal.  

Rather than communicating high-level architectural concepts to the client, your job is now to communicate detailed organisation, labelling, and navigation decisions to your colleagues on the development team.

Modularise your sitemap.

The top-level sitemap links to subsidiary sitemaps, and so on. These diagrams are tied together through a scheme of unique IDs.

UNDERSTAND upstream and downstream communication

Content Components

How they are being grouped or sequenced - their relationships to each other

Let form follow function - don't get locked down into a particular type of layout. Don't force it into a certain shape

Sitemaps become more utilitarian as a project strategy moves form design to implementation.

You may need a second site map to explain smaller - itemised components from the bigger picture of the first sitemap.

top-level sitemaps links to subsidiary sitemaps, and so on, and so on. These diagrams are tied together through a scheme of unique IDs e.g. colour, how components are related to each other - keep people interested and make it so that understanding is easy. e.g. certain colours refer to certain level, if you were to zoom in on the sitemap you'd know exactly where you are on the sitemap. e.g. keep it organised and easy to understand

interaction-design.org

informationisbeautiful.net

Week 4.1

Wireframes

Consistency is key, especially when presenting multiple wireframes.

More importantly, colleagues take wireframes quite literally, so consistency makes their design and production work go more smoothly.  

Callouts – small notes placed around and over your wireframes – are an effective way to provide details about the functionality of page elements. Be sure to leave room for them at the sides and top of your wireframes.

Like any other deliverable, wireframes should be usable and professionally developed. So, tie your collection of wireframes together with page numbers, page titles, project titles, and last revision dates.  

When more than one team member is creating a project’s wireframes, be sure to establish procedures for developing, sharing, and maintaining common templates and components.

Schedule time in your project plan for synchronising the team’s wireframes to ensure consistent appearance, and for confirming that these discrete sdocuments do indeed fit together functionally.

In this design phase, the emphasis of the project moves from process to deliverables – it's where the information architecture starts to become manifest.

These deliverables aren’t the whole story – process is as important during this phase as it is during research and strategy.

Make sure your team are all working in up-to-date version, be clear to title your work so it's clear which is which. Establish procedures for developing, sharing and maintaining common templates and components. It's about how to design the design. You will never work by yourself in the real world - you will always work in a team.

Schedule time in your project plan for synchronising the team's wireframes to ensure consistent appearance, and for confirming that these discrete documents do indeed fit together functionally.

Make sure there is consistency in your work.

In your wireframe you can show your mistakes or opportunities for improvement in your sitemap. The process is still a way to figure things out.

Information Architecture diagrams define content components and the connections between them.

Sitemaps show the relationships between information elements such as pages and other content components, and can be used to portray organisation, navigation, and labelling systems.

Wireframes depict how an individual page or template should look from an architectural perspective. (Wireframes are working documents.)

A2 diagram/infographic of everything you've learnt so far.

Peer session with post it notes to comment on people's work.

You learn by giving feedback.

A2 poster

Choose a visual language - decide how you want.

Wireframes - how are you going to link your map to the wireframe.

Wed: wireframe to a prototype on Wednesday

Do this in Xd or Figma?

A2 examples of other's work will be shown.

Wireframes

-

Grid system - the easiest way to find out grid system for the website you're looking for - it's almost never touching content - there will always be margins and gutters, etc. go deeper into grid systems in Project 2, but it's important to keep in mind here.

Each website will have a grid system - examine them and get your head around.

Never try and make a grid system where one row interacts with the other.

[cryptoevent]

Angst and anger as NFTs claim high-culture status

It’s as immutable as a blockchain company: Irreplaceable tokens, or NFTs, have made art history forever. While some in the Arterati movement swoon at the thought of unwashed digital hordes besieging their domain, the reality is that the two worlds of great art and crypto are destined to become one.

You may never have heard of Mike Winkelman, but at least one art icon is willing to say he can get a spot next to Pablo Picasso. The 39-year-old artist, better known as Bipple, has managed to make his way into more than half a dozen different encyclopedias after auctioning off his career summary collage, The First 5000 Days, for a whopping $69.3 million today.

Son of a bitch.

– beeple (@beeple) March 11, 2021

The auction set numerous records and earned Winkelman a number of superlatives that collectors and NFT competitors will no doubt be rubbing their hands with: third most expensive item sold at auction by a living artist, first all-digital NFT auction at Christie’s, and most expensive NFT ever sold.

Except that the $69 million price tag not only exceeds some of the biggest records, but also marks the end point of no return. If ever there was a chance to shake up the narrative, to change the course of the zeitgeist, it has passed. Beeple is now an artist of world historical importance; Beeple is high culture. Bipple has sold his work as NFT; NFT is the new medium of high art. The debate is over and we wonder what it all means.

As told by Kenny Schachter, writer-artist-curator-teacher-dealer:

Whether the art world likes it or not, this is the art world of today […] These are the people who will revolutionize the industry – they already have – and change the way people collect and what they collect. It’s already happened.

The great irony, of course, is that the world of fine arts and that of cryptocurrencies have more in common than not. While the guardians of high art scramble to protect what Miner calls the last bastion of expression untapped by the media from the corrupting invaders of the NFT, the existing culture, ethics and technology of the NFT could ensure that the last bastion retains its elite status for generations to come.

Abundant Fear Quotes

Bipple is one of the nation’s largest digital artists and one of Christie’s largest traditional auction houses, said Aaron Wright, co-founder of OpenLaw Auction and NFT Flamingo DAO Investment Group. NFTs no longer operate on margin. They settle in the heart of the art world.

It’s a change that even people who have long been involved in the NFT field, like collector and developer Nate Hart, haven’t gotten around to. Just two years ago, Hart was participating in NFT hackathons and shipping independent projects; now he’s being interviewed about his collection on national television news.

Beeple is a pretty crazy thing to me. It doesn’t strike me as something that can be classified as high art, but I’ve long expected some of the more elite NFTs like CryptoKitties #1 and/or CryptoPunk Aliens to end up at Christie’s or Sotheby’s, Hart said. I have a couple of NFTs that are now worth 6 figures and I’m wondering: Am I now a top quality art collector?

This is exactly the time when the elite of dealers, collectors, gallery owners and other standard-bearers of the art world are having an apoplectic fit. There was a wave of grumbling, disguised as food for thought, from representatives of the art world, high and low: Georgina Adam cited scary quotes that most established participants in the art world would be appalled by much of the art offered as NFT; Brian Droitcourt called most offerings on SuperRare derivative junk and said the broader crypto space is fundamentally pyramidal in nature ; And before dismissing some of his statements in the Cointelegraph interview as foolish, Schachter combined Adams and Droitcourt’s views by saying that much of the NFT art doesn’t communicate and only has its exchange value.

Art critic Blake Gopnik was particularly clear in an interview with Marketplace:

No one, I hope, is suggesting that these are timeless works of human creativity and genius, because as works of art they are just commonplace.

In addition to these qualitative arguments, allegations against Artereti’s custodians have been circulating lately in the form of accusations of catastrophic environmental impact from the NFT, a tired old galoot that the broader crypto-currency world has been pushing away for over a decade. The thing about crypto is that it can fight over and over again: Outsiders vastly underestimate the fun nerds take in creating rebuttal blogs.

pic.twitter.com/jenl2Bl31u

– Moxarra Gonzalez (@Moxarra) March 10, 2021

If digital currency enthusiasts feel like they’ve heard it all before, that’s because they have – It’s going to be Blockchain, not Bitcoin…. It’s a nice experience,but there’s no way to keep it up….. It’s a Ponzi scheme; the only value comes from the biggest fools. There are some minor variations in terminology and language (art instead of currency), but ultimately it’s the same long-dollar-note cocktail.

Strange, my bed is the son of a swallow

Even those in the art world with a greater sense of nuance (or the financial interest in embracing a new trend, take your pick) notice the cyclical nature of these critics’ arguments.

Noah Davis, a specialist in post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s and curator of the Beeple auction, told Cointelegraph that the clutch’s reaction was not unlike the rise of the street art category as a major collectible, with the controversy surrounding the work of maverick artists like Banksy paradoxically legitimising the work of auction houses.

A similar opinion is shared by Damien Hirst, the iconic British artist who recently stated that he loves cryptocurrencies and would print them. When Hirst and other young British artists appeared on the scene in the late 1980s, critics began the same predictable and frighteningly violent tirades, even writing entire books about why Hirst’s work was a sham. Today he is one of the most attractive artists at auctions.

Hurst told Cointelegraph that a critical robbery is a rodeo he has been to at least once:

I have yet to hear a good argument as to why this new cryptographic art is not art, and this is how it always starts, there is no doubt that Bipple (Mike Winkelman) is a damn great artist, and why shouldn’t he put himself on par with all the great artists in history? I love it when something upsets the narrow-minded art world, and when that happens, in my experience it usually doesn’t go away anytime soon.

The Santimillionaire also spoke about his own project, NFT Currency, which will be released later this year – a release that makes him the most prominent institutional artist to make the jump into the NFT art world.

Ideology, art and technology

What makes Artery so picky is that the NFT, as an art movement, resists easy historical contextualization. It is not a semi-homogeneous aesthetic trend like Pop Art or Post-Internet, nor is it a mere technological advance like photography – nor can it be reduced to an ideological movement like the Situationists or Dadaism. It is a free and dynamic mixture of ideology, art and technology. But despite this ever-changing landscape, critics have sought and found the necessary ingredients in this suspension to cause dyspepsia.

On the contrary: The participants of the youth movement are extremely optimistic. The gmoney NFT manifold has three major technical innovations:

I think there are a few things that distinguish art from blockchain as a movement. Firstly, the artist can come into more direct contact with his collectors. The second is the demonstrability of the work and the possibility of being paid for that work. And thirdly, it is an international market that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Combine these characteristics of blockchain with a free and open nature and an aesthetic that, for better or worse, tends to be bright and more or less expressive, as Hart says, and you have the contours of something that at least vaguely resembles a full-fledged art movement.

Critics, however, point out that, with the exception of blockchain-based technological advances, everything the NFT arts movement puts forward has been done before. According to Droitcourt, pure digital art has been experimented with since the 1990s, and many observers note that NFT artists are mainly introducing well-thought-out forms that artists have been experimenting with since the emergence of digital art in the 1960s.

Aside from these annoyances, most critics just don’t like NFT art. The reason for this is that: NFT art doesn’t know how to remove the little finger.

The descriptions are lurid, cartoonish and similar to what you might see in the back of a pickup truck. We need a little more critical engagement. There is more than a faintly paternalistic belief that NFT artists need to open a few history books and learn art-arts if they really want to have a lasting historical impact.

Tin Tulips

Most of the above comments come from one particular critic: Miner. But someone who describes himself as the most democratic person you’ll ever meet, holding a position in the visual arts world, has since given up at least some of that and now thinks NFT art is heading for an institutional takeover.

Anyone who laughs at it will have it hanging on their wall in five to ten years’ time, he told the Montelegraph.

Rather, Shachter’s face reflects the transformation of the rest of the art world. And how could they not? The cryptocurrency market is fast approaching half a billion dollars, a growing percentage of the overall art market. If you want blockchain tech and blockchain new money, existing cultural capital blockchain art is the necessary stick.

The air is out of the ether and nothing will push it back, Schachter said. There will be price hyperinflation with some specific phenomena, but it is by no means a bubble.

However, in both worlds, marriage requires a period of mutual maintenance. Mr. Schachter is currently teaching an NFT course at New York University (it was supposed to be a course on the history of furniture design, but the students asked for more current content), and is delving into the history of NFT and NFT art.

He says he loves anarchy and nihilism, I love it when these people upset and shake up the art world, but he laments the lack of contextualization of NFT artists in terms of their place in art history.

I wrote for my grandmother @opensea pic.twitter.com/3NNZgEI0ck

– kenny bergmann (@kennyschac) 7. March 2021

Some of these artists don’t know who Calder, Giacometti, Miro or the most famous artists are, he said. […] These people are artists, I don’t care if they know who Basquiat is or not, if someone does something that is a visual medium, then everything is fair. But if you want it to be art, or call it art, open the book.

It is a burden he places on himself, on the NFT artists and on the art world, which must learn from each other’s stories and adapt to the new technological world.

Covid has accelerated the art world’s dull and foolish relationship with technology, moving it forward 15 years in one year, he said. There’s no turning back.

To bring these two worlds together, Miner is curating NFT’s Breadcrumbs art exhibition, which opens September 9. April in the German gallery Nagel Draxler. The preview shows that the Cryptopunks and Pepe, among others, will be there:

Breadcrumbs is an NFT art exhibition at @nageldraxler in Cologne, Germany, which will open on 9… April will be open. A list of artists to follow…. pic.twitter.com/MmHHC7HpIu

– kenny bergmann (@kennyschac) March 10, 2021

If there is a battle line between the traditional art world and the NFT world, Miner’s position is clear (even if he throws grenades in different directions). By asking for breadcrumbs, the commissary’s theme was not subtle:

It’s about making the art world believe it’s art, whether you like it or not.

Citadel, meeting with Bastion.

Of the dozens of reviews I read, only one was nearly correct.

In an article for her publication, Marion Maneker, president of ARTnews, portrayed cryptocurrencies as barbarians who have successfully taken down financial skeptics and are now scouring the country to flatten another city – a city that, as Maneker implies, exists only in her imagination.

It’s not about art. It’s not even about the money, he wrote. […] He is about to overthrow what many proponents of cryptography consciously or unconsciously consider the last bastion of a distant, opaque and gnostic high culture.

Mr. Maneker, whose resume is surprisingly long (he has worked for three different publications with New York in the title), suggested that the idea of an isolated, elite art world was absurd, using largely unpublished quotes – a notch above the quotation marks. After reading his resume, I don’t believe it.

Snobbery aside, Maneker was finally treading on the right path of psychodynamic diagnosis, but he just came to the wrong conclusion. Barbarians don’t always break and fall; in fact, there is good historical evidence that barbarians are sometimes lovers, not fighters. And like ancient Rome, the art world can skillfully bring strangers together.

Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies joke about the Citadel, a dystopian future in which they have become a permanently entrenched neo-aristocracy after the collapse of the outdated financial system. The Citadel needs art – and residents need to feel important. The barbarians don’t want to burn down the Last Bastion, they want a ticket.

For now, the art world wants cryptocurrencies; soon, after a few more years of snobby quotes, it will want art too. The Citadel and The Last Bastion will become one, and visual art and NFT will consummate their marriage. The two already intolerable communities are destined to produce terrible ideological children who will undoubtedly earn the guillotine, and the cycle will begin again.

Water falls from the sky, but the oceans never fill up. Blockchain and art are shaped by a destructive/regenerative dual energy – an energy that excites artists like Hirst:

Picasso made childlike art when he was a grandiose old man, Cy Twombly sells paintings for millions that look like doodles that know very well. Who knows what will happen next? Which is appropriate. Let those who are not yet born decide.

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