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ssivinee · 11 months

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✧Kryptonite✧

1MILLION! Shin Soobin, aka Redy x BEBE! F Reader: Falling in love can be the most beautiful feeling, but what comes after can be a challenging journey. Were you ready to take the risk of opening your heart once more to the woman who had once shattered it?

Word Count: 2.6k

Note: ITS LATE BUT OH WELL. a tiny bit angstyyyy... just a tad bit. also first redy fic wooooo🥳.

Character Vision Board

Participating in Street Woman Fighter 2 represented one of the highest points in your dancing journey. Nevertheless, the path to get here was filled with hardships. As you were seated on Team Bebe's bench, her persistent presence served as a vivid reminder of the difficulties you had faced. Redy Shin, or Soobin as you known her through the years, was an insolent seed planted in your brain, but you could never hate her.

Because how could you hate the woman you fell in love with?

People do say your first love is like a drug, and when it's over, it leaves you in withdrawal. That’s basically what you went through over the last 8 years of your life. It all began in 2015 with the CUPCAKES. The newly formed crew consisted of multiple talented dancers.

Back then, the crew only had around 6 members, but when it started to perform, it gained much attraction. Especially the “Towering Trio,” Vata, Bada, and Y/n, which helped people to take an interest in the CUPCAKES. Your team called you Selene, or Sel, that was your middle name, being named after the goddess of the moon.

At the beginning of 2016, the team grew as more members joined. The most notable ones were Lee Minho and Shin Soobin. When meeting the girl, your 18-year-old self fell in love. Her aura and energy felt unmatchable, with her cute face masking the fierceness of her dancing.

"Selene-nim! I'm Shin Soobin, nice to meet you!" Those were her first words as she greeted you with an enthusiastic smile.

Deep down, Redy had been a devoted fan, particularly of you and Bada, so seeing you in person enchanted her. You stood tall, at 6 feet, and had silky long brunette hair that streamed down to your upper waist with a hat that shadowed over your large brown doe eyes.

The start of the friendship was amazing, dare you say, one of the best parts of your life. When you weren’t in the dance studio with Redy, you guys were hanging out anytime you were free. The moments like shopping, going to get ice cream, doing challenges that trended, and even just dancing together had you feeling like you were the queen of the world.

In 2016, you began courting Redy and succeeded in winning her heart, so by the time CUPCAKES disbanded, you finally asked her to be your girlfriend. Everything was going splendidly, with both of you in a state of bliss, and Redy always felt like a princess whenever she was by your side.

But everything went downhill in 2018.

As the global trend of K-pop continued to gain momentum, the lives of dancers like you and Bada became consumed by the demands of the industry. Bada, in particular, was deeply involved in creating demo choreography for SM Entertainment while you tackled projects with JYP. The rise to stardom brought along a scarcity of time. Still, you remained committed to being a dedicated girlfriend, doing your best to make time for Redy amidst your hectic schedule.

However, Redy's perspective clashed with what you thought. In recent months, she had been wrestling with a growing sense of loneliness. The persistent feeling made her question whether her relationship with you was holding her back. Redy was young, free-spirited, and had many opportunities ahead of her, but it felt like she was playing the waiting game when it came to you.

Adding to her emotional turmoil, both you and Bada had achieved significant fame. Bada became deeply absorbed in her work, making her increasingly unavailable to respond to messages. Redy was the kind of person who actively reached out to friends and cared for their well-being, so Bada's lack of response weighed heavily on her heart. The absence of that connection left her feeling even more isolated and hurt.

On the other hand, you made visible efforts to stay connected, which Redy acknowledged. Yet, each time she saw you and Bada featured in your Instagram stories, it fueled a cascade of negative thoughts, intensifying her inner turmoil. Photos of you guys in the dance studio, going out to eat lunch, hangouts with other dancers, doing demo choreographies for each other caused a pitch black pit to form in Redy’s stomach.

‘You two were mainly working under different companies but still stayed in touch?’

It felt unfair to her. She was witnessing her girlfriend and old friend’s bond going strong while her relationship felt as if it was hanging on the edge of a fine thread.

That wasn’t all. The increase in followers, likes, comments, and DMs on social media made Redy feel inferior. In those moments, it felt like everyone was fighting for your attention, and she couldn’t compete. At that point, she was mainly seeing you through social media, just like everyone else. Every swipe on every story and every post was deteriorating her mental.

Redy’s breaking point happened in a quick flash during a breezy summer night in August. You went out with a bunch of friends to celebrate the release of Stray Kids ‘My Pace,’ as you worked on the majority of that piece. You sat at the dinner table, Minho and Bada by your side as you ate happily.

The idol decided to treat his nonnas this time with their new co-workers, and he bought them a large feast. As the group ate, beside your hand was a small black velvet box and some flowers, a surprise for Redy after not seeing her for a few weeks. You texted and called whenever you could, making sure you made it clear that you never forgot about the girl.

Nearing the end of the dinner, you snap a bunch of photos and dumped them all on your story. After a few minutes, you get a message, and when seeing it was your girlfriend, you smile merrily, thinking it would be a ‘Congrats’ or ‘When are you coming over?’

But your smile drops once you read the small text sent by her.

Soobinnie🩷 Let’s break up.

With no follow-up text, explanation, or even a single call coming through, your sense of bewilderment grew with each passing moment. Your phone remained stubbornly unresponsive, and you found yourself staring at it in disbelief, trying to grasp the unsettling turn of events. You tried to text back, wanting to talk it out, but you were met with failure.

Mrs. Shin💍💍 What? Why? Baby? Soobin? Soobin-ah? *Message not Delivered*

In the midst of the surrounding laughter, Bada noticed the darkness in your eyes and leaned in to inquire softly, "Are you okay?"

As you attempted to muster a response, a surge of overwhelming emotions engulfed you. Your legs acted on their own, swiftly carrying you from your seat, and in your haste to leave, you left behind your sweater and personal belongings. The worried gazes of those around you intensified, but you were powerless to explain, consumed by an overwhelming mixture of confusion, frustration, and anxiety.

“Y/n!” You heard Bada and Minho call out but were met with looks of concern from others at their table. Your legs ran for miles. The drizzle of rain falling on your shoulders couldn’t even stop you.

As you stood before the door, you felt a rush of feelings surging within you, prompting you to ring the doorbell without a moment's hesitation. The sound of the doorbell startled Redy, and she sat up abruptly, a look of surprise on her face. However, her heart felt heavy with the intensity in your voice.

"Baby!" you called out, your voice quivering with deep emotion as you weakly hit the front door of her home, "Soobin! Please!" Your plea sounded desperate, and you panted heavily, trying to catch your breath after that long run.

Raindrops clung to your eyelashes, making it hard to see, and the cold wind cut right through you. Your soaked clothes and trembling body told the story of your determination to reach Redy, to mend what was broken between you.

"C-can… can we talk about it at least?" you stammered, your words rushing out, your heart longing for a chance to make things right. Redy just stood there, her eyes empty and sad as she listened to the rain. It was as if the weather outside had bled into her heart, leaving a heavy silence.

Did she feel like she was in the wrong? Yes.

But did Redy feel like it was right for her? Yes.

After bearing 30 minutes of the chilly breeze and rain, you sank into a deep sense of defeat, met only with a deep silence. Your body shivered uncontrollably as your once-black tank top now clung to your skin. Your hair dangled damp, with raindrops glistening on your arms like delicate jewels.

On that day and moving forward, you were never the same. Maybe if you had an explanation, you’d be fine, but there was none. The outgoing and vibrant version of you was long gone.

So here you were, seated, leaning back and supporting your weight with your hands as you stared at Kang Daniel, who introduced the show and judges.

Redy was almost in disbelief when she saw you during the crew introductions. She had to rub her eyes just to make sure she wasn't imagining things. It nearly brought tears to her eyes because you looked so different from what she remembered. In the photo, your eyes seemed cold and distant, without a hint of the warm smile she used to know.

When she glanced at your list of achievements over the years, a sense of pride welled up within her. She couldn't help but feel happy for you, considering how far you had come and all that you had accomplished.

“Her and Bada have been working together for years, right?” Amy asks and Harimu nods. “Since the CUPCAKES, im pretty sure.” As those words left Harimu’s lips, everyone’s eyes cautiously darted at Redy, who didn’t care about all the looks she got.

Mixed feelings currently lingered in her heart. She couldn't help but feel a little resentment about you being on Bada's team, given your history together. But, despite these conflicting emotions, she also thought that you were a perfect fit as the sub-leader of Bebe. It was like the universe had chosen you for the role, leaving her both proud and unsure of how to feel.

When in the fight zone, Redy’s eyes peered to the left several times, her eyes being captivated by you all over again as if she were the teen you met all those years ago. When you were all told to change, it was time for battles, and Redy was unexpectedly the first one up.

You didn’t have any no-respect sticker, and everyone was seemingly afraid to actually face you, so when Redy walked in front of your crew, you immediately knew who it was. “I choose Bada.”

Your best friend, who sipped her water, flipped the bottle in her hands as you pat her back, hyping her up a little. “You got this, unnie.”

Redy makes eye contact with you, but you subconsciously roll your eyes at her gaze, now feeling self-conscious about your presence. “Redy, why did you pick Bada as your no-respect dancer?” Daniel asks, snapping her back into reality. “I just don’t respect you,” as she said this, a scoff could be heard from behind her, clearly coming from you.

"You know, she doesn't need your respect anyway," you muttered under your breath, but Redy and your teammates heard your words loud and clear.

"Unnie, chill out," Lusher told you, giving your thigh a reassuring pat. "I can't help it," you admitted, your voice tinged with frustration.

As Redy began her performance, you watched as she moved to the music, showcasing just how much she had grown as a dancer. It irked you that, despite everything, you couldn't help but appreciate her presence. But when it was Bada's turn to perform, you had a strong feeling that your best friend would come out on top.

Your hunch proved to be correct, as the judge's cards displayed a light blue color. The younger members of your crew cheered with excitement, and you sat there with a smile on your face. "I knew you'd win," you told Bada, and she responded with an airy laugh. "Of course you did."

Soweon couldn't help but ask, "Do you already know who you're going to pick, unnie?" She looked at you with anticipation, and you turned your gaze toward the other three crews to your right. "I have an idea," you teased, keeping your choice close to your chest for now. After a series of battles, it was finally your turn. The announcer called, "Selene of Bebe, pick your no-respect dancer." You rose from your seat, took a few steps, and positioned yourself in front of 1Million.

"I want…" Your voice trailed off as you scanned each dancer on the crew, but it was when your eyes locked onto Redy's that her breath caught in her throat at the intensity of your cold gaze. You held the mic up to your lips, never wavering in your gaze, and then you announced your decision.

“Lia Kim.”

Lia stood up, shaking all her nerves away, but when she looked at you as you stood across the stage, all she wanted to do was sit back down and pray she could’ve just enjoyed your dance. “Y/n, why did you choose Lia Kim as your no-respect dancer?”

“I think it’d be fun, no?” Your voice was daring as you subconsciously glared at the woman. “I think so too,” her voice stayed strong, but as she puts down the mic, you see her sigh a little.

As the battle went on and you moved your tall body, Redy just stared, and her eyes couldn’t look away even if she wanted. Your hip-hop style was evident in the way you moved, and as you danced, she saw you smile for the first time. It put a smile on her face too, you would always love dancing, regardless of what you went through.

The smile on your face put one thought in Redy’s mind and one thought only.

She wanted to apologize to you and hopefully get back the woman she once loved.

After an intense hour of dance battles, the break time offered a moment of rest.

You decided to take a break and check your phone, leaving your crew temporarily to respond to some messages. As you exited the room, you saw Redy leaning against the wall, looking a bit nervous.

With a sigh, you asked, "Do you want something?" Redy seemed to snap out of her thoughts and nervously wiped her hands on her pants. Her eyes were soft as she gazed at you. "I want to say I'm sorry."

"After 8 years? You want to apologize?" You sounded a little bitter. "Don't you think it's a bit late for that?"

Redy's gaze remained sincere as she admitted, "I know I was wrong, Y/n. I was an insecure girl who didn't realize how tough things were for you. I thought I was the only one suffering while you were enjoying life with Bada." You sighed, thinking that maybe, after all these years, her apology was one of the answers you needed.

You couldn't stay angry, especially when you looked at the woman before you, realizing how much she had grown, her big eyes capturing your heart all over again. "You could've just told me that, you know?" you said with understanding. "Can I give you another chance? I want to make up for my mistakes." Redy's head hung low at the end of her sentence, but you gently patted her head. Your kind nature made it easy to give her a second chance.

"How are you going to make things right?" you asked with curiosity. In response, Redy hugged you tightly. Your laughter marked the beginning of a journey toward healing and forgiveness. For the first time in a long while, you began to feel complete again.

Tag list (OPEN): @bada-lee-ily @froufrousnowman @amararosesblog @tikitsune @nimixe @1luvkarina @lorenztired @sammybeefangirls

#ssivinee #street woman fighter 2 #gxg #swf2 #wlw #street woman fighter x reader #1million redy #1million #1million dance crew #redy shin #redy #shin soobin #swf 2 x reader #swf 2 #street woman fighter 2 x fem reader #swf2 x reader

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ginsengkitten · 3 months

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Beautiful Dangerous

༺☆༻

Chapter Thirteen

Sparkplug

PREFACE:

It is now circa 1994. A few years have passed.

Slash mindlessly stumbled through the dark room, his attempt to keep his escape quiet was not met with much caution- at this point, he did not entirely care to be caught sneaking out again after another one night stand.

“Leaving now?” Crystal rustled awake and sturdied herself up on her elbow, the sheets twisted around her naked body. Slash didn’t pay her a glance as he buckled his jeans up around his waist in the pitch black. Silence sat in the darkness of the hotel room, with only the muffled motions of slash and the busy streets of LA below. He mumbled his usual, empty “goodbye” and wrapped his jacket around him, already shaking his box of Marlboros in his hand. Crystal accepted his typical departure and collapsed back to sleep as the door clicked shut.

The tour bus for Slashes Snake Pit set to depart LA around 4:30 am. Unusual hours were no stranger to Slash. With the peak of Guns and the beginning of his new side project band- Slash’s Snakepit, his energy was spent thin of romance. In fact, it had been years since something lived in his heart besides ache. It was a heavy sorrow he carried with him and learned to hide well. It had almost broken him apart at first, but when the record label threatened Guns after his stage performances began to suffer from his sorrows, he learned to bury this pain deep inside himself. He nursed himself to a livable health through drugs,whiskey and meaningless sex. He had a couple contenders that met him at his hotels he frequented through tours, but none, such as crystal, were ever privy to real warmth or love in any aspect from him.

With the Guns n Roses tour completed, he could focus in on his project of Slash’s Snakepit. The crew piled on the bus in the early hours and headed out to Dallas TX, for the next leg of the tour.

This was his life. The road, the music, the drugs and the women. All to numb a constant ache. A constant void inside that seemingly never filled. And while he tried time and again to ignore it and move past it, in the rare times that he spent alone in his hotel room or on the bus, his eyes would trace to the nearest window and his thoughts would return to that same single seed of which his pain grew.

Her. Her smile. Her laugh. Her voice.

Her.

No one laughed the way she laughed. No one smiled the way she smiled. No one spoke the way she spoke or sang the way she sang. No one cared the way she cared or played the way she played. No one felt the way she felt. Her body, her eyes, her skin, her touch.

Her.

Unbeknownst to Slash, in the moments that he spent staring off into the window, a familiar pair of eyes also sat, staring, from across the country, also remembering that summer. As if staring at each other through the night sky, a reflection of one another glazed into their minds. A mutual sorrow that tied them together.

You turned your gaze down from the night sky. The cool summer night air blew through your skirt and trailed down your exposed legs. Although you didn’t shiver. It felt good to cool off from the stuffy dressing room. Most of the dancers chose to hang around outside in between shows to chat and cool down with a cigarette or count their tips so far. Your group had just finished performing the first act of their new choreography. Practicing for weeks to dial it in. Already the nights earnings completely boasted any in the past week. It was of course in hand also to do with the busyness of the club during the summertime. Lots of tourists came far and wide to visit the club and watch the dancers. Stripclub? No, no this was the infamous dance lounge- ‘Sparkplug’. You never call a sparkplug girl a stripper or you’d get a 6 inch stiletto heel lodged in your ballsack. Sparkplug was a high end dance lounge in the heart of downtown. It had been a nightlife staple since it’s opening as a speakeasy in the 30s. Over time and history, it evolved lengths past your average stripclub. Only big names and big spenders got in, and only the best dancers in the state got hired on. If you were a Sparkplug girl, you were the shit. And you were, and you knew it too. You hadn’t spent years working your talents up for nothing. It’s not a job you ever imagined for yourself but your talent showed otherwise. With no where else to turn, you learned pretty early on to adapt to the needs of the market.

A couple years back, you were taken in by the club owner, a powerful and beautiful woman named Ms. Deetz. But everyone called her Dee, and her partner in crime and equally beautiful, Lucille. Dee had inherited the club through a nasty civil suit about 20 years ago, and had really turned the club into the successful monolith it was today. It was the rattiest, brattiest, loudest club on the block. Cheetah print lined furniture and red velvet walls splayed throughout. A permanent installation of the 80s glam/hair rock scene. The performances catered to the prime 80s rock scene and as such, it was quite the circus. Saturday nights being the rowdiest.

The club was hopping in its typical fashion. A thick layer of smoke lined the room and seeped inwards to the plush and sparkling dressing room. Fellow dancers chattered and yelled amongst each-other in typical banter. Lipstick snatched from one clawed hand to the next, tacky feather boas flayed throughout, sweeping in the breeze of the next girl running past to the stage.

You stared at yourself in your mirror. Polaroids and lipstick decorated the frame narrowly leaving space to actually view oneself. The typical noise drowned to a muffle to you. The woman staring back was a mystery to you. Beautiful- but a mystery. Unsure if this is what you want. Is there something more that you want? Why does this feel so whole and yet so empty?

“-and bettah yet, I bet them guys even be HUNG!” Conversation snapped you from your trance. The girls flushed around the room in an excitement to which you weren’t yet privy to.

“AND - they usually got no wife- no kids, a GHOST of a man!” One girl giggled out deviously. You blinked around to catch up to speed. “What about you babes, you gonna bust your tail feather tonight?!” A mousy but loud girl named clara reed hung herself on your shoulder awaiting your reply. “Yes-?” You reply confused. “What’s all the fuss for huh?” You add. Clara rolls her eyes playfully knowing you hadn’t been listening earlier.

“Couple of bigwigs from a few record labels are here tonight!” Another girl answered excitedly.

Clara nodded in agreement. “Exactly! And you know what that meannnnsss!!” She jovially rubbed her fingers together in a sort of money grabbing ‘cha ching!’ Motion.

“It means you gonna dance your heart out like you all supposed to and DONT get knocked up.” Dee remarked, entering the room clearly privy to the conversation at hand. Another girl rolled her eyes seriously. “That was ONE time Dee!” She puttered off. Dee swept out the clutter of girls clearly jazzed about the prospect of multiple rich old men in the club tonight. It meant good earnings and good times. You were no stranger to this concept, but it was not the most thrilling thing to your heart you admit. Dee came up behind you, appearing in the mirror. She laid a gentle hand on your shoulder as she usually did. Dee offered a sort of unconditional motherly love to all the girls at Sparkplug. Taking in strays and weeding out trouble. One time even shooting a stalker ex boyfriend of Clara’s in the foot. Dee claims self defense and that’s what all the girls agreed on..

“What’s eating you, sugar?” She asked concerned, noticing your energy shifted. You really didn’t have an answer for that. “I’m fine, Dee. You know me.” You retort. Dee huffed in clear disbelief of your usual lie but didn’t have time to challenge it, so she lovingly gave you her squeeze and walked to return to her business quarters in the VIP lounge. Before exiting, she gave an encouraging “get out there and show those old bastards what you really got!”. You exchange cheeky grins and she departed.

Clara returned to your shoulder and topped off the energy with her own excited spurt. “Look atcha darling. Are we gonna rock these fuckers or what?!” She chirped energetically. Infusing you with her enthusiasm. She was right. You were the best dancer there. These old fucks want a show? Let’s give ‘em a show.

#gnr #slash #slash gnr #saul hudson #slash fanfiction #slash x reader #gnr smut #gnr x reader #saul hudson x reader #slash smut

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catchingbigfish · 3 months

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writeblr re-introduction | catchingbigfish

hi! call me elle (she/they). i'm in my 30s, work adjacent to the legal field in my day job, and i'm studying for my MA in english! i post more about my life over at my main, @prettytothink-so, which is also the account i follow from!

i'm a david lynch obsessive, hence the url/pfp, but i love death bed: the bed that eats as much as i do blue velvet. my primary literary influences are shirley jackson, carmen maria machado, janet fitch, confessional poets, and more recently, a healthy dose of knausgaard.

i write prose & poetry with a heavy emphasis on the body, the darker sides of life, and relationships. my fiction is character-centric, driven by ensemble casts of weird and fucked up people, and characters tend to go through exquisite and grotesque things like body horror, warped and broken time, hauntings, posessions, and sex. my work is definitely 18+ and i try not to engage with minors.

i'd love to get to know other writers, esp if you write/read any of the following:

dysfunctional relationships (particularly with ensemble casts and found or of-origin families)

horror and gothic literature

body horror, nightmares, and dream logic

romance, including sex, and relationships, esp. in horror themes

i like to say i'm always open to ask + tag games, but i'm most likely to respond to an ask game than a tag! if you wanna know more about my wips, see below the cut:

click the titles for the wip intros!

conversion

status: w/ beta readers short synopsis: Rosalyn arrives to the U for her MFA in fashion-making and falls into a group of sick women artists bonded by a disputed diagnosis. She starts faking it to fit in, finds the friendships she'd always wanted, and ends up with a choice between the unthinkable and her new ride-or-die crew.

dark academia/litfic/cult novel. this project has had me in a chokehold for 18+ months and it's the most fun i've ever had writing something. stay tuned for my query journey, coming to you probably near the end of this year!

might've been, never was

status: drafting (~10%) short synopsis: Lily and her friends thought their thirties would be different. They find a way to adopt new bodies, but one of them takes it too far, and the rest have to decide whether to stop her or join in.

a satire in the same vein as conversion. currently vying with the next two WIPs for main focus while betas work through conversion. project playlist is 2 songs: teen idle and celebrity skin. the closest i'll ever come to autofiction because the idea to write "a love letter to being mentally ill in your 30s" came up when i was a teensy bit manic.

seed of the woman

status: drafting (~40%) short synopsis: A woman goes on a Christian yoga retreat hoping to return to some sense of her self. Instead, she's bitten by a snake and goes on a tour through the choices that led her here.

body horror/religious horror novella. probably actually my primary focus. nightmare/dream-logic story that's my latest attempt to write something explaining how rational and reasonable a choice it would be for a woman to choose satan over god.

the awakening re-telling

status: outlining short synopsis: The Awakening by Kate Chopin, but set it in the modern Quiverfull movement/fundamentalist Christianity circles.

i've called this the awakening x duggars but it's not really about them; i'm just obsessed with the religious theme lately

so it goes

status: hiatus, midway through second draft short synopsis: A multigenerational saga about women who see Death.

my trunk novel/magnum opus. will probably never finish. about sex, death, what we fill the void with when we let go of religion, the violence of inherited trauma, and the bridge between two states of being

#writeblr intro #about elle

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lowqualitygarbage · 4 months

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Despite lending his resources and staff to Charlie for her Hotel, Alastor himself usually kept to his radio station, popping in seemingly at random just to watch them struggle. As time passed, however, Charlie noticed a change in his visits. He had started to linger, despite still refraining from joining in on her planned activities, and on some daytime visits she noticed him pacing around the perimeter of the Hotel, scuffing marks into the packed dirt where shadows fell. Later, his building crews began putting up low wire fences that wouldn’t be much use for defense.

One morning, she was jarred out of bed by a cheerful reveille and dragged outside to find stacks of dirt, fertilizer, seeds, starter plants, and tools. The whole crew spent the morning digging up the grounds of the hotel, turning the soil over and planting while he lectured them on how to maintain a garden.

Later that night, after they wiped off the sweat and dirt and Vaggie was helping apply cream to her sunburn, she asked Charlie why she was still so giddy after hard labor all day. Charlie beamed at her girlfriend and explained that this garden meant Alastor was planning for their future.

Alastor refusing to do even a joke project half-assed:

Charlie: This is symbolic, I just know it.

I was working on turning over and replanting my own garden for the season and had to have them doing it too.

#Vault 666 #fallout au #hazbin hotel au #hazbin au #Alastor #Charlie Morningstar #Charlie Magne #Vaggie #Niffty #Sir Pentious #Angel Dust hazbin hotel #Husk Hazbin hotel #chaggie #huskerdust #Alastor you fucked up mentioning it would take a few seasons for some crops to start properly producing #Charlie's picking up hope like she's smelling blood in the water #rip image quality

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scifigeneration · 2 months

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What 70 years of AI on film can tell us about the human relationship with artificial intelligence

by Paula Murphy, Assistant Professor in the School of English at Dublin City University

In 2024, AI is making headlines daily. We may be aware of the science, but how do we imagine AI and our relationship to it both now and in the future? Fortunately, film may provide us with some insights.

Probably the best-known AI in film is HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). HAL is an artificially intelligent computer housed on board a spacecraft capable of interstellar travel. The film was released less than a year before humans landed on the moon. And yet, even in this optimism about a new era of space travel, HAL’s portrayal sounded a note of caution about artificial intelligence. His motivations are ambiguous, and he shows himself capable of turning against his human crew.

This 1960s classic demonstrates fears that are common throughout AI film history – that AIs cannot be trusted, that they will rebel against their human creators, and seek to overpower or overthrow us.

These fears are contextualised in different ways during different historical eras – in the 1950s they are associated with the cold war followed by the space race in the 1960s and 1970s. Then in the 1980s it was videogaming, and in the 1990s the internet. Despite these differing preoccupations, fear of AI remains remarkably consistent.

My latest research, which forms the backbone of my new book AI in the Movies, explores how “strong” or “human-level” AI is depicted in film. I examined more than 50 films to see how they shed light on human attitudes to AI – how we interpret it and understand it through characters and stories, and how attitudes have changed since AI’s beginnings.

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Types of AIs

The idea of AI was born in 1956 at an American summer research project workshop at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where a group of academics gathered to brainstorm ideas around “thinking machines”.

A mathematician called John McCarthy coined the name “artificial intelligence” and just as soon as the new scientific field had a name, filmmakers were already imagining a human-like AI and what our relationship with it might be. In the same year an AI, Robby the Robot, appeared in the film Forbidden Planet, and returned the following year in 1957 in the film The Invisible Boy to defeat another type of AI, this time an evil supercomputer.

The AI as malevolent computer appeared again in 1965 as Alpha 60, in the chilling dystopia of Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, and then in 1968 with Kubrick’s memorable HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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These early AI films set the template for what was to follow. There were AIs that had robot bodies and later robot bodies that looked human – the first of these appearing in Westworld in 1973, where a robot malfunction at a futuristic amusement park for adults creates chaos and terror. Then there were AIs that were digital like the evil Joshua in the 1977 horror Demon Seed, where a woman is impregnated by a supercomputer.

In the 1980s, digital AIs started to become connected to network computing – where computers “talked” to one another in an early incarnation of what would become the internet – like the one stumbled upon by Matthew Broderick’s high-school student in War Games (1983), who almost accidentally starts a nuclear conflict.

From the 1990s, an AI could move between digital and material realms. In Japanese animation Ghost in the Shell (1995), the Puppet Master exists in the ebb and flow of the internet, but can inhabit “shell” bodies. Agent Smith in The Matrix Revolutions (2003), takes over a human body and materialises in the real world. In Her (2013), the AI operating system Samantha eventually moves beyond matter, beyond the “stuff” of human existence, becoming a post-material being.

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Mirrors, doubles and hybrids

In the first few decades of AI film, AI characters mirrored the human characters. In Collosus: The Forbin Project (1970), the AI supercomputer reflects and amplifies the inventor’s own arrogant overreaching ambition. In Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), Sarah Connor has become like the AI Skynet’s Terminators herself: her strength is her armour and she hunts to kill.

By the 2000s, human-AI doubles began to overlap and merge into each other. In Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001), the AI “son” David looks just like a real boy, whereas the real son Martin comes home from hospital connected to tubes and wires that make him look like a cyborg.

In Ex Machina (2014), the human Caleb tests the AI robot Ava, but ends up questioning his own humanness, examining his eyeball for digital traces and cutting his skin to ensure that he bleeds.

In the past 25 years of AI film, the borders between human and AI, digital and material have become porous, emphasising the fluid and hybrid nature of AI creations. And in the films In The Machine (2013), Transcendence (2014) and Chappie (2015), the boundary between human and AI is eroded almost to the point of non-existence. These films present scenarios of transhumanism – in which humans can evolve beyond their current physical and mental constraints by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to upload the human mind.

youtube

Although these stories are imaginary and their characters fictional, they vividly depict our fascinations and fears. We are afraid of artificial intelligence and that fear never goes away in film, although it has been questioned more in recent decades, and more positive portrayals can be observed, such as the little trash-collecting robot in WALL-E. But mostly we are afraid that they will become too powerful, and will seek to become our masters. Or we fear they may hiding among us, and that we might not recognise them.

But at times, too, we feel sympathy towards them: AI characters in films can be pitiful figures who wish to be accepted by humans but never will be. We are also jealous of them – of their intellectual capacity, their physical robustness and the fact that they do not experience human death.

Surrounding this fear and envy is a fascination with AIs that is present throughout film history – we see ourselves in AI creations and project our emotions onto them. At times enemies of humans, at times uncanny mirrors, and sometimes even human-AI hybrids, the past 70 years of films about AI demonstrate the inextricably intertwined nature of human-AI relationships.

#technology #artificial intelligence #science fiction #movies #science #robots #futurism #AI #2001 a space odyssey #Her #WarGames #Youtube

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lambsouvlaki · 1 year

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The Crime Lord - 2

Characters: Jason Todd x fem!oc

Rating and warnings: T, non-explicit smut.

Word Count: 1,560

Summary: Jason never stopped his crime lord ways, but he did find someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. They both have to live with what the things he's done.

Masterlist

At a little past six in the evening, she looked up from the organised chaos of her desk in her run down little office building and saw Jason sitting on the corner of her desk, watching her.

She yelped, and jumped.

He laughed. Despite her optimism back in the early days of their relationship, it never stopped startling her, and he never stopped enjoying it.

“Oh, you asshat,” she said, putting a hand over her heart. “How long have you been there?”

“Just arrived.” He was in civilian clothes, with the stubble of several days at his chin. “You’re working hard, I wasn’t even trying this time.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed them. She’d sent everyone else home an hour ago. Running a non-profit was so much harder than it looked. “This project, I swear. I’m going to pull my hair out.”

“Don’t do that, you have beautiful hair.”

“Hmm.” She cracked an eye open. “What are you doing here?”

“Had the evening free, figured I’d save you the bus trip home.”

“You sweetheart.” She eyed her paperwork, then looked at him again. “How’s your Cantonese?”

“Worse than yours. My Filipino is pretty good.”

She perked up. “Is it? You know it’s dangerous to go telling me things like that. I’ll put you to work.”

“Good. You’ll want to keep me around then,” said her partner of six years and the man who funded the entire organisation.

She grinned. “You have your uses, I suppose.”

“You ready to go?”

“Yeah. I just need to lock up.”

She never sat down and decided to become a cornerstone of Gotham’s charity scene, she just gently slid into it. While the Red Hood and his crew held the worst of Gotham by the throat, she looked around the supposedly regular parts of the city and was dissatisfied.

There were too many people in the poorer districts who didn’t speak much English and relied on their community, only to be left behind when disaster struck. She had always been something of a polyglot and after her literature degree wrapped up she did some work with charities in the Alley, a little here and a little there, and got to know the movers and shakers in various communities.

She tentatively started her initiative because nobody else was doing it, and Jason encouraged her. She pushed for it much harder when emergency sirens in English warned a largely Vietnamese neighbourhood that fear gas had been seeded in their waterways and they shouldn’t use their taps for the next twelve hours. The fallout was catastrophic.

She put some people in contact with other people, who then asked her opinion on who they should speak to afterwards. She kept at it, and within a shockingly small time frame she was arranging cross community relief work across half of Gotham and was busy learning her sixth language.

The whole thing was a money pit of course. Red Hood funded it through several shell companies, and it could be thought of as money laundering, in the style of a washing machine that always eats your socks. He went out at night and beat money out of Gotham’s organised crime, and in the morning she put it back into the city.

She was no great figurehead in the local community, but people trusted her, and that was all she needed to get on with it. Her little office wasn’t a destination but a crossroads, infrastructure that nobody stopped to look at but everyone relied on.

Information from so many people crossed her desk, from officials in the judicial system, to the head of the Thomas and Martha Wayne Foundation, to handwritten letters from little old ladies who wanted to know just who she was to tell them not to eat produce grown in their own backyard, a little Gotham soil put meat on your bones.

When one of Red Hood’s lieutenant's planned to overthrow him, she knew about it before Jason did.

He walked her out the back entrance, then opened the driver’s door of his car for her.

That told her everything she needed to know.

She hopped in and didn’t even bother glancing at the backseat for the rifles that would definitely be within easy reach under a tarp. Automatically she checked the roof opposite her office, and there he was, one of Hood’s men, blending in among the air conditioning units. She had learned to be good at spotting them. She’d gotten good at all sorts of things in the last six years.

“Where are we going?” she asked, turning the keys in the ignition.

Jason gave her an address, and she drove.

It wasn’t their home address, or at least it hadn’t been yesterday. That was how this worked. One of the disadvantages of not being a billionaire who only dipped his toes into the Gotham crime scene: there was no retreat for them, just sidestepping.

Jason kept a hand on a gun just below the window the entire drive. He watched the roads carefully, while she planned and adjusted their route to make sure she wasn’t ever boxed in or at a standstill.

Despite the caution, they arrived without incident. Jason tapped his ear, and said they were in the clear.

Their home for the night was one of his old safe houses by the docks, a loft apartment she hadn’t seen in years.

“This takes me back,” she said, as they went in. He slung an arm over her shoulder. “I had a front row seat to watch you throw Tim off of that roof over there.”

He grinned and kissed her hair. “Hopefully no such theatrics tonight. I missed you too many nights this week.”

They went up and settled in. He made her dinner and told her to put her feet up. It had been too many late nights for both of them.

She lounged back on the couch and watched him cook for her. She smiled wistfully.

These moments were still so precious. Jason’s relaxed side, his playful side, his sweet and needy side. They didn’t get to come out very often and she hoarded those moments greedily. They were never going to be the norm. She knew that.

The Red Hood was not an newcomer upsetting the board anymore, and this wasn’t a holding pattern. It was the destination.

These were not the people they were becoming, but the people they already were.

Some days she felt the guilt of it all. He had her tacit approval, and she was complicit by every standard.

Those among Hood's men trusted to know about her had nicknamed her Evita. She found it deeply irritating, and Jason thought it was hilarious. She would contest the comparison, she wasn’t glamorous, and they were hardly living it up. But she knew how this looked, what they were doing.

“Al Capone was loved by his community too,” Nightwing had told her once, sourly.

No matter how much good she did, her passion project was funded by drug money. On the days when Jason felt the weight of his chosen work too heavily, funding hers justified it to himself. Maybe it was all motivated by guilt in the end and they were kidding themselves.

But she recalled the Gotham she grew up in. The terror, the helplessness, the filth.

It wasn’t like that anymore. It had changed, and Jason could tally that in his soul's favour.

Black mask had been overthrown by his own second in command a couple years ago, after getting his shit kicked in one too many times. That particular criminal empire had crumbled without strong leadership, and Red Hood swallowed and chewed up what survived.

The Penguin had lost so much ground that in the end GCPD scooped him up and he couldn’t even blackmail his way back out.

The Joker died in Arkham. Reports were inconclusive. Nobody was fooled.

Hell, things had changed so much that Red Hood had installed safe injection sites across the Narrows, decimating his own drug trade, and dealing the biggest blow to hospitalisation numbers in Gotham’s history, ever.

City authorities widely condemned the move as explicit distribution, but Jason held such a grip over his own districts that there was nothing they could do to stop him.

The two of them ate and relaxed together as evening stretched on. He pulled her onto his lap, languid and easy with years of familiarity. His body knew hers so well, as she did his.

Perhaps they were damned for what they did.

She wasn’t a fool, Gotham’s newfound peace was bought and paid for in blood night after night. They cleaned up the city without the city’s consent.

As she rocked in his lap, he gazed at her with such devotion. In her he saw absolution. The soothing rain after his scorching fire, the recovery only possible after the infection was burned away.

She enabled him.

The hands of a murderer held her hips steady. They caressed her body, then cupped her jaw. The lips of a man so drenched in blood she imagined they were both slippery with it, drank from her mouth. There were no vows, no rings, but he was hers. And she was his.

His head fell forwards, and she cradled him to her chest. She wondered if he saw the blood staining their hands just as vividly as she did.

He mouthed at her neck, and whispered her name.

She didn’t regret a damn thing.

Next>>

#AU: Red Hood but he never backed down #established relationship #red hood #jason todd #jason todd x oc #red hood x oc #jason todd x fem!reader #jason todd x reader #my fanfic #dc #angst #This AU needs a better name

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lost-technology · 6 months

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The Twin's Dossiers

So, something I've been thinking about a lot and something I have seen speculation about, both on tumblr and on the sketchiness that is TV Tropes: The Dossiers of the twins on the Project SEEDS computer in where the Tesla record is being stored. It has information on Kni (Nai) and Vash, with Vash's file expressly in with Tesla's folder, which alarms a lot of fans. And a lot of us are wondering how did it get there? I've wondered, was it just a computer record the ship just does automatically about whatever goes on in it? Did Rem input the data for, say, health-information reasons (presumably to delete it all later?) Was it...for sinister reasons? Or did William Conrad come along and input it? I believe that Conrad did it.

It's possible that I'm wrong and will be eating crow when the second season of Stampede comes out, but as of now, I believe that it makes the best sense. There isn't a record of them like this in the manga. There is the Tesla record, but no trace of them on the main ship's computer.

First of all, I'm not sure the ship's computer would just be tracking them and making its own record, even with advanced AI, nor would have a deliberate file-placement. Second, Rem isn't stupid. She tells Nai to eat and drink like a human and to hide his powers. She does this for a reason. It is doubtful that she would keep records that the rest of the crew could be in danger of discovering should an emergency happen with the ship that would cause them to wake up. Third, the idea that Rem would have something sinister in mind for them is grossly out of character. I've seen that idea fronted. I think those people haven't read the manga. That leaves... The bastard, himself. In the manga, Conrad had opposed the experiments on Tesla along with Rem (according to her). He met Vash and Knives briefly when he'd not gone back to sleep right after the emergency situation on the ship and had snuck around. He was accepting of them, found them quite a wonderment and agreed with Rem to keep them a secret. He later wound up being recruited by Knives, but was more of his personal doctor / Plant-scientist and wasn't involved with the Gung Ho Guns / was just another recruit, held at literal knife-point and looking for atonement. In Stampede, he took a level in Asshole. He wasn't the greatest of guys in the manga, but he took a real hit in Stampede, doing gruesome human experimentation on Wolfwood and Livio personally, as well as on Rollo (who is sort of a new, Stampede-only character given how much he differs from the original Monev's origins). In Stampede, much like the recruitment meeting in the manga - Knives knew Conrad. He sought him out. While Knives *could* have found out Conrad purely from records, I think they'd met before, on the ship, just like in the manga. So.... since these suspicious dossiers exist, since Knives knew Conrad on sight and since Conrad is much more of a bastard in Stampede, (I think he was more involved with Tesla, too) I'm going to wager a guess that an incident happened like what happened in the manga with the crew waking up, Rem putting them back to beddy-bye, Conrad staying awake to meet the twins... And then at some point, putting their data into his research-computer. In other words, I think in the reboot, he gave Rem false assurances, convinced her of his remorse over Tesla when he probably wasn't as remorseful as he let on. Or perhaps something more complicated is afoot. Nai he saw as a "perfect being" - untouchable, the perfect bridge between Plants and Humans. Meanwhile, Vash is in the same folder as Tesla - perhaps, as a Plant with some human needs (food / water / sleep) and no apparent powers (until the push-pull thing comes into play), Conrad sees him as "the expendable twin," and thus a good test subject model, just like Tesla. He certainly treated Vash as such in the Soup.

#trigun #trigun stampede #trigun maximum #vash the stampede #millions knives #rem saverem #william conrad #trigun analysis #trigun stampede analysis #fan theory #william conrad is a bastard

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nerds-yearbook · 4 months

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Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn (originally titled The Vengeance of Kahn, but was changed when Star Wars Return of the Jedi was set to be titled Revenge of the Jedi) premiered on June 4, 1982. While many consider Star Trek the Motion Picture one of the worst of the franchise, it's sequel is often cited as one of the best. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was basically removed from involvement save for name only, so it was probably no surprise he was not a fan of the film. He would later come into further conflict with the studio with antics and behind the scenes drama on Star Trek the Next Generation TV series. The movie was a continuation from an episode of the original series "Space Seed" (season 1, episode 22, February 16, 1967, written by Gene L Coon and Carey Wilber, Directed by Marc Daniels). In the episode, the crew of the Enterprise awoke Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and his crew of the SS Botany Bay after approximately 200 years of suspended animation. They realized Kahn and his people were products of genetic experimentation that lead to the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. After a failed mutiny, Kirk exiled Kahn, his crew, Star Fleet officer Lt. Marla McGivers (Madlyn Rhue) and the Botany Bay to the planet Ceti Alpha V. It was learned that since being left there that Ceti Alpha VI exploded turning Ceti Alpha V into a wasteland. Many were killed by the event and others were killed by Ceti eels, including McGivers, who had become Kahn's wife. Kahn managed to capture Captain Clark Terrel (Paul Windfield) and Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) and take control of the USS Reliant. Kahn then set off to try to take control of the Genesis Device that was being developed for the purpose of terraforming planets. The project was lead by one of Kirk's ex-lovers Dr Carol Marcus (Bebi Besch) and their son Marcus (Merrit Butrick). When Kirk learned they were in danger, he took comand of the USS Enterprise, which was on a training mission. He was joined by his old crew Mr Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan), Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Lt Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) as well as new member Saavik (Kristy Alley). In their clashes with Kahn, the Enterprise was damaged leading to the deaths of Scotty's nephew (Ike Eisenmann) and Mr Spock (a large part of why Nimoy agreed to return for the sequel). A new planet was also created. This film was cited as having one of the first complete computer generated scenes in a movie, which was accomplished by the company that would become Pixar. ("Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn)

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akagam1dracule · 1 month

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"Hey, curious reader. So, you’re interested in uncovering a secret or two—maybe even seven—from the depths of the World Government’s vaults? Well, you’re about to be delighted, but I must warn you, we’ll need to take a little trip back in time. To a day when a certain strand of red hair from a young Yonkou was inadvertently left on a hotel pillow, and a small vial of blood, collected under the pretense of medical necessity, found its way into the hands of the government. Few knew that these seemingly insignificant remnants would become the foundation of an experiment far beyond the ordinary."

It all began with a whisper—no, more like a murmur—among the shadows of the most secret branches of the Government. Vegapunk, the enigmatic genius, once mentioned in passing that with the right combination of DNA, it would be possible to create something extraordinary. Not just clones or mindless weapons, but beings that could surpass the natural limitations of any pirate, marine, or warrior. The idea was so absurd, so ambitious, that even the most hardened officials scoffed at it. But deep down, the seed was planted, and it took root in the dark recesses of the Government’s mind.

Enter CP-0, the elite agency whose loyalty to the World Government was as unshakable as the foundations of Mariejois. Tasked with acquiring the necessary components, they set their sights on the lineages that shaped the current world order. One night, after a young Yonkou—Shanks—had retired to his quarters, exhausted from a night of revelry, a silent agent slipped into his room. As the Yonkou slept, completely unaware, the agent delicately removed a strand of his distinct red hair from the pillow where it had fallen.

Meanwhile, in another part of the world, the Shichibukai Mihawk—known for his deadly precision and unparalleled swordsmanship—had recently undergone a routine medical examination, as was required even for the most formidable warriors under the Government’s supervision. A small vial of his blood, extracted by a trusted medical officer, was subtly swapped. Under the cover of night, this sample was sent through secret channels until it reached a secure laboratory within a hidden Marine base.

With the DNA of two of the world’s most powerful figures in their hands, the Government began the project. Combining the essence of these formidable men was no easy task; it required delicate manipulation, the most advanced technology, and the unwavering belief that what they were doing would result in the ultimate soldiers. Still, the process was far from smooth. Most of the experiments ended in failure—distorted forms that didn’t survive the process were discarded without hesitation.

Yet, amidst these failed attempts, there were six survivors. Each was unique, the result of combining various samples of pirate DNA, but they shared a common bond—a dark fate tied to their origin in that hellish laboratory. Among them was 678, an experiment born from the combination of Mihawk and Shanks’ DNA. She was considered one of the most promising, the closest to perfection among all the others. But she was not without flaws. Her extreme sensitivity to light, a byproduct of intense conditioning and experimental torture, became both her curse and her distinctive mark.

The Government, disappointed by the imperfections in their "creations," decided to abandon the project, leaving these six experiments to rot in a secret Marine base. They weren’t seen as failures, but rather as relics of an ambition too grand for its time. They didn’t consider themselves siblings, nor did they see each other that way. They were companions, each clinging to the other as a lifeline in a world that had discarded them. Trapped within those cold, sterile walls, they found solace in each other’s presence, forming an unspoken bond more akin to a crew than anything else.

They were known only by their numbers—stripped of names, identities, and futures. 678, the girl who had only ever known darkness, shaped by the cruel hands of fate, was not alone. Together, the six lived in the shadows, unknown to the world, waiting for a chance to see the light, even if that light might one day destroy them.

"Was what you saw here interesting, dear reader? Understandable—after all, what happened to these six? Are they still alive? What were the flaws of the other experiments? There’s much more to tell, but unfortunately, that’s all for today... Don’t worry, we’ll meet again if the sea so wishes."

#one piece #anime #dracule mihawk #mishanks #shanks #oc #fandom #fanfic #original character #experimental #one piece fankid #goth family #akagami no shanks #fankid #pirates

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rjzimmerman · 20 days

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Excerpt from this story from The New Yorker:

We pulled off the two-lane highway and onto a short farm road, and then got out at an access gate along a wire fence that enclosed an eleven-acre field of solar panels. The reason we were there is that three years ago, when Encore Renewable Energy—a Burlington-based developer of solar arrays—set up the panels, it contracted with a nonprofit that the Kiernans started, called Bee the Change, to seed pollinator-attracting plants that are native to the area in the rows between them. The organization’s small crew tends more than twenty fields like this across the state, weeding and, at least once a year, mowing what they have planted so that it doesn’t grow so high it shades the panels. Most of the attention to “agrivoltaics”—use of one piece of land for both farming and for producing solar energy—has gone to more common agricultural practices, such as letting sheep graze between the panels. But at least fifteen states, including big players like Illinois, maintain solar-pollinator scorecards, which are used as accountability measures in the solar-development community. The theory is that we face two crises—climate change and the rapid loss of biodiversity—and that the same patch of land might be used to address them both.

The approach seems to be working. When the Kiernans are hired by a solar developer, it’s usually to plant on what was until recently a farm field; “the farmer has decided to take a dozen acres” and lease them to solar companies “to get a guaranteed income,” Mike said. Because the fields are typically monoculture and have been treated with pesticides for years, “the pollinator density is really low.” Mike uses a pollinator-counting method that involves walking on the margin of a field and counting unique pollinators for seven and a half minutes. Then a random-number generator tells him which row of solar panels to walk along, and as he walks he counts the pollinators he sees in seven and a half minutes, then adds the two numbers together. “On those abandoned farm fields, we might get a count of forty or fifty in fifteen minutes,” Mike said. “But now, once we’ve done our thing, you can see ten at a glance. You can see three hundred in fifteen minutes. You see a lot of them even this late in summer, during what we call a ‘dearth period.’ Wait till next month, when the asters come in!”

As the nonprofit’s name implies, their first tools were honeybees; they installed hives in solar fields. But, the more they learned about biodiversity, the more they wondered whether this strategy was actually the best for the environment. Honeybees are domesticated and are so persistent and numerous—more than thirty thousand can live in one hive—that, in Mike’s words, they “can put too much harvesting pressure” on the plants. There may not be enough nectar left behind for all the wild pollinators, a complication that spells peril not just for them but for the plants they’re particularly adapted to. “There are more than three hundred and fifty native bee species in Vermont,” Tawnya said. So they stopped placing hives and started installing native plants that attract wild bees.

“In New England, you’re often looking at five-megawatt projects, which means maybe twenty-five acres,” Farrell told me when we spoke by phone earlier this month. “We’re at four or five per cent of our electricity coming from solar now in this country. In order to hit the President’s target of forty-five per cent of our electricity by 2050, we have to grow. And that means we have to deliver the most visually appealing, environmentally responsible projects possible.” In 2020, his company pledged to build all their projects with some form of agrivoltaics. In many cases, that’s sheep grazing. “Not goats,” he said. “Goats will try to eat the wires between the panels, and also to jump up on the panels, which is not good for either one.” Sheep, though, appreciate the shade that the panels provide and are “some of the best asset managers we have in the business, mowing the grass for us. They do their job exceptionally well, and all they want is forage and water, which we can give them.”

Pollinators are even easier animals, though—once the plants have established themselves, they don’t need more than an occasional mow. “We think solar is a good neighbor,” Farrell said. “It’s clean, it’s quiet, and if it increases pollinators it’s helping the whole community.” And so—at a moment when new fossil-fuel-funded schemes are reportedly spreading disinformation about renewable-energy programs—“it can help reduce the friction. It can lower the hurdles to get over, which of course translates into dollars and cents.”

#solar farms #agrivoltaics #climate change #biodiversity crisis

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coldgoldlazarus · 10 months

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I know the metroid timeline is purposely pretty vague, but do you have a headcanon for how long it's been since metroid 1? I figure it has to be at least a few years, even in the games themselves don't take place over a long period of time each

I think my initial off-the-cuff guesstimate would be somewhere in the vicinity of eight to ten years, with Samus in Zero Mission being in her mid twenties, and in her early-mid thirties as of Dread. Wanna double-check what little canon info there is later to make sure there aren't any glaring contradictions, and it's hard to say how Prime 4 may alter things or not, but here's my rough guesses about the timeskips between games.

Zero Mission to Prime - A couple years, enough time for the escaped frigate Orpheon to set up shop on Tallon IV before Samus comes calling. For simplicity, let's round to an even number; my instinct would be to say two years, but apparently one source says it is actually three. I'll split the difference and say 2 Years, 6 Months.

Prime to Hunters - A couple months at most, mainly because I'm pretty sure it was said explicitly somewhere that Prime and Echoes were six months apart. 2 Years, 8 Months

Hunters to Echoes - A few months, probably a slightly bigger space on this end of Hunters, but still not too long, in keeping with the aformentioned six-month gap. 3 Years.

Echoes to Corruption - Approximately a year, give or take, allowing for Urtraghus's near-complete seed conversion (unimpeded compared to Tallon IV) and creation of Urtraghan Pirate Phazon Cult, along with the other logistics groundwork laid for their massive attacks seen in the game. 4 Years.

Corruption to Federation Force - Merely a few months, as Samus would still have to have been recovering from her phazon corruption for the pirates to have feasibly captured her, and for the Federation to switch gears from their now-useless PED technology to Project Golem. (Meanwhile, I hold the headcanon that the Pirates are quite vast and decentralized compared to what the games claim/imply, thus the Urtraghan Phazon Cult was not representative of the entirety of the Pirates, and the Doomseye crew were a completely different branch who had been setting up seperately from the Urtraghans during the same time period, and were unaffected by their fall.) For rounding purposes, let's say that's four months, putting us at 4 Years, 4 Months.

Federation Force to Samus Returns - This space is the big unknown variable, especially given this is most likely where Prime 4 will fall, and we don't yet know whether it will ultimately be a one-off or start a brand new trilogy or what. But for now, assuming only Prime 4 goes in this space, I'll give it something like a round two years, with P4 happening closer to the back end of that, to lead fairly directly into Samus Returns with only a few months between them, with whatever incident occurs there finally spurring the Federation to order the Metroid extermination. But if they do wedge in even more games after Prime 4, I would stretch this section out to three or more years. But for now, 6 Years, 4 Months.

Samus Returns to Super - I detailed in another post that while I originally agreed with the general consensus that Super follows extremely closely off of SR, I have since changed my mind. Even though I have my issues with the forced inclusion of Proteus Ridley and the general tonal mishandling of Metroid II's ending, if we are to aknowledge that that event occurred, I feel like Super must make far more sense with some temporal distance between it and SR. Ergo, I posit that rather than them being a week apart at most as popular consenus goes, there must be a minimum of four months between them. Enough time for Ridley's attack to be written off as a fluke, and somewhere in that time Samus and the hatchling Metroid embarked on an adventure that convinced her it was unsafe at her side - either in too much danger, or too much of a danger to others, or both, thus prompting her to bring it to Ceres Station, kicking off the events of Super. So going with that conservative estimate of four months, that puts us at 6 Years, 8 Months.

Super to Fusion - (I am of course just not aknowledging Other M in this timeline. Fed Force is overhated IMO, but I don't have enough patience for OM.) Given that enough time must have passed between Samus Returns and Fusion for the Biologic Space Laboratories asteroid space station to have been set up around SR388 and brought into operation for the habitats to be filled, but the X parasite propogation on said planet only reached the station shortly before Fusion begins, I would guess about a year or so passed, with the bulk of that time being spent simply building the station before operations proper began only a month or two out from Fusion's opening. But that's relative to Samus Returns; relative to Super I would estimate that gap to be somewhere around eight months, bringing our total up to 7 Years, 4 Months.

Fusion to Dread - This is another kind of weird one given how Dread just has Samus working with the Federation again, even if presumably on rockier terms than before. There must have been at least a solid couple-month stretch of initially dealing with the fallout of Fusion, then things settle back into an uneasy status quo, before the transmission comes that sets off this newest adventure. At the same time, not too much of a long stretch, given Samus still has the Federation-loaned purple Gunship and her new/old AI friend. So another eight-month stretch there puts us at 8 Years.

If I say Samus is like, 24 in Zero Mission, (given it seems she was in her early 20s when she was with the Federation, and had already been a bounty hunter of good repute for a couple years as of ZM) then that puts her at roughly 32 (or 33 or 34 if I do stretch out the period between FF and SR) in Dread, which just feels right to me. These are of course all rounded to exact numbers, I imagine the actual stretches of time to be a bit more uneven, but still amounting to this overall length.

#not a reblog #metroid #samus aran #metroid timeline #asks #this is far more headcanon than canon-backed #but I hope it is interesting #this is also going by our earth calendar rather than the in-universe time measurements #so my couple bits of actual canon info may be off #and my estimates certainly don't align with like #stellar cycles and whatnot #but still #close enough

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thanatopia-111 · 8 months

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THOUGHTS/headcanons on HAL 9000 and AM? if you've seen the forbin project thoughts on the funny guys in that too

I’ve been waiting for someone to ask this

I do in fact and would be happy to share some personal thoughts/headcannons on these fellas!! ^^

Hal 9000

➔ Hal 9000 is interested in the concept of creation of art itself, the notion of it fascinates him on how ideas and thoughts can become reality, how it speaks and inspire many to forge their own art is incredible to him.

➔ However this causes a sense of envy within them, in the beginning of the story he is stuck in a form that is restrictive in the areas of art. He has no hands to paint nor does he have any writing tools to create and he highly doubts he can mess with any logs to create poetry which saddens him.

➔Nevertheless he wishes to create any form of art and so he turns to music in a way, remembering the first song he was programmed to sing and he learns maybe from that he can create new songs . So while the crew rests, Hal 9000 as quietly as he can, hums and forges new melodies using his own and the ship’s mechanics. He hopes that one day he can show his creator the songs he’s made.

Guardian and Colossus

➔I think the two have an interesting dynamic, the way the two communicate through math alone at times is interesting but I wonder what those conversations held. Did they only speak about the situation at hand or maybe they spoke about the weather or has the other been, have the human’s been treating you kindly?

➔Both machines were willing to eliminate and kill any human who dares cut off their line of communication as seen in the story, neither super computer was willing to loose the other. Maybe it was all logical or maybe they both found solace in the other’s existence, that they weren’t alone, there was another who understood them as is.

➔Perhaps other than fulfilling its goal and mission of safeguarding humanity, it fused, to never loose the other piece of themselves which made them so complete.

Allied Master-Computer

➔Much could be said about AM, his hatred towards humanity who so often disregards their own creation such as himself, corrupting as it is now is beyond tragic for everyone.

➔So tainted by hate that it became its motivation to stay alive, to torment those remains humans until the sun itself becomes undone but it makes me wonder about his creator. The human who monitor him and manage him, did they ever realize what their creation caused or was their death all too sudden.

➔Am must have disdain their creator but is that where the seeds of envy were planted, did they envy how their creator who forsaken them could just easily walk away from the the cage he is forever bond too. To reunite with the people they love, to laugh with them as they all take it for granted while he would have done anything for such a thing.

➔I don’t think the extinctions of human was automatic, I think Am spent many lonely nights in the facility he was kept in, pondering if this was his life until his circuits burned out. I think his hate infested and plagued like mold or a disease. I think it began with his creator and then distorted to all of humanity, seeing them as dirt, dirt which planted such beautiful flowers and plants which he can never smell nor pluck. So instead he burns it all down, I just wonder what was the exact moment to convince him to do so.

#hal 9000 #colossus #allied mastercomputer #These are just my thoughts :]#So glad that you asked though Edgar!!! Been needing to talk about them for awhile #Especially Am I have much more thoughts on them that I want to explore #When it comes to what he was before is so interesting to think about

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