#Series: Human Resource Machine

[doyoulikethis-videogame-song]

Song: And Go and Go! And Go? And Go! Artist: Kyle Gabler From: 7 Billion Humans

Listen on Youtube:

[papoochu]

Next in the council series is "The Machine", Tomoe Tsurugi! Though for ArtFight, she'll go undercover as Tachibana Nagi!

Now that I have 3 council members up, I think I'll make a pinned masterpost on my blog if you want to see the others! 3 down, 9 more to go!

Background

Tachibana = noble samurai clan name symbolizing honor and legacy, deeply tied to Japan’s warrior history

Nagi = meaning “to mow down” or “to sweep away”; often used to describe the motion of a naginata, a sword, or wind in battle

Born 1967 in Tokyo to a strict traditional family, proud of their samurai lineage

Learned various martial arts and weaponry, but excelled in swordsmanship

Raised on stories of Onna-Musha, Tomoe Gozen, and the codes of bushidō

On her mother’s side, descended from survivors of the Nagasaki atomic bombing (1945)

Childhood During Japan’s Economic Miracle:

Raised amid Japan’s postwar boom, a time of gleaming technology and rising prosperity

While her father, a bureaucrat in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, embraced modernization, her household remained steeped in samurai values: discipline, tradition, duty

Unbeknownst to them, Nagi had inherited genetic mutations from her hibakusha grandparents, survivors of Nagasaki’s blast

Frequently ill as a child (chronic fatigue, joint pain, unusual sensitivities), she was in and out of hospitals

Medical professionals were evasive, classmates cruel; whispers of “tainted blood” followed her

Early medical trauma and social alienation planted a seed of hatred for human fragility and societal hypocrisy

Early Signs of Blindness (Age 13):

Began experiencing night blindness, trouble reading, and disorientation in dim light

Eventually diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa: a progressive, degenerative eye condition

Her doctors quietly suggested the condition may be linked to her family’s radiation exposure, a lingering curse of Nagasaki

For Nagi, the diagnosis became not just a personal tragedy, but proof that the past can reach forward and rot the present

University Years:

While studying engineering and mathematics at the University of Tokyo, her sight deteriorated rapidly

Already known for her genius and prowess, she was approached by the council, who provided her with the resources to adapt her skills for her failing sight

By 24, she was legally blind

This coincided with the peak of Japan’s Bubble Economy: wealth rising, but so was corruption and moral decay (Recruit Scandal)

Rejected from elite job programs despite top academic performance

Her fury crystallized: flesh is weakness, society is hypocritical, and machines do not discriminate

She vowed to build a future where the flawed human body and corrupt human systems would be rendered obsolete

Founding Tachibana Tech (Age 24–28):

As Japan entered the Lost Decade, Nagi founded Tachibana Tech: a cybernetics and AI firm based on one principle: refining the human form through technology

She personally underwent neural interface surgeries, experimenting on herself to convert her remaining senses into data streams

Her vision did not return, but she received augmented perception - a new kind of sight born of code and signal

No longer “blind,” she became The Machine - detached, calculating, and unbound by human limitations

1995 – Kobe Earthquake & Technological Control:

Great Hanshin Earthquake devastated Kobe, exposed fatal weaknesses in Japan’s infrastructure and disaster readiness

Nagi quietly offered her AI to the state for predictive modeling and emergency logistics, then used the data to expand her surveillance reach

The state was incompetent. The people were panicked. Only machines-maintained order

Solidified her belief: Japan doesn’t need democracy - it needs an operating system

Rise of Tachibana Industries:

With Japan’s population aging and its political system paralyzed, Nagi’s company became indispensable - providing predictive governance tools, infrastructure AI, and covert intelligence services

Privately, she orchestrated digital blackmail campaigns, economic disruptions, and political reshuffling to consolidate influence

2011 – Fukushima Nuclear Disaster:

The Fukushima meltdown reopened national trauma - once again, revealing humanity’s hubris and helplessness

To Nagi, it was the final confirmation:

Nagasaki made her blind

Kobe made her a player

Fukushima made her sovereign

Emotion, tradition, empathy - these were relics

Only through data, order, and engineered governance could civilization survive itself

Present Day (Age 49):

Leads a corporate-state hybrid that quietly shapes policy, surveillance, and commerce across East Asia and beyond

Believes that Japan must return to its warrior roots - but not through swords or blood, through discipline, hierarchy, and machine logic

Her mission: eradicate human fragility; a society where order is no longer maintained by the fallible human hand, but by precision systems

Design Notes/Character Study

Character Inspo for main outfit:

Garuda (Warframe), Shen (Kung Fu Panda)

Note: Garuda is based on Indian mythology, while Shen is based on Chinese - use other references for cultural nuance, as this character is Japanese

Modernized kimono

Red, black, white

Tech inspo:

Neon Genesis Evangelion, PCB, Signalis

Parallels to Gendo Ikari

Evangelion Unit-01

Cultural/historical references

Mu = nothingness

Oni

Onna-bugeisha and Tomoe Gozen

Nagasaki

Seismic patterns on shirts

Rising sun/chrysanthemum seal on obi = authoritarianism/conquest

Wields a naginata

Watched videos of national women's competitions @ 0.25 speed T-T

Has devoted her life to the council

Retinitis pigmentosa does not usually have any physical symptoms

Her eyes are pale red/pink from the tech implants

Glowing for artistic flair

Glasses are blackout glasses (opaque)

Company emblem is a sword

Believes her mother gave her weakness

President Snow: No objections to violence; but always with reason

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 6

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Murderbot Diaries series (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and other stories) by Martha Wells

Endorsement from submitter: "My favorite sci-fi spacefuture world where being queer + polyam is normal and yet the protag is still queer in its own special way <3"

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

Science fiction, queernorm, novella, series, adult

Monstrous Regiment (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett

It begun as a sudden strange fancy . . .

Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time . . .

And now she's enlisted in the army, and searching for her lost brother.

But there's a war on. There's always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without any training, and the enemy is hunting them.

All they have on their side is the most artful sergeant in the army and a vampire with a lust for coffee. Well . . . they have the Secret. And as they take the war to the heart of the enemy, they have to use all the resources of . . . the Monstrous Regiment.

Fantasy, satire, war, humor, secondary world

[probablyasocialecologist]

There is no obvious path between today’s machine learning models — which mimic human creativity by predicting the next word, sound, or pixel — and an AI that can form a hostile intent or circumvent our every effort to contain it. Regardless, it is fair to ask why Dr. Frankenstein is holding the pitchfork. Why is it that the people building, deploying, and profiting from AI are the ones leading the call to focus public attention on its existential risk? Well, I can see at least two possible reasons. The first is that it requires far less sacrifice on their part to call attention to a hypothetical threat than to address the more immediate harms and costs that AI is already imposing on society. Today’s AI is plagued by error and replete with bias. It makes up facts and reproduces discriminatory heuristics. It empowers both government and consumer surveillance. AI is displacing labor and exacerbating income and wealth inequality. It poses an enormous and escalating threat to the environment, consuming an enormous and growing amount of energy and fueling a race to extract materials from a beleaguered Earth. These societal costs aren’t easily absorbed. Mitigating them requires a significant commitment of personnel and other resources, which doesn’t make shareholders happy — and which is why the market recently rewarded tech companies for laying off many members of their privacy, security, or ethics teams. How much easier would life be for AI companies if the public instead fixated on speculative theories about far-off threats that may or may not actually bear out? What would action to “mitigate the risk of extinction” even look like? I submit that it would consist of vague whitepapers, series of workshops led by speculative philosophers, and donations to computer science labs that are willing to speak the language of longtermism. This would be a pittance, compared with the effort required to reverse what AI is already doing to displace labor, exacerbate inequality, and accelerate environmental degradation. A second reason the AI community might be motivated to cast the technology as posing an existential risk could be, ironically, to reinforce the idea that AI has enormous potential. Convincing the public that AI is so powerful that it could end human existence would be a pretty effective way for AI scientists to make the case that what they are working on is important. Doomsaying is great marketing. The long-term fear may be that AI will threaten humanity, but the near-term fear, for anyone who doesn’t incorporate AI into their business, agency, or classroom, is that they will be left behind. The same goes for national policy: If AI poses existential risks, U.S. policymakers might say, we better not let China beat us to it for lack of investment or overregulation. (It is telling that Sam Altman — the CEO of OpenAI and a signatory of the Center for AI Safety statement — warned the E.U. that his company will pull out of Europe if regulations become too burdensome.)

[souliebird]

[[addict]]

Series: Daredevil || Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader || Rating Explicit

summary: Your life revolves around Matt. His does not revolve around you

Or: depression skews reality

wordcount: 5k

tags: depression, explicit sexual content, blood, angst, p in v sex, oral (male receiving)

---

Monday

You wake up alone. 

This is of no surprise to you, and you force yourself out of bed despite your desire to bury yourself into your covers and stay there. 

You stumble into the kitchen, feeling bleary and still half-asleep, and start the process of making coffee. You dump still warm grounds into the trash before filling the basket with your preferred blend and starting the little machine. You wash the mug lingering in the sink, then start making your breakfast. 

You don't need to think about your routine as you do it - you've done it hundreds and hundreds of times. You just do it. 

Coffee. Bagel. Orange. 

You watch the morning news highlights, listening but not taking in the various stories that flash on your screen. Fighting in Paris, all sorts of elections, Hollywood, and political scandals - it all washes over you without leaving an impression. None of it matters to you. None of it concerns anything Matt would be involved in.

Once you finish your small meal, you clean it up and switch your laptop over to your work VPN. 

It is nothing glorious. You translate legal documents from English into Spanish as a contractor for a handful of firms around the city. Very rarely is it anything of interest - a majority of it is human resources based - but it makes good money, and you don't need to commute. You stay in the apartment most of the day, trying your best to make it into a home.

As you think over word choice, you do chores. Laundry gets hauled down to the basement, the sink and shower get a deep clean to wash away any trace of blood, and you write out a grocery list. You dust and air out the apartment between paragraphs. You don't exchange many emails. You don't get any calls.

The hours pass in silence until your phone alerts you it is a quarter after five. You shut down your VPN and return to the kitchen. Chicken, rice, and vegetables will be tonight's dinner - you know it is a favorite and you've worked out the unspoken schedule to know this is the ideal day to serve it. You work quietly, half focusing on your knife work and half zoning out. 

Five minutes to the hour, the door to the apartment opens and Matt is home. 

“That smells wonderful, sweetheart,” he says as a greeting, dropping his things off at the front door. You can hear his practical movements as he puts everything in its right spot. 

“It should be done in ten minutes,” is your soft reply. That is just enough time for him to get settled in and drink about one third of a beer. It took you a few weeks to get the scheduling down right, but now you have it down to an art for various recipes. “How was your day?”

Without completely breaking attorney-client privilege, he tells you about the ongoings at the office and catches you up on whatever happened with Foggy and Karen over the weekend. As he does, he loosens his tie and takes a seat at the table. You place an ice-cold open bottle in front of him without fanfare, then flit back to the kitchen. 

Dinner switches the conversation to Daredevil. Matt tells you his plan for the night and you silently convert his words into future actions for yourself. He's going out with Jessica, which means more surveillance than fighting. You'll need to have ibuprofen ready, as spying tends to stress his senses rather than his body. 

You get a kiss before he goes to do his pre-Devil work out and another before he ascends the stairs to go into the night. He tells you not to stay up, but it's part of the script and you both know you'll be waiting for him right where he left you. 

Tuesday

“Foggy isn't going to believe me,” Matt grumbles as you gently pat concealer around his eye, covering the blooming bruise.  

“It's just absurd enough to be believable.”

“But it's the truth,” he huffs before his lips turn into a pout, “How does it look?”

You step back and examine the man in front of you. He has the start of a massive black eye and you can't help but feel bad for him. For once, this is not a Devil related injury - there was a freak accident with the shower. The water pressure in the building has somehow been cranked to maximum and your poor pipes are not equipped for that - the threads holding them together are barely there. They had no chance against suddenly being slammed into and there was no way Matt could have been prepared for the shower head to shoot off the wall and right into his face. 

You frown and your mood must shift because he deflates, “Foggy is not going to believe you.”

You set the makeup you specifically got to cover up his nightly hobby aside and push Matt's coffee towards him. He takes a long sip from it before throwing his head back with a groan.

“I've been doing so well,” he complains. There is some sort of swear jar-esque deal the two of them have going on about Matt's bruises, but you don't know all of the details. You do know Matt's lost a fair bit of money from it, though.

You pat his shoulder sympathetically before getting up and heading towards the kitchen to finish packing up his meals for the day, “This doesn't count.” 

“Will you tell that to Foggy?”

“I'll tell that to Foggy,” you promise.

You see him get up in the corner of your eye and disappear back into the bedroom to get dressed for work and you can't help but sigh. You'll give Matt's friends a heads up text so they don't freak out on him. Misunderstandings are bound to happen otherwise and they'll probably all have a laugh about it once the Devil's Pride is soothed.

You finish up packing lunch, a midday snack, and the ingredients for a hearty protein shake. Matt will be going to the gym right after work today, then from there will go out as the Devil. You aren't keen on him carrying his black suit around in his gym bag, but it's not something you're going to argue with him about. 

With how busy the office has been lately; he's been a bit scatterbrained about the smaller things. 

You've convinced him to at least drop off his bag on the roof as he starts his patrol, so he doesn't leave his day clothes at Fogwell’s overnight. You'll go up and collect them at some point, so they don't end up staying up there and getting forgotten about. 

You won't see Matt again until he comes home to sleep. 

You hope you'll be able to figure out how to fix the shower by then.

Wednesday

You put away the last of the clean dishes, then turn to face the apartment in front of you.

It's a beautiful day and light is streaming in through the windows, highlighting how stark everything is. Your laptop is waiting for you on the table, along with a mental list of things you need to get done today. 

But you don't want to. 

You don't want to do any of it. You don't want to do anything. You don't want to think. You don't want to feel. 

You just don't want to. 

So you wipe your hands on a dish towel, then make a bee line right back to bed and crawl in. You curl on your side, place your phone on Matt's pillow, close your eyes, and just Don't. 

You drift in and out until your bladder starts to demand you get up, so you do. You use the restroom then return to bed, checking your messages as you settle back in. 

There's one from Matt, asking if you would like Thai for dinner. You have no will to think about what you'd like to eat - honestly you don't want anything - so you tell him that Thai sounds great. You double check your alarm is set, then return to your nothingness. 

It's easy to get lost in Blankness. It's nice to not feel anything. The crushing negativity you are so used to is gone and all your disgusting thoughts are silent. 

You don't simmer in doubt that every action is wrong. 

You don't question why your life revolves around Matt. You don't think about how you would crumble without him or how he'd be fine without you. 

You don't consider what love is to him and how deeply rooted it is in just staying. You don't wonder if he just doesn't want to be alone again. 

You don't feel completely consumed in your feelings. 

You just are. 

Sometimes, you wish you could stay like this forever - suspended in emptiness. 

But then your alarm goes off and you have to be human again. 

You check your messages to make sure you really did get a text about dinner, then finally drag yourself to go shower.

You have to be presentable before Matt returns. 

He doesn't comment on your still wet hair or lack of conversation. You eat in mostly silence, occasionally commenting about the food. 

Karen calls as you're gathering up leftovers to go into the fridge. Whatever she has to say to Matt has him swearing and going to the wardrobe to start getting his suit out. You don't ask what is wrong, you simply gather up the dress shirt he tosses towards the couch as he begins to change. 

He doesn't kiss you as he rushes up the stairs.

He doesn't tell you to not wait up. 

The door slams shut as he disappears into his own Darkness, and you sit on the couch to await his return.

There is no silence. The city mocks you with each siren, scream, and honk. 

Thursday

You're putting away groceries when your phone alerts you to a text. 

It's from Matt and simply states, “I hate baseball bats.”

A small noise of sympathy comes up from your chest. He had gotten a few good whacks with one last night to the point he let you wrap his chest. Luckily, nothing had been broken, but it had not been a pretty sight. 

You've already put the ice packs in the freezer for when he gets home. You don't think he'll be going out tonight if he's actually admitting he is in pain. 

Maybe you can listen to the next few chapters of the audio book you've started together instead. The thought makes your stomach turn in a nervous hopeful way. 

You return his message with an inside joke of sorts, typing out the words, “Baseball bat emoji. Heart break emoji.”

He replies back seconds later with, “Sad face emoji.” 

It pulls a little smile to your lips, and you think about Matt dictating the text to his phone for the next hour. 

Friday

“You smell so good,” he purrs as he nuzzles against your neck, his scruff scratching you just lightly. 

You tilt your head to the side to give him better access and you can practically feel his pleased hum in your chest. His fingers dance at the hem of your shirt, pushing under to barely just feel your skin. He's got you crowded against the front door, so all of him overwhelms you while he teases.

He's been like this all night. As soon as you stepped into Josie's, he had his hands all over you - your thigh, your lower back, wrapping his arms around you from behind. He's only had two beers, but they have loosened up his tense shoulders quite a bit. 

You know what he wants and you're more than happy to indulge. You've been craving his touch. His attention. 

You don't care if it's a quickie before he leaves you to belong to Hell's Kitchen again, you just need something from him.

Anything. 

You dig your nails into the shoulder of his suit jacket and whine out your inner desires, knowing he'll give in when he's like this, “want to get on my knees for you.”

He moans in response, grinding against you to let you know how much he also wants that, and you lower yourself down to be trapped between him and the door. Skilled hands make quick work of his belt, and you don't bother to push his pants and briefs down. You get his half hard cock free of its confines only to swallow it.

Above you, Matt throws his head back his head, gritting out a long low, “Fuck.” 

You give him no time to adjust, knowing exactly what he likes in these moments, and begin to work him over. One hand grips his tree trunk of a thigh and the other loosely circles around the base of his cock - the first keeps you steady and the second from him slipping out of you. 

You focus on his head, pushing your tongue up as he slides out of the depths of your throat, then swirling it before you begin to suckle. He buries his fingers into your hair, swearing more, as you do so. That only encourages you and you begin to pump him as you work to get him to full hardness.

His musk is dotted with the saltines of precum, and your mouth begins to water. You do nothing to stop the drool gathering in the corners of your mouth and let it spill out as you enjoy yourself. 

Self-control is out of the question - the moment Matt’s hips begin to twitch, you encourage it, tugging at his thigh. He doesn't need to be told twice. 

You close your eyes and relax your jaw as he starts to fuck your throat. 

All of you becomes encompassed in him. He's all you feel, all you smell, all you taste, all you hear. 

He grunts and groans as he thrusts in and out of your mouth, holding your head steady so you can't chase him as you want to. You want to be held down; his cock buried deep in your throat until the heaviness of him is imprinted on your tongue. You want him to coat your insides with him, so you never forget his taste. 

You want him to use you and that's exactly what he does.

“Fuck, sweetheart, fuck,” he chants, and you don't want him to stop. He's not ruthless, but he isn't kind with it, barely giving you a chance to breathe between each movement, and making your brain start to blink in and out of awareness.

You feel him start to twitch and pulse along your tongue and you whine in distress around him. 

You don't want this to end so soon. You need him. You need this. 

Before you can process what is happening, Matt is pulling you back up into standing and directly turning you to face the door. Your brain automatically clicks with what he is doing, and you scramble to undo your pants. You barely get them unbuttoned before he is yanking them and your panties down your thighs. 

You arch your back with anticipation as he lines himself up. You expect him to tease you, to rub the head of his cock over you to spread around the juices you've soaked your panties with, but he doesn't. He pushes into you in one smooth motion and your eyes roll into the back of your head. 

He grabs you by the throat from behind, just under your chin, and turns his hand so he can also stick two of his fingers into your mouth and continue to make you drool. You're practically pinned to the door as he slams into you over and over, hitting that sweet spot each time. 

“So fucking wet,” he growls into your ear, squeezing your throat just enough to make your vision go spotty. “About to cum from just sucking on my cock. Don't even need to touch you, do I? You'd be happy being my little cock warmer.”

You would. You yearn for it - sitting under his desk while he works, keeping him happy. You just want to be with him. You need him. 

You need him. 

He breathes your name, then demands, “Cum on my cock.” 

Saturday

Matt has taken the spot at the dining table while you've curled up on the couch. You both have your respective workstations set up and have been buried in reading for hours. 

A strange, pleasant calm has washed over you and wrapped you up in a lightness.

These are the days you dream of.

Soft, quiet mornings where you can just be with Matt - there's no distractions or chaos or vigilantism. It is just the two of you, together. 

Whenever he has gotten up to get something, on his way back to his seat - he always makes sure to check in on you all and it sends your brain into an absolute tizzy. Acknowledgement from him makes you feel warm in so many ways. You don't think you could ever get enough of the way he says your name when he wants your attention. It's like an angel’s song - or the Devil's. 

You know it won't last long - he has a meeting with Foggy after lunch to meet some people who can't meet during the week - so you bask in what you have. You've been stealing glances all morning because you love to watch him work. He gets this little crease between his brow when he's listening to a transcript, and it really is the cutest thing. You just want to go over and kiss it and remind him to relax his forehead. 

But you know he's so very busy and you don't want to distract him with something so silly. He barely has enough time in the day as it is, between all the ways he helps the people of Hell's Kitchen, and lately he's just been adding more and more to his plate - more clients, more patrols, more everything except you. 

You aren't jealous. You know how needed he is and you are grateful to be in his life at all. You get to be the one to take care of him and be in his bed at the end of the night, even if you spend many of those nights alone. 

It just makes moments like these so much sweeter. 

So, when he gets up again and heads to the kitchen, you can't help but turn and watch him. He starts another pot of coffee, and your eyes just go heart shaped as you admire how his shoulders move under his shirt. 

“Anything interesting?” He asks with a bit of cockiness, and you know he's aware you aren't focused on your work.

You place your chin on the back of the couch and hum, “This company has one of the best sick leave policies I've ever seen. Think I might quit my job and go raise plants in Arizona.” 

Matt snorts at your answer and teases, “Do you know anything about raising plants?”

“For three weeks guaranteed paid vacation and two paid sick days a month, I'll learn.” 

He turns to face you, tilting his head to one side in disbelief, “Two paid sick days a month? What is the catch?”

You nod, then pretend to huff, “You have to live in the middle of nowhere Arizona.” Matt makes a face of disgust, and you laugh into your hand, a smile blooming across your face, “That's why I'm only considering.”

“I'm glad, I'd prefer it if you stay here. I'd miss you too much if you were in the middle of nowhere Arizona.” 

You spend the rest of the day practically glowing over Matt admitting he'd miss you. The words will live in your heart and head forever.

Sunday

You've never been stalked and hunted by a wild animal, but this is what you imagine it would feel like. 

The Devil has come home earlier than expected and it looks like he crawled his way out of Hell. He's in his black suit, or what's left of it, and is covered in his own blood. His nose is dripping, probably broken, staining his mouth red. His shirt is barely hanging together and various fresh shallow cuts litter his torso. His Muay Thai ropes are dirty with grime and what you expect to be others’ blood.

He slowly came down the stairs from the roof then began to circle around the couch, each step deliberate and calculating, and he has not let up. 

The air in the room is so heavy. You can't breathe because you don't have a protocol for this. You can't tell if he's angry or upset - he hasn't said a word and he's not expressing himself in any way, but Danger is exuding from him. 

You sit straight backed on the couch as the Devil continues his path around you, his head tilting in different directions ever so slightly. You don't know if he's tracking something or waiting for some sign. You can't tell when he's like this. 

Finally, he stops in the spot halfway between the couch and the bedroom, only partially angled towards you. He begins to undo the ropes stabilizing his wrists, letting them drop to the ground without acknowledgment. You watch them like they are snakes, ready to slither at you with an attack. His gloves quickly join the pile, but then he raises a hand towards you, palm up like he wants you to take it.

He confirms his intentions with a low, “Come here.”

You're worried and confused with how he is behaving, but you don't dare disobey the Devil. 

You slip out of your seat and make your way to him in silence, reaching to take his hand when you get close enough. To your surprise, he brings it up to his face and places a light kiss to your wrist, over your pulse point. 

“Do you know who I am?” He asks, voice low and laced with an unsaid promise. 

A shiver runs up your spine and you manage to answer, breathing out, “Matt Murdock. Daredevil.” 

He pulls his lips back into a snarl and you fear you've got the question wrong somehow. 

Keeping your hand in his, he steps towards you, one achingly slow step at a time, until you are practically chest to chest. He dips his head and brushes the tip of his nose against your neck. You can hear him inhale. 

“I hear their frightened little whispers. I hear what they call me - not just the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. King of Hell - this is my territory and I protect it with a ferocity,” he whispers into your skin. You close your eyes and try to keep your breathing from going shaky. 

It is not just fear and confusion coursing through you now. His words, his rasping, is going straight to your cunt. You haven't encountered The Devil in so long you've forgotten what it does to you.

He presses his free hand against your lower back, moving you so you are flush against him. Your hand goes to his chest, just under his shoulder where his shirt is still intact and not sticky with who knows what. 

“Do you know what that makes you?” he growls against you and all you can do is shake your head.

You don't interact with many people, and you doubt anyone in Hell's Kitchen is talking about you. 

You are of no interest to anyone. 

The Devil bumps his nose against your earlobe before giving it a light nibble and telling you, “My Queen of Hell.”

Air catches in your throat and it feels like your entire being short circuits. What does he mean, you're his Queen? 

You've never done anything to deserve such a title, but you aren't going to disagree with him. If he wants to call you this, you will relish in it. 

As you are still trying to process things, you are suddenly lifted into the air by your thighs, and you have to quickly wrap your legs around the Devil so you don't start flailing. Like you weigh absolutely nothing, you are carried to the bedroom and with care you do not expect, laid out on the bed. 

The Devil, mask, boots, batons, and all, crawls over you, going straight for your throat. He starts with his lips but quickly dissolves into dragging his tongue and teeth wherever he can get. It's slow, methodical, like he has a goal with his lavishing. 

You don't care about his intention - you are melting into the bed under him, desperate for him to not stop. Whatever he is doing, whatever has got him in this mood, you want more of it. 

Hesitantly, fearing you might disrupt the atmosphere, you wrap your arms around the body above you, one hand going to scratch at the back of his neck, trying to silently encourage more attention to your neck. He obliges and teeth scraping against you turns into biting. He wastes no time in leaving his first mark on you, then another, and another. 

“You're mine,” he tells you as he starts on the other side of your throat, “Belong to me. You're mine.” 

You arch at the words, cunt clenching around nothing. He is correct. You are his - you've belonged to him the moment you met, and you will until the day you die. 

He is your everything.

“I'm yours,” you agree, barely above a whisper. 

The Devil drags his lips from your neck only to crash them into yours. It's like being pulled under by a wave - a force you can only just accept and go with. He tastes like smoke and copper, but you don't care. You only want more.

You want to be consumed. 

And it feels like that is what he does. You kiss until you feel like you can't possibly breathe any longer, then he is pulling away to start moving down your body. He pushes your shirt up to start a trail of kisses and bites towards your stomach.

“My Queen,” he growls, and you can only throw your head back with pleasure at his words, his actions, “My Persephone. Mine. Whatever you want, it's yours. Anything. Give you Fisk's head on a platter. Or do you want his heart? I'll rip out his throat with my teeth for you.”

You want to comment it looks like he already has, with the state he came in in, but all you can manage to say is the truth.

“I just want you.” 

Your shirt is pulled off and tossed to the side before he is on you again, biting at your lips as he does what you want. He grinds his cock into you, and you can feel just how hard he is. You tug at the remains of his shirt, and it is also quickly discarded. 

You can feel him moving over you, probably trying to get out of the rest of his armor, but you don't pay attention. All your focus is on the way his mouth is moving with yours - dominating and controlling and firm but in no way actually hurting you. 

Nothing to ever hurt you. 

When he pulls back, he does so enough to sit up. 

You whine at the loss of his touch, but it is balanced when he finally removes his mask, and you can see his beautiful face again. 

It's a little sick, but you like him like this - bruised and battered and bloody. You like the physical reminders of who he is and what he is capable of. 

You reach up to press your hands to the mottled skin around his ribs, still healing from the baseball bat. He hisses at the contact, but his now free cock gives a violent twitch. You know which reaction to trust. 

Your sleep shorts and panties are unceremoniously removed, and you and the Devil are left nude. You are hauled up to be on your knees with him and once again you are held against his chest. He cups your jaw with both hands and kisses you firmly.

“Take such good care of me,” he mumbles between nips and bites, “Let me take care of you, my Queen.”

You want that. 

You want that.

 You want him to take care of you - to focus on you - to be his everything. You desperately nod against him, shaky whispers of “please” coming from you. 

He lays you back down and guides himself into you with far more care than you'd expect in the moment. It's steady until he's fully sheathed in you, then he is over you again, burying his face into your neck. 

“Mine.”

“Yours.”

He starts moving then, slow, steady, and deep, like he's trying to savor every roll of his hips. 

It's heady and with the way he's back to worshiping your neck, you're quick to sink into a place of pure bliss only he can send you. 

He starts to mumble against you as he devours you. You hear catches of your name and ‘my Queen’ and ‘mine’, but you hear something about Sin and love and need. Your brain refuses to link the words together and you don't need it to understand them right now. 

You just need Him. 

You roll your head to the side so he can dig his teeth into a new spot and through half lidded eyes, you spot the mirror you've added into the room. Using it, you watch the Devil make love to you, his body half shrouded by shadows. 

He's so fucking beautiful.

As your thighs begin to tremble and pressure builds up in your core, you notice smears of darkness on your face, your neck, and your arms.

It is the same darkness that the Devil is drenched in. 

He's covered you in his blood. 

You're coated with him. 

Inside and out.

The realization sends you over the edge and you scream his name for all your subjects to hear.

Monday

You wake up alone.

This is of no surprise to you.

a/n:

I see this with multiple interpretations ;)

a/n2: theres not a baseball bat emoji

[theresattrpgforthat]

Mint Plays Games: NIbiru

The Pitch

Nibiru is a game about amnesiac characters called Vagabonds, wandering a gigantic space-station habitat in a speculative future, trying to keep their identities a secret even while working to uncover pieces of their memories that they’re slowly starting to recover. It’s a unique game because you create your character backstory as you play, rather than inventing your backstory during character creation.

I find it hard to describe the setting of Nibiru, and I think that’s because there’s so much lore placed inside this game. The locations of the setting are divided into three sections: the Antumbra, The Penumbra, and The Umbra. The Antumbra is located in the centre of the space station, is the most easily habitable, and acts as a series of urban cityscapes, ripe for political intrigue and big social games. The Penumbra is a series of colonies, struggling to maintain control resources, and pushing back against the powerful, well-funded city states of the centre. The Umbra is the barely survivable borders, where gravity pressure, floods and blackouts constantly threaten your life, and small communities try to get by in a setting great for exploration and eerie adventures. Any given group is expected to find ample inspiration in just one of these areas; you certainly aren’t expected to explore the entire breadth of the station (although you can if you want to, of course. It’s your game).

Being a game about amnesiacs, character creation is rather simple. Because you are playing amnesiacs, you don’t have to select a skill list, but rather build your skills alongside your memories; every time you recall a memory, you either give yourself a negative modifier and earn Memory Points, or you spend previously earned Memory Points and give yourself a positive memory. But at the beginning, all you need to do is choose a habitat that carries themes that feel resonant to you, and think about how that might affect your character. However, the Habitats give you the core themes of what you want your character’s story to be about, and I think they’re very special.

The Habitats

There are five Habitats: The Machine, The Leviathan, The Dreadlands, The Dreamlands, and Brighttown. If you are from The Machine, you were some kind of robot or AI in your past life; at some point you gained sentience, and now you’ve awoken in a human body. If you are from The Leviathan, you were originally some kind of animal, driven by instinct; and while your body is different now, those instincts are still there. Dreadlands inhabitants suffer false recollections provided by a parasite called The Nightmare, which turns all of your skills into negative memories, but still shelters and protects you, and gives you plenty of chances to re-try something you’ve rolled poorly on. Dreamlands inhabitants do not collect one set of memories, but rather find themselves reliving periods of various other lives, of people that they meet as they go about the world. And finally, Brighttown players can play versions of themselves, dropped from the mundane world into an alien environment that still occasionally turns up artifacts of the world they came from; pieces of their old life continue to haunt them.

I played a two-shot of Nibiru over the past few months. I had four players for this game, each of whom picked a different habitat to play with. We didn’t have anyone to play the Leviathan habitat, but all of the others were represented. Our first session involved introducing the players to the system, while the characters woke up in a tank of water and found themselves meeting a small settlement that needed help sending aid to their neighbours. Our second session involved a voyage through a series of flooded corridors, dealing with hostile wildlife and suspicious patrols on their way to a hidden settlement built around a strange landmark. From a GM’s perspective, it was a simple delivery mission: get something from point A to point B, and deal with whatever obstacles pop up in front of you.

The Mechanics

This game only uses d4's. In order to do something in Nibiru, a character must make one of three rolls: a regular roll, a contested roll, or a special roll. A regular roll involves rolling 3 dice, adding or subtracting dice according to relevant modifiers, and looking for at least one 4. A result with at least one 4 is a success; a result with no 4’s and at least one 1 is a critical failure. A contested roll involves two players rolling 3 (or more) d4’s and adding them up. The highest total determines who wins out. Finally, a special roll is invoked by the GM whenever the character engages with a special mechanic of the game, either a Stress test, a Habitat mechanic, or some other special rule. Typically a 4 is good and a 1 is bad, but there can be more nuance, depending on what you’re rolling for.

Just from the two-shot, I could tell that Nibiru is more designed for the long haul. Character progression is slow, using two different kinds of experience points, and characters will level up only after filling a journal page with eight memories. Creating these memories is one way to spend these experience points, as well as a way to generate more. This encourages most players to switch between creating positive and negative memories, generating both positive and negative modifiers to any given roll. The biggest advancements happen at the end of the journal page, where characters write something called a Revelation - a special power that uses the second type of XP as a resource, to allow the players do something unique and powerful, such as experience premonitions of the future, or cry black tears that can be used as a poison. Over our two-session adventure, we got nowhere near receiving a Revelation.

That being said, we did play enough of a game to get a good taste of what I think is the most interesting thing about Nibiru - the memories.

The Memories

We began the game with an opening scene of each character pulling themselves from the water, gasping for air, and being confronted with their very first link or memory - something that established each characters’ expected tone. Our Machine character wanted to recall a series of disjointed recollections of the space-ship they were responsible for, and hint at the tragedy that caused them to lose the entire crew. Our Dreadlands character began a series of memories of things going wrong around her home; people arguing and breaking in, threatening those that she held dear. Our Dreamlands character began telling a series of stories about the man he woke up next to; following the confusing tangle of events of his life journeying through the Umbra, and our Brighttown character described to us a memory of something incredibly familiar: a movie theatre, and the ticket that came with them to this new, alien world.

These memories weren’t just establishing character backstory, they were giving the players a chance to build a history collaboratively, and build parts of the world. They also gave the players control over what kind of tone they wanted to set; a Dreadlands player that is consistently creating negative memories is setting a gritty undertone that contrasts the bright, but distant memories of Brighttown. The different themes of the habitats were also clear signposts: a Dreamlands player knows that at some point they might have to help the NPCs they meet reconcile with lost parts of their past, and the decisions they make about what parts to reveal and what parts to keep quiet about says something about who their character is - and how they judge the other people they meet in Nibiru.

The Letdown

My biggest letdown regarding Nibiru is not what it provides, but what it lacks: incentives for the characters to relate and depend on each-other. The players had no reason to turn to each-other while they were wrestling with their own personal emotions: I suppose thematically, they might have had a narrative reason to do so, but there was no mechanical prompt or reward.

It was rather easy to emotionally or physically isolate oneself from the group, working together when only you were in danger, but not sharing their memories or working through their lost paths together. In some games, like Thirsty Sword Lesbians, or Last Fleet, characters are drawn or pushed together, seeing each-other as resources or tools to use, but in either case forcing the characters to confront each-other’s vulnerabilities. Nibiru’s introspection makes for a rich character experience, but in isolation, and as a result it was more like telling four separate stories, than one cohesive one.

The Takeaway

One thing Nibiru reinforces for me is the fact that you don’t really need a backstory for a character in order to find them worth playing. And the themes introduced in Nibiru’s habitats have me thinking about how baking the themes of the game into the character backstory that you do have can tie your players more closely to the setting than otherwise. As amnesiacs, your characters have a solid reason not to know any of the lore, but the fact that the players know where their memories are coming from give them enough agency to hint towards the kind of stories they want to tell. Nibiru is a game about discovery: discovering who you are, and what the world around you is like.

Nibiru is also a game with plenty of space for tragic stories. Your character sheet has space for a number of symptoms that will start to affect your character should they take too much mental damage, and these symptoms can range from hearing voices to experiencing delusions. There's a lot about mental health and memory loss tied up in the mechanics of this game, which means that as a group you need to have a talk about what sorts of themes you're comfortable experiencing, and whether there's any consequences you need to avoid for safety reasons.

I think Nibiru has the potential to create a very emotional experience for your table, but I think that you have to play this game with folks who you can expect to naturally turn to each-other even as they introspect. Mechanically, it's beginner friendly, but when it comes to role-play, it demands a level of vulnerability that I'm not sure every table wants to have.

You can check out my spreadsheet play-kit for Nibiru here.

[catboymoments]

Behold my beautiful space ouppy that’s been years in the making….

“Humans and the bridge they built once they established first contact and achieved light speed have been a major proponent of the galaxy’s interstellar expanse. Their knowledge is vast and their perseverance is great- for better or worse- and with the new resources from the sudden advancement into space, they began creating technology more advanced than was ever seen before. Automatas, colloquially called “mechas” or “robots” of this caliber are varied, and yet unique for the job they provide. They’re the perfect blend of delicate sinew and machine, a true marriage of creator and creation.

Automatas are piloted by a combination of neuroscience and nanotechnology. The robot physically connects to its pilot’s nervous system with a series of microsensors- the personal ones for an average consumer are more rudimentary and require a single pilot, but the bigger you go, the more complex the system becomes, the more pilots necessary to function. So far, the ones on the ECLPS project have the largest number, that being a team of five.”

[redpenship]

As requested, here is an edited version (although I left some stuff in that doesn't really need to be there, like the whole section on the NPT) of my paper on nuclear strategy in the Sonic Adventure series:

None of this is good, Vector. That’s why it’s called war. 

- Knuckles the Echidna, in Sonic Forces (2017)

Sonic the Hedgehog is a very weird video game series. 

(Author's note: the quality of this paper does not reflect the majority of my academic writing. It was for a 200-level (beginner's) English class wherein I was encouraged to do whatever I wanted and not worry about tone, topic, etc. I also wrote it in less than a day after having written 3 other papers the same week, and was suffering from sleep deprivation and brain fog while writing it. I have not included my references in this post because they were done in Chicago footnote format and don't paste into Tumblr well. If you want more info on anything I mention, I will gladly provide sources on said topics! Ty ty)

---

Sonic the Hedgehog is a very weird video game series. 

This statement has nothing to do with its varying quality of gameplay. Sonic the Hedgehog is weird because its surface presentation as a colourful, furry-adjacent Dragon Ball rip-off disguises its extremely fascinating perspectives on warfare. The games frequently feature weapons of mass destruction in its stories, which allows for interesting analysis on the strategies used in-game and how it relates to American perspectives on nuclear war. The first game analyzed will be Sonic Adventure, which depicts an attempted nuclear strike on an American city. The second game analyzed will be Sonic Adventure 2, which features an attempt at WMD-boosted bargaining. These games will be used to answer the following research question: which side does Dr. Eggman take in the Borden-Brodie debate on nuclear weapons strategy? 

As a brief explanation, the Borden-Brodie debate is about how nuclear weapons will actually be used in a nuclear war between two states. This debate emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s, as theorists attempted to predict the future of war after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Borden predicted that nuclear weapons would be used as “big artillery” to support regular military attacks, whereas Brodie predicted that the devastating effects of nuclear weapons would make war between two nuclear weapons states (NWS) inconceivable. Brodie appears to have won the debate as nuclear doctrine shifted to favour deterrence during the Cold War, but we must consider the following idea: perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, there has not been a conflict worth using them for just yet.

What is the geopolitical situation in Sonic the Hedgehog? Technically, the series takes place on Earth, but it’s a little different. Instead of the United States, there is the United Federation, instead of Greece there is Apotos, and instead of Africa there is Mazuri, because even the fun cartoon animal game cannot keep itself from generalizing the entire African continent into one entity. These countries are predominantly inhabited by humans, who live on the continents, and the animal-people (like Sonic and friends) live on small offshore islands. There has never been an explanation for why this separation exists, and while it could be fun to explore potential reasons, that is not the point of this paper!

Dr. Eggman typically begins his campaigns of world domination on these islands. He captures small animals to be used as batteries in his machines and builds extractive industrial plants, such as oil refineries and chemical plants. Sonic opposes him in the earlier games because he is harming the environment, and this has turned into a standard rivalry as the games have continued and Eggman’s evil plans have grown in scale. As soon as the games give the characters spoken dialogue in Sonic Adventure, Eggman’s schemes move away from resource extraction and towards using huge weapons and awakened ancient gods in order to conquer the planet. This is where the weapons of mass destruction come into play.

The first depiction of a WMD in Sonic the Hedgehog is in Sonic Adventure, where Eggman attempts to murder-suicide Station Square (in-universe San Francisco) by firing a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) at the city while he is still in it. He does this because he is upset that his plan failed, although perhaps he was attempting to show us mercy by wiping all the Silicon Valley bros off the face of the planet. Regardless of exact intention, his attempt to nuke Station Square says a lot about his perspective on nuclear war, which will be discussed below. 

When dealing with an enemy, their perception of you and their own weapons are crucial to understand. The norm in nuclear doctrine is that nuclear weapons are used in retaliation to extremely high levels of threat. However, this has not always been the case—in the 1950s, they were generally perceived as really big bombs that could be used in combination with normal artillery. This theory was emphasized most by the radically anti-communist William Borden, also famous for testifying against Oppenheimer in his security clearance review, who argued that nuclear war will target military infrastructure and end when one side in the conflict has run out of weapons. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the United States to possess as many weapons as possible because it is the quantity they possess that will render them victorious. City-busting occurs after the war, when you are free to hurt your enemy’s civilian population without fear of retaliation. Or, perhaps, when you have nothing left to lose—which is exactly what happened in Eggman’s case. 

Borden predicted that nuclear weapons states would disperse their launchers and military bases to make them harder to strike. He likewise predicted the use of nuclear missile-equipped submarines (SSBNs), which are used strategically for second strikes; submarines are hard to find, and can be positioned close to the enemy, making them very useful for retaliation. This is precisely in line with Eggman’s attack in Sonic Adventure 1, which used an SSBN close to the enemy’s civilian population as a last resort punishment after he incurred heavy losses. Whether or not this was a smart thing for Eggman to do is up in the air—the SLBM appeared to be an attempted surface burst on a city, which would actually minimize casualties when compared to an air burst detonation, so it is very likely that he cares more about building cool bombs than understanding how to use them properly—but it is clear that he is a champion of the Borden expectations of nuclear warfare nonetheless!

Eggman’s arguably insane, vengeful attack on Station Square stokes fears of nuclear armageddon that were hyper-present during the Cold War. Although he has been referred to as Dr. Eggman exclusively so far in this essay, this is not the case in Sonic Adventure—Tails, the character present in the city while the attack happens, refers to him as “Dr. Robotnik”. The character’s “real” name is Ivo Robotnik, which was given to him by American translators in lieu of “Eggman” when the classic games first released. It may not be surprising that American translators at the end of the Cold War decided to give an industrialist who primarily wears red an Eastern European sounding name. Russians are disproportionately featured as enemies in video games, eclipsing both the Axis Powers (typically Germany or Japan) and Arabs (as terrorists) in studied games. In wartime, framing one’s enemies as irrational is a core component of propaganda. Depicting someone named “Robotnik” as a self-driven madman who is willing to nuke an entire city when he loses feeds into assumptions that the enemies of the United States are not rational, which is then used to justify US hegemony on the international scene—someone has to keep these unruly states in line! This is especially true for the non-proliferation regime, which has been regarded by some states as neocolonial. India, a nuclear weapons state, has argued that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is discriminatory because it does not ban vertical proliferation. This stance generally purports that non-proliferation treaties are used to keep nuclear weapons out of “undesirable” hands while allowing nuclear weapons states to maintain and build on their own stockpile (vertical proliferation). Fears of certain states (such as Iran or North Korea) acquiring arsenals are presented as imminent dangers because enemies of the United States are always inherently irrational, and therefore cannot be trusted with such powerful weapons. The idea of “rationality” has been weaponized in service of white supremacy—and to a lesser extent, the patriarchy—for centuries and it should surprise no one that an international nonproliferation regime, largely built by and for states who were founded and are sustained on the premise of white supremacy, would prop up inequality and keep nuclear weapons only in the hands of those who “deserve” them. Although Russia is not a victim of this regime, it is frequently depicted as irrational and untrustworthy with nuclear weapons. Robotnik’s attack on Station Square is reminiscent of this rhetoric. 

Of course, Sonic is a Japanese video game, which should grant it some leniency in the depiction of a nuclear attack as inherently irrational and violent. But for American players, who are meant to perceive this as an attack on a fictionalized version of their country, the implications are more specifically anti-Russian.

Sonic Adventure 2 flips this script a bit: as it would turn out, Eggman is American, and members of his extended family were killed in a coverup operation by the Sonic equivalent of the US military, Guardian Unit of Nations—typically abbreviated to GUN. His grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, was commissioned to research immortality and weapons of mass destruction aboard the space colony ARK. One of his creations was the Eclipse Cannon, a giant laser capable of destroying the planet. 

Between games, Eggman has seemingly underwent the same attitude shift as every other NWS during the Cold War, because he has now discovered that WMDs can be used to threaten your enemies into getting what you want. On the ARK, Eggman activates the Eclipse Cannon and does the following:

1. Uses its laser to destroy part of the moon in a show of force; 

2. Threatens to use it against the Earth unless he is crowned emperor of the planet; 

3. Gives Earth 24 hours to accept. 

Did Bernard Brodie predict the plot of Sonic Adventure 2? In his earliest work The Absolute Weapon, he argued that the absolute power of a nuclear bomb would make wars too costly to fight. The primary purpose for governments would therefore be to avoid war at all costs, since any of them could result in devastating nuclear war. Brodie also wrote many pieces laying out strategies of nuclear deterrence, which continue to be used to this day. 

There is a common knee-jerk reaction to Eggman’s story that I see in fan discussions of the game. Many comments feature the following logic: “Why would Eggman blow up the planet he wants to rule? Either the writer is stupider than me, or Eggman is lying!” This is a very understandable way to perceive his threat with the Eclipse Cannon—why would someone make such an unreasonable threat? Does he really expect it to work? Who is going to buy this?

The game provides no insight into the general reaction to this by the world’s governments. However, Sonic and friends believe his threat right away, and race to the ARK to stop him. They are correct to do so—Eggman does end up trying to use the Eclipse Cannon against the Earth, but it does not work because Gerald Robotnik programmed it to fail if ever used. Therefore, we know that Eggman was not bluffing about his threat to destroy the planet at all. We know that he was actually going to do it. So, why do fans of the game continue to argue that Eggman’s threat was pointless? 

Bernard Brodie’s concept of the absolute weapon has become the mainstream view of WMDs in the public consciousness. We fear nuclear weapons because of their destructive power and believe that no conflict could ever require their deployment. We believe other NWS hold the same concerns. This perspective is then projected onto Eggman by fans, who mistakenly assume he should foster the same feelings about WMDs. The assumption that Eggman was not willing to go through with his plan, or that the world’s governments would not surrender to him, requires Eggman to value his own life over the success of his empire. The first Sonic Adventure game has Eggman attempt to nuke a city he is standing in. A suicidal, last-ditch plan to take over the world is perfectly in-line with his character. What is the point of living if he cannot have his way? What is the point of a planet’s existence if he is not the one in charge? These are the questions driving Eggman’s decisions in the games. 

Sonic Adventure 2 does not reject Brodie’s theories, but does provide a counterargument: deterrence breaks down when one’s ambitions outgrow the potential retaliation for acting upon them. Eggman’s dream of ruling the world was stronger than his will to live. Mortal terror was not enough to curb his imperial ambitions, and the Earth was almost destroyed as consequence of this perspective. 

When the two games are measured against one another, it becomes apparent that Eggman has taken a very clear stance on the Borden-Brodie debate: he is a supporter of the Borden perspective on nuclear war! He does not believe in absolute deterrence and treats WMDs as usable tools in his arsenal, even at a potential detriment to himself. His actions in Sonic Adventure 2 align his views with one of Borden’s biggest theories: the winner of a nuclear war will not be the state who inflicts the most damage on their enemy, but rather the one who does not run out of nuclear weapons first. Eggman is determined to be the last one standing—even if it means standing alone atop the ashes of the world. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Zincchump Linkdump

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in DOYLESTOWN TODAY (Mar 1), and in BALTIMORE TOMORROW (Mar 2). More tour dates here. Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books.

I've got a really good excuse for finishing this week with a folder full of links that didn't make it into the newsletter – I'm on a crazy book tour and I've been in four cities this week alone. Time for another linkdump! Here's the previous 28 'dumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

I like to start these 'dumps off on an upbeat note, and this week, I've got something gratifyingly cool and wondrous. Stars Reach is a "living galaxy sandbox MMORPG" led by Raph Koster, the legendary designer of games like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxy. It's kickstarting right now:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starsreach/stars-reach

Here's the pitch:

Whether it’s water turning dirt to mud or forests growing back after a devastating fire, every action leaves a mark. This isn’t a static world built by developers – it’s a living, breathing galaxy shaped by you. Resculpt landscapes, build entire cities, and yeah, ruin more planets just like humanity ruined their original eight homeworlds. That’s okay – there are always more worlds in our endless galaxy.

I've seen demos of this coming together for years and it is mind-boggling. You can play it like a galactic trade-empire builder, a shoot 'em up, a first person shooter, a resource management game, a MUD, and more. There are thousands of procedurally generated planets with realistic geology, geography and ecosystems. It's like something out of a Neal Stephenson novel. They're mostly done and just raising money to finish and launch. I gave 'em $100. They're projecting delivery in January. I can't wait!

It's pretty wonderful to see accomplished creators like Koster, who have gone from strength to strength, making a series of ever-cooler things as technological advancements let him realize the vision he'd been chasing since the 8-bit days. It's quite a contrast with HP, a company that was once world-renowned for making the highest quality, most reliable instruments and machines, and is now synonymous with the scuzzy inkjet rip-off.

I love a good dig at HP. This week, The Register's Paul Kunert scored a direct hit with a short news squib about the executive compensation package announced for HP CEO Enrique Lores: "261,658 toner cartridges" (that is, $19.36m):

https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/26/hp_ceo_pay_for_2024/

I would like to live in a world in which all unreasonable expenses were denominated in HP printer cartridges (much as the BBC compares ever extremely large or massy thing to a London double-decker bus). Anything to make it easier to grasp the vast forces that shape our world and bring them into focus so we can understand them – and destroy or change them.

One economic school that does this extraordinarily well is "Capital as Power," which concerns itself with the "social power of capital" – that is, how capital shapes our behavior and outcomes. It's a complicated but extraordinarily clear and useful framework for making sense of the world. This week, Naked Capitalism published a long colloquoy on Capital as Power, featuring Michael Hudson (a great economist and historian of debt), political economist Tim Di Muzio, and two of CasP's top proponents, Jonathan Nitzan and Blair Fix (whose work I have featured in this newsletter many times). It's a long, fascinating discussion – just the thing to relax with over a weekend:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/capital-as-power-in-the-21st-century-a-conversation.html

Capital as Power grapples with power, the force that neoclassical economists could never figure out how to fit into a neat mathematical model and thus decided to discard. Refusing to think about power gets you into all kinds of trouble, from deciding that markets for human kidneys are "voluntary" to the denaturing of political parties into institutionalist weaklings like the Democrats, who are completely overwhelmed by the power-focused MAGA GOP as it dismantles the nation.

Writing for The American Prospect, Nick Tagliaferro rounds up "Ten Democrats Who Need to Be Primaried":

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-27-these-ten-democrats-need-to-be-primaried/

For years, Tagliaferro was the loudest voice on the Primary School newsletter, which covered primary races. In this guillotine-inspiring listicle, he presents such swamp creatures as Levi Strauss failson Dan Goldman (NY-10), who spent $5m of his inherited wealth to win his seat, from which perch he has done everything he can to undermine his more militant anti-Trump colleagues in the House. More familiar names like Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05) – whom Tagliaferro calls "single most needlessly antagonistic centrist in Congress" – and the ardent homophobe Stephen Lynch (MA-08).

OK, I've got to get into my rental car now and make the 3h drive from State College, PA, where I just did a talk at Penn State, to Doylestown, PA, where I'm speaking this afternoon:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-picks-and-shovels-a-martin-hench-novel-tickets-1146230880419

From there, I'm going to Baltimore (tomorrow):

https://redemmas.org/events/

and then I'll be in DC on Tuesday:

https://www.loyaltybookstores.com/picksnshovels

You can catch the whole tour schedule here:

http://martinhench.com

New dates that I'll be adding soon include Pittsburgh:

https://us.pycon.org/2025/about/keynote-speakers/#cory-doctorow

As well as Wellington and Auckland, NZ; and Manchester and London, UK.

Before I go, one last wonderful link to be getting on with. Framework – who make the repairable, modifiable laptop that I love more than any hardware I've ever owned – just announced a bunch of fantastic new machines, including a rugged new, 12" touchscreen laptop with a 180' hinge:

https://frame.work/laptop12

and a desktop PC (!) that has insanely high specs and a fully customizable chassis:

https://frame.work/fi/en/blog/introducing-the-framework-desktop

I spend so much time on the road, I have no conceivable use for a desktop PC, but man, this is tempting. What a sweet rig!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/01/menagerie/#stars-reach

[inkformyblood]

long past an expiration (CWFKB25)

Kenobi TV canon, Purge Trooper Cody. same AU setup as this fill from last time~ Helmet Kiss. @codywanfirstkissbingo

The chips weren’t meant to last this long.

It had been a fragment of a report that floated across CC-2224’s tablet, some clunky brick of a thing that would have been better served stuck beneath a wobbling table leg, but it froze on that file for several minutes. The fans whirred in the background as it tried to send the file on its way, a dull mimic of the roar of the ship’s engines that CC-2224 couldn’t hear but could all the same. Just another report from the old regime that had been catalogued and analysed and found to be wanting so it was sent to CC-2224 to be transferred to oblivion like everything else.

The files didn’t scream, at least.

But that report, it had stayed on his tablet as he was stationed outside a defunct meeting room, flashing through the pages as the aging system tried to categorise it. 

‘Assess’ it had beeped at him and CC-2224 is a good soldier, he follows his orders whether spoken from a human mouth, a machine in his hands, or the tangled scratch of his not-his thoughts. He read the report.

He had peeled off his bucket just in time to vomit, spitting colourless bile into the closed archway of the door as he straightened. It had all been there in the strange misaligned text that accompanied all of the Kamimoan’s internal documents: the true purpose of the chips, the orders that had been seeded into them as a perverse just-in-case strategy, why Cody had ordered his brothers to open fire on—

Cody had blinked black into an uneasy existence with a tablet clutched in his bloodless hands and his bucket thrown several feet away. His armour hadn’t been his, too fragile for all it looked similar, like metal constructed from tissue, the pieces just similar enough that he swallowed back bile from the thought of it. He was awake for the first time in years.

Then, the hallucinations started.

Maybe he had been having them for a while before but CC-2224 hadn’t been ordered to record them. The report mentioned that as well, a possible side effect amongst a list that included emotional swings, headaches from mild to intense, and sudden death. 

Cody swings his legs over the side of his bunk, steps over the gently gasping body of another fallen brother — barely more than a shiny, hair still damp with tube media, all regulation cut and shaped — and makes his way to the fresher bolted onto his room. He’s not just CC-2224, clone commander of the 221st Battalion in this bantha shit mess of an Empire; he’s one of Vader’s personal company, barely utilised and left to rot, just like the files that pile into his inbox with a series of chimes. It’s the factory standard noise, no customisation allowed. There’s no end to it, just an endless rolling machine of new reports to push the old out, only to be pushed out themselves at the next cycle. 

Troop movements, resource reports, galactic acquisitions, spy documentation; all skim through Cody’s tablet and slip between the gaps of his rusting thoughts.

There’s a brother’s arms thrown loosely around his shoulders as Cody glances at the cracked mirror leaning against the supports above the sink in the fresher. They’re dissimilar enough now that it takes Cody a moment to make out the similarities between them amongst a squadron of differences. His curls are shot through with silver, clustering heavy against his temples, a patch broad over where the chip would be implanted, and his face is lined with wrinkles his dead brother’s would never wear, a crumpling at the corners of his eyes, the lines of his mouth drawn heavy and defined along with the furrow between his brows. There’s a dark stain beneath his eyes, exhaustion run deep and wild, and a still new smattering of scars over the planes of his face that he can’t remember how he received them. A thumb presses against the harsh divot in his lower lip and Cody turns away from the touch. He grabs his helmet to rest it against his hip, heading outside his quarters and walks the corridors, heading to nowhere. 

Nowhere to go, nowhere to stay, and it shouldn’t be surprising when Obi-Wan falls in step next to him.

“Hello, General,” Cody murmurs, keeping his gaze forward, tipped downwards. If there’s danger in front of him, he doesn’t want to see it. Out of the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan’s steps slow a fraction before returning to their easy rhythm. They’re well-matched like Cody had been created to Obi-Wan’s specifications, the universe sewing them together only to rip the stitches open and leave them loose and fraying. “Wouldn’t have thought that I’d see you here.”

Obi-Wan leans closer, not quite touching but enough that the hem of his robe passes over Cody’s bare knuckles. It’s rougher than he would have expected, a mixture of every stolen glance and accidental touch given form and sensation. A shiver burrows through Cody’s spine, the hair at the nape of his neck, his forearms prickling. 

“Why wouldn’t you see me here, my dear?” Even Obi-Wan sounds changed from how Cody remembers him, stretched thinner than he had ever been during the war, an image passed through too many holonetworks to count and clustered with artifacts. His next words echo from in front of Cody as if the man’s shadow has detached to keep time next to him while he moves ahead. “Don’t you dream of me?”

Cody cuts his gums on his laugh, rusty machinery slowly ticking back to life the longer he walks. “I dream of you every night, of your death, your hand in mine. Why do you think I can’t sleep?”

Obi-Wan’s fingers are cold as they brush against his, a glancing shot at first across the cracked shell of Cody’s bones, but he twists their fingers together, his grip tight enough to bruise. Cody hopes it will, not just the broad shapes of his own fingers splayed across the meat of his thighs, the shallow scrapes of his nails on his cheeks; but something slimmer, sharper. Obi-Wan could crack open Cody’s chest to pluck his heart from his chest, tear through fat and marrow in his quest, and Cody wouldn’t stop him, wouldn’t want to.

“I dream of you too,” the shadow of Obi-Wan at his side murmurs, moving impossibly closer. There’s barely breathing space between them, a line of heat burning down Cody’s side and his fingers grow clumsy on the helmet at his side.

He drops it and the noise tears them apart, Cody reaching for it and Obi-Wan flinching away. 

Cody has lost him all over again. 

His helmet sweeps past his fingers, scooped through the air by the whims of the universe wielded by one man, and lands in Obi-Wan’s outstretched hand. “I can’t stay, my love.” Obi-Wan raises Cody’s helmet, the empty visor facing Obi-Wan, tipping his gaze past it to look at Cody. “And I can’t bring you with me, but I can give you this out of everything I wish I could give you.”

Obi-Wan lowers the helmet to roughly Cody’s height and leans forward, pressing his lips to the bare plastic where the crease between Cody’s brows would sit, lower to the grill over his mouth. He steps forwards carefully, a hesitance marring his usual grace, and Cody looks at him properly, fully. 

He’s older, worn and weathered in a way Cody wouldn’t have expected his mind to create. Silver shoots through Obi-Wan’s hair, condensing at his temples, but it wouldn’t be long before no hint of the red remained. His eyes crinkle at the corners, but not from joy. Sorrow and grief paint Obi-Wan’s features into sharp misery and Cody steps forward to meet him, his hands outstretched. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, a lifetime of what-could-have-been hanging crystalline in the scant space between them.

“Sleep now, love,” Obi-Wan whispers. “Sleep and dream of happy moments.”

Cody is a good soldier. He’ll follow Obi-Wan’s orders, however they’re given, hallucination or not. He’ll follow the other man anywhere. 

He sleeps and dreams of a warm hand in his and a smile that reminds him of strawberries. 

Cody wakes in his bed, the thin blanket tangled around his legs and his helmet clutched to his chest, a lifeline when he’s drowning. There’s a smudge on the brow, another fainter on the mouth.

[machine-herald-archive]

The Machine Herald - Viktor (Lore Text)

The herald of a new age of technology, Viktor has devoted his life to the advancement of humankind. An idealist who seeks to lift people to a new level of understanding, he believes that only by embracing a glorious evolution of technology can humanity’s full potential be realized. With a body augmented by steel and science, Viktor is zealous in his pursuit of this bright future.

Viktor was born in Zaun on the borders of the Entresol level, and, encouraged by his artisan parents, discovered a passion for invention and building. He devoted every waking minute to his studies, hating to interrupt his work even to eat or sleep. Even worse was having to rapidly relocate if there was a nearby chemical spill, accidental detonation or incoming chem-cloud. Abandoning his work, even for a short time, was anathema to Viktor.

In a bid to impose a level of order and certainty on his world, Viktor researched Zaun’s many accidents and came to realize that almost all of them were the result of human error, not mechanical failure. He offered his services to the local businesses, developing inventions that made them far safer working environments. Most turned him away, but one - the Fredersen Chem-forge - took a chance on this earnest young man.

Viktor’s inventions in automation reduced the number of accidents in the forge to zero within a month. Soon, other establishments sought his work and Viktor’s designs became common in Zaun, improving production with every innovation that removed human error from a process. Eventually, at the age of nineteen, he was surprised to be offered a place in Zaun’s prestigious Academy of Techmaturgy. But Viktor’s work had attracted the eye of Professor Stanwick of Piltover, who convinced him to leave Zaun and travel to Piltover’s academy instead. There, he could work in the most advanced laboratories and gain access to all the resources the City of Progress could offer. Thrilled to be singled out, Viktor accepted his offer and took up residence in Piltover, where he refined his craft and sought to perfect his theorems in ways that would benefit everyone.

Viktor worked with Piltover’s best and brightest; including an insufferable genius named Jayce. The two were equally matched in intellect, but where Viktor was methodical, logical and thorough, Jayce was flamboyant and arrogant. The two worked together frequently, but never truly became friends. Often, the two would butt heads over their perceptions of intuition vs logic in the process of invention, but a level of mutual respect developed as each saw the flawed brilliance in the other.

In the midst of his studies in Piltover, a major chem-spill devastated entire districts of Zaun, and Viktor returned home to offer his help in the rescue efforts. By grafting a sophisticated series of cognitive loops upon existing automata-technology, he crafted a custom-built golem, Blitzcrank, to help in the clean-up. Blitzcrank was instrumental in saving scores of lives and appeared to develop a level of sentience beyond anything Viktor had envisioned.

Even with the spill contained, Viktor remained in Zaun to help those afflicted by the released toxins. With the golem’s help, he attempted to use his techmaturgical brilliance to save those whose lives had been blighted by the spill. Their attempt was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing more deaths, and the two parted ways. Though Viktor was distraught at the loss of life in Zaun, the work taught him a great deal about the merging of human anatomy with technology and how mortal anatomy could be enhanced with technology.

When Viktor returned to Piltover, weeks later, it was to find that Professor Stanwick had held a symposium on Blitzcrank and presented Viktor’s researches as his own. Viktor lodged formal complaints with the masters of the college, but his impassioned claim that he had designed Blitzcrank fell on deaf ears. He turned to Jayce to verify his claims, but his fellow student refused to speak up, further widening the rift between them, and the matter was decided in Professor Stanwick’s favor.

Bitter, but resigned, Viktor returned to his studies, knowing that his ultimate goal of making people’s lives better and enhancing humanity was more important than one stolen project and a bruised ego. He continued to excel, finding ever new ways to eliminate human error and weakness from his work, a facet of his researches that came to dominate his thinking. He saw human involvement in any part of a process as a grossly inefficient aberration - a view that put him at odds with a great many of his fellow students and professors, who saw the very things Viktor sought to remove as the source of human ingenuity and creativity.

This came to a head during a reluctant collaboration with Jayce to improve the diving suits used to keep Piltover’s docks clear of underwater debris and lingering chemical waste. Viktor and Jayce’s enhanced suits allowed the wearer to go deeper, remain underwater for longer, and lift heavier weights. But many wearers claimed they saw phantom corpse lights in the depths or suffered from chem-induced hallucinations. When divers experienced such symptoms, they panicked and often got themselves or their fellow divers killed. Viktor saw the problem was not technical, but with the wearer’s nerves unraveling in the inky depths. He devised a chem-shunt helm that allowed an operator on the surface to bypass the wearer’s fear response and, effectively, control the diver. A heated discussion between Viktor and Jayce on free will and mental enslavement turned bitter - almost violent - and the two vowed never to work together again.

Jayce reported the incident to the college masters, and Viktor was censured for violating basic human dignity - though, in his eyes, his work would have saved many lives. He was expelled from the college, and retreated to his old laboratory in Zaun, disgusted by the narrow-minded perceptions of Piltover’s inhabitants. Alone in the depths, Viktor sank into a deep depression, enduring a traumatic period of introspection for many weeks. He wrestled with the ethical dilemma he now faced, finding that, once again, human emotion and weakness had stood in his way. He had been trying to help, to enhance people beyond their natural capabilities to avoid error and save lives. Revelation came when he realized that he too had succumbed to such emotions, allowing his naive belief that good intentions could overcome ingrained prejudice to blind him to human failings. Viktor knew he could not expect others to follow where he did not go first, so, in secret, he operated on himself to remove those parts of his flesh and psyche that relied upon or were inhibited by emotion.

When the surgery was done, almost no trace of the young man who had traveled to Piltover remained. He had supplanted the majority of his anatomy with mechanical augmentations, but his personality had also changed. His idealistic hope to better society was refined into an obsession with what he called the Glorious Evolution. Viktor now saw himself as the pioneer of Valoran's future - an idealized dream where man would renounce flesh in favor of superior hextech augmentations. This would free humanity from fatal errors and suffering, though Viktor knew it was a task that would not be completed easily or quickly.

He threw himself into this great work with a vengeance. He used technological augmentations to help rebuild Zaunites injured in accidents, perfected breathing mechanisms, and worked tirelessly to reduce human inefficiency by decoupling physicality from emotion. His work saved hundreds of lives, yet seeking Viktor’s help could be dangerous, as his solutions often brought unexpected consequences.

But if you were desperate, Viktor was the man you went to.

Some in Zaun, hearing fragments of his philosophy and seeing the successes of his work, saw him as a messianic figure. Viktor couldn’t care less for them, viewing their quasi-religious cult as an aberration; yet another reason to eliminate emotional foibles and the belief in that which could not be empirically proven.

After a toxic event in the Sump saw hundreds of men and women in the Factorywood transformed into rabid psychotics, Viktor was forced to use a powerful soporific to sedate the victims and bring them back to his labs to try and undo the damage. The toxins had begun to eat away portions of their brains, but Viktor was able to slow the degenerative process by opening up their craniums and employing machinery to slowly filter their bloodstreams of poison. The technology available to him wasn’t up to the task, and Viktor knew many people were going to die unless he found a way to greatly enhance his purgative machinery.

As he fought to save these people, he detected a surge in hextech energy from Piltover and saw immediately that this could give him the power he needed. He followed the powerful energy surge to its source.

Jayce’s lab.

Viktor demanded Jayce hand over the source of this power, a pulsing crystal from the Shuriman desert. But his former colleague refused, leaving Viktor no option but to take it by force. He returned to Zaun and hooked the strange crystal to his machinery, readying a steam golem host for each afflicted person in case their body gave out under the stress of the procedure. Empowered by the new crystal, Viktor’s machines went to work and, gradually, the damage from the toxins began to reverse. His work would save these people - in a manner of speaking - and had Viktor retained more than a fragment of his humanity, he might have celebrated. As it was, the barest hint of a smile was all he allowed himself.

Before the process could complete, a vengeful Jayce burst in and started smashing the laboratory with an energized hammer. Knowing an arrogant fool like Jayce would never listen to reason, Viktor ordered the automatons to kill Jayce. The battle was ferocious, and only ended when Jayce shattered the crystal Viktor had taken, bringing the entire warehouse down in an avalanche of steel and stone, thus ending the existence of those Viktor was trying to save. And for this, Jayce returned to Piltover, feted as a hero.

Viktor escaped the destruction of the laboratory, and returned to his mission of bettering humanity by ridding it of its destructive emotional impulses. In Viktor’s mind, Jayce’s impetuous attack only proved the truth of his cause and strengthened his desire to unburden humanity of the failings of flesh. Viktor did send chem-augmented thugs to raid Jayce’s laboratory not long afterward. This was - Viktor told himself - not for revenge, but to learn if there were any more shards of the Shuriman crystal he could use for the advancement of mankind. The raid was unsuccessful, however, and Viktor thought no more of Jayce.

Instead, he intensified his efforts to find ways in which humanity could be shepherded beyond their emotional weaknesses and brought into a new, more reasoned stage of their evolution. Such researches sometimes transgress the boundaries of what would be considered ethical in Piltover (and Zaun), but they are all necessary steps in bringing about Viktor's Glorious Evolution.

[longearedhare]

Rating how long I think The Locked Tomb characters would last in a zombie apocalypse:

For practical considerations this is a non-necromancy universe and the zombies are walking-dead style (slow and stupid but can very much kill you if you’re being stupid or if there are a lot of them)

Camilla Hect: 10/10. Camilla would make it a solid eight seasons in any zombie show and is effectively the “Michonne” (most badass walking dead character) of the series. She’s practical and silent, and swords are a great weapon for zombies because you won’t attract more of them by making a lot of noise.

Palamedes Sextus: 6/10 ONLY because of Camilla, who refuses to let him die. Without Cam he is a 3/10. He probably ends up killed off by another character or sacrificing himself so that Camilla can escape from a giant horde of zombies. As a plus, his first aid is impeccable so everyone likes him.

Gideon Nav: 7/10. She’s strong and fast but tends to make impulsive decisions, especially when dealing with Harrowhark or any children. She’s your “Daryl Dixon” of the series because she’s scrappy. Makes it longer than she should because she’s a lucky bastard. DO NOT give her a gun because she will start firing it and attract all the zombies.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus: 2/10. The only way this woman is surviving is if she finds her way into a safe compound, and even then she’s so cantankerous that she’s constantly in danger of being thrown out. On the plus side, she and palamedes are the two most likely to find a “cure” or vaccine against the zombies.

Naberius Tern: 0/10. Dies immediately because he walks up to a zombie and makes fun of it.

Coronabeth Tridentarius: 6/10. She survives much longer than she should because other people like her but ultimately gets killed in a self-sacrificing situation.

Ianthe Tridentarius: ?/10. There are too many ways for this to go.

Abigail Pent: 4/10. She stands a decent chance if she makes it into a compound but has few practical skills beyond coercing everyone into working together.

Magnus Quinn: 3/10. Everyone loves him but he has the same factors as Abigail, and if she kicks it he would not make it another 2 hours without her.

Silas Octakiseron: 0/10. He offs himself as soon as he hears about people turning into zombies so he doesn’t get “corrupted.”

Colum Asht: 6/10. He’s a zombie killing machine but he can’t really do anything without a leader so one of the more conniving characters (Ianthe?) uses him as a human shield at some point.

Pyrrha Dve: 8/10. She’s an absolute badass and extremely resourceful. Seeing as she was once a cop, she would quite literally be the “Rick Grimes” of this situation. Fulfills the leadership role beautifully. Probably killed by another character.

[i-gwarth]

There is a future for "the good ones"

Bastion is such a weird little outlier among X-men characters. He has a damn-near-incomprehensible, mystical-technological-timetravelling nonsense backstory that requires you to read like 30 other comics to understand - exactly the kind of convoluted 1990s comics bullshit that the MCU adaptations have tried to steer clear of for two decades now. I didn't actually expect them to actually adapt him for this season. But ultimately I kind of love how they play him in the series.

He's streamlined - a boring, soft-spoken little middle-manager type who plans out a near-perfect encirclement of mutancy in preparation for a purge.

Here's a bigot who seems both rational and capable of compromise. In stark contrast with shrieking racists like Creed and Gyrich, or conflicted oopsie-I-made-a-genocide-machine concerned citizens like Trask, Bastion employs genocide as a tool rather than an end goal. "If we've accepted that the presence of mutants is inevitable, how much more ground are we willing to cede?" he asks. And then he answers "As little as possible."

Not the extermination of a whole race of people. Simply its management - setting up a system where they can be made into non-threatening, productive members of society. It's enhancing rather than upsetting the status-quo, assuaging the existential fears of polite humans who just have some concerns, and backing up that system with as much genocidal violence as is required to make it work. Very clean, very neat, very Schneizel-pilled.

If this sounds familiar it's because it's the same system of thinking that people employ to declare how colonialism is over, while benefitting from the extraction of cheap resources out of former colonized nations; we haven't ended colonialism, we've merely streamlined it and made it more efficient. "It's stupid to waste resources that we can use."

Bastion is the endpoint of genocidal centrism. A little ethnic cleansing is required to make the machine work, and the machine - making it more streamlined, more efficient - is the best we can possibly hope for, so don't raise your voice at me!

Cable describing the future world that Bastion built as a "utopia" is actually a bit of an understated revelation here. It's exactly the kind of thing a centrist with a pang of guilty conscience might use as an excuse to close their eyes to the violence required to build this system. Much like how an abolitionist in the past, being witness to the horrors of slavery and colonial abuse, might view the participation of colonized or enslaved minorities in global capitalism as his end goal.

X-Men '97 can't escape the fact that it's produced under a Disney near-monopoly of modern media. This is the same company that gave us Karli true-leftism-is-killing-civilians Morgenthau and other childish takes on modern political extremes. In that context, Bastion is an improvement.

He might also be a jab from the showrunners at the Disney company itself (give them as little as possible, as late as possible, and they'll be grateful for it; they'll call it a utopia) but I can't prove that.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 3

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Murderbot Diaries series (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and other stories) by Martha Wells

Endorsement from submitter: "My favorite sci-fi spacefuture world where being queer + polyam is normal and yet the protag is still queer in its own special way <3"

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

Science fiction, queernorm, novella, series, adult

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Endorsement from submitter: "One of the most perfect novellas I have ever read"

With the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama, Nghi Vo's The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women.

A young royal from the far north, is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

Fantasy, politics, metanarrative, secondary world, novella, adult

[lordofmelancholy]

Arcane AU: Silent Frontiers

Guess who got a little silly. . .and accidentally created a new Timebomb AU?

Arcane: Silent Frontiers is a survival horror AU that introduces the location of Zaun as an old mining town buried deep within the heart of the Appalachian Wilderness. Now fallen into drastic disrepair following its containment as a Government Exclusion Zone, the resident’s of Zaun still trapped within the zone now must work together to survive as strange occurrences begin happening within the woods they once called home. 

OVERVIEW

Zaun: Location: Appalachia. Inspired by games such as The STALKER Series, Resident Evil, Fallout 76 and even with some homages to Dead Space, Arcane Silent Frontiers story follows Ekko and Jinx, two survivor's living within the Zaun Exclusion Zone, a once a wealthy and successful mining town famous for its scenic views and vast cave networks rich in raw materials.

Once one of the suppliers for the wealthiest mines in the country, it now sits as a bleak remnant of Appalachia's history and Piltover's storied past. Since the containment of not only it but the surrounding area, Zaun has been suddenly cut off from the rest of the world. While some people start to panic, a small group of citizens tries to maintain some semblance of peace and order, while also attempting to learn the truth about the containment, the purpose behind it -- and, most importantly, how to escape it. 

Arcane Silent Frontiers' story follows Ekko and Jinx, two survivor's living (and doing their best) within the Zaun Exclusion Zone. With the town now left to rot however, Ekko and Jinx now seek escape as a brewing faction war and the presence of more hostile monsters continues to grow from within the Zone almost everyday. However, peace outside the Zone may not be as concrete as many such as them hope as the ever-progressive city and last hope of Zaun, Piltover, may not be faring as well as people may dream of.  

Piltover: Location: Appalachia. Inspiration: Umbrella Corp. Murkoff Corp. Ah Piltover. The industrial anchor of Appalachia, Piltover is highly recognized for the city's cultural, educational, healthcare, and technological resources, and is one of the largest cities in Appalachia. A beacon of hope for all and  a cultural center that's known for its trade, craftsmanship, and forward-thinking, Piltover is thought by many to be the ideal city.

However, things are not as they seem. One disaster never comes without another. Where Volcanoes erupt, snow and cold often follow and with it come disease and famine. And where progress grow’s, so too grows wider the road to hell paved with good intentions. And nowhere is that more shown then in the underbelly and inner workings of Piltover's higher up society.  

Once a city dedicated to the betterment of mankind, Piltover's idea of what the term “betterment” means, has become very obscure as of late. No thanks given due to their “partnership” with a very-ruthless cut-throat. On it’s own Piltover thrives, with influence in the productions and sales of cosmetics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, industrial machine production, consumer products, health foods, the transportation industry and tourism. 

However, Piltover’s large array of subsidiaries once often thought typical for large-scale corporations, is in actuality purposely built to cover up illegal activities- such as the development of biological weaponry for militaries across the world as well as Human Testing of many of their BOW products, no thanks in part due to NOXUS getting their fingers into everything.

NOXUS (MILITARY BRANCH) Location: ??? Inspiration: Earthgov (Dead Space) There's always a bigger fish in the sea But sometimes even the biggest fish have to watch out.

Oh Noxus, whatever would our lives be without you? Well I don't know about our lives, but I can certainly tell you that Piltover and Zaun’s world's would definitely be a lot quieter for sure without them.

NOXUS in Silent Frontier stands not so much different then it’s show-counterpart. Led still by Ambessa, they are the secondary antagonists of Silent Frontiers following the revelation that they have intended to weaponize the achievements of Piltover for their own gain, even using Zaun as a testing ground. (Because remember kids, if people say the Government would never do that, there's a chance either they already have or are thinking about doing it and just haven't done it yet.) Piltover however has since turned a blind eye to many of NOXUS’ plans solely because let's face it, money talks bullshit walks and everyone knows there's at least a few fat-cats who wouldn't give a shit about anything as long as their revenue is intact. And Noxus is a BIG spender with an interest in BOW’s and such. Throughout the story however, it’s no surprise that NOXUS is simply using Piltover for it’s own gain much like in the show; seeing Piltover as a goldmine especially after a discovery team in the city finds something in particular that piques their interest.

However, their control is waning and beginning to loosen. A couple of their top scientists are either dead (either by their hands or by the governments) or have now gone AWOL and it's only a matter of time before the screws give way and the metal bends. . . ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS: (Please note that this is not a list of all the characters in this AU. Simply just the ones I actually have idea's for. If you want i might post up things later on down the lines asking for help with others if anyone would like to shoot an idea at me. Otherwise I will chat about them off and on in posts in the future.)

Jayce and Heimerdinger The Student and the Teacher The only two remaining members of their class left now only to be survivors and reluctant heroes looking to make amends for their mistakes. One of them appears to be looking for something. . . one can only hope he finds it before it's too late. Viktor Inspiration: Michael Altman (Dead Space) He who leads The Father of Holy Union The Forced Prophet. A Reluctant man who once only sought to do good in his life. Now he is lucky enough if he even remembers his life. Though one thing is for certain. . .he remembers something clearly. . .and that is that he seems to be. . missing something. . .

Isha

Inspiration: Ellie Williams (The Last of Us 1) Clementine (Telltale’s the Walking Dead) Newt (Aliens 2) Joel Miller (The Last of Us 1) A brave, albeit quiet child, Isha has grown up in this harsh world and it is all she has ever known. Wise way beyond her years and highly capable of taking care of herself and those around her, Isha finds it hard to gain attachments towards people following immense heartbreak in her life, and doesn’t believe she’ll ever find what she is missing. However the Zone is strange and much like a phoenix, beauty comes even after everything burns. . so maybe there is hope for her after all.

Additional Notes:

Mute and Partially Deaf in one ear due to Birth defects.

Still retains hearing in the left ear but is highly sensitive to loud noises; thought to be a sign of Auditory recruitment syndrome or hyperacusis. Whatever the case, loud noises will often make her miserable and jumpy.

Speaks mainly through sign language.

Actually didn’t really like Jinx when they first met despite the connection the pair apparently have, (attachment issues). 

Vi Steadfast, Strong-Hearted, Strong-Willed and Strong-Headed, Vi has managed to remain a kind, caring and passionate individual who strives to live life to the fullest now that life tends to be immensely uncertain. Her demeanor is generally a sense of reserved joyous despite her apparent “brutish nature” and as such she can be very forward, having no fear of loudly proclaiming her love of being alive and how much she cares for those close to her. However, despite her relatively gentle and somewhat reserved nature, Vi is a very physical person with little-to-no reservations about getting into a brawl if provoked. She can be impulsive and easy to goad, and may lose sense and reason when confronting people she despises. Her harsh background has made her tough, but despite that she hasn't fully lost her compassion. So don't let it be fooled. Her love for those close to her is the only thing keeping her going, and she’s hoping to come out of this with a better understanding of certain people. Including her sister. . .

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Ping list for people who said they wanted to see this @ryototsukaitwoswords @2xhbergggg @reallyhappycrown @lbulldesigns (I think you said you wanted to see it, if you werent then enjoy the free ping XD)

[danbensen]

I’m trying something new here, which is to write off the cuff, with little editing, and press the “post” button without much thought. I’m doing so because this is the first spare moment I’ve had to respond to 

Bassoe’s response to my review of C.M. Kosemen’s soon-to-be published book All Tomorrows, and I don't want to let this interesting conversation wither on the vine.

If you had trouble following that last sentence, it’s enough that you know this: we’re talking about the evolutionary future of humanity.

The Machine-God Scenario

Bassoe talks about “machine-gods...obsessed with tending to the well-being of an inferior species” where “the only remaining selection pressure is desire to reproduce.”

Another selective pressure would be to make ourselves adorable to the machine-gods. Perhaps the gods have a template for what they consider to be human, in which case we'll only be able to evolve in ways that don't deviate from that template. I'm reminded of a Stephen Baxter story (Mayflower II) in which humans on a generation ship turn into sub-sapient animals, but they still press buttons on the control panel because that behavior is rewarded by the ship's AI.

The Super-Tech Scenario

But I agree that even without a super-tech future where all our material needs are met, the availability of contraception means that there's a selective advantage to people who don't use contraception. There are many ways for evolution to make that happen. An instinctive desire for babies or an instinctive aversion to contraception are two such ways. I remember a Zach Weinersmith cartoon where he jokes about future humans with horns on their penises that poke holes in condoms, but of course any such physical adaptation won't be able to keep up with technological innovation. We will have to *want* babies.

Another option is (ala Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos) that future humans aren't smart enough to use contraception.

The Artificial Womb Scenario

In this case, I think the most selected-for humans are the ones that are most efficiently produced by the artificial wombs. Maybe it's easier to pump out limbless grubs, which are fitted with cyborg arms (see John C. Wright's Myrmidons in his Count to the Eschaton Sequence). The form they take will depend on the parameters of the machines' programming. (see also Vanga-Vangog's The Endpoint)

The Collapse Scenario

I think this scenario is unlikely. If "life, uh, finds a way," then intelligence finds even more ways. When one resource runs out, we find another. The mere fact that you don’t know what the next resource is just means we haven’t found it yet.

But say for the sake of argument that there's a hard limit to technological progress (ala Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky) or science really is like mining, and it takes infinitely increasing resources to make the next marginal gain in technology. In both cases, you'd expect the graph of human advancement to look like a population when it hits carrying capacity. Exponential growth (we're doing that now) followed by a cycle of die-offs and re-growths, converging to a horizontal mean.

With no ability to innovate, natural selection would take over from technological progress. Once we’ve eaten all the meat and potatoes, there will be strong selection for people who can digest grass. I would expect humans in this case to diversify until our descendants occupy nearly every niche, absorbing most of the matter and energy available on Earth (at least). Whether these people are intelligent or not...probably not. @simon-roy seems to be hinting in this direction with his masterful comic series Men of Earth.

But I don't actually think collapse is likely. I bet that our population (and technological advancement) will not hit an asymptote, but will instead as progress according to a power law, as with the bacteria in Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiment.

The Mogul Scenario

Bessoe asks about a future in which “our cultural norms stick around indefinitely, those who generate more profit reproduce,” which I very much doubt.

In 20th century America, the more money you made, the fewer children you had. Now, it seems there's a saddle-shaped distribution, with the very poorest and the very richest women having the most children per woman. This is sure to change again, and faster than evolution can keep up. Perhaps you could say that if contraception pushes us to evolve an instinctive desire to have more children, and rich or powerful people will be in positions to gratify these instincts, then whatever traits make someone rich and powerful will be selected for.

Maybe, but now's a good time to go back to the Reich Lab's "Pervasive findings of directional selection," summarized here by the illustrious Razib Khan.

In comparing ancient to modern DNA, the Reich Lab found evidence for selective pressure in humans in Europe since the end of the Ice Age: increased intelligence, increased height, decreased organ fat, increased walking speed, decreased susceptibility to schizophrenia, increased immunity to many diseases, and, funnily, increased tendency to home-ownership and university education.

Obviously people weren't going to college in the Chalkolithic, but whatever traits make someone likely to go to college now have been selected for since the arrival of agriculture in Europe. You can paint a plausible picture of the sort of people who were most reproductively successful in the past six thousand years, and there is even some evidence for selection in the range of 1-2 thousand years. Aside from obvious things like immunity to smallpox and Bubonic plague, Europeans have gotten paler and blonder, and more of us are able to digest lactose than in Roman times.

But the 21st century is very different from the 1st, which in turn was very different from the pre-agricultural -70th. Maybe you can say that being smart, strong, and disease resistant have always been good, and being tall and baby-faced gets you some sexual selection (almost everyone seems to have evolved shorter jaws and lost their robust brow-ridges in parallel). So we can imagine future humans who just all look gorgeous.

read on (and see the pictures)