#at least its more legible or whatever

[epicawesomewin-art2]

he was just trying to be polite

[moonshinemagpie]

I forgive you for everything AI I take it all back give me the library of alexandria plsssss

EDIT:

Folks are saying there's a pay wall on the article so basically: There's this villa that's thought to have belonged to Julius Caesar's father-in-law, and it has multiple floors of a well-stocked library filled with scrolls that were scorched by the same Mount Vesuvius eruption that buried Pompeii.

There's no way to safely unroll these scrolls, but since 1999 we've been examining them with infrared, x-rays, CT scans, and other methods that have helped us see the scrolls' ink without unrolling them. And now AI is showing the potential to decipher these scrolls even more.

Also, scholars apparently nickname these scrolls things like 'Banana Boy' and 'Fat Bastard,' even though they're sometimes revealed to be, like, The Odyssey or the Book of Leviticus.

I additionally learned that "papyrologist" is a possible job title to have.

Another thing that touches me is that we first found these scrolls in the 1700s and mostly had the foresight to keep them intact and preserved until we developed the tech to examine them safely.

Excerpt:

The first word to be found, announced on October 12th, was “porphyras”, which means “purple” in ancient Greek.

...

Many fragments turned out to belong to texts written by a Greek philosopher called Philodemus of Gadara. Until then, they had been known only from mentions in other works. (Cicero, though, was a fan of his poetry.)

...

Mr Friedman and Daniel Gross, another entrepreneur, launched the Vesuvius Challenge in March, with a prize fund of $250,000. Other tech-industry donors soon increased that to over $1m. To get the ball rolling, an initial challenge was posted on Kaggle, a website that hosts data-science contests, to improve the ink-detection model developed by Dr Parsons.

More than 1,200 teams entered. Many competed in subsequent challenges to improve the tools for ink detection and “segmentation”, as the process of transforming the 3d scans into 2d images of the scroll’s surface is known. Scrutinising segmented images from Banana Boy, Dr Handmer realised that the crackle pattern signified the presence of ink. Mr Farritor used this finding to fine-tune a machine-learning model to find more crackles, then used those crackles to further optimise his model, until eventually it revealed legible words.

Mr Nader used a different approach, starting with “unsupervised pretraining” on the segmented images, asking a machine-learning system to find whatever patterns it could, with no external hints. He tweaked the resulting model using the winning entries from the Kaggle ink-detection challenge. After seeing Mr Farritor’s early results, he applied this model to the same segment of Banana Boy, and found what appeared to be some letters. He then iterated, repeatedly refining his model using the found letters. Slowly but surely its ability to find more letters increased. All the results were assessed by papyrologists before the prizes were awarded.

No less important than the technology is the way the effort has been organised. It is, in effect, the application of the open-source software-development method, Mr Friedman’s area of expertise, to an archaeological puzzle. “It’s a unique collaboration between tech founders and academics to bring the past into the present using the tools of the future,” he says. Dr Seales reckons the spur of competition means the equivalent of ten years’ worth of research has been done in the past three months.

An active community of volunteers is now applying the new tools to the two scanned scrolls. Mr Friedman thinks there is a 75% chance that someone will claim the grand prize of $700,000, for identifying four separate passages of at least 140 characters, by the end of the year. “It’s a race now,” he says. “We will be reading entire books next year.”

Being able to read Banana Boy would indeed just be the beginning. Only a small fraction of Greek and Roman literature has survived into modern times. But if the hundreds of other scrolls recovered from the villa could be scanned and read using the same tools, it would dramatically expand the number of texts from antiquity. Dr Seales says he hopes the Herculaneum scrolls will contain “a completely new, previously unknown text”. Mr Friedman is hoping for one of the lost Homeric epic poems in particular.

Even more important, all this might in turn revive interest in excavating the villa more fully, says Mr Friedman. The existing scrolls were recovered from a single corner of what scholars believe is a much larger library spread across several floors. If so, it might contain thousands of scrolls in Greek and Latin.'

[polaroidtelevision]

Currently in the nurses office and nonverbal and talking via notes app because I'm overwhelmed and it got me thinking about autistic Eddie Munson going nonverbal when all the shits going on and hes scared and overwhelmed and frustrated because he can’t talk and Eddie Munson is always talking. But he can’t explain himself or what happened and everyone is talking at once and asking if he’s okay and what happened and all he wants to say is it wasn’t me, I didn’t kill her but he can’t and everyone's like "whats wrong? are you okay? did they hurt you?? why can't you talk?" Because none of the kids have seen him in a state like this yet. The questions just makes it worse and Eddie's shaking his head and his hands are trembling while he tried to make gestures to show hes fine just can’t talk and eventually someone shoves a pen and pad of paper into his hands and so he’s trying to write out that he isn’t a murderer but his hands are shaking too much for it to really be legible at all and everyone is still talking and its chaos, at least it is until Steve shouts for everyone to shut up in that tone that he never uses unless hes actually pissed or its something serious.

It finally goes quiet and Eddie breathes a sigh of relief and keeps writing, still shaking, rocking in place a bit and Steve’s like this isn't helping, guys. And this is hard of hearing steve, our dear, amazing hard of hearing Steve, who recognized one of Eddies earlier frantic gestures. So he crouches beside Eddie, slowly reaches for his trembling hand that's producing messy handwriting, and takes whatever he's writing with and now eddies just like staring and steves like "breathe, dude." And asks if he knows sign language. Theres a pause and finally, Eddie nods. Steve, who started learning sign in 1985, immediately smiles a little and says, "Dont write then, just sign. Me and Rob can translate for you." And hence continues the "you wont believe me" “try us” conversation from the show, just in sign language. And from then on Steve and Eddie just stick close together, communicating a lot via sign and getting to know each other a lot more then they did in the show.

[autisticlancemcclain]

How was the midterm? :/

insane actually. im an english major but a lot of the books i have to read are like super super boring OR more than 200 yrs old which i would love to be able to read but simply cannot. i love reading and if i like the book ill gobble it the hell up but i hate so many of them. so i never bother to read the books and this class was no exception.

but im usually rly good at attending and participating in class. this alone will carry me thru the class, every time, bc all we're doing is discussing the book and i read the summary anyway. like i'm telling you i've been doing this for YEARS, and the summary gives u the gist of the book and class tells u what the prof thinks is important the rest is irrlevant.

HOWEVER.

this particular class starts at eight in the goddamn morning. and i commute. waking up at 7am for my 9am classes is no problem, but for whatever reason i physically cannot wake up at 6am consistently. like i am setting the alarm and it is straight up not waking me up. so i keep missing the fucking class. when i tell u i was unprepared for this midterm worth 25% of my grade i mean i was UNPREPARED.

luckily if there's one thing im good at its bullshitting. i sat my ass down for hours and combed thru the sparknotes chapter by chapter and wrote 40 pages of notes (20 pages written out twice bc my handwriting is dogshit and i had to rewrite them so they were legible clown emoji) for 2 novels. exam was open book but bc id written it out so many times i had everything memorised. managed to finish all four essays on time and i'll get a 70 at least 😎

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #15 – Vietnam: A New History by Christopher Goscha

This was my third history book of the year, and is about what you’d expect from the title and knowing it’s written by an academic historian – right down to the solid 100 pages of notes and citations at the end of it. I honestly picked it up because, well, because there was a tumblr post with a really intriguing quote from it floating around a few weeks back, and because I haven’t read any East/South-East Asian histories in a couple of years, and most of all because my library had a copy with no one ahead of me in the line for it.

The basic conceit of the book is that a great many English (and French) language histories that purport to be about Vietnam are in fact about the Vietnam War. That is, they are in truth about the years from 1945 to 1975, with the whole rest of history being either prelude or denouement, and, what’s worse, that they’re at least implicitly histories of Vietnam from the perspective of Americans. So it is trying to be a corrective, writing from the viewpoint of the Vietnamese and paying more attention to internal developments and contradictions than either Cold War grand strategy or the minutia of military operations. It...mostly succeeds?

The book’s very much...I want to say postcolonial, but honestly it’s been so long since I was in an actual seminar I’m probably butchering the term. Anyway, it is very suspicious of both colonial mythology and the sort of patriotic, anticolonial propaganda that a distorted version of is probably the median western anglophone’s only exposure to Vietnamese history. The book Fire in the Lake comes in for a lot of criticism, both in its own right and just as a synecdoche for the whole corpus of work that subordinated careful history or sociology with presenting Vietnamese history as one monolithic tale of glorious resistance to foreign imperialism – which, whatever its merits as political interventions in the America they were published in (then doing its level best to bomb the country into a corpse-strewn hellscape), simplify and exaggerate the actual history they’re telling to the point of deception.

Which really starts with the idea that there’s a singular, coherent Vietnam that has a history vanishing into the ancient past, let alone one always on the side of resistance and independence. The first several chapters of the book are devoted to Vietnam’s precolonial history, with a great deal of emphasis paid to the fact that its present borders are the result of a multi-generational imperial project of conquest, forced assimilation and mass settlement that was still active and ongoing as the French first moved in to colonize Cochinchina. This is complimented by an admittedly slightly tacked-on feeling section at the end of the main narrative that’s basically an explicit counterhistory, covering the same period of the rest of the book from the perspective of the Cham and the highland peoples who ultimately lost out to the Viet and Vietnamese state-making projects.

The book makes a whole organizing principle out of analogizing this Viet colonial project with first the Chinese (both Han and Ming) and later the French colonization of both the Viet and the whole region. It’s very interested in how they interacted with each other, as well – how post-Ming Viet rulers used Confucian/Han high culture to differentiate themselves from other SEAsian peoples and justify conquering them, how the French often continued and intensified campaigns of Viet settlement so as to have easily legible labor to exploit, how the romanized script introduced to make colonial administration easier became the medium of nationalist mass politics, that sort of thing.

The meat of the book is dedicated to the French colonial period and to a lesser extent the wars of independence, focused on the different national and colonial projects dedicated to developing or creating a ‘Vietnam’ or ‘Indochina’ or ‘Tonkin’ or what have you. Something it keeps returning to is that neither the French nor the Viet nor the various highland peoples ever had any singular, unified project they were all united behind – internal contradictions were often just as great as the conflicts between them.

Which, even if I didn’t know for a fact, I more or less took as a given regarding the colonized. But I really hadn’t realized how riven with contradictions and self-defeating the whole French colonial project was? There actually were fairly significant constituencies among the Vietnamese intelligentsia and bourgeoisie for the whole schema of colonial republicanism, for a liberal capitalist or social democratic state in some sort of wider French orbit. The French, in turn, used them or imprisoned them seemingly at random, and gave them basically nothing but words. The Catholic Church was better at indigenizing its hierarchy than the French Republic. They made the British in India look like reasonable honest brokers! (The end result of all this being, of course, that anyone who’d been willing to work with the French on anything but mercenary terms ended up marginal and delegitimized.)

The reasoning is pretty obvious (in that it mostly just boils down to ‘le racisme’), but it is kind of interesting how right up until the end the French colonial authorities were convinced Vietnam was a land of naturally conservative, traditionalist Confucian peasants, and that if they could just get a pliant Emperor to play the part and establish his ‘natural connection’ to the mandarinate and the peasantry the whole nation would be at peace. (Relatedly, Bo Dai’s whole biography reads like a parable).

Goscha’s natural sympathies are pretty clearly with what you might call the cultural intelligentsia, especially as the book moves through the war years. The members of the Literary Self Strengthening Movement, the writers of pacifist novels, poets and academics. The tragedy of inconvenient artists, whose perspective on the war was too bleak or mournful for either the Communists or the Nationalists and who ended up repressed regardless of which side of the partition they were on, gets a particular focus.

As does the similar fate of liberal democratic nationalists – the political tendencies Goscha pretty explicitly sympathizes with. He holds something of a grudge for how the Communist Party formed coalitions or alliances with these groups then systematically sidelined or violently suppressed them as soon as it was tactically convenient – but he’s also pretty clear-eyed that the French, Diem regime, and Americans did more or less the exact same thing as needed. The whole process is portrayed as a bit of a tragedy.

Despite the book’s professed intentions, the war years still eat up something like a third of its page count – but in its defence, those pages are far more interested in nation-building an cultural shifts than the specifics of military operations (with the two exceptions of Dien Bien Phu and the Tet Offensive, for obvious reasons). As far as high politics go, the book loses interest in the Nationalists almost entirely after the fall of Diem, which has the effect of portraying the American client governments that followed as hopeless and purely mercenary even compared to the plantation owners who collaborated with the French.

The sections covering post-reunification Vietnam are easily the book’s weakest, which is rather a shame. It’s essentially one long epilogue – the section on the Chinese invasion and the events preceding it was tantalizing and just crying out for more details (and I, uh, did not realize the degree to which the government just fell back on discourses of near-explicit racism and collective responsibility re: the large Chinese ethnic minority, especially in the south).

The rest of the book after that – there’s a passage I read at an impressionable age, about how every history book since the ‘90s has been obliged to end with a hopeful chapter about the connective power of the internet and the rising middle class and the irresistible spread of freedom and democracy, and how as time goes on more and more things happen but that future never seems to really get any closer. This is not a perspective I’d really generally endorse (certainly less so now than in peak End of History years), but it’s one that really comes to mind reading the book’s perspective on the years since the economic reforms and opening to global markets. Power and government policy are talked about in vague, general terms, and individual activists and civil society members are highlighted and lionized instead. The talk about how the communist party has functionally transitioned into a class-iniclusive formation legitimized by nationalism and consistent economic growth and how that growth might in time force it to liberalize sounds identical to how people talked about China in the 2000s.

(The tragic irony that, from 10,000 feet, the United States has everything it might have wanted out of Vietnam – strategic partner against China, enthusiastic participant in the mechanisms of global capitalism – and killed millions of people over a decade of warfare for functionally nothing is repeatedly remarked upon.)

Anyway, that disappointment aside, still a very interesting and informative book. Not one that really lives up to its promise, and its strongest chapters are specifically those focused on the more distant past – but even its weakest chapters still have at least some interesting anecdotes thrown in for colour. Potentially grading a bit generously because I’m comparing this to my last big 600 page history book in my head, but I don’t at all regret reading this one.

[randomspagetti]

[I Will Say Whatever I Need to Keep You Safe]

/Edit: made text more legible

Ik this one is a lil wack but I went with more of a feeling than an idea. I think I'm taking a break from the CurseAu comic, or at the very least taking my time. Basically a synopsis for this au is:

[SPOILERS] (obviously)

Burnt cheese being the only one aware its a simulation and nobody can't return to the real world because of how destroyed their body's are. This happens because GC breaks down and confides in him the fact that nothing is real, which leads to him making the (what he sees as both selfish and for the right reason) selfish choice of digging through the code and erasing GCs, and any other cookies who are aware of the truth, memories to spare them from the mental anguish.

Bros just trying his best 😭 it's almost impossible to grapple with the fact that your reality isn't real and there's no leaving because your irl body is f'ed.

He doesn't let any outsiders in, whether or not their souls are pure. This leads to the main gang breaking in and a very panicked Burnt Cheese rushing to find them and get them out before they, and his friends find out the truth.

Also in this au he does have GCs souljam, to monitor the Virtual World.

[rozcdust]

Come back (to me)

Pairing: Takeomi Akashi x F!Reader

Genre: Crack

Word count: 1.2k

Warnings: Kidnapping, violence, guns being pointed at someone’s face

You get kidnapped, and the kidnappers send Takeomi the tape. You’re not happy about the money asked for your rerturn.

Kokonoi was the first to arrive at work that day, per usual.

At 11:36 fucking a.m.

The meeting was supposed to start at 10, but everyone really knew that meant it’ll start anywhere from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Fuck’s sake.

Honestly, he should start charging everyone a late fee. How is he supposed to arrive fashionably late with a Pink Drink from Starbucks if every other motherfucker isn’t even there?

Jesus help him.

As he sips his drink, considering just calling everyone one by one to scream in their face, he slams the door to the building open, something snagging at the entrance.

He huffs, assuming the carpet got caught in the door, but as he looks down to correct whatever was wrong, he only finds an envelope there.

He raises an eyebrow.

Picking it up, he inspects it, gently pressing the envelope between his fingers to ensure there wasn’t anything explosive in there, but all he felt is a small, long oval lump.

Turning the envelope around, there was no return address, but Takeomi’s name was written on it in shaky, barely legible handwriting.

Well.

Koko decided to take a plunge, and ripping open the envelope with his teeth, he raised an eyebrow at what he found.

A USB stick.

It couldn’t be anything good.

Fuck.

He better call him.

Takeomi bounced his leg, waiting for the laptop Kokonoi provided to accept and open up its content.

A pop-up opened up, with three files creatively titled ‘video1.avi’, ‘video2.avi’ and ‘video3.avi’ being the only content.

Takeomi took a long, ragged breath as Kokonoi paced behind him, biting his nails, and clicked on the first one.

His stomach churned.

It depicted you, in a dingy warehouse, bound to a chair and duct tape over your mouth, makeup smeared and eyes red and puffy as tears streamed down your face, a man wearing a face mask standing next to you with a gun pointed at your head.

“Well, as you can see, Akashi,” An unfamiliar voice spoke behind the camera, chuckling, “We got something that belongs to you. J, take that shit off her mouth.”

The man standing next to you ripped the duct tape off, visibly making you flinch as a loud sob escaped your mouth, head hung low, shoulders shaking.

Kokonoi cursed behind Takeomi as Takeomi gulped, panic flooding his every sense.

“Please…” Finally, you spoke, teary eyes looking up at the camera, more sobs following, “Please, I don’t know anything!”

“We don’t give a shit about information.” The man next to you, J, scoffed, pressed the gun harder into your temple.

Takeomi felt like he’s been shot.

He knew you were a mistake, he should have kept you away, he shouldn’t have gotten involved with you in the first place, look where that has gotten you- Where it has gotten him.

He found comfort in the fact that besides the tears and smeared makeup, you seemed okay, there were no bruises or cuts visible, so at least they didn’t harm you.

Yet.

He’ll hunt those bastards down and tear them apart limb by limb if they touch a hair on your head.

“We got your bitch, Akashi, and there’s a price to pay for her.” The man behind the camera laughed.

“Please, Omi, help me…” You whimpered out in fear, eyes shut as you tried to collect yourself, “Please, I have an exam on Tuesday, I can’t fail, Takeomi, I’ll have to retake the year! Baby, please…”

Kokonoi quirked an eyebrow.

You’ve got a fucked up sense of priorities, besides, he’s pretty sure your professor would have taken ‘Being held hostage’ as a valid enough excuse for not attending the exam.

The sick bastard next to you laughed.

“J, untie her hands. Give her the ransom note.”

The man in the mask did as asked, letting you rub your sore wrists for a second before shoving a notepad into your hands.

You flinch, taking a shaky breath, but quickly rubbing the tears away with the back of your hand, your eyes flicking down, beginning to read.

“Akashi,” You stop, letting out another sob, “If you ever want to see your whore alive again-“

You seemingly broke down again, bawling and whimpering, tears dripping off your cheeks onto your lap.

“Leave 6 million yen-“

You stopped crying to make a face of confusion, looking up and glancing at the man still pointing a gun at your head, and the man behind the camera.

“Sorry, mister kidnapper, I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job but- 6? Really?” You raised an eyebrow, wiping the newly formed tears away, “Is that like, a going rate in the industry or…?”

The man in a mask furrowed his brows, insecurely looking at the man behind the camera.

The guy behind the camera cleared his throat.

“Um, there isn’t really an industry? It’s just what we… We thought would be an appropriate amount?”

“Bruh.”

“Like, you’re just some whore Akashi keeps around, no? 6 seems plenty-“

Takeomi clearly saw the look in your eye shift from deep, damning fear into annoyance.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

There she goes.

“First off, I am not a whore, I am the whore. Second, 6 million? Bitch- That’s all you think I’m worth?!” Yelling, you slammed the notepad onto your knees, “Are you fucking for real? Not even like, 10?! Or 20? A nice round number? 6? 6?!”

You started untying your feet, the man in the mask pulling the safety off his gun, an alarmed look on his face.

“Bitch, I don’t know who the fuck think you are but-“

“Get that shit out of my fucking face! You’re being such a fucking beta male right now, I swear to-“ Without a second thought, you smacked the gun out of the man’s hand with the notepad, standing up and continuing to beat the man with now rolled-up notepad.

The video cut off.

“Your bitch is fucking insane.” Kokonoi muttered, standing right behind Takeomi right now.

Takeomi hummed in agreement as he clicked on the second video.

It was just a minute and twenty seconds of you somehow getting ahold of a leg chair and still hitting the masked man.

Oh well.

Video three.

It depicted a now sobbing man, different from the one previously holding a gun to your head.

His voice was the same as the one previously holding the camera.

“Please, Akashi, we fucked up, take her back-“

“Bitch, what you crying about? You look like you cry when you cum too- Jesus fucking- Give me that before I- Hi Omi!” You wrestled out the camera from the man’s hands, shoving him to the ground before graciously offering the guy a few more kicks.

You look up at the camera and smile.

“Hey babe, so, I know this seemed scary and all, no worries though, I will call them an ambulance.” You turn to look back at the masked man, who was clutching both his ribs and his crotch, curled up on the ground, “I may have gone overboard, but oh well. 6 million? Can you fucking imagine? The disrespect- Anyway, I know we had an argument a few days ago, but pinky promise I’ll make it up to you, see you today at 9? Okay, cool cool, send my love to Kaku, mwah mwah, bye!”

The video cut off.

Takeomi sighed.

Yeah, he shouldn’t have been worried.

Crazy and stupid really is his type.

🔖Taglist:

@dilf-city @wakasa-wifey @rinsie @kisekihany @bajifairyy @cryszus @r-xochitl @graythecoffeebean @yukihime-mikeys-girl @mukounisuru-gashadokuro @sunahyejin @haikyuu-simps-assemble @yamaguccitadashi @minoozi @trashmemebitch @frogtits1 @sup-zfam @whydohumansss @xashiui @bontens-whore @nqctre @lumi-does-some-stuff @hana-patata @hxked @erza-uzumaki @sh4nn @sisnot @soushswag @kneeapartman @anahryal @reiners-milkbiddies @satsuri3su @aretheea @bluerskiees @luvjiro @sanchezbloodline @a-toxic-person @lostsomewhereinthegarden @genderfluidkurapika

Requested by @berrychan03

a/n: this is meant to be read as part of Waste It On Me universe but can be read alone 🤧 ALSO THANK YOU FOE THIS REQUEST IT WAS SO FUN TO WRITE OH MY GOD- 😩😩😩💕

[lovemelikerealpeopledo]

Lucius Spriggs is a nobleman HC

my personal hc which i love with all my heart and soul and which seems so real to me is that he is from a noble family. my judgments are based on the behavior of the character in certain situations, and i hope that there are those who also think so.

first of all, let's remember that Lucius knows how to write, can read, and draw beautifully (whatever his drawings are). as far as I know, not everyone could get an education at the beginning of the 18th century (when the series takes place). the ordinary working class had no access to education, and the ordinary family never had books, and no one exchanged letters. even clerical work was available only to those who had money or connections (most often family). for example, in the Russian empire (I am from Ukraine and studied its history), only the children of wealthy citizens or nobles could become clerical officials and any other workers that were in any way connected with writing and papers. to get such an education, one had to either hire personal teachers or attend boarding schools (lyceums), where education costs a lot of money.

the working class never had access to education and even those who lived in the cities rarely knew how to read. such luxury was available only to wealthy merchants, family business owners or doctors, who also did not come from ordinary families. education needs money. much money. and so it has always been.

even if we assume that Lucius learned to write, read, and draw on his own, it still seems unlikely. how? tell me how many of you learned this on your own. to start reading, you must at least learn how letters are read. if his parents are ordinary workers, then they most likely could not even write their own name (they would not need to). and Lucius was able and very legible.

second, his behavior. Lucius is squeamish about blood, does not like to work, and most likely simply does not even know how to do any difficult work. looking at him, I see a man who has never worked and never did anything himself. even household chores seem to him incomprehensible labor. it seems that he will not survive on the street for a week if suddenly he does not have a penny in his pocket. it’s just that a boy from a working-class district cannot be such a kid glove, because in those days children were attracted to real work from the age of 10 (sometimes even earlier). if so, then a Lucius who is at least 17 should be able to do a lot of menial work, and not shirk even the simplest task.

i would also like to remember that Lucius is not inclined to communicate only in obscenities and simple sentences. he can speak in hints, express his thoughts, and formulate sentences. he understands people well, and even with his free attitude to love and sex, he fucks anyone just for the sake of sex. this and much more speaks volumes about his level of education.

also, let's remember how back in the first episodes he was able to tell where to go based on his knowledge of the weather. believe me, a cat man has never been to school and has not been to the sea, he will not know this. to understand such things one needs knowledge in geography, biology, and astronomy. such knowledge is given only in lyceums or colleges.

Lucius, I think, left the house after learning that he was engaged to some noble lady or that his wedding was already planned. such marriages without the consent of the newlyweds themselves were not uncommon in those days among noble families who thought only about purity of blood, status, and wealth. for him, his own freedom is clearly higher than material wealth, therefore this is a completely expected step for him.

call me weird or challenge my headcanon but I can't shake the idea that Lucius Spriggs is a runaway aristocrat from an unwanted marriage.

[virtualcarrot]

[KKIR] Modern AU - Teaching Pains Pt8

Part 7

.

Iruka’s pinned down.

His ears ring.

His ribcage struggles to expand.

He can tell his brain wants to focus on the damage, narrow its priorities to the limits of his battered body. He fights it. There’s the squeal of shoes on vinyl tiles, out there, the scraping of a heavy desk getting knocked askew.

A shin enters his field of vision, too wide to be a child’s.

He grabs it.

“What the--? Let go of me!” Mizuki shouts, trying to pull away.

But Iruka’s grasp is that of the truly desperate.

“Damn it, Iruka, you weren’t supposed to be here. I said let go!”

It takes a kick to the head to get him to comply. Iruka drops his hand, stunned.

“Fuck. Fuck,” Mizuki shouts, clutching his face as he’s forced to reconsider whatever he had planned. He spins on his feet with a frenzied energy. “Just… Stay here. I’ll be back for you. Fuck.”

He leaves.

In the silence that follows, Iruka’s almost tempted to do just that. To lie there, buried under books, and wait for someone to come dig him out. His back hurts so much.

He can’t let Mizuki get his hands on Naruto. Not in the state Mizuki’s in.

Part of the cabinet has landed on a pile of scattered books, propping it a few inches off the floor on one side. It’s room Iruka finds he can leverage to move. He manages to free his second arm and begins crawling.

It’s slow-going. It’s agony. He’s pretty sure he broke at least one rib. His left knee, that he fell on before getting fully crushed, doesn’t feel too hot either.

He gives himself time to catch his breath once he’s out. Those few seconds are at once too short and much, much too long.

The first steps require support from the wall. He begins to pull himself up by the door handle, then adrenaline and endorphins start to kick in and he stands fully.

When he pulls it out of his pocket, he finds the screen of his phone is in a bad way. It takes him a few tries, but he manages to bring up the message application. He types a quick text, prays that it’s legible, and sends it in reply to the most recent person on the list.

He thinks it’s Kakashi.

He hopes it’s Kakashi.

He begins to move and takes stock of the situation as he goes.

The school is dark. Naruto’s out there. Mizuki’s looking for him. It’s unclear where either of them went. The main entrance is unlocked, and is also in plain view from the lobby and its balcony. The nooks and hiding places are inside the building.

He has no way of knowing if Naruto managed to leave, if he’s hiding, or if--Iruka’s chest seizes at the thought--Mizuki has already caught him.

The truth is, Mizuki’s fast. Iruka couldn’t take him in a fight even when uninjured, let alone in his current state. Mizuki’s always been miles ahead in terms of skill, which he knows--he now realizes in the clarity of this betrayal--because Mizuki always made sure to tell him.

But this isn't about skill. This is about Naruto. And if Iruka has to face Mizuki to make sure he’s safe, he’ll do it without a second thought.

He grits his teeth past the fire door and slows its backswing so it doesn't shut too loud.

The humanities wing, his wing, is empty. It’s doubtful that Mizuki’s wasting any time searching any of the locked classrooms, and even more unlikely that Naruto might be hiding nearby. The sound carries, here, past the balcony leading to the atrium, in an infamous acoustic nightmare.

Iruka ducks behind a locker and fishes for his keys, holding them tight in his fist so they don’t jingle. He unlocks his classroom with a wince of apprehension. The click of the latch sounds way too sharp to his ears but nothing moves in response, so he lets go of the breath he was holding and tucks his keys away.

He touches his forehead to the door, strengthening his resolve and compartmentalizing the pain.

Then he kicks a locker, rattles it like it was bumped into, and quickly slips into the classroom, shutting the door quietly behind him.

When he crouches, his knee doesn’t even hurt anymore.

He waits.

He breathes.

Maybe Mizuki didn’t hear. Maybe they’re on the other side of the building. Maybe they’ve already left.

Maybe Iruka is too late.

Or maybe not.

“-isten kid, I don’t want to hurt you,” Mizuki’s voice is saying, pitched loud for someone he’s clearly not sure his words will reach. “But I know you’ve got the book. How about you give it to me, and then we call it quits? Seems fair, yes?”

The sound of his steps stops somewhere around the nearest lockers. For long, excruciating seconds afterwards, no other sound can be heard.

Then Mizuki begins moving again, blatantly agitated.

“I know you’re around here, Naruto!” he snarls, drawing even closer. “Give me the fucking book!”

It’s as close to a perfect opportunity as Iruka’s willing to wait for. He throws open the door with all his weight behind it, catches Mizuki full on the side and sends him staggering back. Caught off guard, Mizuki raises an arm in belated defense.

Iruka’s seen worse openings. He swipes Mizuki’s leg and sends him crashing to the ground.

He doesn’t get to exploit his victory. Betraying him, his own leg also buckles under the effort. He drops to his bruised knee and bites off a groan at the impact.

Mizuki gets up with an open switchblade in hand and cold fury in his eyes.

“You couldn’t have just stayed away? I gave you an out!” he screams, advancing. “You’ve always been so fucking stupid!”

Iruka looks up, breath coming in short pants. He meets his old friend’s eyes with a strange sense of serenity.

“What do you want with Naruto?”

His even tone proceeds to send Mizuki to new heights of agitation, pacing like a beast in a cage of his own making.

“Why would anyone want anything with that moron? Nothing, I want nothing! I want the book! That he was supposed to get for me! But even that he’s too stupid to do right.”

“He’s really not,” Iruka says, not because he feels particularly compelled to defend Naruto--when this is over, they’re going to have words--but because he believes it, and because as long as Mizuki is waving his knife in Iruka’s face, he’s not stopping Naruto from making a full escape.

Mizuki’s eyes narrow meanly, entirely focused on Iruka.

“You see so much of yourself in him, don’t you? You two deserve each other.” Something about his expression falters, then, before a cold, cruel certainty smoothes his face again. “You’re not going to keep quiet about this, are you? Can’t let me have this one win?”

Iruka doesn’t answer, too busy following the line of the knife that’s begun pointing towards him.

“No hard feelings,” Mizuki continues, adjusting his grip in preparation. “Maybe if you’d been kinder to me, I wouldn’t have to do th--”

His words cut off on a heave from a headbut to his midsection.

“Leave Iruka-sensei alone!” Naruto screams, because he’s here, because it’s him shoving his way between them like he doesn’t understand the danger.

Iruka couldn’t conceive of a more terrifying scenario.

But Naruto doesn’t leave, only hunches his shoulders defensively with his back to Iruka, like a tiny fox mistaking itself for a guard dog.

He’s going to die for it. Mizuki is going to kill them, he’s going to kill them both here and Iruka won’t be able to stop it.

He pushes up the best he can, tugging Naruto to his side by the back of his vest, moving to shift his body as a shield between his kid and Mizuki.

The latter straightens with a face so distorted by hate that his features look completely foreign. He gives the knife a little twirl in the air, catching it by the handle with expert ease.

“Wait, wait,” Iruka begs, seized by a renewed sense of urgency. He uses all his remaining strength to push a reluctant Naruto fully behind him, pressing him up against the wall. “We can figure something out.” 

“I already have,” Mizuki replies. “First I take care of you. Then I get paid and move out of the country.”

They’ll never know if he’d have been willing to elaborate. A roar sounds somewhere over by the balcony and from the stairs leading down to the atrium emerges a man, tall and wide-shouldered and a complete stranger to Iruka.

“Move no further, criminal!” the stranger says.

Mizuki’s stance sways at the intrusion, like he’s not sure who to aim his weapon at anymore.

“Who the fuck are you?” he hisses, shoulders raised over to his ears.

 Iruka hasn’t seen him resort to puffing up like this in a long while. It’s a childish stance, unworthy of his skill. It’s also a sign of his increasing disquiet, and Iruka can only hope whatever respite they just gained isn’t ruined by a gesture of desperation.

Naruto makes a little noise in the back of his throat that Iruka cuts short with a twist to his vest, flattening him against the wall.

The stranger draws closer, though he stops at a respectable distance like he can sense Mizuki’s on a hair-trigger.

And then he strikes a pose.

“I am Maito Gai, Noble Green Beast of Konoha.”

Wild eyed like there’s only so much incongruity he can take, Mizuki backs away with a strangled scream.

“How did you even get here?!”

“I let him in,” Kakashi replies darkly from behind, and he wrenches Mizuki’s arm before slamming him face first against a locker.

-

Part 9

[eggfeather]

hello! I really enjoy your art and I was wondering if you would ever consider showing the process?

kinda like a speed paint or a step by step about your style?

Ask and you shall receive!!

I will be demonstrating this is Sunnypelt of SkyClan! heres the time lapse!

To preface i use the default pen brush (set to size 2 w 69% minimum width) for sketching and “fill” brush (also set to size 2 with 100% mid width) on medibang! youll find it if you click the “add brush (cloud)” button

My process has two parts, sketching and colors, i only work in 2 layers total per cat, this process is very easy to break up into more layers, but 2 is easiest and cleanest for me

Starting w the sketch! i use two sketch colors, the lighter one to sketch out my general shapes. this is when i decide the cats individual characteristics, cheek fluffs, eye shapes, expressions, body type, ear type, all of that. its messy and loose. here for sunnypelt i decided to design her after her father sparrowpelt, i gave her most of his shapes, combined with tinyclouds ears, eyebrows and eye shape!

i go over it w a darker color, this is just refining and solidifying it all, its still messy but its very legible (to me at least). sometimes i go through and clean it up but i didnt want to tonight lol

then the colors! this one is where i have more thoughts! i wish i had more in progress shots but whateva! ill just explain my thoughts.

i start by going through with a base color (it doesnt necessarily have to be the final base color but i usually start with that since its easier) for her i used that orangish red color. i decided that by taking sparrowpelts base brown color and making it brighter and lighter. this is something i do a lot when deciding childrens colors, i change some combo of the hue, saturation, and value (rarely all three just to keep it similar enough). i did a similar thing w her darker red stripes, the white was just randomly decided bc it looked nice with the reds, and her eyes are directly picked from sparrowpelt

the lines! i take whatever color is overlapping itself and make it darker and shift it up (you use that color bar) or counter clockwise (if you use the wheel), it makes it look less flat and to me looks aesthetically pleasing

i kinda want to touch on why i make certain color choices too. i do not use straight grays blacks and whites, i think it looks flat and i dont want to look at it, so i always make gray cats just desaturated colors, it looks better! plus its easier to differentiate cats in a line up!

WOW! that was long! srry lol, but i hope i partially answered your question, feel free to ask more questions if clarification is needed :3

[stingyslegslookweird]

A week or so ago, I made a post about Yukari's letter from episode 42 of Kamen Rider Agito, asking if anyone had turned the stylized English it was written in into a font. From what I could find, no one had.

So I did.

Say hello to Limitless Evolution, my first (and so far only) custom font, based off what's more or less the catalyst for the entire plot of the 2001 tokusatsu, Kamen Rider Agito. It's available in both OTF and SVG formats, and I've included the .txt save file for the website I used to make it, in case you want to mess around with that.

left: the screencap from my original post. right: the first paragraph of the letter, typed up in wordpad using the Limitless Evolution font.

And if you're wondering, here's what it says in readable English:

"In the beginning was Theos. Theos divided the light from the darkness, the day from the night, the firmament from the earth, and the land from the sea. Thus the world was finished."

A list of changes I had to make, for those curious:

The letter never uses the letters J, Q, X, and Z, so I had to come up with my own designs for them.

There are no parentheses, mainly because by the time I got to those characters, I couldn't think of any way to make them look good and consistent with the rest of the font.

Idk where else I can mention this but I realized partway through making this that, because all of the characters use straight lines, the Unknown (or whatever entity is responsible for this "language") likely used to write on wax or stone, since straight lines are much easier to legibly write with on those surfaces. Of course, this means there are absolutely no curves anywhere in this font (at least in the custom characters).

You might notice a few re-uses of specific characters here and there in other characters. Had I not done that, I 100% would've gotten burnt out halfway thru and never finished this.

The numerals are obviously not Arabic. I took inspiration from the weird "gang signs" the Unknown do before they commit murder and made the signs for numbers look like fingers on hands. I imagine their counting system works exactly like Arabic/base-10 counting, just with different symbols.

I replaced the tilde with a "does not equal" sign. The tilde sometimes signifies "is approximately equal to", and I figured the Unknown probably wouldn't vibe with that kinda thing.

I was gonna make the @ sign the Agito symbol but I forgor. 💀

The dollar sign ($) is also custom. It's the symbol for G with a line thru it. The Unknown strike me as a culture that would use Gold, plus it looks kinda like a crystal, which they might also perhaps use.

The ampersand (&) and plus (+) use the same symbol. I figured they mean basically the same thing, so why not, y'know? Also I couldn't come up with a good design for it.

I literally just realized as I'm writing this that the lowercase M is only slightly smaller than the capital M, and the lowercase and capital Ns are the same size. My bad. When/If I make an updated version of this, I'll be sure to fix that.

I used the comma in like six different characters. It's not laziness, it's resourcefulness.

Lastly, the greater than (>) and less than (<) symbols are meant to represent people bowing/praying, since I figured the Unknown would probably see it as whichever number was more "powerful". Kinda like the alligator thing but with fighting instead of eating.

So yeah. If you want, you can download the font by clicking its name earlier in this post, or here if you'd prefer:

Lemme know if there's any improvements or adjustments I should make in the next version that may or may not come out some time in the near or distant future. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk. Hope you enjoy regardless!

Update: In case you missed it, I released an updated version of the font that adds parentheses, brackets, some diacritics, and other fun things. It, along with the original version are both downloadable from the Google Drive link above (hopefully). I’m still planning on updating it again in the future, so if you have any suggestions or issues you’d like to see fixed in the future, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.

[cuoredimuschio]

part two of the guitar lessons au (feat. a side of buckingham)

A shitload of doubts had reared their reasonable, humongous heads the second Steve walked out of that clearing with an agreement to meet on Friday night and Munson’s address tucked in his wallet. 

What did you just do? He’d asked himself with every step, all the way back to his car. 

His guts sloshed around in his shoes, nearly tripping him up, while his heart lumped in his throat. It was the same bucket-of-ice-water-over-your-head, door-locking-behind-you kind of feeling he imagines you’d get seconds after you signed a contract with the devil. A sort of gaping, full-body, no-going-back regret, radiating out from the stomach, spackled over with hasty, flimsy confidence as you try to convince yourself you made the right choice, that it’ll be worth it in the end, that there won’t be any hell to pay, even as the shackle tightens around your neck and the flames lick at your heels.

He was being overdramatic—piling heaps of dirt onto not even a molehill, an anthill at worst—and he knew it, and Robin repeatedly seconded that opinion. But it was like a rock had been kicked over inside him and some scaly, sinuous thing with too many legs had skittered out into the light and made a point to clamber over every one of his organs, vital and otherwise, leaving a slimy trail of unease in its ceaseless wake. 

Thirty bucks a week. Thirty. Three-zero. And who knew how many weeks it would take.

That insect had been swiftly, beautifully obliterated, though, when Jenna stopped in on Wednesday to return the Last Unicorn tape she’d rented for her little sister. One smile, that’s all it took. One dimpled, heart-stopping smile, handed to him like a fat slice of starlight pie on a plate of roses, one laugh that lit up her June-sky eyes, one whiff of her billowy, flowery perfume as she swept out the door he’d held open for her, and he’d understood why all those Greek dudes in that poem started a whole war over Heather or Heidi or whatever her name was. He could and would face a thousand armies on his own if only Jenna was waiting for him on the other side of the battlefield, if only she called his name and asked him to find his way to her. Munson, he’d realized, was nothing but a small, small roadblock on the way to eternal bliss. Just a speedbump, really.

That courage lasted for all of two days.

On Friday, the doubts come roaring back. Louder than ever. Near deafening, ripping that insect from the grave, as he jams the Beemer into park outside Munson’s trailer. At least, he’s pretty sure it’s Munson’s trailer; the guy’s directions weren’t exactly useful. Or entirely legible. Light green, white stripe is the only real clue the paper gives him, but looking at it now, bathed in the glow of his headlights, Steve would argue it’s more on the blue side of the spectrum. Doesn’t help either that the trailer doesn’t have an actual address, only a lot number which, in Munson’s handwriting, could be fifty-three or eighty-three or eighty-nine or S-eight or five other numbers. But at the end of the day, there’s no mistaking that piece of shit van. 

He’s in the right place, whether he wants to be or not.

He turns the keys. Pulls them out of the ignition. Clicks off his seat belt.

But his hand doesn’t reach for the door handle.

Maybe ‘doubts’ is the wrong word. 

Maybe what he really means is ‘dread’.

Not because he’s scared of Munson. Let’s get that straight right off the bat: he is not—in any way, shape, or form—afraid of Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson. The guy’s all bark, too much bark, and no bite. Like one of the yappy little rat dogs his mother’s friends drag around everywhere, the ones that snap at anything that moves but shiver and piss themselves the second you take a step toward them. 

So, no. It’s not fear-based dread. It’s just regular dread. The dread of being stuck in a glue trap that, admittedly, you laid out for yourself. Hours, days, weeks on end, subjected to the wonders of Munson’s winsome personality, stuck alone in a room with a guy who hates his guts, and he’ll be paying—dearly—for the privilege of his own torture: he’s not sure he’s ever made a worse decision in his life.

But Steve’s never backed down from anything, even when he probably should have, even when walking away might have saved his bright shiny future. He’s got almost twenty years of pigheaded determination in the face of abject stupidity behind him, and he’s not about to let a loudmouthed loser get the best of him now. He can make this work. He can steer them back on track, keep things civil, maybe even win Munson over in time. Who knows, stranger things have happened.

The porch steps squelch and squawk under his feet as he marches up to the front door, head held high, fingers skimming along the rickety, ice-cold iron rail. Already, he can hear the thunderous pound of the abrasive, screechy garbage Munson mistakes for music, thumping against the thin door like it’s trying to break out. He stops on the top step, squinting at his dim reflection in the glass, and shuffles a hand through his hair before he pastes on a breezy smile and knocks, nice and loud.

There’s no answer.

He knocks again, harder. The glass clatters under his knuckles.

The music gets louder. Still no answer.

He’s a fucking child, Steve thinks, clinging to that smile—though it’s less breezy and a bit more at-gunpoint now—and his newfound sense of bonhomie by the skin of his near-chattering teeth as he raps against the door once more. This time, he doesn’t stop until it’s yanked open.

Munson looks pissed already. But that might just be the natural state of his face. 

Steve would probably walk around with a permanent scowl too if he was living with a whole, pretentious tree shoved high-and-mighty up his ass.

Either Munson’s really committed to constantly maintaining his aren’t-I-so-cool-and-rebellious-and-definitely-not-just-a-total-tool aesthetic, comfort be damned, or he just got in from his little nerd game session. Because he’s still decked in denim and leather, sporting that hideous t-shirt that he forces all his lackeys to wear like they’re some kind of tacky cult, and still speckled with chunky silver jewelry, gaudy rings glinting on his fingers and wallet chain jangling at his hip. He drops his shoulder against the door jamb, one ankle kicked over the other, and runs a less-than-kind, soullessly dark eye over Steve. 

“You got my money?”

“Yeah, relax. I’m good for it.” Steve starts to step forward, angling to slip around his ungracious host and out of the cold, but a blunt hand rams into his chest, pushing him back.

“Not so fast, Harrington,” Munson says, and Steve’s pretty sure he’s meant to find that withering tone and stony glare intimidating; he doesn’t, not in the slightest. “Money first.”

For the sake of trying to start things off on the right foot—or at least the not-actively-hostile foot—Steve doesn’t laugh in his face, and instead asks, light and polite, “That’s a bit backwards, don’t you think?”

Munson’s hand hangs in the space between them, palm up and adamant, waiting like it isn’t below freezing and he’s got all night. “I’m sorry, they let you eat your Whopper before you pay for it, your majesty?” 

What annoys Steve most is that it’s a fair point. A petty, prickish point but a fair one. Doesn’t stop him from grumbling under his breath and calling Munson a few choice names in his head as he digs out his wallet and pries it open. It’s almost physically painful, to pull those three bills out and hand them over into Munson’s greedy paws, and it leaves him high and dry but for a tattered one and a sloppy-edged coupon for forty cents off Tide. Great.

Munson, being the obnoxious prick that he’s obnoxiously proud to be, makes a show of counting the bills, licking his finger as he flicks through them, one by one. When he’s satisfied that Steve hasn’t stiffed him, he folds them up and shoves them in his back pocket, slithering into a smug smile that Steve wants to smack off his face with the business end of a shovel that was most recently used to muck a full-capacity stable. 

“Your generous donation is much appreciated, sire.” He bows and steps aside, an arm swept out with a looping flourish. “Welcome to Casa di Munson.”

(read the rest on ao3)

[anonymous-dentist]

Stupid Idiot Death Knife

My piece for @dreamoirezine. I am now the c!punz expert. Go to the Dreamoire blog to download the zine itself, it's literally even badass.

-

Once upon a time in a land not too far from our own, there was a tower, and inside of that tower was a man on fire. Why he was on fire is not important, nor is the question as to how he came to be on fire. What is important is that there was a man, and that he was on fire, and that he was very unhappy with his current situation. 

“Fucking Tommy,” he swore (for that was the name of the absolute jackass that had set him on fire in the first place), hurriedly rushing to the nearest water basin to try and douse himself. “I’m going to kill him, I swear to god.”

(And that was where his troubles began, because when you swear to the gods, they sometimes even listen.)

He was in so much of a hurry to put himself out that he didn’t notice the sudden flash of light or the sudden trumpeting of angelic horns so high up in the heavens that even his tower couldn’t reach. He didn’t notice the sudden change in air pressure, nor did he notice the rise in temperature. 

What he did notice when he turned around from the basin was a tall golden table standing right in the middle of the floor where there was no table before. And then on that table was what appeared to be, by all means necessary, a dinky little rusty-ass dagger, and a neon green index card next to it covered in scribbly red-ink letters in a language he didn’t know. The only word he could make out was his name, Punz, and that alone was worrying enough to keep him from approaching fully. 

“What the fuck?” Punz asked, voice barely above a whisper. It was not terror that gave a notable termor to his voice, though it really should have been. No, it was confusion, and, above all, annoyance. 

He stared at the dagger, hair still smoldering and hoodie singed beyond all recognition. He was insulted, frankly, just a little. Just a little. Not because of the sudden divine intervention, but because whatever force had decided to bother him gave him the shittiest fucking knife that he had ever seen. Fae, demon, god, whatever it was, it obviously didn’t know his reputation. Because he was a mercenary, the best of the best. Diamonds were beneath him; how could iron even think to compare?

But still, he found himself picking the dagger up and turning it over in his hands. It had a good weight, at least, and the edges were still sharp. The rust almost looked like a bloodstain spread across the entire blade. 

Once more, he repeated, “What the fuck?” 

His eyes shifted from the knife to the card that had come with it. What were scribbles a moment ago were suddenly clear and legible English. 

Use Me :)

And, now, Punz wasn’t a stupid man. He might not have been Dream or Wilbur levels of intelligence, but he knew enough to know that suspicious knives with even more suspicious labels were baaaaaaad news. 

“Fuck this,” he declared, dropping the knife back onto its pedastal and backing away. 

He looked up at the ceiling as if it was watching him. (It was.)

“Yeah, no thanks,” he told the ceiling. 

On a whim, he flipped the card over and written on it was, And Get Your Just Rewards. 

And, now, Punz wasn’t a stupid man. He was not stupid, no, but he was greedy. Greed makes the world go ‘round, so they say. So when he saw the word ‘rewards’, his brain momentarily shut down. Little green dollar signs floated above his head, and he himself felt as if he was floating on a cloud. 

“I mean, I dunno…” he muttered, running a finger along the knife’s edge. It came away bloody, but he couldn’t tell his blood from the rust on the blade. “It’s just kinda fishy, y’know?”

He glanced back up at the ceiling again, waiting for a reply. No dice. 

As his eyes traveled back down to the dagger, they caught on a shine on the table that wasn’t there before. A single chunk of raw gold right where the dagger had been. 

Oh, Punz thought. The gold was cool against his burned palms. 

“My just rewards, huh?” he mused. He nodded. “Alright. Bet.”

And with that, he slipped the dagger into an empty sheath on his belt, and he stuck his bleeding finger in his mouth, and he took the gold to a chest upstairs, and he thought, Alright. I can work with this. 

-

There are very few things more powerful in this world than greed. Spite is one, hunger is another. (And then there was fear, but that was hardly relevant.) The other three he could work with. 

One, greed. He never liked to consider himself a greedy man. The word left a bitter taste in his mouth. Greed, no, he was just… well, he was greedy, but not in that way. Who wouldn’t want money? Money makes the world go ‘round. If he was broke, he wouldn’t be able to afford food or clothes or fancy decorative swords to hang on his walls, or Fortnite V-Bucks. It was just simple economics. Not greed; stonks. 

Two, spite. Punz liked to consider himself a pretty chill guy, all things considered. He wasn’t Sapnap or Tommy; if someone pissed him off, he just let it slide. Usually. Sometimes. Well. The thing about spite is that it mixes with anger and makes a kind of pissy kind of soup. Punz knew that soup well. He had it for dinner every night alongside caviar and imported English iced tea. 

Three, hunger. Punz liked food. Enough said. 

But fear? Nah. That wasn’t his style. What did he have to be afraid of? Dying? He couldn’t die. He was badass. Kickass, even, all of the -asses. Death feared him. 

Death rewarded him, too. One lazy afternoon Punz took his new knife out to the forest to test something out and came home to a pile of gold on the table and five rabbit pelts and ten wolf skins slung over his shoulders. Death wasn’t a scary thing. Death was just a capitalist. He could fuck with that. 

But there was a difference between killing animals and killing humans. Punz preferred his kills to be clean and efficient. Nothing’s worse than getting blood on your white hoodie, he figured, and maybe he should have just changed his aesthetic. Maybe he should have done that. But what he did instead was do things meticulously, so meticulously, and it worked. 

And it worked. 

And it worked until there was a battle for a country he had no part in and that he didn’t care about. A dethronement, and then a war, all in the same day. He would have stayed home and ignored the whole affair in favor of catching up on Grey’s Anatomy if he wasn’t getting paid enough money to drown a cat with. (And, being friends with Sapnap, he knew plenty about drowning cats.)

It was in the heat of battle when Punz stabbed his first child. Pogtopia wasn’t the most populous nation in the world (if you can call it a nation to begin with), but it had enough supporters to make Punz’s attempts at getting at the commanders really fucking hard. He had already lost his sword in the initial rush, and that was fifteen minutes ago. Fifteen minutes and a couple of chunks ago. His ax was stuck in the chest of a woman on the ground, and his shovel really wasn’t up for battle. 

So when the kid snuck up on him, Punz grabbed the only weapon he had on him and plunged it into their chest blindly, eyes defocusing as they stared up at him in shock. His face was warm from exertion and blood. Sticky. His hands were sticky. 

A small tickle in the back of his mind told Punz that he got blood on his hoodie. A much larger tickle told him that there was a good chance that he had just become a gold ingot richer. A gold ingot could pay for so many chocolate bars. 

It wasn’t too hard a decision to make. His hoodie was already ruined, anyway. He could just buy a new one after the war. 

Yanking the dagger out of the kid’s cold body, Punz slipped it into its sheath just long enough to wrench his ax free of the corpse holding it. 

By the end of the war, Punz was a half stack of raw gold blocks richer. 

This, he decided, looking down at the chest of gold in front of him. This would be enough to last until the next war. 

-

Three weeks later, the dagger slipped between a crack in Sapnap’s armor. It was almost worth enough for an ice cream cone. 

-

One, greed. 

Punz was not a greedy man. He was just a capitalist. Big difference. Greed requires a certain amount of other, some extra oomph to give it meaning as anything other than just plain old want. It isn’t greedy to want a new pair of boots. It isn’t greedy to want a Robux gift card. It isn’t greedy to just want. 

There is a difference between wanting something and craving it. Punz never craved the rewards he got for killing. He wanted them. Big difference. He could put the dagger away and never touch it again. He simply chose not to. He liked getting money. Money is cool as hell. So are the things you can get with money. Like a new PlayStation. Or a hamburger at the McPuffy’s when you don’t feel like baking a fresh loaf of bread. 

-

Punz liked explosions. They were loud and, well, explosive, and they reminded him of happier times when all he had to worry about was childrens’ attempts at war and Sapnap being a fucking idiot. Punz had always been one for chaos, and nothing, nothing was more chaotic than an explosion. 

But as the butchers scattered before him like headless chickens, there wasn’t the usual rush of adrenaline. Punz was almost bored as he chased the L’Manbergians around. He was bored when he let them chase him around. 

The knife on Punz’s belt itched. 

He wasn’t explicitly told not to kill anyone, but he wasn’t told to do anything other than distract. But he was bored, and that was making him sloppy. He let himself get hit in the shoulder with an arrow and grit his teeth into a grin at the sudden burst of energy he got in response, blade singing in its sheath. 

Fundy had a crack in his armor. The butchers’ armor was ragged and worn, obviously leftover from the war, and Fundy had a crack in his armor. 

It wasn’t until Punz felt the weight in his pockets that he realized that the knife had made contact. 

Fundy let out a cry, and Punz felt the knife shaking in his grasp, but he wasn’t moving. Punz wasn’t moving. 

The call to retreat, Dream’s voice in Punz’s ear telling him to get the fuck out of there. 

Three dollars. Chump change. More next time, Punz hoped. 

-

Two, spite. 

Once upon a time, Punz used to feel spiteful. Angry, too. Sad. Betrayed. But it’s kinda hard to feel betrayed when you don’t have anyone to betray you. And maybe that was Punz’s own fault, but, really, who could fault him? The server was an active warzone six out of seven days of the week. How the hell are you supposed to keep a friendship going with someone that might stab you in the back at an Olive Garden? 

Punz was no diplomat, and he never pretended to be. What he was was a mercenary, and a damn good one. No loyalties when someone can buy yours for a stack of gold pieces and a Chili’s gift card. 

It might have occurred to Punz once that maybe he would be the guy to stab you at an Olive Garden. 

Well. So be it. You probably deserved it, anyway.

-

Punz had a child. He refused to think of the dead chicken at his feet as his child, but it was his child. Its head was snapped clear off its tiny body, but Punz remembered seeing it blinking up at him in its first moments of life. 

The puddle the dead chick was in had long dried by the time Punz got around to visiting it. 

There’s something to be said about the death of a child. Your child. Punz had chicken for dinner two days ago, and he killed the chickens himself and got a pocketful of gold for his troubles. But this thing? This miserable little wretch of a dead chicken? 

Punz scoffed and lightly nudged its body with the toe of his boot. His boot came away stained. 

He wrinkled his nose. Fucking gross. 

The spirit that had so graciously come to hang out and talk about dicks for an hour was long gone, but Punz still felt the familiar urge to dig his knife into something and not let go. If he stabbed something longer, would that give him more money in reward? 

The knife on his belt twitched like it was shrugging. Punz pretended not to notice. Not his problem. Sentient capitalistic daggers were the least of his problems. He had wars to fight in, battles to decide, chickens to avenge. 

Vengeance has gotten a bit complicated recently. You can’t just blow someone’s house up and call it a day. No, someone always has to get pissy about it, and that was fine by Punz’s standards. He was a mercenary; his trade depended on people getting pissy. No pissy people meant no paycheck, and a life without a paycheck would be a sad one, indeed. 

There was the rush of battle, the adrenaline-charged thrill of removing a motherfucker’s head from their body and immediately getting a broken rib for the trouble. Punz missed his broken ribs. There wasn’t enough going on to warrant a broken bone. What, the L’Manbergians were causing trouble? That was old news by that point. 

War was profitable, but war was also getting just a tad bit boring. 

A chicken war would at least be interesting. 

“Cock war,” Punz absently said. His voice echoed around the wilderness sounding entirely unfamiliar and too much like someone from a YouTube anti-depressant medication commercial. 

He smiled at his own joke anyway and looked back down at his dead child. The little thing wasn’t quite important enough to him to warrant revenge or anything, but it gave him an excuse to go and stab someone on his terms. Maybe that’d make the whole thing feel a bit more worth it. 

-

Three, hunger. 

Punz had a fridge full of leftovers. Chinese, mostly, some Chipotle. Homemade stuff. There was a veggie platter he put together for a failed Christmas dinner he was supposed to have with some friends. 

That went well. 

He liked food. He loved food, actually. Didn’t mean his stomach wasn’t empty all the time, or that he wouldn’t constantly be feeling like he needed… more. More. His fridge was full, but his pockets were empty. He could look out the window and see Tubbo and Ranboo walking down the path with their pickaxes hitched up on their shoulders. A couple of minutes’ walk away, Bad and Skeppy had their mansion. Punz had a tower, and he had a knife, and he had Dream. 

And he had Dream. 

Maybe hunger isn’t exclusively for food. Maybe it’s for something else. Like companionship. Or a Planet Fitness membership. 

-

Punz killed a dog. Two gold coins added to the pile. 

Across the growing crater that used to be New L’Manberg, the world was ending, and that was just fine. None of Punz’s business. To steal a phrase, it was never meant to be. (Or something like that, anyway.)

It was weird being on this side of the war. Punz couldn’t see Dream in all the chaos, but he had his orders not to look. Can’t act too suspicious… 

And so Punz stabbed another dog and ignored the way he wanted to cry over it. They were just stupid dogs. No big deal. 

Somewhere, Tommy was screaming. In all the racket, it was hard to pick it out from every other scream of pain, fear, agony, desperation –Technoblade’s triumphant rambling and Philza’s relative quiet. Dream above watching silently (somehow, Punz knew that he would be looking right at wherever Tommy was.)

But that didn’t concern him, so he stabbed another dog. Up to six coins now, hell yeah. He can get a Happy Meal with this kind of money. Funds were drying up with all the battle prep, but he’d be able to treat himself after the apocalypse, at least. 

Idly, Punz wondered if there would be a McPuffy’s left after this. He decided he didn’t care. 

It was a little hard to care about anything when all there was was the splash of blood against his face and the panicked screeching of a bunch of idiots running around like headless chickens. 

On his way to try and take down one of the withers (how much money could a wither get him?), Punz tripped over a root and nearly face planted into one of the dogs that Sapnap had butchered on his way to his dumbass fiance. 

It was red. The root, that is. Small, barely poking above ground. Punz stared at it for just a moment longer than he should have before snapping out of it with the sound of a wither skull being shot at his head. 

He narrowly managed to dodge out of the way, landing in an awkward half-roll that sent his dagger skidding across the ground out of reach. 

NO

Panicked, Punz lunged for it, scrambling around in the dirt and the bloodied mud to get it back before it got lost or (god forbid) someone took it from him. 

He picked the knife up with both hands, lungs heaving, and, when he looked at it, his reflection in the blade was thin and sunken like a skeleton’s. 

His hoodie was ruined. That was fine. He could just buy a new one. 

-

Four, fear. 

Punz was not afraid of anything. He wasn’t sure if he could be afraid anymore. He couldn’t be much of anything anymore. He could be cold; his blankets had begun wearing thin, and he needed new ones before the winter got too bad. He could be wet; his umbrella broke months ago and he never bothered replacing it, not seeing a point to when he had a hood. He could be tired; he never got enough sleep, not anymore, and even his sleep was restless thanks to the itch under his skin. 

He slept with his knife under his pillow. The rust had long worn off, and he didn’t remember when he started being able to see himself in its reflection or when the mirror over his bathroom sink shattered, but he just blamed the mirror on yet another home intrusion and called it a day. 

Use Me :), the note had read, and Punz had. There was a box under his bed full of gold coins, enough to make a pirate horny or a banker cry. 

And Get Your Just Rewards, indeed.

Punz sure felt rewarded. The world was silent, and he could finally sleep.

-

What came first, the chicken or the egg? 

Punz was a chicken once. He birthed a child, even, not that he chose to think about that too often, just when he was drinking and trying to think of fun weekend vengeance plans to fill his calendar with now that his friends were all leaving to join some weird breakfast cult. 

Boredom, that’s what Punz could feel. 

Boredom. 

No wars. It was quiet. Any adrenaline was long gone. Maybe he was addicted, maybe he was going through withdrawals, but when a gigantic egg said that it could provide for him, well. It was more convincing than it would have been a couple of months ago. 

Well? It asked. 

“Well what?” he responded. 

It looked down upon him judgmentally. A heavy feeling settled on Punz’s shoulders, one he didn’t like. It felt like hands curling, claws digging in. Into his skin, into his flesh, into his soul. (He didn’t even realize he still had one of those. He thought he lost it months ago when he first picked up that knife and his eyes were opened to the world for the very first time.)

Punz was alone. Bad had escorted him down and had left with only a smile and a wink and a pat on the shoulder. It wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary for Bad, honestly, but something about it left Punz on edge. 

And then the Egg started talking. 

What are you waiting for? the Egg asked. Its smile curled around Punz’s brain and squeezed. 

He didn’t realize he was raising his dagger until he saw its blade glinting in the dim red light. 

The Egg liked him, It had said. It heard all about him already from previous visitors. It had seen him Itself, because It sees everything. Knows everything. Is everything. 

Punz wanted chaos, It had determined. 

No, Punz wanted to argue. He wanted the money that just so happened to come from chaos. He wanted a cure to his boredom. 

(He wanted to feel again, he didn’t say. That would be embarrassing.) 

All the Egg needed was a show of loyalty. It couldn’t just accept any old merc off the street. It had to know he was being serious, and there was only one way of doing that.

The dagger shook with anticipation, level with his chest, aimed right towards where he distantly remembered his heart being back when he still had one. Punz stared his own reflection right in the eyes. His reflection was smiling; he was not. 

The knife plunged in, and Punz bled gold.

[publishinggoblin]

Hello!

Does the podcast booster have a guide for how to interpret the cards anywhere?

At this time just in the CD-set book. But when it goes out as a booster pack it will have meanings in the booster pack, and I will likely share card meanings on the alleyman podcast project in an update here soon.

God is this even legible??

The Cards

The Lorekeeper by Jacqueline Florencio is Dr. Ala Okoye. The card stands in for a keeper of knowledge, someone who bars your passage toward knowledge, but who when connected to, shares it freely. At best, the Lorekeeper is a helpful mentor. At worst, he’s a know-it-all who always thinks he knows better than anyone else.

The Alleyman by WolfSkullJack is that difficult oracle. They know much, but come with teeth bared. You can placate them with coins. Bring them what they desire, and they will gift you knowledge. But beware, this mouth may speak wonders, but it bites just as hard.

The Draw to the Dark Corners of the World. by Sam Dow is the uncanny and strange call to the dark. It is the estrangement made manifest in the world. Your moment to step out from routine normality into something fantastical, if a bit scary, is just around the corner. Take the plunge if you are ready.

The Artifact Bearer by czarfunkle is in-world me. The bringer of strange and beautiful artifacts, and yet, something is off. Charlatan, snake oil salesman, this bearer of Artifacts has changed it to fit their own agenda. The bearer of faith, the one who claims to know the truth, to hold it in their hands. What they sell is unique and beautiful, but be wary of buying into their fiction. They will lead you astray.

Monologues in the Dark by Amy Smith is a beautiful performance for you and you alone. Strange, heart wrenching, hilarious, horrifying-- you are going to experience a movement away from your life. Know that what is done here is for you. No one else.

The Shock Jock by czarfunkle is the irreverent jokester. Not edgy for the sake of it, but dismissive, funny, silly. This person does not take things seriously the way you might, and may even say the wrong thing at the wrong time, but do not hate them for it. They can be your rock, if you let them be. Their wild nature hides a strong sense of self.

The Influencer by Kat Veldt is a personality for personality’s sake. The enactment of how we want to be seen for all to see. It’s not lying, nor necessarily deceitful. It is performance specifically to be seen in a certain light. At its best, at least it is performing a version of ourselves we think is who we wish to be. At worst, it may be lying to ourselves far more than anyone else, crafting someone unattainable.

The Outsider by Nala Wu is the one at the edge of town in the cabin. The one in the house no one walks past. The one in the alley, begging for change. The one people ignore. The one people speak about harshly, if at all. The outsider is all of those who are abandoned, forgotten. In some cases it’s right where they want to be. But something led them there, and that was rarely by choice.

The Alleyman by Seven Dane Asmund is a patchwork of faces. It is a background character in your life. Someone who could be anyone. Someone you might even ignore. They have importance here in this space, they have something important they must tell you. You must heed them, listen. What you do with what they say will be paramount-- and keep them close.

The Alleyman by Kollapsar is the Alleyman casting his cards, faceless and unknown. Look for the stranger, he will come soon. He bears change in his hand, and if you let him, he will give you something you have been waiting for. He will not stay, for he does not belong here with you. But listen, and heed him well.

The Alleyman by Voidbug is the wonder of life. Stay patiently ready for something miraculous, as it’s always there among the night. Try something new today, and allow yourself a moment to celebrate whatever victories you have had. Even the smallest of our journeys that were worth taking are worth celebrating.

Transgression by Seven Dane Asmund is the boldness to be yourself unequivocally. It is the willingness to know that who you are, what you are, is demonized, feared, hated, lied about, and knowing that being yourself in your own skin is more important than all that. It is also the danger of this, knowing that being on this knife’s edge can get you cut.

The Camgirl by Mx. Morgan Robles is the sexworker, earning a living on their body. The oldest work, reviled and spit upon. It’s knowing your worth and literally owning it, while knowing that the world may not understand. It’s both you and another. Share your love and respect with them. They not only deserve it, they have earned it. No one is beneath us, and that must be carried with this card.

[neopronouns-in-action]

Neopronouns in Action #077: Jenny Every...Who?

Neopronouns: rat/rats/ratself which follow the same rules as it/its/itself

Replace it with rat Replace its with rats Replace itself with ratself

EX:

"It is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as it gets a fence set up around its yard so the puppy can go outside without it having to walk it. Its uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he's letting it use, since it lost its. It's going to buy toys and train the puppy itself."

Becomes:

"Rat is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as rat gets a fence set up around rats yard so the puppy can go outside without rat having to walk it. Rats uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he's letting rat use, since rat lost rats. Rat's going to buy toys and train the puppy ratself."

(Archived read-more link)

___

When Lhakhovi Skizum woke up and found ratself in a room with glowing white walls and ceiling and a jet black floor, rat assumed rat was dreaming. It was the logical conclusion for the circumstances, considering the last thing rat remembered was going to bed at 4am from reading on rats phone.

The dream hypothesis was further confirmed when rat found a mirror on one of the walls, and when rat looked in, it wasn’t rat looking back out. The face looking back was completely unfamiliar. For one thing, it wasn’t a human face. Rather than round human ears, there were large, pointed, fluffy ears on the sides of rats head like in a fantasy game. And the weirdest thing about them was that the insides were bright blue.

The eyes at least were the same, the only familiar thing on an alien face; a brown so dark they almost seemed black unless you looked very closely.

The hair was straight and cut short, and capped by a pair of metal-rimmed goggles, and brown rather than black. The skin was also a much lighter shade of brown than rats. Rat couldn’t see the mouth on this strange face, because rat was wearing a cloth facemask, and didn’t feel any particular compulsion to pull it down.

Skizum found that rat was wearing an overly large red scarf, a dark, very heavy and warm leather jacket with fur on the collar, wrist cuffs, and waist, and long, thick dark blue pants that seemed to be lined with fleece.

The warm clothes were apparently warranted, because the exposed skin on rats hands and around rats eyes was chilled with the cold air that seemed to pervade the room. Rat looked down to see large, heavy leather boots with a strange design. Rat couldn’t immediately put a finger on why the design seemed strange, until rat realized that they were way too short on the front – how were feet supposed to fit into them?

But like with the mask, rat felt no burning desire to take them off to see how it worked. Like a dream, rat felt that these things were, if curious, not really worth getting worked up about. Skizum was interested, yes, but also calm in the sort of way that only comes in dreams.

Rat turned to look around the room, and saw a dark, open doorway on the far side that hadn’t been there before. Faint, energetic music was coming from somewhere on the other side.

Rat started towards it, figuring that whatever the plot of the dream would be, it would probably be more interesting out there.

As Skizum was just starting to step through the doorway, a sudden sign appeared, floating in the air in front of rat, just at eye level, and at the right distance to be easily read. It was glowing white like the walls, which should have hurt the eyes, but somehow didn’t, because of the strange logic of dreams.

Written on this sign in what looked like swirling, cursive handwriting that somehow managed to have tons of loops and swirls while still being perfectly legible, were the words, written in deep pitch black flecked with stars:

“The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.”

Skizum read it again automatically, admiring the sure strokes of...star-ink? After the third time rat read it, the sign slowly faded away into thin air, leaving rat saying aloud to ratself, “Well, I guess I have more evidence for Rem that it’s a myth that you can’t read in dreams now…”

Rat thought about the words rat had read, and was both surprised and pleased that rat could remember them clearly. Usually, when rat read something in a dream, the words were hard to remember afterward, and seemed to get jumbled in rats mind the more rat tried to remember them. But sometimes, like this time, rat could remember them clearly. Rem didn’t really believe rat when rat told her rat could do this, but she’d at least have to admit rat was creative, if nothing else, when rat woke up and told her about this dream.

Rat would make sure to write the words down as soon as rat woke up, so she wouldn’t be able to say rat had planned it out ahead of time.

For a few moments, or maybe minutes, Skizum pondered the idea of forcing ratself to wake up to write the words down now. But after thinking about it, rat decided not to risk it – rat could still remember all the words perfectly, rat was sure rat would remember when rat eventually woke up naturally. But if rat woke ratself up now, rat might not be able to come back to this dream again, and it was interesting so far. Rat wanted to see what would happen next.

So Skizum continued on through the doorway, and immediately found ratself in an apparently completely endless hallway extending off to the left and right, with more black doors lining every space of the wall, separated only by the grey doorframes.

Despite what could and maybe should have been a frightening situation, Skizum wasn’t afraid. Rat was merely curious and calm, ready to explore, but in a sort of sleepy, pleasant way. There was no rush, the dream seemed to silently say, stay as long as you like. Join the party if you want.

The music Skizum had heard earlier was coming from a black doorway a few doors down on rats right, and on the opposite wall. Above this door were glowing blue neon letters that said “loud room”, with red letters below them reading, “quiet room”, with an arrow pointing further to the right. Rat glanced in that direction, and much further down the hall, somehow managed to see the door with the opposite labels. Since the loud room was closer and Skizum didn’t mind high volumes, rat made rats way over, and with the casual bravery unique to dreams you knew you were dreaming, stepped through without hesitation.

It was another room like the one rat had found ratself in, but in this one, the walls weren’t blank glowing white, they swirled with colors in ribbony wisps, pulsing and twisting in time to the fast-paced, electronic music that seemed to be coming from a band on the far wall across the room, where four people, each with the same short, dark hair, brown skin, and red scarves were playing on an electric keyboard, what looked like a regular laptop, and some instrument rat didn’t recognize.

Between the band and Skizum was a crowd of dozens of people, all with the same general features, but with different styles of clothing, heights, and weights. Many had red scarves, but others had blue, green, brown, or black. One person had a yellow one, another had a pink. Some had glasses, most didn’t. Some were using crutches or canes, and three were in wheelchairs, with another two using rollators.

A few were different species – there was a cat person, a dog person, a fox person, a rhino person, a monkey person, a bird person, and even stranger things, like the fantasy creature Skizum appeared to be at the moment. Now that Skizum was looking at others like rats current form, rat realized for the first time that rat had a tail, brown and covered with long, fine hairs like a horse tail. It had just felt so natural and normal that rat hadn’t noticed it until now.

This dream was so weird, but so interesting.

Some of the people – clones? -- were dancing in the middle of the floor, others were grouped off to the sides, where tables lined the walls covered in various foods, with yellow plastic cups for drinks, talking animatedly.

One of them closer to the door saw Skizum, and did a doubletake so abrupt they dropped their cup. But another one near them somehow managed to instantly catch it before it could hit the ground. “Woah!” The first one cried. The one who’d caught the fallen cup looked at rat, and also exclaimed, “Woah!”

Interested in what they were so excited about, Skizum went over to greet them, lifting a hand in a wave, and saying, “Hi.” when rat was close enough.

The two stared at rat for probably two seconds, eyes wide. These two were identical as far as Skizum could tell. Both with brown scarves, the same black shirt and pants. Even the same little green bracelet on their left hands.

Remembering what the sign rat had read, Skizum asked curiously, “So, are you Jenny Everywhere?”

“Yes,” the two chorused at the exact same time, along with half a dozen others behind them who had turned to follow the conversation. Five others answered, also simultaneously, “No.” Then, with all of them at the same time, the many who were paying attention to the conversation asked, “Who are you?”

[ID: A digital drawing traced over a photo, showing many people holding yellow plastic cups and staring at the camera in confusion and surprise. They all have the same brown skin and hair, many wearing red scarves, some blue, one gold, and one near the front wearing a traditional keffiyeh, another wearing a red hijab. Many have goggles on their foreheads or over their eyes. The background is glowing white that softly blurs the character’s edges near the back and top of the crowd. End ID.]

“Lhakhovi Skizum.” Skizum replied, and, just to be polite, even though it was just a dream, “My pronouns are rat/rats/ratself. What are yours?”

Some of them answered, “she/her/hers/herself.”, while others, including many of those who’d answered no to the question of were they Jenny Everywhere, replied various things, not all at once, though. The people who shared the same pronouns spoke at the same time, but each group who used the same pronouns waited until there was space to talk, with perfect timing.

“He/him/his/himself.” said some, “they/them/their/themself.” said others. “Ze/hir/hirs/hirself.” said a couple, “It/its/itself.” said a few. “Xey/xem/xyr/xemself.” said one, and another, “bun/buns/bunself”, and at last, “I use any pronouns except she/her.”

If this weren’t such a casual, calm, soothing dream, Skizum would have been worried about telling them all apart and matching pronouns to who when many of them seemed near-identical, but somehow rat knew that rat would be waking up before rat would be given any opportunity to accidentally misgender anyone.

“How did you get here?” this time it seemed like the whole room had turned to ask the question. Even the band had stopped playing.

Rat shrugged. “I went to bed.”

Only a few spoke this time. “Did you do anything special before you fell asleep?”

Rat shrugged with only one arm this time, just for some variety. “Well, I was reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales on my phone.” Rat said thoughtfully, “I assume that’s where my brain got these weird ideas, though nothing like this was in there so far.”

Rat had only just gotten to the end of the story about the kid who refused to take good advice from a fox.

“Well...” one person started to say. This person had the same fantasy-creature ears and tail as Skizum, almost identical to the face rat’d seen in the mirror, except for the insides of this person’s ears being bright green instead of blue. They continued, not unkindly, “Could you please wake up? You’ve somehow taken Sinéad’s place...If it helps, I promise I’ll come visit you when it’s a reasonable hour in your time zone, and I’ll explain everything from our side.”

Well, Skizum had never been asked to wake up by characters in a dream before, let alone asked so politely. It seemed like it would be a shame to say no. And besides, this way rat could write down those words from before – rat still remembered perfectly.

“Alright, that sounds fair.” Rat said, thinking it was a very funny ending to a dream. And with a few moments of thoughtful effort, rat woke ratself up, and the regular cool darkness of rats ceiling met rats gaze. A glance and fumble over for rats phone showed it was 5am.

On the notepad app, Skizum wrote down the short paragraph rat’d read, having to close one eye to bring the phone into focus at such a short distance. The app would mark the time this note was created, and it would serve as rats smug evidence to Rem that it was, in fact, possible to read in dreams.

Then rat went back to sleep, falling easily into a new, much less interesting, much less concrete dream about a baby pig that used a giant pinecone for armour…

And Skizum would have thought nothing more of the dream outside of rats continual debate with Rem, except that at 11AM the next morning, as rat was in the kitchen pouring a bowl of cereal, the doorbell rang, and, when rat went to answer, found one of the characters from rats dream last night standing there, in the daylight, in what was most certainly not a dream.

“Hi, Lhakhovi Skizum,” The creature straight out of a fantasy novel said cheerfully, proffering a giant basket of fruit and muffins, “I’m Jenni Everywhere!”

[shinelikethunder]

thoughts, two issues into my reread of A Game of You:

this arc is already the most tightly constructed one yet, and also the nastiest - a wicked, intricate little tangle of what-ifs and (not-entirely-)human connections whose opening gambit seems to be "okay, let's say these people are living in the most pitiless of all possible worlds - what's left for them to do about it?"

the "explanation" for Neil Gaiman, an apparently straight cis dude, writing a universe of wall-to-wall queers is actually dead simple; it reveals itself the instant you notice Sandman's "real world" queer characters all seem to know each other, or at least belong to the same extended social circle across volumes. it's not some particular fascination on Gaiman's part, nor is it fishing for brownie points; mostly it's just writerly observation of the world he inhabits: misfits band together, queer misfits even more so. once you're as neck-deep in subculture as he's been this whole time, more likely than not the most interesting people in your life are disproportionately queers whose social circle is wall-to-wall queers and weirdos.

relatedly, and at the risk of getting ahead of myself based on hazy memories of what's coming... you hear "hasn't aged well" a lot about this volume, a phrase that tends to suggest "clumsy and insensitive as fuck, but does engage way more than was fashionable at the time." in this case, though, the vibe feels more "oh jesus, this is a nasty pointed little hypothetical that's seven layers deep in intracommunity discourse... whose exact forms have shifted so much that its legibility has deteriorated into Welp, Whatever That Was, Good Representation Sure Ain't It." iirc the sharpest end of its nasty little stick was always pointed at those preaching the model for this most pitiless of all possible worlds, but it's been a long damn time. i'm really, really interested to see how the show will adapt this storyline.