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adorpheus · 3 years

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on fujoshi and fetishization

Lately, more and more, both here on tumblr and on other sites, I keep seeing people spew unfiltered hatred at fujoshi - that is, women who like mlm content such as gay fanfic and fanart featuring men with other men. And I don’t mean like a specific type of fujoshi, like the ones who are genuinely being weird about it, but just like a general hatred for girls (but especially straight identifying girls) who express love for gay romance.

I hate to break this to you all, but women (including straight women!) actually are allowed to like mlm fanfiction and fanart, even enthusiastically so. A woman simply expressing her love of gay fanfic, even if it is in kind of a cringey way or a way that you personally don’t like, is NOT automatically fetishization.

I’ve been on the receiving end of fetishization for my entire life, from a very young age, as many black and brown folx have, so I consider myself pretty well acquainted with how it works. Fetishization isn’t just like, being really into drawings of boys kissing, or whatever the fuck y’all are trying to imply on this god forsaken site.

Fetishization is complicated imo, and can encompass a lot of things, such as (but not limited to):

1 - dehumanization, e.g. viewing a group of people as sexual objects who exist purely for entertainment purposes, rather than acknowledging them as actual people who deserve respect and rights

and

2 - projecting certain assumptions onto said people based on their race/sexuality/whatever is being fetishized. These assumptions are often, but not always, sexual in nature (like the idea that black people in general are more sexual than other races, etc etc etc).

I’m going to use myself as an example to illustrate my point. Please note this isn’t the best or most nuanced example, but it is the most simplistic. A white person finding me attractive and respectfully appreciating my black features as part of what makes me beautiful is not, on its own, fetishization. A white person finding me attractive solely or mostly because I’m a PoC is now in fetishization territory. Similarly, assuming I’m dominant because of my blackness (like saying “step on me mommy” and shit like that) is hella fetishistic.

That being said, theres definitely a difference between how fetishization works in real life with real people, and how it shows up in fandom.

Fetishization manifests in many different ways in fandom, but most commonly on the mlm side of things, I personally see it appear as conservative (or centrist) women who love the idea of two men together, but don’t actually like gay people, and don’t necessarily think LGBT+ people deserve rights (or “special treatment” as its sometimes dog whistled). These women view queer men as sexual objects for entertainment rather than an actual group of people who deserve to be protected from systemic oppression. I’ve noticed that they often don’t even think of the men they “ship” together as actually being gay, and may even express disgust at the idea of a character in an mlm ship being headcanon’d gay. In case its not obvious, this is pretty much exactly the same way a lot of cishet men fetishize lesbians (they see “lesbian” as a porn category, rather than like, what actual LGBT people think of when we read the word lesbian). There’s a pretty popular viral tweet thread going around where someone explains seeing this trend of conservative women who like mlm stuff, and I have also personally witnessed this phenomenon myself in more than one fandom.

The funny thing is, maybe its just me buuuut.... The place I see this particular kind of fetishization happen most is not in the anime/BL fandom, from which the term fujoshi originates - I actually see these type of women way way more in western fandom spaces like Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Hannibal. I can’t stress this enough, there’s a shocking amount of people who are like, straight up trump supporters in these fandoms. If you want to experience it, try joining a Hannigram or Destiel group on facebook and you will probably encounter one eventually especially if you happen to be living through a major historical event. Like these women probably wouldn’t even be considered “fujoshi”, because that term doesn’t really apply to them given they aren’t in the BL/anime fandom, yet they’re the ones I personally see actually doing the most harm.

Of course this isn’t the ONLY kind of fetishizing woman in the mlm/BL world, there are other ways fetishization shows up, but this is the most toxic kind that I see.

A girl just being really into BL or whatever may be “cringe” to you, or she may be expressing her love for BL in a “cringey” way, but a straight woman really enjoying BL is not, on its own, somehow inherently fetishization. Yes, sometimes teenage girls act kind of cringe about how much they like BL and that might be annoying to you, but its not necessarily ~problematic~.

That being said, IT NEEDS BE REMARKED that a lot of the “fujoshi” that you all hate so deeply, are actually closeted trans men or nonbinary people who haven’t yet come to terms with their gender identity, or are otherwise just NOT cishet. I know because I was one of these closeted people for years, and I honestly think tumblr and the cultural obsession around purity is one of the many reasons I was closeted so deeply for so long. STORYTIME LOL!!! In my early adolescence, I was a sort of proto “fujoshi”. I identified as a bi girl who was mostly attracted to men, or as most (biphobic) people called it, “practically straight”. I wrote and read “slash” fanfic and looked at as well as drew my own fanart. We didn’t use the term fujoshi back then, but that’s definitely how I could have been described. I was obsessed with yaoi, BL, whatever you want to call it, to a cringe-inducing degree. I really struggled to relate to most het romances, so when I first discovered yaoi fanfics (as we called them at the time), I fell in love and felt like I finally found the type of romance content that was made for me. I didn’t know exactly why, I just knew it hit different. LGBT+ fanart and fanfiction brought me an immense amount of joy, and I didn’t really think too hard about why.

At some point, in my early 20s, after reading lots of discourse™ here on tumblr and other places like twitter, I started to get the sinking feeling that my passion for gay fanfiction was ~problematic~. I had always felt a sense of guilt for being into mlm content, because literally anyone who found out I liked BL (especially the men I dated) shamed me for liking it all the fucking time (which btw is literally just homophobic, like can we talk about that?). In addition to THAT bullshit, now I’m seeing posts telling me that girls who like BL are cringey gross fetishists who inspire rage and should go die?

Let me tell you, I internalized the fuck out of messages like this. I desperately wanted to avoid being ~problematic~. At the time, I thought being problematic was like the worst thing you could be. I was terrified of being “cancelled”, before canceling was even really a thing. I thought to myself, “oh my god, I’m gross for liking this stuff? I should stop.” I beat myself up over this. I wanted so badly to be accepted, and to be deemed a Good Person by the internet and society at large.

I tried to shape up and become a good ally (lmfao). I stopped writing fanfic and deleted all the ones I was working on at the time. I made a concerted effort to assimilate into cishet culture, including trying to indulge myself more deeply in the few fandoms I could find that had het content I did enjoy (Buffy, True Blood, Pretty Little Liars, etc). I would occasionally look at BL/fanfic/etc in private, but then I would repress my interest in it and not look for a while. Instead I would look at women in straight relationships, and create extremely heterosexual Couple Goals pinterest boards, and try to figure out how I could become more like these women, so I, too, could be loved someday.

This cycle of repression lasted like eight years. Throughout it all, I was performing womanhood to the best of my ability and trying to become a woman that was worthy of being in a relationship. I went in and out of several “straight” relationships, wondering why they didn’t make me feel the way reading fanfic did. Most of all, I couldn’t figure out why straight intimacy didn’t work for me. I just didn’t enjoy it. I always preferred looking at or making gay fanfiction/fanart over actual intimacy with men in real life.

Eventually, I stumbled upon a trans coming out video that someone I was following posted online, my egg started to crack, and to make an extremely long story short, after like 3 years of introspection and many gender panic attacks that I still experience to this day, I realized that I’m uh... MAYBE... NOT CIS..!? :|

I truly believe if I had just been ALLOWED TO LIKE GAY STUFF WITHOUT BEING SHAMED FOR IT, I probably would have realized I was trans way way sooner. Because for me, indulging in my love of gay romance and writing gay fanfic wasn’t me being a weirdo fetishist, it was actually me exploring my own gender identity. It is what helped me come to terms with being a nonbinary trans boy.

Not everyone realizes they are trans at age 2 or whatever the fuck. Sometimes you have to go through a cringey fujoshi phase and multiple existential crises to realize how fucking gay you are AND THATS FINE.

And one more thing - can we just be real here?

A lot of anti-fujoshi sentiment is literally just misogyny. omg please realize this. Its “women aren’t allowed to enjoy things” but, like... with gay fanfics. Some of the anti-fujoshi posts I see come across my dash are clearly ppl projecting a caricature they invented in their head of a demonic fujoshi fetishist onto any woman who expresses what they consider to be a little too much enthusiasm for gay content and then using their perception of that individual as an excuse to justify their disdain for any women, especially straight women, ‘invading’ their ~oh so exclusive~ queer fandom spaces.

god get over yrselfs this is gatekeeping by another name

idk why i spent so long writing this no one is even going to read it, does anyone even still use this site

*EDIT: HOLY SHIT WHEN DOING RESEARCH FOR THIS POST I FOUND OUT THAT Y-GALLERY IS BACK OMG!!!

#rant #fujoshi #I SAID WHAT I SAID #personal #gender stuff

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whitehotharlots · 3 years

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Previewing the 2024 Democrat Primary

Within a couple weeks of his being sworn in, just about every person on earth will wish Joe Biden was no longer president. Sure, the few surviving John B. Anderson voters will be thrilled to see 4 years of crushing austerity and half-assed attempts at Keynesian stimulus. But most people will begin dreaming about a brighter future.

Good news! The 2024 Democratic primary field is going to contain dozens of options. Bad news! They are all going to be disgusting piles of shit.

The “top tier”

While it’s too early to do any handicapping, these are the candidates the media will treat as having the most realistic chances of securing the nomination.

Kamala Harris

Kamala did not win a single primary delegate in 2020. This is because she dropped out before the first primary, and that was because no one likes her. She has no base beyond a few thousand of twitter’s most violent psychos. Her disingenuousness approaches John Edwards levels: any halfway incredulous person can see immediately beyond her bullshit. She has no principles whatsoever, and while that may be par for the course for Democrats, she lacks even the basic politician’s ability to intuit anything that might, hypothetically, constitute a principle.

Even better: she is an awful public speaker. She sounds like how a talking dog would speak if he were just caught stealing people food off the kitchen table. She communicates in weird grunts and faux sassy squeaks, which is how she imagines real black women sound like, but something about her is unable to sell the bit. She begins her sentences in halfhearted AAVE, stops and panics halfway through as she realizes that maybe this sounds fake and offensive, and then reminds herself oh wait, no, this is okay since I’m black. This doesn’t happen once or twice per speech. This is how every single sentence sounds.

Kamala is like Nancy Pelosi in that no sketch show will ever impersonate her correctly, because anything that came close to authenticity would be considered far too cruel. This might benefit her in the primaries, as she exists in the minds of Democrats as someone and something she absolutely is not in reality. Nominating her would be like allowing your child’s imaginary friend to attempt to drive you to the store.

Andrew Cuomo

Easily one of the 50 worst people alive, Cuomo has a solid chance because Democrats, same as Republicans, are unable to differentiate between electability and self-serving ruthlessness. Cuomo used the deadliest public health crisis in American history as a pretext for cutting Medicaid and firing 5,000 MTA workers, and his approval rating increased. New York Dems are little piggies who love eating shit. If we assume that the political media will continue their habit of refusing to discuss the legislative history of right wing Democrats, Cuomo might well cruise to the nomination and then lose to literally any human being the GOP nominates by an historic margin.

Joe Biden

The party loves him because he is a right wing racist. “Progressives” tolerate him because black primary voters over 40 supported him, and their opinion is supposedly a magic window into god’s truth. Everyone else can tell he is manifestly senile. I don’t put it above the DNC to pick a candidate who is in horrible health, dying, or even dead--whatever the financial sector wants, they’ll get. But I would be shocked if his approval rating is above 39% by mid-2023, and by that point deep fake technology will be advanced enough they’ll put out a very lifelike video in which the Max Headroom version of Joe explains he’s proud of his accomplishments--that budget’s almost balanced already--but, man, I gotta abd--I gotta abdica--, uhh, I gotta, I, uhh, I gotta move down, man.

Wild Cards

These candidates would have all have a chance if they ran, but they could all much more easily retire to Little Saint James off of kickbacks they’ve gotten from Citibank and I.G. Farben.

Rahm Emanuel

Rahm is going to receive some hugely influential post in the Biden administration. Let’s say he becomes Secretary of Education. His signature achievement will be replacing all elementary school teachers with Amazon’s Alexa, which saved the taxpayers so much money we were able to quadruple the number of armed police officers we put into high schools. This will give him several thousand positive profiles on network news programs and the near-universal support of the Silicon Valley vampires who will own 99% of the country by the time Biden’s term ends. They will use their fancy mind control devices to convince geriatic primary voters that Rahm’s the one who will bring Decency back to the white house. His candidacy will be the paragon of wokeness, as expressing concern toward the fact that he covered up the police murder of a black guy will get you called a racist.

Rahm has a bonus in that Jewish men are now Schrodeniger’s PoC. When they are decent human beings, they are basic, cis white men who are stealing attention from disabled trans candidates of color. When they love austerity and apartheid, they become the most vulnerable people of color on earth and criticizing them in any way is genocide. No one will be able to mention a single thing Rahm has ever done or said without opening themselves to accusations of antisemitism, and that gives him a strong edge against the rest of the field. The good news is that an Emmanuel candidacy would result in over 50% of black voters choosing the GOP candidate--which, I guess that’s not really good but it would certainly be funny.

Gavin Newsom

Newsom is every bit as feckless as Cuomo, but he doesn’t put off the same “bad guy in an early Steven Segal movie” vibes. He will mention climate change 50 times per speech and no one will bother to mention how he keeps signing fracking contracts even though his state is now on fire 11 months of the year. If anything, this will be spun into an argument about how he’s actually the candidate best suited to handle all the water refugees gathering on the southern border. Look for his plan to curb emissions by 10% by the year 2150 to get high marks from Sierra Club nerds. He’s also a celebate librarian’s idea of what constitutes a handsome man, so he’ll have some support from the type of women who claim to hate all men.

Larry Summers

I mean, why not? Larry, like most members of the Obama administration, has politics that are eerily similar to those of Jordan Peterson. In normal circumstances, this makes a person a dangerous fascist who should not be platformed. But if that person has a D next to their name this makes them a realistic pragmatist who has what it takes to bring suburban bankers into our tent. If current trends in Woke Phrenology continue apace, Larry’s belief that women are inherently bad at STEM will be liberal orthodoxy by 2023, and his dedication to the Laffer Curve could see him rake in massive donations. Seriously, I’m not kidding: cultural liberalism is now fully dedicated to identity essentialism and balanced budgets. Larry is their ideal candidate. If he were black and/or a woman, I’d put him in the very top tier.

Jay Inslee

Unlike Newsom, Inslee’s attempt to crown himself the King of Global Warming won’t be immediately derailed, since his state is only on fire because of protestors. This, however, poses a different problem. He’s going to be a good test case for the Democrat’s uneasy peace with the ever increasing share of the electorate who become catatonic upon hearing a pronoun. On the one hand, you need to take their votes for granted. On the other hand, they’re not like black people or regular gays: most voters actively, consciously despise wokies, and associating yourself with them will ruin a campaign even in deep blue areas. There’s still gonna be riots in a year. Biden’s gonna announce the sale of all our nation’s potable water to the good folks at Nestle and some trans freak named Sasha-Malia DeBalzac is going to use that as an opportunity to sell their new pamphlet about how it’s fascist to not burn down small businesses. No matter what Inslee does in response, it’ll end his career.

AOC

I’m not one of those “AOC is a secret conservative” weirdos, but I am aware enough of basic reality to know she has zero chance of coming close to the nomination. The right and the center both regard her as a literal demon. The party is already blaming her for the fact that a handful of faceless Reagan acolytes failed to flip their suburban districts even though they ran on sensible pragmatic proposals like euthanizing the homeless. The recriminations will only get more unhinged when the Dems eat shit in the 2022 midterms. She will be a Russian, she will be white male, she will be a communist, she will be a homophobe: any insult or conspiracy theory you can name, MSNBC will spend hours discussing. Her house seat challenger will receive a record amount of support from the DNC in 2024 and it’ll be all she can do to remain in congress.

Larry Hogan

Don’t be dissuaded by the fact that he’s a Republican. Larry is the DNC’s ideal candidate: a physically repulsive conservative who owes his entire career to appealing to the most spiteful desires of suburban white people. He’s an open racist in a material sense--if you’re old-school enough to think racism is a matter of beliefs and actions, rather than the presence of cultural signifiers--but his is the beloved “never Trump” style of racism that Dems covet. He’s also a Proven Leader who thinks the role of government should be to finance the construction of investment property and give police the resources they need to run successful drug trafficking operations. Few people embody the Democrat worldview more than Larry.

The Losers Bracket

These people will have at least a small chance due solely to the fact that the Democrats love losing. They have lost in the past, and in the Democrat Mind that makes them especially qualified.

Joe Kennedy

The man looks like a mushroom-human hybrid from a JRPG. Trump proved that physical hideousness need not doom a presidential bid, but a candidate still needs some kind of charm or oratorical abilities or, god forbid, a decent platform. Joe aggressively lacks all of these things. A vanity campaign would be a good way to raise money and perhaps secure an MSNBC gig, so Joe might still run.

Mayor Pete

I am 100% convinced that Pete’s 2020 run was a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. I am also 100% aware that Democrats are dumb enough to enthusiastically support a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. If we have some sort of military or terror disaster between now and 2023 the Dems are sure to want a TROOP, and wait wait wait you’re telling me this one is a gay troop? Holy hell there’s no way that could lose!

Stacy Abrams

Never underestimate the power of white guilt. She lost the gubernatorial race to Gomer Pyle’s grandson, and her spiritual guidance of the Dems saw the party lose black voters in Georgia in 2020. Nonetheless, she is regarded as a magic font of fierceness within the DNC. She might stand a chance if she can establish herself as the most conservative non-white candidate in the field, but there’s going to be stiff competition for that honor.

Elizabeth Warren

Liz is probably angry that the party so shamelessly sold her out even after she was a good little girl and sabatoged Bernie’s campaign for them--yet another example of high ranking US government officials reneging on their promises to the Native American community. Smdh. The fact that this woman hasn’t been bankrupted a dozen times over by various Wallet Inspectors genuinely astounds me. So Liz is probably going to run again, and her campaign will be even sadder the second time around.

It might surprise you to hear this if you don’t work at a college or NGO, but Liz diehards actually do exist. She’ll get even less support this time because there will be no viable leftist in the field for her to spoil, but she’ll still hang in long enough to make sure the very worst possible candidate beats out the second worst possible candidate. Maybe she’ll fabricate a rape accusation against Sherrod Brown. Maybe she’ll spend her entire allotted debate time doing a land acknowledgment. With Liz, anything is possible--so long as it ends in failure.

Amy Klobuchar

Amy was the most bloodthirsty of the 2020 also rans. She will double down on the unpopular failures of the Biden administration, explaining that if you weren’t such a selfish idiot you’d love the higher social security retirement age and oh my god are so such a moron you think you shouldn’t go bankrupt to get a COVID vaccine? There’s a non-unsubstantial segment of the Democratic base that’s self-hating enough to find this appealing, but it won’t be enough to make her viable.

Martha Coakley

She lost Ted Kennedy’s senate seat to a retarded man who was pretending to be even more retarded than he actually was. Then she lost a gubernatorial race to a guy who openly promised Massachusetts voters that he would punish them for electing him. Her record of failure is unparalleled, making her perhaps the ideal Democrat standard bearer for the twenty twenties.

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syntheticpoetry · 4 years

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Teenage Satellites

Summary: This is a flashback sequence that describes Blaine’s night at the Sadie Hawkins dance with his friend (who I have named Skylar) and the assault at the end of the night.

There is definitely some friendship fluff to start, but this does include the description of a violent crime at the end with homophobic slurs, so please do not read if you find that triggering or upsetting.

This scene is an accompanying oneshot fic that goes along with a conversation between Kurt and Blaine in my And the World Spins Madly On universe. You can read that here (which has links included for FFN and AO3 in the post as well).

AO3 Link for Teenage Satellites

“You don’t think it looks tacky?” Blaine adjusted the white rose boutonniere on his date’s lapel. “I didn’t want something that would stand out so much, but I saw it and fell in love with it and—”

“It’s fine, stop fidgeting with it!” Skylar laughed and slapped at Blaine’s hand blithely. “You’re going to laugh when you see the one I’ve gotten for you…” Blaine raised an eyebrow, took a step back from him, and watched as Skylar strode over to the fridge.

“Oh, it’s the same one,” Blaine grinned and shook his head in disbelief upon seeing the clear plastic container housing the delicate perennial. “Of course, I should have guessed as much.”

“Come here so I can fix it on,” Skylar motioned him over and set the container on the counter. Blaine traipsed the short distance between them and closed the gap. Though the general atmosphere of the evening was meant to be romantic for most couples, these two had no reservations about spending their time together as two very good friends. The idea to go as a pair had been Blaine’s. It took a little convincing on Skylar’s part, but he usually (always) eventually caved in to Blaine’s schemes and requests— their friendship had blossomed so intensely over the course of a few short months that they assumed the role of each other’s “best friend.” Really, they were each other’s only friend at all.

“Dashing as ever,” Skylar smiled as he fastened the boutonniere to Blaine’s lapel with steady hands. Blaine looked down at those perfectly stilled hands— always in control, always so precise— and brushed his thumb over a small scratch. “Jasmine was pretty playful this morning,” Skylar laughed in response to the gesture.

Blaine shook his head and smiled, mostly to himself, before calling out to Skylar’s feline companion, “Jasmine? Come here and give us a kiss goodbye, honey!”

Jasmine, perched atop the kitchen windowsill, poked her head between two panels of off-white venetian blinds upon hearing her name. She was an odd cat, in the sense that she chirped and trilled more like a bird rather than meowed, and Blaine adored her that much more for it. On cue, she chirped and kicked off of the window, springing through the blinds, and sent them clattering against the glass loudly. Blaine guffawed while Skylar scolded her, but she paid no mind to her owner and chose to prance over to Blaine’s leg and rub herself against it.

“She’s going to get fur all over you!” Skylar screeched in alarm.

“Oh, she just wants a little attention,” Blaine spoke as though he was addressing a toddler, “Isn’t that right, baby girl?” He crouched down and scooped her up in his arms; to his left, Skylar let out a dramatic sigh.

“You’re incorrigible,” Skylar shook his head, but Blaine noticed the corners of his mouth twitch up into a smile. Jasmine chirped loudly in his arms and he returned his attention back to her, rubbing her belly until her purring was the only sound to fill the room. Blaine glimpsed at the clock on Skylar’s stove before setting Jasmine on the counter and brushing fur off of his jacket.

“Is your dad still driving—” he coughed and spit stray cat hair out of his mouth, sending Skylar into a fit of hysterics.

“I warned you!” he doubled over, clutching his stomach as if he just witnessed the single funniest sight in all his life.

Blaine rolled his eyes in response and spit away more cat hair that had plastered itself to his lips. After a few moments of regaining his composure, Skylar carelessly wiped away a few tears and spoke in a voice that clearly meant he was still trying to force his laughter down, “He should be, let me go ask him.”

Blaine nodded and Skylar disappeared into the living room. He could hear their muffled conversation, but wasn’t able to make out any actual words that hinted towards what type of answer Skylar’s father was providing. Jasmine rubbed up against Blaine’s leg again, trilling her affections and demanding to be picked up again. “Shhh, not now, baby girl. When we get back—Skylar will throw a fit if I look like a furry mess because of you.” She merely tilted her head in response and stared up at him with expectant, jade eyes.

“Okay, he said he’ll take us now if we’re ready to go,” Skylar strolled back into the room and Blaine didn’t miss the subtle hint of defeat adorning his features through the well placed smug smirk he’d adapted suddenly at the sight of Jasmine pining for Blaine’s continued attention. “Should just take her with us, I’m sure she’d love for you to show her some of your moves.”

Blaine smiled gently and wondered about pressing him for details on his half-hidden glum mood, but decided against it for now. “She’d be a hit, don’t you think?” Jasmine answered with a loud mew before rubbing her head against Blaine’s pant leg and collapsing onto his shoe. The two of them did nothing to suppress their laughter until Skylar’s father appeared in the doorway with a stoic expression.

“You boys ready?” he asked gruffly.

“Indeed, we are, Mr. Young,” Blaine offered a placid smile and, out of the corner of his eye, took note of Skylar’s unease. He was now even more overcome with the intense desire to know what exactly had taken place during their living room conversation to lead to Skylar’s distress. Mr. Young plucked his keys from the key rack by the back door and left them in the kitchen. Blaine took the opportunity to approach Skylar before they were meant to follow his father out to the car. “Everything okay? You seem… tense,” he placed a light hand on Skylar’s shoulder.

“Yeah, no I’m alright. Let’s go, we don’t want to be late,” Skylar brushed past the question with a feigned smile that betrayed the obvious turmoil in his eyes. But Blaine knew better than to push him— if Skylar wanted to talk he would initiate the conversation— so he nodded politely and dropped his hand. Skylar gave Blaine’s bicep a few gentle pats, a reassuring gesture they often offered each other, and lead the way out to his father’s SUV. Blaine slid into the backseat while Skylar took the front passenger seat and immediately proceeded to fiddle with the radio.

“Oh, wait go back! I love that song!” Blaine exclaimed while Skylar tapped the station seek button rapidly, very much like a certain character from a film about toys they both shared a guilty pleasure for.

Skylar grinned and Blaine knew what the line was going to be before he even started, “Too late, I’m in the 40’s, gotta go around the horn!”

Blaine leaned forward and mock punched his arm playfully, paying no mind to the stiff posture Mr. Young had adapted ever since Blaine had gotten into the car. “Come on, seriously. Please go back?” he offered his best puppy dog eyes. Skylar rolled his eyes in response and hit the number three preset button. “Thank you,” Blaine replied in a singsong voice before joining in on the song.

“So get back, back, back to the disaster. My heart’s beating faster, holding on to feel the same,” Blaine turned his attention to the window, drumming along on his thighs absently with his hands. The tension in the car remained the same for the duration of the ride to school and stayed well above Blaine’s head, as always. No matter how amiable he was to Mr. Young, the older man still had never warmed up to Blaine. Being the good-natured, naïve, boy that he was though, Blaine never took notice of his misgivings— his only sole concern was Skylar, impressing and befriending his father had never been part of his agenda. By the time they had finally pulled into the parking lot behind the school and gotten out of the car Skylar’s face looked ashy and he emitted tidal waves of anxiety.

“So you’ll pick us up at 11, dad?” Blaine watched cautiously and resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow when he heard Skylar’s voice tremble.

“Yeah,” his father replied flatly before driving away without sparing them so much as a second glance.

“…okay, seriously, what did I miss?” Blaine blurted out dumbly and Skylar shook his head.

“I just want to have a good time, let’s forget about it until later, okay?” Skylar adjusted his boutonniere, fumbling with it until it was really more crooked than straight.

“Forget about what?” Blaine smiled politely, despite the crumbling brick wall imprisoning his burning questions, and straightened it for him.

“Thank you,” Skylar whispered and Blaine couldn’t be sure if he meant for adjusting the accessory, dropping the subject, or both. He nodded, nonetheless, and hooked his arm through Skylar’s to escort him through the doors. Without even entering the building the pair had six sets of eyes staring them down. Blaine kept his head high, apprehension already steadily building, and his attention on two things only: where he was walking and Skylar. His companion adapted the same contrived confidence as they made their way to the gymnasium.

“Okay so far?” Blaine muttered out of the side of his mouth. When he hadn’t received an answer he turned his head slightly to find that Skylar appeared to be completely enamoured by the decorations. Blaine stifled a laugh, “You were on the decorating committee, bit egotistical to admire your work to the point of ignoring me, don’t you think?”

“Shut up! They didn’t look this good during the day,” Skylar pouted, “I have a right to feel proud. You know how hard I worked on this.”

“Yes, yes, I know. I haven’t forgotten how you ignored my presence for days so you could paint stars and mythical creatures,” Blaine feigned exasperation and Skylar continued to pout at him. “Alright, alright! How about I get us something to drink while you bask in your own greatness?”

“Pink lemonade if they have it, I—”

“Hate fruit punch, yes I know,” Blaine grinned and unhooked his arm from Skylar’s. “Will you be here or are you going to walk around?”

“I’ll wait for you here. Be prepared to have me drag you around all night and show off everything else in the room that I worked on that you haven’t seen yet,” a sly smirk flashed across his features and Blaine was relieved to see that he was already starting to loosen up and enjoy himself.

“Okay,” he replied with an overdramatic sigh tethered to the word. In truth he was pleasantly willing to let Skylar parade around the room and show off— nothing made Blaine happier than seeing the vehement fervor behind his friend’s words as he discussed his interests and hobbies. The passion in his eyes whenever the topic of painting and art came up was infectious and Blaine soaked up every second of it as often as possible. The decorations looked amazing and he knew Skylar should be, and was, rightly satisfied with the results. Blaine waltzed over to the refreshment table and contemplated the meager options presented: pretzels, Lay’s plain potato chips, fruit punch, (Skylar’s) pink lemonade, and bottles of water— not exactly a wide spread. He filled up two small, clear plastic cups with pink lemonade and quickly turned to rejoin Skylar. Unfortunately, in his haste, he walked straight into one of his, rather large, classmates and spilled both drinks.

Blaine tried to brush beads of lemonade off of his jacket sleeves, but he was completely soaked. “God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see you— ”

“Watch where you’re fucking going next—” Blaine averted his attention from his sleeves to the stranger who narrowed his eyes and stared down at Blaine with unmistakable disdain, “Oh. It’s you.” He chose to go a different route than Blaine and Skylar had, regarding outfit choice. While the two of them were dressed to the nines, an unkempt, hideous red plaid button down shirt, half tucked into his faded blue jeans, hung loosely on his boxy frame. He had a good twelve inches on Blaine, and at least sixty pounds. His mousy brown hair was slicked back with too little gel, leaving static strands jutting out in every direction.

“Me…?” Blaine tore his eyes away and started to kneel down to retrieve the empty cups, “I don’t think we’ve met befo—”

“What the hell are you doing? Stay away from my—” the boy immediately proceeded to cover his crotch with both of his hands and jumped back, placing a few feet between them. Blaine suddenly understood.

“Seriously? Honey, why would you think I’d want any part of that at all?” Blaine straightened up, placed a hand on his hip and stared at his classmate incredulously.

“Don’t fucking look at me like that either,” he reached both hands out and shoved Blaine forcefully. He tried to stay balanced but staggered backwards, right into the refreshment table. The glass bowls containing fruit punch and lemonade lurched violently, sloshing vibrant liquid onto the white, vinyl tablecloth. Blaine slammed his palms onto the table to steady himself, leaving himself completely open to another potential attack.

“I wasn’t looking at you like that,” he leaned back against the table, trying to put some more distance between himself and the other boy, but he might as well have been trying to reason with an angry bull. With the flared nostrils and red in this boy’s eyes, the comparison didn’t feel too far off. They had the attention of a few nearby students, but none of the teachers were anywhere in sight. Blaine had just enough time to duck under the table to avoid a full-body charge. The blood pounding in his ears made the cheers and jeers from the other students sound smothered— he had no idea which of them they were even rooting for or against.

“Mr. Walker! What do you think you’re doing?” he heard a stern voice approaching and maintained his position under the table.

“I was—”

“About to destroy school property! I think your night is over. Come with me, we’re going to call your parents to pick you up,” Blaine listened carefully and watched two pairs of legs retreat before crawling out of his safe haven. His knees shook as he stood up, his hands sticky with spilt lemonade, but he didn’t hesitate in striding over to where he’d left Skylar.

“About time, I thought you got lost on the way back. Hey, where are the— Blaine, you’re shaking…”

Blaine turned his attention down to his trembling hands before quickly offering, “I sort of tripped and spilled them all over myself. I’m going to get cleaned up, okay?”

“Klutz,” Skylar shook his head as he spoke. “Okay, I’m going to head over to the bleachers, so meet me there?”

Blaine nodded curtly and sprinted out of the gym towards the bathroom across from the darkened cafeteria. He knew he should have said something to Skylar about the incident, but he couldn’t bring himself to ruin his friend’s night when he was finally starting to have a little fun.

‘Besides, that kid is gone anyways. Just try to enjoy the rest of your night. Keep Skylar happy, it’ll be okay,’ Blaine tried to rationalize with himself as he washed his hands, repeating the last line in his head as though it was a mantra. As clean as he could get his hands, there was nothing he could do about the tremors; the entire incident not only left him upset, but infuriated. It wasn’t fair; wasn’t he entitled to a stress-free, night of bliss as well? He clenched his hands, eyes shut tight, but his nerves continued to send earthquakes throughout his entire body. ‘I should have pushed him back, why the hell did I hide? Why the hell do I keep hiding?’ The creak of the bathroom door to his left startled him and his eyes fluttered open to face the newcomer. He recognized the student, a classmate from third period English, and was greeted with a nod of acknowledgment before the boy disappeared into a stall. Blaine twisted the faucet shut and tore a rather large piece of paper towel away from the dispenser. His hands were finally starting to steady out, but the remnants of an adrenaline rush reminded him of his anger while his body resumed normal functions. He shook his head as he— literally— threw the dampened wad of paper with such force that it plastered itself to the wall with a wet smack! before sliding down into the waste bin. Even his anger began to fade away while he walked back to the gymnasium— reduced to a low ebbing— so that by the time he reached Skylar again his smile was genuine and he felt hopeful about the remainder of their evening.

“I got us some lemonade!” Skylar held out a cup to him with a broad grin and he took it with a grateful smile. “And I put a song request in.”

“What song might that be?” Blaine took a slow sip, pursing his lips when the much-too-sweet beverage overwhelmed his taste buds.

“It’s a surprise, you’ll know it when you hear it though,” and with that Skylar offered no other hints, leaving Blaine curious and, he couldn’t deny it, a little excited. Their taste in music was pretty similar, a pleasant discovery made during their early days of friendship, and they were always sharing new artists with each other. They’d also developed a knack for comforting each other through song choices, filling in the unspoken gaps of tense conversations with interludes of musical reassurances. As if saying to the other, “I’m here, I know you don’t really want to talk about it, but here’s something I think will help you feel better.” Lately they had been on a Keane kick and chose every opportunity they could to serenade each other to “Somewhere Only We Know.” Aloud, they agreed on their appreciation for such a beautifully composed song and left it at that; internally though, the underlying promise of a place, of a life, so much better than the one they currently lived in— that was their real reason for clinging to the words and constantly offering them to each other. It voiced all of the desires they were too afraid to admit out loud, even to each other. Desires that they feared would be compromised— made unlucky— if they ever spoke about how much they yearned for a change. While Blaine figured it wasn’t much of a lively song for a school dance, he wouldn’t put it past Skylar to put in the request. After all, there were bound to be some slow songs, right?

‘Oh god, what if he wants to slow dance with me?’ Blaine took another tentative sip— despite the nausea the sugary drink was causing him— to hide the tenseness in his jaw. He’d wanted to make a statement, show that if he wanted to come here with a boy, as an actual romantic date, that he should be able to— but dancing with one, actually shoving it in everyone’s faces… that felt like a step too far. Suddenly it wasn’t just the lemonade causing his stomach to rot; his anxiety was going to tear him apart from the inside out. Skylar hummed along to the current song, oblivious to Blaine’s rampant afflictions, and bobbed his head rhythmically. The song came to an end and Blaine bit the rim of his cup to keep himself from vomiting words and the contents of his stomach. For a few seconds the only thing that Blaine could hear was the chattering of students throughout the room, reverberating against the high windowpanes, but Skylar beamed, recognizing the song, his song choice, instantly by the lack of immediate guitar rhythms. At the first guitar downbeat Blaine returned the cup to his hand, his paranoia, his unease evaporating when Blink 182’s “Not Now” started up.

‘Of course, I should have seen that one coming. That’s all he’s been singing for days,’ he felt silly for panicking at all, especially over something as silly as a potential song choice. He let out a breathy laugh, exuding the rest of his nerves, and set his very-much-still-full cup on one of the bleachers.

“Time to dance now, let’s go!” Skylar exclaimed before brushing past him to the dance floor. He turned, already rocking his hips in a slightly more experienced but still very teenage-esque fashion, and Blaine sashayed over to join him. They kept their hands to themselves, dissolved into a world of their own— one which they dominated— and worked on showing off to each other, as they’d done countless times in Skylar’s bedroom. Blaine felt at ease finally. This dance was something they could conquer and live to tell the tale, again and again, come Monday morning. The reality of such a thought left Blaine dizzy, drunk off of the knowledge that they showed up together at a dance (at school), were actually dancing at said dance (at school), within close proximity to each other, and actually having a fairly decent time (at school.) The little encounter at the refreshment table felt like a distant memory and the endorphins coursing through Blaine’s bloodstream offered him a moment of bravery. He reached out and took Skylar’s hands in his own, the twinkle in his friend’s eyes let Blaine know he was ready for the next move—the move they practiced a thousand different times to a thousand different songs on sunny days, rainy days, I-don’t-want-to-talk-so-let’s-just-dance-until-I-feel-better-days— and he wouldn’t let his fears stop him now.

He pulled Skylar into the “sweetheart position,” twisting one of his companion’s arms, spinning him around and holding him close to his body before lifting his arm over Skylar’s head and pulling him around with his right hand. They spun together, untwisting their arms but still clasping each other’s hands tightly; Blaine released his right hand and spun Skylar around once, twice, three times more before the other boy collapsed into Blaine’s side, giggling wildly. While it wasn’t an appropriate song to put their swing dancing skills to the test, neither of them seemed to mind.

They were on top of the world, their world, without a single care— nothing, and no one, could possibly hurt them now.

_________________________________________________________

Come here, please hold my hand for now

Help me, I’m scared

Please show me how to fight this

God has a master plan

And I guess

I am in his demand

The music had ended ten minutes ago and the gymnasium was now considerably much emptier than it had been four hours ago, but that didn’t stop the two of them from humming and dancing to their own melody. Blaine held Skylar’s hand in his own, above their heads, and spun him once as they exited the back doors to the parking lot. The smile plastered to Blaine’s face spoke volumes about the events of the night and Skylar’s mirrored his.

“I’m really glad you convinced me to go,” Skylar unclasped his hand from Blaine’s and unbuttoned his blazer. The October wind wasn’t enough for them— they were both overheated, sweat glistening on their foreheads in the pale moonlight. “That’s the best time I’ve had in weeks.”

“Me too,” Blaine grazed the white rose on his lapel, miraculously still perfectly in place, with his thumb. “Hmm… were we supposed to go out to the front instead to be picked up? There’s no one here at all.”

Skylar gave the vacant parking lot a quick glance and frowned, “Huh, I guess we were. I figured they would have had everyone’s parents come back to the same spot they dropped us all off.” He shrugged, “Might as well just walk around the side now, it’s too stuffy inside.”

Blaine laughed in agreement, nodding his head. “After you, my dear,” he half bowed and extended his arms in an extravagant gesture. Skylar slapped Blaine’s bicep playfully and shook his head. “Such a gentleman you are, Blaine Anderson,” Skylar giggled as he passed by him.

“Well, you know me. I aim to please—”

“Where do you think you’re going, faggot?”

Blaine had been in very few fights growing up. They had mainly been schoolyard scraps in elementary school, but even ten year olds had the potential to be vicious. One fight in particular came to mind though. He couldn’t even remember how it had started— one minute he’d been waiting his turn in line for double dutch and the next he’d discovered all the air had left his lungs and a classmate’s fist buried deep into his stomach. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so dizzy and winded before… until now. This Walker kid’s words left him lightheaded and breathless, much like that punch he’d taken so many years ago.

“Skylar, run!” he managed to gasp out once the rest of his senses caught up to him. Skylar gave Blaine a look that said all that he couldn’t: Like hell I’m going to leave you here alone.

Please save me, this time I cannot run

And I’ll see you when this is done

And now I have come to realize

That you are the one who’s left behind

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Walker snapped his fingers and two of his friends came to join him from the shadows beside the school. “You didn’t really think I was going to let you get away with screwing up my night, did you? You got me kicked out— why the fuck should you have been allowed to stay?”

“Blaine, what’s he talking about?” Skylar reached behind himself and gently closed his hand around Blaine’s wrist. It was a harmless gesture, more of a fearful reaction on Skylar’s part, but it seemed to brew thunderstorms in Walker’s eyes.

“He— there was an accident inside— I didn’t mean it, I walked into him and—” Blaine stammered pathetically, keeping his eyes fixed on the three boys before them.

“Oh, was this your date? They let you disgusting things in together?” he spat angrily, his companions’ brows furrowing in equal disdain.

“So both of them then, Logan?” the boy to Walker’s— well, Logan’s— right asked, brandishing a tire iron from thin air.

‘Where the hell did that come from?’ Blaine stared at the heavy object and his heart thumped a little harder against his ribcage. He knew they should run, knew that there was no good possible outcome from staying, but he was paralyzed. Skylar’s hand felt like an anchor on his wrist— neither of them knew what to do.

“Wait, wait, Logan wait. Think about this— you don’t want to— you could get expelled, things will just end up worse from here. You can walk away and—” Blaine knew it was useless trying to reason with him, with any of them. He could see the hatred rising off of them like smoke, blinding them from any sort of logical approach. There was only one way this was going to end.

“Both of them,” Logan growled menacingly and this seemed to do the trick in forcing Blaine into flight mode. He twisted his wrist until he was able to grasp Skylar’s and tugged on it, signaling him to run with him. They had barely been able to take two steps before the third attacker was there in front of him. Before Blaine knew what was happening he found himself on the ground, his hand trying to grasp at asphalt while the absence of Skylar’s wrist slowly sank in.

“No! Stop! S-Stop!”

Upon hearing Skylar’s screams, Blaine writhed on the pavement, trying to angle his head to find him. For the second time within the time span of five minutes, he found himself completely winded. But whatever had hit him felt nothing like human flesh—oh, no— they were putting that tire iron to good use. He curled into himself, trying to hug away the sharp pain in his stomach. He was aware of the sound of his own wheezy, rattling breath, taking in what felt like far too little oxygen, but couldn’t even begin to force himself to focus on anything else. His fetal position left everything else exposed though and he heard Logan’s—or someone’s— grunting, muddled with Skylar’s cries, before the tire iron made itself a new home and nestled itself into Blaine’s back.

Please stay until I’m gone

I’m here hold on to me

I’m right here

Waiting

He yelped loudly and had no real time to recover— whoever was hitting him grew more and more brutal by the second, giving him less and less time to catch his breath between beatings. He began to lose count of how many times he’d been hit; the only thing he knew for sure was that he had never been in so much agony before. His skin felt both numb and prickly. He couldn’t tell what was broken; he simply knew that at least one of his bones had to be. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted his white rose boutonniere— inches away— covered in flecks of red.

‘Is that my blood?’

All of his pain melded together, making it impossible to pinpoint where he was specifically injured. After seeing the rose though, he could actually feel the blood leaving his body in steady streams. His back was sticky; something dripped down his forehead and into his eyes; his fists were clenched, nails biting crescent moons into his palms; everything just hurt. He couldn’t hear Skylar anymore. The world around him was beginning to sound like a muffled cocktail of vicious grunts, breaking bones, and his own ragged breath.

‘Help. God, someone, please help us.’

“Hey, what are you guys doing over there!”

And then suddenly, it all stopped. All of the muffled yelling and metal colliding with skin.

‘Who are you?’

Metal clanged against pavement, just beside his head. The sound sent shockwaves through his brain, his poor throbbing brain.

‘Is Skylar okay?’

Footsteps retreated.

‘Make sure Skylar’s okay.’

And more footsteps approached.

‘Goddamnit, fucking check on Skylar! Move! Move…’

“Jesus… Can you hear me? Hey, kid, it’s going to be okay,”

‘When did I close my eyes?’

“Kid, can you hear me?”

He tried to speak, he really did. Tried to ask about Skylar, tried to ask who was there, but all that he could manage was a soft whine. It seemed to be all the affirmation that this stranger needed though.

“Yeah, he’s alive! What about the one by you, Jesse?”

Blaine descended into darkness before he could hear the answer.

I see a light, it feels good

And I’ll come back soon just like you would

It’s useless, my name has made the list

And I wish

I gave you one last kiss

#blaine anderson #sadie hawkins #syntheticpoetry writes #and the world spins madly on #flashback #assault #violence #hate crime #please don't read if you find this upsetting #some friendship fluff #but angsty ending #blangst

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laynefaire · 5 years

Text

You Didn’t Win

I made a post on Thursday, expressing my continued displeasure with how certain factions of this fandom make all of their decisions regarding fic based solely on who was getting a dick in their ass. I never named blog names, I didn’t put a target on anyone’s back. It was a general statement, prompted by a round-up post regarding a recent fic fest. They denigrated fics that didn’t cater to their proclivities - suggesting those fics were unworthy of being read and enjoyed, and also implied that the mods were in some way responsible for the dearth of fics that would meet their ridiculous standards.

I had no dog in this fight. I hadn’t written a fic for that particular fest, and as a matter of fact, I have not written any fics in that particular ship that include penetrative sex, period. I didn’t even know, up until about a week ago, that there were blogs that would screen fics with the sole criteria of who fucked who, though I shouldn’t have been surprised, given the toxicity levels across all aspects of this fandom.

Nonetheless, someone from that blog - or the sycophants who feed their ridiculous bullshit - became a little paranoid and neurotic. Over the course of the next 24 hours, I received several hateful anons - even after blocking them as they came in. Each was progressively more aggressive than the one before, specifically mentioned the blog that made the original post, attacked me and my writing, and were all clearly designed to get a reaction.

You almost got what you wanted.

I left groups and backed away from my friends who supported me, I closed my asks, I took the weekend off from tumblr, shut down my laptop, and asked Amy and a few others to keep the post for the charity raffle circulating while I decided if my next step would be right out of the fandom, despite how important the charity drives and my friends are to me.

As I went about living my life, enjoying my family, and celebrating my granddaughter turning two, I realized that you, dear anons, obviously have no life and no joy, otherwise you wouldn’t make such a concerted effort to hurt others.

You are also all fucking cowards.

If you don’t have the balls to sign your name/url to a shitty comment or ask, your opinion is worth less than nothing and I don’t want to hear it. If/when I decide to reopen my asks, anons will remain off. You’’ll own your shit, or you’ll walk away, cause I’m not entertaining your stupidity anymore.

Unlike you cowards, I will own what I say, and I am reiterating what I said on Thursday - y’all need to get out more and you need to find a fucking hobby that isn’t reductive, heteronormative, and homophobic.

THE BITCH IS BACK.

YOU DIDN’T WIN.

#mine #random and personal #tldr #YOU DIDN'T WIN #FYI #they share that #they told us so themselves

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clarasjournal · 3 years

Text

The process leading forward to our intelligent object

Today (25/11) after the workshop we further discussed the assignment and what interactive forms we’re interested in developing with AI as a main material/character. During our initial brainstorm yesterday we touched upon two smart home devices called Cozmo and Alexa. Alexa is a smart voice assistant while Cozmo is more of a playful companion that’s very expressive.

Alexa:

Cozmo:

Today we discussed how these two might be combined to create a more playful smart assistant with form that expresses its intelligence in a way that Alexa does not. We discussed how it’s the movements of Cozmo and the facial expressions (eyes) that convey its intelligence and state. Here are Cozmos facial expressions:

We discussed how the form sets the expectations of an interactive artefact. Since Alexa lacks physical affordances and looks like a piece of furniture more than an interactive object it comes with a set of expectations, that it’s constantly present but not really “there”. It doesn’t demand attention in any way, it rather tries to blend in and hide - just be there through a speaker. Cozmo on the other hand moves around, it has facial expressions in the form of lights symbolizing its eyes, and it’s very expressive. It can beg for attention in a playful way and make itself very present and tangibly there. And while it’s smart and can learn new things - it’s not human and it doesn’t try to be human. This type of form comes with a set of expectations as well. You don’t expect Cozmo to give you answers to your questions, calculate something or turn all the lights off simultaneously. The form of Cozmo comes with playful expectations while the form of Alexa might come with only voice assistant expectations through having seen this shape or form in other voice assistant devices, or it doesn’t come with any expectations at all.

Either way, we wanted to focus on a transparency issue we saw with Alexa, the form doesn’t give away it’s listening or not. We want to make this physically visible from the form whether the smart device is listening to our voice or not. Another issue we saw with Alexa was that it doesn’t beg the user for attention ever, it’s a one-way communication. This type of abstract form shapes the experience, and we deem this one-way communication type of interaction as quite unnatural and this opens up for the potential to do something more with a two-way communication type of interaction. What if the AI demands certain things from you as a user, and what could these things be?

We also had a discussion of what AI does best and what it’s good at (at the moment), and that is to recognize patterns and draw out the common denominator of these patterns. Such as observing what people write on twitter and see that the majority writes racist, sexist or homophobic tweets, so the AI starts writing that type of stuff too. Of course it can be used for good purposes as well, such as determining whether a patient has skin cancer or not through matching it with a data base of pictures of skin cancer. AI also have the potential to detect small variations of for example how people walk to determine whether someone has Parkinson disease, based on comparing it to a data base of how people without Parkinson walk and how people with Parkinson walk. So AI is great with patterns and extracting knowledge from these patterns - what can we do with this information? We started out with shaping a form of an intelligent interactive object, inspired both from Alexa and Cozmo. The form looks like this at the moment:

Which we think indicates a playfulness as well as a transparency of whether it’s “on” (most left sketch) and ready to take commands, if it’s “off” (second to left sketch) meaning that it’s not able to listen at all, “actively listening” (both to the right sketches) signifying that it’s taking in what you’re saying. We wanted it to have the playfulness of the Cozmo and the potential intelligence of Alexa. It’s hard to communicate intelligence through physical form, but we thought of it as expressivity and movement. We think the ears and eyes can be used to express intelligence in the form of emotions, state and playfulness. The form of this object sets the experience of it, and throughout the interaction the intelligence becomes tangible.

The concept so far:

We would like to see an intelligent interactive artefact that is taking the human inside of the loop, and thus actively learns from the user and allows for the user to actively shape the interactive form. This object is a blank page from the beginning, and learns as the user teaches it. The user is in control of the purpose of this object and what it shall learn in order to achieve this purpose. Since the user has the power to shape the artefact over time we see the intelligence as a material in our concept, a material that the user is in control of. Which makes the human dominant of the machine. We contrast this to when using intelligence as a character, which can often result in that the machine is dominant of the user - such as the case with “Pat the social backpack” and “Harry the power drill” (Rozendaal et al., 2018). In our case, where we view and design the intelligence as a material, the user is in control of what they choose to teach the object and what purpose they choose for it.

Qualities of our object:

Active learning & shaping, the user creates its own personal object through choosing its purpose.

Non-human.

Playfulness of Cozmo and potential intelligence of Alexa.

Slow interaction, our object might not have all the answers ready like Alexa - it has to learn, so it’s a slower and potentially more organic interaction.

The form sets the expectations, it looks playful and maybe a bit childish - so you wouldn’t expect it to know everything from the beginning. It’s also “alive” in a sense with its movements and expressions, so the user might expect it to behave more organic or life-like as well.

The communication goes both ways, the object wants to actively learn as well - and might reach out to the user with questions of how it can evolve and learn more about the users needs and wants.

The object can be “re-set”, start out blank again.

Through these qualities I believe we’ve onto something. I would want this in my home. This is the first time I don’t feel threatened by an AI object. When I, the user, is in control of what the object should learn and what purpose it should have I don’t have to worry about the threatening parts of AI such as unaware tracking of what I say when not actively speaking to my voice assistant or tracking of when I’m stressed or sad or happy or angry. A feature to our object would be that we want it to be able to draw own conclusions based on what we’ve taught it and what we want it to track or acknowledge. A concrete example: I say to our object that I want it to learn about stress and track me and my signs of stress for 2 weeks, then stop tracking me this way. During these two weeks it learns how I act when stressed, it might ask me throughout the day whether I’m stressed right now when it thinks it has detected a stress sign etc. After these two weeks it knows how I act when I’m stressed, and it might ask what I want it to do when I’m stressed. I might suggest that I’d like to watch a comforting movie. It asks what types of comforting movies I like. It learns about me, but it only learns what I allow it to learn. Maybe in the future I allow it to track me again, and when it discovers signs of stress in my behavior it puts on a comforting movie it knows I like. Maybe I wanted this, or maybe I didn't. If I didn’t, I would be able to say to my object “I don’t want you to put on a movie when I’m stressed” and it would learn to not do that. Or I can be explicit and say “I want you to put on x when I’m y”. This is just an example. I’m excited about this object, which is why I come up with scenarios like this. The essence of it is that the user is in control of the AI, not the other way around. We also spoke of possibilities to ask for information, upon which the object will state where it got the information - so the responsibility of being factual and critical of the source of the information lies with the human, not the machine. I believe we blindly believe and trust technology nowadays, and it’s because the design makes it so easy for us to do this. What if we put a spin on this perspective, and makes the user aware of that the ultimate responsibility lies with the human, not the technology.

We had some further discussions of how this object change depending on if it’s for children or adults, and that it can have different “modes” - such as an educational mode and a smart assistant mode. This could easily be done with the object categorizing the humans and putting them into “profiles”. Depending on whether it’s a child interacting with the object or an adult, the object will tap into its different “modes”. A children's mode, an educational mode, would for example be that the object has a learning curve similar to the child’s learning curve. The child will tell the object about what they had learnt at school that day and the object will take this in and remember, so the next day it will seek the attention of the child and ask it about what they were taught the other day, maybe in the form of a question, e.g. “hey, what was the answer to this question again?”, “hey, what did dog mean in Spanish?”. This way the child will have a second opportunity to learn as well as they continue training this object. This mode would probably benefit from not having internet, so its knowledge is relying solely on what the child is saying. A companion rather than a smart assistant. We discussed whether we should choose one mode or the other, but agreed on having them both since this is just a conceptual week - and we could easily make a storyboard of each. The object will still be the same.

I’m getting really passionate about this idea, and I’m so happy I have a group that all feels the same way about this idea. We’re equally as intrigued and engaged in this idea which signifies that there’s really something to it.

References:

Rozendaal, M. C., Ghajargar, M., Pasman, G., & Wiberg, M. (2018). Giving form to smart objects: Exploring intelligence as an interaction design material. In New Directions in Third Wave Human-Computer Interaction: Volume 1-Technologies (pp. 25-42). Springer, Cham.

#TEI #week 3 #AI #object

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