#funniness was a more important metric

[driftwooddestiel]

if you had to pick one youtuber to birth the second coming of christ who would it be

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Coprophagic AI crisis

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TORONTO on Mar 22, then with LAURA POITRAS in NYC on Mar 24, then Anaheim, and more!

A key requirement for being a science fiction writer without losing your mind is the ability to distinguish between science fiction (futuristic thought experiments) and predictions. SF writers who lack this trait come to fancy themselves fortune-tellers who SEE! THE! FUTURE!

The thing is, sf writers cheat. We palm cards in order to set up pulp adventure stories that let us indulge our thought experiments. These palmed cards – say, faster-than-light drives or time-machines – are narrative devices, not scientifically grounded proposals.

Historically, the fact that some people – both writers and readers – couldn't tell the difference wasn't all that important, because people who fell prey to the sf-as-prophecy delusion didn't have the power to re-orient our society around their mistaken beliefs. But with the rise and rise of sf-obsessed tech billionaires who keep trying to invent the torment nexus, sf writers are starting to be more vocal about distinguishing between our made-up funny stories and predictions (AKA "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion"):

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html

In that spirit, I'd like to point to how one of sf's most frequently palmed cards has become a commonplace of the AI crowd. That sleight of hand is: "add enough compute and the computer will wake up." This is a shopworn cliche of sf, the idea that once a computer matches the human brain for "complexity" or "power" (or some other simple-seeming but profoundly nebulous metric), the computer will become conscious. Think of "Mike" in Heinlein's *The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress#Plot

For people inflating the current AI hype bubble, this idea that making the AI "more powerful" will correct its defects is key. Whenever an AI "hallucinates" in a way that seems to disqualify it from the high-value applications that justify the torrent of investment in the field, boosters say, "Sure, the AI isn't good enough…yet. But once we shovel an order of magnitude more training data into the hopper, we'll solve that, because (as everyone knows) making the computer 'more powerful' solves the AI problem":

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

As the lawyers say, this "cites facts not in evidence." But let's stipulate that it's true for a moment. If all we need to make the AI better is more training data, is that something we can count on? Consider the problem of "botshit," Andre Spicer and co's very useful coinage describing "inaccurate or fabricated content" shat out at scale by AIs:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4678265

"Botshit" was coined last December, but the internet is already drowning in it. Desperate people, confronted with an economy modeled on a high-speed game of musical chairs in which the opportunities for a decent livelihood grow ever scarcer, are being scammed into generating mountains of botshit in the hopes of securing the elusive "passive income":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Botshit can be produced at a scale and velocity that beggars the imagination. Consider that Amazon has had to cap the number of self-published "books" an author can submit to a mere three books per day:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/amazon-restricts-authors-from-self-publishing-more-than-three-books-a-day-after-ai-concerns

As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated "content" in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels. Even sources considered to be nominally high-quality, from Cnet articles to legal briefs, are contaminated with botshit:

https://theconversation.com/ai-is-creating-fake-legal-cases-and-making-its-way-into-real-courtrooms-with-disastrous-results-225080

Ironically, AI companies are setting themselves up for this problem. Google and Microsoft's full-court press for "AI powered search" imagines a future for the web in which search-engines stop returning links to web-pages, and instead summarize their content. The question is, why the fuck would anyone write the web if the only "person" who can find what they write is an AI's crawler, which ingests the writing for its own training, but has no interest in steering readers to see what you've written? If AI search ever becomes a thing, the open web will become an AI CAFO and search crawlers will increasingly end up imbibing the contents of its manure lagoon.

This problem has been a long time coming. Just over a year ago, Jathan Sadowski coined the term "Habsburg AI" to describe a model trained on the output of another model:

https://twitter.com/jathansadowski/status/1625245803211272194

There's a certain intuitive case for this being a bad idea, akin to feeding cows a slurry made of the diseased brains of other cows:

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/bse/index.html

But "The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget," a recent paper, goes beyond the ick factor of AI that is fed on botshit and delves into the mathematical consequences of AI coprophagia:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493

Co-author Ross Anderson summarizes the finding neatly: "using model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects":

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2023/06/06/will-gpt-models-choke-on-their-own-exhaust/

Which is all to say: even if you accept the mystical proposition that more training data "solves" the AI problems that constitute total unsuitability for high-value applications that justify the trillions in valuation analysts are touting, that training data is going to be ever-more elusive.

What's more, while the proposition that "more training data will linearly improve the quality of AI predictions" is a mere article of faith, "training an AI on the output of another AI makes it exponentially worse" is a matter of fact.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/14/inhuman-centipede#enshittibottification

Image: Plamenart (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_Mobius_Strip.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[morethansky]

THIS IS SO FUNNY OH MY GOD.

• Kendrick dropping out of nowhere two tracks in one week that immediately made it to the TOP THREE of the Hot 100

• Kendrick propelling “Like That” via feature to #6 in the Hot 100

• “Not Like Us” being a club banger that’s being played all over the nation. Just unbelievably hilarious for Drake to brag about having fame and numbers over Kendrick—only for Kendrick, who notoriously hates fame and doesn't give a shit about commercial metrics, to wreck him in those very things. Absolutely brutal, I love it so much

• “Not Like Us” having a catchy sound and hook AND YET still being jaw-droppingly dense lyrically, and even imparting an important history lesson, proving that popular rap can have substance, but Drake is just incapable of writing it (or hiring ghostwriters to write it, as the case may be)

• I mean, just. The song being played all over the nation explicitly calling Drake out for being a pedophile and everyone singing along and further spreading this message LMAO

• Also what better humiliation and exposure is there than the fact that every time news outlets report on it, the only image they can use is the song cover art that overtly claims Drake and his entourage should be on the sex offender registry

• “Not Like Us” being the track with the Bay sound and us getting a shoutout in it!! Especially after that disgraceful AI Tupac mess

• “Not Like Us” breaking multiple of Drake’s all-time records (and Taylor Swift’s!!)

• Actually all of these Kendrick tracks beating Taylor Swift, who I will never forgive for the 2016 Grammys

• But also Drake invoking Taylor Swift and then Kendrick hiring a noted producer and co-writer of Taylor Swift's to work on “6:16” LOL

• No doubt that “6:16” would be on here if it were on streaming platforms. Hope that sample can get cleared so Kendrick can obliterate the charts even further

• “Meet the Grahams,” which is like the furthest thing from a catchy pop song and more like grim, menacing spoken word evisceration, making it all the way to #12

• Kendrick not doing any promotion, no social media posts, nothing, and still demolishing Drake, who was constantly posting, in streaming numbers

• Probably the best Drake track in this beef sitting at #17, cackling

[elbiotipo]

So when it comes to distance in a fictional setting, is metric king? I wrote some fantasy post-apoc recently where the protagonist measured it in Oranges and Aevums (the latter being their own name), but more generally speaking is it worth it to hash out bespoke measurement systems for fictional cultures, do you think?

Oranges as a measurement unit sounds so funny, and a measurement based in... yourself makes surprising sense, given all the measurements based on body parts. Why not YOURSELF?

Well, I would think in a real post-apoc world metric would be king indeed, scientific and technologic instruments are in metric even in the US and you could always get a ruler from a school or scales from a grocery store, so eventually you could get back on track to reforming the metric system. It would be interesting, though, if every society during isolation had slightly different measurements for the same units because of faulty equipment (say, ohms or amperes or even grays) and they had to make a congress to clear things up.

Returning to your main question. My perspective here is the same as conlangs. It's very, very fun to have them, but it's not fun to force your audience to read them. When I write something set in a fantasy or science fiction setting, in my head I'm assuming the characters are speaking different languages and I DO explain them and even give examples of them, but the story itself is written, for both the reader's and the writer convenience, in a language we can understand (Spanish in my case, and then it can be translated). Same with units of measurement. I seldom use direct units of measurement like writing "the ship was 110.3 meters long" (in science fiction, it's often a trap as they force you to stay true to them), when more descriptive language can be used...

In any case, you could do, for the kind of immersion I love, say something like "she was 14 oranges* tall, rather small for her age" and do an asterisk like "*A.N. : 1.39 meters tall". This is very fun when used sparingly, because it gives the worldbuilding obessed reader something to play with, you can do the conversion yourself and learn more about the world, without interrupting the story. Some understandably dislike this approach, but I think that if you know what you're doing, you can hide some pretty deep lore behind it. In one of my favorite retro games, The Ur-Quan Masters, there is an alien race called the Slylandro who live in a gas giant. When they tell you their ancient history, they use their own system of measurment based on the rotation of their planet with its own names like Dranhasa and Dranh. The game actually provides you with the rotation time on "Earth" time, so some dedicated fans did the conversion, and found out the dates fit with major events in the game's past. I thought that was an awesome bit.

But I digress again. Does this mean you should not talk about measurements in your story? No, it can do for very fun plots and digressions, as well as make things more realistic and beliveable. A fantasy world sharing all the same measurement units can be as unplausible as everybody speaking "Common". Let's remember that the current metric system is a modern invention which took a long time to be adopted (and some, well one, country, still resists it). Just take a look at the many, many historical systems of measurement:

This was especially prominent in places like the Holy Roman Empire, where every statelet, county, principality, free city, prince-bishopric, duchy, archduchy, etc. may and most often did have different measurements from each other. Just take a look at how measurements varied from each German region, it's crazy. The systems of weight where particularily important. Before the introduction of standarized coinage, coins also varied not only between kingdoms, but between regions, and even towns, and coins made at different times with different alloys had different values. Rather than money in our modern sense, you could think of them as some kind of 'asset' that could vary in value depending on the circumstances. What's more, those values had to be checked by people who knew what they were working with. Silver and gold content could be weighed, ah, but you need good scales and weights, and someone who knows how to work them! And these people could easily rip you off, or you could lose value accidentally if those scales weren't done just right or fiddled with on purpose. In fact, this is where the word 'Mark' comes from.

It wasn't as easy to take say a 100 something bill and get the change in 1 something coins. There is a very interesting subplot in the anime Spice and Wolf where Lawrence, the trader character, has been paid in gold coins, and he has to trade them into lesser denominations. However, he has to be REAL careful so that nobody scams him given all I told you above. Even getting 'gold' coins was a gamble before modern coinage and banking (another long topic). How much of that is REALLY gold and not an alloy with silver or other metal? Who can you trust to tell you how much your coins are worth? Are they compatible between borders or even time, is this version worth as much as the others? Things that characters in fantasy who have just plundered a dragon's hoard almost never think about. Except in Spice and Wolf.

(here is a gif of Holo to break the wall of text)

This all of course, as again you can see in Spice and Wolf, can make trade very tedious and even unstable. This was one of the reasons why the metric system was so quickly adopted in Europe and then elsewhere; consistent units just allow for easier trade. Lots of other things involving measurement can have a major impact on your story. For one, you NEED consistent and accurate measurement to create even the most basic industrial and scientific equipment. You can wing it for a time like alchemists (and even they knew their measurements) but eventually, you need to measure things to understand them. To have working steam engines, steel production, chemical industries and more, you need to know your temperature is. If you want to do electricity, you need measurements for current, resistance and charge. If you're doing engineering, you need to have lenght, weight and volume very, very clear, or people will die. They don't necessarily need to be universal like the metric system (though it has lots of advantages, being coherent between units and decimal so it doesn't jump between different denominations) but they need to be standarized and measurable.

Most of the above, unless you're writing some kind of encyclopedia about a fictional scientific revolution (BASED BASED BASED) will not affect your characters directly. But IT IS worth keeping in mind for what kind of world your characters are living in. The standarization of measurement units always means SOMETHING in the state of your society, the strenght of the state and centralized authority, the state of scientific understanding (one could say that trying to measure the world was perhaps THE scientific revolution, "Man as a measure of all things"), the capability for industry and the standarization of coinage and trade.

Even if you don't have your characters interact directly with those things, they will interact with them. It's also, like I've said in the examples, fun to imagine characters having to learn or deal with different units of measurement, just as it is fun to imagine them learning new languages or cultural quirks. It's something I've done in the past, in my space opera setting, the worlds descended from the United States STILL use the imperial system, much to the frustration of the rest of the metric human sphere. There is also an alien character who has a hard time to learn human measurements, and that makes her melancholic about her past, as they can't intuitively see the now-extinct measurements she does. Again, man as a measure of all things... this does include other thinking beings...

There's more I could talk about here regarding time, but I did a post about that, though I'm not satisfied with it and will probably redo it in some time at the future. In any case, there's lot to talk about why every calendar in science fiction has 365 days and 24 hours.

As always, if you found this interesting and helpful, I would be very thankful if you gave a tip to my ko-fi! And feel free to ask about anything you'd like!

[aihoshiino]

chapter 143 thoughts!

remember when tokyo blade was the longest most drawn out arc of oshi no ko. remember when that was our metric. i want to go back to those blissfully innocent days.

This chapter falls in line with a lot of other chunks of the Movie Arc where as a standalone tidbit of the story there are things about it that I like but taken in the greater context of everything around it, I have decidedly more mixed feelings on it. This is very much "chapter 123… 2!" with all that statement implies. If you liked 123, this will probably be like crack cocaine for you but if you were hoping for a more concrete resolution to what's going on with Aqua and Ruby then you're probably in the same boat as me in terms of coming away feeling frustrated.

Lacking resolution aside, I did really like a lot of what we got in this chapter, both in terms of the twins' relationship and as individual characterisation for them both. Immediately what stood out to me was Aqua's avoidant response to… well, basically everything Ruby says up to a point. It's funny to remember that he was the one who called Ai out on avoiding important conversations and yet here he is doing the very same thing. Like mother like son, huh?

Ruby's first line is also interesting. It definitely makes sense for her to fear a separation from Gorou given that it's basically happened twice now, but her specific fear that if she doesn't affirm his existence it will simply vanish implies a certain lack of security in his presence that I think is very interesting. We haven't really gotten enough time in Ruby's head for me to really dig into what that means for her, but I'm putting a pin in it nonetheless.

Aqua's response here also lines up with my prediction last chapter that we were heading for a rejection. Even if indirectly, he spends most of this chapter trying to turn Ruby away and shut her down without actually addressing her proposition, which I really don't blame him for lmao. Free my boy. Even when he does finally give Ruby an inch, so to speak, and start playacting as Gorou, it doesn't feel at all like a sincere moment of self expression. He's indulging her with a facsimile of their old dynamic, sure, but the actual words he's saying aren't particularly encouraging.

Of course, that's not how Ruby sees things. Or rather… That's not how Sarina sees things. She spends more or less this entire chapter with no stars in her eyes whatsoever. This makes a very interesting contrast with Aqua who, even in the moments that he identifies most strongly with his past self, never loses his stars. In this chapter, "Gorou Amamiya" is never anything more than an act for him but Ruby seems to have entirely returned to being Sarina, at least in this space.

Aqua snarks about her mental age not changing and I think this is truer then you might assume - I do think Ruby goes through a bit of a regression in this chapter and I mean this in an entirely value neutral sense. If you've ever returned to a place or people that defined a certain period of your life, it's very easy to find yourself slipping back into the mindset and behaviours that characterized you at that time. The quickest and easiest example of this is probably a person who lives on their own going back to their childhood home to spend the holidays with their siblings and parents. For better or worse, a return to old dynamics means a return to that old headspace - and that's just for regular people without any reincarnation baggage in the mix.

Ruby's experiences as Sarina have always been extremely foundational to her as a person and at least as of the private audition, she is characterized as seeing herself equally as both girls. So in a situation like this where she's finally getting to see and talk to Gorou again, it makes sense for "Sarina" to have taken the lead here.

As I've talked about before, this difference in how they individually view their reincarnation and how it affects their sense of self is always something that's had the potential to cause friction between the twins and we see it here, I think. The two of them aren't quite on the same page.

That said, this is a sweet conversation. It touches on the unique position the twins are in to give each other closure in a way nobody else really can. That said, it does feel really weird that this talk just… never happened before? I guess you could argue that this is a make or break point for their relationship and it took them being really pushed to have this honest of a talk but even then, I can't think of any real reason it didn't come sooner other than "the author didn't want it to happen yet".

i do have to ask though. where did aqua get those glasses. has he been wearing contacts this entire series and we never knew??

The question of to what degree the twins should be considered the people they were before their reincarnation has been a pretty consistent subject of debate in the fandom, particularly as pertains to Aqua. Wherever you stand on the issue though, I think Aqua is right when he says the Gorou Sarina wants him to be is a person who no longer exists. Too much time has passed and way too much has happened. Even removing reincarnation from the equation, there's not a person on this earth who's the exact same as they were 20 years ago. Living changes you just as much as dying does. Even if some intrinsic, unchanging core still exists, his experiences as Aqua Hoshino have changed him way too much for the "Gorou Amamiya" Ruby wants to see to be anything more than a performance.

more absolutely goated expression work from Mengo, btw: that wonky, rueful smile when Aqua first takes off Gorou's glasses. Sooooo good.

It's also just so so good to finally get some insight into what's going on with Aqua after he's been out of focus for so long. It's also really fantastic to finally see him let his walls down a bit and admit to some of the turmoil rolling around in his head. I think this is part of why we see him slip back into a single white hoshigan here; while the stuff he's saying here is concerning, it's honest. Possibly the most honest Aqua has been for a good long while and him finally letting himself be vulnerable with someone he trusts could be a really good positive step for him.

I say could be because… well, I don't think Ruby quite has a handle on how to help Aqua here. She's not even thinking of helping Aqua after all; she addresses him (in the Japanese text) as 'sensei' over and over to an almost excessive degree. Not only that but her responses to him are a little…

The core of this talk between Aqua and Ruby is the idea that Gorou-as-Aqua has changed in a way that leaves him unable to perform the role he once played in her life, while Ruby argues that nothing has changed. And like… to a degree, both of them are right and wrong. Gorou's core values are something Aqua inherited from him and they continue to drive him. But it simply isn't true that nothing has changed. Like I said up above: twenty entire years of living changes a person even before you factor in the trauma of Ai's death and everything Aqua has done to himself and other people in the name of avenging her. But this is something Ruby is unwilling or unable to see.

More great paneling work from Mengo: When Sarina hesitantly asks if 'Sensei' likes her, there is a very pointed beat panel of Aqua's face with his eyes hidden before he pops the Gorou act back on and goes 'uhhh yeah sure'. Once again, we see 'Gorou Amamiya' as avoidance and insincerity at least in the context of this chapter. It's an act Aqua is half-heartedly putting on but to Ruby-as-Sarina, this is the miracle of their reunion happening again before her eyes. And if they're 'Gorou' and 'Sarina' right now, what happens next shouldn't be a surprise.

And… this is the part of the chapter where I stop having nice things to say. Because believe it or not, I don't mind the kiss and I think in the context of this chapter, it makes a lot of sense and it helps to have had the story finally, explicitly lay down that this is 'Sarina' pursuing 'Gorou', at least from Ruby's POV. I also really liked the framing; that clashing of tones returns again, with the double spread shoujo looking kiss ruined by Aqua's pin-eyed look of alarm and dismay. This is the moment of tension breaking transgression the series has been building up to for over 140 chapters…

And we immediately cut away from addressing it. For at least one more week. I'm going to be really honest… this fucking infuriated me! It feels like an implicit admission that this is going to be needlessly dragged out even longer even though we finally had the perfect opportunity to properly address and solidify what is even going on with Aqua and Ruby right now. It feels like cynical reaction bait. It feels like a roided up version of 123 - throwing AquRuby shippers scraps so they'll keep reading while also avoiding undeniably canonizing an incest ship to not scare off the wider audience. My man has created the Schroedinger's Cat of incest. Is the guy in the box nailing his sister or not? Well gosh, you'd better tune in next week and maybe you'll find out!!!!

In short, the lack of resolution just sucks and the fact that it really seems like we're just leaving things there and moving on to something else makes me want to scream. The Movie Arc has been such an unfocused mess for so many chapters now and this really just takes the cake. Like… remember when this was supposed to be about Ai? Remember when this was supposed to be about finally digging into her past and her private life? If half the stuff in the script is just made up then why am I even supposed to get invested in what's going on in the movie in the first place?

At this point, I just desperately want this arc to be done so we can move on. Say what you will about Tokyo Blade's pacing, but at least that was focused and cohered with itself on a week to week basis. The Movie Arc by contrast feels so far removed from any of the ideas we started with that I have no clue what to expect or anticipate from it going forwards or if I should even bother to try.

[benny-the-spaceman]

one of these days im going to release my tlm drafting headcanons from my notes app purgatory and that day is Today.

HERE'S HOW I THINK LEGO MOVIE CHARACTERS WOULD PREPARE AND MAKE DRAFTS

...under the cut

Batman

• Fairly good at drawing. Somehow able to draw straight lines without a ruler perfectly fine every single time but otherwise nothing super noteworthy (he does brag about this constantly however)

• Drafts in white and yellow posca pen??? will use white colored pencil for finer detail however, specifically one of those mechanical colored pencils

• Drafts on black paper because he thinks it makes his designs cooler (it doesn't)

• Dimensions in imperial and would be annoyed if you dare even *insinuate* he use metric. no justification here

• Doodles around his drafts, specifically likes to doodle bats and himself because he, once again, thanks it makes his drafts cooler (the bats kinda do)

• Refuses to leave notes on his designs. you either know what to do or you don't

• Does however write his drawing title obnoxiously large

• Used autocad for like a day, hated it, switched to solidworks and never went back

• Buys autodesk licenses for the rest of the masterbuilders. unwillingly, mind you, wyldstyle just knows his credit card information and abuses it

Benny

• Good at drawing exclusively spaceships. big shock i know

• The king of eyeballing a line or an angle and then labelling it however the fuck he wants. proper measurements take time he could spend drafting or making more spaceships, he'll save measuring and straightedges for drafts he deems important enough

• Uses blueprinting paper. there's no practical purpose for this, he just digs it

• Drafts with whatever writing utensil is on hand

• He gets inspired quite often so he usually keeps a drafting notepad on him just in case

• Leaves a *lot* of notes. Most of them are completely unnecessary and are a funny contrast to his haphazard dimensioning

• Pretty dang good at autocad! Usually reserves it for projects that require a lot more collaboration however

• Usually drafts in metric, can dimension in imperial but prefers not to

• 100% sets autocad to the light background like a monster

• Do not give him any 3d modelling software, he might blow up the computer

Emmet

• Either really good or really bad at drawings (obvs leaning towards bad. we remember the break in plans)

• Dimensions in imperial. I cant justify this one he just does. god bless america or something idk

• Owns a couple drafting pencils but rarely uses them, most of the time he drafts in marker or pen much to the chagrin of anyone who needs to read his drafts (or delight if you're unikitty)

• Started learning how to use autocad after taco tuesday and he's actually pretty good at it! he does use an architectural dimstyle for everything though which is particularly annoying when he's quite often not drafting buildings now

• Has labelled and colored layers 👍 enough said

• Uses disgustingly thick lineweights. horrible.

• Rarely if ever 3d models so he's not good at it, he mostly works on things that 2d conveys better anyways

• Although he's not the best drafter of the master builders, his construction background makes him the best at reading drafts, give him a unikitty draft and he can decipher it like it's nothing

Metalbeard

• Probably the best at drafting of the master builders, he's got the age advantage and lots of practice from making ships

• Drafts in pencil, quill, or charcoal depending

• Who needs straightedges or angle stencils when youre basically a pirate cyborg, expect robot like precision

• Doesn't use standard measuring conventions, instead opts to use the dumbest things possible. The Sea cow's units of measurement were seagulls. It isnt that he cant do normal units of measurement, he just prefers his made up ones

• Makes his drafting paper by himself

• Pretty good with 2d and 3d modelling surprisingly. He doesn't like either, however, he much prefers drafting on paper

• Leaves an average amount of notes on his drafts but has the most disgustingly fancy cursive and writes in his piratey english. Often a nightmare to read if you aren't used to his writing

• Will sometimes do blueprint swaps with Benny wherein they critique each other's work. not sure when they started doing it, but it's become a weekly activity for them

Unikitty

• Worst drafter of the main masterbuilder crew. Most people think it's because she's a cat but no she just doesnt take drafting seriously in the slightest

• Drafts like she's making an arts and crafts project. She has put several bottles of glitter on singular drafts and she will do it again

• Dimensions in rainbows, no knows what this means other than emmet

• Gives the longest, most complicated titles possible

• No such thing as straight lines

• Is entirely capable of drafting properly, just refuses to

• Leaves notes that are entirely unrelated to the draft. she wont tell you how youre supposed to connect two objects but she *will* tell you about the sandwich she ate while making the draft

• Doesnt use autocad, looks too boring

• Didnt use any 3d modelling softwares until she realized you can change the appearance of materials. that was a game changer. still much prefers drafting on paper though

• Likes drafting with emmet sometimes since he seems to be the only person who understands her drawings. to this day no one understands how he does it

Vitruvius

• Going blind has, surprisingly, not made him much worse at drafting, just changed his process a bit

• Drafts in pencil

• Probably the person who least frequently drafts of the main masterbuilders. On account of just not needing to and also on account of being dead

• Dimensions in the old anglo-saxon units of measurement

• Doesn't title his drafts and doesnt see a point in doing so

• Leaves the most vague, utterly confusing notes on his drawings. theyre still related to the drawings unlike unikitty's notes, but theyre very odd

• Doesn't use autocad or 3d modelling softwares, partially because he wouldnt really be able to on account of being blind but also partially because he doesn't really know what they are

• There isnt really much to say about his drafting skills he's about as normal of a drafter as a masterbuilder can be

Wyldstyle

• An engineering teacher's dream student. She may not have the amount of experience metalbeard has but she's still very skilled

• Doesn't like drafting on paper and won't if she doesn't have to

• When she does draft on paper she uses a drafting mechanical pencils. she also 100% collects them

• dimensions in metric to exactly 3 decimal places

• leaves very few if any notes (always very concise ones if included)

• has a case of staedtler stencils that she bought 4 years ago and never uses

• picked up a habit of doodling on drafts from batman but will never admit she got the habit from him

• Autocad PRO. Also really damn good at solidworks and fusion. Give this girl a computer and she'll give you a motorcycle assembly within the hour

• Specializes in automotives

• Spends time with Emmet on the weekends teaching him how to use digital drafting softwares (this process was incredibly frusturating at first but gets easier with time)

[justenjoythegossip]

Chris and his loss of followers on Insta since his return: a few thoughts

His huge drop in followers when he returned to Insta:

Some mods have kindly provided us with Chris’ metrics when it comes to his Instagram followers number. I have chosen some graphs provided by @kj-rivia, who I thank.

We can observe a huge drop of followers when he came back, which is very understandable. He left SM, just before the summer and was purposefully absent during the shitstorm created by his 2 kinda weddings to his Portuguese wife (“Go Portugal!”). His pretext was that he needed to take a break but people don’t need to make an announcement to say they are taking a break unless they want the attention. Also we had an article from People’s magazine which was pre-written to tell us captain America was taking a break from SM. So that tells us that his absence from SM was planned and used for PR purposes. Also they needed to recalibrate their strategy given that he was about to kinda “marry” a very problematic girl who looks like his niece. And indeed he came back with a very different insta account.

His return on Insta coincided with Thanksgiving (Nov 23rd) and was all about… selling dog food  for the black Friday and his interview on The View which was sponsored by the dog food brand coincided with… the Cyber Monday. All of this seemed a very tactless error that probably angered even more people. Let’s point out that actor’s strike ended on November, 9th. And he could have come back with a post about this or to promote his own work (Pain Hustlers or Scott Pilgrim…) or his own political website.

The steady and constant loss of followers…

The very rare green spots are not very significant. I suspect the green on December 2nd probably served as damaged control after his spectacular losses for his return and the green on December 25th was meant to offset the more significant losses he got as a result for their latest NY papwalk.  

But what’s interesting is that his losses of followers have been almost always steady and constant, which doesn’t seem very organic. Indeed, we could expect a drop when he posts something or if articles about them come out but the losses are very steady and constant. 

The opposite is true as well. We can all agree on the fact that it’s not very organic when Abba keeps gaining followers when she doesn’t post or when there is nothing about her in the media. (Funny, the opposite is true actually, she has managed the rare feat of losing followers each time she has posted on SM. Ouch!) But the question regarding Chris’ numbers on Insta remains. Why do they keep going down this way? People need a trigger to unfollow so a decrease shouldn’t look like the one we are witnessing. A steady and constant decline could be explained by expiring bots, though. But if his constant decline is due to expiring bots, we must ask ourselves why they are letting it happen. Did the money run out? Did Instagram change the rules so that you can’t buy as many bots as you used to? Or does his team fail to offset his losses on purpose? And it’s actually quite a safe assumption to make that his team is orchestrating it because whatever you believe of Chris and Abba (whether they are a real couple or not), no one can deny the strong PR spin when it comes to this “so not private” couple. And PR equates staging and manufacturing. Lots and lots of it. 

What purpose could his constant losses serve? 

If his team is purposefully letting his numbers drop, it’s important to ask ourselves WHO it is destined for. The media obviously don’t report it and the general public is definitely not aware of it. Even the casual fans that follow Chris won’t notice it easily if they are not paying close attention because it takes a while to notice a significant drop... Indeed, what’s indicated on his profile is 18,9 million followers, 18,8 millions followers etc… 

However, the people who look at those metrics and report on them seem to have something in common. They are people who have paid close attention, people that have seen all the clues and breadcrumbs fed to the fandom, people who are very much aware of how problematic Abba and her group of fat-shaming antisemitic Nazi friends really are. 

Is his drop in followers supposed to serve as a punishment and to appease his disappointed fans? Does this serve as some sort of “divine justice” for associating with her? It’s not so far-fetched to think their teams would do pretty much anything to keep people engaged, even the ones enraged by this shitshow. 

[juruna-yudja]

Is the flash-forward in Ao no Exorcist (chapters 139 & 140) relevant?

Is essentially the direction this post will take and the question it seeks to answer. This WILL contains spoilers for the manga, from chapter 110 to the current last update, chapter 148. You've been warned.

So! One thing I've noticed lately in the direction Aoex is taking is that it seems to be gearing up for a final arc.

Big confrontation against the Big Bad with all the allies gathered in a desperate last stand? The world at stake? Allies actually suffer losses and are subject to mortality?

Check, check, and check.

By all metrics, this looks like a final batttle, final arc material. Except! There are a bunch of things that make me say the manga is far from over. Mostly it's a dual thing. The big one is the flash-forward chapter. The other reason is how the content of those two chapters is linked intrinsically to everything else.

And now another warning. All of this is speculation and theorizing. Take it with a grain of salt, don't get too hyped up. I could be wrong and reading too much into it. So keep that in mind.

That said, in the aforementioned chapters, halfway through chapter 139 and two-thirds of chapter 140, we see the future in a vision. More precisely, Mephisto is given a vision.

The funny thing with Mephisto is that he already broke the fourth wall once, in that one chapter I can't remember for the life of me. This, for me, gives credit to the flash-forward right away. Beyond the fact that its existence is a deliberate choice made by Katou of course.

Besides, since we're on the topics of choice, there are many elements present in those two chapters that tell me all of this was thought of in advance. Because those elements are referenced directly or in a roundabout way in the previous or following chapters. Here's my list:

Shima's dream of becoming an idol:

Chapter 139 page 27

And here is him saying it outright when asked about what they'd do after the battle in their story's present.

Chapter 144 page 9

Rin's powers:

The fun thing Kato Kazue has always done was color code Rin's power for our convenience, especially lately. In the recent fight with Yukio, he makes mention of Rin's appearance and how the way his brother looked then, bright hair and visible demon's core, meant that he was unstable. And later, Rin said that he tamed his demon's side.

Chapter 132 pages 20-21

BOOM. TRANSFORMATION

And as it happens, in the flash-forward there are also transformations and what's special about those is that he doesn't need to sheath and unsheath Kurikara to make them happen.

Chapter 140, pages 9, 16 and 18

But that is before and during the flash-forward. What about closer to the story 'present'?

Here is Yukio reaching out to Rin so his big brother can talk about his problems if he wants to. Because he learned his lesson about bottling up and trying to face everything on his lonesome. Isn't awesome and cooing worthy?

Anyways, Rin gives us access to his inner thoughts and tell us how he offered to make peace with Satan and was harshly rejected. But the whys of this are especially important.

Here he is, on the eve of their final battle, asking himself if this is the right way. Not outright rejecting Satan's words. Still on his journey of acceptance of his heritage.

The stages we've seen so far are; denial, acknowledgement, looking at the whys and hows of his nature by witnessing the past, trying to repress and then tame his demonic self by exerting control. The missing parts for me are understanding and acceptance. There is a space left for it in the 'present' and in the flash-forward, our vision of the future, he seems to have gone through those stages and be able to use his powers at will, finally at peace with himself.

Chapter 143 pages 27-28

The Paladin condition:

Chapter 139 page 21 & chapter 140 page 31

The exact same form of damage that one of the Ba'al's host bodies incurs through rapid cell regeneration/degeneration. Also, because I don't think Arthur's status as the only Lucifer's clone & prospective host to survive was put in here just to give him an existential crisis he refuses to engage with.

Speaking of the Ba'al's hosts though.

Astharoth's incarnation:

Chapter 144 pages 25 & 28

As funny as those panels are, and they are funny, I don't think it was done solely for the bit. If they were, why bother bringing back the guy who can theoretically be accredited with kicking off the whole plot by forcing Rin's first transformation?

Manga likes being self-referential and it's arguably a better idea than crafting a new guy out of whole cloth, but then why bother giving us these little glimpses into the individuals' attitudes, goals, wishes, and dreams of the Ba'al in the eleventh hour?

Katou Kazue has taught us to expect better.

And now that I've mentioned expectations...

Shiemi's uncle:

Chapter 114 pages 8-9 and chapter 131 pages 11-12

So, what's up with this guy? He scares Shiemi on an instinctual level when she's not easily frightened, and with the bloody hand and the way we see him smile in Shiemi's forgotten repressed memories, my personal bet is that he killed someone, she witnessed it and he told her to forget or made her forget. Also, has ambitions to shape her to his will, given the nature and tone of their short conversation.

Something else that's also important with Shiemi's uncle, he's the one who purposefully lied to Arthur about his origins and exudes absolutely creepy (controlling) vibes in general.

Chapter 111 pages 14-17

The Uzai family, attendants of Shemihaza, raised him once he got out of Section 13 Asylum due to Shemihaza's interest in him. That is what he's told at least. But... he's already been lied to about his past.

At the time it is very possible that Hilkiah was following the current Shemihaza's lead and keeping mum on exactly what Section 13 was or how it connected to the True Cross Order.

What matters in this section is the story's present. When presented with an opportunity to tell the truth, Jeremiah reinforced the lie.

Arthur considers him family, calls him brother. They're close enough that he expresses his deepest and most ruinous doubts to Jeremiah, the question that would make him reconsider his entire existence.

The question is, why would Jeremiah lie to Arthur?

I think the reason is that Jeremiah was assigned to stay at Lucifer's side by his uncle (despite Shemihaza's protests) to keep an eye on Lucifer and saw all of this:

Chapter 118 pages 20, 22-23

Chapter 119 pages 15-16

[Not included (I'm fighting with the image limit) but relevant. Before Lucifer zapped them all to cinders there was a first flash of light that mesmerized Arthur. He walked to it, saying, "It shines like something special... I want to be like that too." When the possibility he could die heading toward the light (ironic, I've just realized) is raised, teenage Arthur responds, "It's okay. If I die I can be part of it."]

So what Jeremiah saw is this; a child unharmed among corpses reduced to cinders, despite withstanding the full intensity of a lethal attack from Lucifer itself. The success of Section 13's research, a bargaining chip in the future for when Lucifer comes back.

And the reason I think he lied was to keep that bargaining chip nice and snug for eventual possession by Lucifer. Because demons feast on Exorcists' doubts and struggles. And what's more offputting and likely to put someone off kilter than touching upon their very identity?

Uncharitable? Maybe.

But Arthur is drawn into a fight by the guy who created Satan's host body, baited into getting close enough to be injected with something, and the next (and only) time we see him after that is during the flash-forward where he shows signs of advanced degradation.

This takes us to the final point I wanted to make.

The Looks:

Chapter 139 page 28

They're the law enforcement of the dystopian future which tracks its citizens' location and schedule; that Paku is a victim of and which Rin works against, so what? What's the only other place we see the extras wear berets alongside their uniform?

Chapter 110 pages 5-6

And which other faction wears white among the True Cross Order than the Grigori and more precisely, Shehimiza's faction? No one. Manga is a visual way of doing storytelling and this is why I think the visual coding is important.

Plus, Katou Kazue did go through the pain of giving the True Cross Order's uniforms. Uniforms that very visibly change design in that future we're allowed to glimpse, so to me, it's not a coincidence.

Also, I think, (this part is purely speculation) that in the flash-forward Jeremiah and his faction seized power, and allied with Lucifer, took control of the True Cross Order. Hence why the organization is so repressive and controlling, to the point that Rin (who didn't kill homicidal zombies because he's on the side of humans) actually kills one of their... chief operatives? Someone who represents a legion, presumably, someone important enough to be hunted down.

Previous paragraph aside, none of this was put in there on a whim or at random. In fact, the flash-forward is surprisingly cohesive, plot and characterization-wise (I'll definitely have to do an in-depth analysis of it to do it justice) and I'm of the firm belief that it is a teaser of what's to come.

Personally, and this one is a gut feeling only. I think that the current arc is either: the penultimate arc or the midway point of the manga.

[darklinaforever]

"Read the fucking book. No woman could ever have Criston’s job ? The motherfucking Kingsguard was FOUNDED by Visenya Targeryen you idiot, who was his fiercest guard. Take your bullshit theories elsewhere."

I really need to talk about this passage again. Because it really shows how stupid this person is. It's not because Visenya founded the Kingsguard that women can become Kingsguard. In fact, they cannot. Even less so in the Criston Cole era. It's not very difficult to understand, and basically proves how stupid this person saying that is.

Or even saying that the "BOTH sides committed equal atrocities and by the way there’s no metric unit to calculate and compare war crimes? They’re both AWFUL."

You are the one who insists that they are on the same level, EQUAL. The word equal implies that it is supposed to be the same on both sides, without much difference. However, we provide you with verbatim proof to the contrary, that the two team are not equal in their motivations, actions, and war crimes, and then they try to say that we cannot calculate and compare war crimes. Except yes. We can count the number of crimes and compare their importance and impact. How do you think a crime is judged exactly ? And then once again, I find it very funny to insist on the extent to which the two teams are equal, even in their crimes... It must be very funny to have the list face to face. If they are so on the same level, why don't Blacks have more war crimes to their credit ? Especially since two of them on 4 are the direct consequence of the death of Lucerys caused by the Greens, and of the Greens having emptied the kingdom's coffers...

Or to say : "I’m not calling Rhae Maegor with Teats, her people did because she was awful. She overtaxed them and started killing all her subjects to the point they drove her away! Calling someone a cruel dictator is not misogyny, grow up."

Whereas as I said : No. The people don't call her Maegor with teas because she's "awful". I already said why they started calling it that. This nickname was given to Rhaenyra after she raised taxes because the Greens literally emptied the kingdom's coffers. Demonstrating that a female monarch is always judged more harshly than a man even if she is clearly not an equivalent in terms of cruelty. At no time can the increase in taxes, the ultimate original reasons for this nickname, put her on an equal footing with Maegor. So yes, it’s a form of misogyny since this nickname comes from a blatant double standard of treatment / judgment between the horrors of Maegor and Rhaenyra which simply increases taxes, therefore between a man and a woman. A woman, Rhaenyra, for having increased taxes, is put on the same level as Maegor, a man with the worst horrors of all, by the population. And you don't see the reflection of misogyny in that ? Really ? It’s up to that person to grow up a little I think.

[tossawary]

The Nimona movie is a very fun watch! Sweet and funny. A little different to the graphic novel (finally got around to reading the graphic novel just yesterday, definitely enjoyed it), but a solid overall adaptation of the novel's themes and the lovable, silly, and emotionally-touching characters. Very lively, extremely expressive animation and super fun, vibrantly colored, interestingly shaped and textured world and character design. I would honestly love to see the frames of this movie turned into a graphic novel of their own. I am personally a huge fan of the techno-fantasy / techno-medieval aesthetic. (The similarities between Nimona and the She-Ra reboot are obvious and imo super fun. I enjoy both stories.) Also, yes, one of the main characters is a man explicitly in a romantic relationship with another man, and that was very nice to see.

I have a couple worldbuilding plot hole quibbles (personal nitpicky stuff that didn't detract from my enjoyment) and I also personally think that the pacing of the movie was a little quick in places. There could have been clearer indication of the passage of even more time. It could have lingered more and allowed for even more slower and quieter moments, going a little deeper into things, but (that's what fanfiction is for, ha ha) that opinion might just be because I liked the characters and relationships so much that I wanted even more and even more detail. I intend to read the graphic novel again and then watch the movie again soon to appreciate the details and enjoy them for a second time.

I've seen some people give flashing warnings but can't personally speak as to the details of that, other than to say the flashing seemed pretty average for an animated movie to me (animated movies are not great with flashing, as a rule, now that I'm thinking about it), as opposed to something nonstop like Spiderverse. Something to look into, though, if that's a concern for you.

Story-wise, I would also warn for some pretty explicit themes of othering to the point of suicide ideation and actions that could be considered a suicide attempt. The film also (slight SPOILERS for the first 10 minutes or so) opens with a non-gory murder and someone losing an arm, which is quickly replaced by a robotic prosthetic, and the struggles of that injury and disability are kind of glossed over. There are casual discussions of murder in the movie as humor, but they veered away from the sort of explicit casual murder that happens in the graphic novel.

Apparently giving stuff a double thumbs-up (the "I love it!" option) on Netflix is important to supporting the film (one of the metrics that high-ups will be looking at or something), if you can do that and wish to do that. If you're watching it another way and want to show support, then I'm sure that happy reviews on film sites, posting positively, and generally encouraging friends to watch it are also pretty good ways. I wish the movie had had even a brief theater release near me, but alas, I shall have to content myself with enjoying it on the small screen. I wonder if they managed to create any merch for this movie. I'd love a Nimona t-shirt or something.

[lazodiac]

It's time once again to ramble incoherently about magic cards. Lets try and divine where each of the cards of Outlaws of Thunder Junction are from, why don't we!

You can find the first two parts here and here! And today we're covering...

BLACK

Starting us off with a native to Thunder Junction. God this critter is spooky looking. Love it though!

Aaah, the Hellspurs. I'll get more into them once we meet our first creature Hellspur, but for now just accept that this magmatic thread of doom is native to Thunder Junction.

Another native creature of Thunder Junction! Vultures are important and regal birds and shouldn't be so villainized, I think... but I can't deny they do sometimes look this nasty.

While we've seen a number of vampires in magic practice ye ol' Sanguimancy, the plane most often shown to do this (and the plane most likely to pop their collars THIS ridiculously) is Innistrad.

As mentioned with ghosts in the Blue cards, dead and revived means you're bound to the plane- zombies are native to Thunder Junction, regardless of where they're from previously.

Sweet lord kill it with fire! This abomination is from Thunder Junction and if it's not I never wanna see where it's from. Snorses are wonderful an idea but god they look comfortable.

Gonna say something controversial about this one- the way the lady is posing, her culty robe, and the predominance of ash in her fire, makes me think this is a deep-cut to Azgol, last seen in MOM. It's got similar vibes to various Hellspur aesthetic stuff, but the woman is clearly just too alive to be one of them- more on that later.

Okay this is probably the best place to bring this up. Hellspurs! One of the criminal factions of Thunder Junction. Lawbreakers, murderers, and thieves to a man. Each follows the brutal scorpion-dragon outlaw Akul, and almost every single one of them is mutated beyond all belief by the Chaotic Thunder of the plane.

As a result, much like with zombies and ghosts, these guys have fully stripped away all of their previous life in exchange for lava hands and shit. So, there's gonna be a lot of folk who are native to Thunder Junction purely by this metric, and it'll skew things a little. This is why I'm counting the numbers by colour, since the Hellspurs are predominantly red and black.

A natural (and very spooky!) magical mirage of death. I love this art.

See? This is what happens when you don't "lower" yourself to feeding on animals. You end up shoving your stupid ass face into a cactus. This is a Ravnican vampire, since we've seen before they're often stupid enough to pull this exact trick.

*Dry bones falling apart noises* Tinybones' funny trick and/or prank! This is from Dominaria since that wonderful friend is from Dominaria too.

Raised on the plane, native to the plane. This skeleton owns by the way, this is a good ass skeleton.

Gisa Cecani is, much like her brother, one of my favorite characters in Magic. She's Innistradi born and raised, and seems to fit in like a glove on this plane.

Really unsettling art on this one! Ghost, so native to Thunder Junction... though we can actually, likely, identify the body here; four arms suggests a Mirran Vedalkan. Neat!

Our first actual look at the main antagonist of the set (for as much as that means in a villain focused set). Akul, the Scorpion Dragon of Gastal- a fact revealed right before I started doing this!

Kaervek! The Merciless! The Conqueror! The "too big a deal to be dealing with this shit", imo. Everyone's upset at Marchesa being here but Kaervek is the one that bugs me the most- this man is a country-conqueror, not a petty crook!... but, it's fine, because it's clear in the story Kaervek is insulted Oko's recruited him for such trivialities.

Anyway, he's from Zhalfir. I hope he gets to kill Oko.

Swing your partner round and round, rip their corpus from the ground! Gisa doing a barn-raising in the most literal sense, a uniquely Innistradi way of waking up the dead, with a Thunder Junction flavor.

A hellspur bursting his way out of a shallow grave- oak box included. Funny, and native to the plane.

No real way of figuring out where this guy is from or his gaseous death-cloud... so I'll say Eldraine, based purely on the fact that it's the plane most likely to have such a simple burst of "sleeping" poison.

An easy one! He may be a rat man but he's called out as a Nezumi and that's a Kamigawan thing.

There are a couple places this delightful fellow could be from... but given the pickpocketting and the general demeanor, he's from New Capenna.

Azul, laying a horrific waste to his "friends" to benefit. The scorpion claws being a vent for his breath weapon is exceptional a design, incidentally.

A ridiculous piece of art for many reasons, this one is native to Thunder Junction purely by the fact that this is where the gang was born.

The reason why this is ridiculous is because every single height here is wrong. Vraska is taller than basically everyone to the left of her. Oko is using magic to make himself look taller that's literally canon so that's fine, but Kellan? Annie? One's a baby (described as small for his age) and one's a grandma. Tinybones is also probably far too big. The only person here who is the right height is Rakdos, whose height is "whatever height he wishes to be he can change shape depending on how excited he is". Wild shit.

The only plane with actual snakes-for-hair gorgons is Theros, and even then only half of the time. So this lady is from there. Fitting too, apothecaries making booze and poison is within Pharika's perview absolutely.

As fun as it would be to say this is a raven from Dominaria, implying the presence of Omenpaths are allowing the (currently suppressed and trying to fight his way out of Lili) Raven Man is doing some work, naw. This is just a normal raven.

An all-natural undead member of the Hellspurs, double erasing his identity. God dangit.

This being an ASSASSIN vampire suggests New Capenna. It's kind of their jam, you know?

Gisa showing she is more impulsive than a monkey-goblin obsessed with explosives is why this story spotlight (that isn't given a story spotlight tag) is happening. Innistradi magic running wild and giving us a real Train to Busan energy.

A later card explains that the demons that are natural to the plane grant gifts like this, so this scorpions and their soon to be scorpionman friend are native to the plane.

Fun fact; scorpions do just glow like this. Bio Luminescence is fun!

Jana has the exact same vibe (and the same demon-snake familiar) as Elnor from Yuma's story, so I'm calling it for New Capenna here. Also, funny flavor text AND reminder text. Fantastic work.

And that's it for part 1. Tune in momentarily for part 2 of Black!

[derekscorner]

Bleached Ramblings: What happens to Ichigo once dies?

I've been wondering this ever since I posted this about Ichigo being paid by the Soul Society. (link here)

I saw a bunch of "he's loaded once he dies!" jokes but that got me thinking...what actually happens to Ichigo when he dies? He's not just human, he's a substitute soul reaper.

Yes, yes, he has other latent abilities since he's part everything but the "reaper" part is the most important because Ichigo exists in two states.

He has his physical human body and his soul takes the shape of a Reaper's spiritual body. We also see regularly how damage or age to one is reflected upon the other.

When a normal human dies their soul, which is chained to their body literally, is separated from said body.

What becomes of you after that is ultimately up to luck. Most souls will go to the Soul Society where they essentially continue their existence in a spiritual form.

After they're there for a while they'll ever develop spiritual energy and thus begin to require food, sleep, and water. Or they'll keep lingering until they "disappear" (aka reincarnate) or fall victim to some form of violence from other spirits or even hollows.

A few truly unlucky folks will even grow ill since illness does exist in the Soul Society.

This isn't even counting the alternatives. Other souls are unable to cross over into the afterlife and thus cling to the living world. They'll either be food for a hollow, become a hollow themselves, be exorcised by a reaper via soul burial, or you'll find Hell's Gate waiting for you if you're a truly horrible person.

Now you probably wonder why I recap this at all. Why is this relevant to Ichigo himself?

Simple, Ichigo's soul isn't a normal soul. His soul is that of a Reapers. He literally takes on that form when he exists his body.

That means he wont have that usual process upon the death of his human body. However, I can't just claim that'd he pop out of said body should it die early.

Damage to his human body is reflected on the reaper body and vice versa.

So let's just do a thought experiment. What happens to Ichigo Kurosaki if he dies of old age?

If we argue that his soul just ejects in it's reaper form then he'll pop out as the age he was when his physical body died.

Or since the body and soul reflect age and damage it's more likely that the soul reaper form would also be close to dying from old age if not doing so simultaneously as his physical form does.

What becomes of Ichigo then? Will he immediately reincarnate? Or will he suffer the same fate as the captains.

"what fate" you ask?

See that's the funny thing, Bleach released a one shot called the Hell chapter or Hell arc which dropped this bombshell on us:

You see, upon death, a soul/spirit's body will break down into pure reshi. Similar to how a living body breaks down into minerals, bacteria, and the like.

You return to the dirt of the earth in both worlds.

But souls at captain level or higher are too powerful to break down. Sure, their bodies may vanish but their souls won't easily return to the reincarnation cycle.

In order to deal with the potential imbalance the souls are chucked into the only place they can go. A pit of chaos according to the Bleach novels, a pocket of space remnant from the original unified world.

They're thrown into hell.

This doesn't just apply to Soul Reaper captains either, they're just using that position as a metric of power. Someone as strong as a captain, a level of power that Ichigo eclipsed a very long time ago.

Now that doesn't mean for sure Ichigo will go to hell upon death since there seems to be a ritual needed to send such souls there but it is an outcome one can't easily write off either.

Ichigo's entire situation is unique so he may just immediately reincarnate due to what his soul is but who knows. Just a fun thing to dread over.

I'll leave you to ponder this nugget by adding on that this may apply to Isshin as well since his special gigai makes him essentially human.

Bye now 8D

[whoishotteranimepolls]

Counterpoint:

Why shouldn’t those things people have brought up impact a character’s hotness? Many people value personality and quality of character a lot, not just physical appearance, when evaluating someone’s hotness. It can be a deal breaker if the personality is s***, and to some that’s far more important than physical sexiness.

I’m actually baffled so many people seem to be confused about these facts.

As a sex-repulsed individual who finds girls physically prettier than boys, I tend to not evaluate based on how much I’d like to bone a character. If you ask me, having a good moral compass is super hot, especially when I’m trying to escape from the depressing real world and its horrible people.

The notion of “who is hotter” is fairly vague, so don’t be so judgey about the metrics others use. For some this is just a debate about prettiness, for others this can be a thought exercise about realistically, who would they rather date if they had to choose.

I think this is a response to Geto, but It could also work for Doflamingo, Dracula, or Sir Crocodile. This is why I tell all of you to mention the character by name at least once in the response so I know which one you're responding to. But back on the topic

I picked "Hotter" precisely because it is a vague term, and you could go as PG or X-rated as you wanted.

You can judge a character's hotness on their personality and character development and if they would treat you right on a date or as a partner, even platonically as friends

However, at least so many people who interact with my blog go straight to I want to bang that character. I don't care that they're a war criminal. They're hot. At least we've gotten a couple of funny Defend Your Blurbo's out of the One Piece fandom and it's also why I call them the undisputed rulers of horny jail.

[strangefellows]

Okay this is gonna be a long post but I figured why the hell not throw my absolute fucking lunatic conspiracy board Limbus Company theory out there, because I’ve had four people tell me it makes sense when I’ve brought it up to them, so! Here we go. Theory: I believe that Dante is Ayin (a main character of the first ProjMoon game, Lobotomy Corp, for those who don’t know). There’s a metric asston of evidence in just the first few chapters alone that keeps making me lie on the floor and scream, so let me document it! 

We’re going under a cut for length, let’s get started! Heavy spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation and Ruina under here, be warned.

The Song: First of all, just looking at the lyrics to In Hell We Live, Lament has me absolutely losing my fucking mind. We’re looking at insane lines like “I walked down a path / Leading to the past / Stole from the tree's hands / A regretter's friend / The forbidden fruit” and “If you wanted me to speak / If you wanted me to think / If you wanted me to carry on our dreams / Each loop we live through / The standards inside me / Thе line I drew for me / Lowers to the earth” and “Why'd you make my voice stutter? / Why do truths never matter? / Why'd you curse me with "you're a natural born genius"?” and “Replayed thoughts / Forget me not / I'm inside the empathic light / I bite off your skin / Exposing the angels on your ribs” and just...the repeated mention of loops. The song basically reads literally like Ayin himself singing it to Carmen. (The ending song also feels suspicious lyrically as well, but I can’t pin that down as easily.)

The Prologue: Not as much here, but I find it extremely suspicious that they didn’t show us a damn thing of Dante until after he loses his head and his memories. And honestly, Faust and Vergilius going ‘your name is Dante’ feels very blatantly like a goddamn lie. An amnesiac is gonna accept whatever you tell him is his name, man. Not to mention that he’s explicitly someone very important (Vergilius says so in ch3), and clearly knows something the bad guys desperately want. Which ties to my next point.

The Bad Guys: First of all, they want the Golden Boughs, which as apparently ‘pieces of L Corp’s Singularity’, are a very nice way to say they’re probably literally pieces of Carmen somehow. Branches sure look like the central nervous system, huh. Second, one of the trio in the intro refers to their boss as a ‘her’, says she wants to do something that’s ‘not illegal, but has never been done before’, and IIRC, calls her the Serpent. Now, looking at that serpent reference alongside Carmen’s existing parallels to WhiteNight, as well as Adam and his constant talk of the forbidden fruit...you see what I’m getting at here? Who tempted Adam in the first place?

The Inferno: Now, you see, even if the big bad is somehow Carmen in some way -- similarly to how the Voice led Argalia in Ruina, perhaps? -- that doesn’t necessarily mean Ayin is Dante. HOWEVER! Look back at the Inferno itself, the poem we’re working off extremely heavily. What is the purpose for Dante’s trip to hell? Beatrice. Dante’s dead girlfriend who’s become a divine being. Literally, Beatrice sent Virgil to guide Dante through hell and limbo and shit to bring him to her, roughly speaking. So, uh, looks at the whole dead now divine gf thing. Hm. Yeah. And where is our own trip to hell taking us? Through the ruins of Lobcorp, grabbing what are more or less pieces of Carmen, and I can’t remember if it’s said outright or not but there is a heavy ass chance this trip is ending at the main facility. Which, coming full circle...

The Clock: I will politely resist making a Hokma joke. But you have to admit it’s funny. In all seriousness, though, the fact that Dante’s power is resetting -- something that the entire gameplay of Lobotomy Corp and a major aspect of the plot was built around, resetting and looping and bringing the dead back to life -- is a major sus factor. In fact, I’m just waiting for someone to say ‘death is meaningless’ if I’m not just blanking on dialogue and someone’s said it already. Not to mention, the aspect of Dante feeling the pain of the injuries/deaths he’s rewinding gives me a lot to say about the (fairly canon) interpretation of Ayin martyring himself using the loops to punish himself for what he did. Suffering how the people he’s tied to suffered, so to speak. In fact -- I wouldn’t be surprised if the clock is/was Ayin’s EGO like the Library is Angela’s. How else would it be immediately to hand to slap on his neck, and what else could possibly have been able to legitimately replace his goddamn head on such short notice?

Manager: LOOK, THIS ONE IS TENUOUS BUT WHEN ADDED TO THE PILE-- the simple fact that Dante is deliberately given the title of manager feels important, when looked at through the lens of the rest of the evidence. There’s a line at the beginning of Chapter 1 when the children Sinners start fighting where Dante goes “Should I step in? Is this the part where I exercise my authority as the manager with dignity and grace? A faint memory urges me to do something." and it feels significant.

Random additional note: The Mirror Dungeons Wellcheers event has Dante say it ‘feels familiar’ -- does it? Does it now, Dante? 

While I’m still going through the game myself - middle of ch2 - I’ve had the whole story told to me, so I know what’s up, and though there’s probably more small bits I’m missing, the major beats here are definitely enough to support my theory for sure. It feels very right and fitting.

I’m just sitting here with several tinfoil hats and my ConspiracyBoard.gif going GUYS I SWEAR, THIS MAKES SENSE and losing it silently. I hope I’m right. I mean if I’m not right I’m making an AU fic anyway, but I hope I’m right. What do y’all think?

[mitziholder]

what media would you actually recommend? you seem to have very discerning taste

geeeeee... I don’t know. there are multiple metrics by which a piece of media can have value to me... but maybe not to you.

1) sheer entertainment value (personal, subjective - in my case usually humor-oriented, less focused on action and explosions and violence and gore and hacking and slashing and sex meant to titillate ... but humor is subjective in its own right)

2) rhetorical value (based on the presence and effectiveness of conveying intent - a thesis, a point to make, something new and interesting to say unique to the creator’s perspective. also, prose/dialogue/text that sounds good, hits right, says exactly what it wants to say with brevity and precision)

2a) IMO, “objective” judgments of a piece of media’s quality should rest most strongly on this point. 2b) sometimes the meat of my analysis is based in an interpretation of how a creator failed to say something or what they unintentionally revealed about themselves and their views in the process. and that can be interesting, but it doesn’t necessarily make the work any less shit

3) informational value (for research purposes, which may not be relevant to anyone else. definitely a step down in importance because I can read something and find it informative without enjoying it or thinking it’s “good”)

it’s impossible for everything I consume to meet all of those standards all the time... and I like to have a diverse media diet. I enjoy plenty of things which don’t really affect me or make me think too deeply. but it’s hard to recommend anything because people’s priorities and tastes vary so much.

as far as what I’ve enjoyed and found value in? I’ve already gone over books, so let’s do movies. I love Bob Roberts; had a point to make and made it with aplomb. it was very funny - and useful as a point of reference for my own work(!) Dr. Strangelove was also great. I’m a big fan of satirical dark comedies that leave you with this sense of gruesome hilarity... beyond the funnies, I like things that are sort of distant from their subjects, inhuman and quirky, using them as tools to move us along on a painterly backdrop - A Zed & Two Noughts and other Greenaway fare + and arguably Kubrick as well - but I also enjoy studies that lavish attention on their subjects, like Girl, Interrupted. I still love that one. in spite of it all. and I liked One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest despite its treatment of Ratched/the vile protagonist lol. Network was “good” no matter how badly they fumbled Dunaway and how much that fucking pissed me off. oh and anything about Watergate... I love a good documentary

but anyway, I know saying any of this invites speculation about the Problematic or questionable elements present therein. why not more lesbian media? why not more woman directors? how could you enjoy x knowing what y did to z? I don’t know. I respect an auteur, a clear and defined vision. I have had fun with many things that are not that. but at the end of the day, regardless of content, it all serves to entertain me, to shape and inform my artistic endeavors writing about what I want to read and saying what I want to say. so, you know, your mileage may vary. also I like musicals

[acre-of-wheat]

Your job sounds so interesting! How would one get into a job like that? I didn’t even realise it was a thing if I’m honest but now I’m so intrigued

A good question with a circuitous answer!

My last job was at an aquarium where I worked closely with guests to give educational talks about the animals and answer questions. We were trying to expand our ability to be inclusive with these programs, and learning to audio describe was something that the aquarium invested in teaching us. I had a knack for it, and was selected to do description for the "dolphin shows" and it combined a lot of things I love-- theater, education, accessibility, audience relations. I also joined a volunteer organization that helps educate and equip cultural institutions to be more accessible.

When the theater I work at now opened up a position that included accessibility along with audience services, I was really excited. I took over the planning of the accessible shows as well as the execution of many of them, developed some new programs, and built community relationships. I've been lucky to go to conferences around accessibility and my particular work and have learned a ton. Storytelling is so important to me, and I think the most important effect of storytelling is growing empathy and community, which mixes well with my commitment to accessibility in the work I do.

I think one of the more complex pieces was...figuring out how to refer to my own disability, or even acknowledge it as one. Despite the ADA making it clear, and any metric of disability fitting it, mental illness feels...hard for me to claim for myself as a disability. It hit me more the importance of realizing that it is when this past year I had a serious sort of "episode" and needed quite a bit of additional support as well as some work accommodations. Despite still dealing with the aftershocks of that, it's still feels really difficult for me to say, "yeah, I have major depression and have for my whole life and this is a disability," you know? Even though I'd affirm that for anyone else.

It's funny how work and passion and identity all wind together in our lives.