#goes up exponentially in ‘support groups’ like this

[genderkoolaid]

sorry if you've talked about it already, but what is it that makes KOSA's idea of online safety wrong? I don't know much about the bill, what does it intend to do?

What do you think is a good way to protect kids from things like online predators or just seeing things that they shouldn't be seeing? (By which I mean sex and graphic violence, things which you'd need to be 16+ to see in a movie theater so I think it makes sense to not want pre-teens to see it)

From stopkosa.com:

Why is KOSA a bad bill? KOSA uses two methods to “protect” kids, and both of them are awful. First, KOSA would incentivize social media platforms to erase content that could be deemed “inappropriate” for minors. The problem is: there is no consensus on what is inappropriate for minors. All across the country we are seeing how lawmakers are attacking young people’s access to gender affirming healthcare, sex education, birth control, and abortion. Online communities and resources that queer and trans youth depend on as lifelines should not be subject to the whims of the most rightwing extremist powers and we shouldn’t give them another tool to harm marginalized communities.  Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by expanding the use of age verification and parental monitoring tools. Not only are these tools needlessly invasive, they’re a massive safety risk for young people who could be trying to escape domestic violence and abuse.

I’ve heard there’s a new version of KOSA. What’s the deal? The new version of KOSA makes some good changes: narrowing the ability of rightwing attorneys general to weaponize KOSA to target content they don’t like and limiting the problematic “duty of care. However, because the bill is still not content neutral, KOSA still invites the harms that civil rights advocates have warned about. As LGBTQ and reproductive rights groups have said for months, the fundamental problem with KOSA is that its “duty of care” covers content specific aspects of content recommendation systems, and the new changes fail to address that. In fact, personalized recommendation systems are explicitly listed under the definition of a design feature covered by the duty of care in the new version. This means that a future Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could still use KOSA to pressure platforms into automated filtering of important, but controversial topics like LGBTQ issues and abortion, by claiming that algorithmically recommending such content “causes” mental health outcomes that are covered by the duty of care like anxiety and depression. Bans on inclusive books, abortion, and gender affirming healthcare have been passed on exactly that kind of rhetoric in many states recently. And we know that already existing content filtering systems impact content from marginalized creators exponentially more, resulting in discrimination and censorship. It’s also important to remember that algorithmic recommendation includes, for example, showing a user a post from a friend that they follow, since most platforms do not show all users all posts, but curate them in some way. As long as KOSA’s duty of care isn’t content neutral, platforms will be likely to react the same way that they did to the broad liability imposed by SESTA/FOSTA: by engaging in aggressive filtering and suppression of important, and in some cases lifesaving, content.

Why it's bad:

The way it's written (even after being changed, which the website also goes over), it is still possible for this law to be used to restrict things like queer content, discussion of reproductive rights and resources, and sexual education.

It will restrict youth's ability to use the Internet independently, essentially cutting off life support to many vulnerable people who rely on the Internet to learn that they are queer, being abused, disabled, etc.

Better alternatives:

Stop relying on ageist ideas of purity and innocence. When we focus on protecting the "purity" of youth, we dehumanize them and it becomes more about soothing adult anxieties than actually improving the lives of children.

Making sure content (sexual, violent, etc.) is marked/tagged and made avoidable for anyone who doesn't want to engage with it.

Teach children why certain things may be upsetting and how best to avoid those things.

Teach children how to recognize grooming and abuse and empower them to stop it themselves.

Teach children how to recognize fear, discomfort, trauma, and how to cope with those experiences.

The Internet makes a great boogeyman. But the idea that it is uniquely corrupting the Pure Innocent Youth relies on the idea that all children are middle-class suburban White kids from otherwise happy homes. What about the children who see police brutality on their front lawns, against their family members? How are we protecting them from being traumatized? Or children who are seeing and experiencing physical and sexual violence in their own homes, by the parents who prevent them from realizing what's happening by restricting their Internet usage? How does strengthening parent's rights stop those kids from being groomed? Or the kids who grow up in evangelical Christian homes and are given graphic descriptions of the horrors of the Apocalypse and told if they ever question their parents, they'll be left behind?

Children live in the same world we do. There are children who are already intimately aware of violence and "adult" topics because of their lived experiences. Actually protecting children means being concerned about THEIR human rights, it means empowering them to save themselves, it means giving them the tools to understand their own feelings and traumas. KOSA is just another in a long line of attempts to "save the children!" by dehumanizing them and giving more power to the people most likely to abuse them. We need to stop trying to protect children's "innocence" and appreciate that children are already growing, changing people, learning to deal with discomfort and pain and the weight of the world the same as everyone else. What people often think keeps kids safe really just keeps them ignorant and quiet.

Another explanation as to why it's bad:

[cherrylng]

UK ROCK BEST 100 ALBUMS - The 80's [CROSSBEAT (August 2006)]

80's The turbulent 80s, from New Wave to dance revolution

Continuing the trend from the rise of punk to post-punk at the end of the 1970s, up-and-coming bands burst onto the scene one after another, trying to break out of the established framework, and the 80s opened with new wave currents. Derived from the radical, highly artistic and experimental post-punk/art-punk (P.I.L., Gang of Four, etc.), New Wave "combined elements of other genres (electronic music, world music including Latin American and African music, funk and soul, black music such as jazz, etc.) into rock music, while breaking new ground". This includes electronic-pop (Depeche Mode, New Order, etc.) / New Romantics (Duran Duran, etc.), ska revival (The Specials, Madness, etc.), neo-psyche (Echo & The Bunnymen, etc.), positive punk/goth/dream pop (Bauhaus, The Cure, Cocteau Twins), industrial/noise, funka latina, and early neo-acoustic (Aztec Camera).

Although the New Wave originally started out as a non-mainstream movement, many of the bands with a pop and danceable side were caught up in the zeitgeist and gradually absorbed into the mainstream. By the mid-1980s, the controversial Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the sophisticated sound of the Style Council and Police had achieved international success.

Meanwhile, the 1980s saw the exponential growth of a number of indie labels that emerged from the D.I.Y. spirit of punk. These included 4AD, a decadent aesthetic label, Factory, which became the nucleus of the Manchester scene, Creation, which produced the revolutionaries The Jesus & Mary Chain with their violent noise and sweet melodies, and Rough Trade, which featured The Smiths, a group supported by the "social heretics".

The Smiths did much to elevate indie rock to the foreground and spawned many followers. However, as if to replace their break-up (1987), the central scene was dominated by house and other dance music. So-called 'C86' indie bands (Primal Scream, Wedding Present, Pastels, etc.), who mainly focused on guitar-pop, were steadily active in the underground scene. It was also around this time that US hardcore flowed into the UK, having no small influence on UK indie bands.

Against this backdrop, a new trend was emerging in Manchester that was different from the rest of the country. The city had always had a natural affinity for both dance music and guitar rock, and the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses, who frequented clubs and raves, blended the two effortlessly. In 1989, this led to the explosion of a major musical revolution known as 'Madchester' (indie/dance crossover). -Sumi Imai

Tin Drum Japan (1981) The greatest work of the band led by David Sylvian, who is now an electronica hermit. The sober negotiation sound with full-blown oriental taste has the chic of 'Wabi-sabi'. Eagerly awaits reappraisal. -Mima

Rio Duran Duran (1982) A big hit that successfully dispelled the prejudice that this band was just a band with good looks. The arrangements are still fresh today, with a rich variety of styles ranging from 60s pop to funk. -Kuroda

The Dreaming Kate Bush (1982) A masterpiece in which Kate, who debuted as a girl genius, transformed into a magical woman. The labyrinthine forest-like mystique of her perfectionist, meticulous sound and her uninhibited, magical voice is unique. -Hirokawa

You Can't Hide Your Love Forever Orange Juice (1982) A representative of the neo-acoustic group that emerged to put an end to the dwindling punk movement. Their deep knowledge of black music, insatiable pursuit of guitar sounds and naïve lyrics captivated young people. -Kuroda

High Land, Hard Rain Aztec Camera (1983) A masterpiece that made 'neo-acoustic', or rather 'music city Glasgow', a household name. Beautifully crafted with a meaty soul sensibility lurking in the folkiness, and later evolved from it. -Sawada

Construction Time Again Depeche Mode (1983) A perfect balance of hard elements and beautiful ennui melodies, including an early introduction of industrial beats. A monumental work that established the uniqueness of the Depeche sound. -Mima

Porcupine Echo & The Bunnymen (1983) The third Echo & The Bunnymen album, the quintessential UK New Wave record. Ian McCulloch's cool-headed gaze and sharp soundscape heralded the arrival of a new era that had broken away from punk. -Otani

Power, Corruption & Lies New Order (1983) A seminal work that attempted to 'break away from rock' by approaching New York house, but ended up having the influence to advance rock music itself. It was topsy-turvy at the time. -Mima

Synchronicity The Police (1983) The Police were actually a group of techie carriers who borrowed from punk. Each of their albums is "a perfection that you wouldn't expect from three people", but this last album is also a superb pop album. -Koguchi

Treasure Cocteau Twins (1984) Third album from the 80s 4AD representatives. This album pushed Elizabeth's voice out of the dark sound world and broke new ground filled with light and a sense of floating. Includes the classic song "Lorelei". -Yamashita

The Top The Cure (1984) The Cure's sixth album, which established a unique world with its pop sensibility and gloomy lyricism. Robert Smith's character became prominent from this time onwards. 'The Caterpillar' was a big hit. -Yamashita

Welcome to the Pleasuredome FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (1984) FGTH caused a stir in British society in 1984 only. The treatment of gays, politics, and sexuality is intriguing and Trevor Horn's sound is lively and too ostentatious, but in a way a symbol of the times. -Sawada

Café Bleu Style Council (1984) After the break-up of The Jam at the height of their popularity, Weller chose jazz and soul as his next design. What the bewildered fans heard was destructive anger and beauty in a cool soundscape. -Kuroda

Psychocandy The Jesus & Mary Chain (1985) Sweet, decadent melodies emerged amidst raging feedback noise. A shocking work from 1985 that had a profound influence on subsequent shoegaze and alternative bands. -Kuroda

Steve McQueen Prefab Sprout (1985) One of the finest albums by the mixed gender group led by legendary songwriter Paddy McAloon. Brilliantly produced by Thomas Dolby. -Kuroda

Cupid & Psyche 85 Scritti Politti (1985) The second album by Scritti, who at the time were a trio. Their sweet voices and pleasing sound were well received, and songs such as 'The Word Girl', which incorporated reggae rhythms, were big hits. -Yamashita

The Queen Is Dead The Smiths (1986) The Smiths are the charismatic band of those who turned their backs on the glamorous 80s. A masterpiece in which Morrissey's fanged words, heightened by criticism of the national anthem, and Johnny Marr's lyricism intersected at the boiling point. -Sawada.

Saint Julian Julian Cope (1987) Made in 1987 by the Phantom of Liverpool. Narcissism is still alive and well, but the artist aims to conquer himself with ever more straight-forward playing and singing. The artist's confident, robust expression is dependable. -Hirokawa

If I Should Fall from Grace with God The Pogues (1987) The Pogues' best work, combining the melancholy melodies of Irish trad with fun-filled beats. The indie spirit of the Pogues brought a breath of fresh air to the rigid UK scene. -Otani

The Stone Roses The Stone Roses (1989) A work that set the standard for the UK sound from the 1990s onwards, including the band's eclectic sense of combining guitar rock with acid house and the attitude of the band. A masterpiece under the sun that gave birth to Oasis. -Mima

Translator's Note: Haven't posted a series from this article for the last few days. I've only caught up now.

[jcmarchi]

The Ethical Minefield of AI Scaling: Building Trustworthy AI for Large-Scale Deployments

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-ethical-minefield-of-ai-scaling-building-trustworthy-ai-for-large-scale-deployments/

The Ethical Minefield of AI Scaling: Building Trustworthy AI for Large-Scale Deployments

A few years ago, a tutoring company paid a hefty legal settlement after its artificial intelligence powered recruiting software disqualified over 200 applicants based solely on their age and gender. In another case, an AI recruiting tool down-ranked women applicants by associating gender-related terminology with underqualified candidates. The algorithm amplified hiring biases at scale by absorbing historical data.

Such real world examples underscore the existential risks for global organizations deploying unchecked AI systems. Embedding discriminatory practices into automated processes is an ethical minefield jeopardizing hard earned workplace equity and brand reputation across cultures.

As AI capabilities grow exponentially, business leaders must implement rigorous guardrails including aggressive bias monitoring, transparent decision rationale, and proactive demographic disparity audits. AI can’t be treated as an infallible solution; it is a powerful tool that demands immense ethical oversight and alignment with fairness values.

Mitigating AI Bias: A Continuous Journey

Identifying and correcting unconscious biases within AI systems is an ongoing challenge, especially when dealing with vast and diverse datasets. This requires a multifaceted approach rooted in robust AI governance. First, organizations must have full transparency in their AI algorithms and training data. Conducting rigorous audits to assess representation and pinpoint potential discrimination risks is critical. But bias monitoring cannot be a one-time exercise – it requires continuous evaluation as models evolve.

Let’s look at the example of  New York City, which enacted a new law last year that mandates city employers to conduct annual third-party audits of any AI systems used for hiring or promotions to detect racial or gender discrimination. These ‘bias audit’ findings are publicly published, adding a new layer of accountability for human resources leaders when selecting and overseeing AI vendors.

However, technical measures alone are insufficient. A holistic debiasing strategy comprising operational, organizational, and transparency elements is vital. This includes optimizing data collection processes, fostering transparency into AI decision making rationale, and leveraging AI model insights to refine human-driven processes.

Explainability is key to fostering trust by providing clear rationale that lays bare the decision-making process. A mortgage AI should spell out exactly how it weighs factors like credit history and income to approve or deny applicants. Interpretability takes this a step further, illuminating the under-the-hood mechanics of the AI model itself. But true transparency goes beyond opening the proverbial black box. It’s also about accountability – owning up to errors, eliminating unfair biases, and giving users recourse when needed.

Involving multidisciplinary experts, such as ethicists and social scientists, can further strengthen the bias mitigation and transparency efforts. Cultivating a diverse AI team also amplifies the ability to recognize biases affecting under-represented groups and underscoring the importance of promoting inclusive workforce.

By adopting this comprehensive approach to AI governance, debiasing, and transparency, organizations can better navigate the challenges of unconscious biases in large-scale AI deployments while fostering public trust and accountability.

Supporting the Workforce Through AI’s Disruption

AI automation promises workforce disruption on par with past technological revolutions. Businesses must thoughtfully reskill and redeploy their workforce, investing in cutting-edge curriculum and making upskilling central to AI strategies. But reskilling alone is not enough.

As traditional roles become obsolete, organizations need creative workforce transition plans. Establishing robust career services – mentoring, job placement assistance and skills mapping – can help displaced employees navigate systemic job shifts.

Complementing these human-centric initiatives, businesses should enact clear AI usage guidelines. Organizations must focus on enforcement and employee education around ethical AI practices. The path forward involves bridging the leadership’s AI ambitions with workforce realities. Dynamic training pipelines, proactive career transition plans, and ethical AI principles are building blocks that can position companies to survive disruption and thrive in the increasingly automated world.

Striking the Right Balance: Government’s Role in Ethical AI Oversight

Governments must establish guardrails around AI upholding democratic values and safeguarding citizen rights including robust data privacy laws, prohibition on discriminatory AI, transparency mandates, and regulatory sandboxes incentivizing ethical practices. But excessive regulation may  stifle the AI revolution.

The path forward lies in striking a balance. Governments should foster public-private collaboration and cross-stakeholder dialogue to develop adaptive governance frameworks. These should focus on prioritizing key risk areas while providing flexibility for innovation to flourish. Proactive self-regulation within a co-regulatory model could be an effective middle ground.

Fundamentally, ethical AI hinges on establishing processes for identifying potential harm, avenues for course correction, and accountability measures. Strategic policy fosters public trust in AI integrity but overly prescriptive rules will struggle to keep pace with the speed of breakthroughs.

The Multidisciplinary Imperative for Ethical AI at Scale

The role of ethicists is defining moral guardrails for AI development that respect human rights, mitigate bias, and uphold principles of justice and equity. Social scientists lend crucial insights into AI’s societal impact across communities.

Technologists are then charged with translating the ethical tenets into pragmatic reality. They design AI systems aligned with defined values, building in transparency and accountability mechanisms. Collaborating with ethicists and social scientists is key to navigate tensions between ethical priorities and technical constraints.

Policymakers operate at the intersection, crafting governance frameworks to legislate ethical AI practices at scale. This requires ongoing dialogue with technologists and cooperation with ethicists and social scientists.

Collectively, these interdisciplinary partnerships facilitate a dynamic, self-correcting approach as AI capabilities evolve rapidly. Continuous monitoring of real-world impact across domains becomes imperative, feeding back into updated policies and ethical principles.

Bridging these disciplines is far from straightforward. Divergent incentives, vocabulary gaps, and institutional barriers can hinder cooperation. But overcoming these challenges is essential for developing scalable AI systems that uphold human agency for technological progress.

To sum up, eliminating AI bias isn’t merely a technical hurdle. It’s a moral and ethical imperative that organizations must embrace wholeheartedly. Leaders and brands simply cannot afford to treat this as an optional box to check. They must ensure that AI systems are firmly grounded in the bedrock of fairness, inclusivity, and equity from ground up.

[mdhwrites]

Jumbled Thoughts: The Ensemble Problem

Leader, Lancer, Heart, Brains, Big Guy.

The most traditional form of the 5 man band of adventurers and the core of any ensemble cast. It is one of the oldest archtypes out there but bizarrely it comes with also one of the greatest problems in writing and one that's weirdly more about math than anything else.

After all, the amount of time required to make each character feel like an active part of a story isn't additive with each character in your primary cast. It's exponential.

But let's actually back up for a second and define terms. After all, I'm here to talk about Ensembles, right? What are those? Well, it actually can have a lot of meanings from gesturing to the entire supporting cast, simply those in the background, etc. like that. I'm specifically focusing on the ensemble cast though where you are talking about a wide primary cast made up commonly of a main character and then primary side characters. Regardless of their labeling, all of these are genuinely important characters.

In which lies the problem. See, for a character to feel important is a rough problem. A comic relief character can show up as much or more often than your primary love interest but they won't feel important just because of that. Usually, to feel important they need to some extent feel like they're alive and a part of things and one of the core ways to do this is to have them responding and interacting with other characters rather than just standing in the back, blankly staring into the void as they wonder what they're doing with their life. They have an entire tragic backstory but they haven't said a word in three episodes because the writers haven't remembered they might have something to do here or, worse yet, that they may trivialize the problem. They are simply trapped, lost in purgatory.

And purgatory is not what an important character should be trapped in. But as you get more characters in the group, they quite literally consume time and effort in order to have react to things. In just a five man band, every time the smart one gives out a plan, do you really need all four to give affirmation? When the silly one of the group does something dumb, how many characters do you have react to that before it gets tedious? How many people need to panic about the heart being kidnapped? Because with each character you add to that number, you risk having them say something that should incite banter which can already drag out something that feels superfluous to the audience out even longer. So how do you fix this time problem?

There are two main ways most media goes about solving this. The first is just straight up being willing to recognize who isn't important in the story. Who are your side characters even within the ensemble. For most five man bands, this is the smart guy and the big guy. Each one might get like one episode a piece each season but they aren't getting the multi-part arc that really ties deeply into the plot of the show like the Lancer, Heart and Leader and that's a MAYBE on the heart since she's commonly just the love interest.

This version is actually a lot more frustrating the more invested you are in something and the more the show tries to build up these characters early on as being important. The Owl House does this with Willow and Gus, one of whom literally doesn't get episodes focused on her, not properly bare minimum, while the other gets one MAYBE every half season. The problem is that they were introduced first as the main character Luz's best friends and possibly her first friends in a while and post S1 of that show they mostly just vanish, let alone when it comes to Luz or the plot. The show just shuffles them off to the side and a LOT of people got pissed about it in that fandom because, well... Why wouldn't you? They seemed like a big deal and were just discarded for the most part.

However, from a strictly objective writing standpoint, it is better to recognize when you have vestigial characters and cut them away. That way you have more time to spend on your primary cast and let them help when it's needed. Done gracefully even, this can be great as a character feels like they bow out of the limelight more naturally because they as a character would do that.

The one that is often FAR worse from a strict writing perspective is smashing characters in your ensemble into what are effectively groups that simplify interactions. That way you're not dealing with a wide cast, you actually only have a narrow amount of groups of people. It often requires boiling down to their most basic traits so as to have simplified interactions that can start following a formula with how the groups interact. The more groupings, the more complex the storytelling admittedly and groups for the characters is not essentially bad. It's when you use it not for exploring group dynamics but specifically to treat it like you have less characters to write because it homogeneity.

Persona 5 actually has a lot of its main content writing fall apart because of this. The game is smart in that it doesn't want to balloon the time cutscenes take even as you eventually double your main cast from what you have at the beginning but how they do it is kind of awful. It's split between effectively the main characters, who aren't the ones your controlling because you play a voice protagonist in that, the dudes, and the ladies with their being some overlap.

You can probably see the problem with making these groups. It's made worse by the fact that the guys are categorically the comic relief and so there are entire scenes dedicated to shitting on one of the dudes for the same trait over and over again. You have objectifying the girls so the guys can be pervs like teenagers are. You have two characters who do 90% of the plot talking for the majority of the game, and eventually are finally joined by the one dude not treated as a joke, and the rest of them just kind of sit there. Worse yet is that a sexual harassment victim is one of the girls but NOT a main character so for the majority of the game, she is just a sex object effectively and it's REAL uncomfortable.

So how do you get around these problems? Well, the first is to understand the scope of your story. How long is it going to be? That length effectively determines how many characters you CAN have in your primary cast. If you're doing five one hour specials, it's probably best just to keep it to a pair of main characters and a primary antagonist with side characters coming in and out to help facilitate the plot. If you're a passion project that's updating with a chapter every week for upwards of a decade? Go fucking crazy because you have all the time in the god damn world to make these characters feel fleshed out and important, though your pacing will probably suffer for it. Hello One Piece (I can't say too much here because I don't have a deep familiarity with it.)

The second is to recognize how important every character is from the get go and treating them with that level of importance. To make sure you sunset a character properly instead of just shipping them off to a peace conference ala Power Rangers. That way you don't give incorrect expectations for your audience and you can trim the cast as is required. If you recognize early on that someone needs to be around for a few episodes to introduce some elements and familiarize your MC with things they need for their longer journey but would be detrimental to have around for the grander arc, you need to prepare a reason they won't continue to be a part of the story.

This is part of the reason why a LOOOOOOT mentors straight up die. And arguably it's why Marcy is effectively killed in Amphibia because while she couldn't literally die, her continued existence is important to tone and other character's motivations, she herself has no purpose in the plot anymore besides being a background motivator. That isn't to say it was a great choice but it did allow the story to continue to focus on the characters and elements that were more important to the overall story without having her just sitting in the background questioning her existence. Or sleeping like Persona 5 literally has one character do for upwards of twenty days due to gameplay mechanics. Not a coma... Sleeping.

You are never going to please everyone with an ensemble though. By the nature of an ensemble's wide appeal, there's a reason they're used so much, some people are always going to be upset to see their favorites sidelined or simplified simply for the sake of narrative tidiness. Accepting this early on will help free you on just making sure each characters gets the run they should for the sake of your story. After all, even for a character first writer like me, you have to eventually get your story done. You can't spend eternity on every character without something else suffering... Commonly pacing admittedly.

So just try and be mindful and when you're making your ensemble, make sure to ask just how many characters you need for it because you don't want to make this problem any harder for yourself than it has to be.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[racingtoaredlight]

How I Break Down Jazz Changes

Here’s a lead sheet for a song that every jazz musician will play thousands of times over their lives.  It’s an intermediate difficulty song featuring key changes that make it ideal to improvize over.  It’s challenging enough to stay somewhat interesting, but easy and open enough to offer virtually endless combinations.  That’s why it’s been a staple in the jazz word forever.

But what exactly are we looking at here?  How does that translate into this?

***

This is what I do in my head when I first look at a piece of new music.

I absolutely, do not, in any way whatsoever, look at this piece of music and start at the beginning.  If you look at jazz from a linear perspective, you’ll get lost before the first A section is done.  Think of this more as crossing a river with step stones...

When you walk on land, you don’t really think too much about your next steps.  You’re not really concerned about falling into a river walking down a sidewalk.  But when you’re walking on step stones, you’re looking around to where your next step is because if you misstep, you’re gonna get drenched.

Same thing in improvizing in jazz.  Improvizing in a jam band, country, blues, rock, etc setting is like walking on land.  Set it and forget it.  You don’t have to worry about getting drenched because there are no hazards.  Key changes are hazards, and jazz is chock full of em.

So what are we looking at above?

Each colored bracket is its own key.  The circle is the tonic, the arrow points to the chord I’m playing off of for the whole section, the slashes indicate where things are technically in the same key but there’s a different treatment (the highlighted portion), and the blue dots are next to chords that I will add alterations to every time.

All of this is done first glance.  The blue dots are for illustrative purposes, because at this point, I automatically add all sorts of shit to every dominant chord as standard practice.  It just sounds more interesting.

So what’s the point of this?

***

All the thought process above does is to simplify and break down a song’s harmony into something far more easily digestible.

What’s easier to improvize over?  32-34 separate chords...not thinking about how they relate to each other...going by anywhere up to 200 beats per minute?  Or thinking about four big tonal centers?

Now this isn’t the entire story...this is just getting you to the ballpark.  Once you’re in the ballpark you can get more granular...but you gotta get there first.  And by taking small bits of data, looking at them from a higher perspective, and grouping them into related categories makes data processing exponentially faster during times when you aren’t afforded the opportunity to stop and think.

***

Why does this work?

Throughout western musical history, the V and I have been linked...doesn’t matter if you’re talking Bach or Buddy Guy, not only are they linked the same, but they operate the exact same way.  The 3rd in the V chord leads chromatically to the tonic...because of that, logically, your mind will always (and I mean always) “resolve” that V to the I.

This relationship is less true of the ii (or IV) chords, which are treated as somewhat ornamental chords that support either the V or the I.  Typically ii-V-I’s cover 4 bars (in this case, AATYA goes to the Dbmaj7, which is the IV of Ab, and diatonically in the same key, being able to be treated identically)...and by condensing the harmony before hand, you can turn four bars of thought into one big one.

***

Obviously there’s more to it than this.

You can’t simply noodle around aimlessly in Ab major and expect something coherent to come of it.  But you can focus on the dominant chord for the whole part knowing that what you’re doing with that chord will naturally resolve to the I, putting you in a very advantageous position.

When I break shit down like this, and see a huge multi-bar chunk of Ab major, my brain taps into my reservoir of melodic ideas and uses whatever it grabs first.  Those ideas might be melodies built off Ab, it might be highlighting every chord in that progression, it might be adding chromatic things...

Point being, I’m not really even thinking about Ab at all at this point.  Because that reservoir isn’t related to keys, rather overarching philosophies.  Those same melodies in Ab are easily and immediately able to be played in Db major...or F...or B major.  They’re able to be transposed to minor keys.  Or the different modes.  Or I could play like three different blues scales off any of them for a different sound.

It gives your mental computer parameters by which to operate.  Much like creating a tree of various subfolders, breaking a sheet down like this makes it easier for your brain to find the shit it’s looking for beforehand.

And while I’ll legit say “from there, it doesn’t really matter what you play,” it still does.  When I say that, what I’m referring to is that it doesn’t matter what melodies you pull out of your “major” or “minor” or “blues” folder, as long as it’s from that folder.

***

This is a tested process.

Last year, I was at an after-hours jam session at a jazz club that had some legit talent show up.  I was on stage with a drummer, bassist, two saxes, a trumpet and a pianist...playing a song that I was somewhat familar with, but didn’t have memorized.

We’re all talking about what we’re going to play, but the pianist is a very nice but kinda weird guy, and his tablet was somehow stuck on this song in C# minor...a key that it might never have been played in outside of a practice room.  The rest of us all looked at each other like “uhhhh...”

But we played it in C# minor.  And I was transposing this song in my head using this exact same process...and my solo was killer.  This method is a really good way for musicians to break down tricky songs quickly, and be able to improvize over them with the least amount of obstacles in their way.  And it holds up under pressure.

It’s not rocket science...they’re really simple concepts that are easy to understand and put into place immediately.  Granted, the rest of the equation...building up that vocabulary of musical ideas to the point they’re second nature...is really fucking hard, but the basics aren’t.  You look at those chords individually and it’s going to be a more difficult time than thinking of 4 overarching tonal centers, period.

And once you understand how to operate inside those tonal centers, then all you have to do is turn your brain off and let it rip.

[tittaapt]

Winamp mac

WINAMP MAC MOVIE

WINAMP MAC SERIES

And if Armchair Revolutionary is right and millions of people join up, it could be easy to raise the kind of money that will help get a significant number of the projects the organization wants to fund off the ground.To begin with, however, it will focus on three projects. But at that price, Hauter suggested, large numbers of people could decide that it's worth opening up their pocketbooks.

WINAMP MAC MOVIE

And two years ago, the partners, along with fellow co-founder and former Wall Street CPA Paris Hauter, set about to build Armchair Revolutionary as a way of crowdsourcing microdonations and supporting the super geeks with the best ideas but not enough money.Besides Bender, the project's other advisers include Scott Burns, a producer on "An Inconvenient Truth" and the screenwriter of the movie "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "The Informant " Robin Hunicke, the producer of Electronic Arts' MySims and the Steven Spielberg project Boom Blox and Susan Bonds, the president of 42 Entertainment, long one of the best-known makers of alternate-reality games.On the one hand, it's hard to imagine what good a bunch of 99-cent gifts can do. Hauter, a former agent-trainee with United Talent Agency, and his partner at The Hollywood Hill, Ori Neidich, who works for DreamWorks Animation, were inspired by the ability of organizations like to raise substantial amounts of money in very short periods of time over the Internet, as well as by the exponential growth of social networks like Facebook. "One or two is not enough to change the world," Hauter said. And while that increasing awareness has brought those innovators together with wealthy benefactors, particularly in environments like the TED conferences, there remains a substantial gap between many of the people researching ways to impact our biggest problems and the funding that can help them manifest their visions.In general, said Ariel Hauter, one of the three co-founders of Armchair Revolutionary, independent researchers are often unable to make their world-changing ideas a reality because of weaknesses in the systems for financing, commercializing, and deploying and marketing such work.Yet, in order for these types of projects to attack enough problems to make a difference, Hauter continued, it's necessary to find the financial support to get behind many dozens of projects a year. That can only be good."A substantial gapThese days, it has become widely recognized that the people who are doing the work that could best solve the biggest problems in problem areas like health care, the environment, education, water, hunger and the like are scientists and engineers. So this is an example of a group of young people coming together, using Hollywood and Silicon Valley as a launching point to engage people, and I think it's exciting. "And a couple generations ago, it was Lew Wasserman here in Hollywood, and Arianna Huffington is one of the leaders of that now, and it goes on. By contrast, by building a substantial competitive game element into Armchair Revolutionary, limiting gifts to 99 cents and providing plenty of participatory opportunities and rewards, the platform's founders believe they have found a way to support the "super geeks" who are developing the science and the technology that could help humanity dig out from some of our biggest problems."Every generation or so, new groups of people come around who find a way to make a difference," said Lawrence Bender, the producer of films like "Pulp Fiction" and "Inglourious Basterds" and an Armchair Revolutionary adviser.

WINAMP MAC SERIES

Want to change the world but only have 99 cents? Armchair Revolutionary is here to help.Set to launch into beta on Tuesday, Armchair Revolutionary is a Web-based social activism platform designed to harness large-scale crowdsourcing and the boom in social gaming in a bid to support a wide variety of science and technology ventures that could benefit the world at large.Started by the founders of The Hollywood Hill, said to be the largest social change membership organization in the entertainment-industry, Armchair Revolutionary is meant to bring people's interest in helping support worthwhile causes and the iTunes-era simplicity of spending 99 cents on something intriguing together with innovators who need funding to get potentially world-changing projects off the ground.Built around a series of eight social activism tasks-gifting, VoIP phone calling, e-mailing, uploading, downloading, voting, forms, and quizzes-Armchair Revolutionary is seen by its creators as a one-stop shop for today's Web savvy and altruistic communities to make a big difference, one small step at a time.The value proposition? That today's existing Web-based social activism efforts suffer from a combination of being boring of wasting too much money on transaction fees and asking for too much to get mass participation of not rewarding that participation and much more. Crowdsourcing start-up aims to change the world

[itsclydebitches]

Rewatching RWBY there's this chilling lack of empathy through the volumes that I used to just wave off. Yang has no empathy for Tai, Blake is just entirely about what Blake needs, Weiss almost kills a woman at a party and her takeaway is 'my dad is mean so I'm going to run away'. Qrow sinks hard into depression in vol. 6 and Ruby's reaction is to yell she's never needed him. No one has EVER helped a civilian. It's so prevelant. Knowing how 7&8 go really changes the earlier writing.

I think there was a great deal of well-written empathy in the early volumes — after all, this cast was designed as the kind, well-meaning heroes — but that care was expressed almost solely within the group itself. Ruby sits by Jaune in the hallway and says "Nope!" to his self doubt. Weiss offers Ruby a hand up after she fails to kill the death stalker. Yang seeks out Blake and gets her to open up about what's bothering her. Now, I want to emphasize that there's nothing inherently wrong with this. It actually makes perfect sense. These are our main characters and they're written as peers co-habiting the same space. Of course whatever emotional growth we get, which automatically includes moments of compassion, would be directed towards each other. Similarly, the dynamics originally introduced — that of teachers and parents — likewise (rightly) puts the burden on the adults to provide the comfort, not the other way around. Port snaps Weiss out of her arrogant mindset. Ozpin reassures Ruby about her leadership worries. Tai is there to support his daughter when she's recovering from a lost limb. That's the natural order of things, so to speak.

The problem, to my mind, begins to occur when the group exits those dynamics. They're no longer students, they're licensed huntsmen. They're no longer kids, but equals who never needed adults in the first place. They're no longer doing things for themselves and their friends on personal downtime, they're doing them for the community at large as a profession (to say nothing of the world-altering war they've insisted on shouldering responsibility for). That's what a huntsmen is meant to be, a defender of the people, not someone who uses that power for personal interests alone. All of this is a huge change from where we started out: cutesy kids going off on comparatively low-stakes adventures because one or more of their teammates are invested, only just beginning to realize that they're signing up for a job where their desires come second (that fireside conversation at Mountain Glenn).

This change invites — demands, really — that the audience read them differently too. Qrow's spiral in Volume 6 is a good example of this. If Ruby is demanding to be treated not just as an equal in terms of maturity and experience, but also as the primary leader of this group, then the viewer expects her to treat her uncle as an equal too, not dismiss his hardship. I've seen numerous fans defend that arc with some version of, "He's her uncle. He's supposed to take care of her. He's failing" but that, according to the show, is no longer the dynamic. Qrow is now just a member of Ruby's team, someone she's responsible for as their leader. It's easiest to see the problem if we switch out Qrow for any of the other members. If Blake developed a drinking problem, do we think Ruby would just shout at her until she magically got over it? If Jaune endangered the group, do we think they'd all be angry about it, rather than trying to figure out the source of what caused the mistake? We don't even need to think hypothetically for that one because we saw it on screen. Jaune attacked Oscar and drove him off, not just threatening him, but arguably endangering the whole team by requiring a search party. Fans have long insisted they had to steal that airship right then because being in Argus was too much of a risk, but if we buy that reading (which I personally don't, but), then that means Jaune made things exponentially worse by forcing them out into that super dangerous city, rather than allowing everyone to stay hidden inside. He made a massive mistake which, according to the logic of Qrow's arc, should be met with frustration, disdain, and eventual demands to get over his anger at Ozpin or ship out. But, of course, he received nothing but concern. Yang was worried about him, not Oscar. The search becomes about his grief for Pyrrha and his team's willingness (as well as Pyrrha's family member) to provide more comfort. Suddenly, the tendency to express care solely towards those within the group becomes a flaw the story won't acknowledge.

And then it spirals. The thing to remember is that no single act here is bad on its own, especially when we consider that yes, we want flawed characters. Rather, it's about the pattern. Ruby is allowed to get mad at Qrow for his behavior and chuck her scroll in frustration. She's human. I'd be crazy frustrated too. However, if Ruby is meant to be written as a caring, sympathetic character, she should not only respond to the situation with frustration, yelling, a refusal to listen, and demands that he follow her lead, no questions asked. We can, and should, acknowledge that Weiss was the victim during that party. Her father was hurting her, the woman was beyond insensitive, Weiss was triggered in regards to a horrific event, and her power acted on its own. However, if we want to write Weiss as a compassionate, mature huntress to-be, she should acknowledge that she nearly killed someone — even an asshole someone — and vow to work on her control because she's not willing to put someone in danger like that ever again. Both of these moments have a "They could have been handled better" response attached to them — the former more-so than the latter imo — but these moments are made far, far worse due to later events in the show, events where the characters are cruel without any justification attached. Weiss didn't mean to attack that woman, but she did mean to ignore Whitely and threaten him with her weapon. So once we see that, it informs our understanding of what came before it. "Oh. The fact that Weiss never reacted to nearly killing someone isn't just a bit of missed potential, it's an early indicator that she... doesn't seem to care. If she endangers people, threatens people... that's fine with her." The group has a right to be frustrated with Qrow. The group did not have the right to magically steal Ozpin's entire life story, assault him, and blame him for the world's problems until he felt his only course of action was to run from them. So when we see that it becomes, "Oh. The fact that the group treated Qrow so poorly isn't just a one-time mistake born of a stressful situation and young adults being out of their depth in regards to alcoholism. They really will just abandon anyone the moment they start making mistakes." Anyone outside of their group, that is.

To say nothing of how all of these moments interconnect. Yang's recovery isn't just about getting used to not having an arm, it's about getting used to having a new one. Weiss' party isn't just about nearly killing someone, it's about not committing manslaughter because someone else stepped in. The Volume 6 arc isn't just about trying to escape with the Relic, it's about trying to get it somewhere safe. Fans frustrated with Ironwood's treatment don't harp on these details out of some desperate attempt to make him look good post-murder spree, rather, they recognize that he's a character that's been around since nearly the beginning, originally written as a good guy, and thus has accumulated a number of key connections with the cast. So when none of those connections are acknowledged during an arc about trust... that makes the group look very uncaring. Yang doesn't care that he gave her the arm, Weiss doesn't care that he saved her from hurting/potentially killing someone, Qrow doesn't care that he's trusted Ironwood for years (in a rival-bros way) and that they've been heading towards him this whole time. And when Ironwood begins to spiral, they don't do anything to try and help him, let alone acknowledge that their own choices, that lack of trust and empathy, had a hand in getting them here. "But it's not their responsibility to fix him!" Isn't it? Even a little? Just as human beings seeing an ally struggling under horrific decisions and circumstances? Sure, they don't have to try... but that doesn't make them look very heroic to my mind. And we can't even shrug that off by simplifying things with, "Well, Ironwood is evil now so who cares about him." They simultaneously don't care about finding Qrow who is missing, then captured. They don't do anything to try and find their missing teammates, with the exception of sending May to do it instead. They don't help the army fight off the grimm. Don't try to make sure Pietro and Maria had portals to escape through. Barely hesitate when the newly resurrected characters goes, "Kill me. That's the easiest thing for everyone." And these are just a few of the big ticket moments. It doesn't even begin to cover all the details we get that paint a picture of, "Wow okay. They just really don't care about people outside the group, huh? I mean, they say they do, in a life-or-death way, but they're not putting forth effort to show it on a daily basis."

And if you pick up on all that, if you acknowledge how much the group has changed based on where they started out, you might wonder when in the world that started. Surely we didn't just flip a switch around Volume 6. So you re-watch early stuff and, sure enough, there are moments that feel like setup for what's to come later. Not intentional setup (quite obviously), but a lack of care towards details across the series that, once the dynamic changed, became far, far more pronounced. Characters should be at least somewhat recognizable from start to finish, especially characters who have only experienced about two years of in-world time, so if we now get to see Ruby blandly commenting on all the people who are dying, or Weiss using her weapon as a means of coercing her little brother into doing what she wants, or Yang and Jaune dismissing Ren until he gives in to their point of view... we're going to look for the beginnings of that behavior early on. As you say, we were able to wave all those little details off due to a number of important factors. Now though? Now they feel like they hold a lot more weight, simply by virtue of that early material proceeding what we have now.

[purpleyellow]

Hide & Seek

NCT 24th member / Dream 8th member

Bee’s Masterlist

“The two times Bee avoided Mark and the one she didn’t”

a/n: Feel free to share your thoughts with me. Requests are open!💛

Growing up, in general, is a pain in the ass, and Bee isn't the happiest about having to deal with it. She doesn't know if it's because of how she was raised, or if it's just her personality, but the girl cannot see herself as an adult.

You see, adults are supposed to manage five different tasks, have most things thought out, and try to handle everything that comes their way. Bee, however, wants to lay in bed at every minor inconvenience and wishes she could freeze time so she can digest what's happening.

She can see herself as those five-year-olds who pout, cross their arms and look away when you tell them they can't have ice cream for dinner. Just like she can see Jeno as those parents who bribe their kids to eat vegetables with a false promise of going to the ice cream parlor on the next day.

"Why don't you want to talk to him?" Jeno whispers to Bee midst the chaos in the van. The first time she successfully avoids Mark is when the members are leaving SM after a long day of figuring out stuff for the comeback. Things were only starting to come together, and the boy knows that if Mark and the girl don't figure out everything soon it's not going to be a fun process.

"I don't have anything to say" She mumbles looking out of the window. Jeno turns her head back to him before continuing.

"Maybe Mark has something. Or maybe he has questions"

"Good for him" She simply states. "I already said everything, so I'm not helpful to talk to"

"And you stand by everything you said almost six months ago?" He asks while trying not to laugh "You didn't think about it anymore? There, you said it and moved on"

"Yes, I stand by everything" She lies. Bee has relived every single conversation she has had with or about Mark especially lately, cringing at some stuff she said, making up better answers, and overanalyzing every little word even if they don't mean a thing. Jeno probably knows she does that, yet she's not going to admit that easily, because admitting means confronting the situation.

"Just maybe think things are exponentially worst when you're trying to avoid the topic instead of solving it once and for all" The boy mumbles and she rolls her eyes. Mentally thanking the manager who happened to pull up next to their building

Trying to escape that conversation as fast as possible, Bee holds onto the back of the seat in front of her, accidentally hitting Jaemin in the head, and jumps past Jeno, who frows as he watches her bolt out of the vehicle.

The girl only stops as she reaches the elevator because of the light feeling on her hoodie pocket. She had left her phone behind, throwing away all the work she just put into getting to her room without speaking with anyone else.

Walking back to the van, Bee keeps her head down to avoid making eye contact and waves off Renjun after he shared a proverb about people skipping a step only to return two. Honestly, he might have said something different because the meaning flew right above her head.

The manager, who had also left the vehicle to check on something at their apartment, throws his keys for her to catch and tells her to be quick.

Bee goes straight to the seat she had occupied and starts searching through the openings where the phone might have fallen from, ultimately deciding it was somewhere on the floor. Patting away underneath hers and Jeno's seat, she finally moves on to the row in front of them, getting scared by a light and the muffled sound of her phone ringing.

Almost like a miracle, she was getting a call from someone who might have saved her a couple of seconds of searching. Reaching out for the device, her smug grin turns to a frown as the name "Minhyung from Canada" shines on her screen. A confused noise leaves her mouth while Bee gets up from the floor, though her debating over either answering or not doesn't go very far due to said Canadian standing at the door of the van.

"I thought if I helped out find it, you would finally listen to me," Mark says, ending the call. Though, it seems like that was the only line he had rehearsed because after it they both stay in awkward silence, making Bee look down at the device in her hands before raising an eyebrow.

"Well, my hand touched it before the call got connected?" She, not as confidently, lies again.

Mark shakes his head adamantly "No it didn't"

"Do you have eyes on the floor?" The girl frowns trying to make that topic last longer but he doesn't fall for it.

"Yunhee," He says in a disappointed tone which Bee copies by saying "Mark"

Mark raises one eyebrow feeling rather playfully. "Mark Oppa?" and she rolls her eyes while planing an escape route.

The boy seems to remember what he was there for and scratches his head, suddenly bringing back the awkward mood.

"We should clear everything up, you know" His tone is back to uncertain surprising her by the sudden change and Bee feels her hands clamming up. She knows he's waiting for her to show any kind of reaction but for some reason, she cannot have any.

"Guys, I have to get the car back to the building. You can keep the conversation going at either of your dorms" The manager pops his head through the driver’s seat before climbing it. Bee hands him the keys and both idols slowly step out of the vehicle. Her mind is still blankly looking for a way to avoid listening to whatever the older had to say when the man magically says something that fixes all of her problems. "Actually, Mark come here, it's about 127's schedule tomorrow, something came up"

And she doesn't stay to listen as she bolts to the elevator that's taking her to her safe and Mark-free bedroom.

☆☆☆

The second time Bee avoids him, or gets saved by another person, happened a few days after the van accident when she rapidly types on her phone while running to the end of the hallway where the SM elevators are.

The sound indicating the doors opening on her floor catches her attention and Bee doesn't have to fully look inside the place to see Mark standing on the edge, ready to walk out of it. Almost without thinking, her feet make her turn left into another hallway and she instinctively makes her way to the room she had visited many times before.

Bee knows for a fact Mark is supposed to go to the studio she had just left, so the fact she can hear him doing the same route she is, makes adrenaline pump inside of her and the girl starts sprinting as fast as she can.

She finds it stupid how her brain suddenly read that moment as her being chased by something dangerous, but there's not enough time to let her process the situation. Instead, Bee barges through the door of Kun's studio and throws herself onto the space between the empty couch and the wall.

Crouching so she's hidden by the armrest, Bee simply says "I'm not here" before staring at the floor in front of her, making the WayV leader question why he's even surprised at that point.

A series of three knocks on the door makes Kun get up and go greet whoever had the decency to announce themselves before interrupting his work like half of his groupmates usually do. Keeping the door half-opened, he's half surprised by Mark standing a little distance away while seemingly sorry to be in that position.

"Hyung, my bad for coming here. But I was wondering if I could talk to Bee" The boy says scratching his eyebrow.

"I mean, of course, you can" Kun starts making the girl's heart drop "I'm not sure why you're asking me, though. And next time you see her, let her know I also need to speak with her"

"Oh, yeah. Sure?" Mark says uncertainly tilting his head and closing his eyes. He stares inside the room through the small space Kun allowed and sighs defeated "Sorry about it, I'll just go"

Waving to the boy, Kun waits for him to walk a little before closing the door and turning to the hidden girl. "You know we could see the top of your head, right?"

"Wait, he saw me?" Bee asks with wide eyes, supporting her head on the armrest and the boy rolls his eyes "Probably yes. The kid is just too polite to say anything about it"

Standing up from the ground, the girl sits on the couch to wait for a little before leaving the room. Kun takes the opportunity to throw himself back on his chair and interrogates her.

"Why are you avoiding Mark?"

"I stole his charger so now he's mad" She pouts looking at the ground making the older scoff.

"I'm not buying anything that simple. Don't think I haven't noticed you've been almost daily in our dorm instead of hanging out with your unit. We like when you visit but it became a little weird when we're not even there yet you still go hide inside our apartment"

"It's too complicated" She sighs craning her neck to check the clock "And I'm actually late for something, so you'll have to deal with my stupid high school problems sometime later"

"They're only stupid because you thought over them a million times and began downplaying whatever they are. You can't do that forever and you know it"

"Confrontation makes me cry, so I'll try my best to keep pushing it away" Bee smiles like something uplifting was said and stands up "See you later"

"Sure, good luck with your date" Kun smirks turning back to the table and checking on his work. Noticing she hadn't actually left the door he lets out a chuckle "Chenle told me about it"

"It's not a date. Chenle was literally invited to tag along" Bee rolls her eyes and he shrugs despite not looking back at her.

"Sure, have fun"

☆☆☆

Ever since Mark first showed his confusion over how things were going, Bee tried really hard not to make the situation awkward for everyone. She didn't want them to be extra careful around her, nor feel like this big dramatic thing was going on between the group. And to lessen her worries, the dreamies seemed to act the same they had always been.

There is the fact she isn't talking to Mark, but much to her surprise, the girl realized she never really relied a lot on speaking to him. Pretending everything was fine became part of her routine for that two weeks.

But just like Kun caught onto her distancing herself, a bunch of staff members also did. The choreographer who first introduced them to the routine asked her a couple of times if everything was okay, and the producer noticed the idol was out of the room the time she was finished, not really mingling like the rest of the boys.

Those two didn't really say anything about it, since she was still getting work done. That isn't the same for the management team, who not only saw her change in behavior but feared how much of that would be noticeable in videos and the overall dynamic of what they had waiting for the comeback.

"Bee, can I talk to you for a second" One particular manager called for her as she was resting on the corner of the dance studio.

Bee gathered her things in a pile on the floor and got up to follow him out of the room. The man had worked with NCT for a really long time, but he wasn't the closest manager to her, nor had ever taken care of her individual schedules. She knew whatever he had to tell her wasn't going to be very good.

"We don't want to intrude on whatever is going on in your life. But the moment it affects the group I'm afraid somebody needs to step in" The man sighs walking slowly next to her "If you're not feeling well, or something happened to make you not want to be around the members you need to act on it, or tell somebody so no one gets suspicious of it"

"I'll make sure no one notices it" She mumbles playing with her ring and rolls her shoulders "It's not something to be worried about though. Nothing really happened"

"We'll some people started to point out on Jisung's graduation video that you're often really quiet. Considering your personality it's nothing out of the ordinary, but you can't afford it pilling up and fans talking about it. We're aware of what that saesang said last year and don't think the company forgets easily if more fans start thinking you don't want to be in the group or doesn't belong in it, it's going to be a big problem"

"More people are talking about it?" Bee glances once again to the ring Renjun made her wear.

"It's a small number so far, but there are those who think that by Mark coming back and you being a little quieter, your place might be in another unit," He notices her gaze turning down and places a hand on her shoulder"Don't stress over it right now, just dedicate yourself a little more to the group and show you have a place in it. It should pass after some time"

Patting her, he reminds her to 'go back to normal before heading back to his work. Bee feels a slight headache creeping in and sneaks into a smaller room dedicated to vocal training, where she drops her body on a chair and closes her eyes to either sleep or try to gather some courage and face everything she has avoided so far.

The girl ends up doing neither because a few seconds pass and Mark pushes his head inside the room.

"Can we talk now?" He asks and without any energy left, Bee nods to the chair next to her for him to sit.

[cosmonova]

Splatoon Theory: How big are Inklings? (Answer: They’re really tiny.)

So everyone’s familiar with Splatoon’s funky little cephalopods, but just how little are they?

We don’t exactly have easy means to compare them to humans, since the game takes place... several thousand years after the disappearance of humanity in a mass extinction of land-based life, oh well, but there are definitely some clues available in the game that point to the height of the Inkling, and it turns out they might just be minuscule!

Though humanity may be gone, human artifacts remain, mostly sitting in the background of the game’s levels. One in particular that stands out is the Space Shuttle seen in the background of the Ruins of Ark Polaris level:

The Space Shuttle’s main engine nozzles have a diameter of 2.3 meters, making them only a little wider than the average human height, allowing us to kind of visualize how big a human would be in comparison to this level.

It’s not a very useful comparison for getting any accurate sizes since the shuttle is so far into the background, but it does kind of give the impression that Inkling structures are pretty small compared to the size of humans.

Another example is the kettles used by the Octarians as transport in Octo Valley and Octo Canyon. It’s kind of weird that an entire Inkling can fit inside a kettle.

But we know that the domes Octarians live in are repurposed human habitats from before the extinction, so the kettles that connect them to the outside might possibly be repurposed human technology, in which case it’d be understandable if they weren’t the right size for making Inkling coffee.

Again, hard to say anything here though, because there’s no way to confirm if the kettles are of human or Octarian make, or if they’re normal tea kettles or industrial factory kettles. The objects in levels might not even be a fair comparison at all, since we see disproportionately enormous human-made objects in the background of Deepsea Metro stations in the Octo Expansion.

That being said, the random human artifacts lying around aren’t even the biggest piece of evidence for tiny Inklings. That is none other than...

Judd.

Judd, the big lazy time-traveling cat, is effectively a useful unit of measurement for determining the heights of Inklings. Why? Well, thanks to the Sunken Scrolls, we see him in a photograph next to both a human and a group of Inklings, allowing us to directly compare them!

Judd is pretty massive when standing next to a group of adult Inklings, but pretty normal for a large cat when being held by his old human owner. If we combine the two photos...

...we start to get a picture of just how tiny Inklings actually are compared to humans. A human could pick up a fully grown inkling and hold them like a cat.

And that’s just the adult inklings from the Squidbeak Splatoon! The ones we play as are kids, and they’d probably be even more ridiculously small compared to a fully grown human!

Yeah.

Scientifically, Inklings being very small actually makes a lot more sense than them being big!

An organism’s weight increases exponentially as it becomes physically larger, which means larger organisms have to develop a means of supporting their weight. This is not an enormous concern for marine animals - their own buoyancy allows them to support their weight underwater, allowing invertebrates to grow to massive sizes in the sea.

Developing an exoskeleton or internal skeleton provides an animal with even more structural strength and increases the upper range of how large they can become, resulting in marine vertebrates like whales becoming the largest animals to have ever lived on Earth.

On land, animals can no longer rely on water to support themselves, so having a skeleton becomes more crucial for large creatures. The largest terrestrial invertebrate in the world, the coconut crab, is only around the size of a dog at its largest. Meanwhile, animals without a skeleton or exoskeleton are even more limited in how large they can become on land.

Inklings are terrestrial organisms that do not have either, making them pretty wobbly and, were they to grow too large, unstable.

Their limbs are pure muscle. If Inklings were the size of humans, their limbs wouldn’t be able to withstand the compressive force of their own weight, but if they were smaller organisms, they would be capable of supporting themselves just fine without bones.

The major thing that goes against this theory is the fact that Marina and Pearl have been given canonical heights in the Splatoon 2 artbook -  178cm (5'10") and 145cm (4'9"), respectively, which puts them (or at least, puts Marina) in a pretty normal human height range. So what gives? Well, to that, I will point out that squid feet are smaller than human feet! That’s where the unit of measurement originated for us, and it obviously wouldn’t make sense for Inklings and Octarians to measure their heights using an obsolete human unit of measurement.

...That, or I’m completely wrong about all of this anyway, but we’re talking about a species that can magically transform into a squid and swim in the unfeasibly large amounts of ink it produces out of thin air, so I say, let me have fun.

Besides, tiny squids are cute! Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[vkelleyart]

Thoughts on fandom: inclusion and engagement.

(Art credit to the kindhearted @penpanoply​!)

There’s been some stuff floating around on Tumblr about strife in the CO/WS fandom, and though I haven’t been explicitly named-dropped on anything public, my DMs have been... active. lol Rather than rehash what’s been said already, I just want to impart a little wisdom and perspective in the hopes it may soothe frayed feelings and offer a way ahead for cultivating a respectful community. As someone who has been an active participant in online fandoms since the mid-’90s, which was the advent of online fandom content creation (shout out to my fellow X-Philes!), and who has also spent a chunk of her professional life managing social media for the federal government and for activist groups, I can promise you it’s all gonna be okay.

Here’s some context for why strife happens and what we can do to create a more inclusive and communicative fandom environment. 

1) It sounds cliché, but fandoms go through growing pains. 

In the case of the Simon Snow fandom, what was once a small and cozy space untouched by cataclysmic events (such as the release of *gasp* a sequel) has grown exponentially in a relatively short amount of time following the release of Wayward Son. Newcomers are eager to find a home in this space at the same time as folks who’ve been here a while may be consciously or unconsciously wary about widening their circle, and It’s important to remember that this is not necessarily an expression of bad behavior on either side but just human psychology doing its thing. 

The byproduct, however, is that tension and stress builds over time from the lack of meaningful communication across the divide, which subsequently fuels misunderstandings. Ironically, the interfaces we use to communicate don’t help with this because any existing communication about the tension happens in tiny vacuums until a trigger goes off and bad feelings go public. 

Way Ahead: These moments of destabilization are opportunities to see where we can be more self aware about how we engage with fandom and the kind of community we want to be. Can you promote, support, or befriend someone trying to gain a foothold? If yes, please do! Each person must reach their own decision about what they can do within the confines of their available energy, health, and time, but a little self awareness goes a long way as long as you’re honest with yourself and others if applicable about what you can contribute. Anyone who judges you for it isn’t worth the strife.

2) In a fandom comprised of vulnerable/marginalized people, it’s more accurate to say that cliques are “bubbles of trust.”

This one's important. Just by nature of the source material, the CO/WS fandom includes fans with a wide array of backgrounds and experiences, especially when it comes to those who identify with the characters’ queerness, mental illness, and/or trauma. I really believe––based on individual conversations/group chats––that the difficult lived experiences that so many of our fandom peers have endured has produced one of the most open, aware, and accepting fandoms I’ve had the pleasure of participating in. Our vulnerability is, in a real way, our strength.

That said, a community of survivors also has the side effect of cultivating small circles of engagement that I call “bubbles of trust.” When you’re a survivor of abuse, marginalization, mental illness, fill-in-the-blank, it’s often quite hard to risk casting a wide net and expanding your circle to include new faces––which can subsequently be internalized by equally sensitive and vulnerable newcomers as rejection, judgement, or inadequacy.

Way Ahead: First of all, there may indeed be gatekeeping and exclusion going on. But before internalizing someone’s cagey behavior as gatekeeping or purposely exclusionary, ask yourself if you have all the information. Many people are private (I include myself in this assessment) because life has regrettably taught them to be this way, and so they may insulate themselves to a small group of people who have earned their trust. Some people might also triggered by certain content (case in point: smut triggers my anxiety) so they don’t engage with it. Others might have something in their pasts that define how they handle certain subjects (for example, a person of color should not be tone policed for getting angry when confronted with a racialized microagression, however accidental it was). You just don’t know what you don’t know. 

The solution here is to regularly check your privilege and ask questions in a private space if you sense you’re being treated unfairly by someone. If you go public with your grievances in hopes of mobilizing the mob, you may accidentally find yourself stepping into the role of the aggressor instead of the victim.

3) Social Media is not built to help you get engagement. It’s built to help itself make money off of you.

Repeat after me: Hits/likes are not a measurable indicator of talent or worth. There are ridiculously talented folks on Tumblr and elsewhere who, for whatever reason, haven’t had their viral moment, and it’s not their fault. Loads of factors come into play where things like likes, reblogs, and comments are concerned, among them being posting frequency, subject matter, the time of day, the day of the week, the week of the month, the month of the year, the current administration, the stock exchange, the concentration of middle class users, who just won the Superbowl, a madman trying to steal an election and undermine the democratic process, a PANDEMIC, do you get where I’m going with this?? lol

At the end of the day, my humble successes have been helped along by good luck, good timing, high profile signal boosters, and an absurd amount of work. (This is why I try to signal boost new work whenever I get a chance over at @vkelleyshares.) 

So while you cannot control Tumblr’s interface, trends at large, or your fellow users, here’s what you can do to ensure you give your work the best possible chance of exposure.

Have an image ready to go with your post. Tumblr is a visual platform (no matter what it says about being good for text). Not good with images? Set up a Canva.com account and get access to free graphic software with a gazillion templates to create whatever attractive image you want to attach to your post.

Keep the outward facing text brief and easy on the eyes. Too long and eyes will glaze over. Put excess text behind a “read more.”

You may think you’re being cute when you do this, but don’t put yourself down in your posts. (Don’t put yourself down in general, of course.) Doing so acts as engagement repellant. If you don’t believe in your work, no one else will.

Related: Be your best cheerleader. Confidence is a magnet, and if you don’t have it, go ahead and fake it until you start to convince yourself you are worth the buzz. So promote yourself! You have gifts that only you can impart. Use that knowledge to fuel everything you do from your art/fiction writing to your outreach with other content creators, and by golly, if someone’s done it already, acknowledge that contribution and then tell the world that this is YOUR unique take on it.

Treat your fellow fandom creators as human beings, not art/fiction/content boosting machines. I cannot count how many times I’ve had folks slide into my DMs with offers of friendship only to disappear once they realize I’m not available to draw a picture for their fic. It hurts because it’s manipulative and it makes me want to hole up and not signal boost anyone. Creators who truly support each other will not give off a transactional vibe. I want to help you reach more people, but not if that’s all I’m good for in your eyes. 

The long and short of it: Lead with compassion, do your best with the opportunities at  your disposal, and remember that fandom belongs to everyone in it. ❤️

What saves a fandom made of sensitive and vulnerable souls from imploding when it goes through growing pains is radical compassion from those who can offer it. Begin with the assumption that your fellow fandomers are not trying to harm you, and wade into the water knowing that your insight into the lives of your peers is limited by default and you may need to temper your words or actions accordingly. If you’re a content creator, save compassion for yourself as well, as there are indeed challenges to gaining an audience, and lack of engagement does not mean you lack talent or skill. Be your best advocate, and if you have the bandwidth to lift up a fellow creator and make a new friend, please, go ahead do it! 

And finally, fandom belongs to everyone, and no one has a monopoly on characters, tropes, or themes. Create and consume what you love (with respect for your more vulnerable peers), and bask in the variety, my friends!

That’s all I’ve got in my head at the moment, although I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting. Thanks so much to @penpanoply for letting me use her art for this and to everyone else, hang in there and try not to judge each other too harshly. These are unprecedented times, and most of us are doing our best in circumstances that are pushing us to our limits. 

As always, if you have questions or want to sound off on anything, shoot me a message or an ask, or ping me on Discord. It might take me a second to respond (thanks, Covid) but I’ll get to it! Love, love, and more love to all.

[retfarcyroeht]

Making a Case for Chroma in 2022 (Warframe)

Chroma is another frame that gets dumped on; most likely because it lacks a versatile (jack-of-all-trades) kit and gets labeled as a one trick pony.

It doesn't help that two of its abilities are energy eating channelers; with one of them being its t1. Spectral Scream actually has the hallmarks of a t4 channel ability (like Sol Gate); so, as a t1, it's actually pretty solid. If they ditched the channel in favor of a duration, it would be exponentially better.

In it's current form, tier and standard use, however, Spectral Scream struggles to keep up with the damage any weapon Chroma may equip.

Let's take it out of its comfort zone though. What else can it do? With a 100% status chance and a 10m radial spread, it can spread damage, DoTs and cc over a small area.

Its element switching allows you to optimize it for specific factions and situations; granting better damage and survivability.

Most importantly, you can melee while Scream is active; giving a slight boost to CO builds, some back up DPS and giving yourself a zone of control wherever you go.

Elemental Ward is a mixed bag. Although it can buff your teammates (quadding up your auras effect, in some cases), the team either has to stay close to you or you gotta grab the Everlasting Ward augment to remain team viable.

The trend is using Cold Ward for the armor boost and counteroffensive slows and damage. Heat and Electric lack the same staying power as Toxic or Cold and Toxic may be a bit niche.

Effigy gets a lot of style points but is both limited and penalizing in its usage. It reduces your armor, access to energy and mobility (being that it's a stationary strafe cannon).

For that cost, you get minimal damage, a bit of speed and some spare change. Out of Chroma s two energy guzzlers, this is the one I end up infusing over

Finally, the pony; Vex Armor. Great solo armor and damage buff but teammates need to be close to reap its benefits.

Chroma is a naughty frame that needs the pain to be at his best. The original sado-masochist edgelord.

And we need to play into that to help Chroma be competitive with other frames in 2022.

Combat Discipline allows Chroma to feed his pain by inflicting it on others. I believe this is the only remaining way to inflict self damage?

Rage; eat pain like a Rihanna song.

Arcane Avenger; because great art requires a bit of pain.

The Umbral set gives you a workable baseline for beginners face tanking. Adaptation supports your high armor. Primed Sure Footed rounds out your survivability/DPS maintenance.

I have two spots left. Without infusion, I lean into strength (range, for teaming) or the non-nullifiable armor bonus of Health Conversion. Otherwise, it depends on the infusion (and it's relevant augments) or playstyle.

Although people are using the introduction of gun arcanes and newish gun buff mods to downplay Chroma's Vex Armor buff; there are some things you should probably keep in mind...

Gunplay is not the only play; melee gets the damage buff as well.

Not everyone has fully ranked gun arcanes or the (newish) gun buff mods.

Not everyone has arcane adapters for all of their favorite guns.

Gun arcanes/mods do not invalidate Vex Armor (or vice versa); there may be diminishing returns but more damage is more damage (and the new gun toys don't buff your DR).

With so much base damage being buffed in externally, maybe you could use the freed up mod slots for elemental, crit, multishot or multiple Bane mods (for those that can't be bothered with switching them out constantly, lol)

This goes for solo players and some of your potential teammates.

Infusions?

Sentient Wrath for cc and a multiplicative boost to your damage.

Pillage aids in your survivability and gives you a silent DPS boost.

Airburst for grouping and when you want your pistol to do even more damage.

Nourish for healing and more damage.

Etc, etc

[my-writings-and-musings]

Could you do Drift and Ravage for the oxygen loss prompt?

I absolutely can do Ravage, our dear kitty deserves the love! Drift can be found in part six below!

Part One: Here!

Part Two: Here!

Part Three: Here!

Part Four: Here!

Part Five: Here!

Part Six: Here!

Part Seven: Here!

Part Eight: Here!

Part Nine: Here!

Part Ten: Here!

Part Eleven: Here!

Part Twelve: Here!

Part Thirteen: You're Here!

Ravage

·The tale of how you even became friends with the reclusive and understandably untrusting felicon is as long as it is convoluted, but a good synopsis is that the two of you simply get one another. It doesn't hurt that you always gave him ample personal space and respected his boundaries, and the fact you don't mind meeting up in the vents is a plus for him. Bots are absolutely baffled by your relationship, so avoiding public spaces has become his preferred activity to enjoy with you, if only to be free of the gossip. Equally eager to have peace and quiet, you'd long since found ways to make his favorite spots in the vents into ideal hangouts.

·Unfortunately, today is one of the rare days he has to be away from your side and amongst the crew. On the Bridge there's some kind of trouble, requiring all the commanding officers to be present while it's sorted out, and he refuses to leave Megatron there alone. Primus knows his old friend gets blamed for everything that goes wrong eventually... Yet he's far from focused as the diagnostic scans reveal a confounding bug in the ship's programming. As worrying as it should be, his thoughts drift repeatedly to you, and how much he'd rather be somewhere far less open and bright. Hopefully this will all end soon, and the two of you can curl up somewhere to relax, with his larger body naturally fitting around yours as if made to do so...

·A teasing look from Megatron makes him realize he had allowed his dreamy thoughts to color his face with a ridiculous expression of lovestruck bliss. Pinning back his ears and flushing hot as a star, he can only be grateful no one else seemed to notice. Just as he's debating whether or not to sneak away, there's a commotion amongst the more tech savvy bots. They claim to have found the source of the programming bug; which isn't a bug at all, but a virus. Claws fully unsheathing in preparation for combat, his sense of dread grows exponentially as he puts together what is being said, realizing that something very bad is moments away. Lights flicker in confirmation of his fear. In moments the ship is flashing out a hundred or so alarms, signaling that it is more or less helpless against whatever may happen next.

·You're the first thing he thinks about as countless terrible scenarios begin to play in his mind. Between his hypersensitive hearing and smell he's nearly choked on the panic and fear growing through the Lost Light, but all he wants to focus on is you. A human has precious little in the way of defense, and with every system keeping the ship stable, there's nothing to protect you. The solution is obvious; he has to find you before something else does. When the ground quakes and an incoming transmission threatens the crew he doesn't stick around to hear the enemy gloat. A brief explanation to Megatron is all he offers before taking off, and though he doesn't stick around to see it, his old friend gives him a nod of understanding.

·Distant sounds of metallic warping and the scent of soldering tell him the ship is being breached, but also make it incredibly difficult to pinpoint your location. He's memorized every identifiable feature of yours for moments like this, but the chaos turns the air into a smog of panic, so that it's only the uniqueness of your scent that allows him to find a trail. Faster than most vehicle modes and far more limber, he's an unstoppable blur through the hallways. A path to your shared quarters forms effortlessly in his mind as he passes down the levels.

·Far from your partner, you're still recovering from the bang that shook the entire room you'd been so comfortably set up in. Dazed on the ground, you get your feet beneath you before thoughts return, and the first one is for Ravage. Unfamiliar with space travel, you feel compelled to fear the worst; what if he was too close to whatever just went wrong? Capable as he is, the Felicon isn't immortal. Dead communication lines cement the need for worry in your dizzy head. Careless to the considerable tumble you just endured, you try to think of the best possible response for both your sakes. If he's able to so much as crawl, Ravage will be headed for you, so the best thing to do is make yourself as easy to find as possible. Shallow as that plan may be, it's at least a starting point, and you won't have to go far.

·A trail of claw marks through the hallways marks a tireless and acrobatic flight of barely disguised panic. Ravage takes every possible vent into his olfactory receptors for even the tiniest whiff of you. It's a scent he falls asleep with every night, the familiar yet so unusual mammalian musk soothing him as he curled about your tiny body... Now he's panicking over every tiny whiff, if only because he can't tell if you're really okay. Foreign smells tell of an encroaching enemy spilling into the Lost Light, and from the overpowering rush it appears their numbers are considerable. Some even appear to be moving through the lower levels just a floor or two below... Hulking footsteps that are not Cybertronian register in his sensitive ears, moving with such little grace he can feel them through the floor in his perceptive paws. Anger helps him swallow down some fear. If they want to get between him and his partner, then it's their death wish.

·Finding little to be working reliably, you open the door to your room just wide enough to let you through only after multiple attempts prove unsuccessful. A lifeless but somehow noisy hallway greets you. The sounds of combat are close, or at least, you presume what you're hearing to be combat. Perhaps you hit your head harder than you thought, because thinking through what's going on is far more difficult than it should be. Holding onto the wall for support, you try desperately to think of a plan. Ravage could be anywhere, and with no way to reach him, it's impossible to plan a meet up or even attempt to learn of his status. Yet... these dire thoughts don't invoke the panic they should. It's growing impossible to even stand on your own, and without meaning to you start to lean more of your body against the wall...

·Ravage inevitably is faced with a foe he cannot evade, and for your sake, he charges forward. There's a group of them, all gathered in the only hallway that will take him quickly to your location. He can feel the heat of energy weapons simmering in the air by the time he's upon them. With the element of surprise he's able to unleash incredible damage in his first attack, claws and fangs tearing through protective armor to kill one and severely wound another before they even realize they're being attacked. Bounding between their hulking forms, he faces the one disadvantage he's always endured through combat; his enemies far outscale him. Though his need to protect as well as survive turns him into a living blender, a well placed and simply lucky strike makes painful contact with his back, cracking the armor and bringing forth a spattering of energon.

·Recovering with the aid of his own anger to fuel the final attacks, he fights on with the wound agonizing him all the while, sinking his fangs in deep to take care of the final enemy. It isn't until the last body thunders to the floor that his legs temporarily give way. He's in need of medical attention, but he doesn't dare slow down, or even get a moment of rest. Shaking legs push defiantly to get him upright, and for once he's able to be grateful to have four. The ragged pace he resumes with is only as fast as it is because he knows he's close, as your scent is now clear despite the warring smells of blood and a million other unpleasant odors. Even if all he can do is collapse by your side and keep you company, it will be enough...

·Time seems to stand still when he sees you slumped over by the doorway to the room you two share. Though you're without injuries and the iron rich smell of human blood is undetectable, he knows something is very wrong, and though every motion hurts he bounds to your side. Crying out your name, he gently nudges you with a careful muzzle. Warmth and the rythym of your heart quell his greatest fears just before you open your eyes. Not quite awake, you can only be relieved to see him again, far too out of it to be afraid. At his insistence to move you express a desire to rest instead. No amount of encouragement can seem to make you realize the danger, and thus he's forced to make the decision to move you himself, even if he's in bad shape himself. Clearly, you need more help than he can give.

·You go along as best you can when he insists you ride on his back, and it's only your considerable experience doing so in the past that makes it possible now. He tries to think through the pain, but has little luck imagining what could possibly have done this to you, and his efforts to do so are hampered further as he begins to limp forward. Between energon loss and exhaustion and fear he knows things are looking grim. It tears at him more aggressively than any wound ever could, particularly as he feels you growing weaker against him, and all he can do is beg for you to hold on. You want to, but with his body so close and the rocking of his steps, how can you resist the urge to sleep? Surely everything will be fine when you wake... It's too much for him to endure when you slip into unconsciousness, and his legs give out beneath him. Failure burns in his spark as he tries in vain to keep going, his inability to save you haunting his exhausted body as footsteps draw near.

·It's by fortune he has rarely experienced that you're happened upon by a group of bots led by Megatron. He forces himself to stay awake for your sake, refusing to let anyone separate you so long as you need care. The blur of the medical bay brings comfort only briefly, as when he's informed of the reason behind your struggle he's nearly torn apart by guilt. Seeing you with your oxygen mask confirms his failure to protect the one he holds dearest to his spark. Withdrawing from the world, he allows himself to be patched up before curling himself around your tiny body, all but shielding you from the universe so intent on hurting you both.

·The warmth of his frame so frequently is your first sensation upon waking that you don't realize something is off at first. It isn't until you feel the mask on your face that you remember what happened, but by then Ravage is gently tapping his muzzle against you to confirm everything feels alright. Without promoting, he gives a quick rundown of what led up to this moment. You're wide eyed as he explains the ship's atmospheric shutdown, particularly when he gets to the part where he tried to carry you to safety... The apathy as he recounts it all, however, is far from fitting. Laying a gentle hand on a paw, you ask if something happened that bothered him, and receive confirmation from his silent expression of sadness.

·Initially, he can't bring himself to say what's wrong. On the surface he knows his actions were reasonable, but in his spark... he's so afraid of how his own inability to save you nearly resulted in tragedy. Just the thought of losing you is terrifying enough, but having nearly faced it has rocked him to his core, and he sits in silence under the weight of those emotions. Mercifully, you can read him well enough to not need words. Ravage has always withdrawn when upset, and few things agonize him more than failure.

·Gently as you can, you encourage him to come close, pulling his helm as near to your lap as possible. The sadness in his optics nearly breaks your heart, but you're confident as you speak, thanking him for what he did to save you and insisting you wouldn't be here without him. When he briefly tries to protest, you point out that he likely wouldn't be injured had it not been for you, and he quickly replies that you're worth any scars. When you retort that you feel the same way about him, a small amount of weight appears to leave his shoulders. He recalls that the best part of loving you has always been the freedom to exist as he is, free of pressure, and that he can't be a failure in your eyes so long as he tries. It's simply easy to forget that sometimes... Allowing himself a purr, he uses his tail to most effectively wrap you in his protective body, intent on keeping the both of you safe and warm for some much needed rest. So long as you have each other, there's nothing that can't be overcome.

[pokecraftking]

Something I've wanted to adress to Tumblr for a while about the way they've handled MCYT, sometimes very poorly and misinformed.

1. MCYT is a GIANT category

MCYT literally stands for Minecraft YouTube. This applies to LITERALLY ANYONE WHO HAS EVER POSTED A MINECRAFT VIDEO! Hermitcraft? Mcyt. Dream smp? Mcyt. Any lets player or game focused channel who's played Minecraft in a single video or series? Mcyt. Old channels who stopped posting Minecraft years ago like yogscast and skydoesminecraft? Mcyt. Random 13 year old posting a video on their phone? MCYT. Are there bad apples in that group? Yes, but don't let that take away from the thriving communities and wonderful creators also on the platform, many of which content creation is their job and source of income.

2. MCC (Minecraft champions)

Mcc is a completely non profit event designed solely for entertainment with preassigned teams. If you don't like a player being grouped with another, or hate a single player in the event, don't try to drag the whole event down with it. This is, in all honesty, an awe inspiring event. One tournament can have more viewers than the OLYMPICS, and have had tournaments where all procedes from streamers go to charity. Dismissing or hating the event for one individual goes against the good and the wonder such an event has created.

3. Dream smp, and the lack of information and respect it is given.

A lot of people complain "it's just a bunch of chist white men" which is both 1. Disrespect and 2. Objectively wrong. This actively disregards any female (ninachu, captain puffy, etc), LGBTQ (eret, antfrost, ninachu, etc), and minority (skeppy, ponk, quackity, etc) content creators. Additionally, a vast majority of the content creators heavily support their communities, especially their lgbtq fans, like philza, tommyinnit, and technoblade. These people have made a community where channels have grown exponentially (some even appearing on the news!), communities have flourished (theres a reason it is usually the one that glitches into 1st place on trending, hell, full songs and multi millions view animatics exist on YouTube), and friends have been made both in the server and the community, all of this without even mentioning the hard work put into the server's story and events.

4. Dream, and his impact on mcyt...

I'll preface this by saying: i don't personally like dream as a person. I disagree with his political opinions and he has done and said messed up things. If we are talking about his impact on mcyt though? He's an (unfortunately) vital player. His large subscriber and viewer count helped not only revive minecraft for the general public, but actively helped and continues to help grow the channels of the people he plays with (the dream team, all dream smp members, any mcc team mates, etc). His precense in videos also MASSIVELY increases success by nearly every recordable statistic for anyone who joins his server (ranboo, philza, ponk, quackity, technoblade, etc etc etc), many of which had a significantly lower subscriber and viewer count before the smp. The same can be said for events he's in, such as mcc. Finally, his role in the dream smp. He's by no means a main character, hell, he's not only the main villain, but has been locked in the servers prison for months now with maybe an appearance in a stream once every month or 2. Additionally, he never streams specifically to avoid taking away the spotlight from other creators in the server. Do I agree with a lot of the things he's said or done? No. Do I think his wrongdoings should drag down a large group of extraordinary talented players and content creators, all of which part of one connected story they all put together with love and care, with a massive wonderful community full of loving and talented individuals? Absolutely not.

Basically, all the "dream smp fans don't interact" should be "dream stans and apologists don't interact" or something along those lines, dont drag down a whole community due to one bad apple, especially when half of them dont even know about or like said bad apple.

(Also side note i didn't know where to put. The fact it occasionally glitches out BLM and SAH is bullshit, but don't pretend that it's a MCYT exclusive thing. Shows and movies, video games, sports, and irl events have all taken it's place due to the glitchy unoptimized way tumblr pins those topics. In my opinion those 2 should have a whole separate page or area so they can't ever be unpinned via any large event like they currently do every day or 2. Tumblr thrives of of fandoms and the interactions in said fandoms (why supernatural, undertale, the lorax, etc. Became associated with tumblr to a degree), causing them to lose traction and feel out of place in a "trending tab" format, also fixing the "it glitching out of trending" issue.)

(Also you don't have to but please share this so more people know this and learn, lot of missinformatuon and straight up lies are spread about mcyt as a whole, commonly on blw and sah for some reason? Not blaming them at all, just a trend I've noticed)

[erbezdiez]

On your Seiya and Usagi post, you had a tag about an AU and YES I WANT TO HEAR please(:

YESSS *RUBS MY GAY LITTLE HANDS*

Click the read more because this post turned out longer than I expected but SEIUSA AU HERE WE GO

Okay, so this is basically just “The Sailor Starlights come to earth at the beginning of the series instead of in S4″ AU. In that specific scene/whatever, Fighter hears Sailor Moon screaming during her first fight and goes there to save her on pure instinct, not because she’s looking for the Silver Crystal or anything.

Honesty in my head I wouldn’t necessarily get rid of Mamoru or anything and the whole thing would kind of follow the same basic beats as the canon Sailor Moon story.

After the first fight, Fighter would get curious about Sailor Moon, and with time she’d end up aiding her too from time to time in her battles. Maybe she can even meet Tuxedo like that, when they both go to save SM at the first time or something safsadgs. Usagi would develop her crush on Tuxedo Mask while at the same time being curious about Fighter as well. Also during all this time Fighter is flirting with Sailor Moon because she’s a big lesbian and I love her, which would leave her feeling ~~confused~~.

Meanwhile, the Three Lights could serve as the standard “popular idol” like Minako does in PSSM, though I do like the idea of their popularity growing through the series exponentially.

Sometime after the senshi go meet Queen Serenity, Fighter would be aiding Sailor Moon and the others in a fight, but then get hurt herself. Then Maker and Healer can make their appearances, introducing the full group. They wouldn’t appear much more, but they would make it very clear that they’re not after the Silver Crystal so the senshi can have the whole “they’re not our allies, but they’re not our enemies either?” thing.

After the finale of S1, I like the idea of the Starlights noticing the senshi have forgotten about their identities and Figher being sad, but deciding that it’s better this way.

They could have a bigger part during the Makai Tree arc because that arc is great and I don’t care if it’s filler, where maybe they can sense something similar to Kakyuu’s light in the Makai Tree or something. Seiya and Usagi could meet while Mamoru is away as their civilian selves, and of course, Seiya falls for Usagi right away without knowing she’s Sailor Moon. Usagi however rejects him, because she’s still hoping Mamoru will return to her. When he does get his memories back and all that, Seiya stays friends with Usagi without telling her about his feelings.

And then during the Black Moon arc. Seiya could become a sort of emotional support for Usagi; she’s not sure why she likes talking to him so much, but it’s like he gets him in a way no one else does, not even her best friends. They grow especially close then Mamoru and Chibiusa go through the whole Black Lady thing. By this point, the Starlights are still focused on searching Kakyuu and only get involved in the other’s fight when they happen to be there or it’s something very serious, but they’ve become a sort of “sometime-allies we can rely on when something goes wrong”.

But then, of course, the Death Buster arc happens, and Uranus and Neptune are immediately wary of the Starlights since they’re from outside the solar system. They could go from suspecting them of working with the Death Busters, to attacking them on-sight. At the same time, Haruka meets Seiya while he’s hanging out with Usagi, and distrusts him right away. Partly because she feels “he’s just dangerous” and partly because let’s be honest she’s a bit mad that Seiya gets better reactions from Usagi than she does. Through this whole arc, Mamoru and Usagi begin to drift apart as she starts relying more on Seiya than on him, but she always denies the possibility of having romantic feelings for him, especially because she knows that Chibiusa existing at all depends on her staying with Mamoru. This however does nothing but strain their relationship even further.

Before the end of the arc, the Starlights would explain to all the senshi that they’re looking for Kakyuu, so Uranus and Neptune can stop trying to kill them for one second.

The Dead Moon arc is all about ChibiUsa and Usagi, and by this point, it’s undeniable that Usagi likes him too. Chibiusa could actually talk to Helios about this in her dreams, and how she’s actually scared Usagi will choose Seiya over Mamoru and either create a paradox or straight up kill her.

I would use Nehelenia’s motivation in this point as a way of separating the current Usagi (and by extension, Mamoru and everyone else) to their Silver Millenium selves. In Death Busters Uranus and Neptune are affected by their destiny in a positive way (they’re soulmates who can finally reunite, much like Serenity and Endymion) but in a negative way, when they think there’s no way to stop Saturn from destroying the planet. Now, when Usagi senses how much Nehelenia hated Serenity and her mother, she would feel sorry for her. Usagi had nothing to do with Nehelenia’s punishment and feels like Queen Serenity did a bad thing she can’t excuse. By creating this crack in the perfect image of the Silver Millenium, Usagi would begin to question if just because Serenity loved Endymion that means she should love Mamoru unconditionally.

And then of course, the Stars arc!! By this point, Usagi and Seiya are very close and both have feelings for the other, the Sol senshi trust the Starlights in varying degrees, and Usagi isn’t sure if she truly loves Mamoru and wants to fulfil her destiny. By the time Mamoru goes to America, he tells her they should “take a break” while they’re away so they can sort their feelings out.

I would also have Mamoru actually get to America instead of being kidnapped by Galaxia. Enjoy your education, boy!

Usagi tells Seiya rather quickly about this development, and they get even closer than before. Chibiusa hasn’t returned to the future yet, either because she senses it’s unstable or because she’s too worried about Mamoru and Usagi to leave them. She can tell Usagi that she knows how she feels about Seiya and that she’s broken up with Mamoru, and that she’s afraid of what that means for herself. For a while, Usagi starts avoiding Seiya because every time she thinks of him, she imagines Chibiusa disappearing and she can’t bear to choose between the two of them.

Then one day, Seiya gets targeted by one of Sailor Galaxia’s lackeys, and Usagi has no choice but to transform in front of him, revealing her secret identity. Seiya is surprised, but before he can say anything, Usagi runs away.

Seiya isn’t sure what to do, and she can’t even tell Taiki and Yaten about it because it would betray Usagi’s trust. One day, Seiya finds Usagi crying under the rain (or maybe the moonlight?) as she feels the weight of the whole world is in her shoulders. Seiya reaches out to Usagi, but she pushes him away when she thinks about hurting ChibiUsa. Seiya takes her hand anyways and holds it to his chest, telling her to look after her own happiness instead of the happiness of others for the first time. Usagi cries, and Seiya wipes her tears off. She then says “you were crying that time too at the jewel shop”, and Usagi isn’t sure what he means. Seiya transforms in front of her, showing her her true self.

This only makes Usagi confused for a second before she realizes that of course, it makes so much sense now. In a moment where she allows herself to think of her own happiness, she kisses Seiya.

She then rushes back home, suddenly afraid that she’s made Chibiusa disappear, but to her surprise she’s still there, alive and well. Chibiusa is suspicious of Usagi’s actions, but she leaves her be.

Shortly after this, before Seiya and Usagi have the chance to properly explore their relationship, the rest of the inner senshi have to transform in front of the Starlights (and vice-versa). By this point their relationship is much less tense than in the canon (both groups think of the other as allies, and now they’re united under the same enemy), and while Haruka still doesn’t like Seiya too much, she accepts her when Usagi defends her.

Eventually, the final battle comes, and in this version, I’d actually like Galaxia to be the villain not because Chaos corrupted her and she doesn’t have a Starseed, but because she became bitter and angry by the mere act of having to fight Chaos over and over again.

Turns out Sailor Galaxia isn’t just the most powerful Sailor Senshi of the universe; she’s the most powerful Sailor Senshi of all universes. Each time Chaos is born, she travels to that universe to destroy it. She’s been doing it since the dawn of time and is now so tired of her destiny that she just joins Chaos willingly.

So during the final battle (which honestly I’d leave almost the same because that battle is amazing), Usagi makes Galaxia see that she doesn’t need to keep on fighting just because someone decided it was her destiny. The existence of the Silver Crystal, the Golden Cyrstal and Kakyuu prove that Chaos can be fought against by other people, and that she’s already done more than enough. By realizing this, Galaxia lets go of Chaos, and by joining forces with Sailor Moon (and maybe with all senshi there present, even if it’s in spirit form), they manage to destroy Chaos.

I didn’t mention her anywhere else but ChibiChibi is here! And in this version, she actually is Sailor Cosmos, who’s awakened after Chaos disappears. She tells Usagi and Galaxia that Cosmos and Chaos will always be in battle, but that as long as people don’t let it consume her, peace will reign through all universes.

So the peace is restored, and the Starlights have to go back to Kakyuu. All senshi share a farewell in the school building, where Seiya struggles to let of Usagi and she has to try her best not to beg her to stay. Mamoru (who was captured during the final battle but is OK now) notices how Usagi hasn’t looked at him the way she looks at Seiya in years, and catches up very quickly. Seiya says that going back to restore her planet with Kakyuu is her duty, to which Usagi can’t say anything, because she feels she too has a duty to fulfil on earth.

But as they’re flying off into space, Yaten Taiki and Kakyuu tell Seiya that she’s already done more than enough. Seiya looks at them for a moment, when Usagi breaks down and cries, begging her to stay. Seiya leaves the space teleportation whatever the Starlights were using and jumps towards Usagi, who only barely manages to catch her. Everyone laughs and they kiss.

Later, they discuss whether or not this changes their destiny, since Chibiusa has never seen Seiya in the future. Setsuna could then explain that they may as well have created a new universe where nothing is set in stone, and that their future is now in their hands.

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...And that’s that!! SORRY THAT WAS SO LONG asfshkgjhdfgksd. I know this fandom is very small so if anyone wants to idk expand on this idea or change anything or use it for something please go ahead!!! More seiusa content is always welcome. I hope you enjoyed this really long read!

[fictional-worlds]

Not What It Seems (Daryl X Person Of Color Reader)

Pairing: (Daryl x Person of Color Reader)

Plot: After the end of the world, Daryl and Y/N seek comfort in each other. When Meryl finds out that his redneck brother is dating a person of color ...he may not be the happiest...

Warnings: Angst, rejection, racism, threatening, violence, hint of racial slurs (I tried not to use the actual thing but I’m sorry if it still offends some people but it is a word that character said in the series.)

Ps. I do not own any of The Walking Dead characters nor do I claim to own you!

A/N: I know I haven’t updated in a while but I am feeling very inspired this week so be ready for some new releases! Don't forget that requests are still open! Thanks for being patient and for your support! Lmk what you guys think of this!

It’s been four to five weeks since the end of the world happened. During that short amount of time, everything went down - from water, to electricity, to phone lines… to our government… to civilization.

Luckily, I was able to leave the city with a group of people. Our camp’s located on higher ground at the end of a quarry for safety.

A cop, a mother and son, a family of four, a family of 3, two redneck brothers, two sisters, an Asian, an older man that owns an rv, and a couple more people make up our camp.

Everyone seems nice but I try to stay away from the redneck brothers. The eldest doesn’t seem to like people of color and the youngest just goes along with it.

At least that’s what I tried to do in the beginning. But the youngest brother, Daryl, was undeniably hot with his long hair, bangs always getting in his face, and those arms...just yum. So he kinda just grew on me.

First, it was small nods of acknowledgment whenever we walked by. Slowly but surely our relationship progressed to small talks at dinner with everyone else in camp then more private talks until I convinced him to teach me how to hunt. At first, he was reluctant, saying “ you could get hurt out ther’ ” in his southern drawl. By then, it was obvious that things were not what they seemed, he was not like his brother.

Thanks to my amazing charm and convincing skills *insert hair flip for dramatic effect*, I was able to convince him to teach me how to hunt. Daryl teaching me consisted of a lot of crouching down near animal or even walker prints/trails and determining which direction they went and if they are nearby. This meant that we were constantly hovering over each other, in each other’s personal space. There have been some very close calls where we’ve almost kissed because we both turn to look at each other at the same time. And I can’t say that I would dislike locking lips with him…

An incident happened during a run in a small nearby town that caused our relationship to grow exponentially quickly. While looking for medicine at a pharmacy, I was behind the counter while Daryl was searching the aisles. Normally, we’re very careful and efficient when it comes to runs.

We knock on the windows and wait a while for the walkers to show up but I guess one got stuck or something because as I searched behind the counter where the prescribed medicine was located a walker grabbed me and tried to rip me to shreds. It knocked me to the ground, hovering over me unsuccessfully trying to chomp on my neck, face, anywhere really. I don’t think they have a preference.

“Daryl!” I yelled out, honestly scared that he wouldn’t reach me in time as my arms started to give away.

Suddenly, I felt a whoosh as an arrow cut through the air, hitting the walker on the side of its head as it finally stopped moving. Letting out an oof as it drops on me, I look up at Daryl, seeing fear in his eyes- fear of losing me, losing our small talks, losing how I wrinkle my nose when I laugh, or how excited I get when it only takes me one time to shoot down my prey.

After getting the walker off me and helping me up, Daryl brings me into an embrace. “I told you to be careful, didn’t I?” he says as he holds onto me tighter. I’m still shocked because I’ve never seen Daryl hug or even touch anyone unless absolutely necessary and that even included his brother.

Slowly, I wrap my arms around his waist as I snuggle into his chest, “I know...I’m sorry, I thought we got all of them.”

“We’ll be more careful next time,” he mumbled with his chin on my head, arms still wrapped around me.

After that day, we were stuck together like glue and even though his brother, Meryl, didn’t like it very much, he wasn’t around to protest our friendship as he always went out on hunting trips by himself.

After a couple of days of secret glances and Daryl demanding we hold hands during hunting because “the ground is uneven and you could easily slip and twist your ankle and I ain’t carrying you back” it finally happened, the long-awaited kiss that is, while walking back to camp with a couple of squirrels and even a fox on hand.

With our hands locked and our catches of the day in our free hand, I actually did slip. Thankfully, Daryl easily caught me by pulling me towards him, arms wrapping around my waist, bumping into his chest.

Glancing up, I blushed as he stared at me. Right, when I was about to thank him, his head dipped down and his lips met mine.

Again, at first, I was frozen with shock but as his tongue swiped at my bottom lip, I reacted and molded my lips to his, opening my mouth to let his tongue in. The kiss was soft and pretty much innocent as we both poured our feeling into the kiss.

I pulled away for air after a few minutes, panting lightly. Daryl pressed his forehead on mine and nuzzled my nose. His long bangs tickling my face and I giggle softly. Daryl says, “I probably don’t have to ask, but will you be my girlfriend?”

I brush his hair out of his face and respond, “of course, I’d love to.”

That evening, we walked back, hand-in-hand, to camp with a big grin on our faces.

Sadly, the happy feeling doesn’t last long. As we approached the camp, we can hear shouting and fighting. Daryl and I both look at each other before taking off towards the camp.

There, Jim and Shane were holding back Meryl, who was apparently about to go on a run with some of the group. Meryl was struggling against them, trying to get to T-Dog, “I swear you talk back to me again and you’ll wish you were dead you ******!”

Suddenly, Meryl’s attention was drawn to the side, to Daryl and I, “well looky looky here, it seems little bro got himself a good whore for laying.”

“Stop it, man, that’s my girl you’re talking about,” Daryl states and he grips my hand tighter.

My heart warms at being called his girl but then it tightens when I see the rage on Meryls face reignite.

“Your girl?! This colored girl is your girl?! You know we, white folks, shouldn’t be with no colore-” Meryl doesn’t get to finish because Daryl lets go of my hand and punches him right on the jaw, effectively knocking him down.

“You might believe that but I don’t, that’s some bull**** and you know it. Y/N is my girlfriend now and you’re going to have to deal with it, understood?”

I don’t think I ever found him more attractive than now, so protective of me and uncaring of my race or race in general that he even punched his own brother for me.

“Y-yes,” Meryl groans out while rubbing his jaw.

Everyone still in shock at the scene that played before them.

“Come on Y/N,” Daryl outstretches his hand towards me and I take it, “we’re going to move your tent next to mine.”

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A/N: Thank you for the support. I hope you liked this Daryl Dixon x Reader Oneshot! Let me know if you liked it! Don't forget requests are open and you can add yourself to my tag lists here!

[megatraven]

Fluffy Alex and Aphrodite Headcanons

for my best wife @astorias-reigning-legends vuv

(Pre-relationship with MC)

Alex meets with Aphrodite at least once a week, their mother always making sure to have time spent together with them. Usually they meet for dinner, but often times Alex will end up staying the night on Olympus to keep her company

Anytime Aphrodite has a concert, she always gives Alex VIP tickets. Unless there’s a very important case they’re handling, Alex tries their best to attend them, especially if they’re held somewhere in New York

Every now and again, she asks them to record a song with her. Whether it’s for the world, or just for something they both can keep, it’s nice to just sing together from time to time

Aphrodite checks in with Alex pretty frequently, and though it doesn’t happen very often, she knows when they’re getting overwhelmed and meets with them to help- either in the form of getting them to take a step back and breathe, or using her aura to help refresh them

They definitely, 100% talk about Alex’s love for MC (pre-relationship), and Alex gets very flustered about it, but they know they can say to their mother what they can’t to MC

Most mornings, Alex will text or call Aphrodite, if for no other reason than to wish her a good day and getting an opportunity to speak a little Greek

Aphrodite pushes for Alex to take their birthday off work each year so that she can dedicate a day to them, knowing it’s pretty much her only chance to do so thanks to their workaholic tendencies. Alex appreciates that she goes out of her way for this (though she doesn’t see it as going out of her way at all) and enjoys being able to spend a day just doing whatever with their mother, and maybe getting to spend some time with Hades and Persephone, too.

During festivals or holidays when HERA gives its workers time off, Alex almost always spends their time on Olympus to celebrate with their mother

Aphrodite is a Hugger(tm) and she is not afraid to hug Alex in the middle of the office, professionalism be damned

Aphrodite doesn’t really have a birthday, nor does she Care about herself having one, but ever since Alex was young, they set aside the same day each year to shower her in affection and spend all their time with her, doing their best to get her (or make her in the case of being a kid) something personal and thoughtful

One such gift that they’ve gotten her is a locket that looks just like their artifact, with a picture of the two of them inside and engraved with a sweet message that definitely makes Aphrodite tear up (or straight-up cry) when she reads it

There are days where Aphrodite gets a little lonely and will call Alex to talk, about anything and everything, and Alex will willingly entertain her for hours on end, even if they’re burning the midnight oil to do so

Aphrodite always keeps Alex’s room exactly the way it is (save for when she takes out the alcohol they’ve hidden in there...) and lets them do with it as they will. She loves that they have their own space in her home, and she wants it to always be open to them, no matter the circumstances. Alex loves this, too, even if most times they prefer staying down on Earth. It’s nice to know that she’s always got a spot reserved just for them.

There have been a couple times in the past wherein Aphrodite attended pride with Alex, to be supportive of them and to encourage them to do what they want. She’s the one that told them about the beach that they wind up going to every pride, knowing they’d appreciate it

Growing up, Aphrodite would take Alex down to Earth to play with Josh and MC, and she likes to recount those days to them, speaking of them fondly

When Alex was old enough and they decided to do some travelling down on Earth, Aphrodite supported them, even knowing that it would mean she’d miss them for awhile. Alex would call more often when they were travelling to make sure she was doing alright, and to make sure she knew that they were still there for her even if they weren’t there for her

Aphrodite is 10000% at fault for Alex’s fashion sense and their makeup expertise. If Alex has an entire closet full of tailored clothes and nice shoes, and if their eyeliner is sharper than a knife, there is no one else to look at but Aphrodite

She taught them how to do their own makeup and guided them until they decided on what they were comfortable with and what they wanted to keep doing

From the very beginning, Aphrodite knew that Alex was nonbinary and always embraced it, accepting them as they were without any question, and helping them find their own way when questions inevitably arose

When came time for Alex to move out on their own, they picked out their own apartment, and then Aphrodite helped them move their belongings there, possibly definitely tearing up the whole time over the thought of them leaving, but being happy that they’re striking out on their own

Alex’s independence and inherent goodness always make Aphrodite very proud of them, and she wants nothing more than to see them succeed and be happy

She’s impressed that Alex, as young as they are, isn’t content with taking handouts and getting by just on godly advantages; they want to work and they want to bring people together and they want to make the world a better place. Her respect for them grows exponentially when she thinks of that

(aaaand a few Alex x MC and Aphrodite headcanons for good measure)

Whenever Aphrodiute extends an invitation to dinner to Alex, she always makes sure to make it known she includes MC in that invitation, knowing how much they love one another and not wanting them to be apart. However, Alex will still sometimes meet with her one-on-one for some quality mother-child time

After Jason is born, Aphrodite visits them much more often than before, and offers advice whenever MC and Alex might need it

Group hugs!!!!!!!! Aphrodite cant help herself from pulling both of them into a hug, and where Alex usually gets a little flustered, MC laughs, returning it with just as much vigor

They eat out at Josh’s restaurant a lot so that they can see him, too, and there are days where he’ll join them for a meal and they all get to have just.... a really nice family dinner together. There’s a lot of laughter and catching up to be had, embarrassing childhood stories to share, and chances to remember MC’s and Josh’s mother

Aphrodite wanted to be very hands-on with Alex and MC’s wedding, but respected their boundaries and wants by holding back until they came to her with any questions/problems they might have (like the venue). She does her best to make sure their wedding is perfect.

Following the last one, Aphrodite talks to MC in place of her own mother, and it warms Alex’s heart knowing just how accepting Aphrodite is of their love, and that she’s so readily accepting of MC to be part of the family. They never really doubted how she would act, but it’s nice to see regardless, and they’re happy knowing that their marriage has the Goddess of Love’s approval