#ok this one I'm posting without context

[blu-s0da]

[pickaropoprocks]

Day 39!! More no-context AU stuff sorry

[jawnwicks]

Some of the most important parts for me:

“Friendships are built of repeated low-stakes interactions and returned bids for attention with slowly increasing intimacy over time.”

"Deeper friendships are formed with people from those kinds of groups when you do things with them outside of the context of the original interaction."

"Smalltalk is a social script of exchanging trivial conversation about non-personal topics in order to pass a brief period of time together.

This sort of conversation is about figuring out whether you want to get to know each other better, so it's kind of a behavioral test. It's assessing "can I have a pleasant, brief conversation with this person?" because people usually want to know if the answer to that question is "yes" before they share more details of their lives."

"If the person speaking responds to your sharing of personal information with a request for more information (asks about your sister) or by sharing some of their somewhat more personal information (roses are blooming) they might be interested in continuing to gradually share more information. If they respond with more smalltalk, they probably aren't interested in becoming closer friends ... [but] maybe at some point they'll share something with you and it'll be your turn to decide if you want to get to know them better."

"Once you've seen someone several times, you will begin to know little things about them. ... If you want to become friends with them, ask them about these things and offer information in return. Start casually and don't pry for more information, and be sure to share about yourself as well. Eventually you will get to the point that you can have a comfortable conversation on topics of shared interest for at least a few minutes."

"If they agree to meeting up for the thing, they are interested in continuing to develop the friendship. If they don't want to meet up then continue at the same level of interaction as before and perhaps later on down they line they'll ask you if you want to plan a meetup."

"Once you have hung out on purpose a few more times you've got two choices: set a regular meetup, or hang out elsewhere. Setting up a regular meetup is the relatively casual option here; it keeps things in the same location and keeps the context of the friendship the same while still increasing interactions and intensifying the relationship. You can have perfectly good, if somewhat casual friends, who you see regularly in one place and rarely outside of that place."

"Hanging out in a new place changes the context of the relationship; suggest a hangout in a place that makes sense for the mutual interests you've learned over the previous months of getting to know the person."

"If you’re talking about the weather as in the first example, but you mention where you grew up and what the weather was like, that can be inspiration for the other person to also talk about where they’re from! But, unlike with a question, if they don’t want to share that information they can usually dodge it without having to make it extremely obvious that that’s what they’re doing."

Wait, so you said that you can learn to trust others by building friendships, but how does one go about doing that? Wouldn't someone I don't know be creeped out or annoyed if I suddenly walked up and started talking to them?

Friendships are built of repeated low-stakes interactions and returned bids for attention with slowly increasing intimacy over time.

It takes a long time to make friends as an adult. People will probably think you're weird if you just walk up and start talking to them as though you are already their friend (people think it's weird when I do this, I try not to do this) but people won't think it's weird if you're someone they've seen a few times who says "hey" and then gradually has more conversations (consisting of more words) with them.

I cheat at forming adult friendships by joining groups where people meet regularly. If you're part of a radio club that meets once a week and you just join up to talk about radios, eventually those will be your radio friends.

If there's a hiking meetup near you and you go regularly, you will eventually have hiking friends.

Deeper friendships are formed with people from those kinds of groups when you do things with them outside of the context of the original interaction; if you go camping with your radio friend, that person is probably more friend than acquaintance. If you go to the movies with a hiking friend who likes the same horror movies as you do, that is deepening the friendship.

In, like 2011 Large Bastard decided he wanted more friends to do stuff with so he started a local radio meetup. These people started as strangers who shared an interest. Now they are people who give each other rides after surgery and help each other move and have started businesses together and have gone on many radio-based camping trips and have worked on each other's cars.

Finding a meetup or starting a meetup is genuinely the cheat-code for making friends.

This is also how making friendships at schools works - you're around a group of people very regularly and eventually you get to know them better and you start figuring out who you get along with and you start spending more time with those people.

If you want to do this in the most fast and dramatic way possible, join a band.

In 2020 I wrote something of a primer on how to turn low-stakes interactions with neighbors and acquaintances into more meaningful relationships; check the notes of this post over the next couple days, I'll dig up the link and share it in a reblog.

[gothwineaunts]

Well hello there, readers!!

So, I have been lurking on our socials and in the webtoon comments of Nevermore's finale episode and have picked up some very subtle hints that y'all want to know when we're going to drop Season 2. Firstly I do want to let all the smarties who guessed we'd come back on Halloween based on our Ulalume quote know that they were onto something. When we originally left that hint for you, we were indeed planning to return in late October, but some unforeseen setbacks over the summer pushed our production schedule back. Still, I wanted to say congratulations for getting the hint right! We were impressed so many of you figured it out.

As for the updated launch of season two? While I don't have a specific date to share yet, I can tell you it'll be in January.

I know, I know. Trust me, I wish it was sooner too. I can't tell you how much Flynn and I miss updating weekly. Y'all make creating this series so exciting for us with your energy and excitement and creativity!! The talent I've seen in this community is off the charts. We feel unspeakably lucky to have readers like you along for the ride, and can't wait for you to see the episodes we've been working on.

If you're new to Flynn and I, it might not be common knowledge that we always do the absolute most all the time, compulsively, without stopping ever (save us, ahahhaa). And let me assure you that the opening episodes of season two? Are very most. A lot of most. Super long. Really, extra pretty. I wish I could post them now but I think webtoon might um. Be upset with me if I did that, so. Just trust me, ok? One thing I can share in th emeantime is some of the S2 character concepts. A few characters are getting minor glow ups. See if you can spot the differences!

Okay, well! We'll see you in January!! Or before, if you hang around our socials. I mean we're not disappearing. We'll be here, just. Plodding along on buffer in the background. If you're dying to spoil yourselves with wip streams you can hit up our patreon but I almost wouldn't recommend it on account of. You'll be so confused, at this point. Lmfao. Like. Wow, it would be a really weird time to join a wip stream with no context. This sounds like a shameless plug but I'm being serious when I say it's probably best you don't hop in at this particular moment?? But I mean. I'm not a cop. I'm just your weird goth wine aunt. 🍷

Cheers, Kit Trace

[lukolathoughts]

Women's rights

(trigger warning. Also, please be kind as I discuss some personal issues. I will block all negative comments, but I welcome opinions.)

Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well. I knew last night was going to be rough. It happens whenever I write a blog post. As soon as I saw that story from Jake yesterday thanking Aimee - Nic's stylist for her help, I knew he would at the Bafta party. What I didn't expect was that Nicola would pose on the red carpet with him for staged and awkward looking photos. I did a double take in astonishment at his white trainers paired with a ill fitting suit, that did not match Nicola's outfit. The photos were stiff and awkward, Nicola forcing a smile of adoration and Jake rarely looking at her. It screamed PR and FAKE FAKE FAKE. This is not us Lukola's being in denial, this just simply what we see with our own eyes.

The question I posed in yesterdays blog titled - 'The crazy woman in the attic' was, what is in the attic exactly? What on earth is going on that Nicola and Luke need to go to these kind of extremes? What secret are they protecting? This cannot be the solution. Nicola, I hope your team sends you this and I will try and be as kind and gracious as possible with my opinions. Also, remember readers these are my opinions. Jakeholes, just block me and move on. As I have said, this is not the place for you.

I am going to go into a bit of personal information about me just to give you some context. I grew up in a extremely unsettled home. My father was physically violent to my mother and I witnessed a lot. I struggled with not being able to save her. I still carry this guilt to this day, and I have never been able to forgive my dad. We left when I was nine, but by that time I had seen a lot. I met my ex when I was 19 and that turned into an emotionally abusive relationship, made all the more harder as I was living with him abroad. When I came home, I was an absolute wreck and I needed that time to heal and be on my own, with support from my family and friends. I was then very lucky to meet my own Colin Bridgerton and that is where we are today. One of the habits I developed as a child to cope and hide I suppose was to watch my television shows. I love my TV shows and movies. It just settles me and I can escape for a few hours. It's no real surprise to me that I adore Bridgerton.

OK, ZG, what does this have to do with Nic? Well, I do love a strong female character and I adore Penelope and I have admiration for Nicola and all she believes in. She is a role model to me. However, the biggest role model in my life other than Buffy, is obviously my mum. She worries me to death that woman and is a Capricorn also, incidentally she is now married to an Aquarius. Stubborn as a mule, but a heart of gold, my mum. I keep going back mentally to wishing I could have done something as a child to help her. As most of you know, I'm a teacher. At the moment, I am working on a project to get young parents back into work or education in deprived areas by improving their literacy, numeracy and other skills. I have loved this project and helping these women has been fantastic. Without saying too much, some of these women have dealt with the worst kinds of abuse I have ever seen or heard. Coercive control is much more prevalent now amongst abusers. I am an empath as well, so I take a lot of this emotion home with me and I guess the fandom and Nicola and Luke have helped me channel this elsewhere and allow me to escape.

I have known gay men my whole life. My first cousin was always very open about his sexuality, even before we understood what it meant. It was just the way he was. I had a gay BFF in primary school, college and all through my twenties I mixed with the albeit minimal gay scene where I live. I have not had much experience with the trans community, I'll be honest, other than visiting the gay bars in Swansea and Cardiff with my friend S. I just don't have the same emotional connection to the trans community as Nicola does. I support rights of women. I shouldn't feel guilty for saying that loud. I fight for their right to work and education and for making a better world for their children. I fight for my own children. I write what I write as a mother myself and especially a mother to a daughter.

One of the most upsetting things in the last few years was the Manchester Bombing. On 22 May 2017, following a concert by the American pop singer Ariana Grande. Perpetrated by Islamic extremist Salman Abedi and aided by his brother, Hashem Abedi, the bombing occurred at 22:31 and killed 22 people. Most of these victims were young women and girls. The murder of Sarah Everard by police officer Wayne Couzen's in 2021 was one of the most sickening cases I had ever read and the media tried to blame Sarah for her own murder for daring to walk home alone at night. Last summer, in Southport, a mad man broke into a little girls dance studio at a Taylor Swift themed dance class and knifed to death three little girls and stabbed countless others. Kyle Clifford, broke into his ex girlfriends house and killed her, her sister and her mother with a crossbow last year also.

These are the kind of stories that keep me awake at night, not whether trans women are allowed to use the women's toilets or not and whatever else. I don't want men in our spaces and I don't think they should be. But, I give Nicola some grace, because she is raising money for a cause she believes in it. I will not begrudge her that. What I do begrudge her for is after successfully raising so much money, she then proceeds to counteract everything she was campaigning for by walking Jake Dunn down the red carpet and presenting him to the media as her 'boyfriend'. To me, this is deeply hypocritical. Jake is known to the industry as a queer actor. Jake is starring in an upcoming BBC drama about trans rights where he plays a queer role. All this has done is upset her fans and enrage the LGBTQ community. Jake's stylist Miller Mode posted a very interesting story post today saying he was a stylist for queers, weirds and beards. How fascinating is that? How many more of these posts will we see and how many of the community will start to turn their backs on Nicola and Jake? Miller mode also refers to Jake as a 'princess' and 'she'.

Jake is also doing press for his show today What it feels like for a girl and he's back on Instagram today promoting trans rights as if last night didn't happen. Maybe he and Nic wish it didn't. She has been eerily silent today so far and I'm sorry but Nic, you made your bed, now you must lie in it. That carriage scene is iconic and partly because Luke was so magnificent in delivering his love declaration. The scene is magic, with chemistry like no other. Luke should have been there last night. I find it fascinating that we have yet to see Jake and Luke interact. I think it is glaringly obvious why, gentle reader. Luke can't lie to save his life. He'd be too busy glaring daggers at Jake, and Jake in turn would be salivating over Luke. It would be hilarious and frankly, I would love to see it. I find the candid photo of Jake eyeing up the hot Love Island contestant last night poetic justice and there is the truth right there. But yet we are still vilified on SM for suggesting Jake is gay and not at all interested in Nicola. This has nothing to do with Nicola, by the way. If I was with Nic, I probably would never stop smiling, but Jake can't bring himself to do it. It's not because she's unattractive, it's because she's literally not his type. Period. She is a woman.

I will continue to stand up for women, including Nicola, but lovely you gotta throw me a bone here. You want your fans to hang around and cheer for you? Then don't repeatedly slap us in the face and undermine our intelligence. Be honest and tell us what you and Luke are hiding in that damn attic, because it isn't Jake Dunn, he's out and proud.

[kanmom51]

Those JM and JK being ‘subtle’ moments - Part 10

cr./to the owners of the media in this post.

Part 10 of maybe (?) more to come that is.

Or...

A page from JM and JK’s book of “How do we do the couple in the group without others noticing it (or so they thought)”.  

Been a while eh? I guess I thought it was time for part 10.

At this point I'm not even sure if I'm repeating or not, but let's be honest here for a sec... who cares? Right?

Let's start with a couple of birthday posts. How about JK's for JM's in 2022? And again JK using that bro... yeah ok...

Then we have JM's post for JK's birthday 2023. Are they trying to outdo each other?

Just two bros hanging (keep telling yourselves that, lol).

As much as we've seen and heard since, back in September 2023 this was big, even more so in the context to follow end of 2023.

Not as big as this though:

Nothing as 'subtle' like a couple's gift (and joint congrats love message).

Moving on, or more so moving back, seeing this was back in July 2023.

JM can handle it.

But then again, can he though?

our drool is showing JM...

Back to what JM can or can't handle... JK posting his back photo

Nothing suspicious about that though. Just a huge ass back and a necklace that JK apparently is not taking off even when working out. Funny how JK posted his bare back photo after JM was given a hard time by the regular haters for posting JK's bare back "without JK's permission" (the level of juvenile to even think that is a thing...).

So why, you may ask, is this finding it's way into this specific post?

Well, because of the post that directly followed JK's post.

Let's call it JM's spicy food post. The one JK so happily replied to as well.

And again, what's the big deal?

Well, there is no big deal, it's just a great intro into the next few Jikook not being so subtle moments.

Those two love it spicy...

And if we are already talking about this whole back and forth while JK was in NY, I guess I should also mention JM's favourite food: JK's Tteokbokki.

Not to mention JM letting us know his whereabouts the night before leaving for Jeju, JK returning from NY (second trip that month) only to cook for JM (Where he stayed the night and where we know JK didn't sleep all night)...

We wouldn't have known about it if JM hadn't told us. Let that sink in for a sec. All while thinking about all those other times they spent their days and/or nights together but didn't tell us about it (us hearing it months later).

Back to my old mantra just for a sec:

NOT SEEING THEM TOGETHER DOESN'T MEAN THEY AREN'T TOGETHER.

A mantra I feel like I won't have to repeat again in Chapter 3 post military service...

Yes, I sidetracked again. But then, what's new? You know me. At this point it's expect the expected, lol.

But...

If I already mentioned AYS, then it's only natural to continue with a few 'ever so 'subtle' moments we were blessed with in the show. Although, it's not the subtlety I'm really going for here...

Ok, I know what I said, but I am actually going to start with a moment that is on the subtle side. Subtle but so full of emotion. A moment that doesn't make you go 😮 but more so 🥹.

The whole train station and train ride is something special. Every single time I watch it I'm just sitting there with a huge ass smile on my face and that moment to culminate it all, when JK just sets his head on JM's shoulder is just such an AWW... moment.

When thinking about it, the entirety of Are you sure?! is one big Jikook being 'subtle' 'moment'. From start to end. Each trip had it's own special feel to it.

Connecticut was about a long needed time away together, all while trying to find a way to do their thing in a way that can be edited into a show, not to mention dealing with both JK and JM being sick.

Jeju being the second trip, the second time around, was easier for them to find that balance for the show, and having the unexpected guest emphasised even more just how different their interactions with each other were than either of them with Tae.

And Sapporo. Oh Sapporo. One last trip before enlistment. Following a private stay together in Tokyo. Same trip JK mentions at the end of episode 8. Sapporo is charged. It's happy and sweet and electric and melancholic and just everything. For all of us to see.

It's easier for me to link my AYS masterlist than trying to detail all the ahh and aww moments we got.

I just re-watched it all, again, and it's just really something else. To those who see them, so beautiful, so real, so raw. To those who haven't seen them yet, who haven't acknowledged what they mean to each other, what they are to each other, very revealing.

I came by this the other day:

What I would call regular army, anti shipper (has been very loud in the past, especially when it comes to TKK's behavior and delusions). And although she is super careful in not crossing that one line of stating "couple" and tends to go back to "friends" or "brothers" every single time she mentions something that is clearly MORE THAN... it's clear that she sees them. Their bond, their attachment, their love, their touches, their care, their safe space with each other. She is super careful not to say the words, but even so, at the very beginning while saying she's not interested in their romantic lives, and then she says: "all I want is for them to be happy and in whatever shape or form they decide to do that I will be supporting them". - A statement within itself!! Again, this tip toeing around what they truly are to each other (something that I can assure you would not be happening if the two were not 2 young men, but a heterosexual couple), continuously saying the words to describe exactly how special their relationship is, but then having to insert those safe words ("friends", "brothers") to play safe. What I can say is that army are seeing them!! What they tried to avoid for years and years was shoved in their faces, and they are seeing it, the brave ones even willing to admit it. What we saw for years, the way army clearly were ignoring JM and JK's bond (for many reason, first and utmost it being too obviously MORE than just two friends), is proving to be so much harder for them to do with AYS. And I think they are allowing themselves to be louder seeing that it's clear that JM and JK wanted us to see this, wanted to share this with us. Not that they haven't been for years, but it's much harder to avoid a full on 8 episode show showcasing their relationship.

Back to AYS.

As mentioned, there is just too much for me to share in one post. It is funny to me how hard they worked on making the show fit for PG.

But as PG as they tried to make it, there were definitely those moments that not only screamed "these two knock knees" - me trying to be demure today.

Nah, forget it...

They were just being outright GAY. No subtle to be found.

And why not mention some of them, you know, for the fun of it?

I still can't believe they left the bed scene from Connecticut in. As highly edited as it was.

We know they spent much more time in that bed, before JK ate and after JK ate. All either not filmed (JK switching camera on and off) or edited out. But what they left in, yeah, nothing subtle to be found there.

And what about JK telling JM to take his pants and underwear off at the restaurant?

Like what exactly for JK?

Would that be something you would say, even jokingly, to your mate? I don't think so.

JM's bf shot. Very "subtle" indeed.

Next couple of moments are just "what the actual fuck????" the most unsubtle that can be in the whole universe and beyond.

No, I really don't think I'm exaggerating.

I'll start with JK pulling JM's hair in the pool. Like, what the hell for? And in what world is that something friends joke about? Also, in what reality would a friend not only be cool about it, but also not flinch, not even a little, when his "friend" grabs him from the hair like that???? Even in the most playful mood that they might be in. You think Tae would be cool with it? Yeah-Nah!! 🤣🤣 Just visualising that...🤣🤣

I will tell you exactly when someone would be cool with it. When that "friend" is not only someone who you allow to pull your hair like that but also you are used to him pulling your hair like that. I will let you connect the dots from here on...

And what about this, eh?

Just sit there and picture the scene (which we obviously were not allowed to see in the show or the behinds... I wonder if there is footage of it hidden in a vault somewhere...). JM writing that on JK's chest. To be able to write that so clearly, unsmudged, straight lines, not runny...

So, here's the thing. It feels like that these two have taken subtle and chucked it out of the window.

I'm not sure where we are going exactly once they get out of the military, but it feels like we are striding in huge steps towards a new reality. One in which that little game they used to play with deniability, these boundaries they used to stretch and test the waters just how far they can move them and still have Army celebrating their heterosexuality, I feel like that game is over and done with. Idk, it's just a feeling that seems to be getting stronger with each step they have taken since they announced their joint enlistment.

Their joint enlistment, AYS, them showing up in each other's documentaries (however short of an appearance), the two shown together in the BTS documentary, their comments lately about each other, letting us know how close, how connected, how inseparable they are, even when they send congratulations to work associates. The hints. Like JK's eyes on that screen in JM's Who MV. The "Keep going" that is constantly associated with the two. The feeling is that there is something even bigger coming. And it's not only us Jikookers that are feeling it!!!

Idk about you guys, but I am super excited about what's waiting for us around the corner.

I think that part 10 of this series is a good place to end it. I know this one was more yap than anything else, but I guess that's what a final part of a series looks like, especially seeing that we are probably nearing a new reality with those two. An end of an era, so to speak. They are soon coming back to us and I'm feeling like we will have so much more to post about, speak about, subtle and very unsubtle moments. All of those are for a new series (hopefully).

29 days to go.

Less than a month guys!!!

[kyri45]

✨ShadowPeach Bio Parents Bio AU Q&A! 12/09✨

Welcome to the Q&A! A space where I can answer related or similar question about the Shadowpeach Bio Parents AU! If you submitted your ask anonimously, then you’ll have to check the whole post if it’s answered here, if it’s not, worry not! Your asks might have been used for a future comic or just in the queue~

@snsp6 I really hope that this won’t change MK’s view on his bio dads :( Anonimo Hello! Wanted to ask or more so I am wondering, will MK start seeing Wukong differently after finding out he literally killed Mac and even after seeing their past and how close they were, dam the trauma, anyhoo I love your art and the Shadowpeach bio parent au! Keep up the great work! >:D

Oh it will. (In a good way? a Bad? that's for me to know and for you to wait a week to know)

@hopefulbelievertimemachine Imagine if MK found someone who recently found out that they were a demon and he comforts them cuz he had a similar experience.

Oh that would be sooo wholesome!!! It's one of my fav trope when there's another character who go throught the same exact thing as another character and the two of them bond over this.

@zammy357 Hello, hope your day/night is going well. I wanted to ask since me and a friend like your bio parents blog and wanted to know if we can use it for an arc? Our blog is called @amnesia-wukong-au. We wanted to ask before we started doing it.

Hi!! Yeah sure as long you tag me and the masterpost of the shadowpeach au

Anonimo Wait what is a glamour (in context of Sun Wukong and Macaque)

A glamour is a magic spell that changes/cover your appearance. Like in the show macaque should technically have 6 ears. for animation purposi I guess they are not drawing all of them, but we say he uses a glamour also for covering his scarred eye.

@clueless-simp ha chiesto: What if PIF, BDK, Sun Wukong, and Macaque (and most definitely Mei) did a "parent trap" tactic to get MK and Red Son together? Setting things up, getting them alone together, pretending they are all busy, and the only option is for them to spend time together under the sunset XD XD XD

Oh no that would end bad. like-comically bad.

@honeylavender27 ha chiesto: Imagine red realizing mk doesn't know about court napping and just invites him over one day. Red son: so I'm sure your wondering why I invited you here.. Mk: yeah it's kinda weird you didn't want Mei to come. Is everything ok? Red: perfect actually, I'll explain everything just enter here first please. Mk: oh ok -walks into the prepared courtnapping room and gets locked in-.....uh red? Redson: consider yourself courtnapped...

Ahah poor MK. I think they would make a disastrous courtnapping that would be the equivalent of the phrase "task failed succesfully"

@artgurusauce ha chiesto: ARGGGHHHH, they're SO CUTE! I love your bioparent AU so much! Altho I am wondering: When MK turns back to normal would he retain some subconscious paternal attachment to our ol boys here? Maybe he even calls Macaque "Mom" without realizing it...

@blazerratbluefire-blog ha chiesto: Plot twist of the century for the oblivious monkey men. MK remembers ~everything~ when he was a cub! I'm not sure if that is what is planned, but! It would be really funny! Especially if he just calls Macaque 'Mama' all casual and just walks away. While Macaque EXP. has crashed and is rebooting. Gosh, that would be so cute! I absolutely love your artwork, by the way! It is so adorable!

Can't answer yet. He does NOT have memories, but he will remember ONE thing...

@daniellemarvel4 Hi, fist off I love your work and can't wait to see what you do next! I was wondering who is more protective of MK when it comes to Red Son? Whether that would be Pigsy, Wukong, Macaque, or even Tang (mabye Mei but I don't think she could stay serious long enough). Also, can we see what Sandy's doing?

mmmmmm---- I think Wukong. Freenoodle is pretty chill with the DBK family after everything that happened. Mac is also quite alright since he was always in good relationship with them. I would say Wukong would just want to be sure his kid doesn't get hurt by the fire in any way

Anonimo I've been squealing, grinning, and kicking my feet going through the Shadowpeach Bio parents AU. Baby MK has been SO CUTE and fun. I wonder if he's going to remember or be embarrassed about it. Another part of me hopes that river is still in play so Sun & Mac can fall in and suddenly MK and everyone has 2 chaotic super-powered Baby Monkeys to take care off 😭 😭 😭

Anonimo ha chiesto: I almost cried they are sooo cute. I hope that we get more sweet family content. Loving the comic thanks for making it 💕💕💕💕

Anonimo ha chiesto: I don’t want the cure to work ! Or could it be like that: MK is such a powerful being that the Dosis Pif gave them, just wasn’t strong enough. Instead it only aged MK up a bit so now he is a small kid or a teenager but not a grown ass money man again. I am not ready to leave the monkey family stuff behind 🥺

unfortunately the river has been close untile further notice. (dw this wont be the end)

@cutvdo ha chiesto: Mei bribing Red Son with baby MK pictures

@luciferapollyon ha chiesto: I hope Mei, Red Son, Macaque and Wukong all got pics before they turned MK back

Anonimo ha chiesto: DHJSJDJDH LIL BABY BEAN! I wonder if Wukong and Macaque took any pics of lil MK while he was smol baby? She would keep them and use them as blackmail. (affectionately)

Anonimo ha chiesto: Your shadowpeach bio parent au is just perfect!! Thankyou for feeding the fandom with the nectar of the gods!!! Especially the one where mac slips into the bed after wukong waits all night. Like Mac would wake up in the morning and see him fast asleep and think of Peng asking 'is there anything Wukong could do that would break his hold over you?' and just seeing him at his most vulnerable right now he's like 'no, not when he always gives me a reason to stay.'

MY HEART

@queen-of-purple-roses Wait if MK is experiencing Macaque’s memories then does that mean that Macaque can experience MK’s? Are they able to dive into each other’s minds?

So the thing is that MK is hearing the past from both POVs. Macaque by definition can hear ANYTHING so yeah he could definitely experience MKs memories. But the thing is-does he want to? I headcanon that his future-present-past hearing abilities are something he only used a couple of times, and because what he heard from them was so traumatic, he decided to NOT use them again (like wukong laser eyes)

@sillygothpartykid ha chiesto: I know everyone is asking you to make the gay monkeys kiss but I actually like how you are developing their relationship. You letting them work through their problems and feeling first giving us that sweet, sweet slow burn! Love your art btw!❤️❤️❤️

awwww ty!!!! yes pls slow burn for life.

@kraytherandomchick ha chiesto: Hey, love your ShadowPeach AU! (Started rereading it after crying from the season 5 finale hehe :'D) But there's always something that's kinda stuck in my head, if MK's no longer immortal, would Macaque or Wukong get sad at the thought of getting older and forced keep going without him?

So- *sigh* technically, we don't really know MK immortality status. it's a grey area for now. Because on one side, he's a stone monkey, who, by nature like Wukong, can perfectly age and grow like a normal monkey. On the other hand, he's technically died already, and by the time he was created by Nuwa, both his biological fathers were already immortal (Wukong bc yes, Macaque because he's a demon, and he can die from wounds and illness, but can't age)

So to answer: we don't know yet what's with him. we will see (I promise that)

@lmk4ever ha chiesto: I LOVE THE SHADOW PEACH BIO PARENT AU SO MUCH!! Mk boi is so lucky to have a artist like you and fathers like them. I want to ask, will shadowpeach ever get into a fight out of anger in front of Mk? Or did they moved on from that phase?

If they will fight it will be more of like- the 2 dads grounding MK. If they need to fight they learned that they need to go on another mountain to do it so they don't bother their child

Anonimo ha chiesto: Will we get a traffic light trio ship?

Probably not, but I'm all for dragonfruit/spicynoodle and having MK and Mei NOT dating each other at the same time.

@yuk1yun ha chiesto: If lmk season 6 isn't like your au, then I don't want to watch it

BRUH THAT'S THE NICEST THING I HEARD ALL WEEK

@conniescialla ha chiesto: HIIII!! ok scusa l'italiano ma letteralmente trovare artisti italiani ispira sempre quel momento patriottico alla YES ONE OF US MUAHHAHAH Scherzi a parte, il comic Shadowpeach bio parents Au è meraviglioso, si approva soprattutto l'hurt/comfort ;p

Tanti kudos!!<3

AAAAHHH CHE BELLO UN ALTR* ITALIAN*!!!!!

Anonimo ha chiesto: I really wanna see jelous wukong!!!!!! I dunno maybe some random demon trying to flirt with emo monkie or something and wukong is like oh hell no!! He is mine!! I think it would be so cute

he would become incredibly possessive and start hissing and growling like a tiger. NOBODY TOUCHES MY SOFT PILLOW

Anonimo ha chiesto: I think it would be so cute if Wukong would take care of sick Macaque! It would show Macaque that Wukong changed and is no longer like he was before. I wonder if Macaque got sick, would MK help or would Macaque be too stubborn to let anyone know.

I know everyone says Wukong is this great sage with incredible abilities in every field (and he is) but I would like to imagine that, since he needs to do these thing for Macaque specifically, he's so stressed over the fact he needs to do them perfectly that he fucks up lmao.

Like, he would try his best to take care of him and almost burn the kitchen in the meantime, while Macaque was only hoping the two of them could just stay more in bed cuddling each other

Anonimo ha chiesto: im just imagining Mac getting anxious becouse he cannot find baby MK and Wukong is there to calm him down

@shadowpeachera ha chiesto: Heyy I absolutely love your shadowpeach bio au, the drawings, the text its perfect! Did Mk every run off or get into trouble now that he’s a cub or even play games with Wukong and Macaque like hide and seek? That would be really cute. I can imagine them playing hide and seek while Mk discovers he can make shadow portals, meanwhile his parents are stressing and scared as they have no idea where he is.

i think both of them would freak out.

WAIT I HAVE THE PIC I HAVE THE PIC

I'VE BEEN SAVING THIS PIC SINCE 2017

@nyx-daughterofchaos98 ha chiesto: Hi! For LMK, I watched a nature documentary on Monkeys the other day and a lot of monkeys correct each others behavior by doing something called “Disciplinary Nips” or “Discipline Bites” (This isn’t a sexual ask I promise) I think it would be absolutely hilarious, if Macaque and Wukong are napping together, and for whatever reason, Wukong keeps moving around, unable to get comfortable. And in his sleep-riddled state, Macaque gets annoyed and bites him. 🤣 Like; I’M TRYING TO SLEEP! KNOCK IT OFF! 🤣🤣🤣 And when Wukong does stop moving, Macaque does actually fall asleep. Even better is if Macaque wakes up and has absolutely No Idea he bit Wukong because he was half asleep at the time. Or he thinks it was a dream and ensue the shenanigans when he realizes it wasn’t.

OMG THAT'S SO CUTE AND SILLY AAHHHH!!! EVEN BETTER: what if they do this without noticing BEFORE they are like-actually romantically back together, and someone sees the mark bites AND THEY START TO ASSUME CERTAIN THINGS BRUH.

@tabs-tabi-tabby  Can Macaque help with MK’s clones? Or would that be Wukong’s area?

MK can't make the same clones macaque has. He can control a little bit his own shadow, and use that as a clone. so as long as it's his own shadow, it's more Mac area, if it's his own hair clone then it's Wukong's

@startdustmonkie ha chiesto: Does Mk and or Wukong know about Savage and Rumble? (If so how did they find out about them?) — (also: do Savage and Rumble see Mama macaque as a parent?)

@mushrum-soup ha chiesto: Hi just wanted to say I absolutely adore your shadow peach au it's literally the highlight of my week 💖I was wondering tho are rumble and savage just shadow clones in your au or similar to their Lego counterparts :O?

Yes they know about them. No they aren't his kids let's say. My own personal headcanon for the Au (or the show in general) is that they are both Macaque shadow, like- clones with a little bit of personality just like MK clones represent specific parts of his personality. He has 2 of them because he lived 2 lives, one before and one after he was brought back to life.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Just read the latest Shadowpeach bio kid comic, and i cant help but giggle a bit at how MK’s chirp woke Wukong and Macaque up lmao just the “and they snoozing- OH SHIT BABY CHIRPING WHATS WRONG-“

HE IS BABYYYY

@hellobur ha chiesto: Did you base when mk was reaching fr macaque after he was walking away because mk called him mama after this or was it a funny coincidence (mk also doe the pose but I can't find it lol)

Also I absolutely love this story and your art your work is incredible! ^^

Omg LMAO NO I DIDN’T BUT NOW IT’S 100% MORE FUNNY

@dragonaboni-blog ha chiesto: Hi! First off, I love your art and your Shadowpeach AU, it's the reason I'm reactivating my own Tumblr account lol One of my favorite tropes in this story is "A gets sick and B takes care of him" so I'm wondering… What would that trope be like in the AU? What would the monkey trio be like when they got sick? Do any of them sleep through their illness? Or are any of them extremely dramatic like "These will be my last words…"? CoughcoughWUKONGCoughcough

Aaahh I’ve seen a lot of asks asking this one but honestly I don t know If I’ll ever draw that trope. Maybe bc Wukong should technically have canonically too much knowledge about general illness to be worried about normal daily life illness. If it was something more life-threating. Maybe yes, but I still have to cook.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Counterpoint: wukong can't handle spicy foods because he has no impulse control and his monkee brain wants him to only eat fruit and peaches

Ouch. Yes that seems about accurate for him lmao

Anonimo ha chiesto: About the lmk bio au.... we have seen that MK can manipulate certain parts of his body in the 72 transformations... so..... Wukong and Macaque could technically have children.

I’ll be 100% honest I have no idea if stone monkeys are…fertile?

Anonimo Hey there! I am in love with your art. LMK is something that came into my life recently and damn I love it so much! Love your AU, and I can't wait to see more of it. Funnily, since the baby MK incident I imagine this later on becoming a somewhat spark of many funny arguments later on. What I mean is I see baby MK has a favorite parent (*cough-cough* MacCRACK *cough-cough*) [Sorry with the name joke, couldn't help myself]. XD. And I imagine Wukong be a bit jealous at times and go 'Anything you can do I can do better XD' Also see lovely Redson have a thing for MK, and then I imagine him ask his parents about advice on pursuing his crush. "So who is the lucky girl?" "Well, you already know him-" *Spits out water* "You got yourself a husband?" "What, no I haven't yet-!"

Aww I don't think MK would have a favourite but definitely there are times where he wants one parent more than the other (play time with Wukong, nap time with Mamacaque)

Anonimo ha chiesto: Yknow what they say… like father like son! In the sense that they’re all gay /j

Oh yeah absolutely it's genetic/j

@wolfasketch ha chiesto: Mac being on the sunny side and Wuwu being in the shadows

I know I'm looking into it too much but- AHHH!!!

That was unintentional but HOLY SIT U R RIGHT

Anonimo ha chiesto: Poor Red Boy never got to see baby MK! Imagine him just staring at the adorableness that is baby MK and being like 'I hope our future children look just like you OH MY GODS YOU'RE ADORABLE'. Baby MK: :3

Their child will literally be Kai from Ninjago so I guess THEY ARE RIGHT HE WILL BE

Anonimo ha chiesto: And then MK will wake up back to normal, confused, but proud that he managed to get them even closer?

100% yes

@drowning-in-webnovel-chapters ha chiesto: I can't imagine how the monkey dads are gonna try to go back to sleep after that, oof. Also Wukong definitely knows all that from when he used to help Macaque through visions, right?

Yup! He does indeed!

Anonimo ha chiesto: I’m guessing MK is getting a mini version of Macaque’s “can hear the past/present/future” thingy, did he managed to hear it accidentally or was he trying to learn more about his powers/Shadowpeach’s past ?

Yes, he was just wondering since last time that he found the sleeping cuddling with him, what exactly happened for them to rift away. Guess curiosity killed the cat

@aurabooboo ha chiesto: So. I'm rewatching season 5, right? I noticed that they almost had a yelling match with MK right in the middle. Would Wukong apologize to him for that?

These 3 have so much to talk about… i wont draw everything, but they definitely apologised offscreen.

@elianaroselight ha chiesto: It is quite telling how Wukong immediately knew what to do to help calm MK, but also, Macaque coming in with the perspective of having gone through it himself. The need for them to remain close by and wait until Mk is asleep before trying to leave. This means Mac has been through exactly what he is telling them not to do and knows the pain, sorrow and trauma that comes from feeling abandoned like this. They may be facing their past hurting their own kid through proxy and try to help him fight against the trauma. Luckily they have good people to help when they themselves can't. *looks at Freenoodles*

Yup! Their response is exactly related to what they do to calm the other!

@thenerdycupcake ha chiesto: So, does MK’s gold vision combine with his hearing sometimes so that he sees some of what he’s hearing from the past?

Oooohhh i guess he does! So he can literally see and hear the past!

@frogsfandoms ha chiesto: Omg why can I see after MK wakes up he thinks that it isn’t the past he’s hearing and that it actually just happened. Rushing to see if Wukong and Macaque are hurt and or trying to stop them from fighting 😭😭😭

Oohhh our baby still doesn’t want to believe it actually happened :(

Anonimo ha chiesto: Adult MK: OH MY GOD A SPIDER *desperate scared monkey noises* Baby MK: what's this? A 5 starts meal? *Tries to chomp said spider* He's gonna be sooo disgusted when someone tells him he tried to eat one fkdkdlfmfl

Oh poor MK. He’ll be teased about this for the rest of his days.

@sailera ha chiesto: Hello I have question about you Shadowpeach bio dads au- How would Pigsy react that his only employee turned to a baby? And hadn’t answered his phone in few days? Also love your art!! And your ISAT comic got me again interested in playing Sky ✨

Mk only became a baby for like- 20 hours. Mei told him that he stayed at FFM because he was ‘tired after training’. As of now Pigsy didn!t found out

---------------

That's all for this week! Thank you a lot for all the asks!

[bludragongal]

Are you Ok???? Do you need help???? I saw your posts on bluesky is there anything we can do???

For Context!

For the past year I was working for Ten Speed Press as the artist for an as-of-yet unnanounced graphic novel. In early March, I ultimately decided to fire the client after a history of rude and unprofessional behavior from them throughout the project, culminating in catching them in a lie. I already wasn't being paid a lot for this project; I certainly wasn't being paid enough to put up with this kind of behavior. In addition, I had become aware of just how exploitative some terms of the contract actually were when some experienced individuals had a chance to look at it. So I elected to terminate the project, but the publisher is not letting me go without trying to screw me over one last time on my way out the door.

I can't really go into further detail at this moment, but to actually answer your question: yes, I am okay! I'm just waiting to hear back from some people who are interested in helping me on this matter. It's a Staring Contest and Waiting Game at this time.

If you would like to support me, I am on Patreon. My patrons have supported me financially disproportionately more than these "professionals" at this publishing house have done over the past year.

Sorry for being vague; things are just not yet resolved and going into detail at this time is not advisable.

Thank you for your concern! You are great! Sorry I can't say more.

[archibaldtuttle]

"Fuck CGI all my homies hate CGI here we love practical effects" ok ok ok alright I know I KNOW that I'm being pedantic and nitpicky (which is why I'm making my own post and not adding this to one of those I've seen floating around) but you don't hate CGI you just hate capitalism

CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) is a very broad term, but in the context of films it is an 60 year old technique used in a variety of contexts for a variety of reasons. It is not only excessive green screens and bad mocap.

CGI is actually a central part of why practical effects look so much better now than they did in the 60s - I can guarantee that you have not seen one practical effect without the addition of CGI in a film after the 90s and maybe even earlier (excepting micro budget films, and even then). Every squib of fake blood that pops on under the actor's costume is cleaned up in post. And to be clear - this is a good thing! It looks better when it's well done!

What you hate is the overreliance on underpaid, overworked contract workers who are ground into the dirt by big studios with crunch times and wildly unreasonable expectations, that results in catastrophic looking messes. Yes, I also subscribe to "a bad practical effect is better than a bad CGI effect because at least it's there", but there are hundreds of people being exploited for their labor who are honest to god artists and dismissing their entire field is missing the point. A backlash against CGI as a concept could lead to a devaluation of the artists' work - less support from the public isn't exactly what they need. That's exactly what happened after Cats, when two of the actors dared mock the effects on stage during the Academy Awards while the companies which had been crushed by the film were going bankrupt - through no fault of their own.

Pitting those two disciplines against each other isn't only useless it's also just plain wrong - they have been working hand in hand for over 60 years. Know how to recognize the qualities and flaws of both and defend workers in all fields.

[mystycalypso]

First of all, yippee I got the Laserblast screenshots!

And the reason I rb-ed instead of editing him in, is because I think this is a great time to add to my "Reason's why PV is 100% Laser, and Shadowy isn't" and that's the fact that while the bottom right of Shadowy is a similar expression to PV's "Oh Shit-" expressions, it is distinctive with context (and you can even tell it apart without hehe)

(ALSO THIS ISN'T AGAINST THE SHOTS ADDED IN THE RB, I DIDN'T CLARIFY LIKE AT ALL WHAT SPECIFIC EMOTION I WAS PULLING FROM BECAUSE MY DUMBASS WAS LIKE "Nah I'll save it for the video script" but uh seeing Shadowy activates my autism like a sleeper agent sooooo)

In the scenes I grabbed from, in both PV's and Laser's cases, they are completely caught off guard in a specific panic-type way that reveals his emotions in the moment in complete genuineness.

-Seeing his old helmet again after all these years, on his kid nonetheless. Waaay before he planned on doing anything about it.

-Getting shocked hard enough by the sight of an invention that you forget how genuinely fuming you are

-Genuine fuck up while trying to fight Carl

-General crashing through the ceiling startling

And for Laser specifically, it's the instant extra panic at the loss of something he valued so heavily, and more importantly, "Oh fuck. I almost died. I GENUINELY almost died." It's like the expression of someone watching their car fall off a bridge into the ocean as they just barely crawled out. A near-death experience to its fullest.

Shadowy, however, never has that genuine just sheer PANIC in his eyes.

In the example above, his expression is that of anger and reaction time as he scouts for K.O. and Fink's attack. He's actively countering them too if I remember the uncropped shot properly (yes I am mentally ill and obsessive, how'd you guess?)

Most of the time we don't see Shadowy's eyes and expressions in detail, and when we do he's grinning and proud. He doesn't have that consistent :| that Laser/PV (and heck, to seperate him from the idea of being a turbo Venomous further, even TKO) do. And more importantly, they all experience genuine FEAR even in their power. They know in one way or another they are mortal and there are things that can hurt them. Kill them.

The genuinely closest Shadowy ever gets to one of these panicked expressions is this one from SV.

And even then, this isn't fear, this is surprise and annoyance. The face of something not used to pushing back that it couldn't just squash. And why wouldn't he be surprised by it? It took over Venomous with ease and has been using his body with no issue for however long, and T.K.O. immediately joined with him the second he slightly sweet-talked him into it. Even before it had full control over this body, it had complete power and respect as a glorb dealer, and control over Fink via threatening.

Because Shadowy isn't a human being. It's not something that can feel fear, know its own mortality or understand that it can be rejected. It is a parasite copying the worst and most helpless ideas from its host as goals. And it unlike it's host is constant in expressing all it's emotions, especially vile glee.

He doesn't share the awkward gentler expressions its host does, it can't have autistic rbf to shift in an almost comedic way to fear, because Shadowy isn't autistic. That's right.

Shadowy Figure is a Neurotypical Parasite

I love that this is something Venomous does, even before his mutation. I sadly don't have the screenshot rn (Maybe I'll edit it in when I have access to my computer)

But the face Laser makes seeing the donut shop get shrunk-teleported is a perfect example of this.

As for Venomous, some lovely examples for y'all

[bittycmd]

It's already have been over a week since ch1 post, huh?

Thank you all so much for kind words about OSC! as this project will be a beginning of my hobbyist 'carrier' (read as: passion project) that will probably take my free time from work whenever I'm not playing video games (I am afflicted by a curse that makes me do 100% achievements) or studying or doing any other passion or hobby projects.

here is a cover page that would have started the au; if not for a surprise that tumblr actually has an image limit of 30! (I got lucky huh?)

(tumblr refusing to upload this to my chapter 1 post is actually the reason why this post exists, so you guys get a lot of info now lol.)

Thank you again for supporting me on this journey! Below is just more info and plans and all that, for you who love reading that.

The first chapter changed and grew, firstly from a much different point of origin, having other chapter names and growing from a just 10-15 page chapter to a 30 one, and from planned 1 month to taking 3 months!

So what's next? Well... Chapter 2 which I'll probably not post as a whole chapter, but in parts. It will provide me probably more motivation and you all more frequent posting of story. (if you love getting whole chapter drops, dw, there probably will be chapters that I'd prefer to post as a whole)

ok, let's try a fun format of Q&A!

Have you started work on chapter 2?

yes. for the whole week i've managed to make...

check notes — 1 page...

oh god...

What? One page!? In over a week?!? Are you lazy???

I actually have been drawing like crazy and it's just i don't put that work on comic pages. Instead I've put it on sketches based on MD RP with my friends, that I have not posted here, because posting rp stuff without context is like trying to make drone drink water without dying.

Will you post the MD RP stuff you talk about??

... maybe... if you ask nicely (￣y▽￣)╭ ..... (it's some good stuff)

why are you talking about MD RP you do with your friends in OSC au info post?!?

no reason... -v-

will OSC au be outside the tumblr? Or you have any other social media?

maybe on bluesky? i should post more on bluesky, i haven't posted a single art there, instead i posted about mickey 17 there... and escape from pork belly. god i should post more there.

twitter is out of question, i'm not going back there. I no longer post on reddit and i don't even have a tiktok or other social media. I'm mainly tumblr boy (I love it here) with bluesky side that I should post on more often.

I should also learn how to AO3, so it's archived and easily searchable!

What is estimated time of work on chapter 2?

I cannot estimate that, unfortunately. I work when I can, and when my body allows me. And it usually refuses when I want to work on the comic, which frustrates me too often.

Will the au be easily readable???

there is a plan to set-up a master post that will list, (and link to,) all the chapters/parts of them, and it'll be always reachable from any chapter post and from the pinned post. Also each chapter will have standard links for first, prev and next post. This, of course, is for convenience of reading! (fueled by spite to one of my fav au's not doing that bare minimum.)

I miss OSC random skit comics, will there be any more? :(

Most of those skit comics i had to cut because my brain decided they were perfect for the overarching plot so now I basically soft locked myself from making more.

BUT! With more chapters uploaded I'll be free to create more outside of plot OSC au skit comics.

THE OSC AU SUCKS THE AA AU IS BETTER WHEN CHAPTER 1 OF MD&AA AU WILL COME OUT!?

woah there! The md&aa au will actually have much different plans. they are only plans and nothing has been set in stone yet. But when I'd start putting it into place you guys will know :3 and I hope it'll be awesome.

will you monetize it in the future?

uhhh probably not. I see art as something that should be free to experience (even if it's some fanart au webcomic based on existing series). but that's also a weak excuse! Because the real one is setting up patreon or ko-fi is terrifying to me! I'd be so lost, and then paying self employment taxes! oh god the horror!

don't even get me started on commissions! ',⊙﹏⊙'∥

(i'd love to make comms or set up tip jar one day but without a super detailed step by step guide for dummies, i'd probably be lost with doing all that)

all those general questioned sucked! i want a very specific question answered!

well those are what asks are for! I am also trying to be active in comment section but I get bad anxiety, so unfortunately no promises.

Also my inbox is filled with mostly drawing requests, which I will need to state now, that I'll no longer will prioritize them, and I'm not promising to do them, maybe even ever.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Petard, Part III

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/01/miskatonic-networks/#landlord-telco-industrial-complex

Last week, Trump's FCC chair Brendan Carr reversed a rule that banned your landlord from taking kickbacks in exchange for forcing you to use whatever ISP was willing to pay the biggest bribe for the right to screw you over:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/fcc-chair-nixes-plan-to-boost-broadband-competition-in-apartment-buildings/

Corporate fascists and their captured regulators are, of course, that most despicable of creatures: they are plagiarists. Like so many of our tech overlords, they have mistaken dystopian sf as a suggestion, rather than as a warning. I take this personally, because I actually wrote this as an sf story in 2013, and it was published in 2014 in MIT Tech Review's Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Bruce Sterling and published in 2014:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262535595/twelve-tomorrows-2014/

I adapted it for my podcast, in four installments:

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_278

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_292

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_293

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_294_-_Petard_04

And, given the new currency of this old story, I thought it was only fitting that I serialize it here, on my blog, also in four parts.

Here's part one:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/30/landlord-telco-industrial-complex/#part-one

Here's part two:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/31/the-blood-speech/#part-two

And now, onto part three:

One of the early Ftp code contributors was now CTO for an ISP, and they'd gotten their start as a dorm co-op at Brown that had metastasized across New England. Sanjay had been pretty important to the early days of Ftp, helping us get the virtualization right so that it could run on pretty much any cloud without a lot of jiggery and/or pokery. Within a day of emailing Sanjay, I was having coffee with the vice-president of business development for Miskatonic Networks, who was also Sanjay's boyfriend's girlfriend, because apparently ISPs in New England are hotbeds of Lovecraft-fandom polyamory. Her name was Kadijah and she had a southie accent so thick it was like an amateur theater production of Good Will Hunting.

"The Termite Mound?" She laughed. "Shit yeah, I know that place. It's still standing? I went to some super sketchy parties there when I was a kid, I mean sooooper sketchy, like sketch-a-roony. I can't believe no one's torched the place yet."

"Not yet," I said. "And seeing as all my stuff's there right now, I'm hoping that no one does for the time being."

"Yeah, I can see that." I could not get over her accent. It was the most Bostonian thing I'd encountered since I got off the train. "OK, so you want to know what we'd charge to provide service to someone at the Termite Mound?"

"Uh, no. I want to know what you'd charge per person if we could get you the whole Mound — every unit in the residence. All 250 of them."

"Oh." She paused a second. "This is an Ftp thing, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "That's how I know Sanjay. I, uh, I started Ftp." I don't like to brag, but sometimes it makes sense in the context of the conversation, right?

"That was you? Wicked! So you're seriously gonna get the whole dorm to sign up with us?"

"I will if you can get me a price that I can sell to them," I said.

"Oh," she said. Then "Oh! Right. Hmm. Leave it with me. You say you can get them all signed up?"

"I think so. If the price is right. And I think that if the Termite Mound goes with you that there'll be other dorms that'll follow. Maybe a lab or two," I said. I was talking out of my ass at this point, but seriously, net-censorship in the labs at MIT? It was disgusting. It could not stand.

"Damn," she said. "Sounds like you're majoring in Ftp. Don't you have classes or something?"

"No," I said. "This is basically exactly what I figured college would be like. A cross between summer camp and an Stanford obedience experiment. If all I wanted to do was cram a bunch of knowledge into my head, I could have stayed home and mooced it. I came here because I wanted to level up and fight something tough and even dangerous. I want to spend four years getting into the right kind of trouble. Going to classes too, but seriously, classes? Whatever. Everyone knows the good conversations happen in the hallway between the formal presentations. Classes are just an excuse to have hallways."

She looked skeptical and ate banana bread.

"It's your deal," she said.

I could hear the but hanging in the air between us. She went and got more coffees and brought them back along with toasted banana bread dripping with butter for me. She wouldn't let me pay, and told me it was on Miskatonic. We were a potential big account. She didn't want to say "But" because she might offend me. I wanted to hear the "but."

"But?"

"But what?"

"It's my deal but…?"

"But, well, you know, you don't look after your grades, MIT'll put you out on your ass. That's how it works in college. I've seen it."

I chewed my banana bread.

"Hey," she said. "Hey. Are you OK, Lukasz?"

"I'm fine," I said.

She smiled at me. She was pretty. "But?"

I told her about my talk with AA, and about Juanca, and about how I felt like nobody was giving me my propers, and she looked very sympathetic, in a way that made me feel much younger. Like toddler younger.

"MIT is all about pranks, right? I think if I could come up with something really epic, they'd –" And as I said it, I realized how dumb it was. They laughed at me in Vienna, I'll show them! "You know what? Forget about it. I got more important things to do than screw around with those knob-ends. Work to do, right? Get the network opened up around here, you and me, Kadijah!"

"Don't let it get to you, you'll give yourself an aneurism. I'll get back to you soon, OK?"

#

I fished a bead out of my pocket and wedged it into my ear.

"Who is this?"

"Lukasz?" The voice was choked with tears.

"Who is this?" I said again.

"It's Bryan." I couldn't place the voice or the name.

"Bryan who?"

"From the Termite Mound's customer service desk." Then I recognized the voice. It was the elf, and he was having hysterics. Part of me wanted to say, Oh, diddums! and hang up. Because elves, AMR? But I'm not good at tough love.

"What's wrong?"

"They've fired me," he said. "I got called into my boss's office an hour ago and he told me to start drawing up a list of people to kick out of the dorm — he wanted the names of people who supported you. I was supposed to go through the EULAs for the dorm and find some violations for all of them –"

"What if they didn't have any violations?"

He made a sound between a sob and a laugh. "Are you kidding? You're always in violation! Have you read the EULA for the Mound? It's like sixty pages long."

"OK, gotcha. So you refused and you got fired?"

There was a pause. It drew out. "No," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I gave them a bunch of names, and then they fired me."

Again, I was torn between the impulse to hang up on him and to hear more. Nosiness won (nosiness always wins; bets on nosiness are a sure thing). "Nicely done. Sounds like just deserts to me. What do you expect me to do about it?" But I knew. There were only two reasons to call me after something like this: to confess his sins or to get revenge. And no one would ever mistake me for a priest.

"I've got the names they pulled. Not just this time. Every time there's been any kind of trouble in the Termite Mound, MIT Residence has turfed out the troublemakers on some bogus EULA violation. They know that no one cares about student complaints, and there's always a waiting list for rooms at the Termite Mound, it's so central and all. I kept records."

"What kind of records?"

"Hardcopies of emails. They used disappearing ink for all the dirty stuff, but I just took pictures of my screen with my drop and saved it to personal storage. It's ugly. They went after pregnant girls, kids with disabilities. Any time there was a chance they'd have to do an air quality audit or fix a ramp, I'd have to find some reason to violate the tenant out of residence." He paused a moment. "They used some pretty bad language when they talked about these people, too."

The Termite Mound should've been called the Roach Motel: turn on the lights and you'd find a million scurrying bottom-feeders running for the baseboards.

I was going to turn on the lights.

"You've got all that, huh?

"Tons of it," he said. "Going back three years. I knew that if it ever got out that they'd try and blame it on me. I wanted records."

"OK," I said. "Meet me in Harvard Square, by the T entrance. How soon can you get there?"

"I'm at the Coop right now," he said. "Using a study-booth."

"Perfect," I said. "Five minutes then?"

"I'm on my way."

The Coop's study booths had big signs warning you that everything you did there was recorded — sound, video, infrared, data — and filtered for illicit behavior. The signs explained that there was no human being looking at the records unless you did something to trip the algorithm, like that made it better. If a tree falls in the forest, it sure as shit makes a sound; and if your conversation is bugged, it's bugged — whether or not a human being listens in right then or at some time in the infinite future of that data.

I beat him to the T entrance, and looked around for a place to talk. It wasn't good. From where I stood, I could see dozens of cameras, the little button-sized dots discretely placed all around the square, each with a little scannable code you could use to find out who got the footage and what it's policy was. No one ever, ever, ever bothered to do this. Ever. EULAs were not written for human consumption: a EULA's message could always be boiled down to seven words: "ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE." Or, more succinctly: "YOU LOSE."

I felt bad about Bryan's job. It was his own deal, of course. He'd stayed even after he knew how evil they were. And I hadn't held a gun to his head and made him put himself in the firing line. But of course, I had convinced him to. I had led him to. I felt bad.

Bryan turned up just as I was scouting a spot at an outdoor table by an ice-cream parlor. They had a bunch of big blowing heaters that'd do pretty good white-noise masking, a good light/dark contrast between the high-noon sun and the shade of the awning that would screw up cameras' white-balance, and the heaters would wreak havoc on the infra-red range of the CCTVs, or so I hoped. I grabbed Bryan, clamping down on his skinny arm through the rough weave of his forest-green cloak and dragged him into my chosen spot.

"You got it?" I said, once we were both seated and nursing hot chocolates. I got caffeinated marshmallows; he got Thai ghost pepper-flavored — though that was mostly marketing, no way those marshmallows were over a couple thousand Scovilles.

"I encrypted it with your public key," he said, handing me a folded up paper. I unfolded it and saw that it had been printed with a stegoed QR code, hidden in a Victorian woodcut. That kind of spycraft was pretty weaksauce — the two-dee-barcode-in-a-public-domain-image thing was a staple of shitty student clickbait thrillers — but if he'd really managed to get my public key and verify it and then encrypt the blob with it, I was impressed. That was about ten million times more secure than the average fumbledick ever managed. The fact that he'd handed me a hardcopy of the URL instead of emailing it to me, well, that was pretty sweet frosting. Bryan had potential.

I folded the paper away. "What should I be looking for?"

"It's all organized and tagged. You'll see." He looked nervous. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Well, for starters, I'm going to call them up and tell them I have it."

"What?" He looked like he was going to cry.

"Come on," I said. "I'm not going to tell them where I got it. The way you tell it, I'm about to get evicted, right?"

"Technically, you are evicted. There's a process-server waiting at every entrance to the Termite Mound doing face-recognition on the whole list. Soon as you go home, bam. 48 hours to clear out."

"Right," I said. "I don't want to have to go look for a place to live while I'm also destroying these shitbirds and fixing everyone's Internet connection. Get serious. So I'm going to go and talk to Messrs Amoral, Nonmoral and Immoral and explain that I have a giant dump of compromising messages from them that I'm going public with, and it'll look really, really bad for them if they turf me out now."

It's time for a true confession. I am not nearly as brave as I front. All this spycraft stuff, all the bluster about beating these guys on their home turf, yeah, in part I'm into it — I like it better than riding through life like a foil chip-bag being swept down a polluted stream on a current of raw sewage during a climate-change-driven superstorm.

But the reality is that I can't really help myself. There's some kind of rot-fungus that infects the world. Things that are good when they're small and personal grow, and as they grow, their attack-surface grows with them, and they get more and more colonized by the fungus, making up stupid policies, doing awful stuff to the people who rely on them and the people who work for them, one particle of fungus at a time, each one just a tiny and totally defensible atomic-sized spoor of rot that piles up and gloms onto all the other bits of rot until you're a walking, suppurating lesion.

No one ever set out to create the kind of organization that needs to post a "MIT RESIDENCY LLC OPERATES A ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY TOWARD EMPLOYEE ABUSE. YOU CAN BE FINED UP TO $2000 AND/OR IMPRISONED FOR SIX MONTHS FOR ASSAULTING A CAMPUS RESIDENCE WORKER" sign. You start out trying to do something good, then your realize you can get a little richer by making it a little worse. Your thermostat for shittiness gets reset to the new level, so it doesn't seem like much of a change to turn it a notch further towards the rock-bottom, irredeemably shitty end of the scale.

The truth is that you can get really rich and huge by playing host organism to the rot-fungus. The rot-fungus diffuses its harms and concentrates its rewards. That means that healthy organisms that haven't succumbed to the rot-fungus are liable to being devoured by giant, well-funded vectors for it — think of the great local business that gets devoured by an awful hedge-fund in a leveraged takeover, looted and left as a revolting husk to shamble on until it collapses under its own weight.

I am terrified of the rot-fungus, because it seems like I'm the only person who notices it most of the time. Think of all those places where the town council falls all over itself to lure some giant corporation to open a local factory. Don't they notice that everyone who works at places like that hates every single moment of every single day? Haven't they ever tried to converse with the customer-service bots run by one of those lumbering dinos?

I mean, sure, the bigs have giant budgets and they'll take politicians out for nice lunches and throw a lot of money at their campaigns, but don't these guardians of the public trust ever try to get their cars fixed under warranty? Don't they ever buy a train ticket? Don't they ever eat at a fast food joint? Can't they smell the rot-fungus? Am I the only one? I've figured out how to fight it in my own way. Everyone else who's fighting seems to be fighting against something else — injustice or inequality or whatever, without understanding that the fungus's rot is what causes all of those things.

I'm convinced that no normal human being ever woke up one morning and said, "Dammit, my life doesn't have enough petty bureaucratic rules, zero-tolerance policies, censorship and fear in it. How do I fix that?" Instead, they let this stuff pile up, one compromise at a time, building up huge sores suppurating with spore-loaded fluids that eventually burst free and beslime everything around them. It gets normal to them, one dribble at a time.

"Lukasz, you're don't know what you're doing. These guys, they're –"

"What?" I said. "Are they the mafia or something? Are they going to have me dropped off a bridge with cement overshoes?"

He shook his head, making the twigs and beads woven into the downy fluff of his hair clatter together. "No, but they're ruthless. I mean, totally ruthless. They're not normal."

The way he said it twinged something in my hindbrain, some little squiggle of fear, but I pushed it away. "Yeah, that's OK. I'm used to abnormal." I am the most abnormal person I know.

"Be careful, seriously," he said.

"Thanks, Bryan," I said. "Don't worry about me. You want me to try and get your room back, too?"

He chewed his lip. "Don't," he said. "They'll know it was me if you do that."

I resisted the urge to shout at him to grow a spine. These assholes had cost him his home and his job (OK, I'd helped) and he was going to couch-surf it until he could find the rarest of treasures: an affordable place to live in Cambridge, Mass? Even if he was being tortured by his conscience for all his deplorable selloutism, he was still being a total wuss. But that was his deal. I mean, he was an elf, for chrissakes. Who knew what he was thinking?

"Suit yourself," I said, and went and made some preparations.

#

Messers Amoral, Nonmoral and Immoral had an office over the river in Boston, in a shabby office-block that only had ten floors, but whose company directory listed over 800 businesses. I knew the kind of place, because they showed up whenever some hairy scam unravelled and they showed you the office-of-convenience used by the con-artists who'd destroyed something that lots of people cared about and loved in order to make a small number of bad people a little richer. A kind of breeding pit for rot-fungus, in other words.

At first I thought I was going to have to go and sleuth their real locations, but I saw that Amoral, Nonmoral and Immoral had the entire third floor registered to them, while everyone else had crazy-ass, heavily qualified suite numbers like 401c(1)K, indicating some kind of internal routing code for the use of the army of rot-fungus-infected spores who ensured that correspondence was handled in a way that preserved the illusion that each of the multifarious, blandly named shell companies (I swear to Cthulhu that there was one called "International Holdings (Holdings), Ltd") was a real going concern and not a transparent ruse intended to allow the rot-fungus to spread with maximal diffusion of culpability for the carriers who did its bidding.

I punched # # #300# # # on the ancient touchscreen intercom, its surface begrimed with a glossy coat of hardened DNA, Burger King residue and sifted-down dust of the ages. It blatted like an angry sheep, once, twice, three times, then disconnected. I punched again. Again. On the fourth try, an exasperated, wheezing voice emerged: "What?"

"I'm here to speak to someone from MIT Residences LLC."

"Send an email."

"I'm a tenant. My name is Lukasz Romero." I let that sink in. "I've got some documents I'd like to discuss with a responsible individual at MIT Residences LLC." I put a bit of heavy English on documents. "Please." I put even more English on "Please." I've seen the same tough-guy videos that you have, and I can do al-pacinoid overwound Dangerous Dude as well as anyone. "Please," I said again, meaning "Right. Now."

There was an elongated and ominous pause, punctuated by muffled rustling and grumbling, and what may have been typing on an old-fashioned, mechanical keyboard. "Come up," a different voice said. The elevator to my left ground as the car began to lower itself.

#

I'd expected something sinister — a peeling dungeon of a room where old men with armpit-stains gnawed haunches of meat and barked obscenities at each other. Instead, I found myself in an airy, high-ceilinged place that was straight out of the publicity shots for MIT's best labs, the ones that had been set-dressed by experts who'd ensured that no actual students had come in to mess things up before the photographer could get a beautifully lit shot of the platonic perfection.

The room took up the whole floor, dotted with conversation pits with worn, comfortable sofas whose end-tables sported inconspicuous charge-plates for power-hungry gadgets. The rest of the space was made up of new-looking worksurfaces and sanded-down antique wooden desks that emitted the honeyed glow of a thousand coats of wax buffed by decades of continuous use. The light came from tall windows and full-spectrum spotlights that were reflected and diffused off the ceiling, which was bare concrete and mazed with cable-trays and conduit. I smelled good coffee and toasting bread and saw a perfectly kept little kitchenette to my left.

There were perhaps a dozen people working in the room, standing at the worksurfaces, mousing away at the antique desks, or chatting intensely in the conversation pits. It was a kind of perfect tableau of industrious tech-company life, something out of a recruiting video. The people were young and either beautiful, handsome or both. I had the intense, unexpected desire to work here, or a place like this. It had good vibes.

One of the young, handsome people stood up from his conversation nook and smoothed out the herringbone wool hoodie he was wearing, an artfully cut thing that managed to make him look like both a young professor and an undergraduate at the same time. It helped that he was so fresh-faced, with apple cheeks and a shock of curly brown hair.

"Lukasz, right?" He held out a hand. He was wearing a dumbwatch, a wind-up thing in a steel casing that was fogged with a century of scratches. I coveted it instantly, though I knew nothing about its particulars, I was nevertheless certain that it was expensive, beautifully engineered, and extremely rare.

The door closed behind me and the magnet audibly reengaged. The rest of the people in the room studiously ignored us.

"I'm Sergey. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Tea? Some water?"

The coffee smelled good. "No thank you," I said. "I don't think I'll be here for long."

"Of course. Come and sit."

The other participants in his meeting had already vacated the sofas and left us with a conversation pit all to ourselves. I sank into the sofa and smelled the spicy cologne of a thousand eager, well-washed people who'd sat on it before me, impregnating the upholstery with the spoor of their good perfumes.

He picked up a small red enamel teapot and poured a delicious-smelling stream of yellow-green steaming liquid into a chunky diner-style coffee-cup. He sipped it. My stomach growled. "You told the receptionist you wanted to talk about some documents?"

"Yeah," I said, pulling myself together. "I've got documentary evidence of this company illegally evicting tenants — students — who got pregnant, complained about substandard living conditions and maintenance issues, and, in my case, complained about the network filters at the Termite Mound."

He cocked his head for a moment like he was listening for something in the hum and murmur of the office around him. I found myself listening, too, but try as I might, I couldn't pick out a single individual voice from the buzz, not even a lone intelligble word. It was as though they were all going "murmurmurmurmur," though I could see their lips moving and shaping what must have been words.

"Ah," he said at last. "Well, that's very unfortunate. Can you give me a set and I'll escalate them up our chain to ensure that they're properly dealt with?"

"I can give you a set," I said. "But I'll also be giving a set to the MIT ombudsman and the The Tech and the local Wikileaks Party rep. Sergey, forgive me, but you don't seem to be taking this very seriously. The material in my possession is the sort of thing that could get you and your colleagues here sued into a smoking crater."

"Oh, I appreciate that there's a lot of potential liability in the situation you describe, but it wouldn't be rational for me to freak out now, would it? I haven't seen your documents, and if I had, I can neither authenticate them nor evaluate the risk they represent. So I'll take a set from you and ensure that the people within our organization who have the expertise to manage this sort of thing get to them quickly."

It's funny. I'd anticipated that he'd answer like a chatbot, vomiting up Markov-chained nothings from the lexicon of the rot-fungus: "we take this very seriously," "we cannot comment on ongoing investigations," "we are actioning this with a thorough inquiry and post-mortem" and other similar crapola. Instead, he was talking like a hacker on a mailing list defending the severity he'd assigned to a bug he owned.

"Sergey, that's not much of an answer."

He sipped that delicious tea some more. "Is there something in particular you wanted to hear from me? I mean, this isn't the sort of thing that you find out about then everything stops until you've figured out what to do next."

I was off-balance. "I wanted –" I waved my hands. "I wanted an explanation. How the hell did this systematic abuse come about?"

He shrugged. He really didn't seem very worried "Hard to say, really. Maybe it was something out of the labs."

"What do you mean, 'the labs'?"

He gestured vaguely at one cluster of particularly engrossed young men and women who were bent over screens and worksurfaces, arranged in pairs or threesomes, collaborating with fierce intensity, reaching over to touch each others' screens and keyboards in a way I found instantly and deeply unsettling. "We've got a little R&D lab that works on some of our holdings. We're really dedicated to disrupting the rental market. There's so much money in it, you know, but mostly it's run by these entitled jerks who think that they're geniuses for having the brilliant idea of buying a building and then sitting around and charging rent on it. A real old boys' club." For the first time since we started talking, he really seemed to be alive and present and paying attention.

"Oh, they did some bits and pieces that gave them the superficial appearance of having a brain, but there's a lot of difference between A/B splitting your acquisition strategy and really deep-diving into the stuff that matters."

At this stage, I experienced a weird dissonance. I mean, I was there because these people were doing something genuinely villainous, real rot-fungus stuff. On the other hand, well, this sounded cool. I can't lie. I found it interesting. I mean, catnip-interesting.

"I mean, chewy questions. Like, if the median fine for a second citation for substandard plumbing is $400, and month-on-month cost for plumbing maintenance in a given building is $2,000 a month, and the long-term costs of failure to maintain are $20,000 for full re-plumbing on a 8-10 year basis with a 75 percent probability of having to do the big job in year nine, what are the tenancy parameters that maximize your return over that period?"

"Tenancy parameters?"

He looked at me. I was being stupid. I don't like that look. I suck at it. It's an ego thing. I just find it super-hard to deal with other people thinking that I'm dumb. I would probably get more done in this world if I didn't mind it so much. But I do. It's an imperfect world, and I am imperfect.

"Tenancy parameters. What are the parameters of a given tenant that predict whether he or she will call the city inspectors given some variable setpoint of substandard plumbing, set on a scale that has been validated through a rigorous regression through the data that establishes quantifiable inflection points relating to differential and discrete maintenance issues, including leaks, plugs, pressure, hot water temperature and volume, and so on. It's basically just a solve-for-x question, but it's one with a lot of details in the model that are arrived at through processes with a lot of room for error, so the model needs a lot of refinement and continuous iteration.

"And of course, it's all highly sensitive to external conditions — there's a whole game-theoretical set of questions about what other large-scale renters do in response to our own actions, and there's a information-theory dimension to this that's, well, it's amazing. Like, which elements of our strategy are telegraphed when we take certain actions as opposed to others, and how can those be steganographed through other apparent strategies.

"Now, most of these questions we can answer through pretty straightforward business processes, stuff that Amazon figured out twenty years ago. But there's a real risk of getting stuck in local maxima, just you know, overoptimizing inside of one particular paradigm with some easy returns. That's just reinventing the problem, though, making us into tomorrow's dinosaurs.

"If we're going to operate a culture of continuous improvement, we need to be internally disrupted to at least the same extent that we're disrupting those fat, stupid incumbents. That's why we have the labs. They're our chaos monkeys. They do all kinds of stuff that keeps our own models sharp. For example, they might incorporate a separate business and use our proprietary IP to try to compete with us — without telling us about it. Or give a set of autonomous agents privileges to communicate eviction notices in a way that causes a certain number of lawsuits to be filed, just to validate our assumptions about the pain-point at which an action or inaction on our side will trigger a suit from a tenant, especially for certain profiles of tenants.

"So there's not really any way that I can explain specifically what happened to the people mentioned in your correspondence. It's possible no one will ever be able to say with total certainty. I don't really know why anyone would expect it to be otherwise. We're not a deterministic state-machine, after all. If all we did was respond in set routines to set inputs, it'd be trivial to innovate around us and put us out of business. Our objective is to be strategically nonlinear and anti-deterministic within a range of continuously validated actions that map and remap a chaotic terrain of profitable activities in relation to property and rental. We're not rentiers, you understand. We don't own assets for a living. We do things with them. We're doing commercial science that advances the state of the art. We're discovering deep truths lurking in potentia in the shape of markets and harnessing them — putting them to work."

His eyes glittered. "Lukasz, you come in here with your handful of memos and you ask me to explain how they came about, as though this whole enterprise was a state-machine that we control. We do not control the enterprise. An enterprise is an artificial life-form built up from people and systems in order to minimize transaction costs so that it can be nimble and responsive, so that it can move into niches, dominate them, fully explore them. The human species has spent millennia recombining its institutions to uncover the deep, profound mathematics of power and efficiency.

"It's a terrain with a lot of cul-de-sacs and blind alleys. There are local maxima: maybe a three-move lookahead shows a good outcome from evicting someone who's pregnant and behind on the rent, but the six-move picture is different, because someone like you comes along and makes us look like total assholes. That's fine. All that means is that we have to prune that branch of the tree, try a new direction. Hell, ideally, you'd be in there so early, and give us such a thoroughgoing kicking, that we'd be able to discover and abort the misfire before the payload had fully deployed. You'd be saving us opportunity cost. You'd be part of our chaos-monkey.

"Lukasz, you come in here with your whistleblower memos. But I'm not participating in a short-term exercise. Our mission here is to quantize, systematize, harness and perfect interactions.

"You come in here and you want me to explain, right now, what we're going to do about your piece of information. Here's your answer, Lukasz: we will integrate it. We will create models that incorporate disprovable hypotheses about it, we will test those models, and we will refine them. We will make your documents part of our inventory of clues about the underlying nature of deep reality. Does that answer satisfy you, Lukasz?"

I stood up. Through the whole monologue, Sergey's eyes had not moved from mine, nor had his body-language shifted, nor had he demonstrated one glimmer of excitement or passion. Instead, he'd been matter-of-fact, like he'd been explaining the best way to make an omelet or the optimal public transit route to a distant suburb. I was used to people geeking out about the stuff they did. I'd never experienced this before, though: it was the opposite of geeking out, or maybe a geeking out that went so deep that it went through passion and came out the other side.

It scared me. I'd encountered many different versions of hidebound authoritarianism, fought the rot-fungus in many guises, but this was not like anything I'd ever seen. It had a purity that was almost… seductive.

But beautiful was not the opposite of terrible. The two could easily co-exist.

"I hear that I'm going to get evicted when I get back to the Termite Mound — you've got a process-server waiting for me. That's what I hear."

Sergey shrugged. "And?"

"And? And what use is your deep truth to me if I'm out on the street?"

"What's your point?"

He was as mild and calm as a recorded airport safety announcement. There was something inhuman — transhuman? — in that dispassionate mein.

"Don't kick me out of my place."

"Ah. Excuse me a second."

He finished his tea, set the cup down and headed over to the lab. He chatted with them, touched their screens. The murmur drowned out any words. I didn't try to disguise the fact that I was watching them. There was a long period during which they said nothing, did not touch anything, just stared at the screens with their heads so close together they were almost touching. It was a kind of pantomime of psychic communications.

He came back. "Done," he said. "Is there anything else? We're pretty busy around here."

"Thank you," I said. "No, that's about it."

"All right then," he said. "Are you going to leave me your documents?"

"Yes," I said, and passed him a stack of hardcopies. He looked at the paper for a moment, folded the stack carefully at the middle and put it in one of the wide side-pockets of his beautifully tailored cardigan.

I found my way back down to the ground floor and was amazed to see that the sun was still up. It had felt like hours had passed while Sergey had talked to me, and I could have sworn that the light had faded in those tall windows. But, checking my drop, I saw that it was only three o'clock. I had to be getting home.

There was a process-server waiting ostentatiously in the walkway when I got home, but he looked at me and then down at his screen and then let me pass.

It was only once I was in my room that I realized I hadn't done anything about Bryan's eviction.

[tlbodine]

Stuck? Try junebugging.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but we're 5 days into nanowrimo so maybe this will be helpful.

Do you want the safety and surety of knowing what happens next in your story but can't stick to an outline? Does knowing in advance what will happen suck the joy out of discovery writing? Do you try to wing it through plots but get tangled in plot holes or have a story that runs out of steam because you can't figure out what went wrong? Are you at your most creative when you have a little bit of guidance? Do you tend to under-write? Do you get ideas in your head for random scenes and snippets that drop from the sky without context?

If any of these apply to you, junebugging a draft might be for you!

What Is Junebugging?

Since you're on Tumblr, you might already be familiar with the concept of junebugging as it relates to cleaning. If not -- I think the idea was first introduced to me by @jumpingjacktrash.

The basic idea is that you tackle cleaning by way of controlled chaos. You pick a specific area you want to focus on, like your kitchen sink, and then wander off to deal with other things as they occur to you, but always returning back to that area. You end up cleaning a little bit at a time in an order that may not make sense to an outsider but which keeps you from getting overwhelmed and discouraged.

How Does Junebugging Work in Writing?

OK, so that's great, but how does this work with writing? Well. In my case, the general idea is to jump between writing linearly, outlining, and writing out of order. It usually looks something like:

Start free-writing a scene, feeling my way through it and enjoying the discovery process.

Thinking, ok, now I have this scene, did anything need to happen to lead up to it? Do I need to go back and add some foreshadowing? Does this scene set anything up that needs to be paid off? And then jump forward/back to make those adjustments.

I'll usually have a bunch of disconnected ideas of ideas that have popped into my head, so I'll write those down in a list somewhere and then try to figure out what goes in between them and what order it goes in.

I'll write what I call "micro-scenes" which is where I'll just sketch out a few essential elements of what's going on without worrying too much about details, description, etc. -- just he did this, she said that, the setting was this, real bare-bones script. Then I can come back through and flesh out each of those microscenes into an actual scene later.

Got a story that has a complex structure? No problem. Write through each storyline one at a time and then chop them up and weave them together afterward. Write all the B plot scenes first then come back through to do A plot and C plot. Move the pieces around like legos. No one ever has to know.

This method works for me because I can't "decide" story elements in advance. I have never been able to just sit down and "figure out" what happens in a story beyond a couple steps ahead -- I have to discovery-write my way forward. But at the same time, that gets really daunting. So I zoom forward with micro-scenes, roughing out the beats in the most bare-bones way possible, then when I run out of clear vision for what happens next I backtrack, flesh out those scenes, build in connective tissue, etc. and by then I will probably find more inspiration to jump forward.

It's basically folding drafting, outlining, and revising all together into a single phase of writing, which is chaotic and goes against everything people teach you, but if it works? then it fuckin works.

Anyway, sorry for the jumbled-up post, I'm dashing this off quickly while I heat up a pizza and I'm about to dive back into my WIP -- but I hope this was a little helpful. If nothing else, take this as my blanket permission that it's 100% OK to jump around, write out of order, write messy, outline sometimes, pants sometimes, and do whatever else it takes just to get through the story. You've got this. Good luck.

[blooming-cecilia]

i don't know dahlia all that well yet since i've yet to play the interlude (i'm waiting for miss erika's lines to be patched in 🙂‍↕️🤞)

buuut based on the vibes i've been getting...

in the context of lunasmr's wedding audio, i feel like if dahlia ever found out his bestie venti here got married WITHOUT any officiant or witness? he would set off and FORCE him to get a proper ceremony at the church lmfao 😭

i can see it happening post honeymoon audio, once windblume and venti get back to their normal lives

venti's at the tavern as usual but still kinda riding the wedding bliss. while on break from his Very Exhausting job of entertaining the masses, he's chosen to sit with a bunch of his tavern buddies and dahlia. everyone at that point has noted how extra happy the bard is that night, and venti accidentally says the truth without realizing it's consequences, happily yapping about his marriage and honeymoon bc hehe hes very in love so why wouldnt he yap about getting married to his beloved <33

and everyone's just ?!?! but dahlia. ohhh dahlia. he's appalled and after a few moments of silence just sets off on venti. what do you MEAN you got married. with no officiant? no other witnesses?? just both of you??? your marriage isn't OFFICIAL YOU FOOL

venti realizes his mistake and tries to get him off his back but nope! dahlia's not having any of that! he WILL have a proper ceremony This wednesday (aka, the Latest gap in his schedule) and NO he cannot get out of this.

doesn't matter if he knows venti's barbatos or not, dahlia feels like someone who would tell off someone even if they're above him in whatever rank. as long as there's something wrong, he WILL correct it. so there really is no other option but to comply 🤡

sooooo venti has no choice but to tell his beloved windblume that uhhh Well. that second wedding he promised them they'd have if they wanted?? Guess It's Happening Now

and even then it's like, the barest minimum wedding with the deacon and two other witnesses (one from each side)

(unless his windblume wanted to invite more folks of course!)

all because he's annoyed about having to been told to do another wedding just because he was told it wasn't leGaLLy biNdinG 🙄😒

grumbles about it to his windblume as they both get ready that fateful wednesday morning,

"i'm literally god. i should be allowed to legalize my own marriage. why does the church have to approve of MY MARRIAGE. shouldn't have said it with dahlia around, i knew he was gonna nag ..."

"to be fair, he's got a point. i did try to tell you."

"NOT YOU TOO >:("

windblume kisses his cheek and tries to soothe their (soon to be?) husband, barely holding back a laugh.

"well, aren't you glad to be able to marry me again? you were the one excited about having a bunch of weddings!"

the pout from venti's face falls into a small smile.

"that's about the only good thing from this whole nonsense, anyway."

he leans over to kiss his beloved,

"you know i'd marry you every day if i could, my love."

bonus: the best man

let me preface this by saying that because it's mondstadt and because i say so, i believe any person can be elected as a primary attendant/witness regardless of gender. so, i think venti could (and would) have chosen literally anyone available (lol) for his side

but i think it would be funny if he chose diluc as his best man

i was mostly thinking of this in the context of my yumeship, but also? he would probably be chosen because he:

1) knows who venti is so he likely understands the full context of this out of the blue wedding

2) he can roll with the punches and adapt fairly easily

3) venti has a sense of humor

i'm imagining him just dropping by the winery and asking like, "heyyy master diluc, r u free this wednesday? yeah?? ok can u come for a little thing i got going on at the church, promise it won't take up too much of your time <3 k thx see u!!!"

just making it sound super casual like he's asking to hang out. which was super sus already especially with that location. but he got no other clue on why, so he just gets there and BOOM. it was. a weddign . and he's. venti's best man?????????

was So confused getting there early and seeing an unimpressed dahlia waiting. he thinks he got it wrong and was gonna apologize but THEN dahlia goes,

"are you one of his witnesses"

".. what?"

"the bard and [windblume]'s wedding. are you their witness"

(realization)

"...............yes"

and he just sits there waiting along with windblume's chosen witness while inwardly groaning and cursing out venti in his head

not because he had to play best man. he wouldn't have minded. but he would have preferred to have been told he was attending a wedding!! he should have been in a nice proper suit rn!!

he doesn't even have a gift for the couple! though he supposed that can always come later, it still feels wrong to be THIS unprepared and it's on what he thought was gonna be a Perfectly Normal Wednesday Afternoon

somebody save him

[incorrectfatui]

ok only one person asked for this, but I'm really bored, so: memes about our government collapsing, here you go. feel free to ignore it otherwise, next post will be about more harbingers xD

But politics talk beyond this point- dw, I get it if you dont wanna see that

Context will be below the pictures- please keep in mind that german humor is...well, german. Also, I can't figure out how to post multiple pictures at once, so uh...this is gonna be a long one. ALSO look at the ALT text I tried my best to translate & give more context

So of course, everyone immediately started memeing about Lindner. Why? Because most of the country fucking hates the guy. I don't think I specified enough how awful he is. The current government is incredibly inneficient, and he's a major reason why. He's an ultra-capitalist, in love with a free market economy, frequently has temper tantrums in parliament, and is INCREDIBLY anti social. He wants higher pension ages, less subsidies for unemployed people, the works. What people are also making fun off is Scholz, our chancellor, who was practically nonexistent for the last 3 years, only to deliver a VICIOUS speech about how awful Lindner is. So yeah! Government collapse is fun if you have the right memes. Hope at least some of those were funny to you guys as well

thaaats most of the ones I could fit. Which brings me to: the context. oh my god where do i begin.

Okay, so, the german parliament is made out of multiple parties, right? When we have elections, the chancellor is from the party with the most votes, but they don't rule alone, because they need a majority (<50%), and we have so many parties that they don't get there. So, they have to form coalitions with the other parties. When they do that, the leaders of the other parties get to be in high positions as well. Every party that isn't in the coalition is the opposition.

More often than not, we have what is called a Grand Coalition- the two biggest parties, CDU and SPD. However, in our last elections (which was also the first time in 16 years that our chancellor changed), this did not happen. We instead got the so called traffic light coalition, made up of the SPD (winner, got the Chancellor), FDP (our other main protagonist in this story) and the Greens.

So, they've ruled for about 3 years now, and it's been an utter shitshow- because of multiple factors, of course, but one of the major ones was the FDP. See, the Greens and the SPD are (or, well, were, but thats for another story) more left leaning, ESPECIALLY on stuff like climate change, while the FDP are mostly focused on the economy. So, there's been lots of conflicts, and all the parties in the coalition, but especially the FDP, have lost immense support. The FDP to a point where they might not get ANY seats in parliament for the next election.

Now, some of our current biggest issues are inflation, climate change, and the war in Ukraine. I'm simplifying this to hell and back, but essentially, we have a so called debt-brake in our constitution, which means that the country cannot go over a certain amount of money. Sounds good, right? Well, not entirely. Right now, we are trying to go over this limit. See, the debt-brake has an intentional loophole, which says that in emergencies, you CAN go over it, like natural catastrophes (e.g. COVID).

Germany, right now, wants to fund our infrastrcuture, our military, Ukraine, and social subsidies. For this purpose, the SPD and Greens agreed to go over the limit. Except they can't, without the approval of their coalition partner, the FDP, and their finance minister, Lindner, who RUNS the FDP. They've been fighting about this for A WHILE, and yesterday, Scholz (the chancellor), gave Lindner an ultimatum: allow them to go over the limit, or get fired. Lindner asked for snap-elections instead, did not accept the proposal (which was already heavily in his favour) and got fired.

Which wouldn't be a problem is he was any common minister- but he's a coalition partner, so the coalition broke apart- and without the FDP, the SPD and the Greens alone do not hold a majority in parliament.

What this boils down to, is that we will likely have a minority-government (who will have BIG difficulties passing any laws) until January, and at the start of January, the Chancellor will call for a vote of confidence (yes, like in star wars), which he will lose. Meaning: Snap Elections in March (at the latest), less time for the parties to prepare their candidates, and MASSIVE profts for the right wing parties, which are currently leading in the polls.

[natequarter]

just one last timeblr thing and then i swear

0 notes

💣 commiedyke Follow

just watched the president of gallifrey down a bottle of ibuprofen citing 'what's the worst it can do, kill me?' mum come pick me up i'm scared

💣 commiedyke Follow

ok so apparenly time lords are immune to ibuprofen. why did the professor not just tell me this when i asked

#ace speaks #literally he stood in front of me whilst i was watching all of this and said. nothing. #i was thinking romana might DIE and he said NOTHING #duuuude i hate this shitass plsnet

7 notes

👑 fred Follow

watching some 90s earth show with ace let's see how this goes

👑 fred Follow

oh no she's hot

#shut up romana #might have to use that as my next face... #also who thinks buffy and spike should kiss #btvs #<- new tag!

5 notes

💣 commiedyke Follow

hey why did the professor die and turn into a prettyboy

#ace speaks #like wtf not even a warning? #unwarranted #imagine if your dad turned into a cute edwardian one day and then he lost his memory #yeah i know my struggles are unique

2 notes

💣 commiedyke Follow

watching buffy with the lads (<- a couple of loser time lords + leela) let's see how badly this goes lol

💣 commiedyke Follow

UPDATE: romana just said the vampire lady was hot shit (not in those exact words but you get me) and tbh she's not wrong

💣 commiedyke Follow

her exact words were "i'd die to be her" btw

💣 commiedyke Follow

UPDATE 2: she did die to be her

🎻 the--adventurer8 Follow

yeah this has happened before :p

💣 commiedyke Follow

w. what do you mean. before. professor what do you mean before. professor????/

#ace speaks #he can't keep getting away with this

84 notes

⚔️ warqueenextraordinaire Follow

Just regenerated. Thoughts?

💣 commiedyke Follow

WHAT THE FUCK DUDE

⚔️ warqueenextraordinaire Follow

I'll take that as a no then

#Harsh

69 notes

🪨 vislorturlough Follow

guys i solved it. it's maff boy

✈️ donewiththisshit573 Follow

Can you fucking STOP

#he'll never know if he was right and you keep MOCKING HIM???

8 notes

💣 commiedyke Follow

leela just told me she doesn't have periods????? never mind 'other mammals don't do this' apparently other HUMANS don't do this? we can evolve that shit out??? brb killing myself

#ace speaks #more like ace SCREAMS amirite lads

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🚬 fitz-crier Follow

ineed hium ttothrow me intotthe hesrrt of acnucelar reactor. ansd causeeworld war rthee.

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⚔️ warqueenextraordinaire Follow

Does anyone else on this website ship Scully and Mulder or is it just me

💣 commiedyke Follow

i regret getting you into 90s scifi so much

#you have no idea

30 notes

🐧 coordinatorsupreme Follow

What is "Friends"?

💣 commiedyke Follow

posts that are funnier without context

57 notes