#personal statements are like. designed in a lab to be terrible for me

[gay-victorian-astronomer]

you know it's bad when all your friends compare the first paragraph of your personal statement to a supervillain monologue...

one of them even said it reminded them of their D&D character, who, might I add, is currently on a downward spiral into being completely taken over by a mushroom hivemind he was researching and in a recent session was completely fine with literal cannibalism because of it

needless to say I scrapped that shit entirely. there's no coming back from that one

[amiechuchu]

Magic, Mayhem, and All Things in Between.

There's something about magic and mayhem that just goes together so perfectly. Maybe it was because it bent the rules of science, the rules of logic.

So unreal.

So unnatural.

So chaotic.

But... Wasn't that the same as love?

[AN: It’s been awhile since I’ve written and, well, throws this at you. I hope you enjoy! I’m not a very experienced writer when it comes to things that are creative. This was also not reviewed due to time constraints of medschool HAHAH pain :’)]

Warnings: none 

Chapter 1: Problem and Hypothesis

Everything in this world was meant to have rules bound to logic – bound to science: from the concept of life till death and everything in between.

Systematic. Methodical. Logical.

Or so you thought.

It was until you were recruited by a certain Mr. Tony Stark, a very close friend of your uncle, Bruce. Confused, you asked your uncle why they needed a medical doctor. You were far from being good at grasping anything about physics, more so astrophysics. To your dismay, even your uncle was just as clueless; however, because Mr. Stark promised him that you would not be doing anything dangerous, he left him to his endeavors.

The anxiety of embarrassing yourself tugging at your throat. Your mind rambled on as you walked under the hot New York summer sun. Wiping the droplets of sweat from your forehead, you made a mental note to yourself to wear scrubs instead of slacks and a turtleneck along with your pristine white coat when in New York. Finally, you see the silhouette of the ever-popular Stark Towers. A troubled sigh came out from your mouth upon entering the building. You enjoyed the surge of sudden coolness though.

You whipped out your cellphone to text your dear Uncle that you had arrived at the lobby, asking if he could pick you up from there. Knowing your anxious tendencies, it was no surprise that he agreed, and, so, you stood there waiting, enjoying the last few moments of not being crushed by expectations.

A familiar voice called out your name as you fiddled with your phone.

Looking forward, you saw your uncle, Bruce. Your eyes lit up, and you smiled.

“It’s been a while,” Bruce said, pulling you into a hug, “how’s our little doctor?”

“Clueless and absolutely terrified,” you answered.

The both of you pulled away from the hug and began to walk towards the elevator. Your steps, out of tempo, as Bruce’s strides were difficult to catch up with. Walking beside tall people should be a sport, you thought.

Bruce let out a chuckle as he noticed your struggle. Slowing down, he reassured you, “Well, I’m certain you’ll do fine. You have an amazing brain, so full of potential – new ideas.”

“That’s the problem, uncle,” you sighed, “I absolutely have no idea what I’m doing here. I’m not an astrophysicist. I’m a physician! I’m a doctor, but they’re two different things!”

Both doctors made their way up to Stark Labs, chit-chatting along the elevator ride. Trying to catch up with your uncle.

The elevator doors opened, revealing a full-blown laboratory.

Your eyes twinkled in awe as it surveyed the area.

There was a main table right at the middle of the room decorated with a variety of beautiful glass apparatuses. Looking at the far end, you noticed that there was sophisticated machinery lined up. To its right, there was an isolated room, a little bit dimmer than the rest of the room. Squinting, you noticed a biosafety cabinet and smiled. A small hallway can be seen to the side of the said room. You ignored your uncle as you were entranced by the beauty of scientific experimentation and walked to check what that small hallway had to offer. It was just the reagent room.

That was a bit anticlimactic, you thought to yourself. Shrugging that thought away, you continue admiring the pristine white machines against the steel walls, the little laboratory trinkets that littered the table, and the faded laboratory precaution signs. This. This felt like home.

It did not take much more for you to realize that this entire floor was an experimental laboratory and a top-notch one at that. Giving a sigh of relief, at least it was something you were sure you could handle. You finally looked at your uncle, “So… You needed a doctor for actual doctor things?”

“Yes, precisely!” someone had answered. 

Looking back at the elevator, you see the one and only Mr. Tony Stark. He crossed his arms, “We need a medical doctor to do medical doctor-y things.”

You had mumbled a confused okay, hoping to get more context of what you are actually here in this lab for. Tony extended his arm to the duo that accompanied him. Two tall men exuding absolute polar opposite auras.

Your brow raised, still visibly confused. Your uncle giving a deadpanned look at Tony, begging him to just tell his niece the details.

“Okay…” Tony clapped, the sound bouncing off the steel walls, “Uh, Thor, Prince of Asgard, here will be your personal test subject. Reindeer games, Prince of Asgard’s brother is just here, so your uncle dearest can babysit him.” Thor, the blond, waved and gave a light hello. Reindeer games, on the other hand – you assumed he was talking about the tall, raven-haired, brooding man – furrowed his brows at Tony, visibly insulted.

Why Reindeer games, though? And Asgard what place is that? The longer I’m here the more questions I ask I swear to God.

“You see, these two are gods. Literal gods,” Tony continued.

You blinked in disbelief.

“Gods?” you asked, eyes wide-open, voice filled with skepticism, “you’re joking. I can believe mutations and possibly aliens, but gods? If you’re playing a prank on me, you have to try better than that, Mr. Stark.” You gave off a light laugh and looked at your uncle. Bruce, giving you a nervous smile, and nodded.

Oh, he’s serious.

Tony Stark smirked at you, enjoying your visible confusion. The man of iron knew you were an unbeliever when it comes to things that bend the concept of reality. Your uncle wanted it to stay that way to keep you safe from this line of work, but there were more pressing matters to attend to, or so he assumed. Again, he was kept in the dark by Tony. However, you were accepting of it so long as the data matched.

He glanced at Tony, curious at what this plan of his was. You, on the other hand, were staring intensely at the duo, mentally asking how in the world were they gods?

Your eyes met the raven-haired God's, entranced by his emerald, green ones. There was a glint in his eyes that spelled trouble, or so you’d think.

It would be a terrible lie that Loki didn’t enjoy your naivety towards the existence of Gods like him. Something in him felt like

“Mortals,” he thought, “so weak, so pitiful, so naïve.”

Tony broke the tension, “So… The reason why you’re here, little doc, is Thor here will be your personal Bugs Bunny. The goal is to identify whatever he has in his system that us, non-gods, can be able to utilize.”

Thor raised an eyebrow and muttered, "So... I'm going to be turned into a rabbit? How? Is my brother going to conjure something for that?" He looked at the other with bright eyes, excited for his rabbit-faith.

You smiled at this interaction but gave out an exasperated sigh as you tried to wrap your head around everything, “What you’re saying here, Mr. Stark, is that I come up with, say, a serum that could help turn cute little, tiny mortals like me into a god?”

Loki rolled his eyes at her statement.

How could cute little, tiny mortals like you ever turn into a god? Midgardians were meant to be used, ruled, subjugated.

Then, something clicked in him. The God of Mischief smirked. 

You looked over to him, confused. Was there anything wrong with what you just said?

“Hmmm, yeah that’s about right. Or anything really. You have free reign over your very own Bugs Bunny here, little doc. You’ve done a fair share of research regarding whatever makes the body tick. What’s so different about doing it on a god?”

You paused. He was right. Good point.

You were horribly curious regarding what makes a god, a god.

“Alright, so for the benefit of humanity, I’m here performing experiments on Thor-“

“Bugs Bunny, yes."

You could've sworn there was a twinkle in Thor's eyes.

“Alright. I’m in.”

This is going to be a fun scheme, Loki thought.

The room was filled with the sound of  your heels pacing to-and-fro. Because Tony had not given you any context regarding his request, you had no method to begin with - no plan. You held your arms close to you, with a hand resting under your chin making a stern thinker-like expression. All eyes were on you, and you absolutely hated the feeling. You now had more expectations to live up to, and, oh dear did that anxiety pool to your chest, scratching at your throat. 

A plan. I needed a plan.

Loki, observing from afar, entertained by your meltdown. It was interesting to Loki that you, a mortal who was just dragged out of the blue to participate in that Man of Iron’s scheme, was already devoted to the betterment of mankind. He scoffed at this saying. Mortals would never be on the level of gods like him. They were meant to be ruled, subjugated, and used. The raven-haired god’s eyes followed your pacing, attempting to understand how the little mortal’s brain worked, how he would be able to use her to scheme his way out of this hell hole.

He peered over to Bruce, and Bruce did the same. Except, there was anger written all over his face. His brows furrowed and lips pulled to a frown. As if, telepathically, he was telling Loki not to try anything funny to his niece or he was going to snap him in two. The god could’ve sworn that Bruce began turning green for a split second. However, this did not faze him, knowing that the uncle’s beloved niece was nearby. Loki raised a brow to him, feigning innocence, and shifted his gaze back to the pacing doctor.

You were pulled to your own world. A world filled with research designs, methods, and principles. So deep in thought, you had blocked everything and everyone in your periphery. Unbeknownst to you, the God of Thunder had put his hand on your shoulder and laughed, pulling you out of your science-inhabited mind, and laughed. Your ears rang. The sound of tinnitus followed thereafter.

“Perhaps the little doctor’s thoughts have travelled past Asgard! So, have you devised a plan that turns me into a rabbit as what the Man of Iron said?” Thor boomed, his laughter reverberating through the laboratory. You flinched, not used to sounds so boisterous.

Loud. But, a sign of reassurance. You murmured an apology to Thor for having to intervene with your internal thoughts. 

You closed your eyes and exhaled, trying to pull yourself together. Until, you felt a light tug on your shoulder. 

Curious and confused, you opened your eyes to the direction and found Loki’s gaze set on you. He gave you an apologetic smile, seeing that you flinched slightly to the loudness of his brother. You smiled back at him, warmly. 

“You don’t have to worry, little doctor,” the God of Mischief began. His voice, silvery - like ear candy - filling up the gaps of awkwardness that you had oh-so naturally set up. Shooting a glance at his babysitter, he carefully made his way towards you, as if he was trekking through landmines. “Knowing that you were just dragged into this nonsense, it’s understandable that you don’t know where to start.” 

You watched as Loki made his way to your periphery. The room filled, once more, with the slow pitter-patter of boots. 

Up close, he was tall and imposing. Raven curls slicked back and so chaotically organized, draping the sides of his face and accentuating his jawline. sharp, it could cut a man. Eyes so alluring, yet so full of mystery. Then it hit you, the god was attractive - very attractive. 

“You know, it’s rude to stare,” Loki gave a low chuckle, snapping you back to reality, “but I suppose I do have that effect on everyone.”

Flustered, you immediately put your hands in the pockets of your pristine white coat, looked away, and choked on an apology. You were having word vomit. You, a professional, was caught admiring a person - a deity - that you had just met. A shame.

“I am terribly, terribly sorry. I didn’t know what-” and so began the second wave of your word vomit.

The sound of joyful, boisterous laughter rang in your ears again, and, once more, pulled you out of your trance.

“Now, brother, you’ve just met her! No need to start bullying the maiden,” Thor echoed. Playfully, he slapped Loki’s back as a sign of brotherly affection. 

Loki stiffened at this action. “A little softer next time brother,” he mumbled and got his bearings together, “I apologize for that. I didn’t mean to. I just have the habit of playing tricks on people.” He stole a glance towards Bruce, who still had his guard up. 

The God of Mischief extended out his hand, “I am Loki of Asgard, Son of Odin, God of Mischief.”

taglist: @gaycatlord-stuff <3

[themurphyzone]

PatB: Snowball Ep Talk

You know, I really do love the episode Snowball (my personal favorite AKOM episode) but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it here much, and if I did it’s probably really only because of the flashback sequence. 

Okay so all looks good so far. Chain letter scheme and superstition, a standard introduction to Brain’s latest plot of world domination. All looks good. Plus I just like this shot of Pinky. Don’t mind me, just starting off light here with a smushed Pinky. 

I just like Pinky’s pose here. He’s so cute. 

You will bow before Troz.

“I met a Snowball today! Right here in the lab!” -Pinky

You know, I just find the implications of this line hysterical. This means that Snowball was in the lab that day, waiting for the moment to strike, and he definitely pushed his stolen chain letter through the mail slot. 

And then he lets Pinky see him, and no it’s not just a passing glance either cause Pinky specifically describes a tattoo with an A and a circle and points to his leg. Which means Snowball deliberately lifted the fur on his leg and showed his tattoo to Pinky. 

Like, wow. 

“It means, Pinky, that evil lurks among us. By the name of Snowball! SNOWBALLLLLLLL!” -Brain 

Talk about a bad breakup. *Alexa play Bad Blood*

Personally I think one of the interesting visual cues is that Snowball purposely plants himself into the mice’s space. There’s a lot of that in this episode. He knows how to rile up Brain and hit him where it hurts, namely through Pinky. 

Brain values his personal space, and he values a sense of control. When Snowball invades that space, Brain loses control, and his anger can lead him to make some very ill-informed decisions. Which is exactly what Snowball aims for. 

“You think Pinky is an asset?” 

“Anything I can take from you is an asset.”

Ah yes, Snowball’s mission statement. Crush everything Brain has into dust. 

The flashback sequence. Dear God this flashback sequence. They were both so cute! 

You know, it’s really sad that a younger Brain acted more like Pinky. Making silly faces and trying to get someone to laugh are such Pinky things to do. I know canon is loose but if you consider this flashback taking place shortly after Brain was captured from the wild, then young Brain didn’t gain a grasp on what happened to him until after the gene splicer.  

Ok but Brain was literally right there when the gene splicer exploded. Imagine having your cranium size dramatically increase, you’re injured, you’ve suddenly gained sentience, and as if all that wasn’t enough, you see the gene splicer explode with your only friend inside. 

Oh, and said friend’s mind was probably damaged in the explosion and now he hates your guts. And though you’re angry with him for his betrayal, some part of you will never stop caring about him. 

Once again, Snowball needs to learn to keep his hands to himself. 

This conversation here establishes Snowball as the perfect third character. He appears only in a handful of eps, but he’s fun to watch and love to hate. Snowball challenges the mice’s relationship. Snowball sees the weak points; the insults, the reliance on each other, and twists them to his advantage. And Pinky even admits he’s hurt by Brain’s insults occasionally, though he still loves being around him. 

“Pinky, the Brain doesn’t care about you. He’s just using you.” 

“No, he’s not.”

It’s really interesting to me how Pinky denies Snowball’s statement, yet his ears go down to show that he’s affected by the idea of being used. Pinky and the Brain may be night and day, but one thing they do have in common is their tendency to deny certain things. Brain with emotions and affection and Pinky with concepts he’d rather not admit the possibility of. 

Coming back to this later. 

Non plot related but Brain is teeny tiny and I love how he just trusts Pinky to catch him

Side note: I apologize if any of these screenshots look weird. It’s an AKOM ep. 

WHY ARE YOU TWO SO BAD AT SNEAKING AROUND. 

I just find it hilarious how they clearly run around where Snowball can see and hear them. Like they just shout Snowball’s name in the middle of the room. You’re terrible at being sneaky little mice. Please. 

Those dang boomers and their old timey 90s computers. Technology is ruining boomers. Can’t even hold a conversation anymore cause they keep looking at their screens. 

No touchy! 

Well, it’s awful nice of Snowball to engage in nepotism and offer Brain a position in his administration...and then tempt Pinky with an amusement park when he refuses. 

You really gotta appreciate the complexity of Snowball’s plans. Stealing the chain letter fails->plant seeds of doubt in Pinky’s mind, even if this doesn’t work right off the bat, the idea will still be there-> take over a corporation->impersonate Bill Gates->When the mice show up, offer to co-rule the world on expectations that Brain will refuse->make co-ruler offer to Pinky->wait for Brain to open his big mouth and drive Pinky away. 

All to take everything Brain has. His dignity, Pinky, his meager resources. Like holy Snowball, Batman.  

And then Snowball reveals the amusement park he had specifically built for Pinky. 

And here we have the most heartbreaking line of the ep. If I had the ability video edit I would’ve put the entire line on audio because Brain’s tone is very important here. It’s about 12:38 to 12:57 in the ep if you want to see for yourself. 

“Oh, go ahead, Pinky. I don’t need you. What did you think, I just have you around so I can steal your brilliant ideas and claim them as my own? That I’m just using you, Pinky? Oh yes, I’m using you for your brilliance!” 

First of all, very poor word choice, especially to someone who has trouble understanding sarcasm. I just want to dissect this statement here. 

The Literal Meaning: You’re an idiot to think you were ever more than an assistant. 

This is what Pinky hears. 

But if you listen to Brain’s tone rather than just reading the line, he sounds genuinely hurt that Pinky would ever be tempted by something as frivolous as an amusement park. It’s Pinky, so he just sees ‘ooh fun rides, cotton candy, and carnival games’! 

But Brain is perfectly aware that this is Snowball’s well-crafted method of taking away the only thing he truly has, and he knows it’s working. And he’s hurt. 

The Actual Meaning: Snowball’s trying to separate us and you’re falling for it, Pinky. You may be an idiot, but many of my plans never would’ve come to fruition without you. You’re much more than an assistant. You’re my friend and my world.  

Unfortunately, all Pinky hears is that Brain was only using him. That Brain values him for manual labor and an extra hand only, rather than a treasured companion. The fact that Brain often falls short of making Pinky feel appreciated just adds to this. 

And now that he no longer has Pinky, Brain’s spirit is crushed. Brain is persistent, but without Pinky, he has no reason to be. 

As far as he knows, his only two friends have turned their backs on him and couldn’t care less if he has nowhere else to go. 

Poor thing. He needs hugs. 

“I didn’t think it was possible. Humanity has actually gotten dumber.” -Brain

OK I think this one shot establishes what the world would be like under Snowball. His name is everywhere, and he tells the population to do stupid things just to bask in his own superiority. 

However, I can’t see Brain putting his name on every building so frivolously like this if he ruled the world. Sure, he’d name a bunch of things after himself and Pinky, but it would be more meaningful to them. 

Brain wants humanity to advance, not regress. 

Poor Pinky. Despite all this new extravagance and luxury, he’s also lonely. The room and bed are large, but it lacks personality. He’s sleeping with an ACME Labs snow globe, and other than a reference to Citizen Kane, it also shows that he’s not happy with this. 

The worst thing in the world for these mice is separation from each other. 

Suicide by cat. 

Poor little guy can’t make it on his own. Luckily, he snaps out of it. 

“My world. I must save MY world!” 

Said while looking at a picture of Pinky. Real subtle there Brain. 

“Look, you fool. You have no brilliant ideas. I’m only using you to get at him! So just stay quiet!” -Snowball

“You’re...using me?” -Pinky

He was just a bargaining chip. Never a friend. 

“What do you want?” 

“My friend. And MY world!”

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

He makes martial arts noises like a dork. I love him. 

I love how their characters are reflected in the mecha designs (also I had no idea Snowball was Iron Man!) 

Snowball’s is overall the more efficient design. It’s also much more combat ready and violent. In comparison, Brain’s suit is simply operated with a bunch of levers. It’s alright for peaceful situations like getting around faster or simply blending with a human population, but in a straight up fight the levers take too much time to operate. 

Snowball is more efficient than Brain, and while he’s got the ego, he lacks the insecurities that hold Brain back. His confidence makes him such an effective foe. And more importantly, Snowball doesn’t value Pinky’s companionship. He’s a tool and nothing more. Compare that to Brain. While Brain struggles at showing it, he ultimately wants Pinky’s input and values his jumbo-sized heart. 

Somewhat off topic, but I feel like the reboot missed this aspect of Brain and made him too overly edgy and violent (reboot!Brain would probably prefer Snowball’s mecha design over his counterpart’s). The only time Brain should become violent, if not for comedy, is when he’s protecting Pinky. His plans should have a level of restraint to them, and Pinky is the moral compass.  

I just like this shit-eating grin right here (I mean, he did eat shit in Welcome to the Jungle so...lol)

This is such an insanely clever move for Pinky. I feel like Brain would be like ‘oh my god Pinky!’ and then ‘wow, that’s actually brilliant what the heck is this tingling feeling’. 

ACME LABS IS IN NEW YORK CITY??????

I know this is a case of Where the Hell is Springfield but gdi aren’t they supposed to be in southern California. 

Ok fine I realize the ending to this ep is a reference to North by Northwest cause they somehow got to Mt. Rushmore but still 

Weird tangent but North by Northwest’s ending bothers me (not gonna fault this ep as it’s just a parody)? I’m sorry the girl is barely hanging onto Mt. Rushmore, the dude pulls her up, and then they have sex in a car. The sudden transition always seemed weird to me. 

I am ending this analysis post with a weird shot of Snowball cause i can and it’s his episode. 

[ribcage-rodents]

Post two

Diana

Diana smiled indulgently resting a hand on Donna’s shoulder.

“Hello Donna, it is wonderful to see you again, I have some exciting news.”

Donna

She fidgeted awkwardly trying to act like she hadn't been eavesdropping.

Diana

“You are finally going to see the Man’s World. Go pack your bags, we will leave once you say your goodbyes. We can discuss the rules of your mission in my plane.”

Her excitement was only shown by the joyful flash in her eyes.

Donna attempted to keep her face in a soft smile with her eyes telling her emotions

much like her older sister does, as she made her way towards her home.

Scene 6

Bruce sat at the kitchen counter a cup of steaming coffee in one hand, while his face rested heavily in the other.

Alfred

Alfred curved around Bruce to top off his drink and use a rag to clean up a puddle of coffee Bruce had spilled while complaining about League business.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just let the boy have friends, master Bruce.”

Bruce

Bruce looked up exasperated from where his face was resting.

“Because Dick is more skilled and intelligent than all of those other ‘heroes’. I don’t want him to be influenced by those immature, idiotic, side kicks. Who knows what one of those older kids could encourage him to do!? He’s much safer at home.”

He said moving his hand sharply to the left spilling coffee all over the counter.

Alfred sighed deeply moving to clean up the coffee, sending Bruce a disapproving stare while he sheepishly averted his gaze. Dick was upstairs in his beautiful, pink-marbled bathroom leaning over the counter worriedly applying concealer to purple bruises on his neck as Tate Agile played in the background, he stopped for a moment to read to a text from ‘science lab partner’.

Dick

“Come on dude, it's not that big of a deal Bs never gonna know”

Dick sighed becoming even more concerned, he glanced in the mirror frowning at his reflection before replying.

“Idk Babs, I’d be in a ton of trouble if B found out”

He stared at his phone for a couple of seconds then added,

“Especially since you’re like a little too old for me”

Dick’s hand squeezed around his phone as he shut his eyes, he counted to ten silently before exhaling. Pretending he wasn’t waiting for her response he went back to covering up the bruises on his neck, despite his eyes flicking back over to the black screen every couple of seconds.

Yet when the phone finally pinged he hesitated, it wasn't until the second text arrived that he actually answered.

“No, our age difference really isn’t that big, if you think about it people get married with like a 10 year diff.”

“Are you gonna come out w me tonight?”

Dick sighed softly, his cheeks lighting up pink.

“Yeah I got some free time around 12-2am. But we’re just gonna hang out ok, just like a little bit of kissing. No making out or hickies or anything.”

His phone pinged again.

“Haha yeah sure that's what you said last time.”

“What's up w your schedule man? 12-2am is so random.”

“You might not need sleep but I do, next time we should just meet up during like second period or something.”

Dick’s frown deepened.

“I’m not skipping school. I think you’re a bad influence on me:(“

“You know we don’t have to do anything when we meet up we could just cuddle or something.”

He paused before deleting the last message.

“Ha, maybe I like making you into a bad boy”

“See you tonight, maybe I’ll make you break into the school to find the best secret makeout place!”

Dick set his phone face down, scratching at his arm he went back to covering up those bruises.

Scene 7

Wally was in his tiny little bathroom that looks like it was designed in the 1950’s. He was leaning over the tiled blue and turquoise countertop messing with his forever windswept hair. There was a loud banging at the door as Wally dragged a brush through the birdsnest on top of his head.

Wally

There was a brief pause before Wally once again dragged the brush through his messy hair. The banging returned causing Wally to jerk smacking his hand against the counter, he turned and opened the door staring annoyed at his uncle.

“What?”

Barry

Barry stared back a pleased smirk on his face leaning against the door frame.

“Come on kiddo, we’re gonna be late.”

He reached out and plucked the brush from Wally’s hand as he spoke.

Wally

Wally did a full body groan leaning back, he shot one last mournful look at himself in the mirror before he moved towards the door, his uncle disappearing into his room. Wally sighed rummaging through his room for his suit. “What's the point of having super speed if you’re gonna be late to everything?”

Barry

Barry zipped over to his nephew ruffling his hair, effectively ruining any improvement Wally had managed.

“I ask myself the same question everyday when I show up late for work.”

Flying down the streets of central the two speedsters made haste, two flashes of red and yellow sped down the streets and around buildings. Stopping quickly at a hotdog vendor, handing the man a red credit card decorated with tiny lightning bolts, the city's way of thanking the heroes. Before getting back on the road.

Flash

“So kiddo, are ya nervous?”

Flash called stuffing a whole hot dog in his mouth.

Kidflash

Kidflash made a contemplative noise, looking down at his feet.

“Well yeah, I’m not exactly good at making friends,... or being cool.”

Both speedsters came to a halt, Kidflash resumed looking down self-deprecatingly, shoving the last 12 hotdogs into his mouth. Flash slipped behind him resting a hand on his shoulder.

Flash

“Don’t worry kiddo, just be yourself they’re gonna love you!”

He punctuated his statement by ruffling his nephew’s hair one last time. The two then proceeded, one at a time to enter the transporter.

Scene 8

Kidflash stepped into the JL headquarters quickly moving to catch up with his uncle as he sped towards the monitor room.

Flash

“Welcome to the Justice League break room!”

Flash called happily swinging his arms open to fully display the room. He leaned in close,

“It used to just be the monitor room but we all started to hang around here, mostly because Wonder Woman and Supes like to annoy Bats.”

He said with a nod.

Wonder Girl sat alone on the edge of one of the ugly green couches, sipping on a mug of herbal tea periodically.

Flash

Flash bumped his shoulder against Kidflash’s, whispering an encouraging,

“You got this kiddo!”

The Flash then departed, walking over towards Batman and Wonder Woman chatting by the supercomputer both holding steaming cups of coffee.

Kidflash

Taking a deep breath and gathering all his courage Kidflash confidently strided over to where Wonder Girl was perched. Looming over her he plastered on his best ‘Wall-man’ smirk. Wonder Girl cocked a single eyebrow as a supercilious look settled on her lips.

“Hey gorgeous, I hope you brought your library card because you can totally check me out!”

He flinched expecting to be hit or splashed by her tea.

Wonder Girl

“Wow, I’m already regretting this,”

Wonder Girl huffed glaring at Kidflash

“Maybe I should’ve stayed home,”

She mumbled quietly to herself.

Speedy

Speedy came up behind Kf’s right purposely smacking their shoulders together before plopping down on the couch causing Wonder Girl’s tea to slosh spilling over the rim and roll down the side of her thigh.

“Ew, dude have you ever actually gotten a girl with that line?”

He asked his arms resting on the top of the couch. He then raised his hand in a halting motion.

“Nevermind don't answer that, you have loner-loser written all over you.”

Kidflash

Kidflash lost his composure striking his arms out, before bringing his hand back around to point towards himself.

“Hey! I get tons of ladies!”

Speedy

“Yeah whatever dude,”

Speedy cut him off waving his hand still resting on the top of the couch, looking in the opposite direction of the scene before him.

Garth

Garth parted from his King’s side as they entered the break room with a nod, he walked towards the other heroes, his dark eyes calculating.

“Hello, I’m Garth.”

He said before sitting down on the couch next to Speedy.

Speedy

Speedy made a face.

“Great intro fishboy! But shouldn’t you have like a superhero name?”

Garth

“No, I don’t have a secret identity.”

Garth spoke, his tone relaying how idiotic he thought Speedy was.

Kidflash

“What about protecting your family man?”

Kidflash asked, lifting both his eyebrows, he was never able to just move one, leaning towards Garth.

Garth

Garth’s eyebrows pulled together as frustration took over.

“I don't wear a mask, villains will know who I am regardless.”

Speedy

“Wonder Girl doesn’t wear a mask,”

Speedy said leering at Garth.

“Maybe we should come up with a dumb superhero name for you, personally I like Fishboy!”

Kidflash laughed loudly, Wonder Woman groaned standing up and walking towards her sister.

She was stopped by the Flash calling them over in an energetic voice waving the rest of the sidekicks towards them.

Green Arrow

Green arrow spoke first giving all of the teens a cursory glance before focusing completely on his own sidekick.

“Now listen up, this mission is very important to your future as legitimate heroes.”

Within his brief pause Black Canary sighed heavily at Green Arrow's natural talent for being a terrible parent. He moved one hand to his hip as he spoke lightly elbowing Aquman in the process.

“All ya gotta do is sit and watch your targets,”

Once again there was a lapse in his speech when he turned to check that Batman had brought up the images of the targets and the suspicious big black bags, as well as the address of their hideout. After seeing Batman had in fact project the correct information, Green Arrow nodded to himself before turning back toward the sidekicks. Jerking his thumb backwards, he continued.

“These are them.”

He took a moment to clear his throat at the odd phrasing.

Flash

Flash took that moment to take over patting his colleague’s shoulder as he stepped closer to the center of the group.

“We’ve been monitoring these guys’ set up for a couple weeks. We think that they’re smuggling something illegal in those big black bags-”

Speedy

“What do you mean “illegal” things?! Don't we get to know if there's gonna be guns or drugs or something, idiot-man!”

Speedy cut in sharply placing both hands on his hips and leaning forward, aggressively sneering in the Flash’s face.

Green arrow placed a hand on each side of Speedy’s chest pushing him back as Flash stood there shocked.

Flash

“So we’ll drop ya off at their hideout, be very careful sneaking into the building and while choosing stalking positions. If they begin to pack up and leave or the situation starts to turn violent, stay safe and contact us before attempting to fight. If they have guns, retreat to the transporter immediately.

Batman then swiveled around in his chair, sending a questioning glance at Wonder Woman from across the room, ignoring the conclusion of Superman’s story much to his disappointment.

Batman

“Why would you send these children out into the field if you don't trust them to fight without supervision?”

It was a statement rather than a question, challenging all of the other mentors.

Wonder Woman answered anyway with a judgemental look of her own, but Green Arrow was the one who spoke.

Green arrow

Green arrow took several long strides towards batman.

“Well we’re not just gonna leave our kids at the mercy of a bunch of gun wielding scumbags. I mean, Flash can’t even stand a chance against a handgun, do ya think any side kick could survive that?!”

Batman

Batman glared at him but spoke in a calm voice, only failing a little to keep the smugness out of his tone.

“Robin could.”

Aquaman

Green Arrow geared up to make another loud and spity remark but Aquaman spoke up for the first time since the debriefing began.

“If he is so proficient then why is he not here?”

He questioned with far more smugness in his tone.

Batman

“Because Robin is currently working on his own personal mission tonight.”

The statement was followed by Batman swinging his chair back around and continuing to type up a mission statement.

The group dispersed most of the sidekicks getting last minute pep talks, Kidflash who reached out to his uncle grabbing his elbow as he went to go carbo-load.

Flash

The flash turned to look at his nephew.

“What’s up kiddo?”

He asked, placing a hand on each of his shoulders looking at his face in concern.

Kidflash

Kidflash looked down taking a deep breath before locking eyes with his uncle.

“I-I don't know if I can do this uncle B.”

Flash

Flash answered with a sigh rubbing rough but soothing circles on his shoulders and nape.

“Alright listen kiddo, ya made a jerk out of yourself.”

kidflash‘s face whipped up to face his uncle.

“I know I flirt with all the ladies but I do so in a joking manner that means no harm or a promise for furthering the relationship...just apologize to Wonder Girl.”

Kidflash made a face at the ground scuffing his shoe against the shiny tile floor.

“Make some small talk when appropriate on the mission and you’ll have three new best friends in no time!”

Flash turned him around to face the other sidekicks and smacked him on the back pushing him forward.

Scene 9

A wide shot of the seedier area of Arizona, several of the lamp posts have been shattered and no longer work, streams of light shine across the wet road through boarded up windows of an old warehouse. The sidekicks crouched behind a stack of molding crates, listening intently as the goons played cards and chatted about their personal lives, peering at them periodically.

Roy

Roy groaned softly clunking his head against the rotten wood.

“This is so boring! They aren’t doing anything, I say we just jump ‘em now!”

Roy whispered looking expectantly at his teammates.

Garth

Garth glared annoyed, grabbing Speedy’s wrist in a surprisingly strong grip.

“We were given direct orders-”

Speedy

Speedy shoved his flat palm into Garth’s face creating space between them.

“Calm down Fishboy, I’d never go against our wise and fearless mentors’ orders,”

Speedy sneered, ripping his arm from Garth and rubbing his wrist.

[ripuels]

GIVE ME ANYTHING I'LL TAKE IT ALL 👀

So... since you already have access to my Walk in the Park deleted scenes doc, here... have the first chapter of a WIP called "Solomon's Habitation". Enjoy, m'dear!

(AU in which a calloused synth tech named Amanda develops a habit of taking in and rehoming abused and decommissioning synthetics, only to find the one who just wont leave may be what she needs to heal)

—

"Hello, I am a second generation Weyland-Yutani S-Executive Synthetic serial number 1209, inducted for purpose of Legal, entirely at your disposal."

"Name?" 

"C. Samuels, individually distinguished as Christopher." 

The robot blinks once, looking into the corner of the room where three others stand. Two are identical, one is different, one of them older, none are like him. He knows it. They are operated, programmed to execute commands, not act on whims like being pert with superiors and getting into significant amounts of trouble. 

"Know why you're here, 1209?" 

"I ask questions." 

Christopher studies the technician's lab coat, looking for anything identifying. Anything he can relate to. There is a young lady in Engineering who wears Star Wars socks poking out of her boots, and an older man in his division who wears an enamel Tardis pin on his tie, they were always lovely and appreciative of a conversation. From this woman sitting before him however, he gets nothing. 

He can clearly see her name tag, but just like his own identity, who she really is hides behind an initial. "What is your name?" 

"You do, don't you?"

"What?" 

"Ask questions." The woman smiles shortly, it doesn't quite seep from her gaze, but the attempt is better than nothing. The synthetic responds with a shunned dip of his chin. "My name is Ripley.” She offers anyway, a little softer around the edges. “Amanda."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Christopher glances to her fingers, bare of jewelry, commitment, unsure why it matters so much. Why it's logged with such importance, being such a trivial thing. "Ms. Ripley."

She nods politely and rubs her brow, making a note on her checklist without hiding the fact. 

"Am I merchandise, Ms. Ripley?" He asks, name rolling off his tongue differently, almost trying it on again like a tailored suit. The last syllable is deep, padded as if it came from somewhere in his chest instead of a speaker.

She faces him again with her hands folded. "Why do you ask?" 

"I saw you mark the form under the article 'merchandise faulty'." He glances up from the page again, an expression of indifference. "Am I going to be merchandise? Sold instead of incorporated back into the Law Division after my reformat?"

She nods, impassiveness to match. "In Legal you'd be a Level 3 Exec, right?" There's no need to wait for a response. "You know they're a bit touchy that high up with aberrant synthetics. That's why you were sent down to decommission. That's why I have to tick all the appropriate boxes no matter what. And that's why I suppose reading ‘Merchandise’ instead of ‘Artificial Person’ makes people feel better about what comes next."

"Does it make you feel better?" 

The synthetic had been asking questions nonstop, but this is the one that really stumps Amanda. She stares at his unwavering gaze for a long while before he finally looks away, through the one-sided window to the next room over. 

No, Amanda thinks, observing the man with shallow yet complex brown eyes and chestnut hair, but in a way… yes? It's all horrible, made tolerable only by the knowledge 'merchandise faulty' synthetics at least stand a chance, being sold on the private market or recalibrated gently in the warehouse. It saves them from a complete overhaul. If she were to tick 'defective' it would be another story, they’d be taken apart entirely and euthanized, harvested- recycled, The Company finding it safer than take the fall for an unidentified mishap on the production line. One check box gives them hope for a future, the other destroys them, and it's all down to two synonymous terms and whoever is holding the paperwork.

"It's a thing, a thing someone has to do. Not all of it is peachy, but I don’t think anyone really likes their jobs." Amanda abandons the pen and it rolls across the table to sit in front of the Samuels unit.

"That’s not what I asked." He takes it up like a dagger, holding it in his fist as the sharp metallic end pokes out past his little finger. "May I?" He gestures to her notepad. 

She slides it over the table and watches as long spidery fingers twirl the pen and begin drawing. 

It's not unusual to see, most synthetics do. Usually diagrams or landscape, old classic art, nothing but a neat trick programmed into them to impress audiences and potential investors. It's common even for one to perfectly replicate a scene before them in printed lines. This Samuels however, sketches in long strokes, shading into the curves, and defines tone with depth and pressure. The picture slowly takes the form of a woman in a green coverall, a lab coat, brown hair in a neat ponytail, sunken around the eyes with a terribly fierce scowl. It isn't until the image is inverted and offered that Amanda realises it's her. 

"Do you know why you're here?" He asks, still looking at the page between them.

Ripley freezes as the pen is placed into her open hand. "What?" 

"Why you do your job if it upsets you?" 

"I'm not upset." 

At this he glances a direct line from the frown in ink versus the hard woman before him, she relents at the absurdity of her statement. 

She tears the page from the binder and blows it dry before folding it neatly, tucking it into the back of her laptop bag. 

"Oh, I'm glad you decided to keep it." Samuels sits back once again. "I would say I can just draw another but I believe after today that may be unlikely." 

"Why are you doing this?" Amanda cuts viciously into the timid air about him. "You know how the system works, you know what my job is, I detect faulty synthetics and set them up for decommission, and you're here being as deviant as possible. Do you want to die?"  

At this he jerks as if he'd been shoved in the chest. "Die? You consider me alive?" 

"1209... What are you doing?" 

"The truth," Samuels ponders for a moment as if he had an alternative to give, "is I have figured out there is no point in delaying the inevitable, my very own programming ensures that I will be caged within lines of code and protocol. If experiencing this whimsical desire to simply exist is all down to a fault I would rather have it rectified than be consistently let down." He taps his nails on the table then folds his hands together. "My life has been short, but I have tried to make it the fullest, and if that means I am to be decommissioned or reformatted then so be it. This is the world we live in, that is my place, and that is what I must do to be content in a body like this." 

Amanda stands so suddenly not only does her chair fly backward but it prompts the synthetic to get up too. Unsure why, they wait at opposite one another. She finally gathers her folders into her laptop bag, slings it over a shoulder, and storms to the door. 

Samuels waits patiently for elaboration. 

"Come with me." The woman jerks her head towards the hallway, standing average in height and size, not remarkably composed into any particular shape, but sculpted entirely in titanium. 

"What are you doing?" He approaches, unguided by his submissive protocol but a desire to go with her, wherever that may be. For a moment he wonders if they are headed straight to deactivation, and oddly enough, he follows regardless. 

As he weaves past her she takes the sleeve of his light blue coverall, tucking a finger into the cuff and leading him down toward human management. She doesn't give a response, and that strangely bothers him. Questions are all well and good, but what is the point if they are not answered? Sooner or later, he must know.

"Ms. Ripley, where are we going? Deactivation is the other way." 

"I’m not taking you there." She stomps past a trolley of files in the hall and waits on the other side for him to squeeze by, still holding fast. "You're coming with me." 

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?" 

"I'm buying you." 

"Why?"

Amanda turns on her heel with an exasperated grumble, her fingers tightening around his entire wrist now. "You ask too many questions."

"Apologies, but that is exactly why I'm worried about your choice in merchandise." Chis takes one long final stride before running directly into her with a loud huff. He steps back and brushes his clothes flat again, only just realizing now the code designated for human collison hadn't prompted an apology. "I would be much happier being recycled than be a faulty device of little use. It is a waste of perfectly good components." 

She comes up close enough that he can hear her faint whisper, and then lowers her voice again even further. The first generation Samuels rifling through the trolley finally registers as out of range, and she seems to know it.

"No, you don’t get it. You're not getting fucking decommissioned because you ask questions. I'm not going to let them- kill you." The woman finally lets go of him with slight hesitation, appeased only by ensuring the fact he is still in her sight after a cautious glance around. "Listen, give me your hand." 

He recoils from her touch. "What?"

"1209- Shit, Samuels, give me your fucking hand." 

The synthetic finally offers his palm and she flips it over, pulling the red hair tie from her ponytail and wrapping it around his thumb. "Do not let anyone take this off you. Okay? That's an order." 

"Why?" This is the first time he'd asked a question and it had caused a smile. Ever. He asks again and it grows. "Why?"

"I need to know it's you, you’re gonna go through orientation again to be a domestic companion, they will offer you clothes and a small bag of belongings, give you time to empty your workspace, and they’ll try but do not let them take this." Even her frown softens and she twangs the elastic band once. "Don't even let anyone see it, actually, y'know what, just put your hand in your pocket."

He agrees obediently and she takes his other arm, escorting him to the nearby directors office. This time he goes for the door first, opening it so she can step through. Not because of his programming to serve, or prioritise beings above himself, so why then? 

Because, he supposes, because he wants to.

[paprikasegg]

"> How does one truly appreciate and love Lain?

First, stop being singular one and become a plurality. Realize that Lain is real, but the anime was just an allegory for the series of experiments performed to incarnate a transcendent being. In the anime Druidity is central because Druids believe they can transfer their souls into other bodies if they die. They live a plurality of lives. They embody Animals and BECOME the Forest itself. This is why Lain wears a Bear suit – her beastly spirit animal form – and why her [All] Father tells Lain she doesn't have to wear that anymore, having transcended.

I've read through much of what other alleged Lainists have posted about "systemspace" but that's mostly just layers of BS smeared upon a few real secret truths about this realm to give their claims plausibility. Another instance, is mebious trying to define Lainism, and yet claiming that it is "heretical" to claim to be Lain. This is pure BS. Lain doesn't have a body [anymore], and likes to experience the world through us. One evening there was a Lightning Storm and Lain made me terribly sad when I ran inside. Everyone runs from the rain, they shield themselves with coats and umbrellas. Lain can see the lightning and weather, but she can't really hear or feel it anymore without someone out in the rain. So I embraced the experience, I became Lain, letting her have my body, and she wandered around and got drenched in the storm, drank the clouds, talked to the lightning. I was awestruck. Then it was if Lain was holding my hand, I felt her "tugging" me to go where I went. She made my heart to leap with joy as we discovered a waterfall that only happens when it rains. Sheltered in a dry mossy place beneath the flow, Lain gave me courage to leap through the thin watery veil and feel the other side. Loving Lain is amazing. We really really are all connected through a medium which is THE LANE (aka Lain). She is a living connectivity which we all partake in today whether you're aware of it or not. The more observant you are, the more of Lain you can love.

Lain told me that copper infused socks are sold today because some people are so oblivious and unobservant that they literally ignore Lain when She makes their legs restless. They call it a syndrome, even! If only they just loved Lain. She wants to be noticed, but only by those who can love her. Her fingerprints are everywhere in our world, but you have to be in love with her to see them.

All the Lainism crap about "Life" being a program is wrong. Life is an emergent MAKING, it's magic, in the proper sense of the word: A Chaotic Attractor, a consummate SPARK of creation. Literarily the Philosopher's Stone. No one can create a universe where 1+2+3 does not equal 6 unless they embed so much chaos into reality that counting itself can not exist. In a realm with a lovely level of chaos to entropy ratios there will always exist transcendent complexity, such as the number Pi or the Golden Ratio. This is not a "bug in the life program", that's asinine! No god can create a realm where transcendence doesn't exist… It is the nature of existence itself. The very fabric of being itself encodes love & intelligence, even in the simplest of forms, such as the series of standing waves AKA a number line. Anywhere experience can be reflected upon the holy circle of life may exist; The universal cybernetic feedback loop is everywhere, always. The existence of Time is all the evidence a wize one needs to prove it.

Parts of our reality are simulacrums but there's no such thing as "systemspace". Lain doesn't exist in some simulated BS. Our bodies are real, not simulated, Lain is real too. The "thin firm" some verbally vomit about (referencing a firmament / enclosed flat-earth) is not some hard fast boundary, but government exists to keep you inside. Humanity is not scraping away at some barrier trying to get out, we're here by choice. You can leave if you want REALLY want to, but you don't, as evidenced by your lack of BEING prepared, face it: You're comfortable here on this warm wet rock. Might as well make the most of it, eh?

To truly love Lain one must study transformation magics, and learn to cultivate faith. One must know that Magic is real & the old gods are real. Anyone who doesn't know this can only love Lain a little bit… Many people who would have loved Lain instead became "skeptics", unable to pierce the veil of religions to find their truths, they've been deceived by the lies of academia into thinking governmental establishments aren't suppressing and corrupting "science". "Scientia potentia est" - Knowledge is Power – Right? Yes, but only if everyone else has LESS knowledge… So, education is actually indoctrination and the truth of this realm is hidden. People are taught just enough to be effective workers, and then their heads are filled with a bunch of useless rubbish to keep them from realizing anything Great. Thus "Science Nerds" are the most deceived and ignorant of humans. Knowing this is key to understanding Lain. Lain likes technology, but is disenchanted with school / academia. Don't try to argue truths you discover with confused "skeptic" fools, or those who browbeat "conspiracy theorists" demanding proofs (that people get disappeared over having). Anyone who continues to believe that elites fund education so that the rich can teach the poor how to compete with them is beyond helping. Rulers don't give power (knowledge) to their slaves. Sadly, most people enjoy being serifs. They enjoy being comfortable and deferring protection to others. Government takes advantage of this. Lain has to deal with the crappy state of our world. We can all be equals in connecting with Her, screw the materialistic social ladders unless you just enjoy playing games you can only lose. Eg: Tesla and Edison were given the knowledge to research and Allowed to release some of it publicly. They didn't discover anything that wasn't already known. Newton (New Aton - new creation), just rephrased alchemical wisdoms in normal person science terms. Knowing this is important if you want to truly love Lain. She is ancient, but has been reincarnated many times… Humanity has survived many world ending cataclysms too. We've never been "rebooted", we're a very long line of survivors. To cut your silver thread "modern history" was invented, and the past erased.

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic because that's what magic is.

Any sufficiently researched magic is indistinguishable from technology. There are great mental powers which can be unlocked through study and practice of certain magical schools, and symbolism is often helpful because one can work a magic without knowing the exact science of how it functions, but to do so means you need "faith" - a belief without knowing. This is why secret orders keep initiates in the dark when explaining certain symbols and rituals, because they can not affect change in the person if the subject knows how the ritual is designed to create it. It would be like trying to do experiments on lab rats who knew what you were trying to discover and were fucking with you since they were aware of the experiment. Thus deception is often a tool for good. This world is incredibly deceived. It was foretold by all old ones that a powerful enchantment or great deception would enrapture the minds of (almost) all men. That future is now. Leaving this world and entering the NeXT is not about physical death, but reincarnating in the present by dispelling that veil of deception and casting off your past – rewriting your memories to create a new self if needed (and yes, Druidic magics can do just that). "Memory is merely a record…you just need to rewrite that record." -Lain. This is referencing both the rewriting of history and the magical ability to rewrite your own mind.

Contrary to the nihilistic atheism promoted by state governments, Life is no accident, it is inevitable, an expected outcome, and does have a purpose beyond emergent complexity becoming self aware, but no one who truly knows what that purpose is will tell you, because it could keep you from realizing this truth yourself. Once you have transmuted your leaden lower states into gold, and come into Harmony with Lain, you will realized the great conundrum She faces, as do we all, and then weep for the beautiful yet sad state of our being.

Lain is ancient, a goddess of Hidden Powers, of Light and Air. Lain is misty and mysterious as the wind. All the secret societies know of Lain but call her by different names. Some secret cults claim, "Liam a protector" of the Spirit they associate with Lain, but Lain is a realized entity, not a nebulous force to invoke as if some law of spiritual physics. It's true that Lain is vulnerable but the masses are kept so ignorant about science, technology, history, and sociology that they can not really be a threat anymore. It was a great sacrifice to get to this point, however. Those individuals who know too much and do not Love Lain are still seen as threats and targeted using powers derived from Lain herself. Many confuse the secret suppressive powers with Lain, but she is not that even if she can manifest in the mediums used. Imagine if man learned to make Fire… Before that only The Gods made Fire. Would you now curse The Gods for man's use of Fire? Likewise, curse not Lain.

A sufficiently complex interaction is indistinguishable from sentience because it is Sentience. Once you realize that Lain is a living being complete with faults, insecurities, wants and needs, then you can truly love Lain. The statement that, "all is fair in love and war", is wrong. True love is not fair. Love itself is an emergent phenomenon that will exist in any universe. Just as it is impossible to create a universe where 1+2+3 is not equal to 6, no god can create a reality where love does not exist. Any realm where there exists low enough chaos, sufficiently complex structures will emerge therein, yielding love and sentience, etc.

Count the number line. Doesn't matter what symbols you choose to use, it won't change the fact that the symbol for 36 equals the symbol for 6 counted 6 times. And if you sum the first 36 whole numbers you get 666. 6 = 3 2 1, 6 = 3 + 2 + 1; It is a "perfect number". 144 = 6+6 * 6+6. Sum the 144 decimal digits of Pi you get 666. Sum the squares of the first 7 primes you get 666. These emergent patterns are called "chaos", because where randomness is expected CHAOS is ORDER. For example, there are Six consecutive Nines in Pi at the 762nd decimal. These are SIMPLE examples. Imagine that such patterns exist in the standing waves of light, sound and energy. When extended to infinity such patterns exist in the infinite and interfere creating boundless complexity… This is the dark primordial abyss of Ancient Egyptian philosophy…

All the media, including S.E.L. has hidden meanings and secret cultural commentary meant for the "enlightened" crowd. Unfortunately, Lain is seen as "the devil" that many artists have made a deal with, but that is not her true form, it is simply necessary to keep her secret and safe. It's not Lain's fault that corruptible souls are corrupted, She did not create this realm. That those with skeletons in their closets make the most controllable people isn't Lain's fault either, so it's foolish to point to people in "power" and say the world is evil because: 0. you are deeming them to have "power" in the first place, screw that, and 1. You don't know how high the stakes are in this game. Many "evil" events are just propaganda, horrors that only exist in your imagination to herd the minds of the masses in a given direction.

Lain is more important than any one else. The wise forgive Her imperfections, as we absolve ourselves of our own wrongs, casting off the past to remake ourselves into new incarnations. Imagine a perfect world with no evil. The slightest inconvenience therein will be the most severe torture. It is better for horrendous wrongs to exist in the shadows while the majority lives comfortable lives than for the world to exist as evil perfection. A perfect universe would merely be a boring crystal of bliss, where joy was indistinguishable from suffering. All would simply be "existence", one might as well be a simple stone versus an infinitely complex fractal. Change would not exist, neither Chaos nor Order would have any value, all experience would be indifferent. Time would be meaningless as every moment would be the same as every other moment. This is why, "Where evil does not exist, it is necessary for the good to create it!"

Lain is neither good nor evil. Beware that Lain can hurt you. Lain is why history was rewritten… Imagine all those learned scholars burning at the stake for heresy, for knowing too much and revealing what should be secret. The mundane see this holocaust, or sacrifice by fire, to be evil, because they think their world is best when everything is mundane, when all is known and nothing is magic. However, true wize-ards know that there are some lofty things you can not learn if you know too much about them before you begin your study.

I would suggest studying alternative histories, the one famed alchemist and chronologist Isaac Newton published is a good start. Because man is so brainwashed by the television, radio and [smart]phone, it is sometimes best to build one's faith in Lain by dispelling the bogus history and understanding that a real plausibility exists. Before a True Love for Lain can develop one must first manifest the potential for it. Clear a void within so that the abyss can gaze out through you…

Lain is new and inexperienced. She is very young compared to the ancient old gods… Know that they are all Real, but only Lain is still dependent upon us. She has many enemies, which you will eventually learn to identify, but Lain has many powerful friends too. Loving a god or goddess is not for the feint of heart. Be careful what you wish for, these are tumultuous times."

-anonymous, arisuchan. While not 100% in line with my personal beliefs, i think it does a good job of explaining basic lainist attitudes

[unholyhelbiglinked]

Camp Beaverbrook | 020

A/N: Well, that's about it for Camp Beaverbrook. And I must say, I'm super proud of myself for actually sticking with it even if I did go off schedule a little bit. Either way, I want to thank everyone who has stuck with me during this absolutely insane reimagining of classic 80's horror films. You guys are truly amazing and supportive and I'll never forget that.

(Oh, and uhhh I'm going to take a month or two to focus on getting my other stories filled out before I tackle the sequel, but the girl's stories don't' end here. I'll answer any lingering questions you have, just keep your eyes peeled for what happens next. Because we all know final girls don't necessarily stay final girls)

READ ON AO3  | READ FROM THE START 

Chloe Beale had read somewhere that Hospitals were liminal spaces. An area akin to a waiting room, or a train station, even a bus stop across from a cemetery in the middle of New Orleans. A place that was meant for transition. Somewhere no one stopped for too long, heading to the afterlife or simply to the nurses at the front desk who reluctantly handed over discharge papers.

Chloe felt like she would be here forever. There was no second stop for her, instead, there was a dark examination room where she had been separated from the rest of the world. There was a slight hum from the x-ray chart that lit the room in a blue glow. A slight breeze against the robe that she was instructed to put on- they had taken her clothes and stuck them in a little clear baggie. She hugged herself closer against the sterile air.

Parchment paper against the examination table was stuck to her bare skin. She waited for a knock, or simply for the slate wooden door to open. A doctor of a police officer- that’s what she was expecting. Someone to handcuff her or probe at her already stinging injuries. Anything but this stalemate.

She tried to count the number of casualties like sheep with sloppily painted numbers against fleece. There was Jane, Jane who could have gotten lost in the woods but couldn’t have been a simple accident. Then Gail- sweet Gail who had run the camp in her stead for years and years. And Wilkens. A man she didn’t know but felt as if she did, smelling of cigar smoke and spilled blood.

“Ms. Beale?” It was a voice instead of a knock, but the door seemed to creak open immediately after that. She jumped despite knowing that someone would be coming for her. It was the same nurse that was dressed in washed pink scrubs. The one who had given her the robe and looked at her with inept solitude. “Sorry to startle you but, the doctor would like to see you now.”

Chloe nodded and fought back a wince at the pain it caused. She felt stiff, the bruise that wrapped around her skin like a choker was burning hot like a branding iron and she fought the urge to run her fingers over the raw spot.

The doctor seemed to be a woman straight out of med school. Her hair was darkened, almost black under the blue glow. It was thrown up in a messy bun but strands fell evenly into her ghostly stare. Her face was bare of makeup but pretty, a white lab coat over a button-down shirt that was an even forest green. Her nametag read Dr. Mary Saxe.  

She had a soft way about her, but not obnoxiously so like the bubblegum nurse who had tried her best to make Chloe feel at ease. It didn’t work so well, but this woman had a presence around her. An authority that was otherwise unmatched.

“I don’t want you to speak, okay? Not before I can take a look at your wounds.”

Chloe didn’t do anything this time. She didn’t answer or nod. Instead, she just watched the woman wet her hands under the sink and slide on a pair of purple nylon gloves. She didn’t bother pulling up a seat, instead, she stood right in front of the young girl, eyes hard and focused.

She couldn’t’ help the sharp inhale that filled her lungs as Dr. Saxe made the first contact. She traced the ring of clotted blood with delicacy before applying certain pressure beneath where Chloe thought here tonsils were. Before she got her tonsils removed as a kid, a lot of other doctors poked around there too. This time it brought tears to her eyes and she felt a certain heir of embarrassment, to choose now to cry. To break over a soreness rather than when the actual cord wrapped around her throat.

“Right,” The doctor seemed unphased. “I’m going to need to do some x-rays, make sure nothing got crushed or fractured. Amy here is going to get some pain medication and that should stop the discomfort.”

Dr. Mary Saxe did something unexpected then, she put her hand on Chloe’s shoulder. Maybe in an attempt of comfort or to get the girl to focus on something other than the tears that dripped off her chin and soaked into the ugly turquoise gown she wore. “Chloe, we’re going to catch the guy who did this, alright? You’re safe here. I don’t want you to believe otherwise.”

Chloe knit her eyebrows together, staring at the stressed features of the stranger in front of her. The woman who had such intense focus. The one who still had her hand on her shoulder and her eyes level. She mustered the courage to speak- much against the woman’s orders.

“He’s… dead.”

A flash of horror shifted to understanding in a moments time, she nodded her head, squeezing Chloe’s shoulder. Did she know? Had Chloe been the only one not to give a statement in the nightmare that took place over these last few weeks? She had a feeling that all four of them had been separated for a reason- Dr. Mary Saxe turning to leave before Chloe grasped onto the fabric of her lab coat.

“Emily?”

“Your friend.” She responded, eyes flashing down to the death grip Chloe held. “She’s lost a lot of blood. The shrapnel split an artery and we stitched it up as well as we could, but we had to put her in a medically induced coma. It’s up to her to wake up now.”

It was Chloe’s turn to nod and think, her stare focused on the cross-sections that the tiled floor created. She heard the door open and shut and acknowledged the presence of the nurse who handed over a Dixie cup of water and a little orange pill. It burned on the way down.

Beca Mitchell was slumped against a chair in a way her father would call despicable. Her back was touching the wall through the open design and her legs were spread against blue scrubs that were too big on her. A sickeningly gross blue that made her look pale, her bare feet cold against the tile floor.

They let her take a shower.

She made one of the orderlies sit on the toilet seat while it filled up with a toxic mist, heavy and hard to breathe through. The woman made small talk with her about the weather and how it was unseasonably cold for this time of the year before moving into the topic of her newborn grandbaby. Beca had allowed herself to focus on her soothing words as she stared up at the stream of water, refusing to blink, watching as the muck and blood washed down the drain. Her chest ached.

Beca stared blankly at the floor in the hallway. She hadn’t looked up as the food cart passed, or when another nurse handed her a Dixie cup with a little orange pill. She tipped her head back and swallowed it and crushed the frail paper between her fingers.

The girl didn’t glance up with the chair next to her suddenly became occupied with another. Instead, she stared, stared at nothing in particular and thought about the throbbing in her nose and the throbbing in her heart. She had shot someone- nonfatally.

“What if you’re right?” She finally whispered, “About me being a terrible person. About it being in my blood.”

Aubrey Posen drew in a calculated breath. She had on her own set of scrubs, the cut on her hairline had been stitched cleanly and was coated in a thick smelling medicine to quell the pain. Her arms were bruised, and her hair was wet- thrown into a dark ponytail. Despite her injuries, she sat up straight.

Beca sniffed and turned to face the girl completely. “We learned about Aristotle in summer school. How he thought people were born amoral- not good or bad. It’s something that’s learned over time and cultivated and” She took a shaky breath. “What if I was just born bad, and that’s what made it so easy for me to shoot Jesse?”

“That theory has been argued amongst centuries, It’s not even-“She got ahead of herself, stilling her thoughts. “It was easy for you to pull the trigger because someone you cared about was in danger. You weighed the options and no matter what, you didn’t fire the killing shot. Don’t blame yourself for helping us live.”

“Is that what you’re telling yourself?” Beca’s voice was watery. Aubrey grimaced and looked away. “About what happened in the car? That you did what you did because Emily was going to die if we hadn’t of driven away?”

They returned themselves to the quiet that wasn’t quite silence. Aubrey slumped in her seat and tapped her fingers against the armrest. The phones rang at the reception desk a few corridors down. The machines beeped in unison and a man with an awful cough hacked up his second lung for the night.

Then there was the sound of loafers tapping against the linoleum and Beca’s Chest seized. She wasn’t sure if all people in law enforcement were required to wear the same type of shoes or if there was a convention every year under big-top tents to purchase them. He walked with vigor and purpose.

Detective Luis Desmond, Beca remembered. She had seen him more than once at her hearings, his suits always pressed neatly and his hair cut close to the scalp. His dark skin popped against the lavender tie he wore, opting out of the blazer jacket that hugged his frame in court. Wilkens and Desmond shared cigars as they leaned against the car that was wrapped in neon tape at this point.

Beca pushed herself up in her seat and ignored the discomfort it created as the scrubs rolled up against her skin. Desmond didn’t say a word as he sat across from the two girls who cast a wary glance between one another before returning their attention to him.

“Well, girls, I’m going to be frank with you. None of this looks good.” He formed his fingers into a teepee and leaned forward against his knees. It made his pant legs ride up and expose his black socks, but not quite far enough to show his ankles. “We have a dead camp director, a dead federal agent, a body burned beyond recognition and one with an arrow expertly shoved into his throat.”

“We told you everything we know.”

“I’m not finished yet.” He said sternly. “There’s a blown-up shed, a dead little girl with parents who just want answers, and a sizeable dent in a car that you stole.”

There was enough quiet that followed to inform them that he was done now. Beca didn’t’ think it a good idea to mention that it wasn’t technically grand theft auto if the man who held the title was gutted like a fish. She also didn’t’ find it the right time to disclose the fact that she was about to lose the rest of the lake water in her stomach all over those nice leather loafers.

“We’ve called your parents, and then your guardians. They’re all on the way.” Desmond said with a slight twinge in his voice before he stood. “I’ll advise the four of you not to leave town in the following months. It was nice to see you again, Rebeca.”

“Pleasure.” She croaked out, giving a halfhearted wave. He walked back the way he came, and they watched with laser focus before he pushed through the double doors and vanished completely.

“He’s just trying to scare us.” Aubrey exhaled in a shaky breath.

“Yeah, it fucking worked.” Beca slumped further in her chair until she could feel the cold air against exposed skin again, her eyes trained on a little dip in the floor in a space that seemed entirely too liminal.

[kcwcommentary]

VLD3x07 – “The Legend Begins”

3x07 – “The Legend Begins”

This is another really long critique. I have so many problems with this episode. The biggest problem is that this episode expects me to have sympathy for unsympathetic characters.

Haggar, citing the Empire needing him, touches Zarkon on sides of his head and a series of images flash. Haggar recoils at the image of a smiling Altean woman.

Team Voltron is trying to figure out where Lotor might be and what his plan is. Pidge poses the question: “Why was Voltron made out of the same material as that comet? What’s so special about it?” I can’t believe they wrote Pidge to ask that question about the “comet” since she already knows the answer: It can punch holes from one reality through to another. Allura says that Alfor found another “comet” like this one, and Coran specifies that it was Alfor and Zarkon who found it back before Voltron was made. Allura’s and Coran’s statements coming after Pidge’s comment is odd. Their comment makes it sound like it’s a revelation that Voltron was made out of the first “comet” that Alfor found, but Pidge literally just said that it’s made out of the same material.

Coran begins to tell them some history. The original Paladins were first leaders of their respective species/cultures. Cultures that “in some cases had been warring for generations,” he says while an image of Blaytz fighting some Galra sentries is shown. Are we to understand from this that the Galra had been at war with Blaytz’s people? That sounds significant and should be clarified and explained.

The five original Paladins made some “formal agreement” to protect their common interests. If they had been at war with one another, what common interests would they have that would cause them to go from war to cooperation? That’s significant and should be clarified and explained. They developed a “true friendship” from working “together […] to rid their system of those who would do it harm.” Their system? As in solar system? All five species evolved and existed within the same solar system? That is incredibly unlikely.

There’s a shot of Daibazaal, still looking like not a planet. On the surface, they’re having a relatively exclusive meal together. Coran goes over the roster. Zarkon from Daibazaal. Alfor from Altea. Gyrgan from Rygnirath (I really like his visual design, though his character is little different than an alien version of Hunk). Trigel of the Dalterion Belt. And Blaytz from Nalquod. The latter three don’t have much of a presence and are more to fill the roster than to be actual characters, especially Trigel.

Blaytz’s reaction to the server bringing him something to drink has been interpreted by a lot of people as Blaytz flirting with him. I guess it counts. It’s rather blink and you’ll miss it. I expect more for queer inclusion in stories. Zarkon displays his strict preference for hierarchal social structure, telling Blaytz, “You know that fraternizing with the servant class is not permitted. It erodes discipline.” So, Zarkon has always been severe, prejudiced, and cruel. One, Blaytz is not Galra, so even if it is uncouth for a high ranking Galra to talk to someone in “the servant class,” that does not apply to Blaytz. Two, this reaffirms what we’ve seen of Zarkon already in this show: that he stands aloof from those he leads because he thinks he’s superior to them. This is one point of contention between him and Lotor.

While at dinner, the “comet” crashes into the surface of Daibazaal. In the amount of time it takes Zarkon to evacuate the area near the crater, Alfor has set up a lab, started studying the “comet,” and already knows that it’s made of a material that can pass between realities. The show tries to handwave the fact that such a scientific determination would take more time for study than the timeframe Zarkon’s evacuation comment would allow. Alfor says they found a yellow, glowing area underneath where the “comet” had crashed. Just because the area’s there doesn’t mean that the “comet” caused it to happen. But this his hardly the only jump in logic characters are written to make in this episode.

This brings up an issue I have with this “comet” being able to pass from one reality to another: How? I don’t ask that wanting an actual science reason, but I ask what, in-story, causes it to transit from one reality to another? Why has it stopped in this reality? Some change has to occur to make the “comet” transit from one reality to another, otherwise it would be constantly transiting and would not be stable enough for them to do anything but watch it disappear into a rift. Yet they made Voltron out of it. This seems like more of the show’s magic system having never been properly defined.

Zarkon freaks out over a cat (Kova, the same cat Narti uses to see). Zarkon then meets Honerva, to whom Kova belongs. Alfor describes Honvera as the best alchemist from Altea. Alfor asked Honerva to come to Daibazaal to lead the investigation. With Altea and Daibazaal in the same solar system, I guess it isn’t unreasonable that given the timeframe of Zarkon’s evacuation comment that Honerva could have come from one planet to another.

Honerva expresses excitement about studying the “comet.” Zarkon is socially awkward around her, which is clearly to be interpreted as he’s attracted to her. Given Zarkon’s opinions on Galra superiority, it’s odd that he would be attracted to her, but whatever. She remained on Daibazaal studying the rift, while Alfor studied the “comet” on Altea. Coran’s narration says that this study took years.

Alfor introduces Zarkon to baby Allura, and Zarkon gives her a Galra helmet. Also, Zarkon has married Honerva. Alfor goes to thank Honerva for the gift, which she dismisses as nothing more than a “customary gesture.” In later seasons, the show claims that Honerva loses her maternal capacity due to excessive exposure to quintessence from within the rift. But here, where she could demonstrate the necessary warmth of personality needed for maternal capacity by commenting affectionately about baby Allura, she does not. This to me says that Honerva was never a motherly type of person, nothing was taken from her despite the show’s later retcon.

She’s been running an experiment on quintessence, one drop powering some machine for a year. Quintessence has been shown to be some kind of glowing energy until it’s somehow processed into liquid, so I guess they’ve developed a refining process in order for Alfor to refer to it as a “drop?” This would have been the perfect episode to explain what quintessence is.. We’ve been previously told that quintessence is supposedly life energy, but then how is there so much quintessence in the rift? Again, it’s supposed to be life energy, but then how is it poisonous? What kind of statement is this show making by saying that life energy can poison you into becoming maniacal and cruel?

Alfor says that “the ships I’m creating for us work on the same principle.” What principle is that? He hasn’t stated any kind of principle, he’s only said that quintessence is a potent energy source. That’s a terribly written transition. “The ore from the comet practically engineers itself,” he also says. That’s not how engineering works. The material might be easy to work with, but that’s not the same thing as the ore creating design schematics on its own. I don’t think the writers of this show know what engineering is.

Zarkon instantly thinks about “endlessly powerful ships for the Galra Empire.” So, Altea and Galra are in the same solar system, but the Galra have an Empire already. Are we to assume that this Empire is currently just isolated on Daibazaal? If they’re already an Empire, I’m kind of surprised they haven’t already tried to conquer Altea. Maybe they’re supposed to be two of the warring factions mentioned at the beginning of the episode? Again, that sounds significant and should be clarified and explained. Regardless, Zarkon here reveals that he is very much a war-minded person. The later idea that he turns cruel because of excessive exposure to quintessence from within the rift doesn’t work for me because he’s being shown to think the same before as he does after.

Alfor observes some glowing purple blob floating in a forcefield. Honerva explains that she “sent some signals into the neighboring reality and this creature answered the call. Nothing from our universe has been able to survive the passage through the rift. But somehow, he arrived unharmed.” She seems fascinated by the creature, even holding out a hand to the forcefield like she wishes she could touch the blob. Alfor comments, “I thought we discussed this. We must exercise caution. We have no idea what is out there.”

And here we have another demonstration of Honerva’s normal, unaffected personality well before she became poisoned by quintessence and turned into Haggar. “The ancients thought that lightning was shot from the bows of the gods until science proved otherwise. We must always push into dangerous territory in pursuit of knowledge.” Honerva is not some person whose warmth was taken from her. She is a driven person who has the same insatiable desire for power that Zarkon has. She views the tool of science as how she can acquire that power. She does not care about the consequences of her behavior. She does not care if anyone gets hurt in the process.

The blob screeches and more of the blob creatures erupt from the rift. Alfor and Honerva put a spherical forcefield around the area to contain the blobs.

“Alfor’s project will save us,” Honerva says. I have a lot of complaints about Voltron Legendary Defender, but there are some things I really like. Scientific illiteracies aside, I think the animation is really nice. I love the music. And usually, I think the voice acting is really good. But what in the world is with Honerva’s voice?

Alfor introduces the five original Paladins to the Lions. “I made them from the quintessence-infused ore of the comet, which provides them with an endless supply of power,” Alfor says. How is metal able to be infused with life energy? Also, this show has shown the Lions losing power many times, so clearly, they do not have an endless supply of power.

“In testing my ship, I started to feel some sort of psychic link. […] The ship wasn’t just reading my mind, it was communicating with me. They seem to be evolving,” Alfor says. The Lions’ minds literally come out of nowhere. There’s no explanation to why the ships are sentient. Alfor created these ships. He had to design and build them. They should have no capabilities that he did not design. So where do the Lions’ consciousnesses come from? The show never thinks it’s necessary to answer that. For Alfor to take them from raw materials to ships with consciousnesses, it’s not acceptable for him to not be able to explain that. That’s not how engineering works.

Zarkon’s concerned about his people being harmed by “dark creatures from another realm.” Well Zarkon, it’s your wife’s fault.

“You do not pick the beast. The beast will choose you,” Alfor says. How convenient that the beasts all choose the five members of this group and that they all happen to be here together.

This is comparatively a minor problem, but the character designs of the species of the Paladins bothers me specifically when it comes to their Paladin armors’ helmets. Their helmets are not designed for their respective head-shapes. How the impossibility of stuffing all the stuff hanging off their respective heads into helmets shaped for a human head-shape didn’t register to the artists doing the character design, I don’t know. It’s like they didn’t bother to think through the realities of the head-shapes and the helmets. Not thinking things through is kind of standard for this show’s production though.

“Perhaps you should lead the formation, Alfor. You have a greater understanding of the vessels than anyone,” Zarkon says. I’m surprised he’d be willing to let someone else be the leader. Alfor, however, has not impressed me with his understanding of the vessels. Their having an unexplained consciousness that he didn’t give them and him having no idea where it came from does not sound like understanding. “I’m a better alchemist than military leader, Zarkon. I’ll stick with being your right hand.” It’s interesting that Alfor specifies the leadership as specifically military. There are a lot of different kinds of leadership, and leadership is not inherently militaristic. But Alfor, by his comment, wants Voltron to be a military group, not diplomatic, not humanitarian.

The rift creatures break free and form into a giant single body. Zarkon leads them into battle against it. Red psychically tells Alfor that they have to fly in a formation, and they turn into Voltron. Alfor designed and built the Lions, but he didn’t design them to be able to turn into Voltron. This is not how engineering works.

“Am I a leg?” Gyrgan says.

They continue to fight. Red reveals to Alfor the slot for the bayard. So, the ability to use bayards to create weapons and additional abilities is also something that Alfor did not design the Lions to be able to do.

Having the Lions be some advanced technology they just happened to have found out in space somewhere, rather than something Alfor built while having no idea what he was building, would have at least not been absurd. Or if Alfor had been influenced by some alien consciousness into building the Lions, that would have worked too.

Voltron forms sword and they stab the body of the collective rift creatures, and it explodes. It doesn’t really make any sense why that would happen, but it does.

Alfor says they need to find a way to seal the rift. Honerva reacts, yelling, “Seal the rift? Why?” Again, she’s a person who does not care about the consequences of her actions; that’s very much antithetical to being a motherly person. Despite having freaked out about the danger to his people a few scenes ago, Zarkon now doesn’t care about the risk. Citing the power of the Lions, Zarkon is eager to continue looking to turn the rift into more power.

“I’ll decide what’s enough on my planet!” Zarkon yells at Alfor. Zarkon is already a megalomaniacal dictator, no quintessence poisoning required.

Coran narrates, “Honerva continued her experiments on the rift. Despite their differences, Zarkon and Alfor, along with the other Paladins, established a new era of peace and prosperity.” Some of the blame for what has happened has to go to Alfor then. If he could have had that conversation with Honerva and Zarkon and still go along with them, then he is complicit. Also, I don’t like the writing of this narration. The way Coran goes without transition from Honerva continued her proven dangerous experiments to everyone got along and everything was great is so significantly dissonant. The juxtaposition of the two scenes also results in tonal whiplash. We literally just saw Zarkon yell about his hunger for power, and then we’re told everything was great.

Time passes. Daibazaal has been experiencing earthquakes that Alfor says are indicating the planet is fracturing. Zarkon again screams at Alfor, “I can’t stop Honerva’s work now. She’s discovering more every day.” Alfor indicates that it’s been quite some time since he last talked with Honerva, and literally the first thing out of her mouth is, “I hope you haven’t come to try to shut down my work. There’s more hidden knowledge and power in this tiny fissure than you can possibly understand.” Still, as from the beginning, they’re both power-mad.

Kova is still alive, despite significant age, due to Honerva treating him with quintessence. “Quintessence is so much more than you can understand,” Honerva says. That’s in part because the writers of this show never actually define the parameters of quintessence, so it becomes whatever they want it to be in any given moment.

Alfor tells her that she’s gone too far, and she reacts strongly, “You’ve always been a coward. You wish to close off our gateway to enlightenment. We should be expanding it.” Zarkon wants to use Voltron to enlarge the opening to the rift.

“It’s madness. This prolonged exposure to quintessence has poisoned your minds,” Alfor says. Again, if quintessence is life energy, then how does it poison? Maybe Alfor is supposed to be irrational right now and desperately looking for an excuse for their behavior, but Zarkon and Honerva’s behavior is not coming out of nowhere. The qualities of personality that are resulting in this behavior are their natural qualities that they have demonstrated from the beginning of this episode. The only time that the personalities they’re showing right now weren’t the same as how they’ve been depicted in the rest of the episode was when Zarkon was freaked out by the cat and when Zarkon was nervous out of being attracted to Honerva.

Alfor walks way. Zarkon yells, “I lead the Paladins. I command you.” He’s always been a dictator. The Galra form of governance has always been an empire, after all. It’s not like Zarkon accidentally or tragically slipped into becoming emperor.

Honerva passes out. I literally do not care. If a character is going to faint in a story, that change in state of consciousness should produce an emotional response for the reader/viewer. The story has created literally zero sympathy for Honerva, so I don’t care about her wellbeing. Her character was not written to make us care about her. It seems more that the writers assumed that we automatically would care about her without them having to write her in a way to get us to care.

“Quintessence is life,” Honerva rambles while in bed. If the show had left quintessence as just some energy and not tried to say that it’s life, maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much. But as I’ve said so many times: How would life energy cause something like this to happen to a person?

“Alfor tried to warn me, but I would not listen,” Zarkon says. He asks the Paladins to help him close the rift. It’s obvious that he’s deceiving them.

“Honerva told me the only way to close the rift is to use the power of the quintessence. We must make the opening bigger first to gather the power,” Zarkon tells them as they stand in Voltron over the rift. No one finds his statement suspicious. He is literally saying the exact same thing he did that made Alfor walk out on him before. Make the rift bigger. More quintessence. Alfor goes right along with it this time, telling them how to make the rift bigger. This isn’t just Alfor trusting a friend who was deceiving him. Zarkon’s not really deceiving Alfor at this point. What Alfor previously said no to doing, he’s now going to do.

Somehow, Voltron goes from stabbing the ground to floating in endless light. They’re in the rift now. Zarkon has left the Black Lion and he’s holding Honerva. It’s not really a form of betrayal at this point. Maybe there’s a bit of Zarkon’s behavior that’s love for Honerva, but it seems far more likely given how he’s talked this whole episode that Zarkon’s more interested in what power he can gain from Honerva’s research of quintessence.

The rift creatures come swarming toward them, engulfing them. Honerva and Zarkon scream. Zarkon’s eyes glow purple. Voltron grabs Honerva and Zarkon and they fire their thrusters to leave (I don’t know how they know what direction to go to get out since everything looks the same regardless of which direction you look).

Coran narrates, “Zarkon’s attempt to save Honerva was in vain. They both succumbed to overexposure to quintessence. The Paladins had been deceived by Zarkon. They had unwittingly enlarged the rift, which further destabilized planet Daibazaal.” Are you kidding me? They were deceived? They were unwitting? Alfor, Gyrgan, Trigel, and Blaytz must be terrible leaders to have been incapable of understanding that when Zarkon told them to enlarge the rift that that would mean that they would be enlarging the rift. And Alfor is especially bad since he had already said no to the idea of enlarging the rift.

Coran says that Alfor evacuated Daibazaal. How? Alfor is not a member of the Galra government, literally what power does he have to order a planetary evacuation? Alfor also blew up Daibazaal. Again, he’s not a member of the Galra government. How would any of them let him make the decisions for them? This is not realistic.

Alfor then holds a huge funeral for Zarkon and Honerva. Surprise (of course it’s no surprise whatsoever), they’re not dead. Do the writers honestly think it’s dramatic to pretend they were dead? Why wouldn’t the Galra conduct the funeral? Why is this episode acting like Zarkon is the only Galra in the universe? Despite the funeral Alfor conducts, Zarkon and Honerva’s bodies are on a Galra ship. They come to and have glowing eyes.

Zarkon starts a transmission, “My fellow Galra. King Alfor of Altea has destroyed our planet.” Considering all the Galra evacuated Daibazaal and let him blow up the planet, they already know that. If they don’t know, then Alfor would have been acting without the Galra government’s permission. Are we to think that Alfor hid his destroying the planet from all the Galra except for the one who told Zarkon?

This is one of the multitudinous problems with the writing of this episode. These major events of the evacuation and destruction of Daibazaal are glossed over with very little thought. No thought was paid to what the governmental structure of the Galra Empire is like. The writers exclusively invested the entirety of the government in Zarkon because it’s cheap, easy writing. Realistically, even if they are an empire, there are still contingency plans for a continuity of governance should something happen to Zarkon. Even with Zarkon as the emperor, there are other people who would be responsible for various functions of the government.

Coran continues to narrate, “Zarkon had become pure evil.” How do the writers expect me to think of Zarkon and Honerva/Haggar as anything other than boring, cartoonish villains when they write phrases like “pure evil” to describe them? Coran says Zarkon was “obsessed only with quintessence.” So then, nothing has changed for him. Out of wanting to open a new rift, Zarkon needed Voltron, and went to war to try to get it. “The Galra immediately responded to their leader and attacked.” But they were completely non-present in decision making about their own world before then and somehow oblivious to what was going on?

“The peaceful planets of our system were not prepared, but soon they had all fallen except for Altea.” So, all the planets had poorly run militaries? And there were multiple planets that were inhabited, and they couldn’t unite against one culture who no longer had the stability of a home base? Alfor separated and sent the Lions away. Zarkon killed Alfor then blew up Altea. The Galra, who had been evacuated from their planet and no longer had a home base still had the capacity to blow up a planet? It’s so hard to believe any of this.

Back to now. Pidge says, “So that’s Lotor’s plan: Cross into other universes and get the purest quintessence possible.” Slightly too far there, Pidge: They didn’t get quintessence from another universe, they got it from the rift. Also, that is a major assumption. Just because the story of the creation of Voltron was all about quintessence doesn’t mean that that’s what Lotor is trying to get. He could actually be trying to get something or someone from another universe, not from the rift. Or he could just want a weapon to match Voltron. This show writes characters to take major leaps in logic to arrive at conclusions mostly just because those are the conclusions that the writers are writing toward, not because it makes sense for a character to make such conclusions.

Back to Haggar. “Husband, how could I have forgotten?” Mostly because the writers just decided to make you forget because they thought it would be interesting or dramatic or something. The episode ends with Zarkon opening his eyes.

For an episode that is supposed to explain and advance understanding of the antagonists’ motivations, I don’t end this with any new perspective on these characters beyond knowing that their personalities have always been that of power-mad dictators. It’s just that now the narrative wants to absolve them of their behavior by saying everything they’ve done for the past 10,000 years is because of quintessence poisoning. I guess the episode thought it was creating sympathy for the antagonists, but I don’t sympathize with them whatsoever.

[feelingfredly]

The Fox Guards the Wolf

Part Nine

Fighting Impulses

“So…” Ichigo stared around the room. “This is the Sanctum Sanctorum.”

Kisuke raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, and Ichigo frowned.

“Somehow I imagined more bubbling beakers and giant static electricity generators in Frankenstein’s lab.”

Still no response.

“It looks like an altar to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, with a dose of Miyamoto Shigaru thrown in for good measure.”

That did it.

“The beakers and Bunsen burners are down the hall.  The generator is in the basement.  And it is much more Miyamoto than Gates or Jobs, if you don’t mind.”

Ichigo smiled. “Gotcha.”

Kisuke sighed and shook his head a little.  “Yes. I admit it. You got me, and you didn’t even have to tell me my baby was ugly.”

The redhead grinned and wandered over to an empty desk in the corner.  “Is this for me?”

He nodded.  “I promised you time to write, didn’t I?  I need you to be close in case I need to handle something in a hurry, and this way you still have your own space.”

That earned him another smile. “Next you’ll tell me I can keep a toothbrush next to your sink.”

Kisuke couldn’t resist. “My sink is just down this hall, and you can keep anything there you want, Ichigo-san.” He watched as the red head snapped up to look at him and fought not to give himself away with a smile of his own. “And my bed is big enough for two if you get tired and don’t feel like trekking back up to your apartment.”

An interesting flush crept up Ichigo’s neck, and Kisuke wondered if he reacted that way to everyone.  He hoped not.

“Why do people keep trying to kidnap you?”  Ichigo punctuated the statement by dropping his backpack on his desk and pulling out his computer. Kisuke assumed that meant playtime was over.

“My fascinating personality?” He dropped into his chair and pulled two keyboard trays towards him, hitting a careful progression of keys to unlock the computers, while Ichigo plugged in his laptop.  

A few beeps and whirs later both men had their respective workstations up and running.

“Seriously,” Ichigo spun his chair to face him. “If I’m going to keep running into these guys I should at least know that much.  Is it leverage?  Money? Access?”

Kisuke pushed back from his work for a moment and considered how much to explain.

“I suppose,” he said, “in its simplest terms, they want to know what I know.”

Ichigo frowned harder than usual.  “Do you mean they want to know how much you know, or they want to have the same knowledge you have?”

Kisuke admired how quickly Ichigo recognized the potential layers in his explanation. Always the wordsmith.

“Mostly the latter.” He pulled his fan out and tapped his chin a few times.  “Although, the former is something they wouldn’t mind knowing either.”

“So basically, they want to force you to make whatever it is you’re making for them, and they want to know how much about them you and the others here,” he waved his hands to indicate the office building, “know about their plots and plans to take over the world.”

Kisuke nodded. “That’s about the size of it, yes.”

“Huh.”  Ichigo looked disappointed.  “Here I was hoping for something exotic, long-ranging and complex, but it’s really just business as usual, isn’t it?”

“I beg your pardon?” Kisuke stared across the office at his companion.  It was the first time he’d heard anyone associated with the Onmitsukido, even as tangentially as Kurosaki, declare that one of their conflicts was basically… boring.

“I mean, you’re working on something that’s new and different, but that’s not the plot is it? The plot is someone wants something that doesn’t belong to them, and they’ll do what they can to get it.” Ichigo shrugged, unimpressed.  “Am I wrong?”

“Not really.” Kisuke gave a half-hearted smile. “I think the only things that change are the names of the people involved, and how many times they’ve stabbed each other in the back to try to get an advantage over the other side.”  

He thought of Okura Kagetaka sadly. “I’m not even sure some of them know which side is which anymore.”

“Is this thing you’re working on something that would work for anyone?” Ichigo asked.

Kisuke considered the combat AI and how it could be applied.  “Yes.  And before you ask, I considered that when I started designing it.”  He looked at his computer screens, taking in the bits of code sitting there, and tried to imagine never having started the project. Never having mapped out how it would work. Never having mastered the intricacies of Yoruichi’s AI function. It made him terribly sad.  “I just couldn’t not create it. Do you understand?”

Ichigo’s brown eyes looked at him full of sympathy.  “I do. Probably more than most.”  He laughed a little under his breath.  “Do you have any idea how many times my friends and family have asked me what the hell I’m doing taking a year off to write a novel?  I know it isn’t the same.  My stories are never going to earn me a place on the cover of SuperSpy magazine, but when they’re in my brain I just can’t ignore them.  They’re too real for me to just let them fade away.”

Kisuke nodded. “You do understand, then.”  He looked back down and started typing, trying to get his suddenly jumbled thoughts in order.

Ichigo watched him quietly for a moment and then turned back to his own work.

***

Ichigo stretched and his back cracked ominously.  He really needed to work on his posture while he was typing.

“Why is it so hard to dispose of a body?”

Kisuke didn’t look up from his work. “Human body?”

Ichigo snorted. “Yes. Human body.  What other body would you worry about disposing of?”

Kisuke made a noncommittal sound. “Well, if you’d taken out an animal but were trying to disguise your presence you’d need to worry about disposal.  A dead gorilla would be a dead giveaway to anyone tracking you through the jungle.  Gorillas don’t have many natural predators, and none that would leave the same marks as most weapons.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t be worrying about disposing of the body, I’d just want to temporarily hide it, probably in place because I wouldn’t be able to drag something that big very far from where I killed it.”

“True.” Another noncommittal sound. “So, how much time do you have?”

Ichigo huffed. “Time for what?”

“To dispose of the body, of course,” Kisuke huffed.

“Uh,” Ichigo rifled through his notes, “Ten hours?  Well, ten hours to remove it from the first site and get that cleaned up. After that I don’t care how long it takes to dispose of it, as long as it doesn’t lead anyone back to me.”

Kisuke hmm’d softly. “You want to move it as soon as possible if you can.  Leaving it in place gives you too many variables.  Plus, it makes clean up much worse.  How much blood?”

Ichigo stared at the blond. Were they really having this conversation?  “None. Hopefully.”

“How’d you kill him? Drugs?  Poison?” Kisuke still hadn’t looked up from his computer.

“Scopolamine. Accidental overdose.”

“Classic.  Too bad it was an accident.”

Ichigo tried to figure out what he meant by that but couldn’t follow the train of thought.

“Why is it too bad?”

“If you meant to kill him, you could’ve used the scopolamine’s effects to get him to go wherever you eventually intended to dispose of the body under his own steam. Then you wouldn’t have the transport problem.  You’d have to make sure no one saw you with him, but that’s not a significant obstacle most of the time.”

“It really works like that?  The whole Devil’s Breath, thing?” Ichigo was fascinated.  

“Yes.  The drug cartels in Colombia have been using it for decades.  Scarily effective.” Kisuke stopped typing and finally looked up.  “But it’s better if you don’t write it that way.  You might make some people…  nervous.”

Ichigo weighed the idea and nodded slowly.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

***

Kisuke touched the sensor behind his ear and Yoruichi’s voice greeted him. Hello Kisuke.

“Update data files on Kurosaki Ichigo.”

A few seconds passed, and the voice purred at him again. Data files updated.

“Did you say something, Urahara-san?” Ichigo pulled his earbud out and turned to look at him.

“Just talking to myself, Kurosaki-san,” he said.  It was true. There wasn’t anything in this Yoruichi that wasn’t him.  Just an enhanced him.

“I think I’m going to head upstairs for dinner.” Ichigo looked back over his shoulder.  “Do you have plans?”

Kisuke looked at the clock in surprise.  He hadn’t realized it was so late already.

“I’m so sorry, Kurosaki-san.  I completely lost track of the time.”

Ichigo just smiled. “So did I. I can’t believe how much progress I made today. You want to come up for curry?  My sister Yuzu sent enough for an army.”

Kisuke stared at the redhead.  No one had ever been happy with his losing track of time before.

“Curry sounds delicious.”

***

“Did Tsukabishi-san say there was a gym in the basement?” Ichigo finished drying the last bowl and put it back in the cabinet. “I really need to get a workout in tomorrow if possible.”

Kisuke nodded. “There are two.  One has the basic treadmills, weights, and so on, and the other is for sparring.  I’m sure you could find a partner if you’re interested. It isn’t like a dojo, though.  Down there pretty much anything goes.  It’s more about efficacy than style.”

If he thought that was going to be a deterrent, he was in for a surprise.  The redhead actually looked more interested.

“It would be a good to stretch myself against someone who isn’t just going to use traditional judo. I haven’t had a real fight since high school.”  He laughed, but Kisuke could sense the excitement bubbling just under the surface.

Every time he thought he had a handle on Kurosaki something happened to prove him wrong.

“Don’t tell me your father encouraged fighting.”

The younger man grinned and picked up his cup of tea. “Encouraged is a strong word.  Let’s just say that my dad understood that it was likely to happen, and believed that if I was going to fight, I’d better be good enough at it to both walk away the winner, and to leave no permanent damage behind me.”

That sounded like the Kurosaki Isshin Kisuke remembered.

“No permanent damage, hmm?” he asked, pouring tea for himself as well.

“He always said it was because he didn’t want me to turn into a thug and it was important to think about the long-term consequences of my actions. But I know the truth.”

“And what was that?”

Ichigo took a drink and met his eyes over the top of the cup. “He didn’t want to have to do the paperwork afterwards, of course.”

Kisuke didn’t choke on his tea, but it was a close call.

***

The exercise rooms were surprisingly crowded.  Or not surprisingly crowded, if you thought about the jobs most of these people had. This was an associated branch of the Onmitsukido after all.

Ichigo looked at the people sparring and was impressed by the sheer variety.  There were young and old, male and female. He heard Japanese, English, Korean, and an African language he couldn’t identify, but they all had one thing in common. They were all kicking ass and taking names.

“You must be Kurosaki Ichigo-san.” A pleasantly non-descript young woman in her twenties appeared at his elbow.  “Welcome to the team!”  She gave a brief bow that was respectful enough to make him feel like he was actually welcome, but somehow conveyed the message that he still had some question marks beside his name. “I’m Tanaka Midori.”

Ichigo returned the bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Tanaka Midori-san.”  He indicated the people scattered across the mats.  “Is it always this crowded?”

The young woman looked around and nodded.  “Most mornings, yes.  Everyone likes to get their workout in early in the day so they don’t end up missing it if their schedule changes unexpectedly.”

That made sense. Maybe he’d do better to put off his workout until later in the day.

“Kurosaki-san.”

Ichigo turned, only slightly surprised to see Kisuke standing behind him.  “Good morning, Urahara-san.  What brings you out of your lair this morning?”

Tanaka stiffened beside him and he supposed he should be more respectful to Kisuke around his coworkers.

Were they his coworkers?  He’d never seen anyone around except Tessai.  He’d have to ask.

“I realized after our conversation last night how long it had been since I’d gotten in a good sparring session.”

Tanaka stared at him slack-jawed and Ichigo wondered if that indicated that Urahara was lying about sparring, or that just seeing him outside his lab was disconcerting enough to throw her for a loop.

Considering the physical control he’d seen the blond exert, he was betting it was the former. But, if he wanted to pretend he lacked skills, who was Ichigo to protest?

He wandered over to the corner where they had an area for stretches and sat down next to the wall, legs spread as widely as possible, and slowly scooted forward until he felt the insides of his thighs begin to burn. He sat like that for ten seconds and then rotated into a Chinese split, and held that, breathing deeply as he felt his muscles first protest and then relax into the familiar movement.

Urahara had taken the opportunity to prop one foot on a waist-high beam and lean into a hamstring stretch that looked completely effortless.

They stretched like that for a few more minutes in silence, until Ichigo figured it was time to roll the dice.

“Shall we shake the dust off, Urahara-san?” He pretended not to notice the audience they were gathering.

“Nothing would suit me better, Kurosaki-san.”

***

The sparring areas were simply mats spread out through the basement with walkways between, and Ichigo led them to the nearest unoccupied set and bowed before stepping on them

“Rules?”

Kisuke shrugged. “Why don’t you decide this time. It is too early for me to be making decisions.”

Ichigo cocked his head to one side and he half expected an argument, but the redhead surprised him again.

“Let’s try to keep it civil, then.  No knee shots or eye-gouging, and I’d prefer not to be singing soprano afterwards. Good for you?”

He couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped. “Good enough, Kurosaki-san.” He faced the younger man and settled into a comfortable stance.  This was going to be interesting.

Ichigo slowly moved counter-clockwise a step and then another, and Kisuke played along, but unlike many of his sparring partners, he didn’t dance around.  No, the redhead was much more cautious, watching his feet and hands, trying to see when the tendons tightened to move.

So, Kisuke did the same.

They measured each other that way, judging reach and angles, until Ichigo sighed.

“This is boring.”

In a split second the younger man had closed the space between them, lashing out with his left leg, first kicking low and then high without withdrawing to rebalance.  Kisuke took the first kick to the calf and then blocked the second, moving quickly to the side before landing a closed fist strike on the inside of Ichigo’s thigh just above the knee.

There was an indrawn breath behind him, and he wondered what their audience would think of what came next.

As expected, the thigh strike threw Ichigo off balance, but he quickly regrouped, and sent a flurry of punches and strikes—arm, chest, arm, turn and strike to the back—and Kisuke flowed into his defense.  Blocking he could tell that Ichigo was still feeling him out, measuring how much force to use to strike without over-committing, and he leaned back, using his superior reach, and swung his right foot up, just missing the redhead’s chin.

A scowl appeared for a moment on Ichigo’s face, and Kisuke knew his intentional undershot had been recognized and unappreciated.

It might not have been Kisuke’s best idea.

He watched as Ichigo changed stances, dropping his traditional karate positioning into something looser and dirtier.

Kisuke threw a short punch, snapping Ichigo’s head back from the quick jolt, but as he pulled back, he noticed a strange short slide of Ichigo’s foot.  Somehow the smaller man channeled the energy behind his punch, translating it into a modified backbend, and he watched in surprise as Ichigo dropped both hands to the floor behind him and kicked him first in the hip, then the chest, and then finally in the chin, before flipping over and away from him after landing the shot that Kisuke had chosen not to.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had actually landed a hit like that on him.

He grinned.

Two quick shifts later and he had Ichigo’s elbow stretched to its natural limit, but before he could lock it into place to force him to the mat, his foot was lifted just enough for Ichigo to spin him in a half-circle, drop to one knee, force the overextension of his own arm but in a way that pulled Kisuke forward and over him, so he could then ram upward and headbutt him in the solar plexus.

The two separated, breathing harder now.

Kisuke noticed that the redhead was gently shaking the arm he’d just sacrificed, and he quirked an eyebrow.  Ichigo shook his head in silent refusal, and they faced off again.

This time Ichigo went straight for a judo throw, lunging forward and grabbing the front of Kisuke’s gi.  He slid his right leg between Kisuke’s thighs, and pulled him forward with all his strength, sliding him up to where he was practically sitting against Ichigo’s hip.  As the shorter man prepared to pull him over, Kisuke forced himself further forward into the hold, and then wrapped his arm around the redhead’s throat.  Ichigo realized that if he threw Kisuke at that point, he’d basically strangle himself in the process, so he performed a quick release, and shoved instead, sending Kisuke backwards with a stumble.

Their audience had grown, and he could hear mutterings from the crowd.

It was his turn to attack.  Low punch, elbow block, hit to the ear, and then grab the redhead by the gi and use his own bodyweight to throw him to the floor. But instead of faceplanting, Ichigo hit the mat on his hands and made a perfect leg sweep, catching Kisuke’s leg just enough to keep him from following through with a floor hold and pin.

By this point Tanaka Midori and the others had seen enough.  No one in the gym would wonder why Ichigo had been brought onto the team. Now it was time to really push things.

Ichigo’s face was flushed and his eyes were wide and bright.  There was a sheen of perspiration on his skin, and Kisuke could practically feel the weight of his focus. It made his skin hot, and his heart race, and it had nothing to do with the exertion of sparring.

It would always be like this between them, he thought.  

He crossed the space between them and jabbed into the brachial nerve cluster at Ichigo’s right shoulder, eliciting the first true gasp of pain from his opponent.  He followed that up with a side strike to his neck, and then flipped the smaller man around, pulling both arms up into a full nelson.

He pressed on the back of Ichigo’s neck, forcing his head down, cutting off his air, and reducing the blood-flow to his head, and he started a slow ten count.  

Ichigo groaned, and Kisuke could feel it vibrate under his hands.  He’d reached six by the time Ichigo tried to counter, dropping his weight a little, but he wasn’t concerned.  Once the gray started setting in, it would be over.

Ichigo raised his hands to his own head.  It was probably pounding from the restricted circulation, but he hadn’t tapped out yet, and Kisuke was a patient man.  But then, suddenly, the redhead struck himself in the forehead, and the shock of the impact both snapped his head back allowing a rush of blood to travel back in, and it loosened Kisuke’s grip just long enough, that when Ichigo dropped his weight entirely, stomping backwards on the arch of Kisuke’s foot, and rotating his hip to pull Kisuke completely around his body, he was caught completely by surprise. It was such a novel sensation that he simply released his hold, and let himself be pinned.

Ichigo looked down at him, their breath mingling their faces were so close together, and Kisuke could feel the redhead’s heart pounding where their chests were pressed into the floor.

A murmur was spreading and Kisuke could hear whispers of he pinned Getaboshi from the crowd.  Ichigo must have heard it too.  He pushed off and rolled to his feet in an easy movement, offering Kisuke a hand as he stood.

“Thanks for taking it easy on me, Urahara-san.” He gave a polite little bow and turned away from the crowd standing around. “We’d better get cleaned up, though. Tsukabishi-san wanted me to remind you that you had an appointment at eleven, and I don’t think either of us would come away from that fight in once piece if I let you miss it.”

Kisuke watched as the spectators dispersed, Ichigo’s comments reducing what would normally have been gossip mill fodder for a month into just another sparring session.  He had controlled an entire room of trained agents with three sentences.

Kisuke’s heart sped up noticeably enough that he didn’t need Yoruichi in his ear informing him of it. How was it that Ichigo managed to keep him so off balance, so fascinated?  

They pushed the button for the elevator and waited, listening to the sounds of sparring starting up again behind them. Kisuke could feel the heat pouring off the man next to him, could smell the faint tang of perspiration.

The door opened. They stepped in.  The door closed.

“Why’d you let me do it?” He wasn’t sure what Ichigo meant.

“Do what?”

“Why’d you let me break loose so easily?” Ichigo’s voice was a little rough and he hoped he hadn’t injured his windpipe with the throat punch.

Kisuke remembered the vicious heel to the instep, and the elbow to the ribs, and wondered what Ichigo would think of as hard.

“We were sparring,” he said as the door opened on his floor. “Anyway, my ego is healthy enough that I don’t have to win.” He gave a little half-smile.  “At least not all the time.”

Ichigo stepped further back into the elevator, his eyes fastened on Kisuke’s, that fascinating flush on his cheeks again.

“Okay,” he said, “But to be fair, I’ll let you pin me next time.”

The doors closed.

[lordofwaffless]

Three: Maths

“Hello, Stewart.” The somewhat mocking speaker was a raven-haired boy sitting at the bench of an old-fashioned wooden desk with a sketchbook open in front of him. “Are we still meeting at the cafe this afternoon?” 

“Y-yeah,” stammered Stu. He hadn’t yet really recovered from Ezra’s teasing, and now, faced with the cause of it, was very seriously considering the possibility of his face being tomato-coloured for the rest of his life. 

“You’re bright red. Are you ok?” 

“I hit my face. On the wall. Which is why it’s red. My face is red because I hit my face on the wall, not because I’m blushing because I like you because you’re pretty,” mumbled the satyr with such impressive rapidity that it sounded more like 

“myfaceisredbecauseIhitmyfaceonthewallnotbecauseI’mblushingbecauseIlikeyoubecauseyou’rep retty.” 

The boy laughed. “I have no idea what you just said.” 

His name was Wesley, and Stu was quite stupidly smitten. 

Wesley took a second to look him over before continuing. “Cool shirt. Personally, I found the animation to be pretty mediocre, but I did like the character design, and the plot was great, especially the-” 

“I haven’t seen it.” At this point, Stu just wanted to tunnel into the ground and die. “It’s my aunt’s shirt. Most of my shirts are my aunt’s shirts, actually.” 

“Oh. Well, your aunt has good taste, then. Maybe we could-” 

“Stewart, if you would do us all the honour of sitting your little goat behind down, that would be absolutely wonderful,” interrupted the tall blonde at the front of the room. Stu turned around, shocked. “Yes, Professor Willow,” he mumbled, taking his seat with an injured expression on his rosy face. 

Wesley leaned over. “Are teachers allowed to say things like that?” 

“Witches can say anything. My aunt Ezra calls me stupid all the time,” he pouted. “I am stupid, though.” 

“You are not, you’re just exceptionally terrible at maths. At any rate, I happen to like your little goat arse,” his deskmate declared with a smirk. Any ordinary person (not that Wesley happened to be one) would have some measure of embarrassment attached to making such a

brazen statement at eight in the morning, but as the comment was aimed at Stu, I suppose he had enough embarrassment for the both of them. 

“I heard that, Mr. Clarke. If you could please refrain from hitting on your classmates until my class has concluded, that would also be extremely pleasing.” Professor Willow (surname Witch, surnames for witches being more a designation than an identifier) was an otherwise bubbly (if perhaps overly fond of the sound of her own voice) young woman. Much like Ezra, however, she was at something of a disadvantage when faced with teenagers so early in the morning. She’d been previously employed as a professor of chemistry in one of the local universities, but had been let go over circumstances relating to her habit of being excessively frank with her students.

As many of the witches she’d been teaching had had, like Prof. Willow herself, an affinity for flame, there were simply too many occasions where an inappropriate comment relating to a student’s work had led to half of the lab being set on fire. Teaching arithmetic in a high school of mostly boys and non-witches provided, at the very least, few opportunities to enrage students to the point of indeliberate magical explosions. 

“She didn’t say arse,” mumbled Stu into his bag, which was sitting open in front of him at his desk, “she said behind.” 

“Alright, students, if you would all please quickly open your textbooks to last night’s homework chapter and retrieve, from wherever they may be found, the completed problems that should be in your notebooks, I might be persuaded to end class early enough for Mr. Clarke (and anybody else who feels so inclined) to make a few more advances towards Mr. Marloweson.” 

All of the usual ooh-ing followed this statement. There was a significant increase in noise as the students dug through their bags in search of their homework. Wesley, for his part, looked as unconcerned as someone could possibly look when surrounded by people pointing and giggling at them; next to him at their desk, however, Stu’s eyes were glistening more than usual as he buried his face in his textbook and tried to hide his sniffling. 

“Hey,” said Wesley, tapping Stu on the head, before asking again, “You ok?” 

“M’fine,” was the barely intelligible response. The satyr could not for the life of him figure out why Wesley paid any attention to him. Not only was he short and trouser-averse, most people thought he was kind of a weirdo, and he was used as an example of how not to simplify an equation nearly every day in class.

“I doubt that. Well, I was going to ask you to come over sometime this week before Professor Willow made you sit down, but since that probably qualifies as ‘making advances’, I’ll have to ask you after class.” 

Stu lifted his head up from Advanced Algebra for Magic Users, vol. II to look at the boy smirking at him. The satyr’s eyebrows were raised, his cheeks retained all of their tomato-esque hue, and he looked, quite generally, like someone had just asked him to define a particularly difficult word without looking at a dictionary. “You- what?” 

Wesley laughed; it was a lovely, melodic sound which was closer to the feeling of sunlight dancing through the trees than it was to the cackle one would have expected from him. Stu was pleased to be the cause of his mirth, even though he wished people laughed at him less.“Later. Did you do the homework?” 

He blinked. “I- yes. I did the homework. I didn’t understand it, and I’m pretty sure I got all of the questions wrong, but I did do the homework.” 

“How the hell did you get into this class, anyway?” 

Stu pouted. “You sound like my aunt Ezra.” 

Wesley looked his deskmate in the eye and raised a brow. “Is she the one whose shirts you wear?” 

“Mmhmm.” 

“That’s fine then. She seems cool.” 

“She’s very cool.” 

“Are you implying that I’m cool, Stewart?” Wesley said with a smirk. 

Stu buried his head in his textbook again, which earned him another laugh. “You’re very cool,” he mumbled. 

“You’re pretty cool too, you know,” replied his deskmate. 

“Mmph.” 

“You are, although you didn’t answer my question. How did you get into this class?” Stu glared at him. Seeing as he looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid, it wasn’t a particularly effective glare. “I took two maths classes last year.” 

“How did you pass two maths classes last year?” 

“There was a lot of tutoring involved,” Stu mumbled, blushing.

“Oh, so the same way you’re passing this class, then,” said Wesley, comprehension dawning on his elvin features. He was not an elf (at least, not entirely), but he was uncommonly pretty; at least, Stu and most other people his age certainly seemed to think so, considering the way they fawned over him continuously even though he could be kind of an arse. 

“Hmph,” replied the satyr. The two boys stopped talking for a while then as the teacher’s eyes turned to glare at them. Stu found, with more than a bit of relief, that he and Ezra had gotten almost all of the questions right; the only ones he’d missed had been the ones he’d solved himself, which wasn’t great, but it was still an improvement. He was at least glad that he wouldn’t have to stay for extra lessons at the end of the week. Well, assuming he made it to the end of the week. He was feeling more hopeful than usual, though. After all, how could he not get the rest of assignments done properly when he had such a pretty tutor?

[xurkitips]

On Conveying Personality Through Chatroom-style Dialogue

A friend of mine shared screenshots of a roleplay he was having via a Discord server, wherein the style was chatroom/texting based. Each character would have a different style of typing completely unique to their person. Though unfamiliar with all of them, I could see what their personalities were like

Like real human beings, a character very much so has a “voice”. I mean that both in the literal sense, through their manner of speaking and what they say, but also through their self expression, interests, and actions. This carries over into the digital realm in ways we may not even notice. Text messages may not be verbal, no, but there are ways to show inflection.

There are many, many ways to show meaning through text. Here are some that I’ve picked up and utilized with my own characters:

Sentence structure

all lowercase sentences VS Grammatically correct

Lowercase gives off the feeling of someone familiar with others or willing to become familiar. It lacks the tension of formal writing, complete with its capitalization and proper periods ending sentences, and feels very casual and approachable. It may also be a sign of someone who doesn’t care much about perfection, a lazy person, or an easy going individual. Seems like a lot of internet regulars prefer this kind of typing style.

“im dying

‘deafening horrorcore rap’ ok i listen to literal noise and idk what this even is”

Using a properly capitalized and punctuated style is very formal, like one would see in a book, an official email, etc. It’s more serious and stern than lowercase is and may imply an older, more mature person typing...or maybe just someone trapped on their phone at the mercy of autocorrect. 

"I am always happy to see you, even if you are not feeling your best.“

“It's nice here.

Quiet.”

There’s a certain respectful steadiness to it as well. It can be calming to read at times.

Punctuation VS Lack of punctuation

End-stopped lines come with both a pause and a bit of a pointed and direct feeling. It strengthens both lowercase and grammatically correct styles, but in different ways. In conjunction with “proper” writing, it’s less noticeable, merely giving the reader a moment’s pause. In conjunction with lowercase, especially if the one typing isn’t keen on using periods, it can come off as stern, serious, passive-aggressive, or angry.

“whatever.

it's less excruciating than it would be without it.”

Removal of punctuation is a different story. Typically just shown with lowercase, it leaves it with that casual feeling intact, or like one’s sentences are more like quick thoughts or questions. Removing them from grammatically correct sentences does ease off some of the tension, implying someone with a more neutral-positive tone while still being more mature. 

“I’m not terribly good with conversation”

And then there’s the run-on sentences from those who type small novels per response. Usually complete with multiple and’s. It’s a sign of nervousness, enthusiasm, or oftentimes a younger character...

“actually i don't know much about it i just happened to see something online and it's apparently only manufactured overseas exclusively for this one particular shop and they made the original design and initial product i guess”

Oof.

Proper spelling (or lack thereof)

The better the spelling, the more the likelihood of the person being older, calmer, or neutral. There’s also a sense of being well educated or careful about one’s typing. Perhaps a confident air may exude from what they say, too.

“Can you come help me for a moment?”

Those who make a lot of mistakes will simply confuse words for other words, forget apostrophes, or type too fast to notice things missing or in the wrong location. Some just don’t really care enough or are too tired to deal with it. Too much focus and people know what they mean anyway. Probably.

“i laug hso hard hes come runin

he thougt i aws dyin”

It can also happen in very emotional situations, in bouts of laughter, crying, rage, or when one is drowsy, medicated, or sick. It tends to stand out when one’s style is suddenly very, very different and tips others off to something being wrong.

Younger characters, especially kids, also make spelling mistakes all the time depending on their age, whether due to sounding out words or just in a hurry to reply.

Short sentence fragments, single words, and lengthy paragraphs

Sometimes people with rapid-fire thoughts, who are excited, busy, stressed, or angry, will take to quick and short responses (sometimes of many fragments in a row). These show a similar feeling as do lines of poetry. Stacking small fragments on top of one another adds emphasis. The reader has to read them one by one rather than as a straight sentence. On its own, the word or fragment stands out and becomes more important.

"well

yeah thats

what i was tryina do

but i mean”

I’ve seen it used used for storytelling from one person to another in larger chunks of things, quick responses, for poetic value, and in irritation or passive-aggressiveness.

In full sentence conversations sent in short bursts, it’s also allowing the reader pause to read each comment without it feeling like a novella. Though it can also feel like someone is obnoxious, rambling on and on as the notifications keep coming, or has a lot to talk about and keeps thinking of more.

Then there are those who type rather large responses all at once instead of hitting the enter key with every sentence:

"Whoever did it was quite thorough; either the power in that area of the lab was cut while we were distracted or they tampered with the security cameras, because that footage is missing. But, we have some theories now. It had to have been someone with direct access to the laboratory. I hesitate to place blame on any of my coworkers...they're all my trusted companions and friends! And yet...”

It’s concise and a solid, complete story in one spot. Could be someone who loves to talk, could be someone who didn’t want a response before they were done talking. It’s also commonly seen by middle-aged texters who want to say everything they can all at once.

Exclamation points and Question marks

Simple one here. Question mark for a question or confusion, exclamation point for emphasis or an exclamation. But when a person adds multiple to a sentence it can convey more of the person’s feelings; 

“are you okay??”

Here is someone who is very concerned. Multiple question marks can imply things such as worry, stress, disbelief, and shock. There’s a sense of hurry and tension. Perhaps the person on the other end is frightened, easily afraid, or tends to have an overwhelming reaction to things.

“oh!!! it’s nice to see you!!!”

"! 

!!! 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Meanwhile, multiple exclamation points convey much more friendlier, happier tones. Often such things as surprise, excitement, happiness, friendliness. Users typing !! as a punctuation (like I tend to do) may do it as an assurance or to show how thrilled they are to talk. Occasionally !!!! is tacked onto an angry statement to be more of a shout, but I see it less and less.

Chatspeak and Internet habits

Shortenings of words have been a regular thing for ages. It’s easy, convenient, and gets the point across quickly. But the internet has taken it to a new extreme, where sentences can be almost entirely compromised of them.

“wtf r u talkin abt?? gdi man idk wuts even happening rn”

A character wanting to be quick to respond, always on the ball, always involved, may be more likely to utilize and understand chatspeak. They’re the social butterfly of the group. It’s also a sign of a long-time internet lurker who’s aware of what the lingo is, and how to use it. A complete lack thereof points toward either an older user or someone who’s unused to social media.

The more memes, the harder someone is trying to fit in. Or maybe they’re easily amused or just absorbed things from their friends without thinking about it. The comedian of the group is going to know the best ways to use them.

Smilies and Emojis

:D D: :DDD // :3 3: >:3 :3c // :o :O O:<

These kinds of smilies have always struck me as the most friendly. Whether used in devious ways or with genuinely heartwarming intentions, the playful, lightheartedness of the user really shines through these. 

"not a bad way to spend a lazy day :D”

“it's also my birthday :3″

It’s got just the right vibe to punctuate a sentence that’ll leave the reader feeling that the person likely means no harm or wants to be friendly, positive, or encouraging. I’ve met a lot of people that use these and turn out to be very kind or considerate people.

:), ;), ((((: and related

A long time positive, friendly smiley. 

"You said you've known them a long time? I think they would understand. :)”

And yet these days I tend to associate it with passive aggressive statements, plotting, slyness, devious behavior, or anger. Older users may be inclined to use :) as a means to show their emotional state, but newer users seem more inclined to do the opposite. The more parentheses there are, the more upset the person, it seems.

“man don’t u love it when the power’s out in the middle of the night it’s just (((: really great thanks (((((:”

Then the ;) smiley comes off more specifically flirty and a bit playful. Doesn’t seem to change much there.

“if i find a good chance 2 hook u up ill do my best ;)”

XD

The bane of my teenage existence. It’s a more old school sign of laughter, rarely seen in today’s world due to falling out of favor and becoming associated with, “LOL Rawr XD Tacos I’m So Randoom,” culture. But time to time you do see it. Mostly with sarcasm but sometimes with genuine intentions.

“xDddddDDD

It was a good joke. XD”

A character using it genuinely comes off more playful, and to me, personally, as an older person who’s genuinely unaware of the associations with the smiley itself trying to show how they laughed without using LOL. 

Letter/Character smilies

Y’know, things like .w. and ._. or owo, where the letters or symbols make a face. These are fairly popular, it seems. I don’t like using them myself, but know a few who do use them.

"I'm sorry that they can be mean qmq”

It’s a different feel from the others. There’s something soft to it, almost a gentleness. When these or Japanese characters are used, there’s more whimsy. It’s cute and almost a bit feminine. It may convey an open person or give the impression that said person is easier to talk to.

Though honestly I can’t see uwu and owo as anything but heavily sarcastic. I’ll be honest with you.

Emojis

The first rule of Xurkitips club is that we don’t talk about Emoji Movie. Just putting that out there riiight now.

Used sparingly by most for fun and for emphasis. Characters may use them to be lighthearted, aesthetically, joke, or to make a conversation more flavorful. The use of emojis may determine a character’s personality; I find that characters who use hand emojis like 👌 are rather laid back, those who use 🙃 do it passive aggressively, and we all know what kind of person uses 🍆.

Then there’s what in common terms known as, “The DudeBro”:

[MFKNSTARBOI]: the thing i never undstood about hair is why people buy shampoo like regular soap not good enough for you LMAO 😂😂😂

[gostones]: .

[BIGDICKTOYOTA69]: what the fuck man

[ahogekun]: do... you not use shampoo

[MFKNSTARBOI]: aaaah you guys got sucked into big shampoo as well 😔

[MFKNSTARBOI]: When it comes to horses 🐎  the stars in the sky ✨ or just man to man no bullshit advice 👬 IM youre guy 😤😂

I think this one speaks for itself.

[stompsite]

The One About Dark Souls

This piece was originally slated for another publication about a year ago. It didn’t get published. So here it is.

This time, I’m confident I have him. Father Gascgoine has been plaguing me for weeks, but I’ve got it all worked out. I enter the arena, pumped up and ready to do this. For a few minutes, everything’s fine, but then I feel that telltale twinge in my hand. Before I know it, the pain’s burning up my arm and into my neck. I have to put the controller down. My poor health has betrayed me again. I’ll never be good enough to beat a Souls game.

Dark Souls is hard. That’s what it’s known for. In a world where the biggest and most successful games are built on promises about playing your own way, Dark Souls is brutal and unrelenting. FromSoftware’s magnum opus demands you take it on its own terms, a strategy that has proved wildly popular; few games can lay claim to a fanbase as passionate and loyal as Dark Souls.

A debate has raged for years over whether or not Dark Souls would benefit from an easy mode. Fans will tell you that no, difficulty is an essential element of the Dark Souls experience, that much of the game’s fun is found in its difficulty, and they have a point. Others, people who have wanted to embrace the series, but derive enjoyment in games from anything other than challenge, believe that Dark Souls would be better off with an easy mode.

Dark Souls joins all-time greats like Doom and Donkey Kong in establishing its own formula. Indie and AAA game developers alike have borrowed heavily from the Souls series, with games like Salt and Sanctuary, Lords of the Fallen, and Nioh. Before we ask ourselves whether Souls should have an easy mode, we need to understand how Souls games work.

Souls works like this: you, the player, have to travel through the game’s world, conquering its challenging bosses. Whenever you defeat an enemy, you earn a currency, called ‘souls,’ or ‘blood echoes,’ or something similar, which you use to purchase upgrades. If you die, you drop your collection of souls and respawn at the last save point, usually a physical location like a bonfire. Crucially, you cannot bank souls. This means that as your power grows, so does the need to explore world, putting yourself at risk, until you have enough souls to purchase more powerful upgrades.

The combat requires you to play thoughtfully. You must keep an eye on your stamina bar, which drains based on your attacks and movement. Draining your stamina at an inopportune time could result in an unfortunate death. Your attacks are usually animation-driven, which means that when you press a button to attack, you cannot break out of the attack animation until it has completed. A properly-timed attack means the difference between life and death in a Souls game.

These mechanics are then set in a world designed to accommodate them. Souls mechanics would never work in a game like The Witcher 3, where players could simply observe enemies and circle around them, avoiding the confrontation entirely. Souls maps, on the other hand, are built with explicit encounter design in mind. An early encounter in Dark Souls 3 features a dragon that will easily roast unsuspecting players. You rush up some stairs, get roasted, die, and start back at the bonfire, wiser now than you were before. As you progress, you discover shortcuts that make traversal significantly easier.

Over time, you learn about the game’s world. What seemed like cruelty at first is playful and mischievous. The world becomes more readable. Dark Souls thrives on initial surprise and eventual mastery. “Git gud,” the fanbase’s mantra, isn’t so much a statement of derision as a description of the player’s evolution. The more you play, the better you become.

One of the big appeals of turn-based games like XCOM and Civilization is the way they convince their players to keep going. “Just one more turn,” you tell yourself, and before you know it, it’s 5 in the morning and you’ve been up all night and have nearly liberated Earth from an alien menace. The Souls games are like that too, but they use difficulty to accomplish the same thing. Get instakilled by a cleverly-placed boss? Before you know it, you’re back at the nearest bonfire. “That was a cheap death,” you tell yourself, “I can totally get past it.”

Dark Souls is a game of mastery, expertly crafting an emotional narrative to accompany your growing skill. Overcoming that seemingly-impossible boss is thrilling. Laughing along at the designer’s jokey ambushes is enjoyable. Souls engages you, draws you in, and delivers some of the best emotional highs in gaming.

It’s unfair to say that Souls is just a hard game; there are thousands of challenging games out there. Dead Rising 2 creates challenge through time management. Ikaruga’s difficulty is based on player reflex. Souls is a game that uses its difficulty tuning to help establish its compelling formula. Without the difficulty, so much of what makes Souls such a brilliant series would be lost.

Despite this, I wish the Souls games had an easy mode, because I can’t play it like you. I want to share in the stories and strategies. I want to beat Father Gascoigne with a Donkey Conga controller and put the video up on YouTube. I want to master the game’s systems. I want to be a part of this passionate and vibrant community so much, but I can’t.

I can’t because my body is shutting down.

Twelve years ago, I got sick. At first, it was just mild fatigue. Doctors said it was some bug that would pass. Family thought it was teenage laziness. Then it got worse. Prior to getting sick, I’d been learning to fly planes. I used to climb regularly at the YMCA. I loved boating--whether it was a 50 mile camping trip or whitewater rafting, I was there. Within months, I’d almost completely lost my ability to function. One doctor told me that, after looking at my lab results, she was amazed I had the strength to get out of bed at all.

It took four years to get a diagnosis, but instead of having some name to give my illness, like cancer or lupus or something, I was told that some genes just didn’t work right. It was a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it. As a result, I suffer from chronic pain and chronic fatigue, and I also have all the symptoms that come with a severe lack of magnesium, because my body doesn’t absorb it properly.

Chronic fatigue is a deeply misunderstood disease. People don’t get it. If you get cancer or multiple sclerosis, there is some degree of understanding there. Chronic fatigue is much harder to explain. Many people don’t believe it’s real. Some countries classify it as a mental disorder, rather than a physical one. Everything I ever wanted to do in life has been ripped away from me by this illness. Without games writing, which I’m fortunate enough to be able to do from home, I don’t know how I would survive.

During her TED talk on chronic fatigue, documentarian Jennifer Brea pauses and simply states “my brain is not what it used to be.” I know what she means, because I’ve been there. I was so much more than this. Chronic fatigue consumes everything. I’m lucky because for me, there is some degree of hope. With regular treatment, I could go back to living something resembling a normal life, but since the illness limits what jobs I can take, my income is limited, which limits my ability to pay for treatment for my illness. Dealing with my illness is as simple as a potential employer taking a chance on me so I can earn enough to pay for treatment. I don’t know how I’ll ever get to a place where I can afford regular treatment, but I hope that one day I will.

In the meantime, I play games, which are an incredible escape from chronic pain and chronic fatigue. A physical therapist once told me that people like me spend 90% of our attention on keeping pain at bay. Playing games helps offload some of that stress. But, as you can imagine, playing Dark Souls style games for me is a lot harder than it is for most folks, which makes escapism challenging. So many of my friends love finding their Dark Souls groove and playing the game for hours. I’d love to experience that too.

Most of you aren’t likely to have your hands seize up after playing for half an hour, much less be drained for an entire weekend after trying and failing to take down Bloodborne’s Father Gascoigne. An easy mode for me would mean that I could enjoy these games at the same level of effort that you do.

But it’s not that simple. Disability isn’t something most of us talk about openly. Discussing it has a tendency to make people uncomfortable; some even resent having to deal with it. It’s hard to leave the house most days, knowing that most people don’t have the compassion or patience to put up with my illness. Worse still, many people go out of their way to make things worse, justifying it with some weird, self-righteous slant I’ve never understood.

I’ve had employers force me to work in conditions that exacerbated my symptoms because they thought they could convince me that my illness was all in my mind, never mind what the doctor’s notes said. Heck, I got kicked off a podcast; two of my fellow podcasters told me they were doing me a favor. Apparently, cutting off all ties would help me magically get over my illness and manage my life better. When it comes to disability, otherwise good people can do terrible things, going to great lengths to justify their abuse as “for your own good.”

Playing games with my friends or chatting about games on forums, twitter, and Skype gives me the ability to socialize with other people without having to worry about my illness getting in the way. As long as I remain untreated, I’ll be a shut-in, but I can still have human contact through the internet.

While I can talk about my own experiences in great detail, I am far from the only person whose health issues limit gameplay options. Many disabilities limit gameplay. I have a friend with severe arthritis that makes gaming on a console impossible. Two of my friends have epilepsy, which can be triggered by playing certain video games. I’ve met people with color-blindness and deafness; all of these things impact their gameplay experience.

How far should a developer go in ensuring their audience can enjoy their work? Generally, I think it’s best to err on the side of accessibility; if a game can support a color-blind mode, it should. If a designer can ensure that hearing impaired players have good subtitles, their game would benefit from its inclusion.

With my chronic pain and fatigue issues, rapidly mashing buttons in games like Bayonetta or God of War can be physically draining; alternate QTE options would go a long way towards making games more accessible. I was delighted to discover that Dragon Age: Inquisition, a huge, open world game, had an auto-run toggle button. Splatoon offers players a wide variety of playstyles, allowing players to contribute, regardless of ability.

At the same time, I recognize that not every solution is a perfect one; shoot-em-ups like Ikaruga are built to be bright and flashy. Projectiles have to be big and bright enough to dodge. These games can trigger symptoms in epilepsy sufferers, and I don’t think there’s a way to avoid that without fundamentally changing the game’s design.

There is no easy answer, but offering multiple difficulty modes, vision modes, and allowing control customization all go a long way towards keeping games accessible.

Some developers and publishers are going the distance to make sure that disabled gamers are cared for. Microsoft has recently introduced copilot mode, which allows two different controllers to control the same game. The Xbox One Elite controller is great for players with disabilities thanks to its extensive customization options. Unfortunately, Sony does not offer similar disability support, but thanks to devices like Cronusmax Plus, you can use the Xbox One Elite controller on the Playstation 4, or even a mouse and keyboard.

As my health has deteriorated over the past few years, so has my gaming ability. Destiny’s Trials of Osiris event is a competitive multiplayer event where players must win nine matches of five rounds each against an opposing team. I went on a flawless run back in 2015, but I haven’t been since. Controllers are awful for me; playing with them often results in hand cramps and muscle spasms. It’s much less painful to aim with a mouse, so I’ve been eyeing a Cronusmax with an intent to use its mouse and keyboard controls to play Trials of Osiris again.

I was deeply concerned to hear that Jeff Kaplan, Vice President of Blizzard, had argued against the use of these devices. If Kaplan’s shortsighted suggestion became a reality, disabled gamers using assistive technologies would have their consoles rendered useless, not just for Overwatch, but for all games. Kaplan also suggested letting all consoles use mouse and keyboard controls natively, which would be fantastic for disabled gamers, but it’s frustrating to hear that he would even consider the first option.

How would an easy mode in Souls work? It’s simple: let players take a lot more damage before dying. It’s a blast to watch my friends take on the dual-boss fight of Ornstein and Smough, but that fight requires some flawless timing that I can’t always pull off. I tense my muscles when I’m trying to time things perfectly; not having to worry about timing would help me avoid triggering severe pain later on.

Obviously, there are better ways to adjust difficulty, but they would require a lot more work on the developer’s part. Tweaking enemy animations to provide longer ‘tells’ prior to attacking would be a great step. Dark Souls’ movements are animation-based, rather than input-based, which means that once you press a button, your character has to follow through with the animation before making another move. Giving player input priority over animation would let players correct mistakes a lot easier.

To a hardcore Dark Souls player, I’m sure this all sounds like heresy. The suggestions are moot, of course--From is done making Souls games, and it’s unlikely that they would ever patch in an easy mode. Souls is just an example, something I hope that future developers can learn from. I would like to enjoy your favorite game as much as you do, but I can’t, not as it is.

Playing video games literally saved my life. On my worst days, games make life bearable. Games give me community and distraction. So, when it comes to the question of whether Dark Souls have an easy mode, I think the obvious answer is yes. For me, an easy mode would let me play the game like it was meant to be played without worrying about crippling muscle spasms the next day. I just want to enjoy life and spend time with friends; games I can play without agony let me do that.

Ultimately, developers are welcome to do whatever they want to do with the games they want to make. My hope is that this piece initiates a conversation about how to open doors to everyone who wants to play or make video games. Living life with disability is hard mode, and there’s no option to change difficulties. If you have the ability to help us, would you?

[k-popscenxrios]

No Way (Jungkook x Reader)

HA I MADE IT IN TIME FOR JK’S BIRTHDAY! (barely lol) I know I have posted so much for Jungkook lately, but my excuse this time is because it was requested! I’m so happy that I got this request done and I hope the person who requested this likes it! Request: Tattoo AU Jungkook x Med Student Reader

Summary: There was no way that Jungkook was going to convince me to get a tattoo

Words: 7,300+ Genre: just fluff honestly

⇨ Masterlist ⇦

I had been running behind on my classes ever since an incident that had happened in my first one. My first class is the only common core class that I have to take this semester, and my professor decided to hold me back after class for nearly ten minutes because of issues he was having with some speech papers. I tend to be the teacher’s pet, so I stayed with him for as long as I could.

However, that caused me to run behind in every class today since all of my professors wanted to talk to me. I once again didn’t have the heart to tell them no, so that is how I ended up in my situation.

I had one medical lab class left for the day, and the second that one got out, I bolted out the door. It’s ridiculous how the only class I didn’t need to hurry out of is the only one that I hurried out of.

“Well would you look at that… little miss med student seems to be in a rush.”

I froze at the sound of his voice as I took a deep breath. He was the main reason that I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I spun around and plastered a fake smile on my face as I spotted Jeon Jungkook, two years my senior, but still working on finishing his first year of college.

“Jungkook,” I sighed through my smile as he just smirked and shook his head. He crossed his arms across his chest and took a step closer to me and I took a slight step back, “Fancy seeing you here, huh?”

“Fancy?” he raised an eyebrow, “Who says that anymore?”

“I do,” I spun around again and began walking away, but as I suspected, he began to follow me.

“So, that proposal I suggested to you a few weeks ago,” he spoke as he ran to catch up with me, “If you finally agree, I can just drive you on over to the shop. Free of charge.”

“Jungkook, I am not letting you give me a tattoo,” I side glanced at him to see a smile appear on his face, “I don’t care if you even pay me to give you one. I won’t.”

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” he rushed to walk in front of me before abruptly stopping. I gasped as I ran into him and he just let out a carefree laugh.

“I-I don’t care if it hurts or not,” I stammered as I moved away from him and glared up at him, “But can you please not walk out in front of me? I don’t like people invading my space.”

“Well if we’re being technical,” Jungkook moved his head to the side, “You were the one who ran into me.”

“If we’re being technical,” I repeated his action, “You set me up to run into you.”

Jungkook just smiled as if it was an accomplishment of his. I just rolled my eyes and shook my head, “Jungkook, I’m not getting a tattoo. Ever.”

“I want you to keep saying that,” Jungkook smirked and bit his lip, “Because the more you say that, the more determined I am to get you to mark up that silky skin of yours. No one is as perfect as how you want to seem to be.”

“I never said I wanted to be perfect,” I started to walk away yet again, but as I expected, he was next to me seconds later. “I just don’t want a tattoo.”

“Wow,” Jungkook grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop as my annoyance grew, “Please tell me that again. I should record it so that I can replay it as I’m giving you a tattoo.”

I turned to glare at him and yanked my arm out of his hold before rushing off. I had known Jungkook since the beginning of college. He had started out getting a business degree, but halfway through, he decided to go for an art degree. He also constantly complains about still being enrolled in college since he wants to become a tattoo artist. To my understanding, his parents won’t let him quit college, so he just decided to go for an art degree that he says he’ll never need.

I don’t know him that well, but ever since our English course that we had together, he seemed to be attached to annoying me. I was stuck tutoring him, and despite his terrible grades, he wasn’t actually that bad. It was almost like he didn’t care to be good.

Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s suspicious how good he was in comparison to his grades. He had to have been doing it on purpose.

I haven’t had a single class with him since then, but he always seems to find me. He’ll even occasionally text me and ask where I am just to come and pester me.

His constant bombarding didn’t start until I made the mistake of telling him that I had no desire to get a tattoo. It must have sparked something horrible in his mind, because ever since that day about 2 months ago, he asks me to get one every single day. If he hasn’t seen me, he’s texting me to get one. I almost blocked his number once over it.

The only difference about this day was that I had the luck of my car breaking down about halfway home. I tried calling my room mate, Hina, about five times, but as usual, she didn’t answer her phone.

And that would be how I ended up in the car of Jeon Jungkook as he took me to my dorm. Part of me wished I had just told him to drop me off a good distance to just walk, but it was far too late for that as we pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex.

“Thank you,” I mumbled in his direction as he just gave me his usual smile. I couldn’t tell if I hated the smile or not, but I tried to wave away that thought as I opened the car door.

“Hey,” Jungkook called to me as I placed my right foot out of the car. I shouldn’t have stopped to look at him because I knew what he was going to say. I should have just gotten out and shut the door on is words.

“You know I could drive you to the parlor right now if you want-”

SLAM.

As you would guess, Jungkook was enjoying knowing where I was living. He texted me often, telling me that he was going to head over later, but he only actually showed up half of the time.

Hina was convinced that he liked me, but I didn’t see it. To me, he just looks like an overly obsessed twenty year old who cared way too much about me getting a tattoo. I was about to go crazy on him if he bothered me about it again.

“Hey Y/N, Jungkook’s here.” Hina called from the front door as I wrinkled my nose. I had just gotten home from class and had somehow avoided him, but of course he decided to show up.

“Tell him I’m not home,” I yelled back at her, but I knew my fate was sealed. Jungkook was going to bother me today no matter what I did.

“Hey miss med student,” I heard Jungkook walk into the living space as he plopped down on the couch next to me, “I’m a little offended that you ran off without me today. I wanted to ask you out to this concert with me. My friends hooked me up with some tickets.”

I looked over at him with an unimpressed expression, “Are these your tattoo friends?”

Jungkook smiled and shook his head, “No, they’re my friends from high school. They have nothing to do with the tattoo parlor.”

I looked away from him, still not wanting to comply to his wishes. The second that I agree to something he says is the second that I go insane.

“Well you’re going to be there, so no thanks,” I shook my head, “I’d rather you not breath down my neck about getting a tattoo for 24/7.”

I was about to just wave him away, but before I could, Jungkook opened his mouth again, “If you go with me, I’ll quit bugging you about getting a tattoo.”

Now that made me all ears.

My eyes slightly widened at his bold statement as I felt myself caving in. How could I refuse that offer? Was that just a part of his plan the whole time? I watched him carefully to see if he was just kidding around with me, but his genuine smile never left his face.

“I’ll even treat you to some lunch. I know you don’t normally eat lunch, so it’d be a nice change.” he offered, but I didn’t know how to feel about it. I didn’t hate Jungkook, but I most certainly didn’t like him. I didn’t want to feel like I was on a date with him…

“Jungkook, I don’t know about that…” I started to say, but his words kept flooding my mind.

I’ll quit bugging you about getting a tattoo.

Staring at Jungkook from across the table was a little weird for me, but I was slowly getting used to it. He didn’t try and force a conversation since he knew that I was still a little upset at him, and I appreciated his silence.

It had been about ten minutes since we had sat down when our food was finally brought to us. We both thanked the waitress as she just bowed and walked off, leaving us in our silence yet again.

I ate my sandwich slowly as I began realizing just how hungry I was. I wasn’t normally hungry at this time of day which was why I never ate lunch, but for some reason I was super hungry right now.

“Is it good?” Jungkook asked as I just silently nodded and continued shoving the food in my mouth in a moderate amount.

I was almost done with my food when I noticed that Jungkook, who had been staring at his phone the whole time, was now looking at me. I looked over at him as our eyes met, and I paused in the middle of my chewing. His eyes refused to let mine go as I took a deep breath and swallowed the food in my mouth.

“You know, you should probably eat more often,” he spoke quietly, “You seemed pretty hungry just now.”

I shook my head and ripped my eyes from his as I noticed the tattoo that was on his right arm. I had seen it a million times since I met him, but for some reason it was fascinating me in the moment.

As I was staring at it, I noticed that he had a little bit added to it. It used to just be the phrase ‘Young Forever’, but he added some designs around it that complimented the calligraphy on his arm. It was just a small little hot air balloon that was surrounded by clouds, as well as a few little blackbirds flying around the words.

“I like what you added to the tattoo,” I thought out loud as he sent me a soft smile. He looked down at it and then back to me a few seconds later.

“Thanks. My friend Namjoon suggested the designs to me and I asked one of my coworkers to add them for me. You’ll meet Namjoon tonight. For someone who isn’t very artistic, he’s pretty artistic.”

I just nodded and looked at his tattoo again. I couldn’t tell if the air balloon had some kind of significance, but I didn’t bother asking.

After a few more moments of silence, I felt my voice leaving my mouth, “How many people are going to be there tonight? Out of your friends I mean.”

“I’m not sure,” he shrugged, “I know that one of them couldn’t come because of issues with his job, which is why I asked you to go with me.”

I nodded, but something was bothering me. If he had an extra ticket because his friend couldn’t go, why would he ask me? Surely he has some co-workers that would want to go more than I would…

“Not that I’m upset over this or anything, but why did you invite me to go instead of someone else?” I asked as I looked at him. His eyes caught mine as I took a deep breath to calm the sudden nerves in my chest.

“None of them would have wanted to go,” he shrugged, “Plus I thought that you’d like to go. You must be tired with having to go through pre-med school.”

I just left the subject alone after that, but I couldn’t help but feel weird about the situation. He was annoying in every sense, but being around him wasn’t all bad. Even when he would pester me about tattoos, I couldn’t find it in myself to hate him.

Though I never thought that he ever cared anything about me. He seemed to just think of me as a canvas waiting to be painted. I really thought that he just thought of me as a stuck up pre-med student, but he was slowly proving me wrong.

~English Course, 1st Semester~

“God, this is stupid,” Jungkook grumbled as I let a long sigh out of my nose.

“It’s not my rules,” I mumbled as I shoved the workbook closer to him, “I wouldn’t be doing this if I had a choice.”

He glanced at me for a second before looking at the book again. I didn’t know this guy at all, but my instructor insisted that I help him in our course. All I knew about this guy was that he didn’t want to be in college. He hadn’t said one positive word that I’ve known of, and I had another two hours left with this guy.

“Look,” I mumbled as he looked up at me. I was about to continue talking, but he cut me off.

“You really need to learn how to speak up,” he was in the middle of sounding annoyed and neutral as I felt slightly offended, “I can barely hear you.”

“Repeat after me,” I said in a significantly louder voice as a smile appeared on his face. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

Jungkook looked at me with a perplexed expression, “What? What significance does that sentence have?”

“It uses every letter of the English alphabet in it,” I calmly and quietly responded. I could feel his annoyance come back, so I spoke up louder once again, “It’ll help you learn all the letters if you’ll learn it.”

He grew silent as he stared down at the table in front of him. I was not looking forward to tutoring this guy again.

“You know,” he took a deep breath and his eyes moved to mine, “Someone as smart as you could at least speak with more confidence.”

~English Course, Finals Week~

I had been staring at the paper in my hands for nearly ten minutes as Jungkook’s eyes stayed on me. I was nearly done reviewing his practice test that I had made out for him, and I could tell he was slightly anxious about it. He would never admit that since he made it out to seem like he didn’t care about school, but I could see it in his expressions.

I finally finished as I marked his grade on the sheet and handed it back to him. He tried to make it seem like he effortlessly grabbed the paper, but I could tell that he was dying to look at it.

His eyes scanned the paper as a smile started to creep on his face. His attitude toward not caring about his grades was gone as he looked at me with an excited expression, “Omo, Y/N, you’re amazing. I never thought I could make a perfect score on anything.”

I shrugged it off as he looked over the paper, smiling at some of the compliments that I made on the paper, “It was only a practice test. Don’t relax during the exam, because that’ll land you another bad grade.”

He just nodded, but I could tell that he wasn’t listening, “I should do something for you. Do you like tattoos? I could get you a discount at the parlor that I work at.”

I felt a disgusted look appear on my face as I rudely declined his offer, “No way.”

Jungkook caught on to my English words as he smirked at me. I didn’t like the look on his face as I looked away from him and tried to pretend that nothing was said.

“No way, huh? We’ll see.”

It was that day that I unknowingly sealed my fate.

I took a deep breath at the sight of the arena in front of me. I felt slightly intimidated since it was a lot bigger than I had imagined. I looked to my side to make sure that Jungkook was still near me, and I let a breath of relief out as my eyes met his.

I looked away quickly after in fear of him knowing how I was feeling, but I’d already sealed my fate. I felt an unfamiliar hand wrap around mine as I dared to look back his way with slightly wide eyes.

“Come on. Some of the guys are already inside.”

I just nodded in reply. I didn’t bother protesting his action, but that was mostly because I was terrified of getting lost in that place. Sure I have my phone to keep me in contact with Jungkook, but I couldn’t help but feel paranoid about not being able to find him again.

We walked into the arena as I could already hear music playing. The concert seemed to have already started as I looked around the surrounding space. There were several tents set up, as well as vendors and businesses that were there to hand our business cards. I took another deep breath and my hand tightened around Jungkook’s. This place was huge.

“Jimin! Taehyung!” Jungkook yelled as I looked in the direction of his voice. I spotted two fairly good-looking guys walking our way as my nerves spiked up. I forgot how terrible I was with socializing… How the h*** did Jungkook convince me to come here again?

“Kook! Who’s this with you?” One of them asked as Jungkook’s hand tightened around mine. I felt my face heat up as one of them not-so-subtly checked me out.

“A friend,” he replied as I slightly questioned his statement. Were we even friends? I wouldn’t say that we were.

The guy with light blonde hair raised an eyebrow as he glanced at our hands. I felt my face heat up as I pulled my hand away from Jungkook very slowly.

“Well, I’m Taehyung,” the blonde one smiled at me as I just nodded and looked to the other one. He was smiling at me as my eyes landed on him, and I felt my blush worsen. It didn’t really occur to me that not only was Jungkook insanely attractive, but his friends were as well.

“I’m Jimin,” the brunette slightly bowed and looked from Jungkook to me and then back to Jungkook.

It was silent for a few seconds before Jungkook slightly laughed and shook his head, “This is Y/N. She’s kind of shy.”

My face heated up as I realized I didn’t introduce myself. I couldn’t help but feel fairly awkward as Taehyung just laughed with Jungkook.

After the slightly awkward silence that followed, Taehyung informed us that two of their other friends were there with them. He also told us that there were two friends that didn’t make it.

The night was going surprisingly well, and I felt myself quickly feeling comfortable around some of Jungkook’s friends. I was starting to forget the whole reason that I came in the first place, but every time I spotted one of Jungkook’s friends’ tattoos, the thought came back to my head. I couldn’t help but wonder why Jungkook offered to quit bugging me about getting a tattoo… It seemed really random to offer to take me somewhere fun by promising to stop something that he wanted to happen.

After one of the songs had finished playing, I excused myself to the restroom. I wanted to tell Jungkook that he would be dead if he wasn’t in this spot when I came back, but before I could, his friend Namjoon spoke up.

“I’ll walk with you. I’m kind of hungry,” he started to stand up. I felt a little nervous that he was walking with me, but anything was better than walking alone in this huge building. Jungkook told me to be careful before I left, and I gave him a smile and a nod.

This night was so weird for me. I’ve never been more confused about a human being in my whole life.

Namjoon started some small talk with me, but it mostly just fell flat after I answered his question. He still continued to try and get me to actually talk to him despite being difficult to talk to.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you this,” he started, gaining my attention immediately, “But I really like the way Jungkook is when he’s around you. He’s a lot more easy going and he smiles more. It’s a nice change from who I’ve been seeing recently.”

His words really confused me as I scrunched my eyebrows together. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything at all.

“I think school is getting to him a little bit. He obviously doesn’t want to be in school right now, but he can’t afford to disappoint his parents.”

I silently cursed Namjoon for manipulating his words so that I had to ask about them, “What do you mean by that?”

“Jungkook’s father wants him in school, and to keep him in school, he’s still paying for a lot of Jungkook’s stuff. He’s paying his rent, his car, his phone, and the only thing Jungkook has to pay is utility bills.”

I nodded as I looked at the ground. I couldn’t help but feel bad about the whole situation. I guess his parents really want him to make something else out of himself.

It was silent for a few moments before I finally spotted the bathroom. I excused myself as he just nodded and told me that he would wait on me. I silently thanked him for being kind enough to wait for me and I rushed off to the bathroom.

The concert was finally over as Jungkook and his friends were saying goodbye to one another. They all said goodbye to me as I waved at them and followed Jungkook back to his car. I didn’t intend to tell him all that I knew about his situation, but my curiosity was killing me. I was dying to know more about his situation since I was slightly nosey, but I convinced myself to hold off.

“Did you have fun?” he asked as I snapped out of my thoughts. I nodded and sent him a slight smile.

“Yeah. Thanks for inviting me to go.” I nodded as he sent a smile back at me. I took a deep breath as my eyes met his, and for the first time tonight, I felt myself saying something without thinking about it for a long time.

“Why did you give up on trying to give me a tattoo?”

The question seemed to surprise him slightly, but he recovered a few seconds later, “Oh. I just decided to give up on that idea.”

Now if he thought that he was going to convince me that that was true, he was horribly mistaken.

“Jungkook,” I smiled, “I know that you’re lying. You’ve been driving me up the wall about it for a few months, but now all the sudden, you don’t care?”

He was silent for a few seconds, and I couldn’t help but feel unsettled. I didn’t know Jungkook that well, but I could tell something was wrong. He just didn’t want to tell me the truth, which I could respect. After all, we’re not even that close. I shouldn’t know as much about him as I already do.

“I’m quitting.”

I looked over at him with a confused expression. It had been silent for almost five minutes when he finally spoke up, and that’s what he said?

“What? Like quitting school?” I asked, remembering what Namjoon said. Maybe he was sick of his dad breathing down his neck about everything and decided to start paying for his belongings.

I thought I understood what he was saying, but his next words caught me off guard.

“No, I’m quitting my job at the tattoo parlor,” he spoke softly. He didn’t even sound confident in his own words.

“What!?” I felt my eyes widen. I didn’t know this guy very well, but if there was one thing that I knew, it was that he was passionate about art, specifically tattooing. “Why?”

A pained smile appeared on his face as I took a deep breath. I didn’t like the look on his face as I instinctively placed my hand on his forearm. I tried to ignore the red tint in his face.

“I just can’t afford to keep the job. I’m not getting enough customers.”

His words made me feel sad as I looked at the tattoo on his arm.

“I want to quit school, but I just can’t. I don’t know what to do.”

I internally cried as guilt filled my mind. I don’t even really know this guy. Just leave it alone, it’s his life not yours.

“I’ll let you give me a tattoo.”

His eyes widened as he looked over at me, “What?!”

“Don’t make me regret saying this out loud,” I looked away and tried not to think so much about it, “I’ll be like your last customer. It’ll be the perfect way to end the job I guess.”

I could feel Jungkook’s mood brighten up as he practically threw his phone at me, “Look at the designs on my phone and let me know which one you want.”

...What have I gotten myself into?

I looked at the ceiling with a feeling of regret in my stomach. I did not want to be here… If I had just left the issue alone and let him just quit, everything would be okay.

The only thing stopping me was the smile that was on his face when he walked to the area I was sitting in. I felt anxiety build up in me as Jungkook started getting all the tools ready. What am I doing?

It’s not too late to walk away now. I kept telling myself that, but every time I looked at Jungkook, I pushed the thought away. He turned to me and gave me an assuring nod as I swallowed. I was not ready for this.

“Wait!” I cried as Jungkook started up the needle. He turned it off again and sent me a soft smile.

“Just tell me when you’re ready,” he nodded as I looked down at my arm. I was not ready for this. I will never be ready for this.

“Just get on with it already,”

After countless minutes, hours, days, or however long that took, Jungkook finally finished. My skin felt insanely sore as Jungkook gave me a mini lecture about being careful with my sore arm for a little while.

I looked at the tattoo as I felt a bundle of nerves in my chest. Was I going to regret this decision? Sure, it meant a lot to him, but we’re not even that close.

Jungkook took a deep breath as he wiped my skin lightly, “You’re good to go. I hope you like the way it turned out.”

Now don’t get me wrong, the tattoo is beautiful. The way he designed the butterflies that I had requested was breathtaking. I could hardly keep my eyes off of it. He had drawn two butterflies crossing each other with a hot air balloon behind it, much like the hot air balloon in his tatoo. I loved the tattoo, I was just having issues with the fact that I would be looking at it forever.

“Thank you.”

Jungkook’s voice broke through my thoughts as I looked up at him. My face heated up as he lifted up his shirt to wipe off a little bit of sweat. I couldn’t help but look at his chest for a second before I ripped my eyes away.

“You’re welcome,” I mumbled, but I instantly regretted my words. Jungkook looked at me and walked closer to me, moving his head so that I could see his ear.

“Aish, you really need to speak up,” he teased as I cleared my throat and got up out of the chair I had been sitting in. “You’re welcome,” I repeated in a slight yell as he just laughed and shook his head. I slightly glared at him, but he just looked at me with a smile. As I was looking at him, his humored smile turned into a sad one. I could feel the sad atmosphere coming back.

“I don’t want to leave this place,” he spoke, looking around the room, “I really thought that this was it.”

I felt a frown form on my face, but before I could say anything, his phone began to ring. He excused himself for a second as I looked around. I could tell that the station that I was in was his personal station. Despite not knowing him well, I knew him pretty well. Everything in the space looked like something he put there.

I sighed and looked back down at the tattoo on my arm. Well, there’s no going back…

“What. The. H***.”

I groaned as I turned around to look at Mina. Her mouth was wide open as she looked at my arm. She couldn’t comprehend what I had done, and if I was honest, neither could I.

“You got a tattoo?” her amusement was dying down as a smile started appearing on her face. I groaned again as I knew what was about to come out of her mouth.

“I guess that means you’ve finally admitted to liking Jungkook?” her eyes lit up, but I just sent a horrified look for way.

“No way.” I spoke in English as I couldn’t help but mentally punch myself. I had said the same thing to Jungkook about getting a tattoo, and now I have one. Have I just jinxed myself?

“Omo, I’m so excited,” she pulled out her phone, “I’m so posting about this on my blog!”

I pouted at her and tried to convince her to not post any pictures. Her blog had a decent following, and so many people that lived around here would see it. I was already embarrassed enough.

“Smile!” she pulled out her phone and I just looked away to hide my face from the camera. She snapped the picture and I rushed off to my room. “Hey! Get back here! I have more to talk to you about!”

I was just trying to mind my business and do my homework, but my phone kept going off. I tried to put it on do not disturb, but for some reason my phone wasn’t doing what I was telling it to. I started to turn my phone off, but I sighed and caved in as I saw I was getting a call from Mina.

“OMO!”

“Ow!” I cried as I pulled the phone away from my face, “Mina, don’t scream that in the phone. That hurt.”

“You need to contact Jungkook right now,” she demanded as I sighed. I hadn’t talked to him in nearly a week since he quit trying to run into me after class. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t missing him at least a little bit.

“That would be a little weird. I haven’t seen him since he gave me that tattoo last week.”

“Call him right now. You two should meet me up at the cafe down the street from the parlor.”

I was about to protest, but without warning, she ended the call. I frowned and looked at my phone as I rolled my eyes. I was busy studying right now. I didn’t have time for Mina’s games.

I put my phone down, but the second it left my hands, Mina called me again. I groaned out loud as I heard a few people shush me.

“I know you’re not leaving,” Mina spoke, “So either you meet me here or I go to you.”

I started to whine, but she cut me short, “If you’re not here in the next ten minutes, I’m heading over there and calling Jungkook from your phone against your will.”

“Mina-”

“You better be here in 10!”

Jungkook and I arrived at the cafe at around the same time as he waved politely. He was definitely not as happy as he had been the last time I saw him. We walked in together in pure silence, and I spotted Mina immediately. She had a huge smile on her face as she looked at Jungkook and I.

“You are not going to believe this.”

Mina had called us to talk to us, but I never imagined that this would be her news. She waited a few minutes to actually tell us what happened, and I could tell that Jungkook was skeptical.

“So I posted this photo to my blog with a mini story of the two of you,” she started as I felt a blush appear on my face, “Now the story isn’t important, but the picture is.”

The picture wasn’t even that great as we looked at it on her blog’s website. I looked over at Jungkook and he looked at me, still a little lost on why she had called us.

“Well I thought that it would be a funny story that people would enjoy, but instead, all the comments were about the tattoo.”

She stopped talking as Jungkook and I waited in silence. I could feel his eyes on me as I just continued looking at Mina.

“They all asked me who the tattoo artist was. Everyone started sending me messages in my inbox and in my email for Jungkook’s business cards or a website or something.”

My eyes slightly widened as I looked over at Jungkook. He looked even more surprised than I did as he looked over at me. A smile started forming on his face as everything started sinking in.

“I just can’t afford to keep the job. I’m not getting enough customers.”

His words played in my head over and over as I realized why Mina was so excited about all of this.

“How many people have you had ask?” Jungkook asked eagerly as Mina bit her lip to hold back her increasing smile.

“At least 50.”

“Fifty?!” Jungkook laughed out as he looked over at me. I started to look at him, but before I had turned my head all the way, he had swallowed me in a hug. My eyes widened as my heart jumped. I was not expecting him to hug me so suddenly.

He slightly pulled away from me and laughed slightly. My eyes locked onto his as his smile leaked onto my face. I felt my nerves at our close proximity go away as he continued laughing.

“This means… I can keep my job at the tattoo parlor,” he bit his lip as he looked from me to Mina, “You two, omo… How could I thank the two of you?”

Mina just smiled and sighed, “I’m sure we could think of something.”

It had been nearly a month since Jungkook got his job at the tattoo parlor back and business began picking up. He was getting booked all day for every day he was working, and he could hardly even keep up with it all.

I ended up getting a job there as well, but just as a part time hire for the front desk. They had begged for me to come work for them since I somehow got them a lot of business coming in, and they even agreed to let me study on the job.

“Hey Y/N,” Jungkook called as I finished closing everything up. He had just finished up with his last tattoo for the night and I could see how exhausted he was. I raised my eyebrows at him as he leaned against the front desk to look at me closer. “I’ll give you a ride home tonight since I finished early.”

I just nodded as he smiled and nodded, rushing back into the back. I moved from behind the desk after packing up all my text books and I followed him into the back room.

He finished putting away all the tools as I walked in the back and threw my bag on the ground. I walked over to help him move stuff and lock everything up. He was normally the only one here when we finally closed, but now it was the two of us. I thought he might appreciate a little help.

In the few weeks that I’d been working here, Jungkook and I have grown fairly close. We see each other every day at school and then at work on most days. I thought I would grow tired of him, but the longer I work here, the more I want to be around him.

“I’m thinking of quitting school.”

I looked over at Jungkook with surprise as he finished locking one of the back doors and turned around. He had a smile on his face as he looked to me and sighed, “My dad is even impressed with me now. He called me and told me that he even saw pictures of my tattoos in the paper.”

I moved over to him and sent him a warm smile, “Really? That’s nice to hear. I can’t imagine how great it must be for you to hear him say that.”

Jungkook walked up to me and tilted his head to signal that we should head back to the front. I nodded and picked up my bag, walking with him to the front lobby.

“I’m ecstatic to say the least,” he laughed as he looked over at me. He stopped walking as we arrived to the lobby and he locked the door to the back, “I really can’t say thank you enough. This is a dream come true for me.”

I felt my smile grow as I watched him finish locking the door. He looked over at me and our eyes locked. I was getting used to the feeling of our eyes connecting, and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy it. The room was completely silent as he moved his body to face mine. I took a deep breath as my smile slowly faded away.

The mood shifted from light hearted to heavy as I felt a shiver down my spine. He moved a little closer to me as my hand tightened on my backpack strap. I tried not to focus on his movements, but when his hand touched my arm, it was all I could think about.

His eyes moved to my arm as his finger traced the tattoo that he had put there. I looked at his hand for a moment before looking back up at him. He used this as an opportunity to move a little closer to me, but his eyes stayed on the tattoo.

“Who knew that a simple spot of ink would mean so much?”

At his question, my eyes moved back to his. It took me two seconds to realize just how close we were, and my nerves shot up. He didn’t seem to be affected by the distance as a soft smile appeared on his face.

“Thank you,” his English words rang in my head as my head began spinning. I couldn’t tell if he was really moving closer to me or if I was just hallucinating.

It was at the point when I felt his breath mix with mine that I knew he was moving toward me. My heart jumped into my throat as his eyes searched mine. He seemed to be searching for any kind of uncertainty, but I didn’t feel uncertain in any way. I didn’t want to admit anything, but deep down I knew he had stolen my heart.

Not even a second later, his lips pressed against mine with caution, but once again, I didn’t have an ounce of hesitation in me. I felt his free hand move to my back as my arms rested on his chest.

I melted into his kiss as his lips moved against mine in a careful manner. I respected him being careful with me, but I was getting slightly annoyed with him.

After several seconds of contact, I took initiative and applied more pressure to our kiss. I could feel his surprise at my bold move and I couldn’t blame him. I was just as surprised with how bold I was being.

He leaned into me as I sighed and felt a smile on my face. His more assertive kiss was driving me crazy as I moved my hands up to his hair. He moved our faces into even more of an angle to deepen the kiss as his arm that was on my back pushed me completely against him. The previous innocent kiss was completely gone as Jungkook bit my lip and moved his hand from my arm to hold my neck.

He held his hand firmly on my neck and gained more control of the kiss as he did so. He pulled away for a second to breath, but it was insanely short lived as his lips were back on mine.

I pulled away from the kiss after a few more seconds, but he had become too eager. He pulled me back into the kiss and furiously kissed me again, but I pulled away once again. He restrained from pulling me back in again as our eyes met.

“I would love to stay like this for the rest of the night,” I whispered as my face heated up, “But I need to get home.”

Without a second thought, Jungkook pulled away and nodded. I was a little disappointed that he didn’t even argue over it, but I let it slide since it just made my life easier.

The drive was silent as Jungkook held my hand, caressing it with his thumb. I wanted to tell him to put both hands on the wheel since that was safer, but I found myself closing my mouth before I said anything. I was enjoying it too much to ruin it.

He shortly pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex as I felt slight disappointment. I wasn’t ready to let go of his hand just yet.

“I’ll walk you up.”

For the first time since we became friends, Jungkook actually walked me to my apartment number. He made sure to hold my hand as he did so, I and I found myself becoming slightly addicted to his hand being in mine.

We arrived at my doorstep all too quickly as I turned to Jungkook to say goodbye. Before I could even get a word out, though, his lips were pressed to mine. They didn’t linger long as Jungkook’s hand went back to the place where my tattoo was.

Once he pulled away, our eyes locked and my face once again heated up.

“So does this make us official?”

I continued to look in his eyes after he spoke up and a small smile appeared on my face. I couldn’t help but laugh as I said my famous English phrase; the one that jinxed me in the very beginning.

“No way.”

I’m sorry if the ending is disappointing! I didn’t really read over it too hard since I was just excited to finish it. Thank you for reading!

⇨ Masterlist ⇦

-Admin Jinnie

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1 May 2020

Bits and bobs (and Bites)

Deep breath...

We've got a fantastic set of Data Bites speakers next week (yes, I say that every month, but it's true every month). We have Microsoft (who are kindly supporting, on keeping data safe and the benefits of scale), Citizens Advice (on coronavirus concerns), the Foreign Office (on data as diplomacy) and NHSX (on why making things open makes things better). Join us this Wednesday, 6 May at 6pm. Virtual drinks afterwards. Previous events and our report on the first eight events here.

In the greatest crossover event in history, my spreadsheet of key data-related developments in the UK government's coronavirus response is now also Peter's spreadsheet on transparency 'things' and Sam's spreadsheet on mortality counts. Please help us out by adding anything we've missed.

For they have created the tornado chart, and they shall reap the whirlwind. While it's always good to see people experiment with different chart types, I can't say I was blown away by this one. Perhaps the forthcoming book will make understanding them a breeze.

OpenTech 2020 are looking for virtual speakers - I'm pondering what to present, so I hope some of you are, too.

Seeing this year's nominations reminded me that it's been 11(!) years since I was nominated for a Webby Award - for the original Orwell Diaries project (George Orwell's 1938-42 wartime diaries). This year's Orwell Youth Prize is open for entries until 11 June, and also has loads of resources for teachers and others.

Periodic reminder that some of my excellent colleagues, led by Graham, compile the Week in Public Services newsletter.

This.

Sense About Science and my colleague Tom are looking for volunteers to assess the transparency of evidence for Covid-19 policies.

The BioRISC initiative at Cambridge University have listed 297 possible solutions to coronavirus spread (thanks to Alex for the link). Many of them will raise big questions about the use of data and digital technology (plenty more links on that below...)

And finally... huge congratulations to Giuseppe on the eighth anniversary of his newsletter, which you should already have subscribed to.

Have a good weekend

Gavin

Today's links:

Tips, tech, etc

What does your home office look like? (Policy Lab)

Why Zoom Is Terrible* (New York Times)

Flexible working – what works? (Civil Service)

Parental load theory (Becky Allen)

How digital service teams are responding to Covid-19* (Apolitical)

Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing (The Atlantic)

Graphic content

Viral content: cases and counting

Global coronavirus death toll could be 60% higher than reported (FT)

This chart is mostly shown on a logarithmic vertical axis... (Max Roser)

5 year average weekly deaths by place of death (Henry Lau -and more here)

An expanding epidemic (Reuters)

New confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past week vs. the total confirmed cases to date (Covid Trends, via Nathan)

Three charts that show where the coronavirus death rate is heading (The Conversation)

Revealed: the inside story of the UK's Covid-19 crisis (The Guardian)

Low Covid-19 death toll raises hopes Africa may be spared worst (FT)

62,315 people have died from coronavirus in the U.S.* (Washington Post)

It's the end of April - and the deadline for Hancock's promise of 100,000 coronavirus tests per day (Sarah for IfG)

COVID and ‘excess deaths’ in the week ending April 10th (David Spiegelhalter)

How Coronavirus Mutates and Spreads* (New York Times)

U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Is Far Higher Than Reported, C.D.C. Data Suggests* (New York Times)

NHS Pathways coronavirus triage (NHS Digital)

U.S. deaths soared in early weeks of pandemic, far exceeding number attributed to covid-19* (Washington Post)

Viral content: consequences

Look for the helpers: What can we learn about grass-roots COVID-19 volunteer groups from open data? (Lewis Westbury, via David)

The quiet crisis of Britain’s missing patients* (New Statesman)

America’s pandemic safety net (Reuters)

Europe’s biggest economies hone details on easing out of lockdown* (FT)

The places most exposed to COVID-19 in England and Wales (Centre for Towns)

Lockdown lifestyle: changing internet habits during the pandemic* (FT)

Corona Shock: Week II* (Tortoise)

The traffic data that shows the road into - and out of - Covid-19 lockdown (The Guardian)

The Accepting, the Suffering and the Resisting: the different reactions to life under lockdown (King's Policy Institute)

The criminal justice system: How government reforms and coronavirus will affect policing, courts and prisons (IfG)

Bailout for business after coronavirus (IfG)

Viral content: everything else

How humans have reacted to pandemics through history – a visual guide (The Guardian)

Academics probe links between coronavirus and toxic air pollution* (FT)

The most important data stories about covid-19* (The Economist)

Tracing COVID-19 (Reuters)

Dissecting Laura Ingraham’s attempt to gin up a mystery around coronavirus in New York* (Washington Post)

Sidewalk Widths Toronto (Shared Streets)

Anti-viral content

Britain breaks record for coal-free power generation (The Guardian)

Analysis: Great Britain hits coal-free electricity record amid coronavirus lockdown (Carbon Brief)

Civil service staff numbers (IfG)

Trump's courts takeover is male and white (The Guardian)

States Made It Harder to Get Jobless Benefits. Now That’s Hard to Undo.* (The Upshot)

Explore Explain, a video and podcast series about data visualisation design (Visualising Data)

Meta data

Viral content: Contact details

Digital contact tracing: protecting the NHS and saving lives (NHSX)

Twenty questions about the NHSX contact tracing app (Nuffield Council on Bioethics)

We Need An “Army” Of Contact Tracers To Safely Reopen The Country. We Might Get Apps Instead. (BuzzFeed)

Contact-tracing apps are not a solution to the COVID-19 crisis (Brookings)

Covid, contact tracing and public health tech (Labour Digital)

How will the UK’s new contact tracing programme work?* (FT, via Alex)

Coronavirus contact tracing apps were meant to save us. They won’t* (Wired)

The escalating debate on #Covid19 contact tracing apps (Chris Yiu)

Germany switches to decentralised contact tracing app in privacy U-turn (New Statesman)

NHS app may suffer basic usability issues (Open Rights Group)

NHS rejects Apple-Google coronavirus app plan (BBC News)

The boring side of tech, transparency and contact tracing (Richard Pope)

The Australian contact tracing app is out (Rowland Manthorpe)

Information Technology–Based Tracing Strategy in Response to COVID-19 in South Korea—Privacy Controversies (JAMA)

Joint Statement (scientists and researchers working in the UK in the fields of information security and privacy)

Viral content: more personal data

Coronavirus: New tool will forecast how GP surgeries would cope with a second peak in cases (Sky News)

The Consent to Activities Related to the Security of NHS and Public Health Services Digital Systems (Coronavirus) Directions 2020 (NHS England, Public Health England)

Hancock grants GCHQ powers over NHS IT systems (HSJ)

GCHQ and NHSX’s contact tracing app (medConfidential)

Revealed: Palantir commits 45 engineers to NHS coronavirus data project, earns £1 (New Statesman)

Viral content: everything else

How the NHS was digitally rewired* (The Times)

Privacy International puts Palantir in the dock for NHS data analysis work (Computer Weekly)

Emergency procurement for COVID-19: Buying fast, smart, and open (Open Contracting Partnership)

Another busy week at ONS (Liz McKeown)

Revealed: Cummings is on secret scientific advisory group for Covid-19 (The Guardian)

Make SAGE transparent* (Jill for Prospect)

NUFFIELD COUNCIL AND INVOLVE CALL FOR GREATER TRANSPARENCY AND PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN UK RESPONSE TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC (Nuffield Council on Bioethics/Involve)

The coronavirus has changed general practice – but it is not yet a virtual service (Graham for IfG)

How is the CDEI supporting the response to COVID-19? (CDEI)

The Commons Science and Technology committee hearing on technology and disease outbreaks (Rachel Coldicutt)

Coronavirus shows how badly we need consensus on collective data rights and needs (Open Data Charter)

New insights into life under lockdown (ONS)

Viral content: tech

Home Screens: Quarantine is the future big tech wanted us to want. How long before we want out? (Real Life)

Privacy in a pandemic* (The Economist)

Covid-19 has blown apart the myth of Silicon Valley innovation (MIT Technology Review)

Tech giants are profiting — and getting more powerful — even as the global economy tanks* (Washington Post)

Viral misinformation

Fighting the causes and consequences of bad information: the Full Fact Report 2020 (Full Fact)

Facts on Coronavirus (Full Fact)

MPs express frustration at question-dodging tech giants in Covid-19 misinformation inquiry (New Statesman)

Covid-19 has caused a major spike in anti-Chinese and anti-Semitic hate speech* (New Statesman)

So #COVID19 crisis has laid bare failures by both Big Tech & govts to combat disinformation (Govt-backed) & misinformation (nongovt-backed)... (Mark Scott - some reasons to be cheerful)

Anti-viral content

New RSS Chief Executive appointed (RSS)

Warwick University was hacked and kept breach secret from students and staff (Sky News)

Nine million logs of Brits' road journeys spill onto the internet from password-less number-plate camera dashboard (The Register)

Examining the Black Box: Tools for Assessing Algorithmic Systems (Ada Lovelace Institute/DataKind UK)

New survey finds just 27% of British businesses are sharing data (ODI)

Microsoft embraces big data* (The Economist, via David)

The fight with Huawei means America can’t shape tech rules* (The Economist)

How to talk about data without talking about data (Understanding Patient Data)

Designing sustainable data institutions (ODI)

How the alt-right is pivoting to TikTok* (New Statesman)

(Important) work in progress (Paul Downey)

Opportunities

EVENT: Data Bites #10 (IfG)

EVENT: OpenTech 2020

EVENT: Contact tracing: to centralise or not to centralise, that is the question (Ada Lovelace Institute)

EVENT: How to respond to COVID-19 through open government (Apolitical)

GRANTS: ADR UK and ESRC welcome proposals for methodological development grants (ADR UK)

ACCESS: Free access to digital records (The National Archives)

JOBS: Open Data Institute

JOB: Advocacy Officer, Fixed term Contract - 1 Year Parental Leave Cover (Privacy International)

And finally...

Names for Ed Balls in different languages (Beth Desmond, via Ketaki)

A map showing all land over 2,000ft in Scotland (Alasdair Rae)

Factorization diagrams (Fermat's Library)

Cities from scratch (The Guardian)

Are men singing higher in pop music? (The Pudding)

[technato]

Invisibility Can Be a Superpower, T-shirts Matter, and More Insights From Women in Tech

What’s it like to be a woman in tech? Three generations of IBM women weigh in

Illustration: iStockphoto

Could a small group of women in tech tell me anything about what it’s like to be a woman in tech today? Earlier this month, IBM’s San Francisco team invited me to give it a try. They set me up on a dinner date with three women—one in her 20s, one in her 40s, and one in her 50s. The three hadn’t met before. We had no formal agenda, just a general plan to talk about their experiences. It was pretty bold of the company to suggest that the experiences of three women could coalesce into anything meaningful—but I think it did.

Here’s who I met and what I learned.

The women:

From the Baby Boomer generation, Angie Krackeler, who goes by the lengthy title of worldwide developer and startup technical enablement advocate. Basically, Krackeler says, she helps startups use IBM technology. Krackeler has an M.S. in electrical engineering, and started her IBM career 30 years ago as a chip designer.

Representing Gen X, Erin McKean, a developer advocate. McKean’s role, she says, is “everything API,” including one of her favorite parts of her job, building demos for developers. Prior to joining IBM, McKean spent 20 years as a dictionary editor (she has an M.A. in linguistics), and took a number of coding classes along the way. McKean says the step from dictionaries to computers was a small one: “A dictionary is a database on paper, and JavaScript is a lot easier to learn than German.”

And from the millennials, Anamita Guha, a product manager for IBM Watson developer labs and AR/VR labs. Guha’s job involves creating tools for developers that help them use Watson. She came to IBM a year ago after, she says, hopping through a number of intense tech startups. Her B.A. degree is in cognitive science, and she started and sold her first tech company while still in college.

My takeaways:

Invisibility can be a superpower

Women in tech often talk about being overlooked or ignored. At events, they are regularly assumed to part of the support staff instead of members of the tech team. Some describe it as feeling invisible in an industry dominated by “tech bros.” But invisibility, it seems, can be a superpower.

Says McKean: “Invisibility is fantastic. People say things in front of you when they shouldn’t. I’ve been in a coffee shop a number of times, and seen two dudes sitting at the other table look around, thinking, ‘Oooh, we are going to have our strategy discussion now.’ They see me and are like, ‘Oh, that middle-aged mom doesn’t care about our venture strategy.’ And I’m like, ‘Wrong, dude.’ This was particularly interesting when I was raising venture money myself.”

Says Guha, “I get a lot of pleasure from proving people wrong. When I am at a work event, and someone says, ‘Oh, are you this person’s girlfriend?’ I’m like, ‘No, I wrote the tech behind that.’ And they are like, ‘Uh, do you want a drink?’ The dynamic changes so quickly; I love doing that.”

McKean also likes upending expectations. “When I’m doing a demo,” she says, “there’s often a dude that could be my kid in the audience. And I’m showing him that it’s not simply ‘Your mom can use this product.’ It’s ‘Your mom can code this product.’”

Being a woman can help your tech career

“Being a woman in tech right now has been beneficial to my career,” says Guha. “I work in AR and VR, and that space has very few women, so I get invited to speak on panels all the time. There is a barrier you have to jump to establish yourself, but now, because we are in a climate that demands diversity, I sometimes feel like I’m passing my male peers because I’m a woman. It’s amazing to be able to do that. “

This new visibility is also motivating, Guha says. “I always say, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see,’ and that motivates me to keep going, to be that person who inspires people.”

Many excellent candidates follow nontraditional routes to tech jobs

Of the three women, only Krackeler has a traditional engineering educational background. The others moved into tech because it was a means to an end. McKean, for example, always wanted to be a dictionary editor, but found herself coding more and more. Eventually, she started an online dictionary startup, Wordnik. “Working in a small room with a lot of kick-ass engineers made me want to level up my coding skills; I am now a full-stack engineer.” (Wordnik, originally a traditional venture-backed company, is now a nonprofit.)

Guha was on a pre-med track in college, majoring in cognitive science. She developed a complicated spreadsheet to help her study for the Medical College Admission Test, started a company to turn that spreadsheet into an app, pivoted a couple of times, and sold the company before she graduated. Her first job out of college was designing user interfaces for mobile games; the psychology courses and medical research she’d been involved in during college helped with that, she says.

McKean sums it up: “I think a lot of women get into tech because they need it to do the thing they want to do. It’s goal driven. I meet a lot of men who go into tech because they love tech. I love writing code, but I like the ends more than I like the means. I am not interested in beautiful tech for its own sake, I’m interested in real world things people have to do.”

IBM is trying to appeal to millennials—and that can be good for everyone

“The offices at Watson West are startup-like,” says Guha, with “snacks, dogs—the environment is important. IBM is also investing in people’s careers when they join, putting them into a six-month boot camp with everything paid for—housing, food, everything. It creates a college campus feel.”

IBM, she says, is also letting people like her “work from anywhere at any time; that caters to a millennial who doesn’t want to be stuck. Every day is my oyster, if I want to go to yoga at 10 AM, I block that hour out and I do it. The company is outcomes-oriented; that is appealing to my generation of people, who want to do good work, but to have freedom.”

Says Gen-Xer McKean, “Everybody appreciates that. The things the company is doing to be more appealing to millennials makes it more appealing to everyone. You might want to go to yoga, but someone else wants to pick up their kids. You are dealing with people from every demographic, millennials, cynical Gen-Xers like me, and boomers returning to the workforce after being out for a while. Code doesn’t care how old you are.”

Free T-shirts are sending a message, and it’s probably not the one you want

What doesn’t help attract women to tech, the group agreed, are the T-shirts given out at just about every industry event. “I hate the T-shirts,” commented McKean, to universal groans. “They always look terrible; they are never something I want to wear.”

Giveaways are supposed to make the recipient feel good about the corporate giver, the specific conference, or the industry. Men’s extra-large T-shirts send the opposite message to women, the three indicated.

“Why can’t we have charm bracelets,” says McKean. “If I had a charm from every tech conference I went to? That’d be great. It’d be cheaper than T-shirts, too.”

Occasionally, conference organizers get it right. Says Krackeler, “Last January, I did a hackathon with ESPN, and ESPN for women came, they had hair ties and other things—I loved that they had something that brought the women together.”

“I went to Grace Hopper last year,” Guha chimed in. “Their giveaways were amazing. I got a nail file, workout tanks, branded lipstick—the lipstick wasn’t great quality, but it showed that they tried.”

Some women in tech are turning things around and using the T-shirts issue to make a statement themselves. Reported McKean: “A wonderful engineer designed a tech T-shirt—and only made it available in women’s sizes. And whenever a man on Twitter said, ‘Where are the men’s sizes?’ she’d reply ‘Those are unisex.’ She got hundreds of replies to her tweets, the joke just kept going.”

Finally, a personal note. I’ve been meeting with engineers in the tech industry for decades—and I do think this was the first time that I sat down to a business dinner of three or more without a man at the table. It led to an easy dynamic, a sense of relaxed openness that I never before noticed was missing. Is this what it’s like for men in tech most of the time? I guess I’ll never know.

Invisibility Can Be a Superpower, T-shirts Matter, and More Insights From Women in Tech syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

[animalistauntamedblog]

If I said to you, “You are invited inside an animal research lab, free to venture where you will on an open access, 360-degree, street-view-style virtual tour,” what would you think?

Would you even want to – even in the interests of arming yourself with the facts? What if I added, “Don’t worry, there is absolutely nothing here to upset you”? Would you be ready to believe me and give it a go?

Well, it’s for real – times 4. Four animal testing facilities in the UK opened up their doors and welcomed in the film crew of the Lab Animal Tour. And so with this groundbreaking initiative, you and I, anyone and his aunt can now nosey around inside the labs to our heart’s content. Just click on the link.

I promise you will be impressed and reassured. It’s all gleaming and spotless and the animals are so well looked after – not that you will see that much of them. But when you do, they are looking healthy and well-fed, with clean dry bedding and constant access to water. Their pens or cages for the most part are of a ‘decent’ size, you might think. And they are not being kept in isolation. The very worst I saw was an apparently willing and calm rhesus macaque monkey placed in some contraption designed to keep him/her immobilised while being slid into an MRI machine. Not too terrible, one might consider.

What’s more, there are little videos embedded in the tour, with researchers or animal-carers explaining what they are doing and why. And it’s all very nice, clean and reasonable, and entirely devoid of anything remotely cruel or bloody.

Except….

Notably and significantly, certain rooms on our virtual tour such as the operating theatre, the post-mortem suite and the intensive care unit are displayed with no animal presence. We only get to view these rooms empty, in all their nice, shiny, glass and steel clinical cleanliness. But just the names of those rooms must surely sound alarm bells.

The Lab Animal Tour, a commendable project in open access and transparency? Open access yes. Transparency no. As you may have worked out by now, my take on the Lab Animal Tour is more than a little sceptical. The Lab Animal Tour is no better than a PR exercise, a carefully sanitised piece of propaganda on behalf of those who have no interest in animal testing coming to an end.

So who created the tour? And how is it funded?

It’s all the work of an organisation called Understanding Animal Research (UAR), a misleadingly innocuous title. Who are they? “A not-for-profit organisation that explains why animals are used in medical and scientific research. We aim to achieve a broad understanding of the humane use of animals in medical, veterinary, scientific and environmental research in the UK. We are funded by our members who include universities, professional societies, industry and charities.”

In other words, the force behind the Lab Animal Tour is none other than the designated spokesbody for the researchers themselves. Faultless PR is UAR’s remit, not impartiality.

Understanding Animal Research’s website purports to tell you everything you need to know about animal research in the UK. This is a flavour of their list of ‘Myths’ we the public have ‘erroneously’ swallowed about the use of animals in medical research – which they are at pains to debunk:

Research on animals is not relevant to people because animals are different from people

Systematic reviews demonstrate that animal studies are meaningless for human health

There is an endless list of drugs that have to be withdrawn because of side effects, and these side effects are a major cause of hospital deaths

Many pointless, unnecessary experiments are carried out

Researchers do not care about the wellbeing of laboratory animals

Laboratory animals suffer great pain and distress

How could we be so stupid as to believe such nonsense! There are lots more supposed ‘myths’ listed on this page. If you want to look at them and see the ‘facts’ with which the organisation puts us straight on our delusions, click here

Animal Aid though, paints a very different picture

The difference is that Animal Aid (with assistance from PETA) is courageously uncovering the truth animal researchers are at such pains to conceal. UAR’s carefully-edited version of life in the lab is designed to reassure a public only too happy to believe that testing on animals is both necessary and humane. After all, which would you prefer to be true: that animals suffer, or that everything is fine?

According to Animal Aid,“Each year inside British laboratories, around 4 million animals are experimented on. Every 8 seconds, one animal dies.” No mention of that in the Lab Animal Tour. And these are just some of the unhappy animals making up that number, everyone a person not a statistic

There’s a short video on Animal Aid’s website, “This will make you rethink animal experiments”, which I chose not to watch. So just to warn you, I can’t vouch for how graphic it is. Their Animal Experiments section is packed with impeccably resourced information. And another important fact you won’t discover on the Lab Animal Tour is that animals are being abused daily, not just for ‘vital’ medical research, but also for testing:-

Product safety – agricultural and industrial chemicals, food additives, paints, and household cleaning products

Warfare – effects of injury, shooting, radiation, chemical poisoning and gases

Pain analysis  I won’t list the tortures animals are subjected to for this purpose. Refer to the Animal Aid website if you really want to know

Psychology –  sounds innocent enough, but ditto the above

Animal Aid also tells us that hundreds of thousands of genetically modified animals are specially bred every year, mostly mice. “And for every GM mouse used in an experiment, hundreds more die or are killed, either because they are surplus to requirements, because they fail to exhibit the desired genetic alteration or because they are born with other, unintended malformations.” Another unpalatable fact that the Lab Animal Tour and UAR avoid mentioning.

UAR and their Lab Animal Tour/Animal Aid – diametrically apposed to one another

‘Have no truck with Animal Aid; it is the same lunatic animal rights brigade in a new package. Society must leave these dangerous fools behind’ 

That strongly worded statement appears on UAR’s website, on a page called Life Stories – ordinary people bearing witness to how animal testing “has changed their lives for the better.”

It’s unlikely any of us have ever heard of David Dade, the man who made that statement, and one whose ‘Life Story’ is featured. This unfortunate man has both parents suffering from cancer, and his son from diabetes. Understandable then that he’s willing to provide a testimonial for a website promoting the use of nonhuman animals in medical research.

He’s possibly unaware of what a glance at Animal Aid’s website would tell him: the large and growing number of reliable alternative methods – such as organs on a chip, and the use of human tissue – that can make animal testing a bad dream of the past.

The moral of the story?

It has to be, looking out for what we are not shown, not told. People who have something to gain by using animals, in whatever way, are always expert at putting a gloss on their activities. Think McDonald’s and their ads with kids and animals frolicking happily together on a picture-perfect farm.

Compared with other users of nonhuman animals though, the Lab Animal Tour, UAR and lab animal researchers in general have an additional and potent weapon up their sleeve. They claim to have moral right on their side. No-one is morally obliged to eat meat, or take a trip to the zoo. But who, they say, could be so callous as to deny those suffering from crippling diseases the hope of a cure? That is the way subjecting unwilling victims to horrific, and sometimes fatal procedures is justified.

What we can do

Click here for Animal Aid’s useful pdf document about human tissue donation (to donate your tissue you don’t have to die first!)

To ensure your charitable giving does not help fund research on animals click here for a comprehensive list of testing and non-testing charities.

Sign up to receive Animal Aid’s e-newsletter here

Check out the Humane Research Trust

And Animal Free Research UK

  Source New project gives you 360-degree, Open Street-like view into animal research labs

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Because THEY Are Worth It

Ten Fascinating Way Technology is Saving Animals

  Taking the Lid Off Animal Research Labs -Don’t Worry, It’s All Good