#she was made for me specifically.

[dizzybizz]

crystal ribbon

[ribbittrobbit]

these kids are incredibly stressed out

[magpie-trinkets]

continuing that "maya tries to contact claire" post, i present you the post-Spirit of Justice follow-up

[metacrisisdoctor]

4.12 | 4.13

[stellas-and-tonitruses]

Everything we know about Project Apple (and, by extension, Anya's past) thus far

thought i'd compile all of that now while endo's on break Just In Case the next chapter happens to start anya's backstory (i don't Think it will but endo likes surprising us LSDFKLFS)

important disclaimer that project apple and the organization in charge of anya's experiments have not been confirmed to be related! there's evidence that they have things in common, in particular employees, but that's our only real connection between the two thus far. still! worth looking into

more under the cut!

so, starting very strongly with the very first mention of anything related to the project: anya's introduction in chapter 1

despite her being a main character, we know very little about her past at the moment, and this little blurb at the beginning makes up a very big portion of what we know.

things to note here:

as an experiment, her name was "Test Subject 007". important to note that the notation differs between her and bond: she was Test Subject 007, bond was Subject 8, no zeroes in there;

she had been made thus by accident, the phrasing itself implying quite heavily that she was just a normal child before said accident (but this is the translation! i don't know japanese so i can't cross-reference with the raws to clarify if the phrasing changes anything, but the fanbook uses the word "gained" to describe her powers too);

because her mind-reading is an unintended consequence, that means the scientists were presumably not, at least initially, trying to achieve cognitive enhancements in humans, and were instead trying to achieve something else, whatever that might've been;

she escaped from the facility and then moved from institution to institution, looking for a family.

so, crucially, through this little introduction we learn that there is an organization, government-funded or otherwise, that is or was conducting human experiments for unknown purposes. we also learn that whatever family anya had prior to being involved in the experiments is more than likely unreachable, at least as far as she knows, and so she has settled for finding a new family to take care of her instead.

in terms of the facility itself, here we see they clearly drilled it into her that she can't ever reveal her secret (and the darn plush is there too -- in the anime it's even more emphasized, as you can see in the gif i made)

through her reminiscing though, we get our very first look at the scientists that were in charge of her! they're in the gif above but here they are in the manga too. it's so interesting that the anime actually shows their eyes behind the glasses though, fascinating choice.

the insistence on world peace is important, as it explains her own personal obsession with it and shows that it's not just because of twilight's own focus on preserving the peace. i also don't think twilight ever really talks about "world peace," only about "preserving the current peace between westalis and ostania" -- anya seems to be the only one talking about WORLD peace (even in the very first scene where either of them mention it in proximity to each other in ch 1, loid says "understanding the other party is the first step towards peace" and anya's interpretation is "understanding me makes world peace?") but take this with a grain of salt because i might be wrong! going through every single mention of peace in the story just to fact check this one little trivia fact is a bit much i think so i'm not doing it JSDFKLSD

but yes

remember mr hair strand and baldy, we'll see them again. not her though, ig she wasn't in charge of bond

now, fast-forwarding to chapter 19, we finally get a name and a premise for the experiments:

"but oana," you might say, "this is talking about animals only! how do we know it's the same project as anya's, which involved human experimentation?"

i don't think it is, is the thing! i think it's related to the experiments anya was a part of, which is evidenced by the same scientists being featured in project apple too, but there's more going on that we don't know about. there wouldn't be such adamancy on keeping the two separate in every official mention of them if they were just the same thing, imo!

back to the evidence, we learn that the project, conducted and funded by the previous ostanian regime (meaning donovan's related to it one way or another, since he was prime minister), was marked by franticness and desperation -- a prime place for accidents like anya's telepathy and bond's future vision.

we also learn that the project was sacked by the new administration and that the former test subjects ended up on the black market.

(this makes it very important, imo, to learn when anya escaped the facility vs. when the project was sacked. it's clearly no longer in function, but while we've heard nothing from them thus far, i'm willing to bet the shady dealings around the desmond group are NOT related to the war, as W.I.S.E. has been led to believe, but rather to reignite project apple. that is speculation however so i'm going to refrain from theorising much on why the desmond group is focused on acquiring pharmaceutical companies!!)

ok speculation tangent over, back on track

so, that's already a decent amount of info! but moving to chapter 22, when bond is finally home, and we finally see some familiar faces

behold! baldy and mr hair strand!

and 2 other guys we don't know but will see again in another bond flashback!

that's 2 out of the 3 scientists we've seen thus far from anya's own time as subject 007, confirming that there IS a connection between anya and bond's experiments, regardless of whatever the project anya was a part of might've been named.

this is also the chapter in which we learn that bond himself was subject 8 (or, if we take it from the fanbook, subject #8. still, diff notation from anya!)

in chapter 31, we learn an interesting tiny piece of trivia. we don't get any further info on it, but it IS mentioned as something that is known by W.I.S.E.:

ostania is rumoured to have done human experimentation! and W.I.S.E., and by extension loid, are aware of that.

do i know how them knowing may be important later? not really!

the next droplet of info we get is in chapter 40. we see that project apple had collaborators that are still functioning unhindered.

of course, born industries is only rumoured to have been involved with project apple, but regardless of whether or not they actually were, the rumour itself implies that the project likely pulled scientists from various other companies' R&D departments.

(this makes the desmond group's acquisition of glooman pharmaceuticals shadier, but anyway)

as a side note, twilight is emoting so much at just his wrong assumption that bond is seeking revenge against the scientists. imagine how he's going to react when he finds out about anya JKSDFKLFSD

and now aaaaall the way in chapter 58, we see the bald guy who anya also knows, the two scientists from bond's previous flashback, and one whole new guy!

and thus ends our current knowledge of it all!

the only other thing worth discussing is anya's knowledge of classical language

but plenty people have already discussed these scenes, especially recently, so here are some links: 1 | 2 | 3

the only thing i can add is that i'm fairly certain that classical language is a lot more likely to be latin than old english, because it's a very common language to learn in school (in europe at least, and ostania is based on east germany so it makes sense to me. i learned mandatory latin in school for a few good years too, even if i wasn't that good at it lol) and because one of the most common modern usages of latin are in medicine and science, it would make sense that she'd be better at it due to exposure.

a possibility is also that the scientists would think in latin to conceal their thoughts from her, and that's how she ended up learning so much. she's not fluent in latin, she's just well acquainted and that cicumstance would explain the how.

BUT THAT'S SPECULATIONNN

also i don't think "ANIA" is an acronym, nor do i think anya's been misspelling her own name out of lack of knowledge. "ania" is a polish diminutive of anna and an alternate transcription of Аня, so i think it's far more likely that anya isn't ostanian or westalian than it is that her name comes from an acronym.

now,

TL;DR!

what we know about project apple (and the "mysterious organization"):

project apple was funded and conducted by what appears to have been donovan's regime and, from what W.I.S.E. knows, aimed to create highly intelligent animals for military purposes;

W.I.S.E. is aware that ostania is at the very least rumoured to have dabbled in human experimentation;

the project is presumably no longer on-going, though it is likely there are efforts behind the scenes to revive it;

it is rumoured but not confirmed that project apple had collaborating companies that are still functioning perfectly fine;

the same scientists who were in charge of bond were also in charge of anya, signalling that there is a very significant connection between project apple and the "mysterious organization;"

based on what they were telling anya, they were/are very focused on "world peace";

their experimentation methods include but likely aren't limited to electrocution.

and what we (vaguely) know about anya that relates to this:

she is at the youngest, 4 years old, and at the oldest, 5 nearing 6. we don't know her real age, all we know is she definitely lied about being 6;

she is very fixated on specifically world peace while twilight is focused on peace between ostania and westalis. the scientists are the very first we see talking about this, so it's likely their fault;

she is unreasonably well acquainted with classical language;

she has escaped the facility at LEAST 1 year ago;

and, one tidbit from the fanbook (page 29): "Anya has been reading minds for as long as she can remember," implying that her memory of a life before the lab is muddy at best and absent at worst.

that's all we know that i know of!!

if you got this far, thank you for reading :D hope any of this was interesting or sparked any theories >:] have a good day!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Cultivator and Lawyer, Elle Woods (& Her spiritual dog Bruiser)!

Part 2 (soon)

[katiemcgrathisdaddyaf]

so I personally needed a compilation of the Kara “I can be subtle” Danvers moments from @supergirlpolls and I made this

[cupidswurld]

1x01 pilot spn / dust bowl (unreleased) ethel cain

[fictionadventurer]

I think I underestimated how cool it is that Little House books are a "woman remembers her childhood" children's classic by an author from a working-class and rural background. Most working-class books of the genre have urban settings, and most rural girlhood classics come from a family that's in a fairly stable community--maybe not rich, but comfortable enough that they don't have to worry about whether they'll make it through a winter.

Laura Ingalls grew up dirt poor in a family that knew how to grow or build or hunt or make everything that they needed, because they had to. Yet when she grew up, she got into a position where she could publish about it. Which is pretty astounding, because people in her situation are usually too busy doing the farmwork to write about it--they don't have connections to the publishing industry. Yet she did, so we get to hear from someone who knows that farm and small-town setting intimately, and not because she grew up and and ran off to the city as soon as she could escape, but because she still lives it and loves it and advocates for it.

She knows the details of that life and loves it. Like, she genuinely cares about raising the chickens, not as a housewife's hobby, but as an important source of meat, eggs and money for the family. It's grounded, earthy, sensible, but also romantic, because she while she's doing farm work or house work she's noticing the little moments of beauty or thinking about the big issues of life. But it took a long series of coincidences to get this ordinary farm wife into a position of wanting to write, being able to write, and having a national audience for her writing, so I just want to appreciate how amazing it is that it happened.

[aroaceleovaldez]

HoO is so funny to me when you actually think about the ages of all the characters. Octavian is 18. Percy and Annabeth are 16, almost 17. Reyna is presumably 16. Frank just turned 16, Jason’s about to turn 16. Leo and Piper are like 15. Hazel’s like 14 and a half, and Nico is 13.

The Death Sibs are both the youngest and oldest on the Argo II. Octavian is a college freshman getting into petty drama with a bunch of high schoolers. He gets told to shut up at one point by a random 8th grader. Everyone is scared of the 8th grader. We Sent A 13 Year Old To Superhell and he came back weirder, Just Like Middle School. TLH was just three high school sophomores being sent to do a task and it going Exactly Like You’d Expect. Percy’s the only demigod on the ship who can legally drive (though Reyna gets her drivers license at some point before TOA). What Is Happening.

[tavtime]

"Bhaal, Lolth, the Absolute... They do not have followers - they only have victims. And they reward devotion with death."

Thinking about Minthara's relationship to faith in general and Lolth in specific has me eating glass. She's such a deeply devoted person, it's literally her core character trait. You don't become a vengeance paladin for nothing, you know? But then in the course of pursuing her faith, of upholding her oath - she gets brainwashed. She is taken in by the Absolute, and that's the end of it. It doesn't matter that she would never have voluntarily betrayed her religion. Her goddess writes her off because it happened to her at all.

Idk idk I think about this and it's just... no wonder she's... brittle? She's been treated as disposable by everyone she's ever thought of as friend or family. She's been taught that her loyalty is *everything* but those who demand it, and to whom she gives it, treat it like it's nothing. They use her, and then they throw her away. If I were her I wouldn't be in a hurry to bond with the party either, or in a rush to start trying to be a hero. I get it ma'am. I get it.

[apollos-boyfriend]

this is like. all fully speculation. but i was rewatching some of jaiden’s nuzlocke videos, and them combined with a recent clip of hers i saw talking about how she’s not even sure why quackity chose her for the qsmp made me connect why he might’ve picked her. because like. i think nearly everyone was a bit shocked, if not confused, to see her on the lineup. despite having been in the scene for a while—her first public animations were for ihascupquake, after all—jaiden isn’t your first thought when you think of minecraft youtubers. as far as i’m aware, she was on one smp before the qsmp—epicsmp, and we all know how that ended.

no, jaiden isn’t who you’d think of when you think minecraft youtuber. but she is who you’d think of when you think storyteller. which, yeah, is kind of obvious. there’s a whole subcategory of youtube for animated storytellers, and jaiden’s been one of the front runners for years now. but the thing about jaiden specifically is that she doesn’t just tell stories. she shapes them. you can really see that the most with her animated nuzlockes. she’s given scenarios and events that are largely random and arbitrary, fully just game coding and out of her control, and she turns them into her story. her platinum nuzlocke specifically highlights this with the giratina, two jaidens storyline she creates to explain her resetting the run and attempting the elite four again.

live mcrp HEAVILY relies on having to go with the flow of the game, and learning to work around in-game mechanics and limitations to create a storyline out of. things that are story-important, like pets or npcs, are fragile and can be taken away at any moment, be it by a mob, glitch, or player error. you have to be able to think on your feet to not only work around it, but create a narrative to explain that decision fitting into the canon and story instead of just taking it at face-value. and that’s exactly what jaiden’s been doing for years now with a lot of her gaming-based content. quackity would need people accustomed versatile storytelling as much as he’d need people accustomed to survival minecraft itself, and jaiden is nothing short of an expert at her craft

[emeraldties]

The Darkling this, Sankta Alina that, why is nobody talking about Sankta Neyar?

“‘Weakness’” “Hundreds of years I closed my heart, as if that was the solution to ending all pain” “what a safe way to live, and what a small way” “you guard against pain, you guard against joy” “two worlds make a universe”

“He’s not my weakness, he’s my universe.”

Fuck whatever mess those two have over there, I want a love like THAT. He may not be her last or her first, but that doesn’t mean their time loving each other was meaningless, even in the grand scheme of things, because some people are worth losing.

[bittybatarts]

more dragons for appreciate a dragon day, it's only right christmas gift i made for @apiarymary a while ago, she's so dragon

[thepoisonroom]

'I flirted with the idea that instead of being trans that I was just a cross-dresser (a quirk, I thought, that could be quietly folded into an otherwise average life) and that my dysphoria was sexual in nature, and sexual only. And if my feelings were only sexual, then, I wondered, perhaps I wasn’t actually trans.

I had read about a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen, by a Northwestern University professor who believed that transwomen who were attracted to women were really confused fetishists, they wanted to be women to satisfy an autogynephilia. And though I first read about this book in the context of its debunkment and disparagement, I thought about the electricity of slipping on those tights, zipping up those boots, and a stream of guilt followed. Maybe this professor was right, and maybe I was only a fetishist. Not trans, just a misguided boy.

About a year later, on the Internet, I come across a transwoman who added a unique message to the crowd refuting this professor. Oh, I wish I remember who this woman was, and I wish even more that I could do better than paraphrase her, but I remember her saying something like this: “Well, of course I feel sexy putting on women’s clothing and having a woman’s body. If you feel comfortable in your body for the first time, won’t that probably mean it’ll be the first time you feel comfortable, too, with delighting in your body as a sexual thing?”'

-Casey Plett, Consciousness

[nyaaamato]

bad omens