#so it has the potential of being Actually a problem but i have No products

[pucksandpower]

Piece of Cake

Lando Norris x McLaren reserve driver!Reader x platonic!Oscar Piastri

Summary: McLaren hands their drivers a blindfold, a pair of headphones, and a roll of duct tape to bake burn a cake … it goes about as well as can be expected

Based on this request

You stroll into the McLaren motorhome, gym bag slung over your shoulder, earbuds in as you listen to your pre-race pump-up playlist. Being the team’s reserve driver is a dream come true — you get to be around the cutting-edge of Formula 1 and some of the brightest minds in motorsport.

And if chance should have it, you could even sub in for one of the race drivers. The thrill of potential sends a tingle down your spine.

As you round the corner, you nearly walk straight into Lando, who’s got his jaw set in that brooding, focused way he gets right before a race weekend. His eyes light up when he sees you.

“Y/N! There you are,” he says, a dazzling smile emerging. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

You pull out your earbuds. “What’s up? Everything okay for the race?”

He runs a hand through his perfectly tousled hair. “Race? Oh, pfft, who cares about that? We’ve got bigger problems to solve today.”

You raise an eyebrow. Lando has a flair for the dramatic.

He goes on, “We’ve been roped into doing this absolutely mental social media challenge video. Something about … baking? I dunno, to be honest, I stopped listening after they said one of us had to do it blindfolded.”

“Blindfolded?” You repeat, already regretting asking.

That’s when Oscar pops his head out from the kitchen area, hastily re-taping his mouth shut with bright orange duct tape. He flashes you a goofy thumbs up.

“So get this,” Lando continues, not missing a beat, “You’re the blindfolded one. I have to wear noise-canceling headphones so I can’t hear anything. And poor Oscar ...” He gestures over his shoulder at the other driver, who gives an exaggerated shrug. “Can’t speak a word, obviously.”

You look between the two of them, dumbfounded. “And we’re meant to … bake? Like, an actual cake or something?”

“Yep!” Lando says brightly. Too brightly. He claps you on the shoulder. “Should be a right laugh, eh? Let’s get started then!”

And just like that, the chaos begins.

After some shuffling about and giggling fits from the boys, you find yourself standing at the kitchen counter, a thick blindfold secured over your eyes.

You strain your other senses, trying to get your bearings. The hum of the overhead lights, the chemical tang of cleaning products, and was that … vanilla? You give an experimental sniff. Definitely vanilla.

A presence appears at your side and you nearly jump out of your skin when a hand grasps your wrist, guiding your fingers to what feels like … a whisk? Lando leans in close, his cologne surrounding you.

“Okay, I can’t hear myself think in these bloody headphones, but I’m going to talk you through the recipe step-by-step,” he murmurs, warm breath tickling your ear. You shiver involuntarily. “Just, y’know … do whatever feels right, I guess?”

With that enormously unhelpful advice, he releases your wrist and you feel him retreat. You’re flying blind — quite literally.

Then there’s a tap on your other arm. You turn, whisk at the ready, as Oscar’s unmistakable muffled laughter reaches your ears. Of course he’s going to be no help, sealed lips and all.

“Alright guys, very funny,” you say, aiming a withering look somewhere in their general direction though you can’t actually see them. “If I’m meant to be baking something edible out of this mess, you’re going to need to give me a bit more guidance.”

At that, Lando ambles back over, grasping your elbow to steer you somewhere — hopefully towards an actual baking ingredient and not, like, the rubbish bin. A few stumbling, giggle-filled steps later and you’re deposited in front of what sounds like … mixing bowls? Containers? You tentatively reach out a hand.

Your fingers brush over cool ceramic and you let out a relieved breath. Okay, progress. You dip the whisk in exploratorily and feel … something powdery. Flour? You raise it to your face to sniff, but Lando stops you just in time.

“Oi, oi, don’t go getting a lungful of whatever that is!” He laughs, somehow sounding even more handsome when he’s cheerfully chiding you. You bite your lip to stifle a grin.

Things begin to take shape after that, with Lando’s surprisingly not-too-horrible instruction and Oscar’s spirited gesticulating. You quickly work out the basics — butter, sugar, flour, eggs. The wet and dry ingredients get sloppily combined in separate bowls.

All fairly standard baking stuff.

Until, that is, Oscar tries miming out the need for baking soda and you obviously can’t see his dramatic gestures. You have no clue. He positions your hands with frantic motions as you measure out a hilarious amount of the mystery powder into your mixture.

Before long, a questionable batter has been produced. Oscar helps wrestle the cake pans away from you before you can completely muddle everything. The boys shuffle around for a bit, presumably prepping the pans and oven and such.

Then it’s time to pour in the batter. You feel Lando’s sturdy hands again, this time wrapping around yours to guide the bowl’s contents out. Immediately, the thick, lumpy globs start splattering over the sides and onto the counter. Oscar’s choked laughter fills the air. Lando curses under his breath, so close you can feel the rumble of his voice on your back.

Somehow, you all get the pans mostly filled without completely obliterating the kitchen. Oscar takes them to pop in the oven while Lando stays by your side. And that’s when you feel it — his free hand straying to rest on your hip. Reflexively, you lean back against his solid frame. The heat between your bodies builds deliciously.

For a long moment, it’s just the two of you standing there in peaceful suspension, chests rising and falling in tandem. Then Lando leans his head down, lips brushing the shell of your ear.

“You’ve got a bit of … uh, whatever that yellow stuff was in the bowl … just there,” he murmurs, voice low and impossibly alluring.

You inhale shakily. “Yeah? Why don’t you get it for me then?”

There’s the barest hesitation before his lips are on your neck, tongue darting out to lick away the wayward batter. You sag back against him, surrendering to the electrifying sensation. A tiny moan escapes your lips.

God, you want this man.

Just then, the smoke alarm goes off with an ear-splitting shriek, shattering the spell. Lando leaps back like he’s been burned.

“Bollocks! I mean, uh … can’t hear anything, totally oblivious over here!” He makes a show of adjusting his headphones primly.

You snatch off the blindfold finally, blinking against the sudden light. Sure enough, thick grey smoke is billowing out of the oven. Oscar is doubled over wheezing, tears of laughter streaming down his face as he yanks the ruined cake out with oven-mitted hands. The charred remains plop lifelessly onto the counter.

Waving the smoke away, you gape at the pitiful offering. “Well, so much for our baking skills.”

Lando peeks over, coughing exaggeratedly. “What’s that? Did someone say they wanted a follow-along tutorial on how to burn down the motorhome?”

You roll your eyes, trying for a scandalized look but can’t quite fight the grin tugging at your lips. Oscar just loses it again at his teammate’s antics, wiping at his streaming eyes as Lando joins in, shoulders shaking with mirth.

Watching them, deliriously happy despite — or maybe because of — the ridiculous disaster around you, affection blooms in your chest as warm and gooey as the cake should’ve been. The fearless racers, top drivers of a top team, international celebrities … and also just two lovable goofballs who make your heart flip in the silliest of ways.

Their laughter is infectious. You find yourself dissolving into giggles right along with them. At last, Lando slings an arm around your shoulders, pulling you into a loose side hug. His eyes crinkle at the corners as he grins down at you.

“Well, I don’t know about you two, but I could go for some proper dessert after that mess,” he says lightly. “My treat?”

Oscar immediately perks up, giving an enthusiastic double thumbs up and nodding vigorously.

You lean into Lando’s warmth, basking in the comfortable closeness. “You read my mind. Let’s get out of here before we burn something else down.”

With one last look at the charcoal brick that was once a cake, Oscar shakes his head ruefully. He strolls over and throws his arms around the two of you, squeezing tightly. For a moment, the three of you just stand there in a tangle of limbs and easy camaraderie, bodies shaking with residual laughter.

Pulling back at last, Oscar flashes you both a mischievous look as he points to his taped mouth, then mimes ripping it off. His silent way of asking if he can finally remove the duct tape obstacle.

“Oh, go on then, you’ve suffered enough,” Lando chuckles, waving a permissive hand.

Quick as a flash, Oscar yanks off the tape with a dramatic flourish, letting out a loud “FREEDOM!” He immediately grimaces, rubbing his jaw. “Oof, that stung a bit.”

“You’ll live, drama queen,” you tease, giving his arm a light shove.

He bumps you back with his hip, grinning impishly. “Well, it was all worth it to witness the two of you in absolute shambles from start to finish.”

Shouldering past you both, Oscar heads for the exit, shooting a roguish wink over his shoulder. “Now are we going to get some edible cake or what? I don’t know about you two, but I worked up an appetite with all the not talking I just did.”

Laughing again, you and Lando trail after him into the sunny paddock, bickering half-heartedly about who torched the baking attempt more thoroughly. A warm breeze riffles through the trees, carrying the scent of race fuel and possibility.

Another typical, wonderfully chaotic day at McLaren. You certainly wouldn’t have it any other way.

[drunkkenobi]

Hi bb, ty for the prompt to write my thoughts!

So I can't get on tumblr at work anymore unless I go outside to get good signal on my phone so I have only been privy to what's going on here today from friends on discord. So maybe I'm missing some nuance or the what my mutuals think and I apologize in advance for that but I'm going to speak plainly.

This is the only way Watcher is going to survive.

The view counts have been steady through Mystery Files season 2 but they aren't, like, astronomical. A video with a million views nets a channel between $10,000 - $30,000. Guys. That's nothing for Watcher. They have to pay each of their 25+ employees a salary with insurance and benefits and for everything else their channel requires. Steven said in the video today that a season of Ghost Files costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't think everyone is hearing that part and understanding how much money that is, especially compared to many other YouTubers they watch. I'm not an expert on other YouTubers but I look at the Sims people I watch. They are successful with views in the hundred k range because they are a company of one. Themselves and maybe paying a freelancer to help edit their videos. For one person, the stakes are lower and the potential for profit is higher! Especially for gamers that are filming in their homes. YouTubers like this, making niche content on the cheap, are who is going to make it in YouTube now.

Watcher is none of those things. They have, from day one, wanted to make high quality unscripted content. All of their shows are shows. They aren't just "Ryan and Shane do [thing]" or "Steven eats [whatever]". They are shows, like ones you see on cable TV or any streamer. And shows are not cheap. Unscripted is cheaper, sure, than scripted. But that doesn't mean cheap. Especially not with the sheer production value we've seen on all their shows, in particular Ghost Files (hundreds of thousands of dollars). That is how much something like Ghost Adventures costs, which is on Travel Channel, an actual TV network that puts up all those costs.

So. That's why Watcher has to pivot to survive.

I think it's a great idea, personally. And yes, I am in a position where I can financially afford it no problem, which I know is a privilege! I am very lucky in that regard. And I understand that many people are upset they won't see the boys as easily on YouTube anymore. That is valid! But they have openly said they are totally fine with password sharing and I think that's a great way to cut down on costs for some folks. Also right now there's a great deal on the yearly sub for early subscribers. $40 for a year is cheaper than any streaming service and it doesn't go to anyone other than Watcher.

I understand that people feel hurt and blindsided, but I think Watcher is also feeling this too. They have been so excited about this and being able to make whatever they want without having to worry about sponsors and now they're mostly seeing anger directed their way. Especially at Steven. Steven is not rich. You know who's rich? David Zaslav, a man who is single-handedly ruining Warner Brothers and making himself a billionaire while he's at it. THAT is the kind of person we should be directing our anger at streaming prices and quality of the media landscape at. Not one small business that is just trying to survive so they can continue paying their employees.

And one more thing. I've seen folks saying they'd rather watch more ads than pay and while I get that, that's not going to help Watcher make what they want. YouTube famously demonetizes videos with swears which is why I can't watch a video with DRAG QUEENS without every other line being bleeped and Watcher has been so good about not bleeping their content because they know we would hate it. And YouTube does this because of advertisers. Advertisers only want to appeal to the most broad of audiences so that means not supporting anything slightly left of center. Having to deal with ads sucks from the creator perspective and does not help them in the long run.

Anyway, this is all a bit rambling, but these are my thoughts on WatcherTV. I'm extremely excited to subscribe and make them make more Weird Wonderful World. I hope to see you all there.

[tangibletechnomancy]

The reason I took interest in AI as an art medium is that I've always been interested in experimenting with novel and unconventional art media - I started incorporating power tools into a lot of my physical processes younger than most people were even allowed to breathe near them, and I took to digital art like a duck to water when it was the big, relatively new, controversial thing too, so really this just seems like the logical next step. More than that, it's exciting - it's not every day that we just invent an entirely new never-before-seen art medium! I have always been one to go fucking wild for that shit.

Which is, ironically, a huge part of why I almost reflexively recoil at how it's used in the corporate world: because the world of business, particularly the entertainment industry, has what often seems like less than zero interest in appreciating it as a novel medium.

And I often wonder how much less that would be the case - and, by extension, how much less vitriolic the discussion around it would be, and how many fewer well-meaning people would be falling for reactionary mythologies about where exactly the problems lie - if it hadn't reached the point of...at least an illusion of commercial viability, at exactly the moment it did.

See, the groundwork was laid in 2020, back during covid lockdowns, when we saw a massive spike in people relying on TV, games, books, movies, etc. to compensate for the lack of outdoor, physical, social entertainment. This was, seemingly, wonderful for the whole industry - but under late-stage capitalism, it was as much of a curse as it was a gift. When industries are run by people whose sole brain process is "line-go-up", tiny factors like "we're not going to be in lockdown forever" don't matter. CEOs got dollar signs in their eyes. Shareholders demanded not only perpetual growth, but perpetual growth at this rate or better. Even though everyone with an ounce of common sense was screaming "this is an aberration, this is not sustainable" - it didn't matter. The business bros refused to believe it. This was their new normal, they were determined to prove -

And they, predictably, failed to prove it.

So now the business bros are in a pickle. They're beholden to the shareholders to do everything within their power to maintain the infinite growth they promised, in a world with finite resources. In fact, by precedent, they're beholden to this by law. Fiduciary duty has been interpreted in court to mean that, given the choice between offering a better product and ensuring maximum returns for shareholders, the latter MUST be a higher priority; reinvesting too much in the business instead of trying to make the share value increase as much as possible, as fast as possible, can result in a lawsuit - that a board member or CEO can lose, and have lost before - because it's not acting in the best interest of shareholders. If that unsustainable explosive growth was promised forever, all the more so.

And now, 2-3-4 years on, that impossibility hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of these media company CEOs. The market is fully saturated; the number of new potential customers left to onboard is negligible. Some companies began trying to "solve" this "problem" by violating consumer privacy and charging per household member, which (also predictably) backfired because those of us who live in reality and not statsland were not exactly thrilled about the concept of being told we couldn't watch TV with our own families. Shareholders are getting antsy, because their (however predictably impossible) infinite lockdown-level profits...aren't coming, and someone's gotta make up for that, right? So they had already started enshittifying, making excuses for layoffs, for cutting employee pay, for duty creep, for increasing crunch, for lean-staffing, for tightening turnarounds-

And that was when we got the first iterations of AI image generation that were actually somewhat useful for things like rapid first drafts, moodboards, and conceptualizing.

Lo! A savior! It might as well have been the digital messiah to the business bros, and their eyes turned back into dollar signs. More than that, they were being promised that this...both was, and wasn't art at the same time. It was good enough for their final product, or if not it would be within a year or two, but it required no skill whatsoever to make! Soon, you could fire ALL your creatives and just have Susan from accounting write your scripts and make your concept art with all the effort that it takes to get lunch from a Star Trek replicator!

This is every bit as much bullshit as the promise of infinite lockdown-level growth, of course, but with shareholders clamoring for the money they were recklessly promised, executives are looking for anything, even the slightest glimmer of a new possibility, that just might work as a life raft from this sinking ship.

So where are we now? Well, we're exiting the "fucking around" phase and entering "finding out". According to anecdotes I've read, companies are, allegedly, already hiring prompt engineers (or "prompters" - can't give them a job title that implies there's skill or thought involved, now can we, that just might imply they deserve enough money to survive!)...and most of them not only lack the skill to manually post-process their works, but don't even know how (or perhaps aren't given access) to fully use the software they specialize in, being blissfully unaware of (or perhaps not able/allowed to use) features such as inpainting or img2img. It has been observed many times that LLMs are being used to flood once-reputable information outlets with hallucinated garbage. I can verify - as can nearly everyone who was online in the aftermath of the Glasgow Willy Wonka Dashcon Experience - that the results are often outright comically bad.

To anyone who was paying attention to anything other than please-line-go-up-faster-please-line-go-please (or buying so heavily into reactionary mythologies about why AI can be dangerous in industry that they bought the tech companies' false promises too and just thought it was a bad thing), this was entirely predictable. Unfortunately for everyone in the blast radius, common sense has never been an executive's strong suit when so much money is on the line.

Much like CGI before it, what we have here is a whole new medium that is seldom being treated as a new medium with its own unique strengths, but more often being used as a replacement for more expensive labor, no matter how bad the result may be - nor, for that matter, how unjust it may be that the labor is so much cheaper.

And it's all because of timing. It's all because it came about in the perfect moment to look like a life raft in a moment of late-stage capitalist panic. Any port in a storm, after all - even if that port is a non-Euclidean labyrinth of soggy, rotten botshit garbage.

Any port in a storm, right? ...right?

All images generated using Simple Stable, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

[galacticlamps]

ok I have A Lot of thoughts about the staircase confession (well really about Edwin's whole character arc, but all roads lead to rome) but for now I just wanna say that, yes, I was bracing myself for something to go terribly wrong when I first watched it, and yes, part of me was initially worried its placement might be an uncharacteristically foolish choice made in the name of Drama or Pacing or Making a Compelling Episode of Television but at the expense of narrative sense--

But I wanna say that having taken all that into account, and watched it play out, and sat with it - and honestly become rather transfixed by it - I really think it's a beautifully crafted moment and truly the only way that arc could've arrived at such a satisfying conclusion.

And if I had to pinpoint why I not only buy it but also have come to really treasure it, I'd have to put it down to the fact that it genuinely is a confession, and nothing else.

That moment is an announcement of what Edwin has come to understand about himself, but because it takes the form of a character admitting romantic feelings for such a close friend, I think it can be very easy, when writing that kind of thing, to imbue it with other elements like a plea or a request or even the start of a new relationship that, intentionally or not, would change the shape of the moment and can quickly overshadow what a huge deal the telling is all on its own. But that's not the case here. Since it is only a confession, unaccompanied by anything else, and since we see afterward how it was enough, evidently, to fix the strangeness that had grown between him & Charles, we're forced to understand that it was never Edwin's feelings that were actually making things difficult for him - it was not being able to tell Charles about them. 'Terrified' as he's been of this, Edwin learns that his feelings don't need to either disappear completely or be totally reciprocated in order for him to be able to return to the peace, stability, and security of the relationship with which he defines his existence - and the scale of that relief a) tells us a hell of a lot about Edwin as a character and b) totally justifies the way his declaration just bursts out of him at what would otherwise be such a poorly chosen moment, in my opinion.

Whether or not they are or ever could be reciprocated, Edwin's feelings are definitively proven not to be the problem here - only his potential choice to bottle it up - his repression - is. And where that repression had once been mainly involuntary, a product of what he'd been through, now that he's got this new awareness of himself, if he still fails to admit what he's found either to himself or to the one person he's so unambiguously close with, then that repression will be by his own choice and actions.

And he won't do that. Among other things, he's coming into this scene having just (unknowingly) absolved the soul of his own school bully and accidental killer by pointing out a fact that is every bit as central to his self-discovery as anything about his sexuality or his attraction to Charles is: the idea that "If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell"

So narratively speaking, of course it makes sense that Edwin literally cannot get out of Hell until he stops punishing himself - and right now, the thing that's torturing him is something he has control over. It's not who he is or what he feels, but what he chooses to do with those feelings that's hurting him, and he's even already made the conscious choice to tell Charles about them, he was just interrupted. But now that they're back together and he's literally in the middle of an attempt to escape Hell, there is absolutely no way he can so much as stop for breath without telling Charles the truth. Even the stopping for breath is so loaded - because they're ghosts, they don't need to breathe, but also they're in Hell, so the one thing they can feel is pain, however nonsensical. And Edwin certainly is in pain. But whether he knows what he's about to do or not when he says he 'just needs a tick,' a breather is absolutely not what's gonna give him enough relief to keep climbing - it's fixing that other hurt, though, that will.

Like everything else in that scene, there's a lot of layers to him promising Charles "You don't have to feel the same way, I just needed you to know" - but I don't think that means it isn't also true on a surface level. It's the act of telling Charles that matters so much more than whatever follows it, and while that might have gone unnoticed if anything else major had happened in the same conversation, now we're forced to acknowledge its staggering and singular importance for what it is. The moment is well-earned and properly built up to, but until we see it happen in all its wonderful simplicity, and we see the aftermath (or lack thereof, even), we couldn't properly anticipate how much of a weight off Edwin's shoulders merely getting to share the truth with Charles was going to be, why he couldn't wait for a better, safer opportunity before giving in to that desire, or how badly he needed to say it and nothing else - and I really, really love the weight that act of just being honest, seen, and known is given in their story/relationship.

[licorice-and-rum]

SOC and Neoliberlism

So, as promised, here it is my analysis of Six of Crows and how neoliberalism is amazingly portrayed in Ketterdam, and how the city is an example of what happens in a community that is not provided for.

Before we begin, I wanted to say that English is not my first language, and, considering I read SOC in Brazilian Portuguese, I might translate some names literally or differently from the English version but I think it's manageable to read and understand my point. If not, I'll edit the text.

The first thing we have to understand is how neoliberalism works and the theory behind it, and then we'll talk about how it's portrayed in Ketterdam.

So neoliberalism is a theory born more or less at the end of the 20th century (70s-80s), and it finds its roots in laissez-faire capitalism, meaning that it's a political current that tries to suppress and/or eliminate the State's influence from the market. The neoliberalist view understands that the market can supply by itself the population's needs without help or limitations imposed by the State.

The thing here is that most people listen to this and think neoliberalism is about electronics, cars, and other stuff. The truth is, that neoliberalism aims to suppress the presence of State-run facilities in ALL corners of society, such as health care, housing, water access, electricity, etcetera.

So, we can use the American and Brazillian health systems to understand it better, for example:

In the US, the ones providing health care for the population are great corporations - they decide the price of care, they work together with pharmaceutical companies to define medicine prices, and the laws that bind them are pretty much only offer and demand. There is almost none State intervention to provide the population with accessible health care.

However, this brings problems, of course: not everyone (actually, most people) has real access to health care simply because they can't afford it, or they can't afford it without taking a big financial hit, which threatens their other basic needs, such as food, housing, water, electricity, etcetera. Not everyone can provide for their medical needs, such as diabetic and disabled people.

That leads to:

(a) an increase in poverty;

(b) a decrease in educational levels - if you don't have the means to pay for higher educational levels because of health care debt, or if you're sick and need to go to class and tough through it but you're not really learning anything, and so on, which leads to a major workforce in base level production and a minor class who has access to this education;

(c) an increase in overworking people - meaning that we have a lot of people taking on several jobs to be able to pay for things like health care, which increases the competitiveness between people, making individualism levels go up and breaking up human beings' natural sense of community.

I could also talk here about how this breeds isolation and increases the potential for mental health problems but I think you got what I was saying.

On the other hand, we have the Brazilian health care system (SUS), which is a universal gratuitous medical care service through the whole country. Its purpose is not profit, it's providing health care for the community, so therefore, any SUS unit is bound by State law and run by the State. By law, every SUS unit must provide for anyone who enters its premises in need of medical care. Everyone, Brazillian and foreigners, poor or rich, must be treated if they need to. It's the law.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's all rainbows and flowers, there are definitely many problems in SUS. However, what I'm trying to showcase here is that, when the needs of a population are met, the population itself is more resilient, their life quality goes up and so does their participation in their community.

On the other hand, in neoliberalism, when the State is absent from these areas of community service, the market is, in theory, the one providing for the community. In practice, however, what we observe from neoliberal policies in cities with a great poor population in Latam for example, is that when the State doesn't provide for the community, the market is unable to step up for them because of their obscene prices.

The poor population that doesn't have their needs met by the State or the market sees a great boom in criminal activities within their spaces. That's mainly why criminal organizations are so present in slums and favelas throughout Latin America: criminal organizations are a way for the community to provide for themselves and, as a means to become more powerful, they provide for the community in exchange for their services (not to say they do that for the good of their hearts, of course not).

It's why it's so common, for example, that criminal organizations such as PCC in Brazil pay for kids from favelas to undergo Law school, for example.

And that's is where I wanted to go to start the conversation in SOC: one of the main traits of Ketterdam is the Barrel and, in the Barrel, we have the presence of many criminal organizations, such as the Dregs, the Dime Lions, the Menagerie staff (not the girls, ofc), etcetera.

This, as observed by Kaz himself, is one of the only ways to survive on the Barrel - you filiate yourself to a gang because you need to be able to provide for yourself and, more times than others, for your family as well.

Kaz's story is actually a perfect example of how Ketterdam is the representation of America in the early 20th century in full policies of laissez-faire (neoliberalism): as we can see in Titanic and many other historical fictions, the said American Dream had people believing the US to be this economical paradise where they could all enter the market and become millionaires.

The result of it is the Great Depression, of course, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

When Kaz and Jodi leave Lij for Ketterdam, Jodi believes he'll become a merchant - which is a pretty common belief of those who arrive at Ketterdam, as Pekka Rollins and Kaz himself state in Crooked Kingdom.

The reality of it, though, is much harsher, because the truth is that when you have a market that controls everything, as we see in Ketterdam with the Merchant's Guild (I think that's how it's translated?) and the Stadwatch as a police force, you see perfectly how neoliberal policies really work in real life:

You have a higher class who controls the market and the riches (question: who do you think got the money Shu Han sent to Ketterdam at the beginning of the first book: the people of the city/country or the merchants in the "government"?), and a lower class that, without support from the State or the market to have their needs met will turn to their own means to do so.

So you have the trafficking that brought Inej to the island, the unlimited gambling that Jesper was trapped in, the cons Jodi and Kaz fell for - it's all product of liberal policies.

And so, you have Ketterdam and its neoliberal policies (:

(I really love to make this kind of analysis, please, if you have something you want me to talk about, don't hesitate to ask)

[vimeddiart]

I DREW MY OC TOAST AAAAAA

The folks at XPPen sent me the XPPen Deco Pro (Gen 2):

XPPen is having its 18th anniversary, and is celebrating with sales and product promos, so it's worth checking those out.

My thoughts on the tablet (and purchase links) under the cut!

⭐ Review ⭐

First impressions: After unboxing the tablet, I thought it sleek and professional-looking, especially after setting it up with my PC.

The remote I LOVED right out of the box because I enjoy fiddling with buttons and wheels. The keys are super satisfying to press.

The pen and storage case are nicely complete, lots of spare nibs to switch out (though I mainly stuck to the default nib while drawing, the textured ones have a nice gritty feel similar to paper).

I had some troubleshooting when I started, as connecting to Bluetooth wasn't happening with either the tablet or the remote. I tested the Bluetooth connection with a different device and my phone successfully, but couldn't with my work PC. I was promptly helped by XPPen Support, and it turned out to be a Windows update messing things up, so I uninstalled it and Boom; I could connect both the tablet and remote, no problem. Up until then, I used both via cable, which was a convenient option!

The tablet: The XL model at 15 x 9 inches, with plenty of space to work (although you'll need space to put it, luckily I have a lot of desk to spare), and can connect via cable or Bluetooth. It also looks so dang pretty.

The tablet was so smooth, and the pressure (16k pressure levels) felt amazing to draw with. After fiddling around with the pen settings, I barely had to press down to get a nice flowy line.

I usually work on a screen tablet, so it took some getting used to returning to a pen tablet and looking at my PC screen again, but it came back to me quickly. It actually helped my posture, as I tend to shrimp-curl over my screen tablet while working.

As lovely as it was to work on, I feel this size may be too large for me, despite it being perfectly proportional to my PC screen. I like to draw quickly, and I noticed myself making more effort to travel over the surface of the tablet and tiring my arm out faster than usual. I needed to take more breaks and stretch often, although I could classify that as positive. That said, this tablet has a sloped resting area that helped. All my drawing tablets have been medium-sized, so I'm probably just conditioned to that surface area.

The battery lasted as long as it took to draw this piece and more! I didn't need to charge it the entire time.

The remote: I love this thing so much. It has ten shortcut keys and a wheel you can configure to your heart's desire. Five sets of key functions!!! That's fifty shortcuts!! I only configured four sets and struggle to memorise them, but it's very convenient. I have my keyboard right next to the tablet and would bang out shortcuts there, but this remote changed my life.

I've been using it for a month now, and it still hasn't needed charging!

The pen: Comfy to use, with a design I was already accustomed to, and one thing I noticed was that the nib wasn't scratching the heck out of the tablet. After all the drawing I did with it, not a single mark.

I LOVE popping the case open to retrieve or store the pen, and it's one of those physical things that I find satisfying and so rare with digital products. I thought it would be nice to have a pen stand too, but I have pet birds that will (and have) run away with my tablet pens, so a storage case is a strong solution.

Final thoughts: This is a solid tablet with the potential to become an essential tool for industry professionals and freelancers. I didn't think I could be convinced out of a screen tablet, but I was offered a super strong contender. I can confidently recommend it, plus my experience with support was a positive one that boosted my trust in the brand. Overall, I had a great time using this tablet and really appreciate the opportunity I've been given to try it out!

⭐ Purchase links ⭐

US Walmart Store

CA official store

[hina-has-no-life]

Mori’s big plan [Theory]

So my theory is relatively simple:

Mori wants Dazai and Chuuya to take over the Port Mafia after he retires from the Job as PM Boss.

But how did I come to this conclusion?

Well I got a bit suspicious of the way Mori differentiates in his treatment of the people in his life.

In fifteen it's clear that Mori realizes that Dazai is not just a pawn he can use when Dazai explained to him how keeping him alive is a mistake on Moris part.

It's at that moment Mori truly realizes how smart Dazai is and how dangerous this child could be to him.

Objectively it would be the smart move to dispose of Dazai then. But he doesn't and that makes no sense if you look at the situation from an outside perspective.

And here comes the first thing that I realized.

Just as we learn through the Beast universe, the different universes are largely differential because of decisions Dazai makes. But since Beast is a mirror image of the Canon universe we know that until Dazai makes a different decision the universes are the same.

So we know that Mori actually cares for Dazai.

He wants to save Dazai from himself, wants to give him a reason to live.

But he underestimated just how much of a danger Dazai actually can be before they made the plan to kill the old Boss.

Here we learn that Mori not only was the PM Boss like in canon, but that he cares for Dazai and regrets not being able to help him.

In the events of fifteen we actually see him trying to give Dazai a reason to live, if we look at it through the eyes of Mori.

Mori actually knows how Dazai thinks and wants Dazai to grow attached to the PM, that is why he gives him the silver oracle and let's Dazai choose who he works with, until he meets Chuuya that is.

Mori sees Chuuyas potential, just as he sees Dazais and that is why he wants to partner them up.

He wants chuuya to become a member of the PM and he wants Dazai to find an attachment in the PM.

And this ploy does work to a certain extend.

Chuuya becomes part of the PM through his and Dazais scheme.

And Dazai becomes attached to Chuuya.

But from this point onward we see something happening in the official art.

Since Asagiri confirmed to be working closely with the different productions of BSD we know he has a hand in how it's presented to the audience

And while we get shown in fifteen that Mori mentors Dazai, we get shown Dazai with Chuuya after they are both part of the Mafia.

And here comes an interesting part I noticed as an artist:

The official art, be it Bones, Harukawa or Hoshikawa always shows Dazai and Chuuya as equals.

Despite reaching the same level in the PM at different times they always get depicted as the same rank

And then bones started dropping PM art where Dazai and Chuuya are shown as equals, on thrown like chairs.

Hoshikawa gives us art where both of them wear crowns and Chuuya seems to wear a crown more similar to Dazai’s at one point.

It gets subtly shown in the cannibalism stage play that Mori also starts to mentor chuuya at one point

We also learn that chuuya is supposed to take over the PM one day

But Chuuya lacks something that made Mori want to have dazai as the PM boss, a certain ruthlessness. He deeply cares for people, wether he knows them super well or not. 

Don't get me wrong, Chuuya can be ruthless when he needs to be but he can't sacrifice PM members as easily as Mori and Dazai if it’s necessary. 

Dazai on the other hand thinks a lot like Mori and even acknowledges that certain sacrifices need to be made sometimes. He certainly has the guts and stomach to sacrifice people if they don't have any other option.

Together they would be the perfect team to lead the PM. Dazai the mind of the PM and Chuuya the heart.

It’s made clear time and time again that Soukoku, Double Black, is the perfect partnership.

Dazai doesn't have a steadfast moral code of his own, but he has no problem to follow the moral code of other people. While dazai would keep the PM successful Chuuya would make sure they never ever reverse to the way of the old Boss.

But there was one thing that gets clear in Dark Ear to the readers and Mori.

Dazai may have attachments to members of the PM but he is slowly walking down the path of the old PM boss in the way he handles things.

The members of the PM fear Dazai, a teenager. He rules with fear like the old Boss and Mori can't have that.

“We have a saying in the Port Mafia. The greatest misfortune of Dazai’s enemys is that they are Dazai’s enemys.”

So Mori, who first cultivated relationships between Dazai and Mafia members , not needs to get Dazai out of the Mafia and into the light until he learns to be more gentle, to empathize with people and to lead with loyalty instead of fear.

To form attachments Mori let Dazai collect people:

Chuuya

Oda

 Akutagawa

While Chuuya and Akutagawa were clearly beneficial to the Mafia, they also formed a connection to the Mafia for Dazai. Chuuya as his partner and Akutagawa as his student. (as fucked up as the latter relationship turned out to be)

Oda was another story. He doesn’t bring something beneficial to the Mafia because he refuses to kill. The only use Oda had to Mori was his connection as Dazais best friend.

Dazai’s attachments come in handy in the fact that he won't attack the Port Mafia because it would hurt the people he cares about.

In his own fucked up way Dazai did care about Akutagawa from the start but the way he mentored him did show Mori (and the reader) that he isn't gonna be a good leader if he doesn't change

So Mori looked at his options on how to get Dazai out of the Mafia but not hating the Mafia and the solution was Oda. Getting rid of Oda had only positives for Mori.

He got the permit.

He freed resources that went to a grunt that didn't have much use.

He got dazai to leave the Mafia but not hate the Mafia.

And he made it nigh impossible for the government to stop the PM without catching them red handed in illegal activities while cementing their international standing by getting rid of the internationally known Mimic.

So Mori let’s Dazai go.

Fast forward to 4 years later:

And now that he has seen that Dazai in fact did change for the better, as shown with Atsushi and Kyouka, he actively tries to get him back.

He openly invited him back into the Mafia, he made sure Double Black was still working together and trusted each other.

And then he made the deal with Fukuzawa.

With the Guild Arc we not only learned from Mori that he wants Dazai back as his right hand man, the defacto shadow leader of the PM, we (and Mori) also learn that while Dazai has changed, he isn't above using his old tactic if the situation calls for it.

While Dazai doesn't hold and loyalty to the Mafia, he is loyal to certain members.

And his position with the Agency and Government puts him in the perfect position, if he were to come back to the Mafia. 

He has positive ties to both organisation's that would actually make the Tripartite Framework work.

I'm pretty sure Mori wants Chuuya to be the official leader of the PM and Dazai to be lead with Chuuya from the shadows. 

And a big THANK YOU to @severaltuesdays for helping me get all the pictures I needed!! You are the best!!

[doberbutts]

it sounds like the anon who sent the ask about the intersex fanfic character is wanting to write a story “about being intersex” i.e. about the personal experiences of being intersex, given they mentioned wanting to write about “how it affects his life” and “what happens if people find out” (both phrased in a way that seems to presume negativity and difficulty). I think you gave good advice from a worldbuilding perspective but I would add to that that overall the prevailing advice for writers is not to write about the ~great personal struggle~ of being [x minority] if you’re portraying a character with an identity you yourself don’t share; and (to the asker) if you are really determined to do that anyway as a perisex person, you should consider doing more research than sending a tumblr ask. read a few books or something. (i think if they go with your very wise worldbuilding advice this would no longer apply, the wording simply gave me pause.)

I understand that that is the prevailing advice, however I disagree to a certain extent.

I think that if you are not [marginalized demographic here] and you are trying to write about the experiences of said demographic, including any sort of personal struggle, then you have a duty to ensure that you do your research to present the best representation of said demographic you possibly can, and that you should be open to advice if someone from said demographic tells you that you are falling into dangerous tropes or stereotypes.

However, I do not think that only [demographic] should write [demographic]. This is for a few reasons:

In writing a demographic different from your own, and doing research to ensure that you are doing it well, you as the author will learn a great deal about what you have to unpack and unlearn about said demographic, including things you were not even aware of before. This, to me, is a positive thing. It is one more ally in the struggle for freedom.

I'm thinking specifically of Tamora Pierce and her books which include multiple races, ethnicities, sexualities, and genders that Pierce herself has voiced that she avoided on purpose because she was afraid that she'd fuck them up. And how she felt her world get a little wider, when she got over that fear and started making sure to include these demographics because she felt that it was important to her to understand them.

But also, your readers are predominately going to be your demographic, which means that you have the power and potential to spread this same learning over a much wider net. Harper Lee and Louis Sachar are nonblack, however To Kill A Mockingbird and Holes are widely read in schools to learn about antiblack racism and are frequently used as a baseline to teach children of all demographics. Yes, schools should also be using books by actual black people, but I do not think either of these titles are necessarily bad choices. Miles Morales of Spiderverse fame was initially created by an entire team of nonblack people, and yet the movies touch heavily on the subject of racism being a constant background in his life. I have not yet read the comics, and don't know that I ever will since I'm not a comics kind of guy, so I cannot speak to those.

Anyway the last reason that I disagree that only [demographic] should write [demographic] is because then that turns into overall less representation and less diversity. I'm a big fantasy fan. I'm so happy when I see a black character in fantasy, and even moreso when that black character is outside of the Bad Guys Only races. And I think that if we only let black people make black characters, we will see overall less black characters, because black people are often willfully excluded from the writers room and production staff. I'd rather an all-white team do their due diligence to ensure good representation, than no black characters at all because black writers can't even get in the door. Of course, the solution is More Black Writers, but this is a multifaceted problem worsened by racist society, so the baby steps are what we have to work with.

I do agree that anon does need to do more research. However, intersex books that are actually written by the community, rather than medical journals treating us as an oddity, are fairly few and far between. Asking a random blog is not enough research, no. But it may help them get started on where to look.

[suzukiblu]

NaNoWriMo day three; obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU.

Still, Kon's been taking care of himself this long, Tim guesses, so maybe . . .

No. No, this is definitely fucked-up and a terrible idea.

But he has no idea what he should do about it. What he even could do about it.

Kon finishes a whole order of cinnamon bread and is eyeing the next one before they even get back to base. Tim doesn't say anything about it because he's apparently been living on laboratory cafeteria food all this time, but does make him carry the highly precarious stack of food in. In his defense, "precarious stacks" are basically what TTK is made for, and also it'll hopefully distract Kon from potentially feeling weird about getting paid for or eating "too much" or just whatever.

Tim is going to burn Cadmus to the ground and stock up on kryptonite and a whole lot of explosives, but he's going to do it in the least Kon-upsetting way possible. Plus his supervillain timeline is a long-term plan too, and Kon should be eating things that aren't cafeteria food right now. And also not working for and living in a shady lab. And also–

"Shit, do we have any cups left?" Kon asks, looking around with a frown.

"Top of the fridge," Tim says, both because it's his job to know as much information as possible and because he's trying to avoid stressing himself out any worse. Stress is not productive. It's not going to fix the problem. Kon doesn't even want him to fix this problem.

"Cool," Kon says, then thumps the stack of pizza boxes down on the table and goes right for the cinnamon bread again, flipping the box open as he heads off to, presumably, retrieve the cups. Tim is entirely unsurprised and has no illusions that he'll be getting any of it himself.

He arranges the pizza boxes and everything else they ordered a little more accessibly on the table, trying not to obsess over the problem of Kon's current lifestyle. He's living in a lab getting by on cafeteria food and not getting properly compensated for doing a dangerous job and doesn't know Superman has a secret identity and is never, ever anything but "Superboy" himself. He doesn't have another identity to hide inside or fall back on or just take a break in. Didn't even have a real name until just recently, and that real name isn't anything he can use outside of still being Superboy.

Tim can't imagine never being able to take off Robin, but Kon probably can't imagine ever having to take off Superboy.

Tim doesn't even know what that would feel like.

Kon comes back with the cups, tosses them on the table, and stuffs another chunk of the already half-gone cinnamon bread into his mouth. Tim is starting to doubt the quality of that cafeteria even more than he reflexively did.

He opens the Zesti and pours them both a cup, and Kon looks oddly–not surprised, exactly? But a little puzzled, almost, watching Tim fill a cup for him.

"I can pour my own drink, Rob, geez," he snorts.

"I had it open already," Tim replies with a carefully dismissive shrug, screwing the lid back on the two-liter. Kon huffs, but picks up a cup and takes a drink.

"Sure, whatever," he says. "This is so much pizza, man. Think we can get through it all or should we call in Imp for backup?"

"If we do that, we're not getting any of it," Tim points out dryly.

"Okay, good point," Kon says. "Guess that's why you're the one in charge here, Wonder Boy."

"I had to get my qualifications from somewhere," Tim says, sparing him a wry smile. Kon sniggers, then rips off another chunk of the cinnamon bread and holds the mostly-empty rest of the box out to him. Tim blinks, a little surprised, but takes the last piece. "Thanks."

Note to self: Kon really likes cinnamon. Or icing, maybe. Or both.

Actually, that thought makes Tim feel a little flustered over Kon giving him the last piece of the cinnamon bread, given how thoroughly he destroyed the rest of it. Which is stupid, since he also hogged the rest of it and could've shared way more than just the last piece, the asshole.

Tim is absolutely still flustered anyway, though.

Yeah, he has it embarrassingly bad.

Ugh.

"Sure, man," Kon says, flashing him a grin. Tim swears to himself that this bastard can never, ever know how cute that grin makes him. If Kon knew he had a crush on him, he would be absolutely insufferable about it. Insufferable and smug.

Or, possibly, uncomfortable and freaked out. Or worse, angry and hateful. But Tim would rather not assume the absolute worst of an ally who almost counts as a friend, to whatever extent he can count anyone who hasn't seen his actual face before as a friend.

Both more and less than the guys at school, probably.

Tim's not sure what that actually says about his life these days.

But Kon . . . Tim doesn't really think Kon would be an asshole about it, if he knew Tim wasn't entirely straight. He's never really said anything to give him that impression.

He'd definitely be unbearable, though, so Tim will be taking the secret of this particular inadvisable crush to his grave, please and thank you.

They both sit down at the table–well, Tim sits, Kon more sprawls, and looks unfortunately attractive doing it–and grab a couple slices apiece and then crack open the wings. Kon eats much faster than Tim, who deliberately takes his time about it. Technically, avoiding getting pizza grease and barbecue sauce on his gloves is reason enough to do that, which is what he's going to point out if Kon comments on it, but obviously he's doing it to make sure Kon gets to eat as much as he wants.

Seriously. Cafeteria food for every meal. And not from a private school or fancy company's cafeteria; from an underground cloning lab with, again, incredibly dubious ethics.

Tim really can't imagine Cadmus is all that committed to food safety and quality, given all the human rights violations they've committed in just their day-to-day operations–to say nothing of any special projects like Kon.

Maybe Tim should release all their classified files onto the internet and just let whatever happens to them as a result happen.

. . . no, no, nobody needs any random weirdos on the dark web reverse-engineering any Kryptonian DNA or anything. Which they definitely would. Hell, just the front page of Reddit and a few YouTube comments would probably be enough to do it, and then somebody'd try to actually go and produce it "just to see".

Though it's still tempting, honestly.

Extremely tempting.

"Are you going to be here next weekend?" Tim says once Kon's mauled his way through a good dozen wings and four slices of pizza with very little sign of slowing down, and Kon stuffs most of another slice into his mouth with an easy shrug. He still looks cute even with terrible table manners, Tim notes resignedly. How is that possible? Why is that even a thing?

Kon is so goddamn annoying that way.

"Probably, yeah," Kon says around a mouthful of pizza before shoving the rest of the slice into his mouth. Tim watches in vague revulsion, wondering how he still finds him cute.

Gross, definitely, but still cute all the same.

"I mean, unless Cadmus needs me for something, anyway," Kon amends as he gets himself another slice. "Sometimes there's emergencies and shit, you know how it is."

"Definitely," Tim agrees, though "and shit" doesn't really cover Gotham-level disasters, as a descriptor. Still gets the point across, so whatever. "I'll be here, barring Gotham."

"You mean barring Batman," Kon snorts, rolling his eyes, and Tim feels a very weird way about the fact that Kon doesn't have a Batman in his life. Well–doesn't have a Bruce in his life, more like.

Or a Jack Drake.

It's kind of a sad thought, to be honest, though it probably makes the vigilante work a lot easier.

"Barring Batman," Tim agrees again, smiling wryly. "You realize you have a boss too now, right?"

"I could still be Superboy if I quit Cadmus, though," Kon says, which is a valid point, if not quite the one Tim was trying to make. "No way Batman wouldn't flip shit if you kept being Robin out from under his big black cape."

"Well, historically that hasn't always gone so well," Tim says, taking a sip of his Zesti. Kon tilts his head, looking curious.

"Wait, you've actually done that before?" he asks. "Seriously?"

"There's been other Robins, you know," Tim reminds him, wry again. Kon blinks.

"More than one?" he asks. "I thought it was just you and that Nightwing dude. Who else?"

It occurs to Tim, very suddenly, that Kon not only wasn't a superhero when Jason was Robin, he didn't even exist when Jason was Robin. He wouldn't have heard anything when it happened, even in rumors, and it's not like many people talk about Jason now, even in the community. At least not anywhere that Tim's ever heard, anyway.

Admittedly, that might be survivorship bias, all things considered.

"My immediate predecessor," Tim says carefully, taking another sip. "After Nightwing and before me. He's–not active anymore."

"Dead or just maimed?" Kon assumes. Tim doesn't bother wondering why "retired" doesn't occur to him as an option.

It's Kon. Of course "retired" wouldn't occur to him.

[wachinyeya]

https://news.ku.dk/all_news/2024/06/researchers-invent-one-hundred-percent-biodegradable-barley-plastic/

From the article; Enormous islands of it float in our oceans and microscopic particles of it are in our bodies. The durability, malleability and low cost of plastics has made them ubiquitous, from packaging to clothing to aircraft parts. But plastics have a downside. Plastics contaminate nature, are tough to recycle and their production emits more CO2 than all air traffic combined.

Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences have invented a new material made from modified starch that can completely decompose in nature – and do so within only two months. The material is made using natural plant material from crops and could be used for food packaging, among many other things.

"We have an enormous problem with our plastic waste that recycling seems incapable of solving. Therefore, we’ve developed a new type of bioplastic that is stronger and can better withstand water than current bioplastics. At the same time, our material is one hundred percent biodegradable and can be converted into compost by microorganisms if it ends up somewhere other than a bin," says Professor Andreas Blennow of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences.

Only about nine percent of plastic is recycled globally, with the rest being either incinerated or winding up in nature or dumped into enormous plastic landfills.

Bioplastics already exist, but the name is misleading says Professor Blennow. While today’s bioplastics are made of bio-derived materials, only a limited part of them is actually degradable, and only under special conditions in industrial composting plants.

"I don't find the name suitable because the most common types of bioplastics don't break down that easily if tossed into nature. The process can take many years and some of it continues to pollute as microplastic. Specialized facilities are needed to break down bioplastics. And even then, a very limited part of them can be recycled, with the rest ending up as waste," says the researcher.

Starch from barley and sugar industry waste

The new material is a so-called biocomposite and composed of several different substances that decompose naturally. Its main ingredients, amylose and cellulose, are common across the plant kingdom. Amylose is extracted from many crops including corn, potatoes, wheat and barley.

Together with researchers from Aarhus University, the research team founded a spinoff company in which they developed a barley variety that produces pure amylose in its kernels. This new variety is important because pure amylose is far less likely to turn into a paste when it interacts with water compared to regular starch. Cellulose is a carbohydrate found in all plants and we know it from cotton and linen fibers, as well as from wood and paper products. The cellulose used by the researchers is a so-called nanocellulose made from local sugar industry waste. And these nanocellulose fibers, which are one thousand times smaller than the fibers of linen and cotton, are what contribute to the material’s mechanical strength.

"Amylose and cellulose form long, strong molecular chains. Combining them has allowed us to create a durable, flexible material that has the potential to be used for shopping bags and the packaging of goods that we now wrap in plastic," says Andreas Blennow.

The new biomaterial is produced by either dissolving the raw materials in water and mixing them together or by heating them under pressure. By doing so, small 'pellets' or chips are created that can then be processed and compressed into a desired form.

Thus far, the researchers have only produced prototypes in the laboratory. But according to Professor Blennow, getting production started in Denmark and many other places in the world would be relatively easy.

"The entire production chain of amylose-rich starch already exists. Indeed, millions of tons of pure potato and corn starch are produced every year and used by the food industry and elsewhere. Therefore, easy access to the majority of our ingredients is guaranteed for the large-scale production of this material," he says.

Could reduce plastic problem

Andreas Blennow and his fellow researchers are now processing a patent application that, once it has been approved, could pave the way for production of the new biocomposite material. Because, despite the huge sums of money being devoted to sorting and recycling our plastic, the researcher does not believe that it will really be a success. Doing so should be seen as a transitional technology until we bid fossil-based plastics a final farewell.

"Recycling plastic efficiently is anything but straightforward. Different things in plastics must be separated from each other and there are major differences between plastic types, meaning that the process must be done in a safe way so that no contaminants end up in the recycled plastic. At the same time, countries and consumers must sort their plastic. This is a massive task that I don’t see us succeeding at. Instead, we should rethink things in terms of utilizing new materials that perform like plastic, but don’t pollute the planet," says Blennow.

The researcher is already collaborating with two Danish packaging companies to develop prototypes for food packaging, among other things. He envisions many other uses for the material as well, such as for the interior trims of cars by the automotive industry. Though it is difficult to say when this biofriendly barley-based plastic will reach the shelves, the researcher predicts that the new material may become a reality in the foreseeable future.

“It's quite close to the point where we can really start producing prototypes in collaboration with our research team and companies. I think it's realistic that different prototypes in soft and hard packaging, such as trays, bottles and bags, will be developed within one to five years," concludes Andreas Blennow.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for wanting to break up with my boyfriend?

I, 18f, graduated high school this year and will be heading off to college in about a month. I've been with my boyfriend, 17m, nearly all of high school and he is one of the most wonderful, amazing, kindest people I know and I love him. We're not planning on going to the same college, even though we'll be doing virtually the same major (theatre performance vs theatre design and production, that's how we met).

However, much as I care for him, I just can't see myself spending the rest of my life with him. He's been my first and only serious romance, and while his parents were high school sweethearts, I know it rarely works out that way for most people. Recently he asked me where he saw us in five years (when I'd be out of college) and he still saw us together, wanted to be together, and he's made a few references to wanting to be together as adults after college. I honestly told him that I don't know, I have no clue where college would take each of us, and if we'd still be together even when we go separate ways. I don't have anywhere near his level of certainty in a future with us together.

In the same conversation he mentioned that when he graduates (he's a year under me, junior when I was a senior) he'll be leaving on his mission for two years and when he gets back he's not sure about college, he's always planned on going but he said that because it would mean he's doing a four year degree and in college for two extra years after I graduate (both of us in for 4 years). He said that if we were still together then, he might not even go to college for the sake of being with me and that just made me feel very guilty and uncomfortable because that's a massive life choice and he's never expressed interest in not going to college until then and I don't want to be the sole reason he changes his mind on something like that, I don't want him to give up on a degree and potentially the career he wants for my sake. We talked about it then, he didn't intend for it to come across the way it did for me, and he still has plenty of time to think about it with next school year then two years on his mission. We both apologized and there's no hard feelings, but it still leaves me feeling strange.

He's also very religious, not in a bad way, and I'm not at all. I find religion a fascinating topic academically but it's not for me at all and while I've had many long discussions about it with him before and it's always an interesting and lighthearted topic, I know there's this unspoken expectation that I would have to (or at least would be 'supposed' to) convert if we were to get married, and that's not something I could do even just in name if not in actual beliefs.

Right now I don't want to leave him, as I said, I adore him and he's one of the most wonderful people I know, I'm incredibly happy with him, but in all honesty, I don't see myself still being with him in five years once I'm out of college, I don't see myself marrying him, I can't see us spending the rest of our lives together. I think in the end we're just too different, he wants kids and I don't, he's religious and I'm not, it's just not it, and I know that if I ended up with him I would spend my life feeling like I settled for him just cause he's who I'm with now when there could be someone else. He deserves the very best in life and deserves to be happy, and I don't feel like I can give that to him, but I don't want to just leave him because we are happy right now and I do love him and want to be with him for as long as I can be, but not forever.

The problem is, he's so hopeful and we're so happy right now and I've just been holding onto this for a while and I feel like a complete asshole for not telling him how I feel and not being honest about the future. When I went and told a friend this, her first response was that I'm just leading him on and making it even harder for when we eventually do break up or grow apart, and that's also been weighing on me. I don't want to lead him on or give him false hope about a future together when I can't see that happening, and I can see how my actions here can be cruel and hurtful and that I'm essentially lying to him as to not hurt him. That same friend also suggested slowly ghosting him in college and allowing us to drift apart slowly and let that happen, and that also feels like an asshole move because I'm honestly closer to him and his parents than I am my own family.

But in the end, am I the asshole for not wanting to be with someone who wants to be with me and looking forward eventually not being with him even if I do love him and want to be with him now? Am I the asshole for essentially completely leading him on?

What are these acronyms?

[aetsiv]

What do you think about Percabeth or Perachel?

hi, thanks for the ask!

i personally prefer perachel over percabeth. my main reasoning for this isn't that i absolutely despise percabeth, i in fact think there was a lot of good potential in the ship and richard just messed all up. i could get by some of annabeth's treatment to percy in the early books since they were still rather young but i feel she just didn't mature that much throughout and kept calling stupid and what not and generally not showing much appreciation to him.

once again, i don't believe annabeth to be a bad character but instead a product of riordan's shitty writing for female characters. i honestly won't even get into the whole judo flip scene and everything percabeth had going in hoo because there were so many problems with it-- if you want to see anything relating to problems on hoo relating to percabeth, I'd recommend checking the "anti percabeth" or "hoo crit" tags as there are tons of posts relating to that. the most i'll say about percabeth on hoo is that i feel like annabeth generally got somewhat more abusive and possessive, starting treating percy even more so like he's stupid, percy's character was for the most part reduced to him being annabeth's boyfriend.

like i already mentioned, i much prefer perachel. i mainly enjoy it because rachel and percy's relationship both platonic and romantic is so healthy. percy enjoys being around rachel and feels like he can relax around her, doesn't have to worry all the time about what she'll think if he says or does something. rachel sees percy's intelligence and doesn't constantly berate him for small things, shares things in common with him (unlike annabeth and percy mainly only bonding over being demigods), and sees him as more than a demigod. they also have a well developed friendship and have actual bonding time unlike percabeth who only bond when they're forced to go on quests (i.e. them going to the beach).

i don't have anything against percabeth shippers (unless you think the judo flip was cute and romantic) and i think people should be able to ship whoever they want since it doesn't affect anyone else. i'm really sorry if this is a bit incoherent or has mistakes in grammer and sentence structure, i'm pretty tired right now so i'm not exactly thinking straight.

[autisticlancemcclain]

“You want us to what.”

Lance doesn’t give a flying fuck how angry he sounds. Potential diplomatic crises be damned. Hell, he wants to cause a crisis. Wants to raise some hell.

The dignitary sniffs derisively. “The beast is a dangerous pest, Blue Paladin.”

“Not the blue paladin,” Lance growls, because he isn’t, “and I am not murdering an animal in cold blood just because you can’t deal with it properly.”

“Lance,” Allura hisses, but he has no problem ignoring her.

“Can’t deal with it properly — do you hear your paladin!” the dignitary sputters, waving an angry hand in Lance’s direction.

Shiro closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, before plastering on a tight smile and visibly trying to salvage the situation. Now, usually, Lance would hate to cause Shiro any stress at all, and would do whatever he could to reduce that stress.

This time, Lance is going to dig his heels in. He is not going to let a living being be needlessly exterminated. Lance isn’t anti-animal death, or anything — he has no problem with others eating meat, or using animal products. He thinks using animals as gifts and not letting any part of them go to waste is very wise, and he has a lot of respect for people who manage to do so successfully. Sport hunters, on the other hand, or people who kill without good reason? Therein lies his problem, and he’s beyond happy to make a big stink of it.

“Could you describe the beast?” Shiro asks.

“Happily,” the dignitary grumps. “I’m eager to describe its horror to you, Oh Great Leader of Voltron.”

Shiro visibly tries very hard not to roll his eyes. Lance refuses to take any joy in the reaction, even though he would usually laugh.

“The beast is as large as half our royal castle. Its teeth are larger than our tallest soldier, and sharper than a luxite blade. Its fur is rough and coarse, enough to sand the paint clean off the walls it brushes by. Its roar shakes the very foundations of our city. It walks on four legs but stands on two, right before it rears up to smash our buildings to dust. It is a menace, a pest, and a danger besides!”

“So you have a grizzly bear problem,” Lance snaps. “Close your garbage cans at night and quit complaining.”

“Lance, please,” Hunk mutters, but Lance will not back down. Not when a life is at stake.

“Has it actually…hurt anyone?” Keith asks.

Lance shoots a grateful look at Keith.

At least someone is on his side.

“Yes!” the dignitary cries.

Keith shoots a look back at Lance — a well, I tried if Lance has ever seen one — but that is not good enough. Lance glares at him.

Traitor.

“Explain,” Lance demands.

The dignitary frowns, looking down his nose at Lance and shaking their head. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Would you mind explaining,” Pidge deadpans, barely refraining from rolling her eyes.

Lance knows Pidge well enough to know that she’s not on his side, exactly — she threw a bolt at him when he started insulting the dignitary initially — but there’s nothing that pisses her off more than someone talking down to her family. Even if she doesn’t agree with said family. She’s loyal, like that.

“Fine, since you asked so nicely,” the dignitary says, cutting a look to Lance, who makes a very crude gesture with his hands in response and ignores the four (4) tired sighs from assorted teammates and co around him.

“The beast easily and ruthlessly took down several of our soldiers as soon as they opened fire on it. And it further still injured many of our knights when we sent them to its cave! It is a mindless, killing machine, and must be exterminated immediately.”

Lance throws his hands up in exasperation. “No shit it’s defending itself! What do you expect it to do, stand there while you shoot at it?”

“If it didn’t want to be shot it shouldn’t have ventured into the city in the first place!”

“It’s an animal! How the hell is it supposed to understand city limits and boundaries?”

“That’s not my problem,” the dignitary says coldly. “It has posed a threat to our people, and so it must die. And if Voltron wishes for our signature in the Coalition, you will come to our aid, or else you can count yourself down one planet’s alliance.”

Allura stiffens. “You would really risk your people’s protection over a difference in opinion?”

“Your blue paladin —”

“I am not the blue paladin, you brainless amoeba —”

“Your blue paladin,” the dignitary repeats, pointedly and icily, “has insulted us greatly. The situation is no longer up for debate. If you wish to sign an alliance, the paladin must handle the problem himself. That is our final stipulation.”

With that, the dignitary ends the call, cutting off Shiro’s pleas for him to wait.

All eyes turn to Lance.

“I am not killing an innocent animal,” Lance snaps. “Forget it.”

Keith sighs. “Lance —”

“No.” Lance clenches his fists, glaring at his team, chin raised and shoulders set. Beside him, Mr. Snuggles spreads his fangs and hisses. The mice — currently resting on his head — scramble to their feet, presumably also tensing up. Ivy — a venomous vine he picked up on a planet a few missions back — winds up his arms. “I am not just being ridiculous. You heard that idiot. They’re provoking it. It’s not doing anything wrong.”

“Lance —” Keith tries again, but Lance is not willing to hear it.

“I will not take an innocent life to buy an alliance. And if you do, I swear to God, I will never forgive you.”

With that he stomps out of the bridge, ignoring the dozens of calls of his name and pleas to “wait a goddamn second, Lance, c’mon.”

Lance stomps all the way to his room, muttering about stupid careless dignitaries and team members who won’t listen to him and how everyone is going to make him grey early and he is not Shiro, lord above, so he can’t pull that garbage off. Ugh.

He slams his door behind him and flops on the bed, and is marginally surprised to find his tears stinging his eyes.

“This is a stupid reason to cry,” he announces to no one, voice muffled in his pillow. “Why must I cry about stupid things. Why can’t I cry about regular things. This is dumb.”

There’s a clicking sound accompanying a gentle bump to the leg hanging off his bed. He drags his head off the pillow, sniffling, to see Mr. Snuggles sitting to the side of his bed, fangs clicking. The mice sit on his head, as they are wont to do (which, understandably considering the natural predator of mice, used to scare the shit out of Allura. But Mr. Snuggles has never been anything but gentle with them, even when they roughhouse on his back or play tag under his leg and accidentally trip him. He seems to be quite protective of them, actually. It’s very sweet. Lance thinks it might be a microhylid frog-giant tarantula situation, even though Mr. Snuggles can’t lay eggs, and it amuses him greatly). Ivy uncoils from his bed frame, wrapping a vine around his ankle and tugging carefully. Blue and Red both loudly mother him in the back of his mind.

It’s nice.

Lance sighs, wiping his tears and sitting up against his headboard.

“This sucks,” he says to his assortment of companions, all who seem to agree with him. Mr. Snuggles and the mice crawl up the leg of the bed to sit in front of him, and Ivy makes her way around his shoulders.

None of them can talk to him, obviously — how fucking cool would that be, though — but each one of them is an excellent listener (even the mice, who like to gossip, but Lance preemptively forgives them).

“It’s just —” Lance huffs, frustrated. “I get that the planet is probably tired of being lightly terrorized by a giant beast, sure, but is murder really the answer? Plus, have they even tried talking to it? Maybe it’s very reasonable! I’m sure I —”

Lance shoots up, startling poor Ivy, but holy shit.

Holy shit!

“That’s it!” he shouts, grin nearly splitting his face in two. He leans over, just barely managing to grab his holopad, and starts sketching out the plans.

“Now if I just — and it shouldn’t be too hard — I’ve done more in less time — hell yeah!”

He’s startled out of his fervour by urgent squeaks, and when he looks up, he sees the mice waving to get his attention.

“Yes?”

At his acknowledgement, they scurry into formation, laying together to make a question mark with their little bodies.

Lance snorts. He may not be able to speak their language, but they have no problems making themselves clear.

“I can’t tell you,” he scolds, “you’re going to snitch to Allura.”

They mice squeak sadly, but Lance knows better. Last time he gave in to them, Allura knew within the minute.

“I’ll be back soon, okay? Don’t wait up for me. Platt, Chulatt, Plachu, Chuchule — there’s some of that fancy grain you like in the cupboard. Mr. Snuggles — here.” He opens up space youtube, quickly opening up a horror movie reaction compilation for the fear demon. “That’ll keep you fed for a bit.” He props the holopad up on his pillow, scrambling to his feet and heading to the door. On the way out, he pulls the string on his special blue sun lamp — “That’s for you, Ivy!” — and then he’s out the door, plans in hand, to find Coran.

Luckily for Lance, he runs straight into him.

“Lance, dear, I was just coming to look for you,” Coran says, right outside his door.

Lance grins. “I can see that.”

Coran narrows his eyes. “You’re… remarkably chipper, Number Four.”

“Mhm.”

He holds up a hand for Coran to pause. He strains his ears, and smirks as he just barely picks up on the sound of near-silent footsteps behind a closed door. He makes pointed eye contact with the advisor, then inclines his head at Keith’s door.

Coran gets the point.

“Well, if you’re really feeling so much better,” Coran says loudly — too loudly, but Lance doesn’t have much in the subtlety department either, so he can’t complain — “would you mind helping me recalibrate the fabricator?”

“Absolutely,” Lance says, dragging the advisor by the hand in the opposite direction of the fabricator.

“Will you speak plainly, now?” Coran asks, once they’ve put some distance between them and Keith’s eavesdropping ass. (That is, however, probably an unfair reaction. Keith was likely listening in to try and find a way to help, in his own awkward way. If Lance wasn’t currently feeling just a smidge betrayed, he would feel touched.)

“Okay, so. I have a Plan.” Lance puts emphasis on the word so Coran knows it’s Capitalized, because this isn’t just a regular plan. This is a rescue mission. It’s espionage. A heist, even.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes!”

Coran sighs, dragging a hand down his face.

“Lance,” he says warningly, but Lance won’t hear it.

“C’mon, Coran! You trust me, right?”

“That is a manipulative question —”

“You trust me! You said so yourself!”

“Fine, child. Yes, I trust you.”

Lance claps his hands together. “Excellent! So. I refuse to be a murderer, as you may have heard.”

“That would have been very hard for me to miss,” Coran says drily.

Lance gracefully ignores the comment. “And since I will also go apeshit if anyone else becomes a murderer, I have come up with a plan!”

“Lance. Number Four. My dear. Time is not our current luxury. Please share your plan.”

“Right. Okay.” Lance rocks back on his heels, shooting Coran a guileless smile. “How well do you think you can imitate my mannerisms?”

———

part two

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

something that has always annoyed me about sjm stans, specifically stans who ‘acknowledge’ that sjm is problematic, is that they never actually take that extra step. and often, she’s only ever called out as vaguely ‘problematic’ and this ‘problematic behavior’ is never actually being expounded on in a nuanced way. so it’s like — of course we’re having these conversations. if the story was well-written, these conversations would be productive. but they’re not, hence why the anti tag exists in the first place. like what’s the point of acknowledging these things when you know you’ll just get shitty when people elaborate on how sjm’s ideology effects characters - including characters that you love/are favored by her.

but then there’s this attitude around the fantasy romance genre in particular that has had me perturbed and it’s this idea that genres such as romance and fantasy-romance are somehow too “lesser” to analyze. it’s “just” fairy porn. again, this is a part of that avoidance language I described in an earlier post; essentially, when people can’t earnestly defend the problems in a series they result to avoiding the conversation entirely. this means they’ll devalue the fantasy romance genre just so that they don’t have to interrogate the harmful tropes they have allowed to become staples of the genre.

i think once you’ve read a good chunk of fantasy/paranormal romance you’ll come to see that it’s a genre burdened with alarming amounts of racism, abuse apologism, and misogyny. and as the booktok train is showing, the use of tropes containing these tropes is up at an alarming rate. and then it begs the question of whether or not we shouldn’t say anything ‘analytical’ about this genre - right? the harmful tropes introduced in twilight are still propagated by the na/ya genre. we even discussed how the loose representation of jacob black potentially spawned an entire genre of ‘poc fishing’ in a lot of young adult novels/media now. and we can all agree that twilight was also dubbed ‘a stupid romance book.’ but that ‘stupid romance book’ is the progenitor of some of the most staple problematic tropes in romance media today.

in truth it’s never ‘just a romance’ book. we seen first hand the effect of just allowing these tropes to exist because these are “just fun novels.”

so if you’re going to headline by acknowledging that sjm has harmful tropes, but not actually take the time to actually expound on what makes her books harmful, like there’s literally no point. and if you’re argument subsists on the idea that the book is a romance and therefore doesn’t warrant any real interrogation then idk what to tell you.

[chaifootsteps]

Old Hazbin Hotel was cringe, but in a charming and cute way. New Hazbin is just cringe, in a "not even "so-bad-its-good" way, its just bad" cringe.

The Hazbin pilot was cringe, due to the cleary inexperience from the producers to make a proyect like this and it had a few problems. But, it gave me the vibes of "first big proyect made by a group of friends of enthusiastic young adults, who you can tell they all had fun making it and expect the proyect to get bigger and keep working together on it". Similar to that feeling of when you see a drawing on deviantart made by a 10yo that isnt perfect (like it has anatomy errors, weird coloring, etc) but you can tell that the kid put a lot of love in their drawing and they have the potential to be better in the future, and that was makes it so charming.

Meanwhile, the new Hazbin is just annoying and hard to enjoy cringe, gaves me the vibes of "pretentious yet souless proyect made by a rich childish asshole that never grew up past the age of 14 and is more obsessed with "proving the haters wrong" than actually making a good show. There is not a single drop of love or care that doesnt come from the Director's fantasies of being famous for it. Everyone in the production couldnt give less of a shit about it they are just there for a quick buck and in a few years they will talk about how they were treated like shit during the production of this show". It reminds me of Santa's INC, that unfunny pretentious show that was a "criticism of misogyny and white privilege" or something like that but its delivered in the most childish way posibly. The creator of the show was salty that people didnt like the show so he ended up saying that everyone who criticised it was a white supremasist on Twitter. Pretty sure Vivzie will do something like that when Hazbon comes out and people are honest with its criticism, seeing she basically did the same with HB, but with HH this will definetely destroy her reputation.

I seriously think we are on the bad timeline and there is another one where Hazin was never picked up by any company and it stayed indie, being directed by someone who isnt Vivzie.

Vivzie trying to comprehend why people liked the pilot and Hunicast more than the final product she ditched it all to make:

[badstargateimagines]

Stargate character analysis

Based on how they’d act at a minimum wage job inspired by my actual behavior.

Jack: He’s the type to show up to work in his pajamas, clock in, and then take an hour long shit before finally getting changed into his uniform. His shift starts at 5am on paper, but in practice it starts at 6:15. Time theft king. (Me while working at Canadian grocery chain that rhymes with blah blahs)

Sam: 15 minutes early for being 15 minutes early. She shows up and sits in the parking lot for 15 minutes before she goes into work and then sits there for another 15 minutes before her start time. However, if she notices something that needs to be done, she’ll do it before clocking in just so she doesn’t need to do it later. (Me when I worked at Sephora)

Daniel: kind of like Sam but hates his boss so he does everything he’s told to do but vagues about his boss online on anonymous accounts. Partial to the tradie breakfast (gas station coffee and pastry). Says he’s not stressed about work but has had anxiety about it since he went in for the interview. (Me when I worked at Canadian Old Lady Clothes Emporium with a duck as the logo)

Teal’c: Shows up at exactly his shift time and then makes a coffee before doing anything. Afterwards he just vibes and gives cryptic lore updates to anyone who comes by his desk. Has unionized himself and takes half hour long breaks and 1.25 hour lunch breaks. Spends his downtime engaging with hobbies. (Me when I worked at my town’s visitor’s centre)

Jonas: Interchangeable with Daniel. It’s always a toss up of who will show up for the shift. Has a panic attack when he can’t find his uniform. Beloved by management because he constantly seems like a baby animal who shouldn’t be at work, crushed by the weight of capitalism and yet he’s there doing his best. Protected by his coworkers because he’s constantly victimized by weird customers. (Me at the grocery store I worked at when I was 14)

Vala: straight up vibing. Pops an Adderall and downs 2 red bulls and calls it breakfast. Not sober when she wakes up? No problem! Have a shot as a pick me up and stroll into work because minimum wage isn’t worth the hassle of being sober. Watches people steal and just tells them where the camera blind spots are. They call her 007: 0 effort, 0 work done, 7 smoke breaks. Vapes in the receiving area and entertains truckers with her immeasurable amount of rizz. Almost fired for unionizing the old people in the smoking area but quits before they can actually fire her. (Me again working at Canadian Grocery Chain that rhymes with blah blahs)

Janet: receptionist who has a license to be incredibly mean to anyone who walks in. Shows up 10 minutes late every day because she has to pop into everyone’s office to say “omg hiiiiii!!” on her way to her office. Everyone loves her. Makes coffee when she knows the 60 year old lady from finance who knows all the gossip will be in the break room. Keeps the entire office together by being Radar O’Reilly. (Me when I temped at town hall)

Cam: he’s the young supervisor who ended up becoming a supervisor against his will who shows up with a litre of coffee every morning. Constantly forgets that he’s a supervisor so gossips with staff for like five minutes before his face goes blank and goes “shit, uh, we gotta get back to work” and then doesn’t. Whenever someone comes in late and apologizes for it he goes “nah don’t worry, I wish I wasn’t here too, take your time, I’ll adjust the punches.” Everyone thinks he’s cool but he’s actually just too stressed about potentially needing to write someone up that he’d rather just not see it. Gets all his work done and the team is always more productive when he’s there. (Me when I worked at the old lady clothes emporium)

General Hammond: retires by opening a business and not retiring at all. Effectively has the business to get out of the house. Hours are whenever he’s around. Picks a location close to his dentist and doctor’s office so he can close the store and walk there when he needs to go to an appointment. Spends his days talking to his friends and engaging with his hobbies. (My dad and the record store we opened together because he couldn’t stand doing nothing all day)

Harry Meybourne: calls in sick because he’s hungover or because it’s too nice out or something. Performs well at his job when he bothers to show up, really milking the labour shortage for everything it’s worth. Says he can’t work before 7am or after 9pm because he’s not able to drive when it’s dark. That’s a lie. (Me when I worked at McDonald’s when I was 17)