#source material from the web

[momomogos]

*Art barriers？HA!

[spacesymbol]

on denial, fear, and anger that stem from internalized homophobia

1. scene 5 "they fell" of almost, maine by john cariani 2. episode 7 "pretend like it's the first time" of season 2 of arcane 3. i want you to know that im awake​/​i hope that youre asleep by car seat headrest 4. episode 9 "the dirt under your nails" of season 2 of arcane 5. chapter xxxvi (jason pov) of the house of hades by rick riordan

[ganseylike]

watched portrait of a lady on fire and well. they're a bit adam and ronan...

[moonstruckme]

Please oh please may I request tasm!peter using his super strength to impress r? I don’t know if you’ve seen the TikToks from Romeo and Juliet but he is dangling and does a pull up to kiss her and like that vibe of just being a bit of a show off to fluster her

You may! Thank you <3

tasm!Peter Parker x fem!reader ♡ 876 words

“I read something today,” you say, steam trailing behind you as you carry your microwave dinner into the bedroom. 

“Yeah?” Peter doesn’t pause in pulling on his suit. He nearly falls over when his leg gets stuck in the spandex. You’d think after so much practice, he’d be better at it. “That’s great, baby. Big step for you.” 

“Shut up.” You consider chucking a tamale at him, but no, not worth it. “I read a statistic about crime in New York.” 

Now you have Peter’s interest. He cocks his head, the suit hanging from his waist. Not getting distracted by his naked torso never becomes less of a trial for you. 

“Something you think I should know?” 

“Mhm. Did you know most crime here happens between noon and seven pm?” 

“Oh.” He rolls his eyes, putting his arms in their sleeves. “I know where this is going.” 

“It just seems,” you say thoughtfully, “like maybe you could stay here with me tonight. Since, you know, most of the crime is already over.” 

“I have class until six-thirty, sweetheart. What do you want me to do?” 

“Stay home.” You take a bite of your tamale, but it’s hotter than you expected. You chew with unladylike open-mouthed bites, trying to breathe out the steam. “Obviously.” 

Peter grins at your misfortune. You glare, and he makes a face so dopily in love you almost can’t stand it. 

“I have to go,” he says. “Whatever the statistics say, there are still crimes happening, and if I’ve got their schedule figured out those guys will be coming back to try and rob the gyro place again.” 

You swallow your food, frowning. “Damian’s place?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh, fuck those guys. Go get ‘em.” 

“I knew you’d get it.” Peter pulls on his mask, backing up towards the window. It’s been opened so frequently it doesn’t even squeak. You shiver at the cold wind it lets in. “Back later.” 

“Be safe,” you say automatically, pulling out your laptop and tapping random keys until it turns on. “Don’t go after guys with guns.” 

“I won’t.” 

You think Peter’s lying, but it’s the sort of white lie you’re okay with being told. You try not to think too hard when he goes out on his patrols; the worry would drive you insane if you did. You can never really fall asleep until you feel that wind come in through the window again, though, his body slipping into bed beside yours. 

You’re just navigating to YouTube when there’s a schwick, and your laptop shuts. You stare at the splatter of webbing on the back side of your screen in silent indignance for a moment before tracing it back to the source. 

“Peter.” Your boyfriend is dangling from the window of your eight-floor apartment by his fingertips. By only one set of fingertips. You know all about his abilities, and still the sight makes your heart shoot up into your throat. “What are you doing?” 

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” 

“What?” 

He attaches his webbing to the windowsill, using that hand to pull off his mask. “Uh, a goodbye kiss?” 

You roll your eyes, but it’s hard not to look smitten when the thing your boyfriend is sternest about is romance. You get up and follow the line of his web to the window. 

“You’re going to clean this stuff off my laptop when you get back,” you say, tone softening with fondness as he looks up at you. 

“It’ll dissolve,” he replies. “C’mere.” 

You bend, and Peter meets you halfway, muscled arms shifting underneath the tight material of his suit as he pulls himself upward. His lips are warm. The ends of his hair shift in the wind, tickling your forehead. You have to stop yourself from leaning all the way out the window to follow him when he pulls away. 

“Mm.” He licks his lips. “Save me some of those tamales, please.” 

“Do not tell me that I taste like bean and masa,” you plead. 

Peter grins. “No, I’m just teasing. You taste like you. Which is to say…” He pulls upward again, finding you just where he left you. “...very good.” 

Your lips curve against his, staying even after the kiss. “Flirt.” 

“Maybe.” He lets himself drop down below you, knuckles to his chin. It’s odd seeing him like this, so at ease with the city whizzing about nearly a hundred feet below him. 

You bite your lip, and his eyes drop to the motion. 

“Okay,” he says. “One more.” 

You grin. “Now you’re just showing off.” 

Peter makes a noncommittal humming sound, but you know he’s well aware of the impressive flex of his biceps and forearms as he lifts himself upward for one last kiss. You make it a good one, soft and lingering. 

“Is it working?” 

“Maybe,” you repeat his answer to your flirting accusation. But when you look at him again, your voice drops into a more genuine register. “Hey. Be safe tonight, seriously.”  

Peter’s eyes go soft. “I will. I’ll see you later, pretty girl.” He winks before pulling the mask on. “Keep the bed warm for me.” 

“If you’re not back by midnight, I’m putting an ice cube on your pillow.” 

His laughter echoes in the room after he’s gone. 

[kyra45]

It’s a new year so here’s a start of the year reminder.

badjokesbyjeff made racist jokes and also called all Palestine gfms a scam. Additionally, the jokes are often just stolen from other places without any credit/reference to the source material. The posts this account made have been deleted, but can be found if you look around web archive. No apology has ever been given and posts resumed after some time had passed. Also harassed el-shab-hussein in the since deleted posts.

writing-prompt-s also called all Palestine gfms a scam and made several “prompts” based around the claim such as “your running a scam ring that’s been found out by scam busters” (presumably a jab at the people who bust scams?). Regardless, this account said 90s-ghost wasn’t legitimate because “anyone can backdate posts” even though there are plenty of ways to distinguish a blogs age outside of post dates. Additionally, most of the prompts are rarely original and often are just taken from other websites without proper credits. Made an ‘apology’ after deleting the posts; Deleted the apology later making the legitimacy of its claims uncertain. Even if the account is to be retired, the apology should have been left up for future reference. (Though all it really said was the admin hadn’t ran the blog in years and mods were the ones who did all that and the admin didn’t want political content on the blog.)

This is just a reminder, don’t go harassing these blogs just because of this post. Most people forgot this happened and I want people to remember it. Not every Palestine gfm is a scam; Most are ran by family members or good friends who can be trusted. You can find many posts about the process by Palestinian users or those who work to help them.

[bitbybitwrites]

ShadowDragon sells a tool called SocialNet that streamlines the process of pulling public data from various sites, apps, and services. Marketing material available online says SocialNet can “follow the breadcrumbs of your target’s digital life and find hidden correlations in your research.” In one promotional video, ShadowDragon says users can enter “an email, an alias, a name, a phone number, a variety of different things, and immediately have information on your target. We can see interests, we can see who friends are, pictures, videos.”

The leaked list of targeted sites include ones from major tech companies, communication tools, sites focused around certain hobbies and interests, payment services, social networks, and more. The 30 companies the Mozilla Foundation is asking to block ShadowDragon scrapers are ​​Amazon, Apple, BabyCentre, BlueSky, Discord, Duolingo, Etsy, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, FlightAware, Github, Glassdoor, GoFundMe, Google, LinkedIn, Nextdoor, OnlyFans, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, Strava, Substack, TikTok, Tinder, TripAdvisor, Twitch, Twitter, WhatsApp, Xbox, Yelp, and YouTube.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What kind of bubble is AI?

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.

Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.

AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.

So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.

Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).

Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).

Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.

These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html

The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.

What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.

Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.

The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.

If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:

https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.

Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.

These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).

So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.

But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.

This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

tom_bullock (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[aashi-heartfilia]

Where can I read "Kusuriya no Hitorigoto" Light Novel?

Since a lot of you have been asking this question lately, here is everything you need to know in brief...

What is a Web Novel (WN) and Light Novel (LN)?

A WN is basically weekly chapters released by the main author on a weekly basis. You can find it on a lot of Japanese sites. Some amazing people also translate them on a regular basis and post those chapters. LN is a compilation of WN chapters. A number of Chapters from the WN are taken, translated, properly rewritten and edited to publish a final LN. It has a few illustrations as well like the one you can see below...

Manga, Light Novel and Anime

Basically, the LN is taken and illustrated by an artist and we call it a manga. And when the manga has reached a certain number of Chapters, and gained a lot of popularity, it is converted into an anime. So that's the flow of things. We have

WN -> LN -> Manga -> Anime

I think that clears up a lot of misunderstandings. Firstly, the WN is published on a weekly basis, some chapters from WN are taken and translated properly to make a LN. The LN is illustrated by an artist to make the manga and the manga is generally adapted to make the anime.

In case of 'Kusuriya no Hitorigoto' or 'The Apothecary Diaries', the anime is doing a great job of adapting the overall story because not only are they properly animating every scene from the manga but also adding their own scenes from the LN.

Where can I read WN, LN and Manga?

WNs are the hardest to find, since they are released on a weekly basis by the Japanese author. They are written in Japanese and a few fans translate them for everyone. You can find it here...

(They have translated chapters of vol 10, 11 and 12)

The LN has reached until vol 9 and vol 10 is scheduled to release in Jan 2024. Currently, there is no source where you can find it for free (not that I know of, because even I have purchased the e book from Amazon) though the first few pages are available to read for free! So you can check them out!

Where did the Anime, Manga left off?

The Manga has reached ch 68. If you want to start reading the light novel from where the manga left off, you can start reading from vol 4, chapter 4.

The Anime has released ep 12 and it has covered manga material till ch 20, if you want to read manga after finishing the anime.

If you have any other questions regarding the LN, WN, Anime or Manga, feel free to ask!

~ Sunshine

[beakers-and-telescopes]

With the fast fashion industry… how it is… finding sustainable ways to make fabric is super important.  Fibers from synthetic fabrics make up 35% of the microplastics that make their way to the ocean.  Natural fibers sourced from plants or animals are much more environmentally sound options, including silk.

Currently, the only way to get natural silk on a large scale is to harvest it from silkworms.  You’ve probably heard about the strength and durability of spider silk (it is 6x stronger than Kevlar!) but as of yet there hasn’t been a good way of getting it.  Raising spiders the way people do silkworms isn’t really an option.  Spiders need a lot of room to build their webs compared to silkworms, and individual spiders don’t produce that much silk.  Plus, when you put a whole bunch of spiders in captivity together, they tend to start eating each other.

Attempts to artificially recreate spider silk have also been less than successful.  Spider silk has a surface layer of glycoproteins and lipids on it that works as a sort of anti-aging “skin”- allowing the silk to withstand conditions such as sunlight and humidity.  But this layer has been very tricky to reproduce.

However, as scientists in China realized, silkworms produce that same kind of layer on their silk.  So what if we just genetically modified silkworms to produce spider silk?

That is exactly what the researchers at Donghua University in Shanghai did.  A team of researchers introduced spider silk protein genes to silkworms using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and microinjections in silkworm eggs.  In addition to this, they altered the spider silk proteins so that they would interact properly with the other proteins in silkworm glands.  And it worked!  This is the first study ever to produce full length spider silk proteins from silkworms.

The applications of this are incredibly exciting.  In addition to producing comfortable textiles and new, innovative bulletproof vests, silkworm generated spider silk could be used in cutting edge smart materials or even just to create better performing sutures.  In the future, this team intends to research how to modify this new spider silk to be even stronger, and they are confident that “large-scale commercialization is on the horizon."

[beuxwhoyouare]

Taking What’s Offered

I’ll admit it I spiraled. I do just some backend stuff for a big streaming company so our offices are smack in the middle of everything. My office having a window with a perfect view for me to people watch everything nearby. I longed to live their lives, anything seemed so much more interesting than what I do.

Sometimes it felt like the people out there were rubbing it in my face living their happy seemingly lives. None more than those Grecian statured people coming out of the gym I had the perfect view of. Everyday I’d rush through my coding assignments to spend my left over time watching them push their bodies to the limits. The sweating, grunting, and the form accentuating clothing, all things I could never do but salivated to imagine being surrounded by.

And that’s how I started spiraling. At first I’d end my shifts and pretend to need to walk by the gym to steal glances at all the glistening torsos. But that quickly devolved in me obsessing over gym culture and ways that maybe I could look like them. That ended abruptly when I realized how difficult and long it would take to get those kind of results. Instant gratification of the internet really eroded my mind there, I can’t help it. I want what I want and I want it now.

I pivoted my research to the occult and dark sides of the web. I found several sources promising that I could get all I ever dreamed up if I made a deal with a demon. I gathered the ceremonial materials and began crudely reciting the incantations I found online. To my dismay nothing happened immediately.

As I lay in my bed I drifted asleep before a gnarling growl and voice ripped me awake. The demon promised me I could have what I wanted if I showed him what I wanted in person but in return I’d have to give up my soul. Considering how hollow and meaningless my life has been, why would I say no? All I had to go was go to the gym and show him what I wanted? Psh I didn’t even believe in the afterlife so I don’t care about a “soul”.

The next day I took a stroll into the gym to ask for a tour and pretend to care about a membership. The front desk people couldn’t care less and told me I could walk around myself to look around, the perfect reply for a menacing plan brewing. One of the big brooding alphas I always see from my window was in the middle of an intense set. Grunt after grunt I nearly watching with my mouth ajar as I watched him work in awe.

The demon hissed in my hear, all I had to do was get close enough for a face to face interaction it told me, then it would handle the rest. But that required me to get the gall to approach his large and slightly intimidating frame.

I kept watching from afar until I could tell he was winding down and heading to the locker room. I walked in after him, pretending to not have my gaze fixed on his path. The demon hissed once again, but this was a forcefully nagging, telling me to get him get him get him. I felt myself tip toeing closer behind him as he undressed to shower. I couldn’t tell it then, but the demons pestering wasn’t just verbal he was beginning to motion my feet forward and my hand towards the muscular jock. Like a feral animal, I picked up my pace and eventually wrapped my hands around his neck to choke him. A ridiculous gesture given how much skinnier and weaker I was than him. Running on pure adrenaline I held his neck and then the demon gave me a push. It felt like I was vomiting, like the demon was using metaphysical hands to pull me out from my throat. And with a distinct pop, a slug-like blob of light came out of my throat and rushed into the jocks throat as he stood shocked at my abrupt attack.

Everything went black for a second and when I came to, my blurry vision slowly came into focus as I leaned against the nearby wall of the gym showers. I picked up my head and gasped. Standing in front of me….was me? I fell backwards hitting the wall again feeling the chilly coolness of the tile on my now bare skin. That feeling confirming I was no longer clothed as I had been just moments before. I looked down at my hands as I inherently get a look at my new tool after a towel lays on the floor beneath my feet.

My heart was beating so fast I didn’t even know what to say. My former body approached me and picked up my face gently with his hand. The demonic voice coming out of my throat this time instead of telepathically appearing in my head. Confirming the demon would be taking my body as payment. I phoned in my attention to him, which I wish I hadn’t. My old body snickered and made a run for the exit. I couldn’t be bothered until his voice shook me inside my head. The jock pleading for a semblance of understanding. He remained out of the drivers seat questioning why and how he was moving without being in control. I mimicked the snickering my body had done before as I realized he was now forced to watch me pilot his sexy body and he had no say.

What can I say he was basically offering his body up always working out in the front of the gym. RDLs, squats, chest presses, all the beefy display for me to enjoy from a distance. Now I could enjoy VIP access to the show. I simply took what was being offered. Instead of showering, I walked back onto the gym floor and even though my new body was taxed from a workout and never death choke out, I pushed it to do more reps of anything I could remember from all my watching. I wanted to feel the extension and contraction of his juicy muscles for myself.

I could only muster some partials on some reps but even those felt sexy. The jock continuing to protest in his head and begin to internally sob. I started to relish the moment and accidentally smirked at his calls to stop. His resistance felt like it was empowering me. I ripped his shirt off in front of the mirror to pose with my new musculature like I had seen him do from afar so many times before.

Then I felt it start. I was getting so turned on I started my girthy tool get harder. Instead of panicking and rushing out I sauntered to gather my things and just let anyone nearby enjoy the show.

Soon enough I was catching the attention of a few other gym goers before walking out. Some gave me slight nods of blushing approval and others kept glancing me up and down to seemingly confirm the raunchy sight they were seeing.

As I fumbled through my new bag looking for the jocks keys I accidentally bumped into what I thought was a wall. When I looked up I realized it was an even beefier and taller man. One thing led to another and our flirting became a touchy feely invite over to his place. I finally found my new car and followed him to his home. The second we got inside he pushed me against the wall and pushed me around the way he wanted me. I gotta say I’m sure this body was an alpha male fuck boy originally but I was gonna make sure we erase all of that toxic masculine energy, one bottoming at a time.

What can I say I’m just taking what was offered.

[mortal-kingss]

for once, for once in life, i finally felt that someone needed me…

[ID: A fully rendered piece of Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood dancing. The background is stark black, and the main lighting source is warm, coming from slightly below the camera. Jon has his back facing the camera and his face turned to the side, and Martin has his body facing the camera and face also turned to the side. Martin is a tall, fat white man, with vitiligo, and is an avatar of the Web. He has brown hair with white streaks, square glasses, and eight entirely black eyes. He’s smiling with fangs peaking through slightly, and scars in the patterns of cobwebs on his cheek. He’s wearing a brown suit with a white shirt and brown tie. There is a small web design on the collar of the suit with a pendant of a spider, made out of wire and amber. He’s wearing a belt and dark grey pants that fade slowly into a light grey. His left hand is holding Jon’s, and his right hand is pressed against her back. Jon is a shorter, thin Indian person, wearing a dark green satin dress with a small amount of black mesh material on the upper back. Her dark brown and grey hair is long, and is tied back in a loose ponytail, with a gold hairpiece in the shape of an eye, connected by small chains with green gems, to Jhumka earrings. He has multiple eyes on his face, and all are green, looking up at Martin, except for the normal placement of eyes which are closed. He’s wearing gold arm jewelry with eye patterns on them, and his right arm has a henna design and a ring on his finger. His left arm is perched on Martin’s shoulder. End ID]

[flawseer]

#29b - "Pokémon"

Smaugust 2024

I felt bad for kind of phoning this one in. So I cut into some of my down time to resurrect a small portion of my original plan for this prompt.

You may or may not be confused by some of the typings I have chosen for these characters, foremost likely why none of them have "Dragon" as their type. Dragon, in the source material, is supposed to be a rare type, and I believe this characteristic would become muddled and meaningless if it was given to basically every character in the story. So the Dragon type here is reserved for Queens, great leaders, and characters of mythical significance. This means that Glory will evolve into a Poison/Dragon type somewhere down the line.

Another, smaller source of befuddlement may come from making Starflight a Dark type. I had this idea that, in ancient times, Nightwings used to be Psychic types, but then became Dark types when they lost their powers.

And lastly, it's not relevant for the characters on these cards, but the Fairy type is reserved for animus dragons.

Here are some other characters who didn't make it:

Moonwatcher, PSYCHIC, Quiet nature, Forewarn

Winter, ICE, Serious nature, Dazzling

Kinkajou, POISON, Impish nature, Vital Spirit

Turtle, WATER/FAIRY, Timid nature, Battle Armor

Qibli, GROUND/POISON, Naughty nature, Adaptability

Peril, FIRE/FLYING, Lonely nature, Flame Body

Riptide, WATER/FIGHTING, Serious nature, Contrary

Deathbringer, DARK/GHOST, Quirky nature, Infiltrator

Fatespeaker, DARK/PSYCHIC, Jolly nature, Anticipation

Flame, FIRE/DARK, Hasty nature, Pickpocket

Squid, WATER, Naive nature, Damp

Ochre, GROUND/ROCK, Lax nature, Gluttony

Viper, GROUND/POISON, Bold nature, Aftermath

Anemone, WATER/FAIRY, Sassy nature, Klutz

Icicle, ICE, Serious nature, Competitive

Ostrich, GROUND/POISON, Impish nature, Keen Eye

Tamarin, POISON/GRASS, Modest nature, Flower Gift

Webs, WATER, Timid nature, Defeatist

Dune, GROUND/POISON, Calm nature, Slow Start

Kestrel, FIRE/FLYING, Hardy nature, Anger Point

Morrowseer, DARK, Lonely nature, Mold Breaker

Scarlet, DRAGON/FIRE, Bold nature, Bad Dreams

Coral, DRAGON/WATER, Adamant nature, Merciless

Burn, DRAGON/GROUND, Bold nature, Beast Boost

Blister, DRAGON/POISON, Careful nature, Corrosion

Blaze, DRAGON/GROUND, Relaxed nature, Emergency Exit

Darkstalker, PSYCHIC/FAIRY, Impish nature, Wonder Guard

Clearsight, PSYCHIC, Serious nature, Telepathy

Fathom, WATER/FAIRY, Timid nature, Triage

Indigo, WATER/FIGHTING, Hardy nature, Stalwart

Whiteout, DARK/PSYCHIC, Quirky nature, Own Tempo

Blue, BUG/NORMAL, Mild nature, Simple

Cricket, BUG, Jolly nature, Power of Alchemy

And probably many more that I didn't get around to.

The default ability of Rainwings would likely be Color Change, for Mudwings it would be Earth Eater... Maybe Sturdy for Sandwings.

Okay, I think that's enough.

[frownyalfred]

Hi. I'm not a canon purist and enjoy some fanon content very much, but I do think people in the fandom should at least familiarize themselves with the canon content and source material. It's easier to break the "rules" so to speak and experiment with canon when you know what that actually is. I've noticed a lot of fans that are only familiar with fanon criticise content that doesn't line up with what they believe to be canon but isn't. The Red Hood for example. I've seen writers who portray him as the violent criminal he is in much of the canon be completely decimated by Jason fans who only know fanon and the retconned version of Red Hood and completely deny canon even exists and refuse to even glance at the comics. Transformative works are important and playing in the sandbox is for everyone but fandom literally cannot exist without canon. Canon is important and people can do whatever they want with it but they should respect it enough to at least look at it.

Hi anon, I'm going to hold your hand as I say this, and I will say it as gently as I can: This is still a form of canon purism.

We can absolutely agree that readers shouldn't berate or abuse writers for how they choose to portray characters in fic, whether that's a more canon-faithful characterization or a popular fanon version. If readers don't like how a character is portrayed, we should encourage them to hit the back button instead.

I want to draw your attention to some of the words you used in your ask above: "should" "respect" "decimated" etc. Those are some strong words to describe how you think people need to behave, in order to exist in fandom. Of course, there is no fandom without canon source material -- I'm not denying that. But with such a wide and varied canon, the DC fandom has examples of the Red Hood you mention above, AND the "retconned" version you also reference. Both are canon, as in actually, officially, canon. WFA is canon, and that Red Hood looks very different from the Red Hood you describe.

Now, I think your issue is that you enjoy a certain version of canon, and you're frustrated that the fandom doesn't also, as trends ebb and flow, enjoy that canon as much as you do. Again, I want to acknowledge that just because a certain version is popular, it doesn't give folks the right to berate authors for writing a different version. But again, I don't think that's what we're really talking about here. From your ask's tone, I think you're suggesting that people should, in order to participate in fandom, read that older canon, that different version, or as you say, "glance at it" before enjoying or writing the fanon version.

Guess what? They actually, really, really, don't have to. It sounds like you have some issues with judging your fellow fandom members who don't read what you do or reference certain canon. But the magic of this fandom is, you can enter it at any point. We're a big pool, and if someone's entry point is the Lego Batman movie and that's it, that's still valid.

Fandom stems from canon, yes, but I almost never hear people talk about movies, or web comics, or other media when they talk about "required reading." It's always a comic. I really wish people would reflect on that before suggesting it as the one true path to being a fan.

The other thing I don't see asks like these reference ever is the reality that sometimes a fandom outstrips its canon material, and that that's an eventuality in some spaces. Fanon interpretations become popular, and people write about those specific characterizations or scenarios. They ebb and flow, like I mentioned, and some are more canon-faithful than others. Some completely reject canon, and again -- it's still fandom. It doesn't make it better or worse than a more canon-faithful fic. It's just different.

I had a couple asks about this topic a few weeks ago, and I'm assuming you haven't read those or you likely wouldn't have sent me this ask. But in them, I discuss how sometimes we need to suck it up and be unhappy that canon-faithful fics aren't as popular in a fandom at a specific time, and stop punishing fellow fans for writing and enjoying those fics. And we really need to stop shitting on them publicly on Tumblr.

Because often, what you're really saying is that you wish more people would write more canon-faithful fics, and stop writing ones about fanon topics you don't enjoy or think are accurate. And to that, I again say, there is nothing you can or should do to change that behavior from others. If you want to read it, write it, enjoy it, etc, do it yourself. Build the comic-faithful community here, write fics and promote challenges, create a discord channel and discuss your "required reading" there.

We are all writing and reading fanfiction at the end of the day. It is a great equalizer in many ways. My silly Lego Batman fic is just as valid as a canon-faithful rewrite of a certain Batman issue. One is not better than the other, or more deserving of respect. You will never get me to admit otherwise on this blog.

tl;dr: people should absolutely not berate authors who choose to write canon-faithful characterizations. however, there are layers of judgement and disdain many DC comics canon-faithful authors/readers have for their fellow fans that I think we need to examine critically in order to coexist respectfully.

[mcytblraufest]

MCYTBLR AU Fest 2025: Battleship — General Rules and FAQ

TIMELINE (all times EST): 

May 1: Freeform tag nominations open at 0:00.

May 17: Discord opens at 0:00, Relationship tag nomination starts.

May 19: Freeform tag nominations close at 23:59.

May 24: Signups open at 0:00.

May 28: Relationship tag nominations closes at 23:59.

May 30: Signups close at 23:59.

May 31-June 1: Mods make teams. As soon as teams are complete: gameplay starts.

Aufest creation is expected to run for three weeks after gameplay starts, and will have a two week anonymous reading period after gameplay comes to an end. You can expect the discord to be closing down approximately one week into July.

ABOUT:

MCYTBLR AU Fest 2025: Battleship is a MCYT creation event inspired by the multi-fandom event Battleship where teams of artists, writers, podficcers and web weavers work together to clear game boards faster than the other teams. Each team's board will be made up of squares marked with tags, and a square will be cleared when enough works containing that tag have been posted by that team. Clear your team's board and find traps and treasure, beat word count bosses, and post works faster than the other teams!

AU Fest Battleship is based on the multifandom Battleship Exchange, originally created in 2020 by Soulstoned and Red Ranger, inspired by a community challenge in the Trick or Treat exchange. Without the generous use of the multifandom spreadsheets created by current Battleship mod Firebird, AU Fest Battleship would not be possible.

EXPECTATION: 

Artists can claim any tag clearly represented in their work, to a maximum of 100 tags per work.

Writers can claim any tag clearly represented in their work, with one tag per 100 words posted, a minimum of 300 words per work and a maximum of 100 tags claimed per work. (For example, a 3,200 word work could claim 32 tags, as long as each tag is clearly represented in the work.)

Podficcers can claim any tag clearly represented in the world they're podficcing, with one tag per 100 words of source material, a minimum of 300 words per work and a maximum of 100 tags claimed per work. (For example, a 700 word original source material could claim 7 tags, as long as each tag is clearly represented in the original work). Podficced works must have author permission.

Web weavers can claim any tag clearly represented in the work, with one tag per element of the weave, to a maximum of 100 tags per work, and a minimum of three elements per web weave. All elements must be clearly credited.

RULES:

You must be a member of the discord, for team communication.

Because of Tumblr, Ao3 and Discord TOS, you must be 13 to participate. You must be 18 to participate in an 18plus team.

Respect your fellow participants, even when you disagree on fandom matters

You agree to cooperate with your teammates to the best of your ability, even if you disagree about game tactics. Mods will discord jail people for extended arguing and asshole behaviour will get you kicked from the event.

All works must be mcyt-themed and set in an au— no canon-compliance.

The collection will be opened when at least one team has won the event and every participant has at least one gift.

All works must be complete and created for Aufest 2025.

All works must be gifted to a fellow participant in the event, respecting their DNWs and adhering to their requested ships and tags.

Dark or triggering topics or themes must be tagged for.

No AI-Generated content.

Don't be an asshole.

LINKS:

Discord: Here Ao3 relationship tags [here] Ao3 freeform tags [All Ages here] [18 Plus here] Ao3 Collection: [All Ages here] [18 Plus here] Overflow Prompt Collection: [All Ages here] [18 Plus here] Signup tutorial: Here

FAQ:

What is MCYTBLR AU Fest? MCYTBLR AU Fest 2025: Battleship is a collaborative gifting event where creators come together in teams to create fan works centred on MCYT and set in an alternate universe from canon.

How does it work? 

Nominations and Signups: The event starts with a ship nomination week, where participants nominate ship tags that they want to be available for the event. Mods release a list of event tags covering different aus, themes, or tropes that will be used in gameplay. Once signup opens participant sign up on Ao3 in either the 18-plus or the all-ages collection, using the ship tags nominated earlier, indicating which ships would make a good gift for them, and which event tags they opt into for each ship. For each request you can also fill out a DNW to list things that you do not want as part of a gift to you.

Gameplay: Mods will divide participants into separate teams, and each team will be issued a 10*10 bingo-style board with tags in each square. Participants mark "hits" by posting a work featuring that tag, and once a square is "hit" a certain number of times, mods will reveal if that square contained treasure or a trap. Teams will race to find all the traps on their board and move on to the next round.

Each posted work must be gifted to another participant, respecting their requested ships and Do Not Want, and featuring at least one tag that the person requested. Works should also feature one or more tags from your team’s board to accumulate “hits.” Gifts can be given to your own team members or members of the opposing team.

The rounds go 1) tag board, 2) word count boss, 3) a different tag board, 4) word count boss, 5) final round with every tag in play. Aufest gameplay is over when at least one team has cleared the final tag board, and every participant has at least one gift.

Reading Weeks: All the works are revealed once gameplay is over, and then we take two weeks to read and comment on everyone's works!

What type of MCYT is included? We welcome creations based on any SMP, whether or not they have a canon tag on Ao3. Mianite, DSMP, QSMP, Hermitcraft, 3rd Life, Lifesteal, Witchcraft SMP— it’s all welcome. Crossovers are also welcome.

Can I join if my Art is a Game/Fan Song/Bookbind? While we love seeing different types of art, for this round of aufest participation is restricted to the four types of creation mentioned above— art, fic, podfic, web weave— because of the difficulty of calculating points and processing works quickly during gameplay.

Is shipping allowed? Yes. Because there is no broad fandom-wide consensus about how Creator boundaries are to be enforced in specific cases (whether it's okay to write beeduo as /r or /p is an obvious one, or whether it’s permitted to ship Joel Smallishbeans) or between specific fandoms (Lifesteal approach to shipping and boundaries is different from HBG is different from DSMP), the mods will not be policing any specific understanding of boundaries across the event. The event's motivating ethos is Don't Like Don't Read, in that participants will be able to indicate through tags in signups if they are interested in a given relationship being interpreted as romantic or platonic, and what subject matter they're interested in, and this must be respected when gifts are given. NSFW will have to be opted into and is only able to be opted into if you are part of the 18plus collection.

Is NSFW allowed? Yes. NSFW works are allowed, but must be opted into, both in the signup and by being part of the 18-Plus collection. No one under 18 is permitted to join the 18-plus collection. For the comfort of the greatest number of participants, and to conform with Tumblr TOS, anything with the tags Underage Sex or Adult/Minor Relationship will not be permitted to be part of the event. 

How are Minors defined for the purposes of those warnings? We are primarily using the age within the work— so if the fic itself would require the tags. With recent server epilogues setting a "canon age" has become increasingly difficult across servers, and this is further complicated because of the fandom's tendency to both age up or age down their characters. It is no longer tenable to make a list of characters who are always minors (and by extension, those who are not), when we are taking about aus that frequently modify their ages anyways. As such, we are asking people to make sure that the work they create has all necessary characters being of-age in the work. In cases of ambiguity the mods will be interpreting with an attempt at good faith, but note that clear attempt to circumvent the content rules will fall under the "do not be an asshole" provision and could also result in a ban.

Note: the exception to this rule is if the streamer themselves is currently confirmed to be a minor. Even in an au, adult/minor relationships or Underage Sex would not be permitted in that case.

Are major archive warnings (noncon/graphic depictions of violence/MCD) allowed? Aside from content rules about underage, major archive warnings are allowed. Depictions of real life horrors such as genocide and slavery are not-uncommon motifs in MCYT fics, and the mod team is not interested in legislating which types of horrors, griefs or abuses are inherently worse than others and are therefore off-limits. Because holding writing to a quality standard or saying only survivors can write atrocities is unworkable from a moderation standpoint, the three mentioned major archive warnings (MCD, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Noncon), are permitted to be included.

However, Major Archive Warnings must be explicitly opted into during signups, and delivering un-asked for major archive warnings is grounds for a ban from the event. The major archive warning rape/non-con is only able to be opted into as part of the 18-plus collection.

What is a DNW? Participants will have the opportunity to fill out a DNW, which stands for Do Not Want. This is anything that has the potential to ruin a gift for you, and is where you opt out of content that would trigger, squick, or just render the gift unreadable for you. DNWs must be phrased politely, (so no "No foster aus because they suck and you suck if you like them"), and they must be reasonable, (so no "no blood/injury" if you also opted into graphic depictions of violence, and no attempting to box someone into a specific gift beyond what is depicted in the art, so no "dnw anything that isn't a modern au where scar is a theatre teacher and grian is a biology teacher and they live in a city named hermitopia and grian has a situationship with mumbo and scarian has a rivalry at a coffee shop for the half-price muffins and jellie has psychic powers she's manipulating the muffin market with"), and they must be specific and clear, (so no “no triggering content"). However, they can be as petty (disliking 1st person) or as broad-reaching (no modern aus, no specific ships not opted into, no crossovers with specific servers or fics) as you like. Deliberately breaking someone's DNW is grounds for a ban from the exchange. 

Is Dark/Violent content allowed? As long as it is something that the person has not DNWed, yes. For many of us, the source material that originally drew us to the fandom includes major character death, torture, murder-for-hire, death games, public executions, child death and more. The fanfiction that arose from the source material follows in that trend. We will allow dark content to be part of the event, but it must be tagged for. 

We also ask that participants use best judgement in delivering commonly triggering topics un-asked for. We reserve the right to ban people at mod's discretion for delivering unrequested triggering content, under the "do not be an asshole" rule.

Moreover, if your fic is rated E for any reason, (including violence or gore) it can only be delivered if you are on an 18-plus team, gifted to another 18-plus team member.

How can I get involved? You can participate in this event as a:

Author

Artist

Web Weaver

Podficcer

Mod

Can I participate as a pinch hitter? This event doesn't require pinch hitters in the normal way, because there are no assignments— everyone picks who they want to gift to, as many times as they want. However, the event doesn't end until everyone has a gift, so at the end of the event a list of everyone who doesn't have a gift yet will be posted, and it will be possible for anyone to make a gift for those people at that time. However, in the normal run of an exchange before 14% and 20% of an exchange is pinch-hit, with anywhere from a month to a day to make the gift, and in multifandom battleship the giftless list that gets released is closer to 2% to 3% of the event, with all gifts due ASAP. There are far fewer gifts due in this way, and the format and schedule is quite different. If you are planning to wait to pick up an assignment in this way, you should know that it doesn't work like traditional pinch hitting. If you know you want to participate in the event, you would do better to join a team (you can still pick your own assignment in a manner similar to pinch-hitting), or treat as a non-team-member during the event by picking from the giftless list.

Can I join as a Mod? This event is going to need a lot of modding, as the back end is intensive. We will need mods both to help moderate the discord and keep things collaborative and convivial, and we will need mods to do ao3 backend and spreadsheet work (the spreadsheets are extensive). Mod applications will go up in April. Because of the possibility of handling 18-plus material, all mods will need to be 18 or older.

You said spreadsheets? The spreadsheeting for this event is chiefly thanks to the ingenious Firebird, mod of the original battleship, who did things with spreadsheets we did not know were possible. This event would not work without her coding.

When do I have to join the discord? You have the option to join the discord as soon as it opens on May 17, and we ask that you join before signups close on May 30th.

How does team assignment/claims work? After you fill out your Ao3 signup, you will will out a google form that will ask you some questions that will allow us to balance teams (so that we don't have all the podficcers on one team, for example, or all the faster writers on a different team). Mods will balance the teams based on the google form. If you do not fill out the google form, you will be assigned a team at random.

I'm a slow writer, can I still be involved? Slow writers are an invaluable asset to any team, and are definitely still welcome. As long as you think you can get at least one work finished during the three weeks of the creation period, please, join us!

It sounds like you make works based on tags, but I'm a slow writer and I'm afraid my team is going to clear my board before I finish my work. Can I still help my team? Half the event tags will be on the first board and half on the second, so as soon as you see the first board, you'll know which ones will be on the second, and then you can aim for a work that hits tags from both boards. Let's say the first board is revealed and it has "storms" but not "rain". You start writing a work where rain storms are prominent. Possibilities:

you finish the work during the first board, and hit the "storms" tag.

you finish it during the first boss, and your wordcount goes to defeating the boss.

you finish it during the second board, and hit the "rain" tag.

you finish it during the second boss, and your wordcount goes to defeating the boss.

you finish it during the final board and both rain and storms are in play, and you hit both tags.

you finish it after the game ends and the recipient gets a treat.

The fic I'm writing is turning into a multi-chapter. Do I have to have it all written before I post? Mods will only process tags on works that have been marked as "complete", so yes, you do have to have it all written before you post. Remember, you can claim a maximum of 100 tags per work, so aiming for 10k there or thereabouts will allow you to be maximally efficient.

Can I post a comic? Comics are a great way to hit some more unusual tags! Comic away! However, substantially repeating material in an attempt to boost word count or length is not permitted, so comic panels copied with only minor variations may not be accepted.

What does AU mean in this context? AU stands for Alternate Universe and in this case means anything that would make the work not able to be tagged as canon compliant. Alternate endings, role reversals, complete setting or plot swaps, and crossovers all count. As this is a fest specifically to celebrate AUs, we ask that the AU be a significant and celebrated part of the work, not something that could be skipped if you aren’t paying attention. 

Can I look at the tags before creation period starts? The tag list will be released during nominations week, so everyone can get a look at it and consider which tags work best for their blorbos. We will be asking for community submissions in early May, so you might even get to help build the tag list yourself.

Can I create multiple fics? The spirit of battleship is all about creating multiple works, but we still want everyone to have a chance to contribute. Participants are capped at seven works per tag board or 50k per word count boss, to allow their other team members to contribute.

Can I use AI to help me with my piece? You must create your work yourself, as that is the spirit of the event. Works may not be wholly or partially created by generative text or art programs (so-called "AI") such as chatGPT or OpenArt.ai. Works may not be wholly or partially duplicated from other works, and may not contain substantial repeated material included in an effort to boost word count (such as paragraphs or comics panels that are copied with minor variations).

What if I need to drop out? We know that life is no respecter of event deadlines, so there's no hard feelings if something happens. However, if you are fully going to be unable to contribute for the rest of the event, please contact the mods, because boards may need to be re-balanced if your team is down a member.

I have a question not answered here? Send us an ask on tumblr, contact @antimony-medusa on tumblr or discord!

[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Reptilia - Gaviiformes

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next order of birds are the Gaviiformes, called “loons” in North America and “divers” in the UK. While Gaviiformes were prehistorically once more diverse, today only one family, Gaviidae, and one genus, Gavia, remains.

Loons are the size of large ducks or small geese, with similarly webbed feet. They are fully aquatic, with legs set far on the back of their bodies making walking on land difficult. Only the Red-throated Loon (Gavia stellata) (image 2) can take off from land; all other species require large bodies of water to take off for their long migration flights. But all loons are excellent swimmers, and can hold their breath for as long as 90 seconds underwater. As their British name would suggest, they hunt fish, amphibians, crustaceans, and other aquatic animals by diving and swimming under the water. They have a spear-shaped bill, which is both used for catching prey and defending against predators and rivals. Loons live on inland freshwater lakes for the majority of the year, but migrate to coastlines in the Winter months. They are well-adapted to the change in salinity due to specialized salt glands located directly above their eyes. These glands filter out salts in their blood and flush this salty solution out through their nasal passages, allowing them to consume ocean fish and drink saltwater. Loons are native only to the Northern Hemisphere.

Loons nest during the summer on freshwater lakes and/or large ponds. The male will choose a nest site and the pair will build their nest close to the water, preferring sites that are completely surrounded by water, such as islands. They use a variety of materials to build their nests, including aquatic vegetation, pine needles, leaves, grass, moss, and mud. Most clutches consist of two eggs, which both parents will incubate. Loon chicks are precocial, able to swim and dive right away, but will often ride on their parents' back during their first two weeks. They are fed mainly by their parents for about six weeks but gradually begin to feed themselves over time. Loons form longterm pair bonds, but a typical adult loon is likely to have several mates during its lifetime because of territorial takeover. Each breeding pair must frequently defend its territory against "floaters" (territory-less adults) trying to evict at least one owner and seize the breeding site. Territories that have produced chicks in the past year are especially prone to takeovers, as chicks indicate high-quality territories. One-third of all territorial evictions among males result in the death of the owner, but female loons usually survive. The Red-throated Loon, however, may nest colonially, with several pairs living close together, though there may still be agonistic behavior between pairs.

Gaviiformes originated in the Early Eocene, with the oldest known stem-gaviiform being Nasidytes of England, dating to around 55 million years ago. The living genus Gavia originated in Europe during the Paleogene, with the earliest known species, Gavia egeriana, found in early Miocene deposits in the Czech Republic.

Propaganda under the cut:

Loons go through a simultaneous wing moult, losing all their flight feathers at once and becoming flightless for a period of three to four weeks.

The Red-throated Loon (Gavia stellata) (image 2) is the most basal, the smallest, and the most widespread of all the loons, and can be found in much of the Northern Hemisphere.

As recently as the 1800s, the behaviour of the Red-throated Loon was used to predict the weather. According to the conventional wisdom of the time, loons flying inland or giving short cries predicted good weather, while those flying out to sea or giving long, wailing cries predicted rain. Meanwhile, the people of the Faroe Islands believed that if the Red-throated Loon meowed like a cat, then rain was imminent, while a call of “gaa-gaa-gaa” or “turkatrae-turkatrae” predicted fine weather. In the Orkney and Shetland islands of Scotland, the species is still known as the "rain goose".

Pacific Loons (Gavia pacifica) (image 4) are known to be highly aggressive during breeding season, attacking other loons, aquatic predators, and even airplanes that pass too close to their nest. If the threat is another animal on the water, the attacking loon will extend its head and neck in an aggressive manner and dive under the threat in an attempt to stab it with its beak as it resurfaces.

The Common Loon (Gavia immer) (gif above) has a distinctive wailing call that is often used in movies to evoke the wilderness, though sometimes it is used quite out of place in jungles and deserts.

The voice and appearance of the Common Loon has made it prominent in several Native American tales. These include an Ojibwe story of a loon that created the world, and a Mi'kmaq saga describing Kwee-moo, the loon who was a special messenger of Glooscap, the tribal hero. The tale of the loon's necklace was handed down in many versions among Pacific Coast peoples. The Delaware in the east of North America and the Buryats of Siberia also had creation stories involving the loon. The Red-throated Loon similarly factors into the creation stories of indigenous groups throughout the Holarctic. According to the myths, the loon was asked by a great shaman to fetch earth from the bottom of the sea. That earth was then used to build the world's dry land.

The Yellow-billed Loon (Gavia adamsii) (image 3) is the largest living species of loon, with a length of 76 - 97 cm (2.5 - 3.2 ft), a wingspan of 135 - 160 cm (4.4 - 5.2 ft), and a weight ranging from 4 - 6.4 kg (8.8 - 14.1 lb).

Loons can live as long as 30 years.

Loons swallow their prey whole, and ingest small pebbles to help break down hard food parts. Unfortunately, they may also inadvertently ingest small bits of lead, left behind by anglers (line sinkers) and hunters (lead shot). These small pieces of lead will cause lead poisoning and lead to the loon’s eventual death. Some areas have banned the use of lead sinkers and lead shot, but in most places there is significant pushback from anglers and hunters who want to continue to do things “the way it’s always been done.” The best way to combat the issue of lead poisoning of wildlife is education. Spread the word to anyone who may use lead bullets or fishing tackle, and make the switch to steel, tungsten, bismuth, or brass.

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Let's talk about how Ranma is trans in the 2024 anime, part 1

Way the hell back in 2018, after a random exchange with a friend, I sat down and wrote a series of four blog posts where I looked at the manga Ranma ½, which ran from 1988 to 1996, explicitly through a lens where I assumed the protagonist is in fact a trans girl. A major component of the series being that Ranma and several other characters fell into various pools in a cursed set of natural springs causing them to magically change into whatever tragically drowned in one when hit with cold water, then back to their original body with hot, and Ranma fell in the girl one, so it was bound to be a series that would crack a lot of eggs regardless, but my memory of reading it years before transitioning was that it worked on a mundane level too, particularly later. I did somehow forget a bit towards the end where Ranma honestly just kinda straight up comes out of the closet, but I'm not going to link to that panel yet again for the sake of preview links not blending together. Anyway, those posts were already the most popular things I ever put on this blog and have never stopped circulating, despite it being a pretty old and largely forgotten series at the time.

I had always had the idea that I really should go back and also watch the anime adaptation(s) of Ranma, which deviates a good bit from the manga, but that is 161 episodes, 3 movies, and 11 OAVs which are terribly terribly paced, and I don't actually get paid for this. But then lo and behold, here's a brand new anime adaptation coming out decades later, looking really nice, and surely that will deviate even more from the source material, so here I am diving in to find all new bits of gender stuff to talk about, under the fold here and-

Oh. Turns out the new anime series is actually an EXTREMELY faithful adaptation of the original manga and the only deviations I've actually noticed are that there's a little bit less nudity and the one scene with Ranma's breasts fully on display goes the route of not drawing nipples. And really that's only significant because the original anime adaptation somehow got away with that one. Speaking of the original anime run, this adaptation brings back the entire surviving voice cast, and continues the tradition of coloring Ranma's hair red in cold-water form as an extra tell for the audience. And speaking of color, one thing this adaptation does now and then that I really appreciate is punctuating certain scenes with the sort of cool pastel palettes (see above) that were used for the cover illustrations of the original manga.

Another thing the 2024 anime does is throw in a quick little vignette before the opening credits of each episode to restate that Ranma and Akane are engaged, and the feminizing water thing, which mostly feels like it's there as just a little extra emphasis that regardless of all the other shenanigans going on, those two are the one actual couple and making it clear that the rest of the tangled web of crushes and obsessions don't really matter. Something I feel like this adapatation is keen to emphasize in general. In fact, being as nearly 1 to 1 an adaptation as it is, the title of every episode is directly lifted from the chapter names of the manga, so we can just slap together a little infographic and see what's getting compressed a bit and what's getting the time it needs to breathe!

We're chewing through the extended fight scenes pretty quick and slowing down any time Akane's having an emotional moment or some time in the spotlight basically. Which makes sense since the action scenes in the manga are like all full page splash images with a word of text and need to be flowing quickly, and because we have the benefit of hindsight knowing that the Kunos become irrelevant real quick. We're also squeezing out a little early identity crisis stuff for Ranma in the process (there's an early dream sequence after first meeting Kuno, coming to grips with the whole "since I'm a girl, dudes want to sleep with me" realization that barely makes it in and a few early moments of internalized misogyny that get dropped), and we really give Shampoo's debut some space (not QUITE as much as the above suggests, most of episode 10 is wrapping up a three parter on the ice skating with her just punching through the wall as a cliffhanger at the end).

The whole thing is also paced out to nicely cover the first four volumes of the manga, out of 38. They might up the compression rate a little, but as it stands, it's going to take another 8 or 9 seasons to get through everything at this rate. In comparison, my first blog post got through three times this much of it, but the original anime covered only the first half of this in the same episode count (and then for some reason introduced Shampoo and Mousse early and didn't get through the ice skating until episode 27).

Anyway, like I said, this doesn't really change things up enough to have a lot to say about how clearly Ranma is trans. Jumping back to the start though yet again, it really cannot be emphasized enough though just how clearly, even from the very first episode, she is SO much more comfortable presenting as a girl, not at all nervous meeting Akane's family like that, then suddenly super tense and awkward and closed off when interacting with... really anyone while boy-moding. So I guess it's time to bust out some of these other lenses to look at this...

Let's talk about how Akane is gay, part 1

I mean, we've established she's into Ranma, with extra emphasis in this adaptation, and we've established that Ranma is in fact a girl, but that's just the one data point. What else do we have? Well, she's quite explicitly not a fan of guys, particularly guys who are attracted to her, and we're keeping plenty of a focus on that while not wasting time trying to pretend Kuno matters at all in the grand scheme of things. The closest she ever comes to showing interest in a guy is Dr. Kuno, and the anime here is strongly emphasizing how that's less of a real crush and more just emulating her oldest sister (Nabiki of course is also some flavor of queer, and I don't think anyone has ever questioned that) since that's kinda what you do, right? She also gets intensely jealous of the idea of Shampoo kissing Ranma while assuming Ranma is a girl, talks about how hot she is, and hell, at the start of things when everyone's assuming they've somehow gotten into a situation where one of the three sisters has to marry a cis girl, Nabiki points out how that works out perfectly for her. Because she is extremely gay.

Let's talk about how Ryoga is trans, part 1

OK so this isn't the same absolute slam dunk as Ranma turned out to be, but there is a surprisingly strong case to argue that Ryoga is also a trans girl. What do we know about Ryoga after all? Real real socially awkward. Only has one sorta-friend from childhood, who turned out to be trans later. Can we call Ryoga a furry? I'm not even talking about the pig curse, but there's this whole feral wolf vibe before that's even established. In a series where basically every guy who is ever introduced is a horny creep obsessed with rigid gender roles, Ryoga does not bat an eye at seeing women naked (which comes up oddly often), spends a lot of these early arcs hanging out with the gal pals to help practice gymnastics and skating, deals well enough with the pink heart collar and being called Charlotte, and like so many of us, Ryoga is introduced to the series indignantly sputtering about how Ranma's situation shouldn't really be called a curse and is a situation we'd be happy to be in. You could argue that Ryoga's saying this just relative to the pig curse, I guess, but I do at least get the vibe that Ryoga wouldn't be too super worried about finding hot water with that one.

Speaking of the pig curse, I feel like every time I revisit Ranma I have a different perspective on the whole "P-Chan" situation. With this adaptation, it does feel significantly closer to "it's really just this super awkward situation where I've been looking for a good moment to explain and at this point it's been so long she'll probably kill me" than "I am a loathsome sex offender using a disguise to snuggle up with this girl who thinks I am a small animal" and Ranma is doing an appropriate amount of "I'm not going to blurt it out, but you should seriously come clean already" so, glad to know we're downplaying that.

Also, the emphasis on Ranma and Akane as The Couple in this adaptation really makes it clear that Ryoga isn't so much into Akane as just kinda... incapable of conceiving of any sort of existence that doesn't involve being Ranma's rival/friend/polycule member.

Anyway, I guess that's where I have to leave this until the second season drops? Have a patreon link?