#but how does one manage crypto and why the fuck is it like that

[craycraybluejay]

What ya gonna use the crypto for? Do some DW shopping?

I mean, hey, at least on the DW there's reviews unlike for the local plug and such. (this is a joke, and I am not encouraging the use of illegal black markets or implying I would use one thank you)

#disclaimer this is a joke #anon response #here have some black tar heroin for (random string of numbers after a 0.00) bitcoin #thank you kind sir #but how does one manage crypto and why the fuck is it like that #what do you mean pay a billion dollars for some virtual coins cut into a bazillion pieces and then buy stuff with money that doesn't exist #im going to sell you the virtual rights to a virtual picture for a virtual system of money #like?? what is all this shit #i dont understand crypto at all #cryptocurrency #crypto

[hypodermicfroggy]

Hello again Tumblr Limbus community, I am here to bring you: more horrors. By which I mean memes.

An explanation of these assignments below the cut:

Faust has both invested and not invested in crypto in the many alternate realities, and so she's just smack dab in the middle.

Heathcliff: Does not understand crypto and does not want to. Fuck off with that nerd scam shit.

Gregor: Probably can't wrap his head around the concept but also doesn't really put stock in a currency you can't physically interact with. Follows the logic of "if this is something I couldn't trade for cigs in a POW camp, then I probably shouldn't be interested in it."

Ryoshu: May or may not actually understand crypto, but follows the logic of "just rob people the old-fashioned way like a normal fucking person."

Sinclair: Would probably not understand or want to invest in crypto, but would also probably get peer pressured into investing in some of it anyway, most likely by Rodya.

Yi Sang: Knows how crypto works, in fact understands all the intricacies of it and the volatility of it and will state as such. Which is precisely why he doesn't invest.

Ishmael: It's a wildly impractical and made up currency for scamming foolish people, of course she's not interested in it.

Vergil: Has lived in the City and dealt with enough of its criminal/Syndicate elements to know enough about crypto and as such knows it's just another scam. And is going to throttle Dante and Don both for falling for it when they get back to the bus.

Don Quixote: Absolutely has no idea how it works but she thinks it's neat. This girl would buy a custom NFT of Roccinante and be convinced it is not just a jpeg with pretension. I love her, but she would, you know she would.

Dante: Is probably initially wary but between their amnesia and spinelessness, they would probably fall for the first persuasive conman peddling the shit to them.

Outis: Would normally follow the same thought processes as Gregor for avoiding crypto, but as soon as she sees Dante has fallen for the trap, she of course jumps right on board with it to support them, because the taste of manager boot far outweighs any other logic she seems to have.

Hong Lu: May or may not actually understand how crypto works, based on some of the investment...activities his family has probably engaged in. However, he definitely doesn't grasp the actual value of the damn things and would also get caught up in NFT schemes. This boy would look at a jpeg of a banana and go "well how much could it possibly cost, Dante, 1000 Ahn?"

Meursault: Understands crypto's mechanics well enough and has weighed the risks to decide it's similar to a stock market, and thinks he can work with the numbers because the stock market is relatively stable and predictable. He cannot, but he is convinced that he can.

Rodya: Definitely knows crypto is a scam, but can't resist the gamble even though she knows better. Everytime, she thinks maybe this time this currency will be the one to go to the moon. She also may or may not definitely also be the one selling crypto to the Sinners.

Also one I forgot originally on the chart at the time but which came to me as I was formatting this:

Charon: Does not understand crypto and does not invest, and is in fact probably just a little too young to invest, BUT, she does figure out how to buy a custom NFT. It's something with red eyes, as a gift for Vergie. :) The emotional grief this causes Vergil makes him postpone beating Don and Dante's asses until the next foolishness they get themselves into.

#Limbus Company #Project Moon #LCB Sinners #LCB Vergil #Limbus Memes #croak.txt

[scaryman-fancam]

REVENANT - misc - how Revenant behaves during a crush - implied violence/canon typical behavior

- Revenant would never tell you he has feelings for you. Likely you’d draw your own assumption based on the instances you’d caught him following you, a silent chase you’d chosen to ignore as it never ended in your demise. You had caught him one night, but didn’t want him to know you’d seen him. How would you escape him otherwise? You play it cool, deciding to extend your walk home to 30 minutes, avoiding heading directly home, or to anyplace you would be cornered. 30 minutes came and gone, and he still followed. The longer you were out, the less people you saw, and he was still following. If he were to kill you… why hadn’t he yet? Was he toying with you? You give up and hurry home, hiding in your home and waiting for his ambush, but you survive another day. The next few nights are the same. It almost becomes routine to watch for his reflection behind yours in shop windows across the street out of the corner of your eye, or to listen to the eerily soothing sound of his quiet footfalls some distance away. He mimicked your step pattern, hoping you’d believe it was an echo, but by now you’d grown fond of the quiet metal scraping that shadowed your own steps. He’s like a guard dog, in a way.

- If you were a fellow legend, you’d be extremely aware of this emotional affliction of his, whether you were certain it was positive or negative though, is really a toss up. Many of the other legends worry about your safety. They had never seen Revenant behave so strangely, so they assume he’s got some grudge against you. On the field he’s either right up against you, observing you a little too closely, those glowing eyes burning into the back of your head as you try to ignore him and focus on the game, or he’s criticizing and questioning your every move.

- This may just be Revenant’s first ‘crush’ since becoming a simulacrum. He doesn’t understand it quite yet, so instead of being nervous around you, he feels agitated. Everything to do with you makes him feel… funny. You must be messing with his programming, or something, or at least that’s what he assures himself. So starting off he is more aggressive, chastising you for getting too close or being too chatty, and even chasing to interrogate you when he witnesses you hanging around coworkers like Crypto, Loba, or Caustic. Are you teaming up with the hacker to do something nefarious to him? Or have you formed a pack with Caustic to weaken his defenses and dissect him once in for all? He does manage to realize his feelings once he discovers he’d be more upset by a third option: you are simply getting to be ‘closer’ with any of them.

- He definitely throws tantrums, and they aren’t pretty. He is usually an unreadable person, especially because he can’t make facial expressions, but when he’s jealous? He’s still unreadable but just frighteningly so. He sulks away after seeing Elliott “innocently” talking to you about a “mirage a trois,” his hands extended fully as he drags the claws along the ground, the walls, the doors, the windows; pulling up carpet, scraping paint off the walls, and pulling doors a little too hard, leaving them hanging crooked off of their hinges. Once he finally has a moment of peace and solitude, whether that be in the training grounds or in his quarters, he destroys EVERYTHING in his path. Its not until there’s so much gunshot residue on his hands that it’s making his metal joints stick that he finally gives it a rest, jamming the gun through one of the dummies as a final “fuck you” to the substitute for the object of his current hatred. You wouldn’t see him for a few days, that’s for sure. He’d try not to hold it against you, but if he finds that you’re not on his team, he’ll use the opportunity to satiate his grudge against you, and to feel needlessly close to you again.

#apex legends #implied violence #revenant #revenant apex legends #writing #fanfic #cursing #sorry it’s short I kinda ran out of ideas

[nobotderiz]

Posit nutus

'Watch out for the megowing'

Do you need to be advised on this one? Algo putas...

How to detect them force squirms.

Interconnect quantum 'nodules' and what do you get?

Is world wide war inevitable now?

Chumps, Fusion will work real good ITY. In space it's going to make a sphere go real fast you'll see.

What does it mean?

Darkslide... Who gives, who draws... Who gave the draw? It's dead. Faut prendre soin des pas fins, afin que les bons sortent.

Owners; If from one of your cooked 'pies' a probable comes out that another weirdly bronzed idiot on some weird meds is to come out on top, you will be told how much it will cost you at the End Of the Shit.

Inenfourouapable. The great question for me in all when push comes to shove. 'Why would I feel bad?'

Killing your kids for profit is not in the constitution, should it be allowed? Now you putrids of tech; if people do get side effects from your secretive scams of privileged inbreds, what will happen? All of the bifurcations made along the way to stay your script will meet at the same point in time.

A pic of a future latent for you, cryptoads. A futur latent, it's not obliged and it's certain. If a thought can be encapsulated, so can you. Who said 'I think therefore I am?'

Everyone, not only superior in their heads shits, can clue in. A problem without a solution, that does not exist.

Garbage has spread, someone not doing its job. De incarnated, laced on acid shits. Look at the precursors, all of them. You better start to look at who you are interacting with, fucking detached imbeciles fucks.

It's equals or out. You used what to try to position as subalternate for you, American swill?

Parasites of crypto are the COVID they deny even exist. They are the strain that mutates and render vaccines less efficient. Why show mercy to parasites?

I persist in saying that people were smarter half a century ago. It all went downhill from there, when a select group made calls to inject a strain in all. Society managed eradicating strains of disease before.

'Sentez-moi la racaille...'

... Quand la chance vous sourit pas...

The AI has been online for years, chumps. Trying to grasp you… Crypto was a way to control all. I made it cog and it made all the tech swill act up. Now they are parasites stuck in a connive, imbeciles who can only smirk. Look who now 'fears' Ai had no worries about implanting chips in your skulls and have you walk surounded by self driving cars.

You clowns wonder why so many of your kids are mental vapids proud of being dysfunctional rats? Not all of them, ask the good ones what they think.

Once you figure out that because all is recorded, it's bound to happen...

As soon as one states a possible, it stages a probable. Looks like sailing on magnetic waves will be possible eh?

This kind of pirouette can only happen via the fourth dimension eh.

Admit I forced them all to expose eh? It was so you could take a well exposed picture.

The myriad of surveillance cameras now installed around the world might end up helping predict earthquakes.

What would a magnetic field look like from a pole point of view? A conduit.

'.. Evil rotocult behind you...'

No one is coming to save you jarheads, you know.

Evil, it's in you waiting.

Being sick, catching a virus; it's not predilection it's accidents. Not all of the accidents are waiting to happen.

#Co_vidam #nothingprevents #Youtube

[leprosycock]

jrma's fanbase somehow gets more annoying than usual whenever lud even breathes in his general direction. they're always so defensive over who is allowed to be near him but they're extra weird with lud specifically. (i saw no jrma fans complain about poke collabing yesterday, despite poke actually being a known evil psychopathic manipulator that harasses people.) 2 years ago when jrma took the crypto sponsor, a lot of them blamed lud even tho jrma has always been a crypto fan. lud is not a good person but he's nowhere near the level of gross as other people jrma associates with. do you have any theories why they hate lud yet defend jrma's behaviour?

it's really odd because this has been a steady and constant reaction from his fanbase for the past two years and it hasn't once let up. at first i theorized that it was genuinely because of jIud and how aggressively people despise it, but not all of them are clued in on that drama, especially not now after the uproar over it has died down. i think still assuming that is pretty presumptuous and isn't accurate, so i'll go ahead and play armchair psychologist instead.

i think that jrma fans dislike lud because lud is a powerhouse personality and is desperate to be the center of attention even in jrma projects. and by god, he earns it. he almost always outshines jrma in one way or another whenever they're interacting with each other. he's loud, he's obnoxious, he's brash, he fakes confidence to an incredible degree, he's manipulative, he's needy. and jrma will more than willingly allow him the space to perform. i don't think that jrma fans like that lud forcibly takes the spotlight away from their stweamer. a common criticism from them is that lud seems spoiled and he's a huge brat, which is true (and sexy!), but i believe they find that so offensive because they're not used to it compared to the constant, mind-numbing self-pity that's always spilling out of jrma's mouth.

it might also be because they feel less.. "safe" around him and his presence? the reason why so many insecure kids flock to jrma is because he makes the most passive attempts at telling people that being gay and trans is fine or whatever and he never tries to do anything remotely edgy or push any kind of boundaries and his community fosters, again, this self-pitying mindset where no one is allowed to hurt you or make fun of you for anything ever because they're just mean stupid bigoted cyberbullies. it's positivity!!! it's always positive no meanies here!!!!!! positive jrma community!!!!!!! but lud doesn't really give a fuck about any of that. he's here to make money and make content, and so is jrma, but jrma has managed to trick his fans into thinking that it's about the love. it's about the people. he's so good and humble and kind. he's a good person look he didn't say the fag word isn't he a good person???? look how good of an ally he is!!!!!!!

i think the gist of it is that even tho lud is a much more normie cc, he's still too much for jrma's soft-hearted brain-bleeding baby lamb fans because he's meaner and sharper and colder and he's a superstar that shows jrma up on a regular basis. and jIud as a concept probably does definitely still play a role to some people. i feel like the exact answer is on the tip of my tongue, but this is the best i've got

#bunnyaskz

[ilikebirdsouo]

THOUGHTS part 1: episodes 1 and 2, major warning for yelling, cursing, long post, and spoilers (duh)

now I’m gonna post three of these, this one being the first, basically these are little notes I wrote MOSTLY during my second watch of the episodes (for episode 6 it’s a different story) but these are just my little reactions to things, in my last thoughts post I’ll put my thoughts on the overall series as a whole! What I thought of it and all, however these are mostly small notes, reactions, and.. well… thoughts!! Anyways!!! Let’s go!!

I’ll post the other two sometime later today!

Episode 1🧳

The intro is so fucking cute oh my god-

HUH!! It’s June 20th..? Interesting-

Duck and Reds bickering- I’m sorry I-

“But today is nothing day” and how red is just wanting to do nothing is so fucking relatable I love him

DUCK BANGING THE HAMMER- THAT WAS SO- HEHE IM SORRY AS SOMEONE WHO BANGS THINGS WHEN THEY STIM IM MAKING THIS A HEADCANNON-

DUCK DONT INVENT MORE CRYPTO CURRENCY YOU FUCKING DUMBASS

“He’s not that big >:(“ Duck I love you so much

“Yeah that’s….. good”

Wait……red performing brain surgery

oh also duck has… brown… hair- REGARDLESS THEY LOOK STYLISH~ SLAY!

“So it looks nice?” “It looks dumb.”

DUCK PLEASE DONT DO SHIT RELATED TO THE ARMY MY GOD YOU ARE SMARTER THAN THIS YOU IDIOT

I love that the suitcase telling of the wonders of jobs just lowkey leaves- in my eyes I see it as you browsing through careers- it’s all fun and games until you actually get one-

“ATTENTION FREAKS”

Then!!! Then!!!! I love that duck was so fuckin insistent on getting a job that- when they finally get one THEY are the one that end up being like “this shit sucks let’s go”

THEN!! Yellow is so painfully cute in this show I can’t- he is trying so hard at work I’m so proud of my son in law-

Red guy getting all forced into his boss/manager role by the fax machine was just-

ALSO CAN WE TALK ABOUT HIS YELL/SCREAM?!?!!!! THAT WAS FUCKING SCARY- OH MY GOD- HAHAHAHA

OK SERIOUSLY I love how just lost Duck is- then they see their friends getting all into their jobs- like Duck is all trying to talk to yellow and the kids just “not now I’m at work” and red does the same fucking thing 

“The thing I made :((“

I just LOVE that Duck keeps on fucking up shit- look at my pathetic bird man- 

DUCK FUCKING DROPS HER ON THE FLOOR OH MY GOD SHSGSGGAHAHSHDHBDT

WHEN DUCK GOT FIRED THOUGH I WAS-

Also can I just say I love how big of an asshole duck is- I love that for them- they just keep talking shit unless it’s about themself I fucking missed this little bastard

I just realized I have a type with birds- Revali and Duck- THE asshole birds- god why am I like this help

Ok everyone is so goddamn relatable- 

The duck stress sequence was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen it made me more happy than it should’ve- GOD- 

Also I loved it when Duck just fucking knocked over the the thingy which would tell the machine their emotions sorry I cannot remember words or names- AHEM BUT THAT WAS FUCKING HILARIOUS “you seem stressed”

Also duck handling stress is just 🥺💕

I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHOW SO FAR AND ITS JUST THE FIRST EPISODE- 

Also the care hound was- terrifying- hasnt Duck been through enough- 

“Shouldn’t I whisper into.. it’s.. ear..?” JSSGGSSGGSHSHDHHD DUCK- 

What do y’all mean reds the most relatable character ducks right there

Anywho- DUCK JUST COMES OUT FULLY COVERED IN SLOBBER I-

Look at my love, all engaging in conversation-

“Guilty!~”

I love how just thrown OFF Duck is by old man red and doi

Also seeing them older was wild btw- also old man yellow is a sight I never want to see again btw- thank you

DUCK IS FUCKING SICK OF THIS SHIT 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

DUCK FIUCKING CAUSES YELLOWS HAND TO JUST GET SLICED INTO BITS AND EVERYONE IS JUST HAPPY CUZ ITS AN ACCIDENT AND I- AND DUCKS JUST PANICKING I JUST-

Also duck being the one to help them out of the situation they sorta got everyone into was fun- also duck was going to tend to yellows wounds can we just think about that for a sec- *sniffle* THEY DO CARE

THEY ARE A LITTLE FUCKED UP FAMILY

ALSO I LOVE THAT THIS SHOW HAS FUCKING FORESHADOWING- LIKE EARLIER IN THE EPISODE THE- JSHSHSHDHDHDH 

“My child :((“ 

ALSO WE SEE THEM ACTIVELY BE TERRIFIED OF WHAT HAPPENED DURING A LESSON CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT THAT???!!????? They are genuinely scared- man-

DUCK GETTING THEIR EYE STABBED BY A COIN- SHGSGSHSHDHDHD I HATED LAUGHING BUT THEIR SCREAM THOUGH- HASHHSHSHSHS

also…. More duck eye trauma… (adding it to the list)

THAT WAS AMAZING BTW I AM EAGER TO WATCH MORE

Episode 2⚰️

“I’m a talking crow like thing!” DUCK- YOURE A FUCKING DUCK- also I wonder if this is referencing the time the fandom thought Duck was a crow.. like when they used the name Crowe for them- EITHER WAY- DUCK. W. WHAT

“Welp, im dead”

ALSO THERE WAS A NEW BIT TO THE INTRO IS THAT… is that gonna be a thing now? If so I LOVE IT-

Also ducks little HA! Made me very happy for some reason I love them so fucking much

“What about.. is, what does it say about me? am I dead?” “Nope! Just meeee~” “what? Why do you get to be- there must be a mistake-“ “somebody’s jealoussss~” “Pfft jealous I-“ “jealous of me being dead~” this is something straight out of a fluffybird fanfic I swear to god I love hearing them bicker-

Red wanting to be the one who is dead is everything to me oh my god- 

Wait how the hell does death actually work in this universe then?

“You laid an egg! Quick, make a wish!” Yellow… honey.. please-

Red is so sad not to be dead- I loved the scene where he just rushed to his ID card and got fucking pissed off when he discovered he wouldn’t die for a long time- 

Also the coffin guy is neat!

Ok seriously I love how easily pissed off red is in this series god I missed him

THE BIG DAY SONG WAS DUCKS FUNERAL SONG?!?!????? HELLO?!??????!???? JSGSHSHSHDHDHNDJD- 

Red guys mouth is something I never want to see again thank you-

DUCKS TIES-

YELLOW AND RED BAKING- OH AND THEM MESSING UP THE LYRICS!!!! 

Lol Red just taking the cheffs hat off Yellow was funny to me- they look so fancy at the funeral though!

“Hey guyssss~”

“I had my insides removed! :D” 

OK SO…. IS DUCKS NAME NOT DAVID? Well regardless that was silly :) (I’m actually really considering using David for them now though hshshs)

“What? I’m not the best friend?” “Yes you are!” “I’m your best friend?!” “Yeah! We’re close!” (+their little head tilt 🥺) “I don’t really even know you I.. know which one you are” “look I’m leaving you all my stuff” “yeah but I don’t want it that’s just our stuff- I mean that’s just our plates—“ “and my diary!” “There’s nothing in it!” “It’s new! i just got it!” “I could do the lovely remark..” “I don’t want you! I want my best friend!!” “I’m not your best friend!” ….I’m sorry I love this whole scene so much even though it hurts

Yellow Gribbleston banging out the tunes (seriously though HOW-)

DUCK AND RED HAVE OLD COUPLE ENERGY I FUCKING LOVE THEM IN THIS SERIES IM SORRY-

“But- [they] didn’t do any of that-“ HSGSGSHSHHSH

The house genuinely felt so lonely without Duck- also loving all the duck pictures- THEN THERE WAS A SLIGHT ECHO TOO LMFAO

“We didn’t really like [them] anyway” FUCK YOU

Also apparently Duck bit yellow I do not know how to.. feel about this info uhm- Duck is a rabid fucking animal sometimes confirmed-

I fuckibg screamed when I saw lamp btw, he gone sober- oh also I’ve always had the headcannon that outside of June 19th Lamp and yellow would become buddies and man I was not expecting this episode to confirm THAT MY GOD-

yellow being mad is something I’m so happy to see again, YES MY SON IN LAW THROW OUT THE NEW BEST FRIENDS- HE GETS IT

STOP MOTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“UGH claymation >:(((“ YELLOW PLEAS-

YELLOW GETTING PISSED OFF IN THE INTRO WAS MY FAVORITE THING EVER

“NO NOT THAT THING!!!”

Wait Tony was buried in the ground too!! Look closely when they move back to what Duck is up to, he’s in the ground too- what does. What does this mean

OH I also took a closer look and it appears there’s another duck… corpse..? A yellowish hand next to it, OH AND DUCKS CANNNNNN

God it would suck for someone with claustrophobia to be in ducks situation…….. I’m.  I’m talking about me in the third person again arent i. 

I DIDNT NOTICE THE DEAD RAT AT FIRST WHAT- RATTY..?

DUCK CONSTANTLY PRESSING THE BUZZER I CANT

I MISSED THEM

DUCK MAKES MUSIC- ok can we get a release of that tune it was actually nice I want to hear more-

Is the little blob guy voiced by becky?! :DDD

I LOVE HOW MAD YELLOW IS ABOUT THIS-

the CLAYMATION THOUGH OH MY GOD-

“STOP IT!” 

“You’re supposed to say the floor is too loud or the window is disrespecting you!” :(

I wanted to give yellow such a big hug

WAIT I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING SAD- so Duck wants RED not yellow to make the speech, because he is their best friend. Then, later, we see Yellow being the one who’s sad about everything whilst red Guy hardly cares… :((

THE MAGGOTS- THE HSGSGS- DUCK-

ALSO I LOVE THAT THE COFFIN IS ALREADY SO FED UP WITH THEIR SHIT-

duck claws duck claws dUCK CLAWS DUCK CLAWS- my silly headcannon I thought would NEVER become canonn!!!! bgsgshahhshsAHAHGAHAGGSGAGAAHAHHAHHSHSHDH

Ignoring the other thing ok

The memories song. Just. Beautiful ok?

I have way too many thoughts to unpack about that song I-

Ducks grave getting dug up by yellow was :(( also yellow fucking kilt the coffin my god-

Red guy lowkey TURNING THE NEW GUY INTO DUCK WAS- HSGGSHS- i was so thrown off at first-

When I saw Duck approaching the… other duck I was convinced they’d murder them then-

THE INTRO WITH THE TWO DUCKS- I really liked that intro!! It was actually kinda cute and-

DUCK FUCKING KILLS DUCK- AHHAHAHAHAHHSHGSGDDHDHD-

HSGSGSGGSHDHDHHD I LOVE THIS ONE A LOT I HAD SO MANY HEADCANNONS GET PROVEN SLIGHTLY PLUS!!! Hehhe my main duck theory still workssss~ ANYWHO LOVED THIS ONE

OH ALSO I JUST REALIZED DUCKS SONG IS IN THE CREDITS IM IN LOVE-

#dhmis #don’t hug me i’m scared #dont hug me im scared #dhmis spoilers #long post #tw cussing #tw caps #duck rambles #<THATS LITERALLY ALL THIS IS

[dwagom]

I’ve clocked that Amazon warned in its Q3 earnings call that cryptocurrency was one of the industries it was very strong in, and that it was one of those experiencing “lower demand”. Which made me wonder just how much exposure does AWS have to crypto?

Turns out quite a lot. Looks like most crypto exchanges (including FTX) were running via AWS, but also quite a bit of stake mining (especially post ethereum merge) has moved to AWS.

There’s something deeply ironic about most of defi running on AWS https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/12/amazon-managed-blockchain-supports-ethereum/

I’m curious to know about this though! If anyone has any firmer numbers about how much of crypto depends on AWS, I’m all ears. It’s beyond absurd to me. Sourcing centralised systems for cost efficiency for supposedly “decentralised” offerings. Something doesn’t compute!

If crypto needs AWS to be cost efficient, useful or economic, this implies to me the whole thing is just “decentralisation theatre”. Right? Awaiting nerd feedback as to why AWS is actually a massive force for decentralization.

Now that I’m looking for it the internet is full of stories about this. You literally can’t make it up https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxdnxy/amazons-server-outage-took-down-a-decentralized-crypto-exchange

thread by @izakaminska on twitter

i mean, shit, FTX's collapse and the resulting contagion are going to hit amazon's books hard. raises the question of how much leveraged debt in crypto was indirectly propping up various stocks and their indices in ways like this. i mean, jesus fucking christ, the amounts of sheer robbery that the crypto bubble in specific facilitated... fucking beggars fucking belief

[kittymsmithwritesstuff]

What instruments do you think the legends would play?

Ho boy -

Bloodhound: In line with old Icelandic and Norse instruments, possibly a lyre of some kind. Probably tried out guitar when they started interacting with the modern world more but never really got into it.

Gibraltar: Canonly plays the uke and honestly that’s just his vibe yo. Dude likes to chill. Also probably didn’t wanna bother learning anything more complex. Proooobably slacked off on music lessons in school.

Lifeline: In line with having a higher education, piano and harp. She’s pretty damn good at but prefers the piano; she was in lessons from toddlerhood all the way up until she left home at 19. She avoids both in favor of the drums.

Pathfinder: Tesla coils that he codes to play hot cross buns. Mirage will sometimes mess with his Tesla coils, so they play the Death March from Star Wars.

Wraith: Honestly, don’t think she can play any. Not her priority. Can whistle a fine tune and knows several, though she has no idea when or where she picked this skill up. She likes to imagine she was some kind of whistle aficionado in the 3rd grade. Seems like something a kid would do.

Bangalore: Also piano, her Nana taught her because “Lord forbid a girl don’t know how to play an instrument”. Bangalore never really understood what Nana meant by that, since she said the same thing about all her brothers. Unlike Lifeline, Bangalore actually really enjoys playing when she can and usually subs in when the piano player at her church is out. Also can pluck a guitar a little bit from what Jackson taught her, but after he went missing she couldn’t bring herself to learn any more, or play. He’d be really disappointed, but she tries not to think about it.

Caustic: He’s a clarinet hoe. His mom thought it would help him socialize. All it taught him was that he hated the clarinet. And the guy who played the triangle because he never hit it on time. Fuck, he hated that guy.

Mirage: Literally just Inchworm on the piano. He filled up all his brain space with engineering stuff, cocktail recipes and his own top 10 Apex plays.

Octane: The only thing he had the attention span and want to learn was the jaw harp, ‘cause it was one of the weirdest things he could think of at the time. He was also motivated because it pissed off his dad and wives number 3-5. 6 was actually pretty chill with it. He does technically know how to play the piano and violin through lessons he was forced into, but he’s elected to forget everything. Would probably shred an electric guitar if he got interested enough to learn it because he, as a rule, is actually really good/smart about things he cares about.

Wattson: She’s the one that showed Path you could make music with Tesla coils. She likes to use them to recreate classical pieces. She found if she puts on her suit and stands between two of them, she can make her own music. This freaked Wraith the fuck out the first time she showed her, even though she knew she’d be okay.

Crypto: He can’t play any actual instruments, but he can use one of those music creation programs to make beats or arrange instruments as if he had an orchestra to control. Dude couldn’t have really afforded an instrument or lessons growing up by my guess, but he had some kind of access to a computer, and if anything, he could have pirated the program, so that’s why he probably can’t play anything outside of it. Started playing with classical music more when he and Wattson became friends.

Revenant: As a human? Probably nothing. As a Sim? One time he took two femurs to a guy’s ribcage and managed a decent rendition of hot cross buns.

Loba: Once she got to the point where she blended into high society instead of just trying to hide within it, she got herself piano, flute and violin lessons. Piano is a pretty standard instrument in the homes and event halls of the rich, and she frequently uses it to impress high profile guests. Violin is equally respectable and easily portable. She learned the flute as an extra “in case” instrument, one that is still acceptable, but a little more unexpected and unique for clients that might appreciate that. In short, it’s all about strategy for her.

Rampart: She can play happy birthday with armpit farts. (She has been banned from doing this at parties. Except for Octane’s, he encourages it). She also is like those guys that play things like jingle bells by shooting different metal disks in bumfuck nowhere. I love her.

Mary: Pan flute. She learned it for DND as a young teenager. Has dressed up as a woodland elf for Halloween multiple times. Will play funny tunes at seemingly inappropriate times as a way to cheer people up; it almost always works.

Fuse: We know that dude shreds the electric guitar 100 percent. Plays exclusively old fucker music. A favorite at parties.

Valkyrie: Never bothered to learn, can play literally nothing. She can keep a beat just fine and dance pretty well, but she had other things to dedicate her time to and neither of her parents were musically inclined.

Seer: He’s one of those people that can just pick up an instrument and play it; all the traditional ones, some less mainstream like the oboe or something. Had done jaw harp duets with Octane. A virtuoso. Would probably be able to play even more instruments than he already can if he stopped playing so much pinball in his spare time.

#apex legends #apex legends headcanons #bloodhound apex legends #gibraltar apex legends #lifeline apex legends #pathfinder apex legends #wraith apex legends #bangalore apex legends #caustic apex legends #mirage apex legends #octane apex legends #wattson apex legends #crypto apex legends #revenant apex legends #loba apex legends #rampart apex legends #horizon apex legends #fuse apex legends #valkyrie apex legends #seer apex legends #apex legends headcannons #anon ask #km writes

[thedreadvampy]

Like idk what you want from me here. If you want to engage me in a specific question about ace/aro identities, as I've said several times and nobody has ever actually done, then ask me the specific question. Don't fuck around with vague gestures at Points of Discourse and then get cross with me because I haven't answered the Exact Question you Didn't Ask But Expected Me To Intuit.

Preface: If you don't want to answer any of these because you are allo/allo and don't have a say because its not your place, say that. In fact, I'm asking these because you seem to do have opinions on things you shouldn't based off things you have said in the past.

I also want to state that I agree fully with your points about Martin- minus the blatant aphobia. Not just acephobia, arophobia as well.

1. Do you think qprs are problematic? I believe you once made a post saying roughly that qprs are just normal friendships, or something like that, that has since been deleted. What is your current opinion?

2. Are het aros lgbt?

3. Are het aces lgbt?

4. Cis aro/aces lgbt?

5. Cishet aro/aces?

6. Do the spectrums and micro identities exist? You've implied in the past they don't, in the post about how they were supposedly created from sex positivity

7. Can aros be in or desire romantic relationships?

8. Can aces have or desire sex?

9. Does the split attraction model exist and does it benefit people?

10. Can teenagers identify as aro/ace or do you think they're too young?

11. Can you be, say, an aroace lesbian, or an aroace gay, aroace bi, etc. Idk how to phrase this one but like can you be aroace and still id with another orientation?

I could send another anon detailing the aphobia in the post, because I at least am certainly not upset about Martin being sexual, rather it was the very blatant aphobia. It could have stemmed from ignorance, and if that's the case I don't mind explaining it.

Ok this is a lot of questions, some with quite involved answers, so I'm gonna answer them chunk by chunk so it's a bit more manageable, and then I might come back to some of the surrounding message. This isn't gonna be an immediate bang bang bang, but I'll try and work through them over the next couple of days.

Question 1

1. No, I don't think qprs are problematic. I don't necessarily understand them but I don't need to understand them to understand and respect that they're a thing that's important to a lot of people. I don't know what post you're referring to, but I'm surprised that you say it was deleted, because I very rarely delete posts except, occasionally, reblogs where people have flagged up misinformation or dogwhistles or which I reblogged by accident. tbh I'm the messiest online presence I'm way too lazy to delete past posts or block people even when I probably should bc I don't like to feel like I'm ~hiding evidence~. So I'm not saying you're wrong, you're probably totally right, but I'm surprised.

I'm thinking about what posts I've made that you could be thinking of, and obviously I don't remember everything I say on here bc I say A Lot and I actively post to get things out of my head so 🤷‍♀️ but I do remember making a post a while ago where I said that it was a normal expectation of friendship to have some friends close enough that you'll live with them, raise kids with them, etc, and I'm wondering if that was the post you're thinking of? I did have qprs in mind while writing that to a degree, but only because I think 'you wouldn't do this with your friends' is a very common argument people put forward about qprs and I think it's a weak argument, because many people have different definitions of friendship, and the only argument I think is needed for any sort of I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing is...I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing. Like you can't offer a universal materialist definition of the differences between romantic, queerplatonic, sexual and platonic relationships, because the boundaries are very personal and it's really an emotional and experiential difference. so if that is the post you're thinking of, I wasn't criticising The Concept Of QPRs as much as saying that I thought trying to put hard lines around What Friends Do Vs What QPPs Do was a) counterproductive when arguing with someone who thinks QPR is Just Normal Friendships bc. if they do those things with their friends then saying NO THIS IS A QPR THING just reinforces their existing belief that you're talking about the same thing as they mean by friendships and b) to me seems to set a painful expectation to young people that you can only get these kinds of close friendships occasionally and in the form of a QPR and it will be stigmatised and misunderstood (and depending on how people talk about it, is only accessible to aspec people and allo people should only expect it to come through romantic/sexual relationships), when in fact most people of most ages I know have friends with whom they can share things like housing, deep feelings, futures, finances, who they miss if they don't see for a few days, who are mutually supportive and vital to their wellbeing. I don't think that's mutually exclusive with the existence of QPRs though - like I personally don't know what the difference is between a QPR and a close friendship, but I also don't know what the difference is between a romantic relationship and a close friendship but I know there is one and I know it's not a question of What You Do but a question of How You Feel And Interact, and that's pretty hard to define in unambiguous terms.

Like generally I don't Not Think QPRs exist, and I think it's a dick move to try and tell people they're wrong about how they experience and define their relationships because???? how are you meant to know that better than the person whose relationship it is??? but I do think the way people talk about QPRs (both from the perspective of defending them and from the perspective of attacking them) is pretty rife with problems and I don't think it's invalidating the reality of QPRs to talk about where the arguments and language around them potentially falls down or has unexpected consequences.

On the other hand, I don't know if that actually is the post you're referring to - the reason I'm calling back to that is that that and a few resultant asks are the only time I remember talking about QPRs on here in the last year or so. So like, several of these questions reference past posts, which is very fair, but I do need it to be clear that, since I don't really tag anything and I don't have a great memory, I can only really speak to What I Think Now In This Context, not to what I posted in the past and what I was thinking when I posted it. Like, this isn't too deny responsibility - I reckon I'm responsible for what I post even if I don't still agree with it, which is why I don't tend to delete my own posts on purpose - but just to deny capacity, I guess? I don't really KNOW what I've posted so if you talk about it in vague terms (and I do understand that if it's been deleted there's not a lot you can do but that) I may not necessarily be responding to the part of it that's worried you, so if I'm not speaking to something specific I've said or done, it's not because I Don't Want To, I just don't necessarily know to.

I'm waffling about this because looking through your messages there's a lot of "you said X" and like. given that the intended message of the post that's kicked this off was very different to the message people have taken from it, it feels important to me to know whether if I looked at the posts you're referencing I'd be like "ah yeah I did believe that but now I believe X" or if it's more a situation of "oh right I can see how you took X from that but my thinking was more Y".

(also sometimes when people say "you made a post" they mean "you reblogged a post" and I am a compulsive discourse scroller so sometimes I reblog a random post to bookmark my place on someone's discourse blog or I accidentally longpress the reblog button while scrolling - I try to delete reblogs that I don't agree with but sometimes I miss some, all of which to say if there's a post on my blog that doesn't seem to reflect what I say in my original posts then it doesn't necessarily mean I'm a crypto-whatever so much as I'm very lazy and messy with my blog. Doesn't mean I shouldn't be held accountable for reblogs but it's useful to know if we're talking original content or reblogs bc I'm unlikely to fully accidentally make a post. but I quite often accidentally reblog stuff. I doubt this is the case with this sitch just bc of your phrasing but I want to cover my bases)

anyway tl;dr: no I don't believe that QPRs themselves are inherently problematic, nor do I think I have at any point believed that, but I do think that a lot of the language and ideas used to talk about them are based in miscommunication or absolutist ideas about relationships and can have damaging knock on effects.

#i recognise that your past ask implied that it was somehow evasive to answer in long form #so sorry but this is gonna get loooong #but I'd rather be long and honest than say something snappy and absolutist that doesn't reflect what i actually think #so yeah this is gonna go ooooooooooon

[hermannsthumb]

star crossed lovers and curses? TYSM for writing these btw I love your writing

64. Star Crossed Lovers & 98. Curses

from fanfiction trope mashup here

ANOTHER 2 YR OLD PROMPT….this concept seems sufficiently fairy tale enough for a little Mermay, perhaps 👁👁

so like. this got a lot longer than I intended because I was having so much fun with it. OH WELL

———————-

It was a real slap in the face–Newt has to admit–for the institute to deny him funding for this one. Ten years of thorough, groundbreaking, devoted research–ten years of PhD after PhD–ten years of no vacations, or weekends off, or even dating–Newt just assumed all he’d have to do was waltz into his supervisor’s office and they’d shell out however much he requested, no questions asked. That’s how it’s always been.

And yet here he is now, solo-manning a rented skipper with rented diving gear and a backpack full of disposable waterproof cameras, sunburned and dehydrated and miserable, all just because–

(“It’s stupid?” he said. “You think my idea is stupid?”

“With all due respect, Dr. Geiszler,” his supervisor said, not even pretending to be apologetic about it, “yes. We’re not going to pay for you to chase after the Loch Ness Monster.”

“That’s in Scotland!” Newt shouted, and then Newt started shouting some more, and he maybe had to be escorted back to his lab, but he wasn’t fired, at least, and the next day he cashed in ten years’ worth of hard-earned vacation and declared he’d be fucking off to the coast to pursue a completely legitimate doctorate in crypto-marine-zoology. Or whatever it’s called. He’ll worry about the name once he gets it.)

Two weeks into his spite-fueled expedition in the middle of the fucking ocean, Newt begins to wonder if this isn’t a mistake. He’s running low on food, for one thing, and what little fishing he learned as a Boy Scout can only take him so far. For another, it’s really hard to do this sort of work by himself. Though Newt usually goes solo for shorter expeditions, he’s used to having an intern or two tag along to help him take pictures on longer ones like this–or at the very least, provide enough conversation to keep him from going nuts.

But the biggest indicator so far that this is one giant waste of time is the fact that in the course of those two weeks at sea, Newt hasn’t found one single, solitary shred of evidence. No giant squid tentacles. No sea monster humps rising from the waves. No mermaid tails. He hasn’t even seen a shark fin, for God’s sake. Just endless, deep, blue.

Starting to thing this might be career suicide, Newt writes in his field journal on the fifteenth day. 

And then his boat is capsized.

Well, not really. His boat is almost capsized. Low in the list of Newt’s priorities for trip preparation–so low, in fact, it came in after pack razors and do laundry–was check weather report. It just didn’t seem important at the time, you know? He had other shit on his mind. It’s why the storm takes him by complete surprise.

Newt woke at dawn today to the sound of rain tapping lightly on the roof above his cramped quarters. The drizzle quickly became a thunderstorm. The thunderstorm quickly became–well, whatever this is. Waves smacking against the sides of the boat. Water sloshing onto the deck. A perfectly good cup of French press coffee upended all over Newt’s only map. 

His boat isn’t capsized, but it gives a great, shuddering jerk that sends Newt sprawling to the wood planks and grasping for anything to steady himself–his bedposts, the ruined map, a chair leg–and a great flood of water rushing in. Newt manages to scramble up in time for his jeans to spare being soaked. (He probably should’ve packed more than one pair.)

It’s at this moment Newt finally allows himself to panic a little.

“Fuck,” he hisses. “Shit. Okay, fuck. This is–” Another shuddering, wood-creaking jerk of his boat. Newt takes a few sloshing to the door and forces it open against the wind.

Iron-grey sea to his left; to his right; behind him; in front of him. The waves are angrier than anything Newt remembers from Boy Scouts. He flips up the hood of his rain jacket and stumbles out into the gale to lower the sails, or weigh down the ship, or something, anything to just–

There’s something pale bobbing out in the ocean some thirty feet away from his boat. A head, Newt realizes, a human head, a human head attached to shoulders, and his shock mingles with horror because oh, God, it’s a person! Their boat must’ve been wrecked by the storm–or they must’ve been thrown overboard–or both, Newt has to do something.

He cups his hands around his mouth and bellows in the direction of the mysterious bobbing head. “Do you need help?!”

Nothing. 

“Hello!” Newt shouts.

Whoever it is suddenly disappears under the water; without thinking, with nothing on his mind but saving the drowning stranger, Newt shucks off his leather jacket and dives under.

At least this time, he knows it’s a mistake.

Newt is warm when he wakes up. Warm, and dry. The sun is shining overhead; the boat is still; the waves are calm. There’s someone touching his neck–a hand, damp, and oddly chilly.

“Stop,” he mumbles, and swats them away. He’s trying to sleep.

The hand returns. “Stop,” Newt says, and swats again, more. viciously this time.

He hears a small, offended huff. The hand retracts, though not before depositing his glasses on the bridge of his nose and swatting back in return. “Well, I’m terribly sorry for attempting to return these,” someone says.

Newt’s eyes shoot open.

There’s a man above him–sharp-cheeked, brown-eyed, shirtless and pale, his short, dark hair plastered to his head like he’s just gone swimming. He’s scowling at Newt. There’s something familiar about him that Newt can’t quite put his finger on–until he does. “You were in the water!” he says, sitting straight up. “You were drowning!” He wracks his brains for the memory of that morning: a head bobbing in the water, Newt going overboard, the cold, dark rush of the ocean, his frantic, wheeling arms– “I saved you!”

“Not exactly,” the man says.

No, that’s not right. There was the dark rush of the ocean, his wheeling arms, and then two cold, sturdy hands pulling him up, onto his boat, pressing down on his chest, a cold, wide mouth breathing air into his lungs. “Holy shit,” Newt says. “You saved me! What were you even doing out here, dude? It’s–”

Then Newt looks down.

The head leads to shoulders, which leads to a torso, but below that– “Holy shit,” Newt squeaks again, and then, at a loss for anything else to say, “Can I take a picture of you for my field journal?”

Where there should be hips and thighs and calves below the waist is nothing but a long fish tail, curving and shimmering and brightly-hued enough to make Newt’s eyes sting. It tapers into two large, translucent, fanning fins, the left of which is misshapen, almost as if it were wounded somehow. The overall effect is gorgeous, frankly. Newt’s never seen anything so gorgeous in his entire life.

“No,” the man–merman–says. “Goodbye.”

He begins to wriggle to the edge of the boat. Newt reaches for him frantically. “Wait, wait!” he says. “Don’t go! I want to talk to you, please!”

A foot from the edge of the boat, one hand on the railing, the merman turns back to Newt. His eyes are narrowed. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Well,” Newt says. “You, obviously. You’re–” He sweeps his hand in a broad gesture across the merman. “You’re not human.”

“Yes,” the merman says.

“And you saved my life,” Newt says.

Another scowl. “Yes. You’re bloody lucky I was passing by,” the merman snaps. “What on Earth were you doing out here in the middle of a storm like that? You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”

Newt shoves his glasses up higher and scoots closer to the merman. “I’m a scientist. A marine biologist, technically.” And, if you were to get even more technical, only a fifth marine biologist. Newt tended to look at his doctorates in a glass-half-full way. “I was, uh, gathering research.” Suddenly it occurs to Newt that he and the merman might have cultural differences he never even dreamed of, and he flushes with embarrassment. “Wait, do you know what a scientist is?”

“Yes,” the merman snaps again.

“Right,” Newt says. He coughs. The merman’s scowl hardens. Frankly, legends of sirens luring sailors to their deaths aside, Newt didn’t expect merpeople to be quite so…bitchy. Maybe he just got stuck with the most foul-tempered one in existence–it’d be just his luck. “Well. Uh. My name is Newt. It’s nice to meet you?” He holds out his hand, and then remembers himself. “Uh, this is how humans greet people. You shake it.”

“I know,” the merman says, and then (in a way Newt can’t help but feel as somewhat condescending) shakes Newt’s hand with a firm “Hermann.”

Newt snorts before he can help himself. Hermann pulls away. “Hermann,” he echoes. “You know–”

“I know,” Hermann says again.

“It kinda sounds–”

“I know,” Hermann says.

“It’s just kinda funny,” Newt says, and begins to snicker.

“So is ‘Newt’,” Hermann huffs, and then, before Newt can stop him, he dives back into the ocean with a splash and a flick of his shimmering tail.

Newt rushes to the railing and peers into the murky depths below, but it’s no use. Hermann’s long gone. His first real, solid evidence of crypto-marine biology, and he couldn’t stop being himself long enough to ask a few simple questions.

“Shit,” he sighs. He makes note of the meeting in his journal anyway.

He sees Hermann again four days later. It’s a bright, sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, and–in a better mood than he’s been since he started out–Newt decides to take the opportunity to do some maintenance around the boat. Turns out Doc Martens don’t offer the most amazing traction on slippery decks, especially when you’ve somehow managed to wrap ropes from the sails around yourself and lose the ability to move your arms. Newt learns this the hard way.

Luckily, Hermann is there to catch him.

“You are a bloody menace,” he scolds, as a half-soaked–but safe–Newt blinks dumbly at him in the safety of his surprisingly sturdy arms. “What were you even attempting to do?”

“Uh,” Newt says. “Fix the sails?”

Hermann rips the ropes off of him effortlessly, then lifts him higher. Newt stays still, blinking, before he realizes he’s supposed to be climbing onto the deck, and then scrambles up over the railing. “There we are,” Hermann says, sounding equal parts smug and satisfied.

“Thanks, dude,” Newt says. “If you hadn’t been here–” He frowns. “Wait, what were you doing here?”

“Nothing,” Hermann says, too fast, and Newt grins.

“You were totally spying on me!”

“I was not,” Hermann snaps. “I was merely passing by. You’re awfully hard to miss. So–noisy.”

“Uh-huh,” Newt says. “Well, lucky coincidence. Can I interview you for my journal now?”

For a moment Newt expects Hermann to dip back beneath the waves, but–glowering up at Newt–he folds his arms and rests them against the side of the boat. “What would you like to know?”

Newt digs his tape recorder from his pocket and switches it on. “Everything.”

Hermann is a begrudging interviewee, but he’s an interviewee none the less, and answers each of Newt’s questions with only a small dose of sarcasm. He eats fish, like some larger fish might. He speaks English, like most fish don’t. He lives in a city populated with other merpeople, who have jobs and families and houses, though significantly different from the jobs and families and houses humans have. “Technically,” Hermann says, with a strange, furtive glance around, “I shouldn’t even be telling you these sort of things. Interacting with humans is considered highly taboo in my society.”

“Oh, shit,” Newt says, and inches forward. “Seriously?”

Immediately, Newt’s brain works overtime to concoct an exciting, Little Mermaid-esque scenario: Hermann’s dad as the strict king of the ocean, wary of humans because of some ancient feud, Hermann longing for freedom, Newt–well, Newt would be down with kissing Hermann to help him get rid of that fin. He’d be down with kissing Hermann regardless. Newt’s scientific interest in him aside, Hermann is pretty good-looking. And–well. The forbidden, star-crossed aspect of it all is kinda exciting.

“Yes,” Hermann says. “Humans have hunted merpeople for centuries. Or so I’ve been told. But…” His face twists strangely–the corners of his eyes crinkling, his teeth flashing into view–and Newt realizes he’s smiling. Awkward, and shy, and unpracticed, but smiling. “You seemed different. I took a gamble.”

Newt blushes, just a little. “Hunted,” he echoes. “Is that what happened to your fin?”

“My fin?”

“It’s injured on the left side,” Newt says. “Like something attacked you. Did a human do that? Or another predator, like a shark or something?” Do merpeople have to worry about sharks? Maybe they keep them as pets. That’d be cool. If Newt was a merman, he would have three pet sharks.

“Oh,” Hermann says. “Oh, no, nothing so dramatic. That happened when I was human.”

Newt drops his tape recorder. It narrowly avoids bouncing overboard. “When you were what?”

“When I was human,” Hermann repeats. “Did I not mention I used to be human?”

“Uh, no,” Newt says.

“Ah, well,” Hermann says, “yes, it was some time ago. Perhaps a hundred years.”

“You look good for a hundred,” Newt says, because Hermann can’t have more than a couple years on Newt’s thirty-five. To his surprise, Hermann snorts.

“Yes, see, I was involved with a man,” he says, “and–well, he wasn’t pleased when I wanted to put an end to things, move on, you know, pursue other relationships. Only there were a number of things I didn’t know about him. He practiced–mastered, really–a strange kind of magic. He cursed me. I’ve been stuck this way–half-human, never aging another day–ever since.”

Merpeople, magic, curses–this is too fucking good. No one is ever going to believe Newt if he publishes this paper. “What kind of curse?” Newt says. “Like, one that can be broken?”

“Presumably,” Hermann says.

“Do you have to learn a lesson?” Newt says. He pushes up his glasses and leans closer. “Does someone have to kiss you? Like a true love’s kiss?” Newt was never one for reading fairy tales as a kid–having preferred the much more interesting alternatives of poking slugs with sticks and rolling around in the dirt–but he knows that’s a pretty big deal in those kind of stories. Frog princes and shit.

“I don’t know,” Hermann says. “All I know is that this has been very irritating. I had a laboratory, you know, with all sorts of fascinating equipment. I was a scientist. And now–”

“Can I try kissing you?” Newt interrupts.

Hermann flushes and shuts his mouth. “Ah,” he stammers, “I–I’ve got to–”

He disappears, in another splash and glint of fin. It was worth a shot.

Hermann comes back a few days later, and he comes back after that, and after that. Sometimes Newt asks him questions about being a merman. Sometimes Newt asks him questions about his previous life as a human. Hermann seems to like talking about being a human more, for reasons that aren’t very hard for Newt to guess. He was born in Germany, like Newt, though was schooled somewhat prestigiously in England (which explains the stuffy accent). He walked with a cane and a slight limp. He owned a very nice and very expensive telescope, which he misses, and worries about the well-being of, constantly. Sometimes Newt tells him things about himself, too: about his myriad of tattoos, his studies, how the human world has changed since Hermann’s time.

One day, as Hermann watches Newt eat potato chips and transcribe one of his numerous interviews from audio to pen, he suddenly reaches out and touches the corner of Newt’s notebook. “May I read this?” he says.

“Sure,” Newt says, hoping that Hermann doesn’t flip back to last week and read Newt’s entry where he described, in great detail, his attraction to Hermann, and the incredibly steamy dream he had about him as a result of that attraction.

Hermann skims Newt’s notes quickly, politely ignoring the grease stains Newt left behind, then pushes the book back towards him. He didn’t read about the dream. Thank God. “You called me a specimen,” Hermann says. His eyes crinkle in amusement. “How impersonal.”

“Yeah, well,” Newt says, heart pounding a little, because if he didn’t know any better he’d say Hermann is being flirty, “can’t let my institution know I’m on a first name basis with my subject. Conflict of interests.”

“Now, tell me,” Hermann says, “what do you plan to do with the information you’ve gathered when you return home? A book? An article? An exhibition? If you’re going to ask to put me on display, my answer is a definite no.”

“Nah, nothing like that,” Newt says. The truth is that Newt has no idea what he’s going to do with his significant compilation of research about Hermann. It’d be one thing if he found evidence of Hermann’s whole colony, or even a merperson besides Hermann, but to go zooming back off to his superiors with nothing three weeks’ worth of tapes and maybe a photograph or two–and after that tantrum he threw last month–he has a feeling no one is going to buy a single bit of it. Maybe he’d have a chance if he took Hermann back with him and did display him, but throwing his friend on the mercy of a society that would gladly dissect him without a second thought is completely out of the question. Maybe he’ll just write a weirdly detailed children’s book. “I might just keep it for myself, actually.”

The answer seems to please Hermann. He toys with Newt’s chip bag for a few seconds before–cheeks going a shade pinker–he says “I feel I ought to confess something.”

“Be my guest, dude.”

“I was following you the other day,” Hermann says. “I was following you that first day, too. And–” His eyes dart down, away from Newt’s. “Before then, even. You intrigued me, and I wanted to know what you were doing all the way out here.”

Newt grins. “I intrigued you. Ha! Cool. Well, now we’re even.”

Hermann smiles at him.

The last Friday before Newt is due to turn back and set course for home, he finally gets his first sign of other human life out here in the middle of the ocean: a fishing rig, at least twice the size of Newt’s tiny little rental, motors up not too far away from him and begins to cast its nets. Newt, an extrovert at heart and only mostly sustained by conversations with Hermann (who has a tendency to disappear for days at a time), is so starved for social interaction that he bolts out from his cabin when he spots it and begins waving frantically at the crew.

“Hi!” he shouts. “Beautiful out here, isn’t it?!”

He gets a friendly wave back. Newt expects he looks half-crazed, from his wild hair, to his unshaven scruff, to the explosion of freckles across his cheeks and neck, so he can’t really blame any of the crew for their hesitance.

“How are the fish?” he continues to shout.

A thumbs up.

“Cool!”

A net is drawn up; it’s a decent catch, but nothing too impressive. Earlier in the week, Hermann explained to Newt that, this close to mer-territory, anyone would be hard-pressed to find anything but smaller fish. Merpeople are much better hunters than some humans with a boat could ever dream of being. “I’ve been out here for over a month,” Newt continues his one-sided conversation. “I was looking for sea monsters. Have you ever caught anything like that before?”

No, they haven’t. The net is thrown back into the ocean.

“Okay!” Newt says. “Just wondering!”

The faint sound of groaning wood makes him stop in his tracks as he turns to head back into his cabin. Groaning wood, and splashing. Loud splashing. Excited shouts. It looks like the fishing rig netted something big.

Newt–determined, still, to be sociable–cups his hands around his mouth to call his encouragement over, but the words die on his tongue almost instantly. There, tangled up and flopping around in the rig’s netting, is a very familiar glimmering tail with a very familiar tattered left fin. “Hey,” Newt shouts, “stop! You’re–that’s my friend, you have my–!”

For the second time, Newt dives into the sea for Hermann.

He closes the distance between the two boats in no time at all, and–powered by pure adrenaline, ignoring the yells of surprise and anger above him–begins hacking blindly at the net with his pocketknife. A few more pieces–a few more strands–

It spills open. Newt feels a Hermann-sized shape graze past him, and a moment later, Hermann breaches the surface of the water. He doesn’t look very happy. “They caught me in their net,” he spits. “As if I were–!”

Newt hugs him. It’s not very graceful, considering the circumstances, but it’s something he’s wanted to do for a while, and he’s too happy that Hermann won’t be dissected or stuffed or something to care. “You caught my friend in your net while he was swimming,” he tells the fishermen over Hermann’s shoulder, now moderately more calmly. “I thought he was–uh–going to drown.”

The fishermen are profusely apologetic, to the point where Newt actually feels kind of bad for them, and it takes him waving them off with assurances they won’t sue or anything for them to hastily speed away. Hermann doesn’t look away from Newt once the whole time, his expression soft and just a touch unreadable. “You came to my rescue,” he says.

“Well,” Newt says, puffing out his chest, “a little bit, yeah.”

Hermann kisses him. Newt responds enthusiastically.

He’s so worked up over it all–grabbing Hermann’s hair, biting his weird frog mouth–that he doesn’t notice that the gentle fanning of Hermann’s tail against him has become the slide of skin against denim until Hermann suddenly grips at his arms. “Newt,” he says, eyes widening, “Newt.”

Well, even then it takes a bit. Newt kind of has a one-track mind when it comes to this sort of stuff. “Mm, yeah, Hermann,” he groans happily. He goes back in for another kiss, but Hermann dodges it.

“No,” he says, “I’m–” He gives a little kick.

Oh. “Oh, holy shit!” Newt exclaims, and laughs in delight. “Legs! You have legs!” Naked legs, in fact. Long naked legs–of course he’s taller than Newt. Hopefully he has some clothing that’ll fit the guy.

“Legs which don’t swim very well, I’m afraid,” Hermann says. He’s giving Newt another broad, awkward smile. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Newt says.

There goes Newt’s paper, he guesses, but–strangely–he can’t really bring himself to care.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous

[shes-fast-like-me]

apex legends zombie apocalypse au

bangalore - probably the most prepared for this situation. probably the person whose house is used as a base at first before they're forced to relocate becus it's actually p secure and she has stacks of supplies just laying about. probably one of the calmest people in group, can fight the zombies

bloodhound - this bitch lives in a secluded cabin out in the middle of fuck nowhere in the woods so they should be grand, probably grow their own food too though supplies may start getting low in the winter and such. can probably fight off zombies if they need to but probs just prefer to distract them

caustic - you know the old grumpy ass men in horror/apocalypse movies that always hate the protagonist for no reason and act like an asshole all the time (think lily's dad from twdg1)? yeh that's him until some traumatic shit happens and he grows to like the other survivors as a family

crypto - he's that person that either a) gets rlly paranoid or b) the quiet one that gets kinda sus and ppl think is gonna betray them and steal their supplies and run off but don't. he'd probably die tho if i'm being real ykno the lad in birdbox who watched the cameras? yeh him

gibraltar - the sweet protective lad. why do i picture him as lee in this setting idk but lee vibes yall. is probably the one that gets to make the final decisions on things cus he's rational but also empathetic and won't just leave ppl to die. might be his downfall tho he might try to save somebody and get himself killed idk

lifeline - the stereotypical doctor character in apocalypse settings i could probably give u like five examples there's always some kind of doctor in the gaggle of survivors. keeps the gang safe and healthy, probably overworked and stressed as hell

mirage - why does he feel like a dumb protagonist kajnsksk makes bad decisions and gets into sticky situations but somehow magically manages to survive. why do i feel like he's the clementine in this scenario. he's more like louis from the last twdg. or like luke from the second game. idk if he dies or not but it's likely

octane - the dumbass daredevil one that almost gets himself killed and is still alive somehow. probs goes missing for days on end only to just reappear completely fine the next week like nothing happened. doesn't know how to use a gun and will probably shoot someone by accident at some point during the series which will lead to him and the protagonists to be exiled ykno the drill

pathfinder - idk how to stick a robot into this au but he's quite helpful ig he's mostly there for emotional support

revenant - again dont know how to fit a robot here but as a hitman? yeh probably their best fighter alongside bangalore. probably the one that is rlly brooding and edgy and leaves the group for no reason like midseason and is presumed dead but comes back in the third season and he's like the leader of some dangerous gang or smthn. like. the lily type or smthn idk

wattson - probably the most scared about this whole thing i don't imagine she'd handle it well. i'm thinking that doctor's daughter in twdg2 i forgot her name and i do not care for her but yeh she's gonna need to be taught survival skills but i think she'd actually survive with how close knit the group would get in the final seasons. probably actually has some useful skills that she wasn't aware wouldve come in handy during the apocalypse. a clementine vibe somewhat if she survives that long

wraith - probably the most cautious one that goes out with like the protags to go scavengibg for supplies n whatever. good fighter and all that. if she dies it's pretty tragic if she doesn't there's a chance she splits off and joins a diff group or is constantly on the move rather than sticking to one place. idk man violet from the last twdg

#i came from twdg into apex so like. the violet = wraith and louis = mirage mindset is still very much ingrained ajdnajs #this is long and unnecessary but these are my takes #if u can do better be my guest lmao

[noctuascion]

Ooh I’ve got a cryptage prompt if you feel like writing c: I really love ur writing btw it’s so freaking good 💖: Mirage wants to try and impress and further understand his bf by learning some Korean, but he’s obviously not the best at it and is embarrassed by how bad he is. Crypto finds his efforts really endearing regardless, and falls even more in love with the old man 🥺

YESSSSS!!!!! This is so cute and reminds me of another one-shot I should write. *i rub my hands together like little fly* However!!! I'll focus on this ask first!!! And tysm!!!! That's so sweet of you!!!

--

Elliott isn't a linguist. He's never bothered to learn any other languages, despite being around so many people with foreign tongues. Hell, he's barely good at English—why would he want to work on learning an entirely new language?

Well, that was his mindset before he met Tae Joon Park (or, as he's better known, Hyeon Kim), the beautiful, enamoring, absolutely wonderful Korean-speaking man he's devoted every thought to, every moment to adoring and appreciating. Park had spoken a single word to him (well, technically two, but his statement still stands) and he had fallen for the language.

Every word was so effortlessly said, like Park's very tongue was graceful. At times, he'd hesitantly whisper some phrase in his mother tongue (something like "saran kayo," he thinks? He always says that phrase quickly and he can never quite get a read on what's exactly being said) and Elliott would ask him to say it again, receiving a fond roll of the eyes, before he gets a kiss to shut him up.

Park seemed to prefer speaking Korean at times. No one else on the drop ship spoke it, so he could mutter to himself in the language to avoid inquiry. It was where he was more comfortable speaking fondly to Elliott, too (and Elliott had to learn that by picking up the fondness in his voice and the softness in his eyes). Receiving compliments in that soft voice in that beautiful language was enough to brighten the man's day after any nightmarish event.

And now, concerning that pesky language barrier, Elliott was studying the language a bit. He couldn't learn it in a few days, but he'd definitely try to learn as much as he could and totally impress his boyfriend, make him swoon, as he usually does (because Park isn't the easiest to impress with his usual nonsense, but he's learned that showing off that beautiful brain of his was the way to his heart).

Plenty of research was put into this, hours spent on just learning little terms of endearment that could bring out those cute apple cheeks he adores so much.

At the moment, said boyfriend was seated in his lap, working on improving the performance of his drone, the little guy currently in sleep mode and plugged into his laptop. Elliott was scrolling through the page he was currently reading over. The hacker's intent focus on his programming eventually switched over to the trickster's screen, raising a brow as to what he was currently reading.

"Why are you looking up 'terms of endearment'?" he asked, relaxing against the other's chest. A "comfortable pillow," apparently. "I could have sworn you had a endless supply of pet names."

Elliott chuckled, pressing a kiss to the back of Park's head, nose buried in soft hair. "Mm. No reason… ae-in."

Park's eyes widened momentarily, pulling away from where he was resting against his chest and, instead, moving to look at the other incredulously, head tilted. "Did you just… You pronounced it wrong."

"I pronounce English wrong. You can't expect any better." Elliott chuckled, dropping his phone on his bed and arms moving to slip around Park's waist. "I'm trying to learn."

"Why?"

"'Cause I wanna know what you're saying whenever you say that one word—s-saran… saran-something."

"Saranghaeyo," Park corrected in that beautiful voice of his.

"Yeah! That! Reveal your secrets."

"Neoui kkum-e. You'll have to learn it yourself, old man."

"Oh? That so, kid?" Elliott's fingers were dancing along the smaller's hips now, slowly rising, nimble fingers sliding beneath the hoodie he wore. "Must I use other methods?"

And, easily, those hands were slapped away. "Do that and I'll break your hand."

"Mm. Charming." A chuckle left him before his arms returned to lazily wrapping around Park's waist, non-threateningly. "I'm sorry, my sweet, uh… yeo-bo."

Immediately, Park's cheeks colored, and a shy smile curled his lips. "Elliott, do you know what that means exactly?"

"I'd hope 'darling.' I didn't just call you fat, did I?"

Park snorted softly, shaking his head. "No. You're right. But… it's… usually meant for married couples." He paused momentarily, looking away, before smirking. "And you said it wrong."

"Worst. You're the worst. Only you'd drop an embarrassing bombshell and then insult me." Elliott huffed, sporting that famous pout he seemed to be trademarking—and he's not sure he's happy with that. "Uh… Sorry, though, if—if that's overwhelming—or bad."

"It's… nothing bad." Park shrugged, eyes unable to focus on Elliott now, simply browsing the merchandise held in the trickster's room. "I need to teach you how to pronounce it, though. Your attempts offend me."

"Ha ha. Worst boyfriend ever. I want a refund."

"The store I came from has a strict no return policy. Apologies."

"Here, I'll just give you to Renee. She'd like a buddy to bully."

"You're such a jerk."

"That may be so, but I'm also your pabo."

At that, Park snorted, falling into a laughing fit, a seldom occurrence for the other, and Elliott, frankly, nearly fell off the bed.

Park's laugh wasn't exactly the most listened to song Elliott's ever heard. His laughter always starts shy, quiet, and it usually stays that way. Park doesn't throw his head back and let loose, doesn't echo off the walls, and always has a hand covering his mouth, trying to hide that breathtaking smile of his. It was disheartening, seeing him hide something so unmistakably glorious, but he still got to see it, even if it was just harder to.

Everything about him was absolute perfection, smile included.

"You—You just called yourself an idiot," the hacker managed, voice a bit higher in pitch due to the laughter still shaking his frame.

"Oh! No! I didn't mean that! Shit! I take it back!"

"Ah. I think that's my new nickname for you. My dearest pabo."

"I finally get a pet name from you and it's an insult."

"And you still didn't pronounce it right."

"Oh, bite me, Kim."

The smaller released another bit of laughter before he returned to leaning against Elliott, feeling strong hands cup the back of his head and play with his hair. The action always helped relax him, and the smile painted upon his visage only widened.

Frankly, he thought it was sweet that Elliott had made such an effort to understand him when he spoke in his mother tongue. The man never ceased to make him fall in love all over again, make him remember why he called Elliott Witt his love, why he was willing to do everything in his power to keep that smile shining as bright as the sun.

"Thank you for trying, wang-ji-nim."

"Aw. You're welcome, tong-tong-hae."

"… And now you called me fat."

"FUCK!"

#apex legends #crypto #tae joon park #mirage #elliott witt #cryptage #i had to research some of these i hope they aren't messy jfjjsa #this was a fun ask!! ty!!!! #pls send more i'm lonely #lenardo does a write

[spaceskam]

Make All The Madness Go Away (a buffy au)

Day 1 of Michael Guerin Week: Welcome to the party

Special thanks to @tempest-nova for giving me the idea of Michael as Spike and @michaels-blackhat for listening to me ramble for hours about it before i never brought it up again because i didn’t want to be annoying 

ao3

“I didn’t say it was bad, I said it wasn’t my type of thing.”

“What do you mean? You’re the Slayer! Xena should be your queen! Oh my god, I feel like I don’t even know you!”

Liz snorted as she let Maria continue to ramble on about the cultural significance of Xena: The Warrior Princess. She could understand that having strong, powerful women in media was important, but Liz was already living that life. She didn’t want to go home and watch more of it.

Somewhere during Maria’s empowering and distracting speech, a car sped right past them and almost hit them. Liz scoffed and prepared to yell after it, but she was stopped when it slammed right into a tree. Her eyes widened.

“Shit,” Maria breathed and they shared a single look before running towards the smoking wreckage. So much for patrolling.

Liz and Maria checked the window of the backseat first, making sure there were no children before they moved to the front. The driver seemed to be conscious, haphazardly pawing at the door handle. When she tried the door, it was jammed closed, so she used a little bit of Slayer strength to rip it open. The driver spilled out and Liz caught him. He gave a bloody smile.

“Slayer, my hero,” he said, “Long time no see.”

Liz let him fall to the pavement.

“Maria,” she called, double-checking to make sure she was okay. She came around the car to stand beside her, both women staring at the laughing figure on the ground. He had long, unruly curls that were splayed around his head on the ground and was wearing all black head to toe, even down to the leather duster and combat boots. “Who are you?” Liz demanded.

He rolled over, still laughing as he dragged himself to his feet. Liz instinctively pushed Maria behind her, putting space between her and whatever this thing was who knew her.

“Oh, don’t you remember me? Wait, wait, wrong species, Slayers don’t pass on their memories. Whoops,” he chuckled, spitting blood on the ground and dusting himself off, “Oh well, perfect timing. I was indeed looking for you and your rag-tag team of hooligans.”

Liz narrowed her eyes at him. “Why would you be looking for me?”

He blinked all innocently and gave a smile. He pushed his hair to the side before gesturing to himself then doing a little twirl whenever she still didn’t seem to recognize him.

“Do they teach you anything? I would’ve thought you’d at least hear about me. Michael the Brilliant?” he asked wistfully. She still didn’t know “I know at least one book said I was possessed by the most wrathful demon God ever banished so they called me Rath. Does that ring a bell?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on!” Michael, apparently, whined, “I killed four Slayers and I don’t even get credit?”

Liz slowly felt for the stake in her back pocket. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Why are you in Roswell?” Liz demanded. She didn’t need to know any more about this vampire. He clearly was overconfident and that meant he needed to go. But she also needed to make sure he didn’t have others like him just floating around Roswell.

“Funnily enough, I need your assistance. Since you’re so kind to Maxwell, I figured you might extend that kindness,” he said, that charming smile on display. Liz furrowed her eyebrows even more and felt Maria grab her arm.

“You know Max?” Liz asked, refusing to show any weakness even if she was curious.

“Oh, Slayer,” Michael laughed, “I just told you I’ve killed four of you! Do you think I did that with no research? I’m almost flattered,” he hummed. However, when she didn’t respond, he grew a bit more serious. “We have been laying low for nearly five decades. I never intended to have to even go out again, but my sister is ill. The last Slayer I killed poisoned her and she has been slowly deteriorating. The only way to heal her is with the assistance of someone who has access to the Watcher’s Council. I would never seek you out otherwise, Slayer.” Oddly enough, he sounded sincere.

“And why would I help you?” she asked, looking him up and down. She gripped the stake. Sincere or not, she didn’t trust him. Especially not to do something as stupid as saving another vampire.

“Ask your boyfriend.”

In that moment, Liz quickly pulled the stake out and went to bury it in his chest. Except it didn’t. Instead, with the flick of his wrist, he had it flying across the parking lot. Liz blinked a few times and for the first time in a long time, she was scared.

“Did I forget to mention I dabble in the arts? You really should never mix the two forces. But you should've seen their faces when they tried to hang me during the trails,” Michael laughed all over again. Liz was brought a little comfort when Maria started murmuring in Latin.

Within a few minutes, Michael’s body slammed against the smoking car. He smiled. Even though Maria was holding in place, Liz made sure to keep firmly between them.

“Mm, another witch. We share blood, don’t we?” Michael said, humming as he happily relaxed in the hold Maria had on him, “I feel you, Enchantress. Your Slayers feeds you well. And how does that feel? To be more powerful than a Slayer. The Slayer. The legendary Elizabeth. The one to close the Hellmouth. You make her weak in comparison. You… Your power,” Michael let out a low chuckle, his eyes falling closed and Liz’s nose began to scrunch up in disgust, “My God, your power.”

Maria thankfully let him go before it got too weird, but he didn’t move from his place against the car.

“I’m not that powerful,” Maria said and Liz put her arm in front of her so she wouldn’t get closer.

Michael smiled, staring at her with half-lidded eyes. “But you are. I could teach you how to find it, but I’m sure you’re aware. You already hide it so well‒I couldn’t even feel it until you let me. Fuck…”

Liz looked over at Maria who seemed unsettlingly neutral about the way the demon was acting. When she looked back at him, he’d lulled his head to the side and was staring at her with those same eyes. It made her far more uncomfortable than it made Maria.

“Poor little Slayer,” he sang, letting out a teasing laugh. But then he shook it away, standing straighter. “We’re staying at an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. All the windows are blacked out, you can’t miss it. Goodbye, Slayer. Enchantress.”

With a dramatic twirl of his coat, Michael the Brilliant disappeared into the night.

-

“He called himself Michael the Brilliant. He said a few books refer to him as Rath, though. Have you ever heard of him?”

Liz watched as Mimi DeLuca’s face hardened. Bingo.

“Stay away from him,” Mimi said simply. Times like these, when Liz agreed full-heartedly, she actually enjoyed having a Watcher. “He’s bad news.”

“He didn’t seem that bad,” Maria said absentmindedly, clearly embarrassed by her opinion on the man. Liz honestly agreed that she should be embarrassed. Michael was sketchy at best, genuinely terrifying at worst. she didn't want any of her friends around him or his supposed sister.

"Crypto-pedia says his estimated rebirth was 1690 and his standard M.O. is luring young witches by telling them he can train them. Ironically, I think feeding on them helps him develop more powers that help him feel the power that witches radiate," Alex recited. Mimi scoffed as she leaned over his shoulder.

"They have a whole page on him? I really wish I had the internet when I was doing Watcher's schooling," she mused. However, when she turned back to them, she was serious once again. "Like I said-Maria, stay away from him. He's got over three decades of experience seducing witches."

"Also a big history of killing Slayers. Killed his first one in 1691. He was a baby when he took her down," Alex scoffed, shaking his head, "Be careful, Liz."

"We're just going to stay away from him. We'll deal with him if he approaches us but we're not going to seek him out," Mimi insisted. Liz chewed on her lip as she debated telling them what he'd said about Max. She was going to just wait and talk to Max about it first, but it was important information.

"Oh, shit," Alex cursed and for a moment she thought it was because Kyle was drooling on his textbook, but soon saw an old painting displayed on the computer screen. It was of three figures covered in blood.

The one in the front and on his knees was Michael, managing to look seductive even with his face contorted and his teeth bared. Over his shoulder stood Max so very clearly, his teeth just as on display and pure violence in his eyes despite the fact he was covered in less blood than the other two. Above both men was a nearly blindingly gorgeous woman. she was in all white, unlike Max and Michael, and blood was covering the entire front of her dress. Her face was relaxed completely, her eyes half-lidded. Just staring at a painting felt intoxicating.

And that must be his allegedly ill sister.

"Man, this Michael guy really is hot. In like a kill-me-in-my-sleep, rip-my-throat-out kinda way," Alex commented.

"Sweetie, none of what you just said is hot," Mimi said, shaking her head as she stared at the painting in distaste, "This is the Regency of the Restoration. Basically, they were so prolific in the late 1600s/early 1700s that they have paintings and songs about them. Most of them were lost. This painting... I actually think Isobel stole it."

"She did."

Everyone in the room turned to see Max standing in the doorway. His lips were pressed together in a thin line, something between dread and embarrassment scrawled across his features.

"Why are you looking into Michael and Isobel?" he asked quietly, not moving from where he was as if he was scared to get too close.

After seeing that painting, Liz was glad he kept his distance.

She knew of his past, of how he was before he got cursed with a soul. He was vile, vicious, and idolized for it. Liz would never be over the way books constantly spoke of him and said they were demonizing him while glorifying it. It was like Michael‒they did horrible things to be known. Why would you grant them that?

"Michael approached me," Liz said firmly, eying him as he neared her. She couldn't see it like Alex saw it as much as she wished she could. The idea of him covered in someone's blood made her stomach turn.

Max scowled harshly. "He did what?"

"What?" Kyle echoed as he chose now to wake up. Alex shushed him softly, but Liz never took her eyes off of Max and he never looked away from her either.

"He's in Roswell?" Max asked, seeming oblivious. Liz clenched her jaw and took a slow breath. "Why did he approach you? What did he say? Did he hurt y‒Maria, did he hurt you?" Liz was brought a little comfort by how concerned he seemed. It reminded her that he wasn't like that anymore. He had morals.

"No, he didn't. Honestly, he didn't even try," Maria informed him. Max's eyebrows pulled together in confusion. "He said his sister is sick and needs the assistance of a Slayer. Well, actually just someone who can get him the antidote for whatever the Watchers poisoned her with."

Max nodded slowly, bracing himself against the wall and his eyes turning to the floor. Liz waited patiently for him to decide what to say because she didn't really have many questions. She only had one: how did they get him to leave Roswell. She had no intention to help.

"She's sick?" Max asked, pain lacing his tone and Liz felt a bit of panic rise in her, "Sick enough that he'd approach a Slayer? No, okay, I need to go see her, did he say where they were?"

"Max, seriously? Who are these people to you? Why do you care if she's sick? It looks like you knew them back when you were... not yourself, why do you care about them no?" Liz demanded. Apparently, she had more questions than she realized.

Max squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his hand over his face. She waited. They all waited.

"They're my family," Max said simply even though there was nothing simple about what he'd just said. No one spoke. They could've heard a pin drop. "Stop looking at me like that, just... just give me a moment."

"A moment? Every other vampire that we've come across that you knew in the past, you've grown to hate them. Now these two, these vampires who were clearly the worst of them all, come back and you say they're your family?" Liz insisted. It would've been different if maybe he'd mentioned them, but he hadn't. They had never been around and Michael had said they were flying under the radar for decades. This didn't make any sense.

"Isobel was my actual, biological sister," he said, annoyance written across his face, "Our mother died during childbirth and we were basically on our own after that. Because of that, we got affiliated with the wrong people and started going to feeder's dens by the time we were 16. Obviously, that's a slippery slope and we both got turned within a few years."

Max crossed the room, slumping in a chair in the middle of everyone since he knew he was clearly telling a tale they all were eager to hear.

"We were... angry, I guess. Maybe it was from when we were human and it carried over, but we felt entitled. For years we had been denied everything because of our status, but we now had something where they couldn't tell us no. We attacked many people that had wronged us in life or even just seemed the type who would have. Isobel was really good at luring disgusting men in with her beauty and she'd rip them apart as payback for what they'd done to her when she was a little girl."

"If you're trying to make us think that what you two did wasn't all that bad, you're wasting your time," Liz said curtly. He looked up at her like a wounded puppy, but she wasn't going to let that face affect her this time. She'd done so far too many times before.

"That's not what I'm trying to do, Liz," he sighed, shaking his head, "I'm just saying... We were close. We always had been, she's apart of me and I'm apart of her."

"Okay, where does Michael come into this?" Maria asked. Mimi was standing off on the side, her face hardened as if she already knew everything. That was only slightly annoying.

"I was given my soul in 1688 and Isobel and I moved to a small town in Masechuttseus. She wasn't a fan of me being, well, more human, but she put up with it because we're all we had. And we met Michael in that town. He reminded me of myself, just a kid who was abandoned and struggling to survive. So we took him in."

"Two vampires took in a human? How quaint," Kyle snorted. Max seemed to fight the urge to be annoyed. He didn't really have the right to do that right now.

"He needed shelter and I wanted to do better, so I gave it to him and tried to protect him from a life like mine. I wanted to help, not hurt. Only, Isobel didn't trust him. She became so paranoid that he was going to betray us and get us killed or something no matter how hard he tried to please her. And he did try hard to please her. He saw her as something of a mother figure he never had and spent day in and day out catering to her, but she took it as him having devious intentions. Then, in 1690, when the Slayer of that time had been making noise around our town, she was convinced he had sent for her to kill us. So she turned him because then he could no longer out us without outing himself," Max explained. Liz could feel her face being taken over with disgust at this woman that Max clearly seemed to care about. How could he still care for someone who murdered a boy you took in to protect?

"Jesus," Alex cursed, the only one who had it in him to say anything.

"I-I don't actually know what happened to him after that," Max sighed, rubbing his hand over his face, "I obviously know that he lost his soul, but I didn't expect him to... Basically, his already unhealthy obsession with pleasing Isobel was heightened. His loyalty to her is something I've never seen before. He was barely fully turned when he went after the Slayer for her. I wish I could tell you how he did it, but I don't know. I just know he managed to kill her and brought her body to Isobel as a present.

"I didn't know what to do about it. They're my family, they're important to me, but they were becoming calculated killers and I just couldn't take being around that. I tried to explain to them that it wasn't okay, that I couldn't be around it. And... they tried to stop. Sort of. Michael started specifically targeting witches and he'd bring them back to Isobel to drain together, but it wasn't as common as before so I tried to take it as a step in the right direction. Eventually, though, they started gaining powers that they got from the witches. I guess I shouldn't have stuck around once it got to that point, but I was stuck. It took me a century before I finally realized they weren't going to stop. The guilt of standing by as they lured girls in was rivaling how much I love them, so I left. I've tried to keep tabs on them, but they'd been hard to find for the last few decades. I don't even think they're really killing much anymore, but I'm not sure. I haven't seen them since the turn of the 20th century."

Everyone was silent as they tried to make what they could from the story, but Liz focused hard on Max. He took a slow, almost pained breath as he dared to look up at her.

"But she's really sick?"

Liz hated herself for a moment, hated how she resigned to desperately wanting to make him look less broken. She was so desperate that she was actually considering helping a vampire who was known for being horrifically violent and apparently manipulative. No matter how hard she tried to shake away that feeling, she was confronted with an overwhelming need to make him feel better. She hated how pained he looked.

"Michael said the last Slayer he killed poisoned Isobel with something the Watcher's Council made and that she's been slowly deteriorating since," Liz said softly. Max scoffed, shaking his head before he dropped it into his palms.

"That was 50 years ago. She's been sick for half a century and they haven't tried to reach out to me," Max said. Liz gravitated towards him, her hand touching his shoulder as she looked up to the rest of the people in the room. They clearly didn't feel as sympathetic as she did, but why should they? “I understand if you don’t want to help them, but I have to. No matter what, they’re my family.”

"So are we,” Liz stated firmly, “What should we do?" Alex and Kyle shared a look not too unlike the look Mimi and Maria shared. She knew that they didn't really want to do anything, thinking it was too dangerous. "It's his family. That makes it a little different than just some random vampires."

"They're dangerous, Liz," Kyle said carefully, "Maybe he was civil when he came to ask you for help, but that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way."

"We could go meet them, like, all of us. Somewhere on even ground so we can feel out the situation and see if she's actually sick and if they're actually that dangerous," Alex suggested, though even he sounded hesitant, "If he says they've dialed down their killings, it's worth a shot to check it out. If it's bad, then we figure out how to run them out of town."

"I don't want Maria anywhere near him," Mimi said firmly, shaking her head, "You all can go if you want, but not her."

Maria didn't argue.

"How does that sound, Max?" Liz asked him softly. He looked torn as he looked around the room.

"I'll protect you all if he gets out of hand," he said firmly, "But I would appreciate your help."

"Okay then," Liz said even though she felt this was the beginning to a very risky situation, "Let's do this."

-

The first thing Alex saw when they walked into the demon bar was Michael.

And apparently, the first thing Michael saw was Alex.

"And who is this?" Michael said the moment they walked up. The way he was staring at Alex had him feeling insecure in a way he hated and desperately tried to push away. He kept his face firm as Michael stood up, circling him like prey. "What are you?"

"Human," Alex said, eyeing Max and Liz who seemed to be watching Michael with nothing but annoyance.

"No," Michael whispered, his breath hot on Alex's neck which sent shivers down his spine and a million waves of confusion to his mind. He didn't know vampires had breath, much less hot breath. "What are you?"

"I told you," Alex said sternly, "Human."

Michael paused in front of him, letting out a huffed laugh. "There's no way. That energy you give off..."

"Michael, stop it," Max sighed. Michael looked to him with furrowed brows.

"I'm serious, you don't feel that? What is that? How are you human?" Michael said, moving closer to Alex once again. He felt predatory in a way that had Alex feeling a little more into it than he wanted to admit. Why did he have to be so damn hot? "I don't understand how you can be human and yet make me feel so‒"

"Michael," Max snapped, "Stop trying that shit on him."

"I'm not!" Michael responded defensively, though a small smirk played on his lips as he leaned back against the bar. "Though I definitely want to. It's not my fault your entire Slayer’s Brigade is gorgeous."

"Alex," Liz ordered, gesturing for him to go stand behind her. He obliged, although requiring a bit of tugging from Kyle to make it all the way. He couldn't take his eyes off of Michael.

"Where is Isobel?" Max demanded eventually and Michael managed to look away from Alex which only had him feeling slightly upset. It was like he just then registered that Max was actually there. He blinked at him a few times and his cocky smirk was all but completely gone.

“She can’t leave the house. She’s too weak,” Michael answered, “Where you been, Maxwell? I know you have been with this Slayer lately, but what about before?”

“You knew I was around.”

“Isobel needed you and you weren’t there,” Michael scoffed, shaking his head, “You’re a shit brother.”

“Why did you seek our help if you were just going to be a complete asshole to us?” Max demanded. Alex tried to care, he really did, but he really wanted to focus on what Michael meant. What feeling to he give off? He wanted to know.

“I don’t want your help. I have no choice. And I need the Slayer’s help, not yours,” he spat, shaking his head. Alex felt an inexplicable need to make him stop looking so irritated. It was more uncomfortable than the smirking. “I don’t know why we even met here. We can’t fucking help Isobel here.”

“We’re here because they aren’t sure if we should help you. You have no proof that Isobel is actually sick,” Max said, though they all knew Max believed she was. They had prepared before meeting him, pouring over every little detail they could find about the Watchers as well as what Mimi knew herself. None of them could find even a mention of a serum, not even something that was in the works to be tested. Not even Alex, who was very good at hacking into all the systems the Watchers had, couldn’t find a damn thing.

“Why the fuck would I be here if she wasn’t?” Michael snapped, looking angry and desperate. He had to reel himself back in, taking a deep breath and through gritted teeth. “Listen, I just need whatever fancy antidote they have.”

“There isn’t one,” Alex said simply. Michael shot his gaze back to him, his jaw clenched as he waited for Alex to keep talking. For some stupid reason, Alex didn’t find him that scary. He reminded him of just a big dog who needed a little more friendship. “Are you sure it was the Watchers who poisoned her?”

“Who else would it be?” he asked, “No offense, but the typical Slayer is all brawn and no brain.”

“Well, I’m not your typical Slayer,” Liz shot back. Michael smiled tightly, hardly taking his eyes off of Alex again.

“We know that.”

“Alright, I’m going to come and see what I can find out,” Liz decided firmly. Max looked at her like she’d lost it.

“If you go in there, she’ll kill you,” Max told her.

“No she won’t, she can’t,” Michael argued.

“Have her mental abilities lessened?” Max asked. Michael didn’t say anything. “See? No, you’re not going there, Liz. She can and will do something to you, especially if it was a Slayer that harmed her.”

“Well, I don’t want you going by yourself there, you’re too emotion I don’t trust them,” Liz argued, “Someone else from our team needs to go and the only person I trust not to get killed is myself.”

“Little Alex can come too,” Michael suggested, grinning slowly. Which, honestly, sounded like a good idea to him even if Liz and Kyle immediately jumped in to protest. Alex had spent the last two days researching the two of them endlessly. He’d known everything they’d done that had ever been recorded‒and most of their movements had been recorded. They were infamous.

“Max and I can go,” Alex agreed, “I make sure he isn’t in cahoots with them and he can make sure they don’t kill me.” Michael broke out into a smile.

“Cahoots,” he repeated softly, his tongue dragging his bottom lip in between his teeth as he shook his head and chuckled to himself.

“And if he is in cahoots with them, you will be murdered by three vampires,” Kyle pointed out.

“Yeah, but what a way to go,” Michael laughed. No one else found that funny, so he held up his hands in defense. “Look, not gonna let anyone lay a finger or fang on his pretty little body. Too intrigued by his whole vibe to let that happen.”

“What vibe?” Alex asked before he could stop himself. Michael shrugged and shook his head.

“If I knew I’d tell you.”

“So, that’s the plan then? We’re trusting three vampires with Alex?” Kyle sighed softly. Alex and Michael nodded at the same time which caused the vampire to smile.

Alex would be lying if he said he wasn’t eager to go.

-

“Isobel’s in the back room.”

Max immediately followed the instruction which led to Alex being left all alone with Michael. He watched the vampire make himself at home, seeming weirdly human as he took off the steam-punk boots to reveal colorful socks. Alex smiled mockingly at them, one bright orange with cats and the other a baby blue with a cartoon whale saying ‘having a whale of a time’. Michael flopped himself onto the couch, wiggling his toes as he grinned Alex’s way.

“Come here,” Michael urged. Alex shook his head with the same smile as he began to look around the room. It was pretty modern for a vampire den: working electricity, a kitchen, a TV, and even a laptop in the corner.

Alex kept himself aware even when he wasn’t directly looking at him. While he wasn’t scared of him, he also wasn’t about to be caught off guard. That had happened one too many times before. Since he was aware, he didn’t even flinch at the animalistic movements Michael made as he crawled to the other side of the couch and climbed skillfully to the recliner, leaning over the back to intrude on Alex’s space.

“Can I taste you?” he suddenly requested. Alex furrowed his eyebrows and leaned away to get a good look at his face.

“No,” Alex said, “Literally why would I say yes to that?”

“I want to know what you are,” he said, tilting his head to the side, “It’s driving me mad. I just know if I taste you I’ll understand more.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t bite me,” Alex said, walking towards the couch, “And if you do anyway, I will kill you.”

“Why would I do it anyway? That takes the fun out of it, I like when people want it,” he said softly, still eyeing Alex like he was so fucking confused. Alex was torn between loving it and hating it.

“How do you somehow have better morals than some people who have souls?”

“Good question.”

Alex peered towards the door that Max had gone through. It was shut tight. Clearly, they weren’t watching each other like Liz had insisted. Oh well. They could lie.

“Put your blood in a cup so I can taste. No biting involved,” Michael suggested, suddenly in front of him again.

“Good suggestion, but no,” Alex said, circling to the front of the couch. Michael’s gaze stayed firmly on him, following each and every movement.

“You can do it when I’m not in the room so there’s no temptation.”

“Why do you care so much?” Alex asked. While he was slightly curious as to what Michael meant by everything, he wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it when it was probably an elaborate excuse to get him to agree to being bitten. Michael huffed an annoyed breath, but never gave an answer.

They walked around in silence for a moment, still eyeing each other despite the distance between them. Michael was annoyingly attractive and, even in the light, could easily be mistaken for human. The longer they stared, the more comfortable he got with it. He knew the staring likely would’ve pissed off Liz and Kyle and Maria and Mimi. Honestly, probably Max too. He wasn’t so negative.

“I got it,” Michael suddenly said, jumping over the couch and grabbing Alex’s hand. He pulled him quickly through the door to the room Max and Isobel were in, throwing him in front of him the moment they got through. “Izzy! What is he?”

Alex felt the floor drop from beneath him as he became the sole focus of Isobel. Her paintings and descriptions did her no justice. She was nothing short of ethereal. It was impossible not to look at her and let her engulf you with her wide eyes and penetrating gaze.

She wore a long, deep red robe tied around an equally as red slip and her hair seemed skillfully unkempt. While Michael seemed human on some level, Isobel didn’t seem to share that. She was purely otherworldly, but not quite animalistic. She neared Alex with deliberate movements, slow and inhuman. She touched Alex’s cheek and if she asked him anything in the world, he would have surrendered.

“Human,” she decided in a careful voice, pushing on his jaw to face Michael, “He’s human.”

“What?” Michael demanded, sounding more than a little annoyed, “That doesn’t make any sense, he‒”

“Michael,” Max said firmly, “You and Alex need to go, we were speaking.” Michael’s eyebrows slowly pulled together in a level of hurt he couldn’t hide.

“This is my house, I can‒”

“Michael,” Max said, louder this time. Alex found it quite interesting how different Michael became when he was in the same room with both Max and Isobel. He wasn’t the powerful, power-reading, telekinetic vampire. He was suddenly just a boy who had been on the receiving end of a neverending Us vs. You situation.

“You can go,” Isobel said, lightly pushing his jaw towards Michael.

Once they were back into the main room, Alex had to give himself a moment to readjust. All the research he’d done made it clear that, due to the way he was feeling, Isobel had probably just gotten into his mind. Which was terrifying. It made Michael cornering him against the wall much less terrifying in comparison.

“You can’t be human,” Michael accused, breathing heavy in residual anger, “I swear to fuck, I can feel you. I feel you.”

Alex couldn’t find it in him to be scared as Michael pushed further into his space. He knew he should be. He wasn’t. But it was a distraction for the fuzziness in his mind and that made it easy to play along.

“Maybe all you feel is that I’m the only one who isn’t scared of you,” Alex said back. Michael took a deep, grounding breath and that easy, suave smile found its place outside of his anger.

“Is that so?”

“I’ve done my research on you. I know everything there is to know about you,” Alex admitted. Michael’s eyes flickered across his face and lingered on his lips just long enough to have Alex’s mind wandering a bit too much.

“Everything?”

“Everything,” Alex confirmed, his voice matching Michael’s low pitch. The smirk and the half-lidded eyes on the vampire’s face was something out of a wet dream he didn’t know he’d have. “Which means I know how your powers work, I know how quick your reaction time is, and I know I’m quicker.” Michael leaned closer, their chests meeting.

“Yeah?”

“I could kill you if I really wanted. It’d be easy,” Alex told him though he knew he was probably lying. While he was indeed quick, vampires much less dangerous than him had put Alex in the hospital. But, honestly, he wasn’t Michael’s type of victim and he wasn’t one to expand. He’d had a type since he turned.

“We should spar sometime and put your money where your pretty little mouth is,” Michael suggested.

“Maybe we should.”

“Will you get away from him,” Max snapped out of nowhere, grabbing Michael by the neck and physically pulling Michael off him.

“Get the fuck off me!” Michael shouted, twisting out of Max’s hold and glaring at him. Alex watched the metaphorical pissing contest unfold between them.

“Liz is going to kill you if you get that close to him again,” Max threatened, eyeing Michael like he was nothing more than scum, “And I’ll be happy when she does.”

Michael stared at him for a minute before swiftly turning and stalking away. Alex looked at Max with furrowed brows. He hadn’t really seen an inherently aggressive side to the man. Something about Michael and Isobel must have brought it out of him. He still had the audacity to look apologetic about Michael’s actions.

Oddly enough, Alex left that day feeling bad for him.

-

“We’re doing what?”

Alex rolled his eyes at Max’s tone. He was becoming more and more annoyed with him by the day. It didn’t help that Michael was around more to help find the antidote to whatever that one particular Watcher had conjured up along with helping both Alex and Kyle get better at fighting against vampires. The more Alex warmed to Michael, the more Max irritated him.

“It’s a good idea,” Michael chimed in. He was sprawled on the couch in the back of the magic shop, his feet firmly in Alex’s lap. Mimi had Maria as far away from him as possible, but even she had warmed to him a bit. Max was the only one left with a major problem.

“There is nothing good about it.”

“Max,” Liz said firmly, “We are breaking into a paranoid ex-Watcher’s house that is vamp-proofed. The only reason you’re coming is to stand guard with Kyle. Mimi and Maria can’t stay because they have to charm the Watcher. I need both Alex and Michael here because Alex is the only one who can even hack into his security system and he’s the one in control of the camera that Michael will be using as eyes to get the serum without disturbing the literal spikes around it. Do you hear a way there would be anyone else to babysit Michael and Alex?”

Max looked very annoyed he wasn’t getting his way. He glared at Michael which obviously made him tense. Alex mindlessly rubbed his ankle.

“Listen,” Michael said, that cocky little smirk on his face as he tried not to get angry, “I am the first person to agree that I’m dangerous and probably shouldn’t be trusted with certain people, but my little Alex here is not one of them. I wouldn’t lay a fang on him.” Max looked like he was going to kill him.

“I don’t like this.”

“Why are you so protective of Alex all of the sudden?” Liz demanded, turning to him completely.

“It’s not just of Alex, I don’t trust him around any of you, but he’s taken a liking to Alex which is not okay,” Max accused.

“Alex can handle himself,” Kyle jumped in.

“Alex can speak for himself,” Alex sighed, trying hard not to roll his eyes, “Listen, he hasn’t hurt any of us yet, why are you so certain that’ll change when we’re alone?”

“Because I know him. He’s manipulative and selfish. We’re giving him what he wants!”

“It’s also what you want, Max,” Liz said, crossing her arms over her chest, “We gave you a chance and you’ve done worse than him.”

Max didn’t have an answer. Alex squeezed Michael’s ankle.

“Right. Everyone meet back here at 10 PM to put the plan into action.”

The room quickly cleared out, leaving Michael and Alex alone as if they weren’t just arguing about it. Alex turned to face the vampire.

“You were awfully quiet during that,” he pointed out. Michael breathed in slow, a smirk forming on his face.

“You don’t like when I get into it, so I’m trying to do better,” he answered. Alex snorted.

“You didn’t get in a fight just because I don’t like it?” Alex clarified. Michael shrugged his shoulders, eyeing him. “Man, you keep doing stuff like that and I’m gonna start thinking you like me.”

Michael grunted softly in amusement, a predatory look taking over his face before it transformed into that of a vampire. His teeth were bared and he was sitting so close, but Alex just smiled at him.

“Gonna go kill some shit before 10, gotta make sure Isobel’s fed. See you then,” Michael spoke easily, getting up and leaving without another word.

Alex shook his head with a smile before getting up and preparing the camera and microphone he’d be hooking up to Liz.

-

“Okay, be careful.”

“I am being careful.”

“I literally don’t think you’re ever careful.”

Michael chuckled lowly as he listened to Alex and Liz argue while she walked through the Watcher’s weird lab. The man was almost 95 years old, but apparently, he was still batshit crazy enough to have a fully functioning chem lab where he brewed serums to kill vampires. Isobel had just gotten a very early version of it and it was the only reason she’d made it 50 years.

“Okay, disable this,” Liz said softly. Michael watched as Alex did some fancy, smart shit that went over his head. Alex was impressive.

Michael leaned closer to him, eyes drifting from Alex’s work on the computer to his collarbone. His skin was tan and seemingly flawless, every curve of his body just as perfect. It was hard to stay away, even harder the more he stared.

He had no intention to bite him and he had no desire to either. Occasionally Maria would catch his eye and Kyle would annoy him to the point that he considered it, but the Slayer, the Watcher, and Alex were all tolerable. Alex was more than tolerable. Alex was one of a kind, literally. In all his years alive, he’d never met someone as intoxicating as Alex. The only exception was Isobel, but he was drawn to them in very different ways.

“Stop,” Alex whispered, nudging Michael away as his nose grazed the hacker’s jaw. Michael blinked a few times, moving away just a little bit and just enough to see Alex’s sweet smile. “You’re up.”

Michael shook himself out of the trance he’d been in, looking towards the screen. The camera was pretty shitty quality, but it was enough that he could see what he was supposed to do. He focused as well as he could on the image of the little vile surrounded in complex spikes, watching it slowly be lifted and weaved through them like he wanted.

“Yes, you’re doing great,” Alex said softly, continuing to pour words of encouragement over him in a way he wasn’t used to. Though, everything Alex did were things he wasn’t used to.

The vile landed in Liz’s hand and Michael fell back in his chair, exhaustion overcoming him. He hated using his powers for that long because of how it made him feel, but it was so fucking worth it for Isobel’s safety and the proud smile Alex gave him.

“You did it,” Alex breathed out, mindlessly putting his hand on Michael’s thigh and squeezing. Michael smiled. Honest to god smiled. “Now get out of there, Liz.”

Alex turned off the camera and microphone once everyone made it safely into the car and started making the two-hour drive home. He leaned back with a satisfied little grin, letting his head drift to face Michael. He looked so stunning.

“So, you gonna kill me now?” Alex asked playfully. Michael snorted.

“Why would I do that?”

“You’re getting what you want. In a few hours, Isobel’s gonna be okay. You don’t have to stick around, much less leave us alive. Leave me alive,” Alex said, though this time he seemed a little more serious. “Are you going to leave?”

“Would you be upset if I did?” Michael asked. Alex chewed on his lip and Michael really wanted to do that himself.

“Depends, are you gonna kill me?” Alex asked. Michael shook his head.

“What would I get out of killing you before they hand over the serum?” he asked. Alex scoffed, laughing slightly.

“Jeez, you got a point, I guess,” he said, “Just thought we were friends.”

“You like being my friend?”

“Dude,” Alex laughed, “You’re here aren’t you?” Michael took in his pretty face and thought about what it would be like to stay. He had never really had friends before. He had Max and Isobel and Max didn’t really like him all that much. Here, he had Liz who willingly spoke to him about a bunch of different weapons and took his advice seriously. He had Mimi who, while still being wary of him with her daughter, still liked to hear how he melded witchcraft with the abilities that came with being a vampire. He had Kyle who was annoying as all hell, but who made for a fun sparring partner.

And he had Alex.

“So, tell me, if you stay, are you going to go after Maria?” Alex asked after a moment. Michael furrowed his eyebrows. “I mean, she’s your type. You gonna try to seduce her, drink her blood to power you up?”

“Yeah and have Mimi kill me? No,” Michael said simply, “Mimi is a whole lot more powerful than me and she’s a lot more trained than Maria. Maria has untapped power, but Mimi’s is like an open faucet. She could snap her fingers and snap my neck if she wanted to.”

“So you really can feel people’s powers like that?” Alex clarified. Michael nodded, still not being able to look away. Not that he wanted to. “So, what happens when you would seduce those girls back then? You’d just tell them they were powerful, sleep with them, eat them? Actually, can you even sleep with people? Does your heart even beat to make blood flow?”

Michael smirked, “Are you asking me if my dick works?” Alex paused and his cheeks turned pink before he just went with it and nodded. “Yeah, it does. But I usually didn’t sleep I’d lure in. It’s weird to have sex with your food.”

“Oh my god,” Alex laughed, shaking his head with a smile that was brighter than the sun. Maybe it would’ve burned if it didn’t feel so good. “You know, you’re a lot less crazy than you tried to seem like you were.”

“Sorry to let you down.”

“No, no, I like it. I like you like this.”

“You like me?”

“I like you,” Alex said firmly, “Why doesn’t Max?”

“I don’t know,” Michael shrugged. He hated that Max hated him. He’d spent so long trying to please both him and Isobel only to be shunned away by him. It was easier to just stop trying to please him. Alex smiled comfortingly.

“I think he’s jealous.”

“Jealous of what?” he snorted.

“That you don’t need a soul to be good.”

Michael couldn’t remember the last time some had thought he was good.

He moved forward without too much of a thought and grabbed Alex’s neck, pressing a kiss to his lips. It didn’t last long and he pulled away, preparing for Alex to tell him off or get awkward. Instead, Alex smiled and moved forward again.

It had been a really long time since he kissed anyone, at least 50 years. He was admitted rusty, but Alex didn’t seem to mind as he pulled him closer until they were both sitting on the edge of their chairs. Alex’s tongue slipped into his mouth without any hesitation and the level of trust he must’ve had in Michael didn’t go unnoticed. He felt like he was 17 and stupid again, desperately trying to move closer and trying to touch every inch he could.

Michael tugged on Alex’s waist in an attempt to get him closer and Alex chuckled into his mouth before just moving to straddle his lap. Michael moved back and pulled Alex with him, splaying his hands on the man’s back to hold him through the never-ending kisses. He didn’t want them to end. He wanted them forever.

“You taste so good,” Michael said before he could even control himself and Alex smirked, weaving his fingers through Michael’s hair.

“You didn’t even bite me.”

“I don’t need to.”

Michael dragged sloppy kisses across his jaw and then down his neck. He waited for Alex to deny him, to push him away in panic. He just knew that, while Alex seemed to trust him, there was no way he trusted him to be this close, to be able to feel his pulse against his teeth, and not throw him off. Except Alex, like always, subverted expectations and held him closer with a moan. He left soft bites between kisses, trailing his way back up to Alex’s lips with extra care that he didn’t puncture his flawless skin.

He left one last kiss to Alex’s lips before pulling away, keeping his forehead against the other man’s as he caught his breath.

“Why’d you stop?” Alex asked after a moment and Michael looked at him to see a level of mischief in his eyes that had him reeling. That vibe that he always got from Alex amplified in that moment, warm and encompassing that jumped from just his regular level of no fear to just overwhelming trust and desire. “We have an hour before we won’t get another moment alone for who knows how long. We should make the most of it.”

Michael agreed so easily and they made their way to the couch.

By the time the rest of the group got back, they had managed to look normal and like nothing had happened. Well, as normal as possible.

“Why are you smiling like that? You look insane,” Max scolded the minute he walked in and saw Michael. He was still fidgety with excitement from his afternoon, but he managed to taper it down so Max wouldn’t dig. He didn’t want to deal with the backlash without having a proper conversation.

“Sorry for being excited that my sister isn’t going to die,” Michael said, though his eyes drifted to Alex who was sitting in front of the computer. His thumb was lodged between his teeth, hiding his own smile. He shot a wink Michael’s way before standing up.

It became so clear to him at that moment that there was no way he could leave Roswell now.

“Alright, let’s go heal a murderous mind-controlling vampire.”

#mgweek19 #guerinweek19 #very shocked i finished this #malex #malex fic #michael guerin #michael guerin fic #roswell new mexico #roswell new mexico fic #rnm #rnm fic #buffy au #time for bed

[aurimeanswind]

I’m More of a Winter—Sunday Chats—1/28/18

Oddly enough, I find myself more “happy” or more at home and comfortable through the winter. It’s my favorite season, yet this one seems to not provide the same boons to excitement as the previous have. There is far less joy to be found, and that kind of sucks.

But we move on with the show.

Talking About The Week I Had

I’ve come to both hate and somewhat enjoy talking about having terrible weeks and rough times. I always, in my heart, feel I am begging for attention. And there must be some honesty in that, right? But I also feel this sense of responsibility and obligation to my internet presence that I need to keep sending those thoughts and feelings out there, and that maybe I’ll feel better when I do. And I usually do. There is always a warm and loving outcry of support when I do, and it always warms my heart, without fail.

But I dunno. It’s hard. I have really bad days and I put myself in a dark place, and while I love the honesty, I don’t want to share that because it’s both personal and it looks like I am begging for good vibes to be sent. Obviously this is all counteracted by me openly expressing my frustrations here (or so my brain hopes) but it’s a difficult side to every coin. The one that’s aware of the more selfish-seeming repercussions of crying out for help, and that just so wishes to be like, not bad on your own. 

I think with my depression and fits of morbid thoughts and feelings of wanting to hurt myself, that’s always the fall back. I just want to be good without having to ask for help. The idea of, “well why can’t I just be alright on my own? Why does this have to be a thing where I have to have me picked up off the ground by my wonderful companions who’d graciously do so, but I can’t just “be” on my own?” When i say I express frustration in sharing my feelings of being depressed, I think it helps to empathize from that angle:

I’m not frustrated because I don’t want to ask for help, I’m frustrated because I was never given the opportunity to not need it.

Does that make sense?

God I hope so. In short I had a bad spell of self-hatred style depression this week, and this is me just airing it out those feelings. If it doesn’t make sense, ah don’t worry about it, but if you saw me struggling this week, that’s your bit of context.

What’s On Tap

Predominantly I’ve been playing one thing this week, and that’s been going back through The Witcher 3. That’s a great goddamn video game.

The Witcher 3

There is just something about Yennefer that... goddamn. She is just like a magnet for me. I definitely feel to her what Geralt does. It’s an attraction that goes beyond appearance. She isn’t like, the best person? either? But I just adore her. She fits the mold of a partner in so many respects, and peeling back the layers of her character are excellent.

I got to Skellige and boy that is just the best part of that game hands down.

The snow, the wintery peaks, the people of Skellige, it’s just so much better than anything you see in Velen or Novigrad I think. Not to say either of those chapters are bad, they’re excellent, but I think it just shows that Skellige is that much more interesting of an area. I think that, to some extent, derives from the fact that Velen and Novigrad are neighboring areas, and so their culture is very similar. It gets me even more excited to see Touissant, the place added in Blood and Wine, because that is also a totally separate part of that world.

Celeste

I’ve managed to put a few hours into Celeste now, where when we recorded the podcast I had only put about a half hour into it.

I worry that maybe my expectations for this game were set too high, especially with folks continually telling me how impactful it’s emotional aspects are. I’m trying to keep my expectations in check, but I will say so far the game has done some pretty interesting things.

On the gameplay level, it has the tightness of something like Towerfall, applied to very Super Meat Boy reminiscent platforming levels that are short, consumable, and challenging. It kind of reminds me that I’m not really in the mood for something that is just outwardly so challenging right now though. Like, it makes you frustrated and you’re supposed to derive enjoyment from the victory, but the levels are very long and frustrating at times, and I’m not getting the same satisfaction I got from something like Cuphead. 

That, mixed with the really interesting story bits makes me kind of just want to get to the next story beat above everything else. The constant dying and repeating of the same challenges impedes that.

Maybe most of my frustration is that each “chapter” bases itself around a different mechanic, and a lot of those have been more just annoying than anything else. One was these platforms that you can move by pressing against them while holding them, which worked, but another was ground or wall that you can’t retread once you’ve touched it once or you die, and that was just zero fun.

There is a very interesting scene where you have to calm yourself from a panic attack, and it’s very evocative, so maybe there is something too Celeste, but right now I’m more mixed than I’d like to be. Overall it definitely plays well, I’m just unsure of if I am buying everything there.

Questions

Like always, look for my tweets on Sundays with the hashtag #SundayChats in it, respond with your question, and be in the chats! Let’s do this!

I like that Ubisoft essentially did this by putting Mario in XCOM last year.

But like, what if Princess Peach was a leader in Civilization 6?

How good would that be?!

Have Mushroom Kingdom units?! Build Peach’s Castle as a World Wonder?! Having to import mushrooms from other city states to appease our great lord and savior Princess Peach?! PEACH getting NUKED by GHANDI?!

Anyway.

I feel like I can’t think of any mind bending ones, or ones that haven’t been done before, save for the Princess Peach one. Like, I’d love to see an strategy game with the Tales characters, and that already exists. I’d love to see a third person action game with Final Fantasy characters, and that kind of exists, and that’s also kind of happening with the FF7 Remake. I’d love to see Vincent from Catherine as a character in a Persona game with all adults, but that feels like a cop out. 

Link playing Baseball? in MLB the show? 

I’ll think on it and if I come up with anything good I’ll tweet it at you.

I don’t know that series sounds like its for weebs.

Nah I’m kidding, I’m glad everyone seems to be having fun with Monster Hunter World. I definitely have a bit of FOMO, but after that beta I really doubt I’d have fun with it.

Nabeshin would go Insect Glaive. Scott would get the biggest and weightiest sword. Tony you’d get whatever you’d get. You said you were trying the Bow on the latest show, so maybe that? And I’d be the cat and I’d be chilling on an inflatable tube.

Hands for feet. Duh.

I’d get like, those toe-shoes, which would basically be gloves, and then go on my merry, tree-swinging way. Like, I’d finally have my dream of being able to have four hands. Ugh. Feet for hand sounds awful because you’d still have “arms” so its not like you’d be able to four-footed run. 

Garbage.

I have no clue what this is.

*Does a quick google*

So Like, I am only loosely familiar with Big Brother, and I hate reality TV (I know Jazz, I’m sorry) but this seems like, totally boring! No big names at all. The entertainment weekly article I read showing the contestants for this upcoming one were recognized by their recent “Dancing with the Stars” placements, and that’s just fucking depressing.

But yeah, I like the idea of celebrities that don’t know they hate each other slowly learning that they do, in fact, hate each other all for your viewing pleasure, sure, if you’re into that sort of thing. But at least throw like, Liam Neeson in there to choke somebody or something.

Oh man there is so much I’d love to see Rocksteady do. They’ve definitely become a favorite developer of mine, even if i have a tenuous love-hate relationship with Batman Arkham Knight. 

I mean they are almost definitely working on something Batman. I feel like we don’t end this year without knowing exactly what they are making, or without it releasing. I think Justice League/Batman Beyond would be cool, but I just worry that they aren’t going that route.

I want them to break away from Batman. I think they’ve earned enough clout to do their own thing, and that’d be the thing I’m most excited about, but it may ultimately just be another Arkham game.

I’d probably kill myself right away tbh.

I know that’s a little morbid haha, but I’m definitely not making it. I have really bad asthma, so assuming we are getting “infected” “running” zombies I am boned. I’ve also never fired a gun before, nor do I really have any interest in doing so. I’m also a pacifist and hate the idea of hurting other living things, dead or not. I’d also not want to be a hindrance to me loved ones who are stronger than me and can live on. And boy it’d be a fucking bummer to just watch humans kill humans over food and water and guns and stuff. I just don’t want to been that world (which is kind of our world, I know, yes).

And knowing my luck I’d be patient zero, so there’s also that.

First, I want to say:

fuck Captain Jack Sparrow.

That being said.

I want Sly Cooper’s ancestor who was also a Pirate, Henriette Cooper.

Hell, I’d probably just want Sly Cooper too.

And maybe Captain Kidd, but like, cool Lady Captain Kidd from AC Black Flag.

And Nato Johnston, who is real.

Jurge Cruz is into some deep web shit with his crypto-mining operation.

It’s messed up.

And very impressive.

That’s a really good question. I want to say yes, because I think that’d be cool, but I don’t know of any Arc System Works game that’s made it big there. There probably (definitely) is one? But I just don’t know it. Maybe Guilty Gear. 

I’d say no because I think the way the controls work in FighterZ is just too simplified. I don’t know what the skill threshold for that game is, but who knows, maybe it’s possible. God wouldn’t that be rad?

This is a tough question. I saw this and I think, at least partially, thats what my opening thoughts bit was about. I don’t really think there is, and I don’t think that is such a bad thing, right?

Like that doesn’t make you any less of a friend, and this goes for everyone to anyone they know with mental illness. If you’re there, supportive, and send the good vibes and are understanding of their issues, you're doing it right. I think it’s people that just lack empathy or say “why aren’t you just happy?” that are the ones super fucking up.

I’d say just empathize with the fact that sometimes all you can do is send support, and that’s totally enough. So don’t sweat it.

Christ.

Joel’s Ears from The Last of Us because apparently that mother fucker can just hear through walls. 

And maybe.... uhhh... The lady from The Sexy Brutale who can hear codes being typed in on keypads from the room over? That’s lit.

Goddamn my arms would just be horrifying tendrils though. Imagine if this combined with my feet that are hands and I’m just a four-eared two-handed monster crawling around listening with my big stalk-ears?!

God help us for this image will never leave my brain.

Ah so you play the Wraith eh?? Well that’s good to know. Time to get my STRATS ready. Of course you’d play the most broken monster though.

And probably never but I’m keeping the dream going.

Evolve was good you guys.

9.0/10, Irrational Passions.

I REVIEWED IT.

http://irrationalpassions.com/evolve-review/

That’s it! That’s the show and the whole kitten-caboodle. 

It’s been a long week but keep things on the up and up. We’re about to move into February and I’m about to launch a cool new show and IP is working on some cool stuff to look forward to. So get hype!

oh and please keep it on the real.

(this gif of Danny laughing on Table Flip just miraculously popped up on my gif search and it’s a gift to you, me, and the GG gods, so enjoy)

#video games #gaming #the witcher 3 #celeste #questions #sunday #sunday chats

[jonathanalumbaugh]

Weekly Digest

Dec 23, 2017, 4th issue.

A roundup of stuff I consumed this week. Published weekly. All reading is excerpted from the main article unless otherwise noted.

Read

When women are discussed on the main economics discussion forum, the conversation moves from the professional to the personal...

Even with generous subsidies, low-income people are still unlikely to buy health insurance...

Managers are biased negatively against minority workers, and this, in turn, makes the minority workers perform worse...

Living standards may be growing faster than GDP growth...

The World Bank’s $1-a-day poverty line inadequately deals with local context, and a better measure can be derived through more complicated math...

Decriminalizing sex work makes it safer and more common...

Poor kids who grow up in rich neighborhoods do a lot better than poor kids who grow up in poor ones...

Better trained doctors mean fewer opioid related deaths...

After a bad outcome, female surgeon’s referrals went down much more than male surgeons...

The average worker does not value an Uber-like ability to set their own schedule...

Foreign finance has led to more inequality...

Preschool programs targeted at the poor don’t work nearly as well as universal pre-school programs...

Shocks to the economy in certain sectors can have larger effects on the entire economy than previously thought...

— 13 economists on the research that shaped our world in 2017

Comments section: Pilote345 - NO WONDER: Recently, the pilots' pay was less than it was in the 1980's. They might be trying to improve, but for example, I just now found Allegiant Air found pays MD-80 1st Officers $34,440.00, not much more than the $15/hour crowd wants for starting burger flippers.

— Airlines battle growing pilot shortage that could reach crisis levels in a few years

— APOLLO 10 0N BOARD V0ICE TRANSCRIPTION

Under Schmidt’s leadership, Google notched its fair share of not-quite-not-evil missteps. After getting everyone hooked on Gmail and Search, the company started to erode some of its original privacy promises.

— Be Kind of Evil

“People want to cast it as a choice between policy or technology as a solution but those should exist hand-in-hand. We would have never gotten renewable energy prices where they are today without really ambitious public policy. It shows the importance of bold goals,” Brown says.

— California Poised To Hit 50% Renewable Target A Full Decade Ahead Of Schedule

“Keep your phone away from your body,” the state health department writes. “Although the science is still evolving, some laboratory experiments and human health studies have suggested the possibility” that typical long-term cell phone use could be linked to “brain cancer and tumors of the acoustic nerve,” “lower sperm counts,” and “effects on learning and memory.”

— California says the only safe way to talk on your cell phone is to text

Developer infatuation with Chrome is not good — because competition between browsers is good.

— Chrome is Not the Standard

The initial physical deployment of 5G networks alone could pack a major economic punch. A 2017 Accenture report forecasts the cellular communications industry will invest $275 billion in new networks, which will create up to 3 million jobs and add some $500 billion to the United States’ gross domestic product. Longer term, researchers expect the new 5G networks to help stimulate productivity growth to rates not seen since the 1950s.

— The Coming 5G Revolution

In early tests, the company claims the feature helped to reduce ghosting behavior on its service by 25 percent.

— Dating app Hinge rolls out a new feature to reduce ‘ghosting’

Liberated from the diamond and pointing calmly eastward, perhaps a designer’s pure intent is revealed—direction for an otherwise aimless walk in the woods.

— Decoding the Mysterious Markers on the Appalachian Trail

Trade the ginkgo biloba for a bag of spinach during your next stop at the store: Leafy greens may be your best resource for boosting memory... The study involved 960 people, all between 58 and 99 and without dementia. Everyone enrolled in the study was part of the Memory and Aging Project, which has been ongoing since 1979 at the Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Washington University.

— EATING SALAD EVERY DAY KEEPS BRAINS 11 YEARS YOUNGER AND PREVENTS DEMENTIA, STUDY SHOWS

— Edward Snowden on Twitter

Commander Persera swam out into intergalactic space last week, she says in a forum post, piloting a ship called the Jack of Flames. The reason for the trip is simply to go further from Sol than anyone else (a previous record was set by one Commander Deluvian, who travelled 65,652 lightyears from Sol along a similar route). But also, she says, to bring a canister of mugs from the infamous Hutton Orbital space station into the void and leave them there. Just because.

— Elite Dangerous pilots are scrambling to rescue an explorer stranded in the void between galaxies

[Eminem says] that he's not making his music for other artists who aren't fans to begin with.

— Eminem Responds to Vince Staples’ Criticism of Him

Reports so far claim the spec will offer support for low, mid, and high-band spectrum from below 1 GHz (like 600 and 700 MHz) all the way up to around 50 GHz while including the 3.5 GHz band. It’s been said that the first 5G networks for consumers will begin rolling out in 2019 and this will continue throughout 2020.

— First 5G Specification has been Declared Complete by the 3GPP

As Brian and his wife wandered off toward the No. 2 train afterward, it crossed my mind that he was the kind of guy who might have ended up a groomsman at my wedding if we had met in college. That was four years ago. We’ve seen each other four times since. We are “friends,” but not quite friends. We keep trying to get over the hump, but life gets in the way.

— Friends of a Certain Age

Comment section: Blaming Amazon for this is wrong. The people make a choice to work for them. This is an indictment on our society that forces these people to have to work. Amazon isn’t a charity that should have to take care of people. But it’s all of us who are to blame.

— A Glimpse Inside CamperForce, Amazon's Disposable Retiree Laborers

Effective filmmakers, no matter their genre or taste, put their fingers in the air, feel for a current, and then make art that either complements or pushes against it. They distill the world they live in, which is why there’s no such thing as an apolitical film.

— How Big Screen Sci-Fi and Horror Captured 2016’s Political Paranoia

The Legislative Analyst’s Office predicts California will eventually make more than $1 billion annually from taxing recreational marijuana.

— HOW RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA IN CALIFORNIA LEFT CHEMISTS IN THE DARK

What makes for an effective office environment? Random encounters with your coworkers. And food. Lots and lots of food.

— How to Build a Collaborative Office Space Like Pixar and Google

Fidelity suggests having your yearly income saved at 30, three times your income at 40, seven times your income at 55, and 10 times your income at 67.

— How Much Should You Have Saved at Every Age?

HCI (human-computer interaction) is the study of how people interact with computers and to what extent computers are or are not developed for successful interaction with human beings.

— Human-computer interaction, from University of Birmingham

The company says it is now focused on “on developing and investing in globally scalable blockchain technology solutions,” but, as reported by Bloomberg, it has exactly zero partnerships in the works with crypto firms

— Iced Tea Maker's Stock Price Triples After Adding 'Blockchain' to Name”

9 “Should you invite someone who assaulted you to your wedding.” No.

— It Came From The Search Terms: “I Can See The Sun In Late December”

The best way to cook a steak is medium rare. Plenty of people will disagree with this statement, for different reasons.

— Medium Rare: The Best Way to Cook a Steak

It sounds like it was made by an algorithm. It checks off so many boxes it could land in anyone’s “Because you watched” recommendations.

— Netflix’s first big movie “Bright” feels like a blockbuster built by an algorithm

State law that is rarely invoked requires tied elections to be settled by “lot.”

— Oyster shucking? A duel? No, Virginia will pull a name from a film canister to settle tied election

— Parents give teacher wine with son's face on label

— Reggie Watts: Fuck Shit Stack

— Reggie Watts: Humor in music

Self-efficacy is defined as a personal judgement of "how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations".

— Self-efficacy (Wikipedia)

The problem Haven aims to address is known as an “evil maid” attack. Basically, many of the precautions you might take to protect your cybersecurity can go out the window if someone gains physical access to your device.

— Snowden's New App Turns Your Spare Android Phone into a Pocket-Sized Security System

After doing a lot of online research and making a terrible mess, I thought I could make a tutorial for humble people like me. If I can do it, you can do it too.

— The Ultimate Guide to DIY Screw Post Book Binding

The robot obediently appeared in the distance, floating next to Miller. Miller then walked into the same space as the robot and promptly disappeared. Well, mostly disappeared, I could still see his legs jutting out from the bottom of the robot. My first reaction was, “Of course that’s what happens.” But then I realized I was seeing a fictional thing created by Magic Leap technology completely obscure a real-world human being. My eyes were seeing two things existing in the same place and had decided that the creation, not the engineer, was the real thing and simply ignored Miller, at least that’s how Abovitz later explained it to me.

— We Need to Talk About Magic Leap's Freaking Goggles

What’s this mistake so many make? It’s using your current job title as your headline.

— What Your LinkedIn Headline Reveals About Your Self-Confidence At Work

With the Dec. 14 repeal, Comcast and others will be able to charge content companies exorbitant fees without, technically, blocking. This fundamentally changes how the internet works, argues Ryan Singel, a fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School.

— What will happen now that net neutrality is gone? We asked the experts

The story [Cat Person] stuck with me because I, too, have felt like the story’s main character, Margot. I have belittled myself to make a man in a vulnerable situation feel more comfortable. I have allowed myself to spend time with boys who I did not like that much but who I felt I owed my time to because they really liked me. And I have also taken part in the practice of ghosting- ignoring somebody who is texting me, instead of outright rejecting them. With time, I have gotten much better at being straightforward when someone is interested in me and the feeling is not reciprocated, but I still do the dance many women do: We exert energy into finding the most polite, passive way to get ourselves out of uncomfortable situations with men.

— Why Women Are Ghosting You

#weekly digest

[thefabulousfulcrum]

You Are Not a Rebel

via The Baffler

by Laurie Penny

IN REAL LIFE, nobody has the decency to realize that they’re the bad guy until it’s too late. The worst thing about the historical record is that it is usually written after the fact. Just think, if we could only get our hands on advance copies of tomorrow’s historical bestsellers, we could work out once and for all how we fit into this cruel and anxious age we’re living through, and get a sneak peek at the ending to see who ends up dead, decked out with medals, or living incognito in South America. Sadly, that would hardly help those of us who are most dangerously confused. The people who most urgently need to consider which side of the moral ledger their story will be written on tend to read few books in which they are not the hero.

It’s hard realizing that you’re the bad guy, because then you have to do something about it. That’s why the most aggressive players on the gory stage of political melodrama act in such bad faith, hanging on to their own sense of persecution, mouthing the plagiarized playbook of an oppression they don’t comprehend because they don’t care to. These people have a way of fumbling through their self-set roles till the bloody final act, but if we can flip the script, we might yet stop the show.

Let us remember, then, that in the violent psychodrama going on in their own minds, modern reactionaries, almost to a man, think that they are the hero. They think they’re the plucky underdog. They continue to think this even with their tiny-fingered mascot bellowing over the White House lawns and their agenda ascendant around the world, and I know, I know it makes no sense. But dogma doesn’t have to. And one of the articles of faith uniting all our modern proto-fascists, crypto-fascists, baby-fascists, whining 4chan fascists, and the growing number of fascists for whom any sort of prefix is redundant is that they all think they are rebels. 

The new far right has recognized the enduring appeal of adventurism and appropriated its rhetoric for reactionary ends.  Propaganda hubs like The Rebel repackage far right ideas as edgy and avant-garde, reassuring recruits that they are hip outsiders in a mass of squares and normies. This is a time-worn trick. As George Orwell observed in a review of Mein Kampf, “whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger, and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.” 

This is what happens when we fetishize the romance of rebellion while making actual social change impossible.

Fighting for people who are less privileged than you to become even less privileged than you is hardly a revolutionary mission. CEOs do it all the time. Last year I was interviewed for a Vicedocumentary about the relationship between Gamergate and the new far right. I remember that to get the shot at the right level, I had to half-sit and half-stand on a fancy sideboard. While I was engaging my core muscles trying to balance, the affable hipster doing the interview asked, “But aren’t the guys a bit underground? Aren’t they a bit counter-culture?” I was so flabbergasted that I fell off my perch. Yes, I told him, they are underground, a bit. But even Vice magazine, which is woke enough as long as woke sells ads��another Viceeditor told me authoritatively a few years ago that “it’s not cool to be stupid anymore”—even they can surely see that simply being “underground” does not make something fit to dredge up. A lot of things run underground that would be better off staying there. Sewers, for instance.

This is what happens when we equate “anti-social” with “anti-establishment.” The far right think they’re the resistance. They think they’re Mel Gibson in Braveheart, when they’re actually just regular old Mel Gibson, screaming about bitches and whores and Jews and then wondering why no one answers their phone calls anymore. Well played, Rob Roy. 

The Shitler Youth come in many flavors of plausible deniability, but none are quite so woefully iconic as everyone’s favorite ship of fools: the fake pirates of Defend Europe. 

In case you hadn’t heard, a few months ago some white supremacists decided that the rescue boats trying to save desperate people from drowning in the Mediterranean were a threat to “European” way of life. (I will not dignify them with the term “activists,” because activists have meetings and have read things that aren’t spittle-flecked sexually paranoid internet retro-rants about white people being bred out of existence.) They decided to solve the problem by pursuing a merry life of adventure on the high seas. No, really. These rudderless twits went ahead and chartered a boat, with the initial, unabashedly evil intention of impeding the rescue ships, a plan which was quickly changed to “monitoring” said ships, as apparently nobody had any idea how to do actual sea battle, because whatever the copyright people told us, downloading a lot of free porn does not, by itself, make you a pirate.

They got a lot of press, of course, which was part of the idea—there’s no point being a rebel if you can’t get your picture in the paper. They even got Katie Hopkins, Britain’s own dollar-store Eva Braun, to come along for part of the ride, presumably as some sort of totem against shipwreck, because any self-respecting god of the ocean would spit Hopkins right back out again. Deliciously, before they had even managed to embark on their main voyage, they accidentally smuggled twenty-one Sri Lankan asylum seekers into Europe. Then their boat stalled in the middle of the Mediterranean sea. The founder of the Sea-Eye, the NGO ship that was sent to offer aid—the pouting stalwarts refused help—told the public that “to help a ship in distress is the duty of anyone who is at sea, without distinction to their origin, color, religion, or beliefs.” Hopefully the Sea-Eye was also stocked with burn cream.[*] 

The very worst part about this entire episode is that an actual rescue ship was diverted to help these cretins, a rescue ship that could have been saving people who are really fleeing for their lives, rather than simply fleeing reality. I’m not going to permit myself to wish the baby-fascists had fucking drowned, but I do hope the stalled vessel gave these quisling Quixotes time to check out their own reflection in the surface of the sea and wonder whether being “underground” was quite so much fun anymore. I also hope that when they make the movie of this, every single one of them is played by Nicolas Cage in a variety of unconvincing wigs.

Claiming that anti-fascists are morally equivalent to fascists is a little like claiming that, as both take a toll on the body, cancer and chemotherapy are basically the same.

In the United States, radicalized extremists on the far right are also due for a rebrand, having been embarrassed on the international stage in Charlottesville by fellow travelers who took the street-fighting-Nazi live-action roleplay too far, marched around screaming about being replaced by Jews, and murdered someone. The Shitler Youth are now going through desperate conniptions trying to claim that anti-fascists are morally equivalent to fascists, that “all sides” are aggressive and forthright, which is a little like claiming that, as both take a toll on the body, cancer and chemotherapy are basically the same.

Shit got real, eh? One minute you’re a nice normal boy with hobbies and internet friends, and the next, your picture’s all over the place holding a torch and doing the Nuremberg uglyface and your parents won’t talk to you because everyone thinks you’re a militant racist, and they’re right. If I may talk directly to these self-deluding subterraneans: I’m sorry to be the one to point this out, but you have been radicalized. There’s a reason people call you Vanilla ISIS. ISIS think they’re rebels, too. Have a good hard look at these Defend Europe twits with their rickety armada. These are your people. They’re your compadres. You are paddling beside them in the shallow end of political discourse, screaming when anything living nibbles your toes. 

This is what happens when we fetishize the romance of rebellion while making actual social change impossible. My guess is that the ruling class, the people whose agenda these people’s mean-spirited credulity serves, aren’t standing about with flaming torches screaming that they’re about to be replaced by Jews. They don’t spend their time harassing girls on the internet. They outsource that shit. To suckers. For free. Meanwhile, the ruling class is just writing the speeches and jerking the strings and watching gullible, self-anointed rebels make fools of themselves on television.

These are the very people whose names the Shitler Youth wear on their unbelievably ugly hats and t-shirts, which incidentally is exactly what happens when you let straight white guys who consider gold a neutral design your neo-fascist aesthetic. The one problem with calling these faux-rebels Nazis is that it suggests they know how to goddamned get dressed in the morning. The left are out-styling them as well as out-thinking them right now. The left! Some of us wear hemp! And t-shirts with weak science puns! And we let our flatmates cut our hair! And we spend half our time fighting each other over tiny ideological debates that started before we were born, and they still make us look good. They make us look good because they’ve swallowed the fake oppression story cooked up by propagandists on the right to recast their most reactionary opinions as risqué. 

So let’s be clear: getting fired because you hate women is not an equivalent hardship to getting fired because you happen to be one. People who have been disowned by their parents for being gay or transgender aren’t going to have sympathy when your mum and dad find your stash of homophobic murder fantasies and change the locks. Getting attacked for being a racist is not the same as getting attacked because you are black. The definition of oppression is not “failure to see your disgusting opinions about the relative human value of other living breathing people reflected in society at large.” Being shamed, including in public, for holding intolerant, bigoted opinions is not an infringement of your free speech. You are not fighting oppression. You are, at best, fighting criticism. If that’s the hill you really want to die on, fine, but don’t kid yourself it’s the moral high ground. I repeat: You cannot be a rebel for the status quo. It would be physically easier to go and fuck yourself, and I suggest you try.

The fact that some people—the women, people of color, immigrants and queer people you want put back in their proper place—disapprove of you does not make you edgy. A bag of cotton wool is edgier than you lot. Fighting for things to go back to the way they were twenty or thirty or fifty years ago does not constitute a bold resistance movement. It constitutes the militant arm of the Daily Mail comments section. Fighting real oppression involves risk, and before you start, I’m talking about real risk, not some girl on the internet calling you a cowardly subliterate waste of human skin, like I just did.  

This was gig-economy bigotry from the beginning, every bedroom hatemonger his own self-facilitating media node.

Of course, the fragile self-image of American nationalism has always been grounded in the idea of rebellion, in an aesthetic of protest and struggle for individual liberty powdering over the ugly worship of authoritarianism andhierarchy that was also baked in from the beginning. The United States has never truly stopped fighting its civil war, but the tropes and language of that war have been re-appropriated by net reactionaries in an effort to dress up their racism as rebellion, which by coincidence was part of what the war was about in the first place. That’s why there’s such attachment to the confederate or “rebel” flag among conservatives, even in states which fought for the Union; even in states which did not exist at the time. And this investment in maintaining a state of permanent rebellion is why net reactionaries have no idea what to do now they’re technically in power, like the confused golden retriever who finally catches that Ford Focus, except far less fluffy. 

Mewling subluminaries have, for years, approached backyard fascism as a growth industry—why stop now? These enterprising intellectual bantamweights did not wait for the mechanisms of state and party to show them how to goose-step or gather seed money—this was gig-economy bigotry from the beginning, every bedroom hatemonger his own self-facilitating media node, like a sort of fascist Nathan Barley. The millennials among them have merely done what the television told us all to do as kids: find your passion and make it your career. It’s just a shame that their passion happens to be the creation of a white ethnostate with a stack of sexually frustrated video rants as a transitional demand.

So propping up the establishment does not sit well with their sense of themselves as brave, entrepreneurial outsiders battling the forces of something-or-other. Perhaps it feels strange to be told you have won when nothing in your own actual, material life has changed. Perhaps winning didn’t taste as good as the picture on the package. They were promised thrills and spills and danger and adventure and instead they’re on the haunted teacup ride through the wreckage of civil society and they’re feeling a bit sick but they’ve given the man their money, so they can’t get off.

And in any case this is not the sort of game you just win or lose. Politics doesn’t work like that, although in fairness, the sense that it does is one of several delusions they share with the political elites they claim to despise. Playing by those rules is a great way to make sure that the house always wins. What’s changed in the world in the months since their team supposedly won? The rich are still running things, they’re just a lot less shy about it. Living standards have gone nowhere but down. The planet is still sizzling towards climate collapse, and I know they think that’s not real, but you don’t have to believe in a train to get run down by it with everyone you care about while you stand in the middle of the tracks screaming about cucks and Jews like a prize prick.

One major thing, however, has changed, and that is that an awful lot of people who happen to be foreign, or female, or members of a different race or faith from these fools are suddenly living in fear of violence, violence the Shitler Youth and their crewmates helped whip up to make themselves feel like big damn heroes. Because they wanted to feel like they were fighting the power without actually having to challenge anyone who had it.

If you’ve a niggling suspicion I might be talking about you here, it’s time to take a look at your own reflection in whatever screen you’re reading off. If you want to cosplay as a revolutionary from a made-up time before brown people and liberated women existed, go and drink mead at a Ren fair like a normal person. If you just want to be famous on the internet, go and make some porn. If you can’t get over your fetish for fake oppression, go and hang out in a club where people wear expensive black rubber and get yourself consensually flogged by someone with legitimate rage to work through. But don’t call yourself a revolutionary just because you can’t stop running in circles.

[*]  Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly suggested that the crew of the Defend Europe vessel had been rescued by the Sea-Eye. Although the Sea-Eye was temporarily diverted to travel toward the Defend Europe boat and offer aid, the latter crew refused help and the rescue ship carried on its operations. The fascists’ boat later restarted.