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fyexo · 4 years

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EXO's Kai Talks Independence, Motivation And His Incredible Career

There’s the saying that you’ve made it into the upper echelons of fame when you achieve single-name status. Monikers like Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, and Billie Eilish ring a bell for they’ve relentlessly dominated not just the music charts, but pop culture, fashion and news in general. Then there’s also Kai. The 26-year-old main dancer of popular K-pop boy group EXO and a member of global K-pop boyband SuperM, beloved for his powerful moves, and experimental style — read: crop tops — that challenges the traditional markers of masculinity.

Today, it’s clear that the space Kai inhabits has only gotten bigger since his debut eight years ago, most recently wearing the hat of Gucci’s first-ever Korean male global ambassador — dismantling cultural boundaries and parlaying the mononym, Kai, beyond the K-Pop realm. In this cover interview, the superstar chats candidly about going global, being independent, and why he felt like he needed an Instagram account.

Some time ago you revealed the results of your personality test on Instagram live. With regard to the question “Have you wondered about your existence?”, you answered that you have.

I think I have always thought about the question, “Why was I born?”. Also, I often wonder about questions like, “Why am I not born as someone else but as me; is the world I see through my eyes different from another person’s point of view?”

You revealed that you have an INFJ personality type based on the MBTI — it seems quite accurate.

I don’t really remember my result, so I plan to take it again. My family has taken it too, and after seeing my mum’s result I thought it seemed like a very credible test [laughs]. My mum is a dreamer. Even before I debuted, she said, “You like to dress up, and because I brought you up in that way you are definitely going to have something to do with fashion brands in the future.” Naturally, when I became a Gucci ambassador, she was ecstatic.

Your Instagram feed’s theme is filled with “EXO”, “family” and “Gucci”.

I created my account in 2018 when I was having a shoot with ELLE for Gucci’s Cruise show. I’ve always known that social media was important, but I really felt that even more when a lot of celebrities asked for my account during the show.

You participated in the filming of a global eyewear campaign that was revealed not too long ago in the Amoeba Music store in Los Angeles. Was it a special experience for you as a musician?

Of course, it was supposed to be closed down and so the fact that I managed to take pictures and create memories of that historical place made me feel happy and blessed. The production crew were all non-Koreans, and the atmosphere at the location was different as well so it was all very nerve-racking. I felt like I had gone back in time to when I first debuted.

Even Kai gets nervous. Have you had any other similar experiences when a location you liked disappeared or closed down?

The old SM building I grew up in when I was a trainee and formed so many memories [at] just recently underwent some remodeling works. The rooftop and a few other spaces where I spent so much of my time have all disappeared. Those were places that meant so much to me, so with the new changes made, I was able to actually realise how much time has passed.

There are many people with a good [sense of] style. [Your] outstanding point is that when you try out different styles, it doesn’t seem foreign [to you].

I think that cool and pretty things can be captured easily but capturing a specific concept — in terms of fashion — can be a difficult feat. I use that mentality as an excuse to try out different styles of fashion that I would not have dared to in my daily life, such as the reggae hairstyle that I did in Growl, or the short crop jacket that I wore during my promotions for Obsession. I think two weeks is more than enough to prepare and try out new things [laughs].

You have made appearances in variety programmes such as Knowing Brothers and Radio Star last year. Were these experiences enjoyable?

Thanks to the humorous moments that came about, I actually received many offers from other shows. However, I was worried that the Kai that I portray on stage could be hindered by my different sides shown on TV, and that it might be difficult for anyone to focus on my performances due to the drastic differences.

I can’t not mention SuperM’s group promotions. Three different groups under SM came together to form this sub-unit, as part of a project!

When EXO went on our American tours, we experienced that culturally, races and traditions had been blurred. I could feel that there was less of a “line” separating us. I was able to approach fans more easily; I don’t think there’s a limit to K-Pop. I don’t need to deliberately mention the [global] success of Parasite. The fact that I became the global ambassador of Gucci eyewear proves that race does not matter at all, but it’s more about one’s talents and charisma.

Personally, I felt the progress of K-Pop after watching the safety briefing videos that SuperM and BoA shot together for Korean Airlines.

I am too shy to watch it, but I did receive a lot of video stills of myself from my friends and they didn’t look good at all. They keep sending me parts where I look bad [laughs].

Due to your performances and dancing, I think the pressure on the stage is incredible.

Usually I don’t have much worries, stress, or even anger, but it’s different right before going up on stage. I get so stressed to the point it can be tiring. Honestly, waking up at six in the morning with hardly any sleep just to pre-record our performances for music shows — it sounds impossible. I’m only able to show 20 per cent of my all and that is really sad. Last year was such a busy year, I hardly had any time to recharge myself nor did I feel I was ready to stand on stage, but the show still had to go on. I was not fully satisfied with the performances as a dancer, but it just has to be endured.

What are the reasons that you are able to carry on despite all the difficulties?

The contentment after I get things done, and the comfort that I was able to pull through. On the other hand, I think the sincerity I feel towards everything I do and the constant ambition to do things better is a huge motivation and a relief when I accomplish it. If I don’t feel this way, it will mean that this work no longer means as much as it did to me in the past. Showing my fans the best version of myself, and the comfort and happiness I feel when I’m contented with my performance or work, is really important to me. In the past I couldn’t even sleep after making one mistake, but I sleep really well now [laughs].

And dancing is still something you enjoy?

I’ve been dancing for almost 20 years now. I can’t not dance. Even when I was young, I’d dance everywhere and anywhere, to the extent my mum said, “Stop dancing, it’s embarrassing.”

It’s well known that you have some really special and tight relationships with a few people around you. Do you get any inspiration from their advice, or from their influence?

I’m not the type to ask for advice from anyone first. Even when I ask what’s the better of two choices, I already have an answer [that I’ve] decided on in my mind. I’ve always felt that I needed to be independent; to [think for myself] when I decide, in order to be able to say that it is “mine”.

So, you’re a man of few words around people.

If they want me to be. If necessary, I will say good things, but more [so] the realistic point of view. I always think of the worst possible situation before saying anything [when giving advice], so those who know me well will not ask me trivial questions. When things go south or important decisions to be made, they will look for me. As for myself, I humbly listen to criticism or harsh words.

“Sexy” and “beautiful” are words that you probably hear a lot, but your fans call you “cute”. Which sides of yourself do you think are cute?

None! Even if I have thought of myself as cute, I won’t say it or admit it [laughs].

There are many people who idolise you as they see you as an iconic person. Does [the phrase] “a symbolic beauty of youth” or any other nicknames that you carry, feel a little too exaggerated?

Everyone views me differently, so I can’t say that it’s burdensome or exaggerated. Instead, I’m thankful. I don’t want to think of these nicknames or titles consciously as I live my life. Like, “Oh since they call me this, I should try to behave a little more as such”. I only want to show my true self without having other considerations — always.

What do you consider to be beautiful?

Definitely cool clothes, sculptures, drawings and paintings. When I look at some really good-looking people, I feel that that is beauty too. But personally, I think that true beauty lies in moments. Past memories and ordinary moments that when you look back, [you] realise that what you felt back then was more beautiful and precious than any other happiness that you’ve experienced.

A line from the drama The Miracle We Met pops into my mind — “Memory isnot [just] a record of time, but [is always]accompanied by emotions. That’s something surprising we never expect.”

Good memories always bring back rushing emotions, regardless of when you look back at it. That is really beautiful, and that is why I really love watching movies with film static noise, as it seems like I’m looking into someone’s memories.

Your name Jong (鍾) comes from“iron drum bell” and In (仁) comes from “benevolent”. Your grandfather named you that, which means to be as benevolent as the person who rings the morning bell. Throughout your life, have you ever thought about the meaning behind your name?

Hmmm, firstly, I’m not a morning person [laughs], but hitting the bell at dawn means to be of use to someone and to [have] more initiative, so I do want to live up to that and inspire others. Perhaps I could already be doing just that, I’m not sure.

I’m sure you’ve garnered plenty of praise for your dance techniques, but the shoot today focused quite a bit on your looks too. Which feature of yours do you like?

I do like to think that I have my own attractive features, like my small ears or a round bear like nose which most would say is so-so — but I still like them. If I really had to choose, it would be my chin and eyebrows for now. I think these two features make up 80 per cent of my defining look.

What does family mean to you?

Family is family. There may be no one in the world who will be completely on my side, but my family will still accept me as I am. I grew up happily with two siblings, and so if I were to have a family of my own, I always thought three kids would be just nice. But now when I look at my sister struggling with childcare, I realised it’s definitely not something to think lightly of. My family members are also my seniors (sunbae) in life.

Your eight-year anniversary is coming up soon, and you’ve probably been through many hardships. Do you think it is necessary for a person to go through pain to mature?

Looking back now, not all hardships have changed my nature; I personally don’t see the need for a person to go through change and pain in order to mature. But you know there is going to be a tough time for everyone at least once in their lifetime, and it’s not so bad a thing to be positive and think of precious things to get through it. Most importantly, just because you’re going through something difficult doesn’t mean you should hate yourself or be hard on yourself, because the most precious thing in the world is yourself.

Some may look at you and think that you’ve got it all. In spite of this, is there still anything that you wish to have, and is there a further goal you have in mind?

Before my debut, I had a lot of ambitions but the Kai I am today doesn’t have anything else I could wish for. I don’t think the place I am today is my final station but even if it is, I would be okay with that. Even if my debut was the end, I am proud of the life I’ve led, and I would be super proud of whatever I do. I am able to say this confidently because I learnt that the more fixated I am on something, the less happy I am. I learnt that it is better to focus on and enjoy the present; to enjoy doing what you do.

What type of person do you hope to be to your loved ones?

There is only one thing I wish for and that is for them to always be by my side no matter what decisions I make. Likewise, I will do the same.

SOURCE: Elle Singapore June 2020

#exo #kai #t: interview #elle singapore june 2020

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durifmdarchived · 3 years

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a headcanon about duri & his lesson plan for hot topic(k).

word count: 907. about: duri’s lesson plan for hot topic(k). honestly just a super nice boy, truly. notes: i’ll be honest, i have no idea what i’m doing. also thank u to jamie for the inspiration.

coming to the filming for the position evaluation, duri had already prepared as much as he could in advanced - just so he knew what he was fully dealing with song wise for hot topic(k).

he requested the songs and sheet music before hand, even the lyrics that they’d be using in the song. he wanted to be completely familiar with the songs, before he decided how he’d help evaluate the songs, give his advice on what they should or shouldn’t do, as well as help teach them in this.

he listened to them over and over again, sang them to himself multiple times, and simply just studied them as much as he could. he didn’t want to go to the filming seemingly unprepared and wanted to be more so over prepared for what was ahead. he was, of course, mentoring the possible future big boy group, and he wanted to be sure to help them out as much as he could.

he looked forward to both of the songs, downpour and playing with fire. they both have their own difficulties for singing and how to go about it, but duri was sure to make a few different notes on what to do, and what to focus on when it came to advice.

this would be things on how to sing it, how not to damage your voice with the edginess of playing with fire, and how to hit the high notes of downpour with ease - among a few different things that would be useful for him to use while on scene.

duri would be playing upon a i’m your friend, but also your teacher type of mentor vibe. generally, he would be going at everything in a rather sweet and friendly way, especially because he wasn’t entirely sure how else to be, to say the least. someone can do not the best, and he’d still manage to tell them that they were doing great, while also giving them some pointers, and how to go about it.

after introducing himself and greeting excited trainees because a member of knight was mentoring them, duri would want to start with a vocal warm-up, and would get them a useful warm-up to use. he wanted to make sure their voices were ready to go and no vocal cracks would possibly occur, since those always suck.

he would have both of the groups perform their assigned songs, and he was sure to have a pen and paper to write down anything that needed to be addressed in both performances of vocals. he wanted to make sure he captured things, and had the notes written down before he’d address them himself. he’d address his notes, what needed to be changed, or worked on, and of course giving them the pointers that were needed. he does this all while praising them, especially because a lot of them seemingly looked a bit more worried.

luckily, duri is able to advise on both downpour and playing with fire, as both knight and his own solo songs, encompass both that ballad-soft sound and the hard hitting, almost edgier sound. having those experiences generally helps him out with this.

however, he does anticipate being the one who works more on playing with fire, because of having more experience in the realm. while letting his good friend and co-mentor, nina, take more of the reign on downpour, since aria’s experience is more in the softer sound. he’s more than okay with that, to say the least. but, he’s still sure to hand out downpour pointers when needed.

when it comes to downpour, the only thing he addresses is hitting the high note and how to accurately do it with a masculine voice in a rather soft song.

he, knows, however, he’ll really have to deal with the tone and edginess of playing with fire, but he does end up doing rather well with it. he makes sure there isn’t a possibly of them straining their voices and using their natural voices to fit the tone of the song. they still needed the rock sound, but he was going to help them achieve that without actually hurting their voices in anyway.

he works with them on everything, as much as he could in the time allotted to him. he was sure to bring them water bottles, to make sure they stayed hydrated, as well as giving them rest when he decided it was best. you always need your rest, so he wanted to be sure to give them that.

of course, it wouldn’t be a time with duri if there wasn’t a bunch of giggling happy, and somehow, that training room seemed to be brighter and that broadcasted episode would feel a bit brighter, and like there was less pressure in some way. but, it was really nice to see, to say the least.

at the end, he would gather the trainees back around to praise them once again, and tell them that hyung is rooting for them. he’d also tell them that he would be there during the performance recording to cheer for them, just to have that added praise that he wanted to give them.

he thinks they walked away learning something about vocals and vocal ability, and he believes he may have learned something from them as well. he knew that they would easily have this now, especially because they worked so hard for him.

#fmdht2 #�� headcanon. ⌝

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mrkingdaresso · 3 years

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Ironman 4

In the beginning of Iron Man 4, you can see dictator Kim Jong-Un sending threatening messages to the United States about nuking them. Kim Jong-Un is one of the villains in this movie and the US government is quite scared of him. The US is one nuke away from complete destruction after New York and California got hit with nuclear bombs. The start of the movie shows Kim Jong-Un destroying New York and California with the push of a button. The United States and its government are in dismay and don't know what to do without causing complete nuclear war. Kim Jong Un threatens to start a war over Tony Starks life because everyone wants him dead because hes so smart. That's why he bombed california. Trump and kim jong un appear tweeting each other. Trump calls kim jong un rocketman for his love of rockets and kim jong un calls him dodard. The two are fighting over the bombing of california. Trump meet with kim jong un in 2019 over creating peace between the nations but to no avail. Kim jong un just started a war with america and america doesn’t know what to do without starting nuclear war. Trump says Kim Jong Un and I fell in love at the summit. Both of us really liked each other but we couldn’t come to agreement but have mutual respect for each other but the respect is over now trump says. He is baffled and doesn’t know what to do about North korea. (War Pigs by Black Sabbath) MODOK, the main villain of Ironman 4 is going to use Kim Jong-Un’s power, bombs and supplies to take out of the United States and Tony Stark. MODOK happened to meet Kim Jong-Un while Kim was buying Vibranium in Wakanda Kim was buying vibranium to use for nuclear weapons, and modok was doing the same thing there buying nuclear weapons. They hit it off for there hatred of tony stark, love for time travel, and love for nuclear weapons. Thats what they talk about while in Wakanda. MODOK is very smart an is a researcher in time travel and nuclear weapons. Two things that are dear to kim jong uns heart, so they hit in off. It happens that MODOK created the nuclear weapons for Kim bombing California. The nuclear weapons now have a capacity to travel across the world according to the new technology created by modok. The ballistic missles are powerful, massive, and extremely accurate. Kim only wanted to bomb califnornia because he hates hollywood and celebrities the most. He is very jealous of there rich and famous lifestyle but loves to watch them on american tv. MODOK is very smart villian that has unlimited intelligence and sits in a wheelchair because he is so smart. MODOK works with North Korean scientists and Kim Jong un on time travel. The north koreans were the first to realize the power of black holes which I will explain later. MODOK and north korean scientists are competing with the united states on who would create the time machine first. They time time machine is possible because there is a black hole approaching that just ate up Venus/Mercury and its temperature is really hot. As explained later, because the temperature is really hot in the black hole, the scientists realize that time travel is possible. MODOK and kim Jong Un want to capture Tony Stark because he has hidden secrets about the time machine that they don't know about. (I hate everything about you by three days grace) A black hole is composed of both waves and particles. It is formed when a star collapses leaving an empty black space and pulls everything into its path. It is defined by Prof. Stephen Hawking as a region of space-time from which nothing, not even light can example, because gravity is so strong. Even though it is called a “black hole” it is not really black and emits light. NASA found a black hole a 700,000 kilometers away from the Earth’s moon using satellites. If the black hole gets closer to Earth’s Moon it can pull the Moon into its orbit and disrupt the ocean’s tides potentially causing extreme weather changes like an ice age. Also, nighttime would be darker and certain animals that rely on the ocean’s tides would become extinct. (Black hole sun by Soundgarden) Tony start meets some kid that is interested in him. The kid is really mechanical and knows everything about building stuff so Tony bonds with him. (kid from ironman 3). He gifts him an ironman suit and an extra tony stark arc resonator. He teaches the kid the ropes about building the suits and they bond. Ironman loves the kid and plans to take him around as they learn more about the time machine and what is needed to make it run. Tony and the kid travels to geneva Switzerland to learn about particle accelerators. He learns that when two protons collide in a particle accelerator, minature black holes are made due to einstein's theory of reality. The theory is that when a mass is squeezed into a small amount of space, the protons are made up of quarks and when they do not fall past each other but hit each other head on black holes form. The minature black holes evaporate as fast as they are created because of hawking radiation. Tony then figures out that if you make it cooler or colder and supercool it less hawking radiation is produced and the black hole don't evaporate as fast promoting time travel. The black holes are produced at one person second and only Tony knows how to pick the ones that are stable using computer modeling. Tony uses magnets to create more proton collissions and the stronger than magnets the longer the black hole is open for. The kid helps tony make a quadruple sided magnet which creates 4 times the proton collisions. Tony then uses rb-235 to weaken the black holes suction power. rb-235 causes negative acceleration on the black hole pulling the acceleration the other way weakening the power of the suction. Tony stark and the kid made a mini black hole in the lab and proved Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation is when photons or light emit from a black hole. Stark and the kid made a black hole composed of sound in which when Helium is cooled to just above sound doesn’t pass through the black hole. However, due to hawking radiation, as explained above, photons (the packets of energy that make up sound) emit from the black hole. Stark and the kid also found out that Rb-235 causes negative acceleration, which according to Stark break none of Newton’s Laws of Motion. Tony Stark and the kid thinks that since Rb-235 produces negative acceleration, it can close a black hole. The world’s leading scientists try to calculate the amount of Rb-235 needed to close a black hole. They come up with an exponentially large number and Mr. Stark thinks they should collect all the Rudibidum-235 in the world. “We are going to need a lot of it to close a black hole”, Stark says. The Rubidium is collected from research facilities all over the world and given to NASA for its mission. (kids by MGMT) President Donald J. Trump comments on the black hole and issues a warning to the United States: He says, “The black hole is approaching earth’s moon and could have devastating effects on life as we know it” It needs to be closed because the weather will be too extreme for life to exist on Earth. It needs to be closed. President Trump asks Col. James Rhodes to ask if Tony Stark can help, since he can figure out anything. Col. Rhodes approaches Tony and Tony reluctant at first says “yes”. Tony only says “yes” because Trump promised him the Nobel Peace Prize if he saves the world (again). (Cult of personality by Living Colour) Stark is leading a group of NASA astronauts to travel to the black hole. He theorizes that enough Rubidium will close the black hole, but they have to worry about getting to close. Tony uses his tech-savvy ways to produce extra Ironman suits in case the astronauts get sucked into the black hole. A team of 12 astronauts are now dressed in Ironman suits. The Ironman suites will protect them from total destruction in case they get sucked into the black hole. Basically, it will save their life in case the pressure in the black hole gets to be infinitely large. The team of 13 including Stark himself launch into space with a spaceship. The black hole is 174 days away traveling at light speed. They carry 50,000 tons of Rb-235 on the space ship and plan to use a high-tech laser to close the black hole with the Rb-235. 173 days have passed and they are 1 day away from the black hole, but get sucked into it. No one knows if the Rb-235 works and NASA loses communication with Tony Stark and Co. Since the black hole was a supermassive black hole, the gravitational pull on the astronauts and Tony Stark didn’t break apart the Ironman suits. Had it been a smaller black hole, the gravitational pull would have been to strong and even go through the Ironman suites. The astronauts and Tony Stark described the experience as “traveling at light speed feeling like you are getting tore apart. Tony Stark then says, we were lucky it was a big black hole, any smaller we would have been sawdust. Luckily we didn’t fade to black.” Everyone is wondering if the astronauts and Ironman are dead or did the suit protect them. No one really knows. A leading scientist, Stephen Hawking says “If the Ironman suit protects them they are traveling time and will be emitted through a white hole. “What is a white hole?” a reporter asks. “A white hole is everything that a black hole emits at the end of its journey including light.” After traveling time for 2 years the astronauts & Tony Stark wind up on the one of Saturn’s moons. After coming back to the galaxy, NASA restores communication with Stark & Co. Tony and the astronauts still fully dressed in Ironman suites use the suits to travel back to Earth with one-percent of battery left. They are then greeted by reporters who demand a press conference. The astronauts and Tony Stark collectively say to the world “We made history, we traveled time!” Stark then says, “It all depends on the size of the black hole on how much time you travel. The bigger the black hole the more time traveled. The problem with it is there aren’t many black holes just floating around.” He then goes on his favorite radio station 99.1 PLR the classic rock and alternative station to explain to chaz and aj about the time machine. He tells them that it needs to be done in space and since mercury got sucked in we can be sucked out as a piece of hawking radiation. Chaz and AJ joke with Ironman about his lack of luck finding love and Tony tells them he really loves Pepper no matter what. Ive loved her since the beginning and will continue to love her. Ironman tells Chaz and AJ he really appreciates the music since music helps him get through the day and the interview is over. (Rocketman by Elton John) Tony excited about traveling time wants to tell his girlfriend Pepper Potts. He quickly travels from the press conference to Pepper’s home and after bragging about traveling time for an hour Tony undresses Ms. Potts. They have passionate aggressive sex together but Tony goes too far asking for a lewd sexual act. Tony was so excited to see Pepper that it was the sixth time they had sex that day. Tony then orders pizza for him and Pepper after they have sex for the last time. It had a surprise in it “crack cocaine.” Pepper disgusted at Tony refuses to eat, saving herself from the crack cocaine. Pepper then says “Fuck you Tony all you want is sex you don’t love me”. “You really don’t!!” She then runs away from Tony, this time leaving for good. Tony is left alone on his couch at Stark Industries eating pizza and watching TV. Before leaving Pepper calls the cops on Tony and claims he heard a voice from her. Tony admits to it and the cops take him to the hospital. He is reprimanded to 1 week of the psych ward. A team of psychiatrists put Tony Stark in a psychiatric facility from hearing voices from pepper. After pepper committs Tony the psychiatrists begin to evaluate Tony. He at first lies to the psychiatrists saying he doesn't hear voices. The psychiatrists know he is lying so they inject him with 450 mg of haldol deconate. They then try to make him hear voices by putting peppers voice in a recording right near his bed that sounds exactly like her and they constantly talk and whisper about him. He realizes what's going on so he doesn't hear voices. After closer evaluation and bouts of crying he then he heard a voice from pepper; he says its because he loves her and that is his true love. He begins crying about pepper because shes the only thing he can dream and visualize and think about. The team of psychiatrists say Ironman has the same genetics as John Forbes Nash Jr and therefore he is a schizoprenic. They also say thats why he can figure out anything. They say he is also good at everything and doesn't care about anything except for pepper thats why he is not hearing voices. Tony takes the psychiatrists to AOT court and wins in court because the judge happened to like him. He says he only heard a voice from her because he loves her and he was on crack cocaine. The psychiatrist in his corner says it was drug induced and therefore he is not mentally ill. The defense rested and the judge lets Ironman off saying he is in no capacity mentally ill and actually a fine member of society. (S & M by Rhianna) (All apologies by Nirvana) Pepper leaves Tony’s building to go cry to the Hulk. Pepper is lonely and confused then falls into Hulks giant arms and hugs him. They then begin to cuddle over chocolate and coffee and the Hulk begins to talk about his love for working out as Pepper just listens. Hulk and Pepper cuddled all night and Pepper said “this is the greatest night I have ever had, better than any night with Iron Man. All he wants is sex. Pepper then says “I love you Bruce” and they begin a close relationship together. (Layla by Eric Clapton) Tony realizes the crack messed him up but gets addicted to crack cocaine and blows his fortune on it. It didn’t really lower his intelligence that much though, but his visualization skills are really low now. It seems that after his intense use of crack cocaine the only thing he can visualize anymore is Pepper. Tony vows to never use crack cocaine again and figures out that when sugar and vitamin c compete in the bonding of molecules in the body since they are chemically similar you can promote visualization, however it is not permanent. After completing rehab, Tony goes on a coffee binge because crack cocaine withdrawal causes a person to love stimulants and realizes he has to go back to the black hole to close it before the world ends as we know it. Tony’s two favorite drinks now are coffee & orange juice because of its sugar and vitamin c content helping him visualize better and coffee because it helps him think. (Cocaine by Eric Clapton) or (Medicate by theory of a deadman) Cocaine for him doing cocaine and medicate for him drinking coffee. After someone puts crack cocaine in his signature coffee Ironman realizes he can't visualize anything other than pepper. He also realizes he starts reasoning like the scientist Newton with his left brain over compensating for his right. Remember the right brain deals with visualizing and the left brain deals with logic, language, and reasoning. He also realizes he loves pepper even more because thats all he can visualize. He said he doesn't need to visualize to create the time machine, only reason. Tony Stark has a dream of his father giving his first cup of coffee. He remembers it vividly as it was an event in his past and his father, Howard, said that was all he needed to change the world. After the dream, he realizes that the coffee is the reason he is so smart. He realizes that coffee has a lot of cognitive benefits and it makes him who he is. The coffee is the reason he can figure out things so fast. Without the coffee he'd be stuck at DSS and no one would care. He then gets send to DSS because he has no money. He also can't get a woman. He begins selling coffee and starts a smoking habit at DSS. He begins selling coffee and cigarettes to make the lil money he has. He makes a lot of friends at DSS but they all hate him because they know he is better than him and he doesn't belong there. They steal his coffee and then Ironman realizes hes just like them without the coffee. He starts to feel sorry for himself and decides to go to a hooker. While at DSS, Kim Jong-Un and the Mandarin steal all of Tony’s suits and Jarvis. Before they leave they set Stark Industries on fire with gasoline and a match. They also steal his billion dollars out of his bank account after hacking his computer and getting all his passwords and pin codes. The only thing that gets left is Jarvis but they spill some coffee on him but Jarvis as smart as he is auto repairs himself without them noticing. Happy Hogan, Tony's head of security, was spending time at stark industries saveguarding it. Kim Jong Un, knowing happy hogan is a diabetic, overdoses him on the insulin shot leavings him dead and powerless. He gives him 1000 cc of insulin putting him in a coma and he gets burnt alive. (We didn’t start the fire by Billy Joel) After Pepper leaves Ironman he begins to feel lonley as the most famous person in the world right now as he becomes to realize no one cares about him because he is better than everyone. One of the reasons pepper left Tony is he is better than her. He then realizes he needs to pay for sex now and orders a high end prostituite. He then gets stood up by the amazing blonde which he paid for at a high end hotel. He then pays for sex with a sexy spanish women but she doesn't let him climax and kicks him out saying the only reason woman liked you is because of your money get the fuck out. Ironman man feels bad and realizes its easier to get a guy. Ironman turns gay. This made the cover of every magazine. Ironman sleeps with a hot spanish guy and realizes men are easier to get than women. They don't want money and they just want sex and thats the only thing he wants after the crack. He has sex with the spanish blowing up all the news coverage on the internet, tv, and newspapers, and magzines saying Ironman is gay. He then admits he has a crush on Captain America. I've been closeted by whole life, gay is the new straight, and I just want to accept myself. After Kim Jong Un pours cofee on jarvis Ironman feels life is better without Jarvis. He takes a baseball bat to Jarvis. He says goodbye old friend I will miss you very much thanks for the memories. After repeatedly hitting jarvis with the baseball bat he exclaims he destroys everything he loves. Ironman really loved Jarvis but realized he doesnt need him. After his crack cocaine gets out of control Ironman starts crying and takes another hit of cocaine. While at DSS he gives Jeff bezos a good idea of creating different levels of amazon prime and gets eminem to admit hes gay. He fucks with both of them at DSS. Jeff Bezos realizing Tony should be living the high life donates 1 billion to Tony for the idea and says even though you were trying to take me down tony you helped me in the end I applaud you. Tony was trying to get people not to show on amazon anymore because they are making a monopololy of shopping putting the malls, and mom and pop stores out of business, along with other online sellers. Especially small book sellers. Tony's is disgusted by Jeffs lack of philantropy but Jeff still gives him the billion because Tony promised he would save us from the black hole and 1 billion isn't nothing to jeff bezos. He makes and loses that in a day. Eminem frustrated at Tony realizes he is gay and admits it because he doesn't want to be stalked or asked about it anymore and things are easier that way. Tony Stark gets more famous overnight after discovering how to close a black hole. They put him on the television and a dictator from North Korea named Kim Jong-Un gets interested in him. Kim Jong-un says the Nuclear War ends if I can travel time in one of Tony’s suits. Kim Jong-un really wants to travel time. Tony has now lost everything and Kim vows to starve him if he doesn’t travel time. North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un, vows to stop war with the United State upon one condition, “I make Tony Stark my slave and I travel time.” The United States government agrees and Tony is now moved to the dictatorship of North Korea. That's what stopped the Nuclear War. (Imagine by John Lennon) Tony does everything to get Pepper back even writing 6 hit pop songs about her and tries to sing and she says "Stop trying so hard Tony, I don't love you anymore I don't even want to hear you sing. SO GO AWAY! Bruce treats me better, you asshole.” (Paperback Writer by the Beatles) Tony gets an invitation to a Gala in the honor of his research on black holes & how to close them. He goes to the Gala alone but Pepper is the one he still loves. Tony sends Pepper an invitation tells Tony, “I will go on one condition, alone!” Pepper and Tony both separately go the Gala to honor Mr. Stark. In a desperate attempt to get Pepper’s attention Tony starts singing Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun at the gala to honor his discovery of how to close a black hole. He is completely drunk and singing the best he ever did. Even pepper thinks its good but thats the reason she leaves him he does everything to good. She cries because part of her still loves Tony, but leaves the auditorium alone and confused. (Black Hole Sun by Tony Stark) In a fit of rage Tony smashes his award at the gala leaving the crowd to boo him. Tony then begins to go into a downward spiral, losing all his confidence and almost everything else. Iron Man starts living as a recluse and he begins to fear that no one cares anymore. (Foolin' by Def Leppard) Iron Man is not even wanted by the Avengers anymore since they say he is Schizophrenic. Nick Fury, the leader of the Avengers Initiative, says: "Not only are you a narcissist Tony, you’re also a Schizophrenic. We can't have them in our team". They are unsure if Tony is a Schizophrenic because the only voice he hears is from Pepper. Maybe true love? Nick Fury doesn't believe the psychiatrists and calls tony a schizoprenic and naraccist and deicdes to end his term with the avengers initiative. Nick Fury says the only voice he hears in from pepper because thats the only thing he loves. You only love Pepper Tony thats why the only voice you heard is from Pepper. I can't have a narcissist Schizoprenic in our team, you are no longer part of our team. Tony cries and feels useless and then takes another hit of coke. (Psycho by Puddle of Mud) The whole world is after Tony Stark after he finds out how to close a black hole. Colonel Rhodes, one of Tony's only friends left, still respects and cares about Tony and wants to help him out. Rhodes teaches him how to work out and Tony Stark gets buff. Another Cameo of the Hulk can be found when Tony and Hulk work out together and Tony gives him a run for his money. Tony couldn't even do a push-up in the beginning but now does 50 1-handed push-ups, even impressing Banner himself, who does 1000 of them easily. Tony and Col. Rhodes get into a fight that has been brewing since they first met. After many arguments Col. Rhodes says he can't stand Tony's narcissism, sarcasm, and starts a fight with Tony Stark after they work out. He starts a fight with him because Tony totally outclassed him in the 1-handed pushups category, only coming in second to the hulk. He starts yelling at Tony and Tony says your going down. Tony gets mad a throws a right hook after doing 50 1 handed pushups and completely knocks out Col. Rhodes after they work out. Col. Rhodes rhodes says I can't stand you since you started the crack you are a completely different person. All you wanna do is fight and have sex and your not yourself. Tony starts pacing and walking over Col Rhodes declaring him the victor. (your going down by the sick puppies) After Tony Stark and Col. Rhodes fight the hulk decides he wants to train as a boxer. Floyd mayweather challenges the Hulk because he knows how big and strong and intimidating he is and they get into it. Hulk lasted 12 rounds with Floyd but loses. Tyson Fury, impressed that Hulk lasted 12 3 minute rounds says he wants to train Hulk as a boxer. Tyson fury said floyd just outclassed you but I can see you defeating him when your mad and trained. He begins training as a boxer and learns the ropes from an undefeated boxer promising to get revenge on Mayweather when he is trained. Hulk says even though I am strong I am untrained and not as fast as you. Mayweather says he is the greatest and Hulk has no chance unless he gets really mad and trains but gives Hulk props for lasting so long. The Hulk, Tyson Fury, and Floyd mayweather become friends. (Eye of the Tiger by Survivor) Tony Stark is kidnapped by the kim jong un and MODOK after losing a battle against him after his Ironman suit loses charge. He was then forced by Kim Jong-Un to make a black hole so Kim Jong-Un can travel time. Kim Jong-Un tells the US government that the war ends when Tony Stark makes him the black hole and he can travel time. The Nuclear war with North Korea has ended and Tony Stark is made a slave by Kim Jong-Un and the Mandarin. Kim Jong-Un vows to starve Tony Stark until the synthetic black hole is created. Kim jong un then to torture tony gives him an insulin shot. He lowers his blood sugar so much that tony faints in his chair where he is held captive in front of a computer. MODOK and KIM torture tony spitting at him, punching and kicking him, and verbally abusing him while he is handcuffed to the chair. Kim Jong Un then punches Tony Stark in the face and had enough of the abuse because in reality hes thankful Tony is alive making him the time machine. Kim feeling bad for Tony uncuffes him and since Tony has no body left he is now working for the north korean dicatator kim jong un. Tony Stark makes the black hole out of soundwaves and uses Rb-235 to slow down the black holes power. He tells Kim that the black hole will consume the hole building up so everyone in the building evacuates as they see Kim Jong-Un travel time. Tony doesn’t tell him that he can be stuck in time for many years until there is a white hole at the end of it. A white hole is the end of a black hole. (Kashmir by Led Zeppelin) Hulk talks some sense into Pepper and says: "Tony really loves you, you should be with him, not me. She agrees and uses Hulk to get Tony back, on Hulks one condition: I get to kiss Pepper, she then agrees giving him the sweetest best kiss of his life. Pepper, not liking the kiss from The Hulk, because of the Hulks rugged, huge, almost animalistic mouth, begins to miss Tony. The team consists of Col. Rhodes, Hulk, and Pepper. The assembled team begins to travel to North Korea to find Tony. After the 1-day journey the team arrives in North Korea. (Could I have this kiss forever by Whitney Houston) As Tony watches Kim travel time the Hulk grabs Tony into safety. Tony and Pepper then kiss and Tony grabs his suit from Stark industries. Tony and Pepper then kiss on the top of the Empire State’s building just as Kim Jong-Un is powerless as he is traveling time. Ironman tricks Kim Jong Un into traveling time on Earth. The time machine can only be in space due to zero gravity and friction. Ironman then applies cold to the black hole lowering the temperature which makes kim jong un loop in time. A black hole with a lowered temperature causes a loop in time because it elongates the time spent in the black hole. A temperature decrease in the black hole causes you to travel more time in the black hole. Remember when the temperature increases there is more hawking radiation and therefore the black hole dies faster. When the temperature lowers less hawking radiation is produced and therefore a less possiblility of excaping the black hole as a piece of hawking radiation. (Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton) The Mandarin travels to New York to meet Tony and Hulk. The Hulk then grabs the Mandarin and puts him in a Full Nelson leaving his motionless. Hulk uses all his power to hold the Mandarin still as Tony attaches a bomb to his arc resonator in which he throws to the Hulk to attack it to the Mandarin. After the bomb goes off Tony Stark is wanted by everyone in New York for blowing up half of New York and is considered a murderer. He loses all his superpowers because the arc resonator is blown up and then thrown in jail by the Hulk (who is police). The Hulk then lets Tony kiss Pepper one last time. Hulk then handcuffs Tony and takes him into custody. Tony Stark is no longer a superhero and is a convicted murderer. (Shoot to Thrill by ACDC) (Extra Scene) The black panter comes to see Tony Stark in jail. He realizes the Hulk set him up. Tony start makes a deal with the black panter to buy vibranium from him. He says he needs to make the suits out of vibranium to travel time. He says anything other than vibranium the suits would get ripped apart. We were lucky the first time, but I can't press our luck. Black Panter then talks to the US government about getting Tony Stark out of jail saying he is going to save the world from the Black Hole eating up the earth and moon by actually closing it with the ribidium. He also says he needs my help because I have the vibranium. (Extra Scene 2) Tony Stark wins the noble peace prize and pepper is the only one attending. He wins the noble prize for finding out the magnets increase proton collisions and make black holes and rb-235 causes negative acceleration on the black hole pulling it the other way causing less suction. The only one in attendance happens to be pepper. Pepper and Tony kiss as tony gives the speech for the noble prize in stockholm sweden. Tony reads his speech off note cards and is awarded the noble prize and 1 million dollars. He then says I AM IRONMAN and it goes to dark

#ironman #tony stark #pepper potts #kim jong un #MODOK

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gaynickvalentine · 5 years

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Give me your best Nick Valentine headcanons, I love my robot BFF

Some of these may drift into canon or the down right obvious but Ill give it my best shot :3

-he wasn’t quite as old as he sounds/acts/seems in the post war as when he died (or more accurately had the memory scan thing). We can see that Dima can develop as a person (its the entire premise of his creation) so I don’t think that it’s a far stretch to imagine that Nick is less of a direct simulation and more of an AI based on the old Nick Valentine’s experiences. It’s supported in more areas but I think that Nick is fully capable of human growth, and that he’s not just a captured personality like the robots at graygarden. With personal growth comes some sort of ‘age’, and i think Nick’s age so to speak sort of depends upon how many experiences he can remember (on top of the vaguer ones from his previous life). He’s well over a hundred, but he doesn’t remember all the time that made that up, so he’s sort of trapped in his 50s-60s

-he actively wants to move away from the old nick (identifying as a new separate entity) because with accepting that a new body doesn’t necessarily mean a new him, means accepting all of the guilt and baggage that comes with being Nick. Essentially, due to trauma he’s wanting to put it off in some sort of way with the justification that it didn’t happen to him so he doesn’t have to deal with it. This can come from anywhere from being shot (more on that big change to the canon headcanon soon), to losing his family he’d made before the war with my ‘sole’ survivor, the circumstances of his childhood, but also the guilt of being a cop in a fascistic country and basically serving ideals he didn’t necessarily agree with (but still carried out meaning that he gets fair blame for his part regardless)

- despite wanting to be separate, he has a sort of double standard where he still likes to think of the good parts of his life and the good things he had accomplished as belonging to him. I can’t blame him for being hesitant to let go of these things, but he is really shirking the blame for who he was with the worlds greatest excuse (and this isnt to dismiss his trauma, from before the war and who hes become against his will. he just needs to grow and own up for who he for good and for bad like the rest of humanity)

-Jenny Lands was his partner, not his fiance, and shot Nick herself after Winter got her in a hold so to speak. I’ll admit, this headcanon really does serve my personal story for Nick and Ben (where the were together pre war), but I also thing that it does still hold interesting enough to be heard about. Or I hope it does. Basically, Nick and Jenny were partners as well as good friends, but when Winter retaliated and put Jenny’s family and lifestyle in danger she chose to do as she was told and shoot to kill her partner. Nick survives this, and its the ensuing difficulties facing the betrayal and being shot etc that hes ordered to have his brain scanned over. This change mostly comes from me wanting to keep jenny as an important character so that she would not be erased or demonised (she made a choice nick would have had the situation been reversed)so that a mlm ship could work better sdhjdfs

-He feels guilty at the prospect of liking who he is. This ties into the guilt of who he was, a not a bad person doing bad things. He was doing what he could to get by, and when doing the right thing meant sacrificing the lifestyle he’d managed to scrape up he couldn’t carry it out. Its a lot easier to see 2 centuries later how wrong that was, but he refuses to put himself in the same headspace he had back then, when opposing the status quo could land him and his family in prison or worse. He like a lot (wider headcanon here) of pre war survivors bares the guilt of the government they suffered underneath. he likes to make derogatory remarks to himself because they feel deserved and

-he gets in the habit of putting himself down to feel less off putting to others. For the most part when he’s confident in who he is as a synth, its like hes performing it because he knows he should be, but he doesnt really believe in it or himself. He cracks jokes at himself when other people do (not hurtful jokes, playful ones that do end up hurting him) because if he laughs along hes more likely to be liked, and to him, the more people like him the easier it is for them to afford him his humanity. he doesnt have enough sense of self to afford it to himself, he depends on others to let him know his existence is worthwhile. i hope im explaining that point alrightkjdlgg

shorter bitesized headcanons:

-his mouth smells and tastes like an ashtray and a great amount of his ‘skin’ particularly in his mouth is nicotine stained. With the advent of increased self worth he starts looking after himself more

-he doent need to sleep, but he likes to in his own way. how slow can he run one diagnostic and turn on his thoughts in the meanwhile? as long as he likes. the harder the case hes on the more he likes to let his thoughts rest and drift away in a grandpa nap

-he cant feel things very well, for the most part he can only feel pressure (say you were to grab his arm) or pain (say you were to grab his arm harder). textures absolutely elude him

-he writes in cursive similar to how he did before the war, but no matter how hard he tries to make it look natural all the letters are replicated the same and his writing looks like a font typeface. watching him write is hypnotic

-he really digs into books, he’ll dogear them and leave them open face down on the page fuck the binding, he highlights passages he likes and he keeps them absolutely everywhere save for his bookshelf. he wears glasses when he reads because his optics arent up to scratch any more (the kind of glasses that have a beaded string around them so he doesnt lose them lmao)

#nick valentine #sorry this was so late!!!!!!!#fallout #fallout 4 #fo4 #headcanons #antique-symbolism-main

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theoreticallyawriter · 5 years

Text

Chapter 14: Sharpen Your Knife

The next morning comes too fast. I doubt that I slept more than two hours, but I don’t regret it in the slightest. This is the first time I haven’t been one of the first few people up, instead when I drag myself to the bathroom the only one missing is Tris. Myra and I exchange tired, but satisfied glances as I come in, setting my things on the counters with the sinks and then getting in the shower.

That was the first night that I really felt Dauntless, like it wasn’t all just me trying to be something that I’m not. It was great, and if I’m being honest with myself then I hope that the rest of my life is like that. Maybe not the ziplining part, but the feeling of it all, actually getting to take part in Dauntless culture which is now my culture rather than feeling like an outsider or someone who only has one foot in the door. For the first time, everything that I want to do actually feels achievable and attaching the Dauntless label to myself feels natural. This is my home, this is where I belong and I can be here knowing chose it for myself and not because I was trying to live up to the vision that someone else had for me. I am only the person that I want to be, and I think that I’m starting to get a little bit clearer of an idea as to who that person really is. I’m still ambitious like an Erudite, I think that I always will be and finally feeling like I belong here only makes me more resolute in my goals.

When I get out of the shower, Myra is gone but Tris has gotten up. She greets me with a yawn and when I walk to the mirror to do my hair, I nudge her shoulder with my own.

“Tired?” I say.

“Wiped. You?”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

We both laugh and it sounds strained and tired, but sincere. Christina gives us a quizzical look, but for now says nothing.

As usual, we all wait for each other before going to breakfast. I like the routine that we’re all falling into, the way that training is pretty much almost always the same. I’m beginning to see that not everything about Dauntless is just random and chaotic 24/7. There’s a routine here that people seem to stick to for the most part and a way of life that they’ve carved out for themselves. That said, there really is no such thing as a dull moment.

“Where did you two go last night?” Will asks when we sit down at our usual table. “Mimi, Marlene pulled you away to talk to you for a second and then you were just gone.”

Tris and I exchange grins, neither of us are quite sure if we should spill the Dauntless-born’s secret. I also don’t want to say anything because I don’t want them to feel left out. It was great and I had tons of fun but I also think that it would have been cool to have them there.

“We took an alternate route back,” Tris says.

Will raises his eyebrows. “That was a pretty long ass route. You didn’t come back until after we were all in bed.”

“Yeah.” Tris nods. “It was a little…complex.”

Al is all but asleep in his breakfast, his head dipped down as he blinks slowly in an attempt to keep himself awake.

“You doing alright, buddy?” I ask.

He groans in response, rubbing his eyes.

“My sentiments exactly,” Will says.

I take another long drink of my coffee, refusing to let my eyes glaze over. I can handle a little less sleep than usual, Dauntless hasn’t changed me that much.

“God, you know I just cannot wait to spend all day beating my knuckles bloody against a punching bag after last night,” Christina says. “That’s just,” she interrupts herself with a yawn, “buckets of fun.”

“Beats getting punched in the face,” I point out.

“Yeah, but if you get knocked out that’s an extra few minutes of free sleep,” Will jokes.

I snort. “How very optimistic of you.”

“Yep.” He leans back in his chain and puts his arms behind his head. “I’m just here to brighten your day, it’s one of the things you love about me.”

I roll my eyes. “Sure it is, Will.”

I glimpse Marlene on the way over to her table her tray and she sees me too. We smile at each other across the dining hall and them she goes to join the rest of her friends.

After we’re all done with breakfast, or more accurately as close to adequately caffeinated as we can get within our time frame, we walk to the training room. Though I’m freshly determined to do well, I can’t say that I’m especially excited about training today. Maybe I’d be a little more so if it didn’t start at six in the morning. I’m sure no one else is faring any better, but the Dauntless don’t stop for anything and doing things the hard way is just a part of their way of life.

Eric doesn’t show for the morning half of training, which means that it’s for the most part more chill than usual. However, it seems that his victory last night has done nothing to soften Four; he prowls around making all the same criticisms that he usually does and never even making the most half assed attempt at positive reinforcement. It really doesn’t help that most of us are basically falling asleep standing up. Last night really took it out of me, I thought that I could just continue on like I used to in Erudite but that was a different kind of exhaustion. With that it was just my brain that was fried and I could fix that, but with training being the way that it is, we have no time to recover and so this hits us all hard. Even Peter and Edward aren’t quite a hundred percent.

Lunch comes and goes too fast and part of me seriously considered going back to the dorms and just taking a nap like Drew and a few others do. But I also know from experience that training sucks on an empty stomach even more than it does with a full one. It’s also a really good thing that the Dauntless cooks make a lot of food because ever since I’ve started gaining muscle mass I’m basically ravenously hungry all the time, which is almost as bad as being sore all the time. But I won’t pretend like I don’t think it’s a little cool how I can see just a little bit of definition in my muscles. Sore as I am, I feel a lot stronger than I did when I first arrived in Dauntless; I’m not the delicate Erudite girl with perfect makeup and shiny hair anymore. In fact, by Erudite standards, I look like shit most days; I’m bruised, I hardly ever wear makeup, I no longer have all the product that kept my hair so nice. But honestly, I don’t care; in fact, in some ways, I no longer feel any sort of pressure to be perfect because I can’t get much further away from everything that I used to consider perfect than the way I am now.

When we all trudge back to the training room, Eric is there and a line of human shaped targets have been set up, the circles being painted around the stomach. About fifteen feet from the targets is as a table full of polished silver knives with black grips wrapped around the hilts. The sight of them makes me smile a little, finally something that I actually know how to do. Now granted, I’m not as good as Melanie, but she was the one who showed me how. She’s got some sort of fascination with knives just like Minerva used to have with fighting.

“Apparently Four failed to mention this to you this morning,” Eric says, “but you all only have three weeks left of training. Your final fights are on the fourteenth of October, but training proceeds as normal so you’d all better be wide awake on Monday. Today though, you’ll be learning how to throw knives. Everyone pick up three knives and pay attention while Four demonstrates the correct technique for throwing them.”

No one moves toward the table for a few seconds.

“Now!” Eric yells.

We all scramble toward the table to pick up our three.

“He’s in a bad mood today,” Christina mutters.

“Is he ever in a good mood?” Tris mutters back.

“When is he not?” I say at the same time.

Judging by the death glare that Eric gives Four when he isn’t paying attention, last night’s loss bothers him a lot more than he’d care to let on. Capture the flag is important to Dauntless, a matter of pride for the team and captains alike and pride is very important to the Dauntless.

We all watch Four throw his three knives very carefully. I am familiar with this subject, but I wouldn’t dare think I’m good enough that I shouldn’t pay attention. Four is very precise about his throws, but relaxed and confident as well like he’s been doing this all his life. Actually it wouldn’t really surprise me if Four just sprang forth fully formed from some hole in the ground already brandishing a knife. The three knives he throws stick in the center of the board so closely that the edges almost brush.

“Line up!” Eric orders as Four goes to the board to collect his knives.

I slip two of the knives into the pocket of my pants for now and easily toss one of them back from hand to hand, adjusting my grip and generally trying to get a feel for the way that the blade is balanced. They’re obviously well made, lovingly crafted though nothing like the custom, decorative ones Melanie has that I’ve only seen a handful of times.

When she was teaching me to throw, she told me that really what it came down to was physics and practice. General mental math can be applied in order to get the basics down. It’s a very Erudite way of approaching something like this, very fitting for my Erudite sister, approaching it like a scientist and picking it apart in order to achieve the desired results.

These are weighted a little differently than the ones I remember her letting me practice with, but the same rules still apply. I flip the blade in my hand and hold it the way I was taught so as not to cut myself, which she did a lot when she was first starting out I remember, and draw my arm back.

‘The easiest way to do this is to match your throws to your breaths,’ I recall her telling me as she drew my arm back for me. I can almost hear her voice, feel her fingers ghosting over my arm and shoulders to adjust my stance. ‘Exhale. Inhale. Exhale and throw.’

I hit the target, only slightly above the center dot, but I didn’t throw with enough force and so the blade slides out of the wood after a few seconds. I retrieve the second knife from my pocket and try again, adjusting my aim slightly and throwing harder. That one slams into the board but down and to the left of the dot. I try again with the third knife, shutting out all the other distractions and just trying to focus on what’s in front of me.

That’s the one that divides that tiny center dot down the middle.

“Hey,” Christina says. “You’re pretty good at that.” She throws her third knife and while it gets within the circle it’s still pretty far off from the center.

Most of us finish with our three around the same time, so we walk up to the board to retrieve them. I pick my first up off the floor and then start at getting the other two out of the wood. They’re really stuck in there too, maybe I threw them a little too hard.

“Thanks,” I say while still struggling to pull out the third knife. “My older sister taught me.” The knife pops out and I nearly fall backward but Will’s arm shoots out and grabs mine before I hit the ground.

“Careful,” he teases.

I roll my eyes, but smile at him. “My hero.”

“Yep.” He grins. “This makes, what, the second or third time I’ve saved you from falling? It’s what you love about me.”

“I thought I love you because you’re an optimist.” We walk back to our spots away from the board.

He shrugs. “I contain multitudes.”

“Hold on,” Christina interjects. “Can we just rewind to that part where you said your sister taught you to do this?”

“I mean, she had an instructor first but yeah she showed me a few things.”

“Didn’t you say you were Erudite?” Christina says, no less confused.

“Yeah, it’s just a skill like any other. Calculus, gymnastics, knife throwing; they’ve all got the same basic principle to learning them, practice until you get it right. Really it can be applied to anything.” I remember learning very early that anyone could do anything if they wanted it badly enough, if they worked hard enough. My sister can throw knives, my mother can lead a faction, I can be Dauntless. All I have to do is try, and if there’s one thing I know how to do it’s try.

Christina smiles and shakes her head in disbelief, but doesn’t say anything else.

An hour and a half later, every one of us has managed to at least get our knives within the circle if not at the center save for Al. Unlike fighting, he just can’t seem to get the hang of it and while the rest of us go up to pull our knives from the board he hunts the floor for his. Part of me wants to help him, but I’m not close enough to just talk him through it and with Eric and Four watching us I can’t say with any certainty that I wouldn’t get in trouble for that. Eric’s in a foul mood as it is and I have no desire to poke that particular bear.

The next time he misses, Eric nearly snarls under his breath and storms toward him.

“How slow are you, Candor?!” he demands. Do you need glasses?! Should we move the target closer?!”

Al doesn’t respond, but his face turns bright red. He throws another knife and this one runs out of momentum before it can even reach the board, scraping and clattering against the concrete floor.

“What was that, initiate?” Eric’s voice drops and he leans closer to Al. I watch this exchange out of the corner of my eye while trying to mostly keep my focus on the board. It really shows where my attentions gone when I throw and miss the target by a mile.

“It – It slipped,” Al says meekly.

“Well I think you should go get it.” Apparently everyone was paying attention, because as soon as the words leave Eric’s mouth everybody stops throwing. Even Peter, who I wouldn’t put it past to stab any one of us.

Eric’s head whips around. “Did I tell you to stop.”

We start throwing again. All of us have seen Eric angry before, but this is different, this is like when he made Christina hang over the Chasm. I glance at her, and I know that she notices it too.

Al’s eyes widen. “Go get it? But everyone’s still throwing.”

“And?”

“And I don’t want to get hit.”

“I think you can trust your fellow initiates to aim better than you.” He smiles a little, but it doesn’t reach his eyes or really the rest of his face at all. “Go get your knife.”

Al usually complies with everything we’re told to do without argument. Not because he’s afraid, but because he knows that arguing with Eric and Four is about as effective as arguing with a brick wall. I think that we all know that, but it’s never stopped most of us from trying at least once.

This time is different; this time he stands straight and meets Eric’s eye, setting his jaw. He’s finally at the end of his rope, walking across a floor of people throwing knives with varying degrees of proficiency, and one of the people throwing is Peter, is where he draws the line. It’s an understandable line, but Eric isn’t really the understanding type.

“No.”

“Why not?” Eric’s eyes narrow and venom positively drips from his words. “Are you afraid.”

“Of getting stabbed by an airborne knife? Yeah, I am.”

He shouldn’t have said that. He should have just continued to refuse, Eric might have just accepted that. He should have just insulted us all and said that he didn’t think our aim was good enough not to hit him, or that he didn’t think one of us wouldn’t hit him on purpose; Eric might have gotten a kick out of that.

But he didn’t and now Eric’s face contorts with rage and he shouts, “Everyone stop!”

He didn’t really have to shout, we were all paying attention to him anyways. Eric is completely unpredictable when it comes to punishments, sometimes he just berates the person and sometimes he tries to kill them. On this though I think the latter is about to take place, I can only hope that Al won’t walk away from this with too many injuries.

“Clear out of the ring.” Eric turns back to Al. “Everybody except you.”

We put our knives back on the table and move to the edge of the room by the pillars in a tight cluster. Christina breathes heavily, her terror evident in her eyes. I remember what she said to me a while back after she had to hang over the Chasm and had a nightmare later that night, ‘I can’t stop thinking about how many ways it could have killed me, and how it could have killed you guys if you were in my place’. And that’s what she’s thinking now, her nightmare come true. She takes Will’s arm and squeezes it tight.

“Stand in front of the target,” Eric says.

Al listens to him this time, and as he stands there his knees begin to shake.

“Hey, Four.” Eric glances over his shoulder. “Give me a hand here.”

Four scratches his eyebrow with the point of a knife and then walks very slowly to stand beside Eric.

“You’re going to stand there while Four throws those knives, and if you flinch, you’re out.”

Four gives a put-upon sigh. “Is this really necessary?”

Apathetic as ever, I see. Whereas Eric actively wants to torture us, Four just doesn’t give a single shit about us, our wellbeing, or even our lives.

Eric stares Four down, waiting for him to submit to his authority. But Four just stares back blankly.

After a minute Eric sneers at him. “I have the authority here, remember? Here and everywhere else.”

Four shows no emotion as he turns back toward Al, who’s whole body is trembling now. I feel sorry for him, just like I felt sorry for Christina, but there’s nothing that we can do for him either.

The seconds that pass as Four takes aim feel like hours to me, and the tension in the room is palpable.

“Stop,” Tris blurts out. Eric and Four both whirl around, Four nearly dropping the knife in surprise when she speaks.

“Any idiot can stand in front of a target,” she hardly even seems to notice everyone else’s stares. “It doesn’t prove anything except that you’re bullying us. Which, as I recall, is a sign of cowardice.”

“Then it should be easy for you to take his place,” Eric says with a cruel smile. “Same rules apply, but if you flinch he takes your place and then you can both be factionless.”

Tris walks away from the crowd slowly and with her head held high.

“There goes your pretty face,” Peter taunts her. “Oh wait, you don’t have one.”

She says nothing, betraying as little emotion as Four when she switches places with Al at the target. Al is very nearly in tears and he looks guilty that Tris is having to take his place, but relieved.

I look at the wicked sharp knives in Four’s hand, one in his right that he draws back and three in his left. I consider all of the times I’ve insisted that they can’t actually kill us and not for the first time I wonder if I might actually be wrong about that.

Four’s knife embeds just at the edge of the human shaped target, a fair distance from Tris’ left hand. Christina buries her head in Will’s chest when it hits and he wraps his arms around her. Though the most of us cringe at the sound, Tris doesn’t flinch; she does close her eyes though, waiting for the next.

“You done, Stiff?” Four taunts.

Tris’ jaw clenches. “No.”

“Eyes open then.”

Her hands clench into fists at her sides as she steels herself for the next knife, which Four very casually tosses from his left hand into his right. It’s little more than a flash as it flies through the air and then sticks in the head of the target, which is far above Tris’ own.

“Come on, Four,” Eric says. “You can get a little closer than that.”

Four shrugs at him. “Come on, Stiff. Let someone else stand there and take it.”

“Shut up, Four!” she snaps and I have to suppress the urge to laugh at the face he makes when she says that.

He throws the third knife and it embeds into the wood far to the right of Tris’ head.

“Closer,” Eric goads.

Four glances back at him. “Want me to give her a little trim?”

“Yeah. Maybe just a little off the top.”

He throws the fourth knife, this one seeming to be aimed right at Tris’ head. I close my eyes for a second as the knife makes contact. But not with her; it wedges in the wood right above her ear. She inches away from the knife and touches her fingertips to the shell of her ear, grimacing. He cut her.

“Well,” Eric says grandly, “as much as I would love to stick around and see if you’re all as bold as she is, we’re done for the day. Get out.” He points at Tris. “Points for bravery, Stiff, but not as many as you just lost for opening your mouth.”

The others start to leave but Christina, Will, Al, and I go toward Tris; she sees us, but holds up her finger for us to give her a minute. I nod and walk out and back toward the dormitory with the others following me. Will and Christina have let go of each other, and none of us breathe a word the whole way back.

The dormitory is quiet when we walk in, Myra and Peter are gone but no one else is. Eric let us go early so we all have time to kill until dinner.

Tris is back another minute later and, save for Drew and Molly, the dorm bursts into applause. My friends and I meet her as soon as she walks through the door.

“You do have a death wish!” Christina exclaims, wrapping her arm around Tris’ shoulder.

Will claps her on the back. “I cannot believe you said that you Eric.”

“Or that you told Four to shut up,” I say. “I think that makes you worse than me at this point.”

“That was amazing,” Al gushes.

“No one’s ever stood up to him like that,” Edward adds, hanging around near us.

“Hey, Tris.” Molly approaches us and I feel immediately defensive. “That was pretty cool.”

“Yeah, impressive stuff.” Peter slithered back into the dormitory at some point, except now he’s holding a tablet.

“Shut up,” Will snaps.

“What? No, I mean it.” Peter’s eyes are wide with fake innocence. I don’t consider myself a violent person but I really, really want to punch him. “You’re famous now.” He pauses as we give him blank stares. “Not because of the thing with Eric, no that was…whatever. You’re in the news, the article just dropped this morning.” He brings the tablet closer to his face. “Recent transfers of Beatrice and Caleb Prior children of Andrew Prior call into question the soundness of Abnegations teachings and values. What prompted them to leave?”

We start walking away, trying to skirt around him but he follows.

“Perhaps the answer lies in the corrupted ideals of an entire faction,” he continues to read. “The theft of resources, the general incompetence, the abuse of their children.” He looks up and at Tris with mock sympathy. “Did your parents beat you, Tris, like Marcus Eaton’s kid?”

“They didn’t beat anyone,” Tris snaps. “The Abnegation are good people.”

“And that’s why you chose to leave?”

Tris makes a frustrated noise and walks away, the others going with her but I hang back.

“Was it something I said?” Peter says.

“Peter,” I sigh, tipping the tablet up in his hand and pressing it into his chest. “You and I both know that those claims are nothing more nothing more than tabloid drivel and have nothing to do with anything. Honestly, I’m surprised that you can read at all but gossip magazines, really? That’s the best ammunition you can find?”

“That a challenge, Ice Queen?” he hisses, stepping closer to me.

“It’s a critique. I could go on, but frankly I have better things to do with my time.” I walk away before he can manage a retort or even a threat.

I’ve met the woman who I suspect writes all the articles about Abnegation, she writes under a pseudonym to protect her reputation but it’s fairly obvious to most. Lucy Sharp, the head of the journalism department in Erudite, can hardly be called a journalist at all. Sure, there was a time when she was one of the greats and that’s what secured her the position that she currently holds; but as of recent years she seems to have found that it’s far more fun to drag people’s names through the mud than actually write about anything of note, she has the rest of the department for that. In person, she’s a gossip, a snob, and a very good friend of my parents. I know her because we socialized with her at all the dinner parties and other classy events I was all but obligated to attend.

“Don’t listen to him,” Christina says to Tris right as I catch up with them. “He’s an idiot.”

“Yep,” Tris says. “I know. It’s okay.”

We turn a corner and Will pauses muttering, “What’s she doing at Dauntless?”

Walking down the hallway right toward us is Jeanine, my mother and Gwendolyn on either side of her, and a small crowd of Erudite trailing behind them. Max walks a few feet away with his hands clasped behind his back, nodding every so often as Jeanine talks.

We move to the edge of the hallways, waiting for them to pass. I catch Gwendolyn’s eye and she nods at me in acknowledgement; I wave back in response, smiling.

Jeanine and my mother stop in front of us, my mother waving off the crowd and most of them leave quickly as Gwendolyn begins speaking and some of them nearly having to jog to keep up with her pace.

“Mimette,” Jeanine says, smiling.

“Let Dr. Morgan lead, she can explain it just as well. We’ll be there in five, don’t wait,” my mother mutters to one of the people at the tail end of the crowd and I recognize him as Ryan Chantanelle, my mother’s secretary.

He nods, brushing a swoop of brown and gray hair away from his eyes. “You got it, Boss.” He glances at me, smiling and giving a mock two-finger salute with the same exaggerated swagger he does everything with. “Mini.”

“Ryan.” I smile at him, my voice dripping with amusement, and return the gesture.

He smiles back and then walks away to join the rest of the crowd. Most people find him kind of insufferable, but I’ve spent enough time around him to know he’s not so bad. He and the rest of the people he works with on Support Crew, the team of people who keep basically everything in order in Erudite. He’s known me since I was a kid and insists on calling me Mini though which is…a lot. I don’t love it but he’s given a nickname to all of my siblings and I could have done much worse. He’s been calling Minerva ‘Scrappy’ since she was twelve.

My mother hugs me and says in my ear, “It’s good to see you, my dear girl.”

“Hi, Mom. I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon either. I’m really happy you’re both here though.”

I don’t bother to hide my affection for them both, like with Mark, my mother is a faction leader and no one is going to correct her.

“Happy belated birthday, Jeanine.”

She smiles. “Thank you very much. How have you been?”

I shrug. “Well I mean we haven’t got our rankings yet but I’m pretty good at training, I mean I’m not like the best but-”

“No,” Jeanine corrects me. “I didn’t ask about your ranking, I asked how you’ve been. Are you eating properly? Have you taken up any hobbies? Do you like it here?” She glances at the others. “I see your making plenty of new friends.”

The four of them have sort of stepped back to give me some space and they seem surprised Jeanine acknowledged them at all.

“Uh, yeah.” I look back at all my new friends. “Um this is Will, Christina, Al, and Tris. Everyone, my mother and Jeanine, who’s kind of a family friend.”

“How lovely to meet you all,” my mother says.

“Prior,” Jeanine says, pointing at Tris. “Aren’t you Andrew Prior’s daughter, Beatrice?”

“Uh, yeah.” She rubs the back of her neck awkwardly. “But I sort of changed it to just Tris.”

“You made an impressive choice, both of you actually. Given your respective families and your test results.”

“Y-you’ve seen our test results.” Tris stares at her with wide eyes.

“Of course.” Jeanine glances back at my mother. “Well, we should probably get going. If you ever need anything, Mimi, let me know.”

“I will. It was really good to see you again.” I hug her. We’re almost the same height now that I don’t wear heels anymore.

“I’ll see you on Visiting Day, Mim.” My mother kisses the top of my head and then they both walk away, talking quietly to each other.

“That was…weird,” Will mutters.

“Really weird,” Christina agrees and then turns to Tris and I. “What was that?”

I shrug. “Like I said, Jeanine’s a really close friend of my parents. She’s kind of just…always been around for me. Tris, I don’t know what the hell you did to get her attention?”

Well, I can think of one thing but other than that I don’t think she’s ever actually met Jeanine or my mother before.

She shrugs too. “I mean my father’s on the council. That might have had something to do with it.”

“Yeah,” Will says, “but they hate each other; what’s she got to gain from paying attention to you?”

Tris furrows her brow. “Good question.”

As we’re walking, I look back in the direction of the doors they went through. They never did mention a reason for coming.

“You guys look alike.” Al says to me, snapping me from my thoughts. “You and Jeanine.”

“Yeah actually,” Will agrees. “Like, now that you mention it I can definitely see it.”

I shrug. I don’t really, we have the same hair color but the similarities stop there. But I guess at a glance maybe.

I wonder if I should have told them that I changed my name. I think that it would have made Jeanine happy; she gave me that name and now it’s the one that I’ll be using for the rest of my life. It’s not just that I haven’t forgotten my Erudite roots completely, it’s that I haven’t forgotten my Erudite roots at all and I don’t think that I ever will.

“So what do you think they were here for?” Tris says.

“Erudite makes all the tech in the city, right?” Will says. “It was probably just that.”

“Yeah, but why would that need to involve the faction’s leader, representative, and head of the chemistry department?” I say.

“Yeah, fair enough.”

We walk away from that hallway towards the Pit; we still have a lot of time to kill before dinner.

As we pass by the tattoo parlor while taking a lap around the second floor of the Pit, I pause and then duck inside. My friends follow close behind, curious.

I glance back at them. “You guys can go on ahead if you’d like. There’s…something I’ve kind of been looking at.”

Christina shrugs and then so does Will. “It’s cool,” she says.

Tris and Al go on ahead though and then the two of them are drifting behind me as I open one of the catalogues to a page I made a note to myself to come back to at some point. In the top right corner of the page is a simple diamond outline. I glance up at the artist who has been sort of watching me since I came in, an older woman with black hair pulled into a bun.

“Find something you like?” she says.

“Yeah, actually.” I flip the book around to show her. “Can I get four of these sort of…arranged in a bigger diamond o-on my inner right wrist?”

She hums. “Interesting. Yeah, come with me.” She beckons for me to follow her, then stops and looks back at Will and Christina. “And I suppose your friends can come if they want.”

The three of us follow her to one of the many rooms and I take a seat in the chair, my hands are already starting to tremble. I glimpsed Al and Tris do this only a couple of weeks ago but it’s different doing it myself, different doing it after I said that I wouldn’t.

“So this is sudden,” Will says after a minute while the woman puts on a pair of rubber gloves and wipes down my skin with antiseptic. “I thought you and I were supposed to be the sensible ones?” Christina laughs at that.

Explaining the truth of the matter would be too sentimental, bordering on traitorous given how we’re supposed to devote ourselves to our new lives. But the truth is that I miss Erudite – I miss my home, I miss my friends, I miss my family. Seeing Jeanine and my mother earlier only rubbed that in.

I was never one of those kids that didn’t get along with their parents; I didn’t pick fights, I didn’t really have a reason to rebel, there was so little that they asked of me that there was never any reason to do either of those things. I love and am very, very close to both of my parents, and the other two people that raised me like parents – whom I do think of as my secondary mom and dad. Jeanine and Damascus were and still are important to me, integral to who I am. My siblings and I are – if nothing else – a byproduct of their love for us and we are built on the foundations they laid.

I ought to recognize that.

“Mimi?” Will puts his hand on the arm that isn’t currently held out to Tori. He chuckles. “Are you really that nervous?”

“Hm?” I look over at him rather than the intimidating tattoo gun about to go to work on my wrist.

“You totally zoned out for a second, didn’t even answer my question.”

For a split second there’s a sharp pain and then a buzzing and I gasp, my whole body tensing. Will and Christina look alarmed; but I relax again, quickly getting used to the pain and so do they.

“Can’t a girl be spontaneous once in a while?” I smile at him and he starts laughing.

“Sure, sure, why not?” Christina nudges him. “That is what being Dauntless is all about, Brainiac.”

He nudges her back. “I know that. But still, it’s Mimi.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say indignantly.

Both of them laugh and Will doesn’t bother to explain himself. I know exactly what he meant honestly, and it’s hard to take it as a joke when it’s so painfully accurate. I’m not Dauntless enough, not really, I don’t look the part and I’m not exactly itching to get there. I like the way that I look, would be fine in any other faction but not here when the Look is a whole part of the culture. Erudite’s like that too, in a way. The easiest thing for a person to change is their appearance, it should be the first of many signs of commitment.

Here’s hoping people will take this as mine.

The next day when I wake up I’m a little less tired, though still wholly not looking forward to training or doing much of anything really and my wrist is killing me. I let out a big yawn and stretch, accidentally slamming my fist into the bunk above me.

“Ah!” Will exclaims and I hear him start above me.

“Sorry,” I murmur, rubbing my stinging knuckles.

“You scared the hell out of me.” I can just imagine the way that he presses his hand to his heart as though trying to calm it.

I murmur incoherently in the response. I start to get up but he jumps off his bunk and lands just inches from me, startling me into sitting back down.

“Will!” I hiss.

“Oh, that is so karma.” He snickers and rubs at his tired eyes. “Also, I do that basically every morning, you’d think you’d be used to it by know.”

“Yeah. You’d think.” I kneel down to rifle through my basket of laundry for something, anything, that doesn’t stink to high heaven. Will drops down next to me, doing something similar. He leans forward and rests his forehead against my bed like he intends to go back to sleep like that. I pat him on the back and he makes a noise in protest.

“Fine.” I get to my feet. “Stay there.”

I trudge into the bathroom with sections of my hair still hanging in my face and still a little bleary eyed. All of the showers are already occupied and there’s a small crowd in front of the mirror talking. I wedge myself in next to the wall and that’s when I spot Myra out of the corner of my eye.

“Myra!” I exclaim, suddenly awake. “Your hair!”

She twirls a lock of it around her finger. “Neat, right? I did it myself last night; I was up till like midnight with the bleach and everything but it was so worth it.”

“Oh my god, I love it. And you said you did this yourself?”

She nods. “I did my last color by myself too. It’s just easier than, like, being stuck in a salon chair for two and a half hours.”

“Well it looks great.” I start running my hairbrush through my own hair, slowly picking through the tangles.

“I could do yours too, if you want.”

“No. I don’t really think that I’m a hair dye sort of person.” I hold up my wrist. “Besides, I think this is enough of a change for me, for now at least.”

She gasps, apparently delighted to the change. “That’s so cool!” She gingerly takes my hand and extends my arm, the fingers on her free hand hovering just over the clear bandage. “What’s it meant to be?”

I shrug. “Nothing really, it just looked cool.”

She takes the statement at face value and lets me go. “So you’ll ink a random symbol into your skin forever, but you won’t dye your hair for, like, a couple months?”

I shrug.

“Come on, you’ll never know unless you try.” She nudges me with her elbow. “I think you’d look really good with, like, blue hair. Like really bright blue hair.”

I roll my eyes. “I really don’t think that dyeing my hair my old faction’s color is exactly ‘letting go’.” I haven’t really let go yet of course, but I have to maintain some sense of subtlty.

She grins. “Does that mean you’d be open to doing a different color?”

“I’m going to go with no on that one.”

“Well I don’t exactly think that staying prim, perfect, and proper is exactly letting go either. Come on, practically everyone’s got something new.”

I shake my head and then start on braiding back my hair. “I just want it to mean something, you know? I don’t want to make some drastic change on a whim. It’s got to be for a reason.”

“And your reason for getting the tattoo was?”

Shit. Really backed myself into a corner with that one, didn’t I?

“Um…” I sigh. “Yeah, there’s a reason but…I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s a little personal.”

She raises her eyebrows, clearly only more intrigued but drops it. “Well, at any rate, I think you’ve chosen the wrong faction if everything you do is for a reason. Doing drastic things on a whim are practically all Dauntless does; zipline, remember?”

“How could I forget?”

“Did that mean something? Did that have some deeper reason or did we just do it because we could, because we’re Dauntless and that’s what we do?” She grins at me and after a second I return it.

“Okay fine, you’ve got me there.” Her grin widens and I shake my head slightly. “I’m still not dying my hair though.”

The others make their way in alone or in small clusters as others trickle out. We’ve reached a point in our training where most of us can’t manage more than the bare minimum of effort. If my father’s right and to look good is to feel good, I could probably stand to put a little more effort into at least my hair if for no one else’s sake than my own.

Some of the others comment on Myra’s hair and she seems to glow with pride when they do, occasionally twisting a lock around her finger and beaming. At breakfast, which I wait up for the rest of my group to walk to and to my surprise she waits with me, Myra waves me over to the table that she and Edward occupy alone. I glance back at my other friends and Christina shooes me away with a flap of her hand. Will tilts his head to the side like a curious bird but doesn’t say anything. I follow Myra to her table and sit with a seat in between the two of us. Over here, we’re much closer to Peter’s table. He and his group talk and joke like they don’t find joy in being jerks to other people. I guess no one can be evil a hundred percent of the time.

Edward gives me a quizzical look as I sit down. “Finally get tired of Will?” I scoff. “No. What’s your problem with him anyways?” He opens his mouth but Myra gives him a warning look and he frowns, obviously selecting his words very carefully. Finally, he shrugs. “Why don’t you ask him?”

A couple more of the Erudite transfers sit down at our table. I recognize them by the way that they sit, their appearances, it’s all more familiar to me. I guess some people did take Edward up on his idea that the Erudite ought to stick together. I recognize some of them from school, some of them from events that I went to but not many and they don’t seem to know me either (thank god).

One of the girls, Viola, shows off a new tattoo she’d gotten just yesterday. It’s a bouquet of wilted roses with the clear bandage still wrapped around it, she seems very pleased with it and herself. Her closer friends admire it and brush their fingers over her arm, pulling back when she flinches. In turn I show off mine, drawing similar reactions from them. I’m a little surprised at how easily I fold into them, with all of our similarities, it’s not like my other friends but they’re a warm group of people who welcome me.

“I’m learning to love it,” says one of the boys when the topic turns to our new lives here in Dauntless. “I think…I’ll always miss Erudite but I know that this is where I belong.”

“What about you, Mimi,” Myra turns to me, “do you think very much about home?”

I shrug, swallowing the answer that I think about it all the time. Even though we’re all Erudite transfers, I’m still different from them. “I try not to. I did leave for a reason.”

Don’t ask me what it was, I mentally tack on.

“I would certainly hope so.” Edward chuckles. “Just because we’re Dauntless now doesn’t mean we have to abandon reason completely.”

One girl snorts. “Tell that to our instructors; I’ve never met two more unreasonable people.” That gets a laugh out of most of the table.

“I had first hour math with Elizabeth Reynolds,” says one boy, “so I’m going to have to disagree with you there.” My blood runs cold, I know that Eliza’s kind of an…acquired taste, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about her the way that she, Casey, and I used to talk about Dahlia.

“That’s fair,” another chimes in.

I clench my jaw to keep myself from saying something stupid. I know exactly why people didn’t – still don’t – like Eliza; it’s not really something I can argue against, but she was always good to me.

“Why the face, Mimi.” Myra nudges me.

I don’t respond. Instead I grip my fork so hard that the metal bites sharply into my hand.

“Mimi.” She nudges me again, her voice lilting in a way that reminds me painfully of Casey.

“Nothing,” I lie, my voice a little too sharp and she seems taken aback.

“Uh-huh,” she replies, mercifully losing that tone.

The topic changes and I can relax again, though the memories of my old friends linger. I wish that I’d seen Casey with Mark at the fence, I hope he told her what I asked him to, I hope she knows that I still care about her.

“Can’t believe there’s only like a month left in initiation,” Edward says.

“We can’t be done soon enough if you ask me,” says a boy with very gelled hair. “I’m sick of getting punched in the face every day.”

“That’s Dauntless for you,” says another boy, snickering.

The first rolls his eyes. “It’s something.”

“Who do you guys think is going to get cut?” I say.

“Out of us?” Myra replies. “Could be anyone really, except for, like, Edward.”

“And Peter,” adds one of the guys with a grimace. “Unfortunately.”

“Here’s hoping that it’s one or both of his cronies,” says the person next to him. “Molly snores so much.”

“Rumi, you snore,” the boy replies.

Rumi gives an indignant scoff and folds their arms. “Well she also hogs the shower and I have a right to complain about that too.”

“I can’t really imagine any of us not being here,” says one of the girls, her hair wrapped up in a black headscarf.

“That’s because we’re all amazing,” Rumi replies, showing off their incredibly white teeth.

“No but, like, I guess I’ve just gotten used to having you all with me. I can’t imagine my life without you.” Her statement is met with sarcastic coos and joking accusations of sentimentality.

They remind me of my old friends, my old classmates. I probably had some of them in my class at least once, but it makes me smile. It’s familiar in a way that doesn’t make we want to scream, in a way that gives me a warm feeling in my chest.

“I mean that’s kind of everyone, right?” Myra says. “Like, I couldn’t imagine not seeing Mimi and her friends either and I barely know them.”

“I don’t know about that,” the girl in the headscarf says as she rests her chin on her palm. “I think that there’s plenty of people here that I could go the rest of my life without having to deal with that ever again.”

The person next to rolls their eyes. “Quin, I can guarantee that half the reason you think that is because we live together.”

Quin raises her eyebrow. “Yeah, so what if it is? Some of these people are shitty roommates, sue me.”

Chuckles ripple through the table. She’s right though, I’ve never had to share a room before initiation and I’ve thoroughly decided that I hate it. As nice as it is to have my friends just a few feet away, it’s loud, and it smells, and I just in general hate having to deal with other people’s annoying habits as they probably hate to deal with mine.

Semi-reluctantly, we get up at the end of breakfast and head to training. Without anyone else noticing, I hang back from the group and eventually fall in with the rest of my friends.

“So how was breakfast with the brainiacs?” Christina asks.

Will and I share a fondly exasperated look. I shrug and don’t get into how I’ve always been the odd one out among the Erudite, how I didn’t expect anything to be different now that we’re Dauntless-Erudite but in a way it is and it fills me with a kind of happiness I can’t describe.

The knives are set up in the training room again, so are the shooting targets. Four lets us take our pick of what we do and I wander more than I don’t. Not as much as some others though, who seem like all they do is pace around and try to look busy when Four’s around.

Tris and I spar pathetically, joking around with each other more than we don’t and over-exaggerating the pain from the other’s blows.

“Oh, you have done me in!” I cry as Tris tries to kick me and just grazes my leg. I fall to the ground in an overdramatic fashion, laughing all the way down.

“Get up, Ice Queen,” Four snaps as he paces past our mat. He rolls his eyes at me and all I do is laugh harder.

“Careful, Mimi,” Myra calls from the punching bags. “Else he’ll wind up chucking knives at your head.”

I don’t laugh and neither does Tris, it’s not that funny to her; she had to go through it.

Myra notices our silence. “Did that…cut too deep.”

We both groan at the pun and Will laughs so hard he trips has he’s running past, prompting most of us to burst out laughing whether we heard Myra’s joke or not.

“Hey!” Four yells over our laughing. “Back to work, all of you.”

I bite back a sarcastic comment and Tris and I continue with our sparing.

“You’re getting stronger,” I comment as I duck a punch.

Tris beams at the praise. “Thank you.”

“I’d say you could probably give Peter a run for his money if you fought him now.”

“Alright,” she chuckles, “you don’t have to stretch the truth that much.” She lands a hit that knocks me off balance.

“It’s not a lie.” I retaliate with a kick to her legs. “I’m not the sort of person who flatters without a reason.”

She snorts. “I’ve noticed.”

I laugh at the figurative jab as I make a literal one.

“Quit pulling your punches you two,” Four chides as he passes by us. “I’ve seen you both do better than that.”

“Careful, Four,” I drawl, ducking another punch, “that almost sounded like a compliment. Next thing you know you might be feeling the urge to actually be nice.”

He lets out a sigh through his nose. “Ice Queen, that’ll be five laps.”

I shrug. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

As I start running, Christina slows down to let me catch up with her.

“Antagonizing him already?” she laughs.

I shrug. “Perhaps.”

She hums. “Might just be the one thing that actually makes training entertaining.” “Well, I am here to entertain.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, you and Will. I swear, the two of you are like the same person and I haven’t decided if I love it or hate it.”

I laugh. “Not really, I mean…” As I try to find reasons, I realize that she’s right. Will and I are entirely too similar. “Whatever.”

She giggles. “Oh, you know I’m right.”

“Maybe so.” I like Will well enough that being like him is actually a thought that I like. We have similar personalities I suppose, the same kind of humor and shared origins. As much as I pretend to tolerate him at best, he’s someone that I can’t help but like.

And speaking of, he falls back to keep in step with us.

“Don’t you get bored of getting punished with laps?” he says, glancing over at Four. “You’d think by now he’d have gotten a little more creative.”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t give him any ideas. The last thing I need is him getting creative.”

“You could just not antagonize him,” Will suggests.

I laugh. “But where’s the fun in that.” The other two laugh with me and Will tips his head to the side like he’s considering it.

“Yeah,” he concedes, “that’s fair I guess. It’s certainly fun to watch.”

“That’s what I said,” Christina agrees.

“Well, great minds do think alike.” He grins.

“Oh of course,” she agrees, snickering.

They’re similar too, I think. In different ways though, ways that I for some reason find incredibly endearing. We spend the remainder of our training day just like that, joking. And, despite everything, all of us are able to laugh at least once.

#fanfic #my writing #the anthem series #divergent

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mentalisttraceur · 5 years

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My thoughts on the whole "log off Tumblr" protest going on today: I respect your commitment to it if you think it will help, and I don't have enough insight to tell you you're wrong.

But for my part, I'm not committing to it (though I've made some effort to not go to places in the mobile apps that serve ads), because:

I don't think people are fully considering the dynamics of the situation that Tumblr is facing and the selective pressures that made Tumblr what it is.

You have to remember the universal inevitability that there will be more of things which persist and duplicate successfully. Corporations can be usefully thought of as higher-level, composite organisms, and all of their practices and behaviors are echoes of what has helped corporations thrive and survive in the past so far.

And we can usefully extrapolate a lot based on that analysis. A starving organism with a choice between starving longer or severe risk of imminent harm or death will continue to starve for a while. More bluntly, if you are hungry, and your food starts being pulled away, but I'm pointing a gun at you saying "don't reach for the food", well, are you gonna reach for the food?

We are Tumblr's food. The law (which includes the law of virtual lands like Apple's app store) is the imminent threat.

To be more precise: money is the "calories" for corporation-organisms (like the one that owns Tumblr) are like cows: they can't digest us into money directly, so they have a symbiotic relationship with their gut bacteria: the advertisers.

We are the grass to Tumblr's cow, being slowly chewed, digested, and vomited back up, over and over and over. So long as we keep traveling through Tumbler's stomachs the advertiser bacteria can extract money from us, and they share some of that money with Tumblr.

So we can, yes, flex some leverage over Tumblr. But the rest of the ecosystem can flex a categorically superceding leverage:

we can say "we'll stop letting you chew us"

Apple and Google can say "we'll gag your mouth so you can't graze anymore" - in fact they did just that and Tumblr's behavior should be seen as a desperate "okay I'll do what you want please let me eat" reaction

the US government can say "we'll assault your very survival" (financially draining lawsuits or worse) and SESTA/FOSTA are an increased threat of that.

And note that Tumblr isn't one whole cow. Tumblr is just one stomach of the cow. It used to be a single cow, peacefully and somewhat dully grazing on us. But then Tumblr was devoured by a larger cow -

- because see, analogies are never perfect and corproration-organisms aren't just like cows, they're also like these amorphous blobs that can absorb each other, and so the bigger cow just absorbed the smaller Tumblr cow into itself, and now the Tumblr cow-amoeba is just sorta... half-dissolved and half-fused inside the larger cow-amoeba like an Eldritch horror, still self-aware but with it's remaining organs now serving the greater whole.

And while no cow will be happy if grass suddenly vacates its mouth and stomatch in protest, this cow is sentient and knows that we are only the grass in one of its stomachs, and is also doing what it's doing because it's being forced to do so by the bigger influences, so its priorities are, in increasing order:

Keeping the grass in this stomach happy (caving to our demands)

Keeping the bacteria in it's stomachs happy (avoiding bad reputation with advertisers)

Keeping the stomach (following the laws of the app store lands)

Not havings it's entire body brutally assaulted (following the laws of the governments whose jurisdiction the corporation-organism falls under)

And because the brain of the cow (those with the majority of the decision power within the corporation-organism) can just leave the rest of the cow body behind if the cow starts dying, and the cow as a whole can slough off the Tumblr-stomach if it's costing more than it's earning...

..well, we as the grass can starve and hurt the cow, but I don't see how doing so can create an incentive gradient that will make the cow suddenly take up the altruistic fight to change the greater social circumstances that are compelling Tumblr to act this way.

It would be like expecting a beekeeper to listen to the demands of individual bees, while two other humans point guns to the beekeeper's head head and demand they rearrange their entire setup, now. You as the beekeeper want the bees healthy and thriving, but if some beehives get smashed as you scurry around trying to move everything to meet the demands of the people yelling with guns, you're gonna say "shit" and get on with surviving the immediate danger. You'll wreck literally all of your hives and release angry bees all over the place and hope that when the situation is over you'll be able to get more bees that can thrive in the setup you've been forced to have.

You're gonna have to be really reckless, desperate, or confident in your ability to win before you turn on the people with guns and say "no, screw you", I'm fighting for the preferences of these bees.

The Tumblr-cow corporation-organism's mind is panicking. It has been threatened and attacked by the Apple and Alphabet (Google) corporation-organisms (who basically stabbed a stopper into its esophagus leading from their app stores into the Tumblr stomach), and they have all been threatened by the United States of America nation-state-organism (with the passing of SESTA/FOSTA).

If you think I'm anthropomorphizing corporations and governments, I need you to realize that I'm doing something far, far bigger and less trite than projecting human-level traits onto these things, because they are far, far more complex than human-level. So if you think they don't have human experiences, then you're right, but if you think they're more usefully understood as mindless then no - they are most usefully understood as minds - profoundly more complex and very alien minds relative to us.

Note that this remains true whether or not they "really are" minds, whether or not completely collectives of people organized as a corporation give rise to some actual experiencer - just as with any other minds we might infer exist. Ultimately, all external minds besides our own are a convenient and accurate-prediction-increasing model of the world - the only difference is that you've probably spent enough time thinking about human cognition that your mind models them so intuitively that your mind presupposes their reality as inherent truth.

Anyway, it is profound hubris to think that I, a mere human, can understand the cognition of a composite mind of the size likely to be hostable within the Tumblr-organism, let alone the Tumblr-owning-corporation-organism. Like, a neuron presuming to understand the cognition of the brain it comprises levels of hubris.

But I know the broad strokes of what behavior results from panic and fear in organisms that I can understand, and the rapid, clumsy, and ineffective yet persistent Tumblr behavior in the days after the Tumblr app got pulled from the Apple App Store and Android Play Store has been pattern-matching real hard on it.

Specifically, it's very reminiscent of what some abused or recently assaulted person do when they're desperately trying to fix something to placate their abuser/attacker, when they have to, but don't actually have the skill or knowledge to competently do it.

But Tumblr is a learning entity too, and it will get less clumsy at it - it is already getting over its initial knee-jerk reaction and doubtless the people behind Tumblr are aware of the flaws in their execution of what they're being compelled to do, and are actively working on improving as much as they can within the confines of the (vague and threatening) demands imposed on Tumblr.

Anyway, there is a real danger of projecting too humanoid of mental experience onto composite minds, and "panic" implies that more than I'd like, but sadly the word "panic" captures best the general broad strokes of the condition I am thinking of. Still, bear in mind that while we can refer to an ant feeling fear, a human's fear isn't just stronger or deeper, it literally had several additional dimensions. So when I say "panic" I decidedly do not mean human-like panic, I mean some complex hyperdimensional panic.

Anyway, I think the Tumblr organism and to a lesser extent the Tumblr-containing and Tumblr-comprising organisms are very focused on the Tumblr organism/stomach being in danger of not surviving, and even if the Tumblr-cow it's not too panicked to listen to what the food parts of its stomach ecosystem are telling it, I think it's facing an incentive gradient where nothing we can do in our role as grass can change what it's doing.

Tumblr will act based on its best-effort to assess its environment, based on what it "thinks" will help it survive. This isn't an absolute guarantee, but Tumblr is the descendent of the selectable pieces of collective-human-organisms which did what caused them to persist and duplicate, and they are likely to do what ensured that before.

TL;DR: This protest can't help fix the main problems, which are bigger than Tumblr. Those problems are beyond Tumblr's power to fix, and this protest doesn't cogently express, let alone provide incentives for, the long-term social and political efforts that Tumblr would need to engage in to help fix them.

#natural selection #cognition

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askscottatavie-blog · 5 years

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About the Mun - Task

I meant to post this a few hours ago, but I overslept, so here ya go!

Name/Alias: Rhiannon

Pronouns: She/Her

Which characters do you write currently?: Scotta, Charna, Effie, Dale, Gil & Ginny

What got you into Descendants?: I think I actually found a lyric video for Rotten to the Core while looking for lyrics from the more classic Disney films, and then I got curious, looked up the song and ended up watching the film. Just a few months before D2 came out as well, so I had some really great timing!

Favorite color: Orange

Favorite food: Tangerines (easily peel, because I’m an overgrown child)

Favorite book(s) and character(s) from it: Since I can’t remember the names of anyone in Shamaka, I have to say Rat from Unhooking the Moon (an amazing but sad read, would highly recommend)

Favorite movie(s) and character(s) from it: The Road to El Dorado, and my two gay sons Miguel and Tulio (I will forever be salty that that story line was removed, fight me dreamworks)

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done?: I won a writing contest a few years ago and, because of that, I’m now on the youth council for the Hay Festival, one of (if not the) largest literature festivals in the world.

Fill one of these out for each character!

Character Name: Scotta Tavie McKendrick-DunBroch

Parent(s)/Movie: Merida & Isobel (OC) from Brave, Odin from the Hercules TV Show

What makes this character special?: She believes in doing what’s best for your people, even if it might make you look bad in the process. She understands that sometimes difficult decisions and sacrifices have to be made, and is more than prepared to make them, and is wholly ready to take blame for everything she knows will rightfully be her fault in one way or another. She’s also come from an extremely low place recently and is working on being more honestly herself, not the perfect princess she was pretending to be before.

How are you and this character similar? Dissimilar?: I can definitely relate to the pressure to act like someone you’re not. And while I feel like I can identify the best course of action in a tense situation, I don’t know if I’d have the strength to choose the more difficult decision in real life.

What’s the hardest part about writing this character?: Definitely having to constantly look up stuff she would be quoting, plus trying to keep on top of what other characters are doing and have a good knowledge of politics, which I really don’t IRL. I should probably work on that.

What do you see this character doing in the future?: If she doesn’t ascend to the throne then she’ll definitely be running things behind the scenes. Her entire life up until this point has been training her to become a ruler, so that’s really the only thing she knows how to do. But I also think she’s going to continue to grow as a person and get better, considering her poor state that left her stuck at home for months during recovery.

Character Name: Belobog “Charna” Yaga (she doesn’t technically have a last name, but if she had to pick one you can bet it wouldn’t be her dad’s name)

Parent(s)/Movie: Chernabog & Marzanna (OC based on the actual goddess) from Fantasia

What makes this character special?: Aside from being a literal goddess, she’s managed to overcome every expectation of who she should be to be a real hero. Someone who puts other people before themselves in a society where that really doesn’t benefit her in any way. She definitely has evil inside of her, and she is similar to her dad in a lot of ways, but unlike him she chooses to utilize in a positive way rather than a negative one, and doesn’t use her powers selfishly when she has access to them.

How are you and this character similar? Dissimilar?: We both love kids, and we both probably put other people before ourselves too much. But I’m not nearly as violent or mean as she is, although I wish I could come up with come-backs as fast irl as I do for her.

What’s the hardest part about writing this character?: Keeping her speech less articulated than a lot of my other characters. Most of my characters either speak extremely formally (see: Scotta), or at least like regular people. But Charna’s quite inarticulate so I end up editing her a lot when it comes to actual speech. Plus I have 3 different characters (Charna, Scotta and Ginny) who are all suppose to be quite good at come backs, but in different ways, so whenever I write a comeback I always have to stare at it for a while and deduce if it’s in character for that particular muse.

What do you see this character doing in the future?: I think she eventually will go to Auradon with Ivah, where she can finally start to take care of herself and her daughter properly. There’ll also probably be some kind of face off with her and her dad as a nod to the Belobog and Chernobog rivalry (and the idea that both are evenly matched) from Slavic Mythology, but I can’t really see us doing that in this RP.

Character Name: Effie Mode

Parent(s)/Movie: Edna Mode from the Incredibles

What makes this character special?: Despite her disability she’s extremely confident in herself and doesn’t take anything from anyone. She’s also extremely clever and talented, having an eye for fashion and an interest in linguistics (she’s already fluent in several languages), and is a spoiled brat without being a mean girl, so to speak.

How are you and this character similar? Dissimilar?: I think we both share a self-deprecative sense of humour, but she’s a lot more sure of herself than I am.

What’s the hardest part about writing this character?: Trying to write her disability accurately. I’ve done as much research as I can on my own, but I could definitely stand to actually talk to some legally blind people. But also to not make her disability the focal point of her characters, which I know this isn’t exactly the prime example of.

What do you see this character doing in the future?: I think, rather than following in her mother’s footsteps, she’ll become a translator. But a very fashionable translator.

Character Name: Dale Dwarf

Parent(s)/Movie: Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

What makes this character special?: His clumsiness and social awkwardness is cranked up to the extreme, to the point where it’s less cute and more annoying (or, at least that’s what I’m going for anyway). But at the end of the day he genuinely has a heart of gold and will try and right any wrongs he may have accidentally made, even if he just ends up making it worse. Kind of becomes a vicious cycle, really, but people will hopefully eventually catch on.

How are you and this character similar? Dissimilar?: I’m definitely very clumsy and socially awkward, although not nearly to the extent that Dale is.

What’s the hardest part about writing this character?: Trying to keep that kind of ‘goofy but nice’ personality while trying to write him in a way that he might accidentally annoy other characters. He’s just too pure a bean.

What do you see this character doing in the future?: While I don’t think he ever fully gets over his clumsiness, he does have an interest in architecture, and that only requires drawing. So he’ll probably be doing that, in a study somewhere, surrounded by bubble wrap. You know, just in case.

Character Name: Gil LeGume

Parent(s)/Movie: Gaston LeGume and the Green Bimbette from Beauty and the Beast

What makes this character special?: He’s the most innocent of Gaston’s sons because of how his brothers have protected him, so he’s this rare ray of sunshine right in the centre of the Isle. Having almost never experienced his father’s abuse first hand he’s been able to develop relationships in a way that his brothers don’t seem to have been able to, at least in the past, and he’s extremely trusting and naïve despite the environment he grew up in dictating him to be anything but. He also has an amazing memory.

How are you and this character similar? Dissimilar?: I too just want to make everyone happy, if I’m honest. But I wish I had a memory as half as good as his, because I forget absolutely everything.

What’s the hardest part about writing this character?: Because Gil is quite a well known canon character that’s in the films, yet still a pretty minor one, I definitely struggle to capture his characterisation. Dylan’s portrayal was so strong that there’s definitely a right and wrong way to write him, but because he had so few scenes and even less dialogue it can definitely take a few tries to really nail.

What do you see this character doing in the future?: I honestly don’t know. Right now his entire life revolves around the Pirate Crew because that’s who his friends are and they’re the people he knows will always have his back, alongside his brothers. He definitely has an interest in academics, so I can see him getting into university to study maths or something, but further than that I can’t say.

Character Name: Ginny Gothel

Parent(s)/Movie: Mother Gothel from Tangled

What makes this character special?: Ginny is complex on a level that a lot of my other characters in this group aren’t, because unlike the others I need to write her as an antagonist despite most VKs being inherently sympathetic characters because of their situations. So there’s this really interesting balance of the clear signs of years of manipulation and abuse weighing down on her shoulders and making her do all this bad stuff, but also the occasional good thing that she does but has to disguise as her being evil, such as pushing her sister away so she is away from home more often (and thus away from their mother) and so she’d accept the invite to Auradon.

How are you and this character similar? Dissimilar?: I honestly don’t think I have many similarities to Ginny. Like, at all. I guess I’d like to be able to help people without coming off as being too pushy on the subject, although maybe not in the same way that she does it. But I’m definitely not as mean or vicious as she is. I don’t have the balls if I’m being honest.

What’s the hardest part about writing this character?: The hardest part is getting that balance that you need for a good sympathetic villain. Because she can’t be so sympathetic that she’s no longer threatening, but she also can’t be so threatening that she’s no longer sympathetic. It’s kind of a fine line to walk.

What do you see this character doing in the future?: With the way things have been developing so far, things are definitely going to get worse for Ginny before they get better, but I can see a possible redemption arc somewhere in her future.

#askingdtask002 #// *ooc

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drdoigfanclub-blog · 6 years

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Week 10

This was our final week of AERO307. We started off last Friday with a fully assembled failed design. Since the following Wednesday was the day we present the results of our project, this left us in quite a flurry. We arrived Monday morning to see if we could troubleshoot a working solution, but to no avail. We quickly got to work drafting a second version of our design, and split up the team to go acquire all the parts we would need. In the end we successfully accomplished what we sought out to do, and presented our successes this Wednesday to the rest of the class.

Our first, failed design encountered some issues with back-flow, caused by a high pressure concentration which prevented any of the smoke from being delivered into the wind tunnel.

Figure 1: Our first, failed design

The critical failure occurred in the wye joint, immediately after the shop-air was supposed to mix with the smoke supplied by the fog machine. What happened here was that the smoke-air mixture was supposed to be funneled into a 1/4 inch tube, before being further constricted into a 3/8 inch tube which would inject the final mixture into the wind tunnel. This decrease in pipe diameter produced too much back-pressure, causing all of the mixed air to flow backwards through the smoke hose, ensuring that none of the mixture would enter the test section.

In this design, we were relying on the momentum of the air entering the wye joint would carry the flow through the constriction, overcoming the back pressure generated. As depicted in the diagram above, we initially intended on forcing the flow immediately into a wider tube, which would have pushed the back pressure due to constriction further into that tube, which may have allowed the smoke to exit through the nozzle. We ended up going with a 1/4 inch flexible tube which was pretty well doomed from the beginning.

Well, you live and you learn, and what we learned was that we should have been more critical of the yellow flags that were raised, and performed deeper analysis to validate our intuitions.

After our failure, team member Andrew sketched up a concept he pitched in our initial design, but we rejected because it felt too complicated to get right. This design was inspired by a fuel injector, where the compressed air entered through the center of the smoke, which would most likely provide a suction force, and pull the smoke and air mixture downstream into the test section.

Figure 2: Our second, successful design.

This design is very similar in concept, except we moved forward with a much more conservative model, one that would never run into the same issues that caused failure the first time. Here we implemented Andrew’s fuel injector concept, and fed the smoke-air mixture into a slightly larger smoke probe. This design overcame all of the hang-ups experienced earlier, and performed very nicely, although it was a bit cumbersome to use.

The apparatus was very successful at overcoming the original issues encountered in the first design, and even provided suction on the smoke hose, as opposed to back-flow caused by the first design. This was a glaring success, although results weren’t perfect. The issue with our final solution, was that the amount of air required to accelerate the flow up to the wind-tunnel’s speed would dilute the smoke such that it might cause issues with visualization.

In our final presentation, my group was called out (understandably) for not presenting any relevant analysis which would validate the efficacy of our designs. Although we never worked to calculate the relevant pressures, there was an effort made to determine a hierarchy of pressures, as well as to calculate relevant back-pressures caused by constricting the flow.

Figure 3: A diagram identifying the location of each point of interest for Pressure

The diagram above is a schematic we drew up in the design phase where we could find local pressures which would drive our decision making process. So, to specify what each point is referring to: (1) is the pressure at the exit of the Fog Hose, (2) is the pressure at the outlet of the shop-air-tube, (3) is the pressure within the mixing chamber, (4) is the pressure at the outlet of the probe, and (5) is the pressure within the wind tunnel test section. We determined that (1) would need to be greater than (3), which would be higher than (2), and that ideally (4) would be equal to (5), which would need to be our lowest pressures in the system. We also determined some necessary constraints about velocities, which basically boiled down to the velocity at (4) being equal to the velocity at (5) and making assumptions about the up-stream conditions that would result in this output. This much was easy. Where the analysis takes a turn for the complicated is when we start introducing bends and constrictions into the flow.

Naturally, we attempted to solve the back pressures by looking at online calculators which might be able to indicate how much resistance would be produced by funneling the flow into a smaller nozzle. Unfortunately, we could not finesse the calculator to produce useful results for our endeavors. Next we moved on to researching how pressure is calculated as it propagates backwards through a flow, and I guess we just never found anything before we gave up. I don’t quite remember why we stopped searching for a solution by these methods, but I guess it was because we were running out of time and just decided to source materials rather than spend a ton of time trying to figure out exactly how much pressure we’re dealing with.

It’s a complex problem, given all of the changes in altitude, velocity, and even density as the smoke and air progress through their channels. We were dissuaded from calculating, and ended up making a critical mistake. Fortunately, this mistake was made with ample time to pivot and come up with a new solution which directly addressed our concerns.

Figure 4: Here’s an image we captured while examining how our apparatus would work for real flow-viz for future experiments. I’d say it was 8/10, because it worked functionally, but there is a lot of room for improvement both on the user-side and on the visualization side.

Anywho, after we got the smoke machine to work, we set out to film our results for the presentation the following day. We ended up getting some great videos which really characterized the performance of our system. I think that our presentation was well-received and informatively covered all of the important characteristics of our presentation. Then we watched the remainder of the presentations by the rest of our class. It was impressive to see some of the challenges that our peers had to overcome in order to complete these projects, and imparting a lot of insight as they reflected on their work.

After that, we wrapped up our Experimental Aerodynamics course with a “Pizza Social,” sponsored by Kyle, our class TA. This course was a great opportunity to get my hands dirty in the wind tunnel and imparted a ton of experience that will prepare me for any kind of aerodynamics testing that I encounter in my future. We learned how to use a multitude of instrumentation including pressure ports, a force balance, various scale models, flow visualization in both water and air, and certainly more methods which I was exposed to but never practiced. All in all, this course has provided a ton of insight into the world of experimental aerodynamics, and helped me forge a bunch of new friendships along the way.

I just want to say thank you to all of my instructors this quarter, since they were so approachable and happy to impart their knowledge upon us. It was a great experience getting to absorb all that you have to offer and I’ll never forget the experience gained this quarter. All of this was made possible by you and I am grateful for the time and energy you have put into us.

Lastly we were tasked with answering a few questions by the Great Dr. Doig.

Here they are:

a) If you were to pick one thing that you feel like you understand pretty well about aerodynamics now that you didn't at the start of 307, what is it and why?

Now I really understand the importance of fully measuring all of the relevant pressures of a test. This was directly applicable to the project that I worked on, since we struggled to match the pressures as we had hoped we might. The next place this was relevant was in our first lab experiment, where we took data on Lift and Drag via pressure ports around a wing. This data was illuminating because I didn’t fully comprehend how powerful static pressure ports would be around the profile of a wing until then, and how much information is lost if any of those pressure ports fail to read accurate data (it was 2/20, so our data was less accurate than it could have been). And lastly relevant when the shop-air was turned off during several groups’ testing, which meant that their data was all taken inaccurately, because the data processing requires a baseline pressure to compare against, and because the shop air was turned off, they had no known pressure that they could compare their results to.

b) If you were to pick one thing about aerodynamics that still confuses you, what is it and why?

Figure 5: What I still don’t understand

Vorticity. Definitely vorticity. The picture at the header of my Blog page (and directly above) shows an underwater shot of a wave (like in the ocean). There are some “ropes” of air, which stretch from the front of the wave out to the back of the wave, and include rotating features. I would love to understand these since they are such a natural part of our world, so prevalent in something that happens every day 24 hours a day, and yet I understand so little about it. The mechanism by which air begins to rotate as it flows is a mystery to me, and I would love to develop a greater understanding of the mechanisms at play. I am perplexed and very curious about this phenomenon.

c) What was your 307 highlight?

I really enjoyed how attentive and happy to help my TA was. With a class that focuses on experimentation, it is incredibly helpful to have guidance. Not only was Kyle good at providing guidance with the subject matter and happy to elaborate on anything we didn’t quite understand. But he went above and beyond his expectations, and was always happy to field questions that were out of the box, and only tacitly related to the matter at hand. This willingness to share really made this course a glowing experience, and turned the lab time into a time to explore our curiosities, as opposed to a workshop where we slave over our assignments.

d) What was your 307 lowlight?

There were a lot of tough times in 307, but none really stick out as being particularly negative experiences. There were stresses and things that felt a little unfair, but nothing that left a lasting bad impression. The bulk of the stresses stemmed from the large volume of people working in the wind tunnel, doing all kinds of different projects on the same tunnel. Things would get moved, settings would get changed, and sometimes this made life much more difficult than it needed to be. The example that comes to mind is the time that there was a script installed on the testing computer which forced our files into a naming convention, and we were unaware of this until well into our testing scheme, and only was an issue because a wind tunnel worker was trying to be helpful but forgot to disable their tool after they left, this meant we had to backtrack and re-name our files and coupled with an unexpected dead-pressure port it really hamstringed our confidence in the testing apparatus and ended up costing us a lot of time while we were trying to figure out what exactly went wrong. Turns out the port was just dead and that we would have to rename our files manually after they were saved, but it was really stressful in the hour and a half we were allotted for testing!

That was tough, but in hindsight, it was all a part of the learning experience, and troubleshooting unreliable equipment is part of engineering - making the best out of what you are given. Although not everything was perfect, it was functional, if you used it in the right context and got creative about using the tools at your disposal. This made for long hours (especially for a 2-unit class) but I made it through the class, so I really can't say there was anything that left a lasting negative impression.

e) For many of you, this'll be the last time you really engage with aerodynamics, since you prefer structures or controls or design or just anything else... for others, this course will have been a springboard to many future aerodynamic adventures. What do you think the future holds for you in aerospace engineering?

I really hope my future brings me into aquatics and hydrodynamics. I would love to use my Aerospace background to apply those principles to navigating the ocean, and possibly oceans of other planets! This isn't something people typically associate with Aerospace, but the underwater is where were going to find life that is truly alien to what we know, and it’s where were going to find the deepest mysteries that are relevant to the world we live in.

Long term? I hope to build submersibles for exploration of Europa and other water-holding bodies in our solar system. The possibility for them to harbor life, or at least harbor interesting geological facts is huge, and it would be amazing to be a part of that.

Exploration. Exploration is where I hope my Aerospace Engineering future takes me.

#LearnByDoing

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heuschkelkei · 4 years

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bulletproofrevengexx · 5 years

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Selecting video security cameras

If you're planning to pick a surveillance camera, the options could be mind-boggling. Here are some ideas to assist you. There is a lot to consider in terms of home security camera features, specs along with common tech should go. The difference between a webcam and a real home security camera is one very important variation. Webcams tend to be lumped underneath the surveillance camera group simply because many of them give some safety features, however I would certainly conisder that they're fairly constrained when your main concern is actually stability. Go ahead and take Smonet Security Camera as well as the Arlo as examples. Either let you view a live video feed with ones own cellphone wherever you have internet connection, but Arlo Pro 2 will not alert you every time a possible safety measures problem takes place (for instance when the built-in security alarms discover activity, and so forth.), while the View provides you with a lot of customizability to help you acquire warnings anytime some thing occurs, if that is what you wish. It might appear to be a limited distinction, however if you are getting the particular stand alone Do-it-yourself wireless security camera option, those messages would be the very best to approximate real-time monitoring (no need to staring at the feed all the time). Build it yourself regularly implies that, in contrast to Vivint along with other firms, there isn't any skilled professional monitoring service hiding behind your security camera. It means, for better or worse, it's going to be up to you to get hold of the authorities if you notice somebody breaking in to your property. If you can't get the alternative to obtain a alert every time a security circumstance happens, you could quite easily miss out on the only time period that a burglar steal that high-priced piece of charms.

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That does not mean that there is no place for ip camera as safety measures supplements, but they're truly finest available looking in for a cat in daytime to guarantee your best jumper hasn't became a munch doll.

Many benefits of video cameras

Prevent CRIME

This is basically the most important and the most noticeable good thing about installation of video cameras. When they are positioned, you'll be able to experience their specific effect on most people shortly. Regardless of whether they can be located covertly, you are going to begin feeling a sense of safety, which is precious. In no way enable any one or anything dubious within your glance with security camera systems. And even while it is recommended that anyone steer clear of obtaining dummy surveillance cameras, I simply cannot pressure enough on the importance of correcting real security cameras as a good security measure. Thieves are usually smart and fake video security cameras show by themselves away, so there is actually no reason of having these items.

Find EVIDENCE

Placing hidden cameras set up in proper sites comes in handy when you'd like to look at actions also words of persons and in the occasion. Modern day security camera systems aren't just loaded with top quality video functions, but audio at the same time. The very clear video put together with great sound means they are more efficient than in the past for capturing a variety of occurrences. This is particularly beneficial when dealing with a legal situation, when the eye witness could have forgotten an unusual critical details or simply might be offering having an reliable account of what actually occurred. By using a surveillance camera, the lawful regulators can easily see any series of occasions while they actually unfolded. How Much Money Must You Invest in your Wireless Security Camera? Currently, surveillance technology can be purchased in a range of choices and costs to give a perception of security up to a massive amount people. The typical cost of an alarm system as well as set up will be $1,100. With the variances throughout types and excellence of security camera systems, installing the device generally can vary in between $600 and $2,000. Wired equipment are less expensive regarding elements however , much more for setup, at $165-$210 per cameras, when compared to the wi-fi options. Fortunately: investing in just about any product will save charges on home insurance.

There's a couple of choices to take: wireless or hard-wired and also Internet protocol address or Closed-circuit television. Nonetheless, several issues play a role in a final set-up. A good number of devices have multiple cameras with perhaps on-site or cloud storage. Usually they will include motions detectors, improved resolution, specialist following, along with dark vision capacities. Greater alternatives mean higher sophistication, as well as larger expenses. In the long run, your needs and preferences must dictate the final expenses. Throughout the years, surveillance camera selling prices have fallen, rendering them an affordable requirement. A normal home alarm system design and installation will cost about $1500. But the expense just for specialist design and installation may differ drastically depending on device variation and amount of cameras. On the top of hardware prices, each individual security camera will probably cover anything from $90 to $190 just for professional setting up. A system made for Build-it-yourself setup will cost you only time, if you've got the tools. Regardless of whether you finally end up proceeding any Do-it-yourself route or employing a professional, an initial appointment can assist you fully grasp a person's accurate specifications according to the demands of your property. An assessment is frequently no cost. The scale and type would depend on quite a few components.

Hard-wired Device

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Wi-fi System

Wi-fi systems are easy to install, causing them to the choices intended for Build it yourself homemade projects. A Do It Yourself installation will run you free of charge with the help of expert operation only about $120 every single webcam. They're also easy to relocate and also frequently present remote accessibility. Negative aspects include things like virtually no direct power supply and must get added inside your residence's wi-fi area to operate effectively. They frequently currently have reduced resolution when compared with hard wired counterparts and could be broken into from another location. Cord-less devices are usually subject to signal interference.

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stretchjournalemerson · 5 years

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Do I Look Like That?: Bitmojis and Perspectivism

By Tori Serpico -

The Bitmoji app, launched in 2013, is massively popular and has seemingly ever-growing success. The app allows users to create cartoon versions of themselves, which then are placed into hundreds of small animated photos, or “stickers,” that can represent nearly any mood or situation that you can then send through text -- all integrated into your phone’s keyboard. In the early days of Bitmoji, the app’s avatar customization was sparse. Should my Bitmoji be fully blonde or fully brunette? What skin tone is just right? Would I even wear that outfit? After spending too long attempting to answer these questions and make a Bitmoji to capture my essence I showed it to my sister. She looked at it, and then at me, and then back at it, and said: “That doesn’t look like you.”

This was a disappointing response. I handed her my phone and let her give it a try. She would periodically examine my face or ask me to turn my head. “Done!” She handed me back my phone. It didn’t look like me.

While what I am describing is truly a first world problem, there is an underlying question that reaches far beyond the Bitmoji: how can we truly capture the self?

To begin, we must consider the factor of perspective from someone who has explored this in depth. Let’s look backward to discover what historian and theorist Jane Tompkins, has already explored this topic of seeing the self through varying representations (Pifko). Tompkins, in her essay "’Indians’: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History,” describes the trouble she faces in attempting to piece together the encounters between the Europeans settlers and the Native Americans. Throughout her research, she discovers massive disparities in information as she reads varying accounts of what should be the same experience. This is troublesome to her, as clearly there is only one true history. However, these inconsistent records suggest otherwise. Due to this frustration, Tompkins concludes that the nature of facts, or of truth, is that although there is only be one base truth in the context of any given situation, due to the external human factor of perspective, multiple truths exist. As seen through Tompkins’ essay, this concept of perspectivism, or the idea that truth is inherently muddied by point-of-view, is closely aligned with understanding historical events. But I can’t help but wonder, what role does perspectivism play in an examination of the self?

The Bitmoji conundrum I described serves as an instance of perspectivist self-examination. When noting the disparity between the Bitmoji I created for myself and the Bitmoji my sister made for me, the differences were slight. A wider nose, a longer face, a few freckles.

But I was bothered by these small details that I failed to recognize in myself that were so simple for someone else to identify. Which was more accurate? Should I trust an outside eye’s perspective of my physical appearance because it is inherently less biased? Or is my own recreation of myself more true, as I am the self I am attempting to capture? And where do these two selves intertwine? If we view these questions through Tompkins perspectivist lens, then even "...if the accounts don't fit together neatly, that is not a reason for rejecting them all… one encounters contradictory facts and divergent points of view in practically every phase of life” (Tompkins 118). By the logic of perspectivist theory, there is no one true self to capture because each perspective provides a new insight. Therefore, I am all of my failed Bitmoji attempts. Yikes.

The belief that the self is a collective idea as opposed to a static being is not new. In fact, it’s almost three hundred years old. David Hume, a skeptic Enlightenment philosopher discusses his views on the permanency of self in “A Treatise of Human Nature.” Hume writes: “I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement” (134). This is known as the Bundle Theory. What this theory is arguing is that the self ever-evolving concept as it is constantly the object of others’ perspectives. These perspectives are so varied and so frequent that it is impossible to claim that one’s identity is singular-- it is only within our minds that we prescribe oneness to self. In this way, the Bundle Theory is inherently perspectivist. There cannot possibly be one true self if that self is being constantly externally perceived.

So who are we, if we are not who we think we are? To attempt to answer that question, let’s get back to basics: we are all human beings that possess human features and qualities. Now identifying these qualities is what creates implications that illuminate our perceptions of ourselves, ultimately aiding in others perceiving us. For example, my hair was once both brown and purple. At this time, Bitmoji did not have the option of multiple hair colors, meaning I had to choose between the two in order to best represent myself.

These hair colors are “signifiers,” or physical representations of greater meaning, or the “signified.” If I consider this post-structurally, as Tompkins would, these signifiers create a multitude of meanings that then contribute to larger structures of culture and identity. As I chose between two coexisting signifiers, I was deciding between selves. My choice would ultimately force me to perpetuate an idea of myself that was not entirely physically true. The implication then becomes that I view myself in a way which is inherently inaccurate. We all possess our signifiers, but the deliberate nature of the creation of a Bitmoji places a pressure upon the user to have a heightened understanding of them.

This pressure to have an accurate Bitmoji exists for several reasons. As its popularity has grown, the app has been integrated into a multitude of other popular social media apps, such as Snapchat and Tinder. Now instead of our “real” faces being plastered onto profiles, it’s our recreations of ourselves. Why is this preferable? I feel the aspect of control over our signifiers is something that society has striven for. Through the lens of the Bundle Theory, this is entirely impossible in reality. We are constantly being captured by various perspectives that we have little to no control over, no matter how much effort we put into physical appearances. The ability to capture the preferable, to show what we want to be seen, is a widely accepted part of social media culture. Bitmojis indirectly caricature our inclinations towards either embracing or rejecting this culture simply through the choices we make in attempting to recreate ourselves.

This is not to say that Bitmojis cannot be true to self or to say that Bitmojis deemed to be misrepresentative of their subject are done so purposefully. As I described, there is a margin of inaccuracy due purely to the lack of signifiers to choose from within the app. However, Bitmoji has become aware of this and has since released a game-changing update that drastically increased the accuracy of the recreation of the self: Bitmoji Deluxe. Bitmoji Deluxe offers such specificity in its signifiers that the pressure to have a true-to-self Bitmoji has not been relieved-- it has been heightened. In her essay “Thanks to Bitmoji Deluxe, my Bitmoji now gives me anxiety,” Stolyer expresses exactly what her title implies. The increased realism of the update caused Stolyer to “question physical looks [she has] never noticed before,” and described her “experience with the new feature [to be] filled with(…) anxiety.” While I cannot assume that this is a universal experience, this account clearly illuminates my point. Bitmoji is a new form of virtual identity that requires users to constantly be in a state of self-examination.

And for the reasons I have already discussed, self-examination is not a simple task. If I am truly just a bundle of selves or a collection of contradicting perspectives, then how can my Bitmoji ever really look like me? I posed the question: “how can we truly capture the self?”-- a question worth my exploration, and a question I wish I could answer within the confines of these closing thoughts. The only sentiment I can confidently leave you with is that we cannot allow philosophy to rob us of the existence of something as simple as physical appearance, as tempting as it may be. Truth and self still exist, just not in the ways that we think they do. Tompkins says it herself: “bringing perspectivism to bear in this way on any subject matter [has] a similar effect; everything is wiped out and you are left with nothing but a single idea-- perspectivism itself” (Tompkins 117). Perspectivism gives us the ability to diminish almost any truth, whether it be historical or personal. In my opinion, understanding the complexities of self is not an excuse to reject the self altogether and make your Bitmoji look like a big fat purple dragon. We are difficult to define, we are not intrinsically indefinable. As we must in any undertaking, in attempts to capture the self we must make decisions-- decisions formed by accepted facts. I will always have brown eyes-- and even if they may look hazel in a certain light, or if an unknown onlooker mistakes them for blue-- they will always be brown. We must take perspectivism with a grain of salt, and acknowledge that while truth exists in layers, there is always a foundation. So let’s use Bitmoji responsibly, with the understanding that even though we are victims of perspective, ultimately our own perspectives of ourselves should rise victorious. But first, be honest: does this look like me?

Acknowledgments

For my mom and my sister, who love my Bitmoji no matter what it looks like!

Works Cited

Hume, David. “Of Personal Identity.” A Treatise of Human Nature, 1738, pp. 133–139.

Pifko, Matthew. Class workshop. 15 November 2018.

Stolyar, Brenda. “Thanks to Bitmoji Deluxe, My Bitmoji Now Gives Me Anxiety.” Digital

Trends, Digital Trends, 1 Mar. 2018,

www.digitaltrends.com/features/my-bitmoji-gives-me-anxiety/.

Tompkins, Jane. “‘Indians’: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History.” Critical Inquiry,

vol. 13, no. 1, 1986, pp. 101–119., JSTOR,

www.umsl.edu/~alexanderjm/IndiansbyTompkins.pdf.

#technology #philosophy #social media #bitmoji #tori serpico #stretch2019

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