#Scaled Salvage
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scaled salvage: there are some... innocent misunderstandings between the earth kingdom and the southern water tribes about what an "information gathering" session with the prince entails - kutsaa is left to patch up the aftermath with a disturbingly calm zuko, bc if he interacts with a single earth kingdom representative he'll cause a diplomatic incident.
zuko isn't sure why everyone is so surpised or upset.
hakoda is quietly filing away the notion that zuko thought they *knew* what the earth kingdom was going to do and didn't try to fight back or refuse, to deal with at a later date.
“But…” the prince started. Again.
Hakoda stared him down, until he shut his mouth. “Just answer their questions, the same way you answered mine. Listen to them, behave for two hours, then you can come back to our ship.”
The prince didn’t agree, per se. But he let himself be marched across the gangplank, which was agreement enough.
“He’s convinced you’re going to break his hands,” Hakoda said, to Fong’s representative. A joke that was a warning.
“He’s your prisoner, not ours,” the man said. “We can respect that.”
Hakoda nodded, once. “Try to get something out of him that we can use as proof of life. I’m pretty sure my crew could forge a more personal letter than the ones he’s been writing.”
“Of course,” Fong’s representative said, with a smile.
* * *
The prince was returned before dinner. He walked stiffly back aboard, and took up position behind Hakoda, like he wasn’t sure he was dismissed.
“Your proof of life,” Fong’s representative said, handing Hakoda a strip of something black. “Thank you again. That tip about his hands came in very useful.”
It took until a long moment of staring to recognize the strip for what it was: dragon hide. He’d… never touched it fresh.
* * *
The kid didn’t say anything as Hakoda led him down to Healer Kustaa’s.
He needed leading.
“Out,” Kustaa said, and closed the door.
* * *
There was the barest hint of a burn on Prince Zuko’s hand. The flame they’d used, to make him shift. The threat behind it, if he refused.
The skin had been sliced neatly from between his shoulder blades. It was… not a disabling wound, for a human.
Kustaa rigged up a kind of wrap, to keep the prince’s wings immobilized. And mandated that he spend at least half the day as a dragon, to aid with healing across both forms.
“Will it heal?” Hakoda asked.
“The scales on his face didn’t,” Kustaa said.
The black dragon spent a lot of time stretched out, unmoving, on a yard of the mainmast. The easiest he could climb to. Hakoda did not climb after him.
* * *
“You knew they’d do this,” Hakoda said.
“You told them to.”
He hadn’t known what he was asking for.
“Why would you let them?” Hakoda knew it wasn’t the right thing to say, that it wasn’t the prince’s fault that he’d been skinned, but he also knew that nothing on the Earth Kingdom ship had been lit on fire in the process and he couldn’t understand how those facts fit.
“You said I had to listen to them,” Zuko said, “before I could come back.”
The prince had wanted to come back, even thinking that Hakoda had—
Of course he had. It was better than being sold to the Earth Kingdom. This ship was… it was safe, for him. The safest option he had right now.
Being sent off to be deliberately hurt, then coming back to where they only hurt him accidentally: that was the prince’s idea of safety.
…Hakoda hadn’t known what he was asking for. But he had a child aboard now, and it was time he figured out what that meant.
#Zuko: you banished me into a terrible situation and then you let me return the same day#+1000000 dad points#Hakoda: I don’t want them#Zuko: you don’t want the only thing I have to give#dad point combo#Bato arrives on board: Why is there a dragon sleeping on the mainmast#Hakoda: that’s my guilt-son next question#Avatar The Last Airbender#atla#Zuko#Hakoda#Salvage#Scaled Salvage#dragon Zuko
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This is part of an AU that is quickly sprawling far in my notes, technically sorta inspired by @artistwholikescookies role reversal AU from a few years ago, in that the Nektons are cryptids and aren't connected to the WOA at all. They still use a sub even though they're mer-shifters because the sub makes keeping the artefacts they find a lot easier.
I'm also writing a fic to go with this piece, which shows Kaiko and Will's wedding, specifically the ritual spell that gave Kaiko a scale-cloak of her own to transform into a mermaid (note the scales on Will's robe and the lack of them on Kaiko's, hers is still just fabric).
Will, canonically an ex-olympic swimmer, is built for speed in his mer-form. Kaiko is spiky and venomous because I like her comic characterisation best and comic Kaiko, who charges boats at docks and pushes people overboard, would totally be something built to fight as a mermaid. Fontaine, who I already have a sketch of that I'll work on tomorrow, takes after her father in that she's also fairly streamlined as a mer. Ant looks kinda like Jeffrey but with a pair of tentacles for extra shenaniganising and to hold things while he's inventing.
#the deep cartoon#Will Nekton#Kaiko Nekton#Mermay#mermay 2023#speaking of role reversal though#the dark orca is a poorly-funded and understaffed salvage retrieval vessel#and much like my extended hc/crossover AU Alpheus and his family are working with them#also both Alpheus' parents and Hammerhead's wife are alive here because I says so <3#the Benthos family don't have the scale-cloaks because they forgot the skin-sharing ritual at some point#and a child can't be born mer unless both parents are mer#that's what saves Archidemia in this AU - Proteus assumes that the Benthos family lost all their Lemurian magic when they lost the cloaks#my art#mer au
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sometimes i see non autistics write headcanons abt what probably went on in an autistic char they arent writings head and i just ‘yeah, yeah you have no idea how autistics think at all lol’ like yes its a spectrum, yes we’re all different, and youre still managing to pretend we’re neurotypical like—
#out.#‘well to ever even DO that you have to—‘ no. no you dont.#if youre not autistic maybe. our brains do not think or process things the way yours does#and when a char hits so many scales that every autistic who sees them agrees theyre autistic? (aka t/ony s/tark. b/ruce w/ayne. c/assandra#c/ain. n.ewt s/camander. h u n d r e d s m o r e)#you have to understand that our brains do not process information the way yours does#autism is in fact genetic so theres a good chance that if a blood relative has it#youre also somewhere on the spectrum#but ffs stop making everything ‘it has to be xyzabcde’ no. no it doesnt.#we overthinks every minute detail. and in a lot of cases like bruce in 2022#its hard to get into the headspace of someone did something bad but they are not bad#even w ourselves half the time when i fuck up i think im worthless horribel and garbage#rejection sensitivity and being lied to are HUGE factors here#and it takes a LOT to wrap our heads around it#esp if we don’t know we’re autistic and arent there yet#like bruce in the film onviously struggles immensely with his heroistic view of his father#until he realizes thomas is a prick and then hes all bad#and alfred tries to salvage it but bruce has to come to terms with he did good things but also bad things#even w other family he has to wrap his brain around that bc trying to better himself its not gonna be instant#tony is so fucking easy to manipulate bc all you have to do is make him feel guilty abt something#and he does everything to mask and make others want to view him in a better light and fix what went wrong.#we need that deeper explanation we need more facts#and for some of us coughs bruce coughs#we struggle w seeing anything mot in black and white when we ourselves arent black and white#hipocritical maybe in some cases we at least have a bit of an excuae#all im saying is please for the love of FLUFF stop thinking of auts the way you think of neurotypicals because we ARENT#i think almost everyone im mutuals w is also autistic thankfully so thats why i dont see it ok the dash happening#but dear god man go into tags and you wanna die
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#ooc post.#.vat file#big oof. the big sphinx draw I was doing I guess I was doing on my old phone and I forgot to backup the gallery when I switched phones sooo#I've lost most of it. I just have the screenshot of one of the early stages that I posted on here..... but I think I feel like drawing so.#I'll try?? to salvage it#maybe I won't try so hard. I was trying to do lineless and a new shading technique and it was. alot. so#I'll scale down my intentions ig lmao
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What kind of bubble is AI?
My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:
https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/
Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.
Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.
Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.
AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.
So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means
But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.
Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).
Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).
Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.
These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money
Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html
The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.
What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop
The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/
But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.
Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.
The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.
If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:
https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509
These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.
Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.
These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).
So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.
But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.
This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space
But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop
Image:
Cryteria (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg
CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
--
tom_bullock (modified)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/
CC BY 2.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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Working on a flower
#altheafultz#salvage art#artists life#pastel#pastel art#oil pastel#large scale#colorfulart#wip#wip stuff
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hello! So you know about those like music boxes with the ballerinas on top? what if reader has a plain music box and decides to put a mini painted simon riley on it and reader gets caught playing with the custom music box
Please and thank you!
There you go, anon! Hope you like it!
———————————————————————
You recline on your assigned bed, head cradled in one hand while the other fiddles with the box in front of you. Work has been sluggish lately—a good thing, considering the nature of your job. Yet, despite the break, your hands ache for the action they’ve been accustomed to—pulling triggers, disarming bombs, rescuing comrades and civilians. Now, they remain idle, bored, and without purpose.
For that reason, you finally decided to address a long-delayed project you’ve postponed for ages: restoring your grandmother’s worn-down ballerina music box. Time has taken its toll on it, with splinters jutting from the once-smooth surface. The paint, once vibrant, had either chipped away in places or surrendered entirely, leaving bare patches to the sides and on the lid. Even the ballerina inside, once gracefully twirling, had been frozen in time. It begged for your attention and care.
And that’s exactly what you did.
You fixed the mechanism inside, stripped away the original paint, sanded the box down and diligently repainted it, using whatever colours you managed to salvage—some leftover black varnish that had been used to paint the fence around the base, green paint from the mechanics who use it for the military vehicles and a ghastly olive hue colour you have no idea of its purpose, nor you want to know.
As you turn the key, the music box releases its familiar melody, drawing your attention to the figure twirling within. Gone is the ballerina’s delicate face. Now it’s replaced by a meticulously painted skull balaclava closely resembling Ghost. The once pink bodysuit has transformed into a scaled-down tactical vest with detailed features, mirroring the real deal—knives, magazines, and even a tourniquet secured on the shoulder. The ballerina’s bare legs now sport camo leggings, and her ballet shoes have been upgraded to sturdy combat boots. The tutu couldn’t be removed since it was part of the ballerina’s body, so you left it as it was and painted it black.
You turn the key again and let it go, watching the lieutenant twirl. Your gaze is fixed on the figure as you find yourself entranced, occasionally poking at the lieutenant’s hand to halt the motion and releasing it to begin twirling again.
And as you do it one more time, the door opens, and the real, life-sized lieutenant pokes his head through the opening. He scans the entire room until it settles on you
“Is it you making that noise?” he asks.
“Noise?” you ask back. “That’s Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky.”
“I don’t care what it is,” he replies. “Either turn it off or turn the volume down.”
“Well, I can’t turn the volume down,” you say, pointing at the box.
“I gave you two options if I remember correctly,” he says, tilting his head to the side. He narrows his eyes, now focused on the box, and approaches the bed with his hand extended towards you. “Give me that.”
“No!” You retort and hug the box close to your chest. “Why should I give it to you?”
“Because I said so,” he whispers, pointing with his finger. “Now. Give. Me. The. Box.”
You sigh and roll your eyes but comply with his demand. You close the box, which triggers the music to stop and hand it over to Ghost.
He holds it to his side for a second, then lifts it to his eye level. He looks at it all around and, with a swift motion, lifts the lid.
The music starts playing again, and the mini-lieutenant resumes his little dance. Ghost stands there with the box in his hands, watching the figurine until it stops moving. He looks at you, then at the box. He turns the box towards you so you can look at the figurine and points at it.
“That’s me,” he states, triggering three nods from you.
“I was bored,” you explain, shrugging, “so I decided to refurbish my grandma’s antique ballerina box with whatever I found at the base.”
“I can see that,” he whispers, turning around the box. “Maintenance support didn’t have a colour closer to fuchsia?”
“Unfortunately, no,” you reply, following his sarcastic tone. “They ran out.”
“Poor grandma and poor ballerina,” he says, pointing again at his mini-self. “Why did you turn her into that?”
“What do you mean ‘into that’?” you ask, pointing at the box. “That’s you.”
“Exactly!” he exclaims, turning the box around to look at the figurine better. “Plus, it doesn’t look like me at all.”
“Why?” you ask, wincing. “Is it the tutu?”
“No,” he says, slowly looking at you and tilting his head. “What gave you that impression?”
You chuckle at his response. “What is it then?”
He holds the box to the side so you can look at the figurine and himself.
“Look,” he says, spreading his other hand to the side. “It’s too skinny to be me.”
“Hmmm, I can’t tell from where I’m sitting…” you murmur, scratching your chin as you examine both of them. “How about you make a quick pirouette for me?”
“How about I make you pirouette all the way to the Captain?” He asks, as he lifts one eyebrow and closes the box.
He motions with his other hand at you to stand up. “Get ready for training,” he states and shakes the box. “This comes with me.”
“No, Lt.!” You shout, “That’s mine!”
“Well, it has my bloody face in there, doesn’t it?” He says. “Plus, I can’t have you playing that music in the base; it’s scaring the others.”
“Scaring the others?” You protest, and your eyes widen. “I’m scaring grown-ass men who kill for a living?”
“Not you,” he replies as he walks towards the exit and lifts the box in the air. “But that bloody Tchaikovsky is.”
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#simon ghost riley x reader#simon ghost riley x gn!reader#simon ghost riley x you#simon ghost riley x y/n#simon riley x y/n#simon ghost riley#simon riley x you#simon riley#simon riley x gn!reader#simon riley x gn reader#simon riley x reader#call of duty#cod ghost#cod mwii#ghost cod#simon ghost riley fic#simon ghost riley fanfiction#simon ghost riley imagine
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Finally got the tooth that's been murdering me everyday out. Freedom.
#teeth#tooth#take care of yourselves#take care of your teeth#seriously#take care of your health#pain isnt fun#reach out to organizations and/or do research on your own#i only was able to get the tooth pulled because I found a sliding scale/free dental clinic an hour away#now i just need to get my other teeth taken care of#hopefully the molar is salvageable but probably not...#you are loved
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A work had a controversial installment or arc, and it is widely regarded as bad for the story/franchise at large. Is it better for any future installment to retcon (hard or soft) and revert the status quo to pre-slump or to try to pick up the pieces without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if one even exists?
Oogh. That's a tough one, considering how many questionable writing choices I'd personally scrub from existence if I had my way, but in general I think it's better to commit to the bit rather than constantly rewriting. Bad writing can be salvaged in hindsight - wasted characters can be strengthened in flashbacks, consequences of glossed-over tragedies can be explored later, dubious dialogue can be rendered profound through callbacks. Look at how Hayden Christensen's been playing Anakin lately and how much people like what he's doing - it doesn't make the prequels not lousy, but it does make them hold together a bit better in the grand scale. Half the fun of twists and reveals is how they reframe past plot points, and if a writer is careful they can add to a story in ways that reach back to the weak parts and strengthen them.
In contrast, the "never mind all that" school of writing makes it very, very obvious to the audience that the writers don't know what they're doing, or at least don't agree with each other, and spotting the hand of the author like that disengages the audience like nothing else.
Tbh I think Star Wars is a really interesting case study for this, since they've been playing both sides sidious-style for ages. Lucas kept digitally remastering the original trilogy and burying the version people saw in theaters, and nobody liked that - hence all the arguments about Han shooting first, because Lucas changed that after the fact to make him more uncomplicatedly heroic. Then the prequels were a mess, but accepting them as What Happened led to shows like Clone Wars (which overall slapped) and Kenobi, which wasn't perfect but did strengthen the characters, including Owen and Beru, who in the original were entirely flat spacefillers designed to die at Refusal Of The Call O'Clock. And bridging the gap between the prequels and OT gave us Rogue One, and then Andor, which are collectively the best star wars has ever been. But the sequel trilogy had AGGRESSIVE retcon-fights between Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, the most overt Never Mind All That I've ever seen - and NOBODY liked it.
Overall I think committing to the bit wins out, even if it's rough for the creators to look their past fuckups in the eye and find a way to make them feel intentional.
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Some of the most sought-after artifacts surrounding the legacy of the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park are those items directly connected to the catastrophic 2007 tragedy. Such pieces of ephemera are rare to find in a salvageable condition, owing primarily to the amount of destruction wrought by the accident. Though the now-infamous CGR investigative report has long been made public, there remain many unanswered questions and inconsistencies, with some official reports offering wholly incongruous numbers with regards to total human casualties. In 2022 it is still unknown if the full scope of the accident will ever be entirely known to those outside of Senate committee chambers or Corporate board rooms. Despite this obfuscation, I believe that the truth can be deciphered from the tattered, bloodied, half-digested mementos and souvenirs of the thousands of visitors, workers, and families who suffered for hours (in a few cases days) as they were horrifically eaten alive in a terrible demonstration of wanton brutality on a scale previously unknown in recorded history. Can you imagine their terror? Can any of us really perceive the horror of those visitors as they realized that the end result of a lifetime of hopes, dreams, relationships, and destinies was to be consumed? These lifeless artifacts remain as more than just a testament; they are all that remain.
Get yours here. All Major Credit Cards Accepted.
#mystery flesh pit#mystery flesh pit national park#unreality#worldbuilding#horror#tshirt#shirt#july 4th#july 4th 2007#terror#found object
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One of my favorite fun historical through lines is that the original co-illustrator for Dick and Jane who also co-created the branding for Elmers Glue is also very likely the indirect but influential progenitor of a great majority of furry art and culture. and he doesn't even have a wikipedia page. The story is as follows:
A team of designers create Elsie the cow as the mascot of the Borden dairy company, later giving her a husband named Elmer in branding. Elsie was extraordinarily popular and was portrayed in tons of print advertising and even licensed media. The most well-remembered and beloved of these advertisements were done by a popularly unknown and uncredited illustrator named Keith Ward together with a great deal of other commercial illustrations
(Ward's early work in commercial illustration: children's books and advertising)
The scale of ward's contribution to Elsie and Elmer is somewhat murky, particularly since most credits go to the contributors with greater status at Borden. Personally, I see it as largely a collaboration between Ward and several unknown others under art director David William Reid.
(Ward's work vs Reid's work)
Elsie eventually fell out of popular consciousness after rebranding, but Elmer lives on as the mascot of Elmer's glue, originally a subsidiary of Borden as glue could be produced as a byproduct of industrial dairy. Modern Elmer's glue is synthetic, but retains the iconic mascot and design.
(Elmer's evolution from a more Ward-like design its current iteration)
Ward would later go on to illustrate for an American adaptation of Reynard the Fox by Harry J. Owens, again, miraculously uncredited on the cover. His name appears once, on the title page, and the lavish biography on the back of my copy fails to even mention the illustrations.
(Ward's work for the Scandalous Adventures of Reynard the Fox)
These works are particularly notable as much later, Ken Anderson of Disney was working on conceptualizing a Disney adaptation of Reynard, which is a very interesting and messy story for another time. In short, he and his team drew many inspirations from many many places, but with Ward being relatively more known and respected in the industry and having worked on a Reynard book in a similar style to what Disney wanted, his work was one of the most influential on the development of the film. The Reynard part was eventually scrapped (those who are familiar with the story and character will not be surprised), but a lot of the designs and even layouts were reused for Robin Hood. If you've ever wondered why they made him a fox, that's why.
(Bill Peet's and Ken Anderson's Reynards bear a striking resemblance to Ward's)
There's a lot more to the inspiration than just the designs, many plot points and layouts from Reynard, and their depictions by Ward, remain in Robin Hood (they unfortunately do not fit in this post). Its likely that finding such a clear starting point for their film in Ward's book had a hand in salvaging the Disney Reynard project and leading to the complete, although troubled, completion and release of Robin Hood.
And the rest is furstory! While there are certainly many other Disney animal features that have made their mark on the fandom, Robin Hood's influence is particularly notable for being the most popular of the most anthropomorphic animal-focused animations in contrast to the commercial underdogs of the Great Mouse Detective and many of Don Bluth's films, and more conventionally presented talking animals like those of the Aristocats and the Jungle Book. Isn't that interesting!
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If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon
"Attention! We received word that a whorl has occurred in the skies high above the Sky Pillar with the addition of a monstrous howl within it. Perhaps the Rayquaza you've repelled last time has returned, we need to investigate before this new storm gets out of hand!"
- Steel Champion
Mega Rayquaza, the mega form of Rayquaza, has descended once again! It first debuted in Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
Pokemon
Rayquaza, upon using Dragon Ascent, evolves into this new form. In this form, its strength is greatly increased, and its long glowing tendrils grant it complete mastery over the winds, enabling it to fly at extreme speeds.
Its air sacs enables it to float through the air indefinitely, which makes it rather difficult to knock down. They also generate a wind cloak that pushes away any incoming attackers. Its scale has also evolved to be much more friction-less, allowing it to achieve high speeds more efficiently.
It is said Mega Rayquaza achieves this forms by feasting on celestial objects, and certain celestial Pokemon such as Minior.
The battle takes place abroad the SS Cactus, a ship salvaged off the coast of Mauville, outfitted with a new engine that allows it to fly. The fight begins with Rayquaza, as hunters start to wear it down, it will begin to use Dragon Ascent, zipping across the skies before rushing toward the ship, dealing damage to it. Hunters must defeat Mega Rayquaza before it destroys the ship.
As the ship is equipped with various artillery weapons, hunters should make use of them to disrupt Mega Rayquaza's offensive.
Armor
Mega Rayquaza's Armor has the ability to improve a hunter's movement speed. Which as far as I can say is an extreme game changer
Weapons
Mega Rayquaza weapons now gains the ability to deal both Dragon and Flying damage while attacking from the air.
Outro
This will be the final release of the current legendary pokemon run. Apologies if you feel that I took too long. I want to do more, I have so many ideas, but just not as much time. But going forward there will be some changes regarding to funding to the Patreon, I will communicate said changes in the coming posts. There will be a poll coming soon, and I hope all Patrons will participate.
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George Fabian Weasley Masterlist
♤ Angst - ♡ Fluff - ✮ AU - ♛ Popular
One-shot
♡ Overtime: Inspired by Overtime by Seafret.
George gathers the courage to confess to the Gryffindor Head Girl who always seemed to have a handful heart.
♤♡ Never Walk Away Again: Inspired by Never Gonna Leave This Bed by Maroon 5.
She knew that she’s playing with fire from the beginning, but his demeanour has poured nothing but gasoline and now she’s the only one burning in flame as he watches on the side.
♡ Mother Knows Best: The Weasley family dinner might not just be another gathering this time as Molly Weasley invited his long lost lover. Set after the Great War. Fred is very much alive.
♡♛Pretend Boyfriend: “Well, since you don't have anyone you want to go with and that I need someone to shield me from these boys, would you please be my pretend boyfriend?” George deals with his feelings as he falls deeper for her in their fake relationship.
♤♡ Soul Bound: The old grimoire was wide open for her to read. Truth be told, she never thought she would ever need to open the grimoire. But desperate time calls for desperate measures and that’s certainly what she is right now.
♤♡♛Delicate [Requested]: Insecurity and misunderstanding led the boy to ask the wrong girl for the Yule Ball.
♤ Starcrossed: George Weasley x Malfoy!Reader
George comes to the realisation that sometimes, somethings are destined to end.
♤♡ One Day [Request]: Being the centre of attention all of their lives has made the two crave for privacy and tranquillity more than anything, but would solitude be a good enough reason to keep their relationship secret?
♤♡ Loved and Lost You [Requested]: Fake dating gone wrong when she realises that her silly idea to help the Hufflepuff boy costs her his bestfriend.
♤♡ Nothing’s Gonna Hut You Baby: The war took something from everyone and it certainly took a big part away from George Weasley.
♤ Vitalum Vitalis: Balancing the scales of life and death is never close to the word safe, but what else could she do when he’s losing his other half?
Series
♤ Reignite: One ill-considered joke leads to another hasty decision that though both of them have to suffer the disastrous aftermath, only one could try to light the spark again.
♤ Ember: This story is part II of Reignite. He crawls back to the past, trying to salvage whatever is left of them. But one could only try so much before their heart yields and cave in defeat.
#george weasley#george weasley imagine#george weasley imagines#george weasley oneshot#george weasley scenario#george weasley scenarios#george weasley fanfic#george weasley fanfiction#george weasley angst#george weasley fluff#george weasley x reader#george weasley x you#george weasley x oc#george weasley x y/n#george weasley masterlist
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For MVM how about dbf hotch x reader where she gets drunk and she starts getting clingy and lovey around him,completely forgetting her dad's there and Aaron has to try to sneak them both away for a second
today is multiverse monday! send me any au you can think of :)
this post is 18+ (and so are its characters), minors dni.
Aaron knows from experience that wine is dangerous for you. Not because you're an angry drunk, or because you drink so much that you black out and need supervision. No, it's because you're a clingy drunk.
It's acceptable, endearing even, when you're at his place. When he's sitting on his couch and you're smushing yourself so hard against him that he thinks you'll fuse and become one. When you kiss his nose and trail downwards in smeary smooches that leave his face burning and his chest shaking with laughter, it's fun. But now, it's a nightmare.
Your dad is sitting two feet away from you, only half paying attention to the way you're kneeling beside Aaron on the couch. He's reclined, but you're hovering over him, leaning into his personal space and insisting that he show you pictures of Jack. It's taking every ounce of willpower in his entire body not to turn his head and kiss you right then and there, but he knows he has to do what he can to salvage this.
"Oh," You gush, mouth right by his ear, "That one's adorable! Is that the-" You hiccup, "-shirt I got him for his birthday?"
"Yeah," Aaron hums, zooming in slightly to show you the slightly worn design on the front, "He wears it all the time. It's his favorite shirt, even more than the one I got him at the zoo."
"He loves that one," You recall, knocking your nose into his cheek. Your dad doesn't notice, too preoccupied with his phone, but Aaron is starting to see your patience wane.
He acts fast, knocking his hand against the wine glass in your hand and subsequently spilling it onto your white shirt.
"Oh!" You gasp, red stains dripping down your torso, and Aaron takes the now-empty glass from your hand.
"Oh, I'm sorry, honey. C'mere," He stands, nudging your hands off of his thighs and helping you to your feet, "You can borrow one of my shirts, I'll throw yours in the washing machine."
As soon as he leads you into his bedroom for a new shirt, you're on him. You're coming on so strong that he's pressed against the wall, and he grips beneath your thighs to haul you up around his waist while you try scaling him like a ladder.
"Okay, okay," He hums, but the words muffle where you're feverishly pressing your lips to his, "Wait, sweetheart, let's- mmf, get you a shirt."
He manages to grip your cheeks, pushing your face away from his so that he can speak. He does relent and peck your puckered lips, but he hauls you over to his bed and plops you down onto the mattress so that he can freely dig through his dresser.
"This one?" He asks, turning around with your favorite shirt in his hands. You nod vigorously, and he realizes you'll have trouble undoing the straps on your shirt.
"Here," He helps you shimmy it off, pointedly avoiding a glance down at your topless form to preserve what little self-control he has, "Okay, now-"
"Now we kiss," You gush, standing on unsteady legs to hold his face again.
"Now we go and rejoin your dad," He reminds you in a hushed murmur, though he just can't resist giving in one last time and kissing your wine-flavored lips, "But if you fall asleep on the couch, he might let you stay. And we can kiss tomorrow."
"Promise?" You grin at him, giddy.
"Promise." He nods, unhooking your arms from around his neck so that he can lead you back out with one hand on the small of your back, much less suspicious than hauling you along, "And you can keep the shirt."
#aaron hotchner#aaron hotchner x reader#aaron hotchner imagine#aaron hotchner scenario#aaron hotchner oneshot#aaron hotchner one-shot#aaron hotchner one shot#aaron hotchner headcanon#aaron hotchner headcanons#aaron hotchner hc#aaron hotchner hcs#aaron hotchner fanfiction#aaron hotchner fanfic#aaron hotchner fic#aaron hotchner blurb#aaron hotchner drabble#aaron hotchner dialogue#aaron hotchner fluff#aaron hotchner x reader fanfiction#aaron hotchner angst#aaron hotchner au#dbf!hotch#ddejavvu’s multiverse mondays#multiverse mondays
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The following text, apparently one of a long series by the same author, was recovered off the coast of Cuba by cephalopod research group divers in local year 120 and was one of the earliest documents to be translated following the excavation of cetacean archives at the Rashid Site in 146 that allowed us to decrypt cephalopod. It remains essential to our understanding of cephalopod infrastructure capabilities and policy.
The chief monobrain is at it again. Evol Nrol has introduced his next grand new vision for the sea and beyond, to great acclaim from his various suckers and the media outlets he just happens to own. 55% of the planet just isn't enough apparently, our lords and masters are still looking for more untouched wilderness to pointlessly ruin. One begins to suspect that they just want somewhere to run away to, and one begins to wonder why. Just like last time, he wants to colonize Lake Baikal, because bad ideas never die, they just camouflage. In case it's not obvious, this will never work, and if it did it would still not work. Let's just glide over the 10 most obvious reasons this is impossible and insane from last time.
1) Lake Baikal is very far away.
2) Lake Baikal is very cold.
3) The water in Lake Baikal is basically poison. Life inside seapods would always be one breach away from rapid deionisation.
4) Lake Baikal either has scientific value, or it has octopus habitation. It can't have both.
5) Lake Baikal has nothing we need. As far as we know the thermal vents in Baikal have nothing we can't get much easier from existing vents, or even by creating synthentic vents.
6) Lake Baikal has too much water to salinify.
This is the one they really haven't thought about. We don't have the minerals we would need. The quantity of sodium chloride alone would make a pile the size of Moai mount. Our best way to get the minerals is by evaporating the sea and moving the evaporate over, but at that point we could just as well build the evaporation pool, not build the levees, and just live there. On that note:
7) Clearly nobody's calculated the logistics on moving that much mineral. Have you tried lugging a mountain over land?
10) Lake Baikal is constantly being drained by a river and replenished by other rivers.
It takes around 512 years to replace the entire volume of the lake. That's a long time, even by lake standards, at least. Still, anything you put in the water will dissipate at a rate of 1/512 per year at least. And at the scale of the initial investment, the maintenance cost in minerals alone would be unaffordable.
If you really wanted to go with the monumentally stupid idea of filling a lake with minerals to make more sea, there's a much better choice, of course. Lake Tanganyika is more accessible, warmer, smaller, still has thermal vents, and drains slower. In every respect it would be an easier choice, though still entirely impossible of course. But Evol couldn't go with that, because he's tying his consultants in knots attempting to salvage his whole "dredge the Yenisey 1km deep" idea from three years ago, which wouldn't have made sense with Tanganyika, and he's too arrogant to pick a new target to go with the new manateeshit plan. As always, impossible plans like these just vent ink over the infrastructure and housing investment we desperately need and already know how to do.
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I’ve been binge-reading your gardener!reader x bakugou fics and I LOVE THEM WITH ALL MY HEART!!!!
which is why I hate to do this to you
Situation in which there’s a high-scale villain attack and reader’s home and garden gets destroyed (along with most of the neighborhood and city) BUT reader doesn’t know yet because they were knocked out and injured during the attack and bakugou was able to save them and pull them out of the house but couldn’t save reader’s garden and so he blames himself for that and for you being in the hospital and doesn’t know how to break the news that your home and garden (and pictures of your mom) are gone!!!
Also if he isn’t pacing the hospital floor waiting for you to wake up, he’s out searching for Artemis and trying to salvage anything from your garden to bring to you (specifically any type of flower seedling or picture)
nonnie.... how dare you make me want to write angst. but thank you!! I'm in love with this pairing and am always looking for excuses to write more about it. hope you like this!!
::
Katsuki's blood ran cold when he heard the neighborhood they were being called to. Please be alright, please be alright.
It was a chant, a prayer that you were safe and sound with Artemis and your garden and your beautiful home. But when they arrived, him first- blasting through the skys as fast as he could- your house was a mess of rubble and smoke. He tore through the concrete with his heart in his throat. He didn't want to be in a world without you, and that's all he could think as he searched for you.
By the time he found you he was in tears, and seeing your beautiful face bruised and scraped dragged a sob out of his chest. He cradled you against him and let out a desperate cry that sounded like it belonged to someone else.
"We're over here, HELP US!!!"
::
As soon as he had you set up in the hospital he returned to your house, guilt keeping his heart in a vice as he saw the true scope of the damage. The villain had destroyed half the city in her rampage. And your garden, that you had painstakingly tended to for more than a decade, was torn to pieces. The photos on the toppled walls were cracked as he collected the ones of your mother. Its the least he could do after not protecting you.
"Some hero you are, Katsuki," he grumbled to himself, looking around for any sign of life in your garden.
He called for Artemis, gathered more momentos from your house, and waited anxiously for a call from the hospital.
When it finally came, he froze.
What could he say to you? Would you even want to see him after he failed you so horribly?
::
You woke in a white room, with pain everywhere. But your first thought was of him.
"Ka.." you tried your best to speak only to find your throat rough as gravel.
"Don't try to speak, ma'am." There was a bright voice beside you, and as you focused your gaze you realized that pro hero Deku was at your bedside. You frowned as you looked at him, your brain slowly coming to the conclusion,
that was wrong.
"He's here. He just... doesn't know if you want to see him. I'm sorry to say your house was destroyed in the villain attack, and he wanted me to tell you that your garden was also destroyed." Deku spoke on behalf of his friend as best as he could, but all you wanted in that moment, needed, was Katsuki.
"Please." It was all you could get out, but Deku understood right away.
"I'll go get him."
::
Katsuki paced outside your hospital room, barking orders to his subordinates through the phone, "Her name is Artemis, she's a calico. She should be in the neighborhood. I don't give a fuck what you do, find her."
"She's asking for you." Deku murmured casually, watching Katsuki immediately hang up the phone and fall silent.
"She shouldn't be." He muttered, self loathing evident in every word.
"Who are you to make that decision for her?" Deku frowned, with Kacchan he never pulled his punches and it was for a reason. Sometimes the only one who could make Katsuki see reason was someone willing to call him on his bullshit.
"I wasn't there! For fucks sake Deku I wasn't there the one time she needed me." Katsuki's words were distraught, and he refused to meet his friends eyes.
"She needs you now." Deku rested his large hand on his friends shoulder, giving it an encouraging squeeze. "Be her hero, Kacchan. That's what she needs."
#katsuki x reader#katsuki bakugo#bakugou katsuki#bakugou x reader#domesticness <3#gardener!reader#gardening au#jasmina writes 🌸#kacchan
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