#and hormones are so powerful because the human body is adaptable

[uncanny-tranny]

happy transsexual thursday! I'm very pleased that my voice is getting lower - it's one of the effects I most hoped to experience when I started T last year. I actually like the way it sounds when I hear a recording, which is a big difference from before.

Yes!! It's so amazing just how flexible and malleable the human body is

#ask #anon #transsexual thursday #like the human body isn't 'set' like to me that idea doesn't make a lot of sense #if the body is set for one thing alone and nothing else what happens when that 'thing' is unavailable? #it makes more sense for the body to not be set by mother nature(tm) herself but to be able to adapt #and hormones are so powerful because the human body is adaptable #like that's the whole reason hrt even works and i think that's so fucking amazing #and i think it's such an achievement to like your own voice in a recording considering how many are insecure about it (including me) #like i hate hate hate voice recordings/voicemail/calls because of that lol #so celebrate that! that's such a precious and beautiful things <3

[lonelystarrs]

Tugs & Texts

Barou Shouei x FemReader

With how you’d both met at twelve and how you promised to make his life hell in school no one would have guessed you’d be dating at sixteen. At eighteen Barou left for Blue Lock and you both started learning it wasn’t going to be as easy as you thought. But there you were, always support him in every sense with your quirky ass ways. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, it also makes tension rise in the best fucking way. You’d be the death of him he was sure of it.

Warnings: 18+ MDNI • Blue Lock timeline • both virgins • phone sex • smut • fluff • Barou is smitten • size kink •

If people knew how you met Barou then they’d never have guessed he’d eventually be the one to start dating you. Kicking a ball into his face at the age of twelve because he was apparently bullying another kid. Barou called it ‘saying it how it was to save them making a fool of themselves in the future’, you called it mean, egotistical and bullying. It wasn’t the most romantic story to tell on how you both met, sure, but you still laughed telling it. 

But that was how it happened.

He said some mean shit to your friend about his uselessness at soccer and you went absolutely fucking not. 

He was impressed by the power and accuracy of the strike, none the less from a girl and the fact you’d caught him off guard. 

Barou Shouei was a ripe asshole of a person long before his age made double digits and you simply didn’t stand for it.

You promised you’d make his life hell since that day and you left little twelve year old him stood dumb founded with a nose bleed and his heart kicking in his ribs. 

It developed over the years, the constant bickering —god the teachers hated you both in the same class, apart from that one art teacher that seemed to know something no one else did, but that part will come in a sec. 

It pissed him off at the start with how you never backed down to him and never got upset with his ways —as he got older it got weirdly fucking endearing. 

So endearing in fact that his teenage mind and hormones started to act up changing his view on you. He tried to remain stubborn, truly he did, acting like you were a pain in his ass and nothing more. 

But he wasn’t the only teenage boy with boiling hormones and a mind quickly adapting to it… So when other guys also started taking notice of how much prettier you were getting, how your body started to change that’s when it became an issue for Barou. 

He absolutely wasn’t developing feelings for you —it was purely hormones and he was human much to others denial of it. 

But that’s where the art teacher stepped in, the only one brave enough to pair you and Barou together for a project. It caused silence in the class when she announced it, even the students stunned she’d make such a foolish choice. That evil glint in her eyes, her quiet evil cackle as she drummed her fingers together in her corner watching you together. 

That was also the day he started to really changed his mind on you, he still remembers it clearly. 

He fucking hated arts, it was messy and shit got everywhere. He didn’t have an artistic bone in his body either and he wasn’t about to try. 

You stepped in for him surprising him with how good you actually were at drawing, you picked up the charcoal and went for it. He just sat and watched you, red eyes softening as he really took a look at you. Your tongue poking out as you concentrated, your hair tucked behind your ear to keep from your eyes even though loose strands were falling from your messy bun. 

Your skirt riding higher than it should be, those thigh high socks causing a little dip in your thighs at the rim. He felt heat crawl up his neck and he cleared his throat looking back up to what the hell you were drawing. 

When you signed it off with a title and slid it over to him he realised what it was, his hairstyle was hardly unrecognisable so he knew it was him. 

You’d draw him in charcoal, striking a goal. 

‘The Kings Strike.’ 

That’s what you called it, you waved him off saying it was nothing and it was from his game last weekend. He found out you had photographic memory and he also found out you’d been attending his games. 

Just cause your girl friends wanted to go and cheer on the boys, but you only went to be social —apparently. Not interested in the sweaty men running around with egos over balls and nets. 

Your blabbering fell on deaf ears because it was difficult for him to ignore how black your fingers had gotten whilst smudging the charcoal. So he reached for his back pack and pulled out his trusty cleaning wipes, ignoring you laughing about his supply of them. The bell ringing was deaf on you as you watched Barou Shouei cleaning your hands of charcoal, his hands were so soft and warm, despite his rough personality he was gentle, thumbs massaging over your fingers to rub out the black stains. His eyes fixed on the task, then telling you to be at his game this coming weekend and to sit on the front row. 

He took the drawing, he still has it at home but it’s framed —you had no idea he’d done that.

Interactions started changing from then; he sat near you in most classes willing to pair up, his reaction to your taunting was less aggressive and you eventually turned into flirting with him covering it with humour. He always cleaned your hands after arts, he always corrected your uniform if it went out of line.

Then he started handing you water after PE telling your dumbass to keep hydrated and he glared at guys who tried coming up to you, never saying a word but Barou never had to. It was subtle to start with until it got so noticeable that rumours flying around that you were Barou’s girl and it didn’t take him long to let everyone know it was true. 

At sixteen Barou made his decision and told you to date him because he could tolerate you, hardly romantic but Barou wasn’t.

You left him alone for his soccer and respected his passion towards it, after all you never knew Barou any differently. It came first for him and you never asked for anything otherwise.

Everything was fine, surprisingly good actually and he was a great boyfriend. You swiftly both turning eighteen and that’s when lives started to take different paths. 

Him leaving for blue lock was a hard adjustment, you didn’t think it would be until he was gone with no contact, practically disappearing from your life without much notice which you really didn’t appreciate and let him know about it. 

It wasn’t nice, but not an adjustment you hated because he was doing him and you kept yourself busy for your studies. You’d never tell him how shitty the nights could be sometimes, how it did actually affect you more than you’d like to admit because he was chasing his dreams. Not like how you felt would ever stop him but you just didn’t think it would help anything. 

So you coped, you adjusted, you suffered in a way that he’d never know about because you didn’t think he needed to. Besides that was your problem to deal with, not his, you couldn’t rely on him all the time. It was unhealthy. 

Your phone was drier than his dry ass texts, because he wasn’t allowed access to it in Blue Lock. 

Until the day your phone did ring, Barou’s ID as clear as day on the lit up screen, gracing your eyes with him working out shirtless days before he left for Blue Lock. Your heart leaped into your throat and you answered it a little too keenly, almost dropping it as you slid the bar to answer.

Barou however wasn’t himself, he sat in the empty canteen alone, Isagi had left him after eating. Throughout his entire time here he had succeeded and even though him being stolen for Isagi and Nagi’s team wasn’t a bad move he still felt the affects of that match replaying in his mind days later. That shitty feeling of defeat was resurfacing, clawing at the back of his skull and churning something foreign in his stomach.

Truthfully, it shook him seeing Isagi and Nagi push him aside, a lesson learnt and a new drive for the king, sure. How you grow is from crap happening and he was fine with it. 

He learned from pain, he wasn’t wallowing but for some reason it niggled something in him that made him want to reach for you, for the first time in two years of dating you and five of knowing you. It made him think about you more, finding his mind drifted whilst training, like you not being around as much suddenly hit him at once.

So he cashed in his points and got his phone so he could close that gap that had formed. 

He barely spoke, letting you just talk because all he wanted was your voice, your weirdly cheerful personality and your annoying ass ability to make him feel better to work its magic. 

“So you cashed in points to get your phone back?” 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” 

“But I am flattered and I’m gonna remind you forever that you do actually miss me~! How could you not? It is me.” 

“An ego doesn’t suit you, lose it.” He grumbled, letting the smirk twitch at his lips and luckily for him you couldn’t see it. 

“You’re smirking right now.” 

Well that took it off his face. 

“Pahaha! Aw Barou~! I miss you too, seriously it’s shit but I know you gotta do this, so I’m here for you when you have a shit day.” 

“Tch, who said I’m having a shit day? Just callin’ cause I have to, this boyfriend crap is exhausting it’s been peaceful without you.”

“Well, m’phones been drier than a camels ass in a sandstorm so-“ 

“You’re disgusting, go get some fucking friends then loser.” 

“Pftttt says you, Mr I go to the bowling alley by myself.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Hmm, I wish, still waiting for that y’know, kinda glad we didn’t do it before you left though, that woulda been real cruel.”

Barou fell silent down the line and it was your turn to smirk, twirling your hair around your finger you shifted on your bed. 

Got him. 

“Guessing you didn’t check your messages from me?” 

“No.” 

“Cute, you called me straight away~ missing your little virgin girlfriend waiting for you at home to be devoured by her king~” 

Barou inhaled sharply through his nose, he was glad he had his elbows on his knees and leaning forward. One hand holding the phone to his ear the other rose to pinch the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stop his mind wondering. His cock rising to a semi regardless, these joggers weren’t going to hide much either and he was still in the canteen.

“Suggest you look through the messages, it’ll help you whilst away.” 

“I can’t do shit, there’s no fucking privacy so stop being a damn tease.”

“Barou, you still in here?” 

Despite the male addressing him Barou heard your snicker down the phone, his jaw clenched, eye twitching and vein popping all signs his lack of patience was biting. Can’t these guys just fuck off? Seriously everywhere he looks they aren’t far away. 

“Well, I’ll let you go king~ keep devouring, keep pushing yourself and keep learning Barou. You’re gonna eat them alive and when you’re back, you can eat me alive again~! Turns out that unholy mouth of yours really does show me heaven~!”

“Woman-” 

Barou realised his mistake when he growled it out down the phone, red eyes instantly turning to Isagi and Chigiri who both rose an eyebrow at him, a smirk spreading over Isagi’s face. 

Sadly your loud laughter down the phone was heard by the eavesdroppers only confirming you were a female. 

“You called a girl?” 

“I find it hard to believe someone would actually be attracted to him.” 

The line went dead leaving Barou to look at the boring ass screen of his blank wallpaper. 

Frowning at it he suddenly realised despite knowing you since he was 12 and dating you for two years he had no photos of you. 

Isagi leaned over his shoulder and addressed the exact same thing going through the kings head. 

“No photos of her? C’mon show her off! She pretty?”

Chigiri also leaned over mildly curious as well. 

“I’m intrigued also, hard to believe someone like you has a girlfriend.”

“Fuck off you peasants!”

Barou stood abruptly and pushed the boys out the way, isagi sniggered and elbowed Chigiri. 

“I think he’s a little flustered.” 

Barou half turned, his form a shadow and red eyes glowing giving him some eerie ass look that wiped the smile from Isagi.

“What was that, donkey?”

“Nothing! I said I bet she’s real pretty.” 

“Damn fucking right she is, mention her again or to anyone else and I’ll kill you got it?” 

Isagi nodded trying to hide the smirk twitching on his mouth, Chigiri with his usual cool expression. 

“Reckon he’s a house husband? He definitely wears the maid outfit.” 

“Yeah, I can kinda see that.” Chigiri agreed, both their heads running through the images of him running the home like a maid “-I’d rather not though.”

Hands in pockets, slouched back he grumpily made his way down the hallway towards the bathing rooms, shutting himself in there and locking the door behind him. 

Unlocking his phone he went straight to your messages, ignoring anything else popping up on his notifications from having it off so long. He’d check your socials later, maybe, he’d prefer not seeing you carry on in life without him but he was also curious as to what you’d been up to. He’d been distracted and focused for weeks in here, it helped not thinking about you on the outside.

“Tch, fucking girl is gonna be the death of me.” 

He grumbled, scrolling through the texts you’d been sending him over the last few weeks, thankfully not everyday texts -every Friday you’d message him about your week, he’d skipped them for now as the picture messages were what caught his eyes. 

His cock was already semi hard from the phone conversation, mind running with the shit you’d put in there and how easily you got into his head about it. Cock hardening completely it bulged in his joggers as he seen what you’d sent. 

His heart raced in his chest, thumping so loudly he heard it in his ears, hot flushes running through his body as he watched the videos.

Your index and forefinger running over your clit before separating your lips to give him a full view, watching your drooling hole clenching around nothing. 

God your pussy was so fucking pretty, his mouth watered at the sight. Thumb frozen as it hovered over the screen watching you collect slick to run over your clit in circles, he dared turned the volume up slightly only to hear you moaning for him, hearing the squelch of your fingers pressing into your hole and he watched it stretch to accommodate them. 

You hadn’t slept together yet, but he knew how good you felt on his tongue and fingers like you did him. 

“Shit, this damn girl-“ 

Barou reached for the bottom of his sweater, lifting it to bite the end of it holding the material out of the way, exposing his six pack. Reaching down for the waist band of his joggers lifting hips to bring them down enough to release his cock, it slapped his stomach and he groaned, he was rock solid -weeks of refraining from any release due to the lack of privacy offered here. 

His hand wrapped around his thick head, thumb rubbing over the tip smearing his precum, he released a breathy moan as his thighs tensed. 

Barou wasn’t wasting any time in fucking into his fist —hard, horny and feeling feral about the idea of being the one to take you for himself. His pace matching your fingers as you fucked yourself for him on video. He didn’t last two damn minutes and he wasn’t trying to hold back, he tapped his cock against his stomach, getting more turned on by how hard his dick was.

“Cummin’ Barou!” 

He watched your hips lift from the bed, how you got the camera skills you had he didn’t want to know -but you didn’t miss anything, your hips rolled in the air as he watched your pussy clench around your fingers. 

His cock throbbed as he felt that build up reach its tipping point, he panted through his teeth and the material in his mouth, drooling into it. 

What really helped him finish was you pulling your fingers out, watching that clear cum cover your fingers and link to your dripping hole. The camera followed them as they travelled to your mouth, only your tits and mouth in shot as you smirked, cleaning off your own fingers tongue sliding between them making sure you didn’t miss anything. 

“Shit, fuckkk-“ Barou grunted, his legs straightened and his head rolled back to hit the wall behind him, heels digging into the floor to brace himself as he came, releasing into his hand and stomach as his body shook. 

His chest heaving as the release waved through his body leaving him lax, his cock resting on his stomach and he looked down at the damn mess. 

Tch. Looked good though. 

Accessing his camera he flipped it to selfie mode, he angled it down so you could just see his jawline, teeth biting into his shirt holding it out the way, cum covered his cock and hard stomach. His hand holding his dick which dripped cum still leaking from the slit, he could see his dick flexing as cum drooled from it.  His load was thick and almost too much -balls finally emptying from ignoring his needs. Cock softening but still looking thick and heavy even in his large hands. 

He’d been around enough guys in the baths here to know he was fucking big, even soft he was packing a dick. It only aided his smug ego when he thought about how you were going to struggle taking him, perhaps a little concerned he was going to actually hurt you. 

Barou > 1 image attachment

sent. 

Queen > ;) Good boy Barou. Knew it, you missed me~! 

Received 

Barou > See how cocky you are when you struggle with it. 

Sent

Queen > Yeah, it’ll be kinda hot though. 👀 

Received 

Barou > oi, send me that photo.

Sent 

Queen > I’ve just sent you loads! 

Recieved

Barou > One in the dress. 

Sent 

Queen > seriously? You’ve got all those lingerie photos and you want that summer one? It’s not even wank bank material. 

Received

Barou > that’s the fucking point dumbass, just send it!! 

Sent 

Barou locked his phone and cleaned up the mess he’d made, deciding he much preferred it when you were around to deal with it, instead he took another quick shower before heading back to the room. 

Checking his phone one last time to see your messages. Opening the attachment to find he got what he wanted. 

One of your friends had shot a photo of you during the summer, wearing a yellow sundress that hugged your waist, the skirt dancing around your thighs from the breeze, your hand holding it down and the other holding your straw hat to your head. 

The laugh on your face, your hair dancing around you. One spaghetti strap had slipped off your shoulder, tits pushed up from your arms pressing into them holding onto your dress to save your dignity from the breeze. Tanned summer skin standing out beautifully against the yellow dress, the gold necklace with a small dainty B sitting high on your neck. 

Long toned legs, thigh showing from the height of the skirt blowing up. Pretty short acrylic nails painted white like your toes for summer, hands just missing that ring he knew he’d put on you one day. 

It was the kind of photo that made him realise he was fucking smitten with you. 

He locked his phone again and shoved it under his pillow, arms crossing behind his head as he glared at the ceiling. The room was dark and others asleep to which he was grateful for because he knew his damn face was burning. 

God this was fucking pathetic. 

Your words of encouragement over the phone earlier repeated in his mind now he could think more clearly, the relief in hearing your voice again, seeing photos of you. His heart swelled in his chest, it took away that feeling he was unable to shake. 

His ego lowered for a split second and it allowed that voice to tell him what he’d been ignoring for weeks…

Yup, he missed your annoying ass. 

© pharix 2023 permission is not given to repost, translate or post anywhere else.

#blue lock barou #bllk barou #Barou shouei x reader #Barou x you #Barou x reader #barou shouei #barou shouei smut #bllk fanfic #bllk smut #Barou shouei fluff #barou fluff #bllk fluff #bllk x you #bllk x reader #barou shoei fluff #barou shoei #barou shoei x reader #barou shoei smut

[exprimis]

Christopher Rufo is a known transphobe, but I read this essay in Hillsdale's Imprimis, adapted from a speech that Rufo gave, and burst into laughter.

The essay contains many serious issues, including:

Uses trans people's post-transition names, but misgenders them in the most amazing ways: "[so-and-so] now identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. [...] She works as...."

Talks about "the transgender movement" as if it was something that only started in the late 1980s

Says that the transgender activists are trying to use transgenderism to support a Marxist revolution, and then does not try to split this gender-political coalition, thereby ceding ground to his ideological opponents

Discusses percentage-based demographic statistics without talking about population sizes

Hypothalamus-produced hormones are effectively the divine spark which grants life and humanity

Describes the evils of minimally-invasive robot surgery

There are also some things which I applaud this essay for:

Discusses MTF, FTM, and non-binary perspectives

Liberally quotes trans and non-binary writers

Provides the first mainstream citation for "nullification" surgery that I've yet seen

But that's not the funny part.

The funny part is Rufo's analysis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

In [Susan] Stryker’s best-known essay, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage,” he contends that the “transsexual body” is a “technological construction” that represents a war against Western society. “I am a transsexual, and therefore I am a monster,” Stryker writes. And this monster, he continues, is destined to channel its “rage and revenge” against the “naturalized heterosexual order”; against “‘traditional family values’”; and against the “hegemonic oppression” of nature itself. [...]

In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote the famous novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The premise of the book is that modern science, stripped from the constraints of ethics and nature, will end up creating monsters. “Trans-affirming” doctors are the post-modern version of the book’s protagonist, Doctor Frankenstein. [...] Jennifer Pritzker, Maureen Connolly, Blair Peters, and their ilk occupy the heights of power and prestige, but like Doctor Frankenstein they will not be able to escape the consequences of what they have created. They are condemning legions of children to a lifetime of sorrows and medical necessities, all based on dubious postmodern theories that do not meet the standard of Hippocrates’ injunction in his work Of the Epidemics: “First, do no harm.” Although individuals can be nullified, nature cannot. No matter how advanced trans pharmaceuticals and surgeries become, the biological reality of man and woman cannot be abolished; the natural limitations of God’s Creation cannot be transcended. The attempt to do so will elicit the same heartbreak and alienation captured in the final scene of Mary Shelley’s novel: the hulking monster, shunned by society and betrayed by his father, filled with despair and drifting off into the ice floes—a symbol of the consequence of Promethean hubris.

Did Rufo even read Frankenstein? The tragedy did not come from the creation of The Creature, who Dr. Frankenstein and society shunned because of his looks. The tragedy was engendered by social rejection, and by physical attacks upon The Creature. It was this violence that led The Creature to swear revenge on Frankenstein and humanity, not some quirk of monstrous morality.

If Rufo wants to avoid the tragedies brought by shunning and rejection, instead of demonizing trans people and their sculptors, he should advocate for acceptance of ugliness, and for improvements in surgical technique to avoid that rejection.

#christopher f. rufo #frankenstein #hillsdale college #imprimis #cw misgendering

[bainhaaning09]

Learn how to Lose Weight If you're In Menopause

Ensure that your larder is filled with gadgets that assist rather than hold again your weightloss efforts. It's a powerful thermogenic which will likely be a useful tool in your weightloss journey. Although numerous the weight you lose will certainly comprise body fats, you will are likely to shed kilos by dropping excess water weight out of your physique. Among fruits, raspberries lead the checklist. Make a grocery checklist as you go. For sooner results, you’ll must work with a doctor, to just be sure you keep wholesome and get the nutrients that you want. Alternatively, the digestive system tolerates healthy fats well. So, earlier than you go for a snack, strive drinking a full glass of water and see what happens. So, throughout the whole week, follow single ingredient whole foods that will help you lose weight shortly. You’ll additionally want to have folks on your side that will help you keep motivated and to cheer you on. You’ll love our magazine! Some individuals with IBS have issue losing weight because they've a tough time discovering foods which might be supportive of their efforts and won't aggravate IBS signs. “Feelings of guilt from consuming forbidden foods can snowball into unhealthy emotions in childhood, adolescence and even adulthood,” she says. Due to their excessive water content material, loading up on this food group can help keep you glad and minimize calories with out having to sacrifice portion sizes.

Go for lean proteins: Even whereas consuming protein dense foods, choose proteins which might be decrease in fats such as chicken and fish. The paleo diet avoids processed foods, which comprise refined carbohydrates and added sugar that can lead to weight gain. The paleo food plan relies on the idea that humans are genetically adapted to consuming a certain method - particularly, the best way our ancestors ate in the course of the Paleolithic era. Slowing down is not going to only enable you to pay more consideration to what you're placing in your mouth however gives you the opportunity to get to know when you are happy and might cease consuming. This can enable you lose weight shortly and safely. To extend weight loss motivation tips , improve the work time to 45 seconds. This plan will work wonders particularly for people who need to lose plenty of weight in a short span of time. Having the fitting mindset may help to extend your motivation, keep willpower sturdy, and make the entire process rather more fulfilling. However for those who then attain for a cookie or different treat as a result of you’re still hungry or you assume you saved sufficient calories for it, that plan backfires. It's pretty counter-intuitive to drop pounds from dropping muscle weight just to try and gain back more muscle weight in the long run.

Once you reach your required weight, you might not feel as fit and toned as you'll if you happen to misplaced extra fats and maintained your lean mass throughout the process. Lean protein, corresponding to eggs and fish, will assist you feel full faster and burn more calories throughout digestion. As well as, power training is vital to sustaining your precious lean mass whereas slicing. High Depth Interval Coaching has additionally proved to be a very effective method to assist lose weight quick. Each of those cause spikes within the hormone insulin, which result in cravings and weight achieve and increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Fat loss, however, takes just a little bit extra time and consistency. Restrictive diets have been thought to negatively influence your metabolism briefly by slowing down your pure calorie burn and messing along with your ability to resume a traditional maintenance weight-reduction plan once you stop dieting (7,8,9,10). Although this phenomenon is usually quick-lived, it turns into extra of a concern if you're continually jumping from one weight-reduction plan to the subsequent. And it’s where loads of us turn when now we have a tough day. In different words, in order to lose one pound per week, you have to to cut 500 calories per day from both food, train, or both mixed. Lower again on sugar as much as doable, except the natural sugar in fruit. With regards to weight loss, there are rather a lot of various food plan plans on the market. In terms of dieting, practising mindfulness is one way to focus your thoughts on a extra constructive relationship with food.

#quick ways to lose

[cosmicaddress]

TL;DR of the topics under The Change:

Integration and Symbiosis, Physical Changes, Appearance, Physical Development Chart, Parapsychic Changes, Diet

Integration and Symbiosis

Vampire flesh is apparently compatible with all flesh. This has not been demonstrated definitively, but it is proven that they can attach themselves to humans, wolves, and bats. If they can integrate successfully with these three disparate animals, they can probably do so with anything. They may be restricted to mammals, but again, this is untested, and no one particularly wants to know. 

 No one is entirely sure why vampire flesh is so malleable and adaptable to other life forms. This is due in part to the difficulty of investigating vampiric tissues. Every part of a vampire is alive and has its own implacable, albeit mindless, will to survive. Handle a fragment of vampire flesh in your bare hands, and it will find its way into you. Poke and prod a piece of vampire flesh, and it will resist you and strike back if it can. Even without intelligent control, vampire flesh is a hazardous substance, and to date, no effective tests have yet been established.

Physical Changes

As a vampire grows, it improves the host’s body and adds its instinct to his abilities. Its effects are purely physical; nothing directly affecting the host’s psychological makeup occurs. (CHARM is lowered because the host becomes more sallow, withdrawn, and furtive due to infection. BRAWN gets a boost because the vampire messes around with the host’s hormones, giving him a boost of adrenaline whenever he starts to flag in that department.) 

Notice that the host’s BRAINS do not change. The vampire, even a fully-developed leech, has no intrinsic intelligence. It may seem to, but it is purely illusory. A leech has intense instinct, reflexes, and parapsychic ability, and perhaps even the extracted revenant of a little bit of training from a host, but no true intelligence.

Appearance

The eyes are the first and strongest giveaway. Wamphyri eyes glow infernally red, throbbing with subterranean menace and blistering desire when their lust or hunger is aroused. In battle-rage, he may look as if burning coals writhe in the sockets of his skull, spilling bright red light everywhere that suffers his piercing glance. 

 The ears are also different, larger, and more rounded than an average human’s, with conch-like protrusions at the outside rim of the auricle. Although that shape is abnormal among humans, Wamphyri instinctively gravitate to this shape to afford themselves better hearing. Wamphyri consider it of vital importance to detect intruders before being detected themselves. When secrecy is vital, however, Wamphyri can maintain a more human aspect to their ears.

Physical Development Chart

1 Looks tired but never acts tired, eyes start to gleam; 3 Looks slightly ill, moves more fluidly, seems energetic; 5 Eyes get red shimmer, muscles gain definition; 7 Pale complexion, distinct predatory gait, regal bearing; 9 Predatory appearance, discomfort in light; 12 Very pale complexion, ears seem more pronounced; 15 Vague aura of power, teeth seem longer; 20 Sallow appearance, eyes are distinctly red; 25 Fledgling Wamphyr, eyes glow infernally

Parapsychic Changes

The vampire leech, while an unintelligent parasite, has remarkable psychic strength. Even non-sentient vampire flesh kept in captivity can develop a psychic bond with those scientists studying it and use this link to manipulate their emotions and actions. It's dangerous stuff. One can imagine that the psychic prowess of a true vampire is even more impressive. 

The greatest Wamphyri have psychic powers which boggle the imagination. This is because humans have within their genes the coding for paranormal abilities. The problem for humans is that the genes are so repressive that most people with access to gifts are unaware. But the vampire can coil into your brain, explore the hemispheres and in between, and unlock those hidden potentials as smoothly as a knife slides between the ribs.

Diet

The most intense pleasure a vampire may know is the sensual and energizing act of feeding. Vampire instincts are powerful, and their survival instinct is so keen that feeding gives them indescribable pleasure. They enjoy asserting their dominance, destroying another creature, tasting the ambrosia of iron-rich and energy-packed ichor, and fulfilling their primal directive to keep themselves alive and prosperous at any cost. There is nothing that a vampire would rather do than feed; it's better than sex and even better than fighting. 

The Wamphyri are carnivores. The only non-meat item they are known to have a preference for is red wine, probably not for its taste (which they likely consider equivalent to that of rancid water) but because it resembles blood in color. Beyond that, they'll eat anything to blend in. 

Although the Wamphyri are carnivores, they prefer a sanguivorous diet. “The blood is the life,” as they are fond of saying. While they can survive and prosper to a degree on nothing but meat, nothing compares to blood itself. Even when moving covertly among human society, they order steaks extra rare, for even a cow’s blood is better than nothing.

#jcink premium #jcink roleplay #jcink rp #jcink sci fi #jcink horror #rp: wrinkles & voids #rp: the destroying angel #rp: the cosmic address #tda

[savantv]

Eat Slow, Eat Small, Eat Smart

How can our knowledge of the human brain help us to eat better and be more fit? Can cognitive neuroscience help you to stick to a healthy eating plan? In this lecture, I’ll seek to answer these questions based on a variety of studies about how the human appetite and drive system interact with reasoning and decision-making systems. Your brain and body contains an impressively robust system for seeking out the proper calories and nutrient that it need to survive, and thrive. However most developed countries and environments are places in which food is plentiful, very easy to get. Meanwhile, our biological systems have a few quirks that lead to over consumption and weight problems. Here’s a familiar tip that overcomes one of these quirks.

Tip: If your trying to cut down on the amount you eat, slow down during meals.

Eat a moderate amount, and than take a break, maybe for 20 minutes. If your still hungry after those 20 minutes, you can certainly have more but many people find that they just aren’t as hungry as they thought they were after that pause.

Let’s review some of the brain mechanism involved in regulating hunger and satiation. I say some, because there are about a dozen different mechanisms that have been identified in the human nervous system that contribute to this process. They all consist of negatived feedback loops, however, with very similar information processing structure. So once you understand one or two of them, you’ll have a pretty good working knowledge of how the whole system functions.

Let’s start with two hormones- - leptin and ghrelin.

Leptin is produced by the fat cells in our body. Ghrelin is produced by cells that live in our intestines. The amount of these hormones that get released are strongly influenced by our eating behaviors. Fat, remember, is this amazing energy storage mechanism that our body uses. Excess energy is converted into fat. When we run low on energy, fat is converted back into a form that can be used to power any cell in our body. Whenever our body starts storing energy,  when it starts converting excess energy to increase the content of fat cells, leptin is released by the fat cells into the bloodstream. The leptin travels through your bloodstream and eventually passes into the brain. Some of the leptin reaches the hypothalamus in a region called the ventral medial nucleus. From there, leptin binds with neuronal receptors and boosts activation of certain neural circuits. When the circuits are active, you feel full, and typically stop eating. Ghrelin does the opposite. When your intestines finish processing food they start making Ghrelin. As time passes, they continue making more and more Ghrelin. Like leptin, Ghrelin makes its way to the brain and causes you to start feeling hungry again. Together, these systems regulate food intake. If you feel hungry or full, your eating behaviors will tend to behave accordingly. I should know that this is the system that drive your inner two year old. These are mechanisms that drive your unconscious eating behaviors. We often decide to eat for reasons other than hunger. If you’re at a dinner party, and toshe puts out food for everyone, they are conscious, social, propriety reasons to eat at least a little bit. But most of our eating, particularly our sense of how much to eat and when to stop eating, are regulated by this leptin and Ghrelin system.

Disruptions of these systems can have dire consequences. The hormones were initially discovered in a strain of mutant mice, who would just eat and eat and eat. They would get very fat in the process. Without that leptin to tell the mice that they were full, they just kept consuming more and more calories. Several companies market leptin supplements that will create an artificial sense of fullness by introducing extra leptin into the bloodstream. This work in the short term, but the leptin system, like most others in the body, is adaptive. Coffee drinkers know all about how the body adapts. The first few times you drink coffee, The caffeine travels to the brain and produces a strong boost in arousal. But especially if you tend to drink coffee at about the same time, in about the same place, everyday, your brain learns that and compensate for it. As the time for coffee approaches, as you smell the coffee brewing in the pot, your brain knows that the stimulant is coming. The brain then down regulates activity just enough that, when the coffee arrives, it boosts you right back up to where you would have otherwise been. Eventually, you need that coffee, not a boost above normal levels of arousal, but just to maintain your typical level. If your a heavy coffee drinker, skipping the coffee will sometimes produce a headache, as the brain inhabits it’s activity and you don’t boost it back up with coffee. The same thing happens with leptin supplements. They’ll work for awhile but they’ll quickly lose their effectiveness. And if you stop taking them, you will be subject to a very strong hunger sensation.

Leptin and Ghrelin do a good job of telling your brain about what’s going on in your gut. If the digestive process is done, and if your fat cells are releasing energy into the bloodstream just to keep things going, there’ll be very little leptin and lot of Ghrelin, and your stomach may be growling. You will feel hungry. Conversely, if there’s not so much Ghrelin, but a lot of leptin that means you still have food left in your digestive tract, and will likely not be thinking of food. If someone offers you a snack, you are more likely to say that you are full. How does this relate to the tip to eat slowly? Why would a 20 minute break in a middle of a meal reduce your food intake? The leptin and Ghrelin system is great, but the system is slow. From the time you start eating, the full impact of the food on Ghrelin and leptin can take up to 20 minutes. If you give your body time to finish that process, you might find yourself quite satisfied with much less food than you’d otherwise realize. In fact, that 20 minute break in the middle of the meal may not turn out to be the middle of the meal at all. After the break, you might frequently come to realize that it was actually the end of your eating.  when you don’t take this 20 minute break, when you instead eat continuously until you feel full, you’ll continue to feel more full for 20 full minutes after you stop eating. I’ve had this experience a lot where I feel very, very hungry. Maybe I missed lunch, and I’ve been doing some work that consumes a lot of calories, maybe running or walking around the lecture hall for serval hours waving my hands around. I finally get to hetable and start to eat. I’m so hungry that I wolf down a lot of food. After about 20 minutes of eating, I feel full and stop. Over the next 20 minutes, however, I realize what I’ve done. I feel more and more full, uncomfortably full. Eventually, I’m sitting somewhere groaning, fegelin, bloated, wishing I’d remembered this 20 minute break tip after the first few minutes of eating. Most people presume that, if you’re receiving a strong hunger signal from your body, that it means you are in dire need of a lot of food. It turns out that just isn’t true. If you’re truly starving, if you’ve cut from food for 48 hours or more, you’ll feel periodic hunger but most of the time, the hunger signals stop all together. When you receive that strong hunger signal from your body, when the Ghrelin and lack of leptin are stimulating the hunger centers in your brain, those signals are telling you that your body has some strong need for some food, not a strong need for a lot of food. There’s an important difference there. The next time you feel really hungry, thinking that through might help you eat a more healthy amount. If you’re eating with other people, this is a good time to have a conversation. Revisit the events of the day, maybe discuss plans for the future. This 20 minute break can actually be a really pleasant and valuable thing. The tradition of having a meal divided into a first course, then a second course, and so on, can have a similar effect.

Researchers have identified a lot of things that might be responsible for our modern obesity epidemic. There are a lots of studies that point to the dramatic increase in our use of corn-based sweeteners, for instance things like high fructose corn syrup. Corn-based sweeteners are cheaper than the cane-based sugars that were more typically used in the past. Manufacturers like the lower cost, of course, since lower cost means greater profit. And corn-based sweeteners taste very sweet. A typical consumer either likes or doesn’t even notice, the difference in taste. The evidence of this is a little mixed, but some studies suggest that, when you consume high fructose corn syrup, it reduces your brain’s normal response to leptin. You consume the calories, but you body doesn’t signal an appropriate stop eating signal. If you have a resistance to leptin, over time this leptin resistance can, in principle, lead to substantial weight gain. Similarly the obesity epidemic might be caused by the rise of processed sugary fatty foods. And we spend more time insectary activities, things like working in front of computer screens, been playing in front of all sorts of video screens, more than we have in the past. The reduction in physical activity, especially during childhood seems particularly responsible. There’s another culture change in our eating behaviors, however that doesn’t get discussed very often. Modern eating has became less and less of a social event over the past several decades & people tend to go towards the direction of eating on the go which causes to miss out on the social event itself & eating more. So if your eating, make sure you stop for 20 minutes to let your body catch up at some point early in the meal, or make the meal a slower social occasion in general. Either way you will eat less without having to suffer through any additional hunger.

Tip: To reduce your calorie intake, eat with men.

Molly Allen-O’Donnell and her colleagues recently performed a set of studies in which they watched people ordering food in restaurants. When women order food in all female groups, they tend to order and consume an average of about 833 calories worth of food. When women ate with a man in the group, they ordered less is, only about 721 calories. When there’s a man around, women seem to eat less around 13% less out of traditional speculations & the effect was the same for the men . When a man ordered food with only women around, in the studies, he tend to eat about 1162 calories. If there was other men in the group, The men consumed about 952 calpries. Whatever the reason that’s about 18% less. If you eat with a male companion you tend to eat less. 

A more recent growth of work, however, has focused on studying positive aspects of psychological well-being rather than only focusing on the negatives. This school of thought has come to be as “Positive Psychology” and it’s revolutionized on how researchers think about a variety of different aspects of human perception, cognition, and behavior. The general goal is to identify people who are thriving, and then study what factors are associated with that well-being.

So from this positive perspective, how should we solve the problem of obesity? How can we best help people to lose weight when they want to? For many decades, researchers have experimented with people who are overweight, with the goal of changing their behavior so that they can lose excess weight. From the positive perspective, researchers spend their time studying people who are not overweight. When people with healthy weight select foods to eat, how do they do so? When someone with healthy weight is eating, what makes him or her decide to stop?  when you ask someone with a weight problem why they eat and what they choose to eat, you will get a lot of different answers like I eat when I’m depressed or anxious or bored & the list goes on. When you ask someone that does not have a weight problem, their answer is much shorter such as they are not Hungry. If your hungry your body is sending you a message, a message that it’s changed from a mode of processing incoming energy to one of needing more. If you ever tried a calorie-restricted eating plan, sometimes called a diet, you know this feeling well. The eating plan says you can eat a certain prescribed list of items for breakfast and than, when that’s done, your not allowed to eat anything else until lunch. Your inner two-year-old might want more, but your explicit conscious mind can prevent him from taking control and having more to eat which is a short term solution. There’s another problem with ignoring this hunger signal. The leptin and Ghrelin influence the hypothalamus, which regulates your internal sense of hunger & influence your body metabolism. Your body seeks to maintain its weight, to store some fat incase there is a famine in the future. And the way your body can tell when food is growing scarce, too much Ghrelin and not enough leptin. The hunger hormones will actually reduce the rate at which your body burns energy. For instance, they can make you feel sluggish, which causes you to move around less. Too much Ghrelin will also activate the mechanism that stores energy in fat cells. So if your feeling hungry you will use fewer calories that you eat, store more of them by enlarging fat cells. You can fight this process with physical activity. But unless you’re going to go to extremes with that, it can often prove to be a losing battle. There’s a lot of great reasons to exercise, your brain even produces extra new neurons if you exercise regularly. But for weight loss, exercise alone rarely seems to be effective. If you start a new exercise program, you’ll burn more calories but the hunger system in your brain will be future stimulated. If you don’t also regulate food intake, a number of studies have found that the eating rises to meet the amount of extra calories burned. If you burn more calories than you consume, the hunger system gets turned on, and stays on, until you get those extra calories back. A number of neuroscientists have proposed that the human brain regulate ms it’s weight, based on an internal set point like a thermostat that regulates the temperature by turning the heat or air conditioning on & off to keep the temperature relatively constant. Only this thermostat regulates your weight and it uses the hunger to maintain that weight. Your body seems built to do this but there are ways to hack the system, to get around this internal regulation system. My tip for this section was to eat when you’re hungry because if your don’t your unconscious regulator systems will just compensate and wait until you aren’t paying attention. I said you should eat but I didn’t say what. When your hungry eat a small snack, one that is rich in protein, or high in fiber, or ideally both. Avoid eating foods high in sugars and fats & even if you consume the same calories of foods, those foods influence that Leptin-Ghrelin system less, resulting in less change in your perception of how hungry you are.

Lean Turkey, beans, raw fruits, a smoothie with some tofu mixed in, are thousands of examples of foods that will, with only a small amount of caloric value, turn off that hunger response, as well as the resulting responses that your body makes. It might be that you’ll need to have lots of these snacks. Even if you have, say 150 calories snack to turn off that hunger two, three times a day in between meals, it’s a benefit in the long run, when compared to gorging yourself on a high fat, high calorie binges at times. Some reachers suggest preparing these snacks well in advance of when you need them. As you alter your eating plan, several parts of the human brain will come to the rescue. The most notable of those— most notable of those brain areas is the orbitofrontal cortex. It’s located near the front of the brain, just above your eyeballs. This area is activated by many types of decision-making behaviors, but especially decisions about food. There are strong connections between the orbitofrontal region and areas of the brain associated with hunger. In facts, when your hungry, this area of the brain, it’s primed for activation. When a food related stimulates appears, the orbitofrontal cortex responds a little at any time. But if your hungry, it response a lot. This area of the brain seems to be a major player in your decisions about what looks good to eat. It should be said that humans are impressively omnivores that will eat an amazing range of different things. Every time we eat our body does a little data collection. It encodes the flavors, the texture, the smells, even the social context in which the meal occurred. Then, after the food goes into the digestive tract, it waits to find what happens. If you happen to feel nauseous afterwards, than your brain, in cooperation with your orbitofrontal cortex, concludes that those flavors, texture, smell, and social contexts, those are things to be avoided in the future. If, on the other hand there’s a good outcome, if the body gets a boost of energy and feels satisfied than a positive association is made to the food. As you eat something repeatedly, your brain forms associations with it, just like to any other experience. If your reinforced for doing any behavior, then you’ll be more likely to perform it again in the future. If your punished, then you’ll be less likely to do that thing in the future. This flavor preference learning system is always at work. Every time you eat.

The flexibility of the system to learn to like, essentially, anything has been responsible for humans spread across the globe, and responsible for them finding good foods wherever they went. Not all animals have this system. Such as Pandas are born with a strong preference for bamboo shoots. If you take them away, they won’t learn to eat other things. Not so with humans. If for some reason, you were to eat a pencil and some mad scientist could sneak good things into your stomach shortly after you did, you would learn to crave pencils when your hungry. The mad scientist would have to take out the chewed up pencil, so that it wouldn’t make you sick afterwards. After eating a few pencils when you were hungry, your orbitofrontal cortex would be primed for action. When you glanced over and saw someone writing with a pencil, you would unconsciously be drawn to that pencil. Your mouth would begin to salivate & crave having a bite of the pencil. There’s a tip here, but it’s a subtle one. I’m not suggesting that you do something, rather you think about this system, the unconscious flavor preference system, and give it enough time to work. Now I don’t think you want to teach yourself to crave pencils, but there are a lot of healthy foods out there, and not just carrots, that you can teach your brain to crave.

[venom-inside-you]

ommmgggg just read that ask ! give us more symbiotic powers during sex Head Canons !

Okay! Y’all asked for it! I am sorry but also not sorry if this is not coherent to anyone else but me but I have a lot of thoughts so this is long, again Nonnie you asked for this. I’m also on mobile and it would be a pain in the ass to put a read-more so sorry about that as well!

(Please note mun has only seen the movie and read a few snippets of the comics regarding Venom so these are completely made up out of mun’s mind and not part of any universe except my own lololol. I also refer to Venom as he/him.)

Symbiote Powers During Sex - Head Canons!

-Before we talk about anything else!!!!! Venom’s species reproduce asexually, so he does not inherently understand copulation between humans nor does he understand the pleasurable aspects of sex. He has Eddie’s memories but that is not the same (will explain later) and understands that is how Earth is populated, but regularly scolds Eddie for being weak to others’ sexuality and needing the human connection in order to survive, constantly criticizes humans for being overly-emotional life forms. Eddie has also not had sex or has had daydreams or wet dreams about having sex with Venom.

-Let’s talk about long distance. This symbiote can stretch out pretty far from Eddie’s body so if his partner/SO/lover/whatever is in another room entirely, small tendrils or even larger tentacles can be used to do whatever.

-Speaking of what the tendrils, tentacles can do, here’s a few suggestions: licking, sucking (with little suction cups like an octopus), biting, tugging, vibrating!!! You name it, Venom can probably do it and with more than one tendril/tentacle at a time.

-Don’t even get me started on texture!! But let’s— Venom’s mass is cool and slick to the touch, but not sticky or too goopy. He does produce a substance so that in his constant shape-shifting, he doesn’t create too much heat from the friction so this could be used as a sexual lubrication. He also produces saliva that is similar to the lube but thicker and a little more sticky. ANYWAY, these tendrils/tentacles can be ribbed, bumpy, ultra smooth, and textured after a real penis (most likely Eddie’s but he’s been in other humans before Eddie so it might sorta be an amalgamation of multiple) among other textures I haven’t even mentioned!

-Foreplay (long distance or not) - tendrils and tentacles EVERYWHERE. Humans (usually) have two hands and two arms— Eddie can only do so much!! But Venom can do anything, literally anything with whatever amount of mass he’d like to use. Multiple tendrils can come together to make one tentacle or one tentacle can be split into multiple tendrils depending on the partner(s) pleasure— yes I said multiple, we’ve got a poly-alien on our hands. The more the merrier but Eddie gets tired so keep that in mind. This also means that he can fashion himself (or even Eddie’s member 👀) after all of those sick-looking Bad Dragon-esque dildos (more on that later).

-Sex can be as spontaneous or as regular as Eddie and the partner(s) and Venom want it to be, but Venom can read Eddie’s mind (and vice versa, sorta) so if Eddie thinks of something Venom may not even hesitate to go ahead and do it. Consent is always key of course!!!

-First time with a partner(s), Venom will most likely stay in the background of Eddie’s mind to experience it happen in real time. He has access to all of Eddie’s memories but it’s something else entirely to be feeling the actual act rather than watching it. Symbiotes are really observant, which gives them the ability to make quick decisions to get the upper hand, so this translates over to sexual acts.

-For Eddie’s sake, Venom prefers if the partner asks or allows Venom to participate. Venom may get more touchy-feely with the partner(s) as time goes on if the physical aspect hasn’t been introduced yet.

-Eddie is up to try anything once. Venom will do anything without hesitation, which could lead to some negative sexual experiences for either side or both if it isn’t handled right.

-To piggy-back off that, Venom does not understand aftercare. In the beginning, if Venom is too rough, Eddie is the one that has to do the aftercare. It may cause some tension between him and Eddie and the partner(s), but more conversations about what’s expected is always a healthy way to approach boundaries and future sexual endeavors! Soon he’ll start to get it, but it will be rough going at first.

-Once a boundary/sexual relationship has been established, Venom will become possessive of said partner(s). He will also touch the partner(s) in public where he knows he won’t get caught and if the partner(s) get into a position where others want to possess the partner(s), Venom will then mark the partner(s) in a place so that others know that they belong to him. And Eddie.

-Venom has observed Earth animals and their mating behaviors (either through personal experience or watching the Discovery channel while Eddie’s sleeping), so he knows that humans do not have a mating season. He does not experience heats or ruts but can pick up on human’s fluctuation hormones and pheromones enough to know when someone is aroused.

-Does Venom orgasm? Yes, I think he does. Just like a xenomorph, I HC that Venom inherits traits from the beings he has been in before. Being in Eddie for so long, he would then adapt the ability to orgasm. When he does, his mass shifts like it does when he hears higher frequencies (see the scene with the airplane and the MRI machine) and he gets a bit feral.

-Does Venom ejaculate? As a symbiote, no. But when he decides that he wants to, he uses Eddie’s cum (whether or not he has to manipulate Eddie’s body to produce more), but this also means that if he has sex with a fertile partner, that baby(ies) will not have symbiotes in them in utero. In order for baby to have a symbiote, he would have to make one but that’s a long story.

-Am I getting a little too lost in the woods here? Maybe I should rapid-fire a few to get my brain straight

-Venom can pin the partner down by any body part and basically anywhere. Weight and size don’t even matter in this context, and Y’ALL HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOUR CHUBBY PARTS OR ANYTHING YOU HAVE INSECURITIES ABOUT. GENDER ALSO DOESN’T MATTER AT ALL. Whatever he can tease to pull another moan out of you is exactly what he wants.

-He can also LIFT YOU IN THE AIR. I REPEAT— LIFT YOU UP IN THE AIR AND USE YOU AS A FLESHLIGHT. For multiple holes as well.

-Biting— lots of biting. Can draw blood (again, see boundaries) from the body and clean you up afterwards.

-Breath play, choking, blood play, knife play (like he can draw blood from you himself), whipping (think about all those textures!), etc

-If he has too much energy and he can’t use it all on you because he knows he can snap you like a twig, his tendrils can crack like whips around him so don’t be scared! He’s just really excited.

-THE TONGUE. I guess I have to explain this one a little bit but just imagine his tongue as whatever you want it to do, just like the tendrils and the tentacles. Wrapped around a clit, vibrating, corkscrewed around a cock and balls, etc

-Saliva literally everywhere. He doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.

-He may not talk to the partner much but when he does, it’s usually very like proper and straight-forward. As in “You may orgasm now” or “We can feel that you are close to your peak” etc

-PET NAMES. He likes calling you Little One

-Pet names for him? He prefers being called Venom because like duh that’s his name and he doesn’t understand the pet name at first. Whatever the partner(s) is/are comfortable with calling him, he will respond to it after a while. Maybe even get an ego boost from it.

-Is there anything he doesn’t like to do? YES. Vore— sorry y’all. Even if the partner can regenerate, that’s not something I as a writer am comfortable with writing. In other universes, maybe.

Okay so I’m going to stop there or I’ll be here all day. I’m sure I’ll think of some more but if there are any specific scenarios, please ask!! Anon is on so feel free to submit whatever your heart desires!

#venom #venom movie #ask blog #rp blog #symbrock #we are venom #marvel #mcu #venom let there be carnage #tom hardy #Eddie Brock #Eddie and Venom #Venom and Eddie #tw: mentions of vore #tw: blood #headcannon #sex headcannon #symbiote sex headcannon

[quazartranslates]

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH62

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

-----

Chapter 62: The Queen’s Inheritance (I)

"Here, this is the ancient lake." A guide brought the two men to a huge underground lake and said, "The buildings near here were built during the first generation of Dragon Ant Queens, and by now most of them have become damaged and collapsed. It’s said that most of them were in the architectural styles of the demon world. Later, with the entry of human beings, some later Dragon Ant Queens were of human origins, and the style gradually moved closer to that of the human world."

Qi Leren and Ning Zhou stood in front of the ruins of ancient buildings, watching the vast underground lake ahead. The rich water vapor formed a dense fog that hovered over the underground lake. With a burst of wind coming from underground caves, the fog was blown away only to reform.

The wonderful thing was that there were a lot of fluorescent plankton floating in the lake, which were a deep fluorescent blue amidst the smokey fog. This huge underground lake was like a night sky with thin clouds, with bright stars in its vast expanse.

"The scenery here is good, yet it seems that there aren’t many people?" Qi Leren asked.

The guide mused: "In the early years, there were still people living here, but I don't know when it started: there were frequent violent conflicts here, and the chaos was even worse than that in the lower city. With the water monster incident, the residents who were here moved."

"Water monster?" Qi Leren looked back at the fluorescent underground lake again. "Is there a water monster in it?"

"Yes, there was a monster attack on the nearby residents, which caused thousands of deaths. It alarmed the Dragon Ant Queen, and she then ordered for all of them to be relocated," the guide said.

Qi Leren whispered to Ning Zhou, "What does a water monster look like?"

Ning Zhou thought about it: "A strange shape."

This is equal to saying nothing. Qi Leren blinked in confusion. On second thought, the monster was also a kind of monster. Of course, there were all kinds of monsters, some of which were serious and some of which were casual.

"Is this monster a devil? Or a demon?" Qi Leren asked again.

Although devils and demons had similar names, there were obvious differences. There were many races with rational minds and human features among devils, but no matter how powerful demons were, their bodies were obviously non-human, and they had no rational and normal cognitive ability.

The guide shook his head and said, "We don't know. The monster appeared once and then disappeared. Maybe the Dragon Ant Queen took the shot to clean it up."

"Then there would be no need to move," Ning Zhou hit the nail on the head.

"That’s also true." The guide smiled bitterly. "We aren’t qualified to know the inside story of this confidential matter."

"Where did Mrs Kathleen say she saw the person she thought was Ashley?" Qi Leren asked.

"In the area over here, please come with me." The guide pointed to a palace-style building complex that had been submerged by the lake, and walked there with the two people.

There was almost no light source from the sun in the Underground Ant City, but the creatures here naturally developed methods to see. Both humans and demons would eat foods that enhanced night vision. In addition, there were fluorescent fungi and vegetation everywhere, and the demand for light here had dropped dramatically over time. If you suddenly returned to the surface, it would be difficult to adapt because of the strong light.

After Qi Leren broke his shell, his eyesight had improved a lot. Along with eating the food suggested by Celia, walking in the dim underground world didn't hinder him now, but occasionally he would stumble on the uneven ground because of carelessness. After all, there wasn’t very good infrastructure in the Nightmare World, and few places had flat cement or asphalt roads except the Twilight Township.

Ning Zhou walked half a step slower than him, which proved to be very important, because when Qi Leren stumbled, he reacted very quickly to catch him with one hand.

He wouldn't say "I'll carry you", but in fact he did.

When the guide looked back and was about to speak, his open mouth got stuck in his face when he saw the hands being held between the two men, and his voice became a cough.

Ning Zhou deadpanned, as if two men walking hand in hand was a matter of course. Qi Leren pretended to look at the scenery: "The scenery here is really good. It would be nice to walk around nearby when we have time."

Ning Zhou also responded to him: "Hmm."

The guide doesn't quite understand what was worth going on a date for in a place where there were water monsters and people often went missing and were killed... He would want to leave, but he strongly wore an awkward but polite smile: "Yes, but pay attention to safety."

Qi Leren had discovered that Ning Zhou was very shy in some aspects, but very "calm" in other aspects. For example, if he thought that two people who were engaged could hold hands, he wouldn’t care about the situation or feel embarrassed to be seen.

But by the same token, he decided that what he couldn't do before getting married was impossible without getting married.

Qi Leren, like an infatuated teenager, was stirring under the influence of hormones. At the same time, he felt that he was a dirty adult compared to the pure Ning Zhou. He had just fallen in love and he had already begun to think about their sex life.

At this moment, Qi Leren was very optimistic and confident that he should be able to push Ning Zhou down. After all, Ning Zhou was so pure, how could he be the more dominant one? But he couldn't be in such a hurry. It wasn’t good to intimidate Ning Zhou. He should start teaching at the primary level. For example, he should find a chance to teach him how to kiss at the right time, in the right place, and with the right atmosphere.

A little excited inside, a little expectant, and a little shy, Qi Leren couldn't help but show an excessively happy smile.

Guide: I don't know why, but I feel like an eyesore, so I should hurry away…

After taking them to their destination, the guide left for his other tasks, leaving only Qi Leren and Ning Zhou walking slowly in the ruins of this palace.

The surrounding buildings had indeed been seriously damaged, but they can vaguely see the distinctive style. For example, there were only a few rows of scattered columns left in this building that were similar to a Greek temple. The height of the complete columns was more than 40 meters, which was already magnificent from a distance. When you looked closer, it would take seven or eight people to hug each column. Standing under the column and looking up, this amazing height was awe-inspiring. Because the foundation had fallen and the lake’s water had risen, the temple had become tilted altogether. The north half had been submerged in the lake and only showed slightly above the water, while the south part had not been swallowed up by the lake water at all.

"The buildings in the underworld are usually much taller than those in the human world," Ning Zhou said.

"Why?" Qi Leren asked.

Ning Zhou looked at the rows of neat but damaged columns in front and said slowly, "Because many demons don't like to maintain human form."

Qi Leren immediately thought of the huge black dragon in the lake of fire. With its size, it could only move in such a huge building. He didn't know if the dragon-shaped devils had some special hobbies, such as collecting gold coins and treasures…

"There are traces of fighting here." Ning Zhou's voice awakened Qi Leren who was still sleepwalking.

Qi Leren quickly recovered and observed it carefully. The damage caused by natural collapse was different from that caused by fighting. Qi Leren was inexperienced, but Ning Zhou could see it at a glance and even recover some details of the battle in his mind. For example, the column in front of him was broken by fighting, and the blood at his foot was left by severe scratches when the person was hit and flew to the ground.

"They were two masters, at least one was injured," Ning Zhou said.

"In my impression, although Mrs Kathleen's subordinate had the seed of slaughter, his strength was average," Qi Leren recalled.

"Someone’s here!" Ning Zhou pulled Qi Leren behind the column.

Both of them were silent, regulating their breathing and heartbeats.

In the distance, there came a group of people's slight footsteps, the sound of cloth dragging on the ground, and even light.

A mysterious group passed through the hall, carrying bone lamps in their hands, and wearing heavy long cloaks with hoods covering their faces. This group of people, with their heads down, recited words like spells in a low voice, and when he listened attentively, he could tell they were hypnotized.

Qi Leren gave himself a quick pinch, and Ning Zhou looked at him with concern. Qi Leren pointed to his lips and pointed to the mysterious cloaked figures, beckoning to be careful of their spells. Seeing that Ning Zhou wasn’t affected, Qi Leren was a little reassured.

The front row of the group consisted of cloaks carrying bone lamps, but the rear was a group of ragged human beings. Their eyes were closed, and everyone's face showed a look of intoxication and a trance-like state, with strange smiles. Like a group of docile sheep, they walked forward under the guidance of the cloaks.

Qi Leren felt bad at once. What were these cloaked people doing?

Ning Zhou suddenly felt something, and his eyes stared straight at one of the people moving forward. The man looked as unarmed and smiling as the people around him, but when Ning Zhou looked at him, he also turned his head, grinned at him with great interest, and then continued walking before the cloaked people found out.

There was no road ahead, and the northern part of this temple had been submerged in the underground lake. If they went further, there would be only the lake water filled with fluorescent algae. However, as if they could not see the road, these people walked towards the lake with their bone lamps and vague spells.

As they approached, the fluorescence on the lake became more and more bright. At once, the stars converged into a dazzling blue, which made people’s eyesight white out!

A wonderful voice sounded in the light, and it was difficult to describe whether it was a song or a spell. It was like a devout prayer of the devout and a desperate cry of the dying, which made Qi Leren shiver all over. In the void, there seemed to be a huge eyeball watching everyone in this land, including the two people hiding behind the column.

Qi Leren's eyes widened, his heart thumped, and his whole body seemed to be petrified under the spell.

Under this strange sound, this group of mysterious cloaked people walked into the blue light, and were quickly swallowed by the light.

The blue light gradually went out, and the fluorescent plants on the lake faded again, but the cloaked and human figures could no longer be seen in the temple. Everything was silent, absurd, and terrifying.

"What was that...?" Qi Leren woke up from the fear of being shocked just now and leaned in Ning Zhou’s direction.

"A cult sacrifice." Ning Zhou was more experienced than he was, so it wasn’t difficult to see what this group of people were going to do. He was more concerned about the person who had smiled at him from the crowd just now. That person had obviously noticed the two people hiding behind the column, but didn’t expose their existence. And he himself, for whatever reason, seemed to be playing the role of cult sacrifice.

"Where did they go?" Qi Leren asked again.

"They should have entered a fixed half-field. You remember that the members of the Slaughter Secret Society entered a half-field enchantment like this for secret ceremonies," Ning Zhou said.

Qi Leren suddenly realized that a similar situation had happened with the Slaughter Secret Society before, but this group of people were even more bizarre. He didn't know what they were.

"Which devil are these people going to sacrifice to?" Qi Leren asked.

"Not sure." Ning Zhou shook his head.

There were too many devils, and this was the Underground Ant City. Besides the worship of the Devil Kings, the worship of lower devils was also endless, and the situation was more complicated than any other place. However, the spells recited by this group of people were a little familiar, like a group of Utopia worshippers that Ning Zhou had once handled. That is, worshippers of the Lord of Power.

"Let’s hurry up and go back to Celia to see if there’s any way to get in. If we delay too long, this group of people will be in danger," Ning Zhou said.

-----

Editor’s Notes:

Ning Zhou: [taking his job very seriously]

Qi Leren: “Ning Zhou’s a bottom, right? He’s totally a bottom.”

Guide: “Please let me leave before you test your theory.”

-----

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

[sugar-petals]

Bts voice analysis anon here! I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to respond ❤ it made complete sense why yoongi is the deepest I kinda feel bad for him everytime he wants to sounds cheerful or speak in a way so people can hear him he strains his voice

lot to talk about, i’d like to expand on this. especially what his voice being the deepest means for bts’ songs. plus, where his undiscovered vocal talents are, and in what manner his voice will not strain.

that he’s very introverted contributes to what you say, but yoongi is certainly the odd one out voice-wise, such low baritones hardly sound upbeat. similar to how taehyung being the odd one out in the vocal line whose head voices are literal superpowers. i really respect him for singing with jin and jimin who can climb one octave higher than him, up to C#5! and with jk who has the best technique and breaks into the 6th octave if he goes on like that.

it’s very much like yoongi who probably has to mix their tracks back and forth to fit his parts with hobi (who is a tenor as a rapper! — very uncommon) and namjoon who raps in several modes. very low, very high, very impactfully. he’s the most full-bodied baritone in the group even if he’s only the third-deepest. the tone is just so rich. both hoseok and RM are extreme vocal chameleons on top of that. in speaking and in their music you can hear the difference to yoongi all the time. they don’t suddenly drop in pitch and they’re vocal acrobats.

hobi in particular, this guy can do anything. the sheer agility my god, he connects his registers. he can go up and down, impersonate and do a million effects, adlibs, you know the drill. it’s him who actually owns the “cheerful/loud and clear” brand you mention. which is good if not fantastic for yoongi’s production endeavours, the group mood, and how bts cannot be ignored — but tough for yoongi’s voice and comparison thinking, and when he tries to make a point in interviews. maybe it’s not bad that bts have to slow down sometimes to let yoongi speak, but his tone is drowned out (not intentionally of course) in other occasions and he wakes up hoarse often as we saw. which might sound hot, but it’s not good for him as you say.

to be clear. i wouldn’t chalk down his more monotonous and silent tone as a weakness, it’s just outside of bts’ other vocal variety. he makes up for it with speed and good lungs anyway. we just have to listen more closely to him in talks/episodes/conferences but i think he shouldn’t worry about it either or try to sound more enthusiastic, the fans love his soothing speech for its pure sake. he does change it regardless to be more poignant and blend in. it has pros and cons but it wears him out.

yoongi’s voice is under that strain not just in conversation but also in the studio if he wants to bring connection to the rap line parts instead of having 3 songs in 1. which usually ends up happening anyway. that’s also why the cyphers (!) switch genres mid-song so often: their voices are all strong in different registers! yoongi the lowest, joon midrange, and hoseok up high. 

that’s why cypher pt2 is a HUGE stunt and production masterpiece: hoseok’s part is tuned differently, then other instrumentals start with namjoon. and you can literally hear, okay alright a deep voice is coming! from there it just gets deeper and deeper until yoongi is just rapping over a bass guitar (every baritone’s best friend lmao!). god, please give yoongi a big bassline for his every part. “ugh” is the exact opposite: yoongi has to start too high and namjoon also has problems with the key, only hoseok can fully take off after 1:50 with perfect vocal stability. guess which song is autotuned: it’s not cypher pt2! a 3 in 1 song fuels the rapline in a way where they are most comfortable. it’s crazy how far apart they are among each other vocally and it has to be considered.

it’s a dilemma but also why bts’ rap line can tackle any song with at least one member suiting it. they complement each other, every register (except the rare whistle register, aka what mariah/ariana do) is covered. i think that contributed to bts’ fame, it’s so important. however usually, the song caters to hoseok since tenors are preferred in kpop music, or it caters to RM as he’s the central songwriting entity even if mind you, he always thinks about all the members and works closely with yoongi.

but even with joon’s support, it doesn’t work if yoongi is caught in his wish to be a tenor. we’ve seen how much the guy talks about wanting his range to become wider and how he even tried singing quite high for his standards on d-2. he goes as far as collabing only with sopranos to help him achieve that pitch. yoongi is invested to pretty much change his entire vocal type 🙁because the environment simps for high notes so bad (which is fair, falsetto is related to releasing certain happy hormones and highlights parts in songs, but still).

... he actually can’t, unless he wants to damage his throat. that’s the last thing we want. a listener can get the serotonin from a very deep voice equally if they got good taste.

thing is. you cannot morph yourself into a different vocal type and shift your range to the opposite of your comfort zone unless you’re whitney houston. even one in a million tenors like baekhyun can’t make themselves a baritone. his lowest notes are less clear no matter how hard he practices, even if his chest voice is almost operatic and his technique excels. meanwhile, chanyeol (who’s a lyric baritone and exo’s deepest voice) effortlessly hits them without (!!) that kind of decade-long training. have baekhyun or jimin been called bad singers for not being able to cover the other end of the spectrum? nope. so: why would yoongi be a bad vocalist who needs autotune. with lessons, oh man, he could do a lot and many things he dreams of. he has a very unique timbre and enough musical knowledge to do so.

so, we see the magic of your natural supported range. it’s simply given to you. imagine that: if you know you’re not a tenor, you could sort of outsing jungkook — obviously not by technique, but projection— as long as the song is tailored to you and the notes are low enough. yep, jk’s lower register is not extremely forward. each note is perfectly sung because he’s jk, but his power vocals are settled much higher. joon/tae/yoongi would sound much fuller with huge oomph in those lines. that’s where yoongi would be much more clear-sounding to us. a lot of baritone rappers in kpop would be damn good singers. 

that’s why it’s good how a lot of rappers produce solos on their own so they can try it out. 

you just have to respect that your range usually (not always) goes in one direction. once yoongi rightfully decides to abandon his high note fantasy and goes lower just for fun, we are not safe anymore lmao! exception for range: female singers have an advantage there. trained mezzo-sopranos have great access to the head voice and lower registers since they’re in the perfect middle of the scale. but the guys, forget it, even the baritenors. yoongi’s fullest voice will always be coming from a chesty depth and we love him for it. guy just needs to realize.

that’s why his real challenge is rather somehow tweaking the rap parts so his voice finds good resonance like in “혼술” or even “ddaeng”. where his voice is strong, relaxed, and full and flowing. ddaeng — “boy with luv”, too— is ironically in a very high pitch and again caters to hobi’s tone the most, but: yoongi just scales down to his own octave and it still fits, so — great key choice and musicality! and adaptation. it’s not easy to do. you can tell he plays piano.

he either becomes less easy on the ear or has to autotune himself entirely if he works against his voice. or: goes on a track way outside his supported range (dynamite, WOW). it’s a shame. “daechwita” and “agust d” are such a case: both go into the head voice where your resonance should show the most aka the chorus. there are aggressive belts/snarls/shouts that make more sense for higher, trained voices. yoongi is most famous for raps that are literally designed to fuck up his vocal cords 😷that he’s so skilled as a rapper prevents him from that to a degree, but it’s still not healthy. he adapts a lot to bts’ overall delivery but he doesn’t have to, in fact: he could go in the other direction and it would work even better.

the reason for the title track issue: they are the most energetic. in k-pop, energetic means amping up the pitch. and that’s probably a logical choice and a natural human association. if you make a baritone kpop track with a lot of energy, it probably becomes pretty creepy, uneasy, film noir. but i think that’s exactly yoongi’s thing: to unsettle and critique and rage. i think it could work out. lil nas x is a baritone pulling it off. he achieves energetic title tracks, he honors his vocal type well imo. his live singing is cool af, i need this so hard in the rap landscape. so, it’s not impossible to do.

the trick is probably setting everything to minor key. surprise... yoongi’s challenging title tracks are all in major key. boy with luv: minor key, interesting. the former are extremely difficult for him to do so hats off. “shadow” is more suitable for his baritone as is “burn it”. it needs a very heavy, dark track. which is why it’s good that yoongi has that kind of public image. a baritone’s best genre is not super light and whimsical. that’s why all of our baritone faves are not main vocalists but main rappers. kai, taehyung, jaehyun: low voices in vocal lines are soldiers.

---

now a note on yoongi’s best method of singing since it reflects his voice type and brings out the fullness of it. as in, how does it crack and strain less? guess why “사람” is yoongi’s favorite d-2 song to sing. it’s ALL his comfortable range and the singing — very beautifully done —  is in mixed register (= head + chest)! which imo might be his secret weapon. it allows him to do what he longs to do successfuly without going extremely high. bingo.

because: even with baritones, the golden middle is still important. they’re not as deep as a bass, after all. that’s why their voices are so honey-laced in the mixed range and it sounds amazing. heaven, their timbre sounds so seductive. so, it’s wonderful when they find their middle and dare to sing. 

i wish yoongi gets/makes more tracks aimed at just that. in “outro tear” he has to go both too low and too high so it takes a lot of production effort to patch it together. the rapline is doing god’s work to make all their voices sound cohesive without being trained singers. it’s always a trade-off and risk, an immense balance act. “paldogangsan” is hard on yoongi’s voice but works as a whole plus it caters to namjoon to carry the song’s message. the cyphers are chopped up and not chart-friendly but each member is in their comfort zone. 

PS: i said bts’ rap line covers all registers except one. i think that jin is the one to complete bts’ entire spectrum coming from the vocal line. i’m no whistle note expert but dionysus went pretty high up there, i think he might be able to do it. it’s very impressive, even jungkook and jimin probably don’t have access to that register. so, another point for bts being a very ‘complete’ group.

#anon #ask #cub mail 🐆 #vocal analysis #yoongi #suga #bts #baritones #tenors #mixed register #long post

[whatudottu]

Today, let’s talk about Kinecelerans and their lives on Earth.

Y’all have probably noticed that these lads get a bit sick due to Earth’s slower rotation and I wanna talk about why, as well as how one can adapt and actually live in this slower world.

Starting off, I’ll talk about how Humans live on Earth for the sake of context. Or, more accurately, how we sleep. Humans have a sleep-wake cycle that matches up with the rotation of the Earth, mainly because our brains produce melatonin in the absence of light, and we have long evolved to adapt to this schedule. This is a circadian rhythm, named for being a cycle that’s approximately a day.

Approximately, you ask? Yes, our sleep-wake cycle isn’t exactly 24 hours, it’s a little more like a 24-25 hour cycle. It’s the reason why flying west gives us less jetlag than going east, because it’s better for us to lengthen or days than to cut it short. I’ve also heard at some point that it’s the reason why a shifting work schedule is better for your rhythm, but I can’t go into more detail on that front.

BUT! Kinecelerans don’t have a 24-25 hour circadian rhythm, they have whatever hour rhythm their planet rotates at. Sure, assumably they have a little leniency for a longer day, but ultimately Earth’s rotation speed is significantly slower than Kinet to the point of sickness. I may not have any numbers to talk about their specific sleep-wake cycle needs, but I will detail how it DOES make them sick instead.

If a Kineceleran were to actually try to stay awake for the Earth day, they would be awake for at least a few Kinet days. This would definitely be sleep deprivation, and if I know the internet, everyone’s had at least one day of it. The longer sleep deprivation goes on, the more side effects one has.

Referring back to Humans, this involves a lot of perceptual and cognitive distortions, with hallucinations and delusions coming in at the 4-5 day mark respectively. In terms of physical harm, lack of sleep does indeed cause a weaker immune system, because you’re not having any restorative sleep in between your bouts of wakefulness.

Not to say that Human symptoms translate exactly to Kinecelerans, but that right there is the key to this talk.

Hypothetically, though probably unrealistic, a Kinet day could very well last 1-2 hours. Though this most likely isn’t the case, a Kineceleran trying to stay awake for a full Earth day would be sleep deprived for 12-24 days in a row. This is at maximum, and sure it’s a definite stretch, but this is the primary reason why most Kinecelerans get sick from the slower rotation.

It’s not motion sickness, it’s sleep deprivation sickness.

Of course, a Kineceleran can clock off for their sleep every so often, but another problem arises. What about the production of melatonin, or some other sleep chemical that Kinecelerans may instead possess. While it could be possible that they don’t need an absence of light to activate sleep chemical production, let’s turn to the next common natural light source on Kinet.

Lightning.

Sleeping during a lightning storm, especially without a roof over one’s head, would not be evolutionary that great. Maybe instead of the light itself preventing sleep chemicals, it can be the presence of adrenaline (or, again, some equivalent) that keeps Kinecelerans awake. Naturally they’d be full of the stuff, being rather active, so typically stormy nights are troublesome for the many home grown Kinecelerans.

On Earth, after a certain time of morning, there’s a lot of activity outside. Noises and a whole heaping of lights may cause a Kineceleran to associate the hustle and bustle of Earth to the likeness of lightning storms, and their body acts as such by producing stress hormones. So even if they do catch their ‘z’s during the day, they can end up being partially sleep deprived if they didn’t catch enough of their recommended hours (and maybe minutes)

But that doesn’t mean Kinecelerans can’t overcome these issues.

Being born on Earth may help.

Helen Wheels, who we all know is a hybrid get back in your corner rooters, may still have half an inclination to sleep more often than a Human would, but she’s probably sleeping less than a Kineceleran should. Full Kinecelerans born on Earth may also adapt their sleep-wake cycle, maybe power nap when they would typically be asleep and fully clock out at night, sorta like the difference between weekdays and weekends.

Visitors and immigrants especially may also adapt too, but less in changing their cycles. No, what happens here is architecturally. Surely, no doubt, Kinecelerans would have their own ‘block-out-blinds’ over on Kinet for the especially excitable, advertised to block out the flashes of light and significant noise of the storms.

Earth may not be as bright as a flash of lighting, but the light is consistent and lasts for many Kinet days. The hustle and bustle of Earth however, is a lot quieter than a lightning bolt. Soundproof rooms with no windows (or some super intense block-out-blinds) are a Kinecelerans perfect bedroom, and allows for them to clock out whenever they need to.

Maybe occasionally they spend too long outdoors, meaning their adrenaline is still running even when they’re super tired, but isn’t it the equivalent thing for Humans and our screens?

Haha, anyway, I hope you enjoyed these thoughts.

And get your sleep too.

#kineceleran #xenobiology #vaguely #in the sense that i’m talking about their sleep-wak cycle #*wake #speaking of... #xenopsychology #ben 10 #headcanon #ramblings #unlike a lot of my thoughts this one directly relates to textbook knowledge #you know... #rather than knowledge i’ve learn secondhand #either through youtube (especially the alien planet series) #or my friend and his hyperfixation on space and especially rockets

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs “Animal Planet.”

I had the sudden desire to do one of those documentary style episodes today, so that is what you are going to get. This will probably have one or more episodes, but it should be fun. Hope you all like :)

“Ok, ok ok, everyone listen up!... QUIET DOWN PLEASE…. Ok very very good. Now we have been cordially invited to interact with a very special group while they are being quartered here on our planet.”

“Don’t you mean you pestered begged and threatened?”

“You know what, you, you can shut up.”

‘Why are we doing this anyway. Humans aren’t all that interesting anymore?” 

“That is where you are wrong! Universe-wide opinion polls state that, behind the drama with the LFIL, humans at large and the most sought after topic in the galaxy. My other sources tell me that only 5% of the galactic population has ever even seen a human. You should read some of the rumors about them, it is quite stimulating. 

“How did you even get this to work?”

“The humans seem to want good PR as much as we want good entertainment. Alright everyone! GET YOUR CAMERAS READY!” “Do you want us to turn on the translation software?” 

“No, of course not, well for everyone accept humans.”

“Why.”

“Well the public won’t exactly get a great thrill from them if they think they are intelligent speaking creatures now will they.”

“But they are?” 

“Shut up, and get ready.” 

“Three….. two ….. One.” 

“HELLO EVERYONE! I am Mendex of the Tesraki, and today on my journey through the universe to meet some of the most dangerous species known to the galaxy, I have taken a stop back on my own planet for a rare opportunity. Now my researchers have come up with a few statistics I would like to share with you before we begin. According to intergalactic poles only five percent of the universal population has ever met, in person, one of these creatures. Number two, since their introduction, these creatures have been the cause for a 15% incline in death rate and a .2% drop in life expectancy for your average dweller of the GA. They can digest metal,, and reports say that they evolved to run their prey to death….. A slow death towards exhaustion.”

The camera pans slowly over the face of the Mendex, his light brown fur accented by a scruffy red scarf around his neck. They are walking up a grassy pathway, though the grass comes in shades of purple and blue instead of green.

“Now as I said before, I have been given a rare opportunity to interact with these creatures in their own environment. Now based on the concerns of some of my producers, we will not be allowed to go in alone, but have connected with an Expert who will take us through safety. Now as I understand it, this expert has left society to spend entire swaths of time with these creatures. He claims to have been incorporated into their pack and has enough social standing with them that he will be able to protect us while we interact.” 

The ground grows steep for a moment as the camera moves up a hill and over the other side.

“Ah, there it is, their hive. Look at it. Now not much is known about how they build such complicated structures, but we do know that they enjoy the use of very hard sharp lines and corners. “ They trundle down another hill and towards the ship sat crouched in a field. Overhead clouds pass over the star.

“Oh, and there is our expert, waiting for us at the entrance to the hive.

The camera cuts for a second, and when it comes on the Tesraki and a Vrul are sitting side by side at the base of the hive.

“No more suspense. It is time for me to tell you what we are going to be seeing today….. HUMANS. Yes that’s right everyone, I have been given access to a human pack and the expert who has been living with them for the past few cycles now.” He turns to the Vrul sitting by his side, “Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself and your research, Docotr.”

The little creature glances up at the sun and then back towards the cameras, “Well I am Dr. Krill, and I have been working as a surgeon for as long as I can remember.” “As A surgeon, how did you end up here?” 

“Well, that is actually an interesting story. I was working at the Thevel-1 Andromeda Trauma center, when a human ship actually called in for an emergency landing. One of the humans had been involved in some sort of freak accident on board, and they required immediate medical attention, so I men them in the trauma bay, and, I will leave the details out, but as it turned out one of the humans had a metal rod logged in his brain, through the orbital socket.”

“No, you’re kidding me?”

“Not even a little. I had never seen anything like it. Accidents like that result in visits to the morgue, not the hospital, but the human was still alive, so I removed the object and watched his recovery. Now at this point I was so fascinated that I couldn’t just let them go. There was so much for me to learn.”

“So just like that, you hopped on a human ship, and went gallivanting across the galaxy.”

“I know, sounds strange every time I hear about it, hardly something I would do.”

“What was that like, first day aboard a human ship, surrounded by predators.”

“Terrifying as you might imagine. I was convinced that I was going to get eaten or worse, but of course I never did.”

“Now why don’t you tell us a little about humans.

“Well, Mendex, the first thing you should know about humans is how social they are. Humans generally require SOME contact with other humans weather it be in large group units or at least one other human that they can interact with. It is such a big deal in fact that isolation can drive a human to madness or worse. They are very perceptive to social situations, and that is what made my first day so terrifying because the humans have many social rules that are expected to be followed that just never crossed my mind.”

“And how dangerous would you say a human is?”

“Well that depends entirely on the human and the situation. If a human thinks they are in danger, they will either run or they will fight. Humans have a special hormonal response that, during times of extreme stress, can allow them to life objects up to 500% their own body weight. For most of us a human, even the weakest humans, have the ability to maim, injure or severely mutilate.” he held up a hand, “however, I am not saying that to make you wary of humans, they are generally very friendly and curious creatures, and as long as they don’t feel threatened they will at least be tolerant of you.”

“Why are humans so dangerous?”

“Well that is a funny question, it actually stems from the simple fact that humans aren't actually all that dangers…. At least not on their planet, on the basis of raw power or predatory instincts.”

“Fascinating, what do you mean by that?”

“I mean that humans were not originally a predator species, in fact they are actually pretty poor hunters compared to most everything on their planet. In fact prey animals have been known to maul humans if provoked. Humans are probably the LEAST durable species on their planet. They adapted to survive in a world where the prey animals were dangerous and the predators could decimate them with the sweep of a paw.”

“Is that why they are a pack-creature.”

“Precisely, you see, a single human has a very low likelihood of being dangerous on their own planet, but together they can hunt creatures three four five times their own size if not more. You see comparatively to other animals of their planet, humans are slow, weak, with a poor sense of smell, hearing and even sight, but they had the one thing that sentient life is known for, and that is intelligence. This intelligence allowed they to group together and create a strategy for surviving in a hostile environment. That then led them to the building of weapons and machines to the point that survival was no longer an issue, and hunting even the most dangerous of their previous predators had become laughable.” 

“That is fascinating, to think that a creature that dangerous could be so weak on their planet….. Have you met any of these other dangerous species?”

“Actually, yes/ Humans are so social and pack oriented that they have the ability to bond with non-sentient animals. They call it domestication, and it requires an animal to be, pack oriented, easy to feed, and have a short gestation period. The humans then take that animal and only allow the breeding of animals with specific desirable traits. In fact, they took a similar pack predator, and used their natural sociability to integrate them into human packs. The humans keep them as pets and began to use them as hunting partners considering their new pack member was faster, stronger, had a better sense of smell and hearing, but was now loyal to its human companions.”

“That doesn’t sound real.”

“Oh but it is. We have one aboard the ship.”

“And this creature could rip the humans apart?”

“Oh pretty easily, especially if she had the element of surprise.”

“Amazing, so what do we need to know before we get on the ship with you, you know for our safety and security.”

The doctor shifts in place. He is making a strange expression that seems unnatural for a Vrul, “Well you have to be aware that the humans have a strict hierarchy. When you get on the ship you are immediately assigned a specific sort of guest place in this hierarchy. The human pack alpha that runs the ship is higher than you as well as the betas below him and their immediate underlings. You can assume that your comfort is more important than the low ranking humans but you MAY NOT order them around since it is not your place and you have not been accepted into the pack. Generally speaking though, a human ship is a relatively safe place as long as you are polite, apologetic, and willing to do what is asked of you. Now the humans are likely to be very curious, try not to show signs of fear, but if you do they aren’t going to attack or anything. Depending on the human they may or may not gently mess with you, they may playfully try to dominate or scare you for their own amusement, but don’t worry they aren't likely to attack. Do not make any disparaging remarks or insult the humans.”

“Are humans very sensitive to verbal attacks?”

“Some are and some aren’t. In the case of insulting a human, I have found that it is not generally the human you have insulted that you should be afraid of, but the other humans around the human you have insulted. You see many humans have no issue in making an insult, but will not tolerate one directed at one of their pack members. They are very protective of each other, especially the alpha. It is also a good idea not to insult objects that belong to humans. The human bonding instinct is strong enough that they will bond to objects. So the ship for example, do not offend the ship. I made that mistake on my first day and thought the alpha was going to tear out my throat.”

There was a shifting amongst the crew.

“What are the rules on touching.”

“That is complicated, it also depends on the human. The general rule is not to go up and touch a human without permission. If a human approaches you first, you may make contact with them. Generally hands and arms are acceptable to touch though I would suggest avoiding any other part of the human anatomy for the sake of their privacy. Humans are very very serious about their personal space and their personal privacy 

“Are there any warning signs that we should be aware of, just in case.”

The doctor nodded, “Well there are a few things. Humans have a warning call they use to indicate to other humans that something is wrong, it generally indicates pain or immediate danger and is specifically designed to get attention and bring other humans to assist. This involves a high pitched sort of keening, it is very loud and very powerful, and will hurt your ears if you aren't careful. Generally though, I have only ever heard it used on a few occasions. As far as more subtle things to look at. If a human gets into a defensive posture in your direction it isn't a good sign. They will bend at the knees and have their hands up to protect their face. Their chins will be lowered to cover their necks. Another important signal to look at is the face. A frowning human could either be thinking or they could be anger. That is when the mouth sort of dips on either end like this…. Yes…. yes like that. But the important thing to look at is the eyes. The eyes will always give them away.”

“What is so important about the eyes.”

“Well, human eyes are enormously expressive. I swear by them personally. Humans have this habit of pretending one thing but meaning another, and looking at the eyes can tell you that. Eyebrows slanted down is generally a good indicator. A frown mixed with slanted eyebrows and…. Its hard to explain. If you look into the eyes and feel as if their expression could kill you, you probably want to stop doing whatever you are doing. Also sudden silence isn’t entirely a good thing either. Humans love talking to each other, there is always someone speaking, most of the tie, but if you are in an area with many humans and none of them are speaking there is either something wrong, or they have been ordered to behave that way”

“What is a good indicator of a happy human.”

“It seems strange, but showing their teeth is a good sign most of the time. A curious human is generally a happy human. They like learning and interacting with their environment, so encourage curiosity and the showing of teeth. Also there is a strange sound they make, sort of a repetitive revving noise that comes from the back of the throat or the chest. That means that the human is amused, and that should also be encouraged.”

“Alright…. Do you think we are ready.”

“I think so…. Follow me.”

The crew gets up and the feed cuts to black.

This episode will continue after the break.

#humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #HUMANS ARE WEIRD #earth is a deathworld #Earth is space Ausralia

[regrettablewritings]

Preference: What Strange Being Are They? II

Characters: Victor Stone, Harley Quinn, Erik the Phantom, Nevada Ramirez, **Surprise Character**

Victor Stone - Simulacrum

The proper term, as he saw it, was simulacrum: An image or representation of someone or something. That was the more proper term. But in Victor’s mind, ordealed and pulled every which way but up, it meant something just as contorted as his form had become: An imitation of something else that may or may not have ever even existed. A collection of broken pieces, cobbled together to look like something familiar, all the while lacking in its qualities enough to make it abundantly clear that no, this was no longer what someone knew. Or maybe they never knew him to begin with.

In layman’s terms, Frankenstein’s monster.

Then again, he supposed the term “cyborg” was not entirely incorrect. There were, after all, traces of his organic self still present, albeit restricted to the face. But there was almost a sense of struggle in that title to him. A sense of denial. Simulacrum might have hurt, but at least, to him, it was honest.

But Silas Stone preferred to call him his son. And Victor called that ignorantly optimistic. After all: What sort of father drags his son back from the cusp of a peaceful passing, utilizing otherworldly means to reassemble him nerve by metallic nerve until he no longer resembled the boy he remembered himself being? A father too driven, Victor decided. One whose own dreams and memories had become a simulacra in and of themselves: They became so distorted, that they no longer resembled reason or reality.

And as far as Victor was concerned, he’d paid the price.

He kept to himself, reserving night time as the only time he could wander the streets of Gotham to himself — but just barely. There was only so much hiding a flimsy hoodie from his time at Gotham U could provide. But still: Technically speaking, he was safe. Monstrous, perhaps, but safe. Safe from wandering eyes, safe from judgement over what he’d lost and since become, safe from . . . Well, life. He was perfectly content living a simulation of life, in fact.

But what he wasn’t prepared or safe from was that fateful night he met you, unafraid and completely real. Well, if anything, you were real curious . . .

Harley Quinn - Succubus

Nobody talks about what happens when you starve a succubus. Mainly because the belief is that the only way to starve a succubus is to deny her, ahem, intimacy. And while this certainly wasn’t an untruth in most cases, the case that was Harley Quinn was a rather . . . unconventional one. Well, as unconventional as anything concerning a succubus could be.

For one, she had adapted her needs to better suit her environment. She had to: If she relied solely on just physical intimacy alone, she would have died long, long ago. After all, The One That Shan’t Be Named seemed to make it a point of starving her of all the resources she could possibly siphon energy from. Eventually, it came to a point where she simply had to learn how to consume energy from other means: Attention; the glances of lustful men and women; affections. Little, teeny, tiny sources that paled in comparison to the full-course meal she might’ve gotten before. But it was better than starving, and she needed to get by in this world however she could.

Not only because she quite liked some bits and pieces of this side of the veil, but also because in the end, she simply wasn’t as powerful as she once was. She still carried some of her paranormal traits with her (minor dream-walking, enhanced agility, etc), but it definitely wasn’t enough to drag her back to whence she came. Not that she wanted to.

She’d become rather fond of the den of sin that was Gotham City. And, to her own surprise, she had become rather fond of you, the poor newbie that foolishly agreed to her Craigslist ad for a new roommate. But then again, she was far more than old enough to know better; why be shocked? After all, you were so, so warm when compared to every other person she’d endured in such close proximity in the past. Much sweeter, much more . . . Deliciously innocent . . .

Erik the Phantom - Fossegrim

Fossegrims are, at least when compared to most other water spirits, rather on the benevolent side. They weren’t like sirens, using their musical gifts to lure people in to a watery grave -- at least, not normally. It was that they much preferred to enchant without malicious intent, plucking at their harp strings or sliding bows across their fiddles to produce ensorcelling sounds of the wind in the forest, the chorus of rushing water resonating in every note. It was just simply not in their nature to be especially malevolent.

At their worst, they were very particular: Even at their most agreeable, there was always a caveat of sorts.

If a fossegrim were to agree to live with a human partner, for example, he needed to have free and regular contact with a water source, lest he grow dire. And if a fossegrim were to offer his tutelage for the fiddle to someone, they would need to participate in a very particular ritual that included stolen mutton, a white he-goat, and a lot of Thursdays.

(And even if one were to succeed at this, they would be faced with a most . . . unorthodox means of being “trained”. Once again, nothing done in malice, but surely there had to be a cleaner way.)

Erik personally did not stick as strictly to these circumstances as others of his kind might -- really, he saw little point in it. After all: Who would come wandering in a watery cavern, and searching for a fossegrim’s teachings, no less! No, he had grown used to his solitude, if bitterly so. He told himself that he was more than happy to live out his naturally long life, secluded, playing beautiful pieces that would remain suffocated beneath whatever structure had gone up above his cove. He almost dared to think it a pity . . . Until one day, a visitor arrived.

And you came bearing a gift: Not a he-goat, nor stolen mutton. You hadn’t come bearing meat of any kind at all! All you carried with you as you clumsily paddled your small boat was a ring: An heirloom, old and dingy, but precious nonetheless. It was all you could offer him that equated to your desire to learn by his hand.

It perplexed the fossegrim. But it also filled him with something . . . warm. Bright, even. Pride. After all, who was he to disappoint such a humble, obedient student. . .?

Nevada Ramirez - Vampire

Vampires: Creatures of fear and woe. They lurked in the shadows, the particulars of their lore transforming about as much as they themselves could. Feeding off the fears of the common folk, draining their energy while all the while enticing their prey closer and closer still.

The transformation fit Nevada like a glove.

And, like a fashionable, leather glove befitting as his aesthetic, he wore it all with style. And perhaps a bit too much glee. Vampires, as it turned out, weren’t just day-dwelling bloodsuckers after all: The great thing about living in a city so varied as New York was that it allowed for evolution and strange mixes to occur. Nevada lucked out: He’d been vampirically sired by a strain that could eat human food, go out in daylight, weren’t effected by crucifixes, and didn’t require an invitation to enter a goddamn building.

The catches, unfortunately, were as followed: Food no longer tasted as vibrant; he could go about his day but with powers limited so drastically that he may as well have been another lowly-ass mortal; bullets were still a big no-no (unless he was the one shooting ‘em); and whether he liked it or not, he still required blood to properly get by. And as disappointed by the food situation as he was, he considered that of the blood a proportionate gain: Blood, Nevada found out, was far more varied when spiced with hormones.

His club made for a perfect den, a place where prey of all sorts could walk in, gyrate themselves into a frenzy, then come crawling over to him (the most minimum of efforts on the part of his pheromones) and offer to him their bodies without even knowing the true nature of what he wanted of them. And for a while, it worked like a charm.

Until Nevada realized he’d never quite had a taste of you, yet. You, with your wide and innocent eyes, cheeks burning whenever you saw him staring at you from the VIP section.

Sure, excitement from arousal was tasty. But the undead gang leader couldn’t help but wonder what the taste of excitement from nervousness tasted like . . .

Lucifer Morningstar - Human

They are without particularly long lives. They are born helpless and remain so much longer than most creatures on Earth do. And yet, it is amazing and strange how much humans can pack into their lives.

Take, for example, one Lucifer Morningstar: He’d changed his name from [Redacted] to better suit the image he wanted, which was that of a walking spectacle. And if his name weren’t enough, everything else he did surely was: The wealth he accrued through mysterious means; the successful nightclub on the LA strip that he owned; an immortal bed life; and a tapestry of connections he’d made by pulling favors. All topped with a devilishly handsome face to boot!

If Lucifer ever had a goal, it was to live it up and/or go to Hell in a hand basket trying.

Which was probably why he wasn’t one to shy away from hosting a little large get-together at Lux for Halloween. And by get-together, Lucifer clarified on social media: They would, in fact, be holding a seance and summoning. After all, what sexier way to embrace the taboo of darkness than to play around with the veil as though it were part of a dress-up game? It was too good an opportunity to miss out on, as any good attention-whore businessperson would tell you.

Unfortunately, for as lucky as Lucifer tended to be, he still bore upon his shoulders multiple flaws. Human flaws. Such as the flaw of not exactly doing research and providing a thorough vetting process when it came to hiring the “performer” who would be commencing the seance and summoning.

This was LA, after all: He probably could just pluck any rando off the street and get a good show out of it. He wasn’t even sure where he pulled this rando from (chances were, he was buzzed and/or high while doing so), but he couldn’t argue with the results of a crowd bewildered by the surprisingly realistic smoke effects and lights flickering. Though he had to admit: They could’ve put you in better demonic makeup for when the lights settled and you stood there, having suddenly “appeared” in the previously-drawn pentagram.

Still, you were cute enough: He supposed if he played his cards right, flirted with you in the usual Lucifer way, then perhaps his Halloween night might be filled with many tricks and treats yet! So he found himself perplexed when you continued to act confused and thrown off, even after the “performer” had finished their routine and left.

Wait, weren’t you supposed to be with them? How did you even get in here? Why do you keep asking how you got here, or if you got stuck in another person’s Hell, or -- . . . Oh. Oh, shit.

As a human, Lucifer was intent on filling his life to the brim with as much story and experiences as possible. But sometimes, there are just some things humans -- even ones like Lucifer -- shouldn’t dabble with . . .

#victor stone x reader #cyborg x reader #harley quinn x reader #erik the phantom x reader #the phantom of the opera x reader #phantom of the opera x reader #nevada Ramirez x reader #lucifer Morningstar x reader #dceu imagine #dceu imagines #trouble in the heights #trouble in the heights imagines #POTO #phantom of the opera imagines #lucifer imagines #lucifer imagine #i took some liberties with how demon-summoning in the luciverse works #at least i think i did #ah well #preference #preferences

[ladyloveandjustice]

Winter 2020 Anime Overview: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

Ok, so let’s get this out of the way first, 1. I adore this story so much and 2. Toilet Bound Hanako-kun has a horrible, horrible English title that is not actually at all representative of the story’s content and I have no idea what happened when it came to the team choosing that name. To the average English-speaking viewer/reader, this name 100% implies gross stuff and bathroom humor, and there is none in this show. 

A Japanese reader on the other hand, would be more likely to recognize the name Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun as a spin on the classic ghost story “Hanako-san of the Toilet” only A BOY THIS TIME WHHHHA?” Basically, the story goes that a girl named Hanako in a red skirt haunts girls’ bathrooms in Japanese schools and if you knock on the third stall and call “Hanako-san” three times, she’ll appear. She might grant you a wish or pull you into Hell or something else, it varies.

(Her Wikipedia image, aww.)

Anyway, I dunno why the English title didn’t at least go with “Toilet Ghost Hanako-kun” or something that would have gotten the premise across even a  little better (HE NOT TECHNICALLY BOUND BY THE TOILET EVEN, HE CAN GO ANYWHERE IN THE SCHOOL GROUNDS THE BATHROOM IS JUST HIS HOME BASE), but our boy Hanako haunting the girl’s bathroom only leads to broad jokes about our heroine being tasked with cleaning the bathroom and “dude you really shouldn’t be in here” comments, it’s pretty incidental. 

Now that THAT’S out of the way, let’s talk about my LOVE FOR THIS STORY

Hanako-kun tells the story of a “regular” high school girl named Nene Yashiro, the mischievous and mysterious school ghost she befriends, and all the other weird monsters, exorcists, spirits and curses they encounter. It’s got a gorgeous, colorful bold aesthetic and art style that combines gothic and cute! It has a great mix of humor, intrigue, angst and fantasy action. basically if you love ghosts, monsters, Japanese mythology and legends, supernatural-human relationships, supernaturally fueled angst and drama, stories about trying to fix an unfair system the world has set up, wistful romance, a good shoujo manga with a Lot of Feelings (yes this is a shonen technically I’ll explain that later), weirdo dorks becoming friends AND MUCH MORE...this story will have something that will resonate with you. It’s got a lot going on, and it’s a ton of fun.

Hanako-kun is really one of those surprising stories that fits right into a hole in my story-loving heart I didn’t realize was still there, or that I’d actually been carrying since childhood. I love ghosts, see, and have since I was a kid!!! I knew this, but I kinda forgot how intensely I love them until this show reminded me again??? That’s because regular ghost stories/mysteries/whatever- I like them, but they don’t quite do it for me in the way more character-driven ones exploring the nature of being a ghost and humans and ghosts trying understand each other etc do. Stuff that really gets into the tragedy AND the fun fantasy aspect of ghosts, and plays the long game with it- and Hanako-kun scratches that itch perfectly.

Getting a little bit deeper into the premise of Hanako-kun, Nene is a very brave and sweet but not-all-that-bright girl (or, to put it more bluntly, she’s an idiot in the best way) who has a lot of romantic fantasies and insecurities and is VERY focused on them. After hearing a rumor at school that “Hanako-san of the bathroom” will grant wishes, she wishes to be able to confess to her crush and finds out its actually a weird ghost boy her age named Hanako haunting the bathroom! A lot of things happen, and she ends up cursed and bound to Hanako-kun, but also ends up slowly forming a friendship. 

Turns out Hanako is the ghost in charge of the “seven mysteries/wonders” aka seven powerful supernatural entities that haunt this school (he’s number seven). These apparitions only supposed to terrorize students a LITTLE, because apparitions need to have rumors spread about them to remain in the human world.

(‘HAVE YOU HEARD?’ Oh hey shadow girls from Utena see you’ve moved to a new school.)

The rumors also generally dictate how powerful and dangerous the apparitions actually are- but SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS is changing the rumors around the school and making the apparitions go berserk and actually harm humans. So Hanako needs a human assistant to change the rumors and help him calm and seal the apparitions! That’s where Nene comes in.

Hanako himself is a very fun character- he’s very chaotic and revels in his whole “ gremlin ghost” persona, and is upfront about being a bit of an asshole. BUT he also makes his kindness, often good intentions and the fact he’ll have his friends back when it counts obvious from the beginning. B U T! He’s also got darkness and hidden depths to explore, and a lot of his persona is affected and masks deeper issues! 

Our ghost boy is genuinely A TAD unstable deep down (as in he straight up has several untreated PTSD symptoms and that’s as disastrous as you’d expect) and packing some serious tragic backstory, as you might expect from a kid who died young and carries around a butcher’s knife, and it’s gonna come back to bite him and and all who care about him hard. 

 Especially when an overly enthusiastic exorcist named Kou Minamoto shows up! Kou is another one who’s very dumb and very good, a wannabe-shonen-protag with a heart of gold and strong sensitive, domestic side. He rounds out our main trio. Also he gets a tragic, emotionally intense relationship with yet another ghost boy that sings to my heart.

(Yes Hanako’s helping Nene to do the thing)

You may be able to tell, this story has INTENSE good-shoujo vibes despite technically being a shonen in a way that I love- it’s story very driven by big emotions, a variety of fucked up and tragically complex relationships, teen hormones running wild, etc, and it’s just delicious. 

Nene is the normal-person-audience-surrogate-girl in a way that is more common for a shoujo protag, and the way her emotional connections to everyone, her sweeping romantic fantasies and her interiority are consistently in focus when she’s there- yeah, she’s definitely a plucky shoujo protag, 100%. And I’m all about that!!!

 One thing I especially appreciate (though this comes across more strongly in the manga than the anime thanks to the anime rearranging things) is when Nene finds out about Hanako’s Heavy Baggage, she actually takes some time to herself to consider whether she can handle dealing with someone with these intense issues as a kid who’s never encountered stuff like this before- it’s not assumed by the story that the Sweet Girl is Obligated to help the Tragic Boy. I go into more detail about this part in this part here, but it’s that kind of attention to Nene’s needs that makes her role in the story work. Hanako and Nene and everyone’s struggles to get the hang of and properly navigate honest communication and mutual support in relationships are often really great and real-feeling

The story has a lot more things I love packed in to it- a dorky-but-still-deeply-unsettling villain gang who’s screwed up interactions are just as fun as our protagonists, yokai, A CURSED LIBRARY, some great ladies in addition to Nene, meditations on the nature of life, death, themes about fighting nihilism, and so on...I could seriously go on forever. It’s good stuff, and there’s lots of good weird supernaturals to meet.

The story’s also got tons of intrigue! The overarching plot and Hanako’s Mysterious Past is still in the process of unfolding, but it’s been great drama every step of the way! As mentioned before, the story also really relies on funny character dynamics, interaction and development to carry the whole thing and balance the drama.

The anime itself does have some pacing issues bc they crammed a lot into the first season and rearranged some stuff- an entire two chapter arc was skipped and was unlikely to be covered in the anime and some parts are noticeably rushed. I still really like the anime and it’s a solid adaptation. I love how much of the manga’s detailed aesthetic it managed to keep as well as the amazing voice acting and it made a few small but important additions. But there are some notable bumps- of course this just led me to go binge the manga (up to volume 12 is legally available digitally) and BOY DO I NOW LOVE THIS STORY EVEN MORE. 

Now obviously, just because it is Exactly My Shit in a lot of ways doesn’t mean Hanako-kun is the much quested for “unproblematic fave”, there’s several caveats you should probs be aware of- its shoujo vibes also mean some classic shoujo ~Problematic tropes~ and a couple shounen ones. 

THE LIST:

-Just as a general content overview thing: if this wasn’t clear the show deals heavily with death, body horror and other horror aspects. There’s heavily implied suicide and abuse and so on- as mentioned, the main character is traumatized and shows a lot of symptoms of PTSD, and Nene has to struggle to navigate her relationship with him because of this, as does Kou.

-Hanako himself has the whole ~loveable pervert~ and ~slightly possessive shoujo bad boy~ schtick going as part of his mischevious persona. In the anime so far, he never actually gropes or comments on not-in-his-naughty-mags-people’s breasts or anything of that level thankfully, but he’s very flirty, clingy, will loudly bring up porn, fond of the ol’ *says something that purposefully sounds sexually possessive* HAHAHA U THOUGHT I MEANT SOMETHING DIRTY RIGHT LOL ACTUALLY I DIDN’T.”

(My unnecessary ‘this part is kinda interesting!’ ramble: Nene always lists “sexual harassment” among Hanako’s flaws (she loves listing them), but doesn’t get visibly uncomfortable with his flirtiness or seem to mind it most times, which at least makes the whole thing more tolerable for me.

(since she doesn’t seem to mind that part and its clear he does it bc of actual affection for her, it’s actually p. cute how huggy he is.)

 The one time it does cross the line and genuinely upset her, it’s treated seriously, Hanako is genuinely regretful and apologizes. That’s one of my fave moments in the story and the way it’s handled is well done.

 This incident that he’s honestly pretty socially clueless as kid who died young and a lot of his bravado is to cover that up and keep people at a distance- this is a trope into itself that can use unpacking but I do at least appreciate that this is a considered character trait that’s part of his whole messed up package rather than something that thrown in there Just to Be a Fanservice Trope. (Especially since the manga confirms he never acted particularly pervy while alive, further cementing this is an affected persona). 

-There’s a running gag around Nene’s insecurity over her thick ‘daikon shaped’ ankles and boys treating her badly for it. 

One one hand, her body image issues are relatable, on the other, it feels cruel and annoying just how much the show finds ways to bring it up and humiliate her over and over again.

(My unnecessary “this is part is kinda interesting” ramble:The one thing i did realize that despite bringing it up constantly, we at least have no “i’m going to do this to lose weight” or “go on a diet” rhetoric,like this is just part of Nene’s body type and she knows she can’t change it? Which is kinda interesting. And I’ve spotted what might be foreshadowing something plot relevant’s going to happen with her ankles (I DON’T KNOW HOW, BUT GOD I PUT NOTHING PAST THIS STORY) so uh yeah??? either way it’s not good tho)

-”Obsessive and twisted love” is a running theme in this story, and while it’s generally acknowledged as unhealthy, it can be played for comedy in a way that could make viewers/readers uncomfortable. There’s a couple characters who’s entire thing so far is “obsessively in love with this one person” (and the one only focused on in the manga so far is one of the least interesting characters tbh ugh)

-The antagonist of the show is a member of a main character’s family, and the manner he acts towards pretty much everyone, including (and really especially) his family member,  verges on seductive. This is presented as deliberately unsettling and treated as a marker of how unstable and scary he is- and though the backstory between them hasn’t been fully delved into, it’s pretty much all but confirmed he abused this family member physically and emotionally.

-The story has like, A LOT of queer subtext and pretty-heavy queer coding for one character especially, but the few times queerness blatantly comes up in the story, it’s played as a joke in the “haha that’d be kinda weird” way (aside from the rando boys who have a crush on Teru, handled pretty neutrally). It’s not as malicious as a lot of animanga can get (ONE MANGA INCIDENT ASIDE), but it’s something to Be Aware Of, and it makes it clear we’re unlikely to see subtext rise to text and makes some moments feel baity.

-And probably more I might have missed! The manga also has Some Shit in addition all the Good Shit that hasn’t been adapted yet, an early arc has Hanako crossing a serious line etc. 

BUT despite how messy it is, I think it’s clear I have a lot of love for this story. In fact, I wouldn’t trade away a good chunk of its messiness (DEFINITELY SOME JUST NOT ALL), it kinda works for the characters and works in the “this story really feed my inner teen” way. Some of the trashy parts are exactly My Trash, basically. 

So, I knew I’d ramble on for a while when I talked about his show, but if you’ve read this far, thanks, and I hope that means you’re gonna check out and maybe enjoy this story, bc i need more people to join me in Hanako Hell.

#toilet bound hanako kun #jibaku shounen hanako kun #jibaku shonen hanako kun #winter 2020 anime #anime overview #hanako kun #nene yashiro #yashiro nene #kou minamoto #minamoto kou #yugi amane #amane yugi #my reviews

[jyleshay]

September 2021 - The Broken Ladder

This month I read The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die - by Keith Payne. Payne is a social psychologist who presents a great deal of statistical evidence and studies for us to use in the discussion about inequality in America. His arguments are well-researched, persuasive, and also nuanced. I've picked out a few highlights that I found particularly interesting.

- A 2014 study asked people from across the political spectrum how much more a CEO should make than their average worker. People from the right and the left agreed (without knowing it) that a CEO should ideally be paid about 4 to 5 times more than their average worker. They also thought that, on average, CEOs in the United States actually make 30 times more than their average worker. The perception of inequality in America is clearly there, from both sides of the political spectrum. In reality, the average CEO made 350 times more than their average worker in America in 2012 (it's probably higher now).

- For developed countries, higher average income does not correlate to better health and social wellness among their citizens. Countries and states with greater levels of income inequality have higher rates of serious health problems, mental illness, and crime, as well as lower life expectancies.

- Inequality leads to increased feelings of insecurity and triggers physical stress reactions in the body. The lower on the social ladder a person falls, the greater the physical reaction marked by inflammation and higher levels of stress hormones. The author's research indicates that it's not poverty in and of itself that causes these negative effects; it's a person's perception of where they stand in relation to others in society. Feeling poor matters--not just being poor. And when people feel poor, they make decisions differently than when they don't.

- Inequality affects our behavior, and differences in behavior can magnify inequality. People are less likely to make the economically advantageous choice when they feel poorer than the people around them. They are more willing to take increased risks like buying lottery tickets, taking out payday loans, or dealing drugs, in an attempt to escape the feelings of poverty and the stress that it brings. A person's actual income is not as predictive of this behavior as much as their income relative to others around them. Several fascinating studies that are referenced in this book show even temporary inequality leads to riskier behavior in the participants. Our brain is constantly comparing our situation to the others around us and subconsciously telling us to adapt.

We still need to take a nuanced approach to the outcomes of inequality. Why don't more people achieve escape velocity from their negative situations? America is one of the richest countries in the world, there is opportunity here. It isn't just nature (character flaws) or nurture (environment) that determines outcomes. Both have an effect and work together. We have an incredible capacity as humans to adapt to our environments and part of that environment is our relative standing to others. Where are we on the ladder? If a person realizes that they have much less than those around them, they will think differently and act differently.

Inequality has to exist to some extent, in smaller amounts it provides motivation to achieve success and incentivizes hard work and other positive behaviors. However, the rungs of the social ladder have to be close enough together that one can climb upwards without taking insane risks. When evaluating what fundamental ideologies we should follow regarding wealth and poverty, government and politics, economics and society; this book's assertions should be thoughtfully considered.

In current events...

Texas has banned abortions after 6 weeks without any exceptions for rape, incest etc. It feels like this happened months ago, but it went into effect in September! This is really important as the law goes directly against precedent set in the 7-2 Supreme Court decision on the case of Roe vs. Wade in 1973. Texas has avoided the law being struck down immediately by having enforcement of the bill come from private citizens; most people have heard about the $10,000 bounty that citizens will be paid for suing anyone involved in an abortion after 6 weeks.

The bounty provision is pretty crazy but this law is bad for everyone because it undermines the Supreme Court's ability to protect constitutional rights from scheming legislators. Regardless of where you stand morally on abortion, if you support this bill you are supporting your rights established by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to be toyed with by any party that comes into power. This new law directly undermines and negates the previously established right to privacy and body autonomy for women that was established in Roe vs. Wade.

Anti-abortion advocates will argue that this right for a woman should not apply when another person's life is at stake. That is an argument that we need to consider, however, the Court has done so already, hence their rulings, which we collectively accept in most every scenario, outside of a woman's right to an abortion of course. Take the following example:

Let's say that a person is dying and the only way to treat them is to get a donation of bone marrow. You are the only match as a donor. If you don't donate the bone marrow, the sick person will die. No matter who the person is that you'd be saving, you have the right to choose whether or not you wish to donate. You cannot be forced by the government to donate your blood or bone because you have that right to privacy and body autonomy. Regardless of your reasons, you can choose not donate and the sick person will die. We can argue that you are morally wrong, but you are within your rights to control what is inside of your body. The same principle applies to a woman during pregnancy.

I am not advocating for late stage abortions without cause, and Roe vs. Wade does not protect the right to an abortion at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. The Supreme Court case of Planned Parenthood vs. Casey established fetal viability as that limiting factor, which is certainly much later than 6 weeks. You can make arguments for when that viability occurs, but it's nowhere near when Texas lawmakers are saying it is. Anyone arguing that a 6 week fetus has the same rights as a person is not arguing in good faith.

Consider another hypothetical: You find yourself in a fertility clinic. The clinic is on fire. As the building burns, you see in a room there is a station that has 100 viable fetuses that are in the process of development. You could rush in and grab them and carry them out of the building. Across the hall, however, you see a 4 year-old child crying, trapped behind fallen debris. As the building burns, you know you only have time to grab one and carry them to safety. Which do you save? Anyone who says they'd save the fetuses is lying to you.

The Texas bill is bad for the rule of law in America and should be struck down. Unfortunately, it looks like it will succeed in what it set out to do.

Favorites:

Favorite Series: Squid Game - This show connects well to the theme this month of inequality and the behaviors that it can cause. However, viewer beware, this show is dark and violent. I don't recommend it lightly, in fact I thought about quitting this show before it was over. I did finish it though. Its story and characters cut to the core questions of humanity and morality; even though it was an uncomfortable journey I'm glad I watched it through.

Favorite Movie: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Surprise surprise, Marvel made another good movie.

Honorable Mentions:

Music: Cold Heart - PNAU Remix - Elton John, Dua Lipa, PNAU

Podcast: A Righteous Strike - The Daily

Podcast: We're on the Precipice of a Post-Roe World - The Ezra Klein Show

Video: 9/21/21 - Demi Adejuyigbe

Let's have a very spooky October, thanks for reading.

[aphrodit3sluvlygard3n]

quotes from this sapiens commentary that made me think

- In the past 1000 years, humans have evolved to take over the world and are on the verge of overcoming natural selection and becoming gods. Yet, we still seem unhappy in many ways and we are unsure of what we want. Is there anything more dangerous that dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?

- The author believes it is unlikely Homo sapiens will survive for another 1,000 years.

- Human kind was very much in the middle of the food chain until 400,000 years ago and didn't leap to the top of the food chain until 100,000 years ago.

- Perhaps this is why Homo sapiens wiped out the Neanderthals: “They were too familiar to ignore, but too different to tolerate.”

- Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, humans have been living in a dual reality: the physical reality and the imagined reality.

- Because Homo sapiens shared myths were not genetically based, they could adapt and change their behavior as soon as they adapted their new belief. They didn't have to wait millions of years for a genetic change.

- As far as we know, the humans of 30,000 years ago had the same physical, emotional, and intellectual capabilities that we have today.

- The human collective today knows far more overall than the whole population of 15,000 years ago. However, at the individual level we are much more specialized today. Ancient foragers were the most knowledgable and skillful people in history.

- Our lack of knowledge about prehistoric religions and beliefs is one of the biggest holes in our understanding of human history.

- Social hierarchies, inequality, and so on are human inventions.

- When it comes to gender inequality: biology enables, culture forbids. The idea of “unnatural” behaviors is actually a result of Christian theology, not biology. If it is possible biologically, then it is natural. From a scientific perspective, two men having sex is natural. Traveling at the speed of light is not natural.

- All human cultures are filled with inconsistencies. For example, America currently values individual freedom and equality. But these two ideals don't always play nicely. It is part of the human experience to reconcile them. These inconsistencies aren't necessarily bad. They force us to think critically. Consistency is the playground of dull minds.

- In general, empires do not fall because of uprisings. They almost always succumb to outside invasion or splits from within the empower class.

- Most of what we firmly believe is part of “our culture” was actually forced upon us by other empires who conquered our ancestors.

- Despite the obvious negatives of empires taking over a culture, there are many benefits too. Art, music, governance, and more are the result of empires forming. Often, they blended new together with the conquered people to create a new culture.

- It seems obvious that we are moving fast toward a singe global empire. Global markets, global warming, and commonly accepted concepts like human rights make it clear we all need one collective entity, not man states and countries.

- Over the last 200 years, science has increasingly revealed that human behavior is determined by hormones, genes, and neurological synapses. If this is true, then for how much longer will we ignore that biology does not agree with the concept of free will?

- It is an inevitable rule of history that what seems obvious in hindsight is impossible to predict beforehand.

- Scientists generally agree that no theory is 100 percent correct. Thus, the real test of knowledge is not truth, but utility. Science gives us power. The more useful that power, the better the science.

- The military arms race drives science forward in rapid fashion. The truth is war prompts many scientific discoveries.

- In the past, the best minds of the day worked on finding ways to give meaning to death. Today, our best minds work on preventing death through biological, hormonal, and genetic means. Science does not take death as an inevitability.

- Why did Europeans discover and conquer the Americas? Why not the Chinese or those from India or the Middle East who possessed just as much knowledge and technology as the Europeans? The European ideology to explore the world was the primary difference.

- It is not enough to consider science in a vacuum. Economic and capitalistic interests, for example, determine what we research and what to do with the research findings.

- Adam Smith's brilliant insight about capitalism in The Wealth of Nations was that increasing private profits is the basis for increasing collective wealth and prosperity. In other words, by becoming richer you benefit everyone, not just yourself. Both parties get a bigger slice of pie. (Note: this only works if profits get reinvested, not hoarded.) For capitalism to work, profits must be reinvested in new production.

- Modern capitalism has exploded the growth of humankind thanks to the creation of credit, which allows you to borrow money now because we collectively trust that the future will be better than the present. All credit is based on the idea that science and technology will advance. Scientists ultimately foot the bill of capitalism.

- Until the industrial revolution, human behavior was largely dictated by solar energy and plant growth. Day and night. Summer and winter. Everything was determined by man power and animal power, which were determined by food, which is determined by photosynthesis.

- “This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped in the wild continues to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer really necessary for survival and reproduction.”

- Harlow's infant monkey studies from the 1950s (and a variety of followup studies) have shown that animals have strong psychological needs as well as purgative physical needs. Note to self: never disregard your psychological needs.

- Most people don't realize just how peaceful of the times are we live in. In recent years, more people die from suicide each year than from war and violent crime. The same can said for car accidents. Live a safe community, drive as little as possible, and love yourself. Violent local crime, car accidents, and suicide are some of the biggest killers of humans.

- War is at an all time low because the costs of war have increased because of nuclear weapons, the benefits of war have decreased because physical resources drive less of the economy and international trade is more lucrative than conquest, and the tightening of international connections because a worldwide culture is less likely to battle itself.

- Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

- If happiness is based on pleasurable feelings, then increasing our happiness is a matter of increases biochemical release. If happiness is based on meaning, then increasing our happiness is a matter of deluding ourselves about the meaning of our lives.

- One uncommonly cited benefit of religion: belief in the afterlife gives meaning to your life in the present.

- Buddhism has studied happiness for over 2,000 years. Interestingly, Buddhism shares many viewpoints on happiness with science. Most notably, that happiness results from processes within the body and not from the outside world. The Buddhist philosophy of happiness centers around the idea that you are not the events that happen to you, but you are also not the feelings you have. You are not your feelings. They are just feelings. Thus, if you understand this, you can release the needs to keep chasing the need to feel happy or to not feel angry or to not feel sad. In other words, you have to understand yourself.

- Genetic engineering is allowing humans to break the laws of natural selection.

- The next stage of human history will not only involve biological and technological changes, but also changes in human consciousness and identity. Changes that are this fundamental will call the very term “human” into question. Many people think the question we should ask to guide our scientific pursuits is, “What do we want to become?” However, because we seem to be on the path to genetically engineering and programming nearly every facets of our wants, desires, and consciousness, the real question we should ask is, “What do we want to want?”

#have not fact checked any of this so don’t kill me #just scanned an article

[popculturebuffet]

Reviewcaps: X-Men Evolution: Strategy X

I take my first look at X-Men Evolution the second and less famous, but no less loved, cartoon about everyones faviorite mutant outcasts. In our first episode Scott blows up a gas station, Nightcrawler finds what it feels like to have a home, Toad tries to join the x-men and both of the latter two end up nearly dying because Chuck forgot to teleport proof the one room in the house with deadly lasers. All this and football under the cut. 

A few days ago I realized something weird: I hadn’t reviewed any superhero cartoons on here. What makes that weird to me, is that I realized when writing this that Superhero cartoons are what MADE me a superhero fan in the first place. I grew up as a little kid watching the spider-man and x-men animated series, and watched most marvel shows that came about as I grew, and became a lifelong fan of Green Lantern and the Flash thanks to Justice League , the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thanks to the 2003 cartoon (another franchise I absolutley adore I haven’t covered on here for some reason) and the Teen Titans thanks to well.. Teen Titans, not to mention all the great original superhero shows at the time like the legendary Danny Phantom (even if butch heartman can take a short walk into a cave full of bears lately), My Life as a Teenage Robot, El Tigre.. the list of good shit goes on. So being on an X-Men kick again lately, I decided to revisit what turned out to be one of the first of this wave, and a show I’d had the opporoutnity to binge for a while , first on hulu and then on D+, and wanted to revisit to see how it holds up, while, if not as fast as I watch them, reviewing them here to combine my two intrests. And it probably wont’ be the last marvel animated series I binge or cover here, nor the last superhero show I cover so if you have any, Marvel, DC, from other companies or completely original, shoot me an ask or reply to this and i’ll see if I can get to it. For now we’re starting the evolution.  Evolution was the first X-Men cartoon, and somehow one of 5 overall not counting the hulk vs wolverine movie, pryde of the x-men pilot and various crossover apperances in other cartoons, to follow the 90′s one, which as you probably know was a huge hit that defined the x-men for a generation of young fans, was a huge sucess and launched the mostly great sorta shared cartoon universe with classics like Spider-Man the Animated Series (Which not concidentally is what made me a lifelong fan of the webslinger), The Incredible Hulk, and the second season of Iron Man and Fantastic Four.. and yes only the second as the first seasons were both by entirely diffrent creative teams and gave us things like this. 

Yes that is Johnny Storm doing an objetivley terrible hip hop song, no it dind’t cause that building to sink into the earth, and yes it is so bad it’s delcioius. Sadly the rest of hte series is more flat and boring than “bwahahahaha” but my point is made. The point is Evolution had a steep hill to climb, and with the previous cartoon compressing most of the decades long Chris Claremont era and some of what came after into 5 seasons of good if cheesy stuff, the creators clearly, if only because Ic an’t find a making of, decided to go in a diffrent route, making their own unique take on the characters and world of the x-men instead.  For starters rather than being vetrans with years of experince, either from being an x-man or just from general life experince like the comics were since the 70′s aside from the ocasinal exception like Kitty Pryde and Jubilee, they’d be teens, grappling with hormones alongside blue fur, head lasers and not being able to touch anyone. This wasn’t something x-men had shied away from, New Mutants and Generation X existed, but it was the first time in decades the X-Men themselves were kids. Sure Storm and Wolverine weren’t aged down, but there were just as many missions that were just these teenagers hoping to surivive the experince and keep mutants a secret till the world was ready.. and then dealing with the fallout when an unready and hateful world found out anyway. And I honeslty like the direction: The previous series had done the mostly straight adaptation bit, there wasn’t anywhere to go and aging scott and jean back to teens, and having nightcrawler and rouge get to be ones for the first time though, was an intresting idea, as was having Kitty Pryde be a teen alongside them instead of their plucky teenage member  Another intresting direction was, while Xavier’s still existed and was where the cast lived and learned to use their powers, the X-Men also went to regular high school. While it’d take till season 3 for them to actually have to deal with being out mutants in the setting, it was still an intresting tactic: The X-school in the comics, while no less studious is still an isoalted boarding school and when the New Mutants met some friends in town, most had only heard whispers about the old Xavier Mansion and were delighted to visit for a slumber party.. granted this being an x-men schindig our heroes ended up having to deal with an alien who eventually became one of their closest friends that night but still, for the x-men having the robot, or technoorganic in this case, NOT try to murder them on purpose and be a loveable 80′s sidekick instead is an easy night. While i’ts not done perfectly here from what I can remember, the main human characters we see are nightcrawlers love intrest amanda (who is thankfully NOT his adopted sister this time around thank christ), local stock blond football bully and flash thompson impersonator Duncan, and Scott’s nondiscript friend paul, who I can’t think of without thinking two things; one , what do you WANT paul: 

I mean a man so vauge just can’t be trusted. The second is that paul looks a lot like Doug Ramsey and i’m suprised they didn’t just.. make him Doug and have him go through a similar arc from the comics:A crush on kitty and the rest of the team finding out he’s a mutant and eventually bringing him into their world. For those unaware Doug Ramsey is a mutant with the ablility to translate any languge, including computer code from the get go and body laungage when he came back, an easy fix to him being the non-combatant of the group no one thought of, who died tragically in story sacrifcing himself to save his girlfriend’s life and out of story because the artist tricked the writer into killing him off. Thankfully he did come back about two decades later, took a level in badass thanks to a combination of the body language thing above meaning he could anticipate moves and dodge and computers having advanced to the point that part of his powers was now 80 times more useful, and has recently become a key part of the dawn of x relaunch. He’s also a faviorite of mine as you can probably tell and given how much the early 2000′s loved their computers, it’s weird to me they didn’t think of this and it’s even weirder he didn’t show up with the lions share of the other new mutants next season, along with Karma and Warlock which somehow has become a recurring theme thanks to the movie saving them for sequels that ended up not happening because fox stupidly put the movie in Limbo where it remains until maybe next month.  But yeah even if muted a bit the idea of the x-men going to a public school alongside their training is a decent one.. sure a hero going through high school is again a cliche, but it’s a thing the x-men hadn’t done in this way before or sense, and was intresting to see in action. Most high school scnees in x-comics are usually some poor mutant having their powers manifest and either hurting someone by accident, being treated like crap for it by their class or hunted down for accidently hurting someone before the x-men show up to kick their asses and welcome this youngster. Or getting rejected by family and friends then coming to the x-men.. there’s a lot of angst directions to go in. My point is we’d never seen the x-men try to blend in and have a more standard school experince, and combining that with them hiding their powers instead of being out in the open at first made for a unique dynamic for the x-men that makes well tread ground nice nad fresh even 20 years later. 

So that’s our basic setup going in: The X-men wake up, go to school, then save the world or train to save the world while harnesing wonderful and dangerous powers and protecting the helpless agaist less charitable mutants. The basic x-setup with a 2000′s era superhero high school show flavor. Good stuff. But we’ll see what it does with this premise, how good it holds up and what’s still delightfuly cheesy about it as I take a nice look at the first episode Strategy X

We open at night and

Yup Scott and Jean are at the football team where the aforementioned Duncan, guy voted most likely to peak in high school in last year’s yearbook poll, is playing some foot ball and trying to flit with Jean Grey whose the first X-Man we meet and is somehow receptive to this despite his radaiating douche and is lucky this Jean’ , unlike say the time transfered one from the comics who thought the best approach to helping Bobby Drake come out of the closet so he could help his older self do the same and be his best self, was to just blunty say he’s gay and refuse to let him explore thtt for himself or get someone more quliafied to help her. And yes that did indeed happen and yes the original x-men were brought into the present for a while and yes it was weird Moving on. Still i’m pretty sure duncan’s thoughts would read like  “Man she looks good.. I want to bang her so hard she uh.. wakes up sideways.. yeah that’s it. Your a legend duncan, a total legend. “.  As you can probably tell I don’t have fond memories of this character or this sorta but not really love triangle, and question why they couldn’t of just had spyke be the other man in the triangle if they wanted to do this. Granted Spyke himself is kinda annoying, but it still makes more sense to have him fill in for angel or wolverine in a jean-scott love triangle than this walking burnt end. The warren, scott one worked, as much as a 60′s love triangle could because warren was conventionally handsome and had angel wings while scott has to keep glasses on just to not murder anyone he looks at, so there’s a bit of contrast there, while with WOlverine it’s straight laced dependeble scott versus unhinged manly man Logan. You know before recently where they just decided to all bone in a pile and wolverine even goes on vacation with them. And that’s not a joke I made up, that’s actual canon. Both make logical sense while Jean would be intrested in both in the former case, as Scott was still a kind and dependable leader, and tempted in the latter case if never acting on it before recently and with her husband’s full consent and either watching from the closet or taking one up the ass for jean to watch. Duncan in contrast is just wholly unlikeable and it makes me question why use him as the third in this love triangle, ESPECIALLY since the show would later introduce another scott and jean based love triangle with Rogue wanting scott that’s way more intresting, and even people wanting those two to hook up don’t want Jean with Duncan! Instead of creating a vitable alternative to make a later love triangle more intresting or create some shipping wars or anything of value any hint jean may be intrested just wastes screentime and tests my patience and is thankfully breif here.  As for why Jean’s here sh’es taking pictures for the school paper since the Daily Bugle wasn’t intrested in photos that weren’t of spider-man and they already had a teen photographer for that. Porker or something. Anyways this episode ofa low rent friday night lights knockoff is interuptted when one of duncan’s buddies on the team spots local trouble maker and ,judging by context, bully punching bag Todd Tolansky, aka Toad which is a cruel nickname turned slightly lesss cruel code name here, pick pocketing the people in the stands, and sensing a flimsy context to punch a nerd, Duncan goes to tell the coah he’ll be busy for a moment totally not carving someone’s face in again. Coach says as long as he leaves him breathing, and through a straw still counts and since their so far ahead as long as he’s back for the celebratory rampage anything goes.  Also spotting Toad’s stan pines approved sticky fingers is Scott Summers, leader of x-men and all around cool guy. Scott here is a bit more emotive than he was int he comics at a time, a trait he’d have later on in the late 2000′s and even currently and a version I prefer to the “has something shoved so far up his ass you can see it when he opens his mouth” boring straightman of the 90′s cartoon. He’s a bit more impulsive, a bit more emotivie but still a good and well thought out leader and the tactical genius, at least as far as I can remember, that he’s known for being. IT’s a good portayal so far, it reminds me of 2k12 leonardo: he’s still growing into being a leader in some way but clearly has the talent and drive for it and a deep sense of heroism> That deep sense is shown here as Scott leaves to go confront toad.. and then confronts Duncan and buds when he finds them about to squish Toad. Unlike Duncan, whose “heroism” consits of a filmy excuse to beat a third hole into todd’s head, Scott wanted to stop Toad because it’s the right thing to do, and wants to stop Duncan because his actions are just as wrong: Sure Toad is stealing stuff, but it’s clear from the way he and his buddies grin widlly at seieng toad pick pocket that they just want an excuse to pummel the kid and not get in trouble for it. It’s confirmed when Scott makes a resonable offer: Since Toad still has the money and most of the lifted wallets, he can return what he stole, which Toad not wanting to die today agrees to, but Duncan refuses. Scott however gets the three thrown to the ground and while Toad escapes, with the two other idiots in persuit, an enraged duncan attacks. But since Scott Summers, even teen scott summers has batman level judo, it’s an even fight despite Duncan being bigger and more muscular.. until Jean runs in shouts scott no.. despite you know Duncan starting this and Scott merley defending himself, distracts Scott long enough for him to get shoved to the ground.. and loose his googles, sending an optic blast out before he can clamp his eyes shut, knocking duncan over and igniting a nearbye propane tank. Toasty! Also yikes.  Cue the opening theme and credits. While the opening Creidts are very 2000′s, they aren’t half bad but the main draw is the theme song which.. honestly I feel is great and very close to the 90′s x-men theme in quality, only not being AS good because that one’s one of the best theme songs period. but this one’s no slouch as it’s fun, energetic and will get stuck in your head. Good stuff.  After the theme we cut back to the credits where Scott is closing his eyes despeartly holding his powers in. It was a good opening and a great way to show off the premise of the show and just how dangerous mutant powers can be even accidnetally, with this followup showing it’s not inetentional. it was even shown before as while scott’s eyes flash, he notably never uses his powers in the fight and they only came about accidnetally. We also get some JeanScott ship tease as she finds his glasses ,and with Duncan having a concusion and not remembering anything, a bit that hasn’t aged well, things seem well.. except the cop seems to notice something supscious.. before help arrives in a rolls royce. Charles Xavier, voiced by the icomprable David Kaye who I feel is one of the best daviers and does a great job here and quickly makes the guy see nothing supscious, a classic use of his powers and an understdanable one: while yea going into someone’s mind isn’t a great tihng to do.. scott being possibly outed as a mutant this way would only land the poor boy in a jail cell, as it did for Bobby Drake in the comics when his own powers activated and hurt someone. We also meet storm who unlike the others isn’ aged downa nd is one of two senior staffers for the school, a touch I like as she was a great mentor figure to kitty pryde and the comics and the roll suits her, while evolution also tones down the ham 80 degrees so she’s even more like the comics; reserved but utterly confident and badass and a good #2 to xavier. Xavier also likely wiped Duncan’s memory of scott’s power triggering I figure.. I mean he could’ve got concussed but I wouldn’t be suprised if chuck manipualted that too. Jean comforts Duncan for.. again some reason. Like he was just in a fight with her best friend and she’s a telepath.. I get she’s being respectful but time and place. Scott is naturally Jelly, but Toad.. genuinely thanks Scott for the help while Scott brushes it off. It was the right thing to do and Toad is still a creep, but it’s still a nice gesture. Also toad eats a fly to show that yep he too is  a mutant.  Xavier and Storm go to the train station and pick up a mysterious teen clad all in robes. Ohohoo hominus.  Meanwhile somewhere in the westchester area, Wolverine comes in! Snkity sknikty snoik. He’s voiced by, and dresses exactly like, Scott McNeil, a vetran and awesome voice actor who I honestly think does a better job than his prdecessor. Not that 90′s wolverine is bad, it’s just McNeil has more of a range even while keeping the gutteral growl of hte former and can tur it off at times while his previous acto rwas pretty much on snarl mode constantly. He wasn’t bad, all the 90′s voice actors were at 100 most of the time and undersndably given the hamm nature of that cartoon, but its’ still a ncie change of pace and one we’d see again with steve blum in the next cartoon. More on that obviously when i inevitably cover Wolverine and the X-Men He picks up a paper about the explosion, and sensing he must go his people need him, cuts the top off the water he ordered, because you can’t get beer on a childrens cartoon, and thanks the clerk who wonders what the fuck just happened. And it’s a weird ass scene especially because in this series the x-men are trying to keep a lid on mutants and Logan’s just .. causally cutting off a water bottle because fuck it. It fits the character a LITTLE but it’s still just weird and out of place. Speaking of weird and out of place sabertooth is stalking logan on a mountaintop because.. 

Thank you wrestlecrap. He dosen’t show up again and is apparently introduced several episodes from now, and sports a design similar to the 2000 movie which isn’t a terrible look apart from the long lead singer from Creed haircut. The next morning at Xavier’s scott’s annoyed at jean taking her time in the bathroom because “women amirite?”.. yeah... 

On that gag. Before the two dart off for school Xavier calls them in to meet the new kid: Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, whose blue and fuzzy as ever, though without the fully yellow eyes he usually sports, though I figure it’s less because they wanted to make him more humanoid, though his Kelso from that 70′s show hair certainly helps with that too, and more because that way his human disguise he’ll get in a bit can just be an easily just recolor and redres his civlilan design. Though why he couldn’t just have the yellow eyes in elf form and give him regular ones in transducer form, epsecially since they had to make a whole new outfit and ears for his non elf form anyway is beyond me, but whatever. At least he’s a full part of the team here and oh so adorkable.  As you can probably wager by the fact there’s only 3 x-men and one asshole here, Evolution takes it’s time introducing everybody, the first few episodes using the debut queue style of storytelling and introducing the main cast about one or two per episode.. which I like a lot as it gives each of the x-men room to breathe and get a proper introduction, while usually doing the same for the latest addition to the brotherhood. IT’s a godo way to ease us into a decently sized main cast and let each get their own origin story of sorts. Good stuff. 

Jean and Scott are shocked by the poor boys three fingers, but Charles helps asuage kurt.. by pointing out scott’s fuckup then berating him. Both don’t come off great: Scot whines about having two cannonballs under his eyes, which while fair is something he knew going into a situation where they might get knocked off and didn’t prepare for, while Charles lambasts him for “not having more control”.. and his tone implies it’s more about his POWERS. If it was about self control fine, that’d be godo character stuff but if it’s of his powers..  Scott didn’t use his powers at all during the breif scuffle and was only let loose by pure shock, and something you easily covered for minus the explosion part. It could just be both having a point but I dunno. But with that Xavier does show kurt that even human passing mutants like Scott have huge struggles and he no longer is alone. Jean is curious what his power is and Kurt demonstrates his teleporting, impressing both and bonding the three a bit. Xavier sends them off to school, and they’ll talk more about kurt tonight.  At school Toad is getting dressed down by principle darkholme, aka mistque whose apparently also his boss.. yes while the founding x-men are two upstanding well trained, if one a bit hot headed youths, Mystque got.. a guy who pick pockets because as we later see the house she got for them looks like the ghosts of the frat who used to live there did a number on the place. Yeah easy to see why your guys later become the comic relief villians Raven. Anyways she plans to have Toad use his newfound leverage with scott to try and sneak in with the x-men before shapeshifting into a knockoff brood to scare him because she’s a dick. Also how the hell would she explain that if someone walked in and DIDN’T comically walk right back out and just explose her posing as a monster for the student body to see. Not a bad show of her powers but a really goofy and nonsenical one. Also yeah unlike the comics raven can change her shape further than just humanoid.

Back at the school Kurt is excited to see his spacious and luxrious room, his parents, whoever they were, having sent him here, and is even more excited when Xavier gives him a gift; an image inducer. This is something that actually comes from the comic: it’s a device disgused as a watch that holographically makes Kurt look like your standard human. Kurt in the comics of course used it to look like errol flynn.  Naturally Chris Claremont eventually realized the implications of a person of a minority who looks diffrent masquerading as someone else to blend in and Kurt later decided to go without it, as he shoudln’t have to hide himself. Evolution does use it better though: For starters when Kurt says he’s finally normal, Ororo assures him he always was, this is just to help a bit and the idea of him needing to blend in makes sense since the x-kids are going to public high school and mutantkind is more hidden to avoid prosecution. It’s sitll a BIT shaky, but it’s at least trying to avoid a lot of the pitfalls of the concept and modernizie it a bit and I can give them credit for that. 

Back at School scott’s preparing to lunch, telling paul to save him a seat. Good old Paul, when Toad comes up to him thanking him again and revealing his own mutant powers and stealing Scott’s glasses because that’s how you charm someone. Toad offers to hang but Scott wisely refuses and moves on though he does use the cafeteria pay phone to call Charles, who already found out about todd via Cerebro and despite Scott’s understandable reservations about letting a literally slimy pick pocket who talks like goddamn j-roc , know what i’m sayin, into the team, Charles in a very charles xavier move says they can’t turn their back on ANY mutant, even the assholes. Now read that in a patrick stewart voice. Your welcome. Scott wonders if he should ask Todd over to play fooseball and ask about joining his teen militia but Chalres said no need, he’ll take care of the audition himself. He then explains Cerebro to a curious kurt, global telepathic mutant tracker basically, and prepares for the audition. 

That night Toad goes to the mansion.. with a costume already. And rather than evaluate all the costumes up front i’m going to do so as they show up in series. As such.. toad’s is REALLY good, a nice armor look with a small part peaking up resembling a collar of some sort , a nice update of his silver age costume’s collar. It really feels frog like and really is neat. Storm, who is watering her garden a detail I like, heads out and rains on his parade. Her costume is fine, a standard storm outfit, nothing really outstanding but still not bad. Storm then sends lighting at him to see what happens when a Toad is struck by lighting.. probably the same as everything else before he runs inside and runs into kurt. 

Kurt then shows up, and while I’d forgottten this, he was already in costume from earlier having gotten his at the same time as the inducer. His costume.. is about the same as the comics except hte gloves and boots are yellow, i’m somehwat eh on it but I get doing so to have him fit with the black and yellow color scheme of most of the other x-men in some way. Though i’d love to see a black and yellow redesign of his classic oufit someday that’d look spiffy. But yeah it’s pretty good and one of the standouts of the evolution costumes. The two trade barbs thanks to toad being kind of a dick about nightcrawler and end up having a petty squabble and tussle for a bit around the mansion. Xavier still considers Toad x-men material while Storm considers not missing with lightning this time. In all seriousnes this is more good character stuff for Charles, as it shows that no matter how troublesome, he’ll welcome any mutant child in with open arms. Though I question why neither questions the fact that a mutant they just met somehow brought his own top of the line uniform, but I chalk it up to that probably not having been written into the episode and either being an error or execs wnating to show off his battle suit to have a proper superhero tussle to close out the episode.  However said tussle, which is really more a hilarious fight between an asshole and a dork, is interupted when Kurt accidnetly ports them into the danger room, an x-men staple.. no really “new mutant accidently enters or finds the danger room” is old hat at this point, most iconically with Kitty in the comics shortly after she joined. 

Naturally not wanting to have to clean up another set of teen corpses, he just got the Vulcan smell out of there, Xavier dispatches Cyclops and Jean to go deal with it.. since Jean dosen’t have a code name here since marvel forgets to try and get her a non phonenix one better than marvel girl and it annoys me. Anyways fashion show time again, and yes i’m aware these aren’t from strategy x, but I didn’t want to just use hte model sheet shots from the wiki so I combed for decent action shots. Scotty’s costume is decent, a bit bulky with the very 90′s shoulder pads and boots, but otherwise looks pretty good, a nice combination of his 90′s uniform and his second x-factor uniform. Even with the bulk it looks really good. On the oppsite end.. we have Jean, who easily has the worst outfit of the main x-men by a mile, with a weird lime green stripe for some reason. Maybe they were going for phonenix colors I dunno, but it just looks half assed in comparison to the rest of the gangs outfit. The gold rings and fingerless gloves are a nice touch, but this one’s still just bland in comparison. Like they couldn’t figure out how to update jeans 90′s outfit so they put her in a jassercise outfit instead. 

Scott and Jean arrive with Jean saving nightcrawler, Kurt asking if sh’es an angel, she asking if he’s a demon and me asking if I can get a trashcan to vomit in. It didn’t work for George Lucas a year before this why did you think it’d work here? Anyways Kurt realizes their not in xavier’s snuff dungeon, as far as he knows and it’s simply a trianing room and tries to disarm it, but it instead nearly blasts toad who nopes outta htere, scott too injured to follow. And while when watching the episode yesterday It hought it was a bit abrubt.. it really fits. Toad is a bit of a coward from memory, bosatful and cocky.. till reality reminds him he’s freaking toad as seen with the bullies earlier and mystique after that. So of course he’d run the minute things looked dicey and it looked like xavier reguarlly put his students through the hunger games to thint he herd. Xavier bemoans that Toad simply isn’t ready.. sure he’s a mutant and xavier likely senses mistque’s involement.. but he genuilly WANTED to help todd and give him a real home and support.. its just Toad/Todd dosen’t WANT it or to put in any real work to be better, and you have to WANT help to get it.  Kurt blames himself and ports out feeling he dosen’t deserve to be there and Scott goes after him while out front Toad runs into a returning Logan, whose ready to add another dead teen to the pile out back when Xavier insists he let him go... he’s not an actual threat, and as we find out later Xavier removed the schools location from his mind and probably gave it to toad in the first place, so while Logan says he’ll be back.. he has no way of coming back and there’s no sense roughing up a teenager, when that’d just draw more attention to them and give Toad an angle to work. That being said Charlie still gladly welcomes Logan back though both smell trouble on the horizon.. and also toad. He tends to leave a scent that one. 

We then get what I feel is the best scene in the episode: Cyclops finds Kurt in the room with the blackbird, which this show remembers is an actual type of plane and that the x-mens is simply a souped up version of , though I can’t tell you what version he’s saying it’s superior to because I don’t know planes THAT well. But Scott comforts Kurt, saying it’s OKAY to fuck up: the entire point of this place is so they can afford to make the mistakes they can’t make out there and learn and grow as people. Everyone screws up, as Scott himself did rushing in without a plan at the start, but the point is you learn from it and do better next time and Kurt decides to stay. Welcome to the X-Men Kurt, hope you surivive the experince. Also Scott decides to show him where they hide the sodas.. which either Chuck is a dick about their pop or that’s code for booze.. or possibly both. I could see Logan really liking root beer alongisde his nightly 6 pack. 

We close out with Mystque berating toad for running the hell away and for you know, getting mindwiped.. the latter is far from his fault, but the first part.. yeah Toad kinda sucks at this and Raven screams for him to get out, with her turning back into her natural form for the first time.. and then being confronted with HER boss with Magneto, from.. somewhere.. he appearas as a spooky projection but I don’t know if he’s using a device to amplfy himself or he just hides in the closet of her office all day for when he needs to consult her on their evil schemes. Probably the latter. Anyways Erik wisely consults her to be a bit easier..while toad is a bit of a dipweasel.. they can’t afford their ranks being thinned.. and really he’s not wrong. The x-men currently have them 6 to 3. Even if he’s the weakest of the three of them, they can’t afford to spare him. He then ominously says htis is only... THE BEGINING.

FINAL THOUGHTS:  Strategy X is a decent start for the series but not without it’s problems, with one or two questionsable moments like the whole angel and devil exhcange or the entire “Storm stalks toad as he goes to the mansion” scene as a way of testing him, which makes both her and charles come off bad and makes me wonder how the hell that was an actual test of anything. But it’s held up by good character: While Jeans kind of a bit of wallpaper here, the rest of the x-men and our three villians are all given great character moments that show them off to the audience well and really show the writers get the characters while taking their own spins on the younger ones: Nightcrawler, who could be a bit of a dork in the comics, see here his seduction tequnique. 

I mean damn if that shit isn’t still Sexy but still. They just ramped it up a bit since this version is younger and more naive, while Scott is likewise a bit more rambunctious and likely to question Xavier, while still being a good hearted guy who knows how to lead. It’s good stuff. While the quality isn’t PERFECT, it’s a good start and I look forward to watching more and EVENTUALLY reviewing more on here. If you liked this be sure to let me know and like I said above if there’s any other marvel show or any dc ones you want me to cover, and any specific episodes at that, lemme know. Comics too. And until we meet again, courage.  PS.. what the hell is up with the title of this episode? No really it has nothing to do with anything. Is it Mystuues’ inflitration plan? 

#x-men #x-men evolution #x men #charles xavier #cyclops #scott summers #jean grey #kurt wagner #todd tolansky #toad #nightcrawler #mystique #raven darkholme #magneto #Erik Lehnsherr #strategy x #cartoons #reviews #animation #paul #duncan masters #you suck so much duncan #marvel #marvel comics #marvel animation