#also i wrote this and just sort of assumed the inferences were obvious but if any bit is confusing i think you can generally assume

[jacksprostate]

Can you talk about how fight club is the story of a deeply closedeted gay man the wake of the aids crisis? How do his anxieties about hiv manifest?

yeah sure! i feel like i've talked about it in bits and pieces in a few different posts which I'll link here but I'll also type up a little summary. Not operating on 100% so forgive me if it's a bit all over the place.

On the narrator and Marla wrt sexuality

On the Lou scene of the movie

The central obvious joke yet not really comparison

Anyway so. I'm going to focus on the book as always but lots still generally applies to the movie and in the above links you can see a bit about the Lou scene from the movie if that's your interest.

So first I think it's important to acknowledge the narrator meets Tyler on an empty nude beach. This has a lot of connotations for a lot of reasons. Nude beaches/beaches in general have long been a gay male hookup spot. The beach is empty — it's the 90s. Many, many people have died. The narrator chose to go there — an interesting one. Stepping out of bounds a little only to be reminded of the constant threat, by how no one is there. He just watches Tyler do his thing, doesn't engage. He keeps his foot, with the AIDS-like rash on it, buried in the sand so he doesn't start dying in people's eyes (and presumably so if he ever got the gumption, he could tap it). Even if you assume the nude beach isn't specifically gay, all these things still apply, and it's still his idealized man he hallucinated all sweaty and tan.

Kind of discussed in the Marla related link above but he's like, horrifically repressed, even if he WAS straight. He can't imagine himself having sex. But when he has Tyler have straight sex (see above link for detailed thoughts on that), it's Marla he's jealous of. It is literally written that way. He is jealous of Marla stealing Tyler's attention and ruining the vibe they had with just the two of them.

Something, something, elaborate rituals for the touch of another man. Getting a big rubbery one in response to Bob. Arguably it's about him getting off on misery but it's not like it was written with regard to Chloe. And Chloe— amyl nitrite/poppers are commonly used in gay bathhouses and stuff. Used in straight sex too but yeah pretty common... Back to Bob though, this mimicry of closeness with another human being  another man in particular, staring down the gun at a man who can't functional have sex like society expects him to anymore. 

He invents a club that word for word could be swapped with gay sex for a large portion of its introduction. He is desperate for the touch of another man even if violence is the only way he can get it. Sex would be violence, in an age of being terrified of AIDS. 

The constant underlying sharing of blood and spit and contaminating food etc. All these other ways HIV is spread. But at least it wouldn't be That way. If that's his destined way to die then at least it wouldn't be like that. Dark, but.

The fucking scene about his birthmark holy shit man. Essentially, the doctors thought his birthmark was a sign of, pretty much, Kaposi's sarcoma. The cancer overwhelmingly associated with AIDS, and he's a medical marvel. Because he'd be dying from an unknown horrific disease. Now he hides the birthmark, because that unknown disease is everywhere now. <-bastardization of a line from the book. And when people see that birthmark, he starts dying in their eyes. If he was openly gay in any fashion, he'd start dying in their eyes too. The same way.

There is, distinctly, a sense of a complete lack of actual functional future. There is a sense of complete lack of role models from the past. 

The environmentalist turn even in this sense. The burden of history. He was not the one who spread the virus. There's a lot of deep, deep self hate and internalized homophobia in that. In the single time the narrator mentions gay men, too — as gay men wanting children being the cause for why all the single mothers in the clinic Marla goes to  are dying of AIDS. But that's not true. Gay men, overwhelmingly, are not the reason it went from gay men to eventually reaching women. But what he repeats is part of the societal curse upon them, and what he repeats is a chastisement, look what happens when you dare desire anything. If you actually want to act on those perversions. You curse everything and everyone. Stay repressed, or you'll die and kill everyone.

He invents Tyler. "Perfectly handsome and an angel in his everything-blond way." He invents the perfect man, who also can never infect him. Who also pisses and spits in soups, god what a conundrum — society assumes you're evil, sick, and damned, but you're still their responsibility. How do they like it. I am not glamorizing the willful spread of disease lol I don't think it's ever a sane response but in fiction it hits that like... vindictive anguish. 

Honestly, even the section I just mentioned. Where Tyler rants to the union boss. You don't actually give a single shit about me and better yet you probably hate the living shit out of me. But I am still your responsibility. You have sucked me dry til I have nothing to love, and you have everything. And the narrator says he says the same thing Tyler said, but about contaminated food. The parallels, with how that would apply to people with HIV, especially gay men. There is so, so much emphasis on the narrator's blood and how it gets all over the Pressman hotel's manager.

Fight Club, Project Mayhem — they're the designs of someone who doesn't expect to live long. The home of people who don't expect to live long. Whether that's because medical care is too expensive or because you catch a blood infection or because the cops shoot you. 

And at the end, after everything has happened, after his manic pixie dream boy helped him martyr himself, what does he really get? Idk man. Drugs that will kill his sex drive. A deep fear of himself that now has evidence for how far he can fall. A deep disillusionment. No hate, but no love either. Still just empty, now knowing he has opened pandora's box, whether he intended to or not. He can't put it back. He tried. 

Idk. something to be said about all that. Probably a lot more as well but that's just off the top of my head.

#asks #fight club #like. idk Tyler should probably make up a larger part of this post but anyway #its also like. theres just massive stuff that I kind of feel as a lesbian who also has repression issues where it's like yeahhhhh #I'm working out how to identify what those commonalities actually are but lmao #also i wrote this and just sort of assumed the inferences were obvious but if any bit is confusing i think you can generally assume #theres an implied sentence along the lines of “and this reflects the pressure and repression of gay men during and in the wake of AIDS”

[partnersatfazbear]

Analysis of The Real Jake (SPOILERS)

I can't decide whether to make this post a stream-of-consciousness style or group it into evidence for x... but since it's easier, I'll just write my thoughts as I go. Although a lot of this is factual ties to, say, FNAF 4, things like relating Margie to Henry are just my own headcanon and you can do with that what you will AKA don't take this all too seriously, but have fun with it. There’s also specific notes about Michael Afton, for those that just want to know what was said regarding him (presumably).

Before I start, please note I've had three hours of sleep in the last... 28 hours? IDK I can't math, especially not on this little sleep. So, there may be errors. I tried to make a note on things I was unsure about, too. 

Note: I wrote this before the Evan=CC theory was all but confirmed. Although I believe this theory from the logbook, I think a lot of these notes are still valid.

Read my notes under the cut:

Margie shares similar physical appearance to Henry: Pg 84 “The window fan blew a lock of her shoulder-length brown hair across her upper lip so it looked like she had a mustache.”

“Mrs. Afton” stand in is mentioned: Pg 86 “...it had been four years since his Mom had died...” (Jake is 9 in the story)

I notice when Scott mentions plaid. Pg 87 “...a green-and-blue plaid plush chair...” I mostly wanted to note this since canonically, Henry had a green plaid shirt.

“William” stand in is mentioned. Pg 89 “And you know he thinks about you [Jake] all the time?” “So, he has to concentrate on what he's doing... ...I don't want him thinking about me and end up shooting himself in the foot or something.” Pg 102 “Yeah, I did. [I spilled some chocolate ice cream] Right on my shirt!” Pg 122 “I did that today! [While playing a DDR like game, breaking a shoelace.]” (Admittedly, I only counted these because I headcanon William is much more of a bumbling fool than he appears. It comes up very often as you can see... although you could write it off as Evan just trying to relate to his kid.)

“William” stand in is mentioned. Pg 92 “...Margie was pretty sure Evan couldn't afford to replace a washer and dryer” and “...Evan, at his rank, could barely afford her” Pg 110 “Gillian's house shared stlying with Evan's, but hers was probably four times bigger.” (Again, I headcanon William and his family is on the low end of middle class, if not lower, in terms of income. Particularly, the house is cramped.)

“Mrs. Afton” stand in is mentioned. Pg 93 “First, Jake's Mom was killed.” Pg 139 “The mom's dead.” (You could infer that she died via something akin to a car crash in the context of the story, however if you reflect it to the games given the commonalities, I like to think of this as confirmation that William murdered her, given the word 'killed' is used.)

Margie records herself on her cell phone. Pg 93 (and on other pages) (Again referencing my headcanon for Henry, in which he records ideas/diaries often. At minimum, Henry is referred to as “Cassette Man” in PizzaSim so... I just thought it could make for an interesting comparison.)

Jake mentions his “friends”. Pg 99 “Patty and Davey... Vic... and the twins... Ellie and Evie... Kyle, Clay, and Garrett” (Also, he isn't mentioned until later, but there's his best friend Brandon, too. I noted these in reference to CC talking about his 'friends', either IRL or the plushies. I assume his IRL friends are the MCI victims. The number doesn't add up though. I really, really wanted to make a connection about the twins, considering Charlie and Sammy are twins, but there wasn't enough evidence to write it off as anything other than a coincidence. Also... Clay, really? We need another double name in this series? Ugh.)

What's your favorite flavor? Chocolate Pg. 102 “What flavor did you get?” “Chocolate. Duh.” (This is a stretch, but it did remind me of Help Wanted's final level in the main game, where you're asked to choose your favorite cake flavor. Although, they're discussing ice cream here.)

Maybe some insight into William's personality? Pg. 103 “You ever do that, Evan?” “What?” “Let off steam.” “Me? No. Steam is pretty much what keeps me going.” (Just more evidence that William is obsessed with his work. You could imply “steam” implies he runs like a machine, but that's stretching a bit.)

Pg. 113 -118 (Jake climbs out of his window to run off to play at the arcade with his friend. Obvious parallel to the child in Midnight Motorist, although it's daytime and no animatronics/fursuits luring him.) There is this, on Pg 121 also. Jake says, “We played all the racing games. I love racing games.”

PURPLE Pg 121 “...did you get a slushie at the arcade? I got one. I got grape. It turned my tongue purple.” “My tongue's purple, too!” “Purple power!” (Uh, do I really need to explain this? I should note that Evan is the one mentioning “grape”. I guess William likes grape flavor and purple.)

'Michael' is mentioned. Sort of a stand in for Michael Afton, but it should be noted that Michael and Evan are brothers in this universe. Pg 126, 127 “Michael...lived in Europe for a few years...” “Michael's a serious dude. He's, well, a little different. He's intense about making money...the way he is about it... can make him seem like he's not human.” “So, he's like a cyborg with bad programming?” Michael has some dialogue: “You must excersize caution. You could get chocolate on my suit, and that would be bad. Very, very bad.” (The very very bad thing is a running joke in the family, which is why this comes up. I don't have a lot to say about it, though. I think Michael [Afton] being obsessed with money seems a bit counter intuitive to how we know him, but who knows? I also want to note that Evan doesn't seem antagonistic towards Michael; in fact, he “hate[s] to ask him for favors”.)

Also, Pg 141 “His [Michael's] flat, gruff voice was unmistakable.” Michael is also the first one to hear his father is dead and informs Margie about it. “I have been notified that Evan's dead.” Pg 142 “She had only met Michael the one time, and she knew the way he processed the world was very different from what was “normal”” Michael also states to Margie: “I've got Evan's will... you're Jake's guardian and he left you the house and some savings. I'm the executor.” Margie also says: “He[Michael]'s a numbers genius, manages money for the wealthy people and has made a killing doing it.” “He's not a bad guy. He just doesn't know how to connect. He doesn't feel the way we do.” (Just more Michael characterization.)

Direct FNAF 4 easter egg references: Pg 128 “...the IV stand lurking in the corner of the room” Pg 129 “...and the line of perscription medication bottles marching across the top of the chest of drawers”

Margie is more than a nanny and possibly in love with Evan: Pg. 139 “She'd come to love Evan, too... like a brother.” Pg 140 “...she was included in the outings, movie nights, game nights, and storytelling time...” Pg 149 “...she wanted Evan to be more than just a boss, and being in his room when he was gone made her feel like a lovelorn stalker.” “Love him like a brother... She snorted. Boy, had she been lying to herself.” Pg 158 “What she was feeling called for a screaming fit or a total mental breakdown.” (Yeah, this is just me reading too much into this for Willry content, haha... But still. I am determined that Margie is a Henry stand-in.)

'I will put you back together' Pg 140 “I'm trying to bring you home whole.” (Evan is discussing “no man left behind” with his son, Jake. I think this is obvious.)

William's home office? Pg. 149 “When he was home, she'd go in and vacuum or put away laundry... ...when he was gone...coming in here felt like an invasion of privacy.” “Evan's room would be her room.” “...I'd feel like I was sleeping in your bed, she thought.” “...the room felt discretely masculine.” “The walls were covered in family photos.” “The shelves were stuffed with fiction... mysteries to classics, nonfiction... how-to books...from rebuilding a car engine to planting a garden.”

FNAF 4 reference. Pg 152 “Outside, a dog barked.” (You can hear a dog barking as ambient noise during nights when playing FNAF 4.)

Other notes:

It happens a lot, but one of the main things in the book is the doll Simon and how Jake talks to it. This is very blatantly a reference to the Golden Freddy Plush (“Psychic Friend Fredbear”). The story confirms it's Jake's father, Evan, talking through it. Although it makes the one scene in FNAF 4 a little wonky (the only scene where we see Purple Guy), I think it's pretty much confirmed that it's William talking to CC now. Obviously, we already suspected this due to Sister Location's “Secret Room”. In this story, Evan says he did it because he wanted to give Jake some hope he would live. Combined with both the IV/medicine bottle easter eggs (in the story and FNAF 4) I think it's plausible to assume that CC was taken home after the Bite of '83 for a period of time before he passed away. I will admit, also, that Evan definetly comes off as a very caring father (in comparison to how we presume William is based on what we've seen of him as a person; although I argued this before on this blog, I don't think William hates his kids. I think he's neglectful, moreso as the story goes on. I think he resents Michael for many reasons but I won't go into that here. I just don't think he's the abusive monster the fanbase interprets him to be—at least not early on.)

The cabinet reminds me a lot of the closets in the novel series. A built in shelf with a doll in it. A doll that represents a child. Considering Margie tends to this doll (see Pg. 130-135), I have to draw more parallels between her and Henry.

The fan is mentioned A LOT. I don't really know why, but I guess we can't help but think of every single FNAF office when it's brought up. Specifically, on Pg. 106, Margie mentions the fan in her room is as loud as a jet engine and the sound made her nervous. Once again, I'm reminded of PizzaSim. Seriously, screw you fan.

The heat is mentioned a lot, too. I know the story takes place in summer, but this did remind me of Pizza Sim.

Pg. 93 “Margie sat down in the faded blue webbed lawn chair that was set up, for reasons she never understood, in front of the shelves by the stairs.” (I noted this because it's specifically called out and I don't know why.)

Margie talks about why she's working for Evan: Pg. 95 “I didn't get the internship I applied for.” I like to think her and Mia (from 1280) were after the same internship. (I may be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure Mia mentioned an internship at the hospital.)

Jake is mentioned to have brown hair, green eyes. His favorite color is green. He also wears green often. I couldn't find anything really interesting about it. It would make more sense as a Puppet reference, tbh (because of the green bracelet (and eyes? I may be remembering wrong) I guess it's also worth noting that Elizabeth has green eyes.

Pg 135 “Are you afraid people will think you're murdering me?” “...I could end you so quickly you'd never make a sound.” (Just an odd conversation between Jake and Margie. Margie is joking here, obviously.) Also, Pg. 136 “I just figured your [Jake's] wires got crossed or your circuits were frying.” (Admittedly, I don't know what to make of this. Could be a reference to Robot-CC, if you believe that or MikeBot [I don't], but more likely just ironic dialogue. It could also reference Jake's future in the Stichwraith?)

Pg 139 “Sometimes, Margie wished she was like one of the robots Jake liked so much.” (Although I can't really compare this to Henry, I did write William with this mindset and thought it was worth mentioning.)

Pg 141+ So, Evan dies overseas (he's a soldier). (I think this could be hinting that William has been springlocked around the time CC passes away. Jake has been home for some time after his diagnosis so we can infer based on that and the easter eggs that CC was brought home to die in peace. At the very least, William's probably very absent during this time. Possibly brought in for questioning but not arrested. I don't know. I feel like there's something to this.)

Pg 154 “Dave's at work.” (Why? Can we not use established names? Aghhh)

Pg 155 “The ambulance arrived at 11:32.” (I don't know why this is stated so outright. I couldn't find a reason, except that a few paragraphs earlier they say it will arrive by noon. I don't know why it's so specific, but I felt like noting it anyway.)

Pg 159 “Five people. Five sets of eyes. And none of them noticed...” (Yeah. We all know how important 5 is in FNAF.)

Three medical personel are mentioned. One at the end is named Nancy [No Last Name Given], but I like to think its a reference to Man in 1280 and we're dealing with Heracles Hospital once more, although it's never said in this story. Speaking of, the only thing that really stood out to me in 1280's story was that a billionare funded the restoration of the hospital. I like to headcanon that was Henry's doing—I imagine him obscessing over overcompensating for his mistakes by giving back in every way possible, even if it isn't directly related to him.

So, this post only took two hours of my life. I hope someone gets some use out of it, be it for my intended Willry purposes or maybe those Michael fans that are curious about it. If you enjoyed this post, let me know. I'd love to write up more of these if I have the time.

I have other write-ups on this blog, too. Just search fnaf theories on my blog page!

#fazbear frights #spoilers #blackbird #the real jake #michael afton #william afton #henry emily #crying child #willry #helliam #fnaf 4 #five nights at freddy's #fnaf #fan theory #fnaf theories #fnaf theory

[mitigatedchaos]

Review: SAC_2045

(~3,700 words, 15 minutes)

This post will contain some minor spoilers for SAC_2045.

Summary: You may have thought SAC_2045 was a poor entry in the Ghost in the Shell franchise - actually, it's just intended for younger audiences.

Previously: Standalone Complex 202045:1-4 (superseded)

-☆☆☆-

And what did you think of the remaining episodes of GitS:SAC_2045?

[ @irradiate-space​ ]

Standalone Complex

There's a certain indescribable feeling associated with Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex as a work, an artistic touch related to the director associated with it, independent of other considerations. SAC_2045 has it, which isn't too surprising since Kenji Kamiyama is back.

SAC_2045 is Standalone Complex. For a brief moment, while watching it, I inhabited my pre-2016 personality and outlook. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Since the arrival of streaming I've tended to bingewatch series, but on the first run-through I decided not to bingewatch this one.

If you approach this show as season 4 of Standalone Complex (Solid State Society being season 3), it's underwhelming. Now, viewing it again, it's become obvious that a conventional season 4 of Standalone Complex was never the intent of SAC_2045 to begin with.

For those of you who have delayed until now, the English dub has been uploaded - it released without one due to the pandemic. They bring back a number of the voice actors from the excellent Standalone Complex dub, though having already watched it with subtitles, I didn't feel the need to confirm the dub's quality.

Sustainable War

To properly describe a new theory of war is the same thing as to invent it. While the idea of war as a for-profit industry has been kicked around for some time, it's generally assumed that this is a kind of parasitic relationship on the part of the war-making industry.

As time goes on, warfare becomes more abstract (partly because warfare happens where it can happen), much like society itself is becoming more abstract as information moves more quickly and humanity gains access to more energy.[1] In SAC_2045, "Sustainable War" is part of the context of the world and its current issues, but we aren't really told how it works - if it's similar to contemporary information warfare and a blurring of the lines between state and non-state actors, it's bound to be quite confusing.

I believe my earlier assessment of "Sustainable War" is correct. The key feature of sustainable war, the reason they say it's safe if you leave it to the experts, is likely that it involves AIs constantly forecasting against each other and moving units around with few direct confrontations. The goal would be to lock in a victory without having to fire a shot, except for small skirmishes that don't escalate to major incidents (due to the AI forecasting).

The presence of armed separatist movements even in Japan may also indicate that the ruling institutional bodies are engaged in a kind of Post-International Politics,[2] which treats all international relations as fundamentally existing between subnational entities - however, I believe that later information suggests this wasn't their original intent.

What makes it "sustainable"? Since if done correctly, very little is actually physically destroyed, the cost is less than conventional warfare, and thus the war can continue indefinitely. Why does it threaten humanity with destruction? Because there's an awful lot of military hardware waiting for someone to actually pull the trigger.

Season 1: Ep. 2

So what is the intent of the series' creators? I think they may be telling us through this dialogue between Togusa and Section Chief Daisuke Aramaki in episode 2.

Aramaki: Seems time has toughened you up. Togusa: Is that supposed to be a compliment? Aramaki: It is if you want it to be. Togusa: Then thanks for the kind words. “I made the right decision by choosing this line of work over my marriage.” That’s what you’re saying? Aramaki: Perhaps. [...] Togusa: They're bringing back Section 9? [...] Aramaki: But my takeaway from the proposal is this: The PM's reason for the urgent reforming of Section 9 takes priority over his personal motives. I believe his true objective is meeting the Americans' demands for the dispatch of special resources. Togusa: So it's as the Liberals feared? An American-born Prime Minister would be no more than an American puppet? Aramaki: I've yet to meet him in person, so I can't really say. But this is an opportunity to have the Major and the rest of you undertake a major operation for me once more. Togusa: What sort of op? Aramaki: Over the past few years, I have searched for an answer on how to deal with a society in turmoil. I'd like you people to lay the groundwork that will help the next generation find that answer. Togusa: I don't know what a man in my position can contribute, but I'll humbly offer whatever assistance I can.

Those of us who cried, Kamiyama, tell us the future once more! based on Standalone Complex's prophetic analysis of a memetic crime wave were bound to be disappointed. SAC_2045 is less rooted in the near future than in the now - cyberbullying, endless war amidst historic prosperity, employment suppressed by automation, savings eaten up by the complex machinations of finance, and a breakdown of national borders? That's today.

Those of us who hoped for a Ghost in the Shell: Unicorn, a psychically overpowering work that synthesizes the full body of Ghost in the Shell into a single coherent form to elevate us to a higher level of understanding, should have tempered our expectations. To reach each new philosophical level is more difficult than the last - to achieve that with Ghost in the Shell of all things would have required a multidisciplinary genius near the limits of current understanding.

Kenji Kamiyama is just an anime director. And anyhow, Gundam Unicorn was a book before it was an animated series. And who among us even knew we'd have to write a book before 2015? Ghost in the Shell was well-understood enough, so I instead wrote 25,000 words worth of hypothetical country and became a blogger, like the infamous Scott Alexander.[3]

If we approach SAC_2045 from the lens that it's a humbler work designed for younger audiences, however, some of the creative decisions make more sense.

Purin

Just how old is Purin, the MIT grad who joins the team later on? If I had to guess, that's '23歳' on that profile she provides, and Ishikawa notes that she 'skipped a few grades' on her way to a PhD. But she acts like someone a lot younger. She's enthusiastic and we're assured she's intelligent, but seems to be lacking social training. For example, she makes the mistake of assembling an era-accurate music player for Batou combined with a playlist after consulting the Tachikomas to find out what he listens to. There are two ways to take this.

The first is that she's intended as a relateable character for someone who would make this class of mistake. It's the sort of mistake I might have made at age 13-14, meaning that the show would probably be aimed at someone that age or lower. Overly enthusiastic, doesn't understand romantic relationships, impulsive, poor reading of boundaries / poor modelling of others outside of certain domains, impulsive in a way that causes social screw-ups? Yeah that could certainly apply to an ADHD kid of about that age.

And all of a sudden the tone of the first five episodes with the gun-fighting, the literal Agent Smith, the decision to place the focus in America, and even the mystery of the series being much simpler than Standalone Complex 2nd Gig's plot regarding Asian refugees in Japan make a lot more sense. This is Ghost in the Shell for kids!

Wow, I didn't think that could be done!

...is what I should say, except that around the time I acquired the ability to futurist shitpost, and I used that ability to predict that it would.

Purin II

The second reading is that the youth of the future are fucked up. She probably has some tricked out modifications, both cybernetic and genetic. Now usually you would tell someone to try to become a well-rounded human being. But...

The global economy has crashed. Batou mistakes her for a robot - creatures that look like pretty young women are a dime a dozen. In the dating market, she would be competing with full sensory immersion VR pornography on the one hand, and at the upper end of society where cybernetics are more widely available, likely women with a similar appearance but decades more experience and professional standing.

Note that in the original Standalone Complex, the team take down an 80-year-old Russian spy with the full prosthetic body of a 20-year-old. Full cyborgs aren't common then, nor are they in SAC_2045 (though cyberbrains are ubiquitous), but if the economy recovers that may change, and the sector she's trying to get in to (full-time salaried government rather than marginal private employment it would seem) is going to be very tough to enter either way.

So Purin may have to be over-optimized even to just appear on the screen. In fact, she says,

"Just so I could work at Section 9, I moved most of my sentimental memories to external storage."

Youch! It's no wonder she's socially maladjusted. Just how much of her social learning (in particular key events necessary to rebuild logical inferences on the boundaries of behavior on the fly) has she locked away?

Purin III

But you know who Purin looks like? Notorious internet personality, Gamer Girl Bath Water seller, and IRL video game character Belle Delphine.[4]

Or rather, it's the other way around - 2D animation compresses real detail into suggestive abstraction, letting your mind fill in the rest. Going from those impossible 2D shapes to 3 dimensions creates strange results, like training your machine learning algorithm on the salient features of a cat's face, applying it to human shape, and putting pink hair on the result. Belle Delphine adopts that otherworldly kind of appearance as part of her act.

Technically, this a stylistic choice. Within the framework of SAC_2045, this is what "a 23-year-old female" looks like.

Purin is in fact so non-threatening that her big red coat obscures her figure. I'm gonna go with younger audience. Now if only I could remember what pronoun she uses.[5/☆]

Motoko

With a full prosthetic body, outward signs of human-like aging are almost an artistic expression, much like in a world with cheap tissue engineering, visible scars are a choice.

When she was first introduced in the original Ghost in the Shell manga, we don't know how old Motoko Kusanagi is. It was once said that her name is analogous to "Jane Excalibur," which in English would be an obvious alias. In the first movie (from 1995), she's cool, almost cold and robotic.

In the original Standalone Complex, Motoko has a more mature personality than in the manga, but she has a clearly adult look by the standards of anime. Seriously, check out this fantastic character design (combat suit), although admittedly the better-known "leather jacket and bathing suit" design is more ridiculous, fashion-wise.[6] (Fortunately, she gets pants in her much more stylish second season outfit.)

ARISE starts off with a young Motoko Kusanagi in a chaotic post-war period before the Section 9 we know was assembled. This shows in her character design, but it really shows in her personality. This was actually why I had joked about an even earlier Ghost in the Shell.

There is a sense in which the 2017 live-action movie's Motoko is even younger. Scarlett Johansson is a killer cyborg with amnesia. She doesn't even have one day of formal combat training.

Motoko 2045

Ilya Kuvshinov designed SAC_2045's Motoko Kusanagi.

Yes, that Ilya Kuvshinov. You could be forgiven for thinking this is a teenager that hardboiled assassins Saitou and Ishikawa in the background have been hired to bodyguard.

Despite this, Atsuko Tanaka has resumed her role as Motoko's voice actress. Standalone Complex's Motoko looked 25 and felt mid-30s. SAC_2045's Motoko looks 16 and has the voice and attitude of 40.

This may make more sense than you might think.

Through Whose Eyes?

Throughout much of Ghost in the Shell as a franchise, Togusa, the only non-cyborg on the team, who is pulled from a police department instead of a military background, tends to be character used to help the people of our time relate to the future. He's the guy that doesn't know the things we also don't know, so in explaining concepts to Togusa they're explained to the audience.

In SAC_2045, most of the team are off doing cool cyborg things in America. Aramaki (whose in-world function is to create the bureaucratic environment within which Section 9 operates) tasks Togusa with finding them. The original Standalone Complex first aired in 2003. It's been 17 years since it was created - a similar situation to finding someone that reached adulthood who was born after 9/11. And during this time, Togusa's life has changed - the family man is now separated from his wife. And the world has changed - Togusa is now working for a private security firm. Togusa's role in the first five episodes isn't to guide the new viewers.

His purpose is to guide or stand-in for the old viewers.

The New Viewers

"Do you still hold a grudge against the Major and the others for leaving you behind?"

For the original viewers, SAC_2045 is your world, too. Togusa is there. Togusa is you.

The new viewers are Purin. Enthusiastic and smart but awkward and not confident in their skills. How could they measure up to these much more talented and experienced characters? (Also consider who is going to watch any sort of Ghost in the Shell - it's probably going to be a moderately bright and introverted kid, who is the kind of person that may be more comfortable socializing with people outside of their age band.)

But Motoko is visually separated from the rest of Section 9. Batou, Saitou, Ishikawa, Boma... they all have a much more adult look in keeping with their appearance in previous versions of Ghost in the Shell. What gives?

Batou is sort of a cool adult male figure - this is actually a pretty natural use of the character and his sense of humor as previously established in other Ghost in the Shell properties. We especially see this come through in 「PIE IN THE SKY - First Bank Robbery」 episode, with the old folks and the 21st century bank robbery.

Motoko's difference in appearance is because she's acting as a bridge between the two. The new viewer (as represented by Purin) is supposed to grow into being like Motoko as they gain confidence and experience. (The characters aren't each limited to a single role, of course.)

But SAC_2045 is still a work that's shared between two groups, similar to how the excellent Into the Spiderverse features both the teenage Miles Morales and an older Peter Parker that has lost his way, with the loss of the vibrant young adult Peter Parker being what starts the plot going.

The Last Quarter

With this framework, the rest of the work should express its nature as targeted at a younger audience itself. Watch the last few episodes through this lens and you'll see how much sense it makes. One takes place at a school. Even the bizarre 3D style that resembles recent video games makes more sense. If we take Togusa's earlier conversation with Aramaki as a discussion of SAC_2045 itself, later on there's even a sort of acknowledgement that Ghost in the Shell is a difficult work for someone of a young age.

So with that context in mind, does it work?

Standalone Complex

If I remember correctly, years ago, when I was perhaps 15 or 16, I was watching a tiny CRT television some time after midnight, and I saw the thirteenth episode of the original Standalone Complex - NOT EQUAL. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I was immediately taken by it. And, from what I remember, I immediately understood it.

It was as though it were made just for me.[7]

To me, Ghost in the Shell is like a textbook. I thought that as a creator who has reached a place where I am able to be involved in that kind of work, I'm in a position where I have to convey its contents to a younger audience. Well, I knew it would be a lot of work, but I figured it would be my way of giving back to Ghost in the Shell. I thought that I needed to accept the baton and offer Ghost in the Shell to a young audience, to the same degree that Ghost in the Shell raised me to be who I am.

- Tow Ubukata, in a 2015 interview, regarding ARISE

For many people, Ghost in the Shell is a profound influence. I felt that it lifted me to a new level of understanding.

SAC_2045

But what about SAC_2045?

I can't view Ghost in the Shell with new eyes. When I first saw it, I wasn't the kind of person that casually memes futuristic ethical dilemmas as a means of practicing politics.

Compared to the anime I watched back when I was 13, would I have watched SAC_2045? Yes. Is it more philosophically and politically sophisticated? Yes. Would I have found it memorable? I think so.

Would a 13-year these days watch it? That's difficult to assess. I bet someone who does data science for Netflix could tell us, if they wanted. I'm sure Kenji Kamiyama and Shinji Aramaki are considering the same thing.

2017

How does it stack up compared to the rest of the franchise?

For most enthusiasts it's going to be one of the weaker entries, though it certainly does a better job explaining itself than ARISE.

Compare it to 2017's live action movie, however, and I think we'll find it isn't the weakest. The reason is that the writers of Ghost in the Shell (2017) decided to tell a story about bodily consent in which becoming a cyborg is a form of trauma. On some level this may have been a reasonable decision, but they didn't commit to the concept sufficiently fully to execute it well enough to carry the movie - and simultaneously, they dumbed down parts of the regular Ghost in the Shell material for American audiences. As a result the movie flopped both financially and artistically - except for the visuals.

In fact, I wrote a sequence of posts (1, 2, 3, 4) on how to rewrite the live action movie as an actual Ghost in the Shell property. I feel no need to do so for SAC_2045 - and I can't even think of what changes would need to be made.

I look forward to the second season.

-☆☆☆-

[1] It's short, but that's a concept in this post. "Advanced by Left-Wing theorists, Ninth Generation warfare sees all acts as existing on a spectrum of political violence. Most acts of ninth generation warfare consist of extreme pranks."

[2] If we accept the idea of "Fifth-Generation Warfare" as motivated by a desire to prevent the enemy from using their conventional military assets, then a corresponding theory of international politics would involve preventing enemy factions within foreign governments from taking control of those governments' institutions - effectively treating all countries as in continuous level of conflict analogous to a soft civil war.

[3] There is a kind of technique to this, but in my case I substituted ADHD for raw IQ and conscientiousness, which is part of why my posts are so much shorter than, for instance, Moldbug's. In any case, technically, Scott's blog posts on the matter amount to roughly a mere 11,600 words, and the book of the black forest amounts to approximately 26,000 words (which I'm told is entertaining reading), but I'm sure if we go looking we can find an additional 15,000 words worth of worldbuilding from a man known for writing 16,000 word blog posts.

[4] Would it be more of a legal liability to sell regular water with GGBW branding, or actual GGBW that could prove to be a potential health hazard?

[5/☆] There's some future strand lurking beneath the surface here that I can't quite put into words; a culturally divergent moe meltdown where an appearance this ridiculous becomes normalized among some sub-population. To quote the Funko Pop Hatred post,

There are questions about the anatomy of anime people and their internal organs, and particularly about what sort of impact-dampening alien meta-material their softer bits are made out of, but at least homo sapiens gokuensis looks like it’s a branch off a similar starting hominid! Whatever transhuman engineering company was responsible for manufacturing the creatures in the typical harem anime has some weird ideas about human beings, but we’re clearly in their ancient lineage somewhere.

Under Late Safetyism, everyone is a declawed catgirl.

Anyhow, I don't want to alarm you, but I can't guarantee that this won't be the future somewhere. Both Purin and Belle Delphine resemble Xiaoice, "The AI Girlfriend Seducing China's Lonely Men." (2020)

[6] Motoko's ridiculous outfits are a major flex on the non-cyborgs, who aren't indifferent to ambient temperature and whose natural bodies may have unflattering features. Similarly wild fashions can exist in places like Second Life, a 3D digital platform with mostly user-uploaded content. Presumably they're also a flex on every Japanese salaryman who still has to dress like a normal guy.

[7] "It's as though it were made just for me" is also how I feel about the original game Mirror's Edge. Its follow-up, Catalyst, is also a personal favorite of mine.

#miti does media #longpost #flagpost #ghost in the shell #sac_2045 #standalone complex #review

[gofancyninjaworld]

Meta: What rough beast slouches to be born?

Right, webcomic chapter 125 has raised quite a few questions about cyborgs and I purposely left it aside. Until now.  I’m sorry for the length, but I’m only allowed one ‘readmore’. :(

What we knew

Many moons ago for us, 9 or so weeks ago for them, Genos showed up at Saitama’s doorstep like a refugee from another world, telling a tale of destroyed towns, rampaging cyborgs, and desperate revenge quests.   It’s seemed rather far-fetched, particularly as not much has happened on that front.   Over the course of the story, we’ve had little bits of independent corroboration about the veracity of his story.  The town that he was born in was definitely erased from the map.  Yes, a cyborg is wanted in connection with the incident. 

But where is that guy? Does it have anything to do with the powered suit-flogging cyborgs seen early on the series? Does it have anything to do with the ‘glimpse behind the scenes’ chapter the manga offered us with Drive Knight (but no context as to how that glimpse fitted into the wider story)?  Come to that, where are all the cyborgs?

To start with, there are a lot of cyborgs of various sorts in OPM.  Quite a few moons ago, I wrote a bit about them, drawing a distinction between those who used parts to replace lost function and those who looked at it as a change of identity: “Is the Organization a Claw Analogue?”

 Chapter 125 has been surprisingly good about confirming some of what I surmised about cyborgs, but it’s brought some very good additional information!  On we go!

There are cyborgs; and then there are Cyborgs

Our ambassador through the world of cyborgs is new Neo Hero recruit Koko (Solitude), who modified his body for the world of cyborg fighting, only he was a little too successful and no one would bet on him.  We see him scanning various people and passing commentary on them.

The first to give him serious pause is Webigaza, who lost six months of life to getting her body modifications done -- no wonder she’s pissed off that her rival has self-destructed in the interim.

Koko is shaken by her having 71% of her body modified.

obsessive determination is terrifying to look at

Percentage body modification of the sort Koko is used to seeing, 30% maximum, you can do right here right here and now.  It’s equivalent to losing a leg and most of the other. Here and now, we can also do brain implants to control tremors or fits or some neurological conditions,  replace part of the heart, spine fusions, quite a few bits and pieces.  The sort of modifications Koko is used to seeing are very functional ones that make sense for someone looking to get an edge in fighting for money.  They’re also along the lines of what we’ve seen with One-Shotter or Death Gatling.

If you lose and replace all four limbs, that's 50% of your body modified. While quadruple amputees unfortunately exist IRL,  I don’t know if anyone has had the kind of money, physical fitness and pure grit to do that.  Nevertheless it’s not technically impossible. 60% sounds about right before you're now looking at breaking into the more vital parts of your body.  The point at which the risk involved just can't be justified in terms of restoring function or health. I’m emphasising that because I’m going to come back to this point.   He’s shaken because modifications that extensive aren’t about simply gaining an edge; they’re being willing to exchange serious bodily harm for serious power.  It says a lot about who Webigaza is.

Within the Hero Association, I think we do know a hero round about that 60% mark.  Jet Nice Guy comes to mind.  He sports an armored exterior, powerful artificial limbs (which will need internal reinforcement to not just rip up his body), but his innards are all human. After the way he started to bleed out after Nyan slashed him, I realised that the reason it looked like intestines when the Deep Sea King ripped him open is because they were... >.<  Sorry, dude. 

the worst of both worlds -- too modified to have an easy life, still too weak to deal with the real monsters that exist

Scary enough, but then the security staff come in to stop the kerfuffle that Koko and his buddy, Mars Leo, were causing.  Koko scanned them and was stunned into horror:

as disciplined and ruthless a pair of killers as you could never hope to lay eyes on.  Definitely not frothing at the mouth, these two!

These two have modified themselves so extensively they’re almost inhuman. 94, 95% body modification is equivalent to having only 3.5 - 4.2 kg of live mass left assuming an original live mass of 70 kg.  And, if the similar naming convention didn’t tip you off to it, it’s around the sort of hyper-extensive modification we see Genos having. [See under the readmore for a first-principles estimation I did a long time ago.]  Maybe Drive Knight too if he’s a cyborg.   What kind of power have they exchanged their human bodies for?  What kind of people are willing to do that to themselves? Koko is very sure that he does NOT want to know.

When he tells you who he is, believe him

That’s dating advice often given to ladies overlooking obvious red flags  but it goes with great force in OPM. ONE has characters tell us who they are early on, even if it doesn’t mean anything to us for a long time. 

And he’s had Genos be a particularly straightforward and truthful character.  He doesn’t always interpret things correctly, but he says it exactly as he sees it.  Looking at the way the high percentage cyborgs we’ve met thus far either be very inhuman looking or completely disguised as regular human beings,  he’s chosen an appearance that puts both his humanity and mechanical nature on display.

Something that the chapter has brought up that I've kept saying to people on the Discord and on Reddit: there is no medically justifiable reason for Genos to have a body as modified as he does.   Which Genos TELLS US for fuck’s sake.  His giant wall of text is a synopsis, no more and no less.

When he says that “...I asked Professor Kuseno to perform a procedure to modify my body. Then I was reborn as a cyborg for justice...”  (Viz)  “...I begged Dr Stench (sic) to transform me into a cyborg and I was reborn as a cyborg who fights for justice...” (Boon scanslations, who copied verbatim whoever did the webcomic version). It’s nothing to do with health.  Feel free to have whatever headcanons you like, but please don’t confuse them with the story.

But it doesn’t end there.  I look at Destro and Erimin and realise that there’s another perfectly truthful statement that’s been staring us in the face.

Genos knows. Why would he ask a mechanical engineer who uses a wearable battle suit and pilots armed drones to modify his body, let alone modify it to such an insane degree?  Because he knows that Dr Kuseno knows how to build cyborgs like the one who destroyed his town.

We don’t know if Destro and Erimin have any responsibility for the destroyed town, but someone of their ilk does.   Which brings us to a third nakedly truthful statement. When Genos talks of not believing that he could be defeated by anything other than the rampaging cyborg, he’s not anticipating winning because he’s suicidal.  It’s because he’s aware that if he’s throwing rock, so too is his enemy: mutual annihilation is the best he can hope for.

At least until he met Saitama. And started to hope for not mutual destruction, but victory (check the difference in chapter 108 of the webcomic).

a world away from the attitude of mutually-assured destruction he started with.

Stepping away from the text a bit, it casts a different light on why he’s been so desperate to learn from Saitama. Learning Saitama's secret is his balance-breaker. He wants something other than rock, that is guaranteed to smash whatever rock his enemy might throw.    But that’s not all there is.   As Garou said, once he discovered Blue Fire’s flamethrower, once you know how a freakish weapon works, you know it.  Any edge a new weapon might give Genos is liable to be studied and replicated  (see how quickly Dr Kuseno was able to reverse engineer and adapt the principles of G-4′s curving energy beams).   But Saitama’s strength is unphysical: no matter how closely you inspect his body, you can never relate the physicality of Saitama’s body to the power he can generate.  That unphysicality, that’s what Genos wants too.   It also puts in context why he’s been so fascinated by psychic power and wants to learn it if at all possible.

neat trick, I’ll take two!  Genos dodging G4′s beams in chapter 38, and putting the principle of them to good use in chapter 120

And finally, since in his world, knowledge is literally power, it gives yet another layered reason Genos is so determined to keep anyone else from becoming Saitama’s disciple.  If they learn his secret too, then the advantage he seeks will be lost.  (that it doesn’t work quite that way for Saitama is a fact for us to enjoy and for him to find out).

Nothing is as scary as a human being

Nothing is as scary as a human being is one of the things that Reigen says to Tome on occasion. It’s in full force in OPM.  Monsters may be strong, but they all live in the now.  Only a human being could have put together the Monster Association.   When it comes to cyborgs, their abilities may be inhuman but their thoughts, imaginations, morals and appetites are all 100% human.   It’s a terrifying combination.

There’s something I missed when I likened The Organization to a Claw Analogue. In Mob Psycho 100, the protagonists are children and they're fighting an organisation made up of over-grown children -- adults who have refused to grow up. In One-Punch Man, the protagonists are adults and the bad humans in the story are very much adults too.   With calculated cruelty and depravity to match. When The Organization bares its claws for real, this is going to get so brutal.

If Genos has not been standing still, then neither has his enemy.  From the manga, even if we hold Drive Knight blameless and independent of all this mess, his besting Nyan told us that cyborgs can indeed come crazy-strong and highlighted how much more work Genos had yet to do. It also highlighted how very clever and calculating cyborgs can be -- well, they’re human, duh!  If I was worried for his prospects then,  in the webcomic, Genos is nowhere near as psychologically, physically or emotionally ready as his manga version is.   And the guys who look to be his enemies aren’t going to be cutting him any slack.   They’re very real.  They’re not mad.  And they’re closer than he ever imagined.

Fighting monsters is barely adequate preparation for whatever it is that’s to come.

Whenever Genos gets dragged into whatever it is those cyborgs are up to  -- or runs into it, since he claims he’s still hunting the rampaging cyborg -- ‘rough’ doesn’t begin to describe it.

Extra Stuff

Edited from an answer I gave on Reddit to the question of how much of Genos was still organic about 2 years ago.  It’s unexpectedly relevant!

Short answer: by mass, under 10% , assuming he would have weighed  approximately 70 kg. By function, quite a bit.

 The long answer.

I’m going to write this starting from what is most readily observable and readily inferred to the least. In appreciation of this being a work of fiction that treats physical laws lightly, I too am taking a more-or-less approach and will keep technical terms to a minimum. I'm also not a medic and I don't play one on TV -- assume generous hand-wavium. Items in {curly brackets} are incidental notes you can skip.

Level 0: Canonically observable.  The least controversial observation is that Genos does have an organic brain. Genos does not live in a lab, but is able to live largely independently, including being able to eat whatever he likes with no ill-effect. Not just that, but he lives an active and hard-fighting life that appears to do him no permanent harm (I will return to this in a few paragraphs).  What can we take from this?

Edit: There is also ONE’s initial settings for Genos, which I quote here from the Hero Data Book

ONE: There's no need to visit Dr. Kuseno's place every time when his wrist break down, because he got his own spare parts at hand. Dr Kuseno's Lab is there In case for a big reparation job, a drastic upgrade or an examination.

It’s tempting to think that because we see that he definitely has a brain that’s all there is – the brain in a jar phenomenon, so to speak. Something a lot of people miss is that the spinal cord proper isn’t optional either -- it’s a core part of the central nervous system.  Spinal cords are a lot shorter than most people think they are, averaging 12 inches long for women and 15 inches for men.  The rest are nerve processes that can be cut and will regrow (within limits). We’re also happy to allow for nerves and their endings -- there must be an interface for the prosthetics so they're under the fine voluntary control that we see. However, that’s not all that there can be. The Cartesian mind-body duality is completely wrong when it comes to physiology. Our brains are intimately bound with our bodies and our bodies with our brains. So what does one need?

Level 1: Perfusion. This is the most obvious one. Without a blood supply providing oxygen, glucose and removing waste products from our brains, we have 4-5 seconds of consciousness available, 2-3 minutes in which we can escape brain damage and 8-10 minutes in which not to die. So, number one is a reliable blood supply.  Absolutely necessary therefore are a means of generating the various blood cells, perfusing and distributing them and disposing of damaged cells (red blood cells have a lifespan of 1-2 months). While not as acutely important, a self-sustaining blood supply is also the basis of a functioning immune system.  It's a bit of an oops moment when your super-killer cyborg catches a cold and dies.

Accordingly, bone marrow is essential as a source of hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells. A suitably reduced blood vessel and lymphatic vessel system is also needed to run the blood where it needs to go. {An awesome feature of living beings is that new blood vessels will be recruited to where they need to go and redundant branches pruned back, a process known as vascular remodelling}. A reduced liver and possibly spleen will be needed to appropriately destroy worn out blood cells. At least one functional kidney, in the role of producing the hormone erythropoietin, without which red blood cells will not be formed. Not essential: a heart and lungs, which he definitely doesn't have. How much blood is needed?  I’ll come to that answer once we’ve tallied how much body is needed.

Additionally, since part of perfusion is getting rid of metabolic waste, a liver and kidney will be absolutely indispensable.  

Level 2: Homoeostasis. A living organism has a very narrow range in which its internal environment, such as oxygen saturation, temperature, pH (acidity or alkalinity) amongst other things can vary without harm.

There are around 40 or so hormones, the signalling molecules that keep us going as functional concerns, regulating such things as blood pressure, salt/water balance, available energy, sleep cycle, body temperature, mood, immune system... the list goes on. Each has a stupid number of secondary functions and interacts with others in a ludicrous number of ways (note highly scientific language). Their levels vary and change on the order of seconds to hours. It's a good job that the main organiser of homoeostasis, the hypothalamus, is part of the brain. {Incidentally, this is why a brain-dead cadaver cannot be kept ‘alive’ on life support indefinitely – everything falls out of sync and eventually to pieces.} To do this artificially is to have your cyborg never leave the lab: if you're not constantly monitoring and adjusting levels, then they will die. Fortunately, as mentioned, a living, functional brain has the control network needed to keep everything working without the extensive and expensive effort. Just add air, water and food (in that priority).

At this point, we've already met most of the organs needed to maintain homoeostasis in their capacity of maintaining a blood supply. We need to add some bone, not just to serve as a niche (living environment) for the bone marrow and its stem cells mentioned previously but as a source and sink for minerals, the adrenal glands and the thyroid gland. Finally, one must not forget pancreatic islets -- or it'll be for nothing as he goes into a diabetic coma.

Level 3: Energy.   Speaking of food, a brain needs essential fatty acids for turnover and lots and lots of glucose for energy. It’s entirely possible to supply nutrients as total parenteral nutrion (TPN for short).  People whose digestive systems have completely failed get individually formulated TPN solutions, which requires that they spend several hours a day feeding it into their blood supply. Not something we see Genos do.  And yes, you heard it here: not everyone poops, but everyone sure as hell pees.  While a brain only weighs about 1.5 kg, it uses up about 500 calories a day as glucose, so 700 ish calories a day should suffice for all the needs of his live mass. This bears no relationship to the amount of food we see Genos put away on occasion. Why hasn’t he wrecked his liver in a matter of weeks? The answer would appear to lie in the artificial digestive system Dr. Kuseno has given him which turns food into biofuel. It must be patched into a feedback loop which allows it to only supply what’s physiologically necessary at any given time. Lucky for some!

Level 4: So how much body does that add up to exactly?  Nothing says you have to keep the necessary organs and blood vessel network the same size. With only a 1.5 kg brain to support, many can be shrunk a good 50% if not more. A total living mass of 7 kg would be quite feasible. We know from organ-on-a-chip experiments (and from unfortunate people who have lost part of their organs) that provided the essential architecture of the tissue is respected, they will work fine. Nothing says you have to keep them in the same place as the original organs were -- you can encapsulate it all in a can and shorten the nerves serving the organs to a more rational, manageable length. It's nice and compact and can be protected as heavily as the brain is.

Now we’re in a position to answer how much blood Genos has. There are about 70 ml of blood per kilogram of body weight, so at ~ 7 kg, we’re talking about 500 ml of blood. For comparison, the typical 70 kg person has 5 litres of blood. Why does this matter?  Because it allows us to answer a question many may be curious about: how often does Genos get hurt?

The answer is: Almost Never. With so little body, and with most of that body consisting of aptly named vital organs, even small injuries can turn catastrophic in no time.  Genos will bleed out with around 150 ml of blood loss, which is less than half of what is donated in a typical blood donation.  Horrible and dramatic as the smashes he gets into are, it’s more akin to a Formula 1 race car tumbling end over end and catching fire, only for the driver to walk out unscathed.  His cyborg parts are replaceable and can be sacrificed to protect what’s irreplaceable if need be.

#OPM #cyborg #Genos #meta #ONE hides things in plain sight #because they don't make sense until they do

[ghoultyrant]

Dicing characters up

So I’ve recently gotten back into the swing of developing The Wild Hunt, in between puking and other such happy fun times, and of course I ran into the issue of needing to generate original capes. I moaned, I groaned, I made minor notes about general direction, resigning myself to further massive delays in the writing process because making a properly Worm-like power is actually pretty hard-

-and then I abruptly remembered that I actually have an established process for how to do so, and just haven’t used it in a couple of years for various reasons. And lo, this piece of the writing is coming along much faster and more fun.

Then it occurred to me that I could share this process, and explain the reasoning behind it. Maybe others will appreciate it.

Which brings us to now.

First step: write up all twelve canon Worm power ratings. Or I suppose you could use a different system, such as my own stab at making the rating system function, but the canon set is perfectly fine for this purpose. (I’d only personally turn to my own system if I noticed I’d completely failed to make any Othala-esque support capes in a long streak, and felt that was a problem that needed correcting) The order doesn’t matter, you can do whatever in this regard, just make sure you write up the list you’re using first.

Step 1.5: Decide whether you want rolling high to be ‘good’, or rolling low to be ‘good’. I’ll explain this in a minute, but it’s important you do this before you actually roll any dice. Which direction you choose is irrelevant’ I historically went with low=good, and this last session went with high=good, for whatever arcane reasons my brain changes its mind about such things, and it all works out the same so long as you’re consistent within a given session.

Step 1.75: If you’re making multiple characters together, decide ahead of time which set of rolls will ultimately go to which character. ie ‘this is Parahuman 1, so they get Dice Roll Set 1′. Or ‘this is Angry Parahuman, and they get Dice Roll Set 2′. Don’t do all your dice rolling and then assign batches to whoever you prefer. I’ll explain this more later.

Second step: roll an appropriate number of dice. I personally use this site, but it’s not terribly important. My personal model is to roll 12 100-sided dice; this gives a level of granularity and randomness I find useful.

Third step: Plug the die rolls into your list in the order you made each. Your first die roll goes into whatever power rating you placed first in the order, your second die roll goes into whatever rating was second, and so on. No cheating; I’ll come back to this in a minute.

Fourth step: It’s time to engage in deduction about the character you’ve kind-of-created just now. Treat your die rolls as a combination of two things; an indication of how the PRT would rate them, if they know everything reasonably obvious about their power, but also more importantly as an indication of how relatively dominant each element is in their power.

This is the part where actual creativity is involved, and I’m not going to tell you there’s any ‘right’ way of doing things in this regard, beyond that I’ve been emphasizing ‘don’t cheat’ by shuffling rolls about in any capacity, or allowing yourself to assign rolls after they’re made. The reason I’ve been emphasizing ‘don’t cheat’ is that you’re undermining your own creativity if you ‘cheat’; if you have an Angry Cape in your list of tentative characters, and you find yourself prone to doing stuff like giving Angry Capes Blaster powers that are all variations on ‘elemental blasts’, ‘cheating’ means you’re liable to fall right back into that pattern (Or any number of other patterns you’re trying to avoid falling into) instead of forcing yourself to think outside the box. At which point this whole complicated shebang is a waste of your time, honestly.

Now that’s all a bit abstract, so let’s provide an example! Just one cape, even though I really use this system primarily for producing batches of capes, because this is already going to be long and I don’t have infinite time.

Before I start, I’ll arbitrary say this example cape is meant to be a low-tier villain cape in Brockton Bay who Coil recently hired in an imaginary fanfic due to butterfly shenanigans. I’ll also arbitrarily say I vaguely want this cape to think Coil is a great guy, so I have some starting point of a personality beyond the range of possibilities implied by being a Coil hire.

So first I’ll write up the list of ratings;

Brute: 

Blaster: 

Breaker: 

Trump: 

Striker: 

Stranger: 

Changer: 

Master: 

Mover: 

Shaker: 

Thinker: 

Tinker: 

I wrote that off the cuff off memory, for reference.

Before rolling my dice, I’m just arbitrarily saying high is good.

Then I roll my dice...

90 - 45 - 97 - 56 - 8 - 48 - 20 - 94 - 23 - 88 - 46 - 74

... and what I’d normally do is just enter those in order in the above list, but for the purposes of this example I’ll instead enter them into a new copy of the list right after this sentence.

Brute: 90

Blaster: 45

Breaker: 97

Trump: 56

Striker: 8

Stranger: 48

Changer: 20

Master: 94

Mover: 23

Shaker: 88

Thinker: 46

Tinker: 74

So first I note the extremes: whatever this cape can do, they’re not a Striker. And if there’s any Mover or Changer elements, they’re really low-key, the sort of thing that would get a PRT threat rating of 1 if they made it into documentation at all.

At the other extreme, Breaker is the highest number, followed closely by Master, Brute, and Shaker, in that order. That implies Breaker is the foundation of this cape’s power (In the framework of ‘Breaker states’, to be specific; if you take a different interpretation of Breaker, you’d interpret this differently), with them either having all their states include Brute/Master/Shaker elements, or that their most powerful/useful states are the ones that merit those ratings.

Tinker is also pretty high up, but not the highest up. If it were the highest rating, I’d probably interpret the cape as a Tinker whose devices all come back to breaker effects in some capacity. Since it’s the lowest of the relatively high ratings, I instead infer the Tinkering is somehow an outgrowth of the Breaker rating; maybe they have a state that can copy tinkertech?

That brings us to the middling ratings of Blaster, Stranger, Trump, and Thinker. These are all high enough I’m not willing to write them off as non-existent qualities, but they’re low enough relative to the main high numbers that they’re clearly not of primary importance, either being not distinct powers at all but a side effect of the primary aspects of their power, or being distinct powers that are weak or inflexible such that the cape doesn’t make much use of them. In this case, the high Brute rating suggests the Blaster rating may simply be an acknowledgement that super-strength is a great tool for turning anything in your environment into an impromptu projectile.

Taken altogether, what comes to mind is that Coil Patsy here has a Breaker state they can turn on that lets them suborn people in an area around them while also making them fairly resistant to harm. At this point I interpret the low Mover number not as, for example, ‘Mover 1′, which would be an indication of mildly superhuman speed or super-jumping or something, but instead as an indication that the Breaker state involves a loss of mobility, which in conjunction with the high Brute rating suggests their Breaker state is something solid and slow, such as turning into solid iron. Said aura of control makes it so everyone in their control is capable of low-tier Tinkering, with the overall versatility and quality of the tinkertech rising the more people in their control are working together. The Trump rating is now obvious; actual Tinkers can be tapped for their full Tinker ability, spontaneously providing this cape brand-new options if they get a Tinker under their control. The Blaster rating is now interpreted as an indication they have a propensity for producing tinkertech rifles and other ranged weaponry, which their thralls use reasonably competently, but which are not stupendously threatening. The Thinker rating is interpreted as an indication they tap the senses of their thralls. The Stranger rating seems to require inventing a new power or major Tinkertech specialty in the context of how canon Worm uses the Stranger rating, but here I lean on the advantages ambiguity provides and choose, in this case, to interpret the Stranger rating as indicating that any signs of control are subtle enough Coil Patsy can have eyes on the inside without people noticing if stringent Master/Stranger protocols aren’t in effect.

By blind coincidence, this cape sounds like a really plausible explanation for where canon Coil got his tinkertech underslung lasers. (That never actually got used...) So now I know that in my imaginary fanfic, this cape is supposed to exist in canon and in canon was hired to make some underslung lasers, but the fanfic’s butterflies led to Coil working to get this cape in his pocket in a more substantial way. I also now know that my original arbitrary decision to make him a fan of Coil indicates Coil used the carrot, rather than the stick, as part of the recruitment process; where Tattletale was recruited with a gun to her head, this cape was recruited by Coil solving his problems and throwing wads of cash at him to do the same basic kind of thing he wants to do anyway.

Now, this sounds like a pretty powerful power, which might seem inconsistent with my earlier arbitrary assertion that Coil Patsy is a low-tier villain, but I can take the interpretation that, yes, it is a strong power, but the cape has been lying low in part because creating a long-term operation is insanely risky. At this step I assume he suffers Thinker headaches if he runs his Breaker state for too long, and that his thralls all remember what happened just fine and are liable to hate his guts and try to kill him once he ends the state, in the scenario where he uses his power to gangpress random citizens; he’s been low-tier because it’s dangerous for him to try to freely abuse his power...

... but for this imaginary fanfic, he’s probably about to turn into a big threat as Coil hires a bunch of people to act as his intermittent Tinker thralls.

From there I do more standard character creation stuff of deciding on his basic personality (And gender, for that matter, though apparently at some point I decided he was male without thinking about it in this particular case), assigning a name and possibly cape name to him, and then put a pin on it and am now free to go forward with writing scenes with this character.

And there you go; a methodology for pushing yourself to come up with weird, creative power sets.

#Worm #Story Design #Randomness #Fanfic

[critlitcomwriter]

A Rhetorical Analysis of The 1975's, "If I Believe You"

The 1975 are an English pop rock band formed in 2002. The band consists of Matthew (Matty) Healy, Adam Hann, Ross MacDonald and George Daniel. They created their second album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It, which featured the song I will be doing my rhetorical analysis on called, “If I Believe You”. The song tells the listener that the band members are adamant about their atheist beliefs but question their opposition to faith.

In order to understand how an artist connects their art to their world view is essential to understand how such perceptions were formed. It is important to note that each member of The 1975 had their own authentic experience, however their divergent paths of life have all connected in their appreciation of the connection of art and theology. Matty Healy has an interesting relationship with God, one which has transformed the vision of the entire band. Healy is known for being a staunch atheist, but one may not assume this by listening to reoccurring themes in the albums released by The 1975. Healy, and all other members of the band, were raised in the upper and middle class. Despite an obvious presence of privilege, the band members are known for diverging from their parents’ expectations. The band members found themselves to be part of a more alternative crowd and found that they learned more from art and literature they found as they had life experiences than they did in the classroom. While it might have made sense for young privileged boys to have strong religious affiliations, those never really formed for Healy nor did they evolve for the other members of the band. Instead, the band members found legitimate appreciation for the art associated with religion and the history of religion itself. Although the band members are not religious themselves, they recognize the importance of religion and often adopt religious morals and mentalities to incorporate history into their art.

The band states right off the bat that they are missing a purpose in life like a missing puzzle piece. “I've got a God-shaped hole that's infected and I'm petrified of being alone now, It's pathetic”. They wish they had religious faith in order to fill that whole/gap and cure the sadness within them. The band chose to write this piece in order to ask God or Jesus or whatever higher power there may be, whether or not their blind faith will bring them happiness.

The 1975 wrote this song with a soul purpose to describe and criticize. They describe a way they are feeling whether that be lost or sad and then criticize the higher power for making them feel that way. They then ask God if they do begin believing in Him, will they finally feel whole. The entire song is based on their confusion as to why they made them this way (without faith). “I mean if it was you that made my body you probably shouldn't have made me atheist.” Their strict describe and criticize arrangement of text makes the reader question their own faith or lack of.

The 1975 has a pattern of consistently arranging their songs in a way which manage to convey emotion while telling a story. “If I Believe You” is the perfect example of how The 1975 manages to connect their story, their morals, and their art all in under seven minutes. The band uses a problem and solution pattern of organization. They strategically set up the lyrics by first explaining that they feel an emptiness, like something is missing in their life and they believe it is God. Then throughout the song they ask if they begin believing, will this emptiness fill. I believe the band arranged the song this way in order to first relate to others who can’t seem to trust blind faith. Then eventually relate by naming common instances when people seem to think about God and a higher power in their life. They mentioned doing drugs and then seeing God.

The group uses formal language to describe their story to the listener. The sentences are simple yet precise and proper. The band uses vocabulary words like consciousness, revelation, atheist and petrified. The band grew up in a very posh area in England and were educated accordingly. The band uses exclamatory rhetorical language in the song. Sentences like, ”Showing me consciousness is primary in the universe and I had a revelation!” and “I mean if it was you that made my body you probably shouldn’t have made me atheist!”, draw great emotion out of the listener. Matty (the lead singer) screams these lyrics with such intense passion that it’s impossible not to listen. He wants the reader to pay close attention to his words.

For most of their songs, The 1975 use extravagant shades of neon pink, purple and blue in the background of their live music sets. They did not make a music video for their song, “If I Believe You”, but when playing live sets, they use only a white background screen and white lasers. This is to symbolize the light you are supposed to see when you die and go to heaven. This contrast perfectly encompasses the importance of this song to the band. By diversifying their live set with the inclusion of this song, The 1975 elicits a more emotional response from the crowd and creates an unshakable bond with their fans.

For almost all of the songs featured on the album, the group uses rhetorical devices to emphsize the messages they are trying to put out. Below I have mentioned a few within, "If I Believe You".

Epithet – “God shaped hole” (This demonstrates what they are missing. They use this instead of saying “God is missing from my life”)

Anaphora – “If I'm lost then how can I find myself?” x9 (They repeats this 9 times because they are unable to figure out the meaning of life without God and although they are expecting an answer after repeating it so much, they never get one.)

Hyperbole – “I'm broken and bleeding and begging for help” (This is them saying theyre in pain and their feelings are hurt)

Epizeuxis – “It's just like I lost my head (lost my head)” (Emphasizes their inability to think and sort things out for themselves)

I must also mention that I believe their major audience is supposed to be God (which I found to be obvious) and other people struggling to find faith. The reason this song connected with me so well is because I too am struggling with a purpose. As of now, I am on this Earth to make bonds with other humans. But the voice in the back of my head always thinks, "What if there is a God and youre wasting your time?"

Lastly I'd like to talk about appeals used in the song. Some may argue that the group used ethos but I believe they focused on logos and pathos the most. Actually, It is possible to say the band used logic the entire song. One may infer the they themselves were doing their own analysis while writing the song. An analysis is defined as the separating of any material or abstract entity into its constituent elements. The band new exactly who their audience was, what message they were trying to put out and how they were going to organize it. They walked through their process of feeling alone and tired, questioning whether or not having faith in God would mend their emptiness. Pathos on the other hand is defined as the appeal made to the emotions of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. If God was listening to the song, I feel as if He may feel remorse for the band and guilty for causing so much confusion. As another member of the audience, I related to the lyrics. I have also always struggled with blind faith and not being able to understand what I am missing in order to fill the empty spaces.

I have added a link to the actual song with lyrics attached. Please let me know if you two have related to it or if you have any contradictory statements!

#Youtube

[raendown]

Chapter 52

I’ve had massive writer’s block for a few days and gotten little to nothing done. So today I forced out a semi-okay story for the Collection that sounded so much better in my head.

It’s under the cut or also on AO3.

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Soulmate au:  the one where any words you write on your arm will show up on your soulmate's arm

-

We have your soulmate. If you want him returned you will bring us ten million yen.

This message was the first that had ever appeared on Madara’s arm. He stared at it, frozen, trying to decide which reaction feels most pressing. On the one hand he really should panic because it appeared as though his soulmate was in trouble and may require help. He had no idea where in the world they might be but that didn’t stop him from flaring his chakra dangerously. On the other hand he wanted to leap for joy in an undignified way because this was proof that he does, in fact, have a soulmate and it gave him his first ever clue to their identity. They were male, apparently.

As he normally did when he experienced anything close to resembling feelings he went to Hashirama first. His friend jerked in surprise when he burst through the door, knocking over a pile of paperwork he happened to know had taken two hours to organize. Hashirama stared at the fluttering reports like he might burst in to tears.

“Hashirama my arm!” he exclaims, distracting the other man and getting to the point in one sentence. Hashirama blinked up at him with a pout before turning his eyes to the appendage held out towards him. Then he gasped.

“You got a message from your soulmate? Oh Madara, congratulations! Finally!”

“Did you even read it you imbecile?”

“What? Oh. Um……WHAT!?” Hashirama leapt out of his chair, scattering even more papers. Madara threw both of his hands up in the air, matching his friend’s indignant panic with a frantic scowl.

“I know!” he shouted.

The both of them fluttered about in a way the public never saw them, two idiots who should never have been allowed to classify themselves as adults. Madara brought his arm back down and stared at the words, stroking them until they finally began to fade. Hashirama paced around the edges of the room and muttered to himself about going to help this man, upset that they had no real way to find him. Except that they did!

Madara dove for the brush Hashirama had abandoned on his desk, nearly dropping it in his haste to write upon his own skin. His strokes were messy and inconsistent where they were usually neat and precise. He blamed it on the shock he had recently suffered. Hashirama paused in his rambling to watch him, face lighting up.

“I didn’t even think of that!” he said. Madara ignored him as he watched his message sink down beneath the surface, rereading it as it disappeared to find its way to his soulmate.

Tell me where to bring the money.

He wanted to demand to know where his soulmate was but he had dealt with this kind of thing before. The method of communication made it more than obvious that his soulmate was still alive and he knew better than to make demands. He still couldn’t quite bring himself to appear cowed though, evident in the way he did not phrase his question as a request. He stared at his skin, waiting for another message to appear.

And waited…and waited…and waited…

Madara had begun to twitch by the time black letters finally appeared after a full ten minutes and Hashirama paused in trying to calm him down to point them out. He held his arm up for both of them to read:

Ignore the previous. The idiots are dead.

Hashirama and Madara looked at each other in bewilderment. The panic that had been welling up dispersed, replaced instantly by confusion. He wondered if he should infer from this that his soulmate was a fellow shinobi or if they might instead be a person of high status, kidnapped for ransom before being rescued by guards of some sort. He had a brush in hand, poised to ask questions, when he paused. He wasn’t really sure if he even wanted to write.

After all, whoever this was had never written to him before. He had tried to make contact several times in his youth and not once had he received a reply. Where he used to assume that his soulmate had died prematurely now he wondered if perhaps they didn’t want him. Either for personal reasons or because, if they were a person of high status as he supposed, they may have tried to avoid him because they knew they wouldn’t be able to be with him. Arranged marriages were fairly common within the aristocracy. Honestly, the possibilities were endless.

His friend hovered around him with a confused and worried face as he slowly put the brush back down without writing anything. Madara didn’t put much effort in to explaining himself, only murmured enough words to get Hashirama to leave him in peace. Then he left. He felt like being alone for a while to figure out how to react to what had happened and how he wanted to proceed.

He mostly stayed at home for the next few days – and he would slit the throat of anyone who dared suggest he was moping – until Hashirama sent words that the delegation they had sent to the newly formed Kumogakure had returned. He left for the Hokage Tower right away, knowing full well that if he were not present that his friend would forget to tell him most of the important details. He wasn’t happy that the delegation had been led by Tobirama. Dealing with that arrogant Senju would certainly do nothing to help the bad mood he had been wallowing in ever since his first writing had appeared on his arm.

Tobirama was still dusty and travel-stained, leaning against the wall when Madara strode in to the room and looking as if he could use a good night’s sleep. He was also, notably, alone. His delegation had included three others, each a minor member of a different clan. They called themselves the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, which Madara had always found insufferably whimsical, and he asked first thing where they were. They should have been here to give their own reports as well.

“Dead,” Tobirama grunted shortly, passing a hand wearingly down his face.

“What?” Hashirama exclaimed. “What happened?”

“We were attacked in the rooms that the Raikage provide for us. They hit me with a sedative. From a distance. While I was already asleep.” Tobirama sighed. “My team were slaughtered in their beds and I was taken, although my would-be kidnappers were stupid enough not to suppress my chakra. Can you believe they were going to try to ransom me?”

With his eyes still closed and his head slowly tilted back to rest against the wall, he didn’t see the way Madara and Hashirama both stiffened, looking at him with rapt attention.

“Ransom you?” Madara asked in a tone much more faint and gentle than he had ever used before when speaking with this man. Tobirama seemed not to notice. He didn’t even open his eyes as he snorted in derision.

“Yes,” he said. “They wrote a message to my soulmate, of all people. The writing woke me and I killed them, of course. Well, I killed most of them. I kept one alive and left him with the Raikage as a gift. He was sufficiently embarrassed that such a thing could happen right under his nose and get past his security. Needless to say, there will be peace with Kumogakure. At least for now.”

He appeared to either not notice the silence that followed his account or simply not care to question it. His head had finally touched the wall and he looked ready to fall asleep right then. Hashirama and Madara shared a look, an entire conversation happening without a single word spoken between them. Madara knew his old friend was silently urging him to say something and he was just as quietly protesting that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. What if he were wrong? Coincidence seemed a bit fa-fetched but it could happen.

His hand came up reflexively to catch the small object that suddenly came flying at his head. When he looked he saw that he was holding a calligraphy brush, just enough ink on the bristles that it could be thrown without splattering across his clothing. He scowled at Hashirama who smiled back, smug for having thought of it first.

Tobirama didn’t have much of his skin bared in the armor he was still wearing. Madara’s only options were to use his hand or doodle on his own face. His small, nearly forgotten inner child sort of wanted to see Tobirama with a streak of black down the middle of his nose but he managed to resist. Instead he drew the brush across the back of his left hand, a random streak with no elegance or purpose other than to make a mark and test his theory.

He wasn’t sure if his heart sped up or paused entirely when a matching streak showed up, stark against the pale skin of Tobirama’s hand. The tired man evidently felt the warmth of the letters on his skin because he roused himself enough to frown and look down, blinking at the mark with a single eyebrow raised in bewilderment.

“Ah, brother?” Hashirama caught his attention. “You might want to look at Madara’s hand as well.”

With an expression that absolutely screamed ‘I’m too tired for this’ Tobirama did as he was bidden. He swung his gaze around to find Madara with hand and brush still raised, staring for a few seconds as it slowly sank in what he was seeing.

Madara couldn’t say he knew Tobirama well enough to have predicted exactly how he would react but he could say for sure that he had not expected the deep blush that spread across his nose. He’d never seen the younger Senju blush before; it was a fascinating sight. He looked as if he were less leaning on the wall now and more using it to stop from falling over in shock.

“Is that-? Did you-?” He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of Madara’s hand so the Uchiha solved any questions he had by making a second mark. Tobirama looked at his own hand to see the first streak fading, replaced immediately by a replica of the one Madara had just drawn on himself. “Oh…” was all he said.

Hashirama clapped his hands together once, causing both of the others to jump slightly. “Well!” he said. “You two would probably like a moment alone to talk about this.” Despite his words, he didn’t seem in a hurry to go anywhere.

“I wrote to you,” Madara growled, unable to hold in his words any longer. “Many times as a child. Why did you never respond?”

“Ah…” Tobirama’s face morphed in to the most unique mix of incredibly embarrassed and incredibly annoyed. As he usually did, he went with annoyed as the reaction of choice. A scowl fell over his features and he opened his mouth to respond – only to be cut off by Hashirama.

“Well how old were you? You know, Tobi didn’t learn to read until he was almost fifteen. That’s why he reads so much now!” Their Hokage beamed, not at all phased by the look of betrayal from his brother.

“Hashirama!” Tobirama protested.

Madara raised his eyebrows in surprise. Then he furrowed them back down. “And after that? I’d already written to you. You knew I was trying to make contact. What about all the years since then, when you could have written to me yourself?”

Interestingly, the blush still lingering on those pale cheeks increased, spreading and darkening as red eyes fall to the side to avoid his own. He was half exasperated and half grateful when it was Hashirama who answered him once again, this time with what could only be called a shit-eating grin.

“Probably because he didn’t want to know just in case it wasn’t the one he wanted it to be,” Hashirama said. Tobirama’s head snapped up.

“Don’t you dare!” he hissed. Hashirama’s grin widened.

“He had a crush and it was so cute!”

“Brother!” Tobirama pushed away from the wall, reaching out to do something; hit his brother, throw a jutsu at him, tackle him and cover his mouth, the world would never know. Hashirama managed to dart just far enough away from those grasping fingers and give himself enough time to blurt out another of his sibling’s secrets.

“He thought you were really pretty!”

Tobirama froze, half leaning over the desk, and gave his brother a horrified look. Madara choked on his tongue in shocked disbelief.

“I beg your pardon?” he demanded.

“Shut up!” Tobirama half-shouted. “I was an adolescent!”

“That would hold if you weren’t still soooo in love with him!” Hashirama teased.

“Hashirama!” the younger man’s voice was nearly a screech this time.

Madara’s head was reeling and he suddenly felt the need to sit down somewhere. He watched Tobirama chase his brother around the desk, growling obscenities and threats while Hashirama tried desperately to stay just out of reach. Eventually Hashirama made his escape out the window and Tobirama followed after him, leaving the head of the Uchiha clan alone in the office of the Hokage feeling very faint.

“Tobirama is…in love with me?”

It took a while to pull himself together and go after the other two. It wasn’t hard, really. He followed the booming sounds and the concussive blasts of chakra towards one of the training fields specifically set aside for the more powerful fighters in the village to vent their destructive tendencies.

When he arrived he found Hashirama wailing for mercy, hunkered down under a thick shield of wood with Tobirama coming up with new and interesting ways to manipulate water to cut through it. The ground was torn up and several trees had been decimated and Madara reflected that out of all the people in the village no one threw a temper tantrum quite like the three of them. He wouldn’t even try to deny that he reacted much the same to his own frustrations. Izuna usually tended more towards sulking and Touka usually just plotted revenge. Mito he preferred not to think about. He and the two quibbling siblings, however, usually tended towards property destruction.

He didn’t feel any need to announce himself since he knew Tobirama would sense his chakra so Madara simply settled back on to his heels and waited until the man who was apparently his soulmate finally decided to allow his brother to live. His attacks ceased, leaving him huffing for breath at having expended so much chakra while already so exhausted. He still gave one last kick to the nearly decimated wooden dome before storming away – in the opposite direction of Madara. Madara scowled and hurried after him, leaving Hashirama to slink away and lick his wounds alone.

He caught up with the younger man as he was opening the front door to his home.

“What?” Tobirama snapped, whipping around to growl at him.

“Have you truly been in love with me since you were a teenager?” he asked. He got a scowl in return.

“Did you only follow to mock me? Because I have better things to do than stand here–”

“Oh would you just-ugh!” Madara gave up before he had even finished his sentence. Frustrated and knowing that neither of them was good at communicating without misunderstanding each other, he did the only thing he could think of that might shut the man up.

He grabbed Tobirama by the front of his armor and pulled him in, planting a rather rough kiss right on his lips. Tobirama groaned like he hadn’t been expecting it but definitely appreciated the idea. Madara really only meant it as a way to shut him up. He didn’t expect to actually find himself sinking in to it, stepping a bit closer and cupping the back of a pale neck. He felt hesitant hands bunching in his hair and hummed approvingly. Tobirama shivering in his hold in response was also unexpected.

“We should perhaps not be doing this in the street,” he murmured against the other man’s lips.

Tobirama didn’t say anything. He reeled him back in for another kiss, stumbling backwards to bring them both inside the home and allow the door to swing shut behind them. Madara pushed him up against a wall, biting at his lips and then soothing them with gentle passes of his tongue. Tobirama tried to buck up in to him, growling when his armor kept them separated just enough that he couldn’t. Madara chuckled in the back of his throat.

“Eager,” he purred. Tobirama harrumphed.

“Shut up,” he said. He lacked his usual poison, breathless as he was.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Madara leaned in and laid a trail of kisses slowly up the column of Tobirama’s neck. He felt the younger man swallow harshly under his ministrations. “Have you truly been in love with me for so long?”

Tobirama grunted, his head tilting instinctively to give him more access. “Yes,” he admitted quietly. Madara rewarded him with a gentle bite.

“Hm, flattering. Another question? Why on earth did you not learn to read until you were fifteen?” Even as he spoke he marveled that any of this was happening. This morning he had been under the impression they had hated each other. He wondered where in between realizing this was his soulmate and now he had decided that he approved of the match. Not that it truly mattered. Now that he’d had a taste he found himself instantly addicted. Was it like this for all soulmates? An instant click?

“Ahh…” Tobirama sighed as Madara sucked gently just beneath his ear. “Um…what? Oh you…reading. Didn’t bother. Too focused on training. Do – do that again…”

He wanted to laugh because only Tobirama would be so focused on training that he simply didn’t bother with books until adolescence and then fall absolutely in love with reading and research. He didn’t laugh though because he was much too busy nibbling on an ear and tracing the shell of it with his tongue. Making Tobirama squirm was just so new and fascinating. It had absolutely nothing to do with how good he tasted or how right it felt. Nothing at all. He would swear to it.

“Don’t think I’ve forgiven you for ignoring me for the past twenty-some years,” he murmured in to the ear under his attention.

“Ah…sorry…?” Tobirama was, understandably, entirely too distracted to actually be sorry. That didn’t stop Madara from tutting at him in disapproval and nipping him sharply.

“Hmph,” he said. “You’re going to be.”

By the end of the night he had extracted a much more heartfelt apology. Tobirama still didn’t mean it though. He hadn’t exactly hated his punishment.

#why do i love writing all three of these idiots as giant dorks? #soulmate collection #rae writes #madatobi #madara #tobirama #hashirama #fanfiction #naruto shippuden