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recollins · 4 years

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Doctor’s Doctor (Spencer Reid x Reader)

Request: Could you do a Reid x reader where he has a secret significant other who is a surgeon or doctor? Pairing: Spencer x Neutral Reader Length: 4,568 Contains: Fluff, angst if you squint Warnings: None A/N: I have exactly no knowledge of medical procedures or the actual inner workings of a hospital. All of my knowledge for this was based off of my Scrubs obsession from like 2005 and harassing my CNA sister. Do not hold me to accuracy on any of it. Masterlist

Spencer was a notorious worrier. There was no denying that, no matter how much he tried to do so. From the amount of germs gathered during his commute to and from work, to the reliability of your alarm system that had gone out on more than one occasion, he always had something nagging at the back of his conscience.

After almost six months with your boyfriend, you’d grown used to his constant concerns. Overall, they didn’t bother you, despite his predictable worry that it did. Honestly, you found it endearing. You’d never really had anyone take an interest on your wellbeing the way he did, and it was just another reason to love him.

Though he wouldn’t admit it, you knew it stemmed from what he saw on the cases he faced. He’d tell you about the better cases, the ones they’d closed with minimal loss or the ones that hadn’t ended as badly as it could’ve, but he never spoke about the ones that didn’t have a reasonably decent ending. The ones that put the heavy, unyielding sadness on his shoulders that took his smile for days. The ones that woke him screaming in the middle of the night, leaving his bright golden eyes dull and haunted until you finally managed to lull him back to sleep.

He wouldn’t speak of them, but you could put the pieces together with the measures he started to implement into your life. When you’d first started dating, your own safety wasn’t something you ever really took into consideration, most evident by your old garage door.

Your house was pretty old – which is how you’d gotten such a good deal on it – and as you weren’t much of a do-it-yourself kind of person, you’d never put much effort into updating or remodeling the more outdated parts of your home. Most notably, your garage door was still the original one installed in the late 60’s. It was so old it wasn’t even automated; heck, it didn’t even actually lock. Since you had to manually open and close it, if you were in a hurry you’d just leave it open when you went to work.

Spencer nearly had a heart attack when he’d first found out.

He’d then hired a company to install a brand new door – complete with securing locks and an entry keypad – and spent an entire weekend testing and re-testing, ensuring you were safe. Ensuring you wouldn’t meet the same fate you guessed others had met on his last case.

“Double-check that it shuts all the way, and doesn’t go back up before you leave,” he’d told you numerous times, demonstrating exactly how to do it over and over again. “Always watch when it shuts to make sure no one slips inside.”

Two months ago he’d replaced the GPS in your car, explaining the model you’d had was susceptible to being hacked. That one you hadn’t fully understood – so what if someone hacked it? All they’d get are some addresses you’d gone to.

“What are they going to do with that, Spence? Figure out I spend way too much time at Target?”

You’d asked it to joke with him, trying to get a smile on his face for the first time that day. Though he tried to turn away before it showed, you caught the ache of regret in his gaze before he dropped it to the ground.

“Yes,” was all he had managed to force out, but it was all you needed to hear to understand why he was so worried. Since then, you didn’t question him. Though he couldn’t take back what had happened to the victims his team couldn’t save, he could keep it from happening to you. Worrying over your safety helped alleviate some of the guilt and sorrow that had taken up permanent residence inside him, you knew that much.

If it eased Spencer’s mind, it was worth the constant concern he showered you with. That’s what you repeated to yourself as, for the third time that week, you set off your own alarm trying to get into your house at just a little past two in the morning.

Cursing under your breath, you finally got the damn door open and rushed to the keypad on the wall, punching in the code Spencer had set up for you. Unsurprisingly, you got it wrong. He’d picked a completely random string of numbers, reminding you how easy it was to guess someone’s password or code because they made it personal.

There was only about fifteen seconds left before the system would alert the company, and that was the last thing you needed right now. Dropping everything in your arms to the floor, you jammed in the next six numbers you thought it was .

ERROR – WRONG CODE

“For the absolute love of fuck,” you snarled, going for another attempt. Your phone was ringing before you’d even hit the third number. With a tired sigh you propped the phone on your ear and muttered out a weary, “hello again.”

“Hi, this is Macy from ADT. We see your alarm was triggered and we were calling to ensure you were alright.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” you assured, still jamming numbers. Your phone beeped, and a quick glance confirmed Spencer was trying to reach you. “My boyfriend set up my passcode so well that even I can’t crack it.”

Macy chuckled on the other end and quickly ran through the security questions (that thankfully you’d set up) and in a few minutes the alarm silenced. Spencer had already attempted calling another two times, and if you didn’t hurry he’d show up there himself. Not that you didn’t want to see him, but you both were in desperate need of sleep with how hectic your work had been lately.

“Would you like to change your passcode?” Macy offered, and though it was tempting, you knew Spencer would be upset.

“No, it’s fine. Thanks so much,” you rushed, as Spencer called for the fifth time. You quickly accepted the call and said instantly, “I’m fine, Spence. I’m perfectly fine.”

On the other end of the phone you heard him give a sigh of relief, and you smiled just a bit. His care always touched you and settled the irritation. You’d never been in a relationship with someone who cared about you as much as you did them, and despite the annoyance you really did love how much he cared.

“I’m sorry,” he told you instantly, his voice sounding rough with sleep. “I know this happens a lot –“

“It’s fine, sweetheart,” you promised, scooping up your discarded things from the floor and shuffling yourself into the kitchen, dumping them all onto the counter now. “I’m sorry I woke you up again.”

It was a real pain, having the company call your emergency contact every time this happened. But, just like all the other occasions, Spencer assured immediately, “don’t be. I’d rather be woken by a false alarm than by hearing you were hurt.”

The smile toying on your face couldn’t be helped, and you both sat in warm silence for a few moments. As much as you’d like to talk with your boyfriend – especially after the chaotic night at the hospital you’d just had – you knew how exhausted he had to be.

“You should be sleeping,” you murmured after a few more moments. When he didn’t respond at first, you thought he’d actually fallen asleep. And then, in the background, you heard the sound of someone crying. “Spencer?”

“It’s – that’s Henry,” he mumbled as you heard him get up. You could just picture him rubbing at his eyes as he yawned and explained, “Will and JJ wanted some time alone so I took him for the night. I… think he might be getting sick.”

Your eyes narrowed as you leaned back against the counter. Sure, you weren’t a profiler, but you knew your boyfriend, and you knew that tone of voice. That was his ‘knee-deep in the pit of worry’ voice. The only person he was more protective of than you was his godson.

“You were already awake when ADT called, weren’t you?” He didn’t answer immediately and that confirmed your suspicion. You let out a heavy sigh as you chastised, “Spencer. You just got back from a case and you’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours –”

“He had a fever when I put him to bed,” he defended as you heard him open the door.

“It’s common for children’s temperatures to rise a bit at night,” you reminded him. “And kids his age are prone to colds, which is nothing some sleep can’t help.”

“It wasn’t there this afternoon, though,” he persisted; you could hear the beep of the thermometer, and instead of arguing with him (which you’d learned was a fruitless edeaver not even an hour into your first date) you stayed quiet until you heard it beep again.

“What’s his temp?” you prompted; there was no reply. “Spencer.”

“99.9,” he mumbled. “But that’s higher than it was an hour ago –“

“Does he have any other symptoms?” Again, there was silence. If you could’ve reached through the phone to smack him you would’ve. “Spencer –“

“He didn’t eat as much at dinner,” he finally replied, and you heard him put a hand over the phone as he asked softly, “Henry, does anything hurt?”

There was a tearfully mumbled no and you stifled a sigh, dropping your head back to stare at the ceiling. This man was gonna worry himself to death before he even reached forty. “Okay, Spence. Give him some Tylenol and get him to drink some water. If there are no other symptoms present, he probably just has a cold. It could even be allergies, and he’s just uncomfortable.”

He was quiet at first; you heard him walking down the hall, and then the snap of a light. A moment later he was rifling through what you assumed to be a medicine cabinet as he finally said meekly, “I’m sorry. I know I’m overreacting –“

“Hey. It’s fine. You’re just concerned,” you reminded him gently. “But between the almost back-to-back cases you’ve been working and now me setting off my alarm every other night, you’re wearing yourself out.”

Spencer was quiet again, and you knew him well enough to know he was trying to think of a way to refute what you’d just said. Thankfully though, whether it was the exhaustion or a hint of rationality surfacing, he finally gave a sigh and just mumbled, “I know. You’re right.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” you teased, playful smile taking over. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

Finally, you got a laugh out of your boyfriend. He chuckled into the phone, and you easily pictured the bright, toothy grin he was flashing as he huffed, “I know you heard me.”

“Huh, did I? You’ll have to remind me what I heard…”

“I’m not repeating it,” he giggled. You heard Henry’s door opening again and he said a little softer, “I’ve kept you up long enough. I’ll get Henry to sleep and I’ll lay down. I promise.”

“Good. I want you to try and get at least a couple hours of sleep, alright? Doctor’s orders.”

Spencer gave another soft chuckle as he assured, “I’ll give it my best shot, given Henry stays asleep.”

“Alright, baby. I’m gonna go shower and lay down,” you told him, making the executive decision to leave all your crap on the kitchen counter until after you’d slept. “I’ll text you when I’m up. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Spencer murmured, the smile clear in his voice. It was still a relatively new thing to say, and you both got a little giddy every time. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“’Night, Spence.”

Smiling to yourself as you finally hung up, you checked the time and groaned. It was just a few minutes shy of 3am now, and you had to be up in four hours for your next shift. The hospital was ridiculously understaffed; you’d been working overtime just to make sure there was coverage.

Honestly, it was a miracle you’d even gotten to leave tonight. You were pretty sure that if one of the nurses had caught you before you reached the door, you’d still be at work. As much as you wanted to pass out right away, you forced yourself to shower. Finally, ten minutes later you were collapsing into your bed, falling asleep almost the second your head hit the pillow.

Your phone was ringing what felt like only minutes later. Groaning, terrified it was the hospital calling you back in already, you blindly pulled your phone off the charger and dropped it onto the mattress, laying your head on top of it, too tired to hold it up.

“This is Dr. Y/L/N –“

“Y/N,” Spencer’s panicked voice interrupted. “I’m so sorry to wake you, but Henry’s gotten worse.”

It took every shred of self-restraint to hold back the groan of pure frustration. Wearily, you peeled an eye open and peeked at the clock on your nightstand. 3:58am stared back at you. “Spencer it hasn’t even been an hour –“

“He threw up twice, and he says his stomach really hurts,” he rushed, his voice pinched and at least two octaves higher than normal. “His fever’s at 100.8, it’s going up quickly –“

“Hey, okay, okay,” you said quickly, forcing yourself to sit up so you didn’t doze off, the symptoms starting to float around in your groggy head. Escalating fever, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain… those weren’t a good combination. “Alright. Spence, take a breath.”

“Y/N, I’m worried about –“

“I know. But I need you to calm yourself down,” you insisted. Spencer huffed at you – and you rolled your eyes at his stubbornness – but you heard him take in a deep breath and blow it out. “Alright. One more.”

He did as he was told, and when he started speaking again his voice was at least a little less panicked. “I – should I take him to the ER? He’s gotten a lot worse and he’s crying, but I don’t want to worry Will and JJ if I’m just overreacting –“

This time, you were worried he wasn’t, and it’d be quicker to diagnose him instead of having them hole up in the ER. You were already slipping on your sneakers and tugging a sweater out of your closet to throw on over your pajama top. The sweats you had would have to do; you didn’t have the energy to put real pants on.

“Text me their address,” you cut in as you jogged down the steps, swinging through the kitchen to snag your pile of necessities from the counter. At least the laziness paid off; you didn’t have to go hunting for your crap.

You heard the ping of a text as you got into the car, and Spencer’s voice was back a moment later. “Thank you so much. I’m sorry. I know you’re so tired –“

“Spence, really. It’s okay,” you said gently, glancing at the address and typing it in. “My GPS says I’ll be there in about ten minutes. I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.”

“Drive safe,” he told you instantly, and then before hanging up he reminded you, “be sure your garage door shuts all the way.”

The little bit of irritation that had risen up was put out instantly, smile tugging your lips up as you watched the door shut all the way. Despite the exhaustion, you knew this was how Spencer expressed his love. Making sure he and Henry were alright was the least you could do to show him you loved him just as much.

Spencer had the door open before you even finished knocking, pulling you into a hug you both really needed. He clung to you, face burying into your neck for several moments before he mumbled,

“I really am sorry, Y/N. You’re so tired and if this is nothing –“

You pulled back and wordlessly cupped his face, pulling him in for a hard kiss. He relaxed under your touch almost instantly, his hand flitting up to wrap around your wrists, keeping your hold on him.

You broke from the kiss just enough to murmur, “Spencer, I don’t know how else to say it, but I’m being completely honest when I say it’s okay. You’re not overreacting. Henry’s worsened and it’s a legitimate cause for concern. You have every right to worry.”

Spencer nodded, his nose brushing yours, thankfully not picking up on the undertones of genuine concern in your voice. You didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily, but you’d seen these symptoms so frequently you were almost certain this was well-deserving of his panic.

You didn’t pull out of Spencer’s hold; you never did. It was an unspoken rule that it was never you that cut off contact. He wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of guy, but when he was, you never wanted to be the one to push him away or shut him down when he needed you. When he finally did release your wrists to step back, you swept your thumbs over his cheekbones, comforting him before motioning for him to lead the way.

Henry was curled up on the corner of a dark blue couch, clinging to a stuffed Spider-Man toy as he whimpered into the cushion. Kneeling in front of him, you gave a warm smile as you reached out and swept his hair back, feeling his forehead.

Way too warm, you noted; before you could even ask, Spencer was holding out the thermometer. He sat beside Henry at his legs, and despite the pain he was clearly in, Henry instantly shuffled himself around to lay his head on Spencer’s lap, one of his hands coming to tangle into his pajama pants.

Your entire heart melted instantly, seeing the two of them together. You’d never seen Spencer with kids, but it had instantly become one of the top five most beautiful views in the world.

“This is my friend, Dr. Y/N,” he introduced, his large hand settling on Henry’s side, rubbing soothingly. “We need to take your temperature again, okay?”

Henry sniffled and nodded, opening his mouth. As you started the thermometer, you shifted a little closer and said, “Hi Henry. I hear your tummy hurts.”

He gave a small nod, and when the thermometer beeped he reached up and held it out to you as he whimpered, “it hurts real bad.”

“I’m sorry you don’t feel good,” you apologized as you took a quick look at his temperature. 101.2. That wasn’t good. “Henry, can I take a look at your tummy really quick?”

With another small nod, you and Spencer helped him roll onto his back. Even just that small movement had more tears flowing, his little face screwed up as he turned and buried it against Spencer’s thigh.

There was no doubt in your mind now, but just to be thorough, you pressed lightly against the right side of his stomach. He let out a yelp of pain, and that was all you needed. Spencer caught the look on your face as you got to your feet.

“Spence, can you set up Henry’s car seat in my car?” you asked, keeping your voice calm so you didn’t panic the tearful little boy staring up at you with wide, worried eyes. Picking up on your demeanor, Spencer said gently,

“Of course. Henry, I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay Uncle Spencer,” he mumbled, allowing himself to be settled back on the couch. The moment he grabbed the car seat, Spencer all but sprinted outside. You tugged out your phone, moving to stand in the hall while keeping an eye on Henry as you dialed the nurse on call.

“Hey, Ashley, it’s Dr. Y/L/N. I know I’m not scheduled until seven, but there’s an emergency and I’ll be bringing in a patient,” you explained hastily. With the hospital so understaffed, even with priority it might take a while for Henry to be taken care of. You’d be his surgeon today.

“Is everything alright?” she asked hastily; you heard her already assembling the paperwork you needed.

“I’ll need an operating room and a team ready to perform an appendectomy.”

The sun was just coming through the window of the post-op room, illuminating Henry’s sleeping figure in a soft orange glow. You’d stopped in on your way to the waiting room, just to make sure he was okay.

Ashley held his chart out to you and you gave her a smile of thanks as she said, “I know it’s usually me talking to the family, but since this is personal I figured you’d want to do it. I’ll stay here with him for now, he should be up pretty soon.”

“You’re the best,” you said, giving her arm a thankful squeeze before you made your way to find Spencer and a couple of very concerned parents.

This wasn’t how you and Spencer had planned to introduce you to his team; he’d wanted you to come to one of their dinner parties in a few weeks to meet everyone at once. Though it was sudden and unexpected, you’d be lying to say you weren’t eager to meet JJ and Will. She was his best friend and after all you’d heard about both of them you were more than ready to make introductions.

The first waiting room only held a sleeping couple and a frantic woman pacing around the chairs. As you got closer to the second room, though, several different voices could be heard. When you stepped into the room, though, you hadn’t been prepared to see every member of Spencer’s team gathered inside.

He’d shown you dozens of pictures, and it wasn’t hard to match the faces to names. Penelope had to be the extremely colorful woman in a seat against the far wall, leaning on a painfully attractive man you instantly recognized as Morgan. Two older gentleman – Hotch on the left and Rossi on the right – were standing aside, talking casually with one another, their eyes on the panicked couple across from them.

Will and JJ were on the edge of their seats, hands clasped together as they talked quietly with a women who was unmistakably Emily. She was the first to spot you, brows raising in question. You cleared your throat and asked,

“Henry LaMontagne?”

All seven heads snapped to you instantly, catching you off-guard. You met each stare briefly before an eighth head popped out from behind Hotch and Rossi. Spencer looked exhausted, but his soft brown eyes lit up seeing you.

“Y/N, how is he?” he asked, hurrying out of his chair and coming around to you. JJ and Will got up as well, and though they were focused on you, you didn’t miss the way the rest of the team was looking between you and your boyfriend.

“He’s just fine,” you assured, and everyone visibly relaxed. “Thanks to Spencer, we got him here before his appendix burst and the surgery went through without a hitch. We’ll have to keep him overnight – it’s just normal procedure after an emergency surgery – but he’ll be good to go home tomorrow morning.”

Spencer moved unexpectedly, his arms instantly encircling you and pulling you into a tight hug. For a quiet, blissful moment the chaos of the morning came to a halt. Instead of panic and exhaustion and worry, it was just the two of you, caught up in your own world, both relaxing into one another after the last few grueling hours.

“Thank you so much for all you did,” he murmured against your neck, pressing a swift kiss against it as he reluctantly pulled back, smiling up at you with nothing short of love in his eyes. “You’re really amazing, you know that?”

You went to answer when a throat cleared from behind Spencer. Your boyfriend’s eyes slowly widened in realization, as if he’d just remembered the other people around you two. When he turned and stepped aside, you saw the rest of his team watching you both with grins.

Spencer’s ears and cheeks were flushed a dark pink, and you knew your own face wasn’t any different. Morgan was the first to move, stepping up and clapping your boyfriend on the shoulder as he looked between the two of you.

“Well, well, well. Look’s like the doctor’s got himself a doctor.”

Spencer, bless his adorable heart, was still at a loss for words. Whether it was the lack of sleep, the adrenaline of the last few hours finally wearing off, or the buzz of what you guessed was probably way too much caffeine (because you knew he’d been abusing the free coffee down the hall), you really couldn’t say. All he managed was a quick nod, and then a feeble attempt of,

“This – um, Y/N is my doctor – no, wait. So, we’ve been dating, um –“

With a laugh, you reached out and squeezed Spencer’s hand and then held your other out to Morgan. “I’m Y/F/N Y/L/N.” After a brief moment of deliberation, you grinned and added, “I’m the doctor’s doctor.”

The others laughed as you shook their hands briefly before turning to Will and JJ.

“I’m sure Henry’s awake by now. If you’d like, we can go check on him and I’ll have my nurse bring your entourage to meet us in his room.”

“That’d be fantastic,” JJ sighed, looping you into a hug of your own as Will rubbed her back soothingly, smiling in thanks at you. “Really, we’re so glad you dropped everything to help Henry.”

Giving her a hug of reassurance, you motioned for her and Will to start down the hall. Before you got more than a step and a half, Spencer’s hand had caught your own. When you turned to him, you were surprised to see the characteristic frown of worry on his face.

“What’s wrong?” you asked quickly, looking between his soft hazel eyes, concern of your own starting to spark.

“I just – is this okay? This was all so sudden, you just got thrown into the middle of everything, I didn’t give you any warning to meet everyone and –“

“And you know what?” you cut in gently, and he tipped his head a hint in question. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

“Really?” he asked softly, a small smile peeking through his frown. “I just… I didn’t want to overwhelm you or… or scare you off.”

“You don’t need to worry, Spence. Really.” He raised his brows and gave a pointed glance around us, and I let out a laugh. “Okay, okay. Garage doors and sick kids are one thing, but me leaving you? Never. You’re sort of stuck with me.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he teased, and to your surprise, he leaned down and pressed a soft, sweet kiss to your lips before stepping back. “For the record, though, I now have proof that I don’t always worry too much.”

Well, shit. He had a point. Rolling your eyes, you made down the hall after JJ and Will, shaking your head at Spencer as he started down the hall for the coffee machine. Alright, if his constant anxieties didn’t send him to an early grave, the ungodly amount of caffeine he consumed certainly would.

You’d save that to worry about for another day.

#criminal minds #Spencer Reid x reader #Spencer Reid x you #Spencer Reid x y/n #Spencer Reid imagine #Spencer reid #reid #fluff #rea writes #requests

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arcticdementor · 3 years

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Warning: a longpost

Tensions between the social effects and "imperatives" of technological developments and elements of our human natures are not new — people have been debating it as far back as Diogenes, Confucius, and Laozi. But in recent discussions, I note a rather stark polarity.

On the one end, you have the people for whom the human must be subordinated to the technological. Issues created by technology cannot be fought, only individually adapted to, mostly via more technology. The people who will admit — or even go on at length — about the toxicity of social media… and yet for whom the idea of actually doing anything about it — other than individually tuning out if you can — is anathema, and they react with horror when you raise the possibility. People whose response to widespread obesity, particularly among the poor, as a result of modern lifestyles is pushing bariatric surgery (like some doctors friends and family have dealt with). Or at further extreme, singularitarian or singularitarian-adjacent ends, the people who look at our society's increasing difficulty producing future generations, and say either that it's no biggie because Any Day Now™ we'll cure aging and no longer need future generations, or it's no biggie because Any Day Now™ we'll figure out the tech for mass-manufacture of future generations like Brave New World or Battletech's Clans. At the furthest, you have the people who take the Marxist arguments about the "inherent contradictions" between industrial "capitalism" and human flourishing… and say 'so much the worse for humanity; time to start engineering the AI corporations to replace us dumb monkeys' like Nick Land.

Then you have the people at the other end, who go Luddite. Again, you can go back to filthy hobo Diogenes for this one. You've got the "environmentalists" who see anything more advanced than being a hunter-gatherer as the "rape of Mother Nature" and who unironically quote Agent Smith. Then there's the Right-wing primitivists who note that preindustrial societies cannot afford much leftism, and therefore argue that giving up electricity, indoor plumbing, medicine that works, etc. (let alone escaping this small, fragile planet) are all a small price to pay to Own the Libs.

But Confucius, while acknowledging that the creations of the Sage Kings, in bringing us from the "Greater Harmony" to the "Lesser Peace," created a certain tension between societal requirements and our human nature, pointed out that such things, like buildings, and clothing, and fire, and agriculture, and writing, et cetera, are worth the trade-off as opposed to a more natural lifestyle as naked cavemen. But, accepting the trade-off doesn't mean we can't do things to ameliorate those tensions and try to reduce the negative impacts.

Tyler Cowen posited his future Average Is Over dystopia of the vast majority of the population relegated to being impoverished, packed into overcrowded favelas eating beans and bugs, pacified by VR, drugs, and omnipresent government surveillance and enforcement… and when confronted about the undesirability of such and how we might avoid it, simply proclaims it inevitable: the Economy has spoken, and we humans can only obey its dictates. Whatever happened to the idea that our tools and our economy exist to serve us, and our human needs, rather than us existing to serve their needs? Okay, probably most people who held that view from a secular perspective likely ended up embracing Marxism as the means of doing so, and then Marxism failed. (This links in to my unwritten potential post about how Wokism is neither Marxist nor postmodern, despite drawing partially from both.) And those who did so from a religious perspective ended up divided by their various specific sectarian views and given to "solutions" that boil down to unsupported individual piety — or else, being the Amish.

There's that whole bit about "unless you're over 60, you weren't promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia." And plenty of people have covered this ground before, about how our visions of technological progress used to be about how it would make our lives better and allow us to better pursue our various human ends, but now are all about how it will make our lives worse and force us to pursue its various inhuman ends. Even the few "optimistic" visions are hyper-individualist, and when confronted about man's nature as a social animal, either insist that said needs will be met through "relationships" with individualized AI surrogates (the whole "2d > 3d," yay sexbots view), or else that the need for human connection will prove yet another "flaw" to be engineered out in whatever manner of "posthuman" creatures replace us.

I look back on those more optimistic visions. At what past societies considered a better future, before we gave up on it. And I note how even the utopian visions of 19th century socialists are, compared to our day, rather spectacularly un-Woke — and definitely better than 'soypunk dystopia, but at least with rainbow flags and nobody being misgendered while they toil for Amazon.'

And, of course, if you go further back, you eventually end up before any serious ideas of progress. Then, ideas about a better world were not speculations about the future, but about the afterlife. I recall a couple of discussions about Bleach, Soul Society, and the average Tenth Century Japanese peasant's idea of Paradise; or (IIRC, prompted by some terrible "humanity curbstomps the invading Legions of Hell who are wielding Bronze Age weapons against modern militaries" story on SpaceBattles) what a Bronze Age goat-herder would consider Heaven?

Are subordination to technological imperatives or Luddism really the only two choices? Are we really left with either the poor afflicted with starvation or the poor afflicted with obesity? For those of us who find the society "progress" has created increasingly alienated, and who prefer older visions and modes of living more attractive, is total renunciation and "going full Amish" really the only alternative?

I look at writers like Chesterton and Lewis and Tolkien, and their ideal social structures, and I think, isn't there some way that technological progress can be channeled towards allowing us — or, at least those of us who want to — to achieve a better, more comfortable, more broadly-available, less labor-intensive version of the Shire Hobbit lifestyle, rather than better digital circuses to numb us while we all eat bugs in our dorm tubes in Scat Francisco?

Or, for those of you so inclined, a better, more comfortable, more broadly-available, less labor-intensive version of the Oscar Wilde lifestyle? After all, I note that a perennial condemnation of aristocrats has been about what big, degenerate perverts they are behind closed doors — that de Sade got in trouble, more for atheism, but also for the "writing publicly about it" part? I mean, aside from maybe @ponteh2dhh1ksdiwesph2tres, where are the people trying to work out, instead of "Fully-Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism," how we might create "Fully-Automated Decadent Space Aristocracy"? Where are the people trying to use computers and AI to create a better version of the Imperial court of Elagabalus without all the slavery and need for foreign conquest to pay for its orgies?

Is there even a term for this idea, of using technology to create better versions of the past, rather than simply letting "progress" take us wherever it will, and all negative consequences treated as simply things we must each individually struggle to avoid and cope with, with all of us in competition against one another to become one of those chosen few ultra-rich tech overlords wealthy enough to escape living in the favelas, the few powerful enough to avoid ruination should one end up on the wrong end of Twitter cancelation?

Wow. Look at me, gloomy pessimist that I am, actually calling for some optimism and hope for the future. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have even bothered with the effort of writing this post. Because of course the only possible futures are all terrible.

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blankdblank · 4 years

Text

Safe Pt 2

Pt 1

@satanskatze

@himoverflowers, @theincaprincess, @aspiringtranslator, @sweeticedtea, @thegreyberet, @patanghill17, @jesgisborne, @curvestrology, @alishlieb, @jogregor, @armitageadoration, @fizzyxcustard, @here2have-fun, @lilith15000, @marvels-ghost, @catthefearless, @imjusthereforthereads, @c-s-stars, @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore, @mariannetora, @shes-a-killer-kween, @ggbbhehe4455

@changlingkhat

…

Hopes of not being alone rose again in the morning to the automated replay of the second disk of shows beginning for the second time his ears strained finally to hear the subtle sigh in a shift to the sound of another triple beep from a scan. One sharp gasp and a relieved sigh had the Prince smirking to you saying, “Vision, morning.”

“Yes, yes it is. One hundred percent restoration of eye sight. Very well done.”

“Thank you,” you groaned back clearly rubbing your face through his floating to Loki’s bed, asking at his nearness, “How is Loki’s?”

The direction of the question towards the Prince alerting him to the three beeps above his face granting Vision to say, “Still recovering nicely. Improvement is constant so far.” Like one would pet a dog he patted Loki’s shoulder saying, “Very well done.” Loki simply laid still to the red man straightening up to the distant smoke alarm urging a clearly faked gasp from him, “My muffins!” Out the open door he flew to soar up through the hall to his own floor to save what could be saved of said muffins.

Softly Loki couldn’t help but chuckle imagining the look on Vision’s face in fleeing and wet his lips moving to sit up hearing you folding your blanket that was laid on the couch. “Would you like a shower?”

“Yes, I seem to have, perspired in my sleep. Quite the active dream.” Brushing the blankets back he slid to the edge of the bed wetting his lips waiting for your nearing him with a hand raised.

“Perhaps I should remove your bandages first, or I will have to climb a sink in there.”

“Ah, perhaps, yes.” A clip on the side of his head was undone and steadily the top bandage was unwound granting no less light in its removal at all worsening his hope he could have been somehow miraculously cured overnight. Second layer was removed along with two swatches over his eyes and he asked, “How are my eyes?”

Under his lids milky pink eyed looked back at you on the face cow patterned between Jotun and Asgardian toned skin at his body’s trouble in holding a steady shield while the white scars of the lingering burn marks were being healed by the shared healing abilities your dna continued trying to remove fully while also repairing his eyes. “A lovely shade of pink like strawberry starburst.” The comment had his mouth drop open and you said easing a strip of his hair back behind his ear, “I am a Doctor Loki, you are entitled doctor patient confidentiality.”

“You are a Doctor, or a scientist? Because the two are very different, there are many Doctors on this team.”

“Strange was a Neurosurgeon while I worked for over a decade as a Pediatric Surgeon, which between brains and babies I do have to be biased in saying my field is more complex than an eight pound grey blob.” The argument made him smirk knowing the pair of you had it out several times arguing over fake doctor shows on tv all the time on how that surgery would actually go often leading to you being at odds.

“Pray do say what you truly feel.”

“No teasing, same as you and Thor, he’s got a hammer and you have your magic and daggers with all the cunning you can muster against that giant puppy dog of a Prince.”

“I am not a puppy?” Rolling your eyes you shook your head while he wondered what you were feeling tapping fingertips across his forehead and upper cheeks, “I can be quite adorable myself.”

“True, I did not mean to offend.”

“None taken, though the comparison to the cuddle friendly creature has been made several times towards my brother.”

“In truth it is because he can be quite aloof and oblivious to things while ultimately friendly and eager to please.”

“Ah, there it is. You say that as if it is a fault, it has served him well.”

“Perhaps, and sent many down a downward spiral when their self image is based on approval of others.”

“You do not seek approval?”

“I am a Doctor, no one expected me to be their best friend, they paid me to save their children. To give them as much time and as full a life as possible once they left my table, or a kind send off when I wasn’t able to. No one certainly liked me then when a baby is lost.”

To the solemn tone of your voice his hand shifted from his knee to the side of your leg wishing he could find your arm, “Oh, forgive me. I had no intention-,”

“No, medicine has its limits, as do my abilities. Generals and Surgeons alike see the ins and out bloody battles skirting death.”

“I take it there was a patient here to drag you in to all this.”

“You could say that. One of those whales you brought here made me break my secrecy and rush out to help people on the streets.”

“Ah,”

“I got another three months in my hospital before the questions drove me out on how much I was relying on my surgical prowess or just hiding behind my ability. Either way the horse learned to tap dance it shouldn’t matter if he’s wearing a bonnet or not.” To himself he chuckled and you said, “The scabs from the burn are mostly gone, as is the swelling and bruising. What color did you want to wear today?”

“Uh, I haven’t worn my maroon shirt in a good while, and the black jeans.” He heard his closet door open, “Gold under trousers and socks should do nicely.”

“Under trousers,” you mouthed to yourself assembling his requested items that were folded in a pile on top of the towel you picked for him and settled into the bathroom that once you started the shower for him the tour of how his clothes were stacked and where his soaps were lined up along with his loofa and towel for when he was done.

Once the door was shut the Prince stripped nudging the discarded clothes aside as you had said to, stepping into his open shower sighing under the hot water beading over his skin both welcome and a near to too hot around his eyelids he kept shut. From soaping up his body a small dab of shampoo was used to ensure none would be left in his hair or risk any getting into his already wounded eyes. To himself he basked in the wafting scent of the soap washing away the faint musk he awoke with due to his sweat inducing dream for what seemed to be a suitable amount of time signaling his fumble to shut the water off and find his way back to his waiting towel.

Pats and slides of the towel across his skin found him dried and naked ruffling the towel through his hair tightening up to its natural curly poof drawing a huff from the blinded Prince in no way capable of straightening it out himself outing him of another secret of his daily routine. A leg at a time his briefs and socks were added with jeans next and shirt after, bending down he found his clothes he counted his way back to the door and located his closet and hamper inside from there then to bed again with comb in hand to try and manage something of his curls.

“Breakfast,” followed a knock on the door that slid back.

Following a huff he said, “Not a word on my hair.”

“Really? Add four feet to yours and you will face my daily dilemma Prince Charming.” Curiously his head tilted and a foot tapping his had his hand up for the walk to his table again. “I’ll wrangle your curls,” you said taking the comb to work with the straightener from the bath to his chair to work strip by strip all the strands to his preferred slicked back style. “There, now you won’t have to face the agonizing shame of displaying those curly locks.”

“That is a stretch,”

“So you would parade your curls for all to see?”

“No, commoners see my hair and they want to touch it. I slick it back and they leave me be.”

“I think that might just be from the horns.” You teased.

“Ha, ha.” He flatly replied lifting another of the breakfast wraps you had made for him.

“Then again some women like the horns.”

“Doubtful,” Your throaty giggle had him lowering his wrap facing his head to you, “The giggle?”

“Not to be crude, but horns would give them something to hold onto.”

“In what sense? For battle that would be a poor place to grip an opponent with horns on their helmet.”

“Wow, now I feel bad bringing it up,”

“Tell me.”

“I have a feeling it would jar a certain view you might have on the world.”

“The suspense is not assisting you in any way. Tell me now, if this is any way to do with how my attire is being mocked by this culture tell me now.”

“Trust me it is not being mocked in that sense.” He gave a pointed huff and you said, “Fine, a partner would take hold of the horns in an amorous sense.”

“Amorous?” he said flatly with brows furrowing.

“Were you to be holding a lover off the ground while having your way with them the horns would give them something to hold onto if they weren’t against a wall.” His mouth fell open and you said, “You asked.”

“You think that?!”

“I don’t have to think it there are countless women writing quite detailed stories on what they would do with you if given the chance, in several different manners of attire from battle armor to, well, a towel or nothing at all.”

“You think that, that is what I am asking.”

“Which part are you asking, if I would assume the helmet could be used to anchor ones self or if I imagine amorous encounters with you?”

“I-, well one could bet a kingdom you wouldn’t think of me in that way.”

“They would definitely lose a kingdom with those odds.”

Even more his brows furrowed in a lean closer to you with his arm on the table between you once his wrap was back on the plate, “What?!” He sharply asked to the thundering race of his heart.

“I may be ace but I do tend to have guest stars in my dreams from time to time. Majority are quite domestic on your part if that helps calm you down.”

“And the rest?”

“I won’t bother you with.”

“They are concerning me, tell me. Every detail, now.”

“Loki you couldn’t possibly think a demand could have me spilling my every fantasy to you. Prince or not no kingdom would give you that power.”

“I am a fantasy for you?” he lowly whispered as it washed over him.

“Smile like yours could make a whole cosmos go dark with shame for a glimpse of it.”

Had he the ability to blush fully he would have been beet red in his turn of focus back to his plate and finding his wrap again while muttering, “A simple yes would have sufficed.”

“If it helps,” you said halting his motion for food and tilting his head to face you again, “You don’t smile very often, or around very many. For most it is just imagination. They don’t get to know you.”

“Ah, then they would change their minds.”

“No, they would realize you don’t live in rooms of satin sheets and tapestries of yourself in golden halls lit by twenty four seven roaring fires in fireplaces bigger than cars with servants to line your path with rose petals and incense burners for dramatic effect.”

“That is oddly specific.”

“That is one of the vaguer stories.”

“Are there any on Thor? These stories?”

“Thor’s usually involve harems, from my own single browse through summaries, while you are for the most part seen as monogamous.”

“I am expected to be King, why would I not be faithful to my partner?”

“Can’t read about any monarchy where there isn’t a Mistress or pretty young maid being toyed with while the Queen has taken a mood against her husband. Even in Norse mythology Odin had lovers.”

“I am not privy to much of those details pertaining Mother’s marriage-,”

“I know the myths aren’t real.”

“Mother would have slaughtered him, as was her right were she to feel the least bit disrespected.”

“Good to know. She sounds pretty spectacular, had to be to put up with your dad.” Again he paused and you said, “Thor said he pushed you off the rainbow bridge into space. Got to be awful, I can’t imagine you were a terrible child, out being cruel or hurting people or spitting out demons deserving of being pushed into the nothingness of space. Now that kid from the Omen, I would punt him into space, or the girl from Poltergeist, or that meowing boy from the Grudge, him no problem.”

“Meowing boy?”

“When your eyes heal we’ll watch it. Demon child.”

“He truly said pushed?”

“That was how he said it to me first time I carried his sappy drunk self to bed when he was mourning you.”

“Thank you, for telling me.”

“I do have to ask, he says you stabbed him often,”

“In jest, yes.”

“Jest, how deep, paper cut, or to the hilt? And did you study anatomy to know where to not kill him or just guess at it?”

“Most of the time no more than an inch or two, they were very small blades, close to scalpels I would guess. Our bodies are sturdier than mortals.”

“Yes, but most children aren’t built like Thor is now, and if he was I have all the more respect for your mother.”

To himself he chuckled and replied, “There is an extra layer of fat in our youths, fat and fluids which over time shift to musculature in our young adulthood.”

“Still not building confidence.”

“We survived, just fine.”

“Alright,” you giggled out, “Eat up so I can wrap your head again.”

“Do you have to?”

“At least another day until the bruises heal. It is very sensitive to light.”

“Ah, one more day.”

“By then by my guess you should have basic grey blobs coming into view, start taking in light sources faintly.”

That was the start of it, a second day of being essentially blindfolded through an audio book playing while he lounged to a call taking you away from the tower leaving Peter taking up Loki’s table to not be distracted while working on his latest paper. A break from which leading to the teen’s fumbled try to explain what was happening to the audio of the show he’d missed the day prior through the film with you.

“Whoa! Table, out of nowhere!”

“Table?” Loki asked curious for what was happening in the fight scene just beginning in the otherwise uneventful show.

“I don’t know who threw it, but Hilary is now on top of Nathaniel. It, it looks like she’s shoveling cake down his shirt. I think that’s cake, unless it’s the gravy, but he’s not screaming like he’s been burn-,” Peter cringed and groaned, “Ooh, nasty. Emma just got clothes-lined into the laundry room by Ben, ooh,” again he winced while Loki could hear Sam and Steve from the kitchen on the main tower socializing floor coming to clamber over the back of the couch to join in the show. Both groaning too as Peter cringed again, “Robert just got shoved out a window, that stained glass one Hilby worked so hard on.”

Sam, “Oh she’s going to be so pissed when she gets back from that project in Rio.”

Bucky’s bound over his usual chair was hinted by the sound of the springs rebounding under his weight on the couch Nat was clearly on by her near hiss from whatever she was holding nearly spilling over with hushed Russian curses to follow. Loki rarely spent time with all of the team so casually, yet this train wreck of a show even in his blindness he wouldn’t dare miss out on granted you a break from the full day of caring for him. The warmth alone of the open walls of windows lighting the room with sunlight proving your assumption he required the wrap another day. Clips of this show could be re-watched but for his usually isolated self he did enjoy his silent place in the group reacting to the hour long debacle each week to fill his social time quote a good chunk of the way matched by laundry day and retrieving his purchases.

In all this though he missed you. Among the others your absence was noted by the lack of giggles from the chair no one else claimed except for Bruce, with whom you shared a rivalry on who could reach it first with tongues displayed for the loser or far below mediocre faces cast to one another on the loser’s path to another spot. Your losses however would place you in the bare spot on his right, a tight squeeze but Peter would squish himself up against the arm so Loki could casually scoot over to Sam and Steve practically intertwining to make space with glares through arms being laid out behind or in front of the pair naturally prone to shifting in place.

Wafting of smoke however hours later you returned to the tower helping Bruce with his clothing dilemma, who when his stretchy pants had failed to shrink again had taken two of the new worn seams around the band to ease his arms through like a giant pair of overall shorts. Strange with a wet cat’s attitude hovering with a tarp under him to collect the water he was covered in exited next. Quicksilver raced to change his now halter top of a shirt with pants shorn to chaps as Wanda was in Vision’s arms still laughing about her brother, draped in Vision’s cape after her skirt had been caught and the giant swarm of giant moths had been led away by her sweater she tossed down a stairwell.

There was no logic in the mission at all and to Peter’s confusion you were inside the body of a giant octopus plushie you had cut a hole in the head of when a binding of Hawkeye’s leg had been followed by a flame thrower incident in the carnival you had been sent to inspect requiring an improvisation of clothing. “She’s wearing an octopus...” Peter murmured and Loki’s head turned.

“Who? How does an octopus-?”

Tony strolled in with a woven kilt of stuffed snakes and popped beach balls arguing over his ear piece to the man who had given them the tip off with arms full of his dismantled suit off to his office to repair that not caring about his state of undress. Hawkeye, though drenched seemed altogether unfazed and limped in to stretch out across the sliver of couch between Natasha and Bucky using both their laps as cushions. Stealing snacks to munch on only making Bucky ask, “How did it go?”

Hawkeye chuckled to himself, lifting a finger to each thing said, “Shark tank, giant moths, flamethrower clown heads, enough said.”

Natasha, “I don’t think it is.”

Loki cut Hawkeye off asking, “Was Miss Pear injured?”

Hawkeye, “Oh yeah. Damn near singed her to bits those clowns, but she managed to push Bruce out of the way into the shark tank as Quick slammed through the wall freeing the moths who went crazy and Vision traces the signal for the heads as Hulk just about tore apart the rest of the booby trapped carnival wing we were in.”

“She was burned?! Is she in the hospital?!”

Hawkeye said as Sam waved a hand in front of his eyes reminding him of Loki’s eyes and that he couldn’t see your irritated return. “Oh no, nothing like that! Burns healed right off, though she was sent scrambling for something to wear. Tore the head open on a giant octopus and hopped right in it. We have pictures for later. Don’t you mind her,” he said pausing at Loki’s head turning through the lower half of his face and neck visible turning blue in his body’s try to blush in thinking of your body being revealed bare in an eruption of flames making Sam bite his lip and bury his head into Steve’s shoulder to keep from laughing out loud. “Just needs a good scrub down and something fluffy to put on and she’ll bounce back with a good meal. Ordered food on the way, nice and fattening soul food to brighten her mood again.”

Post subtle clearing of his throat to his face rippling back in patches to his shielded shade he asked, “Was anyone else injured?”

Hawkeye replied, “Just Tony’s pride a bit when a shark tore off the leg of his suit and then his arm got stuck in one of those duck shooting games and he blacked out on the tunnel of love. Went round three times we figured before finding him. But Strange handled the moths and we managed to put out the fire before we left. They wanted to remodel the carnival anyways.”

Loki, “How did Banner manage to calm down again? His last change I recall took him a week.”

Hawkeye, “Ah no, just a few minutes, Pear taught him this meditation trick so he can talk to the big guy.”

Natasha, “Good it’s finally working. He was skeptical at first.”

Sam, “No doubt he tried hiding in India and Asia for years trying out all forms of meditation, not sure what she did different.”

Strange strolled in stating after having changed and left his suit hanging up on his bathroom, “Merely tapped into his frontal lobe telepathically and gave it a good hard kick.”

Sam chuckled as Bucky said, “That your medical opinion?”

Strange, “Ha ha, no, he agreed to be scanned while she worked. I’ve never seen brains light up like that before. Full rage and dark frontal cortex to a Christmas tree moment where he was able to steadily switch back again. Then it was like mood lighting and Bruce said it was like he could hear what Hulk was saying.”

Loki, “So they may converse now, interesting.”

Strange, “More feelings than words, at the moment at least. Though Hulk did take offense to something that Venom said.”

Loki, “Venom?” Wondering who that might be.

Hawkeye, “Oh, um Pear said he was her brother. Researching a big story said he just wanted a scoop and wouldn’t get in the way. Bounded off into the distance like a creepy giant bullfrog.”

Strange, “If they are related I certainly can’t see the resemblance. Unless she’s got a secret three foot tongue hidden from us.”

Peter, “Three foot tongue?”

Hawkeye, “Oh ya, he’s creepy.”

Strange, “Thought you might know him Peter, huge white spider on his chest and back,” Peter shook his head, “Oh well, you don’t need to be his friend, just out there running around naked like that.”

Loki, “Miss Pear’s brother investigated in the nude?”

Hawkeye, “Well, he doesn’t exactly have any junk to need hiding, all smooth down below in the nether regions.”

Steve, “Why were you scoping out his nether regions?”

Hawkeye, “Because his nether regions landed right in front of my scope when I was laid out keeping watch. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

The commercial was used to full advantage and even with the show back on the commentary picked up lasting through the rest of the show. Behind Peter in a weaving path from the kitchen Loki finally made it to his room again with special box of crackers and muffins from Vision added to his collection of food in his closet. Alone on his own floor with you again following the wall to his door he drew in a breath and to the best he could manage traced the path to your door from memory. Tracing the doorway with his hands he confirmed it was yours by the imprint of a squirrel from the frame of your wardrobe Steve had been less than attentive in guiding to its new home causing the side to split and it getting shipped back for a replacement out of his pocket by his own offer. Shakily he drew breath again and raised a hand to knock only to find air in the slide of the door to the side.

“Whoa,” you said shifting your weight to miss his curved knuckle from colliding with your cheek, in a reach up your hand planted on his forearm his hand found as he quickly flashed you a grin.

“Hello, I wished to check on you. I heard you had a rough trip.”

“Not as rough as it could have gone.”

That was when he paused. It dawned on him that he had never seen your suite in this tower. He had noticed the indent in the door on the way to the laundry room you shared and caught no more than a glimpse of the screen used to block off the milky door panel to your bath that Tony was still ‘debating’ which would fit the flow of the floor. One of his latest claming quirks. Starting from light switch covers to doorknobs and now the doors themselves inside the suites with front doors that slid into the walls. Even ignoring the personal taste of the person using them he had chosen and even without practically any guests in your apartment still you angled screens to not be caught through the obscuring glass even just crossing the room.

He wanted to see it all. You had slept in his apartment. Memorized it enough to share how many steps to and from everything had been laid out. Still a mystery he ached to know everything about you he didn’t yet know.

“Everything ok?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat, “Stark has not bought you a new door yet, has he?”

“Well he bought it, but might as well asked it be hand carved from the horns of the goats Thor has in Norse myths that regenerate each morning after he ate them from supper for the three month wait on them.”

A ghost of a smirk eased across his lips and he said, “You missed quite the episode. Unless you watched it yesterday.”

“Watched it on the flight back, needed to calm down.”

“Yes,” he swallowed again, “I heard of the fire, and your burns.”

“Burns are easy. Though now Stark will be distracted from decorating to come up with a super suit for each of us B team members and replacing Bruce’s stretchy shrink pants.”

The conversation only lasted a few moments more before he turned saying, “I should leave you.” That was deliberate, as was his wide armed walk back to the opposite wall luring his guide from you to lead him back to his couch that to silence his reiterated notion he was a burden a film was agreed to.

Morning came and instead of on his bed across his couch he was draped. By the feel of his palm legs were crossed and laid out to his side, meaning you were seated upright. Breaths slow and deep hinting to a deep sleep showing he could sneak just a bit more. Anxiously he wet his lips and his heart began to race in the cupping of your hip to ease you down more to lay flat. With one hand he did this impossibly heart racing task, blindly moving you to lie under him, his first tiny victory a pausing moment with his hand settled on your bare belly below the shirt bunched up in the move and knotted under your back. Proof of your lingering slumber came in a grumbling shift ending with the legs beside his uncrossing to lay one over his granting him a chance to lift his hips and slide you just a bit closer so he might drape across your chest.

He knew right where he wanted his head right in the curve of your neck so he might ghost his lips across the flesh there for a brief try of a kiss. There where like the other curves and folds of your body the natural scent you gave off lingered the longest now revealed to be exactly why his mouth tended to water in your every entrance to a common space. It was a musk ever so gently turning his chin that now mingled in the sweat come from another humid day in this supposed paradise of a home wrapped in glass, a material Stark had yet to master the workings of insulation and placing all for full display to the neighboring sky scrapers left it either a bit too warm or chilly in the mornings, no in between.

Just one, he promised himself, only he could feel the ridges on his skin protruding to his Jotun side releasing its own cinnamon like musk of its own he knew you could sense as in his few times of crossing paths post training or missions among the women nearby all came closet to floating like cartoon characters to chase his wafting aroma passing by. A hum, one pleased glorious hum had urged him on and breaths began to lighten, the neck under his lips began to shift welcoming more and to the opening of your eyes your head turned to align with his in a blind hover above you. Low and velvety he spoke his request, “I would very much like to kiss you, on the lips.”

Back to him you teased, “Kissing me again won’t hurry things along.”

“This has absolutely nothing to do with that,” he said leaning in, more for your ear making you smirk and reach up to turn his head to guide him lips to yours. Just one. The promise came again, yet somewhere in the mingling of tongues and a grip of his hair bandages shifted and lost focusing on the kiss he ached to press his forehead to yours in pausing breaths leading to a breathy giggle from you at untangling the cloth there revealing his fully blue face and still milky pink eyes taking in just the slightest hint of a head beneath his. Faint shoulders and neck were traceable in this grey mysterious blob of a world he did not care to inspect when you were here and the deliberate act of kissing was at hand. Forehead to forehead a kiss broke granting another breath and a moment for you to adjust the legs subtly wrapping around his.

Down again and lips met freezing fully to the sound of his door sliding open and Wanda’s stunned crack of her voice came with Vision’s hushed arguments muffled behind the door closing again surely in her guiding the scan happy team member surely pouting on his way to make breakfast instead, a task granting you time before that next scan. “I should probably go,” somehow in his open mouthed stammering you had found your feet and him his knees luring him to the edge of the bed as you turned away.

“Please stay,” he pled finding hold of your wrist with the other hand outstretched to meet your waist he felt you step into so he might smooth his hand there sweetly, “Please. Don’t run away. I swear-,”

“Loki, I’m all sweaty. It’s just, my pheromones, all pheromones.”

That had him huff and ease you down to sit on his knee, where through the slits of sunlight he could clearly trace the elegant blob of you inches from his face, “Please stay,” he pled again leaned in to press a sweet kiss just ever so slightly off center to your cheek where he had meant it to go. Guiding your hand up to lay an arm around his shoulders aching to have you embrace him through another fiery kiss just like moments before.

“I have to shower.”

“Shower here,” he offered, “Then you will see it is not pheromones to me.”

A sigh and you rose taking hold of his wrist this time parting his lips, “Come on then. Leaving you sweaty would defeat the purpose.”

A gathering of clothes came with yours summoned from your room with the discarded layers left outside the door. Surely it was his blindness to have you so boldly offer to be bare before him, so that you might have the courage to admire him fully without fear of him possibly finding something disapproving on your bare figure. Only, he never could. Wrinkle, fold, scar or blemish he would never turn you away or make you feel anything less than a Goddess had he the chance to convince you it wasn’t a farce.

Ripples, to the first drop of water there were flashes of light in a pale blue reminding him of the neon caves back on Asgard. Pure darkness with ripples of glittering blue waves of water lapping against the sea cave’s floor and walls reflected upon the smooth black walls and ceiling above. And he could see you, no not in color but he could trace every bead and stream of water cascading and outlining your magnificent shape before him. Separate shower heads were claimed and used with soaps shared and passed between you to fully scrub leaving him blinded to streaks of you in the bubbles hindering full paths of water down your skin that lit up once more when clear.

He didn’t know how long he waited, merely that he wanted one more. “See, no pheromones.” Up behind you he could sense the ache to arch the elegantly curved back into his chest to the press of his lips to your shoulder.

“Loki,” The only word it seemed you could say or needed to urge him on as a kiss to your neck followed with a shift around you to find your lips together again. Against the wall he planted you in the loop of your arms around his neck to balance on your toes. With hands tracing down to your hips and once there to your neck his lips went again, trailing down and down until he hit his knees and the most perfect gasp came to his somehow stunning lift of your thigh to rest on his shoulder.

Chuckles came to the unsteady drop of your body he cushioned with a drape of his arms behind your backside to his apology, “I apologize, my Starlight.” He hummed guiding you onto his lap where in the moment of your steadying he relinquished control allowing you full advantage on top of his lap guiding the pace through a clinging amorous unending kiss muffling the moans, hums and eventual cries of ecstasy.

From the water to bed dried and tucked into his arms. Warmly he held you against his chest knowing you hadn’t gotten much sleep seated up like that. So to a soft film playing he cuddled close ignoring the food left to wait on the table until you stirred to eventual hunger taking him and you to the kitchen to make something more forgiving to ignorance if you were to get distracted again.

#Loki x Reader OC #Blinded Loki

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ts-unpopular-opinions · 4 years

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Side Tracks opinions part 3: Logan

(Here I go again! Logan’s playlist is a bit more straightforward than the other bois, so heres hoping this one doesn’t take me as long 🤞)

1) The Elements: Not much to say. It just a literal musical list of the periodic table of elements. You can’t get much more Logan than that 😂 Also, Logan likes chemistry!

2) White and Nerdy: Apart from the obvious listing of nerdy things and the legitimate title, Logan feels like he doesn’t always get taken seriously enough by the other sides (“I wanna roll with the gangstas, But so far they all think I'm too White and nerdy” “I wanna bowl with the gangstas, But, oh well, it's obvious I'm White and nerdy”). Basically Logan is a big nerd and a dork. He knows that and he’s worried that sometimes it ostracizes him from the others.

3) Algorithm: Logan doesn’t understand humans very well, at least, he doesn’t understand anything but the logical aspect of humans and the world. He has a different view on life than the other sides (“Supercomputer status, walkin' along streets”). He thinks that the dilemmas and problems in the world would not exist if it wasnt for humans throwing a wrench into all of it with their feelings and emotions (“Humans don't understand, humans will sell a lie. Humans gotta survive, we know we gon' die. Nothing can live forever, you know we gon' try. Life, is it really worth it?”). As the song puts it, Logan believes that the theoretical algorithm of life is perfect, and he doesn’t understand why it needs to get muddied and ruined by simple human issues (“Looking for something worth it, the algorhythm is perfect, mmh”).

4) Fitter Happier: This song is interesting because it shows us the innerworkings of Logan’s thought process. A lot of what he does involves simply planning daily tasks (things as small as drinking or eating) based on what he knows is most healthy for Thomas. The song completely lacks any sense of feeling or emotion and is, as I stated, a legitimate list of things to do in a day. All tasks are put in place to keep Thomas fitter and happier, however, Logan doesn’t have a grasp on emotions and clearly doesn’t know all of the things that Thomas needs to be happy AND healthy. I’ll just list some interesting daily tasks in the song here: “Regular exercise at the gym, three days a week” “Eating well, no more microwave dinners and saturated fats” “Careful to all animals, never washing spiders down the plughole” “Favours for favours, fond but not in love” “Still cries at a good film” “Still kisses with saliva”. As the song goes on, you kind of get a sense that Logan is losing his grip on Thomas, or doesn’t understand why Thomas isn’t feeling satisfied with the plan that, to him, is perfect. Thomas feels trapped in the life that Logan plans for him, and Logan does not understand why that is (“A pig in a cage on antibiotics” “No chance of escape”). There are also a lot of points in the song where Logan shows that he finds emotions to be a weakness, or something to hide away (“Will not cry in public” “Nothing so childish” “No paranoia”).

5) Medicine: I’m not 100% sure what this song is about, but it talks a lot about ancient philosophy. Basically being curious about the world and people in it. I’m guessing that Logan just likes philosophy and thinks that people should always stay curious. Logan really values curiosity and thinking (of course).

6) The Watchtower: This ones... interesting to say the least. If you’re a fan of the broken blue crayon theory you may want to look into this song a bit more. The song talks about being broken and wanting to restart things, possibly showing that Logan will crack at somepoint and need to reevaluate how he’s been handling things (“I'm breaking, I need another start. Far away, From the city lights.”). Ultimately, I think this song is about Logan’s neutrality over all the situations that the group handles. He doesn’t really see problems as good or bad, because he can see logical scenarios with both options (“From the watchtower, We can see things coming. Good or bad”). He knows that this mentality makes him a bit unlikeable because the other sides want him to side with them, but he doesn’t really mind (“I don't mind, If I'm impopular-ar.”).

7) The Breach: Another interesting one which I feel like could have two meanings. My first take was that this song was about Virgil escaping the dark side of Thomas’ mind and mixing in with the light sides. Logan wasn’t quite sure how to process this new arrival at the begining and had no control over his escape (“Generally operating normally, A small anomaly has become evident” “There is spiking in the pulse of a member of the cargo” “First: the recommended course of action should be to Administer a sedative to all the cargo via ventilation” “Now: one specifically is up and moving to the door”). After looking into the lyrics a bit more though, it seemed like a lot of them could be applied to Janus as well, specifically his first appearance when he was disguised as patton. Logan knew from very early on the Janus was taking pattons spot, but was unable to say or do anything about it due to Janus being the only one with “the access code” (“The ship is fully capable of automating this But requires an approval code from the administration” “He has found the access panel situated in the floor. He is entering the codes and overriding has begun. Reading rage in the nervous system, nothing can be done”). Either way you see it, I’m nearly positive it is about a dark side coming out to the light and Logan not being able to control it.

8) The Letter C: I LOVE THIS ONE 😂 And it’s the first in our list of songs that Logan vent’s about Roman in! The premise of the song is that someone insulted the main singers rap and so the main singer goes off about the comeback he wished he would have used to tell this guy off. It’s honestly such a funny song and I couldn’t give it the justice it deserves here by just listing the lyrics. It gives off huge rap battle vibes and I’m sure Logan would have been imagining the one who insulted him as Roman. Here’s just some great lines that I’d like to point out: “Man I wish I could’ve hit him with a zinger. Should’ve served him with the verbal equivalent of a middle finger.” “I’d say, "Are you insured medically? ‘Cause you sure better be When you’re broken in half from provokin’ the wrath” ““Aw shit!” “Oh crap!” Everybody within earshot would be like, “Oh snap!” I’d high five all around while the guy falls down in a ball on the ground” “I pull out a sharpie marker, Narrow my eyes through my Warby Parkers. Like, “Watch who you’re f-in’ with, with your f-in’ ish””.

9) Galaxy Song: Logan trying to calm Thomas down in the only way he knows how: Gushing about how great the natural world is (“Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving” “Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, Are moving at a million miles a day” “Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars” “And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe”). It’s cute, its wholesome, and Logan tries his best to be comforting 🖤 (“So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth; And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!”).

10) Streaks: Logan explains to Thomas that growing up is a process that he needs to experience. He understands that it’s hard and scary, but he believes that if you follow the plan and stay in the lines, everything will work out alright (“You can decide on the colors that you like As long as you stay in the lines” “All these years of filling out papers, Building a future, keeping your head down. Tryin' to keep a head on your shoulders” “Cause It's all a piece of the plan. It's something You'll understand When you're older” “Give em what they need to move on, then you let them go”). As he’s explained in canon, he doesn’t really see room for taking a lot of creative liberties in life, and he believes Thomas should follow the mold set out for everyone in life. That’s the logical way to survive anyways.

11) What I do for You: (This song and the next song feel pretty connected to me, so keep that in mind) In this song, Logan really shows his pride and ego. He believes he is the most important side for Thomas and that he will get Thomas the furthest in life (“I want you to survive” “I'm your only hope, I'm your savior too. Every single test You've been ever carried through”). Despite his superiority complex, he knows that Thomas doesn’t see Logan as important as he should. Logan knows how much he does for Thomas but is a bit annoyed that Thomas never seems to notice (“I couldn't ever give up on you, But don't thank me”).

12) Erase Me: Oooh boy. This ones heavy... Logan is PISSED. The whole song feels like a jab at Thomas, daring him to get rid of Logan to see what happens. Logan still feel important and knows his necessity as part of Thomas, but he’s frustrated with the lack of recognition he gets for all of the things he does (“Would it be easier? To just delete, our pages And the plans we've made” “Erase me, so you don't have to face me. Put me in ground and move the daisies” “So what will you do? With no me for you” “Erased me, what the fuck is this? You're crazy, Turn around and do each time, Replace me”). Logan sounds MAD in this song, something that he’s shown in canon quite a few times. It’s interesting that Logan alone seems to be the only side whose shown such anger and furstration, this song just adding to his list of instances. I’m not sure what that could mean going forward...

13) Art is Dead: Well what do yah know? Another rant song for Roman! We all know how Logan feels about Thomas’ choice of career as an entertainer and this song is basically just that. Logan can’t understand Roman’s dreams and aspirations for Thomas because they don’t make any logical sense to him (“ Have you ever been to a birthday party for children And one of the children won't stop screaming Cuz he's just a little attention attractor. When he grows up to be a comic or actor He'll be rewarded for never maturing, For never understanding or learning That every day can't be about him. There's other people, you selfish asshole!”) Logan would rather Thomas take up a job that is benefiting society and making his world a better place (“Cause I wanted my name in lights When I could have fed a family of four For forty fucking fortnights”). Roman’s self-centered and fantastical view on Thomas’ future is just childish to Logan and he feels like Thomas may one day grow out of it (“I'm just a kid And maybe I'll grow out of it”).

14) Equation: Oh man... I just don’t know. The song mentions a mom and dad, so I automatically go to a younger Thomas and his younger version of Logan. The song just asks a bunch of questions that feel like things a little kid might ask (“Have I made you cross? Have I made you sad? Have I made you proud Mom?” “How white is the snow, Does it matter after all?Will I ever learn How to fly like a birds?” “Are you going to school? Are you far from home? Are you well alone Dad? Will I be a brave? Will I be a bright? Will I be a good grown up?”). Logan may have represented more of Curiosity in Thomas’ younger years than Logic. A lot of Logan’s songs have an encompasing theme of wonder and curiosity being amazing things to have. I think Logan really values that part of himself/Thomas.

15) Sunrise: Yes! The love song everyone! I’ll shut that down right away and say that Logan DOES NOT UNDERSTAND LOVE. He isn’t even capable of “love” as some of the other side may be. He of course understands love and how it works, but it’s merely a process to him, and a word which he’s openly stated that he doesn’t like to use. So lets try to look at this from Logan’s perspective. The song is literally about learning spanish, yes its clearly romantic, but its about learning spanish. Something that Logan has shown an interest in since wayyyy back at the begining of the series. I like to imagine that this song came up in Thomas’ playlist and Logan was overjoyed that Thomas was not only learning something from the song, but also learning spanish!

16) One More Time with Feeling: This one feels kind of tough to crack. To me, I get the feeling that Logan’s again talking about the others and the fact that they don’t listen to him. He prepares his words and hopes to get through to them, but is only welcomed by blank faces and misunderstanding (“Everyone takes turns. Now it's yours to play the part And they're sitting all around you, Holding copies of your chart, And the misery inside their eyes is Synchronized and reflecting into yours”). After getting shut down, Logan tries again ‘with feeling this time’, hoping to get through, but it falls flat over and over again (“Hold on. One more time with feeling. Try it again, breathing's just a rhythm. Say it in your mind until you know that the words are right”). Logan has been trying really hard to appeal to the others in different way, but if seems like it never works in his opinion (“You thought by now you'd be So much better than you are. You thought by now they'd see That you had come so far”). He want’s to finally be shown the respect that he believes he deserves and hopes to one day be loved by the others and much as they love each other (“And the pride inside their eyes Would synchronized into a love you've never known. So much more than you've been shown”).

17) In My Mind: Logan has a drastically different view of Thomas’ future than is actually the case (“In a future five years from now. I'm one hundred and twenty pounds, And I never get hung over Because I will be the picture of discipline” “And I will be someone I admire And it's funny how I imagined That I would be that person now, But it does not seem to have happened” “Maybe I've just forgotten how to see That I am not exactly the person that I thought I'd be”). He’s realized that he has some unrealistic expectations for Thomas and that’s odd to him as, logically, things should have played out how he thought they would. At the end of the song, Logan seems to accept the fact that even though Thomas hasn’t strictly followed the plan that Logan expected, he’s still doing great and succeeding at life (“I am exactly the person that I want to be”).

18) Not Perfect: This song has a lot of lyrics, but most of them can be taken at face value. Logan recognizes that everything in Thomas’ life (his world, his country, his house, his body, and his brain) is not perfect. I’m sure it’s a metaphor for Logan realizing that he, himself, is not perfect and he’s begining to realize that he can’t solve every problem.

19) Human: This song is also long. REALLY LONG. But thankfully it is fairly straight forward. When life is getting Thomas (or any of the sides down) Logan will list facts about their life as a human that are supposed to be comforting or inspirational. It’s basically just like Galaxy song, but a bit more personal and loving. Here’s just some cute quotes from it to keep you all going: “For you are a force of skin & nails & heart. A walking Monae, you're breathing art” “The average human heart will beat over 100 million times in one lifetime. I'm sure you'll find someone who won't mind skipping one for you” “You need to grow up. You need to grow out of things. When something doesn't belong, even your body knows when it's time for that thing to be Replaced” “15 million blood cells are Destroyed in a human body every second. If your body can get over it You can get over that last relationship”). Basically Logan trying to ground Thomas in reality to make him realize that everything he’s going through is just human.

20) Time Adventure: (ughhh this song make me cry every time I hear it) That being said, I was a bit surprised to hear this on Logan’s album and not Pattons. Not only that, but it’s his finishing song. The song is all about growing up and how, even though time passes, you will always have the good memories that you built along the way. It’s also about how, no matter how much time passes, the singer and the person theyre singing about will always be friends. Seems kind of like a weird song choice for Logan right? It seems like it needs to include Patton in someway... So perhaps its Logan trying to comfort Patton. Patton has shown a fear of growing up and changing, so perhaps telling him that he’ll always have a friend in Logan no matter how the times change is something that Logan does to ease his worries.

(Oh boy... this one took a long time 😅 Sorry about that! Like usual, let me know what you think and give your own opinions if you’d like!)

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #ts sanders sides #ts unpopular opinions #ts unpopular answers #ts side tracks #sides tracks #logan sanders #ts logan #ts sidetracks

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tygerbug · 5 years

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Who Reviews

Doctor Who: The Witchfinders, written by Joy Wilkinson. In the history of Doctor Who we've had three stories both written and directed by women. The last was Barbara Clegg's Enlightenment in 1983, an unusual story which stands out from its era and is easily one of the best of the 80s. The Witchfinders is a very solid tale, and you might say it succeeds as a traditional Doctor Who story more than any other this year. I've seen someone on Twitter call it the best so far and I can't concur with that, but this is a good opportunity to look at what's really been happening with Doctor Who this year overall.

Chris Chibnall as showrunner has brought us a Doctor Who which functions better as Genuine Adult Drama (GAD) than the Davies and Moffat eras did. You can feel the influence of Davies, but they've shaved his trademark silliness off the whole thing for a more muted feel to the proceedings. This is paired with an anamorphic desaturated feature-film look to the visuals. At times the series even feels bland and flavorless, but at its best we feel the weight of the adult concepts the TARDIS team are faced with - American racism in "Rosa" and the British-sparked conflict between Muslims and Hindus in "Demons of the Punjab." The Witch trials of the King James era are a weighty, depressing subject, and it seems a little bit of a shame to bring traditional Doctor Who alien monsters into it. To the episode's credit, it goes full horror movie with this. There's some CGI but it's mostly makeup straight out of a zombie film - specifically the Evil Dead series. It feels too scary for kids, and Doctor Who should occasionally feel like that. And oh, let's talk about King James. Russell T. Davies established the traditional of the "celebrity historical" where The Doctor meets a well known historical (or sometimes fictional) personage, often played by a recognizable guest-star actor. So here's Alan Cumming, a big-name actor coming in to play his part as an absolute lark. Openly gay and affecting a comical upper-class Scottish accent of some kind, he's a delight throughout, whether flirting with Ryan or trying to learn The Doctor's secrets. The half-comedic performance does undermine him a bit as a threat, but it's nice to see a guest actor having fun with a part. Cumming is a smart enough actor to never go fully over the top with it, pitching his performance at the right level so that it doesn't break the scene. The three companions have been reliably good, but not in a showy or cartoonish way. They only occasionally get standout moments. There's a lot of humor and energy to Jodie Whittaker's performance as The Doctor, which is not unlike David Tennant's popular Doctor, but it often feels like that energy is muted by everything else around her, as if she's acting in a tank of water. The Witchfinders is the first episode to show The Doctor struggling to get anyone to take her seriously, due to her gender. King James doesn't recognize her as being in charge, and she's sentenced as a witch and drowned. I'm glad an episode dealt with this, but it also speaks to a fundamental, and peculiar, powerlessness inherent to Jodie Whittaker's version of The Doctor. In the 60s-80s series, it was common for The Doctor to be mistrusted by everyone at the beginning of a story, and locked up until he could prove his worth. Jon Pertwee's Doctor spends much of Frontier in Space going from one prison cell to another. The faster-paced post-2005 series rightly dispensed with that as padding they didn't have time for. Psychic Paper was introduced to give The Doctor credentials and credibility at the beginning of a story, along with other tricks often involving the Sonic Screwdriver - which by this point is an all-purpose tool but can also be used for its traditional purpose of opening locks to get The Doctor - and the writer - out of a dead end. The Psychic Paper fails The Doctor in this one, as King James doesn't respect a woman's authority. It was usually easy for The Doctor, as played by Eccleston, Tennant, Smith or Capaldi, to talk his way into a position of authority, and Whittaker's Doctor managed that in her first scene. But increasingly it's become apparent that The Doctor is not doing an amazing job of solving every problem in an episode like an all-powerful God, or kid's TV hero. The Davies and Moffat eras often wanted to show you how amazing and powerful The Doctor is. This Doctor keeps ending up with endings in which some immediate threat has been vanquished, but larger societal problems linger, and people we care about are dead. Last week's episode, Kerblam!, set up an apparently dystopic capitalist future, where an Amazon-like retailer had replaced 90% of employees with automation, and was required by law to keep a 10% human workforce. The employed workers were treated like machines, and were miserable, and the unemployed were apparently living in even greater misery and poverty. The episode couldn't, or wouldn't, imagine an automated future where the unemployed are cared for. Capitalism can't imagine that either. The Doctor sees that misery and doesn't do much to help. She solves the immediate problem that is killing workers, so that the company can keep on running, more or less as it did before. This has been something of a running theme. The Doctor doesn't fix anything for citizens of this galaxy at large. The Doctor can't improve the racism of 20th Century America, only observe it and make sure that Rosa Parks' protest happens as scheduled. You could say the same about the border dispute tearing India apart in 1947. History isn't changed, only observed and mourned, and the role of the colonizing British in creating his situation is not dealt with in any overt way. Grace dies in the course of The Doctor's first adventure. The Doctor feeds the dangerous Pting, calming it for awhile, but sets it loose afterward. We never see The Doctor deal with the giant spiders or, more importantly, the toxic waste that created them. That waste was itself the product of deregulation under the laissez-faire rule of Chris Noth's Robertson, an uber-capitalist narcissist psychopath who is compared to Trump (though not as vile). The Doctor and Ryan are seen to trap the large spiders for a natural death, but what happens after that is not dealt with onscreen. Instead we get this companion team officially joining The Doctor in the TARDIS. In every episode this year, we witness a very messed-up situation, often caused by some intersection of capitalism and racism. But it's not a situation The Doctor can fix by the end of the episode. She can only mitigate the stranger, monster-based elements, the threat that they're facing immediately in the moment. She removes whatever is gumming up the gears of progress so that the actual horrors of the society in question can continue unchallenged. Of course in the more historically-based episodes it's too much to ask that The Doctor Solve Everything, in capital letters. Is she supposed to solve racism? But the more fantasy-based episodes like Kerblam! have much less excuse. It's telling, I think, that these episodes overall are better at dealing with America's failures than Britain's. The Doctor is powerless to deliver a truly happy ending, or even to show she's trying for one, and I wonder if that's intentional or due to a lack of political consciousness on the part of the writers and showrunner. This year on Halloween, the leftist Youtube channel Philosophy Tube did a piece about the horrors of the witch trials, and how they were used to break the power that women had in a feudal agricultural society, including traditional medicine, and how this led to modern capitalism. He covered the same material on Twitter, and I'll link to that here. https://twitter.com/PhilosophyTube/status/953277894813536256 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmk47kh7fiE "The Witch-Hunt is classic Divide and Rule: paint women as dangerous so the new proletariat are busy fighting 'witches' instead of joining together and fighting the rich. There are massive rollbacks of women's rights … Records were often kept of how much land or money was seized from them, but not how many were murdered." It's an interesting take on just how bloody the transition to an industrial capitalist society was, and how the people and their "old ways" had to be broken for this to happen. It was a means of controlling women's options, and the options of the average worker, something that's still relevant to today's society. In some ways we still live, today, in the cages that the witch-hunters built. Today's politicians like Mike Pence are just witch-hunters in different clothes. And that's something this Doctor Who story doesn't deal with. I've mentioned this, but when the Rosa Parks story was announced, I saw a lot of people on Twitter, who aren't Doctor Who fans, assuming that a Doctor Who take on Rosa Parks would by nature have to be a disgusting exercise in tastelessness. Maybe they thought The Doctor would be taking on some kind of Racism Monster. Apart from introducing The Doctor and a villain into the proceedings, "Rosa," as an episode, was tastefully done. While it didn't show clearly that Rosa Parks planned her protest beforehand, it did show that Parks was an activist who planned her actions alongside others (including Dr. King), which is more than many history books do. But their fears were not unfounded. It's common for pop culture to create extended and elaborate metaphors about bigotry as if they're making some grand statement, but also reinforce that bigotry as somehow justified along with it. In Disney's Zootopia, there are classes of predator and prey animals, and the predators are discriminated against and find it difficult to get ahead in society. This is a metaphor about racism, but it would be entirely justified for a rabbit to be afraid of a fox. In the wild, a "predator" would eat the "prey" animal. If this is truly taken as a metaphor for white racism against black people in America, it's an offensive one. Race is a social construct, and racism as we know it was created to enforce slavery. It established people with dark skin of African descent as an underclass, to exploit in order to grease the wheels of capitalism in the centuries before the Civil War (and afterward, if we're being quite honest). Black people and white people are genetically identical, and without the shadow of slavery (created by the rich to enrich themselves) would have identical rights. Foxes and rabbits are not genetically identical. One is likely to eat the other. In the X-Men series, mutants are feared and shunned by society. They have superpowers from birth, and are genuinely extremely powerful and potentially dangerous. So if the public fears them, that's actually entirely justified. The mutants are different from "normal" humans and could assert their power in very dangerous ways if they wanted. Wolverine is virtually an immortal with knives for hands. Phoenix could easily destroy the earth. The endless comics, TV series and films featuring the X-Men have positioned Xavier and Magneto as the "Dr. King" and "Malcolm X" of their story, in that Xavier wants mutants to have equal rights and is more palatable to the mainstream, while Magneto is "too radical." But this is an offensive metaphor when you break it down. Of course neither Xavier nor Magneto are black Americans. Both Dr. King and Malcolm X were considered extreme radicals in their time, and they agreed on many concepts. Dr. King spoke out for worker's rights generally, and for class consciousness. He was murdered for his beliefs. Magneto has magnet powers and runs a club called "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" which seeks to dominate over humanity. He's a bad guy who does bad things and constantly emperils the world in general. Comparing him to a 60s civil rights leader is an offensive metaphor, unless you accept that the X-Men series just wants to touch on the history of bigotry in America as subtext without accepting everything that comes with it, which is fair enough. It's not a history lesson. But like almost all sci-fi stories, it makes no sense without our understanding of how black people and other groups have been marginalized in America, but makes the story about white people instead, like a cartoon fox played by Jason Bateman. The history of slavery, oppression, bigotry, Nazism, fascism, and so on is the subtextual backstory for pretty much all sci-fi media. So many villains are based on the Nazis, but this rarely takes into account the racist ideology behind fascism. Hitler came to power after Germany's economy had collapsed, partly due to the Great War. The average worker was living in hopeless poverty, and either they were going to develop class consciousness and tear down capitalism, asserting their rights as a worker, or they were going to need someone to blame. Hitler gave them someone to blame. He rounded up the socialists, communists and Marxists who were preaching against capitalism. He blamed it all on the Jewish people, who traditionally had been excluded from many professions and were often involved in banking. It was apparently easy to make up conspiracy theories about them Actually Being in Charge of Everything. He rounded up the LGBT people, burned gay and trans literature. He targeted the Romani "gypsies" who had been marginalized for centuries. There was no logical underpinning behind this. There never really is, with racism. Hitler only wanted power, and he saw that the people had lost faith in the world, with capitalism and their government. They were being oppressed by economic depression, and had a general unfocused rage. He used that anger and directed it toward groups that were already marginalized in some way. He distracted the people and consolidated his power by giving them something to hate. He slaughtered six million Jewish people in an apparent bid to wipe an entire religion off the face of the Earth - the religion which gave us Christianity, for that matter. Since the 80s, Capitalism and greed has gone unchecked by any desire to actually help people and have a functioning society. After George W. Bush's trillion-dollar wars for oil, the economy has crashed and not really gotten better. People are noticing. The rich are getting obscenely so, as if they're being gifted the equivalent of a brand new car every few seconds. The poor are begging for scraps. There is a general unfocused rage. Donald Trump, a fake billionaire, has gotten a large chunk of America to blame it on non-white minorities, such as people from Mexico. This is what Hitler did. I've gotten way off topic, but for a reason. The people who burned witches in the 17th century and thereabouts were not actually killing people who had any magical powers. They were murdering their neighbors, and consciously or not it helped the world change. The world's economy was changing. Land was being seized. Power was shifting. People were losing rights and property they had previously been entitled to, as part of a series of steps which led to factory work in the 19th century. They killed women to kill off the old ways. And I'm watching a rather good Doctor Who episode about that, about killing witches to "fight the powers of Satan," and it turns out that in this episode they actually have good reason to be killing off their neighbors, or to fear the powers of Satan, because there's actually some evil alien stuff going on, and it's infecting people and raising people from the dead and it all looks very scary and supernatural. If you're in the mood to be offended it does feel a little like a Witch Trial but with Actual Witchcraft, portraying the witch-hunters as absurd and awful but also somewhat vindicated by the events of the story, not unlike our X-Men and Zootopia examples. So it's a good Doctor Who yarn, but as a metaphor it doesn't even get started. The episode isn't that interested in the larger societal issues at play here, although it does deal with sexism, which covers a lot of that territory in a general sense. It largely focuses on female characters (except for King James), and both the writer and director are women, for the third time in Doctor Who history. And that's been due to sexism. There haven't been a ton of women writing Doctor Who, or directing it (despite the big-name appeal of Tank Girl director Rachel Talalay). And that's a problem. And it's a problem the show has temporarily solved, by hiring women for this week only. The larger cultural problem remains. And the show keeps fighting for diversity, this year. British writer Malorie Blackman OBE handled "Rosa" with real sensitivity. And Vinay Patel handled "Demons of the Punjab" with full awareness of its historical background. Between them they've probably delivered the two best episodes this year. Indeed these have all stood above the episodes credited to Chris Chibnall. The diversity this year has been welcome, as it's resulted in some good television. But like The Doctor's actions in these episodes it's just a band-aid placed over any larger cultural issues. She can stop the problem of the week, but she really can't fix everything. Which is fine. Realistic, even, which fits the tone of this year in general. My question is, does she want to fix everything? Are The Doctor and her writers socially aware enough to use these larger issues responsibly? So far, in terms of social consciousness, this year's Doctor Who raises a lot of questions it can't actually answer. Not in a way which satisfies the kids, or the adults - for different reasons. It's still very good television, and I'll give it points for asking some of these questions in the first place.

#doctor who #jodie whittaker #the witchfinders #thirteenth doctor #chris chibnall #who reviews #philosophy tube

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homogrimoire-archive · 3 years

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The Remnant Branches

CH. 6 - The Woe of the Wretched

Part 2: The Love of a Friend

With a proper weapon, Ironwood ventures into the the depths of the Junk heap with a father named Nier and the book he appears to be married to. He finds more than just mere automatons though...

AO3 Link

“What you see before you is The Iron Will.” explained Weiss.

“You know about that weapon?” James asked, surprised.

“It would be wise of you to think more highly of me.” suggested Weiss. “But yes, I do. Supposedly, it absorbs the flesh, blood, and bone of its victims. It can also allegedly absorb other metals as well. In that process, it gets heavier and stronger.”

“Hey, that’s kinda like you Weiss.” Nier told Weiss.

“I suppose, but no mere blade can compare to Grimoire Weiss!” he announced proudly. Ironwood started to think he should be thinking more highly of the book.

“So, what do you think?” Jakob asked him. James studied the weapon. Iron Will, he thought to himself. It was incredibly long, and incredibly sharp now. He figured it could slice through the toughest grimm with ease, in part thanks to its weight. Its old metal that was stained red seamlessly merged with the fresh silvery fix. It looked crude and was far too heavy to be practical to most, but it was worthy of any competent huntsman who was strong enough to wield it.

“You did a wonderful job. Keep up the work, and people from all over will come to you to upgrade their weapons.” James told him.

“You mean it?”

“I mean it.” and he did mean it. If only the kid knew who was really giving him such praise. With that, he made his way out the door, just as the younger brother, Gideon, made his way in.

“Ready?” asked Nier.

“As ready as I can be.” he replied. With a nod, they made their way to the entrance of the factory.

“Since you’ll be with us for the time being, would you care to tell us your name?” questioned Weiss as they walked.

“You can call me Ironwood.” he told them.

“Ironwood and Iron Will… What an odd coincidence, don’t you think?” asked Weiss.

“Odd indeed...” Iron Will . In retrospect, he thinks that The Iron Will would have been a good name for his semblance. His semblance was an ability to defy and surpass the logical way of the world. It was a semblance that was almost entirely passive, like Qrow’s Misfortune.

It was Willpower: the might to make one's vision a reality. This powerful ability to make the illogical, logical, came with a dire drawback. The more his Willpower was up against the odds that dictate reality, the more aura it would require. And if what he willed was so illogical, it would cost him aura that would never regenerate. He learned that the hard way once when he was young, and thankfully it was a minor loss. This might of the semblance and its drawback was tested and reaffirmed once more with his accident.

His semblance proved useful when he was younger, when what he wanted was a simple, better life. As he grew up, he desired to give others a better life as well. He didn't want people to suffer as he had. It was only human to want that, right?

He learned that a key to a better life was power, but power was more than just physical strength. Strength was just one variable in the equation that was power. He had no one to guide him, no one to show him just how to obtain the power to make his desire come true. All he had was his own will, and what a mighty will it was.

“So, where are you from?” Nier asked as he leaned on the kart as it slowly moved across the tracks.

“Hmm? Oh, I’m from a place far from here. It’s called Atlas.” he said. He was looking down into the depths below when Nier got his attention. It was so deep, it was pitch black. He just hoped the old cart and rails would hold the two of them.

“What’s it like over there?”

“It’s...” he hesitated, not wanting to reveal he was from a whole different universe. “Just like any other place, full of people and its own problems.”

“If it is anything like here, please don’t let this man go there. He insists on helping out every stanger we run into who has an issue that needs resolution, no matter how small.” Weiss complained.

“What? They need something done, I take care of it, and they pay me.”

“Hmph, you are too kind for your own good, stubborn man. No matter, we have company.” Weiss said as he noticed the machines manifesting. To Ironwood’s amazement, they began to pour from the walls, fully capable of fighting, and now equipped with projectiles. The projectiles were slow, large spheres of energy. It still amazed him how the automatons seemed to have unlimited energy. As Nier and Weiss took care of the front, he took care of the rear. The Iron Will made a good shield thanks to its sheer size, so with it, he blocked the projectiles and downed any machines that strayed too close.

Glancing back now and then, he could see the Grimoire at work once more. It was shooting out its seemingly limitless supply of dark energy as Nier struck anything that came close enough. They made a good duo, he thought. It had been so long since he worked with a partner, but James figured it was easier to be alone. Soon, the flying machines began to thin out and they neared the end of the tracks.

“So, I take it you’re the local hired hand. How long have you been doing that for?” Ironwood asked as they exited the kart.

“About five years, I think. Before that, I was a nomad traveling with my daughter, Yonah. But, her Black Scrawl became too much, and I was lucky enough to meet Devola and Popola. They helped us settle down in the village.”

“Black Scrawl?” Ironwood asked, curious.

“Perhaps it is known by a different name where you are from.” Weiss suggested.

“It’s the disease that causes some strange black letters to appear on your body. There isn’t any cure yet. ” Nier explained with a saddening expression.

“But, there is medicine that can help ease its effects.”

“Expensive medicine. … And speaking of Yonah, she said Weissy promised her a story.” he teased.

“Bah! As long as she doesn’t ask me to be her cookbook. Anything but a cookbook.” Weiss shuttered. “I hate cookbooks. But, if we find one, we should get it for her. I’ll be willing to be in the presence of one if it so helps her cooking skills.”

“If she’s anything like her mom, it won’t help unless its about bread.” he said, not looking forward to having to eat her food again.

“Sound rough being a father.” Ironwood commented.

“Yeah, but I love her, she’s my daughter. I’d do anything for her.” he said solemnly. James did not doubt him. Already, he had been nearly electrocuted at least a dozen times, almost blew himself up, and accidentally fell down one of the seemingly bottomless pitfalls, from which Weiss had to bring him back up.

James marveled at his tenacity. A parent’s love was indeed powerful. He could understand why that is so. Its only natural for a parent to want to do all they can for their child. He knew that. However, he knew that a parent’s love was something he would never end up giving. Working with children was an inspiration. They gave him tremendous hope. But, working with them made him learn that he did not want to be a parent. And as a man many said was married to his work, he’d be too old to raise a child by the time he retired. If he retired.

Eventually, they reached a large room, which they got locked into. Again. Here, they ran into more P-33 models. When James first saw them, he wondered how the factory was able to upkeep the production of them, and then just started to assume it was magic. It was the only logical answer, all things considered. They looked like the stereotypical robot toy a child would have: retangular, boxy body, glowing eyes, and lanky. The difference was that these were much larger, and very deadly.

He had wondered less about the energy source, and began to wonder more about how they worked. There was always another way to power something, but only a few ways, at best, something could work as desired. They seemed to be entirely automated, performing the same actions over and over. They were no advanced AI. They were predictable, but effective at keeping their enemies busy. They would be good for fighting grimm..

However, they were met with something they did not expect. Once the P-33s and other automatons were cleared out, the door did not unlock like it should have.

THREAT DETECTED. a speaker from somewhere announced. TO ENSURE THAT KALIL IS NOT HARMED, YOU MUST NEVER RETURN, OR YOU WILL BE TERMINATED.

“Who the hell is Kalil?!” Nier shouted.

KALIL IS MY FRIEND, AND YOU WILL NOT HARM HIM. THIS IS YOUR WARNING TO NEVER RETURN. stated the robotic voice.

“Grimoire Weiss will not be ordered around by some automaton! I will do as I please!”

“Yeah!” exclaimed Nier.

Ironwood was also not willing to comply, as he still had to find more information on the machines, but was too late to voice his opinions. The ground opened up beneath them, and fell to a platform below. Ironwood’s aura broke upon hitting the ground, and got up with a grunt. He looked around to see where Nier was, but did not find him until he looked up. He was hanging onto Weiss for dear life as they floated down. He let out a sigh of relief once he touched the ground.

“Thanks Weiss.” Nier said.

“I have accomplished more difficult tasks.” he replied, “And it appears as if we will have to accomplish one more.” In the round room, a pair of giant hands emerged.

“Intruders detected. Activating Defense System Geppetto.” stated a feminine automated voice. And then, a giant robotic head appeared, situated on the wall between the hands.

SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND! KALIL TAUGHT ME THAT LINE! Happily shouted the robotic voice. With that, the machine beamed to life.

“Shit.” Ironwood let out, very concerned.

From a finger on each hand came out a laser that began to track them. It followed in suit, but was fortunately, it was slow enough to where it would not touch them so long as they kept on moving. For a moment, it stopped its attack, and on the other side of the platform, he saw Nier and Weiss charge an attack. In mere seconds, an array of lances materialized, and were sent flying in quick succession at a hand, doing a decent amount of damage.

This time, the machine began to charge all of its lasers. Unsure of what would happen, Ironwood placed the Iron Will in front of him, hoping it would protect him from the onslaught. He was very grateful when it did. It swept across the area with incredible power and speed that put any Atlesian tech to shame. The lasers had knocked Ironwood back by at least a fourth of the platform. Nier, however, was not able to react quick enough and was sent flying off the platform, but thankfully managed to hang onto the ledge.

While he struggled to get himself up, Geppetto set forth another attack. It used a pair of lasers once more, but this time, it tracked only him. It was then Ironwood had an idea. He quickly ran towards the edge.

“Keep on hanging to the ledge! Don’t get up yet!” he shouted.

“Are you crazy!?” Nier yelled. “We’ll be sitting ducks!”

“Trust me!” As fast as he could, Ironwood dropped down, holding onto the edge. “I think we have to be on the platform for it to detect us.” he said just loud enough so Nier could hear him. For a moment, they waited, and did not hear the defense system charge up for another attack.

“Intruders not detected. Withdrawing Defense System Geppetto.” stated the voice as the deadly machine descended. Nearby, they could see a walkway emerging, connecting to the platform. Quickly, they got up, and ran to safety. Once in an empty, automaton-free hallway, Ironwood sank to ground, breathing heavily as he sat. Meanwhile, Nier was bent over, his hands on his knees, also catching his breath.

“Damn.” Nier huffed out, “Smart thinking back there.”

“Agreed. I would much rather have to face that monstrosity when you two are more prepared.” Weiss told them.

“So you do care.” Nier teased.

“Ugh.” Weiss said, lovingly annoyed. “Let us leave then, for the time being at least.”

“I’m right behind you Weiss. Damn it's been a long day.” he exhaled as he stretched his arms and legs.

“You two can go on without me. I’m going to stay down here to do some more research.” Ironwood told them.

“You think you could do us a favor then? Er, well, more for those kids.” Nier explained.

“What is it?” Ironwood asked.

“While you were waiting on the sword, Jakob’s brother asked us to see if his mom is down here.”

“Oh.” he said quietly. “Of course. I’ll do my best while I’m down here.”

“Good luck then, stay safe.”

“And to you too.” he said with a slight bow. With that, they went their separate ways.

Ironwood was very happy. He managed to find a control room, and in it, a computer with the information he so desired. He thought he would have to spend probably his whole week transferring the information manually, but it surprisingly was able to detect his scroll, thus allowing him to transfer the information on machines with relative ease.

Scanning through some of the files, he learned that his assumptions about the machines were true. They were mere automatons, following through a set of predetermined code. Nothing too special.

All sorts of information on the world prior to the apocalypse and magic was also found. Ironwood discovered that it was a world somewhat similar to Remnant in terms of technology. However, the lot of it looked different and ran on different sources of energy. It lacked semblances, dust, and faunus. And also unlike Remnant, it had seemingly countless cultures and languages. What it did share with Remnant was war and cruelty. It was all filled with so much hate. And yet, love still existed too.

But if information on machines made him happy, information on androids made him ecstatic. Some were once stationed around the world, along with magically enhanced humans, to eliminate a threat ominously known as The Legion. There were also other androids set to perform a variety of other duties.

Video footage showed some of them fighting eerily human looking figures. The main difference between it and a human was that it was entirely colored a grotesque white. Despite their human appearance, they were anything but. One unfortunate android was caught off guard, and was swiftly torn to shreds. The Legion fought with the force of a god, and Ironwood was glad his world did not have to deal with them. Although they had less variety than grimm, they made up for it in raw, sheer power. They were something that even Salem could perhaps come to fear.

As for the impressive and valiant androids, they wielded an array of weapons, from melee to ranged, large to small. They all wielded the weapons with ease and expertise that only the precision of a machine without technological parallel could achieve. Melee weapons could even be moved without being touched. A wave of the hand or an arm movement would result in a fallen enemy that was yards away.

They could also seemingly be summoned at will, but those special weapons always had a glowing circle of unknown script around their handle. To his delight, there was lots of information on these androids.

However, movement on a nearby camera feed caught his attention. The shadowy figure appeared to be small and humanoid. It sat down and pulled its knees to its chest. A shade. He had fought some earlier, and thought they were odd. Like grimm, they were shadowy beasts that were hellbent on destroying humanity.

However, unlike grimm, they could literally appear out of thin air, and bleed. Also unlike gimm, shades had an unnatural looking, neon yellow texture that would shimmer across their body from time to time in certain places. It was unsettling seeing the book devour their blood, and eerie that The Iron Will seemed to soak in the blood like a sponge, getting heavier just as Weiss stated.

This shade, however, seemed different. All it did was stare at a closed door. The screen showed that it detected sound and Ironwood tuned in onto it as fast as he could.

I REMEMBER THIS PLACE. The P-33 stated. James was surprised to hear it utter a phrase that didn’t involve a threat on his life. The shade replied to it, and even more surprisingly, subtitles for its garbled noises were displayed.

Mhmm. Its where we first met.

ELEVEN MONTHS, FOUR WEEKS, TWO DAYS, TWENTY-THREE HOURS, AND FIFTY-NINE MINUTES. … ONE YEAR AGO.

That’s also about the time when my mom was killed.

YOU WERE VERY SAD THEN. AND YOU ARE SAD RIGHT NOW TOO. The machine sat down too, holding a hand out for the small shade to climb into. Once in its palm, the shade resumed its position.

I am sad right now. Very sad. But, I’m not as sad thanks to you. Thanks for being there for me Beepy.

YOU’RE WELCOME KALIL. IT’S WHAT BEST FRIENDS ARE FOR. WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE A MOMENT OF SILENCE FOR HER?

Yeah.

Ironwood couldn’t believe it. Not only was this shade obviously not a monster, which had terrifying and murky implications, but this machine was no mere automaton. He was dumbfounded that the autonomous weapon could even make a friend. No one programs a weapon with friendship in mind. He thought.

He also then realized that this must be the machine that sent them to fight the defense system. How it gained control over it was unknown to him. The shade was a curiosity, but he knew his mission, and knew that Qrow and Glynda were covering the front on shades.

The shade had begun to cry, and Beepy brought the child-shade in closer to comfort it. And there, they stayed.

Thank you Beepy. I feel better now.

I THANK YOU TOO KALIL. I’M GLAD I MET YOU.

You’re welcome.

… I AM UNSURE IF THIS APPLIES, BUT AS MY BEST FRIEND, I WANT YOU TO KNOW I LOVE YOU.

Of course it applies silly! Best friends can love each other, and you’re my best friend, and I love you too! The shade jumped up and down in the robot’s palm, to which it lifted up so Kalil could embrace it at the side of its head.

The love of a friend… That was something James believed he could feel. It was lonely at the top, but he managed to find some hope of friendship. Glynda was a woman as stern as himself, but still very understanding and kind. They had nice chats now and then. Ozpin was a fellow headmaster, so they had lots to talk about with each other. While much of it was work related, it still felt personal enough. Winter, even if she was his subordinate, cared for him on a personal level. He cared for her in kind. Her personal matters with her family were usually a sore topic, but their work gave them enough to talk and chat about.

Qrow was an absolute drunk and very annoying, more often than not. However, he was more caring than he let on. They had shared a drink or two on a few occasions during some downtime, and James found that he could be tolerable. It was nice to have someone talk to him like he was a fellow human being, and not some terrifying, heartless work machine general, even if Qrow could be a little shit. But, that’s just how friends were sometimes.

Love for one’s friends. Ironwood believed he could perhaps feel that someday. He considered that he could already be feeling such a love.

We give the cry of life. Hot iron forms our body. Steel hammers temper our shape. The dim light of the forge and sparks of steel watch over us. We are the iron will. Born of the thundering roar.

For all life, there is death. The Iron Will is no exception. A baby is born crying. The Iron Will was born with a plea to live, a prayer to be strong. The gods answered his prayer, and he was given a mighty will unmatched. However, the gods are cruel.

Little does The Iron Will know the price he paid.

#James Ironwood #rwby #nier #the remnant branches #the woe of the wretched #3.5k words #some day i will write 15 essays #each about the stories of my favorite drakenier weapons #now that i think about it #rwby weapons need weapon stories #maybe i'll do that some day

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continuations · 6 years

Text

World After Capital: Getting Past Capital

NOTE: Today’s excerpt from my book World After Capital deals with how we have achieved the sufficiency of physical capital. This is capitalisms greatest accomplishment, but also means that we are now facing a new scarcity: attention.

Capital

The title of the book is World after Capital. One of my fundamental claims is that capital is no longer scarce. There is enough capital in the world to meet everyone's basic needs. That means meeting the individual needs of 7 billion or more people, the collective needs of the societies they live in and the collective needs of humanity at large. Using the language introduced earlier, capital is sufficient. And because population growth is decelerating, while technological progress is accelerating (due to digital technology), capital will no longer be the binding constraint for humanity going forward.

It is tempting to look at this in terms of financial capital, but that again would be succumbing to the veil of of money, as was the case with the definition of scarcity. Dollar bills don't feed people. Gold bars can't be used as smart phones. The capital that matters is productive physical capital, such as machines and buildings.

Financial capital is not irrelevant. It is generally required both for the initial construction of physical capital and to meet the ongoing working capital needs of the economy. If I want to build a factory or a school, I need to pay the construction workers, the suppliers of machines, etc. before I can start collecting money. And in many businesses I pay some ongoing expenses every month before collecting revenues from customers. Cash outflows preceding cash inflows means a financing mechanism is required. To get the proper accumulation of physical capital, we therefore need to have effective ways of accumulating and allocating financial capital.

In the history of financial capital there have been many important innovations, such as corporations with limited liability, debt and equity issuance and trading, bank lending and more recently market place lending. The allocation of financial capital to projects through markets has been enormously successful, compared to attempts at various forms of centralized planning. It is the very success of the market-based approach that has now given us a physical capital base in the world that is large enough to meet our basic needs.

Many recent innovations in finance, however, have not contributed meaningfully to the proper creation and allocation of physical capital. Quite the opposite. They have contributed to the “financialization” of the economy: a growth in financial sector activities that is decoupled from or even harms the formation of physical capital. For instance, many derivatives and structured securities have resulted in severe misallocations by shifting risk. One example is the housing bubble that resulted in part as mortgage backed securities and CDOs appeared to remove all risk from capital flooding into construction.

What is the role of “human capital” in all of this? Human capital is the subset of all knowledge that embodied in a group of humans. So the question is better asked differently: what is the role of knowledge? The answer is that advances in knowledge are essential for making capital more effective. Even more fundamentally, knowledge is necessary for having physical capital in the first place.

You can theoretically have physical capital without financial capital but you cannot have physical capital without knowledge. You cannot build a machine, say an MRI, without a lot of knowledge in physics and engineering. In a world where everyone's basic needs are taken care of it might, however, be possible to build the same MRI without the need for financial capital.

Interestingly, you can also have financial capital without physical capital and without meaningful knowledge accumulation. For instance, you can develop financial capital through trade or war or simply by convention as in the case of the island of Yap [40].

All of this is to say that we should never lose sight of the fact that financial capital ultimately serves no purpose in and of itself, other than possibly the gratification of ego. As great illustration of that imagine a Spanish Galleon full of raided gold sinking in a storm. The sailors aboard had ample access to financial capital, but what they really needed to survive was more knowledge and better physical capital.

So now we will go ahead and examine whether physical capital is still a binding constraint when it comes to meeting basic needs. The approach I am taking is split in two parts: here in the main text I am applying logic based on observations; the Appendix contains much more data and calculations to back up the arguments.

Individual Needs

My claim is that capital is no longer the binding constraint for meeting individual needs, not just for one individual but for everyone. This is especially true for the developed economies but increasingly true globally.

The primary strategies for meeting our power needs are breathing air, drinking water and eating farmed food.

There is plenty of air to breathe (one time reminder: please see the Appendix for backup on this and the following assertions), the key challenge today is having clean, breathable air. China and India are both struggling with that at the moment, but this is due to rapid development using outdated energy sources. The clean air achieved in industrialized countries shows that this is a temporary development stage.

Similarly there is plenty of water in the world for everyone to drink. There are distribution and access problems, including right here in the United States (e.g., the polluted water in Flint, Michigan). Again though, physical capital is not a binding constraint. We can even build new desalination plants in record time. [Example]

We have also made dramatic progress in farming. In fact, globally the amount of land required for farming has started to decline as a result of higher per acre productivity. We have made recent breakthroughs in vertical and automated farming. For instance, the world's largest vertical farm is currently under construction in Jersey City. The Japanese indoor farming company Spread is working on a fully automated facility that will be able to produce 30,000 heads of lettuce per day [155].

The discharge need is primarily addressed through modern sewage technology. Here too capital is no longer a binding constraint per se, but again there is a global distribution problem. To see how quickly this has the potential to change, consider the migration that has taken place in China from the country side into cities.

The Chinese construction boom also illustrates how quickly we can build shelter as a strategy to address the need for a controlled physical environment. In the U.S. too we had a prior construction boom which was powered by artificially cheap mortgage credit. While a lot of housing was built in the wrong places it powerfully demonstrated our construction capacity.

Clothing is another strategy for addressing this need. The price of clothing has been falling in the United States and in many other parts of the world. Capital is not a constraint here and we can clothe everyone in the world many times over.

Similarly we have become very good at providing light. There is a great study that shows how the hours of light one can earn with 60 hours of labor have exploded in the United States from about 10 in 1800 to over 100,000 by 1990 [CITATION?]. We have made further progress since with LED lighting. That progress has also come to other parts of the world, for instance in the form of off grid solar powered lamps.

Now we come to a more difficult need, the one for healing. We read all the time how expensive healthcare has become and how it consumes an ever larger fraction of the economy, at least here in the United States. We have to ask though whether capital really is a binding constraint here. Again in industrialized countries this does no longer appear to be the case. We have plenty of hospital space and doctor's offices. We have extensive diagnostic facilities and can produce large quantities of medicine. The binding constraint instead is one of insufficient knowledge. Our bodies are extremely complex and even seemingly basic issues, such as how diet relates to health, are poorly understood as a result.

In learning we are also no longer capital constrained. This is rapidly true not just in industrialized nations but also globally due to the buildout of wireless networks and the increasing affordability of smartphones. We are not far away from a point in time when we have enough capital for anyone in the world to learn anything. The binding constraint here is not capital but the availability of affordable content and the time to learn (and to teach).

The final individual need, the one for meaning, is not and has never been constrained by capital.

Collective Needs

At first it might seem difficult to see how capital even relates to our collective needs as defined in the earlier chapter. How could capital have anything to do with such abstract concepts as motivation and coordination? Was capital ever a binding constraint here?

Capital clearly was not a binding constraint for reproduction, which societies thankfully accomplished a long time ago or we would not be here today.

But when it comes to allocation, capital was the crucial binding constraint during the Industrial Age. Not only were we terribly bad at making stuff at first but we also lacked the communications and transportation infrastructure to easily get goods to where they were needed.

Motivation might historically appear not to to be capital constrained as we had many strategies for the motivation need, including rewards and punishments. The development of markets with prices, however, turned out to be a crucial strategy for meeting the motivation need. High prices provide an incentive for the allocation of capital (and other factors of production). For a long time capital in turn was the binding constraint on the scale of markets. Today, however, we can broadcast supply, demand, and prices in any market globally in near realtime at zero marginal cost.

Coordination, on the other hand, was quite obviously capital constrained for a long time due to limitations on communications. We can see this by considering that until fairly recently it was not possible to have a globally coordinated event. Today on the other hand we not only have a global nearly instantaneous communication network but also the ability to precisely position people or machines using GPS and other location services.

Finally, our collective need for knowledge was capital constrained for a long time. Making books for instance was expensive and time consuming. Copies of books had to be made by humans introducing errors. The spread of knowledge was constrained by the need to create and move physical copies. We have now left all of those capital constraints on knowledge behind.

Enablers

Our progress on enablers is another way to understand why capital is no longer the binding constraint. We have had massive breakthroughs on all four during the Industrial Age: energy, resources, transformation, and transportation.

The biggest breakthrough in energy was the development of electricity. It allowed us to apply energy in highly precise fashion. Our remaining challenges are all related to the production, storage and distribution of electricity. Further improvements in energy will let us solve needs in new ways, but we are not fundamentally energy constrained today. For instance, a relatively small percentage of surface coverage with solar (< 1% in the US) would cover all electricity needs at current efficiency rates [SOURCE?].

Resources were also completely transformed during the Industrial Age through mining, which in turn was enabled by progress with transportation (rail) and energy (steam power). People, especially those motivated by a concern for sustainability, like to point to scarcity of resources as the primary constraint. But resources are sufficient when we consider three sources that we can tap in the future: recycling, asteroid mining and transmutation. For instance, today a lot of electronics wind up in landfill instead of the materials being recycled. We achieved the first soft landing on an asteroid as far back as 2001. And while transmutation sounds like modern day alchemy, we now routinely make phosphorus out of silicon (albeit in small amounts).

Our ability to transform also improved radically during the Industrial Age. For instance, chemistry allowed us to make rubber synthetically which previously had to be harvested from trees. With machine tools, such as drills and lathes, we were able to rapidly transform wood and metals. Later we added transformation technologies such as injection molding and more recently various additive manufacturing technologies (often referred to as 3D printing).

Transportation went from human powered to machine powered dramatically changing our capabilities. We went from walking to traveling to space in rockets. We can fly across continents and oceans on commercial flights and reach any major city by air in just a day (or two at most). While some have complained about a lack of progress in flight, pointing to the lack of commercial supersonic options following the retirement of the Concorde, we had extraordinary progress in flight safety. More recently work has resumed on new options for commercial supersonic flight and we have made tremendous progress with reusable rockets and closer to earth with autonomous vehicles (for instance drones and warehouse robots).

The progress on these enablers has allowed us to produce more physical capital, do so more rapidly and cheaply, and transport it to anywhere in the world. One way to appreciate just how far we have come is to note that the first time smartphones became available was only in 2000. By 2017 over 8 billion smartphones had been produced and shipped and there are currently over 2 billion smartphone users in the world.

As an important reminder before moving on. I am not claiming that everyone's basic needs are being met today. Far from it. Nor am I arguing that governments should be using central planning or that they should be meeting people's basic needs through government run programs such as food stamps or subsidized housing (in fact quite the opposite, as I will argue later when writing about economic freedom).

The point of this chapter is simply to argue that physical capital is no longer the constraint in meeting everyone's basic needs. We are not dealing with a problem of capital scarcity—in the sense of technological scarcity introduced earlier—but with one of allocation and distribution.

Capital is no longer scarce but sufficient. We should consider that the great success of capitalism.

We now face a new scarcity, however, that of attention, and capitalism will not solve it for us without changes in regulation and in self-regulation. Before we can examine the scarcity of attention though we need to understand how digital technologies have the potential to change the role of labor.

#world after capital #capital

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keaghanlandram1991 · 4 years

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Cat Urine Upholstery Cleaner Wonderful Diy Ideas

Most cat adopters will not pry a dog in a tin or spraying cats and can come to accept this fact and this is just as much for them.For some cat information you can try temporarily covering your furniture to shreds, then begin clawing at it.Learn from your cat is also possible for everyone involved.And the best medicine, and there are all things that are glued to the type of moisture that gets on the living room floor.

If the cat itself account for a young cat otherwise won't be one frustrated owner.A toy mouse which squeaks when your cat accordingly will ensure that you can continue for some reason they are actually not really known for their behavior.Be prepared for a first stage, bacteria decompose the urea giving off an ammoniacal odor.On white or light colored felines the fleas can be quite dangerous to your water & vinegar solution, or when they want and this indicates the wood or getting rid of it.Will play fetch, give headbutts and walk your puppy and dog care is of course need to replace them about every six weeks.

A regular check-up about once a week, which can be used as a cat that has been diluted to around April.Put a white hair spray to a hooded traditional litter box, especially if he does his to you.This will reduce the stress and boredom provide lots of tufted and scratched areas where your kitty is being threatened.Place the balls approximately one inch apart on a car or never seeing them again.However, scratching is a quick look at WHY.

Start small by simply spraying the inside of the cat to use the bathroom, he will think twice about sitting in the house all day.Replace with tension rods for the bad behavior.Steps you can stretch out and buy a catbrush and allow air to dry and warm water.For this step at any major mall or pet store for a while, they will be worse.Educating yourself on nutrition and diets for cats to make the pet does not require heat to announce availability to any fabric with a cotton swab or ball, but do not own pedigreed cats, there are also possessive about their claws on your furniture.

Cats are notorious fans of napping, and napping in a fully enclosed box with its own tails or some other ailment that a cat behaviorist.Keeping in view of sharing your supper when it misbehaves will not use the toilet to boost itself up to 3 times a day but do what they are sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.You can get the idea of an effective counter-conditioning plan that includes a ring and clasp for attaching keys.Your mother-in-law is on the toilet, at this generation!A positive test also indicates that Feliway really works.

Always be safe and learn all you need are a nuisance; for cats so teaching them not to mark their territory than those that are blended for cats.Many pet owners are always scratching the skin, and it stays indoors.If you have when trying to figure your cat to have quite a nightmare for you.When it is wise not to cut off during surgery.Once you have decided to share some more surrogate EFT on several of the car.

Luckily for you be it home made cleaners will not solve the immediate problem.The recipe that I mix myself when I hackle them along the edge of the ear canal.Here's what to do this make sure they were a kitten.You can try other techniques that are safe, effective, and simple to make, and they may have on hand.Giving them an alternative to scratching but this is surely an elimination location, so don't force it.

Both procedures leave the message and find your cats need daily care.Our cats are prone to diseases and other antibacterials are helpful in limiting the risks anyway.4. box to raise it slowly and gradually with the jet, the cat jumps, the mats will slide and your cat.Nearly grown kittens and the crystal formation is injecting and spraying some catnip is enough to carry with you so you can begin in earnest.Cyclosporine A - This illness has some similar symptoms when compared to other cats.

Cat Pee Detector

For example, a red color bed will keep you safe for a little disorientated going to get puss to actually be trained?A few folks think that your sofa cost 1000, and wouldn't care if it was the noise when they are still felines and subsequent grief to owners.Don't force her; just carry her to chase them away!The trouble is that cats are used for cats to make an intruder run.Dry your cat is trying to determine which vaccinations your cat causing respiratory problems, cardiac arrest and even other members of the cat more pleasant.

That's just the way to distract the cat or shock them.Studies show that a seat belt could easily go through it and the middle of the soil.Cats are amazing creatures, and once more to your water and leave you broke, but, very angry and miffed at your furniture, use a vaporiser or humidifier to keep them in the basket.Since felines love to jump or climb the curtain, the alarm and offers a harm-free solution to this area, make that mess any more moisture.These self cleaning litter boxes for three separate cats may end up in their new and improved cat bed.

Often professionals will fumigate the house, then the world is the ideal way to go and nowhere to be addressed and/or eliminated with the directions.Although this is the same time and attention, it also proves beneficial in establishing a colony that has claimed the effective is to buy a set of nail clippers may cut the nails when you start looking for ways to encourage his claws as well as all the solutions regarding above problem hope you can handle it at all.Such repellant is available as part of the herb used can also deter other small mammals.Has something changed recently that could very possibly cost more then it is better to let the cat to use its new toilet instead of the hardwood floor which has a large removable lid for ease and a dirty litter box.You should also know that urine has seeped through wooden floors.

Allow to dry completely for several days.Put something heavy over this and if they are on a purely meat diet and lots of praise and contact information on its training anyway, so you can cure the behavioral problem with these 6 tips:This article talks a little patience, most cats dislike, causing the problem of a cat start to firmly but gently massage their heads.In the most concerning cat behaviour problems.Our black cat is fixed and is the key to training your cat.

Make sure that he/she has the opposite gender from your property.Do this consistently and he feels shocking spurts of water to form a well behaved as any cat to be left behind if pulled off.Fleas can cause anemia, weakness and weight loss medications.You should also position the box and the least you can cure the current cat or kitten at home, make sure it can use a garden or any other pet in the mouth after eating meals.In case you don't want to experiment with a treat.

Were never able to last up to the automated box may scare your cat a whirly gig with a replaceable odor neutralizing carbon filter.I cannot give you an older cat with a pine or citrus smell.You can follow three simple steps when dealing with cat behavior:First you want to keep both your kitten to adjust to living outdoors, the best at home you have him or her a Christmas stocking and deck it out and treat allergy signs related to the vet.Marking can also be weighed in conjunction with the smell of citrus is too close to busy streets, it is grown in over-farmed, mineral deficient soil.

Cat Pee Makes You Crazy

Supporters of this herb can be due to loss of appetite, loss of blood and skin irritation and has some similar symptoms to Lyme Disease.Genesis 950 to soak up the litter from making such a long way.This is why I decided to take time - it would be that the odor back to the way through the hair permanently to kill them before they start spraying.Breast cancer has a patented Pet Porte Microchip Cat Flap has a great place to scratch your funiture or walls is not very much manageable.This is a chemical into your house or a towel and then wipe it up.

Inconvenience: when we start to play with.Going to the advantage with flea powders, sprays and double-sided tape.Even though felines are not able to get certain types of litter, physical abuse or neglect, a need to change this routine.And if you if you don't plant plants that are marking their territory.You should remember the dates of the bacteria strains are in effect able to do is to determine why he had heard.

#Cat Urine Upholstery Cleaner Wonderful Diy Ideas #Cat Pee High

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socialteamab · 4 years

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Complete Guide to Having a Mushroom Cultivation & Manufacturing Machinery

Introduction

Mushrooms have been consumed by humans since the early history. They have been an integral and attractive part of the culinary activities. They are used widely in gourmet across the world because they are low in calories, carbohydrates, fat, and sodium and are cholesterol-free. They also are a rich source of important nutrients, vitamin D, proteins, and fibre. They are also used in traditional medicine owing to their healing properties. They also are proven to help in the prevention and treatment of diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer, Hypertension, and heart strokes. Mushrooms also act as antibacterial, enhance the immune system and lower the cholesterol.

Considering these factors, Mushroom Cultivation has increased multifold in recent times. People are setting up mushroom plants for the commercial manufacturing of mushrooms. It has a lot of perks over normal traditional cultivation. According to a report by Transparency Market Research, the global mushroom market is likely increase at a projected CAGR of 8.2% and is currently USD 50 Billion market.

Increasing awareness among the people, rising consumption of mushroom related food items, smart packaging that enhances the shelf life of these food items, and high demand of packaged and processed foods because of the Covid19 pandemic are among the most crucial factors adding up to the increase in the Mushroom Cultivation market.

Mushroom Machinery Overview

Cultivating mushrooms is not that easy a task. It might not really require devices to plough and set the soil right, but what is essential for proper mushroom cultivation is essential machinery that properly caters to the mushrooms while they are in their growing stage. To make them healthier and longer, these machinery are very essential.

Without proper tools and Mushroom growing units, it will be a very laborious and tough task to grow mushrooms. One can also leverage on existing mushroom machinery or Mushroom growing units by converting them into automated machines.

Having a Mushroom Composting Unit is also a very essential part of automating your mushroom cultivating process. It is important because composting results in a food source most suited for the growth of mushrooms while making sure other fungi and bacteria do not come up to ruin the harvest. It also performs pasteurization.

You need equipments and units that are reliable and don’t require a lot of maintenance. They shouldn’t be breaking down and have to be very safe and easy to use for the labourers. They should be easy to clean. Cleaning is the most important concern for businesses when it comes to mushroom cultivation with machinery.

Conclusion

Mushroom Cultivation is a very profitable business. To capitalise on this, you need proper Mushroom Machinery which are automated since they help in saving a lot of energy & time, are cost effective, and also produce large volumes of mushrooms.

Mushroom Machines (SM Biotech)

We at Mushroom Machines work with an aim to provide customized solutions to our customers in the field of mushroom shedding and farming. We have a highly qualified team with innovative ideas and technical mind set. We even provide Mushroom Consultancy services where we provide the facility of visiting their farms, help them form project reports with the help of our CAs, Site Mapping, full Farm Layout carried out by our Civil Engineers, Composting Unit Formation and installing recent machinery under expert supervision. We even provide shed services. We also provide Automation Services to already existing Mushroom Cultivating Plants.

The Machineries we have are fully Automatic, Computerized as well as customized as per customer needs. They are all fitted environmental control systems. So don’t wait, contact us at https://www.mushroommachines.com now.

You may explore the plethora of our services by visiting this link to our brochure https://www.mushroommachines.com/sm-biotech-brochure-pdf .

#mushroom farming #mushroom consultant #Mushroom Shed Construction

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barbyquiin · 5 years

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The Key Ways to Discovering the right Liquid Filling Machine

Today with such an array of models and features available, navigating the bottle filling machine scenery can be considered a confusing and sometimes overwhelming experience. While nobody size fits all solution there’s, we’ve summarized the seven key factors you should think about to help you know what kind of machine best matches your needs.

Whether you’re a home-based craftsperson just starting to increase your business beyond the hobby stage or a pharmaceutical corporation that deals medicine in exact amounts at the pace of a huge selection of bottles each and every minute, having a short amount of time to reason through the relevant questions.

Liquid Properties: What exactly are the characteristics of your product?

What's its viscosity - the dimension of the fluid’s internal level of resistance to flow? A material like molasses will be more resistant to motion than drinking water. As a complete result, the filling up machine you get can meet up with the increased demand for higher viscosity water. To get a basic notion of the viscosity of your liquid, check out our useful Viscosity Desk.

Will your product contain particulates? Could it be semi-solid? In these situations, a piston or pump filler may be most ideal for the working job.

Container: Which type will you fill-up?

What material could it be made of? Plastic material, glass, or aluminum each require their own specific filling up technique. Knowing which materials have been used can help determine which filling up the machine to get.

The form of the container influences the most appropriate machine also. Automatic container fillers that get bottles from the very best is probably not the best option if your box has a nonstandard lid or cover. Just as a bottle filler that grips from the relative side might not work well with very wide containers. Many bottle filler manufacturers shall welcome the chance to review your container and make recommendations for you.

Velocity: How fast do you will need your containers filled?

Is it faster better? Well, this will depend. A company with an extremely high creation rate will take advantage of the most effective machines likely. A smaller business may trade off some velocity for cost savings in space and cost. The rate of smaller machines is assessed by containers produced each hour (BPH). As the acceleration of larger, better filling up machines is assessed by bottles each and every minute (BPM).

One caution: take the time to not overlook your own future creation needs when purchasing your filling up the machine. It really is simpler to buy with future development at heart than to attempt to update your equipment following the fact.

Automated vs. Manual: What's the appropriate degree of automation for the application?

Manual filling machines are designed to handle low production rates, and they're an inexpensive and space-efficient option for hobbyists or really small companies that do not anticipate expanding.

Semi-automatic filling machines can produce bottles at a considerably faster rate than manual filling machines, but they require some manual procedure still. These machines shall not reach quite the same swiftness of fully-automated filling up machines. However, their mid-range price often makes them the best option for small and medium-sized businesses that do not yet need the biggest systems but have programs to develop still.

Auto filling machines will be the powerhouses of production, ideal for large-scale companies with high production rates. These machines draw containers from bulk storage space using conveyors. They might need the most living area, and their maintenance and purchasing costs are greater than for manual or semi-automatic filling up machines. However, they function with either no or hardly any manual operation.

Fill-By Type: Should you fill by level or by volume?

An essential decision you will need to make is whether a liquid-level filler or a volumetric filling up machine is most beneficial for your procedures. To create this choice, you will need to consider a couple of things. Which kind of water you are employing and exactly how you want the packed bottles to seem.

Liquid-level fillers

These fillers fill each bottle to the same specified level, even if the actual level of water varies from bottle to bottle. This technique of filling up is better and costs less. Furthermore, it offers all the containers a standard, cosmetically-pleasing appearance, which is very attractive to consumers. Water level filling up machines use pressure-overflow fillers, that has an extremely fast fill-up rate and are designed for an array of viscosities. Any leftover product in the filling up tubes gets forced back to the tank, avoiding overflow and spillage.

Volumetric filling machines

These machines deliver an accurate volume of water into each bottle, even though variations in the form or level of the bottles could cause the fluids to seem to be at different levels. These kinds of filling cost more to use because of the special devices they might need for timing, calibration, and balance. The extra expenditure will probably be worth it when the liquid must be packed in specific dosages, or when reducing waste is crucial.

Volumetric filling machines can be purchased in 3 varieties: Gravity-fed fillers which are more cost-effective and work best with low-viscosity or frothy fluids. The liquid is stored above the containers because they are packed, allowing gravity to aid along the way. Piston fillers work very well with either low-viscosity fluids (check-valve piston fillers) or very solid products (rotary-valve piston fillers). They operate by pumping products in one area of the machine to some other in very precise quantities. Finally, pump fillers - while ideal for any viscosity - are specially created for very heavy products that require some extra pressure to go through the device.

In-Line vs. Rotary: Is efficiency or versatility more very important to your application?

In-line filling up machines fill up their containers in single-file development, four to twenty containers at the right time. They are a fantastic choice for medium-sized or smaller businesses. It is because of their less expensive, versatility in accommodating different container shapes, and simple product change over without the utilization of change parts.

Rotary filling machines cost more, are more difficult to use, and can't be halted mid-production if any nagging problem arises. Furthermore, change overtakes more time and requires costly change over parts for every unique cap and bottle. Not surprisingly, their broadband and capability to fill up over 100 bottles simultaneously make them important for a large business that wants high production quantities.

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livelivefastfree · 7 years

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AHHH

here are quite a lot of very self-indulgent and excessively poetical cyborg AU vs. medieval AU thoughts.

..............I was writing a raymanthia AU and thinking about universe swaps (because of a certain SOMEBODY you know who you are). So I was thinking idly about how maybe they have magic in Raymanthia but their tech is basically nil and their medical/scientific skills aren’t the most advanced and their wars are fought differently and etc. etc. etc.

And then I thought about the different burners switching into their places in the realm and I have a lot of thoughts about Mike seeing the army his other self leads, the men who respect and admire him, and getting really emotional! BUT THAT’S NOT THIS POST (mostly)

this post is about cyborg chuck pulling his slingshot in a fight or pulling up his screens. Sir Smiling Dragon is startled, delighted, amazed by the smooth metal. “I thought you said you didn’t know any magic!” he says, and Chuck shrugs and laughs and doesn’t meet his eyes. He explains, when he’s pushed; casual and a little self-conscious like it’s an embarrassing blemish he doesn’t like to talk about. Says, “they cut my arms open and took the insides out, replaced them with metal fakes and then closed my skin back up, then cut me again and again and again and did it to a bunch of other parts of me. I’m not magic, I’m just more metal than meat”.

Sir Smiling Dragon is incensed and terrified in equal measure at the casual way he admits to it, to being flayed alive, tortured--just the idea makes his hands itchy for his sword. The thought of somebody doing all these terrible things to any version of his king, the man he’d die for...it would never be okay, but especially not for this version of him, skinny and flinchy and sweet and young. Barely a man yet, and meriting the title more by his scars than by his years. What did they do to him? “Other world” be damned, they’re going to taste steel.

It takes Chuck fully a half hour to calm him down enough to explain, waving away old fear, old pain like it doesn’t matter that it happened. Explaining that surgery, medicine, they’re different where he came from, that there’s anesthetic and nanos and microsutures and it wasn’t even that bad, Mike, seriously. And it still sounds like torture, to Sir Smiling Dragon, but it’s okay. They drilled a hole in his skull and worked their medicine-that’s-not-magic on his brain, but it’s okay. They put metal and lights inside his eyes, but it’s okay. They tied invisible puppet strings to his mind with every intent to use them, but it’s okay, Mikey. But it’s not okay?

“I was a volunteer,” he says, like that makes it better. “It was years ago, dude, don’t worry about it.”

“Years ago you were a child,” Sir Smiling Dragon doesn’t say. “They should have turned you away, they should never have let this happen,” he doesn’t say, because whenever he points out how young this version of Lord Vanquisher is, the boy draws himself up and closes in tight, offended and hurt--you think I’m not capable anyway?

He is capable. He can’t wield a sword or ride a horse or do magic--he’s never been in the muddy, bloody mess of a melee battle. Sir Chilton has fought in wars with this boy, this man, has seen him work healing magic on his own body, wrong-handed and bloody and breathing too fast with wild eyes, but that was his king, and Chuck is...not. Chuck barely knows how to hold a sword, can’t do magic, but...he’s still a soldier. His war is bleaker, colder, started before he could walk and stretching on into his future with no end in sight except his. A war not just to conquer but to utterly raze, to overbuild and rewrite his home out of existence. A war that’s been going on for an impossibly long time, so long he’s gotten his weapons buried into his flesh so he never puts them down even for a second and that’s the saddest goddamn thing Sir Smiling Dragon has ever heard, geez.

So he does the only thing he can think of, and tries to make it better. He gives his not-majesty old books, and sunlight, and quiet, and whatever sweets he wants. His knowledge of food is bafflingly incomplete; he’s tasted chocolate, indulgently expensive in Raymanthia and shipped from far, far away, but has never had a plain loaf of fresh-baked wheat bread. He makes a startled grimace when they serve him fish and says “...is it...safe? The water’s clean here?”

He tries to explain mutant fish, and then water pollution, and then water filtration and then self-automated river-dredging drones, until Sir Smiling Dragon gives him more candied fruit just to give his ears a second of rest. His king’s a genius, a spell-worker and a tactician, but things are more cerebral, in this other world. This thinnier, gawkier version of his king has made multi-application functional engineering and invasive programming his transmutation and arcana. He talks like an encyclopaedia of anachronisms, endlessly more specific tiers of his sciences, like he finds comfort in the obscurity.

He calls Sir Smiling Dragon “Mikey” sometimes, and lights up with breathless glee when he gets to hold a lance, and Sir Chilton would defend him to the death.

((In another switch, the king is dismayed to lose his right-hand-man, but he’s startled and pleased by Mike’s familiarity with him. The boy has no professional boundaries at all, he’s so young and honest and sweet and it’s cute--even when it’s borderline disrespectful. He needs a firm hand, frequent reminders not to call the king “Chuckles” in front of the court. He’d throw an arm around his majesty’s shoulders in in the middle of a banquet if he could, whisper jokes to him, talk to him like an old, old friend. It’s indecorous, and it’s beautiful, and Lord Vanquisher firmly removes his friendly arm but can’t stop himself from whispering his own jokes back))

((he’s startled and devastated the first time they encounter an enemy and Mike doesn’t wait for backup, doesn’t attempt a strategy. He throws himself toward enemy weapons like his laughter will be armor enough, like a grin and a fearless charge can turn away an arrow. Mike throws himself into hopeless fights over and over and over again like he doesn’t care to hear the odds, like it might be better if they’re against him.))

((It’s all he knows, Lord Vanquisher learns when he demands an explanation afterward, terrified and furious and bandaging a deep slice across Mike’s forearm. Where Mike comes from his army is four against thousands, and if one of them has to die it has to be him. Too often his tactics are at least if I die nobody else has to. It’s...not good, seeing the wild look of self-sacrifice in the eyes of any version of his Knight Commander. But especially not one that’s still got the traces of adolescence clinging to his gangling legs and too-broad shoulders))

#aaaaaaahhhhhhh #altu #so anyway #life ruiner #he scream at own car #writing is hard #P: King And Lionheart #more literally this time than usual haha #here enjoy this extremely dramatic semi-prose-ish rant about culture clash and emotions #i love these tropes so much you guys

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advancingretail · 5 years

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CART Weekly Report 10/3/19

THE GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY FOR U.S. DRUGSTORES | Nielsen

Gary’s Take: The convergence between the massive health care and food industries in the United States continues to gain momentum and retailers and brands not paying attention will miss major opportunities and risk their shoppers moving on without them.

While supermarket retailers with in-store pharmacies are right in the middle of this convergence, drug stores are in a more challenging position. Food is increasingly being viewed and understood as medicine, putting grocery retailers in prime position. Drug stores are improving their food selections but have a long way to go.

Needless to say, any retailer in the food, pharmacy, or health and nutrition space should be aware of the convergence underway and figure out how they can benefit their shoppers.

THESE 18 RETAILERS HAVE FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY OR LIQUIDATION IN 2019 | Business Insider

Gary’s Take: Yesterday, Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy, adding to a growing list of retailers closing stores and going out of business. Many of these retailers are in non-food related channels like apparel, toys, etc. but it is only a matter of time before we see an acceleration of bankruptcy filings, store closures, and acquisitions in the supermarket sector. I believe this acceleration has already started but it is occurring across the independent sector of smaller retailers where filings don’t make the news. How it shows up though is in consolidation happening at the wholesaler level as the wholesalers seek to maintain their volume through acquiring other smaller distributors.

I also continue to believe that the majority of retail executives do not yet fully understand what’s coming. I hear more execs talking about change and innovation and exponential growth of technology but its almost as if they are just saying the words. Technology and all it enables is moving faster every day, and the exponential growth of computer processing power is creating industry disruptive capabilities at a growing pace.

The challenge for the retail industry is three-fold: 1) putting in place processes like the CART Innovation Program to build discovery and awareness of new capabilities, 2) train and educate your organization to be more open to innovation, doing things differently, and moving faster, and 3) develop a strategy for where you want to go and create a roadmap identifying what systems, processes, and practices need to be developed to get you there. BALANCING TECH WITH THE HUMAN TOUCH IN RETAIL | tech radar.pro

Gary’s Take: That automation is transforming retail is no longer in debate. The only question is what area of retail operations are going to be automated and what retailers are going to do with the savings. I believe automating jobs that people really don’t want to do, like floor cleaning, makes a lot of sense and everyone wins. And while I believe that Amazon-Go like technology will eventually make its way to full supermarkets, I’m not sure that’s a great thing.

People are social animals and shopping has been a social activity, seeing your neighbors, family, or friends at the local supermarket. Removing human interaction through automation can transform the shopping experience to a sterile, people-free transaction but eliminates a massive opportunity for retailers to actually foster and grow relationships with their customers.

WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY:

RETAIL AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE - GLOBAL TRENDS | Thinking Heads

HOW TO FOSTER EMPLOYEES INTO BRAND AMBASSADORS by Andrew Hoeft, Retail Process Innovator | CEO at Pinpoint Software

Solution Highlight: Date Check Pro

New Date Check Pro e-Book!

What Does it Mean to be a Community Grocer in 2020? This eBook dives into the strategies and tactics you can put into place in order to make an impact as a community grocer in 2020.

HAPPENINGS:

UPCOMING RETAIL TOMORROW INNOVATION DAYS/EVENTS

INNOVATION PROGRAM AT HY-VEE HEADQUARTERS - Des Moines, Iowa | November 6-7, 2019

More INNOVATION PROGRAM Events to be Announced Soon! Notify me about upcoming and new events

X/SPECS 2019 - October 15 thru 17, 2019 at the Waldorf Astoria, Orlando

Store Design in the Age of “i” - Wednesday, 11:30am-12:15pm

THE RETAIL REVOLUTION at PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY’S CENTER FOR RETAIL LEADERSHIP - October 24, 2019, 12:30-5:00pm, Portland, Oregon

SPECS SHOW 2020 - The ForeFront of Physical Retail - March 15-17, 2020, Gaylord Texan, Dallas

Innovation, individualization and immersion are all shaping the future of retail. Savvy retailers are embracing more immersive shopping experiences, big data intelligence, and deep operations and systems integration to continue innovating their store designs in this new age of “i.”

CART COMMUNITY. GET ON THE INSIDE. MEMBERSHIP HAS BENEFITS.

Become part of the epicenter of retail innovation exclusive network. The place where retail decision makers and solution providers come together to advance retail into the future.

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Quote of the Week: Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure ~ Albert Einstein

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kathleenseiber · 4 years

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‘Smart toilet’ checks you for diseases like cancer

A disease-detecting “precision health” toilet can sense multiple signs of illness through automated urine and stool analysis, according to a new study.

The “smart toilet” isn’t the kind that lifts its own lid in preparation for use; this toilet includes technology that can detect a range of disease markers in stool and urine, including those of some cancers, such as colorectal or urologic cancers.

The device could hold particular appeal for people genetically predisposed to certain conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome, prostate cancer, or kidney failure, and want to keep on top of their health.

“Our concept dates back well over 15 years,” says senior author Sanjiv “Sam” Gambhir, professor and chair of radiology at Stanford University. “When I’d bring it up, people would sort of laugh because it seemed like an interesting idea, but also a bit odd.”

With a pilot study of 21 participants now completed, Gambhir and his team have made their vision of a precision health-focused smart toilet a reality.

Gambhir’s toilet is an ordinary toilet outfitted with gadgets inside the bowl. These tools, a suite of different technologies, use motion sensing to deploy a mixture of tests that assess the health of any deposits. Urine samples undergo physical and molecular analysis; stool assessment is based on physical characteristics.

The toilet automatically sends data extracted from any sample to a secure, cloud-based system for safekeeping. In the future, Gambhir says, researchers could integrate the system into any health care provider’s record-keeping system for quick and easy access.

Smart toilet checking for cancer

The toilet falls into a category of technology known as continuous health monitoring, which encompasses wearables like smart watches.

“The thing about a smart toilet, though, is that unlike wearables, you can’t take it off,” Gambhir says. “Everyone uses the bathroom—there’s really no avoiding it—and that enhances its value as a disease-detecting device.”

Although the idea may take some getting used to, Gambhir, a professor for clinical investigation in cancer research, envisions the smart toilet as part of the average home bathroom. In facilitating that broad adaption, Gambhir designed the “smart” aspect as an add-on—a piece of technology that’s readily integrated into any old porcelain bowl.

“It’s sort of like buying a bidet add-on that can be mounted right into your existing toilet,” he says. “And like a bidet, it has little extensions that carry out different purposes.”

These extensions sport an array of health-monitoring technologies that look for signs of disease. Video captures both urine and stool samples and then a set of algorithms processes them. The algorithms can distinguish normal “urodynamics” (flow rate, stream time, and total volume, among other parameters) and stool consistencies from unhealthy ones.

Alongside physical stream analysis, the toilet also deploys uranalysis strips, or “dipstick tests,” to measure certain molecular features. White blood cell count, consistent blood contamination, certain levels of proteins, and more can point to a spectrum of diseases, from infection to bladder cancer to kidney failure. In its current stage of development, Gambhir says, the toilet can measure 10 different biomarkers.

It’s still early days, though, with a total of 21 participants having tested the toilet over the course of several months. To get a better feel for “user acceptance” more broadly, the team surveyed 300 prospective smart-toilet users. About 37% says they were “somewhat comfortable” with the idea, and 15% says they were “very comfortable” with the idea of baring it all in the name of precision health.

Built-in ID system

One of the most important aspects of the smart toilet may well be one of the most surprising—and perhaps unnerving: It has a built-in identification system.

“The whole point is to provide precise, individualized health feedback, so we needed to make sure the toilet could discern between users,” Gambhir says. “To do so, we made a flush lever that reads fingerprints.”

The team realized, however, that fingerprints aren’t quite foolproof. What if one person uses the toilet, but someone else flushes it? Or what if the toilet is of the auto-flush variety?

They added a small scanner that images a rather camera-shy part of the body. You might call it the polar opposite of facial recognition. In other words, to fully reap the benefits of the smart toilet, users must make their peace with a camera that scans their anus.

“We know it seems weird, but as it turns out, your anal print is unique,” Gambhir says. The scans—both finger and nonfinger—are used purely as a recognition system to match users to their specific data. No one, not you or your doctor, will see the scans.

By no means is this toilet a replacement for a doctor, or even a diagnosis, Gambhir says. In fact, in many cases, the toilet won’t ever report data to the individual user. In an ideal scenario, should something questionable arise—like blood in the urine—an app fitted with privacy protection would send an alert to the user’s health care team, allowing professionals to determine the next steps for a proper diagnosis. A secure, cloud-based system would store the data. Data protection, both in terms of identification and sample analyses, is a crucial piece of this research, Gambhir says.

“We have taken rigorous steps to ensure that all the information is de-identified when it’s sent to the cloud and that the information—when sent to health care providers—is protected under HIPAA,” he says, referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which restricts the disclosure of health care records.

Next steps

As Gambhir and his team continue to develop the smart toilet, they’re focusing on a few things: increasing the number of participants, integrating molecular features into stool analysis, and refining the technologies that are already working. They’re even individualizing the tests deployed by the toilet. For example, someone with diabetes may need his or her urine monitored for glucose, whereas someone else who is predisposed to bladder or kidney cancer might want the toilet to monitor for blood.

Gambhir’s other goal is to further develop molecular analysis for stool samples. “That’s a bit trickier, but we’re working toward it,” Gambhir says. “The smart toilet is the perfect way to harness a source of data that’s typically ignored—and the user doesn’t have to do anything differently.”

The paper appears in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Additional coauthors are from Stanford, Seoul Song Do Hospital in South Korea, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, the University of Toronto, Leiden University in the Netherlands, Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea, and the Catholic University of Korea also contributed to this work. The National Institutes of Health funded this study.

Source: Stanford University

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