you are enough

of critters in clover

The person who made those samples must love humans.

Each one was preserved with love and care. if Shuichi didn't know better, he'd never guess how gruesome ends they've met.

To Gonta, all of his friends shone brighter than gems.

Both insects and humans alike.

___

My take on Mastermind Gonta, based on the paranoid theories formed during my initial V3 gameplay: a secret Ultimate Taxidermist/Embalmer, set on "protecting" what he holds most dear by making it a part of his collection.

Bonus sketch:

That initial accidental google I did of a mutual returned an AI summary that was absolutely correct, and featured information about them that would not have been obvious from a quick perusal of their blog. The first few times I googled myself the AI overview was 100% correct. The version of that post that is circulating is not the one where I shared that the AI gave me someone's real name. I had hoped that it had screwed up and it wasn't their real name after all, but no, I checked with them, and just by googling someone's Tumblr URL, I got their honest to goodness legal name. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? Like yeah I get that it's fun to go, "Haha, AI bad at collecting information," but that's not the problem. The problem is that sometimes AI good at collecting information, and it can collect a lot more a lot faster than a normal human can, by running multiple searches simultaneously and cross-referencing a lot of different documents all in a few seconds, for a level of snooping that would take a real person hours or even days, if they could do it at all.

^ it should look like this ^

Ask yourself, how does this piece make you feel? (No wrong answers)

Look for an artist statement nearby. What does it say about the artist and their relationship to their work? What does the artist say that they are trying to convey with their art? What contextual clues can you pick up from what they say about their background, or what they omit?

Look at the title of the piece. What is the artist saying about their work by naming it that, either explicitly or implicitly?

Look at the medium. Is there anything about the piece that stands out to you, knowing what it's made of?

Look at the year it was made. What cultural events might have been happening around this time? Was this piece part of a particular art movement? What was the purpose of that art movement, and what was it trying to say?

As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:

WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!

Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.

In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.

Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.

Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.

Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.

Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.

If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.

Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.

Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.

Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.

Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.

If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.

Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.

ice tucked in a hair bun = great cooling.

Or soak a baseball cap or other cloth hat that won’t be damaged by water.

Water needs energy to evaporate. As it dries, it consumes a little heat in its immediate vicinity.

Therefore any significant amount of water — buckets, wet towels, damp laundry— in a small room can cool it a degree or two, although this doesn’t work as well if the air is already humid.

The Monday Period: Part 1 of 6

Part 1: you are here

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

humans are the moms

compared to other species on earth, humans have a really outsized "protect baby" instinct. you give a human a thing and tell them it's actually a baby thing and many humans will suddenly develop a complete and total aversion to harming it, even if it's like, a writhing mass of slimy tentacles in no way reminiscent of human infants

cats domesticated us by figuring out that they could leave their kittens with us when they went out hunting and come back and probably still have the same number as before they left. there is a decent chance that wolves did the same thing

word gets around the less parenting-inclined species and they're just like, are you doing a long haul space voyage? going to have to lay some eggs in the course of the trip? take a few humans with you. yeah they'll just start training the young and keeping from them climbing into the machinery themselves you don't even have to find specialists. I know a guy who budded unexpectedly on a freight hauler halfway through a four year trip, and not only did the humans not eat his spawn, they set up this thing called "babysitting" where they'd take turns monitoring its survival and helping to teach it basic skills

statement statement

The mirror replied "To whom?"

"The miller who made the flour for my bread," the queen would say, or "Whoever spun the thread my shawl was made of".

The second time, she says "To the King," and she is pleased to see herself once more.

The third time, she says "To the Royal Advisor," and is once more satisfied to see herself.

The fourth time, she says "To the scribe who takes the King's letters." She is shown the man's wife. And she seethes, but quiets herself, for it is only right that a man loves his wife.

The fifth time, she says "To the Court Wizard," and is shown the man's departed mother as he remembers her from his youth, radiant and smiling and warm and larger than life.

The tenth time, she says "To the Stable Master," and is shown the fastest horse in the stable, majestic and free as the wind even in captivity

"To the baker," she is shown the man's daughter, young and adorable and full of joy and laughter.

"To the artist who did my portrait," she is shown a painting of a woman done by the man's teacher, who he still looks up to now that he is well established himself.

"To the Royal Knight," she is surprised but not displeased to see the castle's entire guard force in the middle of doing drills.

The one hundredth time she asks the mirror, and it asks her "to whom?" she once again says, "To me." And she does the same the one hundred and second, and again and again and again.