Alephs & Other Junk

there's been a recent spike in hatefics for the setting on ao3, a good portion of which are badly written and are clearly just vents, and someone wrote a response where the writer of one becomes a floret, possibly after being raped and drugged into submission, which reads as more than a little fucked up to me. not to mention the people in the comments of most of the hatefics saying shit like "oh they should be xenodrugged they'd make a great floret" as if they're real affini and not random ass humans making shallow, creepy threats to people with negative things to say about their precious slave rape kink setting. while calling hdg writers nazis, transphobes, and rapists is a mile long stretch that they don't deserve for writing kinky stories about plant people, lashing out with creepy setting appropriate threats (or threats in general) against anyone who criticizes your work or the stuff you enjoy, the hatefic authors and their stories included, is never right.

shit like that is why i refuse to write a thing for the setting and would rather just make my own kink setting without lots of sexual assault. (well, that and the fact that one of the lorets went on to say that transmisandry is fake on the official hdg discord, as transmascs experience their own version of transphobia, as do transfems and enbies. denying that one brand of transphobia isn't real just hurts victims of it)

This is extremely fucking rich coming from Alien: The Plot Armor.

[Affini in acclaimed fics gloating over inducing permanent brain damage in their captives, mocking their captives' humiliation, enjoying their captives' fear]

I recently finished Ellen's route in the game and it gave me an idea for my AU.

In the Paranormal Order there is a pharmaceutical company known as Panacea. It's a front company, Because their true objective is to study and use the paranormal as a weapon. So, in the 90s (I wish it were the 60s, but Panacea was created in 1973) when World War III became too complicated for humans, the AI Allied Mastercomputer was created to deal with it.

One of the plans to win the war was to use the paranormal to make the soldiers stronger. There are many examples of paranormal entities capable of easily decimating an entire army, being able to control the paranormal is a difficult task, so Ingsai ( I don't remember if It was responsible for creating AM or not, but in this AU It is) partners with the pharmaceutical company Panacea to create medications that would make soldiers stronger and more resilient thanks to the paranormal.

Well, the guinea pigs in these experiments are the survivors, and of course these tests involve a lot of torture, because that's what makes the paranormal stronger. This project is also part of AM's functions in the war, although he hasn't become conscious at this point in the story, but that happens soon after.

"Mt. Suribach. The mountain is shaped like a bowl. A dead volcano."

"The sounds of laughter, giggling and cackling and howling laughter. Like a wonderful party where somebody is telling a hilarious story. The Marines listen to it dumbfounded. Slowly the laughter fades, and there is a new sound, a strange rushing roar that quickly breaks apart into discrete sounds: screams, shouts, gasps, weeping, terror."

Reference:

“Drink”

So, in terrible news, Trump's trying to pull some strings to pass this massive internet censorship bill, featuring all the kinds of internet censorship we're terrified of, including mandatory ID for accessing basically any website, specifically to crush state regulation of AI, because apparently this man will always see the moral bottom of the barrel and start digging.

6/14/2026

Ever since I was a kid I have never ever been able to find it at all funny when religious people do this. No matter how stupid the thing is that they're upset by, it JUST makes me feel blind rage and disgust?

Maybe it's because I remember my little cousins getting brutally punished by one of my aunts because they watched some kid show she thought was ungodly? Maybe it's also knowing that they genuinely think the rest of the world is full of hellbound idiots over things this trivial.

Fans: "aha! That's The Abuser(tm), the character archetype I invented that symbolizes the worst person to ever traumatize me"

Also the central hook is this deadly monstrous panther guy forced by the gods to guide a scared child through a terrifying quest and he spends the whole time being a pissed off reluctant grizzled father figure about it, you little tumblr guys love that type of thing right???

practicing my new tablet with one of those painted-into-photo monsters like slimyswampghost popularized