Female King of Ik

“there’s good in you”

“I failed.”

“What did you fail? Yourself? Your family? Your lover?”

and one day, on their screen, they see in the distance

For me I’d have to say it was The Flash. Big, nasty, giant explosion. It happened miles and miles away – I think somewhere on the coast? But even as far inland as I was I saw it. I’d like to think that that was my defining “what I was doing when” thing for my generation. But it’s not like I can ask around to see if that’s really a thing. I’m kind of in a generation by myself these days.

Anyway I was eating cereal when it happened. Lucky Charms, of course, objectively the best cereal. I keep hoping I’ll find some one of these days. No luck yet, but I’ll keep looking.

The news was on, talking about mounting tensions and threats and increased NORAD presence. Same stuff they’d talked about for years so it’s not like I was paying attention. I was still cramming for my math test that day. Fuck trig. At least that came out of it, right, never having to do trig again?

Next thing you know there’s a huge flash of light from the kitchen windows and then nothing much at all.

Turns out it was a bomb. Who knew, right? Some real Fallout junk. I forget if it was an A-bomb or an H-bomb or something else. It didn’t seem to matter in all the other shit going on at the time.

The weeks after were the worst. The evacuation, the refugee camp. State of emergency. Checkpoints. More bombs, other places. I figured we’d be fine, since we were a no-dig-deal kind of state. Not much but corn around here, low population density, so no good bomb targets.

They kept saying that there’d be an EMP, that we should all brace for it. But it never came. Can I just tell you how crazy glad I am that never happened? I can lose everything else, alright, fine, but I’d fucking die without my phone. Even when shit was crazy, I had CandyCrush and Drake to keep my mind off of things.

The radiation did impact us after all, though. Apparently it moves and weather carries it. I never liked rain anyway. People started getting sick. My cousins, my parents, even the soldiers manning the checkpoints at the camp, even if they tried to hide it. I seemed to be the only one who wasn’t bothered. Sure my hair fell out, but I got over it. I didn’t shrivel up or start spitting blood like everyone else did.

Saying goodbye really sucked. In a sick kind of way, I wish it had taken longer, so I could have been with people for longer. But, no, I guess I don’t really wish that. Then I’d have kept seeing them suffer. Most people can’t even speak by the end of it, when they’ve got radiation sickness really bad they just grunt a lot. It’s not easy to watch.

When I realized I was the only one left I hung out for a while. Until the bodies started to smell. I know, I know, I should have buried them, but I’ve always been kinda’ small and stringy for my age. Not really the champion of the presidential fitness test over here. Instead I packed up some gear and started walking. I figured I’d find another camp by the end of the week.

But the only camps I found were the same story. Over and over. Lots of animals were dead too. But if I was somehow resistant or immune or whatever to the radiation, it couldn’t be just me. I couldn’t possibly be the only conveniently mutated weirdo in the world. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

That… was a while ago.

It didn’t occur to me to keep track of time until I started noticing the seasons change. Since I started counting it’s been about two years. I’ve gotten pretty solid at living like this. I don’t see the bodies anymore, they’re all dried up or decomposed, even when I’m somewhere they ought to be. And animals turned out to be a lot more resistant than we ever were, so the hunting’s alright. I can start a fire. I raided a Bass Pro Shop and now I carry a tent around with me. I like to think of it as extreme camping.

Through it all, my phone’s been with me. I am way the fuck overdue for an upgrade, but I gotta say that that solar charger is the best purchase I ever fucking made. I wish I’d had the chance to download more apps and music before it all went to shit, though. I know all the words to every song I’ve got on here. I’ve demolished Candy Crush about a hundred times. PokemonGo is still my fave though.

It’s funny. I never got into the hype when it came out but it’s been the best thing I’ve had out here since all that bad stuff happened. When I was walking, looking for people, it gave me something to keep me busy on the road. And when I figured out that there were no people, just me, well, I started to go a little funny in the head for a bit. But having something to do kept me walking.

The loneliness is the worst part these days. But the Pokemon… they help. I know they aren’t real. And I know that, someday, the satellite that keeps this dumb thing running is going to fall out of the sky or spin out into space. But until then I’ve got my team. I’ve got all my little buddies.

I don’t think I’ll ever catch ‘em all. They’ve got those special ones you can only get in Australia and stuff. And I don’t know how to trick my phone into thinking I’m in those places. I’d Google it, but the real web’s been out forages now. But I’m pretty sure I’ve caught everything that isn’t gated.

Do you have any idea of how many fucking rattatas there are in the world? It’s ridiculous. But even they’re good to see. Just another little friend to pick up out here. Just me and the pokemon. The Pokemon Master At The End Of The Universe. Suck it, Ash.

It was fun for a while to just take all the gyms and make them mine. A team of one, slowly taking over the world. Then I started to feel like I was making the other two team extinct and that made me feel weird, so I just beef up my own gyms now. Unless I feel like red’s getting too big for their britches and need to knock them down a peg and stick a Magikarp up there. Just for the fun of it.

I’ve got a pretty solid team. For a while I tried to specialize. Only fire types for a while. When I got sick of that I tried for only bug types. But then I got all up in my head about it and didn’t want to feel like I was leaving any of them behind. I know they’re not real. I know. But, man, I need them. I know I do. Is it so wrong to feel like, maybe, in some weird way, they kind of need me, too? After all, I’m the only one left in the world to play. When I go, they go.

It was easier one I got all the items. I’ve seen more of the Professor than I ever wanted to. I try to conserve my stuff for when I’m in a good area, like in some old city ruins. Like now. Pokestops all over the place, way better than out along the highway. My own poke-city to play with. A city of pokemon. A world of pokemon. And me.

That’s funny.

What are those pink petals doing? I haven’t dropped a lure in ages. There’s no way I did it by mistake, I’m not cracking up that much…

Fishy Love!

Song by Griffinilla Animated by GaelRice, (aka me)

says “cool beans”

does finger guns

says “coolio”

“my guy”

“my dude”

ironically said “get rekt scrub” and now can’t stop

“ayyeee” 

I mean, the heroes do, of course they do, kids who want to meet Spiderman or Superman or get to be carried by the Flash as he runs through Central City for just thirty seconds.

Like, the first time it happens, no one actually thinks it’s possible, but one of the newbies volunteers to at least try. They get lucky, the kid wants to meet one of the villains who is well known to have a personal code of ethics (eg one of the rogues), and it takes them weeks to track the villain down to this one bar they’ve been seen at a few times, plus a week of staking out said bar, but they finally find them.

So they approach the villain, very politely introduce themselves and explain the situation, finishing with an assurance that, should the villain agree, no law enforcement or heroes will be informed of the meeting.

The villain, assuming it’s a joke, laughs in their face.

At this point, the poor volunteer, who has giving up weeks of their time and no small amount of effort to track down this villain, all so a sweet little girl can meet the person who somehow inspired them, well, at this point the employee sees red.

They explode, yelling at this villain about the little girl who, for some unknown reason, absolutely loved them, had a hand-made stuffed toy of them and was inspired by their struggle to keeping fighting her own and wasn’t the villain supposed to have ethics? The entire bar is witness to this big bad villain getting scolded by some bookish nobody a foot shorter than them.

When the volunteer is done, the villain calmly knocks back their drink, grips the volunteers shoulder and drags them outside. The bar’s patrons assume that person will never be seen again, the volunteer included. But once they’re outside, the villain apologises for their assumption, asks for the kid’s details so they can drop by in the near future, not saying when for obvious reasons. They also give the very relieved volunteer a phone number to call if someone asks for them again.

A week later, the little girl’s room is covered in villain merchandise, several expensive and clearly stolen gifts and she is happily clutching a stack of signed polaroids of her and the villain.

The next time a kid asks to meet a villain, guess who gets that assignment?

Turns out, the first villain was quite touched by the experience of meeting their little fan, and word has gotten around. The second villain happily agrees when they realise it’s the same volunteer who asked the other guy. Unfortunately, one of the heroes sees the villain entering the kid’s hospital and obviously assumes the worst. They rush in, ready to drag the villain out, but the volunteer stands in their way. The hero spends five minutes getting scolded for trying to stop the villain from actually doing a good thing and almost ruining the kid’s wish. The volunteer gets a reputation among villains as someone who can not only be trusted with personal contact numbers but who will do everything they can to keep law enforcement away during their visits.

The volunteer has a phonebook written in cypher of all the villain’s phone numbers, with asterixes next to the ones to call if any other villains give them trouble.

Heroes: “Can’t you, just, give us their contact details? They’ll never even have to know it was you.”

The Villain Wrangler: “Yeah sure, <rollseyes> because all these evil geniuses could never possibly figure out that it’s me who happens to be the common thread in the sudden mass arrests. Look man, even if it wouldn’t get me killed, it would disappoint the kids. You wouldn’t want to disappoint the kids would you?”

Heroes: “… no~ but…”

The Villain Wrangler: “Exactly.”

Eventually, one of the anti-hero types gets frustrated, and decides to take a stand. They kidnap the Villain Wrangler and demand that they give up the contents of the little black book of Villains, or suffer the consequences. It’s For the Greater Good, the anti-hero insists as they tie the Villain Wrangler to a pillar.

The Villain Wrangler: “You complete idiot, put me back before someone figures out that I’m missing.”

Anti-hero: “…excuse me?”

The Villain Wrangler: “Ugh, do I have to spell this out for you? Do you actually want your secret base to be wiped off the map? With us in it? Sugarsticks, how long has it been? If they get suspicious, they check in, and then if I miss a check-in, they tend to come barging into wherever I am just to prove that they can, even if they figure out that they’re not being threatened by proxy. Suffice to say, Auntie Muriel really regretted throwing my phone into the pool when she strenuously objected to me answering it during family time. If they think for even one moment that I’ve given them up, they won’t hesitate to obliterate both of us from their potential misery. You do know some of the people in my book have like missiles and djinni and elemental forces at their disposal, right?”

Anti-hero: “Wait, what? I thought they trusted you?!”

The Villain Wrangler: “Trust is such a strong word!”

Villain: “Indeed.”

Anti-hero: “Wait, wha-” <slumps over, dart sticking out of neck>

The Villain Wrangler: “Thanks. I thought they were going to hurt me.”

Villain: “You did well. You kept them distracted, and gave us time to follow your signal.” <cuts Villain Wrangler free>

The Villain Wrangler: <rubbing circulation back into limbs> “Yeah well, you know me, I do whatever I have to. So I’ll see you Wednesday at four at St Martha’s? I’ve got an 8yo burns unit patient recovering from her latest batch of skin grafts who could really use a pep talk.”

Villain: “… of course. Yes… I… yes.”

The Villain Wrangler: “I just think you could really reach her, you know?”

Villain: <unconsciously runs fingers over mask> “I… yes, but, what should I say?”

The Villain Wrangler: “Whatever advice you think you could have used the most just after.”

Villain: <hoists Anti-hero over shoulder almost absently> “….yes.”

The Villain Wrangler wasn’t lying to the Anti-hero. They know that the more ruthless villains would not hesitate if they thought for one second that the Anti-hero would betray them.

But this is not the first time the Villain Wrangler has gone to extreme lengths to protect their identities.

Also, imagine one of the kids gets better, and a few years down the line becomes a villain themself, except their crimes are things like smuggling chemo drugs across the border for families that can’t afford treatment, or stealing from corrupt businessmen to make donations to underfunded hospitals (idk this turned into a Leverage AU or something) and every time the heroes encounter her, they’re like “oh no. she’s getting away. curses. welp, nothing we can do.” Though it isn’t that she can’t take them on; bc of course once the villain from way back when found out what she was up to, he started helping/training her. 

“I thought they just hired someone to dress up and pretend to be you,” she says, amazed, when he reveals himself. “I didn’t think they actually got the real you!”

they are fierce with grieving families assuring them that their child will not be forgotten, and they don’t balk at negative emotions, they don’t tell people to be strong or “celebrate their child’s life,” because these parents have every right to their grief and anger

Another, who created their own exosuit, talks to a young fan and suddenly understands how much the technology that they have built for themselves could revolutionise quality of life for people with muscular dystrophy, or paraplegia, or other disorders that confine people to wheelchairs with little mobility.

A third thinks of a way that their nanobots could be used to detect and remove cancer cells when their fan, who had been in remission, writes to say that the doctors have found a new metastasizing tumour.

Then shortly after, an evil genius specialising in cloning is contacted by an old colleague asking if a suitable heart couldn’t be grown for their young fan with a congenital heart condition who needs a donor.

Suddenly, a pattern of villains offering (and marketing) their insights and resources to improve medical science starts to arise. Many who had previously been operating on society’s fringes are shocked to receive public accolades, research grants and job offers from major companies because of their work.

A grassroots movement arises advocating for imprisoned villains with appropriate qualifications and/or experience to have access to resources to conduct research for the public good. The Second Chance Rehabilitation Project launches.

(It is an open secret that only people who have been vetted by the Villain Wrangler are allowed to join, because the Villain Wrangler has by now a meticulously set up method and intelligence network to run background checks and character references through ensure that none of the children wishing to meet their role models get hurt.)

Being able to say that one is involved with the Project begins to look really good in parole hearings. The Villains involved perform their own quality checks on one another, because if one of their kids got hurt, then all of their kids could potentially lose out, and the ones that are serious about the Project are not having that. (Also, the ability to collaborate with other geniuses is the most interesting thing to happen to most of them since losing to various heroes, and most consider the intellectual stimulation to be worth putting up with the ridiculous egoes and inevitable personality clashes that arise.)

Reformed Villains come out of the woodwork to advocate about better mental healthcare, and support systems. Savvy universities and private labs quietly take their advice, setting up better mental health supports and laboratory safety standards to prevent the Brain Drain caused by losing their less stable scientists to the Costumes.

The Villain Wrangler watches all of this develop with a smile.

ok but, this isnt a mermaid kinda deal, where you can just flip two bits and be done with it. a manticore has PARTS

theres a lot of other interpretations of em out there, but for simplicity lets say theres four defining Big Features to work with that i can swap around

first up, the back bit (scorpion tail) and front bit (human face) are switched, giving us a scorpion face. if we were being really accurate the scorpions entire head actually consists of a lot more legs, but were not, so it doesnt

then instead of a lion body, its a bat body, swapping with the wings and giving us, incredibly, another fucking pair of bat wings

this would be the bit where the human tail goes in but guess what

and then I GUESS instead of bat wings, the reverse scorpion would have LION WINGS !! but theres no such thing so we gotta go with the closest equivalent, which is just a big ol goddamn pair of lion arms

oh yeah. oh FUCK yeah. the a n t i c o r e

Also some people are terrible at normal Vision work, but have excellent night vision and are skilled at working under adverse conditions.

Person 2:  Seriously, how can something be a wave and a particle?  That doesn’t even make sense.

Mysterious Human: Even if you cannot perceive the light, you can feel its warmth–

Navigator: Warp drive engaged.  We are approaching 90% of the Lorentz limit.

Human:  What now?

Navigator:  Oh, uh, it’s really complex, but lemme try.  So, matter can only move so fast through space, right?  Like absolutely, nothing can ever ever possibly go faster than like about 3 hundred million meters per second–

Human: Ah yes.  The speed of light.

Human: Fuuuuuuuuck. 

Captain: What?

Human: Remember how light is a wave and a particle?

Captain: Yes, we mention this every episode. 

Human: Yeah, light’s frozen along with everything else. I can’t see shit. 

Captain: My god! Our sonar doesn’t work either! The soundwaves— they can’t propagate through this frozen air! We’ll have to use just our whiskers!

“Shh. Don’t try to hide your needs, Captain,” Hue Mann soothed.  “My sight has told me all about your traumatic memories of the war.”

“What?” Captain gasped.  “But…how…?”

“The light knows all,” explained Hue.  “Time slows down at the speed of light.  It sees all of the past..and all of the future.”

“And what is it telling you now?” questioned the Captain.

Hue leaned in close. “It tells me, ‘Mate with them now, you lovestruck fool!”

“Damn you, Hue Mann.  Damn you and your penetrating ‘eyes.’”

“Tell me all about them! What do you like about them?”

“Well, they have these amazing eyes…”

“Yeah? Better at the the wavemapping thing than yours?”

“…I don’t know how good their eyes are at seeing. They’re just this beautiful shade of brown.”

“Wait. You wavemap each other’s wavemapping organs? And have opinions about what nice frequencies they refract the waves at?”

“Yes? What’s so strange about this?”

“I thought your ‘vision’ was passive. Do you listen to each other’s ears too? And like the smell of each other’s noses?”

“Like you’ve never touched someone’s whiskers with your whiskers.”

Pete regrets taking Al to the beach

Spooky Roomates Al and Pete are back !

Have some spooky roomates 

aka what i doodle on the train

I made my way through the plane to my row, where I was to be seated in the window (a personal preference). As I approached my row, I saw a woman sitting in the middle seat, with her belongings on my seat. I politely said that it was my seat and waited for her to move them. She let out an overly-large sigh, then laboriously moved her things onto her lap. She then sat there. And sat. I asked her if she would mind letting me by, and she said the oddest thing:

“Go over me.”

Now at first, I assumed that this was my fault. I assumed that in my awful, terrible hangover, I had forgotten how people board cramped seats and that I was wrong for assuming she would and should get up to let me in. But then I remembered, I’m an idiot. So I assumed she had difficulty standing or whatever, and rather than embarrass her I did as she requested, I went over her.

Shortly before takeoff, she stood up and hollered at her husband, who was in the back of the plane with their two children:

“I don’t know why you couldn’t get us seats together! Honestly, this is absurd, why didn’t you?!”

Lady, I got an idea why.

I didn’t really care about her constantly reshuffling things or her armrest-hogging. It did bum me out when her daughter came up to our row with a cheese and cracker platter and asker her mom if she wanted some and the lady simply said “No.” Eventually, I was able to fall asleep.

For those who don’t drink, there is a phenomenon called the beer shits. After a night of heavy drinking, you will often have a large amount of gas (and other things which go along with it) the next day. About halfway through out flight, I felt this coming on, and I decided I had no choice but to go. I asked her if I could please get out. The gentleman in the aisle seat immediately got out, but she again said:

“Go over me.”

Now by this point, I was pretty irritable. I had an awful headache, my stomach was doing somersaults, and I was about to blow an O-ring, and this miserable bitch wanted me to go over her? On a moving plane? Fine, I would. I swung my right leg over her, then put my ass over her face, nearly touching. A slight tremble in the flight, and I released a full-on, seemingly never ending fart, a cloud of noxious gas which should have had me arrested for war crimes. I let the whole thing go. Afterwards, I turned, made full eye contact, and said “Sorry. Turbulence.” Everyone around me was fully and truly disgusted, and to them I am still so sorry, but I did what I did for the greater good.

Is

It is super poisonous

There is a reason we do not use it in make up any more

That orange box is how many moles of dissolved Cu++ Scaife got from sticking malachite in some water that had 0.171 moles NaCl/L (body salinity is about 0.154 moles NaCl/L so this is slightly less salty than people) at 30°C. He’s got no acidity in there, and again the salinity and temperature are slightly lower than people. But this is probably the closest we’re going to get to data on how malachite behaves in vaginas anytime soon, folks. From this we can take away that if you leave malachite alone in a vagina you’ll get AT LEAST 9.12 x 10^-4 moles/L, or 5.8 ppm, of Cu++ at equilibrium.  • Recall from above that most “malachite” isn’t actually pure malachite, it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. The EPA document elaborates: “[T]raditional ‘eyeball’ identification of malachite by its blue-green color is extremely unreliable, because almost all cupric hydroxysulfates, hydroxycarbonates, hydroxychlorides, and even fresh cupric hydroxide can be some shade of blue-green. … Thus, the uncertainty in the computed copper concentration in equilibrium with malachite is at least about a factor of 2 … until further experimental data focusing on this problem is generated.” In other words, “do your math and then double how much Cu++ you think is going to be in the water, just in case.” So that gives us 11.6ppm Cu++, at equilibrium, with malachite in a (til now!) healthy vagina.  • Next step: do we have any idea what happens to bacteria in acid conditions with copper? OH MY GOD WE TOTALLY DO. Gyawali et al 2011 checked this out in the context of “so what if we rinsed tomatoes with a solution of lactic acid and copper, because that would be a safe & organic way to get rid of E. coli?” So now this post has officially ruined stalactites, vaginas, and tomatoes.

“He walks on all four when he wants to get somewhere fast…which is never a good thing-”

I have considered it for quite a bit actually! It will probably end up like this: