28 trillion cells

This one is a bit different because it began as a GoodSilna Sci-Fi AU, but I'm now rewriting it as an original bilingual audiodrama script! It's still rough: no one has yet proofread my L2 Iñupiatun or thou/thee pronouns and verb conjugations. I'm defaulting to thou/thee so as to singularize and imply familiarity and intimacy via the second-person English pronouns, and quoted then retranslated the Iñupiatun translation of the Bible for the "Be not afraid" line to emphasize the modern religious vibe of English thou/thee pronouns.

CW: body/psychological horror; noncon symbiosis; threat of vomit.

Witch Hat Atelier Manga Spoilers!

Thinking about Qifrey discribing the ink from the Silverwood tree as it's 'literal blood' and brushbuddies looove ink!

Taylor kissed Rachel to cure bonesaw's miasma (wildbow 2012, part 14.11)

Taylor could have spit on a bug and had it fly into Rachel's mouth to cure the miasma (@ty-bayonet-betteridge, 2023)

Wildbow has stated numerous times that neither of these characters are supposed to be taken as queer.

Taylor kissing a girl on the lips in a scenario when there were other options she likely would have thought of to cure her is Gay

These three observations all seem to contradict with each other, such that we cannot take them seriously without one of them giving. Most would place their doubt on 3, claiming that wildbow intentionally created a yuri moment for his readers and then backed away from the implications this would have on the larger story. However, careful reasoning reveals that there is no necessary contradiction:

A normally gay action isn't actually gay if all your alternatives in the situation would be more gay.

The most-often stated alternative for what Taylor could have done involved flying a bug down Rachel's throat.

Taylor's swarm is noted numerous times to be an extension of her body.

We can thus conclude there is no contradiction between are initial quartet of observations as long as we accept the following: Taylor having a bug fly down a girl's throat is more gay than simply kissing them.

With this out of the way, we can turn our attention to a section from 19.7:

Taras Shevchenko and Ira Aldridge by Heorhiy Melikhov, 1963

'goon' -linguistic drift gave her a new meaning. i hope her new life is good for her. i miss her.

'henchman' -too gendered. can be shortened to 'hench' in a pinch, but lacks punch.

'servant' -too domestic to apply to all those who serve evil.

'underling, subordinate' -this one only works if they get off on being beneath you and/or you don't properly pay your workers.

'associate' -this one's good for grizzled mercenaries or lone agents but doesn't work good for broad swathes of an organization.

'slave' -same as underling but more intense. really fun for some of the group. unsavory for others in a way that limits the scope of the thing.

'thrall' -only really applies if you're brainwashing them and that's not something i've learned how to do en masse yet

'flunky, toady, stooge, lackey' -these are just insulting, and that isn't conducive to a healthy work environment. imagine going to work and your job title is 'stooge'.

'acolyte' -works for those that worship you, but again. lacks the scope.

'supporter, follower' -unspecific and vague

'assistant, helper, aide' -not sinister at all. just means you're doing things for me. swagless in this manner. could be good if used to describe someone who's so clearly more that as a way to emphasize their obedience via understatement, but that's only useful for a few members of the organization. and even then, 'associate' works better.

Veil status: normal

Tomorrow's veil: normal to thick

"I know the Canvas ransomware attack is terribly inconvenient for many people, and sorry if that means you. I, however, am finding it farcically amusing.

For years and years faculty have been pushed to use Canvas. All courses get a homogenized and flattened interface and everything is presented as an easy consumer experience in a one-stop shop and it doesn’t matter if you object to any of that or don’t want to spend 50 hours dealing with an annoying tech product that doesn’t fit your pedagogy. Even communicating with students has been shunted through Canvas. And if you resist any of this, woe betide you. In fact you can’t print syllabi any more even if you wanted to—unless you pay for your own paper, ink, and printer (which I do).

Now Canvas has been taken down by ransomware, tomorrow is the last day of finals week, and YOU are supposed to scramble and solve this problem, using magic. That includes adjuncts who are not even paid a livable wage and faculty who might have hundreds of students.

This is a failure of a tech platform that was forced on us, and the university administrations nationwide who expect you to move heaven and earth are the same ones who are actively undermining their own institutions’ degrees by leaping into bed with AI companies before they even get their pants all the way off. These administrations (and this includes almost all of them) are not *ignoring* the destruction of education and academic integrity by AI—they are actively participating in it by forcibly inserting AI into student life, university email systems, etc. They are literally giving students software designed for cheating and cognitive dependency for free and applauding its use. And they think you are supposed to materialize a magical solution to this Canvas mess to ensure grades are in? Like between dinner and breakfast you are supposed to recreate everything you had to put in Camvas for an entire semester in some nonexistent other platform?

We just got an email telling us to “communicate directly with your students via email or other available tools for any immediate course needs.” How? Also, we should “Consider alternate methods of submitting assignments digitally or completing assignments in person on Friday” LOL what? So, individual faculty member, grab some No-Doz from the truck stop because in the next 12 hours or so, you must materialize a way for your students to take an online exam! Hope you own a server! Oh also you will have to rewrite the exam because you wrote it in Canvas and you don’t even have the questions anymore! Or just tell the students show up on campus tomorrow for an in-person exam—I hope you brought your personal printer!—and I hope nobody else scheduled anything at the same time, with no coordination! Then sit back and listen to the students tell you they already went home to Wyoming or Guam two days ago.

This is ludicrous. It is a problem created by overpaid administrators who have never had an idea that wasn’t sold to them by a software company and who now expect you to abracadabra a solution even as they are pushing chatbot accounts onto the same students so they can learn as little as possible through the degree.

The hack isn't the root of the problem, this is a dam finally shattering after being mined for decades for cheap building materials. Now the town is flooded and the harms are much worse than if we had gotten by with the dams intact.

But America is a country that loves to sell itself the dream of upward mobility - everybody's on their way to something better, maintenance and care are stagnant and must be abandoned in pursuit of an imagined profit. So nobody wanted to hear about the hollowing out of programs, the slashing of standards, the demands that fewer employees do more with less.