Friedman suspects [the removal of the books] is due to her speaking out about the issue on social media.
just another reminder that speaking out WORKS
It should also be a reminder just how little Amazon cares about anything. They refused to remove the books because they expected Friedman not to put up a big public fight. They refused to remove the books because they thought they could get away with it. They’ve decided letting very shitty AI books overrun their platform is profitable and they’re going to keep letting it happen.
It was never a good idea to shop at Amazon, but they’re now on a track that’s going to make their website absolutely unusable for finding actual books written by real people who know how to write enjoyable books.
Quintessence ghouls tended to be naturally curious. Something about their close ties to existence itself just bred an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Because of this, when Phantom is freshly summoned and unable to understand anything around him, he takes it upon himself to learn it on his own.
He discovers the library pretty soon after his summoning and with it the collection of children’s picture books that are kept for any younger members of the clergy. He goes through all these books, steadily matching the funny scribbles on the pages with the drawing. Shortly after this he learns how to use the small tv in his room and gets obsessed with the bright shows aimed at teaching young children how to speak and read.
It gets to the point where hes moved onto reading thick textbooks about whatever topic most interests him, and this whole time its just been him teaching himself. In the rest of the pack’s minds he might have well been completely illiterate and mute since they never bothered to teach him the skills of language. He’s still quiet and hardly talks but the difference is he knows how to talk, he just chooses not to.
One day Swiss walks into the common room while Phantom is watching some complicated documentary on like space or something and makes a comment to the other ghouls in the room about how he must just be watching the pictures without understanding.
Phantom proceeds to insult him in the most eloquent and well spoken way physically possible and everyone just stops to stare at him in complete confusion.
mmm creature swiss. so many thoughts. him being a weird little thing. when he’sskittering though the halls late at night in the dark scaring new siblings bc all they see is his silhouette and eye shines
mouth full of razor sharp teeth, instead of just two fangs. he’s known for digging claw marks into the floors and walls. where the others are etherial otherworldly beings, mountain being a fantastical forest spirit, rain being a magical deep water siren, there’s swiss being an actual eldrich horror, the kind of thing you’d see reddit stories about, the thing that makes hikers and campers go missing.
i love cryptid swiss i need him so bad.
inspired by arawsuu’s swiss drawing on twitter bc IT LOOKS SO GOOD WTF that’s my favorite drawing of swiss rn i’m obsessed
I feel like the new Bug’s relationship with confidence is… complicated.
Because, on the one hand, fucking look at him on stage. Dude isn’t just playing, he’s performing. He exudes this natural sort of charm and ego, doing fancy tricks and striking poses to make the crowd go wild. It looks almost effortless, the way he slings around his guitar and plays to the crowd.
His interactions with the ghouls are much the same. On stage, at least, it looks effortless, you’d have thought he’d known the rest of the band his whole life. It’s almost as if there were never a time where he wasn’t there.
I would say the rest of the band feel this way as well about him; he’s blended in almost seamlessly into their pack. He’s friendly, polite, and always eager to help.
… maybe a little too eager.
Because his place in the pack isn’t just from sheer, easy charisma, just like his playing isn’t as effortless as it looks. It all requires an intense amount of practice and upkeep to maintain the fragile balance he’s struck within the pack, at least in his own mind.
It’s not an act, necessarily, but… well, it’s not NOT an act either. The new bug was summoned in a whirlwind, a race to summon a ghoul and train him up enough to perform on stage right before the start of tour. Adjusting to life on Earth is difficult for ghouls as is, especially when you’ve spent your life in the Pit as isolated as he had, and the shorter timespan before officially leaving the Abbey only added to the stress.
I don’t think he’d even seen a guitar before coming to the surface, much less known how to play, and the dude was handed one practically as soon as he was summoned and told to make it work. No one explained to him the elemental affiliation with instruments so the fact that he was able to pick up on it quickly, as far as he’s concerned, was completely up to dumb luck. He put back-breaking effort into perfecting his playing, ensuring the effort they’d gone to to bring him to the surface wasn’t wasted. It was a lot of pressure for a new summon to be under.
And that’s another thing; not only was he expected to become the new rhythm guitarist for a world—renowned band on the fly, but he was replacing a beloved member of the team, not only in the eyes of the public but in the eyes of his new pack as well. Sure, Aether isn’t completely gone, but he’s absent now for a great portion of the band’s time. For all intents and purposes, the new ghoul had taken the place of one of the pack’s most crucial members and was forced to figure out how to navigate this new position he was in.
So, just as he put everything he had into learning guitar, the new ghoul threw himself headlong into becoming what his pack needs: a safe space for Rain, a calming presence for Dew, a stress reliever for Mountain, someone to dote on for Cumulus, an extra pair of eyes and hands for Cirrus someone to confide in for Aurora. No matter what the situation, he’s become determined to be exactly what his new family needs when they need it. It’s hard to be replaceable when they need you, right?
Only he’s spent so long being what the others need that he’s neglected to truly be himself. He loves being helpful for his new family, but at the same time he’s never fully left the fight or flight panic of when he was first summoned. Everything is still so new to him all of the time and he just has to roll with the punches and hope it looks like he isn’t trying too hard to keep up. He has no idea who he is when he’s not being of service.
He’s so scared all the time of messing up, of not being enough, of being told his summoning was a mistake and that they’d be better off sending him back to Hell, but he’s got no one to share this anxiety with, not yet anyway. Sharing that amount of vulnerability requires an amount of trust that isn’t quite there yet with the rest of his pack.
Till then, the new bug is the epitome of the phrase “fake it till you make it,” and his hope is that maybe, if he fakes it for long enough, both his on and off-stage confidence will become real.
swiss and aurora are girlfriends in crime but aurora’s the perpetrator and swiss is the victim
i want her to chase swiss around stage.
all sharp teeth and claws OUT with her cape swishing around behind her and swiss thinks it’s fun but also is a lil nervous about what happens if she actually catches him
