#IN ANY CASE. there i did it i used scientific information for good

[todayisafridaynight]

[another-goblin]

I've seen a lot of interesting opinions about Dr. Ratio. Some of them I disagree with. So I decided to compile a little list of why I disagree with them. The first part will be about things that seem factually incorrect, and the second part is about things that are rather a matter of interpretation and context.

As always, I might be wrong, so feel free to correct me.

1. Things that seem factually incorrect. 

"Ratio is an egoist and does everything for attention and recognition" - I don't remember him ever saying or doing anything that would indicate that. He saved these researchers secretly and made our TB take all the credit. He later even calls himself a "supporting character". He gets angry if we ask him for an autograph.

"He doesn't care about people" - yes, if you skipped his passionate speech to Screwllum about how much he cares about people. But also, everything he does in the game is helping people (saving these researchers on Herta station, offering us his help later in the express dialogues and messages - offering us to enroll in university, participate in devates, turn the express into a weapon, later helping Aventurine with his plan, helping him to find information, and so on).

"He hasn't achieved anything in science" - the list of his scientific achievements is easily available, I wouldn't say it's nothing. But I'll also leave this here:

Even his dedicated hater disagrees with this.

"Ratio's note did nothing to convince Aventurine to stay alive, it was all Acheron" - from how I see it, he was fully determined to end his life up until he read that note. Otherwise, why would they introduce the note at all? Why did Acheron feel the need to remind him of it?

"He never wanted to draw the gaze of Nous" and "He still wants it" - we can deduce that it isn't true from different parts of the game (he actually wanted it in the past but doesn't anymore), but that is a direct confirmation:

(I trust Screwllum's opinion.)

"Everybody hates him in-universe" - this is interesting because I even heard this from his fans. And it might sort of feel intuitive, but I don't remember any evidence of that. He literally has an in-universe fan club. People who knew him closely talk about him warmly in his character stories. The only person I remember ever expressing any negativity towards him was some shcolar in the Simulatred Universe, but I don't think it counts. I'll talk more about his students in particular later, but short version: I don't think they hate him either.

"I hate it when he tells me 'Zero points, get out' and throws chalk at me, that's mean" - that's so weirdly specific, but I've seen it a dozen times already. And, like, why??? He tells it to his enemies, not to us. I mean, nobody's angry at Serval for electrocuting her fans with her guitar just because that's what she does in her fighting animation.

Speaking of combat voice lines, if we wait too long, most characters get irritated and try to hurry us up. Meanwhile Ratio:

'That's okay, take your time, it's a turn-based game after all.'

"He's physically abusive to his students, he throws chalk at them" - similar to the previous point. I don't remember any mention of him doing that. The only case of him using physical force against a (potential) student was when, as a TA, he threw away a rich asshole who tried to buy a degree. And yes, in the boring real world, I wouldn't approve of that, but in the world of the game - well done, good ridance!

"He doesn't tolerate people disagreeing with him, he thinks he's always right"

"He's responsible for the crisis at Herta Station" - how though? I saw this opinion several times, and I'm really curious what people mean by that. Did he himself endanger these researchers by teleporting them who knows where, then faked the video from Duke Inferno, and so on? But why stop here while we're at it , maybe he also impersonated Ruan Mei, left the bug on the station, abandoned the poor cat-creatrures and drugged us with a cake?…

"He's worse than Dottore from Genshin" - technically it's a matter of opinion, but I think nobody will mind if I put it in the 'just wrong' category. But yeah, that's an opinion I've heard. I've got no idea what they meant, but it made me think, how many people did he help and save, both in the game and in his past? Probably more than most of the characters we've met so far. And he doesn't seem to discriminate, it's not 'I'll save my people'. He cured that disease for everybody's benefit, he saved Herta's researchers, he helped TB unravel the events on the station and then proceeded to pester them offering his help, he cosideres some troubled IPC executive 'his responsibility' and so on.

"He actually betrayed Aventurine" - no comments. Come on, play the game, read the dialogues.

1.5. A little intermission.

The thing that's hard to deny is that he definitely doesn't mince his words. Whether you see it as him being a rude asshole, being justifiably angry, brutally honest, sarcastic, or snarky, or showing tough love, or just being incapable of expressing himself in an adequate and socially acceptable way, it's up to you. I can understand how some people might be uncomfortable with that. I personally find it an interesting character trait. (I mean, he isn't even capable of expressing positive feelings in a normal way, what did you expect of him?):

There is also a very interesting (but rather confusing) thing that can be missed if you are unwilling to see further than the initial shallow impression, but it is impossible to unsee once you've noticed it. He sees himself as a teacher in two very different ways. It can be missed at first because both ways are described in very similar words. These ways are: 

a teacher in a traditional sense (let's call it 'academic teacher'); 

and as something akin to a 'life coach', just helping people and making them realize that they shloud (and can) rely on themselves.

The thing is, we never see him in his 'academic teacher' role. As far as we know, he only acts this way with his university students. We never see him teaching anybody any scientific stuff, or berating people for their lack of knowledge and education. Yet he says that he considers everybody his students. But what does he mean if it's not about knowledge? He means it in the second 'life coach' meaning. Therefore, he sees literally everybody as worthy of his help and support.

BTW, I feel like his main problem as a character is that people tend to settle on the first impression they get of him and are unwilling to see further than that. Meanwhile, the game continues to explore his personality, revealing that most things about him are actually the opposite of what they might seem at first. That's why so many people think that he calls everybody idiots for being less smart than him, that he's egoistic and unfeeling, that he values knowledge above all, and so on. So if you actually have interest in him as a character, I'd encourage you to look at him more closely.

2. Now to the things that are more open to interpretation.

"He uses mean words" -to be honest, I'm not a big fan of writers making him use these words (idiots, fools, stupidity, and so on) because, first, they are usually used as just empty insults. (I'm curious whether he uses similar words in Chinese or something more nuanced). So I can understand how it can put some people off. And the second problem is that it feels like he means different things every time he uses these words. It's quite confusing. Here is a post where people helped me find different cases of him using these words; you can check it out yourself.

Let's look closer at some of these cases: 

-'While geniuses wander among the stars, the ordinary can't even trace their footsteps. Those less gifted have no choice but to walk alone, enduring a lifetime of tumbles and triumphs. But even a life marked by failure is a life worth living — it is only in moments of solitude and despair, when help is absent, that fools grasp how to pick themselves up' He seems to contrast geniuses with fools here, so fools are everybody who's not a genius. So if you are inclined to see him this way, if you squint, you can technically see it as him insulting people based on their intellectual abilities, right?… Except, he includes himself among these fools, so no:

So it's basically 'all who are not geniuses are fools, including me'. Which is an interesting way to put it, but it definitely doesn't mean ''you are all fools for not being as smart as me''.

But he mostly uses these words when he talks about his fellow scholars:

-'First, with the headpiece on, isolated from my five senses, I can think without interference. And second, I don't have to set eyes on stupid people' - we only see him wearing the plaster head on Herta's Station, a place full of the most brilliant minds in the universe. We never see him using it again with normal people, so the word 'stupid' here can't be about people's intelligence.

There is also an interesting little detail:

He admires her intelligence (although in a sarcastic manner) in his 'about Herta' voiceline. He doesn't wear his 'anti-stupid' mask when he's with TB or Aventurine, but he always wears it with Herta. Which is very telling, and indicates again what he means by 'stupid'.

Some other examples:

-'(…)the fools from the Guild with ambitions beyond stars should be banished from my sight and thereby mind' -'Don't invert priorities like these dolts from the guild' -'I cannot stand fools, idiots, or imbeciles. Seeing them fills me with dread. Regrettably, this space station is just like the Intelligentsia Guild — devoid of geniuses and filled with mediocrity' -'Ah, the Technology Department. Charming little place, isn't it? Madam Yabuli does possess some semblance of competence, but her subordinates? Oh, they're a riot — brimming with enthusiasm yet utterly devoid of intellect. It's as if evolution halted prematurely for them'

He is absolutely RUTHLESS when he talks about scientists, because he expects a lot from them.

So no, I don't think he'd call you an idiot for not being an A student, or having learning difficulties, or just lacking an interest in learning. He absolutely would though if you were a brilliant scientist, priveledged with great education, resources, and a personal lab, squandering your talents and funds on a useless vanity project, or hoarding potentially life-saving knowledge for yourself, to use as a commodity.

"But he does call people idiots!" - I've noticed that most of the time he uses these 'insults' he talks about some groups of people.

I could only think of 3 times when he called an individual an idiot. He calls Aventurine an idiot because he 'lost' the stones (but it doesn't count because he plays a role and pretends that he hates Aven). A scholar in an event in SU complains of Ratio calling him an idiot (I'm not sure it actually happened, it's just a story in SU).

But there is one case of him calling somebody an idiot and actually meaning it. And who is this poor victim of his terrible verbal abuse? It's himself. Whoops. (speaking of how he's supposedly full of himself and thinks that he's better than the others.)

"He would call me an idiot because of my supposed lack of knowledge/education/intelligence" - I showed in the previous point why I think he wouldn't (he never seems to use these words to mean that).

But also consider this. During his interactions with Aventurine on Penacony Ratio mostly plays a role for Sunday, pretending that he despises Aventurine. That's why we can't draw any conclusions about his personality from most of their dialogues. But the moments when he breaks the role are extremely telling.

Let's look at one of them from the beginning. They argue; Ratio calls Aventurine an idiot for 'ruining their plan'. And then Aventurine mentions that he didn't go to school and lacks formal education. If there ever was a good time to call someone an idiot for being uneducated, that's it! That's what Sunday expects to hear (because his plan hinges on Ratio valuing knowledge above all else).

And what does he do? He fucking apologizes! Even for the role and for the sake of their plan, he can't bring himself to insult someone for being uneducated.

"He's mean to TB" - it's a matter of interpretation, but his behavior with us didn't strike me as mean or demeaning. He was just being sarcastic and snarky as always (and I understand that it's not everybody's cup of tea).

The situation was time-sensitive and precarious. We don't know how much control he had over it. He tried to make us realize what's going on as fast as possible, pretending that he himself is clueless. Because his goal was to show the recearchers that despite the presence of 2-3 geniuses on board, none of them were able to save them. If he just publicly saved everybody, it would be just another genius appearing out of nowhere and saving the day, which would go against his goals and his philosophy.

And later, our TB seems to regard him with a mix of respect and amusement (calling him Professor, asking for an autograph), no resentment here. So TB didn't think he was mean either.

"He values knowledge above all, he's obsessed with teaching people stuff, and he doesn't understand/accept that other people might have other priorities" - I'd argue that literally the opposite is true. He doesn't impose his knowledge on anybody against their will, and we never see him berate anybody for their lack of knowledge or education.

Sunday isn't the first person to misunderstand him that badly, and he's not having it. Even though at this point in the story, his and Aventurine's plan hinges on Sunday's misunderstanding. But I think his position is very clear: pursuit of knowledge above all is a matter of petty pride.

He says it when we ask him why he doesn't nag us about getting our act together, before a party. So basically "if learning makes you feel bad (doesn't enhance your living) then you are doing it wrong, go and have fun".

This probably isn't considered canon, but it illustrates how he sees knowledge. Here is an analogy. If I had an apple orchard, and I thought my apples were awesome and they'd make a great gift, and you should feel free to ask me if you want some. It doesn't mean that I shove my apples into people's mouths against their will and then call them idiots and spit on them when they don't like it.

"He's a bad person because he didn't help us fight the big bug" - he knew who we are. It's not in his habit to directly involve himself where he's not needed, it would go against his philosophy ('you should count on yourself; you can do it'). It's not like he left us to die; he must have known how capable our TB is. BTW, he was still looking after us, seemingly ready to come to our help:

Besides, currently nothing indicates that (outside of the turn-based gameplay) he's anything more than a normal human being. He would be a hindrance in a fight. 

"He's a bad teacher" - (first, here is an interesting post about this from the point of view of an actual teacher)

So yeah, it's about the 3% passing rate. Yes, it can mean that only 3% of his students end up learning something. It's possible that he's such a bumbling idiot of a teacher that he doesn't even understand how bad he is. It's possible that he's somehow still allowed to teach despite being THAT bad.

But I think it's much more possible (and consistent with his philosophy) that he just has very high standards. A 3% rate doesn't mean that only 3% know anything. Students might benefit enormously from his classes, even without passing. They still have all their valuable skills and knowledge.

But also, let's not forget that he doesn't teach children. He teaches at the university. And I don't think it's some 101 basics; it's likely something related to his research and discoveries, some extremely advanced cutting-edge stuff. So his students are already extremely well educated adults, who want to achieve more. He would probably see lowering his standards as a betrayal of his students.

"His students hate him" - I didn't get that impression. On the contrary, they seem quite interested in him (some times in really creepy ways):

The only indication that they might have something against him is this:

It's either a literal roll-call of actual adults who shed literal tears during his classes, or it's just students being their normal cheeky selves, being overdramatic about a strict teacher. 

An example that came to mind: I can whine about how ruthless my gym trainer is and how I couldn't walk for a week after the last leg day. And his other clients would agree. But everybody understands that it's an expression of approval, not contempt. And maybe a bit of a humble brag.

Besides, if we decide to take that post at face value, then we'll have to take this literally too, meaning that his students consider him an actual God. And I don't think it's true:

-------------------

There are still a lot of hot takes I disagree with that I haven't mentioned, but I'm too tired. This took WAY too long. Other cases are mostly quote-mining and deliberatly taking what he says out of context, which isn't very interesting to argue against (just read the full dialogue and consider the context). And also different variations on 'he's an asshole, he hates people, he thinks he's better than others, he'd call you an idiot for this or that, he's elitist, he only values knowledge and intelligence' and so on, but I think I addressed it sufficiently.

So yeah, that was my little character research. This wasn't written for his haters (I dislike some characters myself, and I wouldn't probably read 3K words about how I should change my mind). It was rather for the people who kind of like him, but who feel sad thinking how he'd probably call them idiots or something. I hope I was able to help you see him in a different way. He wouldn't call you an idiot, he'd support you.

[violetrainbow412-blog]

Wearing pink [S. R.]

Spencer Reid x bimbo!reader

word count: 2.7k

request: Hear me out... Spencer introducing bimbo f!reader to the squad! 😭🩷

A/N: Honestly, I had never written anything like this and I hope it is the correct idea of a bimbo. I based her on some TV characters, so (if you're a fan of this type of reader) I hope you like it!

“Baby, you're so nervous,” Spencer giggled, listening to the click of your heels from one side of the apartment to the other to check that everything was in order.

“I'm not nervous, I just want everything to look nice” you complained. Your gaze went to your boyfriend, who was wearing an elegant suit that you had bought for him last month, and you noticed that his tie was a little crooked. You immediately went in front of him and your hands acted on their own to accommodate it, as they had done so many times.

It was the first time Spencer's unit mates would see you and you wanted to make the best impression of all. You kept asking if the dishes looked good, if your skirt was smooth, if your hair was combed, if your makeup looked good. And each time he just smiled and nodded, recording how precious you were.

Honestly, the fact that the team found out about your existence was mere coincidence, the result of an unfortunate event that ended up unmasking Spencer. He had spent the night with you, since the cases had kept him too busy the last few weeks, and when he left the room, he only gave you a kiss on the forehead so as not to disturb your sleep. Although he wasn't very hungry, his body was in desperate need of coffee, so he opened your cupboard for something to take back to the office. Everything in your kitchen, which you hardly ever used, was pink, lilac, or any pastel variation of a few others, so it was a relief for him to find a single black thermos. Without paying much attention, he took it, poured the hot liquid, and then walked out.

There was no case, yet, so he sat down at his desk after waving to Morgan and Emily. He felt his phone vibrate and he thought it was a message from JJ, but he found that it was you who was contacting him.

Hey, are you leaving without saying goodbye? 

He smiled inadvertently and apologized saying that you looked so pretty that he hadn't wanted to disturb your calm. I could almost imagine you blushing from your soft bed.

Okay then. Good luck today, handsome. 

Love u xx

"No way! Are you a plastic girl?" Garcia yelled, from his partner's side. Spencer jumped a little when he heard her and it seemed she had caught everyone's attention.

“A what?”

"Your cup" the woman stretched out her hand to pick up said object and showed it to the rest: it had a bright pink print, with some images of a blonde girl and various objects, including a text written with something like newspaper clippings. which enunciated Burn Book.

"Where did you get that, Reid?"

"Who is she?"

“It's Regina George, from the movie Mean Girls. You don’t know her?" Prentiss muttered and at first, he immediately denied it.

“On Wednesdays we wear pink,” Garcia quoted, hoping he would have a clue, and again he showed he didn't know what they were talking about. But after taking a closer look at it, he suddenly remembered that he had looked at a poster with her somewhere in your room and it all made sense.

“When I took it, it was black”

"It's probably one of those magical cups that reveal the image with heat"

“Thermochromism?”

"I guess that's the scientific term"

"So where did you get it from? Did it just show up at your house by chance?"

"No, it was at my girlfriend's house"

At that, Emily's eyes widened, Garcia gasped loudly, and Morgan, who inconveniently just took a gulp of his coffee, almost choked on the hot liquid.

Penelope almost took the doctor by the neck to ask him why he had omitted such important information and he only shrugged his shoulders and replied that he had never commented on it because they had never asked.

It didn't take long for Garcia to yell at the missing team members what they had just found out and pretty soon JJ and Rossi were also gathered around the man to find out what was going on. To everyone's dismay, Hotch interrupted almost immediately, and they didn't manage to ask Spencer any questions. And he said it would be better if they were that curious to ask her themselves.

“Reid, I swear you don't even introduce us to that girl I'll never talk to you again” Garcia had threatened him, clearly exaggerating just to convince him.

When Spencer saw you again, he filled you in on the whole situation and asked if you were okay with hosting a unit dinner, to which you happily agreed.

"Everything looks immaculate, you don't have to worry," he assured you, taking both of your hands and leaning in to kiss you.

"But what if they don't like me?"

"What reason would they have for that, huh?" he insisted, holding your face in his hands. He really liked your lip gloss, it always tasted delicious and made your lips look flawless. 

"Because they're like mega-cool detectives and I... well, I won't even know what to tell them."

"Let them ask the questions, I assure you they will be dying to know everything about you" he smiled at you, quite confident that the evening would go perfectly. It was the first time Spencer had introduced the team to a couple, so they would behave prudently. Or at least so he hoped.

The sound of the doorbell caught your attention and you practically jumped towards the door to open it for whoever was there, but not before asking your boyfriend for the thousandth time to make sure you looked good. When you opened it, you saw a blonde woman and a bald man who, from Spencer's stories, you assumed were Penelope Garcia and Derek Morgan. They asked your name and you agreed, finishing verifying that it was the place with the presence of your friend behind you.

"Hello! We thought we had the wrong house” she sighed, completely nervous, and Morgan didn't even say hello because he had been stunned to see you.

You were very pretty, generally speaking, you were wearing a white skirt, a tight top, and a light baby pink sweater, plus huge heels that made you almost level with your boyfriend. You were like a model and it's not that he didn't trust his friend's flirting skills, but that you had simply exceeded his expectations of him.

You received them with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, while they secretly observed the place. Hotch, Rossi, Prentiss, and JJ soon arrived, in exactly that order, and when they were all assembled, they took seats at the table. Spencer helped you serve dinner, which you had ordered from your favorite restaurant, and pretty soon all of you were eating and drinking the wine that David Rossi had brought as a gift.

Although the conversation had been pleasant during the first few minutes, it was obvious that everyone wanted to ask you questions, quite surprised to see the type of girl you were and how they never imagined that their friend would fit in with someone like that.

"So since when are you guys dating?" Emily murmured, trying to be nice, but also dying of curiosity.

"What will they be now, love? About six months?” you said, reaching out to hold his hand on the table.

“Six months, fourteen days, and seventeen hours”

"He's the mathematician here, so you can listen to him" you joked and the others laughed. The courtship time somewhat dismayed the team, because, although they didn’t blame him, they wished they had known sooner.

"And how did you two meet?"

“Oh, for my dad. Spencer went to give a conference to his police officers in New York a while ago and he asked him for a private consultation on a case that had been giving everyone a headache. When he helped him figure it out, Dad was so grateful that he invited him to dinner so he could meet our family. My parents loved him so I thought of it as a sign and we kept in touch after that."

"Now I understand why he kept looking at his phone and smiling in his spare time," Morgan muttered to embarrass him, like an older brother would, and the team laughed at the memory.

"And who is your father?" Rossi asked. Reid had never mentioned what had happened, but still you seemed familiar to the man, as if he had seen you somewhere before.

“He worked for a few years as a police chief here in Virginia, but now last year he got promoted to the commissioner or something; his name is Joseph Sanders”

You probably had no idea how important that position was to police officers, but they all exchanged glances as if you had just told them that you were the daughter of the President of the United States himself. Rossi immediately snapped his fingers as he winced, telling you that of course he knew your father and that he had seen you when you were a girl of maybe ten years old. The others only weighed in on the fact that Reid was now the commissioner's son-in-law.

“Hey and, no offense, but how did you fall in love with our boy wonder? He's always been a bit shy”

Now it was your boyfriend who was worried that they might make him uncomfortable or point out the clear difference between the two of you, but your carefree giggles put him at ease every time.

"It is enough to see that face to do it, don't you think?" you responded affectionately and the girls smiled at your response.

"Actually, she called me to invite me to have coffee after dinner with her father and although at first I thought it was hopeless I realized that she liked spending time with me and that's why I kept asking her out”

“He was so sweet. Flowers, chocolates, dinners. The whole package"

“Yes, well, it's that I did a little research on the best courtship methods and found common factors like that in most of them. It was only necessary to combine it with the right environment and make some modifications to them so that they were pleasant in front of you. Did you know that in the 19th century it was well seen that men…?”

"Reid," Derek interrupted, as a signal for him to stop rambling, and his friends smiled at the doctor's soft apology.

“Half the time I don't understand what he's saying, but I love hearing him talk,” you said sincerely. He had never taken that as an offense, because, although many people didn't understand his talks about him either, at least you always paid attention to him "I honestly don't know how a person can have a brain of that size"

“In fact, brains don’t vary in size but rather in areas of development, so it is incorrect to say that one person has a bigger brain than another. In such a case, one person has a more developed brain than the other”

The group looked at him accusingly again and he was about to feel guilty, but your lips crashing a kiss on his cheek considerably improved his mood.

After many more questions, everyone was able to realize that you and Spencer couldn't be more than complete opposites. You loved everything that Reid didn't know and he knew a lot of things that didn't matter to you. There were no books in your house, if glossy magazines counted for anything, and Spencer didn't even have a modern cell phone. Your house vibrated with pink and expensive things, while he only cared that there would be a bed to sleep in when he got home. But even with everything you looked really in love and the team wondered how that was possible.

Although you tremendously admired the man's capabilities that wasn’t the most important thing to you, but his wonderful beauty of him. He was someone who drew attention with his eccentricity, that every time he walked into a room he left a mark and someone many women wished they had, which he didn't even notice. And by becoming your boyfriend, without any explicit sense of ownership or anything, he had become all yours.

You liked holding his hand in the streets, you liked that he came to work and the clients were surprised when he kissed you, that everyone said how lucky you were to have found a man like that. Besides, he had passed one of the most important tests: he had your parents' approval, which was usually not an easy thing to come by.

And right now, it seemed that you were winning the sympathy of your boyfriend's family too, because the fact of seeing him so happy by your side was reason enough for them to like you and, therefore, also approve of you.

When it was time to eat dessert, the girls invited you to go shopping with them one day and all the compliments from the men were related to your last name, even astonished that Spencer now belonged to the spheres of high police society. They told you many things about themselves and you, with some effort, tried to take it all in.

"It was a great pleasure meeting you, you can come back here any day you like," you said to say goodbye, once the night was already quite advanced and they decided that the best thing (for the comfort of both the hosts and the guests) would be to leave. 

“The pleasure was ours, Y/N”

Just like at the beginning, they kissed your cheek, and one by one they left, giving you kind words of thanks, until only you and Spencer were left.

"How was I?" you immediately asked your boyfriend, who was already looking at you out of the corner of his eye with a smile.

“Perfect”

"You think so?"

"I know it" he assured you, moving closer to you to hold you by the waist and causing your skirt to ride a little higher to the height of your butt "They loved you"

“But can you believe your friend Emily was wearing flats with that dress? It's not right and I didn't mean to be rude by mentioning it, but I died when I saw it” you started to babble, still under Spencer's grasp “And your friend Penelope has such a…quirky style. She wears colors that shouldn't mix, but somehow it looks good on her. And your boss, Aaron, shouldn't wear a suit jacket with a casual shirt. The others were relatively good, but the next time I see Jennifer I'll be sure to treat her to a moisturizer for her skin”

"And leaving that aside, did they at least make a good impression on you?" he laughed. He wasn't upset with you, it was inevitable that you would notice that kind of 'signs of bad taste' as you called them.

“Oh, they are adorable. You can tell that they love you very much, everyone speaks with admiration of you. Even your friend Derek, even though he tried to annoy you every so often."

“Yeah, I'll make him pay” he muttered under his breath, making you smile.

Carefully you reached up to reach his lips with a kiss and he sighed pathetically into your mouth as you clung to his body. Your skin was so smooth wherever he touched, as if you were a delicate piece of porcelain in his big hands.

“I hope you had a good time”

“Of course I did, sweetie. I already told you, you were perfect"

Perfect. You loved that he described you that way.

"Do you have to go home?"

"Probably. Why?"

"Oh, it's nothing. I just thought maybe we could go to my room. I bought something new that I think you'll like” you said innocently, while you held him by the tie that you had arranged so carefully at the beginning of the evening. Upon hearing this, he wasted no time and carried you in a bridal pose, taking you there while you laughed out loud.

No one questioned Spencer when he arrived later than usual the next morning, smelling of cherry shampoo and with a suspicious purplish mark, knowing that the only one to blame for that would have to be you.

taglist: @navs-bhat @reidwritings @tricia-shifting14

[transmutationisms]

hello! im just finishing up my read of structures of scientific revolutions, which has genuinely been very useful and shifted my understanding of science in a way being around people doing scientific research all day really didn't! i don't have a liberal arts education so i would love to get a sense of (a) what else of the philosophy / history of science canon is worth reading in the original (b) standard review papers or introductory textbooks and (c) critiques of the canon. i understand this is a big ask ofc, so feel free to point me to good depts / syllabi from good courses. thanks :)

yessss such a fun question >:) so, the thing that was so great about 'the structure of scientific revolutions', which i'm sure you've picked up on, is that kuhn pushed historians and philosophers of science to challenge the positivist model of science as a linearly progressive search to 'accumulate knowledge'. the idea of a 'paradigm shift' was itself a paradigm shift at the time; it was an early example of a language for talking about radical change in science without giving into the assumption that change necessarily = 'progress' (defined by national interests, mathematisation, and so forth). this is still an approach that's foundational to history and philosophy of science; it's now taken as so axiomatic that few academics even bother to gloss or defend it in monographs (which raises its own issue with public communication, lol).

where kuhn falls apart more (and this was typical for a philosopher of his era, training, and academic milieu) is in the fact that he never developed any kind of rigorous sociological analysis of science (despite alluding to such a thing being necessary) and you probably also noticed that he makes a few major leaps that indicate he's not fully committed to thinking through the relationship between science and politics. so for example, we might ask, can a paradigm shift ever occur for a reason other than a discovered 'anomaly' that the previous paradigm can't account for? for instance, how do political investments in science and scientific theories affect what's accepted as 'normal science' in a kuhnian sense? are there historical or present cases where a paradigm didn't change even though it persistently failed to explain certain empirical observations or data? what about the opposite, where a paradigm did change, but it wasn't necessarily or exclusively because the new paradigm was a 'better' explanation scientifically? how do we determine what makes an explanation 'better', anyway, especially given that kuhn himself was very much invested in moving beyond the naïve realist position? and on the more sociological side, we can raise issues like: say you're a scientist and you legitimately have discovered an 'anomaly'. how do you communicate that to other scientists? what mechanisms of knowledge production and publication enable you to circulate that information and to be taken seriously? what modes of communication must you use and what credentials or interpersonal connections must you have? what factors cause theories and discoveries to be taken more or less seriously, or adopted more or less quickly, besides just their 'scientific utility' (again, assuming we can even define such a thing)?

again, this is not to shit on kuhn, but to point out that both history and philosophy of science have had a lot of avenues to explore since his work. note that there are a few major disciplinary distinctions here, each with many sub-schools of thought. a 'science and technology studies' or STS program tends to be a mix of sociological and philosophical analysis of science, often with an emphasis on 'technoscience' and much less on historical analysis. a philosophy of science department will be anchored more firmly in the philosophical approach, so you'll find a lot of methodological critique, and a lot of scholarship that seeks to tackle current aporias in science using various philosophical frameworks. a history of science program is fundamentally just a sub-discipline of history, and scholarship in this area asks about the development of science over time, how various forms of thinking came into and out of favour, and so forth. often a department will do both history and philosophy of science (HPS). historians of medicine, technology, and mathematics will sometimes (for arcane scholastic reasons varying by field, training, and country) be anchored in departments of medicine / technology / mathematics, rather than with other faculty of histsci / HPS. but, increasingly in the anglosphere you'll see departments that cover history of science, technology, and mathematics (HSTM) together. obviously, all of these distinctions say more about professional qualifications and university bureaucracy than they do about the actual subject matter; in actuality, a good history of science should virtually always include attention to some philosophical and sociological dimensions, and vice versa.

anyway—reading recs:

there are two general reference texts i would recommend here if you just want to get some compilations of major / 'canonical' works in this field. both are edited volumes, so you can skip around in them as much as you want. both are also very limited in focus to, again, a very particular 'western canon' defined largely by trends in anglo academia over the past half-century or so.

philosophy of science: the central issues (1998 [2013], ed. martin curd & j. a. cover). this is an anthology of older readings in philsci. it's a good introduction to many of the methodological questions and problems that the field has grown around; most of these readings have little to no historical grounding and aren't pretending otherwise.

the cambridge history of science (8 vols., 2008–2020, gen. eds. david c. lindberg & ron numbers). no one reads this entire set because it's long as shit. however, each volume has its own temporal / topical focus, and the essays function as a crash-course in historical methodology in addition to whatever value you derive from the case studies in their own right. i like these vols much more than the curd & cover, but if you really want to dig into the philosophical issues and not the histories, curd & cover might be more fun.

besides those, here are some readings in histsci / philsci that i'd recommend if you're interested. for consistency i ordered these by publication date, but bolded a few i would recommend as actual starting points lol. again some of these focus on specific historical cases, but are also useful imo methodologically, regardless of how much you care about the specific topic being discussed.

Robert M. Young. 1969. "Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Context of Biological and Social Theory." Past & Present 43: 109–145.

David Bloor. 1976 [1991]. Knowledge and Social Imagery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (here is a really useful extract that covers the main points of this text).

Ian Hacking. 1983. Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Steven Shapin. 1988. “Understanding the Merton Thesis.” Isis 79 (4): 594–605.

Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer. 1989. Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Mario Biagioli. 1993. Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bruno Latour. 1993. The Pasteurization of France. Translated by Alan Sheridan and John Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Margaret W. Rossiter. 1993. “The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science.” Social Studies of Science 23 (2): 325–41.

Andrew Pickering. 1995. The Mangle of Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Porter, Theodore M. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton University Press, 1996.

Peter Galison. 1997. “Trading Zone: Coordinating Action and Belief.” In The Science Studies Reader, edited by Mario Biagioli, 137–60. New York: Routledge.

Crosbie Smith. 1998. The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chambers, David Wade, and Richard Gillespie. “Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge.” Osiris 15 (2000): 221–40.

Kuriyama, Shigehisa. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. Zone Books, 2002.

Timothy Mitchell. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

James A. Secord. 2003. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

Sheila Jasanoff. 2006. “Biotechnology and Empire: The Global Power of Seeds and Science.” Osiris 21 (1): 273–92.

Murphy, Michelle. Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers. Duke University Press, 2006.

Kapil Raj. 2007. Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650–1900. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schiebinger, Londa L. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Harvard University Press, 2007.

Galison, Peter. “Ten Problems in History and Philosophy of Science.” Isis 99, no. 1 (2008): 111–24.

Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. Objectivity. Zone Books, 2010.

Dipesh Chakrabarty. 2011. “The Muddle of Modernity.” American Historical Review 116 (3): 663–75.

Forman, Paul. “On the Historical Forms of Knowledge Production and Curation: Modernity Entailed Disciplinarity, Postmodernity Entails Antidisciplinarity.” Osiris 27, no. 1 (2012): 56–97.

Ashworth, William J. 2014. "The British Industrial Revolution and the the Ideological Revolution: Science, Neoliberalism, and History." History of Science 52 (2): 178–199.

Mavhunga, Clapperton. 2014. Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lynn Nyhart. 2016. “Historiography of the History of Science.” In A Companion to the History of Science, edited by Bernard Lightman, 7–22. Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell.

Rana Hogarth. 2017. Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780–1840. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Suman Seth. 2018. Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Aro Velmet. 2020. Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, its Colonies, and the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

i would also say, as a general rule, these books are generally all so well-known that there are very good book reviews and review essays on them, which you can find through jstor / your library's database. these can be invaluable both because your reading list would otherwise just mushroom out forever, and because a good review can help you decide whether you even need / want to sit down with the book itself in the first place. literally zero shame in reading an academic text secondhand via reviews.

[system-of-a-feather]

Alternative System Mind Mapping Method for Communication

[DISCLAIMER: This is not a professional or scientifically or anything really backed method, this is something coming solely from peer / personal experience.]

In regards to an anon ask earlier, I was thinking about it and one of the ways we've approached improving communication - particularly internal - in a way that is a lot less prone to flooding or dealing with trauma or anything too overwhelming - is by approaching it following the concept of Memory Webs

I haven't read up on them recently, but "Memory Webs" were a thing that our AP Psychology teacher in highschool made us do because the AP Psych test was term / jargon heavy. Memory in the human brain has been shown to be HEAVILY associative and the ability to remember and connect things tends to rely on following a "web" of connected topics, ideas, concepts etc from one idea to the next.

So in our AP Psych class, she gave us these GIANT books for Vocabulary Webs that we had to slowly work on, each of which required 6 other vocab words / related concepts, a summarized definition, and an image to represent it. By doing this, you added 6 cues to recall the word (increasing the chance you'd remember it), a visual cue, an episodic memory of working on it, and a definition - all in all improving how connected the word is to other concepts in your brain and making it easier to recall it.

I personally like to look at DID and our parts in a similar manner sometimes where the large issue is that a lot of the nodes in the web of associations are either disconnected or connected through a hard-to-find and/or small chain. In that sense, parts struggle to be held together because they are not associated concepts. It's hard to reach other parts because the dissociative walls (which in our unsubstantiated opinion is less a 'wall' and more so a lack of reinforced neural connections, so I would call them dissociative caverns) keep associations from forming

As a result, alternative to more traditional ways of mapping your system and parts, a method I've liked to internally visualize systems and navigating system dynamics is through a memory web manner. (I actually have never done it physically cause the Ray part of my brain - also the most prominent part writing this rn - rarely liked to front if he didn't have to and did a lot of stuff internally)

Here's a bit of a breakdown using six of our parts if any of you want to try it out.

We personally like it because it strips a lot of trauma and stress off of it and makes it a lot more of a positive and present engaging activity. For the purposes of this, I'll be using the free online app of Milanote cause we've used it before for OC associative webs and I think it'll do fine enough. (Honestly it actually might just be a good way to log alter information now that I'm looking at it if you are at a place in recovery where keeping track of that physically helpful)

So we can start by dropping down the parts we want to include in the form of boards

So from here, we have a bunch of disconnected parts. However, we find that a lot of these parts have things that mean a lot to them, that illicit a strong emotion or reaction from them.

Some parts may lack it more than others (often in our case trauma holders and/or trauma locked parts) and that's okay and to be expected. This is a visualization method and if there isn't much connecting a part that is 100% okay.

For demonstration sake, I will now add bubbles around each part of things that were pretty early apparent that each individual liked.

Also for the purposes of how I know our system works and how I plan to do this, I am actually moving Riku to the center and you will all see why Riku is such an S tier center point with this model

So you can see some connections forming.

Some key things you can take from this visual that also applied to earlier stags of how we connected

Lucille and Riku are and have always been pretty darn connected, they go back as one of the longest duos and were split almost as a pair to deal with academics

Chunn and Ray have a very shared interest of "I don't want to do anything leave me alone"

XIV literally was just a piece of shit early on and didn't have any immediate HARD connections with anyone largely because he never was interested in actually engaging in things he liked in a positive way as his "favorite emotion" at the time was "being pissed off"

Lin - an originally trauma stuck / loop - is very very poorly associated with anything that isn't overtly trauma related (and that is saying something cause Vocaloid is trauma related) and thus has very few connections to other parts

So looking at this though, there are a few things that have some similarities between parts. What you can do is make plans to try to foster the interests that you do have and try to generalize it a bit more to also encompass what interests other parts have. So lets engage in hobbies a little more - explore a few concepts that mean a lot to parts independently - and find some more generalized version of those hobbies

(forgot to add easy listening to Ray's and "only wearing monochrome*" to XIV's earlier) (*there are a lot of nuances and caveats)

Damn, look at that. It's messy and ugly to have in a 2D form. I absolutely hate it, this would be so impossible with our whole system. But HEY, it's very connected - and that's the goal.

Compared to the previous one, you can see how easily it can be for one part's interests to start to drift into another. Because they are largely and strongly associated features to each part, they are a lot more accessible when engaging in their shared / associated connections and interests which makes it easier for the them to stay together near the front, stay associated with one another, and work with and communicate with one another.

Of course anyone following this blog goes "Where tf is Birds" and that I left out because it would ruin the point of the web as it actually is one of our traditional "you are around the system a lot? okay pick a bird" which serves to 1) be a fun system culture thing 2) be a means of welcoming a part in and 3) helps establish a foundational connection; we do the same with music but with music its a lot more elaborate and I probably wont explain it for other reasons.

But overtime, by fostering interests that were already present and encouraging parts to broaden and generalize their specific interest a bit, you end up with a lot of overlapping associations that can greatly improve internal communication, co-fronting ability, and just general fluidity and easy of moving around the brain web.

It becomes a good way of trying to figure out what you can do to encourage and help build connections and associations between parts by seeing where things are similar / could have more overlap (combat and martial arts, different types of fashion, different types of music, different appreciation for arts, taking over the world, yada yada yada)

And you wanna know the coolest thing? When you step back from the whole web you can see certain things appear that stand out the most and have some of the most connections.

If you ever intend to go to Final Fusion, those are the things that will likely be the most prominent traits of your whole self

For us? [REDACTED BIRDS for the point of the demonstration], Music, Fashion, Taking over the World, Recovery and Healing, Buddhism, Martial Arts, Arts in general - they're all some of our largest traits that persist in almost all forms as individual parts, partially fused parts, and fully fused parts.

And the BEST part? Doing this didn't require us to touch trauma at all.

Of course in recovery that will come up cause PTSD doesn't ask permission, but its a very low stress way to help improve internal communication and engagement with one another.

[zedecksiew]

GNS is not a Theory; it is a Tradition

This post is a brain-fart---me trying to jot a thought, lurking and seeing TTRPG folks react to GNS Theory for the upteenth time.

+

Context:

GNS Theory seeks to frame, understand, categorise, and model tabletop roleplay---and, via this framework, suggest solutions and improvements to the craft of TTRPG design as a whole. Understanding GNS Theory, it is asserted, will allow you to create better-designed ("more coherent") games.

Edwards compares the utility of understanding GNS to that of understanding physics:

I use a physics analogy: prior to the insights of Newtonian physics, bridges could be built. Some of them were built rather well. However, in retrospect, we are well aware that in order to build the bridge, the designer must have been at the very least according with Newtonian physics through (1) luck, (2) imitation of something else that worked, (3) use of principles that did not conflict with Newtonian physics in a way that mattered for the job, or (4) a non-articulated understanding of those principles. I consider the analogy to be exact for role-playing games.

+

"Is GNS Theory right or wrong?" is usually the question when TTRPG folks talk about it. This feels unusual for an art theory---but is perhaps understandable in GNS's specific case.

Edwards presents his ideas as actionable: a science by which you can make better games; principles you can rely on to build your own bridge. It becomes paramount, then, that those principles be factual. Otherwise the bridge collapses.

(Edwards infamously called people who enjoyed "incoherent" games [according GNS standards] brain-damaged, but the less said about this the better.)

Also because nerds are perverts about taxonomy:

Here is a sorting hat that will let us categorise and self-select our fandoms and selves.

We love this tribal shit. "Are you a Gamist? Narrativist? Simulationist? Take this quiz! Argue in the comments!"

+

GNS is two decades old by this point.

It was the chief theoretical framework of the Forge. It guides the work of designers like Vincent Baker and Paul Czege. Game lines like Burning Wheel and its descendants are entirely informed by GNS conclusions about players and player behaviour, resulting in specific strengths, quirks, and frustrating design "solutions".

On the other hand:

From the Noughties onwards there has been any number of interesting and excellent games made without adherence to (or even knowledge of) GNS. Tabletop roleplaying games have flowered much since the Forge's heyday.

+

All that long-winded shit to get to the thought I had:

Rather than asking: "Is GNS true? Does GNS work? Does GNS accurately describe tabletop roleplaying games?"

It is probably more useful to consider GNS as a TTRPG art tradition. A school or movement or genre, that creators and designers have chosen to belong to / define themselves by / work in the lineage of.

Similar to:

Dadaism as a movement; or

Animation that falls within the anime genre due to context and lineage; or

Tanztheater / Pina Bausch's place in contemporary dance; or

How employing Method techniques results in specific styles; or

Music theory, which should be more accurately called the "harmonic style of 18th Century European composers".

But Dada is not the whole of art; nor is anime synonymous with animation. Pina Bausch is just one albeit influential choreographer; nowadays method acting has an antiquated, faintly ridiculous legacy.

Meanwhile, European music theory today is often seen as the scientific yardstick by which all music should be measured, just as nerds are wont to do with GNS vis a vis tabletop roleplaying games in general.

But we should remember that GNS is a lens, one way of considering and practicising the craft of TTRPGs. It is one lens amongst a multitude. Whether it is a good lens is up to you. Some designers have followed its precepts, and made games informed by said precepts; such games vary in quality but share a particular vibe.

A bridge built in the Moorish style isn't necessarily superior or more stable than a bridge built any other other way; but you may find it beautiful, provided you are partial to Moorish architecture.

I think that analogy works for GNS.

[russellsppttemplates]

If you let me show you (Charles Leclerc)

Years later, your's and Charles' hearts are still longing for eachother and, perhaps, it was meant to be all along

Note: english is not my first language.

Thank you so much to everyone who likes and reblogs, your feedback is appreciated, and while I'm not actively taking requests, I am writing some blurbs when I can so if you have any ideas or concepts that can be written in a small amount of sentences and you want to share, feel free to do so!

Tw: past breakup

"As usual, thank you for listening to the podcast", you began closing off the recording for you newest episode of your podcast, taking your headphones off once you were done and your editor gave you her thumbs up, "That was really good, Y/N. I think people will enjoy it a lot", she said as you smiled, proud of how far you got. The idea of creating your own podcast while you finished your degree was just something to keep your mind off of school, despite it being about what you studied since it was something you enjoyed, but it had quickly grown to join other people who, like you, enjoyed the topic. You had gathered a small community that you were very grateful for, especially when it allowed to go to bigger events like TedTalks and sit and talk, as well as meeting them.

Checking your phone for your e-mails, you noticed a new one from someone you had never received anything from before, "what is this...?", you muttered under your breath before letting your finger tap the screen to open it, revealing what looked like an invite to an event, looking at the top to see that you had been sent it a few days ago and, scrolling down, finding out that you had to confirm your attendance until that afternoon, "did you get this?", you showed it to your editor, "nope, but I've heard of other people who come here to record that they've been invited too", she smiled. "Are you plann-", she was interrupted by the sound of your phone ringing, an unknown number calling, "yes?", you said, "Hi, this is from Fondation Prince Albert II de Monaco. How have you been, Y/N?", a seemingly kind man on the other side of the line, "Hello, I've been good, and you?", you said as you looked at your editor, "sorry to bother you during the day, but we've had some issues with our communication channels and are not receiving the confirmation from the people who are attending, and we just wanted to confirm wether or not you are joining us for the evening", he said as you panicked opened the e-mail again, checking for more details about this event, "Oh, you're also allowed a plus one, I don't think your e-mail said that due to the glitch we had", he offered as you looked at your editor one last time, her showing you a dinner she had with family on that night, "yes, I can confirm my presence. Just me, no plus one", you said as you heard him type, "Good, thank you! Since our communication channels are not working properly, is it okay if, in case of any new information, I contact you through here?", he asked before you confirmed, bidding eachother a good day and goodbye before ending the call, "this is a very surreal thing", you heard your editor said, now propped by your laptop as she look at the e-mail, telling you all about why they had decided to invite you, your contribution to spreading scientific knowledge in a simple way and accessible to everyone bring the number one reason, "who knew, hm? My weird little podcast about academia getting me t-, oh, wait, this is a red carpet?", you looked further, noticing their dress code advice section, "what did you expect from the Fondation? Some burgers and fries?", she teased you, "I thought it was, like, an intimate thing, small thing. If I'm going to this, who else is?", you mused while your editor only snickered.

.

After having your friend help you pick a dress worthy of the event, you dropped it at the dry cleaners, which is where you found yourself in the morning of the event, ready to pick it up while the lovely lady went to get it outback when a younger employee asked "I'm sorry, but you are Y/N, from the podcast, right?", she asked as you nodded, "I've heard your voice through these so many times I recognised it almost immediately", she said as she pointed to her earbuds, "I'm very happy that you listen to it", you said as you noticed your dress, clean and ironed being set on the counter, "may I ask what this is for?", she said curiously before who you figured was her grandmother set the bill for you too, "dear, that's not nice for the costumers, sorry about my granddaughter", she half scolded her, "no, don't worry. I'm going to an event tonight because of the podcast", you explained as you paid, smiling before leaving the store and bidding goodbye.

Arriving at home, you tried your best to remember and replicate how Pascale taught you to do your hair, the curls coming out looking like you were from a different era, silently praying they would drop while you fid your makeup. You put one the dress and added your accessories before shaking your curls, moving to put on your shoes and coat just in time for the car they had sent to pick you up and go to the event, "is this your first time?", the driver asked, "yes. Do you notice it that much?", you giggled, "not at all. Just I know I would have recognised you otherwise", he explained, "do you know anyone who is going to be there? It is a big help, so I've heard over the years", he offered, "I don't think so", you mused, "I'm not sure who's invited to be honest", you giggled again, nervous that you should have done your research, "usually actresses and actors, singers too usually, people from non profits, other members of TV shows. Oh, and how could I forget, some drivers usually go too", and it hit you. How did it not hit you before? Charles could be there too, and you not seen him in person in the longest time. Last time you saw him was a few months after you broke up, and it pained you to be in the same room as him, and while you did nothing but be polite to eachother, you couldn't deal with that, somehow always managing to avoid any gathering where he would be. Did you watch his races? Yes, every weekend one had been on you'd take your time no watch it, never breaking your promise and supporting him whenever you could, however you could. Knowing how it would bother you stayed out of anything related to his personal life, only knowing little bits you picked up from interviews and, since he was pretty private, there hadn't been anything related to his relationships, so were you about to know something more? Was he bringing a plus one with him? "Don't need to get nervous, dear, from all my years of this, people are usually very friendly and before you know it, you're already friends", he smiled sweetly, oblivious to the actual relationship you were worried about.

A woman dressed in black guided you on what to to once you arrived, telling you when to stop and pose for some pictures, despite your insistence that 'I'm here for my voice, I don't think people will need to see my face really", giggling and comforting you until you felt comfortable enough, "See?! Stunning, chérie", she smiled before her phone beeped, prompting her to tell her colleague, "Charles is arriving just now, could you go to him, please?", before helping you to the other spot where you would do an interview with someone who also had a podcast that, despite being a bigger creator, treated you with the utmost kindness, "thank you so much for taking some time and giving us your story on getting to where you are today", he said as you shook his hand one last time, thanking him before walking back to the carpet, spotting Charles posing too. And then your heart started doing somersaults, almost like it never stopped doing then anyway.

Charles followed the woman in a black suit as she told him where to stand, smiling in almost all the directions someone called him from before he noticed you, sitting in a high chair with a pair of headphones on your head. Were you here? Your podcast was successful, he knew that much since he contributed, but he did not expect you to be here. How long had it been? Two, maybe three years? You had managed to go to his F2 celebration, just as friends, before, as he now recalled, never setting his eyes on you in another form other than pictures on Instagram or your voice from the podcast episodes.

He was about to head to you when a young fan, who happened to be attending with his parents, asked for his autograph and a picture, "whenever we are home, me and mama and papa watch all your races, you're one of Monaco's pride!", the boy who was no older than ten said excitedly, prompting Charles to open his blazer's button before crouching down to pose with him. Getting up and wishing everyone a good night and event, his eyes looked for you in your emerald green dress, now finding a gentleman in the chair you were sitting previously. Heading inside the venue, he greeted some people before he noticed you looking at something on your phone and confirming it on the indicating plaques, looking a but confused before you looked around and your eyes locked in his, "h- Hi, Charles, Hi!", you said as you greeted him, your movement so automatic that you didn't even think about hugging and pressing a kiss on each cheek of your ex-boyfriend, thankful that he seemed to want to do the same, "Hi, Y/N, how are you?", he said as he looked at you properly. And you looked even more beautiful, despite looking like the same girl he had fallen in love with all those years ago."Are you here alone, too?", you said and immediately wanted to take it back, feeling like you had nothing to do with it, "I'm on my own, yes. C'mon, let's go through here", he said as he guided you on the other way you were thinking of going, leading you to the big room where all the tables were and finding out that the table you'd be sitting in was next to his, "if you need anything, call for me, yes?", he said as he looked for reassurance, "you're going to do great, I just know it".

The evening was beautiful, getting the opportunity to listen to all the projects and ideas people were developing and over all having a good time, and while you enjoyed it, you needed to get some air, excusing yourself from the group and heading to one of the outside gardens, a glass in hand as you took in all that had happened for you to get here. You had never dreamt of this opportunity to come from something as simple as you sharing your thoughts outloud, finding people on the receiving end interested in what you had to say, and to be here was something you still couldn't make out, "may I?", you heard a familiar voice you could recognise anywhere, seeing Charles coming to sit next to you on the stone bench, "it's amazing how many inspiring people are here today, no?", he began, really not knowing how to approach you. You were here alone, so it wasn't like he was crossing a line, he hoped, remembering some conversations he heard in the last group gathering where one of your close friends admitted that you were single still, "and somehow I ended up here, too", you mused before looking at him, his eyes never failing to calm you down and rile your heart up at the same time, "of course you did. Your work is amazing, it's only fair they recognised it", he let slip, "how do you know that?", you quirked your brow as you took a sip from your glass, "I listen to it. Every Thursday I go and look for the new episode", he admitted, "I still don't understand half of the things you defend and explain, but you make it so engaging and, and I miss your voice. I miss you", he said as he looked up at the starry sky before he let his hand crawl along the light stone and nudge yours, your pinkies lacing eachother. You looked at him, a small blush on your cheeks, "thank you, I- I watch all your races too, even the ones that are broadcasted at daft o'clock in Europe", you said before sighing "you know why we did it that way it was", you said, remembering the day you and Charles decided it was for the best that you should go your separate ways.

"I love you so much", Charles said as he held your hands in his, "I love you so much and it is why I think we should do this", he reasoned, although the tears in his eyes, matching your own, reflected the genuine hurt you both knew was dawning on each of you, "I never want to be the one making you hurt, not in a short time or not in a long time", you sniffed, squeezing your eyes further to slow down the tears, "I love you with my whole heart and I'd never want you to hurt, either of us to hurt", you finished as you gave him one last hug, relishing in the feeling of having his arms around you, "you'll always have my heart, Y/N Y/L/N", he said kissing the top of your head, "and it will always be yours to keep".

"Was it really though?", he said, snuffling closer to you while still not touching you more than before even though his skin longed to feel yours, "I don't know, Charles, I really don't know", you said. You didn't like to admit it, but every now and again, you would entertain the thought of what could have been if you had stayed together. How your days could have been if you had him to come home to, or having to travel to races to see him, hear his laughs in person instead of through a screen. It would have been like you had predicted, crazy schedules, long periods away from eachother, but the effort to make it work would have been worth it to have him with you. As you were about to say that to him, you heard heels clicking on the floor, "sorry to interrupt, but the fireworks are going to go off now, I thought you might like to see them", one of the ladies that had helped you in the red carpet said as you both got up, "thanks for letting us know, we'll be up shortly", Charles offered before she walked away while you two followed her, "Would you be willing to come to my place tomorrow?", he asked as he finally laced his fingers in yours for a few seconds, parting when you reached the door, "okay", you said before you were ushered to different places in the crowd.

Arriving home later that evening, you were taking all your makeup off when your phone pinged, seeing a text from Charles, surprised that after all these years he, like you, had kept your number, "Even though we did not spend that much time together today, I know for a fact that I missed having you around and being near you. I hope you have a goodnight's rest", could be read on your screen.

.

"Thank you for coming here. I would've gone to your place but I didn't know if you wanted me there, and besides, I don't want all the attention that it could draw that way around to you", he said nervously, "No need to rub it in that you're more famous than me, Charles", you teased slightly, wanting to clear up the tension in the room that your nerves were not exactly helping, "I mean it. Thank you for agreeing to come and talk", he said before taking a big breath, "yesterday sparked something in me, and I'm not sure it was a spark again moment, I think this has always been here", he admitted, looking qt you in the hopes of getting you to speak about your take on it, "I-, I felt the same", you gulped, "but can we do this? I think so b-", you were interrupted by him, "all those years ago, we said we wanted to focus on our careers, grow and not have to worry about it. And, while I think it could've been good, there's no way to know that the success we have it due to that. Can you imagine having me next to you on your graduation? Signing your contracts? Because every weekend I imagine you sitting in that hospitality, working on your laptop before coming to watch me race and congratulate me, or be the only person in my driver's room to calm me down after a bad race", he admitted, "I know you don't owe me any of that and if this is one sided then I don't want to make you feel guilty about it, but I needed to let you know", he finished as he looked at you. Sighing, you launched your hand to meet his, "I miss you, and I want to have you with me, to get home and see you there, even if it is only every now and then. But I don't want you to feel guilty that you're not here, or that I feel like I'm not enough", you said and he giggled, "Mon ange, you are more than enough. And I'll be the luckiest man alive if you let me have you in my life again. We'll take things slowly, but please, let us go back to how we were", he pleaded as he saw you smile, "mon coeur, we are going to be better than ever".

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 23 thoughts

i am: confused. about everything i just watched. and i can’t tell if the problem is me missing something blatantly obvious, the episode being strange on purpose because it’s building up to something, or it just being an overall peculiar plotline. but i will attempt to elaborate on this later. for now, as always, we start at the top.

the first thing i wrote down was that i was so excited to watch tn’s ep!! i missed the last few days because i was busy and i was really hoping tonight would NOT involve any sort of disease which proved to be the case

“i want these nerds to deal with an art heist someday” <- this i wrote while the opening scene began in some random hotel… like yeah yeah yeah ghosts aliens etc. solve the gardner heist. well maybe if they had been at the scene it never would have happened.

in this hotel, we see a guy who looks scared knocking on the door looking for “Morris” and he says someone is dead!! guy next door is listening (and yeah, so fair, it sounded juicy as hell) but when the poor hotel neighbor stands up to listen he gets… sucked into ectoplasm?? he is no longer there. also, lights are flickering.

agents in the elevator, arriving to the scene. mulder looked really comfortable in there lmaooo that was a very funny visual.

they got information from this case from scully's "contact", and the contact is one of her students!!!!!! ahhh!! she looks so proud. this is funny because she was at the academy for like 3 months lmao but clearly she made a good impression in that brief amount of time!

“heard a lot about you” detective kelly says when scully introduces mulder and HAHAAAA he turns to scully and says “we’ll talk later”. about what. do share. 

(very funny that somehow he came up "a lot" in the 3-ish months she was teaching people how to do autopsies. like girl how did you manage to bring him up consistently whilst opening cadavers. that is talent)

investigation time! (mulder sniffs a drink in the missing guy’s room) "mmm, scotch" he mumbles <- LMAOOOOO THIS MAN IS WEIRD AS HELL 

they notice a big splotch burned into the ground, and as they are investigating the burn marks, scully says it “could be the residue of burnt human flesh” and yes!!!!! I love when she says weird and unsettling things!!!!

mulder seems enthused about this case and also that there is a young detective…… give them an intern i need to see what happens. that man seems to have an instinctive need to Mentor.

detective kelly asks him what he thinks happened. the answer? “spontaneous human combustion” yes ofc!! 

SCULLY IS SO SWEET AWWW “you’re doing just fine :)” she is not going to let her student doubt herself!

scully kinda sounds like she thinks mulder is teasing the detective with such an outlandish claim but i think he’s just being himself honestly

re:human combustion “let’s just forget for the moment that there’s no scientific theory to support it” “okay :)” <- yeah i had to pause and laugh. so what!

WHAT is he doing when they get in the elevator... he is making such a strange face. does anyone have this. it was so funny. he was at once locked in and a million miles away.

okay. so this wasn't the first victim. now they are arriving at the place of an earlier victim. which is a house with all the lights off. peculiar.

“hey scully, can you spare a prophylactic?” (now yes i did have to google this word's definition!) here is my live reaction:

"like a glove? because google is also saying that this can also mean condom. okay she pulls out a glove from her pocket. okay that’s the good ending i think"

makes sense for the doctor to have lots of gloves in the pocket of her jacket. more sense than the other alternative. i was really confused for a few seconds but in the end we got there.

he uses the glove to switch the light bulb on and she says “darkness covers a multitude of sins” which is EXACTLY what i'm here for!!! please keep saying creepy stuff queen <3

enter the home... another splotch from the other victim!! who also worked in tobacco, like the hotel man!!! but he says half of richmond works in tobacco, and the first victim was a scientist, so maybe not…? but regardless this realization made me think of that post that is like “people smoke less and now we don’t get spontaneous human combustion” which is soooo funny to me. if i ever find that post again i Will reblog it. it is true, spontaneous human combustion is a lost art.

mulder is very excited to dig through the trash, which is very raccoon-coded. he finds a ticket to a train station, and suggests that perhaps someone based out of the train station is hunting people.

cut to our deeply scared looking man from earlier who seems to be able to vaporize people. WAIT... earlier it was his shadow that vaporized the other guy. and he’s hiding from light... things are adding up. no light equals no shadow equals no vaporization. sort of adding up, at least. because still, how does a shadow vaporize you?

now he was getting held at gunpoint by cops, both of whom stepped into his shadow and get zapped into splotches. this is a distressing situation, but also a silly one. 

new mulder theory: if we have 3 victims, and they were all near the train station, we could cross reference the security camera footage from those 3 days and see if we can find the guy they've looking for. “that’s assuming that we’re looking for a guy”, says scully, which made me laugh because i had seen that blooper clip and giggled profusely

mystery man is spotted on the camera and jacket identified as working at the magnet place… same as the very first victim!

off to the magnet laboratory to get the scoop on this dr. banton fellow. we get a backstory reveal: he was involved in a terrible accident! he was investigating dark matter. oh man, you can’t be fucking with such things. 

the scientist guy is babbling about particles and dark matter. and while i am trying to keep up, there are bigger thoughts taking up space in my mind. namely: scully you are soooooo pretty idgaf about the particle accelerator <3

we see the scene of the accident, where dr. banton's shadow was burned into the wall……. the energy slid through his body?? girl idk. his coworker said it was almost like he wanted it to happen. maybe you get so involved in dark matter theories that you just want to taste it for yourself. anyway, the shadow left by the zapping looks like the other splotches….. 

train station time. going with the agents to the train station. boy i wish all of the US was supported by a rail system.

he points out that dr. banton was staring at the ground for a loooong time and he's trying to figure out why.

“nonsensical repetitive behavior is a common trait of mental illness” “you trying to tell me something?” YESSSS! i have seen this gif many times and now i understand its context.

(also yes mulder has got Something going on. he has been diagnosed in my headcanon with ocd... i am sure there has been plenty of discourse as to if that is the "correct" label for what is going on in his mind but it's my interpretation and i make the rules <3)

he's taking in the whole environment of the train station, and notices that the light is soft… diffused… no shadows… maybe dr.banton is looking for such an environment... BAM he rounds the corner!

aaaand he’s running but you cannot forget that mulder is a track star! you cannot outrun him! and sure enough, they got him. mulder picks up on what's going down and shoots the lights out so there are no shadows while they talk

now banton is in a facility with soft light smoking a cigarette. very 2013 aesthetic.

he's trying to explain his affliction: “my shadow isn’t mine… it’s like a black hole”

first thought: okay??? um. how and why. second thought: can we harness this for superhero purposes? fight crime by banishing the bad guys to the Void. that's an x-men adjacent power.

dr. banton says the government is after him and they are going to "suck his brain". he begs mulder to free him before this can occur, as if that is a normal predicament to try and escape from and as if mulder has any control over this situation.

the detective’s boss is pissed the FBI is there... like girl calm down does anyone really care? all this nonsense about jurisdiction and people getting frustrated when departments cross. man, if i was in a situation like this, i would be harnessing the power of teamwork, but they never seem to do that. the agents are dismissed, but mulder tells detective kelly that dr. banton needs to be in soft light.

okay, so despite my interjection of "girl who cares", clearly they care. and i'd like to wonder aloud about this exchange:

“I hope you know what you’re doing Scully, putting Detective Ryan’s ambition ahead of all good sense in this case”

“Ambition? She’s a woman trying to survive the boy’s club, Mulder. Believe me, I know how she feels”

because he’s like “we just handed over the a bomb to the Boy Scouts”

and he thinks this new detective is gonna get evaporated but also again they have no jurisdiction so like?? i wrote that i was lost and then i rewatched the scene and was still lost. he seems to be questioning scully's judgement on letting the detective take this case, which she was not in charge of assigning the detective to, and that they only agreed to help out on. so they help and then there is nothing more that can be done because it is Not Their Case. but it also seems to be less about the fact that he is concerned with the detective getting evaporated and more into fending off the alleged brain suckers.

i didn't really get it but i wrote "the girls are fightingggggg"

X AT THE STATION??? 

ohhhh mulder wants info, but X can’t help him because he exposed his identity to skinner and scully last time!!! “and you can trust them as you trust me”, says mulder, trying to get X to believe in the goodness of humanity

X brushes mulder off and says “promise you won’t contact me again unless absolutely necessary” <- damn power imbalance going crazy 

then we se X at the psychiatric facility???? breaking dr. banton out??? is he gonna be part of the brain sucking squad? he's got 2 guys helping him out, but they step in the room and the men grabbing him got zapped out of existence. X lets dr. banton run and looks very confused about the zapping of his colleagues. 

HUH? so is X doing this because he is trying to help mulder or is he really part of the government who wants to experiment on banton? by the end of the episode, it looks like he is, in fact, allied with the brain suckers... but to what extent?

OH! dr. banton got back to his old workplace and his friend the fellow magnet scientist. but the detective catches him there. and she forces him to step against the wall and his shadow gets on her and she. uh. falls screaming into a black hole? and then leaves a burn mark like all of the other cases? man what is going on.

so banton is going back into the chamber where he was previously zapped to try and unzap himself. but he gets in the chamber and his “friend” reveals he’s working for the government that wants to catch him!!!!

BUT SOMEONE SHOOTS THE DUDE WHO HAD LOCKED HIM IN THE ROOM. It was X?! WHAT is the motive here!!!

okay, agents on the scene. accelerator is up and getting ready to zap. ZAP! another shadow shows up. so unzap the zapped equals no more banton? girl where did he go.

mulder is MAD and he is at the place X met him last time. confrontation time! mulder is pissed X used him to get to banton and again X is once again flaunting the power imbalance between them. and because X tricked him, banton is dead and so is the detective!!! boy, that has got to be bad news for mulder who blames himself for everything 

he says to X: “promise me this will be our last meeting. we’re finished” and why do I feel that this is a bad idea!!!

X says he didn’t kill banton, and walks away. and also that this is a dangerous time to go at it alone. WHAT DO YOU MEAN! first skinner's cryptic messages about the darkness that is coming, and now X?

NOOOO Scully at her student the detective's funeral... this is soooo evil. 

mulder is there but he’s late. he’s in sunglasses and they’re funny. she says this feels wrong and it shouldn’t have happened, a student came to her for help and she gave it and now the student is dead. oh scully pls do not blame yourself. it feels like they were led on this track on purpose.

mulder was late because he was tied up with a missing person’s case; the other guy from the magnet lab went missing that same morning. so maybe it was other guy in the room that had been zapped and not banton? 

X AT THE SCENE OF THE MAGNET LAB. watching the other guy run tests on banton??? a tear drops down his face. X is complicit in unethical human experimentation...

so, i’m confused on many levels. it seems like someone got the detective involved because she knew she would go to scully for help and get them roped into this case. but if that WAS what happened, you know that you buy one get one free with these 2, so why would you want to get scully involved if that meant mulder would also get involved, and mulder being the closest (arguably) to X would expose X’s involvement and whatever ulterior motive he is playing to? hasn’t scully suffered enough without being forced to wonder if her helping someone started a domino effect that resulted in death? and all of this is over a guy who zapped himself with black matter and his shadow burns people up. huh?

and how deep is X in with the government doing the evil stuff? is he just distracting mulder with various side quests to keep him from discovering the nefarious deeds they are up to? does X know cigarette guy?

i don’t like when they fight. i actually LOVE when they fight over things that make sense. but i was confused over the fight they had in this episode because he was mad that she was letting the detective… do her job? and he didn’t seem to think she could handle a guy that vaporizes people with his shadow, which i mean, fair enough, tough case for a newbie, but blaming that on scully really pissed me off because?? it’s not her fault??? they also were only involved unofficially so did he think somehow they were supposed to swoop in and rescue the dude to prevent all this from happening? and how do you even rescue a guy whose shadow vaporizes people?

either this makes no sense, i’m wildly misunderstanding something, or a plot is afoot. or all three really. pls feel free to enlighten me with what you thought on this episode and let me know if there is something i am interpreting entirely incorrectly. or not! it could be fun to try and put the pieces together myself. regardless, i am pleased we were reunited

[unculturedmamoswine]

Forduary 2024, Week 3: Portal Years

For week three, I finished a fic I've been working on for a while: 30 short fics, one for each year ford was lost in the multiverse. Each fic is based on a prompt from this prompt list. The fics are in the order of the prompt list, but I did number them based on chronology.

Warnings for violence, minor character death, some drug use, and some cursing

12. scrosciare - the action of rain pouring down or of waves hitting rocks and cliffs

Ford leaned against the jagged wall of his little cave, staring out over the raging sea. Rain poured down, streaming off the cliff face and into the water below. The world was gray; the dark shining stone, the grim clouds, the crashing waves that pounded the rock. Even the sound was gray: the dull rushing roar of the sea.

His cave was little more than a pitiful hollow cut into the cliff face. If he hunched over enough he could avoid scalping himself on the cave roof. If he kept his knees up against his chest he had just enough room inside to press back against the farthest wall and avoid the rain. His temporary shelter was a hundred feet above the waves, so he would have to do his best to not fall from his roost.

Avoiding the water was ultimately pointless, as Ford was already only one rung up from soaked. But he was a furless mammal, and avoiding the cascading rain made him feel like had some measure of control over his situation. At least he was warm; whatever he’d been drinking at that bar had done wonders on his hypothalamus, which was great considering he’d had to flee into the stormy night from a white-haired assassin most likely sent by Bill or his agents.

He’d gotten what he’d come to this planet to get. Or this universe, rather– he couldn’t rule out the possibility that he’d entered into a universe that, in lieu of planets, had only a single unbroken coastline stretching into eternity. In any case, the tiny implant he’d had installed into his brain would provide him with the information he needed to find a stable power source for his quantum destabilizer. He just needed to sleep for it to take effect before it was broken down and processed by his body.

It had been hours since he’d heard evidence of his pursuer, and Ford needed to get to sleep sometime in the next five or his temporary implant would dissolve before it had the chance to tell him anything. He let his head fall forward, forehead hitting his knees. He closed his eyes, the world going from gray to black, and tried to let the static roar of nature (or this world’s version of it) lull him to sleep.

6. aspectabund - letting emotion show easily through the face or eyes

“Don’t look him in the eyes, Borgith!” snapped Shhhessh, smacking its companion on the back of the head with spindly yellow fingers. “It’s a faux pas on Human-ka to communicate telepathically!”

“Sorry! I’m sorry, human,” Borgith dropped its gaze, possibly a contrite gesture, but most likely to avoid looking Ford in the eyes. Its mouth pulled down into an unmistakable, human-like frown.

“It’s no problem, I appreciate your willingness to leave my mind alone.” Ford hoped he didn’t sound as tense as he felt. The beings of Rennik-ka were kind and scientifically minded, but being surrounded by yellow mind-readers was not good for Ford’s long-term psychological well-being. “And my planet is named Earth, actually.”

Shhhessh turned its beautiful, luminous pink and turquoise eyes to Borgith, making a triumphant noise and doubtless communicating wordlessly with it through their species’s telepathy. Borgith beamed back at its companion, and, without turning toward Ford, said “Ground? The dirt? That’s what your planet’s named after? Wonderful! That’s actually very very common! We here, the Rennik, are actually statistically unlikely to have named our planet after ourselves!” The alien took a small device from the length of brown fabric it wore wrapped around its torso. “Can I record this? As a linguist, getting an audio recording of your voice would just be–!” It turned to look at Ford, who snapped his gaze down to the ground immediately. Having his mind inadvertently scanned and rifled through by Shhhessh and three or four diplomats had been bad enough.

“Oh, hsst, I’m so sorry! I’m normally so much better with alien customs. Look, I’ll do better, really!”

“Right. Yes.” Stanford took a steadying breath. “Audio recording is fine.” He stared just past Borgith’s head, seeing its enormous green-blue eyes and almost comically expressive face out of only the corner of his eyes.

“Great!” Its eyes bulged happily and it touched the smooth surface of the device, which gave no outward indication as it began recording.

“Can I ask a question about the Rennik?” Ford asked, suspecting he knew the response he’d receive. These people had been nothing but forthcoming with him so far.

“Of course,” gushed Borgith. “Oh, Shanford, you have no idea how thrilling it is to have an alien appear out of the nothingness into our world! And to have you be a scientist, too!” Borgith broke off, making a low noise like a distant foghorn.

“Try to calm down, Borgith,” advised Shhhessh. “If you tire out the human, you won’t be allowed back. It needs its rest. And that’s not its name, either.” Shhhessh radiated censure underscored with amusement, its proboscis twitching. It was Ford’s temporary guard/escort/valet as far as Ford could tell. Its day job was as an electrical engineer, though, so Ford wasn’t completely sure how this appointment worked. He did know, though, that Shhhessh was responsible for getting Ford into the nice soft bed he’d been recovering in for the last several days, so he was inclined to like it.

Ignoring the mispronunciation of his name, Ford asked “If you communicate telepathically through eye contact, why do you have such expressive faces? By all rights I, as an alien, shouldn’t be able to even interpret– oh I see.” Realization dawned. “The telepathy is constant, and low-level. You communicate directly via eye contact to access direct thoughts, but you’re always putting out what you feel! That’s fascinating!”

“Yes!” cries Borgith, grabbing enthusiastically at Shhhessh. “Yes, that’s it precisely! Oh, human, you are something else!” 

Ford felt, for the first time in at least five or six years, the joy of sharing a purely intellectual connection with another being. It wasn’t sullied by the fear of being found out or the dirty connotations that come along with using science only to further his cause of destroying Bill. This was pure, knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

Recklessly, as if he was simply sharing an insight with Fiddleford, he let his eyes meet Borgith’s.

It was like being hit by a train. He was flattened, bowled over, breathless with pain and shock, the entirety of his mind spread out before Borgith, who looked. Borgith who saw. No matter how he tried, Ford couldn’t pull any part of himself away from the mind that was suddenly inside his own.

It was the same as the other times the Rennik had accidentally crushed his mind, except that it was different the way they’d all been different. Borgith was curiosity, endless enthusiasm, joy, and fulfillment. Shhhessh had been caution and a love of the familiar, Gre had been quiet contemplation and a desire for universal siblinghood, etc, etc. They’d all been different, all individuals, but Ford couldn’t see the details of their conscious thought or their immediate emotions, just their general personalities.

In less than a second, Borgith, though, had scraped Ford’s mind flat so that every part of it was visible and had seen Ford laughing with Stanley in their room; cupping his hand over his nose, which was pouring blood; cradling a plaidypus gently in his arms and kissing its naked little head; tearing his fingernails into his own arm so he could stay awake, can’t sleep, Bill will be there–!

Ford was wonderfully alone in his aching head in an instant as Borgith broke away. He felt his muscles twitch, senseless little impulses being sent through his nerves like the aftershocks of a really good orgasm, but in a decidedly unpleasant way. His head swam and his stomach revolted as a wave of remorse and dismay pummeled him from the direction of Borgith. He wondered if he could get better at tolerating the horrifying invasion of his mind long enough to see back into the minds of the Rennik, learn more about their science and their culture.

As he curled on his side and began to retch, Ford decided it probably wasn’t worth it.

27. pyrrhic - won at too great a cost

Ford swung his gun toward the fleeing back of the pirate and squeezed the trigger. It kicked back satisfyingly. He’d added that effect himself, too familiar with Earth guns not to appreciate a solid recoil. The blue bolt flew into and through the fleeing woman(?) dissolving a hole in her(?) torso. She dropped onto the purple dust of the craggy moon, Ford’s stolen backpack still clutched in her fist.

What was left of her band of compatriots hesitated as they heard Ford’s shot. They stared in horror at her corpse and dashed back immediately toward her, but not in the hopes of rescuing her. They wanted Ford’s bag. They wanted the bounty he’d collected bringing an interstellar criminal to justice. Somewhat hypocritical of him, seeing as he was accused of worse crimes than the man he’d captured.

Still, the bounty was his and he wasn’t going to let these scavengers steal it from him. He leapt over the body of the gigantic man who’d first grabbed him, aiming at the two pirates hustling toward their dead friend who’d taken Ford’s bag. He had no real hope of hitting them while dashing over the uneven ground, but at least his shots might keep them from reaching the body first.

The one in blue and black armor finally thought to use his weapon, stopping to fire at Ford. It shot some kind of projectile rather than an energy pulse, but he was no better at aiming at a moving target than Ford was at aiming while running. 

Once he was close enough, Ford took a bounding leap for Blue Armor, the paltry gravity of the moon making Ford light enough for an impressive jump. Blue Armor’s eyes widened behind his visor. He must not have much experience as a heartless murderer, as he didn’t raise his weapon to protect himself at all. New on the job, perhaps? “Hah!” Ford said, bringing his gun to bear and shooting the man in the head.

The two remaining pirates knelt briefly by the body of the dead woman and stumbled to their feet, the one in yellow and black now holding the bag containing the bounty.

They fled for their ship as Ford advanced, firing off another shot. His weapon began to chirp a warning about overheating, which he ignored.

He fired again, watching the pirate with the maroon armor collapse as her hindquarters sizzled and slowly dissolved. She must have screamed over her suit’s comms, as the yellow-and-black armored pirate put a hand to his ear.

The final thief had reached the shadow of his ship. “Damn it!” growled Ford. He’d never reach the man in time on foot. He raised his weapon, aiming carefully, but when he squeezed the trigger the gun gave a pitiful whine and sounded its warning chirp again.

Ford cursed. He watched, panting in exhaustion, as the pirate boarded his small vessel. His face, unhelmeted, appeared in a porthole to watch Ford as his ship lifted off, slowly accelerating away. Ford grimaced around at the bodies of the slain pirates. They’d nearly all been killed in the effort of stealing what was rightfully Ford’s.

“I hope it was worth it,” he muttered bitterly.

9. rubatosis - the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat

Ford swayed on his booted feet. The heat of the marketplace was overwhelming, or perhaps it was a symptom of his illness. Or a side-effect of the cure, which was untested on humans.

The color palette of the world seemed to shift as he watched, pulsing slowly from blue-tinged to yellow and back again. His hands shook uncontrollably, and his heart thudded distractingly in his own ears. Had it always had that unsteady rhythm? He hoped it wouldn't stop altogether. At that thought, the off-kilter thumping increased in speed and volume, drowning out the noise from the crowd of merchants, customers, and various aliens come to gawk at the wares on display.

Overwhelmed by the color and noise, Ford forgot his mission and fled, escaping the way he’d come. He wiped his sleeve over his running nose. Was it blood? Was he dying? He couldn’t die, Bill Cipher was still out there! Maybe this was all Bill, Perhaps Ford wasn’t sick at all, was instead still trapped alone in Gravity Falls and this was all a convincing dream Bill had crafted for him.

Ford wanted to cover his ears to block out the noise, but he knew it was coming from within himself.

He staggered into the darkest alley he could find and curled against a blessedly cool wall. Ford sat and wrestled with his fear, heartbeat thundering in his ears.

16. trepverter - a witty response or comeback you think of only after it’s too late to use

“You’ve not seen the last of me, filthy biped!” snarled the gigantic crocodilian monster, snapping its immense jaws, now short one or two teeth.

“Well, I… certainly hope I have!” Ford shouted back. He winced at his lame retort as his enemy’s ten-foot gray tail slapped contemptuously against the surface of the water. It sank out of sight as a large wave splashed over Ford’s head, knocking him down.

Spluttering, Ford struggled to his feet and cast around, hoping Grollo was alright. His gaze fell on his companion, who was tugging something from the sandy muck as seawater streamed around them, rushing back down the shore.

“It broke my crossbow, Ford,” said Grollo, waving the weapon’s broken stock at Ford.

“Well, I’m sorry about that, but we got the teeth, didn’t we?”

“Yeah.” Grollo raised two long, glowing blue fangs in one fist. “Two reality-warping dino chompers for your science pleasure.”

“Great!” Ford took one from her. “Hmm, yes, this is perfect! You can keep one, if you like,” he told her distractedly. “I only need one.”

“No kidding? Thanks, that rocks. What’s wrong?” Ford had just groaned and slapped his sandy palm to his face.

“That thing! The monster!” he moaned. “What, what about it?” Grollo demanded.

“I should have said ‘see you gator!’ You know, like ‘see you later’?”

“Okay,” said Grollo, implying with just one word that Ford was a complete moron. “Well. I guess you can’t win ‘em all.”

20. hiraeth - a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past

It wasn’t easy, being away from his home planet for so long. Stanford missed the smell of familiar flowers and trees, missed eating food he recognized and knew wouldn't kill him. There was nothing like exploring the cosmos, true, and he’d learned more about esoteric and hidden branches of science than he ever could have on his Earth. But… well, Ford’s occasional bouts of melancholy longing for the familiar would have shamed his younger self. Stanford at fifteen, or at twenty-five, would never have wanted to be bound to the ordinary, the average, the comforting.

Now, Stanford at forty-five had mostly shorn away the parts of himself that desperately wished to return to his home, but it seemed that there was always some insidious thread of longing ready to strangle him if he let his guard down.

He stood in the streets of a New Jersey not his own. This Earth was a lot like the one from which Ford hailed, other than all the dinosaurs. How weird that the architecture created by gigantic reptiles was almost identical to that created by relatively small mammals.

The cars looked different. Did cars in his own world look like that now, or was this just the way cars looked for dinosaurs? Would Ford ever find out? Would he ever stop wanting to? If he ever could return to his dimension, would it be recognizable? Things changed, and Ford hadn’t been home in fifteen years.

And Jersey wasn’t his home, regardless. His home had been Gravity Falls. What had become of his lab, his house? Had Fiddleford returned there to salvage any of his research? Doubtful. Most likely Stanley had taken as much expensive-looking equipment as he could carry and left the place behind to rot.

It was entirely possible that, if Ford could return home at all, home as Ford knew it no longer existed.

7. resfeber - thrill felt before an adventure

“Okay.” Ford dumped his supplies onto the table in front of him, barely able to restrain his broad grin. The flickering light of the magical orb overhead illuminated a handful of equally anticipatory faces. “I’m here. I’m ready.” It had been so long. Tonight he would embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

“Glad you could make it,” said Sil, amused. “Not sure how likely we are to succeed without your help.” They gave a sidelong look at their friend, a large, guilty-looking man.

“Don’t blame me, the last time wasn’t all my fault. You all just have terrible luck,” he said, scratching a long green ear.

“Terrible luck and nobody who can cast spells,” said a small, soft-spoken being named Lyle. “Arithaa would still be alive if Ford had been here the last time we tried to break in.”

“I know, I’m sorry, Lyle,'' said Sil’s large friend.

“Yes, it’s sad and everything,” said Ford impatiently. “But you can just make a new character.” “I did,” said Lyle, “but I liked Arithaa! She had a cool backstory that I’d been saving for the perfect character!” He grinned suddenly. “But I do love making new ones. I have like five backups for if my next one dies.” Lyle waved his character sheet in the air. “So I’m all set.”

“Alright then!” Sil rubbed their hands together, and Ford felt the electric energy of a game about to start. “Let’s storm a castle, kids!”

28. apricity - the warmth of the sun in the winter

Ford hummed in pleasure and turned his face toward the warmth. The twin suns of this planet kept the winter chill at bay and glowed red-yellow through his eyelids. Ford had been on-planet for a month and the weather hadn’t noticeably changed one way or another, so he supposed it might not actually be winter. For all he knew it was midsummer, or this part of this planet had no meaningful seasons.

He breathed deeply, noticing that his breath didn’t catch. His lungs didn’t burn. His ribs didn’t ache, or feel at all as if they’d been reconstituted from the mealy pulp they’d been when he’d been injured. (His mind skittered away from the occasion that had caused the injury. Best not to think of that. He would live, was living. That was what counted.)

When he’d left his temporary home, eager to test his now-healed body, he’d crunched through the icy top of the snowpack, but had had no difficulty in maintaining a brisk pace out to this clearing. His muscle tone had rebounded well, and if his hips ached a little, well, they’d done that before… the incident. He was getting older, after all. Still, he was well again. It was nearly time to move on, time to renew his dedication to his quest.

But for a few moments more, Ford sat in the rich warmth of foreign suns, and breathed.

15. messaline - soft lightweight silk with a satin weave

Ford felt he had disappeared into the background of the town, cloaked in purple fabric of a color he couldn’t describe. Well, it was purple, but the shade was so rich that he thought it merited a better descriptor than that. Pale… eggplant? Violet? No, those didn’t do it justice. Simply put, it was beautiful.

Gently, unseen, he wound his fingers into the light, soft fabric that enshrouded him from head to toe. It was like nothing he’d ever felt. If they had fabric like this on Earth, he’d never been able to touch any, much less wear it. Here, it was expected garb for every being that could reliably walk under its own power.

This backwater little town, hidden among towering, green-black trees, housed a university that was home to one of the most respected time science programs in local universes. Ford was here to learn what they could teach him.

A sudden gust of wind caused his, and everyone else’s, clothing to flutter dramatically around them, and amused titters bloomed up and down the street as the bright colors swirled, blurring everyone’s edges. Ford grinned, too. This planet had a lot to recommend it; he hoped he could stay a while.

23. psithurism - the sound of wind rustling leaves

The forest floor was warm underfoot– or underpaw? Ford clambered awkwardly over a large root, stopping atop it to look around. The thick trees and undergrowth limited his field of vision, and in any case he couldn’t see as well as he would have liked. His current eyes didn't see the range of colors he was accustomed to as a human.

Frustrated, Ford lashed his tail and hissed, then glanced around self-consciously, but he was alone.

Hoping to get his bearings, Ford closed his eyes. His sensitive nose told him about the prey animal that had scurried by sometime recently, the decay of the old leaf litter, the dampness of the moss, and the rich bloom of the flowers in the trees. A tug at his whiskers combined with the whisper in his ears told him the wind blew from behind his right ear and forward, to his left. The cry of a distant animal, high and dangerous, made his pelt, uh, hair, stand on end.

Clenching his teeth against his fear, Ford leapt down from his perch, surprising himself with his agility and the ease of his landing. He’d jumped down from a height of several times his own body length.

Forward seemed as good a direction as any. Stanford headed through this strange universe, the soft shush of ferns against his fur and the rattling of a few bare branches overhead keeping him company.

The wind picked up, tossing the leaves overhead even more, the sound overwhelming to his delicate ears. The shadows all around seemed somehow to deepen, and Ford realized he couldn’t feel the soft leaves and earth beneath him any longer.

Panicking, Ford thrashed, blinking his eyes open to find himself staring at a bland drop ceiling. Panting, he sat up, using human hands to feel at his legs, arms, his face, with its noticeable lack of whiskers.

Ford huffed and flopped back in bed in his cheap hotel room.

“What a weird dream,” he muttered to himself. Shhhhhh, advised the air conditioner. That was reasonable. Ford rolled over and went back to sleep.

19. lapidoso - full of stones, said of roads or of the bottom of a river

“Shit!” Ford threw the battered dagger onto the workbench. “Another failure! Damn it!”

His ally, whose name he didn’t know for security purposes, said “There’s got to be something you can do with this. Don’t just give up!”

Ford rounded on him. “I’m not giving up, this thing is useless! If there was any kind of ancient mystical power in the blade, this would have found it!” He waved the sensor he’d made under his ally’s nose. “We’ve wasted our time. Two years down the drain.” The words were bitter on his tongue.

Ford’s ally rubbed his face with his hands, tired. “A dead end. After all this time, everything I’ve done was for nothing?” He stared hopelessly into the distance.

“Get used to it. I’ve been hitting dead ends trying to get to Bill Cipher for years now. We’ll just have to find a different route.” Ford looked at his interdimensional translator, opening up the interface that would show him the weakest points in his current reality and predict where the paths might take him if he broke through. “There’s no point staying here now. If you want to return to your group and let them know what’s happened, feel free.”

Ford worked in silence for a few minutes, wondering if it would badly damage this universe if he tried to jump directly to the Slug World he liked to pass through on his trips. Slugs were good people, and pretty cute. He hadn’t been to their world in at least five years, so it wouldn’t be too much of a security risk to their peaceful universe to be seen there, he thought.

Feeling watched, Ford glanced up. His ally was staring at him oddly.

“What?” asked Ford.

“Just like that? We’ve worked so hard and so long and you’re… over it, ready to move on? How long have you been doing this?”

“Too long,” Ford said shortly. “So here’s some free advice: It’s not easy. It’s never going to be. You have to get over it and do everything you can to keep going, or give up. Bill destroyed your universe, didn’t he?”

Ford’s ally nodded, wrapping his wings around himself in a self-comforting gesture.

“If you want revenge you have to accept that it’s hard going.” Ford eyed the miserable man. “Look, I’m leaving. I have other leads I can follow. This road is a hard one, not everyone is suited to it.” He clapped his ally on the shoulder and pressed a button on his interdimensional translator, stepping down another path.

10. liberosis - the desire to care less about things

“Breathe,” Ford told Journey, holding their head in his lap, tipping their chin back so they might have some chance at catching a breath. His hands shook. There was nothing he could do to combat Journey’s blood loss, and nothing he could do to ease their pain. They would die here, and Ford’s heart broke.

Journey choked and burbled, spasming in pain or fear, their remaining arm grabbing at nothing. Ford caught their hand and held it. How many deaths had he seen over the years? Allies, innocents, even the occasional friend, like Journey. Why didn’t it ever get easier?

“I’m sorry,” he told them. “I’m sorry.” He wished, selfishly, that he could turn off the part of him that cared about them. He wished he could speed forward through time to a point where he could look back at their friendship fondly, with only a pang of guilt or regret. Instead he was subsumed by this full-body experience of grief. His eyes stung, his stomach knotted.

It seemed to take so long but eventually, Journey stilled. Ford clenched their hand tighter, choking himself now, not wanting to let go for the last time.

21. cafune - the act of running your fingers through the hair of someone you love

“My tongue feels really weird,” Ford mumbled to Jheselbraum. He lay slumped against her shoulder; she was carrying him as if he were a small child, one arm under him, the other gently looped around his back.

“Oh, yes?” Her soft, low voice was rich with some emotion he couldn’t place.

“Ugh.” Ford screwed up his face and stuck out his tongue.

“Are you dizzy? Confused?” “...Yes,” Ford realized to his surprise. “I’m not sure where we are.” He pressed his face into a fold of Jheselbraum’s cloak. It smelled strange. Like an alien.

Ford felt as if he floated and spun his way down onto something soft, but when he blinked to clear his eyes, he realized that Jheselbraum must have put him down, as she was now sitting beside him. She met his eyes with all of hers.

“You’re recovering from surgery, Stanford,” she explained, smiling. She reached up and smoothed his hair gently, or so Ford assumed. He couldn’t feel his scalp. "Bill Cipher will no longer be able to possess your body, though be wary– your dreams are still vulnerable to a creature of nightmares. Such is the way with mortals. You're all part dream by nature."

"Oh," Ford said dimly. The Oracle's hand hadn't stopped moving, carding gently through his hair. Even if he couldn't feel it, it was nice in concept.

Searching for something to say, Ford settled on "Your ceiling is nice." It was high and domed, a deep blue that glittered with yellow, white, and pink sparks. "It's like the one on Earth. The sky, I mean."

Jheselbraum hummed, leaning over him, smiling gently.

"Tell me about the sky of your planet, little human," she suggested, hand still moving softly.

Ford wondered if he was imagining the feeling in his head returning. "There's…Orion. The hunter. Not a very nice man, but…great. A hero." Stanford was making less sense than usual. "A constellation," he clarified. His head began to throb distantly. "He died," Ford forced out, "and ended up in the stars."

5. ignipotent - presiding over fire

“Is that real?” The young girl bent curiously over the scraps of paper and spearlike dried plant matter that Ford had just lit. The tiny flame grew, reflecting amber in her brown eyes, lighting her too-thin face.

“We only had the holo kind at home,” she said softly, not moving her gaze from the flames. “It looked nice, but it couldn’t make you warm.” She held out a shaking hand, gently cupping the scrap of warmth as though to protect it from the chill of the early morning.

“It’s real,” Ford confirmed unnecessarily. “Here.” He handed her a chunk of ration bar and a handful of sugar-encrusted insects, then gently fed the fire a couple small twigs.

“Back home… nobody would believe me if I told them I saw a real–” and here Ford’s translator tried to interpret her next word simultaneously as ‘fire’, ‘searcher’, ‘priest’, and ‘life-heart’, whatever that was. “How did you do it?” The girl looked almost afraid to know.

Ford smiled and held out his hand. “It’s a small container of fuel,” he explained. “Liquid that can catch on fire. When you roll this wheel here at the top, it strikes the flint inside. That makes a spark, which ignites the fuel!” He flicked the lighter, a steady flame appearing in his hand. “You close the lid to put it out,” he added, extinguishing the flame.

The girl looked awed at first, then she mirrored Ford’s grin. “That’s so… I don’t know how to even say! That’s the strangest, most wonderful thing!” She clutched her ration bar, too excited to keep eating. “I’ve never even thought of that– fire in your hands!”

Ford laughed. “Keep it,” he said, tossing her the lighter. He put a larger stick on the fire. “When you’re a scientist one day, mention me in your thesis’s acknowledgements.”

 13. balter - to dance gracelessly, but with enjoyment

The glowing moon shone a pink light over staggering, lurching forms. The stocky, lightly feathered humanoid aliens were ranged about in a large, grassy bowl that provided some shelter from the wind, sunk as it was into the sandy earth– or whatever they called the dirt on this non-Earth planet.

Ford smiled, noting in his mental journal that these aliens, though not talented dancers by his human standards, were clearly having quite a time. Delighted hoots and laughter rang through the night, accompanying their loud music. They stamped and staggered out of time, if there even was a time in the long, meandering song that had been playing for the past hour.

The prime minister, identifiable by the crown of blue stones upon his head, stomped over to Ford, offering a metal cylinder full of water. “Please dance, Stanford! This is a ceremony to honor you!”

Ford felt himself blush. The idea of dancing in front of anyone, even these graceless, kind aliens, made him cringe. He felt no different than he had at school dances as a teenager, or the single college party Fiddleford had dragged him to. That is to say, he felt the impending judgment of many people who all seemed to know the secret rules of social interaction that he wasn’t privy to.

“Um,” Ford scrambled for a plausible excuse. “Thank you, Prime Minister, but actually I’m a human, you see. We don’t dance at festivals held in our honor. It’s considered the… height of revelry to simply watch the festivities.” Years of roleplaying in DD&MD came in handy when lying to aliens. It’s harmless, he told himself guiltily. He’ll never know.

The prime minister shook himself, feathers fluffing out briefly before resettling. If that meant something, Ford didn’t know what. Finally the man sighed in defeat and slumped sideways into another dancer, who happily swept him up in a boisterous canter before they both fell, laughing, to the ground.

26. verklempt - completely and utterly overcome with emotion

The two beings smiled at Ford, as well as trees could smile.

“We didn’t think we would see you again, Stanford,” they said. Rather, it should be said that they conferred briefly with one another in order to come to a consensus and then transmitted the detailed concept into Ford’s mind without the messy and inexact middleman of spoken language. “It’s nice that you could come. We hope your fight with your enemy is going well. We hope you’ve killed him.”

“Well, not yet.” Ford shifted the gift in his arms uncomfortably. “But I’m still alive, anyway.” He craned his head down to his shoulder, using it to nudge his glasses higher up on his face. “And it’s nice to see you both again!” He smiled up into his friends’ leafy canopies. High above his head, their branches entwined. “Congratulations! I wasn’t certain of the traditions here, but on my planet it’s customary to bring a gift, so, uh, I’ll just leave this here.” 

Ford dropped the heavy bag at the roots of one of his friends. It didn’t really matter which one it was; they were bonded and were therefore treated as more or less one entity now that they had rooted together. Also, their names were so long that it would take forever to address them if he used them.

“Very kind. You’re a thoughtful meat bag,” they joked after a brief pause to confer. Ford laughed.

“Oh, wow, it’s been years since I’ve heard that one. We were a lot younger, back then.”

“Yes.” Warmth flowed through Ford’s mind to convey his old friends’ happiness. “Barely more than saplings. And now look. We have a sapling of our very own to celebrate.”

“Oh, right! I got her some mulch. The gift.” Ford gestured at the sack on the ground. “It’s, um, supposed to be good for young plants.” He looked around. “Where is she, anyway?”

In answer, Ford felt a tug at his awareness, one little trail of thought nudging him forward. He peered curiously around the bole of one of his friends. A short distance away, still well within the radius of her parents’ root systems, what looked like a tiny stick of pale wood jutted out of the ground.

“Oh,” Ford breathed. Although she was hardly sleeping (trees didn’t sleep, at least not in this dimension) Ford felt an impulse to keep quiet so as to avoid waking her. Now that he saw her, he felt her mind vaguely, floating all around him like a scent or a song.

She didn’t convey direct feelings or ideas in the way her parents could, but even as a leafless stick only as high as Ford’s knee, he could feel her mind. It was undeniable that she was a person, a little being who could so easily have never existed at all.

“Wow,” Ford said. “She’s lovely. What will you call her?”

“We won’t bore you with her long name,” the new parents murmured. “We know how cumbersome they seem to you. But for her short name, we are calling her after you.”

Ford looked from tree to tree, wishing that they had faces he could read. It was hard to perform an emotion when you didn’t know where to aim it. Underneath his shock, Ford’s chest felt constricted with a sort of painful happy pressure.

“I don’t– don’t know what to say.”

A slightly apologetic thrum wound through the next idea that appeared in Ford’s mind: “Actually, we aren’t calling her Ford, exactly. It’s not our way to call a sapling after a tree who still lives.” Ford smiled, blinking rapidly. “It’s the same in my culture.”

"Since you are Stanford but don't use all of your name, we will call her Stan."

Ford opened his mouth, then snapped it shut to hold back the various feelings warring in his chest that wanted to crawl up and out. It was hard not to feel anger, at least a little of it, when he thought of Stan, so that was there. But also there was chagrin that his friends were using his brother’s name to honor him, as well as pride that they thought he was worthy of such an honor. Then too there was the bubbling amusement of his namesake being a female tree, rather than, say, a male human.

Ford removed his glasses.

She was so small, that was all. She was a little tiny thing called Stan and he had had a hard few years.

He just needed a moment or two.

11. cruore - it literally means “flowing blood”

“I’m not dying, Connell, I’m fine!”

“I don’t believe you! You look gross! Your gross red human blood is everywhere!” “If you’d leave me alone I could clean it up!” “You can let me help you! Breathe, that’s the key! I don’t want another corpse in my crew quarters.” “Is that a common problem?”

“Uh. No. No, it’s never happened before. By ‘another’ I meant ‘the first ever!’ That’s definitely what I meant.” “Hmm… Ugh.” “Ah! Stop it, stop bleeding on everything! That’s it, I’m sending some MediBots here to save you!” “I do. Not. Need. Saving! This is not a calamity! Humans bleed sometimes!”

“Stop waving your arms! You’ll make more blood come out!”

“You don’t know. You don’t know what humans are like! Maybe arm movements make our blood stay in.”

“Eck. Blood really should not be that color.”

“If it was any other color I would actually need a MediBot.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s fair. I know everybody’s blood color is normal to them. I’ve watched a lot of sensitivity training videos!”

EMERGENCY EMERGENCY! “Wonderful. Connell, make them go away!” “Are you absolutely certain you don’t need them to plug those holes in you?”

EMERGENCY EMERGENCY! PLEASE COOPERATE!

“I need those holes to breathe! Damn it, get off me!”

ZZAPP

“Oh, Stanford, why? Do you know how long it will take me to repair them? I’ll have to get the maintenance bots up here, and they hate me!”

“I’m frankly not your biggest fan, either.” “You’re rude.” “I’m running on two hours of sleep and my body clearly isn’t tolerating the jump to intra-space, so deal with it. Usually I’m a scintillating conversationalist.”

“Hah hah hah. I know when an organic life-form is being funny. That’s a good one.”

…

“Don’t pout. Look, you’ve almost stopped bleeding!”

“I’m not pouting, I was planning on getting some work done. And yes, as I told you, I’m fine. This isn’t something that will kill or even slightly damage me.”

…

“Stanford.” “What?” “You aren’t bleeding and the MaintBots are coming. Will you pretend to be talking to me when they get here?” “Because they don’t like you?”

“Yes. They think I’m not cool because I don’t have a body. If you talk to me about things, they won’t talk to me. They’ll see that a person with a body likes me, you know? You don’t have to actually like me, though.” “I see. Okay, sure. No problem.” “Oh, great, thank you! Okay, okay. What should we say? Oh! We can talk about your blood! Does it evaporate? Or repel predators?” “Well, not usually. Its main purpose is to transport oxygen around my body.” “Oh, okay! Neat! And why was it coming out of you like that before? Is that common?”

“Nosebleeds happen to humans sometimes. I always get them jumping to intra-space. It’s why I prefer not to travel this way.”

“Ooooh I see. Just some normal, regular bleeding, eh? Just like all the organics do on your planet!” “Uh, well, I wouldn’t say that–”

“Or moon! Or whatever, it’s all cool, it’s all fine by me! You can be from wherever you’re from!”

“I–”

“Gosh, now that I’m getting used to it, I kinda like your red blood! Really pops against that space suit! Man! Wish I could see more!”

“You will. We still have to drop out of intra-space.”

“Great!”

1. marcid - incredibly exhausted

Bill was here; was everywhere that Ford was before he could get there, even in his mind. 

Especially in his mind. 

When he slept, and he would have to sometime, he hoped he wouldn’t dream of Bill, appearing with a laugh and a joke. It’s been fun, Fordsy, but I’m tired of the games! 

Even if Bill wasn’t literally in his mind, he was always metaphorically there. Ford’s years of friendship (why does he still call it that?) with that demon made it easy to conjure Bill’s voice to mock or to threaten.

(And in retrospect, their friendship always had had a high instance of mockery and at least implied threats. How had he been so stupid as to not see Bill’s true self? Could he really have been so pathetically lonely that he was willing to befriend anything that laid in his path, waiting?)

Ford staggered, hugging himself against the cold of this empty place. It was flat and barren, but at least he was out of the Nightmare Realm. He glanced down at his dimensional translator, but his eyes were so bleary that he couldn’t read it. The adrenaline lingering in his system after his flight from Bill was waning. Ford’s boots felt impossibly heavy, and his entire body ached.

He tripped on nothing, toppling to the ground. It was dusty, almost soft. And nobody was around to kill him that he could see. He would rest here, just for a moment, and then carry on.

17. temerate - to break a bond or promise

Ford glanced to one side, to the hulking individual striding along the canal with him. Ford’s… associate, Nere, seemed to think he was successfully leading Ford into a trap. He walked easily and with purpose, leading Ford to the narrow alley where they could complete their deal away from the intruding eyes of the law– and where Ford would be vulnerable to an attack.

Ford didn’t much like illegal deals with unsavory characters, but they were a part of life these days. He tried to smother the grin he felt trying to sneak onto his face. Maybe there was a small part of him that did enjoy the occasional brush with danger. He tightened his grip on the six-foot staff that was the only weapon commoners were permitted in the city as Nere silently gestured for him to enter the alley first. Typical.

“Alrighty,” Nere said with a sigh. “Here we go.” He held up a small case and shook it. It rattled. “Year’s supply is all yours.”

“Presuming I can pay, of course,” Ford said.

“Uh, yeah… that’s kind of the deal,” said Nere, frowning.

“Well, the deal’s off!” Before Nere could speak, Ford whipped his staff at the treacherous man’s wrist, dealing a vicious blow that made him howl and drop the case of pills. Ford dashed forward to grab it, scooping up the case and shouldering roughly past Nere.

“What the fuck, man?!” Nere yelled.

Ford didn’t know it, but as he dashed out of the alley and onto the wider street, fleeing the sounds of Nere’s gang behind him, he was grinning.

4. sweven - a dream

When all the lies and terror and confusion of the multiverse became too much, Ford wished there was some happy memory he could recede to. Not always, not for days or weeks at a time, just for a few minutes.

In the Banjo Dimension, beset by discordant twanging, Ford wished he could summon up the image of Fiddleford’s delight if he were to ever find himself here. But no, Fiddleford was a bridge too thoroughly burned to be a fond memory.

On the pirate planet and sick with an intestinal parasite, Ford could hardly imagine a world in which he had thrilling but never too terrifying seagoing adventures with a version of Stanley that had never existed.

There may have been good times in Gravity Falls, but so much of that was overshadowed by Bill, and by the thoughts that still plagued him– how long had Bill been watching, lying in wait? Would he never have approached Ford if Ford had heeded Modoc’s warning? Had there ever been even a moment that Bill might have considered Ford a true friend?

It was stupid. Stupid of him to try to imagine a world where his life had been different, where he’d made the right choices about who to trust and had never been betrayed.

Ford tried to remember the smaller things to get by, rationing his happy memories: the feel of the sun and the sea air on his face, and never mind who was just off his shoulder; the serenity of a chemistry lab at four in the morning, without the explosion an hour later caused by his roommate’s experiment; the joy of a trek through the woods a mile from his home before he knew anything was out there waiting for him.

22. petrichor - the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a long period of dry weather

Sweat dripped down Ford’s face, rolling down his jaw and falling with a soft pat onto his saddlehorn. He sighed, shifting in the saddle. It had been a long, hot week in the Old West Dimension, and he was tired of it. He liked his horse, though. Pigeon was patient with his inexperience and unaffected by the perils of the trail. Ford leaned forward to pat her on the neck, and a bead of sweat fell this time onto her dappled gray neck. Ford blinked. Did she have more spots all of a sudden?

“Ford!” Ford’s head snapped up. Slim, at the head of the string of riders on the dusty trail that wound up into the hills, waved as if they weren’t sure they had his attention.”FORD! IT’S RAINING!” Their grin was visible even from a distance. The rest of the party cheered, raising their arms or throwing their hats. Then they had to dismount and pick them back up again.

“This is great!” Slim had guided their horse back down the trail full of celebrating riders to Ford. “It’s been a long damn time since we saw a drop of rain!” “Well, that’s wonderful, but if it’s raining on its own, then what do you need me for?” Ford asked. He was supposed to be helping these people with their weather problem using a Rainmaker he’d smuggled out of Dimension 7.6^3. It was the job they’d hired him to do, and if he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t get paid.

“Whaddy mean, Ford? Didn’t you finish the last touches on your machine last night?” Slim asked, cocking their head.

Ford wondered if they’d been drinking in the saddle again. “No… you know we need to be at a higher elevation for the Rainmaker to work. And I haven’t finished my repairs.” The light shower poured harder, and the sweet, earthy scent of rain filled the warm air.

“Naw,” said Smith from behind him. “I seen you fixing it up too. Pushed a lot of buttons and zap! Brought all those clouds over here.”

“I saw it too!” Lizard Lizzie shouted over her shoulder. “It was just like magic, I’ll swear on a Bible.”

“You college types can be so forgetful,” Slim said blithely. “Don’t you worry, we’ll talk to the Sheriff. You’ll get your pay.”

Ford grinned. “Thank you.” “Don’t mention it!” Slim turned to address the whole group, cupping their hands around their mouth. “Alright, folks, change of plans! Let’s get back to town and tell ‘em all what a good job we done!” They gave Ford a knowing look. “I’m sure you’d like to collect your fee and move on, huh mysterious loner?”

“It’s what we do best,” Ford acknowledged, and they shared a smile.

14. basorexia - the overwhelming desire to kiss

“Wow.” Ford leaned back. “That's some view.”

The sunset was a lot like Earth's; it painted the sky and sea in shades of orange and purple. Ford sat on a bench at the top of a rise that swept down to the shore. Next to him was Jason, a local biologist who'd been very welcoming to Ford, and with whom he could discuss marine life for hours.

Jason flashed with bioluminescence to indicate his happiness. “It really is. I suppose you'll miss it when you leave. Or maybe not. You'll be off exploring beautiful new oceans.”

“I'll still miss being here. It's always nice to be near the sea. And I definitely appreciate being free from assassination attempts.” Ford hooked his arm over the back of the bench and grinned at Jason, who floated next to him, tentacles piled delicately on the bench seat to imitate a seated posture. while his shorter, frilled arms bobbed in the breeze.

Jason laughed. “I appreciate you not being assassinated,” he said. “You… you’ll be alright, won’t you? Out there,” he waved an arm vaguely.

“I have to be,” said Ford, scratching at his chin. “Death would mean failure, and I can’t fail.”

“Ford, that’s… you’re just so…” Jason laid an arm on Ford’s, frills brushing his wrist. “Well, you’re crazy,” he said ruefully. Ford chuckled. “But you’re very brave,” Jason went on softly.

Ford glanced away, hoping he didn’t look too pleased by Jason’s compliment. When he looked back, Jason was closer. Ford looked up into his face, confused but also feeling a sense of foreboding. He felt that he knew what was happening on some level, but surely not. It couldn’t be what it felt like.

Jason’s mouth was almost on his by the time Ford really believed it. He yelped and jerked back, away from the gentle grip Jason’s arms now had on his knee, his shoulder, his arm.

“I, uh, sorry, I don’t know if you–” Ford had no plans regarding the end of that sentence. His face was on fire. He had no idea how this situation had suddenly taken a hard turn into incredibly uncomfortable territory.

“I’m sorry!” Jason twined his arms together, embarrassed. “Oh, that was really, extremely stupid. I’m sorry, it’s just– you’re so, uh, it’s just a very romantic setting and I got a little– I should have asked first!”

“It’s fine!” Ford assured him, although his heart was pounding as if he’d just dodged a bullet. “I just don’t. I don’t do that sort of thing,” he explained weakly. “Not that I’ve had a lot of offers!” he added, laughing awkwardly.

Inscrutable lights flickered across Jason’s face and bell. Ford wondered how he looked, leaning away as if terrified of this man, who had been nothing but a friend to him over the past weeks. “Well, I won’t offer,” Jaon said finally. “If you don’t want me to.”

Ford felt as if he should explain himself, but he didn’t think he could make his feelings about kissing make any sense to either of them. I’ve never imagined myself doing that. I thought wanting it would happen to me and it never did. I think you’re very beautiful, but like the sunset is beautiful, and I wouldn’t want to kiss the sun. None of these statements would be likely to explain much, or make Jason feel much better.

Before the silence could stretch on too long, Ford said “I’ll miss you.” He took one of Jason’s arms in his hand. “I won’t forget our friendship,” he added lamely. It had sounded better in his head.

Jason grimaced, but squeezed Ford’s hand. “Why don’t you just try to forget the last couple minutes of it.”

30. whelve - to bury something deep, to hide

It was Gravity Falls, but not as Ford knew it, or remembered it. The Institute of Oddology was huge, eclectic, well-equipped, adequately staffed, and world-famous. It buzzed with the businesslike, occasionally chaotic energy of science being done. The things he’d seen here, and the things his other self had accomplished…

Here was what his life could have been. Safe use of the portal, a world free of Bill… Ford swallowed back jealousy and irrational anger, and turned to the man his friend could have been.

“You look, good, Fiddleford,” Ford said. In truth, he looked as unremarkable as he always had. An ordinary exterior hiding an incredible mind, just older.

Fiddleford cracked a grin. “You look exactly like a character you’d come up with for DD and More D, if I’m honest.” He put his hands on his hips and made a show of looking Ford up and down. “Space Pirate, you know? You’re the spittin’ image. They got that subclass in your dimension?” “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been there since I was thirty,” Ford reminded him.

“Oh yeah,” Fiddleford rubbed the back of his neck. “On account of that accident with Stan.” He eyed Ford closely, watching his reaction. “Things went south, you say.” “With Stan, and with you, yes.” Ford said shortly. “Very south.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason, it’s nothin’.” Fiddleford put his hands in his lab coat’s pockets and tapped his foot rapidly against the tile. “Do you ever think about how they are now? That Stan, that Fiddleford?”

“They’re fine, I’m sure.” Stanley was always fine; he was slippery enough to survive anything. And Fiddleford, even with his anxieties, even with the temptation of that damned gun, was too brilliant to hang around in Gravity Falls, hunting the locals’ memories for sport.

“Good, good.” They stood silently for a moment.

“Did your family move up here?” Ford asked, wanting to turn the conversation from topics he wasn’t remotely willing to tell this Fiddleford about.

Fiddleford raised his brows, surprised at the change of topic. “Oh, yeah. Not too long after we got the portal all configgerified just how we liked it. Wife and kids came up. Well, I s’pose it was just the one kid back then,” he chuckled. “They always liked you, y’know. The kiddos. They liked that you’d rassle ‘em around and let ‘em do dangerous dang stuff when I wasn’t around.”

Ford’s stomach clenched unhappily at the thought of being a significant figure in the lives of Fiddleford’s children as they grew up. It was so desperately far removed from what his life had actually been. Ford wanted to turn away from this topic as well.

“Yes, well.” Ford gripped clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m glad that the other me has done… so well for himself.” He gritted out the words.

Fiddleford gave him a deeply pitying look. “I can help you, you know, Ford. We can get you back to dimension 46’\ lickety-split.” He patted Ford’s shoulder. Ford suppressed a wince, even though Fiddleford had just told him that only contact with his own alternate self could damage this universe.

“No.” He shrugged off Fiddleford’s hand. I don’t need to go home, I need to destroy Bill Cipher for good.” He fixed his gaze on Fiddleford. “You and your Ford may have made this universe safe– I don’t begrudge you that, but Bill took my life from me. He’ll do it to infinitely more people if I give up. I intend to put an energy pulse right between his… eye.” Ford finished. “I just need to refine my Quantum Destabilizer. I haven’t been able to find a power source that will work with it.” As Ford spoke, Fiddleford’s KBPS began to rise, and his eyes lit with interest.

“Power source, you say? Now that’s interesting…Come this way. I think I got somethin’ you’ll want to see!”

24. meriggiare - to rest at noon, more likely in a shady spot outdoors

Ford plopped down in the soft blue lichen covering the soil under the vast canopy of a towering mushroom. The steep rise he’d climbed to get here was perfectly positioned to show him a view of the picturesque little valley– its forests, clearings, and some of the inhabitants: the large but harmless lizards that fluttered through the air, glittering like strings of jewels. The sky was a dusky blue, the sparse clouds delicate feathery streaks.

A smile twitched at the corners of Ford’s mouth as he tried to open his pack and find some food. He fumbled it and burst into laughter. It wasn’t funny, and that knowledge just made him guffaw again.

Ford shoved his hands up under his glasses, trying to get ahold of himself. What was going on with him? He’d climbed this hill on a whim, just wanting to appreciate the view and have some lunch. Maybe get a few hours rest before carrying on. He was due to visit a weapons factory in a lava dimension, and had wanted to enjoy his last hours here in this world. (Dimension 0591 Dash Six (dash and six all spelled out for some reason.))

But now he felt both bubbly with good humor and even sleepier than he should after a sleepless night of traveling. Even the thought of his own unusual mood made him want to laugh again.

“How did I get stoned out here?” Ford asked himself out loud. Biting his lip to try to smother his grin, Ford waved his hand in front of his face, wondering what it would look like. It looked like a hand waving in front of his face. Not the most useful diagnostic tool. If the flying lizards were watching, it would look like he was waving to them, he thought, and snickered. He gave them a proper wave, in case they really were watching, and turned back to the matter at hand.

He hadn’t eaten anything he wasn’t certain of in weeks. It was an important element of survival in myriad universes. He hadn’t been poisoned in any other way. It must be something environmental. But what?

Ford thunked his head back against the soft, pale trunk of the mushroom, feeling decidedly less concerned about his drugging than he should be. He peered up at the rippling gills of the mushroom. He had walked through a forest of similar fungi all morning.

“Oooh. Yes, that could be it. Spores. Alien spores. Well, don’t feel bad,” he told the mushroom. He smiled drowsily up at it. “I’ll be fine, you know, probably.” Ford’s eyes closed. “Should probably leave. Get to that lava dimension and sober up,” he mumbled.

But a nap first, then back to it. Yes. Just a little rest, and he’d be fine.

8. ansare - to hardly breathe, to be out of breath

“No.” Ford gaped.

“Oh, yeah, totally.” The bartender wiped down the surface of thier bar with one hand, and polished a glass with a couple of others. “He’s a regular here. Probably not the Tesla that you know, but definitely some scrawny inventor guy. Wacko scientists are always washing up here, for whatever reason. Seen at least six in the last five years.”

Ford tuned out the bartender. His heart thundered. He glanced over his shoulder again at the mustachioed man drinking in the corner of the bar. He looked just like the poster Ford had had on his wall in college.

Tesla, Nikola Tesla, took a swig of his foamy brown cocktail and placed it back on the table so that it would hold down one corner of the pages that flapped in the breeze created by the bar’s oscillating fan. He licked whipped cream off his mustache and scribbled something. Ford felt faint.

What should he do? What could he possibly say? Tesla probably had people flocking to him all the time, Ford didn’t want to come off as just some hanger-on.

“Breathe, man!” The bartender smacked Ford on the shoulder. “If you pass out, he’s not gonna give you his autograph, you know.”

Ford gasped for breath, then fixed the slender alien with a scowl. “I don’t want his autograph, I want to tell him that I’m grateful for the incredible strides he made for science, and that I admire his ambition, and I want to let him know that his legacy never faded!” Ford fought off the urge to wave his hands in excitement and curled them into fists on the shining bar.

“Uh-huh,” they gave him an amused look. There was a pause while they stepped away to help another patron, and Ford drummed his fingers on the bar, trying to formulate an opening line. What did someone say when he met his childhood hero (or some version of him) in a spaceport bar?

“Hey, do you hear that?” The bartender was standing in front of him again. Their batlike ears twitched.

“No.” Ford looked around. It was quiet in the bar, both literally and in terms of patronage.

“It sounds so weird.” As they raised a hand to their head, the being they’d just served made an abrupt dash for the door. In the next instant, the back wall of the bar exploded.

Ford was knocked off his barstool and onto the floor, dazed and breathless. He rolled onto his belly and struggled to get his wobbly legs under him. As he rose, his head swam and his eyes streamed from the smoke and dust. He coughed, struggling to breathe, and looked vainly around for either victims who needed help or assassins who needed a quick death.

A couple of figures staggered through the smoke and out the front door, which looked completely intact. The explosive had been a small one, and Ford had been the nearest to it, so it was unlikely that anyone else was badly hurt. The bartender flashed through Ford’s mind– they’d been near him. They could be hurt or worse.

He turned toward the bar and leaned over it, only to be met with the sight of the bartender hauling themself to their feet. They coughed too, covering their mouth with one arm and flailing wildly with the other ones.

Ford grabbed them and tugged them closer, so that they leaned toward each other over the bar. “Is there another exit?” he shouted into their ear. It wasn’t ideal as an escape. If the explosive had been intended to flush him out, there would probably be watchers on all the entrances and exits, but it was either run or stay and suffocate.

They nodded, squinting in the smoke, and led Ford through a door into a small stockroom. Through that was a door into a closet, and then another door that led outside, or as outside as you could get on a spaceport. Ford glanced back and forth down the bright ‘street’, but it was deserted. He had to get away, and ideally get the bartender out of here, too.

He wouldn’t admit it, but Ford’s next thought was that he hoped Tesla hadn’t been a trick, a trap set for him by Bill’s agents. But how could they possibly have guessed he’d wander into that bar? Still, it hadn’t been Tesla to dash for the door, he’d been in his place along with everyone else.

“My bar,” the bartender moaned, bringing Ford back to the present. “What happened, what am I gonna do?”

Ford steadied them as they started to cough again. “I think that bomb was meant for me. I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to endanger you or your establishment. You should probably go home.” The bartender turned their incredulous gaze on him. “I lived in there! I don’t have anywhere to go! Who the fuck wants to kill you so badly?”

“Bill Cipher.” The name had no visible effect on them. In some places it was as good as a curse, but not here. “Okay, well, are you getting revenge or something? Is he going to pay for this?” They clearly didn’t mean financial payment.

“Yes,” Ford said simply. This was not even serious enough to count as a footnote on the list of crimes for which Bill should be killed, but if it would make them feel better to think Ford was seeking vengeance for them, then fine.

“Good. I’m coming with you. I’m going to help you and get this guy back for blowing up my house.” Their eyes were glassy with unshed tears. Ford didn’t argue. He knew from experience that it would waste time. He’d take them along and either they would give up and find some new place to call home or he could ditch them in a reasonably safe place.

“Let’s go, then. I’m Stanford,” he added, offering his hand.

“Journey,” they said, shaking it.

2. arcuate - arched; bow-shaped

Slate-gray buildings curved over Ford’s head, huge and entirely contradictory to the laws of physics. It was, he thought, what it might be like to be an ant, looking up at a forest of grass. If he was an ant, though, he wouldn’t be lost. He could use his antennae to scent his hotel and find his way there without fuss, using scent trails left by other guests.

Ford peered at the small ball of light he held in his left hand. The hospitality kiosk had provided it to him, along with a burble of the local language that he couldn’t understand.

Someone jostled his shoulder and snapped something unintelligible at him. “Oh, excuse me.” Ford fought through the foot traffic in the broad street until he could lean against a building. He couldn’t feel the curvature of the structure at this height. He tilted his head back, watching the shine of the lights in the windows against the nighttime sky.

He’d never been to a city so huge before, or so alien. The people here had blue skin, some of them. They were all a foot shorter than he was, and wore things and carried things and said things he couldn’t understand. Ford’s feet hurt. He was hungry and tired and cold– his coat was too thin for this weather.

If Ford had dreamed of being an adventurer as a child (and he now pretended he hadn’t) he wouldn’t have anticipated the aimless hours, or the boredom. He hadn’t considered what it would be like to have no home, and nobody to turn to.

Ford gazed blankly at his glowing orb. He was exhausted, and he was alone here. Nobody would notice for days if he didn’t make it to his hotel. The only thing for it was to move. Ford took a deep breath, pushed himself off his wall, and set out.

18. morituro - of someone who is next or destined to die

When Ford learned that Bill was widely known throughout many universes, he didn’t know if it was comforting (he wasn’t the only person to be tricked or harmed by Bill!) or dismaying (he was just another in a long line of rubes to fall for Bill’s trickery.) He wasn’t known quite everywhere, but in many places Ford heard whispers and rumors.

“Bill Cipher isn’t real,” scoffed a man in one dimension. “It’s just a silly trick created to scare children into obeying, like the Giant Cocoon!”

“I’m sorry,” breathed a sympathetic guard as she snuck Ford out of a heavily fortified prison. “Everyone here lives in fear of the One-Eyed Demon. Get out of here before you’re seen.”

The more Ford learned about BIll, the more grimly certain he became that he couldn’t begin to think of returning home yet. Indeed, he couldn’t take any other path until Bill was dead.

“My people,” said a hollow-eyed old arms dealer, xir hands clenched into a bony knot before xem. “Killed. Gone. Now I help other people to their own ends in the hopeless pursuit of the monster.”

And that arms dealer had been one of the lucky ones: Ford had found that few people ever survived Bill’s scouring of their universes.

“Murdered his own fucking people, you know? Just pfft.” This woman had snapped her delicate-looking wings with a startling sound. “All of them into the mist. And why? To cover up his crimes? For fun? Who knows?” She had shuddered in the sweltering heat. “Evil.”

Eventually, Ford began to hear an addendum to mentions of Bill. Not always, but sometimes, and increasing in frequency as the years wore on.

The first time he’d heard it had been from a child, who had peered solemnly at him from under a wide-brimmed hat. “The Deceiver will make you think fake things are real. He takes you away and replaces you with his own mind.” The little boy’s eyes had sparkled. “But don’t worry! My aunts say that there’s someone who fights the Deceiver! A man who appears from nowhere to strike and run before he can be caught! He’s a thief and a crook, but he helps. Maybe you can find him and he can help you too.”

25. noceur - one who stays up late

The problem with studying 0th dimensional physics was that it was so fascinating that Ford didn’t want to turn his attention to anything else. He’d budgeted two hours for 0d Physics, then two for exobiology (redundant– all biology was exobiology on an alien planet), then one for his Strygian literature class (the language was fascinating! The literature even more so!) and finally some philosophy he was taking to round out his studies and help him to understand the culture of the Strygians.

After that he would eat, sleep, wake, and attend class. And after escaping from that horrible dimension with all the M’s, Ford had washed up here, on the planet Strygis. Then there’d been two weeks of decontamination and rigorous interviews, and it had been decided that Ford should be allowed to attend Tytene University as what amounted to an alien charity case. They didn’t call it that, of course; he was an “Off-Planet-Originated Accelerated Admission” case. He was also, on paper, a woman, because the avian inhabitants of Strygis had organized themselves quite strictly by sex. As a scholar, Ford was female, legally.

Anyway, all of that was beside the point. The point was that Ford found himself in a university of kindred spirits. It had been years since he’d last earned a new PhD, and Ford thought he deserved a little treat. And the physics department at Tytene University should prove useful, you know, somehow.

A sudden rushing and fluttering in the aerie prompted Ford to raise his head. To his surprise, nearly his entire cohort had swooped in. They made their way to their nests, puttering around and getting ready for bed. Ford stared in surprise past the slender wooden poles that supported the thin canopy over the aerie. The horizon was turning pink. It was dawn. Had he really been awake all night?

“You keep telling us you’re diurnal,” joked Mask from her nest as she fidgeted with it, using her large talons to kick her bedding around. “And yet, here you are, every morning, as if you were just waiting for a good day’s sleep!” “She’s really making great flights with her study of our culture, eh?” came another jovial voice. “You’ll be sprouting feathers next, Ford!”

Ford grinned over his shoulder in the direction of the voice. He couldn’t be sure who it was, but it was clearly friendly ribbing, rather than nasty bullying. “Well, if Larna wouldn’t suggest such fascinating reading for my Science Qualification I could get some human-style nighttime rest!” Ford closed his textbook and relaxed back into his own nest as soft, amused hoots rang out around him.

“If you’re sleeping with us, you may as well get breakfast with us,” Mask suggested. She blinked her huge yellow eyes at him and fluffed up her gray feathers contentedly. “I could catch some oolie and you can explain what Larna is always going on about. I need all the help I can get with physics.” “Sounds lovely,” Ford said truthfully. (A tiny part of Ford already mourned the loss of this planet from his life. Once he moved on, would he ever be back? He pushed the thought aside.) His hand crept toward his exobiology scrolls, almost in spite of himself. Naturally, Mask spotted the movement. She rolled her whole head.

“At least try to be asleep before the sun is above the horizon,” she advised him, sounding like nobody so much as Fiddleford at age twenty.

Ford chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do. Old habits die hard.”

29. selcouth - unfamiliar, rare, strange, and yet wonderful

Footsteps thundered behind Ford as he dashed through broad, brightly-lit halls. Door after door flicked past on either side, but each one was a dead end, if the map Ford’s accomplice had given him was correct.  He could hide, but he’d be found eventually. He could run, but he couldn’t remember exactly which way to go to reach the outside. This is why you memorize the map! Ford’s brain told him unhelpfully.

At a T intersection, Ford stupidly hesitated for a fraction of a second before staggering to the right. He heard a shout much too nearby.

“There! He went that way!”

Shit. Ford dashed on, terror delaying the exhaustion he should be feeling by now. Even with the benefits of adrenaline he could feel a sharp stabbing between his ribs.

Another intersection, another turn. Ford stopped. Dead end. He was cornered, caught. And weaponless, to boot.

Well, there was only one thing for it. Ford groped in his pocket for a certain cheap plastic case and turned to face the way he’d come, backing slowly toward the dead end.

Guards dressed in green rounded the corner. They stopped, startled to find him facing them, clutching something small that they couldn’t see.

“Greetings, gentlemen!” Ford said, panting. Who knew if they were men at all, but it didn’t matter.

“Drop your weapon!” rang out the command from the frontmost guard. “You’re trespassing in a restricted area!”

“That’s the least of your worries! Get ready… to die!” Ford threw down the infinity-sided die.

Blue light blasted forth from the die; Ford drew his arm over his eyes, recoiling from the flash with his whole body.. He froze in that position for long moments, before the silence around him caught his attention.

Ford removed his arm from his face and was met with a riot of color. He was floating in what felt like a gravityless void, but the black backdrop of space and stars was missing. Instead, he was surrounded by glittering clouds of blue and pink mist so dense he couldn’t see through them, but which looked as soft as cotton. Lights glinted within the clouds, like stars if stars were the size of motes of dust. Instead of the black void of space, it was all set against a gentle blue ‘sky’.

Ford tried to gasp in awe, and found he could. What was this strange place?

He looked down (only designated such because it was the direction his feet were in) and saw a long swoop of pink. He frowned. It was hard to tell distance or size in this place, but it looked like an enormous tail. He looked more and saw a leg, a head, and external gills. It all made sense, he thought, in an abstract kind of way, but his mind bent gently away from the beautiful knowledge of what he was seeing.

A huge, gentle black eye blinked at him through a gentle cyan fog. Ford reached for a gun he wasn’t carrying as a full-body shiver ran through him, and a soft but persistent pressure began to squeeze him tighter and tighter. He tried to thrash in an attempt to throw off the invisible force, and his body obeyed, but the pressure only mounted.

A voice boomed all around and inside of him. The glittering clouds pulsed and flowed to the rhythm of the words.

“ZFYRJBITKMSGVXEFRE

RVYSWSEGVXZVXDXHH

MVWSHUWOFXLXHVOVH

AOVMDVMNRVYSYIAW”

He couldn’t understand. Ford suppressed his instinct to panic. He wasn’t in pain, technically. He could breathe and move. He closed his eyes, blocking out as much sensory input as possible. Think! Perhaps he could reason with… whatever. The thing. The thing he couldn’t quite think about. The voice rang out again:

“JDNULALFCTIGNCPLPETCI

ZFYVXUSUYMNZASGVER

RVYNRCSPPQJEQYLLE

CLXYHBHPEXBXSSOXLEKL”

Ford opened his eyes. They streamed with tears. The pressure was still increasing on his body, but he felt almost as though it didn’t matter. It was as though a pleasant haze was surrounding him, divorcing him from the fear of the situation. He blinked dazedly at a spark in a nearby pink cloud. It looked like shiny cotton candy.

“BEHDHUXGFVGXACPLVDBL”, the voice added. Was that amusement in its booming, glowing, unearthly tones?

A tiny blue object floated past. Ford blinked in surprise, and grabbed his die.

The next moment, Ford was sitting on a large flat stone in a forest that was disorienting in its normalcy. He sat for a few moments, struggling to understand. Then he gave up on understanding. He’d once accidentally eaten a planet. This was nothing compared to that. It was the sort of surreal misadventure that was best forgotten, surely. And, in the grand scheme of things, probably only the thirteenth most dangerous outcome of rolling the infinity-sided die so far.

“Chalk this one up to a victory, then,” Ford muttered to himself as he put the die back in its case and closed it with a snap.

3. astral - of or relating to the stars­

I’ve traveled so far, but this is my first time seeing space like this, the way it was always shown on television when I was a child.

I’m in an actual spaceship, and the view is incredible! Or, it’s actually a little less vivid and brilliant than I would have expected– mostly a big black backdrop with tiny white stars.

Oh, I’m making a mess of this. My first journal entry in years, and it’s complete nonsense! Not that this is a journal. I’ll have to destroy this page as soon as I finish writing it, but I just had to write something!

I’m rambling again. Let me start over.

Since escaping the Nightmare Realm, I’ve jumped from dimension to dimension, seen small towns, vast wilderness, and bustling cities. I’ve been running for my life, essentially. But yesterday I met a small group of outlaws who claim to be the enemies of Bill. I told them my story and they want to help me! Well, that and they also want my help. Perhaps together we can become strong enough, and learn enough, to free the multiverse of the threat that is Bill Cipher.

As it turns out, the outlaws’ base of operations is within this very galaxy. No interdimensional travel for us! So I got to board a real, actual spaceship.

I spent a good few hours discussing the craft’s propulsion with the engineer, a two-headed woman with six names. She talked about faster-than-light travel as if it were simpler than starting a combustion engine! Eventually she tired of my questions and I was banished to my tiny quarters.

Even if the view is duller than I might have hoped for, I can’t quite believe that I’m in space! Every star I can see from my window is brand new, never seen by human eyes. When I was eighteen, watching the moon landing in my parents’ living room, I dreamed of one day experiencing something like this.

It could be under better circumstances, but I’m fed, clean, reasonably unlikely to be killed (I think) and on my way to meet with those who will help me defeat Bill and make the multiverse safer for everyone!

For the first time in a long time, I have hope for the future.

[whilereadingandwalking]

The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion by Diana Greene Foster is a superb and necessary book. It's the first major study done to get scientific data to compare women who couldn't get an abortion compared to women who did—rather than doing a study comparing women who got an abortion to all women who had a child, which includes wanted and planned pregnancies.

The study has a lot of learnings that I expected—but also a lot of learnings that I didn't. It's remarkably even-handed and open. But overall, its point of view is that the data shows that women accurately weigh consequences and judge for themselves whether it's the right time for them to have a child. The reasons women give for not wanting a child are carried out in the data—for example, many women say they don't have the money to raise a child, and women who are forced to carry a child to term struggle financially. Women deserve the "dignity of risk"—the right to make their own decisions, even ones they might regret—and the data shows that overwhelmingly, women who choose to get an abortion and get one do not regret it.

Now, if you believe that abortion is murder, the data from this study can't prove you right or wrong. What it can do is target misconceptions and take down conjecture. Conservatives like to argue in recent years that barriers to abortion are necessary to protect women's health. But based on the statistics, legal abortion is extremely safe (far safer than carrying a child to term). This study tells us what the actual consequences of having an abortion or being denied an abortion are—in terms of mental health, domestic violence, life satisfaction, happiness and development of existing and future children, and more.

This book is so full of vital knowledge I didn't anticipate, but the biggest one for me personally was its analysis of late-term abortions. This study showed that the main reasons for late-term abortions were learning about a pregnancy late and being delayed due to the financial and bureaucratic difficulties of accessing an abortion. She makes the case that late-term abortions could be vastly reduced if getting an abortion was easier, and that improving sex ed, contraceptive access, and other resources would help women catch pregnancies earlier. It is very rare that a woman takes a long time to decide whether abortion is right for her—she seems to make a decision quickly as soon as she knows.

The book includes a good conclusion and analysis of what will come or could come with laws against abortion, written first before Trump's presidency and then with her read on the situation upcoming to the Supreme Court. There were only one or two small flaws. One is that a couple times, she mentions obesity without any real discussion of more general fatphobia. Second, I sometimes got mixed up in her double-negatives or refutations. But overall, this book was incredibly informative and fascinating.

Content warnings for miscarriage, sexual assault, fatphobia, trauma/medical trauma, misogyny, abuse.

[squish36-writes-and-draws]

23 November: Unraveling

Word Count: 733

TW: 1 fairly mild swear, unreality cameras

General Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @faggot-friday @kamikothe1and0nly @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously

@poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @corruption-exe @rusted-phone-calls

@when-wax-wings-melt @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes

@callum-hunt-is-bisexual @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @sillyguy-supreme

@void-kill @thefoxysnake @the-pre-quiz

Unraveling Project Specific Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed/upgraded): @cutebisexualmess @crippling-pages @daizythegreat @sophiefostersno1stan @iggydancebreak

@theleopardstalker @you-will-meet-your-downfall @multi-fandom-lunatic

On Ao3 or below the cut!

First (3 November) / Previous / Next

Another Keefe Transcript

    This time, Keefe is frolicking through the streets of Florence. Which is to say, he’s sat on a street corner the entire time looking sad. He hasn’t even gone exploring the tourist traps, and it’s not like those are difficult to find. He’s literally two blocks away from some big giant dome building that probably has a horribly fancy name based on the sheer vibes it gives off. 

    He just sits there. It is difficult to know how to feel about this development as it is of his own doing, but it is understandable why he came to the conclusion he did. It is an incorrect conclusion, but still a reasonable one. Gisela has this whole shadowflux magic thing to keep tabs on him, but the delay is still a bit annoying. There is a nonzero chance that he chooses to leap to a new icty and throw himself in front of a bus before the alarm goes off, and he is increasingly looking like that may occur. 

    This would be a tad bit unfortunate for scientific research purposes. Rerunning the experiment would be quite a hassle. Then again, a sample size of one is almost worthless in the larger picture. 

    Enough waxing poetic about the pointlessness of even bothering to write down these records. It is not as though it will be useful at any future point in time, and yet it is still a task to be completed. And, as such, it shall be completed. 

    It seems as though yet another human has taken an interest in Keefe. What reason she may have is as of yet unknown, but considering how this has played out twice in the last three weeks, it is not difficult to see how it might go. That, of course, is presuming that Keefe and Florent’s dynamic was of a romantic nature, which is currently still up for debate. It would, however, not be particularly surprising if it were, given the available evidence and Keefe’s marked tendency to disregard elvin cultural norms when it is convenient for him. 

    This new human has not revealed her name quite yet, which makes transcription more difficult, but anyone who is willing to walk up to Keefe and nearly get into a fistfight is worthy of a modicum of respect. Unfortunately, the speakers are not of the greatest quality, and the topic of the argument currently remains undetermined, but knowing Keefe, it was probably something incredibly inconsequential. 

    The only audio that was able to be parsed was the human, after roundly winning the fight, asking Keefe if, “You want to go get some coffee?” 

    Keefe refused this offer. It is unclear whether this is to avoid personal attachments or because he was trying to protect his own ego. Both may have played a role in his decision. It is quite likely that Keefe will be filling out a diary entry directly based on this event, which may have more information to provide further insight into these events, as soon as it is within the field of view. 

Keefe Sencen's Journal

    It is quite often that I am taken aback by beautiful people and, in doing so, I start the stupidest arguments to ever occur. Case in point: I had a fun time trying to defend my opinion that Stracciatella is the only gelato flavour to exist. I no longer acknowledge the existence of any others. 

    Anyway it’s my luck that I managed to find Lodo, who is apparently just as determined as I am to cause problems on purpose. 

    And, to top it all off, they asked me out afterwards. Like I have the emotional bandwidth for that. I really did want to accept their proposal though. It would’ve been absolutely lovely. We would’ve gotten into so many pointless fights. 

    They’re also just unfairly pretty. I do level that criticism against most everyone, but that does mean it still applies. I hope I never see them again. I may be a stubborn bastard, but I am also so bad at sticking to decisions I've made when the other option would be far stupider and far, far more entertaining. 

    I’ll be fine. I’ll figure it out. 

    I think I just want to make myself feel something again, even if that something is hopeless longing for a relationship I’ll never be able to attain in the way I want it. It’s been a long few days.

[contentment-of-cats]

The post you never want to write.

We tumblrinas might not be the most orderly folk, but we know the bullshit when we see it. In some cases, being right is a vindication - chest-bump and high-five. BOOYAH! In other cases, being right is not wanting to be right, not wanting to know what you know and the occasion for a long breath, a shake of the head, and commending that energy to the universe.

For a lot of us, the first thought was for the humanity we shared with the dead. The shared blood and bone, nerve and skin, love and life. There was anger that anyone could think that spending $250k US to do this was moral or ethical. The whole eat the rich thing seemed to me to be laughing past the graveyard, so for the most part I discount it. After all, I joke about my own cancer. Yes, this seems to be the answer too neo-liberalism/libertarianism and why we have rules, regulations, and procedures. People die without them and 'corporate personhood' acts out as sociopathy.

There are always going to be some twisted assclowns who hate - nothing ever changes them, and it's a waste of my precious and measured minutes to try. Cancer clarifies one's thoughts - a Swedish death-cleaning for brainspace. The block button works as well as a dumpster bag.

We did good, tumblrinas.

Now to the shitty parts

Correction:

The US Navy detected an acoustic signature consistent with an implosion on Sunday in the general area where the Titan submersible was diving in the North Atlantic when it lost communication with its support ship, according to a senior Navy official. The Navy immediately relayed that information to the on-scene commanders leading the search effort, the official said Thursday, adding that information was used to narrow down the area of the search. But the sound of the implosion was determined to be “not definitive,” the official said, and the multinational efforts to find the submersible continued as a search and rescue effort.

Sonar did not pick up the sounds that would have indicated an implosion in the water column. Considering that the northern Atlantic is a hotbed of sonar sensors used for military, scientific, and other purposes, you'd think that they could hear a fish fart. However, the debris field is indicative of just such an event. This may mean that it was slower than a BOOM implosion, but humanity allows us to hope not. The banging sounds picked up do not appear to have had any relation to the sub, which at that point had been destroyed three days ago. That being said, there are reportedly five items of debris that allowed ROV operators to definitively identify the sub. The principal item was the nosecone - the big grey boobie-looking thing on the front.

Other items might have been the thrusters, the 'feet,' and the camera on top. It's too much to hope for the footage from the camera to be salvageable even if it did survive. at this point, I'm surprised that they didn't stick a Ring doorbell on there and call it good.

The reports indicated that the nosecone was intact. This is the part that bolted onto the fuselage to seal the passengers inside. It's also the part that meant they'd have to raise the sub if it were found intact since there was no escape hatch. There was a smaller debris field inside the new debris field that contained the tailcone. The part amidships where the passengers and pilot sat has not yet been recovered, I would guess. So, nosecone popped off, tailcone popped off, exterior attachments popped off - the main part that presumably contains the remains compressed within has not been found, though the ships and technology will remain in some number to look for it.

There is nothing that anyone could have done to stop the loss of life other than not putting it into the water in the first place. Those five people have been dead since Sunday morning, an hour and forty-five minutes into their dive, fifteen minutes from the bottom. There would have been an almighty big air bubble the sound of a beer can being crunched.

There's going to be a lot to process over the coming weeks. When the shit hits the fan, that's just one part of it. It's what happens AFTER impact that brings to light the real mess.

[theabyssinyourcloset]

The shortfin mako

Last time (over a month ago, oops) I talked about the goblin shark. There has now been a request (can I call it that?) by @surprisemice to do the mako shark next, so here we go!

So, the scientific name for the shortfin mako (also known as the shortfin mako shark, blue pointer, mackerel shark and bonito shark) is Isurus oxyringchus. There's also a longfin mako shark, which is its own separate species (Isurus paucus). Although both are commonly called makos, the shortfin is better known, and so I will be introducing it first (I'll write about the longfin in a separate post sometime later). The shortfin mako is an endangered species, along with the longfin.

The shortfin mako shark typically inhabits tropical waters all around the world, far from land, at around 150 metres (490 ft). It's an endothermic species (one of the very few) that isn't typically found in waters colder that 16°C (61°F).

The species was first discovered around 1810. Unfortunately I did not find where that happened. I also cannot find any information about how old this species is. I seriously don't know how I was able to dig up so much information about the goblin shark :/ well, I'm going to tell some other cool facts about this species instead (once we get there)!

The shortfin makos are typically a colour of dark blue on the top. The colour turns to metallic blue, before turning to white on the bottom. The sharks typically have around 6-8 teeth on their upper jaw, but overall they have 12 sets of them. Quite a lot. Not to mention that they're razor sharp. These sharks also have around 50 teeth that are not in use. They are possibly only there, at the back of their mouths, to intimidate other predators (mainly other sharks).

The shortfin mako usually grows to about 2,5 to 3,2 metres (8,2 to 10,5 feet). Females are typically larger in size than males. They normally weigh around 60–140 kilograms (130–310 pounds). The longest verified length for an individual was 4,45 metres (14,6 feet), and the heaviest was around 600 kilograms (1 300 pounds). Those two were separate cases, though.

Now, some fun facts. The shortfin mako sharks are the fastest species of shark (I like the fact that this shark was used as a mascot for @surprisemice's old swim team, you people must've been good), reaching up to speeds of 80,47 km/h (50 mi/h). That's quite fast, I must say. Also, what I find even more cool is that these sharks can jump above water, at heights of 9 metres (almost 30 feet). I just searched that up and I'm not going to lie, my jaw dropped open. So glad I'm doing some random shark posts like these, I get to learn cool stuff.

Another fun fact: the term 'mako' comes from the Māori language (or its different dialects), with mako meaning shark or shark tooth. Idk why but I just find that cute.

So, in conclusion: The shortfin mako shark is an endangered species of shark found all around the world in tropical and overall warm waters. They're also currently the fastest shark species out there.

Below I have provided images of this beautiful species:

The shortfin mako shark.

Another image of the shortfin mako shark.

The shortfin mako shark jumping out of water (impressive).

Gif with a good view of the teeth of the shortfin mako shark.

Hopefully this was enjoyable to read! I'd be glad to receive feedback on my info posts, if anyone has any. But that's it for today, have a great day/night/whatever time it is there where you are (here it's basically midnight *cough cough*)!

I'll make a separate post about which shark species' I want to write about, eventually crossing off the ones I have written about. (That isn't that important right now though)

I have once again forgot to cite my sources. Fuck me.

All sources read/visited on 4th March 2024, by The Abyss In Your Closet

[autism-spectral-theorem]

hi posting third chapter of my death note fic on this account whatever. not a lot happens yet but L appears in this one. (ao3)

(first chapter)

(previous chapter)

It was as if only a second had passed when he opened his eyes to the ringing of his alarm. Usually, he could wake up at whatever time he wanted with no need for an alarm, but he had set it as a precaution so he would not be late to school in case he accidentally fell asleep during one of the last few sleepless nights. He sat up in bed and stretched. It would probably take several more nights of good sleep for him to be completely well rested, but he no longer felt so sleep deprived, and his hand hurt less. For the sake of his health, he was definitely going to have to ease up on the judgements.

“Thought you’d never get up.” Right. There was a demon in his room.

“Good morning, Ryuk. I hope you didn’t cause any trouble at night.”

“Hyuk, hyuk. The human world is fun. I flew around and ate some apples.”

Light decided not to press about where exactly he had acquired those apples, but made a mental note that the shinigami’s affinity for apples may come to be a useful piece of information. “Alright. Have fun, but don’t let other humans know you’re here, or they might catch me and your fun will be over.”

***

A group of his classmates was gathered by the entrance to the school. Everyone appeared to be animatedly discussing something. Could it be? He greeted them. “What’s going on?”

A quiet girl from his class whom he had never really talked to previously (though he did recall watching her draw in class, creating near photographic representations of their classmates and teachers) turned towards him. “Have you read the news?”

“I haven’t really been online the past few days. Busy studying. What happened?”

“So busy with your studies that you barely remember us simple mortals, of course, Yagami. Last night, in the span of less than an hour, ten of the world’s richest people donated all their wealth to charity and dropped dead. Then, people on social media started noticing that the past few days, people have been dying under similar circumstances. Some members of criminal organizations around the world have turned themselves and their accomplices in before dying immediately after. Serial killers, rapists, child abusers. It would seem obvious that this is the doing of some government, maybe the CIA or something, but the thing is, corrupt government officials have been dying too, and the events of last night probably eliminate this possibility. Some people have even been saying it’s divine judgment, that those who harm others are being eliminated. It’s just speculation of course. I’m sure everyone here would be curious to know what you think.”

It was all going according to plan. Light suppressed his smile and pretended to be deep in thought, as if taking in this information for the first time. “Very interesting. I can’t say I have heard of something like this happening before, though that much is obvious. Normally, I would say these are just accidents that happened to coincide, but the probability of such a series of coincidences happening is so unlikely that if this was a scientific study we would be forced to conclude something else is going on here. My guess as to what exactly is as good as yours though.” He told everyone he would see them in class and politely excused himself. 

For once, Light was grateful he did not have to pay attention in class because it gave him time to reassess his situation and plan ahead (while ignoring Ryuk’s antics in the background). His initial actions were hasty and based on limited information. He had done the best he could with the large number of unknown variables, but now that he knew for certain that he was in for the long run, it was essential to assess every aspect at play and pursue the optimal course of action.

So far, he was pleased with the results, but it was too early to tell how everything would play out, and if any unpleasant surprises would surface. What he did the day before was a necessary gamble. It was a bold move to go for some of what would seem like the most important targets so early, and he had hesitated. He was not an idiot and it was obvious to him that it was unlikely that all billionaires would suddenly start giving away all their money and restructuring their enterprises according to the principles of worker democracy. The far more likely outcome would be that they would store their assets in offshore accounts, with the bonus of tax evasion, and it would be anywhere between extremely time-consuming and impossible for him alone to figure out who owns what. Perhaps at that point he could rely on his supporters (at this point in time, he did not know of any supporters, but he was sure there would be many people who would see his righteousness eventually).

Given this, it would seem to any reasonable observer that this was an impulsive move expected of a teenager given too much power. But to Light, this was a lower-risk move compared to starting by eliminating “bad” political leaders to make a point, because it was more attention-catching yet did not pose as much of an issue with finding replacements. And just as one cannot win a game of chess using only pawns, he could not achieve his goals by going only after small targets.

***

Bathed in the blue glow of monitors in his dark office, L stacked a dozen sugar cubes into his tea and pressed on them with a spoon, watching the hot tea seep into the sugar, softening and dissolving it. He stirred it slightly, took a sip of the slightly crunchy sugary slush, then brought his eyes back to the screen.  

An unlikely series of deaths around the world had caught his attention in the past week. Such things were not extraordinary in his work, but what was extraordinary about this case was the worldwide spread of victims, lack of any kind of physical evidence, and almost deliberate conspicuousness, as if the killer (if there was one, and this was precisely the point that led L to suspect there was) wanted to be noticed. It was so conspicuous, in fact, that he predicted it would be a matter of a few days before law enforcement agencies noticed and contacted him.

Something caught his eye. Impossible! He took this thumb out of his mouth and stared. There was no doubt now.

His phone rang.

[burnwater13]

Grogu thought it was amazing that the Mandalorian’s armor was always so shiny now that he could see his reflection in it. It was like taking a mirror with you everywhere you went. A living mirror. Sure it didn’t know it was a mirror and asked annoying questions at times, like “I said, No!. Don’t you understand ‘No’?” 

Yes, Grogu understood ‘No’. But what he didn’t understand is why a walking mirror was so upset about finger prints. It’s like the mirror didn’t have a lot of other surfaces that were reflective. Grogu had been able to check virtually all the armor components for that quality and except when they had done some work that was particularly tricky (read dirt layer generating), those components were perfect mirrors. Kinda. 

The shape of the armor piece really affected some of the images that were reflected back to him. It wasn’t bad on the leg covers. But if you saw yourself in the pauldrons, wow your image got distorted. That always made Grogu giggle. 

Let Grogu be the first to inform you that if you walk around with a living mirror and you start giggling at it when your face was pushed up next to a pauldron, the mirror got mad at you for not taking the situation seriously enough and then for getting face prints on its shiny surface. Mirrors were temperamental. 

Very temperamental based on the Mandalorian’s example. Sometimes Grogu just stared at the shininess of his personal mirror. He was studying how light reflected from the surfaces and wondered what he’d have to do to it to get some refraction going on because he really liked rainbows and whenever he was twenty to thirty minutes into his study time, the Mandalorian would tell him to stop, because he was being annoying. How was collecting data annoying? If you were in the middle of a scientific inquiry wasn’t that usually all about data collection? No wonder Mandalorians hadn’t made any break throughs in self-cleaning armor. They just didn’t want to study the problem. 

Din Djarin told him that self cleaning was not the problem, someone’s small finger prints were the problem and there was already a way to prevent that. Grogu actually agreed with him 100% but the Mandalorian refused to hang up the armor and put it in a nice glass display case. Go figure.

But then Din Djarin must not have played a lot games when he was a child. Shiny things, like his armor, were great for playing hiding and peek, team version. You could use the vambraces to signal your team members that the coast was clear. But you had to be careful that the other guys didn’t notice your signal. It added some suspense to the game and Grogu had liked that. 

But no matter how often he and the Pit droids asked, the Mandalorian would not give him either vambrace to play with. It was just as well. Those things weighed almost as much as Grogu did. He’d have to use the Force the whole time just to carry them around and that took a lot of the fun out of the game. 

Like the time when Grogu was looking at himself in the Mandalorian’s armor because he was sure that one of his ears was longer than the other one. He was looking at his ears and trying to understand how that might have happened and which one was longer and all the Mandalorian could do was ask him why he was smiling and staring at him. 

He was smiling because it was funny to him that one ear was longer but he couldn’t figure out which one it was and it seemed to change based on where he looked at the mirror. But the cuirass usually returned the best image, so how would that happen? Any way, how do you check the size of your ears if you don’t stare at them a little? It’s not like he could explain to his companion that he needed to have his ears measured. 

Din Dajrin would just laugh out loud at that. Not the good kind of laughing where they laughed together over something objectively funny to both of them. Nope. The bad kind of laughing. The kind you did at someone, not with someone. Grogu was not a fan of that kind of laughing. 

So he had pointed to his teeth and grinned and picked at something that wasn’t there to make the Mandalorian think that he’d gotten a bit of frog or fish or whatever stuck between them. Then Din stood still and waited for Grogu to resolve it. You only needed to be bitten once by those sharp little teeth to give them a lot of respect. 

Grogu didn’t know why the Mandalorian still whined about that. He hadn’t meant to bite the bounty hunter, but having his teeth flossed really tickled and he couldn’t help himself. You’d think he’d bitten that finger off the way Din Djarin carried on. He’d barely broken the skin. The Mandalorian’s gloves protected him, mostly, the way they were supposed to. Sheesh. 

But right this moment, Grogu was actually just practicing his smile. He liked to get it just right so he’d be ready for the next time his mirror needed to know how much he loved him.

[trickstarbrave]

Why would an ethics committee not approve of it even if you had their full consent?

oh jeez

context: this is about tags i left on a post where it was like "if you could 100% be certain human flesh was ethically sources, full consent of the person, and they were in no pain and you wouldnt get sick, would you eat it"

in college we asked this very question, but took it a step further--most accounts we have of people who have well, eaten other people we done far less ethically or for survival. like, starving to death and all your companions are dead so you have to eat them, or serial killers who decide to cook and eat victims. all knowledge is based on that which we cannot entirely prove, there is no 100% true objectivity, blah blah, but we can all agree these ppl are like. less objective than the average person right. serial killers and murderers can and will lie or have smth seriously fucked up with them, ppl who are starving will prob think anything is fine enough, you get the picture

so, hypothetically, "what if we tried to be more objective about it to get less biased interpretations of how human meat would taste without having to like, murder someone or scavenge someone without their consent?" bc there are ppl who would be down to help. there are ppl who are into being eaten, even. we have the technology to make sure it is as painless as possible like with sedated surgery, or after they pass from unrelated means.

we were then told by our professor "no actual reputable ethics committee (which you have to go through as part of scientific study validation like, before you can even do the experiment) would approve that". queue 20 out of 35 anthropology undergrads being actually distraught by this trying to argue it. we even asked "well what if we did it with our own flesh? what if we got a part of our own body surgically removed and cooked and ate it, would they stop us then?"

the reasons why no ethics committee would approve it is because their job is primarily harm reduction. if you have looked into basically any social experiments, you'll know just what nightmares they could be before we had ethics committees, no informed consent (or consent at all), outright lying to ppl involved, putting them in direct harms way, leading to their deaths... you get the picture. consent is only ONE part of harm reduction.

"but shouldnt people be allowed to consent to things that might 'harm' them? we all do stuff that can potentially blow up in our faces. should we ban sky diving because you might die during it?" i do agree people have the right to consent to things that might harm them, like tattoos hurt, BDSM can hurt, you can die sky diving or storm chasing... part of our freedom as ppl is we can choose to do it. the issue isn't that people are too stupid to consent to stuff, its just scientific institutions shouldn't be incentivizing research that puts people in harms way. doing so can lead to more and more wildly careless experiments being conducted just for the thrill of more publicity and exposure, putting more and more people at risk. including if that risk is to researcher wanting to do it. even if you have the full consent of everyone involved "lets just do this wildly fucked up, risky, and uncommon thing just to see what fucking happens" is not a mindset you wanna breed in scientific circles. we saw what that line of thinking has done in the past, and it was awful

because like, eating a person while easy as an abstract hypothetical, involves a lot of risk. human to human transmission of diseases are high. there could be complications we dont even know of yet bc most people dont commit cannibalism for good reason evolutionary. someone has to handle it properly, cook it basically contaminating a bunch of cooking equipment, and instead of it being a guarantee you just have to hop you dont get sick. and if its with someone else there is like, the question of "how can you PROVE someone consented to this" because while there was a case of some guy "consenting" to being killed and eaten the story was actually twisted and the man hadn't consented to dying and having his whole body eaten. most ppl who say theyre into it would probably chicken out at the actual process, which like, no shame in that.

tl;dr: an ethics committee's job is to stop fucked up shit from happening in a way that is scientifically validated and incentivized to prevent future atrocities from taking place, they arent gonna approve your fucked up experiment to eat human meat just bc you wanna fuck around and find out. as much as we all kinda wish they would just a little. if you can find the people who really want to and can make it happen on your own time i guess sure why not but good luck with that and not getting arrested