#The Philosopher's Path

[dajkag]

Egyébként mivel az utolsó Kiotóban töltött napomon szakad az eső, így valószínűleg egészen estig csak posztolgatni fogok. Megmutatom például, hogy milyen fasza helyeken jártam tegnapelőtt. Kezdjük egy kis hanamival.

A napot a cseresznyevirágok megcsodálása után az Awata szentélyben kezdtem, ami igazán hangulatos, a belvárosi szentélyekhez képest jóval természetközelibb környezetben helyezkedik el, ahonnan gyönyörű kilátás nyílik, a legszebb látvány pedig egyértelműen a Heian szentély város fölé magasodó óriási toriija. A régi időkben ez a szentély (mármint az Awata) jelezte a Kiotót Tokióval (Edóval) összekötő út kezdetét és az utazók itt imádkoztak a biztonságos utazásért.

Ezután a Jinja után elindultam megnézni a Ginkakuji templomot, ami sokkal inkább esztétikai szempontból érdekelt. Útközben több helyen újra megcsodáltam a cseresznyevirágokat, többek közt a Filozófusok útjának nevezett sétányon is, ami most is gyönyörű, de belegondolni sem merek, mennyire gyönyörű lehetett mondjuk az 1800-as években.

Visszafelé szintén a Filozófusok útján sétálva több szentélyt is találtam, ezek közül az első az Otoyo Jinja, ami három Kami, Sukunahikona no Mikoto, Sugawara no Michizane és Ojin császár otthona (és természetesen található itt egy gyönyörű Inari al-szentély is). Ez messze az egyik kedvencem lett, három okból is. Az egyik, hogy gyönyörű természetközeli környezetben található. A másik, hogy nagyon tetszettek a fő szentélyt őrző, különleges egérszobrok, amelyek eredete egy, a Kojikiben olvasható mítoszra vezethető vissza, ezen a blogon részletesen is olvashattok róla, szerintem nagyon érdekes történet. Harmadrészt pedig a világ egyik legkedvesebb papnőjével találkoztam itt, aki még angolul is szép napot kívánt elköszönéskor. Teljesen elolvadtam.

De nagyon szimpatikus volt a Kumano Nyakuoji Jinja is, ami a forgalmas turistaútvonal ellenére is csendes, nyugodt hely, szintén nagyon kedves papnővel. A Kiotóban található három Kumano szentély egyike. A Kumano szentélyek a három Kumano-hegy, Hongu, Shingu és Nachi Kamijainak adnak otthont. Több mint 3000 ilyen szentély található Japán-szerte.

Az Okazaki Jinja szintén egy nagyon kellemes élmény volt. Ez a szentély a korai Heian-korban épült azzal a céllal, hogy biztosítsa a császár és az akkori főváros védelmét. Nem véletlen, hogy Usagi Jinja-nak is nevezik, mert rengeteg aranyos nyúlfigura található a területén, akik a termékenységet és az egészséges gyermekáldást jelképezik, de az itt lakó Kamik, Susanoo-no-Mikoto és Kushinadahime-no-Mikoto hírnökei is egyben (mint ahogyan Inari Okami esetében a rókák).

Végül pedig hazafelé meglátogattam az utamba eső második Kumano szentélyt is, ahol több Kami mellett Izanagit és Izanamit, a Japán szigeteit megalkotó Kamikat is tisztelik. Itt csengetés után jött ki a papnő az irodába, de nagyon kedvesen és készségesen fogadott.

Nagyon szívesen beillesztenék még egy csomó szép képet, de a Tumbli egy posztba összesen 30-at enged...

Mindenesetre a Kiotóban töltött egy hétből ez volt az egyik legjobb és legeredményesebb nap. Nagyon hiányozni fog ez a város, és egészen biztos, hogy visszajövök még, mert rengeteg dolgot nem láttam, többek közt az Aranytemplomot, az Arashiyama bambuszerdőt és a majomparkot sem, köszönhetően az esőnek. Viszont annak továbbra is nagyon-nagyon örülök, hogy volt alkalmam geikot és maikokat is látni, nem is egyet! <333

Holnap egyébként még lesz 12 óra amit el kell ütnöm, mert Tokióba éjszakai busszal utazom, szóval remélem, egy kicsit jobb idő lesz és mondjuk le tudom rakni a poggyászomat valami megőrzőben. Mindenesetre picit előre, de az egyik legjobb kiotói zenekar EP-jével búcsúzom a várostól, amibe szerintem egy kicsit szerelmes lettem.

Ja, és a kedves turistákat ismét szeretném megkérni arra, hogy ne kezeljék úgy ennek a gyönyörű városnak a csodálatos szentélyeit, mintha Disney Landben lennének. Egy Google keresés és nagyjából két kattintás rákeresni arra, hogy mit illik és mit nem egy ilyen helyen. Ez nem azt jelenti, hogy csak úgy nézelődni és megcsodálni a helyet ne mehetnél be, de szerintem jobb esetben egy templomban sem eszik például az oltár előtt az ember. Ha pedig le tudtál foglalni egy utat Japánba, akkor gondolom, ezt sem nagy erőfeszítés megtenni. Köszönöm!🙏🏻⛩️

[shisasan]

The Philosopher's Path (哲学の道) Kyoto [京都], Japan March 2024 IG: tanzdreamer

[age-of-moonknight]

“8-Ball,” Vengeance of the Moon Knight (Vol. 2/2024), #5.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Penciler and Inker: Alessandro Cappuccio; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[feral-violet]

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

you might have been asked this question before but ive been curious for a while about what would have happened when gertrude was there when jon originally gave his statement? would anything change ?

Honestly she probably would have killed him.

Like, it feels mean to say? It would have been more out of mercy than anything.

If Jon had come to her with only a Leitner, she would have taken care of the Leitner and sent him home. She doesn't normally intervene on behalf of the Statement givers, but they also aren't usually eight, and it isn't unheard of for Gertrude to intervene for the random unlucky souls who cross her path. She intervened on behalf of Jack Barnabas, and she told the monster pig dude how to handle his problem. It's selective when she intervenes, but I think if it's just a little boy scared by a book, she would help.

The thing about Gertrude is that I don’t I think she is or ever has been heartless; I just think she’s brutally practical.

One of the most interesting tidbits about her is that she looked for Eric Delano for months after he went missing, but wasn’t close enough to know that he had quit ages before he actually died. She avenged Sarah’s death by seeking out someone she had never, ever let herself meet before that moment, but she did this right after sacrificing Michael without hesitation. She seemed genuinely fond of Gerry, but she still bound him to a book.

I think that, at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be that she wouldn’t want to save Jon. It would just be that she would realize that she couldn’t.

If he had just arrived with a Guest for Mr. Spider, I think Jon would have walked away remembering her fondly as the brusk but ultimately nice old lady who had her assistant make him a cup of tea and taught him how to burn a Leitner. But he didn’t just come because of A Guest for Mr. Spider. He came because of Tommy Bradstaff.

Gertrude’s shown to be more wary of the Web than pretty much any other entity. She got tricked by them way back when she defeated her first ritual, and I don’t think she forgets. I also don’t think she would have thought it was ever a good idea to voluntarily set herself in a competition with the Mother of Puppets. Jon's eight and scared and she'd want to help him, but she also would have immediately recognized that saving him comes with a very high price tag and a very low chance of success.

I do think Gertrude would have at least tried to think of a way to save him. I just think she would have ultimately come to the conclusion that there wasn’t one.

And it’s just practicality, right? That’s the big difference between her and Jon in nhthcth. It doesn’t matter how badly she wishes she could help; she’ll accept when she can’t. But when she can, she usually racks up a very big win. Jon will wildly intervene without even considering his chances. Like, there's a reason why the Eye led him to Danny Stoker that night--it's not conscious the way humans are or the spiders are, but even pavlov's dogs learned association, and the Eye seems to be capable of that kind of low-level consciousness. When Jon finds Eric Delano's statement in canon, it's because he listened to the tapes the Eye didn't want him to hear. That implies the Eye is at least partially able to make connections based on its own impulses and desires.

Jon's its special little boy who has been resolutely fucking starving himself for almost two decades. He went and joined the eldritch version of AA with Daisy in an attempt not to feed the Eye other than when absolutely strictly necessary, and the Eye's never been happy with his starvation diet. But the one sure-fire way to get Jon to forget his sense and start ripping statements out of avatars is to shove some poor schmuck being eaten in his line of sight.

It’s pretty directly stated in nhthcth that danny isn’t the first victim of another entity he’s tried to snatch, even if he’s never gotten as involved with a pair of victims as the stoker brothers. And honestly—he almost didn’t get super involved with them either. Like, when he was trying to duck out after the initial fight at the theatre, long term involvement would have only made it worse for them. Most of the time, the absolute best chances come from "hope that they've forgotten you existed and won't come back for round two. if that fails maybe just hop continents and it will be too inconvenient for them to track you down again. buy guns." There's a pretty high mortality rate with people who hang around him, and he's not exactly expecting these random male model brothers to manage this world long-term.

If Jon’s hadn’t straight up passed out, he would have called Daisy to come pick him up and bitched to her about fucked up clowns being a problem now. He’d feel vaguely mad at himself when nikola skinned both Danny and Tim, because it’d be just another case of him trying to help and just increasing the body count, which is what happens most of the time.

I think Mike described him like someone who kept putting half dead birds in boxes and feeling disappointed when he opened the lid and saw they’d croaked. It's not unheard of for the people he helps to make it, but it's also not exactly often either. And that’s not even really to say he’s any less powerful or capable than gertrude was—honestly, between him and Daisy? They’re sort of a powerhouse duo. Like, people are afraid of hunters. At one point Dekker says that he was going up against something that would require a hunter to kill, and that while he knew a few, he would never actually risk consulting one. Amateur lobotomy it is. And Daisy is the sort of hunter that can kill other hunters. Jon’s this absolute muppet of a human being rolling up to soul-rending horror like “this is Daisy :) she is my best friend :)” and then they turn around and the Avatar of Fucking Them Up is standing there breathing too heavy and blatantly fucking insane. It’s like if kermit the frog kept bringing the fucking terminator to social events.

And Jon isn’t exactly a slouch either. Like, he’s keeping himself as weak as he can, and he’s still strolling into other entities' domains, feeding on them, and just... walking away again. These are people who are extremely used to being the human equivalent of a great white shark, more powerful and deadly than anyone else in any room they're in, but they've got this extremely distressed looking twink curb stomping them when he has reached the absolute breaking point of his Victorian Fatigue. this man keeps coming into their homes and one-shotting them after weakening himself to the point of being on death's door. jon on his own makes other avatars twitchy, but the Jon and Daisy Buddy Cop is honestly kind of one that the other avatars are somewhat actively afraid of.

Like, they'll dunk on Jon (where daisy can't see), because he's jon and he's ridiculous and pathetic at all times, but people are secretly pretty careful to toe the line of shit jon will put up with. Mike will be smarmy with Jon because he knows Jon will let him get away with it, but he also knows that if he fucks around too hard jon will put him through a psychic paper shredder and daisy will bury his corpse in the woods. It's not a secret that Daisy and Jon are strolling around feeding on and blatantly fucking murdering things like them, but none of these self-serving assholes have managed to handle a pretty active threat to their longevity. that's more because they can't than because they won't.

And still, Gertrude is pretty universally regarded as a force of nature, but Jon's still getting told that a seven percent success rate is a bit generous.

Gertrude is Gertrude Robinson, and she's the baddest bitch around, and that has a huge bit to do with her success rate. But it would be a mistake to say that the number of battles she picked didn't have something to do with why she's more successful. Like--Gertrude's going for quantity over sentiment. She'll save the world, but the individual people in it? Those aren't the fights she has ever prioritized, at the end of the day.

Almost all of the statements Jon in canon recorded were from her tenure, and Jon's follow ups usually concluded with "and then they horribly died." Gertrude was casually eating a fucking sandwich in her office and watching while Jane Prentiss decided that she couldn't be saved and went off to cram her forearm in a spooky wasp nest. She didn't help Jane. She didn't explain what was happening. She didn't try to intervene. She ate her sandwich, and she let Jane leave, and I think that at least in part she would have agreed with Jane's assessment. There wasn't any saving her, and that's a judgment that always precludes Gertrude's help.

Gertrude wins as often as she does because she picks her battles carefully. She delivers maximum damage to maximum effect, and she doesn't spin her wheels on things she knows are a waste of resources. She came right on the heels of an archivist who died because he burned through his resources and his luck, and her tenure has been marked by her being smart enough to be cautious.

I think Jon would have given her his statement. I think she would have been nice to him. I think she would have allowed herself to feel sorry for him, and sorry that he was so young, and sorry that it was too late.

I think that she would have considered what the web could have planned for him, and she would have considered how painful a fate was waiting for him if he met the End the Spider probably had planned for him. And I think she would have decided it would be crueler to let him meet it.

Gertrude in nhthcth specifically has always had a weird, twisted mercy when it came to Jon. She never manipulated him, is the thing. Elias made sure that what he did to Jon had long past the point of no return by the time Gertrude ever caught wind of his existence. As far as she was ever concerned, Jon was beyond saving from the day they met, which meant there was no point in trying. She was never going to offer him the mercy of trying to help him.

But she could have played him and she didn't. And I think that's about the most merciful action that Gertrude Robinson would have been capable of.

She knows about Agnes, okay? better than anyone. she's been bodily hauling the world as they know it through a decade of apocalypse attempts. She took one look at Jon and realized that elias had made him to wear the watcher's crown, but also that she couldn't kill him without completely alienating her resources to stop much sooner apocalypses.

But she sort of knew from the day they met that she may have to one day kill him, if only to stop him from wearing the crown. It wasn't set in stone, but it was a very significant possibility.

In chapter 24, Jon reached out to gertrude for absolutely any comfort possible, and she actually could have given it to him. She could have strung him along with false hope, or just given him a shoulder to cry on. Someone other than elias to love.

And she would have done that knowing that she was actively planning how to kill him when the time came. And she's definitely not above that kind of manipulation. Jon's extremely vulnerable when he comes to her, and he already thinks of her as a source of hope. Stringing him along and being his only source of comfort and support would give her an enormous advantage over him that she normally wouldn't ignore. But if he did die by her hands one day, as she knows he probably will, he'd finally go to his end after a very painful life being murdered by the only person that he thought loved him after he lost Gerry. Gertrude sort of uncharacteristically gave up that advantage to spare him from that final betrayal. She'd never sacrifice the world for him, she could have loved him like her own son and she would still kill him without hesitation, and she won't lie to herself about that fact either. It's a weird, twisted act of mercy to have it be turning the cold shoulder to a little boy begging for help, but in her mind, it was the most merciful option open to her.

And I kind of like the idea of Jonathan Sims in nhthcth always demanding the most painful acts of mercy of Gertrude that she's ever contemplated. Because the thing is, if she had been the one to take his Statement that day, she's almost definitely would have decided that Jon couldn't be saved. Not when the thing after him was the Web. And once she decides that, she has two options: let him meet the End waiting outside of those doors, or handle it herself.

And the thing is, her MO is to go for the former. It's not like she's mercy killing everyone who shows up and tells her of the fate worse than death that's most likely to befall them--hell, to take the risk of mercy killing is borderline out of character to her. If it were anyone else, she wouldn't have done it.

But Jon was eight. He was begging her for help that she couldn't give. And the Web has never been merciful. Either it was lying about wanting him for itself and he was going to be killed in the most slow, horrifying way possible, or it wasn't and he wasn't even going to get the mercy of death. Like, if a horrible, tragic fate is inevitable for him, Gertrude has to at least contemplate if there's an option that's more merciful than the rest.

Even giving him a less painful death is dangerous for Gertrude, but I think that's more of a price she'd be willing to contemplate. Like, killing another entity's victim is another way of snatching a meal from them. She had to at least entertain the risk that the Web would have some kind of retribution for it. But she would also entertain the fact that Jon's only sitting in the Archives because the Web let him get that far, that it wanted him to give its Statement to her, and ultimately decide that the risk is one she's willing to shoulder.

I think she would have made sure it didn't hurt. I think she would have made it quick, and made sure he didn't know it was happening. but I don't think she would have ever saved Jon the way he wanted to be saved.

If I’m being extremely generous (and self indulgent) and trying to come up with a world where she would go on a crusade to save him, and probably assuming some kind of off screen character arc that’s completely made her change her entire approach to life, I think she’d bring him to Agnes Montague.

If Jon could ever have a chance way back when he was eight, I think it would have been Agnes. Agnes is the direct opposite of the Web. She's the demigod messiah of the entity of Fucking Up All Your Life Plans. In canon, she's the one that Gertrude went to when she did need to go after the Web. If she had decided to try for him and needed to come up with an option to save him, she'd go to Agnes.

That being said, getting to that decision is just still really unlikely. For all of the above reasons and because of the difficulties Agnes poses. Even if they're in like, lesbian soul love, they've never met in person, and she doesn't really know if Agnes will help. It may attract the Lightless Flame's attention, and Jon may just end up burnt to death instead of filled with spiders. A lot of ways it could go wrong and give Jon a worse fate. It's the sort of Hail Mary play Gertrude never really did.

That line is in the summary because I thought it said everything about what the reader needed to know for Jon in nhthcth. (Also, I just thought it sounded nice.)

Jon in nhthcth is sort of defined by the fact that he has never gotten past who he was in the moment that James Wright locked him in Gertrude's office. It's one of the two cornerstones of everything he became.

The other cornerstone, of course, is Gerry.

Jon has spent his entire life trying to figure out a way that he could have been anything but what he is. It's been a decade and change, but he's never, ever been able to let go of what happened to him. And that feels at least a little off.

Maybe it's the idea that time heals all wounds, maybe it's the idea that Stockholm Syndrome should have kicked in eventually, maybe it's the evil god eating parts of his personality, maybe it's the idea that it's probably exhausting to eternally be struggling against a fate that you met when you were fucking eight. Even if he never becomes okay with what happened to him, he probably should have at least accepted it and moved on to some measure. Like, this has been his reality for almost his entire life. No matter how terrible it was, people usually adapt and acclimate to what happens to him.

One of the core traits of Jon in nhthcth was always supposed to be that Jon just didn't for some reason.

Like, Jon has not even passed the threshold of accepting what happened to him. It's all these years later, and he's desperately replaying what happened and trying to come up with the version that has him going home at the end. Even if you don't accept your current situation, you probably should have stopped trying to figure out what you could have done differently when you were eight, no matter how terrible what happened is.

At the end of the day, even with all he knows, Jon just has never understood why he couldn't have been saved.

He knows there's no Light Side at the end of the day. This isn't some big battle of Good Against Evil--it's just a series of Bad inconveniencing Other Bad because what Other Bad wants is not in the interest of what Bad wants. There's no ancient secret order battling the dark--there's just a lot of people stopping each other from ending the world because they want to be the ones to do it, and also like, Gertrude Robinson and her good-time buddy That One Random Priest. If you're looking for someone to save you in the TMA world, there just isn't really anyone.

And that's part of why Jon goes in after Danny Stoker. It's part of why he keeps undertaking the world's most half-assed rescue attempts. Trying to save Danny when his entire life has indicated that's impossible and probably going to make things worse is a deeply irrational thing to do. He probably should have learned when to walk away by now.

But a part of him is still eight, and a part of him has spent his entire life going over the worst thing that ever happened to him and trying to figure out the way to make it different.

It takes a specific sort of person to keep undertaking herculean efforts in a desperate, wild attempt to save people that he knows are as good as dead. And I think that sort of person once was someone who was as good as dead. He saves Danny Stoker because a part of him is still desperately trying to find the person who could have done the same for him.

In the end, he became the thing he once needed most in the world, which was a chance. I don't think he's realized that fact. And I don't know if he'd find it comforting if he did.

The other thing about that sentence is that it's completely and utterly pointless.

Like. It's been eighteen fucking years. At a certain point, you have to decide it doesn't matter anymore, and clinging to the question of whether someone could have saved you just doesn't help anything. But one of the other core traits of Jon in nhthcth was that he was someone who just simply did not care if what he was doing was practical or had any chances of succeeding.

He's designed to be so stubborn in it that it's almost ridiculous, and more than a little comical but it's honestly borderline sad to me. Here Jon is, making it his life's fucking mission to hold the title of World's Shittiest Employee. He is going to make his hostage situation inconvenient for everyone. He's not doing fucking paperwork; he's only here because elias kidnapped him. He can't get away, but he's going to be the absolute most unmanageable nightmare alive.

It does absolutely nothing to help him.

He doesn't think anyone in the Institute is ever going to help him. He doesn't think he's going to force Elias's hand into letting him go by racking up the most HR complaints in Institute history. It doesn't actually help him in any way to do the vast majority of what he does--it actively hurts him, actually. There's no one in the Institute who wants to help him, because they see him as a nuisance. When he causes Elias too much trouble, Elias punishes him for it. It'd be better from a consequentialist perspective to have settled into some kind of facade of normalcy, but he hasn't. Because playing along, going along with the facade as an Institute employee--he'd have to at least implicitly admit that what happened to him isn't relevant anymore. Sure, Elias kidnapped him and fed him to an ancient, primordial hunger from the dawn of civilization, but by god, he has his monthly staff meeting to get to, and that's too important to make a fuss about the first thing.

It's kind of sad, because while the Institute didn't know the entire picture, nineteen-year old Martin almost immediately said "wow, that blatantly unstable child sure does act like he's being severely abused." Elias had to feed him a story about an entirely different abuser to dodge the world's most needed CPS visit, and Martin still almost turned around and reported Elias literally the same afternoon. Yeah, Elias had a story for the institute to explain jon's Everything, but they really didn't have to buy it.

Like, willful ignorance absolutely played a role in it. Part of it was Elias was their boss and nobody wanted to be the one to accuse him of child abuse. It was easier to accept his lies at face value and not stick their neck out for him. Part of it was just that Jon's never been a very likable victim for them. He wasn't some tearful damsel they could swoop in and save--he smoked too much and was angry and loud about it. And once they made that initial decision to ignore their misgivings, the chances of anyone breaking that pattern got extremely low. No one wants to admit to themselves that they ignored a little kid in an extremely abusive household just because his abuser was their boss and they didn't like the kid all that much. Martin kind of hit Jon like a grenade when he first joined up and actually gave a shit if he was okay.

Of course, this all means that Jon's spent the past decade or so being told by everyone who could see him hurting that his upset at the soul-crushing pain he was in was inconvenient to them and it's rude of him to be so loud about it, could he do that somewhere else, because it really doesn't matter. and he's still there saying "it does matter. it matters to me."

Just--doing pointless things because if he doesn't then they stop mattering and they have to matter somehow defines so much of what he does.

When he was a little boy, Gerry told him that the clothes you wore were meant to be things that make you feel like you, that were who you were or wanted to be, and Jon decided that the parts of him that he loved were made up of other people. It's been fourteen years since he told him that, and out of all the people he's tried to make himself with, Daisy is the only one he still has in his life. He wears the secondhand clothes of people who he lost without anyone else caring to preserve a self that people are actively trying to kill. The fact that he feels more like him when he wears Gerry's coat only matters to the extent that he lets it. He makes pointless interventions on behalf of people he knows he probably can't save, because if he doesn't, then he fact that they needed help to begin with didn't matter. It only mattered whether they could have been saved; needing to be saved doesn't factor in.

I basically wanted him to be the opposite of Basira. Basira was the world's most polite hostage in Season 3. Martin had to actually ask her if she was aware she was in a hostage situation. Her entire thing was that there was no point in getting upset at something you couldn't change--you either got on as best you could or you found a way to change it anyway. That's the exact opposite to nhthcth Jon's approach to life--the Web even pokes fun at him for it in chapter 9. A spider's prey thrashes itself to death trying to get out of its web. Jon's just--flailing like a fly struggling against a web. Gertrude always conserved her resources and energy for where it would matter most, but he exhausts himself on things he knows wouldn't succeed. It doesn't make any practical sense, but there's something viscerally human about it still.

And the last thing that sentence tells you about Jon is that he is someone who has to believe in the lightning strike.

The thing is? Jon knows about pretty much everything this post discussed. No one really knew Gertrude, but if there was someone who did, it was him. He's been hanging around her since he was a little kid. It's been stated that she personally tried to teach him to some degree, though, and we've seen that she's stated to his face that she would not have tried to save him if she had been the one to take his statement. She never really represented a chance at things having gone differently to begin with.

But he still thinks of her specifically when he tries to find the version of himself that isn't this. Because even if she was never really a chance, she was still the biggest chance he had.

Jon was eight. He knew jack all when this started, and he was going up against the most dangerous entity there was. He was never going to come up with a place to go to that wasn't the Magnus Institute, and he was never going to outsmart the Web on his own. Gertrude Robinson was the only one who he ever had a snowball's chance of crossing paths with who wasn't like, actively evil.

There's basically nil chance of her having had some kind of midlife crisis right before he showed up and deciding that this is the one she must save and damn the consequences. There's an even smaller chance of her actually pulling it off and saving him from the Web. But that was the biggest chance he had, and he can't help but cling to it.

Sometimes, you have to beat the odds. Sometimes, lightning strikes.

If you believe in the idea of the multiverse, and that everything that can happen will happen, there is a Jon out there in some far-off universe who walked into the Magnus Institute and met Gertrude Robinson instead of James Wright. There is a Gertrude Robinson who, against all odds, decided that Jon was worth the costs of saving him, who fought tooth and nail to save him and won. It's a fairytale he tells himself, but the idea of someone kind enough to put him in a car so they could drive all about, go on adventures, and find places with rain was also a fairytale he once heard, and it still happened. Gerry was his lightning strike.

And that's really the crux of it. In order for Jon to have loved Gerry the way he did, he had to be someone who would bank everything on odds that were a lot smaller than being struck by lightning. Jon needs to be the type of person who will believe in chances that barely exist, because if he doesn't, he could have never made he decisions he had to make to stay by Gerry's side.

Gerry Keay was not Gertrude Robinson, and he definitely was not anywhere near her caliber when he was the little boy who tried to take Jon and run. They live in a world that tears into your soul, that Marks you in a way that cannot be removed and that never, ever lets you go. It's monsters eating other monsters, and they were both very small and very damned from the get-out. The chances of Jon Sims and Gerry Keay saving each other were always so much smaller than the chances of Gertrude Robinson saving him, and he knew it. If he couldn't believe that there was at least a chance that Gertrude would have saved him, then he couldn't believe that he and Gerry ever had a chance of finding their way home.

We still don't know where Gerry is in 2013, why he isn't there, but we know that Daisy saw him with Jon in 2011, kicking each other under the table for making ill-timed jokes to a monster who wanted to kill them. They first ran in 1999. That's twelve years of betting everything on odds south of a lightning strike. It takes specific kinds of people to do that. It takes people who will take the worst odds possible because they're the only ones they have.

There's no power of love or friendship or hope in that universe, but I think Jon and Gerry wanted to believe that they could love each other to the point of survival. They were looking at a world where, in the whole span of human history, love had not made a lick of difference to the things they faced, and they were asking to be the exception. Wondering if Gertrude Robinson would have saved him... it's hardly the most improbable thing Jon's ever let himself believe.

[nerdyqueerr]

Struggling to write a concise 500 word article abt the book arts society when what I actually want to do is compose some very poetic essay based off of the 30 minute convo I had with the master printer

[herrscherofmagic]

Tell me about Eden x Mobius

sure thing!

though as a disclaimer, I don't know 100% of the canon content between Mobius and Eden, since there are some Elysian Realm dialogues that are still locked for me, and I haven't taken the time to try and unlock them x-x

There's two interactions between Eden and Mobius that really stand out to me, since it seems to show a level of trust they have in each other.

Honestly even just those two interactions have so much for me to talk about, so buckle up! cause this is gonna a long post >.>

First was the conversation they had shortly after Eden's MANTIS surgery!

This takes place after Eden's MANTIS surgery, and Eden was described as being in pretty poor shape, both mentally and physically. Yet despite Eden being in a bad condition and needing rest, she was taking the time to be with Dr. Mobius one-on-one, and they ended up having that conversation.

Keep in mind that this is the same Dr. Mobius that most people in Fire Moth avoided as much as they could. She's probably one of the most hated figures in that organization, but Eden willingly took the MANTIS surgery and spent more time with Dr. Mobius afterwards.

And that's not even getting into the actual substance of the conversation where they talk about "beauty". Like how Mobius seems to ask Eden about beauty in earnest, not like some flippant small-talk.

Eden gives a sorta generic response, but it's faithful to her ideals because everything she did in Fire Moth was because she wanted to inspire people and give them hope in the face of hopeless. And this is after even she herself experienced an unimaginable tragedy.

Then Eden returned the question to Mobius, and Mobius actually gave a thought-out answer of her own. I also really love Mobius' answer, and the way that she even gives Eden a smile. They have quite different views on the idea of "beauty", but they seem to have that mutual respect for each other.

The other big interaction was Eden's final song, when she declined Mobius' pleas (yes, Mobius was pleading with Eden to come back) to go back to the cryopods and be one of the Pioneers in the next era.

Again, the respect they have for each other is utterly fascinating to me.

I know that sounds funny seeing as how Dr. Mobius (at least according to this entry) thinks of Eden's music as "glorified noise", but we need to consider that Dr. Mobius is quite literally 'built different' than a normal person.

Mobius pretty much always had difficult and unstable relationships with people her whole life. She literally came out of the womb capable of speaking (which is pretty absurd even by Honkai standards, ngl) and she ended up enduring abuse as a child.

Mobius has a strong personal ambition of pursuing the evolution of the human race, she frequently butts heads with her near-peers, and she's feared and disliked by many.

Mobius plays an incredibly important role in Fire Moth but she has to deal with unsteady funding from the higher-ups, and she's eventually supplanted by Dr. MEI- the very person she recruited into MOTH in the first place.

Mobius coped with the death of Klein (who might've been her only close friend) by making a mini robot-Klein, for crying out loud!

So to see Mobius, someone so fiercely independent and ambitious, volunteering to go to Eden and asking her repeatedly to reconsider her actions, even making an appeal to Eden's emotions?

It shows that Eden is probably one of few people that Mobius truly respects, at least in a sense of comradery (as opposed to respect out of fear).

Another thing is that this ER entry is written from Mobius' perspective, so we don't quite know Eden's thoughts on the matter. That means it's a bit ambiguous as to whether Eden is singing for Mobius, or for some other reason. But regardless of why Eden sang... it seems like she managed to break through to even someone as cold as Mobius and inspired her.

So while there's obviously not much of a strong basis in canon to ship these two, there's certainly a strong basis that shows that at least Mobius seemed to care about Eden, and that Eden showed some level of respect in turn.

I really want to explore this dynamic more in fanfic and fanart for that reason. The canon portrayals of Mobius and Eden were pretty much entirely shaped by the apocalyptic circumstances of their world, but fan content often explores other possibilities and scenarios.

There is so much potential for a deeper relationship between these two, not just in a romantic sense but from an intellectual and philosophical perspective.

I have an HSR AU with these two in mind for this very reason, since that setting has so many opportunities for interesting dynamics when it comes to both science and faith, thanks to the nature of Aeons and Paths.

But that's a rant for another time cause this post has already gotten far too long, lol

[Editing this post to add an important detail: when I talk about shipping Mobius with any adult character, I'm referring to adult Mobius and ONLY adult Mobius.

I have no problem with the whole lore behind her "de-aging" due to the MANTIS surgery, and I think it's actually kinda cool. But I have no interest in depicting Mobius in a relationship in her "child appearance" regardless of her actual age.

Like in an AU without the MANTIS surgery and de-aging, I'd write about and/or draw Mobius as an adult if she were in any sort of relationship. If I ever write about and/or draw Mobius in her child form (aka how she appears when playable), then I'd completely avoid any elements of shipping and adult relationships.

I feel like my comments about shipping Mobius with Eden might be interpreted the wrong way without this note, which is why I've added it here. It didn't even occur to me, but I'm paranoid as hell about people misunderstanding me, so I want to make it as explicit as I possibly can]

[thedreadvampy]

sorry I'm on one now. Narnia is one of my Big Rant triggers.

but like. I would be lying if I said I didn't love Narnia

(everything except the Horse and His Boy, which a) even as a tiny kid made me uncomfortable with how fucking racist it is (literally there is ONE. ONE. character of colour who isn't evil, selfish, greedy and violent. even when you're 5 and white and don't really understand racism it's like. sorry there are just no nice people in this whole country? and every Narnian is lovely?) and b) is just fucking DULL partly bc of the 2 dimensional racist caricatures populating the world)

but I can't pretend for a second that it isn't specifically built around a Christian theology that's explicitly racist, hierarchical, supremacist, colonialist and The Bits I Like Least Of Anglicanism

and my FAVOURITE books in the series (except the Silver Chair which tbh is WAY less theological and way more mythology-nerd) are the first and last, which are by far the most explicitly Christian. even more so than TLTWATW.

and I can just about stand by the Magician's Nephew bc it's mostly just a mix of Christian creation myth and CS Lewis's sci fi interests in the esoteric and multiverses and it honestly feels fine. but my all time favourite most iconic Narnia book is The Last Battle and I just. cannot. justify it for a second from a political or philosophical standpoint.

it's got it all bc it's the book where Lewis is like ok hold up let me lay out explicitly what my theology is. and what he thinks it's important to say is:

Almost all Muslims are bad and evil

They worship Satan by doing Bad Evil Deeds to please him

There are a couple of Good Muslims who do good deeds. they need to be brought to the light, understand that the voice calling them to do good deeds is the Christian god, and they too can achieve the kingdom of heaven

Some people will use Christianity as a mask for exploitation and mistreatment. They are bad and their faith is false (ok fine)

...and they're doing that because they're CONSPIRING WITH THE EVIL MUSLIMS TO OPPRESS GOOD CHRISTIANS

...and THAT'S THE ONLY REASON ANYONE WOULD TELL YOU THAT GOD AND ALLAH ARE DIFFERENT NAMES FOR THE SAME GOD. because they're either conning you or because they've been misled and can't really think for themselves.

DID I MENTION. THAT MUSLIMS ARE EVIL AND TRYING TO BRING DOWN CHRISTIANS.

and other than the GOD AREN'T MUSLIMS JUST THE WORST of it all, he also goes back over to more fully explain several points he's made throughout the series, such as:

white Christian public school kids are the god ordained leaders of the world and attempts to think otherwise are heretical

god places people where they need to be to serve his purpose

free will is largely an illusion - your only choice is faith or chaos, and as a godly person your actions are preordained

the problem is though. he's kind of a really good character writer? and in The Last Battle he pulls out most of his best classics (hi Reepicheep! hi Frank! hi Jill!) and gives us a whole wealth of really fun new characters (Tirian and Jewel, Emeth, Puzzle, Shift, Griffle and Ginger are all just SO FUN) and it's such a solid adventure. for me it's hands down the most FUN Narnia to read and an effective and affecting end to the series.

but like. god its unjustifiably fucked philosophy is baked into every single character and event. it's so hard to ignore. it's my favourite book in the series. it's the book that makes me angriest. it's everything right with Narnia and everything wrong with Narnia. I like it cause it asks me to engage critically with Lewis' philosophy and I hate it cause it requires me to engage critically with Lewis' philosophy.

in conclusion, Narnia is a land of contrasts. also occasionally brownface.

[nuo2x2]

Mai Zenin Acrylic Keychain Shodo Manufacturer: ???

not even sure if that’s even a licensed acrylic keychain, but meh… needed more, MORE collectibles of her!!! muhahahahahaw!!! and yee, this is a cute one, of her doing a Shodo or Japanese Calligraphy in that cute stance that I believed will never happen from her ^^'

ahem, anyway, continuing that weird series… bringing her to my fav childhood playground, that just recently I noticed they got an English name for this area, which is Kyoto’s Philosopher’s Path, lmao!!! IDK,I just knew this place as an area where I spend most of my time to play or getting a me time during my childhood (yee, I already weird as a kid). in the family, we called it tetsugaki no michi, and usually they say I will be in this area in late afternoon, think of an NPC location in any RPG, haha!

during last decade, it’s getting harder and harder for me to visit this area, since most of the time, it’s PACKED with tourists,

 especially before the covid pandemic, this area been like one of the most famous area for any tour or just tourists in general, rarely had a chance to enjoy it as I used to during my childhood.. then again, during my last visit after the pandemic, it turns out the area been kinda emptier and not swarmed by tourist as it used to be… I badly got a mixed feeling about this.. on one side, I got some alone+quite time again in this area, but on the other, it just showed the effect of pandemic to Kyoto’s tourism, sigh

bringing her back 2/5

[alephskoteinos]

Getting off on the tragedy of life itself, so as to embrace life itself. The highest way to do so. It's better than "the meaning of life". Even up to the primordial violence of creation, and the inability to go back, only forwards and then back. Epistrophe must be lycanthropy.

[eternalflashh]

thoughts slash word vomit about sparkle // hsr 2.2 spoilers

i do overthink, but i genuinely keep wondering there's more to sparkle's role in the penacony arc (cf. her character, although there being more to her role would have to correlate to there being more to her character/personal motivations).

in all fairness i am all for her simply being a menace and looking for chaos, as aha themself seems to operate, and having no other ulterior motive; though it would be unconventional, it would be very true to her character were she to simply be "meaningless" in her role in this arc, aka a red herring—there only to incite suspicion when there was no harm, only fun, to begin with. it would be in line with her beliefs; it would be like sampo in belobog, not worth much with respect to the story and motives not so clear to the end. and i could get by that reality, because it does reflect her identity as a masked fool.

maybe it's really just because i'm used to conventional narratives that i find it hard to believe she has no other role than to be a little silly. "no useless characters", and whatnot.

to be fair, it's not like i think she might have a secret motive because "she's secretly kind and just wants everyone to be happy". she's terrible and immoral and that is what makes her a good villain (to me, if to no one else); she doesn't show sympathy towards "death" (although, maybe she's always known the truth? wouldn't be out of the question), nor is she hesitant in mocking people for their grievances, even race.

that doesn't mean she doesn't have a philosophy, though, and it's that philosophy that begets actions. thus far, too, it's clear she does have reason and ambition—she is far from the "meaningless" masked fools are often described in. we know she's passionate about acting and amusement. she also talks about working "behind the scenes", even mentions that her reason for being there has to be aligned with aha's reasons for sending her. laughter and amusement is not nihilism. as for what she'd do to get that Laughter?

data bank and SU index say that the elation would do anything, often invoking chaos or massive change, to bring joy and laughter to the world. in which case, the actions she is doing must revolve around making a huge change. yet she has done so little—of what we can see, anyway; she pushes us into the real dreamscape, yes, and she's been suggesting things to aventurine. was this her simple role, to be the imperceptible catalyst to change and destruction? then why does she keep appearing, still, with these mutually assured destruction buttons, when we hardly see them used either? or are they used, but we just did not see them? is her role in this arc, too, going to be something purely behind-the-scenes, something we'd never come to witness?

and then, on the deeper note: is the amusement watching the dream collapse, or is it something more inherent than that, more "noble", per se—like, say, spreading true elation? this may sound quite ironic considering people seem to be happy in the dreamscape, yet sparkle's going about revealing unhappy truths hidden in the dreamscape. but perhaps, does she believe true joy can only be obtained beyond the confines of a dream—in life?

it's a reach, i admit. but something else has been mildly bothering me that has led me to entertain this idea: sparkle's powers emanate from the Harmony. first i only thought it mildly interesting because penacony is governed by the family, and it was a nice coincidence. but in the 2.2 mission we got a new path for our trailblazer, after confronting sunday's ideals and being glanced upon by none other than xipe themselves. the power of paths said to be based on recognition, so it would imply that xipe recognized sparkle's beliefs— that it resonated with harmony. which i initially thought ironic, because followers of the elation typically are characterized by chaos.

but whereas chaos is the antithesis of order, it is not so the antithesis of harmony per se; in fact, you could interpret harmony as peaceful coexistence of differences (whereas, like sunday's ideals, order seems to be concerned with everyone believing in one structure, following Laws, rather than freedom amongst difference.) i'd think sparkle, too, respects that people live varying different lives (a thousand faces, etc); that she wouldn't want humanity's free will to be taken away, because it is against true Elation as she defines it. again, all conjecture, little evidence, just food for thought.

tl;dr: it bothers me— what she's really been doing (if she's doing anything substantial for the plot), the why's, what she really believes in... why she knows so much, says less than she can, why she keeps appearing (especially in this patch) with seemingly little reason.

and also: in the cutscene with a bunch of them, sparkle was lying down on the ground. WHY

i also wonder what the answer is if you'd chosen the fact about sparkle when we're unveiling that the first "ending" was a dream. whether it would tell you that's the flaw. because i chose the misha one and it immediately said that's the flaw. so i can't tell if there's only one right option or all of them would be correct. i'll search it up eventually! i'm Too Curious!

can't believe now i have to wait six weeks for another update that mAY NOT ANSWER MY QUESTIONS i genuinely hate this game.

[conscious-pisces]

“Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.”

—Aristotle

[my-plastic-life]

The beautiful sakura (Japanese cherry blossoms) have bloomed! There are viewing areas all over Japan every spring for this gorgeous occasion. Shops sell sakura-themed items ranging from food to clothes, and there are even boat tours you can take to view the trees. Kiku enjoys partaking in hanami "flower viewing" every year. This year, she managed to get a boat tour at Chidorigafuchi Moat, one of the most popular viewing spots. She's also enjoying walking along the Okazaki Canal and Philosopher's Path trails while savoring some sakura-flavored treats.

Taking a boat ride at Chidorigafuchi Moat:

Enjoying sakura-flavored dango while walking along the Okazaki Canal:

Enjoying a sakura-themed drink from Starbucks while walking along the Philosopher's Path - and meeting a friend!

[kyotodreamtrips]

The famous Philosopher's Path or Tetsugaku-no-michi during the 2023 sakura season in Kyoto. The route is so-named because the influential 20th-century Japanese philosopher and Kyoto University professor Nishida Kitaro is thought to have used it for daily meditation. It passes several temples and shrines, such as Hōnen-in, Ōtoyo Shrine, and Eikan-dō Zenrin-ji. (source: Wikipedia)

[carecaro]

A small café close to the Philosopher’s Path in Kyoto, Japan

[dajkag26]

Kyoto, march 2023