#about dreams in animal and generally other lifeforms

[mayomkun]

In the Sandman, since Dream 'came into existence once lifeforms capable of dreaming appeared in the universe', I wonder what that lifeform is and what did it dream of. Like what is the first dream in the universe about.

[voraciousvore]

The Giant and the Princess (6/10)

Part 1 | Previous (5) | Next (7)

Content Warning: Several instances of vore (soft, fatal, unwilling), violence/ blood

Word Count: 2.6k

------ Part 6 ------

Ajax continued to see the princess, heedless of the danger his hunger presented to her wellbeing. He knew he was being foolish, but he couldn’t stop himself: The yearning in his heart was too much for him to rebuff. He took proper precautions before meeting up with her, of course. Since she usually couldn’t pull away from her rigorous schedule until the afternoon, he had time in the morning to hunt and fill his belly, so he wouldn’t be so ravenous around her. 

Finding food became increasingly difficult as the days passed. Before he met the princess, Ajax would hunt in different areas, such as the mountains or lakeside, to make finding prey easier. Since he spent so much time in the forest now, his gigantic presence scared off the wildlife. The deer, boar, and giant rabbits he relied on for a steady supply of meat dispersed and avoided his habitual hunting grounds. He depended more on his traps to catch the animals he needed to sate his hunger. 

He was ashamed to admit that he was unable to kick the habit of eating humans, especially when he was struggling to find other sources of food. When he was hungry, his cravings for human meat intensified exponentially, to the point where they were intolerable. His mother was correct in her supposition that more humans were traveling between kingdoms, cutting through the forest to reach their destinations faster. Humans were stupid and unobservant with their dull senses, and almost never saw him coming. It was all too easy for Ajax to sneak up from behind, seize them up in his fist, drop them into his mouth, and swallow them alive before they even had a chance to retaliate. Not to mention, their flavor was vastly superior to any other lifeform. Foolish, delicious, easy-to-catch prey, practically demanding to be eaten with their enticing smells and tastes: Ajax simply couldn’t cease his hedonistic binges, when the opportunity presented itself. 

The giant convinced himself that he ate them to protect Iris from his own unbearable urges. The complications he faced were all worth it for her. Spending time with her was a dream. She lived a sheltered life, so Ajax liked to take her to special places she’d never been to before, places she couldn’t access without him, to see new sights. He fell harder for her every day, and she reciprocated his loving sentiment in spades. His cravings became easier to resist, with preparation and discipline. He was even able to kiss her again, without engulfing her in his mouth. Their daily dates only lasted a few hours at a time, generally, so he simply had to endure. 

He didn’t want to think about the future, or the long-term consequences of his actions. He knew, deep down, that their relationship would likely end in heartbreak. Her royal parents would be beyond horrified if they found out their daughter was dating a giant, and regardless of size, a man of common blood. His own giant parents would be baffled and ridicule him if they knew. They would undoubtedly eat her if he ever took her home with him. 

His parents strongly suspected the truth, of course. Ajax spent all his time in the woods and came home with the same human female scent on his hands and body. The issue was never explicitly addressed, but his mother gave him looks of disapproval whenever he walked through the door with the princess’s scent. He tried to wash off his hands in a mountain spring beforehand, but the aroma still clung to his shirt or vest. His father would go out of his way to mention how delicious humans were, especially the tender females. He would even bring home humans and eat them in front of Ajax, pointing out how different humans were from giants, how it wasn’t right to empathize with food, how it was better to simply ingest humans rather than talk to them since the two species were incompatible. Even though Ajax couldn’t resist eating people, the display of callousness made him sick, especially when he imagined his little princess ensnared in his father’s grasp. Guilt chewed on his insides over his own hypocritical actions. 

Ajax fantasized about spiriting Iris away in secrecy to live a secluded life with her, away from their troubles. He would take care of her, love her and cherish her, and she wouldn’t have to stress over her obligations as a princess any longer. She could escape the shackles and chains of her miserable life that she so badly wanted to leave behind. He wished with all his heart that the fantasy could become reality, that he could trust himself to control his appetite, but he feared that he would fail her. All it would take was a split second of weakness, an unlucky hunting expedition without yield, and an empty belly, and he might lose control. 

He didn’t want to dwell on that ugly possibility, so he enjoyed every day he had with her to the fullest. Every time he saw her tiny form, his heart filled with joy. She was so much happier around him, too: The tears and pain she evinced upon their first few meetings dried up, to be replaced with her sweet, beaming smile. She sparkled like the precious jewels in her crown. Ajax did everything in his power to keep that smile on her face. 

One day, when the princess came out to meet her giant lover, she appeared to be distressed. Her smile had disappeared, and she seemed to barely be keeping herself together. Ajax scooped her up in his big hands and raised her up to eye level, his brow creased with worry. “What’s the matter, my little princess?” he asked, stroking the side of her face with his massive thumb. “You don’t seem to be your usual self.” 

“My father came to speak with me today,” Iris replied. She hugged his thumb with her slender arms. “He told me... they’ve arranged for me to be married. To a prince. He’s coming tomorrow.” 

Ajax’s expression darkened. “I suppose that’s to be expected, since you’re a princess.” A stab of jealousy invaded his heart. He would never be considered worthy of her hand. 

“Yes, but...” Her features twisted up with heavy emotion. “This prince... he hails from a neighboring kingdom. I’ve met him a few times before. He’s insufferable and excessively controlling, a degenerate wretch. I can’t stand him! And I have no say in the matter.” 

“Oh no, that’s terrible,” Ajax sighed, petting her hair with his finger. 

“And it gets worse! I’ll be forced to bear his children, to produce heirs to the throne! And I fear that once he’s in the castle, he’ll be more restrictive of my movements, and I won’t be able to leave anymore. I’ll be stuck there. I won’t be able to see you again...” Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as she hid her face against the pad of his thumb. 

“No, no...” Ajax cooed gently, wrapping his fingers around her. “Don’t fret, Iris, we’ll figure something out... it’s not the end of the world...” He brought her up to his lips for a soft kiss, then cradled her against his immense chest, caressing her with his fingers to comfort her. She leaned into his touch. 

“I knew this day would come, but... not this sudden. I’m not ready. I’ve been dreading it,” Iris continued with a choked sob. She looked up at Ajax with desperation. “Please, take me away from it all! I can’t stand it anymore!” 

Ajax froze up. He gazed down at her, cupped within the folds of his huge hand, pressed up to his chest. She was so small, so delicate, so... tempting. He licked his lips. As badly as he wanted her, he knew he couldn’t trust himself in the long term. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, princess...” he admitted. 

She deflated as his words crushed her final hopes. Her hands clenched and her legs crumbled beneath her as she lost all her energy. “It... really all was just a lie... wasn’t it?” she lamented. 

Ajax felt something break inside him. His eyes moistened and he sighed heavily. “I love you, Iris. But it’s because I love you that I can’t do that to you. I’m afraid... of what I’m capable of.” 

“Right,” she confirmed bitterly. She knew the truth, even if she had denied it for so long. “We could never truly be together...” She cried into his shirt. He held her tight against his body, mourning. 

“I don’t want to lose you,” the giant rumbled, his deep voice vibrating though his chest, down into her bones. “If I ever lost control around you, I’d never be able to forgive myself...” Those words hung heavy between them. The princess didn’t say anything in response, but there was nothing else to be said. Ajax sat down, leaning against a boulder, and showered Iris with all the love he could give. He realized, with a twisting agony in his stomach, that he might never see her again. As painful as it was, he had to let her go. 

When the sun began to sink lower in the sky, and the shadows grew long, Ajax forced himself to his feet and dragged them to the castle. The princess was out of tears. She huddled against his chest, not wanting to let go. He tenderly coiled his fingers around her and pulled her away, her little hands still grasping for his shirt between his gigantic fingers. With a loud sigh, he set her down in the grass between his boots. 

“I’ll try my best to visit you again,” the princess proclaimed with determination. Ajax smiled at her gently, stroking her with his finger. 

“I’ll be waiting for you in the woods,” he promised. “If I don’t see you again... just know, Iris, I’m grateful to have met you. I know, whatever may happen, you’ll do well, with your courage and strength of spirit. And I’ll always love you.” 

“I love you too,” she answered softly. She patted his finger and gave it a small kiss. With a heavy heart, she trudged back to the castle, peeking over her shoulder at Ajax several times before she finally entered the magic door. The giant remained in place for a while before lumbering back to his home in the mountains. He was terribly sad, even though he knew he’d made the right choice for Iris. He couldn’t allow his selfishness to kill his tiny lover. 

The following day, Ajax hung out in the woods around the castle, in the hopes of seeing the princess again. Another idea, one more devious, crawled into his brain. He kept his senses sharp, prepared for action. Soon enough, as he expected, the smell of a large group of humans wafted over to him on the breeze. He followed the trail to find an entourage of royal soldiers on horses, dressed in blue livery. In the center of the group, guarded by the armed men, was the visiting king with his son, the crown prince. On the left and right of the group were mages, powerful magic users. They were the only ones that posed a real threat to a giant. 

Ajax fell into line and stalked the group without their knowledge. He examined the prince with distaste. He was portly, with a round, dull face, some yellow fuzz around his mouth, and fancy, frilly clothes. Just looking at him made Ajax hate him. He couldn’t allow this blockheaded brute to ruin the life of his precious princess. He wanted to jump in and destroy them all, but the mages might become an issue. Thinking fast, Ajax collected several large rocks. 

He executed his violent plan with ruthless, practiced efficiency. He threw one of the rocks like a missile, far above the heads of the humans so it would slam into the forest on the opposite side. The tremendous crashing noise distracted the humans, focusing their attention in the wrong direction. Ajax used the opening to swoop in, stomping on a few mages while lobbing rocks at the others, slaughtering nearly all of them before they could cast any spells. Quick as a flash, he crushed the last remaining mage into a jelly stain with his fist. With those threats swiftly eliminated, he plucked the prince off his horse in the chaos and fled back into the forest, leaving bloody footprints in his wake. 

The prince squealed with fright like a little girl as Ajax thundered through the trees, snapping wood underfoot. The giant squeezed him enough to force the breath out of his tiny lungs, in order to silence him. Several soldiers gave chase on horseback, but there was no way for them to outrun a giant. Ajax threw caution to the wind and sprinted without care to the disruption and destruction he was causing, effortlessly outpacing his pursuers. He entered a rougher patch of terrain, where horses would be unable to follow at any speed, and ascended the mountainside. He had succeeded. 

His heart raced and his lungs heaved as he slowed his pace. Exhilarated by his victory, he sat down and took a moment to catch his breath. The small prince in his sweaty hand let out pathetic whines of terror. 

“W-w-what are you going to do with me?” he squeaked. “I’m not just some nobody, I’m a prince, you can’t-” 

“I’ll do what I want,” Ajax growled, cowing him into silence. The miniature prince trembled, his rolls of fat jiggling with the motion. The giant lifted him up and dangled him in front of his massive face to take a closer look at him. He curled his lip in condescension and narrowed his dark eyes. Whatever trivial shred of sympathy he might have possessed was drowned out by his protective instinct. He would do anything to make his princess happy. 

His rage and jealousy towards the tiny man boiled over as he ruminated Iris’s plight. He desired her more than anything, but he couldn’t have her. He despised his base instincts and his own catastrophic failure to control them. He wished he could be different. He wished he could stop craving and eating humans. He tried to stop, and he couldn’t do it. His frustration was devastating. 

This pathetic little man, wriggling between his fingers like a worm, was standing in his way. He wasn’t the only obstacle by any means, but he was a major hindrance to Iris’s happiness. Ajax directed all his wrath into his maw as he opened his jaws to show off to the prince his dripping teeth, tongue, and gullet. The prince turned white as a ghost. 

“N-n-n-no, please,” he stammered. “Spare me, and I’ll give you whatever you want! Gold, jewels, women, good food, it’s all yours! I’ll supply you with as many humans as you can eat, if that’s what it takes! Just don’t eat me!”  

Ajax ignored his attempts at bargaining and lowered him down into his mouth. The prince screamed as he dropped onto a huge, fleshy tongue and the walls of teeth closed around him, sealing his fate. The giant sloshed him around in his drooling mouth, enjoying his vibrant flavor, before shoving him into the entrance to his throat with his tongue and sucking him down. 

His explosive fury was satisfied, along with his roaring belly, as the prince splashed into his digestive system and fought for a last chance at life. Ajax harbored no doubts about his decision to steal and eat the prince. He had no room for any mercy in his heart. 

Little did he know that his simple action of eating a very important human, a person that he regarded as inconsequential, would unleash a cataclysmic chain of events that would change his world forever. 

Part 7

[dateamonster]

Two Strange Magic thoughts that I had:

1) it is interesting to me how, for all that it is movie about fairies and elves and goblins, based on Midsummer Night's Dream, magic seems curiously absent; only one who shows magical abilities is Sugarplum, who is visibly entirely different sort of fairy from everybody else, and even then she more, makes potions than any inherent power?

2) I know I am overthinking it because it is just gag and bit given conventions in this sort of cartoon but; we see Bog courted by insects and animals and later Roland gets together with one of foiled suitors (the fly); so I wonder how sentient are animals in here, whats their relationship to more humanoid creatures, and how do relationships work?

yea yea yea now ur gettin into it.

personally i rly like how sparingly magic is used! it prevents the story from turning into the kind of thing where either everyone is always using magic to kinda arbitrarily solve all problems or else magic is obviously present but left largely unused in a way that makes you wonder why more people dont use it to solve the plots problems.

im also in favor of creatures that are kind of fantastical in nature but not inherently capable of wielding magic, and i like that plum is very noticeably set apart from other fairies by her use of it, to the point where (by my interpretation at least) she appears to have been physically transformed by it. and she does use some magic outside the potion making! mostly to change size and shape and make little mini-me fairies for dramatic effect lol so fair point. i guess its implied some kind of magic must have been used to trap her but i dont think we ever learn exactly who did it or how. makes ya think!

to the second point, first of all, i love how many bugs are in this movie!!!! ive said before i think probably a lot of the more animal/insectoid creatures in the dark forest are in fact goblins whove just evolved to look like that, but it def does raise questions about like. the lizard who gets love potion'd for example. like i think were supposed to take her as literally an animal because she doesnt talk and tries to eat sunny and dawn at the beginning, but then again she certainly wouldnt be the only sapient creature in the movie who also fits that criteria! and roland rides a squirrel as a mount so clearly thats got some weird implications if animals are fully intelligent here!

like yea its fantasy cartoon logic but its interesting! for all intents and purposes the dynamics here seem to suggest, at least to me, that animals and insects and such are thinking creatures but that they are still largely driven by the same instincts we know them for in the real world, and that the fairies and goblins and so on just kinda live with the fact that their world is populated by beings that both can and may communicate with them as equals, but will still try and eat them just because a lizard is big and an elf is small and full of meats and that generally overrides any common ground they might have as intelligent lifeforms. its dark, i kinda love it!!

[magicalgirlagency]

You know a series is absolute horseshit when you discover something that makes its narrative choices even more stupid and appalling every single time you come back to it.

Yes, this is about AniReco. AGAIN.

The complaint of the hour is that the anime actually gives an explanation as to why some Puella Magi were affected by the Doppel Syndrome (such as Kaede, for an example).

And it's bullshit, just as this whole anime in general:

Like, bitch what...?

Wasn't the Doppel System designed so Puella Magi wouldn't need to constantly rely on Grief Seeds to cleanse their Soul Gems? Because the Soul Gem is purified after the Doppel fades away? And the Uwasa/Rumors don't drop Grief Seeds like Witches do?

Long Story Short: The Doppel System/Syndrome doesn't rely on Witches; that was Embryo Eve's thing. You don't need to explain to us why the Syndrome happened; just say that the Puella Magi relapsed, it's okay, we'll understand things just fine!

And no, I am not saying that the Doppel System is perfect in the game, because it's not. There are still some consequences when it's overused, but not in the extreme way as the anime portrays.

The side-effects of Doppel overload in-game are personalized; ergo, it varies from one Puella Magi to another, as some of its official descriptions reveal (such as Rena losing her identity if she overuses Cendrillon, Miitama being unable to turn her left arm back to normal if she overuses Totentanz, and etcetera).

Now, I wouldn't mind if the anime decided to make its side-effects more radical for the sake of raising the stakes, or just for the creepy visuals. Because in all honesty, the idea sounded really interesting on paper!

If we take what happened to Iroha/Giovanna into consideration, the Puella Magi were scared of weakness and failure, and these thoughts affected them so badly, that their Doppels took over their minds and trapped their masters inside personal fantasies, closing themselves off to the outside world.

And the way to snap them out of it, is by confronting the Doppel and having its master be reassurred and be able to see reason.

But obviously, what has killed this idea was the practice, because Iroha was the only one who was spoken back to her senses because of Protagonist Privileges. Meanwhile, the Doppel System was complete and utterly demonized because some girls relapsed (which by the way, it's a thing to be expected when dealing with mental illnesses and/or trauma).

Oh, and speaking of Iroha, did I mention that the System was created so she wouldn't perish as a Puella Magi, because the Hospital Trio was genuinely concerned for their beloved onee-san?

Like, the starry void scene with Momoko and Mifuyu should've been about Puella Magi helping eachother out, to STABILIZE the Doppel System.

It should've solved the Doppel Syndrome problem on a larger scale, by having all of the other PM borrow small pieces of both Momoko and Mifuyu's powers*, and go on travelling throughout the dream realms of those affected by the Syndrome, causing a chain reaction that turns them all back to normal.

Instead of, y'know... shamelessly game-ending both girls for the sake of shock value and subversion of expectations?

But no. I shouldn't demand a happy ending. By doing so, I am being "very selfish", as Inu Curry has told on their interview. Because inertia is what rules the world and "we have no other choice but to live by it".

That's some doomer bullshit, and you know it. As a french culinary-loving rat once said: "Change IS nature".

Y'all listen to me, and listen well: You're not evil for grieving and/or relapsing, let alone weak for asking for help. We're not perfect and unbreakable lifeforms, we're HUMANS. That's HUMAN NATURE.

And despite all of that trauma that you went through, despite of all of the bad decisions you've made, you're still worthy of love. I promise you that.

Despite everything, it's still you.

*By the way, Momoko's power is to enhance magical strength, and Mifuyu's is to create illusions. Even though both were members of the Magius, the idea of them erradicating the Doppel System was BULLSHIT, because they weren't the ones directly involved on its creation.

[wxldchxld]

The Most Important Headcanon on this Blog: What is a Feral Witch?

Feral witch is a term I use to describe Beck often, but it isn’t just about her restless and chaotic behavior. It’s a specific term used among my witches that is generally thought of as a curse or a sickness. Feral witches are relatively uncommon, immensely powerful, and deeply mistrusted by other witches.

What is a feral witch?

A feral witch is a living incarnation of the Nature Spirit which formed to feed off of the Earth and all of its natural functions before any form of biological “life” could be found on the planet.

Occasionally this spirit will break off a piece of itself and implant it on an unborn lifeform. This can happen in any species, but among humans it usually only happens to witches.

Feral witches do not die in a traditional way. Unless they are killed, feral witches will slowly become less and less interested in everyday society. Their memories and senses begin to merge back with the Nature Spirit, which means they can often recall memories that didn’t happen in their human life or forget/lose touch with memories they do have. Eventually they will wander off into the wild and merge back with the spirit. 

They can be killed physically, but again, their spirit can’t leave into any sort of afterlife. They will be immediately merge back with the Nature Spirit. 

On occasion this transition from physical being to spirit can happen abruptly and violently. Especially if a feral witch is physically contained during their otherwise peaceful transition. Due to their raw magical power this can end in some very unpleasant and violent occurrences.

That paired with the heart wrenching reality that your child could leave at any second is why feral witches are so greatly feared. It isn’t helped by the fact that not much is known about them either. Most witches view it as a form of possession, and they look very poorly on individuals that are/have been possessed by any spirit.

How do people identify feral witches?

Feral witches can be identified in early life. If a child makes their first shift from human to their clan species (fox, wolf, badger, etc I have a page on the different clans) before they are five years old, they are labeled a feral witch.

Feral witches tend to have wandering spirits and even as young witches tend to wander away into the wilds.

By their abilities.

What are a feral witches abilities?

First and foremost feral witches are more connected to nature. This means animals will understand, protect, and obey them even in mass. Magical creatures will too, but only to an extent. And the ability to weaponize or refine this natural power is a skill. Many feral witches avoid it specializing and practicing this ability if they’re still trying to engage with human life for fear it will bring about an early end.

Many feral witches (though Beck is not included in this unless we’re playing a verse after she’s died) have elemental specialties. Fire, water, wind, earth manipulation are all common specialties among feral witches. This is usually a safer practice for those looking to remain close to the human world.

Both a blessing and a curse, feral witches do not interact with the Dream Realm (where both dreams and spirits reside) in the same way everything else does. Their physical bodies need sleep the same as anyone else, but spirits cannot dream. So their souls leave their physical body.

Most feral witches choose to dream walk. Which is to walk in the Dream Realm with full awareness and clarity. Skilled Dream Walkers can even impress their will on dreams they encounter. 

Beck can technically do this. However she isn’t great at it and I’d highly encourage no one permit her to alter your memories because it will likely end very poorly.

Usually Beck takes the other avenue. While her physical body sleeps, her spirit manifests itself in one of the animal forms she knows. Where she manifests (right next to her body or halfway around the world) and what she manifests as (fox, cougar, bear, hawk, or horse) is dependent on the circumstances under which she lost consciousness. If she’s knocked out suddenly, especially while she’s afraid, she won’t have the same control she would as if she were to lay down and think about what she was going to manifest as and where it would be.

For Beck, just based off of her practice and how the Nature Spirit presents in her, she will manifest by default. Other feral witches might lose consciousness in a battle or something and by default enter the Dream Realm. There are perks and set backs to each one, and this definitely makes Beck more vulnerable (as she can be harmed in her physical form, but also enables her to protect herself in whatever form she manifested as.

Beck has to return to her human form either through touch or by falling asleep in her animal form. If her human form is still unconscious/unable to awaken there will be catastrophic results. She can do magic in her manifested forms, just like she can do magic in forms she shifts into while she’s awake, but she cannot switch forms until she awakens. If she manifests as a horse in a bad place to be a horse she’s just gotta deal with that shit. Also her magical abilities, just like always in animal forms, are more limited than in her human form.

[tanadrin]

Khoda Station

For a long time after she joined the Project, Sirrek had found Tjumak to be a puzzle, the most difficult to understand of her colleagues. She took as read that you had to have pretty good reasons to want to risk defying the Archive’s most sacrosanct law, and also to spend half of every year out in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest transport routes and thousands from the nearest settlements. For most of the people at the station, their motives were actually pretty simple. Koridek believed passionately in the work; so passionately that he was willing to break his most deeply held convictions about what it meant to be an Archivist. For him it was all about values. His desire to serve humanity ran deep, and that was what made him a good fit for the Archive. His desire to serve Paradise, well, that ran even deeper; it was the source of his desire to serve humanity, to protect their nascent colony, but also to violate an order that had been created decades before Sirrek was born, to prevent terrible bloodshed. Depending on how you looked at it, that made him a very bad archivist indeed.

Ardhat was also simple. She was a problem-solver. That wasn’t all of it, but it was most of it. Of course, she believed mightily, too, but Sirrek doubted anyone could believe in anything as strongly as Koridek did. But above all else, Ardhat wanted to solve the biggest problems she could find. That was what got her up in the mornings, and drove her forward. She was a puzzle-cracker, a code-breaker, a solution-seeker, a builder-of-systems. She would have been a fine architect, or a talented engineer, or a clever physicist. But what greater puzzle was there than the Great Record? What greater problem to solve could there be than resurrecting a lost world out of the most ancient memory of the past? Of building a whole new ecosystem, alongside and on top on alien to it that already existed? Sirrek was quite certain that Ardhat would die to protect the Project if it ever came to it, but in the meantime, she would live for its mysteries.

Sirrek? Well, introspection wasn’t her strong suit. But where Ardhat had a cordial indifference to authority and Koridek a deep but respectful complaint against it, Sirrek just hated being told what to do. And they had told her, you shall not be a biologist. Not in the way you want to be. You shall not undertake any part of the great work--for it will not begin in your lifetime. They had said to her, you shall leave Paradise fallow, at least for a human definition of the term. And so Sirrek hated them for that, hated them for deciding before she was born that all her talents and her ambition must be sacrificed in the name of politics, hated the religious zealots and the blind ideologues whose fledgeling war meant that it would be many lifetimes before the Paradise she dreamed of would come to be. She was compelled to disobey. That was what got her out of bed in the morning.

But Tjumak. There was a mystery. He affected it a little, Sirrek thought. He spent his days ensconced in the middle of his dark laboratory, like the heart of an animal, or the engine of a machine. He did not come and go, like Koridek. The dim light of the displays shone on the glossy exterior of his support apparatus. He had once had a survival suit, Koridek said, and had gone back and forth from the surface like most of the other Archivists, returning to Ammas Echor when the strain of surface living became too great. Archivists were not born for planetbound life; they were humanity as it lived between the stars, made for the long dreamlike time in the cold and dark, and for keeping the long memory of their people alive. How long did our ancestors travel from star to star? Sirrek had once asked her mother, when she was young. For countless ages, she had replied. Since the Garden was lost to us in the beginning of time.

A survival suit was meant to be a temporary thing, a way to endure the stresses of gravity and the immoderate temperatures of the surface. What, do you go naked in space? Sirrek had asked Koridek. Koridek laughed. No, he said. We still have to wear suits on the vessel, though they are much lighter. You see me only as a hulking, heavy thing in this armor. In microgravity, I am considered graceful; above the sky, I can dance. Why someone would exchange that for a planetbound prison, much less one where they could not leave the room they worked in, Sirrek struggled to guess. But that was what Tjumak had done. From the outside, he looked almost like a silly toy: a round, smooth metal body, topped with a round, smooth head on a short, flexible neck. His arms were more graceful, and the apparatus in which he set could turn this way and that to reach th various monitors and keyboards around him; but apparently much of the interface was actually inside the suit, which in Tjumak’s case was more of a chamber, one in which he floated in a carefully-formulated synthetic fluid. And if the power goes out? Sirrek had asked. He will be very annoyed until someone finds the switch for the backup generator, Koridek said.

Direct neural prosthetics like the Archivists used, and which Tjumak relied on for his work, were rare among the younger generations, so it was probably a less claustrophobic way of living than Sirrek imagined. And if he really had to, he probably could switch back to a survival suit. Like if they ever got caught, and had to evacuate the station. That was a possibility she did her best not to dwell on.

She got a little window into Tjumak’s world, or at least his thought process, when they spent several long weeks working on a section of the Great Record. It was a frustrating and exceedingly difficult task, and the missing portions that Sirrek needed amounted to only a handful of characters, but the Record was nearly impossible to work with directly. When she was little, her teachers had explained that the Great Record was a library of the genetic information of every animal and plant and little microscopic beastie that had ever lived in the Garden, the world humankind had come from. And when their most ancient ancestors, the ancestors of their unimaginably remote ancestors, had had to leave the Garden as exiles, they preserved the Record, and kept it safe, for hundreds of thousands of years.

That was almost, but not quite, entirely a lie. When she had started studying biology, with an eye to genetics and to endobotany specifically (back when she imagined that she might be permitted to do something with her training), she started learning about how the Great Record worked. It wasn’t just a record of DNA; that on its own would have been quite useless, she was assured. DNA was an important part of it, of course, nuclear and mitochondrial both, but only a small part. Rather, the Record had been compiled as an image of the shape of a living cell: it described actual genetic code, but also how DNA was formed, how proteins were folded, how DNA and RNA were transcribed, processes of methylation and copying, how mitosis and meiosis functioned, and so on and so forth, attempting to describe the metabolism of an ideal cell, one which contained within it the potential to embody almost any form of life to which humankind had once been related; and it was by reference to this elaborate, ideal lifeform that literally millions of other species, from single-celled bacteria that lived in the human gut to storybook leviathans, were described. And the reason, Sirrek was told, that the Record had been composed in this way was that, long long ago, their ancestors had once had the technology to use those reference descriptions directly. The heart of the Record was a terrible lacuna, a tool that had been so widespread, and so useful, that it had once been presumed it would never be lost.

Oh, fathers of my fathers and mothers of my mothers! Sirrek had thought. How far your children have fallen. The senior geneticists referred to this technology as the key to the universal cell; or just the key. What, exactly, it was and how it had functioned was hard to guess. It was related to other technologies they had that barely worked, and that they did not understand at all, like the ones the Archivists used to modify their genes and to improve their neural prosthetics. There were baseline humans who had been brought all the way from Rauk on the last journey, in sarcophagi that had preserved them between life and death. It was a form of the key that had brought them back to wholeness, and let them live out the rest of a natural lifespan. But it was a specialized version, a crippled and ghostly version. They did not have the true key; and they were working to rebuild it. Perhaps one day, many centuries from now, they would live up to the promise of those long-ago masters of the living world, and they would read forth out of the Record a whole teeming world, as had been intended.

But they didn’t need the key to start understanding the Record, and ordinary genetic engineering and cell manipulation techniques would serve to clone the most basic organisms recorded there. Of course, all of this was hampered by the fact that the Record was at both extremely terse, intending to encode an enormous amount of information in as small a space as possible, and maddeningly repetitive. It was not really one Record, but many; the collocation of multiple copies, in some places defective, and in others damaged. Later, totally uncomprehending generations had apparently lost all but the memory of the importance of the thing, and carefully copied what they did not understand into new forms. It was only in the glare of Rauk, millennia ago, that the Janese had finally understood what they had had in their grasp, and built it into the skeleton of Ammas Echor itself.

Understanding the Record had been the original purpose of the Archive, and in the long, slow journey to Paradise they had labored ceaselessly at their task. Still, it was slow work. And since their station did not have the benefit of access to either the Archive on Ammas Echor, or to all the latest work from investigators working on the surface, sometimes they had to work at it themselves. At Ardhat’s encouragement, Sirrek had been trying to get a handle on some of the plant species that, by their position in the Record, seemed to be relatively basal. Much of the work in unraveling that portion of the Archive had been done by others, and was well-known, but little attention had been paid to the bryophytes. Under the logic of the agreement between the Renewalists and the Instrumentalists, this didn’t matter. Actual resurrection of species was not slated to begin for nearly eighty years, and even then it would be confined to laboratories. But Sirrek wanted practical results. What she ideally wanted was trees, flowers, grasses, important primary producers that also occupied slightly different ecological niches from the xenophytes, and could be integrated alongside them. But mosses were step zero. Possibly even step negative one. All she needed was a single viable spore. In theory, everything she needed was in the Record, somewhere.

In their long, slow labor, the Archivists had painstakingly indexed the Record, but it was an immense of information, and one that was only partly understood. The language of the record, if it could be called that, was a sophisticated polyvalent writing system that could encode chemical formulae, the structure of molecules and proteins and organelles, and dipped in its most specific registers into the subatomic scale, to describe the precise interaction by which choloroplasts captured the light of the sun, to convert into energy; and at its most general, sketched a mathematical relationship between the populations of a predator and its prey. Yet for all that it said, it also left maddening amounts unsaid, details that were perhaps assumed by its creators to be common knowledge, or which simply could not be fit in.

“It’s almost gibberish,” Tjumak had observed dryly. “Almost.”

“Why do you think they made it in the first place?” Sirrek asked Tjumak. “Do you suppose they really thought the umpteenth children of their children would be able to make use of it?”

“I can only assume so. Hubris, perhaps, or merely an unfathomably acute case of optimism.”

“It had to have been made in the Garden, right?”

A small movement suggested a shrug from Tjumak. “To speculate on the historicity of our people before the last journey is to engage in theology as far as I can tell. Whatever the Garden once was, it is now more myth than fact.”

“Maybe,” said Sirrek, tapping her chin as she moved the same section of the Record back and forth on the display. The curling, two-dimensional network of shapes blurred together if you tried to take in too much of it at once, not to mention it was dispiriting. It was far easier to concentrate on the smallest legible piece, and work through it one symbol at a time. Tjumak peeked over her shoulder, and glanced at her notes.

“No, that’s not right,” he said. “That’s not a DNA sequence, it’s a protein sequence. Look, that’s a symbol for a folding geometry, in the corner.”

Sirrek muttered an impolite word and started backtracking.

“They can’t have made it during the Exile, anyway,” she said. “You can’t put millions of species on a generation ship. Even if most of them are beetles.”

“Perhaps not,” said Tjumak. “But what is an object such as this? It is a monument against ruin. If they made it in the Garden, they made it knowing its desolation was close at hand.”

“So you’re definitely in camp made-to-be-used.”

“I think… I think it doesn’t matter why they made it,” Tjumak said. He was scanning his own section of the text, which in real terms was inscribed about a meter and a half away from Sirrek’s on the same section of Ammas Echor’s structural frame; but which felt like it might as well have been on the other side of the planet. “The question is, why do we want to use it?”

“Hubris, and/or an unfathomably acute case of optimism?”

“It’s a reasonable question. We could have come to Paradise, gone down from the Ammas Echor, and made our living on this world as it is, with no attempt to change it besides the introduction of ourselves. For that matter, we could have stayed in orbit, bringing up such resources as we needed, air and water and soil, to make life there far more comfortable than it ever could have been on one of the airless or gasping worlds our ancestors lived their lives on, and left Paradise almost entirely unchanged. Yet when we arrived, we nearly fought a war against one another, not over whether to make use of the Record to resurrect the creatures of the Garden, but only how.”

“Do you think we should have considered the possibility?”

Tjumak leaned back from the display he was hunched over. The head of his support apparatus tilted up toward the ceiling, which was as close as he ever got to looking pensieve.

“I cannot honestly say yes. I’ve known space, Sirrek, real space. Not orbital microgravity, but the deepness beyond the summit of the sky. Some of my earliest memories are of the firing of Ammas Echor’s great engines, to turn our path inward toward the light below. Of the long, slow spiral down to the inner worlds of Kdjemmu. And even that emptiness was brighter and warmer by far than the great darkness between the stars that my mother and father were born into. When they were young, ever joule of energy was precious beyond reckoning, every drop of water or puff of air worth more than a human life. 

“The other worlds around this star, they’re airless, or formless giants, or scorching hot, or worse. And every world our ancestors ever visited, if the tales are true, from the Garden-which-was-lost to Usukuul-we-mourn, was as barren as them. I cannot imagine what suffering generation after generation endured to bring us here--and it would spit in the face of every soul that died on the journey not to bring Paradise to flower.”

“We will, Tjumak,” Sirrek said softly. She had never seen Tjumak speak so earnestly before. “And we will not ravage, and we will not burn. And one day we will call our brothers and sisters out of the darkness to live with us again.” The rhythm of the ancient litanies came back to her smoothly. Her parents had not been religious, but her grandmother had been. She had recited the litanies to Sirrek when she was small, a soothing voice to sleep to.

“Will they thank us?”

“The other Exiles?”

Tjumak shook his head, then pointed at his display. “No. The ghosts we’re going to call up.”

“What do you mean?” Sirrek asked, perplexed.

Tjumak swiveled in place to another display, and tapped a few keys on the panel next to it. The image of another part of the Record appeared, this one displayed alongside long sections of plain text. There were ghostly outlines of various creatures superimposed on it and displayed alongside it, gracile things with four legs and taut muscles, and things with sharp teeth and long claws.

“This part of the Record was indexed four generations ago, and pretty well translated,” Tjumak said. “It’s an unusual one--it’s organized by relationship between constituent elements, not by phylogeny. It’s probably from a lesser Record that was only integrated into the whole later.”

“What are they?”

“Animals. Warm-blooded, furry, placental. Very much like us, in some ways, but quadrupedal. And, to judge by the annotations, quick. Well-muscled. Herbivorous and carnivorous.”

“One is predator, and one is prey?”

“Likely.”

Sirrek had that dark feeling again, the one that was tinged with despair. Sometimes it came up when she looked at too much of the Record at once, or when she spent too long thinking about the aching gulfs of time that they hoped to bridge with the Project. The feeling that it was too much--too much for her, too much for anyone, too much for innumerable lifetimes.

“We’re a long way from placental mammals, Tjumak.”

“Yes. But we’ll get there one day. I don’t doubt that. What I wonder is, what would they say? If we could ask them. And, you know, they could talk.”

“I don’t think there’s anything alive that doesn’t want to live.”

“Ah, but they are not alive. Not right now. It will be us who make them live, if we choose to. And consider, my friend, what that will mean. For some, they will be the prey. The hunted. The fearful. The one whose existence ends with blood and pain and screaming. And others, they will be the predator. Hungry, ever-hunting, fearing that one day their source of food will move beyond the hills, or that a harsh winter will kill them all, and leave the hunter to starve.”

“You think it’s not a life worth living?”

“Would you want to live such a life?”

Sirrek shook her head. “It’s not a coherent question. Does the ferngrass or the swarmbug want to live? The ferngrass can’t react to external stimuli at all, and the swarmbug has six neurons wired in sequence--basically glorified clockwork that tells it when to fly and when to land, and when to lay eggs. There are more complicated xenozoa in Paradise, but they aren’t anything like us, either. And these mammals? Maybe they’ll be able to feel pain, and hunger, and a kind of fear in the moment--but ‘life worth living’ is a human concept. I’m not sure it applies.”

“Surely it must. Even to creatures without language, without tool use, without abstract thought. If they can suffer and feel joy, there is a place where suffering outweighs joy, however you favor one side of the equation over the other. Someone that brought a child into the world, knowing their whole life would be without joy and full of suffering, would be cruel indeed.”

“Are you really proposing we put the entire Project on hold to decide if the creatures we bring back might suffer too much for the Project to be worth it?”

“Just humor me for a bit.”

“All right, fine. A parent has moral responsibility for their child’s welfare.”

“Unless and until we discover something wiser than us already living here, we have moral responsibility for this world.”

“And it would be cruel of us to go out of our way to inflict suffering on the things living in it. You don’t see me pulling the wings off swarmbugs. But that moral responsibility only goes so far, because we can’t impose human values without limit onto things which live very different existences from us.”

“Not so different, these beasts here,” Tjumak said, tapping the display.

“Different enough. Different enough that in order to even begin to pose the question of whether their life was worth living, you would have to alter them mind and body until they were far more human than anything else. If you cannot pose the question without destroying the thing you propose to investigate, it is a bad question.”

Tjumak tilted his head in what Sirrek had come to recognize as the sign of a smile somewhere on the face she could not see. But he didn’t seem ready to drop the argument yet.

“Aren’t all values human values in the end? Unless you believe in a creating power with the authority to order the ethical universe by its own whim, which seems rather like a self-contradicting idea to me. The only values we have to judge the world by are human values. They’re limited tools, but they’re the best ones available. So if a human could have a life not worth living, so could an animal, by the only standard we have available to judge.”

“I don’t know if I buy that,” Sirrek said. “But even so: everything that lives desires to live. If you could bring one of those beasts back, and then you tried to hurt or kill it, it would run away. There’s something like volition there, and as far as I can tell, a vote in the ‘let me live!’ direction.”

“Hardly a spirited defense of the idea, though!” Tjumak said. “A mere stimulus response, maybe.”

“You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say a beast’s volition matters if it doesn’t want to suffer, but doesn’t matter if it wants to live. It’s not human, so you can’t ask the question as you would to a human, or to another creature capable of abstract thought, and in the only way it knows how to tell you, it tells you it wants to live. And, presumably, do other things. Eat. Run. Have babies. You might not let it do all those things. You certainly don’t have to let it eat you. But if the creature’s experience of the world matters at all, its desires must matter in some sense, too.”

“There’s always the option of just leaving out the carnivores, you know,” Tjumak said. “After all, your moss here doesn’t feel pain. Probably.”

Sirrek smiled. “I really hope not. And maybe that is an option. Or maybe we don’t know enough. Maybe the carnivores are as essential to the herbivores as the herbivores are to them, in some way we haven’t seen. I think a certain expansive humility is necessary when poking at these questions.”

“Humility. Humility!” Tjumak roared with mock outrage. “Expansive humility, says the woman who opposes the Archive and the consensus of the whole world, and seeks to resurrect an ancient biosphere from the dead! While remaking an alien one to boot!”

“You can be ambitious and humble at the same time,” Sirrek said. “It just means you set your sights high, but aren’t surprised when you fuck everything up.”

Tjumak laughed sharply. “You’re a good sparring partner,” he said. “Koridek always gets annoyed with me when I try to start an argument, and Ardhat has learned to ignore me. It’s good to have a new face around.”

And for the rest of the evening, that’s all Sirrek thought their conversation was--a verbal wrestling match for Tjumak, a way for him to sharpen his wits, and get to know Sirrek at the same time. But later that night, as she was brewing a cup of bitterstalk tea to take to bed with her, she saw a dull glow from Tjumak’s lab, when his monitors were usually all dark, and he was asleep. She went to the door, thinking to say goodnight, but paused when she got there. His back was turned to her, and he was looking at the image on his monitor, the one that showed the ghostly outline of runners and hunters, of the ones that long ago had died, and the ones that long ago had killed. He seemed to be staring at it, intently, one finger tapping slowly on the side of the display.

As she lay in bed waiting for sleep to overtake her, it occurred to her that Tjumak’s cynicism was just as much a kind of protection as his support equipment. It was his armor against the world, and the fears of his own heart. She didn’t doubt his commitment to the project. She did not doubt the commitment of a man who had exiled himself indefinitely to the loneliest place in the world. But he understood, perhaps, that he was responsible for the world he hoped to create. Maybe it was right that it should keep them all up at night from time to time.

[nolvini]

i want to get into jojo, but i dont know where to start lol, do you think you could summarize it:?

ok ok so despite what people say, my friend gave me a flash drive with all of part 3 (stardust crusaders) on it, and after that i watched 4 and 5 and then went back to 1 and 2 and god i’m terrible at explaining but I’ll try my best lol

Anyways tbh,,, each part can be watched on their own since they all have a different protagonist and plot/setting. I don’t recommend watching it completly out of order (like 4->2->5->etc) but recurring characters from other parts are present so you may not fully understand their importance at first.

SO it’s very long like not as long as homestuck but maybe a tier or two below so I’m going to go over the main aspects of each parts below with a copied-pasted summary from the wiki in italics and a better understanding underneath:

Warnings: gore heavy, sexual assault, I’ll add more as I think about it (i’m sorry it’s almost 1am here)

Some good ol’ vocab

Hamon/Ripple: a technique used in the early parts of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Through the use of controlled breathing, the user can fill their body and attacks with sunlight energy, making it very effective against Vampires, Zombies, and Pillar Men.

Stands:  a visual manifestation of life energy, unique to the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series. It generally presents itself as a figure hovering over or near the user and possesses abilities beyond that of an ordinary human, which, depending on the Stand User, can be wielded for good or evil.

Part One: Phantom Blood (9 episodes)

In 19th-century England, a youth named Dio Brando is adopted by the wealthy George Joestar to repay Dio's father for seemingly saving his life. Jonathan Joestar, who aspires to become a gentleman, finds himself shunned by his family and friends as part of Dio's plot to take the Joestar fortune for himself.

This is the beginning of JJBA. Each protagonist of each part is nicknamed “JoJo” (i.e. Jonathan Joestar), so like it’s the protag’s bizarre adventure, and they are super weird!!!

Anyways Dio is Jonathan’s adoptive brother, and he’s like just pure evil and is the antithesis of Jonathan and later he becomes a vampire. Jonathan meets a man who teaches him Hamon/Ripple which he tries to use against Dio.

Part Two: Battle Tendency (17 episodes)

Taking place in 1938-39, the story follows the misadventures of Joseph Joestar (a.k.a. JoJo), grandson of Jonathan, as he masters his innate Ripple abilities in order to combat hostile, ancient super-beings named the Pillar Men, creators of the Stone Mask that plot to become the ultimate lifeforms.

Joseph is Jonathan’s grandson, so this shows that this series follows the JoJo bloodline (so like descendants of Jonathan) and their misadventures. But yeah like the summary above states, Joseph also learns Hamon/Ripple (it’s the same thing idk why it has two names).

Part Three: Stardust Crusaders (48 episodes)

Jotaro Kujo and his friends as they journey from Tokyo to Cairo to save his mother's life by defeating his family's resurrected archenemy, DIO.

OK the concept of Hamon/Ripple here is just, completly removed lmao and in my opinion i think it’s better. Hamon is replaced with Stands, which many characters have. Jotaro Kujo is Joseph’s grandson, so again, follows the bloodline. HEY I LOVE THIS PART!!!! The majority of the story takes place in south Asia, the Middle East, and Egypt which is great bc i’m brown and it’s nice to see some rep in anime even if it’s not the main focus lol ANYWAYS sorry for the tangent just if anything I recommend starting with Stardust Crusaders since Jotaro is kind of the mascot of JJBA, but of course up to you

Part Four: Diamond is Unbreakable (39 episodes)

Takes place in the summer of 1999 in Morioh, a midsized japanese town. Jotaro Kujo has come to visit for two reasons. One, to meet Josuke Higashikata, Joseph Joestar's illegitimate son. And two, to find a serial killer, and figure out how he got a stand.

Parts 4-6 explore the Stand concept in depth, where they came from, why certain people get a stand while others don’t, etc. while also havinf their own plots aside from that. Part 4 is more slice of life-ish but of course still has it’s fair share of gore and sadness, but compared to others I personally think it has a more uplifting endings than the other parts which is great bc Josuke deserves the world

Part Five: Vento Aureo aka Golden Wind (39 episodes)

Set in 2001 Italy, the story follows Giorno Giovanna and his dream to rise within the Neapolitan mafia and defeat the boss of Passione, the most powerful and influential gang, in order to become a "Gang-Star". With the aid of a capo and his men, and fueled by his own resolve, Giorno sets out to fulfill his goal of absolving the mafia of its corruption.

This is the season that just ended (summer 2019). Giorno is actually Dio’s son, but is still considered to be part of the JoJo bloodline because of.... spoilers. ANYWAYS this is kind of where jjba becomes more “feminine” in lack of a better word; with its floral/art imagery and Giorno not being as masculine as the other parts’ protagonists. Anyways i cried.

Part Six: Stone Ocean

In 2011, Florida; Jolyne Cujoh, daughter of Jotaro, is wrongfully accused of a crime she didn't commit and sent to a maximum security prison. While imprisoned, she struggles within a longstanding plot agreed between dead villain DIO and ideologue Enrico Pucci.

Here is our very first female jojo (wow gif) but let me tell you all the female characters in this part are so badass and powerful in their own ways it’s just... wrow. This part isn’t animated yet but hopefully will be bc I need to see Jolyne or else I will die.

Part Seven: Steel Ball Run 

Set in the U.S. in 1890, the story follows Johnny Joestar, a paraplegic ex-jockey, and Gyro Zeppeli, master in a mystic art named the Spin, as they compete with a vast number of others in the Steel Ball Run race: a mad-dash across America for a grand prize of 50 million dollars.

Steel Ball Run describes a new continuity apart from that detailed in Part 1-6 of the series. On top of core features to JoJo such as Stands, the story is marked by many references to the original series.

Legit I just finished reading this in the last week and it is a fan favorite. I’m still processing everything that happened honestly kjsdhfsjkdhfj but yes it’s good 9/10 imo. Anyways this is on a different timeline from parts 1-6 because of the events that happened in Stone Ocean.

Part Eight: JoJolion

The story begins in 2011 and follows Josuke Higashikata, a young man afflicted by retrograde amnesia, in his search to uncover his identity in Morioh Town, a coastal Japanese town affected by the Tohoku earthquakeW. However, his digging pulls him and his adoptive family into the unfinished business between his previous life and an impending inhuman threat.

I haven’t read this part yet but i will, but know that this part is in the same timeline as Steel Ball Run.

OK THANK U FOR READING i didn’t do any of my hw and I’m going to sleep now but I hope this helps!!! IM SO SORRY IF THIS IS MORE THAN YOU WANTED I’m just extra and hopefully this can be summed up in a better way but yeah: that’s jojo’s bizarre adventure in a nutshell.

[ardenttheories]

Hope you get better soon! When you have time, can you get your thoughts on Knight of Life? I’ve been rethinking my classpect recently and I’m vibing with that one most at the moment. Love your analysis work!

Of course!

Life is the Aspect of Life, Energy, Wealth, Prosperity, Motivation, Desire, Growth, Healing, Power, Luxuries, and Liberation.

Knights of Life are those who Protect with/Protect Life. They are also those who Weaponise Life, and those who Exploit Life. 

Knights of Life are infinitely peppy people. They’re go-getters, always on the go, never stopping for a single second; it must be exhausting watching them, let along trying to keep up with them, because they’re just filled with this boundless Energy. They seem to have a purpetual Motivation to achieve, and always seem to hit their lifetime goals, no matter how large or small; maybe this means achieving a high score in a game, or maybe it means getting that dream job that seemed completely impossible for them to get. 

However, they’re also perfectionists. Knights of Life have an innate fear of failure. They sincerely can’t handle the idea of being good enough - which, considering this is the general struggle of any Knight, means that they are almost crippled by this fear. They don’t just want to be perfect. They want to be better than perfect; they want to set the highest score, want to create world records that never existed before, they want to be the best of the best. Anything less than this makes them feel as if they’re stagnating. 

The facade of the Knight of Light would therefore be cool and confident. They have no worries in the world, everything just comes easily! They act as if they don’t struggle because they see this as a form of weakness. As if any sign that they’re finding something hard is proof that they’re not good enough. They might be a bit over-the-top, a big braggy, but it’s not to hurt people; it’s to try and cover up the perceived cracks in their facade. 

In fact, Knights might be the most protective Players going. They will defend the Life of their friends to their last breath, as well as anything else they see that they think is worthy or Protecting. Of course, this could mean quite literally anything - such as an especially beloved plant. Since Life Players are stubborn, I’d say good luck trying to get them to forgive you for accidentally killing something, too. They might seem unaffected, but I assure you, they’ll be mourning inside for a while - mostly because they perceive the death as their own failure. 

Being Knights, they are innately intune with the Protection of Life. They defend Life - the literal Lifeforce of people, the things that keep them going, that little flicker of Life that exists within everything - but they also defend the right to Life - someone’s right to Live the Life they want, the ability for someone to Grow beyond the boundries that are forced upon them. 

This means Defending small lifeforms, things people think are inconsequential, because they’re aware of how important those lifeforms are - such as bugs, which might be an integral part of the ecosystem but are seen by most people as pests or simply disgusting enough to be worth squishing. It might mean Protecting an endangered species, stopping it from going extinct (perhaps by Exploiting the Desire for hunters to hunt them, or the Wealth of the rich to sink their money into charities revolving around the continued conservation of the species). 

It also means Defending someone being stamped down on at work, told they can’t get the same wage as someone else or being threatened with joblessness. They’ll still survive if they lose it, but their quality of Life will be lessened. The Knight Defends this person’s right to afford the Luxuries they want and to lead the Life they Desire most - their right to Grow as a person, and to rise up the promotional ladder. 

Using their facade in conjunction with this, they might use themself as a rolemodel for other people, Exploiting their Desire to be like the Knight to encourage their Growth. If they have something untouchable to aim for, they’re more likely to continue an upward movement of Development - and to hit their own achievements in the process.

Of course, such a focus on Life means that Death is... almost impossible for the Knight to handle.  

More than any other Player, Death to the Knight of Life means failure. They didn’t try hard enough. They didn’t do their job. Stagnation and Death is evidence that they failed. It will take the Knight some time to realise that some failure is okay, and that there is a Cycle of Life that all things have to abide by. Death is natural. Death is okay. 

They’re long-time mourners for this, I think. They likely don’t know how to let go of those that have passed on. They might never accept Death, but it’s important for the Knight of Life to not drown in their sorrow of those now gone - especially since they can Protect the Life of the person in memory, continuing on their legacy rather than mourning their loss. 

Of course, there’s more to a Knight than just Defence. They can Exploit and Weaponise Life, which is pretty terrifying if you think of it in a more literal sense. Exploitation of Life might mean literal servants, an army of people willingly working for the Knight, or might mean the formation of a clique, a group that revolves around the Knight while also standing on more equal ground. 

And, of course, Weaponising Life... as a general rule of thumb, that makes me think of someone taking control of plants (e.g. vines) and using them to attack their foes. Or speeding up someone’s position in the Life-cycle - making them old and grey before suddenly their powers cut out (because beyond that, it goes into the bounds of Doom and Time). 

They can take Luxuries and make them worthless (such as a beautiful gold necklace, by suddenly releasing the entire mass of gold to the market and causing a sharp drop in its price due to loss of scarcity), can take something that seems so useless and make it the most impressive thing in the world (such as a leaf, which might have such amazing medicinal properties that it becomes a highly valued item - especially if the Knight withholds it from the people). 

They can accumulate Wealth at incredible speed - Exploiting peoples’ Desires in order to take their Wealth away from them, such as by offering something inconsequential but nostalgic in return for something of great Material worth - and can sky-rocket up any societal structure with little work - such as by Exploiting a corrupt voting or political system to shove themself into a place of power. 

In a more physical sense, Exploiting Life can mean easily taming wild animals, enhancing the Growth of plants and trees artificially, and taking an active part in evolution to ensure they get the end result that benefits them most. They might be the person who ends up handling the Ectobiology of the session - and through Exploitation of that machine, create some weird and wonderful things that maybe never should have existed to begin with. Exploitation of genetics and how genetics work, rather than creating something from complete scratch.

If we think about going extremely far with this, Knights of Life might be able to hit the peak of their full bodily potential. You know how sometimes people can do incredible feats of strength in moments of duress - like an old lady lifting up a car to pull it off of her grandchild? The Knight of Life can do that, but intentionally. 

While I don’t think Knights of Life would be Healers, per se, I think what they can do is bump up immunity. They could make anything immune and impervious; no disease would ever be an issue to those they Protect, and no weapon would ever be able to pierce their skin. They’d quite literally make their friends invulnerable - but not invincible. Lack of oxygen would still be an issue, and it’s questionable as to whether or not a Knight of Life could extend someone’s Life. They definitely can’t revert it. 

They can, however, Exploit immune systems in reverse, too. If they can boost someone’s immune system to make them invulnerable, they can take that immune system apart bit by bit, too. Imagine making the Imps deathly sick and weak simply because the Knight Exploited how their immune systems worked, made them attack their own cells rather than incoming pathogens. 

Knights of Life, as I’ve said above, have to learn to let go. They need to let down their Facade, to accept some imperfections, but also to recognise that they’re doing enough. They are enough. They need to stop beating themselves up if they aren’t overachieving, to take that pressure off their shoulders. They have to recognise that Death is something that happens, and that while they can avoid it, can work around it, can overcome it, they are not at fault if Death occurs. They tried their best. That’s what matters. They have to let go of past sorrows by turning them into future Growths.  

[onewhodiedyoung]

instructions: tag ten people you’d like to know better

I was tagged by @ayokaya, thank you <3

name: ...... let’s say Aleks or Ale(Alé?) is an acceptable variation of it and leave it at that. In Starbucks I’m known as Hermenegilda though because unfortunately, yes, I am that kind of person

starsign: virgo but I don’t identify with it because it’s a lie

hogwarts house: 100% Ravenclaw no matter what Pottermore says

height: I... don’t... know.... last time they measured me was like 4 years ago in school but I think maybe sth like 167cm?

favorite animal: JELLYFISH. Also love cephalopods but jellyfish are life and my biggest not-literature-related obsession, as weird as that sounds

dogs or cats: axolotls.

when you made your blog: I don’t know where to check it but like less than a year ago, I’m very new here :,)

why you made your blog: idk, something possessed me I guess. maybe for all the angsty poetry on here. It sure is why i stayed

reason for your url: i might love Cloudbusting a tad more than a healthy amount

what i am wearing: a sweater. always sweaters, even when it’s too hot for sweaters. The more kitschy the better. also fun (not really) fact: somehow, i don’t own even one pair of jeans

dream vacation: mountains, always, always. if not mountains, then sea. New Zealand, please, world.

instruments: like if i play one? I don’t but I will learn to play the piano eventually, I swear I will, I just have to. Either that or marry a pianist who’ll play for me. preferably both tbh

celebrity crushes: maybe ben wishaw (though really it’s more of a crush on his voice) and i don’t know..... i really think they’re often absolutely beautiful and awesome people but I’m not a hardcore fan of any one person except for authors and that hardly can be described as a crush so... I did use to tell people that I would marry young Meryl Streep if I had the chance I guess?

random facts:

what’s your job: well up till recently i worked as a waitress in a shitty dessert place but the virus freed me from the shackles of hospitality since i went back home. Also am a student.

if you could go back to school would you: well I’m enjoying uni for what it’s worth. as for, i don’t know, let’s say high school, yes but only if it were a different system where i could actually choose the subjects i’m interested in and where they’d teach critical thinking not just historical dates from the 12th century + no mandatory religion where you have to say a joint prayer every time and no brainswashing so, basically, definitely not in Poland!

a job you had that would surprise people: the waitressing was my first but the shit that used to happen there sure was interesting even if the place wasn’t. apart from that, having to make my 14yo brother scrambled eggs because he d o e s n ‘ t k n o w h o w. Also, not actually a job, but i’ve been proofreading essays for almost everyone i know all my life (which got awful when one guy went all far-right and i had to spellcheck his musings on why everyone who’s not Christian and straight sucks)

do you think aliens are real: this is something i shouldn’t be allowed to talk about because ever since I read Lem’s Solaris i have a million opinions on the subject but let’s say that I do but that I also believe that whatever other lifeforms are out there are not only not green and big-eyed but just generally not made out of things we have on earth that are comprehensible to us if that makes sense (i kind of think of it like those colors we’re not able to see that we therefore also can’t imagine but that we’ve proven exist)

what’s your guilty pleasure: eating double cream with a spoon...... also my whole ao3 account

tattoos: as of now, i don’t have any

any phobias: I’m so terrified of the things that live at the bottom of the ocean and in lakes and just generally of huge bodies of water, which is pretty ironic considering how much i love them. also every time i’m on a plane i spend the whole flight curled up into a ball praying for quick death. Also people. People very scary. Actually, here’s the thing: I’m scared of everything, always, and have very weird nightmares every night like not even traumatic stuff just.... my brain, i swear

do you talk to yourself: not out loud, no, but you know how you can text yourself on facebook? I often yell at myself there :,)

what movie do you adore: I can’t pick one favorite so here are the few i can’t live without: My Own Private Idaho, Moonrise Kingdom, The Handmaiden and Spirited Away (but also Lilo and Stitch)

the first thing that you remember you wanted to be when you grew up:  either an archeologist or a marine biologist, not sure which was first. And I pretty much always wanted to be a writer but I’m not counting it since i still want to be one and also that’s not a job, that’s just the euphemism for being miserable

This was fun! I’m tagging @rhymaes, @hanabiangel and @dullahan168 if you guys feel like doing it <3

[ouchmaster6000]

RE that zim/anpanman post - while Anpanman doesn't get as dark in tone, Baikinman regularly tries to kill people and has done things like tear pages out of an anthropomorphic book and make food-based characters spoil and rot. Not as gruesome as doing it to "real people" characters but that's not the point really; the idea behind it is still there, so Japanese kids are just very accustomed to an alien being that sadistic within the context of their series

First of all, I should point out I agree that Japanese kids are probably used to seeing more intense stuff on TV than american ones. Alot of shows like Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece, Digimon and even Pokemon occasionally are known for having stuff edited out of the english dub. A pretty decent number of shonen series just flat out get marketed to an older audience in the states (stuff for kids in japan being aimed at middle schoolers here, stuff for teens being aimed at adults etc.)

Hell, I’m fairly certain Dragon Ball Z and Tenchi Muyo probably would have been marketed to adults in the US if it came out today too (Former for the violence, latter for the sexual stuff) and only got away with as much they did because they were on cable, and the idea that kids anime could appeal to adults simply hadn’t occurred to most western producers at that point.

I just…. Dont really think Anpanman is a good example of this? I also dont agree with the original poster’s Zim comparison. Granted, I suppose I probably should watch the show, but from everything I have seen of it, such as discussions on Bogleech’s website, it doesn’t seem that much edgier than standard kids show? Definitely a bit weirder and more violent than most preschool shows in the states, but overall, I doesn’t sound like Baikinman is much worse the your average kids cartoon villain.

I mean for starters, its pretty standard in kids media for killing and mutilating for non-human characters to be allowed, especially if said characters don’t have blood or flesh.

The obvious example is robots. Star Wars, Transformers, Doctor Who, Superman, Green Lantern, Teen Titans, Xiaolin Showdown, Age of Ultron,  - There are way too many shows, comics and movies to list that eithor aimed at kids or families, that have robots and cyborgs being torn apart in ways that would be pretty graphic if it happened to humans or animals.

Digimon is a related example - The only reason the franchise is allowed to have as much death as it does is because 99% of the fatalities happen to digital lifeforms that dissolve into pixels upon death.

Hell one of my favorite movies as a child was the original Toy Story, and all the scenes where Sid was mutilating and blowing up his toys would have gotten a hard R rating if he was doing it to people. I’ve heard a lot of people compare Sid to Dr. Frankenstein, but with toys, but at least Dr. Frankenstein used parts that were already dead (as opposed to tearing/cutting apart still living people) and put them together in a shape roughly resembling a human. Really, Sid’s toys are less Frankenstein and more human centipede.

I also remember Fosters Home for Imaginary friends having a similar reoccuring theme of “food friends” meeting a worse fate than Anpanman. This included half eaten, traumatized anthropomorphic food dreamed up by kids in stuck in fat camp, or a talking pizza dreamed up by the bully character and eaten and killed just seconds after being “born”

So, although obviously dark comedy, Baikinman doing those things isn’t really anything new for childrens media. Neither, is trying to kill someone, since a lot of cartoon villains have made serious attempts to kill people, they just never succeed.

But Zim successfully mutilating and removing the organs and body parts of human children is definitely not normal for a kids show.

Another issue I took with Revretch’s post was that she wasn’t just talking about Zim the character, she seemed to me to be claiming that “Invader Zim” the TV series wouldn’t be seen as edgy just because the main character is similar to Baikenman… but thats not really how it works? You can’t necessarily tell the tone of a show, just from the nature of its protagnist.

Like, by that logic, Courage the Cowardly Dog should be one of the most light hearted and kid friendly shows out there, but in actuality the world he inhabits is much, much darker, scarier and more surreal than Courage himself is.

Its true that, though the writers/network let Zim do much worse stuff on screen, there are plenty of other childrens cartoon characters whose personality is pretty similar to Zim, or whom are a lot creepier and more threatening. Mojo Jojo and HIM from the powerpuff girls are good examples of both of these, respectively. 

In fact, Powerpuff Girls, Xiaolin Showdown, Codename: Kids Next Door, Danny Phantom and plenty of other childrens cartoons all have both villains that are similar to Zim, and villains that are considerably more evil, creepy or serious than Zim ever was, but the tone of these shows, overall, is a relatively more optimistic one, where the main protagonists have more or less happy lives and good always triumphs over evil in the end.

Hell, even Gravity Falls, with its use of creepy horror imagery, occasional forays into adult humor, and having one of the most infamous big bads in childrens animation (and easily my favorite from the last 10 years) remains a fairly optimistic show at its core, about family and summer adventures.

This is not the case with Invader Zim, which is a show where humans as a species are portrayed as so comically stupid and mean spirited that, even if Zim somehow successfully killed or enslaved them all, it probably wouldn’t come across as a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

A show where the Irkens are depicted both commiting genocide, and electrocuting a disobedient slave on screen, and whose society is such a dystopia they are forced to udergo intense military training from birth and generally assigned roles for life based on genetics.

A show where the elementary skool is portrayed as a collection of all the absolute worst aspects of public school, both in terms of how its run, and how the kids treat each other, exaggerated to an absurd degree.

A show where a reoccurring joke character is a homeless man, who got taken advantage by a fast food chain, paid in free pizza and a room in the back of a resturant, became morbidly obese (Yes, this is Bloaty’s canon origin story) and was last seen in the original show sobbing uncontrollably because he hates his life.

Also, although this was obviously changed significantly in the comics and the Enter the Florpus special, in regards to what was portrayed in the original show, its really not difficult to make the argument Dib’s own dad and sister don’t give a shit whether or not he lives or dies.

Of course, this was all done for very dark laughs, as well as to create a setting that was just the right balance of humor and nihilism that the viewer could choose to either root for, laugh at or sympathize with either Zim or Dib without really worrying about the actual moral implications of either sides goals.

I’m not saying Zim is the edgiest show out there, comedic or otherwise. With stuff like Warhammer, Berserk, Venture Bros, Metalocalypse and all manner of gritty 90s anihero comics, Zims pretty light hearted and goofy in comparison.

But for childrens animation? Aside from some of the 90’s “grossout” cartoons like Ren & Stimpy and Cow & Chicken (which varied a lot in quality, imo) I can’t really think of any others that come close (Maaaaybe Billy & Mandy, but I think its too tonally inconsistant, with a lot of episodes being pretty standard cartoon slapstick.)

Wow, I sure did type a lot. Sorry about that. But Invader Zim is one of my all time favorite shows, and fictional villains one of my favorite topics, so I feel like I have a lot to say about them.

[marius--lestrange]

Marius + Albus [Science Tarot]

Left: MARIUS – Queen of Swords [Ernst Haeckel, Storyteller]

From the Science Tarot: Artist and biologist Ernst Haeckel remains widely known today for his many books of intricate illustrations in the realm of plant, animal and microscopic life. In his lifetime, his work helped explain Darwin’s theories to the general public. His perceptive and wide-ranging analyses mapped a genealogical tree of Earth’s lifeforms, dividing and defining living organisms according to species, genus, family, and order. His drive to observe, categorize, and communicate his findings about the world’s knowledge created a wellspring of practical knowledge. Even as the world is divided into sections and categories, a storyteller gathers strength and wisdom to achieve a common purpose. While you may be tempted to let emotion dictate your actions, the situation may require direct observation and intellectual investigation instead.

Key words: honest, opinionated, knowledgeable, complexity, perceptive, clear-mindedness

Pat’s Summary: Marius is a little bit emotionally distant, and he’s focused on finding the truth (though not necessarily about Beatrice—though some of my books do say that if this card resembles a person, they might have gone through a recent loss). Between the two of them, he’s the one with a clearer head.

Right: ALBUS – 4 of Wands, Reversed [Brown Dwarf]

From the Science Tarot: Somewhere in a distant galaxy, a brown dwarf waits in a dim corner of space. Once it was on a journey to become a star: clouds of dust and gas drifted together and were compressed and heated by gravity. It seemed inevitable that its future would be spent as a brilliant sun. But the journey came to a halt. Too little mass had gathered, creating too little gravity for fusion to spark. The celestial body that had promised to become a star now instead spends its life waiting at the threshold, unable to cross. Every path we take eventually leads us to a threshold. One day we may gather the courage and strength required for this adventure, and we’ll leap into whatever lies ahead. Or we may remain comfortably at the threshold and watch others begin the journey we may never experience ourselves.

Key words: lack of communication, instability, home conflicts, burnout, cancelled plans

Pat’s Summary: In numerology the number 4 is a “stable” number (think tables and chairs), though since it’s reversed Albus might not feel secure in this friendship. He’s kind of at a crossroads as to whether he actually feels a kinship with Marius. Considering both this card and Marius’s card, Marius is the reliable lab partner and Albus is undecided as to whether he trusts Marius.

Top: PAST – King of Pentacles [Marie Curie, Visionary]

From the Science Tarot: Marie Curie’s commanding role in chemistry and the nascent field of radiology brought her from Nobel prizewinning laboratory work to the French-German battle front during World War I. Working with her husband at the turn of the century, Curie coined the term “radioactivity” and discovered two elements, radium and polonium. Her personal efforts were responsible not only for the development of x-ray technology, but also for the production of mobile x-ray labs, called Petites Curies, which made lifesaving surgery possible on the battlefield. The determination and bravery that guided her through decades of scientific discovery served her countrymen well as she assisted with injured soldiers in the heart of the conflict. Marie Curie was undaunted by personal or technical challenges and was driven from within to pursue the most vital and complex of goals. This visionary woman calls upon us to look into the distance, take command and do what must be done.

Key words: security, stability, financial advice, trustworthy, disciplined, abundance, power

Pat’s summary: Pentacles have to do with money, which is nuts because they literally met at a bank lol but the King is seen as a provider (while the Queen is more of a “nurturer”) so their relationship, or how it began, was mostly transactional in nature, but it does prepare them for what’s coming for them moving forward.

Center: PRESENT + DYNAMIC – 8 of Wands, Reversed [Big Bang]

From the Science Tarot: The universe was born billions of years ago with an explosion of such tremendous force that the galaxies that formed fromt eh scattered debris are still speeding away from one another. As you send your work into the world, a universe of possibilities expands and influence grows more powerful. The writer, inventor, and scientist launch works into the public sphere to challenge, support, and inspire their colleagues worldwide. Their creative energies released today will continue to influence lives for years to come.

Key words: obstacles, waiting, slowing down, feeling stuck, delays, not feeling ready for change

Pat’s Summary: With the 8, it’s a push towards the “end” of the numbers; this number typically signifies movement. But the reversal means something is stalled here, like there’s an obstacle they have to wait through or get past, though they might not be sure what it is yet.

Bottom: FUTURE – The Chariot [Technology]

From the Science Tarot: Technology harnesses the power of nature to achieve human goals. Long ago we imagined ships that might fly us through the air and into space. Years of observation, experiment, and struggle brought these dreams into reality. Technology demands an understanding of what we have learned and a vision of what may be possible. We begin each flight with our feet on the ground and our eyes turned towards the sky. The Chariot carries us between opposites, from the world we know well to the places we have never been. Imagination can be balanced by calculation, ambition with caution. When we gain control over ourselves, our emotions and the forces of nature, we can escape the gravity of the familiar world and reach our higher ideals.

Key words: confidence, courage, overcoming obstacles, travel, success, direction, control, willpower

Pat’s summary: If they ever get their shit together, they can actually get moving and get a lot done. The Chariot is a ‘success’ card but it means that they do have to take control of their situation to really get things going!

 @alchemicalpotter​ 

[allthesekittens]

How about all the prime numbers for that ask post?~ :)

thank you!! sorry for replying so late, i’ve been pretty tired the past few days :2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?i’d love to be at a mother mother concert and meet them afterwards. can’t really think of anyone else tbh :’D3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.“they also ate wild berries, plant parts and roots containing plenty of minerals, vitamins and fiber.”5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

an automated reminder that i’m going to the dentist tomorrow. other than that, my mother telling me she’s picking me up at 8

7: What’s your strangest talent?i can’t remember anything that strange, so i asked my mom and she says that i’m good at cracking my knuckles lol11: Do you have any strange phobias?there’s a certain word that i try to avoid by all means, even though it’s harmless, so i guess that’s a thing?13: What’s your religion?none, though i was in a choir since i was pretty small (6-7 maybe?) and went to church for many years bc of that, but it took a while before i fully realised i didn’t believe in it. i think i stopped going when i was around 17-18?17: What was the last lie you told?i don’t lie very often, so it’s hard to remember. last time was unintentional though, my friend asked me if i dream in color or in black and white and i said color, but i can’t remember my dreams visually so i’m not entirely sure19: What does your URL mean?i was 14 and needed to come up with just something as my url. most of my online nicknames have to do with cats so, that just plopped up. i think it’s kinda cute and i’ve had it so long so i don’t really wanna change it

23: How do you vent your anger?usually i try to walk away to calm down or rant away to a friend, or in worst case i get a little mean. it’s hard to make me angry though, i just usually get irritated29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

i don’t believe in ghosts, but maybe aliens, aka very small lifeforms that probably should exist on other planets. that would be cool at least31: Smell the air. What do you smell?the “lovely” smell of my room which probably needs some ventilation. a mix between snacks, milk, and a pineapple scented candle i lit yesterday. 

37: Do you believe in luck?not really, things usually happen for a reason. it’d be nice to believe that but most things can be explained due to some circumstances41: What was the last book you read?

i can’t for the life of me remember a book i’ve read to the end since like, 9th grade. the last book i skimmed through though was a book about stress management43: Do you have any nicknames?no one really uses any for me, so no. on a really old website i used to be called cat tho, how creative of me

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

a long-term one is given, ever since i watched the anime half a year ago, but whatever occupies my mind changes from week to week. right now i have the keep your hands off eizouken op playing in my head on loop since like yesterday, it’s so catchy53: Do you save money or spend it?a little bit of both, i think i spend too much sometimes but i’m generally good at saving, especially now that i don’t go out that often59: Where were you yesterday?

hanging out with a friend at my place, playing games and watching anime61: Are you wearing socks right now?

..yes?67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

winding down, getting ready to sleep, checking discord i think?

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?depending on what job it is, i would either go in and try to save it, or i would call out to someone else (yell, make a phone call) for help. i’m quite cowardly so i would probably go for the latter73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

ooooh that’s a hard one. at this point i’d pick trust, because i hate being betrayed. love is important too, but i haven’t felt it that strongly toward anyone yet.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?i can’t really pinpoint one exact thing, but going to high school and meeting awesome people, and becoming more open and outspoken with others has changed me for the better. i was crushed that i didn’t get into the first choice i hoped when i applied, but looking at it afterwards it really was better this way 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

heart problems. makes me think about stuff that’ll probably affect me later in life :)89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?ironically, i can’t say that. sorry. :’)97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

nope

[natsspammityspamspamham]

1. Who’s your celebrity crush?

I don’t have celebrity crushes most of the time. I have people who I think are pretty and people that I admire, but I don’t have any of them that I crush on. Alongside my favourite voice actors (seiyuu), Emma Watson would definitely be up there. There’s something about intelligence that makes a person far more appealing.

2. Are you single or taken?

As single as they come! I haven’t even been in a relationship, and I don’t really have any interests in getting into one!

3. Rant. Just do it.

I’m nervous. I’m doubting. I hate this feeling in me. I feel so out of place, so uncomfortable, and it’s eating me on the inside. I wish I had friends in real life. I really wish I did, but it feels like I’m growing apart from everyone, and I’m pushing them all away because I can’t stand being reminded of my past, and I feel like every step I take is just a desperate attempt to get myself back on track, and I’m trying to be proud of myself. I really am. But I have a hard time acknowledging anything that I do. I never feel like I’m enough. I feel insufficient. I feel like I’m just a statistic. I feel inferior yet superior at the same time. My self-image is warped. I feel like I’m lying to myself and to others. It hurts. It hurts a lot, and I don’t want people to know but I do at the same time. It’s a pain unlike any other, and as much as I can say that I don’t feel lonely, I feel like there should be people in my life that I can call my friends, and I want someone that I can mutually call my best friend without them saying that they are just my “good friend”. I want to know that I mean the upmost to a person without feeling I’m burdening them. I want to be No. 1 at something. 

I dream about chasing dreams like becoming a medical professional, but I continue to realize and face my shortcomings that would prove that I’m not really fit for it. I want to do it, but quite frankly, I’m too stupid. 

I can’t even articulate what’s truly paining my mind. It’s difficult. I don’t know why my body and mind wants to destroy itself.

But sometimes, I think I fix myself better.

4. Do you think it's okay to separate the artist from the art?

Personally, I’m one of those people who usually say no to this question. Now, if you have weird kinks or like pineapple on pizza, that’s none of my business. I won’t hold it against you. However, I find it hard to separate when things are illegal or morally wrong.

Examples:

Net-juu no Susume was a really heartwarming anime, and it was one of my favourite anime that depicted a wholesome adult romance that unveiled many truths about the real world despite spending its time online, but I would’ve never watched the anime if I would have known that the director was a Holocaust-denier. The rest of the staff? I don’t know, but I felt extremely uncomfortable even reblogging content after I found out.

I was planning on watching Rurouni Kenshin, and to this day, I believe I’m missing out, but I cannot support or condone or even watch a series that has a creator as wretched as Nobuhiro Watsuki. If you don’t know, he was charged in February of 2017 for child pornography. He was fined 200,000 yen. It was a slap on the wrist. Even though Rurouni Kenshin wasn’t a reflection on his person according to fans, I don’t feel keen on watching a show created by such a man.

In regards to actors, this goes for them too. If they are not supportive of the LGBTQ community, if they are racist, if they have committed acts that are cannot be condoned, I wouldn’t want to watch them or anything. Again, I have a hard time keeping track of who’s actually clean in this world, and in Japan, there is a lot of covering up. It was recently revealed that a lot of Madhouse anime that people love were probably made at the expense of animators who are human beings.

5. How many accounts do you have?

I have a few.

@nsisbest385 - my main where I stockpile my music @natsspammityspamspamham - This one where I am really open and reblog everything that I want to reblog (no exceptions; if I don’t even think about it, I just reblog) @natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk - used to be for inspirational stuff/writing, but now it’s mostly seiyuu stuff. I post things for their birthdays. I should’ve made a separate account. @semitranslatedseiyuublog - Where I semi-translate stuff but mostly transfer seiyuu content from Reddit. @awkwardbsd - This account has more followers than all my other accounts combined. It’s for awkward screenshots, memes, and other stuff surrounding the Bungou Stray Dogs universe. @dragontypepropaganda - I didn’t tell anyone this existed until now. I’m generally not on it. I just queue and leave.

6. How many pairs of shoes do you have?

Let’s see... uh... 1 for outside, 1 for exercise, 1 for my house slippers, 3 for orchestra that I never use, 2 dress shoes that I really never use, and I’m supposed to get 1 pair of slippers for outside.

7. Opinion on…

I don’t think I can answer this.

8. How many accounts do you follow?

9. Favourite brand of clothing?

I’ve been wearing more Uniqlo lately, but my wardrobe has a lot of hand-me-downs despite being so sensitive tactile-wise.

10. Name a dog

Atticus (boy) and Haruko (girl)

11. What unusual talent do you have?

I can whistle. I haven’t tried in a while, but I can put my feet behind my head.

12. What’s the most interesting school's gossip you’ve ever heard?

Keep in mind, I was only in school until grade 9-10. One of my PE teachers Ms. Snow had really scary eyes. When she got mad at me (which is pretty frequent considering she didn’t know who I was and kept calling me by other Asian people’s names because “we look the same”), I swear her eyeballs would extend from her sockets a little. They looked like they were about to pop out of her head. My sister said that urban legend states that she once fell down the stairs and both eyeballs popped out. She put them back in and carried on.

13. Ever prank called a store?

I think I almost tried once until I got a scolding or something (wasn’t even my parents).

14. What’s your coffee order?

Don’t have one. I don’t like coffee. I’m generally open to tea.

15. What’s a question do you constantly get asked?

“How are you?” I usually choose the easy route to answer to this question. I just say “good thanks”. You want the truth? I lie to myself.

“Why did you leave school?” It was a living hell. I didn’t feel safe. I was breaking down years ago. School nearly broke me, and if I stayed there any longer, I would’ve died (not an exaggeration).

“What are your hobbies?” I usually just say music and watching cartoons* (anime). They usually ask what else, and I just stare blankly.

16. If you had to get a tattoo right now, what would you get and where?

I wouldn’t want one.

17. Google the top song from the year you were born

Apparently, it’s How You Remind Me by *gasp* Nickelback.

18. Rant about your favourite musician

I seriously wish I was able to go to Sara Bareille’s version of the Waitress. I wish I was able to see it on Broadway. She’s such a talented individual, and she deserves all the attention she gets.

19. What’s your favorite teacher you’ve ever had?

All of my best teachers have been outside of school. I would say that my favourite teachers are my current bass teacher and my taekwondo master who has taught me for over a decade.

20. Describe your blog in 3-5 words

Fando(o)m, ranting, anime, seiyuu, random

21. What’s a conspiracy you believe in?

I believe aliens exist. I don’t think it would be logical to assume that Earth is the only planet that has “intelligent” (I say that very loosely) lifeforms.

“But they don’t have water or oxygen” Bold of you to assume that said aliens would need such a thing. I would think they can adapt like humans and all that. I just think it’s dumb to close ourselves off to believing that there are people other than ourselves that exist in this wide and expanding universe.

22. If you could see any concert tonight what would you choose?

I would really want to see the Waitress. If that doesn’t count, I would want to see some seiyuu singing live. It would depend. Hosoya doesn’t sing much anymore, Maaya Sakamoto has a waitlist longer than my lifespan (I have no luck with lotteries), and Saori Hayami has the same issue. I would want to see Sphere live too, but I don’t know all of their songs.

23. If you could break one of your bad habits which would you choose?

My depression... or my anxiety. Actually, those aren’t habits. I guess the closest I will get is doubting myself and beating myself up.

24. Can you dance? Sing?

A strong no to both.

25. What’s something you can’t stop buying?

Uh… I don’t go out and buy anything. I don’t make money so I don’t buy. However, if I did, I would really want to treat myself to good food and anime stuff.

26. Crowds or small groups?

Small groups... obviously.

27. How long before a trip do you pack?

Depends on where. When it comes to the Philippines, weeks for the Balikbayan boxes and less than a week for my actual clothes (usually pack a ton of clothes because I sweat a lot and “we’re not doing laundry!”)

28. What celebrity would you rate a PERFECT 10?

I feel like I don’t have a good grasp of the culture so I actually can’t say anything about my favourite seiyuu. We don’t even know if that’s their true personality. However, I feel like my perfect 10s are Emma Watson and Robin Williams. They might not be my “crushes”, but they are perfect 10s. 

29. What quote or inspirational setting do you think is bs?

“When you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up!” Nah man, you just don’t know what rock bottom looks like. It’s gonna get worse.

“Don’t fix what isn’t broken!” All because you can’t see what’s wrong with it doesn’t mean it isn’t broken. Yeah, I’m talking about the school system.

“Pain makes you who you are. It makes you stronger.” I can say that my trauma gives me anxiety.

30. If you had to dye your hair an unnatural colour right now, what would you choose?

I go by “Purple Dino” online so I’d have to say dark purple.

31. You can change one thing about your life right now. what are you changing?

I wish I could breathe properly. My allergies make it so hard for me to exist. It affects my breathing, sleep, dental care, and so much more. I think that’s the one physical thing I would change.

32. How old do you get mistaken for?

Apparently, I look like I’m in middle school even though I’m almost a legal adult.

33. What do you think about a lot?

Anime, seiyuu, my own shortcomings. 

34. Do you like your Hogwarts house or do you wish you were a different one?

I like Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. I haven’t done my test in a while. 

35. What does home mean to you?

Home is where you live. It’s where the heart lives. It’s where you feel safe, and it’s where you can take off the mask that you live in during the day. It’s the place where I don’t have to lie through my teeth. I can cry, I can laugh, I can scream, and I can finally be me.

36. What do you think you’d be arrested for?

I feel like I would be caught for pirating anime even if I don’t profit off it. 

37. Have you ever been called down to the principal's office?

I’ve been there, but I haven’t been called down there because I really wasn’t important in school.

38. Post a picture of the outfit you would choose if you could have any outfit you wanted

Probably a dark coloured hoodie with sweatpants. That’s my default during the winter anyway.

39. Describe your aesthetic

Tired dead eyes with existential dread and depression. That’s how I see myself.

40. Answer with one of your ‘school memes’ (inside jokes you have with your class/grade) with no explanation 

I’m not sure how to say this, but I was really not in the “right crowd” at school, and I was never let into any of these things. I can’t answer this, and it pains me just to read this because I’m missing out on so much of my youth and “high school life”. 

I’m tagging @caratheillustrious who reblogged the questions!

[artemisegeria]

Birds of a Feather

Title: Birds of a Feather

Rating: G

Word count: 930

Summary: Nature inspires Billy to ask Vision a question that touches on Vision’s own unique existence.

A/N: Originally written for Vision Week Day 5 for the prompt evolve, but now way late. Takes place in a world where the MCU eventually adds Billy and Tommy and they do not dissolve into nothingness, where Vision and Wanda and their children get to be a happy family. Also, I hardly ever try to write children and have very little experience with children to draw on, so hopefully they don’t sound too egregiously wrong.

“Daddy, why do all the birds look different?” William was sitting next to Vision on the couch, staring out the window. Vision looked up from his book and smiled at his son.

“They look different because evolution has led to the creation of different species.”

“What’s a species? What’s evultion?” Vision recognized this mood. He suspected that he should be prepared for a long string of questions. He set his book aside, preparing to attempt an explanation in as simple, but complete, terms as possible.

“I will answer the second question first. Evolution,” he said, carefully enunciating the syllables, “is the scientific theory of descent with modification that says all life on earth began with a single common ancestor.” Vision noted William’s blank stare and tried again. “The theory is that there was a first lifeform. As the lifeforms multiplied, certain changes began to develop within them. Over time, organisms changed enough to be considered separate species, at least by human reckoning. There are several different commonly accepted definitions of a species within the scientific literature. The most common definition used by laypeople is a group of individuals that can create fertile offspring.” He felt that he did not simplify his explanation enough.

William looked confused, but Vision always liked to let his sons formulate their own questions in their own time. “Where did the first thing come from?”

“No one is quite certain yet.” This was one of Helen’s favorite questions. “A popular hypothesis proposes the idea of abiogenesis. That suggests that on the early earth a soup of chemicals was somehow transformed into early versions of the building blocks of life, perhaps by a bolt of lightning.”

Vision feared that he may have lost William even further with the last bit when his question returned to an earlier part of the explanation. “What does fertile mean?”

“It means that the offspring of the first individuals can produce their own offspring. By contrast, some animals can produce offspring, but those offspring will not be fertile. For example, mules are the product of a male donkey and a female horse. Most mules cannot bear offspring of their own.” Vision picked up a nearby a tablet to show his son the example. “They are similar enough that they can have a child together, but only to the first generation.”

He could see William processing all the information he received, and his heart soared to see him pondering what to ask next. He adored the look on William’s face whenever he learned something new about the world. “Why can only some animals make other animals together?”

“That is somewhat complicated. Because some animals are too separate to combine properly. If populations live apart or have a very large range and certain animals do not interbreed for extended periods of time, selection pressures can lead to significant changes in their genes. When that occurs, the animals can no longer mix as they did before. As the process continues, more species form and the diversity of life grows.”

Vision sensed that his son had more questions, but William had apparently had enough. “Thanks, Daddy.” He jumped up to join his brother outside in whatever game he was playing.

Later that night, as Vision was walking down the hall to read the boys their nightly bedtime story, he caught William asking, “Mama, is Daddy a donkey, and are you a horse?” Though he knew it was not right to eavesdrop, Vision found himself frozen in place. He could just imagine Wanda’s bewildered expression.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?” She was making an audible effort to keep the laughter from her tone.

“No one looks like Daddy. He’s different.”

Wanda paused before answering, her tone softening, “That’s because Daddy’s special. If he weren’t a little different, he couldn’t build such a great tree house or tell you such good stories. But Daddy’s a lot more similar than different. And he loves you very much; that’s the most important thing.”

Smiling to himself, Vision finally pulled himself away and went to collect Thomas, who was still trying to escape bedtime. When he returned, William was comfortably nestled under the covers, and Wanda was humming softly to him with a hand in his hair. Vision encouraged Thomas to do likewise as he settled on a chair between the two beds. Wanda glanced at him before moving away to smile down at both boys, and her smile told him that she knew he had been listening. It was difficult to hide anything from her. He saved the thought for after their bedtime ritual was complete.

He turned to a new story in a book of Aesop’s fables that had become the boys’ particular favorite. He recited the tale of “The Tortoise and the Hare.” This story was always the cause of much crowing by William and sulking by Thomas, but they both requested it, Thomas always arguing that if the hare had only been faster he still could have won. Once Vision finished, prepared to mediate the latest dispute, he was about to close the book when he was moved by the boys’ pleas of just one more. Wanda mouthed, “You big softie.” Vision studiously ignored her, looking down at the book.

When he finished the next story, he stood to forestall any attempts at drawing the night out further. “Good night, William, Thomas. Have sweet dreams.” They murmured their own good nights, and Wanda added to the chorus. Vision turned off the lights. Wanda pulled him toward their bedroom, asking what in the world William was talking about.  

[urbanteeth]

Novel Prep

Thanks to @dimawriting and @maple-writes for tagging me!!

WIP: The Inbetween

Tagging: @drist-n-dither @theforgottencoolkid @minny-santa and uhh anyone else who sees this!

This gets pretty long so I’ll put it under a read more.

First Look

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

The crew members abroad the Perseus Space Station were tasked with investigating the first signs of early human-like civilization on an exoplanet. The truth behind the ruins scattered across the dying planet, however, is stranger, darker, older than anything they ever expected. 

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

As of right now, The Inbetween is a single book divided into 5ish parts. The POV will be third person. Still not sure if I want to switch between characters for each chapter or if I want each of the 5 parts told through the perspective of one of the main characters. I am playing with the idea of a sequel. I also want to write about the before and after the events of The Inbetween. There are also at least two AUs running around my mind so I might explore those too.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Dark skies full of stars, floating weightlessly, lonely planets, geometry, singularity, the smallness of existence, amorphous shadows on the wall, empty corridors, static, flickering lights, hearts racing from adrenaline, the taste of blood in your mouth as you run for your life

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

The Inbetween originated from me wanting to take some of my unused characters beyond them just being characters. The earliest drafts of The Inbetween were short stories inspired by Wolfgun’s music. The story eventually grew into what it is now thanks to a few episodes of Star Trek and Welcome to Nightvale. Lots of the scenes I currently have written were born from daydreaming to Carbon Based Lifeforms’s music. I would say CBL has had the biggest influence on the story.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

This one is for the last part of the book.

Main Character

6. Who is your protagonist?

There are five protagonists:

Emmett Reyes: Mexican-American, 19 (at the beginning of the story), aro/ace, trans, biologist

Johann Herschel: British-German, 20 (at the beginning of the story), bi, nonbinary, pilot and navigator

Neveen Jalal: Egyptian-American, 19 (at the beginning of the story), lesbian, chemist, starship medic, lowkey inspired by my high school chem teacher

Oliver West: Korean-Canadian, 20 (at the beginning of the story), gay, mechanic

Alternis: A.I., years active unknown, primarily used for security and scouting 

7. Who is their closest ally?

Their closest allies would be each other. Here’s some specific friendships:

Overall: they grow as close as family. Nothing like a near death experience out in the middle of the cold, indifferent void to make five kids bond for life. 

Neveen + Emmett: Nerd friends! With him being a biologist and her becoming a medic, they share a love for the subject. They bond over their love for their cultures. They teach each other words in their native tongues. 

 Johann + Emmett + Oliver: Partners in crime!! These three are as ride or die as you can get with a group of friends. While Johann isn’t always keen on the chaos, he still goes along with it because “who’s going to serve as your guys’s impulse control???” Secretly, he loves it. 

Oliver + Johann: Oliver becomes pretty supportive of all his friends and his relationship with Johann is no different. Oliver makes for a pretty good listener and he doesn’t mind hearing about his friend’s worries. He’ll offer some pretty good advice as well. 

Neveen + Oliver: Oliver is, without a doubt, the most social of all the crew members. Unlike him, however, Neveen is the exact opposite. He will respect her space if she needs it, but he is also there to make sure she doesn’t lose herself in it. In a lot of ways, he reminds Neveen of her own sister.

Emmett + Alternis: These two form a pretty close bond. Both share feelings of becoming static in life. Both struggle with insecurity and general feelings of anxiety that they are not good enough. However, they both also share a deep curiosity for the world around them. She likes to ask him questions knowing he won’t brush them off and he feels comfortable enough to ramble on about whatever subject is most interesting to him knowing that she is willing to listen with interest herself.

Bonus: 

Commander Mitch Connor + his crew: At first, Mitch was pretty hesitant to be this mission’s commander. They’re all kids, two of them fresh out of high school almost. However, he quickly learns that this crew is more than capable. They’re adaptable and fiercely resilient. They know how to use their strengths to their advantage and do so creatively. Most importantly, though, they genuinely care about each other.

8. Who is their enemy?

The story’s main antagonist is a weird hivemind entity that is partially made from various alien life forms and part alien tech. It’s main purpose is to find creatures its programming deems perfect specimens and then merge with (eat???) them to take on their abilities. The creature was once a technologically advanced alien race from a different dimension who sought to create the “perfect being”. No one’s really sure what “perfect being” meant for them, but eventually they, and most of their old universe, were all consumed by their creation. The entity then traveled across many other dimensions still seeking specimens to consume. While it has no definite shape or can even be considered a single animal, it’s still very much sapient. It’s hard to tell the age or if it was supposed to be machine or animal or even what species it originally was. However, the minds and voices of its creators live on with it. 

If you want an idea as to how it sounds, it’s a little like the Warpers from Subnautica but with multiple voices. Here’s a clip. 

9. What do they want more than anything?

They all have different dreams that they are pursuing, but they basically all want a life where they can be happy and have closure.

Emmett wants to be at peace with himself.

Johann wants to find a place that he can call home.

Oliver wants to protect the little he already has.

Neveen wants to achieve her dreams.

Alternis wants to belong.

10. Why can’t they have it?

Emmett is, first of all, much too doubting in himself. He worries so much that he can’t appreciate the things he has done right or the things he can do. He isn’t very kind to himself.

Johann misses the life he had on Earth. He and his family moved to a new planet because they don’t really like Earth and want to experience something new. But Johann never feels the same sense of “home” as he did on Earth. 

Oliver’s job is helping out his mother with their repair shop. So, when the shop is threatened with closure, he is desperate to find another job, but since he dropped out and never finished school, he’s having a really hard time coming up with something that will provide enough. This is why he ends up joining the space program. 

Neveen is in a somewhat similar boat. She has dreams of working as a doctor and all of her time and effort goes into studying for that. She, however, ends up getting rejected from three different schools in her area. She starts to feel like time is somehow running out for her.

Alternis has had a hard time. When she didn’t fit the expectations her creators set, she quickly discovered that her differences were seen as something flawed. She spent a lot of her early days either alone and she grew to be resentful towards people. But she wants to be accepted, so when they told her she was to be assigned to the Perseus Station, she had a lot of mixed feelings about the situation. 

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

Emmett: not smart/good enough, not allowed to make mistakes

Neveen: her success determines her worth, has to do things just right or Else

Oliver: dumb for dropping out of college, is not much other than the comic relief in his friend group

Johann: thinks he can run from facing what’s really bothering him

Alternis: needs to have a purpose to be worth something to others, needs to change to be accepted

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

Emmett: 5′2, curly brown hair, brown eyes, tan skin, a scar running from jaw to cheek, there’s a picture @auroradrawing made here!

Neveen: 5′5, long black hair, brown eyes, dark skin, red hijab

Johann: 6′2. dark blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin

Oliver West: 5′10, black hair, brown eyes, pale skin

Alternis:  i made a post on her appearance here

Plot Points

13. What is the internal conflict?

I would say that the overall internal conflict for all the characters is them struggling to understand that they are human which means that they are allowed to be wrong, make bad decisions, have emotions, and fail and none of this undermines their value in any way.

14. What is the external conflict?

The main external conflict is survival. They come into contact with a powerful interdimensional creature who is possibly hundred of thousands of years old or more and they have no idea how to stop it. After their station and only way home gets destroyed and they find themselves stranded with no way to let anyone know what’s happening, they realize that they have to find a way to at least repel the creature as it’s not just their survival at stake, but also that of their friends and family back on Earth.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

Death, probably. There’s a lot of things that would be left undone and unsaid and also literally no one else knows what is going on, so it could be a while before anyone back home realizes they’re never coming back. And that thought is one of the scariest things they can imagine.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

Basically the purpose of the entity and them figuring out what it is and what it wants changes everything they were led to believe at first about the planet and the origin of the ruins.

17. Do you know how it ends?

Yes. They all get a happy ending because I’m done with the sad shit. Also happy endings are good?? Like give me more happy endings dammit! They go through so much shit and get tested so much, like, they deserve their happy ending. 

Bits and Bobs

18. What is the theme? 

You are stronger than you think. Let yourself be flawed. Things might not be okay, but they will work out. You have a place in the universe, no matter how small. Tomorrow is a new day.

19. What is a reoccurring symbol?

Darkness, geometry/symmetry, fire (?),static, lots of the names of things have meaning behind them

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

There are two made up planets on which this story takes place. The first planet is Thesan-4. This planet is a desert-like planet. It’s in the Milky Way for sure, but I haven’t exactly figured out where yet. This planet is primarily used for military/astronaut training. At least 40% of the story will take place here. The other planet is an icy, Earth-like planet. I call this planet the Mirror World in my head but the actual name is pending. Here is where the remains of early civilization are found and this is where the Perseus crew is assign for their mission. At least 60% of the story will take place here.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

Hell yeah! Scenes and a general outline are all I have right now. A lot of the little details are still pretty vague though.

22. What excited you about this story?

Oh man, is “everything” an answer? I always wanted to write a story set in space, but my biggest issue was finding a good plot. Like, I had the characters and I had some vague idea of a setting, but no actual plot or conflict. This story spent a lot of time on the back burner and I honestly thought about abandoning it a few times. However, it has come to grow so much and I’m really happy I didn’t abandon it. I love the lore behind the antagonist and the character interactions and uhhh well damn. Everything!

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!

I think the very first thing I come up with is either the setting or the characters. Then, I make the characters that I feel would go best with the setting or vice versa. Other details like names and stuff come way later. 99% of my writing process is music. If I need a certain mood for a scene, I’ll put on some music that fits and I’ll listen to it a few times before actually writing. I find that this helps me come up with scenes so I don’t really struggle at that. Putting them down on paper is harder lol, especially when I can see at least three different ways to write the opening. But once I start writing, everything flows much easier.

[true-halloween-tales]

2018: #12-SUPERVILLAINS

The origin of the word “villain” reveals a secret about the significance of villains and supervillains. The origin of “villain” is the Latin word villanus; it curiously means farmhand. It refers to workers on villas or plantations. Over the years it transformed into the word “villein,” which meant serf or peasant. A villein came to mean that a person was lacking the politeness or chivalry of a knight – that the person was of a lower social status. Over some more years and human negativity further tainted the term. “Villein” in French is now “vilain” meaning bad or ugly, and the Italian “villano” means rude. What has happened is that one type of people has vilified another type of people as seen in the etymological corruption of the meaning. The significance of this is the difference between a criminal and a villain. A criminal is symbolically branded as a wrong-doer for breaking the law. A villain could be a mislabeled, misunderstood, oppressed person, a farmhand, and not necessarily a wrong-doer. Therefore some supervillains could be more like social rebels and less like evil criminals…

Early villains in fiction wore all black with a tall black hat and a twirly mustache. This was the archetypical image of villains such as Snidely Whiplash from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Early villains included the Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood, Professor Moriarty with Sherlock Holmes, and Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon (see 2012: #8-MING THE MERCILESS IN THE FOGGY RING OF HELL). In the 1960’s some villains started to emerge who had huge agendas, including: Blofeld from the James Bond series and the Master from Doctor Who (see 2017: #4-SPIES and 2018: #2-GUIDE TO DOCTOR WHO). Perhaps the furthest a villain can go is to have a successful take over of the entire universe. To be able to threaten the universe’s existence nearly as a god, and to make announcements to the occupants of the universe as your subjects is when you have won the supervillain game. This has been done by the tv villains of the Master and Mantrid from the Lexx series, and each ended up destroying at least a section of the entire universe. Now that’s very, very bad and leads us to supervillains…

Supervillains are primarily comic book villains. The term originates from the 1960’s. The most simple definition of “supervillain” is a villain who has a superhero as an opponent. Supervillains often have specific costumes or outfits, catchy names, special talents or gimmicks, henchmen, secret hideouts, secret identities, and master plans. Supervillains appear in comic books to be challenging opponents of superheroes. If the supervillain does not have special powers, then they may have special skills that distinguish them like being a genius. A predominant supervillain personality trait is that of having megalomaniacal delusions. Many supervillains have similarities to dictators, terrorists, and gangsters, with aspirations of world domination.

Supervillains are not always criminals. Sometimes they behave as social rebels. They may not be farmhands or serfs, but they sure are rebelling. Heath Legder’s Joker standing there laughing with millions of dollars burning behind him is the quintessential film scene depicting this. Jack Nicholson’s Joker art gallery scene brings the rebellion to art. Burgess Meredith’s the Penguin only ever had one goal: to have Batman arrested, sued, entrapped, and disgraced. Sometimes supervillains are even depicted as being sympathetic. Magneto from the X-Men comics and films is a supervillain basically because he was a Nazi victim in WW2. Sometimes the line between the hero and villain becomes blurred. Sometimes supervillains become the good guys temporarily at least. The Legends of Tomorrow tv series has included such supervillains as Captain Cold working on a team for a common aim with other supervillains. Since there are so many supervillains, to understand them we must classify them…

The first classification of supervillain is for highly talented people without any special powers. This includes Lex Luther, the Penguin, the Riddler, Harley Quinn, and Cat Woman. A sub-classification are highly talented people with special training: Deathstroke, Kingpin, and even the Joker supposed to have studied chemistry. Another sub-classification of supervillains are highly talented people with scientific gizmos: Dr. Octopus, Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, and the Scarecrow who often uses hallucinatory drugs on his victims as seen in the excellent Batman Arkham video game series. Many gizmo users are also mad scientists (see #2018: #5-MAD SCIENTISTS).

The second category of supervillains include normal people who gained special powers. This often means that the person came into contact with a rare manufactured substance that transformed them. This classification includes the Reverse Flash, Sandman, Bane, Poison Ivy, and the alien-looking Black Manta appearing in December 2018’s Aquaman film. There are a rare few supervillains in this classification that had their transformation sparked by a natural phenomenon. One such supervillain was Vandal Savage who was seen on season two of Legends of Tomorrow. Vandal Savage was a caveman who touched an alien meteor and developed super powers including eternal life. Another supervillain in this classification, Juggernaut from the Deadpool 2 film, received his size, strength, and power from touching the magical Crimson Gem of Cyttora.

A third classification of supervillain are those with natural, special powers that they were born with. This often signifies that the person is a mutant, usually placing them in the realm of the X-Men. This classification includes: Magneto, the blue Mystique, and the also blue Apocalypse, the first mutant from 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse film. A sub-classification of supervillains with powers are aliens, with many from the Superman comics. Superman’s foe, General Zod is an alien, originating from Superman’s home planet of Krypton. General Zod also created an evil Superman clone with grey skin named Bizarro. The strange Mister Mxyzptlk is another Superman supervillain, the “imp from the Fifth Dimension.” Another sub-classification of supervillains with powers are demigods and actual gods, such as Loki or Hela, the goddess of death from 2017’s excellent Thor: Ragnarok. Thanos falls into this sub-classification, from 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War film. Thanos is basically a Grecian Titan even though he is an alien, an Eternal. The top villain in the D.C. universe is Darkseid, whose father was Zonuz, the first god of evil and also the last Old God. Darkseid had the ultimate goal of controlling everyone in the universe. The one superhero who fights the most amount of deities, demigods, and cosmic entities is Doctor Strange. His first foe was Nightmare, evil ruler of the Dream Dimension. He fought the godlike Eternity and had a regular fantastic foe with the cool-looking Dormammu, ruler of the Dark Dimension who briefly appeared in 2016’s Doctor Strange film.

A fourth classification of supervillains exists, those with dark powers. These are supervillains who border on being monsters or really are monsters. One such supervillain is Flash’s foe, Gorilla Grodd. Gorilla Grodd was a gorilla in Africa that came into contact with either a meteor or a spacecraft. In either case, he became ultra-powerful, brilliant, telepathic, and he could control minds. Venom is a particularly cool villain because he is a monster, created by an alien symbiont lifeform. What is surprising about Venom in the comics is that he sort of becomes a hero for homeless people. Eventually a harness is put on him and he works for the military on missions as Agent Venom. Hopefully a sequel to the 2018 Venom film will be made that is a proper cult film. In 1944 D.C. Comics had a wealthy merchant named Cyrus Gold get killed in Slaughter Swamp near Gotham City in All American Comics. He then rose as a zombie fifty years later, as supervillain Solomon Grundy, and went on a killing spree and became a Green Lantern villain. Morbius the Living Vampire is about a man who transforms himself into a vampire via a chemistry experiment, and he dons a cool outfit and transforms from being a Spider-Man supervillain to becoming an antihero superhero with his own comic and a film on the way in the future.

A fifth classification of supervillain are atypical supervillains who may fit in no other categories. These usually are supervillains that did not originate from comic books. M. Night Shyamalan’s film from 2000, Unbreakable, features Samuel Jackson as Elijah Price, a supervillain who is returning in January 2019’s Glass along with James McAvoy’s character from 2016’s Split. A sixth classification of supervillains are those appearing in comedy. The Terror appeared in both series of The Tick, and the new Amazon The Tick live action series is pretty good. The animated Adult Swim tv series from 2006-2008, Frisky Dingo, created by Archer’s Adam Reed, featured the supervillain main character of Killface who appeared as a ridiculous but powerful lich obsessed with destroying the Earth with his mad scientist weapon, the Annihilatrix. There are not many supervillains appearing in comedy.

But there are quite a few teams of supervillains. The Suicide Squad is a team of supervillains forced to work for the good guys. The 2016 film was awful, and a sequel is in the way. The Suicide Squad team members change a lot throughout the comics but usually include Deadshot and Captain Boomerang. The Sinister Six are a group of Spider-Man supervillains who are rumored to appear in a future film. The team includes Dr. Octopus, the Vulture, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, and the Sandman. 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home will nearly include the Sinister Six with: Michael Keating reprising his Vulture, Michael Mando as the Scorpion, and Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio. Yet another supervillain team is the Legion of Doom which appeared in 1978’s Challenge of the Superfriends cartoon tv series. The Legion of Doom consisted of: Bizarro, Cheetah, Captain Cold, Black Manta, Gorilla Grodd, Sinestro, Solomon Grundy, and more!

If we toss all of the supervillains into the Cauldron of Creepiness, which three bubble up to the top and rise above the rest? The Joker is pretty much the number one villain. And Venom is pretty much the most monstrous villain. So those two are easy. I would have to say that Superman’s strange supervillain, Mister Mxyzptlk, would be the third to rise to the top. Since he is from the Fifth Dimension he can virtually do magic and twist reality. The Joker, Venom, and Mister Mxyzptlk are probably the top three coolest supervilllains. But if the top three strongest supervillains were selected, it would be a completely different group. Thanos with his Infinity Gauntlet is certainly in the top three; he sure had plans on making major alterations to the universe! Dormammu is definitely one of the top three most powerful supervillains with godlike powers. His head is made out of evil fire. Dormammu would not be affected by the Infinity Gauntlet, and he could take Thanos down with ease. But Dormammu could be taken down by Galactus, an alien from the planet Taa from before the Big Bang. Galactus survived the destruction of his universe by bonding with the Sentience of the Universe. He gestated for billions of years in our universe until he woke up, and he woke up hungry so he started devouring whole planets. An alien eventually made a deal for Galactus not to gobble up his planet, and the alien was transformed into the herald of Galactus, the Silver Surfer. So Galactus is pretty much the most powerful supervillain.

Superhero films pretty much started with 1966’s Batman: the Movie with Adam West. The quality of the film is usually directly related to the quality of the depiction of the supervillain. 1989’s Batman with Tim Burton’s vision and Jack Nicholson as the Joker is a classic. The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger as the Joker is also an incredible film. The Dark Knight Rises with Bane is also a decent film with an amazing scope. As for tv, Adam West’s Batman series is one of the best for outrageous supervillains. Cesar Romero’s Joker is excellent, Burgess Meredith served up the best Penguin to date, Frank Gorshwin provided an effervescent and the best Riddler, and Vincent Price laid a wonderful Egghead. All three seasons of the series are finally available on disc. Ralph Bakshi’s Spider-Man cartoon series from 1967-1969 was a great series also for its supervillains. It delivered the best Green Goblin even from any film, included traditional supervillains from Electro to the Rhino, had neat-looking monsters, and it featured great incidental music. The Legends of Tomorrow tv series features interesting supervillains, including some who are members of the team of the superheroes. Captain Cold and Heatwave are Flash supervillains who made the transition into being acting superheroes. An entertaining recent depiction of a supervillain was by Tom Cavanaugh as the Reverse Flash on the first season of The Flash tv series. These days Netflix is starting to cancel the Marvel superhero series – the ones with the least interesting supervillains.

Back to the derivation of the word, villain. Could supervillains be related in any way to farmhands, serfs, the poor, or social rebels? Are the superheroes now the super-rich land owners, the knights? Are superheroes ever depicted as being millionaires? Like Bruce Wayne…Tony Stark…Oliver Queen… Hmmm, maybe sometimes the supervillains may not be as bad as they seem, and the superheroes may sometimes be really more villain and less hero…