#also there are just so many alien species correlations | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cmaidaartworkblog · 2 years ago

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This third series of maps for @jayrockin‘s “Runaway to the Stars” project represent the planet their Bugferret alien species calls home, a cold, seasonless world with much of its water held up in immense ice sheets and extensive cave systems. As such, a great deal of this world’s oceanic crust is exposed to the air, concentrating what little seawater remains at the subduction trenches and other extremely old, low-lying portions of crust.

First, the planet’s plate tectonics, with the plate boundaries defined in white (for divergent boundaries), black (for convergent boundaries), and purple (for transform boundaries) and the directions of drift marked by red arrows, in Equirectangular Projection and Poles-Centered perspective.

The maps below show the planet’s elevation data, first in grayscale with no color gradient applied, in Equirectangular Projection and Poles-Centered perspective;

then with the color gradient applied, also in Equirectangular Projection and Poles-Centered perspective;

and then with the color gradient once again removed but now showing the planet’s liquid water, in Equirectangular Projection only.

The second phase of this commission focused on the planet’s ice sheets and the liquid water hidden beneath it them. First, there’s the raw elevation data for the ice in relation to “sea level” -with no contiguous ocean to define this, it is instead defined as 200 meters above the average continental shelf’s edges, correlating to Earth’s own sea level-, along with a key, in Equirectangular Projection;

then, the same data with a color gradient applied;

and again, this time also showing how many meters of ice sit atop the subglacial bodies of water;

and lastly, the thickness of the ice over land as well as water, first in grayscale;

and then with a color gradient applied.

The thickest point in Earth’s own ice sheets is 4,776 meters deep, just a fraction of the Bugferret planet’s maximum of 18,000 meters between the top of the ice sheet and the trench-sea hidden beneath it.

The map below shows the volcanic activity on this planet. Volcanoes marked in pink have erupted in the past millennium, and those marked in white have erupted in the past 300 years Looking back to the ice-cover map that also shows the subglacial water, you can see how some of those lakes are caused by recent eruptions, as are the few ice-free mountain peaks in the higher latitudes.

Lastly, the third phase of this project mapped out the cave systems, expanded tremendously both by modern Bugferret activity and previous eons of dissolution and upheaval by organisms more comparable to fungi, plants, and burrowing detritivores. The first map below shows all of the major caverns combined into one layer, color-coded by vertical position in relation to the so-called sea level, instead of depth beneath the local surface.

I mapped out these caves in four overlapping layers, here color-coded to represent the tallness of a given chamber. The first of these layers contains those caves closest to the surface;

a bit further beneath the surface;

further down still;

and the lowest layer of all, with its shallowest caves sitting no less than 8,500 meters beneath their local surface.

All the caves shown here can be accessed from the surface, either directly or in connection to other caves, even if the connecting passages are too narrow to be visible at this resolution. Some of these connections can be fully seen or at least suggested in the cross section below, showing the vertical positions of the caverns beneath a mountain range, or a small slice thereof.

This cross section is shown again with a map that marks its location, and that also includes the ice sheets, subglacial and exposed liquid water, and combined caves.

These maps were all created in Photopea. My reddit post dedicated to this project, wherein you can see the highest resolution versions of these images, is linked here.

2022

#runaway to the stars #mapmaking #imaginary maps #worldbuilding #commission #digital painting #photopea #Bugferrets #fictional planets #elevation map #color gradients #ice maps #liquid water map #cave systems #major project #alien planet #Christopher Maida Artwork

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leggerefiore · 2 years ago

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Okay I seriously love that alien invader and magical girl post you did, can you do more? Like what is a future fight going to be like? What will happen when the alien bros find out they’ve been mating with their enemy? Is the world doomed?

more unhinged rambling about this au, yay haha. Its a mess and also children because this is an au from friend and i, and we have a pseudo story.

cw: poly, aliens, fem reader, pregnancy, alien invasion, bad end kind Of

● Their plans for invasion were pushed back with the realisation of your pregnancy. Instantly, their demeanours seemingly shifted from planning and aggression, to relaxed and gentle. The topic failed to even be brought up, as they were both readying themselves for your new hybrid child. Ingo fell into helping decorate for a nursery, which ended up being complicated with the announcement of twins. Emmet became protective quickly, not wanting to leave you alone. It was then you learnt about the human's attempt to fight back before you intervened. Many times they had tried to take them away, wanting to research and experiment on them. This was unwanted, naturally, and Emmet was paranoid for the safety of your children. You, as well, for that matter.

○ The sudden disappearance of their rival did not go unnoticed. Ingo commented on it, pondering if she had perhaps saw no reason to continue a fruitless battle. They were clearly evenly matched and stuck at a stalemate. Emmet nodded. That seemed corrected. You sipped your tea in the background and feigned ignorance. Hope remained that your children would put an end to their fathers' plans. Both still were too entranced with the idea of parenthood that the idea of your sudden appearance and their rival's disappearance didn't correlate in their minds.

● The twins were small, squirmy beings that appeared more human than alien. If it weren't for the ebony blood that coursed in their veins. You adored them greatly, while the brothers celebrated their birth with much excitement. Their first children were always special ones. “In my near millennia of life, I never thought the day would come so soon,” Ingo spoke while holding the older twin, Emma, “Our species repopulation will assuredly go well…” Your head turned to him while Emmet sat beside you on the bed to play with Inka. They were that old? What did they mean, repopulation? You kept these questions to yourself for now.

○ Time passed, and both seemed much too focused on parenting to return, still. You had bought time. Hopefully, the girls could transform by the time they were teenagers. Another child came to help borrow more time, but your son, Erin, was more alien than human. Pointed ears and black sclera, but with your red blood within him. Ingo became endeared with him, and doted over him constantly while the girls grew. Finally, the time came, and you heard of two new heroines sudden appearance to counteract the strange things happening. Furthered by Ingo's and Emmet's complaints.

● It was going so well, until the aliens came home early one day. The kids were still at school, so it was just you three. You were sitting on the couch, doing some light reading before getting dinner ready. Emmet gave you a strange look with a malicious smile. Ingo cleared his throat. “We had been distressed by the sudden appearance of these new rivals,” he explained, while taking a seat in a nearby chair, “I wondered if they had come from our previous one… I presume that is the case, of course.” Emmet sat down beside you, pulling you close to him. “Our rivals are Inka and Emma,” the younger twin cooed, “I thought you came to our side. Were we wrong?”

○ “Aren't you teaching Erin how to help you invade?” you retaliated. It was an unfortunate truth from their side, you had notices. They believed Emma and Inka's powers to more akin to a normal human's rather than themselves and chose not to involve them, but they had yours in the end. “… We are,” Ingo gave you that, “How come you never told us?” You wondered if their species usually mated for life with people trying to force them off their planet. “I still somewhat fear death,” you sighed. The fear needed to be admitted. Emmet hummed before hugging you close. “Nope! Loved you verrry much. Still do,” the alien suddenly brought out his tentacles, “I want to recreate some of our battles. For fun.” Ingo gagged, but agreed with the first half of his sentiment.

● They seemingly didn't mind the fact you were their previous rival, more so annoyed by the fact that the girls were opposing them. You remained mostly uninvolved, knowing they wouldn't harm them in any way. Everything continued in a certain lull. Their progress was constantly thwarted by the girls. You managed to convince them to leave the Erin out of everything, but the boy now seemed invested in the planet's takeover. It was only after a situation that involved Inka and researchers that left you finally giving into the invasion. Learning that your daughter had been nearly drained of her blood was something that broke you. Days of sobbing followed while you held her close, Emmet had finally got bored with messing around. Humanity had hurt someone precious to him.

○ You relented, and most of humanity was ended within a month's time. If they weren't playing games, the earth would have been gone sooner. Inka was mad despite the trauma that had happened to her, preferring to view herself as humanity's protected. Emma couldn't excuse it, however. When the planet fell, the rest of their species joined them, happy to finally have a habitable home. You were praised endlessly for being the mate of their leaders and producing more members of their race. It wasn't long until you agreed to their medical care that extended your life span to nearly as long as theirs.

● The queen duty demanded a lot upon you, with a lot of the population issues being fixed by your couplings with the twins. Your body has shifted, too, going from a menstrual cycle to an estrus cycle. Heats were a strange experience, but were always settled by one of the twins. In the end, the invasion ended up more as a mixture of humans and their species rather than a total invasion. It wasn't too bad, you'd admit. You were happy with your family and duties as queen.

#ingo.ima #emmet.ima #alien au

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ranahan · 2 years ago

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The whole ramble about #the cin vhetin problem makes me want to expand to other colours, but there we’d quickly run into planet-specific or species or colour vision specific associations.

On Earth, the most common metal ion used for oxygen transport is iron, which makes red the most common colour for blood (but not the only one: there’s also green, blue, and colourless blood). Which then follows that red = colour of blood, bloodletting, often life, perhaps war or action; in different cultures the colour of weddings, war, or bravery.

Blue = the colour of skies and seas/water, but that’s because of Earth’s oxygen rich atmosphere and abundant water. Planets with different atmospheres or less abundant free water (desert or ice planets) might disagree.

Green = colour of leaves and living things because of chlorophyll, but nothing says that chlorophyll is the molecule for photosynthesis on other planets (unless green plants were popular in ancient terraforming efforts).

Yellow = the colour of sun (our star is actually white, but can appear yellow/orange/red because of Rayleigh scattering), fire (because the carbon-based biomaterials we have historically burned for heat and light burn mostly yellow), or gold (which many historical cultures used as a medium of exchange).

There might be some universality to some of these, just based on chemistry. Oxidation is a powerful way of releasing chemical energy, and so far as we know, the only way to produce enough biochemical energy for complex life (but that could be our sample size of 1) and iron is particularly well-suited for transporting oxygen. And if oxygen and water are necessary for complex life, then planets that support life might have some similarities in their atmospheres and available water. Carbon really is great for building complex structural molecules and it does burn with a yellow flame, so fire = yellow/orange/red could be a fairly common association if not the only one.

But we have a sample size of 1, so I wouldn’t say it’s strong evidence. Just considering the variety of colour visions on Earth, there’s little guarantee that alien species galaxy over would agree what to associate a colour with. These might have weak correlations for humanoid species and humanoid-inhabitable planets, and they might or might not be relevant to Mandalorians. The colour meanings in mandalorian culture could very well be inherited from the Taung, who weren’t human and lived on Coruscant (the biosphere of which has long since been destroyed, so who knows what grew there originally).

As it happens, we do have linguistic evidence that the Taung, original Mandalorians, or whoever spoke the language when it developed, did indeed bleed red (ge’tal, red, lit. almost blood), and live on a planet with a blue sky (kebii’tra, daytime, lit. blue space) and green plants (vorpan’oy, vegetation, lit. green life).

The one I find interesting is green = duty in combination with mandalorians historically being agricultural people. So the colour of green would have the implication of feeding your clan, because agriculture is a collaborative effort that produces food for a community, not an individual.

Blue = reliability either has nothing whatsoever to do with water, or else Mandalore historically had very reliable rains (like monsoons). It probably doesn’t refer to river floods (like the Nile), because rivers tend not to be very blue (have you noticed that rivers are more often named black, dark, red, brown, etc. than blue?). I’d also posit that traditional mandalorian agriculture would be more likely to be rainfall based than irrigation based, which would promote independent villages over centralised government. Reliability of blue could also have something to do with the permanence of sky—or the impermanence of it: viewed from the space, the atmosphere is the thinnest blue line yet all life on the planet relies on it to breathe. Or maybe it’s just a nice colour; I’m not sure if there’s an obvious connection here.

It would be very tempting to draw the connection between red = blood = honouring a parent, but I hesitate to do that because 1) mandalorians were and are aliens who may or may not have red blood, and 2) mandalorian family is not based on blood, at least not obligatorily. Even if there is a connection with blood, I’d prefer to say it’s because of its connection with life. I.E. your parent didn’t necessarily give you your life in the flesh and blood sense, but they did nurture you and teach you what it means to be a mandalorian and how to live your life. So red in mandalorian culture is perhaps a more figurative life’s blood.

The etymology of shi’yayc, ‘yellow’, is unclear. Shi means ‘just/only’. ‘yayc could be from oyayc, ‘alive’, or it could be ya- + -yc. If it does come from ‘barely alive’, it could be a reference to dying vegetation or flickering yellow flames. But I’m going to go with this idea from @izzyovercoffee :

So, there’s no word for orange in mando’a at this time.

Consider: Yellow is sometimes indicated to also mean lust for life, depending on who you ask and what source material you’re comparing it to.

It’s entirely possible that mandalorians don’t have a way to differentiate between yellow and orange. Some cultures do display a limitation in language, seeing what we would consider a range (yellow to orange) as all one spectrum under the same banner.

So while Yellow may mean barely alive/barely dead, yellow may also mean nothing but life.

So Mando’a doesn’t have a word for orange, yet orange is used to symbolise shereshoy, an important mandalorian concept. They’ve dedicated a whole colour to it in the same vein as justice, duty, reliability, honouring a parent, vengeance and remembering the fallen have their own colours. But there’s no word for it? I call bullshit.

Isn’t it more likely that “yellow” is in fact a spectrum of colour from yellow to orange (like Yiddish blue/green) and the meaning is indeed related to both flames and the passion for life, i.e. ‘only life’ = shereshoy.

ETA: It occurred to me that an alternative solution to the problem of not having a word for the colour orange would be to use the word ‘shereshoy’ itself. Kind of like English uses ‘orange’ both for the fruit and the colour. ‘Shereshoy’ comes from shereshir (‘seize’) + oya- (the root for ‘live’ and ‘hunt, chase’). I’m not sure how you’d get from an abstract concept to the colour word, though, unless the connection is literally the colour used to paint armour.

#meta: mandalorians #mandalorians and color #mandalorians #Mando’a #mandoa #beskar’gam #shereshoy #ge’tal #kebiin #vorpan #shi’yayc #mandalorian colour theory #mando’a words

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writingwithcolor · 4 years ago

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Jewish, green-skinned characters, and antisemitism

Anonymous asked:

1) I was researching green skin and its relationship to anti-semitism (I can provide a link to a good twitter thread on that) but all the resources connected it to Star Trek. In most high fantasy, orcs are green but are otherwise not jewish-coded (though usually racist caricatures anyway).

2) I was wondering if the green-ness itself is anti-semitic or if it requires further coding to hit anti-semitism, especially since the green skin (and often black or green blood) is so ubiquitous in high fantasy. Thanks in advance for reading this, even if you don't answer. This blog has helped me a lot, and even on this query I used your google advice to find the Star Trek threads. I hope you and your loved ones are all staying safe in the pandemic.

I'll have to research the actual green skin thing a little more but honestly if you want a green skin fantasy character and they aren't doing the specifically antisemitic-coded things like being super greedy and sneaky and exploiting the more human-looking characters then who cares? Like if there's a hot green chick let there be a hot green chick. Or a grizzled old warrior who likes to tell loud stories while drinking. It doesn't affect anything either way if the green skin thing turns out to be legit or not. (So yeah, I think it would require further coding, personally.)

--Shira

I've never been particularly compelled by arguments that green skin is inherently antisemitic today, though there is evidence of recurring use of green, and yellow, in antisemitic propaganda. I know that green is enough for many people to feel that a depiction is antisemitic, but for me it requires more coding. If characters are green, and also lizard-like, scaled, have horns etc I would look at it more carefully, but green alone is fine for me. Especially if you avoid other antisemitic tropes.

-- Dierdra

Honestly, when I hear ‘green skin’ all I can think of is Idina Menzel belting out Defying Gravity while being an awesome Jewish woman. As long as it’s not a Lizard Thing and the characters don’t fulfil any other anti-Semitic stereotypes, I’m fine with it.

--Shoshi

And then Shira actually googled. Whew: an adventure.

TRIGGER WARNING

Warning for old, upsetting propaganda images. Placing these under the cut with further thoughts:

“Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew)”

Source: wikipedia

De Eeuwige Jood

source: artnet

Having seen this, some thoughts:

I don't think this carries over into modern antisemitism the way a lot of things do, personally. I don't think of us when I see the "hot green alien woman" on fandoms that have hot green alien women. But I can't deny what i've just seen.

I don't WANT green-ness to matter. But I think it's important to trace where the "no green" part of Tumblr is getting that from

Ultimately, my opinion here is that without another marker of Jewishness, green skin by itself isn't enough to evoke us. So the hot green alien women or the Jolly Green Giant or Bruce Banner when he's had an angry, don't fall into this category. It's only when it's in combination with other tropes that the need to start being careful emerges. And, personally, I'm not bothered by a greenish Spock because he is an alien, but other Jewish fans are allowed to mind (no marginalized group is a monolith), plus, a big part of why I don't mind in his case is that he's a very positive character, and the Vulcans in general are positively depicted (mind you I haven't seen the new show or the most recent reboot movie, so pardon me if I'm missing something.)

It does help if you reference Jewish humans in your setting, though, so that one doesn't automatically default to some alternate reality where the only "Jewish" rep is literally an alien. (Yes, I know he's half human but if you're trying to say he's Jewish through Amanda you need to actually come out and say that. And then she becomes additional Jewish rep.) Going back to orcs, I would personally never have seen the average orc as trope-ly Jewish. So I think you are okay with green orcs.

Ultimately, this comes down to an issue of adding non-human traits to characters that evoke IRL marginalized people. It's fine to have green characters as long as the greenness doesn't have a one-to-one ratio with Jewishness through some other track. Are there regular human colored Jewish characters or green characters who aren't subtextual references to Jewish tropes in addition to your specifically tropey creature? Then you might be fine, especially if the tropes aren't negative/offensive ones.

Like the goblin discussion, it comes down to: try not to evoke a correlation between a specific real-world marginalized ethnicity and specific distasteful traits of a humanoid but nonhuman fantasy species.

--Shira,

who would love to be the green fairy from Fantasia 2000

#Jewish #Green skin #antisemitism #green-skinned #skin color #Jewish coding #Aliens #asks #propaganda #propaganda tw #dehumanization #antisemitism tw #images

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britishsass · 3 years ago

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sci fi AU alien design ideas!

(psychonauts verse humanity in this has four-digit hands and feet usually, but polydactylity and psychic powers are correlated so a lot of psychics and people related to psychics have extra digits)

[Owl’s note: The anon included a LOT here, so I wanted to include a read-more. I’m extremely impressed by all the ideas here!]

monkey like aliens: look a LOT like a monkey, especially if you can’t see the head (their braincase is bigger), but still clearly not Earthly. their internal anatomy is pretty different, but they’re also from a planet that did four-limbs-and-a-tail as the endoskeletal base bodyplan, are warm blooded, and arboreal omnivores with four fingers and toes on each hand. unlike our world, this planet’s warm blooded creatures did not figure out a ‘placenta’ type thing. they have a pouch marsupial style and are a bit more on the herbivorous side compared to humans.

can’t walk bipedially for very long. but can comfortably hang from their tail for an extended period of time.

somewhat squirrel-otter type aliens: smaller than the average human and with six limbs. theyve got some sort of lungs and gills setup, a lower body temperature than humans, and are more…cool-blooded? their healthy comfy body temperature range is like ten degrees C wide and swings with external temperature, but they can still comfortably stay above their enviroment’s temperature. theyre great at swimming and climbing but their gait on flat land is relatively inefficient and they need to stay in moist areas or refresh their gills every few hours

took some convincing to believe that it was possible for a sapient species to see leaves as food (really like nuts though).lay externally fertilized eggs like frogs and have built in top-armpit pockets like otters for rocks (now used for many things…but also usually a shell-and-nut cracking tool. like a rock. )

tentacle deer type aliens: kind of like a long-tailed deer. except instead of antlers there’s tentacles covered in gecko suckers for fine manipulation. like horses these guys are herbivores who also like eggs. flow-through lungs with inlet holes on the neck and outlet holes on the sides; no external ears; and camoflagued against predators with colour vision. their plants are solar panel blue though so that just means theyve got dark blue shiny camo pattern fur. also their brain is in their chest have actual live birth and are isogametic like fungi…also like fungi they have like 2000 mating types. spooked crowds sometimes stampede and their kids are mobile within a few minutes of birth.

very weird bats: six limbed quadrupeds, four wings and one pair of grasping limbs. this is actually a group of species. basically their planet’s flying creatures lucked into a body-plan that had a whole pair of grasping limbs freed up for tool use, so whenever you got social groups with simple tool-use it could easily be pushed into full sapience. as a result sapience evolved like twelve times here. includes a couple of fully carnivorous species and some echolocating species, the most numerous also being relatively small and eating mostly tiny things it is convenient to call insects.

covered in a mixture of something like contour feathers away from the wing membranes and something like furry feathers on the wing membranes, with leathery featherless grasping limbs.these guys lay eggs. they also do not have tails. nostrils are on the face but their airway doesnt cross their foodway at all

Anon? Holy frick, this is brilliant stuff. You’re really good at all of this! I really have so little to say here, hah--

#anon writing #anon #submission #character design ideas #anon holy frick that's so cool #i'm honestly unable to say much here.#Queue #scifi au

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chaosintheavenue · 4 years ago

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Fallout Protagonist Survey- Initial Results!

There were 761 responses to the survey, which is more than twice reach than my previous surveys have had combined. Wow. Another huge thank you to all who took part!

Proper results drawing comparisons between different protagonists will be out soon, I just thought it would be interesting to compare these results to my previous general OC survey. You can find the results of that here. I feel like overall, the results of both were pretty similar, with some of the same patterns showing up in both datasets.

So, let’s get right into it...

Game:

Courier Six: 308 Sole Survivor: 254 Lone Wanderer: 114 Vault 76 Resident: 27 Chosen One: 23 Vault Dweller: 22 Prisoner (Van Buren): 8 Warrior (Tactics): 4 Initiate (BoS): 1

I was amazed at how many we got for the final three! I literally only added the option for BoS for the sake of completeness gdfdsg.

Gender:

Cis female: 349 Cis male: 193 Nonbinary: 87 Trans male: 58 Trans female: 32 Agender: 9 Genderfluid: 8 Transmasculine: 7 Female, unknown if cis or trans: 6 Genderqueer: 5 Questioning: 2 Aaand the list of those that got one answer: demigirl, intersex, bigender (demiwoman and demiman), neutrois

Species (at the end of their storyline):

Human: 637 Ghoul: 53 Synth: 38 Cyborg: 6 Another type of mutant: 4 Vampire (confirmed or possible): 3 Half-Ghoul: 3 Super Mutant: 3 'Altered' human: 2 The one list: Plant human, ZAX AI, human-nightstalker hybrid, alien

Race or ethnicity:

White: 460 Hispanic or Latine: 201 Asian: 107 Black: 86 Native American: 62 Others, including unspecified mixed race: 8

Born in the United States:

Yes: 670 No: 85

(I separated the next two questions this time around, purely because that one Georgia answer that I couldn't definitively place as country or US state irked me that much lol)

State of birth:

California: 115 Washington DC: 84 Massachusetts: 79 Nevada: 62 Arizona: 39 Oregon: 24 Maryland: 23 Texas: 20 West Virginia: 17 New York: 16 Washington: 14 Virginia: 11 Utah: 8 New Mexico: 8 Colorado: 7 Michigan: 7 Maine: 6 Ohio: 6 Illinois: 6 Idaho: 5 Montana: 4 North Dakota: 4 Tennessee: 3 Louisiana: 3 Connecticut: 3 Pennsylvania: 3 Oklahoma: 3 North Carolina: 3 Alabama: 2 Minnesota: 2 Mississippi: 2 New Hampshire: 2 Rhode Island: 2 New Jersey: 2 Georgia: 2 Missouri: 2 List of ones: Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Florida, Alaska, Wisconsin, Delaware, Nebraska, Wyoming

I had to leave out answers giving a general region rather than a specific state for the sake of the map, unfortunately. Also, even though Canada was annexed by the US in the Fallout universe, I've still counted it as a separate country.

Non-US country of birth:

Canada: 25 UK: 10 Russia: 8 Mexico: 8 France: 4 China: 2 Iceland: 2 Japan: 2 Ireland: 2 Australia: 2 Eastern Europe generally: 2 Philippines: 2 List of ones: Poland, Bolivia, Bangladesh, Southern Europe generally, Lebanon, Guatemala, Greece, Denmark, Bermuda, New Zealand, Ghana, Italy, Hong Kong, Turkey, Spain, Argentina, Norway, Portugal

Sexuality:

Bi or pan: 403 Gay or lesbian: 163 Straight: 102 Ace: 84 Demi: 7 Questioning: 4 Queer: 2 List of ones: aro, grey ace, omnisexual, achillean, sapphic, and... robosexual

Primary approach to solving problems:

Diplomacy: 337 Combat: 172 Stealth: 130 Technical skills: 122

Combat style:

Small guns: 326 Melee: 120 Energy weapons: 112 Big guns: 97 Avoid combat: 47 Unarmed: 35 Explosives: 23

Karma:

Good: 307 Very Good: 189 Neutral: 155 Changes during storyline: 66 Very Evil: 23 Evil: 20

And finally, companion preferences:

One at a time: 331 Multiple at a time: 312 Travel alone: 118

Next, it’s time to start formulating and testing hypotheses! A few ideas I already have are...

Companion travelling preferences are influenced by the mechanics of the companion system in the game a character comes from

Courier Six is more likely than other protagonists to identify as anything other than cis

Male Sole Survivors (presuming that they are taking the role of 'Nate', a veteran) are more likely to be combat-focused, and female SoSus ('Nora', a lawyer) are more likely to rely on diplomacy (general idea is whether or not the pre-made backstory of the SoSu has had a significant impact, or people are more likely to just do away with it in favour of their own story)

The Lone Wanderer is more likely than others to be a Ghoul (this one's purely because I've seen a lot of people turn their LWs into Ghouls)

(this one was suggested by my brother, and I'm not fully sure where he got the idea, but it would be really cool if a correlation did turn up) Characters who definitively spent time in a Vault (Vault Dweller, Lone Wanderer, Sole Survivor and Vault 76 Resident) are more likely to favour a diplomatic approach than others

If anyone has any more ideas they’d like to see, please let me know, and I’ll let you know if it’s feasible or not. The analysis I’m most familiar with is the ANOVA, which work best with hypotheses that can be phrased like ‘X group is more (or less) likely than Y group to have Z characteristic‘, but I’ll consider any ideas you may have!

#survey #fallout #long post

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lorenfangor · 3 years ago

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Laws and Customs among the Andalites (aka The Great Andalite Sex Meta)

(a brief ooc note - this meta is written from the perspective of an in-universe human researcher; consider it an early draft of their collected notes. also, I want to note that Andalite culture and customs are distinct from human culture and customs, and their concepts of gender and sex are purposefully different. nothing here is meant to be Good Representation, just what I personally think is most likely when it comes to our favorite scorpion deer. also I have to thank @nikosheba for her invaluable assistance and co-authorship of much of this work because without her this never would have gotten codified - she’s the other person authoring this hypothetical research paper. eventually this will be crossposted to AO3? but in the meantime, here.)

Introduction

This paper is a summary of information collected through a series of detailed interviews with Andalites on the subject of Andalite sexuality and gender, focusing on mating behavior in order to highlight how and why they are different from humans. This is not a comprehensive examination of all relevant factors, but as no scholarship on this subject yet exists, it can be considered a beginning to human xenological examinations of our greatest and first alien allies.

Andalite Gender

Andalites perceive gender as a male/female binary correlated directly with assigned biological sex. Unlike Earth, biological sex does not seem to exist on a spectrum on Andal and its moons, with chromosomal and genetic expression solely indicating ‘male’ or ‘female’.* This means that if there are intersex Andalites, this researcher is unaware of them. Transgender Andalites - meaning, specifically, Andalites whose original assigned biological sex does not reflect their self-perception or their desired social role - do exist, and there is no stigma or taboo against the existence of such individuals, but it is expected that they will become morph-capable and craft a suitable new body for themselves using DNA acquired from consenting individuals and a careful Frolis maneuver. They will then morph that new body, either male or female, and turn nothlit to maintain it. Genderfluid and otherwise nonbinary transgender identity is not extant culturally on Andal, though there is some variance that is socially permissible in gender presentation and expression. The standard, and the enforced social norm, falls along the existing male/female binary.

Female Andalites are smaller physically than males, with slightly shorter tails and smaller tailblades. Their arms are less robust than those of the males, though their fingers are slightly more dextrous on average. In addition to taking the primary caregiver role in childrearing, they act as scientists, artists, and philosophers. Male Andalites are larger and more adept with their tails but less adept with their hands, and assist in childrearing as well as acting as protectors and warriors at need. In peacetime, female Andalites are cultural influencers, taking an active role in shaping the ethics and focuses of the population at large, as their roles are revered in the ideology and spirituality shared by all of their species. In wartime, males rise to prominence, taking the lead in defense and strategy. There are exceptions to these norms discussed below.

Though Andalite females are more revered in peacetime than the males, and though their positions in Andalite society are respected and venerated, there is a pervasive patriarchal sexism present in Andalite day-to-day life, largely due to females’ smaller size and inability to face a male in a tailblade duel. Whether or not this is due to the recent war with the Yeerks is unknown, and further research is necessary to track the rise and fall of sexism in Andalite culture.

*Despite the biological essentialism inherent for humans in the use of ‘male’ and ‘female’ to mean ‘man’ and ‘woman’, there is no solid conception in Andalite society of sex and gender as separate from one another, and therefore this paper will default to language that accurately reflects how interviewed Andalites discuss their society and its members.

Lothren and Anglith

Gender is not the primary factor to be considered when studying Andalite sexuality. There is no taboo against homosexuality, nor an expectation of heterosexuality, and the genders of the individuals involved in any given mating are irrelevant when compared to whether or not said individuals are lothren or anglith. A lothren is usually a male, and is the active mounting partner in the act of mating, and an anglith is usually a female, and is the passive partner who is mounted. The dominant individual in any herd is its highest-ranking lothren, and this position is either awarded due to great cultural achievements or won after many tailblade duels with other lothren. Female lothren are statistically more likely to be homosexual or at least primarily interested in pursuing female anglith for mating, and male anglith are also statistically more likely to be primarily interested in male lothren. This researcher was unable to confirm the existence of mated pairs consisting of a female lothren and male anglith, but multiple subjects stated that such a thing is plausible and socially acceptable.

As penetration and being penetrated are central to Andalite conceptions of sex, all lothren are in possession of functional penises. Male lothren are born with them or acquire them by going nothlit, and female lothren are morph-capable and have specialized morphs for sexual intercourse created by use of a Frolis maneuver. The question of whether or not male anglith universally have specialized morphs for sexual intercourse remains unanswered, though interviewed subjects stated that they had heard of specific individuals taking this approach. Until further research can be done, the available data indicates that anal intercourse appears to be the traditional method of copulation in male same-sex Andalite pairs.

Male anglith and female anglith have many shared social roles, though it is acceptable for male anglith to act as warriors and soldiers. In peacetime, primarily, male anglith act as additional caregivers for juvenile and infant Andalites, and unlike female anglith they show a great interest in gardening.* Female lothren, for their part, are additional protectors for the herds they belong to, and often provide a balancing influence in herds where females greatly outnumber males. Just as male anglith can be warriors, female lothren can be artists and scientists. Some humans have speculated that the reason Andalite military policy specifically excluded female lothren was so that in the event of danger on Andal, there would be fighters present to act in defense of other civilians; the subjects interviewed for this study all unanimously agreed that this was the primary reason for such a choice.

*It is important to note that as a herd species, Andalites discourage individual expression of personality and interest, and indeed their genetic development seems to actively select against behaviors that do not fall into a spectrum of community-accepted traits and practices. Stereotypes are not harmful for Andalites as they are for humans, and generalizations are far more accurate. All interviewed subjects spoke at length about their desire to be part of a greater whole, and how their lives were actively shaped by their need to be accepted by a herd.

Season-Mates and Bonded Mates

Superficial human observation would indicate that like many species on Earth, Andalites mate for life, and form what could be described as nuclear families with two parents and children. This is not universally true, however; Andalites have two forms of relationships, and both can produce offspring. A season-mate is a mate taken out of necessity with the mutual understanding that the coupling does not specifically indicate a long-term partnership, though if there is a child conceived, the parents remain together for the first year of that child’s life before the male departs and the female joins with other season-mated females to collectively raise their young, with support from male anglith and the herd at large. A bonded mate is closer to a human spouse, and bonded mates swear oaths of fidelity to one another and forge a telepathic link that increases their capacity for thought-speech and shared emotions. Children born to bonded mates have two parents for the whole of their childhood as well as that same collective support of the herd. Neither method of conceiving and raising children is considered to be ‘better’ or more moral, and Andalite-authored psychological studies have indicated that as long as there is a herd present for a child to grow up within, there is no substantial difference in development, overall health, or emotional resilience.

Both season-mates and bonded mates can be either heterosexual or homosexual - as stated above, there is no taboo against same-sex pairs.

Andalite Mating Behavior

Note: All Andalites interviewed for this study currently live on Andal in large herds composed of several smaller family groups and unaffiliated individuals; it is this setting that will be discussed in this paper. Mating behaviors aboard Dome Ships are yet to be fully examined, though further study may reveal that they are much the same.

All Andalite anglith have a yearly estrus cycle that centers around early spring, regardless of whether or not they are female. This is believed to be so that all members of a herd go into season at the same time, thus preserving unity in the population as a whole. There are no reports of what humans would call truly asexual Andalites. While some individuals are completely uninterested in sex and romance, all are drawn to copulate by the yearly estrus cycle. Hypothetically, someone repulsed by or not desiring intercourse could spend this time in and out of morph, as morphing breaks the rut or the heat, or offworld, though none of the interviewed individuals were aware of any Andalites who partook in this behavior.

The first member of a herd to go into heat is the anglith mated to the dominant lothren (traditionally called a Prince in peacetime) and when they* are fully in heat, their lothren drops into rut. All Andalite herds have their own social dominance hierarchies, and each herd has its own place in a greater dominance hierarchy that places every herd on the planet into its own position. When the other lower-ranked anglith in the herd scent their Prince in rut, they too go into heat, which causes the lower-ranked lothren to then drop into rut as well.

What follows is a period of anywhere from one day to one week, in which unmated lothren and anglith size one another up and match together while bonded mates retreat to their own scoops and engage in sexual intercourse. Bonded mates will traditionally hang ceremonial ribbons on the trees bordering their scoops, thus indicating the presence of a lothren in rut and/or an anglith in heat. Unmated Andalites in search of either a bonded mate of their own or a season-mate will hang ribbons should they find a suitable partner.

Lothren will spar with one another using tailblades to win the right to mate with a particular individual anglith, and anglith will spar with one another in the same manner for the right to mate with a particular lothren. Even bonded mates are sometimes challenged in this way, if the lothren or anglith is particularly desirable or famous.

After all who can match up with one another have matched, and pairs are established, they will retreat to the lothren’s scoop, and ribbons will be hung. The anglith then runs across the scoop, pursued by the lothren, and will either be caught and mounted or will spar with the lothren until they yield, at which point they are mounted. If the anglith truly does not want to engage in intercourse, they will fight off the lothren attempting to mate with them, and depart. This is very rare in modern Andalite society, but was said by interviewed individuals to have once been common in past millennia. If the lothren does not satisfy their partnered anglith sexually, this is also cause for combat, as sexual pleasure is expected.

Lothren rut lasts for three Andalite days, or roughly two and a half Earth days. Should any lothren or anglith enter into a scoop where a pair of Andalites are mating, they will be fought off. For this reason the lothren does not sleep or eat during their rut - it is more common for an unmated lothren to attempt to win an anglith by combat than for an anglith to make such a challenge, and if an anglith were to do such a thing, the lothren could reject them without combat. The mated pair will copulate many times, only stopping for the anglith to rest and eat and drink. When the rut is over, the anglith will complete a season-ending ritual and the lothren will rest before completing a ritual of their own a day later. Unmated lothren and anglith will drop out of season when the last mated pair is finished regardless of whether or not they have copulated. Once both a lothren and anglith have completed their season-ending rituals, they will take down the ribbons bordering the scoop, and rejoin the herd at large. If a child has been conceived, it will be known after five Andalite weeks, and as a result most season-mates in male-female pairs remain together for that length of time.

After the spring season has passed, Andalites do not experience intense sexual arousal that would drive them to mount or be mounted in intercourse for the rest of the year. There are other intimate behaviors that they engage in to strengthen their relationships with their bonded mates or for recreation, including grooming, the intertwining of tails, and the sharing of fantasies and erotic thoughts, though these usually do not result in copulation.

*As anglith and lothren can be either male or female, gender-neutral pronouns are used in this portion of the paper.

Andalites and Humans

An Andalite lothren mated to a human, as was the case with Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul and his mate Loren, will respond to their mate’s scents and sexual interest regardless of what time of year it is. Humans are primates, and are on a menstrual cycle rather than an estrus cycle, and therefore are always in season and sexually available. Had Prince Elfangor not taken a human form and gone nothlit, it is reasonable to assume that he would have dealt with near-constant rut. It is unknown whether or not human anglith go into heat, though preliminary data suggests that they at least enjoy the experience of lothren rut and do not find it undesirable, and are unusually receptive to the attentions and intentions of their mates. There is no data available on humans taking the lothren role mated Andalite anglith, but it is the opinion of this researcher that the majority of humans who pursue Andalite mates do so because it is their desire to be mounted rather than do the mounting. Preliminary data also suggests that specific humans responsive to Andalite pheromones and desires, or scenting as anglith to interested Andalite lothren, do so because they are already sexually attracted to Andalites, not because there is an innate compatibility between the species.

It is not known whether or not an Andalite and a human in their original forms can procreate. Andalite nothlits are fertile in human form, and human nothlits are fertile in Andalite form, but no mated human-Andalite pair has conceived a child while the two species are in their original bodies. Analysis is ongoing as to the viability of our species’ genomes.

Impacts on Andalite Sociology

Due to being a herd species with yearly estrus cycles and social structures dependent upon the presence or absence of traditionally male sex organs, Andalites are not sexually conservative by human standards. They openly discuss mating and sexual pleasure, and they are frank about the roles that biological urges play in their society. They will say directly if they believe a behavior is motivated by a desire to mate or by sexual interest, and they are confused by the idea that subtlety or concealing one’s interests could be the preferred approach taken by humans. To them, openness means a healthier herd, and this researcher observed many comments such as “They need to mate and clear their heads,” or “He’s probably in pre-rut, he’s being short-tempered.” They value self-control and self-awareness, which manifests as a desire to deal with sexual urges quickly and immediately, preventing them from impacting both smaller family groups or larger herds.

Whether or not the Andalite tail translates directly to a human phallic symbol is as of yet unknown. Andalite lothren certainly view the tail as a sign of virility and strength, and the larger size and greater strength of male tailblades is prized, but as females and male anglith also possess tails and tailblades, the comparison cannot be said to be direct. Where the metaphor can be argued to be strongest is in discussing the vecol, or specifically, the vecol who has lost a tailblade - this loss impacts both sexual function and social standing, with other Andalites responding to it as if the afflicted individual has been visibly castrated and lost their virility. See the next section for greater detail.

Sexual Function and the Vecol

Vecol is a word that can be loosely translated as ‘fatally disabled’, though it often specifically means ‘an individual who has lost their tailblade’. Vecols are expected to isolate themselves from Andalite society and dissolve any bond they might have with a mate, regardless of if they’re anglith or lothren. The reasoning for this seems to be historical - in the past, disabled members of Andalite herds were vulnerable to predators or disease, and injuries such as broken legs or dislocated joints would drastically shorten lifespans and reduce quality of life, and leaving disabled individuals alone would reduce the chances of the herd as a whole being negatively impacted. Advances in Andalite medicine and social ideologies and the advent of peacetime have meant that vecols now are solely individuals whose tailblades have been lost due to accident or injury, but they are still expected to act as if they are dead to their people and isolate themselves from their herds and mates and families. This researcher is not commenting upon the ethics of this cultural norm, nor defending it.

A lothren vecol is unable to fully drop into rut and copulate with an anglith in a way that would satisfy them and end their heat, and an anglith vecol is unable to go into heat. As a result, it can be stated definitively that the presence of a tailblade is crucial to Andalite sexual function regardless of gender or sexual position, even in situations where tailblade combat is not required. This provides some explanation as to why the custom of isolation still exists - a mated pair incapable of ending a rut or a heat would eventually feel immense psychological stress that would negatively impact them and would spread to their herd thanks to the communal Andalite lifestyle and the telepathy all Andalites possess.

Conclusion

Andalite sexuality is distinct from human sexuality, but not so uncommon as to be totally unrecognizable. There are also questions raised about evolutionary biology and evolutionary theory that must be asked when it comes to the presence of yearly estrus cycles on two planets, as well as similar behavior in two completely genetically distinct types of herd species. As this is a small study with a sample size of only a few dozen individuals, more data is needed before conclusive answers can be stated, or before solid conclusions can be argued. But as an introduction to Andalite sociology and sexual politics, these interviews are illuminating and worth examining on a deeper level.

#animorphs #animorphs meta #andalites

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warcraftedtardis · 4 years ago

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Yet another humans are space orcs post

Tactile sensation edition. (Long post)

So, first off, I’m not sure if anyone has covered the weirdness that is Touch as a core sensation for humans. Baring injury, disability, or paralysis/numbness, our ability to literally feel the world around us is a BIG energy sink in our brains. For example, just look at the Sensation-based proportion model of a human. It’s a weird gremlin looking thing with over accentuated hands and feet because they’re are just so many nerves and sensor in those places. But, more than just Touch, there’s also the imagination of Touch and how that affects how we perceive things.

Think about it for a second.We correlation sensation information along with emotional experiences. For example, a kind or open person is often described in writing as having a warm personality. The part of our brains devoted to physical sense has designated “Warm” as meaning “pleasant” or “comforting” or “soothing” on an emotional level as well as a physical one. The person being describe doesn’t have a personality that can be literally interacted with and deemed “warm” so the metaphor of physical sensation communicates an emotional response. In other words the connotation of a physical experience becomes an emotional one. How bizarre is that?

Another side of this sensation shortcut is in its effect on our values. Let me ask you a quick question: what does a tiger feel like? For most of us, we’ve never touched a tiger before much less seen one in person, but your had an answer of what you thought it felt like based on something you’ve experienced before. Now what about a frog? If you like frogs you probably thought something like “smooth” while if you’re not a fan of them you might have thought “slimy”

Why?

Smooth is for most a positive sensation; a tactile stimulation that is pleasurable to experience in a range of states, but for something to be slimy is akin to it being a negative tactile sensation for most people. The way mucous or gunk sticks to and coats skin is not generally enjoyable and sets off the alarms for being dirty or gross. The association of a description can change the perspective of an object, person, place, creature, or idea. We use this in narrative medial all the goddamn time but I’m not sure we really think about it. And then, as it relates to our experience of the world, sensations we like as a species gain positive connotations while ones we dislike gain negative connotations. We are at a point where we can describe most of the world in touch-based sensations and be more or less understood without having to be detailed in our descriptions.

We’ve even bred companion animals specifically because we like how they feel. Look me in the eyes and tell me a long, silky-furred Persian cat with it’s fucked up smushed face was designed to look that way because the destruction of its respiratory system was enjoyable. A few people found the smushed nose in combination with that amazing fur texture to be alluring and then kept making that combination of traits in cat breeds. Same thing with certain dog breeds. We’ve got them with coarse shorter fur that is smooth and warm when well kept and those with longer fur that’s more plush and you can run your fingers through. All those other animal posts that talk about how “every animal is dogs” because the instinct to pet the cute is too strong. We feel good so we touch. Sometimes we touch so that we can feel good. Sometimes certain Touch sensations are useful focusing tools or are repulsive deterrents that are just “nope” and these can vary from person to person.

Here’s another example that wraps back into semantics: why are sexy things described as “hot”? What the absolute fuck does “that’s hot” mean in a literal context? Well, if you’ve ever had the adult fun times, or have gotten really into adult alone time, you know that you can work up a sweat, that the whole ordeal is literally hot. Temperatures from the experience literally became a phrase used to reference sexual preferences or erotic aesthetics (humorously used or not)

Now, some of you might be thinking “No duh, that’s just how language be” and others of you might be thinking that this isn’t that weird, but consider the fact that these sensations dicate emotional responses to our surroundings. If we encounter a race of inhuman aliens that felt nice to the touch we’d probably like them a lot more, even more so if our exposure to the positive tactile sensations led us to associate the aliens with those same positive traits or even encouraged us to see them as “cute” or “cool” because we all know hoe pack-bond prone humans are.

For a pursuit predatory that hopped right out of the food chain on a deathworld, we sure do keep a lot of potentially dangerous stuff around us because “it feels good” and--perhaps most obviously--a good portion of our packbonding behaviors manifest in some form of physical contact be it pets or outright cuddling.

TL:DR Humans are so devoted to Touch feelings that it impacts our mood, our language, and our emotional perception of reality; also we as a species are all snuggle packbonding weirdos that totally would pet aliens to determine if they were friendship material.

This post brought to you by a touch-starved disaster who is up too late and who pet cat is just....so soft you guy... it’s like chinchilla soft and silky smooth, omg she’s so cute gjdghgakjdgk

#humans are space orcs #humans are weird #tactile sensations #just deathworld things #touch #long post #haven't made on of these in a while #late night post #space orcs

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fingonvaliant · 3 years ago

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An open letter to the Apostles

To the Leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:

I left because I didn’t believe anymore. There were too many promises that weren’t fulfilled, to many questions I was given false answers to, but more than anything else, I couldn’t take the stress of being a queer person in a space I didn’t feel like I belonged in. I could talk about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Mountain Meadows, the Kinderhook Plates, the stock portfolio, seer stones, blood atonement, “skins of darkness,” musket fire, “fence-sitters,” and a million things besides, but you know all that already.

I hope that with this letter, I can help the Church improve and change, because I still care about the Church, even though I no longer belong to it; that’s how I know it needs to change. It is still important to me. I am not trying to get people to leave the Church, that is not my goal. I’m not a Korihor trying to cause contention. But I need to tell my story.

While I was growing up, I believed it all. I was baptized at eight, regularly attended, served in quorum leaderships, and planned on going on a mission. Then, about when I was thirteen, I started experiencing what the Church calls “same-gender attraction.” I dislike this term greatly; it sounds like a disease. I prefer to say that I discovered I was bisexual.

I did not know what this was. My sexual education classes never covered it; I was never told what it was when I got “the talk”; my only experience with the word “gay” was in a middle school context, as an insult with no clear meaning. The only thing I did know was that this was not allowed. If marriage was ordained of God between a man and a woman, why did I have these -at the time- confusing feelings? If the only relationships I had any experience with were heterosexual, how was I even to know bisexuality existed?

And I didn’t, for years. As I wrestled with this, not even knowing what exactly I was feeling, I eventually, around age 16, learned the words to fit the feelings, to fit my identity. I knew who I was, what I was. By then, gay marriage had only just been legalized, and I -a couple months late- learned that this was a victory for me also.

This recognition put everything I thought I knew about marriage into a tailspin. I knew, I saw, and I was a part of, the Church’s effort to prevent this legalization. I read in Standards for Youth, (at the time called For the Strength of Youth) a short paragraph that made a huge impact on the rest of my life: “Homosexual and lesbian behavior is a serious sin. If you find yourself struggling with same-gender attraction or you are being persuaded to participate in inappropriate behavior, seek counsel from your parents and bishop. They will help you.” (Standards for Youth, Sexual Purity, emphasis added).

The thorough talking-to’s my closeted teen self received just before and after the legalization of gay marriage involved repetition of this paragraph ad nauseam. Breaking it down, it’s clear the degree to which this passage is shaped by uninformed conservatism. What does “behavior” mean? Since it’s a serious sin, you’d expect there to be clarification, right? Is hand-holding a serious sin? Hugs? An increased heart rate? A peck on the cheek? Or just sex? The way I was taught, it was clear the answer was “all of the above.”

The term “struggling” carries so much weight. The LDS church knew suffering, and still today in many places of in the world, members of the Church face repression. All people struggle with burdens, we struggle with disease, we struggle with sin, we struggle with conflict. Is “same-gender attraction” a burden, a disease, a sin, does it cause conflict? With the use of this word, the values are clear.

But in reality, the most painful part of this paragraph is the conclusion: “your parents and bishop … will help you.” They didn’t. They didn’t know how to, they still don’t. Because of the broad interpretation of unacceptable “behavior” and the belief that “same-gender attraction” is a “struggle,” they had no clue what they were dealing with.

Coming out was a traumatic experience. I was attending an all-boys boarding school at the time and caught feelings for a fellow student. We snuck around, living out a high school romance for a few weeks, until we were caught by the staff. Phone calls home were made, and I had the indescribable experience of having to explain to my parents both who I was, and what I had done, over the phone, one parent at a time, without seeing their faces.

Their immediate reaction was that I was too young to know if I was “really gay,” and that all sorts of strange feelings happen in boys my age. They didn’t really believe my description of myself; they negated my identity -they did not even recognize that this experience and these feelings were part of my identity- and mailed me a copy of The Miracle of Forgiveness. My experience with my bishop was likewise useless. He advised me that -through the atonement of Christ- all things are possible, and with suitable dedication to living the gospel, I could be made pure.

I never changed. I could not. It cannot be done. But I tried. I tried so hard.

Church attendance became more and more anxiety-inducing. I felt more and more guilty blessing the sacrament and giving blessings. I gave up on my childhood dream of being a missionary because I could longer believe the words I would have to say. I took temple preparation classes but could never bring myself to the bishop’s office to do the interview. When I started attending college and going to a YSA ward, I was no longer under my parent’s supervision. I kept going for a few months, until I was called as a ward missionary. I remember the day where I was on splits with the full-time missionaries, and we were going door-to-door in a neighborhood near my home. I just felt like we were harassing people in their homes on a Wednesday evening. It was the most uncomfortable experience of my life. I knew then that I didn’t believe in any of this anymore.

You know as well as I do that tens of thousands of people have had similar experiences that I have. We’ve felt the alienation, the sidelining, the people who don’t understand, the hand-wringing, the statement that all the burden lies on queer people to cure themselves, and it is the Church that must not change or cannot change. We keep being told “wickedness never was happiness,” (Alma 41:10) and that our lives of “unrepentant sin” are responsible for calamities and the disintegration of the family. We are being made into bogeymen in the closet, seeking “that all men might be miserable like unto [ourselves].” Endless inquiries are put forward, seeking to find the “cause of homosexuality” that we know are to find a “cure” for it. We are told we are suffering from these attractions, not that we have a unique identity, and certainly not that we are valuable.

But I know that these practices, and these doctrines, are not at the core of the Church. Members of the Church are commanded to “mourn with those that mourn … and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9). All Christians are told, that as a mark of their religion, they are to “love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34) and that “On [this] hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:40). I know the Church can be better than it is right now; it is the Church itself that taught me that.

In nature, there is a direct correlation of both an organism’s and a species’ capacity for survival with its capacity for change. And I know the Church can change, because it has done it before, with interracial marriage, with polygamy, with African-Americans and the priesthood, with the Word of Wisdom, and with many things besides. Society changes all the time, and the Church changes with it.

#this was for an assignment technically #but i thought i'd share it here #queerstake #exmormon

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tomfooleryprime · 4 years ago

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The Deep Space Nine episode “Statistical Probabilities” is my favorite Trek story of all time. Don’t remember it? That’s not surprising.

There are more than fifty year’s worth of articles listing the best episodes of Star Trek across the various series with passionate defenses. The same episodes generally top these lists, even if the order shifts around. Does “City of the Edge of Forever” or “Inner Light” deserve top billing? Or should it be “Yesterday’s Enterprise” or “Far Beyond the Stars?”

Perhaps the reason no one ever considers this episode is it’s less of a story and more of a thought experiment. In today’s highly polarized environment, this inconspicuous DS9 episode feels more salient than ever.

In 2020, social media fights devolve into reductive arguments where everyone is assumed to be either a nationalist or a socialist and depending on your worldview, one of those words is a dirty slur and the other is a badge of honor. Even everyday discourse outside of social media has seen us turn words like “patriotism” and “treason” into weapons to suit narratives, with both sides firmly believing they are the true patriots while the other side is comprised of traitors.

I get caught up in this myself. I don’t want to get into my own political views or start a “both sides” argument, so this is where I turn it over to Star Trek and Dr. Julian Bashir, who finds himself caught in an impossible situation that calls into question the very nature of patriotism and treachery and shows how easily the line between those two concepts can be blurred.

A little background if you’re not familiar—in the year 2374, the Federation is made up of thousands of member planets. War is rare, poverty has been eliminated, aliens of all different species live in general harmony with each other. Then the Dominion, an interstellar military empire run by shape-shifting aliens shows up and wants to annex the Federation under its control.

The Federation, understandably miffed at the Dominion’s plans for stripping them of their autonomy, tells the Dominion to kick rocks. A war breaks out. Unfortunately, the Federation is outclassed, outgunned, and outnumbered in just about every way. It’s tough to win a war against an opponent with a larger force, superior technology, and aliens who can shape shift into literally anything, from a table to a Federation starship captain, making them able to easily swipe any intelligence they want on a whim.

It’s also important to note that the Dominion, while an imperialist superpower, isn’t necessarily out to break, exploit, and subjugate the spirits of the people under its control. For planets willing to peacefully submit to Dominion rule, life for the average citizen probably continues on more or less the same—people probably still have barbecues and go to church and do whatever they did before—they just trade one government for another. For planets not willing to yield, punishment is swift and severe.

And this is where “Statistical Probabilities” comes in. Dr. Julian Bashir is tasked with working with several genius “augments” to develop a statistical model to predict the outcome of a Federation-Dominion War. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take the augments long to recognize the Federation will never win with its current resources. They determine if the Federation fights back, it will suffer the loss of hundreds of billions of casualties and Dominion reprisal for their resistance will make life very brutal for the survivors.

However, they calculate that if the Federation peacefully surrenders, there will be no casualties and no Dominion reprisals—the only thing that will functionally change is who people make out their tax checks to. Not only that, with the saved lives and resources of averting a catastrophic zero sum war, the Federation will position itself to develop technologies within a few generations to successfully defeat the Dominion and re-declare independence in the future.

So the augments recommend immediate and strategic surrender. Dr. Bashir is disheartened to hear this, but he sees the logic in temporary capitulation because he’s a medical doctor and the idea of saving hundreds of billions of lives has to fit into that “first do no harm” ethic, surely. So you know what’s coming.

So he tells his higher ups what they’ve discovered, and you can imagine how that goes.

So the augments’ next play is to go full WikiLeaks. They calculate that if they were to give the Federation’s battleplans to the Dominion, the war would be short, casualties would be minimal, and the Dominion would still treat them relatively well once all the member states learned to toe the line.

This is the part I’ve chewed on for decades. When is treason not treason, or at least, when is treason the better option?

I served in the U.S. Army. I took an oath to protect and defend the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The idea of freely giving the enemy all the actionable intelligence they need to defeat my country makes me nauseated. The only thing that makes me sicker is the thought of most of my fellow citizens being senselessly murdered if I didn’t go all Benedict Arnold on their asses.

The dictionary says treason is “the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.” But is betraying your country and betraying your government always the same thing? A country is made up of people, and a government is made up of a few people who should, in theory, support what is best for the greatest number of citizens. So what is to be done when a few people in power decide they would rather die free than live in subjugation, even if it comes at massive cost to the citizenry they have a duty to serve? A conversation that goes like this.

As an American, I fully appreciate that many of my fellow citizens have a lust for freedom that borders on psychopathy, but I personally accept that most of life is lived in shades of gray and not in black and white. There’s a pretty wide spectrum between total freedom and total slavery and life at either of the extremes would be pretty bleak. But there’s also no apparent consensus on what even constitutes independence or oppression.

Just look at the debate over masks in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. On the one hand, you could argue being required to wear a mask is a total violation of your personal freedom. On the other hand, you could argue we wear masks so that you can be free to live your life as safely as possible. Perhaps the truth is actually somewhere in the middle—wearing a mask is a small concession of individual freedom for the greater freedom of everyone.

I’ve thought about “Statistical Probabilities” and Dr. Bashir’s conundrum a lot in recent years. Would he be a patriot for supporting his government, even if he knows it would result in unimaginable death and suffering in the name of the theoretical ideal of freedom, or would he be a patriot for betraying his government for the sake of a practical outcome, which is saving the lives of hundreds of billions of people and ensuring the quality of their lives is bearable?

And the reality is he’ll be a traitor no matter what he does, but what kind of traitor is better? I have a sneaking suspicion that how people answer this question is probably a powerful predictor of their political affiliation, and how quickly they answer it is directly correlated to the amount of wisdom they possess.

I won’t tell you how he gets out of this awful pickle because of course he does. Dr. Bashir is fictional and exists in a universe where everyone gets a tidy copout in the end. Us mortals in the real world are rarely so lucky and we’re doomed for eternity to grapple with impossible questions, each of us more convinced than the last that our solution is the right solution and everyone else it’s everyone else who’s the traitor.

#star trek #Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #Star Trek Deep Space 9 #statistical probabilities #Julian bashir #Benjamin sisko #ds9

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chancelloramidala · 4 years ago

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Across The Stars In A Galaxy Far Far Away ★ Star Wars & Marvel Crossover AU

TWO.

Despite her Jedi training, Ahsoka couldn’t help but be have a child-like excitement of their surroundings. She sat in the window seat beside Anakin and pressed her face against the glass, staring at the big flashy lights and people they passed. From what she saw, Manhattan looked like a smaller version of Coruscant, and lacked the many, MANY, skyscrapers, flying speeders in the air, and alien species walking around. In fact, Ahsoka could only see the human species on the streets and in the cars they passed. Were there no other alien species on Earth? Was she the only alien species here?

Padmé, who was on the other side of Anakin, grinned at Ahsoka’s visible enthusiasm and constant pointing at something new she didn’t recognize but thought it resembled something back home. She nodded along to the teenage Torguta’s animated hand movements and tried to answer as many questions as she could. But the Senator, once Queen, was equally as curious about this planet they were on as Padawan, but dimmed down a couple of notches.

Anakin on the other hand, didn’t like any of this. He was one to throw original plans out the window and improvise, but this was a completely different territory for the Jedi Knight. Hell, this was a completely different part of the galaxy that didn’t know anything about the Jedi or the Force.

Obi-Wan, who was sitting in the front seat with the chair slightly reclined backwards (not that Ahsoka was complaining), could sense his former student’s anxiety about their new environment. Their bond never diminished as time passed, but fortified and became a constant in their lives. He turned his head to look at Anakin and gave him a small smile, sending him soothing waves of warmth through their bond and then closed his eyes for a moment.

Rex was stuck in the back with Artoo, and even if the SUV was roomy, he did not like the tight space. It was different, nothing like a speeder or ship he’s been in. Even Artoo was quietly grumbling about how much he hated this stupid speeder because with each turn and stop, Rex had to outstretch his arm(s) to make sure the astromech droid didn’t topple over and hit Anakin in the back of his head.

Their driver, Clint, stared at the strange bunch. Now when he was expecting a couple of aliens that had kidnapped Peter, he was expecting something along the lines of the Chitauri that he faced all those years ago. But these aliens, weren’t anything like them. Most of them were human, the teenage girl though, she was definitely an alien, for she had orange skin, white face markings and something that resembled horns? She also didn’t have any hair, which wasn’t an issue for the man, but it was different than what he was used to seeing.

But then again, after joining S.H.I.E.L.D. and becoming an Avenger, normal wasn’t in Clint’s vocabulary anymore.

After they finally reached the garage of the Tower, Clint parked the SUV and lead everyone to the elevator, including the beeping robot, which somewhat resembled a rolling trash can, that he forgot they had.

“They have turbolifts here, Master,” the orange skinned humanoid female commented as the elevator started to move. “Fascinating,” she mumbled under her breath.

“It’s slower,” the shaggy-haired human male said with a small smirk.

Clint chuckled softly, “Don’t let Stark hear you say that, he’s already an insufferable bastard as is.”

“I take it this Stark person made this turbolift?” Padmé inquired.

“Yup,” Clint popped the ‘p’, “and the entire building along with a lot of other technological gizmos. He’s the one in the metal suit from earlier that wanted to blast your asses on the spot,”

“Comforting,” Anakin said dryly.

Then, the doors to the turbolift or also known as elevators, opened revealing a red and gold skinned being. Vision smiled amicably at the newest arrivals and stepped aside to let them through. “Welcome, my name is The Vision or just Vision. I’m a synthetic android made from vibranium that was once an A.I for Mr, Stark. He also told me to lead you to the medical labs to be checked up on and to provide you with clothes to change into.”

“Thank you, Vision.” Padmé smiled back at the man and decided to walk beside him, introducing herself and the rest of her group to him.

Anakin then took Obi-Wan off of Rex’s hands, allowing his former teacher lean against him as they followed after Vision and Padmé down the long corridor. When they finally arrived at the doors to the lab, Vision input something into the panel before the doors slide open. There was a man in a purple shirt with his back to the rest of them, staring at a holographic screen and rubbing his chin anxiously.

“Dr. Banner, may I introduce our guests?” Vision told the man, causing him to turn around with blatant surprise.

“Vision, hey,” the Doctor nodded his head and curiously glanced at the group behind him.

“This is Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Captain Rex, Ahsoka Tano, and their astromech droid, R2-D2,” Vision carefully gestured to each and every being clearly making sure that each brief description Padmé gave him correlated correctly.

“Nice to meet all of you, my name is Bruce Banner,” he raised his hand slightly to wave. “I’ll be doing some basic scans and check-ups on all of you, Tony guessed all of your sizes and has some clothes stacked on the bench over there,” he pointed to said bench, “that you can change into. There’s an bathroom connected through that door,” again, pointing to where said door was.

“I’ll go first,” Ahsoka stepped forward with a bright and eager smile.

Bruce eyed the young Torguta with a great amount of curiosity before nodding firmly and gesturing to the table he’d be examining her on. “Thank you, and you’re... Ahsoka, correct?”

“You’re right, doc!”

━━━━━━━━━━━━

An hour or so later, everyone had changed out of their clothes and into Earthly outfits. Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Rex were given gray, black, and blue sweatpants along with white, green, and gray t-shirts. Ahsoka and Padmé wore black leggings paired with red and blue tees. They’d also been given black sneakers and socks which were surprisingly comfortable.

Obi-Wan, despite his initial injuries, was given a thorough check up by Dr. Banner. His chest was wrapped and he was given some pills for the pain. Everyone else had a clean bill of health, and vaccinations just in case.their space bodies couldn’t handle whatever illnesses Earth had to offer.

Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padmé were then tasked with trying to explain their situation to the Avengers (which Anakin was absolutely floored to learn that was their actual team name.) Ahsoka and Rex lingered in the background, keeping to themselves and talking to each other about how weird this all was.

An eccentric billionaire who used all of his high-technology to make the world a better place. A super soldier that was frozen alive for 70 years with a heart of gold. Two assassins with a deep history with one another. Super-powered twins, one was weird, the other was fast. A Doctor that turned into an alternate person which was green and severely muscular when angered. A former assassin that was brainwashed to be a human weapon... and many other team members that they haven’t met because they weren’t on site according to Vision.

“Sorry if I find it hard to believe... any of that.” Tony blinked after Obi-Wan and Padmé spoke about the Clone Wars that had recently ended in their galaxy. “And sorry, that you two and the kid are... um... space wizards?”

“Some find that the Jedi are sorcerers with our magic-like abilities through the Force,” Obi-Wan nodded patiently.

“What about this War you had? You said it was caused by the secession of star systems from your government, the Republic to the Confederacy and for the War, the Clone Troopers were created for the Republic to be used for battle... but there was another alternative plot beneath it all?” Steve asked, particularly eager about the war they had fought.

“Yes, the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, Sheev Palaptine, was actually a Sith Lord who orchestrated the entire War. He wanted the Republic to crumble along with the Jedi Order so he could restore the Sith Empire... and...” Padmé carefully glanced over at Anakin who was now staring at his hands, gripping them tightly.

Padmé frowned softly and then reached forward and put her hand over his, giving it a small, reassuring squeeze.

“Palpatine... Darth Sideous was grooming me for years and nearly seduced me into the dark side of the Force to become his new apprentice...” Anakin announced in a soft voice as he tried to steady himself from lashing out or leaving the room.

“He had chips put in Rex and all of the clones that when activated, would massacre any and all the Jedi they served.” Obi-Wan added, quick to take attention away from Anakin, knowing all-to-well that the revelations of Palpatine’s true nature was a hard pill for his former student to swallow.

The room went silent for a moment, allowing the information they were receiving to float in the air. It was clear that this group had been through hell and back again for the three years that the Clone Wars raged on.

Steve looked at each and every person, taking note of what kind of role they played. Padmé was a senator, the former Queen of her planet Naboo, who didn’t agree with the War from the start. Obi-Wan and Anakin were generals who watched hundreds of soldiers die under their command for a worthless war. Rex was one of those soldiers who didn’t know where his place was without the War and had survived it but not without a few battle scars. And Ahsoka, she was only a child when the War started, now a growing young woman who not only shouldn’t have never stepped foot on a battlefield, but never had a real childhood.

"I still don’t understand how you got here though. I know space is huge, but out of all the planets to land on, you really chose Earth, huh? And New York nontheless!” Tony chuckled lightly, doing his best to make light of the situation.

“It’s possible that during our escape, we got sucked into a wormhole.” Obi-Wan suggested. “There’s been no records of anyone travelling through one before.”

“Yup, now you’ve lost me,” Clint blinked blankly before getting up to walk into the kitchen. “Anyone want some beers? Don’t answer that, because everyone is getting one. We’ve deserved it.”

“Like I said before, there are Separatist sympathizers that want us dead. They hit our hyperspace drive right when Ani put in the coordinates while we were escaping the skirmish and... here we are.”

Clint then returned from the kitchen, handing out beer bottles to everyone before stopping in front of Ahsoka and eyeing her warily. “How old are you anyway?”

“Galactic Standard would have me at 17,” Ahsoka replied as she eyed the beer bottle in his arms. “It’s the legal age to drink in most of the galaxy,”

“Ah, sorry little lady, but the legal drinking age here is 21,” Clint patted the space between her montrals ever-so carefully in a playful manner before continuing to pass out drinks.

Ahsoka scrunched her face together in annoyance and turned her head in the direction of Anakin. “What a bunch of bantha-poodoo! Master, you’ve seen me drink before! Tell the sleemo,”

“Sorry Snips, but if their legal age is different here then...” Anakin shrugged his shoulders to indicate that the situation was simply out of his hands before popping open the top of the beer bottle and taking a sip.

Rex laughed loudly and slapped his hand over his mouth to stifle it. He’s seen his fair share of the Torguta drinking, many times he had to drag her back to base over his shoulder because she was a bit of a lightweight. And if he was going to be honest, this was the peek of entertainment.

The teen crossed her arms over her chest and huffed as she watched him drink. “This sucks, Skyguy.”

“Ah, I’ll have to decline from drinking.” Obi-Wan gestured to his chest. “I’m on medication and I don’t know how well that would mix with alcohol.”

“I can make some tea instead, I don’t drink anyway,” Wanda waved her hand as strings of red floated from her fingertips and towards the kitchen, where the stove turned on and a tea kettle started to bottle.

“Splendid,” Obi-Wan nodded his head in her direction, thankful that they at least had tea here. “Might want to make some for Ahsoka here, she looks like she needs a calming tea.”

Ahsoka stuck her tongue out at the older man in a childish manner. “Oh you think you’re so funny, Master.”

Whilst everyone was busy conversing and sharing stories, Padmé would discreetly pass her beer to Ahsoka, knowing that a few sips couldn’t hurt. The teenage girl was more than happy that the Senator was giving into her whims. Plus, the two have had their fair share of nights spent sharing a bottle of Alderaanian wine towards the end of the War.

Though, this act didn’t go unnoticed by everyone. Tony thought it was funny when he first noticed the exchange, recalling how his first few drinks were at home with Jarvis. He didn’t say anything, just smirked behind his bottle and went on with their night.

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knine-nights · 4 years ago

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Extinction Theories

Wow I haven’t posted to Tumblr in a hot minute. I’m gonna get back on NVS soon, due to complicated reasons I was unable to write anything for it for a while. But I just had a thought and wanted to share it.

Basically this is me theorizing (rambling) about the Extinction from The Magnus Archives.

tl;dr The Extinction is kinda like the twin of the End, it has already been around for a while, it arguably does have avatars, and also acab.

Also fair warning, I tend to ramble a bit when explaining things so this is quite long and quite rambly. Putting it under a cut because I just kept writing and got a little off track a few times.

So the Extinction right? Most people in TMA Universe think it’s a new fear not yet born. However I’ve seen a few things here and there online that speculate that the Extinction is actually the oldest of the fears. I think it’s kinda in the middle ground. I think the Extinction used to be so similar to the End for most of the Entities’ existence, and is only more recently splitting off. It’s been outright stated that Smirke’s 14 is kinda bs, so I’m just theorizing in some ways that can’t entirely be proven (or disproven) unless directly addressed by TMA.

The Fears have obviously evolved over time. All sentient creatures (with some individual, not species-wide exceptions) have fear. So logically the Entities must have been created alongside the creation of life on Earth (in ignoring the probability of aliens as they will most likely not be relevant to TMA). I think that, as consciousness evolved, the Entities began being more complex, splitting off from each other in a way over time. They also evolve individually in expression over time. Animals probably don’t have a super developed fear of, for example, being manipulated. But eventually, creatures evolved high enough consciousness to fear their own consciousness.

However, I don’t think these abstractions can be considered newer than the distinctions they split off from. It’s more like the original “Entity” is split in half, and only one half retains the title of the former whole. At some point in evolution, fear of violence became developed enough to be split into fear of random acts of violence (Slaughter) and fear of premeditated violence (Hunt). And yes I am aware that I’m simplifying here, it’s easier to clarify what I mean this way.

So back on topic; the End has always been very small scale. The End mostly only applies to the fear of oneself (and their loved ones and/or those they just know in general) dying. Which correlates with the less evolved consciousnesses ability (or rather lack thereof) to fully comprehend or worry about death beyond their own group. However, there is now a species on Earth that is not only able to comprehend their existence across the entirety of the planet, but is also in a position to be directly responsible for the extinction of their existence. I think that, when human civilizations started to spread in such a way that humans were aware of (and often dependent on) groups of other humans outside of their personal connections, the Extinction would have started to become a more prominent aspect of the End. Like how, in our modern world, cameras constantly watching you are a more prevalent aspect of the Eye than they were before such widespread surveillance.

I think the Extinction has already “emerged”. Maybe not so strong as to have avatars attempting to carry out rituals, but....I’ll get there in a sec. I think the Extinction became a fully realized and distinct aspect of fear when nuclear weapons were developed. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as the only use of nuclear bombs in war thus far) would have been the first signs of the Extinction because it was one of the first times when it became realized that humans could, with a single bomb, wipe out entire cities in an instant. Nuclear testing (like the Castle-Bravo tests) and the Cold War probably brought the Extinction fully to the forefront of fear in such a way that it could be considered a separate fear from just the End. And with things like climate change, mass pollution, and our damaging of the ozone layer, the fear of our own Extinction has become an actual fear that many people have at least as a background hum of concern.

And, for the whole avatar and ritual thing: I think the Extinction could already be considered to have avatars in a much more literal sense than those strictly in the TMA universe. There are obviously some versions of avatars and their abilities which directly correlate, better than others, with the real life fears we have. (ie: an avatar of the hunt being a police officer - ACAB) And if we consider that, I think people who either head up or directly support companies and policies that directly damage the environment (while being fully aware of the impacts) and people who are in charge of launching nuclear weapons (regardless of the fact that they haven’t and most likely won’t) are the avatars of the Extinction. They literally sit in positions of either being able to bring about an Extinction event or, at least, speeding up the effects of those already occurring. There are other kinds of people who could be considered avatars of the Extinction, but those are the most direct in a sense. And as for rituals, who says things like the Cold War weren’t rituals of the Extinction?

The End is passive. The End always wins. But the Extinction is active. It came into being when mass death of whole species became a reality rather than a theory. The Extinction is as real in its capabilities and effects as any other distinct Entity. All of the Entities have times where the fears that the inspire are actually justified in a sense. Times when someone’s fear of something comes true. People have actually been buried alive or killed in cave collapses etc. People have fears, usually because the result of those fears is actually possible. (I’m gonna make a list. I’ll link it here when I finish I made a list, it’s just basically what the fears are.......so oh well.). So why wouldn’t the Extinction be one of them.

Basically, to summarize better than I did in the tl;dr at the top, the Entities don’t only have rollover but also probably evolved off of each other, the Extinction is older than they thought and probably emerged for real around the time of the Cold War, and the Extinction is definitely a fully fledged Entity in its own right and has been for while regardless of the presence of known avatars.

#tma #tma extinction #the magnus archives #extinction #tw mass death #it’s just subtly there but better safe than sorry #theory #hypothesis #wild speculation #tma end #tma entities #tma eye #smirkes 14 #robert smirke

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