#brevity of life

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

What Is Man?

Therefore cease ye from a man, whose spirit is in his nostrils, for he is (but) reckoned (as) high. (And so have ye no more to do with man, who is not worth anything more, than the breath from his own nostrils.) — Isaiah 2:22 | Wycliffe’s Bible (WYC) The Wycliffe Bible is in the public domain. Cross References: Psalm 8:4; Psalm 144:3-4; Psalm 146:3; Isaiah 40:15; Isaiah 40:17

[kurtbennett]

An Unexpected Death in My Family

As I write this right now, tomorrow morning is the memorial service for my Mom who passed away recently. Mom’s passing, Kathy’s recent root canal, and another very serious health problem in my family has me thinking about suffering. Below you’ll find a repost of what happened to my dear Mom. In our next post, I want to share some thoughts about suffering and unjust suffering in particular. I pray…

[indigovigilance]

The Final Fifteen is about Terry Pratchett's Death

read on Ao3

The final fifteen is obviously a major plot point, and serves a role in a story that was written long before Terry Pratchett was ever diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But the scene itself wasn’t written until just a few years ago, during the writing of Season 2. In fact, the scene came about during a park bench conversation between Neil Gaiman and John Finnemore.

Others have noted that the non-romantic kiss that signals the story moving into the third act is a Neil Gaiman staple. The function of such a kiss, from Gaiman’s perspective, is to communicate.

In 2023 we are seeing a lot of stories written by men, for men, about men who are best friends and discover that their friendship can go deeper than the norms of society would usually allow; that platonic and romantic love are not so far apart, and perhaps the better word for a relationship that can be described this way is intimacy.

Neil Gaiman has made it clear in interviews that his friendship with Terry Pratchett was deeply intimate. They began collaborating on what would become Good Omens in the 1980’s, endured a tumultuous experience together through the first publication, wherein Neil offered to martyr himself on behalf of Terry if the book failed, and then spent the better part of two decades touring the world, meeting the people who loved their work. Neil would even off-handedly remark that Terry’s fans were so cheerful, and Neil’s seemed like they were ready to kill themselves; wouldn’t it be nice if they got married? From the outside, it looks very much as if Terry was Aziraphale-coded, and Neil was Crowley-coded, working together in an unexpected partnership to make the world a little bit more tolerable for the humans inhabiting it. I am not conjecturing that Neil and Terry had romantic inclinations the way their fictional characters do, but I think it is fair to say that their opposites-attract intimacy became an important part of who each of them were.

In 2007 Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s. As the disease progressed, he began to lose himself, and knew that the person he used to be was slipping away. He wanted to end his life on his own terms, and die as himself, but England did not and still does not allow for voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide. He advocated for the right to die but never achieved it, and ultimately succumbed to the disease in 2015. Neil Gaiman has spoken a lot on the topic of death, and one answer of his that resonated with me reads:

Mostly it feels terrible. It even feels terrible when it’s someone who has been in a lot of pain for a long time or has not really been there for a long time and you know that Death has in some ways been a blessing: suddenly you are mourning the whole person. 

It doesn’t get easier as you age. It gets stranger. The point where you realise how many people you used to know and like who aren’t there any longer, and you cannot talk to them or see them or laugh with them is painful in a way that I had never expected. The first time that someone you had a romantic relationship with dies and you realise that there had been moments both of you shared and now you are the sole custodian of those moments and one day you will be gone and they will be lost forever is peculiarly strange and hard. 

~~~

The entire show is seeded with references to Terry Pratchett, but the most important one is the one that’s missing. Neil Gaiman cameoed as a sleeping moviegoer in S1E4, but a long time ago, he and Terry had discussed cameoing as sushi restaurant-goers, because sushi was weirdly prominent in the book. That cameo would have been in S1E1. But when it came time to do it, Neil couldn’t. Not without Terry. 

Neil: I was gonna say our location is a Chinese restaurant we’d had turned into a sushi restaurant. So Terry and I, Terry Pratchett and I, had a standing… not even a standing joke, just a standing plan, that we were going to have sushi - there was going to be a scene in Good Omens where sushi was eaten and we were gonna be extras, we were gonna sit in the background, eating sushi while it was done. And I was so looking forward to this and, so I wrote this scene with it being sushi, even though Terry was gone, with that in mind and I thought: Oh, I’ll sit and I’ll eat lots of sushi as an extra, this will be my scene as an extra, I’ll just be in the background. And then, on the day, or a couple of days before, I realized that I couldn’t do it.

Douglas: You never told me this before either. I might have pushed you into doing it, had I known. I think you were right not to tell me.

Neil: I was keeping it to me self ‘cause I was always like: Oh, maybe I’ll be… this will be my cameo. And then I couldn’t. I was just so sad, ‘cause Terry wasn’t there. And it was probably the day that I missed Terry the most of all of the filming - it was just this one scene ‘cause it was written for Terry and all of the sushi meals we’d ever had and all of the strange way that sushi ran through Good Omens.

~~~

In the Final Fifteen, it is clear that Crowley and Aziraphale want to stay together. They love each other. They each know that the other loves them. There’s nothing that needs to be said, no convincing that their bond is true and real and precious.

But Aziraphale has to go to Heaven, and Crowley cannot follow him there.

I cannot speculate what it must have been like for Neil to endure losing a friend who, though I’m sure he desperately wanted to still be in his life, he also knew that life had become a burden to him, and grieved that Terry was not able to choose the time and manner of his departure from this Earth. This sort of complex grief, we fan-ficcers know, is the kind that is often best processed through story-telling. 

I think that what we see Crowley going through in the Final Fifteen, alongside its importance to the story arc of Good Omens overall, is Neil processing his grief at losing his friend Terry Pratchett, and even the kiss, that violent, terrible, awful kiss, was the symbolic representation of Neil saying goodbye.

[ardentpoop]

"same circumstances, I wouldn't" was such an iconic sam line to me after this episode aired. especially because a lot of people hated it :)

what sam means: I would never rob you of your agency by using whatever dangerous means I have available to prevent you from dying even when you clearly express that you're ready to; by using your love for me to manipulate you into being violated by a strange being and then lying to me abt it every day for weeks until the situation spun out of control and you had no choice but to come clean.

what dean hears: I wouldn't move heaven and earth to bring you back from the dead and keep you here with me, which means I don't love you anymore you pathetic piece of shit

[57sfinest]

theoretical entroponetics: the post

okay. LONG post incoming. i have summarized all available information on the pale, separated into confirmed objective truth & in-canon speculation that may or may not be true, and then appended my own very detailed theory on the pale! this post is meant as a resource; please feel free to add things of your own in replies/reblogs (please tag me if you do!) or point out any errors i may have made. you’re welcome to use any of my personal theory in your own work but please credit me if you do!! (and tag me in that/send it to me, i really want to see what you do with it!)

Here’s what we *know* about the pale, according to in-game and concept art: 

It erases data, at least the kind stored on radiocomputer filament and magnetic tapes.

It has no dimensions of its own- pale latitude compressors serve to force dimensions on raw pale and allow navigation. 

The pale is referred to in the context of entropy

It arrived with mankind, but not immediately- there are 8000 years of written history, but the pale was first recorded 6000 years ago, implying that pale either didn’t start forming immediately or that it was so insignificant/distant that it went unnoticed for 2000 years. 

There exists a group of people who are actively trying to expedite entroponetic collapse; the ideology is called entropolism

To this point, pale isn’t immediately visible. Pale has molecular structure, but manifests as a waveform, and only becomes visible at a certain distance from the origin, once wave frequency is sufficiently high. 

During pale exposure, people experience “sense objects”: visual or auditory hallucinations and/or vivid physical recollections of memories. These hallucinations may originate from their own consciousness or someone else’s. c

People require physical and mental examinations before interisolary travel and are allotted a certain number of days per year as their pale exposure threshold. 

Overexposure results in a pale “addiction”- these individuals crave pale exposure, and it’s unclear if this addiction can ever be broken. It’s also unclear whether there is a point at which pale exposure becomes lethal, but given that it dissolves matter, we can be fairly certain that a given length of continuous exposure will kill. 

Radio signals, cold plasma torches and anodic sound are all used to manage the pale to permit travel through it. Plasma torches destabilize the molecular structure of the pale to create gaps, anodic sound widens and maintains these gaps, and radio signals rationalize the pale into recognizable dimensions.

Radio signals are, in return, susceptible to corruption by the pale, resulting in entroponetic crosstalk, where signals from the past or the future are transmitted to the present. CCP is one such phenomenon and is directly related to the formation of new pale through magpie interpretation.

There is a dedicated Union for people who work in and with the pale (the Pale Workers Union). They have two slogans; “The light purifies; The sound absolves; The pale no more” and “Son et Fureur” (sound and fury)

Here’s what we may choose to believe about the pale, based on the thoughts and beliefs of in-game characters:

In conversation with Soona, the pale is described as a “curdling milk” phenomenon: “repulsive, but natural”

In this same conversation you can theorize that the churches were meant to contain the pale origins; out of the seven churches, six were destroyed during the suzerain or the revolution

The phasmid and whatever other lifeforms it’s communicated with believe that entroponetic collapse is comparable to an oxygen holocaust (i.e. the great oxygenation event), implying mass extinction due to a toxic overabundance of sapient thought

Harry refers to it once by saying “The wolf is at the door. It’s going to eat the sun.” so take that as you will

It’s likely that Tiago’s “Mother” is some manifestation from the pale, if you choose to believe that the 2mm hole is in fact a pale origin point (the concept art does confirm it’s a pale origin, but the game offers other explanations, so I won’t say it’s the only answer)

Inframaterialists believe that revolutionary action (NOT thought) may create a counter-force that will prevent the spread of pale; it’s unclear if any reversal is possible.

The world will be fully consumed by the pale in 27 years (I put it here because you may or may not believe that shivers and harry are reliably sourcing this information)

And now my personal speculation about the pale:

A quick and easy point: it’s confirmed that the pale has a measurable EMF “exhalation” frequency that varies with proximity. Strong enough EMF pulses can actually tamper with magnetic storage- radiocomputer filaments! Electronics! Fortress Accident data loss! This gives us a tangible explanation for why pale can delete data :)

This may also explain its ability to cause radio interference- radio frequencies are just a subset of EMF frequencies, so it’s possible that pale exhalation on *just the right frequency* is what’s responsible for the entroponetic crosstalk we get on radios sometimes

The pale canonically has an atomic structure, but it also has wave properties, so it’s possible that the pale has wave-particle duality on its subatomic level, like photons do

Based on this, entroponetics is likely a very similar field to quantum mechanics, which might be an interesting source of ideas for anyone (like me) who wants to explore pale-related possibilities

The pale could be a manifestation of raw patterns. That’s why math “forces dimensions” on it- it rationalizes or “tames” the patterns, which allows it to be manipulated to a certain degree.

There are several references to the pale that refer to mathematical concepts and patterns, saying that the world dissolves into “a tangle of azimuths and cosines” as it blends into the interisolary pale- more on this later

Steban comments that the pale is commonly theorized to be nostalgia or “historical inertia”, but it’s largely agreed that it’s “the past” in a broad sense. Thinking about the idiom that history repeats itself, it could be that history/the past is part of the pattern that comprises the pale, and that it’s also the type of pattern most readily perceived by people (people don’t viscerally *perceive* math, for example, but we experience memories)

To first define entropy: Chemically speaking, “the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work. (per encyclopedia britannica).” Physically speaking, it’s a measure of randomness or disorder in a system. Less work/less order = more entropy; it’s a physicochemical “winding down” of a given system

It’s commonly thought that pale is the entropic force, but what if it’s the opposite? (Keep in mind the chemical definition: less ability to do work = more entropy) Consider: the pale as less entropic, a cleanup force, recycling the potential lost by death and destruction in the universe. This in part explains why a dead person’s memory is present in the pale- their potential has been recycled into the pale in the form of their memories (their life’s *pattern*)

Enthalpy is a related concept to entropy and is defined as the total energy contained within a system. Holding the system enthalpy constant- saying the universe will always have the same amount of total energy, no matter what, according to thermodynamics- results in an entropic tug-of-war between the pale and the world. The pale wins through sheer inertia (again, inertia is mentioned specifically in game)

Overall: think of the world as “cooling”, losing heat and energy through war and death and complacency. Think of the pale as steam and heat, melting down old materials to start it all over again. (Kim says, *through entroponetic interference*: “it’s been a long, cold winter.”)

Consider: the pale as a sinusoidal function, eternally repeating. The pale recycling the universe to start a new cycle, “spending” itself, resulting in pale not being present in the beginning. Then, as the new things begin to settle- with the advent of the human mind, specifically- the pale reforming, slowly reclaiming potential, eventually ending the cycle to start again.

In comes CCP and magpies. Consider: CCP as a backwards transmission from the next “cycle” (after all, pale has no sense of time). Magpies as *pattern-sensitive* people who are able to decode CCP into something useful called novelty. They reach into the potential of the next cycle to build the potential in their current one- this paradox could be what creates more pale, because (and this is where it gets weird, I apologize) doing this retroactively increases the total amount of energy/work/potential in the current cycle to have been reclaimed by the pale for the next one.

Think of the pale as the compost bin for every single thought in the universe. The pale is the exact right size to compost every little atom and thought in the universe, and can hold nothing extra. But magpies reach into the future, the next cycle, and bring in extra. This paradox forces the pale to grow to accommodate the additional material, which also increases the starting potential of the next cycle. This process allows each cycle to accumulate minor changes from the previous one, which can snowball over many cycles.

Furthermore, to the inframaterialists’ point: revolutionary action would be such a radical shift in inertia that it would increase the potential in the world, forcing the pale to pause/shrink to “balance the equation” in terms of pale-vs-world thermodynamics. So maybe they’re right after all :)

And some diagramming, to explain the utter bullshit I’ve just dropped:

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Alright. Here's the plan.

I tell my nonjewish family my hebrew birthday (26 Iyar). They now know I have two birthdays. They celebrate both of them. I get two days of cakes because of this (I am winning at Having Birthdays, something both reasonable to want and possible to achieve).

[great-axepectations]

"Impulse, you've played this game for a while," Gem says. "Do you normally hide nether portals, or do you just put them out in the open?"

The Red Army venturing into the nether was exposed by an achievement message in chat. Their enemies poured lava over the portal and lay in wait to ambush them. They'd had to build another portal just to get out alive.

That dangerous ghast farm was built for the Southlands far above the nether roof. Red names would venture in and knock people off constantly- Impulse included.

Etho and Joel, their only allies at a critical moment, got caught in a trapped portal and burned up together. There was nothing they could've done to save them.

Luring Bdubs into Tango's trap so he could get the boogey kill was too easy. He'd been so trusting, and he hadn't questioned anything until it was too late.

"...hidden. Definitely hidden."

[yangsharperavery]

Hi :)

would you be willing to share your insights to the synastry of Jeremy and Ayo? Just curious!!

yes, i will!

sorry this took so long, i wanted to wait until after the emmy's and i'm glad i did. lol.

i don't know these people and you (probably) don't either this is all what the cosmos say + personal observation.

so i'm not an astrologer, by any stretch. but i've been studying it for a few years, have run several dozen personal natal charts and compatibility synastry natal charts simply out of my own curiosity during that time to learn more about the practice, pattern recognition, etc.

while time of birth helps with accuracy. you can learn alot just by birth dates and locations of birth.

just off running those things in synastry, they had 14 positive, compatible and "easy" or easeful placement markers. which is quite high.

the highest amount of those markers i've seen is 18. the average is typically 6-10.

neither of their times of birth are online but ayo recently revealed that her big 3 is libra (air), aquarius (air) and sagittarius (fire). while his is aquarius(air), aries(fire) and his third isn't publicly known (though some think it's gemini(air)).

having her sag rising tells me where jeremy's specific placements fall in her houses. houses are like personal themes: work, passions, travel, spouses, relationships, setbacks, etc. planets are like characteristics or life themes: communication, art, beauty, limitation, structure, intuition, etc.

to start... he's an aquarius sun and she's an aquarius moon. this automatically gives them compatibility because the sun represents your framework as a person, while your moon represents your emotions and how you feel about yourself, the world, etc.

he understands her emotional landscape, she understands his personal framework.

they're both air signs but she's more air than he is. he has more fire and water in his chart.

in an interview for the golden globes last year she talked about how jeremy taught her how to be still. which is interesting because air signs are very heady, intellectual, busy and sometimes flighty people.

their other positive synastry placements are trines (same elements) of her sun and his mars, her venus and his sun, her pluto and his venus, their mercuries, her mercury and his mars, her venus and his mercury, their jupiters, her saturn and his pluto, etc, as well as sextiles (aspected 60 degrees apart) of her sun and his jupiter, her uranus and his venus, her neptune and his venus, her mars and his neptune, her saturn and his neptune, and her pluto and his saturn.

those are just the placements of the elements/planets that are very cohesive, complimentary, magnetic or agreeable that it shows.

for a deeper explanation, that first placement means: her sun (self expression, assertion, will) aspects his mars (energy, impulse, aggression) in a way that is positive, soothing, affirming and motivating.

i won't do every single placement because then this would be a billion words but you get the idea.

what i find most fascinating is their most difficult or challenging placement being her saturn (containment, structure, and limitation) and his venus (harmony, love, beauty, and art). both in pisces (water).

that's challenging because saturn makes you work for everything and teaches you a bunch of lessons along the way. but in the end, if you master the limits and structure, you are rewarded. while venus is loving and giving and indulgent and gorgeous from beginning to end.

venus also rules partnerships. romantic and otherwise.

to add to that, ayo has a bunch of libra placements and libra is ruled by venus. this absolutely tracks because ayo is incredibly venuian which can be attributed to how glamorous and alluring and charming and charismatic she is.

i actually knew she was venuian before i even ran her chart because it just pours off of her.

anyways... that particular placement caught my eye because jeremy's falls in ayo's fourth house of home, family and unconscious past. while jeremy's aries moon (his emotions) fall in her fifth house of social life, creativity, pleasure and dating.

so them literally calling each other family and working on a creative project about such things that is highly emotional, while being tied to partnerships and art, is quite literally written in their chart synastry.

that's all i'm going to say about their natal charts for now...

the rest of what i'm going to comment on is just what i've seen over the past week in regards to their dynamic.

i really do think, it is mostly a tightknit, platonic, encouraging and loving, working friendship and closeness that they share.

and the only reason i say mostly is because outside of the general appreciation and glee and pride and happiness in their interactions amongst these celebrations...

there are these moments that lead to the renaissance painting picture at the golden globes and the giggling tactile shuffle at last night's emmys where i observe them sort of so easily trickling into and immediately out of their own little worlds and i'm like... hmm.

it really wouldn't surprise me if one or both of them has ever had a crush on the other. i'm not saying anything has ever happened or they have even acknowledged it. because who's to say?? and it's obviously nobodies business but just witnessing this past week on top of all i've already seen in their charts... idk.

i saw someone pondering on whether their legitimately very close friendship is the reason they were both so anti-sydcarmy becoming romantic in the past which hmm, again idk.

what i will say is that the way ayo responds to any suggestive context or implication regarding jeremy is VASTLY different than she is or has been with other costars and friends in the industry.

like i said this girl is heavily venuian so she's going to flirt and charm and compliment others in a loving, overt way all the time. look at any of her interactions with rachel sennott, havana rose liu, natasha leone, ramy youssef, just to name a few off the top of my head.

the constant calvin klein stuff was incredibly over referenced and obnoxious after awhile but to think that reporters aren't gonna bring it up at all, especially after it had just gone viral two days prior is a stretch.

maybe as a little mention at the end of the interview is understandable. but blowing up the photos poster board size was, i agree, pretty ridiculous.

i love how she protected him from the overly specific body issue questions during one interview but i feel like the way she physically recoiled during another interview's mention of it felt like an overcorrection or even a tiny, in real time self boundary setting.

not for the interviewer but for herself.

because if it was a sexy campaign with any of the other people i just mentioned, i feel like she woulda been the first person to say they looked so good or they worked so hard or to praise them or whatever.

so it is fascinating to me that it's so different with what she's willing to be on record saying about jeremy.

like girl, i saw rami fake kiss you, natasha actually kiss you and you and havana and rachel flirted intermittently during bottoms press (which was v cute!)

so again the obvious difference makes me tilt my head a little bit.

also i don't recall ebon or lionel or matty or anybody else we've seen her around this past week have their hands on her waist so relentlessly. and i don't recall a smidge of abby or liza's foundation on jeremy's white jacket!

but what do i know?!?!!?

[worldbuildingwanderlust]

Brevity in bloom Paints a portrait of our lives In ways no words can

[thepersonalwords]

Screenwriting is made of brevity.

A.D. Posey

[kurtbennett]

A Billionaire’s Scaling Problem

God Running is a place for anyone who wants to love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to. Continue reading Untitled

[steevejr]

my only regret about stormlight archive (after reading 2 books) is I wish that shit was LONGER!!!!!! I know 1200 pages is pushing it but damn can I PLEEEASE get like 100 extra pages of filler. I want to watch pattern read a book (poorly). I want to see Kaladin hang out with his boyz eating that perpetual stew. where is lopen’s hat for syl I KNOOOW he bought her one. I’ll even be happy to see the king and moash holding hands and skipping because I know that’s what they’re doing off screen. where is the scene of Dalinar putting his two beautiful sons to bed and tucking them in (obviously they share a bunk bed and he tucks them in every night). would pay actual money to see Adolin grooming his horse and telling him he’s such a good boy. and beach episode when????

[snoopybutch]

I think not.

[luminarot]

ONCE YOU’RE STRIPPED CLEAN, WHAT IS AT YOUR CORE ?

cauterizing rage.

the house has burned around you, and you’re the only one left standing. is it gratifying to be the survivor? fear and anger are weapons in your capable hands, used only to serve your agenda of fighting back when deemed necessary. you're a powerful person, built from the ashes of your despair and your family's mistakes. with time, you'll bloom into someone softer, like the full blossoms that grow each spring and wither away with the leaves in fall. they won't disappear if you take your eyes off of them. you're enough.

tagged by: @dcwnthercbbithcle tagging: @mehrcedita , @lessluck ( for Any muse across all your blogs tbh!!<3 ) , @princetorn + anybody else who would like!!!

[topnotchquark]

No way your thesis is not now kitten daddy is a shell of his former self

Except it literally is lol.

I've expounded on it a bit earlier too. But life was. Not. Kind. To Vale post his final title.

See the nature of power is that it is a potent drug and even the ones most deft at handling it definitely take psychic damage. When you're someone like Vale who was given a free reign since young adulthood to do whatever you want, you get used to it. He basically got Jeremy Burgess as his mechanic on a whim, and even though Yamaha had their strict Japanese ethos he was able to drive design decisions (colors, gimmicks, cartoons, the works) as he wanted. He was allowed these things because he won.

When he came to Yamaha from Honda, he managed to turn a midfield team around to deliver instant wins. He was able to shut everyone up who thought his wins with Honda were due to the bike.

I guess that's what he wanted when he made the switch to Ducati. A continuation of the magic. Flip a backmarker around, deliver even more on top of the existing 9 championships. Solidify in the minds of the people that Valentino Rossi is the sport and he will win irrespective of circumstances and competition.

Anyway none of that happened. And listen, there are healthy ways to process something like this but whatever that healthy thing is, is not embedded in the mind of a man doing 300kmph on a death machine while also entertaining crowds. (Btw if we compare to similar motorsports champions, Schumi quit after losing in 2005 and 2006 because who wants to have that after basically conquering the world. Lewis' 2021 loss was something that clearly affected him and he's doing what he can to reclaim some of that lost pride and power)

So eventually what we're left with is a man who after 9 championships has to contend with the fact that new and aggressive opponents exist that he can't win out against as easily. And that he's older, and that the world's eyes are on him as usual and now he doesn't have the form and power to dictate how people see him.

Now imagine amidst all this shit show, comes the most gifted rider of generations. Who makes heart eyes at you while you have to contemplate your own mortality. I'd chew at the bars of my own enclosure too.

[nighthawkes]

the way it doesn’t even occur to me to want things