#but also because there are infinite variations of you in infinite different universes and every individual one of them is equally doomed

[spidersrightsactivist]

just finished the hazel wood by melissa albert and this didn’t really dawn on me for the past 6 or so fairy tale retellings where the fairy tales are real and trying to kill you and were also compiled by a reclusive witchy woman into a disturbing anthology volume that i’ve read but. it’s genuinely so irritating that all these fairy tale retellings have their vision of these stories hinge on one specific literary compilation created by one person? like the oral tradition is very much still alive and 80% of the fairy tales i heard as a child came from there. when i say i was 'raised on fairy tales' i don't mean a creepy anthology i mean. jack tales. the absence of the oral tradition in the 'folklore is real and wants to kill you' genre will be the death of me

[dr-futbol-blog]

Before I Sleep, Pt. 5

McKay and Weir have joined Old Weir in the infirmary, having a conversation in hushed tones while she sleeps. Or McKay is doing most of the talking, Weir is clearly internally freaking out, and even if she wasn't, she seems to understand about a third of what McKay is telling her. He's theorizing, intellectually stimulated by her presence and what that might mean, and it takes him a while to realize that this must be really weird for Weir. But he gets there, eventually.

McKay: Almost killed her... you. How weird is that, hm? Weir: Very. Very, very weird. Looking at yourself -- how you will be. McKay: Actually, how you will be will be different than how she is right now.

At first, McKay is explaining the science to her in an excited manner because this is really interesting to him. But as soon as he notices that this is affecting Weir in a whole other way, he does try to comfort her in his own way. It's not his forté but it shows that he does care.

We're introduced to the concept of parallel realities which come to play later in the series. There are infinite variations of their own known reality where alternate versions of Sheppard and McKay play out events in different ways, as explained by McKay of the Vegas (S05E19) 'verse. This is not dissimilar to how McKay explains the concept to Weir here: "The universe is in fact split into an infinite number of copies of itself in which every possible outcome to every decision ever made all exist somewhere in this infinitely layered multi-universe."

Relevant to this particular episode is that their point of divergence was their arrival to Atlantis (and the existence of the puddle jumper time machine in the original reality) and hence, the Sheppard and McKay we see in her world are essentially the same but, of course, compared to their current counterparts, they had not yet had any of the experiences that have brought them closer together. McKay in the original reality also never had the ATA therapy. Weir is the only character that survives from the original reality, which means that the characters we have followed for the past months, who we've gotten familiar and fallen in love with as the audience, are actually from the alternative reality.

Again, as it does later on with The Game (S03E15), the show is asking us to reinterpret everything that has happened so far in light of new information. A minute detail may change the reading of the whole narrative, of everything.

She starts telling them about the original expedition's arrival at Atlantis, and we get an abbreviated version of the events that took place (and it's noticeable that one of the things missing is Sheppard's "I didn't touch anything!"). Many of the systems in our reality came alive because they sensed Sheppard's presence in particular. Relevant to this episode, and the view Old Weir has of Sheppard and McKay, is that we see them bantering before they really knew each other, how they were in the very beginning. We can compare:

McKay: This, this is obviously their version of a DHD. Sheppard: Oh, obviously.

With what Old Weir had just witnessed earlier in the sickbay:

McKay: What's that mean? Sheppard: I assume something worked. McKay: Yes, that's very sharp! Sheppard: Thank you!

It's very similar, and yet it's very very different. In the first, Sheppard is being generally sarcastic. His response is just reactive, a facet of his personality. In the latter, he knows McKay and knows how to rile him up in particular. He's not saying it to be sarcastic, he's saying it because he's fond of McKay and seeing the man who usually has all the answers perplexed gives him joy; he thinks it's adorable, he cannot resist rubbing it in his face. And it's McKay who is now using sarcasm, which is something he seemed almost incapable of doing or even comprehending previously, having a very literal understanding of the meaning of words. Being around Sheppard has rubbed off on him in more ways than one.

But then, this--their banter-- is the very first thing Old Weir witnessed in our reality, and it could be that it was for this very reason that their bantering is what her memory recalled first, may even have coloured her memory of the events. She doesn't know these men, and in all likelihood just assumes that their relationship is still much the same; they're trading barbs because that's what their personalities are like. This gives us, too, the opportunity to reflect how much has changed between them--but also to appreciate what was there from the very beginning.

Beckett gives her a stimulant out of Weir's request and they wheel her off to the meeting room, where everyone has gathered to listen to her. While the others are seated, McKay is leaning against the table. This places him closer to Sheppard than he was previously while sitting behind the table, and removes one of the physical obstacles between them. The camera pans and we are invited to look at McKay from Sheppard's perspective. We are looking at McKay, and Sheppard is most definitely looking at McKay. The 10,000 year old lady should be the focal point of attention in the room and yet our attention is drawn to McKay by his placement. And he does look pretty good.

She tells them that when her expedition first came to Atlantis, the city didn't rise but was in serious trouble. The first time that we saw the expedition arrive at Atlantis, it was McKay who was following Sheppard from one station to another, and this was probably because it was Sheppard's presence that was turning things on. Yes, there was an awkward moment where McKay was trying to fix his eyes on everything other than Sheppard but it was still mostly Sheppard wandering around with McKay at his heel with nothing particular going on between them.

In this version, both Weir and Sheppard seem to follow McKay like a pair of orphaned ducklings. Also note how, when they are called away by Col. Sumner, Sheppard gives McKay a look before he turns to follow Weir, very much checking him out, bent as he is over the console. Even this Sheppard that barely knows McKay can appreciate a good backside.

We saw our Sheppard check out several men on the way to Pegasus from SGC but in our world but he didn't seem to pay any special attention to McKay until Hide and Seek (S01E03), following his ATA therapy. It's possible that here he's just taking the opportunity to look at a nice ass just because it's there.

Ducklings. Hoping and expecting McKay to save them with science. Only, this is way above even his pay grade.

I mean, yes, there is a crisis and McKay is the magic man to them, but Sheppard is especially focused on him. He wants to keep McKay in his sight and let's say it's because he wants to be able to help if and when the man needs him to do something. He's not keeping an eye on McKay because he's hopelessly in love with him or even particularly attracted, he is keeping his eye on McKay because he's a strategic thinker and McKay seems like the key figure to follow, to help and to protect if they want to get out of this situation. And this Sheppard seems to really need to be doing something instead of just standing around.

While in the meeting room they've been listening to her regale the tale of how their initial attempt at arriving in Atlantis went awry very quickly, Sheppard has been hugging himself. Where up until this point McKay and Weir have been at Old Weir's side at every opportunity and Beckett has been taking care of her par for the course, Sheppard has actually been somewhat avoiding being in her presence.

It's likely that he sees in her the thing that horrifies him beyond anything else (and which is also the reason why McKay dying eventually becomes his worst nightmare; although, as we shall soon see, it's not precisely an easy thought for him even now), the vastness of the loneliness one must have endured to live for 10,000 years. She's a manifestation of something he would really rather not even think about. So, it's not just because he was mirroring McKay that he had his arms crossed here, it's because he was comforting himself. And it was the mention of Col. Sumner drowning that now made him draw himself back, needing even further protection--not from her but from the haunting yarn she is spinning.

Col. Sumner's death weighs on Sheppard, and we even return to it several times toward the end of the season. He did the merciful thing, the thing he believes the Colonel would have wanted, and certainly something that he himself would have wanted someone to do if he was in a similar situation. But it's still something he has to live with every day and every night, and while he has a deep well of guilt to draw from, this particular failure that lead to the awakening of the wraith and put the entire galaxy in danger is still raw in his mind.

He does not look at McKay, here. He doesn't say anything to anyone. He doesn't know how to feel about this. In her world, he didn't have to shoot Col. Sumner, which is a good thing. But dying by drowning isn't really all that better. And, as Old Weir is quick to point out, he certainly wasn't the only one that died that way there.

In 38 Minutes (S01E04), McKay told Sheppard that he reacts to "certain doom in a certain way". While he doesn't realize it, Sheppard has by this time already noticed that McKay is actually rather good in crises, and he will tell him as much later on. The difference between our McKay and the one in the alternative reality is that the other McKay doesn't really have anything to lose. He's cool, focused on the task, trying to puzzle out the science, but he's not emotional about it because there, he doesn't fear losing someone he cares about.

It's possible that this was a "Kobayashi Maru" situation for him, that there was no possible way they could have prevented it from happening. But it's also possible that if McKay had had the proper incentive, had a reason to want to live, the desperation might have pushed him to come up with a solution that he now fails to find. In the other world, he has no particular incentive. He doesn't even have a real reason to live, which you can see in his response to Weir telling him to make sure that he himself has time to escape.

Yes, he's generally worried for the people and he does the heroic thing, attempting to save them, but it's not personal. He came to Pegasus knowing that he might never return to Earth, and he had been chosen for the mission because he had few ties back home. He has a cat that he left behind, an estranged sister, he has spent the past few years in Siberia and the Antarctic. He has a working relationship with a few people of the expedition, but they are all mostly strangers to each other. He hasn't loved yet, and because he hasn't loved, he doesn't know fear. And so, he works diligently to save everyone but ultimately fails.

This Sheppard, too, is different. While he harbours a lot of guilt for what happened in Afghanistan and had cut himself off from getting too close to people, this Sheppard isn't weighed down by blaming himself for the situation unfolding around them. Yes, he asks McKay whether what's happening was caused by them but it's not like any of them could have known it was going to happen. It's not something that's his fault and his fault alone, not like he considers awakening the wraith to be. And Sheppard also doesn't have a personal stake in saving everyone there, just a general need to do something and not particularly wanting to die. He's mostly nonchalant, more trying to figure it all out than anything. McKay, who feels that the onus of saving them is squarely on him, is much more agitated than Sheppard is. Agitated, but not desperate. Neither of them is.

You can tell that he's different by the exchange he has with Weir:

Weir: Some of our team discovered a bay full of what they're calling ships. Sheppard: As in spaceships? We should check ‘em out. Weir: You think you can figure out...? Sheppard: I can fly just about anything. Weir: Good. Go.

The way he says "We should check 'em out" isn't like he's desperately looking for something to save them. He says it like he's excited that there are space ships around, and can't wait to try them. He also very confidently tells Weir that he will be able to work them. Pilots, especially Air Force pilots, especially former Air Force test pilots (which is what he likely was, as he lists aircraft not usually used by the Air Force to O'Neill and given his comment here, that he can fly just about anything), are required to have excellent self-confidence. They have to make quick and effective decisions and leave no space for self-doubt, especially in the face of adversity. He has been trained to be able to execute commands without hesitation and to come up with viable strategies on the spot. Only, while they are defending their nation or unit, pilots gamble with their own lives. It gets more complicated when there are people you care about that you need to protect.

That's why, after Afghanistan, he had made damn sure that that would never happen again. And at this point in his life, he's right where he wants to be, with no one around to make him doubt himself, second guess himself, to distract him (and this important--I'll return to it with the 3rd season), to make him reckless out of desperation. We didn't get to see this John Sheppard for very long because it didn't take him very long at all to start caring about the people of Atlantis, to start forming bonds with the people he was marooned with. John Sheppard doesn't know how to not love but here, he hadn't had the time for that yet. And because he doesn't love, he has nothing to lose.

In our reality, it was McKay's willingness to sacrifice himself at the end of Hide and Seek (S01E03) that changed everything for him. Someone was willing to give up their own life to save him. In the alternative reality, the most emotion we see on his face is when they are listening to McKay lay down his life for them on the intercom, helping them escape in the jumper as his final act. This Sheppard, too, would soon have found himself loving again against his better judgement. But alas, they had no time for that.

Continued in Pt. 6

[regexkind]

You think determinism is real??? Unfollowed.

No, but seriously, would you possibly mind explaining a bit more? I have been Having Some Feelings about the ways in which life plays out that are very uncanny and to see and recognize all these patterns has been tripping me up (frustrating me, too, but that is good I think—there is information in there) and there's a sense of delusion I've been trying to shake off because, honestly, I Want To Believe, especially in myself and my senses, even if the idea of being told what to do by something else is very annoying to my sensibilities. I don't even believe in Angel Numbers, really, but I have been constantly seeing eights and sixes and I know what they mean, regardless. Sorry. Infodumping.

Seriously, though! It is neat and it does feel like I have been claiming some sense of power and just... being on the right path.

And because it's a topic that has been on my mind right now, and I came across that post, I thought that I would just ask.

Hyper-glib answer: my view on free-will is close to that espoused in the "Thou Art Physics" LessWrong article, with a dash of Daniel Dennett's perspective in "Elbow Room" that what people are distressed by in the question of free-will is the feeling that their agency is being encroached on, and that even if free-will is an illusion, a life in which the decision-making algorithms inside your skull are an ingredient in the outcomes is totally sufficient for happiness.

Less glib, and more in response to your actual ask: I also recognize that what you're talking about when I say "determinism" seems to be different than what I am talking about. Your response makes me think you're imagining that "determinism" is necessarily the result of some sort of planner—you are concerned about being "told what to do by something else", but that isn't necessarily what I'm imagining at all.

The thing I mean is more like the determinism that is implied by the thought experiment of Laplace's Demon. The idea is that if you know the state of the universe at a fixed point in time, and knew the ruleset along which evolution of the universe progressed, you would be capable in principle of computing the state of the universe at any given future moment. Nothing about this scenario presupposes that there was any intentionality in this initial configuration.

In fact, what seems much, much more likely is that the universe is both vast and essentially random in its initial configuration, so that it was inevitable that some corner of the cosmos would contain the seeds for our particular world. It isn't the result of any plan. For a sufficiently small change from our world, there would be a size of universe that would be big enough to contain a version of our world that is that distance away or smaller, and in an infinite universe, arbitrarily small variations of our world prevail. (This is Tegmark Level I multiverse theory; I would link to the specific part of the article but every day mobile web browsing becomes a worse experience and I can't do that anymore it seems)

Anyways, the type of determinism I espouse seems very very different from the one you seem troubled by.

[lunarsilkscreen]

Rethinking the DC Universe

Most superheroes were created from the process; "Make up random s* and see what sticks". So both Marvel and DC are generally... Well they seem random as all get out with no coherency between ideas; and A LOT of campy ideas that are just so outdated they could be considered queerphobic, sexist, AND racist.

<aside>When these were originally drawn up; it was an attempt to be inclusive. But you know how the overton window goes; as it slides what used to be "progressive" gets used for very unprogressive things.</aside>

What this means is that a lot of the authors don't actually know what audiences enjoy about their media; and so they pair down their content to the "greatest hits" they can repeat, and save the rest for when audiences ask for more.

But generally that "More" is really bad not-thought out rehashing of things that audiences didn't really like. Or audiences liked the concept of the ideas presented, but they cam packaged with all the *really bad ideas*. Because creators aren't certain which bits to keep, and which bits to change.

Because; gotta stay true to the source material or fanboys will get cranky in-between their rounds of Madden.

So without further ado; Kryptonite.

Kryptonite unfortunately isn't the material on Earth from the comics. It was a mineral that was new at the time of the comics, and it was introduced in order to influence readers (YA) to learn their elemental tables.

A lot of the sci-fi is about introducing concepts to younger audiences so that they get interested in *real* science. But it often falls short because the original scientists were closer to carni-folk and further away from being very studious.

So in DC comics; Kryptonite is a mineral that came from Superman's home world: Krypton. The joke was intentional. And then it was given a bunch of different variations and mystical magical powers that affected SuperMan in strange ways.

Honestly--To start; I'd get rid of the moniker "SuperMan". Its whole concept is goofy these days. Unless you want to go to more of a less serious DC, which some people *might* want.

The reason it's silly is because the S on his chest that he used to create his hero name "SuperMan" is actually a "K" in his home world's language and stands for his family crest. Indicating his true name: Kal-el and home planet Krypton.

And his stage name: Super Man.

Now, This moniker comes from the carnival strong man days. That's why it sounds so corny. It's also why he wears the ridiculous get-up. Because that's where it comes from... Even the WWE has better outfits and monikers these days.

Keep his real name "Kryptonian" and have everybody else call him "Super Man". In a way that the audience knows; the crowd calls him that, but he doesn't go by *that* name.

Kryptonite; in order to not confuse children with the real thing. Change the name of this Mystical mineral. I'm not sure what to.

BUT. I have an idea that will link it to Green Lantern.

This stone that can take away Superman's powers? Why can't it be the same rock that powers the lantern corp ring?

And because both come in an array of colors that depict different (but the same) varying effects; this can be used as a plot device.

This balances SuperMan's infinite power by making Green Lantern at least as strong as SuperMan, AND it prevents superman from doubling up on super powers.

This pseudo-science extends to many DC characters as well; like the flash. Who ends up building his own Hadron Collider which he uses as his own personal running track. (And also can contain all the energy he emits).

Why is literally every superhero in DC a literal Super-Genius?

I know why; it's to inspire young audiences to be well rounded individuals. But holy shit if doesn't come off as preppy rich-people worship.

In DC there are several Billionaire Genius' that all become some variant of Batman. This can be streamlined. Instead of introducing them all separately; which is done because; VIEWERS NEED TO KNOW WHICH SUPERHERO CAME FIRST, AND WHICH ONE IS THE 'AAA' MOVIE HERO AND WHICH IS THE B-LIST TV SHOW HERO.

They are all Batman, they all want justice. Perhaps they should just... I don't KNOW form some sort of league where they assist the law with dishing out justice instead of all being super unique brooding vigilantes.

Just a thought.

What this does so far is separate each type of hero into a different "threat category". The Batman's care about street-level crimes; they assist the cops, they take down the corrupt politicians and law enforcement.

The spacemen (green lantern, superman;) they deal with inter-galactic threats.

And heroes like the flash who have a tendency and ability for inter dimensional travel? They deal with inter dimensional threats.

Which gives a better reason why these separate teams don't often intersect, opposite "Well, we've heard of them but *CRIME* IS JUST SO BAD YOU GUYS. otherwise we'd have contacted them by now."

If only crime was so bad in real life that superheroes were just always booked solid because law enforcement can't keep up or do its job properly.

Which is why storylines where the heroes leave the country to some island work so much better than just... The entire city is full of criminals and no matter how many you *send to the hospital* they just keep popping up!

Like it's some sort of simulation.

This idea that every series needs to start with Batman and Superman *and then* Justice League *and then* other superhero teams is silly.

When you could take all of the ideas built over the years and take the best bits to make a whole new thing.

Which would honestly feel more honest to viewers than rebooting every series from its first comic.

In the age of Video Games, this would really give gamers a lot more content to play through, and feel less railroady as well.

It even gives reason for villain teams to exist, or not exist.

Also; Batman should be a detective. He's not a direct combat guy, same with all the other superheroes that are Batman clones. They all have extensive martial arts training, so they all should know; The best victory is when you win without fighting.

Also like... They keep trying to make the *same* exact series with different street-level characters that you really start to see why people stopped enjoying superheroes to begin with.

[codename-adler]

"nothing is going to be okay" sounds like it's gonna hurt... tell me more.

It's meant to hurt. You and me both.

Adler's WiPs ~ Project: Nothing Is Going to Be Okay

Also known as Adler-toys-with-the-Major-Character-Death-tag. This is an exploration of every universe where Kevin, Andrew and/or Neil do not make it out. Sometimes Kevin dies; sometimes it's Andrew; other times it's Neil. Someone always dies. Doesn't matter if it's Kandreil, Andreil, Kandrew, Kevneil. Sometimes it's because of canon going slightly to the left. Sometimes it's because it's a totally different universe. Every variation is always merciless.

The origins of such a fun project? Music. It all stems from my personal playlist of the saddest soundtracks or instrumental pieces i religiously listen to, which i won't share until i finally get to writing this collection of grief. So far i have 96 pieces on that playlist. Will i write the boys dying 96 times? i doubt it, but each piece represents a universe with a specific scene and vision. sometimes if it's a soundtrack, i put the boys in that universe and kill 'em. sometimes it's the title of the piece that awakes something ugly in me. sometimes it's a combination of words and vibes. the possibilities are endless. the grief is infinite, a loop, inescapable. yes i got mental problems. yes i got meds for it. why do u ask.

Why the fun title? Ask Andrew.

"Your parents are dead, you are not fine, and nothing is going to be okay. This is not news to you. But from now until May you are still Neil Josten and I am still the man who said he would keep you alive. I don't care if you use this phone tomorrow. I don't care if you never use it again. But you are going to keep it on you because one day you might need it. On that day you're not going to run. You're going to think about what I promised you and you're going to make the call. Tell me you understand." (TRK)

Now! Some of the wips in the collection:

So This Is Christmas: based on Happy Xmas (War Is Over) by Gabrielle Aplin, i revisit Neil's days at the Nest and add a few more casualties. the boys take their turn kicking the bucket. this one is multi-chaptered.

fun fact: there are only 3 songs in the playlist that have lyrics: one of them is in an Arabic or Persian language that i do not speak/read, the other two are in English (Happy Xmas + my tears ricochet)

i would also like to note that Gabrielle Aplin's Happy Xmas is part of my aftg soundtrack project where i'm trying to imagine the series as a TV show and assemble music for specific scenes in multi-episodes seasons. this one i imagine playing with slow-motion scenes cutting back-and-forth between Neil's torture in the Nest over the holidays and the Foxes celebrating in NYC. my magnum opus if you will. i'm not even kidding. all my self-confidence is in that divine mission.

Andrew's Farewell: Hunger Games AU. a classic. the song? iykyk. the victim? iykyk.

On the Nature of Day(light): based on the piece by Max Richter (all variations and covers, but i do favor the original and the entropy). canon divergence AU where Kevin also intervenes at the end of TKM, when the Foxes win the Championships and there's the Riko-Neil-Andew showdown. establishing then destroying Kandreil.

Tennessee: based on the Hans Zimmer soundtrack for the film Pearl Harbor. i took inspiration from the title and the music, not the movie. totally war-unrelated. excerpt (Andreil, other Baltimore AU):

"We could go... We could go... to Tennessee..." "There's nothing in Tennessee, Abram." "Exactly..." *shaky pained smile*

Thin Orange Line: based on Journey to the Line by Hans Zimmer & Gavin Greenaway, from the film The Thin Red Line. War AU + Kandrew + Soldier Kevin Day carrying injured/unconscious Soldier Andrew Minyard to safety. only one makes it.

Other inspirations come from the soundtracks of The Last of Us (1 + 2 + HBO show), The Haunting of Bly Manor / Hill House, Max Richter, Hannibal (NBC show), House of the Dragon, Dune (Denis Villeneuve/Hans Zimmer), and many other shows, films, video games and original compositions / composers.

this project is my beloved baby. i remember it being the first push to create since a long while. i know it is very very sad, and that MCD is very rarely liked/read. i'm still invested. maybe i'll try out NaNoWriMo for a 3rd time with this project. i'm not giving up!

thank you anon, from the bottom of my heart, for giving me the opportunity to info-dump and for allowing me to see that i actually have much more figured out than i thought. i'm glad the hurt/no comfort vibe bewitched you.

[vinegar-on-main]

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR OC. INFO I NEED RIGHT THIS INSTANT

1. Full name, age, gender, height, etc. Just bio info really.

2. What kind of world do they live in?

3. Are they good or evil? Protag? Side character? Villain? Hero?

4. Magic powers of any kind? Skills they have?

5. Favorite fact about them

6. Character arc?

7. Any other info you desperately want to tell someone

WOOOO YEAH OKAY

Putting this under a cut cause this is Loooooong

THIS ISNT PROOFREAD AT ALL HAVE FUNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Also tagging @meme-boys-blog cause he’s heard me brainrot about her :p

1. Okay so that’s a bit complicated cause she uses three of em, depending on form. If she’s a human person, that’s Kuze, if shes humanoid, that’s Kuma, and if shes Shadow Creature, that’s Kurokami. It’s all the same person, just presenting as different aspects, you know?

Also she frequently uses bynames so watch out :p

Beat answer for age is Yes. She’s older than literally everyone and anything due to being a creature that is made out of the stuff that exists between realities.

Her gender is whatever you want it to be, but she generally prefers she/they. But she can manifest as any gendered human person as Kuze. The only exception is pronouns of it/it’s, mostly because of some Hollow Knight Stuff.

Also!!! Kuze fun facts: there’s some Rules that Kuze has to follow when manifested, it’s not a lot, but it’s just enough to tip off observant persons that they’re not exactly the Most Human. For example: all forms have to follow the basic template of white hair, pale skin, black eyes, black clothes. Of course, the black can be any dark shade of gray, so there’s some variation in the outfits. Eyes do not reflect light, skin doesn’t get cut like flesh and instead cracks like porcelain, bleeds Void, body temp is always room temp, etc.

Here’s a drawing I did of each one, from right to left, it’s Kuze, Kuma, and Kurokami

2. Yes? Yes. She’s kinda my proxy into fandoms. An op SI oc. But she has her own personality sorta??? It’s A Lot.

3. Lawful neutral. She has her own personal values and sticks to them like glue, but overall she enjoys the concepts of freedom. She has the potential to be the scariest thing ever with eldritch horror shenanigans, or the wine aunt with weird eyes. She tends to make the worst kind of friends (See: Michael Distortion from TMA) because of her loose morals.

She’s not really on the side of destroying worlds, instead going for the cosmic horror angle of “not yet”. And even then, the Void doesn’t really need her direction.

She also travels to diff universes cause she likes the connection, and also she fears becoming a true monster. I mean, wouldn’t everyone?

4. She’s basically the God of Shadow in all its forms, but she doesn’t control it directly. All forms can stop time with ease due to a visit to jojo and stealing DIO’s stand for herself, Names have Power and she can stop it for an infinite duration. Also she can invoke someone’s true name to tell them what to do, this can manifest in different forms, but she tries to make it subtle :p. All forms are also skilled in every instrument type because music is kinda a huge deal for her, and also can create constructs that fall under the same restrictions as Kuze’s form. They can be pretty much anything. But she usually abuses it to make musical instruments on the fly. Almost forgot about the child in the room, during certain plot parts of Transformers Prime season 3, she made a trade with Rafael to repaint Bumblebee in exchange for his knowledge of computers. And given that this kid can hack The Pentagon… yeah.

Kurokami has the power to change her size to be as large as she wants, but the low end is 7 feet, plus horns. Power to dwell/hide in things/peoples shadows, only consequence being that the shadow itself is darker than normal.

ALSO!!! Soul shit, it’s a lot, but it’s a called direct interfacing. She dislikes the process cause it’s Very Invasive (think of it like forcibly issuing commands to someone)

Also also dream shit, she has a major influence over it cause when Radiance died, they left a power vacuum.

Kuze and Kuma have the previously stated abilities, as well as being overall weaker than Kurokami. The time it takes to get from either of these back to Kurokami is quite literally nothing, as the form can either melt or straight up explode, but going from Kurokami to Kuze/Kuma takes longer, even longer if it’s Kuze.

5. When as Kurokami, there’s some Special Voice Quirks!!! She can speak as any person that she has met or knows the Name of, and usually speaks with more than one voice. Her default is usually some kind of femme fatale, but they could also be a confident businesswoman type beat. Also, she speaks in plurals, using we/us/our instead of I/me/my. I just think it’s neat!!!

Also whenever she arrives in a new place that she’s gonna Chill in, she makes a card that automatically charges a random bank account that’s on an internal list. She mostly picks billionaires. She also can eat but she doesn’t need to but food is good.

Coffee addiction. Lots of coffee.

6. Okay so it’s a bit hard to pinpoint her timeline, but I’m gonna try my best.

- In the Before times, before Kurokami was Kurokami, she was something else, think of it like a Guardian Angel on crack and also omni-dimensional.

- She basically was that before she started looking after the cast for Persona 5, 4, and 3 in that order. When she was done with Persona 3’s main plot, something… spoilery happened that made her have an epiphany and was basically the catalyst for her to begin her search

- the search being, of course, to become her own functioning person. She eventually found her way to HK universe post Dream No More, and traveled down to The Abyss to dunk herself in Void.

- the most recent adventures were, in this order:

- TMA, where she made friends with Michael distortion and also became a menace to Elias. She rearranged his books and moved his shit semi-weekly

- Octopath 2, where she had huuuuge beef with the final boss for kinda encroaching on her domain cause she’s petty. Also she asked the gods pretty please for her to say hi to their chosen and give ‘em a boost

- A revisit to personas 3, 4, and 5 Royal, where she revisited the place and could do what she actually wanted with Joker and Co. also fucked with Kasumi a little because she wanted to know Her Deal early.

- SMT IV, kinda visited it while passing through, but ended up making friends with Hikaru, so there’s that. So now she’s here to play music and kick ass. Also probably provide moral support for Neutral route via fun music times

-Pokemon X/Y: Yeah this was meant as a bit of a one time thing but here we are. She’s here to hang out with Sycamore (who highkey thinks she’s a Zorarark but doesn’t leave her because science!!!! Breakthroughs in Zorarark behavior!!!) and also spend an entire day working on her new holo caster because SOMEBODY decided to listen in on them. Also she’s there for the main events of the plot and I’m trying to justify Sycamore having fully evolved Kanto starters.

-SMT IV: Apocalypse. She’s gonna go hang out with Hikaru and also hang out with a different traumatized kid. But this one has a knife and is a gremlin. Nanashi gives her wicked flashbacks to TMA and ends up alerting Dagda when she tries to figure out the kids deal. Either way, Nanashi has a new stalker and Dagda has a new nuisance.

7. I have some documents saved on my laptop that are literally just Shit I Wrote for discord friends but I can post em here if you want. They’re kinda mismatched and scattered, but they give the sense of “shit happening in the background.”

[moki-dokie]

to add:

not all ears are made equally. i cannot wear any sort of earbud that isn't the squishy kind you can actually shove into the opening of the canal a little. my ears are not shaped the way earbuds are designed - especially wireless ones

because some people have mobility issues and tremors and wireless ones would be falling out/dropped and getting lost constantly from either head tremors or hand tremors, or both.

i do not have to search if a wired bud falls out. already has a safety tether attached

believe it or not some people actually give a shit about the quality of music they're listening to and anything wireless is wretched

headphone jacks are universal. the literal definition of plug and play. its a tech that has remained practically unchanged since it's invention. bluetooth on the other hand requires a device that can not only run bluetooth, but run the specific version you need. i would likely not be able to pair airpods made today with a device from early 00s, but i could absolutely plug headphones into it. (some of us actually keep our old tech and repurpose it. a strange concept for the Youths, i know.) (also i'm aware bluetooth is backwards compatible in most cases but there's still the oddball old device that uses a version that isn't.)

aesthetics

a billion more color and design options exist for wired earbuds. i can easily get an adapter for a headphone jack for a device that no longer has one and get like 20 different kinds of earbuds for the price of 1 pair of plain boring white or black wireless ones

batteries do not have an infinite lifespan. Eventually they can no longer maintain a charge. and apple has been notoriously guilty about building their tech to purposely die at a faster rate. while the tech in wired earbuds also does not afford it an infinite lifespan, it would come down to a mechanical defect (either a wire malfunction or the individual parts inside the earbud breaking) to cause a failure. and buddy i still have earbuds from the 90s before they were ever known as earbuds that still work flawlessly

anyway stop giving in to this weird notion that tech has to be one OR the other. wireless options for everything is awesome and i'm glad i can be mostly wire-free if i so choose to be. however, i don't regularly, because wireless quality for anything will never match wired. mobile technology itself is far, far inferior because our technology for this shit has reached its limit. unless someone can figure out how to harness quantum computing for practical every day use and on smaller scales than we use now, then wireless/mobile anything is always going to be worse in some way than the analog version. and you know what? thats fine for the vast majority of casual use. i'm totally fine sacrificing keystroke and click accuracy when i'm on the go and need the freedom a wireless laptop keyboard and mouse provides. in temporary circumstances like that, i could not be more thankful wireless tech is so readily available to me now. but for my every day regular use, all of my shit is hardwired. not only do i need it to be but i quite frankly just want it to be that way. i think the apple vs. microsoft wars of the 00s really did a disservice to the tech industry as a whole. back in the 90s tech was all about being wildly unique and innovative. it was about giving people as much choice as possible. hence all the fucking weirdass cellphone designs through the late 90s/early 00s. a thousand different kinds of dinky mp3 players. hell even cd players had a fuckload of variation. then the apple-microsoft wars went full swing and pitted the consumer against one another. and in doing so, they both obliterated all other competition. monopolized the markets. homogenized everything. now here we are, with people who have either forgotten the before times or never knew them to begin with and have drunk the koolaid that the current tech giants are waterboarding us with.

why do we *need* to have a wire attached to our earbuds? because we fucking want to, thats why. because there's no reason that both should not exist equally. because this isn't a goddamn arms race and there is 0 point or purpose to the superiority complex apple primarily has created except to have more and more loyal simps to siphon pennies from. I need my earbuds to have a wire because i would like to exist in a world where i have a choice in what technology i feel is best for me to use, not what the Brand wants me to use.

Why do you need your earbuds to have a wire so badly?

I am assuming this is about a post I reblogged like six months ago when I went off on forced technological enshitification and the slow erosion of consumer options. But sure, I'll bite.

Why do I "need" my earbuds to have a wire? I dunno, Anon, maybe I:

Don't want to have to worry about recharging my earbuds.

Don't want my earbuds to be even easier to lose.

Don't want my earbuds to need separate accessories that are as easy to lose as the earbuds.

Prefer to have bluetooth turned off on my devices for security and safety reasons.

Like being able to seamlessly plug my earbuds into my computer, my MP3 player, or any other device with a headphone jack.

Don't want to spend 50 dollars on decent wireless earbuds when I can do all the above things with a pair of solid earbuds that cost me like $12 during the Obama administration.

Don't care about what kinds of headphones or earbuds people wear but don't like what it says about our society when other people apparently care what kind of earbuds I'm wearing so much they have send an Anonymous ask to interrogate me about it.

And I guess, more abstractly, because fuck Apple. That's why.

[valenishere]

smth self indulgent

Okay so the new loki movie (not like i've watched it except for short funny clips), the one where they delve into the multiverse really got me thinking, especially the one about the multi variant thing. it got me thinking.

it's only natural to have multiple variants of a single person right since it's an endless timestream of endless universes and one thing can never be the same. Except there is an exception to that rule. A uniqueness. not that every variant of a living thing is supposed to be different, more like it's to vary in every universe indefinitely, because of the infinite timelines and universes yeah?

Now what if, on top of the variation within every universe, someone gets a different kind of uniqueness to their existence. Instead of the uniqueness of existing in every universe at the same time indefinitely, a person have a uniqueness of being a finite being.

Not the once hunted down, immediate extinction kind but the only a few can exist in the same time. Not the oh, you exist in this one but dont in the other revolving thing but the kind that you can literally count on less than two hands.

Lemme introduce you to a origin concept (of me that i finally put together after getting a taste of the undertale verse when i was a pre teen):

The Finite Uniqueness [leave me alone im still workshopping the name]

Where i combined the concept of the infinite multiverse with the concept of reincarnation. I was alreadysittin on the idea of my character having multiple version of herself because of the undertale verse i keep consuming before but i keep thinking to myself that making that many variants will be hard, even for an airhead like me. But then i saw a clip about Doctor Who(along with the kang thing in loki multiverse movie). then this idea came to fruition.

Why not just kill off the same-time infinite existence version, and make it a reocurring one instead while keeping the infinite concept intact.

So in this existance uniqueness, my character would be theoretically finite while also being theoretically infinite. In the infinite universe, her uniqueness is existing in numbered universes, regardless of the timeline and kind of universe. once a variant of hers dies, a new one is born and/or reborn in another world, in another time, in another universe entirely. This cycle would continue to repeat over and over and over again even if the variants all die at the same time, making her existance just as infinite as any other despite having a numbered amount of variants in the same time only(at least that's what i think). I'll probably expand more on this character concept of mine in the coming years of my life maybe clena it up a bit more but right now this is all i could think off.

[vermilionstarlight]

Deep, gaming frustration in my chest when I see people engaging in oppression olympics once again. Why are you arguing whether transfems or transmascs experience more or less oppression under patriarchy. Minimal nuance added, it's just "X group has it worse."

And I look in the notes, hoping and praying that some sorta discussion reveals that OP does in fact have nuance. Maybe so I can even screenshot it and add it as a reblog. And I just see bullshit like "even non-passing transmasculine people have it easier than any transfem." And I just want to take them by the shoulders and psychically-beam some perspective into their fucking head.

Bigots don't CARE. A failed woman and a failed man is all the same to them (because that's all they see us as). They conditionally apply the oppression that women face and the oppression that men face, to BOTH groups. It's the philosophy that we deserve the assigned struggles of our agab, but also since we willingly tried to reach for another gender, we should also get treated with THOSE downsides, just to teach us a lesson.

Transmascs are treated as hyper-emotional and incompetent and talked down to like a woman, AND they're treated as dangerous and aggressive and belligerent like a man. Transfems suffer the social pressures of manhood and the lack of emotional availability, and are treated as dangerous and sexually aggressive, AND they're treated like sexual objects and hysteria-addled idiots and derided if they don't look perfectly pretty all the time, but called sluts and whores if they're TOO pretty. It's both at the same time. They don't distinguish, and they don't care. All they know is that we're "pedo groomer tranny faggots" and they'll use every tool of punishment in the book to make us suffer for it.

And the solution to these problems is the exact fucking same! You elevate trans voices (that are so often directly or indirectly silenced), you advocate for trans rights, you rail against the patriarchy, you dismantle gender norms, you push for gender abolition in general. We fight the same fight. Take my hand. We are stronger together.

If you get angry about someone saying their group suffers, that doesn't mean they're silencing your voice. That's the insecurity demons speaking in your brain and you need to kill them with hammers. They trick you into thinking everything is an attack on you or your group, and let me tell you they're vicious lying little dipshits. And if someone IS explicitly downplaying another's oppression? Try to remind them of what I'm saying. That we are in the same fight and what matters is helping people, not technical arguments over who's hurt the worst in what scenarios. The bad guys want us all equally dead. Get angry at them.

And this is NOT to say an analysis of how oppression works and in what ways it's enacted is somehow bad or contributing to infighting. The issue is not the subject matter inherently, but how people approach it. You can analyze the unique struggles of transmascs or transfems or whoever else, but if you approach it with a pre-existing attitude of "X group has it worse" or "Y group is so whiny about their issues" then you are not doing good analysis. There are infinite nuances to all oppression and how it relates to intersectional identities, the surrounding culture, the personalities of the persons involved, etc. You cannot approach it from the perspective of "MY group is oppressed and YOUR group is too, and you need to help us." You have to approach it like "WE are oppressed and WE need to elevate our voices/fight for our rights/etc." In so many ways there is barely any distinction between the transfem and the transmasc. And in so many ways they are very different, but that doesn't change the fundamental siblinghood they hold.

Almost no singular sweeping statement can possibly be true in the face of near-infinite human variation. We all suffer and we all fight to alleviate that. No group universally has it worse or better in every single situation everywhere forever, and we sure as fuck all have it bad in some context, and we need to stop that.

[unfoldingmoments]

Life and Death and the Quantum Wave Function

I have met others like us,’ Hugo said. ‘You see, I have been in the in-between state for a long time. I have encountered a few other sliders. That’s what I call them. Us. We are sliders. We have a root life in which we are lying somewhere, unconscious, suspended between life and death, and then we arrive in a place. And it is always something different. A library, a video store, an art gallery, a casino, a restaurant . . . What does that tell you?’ Nora shrugged. And thought. Listening to the hum of the central heating. ‘That it’s all bullshit? That none of this is real?’ ‘No. Because the template is always the same. For instance: there is always someone else there – a guide. Only ever one person. They are always someone who has helped the person at a significant time in their life. The setting is always somewhere with emotional significance. And there is usually talk of root lives or branches.”

And there is always an infinite range of choices,’ Hugo went on. ‘An infinite number of video tapes, or books, or paintings, or meals . . . Now, I am a scientist. And I have lived many scientific lives. In my original root life, I have a degree in Biology. I have also, in another life, been a Nobel Prize-winning chemist. I have been a marine biologist trying to protect the Great Barrier Reef. But my weakness was always physics. At first I had no idea of how to find out what was happening to me. Until I met a woman in one life who was going through what we are going through, and in her root life she was a quantum physicist. Professor Dominique Bisset at Montpellier University. She explained it all to me. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics.

Erwin Schrödinger . . .’ ‘He of the cat.’ ‘Yes. The cat guy. He said that in quantum physics every alternative possibility happens simultaneously. All at once. In the same place. Quantum superposition. The cat in the box is both alive and dead. You could open the box and see that it was alive or dead, that’s how it goes, but in one sense, even after the box is open, the cat is still both alive and dead. Every universe exists over every other universe. Like a million pictures on tracing paper, all with slight variations within the same frame. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics suggests there are an infinite number of divergent parallel universes. Every moment of your life you enter a new universe. With every decision you make. And traditionally it was thought that there could be no communication or transference between those worlds, even though they happen in the same space, even though they happen literally millimetres away from us.

But the point is, there are others like us. I have lived so many lives, I have come across a few of them. Sometimes just to say your own truth out loud is enough to find others like you.’ ‘It’s crazy to think that there are other people who could be . . . what did you call us? ‘Sliders?’ ‘Yep. That.’ ‘Well, it’s possible of course, but I think we’re rare. One thing I’ve noticed is that the other people I’ve met – the dozen or so – have all been around our age. All thirties or forties or fifties. One was twenty-nine, en fait. All have had a deep desire to have done things differently. They had regrets. Some contemplated that they may be better off dead but also had a desire to live as another version of themselves.’ ‘Schrödinger’s life. Both dead and alive in your own mind.’ ‘Exactement! And whatever those regrets did to our brain, whatever – how would you say? – neurochemical event happened, that confused yearning for death-and-life was somehow just enough to send us into this state of total in-between.’ Why is it always just one person that we see? In the place. The library. Whatever.’ Hugo shrugged. ‘If I was religious, I’d say it was God. And as God is probably someone we can’t see or comprehend then He – or She – or whichever pronoun God is – becomes an image of someone good we have known in our lives. And if I wasn’t religious – which I’m not – I would think that the human brain can’t handle the complexity of an open quantum wave function and so it organises or translates this complexity into something it understands. A librarian in a library. A friendly uncle in a video store. Et cetera.”

“So,’ Nora said, ‘whatever exists between universes is most likely not a library, but that is the easiest way for me to understand it. That would be my hypothesis. I see a simplified version of the truth. The librarian is just a kind of mental metaphor. The whole thing is.”

“But what if one day there is no video store?’ Nora thought about Mrs Elm, panicking at the computer, and the flickering lights in the library. ‘What if one day you disappear for good? Before you have found a life to settle in?’ He shrugged. ‘Then I will die. And it means I would have died anyway. In the life I lived before. I kind of like being a slider. I like imperfection. I like keeping death as an option. I like never having to settle.’ ‘I think my situation is different. I think my death is more imminent. If I don’t find a life to live in pretty soon, I think I’ll be gone for good.’

She explained the problem she’d had last time, with transferring back.

Oh. Yeah, well, that might be bad. But it might not be. You do realise there are infinite possibilities here? I mean, the multiverse isn’t about just some universes. It’s not about a handful of universes. It’s not even about a lot of universes. It’s not about a million or a billion or a trillion universes. It’s about an infinite number of universes. Even with you in them. You could be you in any version of the world, however unlikely that world would be. You are only limited by your imagination. You can be very creative with the regrets you want to undo. I once undid a regret about not doing something I’d contemplated as a teenager – doing aerospace engineering and becoming an astronaut – and so in one life I became an astronaut. I haven’t been to space. But I became someone who had been there, for a little while. The thing you have to remember is that this is an opportunity and it is rare and we can undo any mistake we made, live any life we want. Any life. Dream big . . . You can be anything you want to be. Because in one life, you are.

'But you will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life,’ he said, wisely. ‘You’re quoting Camus.

Excerpt From: Matt Haig. “The Midnight Library.”

[keatxu]

this is fucking horrifying. society insists on doing these things to people who don't conform; intersex people also get this treatment, being forcibly mutilated to fit in. none of these things work to make people healthier or happier, it only serves the purpose of forcing the norm onto people. which is why also on the other hand trans people have to jump every hoop to get healthcare even with every proof that it is actually effective at improving health and happiness. society doesn't care. it wants conformity.

i've gained a whole fucking 18kg (40lb) since i started hrt and i've literally never felt better. and yet no matter how much better *i* feel in *my own fucking body* i've gotten pushback. i get more exercise, i have more energy, i like my own reflection, i am literally healthier in every way but it doesn't conform so it couldn't possibly be good!!

people don't understand how stupid complicated biology is. each body is its own fucking universe and the same rules don't apply to everyone. there's also like how weight as a health indicator simply makes no sense at all considering each type of tissue has it's own density with virtually infinite possible variations and these *will* differ from person to person. the way your body is structured will also impact what your weight looks like because that's how volume fucking works it's basic physics. not even getting into all the anatomical anomalies that happen literally all the time (all of you reading probably have several). all of this obviously also applies to all the intersex stuff, your body can look really weird and yet still be completely healthy because that's not how disease works. "if it ain't broke don't fix it" remember?

it's also like, if you eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly you're already much fucking healthier than the average person independently of how much you weigh. if your diet is shit and your life sedentary it doesn't matter how skinny you are, the fat roommate you keep shaming who goes for a run every day will be dancing on your fucking grave. it's quite funny really because most fat people i know live healthier lives overall than most skinny people i know. people really don't realize how much they're hurting themselves with this line of thinking.

fuck this shit. any doctors who endorse this kind of filth are fucking frauds. this is not medicine it's fucking poison and i hope you die

PS: fuck clothing sizes. who are these made for???? if you're even remotely above average you'll often have trouble finding clothes that fit (i can only find bras my size online!!). do they only produce stuff for the lower half of the bell curve?? i mean the clothing industry is already rotten to the core i wouldn't be surprised but still. fucking shit

Theres something really insidious about how gastric bypass advocates deny that essential organ mutilation is unhealthy.

"I've lost so much weight I'm so healthy" your stomach is mutilated.

"My doctor is praising my progress" your stomach is mutilated.

"I fit in so many more clothes now"

Because an essential, life sustaining organ in your body was cut up and your digestive system rerouted.

Health isn't the end all be all of value, humanity or importance but I feel like there is a huge lie here when this is "healthy" and it's just ignored.

Sorry to just bring this up out of no where but I was reminded of how little this is really talked about in bypass circles. Like, no matter what, you are now unhealthy. The spector of health continues. The Ouroboros is unbroken. Only this time it's doctor approved.

-mod squirrel

[raymossrex5]

The below are some metaphysics and ‘bigger picture’ deets on a worldbuilding project I just started, plus a ‘bestiary’ of god types.

Some background info: this multiverse has a sort of ‘4th wall’ keeping out most creator deities from entering it. the exact mechanics of which are very complicated, aside from allowing infinitesimal portions of a god’s power through. Enough to create universes, because metaphysics is weird and relative; you can make a rock with 100 quintessence in some places and a multiverse with 0.0001 quintessence in others.

So the most they usually do is send tiny pieces of themselves as avatars into the worlds they create. Then one of them decided to shatter Himself into pieces to get around the barrier before fusing the pieces into His own reality, which created ‘true magic’ and also made His reality become supermassive. both physically and existentially, bc while you can’t really tell from the veil ALL creator deities are stupidly op, so Him putting all of Himself into his world made it and its metaphysics ‘dominant’ over everything else.

Note that while the multiverse is HUGE and infinite by some metrics it is nowhere near as massive as it could be: it is hyper saturated with quintessence in comparison to the realities that came before it. Worlds that size were once spun from such little quintessence they hardly existed.

This is also why most beings that aren’t directly produced by creator deities have humanish brains as He had a human mind; whilst any random creator deity is likely to be somewhat eldritch by our standards, humanity’s metaphysical dominance means they kinda have to stay on the ‘fringe’ of most of reality if they can’t make a sufficiently human avatar.

Aspect lords: Aspect lords directly serve one of the metamagical forces underlying how magic itself functions (examples include Chaos, Order, Relativity, and more. They’re somewhere between splintered pieces of the mind of Him and platonic concepts) which basically means they can do anything as long as it doesn’t go too far against their Aspect. They essentially tightrope walk the line between mortal and god.

Creator avatars: creator avatars are kind of like aspect lords but they ‘serve’ an unbroken creator deity. They’re more extensions of the creator deity than actual independent beings. Technically stronger than aspect lords but they’re weaker outside of their own domains, and given that most of reality is currently running on Him.exe without sufficient compatibility they can’t enter most of reality without being booted out of existence.

Aspects: the aspects are the scattered fragments of pieces of Him. Each of them, while weaker than a creator deity, is exponentially more able to affect reality due to being on the ‘existing’ side of the veil. They govern how ‘true magic’ works, (What we might recognise as magic existed before Him’s splintering, it just had wildly different metaphysics from place to place based on the whims of the deity fueling it and also had absolutely no ability to countermand deities because its existential weight was basically 0.) serving less as actual ‘beings’ and more as forces.

Creator deities: the big ones. Creator deities are all (each and every one) infinitely powerful and had a habit of creating worlds to play with; aside from that there’s endless variation; they number in the quadrillions. Fortunately for us only infinitesimally tiny pieces of them can enter reality and aside from the really human ones they can only use their own power, even if they control said power absolutely. Most ‘dislike’ (if they can feel: remember most are eldritch by our standards) the multiverse as it is for a variety of reasons but can’t do much about it. Sufficiently human ones are absolutely vibing though.

[mozillavulpix]

I’ve been watching NicoB’s Let’s Play of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, and I realised I wrote a bit about its ending, so I’m gonna save it here so it doesn’t get lost.

I've enjoyed this Let's Play so much. I don't have a PS4 and know this probably won't be ported to anything else for a while, so I decided to experience the game through this and it's been so much fun theorising and asking questions in the comment section at the same time as Nico and everyone else here. It's definitely been a great experience. 

 And I love how this ending opens the story up to basically infinite variations. It's like, pure fanfiction fuel. Want a universe where the relationships are entirely different? Sure! I'm personally ready for the universe where the Sentinels combine or something and they all have to work together Pacific Rim-style. 

Or the universe where they're all Magical Girls or something. 

Hey, it could happen! 

I guess my only disappointment with the ending was how...surprisingly 'easy' it was to find a way to escape the loops in the end. It took maybe even upwards of 5000 years to come up with a plan that got this close, and the solution seemed...surprisingly simple when you got down to it. I guess the real reason this loop managed to do something none of the others could was because the Sentinel's shifting feature accidentally allowed Miyuki Inaba to end up outside Universal Control, which gave her power to do things outside the 5 sectors. So it was kind of like a very random coincidence that gave them the power to end this cycle. Not really some sort of 'power of humanity' than it was them getting very, very lucky one time.

Did they only have that kind of power because Juro Izumi and Chihiro Morimura could survive through Sector 0? So that (symbolically at least) they were only able to escape this cycle the one time they were able to share their knowledge past the original 16 year loops they were stuck in? Did no one manage to transfer their data to Sector 0 before Tsukasa Okino did it two loops ago (otherwise they'd be recreated every loop, too), or has something like this happened before, but Sector 0 occasionally gets reset too? 

...I probably need to start looking up some staff interviews.

(Also, while I’m here: what the hell did Tetsuya Ida do in 2188 to make Ryoko Shinonome decide genocide was the only option? Geez.)

[kesanaksara]

The Quiet Sadness of Mario Galaxy

Its 1.49 AM

There's a funny moment at the beginning of Super Mario Galaxy...

It's here - Mario looks so goofy when he runs!

Okay, that's, that's not actually what I meant. It's after the introduction. Peaches entire castle has been

Levitated off the ground by a freaking UFO and it's been stolen through a wormhole

and Mario has apparently been sucked into the vacuum of space.

You know, standard stuff.

And then there's this moment here; Mario gets woken up by a little star thing and the game just does...

This.

I think about this moment a lot.

Mario Galaxy is nothing if not effusive. A lot of times, It's a maximalist game,

There are just so many ideas so many galaxies so many gimmicks and tricks.

I mean, just listen to the soundtrack.

Gusty Garden galaxy might as well be Mozart's Ninth Concerto for video games.

I mean the level of enthusiasm and joy and capital-O

Orchestration is off the charts here. I honestly have trouble recording over the song because it gives me goosebumps.

I mean, wow.

But, in the same game there's also this:

And I think this,

as much as this, sets the stage for the whole experience

The 3D Mario games have an interesting relationship with setting. Really, only one of them has been consistent,

That's Super Mario Sunshine, you like tropical settings and water? Boy, do I have the game for you.

You don't? Well, find another platformer, I guess? Because Mario is in straight-up Margaritaville for this entire game.

But Sunshine is actually the weird one here.

For Mario 64's different paintings to Odysseys worlds

Most of Mario's adventures defined themselves by variety, in setting as well as in gameplay

There is virtually no thematic consistency in these discrete levels,

and there doesn't have to be. Each one is charming and more importantly, each one offers a totally different

context for Mario to jump around in. It's hard to be bored when you're whisked off to a totally different place every couple minutes.

And, in some ways Mario Galaxy runs farthest of all with this variety; you're flying to different solar systems!

The game just bleeds new and interesting mechanics;

You thought that snow world was different than the clock world in Mario 64?

Give me a break, those levels had identical gravity, get on Mario Galaxy's level.

But despite all this variation, the dozens of different ways you move through the worlds,

There is actually a uniting principle throughout the game's levels.

Space. It's out there. It's unavoidable. You have to fly through it every time you want to go somewhere,

And I think that Mario Galaxy knows it's impossible to make space something that's only ever fun.

I've talked about space before in a video considerably more grim than this one,

Space Engine and Universal Paperclips force us to come to grips with our place in an infinite universe,

and Mario galaxy has no intentions of filling you with existential dread.

But still even in this happy-go-lucky universe, this is one of the first visuals the game gives us.

A tiny moon suspended over a massive and abstract planet. No bombast, No triple jumps,

It's a quiet exhale.

You know those times when you only realize you've been smiling because you feel it slowly fade from your face?

That's this. It's right there in the title. Mario Galaxy gives us space.

There's time here, time to give a little perspective.

Mario has got to save Princess Peach, and he's going to, don't worry, but if it takes a little while,

That's okay.

If you can't do it right now because you're only allowed to play video games on the weekend,

and it's Sunday night and Mom and Dad

really want to watch the Tonys and

"Haven't you played enough video games Jacob?"

even though you've only got two stars left

before you've got all of them we can play as Luigi-

It's okay.

Breathe.

Mario Galaxy makes you take this kind of breather a lot,

If you look for it. Like every Mario game there's tons to do in each level. There are multiple stars in each one

There are races. There are secrets,

There are trickster comets,

But you can't grab them all in one run through. Like Mario 64, you're kicked out after finding each one.

You've got to take a minute, update your star and coin counts, save, and then

jump back into the painting, or fly back to the galaxy in pursuit of the next adventure

and in Mario Galaxy the places you're kicked back into are just so...

Lovely.

They're referred to as hubs, or

observatories, but they're not really

There the rooms on this intricate little ship you've made your home.

One is a fountain, one is a kitchen, one is a bedroom.

They make up this wonderful little dollhouse version of domesticity.

The stove isn't interactive. You can't climb into bed, but someone might.

Each of these rooms is its own little buffer between the worlds.

Health side is an intergalactic vessel,

and through the lens are dozens of unique planets, but this is just its own place.

Is this sad? Like, is this

bold-faced, "video title" warned thing sad?

Maybe not.

But what it wants to communicate through this design isn't despair.

It's more like the sadness at the end of a birthday party, or coming home after a vacation.

There's a moment when happiness leaves you - But that moment, you eventually realize, is good.

Honestly that birthday party was getting pretty exhausting by the end. It can't be Hanukkah every day.

Much more obviously sad, and also much more weird, is the library.

Over the course of the game you can return here several times to hear Rosalina

read a story to all these little star pips.

You don't get to play out the story,

You don't uncover a secret star for listening, and it's also not remotely related to your quest to find Princess Peach.

It's literally just a storybook with a surprisingly melancholy tale about Rosalina

losing her mom and finding a family among the stars.

It almost reads like "The Little Prince".

"Listen to a story," the game gently prompts you, "Stop playing for a second,

Go, and listen and feel something that isn't quite joy."

As you progress through the game and get more stars,

You can access more of the observatories around the ship.

Each of them have their own set of accessible planets, systems, and stars to collect,

but they also simply let you explore new places. You gradually climb higher, you reach the engine room,

But there's still a ways to climb. The last room you reach is at the very top of the ship,

the highest point. Is it the ship's power source, some kind of nuclear reactor?

Is it the most powerful telescope in the universe? Is it some kind of weapon we're gonna use to vaporize Bowser?

It's this.

The Garden.

I...

I don't quite know how to talk about the garden.

I think it's literally the only place in the game without music.

There's this meaning in context to Rosalina's storybook.

Her story is about wanting to go home, before ultimately deciding the stars are her home, but the garden gives it a sad little coda.

Maybe Rosalina still wanders up here sometimes and remembers what it was like to live on land.

There's the fact that, to me, this looks like the Isle of Skye, a place in Scotland that I think about,

More or less every day.

I don't really think it exists to be analyzed though.

It, like this planet in the very beginning, is an exhale.

Everywhere else in Mario Galaxy is meant to be clamored over. Stomped or long-jumped through,

and the garden isn't any of those things.

It's just so wholly unexpected,

That it forces me to stop, makes me catch my breath, every time I walk into it.

Even though Mario can seemingly soar through space with the greatest of ease,

the feeling of the void is always present in Mario Galaxy.

There are black holes, there are bottomless pits. There's just the sparkling

nothing every time you look outside your immediate area,

and Galaxy doesn't hide from that. But, unlike the cruelty by negligence of simulations,

Super Mario Galaxy uses the coldness of the cosmos to make the spaces we do have

feel that much warmer, that much more delicate.

Maybe Mario could use a powerup to fly outside the atmosphere of the ship,

maybe he could hop these small rocks and wander out into the garden, but why would he want to?

We've got everything we need right here.

[spiritualmanifesting]

“Learn This, and Your Life Will Change Forever!”

Manifestation For Beginners

I’d like you to imagine a garden.

In this garden, the soil is always rich with nutrients and what you plant, it will grow. There is rain and sun so you don’t have to worry about anything.

You can plant anything. There are no restrictions.

You can plant roses or you can plant poison ivy. You can plant tomatoes or you can plant nightshade, a deadly poison. What you put in, as a seed, will eventually grow into something much bigger.

This garden is your mind and the seeds you can plant are your thoughts.

Your mind is a fertile place where the thoughts you plant, will grow and make up for what your life is.

Or as the old passage from the Bible goes, from the book of proverbs, chapter 23, verse 7:

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,”.

Your thoughts, your convictions, manifest the surrounding reality.

Your life, good or bad, is nothing more than a reflection of the thoughts you’ve planted in your mind and nourished. These thoughts became behaviors. Behaviors became results.

You are where you are right now because deep down in your heart, this is where you wanted to be, no matter how sad or unfair this may sound.

This principle is one of the oldest spiritual laws in existence. It’s also one of the best known. You may know it under a different term.

This is “you become what you think about”.

And you can find this in all of world’s religions.

Some variation of this exists in Hinduism, in Christianity and in basically every other major religion. It’s found in all belief systems, as the one used by the Chinese. It’s as much of a universal law as gravity. Long before books existed, wise people understood that our thoughts manifest our reality.

It works on two levels.

First, your beliefs are connected to the universe on a quantum level. We manifest what we really believe.

Let me make this clear though.

You don’t manifest what you think you believe. You manifest what’s in your heart. If you believe you deserve unhappiness and pain, then no matter what you say, this you’ll get.

A great deal of people believe they have positive thoughts when their inner voice is always negative and destructive.

That voice will always win. Maybe this is why LoA fails for so many people — they’re trying to grow trees of prosperity and success while planting seeds of doubt and pain and suffering.

It doesn’t work this way.

You get what’s in your heart. The universe will manifest it. But what’s in your heart is the truth and we may not always know of this truth.

Life doesn’t give you what you intended.

Life gives you what you ask.

And while many people intend for wealth and joy and health, their thoughts are of poverty and sadness and despair. Since this is what they’re planting, this is what the universe is manifesting.

Second, your thoughts lead to beliefs.

Your beliefs lead to actions.

Your actions lead to outcomes.

Your outcomes leads to your destiny.

The thoughts you plant in your mind will determine how you act, on a level that’s so subtle that you can’t even perceive it. Who you are, is the consequence of the thoughts you’ve adopted.

It’s hard to realize this.

It’s on the same level of breathing.

You realize your breath only if you pay attention. You realize your behavior and where it comes from only if you analyze it. But everything you are comes from the thoughts you’ve once planted in your mind and then let them become a part of you.

So when you plant positive thoughts, you get positive results.

When you plant love and happiness, your behavior will reflect love and it will create happiness for yourself and for others.

When you plant thoughts of prosperity and wealth, your behavior will create wealth and prosperity in the world.

Think of this like the captain of an airplane. An airplane is huge, carries hundreds of passengers and weighs tens of tons. Yet, you will find just one or two pilots in the cockpit, controlling this huge machine.

So is with your life.

Even if your behavior is infinitely complex, there are just a few thoughts that control all of it and if you replace those thoughts, everything will change for you too.

The thoughts you plant in it will both manifest reality as in creating reality itself and shape your behavior to create the results you want.

Both are important.

This world is a 50–50 place.

The universe can manifest the opportunities you require at this moment but you must act to take advantage. If luck knocks at your door, you still need to open the door.

It’s like in this old joke.

A fisherman is caught up in a storm. His boat is sinking. Desperate, he prays to God.

“God, please save me, I’ll be good, I’ll repent, just save me”

A few minutes later, a boat shows up.

“Hi there, do you need any help?”, the good Samaritan asks him.

“No, no, God will save me”, the fisherman answers.

Perplexed, the savior leaves.

Ten minutes later, the same things happen. Another boat shows up. They offer to help him. The fisherman refuses saying that God will help him.

Eventually, the boat sinks, he dies and goes to heaven. There, face to face with God, he asks …

“God, why did you left me to die? I prayed to you and I promised I’ll repent for my sins”.

God looks at him and says “What are you talking about? I’ve sent you two boats”.

This is a joke, but this is how life works too.

We manifest opportunities but you must take advantage of these opportunities. If you are a real estate agent and you want to close a huge deal, your thoughts will manifest this opportunity. The universe will align the people, places and circumstances for this to happen.

But these people, places and circumstances won’t come to you in your living room. You must still act and do something.

Or maybe you want to find the love of your life.

Thoughts of love and appreciation will manifest your ideal partner but your partner won’t knock at the door and ask you for a date.

The universe is like a tree that offers you the fruits you need, in infinite abundance, but you still must grab those fruits from the tree.

And it all starts with your thoughts, with your beliefs.

Make a commitment now to fill your mind with positive thoughts. Make a commitment to think only thoughts of love and joy and wealth.

At first, it will be hard.

If you’re used to plant only poison in your mind, it will take a while until you take it all out. But once you do, you’ll notice something incredible happening. You’ll see how you’ll walk into the right circumstances. You’ll find yourself in the right places, at the right time, to get what you want.

How can I help you do this?

Manifestation Magic contains hidden NLP commands which act as seeds to plant in your subconscious mind.

NLP is a powerful technology built around the best schools of psychotherapy and hypnosis. It allows you to “program” your subconscious mind — planting seeds into the fertile ground of your mind and heart.

This means you can listen to these tracks before going to sleep and change what you think, putting no effort at all.

Manifestation Magic always contains the best of brainwave entrainment, which trains the brain to operate at a higher frequency and is built around the Solfeggio scales, tones that will heal you and help you manifest miracles in your life.

Click below to discover how Manifestation Magic can help you plant better thoughts into your mind and manifest the life you deserve.

>>Click Here To Manifest Magic Into Your Life<<

[bungod-hearth]

I adore your swap AU & had some questions if that is OK. 1: Did Luz have any trouble with Eda's parents in letting her move in? 2: Is she still friends & got a similar relationship to canon with Gus & Willow? 3: What's her Palisman, Owlbert or does she have an original? 4: does she have a portal to the human world or are both she & Belos looking for that? 5: Does she have any Glyph jewelry, or still utilize mostly paper & her staff? 6: Would she defeat then befriend those trying to arrest her XD

Hey there!! I'm glad you liked it so much you got curious and I'm more than happy to answer!💕💕

I'll put everything under the cut cause it's long as fuck sorry

1- that's something I'm actually working through! Since we still don't know basically anything about Eda's family and how they reacted after the curse (except for Lilith obviously), Eda kind of runs away from home after getting cursed, looking for this mysterious lonely witch who knows a different way to use magic, but I'm still not sure if she actually comes back home to tell her parents she has a mentor that could help her or if she leaves that duty to Lilith after assuring her she's gonna be okay with Luz (because Lilith will absolutely be the first to look for and also find Eda). I'm mostly imagining her parents as lively- cause both Eda and Lily have quite the temper even if Lily tries to hide it- but still somewhat attached to the rules and traditions given by the Emperor, and having your most talented child cursed in a way that hinders her magic in a world where magic is literally everything... yikes. But the idea of her finding someone who could actually help her even if not through a cure for the curse could be something easy to accept all things considered, despite living far from them. This part is still a work in progress, but maybe we'll get more info on the Clawthorne parents next season!

2- Willow and Gus are definitely still Luz best friends and they got to know each other in a very similar manner as in canon! Luz still found her way into Hexside when she got on the Boiling Isles and they all went to school together. Same goes for Amity, Bosha, Skaara, Viney etc..., but in particular the relationship with Amity takes longer to develop also cause I’m a sucker for slowburn

3- Owlbert is still Eda's palisman and she'll get him while under Luz's tutelage! Luz instead has her own staff, but I'm deciding on the palisman itself cause there's several options:

no Palisman, only magical staff that's a bit weaker than others due to that, because Luz still doesn't feel like she deserves it as a "real" witch/doesn't have such a connection with the Isles like others born there/didn't felt particularly drawn to any creature and decided to wait. But she gets her Palisman as well later, influenced by Eda: a snowy owl, an ashy-faced owl, or a burrowing owl. Snowy Owl -> mostly bc fitting Azura's white aesthetic Ashy Faced Owl -> I think the most well known owl species of the Dominican Republic, with its peculiar gray colored face Burrowing Owl -> have you seen these guys they're damn adorable and tinyyyyyy- (also another species found in the Dominican Republic actually)

A black cat Palisman, since they're the most common and stereotypical symbol for witches and it would totally be in character for Luz to go "uehuehe kitty". Also because of her hoodie if yall want to count that.

A black dog/hound, one of the goddess Hecate sacred animals, the one representing loyalty obviously and the emotive part of magic and energy. In general I think dogs fit Luz well tho.

Some... mystical or mythological creature of some kind? Cause Luz realizes she can go hogwild with her palisman and thus frees her imagination.

Otter. With a dark side ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

4- the portal to the human world got lost in some way after Luz arrived in the Boiling Isles! That's why she's stranded there and hasn't seen her mom in more than 25 years :) I don't have the details yet since, again, we have so little information on the portal itself! Why in canon Eda's the one who has it? Was it in her parents possession or she found it in the Night Market or something? Where does it come from originally?? Hell if we know. This obviously becomes a bit of a problem for my au cause it influences how Luz arrived in the Isles in the first place. Could it be a random human treasures smuggler who accidentally brought her there? Did the Emperor/Emperor's Coven had it and things got out of hand? Or maybe the Clawthorne, or even the Blight family, got it? The only thing I'm sure of is that yes, both Luz and Belos are actively looking for it, for different reasons of course, and that hypothetically in the au story it will jump up again, and there will be drama and angst.

5- Luz definitely upgraded her glyph craft!! She experimented and honed both glyphs and skills through the years, finding new glyphs, different combinations, variations and applications, and is now super prepared, enough to keep up with the Emperor's coven squads that try to capture her- and Amity. She kind of adapts to the situation so her equipment isn't every day 100% the same, but the casting methods are similar: carved jewelry and accessories, embroidered fabrics, runestones, she even made her own (mono use) stickers! Naturally, these objects aren't infinitely durable and using them consumes them physically and energetically, but depending on the material and size they vary in durability and power. Though, the trusted notepad and pencil are always there in some pocket, along with some already-drawn papers for emergencies. She also got a couple of tattoos that include glyphs, one of which is a light spell, obviously, but it's a more risky way of casting since it uses her own physical energy, so the glyphs themselves are small. Both Gus and Willow got one as well! and Amity too but it's technically a secret

6- oh you know she will lmao I mean, she's not Steven Universe, but she is observant and a good person, and understands that sometimes certain situations, events, upbringing and generally education cough Emperor propaganda cough bring people to do bad stuff. This won't stop her from smacking to the ground and eventually punch if she runs out of glyphs whoever tries to hurt her or her loved ones. If they show regret and/or understand what they're doing is wrong, changing their ways, she might concede her forgiveness, but otherwise they're gonna eat the dust. I think she knows every member of Amity's squad by name tho?? And she kinda has fun escaping law, so the fights can go like "Hey Steve, I heard you're a dad now! Congrats dude!! If you want I can make you explode a little so you can stay home and play with the baby beast!" or "Wait, you guys don't even have dental?? You should have told me, I would have aimed lower!"

With Amity is a whole other thing, the romantic tension between them is so thick the rest of the team feels like they're intruding something every time for f sake

Whew, I think I answered everything? Thank you for taking interest in this little thing of mine! I also have answered another couple of asks about the au before, you can to check out the toh swap au tag on my blog if you want!