#but in considering the role humans may have (likely) played in these extinctions i can imagine it

[fictionz]

The corruption of the natural state from a fear and hatred so immense that our rational minds cannot comprehend.

Now do it with pleistocene megafauna.

[satoshi-mochida]

Heaven Burns Red - English version announced - Gematsu

Yostar will release an English version of Key and WFS-developed free-to-play��story-driven RPG Heaven Burns Red, the publisher announced.

Heaven Burns Red first launched for iOS and Android on February 10, 2022 in Japan, followed by PC via Steam on August 10, 2022.

Get the details below.

About the Game

Co-developed by Wright Flyer Studios and Visual Arts / Key , this story-driven RPG was first released in 2022 in Japan. It has garnered major accolades at the Google Play Best of 2022 Awards, claiming titles such as “Best Game 2022,” “User Voting Category Game Category Grand Prize,” and “Story Category Award.”

Discover the Intricate World of Heaven Burns Red

Besieged by mysterious life-forms known as “the Phage,” Earth teeters on the brink of ruin. All human weaponry proved futile against the Phage’s onslaught, and without any means to fight back, humanity has been forced to retreat. Land was forsaken, and nations were erased in the ensuing chaos. Now, over half of the Earth’s surface has been lost to the Phage. With little time left and the danger of extinction looming, humans developed a brand-new, ultimate weapon called “Seraph,” and those endowed with Seraphim can finally fight against the Phage with vigor. Those who can master their Seraphim are gathered to create a special squadron, becoming humanity’s last beacon of hope. They have one thing in common: they are all girls with special talents. Among them stands Ruka Kayamori, poised to throw herself into the war against the Phage.

Highlights from Heaven Burns Red

Heaven Burns Red is a story-driven role-playing game co-developed by Wright Flyer Studios and Visual Arts / Key. This title is Jun Maeda’s first completely new game in 15 years. As a narrative-centric RPG, Heaven Burns Red uses a timeline narrative design to advance the story, breaking new ground in the RPG genre by offering an engaging and evolving storyline driven by player choices. Players will experience fierce battles through the eyes of Ruka Kayamori as well as the value of each day in the deeply immersive world of Heaven Burns Red.

English Version First Reveal at Anime Expo 2024

Leveraging the influential platform of Anime Expo 2024, Yostar will introduce Heaven Burns Red to the international gaming community. Attendees who come to the Yostar booth at Anime Expo 2024 will witness the sophisticated graphics, elaborate character artistry, and well-crafted music of Heaven Burns Red.

Special Message from Jun Maeda

“Hello, everyone, this is Jun Maeda. You may have heard of the global craze for taiyaki inspired by the work Kanon, but are you familiar with its original creator and head writer, Naoki Hisaya? I had the honor of being a sub-writer for that project. Naoki Hisaya started the trend of ‘visual novels that make players cry,’ a pursuit that I have passionately followed for over 20 years. The pinnacle of this journey is Heaven Burns Red. Whereas Hisaya used sophisticated storytelling techniques to evoke tears, I took a rather direct approach, and that’s the essence of Heaven Burns Red. To think that this work would be released in places where he sparked the taiyaki craze—such a delightful coincidence feels like fate. We eagerly look forward to sharing Heaven Burns Red with you. Thank you.” Jun Maeda, a Japanese writer and composer. He is considered a pioneer of visual novel and his notable works includes AIR, CLANNAD, Little Busters!, and Angel Beats!.

Watch the western announcement trailer and a video message from Jun Maeda below. Visit the official English website here.

Reveal Trailer

A Special Message From Jun Maeda

[nando161mando]

"Today's #quote comes from the late David Graeber's excellent tome "Debt: the first 5,000 years" (which a little birdy told me you can read by following the pdf file link at the bottom of this article: https://libcom.org/article/debt-first-5000-years-david-graeber .) In terms of the book, I consider it one of the most important historical studies of the rarely-examined, but shockingly pervasive role debt has played in both justifying, and literally creating, the capitalist global order that is current threatening to kill us all on a boiling planet.

Originally published in 2009, this quote comes from the conclusion of Debt: the first 5,000 years, and largely references the installation of neoliberal police states, the global legal structures that lock our societies into these capitalist authoritarian structures, and the fact that even when the 2009 financial meltdown exposed these structures as utterly unsustainable, nothing really changed. This of course remains relevant to us today, because long after the final fallout from that financial tsunami has been counted, we're now living in an evolved state of those same two conditions; what we today, lovingly call "fascist hellworld." Although he couldn't have known the outcome, Professor Graeber even notes that impeding climate catastrophe would likely spell the death of capitalism; which in a manner of speaking is objectively a certainty at this point, all we're really fighting about is how many people are going to be sacrificed on the altar of profit and extraction before we end this, or the planet simply boils the human species into extinction.

In the end, what Graeber is really taking about here, is the already vast, and ever-growing official apparatus of the war on sharing; a machine that includes military forces, domestic policing, a surveillance state, vast propaganda networks, and all the trappings of a military conflict, both international, and domestic on the idea that there is any other possible option besides the capitalist death cult we're all immersed in now. The fact that capitalism has chosen to resolve its exposed contradictions by accelerating that war to open fascist control, and a plan to commit a murder of genocides while the world burns, doesn't really change much about the nature of that machine, and what it has been built to accomplish. This is because both fascism, and neoliberalism are dependent on subverting and subjugating human relations to a legally enforced, inhumanly violent morality encoded in both the social norms, and legal structures of our societies. The terminology may have changed, but the job of killing hope to prevent even the possibility of a threat to the larger capitalist structure, and those who control it, remains functionally identical today at the dawn of fascism, as it did when Professor Graeber wrote this, during the death swoons of neoliberalism.

Standing in the shadow of this vast, and in some ways quite ancient machine, this apparatus to kill ideas, can be quite intimidating. The truth however is that the folks who own, and run the capitalist world we live in, are spending all that money, and exercising all that force, to prevent something they ultimately have no power to actually stop; ideas, specifically ideas about a world, and a future, different than the one capitalist oligarchs have imagined for you, and your children. This machine is very good at pre-empting the formation of ideas, and it's very good at repressing folks who demand alternative ideas be used to run our society, so long as those people remain in the minority. But in the long history of mankind, we have one and truly learned that no amount of propaganda, and state repression, can prevent folks from having ideas, and sharing them with each other; when things get bad enough, sometimes those ideas, are about revolution.

In this regard then, I think it behooves us to remember that climate catastrophe itself, has already acted as the ultimate decider of this ideological debate. Capitalism, which is itself dependent on the fossil fuels that are causing a mass extinction event as we speak, is on borrowed time. There are two ways out of this predicament; genocide, or mutual aid and cooperation on a global-scale never before seen in human history. As the ocean boil, and the forests burn, folks are once again starting to talk about ideas, and ways of living, that are not capitalist, and indeed fundamentally threaten the capitalist project transforming our planet into an open-air mass grave. The killing compassion machine, is now running aground on the shores of reality; our job now as folks who don't want to see the apocalypse, is to make sure hope, not fascism, emerges from the wreckage."

#Graeber #Propaganda #Capitalism #Theory

[somereaderinblue]

YES! I've read Sun, Moon and Stars & I love it! 2 more Tesla Lives AU I recommend is One More Time With Feeling by SheepsInSpace & eye in silver by chuuyasoup.

But more on this AU.

I think another interesting swap would be between Luida & Rem. Here’s why.

Firstly, I like how both women are portrayed. They’re intelligent, capable but still humane. They try their best when thrust into positions they never asked (or prepared) for; laughing, crying, getting frustrated, screwing up & having to endure helplessness. There’s definite parallels between them. Admittedly, my slight complaint about Tristamp Luida is that they focus on her trying to fill in the motherly role Rem left in Vash’s life instead of her as a leader. Both roles are important & can be crucial to her character, I just wish they got equal attention.

So, in this AU, instead of Rem’s ‘all life is precious, don’t play judge, jury & executioner’ ideal, Luida would teach Tesla that ‘Everyone has a purpose in life, they just need to find it. More importantly, they deserve the chance to do so’, kinda like what she told canon!Vash in Tristamp. Thus, shaping adult!Tesla’s more pragmatic worldview.

(And Tesla knows that Knives was right about one thing: Luida wasn't infallible. She tried to be Vash's saviour but couldn't. She had to be one of his coffin bearers if only so she wouldn't have to be theirs afterwards.)

(How ironic that Tesla & Nai would be the ones to dig Luida's grave in the end.)

Her dependent sister Plants need humans to watch their bulbs & even the majority who aren’t Plant engineers deserve to just live so, yk, the human species doesn’t go extinct. 

That little girl deserves to live because she’s someone’s daughter & sister and may someday be someone’s mother; the desperate man that stole bread deserves to live so he can find an honest job & get a slightly better life. If that survivor has a chance to make it to the next town, she’ll offer a ride so at the very least, they get a burial with a tombstone instead of sand.

(But that scum that shot someone because he could? His purpose is to become Worm feed.) 

Ironically, this same philosophy that Tesla uses to humanise others is used to dehumanise herself. She thinks her purpose is to clean up after Knives. She doesn’t think her purpose is to simply live & enjoy life; someone like her doesn’t deserve to have it easy.

She's Gunsmoke's wraith. She haunts you like an old bloodstain you could never scrub off the wall. She's the door left ajar because no one dares to open it but none dare to get close enough to lock it either.

Her purpose serves the constant present she's stuck in, but not once has she considered what to do with her tomorrows.

Maybe someone can help her with that........

To be continued

Bonus tidbits for this AU:

-instead of red geraniums, Luida's flowers are purple hyacinths, which symbolize sorrow & a desire for forgiveness.

-she leaves a vase of purple hyacinths & a plate of donuts for Vash.

(Nai wanted to destroy the offerings when he saw them. Did Luida honestly believe that's enough to comfort the soul of a dead child? Pretty flowers & sweets?)

-instead of a blank ticket, Luida gave Tesla a book filled with pressed flowers & their meanings. Tesla adds tallies into that book for every person she saved & every person she killed/failed to save.

-if Tesla gets a Thoma (Toma? Thomas?? Idk what's the right spelling), she'll always name it Petunia. She's at Petunia the Twelfth (she thinks).

Trigun Age Reversal AU

I've seen a lot of Role Swap AUs where the twins swap places BUT to spice things up, how about age reversal?

What if Vash was the first Independent plant? What if he's the one who's discovered, the remains of his body denied the dignity of death? What if a left arm hung suspended in chemicals, fingers curled as though clawing against the phantom straps of a dissection table, its palm the size of a child's reaching out, begging for a touch that didn't hurt?

What if Tesla was the youngest Independent, the baby sister? What if No Man's Land had an outlaw with an eyepatch instead of a prosthetic arm; wearing a coat dyed purple instead of red?

[plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows]

Here's something I was thinking about irt Cybertron and its gnarly space ingredients: Cybertron has only had one mass extinction event. Two if you count the war. Whereas on Earth we're on number 6 if you just count the big ones. I'm thinking that there's something about Earth that makes our evolutionary turnover rates crazy fast compared to the rest of the galaxy. Maybe it's the chaos god robo-cocaine.

Make that 7; the Capitanian extinction event is a Big One in its own right. :D And there's two in the Cambrian and one at the end of the Ediacaran that also likely measure highly in severity, it's just that we know shit all about them due to very little preserved evidence.

(and then also consider that Cybertron's civilization lasted for like 4 billion years and they only have two extinction events to show for it, one of which is self-inflicted, vs. Earth, with between 7 and 20 mass extinction events depending on who u ask, within only about 542 million years.)

Anon u have no idea how much I love this idea, I'm folding it into my TF Belief System effective immediately <333

Here's the thing: plate tectonics, and things that are probably mostly related to plate tectonics, are implicated* in not just all of the big mass extinction events (prior to the current one, which is really just our fault) but also like... most of the smaller ones too. Plate tectonics as they work on Earth are pretty much just an Earth thing - there are other planets which have some sort of tectonic activity, but none of them match our mobile-lid style.

*correlation vs. causation is in question for a lot of these; eg. how much of a role Deccan Traps volcanism played in the K-PG extinction vs the Chicxulub impactor is up for debate. With that said, it's likely that in most cases mass extinctions occur via a number of processes which all kind of interact and make each other worse. (It's just that several of those individual processes might be ultimately caused by the stuff we fold under the umbrella of 'plate tectonics.)

What's probably mostly related to plate tectonics? A good chunk of large igneous provinces - both associated with the opening of ocean basins (CAMP, NAIP, Karoo-Ferrar etc.) and the closing of them (Emeishan, Wrangellia). Significant (non-glacial) sea level changes, and changes in ocean current circulation, both in response to reorganization of continents in regards to each other. Significant climatic changes - as a result of large-scale volcanism, or just large-scale increases in weathering/erosion caused by mountain-building. And a bunch of other second- and third-order phenomena that can result from all of the above things, such as episodes of ocean anoxia, large-scale degassing of various shit out of volcanics into the atmosphere, ocean acidification, so on and so forth. You can even link the current icehouse period to plate tectonic processes, although the icehouse climate itself isn't thought to have much to do with extinction rates beyond creating a climate which worked great for the eventual rise of humans...

What causes plate tectonics? We think it has something to do with convection cells in the mantle, but tbh we kind of aren't sure. The main driver of plate motion is subduction - plates essentially being pulled down into the mantle. How did this get started? And also when? There's evidence of some form of plate tectonics from very early in our planet's history, but whether this is similar to modern regimes, and whether it has continued to the modern day or quit and had a break for a while... there's a lot of uncertainty.

So, looking at this from a TF-specific lens... 👀👀👀

I genuinely think that making Unicron be the actual core of Earth is one of the most interesting sci-fi worldbuilding decisions TF canon has made. There are SO MANY IMPLICATIONS. You could tie it in to the Giant Impact Hypothesis and the creation of the goddamn moon, potentially the LLSVPs (which may be the source of some hotspots), the motion of the mantle, initiation and drivers of plate tectonics, and through that the supercontinent cycle, and all of the fun stuff I mentioned above. And THEN there's also the question of how intertwined these things are with the development of life.

(and that's without getting into the chaos-god robo-cocaine. XDD)

[solitarysketcher]

TELL ME BOUT HOMESTUCK!

yes chef.

ok so we'll go with my favourite parts, the quadrant system and the hemospectrum. Both of these are part of troll society (trolls are grey, yellow eyes, black hair, orange horns), and play very important roles in reproduction (quadrants), and societal roles (hemospectrum).

First, the quadrant system: There are four, each representing a different kind of emotion. We'll go left -> right, top to bottom. (note: no quadrants have set pronunciations, say them however you like.)

<3 The first quadrant is the red or flushed quadrant, more typically known as Matespritship. It is represented by a red heart. It is the most familiar to humans, being a typical romantic/sexual relationship built on positive feelings. Not much else to explain, except that the sexual part is not required unless going by canon alternian rules, which have a very strict system and requires all trolls to reproduce.

<> Next is the pale quadrant, also known as Moiraillegience (Singular: Moirail), or a palemate. This is represented by a pale pink diamond, and is built on positive feelings. Sexuality is not a part of this quadrant, instead it is more necessary for keeping two trolls grounded instead of doing some sort of acrobatic fucking pirouette off the handle. It is usually more one-sided, but both need eachother to some degree. One of my good friends describes it as a 'platonic soulmate', though in troll society it is considered a form of romance, being judged in the same way if cheated as if a 'normal' relationship had a cheating partner.

<3< Next is the black, or caliginous quadrant, also known as Kismesissitude (singular: kismesis). It is represented by a black spade, and is built on negative feelings. It is the second of the two sexual quadrants, and in canon is described as a 'very potent arch-rivalry'. The two (or more, if open to polyamoury) people in the relationship must hate eachother just as passionately as the other (very). Despite the absolute hatred they must have for eachother, a certain amount of respect must be held. A kismesis, just like a matesprit, shines light on traits about yourself you may not want to acknowledge, or even know that they're there. A healthy kismesis relationship will always have some level of respect for the other, if not an Auspistice is needed.

o8< The final quadrant, called the ashen quadrant, known formally as Auspisticism, requires atleast three people. It is represented by a grey club. In canon, it is when one troll steps in to an abusive/disloyal kismesissitude to try getting things back on track. Essentially, relationship therapists. I personally enjoy the idea that it can apply to all quadrants, and can also double as a matchmaker. This idea is very uncanon. If the auspistice doesn't care enough, the relationship will crumble.

The next part of my essay is the Hemospectrum. It is the caste system that troll society lives by. It is determined by blood colour, since trolls come in different blood colours. The lowest caste is rust, and the highest caste is fuchsia. The exact lineup is Rust, Bronze, Gold, Lime*, Olive, Jade, Teal, Cerulean, Indigo, Purple, Violet, and Fuchsia. Lower castes have higher psychic powers, but higher castes live longer, with fuchsias possibly living millions of years. Most trolls wear their blood colour prominently, with the exception of trolls outside the hemospectrum (aka mutants) (because they would be culled if their blood colour was discovered)

*Limebloods are extinct in canon; due to their psychic abilities to pacify highbloods they were all culled.

Rustbloods have dark red blood, and the strongest psychic capabilities (commonly telekinesis). They only live about a dozen or two sweeps (one sweep equals about 2.16 years), or about 25-50 years.

Bronzebloods have dark orange-ish blood, and commonly have the power to communicate with animals. Their lives are slightly shorter than an average human life.

Goldbloods have dark yellow blood, and often have strange eyes, being one or two flat colours with no pupils. They also often have more than two horns. Their psychic powers most commonly are associated with technology, and their lifespans are comparable to that of a human.

Not much is known of limes, because they were all culled before the events of homestuck. It is known that they had some unusual names, and the ability to pacify highbloods through their psychic power. One of the signs in the lime caste, Cancer, transcends the hemospectrum entirely, and is the religious symbol of what is basically troll jesus.

Olive blood is a dark green colour. Nothing is said about any psychic powers they may have. Their lifespans are comparable to that of a human, most likely more. Troll Will Smith is an oliveblood.

Jadebloods have greenish-blue blood. Jades are especially important in troll society, being the caretakers of the Mother Grub (The giant monster that births all trolls). Jades typically live longer than a century. They are said to probably have the smallest caste population apart from fuchsias. The Jades who care for the Mother Grub are also tasked with culling off any grubs (troll babies) that are deemed 'too weak' or have some sort of imperfection (disability, mutant blood, etc.). Jades are also able to become Rainbow Drinkers (troll vampires), though it is suggested that becoming a rainbow drinker is sacrilegious.

Tealbloods have teal blood. They often work as legislacerators, aka lawyers. Not much else to be said about them, except for the fact that they have the best character in the series: Terezi Pyrope. i love her (platonically).

Ceruleanbloods have cobalt blue blood, and are sometimes called Cobalt because of this. They often have strange eyes (Vriska has 8 pupils in her left eye, my fantroll has four in his right eye, and one from hiveswap has a third eye under their right eye). They also often have asymmetrical horns. Some ceruleans have the ability to read/control minds, and this can be very dangerous if abused. The trolls with more pupils/eyes often have much better vision, and can see through surfaces that would appear opaque to anyone else.

Indigobloods have electric blue blood. They often have horns resembling arrows, and sometimes have terrifying physical strength.

Purplebloods have cool purple blood. They are the highest of the land-dwelling castes, and most all of them participate in a clown-based religion, wearing juggalo-like makeup to show their affiliation. A few purplebloods are selected to rule as both religious and political leaders, the religious bit only applying to those who are part of the religion. In canon, only one of these 'Grand Highbloods' is mentioned, though i choose to believe that there are multiple who govern in different parts of the Alternian empire.

Now we move onto the seadwelling castes, the royalty of trollkind.

Violetbloods have warm purple blood, and more aquatic features (they still have legs tho). Not much to say about them other than i like their blood colour.

Fuchsiabloods have magenta blood, and also have aquatic features. There are only ever two at a time, The Imperious Condescension, and the heir to the throne. TIC is in control of the entire alternian empire, and can possibly live up to millions of years. Both Fuchsiabloods are connected to the gl'bgolyb, a giant monster of tentacles that can release a scream that kills all the trolls in the universe. To prevent it from doing this without a command, it must be fed other troll's guardian monsters (aka Lusii, sing. Lusus). The control of the gl'bgolyb is why TIC is feared and able to keep such a grip on all of trollkind.

Mutants are trolls who are outside of the hemospectrum, and thus are almost always culled when they hatch. The ones that manage to sneak through hide their blood colour, because they'll also be culled if found out later. Troll Jesus was a mutant, having bright red blood.

And that's my infodump! hope you don't regret telling me to do this :)

[luulapants]

Teen Wolf’s Skinwalkers and the Terminal Narrative

There are plenty of plot holes and missed opportunities to bitch about in Teen Wolf, but the one that gets me worked up the most is probably the skinwalkers storyline. I’ve written a ficlet based on my headcanons for them, mostly out of my ire that they didn’t even get names, but today I’d like to rant at you about how the skinwalkers storyline is a symptom and perpetuation of a toxic way that non-indigenous North Americans talk about indigenous peoples: the terminal narrative.

What is a terminal narrative?

The phrase is used to describe two deeply interrelated trends in modern accounts of Native Americans. The first is the tendency to talk about colonial-era Indigenous Americans as if they were already a dead/dying race, to insist that the Americas were sparsely populated when Europeans first arrived and, “anyway, disease is really what mostly killed them off, not colonizers.” The second is to continue that trend on into the modern day, talking about indigenous peoples as a relic of the past, extinct. This second narrative may agree that the genocide of the Americas was truly horrific but, you see, it’s already over, nothing to be done about it now! Ignoring, of course, that there is still a large, vibrant population of indigenous people in North America, that their abuse is not some long-past historical lesson (the last residential school closed in the 1990s!), and that the horrendous effects of colonial displacement, genocide, and cultural suppression are still felt to this day. Terminal narratives are a means of minimizing the modern white American’s responsibility to make reparations to indigenous people.

Okay, so let’s go back to Teen Wolf - how do the Skinwalkers play into the terminal narrative?

To refresh your memory, the skinwalkers are introduced in season 4 when Kira is having trouble controlling her kitsune powers. For some reason, her mother Noshiko decides that the skinwalkers are the right people to help her. They drive to New Mexico, where they meet these ladies:

The skinwalkers are portrayed as nameless relics of the past

The skinwalkers are terrifying, ferocious, covered in dust and clothed only in animal pelts. To be fair, this isn’t entirely out of line with the skinwalker myth as far as it is known by outsiders. (Disclaimer: this, like many Navajo myths, is not openly shared with outsiders, and so my knowledge, as someone who is not Navajo, is incomplete.) Traditionally, a skinwalker is an evil witch (of any gender) who began as a shaman but was unable to resist the allure of dark magic. They can don animal pelts and acquire the abilities of those animals and even shapeshift into them.

However, even if this image of the skinwalkers makes sense purely in the context of myth, it does not fit within the framework of how other mythical beings operate in the Teen Wolf universe. Even if Teen Wolf were following the ‘evil witch’ story, evil characters are routinely humanized on the show. In fact, the story of how one becomes a skinwalker sounds very much like the story, which Teen Wolf explains in detail, of how a Druid becomes a Darach (which itself is a bit of a bastardization of Celtic mythology). But unlike the white Darach (who gets significant screen and speaking time, a dramatic back story, and not one but two names), the skinwalkers are nameless, given no backstory, and have very few lines, all of them focused on Kira’s problem.

(I won’t get into how their role in the story basically reduces them to the trope of Magical Native American or Noble Savage, but there is a LOT to be said there.)

Furthermore, every other magical being in Teen Wolf is fully modernized. Noshiko Yukimura, despite being 900 years old, is fully integrated into modern society. The werewolves and druids are not shown to have much in the way of old-school lifestyles or dress. Even the family of wendigos, insatiable cannibals, have modernized so well that they live in a McMansion with a walk-in freezer full of human corpses! Wendigos are another indigenous mythical creature, but the one we meet is portrayed by a white actor and gets a name - Sean Walcott - despite his very brief appearance. (Side note, I don’t consider it whitewashing for a white actor to portray a wendigo. In fact, many post-contact wendigo stories, told by several native tribes, were about ill-prepared white colonists who got lost in the woods, resorted to cannibalizing their traveling companions, and became monsters.)

Yet, despite every other mythical being in Teen Wolf wearing the latest from Macy’s, the skinwalkers are clad in nothing but animal skins, face paint, and dust. They look like something from the past, practically primeval. They are nameless, without context, a mysterious people so far removed from us that they hardly seem like people at all.

The skinwalkers are completely separate from reality and civilization

Kira is warned, when she goes to the skinwalkers for help, that if she is unable to control her powers, she will be forced to stay and become one of them until she learns. Being with the skinwalkers means being completely cut off from the rest of the world, unable to see or talk to her friends or family. (What, the skinwalkers can’t get Skype?)

We aren’t told how old the skinwalkers are, but given how long a kitsune can live, it’s suggested that her banishment might continue longer than her friends will even be alive. To stay with them is a fate so horrible that her mother, who brought her to them in the first place, helps to fight them off so Kira can escape.

The skinwalkers come to represent death and nonexistence

Later, when the skinwalkers help Kira to defeat Theo, we are thrown an odd curveball: they are somehow in contact with Theo’s sister, who drags him to the underworld, where she is, to torture him. There’s a lot to unpack in that storyline, but most relevant to our topic is this: the skinwalkers are connected to the underworld and death.

Considering how the prospect of Kira going with them is framed, it’s almost as if they are death itself. Indeed, when the showrunners decided to get rid of Kira’s character, they did so by sending her away with the skinwalkers, never to be seen again. By becoming a skinwalker, Kira basically ceases to exist.

In summary, these native characters are framed as dead, as death, as ageless figures from an unknown time past. They are not people, not really. Like the shrieking savages in old Western movies, they are an exotic action sequence. They are part of the scenery in the desert, showing us a wild and mythic past which is not part of our modern world. There is no talk of modern indigenous people, not even an implication of them. The Yukimuras never stop by one of the nearby Navajo reservations to ask a modern Navajo in modern clothes where they can find the skinwalkers.

No, like in our myth of the colonial past, they journey directly into a mostly empty wilderness, where the few inhabitants are strange, violent, and unknowable primitives, who vanish into the dust when they are no longer relevant to the story.

[a-little-revolution]

A Brief History of Dwarfism

(TW/CW: cure, medical, pet culture and slavery mentioned, discriminative language)

LYZ LENZ Updated: June14, 2017 Origional: February 25, 2015 

When researchers from the biopharmaceutical company BioMarin told representatives of the Little People of America about the results of a drug that could potentially cure one of the causes of dwarfism, they expected a better response than the silence they were treated to. This caught the BioMarin folks off guard. “I think they wanted us to be happy,” says Leah Smith, LPA's director of public relations. “But really, people like me are endangered and now, they want to make me extinct. How can I be happy?”

BioMarin isn’t the only company trying to eliminate dwarfism. For years doctors have been using limb lengthening and hormone treatments to counter and cure the over 400 underlying causes of dwarfism. And yet, despite these efforts to eliminate what many people see as a disability, society can’t stop staring. From The Lord of the Rings to Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones, people have long been mesmerized by depictions of LPs. As Smith explains, “It doesn’t matter how normal I am, it’s hard for people to look at me an see anything besides Leah the LP.”

Dr. Judith Hall, a clinical geneticist whose work focuses on short-limbed dwarfism, explains that our staring and our desire to cure are intimately connected. “In the same way that ancient societies viewed those people with differences as a pathway to the divine,” Hall says, “I see them as a pathway to access the knowledge of nature. There is so much to be learned about humans and our genetic make-up by studying the genetics of people with short stature and anyone with a ‘disability’ although I hate that term, don’t you?”

But understanding our curiosity and desire to cure requires an understanding of the history of dwarfism, which lies in the nebulous intersection of medicine and myth.

For much of early history, LPs were considered to be intimately connected to the divine. In fact, pre-literate societies often saw all people with disabilities as conduits to heaven. The ancient Egyptians associated dwarfs with Bes, the god of home, family, and childbirth; and Ptah, the god of the Earth’s essential elements. (Both gods—representing youth and the Earth—play a role in enduring myths and stereotypes, like the fairy tales that claim that dwarfs live underground, or the stereotype about the childish nature of people with short stature.) Because of their connection with the gods, dwarfs were often revered in Egypt, and were allowed to serve high roles in the government.

Whereas dwarfs in the Old Kingdom of Egypt (2575-2134 B.C.E.) were often jewelers, linen attendants, bird catchers, and pilots of boats—all positions of high-esteem, by the Middle Kingdom dwarfs were more likely to be personal attendants or nurses. These positions, while still respected, were comparatively lower status. Historians surmise that dwarfs were relegated to these roles because their short limbs made them perfect midwives and the association with the god Bes. Of course, even in this age of reverence, dwarfs lived lives of bondage.

In ancient Rome, the attitude toward dwarfs was less reverential. Owners would intentionally malnourish their slaves so they would sell for a higher price. In ancient Greece, dwarfs were associated in a menacing and lurid way with the rituals of the Dyonisian cult; art from that period shows them as bald men with out-sized penises lusting after averaged-sized women. This same pattern of reverence and bondage also appears in China and West Africa, where LPs were so often servants of the king. A 17th-century author wrote that the Yoruba people in West Africa believed dwarfs to be “uncanny in some rather undefined way, having form similar to certain potent spirits who carry out the will of the gods.” And out of a similar reverence for their stature, the courts of China employed dwarfs as entertainers and court jesters. Here there also may have been a level of fetishism; Emperor Hsuan-Tsung kept dwarf slaves in the harem he called the Resting Palace for Desirable Monsters.

By the time of the Italian Renaissance, LPs had become a court commodity all over Western Europe, Russia, and China. There are tragic tales of court dwarfs and their wild antics. Jan Bondeson writes in The Two-Headed Boy about Nicolas Ferry, the infamous court dwarf of King Sanislas Leszynski of Poland. Ferry was given to King Sanislas when he was about five years old. The King promised his father he would be given the best education and medical care. Ferry’s father didn’t even consult his wife, who had to journey to the court to say goodbye to her son. Ferry, who may have also had learning disabilities, was spoiled and terrorized the court with his antics—kicking the shins of servants and crawling up the skirts of ladies. He even threw a dog out of the window when he believed the Queen loved the dog more than him.

Another Italian, Isabella d’Este, marchioness of Mantua, viewed dwarfs as collectable items. She hoarded them in her vast palace along with art, classical writings, gold, and silver. She also tried to breed dwarfs and kept them in a series of specially designed rooms, with low ceilings and staircases to scale. This was more for their display than comfort. One of Isabella’s dwarfs was “Crazy Catherine,” an alcoholic who stole from her mistress and whose misdeeds were laughed off as entertainment. The history of courts throughout Europe and Russia tell similar tales of dwarfs employed as jesters, or little more than pets—laughed at, loved, and never fully allowed to be human.

As the age of monarchy ended, the era of medicine and medical curiosity arose to fill its place, often providing more opportunities for LPs. Dwarfs were put on display—by others or themselves—for money. In a time where very few occupations were open to LPs, putting yourself on display in a freak show was at least a way to make a living. While traveling around provided LPs with more independence, it also opened them up to the gaping and insensitive curiosity of the public and medical professionals.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, then, to say that LPs were subsequently taken advantage of by greedy brokers and agents. In his book Freak Show, Robert Bogdan explains the phenomena of human exhibits, singling out the insular nature of communities as a leading cause. Animals and humans that were outside of the norm were exciting curiosities; different races, ethnicities, and disabilities were all billed as novel entertainment. Bogdan quotes a handbill advertising a Carolina dwarf in 1738 who was “taken in a wood in Guinea; tis a female about four foot high, in every part like a human excepting her head which nearly resembles an ape.”

FOR MOST OF EARLY HISTORY, THE RESPONSE OF DOCTORS TO LPS WAS TO MEASURE EVERYTHING—NOSE, HAIR, GENITALS. THIS MEANINGLESS COLLECTION OF DATA IS OFTEN ACCOMPANIED BY CONDESCENDING NOTES ON THE APPEARANCE AND INTELLECT OF THE DWARF.

From these human exhibits came the growth of dime museums, midget villages, and Lilliputian touring communities, where many LPs rose to prominence. But while these exhibitions took center stage, several LPs made incredible, albeit quieter, contributions to history. There were people like Antoine Godeau, a poet and bishop best known for his works of criticism, or economist Ferdinando Galiani, one of the leading figures in the Enlightenment. Then there’s Alexander Pope, a classical poet known as the “most accomplished verse satirist in English.” Plus Benjamin Lay, an early abolitionist and good friend of Benjamin Franklin. And Novelist Paul Leicester Ford, artist Henry de Toulous Lautrec, electrical engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz. The list goes on.

Yet even in this time, as many LPs grew to prominence, medicine was able to do little more than collect data. Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor, kept an LP family of Romanian performers captive in Auschwitz, subjecting them to various tests and experiments that included pulling out teeth and hair specimens. Mengele is remembered as the angel of death—a cruel doctor who performed unscientific and often deadly experiments—yet his data collection on LPs isn’t much different than that of the medical community in centuries prior.

For most of early history, the response of doctors to LPs was to measure everything—nose, hair, genitals. This meaningless collection of data is often accompanied by condescending notes on the appearance and intellect of the dwarf. Even as late as 1983, Mercer’s Orthopaedic Surgery offered this observation about achondroplasia: “Because of their deformed bodies they have strong feelings of inferiority and are emotionally immature and are often vain, boastful, excitable, fond of drink and sometimes lascivious.”

The obsessive data collection reads like a stack of clues, wherein doctors hope to find an answer to the riddle of difference. With nothing else to do, like the Egyptian pharaohs and the courts of kings, doctors found themselves staring too.

In the absence of a cure, most early doctors focused on prevention. They believed that dwarfism was caused by the mother having seen another dwarf or animal. In fact, for most of medical history many disabilities and unexplained deformities were chalked up to maternal impressions. Consequently, pregnant women often sequestered themselves away from their communities, acting like they themselves had a disability.

This isn’t different from the modern approach to “curing” dwarfism. With early genetic testing, many in the LP community are worried about unborn dwarfs being allowed to be born.

In the aftermath of World War II, LPs found more and more opportunities to work outside of entertainment. This was due in part to Billy Barty, a film actor and television star who, in 1957, organized a meeting of LPs in Reno, Nevada. This meeting eventually led to the founding of the Little People of America, a powerful non-profit that advocates for the rights of LPs in America.

THE HISTORY OF DWARFS IS A HISTORY OF SUBVERSION, STEREOTYPES, EXPECTATION, AND SURVIVAL. IT’S THE HISTORY OF HOW PEOPLE TREAT OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT.

Before Barty, with the exception of circuses and traveling groups, most LPs were isolated. There was no way to band together to advocate for civil rights. A little more than 30 years after that first meeting in Reno, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in the United States, granting LPs more access and freedom than ever before.

The history of dwarfs is a history of subversion, stereotypes, expectation, and survival. It’s the history of how people treat other people who are different. And, while much has changed, very little is different. The tension between curiosity and cure is still prevalent. The popularity of shows like Little People, Big World and The Little Couple, while laudable for their portrayal of normal people with difference, show that we can’t stop looking at LPs. And companies like BioMarin and non-profits like Growing Stronger, which all seek to find a cure, show that we can’t stop trying to change them.

Yet, as a geneticist, Hall dismisses the notion that she is trying to change the LP community. She describes her work as merely offering a choice to individuals. “There are genetic tests for Downs Syndrome, but they haven’t eradicated people with Downs,” Hall says. “In the same way, the work I do and the work of other scientists isn’t to eradicate difference, but rather to offer options for dealing with it. It’s all about offering choices, really.”

But Smith, the LPA's director of public relations, pushes back. “The world is full of difference.” Smith says, “Sometimes I wish people would look elsewhere.”

BY LYZ LENZ 

Origional Article Post: https://psmag.com/social-justice/a-brief-history-of-dwarfism-and-the-little-people-of-america 

[writerforfun]

What Is Margaret Atwood’s Writing Style? Learn How Margaret Atwood Approaches Gender in Her Writing

The bonneted survivor-women of The Handmaid’s Tale, the environmental dystopia of Maddaddam, the unsettling gothic murder mystery of Alias Grace—they all come from the imagination of Margaret Atwood, one of the biggest names in contemporary literature. The Canadian author writes in an array of styles, but her unique way of thinking unifies a vast body of prose, poetry, and critical essays.

Below, she shares how genre, ideas, gender, and the writing process play into her signature style.

What Is Margaret Atwood’s Writing Process?

Atwood says she tends to handwrite her drafts because that is how she gets the best flow from brain to hand to the page. She describes herself as a “downhill skier”— she tries to go as fast as she can and then backtracks to fill in the gaps later.

And although she is known for the scale and perspicacity of her ideas, Atwood is adamant that is not where her books start, nor should they.

“I never start with an idea,” says Atwood. “When people are teaching books, books that have already been finished—then they can talk about ideas, because by that time somebody might know what the idea is or what the ideas are.”

“The way we were taught literature in high school was probably backward. We were taught that there was this container. The work of art. There were these ideas like prizes in a Cracker Jack box, but that isn't usually how writers write. They start with characters, they start with voices, they start with scenes. Sometimes my books have started with objects. And out of that comes a story. Because what are novels if not stories.”

How Does Margaret Atwood Approach Genre?

Often, books in the science fiction genre are seen as separate from works of serious literary fiction—but Atwood blurs the boundaries between the two. In fact, she purposefully avoids thinking about genre while writing; she leaves that task to the marketers.

“What is the value of knowing the genre or type of book you're writing before you start?” she says. “Well, there may be a value in not knowing. And the value of not knowing may be that you may be able to do some genre-bending that if you lock yourself into a preconceived box, you might not be able to do.”

The particular type of sci-fi her works tend to fall into is speculative fiction, where the setting is similar to reality on earth, but with a few key invented elements. She says magazines like New Scientist or Scientific American can spark ideas for this kind of work. She started writing the dystopian Oryx and Crake after reading about genetic experiments and ruminating on extinction.

“For speculative fiction, it has to have its roots in things we can already do, or are on the road to being able to do,” she says. “So the growing of human organs in pigs had already started by the time I wrote Oryx and Crake. They had not quite succeeded, but now they have.”

How Does Margaret Atwood Approach Gender in Writing?

Since her very first novel, The Edible Woman, Atwood has frequently explored the female experience of the world through her books. Often, her main character is female, but even when it’s not, she writes with a distinctive awareness of the role of gender in shaping their identity. This is intentional; she considers both the performative aspects of gender—what a person is taught to show the world—and the ways they might defy those norms.

“What does it mean, for instance, in the Tudor era to be a male person? What does it mean to be a female person?” she says. “And in our age, we no longer think that there are only two packages, pink and blue. And science has backed that up. It's a bell curve. It's a continuum. And your character can be situated anywhere on that continuum.”

When she’s writing women, she values imperfection and even villainy. She wrote The Robber Bride—the name comes from a gender switch on a Grimm's fairytale called The Robber Bridegroom—in indignation after someone told her there were no female conmen.

“Women come in all shapes and sizes, ages and stages, heights and colors, and different parts of the world,” she says. “And to expect or demand that they be angelic and perfect is very Victorian. There's limited space on a pedestal. You don't get to move around a lot.”

Article source: here

[diariesofthehermit]

The Ecology of Black Liberation

It is hard to be Black. It is harder still when you choose not to numb yourself to the world but to take it all in. The pain that exists within this body is already acute, yet the pain that exists within the world-body is still magnitudes greater. As tempting as it may be, however, it is best not to be numb. Pain is a warning, a signal for danger, and those who do not feel pain cannot sense the arrival of hurt and of death before it is too late. Therefore I have no choice; I must feel. And as I am not separate from the world, I must feel Her pain too; Her aches are my aches, Her hurt is my hurt and our death is one. 

What do we suppose liberation to be? Liberation from poverty, from misogyny, from homophobia or racism? What good is it to be liberated into a dead world, one that does not support life of any class, gender, sexuality or race? I suspect that for many, liberation is equivalent to equality, a levelling of the political/social/economic playing field within our society. As I get older, however, I become more and more sympathetic to the view that Malcolm X espoused in his Nation of Islam days: the “world” of western civilization is fucked, and there’s no hope for anyone integrating into it, equally or not. To be “liberated” is to liberate yourself from a doomed society and to build your own. My attraction to this mindset, however, is tempered by the growing twenty-first century truth that there is no longer any place left to build: if indeed our current global, capitalist civilization has not covered every inch of the world itself then its shadow surely does. Fate, now, is collective; the destiny of all life is forever intertwined. 

If you’ll forgive the apparent digression, I need now to talk about trees. Trees are, after all, essential to Black liberation (as are all ‘things’ essential to life); to put it another way, the fates of Black people are tied directly to the fates of trees. To do violence to them is, in a very real way, to do violence to me, my family and my community. To think otherwise is to operate under the basic misconception that Nature and people are somehow independent, separate entities. 

I recently read an academic study titled “Deforestation and World Population Sustainability: a Quantitative Analysis.” It emphasized, first, the importance of trees to the earth’s life and civilizations: they prove indispensable to our existence through the production of oxygen and the cleansing of the atmosphere, maintenance of the soil, regulation of our water cycle and, a key factor given our contemporary crisis, the regulation of our planet’s climate by keeping its carbon in them instead of in our atmosphere, where it would accelerate the already lethal pace of planetary warming. “Trees and forests are our best atmosphere cleaners” the authors wrote, “and, due to the key role that they play in the terrestrial ecosystem, it is highly unlikely to imagine the survival of many species, including ours, on the Earth without them. In this sense, the debate on climate change will be almost obsolete in case of a global deforestation of the planet.” Obsolete, note, because we’d all be among the dying or dead.

The authors of the study then used multiple variables, such as the world human population, the amount of earth covered by forest, the growth rate of the human species, the rate at which we extract resources from the environment, the projected rate of technological improvement in resource extraction, the renewability of those resources and those resources carrying capacity to calculate the survivability our current society. They gave us twenty to forty years before “catastrophic collapse” spelled the end of human civilization and perhaps of the human species itself, with an “optimistic” 10% chance of human society continuing if we can begin in earnest to expand our civilization into the solar system and harvest its resources. 

We all know, however, that if the wealthiest and most industrialized nations began to expand their societies into space, that Black people are going to have a hell of a hard time getting there. Of course, it’s hard to accurately predict the future. Any model of the times to come that depends on future human behavior or expected rates of technical progress is inherently fallible. We may very well survive much longer than that. There is also the alternative, however: considering that we are not only harming our forests, but the soil, the oceans, our atmosphere and indeed the entire biosphere itself, perhaps their calculations of civilization’s end times are not too far off. Perhaps they’ll come sooner. Who knows? The future itself is an unknown. Yet, what we can perhaps say with certainty is that the possibility for total extinction, or at the very least the extinction of human civilization, is now very real. We are not discussing an end of a civilization, or of a society, but of human society itself. Forever. It is an existential threat that the “wretched of the earth”, the poor and the marginalized, cannot afford to ignore. We do not, after all, deserve this fate. We did not bring the world to this point. But do Black revolutionaries have time to discuss it? Is it not best to leave such things to those who have the privilege to worry about the global environment and not whether a police officer will kill them at a traffic stop, or after barging into their home in the middle of the night based on bad intel? I would argue that, in regards to this threat and any other, white people can and will not save us. Have you seen the news on climate change? White people cannot save themselves- they cannot even agree amongst themselves if the threat exists. 

Yet the global working classes (even those who carry the label of “white”), the marginalized and the colonized, do not have the privilege of these debates. Wealth will not insulate us from the worst. We have seen Katrina, and how its effects upon communities were proportionate to their wealth and racial make-up, and we should understand that Katrina is just the first sign of what's to come. Already, the air we breathe, the food we consume and the water we drink have a detrimental relationship with the life-spans of the urban poor; the very earth is weaponized against us. For the moment She has only fired warning shots and her real rage is barely apparent. It is, however, on the horizon. Who will feel it worst, I wonder? 

The authors of the study offer us some hope aside from Star-Trek like voyages into space. According to them, we live in an “economical” society, which tends to value the welfare of a few privileged components over that of the entire system. Extrapolating a bit, it is indeed clear that not only do we see “humanity” as somehow separable from nature, but that the wealthy and powerful in particular have conceptualized themselves as a group apart from the rest of us, well, peasants as well. What is needed, according to the study’s authors, is a transformation into a society that values the whole as much as the parts and that works for the sake of the all instead of the few. Such a society does not make false dichotomies between people and nature, or between the proletariat and the nation, or even between nations themselves. We are all integrated into a single system in which each part supports the existence of all the others, and to understand one person in their fullness is to, by necessity, see the whole. 

I am for, and will always be for, the existence and welfare of the Black community. I would just like to point out that without a healthy planet there are no communities, Black or white, and that Black liberation without planetary liberation is nonexistent. We live and die with our mother; we live and die, in fact, with trees. Which is a wonder, because I’m willing to bet that most of the diaspora in industrialized nations, living our lives so characterized by atomization and isolation, walk by them every day without a second thought. Your true body, though, does not end with your body. I challenge you: the next time you walk down a park, a block or a city street, notice the trees. They are you. One being, one fate. 

Link to quoted study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6.pdf

[allhallowstiel]

nothing has to change

hey hi hello here’s a little snippet of my two-part fix-it fic! please be sure to check out the whole thing on ao3! there’s only one part out rn but part 2 will be out soon!

-

The Earth has practically been reborn, and Dean can feel it.

The rotation of the planet feels smoother beneath his feet, and the sun's rays feel just the slightest bit warmer against his skin. The cold, vacant emptiness that had once assumed the place of humanity is gone now, replaced with the laughter of children and the chaos of everyday life.

It’s not paradise. Far from it. But it’s different. A good different.

“So you really did it?” he asks. “You fixed everything?” 

Jack, who had been looking out towards the abundance of people now swarming the streets, turns to face him. “I’ve done what I can here, without interfering too much,” he tells him. He fixes his gaze onto the two of them. He looks far older than he should. “I don’t want to repeat Chuck’s mistakes. His problem was that he was too invested in his own story. I don’t want to become like him.” 

It feels strange seeing Jack speak so maturely when Dean has only ever known him as a child.  His child. And now here he is, standing before him as the most powerful being in the universe. In a strange way, Dean thinks that this is what it must feel like to watch your child grow up and go to college, only for Jack it happened far too fast. 

And you usually come back from college.

“Jack, it doesn’t have to be this way if you don’t want it to be,” Sam tells him. “Come on. Come back to the bunker with us.”

“Sam’s right,” Dean adds, although something deep down tells him that their attempts may be futile. “Come back home. We can- we can start a new life, you know? We can go back to having movie nights in the bunker- you always loved those.” 

You, me, Sam, and…

And Cas.

“I do,” Jack confesses, his face softening. “I wanna go back home with you guys so badly. I really do.” 

“Then let's go,” Dean urges. “Come on. Let us take you home. We'll set things right. We'll- we'll find Cas, we'll... we'll work it out.” 

Jack shakes his head, as if forcing the temptation out- the temptation of normalcy. To a being as powerful as him, normalcy should be considered an insult rather than a luxury. “...I’m sorry, but I can’t,” he finally says. “Chuck did so much damage. As the one who inherited his powers, it’s my responsibility to fix it.” 

Dean looks away guiltily. He's always seen different people whenever he looks at Jack. Initially he only saw Lucifer- and then once he realized that Jack wasn't a monster, he saw Cas. He still does. But now, in a way- he also sees himself. A kid who was forced to grow up way too fast, and had responsibilities that he didn't ask for shoved onto him.

He knows that he, even if unintentionally, played a role in that as well. If he can save Jack from that fate...

“Jack, no it’s not,” Sam says, using what Dean liked to call his 'negotiation voice'. He'd always been good at that- way better than Dean ever was. “You are under no obligation to do  anything. You shouldn’t have to clean up Chuck’s messes. That’s not fair.” 

“...Maybe it’s not,” Jack admits with a sad smile. “But someone has to.  Someone  has to try to fix this. Chuck didn’t just damage  this reality. Don’t you remember all the other universes he destroyed before this one?” 

“Yeah, but- can those realities even be saved?” Sam asks. “I mean- Chuck  decimated those worlds.” 

“I don’t know if I can fix them,” Jack says as he looks down at his own two hands, brimming with new power. “I was lucky that I was able to bring back everyone here. But I have to try. Those people have just as much of a right to live as the people here.” 

Neither Dean nor Sam could argue with him about that. If Jack could potentially save those people- they can't stand in the way of that, no matter how much they may want to.

Despite how much it hurts him to do so, Dean bites his tongue- for the moment.

Jack then looks skyward, towards the sun and the stars. “And Heaven,” he continues, "Chuck left it to the angels, and it’s almost completely fallen apart. Angels are almost extinct.” 

Dean’s eyes go wide as he hears the word “angels”. 

Angels.

He’s had Cas in the back of his mind since the moment he lost him. And of course he’s been cooking up plans- because he’s not going to leave Cas there. He  won’t. But everything after that kept happening so fast that Dean hasn’t had time to sit down and focus.

But Chuck is gone now.

The world is significantly safer. Not safe- but safer.

He hadn't anticipated this- anticipated Jack leaving. But if Jack really is that strong, then maybe before he leaves there's at least one more thing he could set right.

“Okay,” he says after a moment. “If you really have to go, we… we can’t stop you. But before you go, Jack- there's one thing I have to ask you." 

Jack nods. "Of course. Anything." 

"I know it's 'interfering' or whatever, but..." Dean forces himself to push his name out of his mouth, "Cas," he chokes out. "Cas. We... we need him back."

read the rest here!

[socialyawkdude]

A intro to manga, anime and light novels

Hello again, long and first time readers..

Its time for the long-awaited manga review section. Now before we get into the nitty gritty there a few things we need to cover first. Seeing that I will be coving light novels, mangas, and anime there are a few terms that we need to go over. Most of these terms will be covering the different genres and subgenres. Seeing that not everyone is literate in this word, it may be a good idea to cover this before we get into the good stuff.

What I'm about to go over are the genres of light novels, manga, and anime. Like many television shows and movies; manga and anime are broken up into different genres. Many of these are pretty self-explanatory, while others are more unique, as you are about to find out. I have included a few examples with of the sub-genres. I'm no expert, as I’m learning along with a few of you. Some of the examples I've given are some that I've read or heard of.

 List of Major Anime/Manga Genres

Action

Adventure

Comedy

Drama

Slice of Life

Fantasy

Magic

Supernatural

Horror

Mystery

Psychological

Romance

Sci-Fi

 Looking at this list you can see many familiar genres of movies and TV, that you may watch. I won't go into a detailed description of these, because everyone should know these. Now for the sub-genres, it's a bit of a different story. Many of these are unique to anime and manga. It is these that I will give a little description along with a popular anime or manga.

 List of Anime Subgenres

Cyberpunk= This type of anime is a subgenre of sci-fi. It usually displays a future where society has become more ingrained with technology at the expense of social order. The setting is typically a dystopian future where the technology may be doing more harm than good. 

Game= The game category encompasses shows revolving around the idea of gaming and playing. The anime can feature a card game, board game, puzzle game, or even a virtual online game. As long as it concerns any playable game of any kind, it belongs in this category. Sometimes, even video game-based shows can count in this selection.

Ecchi= The word ecchi comes from the sound of H in the word hentai, which in turn means pervert in Japanese. This sub-genre is generally accepted as being full of sexually provocative scenes (mild enough to be viewed by the general audience) and scenarios derived from innuendos and humorous situations. It’s a fact that ecchi shows are taking an upswing nowadays as more and more titles are produced every season. More often than not, ecchi is paired up with comedy as both genres compliment each other well. This, in turn, serves as a buffer that prevents the shows from crossing the line and delving into something less appropriate for general audiences. 

Demons= Originally just an infrequent theme, the rise of demonic characters and themes have given rise to this sub-genre. The term demon does not only encompass literal demon characters. It also extends to other entities such as monsters, beasts, ghosts, and other demon-type figures. The demons present can come from biblical backgrounds or come from Japanese culture. Believe it or not, this category doesn’t just come hand-in-hand with the horror genre; it surprisingly blends well with other genres as well. 

Harem= If you see a reluctant male character surrounded by multiple female characters who all adore him, then you’re probably watching an anime of the harem sub-genre. This type of show typically features more than two female characters go head-over-heels for a single male character. Anime in this category is typically within the comedy and romance genre. It's possible that a harem anime can have no romance and feature mostly slapstick comedy.

Josei= Josei is actually a demographic but is also considered a general category in anime. It specifically targets female viewers around the age range of 18-40. These shows depict life and romance in a more mature light, usually with more grounded realism and less idealistic fantasies. The sub-genre is fairly wide and doesn't necessarily have to focus on romance. It merely needs a narrative that caters to the mature woman. Josei originated from manga during the 80′s. Girls who grew up reading shoujo stories from previous decades wanted stories for adults.

Martial Arts= Martial arts play a big role in every anime that has fighting/battles in it. Whether it's hand-to-hand combat, swordplay, gun fighting, or armed combat, there’s some kind of martial art element that plays through them. But did you know that there are shows that are primarily focused on martial arts itself and their battle techniques? There’s a lot of them, and they mainly involve hand-to-hand combat and technician battles.  

Kids= A lot of people say that anime is just for kids, but that’s not really true. As a matter of fact, there are only a few numbers of anime that are precisely catered towards children. These shows are contained within the kids' sub-genre. These shows are mild, light, and insightful, which makes them perfect for children 12 and under. 

Historical= As the name suggests, historical anime revolves around events in history and moments of antiquity. Shows of this sub-genre are typically set in Ancient Japan and the feudal period. Other settings such as the Middle Ages and medieval period of Europe exist but they’re much more rare in anime. As long as the time or setting (or even elements) are old and ancient, then the series can be considered a historical anime. 

Hentai= Hentai literally translates to "pervert" in Japanese. This is the R-18 (mature) domain of the anime world. This sub-genre commonly depicts nudity and highly explicit content. Unlike ecchi, the focus here is on explicit sexual content rather than on storytelling and narrative progression. That is why the shows in this category are usually brief and lacking in substance.

Isekai= Isekai translates to "another world." This sub-genre typically has a     narrative where a protagonist somehow gets transported to a different     world. The new world is more often than not in a fantasy setting,     occasionally with traits pulled from JRPG games.

This category of anime exploded during the 2010′s and arguably dominated the decade. A good portion of isekai anime is adapted not from the manga but rather from light novels. The most popular series in this sub-genre maybe Sword Art Online. While the world featured there was just virtual reality, it did feature a fantasy setting that would be mimicked in other anime. 

 Military= As the name implies, this sub-genre involves the military in one way or another. War may also be a huge part of military anime. One thing to note about this category is that it is often coupled with the mecha and action genre.

Mecha= Mecha stands for mechanical (as in mechanical units or robots). You’ll never see a mecha anime without a robot or mechanical suit in it. That’s the most important element of it. And while this sub-genre is rising in fame as the days go by, it almost always uses a standard formula to carry the plot. As a general trend, mecha is often seen alongside the military, sci-fi, and action genre.

This may very well be the most iconic anime sub-genre as there is a multitude of memorable shows in this category. The mecha can be considered to be one of Japan's most popular exports. Some of the earlier iconic titles from the late 70s and 80′s include Mobile Suit Gundam, Mazinger Z, and Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Neon Genesis Evangelion is considered to be an iconic and dark deconstruction of the genre as it examined the psyche of young pilots. GurrenLagann was a massive hit that brought the genre back to its hot-blooded and idealistic roots. With a rabid fan-base that loves mecha designs, this genre is one that has been consistently popular over the years. 

Music= Anime shows in the music sub-genre aren’t that popular nowadays, but they do exist and they are very timely. These shows typically focus on singing, dancing, or playing musical instruments. These usually fit within the larger categories of comedy and drama.

Parody= A parody anime is one where countless numbers of other anime references are showcased throughout the plot. It might be a popular running gag, a famous symbol, a character reference, or any other attempt at bringing another show into its domain. One anime worthy to note is Gintama. They often use similar elements from other anime to showcase in their own show.

Police= The police sub-genre emphasizes the life and struggles of law enforcement in their line of duty. Police-based characters have shown up in numerous shows and     there are now anime that could be considered as police procedural. This genre isn't exclusive to police officers; detectives, investigators, and enforcers of any type are included as well. 

Post-Apocalyptic= Post-apocalyptic anime basically show that is set in a world that is in a dystopian state. This could mean the world is destroyed and/or humans are nearly extinct. Post-apocalyptic settings were merely a theme in the past, but an influx of titles bearing this backdrop over the years have made it become a sub-genre on its own. This type of anime has become more and more popular by the day. 

Reverse Harem= A reverse harem anime is typically a harem series where the gender roles are switched around. There is one female character surrounded by multiple male characters who are all potential love interests. Like the traditional harem genre, anime of this variety is usually within the comedy and romance genre.

School= There are countless anime that use the school as a setting. An anime can be considered a part of the school sub-genre if a school is the primary setting and the anime deals mostly with school and student life. This type of anime is usually seen within the comedy genre, though there are some entries in drama as well. 

Seinen= Seinen is actually a demographic but is also considered to be a category in anime. It’s a sub-genre that specifically targets male viewers around the age range of 18-40. The shows here are depicted in a more mature light and often include more explicit content such as gore, sex, and violence. More cerebral narratives are present as well.

Shoujo= Shoujo refers to the demographic of young girls. This sub-genre specifically targets female viewers around the age range of 10-18. Most of the time, shoujo anime works hand-in-hand with the romance and comedy genre, particularly with the former. The protagonist is traditionally female and the narrative focuses on romance as well as personal growth. The world in these shows is often very idealized.

Shoujo-ai= Shoujo-ai literally translates to "girls love." The typically young female characters in shojou-ai anime show love and affection for each other. The romance is usually milder in comparison to the more explicit yuri genre. Shows in this category portray blooming feelings of love and romance rather than intimate relationships. 

Shounen= Shounen refers to the demographic that this type of anime targets, which is male viewers around the age range of 10-18. These shows are usually a combination of action and adventure and are typically adapted from serial manga series. As such, these anime tend to have lengthy runs. One Piece currently has over 800 episodes and is still running. These shows are typically the most popular with mainstream audiences. They have done very well when exported to foreign markets thanks to their relatively simple plots and focus on action.

Shounen-ai= Shounen-ai literally translates to "boys love." The male characters (typically younger boys) in these shows display tender affection for each other. The romance in shounen-ai is generally milder when compared to the more explicit yaoi genre. There is usually more focus on developing romance than actual relationships.

Space= The setting of space has always been massively popular. With so much anime taking place there, it has become a sub-genre in itself. Any anime set in the cosmos can be labeled in this category. Space anime is often within the larger mecha and sci-fi genre. 

Sports= Pretty much self-explanatory, sports anime are shows that cover characters engaging in athletic competition. Popular choices in this category include basketball, tennis, baseball, and soccer. Other sports exist as well (including those that you wouldn’t expect showing up in anime). As time goes on, more and more of these series are produced. Just like real sports, shows in this sub-genre are action-packed!

Super Power= You know you're watching a superpower anime if you're seeing an array of explosive superpowers scrambling right on the screen. If you see bursts of energy balls, death-defying attacks, and opposing forces battling it out throughout the story, then that means you're probably witnessing a show in this sub-genre. These shows generally fit in the action category.

Tragedy= As the name implies, the tragedy sub-genre revolves around tragic events or phenomenon where the characters are deeply involved and affected. Tragedy comes in diverse varieties such as disasters, accidents, misfortunes, and deaths. These shows are often very dramatic and can pull the heartstrings of audiences.

Vampire= As vampires have become so popular throughout the world, it’s no shock that they’ve also infested the world of anime. There are lots of titles now featuring vampires and they’re not just exclusive to the horror category. They’ve also manifested themselves into other categories such as comedy, romance, and drama.

Yuri= Yuri is essentially the more mature and explicit version of shojou-ai. The female characters are typically older and the series examines their more mature relationships.

Yaoi= Yaoi is the much more sexually explicit counterpart of shounen-ai. This sub-genre covers male-to-male relationships (typically older boys) in a more mature light. There is more emphasis on serious relationships and intimacy.

 Well, there you go��� a not so short overview of the genre and sub-genres of anime, manga, and light novels. Hopefully, this will help newcomers to this wonderful of books and tv. It is now time to reveal the first series in the socallyawkdude’s manga review….. Tales of Wedding Rings by Maybe.  The volume 1 review should be up soon, as i’m finishing up the art work for the post.

Till then this is your friendly neighborhood sociallyawkdude signing off.

[baddyzarc]

2/7 Ruins: Legend of the Gladiator

1 x 3 4a 4b 5 6 7  

The next Barian ruins I wanna discuss is that of Alito. I was supposed to group Gilag and Alito since my contract says I’m legally not allowed to separate these two. But I went absolutely ham on Alito’s ruins so, uhhh, im splitting them up.

Alito is a fascinating, fantastic character. Not only is he outwardly bisexual and genuinely a non-evil character, he’s one of the most interesting due to how the writers use him to progress the narrative of the Barian Emperors. This could be attributed to his close relationship with Yuma, and thus he’s allowed ample screen time to play his role in the story.

Alito’s ruins are located under an artificial lake in the fictional city of Spartan City located somewhere in Italy. The ruins are revealed when Alito blows up the dam and drains the water away. Judging by the presence of a colosseum and the fact that Alito was a gladiator in his past life, I’m sure this is supposed to be based on Rome’s Colosseum. Not a big shocker, but this sets up the basis for the discussion. 

The Guardian for this Mythyrian Number found in the ruins (Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart) is a gladiator. This Guardian is the hardest one to decipher out of all of the Guardians. You have Mach, Ponta, Abyss, Minotaurus, Jinlon, and then a random gladiator. Each of the Guardians I listed have something to say about the Emperor it corresponds to, and I believe that the gladiator also falls into this category because of this line.

The gladiator recognizes Alito. This confused line is also spoken by Jinlon when he first encounters Mizael, so it can be said that some of the Guardians may not immediately recognize their Emperor, but they do feel their “aura”. 

Like Jinlon, the gladiator takes a moment before realizing its attacker is Alito. After that, Alito breaks through its power and gains him to get control of the Mythyrian Number. 

The most common theory, and the one I personally believe, is that the gladiator is the prince of the legend. 

My evidence is slim, but I think his likeness to the Mythyrian Number "Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart", his usage of a sword during his fight with Alito, and strong familiarity with Alito (”we’re like brothers!”) provides enough evidence. Not the best or decisive, but from what we have, I like this one the most.

Not only that, and I may be reading into this scene a little too deeply, but it looks as though the gladiator recognizes that this angry blob of hate is Alito, and under some choice of its own, it  allows itself to be taken by a Barian. Rather, the Mythyrian Number yields to a Barian. (For reference, only Nasch and Gilag came into direct contact with their Numbers; each has their own situation with Nasch’s being more complex and Gilag’s being similar to Alito). But why would something like a Mythyrian Number give itself to a Barian? I’ll get into that when I talk about the Ruins Duel later on.  

Back onto the ruins itself, when I first started this, I was truly struggling to see how the past and present are the same place. 

Obviously they have to be the same place because that’s how the plot works, but looking at the placement of the mountains, this image of the ruins in modern Spartan City does not match the geography of the past (unless there’s a glacial retreat or something, mountains do not wear away that quickly). I assumed that the animators didn’t consider this until I found a single second that shows that these locations are the same place. The image of Yuma is a poor angle of the ruins. 

And luckily for this shot, it gives me not only a confirmation that the geography is consistent, it also allows me to use this as an accurate frame of reference for the layout of the city.

Hold onto this information for a minute, because it is absolutely tasty.

Now that I confirm that everything is consistent, I can move onto Alito’s legend. His legend is straightforward if you discount the false memories embedded in him. Alito was a popular gladiator who was also friends with the prince. They frequently fought head-to-head and were on equal footing with each other. According to the legend, Alito and the prince were going to have a final showdown to see who comes out on top. However, the prince’s advisors were afraid that the prince would lose and damage the reputation of the country. The advisors framed Alito for murder, and despite the prince’s plead that Alito was innocent, he was executed under charges of murder. But according to Alito’s memories (or the ones altered by Don Thousand), the prince declared him guilty and was the one to call his death. Alito, being a hero adorned by many, was betrayed by his best friend and scorned by the people of the city, and this was what pushed him to Barian World. 

(Side track: But this is one of my favorite scene of his legend. The casket-shaped shadow, the crystalline, Barian-like shape, is a prelude to his fate after being framed for murder through the works of Don Thousand. At this point, no matter what happens, only death waits for him. The bright crimson coloration not only alludes to his bloody demise but also his descension into Barian World.) 

Now, the past lives of the Barians are often mucky because it’s hard to distinguish the truth from the lie, especially since Don Thousand altered the lives of the Emperors in many different ways (memory change, influencing outsiders, personality alterations, ect. It gets disgustingly messy). But in the case of Alito, it appears to be influencing the advisors to frame Alito, and then a memory alteration to where Alito believes that the prince was against him rather than for him. Because of this, I assume the legend recounted by Gauche (aka the advisors framed Alito + the prince was for Alito’s innocence) is the truth. I believe that if Alito knew the prince thought highly of him and trusted him during the entire trial, this would’ve been enough to allow his soul to pass onto Astral World regardless of the truth.

Therefore, Alito’s resentment exists as a product of Don Thousand going into his mind and changing his perception of reality. 

And this statement is what ties his character together during this arc. 

Now, if you know anything about this blog, you oughta know that I do not believe the Barian Emperors are evil. Except Vector. Vector is evil. He is evil because he feels like it and that’s it; it makes him happy hes a freak. The rest of them act like that because they are living-beings and have some self preservation. If they do not retaliate, Astral World will literally erase them from history. Each of the Barians (vector DNI) exemplifies this concept throughout the show. They are not antagonizing Yuma because he’s the hero. They are antagonizing him because he sides with Astral, and thus he supports the side that wants them dead. (and ngl, aside from Vector, they are incredibly inept at being evil villains, just look at their accomplishments if you take Vector away, gilag ate a live racoon whoop-de-doo these guys are going extinct)  

But this isn’t what this essay is about. This is about the legend and ruins of Alito, who is the most prominent in his lack of evilness. At the beginning of Zexal Second, Durbe ordered Gilag, Alito, and Mizael to defeat Yuma and Astral. From here, these characters acted first on orders, and then on self-motivation (or not at all). Mizael followed this order before getting side-tracked with surpassing Kaito. Gilag followed this order before kinda just joining a bunch of random clubs at school and watching *looks at script* Love Live. 

Alito did not followed that order and was immediately infatuated with Kotori. And by chance BY CHANCE did he run into Yuma, before being infatuated with him too. Alito has zero drive to be evil or follow any orders. He doesn’t hate humans nor does he act on anything malicious. Even with Yuma, his drive wasn’t to defeat Astral but to duke it out with Yuma with as much passion as possible. 

This is a stark contrast to what happens to him (and Gilag) when Vector injects their comatosed bodies with Don Thousand juice. This happens Twice. And each time, he loses his passion and becomes a genuinely evil person. He hypnotizes Gauche and makes him use the adverse effects of “Lion Heart”, he puts Kotori in danger, he wants to kill Yuma, he is filled with so much hate and rage that all the characters point out that “this isn’t the same person” they originally met. 

In essence, he became cruel by coming into recontact with Don Thousand. 

But we all know this. Don Thousand is evil while Alito is not.

So how does this prologue connect to the ruins and the Legend of the Gladiator? It has everything to do with Gauche.

Consider the geography of this again.

Even though it doesn’t appear like it, these images reveal some information about Alito and his proxy, Gauche. Compare the geography of the mountains and the placement of ruins, look at the current location of where Gauche and Droite live in the present and Alito’s home in the past. 

It’s the exact same place.

Neat, yes, but also consider that Alito was a hero to the children of his time and Gauche wants to be a hero to the children of his time. (“A Messenger From The Stars For The Kids”) Not only that, these two have an interesting relationship with Yuma. At first, Gauche dismissed Yuma before seeing that his unbreakable spirit makes him a worthy opponent. Same with Alito. They also get possessed by Barian powers in order to fight without their iconic fiery passion. These two characters are thoroughly similar if you can look past the surface level (also they were opponents during the Barian Onslaught arc if that counts for anything). 

From here, we can draw direct parallels between the fate of Gauche and Alito. 

On a historical note, I assume that Alito is not from Spartan City. Most gladiators in real life consisted of slaves, prisoners of war, or criminals, and if you consider the “Alito’s Theme” soundtrack and his “Farewell, My Friend” soundtrack (which I believe only plays after he frees Gilag from Don’s curse, but correct me if I’m wrong, also these are two of my favorite soundtracks), it sounds like it has vaguely Spanish origins to it. (again, correct me if im wrong, im not good at cultural interpretation of music)

The theory I accept is that Alito was a prisoner of war for some other country, say modern-day Spain. Gladiators in real life, if popular enough, can win back their freedom, and I assume Alito’s charisma, passion, and strength won him the favor of the public and the prince along with his freedom. He still fought, of course, but this may be due to his drive to keep fighting. 

Unlike Alito, Gauche is a native to Spartan City, but he started in the similar wrungs as Alito, although not like, slavery. He was an orphan living in the streets with Droite, and he also used his charisma, passion, and strength to rise as the Dueling Champion of Spartan City. 

Both of these characters are champions of their respective times, but Alito got decapitated while Gauche did not (so far). If Don did not interfere, Alito might’ve received a happy ending like Gauche.

This connection doesn’t go much further until we get into the Ruins Duel with Alito/Gauche vs. Yuma/Droite. And this duel is what I think storytelling through duels should be like.

Earlier, I talked about how the Guardian allows Alito to gain control of the Number. I do not think this is a fluke on the Numbers part. Mythyrian Numbers are the antithesis to Over-Hundred Numbers, and the only way to break the spell of Don Thousand is to use a Mythyrian Number. I believe that the Guardian saw that Alito was under Donny’s influence, and thus gave him the Mythyrian Number in hopes of snapping him out of it. 

This happens with Gilag too, where Ponta hands him the Mythyrian Number before swapping into his body (as well as Ryouga but this was before he was declared an Emperor, and i will get to this when i cover him). The only other Emperor who got close to his Mythyrian card but didn’t touch it was Vector, who made Black Mist deal with it; that said, I wonder what would’ve happened if Vector reconnected with his Mythyrian? 

Back to duel, will you believe me when I say that the actions of this duel tells the story of the Barian Emperors? Maybe, maybe not.

But I do not think it’s a coincidence that Alito is the only Barian that participates in the Mythyrian Numbers duels (mr. Ryouga and ms. Rio do not count for obvious reasons) nor is it that he fights under the full influence of Don Thousand. 

There is a lot that happens in the duel under the text, but the overall message of the duel is the rekindling of the original self. This is in opposition to Gauche and Alito, who lost their true spirits after being possessed. In contrast, Yuma and Droite duel with as much, if not more, passion than ever before. 

The duel, although not spectacular in terms on the plays made, has a lot of interesting imaginary that I appreciate so much. 

I think this scene is the most lovely of this entire duel: a fearsome lion and a tender butterfly facing off against one another. The butterfly is able to move the heart of the lion, and Gache returns to his original soul with Droite’s unyielding passion alone. He isn’t freed, but this action opens the door to his heart. 

Droite’s actions mimics the flow of Yuma returning Alito to his original soul. Instead of responding to his hate-filled dueling with a similar stance, Yuma duels with relentless passion, summoning out “Heroic Champion - Excalibur” and letting in face off against “Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart”. This is enough to save Alito from Don Thousand’s spell.

Furthermore, I feel as though this entire duel is closure for Alito’s past life whether he realizes it or not. As you know, Alito and the prince never had their final match due to Don Thousand’s interference. This duel concludes their fight and put the souls of both parties to rest (figuratively speaking). 

As the duel picks up, the stadium comes to life with the spirits of the spectators. They cheer for the duelists as the fight gets more and more intense. It’s as though the characters are thrown into the past.

The final move of the duel is what gives this “Legend of the Gladiator” the closure it deserves while presenting an amazing end to the narrative of Alito and Gauche. 

As Gauche and Yuma duke it out with “Lion Heart” and “Excalibur”, two monsters that are passionately battling one another, Alito interferes with “Cheat Commissioner”. This is no different than when the advisors cheated in order to murder Alito, thus preventing the final match from commencing. The strength of “Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart” and “Heroic Champion - Excalibur” was able to overcome “Cheat Commissioner” and as a result, Alito is instantly knocked out rather than Yuma or Gauche. 

Alito’s Mythyrian Number and Gauche’s former ace—their passionate souls working together to defeat a common foe, freeing their masters and returning them to their original self.

The presence of “Lion Heart” and the knockout of Alito’s “Cheat Commissioner” (or Don Thousand’s interference with Alito and the prince in the past) was enough for Alito to shake off Don Thousand’s control and revert back to his original personality. He’s confused and baffled as his memories as a human flood into him, but he quickly retreats back to Barian World. 

A similar outcome happened when Yuma faced off against the gladiator version of Michael, who is a character who shares many similar traits with Alito. I talked about this before and I rather post this here than rewrite a decent explanation of my thoughts. 

Yuma was able to free Michael of his hateful and rage-filled state like how he did it during this duel with Alito and their final encounter. 

But from the contents of this duel alone, it is revealed that Don Thousand has the ability to alter the Emperors’ minds; he can also influence even the kindest Barian to act cruel and sadistic. It demonstrates that enough passion and force from their Mythyrian Number is enough for them to shake off the control—if only a little bit—and return them to their true nature. It also cements that the true memories of the Barian Emperors are suppressed and hidden from them, and they are the heroes we suspect they are, but unknown (but probably Don Thousand-based) circumstances sent them to Barian World without their consent.

You can take all of this was a grain of salt or say im looking too deep into it but,

This is what I mean when I said “story-telling through duels” should be something like this. There shouldn’t be a character in the background recounting what’s happening below the subsurface. Seeing a battle between a lion and butterfly, or the knockout of “Cheat Commissioner” through Alito’s Mythyrian Monster and Gauche’s original ace monster, or the awakening of the spectators to cheer for Alito—this should be left for the audience to dissect. I’m not gonna say this is my favorite duel or the plays are amazing, but I truly appreciate the story it shows without the characters looking at the camera and expositioning what this means. 

This analysis is long enough as it is, but I want to end it by talking about “Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart” and and “Number 105: Burning Knuckler - Cestus the Meteor”. They’re both based on fighting, which fits Alito’s personality. These monsters (as well as Vector’s) are unique in that they are the only ones that swap attributes between the Mythyrian and Over-Hundred Numbers. “Lion Heart'' is an Earth Monster while Cestus is a Fire Monster. I’m actually quite stumped on this decision. Lion Heart looks like it should be a Fire Monster based on the colors of its design, the fiery background, and fiery spirit it uses to keep fighting even after death.

However, despite this, I think it’s a cool idea that the Over-Hundred is a Fire Monster. According to the legend, the gladiator is said to “still wander the ruins of the Colosseum” because he “... regrets… not being able to finish his fight with his rival”. 

To “seal the wandering spirit of the unappeased gladiator” the Colosseum was submerged underwater. 

Water suppresses the flames that Don Thousand forced into Alito, and as the water drains away, revealing the earth beneath it, after a thousand years, the lost gladiator wanders through the ancient ruins of the Colosseum once more. And through the cheers and hollers of the spirits that transcends time, the champion and lion partake in their final showdown. With the conclusion of the intense battle, the bantering of the spirits fade away in the glow of rising sun, and gladiator of the legend is liberated.

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 327

THE SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACT OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

AND WE HAVE MADE THE HEAVENS AS A CANOPY WELL GUARDED: YET DO THEY TURN AWAY FROM THE SIGNS WHICH THESE THINGS (POINT TO)! (QUR’AN 21:32)

We are often awed by how fine-tuned our planet is for the existence and continuation of life. One factor that makes this possible is its atmosphere, which is designed to filter out harmful radiation and meteors from space. While solar radiation is largely absorbed, some is reflected by the planet and the atmosphere. Some of the radiation reflected or emitted by Earth passes through the atmosphere, while the rest is absorbed and emitted in all directions by some gases in the atmosphere. This reflected radiation, combined with the energy absorbed by Earth, enables life to exist here.

Since this phenomenon resembles the heat reflected by glass panels in a greenhouse, it is called the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse gases that contribute significantly to this process are carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. The greenhouse effect is necessary for life, but too much of it is undesirable. Some negative consequences are changes in average temperature, precipitation, wind and ocean circulation patterns, polar glacier melting, and more storms, droughts, and floods.

The atmosphere is an extremely complex system that is not fully understood. During Earth’s long history, its atmosphere’s composition has experienced natural variations. By analyzing tree rings and core samples taken from Greenland and various high-altitude tropical areas, scientists have concluded that Earth has undergone several warming and cooling cycles. Among the factors that can cause such changes are greenhouse gases and ocean water salinity. According to Stant: “Since 1861 the Earth has warmed by about 0.5 degrees Celsius. Most of this warming took place before 1940, but much of it has taken place in the last 15 years. The global temperature of the Earth is projected to rise anywhere from 0.8 to 2.6 degrees Celsius in the next thirty to forty years.”

Some scientists think that the most recent atmospheric changes are part of a natural variation. But there is a growing consensus that human activity, particularly the emission of greenhouse gases and especially the carbon dioxide produced by industrial activity, has played some role. Small amounts of such gases can be absorbed by forests and oceans, and thus do not represent a serious problem. But thanks to the Industrial Revolution, this system has been thrown out of balance. Other activities, such as increased agriculture, deforestation, and the widespread use of fossil fuels for transportation, industrial processes, and heating fuels have exacerbated it.

This article will summarize the latest findings on the potential impact of global climate change.

BACKGROUND

The vast majority of scientists now agree that business-as-usual may lead to irreversible change in Earth’s atmosphere. Global climate change became part of the political agenda in the developed world during the mid-1980s, a time of increasing environmental awareness and mounting public concern due to the efforts of Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and other pro-environment groups. One assumption gradually emerged out of the numerous conferences, grassroots efforts, and publications: The developed countries are primarily responsible for the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and therefore should take the lead in fixing the problem. The latest step taken to mitigate worldwide emissions was the Kyoto Protocol (11 Dec. 1998), which devised a formula to determine the amount of gases each country could emit. Although signed by 84 countries, it has to be ratified by at least 55 countries (emissions from which make up at least 55% of global emissions) before it can be enforced. This has not happened yet.

The United States, the major producer of greenhouse gases, has signed but not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Hopes were high that the new Bush administration would do so. However, Bush soon reneged on a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants, and shortly thereafter repudiated the Kyoto Protocol. His claim that the scientific evidence for the greenhouse effect and its consequences was not yet convincing was greeted with disbelief. Questions were raised about corporate America’s role in forming his views, as many companies opposed the protocol and contributed heavily to his presidential campaign.

Fortunately, there is also mounting evidence that industry opposition, led by the oil, gas, and automotive concerns, is weakening. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “many businesses recognize global warming as a threat and realize that reducing emissions is in their economic interest. Several-including such giants as BP-Amoco, IBM and Johnson & Johnson-have voluntarily adopted emissions reductions stronger than those called for in the Kyoto Protocol.”

THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. Tasked with assessing the scientific, technical, and socioeconomic data needed to understand the risk of human-induced climate change, its mission is to provide policymakers with the most current scientific data on global climate change. The IPCC serves as a good example of how scientists from different backgrounds and countries come together to investigate a global problem. Some of its findings are summarized below.

Agriculture and Food Security. In principle, increased levels of carbon dioxide should benefit agriculture. However, one has to consider subsequent regional changes in rainfall and the reaction of crops, soil, and pests. Moreover, excessive heat and drought might have a negative impact on crop yield.

The overall effect on crop yield is predicted to be positive, especially in such colder regions as Canada and Russia, if the rise in average temperature does not exceed several degrees Celsius. If it does, the effect will be negative. In tropical regions, where crops are already near their maximum heat tolerance, even a minimal increase in temperature is predicted to have a negative effect on crop yields. The number of people at risk of hunger, especially in Africa, is expected to increase. The most vulnerable populations will be those who depend heavily on agriculture and those living in developing countries.

Ecosystem Damage. Ecosystems react to climate changes much slower than people. Wildlife habitat distribution and composition will be directly influenced by any change in temperature and rainfall, and indirectly by any change in vegetation. Most likely, species will not have enough time to adapt. This will be exacerbated by the continuing fragmentation of wildlife habitats by human settlement, which makes migration infeasible for most species. Since migration is unlikely, species composition and dominance will change, and endangered species will face extinction. Changes in ocean circulation will affect fish abundance and habitat boundaries, as well as fish population dynamics. This might have a significant impact on fish-dependent societies.

Rising Sea Levels. This is perhaps the most worrisome impact category. The IPCC Working Group I reports that as a result of melting polar glaciers, the global sea level will rise anywhere from 0.09m to 0.88m. Oceans cover a large part of the planet and have a significant impact on its climate. Wind and circulation patterns also are affected by changes in sea level and sea-surface temperature.

If the rises are high enough, many of the generally accepted models indicate that small islands will be submerged, many coastal areas will be inundated, and freshwater resources will face seawater intrusion. In addition, large coastal areas will be evacuated, populations will have to migrate, and wetlands and mangrove forests will be lost. Such countries as Bangladesh, which depends heavily on mangroves, will be devastated. The fishery industry will suffer as fish abundance and location change.

And, as if all of this were not enough, there also might be a rise in the frequency and severity of storms and sea-surges. Countries that depend largely on coastal tourism will suffer. Although people will see the approaching catastrophes and try to protect themselves by building seawalls, nourishing beaches, and other measures, not all of the impact will be cancelled.

Health Sector. There will be fewer complaints about the cold during the winter, but more complaints about the heat during the summer. Whether the benefits will outweigh the costs depends on the region. Tropical regions will face more deaths from heat stress. In addition, the influence areas of vector-, food- and water-borne diseases will shift. For example, depending on changes in rainfall and average temperature, malaria or dengue fever might become more widespread.

Although the specific impact depends on a wide variety of local conditions, such as the health infrastructure and socioeconomic conditions, the overall effect is predicted to be negative, especially in developing countries. Such extreme climate-related events as cyclones, floods, and droughts might become more common and severe, and thus leave exposed populations with even more health problems.

[sal2724]

NATURE

         “Remember nature before nature forgets us! ~Saloni (Me)”

Before starting I want to say that I feel like I am back in school in some junior class where I have to write an essay on nature. But I promise, this blog will be nothing like that school essay!!!

So, Nature, in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, or material world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena.

Within the various uses of the word today, "nature" often refers to geology and wildlife. Nature can refer to the general realm of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects—the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth. It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness—wild animals, rocks, forest, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention, or which persist despite human intervention. For example, manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, "human nature" or "the whole of nature". This more traditional concept of natural things that can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and the artificial, with the artificial being understood as that which has been brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind. Depending on the particular context, the term "natural" might also be distinguished from the unnatural or the supernatural.

Nature is actually everything around us. If we are not able to respect nature. Nature won’t respect us. Nature gives us everything we have.

The rise of technology and industry may have distanced us superficially from nature, but it has not changed our reliance on the natural world: most of what we use and consume on a daily basis remains the product of multitudes of interactions within nature, and many of those interactions are imperiled.

There is no question that Earth has been a giving planet. Everything humans have needed to survive, and thrive, was provided by the natural world around us: food, water, medicine, materials for shelter, and even natural cycles such as climate and nutrients. Scientists have come to term such gifts ‘ecosystem services’, however the recognition of such services goes back thousands of years, and perhaps even farther if one accepts the caves paintings at Lascaux as evidence. Yet we have so disconnected ourselves from the natural world that it is easy—and often convenient—to forget that nature remains as giving as ever, even as it vanishes bit-by-bit. The rise of technology and industry may have distanced us superficially from nature, but it has not changed our reliance on the natural world: most of what we use and consume on a daily basis remains the product of multitudes of interactions within nature, and many of those interactions are imperiled. Beyond such physical goods, the natural world provides less tangible, but just as important, gifts in terms of beauty, art, and spirituality.

To make you believe, I have some great examples:

Fresh water: There is no physical substance humans require more than freshwater: without water we can only survive a few hellish days. While pollution and overuse has threatened many of the world’s drinking water sources, nature has an old-fashioned solution, at least, to pollution. Healthy freshwater ecosystems—watersheds, wetlands, and forests—naturally clean pollution and toxins from water. Soils, microorganisms, and plant roots all play a role in filtering and recycling out pollutants with a price far cheaper than building a water filtration plant. According to research, the more biodiverse the ecosystem, the faster and more efficiently water is purified.

Pollination: Imagine trying to pollinate every apple blossom in an orchard: this is what nature does for us. Insects, birds, and even some mammals, pollinate the world’s plants, including much of human agriculture. Around 80% of the world’s plants require a different species to act as pollinator.

In agriculture, pollinators are required for everything from tomatoes to cocoa, and almonds to buckwheat, among hundreds of other crops. Globally, agricultural pollination has been estimated to be worth around $216 billion a year. However large such monetary estimates don’t include pollination for crops consumed by livestock, biofuels, ornamental flowers, or the massive importance of wild plant pollination.

Seed dispersal: Much like pollination, many of the world’s plants require other species to move their seeds from the parent plant to new sprouting ground. Seeds are dispersed by an incredibly wide-variety of players: birds, bats, rodents, megafauna like elephants and tapir, and even, researchers have recently discovered, fish. Seed dispersal is especially important for tropical forests where a majority of plants depend on animals to move.

Pest control: A recent study found that bats save US agriculture billions of dollars a year simply by doing what they do naturally: eating insects, many of which are potentially harmful to US crops.

Almost all agricultural pests have natural enemies, along with bats, these include birds, spiders, parasitic wasps and flies, fungi, and viral diseases. The loss, or even decline, of such pest-eating predators can have massive impacts on agriculture and ecosystems.

Soil health: The ground under our feet matters more than we often admit. Healthy fertile soil provides optimal homes for plants, while participating in a number of natural cycles: from recycling nutrients to purifying water. Although soil is renewable, it is also sensitive to overuse and degradation often due to industrial agriculture, pollution, and fertilizers. Natural vegetation and quality soil also mitigates excessive erosion, which can have dramatic impacts from loss of agricultural land to coastlines simply disappearing into the sea.

Medicine: Nature is our greatest medicine cabinet: to date it has provided humankind with a multitude of life-saving medicines from quinine to aspirin, and from morphine to numerous cancer and HIV-fighting drugs. There is no question that additionally important medications—perhaps even miracle cures—lie untapped in the world’s ecosystems. In fact, researchers estimate that less than 1% of the world’s known species have been fully examined for their medicinal value. However the ecosystems that have yielded some of the world’s most important and promising drugs—such as rainforests, peat swamps, and coral reefs—are also among the most endangered. Preserving ecosystems and species today may benefit, or even save, millions of lives tomorrow.

Fisheries: Humankind has turned to the rivers and seas for food for at least 40,000 years but probably even longer. Today, amid concern of a global fishery collapse, more than a billion people depend on fish as their primary source of protein, many of them among the global poor. Fisheries also provide livelihoods, both directly and indirectly, for around half a billion. Coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass ecosystems provide nurseries for the world’s fisheries, while the open ocean is used for migrating routes and hunting.

Even with the direct importance of the world’s fisheries for food, stewardship has been lacking, allowing many populations to drop precipitously and still permitting ecologically destructive fishing. While the world’s fisheries are primarily threatened by overfishing, including bycatch, marine pollution is also a major problem.

     Biodiversity and wildlife abundance: The argument to save the world’s wildlife has often come from an aesthetic point of view. Many conservationists have fought to save species simply because they like a particular species. This is often why more popularly known animals—tigers, elephants, rhinos—receive far more attention than less popular (although just as endangered) wildlife—for example, the redbelly egg frog, the smokey bat, or the bastard quiver tree. But beyond making the world a less lonely, less boring, and less beautiful place—admirable reasons in themselves—many of the services provided by biodiversity are similar to those provided by all of nature. Biodiversity produces food, fibers, wood products; it cleans water, controls agricultural pests, pollinates and dispersers the world plants; and provides recreation, such as birdwatching, gardening, diving, and ecotourism.

In the discussion of biodiversity, however, bioabundance is often ignored. A loss in bioabundance means that species are not just important for their diversity, but for their numbers. While Asian elephants may not go extinct any time soon, their depletion in forests means that the ecosystems lose the elephants’ special ecological talents such as spreading seeds and engineering micro-habitats. The drop in salmon populations in the US has caused the entire freshwater ecosystem to receive less nutrients every year (researchers estimate a nutrient-drop of over 90 percent); this means less food for people, less salmon for predators, and a less rich river overall. Declining nutrients also makes it impossible for the salmon to rebound to optimal populations, creating a vicious circle of bio-decline.

Climate regulation: The natural world helps regulate the Earth’s climate. Ecosystems such as rainforests, peatlands, and mangroves store significant amounts of carbon, while the ocean captures massive amounts of carbon through phytoplankton. While regulating greenhouse gases are imperative in the age of climate change, new research is showing that the world’s ecosystems may also play a role in weather. A recent study found that the Amazon rainforest acted as its own ‘bioreactor’, producing clouds and precipitation through the abundance of plant materials in the forest.

Economy: In the common tension viewed between the economy and the environment—e.g. do we clear-cut a forest or conserve it?—one fact is often neglected: the environment underpins the entire global economy. Without fertile soils, clean drinking water, healthy forests, and a stable climate, the world’s economy would face disaster. By imperiling our environment, we imperil the economy. According to research published in Science, the global worth of total ecosystem services could run between $40-60 trillion a year.

Health: Recent research has found what nature-lovers have long expected: spending time in a green space, such as a park, provides benefits for one’s mental and physical health. Exercising in a park, instead of inside a gym, has shown to provide mental health benefits as a greater sense of well-being. Walking for 20 minutes in a green space has been proven to help children with ADHD improve their concentration, even working as well, or better, than medication. People who live in more natural settings have better overall health, even when research has taken into account economic differences.

Art: Imagine poetry without flowers, painting without landscapes, or film without scenery. Imagine if Shakespeare had no rose to compare Juliet to, or if William Blake had no Tyger to set alight. Imagine if Van Gogh lacked crows to paint or Durer a rhinoceros to cut. What would the Jungle Book be without Baloo or the Wind in the Willows without Mr. Badger? Imagine My Antonia without the red grass of the American prairie or Wuthering Heights without the bleak moors. How would The Lord of the Rings film series appear without the stunning mountain ranges of New Zealand, or Lawrence of Arabia without the desert of North Africa? There is no question that the natural world has provided global arts with some of its greatest subjects. What we lose in nature, we also lose in art.

Spiritual: While some of what nature provides us is measurable, most of what nature gives us is simply beyond measure. Economic measurements are useful; but as with most of what happens in the world, economics is simply incapable of capturing true worth. Science is also a useful measurement regarding the importance of nature, but once again cannot measure what nature means—practically and aesthetically—to each individual.

Perhaps the most difficult gift of nature’s to measure is its ingrained connection to human spirituality. In most of the world’s religions the natural world is rightly revered. In Christianity, Earthly paradise existed in a garden, while Noah, the original conservationist, is commanded by God to save every species. Buddhists believe all life—from the smallest fly to the blue whale—is sacred and worthy of compassion. For Hindus every bit of the natural world is infused with divinity. Muslims believe the natural world was created by Allah and only given to humans as gift to be held in trust. Indigenous cultures worldwide celebrate the natural world as their ‘mother’.

But one need not be religious to understand the importance of nature to the human spirit: one only need spend time alone in a shadowy forest, sit on a forgotten beach, touch the spine of a living frog, or watch the quarter moon swing behind mountain silhouettes.

 ð Tbh, I was not in mood to write today. So they are not exactly my words. But I tried to gather as much information as I can from different places so that you guys can really feel the importance of nature by just reading this one blog.

[xaoh-f-goon]

Train Tooting Sounds Were Taken Out Last Year

Here is a theory based on some flavour text and cut content that were written in Series 1, but were not carried on in Series 2 and 3. The following is just a fun idea, but it does serve to highlight that I do genuinely think something was planned to be implied about the underground tunnels, but didn’t end up happening due to writing budget, less author involvement etc.

Let’s talk about the tooting trains.

In the tie-in Netflix merchandise IHOSO book, there is included the full version of a Daily Punctilio article written for Series 1 that only partially appeared on-screen. Some of the new text states that VFD financially enabled the trolley company to completely buy out the underground subway system, which at the time was a much more successful, efficient and profitable transport system than the antiquated trams. VFD justified their actions by arguing that the trolleys are more environmentally friendly, but it does seem like they did this in order to use the abandoned network of tunnels for themselves. (Incidentally, environmental issues is not usual territory for VFD, that’s more the domain of a different organisation, though that organisation is now extinct.) From then on the railway system continued above-ground, owned by the same company as the trolley system, following the same routes that they used to have below-ground.

At the same time, there is a reoccurring story in the on-screen Punctilios about City citizens who live near the overground train tracks complaining about hearing loud tooting noises at night. However, the trains don’t make that noise anymore, they had their 'toot-toot' taken out ‘due to complaints that they were annoying’. The Daily Punctilio attributes these reports to 'ghost trains'. 

The sound effect ‘toot-toot’ must, I think, refer to a steam whistle. No other types of train horn or whistle quite fits the bill, and it’s the type you would most expect in this context. Do we ever see a steam whistle in the Series? Actually yes, on board the octopus submarine. It plays a key role in distracting the crew.

Now to quote from the Anwhistle Aquatics Goes Up In Flames article: 

‘What went wrong?’ According to my source, who asked to be identified only as L.S., the trouble began when the Anwhistle brothers ordered the construction of a series of tunnels beneath the facility. “They dug too deep. They unearthed things that should have stay buried. There are secrets in this world too terrible for decent people to know”. Other (sources) hint that the construction (led to some) sort of (?i????) (biological?) discovery - perhaps even a new species, though whether animal, vegetable or mineral remains unknown. In the (subsequent?) years, Gregor was reportedly obsessed with unlocking the scientific potential of this species. In his last public appearance, he spoke of a project he called “Volatile Fungus (Deportations? Depictions?)” that he promised would “change the world”.’

Obviously this is implied to be about the Medusoid, but I would like to imagine for a moment that it is not. ....apart from the literal fungus bit. Still, given that Gregor announced a project with the word Fungus right there in the title, why would there still be doubt if this new species were animal vegetable or mineral? 

Note also that it is specifically Lemony who is written as commenting on this, a very rare instance of Lemony himself being quoted in text. Of course it is generally bad practice to trust that you definitely know who is meant by a set of initials, but in this case I’m pretty confident. Netflix tends to run things a little simpler, and never flagged ‘L.S.’ as confusable initials in the way that the books did, and are much more eager to include our actual Lemony in flavour material. But why would L be the source, when there are much more callback-appropriate volunteers close to the Anwhistle operation, such as J.A. or K.S. or F.W.? Simply the desire to weave L.S. in somewhere? It’s possible. However, the phrasing ‘secrets in this world too terrible for decent people to know’ doesn’t sit right with me as a description of the Medusoid, when there are published books about it and it is well known to the whole organisation. This sounds more like a phrase taken from Captain Widdershins, and reattributed in his absence.

You probably remember, when the Baudelaires get to the remains of Anwhistle Aquatics in TGG pt1, they find ‘scientific equipment’ that does not appear to be for testing fungus, though it may be for testing the effects of fungus on subjects.

Generic sinister implications? A reminder that Georgina Orwell (who had the same equipment) learned from VFD? More cynically, a re-use of props? Yes. All of those. But consider also, the large C-shaped manacles may also be a reference of a different kind, one that Netflix is very prone to make in the last season.

Speaking of which, it has been well noted (and much derided) among Netflix-critical volunteers that the sound effect used for The Great Unknown sounds a lot like an elephant. Personally speaking, I don't mind this too much, because that does seem to me the sort of noise the type of creature they showed on screen would make. A sort of echoing, trumpeting, kind of metallic sound, like an elephant or a whale, maybe a pheasant. No doubt they chose a slightly fake-sounding (though natural) effect so that one can more easily believe that Violet is able to imitate this sound using plastic wrapped around a whistle. In fact, if there’s one thing that is clearly spelled out to us, it’s that the muffled tooting of a steam whistle closely resembles the sound of The Great Unknown’s species. Close enough for regular humans to mistake one for another, even though they had heard the real thing just hours before.

It is not suspicious to hear loud tooting whistle sounds when you are in the vicinity of a railway.

What would be suspicious though, is hearing two different sets of train whistles, at conflicting times. Especially when you can easily compare them, and find one sounds a lot more like a trumpeting or hissing. You might wonder why it sounds different, or even wonder if something is running through the underground tunnels after all. But you dont, because there is only one set of whistles. If you expect to hear a tooting train, and you do hear a tooting train, you are likely to assume its a train. Unless, perhaps, you have a pre-existing association between trains and dubiously extant metaphysical monsters. But who would think like that?