#definitely not based on real life

[eccentrichumanbeing69]

Remus would accidentally end up flirting with Sirius because he was masking by reflecting his behaviours

[legobiwan]

Apropos of nothing, here's my personal headcanon in regards to Mario and Luigi's surname.

Now, it's been generally announced and accepted that the brothers' last name is "Mario," shackling them with the somewhat awkward full names of "Mario Mario" and "Luigi Mario." My take on this is that the family's original last name was "Marianetti" (likely coming from the more common "Marinetti"). This name was changed to "Marionetti" when the boys' grandmother came over from Italy. (A common occurrence in record keeping at immigration at the time. Someone probably had bad handwriting and smudged a pencil stroke somewhere. It happened in my family for sure).

In Brooklyn, their father went by the last name "Marionetti," which ended up shortened to just "Mario," as oftentimes he would be addressed by his surname only. (Think, "Hey, Mario! Get over here!" as opposed to "Hey, Marionetti! Get over here!")

So, the boys are born and get their names. (Their father's middle name was Mario, and so our Mario, being the oldest, inherits his father's middle name as his first name. Luigi's name maybe comes from the middle name of some uncle who is long out of the picture).

So we have "Mario Marionetti" and "Luigi Marionetti." Which, their surname being a mouthful, gets shortened to "Mario" more often than not, just like their father. And thus we end up with "Mario Mario" and "Luigi Mario," culminating in the "Mario Brothers."

[novelconcepts]

It really frees up so much mental real estate when you start thinking of sex as just: a thing people sometimes do. Some people are super into it! Some aren't! It's for fun! It's for intimacy! It's the deepest connection some people will ever feel and totally meaningless to others! It's hot! It's boring! It helps some people sleep! It exists as an exciting construct solely in fantasy for others! What it isn't is some complicated moral ground that needs to be fought against at every turn. It's just A Thing. Which means people who have a lot of it, or none of it, or whatever in between are all worth the same. Which means stories that have a lot of it, or none of it, or whatever in between are worth the same, too. Smut isn't less valuable than "clean" stories. People who have a high "body count" aren't less valuable than those who have never had sex at all. It's just A Thing. Making peace with sex as just A Thing that is natural to consentingly have or not have, want or not want, really is a great adjustment to your brainspace.

[57sfinest]

theoretical entroponetics: the post

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

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

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

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

The pale is referred to in the context of entropy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now my personal speculation about the pale:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[bambiraptorx]

not to be a romance hater on main but why do they have to put kissing in movies

[irrationallyexcited]

an essential read for many 911 fans at the moment

tldr:

"...it might help to remember that ships don’t have to be canon in order to be transformative and meaningful on both a personal and cultural level. Look at Star Trek’s Kirk/Spock: that ship never became canon, but it remains one of the most compelling ships ever created, and within canon it gave us one of pop culture’s most enduring symbols of love — their hands touching through the glass.

Henry Jenkins famously said that queer fanfiction "is what happens when you take away the glass." And, sure, it’s increasingly possible that savvy creators might go ahead and take away the glass for us. But that doesn’t negate the power of fans being able to do it on their own, without anyone’s help.

Shipping is exciting, fun, and often a progressive and empowering experience. And if a ship ultimately becomes canon, so much the better. But when shipping becomes an ideology, tantamount to a religion, it makes a story’s creators pretty much tantamount to gods. In essence, even though that level of shipping may grow out of a wish to maintain parity with creators, it’s ultimately de-empowering to fans, making them dependent on creators for validation.

But fans are validated through their love for the source material; they’ve never needed more than that. Turning that source material into a game to be won only turns all involved players into winners and losers.

And when that happens, sooner or later, we all lose."

[vulpinesaint]

my thesis statement will of course always be that the angels + demons in good omens are aspec (and nonbinary) but crowley specifically was so aromantic this season. man who goes "oh, romance? yeah, i know how that works. practically an expert. i've picked up so much from the way that people talk about it and represent it in media. i know all the perfect steps to execute romance. it has nothing to do with personhood and feelings; there's a certain list of requirements, certain steps that you take, certain subjective prerequisites to be fulfilled, and then you'll have romance. easy. simple." when he has no idea how romance actually works because it's never been something that was accessible or valuable to him. the general conventions for love seem so simple from the outside when you pick up an idea of it through cultural osmosis but not any real experience or investment in the idea. maggie and nina come in to tell him that he can't be messing with people's love lives because it's serious and personal but how should he know? when you're outside of it and don't even realize that you're outside of it, romance is just a thing that happens. and it seems so simple...

[averlym]

(click for better resolution, etc.)

[vintageot5]

Writing really is just

Me: wow, this is….bad. Really bad.

Me, looking at it again 2 hours later: ….okay that’s good actually

Me, 2 hours after that: nope, nope, I was right the first time

Me the next day: …….unless

Me the day after that: how is it that I’ve written good stuff as a less skilled writer but this is such garbage

Me, 2 hours later: holy shit this is poetic genius I’m a genius

Me the next day: okay no I’m scrapping this whole thing

Me 2 hours after that: …….goddamnit fine FINE I’ll finish it

Me that night: okay hot garbage! Hottest of hot garbage wow it’s horrible I’m never looking at this again

Me 2 days later: I am a god and this is my magnum opus. I will share it with my friends

The moment I share it with my friends: suddenly I have eagle eye vision and see twenty new things wrong or repetitive or unoriginal or typos and actually I was right all those other times when I said it was bad-

My friends: why is your writing so good

Me: *screaming inside trying to decide whether I agree or disagree and the answer is “yeah”* thank you

[chapel-of-rizztual]

Do you think Dew threw up the first time he tried to suck dick because he was trying to show off??

[secondbeatsongs]

regarding this post (which is now unrebloggable even though I somehow just reblogged it?) I do think that there was something compelling about older AI art

I miss when it was just neuralblender-type stuff - nothing was really recognizable, and it made for some fun images! like:

"Destroy who you are for who you can become"

"Consume me, you metal beast of my own making"

(this is a Scooby Doo quote btw)

"I"ll take care of you."

"It's rotten work."

"Not to me. Not if it's you."

"After the storm, I see again a weasel"

and, my favorite one:

"We're not lost; we're on an adventure!"

this sort of thing was really fun to mess around with! there are still copyright issues ofc - AI should only train on art from people who've opted-in, or stuff from the public domain - but the vagueness of these images is somewhat transformative, and they're never going to look exactly like whatever art they trained on.

and hey, half the fun was just seeing what exactly it did with things like, say...the entire 13th chapter of Twilight

[whileyoureinschoolidothisallday]

do you ever think about how batman AND spider-man would be considered villains by MHA standards

[sysig]

Don’t let her fool you (Patreon)

[rival-the-rose]

Just went thru a crypto terf's blog before blocking and there was a few more interesting characteristics than I anticipated

- complete devotion to using the r slur at every opportunity

- generally making fun of ppl in wheelchairs/otherwise disabled

-MANY posts about the evils of polyamory and how poly ppl harass lesbians in dating apps (as far as I can tell the problem is that there's ppl who are lesbian but who you don't want to sleep with bc they're poly? Unclear)

- Naturally followed by posts fantasizing about group sex (presumably with 2 other completely monogamous ppl?)

- then finally statements that lesbianism is a "biological reality" and also that this biological reality will protect them from penetrative rape!

[giantkillerjack]

The cool thing about a horror movie that takes place in a mental hospital and, shockingly, actually turns out to be on the side of mentally ill people is that it avoids all the common disgusting pitfalls of mocking, demonizing, and infantilizing mentally ill people.

The downside is

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

[It's much scarier.]

[bucephaly]

I keep seeing posts of people saying that a term transphobes stole and are using incorrectly to be transphobes is a Horrible Transphobic Term and Anyone who uses it is transphobic and it's Not Real and Entirely Not True when it's literally an actual anthropological term that has studies about it and is actually very useful for Everyone to think about, cis and trans, and be critical of. I hate seeing people respond to dumb hate by entirely writing off everything even remotely connected to the twisted shit bigots use when the shit the bigots are stealing and twisting is still like... a thing?