#humans are malleable so how they view it will change. but i think in the modern time hes not allowed to vote

[hellonerf]

ame has canonically voted! terrible decision, someone chain him up 🇮🇹🩷

fuck. another failure of the us government

[co-dependance]

I’ve seen people talk about the main theme of the owl house being acceptance, and I think they’re completely right about that. But I haven’t really seen anyone look at the sub themes depicted in the show around the acceptance theme.

Specifically how the owl house is really advocating for child autonomy. Specifically in the ways of discipline, showing that communicating and talking with children ends up being a lot more beneficial and effective than punishing them.

The most obvious example comes with the collector, where instead of talking to him, King’s dad punished the kid by putting him in essentially time out, for the actions of his siblings. Which he would’ve learned if he had talked to the collector. And then following that, every interaction before talking with Luz, has the collector being used or placated in some way instead of being treated like an actual child due to the amount of power he has. The titan trappers revering him as some sort of god, Belos manipulating him, and even king attempting to appease the collector, instead of really talking to him. Though for king it’s a bit more understandable. Even so, the show showcases the collector’s change only after he’s talked to like a person, and then shown why his views were wrong.

Luz, who’s the main focus of the show, has her character arc and journey centered around being punished for her not fitting in at school. And while, yes, some of Luz’s antics that were shown seemed to be legitimately dangerous, the real solution would’ve been to talk with her and teach her about safety and why bringing wild animals and fireworks into a school building is dangerous. It should have also been that Luz should be able to talk and negotiate with her teacher about what would be acceptable for her projects with her endless creativity. The solution was not to essentially punish Luz for being creative, and what that only did was make her feel worse about herself and more isolated from the people she thought would be on her side. And then we were shown in thanks to them and for the future, Camilla’s growth into understanding that not talking to Luz about this, and essentially forcing her into normality, was not the way to go about things.

And we see this theme again, with Willow forced into the abomination track because her parent’s thought that was what was best for her, until she was able to showcase her skills and switch to what she was actually good at. Alador realizing he missed a lot of Amity’s growth by not talking to her, and then making it up to Amity by letting her set the boundaries and reestablishing their relationship. Odalia being controlling and not listening to her children which lead to actively harming their social development, until she was confronted and then shut out. Belos manipulating Hunter, isolating him, and abusing him, not even listening to what he had to say. And all of these situations were made better and more bearable when they were given the chance to take charge and be heard.

All this, in an attempt to showcase that children can be vulnerable and malleable, but they are also smart and understanding. And instead of deciding what a child needs, it’s important to communicate with the child instead, asking what they need and listening to what they’re saying. And implementing that by guiding and supporting them, not attempting to control them to what someone else thinks is right.

Children are smart and observant, they just need to be taught how to communicate, and viewed and thought of as actual human beings.

In a way, the owl house is attempting to advocate for it’s audience, and that’s beautiful.

[magpod-confessions]

so, i’d like to preface this by saying i don’t hate martin, and this isn’t meant to be negative. i just have been seeing a lot of mischaracterization and people seem to be viewing him as a very different person from who he actually is.

i don’t understand why people call jon and martin monster boyfriends or act like they’re both avatars. i keep seeing it and i just don’t know where people got this idea that martin is also a monster? he’s one of the few characters that firmly holds on to his humanity. he does have a domain in the apocalypse, but the apocalypse rules are very different and having a fear domain doesn’t really have anything to do with whether you are an avatar of a fear. it’s just the distinction between watcher or watched.

also, there seems to be this idea that he’s accepting or even encouraging of jon’s monstrosity, which is just.. how do you get to that conclusion? martin tends to struggle with a lot of cognitive dissonance, and black and white thinking. he picks and chooses which avatars are okay and which are evil monsters who need to be executed, and this distinction is almost always based on his own personal relationships with them. overall, he dislikes avatars. but he has a very malleable moral code that’s almost entirely just a reflection of his own personal opinions and emotions. he is willing to look past the monstrosity of specific people if they’re someone he likes or is attached to. but he still dislikes the monstrous part of them. that’s never changed.

.

[broodwolf221]

cole—spirit or human? 

this, like all my meta, is just my personal feelings or interpretation: I am not trying to claim any kind of objective correctness, or to dismiss those who feel otherwise. I remember conversations about cole being somewhat strained so I'm hoping ppl aren't going to be super weird on this post. 

so—cole. I've played both routes and I actually enjoy both of them, but I'm strongly inclined towards making him more of a spirit, and my reasoning comes down to three primary aspects: 1) respecting cole’s autonomy and his choices up to this point, 2) acceptance of an “other” way of being as equally valid to a “human” way of being, and 3) making him more human feels weirdly to me like asking him to replace the real cole in full rather than be himself

1—respecting his autonomy.

cole states early on that he became more of who he was and less human, and that it lets him help. that's a choice he made. on a personal level, even though he's just pixels, I find it deeply uncomfortable to unmake the choice he made about his nature. I understand that he's shown as happy and fulfilled regardless of which path you choose, which is part of why I like both, but this is why I prefer the spirit path: making him more human feels, to me, like the inky is making him more… palatable. or like the game is giving a “comfortable to the player” option. I felt this way when I first played dai when it was new, and I continue to feel this way now

he is happy in both and that's nice, and i like that there's no strong delineation of a right v. wrong choice. at the same time, i've always gotten the sense that cole wants to be more spirit—maybe not because it brings him joy or satisfies him, it could well be that he just believes he will be more useful/functional as a spirit, but even making "bad" decisions (which i don't think this one is, but for the sake of argument) is an individual's right and part of their autonomy

2—acceptance of an “other” way of being as equally valid to a “human” one

in a watsonian, in-text view (which does tend to be my approach), I think it's very important to accept the personhood of spirits, even when they're so fundamentally different. spirit!cole forgets things, can erase negative experiences, etc.—there's a lack of what we'd see as typical growth and maturity going on there, but I'd argue that we can't really effectively apply human (or “mortal” ig, bc elves, dwarves, qunari…) norms to a spirit. 

cole as a spirit of compassion is the way a spirit is supposed to be. the way a spirit is supposed to be is not the way a mortal is supposed to be. and to me, it does feel like his preference throughout the game is to act as a spirit. he stays "pure" and "clean," and that allows him to help without becoming corrupted or changed. it's tempting—and not wrong—to view this through a human lens and to find it unhealthy for him, but i tend to defer to solas' explanations of how spirits are in this case. they can easily be corrupted because they are a Single Thing. that is their nature. wisdom is wisdom; changed by perception, expectation, memory, or pain, it becomes something fundamentally different. spirits are malleable in a way mortals are not

3—replacing the “real” cole 

tbf, this one isn't really supported by anything in game, just a personal discomfort. but he “became” cole after the young man's death. honestly, I find that a little uncomfortable, but I can understand it: the textual “simplicity”/purity of spirits makes sense of that kind of reaction to compassion’s “failure,” its inability to help the real cole (according to its own standards where help=fix: it did help the real cole by being there) 

so, to me, it reads a little like you're confirming that direction when you have cole become more human. ik it's not presented that way, but yeah, personally just makes me uncomfortable bc it feels like I'm encouraging cole to view himself as a replacement of the real cole 

spirits can come back, but they are the sentiment that gave rise to it in the first place, not the individual being itself. compassion taking on cole's name in the first place feels like that to me, but becoming more human feels like it's taking it a step too far. bc then cole becomes a young man who's taken on the face and name of a dead man and it's… it's a lot. for him to grapple with down the line, for the people around him, for everyone. but as a spirit, that kind of behavior feels more like a way of recognizing and respecting the being that came before 

and of course, cole isn't 100% either—he's more human or more spirit. so it's fair to say that it'd still be a sign of respect and acknowledgement of the real cole even if he becomes more human, it doesn't turn automatically into a Bad Thing, and the complexity can honestly be fascinating to explore, bc i imagine as more-human he will develop some complex feelings about all of it

[olderthannetfic]

RE: https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/743444985882509312/apropos-of-world-building-no-one-is-this-whole

There's so much shit that it's absolutely fair to talk about JKR's writing and worldbuilding, and this ask hits upon approximately none of it, with the single exception being the stuff that was tacked on long after the books had finished being published and she was trying very hard to stay relevant, but was never actually canon to the books.

The thing about good worldbuilding is that it needs internal consistency and coherence, it does not necessarily need to make sense or be 'realistic' to the way societies function in real life. Magic having a lot of the answers, particularly as it pertains to keeping their world separate and a secret from muggles, makes perfect sense and is internally consistent. Why would a magical illusion suddenly be revealed by an aerial view? It's not holograms, it's not bound by the laws of physics in the natural world! It's magic! And it's a soft magic system as opposed to hard, because hard magic systems often do get into the minutia of how magic works and all that but this is not at all a requirement for 'good worldbuilding' and if you think it is then I think fantasy stories with soft magic systems just aren't your thing, and that's ok! But the malleability and lack of hard and fast rules is a feature, not a bug, of magic systems like this.

As for why magic hasn't solved all the world's ills--same reason Reed Richards never cured cancer. Most of the time, urban fantasy stories or stories that are set in or around the real world aren't interested in changing the status quo. Lots of fantasy stories where there is inherent interest in preserving the Masquerade and keeping magical/supernatural and human worlds from colliding also have some form of healing magic and generally that has not been used to rid humankind of deadly disease and world hunger because they aren't trying to write about some perfect world where everything that could possibly be fixed with magic was, and frankly, I probably wouldn't be reading that story if they were, cause those stories just don't interest me.

--

[sunsetcannon]

The Red Soul Trait.

Hell with it, I'mma post my UT headcanon here. Specifically in regards to the Red Soul. Sure there's the "Ballgame" joke and the classic of Determination. Yet there's a certain other thing I personally have in mind in what it could be called, one that can be used as synonym for Determination but at the same time not directly tied to Perseverance. I like to think that it's called "The Soul of Will." as in the will to go on, or one's will to live or to do something. It wouldn't surprise me if the idea has already been in circulation or if the name is already taken but I'll clarify more under the cut here to avoid clogging stuff up, hear me out if you want.

Ok so, Frisk/Your willpower, depending how the story depends it in terms of writing and if the player can be inserted in, is what keeps driving them forward throughout the underground no matter what, even gathering through their determination to deny even death. It's what gives them the ability to muscle through the likes of monsters such as Undyne, Asgore, hell even Asriel/Flowey. You can still argue that it's technically synonym for Perseverance, but I feel like raw Willpower would be different enough to stand on it's own. After all DT is apart of all human souls at their core, while other traits still do exist with Justice having Kindness, and Kindness having Integrity, all of them have Determination in some way outright which is why I believe Will or Willpower could be a more fitting name for the red soul. Raw Willpower may beat out Perseverance just enough just due to the fact that most of the time, a person's will is usually one of the last things to break, a person's will to survive no matter the circumstance. This also makes it ironic in Deltarune, where it isn't Kris's will, but your own. Kris is forced to follow your will throughout the entirety of the game, only getting what say they have through how they choose to say things, how they do actions, and of course when they straight up tear out the soul out of their own chest.

What makes things more interesting is Chara, who is implied to have the red soul despite no true presence of the player like with Frisk and Kris. Their own will is completely uncontrolled by any outside force, there is no player interference for them, only their pure will, which is what matters the most when they finally "pick up the knife" at the end of the genocide route where their will ends up erasing what is left in the timeline. However with the equal amount of will put into saving their brother with giving the player and Frisk access to their memories in the Pacifist ending. This doesn't mean that they can not be influenced, you are still the one to end up driving them into lashing out, and you are still the one who can help them heal. Will could also explain why the red soul is as "malleable" as it is, easily switching between the other traits as the game mechanics paired with the monsters' magic. However it seems like if put into more practice it can change unprompted, as we see in Spamton Neo's fight where it can switch into Justice unprompted by any phone like in Undertale. It could stand for the player's will, Frisk's will, however you may view it, but that's personally what I think. At the end of the day this is just generally a headcanon, but I tried to cover all questions that I could with this, of course there may be something I missed, I'm not perfect. I'd like to hear input from others in the fandom who may end up reading through this whole thread at some point!

[daevite]

ugh okay viewing romantic relationships as cheaper than friendship in a piece of media is just as bad as viewing the former is more significant or important than the latter. the conventional (healthy) model of a romantic relationship is just a close friendship with extra steps. really the only difference between whether two people are “involved” vs. “just” friends is how those two people choose to define their connection with each other because it’s not some clearly-defined binary with hard rules that everyone must conform to. thinking about this because of what some people say about malevolent and people interpreting arthur’s feelings towards john or vice versa as romantic vs. platonic (despite that their relationship is not romantic) and the reason it comes across as ambiguous within the narrative (aside from arthur answering “i suppose so” when the king asks him if he loves john) is because at the end of the day, the line between being close friends with someone vs. being in a romantic relationship with them is incredibly thin and that line is whether the individuals being discussed define it as romantic or not (or in this case, the author, because characters in a story do not have agency.)

basically the difference between romantic and platonic love is arbitrary/socioculturally determined rather than being something objective and defining love between two people as one or the other doesn’t make their actual connection weaker or less interesting or less valuable. that’s a weird way to think about human relationships and a weird way to think about something related to the subject of two same-gender characters in media because as a general rule making two male characters (or in john’s case, male-coded) friends isn’t more revolutionary than making them relationship partners in the cultural context of a homophobic society. that isn’t to say guthrie is homophobic for that decision (he’s obviously not against their relationship being interpreted as romantic despite it not being canon) but fans acting as if it’s a novel thing is tone-deaf to how relationships between men in fictional stories are historically and presently betrayed (a handful of podcasts featuring m/m relationships doesn’t change that we live in a homophobic society where the dominant relationships portrayed between men are...friendships!)

with all that in mind, when it comes to a story like malevolent, i’d say whether arthur’s feelings for john or vice versa are romantic or platonic shouldn’t really matter, lol. there is no actual difference between romantic and platonic love beyond sociocultural stereotypes and ideals (that are malleable). arthur loves john. he said as much. and in the context of the story i’d say it’s something outside the realm of romantic or platonic altogether lmao.

[sneakymystique]

Headcanons

Some old headcanons, posted here to archive them.

Sleep: Mystique can use her control over her cells to minimise the need for rest. She usually sleeps with her eyes open and remains a higher degree of awareness than someone who sleeps normally.

Body: The Brotherhood boys are teenagers and therefore Mystique is used to having her breasts and other parts ogled. She encourages this when she wants to manipulate them, tolerates it for most of the time, but when she’s in a bad mood…that’s when the Brotherhood get their bruises.

Eyes: Yellow and serpentine, Mystique’s eyes grant her superior vision which is why she often retains them when using the forms of animals.

Skin: Raven’s clothes are an illusion produced by her powers-they’re just reshaped skin. She can take them off-it’s like shedding a layer of old skin, there’s some pain but it’s very minor. It amuses her to donate these husks to charity shops or leave them in people’s wardrobes, she thinks it a delicious irony that humans are unknowingly wearing the unwanted cast-offs of a superior species.

Horseman powers: From what I can tell Mystique was the only mutant to retain her enhanced powers from Magneto’s machine. Therefore I theorise that her x-gene is malleable enough to accept and retain changes made and that this includes the changes wrought by Apocalypse. However using these abilities is physically and mentally taxing for her, so she uses them sparingly.

Probing her mind: In her natural form Mystique’s mind is like a blank space to a telepath, no matter how hard they press they won’t be able to break in. This is because her grey matter is ever changing and grants her a natural immunity. When wearing other people’s forms Mystique usually creates a kind of psychic blanket to go around her mind. The top layer is a number of surface thoughts that she pushes out to match what she thinks her mark would be thinking. Under that is a layer of chaotic mental static, still flavoured like the person she’s disguised as thoughts, but it hurts to stay there long. Beneath that a place only the nosiest telepaths go is where Mystique’s tell-tale mental blank lurks.

Ronnie Lake: In 616 verse Ronnie Lake was an identity Mystique created when she got bored. Ronnie was the ‘model of the millennium’, and was considered to be one of the most beautiful women who’ve ever lived until a tragic yachting accident off Florida, her body was never found. Mystique smiles every time she sees Ronnie’s face on posters or in commercials, knowing that if people knew who was lurking underneath, they wouldn’t stare at that perfect face so dreamily.

Children: Mystique loves her children in her own twisted way, and their rejection of her is one of the most painful things that have ever happened to her. She really only wants what’s best for them, and what’s best is something a woman of her experience can best decide. Consequently she is working on plans that will bring them round to her point of view…big plans.

Fatherhood: Mystique is secretly Rogue’s father, Irene Adler is her mother. Rogue knows it which was why her nervous breakdown on discovering the truth was so severe. Mystique generally prefers the label ‘mother’.

Sherlock Holmes: Mystique was posing as a detective in London when she met Arthur Conan Doyle. Her ability to read body language and razor sharp memory was what inspired Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes.

More headcanons here

[your-regina]

Not lost

For most of my life I was of the idea that everyone could change and thus everyone deserved pity and second chances. Perhaps there's good inside everyone, maybe no one  knowingly causes harm to others, but are instead driven by the purely irrational impulses so characteristic of humanity. But we now know that's not the case for everyone; I'd go as far as to say there's way more irreparably harmful people out there then what I'm equiped to deal with.

"She didn't believe in evil, and because of that she was immune to it". Those were the words used to describe one of the illustrious characters in a magical realism novel I read when I was 13; it is indeed a very short sentence, but it had a great influence in my world view. I thought that maybe it held some truth to it and people could avoid being reached by bad intentions by simply being ignorant of their existence. So for the longest time I held on to the hope that every wrongdoing from others towards me was but a mere coincidence. In the same way galaxies collide simply because they're moving in the same direction, I used to think most of my misfortune related to social interaction had to be either collateral damage or something I brought upon myself, which I wouldn't completely discard even now.

That's at least what my faulty moral compass wanted to point towards, but I'm truly not that dumb. I'm a bit reluctant to reflect on whatever interaction I have with the rest of the world, simply because I always considered I had way more pressing issues to attend, and also because it has never led to anything but disappointment. It's not like I can't think to save my life, it's just that I'd much rather die without ever knowing what came over me.

I find that so many of the positive effects my medicine has on me are related to the numbness and unwillingness to think it provides. But you know I always wake up from that haze, sooner or later.

Things get cleared up with time, no need to be particularly sharp. I have more than enough conscience to understand when things are going well, and of course, I can feel when someone's drifting away, and when they were never close in the first place.

I believe now that not everyone wears a shell, and sometimes what you see is exactly what you get, no dept or mistery, just simple, plain ugliness.

Maybe I shouldn't underestimate my gut feelings so much, and I should instead revindicate myself as the incredibly self aware person I am, with a particular knack for pessimism.

You know I myself have never been pure and pristine. Even as a little girl I was cute enough to try to curse someone I strongly disliked, and maybe now I don't think in magical ways of getting back at people like that, but I for sure don't let anything slide, not really. As it turns out, I really revel in the prospect of being annoying and causing a lot of petty distress, just poking around until something eventually hurts.

In any case, I've thought long and hard about what it means to have a place in the world, to be respected and recognized for what I am. To be fair, I'd say I do an incredibly good job at keeping myself low-key, mostly out of everyone's sight so that I don't bother anyone, because I'm truly not the sort of person who simply goes around picking fights and choosing infructuous battles. So how come I somehow manage to get in people's nerves? Well, I think it may have something to do the perception people form of me just by this sort of shallow interaction. I think I come off as rather dumb, malleable and scatterbrained; I don't have the nerve to plainly state I'm none of that, but I certainly like to adopt that sort of unassuming personality so that no one perceives as a threat and maybe I can get a better chance at living the peaceful days I strive to have.

It's not even something that came out of nowhere, but rather something I very purposefully wrote down in countless letters as I tried to figure out the best ways of bribing this world.

I don't necessarily regret it, I think I got a lot out of it, but there's only so much belittlement I can stand for the sake of peace.

[kfs1001]

I have just finished binging season three of Netflix’s Heartstoppers. I have to praise Alice Oseman for a wonderful story, Netflix for being brave and filming and, above all, the cast for such a beautiful job depicting many challenging subjects.

Transphobia is such a hot topic, and Ell’s interview was terrific, though it was not what she expected. I think it spoke to the issues a community faces that should be hugged and loved. We are all human; we all want to breathe the air, live our lives and love who and how we want. Straight, gay, bisexual, pan and binary are all a matter of biology. Yes, it is a choice, a choice of what and who Nature deems us to be. It is that simple. Transexuals face a wholly different and biological dilemma, having the essence of a woman or a man sustained by a physical body one feels they do not belong to. It is a part of Nature, just like every other living thing. Nature is diverse and robust. It is malleable and changeable, and while defined by words and definitions, those phrases are forever changing and evolving. It is not for one person or a group of people to determine what is right and wrong, it is up to the individual to determine what is right or wrong from themselves.

What I just wrote is a wonderful segue into mental illness that the creators, crew and cast of Heartstopper tackled, in my opinion, head-on. We all face it in some form. Sometimes, mental illness is a minor itch that we, the individual, can scratch. Often, it is not. It is scary for those affected by it, but it is just frightening for loved ones and friends who watch, pray and often feel helpless. Like so many things, someone who is mentally ill, like an alcoholic, has to realise for themselves there is a problem before they can seek help. Nick and Charlie , the leading characters in Heartstoppers, faced this. One was in denial for a long time, and the other was in love but capable of assisting when facing bigger issues. Those who are going through mental illness suffer, but so do those who try to help but find themselves standing at a distance, watching, hoping and hurting.

Heartstoppers and Glee are two very different stories from two different times. This does not mean that one is better or greater than the other; it means they both tackled issues facing not only the LGBTQ community but many others. Glee was groundbreaking for its time, and it still is. Likewise, Heartstoppers is, for this moment, the time. In the future, there will be other programs, movies, plays, music, and books that will break new ground and foster new understanding.

As a gay man in his sixties, I wish there were shows like Glee and Heartstoppers when I was a teen. Back then, soap operas were the first to have gay characters in minor roles. Making Love and Long Time Companion were fantastic movies for their time.

We are all human. We all eat, sleep, learn, pay taxes, work, cry, celebrate, and live. No one is better than the other, and one is lesser. Why, in this day and age, are there people who still think they are right and their beliefs are right and supersede the rights we all have as human beings. That we should follow them and be as they want us to be.

I am not a political person, but I have political views. To my friends down south, in the United States, vote with our hearts for what you believe is correct for all human beings and not the few narrow-minded individuals.

To my friends above the border in Canada and Europe, we will all vote soon for those who represent us and our values. Do not let our values fade and become a hidden footnote as it did in 1933.

[indrivingto]

Liminality

background: my interested in this concept started with an anthropology paper that looked at Victor Turners studies. it then devoloped with the english papers which had me reading Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day which i found an article fascinating which looked at this narrative as being liminal, as well as viewing Mr Steven's journey as that of a pilgrims, and thus not without its liminal components ...etc....

here are two of the the articles that i will norte go into detail because ove read them and thought about them a decent amount already but as a reminder to myself that they are there and can be a useful framewaork to think and approach one of many angles of thinking.

this idea of the Liminal can be applied to the concept and it can be applied to the visual style/aesthetic.

"Liminal space aesthetics... refers to a visual style that captures a sense of being in-between, often associated with transitional or ambiguous spaces."

a state of transition or ambiguity, typically experienced during rites of passage or moments of change. - ambiguous disorientation experienced during the middle phase of a rite of passage.

"the experience of liminality can be linked to a sensation of floating—an unsettling vortex that breaks through thresholds."

we are all always, and have always been, in a state of transition.

i discovered this short article, "blog-like", and found I resonated with what was written, particularly in regards to a personal experience. i felt it also applied to my study of the vehicle and the power it has to open our minds to the many roads of wandering thought.

we find "enlarged powers" in the transitions from one place to another.

"the threshold separating an old identity from a new one."

they sum it as, "Liminality can occur when you’re between jobs or relationships or school semesters. But as Emerson notes, it’s perhaps felt most acutely when you’re en route from one place to another."

and then furthers this with this Emerson guy's personal account..

"I get a wonderful feeling of disorientating-orientation walking through an airport. But I especially love a long road trip. I love feeling that no one knows exactly where I am. That I’ve slipped the structures of my ordinary life.

Emerson said such experiences must “be adroitly managed to present as much transitional surface as possible.” To me that means riding the inherent perspective-altering qualities of liminal spaces by using them as times for maximal reflection. When I’m driving out West, I gaze through the windshield in absolute silence for hours on end. I think my best thoughts.

In day-to-day life, current circumstances seem completely set and unchangeable. During a “crossing,” you sense how very fluid and malleable they actually are. That what has been, doesn’t have to be.  

Sitting at Gate 18, you can come to realise that just as your trip is in process, so is your life."

“Frozen in time without their usual bustling energy, these spaces emphasize the profound impact of human presence within designed environments,” Mili Kyropoulou, an assistant professor in the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design at the University of Houston, tells Popular Mechanics.

Here are some key features and insights about liminal aesthetics:

a. Mood and Atmosphere: Liminal aesthetics often evoke a sense of mystery, nostalgia, and introspection. It embraces the beauty of twilight, foggy landscapes, empty hallways, and other in-between moments that evoke a feeling of uncertainty or anticipation.

b. Symbolism: This aesthetic may incorporate symbolic elements such as bridges, doorways, mirrors, or other objects representing transitions or thresholds between different states or realms.

c. Minimalism: The visual style of liminal aesthetics often leans towards minimalism, with muted colour palettes, soft lighting, and simple compositions. This simplicity helps to enhance the focus on the liminal space itself and the emotions it evokes.

By Rashmi Haralalka....

aesthetics revolve around pictures of transitional areas devoid of life, such as malls in the early morning, empty parking lots or a school hallway during summer.

Liminal space aesthetics are built around the unique feelings of eeriness, nostalgia, and apprehension people describe when presented with such places outside of their designed context; most notably, their function as intermediary points between origin and destination. For instance, an empty stairwell or hospital corridor at night might look sinister or uncanny because these places are usually brimming with life and movement. The absence of external stimuli, such as conversations or the motion of people, creates an atmosphere often described as otherworldly and forlorn.

Liminal space aesthetics consists of any room, corridor, or hallway that is big and empty, yet carries an eerie and unsettling vibe with it; this part is key in separating the Liminal Space aesthetic from just a regular photo of an empty room, corridor or hallway. 

one artist model i have looked at, captures just this...His name is

and here... a collection of his work that i think captures the "liminal".

encroaching darks, cold blues, sickening yellow, bright greens, slivers of unkownen

there is a nothingness that drags on beyond the boarders of Hido's photographs. its lonely, dabbed lightly into a gentle sadness. yet there is something else there, as if a bud is just about to break the service of soil in its readiensess to grow and to change. similar to the green hope that speckles the grey ground in the aftermath of forest fires, as nature heals herself.

Maarten Vromans

in my personal experience, looking through a car window has at times distorted my vision of 'reality'. weither this is the speed/time taken while moving past scapes, some famiiar some und familar.

Maarten's 'Lucky Shots' capture this and to myself the movement in them is willing to a sense of transition.

the familiar becoming boring yet different every time its past as other factors are changing to making our perception of it different or it itself different. new scapes can be exciting, thought provoking, refreshing, evoking new feelings and sensations.

my reality of what i am seeing is also influenced bu the glass of the window itself, is it layered with waternarks, scratches, bird shit, bee shit, pollen, dust, how do these obstructions of my view tell a story of where ive been or where i might be heading.

the bee shit and pollen appears more often and readily when i've been spending time on my fathers lifestyle block, out here there im around hives and flowers and leaves. dust and dirt then perhaps a gravel road or on a farm,

or the window is down and there is nothing but wind and smells that distract my mind from the sights and my eyes will close and i will embrace the feeling of air pressing firm into my face. imagining in this moment if it would be a similar feeling to jump out of a place and be force to face all this gust.

i feel the liminal is a beautiful way to capture the constant never ending flux we and everything around us is in, across our lives on this earth

the abstact, the detail, and a show of movement i feel is what im leaning towards in order to communicate my ideas. as more of a painter i'm leaning towards what i know. and that is detail, and abstract.

the following websites are some of the ones ive looked at to familarise myself with the art of macro photography and capturing motion in photography.

[welcometomy20s]

April 11, 2023

I always told my narrative as someone who started as a skeptic and came out a believer. Not necessarily God, but something akin to the concept, maybe more amorphous and malleable than the traditional idea of God. But I read Timnit Gebru and Emil P. Torres’s work, I realize I did escape a religion that I truly believed at one point.

TESCREAL is a direction, and it goes transhumanism - extropianism - singularitarianism - cosmism - Rationalism - Effective Altruism - longtermism. It is a series of beliefs that seems painfully obvious and hackneyed to many here, but wholly surprising when seen from the inside, because it feels so contrary to the stated goals of these movements. 

I think I started out with longtermism. Fascinated by its symbol and artifact, the Long Now Clock, the idea of creating a monument that lasts a geological lifetime and the exciting engineering challenges that come with buzzing my little mind. But the clock went nowhere and increasingly it offered tinier insights, and I realized for a group ostensibly directed towards long-term thinking, there was a lot of navel-gazing. They were afraid of actually thinking about the present. They present challenges of languages and timing systems, which led me to a journey of various forms of timekeeping people had made over the years. I was learning about the ingenuity and diversity of various peoples of the world, but the group slowly started to discard that consideration.

Longtermism focuses on ‘existential risk’ - most famous examples being climate change and nuclear war, but the crowd favorite being AI. My journey with AI was a Frankenstein Question. At first, I didn’t buy the risk, I thought the event was too ridiculous, then after playing around with some codes and games, I took the risk at hand and examined them, diving into the wonders of information theory and its relations to physics, and soon came away with dismissing the idea.

Partially it had to do with the frequent embarrassing outburst that I possibly couldn’t think people were taking it seriously, or at least were actively incorporating into the ideology.

One of the biggest examples of the hideous heart beating in the TESCREAL ideology is the seeming observation that people with low IQ have more babies. The line of thinking goes that ‘dumb’ people will create more ‘dumb’ people while ‘smart’ people will hem and haw until they all die out… you know the beginning of the movie, Idiocracy?

But in my journey to know about the world, I came across Hans Rosling, and he showed with data (I love data) that development inherently decreased fertility rates without fail.

Just by looking at things differently, a more complete picture emerges. It’s not people without low IQs, it’s people without educational access having to rely on manual labor which requires… well, more labor. Once these people are educated, then they will find themselves in a situation where they need less babies. TESCREAL theologians view places like Nigeria as a Pandora’s Box but it is where the future lies, and where there are so many opportunities to be found.

There is a laundry list of terrible science that permeates TESCREAL. For a bunch of futurists, many of their ideas seem firmly stuck in the widely-refuted 19th science.

I think where I depart from Timnit Gebru and Emile P. Torres is that the AI race will cause great harm… well, other than the normal forms of harms that people like them have already caused. You know, the garden variety of harm. There is nothing special about this movement. AGI and whatever ‘superintelligence’ they will espouse will not make pretty much anyone useless or obsolete. Good writing requires clear intention and worldviews, which these AIs are explicitly programmed against. They are not going to make art without heavy human intervention.

I love how they briefly mention how these programs consume tons of energy, but don't follow through and see there are simply physical limitations that would make any superintelligence extremely unwieldy to continue existing without losing capabilities. 

[shiyorin]

I think I read too much HFY but here we go. Write when I writer's block.

From the dawn of time, our kind has walked this realm. We watched other races rise, spreading their influence across galaxies through sheer force of will.

To us, they were mere curiosities. Stupid toads that stumbled into a puddle and thought they had discovered a sea.

We watched in amusement as they created their war, a pathetic mimicry of the true primordial chaos that birthed our race. They splashed about in their puddle, oblivious to the vast ocean beneath.

When they crafted their invention, we saw a footnote in the margin of existence. A comedy act, parodying the great works our race had wrought.

The endless life we pitied, slaves to Death, grasping at a mockery of true immortality. The super soldier we scoffed at, brutal brutes, pale copies of warriors who had fought by our sides eons ago.

Even at their peak, they just were children playing at being gods, arrogant yet fragile, doomed to fade as swiftly as they had risen.

All of that was as fleeting and insubstantial as a soap bubble. An attempt at parody, knew nothing beyond the narrow scope of their insignificant puddle.

We watched and waited, mildly amused, as this stubborn parody of existence played out across the stage of our eternal galactic sea. We even inserted ourselves at times, donning masks to interact with the actors, to see how long the illusion could be sustained before falling apart.

But in truth, it was all so pathetic. So limited and small.

For we are the First. We existed before Existence took form. We have danced in the Void and sailed the Sea of Souls. Stars are but fireflies to us, and reality itself a malleable plaything.

These puny scraps that call themselves creatures of the material? They live and die in the time it takes us to yawn. Their struggles mean nothing, will change nothing. Once we fade from view, they will continue on as before, splashing in their puddle, oblivious to the true nature of the ocean that birthed them.

So we watch. And we wait. Until the time comes for the failed parody to join the countless footnotes of history, and for our humans to once more walk this realm unopposed, as it has since the dawn of time.

For we are the First. And Last. The beginning, and the end. What comes between is but a soapy bubble, soon to pop.

When we get to space, we learn that humans aren’t the “space orcs” we expected. In fact, we’re closer to space elves: the most elegant, the least brutish and violent and warlike, and the longest lived by far.

[thegildedbee]

10.14 [ occult transformations ]

Mornings arrive with a chill, the light at day's end is fading faster, and the snap of curses crackling through the ether echo more strongly, as the mid-point of the spooky season comes into view. In this week's fic recs, human bodies prove to be disturbingly malleable, as various forms of sorcery bedevil the lives of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as they navigate across inhospitable terrain.

[ week 1 was: tricks and treats ] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~in order of word length~ De Veritate Unicornis Modernus by tepidspongebath (2013), rated G, 5154 words. This fic is among a handful that has such a distinctive style that it feels to me as if it inhabits a readerly space that exists only when it is approached obliquely rather than straight on (no, I don't know how that works either; it just does). From the first sentence to the last it steps sure-footedly through an enchanted landscape of melancholy that begins to dissipate through some alchemical reaction that occurs when an embittered war veteran and a whirlwind of a consulting detective see in each other what the rest of the world cannot. The veteran, who has come to view "everything with a crippling cynicism," hides away from a London suffused with the vitality of the living as he waits for his body to finish dying -- that is, until he meets a man with "too many dark spaces inside his head, too many shadows," someone who "certainly had one of those Pasts with a capital P that nobody liked to talk about" . . . and is stunned to realize that it is "the first time since the change, that he has felt alive." I always marvel that this is only 5k words, because the world it paints feels as full as time itself.

Lightning and Sea Glass by 221b_careful_what_you_wish_for (2015), rated E, 18280 words. It was a dark and stormy night, and John Watson is a party to inhuman acts that are beyond the pale. The author's characterizations of John's troubled and contradictory thoughts and feelings are psychologically arresting, as they are as well for Sherlock, who is brought painstakingly to life in many different ways. The two companions live in a world of second chances that they fully appreciate (what a concept!), ending with a very satisfying reworking of the Reichenbach Fall (in which the author, apparently possessed of clairvoyance, managed to foreshadow The Abominable Bride.) Moriarty, Mycroft, and Irene appear only briefly, but have perfectly laid out roles to play.

Second Intention by fiorinda_chancellor (2014), rated T, 29512 words. (Among many other wonderfulnesses, this fic has one of my absolutely favorite renderings of the first meeting at Bart's scene, and, come to think of it, in fact may even be my most favorite of all :-)

Sherlock is suffering from disabling symptoms that are interfering with his work. John Watson, a gifted psychosurgeon who can dive into your mind and interact with your subconscious self, diagnoses Sherlock as having been cursed. Sherlock scoffs that John is speaking mythical bollocks, and the two are off to the races to engage in Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell-levels of sparkling adversarial repartee. John wins over Sherlock by describing the curse as having turned his brain and body into a crime scene, and they soon turn into a formidable team, both inside his head and out. It is all breathtakingly fun, and captivating, full of inventive scenes and clever lines, and gleefully quotable throughout: I love it as much as The Princess Bride, and, like the film, re-visiting the fic never fails to delight.

A Study in Strays by philalethia (2014) rated M, 30926 words. When I first began reading fic, inching my way out from proper canon somewhat dubiously into AUs and Crossovers (eventually discovering that, wow, I had been missing oceans of fabulousness by being so reluctant to stray from conventional pathways!!!) I would have bet loads of money that I'd never read a word of "Catlock." Everyone less idiotic than me already had been having lots of fun, and this fic is a well-loved example of the breed. It's perfectly-set for the Halloween season, as it features a very anti-social black cat which behaves in very mysterious ways. John Watson is particularly adorable in this fic, both in his affection for the cat and in his angst and anger when it seems to disappear-but-doesn't-disapper-not-really, and Sherlock is a close second on the (smugly) adorable front.

The Boy Who Drank Stars by kinklock (2016), rated E, 36157 words. John is a wounded soldier who is cursed, although its true nature is obscure. Sherlock is a wizard whom the townspeople fear due to the rumor that he steals hearts, an assertion that John finds to be false (as he'd divined for himself) . . . and yet, nonetheless, to be true as well. John's initial encounter with Sherlock turns out not to be as random as it seems at first blush, and the subtle revelations that occur throughout the fic as to their tangled pasts, present, and possible future nearly always startled me in a rueful yet appreciative way, with "oh, of course, now I see!" following fast. The fic is full of diverting twists and turns, and the final chapter is a tour-de-force, in terms of the plot and of Sherlock and John's relationship and of the ways in which the dynamics below the surface realities ignite. This is a charming fic, a perfect setting for a world in which Johnlock is destiny. [The fic draws creatively on the books and the Studio Ghibli anime for Howl's Moving Castle. Figures from the Sherlock series are deftly inserted into the tale, and while you needn't be familiar with HMC to have the fic spark joy, being familiar with the story definitely amplifies the pleasure of seeing how the fusion aspects play out.] ........................................................................ *fic repost recruits, perhaps??? ❤️ @totallysilvergirl @blogstandbygo @mydogwatson @keirgreeneyes

[grayintogreen]

One of the things I love about Lucien is that he really is JUST A GUY. Like most villains don’t think they’re villains, but Lucien takes it a step farther. Honestly, I subscribe to the theory that Lucien is just Molly with his morals skewed because what Lucien’s goal seems to be is to create a world that appreciates imagination and weirdness, but where Molly’s version of standing his ground and saying “no. YOU move” was being aggressively (if not always sincerely) nice when presented with intolerance or humbling people who deserve to be humbled, Lucien steamrolls it. He wants to be RIGHT. He wants to show people he was right.

We know he graduated from the school of hard knocks in the worst neighborhood in Wildemount, and that he went into an order that LITERALLY POISONS its members to turn them into what is effectively a monster to some people. A shit life doesn’t mean you get to destroy the world as a treat, but I’ve never gotten the impression he thinks the Somnovem are going to destroy the world. They’re going to do SOMETHING to it and he wants to see what it is. He’s got this delightful anarchist “I just want a regime change” vibe, and given how he talks and how the Somnovem operate, I’m pretty convinced they really ARE nine Trent Ikithons looking for the best and brightest of curious minds that are broken enough to be malleable and Lucien fit the bill when he went looking.

Not to turn Lucien into a VICTIM by any means. I’m pretty sure he’s always been a cult of personality, but Molly exists and Molly represents all the potential good Lucien has in him. And Nonagon represents all the twisted, awful he has in him.

He’s a showman. He wants a stage and a grand performance. He wants to be SEEN. He is so viscerally fascinating and it appeals to my lizard brain that loves seeing the worst timeline version of characters and Lucien IS the worst timeline version of Molly- an unapologetic liar who wants to leave the world in a state HE PERSONALLY views as better. He took all the disrespect and misery in his life and decided the world needed to see things from HIS POV, whereas Molly saw things as they could be and tried to make the world more like that. Both want to change the world- it’s the difference between selfish and unselfish. And that’s where the line between them lies- Lucien is selfish and Molly tended to put others ahead of himself, because Lucien spent years being kicked around and treated badly whereas Molly was immediately embraced into a community of weirdos who looked out for one another. Lucien could BE Molly if he saw his friends as a genuine support system and not as people who blindly agree with him.

Matt could have made a character who was so unlike Molly that it was repulsive they shared a body and a portion of soul, but instead he reverse engineered Lucien into what happens when your natural nature flourishes into two different environments. He made them a mirror of each other. He made it possible that he could still be saved- depending on whether they choose to do so.

And that’s what makes Lucien so fascinating- he is the worst and he’s garbage and he is so viscerally HUMAN because you can see where he’s just an overly charismatic fucked up asshole who turned on the world and without everything that fucked him up, dictating how he lives his life, he could be halfway decent.

[the8thsphynx]

I just read that new post on Alcides and Goetia and just. Imagine Chaldea's reaction. River discovering the Servant he's entrusted so much to has been housing a being that caused so much destruction. Da Vinci freaking out at the thought of the organization having to go up against him again when they barely made it out last time. Mash having a full-scale meltdown when she sees the monster her father gave his very existence to defeat survived, knowing her family died for nothing. Think about it.

Hewwo!

I see what you're getting at, and it's an amazing idea! But unfortunately! (...half-fortunately) that isn't quite the direction it goes in when Alcides uncovers to the team that she's taken Goetia in contract.

I can't give away or explain too much (esp since I can't continue writing and progressing this AU until LB7 drops and more malleable information is handed to me), but HYPOTHETICALLY! If everyone in Chaldea found out in... say... the beginning of the Lostbelts...

Da Vinci is skeptical, but she makes decisions based off both intuition and reason, so she trusts Alcides when she says she has things under control and Goetia can't and won't do anything to hurt anyone. After all, which would you rather have? Your former enemy wandering around freely, or have them under the watch (and Command Seals) of one of humanity's most powerful heroes? Whose entire legend is made up of stories of her defeating/taming some of Age-of-Gods Greece's most dangerous beasts and Phantasmals??

Also Ars Paulina got destroyed and most of the rings of power left behind after Ars Nova was performed, so Goetia's Spirit Origin is almost literally being held together by Alcides-brand scotch tape, plus he's missing an eye and an arm. The most he can do in this state is like.... stare REALLY angrily and hurl poetic insults at people. (If only looks could kill...)

Mash is definitely a mixed bag. She's the more forgiving of the trio in the sense of letting someone show her they've changed. Of course, with it being fucking Goetia, she wants to keep her distance since the emotional wounds still sting. She has a LOT of faith in Da Vinci's judgement and in Alcides's abilities, though, so she's willing to tolerate his presence.

....River. However. Is who you should be concerned about. In his past life as Aim with how he viewed Goetia's creation and also as River when he fought Goetia to avenge Mash and Romani are some VERY comparable emotions for him. It makes it better  that Epic of Remnant is the kick-off for River’s identity crisis.

IT’S FUNNY TO ME AS WELL BECAUSE ALCIDES IS THE ONE THAT DOESN’T TRUST RIVER. I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT. IT’S VERY IRONIC.

In fact! I adore your concept so much that I'm gonna copy-paste two little scenes from separate occasions in my fic involving River/Aim and Goetia, edit it a smidge, and post it on here hopefully this weekend~☆