#i love data .... i love knowing things

[applepixls]

not quite sure where this originally comes from but i saw this picture and couldn't help but think of the permit office people-

[asgardian--angels]

mage viktor discourse again on twitter and all i can say in my little corner over here once again is, I don't know why the entire fandom takes it as canon that mage Viktor failed to save every world he manipulated.

Canon does not provide evidence of this. This is fanon speculation. It's a fine headcanon to have, but everyone talks about it like it's canon when it isn't. Canon is ambiguous about the outcome of the timelines mage Viktor altered. The little nods we are given point, in my opinion, towards the opposite conclusion, that he successfully averted destruction.

I've written meta on this before but in summary:

1) 'In all timelines, in all possibilities' is worded precisely, it's not 'out of all timelines'; the implication is that every time, Jayce brings Viktor back from the brink, not just in our timeline. 'Only you' doesn't refer to our timeline's Jayce, it refers to all Jayces. Jayce always brings him home. If Viktor continuously put the fate of each timeline in Jayce's hands and Jayce failed over and over, I don't think he'd say those words. And the way he says them matters. His words are tinged with wonder, not sorrow. As if over and over again, he is shown that Jayce saves him, and it continues to amaze him. He doesn't sound defeated, like this is the next in a long line of Jayces he's sending off to die. The feeling is that Viktor's faith in Jayce has not been misplaced.

2) If mage Viktor doomed every timeline, there would be hundreds (or more) mage Viktors. All running around manipulating timelines. I highly doubt the writers wanted to get into that kind of sticky situation. The tragedy of mage Viktor is that he is singular. Alone. Burdened with the responsibility of the multiverse. The emotional gut punch of his fate is ruined if other timelines led to the same outcome, and from a practical standpoint, having multiple reality-bending omniscient mages would rip apart the fabric of the arcane.

There are other points, such as there being only one corrupted Mercury Hammer and our Jayce is the only one to receive it, and the fact that if mage Viktor is as omniscient as he is implied to be, he could easily step back into other timelines and correct course, because it's highly unlikely he could sit still and watch things go down in flames. But these things can be argued elsewhere.

While I love conversations about mage Viktor's motives and selfishness vs altruism, the writers & artbook have expressed that Jayce and Viktor care greatly about Runeterra and want to fix their mistakes to save it, and that their reconciliation is symbolic of Piltover and Zaun coming together as well. Yes, they make disastrous decisions towards each other, making choices for the other or without the other, which has negative consequences for their relationship and for Runeterra - but I think fandom pushes their selfishness even past what's canon sometimes, as if their entire goal hadn't always been to selflessly help the world around them. Their final reconciliation is about bridging the gap that grew between them - the pain and grief and secrets, betraying themselves and each other - to mutually choose each other openly and honestly. Part of the beauty of their story, as expressed by the creators, is that in their final moments, they chose each other and took responsibility for their actions by sacrificing themselves to end what they started, together - and that choosing each other saved the world. TPTB have stated this - that Jayce and Viktor are the glue holding civilization together, and when they come back to each other, they can restore balance. It's when they're apart, when they hurt each other and miscommunicate, when they abandon their commitment to each other and their dream, that the greater world suffers. Their strife is mirrored in the story-world at large.

Mage Viktor is framed as a solitary penitent figure, damned to an eternity of atoning for his mistakes. He paid the ultimate price and now is forced to live his personal nightmare of exactly what he was trying to avoid for himself with the glorious evolution. The narrative clues we're given point more in the direction that he saves timelines rather than dooms them. If Viktor's actions kept killing Jayce, the very boy he couldn't bear to not save each time, it would undermine these narrative choices. Yes, Viktor couldn't stand to live in a world where he never meets Jayce, so he ensures it keeps happening. But in that same breath, he couldn't bear to see a world where his actions continue to destroy Jayce and destroy Runeterra. His entire arc in s2 is born of his selfless desire to help humanity, help individual people. He would not lightly destroy entire worlds. That's his original grief multiplied a thousandfold, and narratively it would lessen the impact of the one, true loss he did suffer, his own Jayce. It wouldn't make sense for him to be alright with damning other timelines to suffer the same catastrophic tragedy that created him. I mean, maybe I'm delusional here, but is that not the entire point? Because that's what I took away when I watched the show.

As I said, I love discussions about mage Viktor, as there's a lot to play with. All I wish is that the fandom at large would not just assume or accept the Mage Viktor Dooms Every Timeline idea as canon, when there is nothing in the actual canon that confirms this. Maybe people need to just, go back and rewatch the actual episode, to recall how mage Viktor is presented to us, and what it's implied we're supposed to take away from his scenes, and separate that from the layers of headcanon the fandom has constructed.

[hellyrossum]

you know in all the posting about irving and helly’s friendship after last ep, i haven’t seen anyone mention yet that he was one of the two people who first saw her, who watched her (through the screen, on the other side of the wall) as she woke up for the first time, confused and scared and burning with anger. and then he was the one who brought her back; he was the one she first saw (holding her in his arms), as she was confused and scared and freezing. he was there for her start, and she was there again just in time for his end.

[kylermalloy]

Sometimes I don’t think people understand the point of deterministic time travel stories.

(For the purposes of this post, a deterministic universe refers to a story in which there is only one timeline. Even if time travel exists, the characters cannot go back and change things, so to speak. In a deterministic universe, they would’ve always time-traveled, so the “changes” they attempted were already there, and nothing was altered. Think Interstellar, in which Cooper sends himself to NASA from the future.

By contrast, a branching timeline story would allow changes. Traveling through time assumes a new set of events and/or people who were not present the “first time around,” and so events can be altered, to the point of erasing established history. Think The Butterfly Effect, in which changing the smallest thing balloons out into an entire alternate reality.)

Whenever I hear people discuss a deterministic model of time travel, they seem to be under the impression that those characters are trapped by some nebulous fate or destiny, and that’s why things can’t change. The time-travel mode chosen by the author for the story has locked them into this particular set of events, they’ll posit, and no matter what the characters do, they are literally unable change it.

I couldn’t disagree more!

A deterministic timeline is a trap, to be sure—to us, the audience. The characters are free to make whatever choices they want.

I started thinking about this because of Attack on Titan, how Eren sees a glimpse of himself causing the rumbling from his father’s memories.

So many analyses will claim that’s why Eren started the rumbling later in the story—that from the moment he saw the future, he was somehow locked into that particular course of action. He was destined to kill millions whether he wanted to or not.

But…no. Eren didn’t cause the rumbling because he saw himself do it in the future. He’s not the audience looking in on his own story (not in that way, at least). He isn’t figuring out that there is only one timeline, or that he was fated to cause so much death. He doesn’t even know that he’s in a time loop where everything happens the same way every time!

No! Eren isn’t thinking about time travel physics—which are made-up anyway. Eren isn’t thinking Well I HAVE to do it, since I saw it in Dad’s memories. (Well, he probably does think that. As an excuse.)

Eren makes the choice to start the rumbling because that’s the choice he will always make regardless. That is who he is as a person. It’s a tragic flaw. It’s his character.

I’ve also been thinking about this because of Netflix’s Dark—a time-travel show I heartily recommend. It too has a single timeline, in which many characters meet older—and then younger—versions of themselves, and they pass along information bootstrap-paradox style.

The first time I watched the show, I had this passing thought—how did these characters remember exactly what their older selves said to them, so they could replicate the conversation when they were the older self?

It was a silly question, and the more I watched the show, the more I came to understand: The show is not about ~replicating~ or ~preserving~ events in the timeline. They’re not sacred, as some time-travel stories would have you believe. No, the single timeline never changes because the characters don’t change.

When Jonas, the protagonist of Dark, meets his older self, he can’t believe the shell of a man he’s become. He can’t believe himself capable of saying the things he’s saying, or doing the things he does. He’s not cataloguing the information passed to him so he can one day say it back to his younger self—that’s stupid.

I was caught in a fallacy of bootstrap paradox—how did they know what to say? Where’d those words come from? Well, where all words come from.

Older Jonas is speaking from his heart. He too had believed fervently that he would never become the person he is—but the day has arrived, and now he’s on the other side of the door. He’s saying the words while his younger self is frozen in disbelief. He’s not replicating a conversation he remembers—the words he says are the words he would say regardless. That’s what he’s always said, because that’s who he is.

This little quandary serves as a microcosm for explaining everything about deterministic time-travel. Both Eren and Jonas see themselves in the future doing horrible things. Becoming a version of themselves they would never dream of being.

As much as they tell themselves that’s not me, I would never do that, and even vow to find a way to prevent that future, they both fail in that endeavor. They both experience profound hopelessness and loss, and they eventually give in to their desires and their hopelessness and become the worst, murderous versions of themselves.

And they both, funnily enough, tell themselves and others that it was just fate. It was how things had to be. Inevitable.

This is a lie.

Eren always had the capacity for terrible violence. Jonas was always capable of manipulation and single-minded ruthlessness. Those are their character flaws. The sneak peeks they received of their futures weren’t showing them what they had to do. They made those choices of their own free will. As much as they fought against what they would become, as much as they protested that isn’t me, it was them. And they become those monsters anyway.

It’s only inevitable in the way a tragedy is inevitable.

Tragedies come about because of characters’ choices and flaws—not because the author or the timeline or fate is puppeteering them into these horrible ends. Romeo and Juliet aren’t doomed to die because the opening narration tells us they do. They’re doomed to die because they’re young and impulsive and desperate to escape the cycle of hatred their families perpetuate. It’s a tragedy because they’re scared teenagers and because the feud that drove them together, apart, and then to death was pointless.

It wasn’t inevitable. At any point, they could’ve put down the loaded gun (narratively speaking) and walked away. Romeo didn’t drink the poison because he heard the opening lines about him taking his life. Juliet didn’t watch the rest of the play and go alas, I have no choice, ‘twas foretold. O happy dagger! No! They both made those choices because of who they are as characters and the circumstances they were in.

But because we’re the audience, and we’ve been told the ending, we feel trapped in it. We’re the ones being granted a sneak peek into the future. We watch the story unfold with growing horror, because there are so many outs!

Romeo could have not killed Tybalt. Juliet could have entrusted her letter to a faster rider. They could have just not gotten married after eighteen hours. They could have spilled the secret and asked for help. This entire tragedy seems so preventable—but we’re trapped watching it happen regardless.

So when Eren says he has no choice, he’s not saying that because his vision of the future locked him into that course of action. Eren chooses to start the rumbling because that’s what Eren would do. He tells us himself—his disappointment in the outside world made him want to flatten everything and start anew.

Jonas too chooses to become the worst version of himself because he believes only he can make the world right. He has to—he feels responsible, like he doesn’t have any other choice. He wants to destroy the timeline and his family. He wants to tear it all down, because he can’t let go of the people he loved and lost.

The future does not dictate Eren’s and Jonas’s actions. Eren’s and Jonas’s characters dictate the future.

Maybe seeing themselves do it in the future helped them give permission to themselves to start something so unthinkable—but make no mistake. It was always just them.

(And I don’t say this as a condemnation of either character. We have all had those impulses. Sometimes we just want to tear it all down.)

But getting that glimpse into the future doesn’t absolve them of their choices, either. These two always had another choice. They just chose causing the apocalypse every single time.

(Well, that’s not completely true. Dark and Attack on Titan have different endings—Jonas receives new information that changes his perspective on everything. He learns the truth about the time knot, and that growth and recognition is enough to help him finally make a different choice—one that actually ends the loop. Eren could have made a different choice, too. He just doesn’t.)

Dark sums it up better than I ever could: “Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.” In other words: You can do whatever you want, but you cannot make yourself want to do something else. Time travel only highlights that struggle for us.

[lethality-of-dual-strike]

"I would hug you, but I do not have human arms or warmth."

[cubtales]

my wifi has returned ! ! hallo ! ! happy april ! ! i love ya ! ! !

[commandertartarsmoocher]

Oh hey, it's Commander Tartar and Smollusk hanging out!

The silly has been contained...

... Smollusk seems to be having fun so it's fine, right?

This lovely humanoid Smollusk design was made by the very talented @melonenbrot !

[ximon-xi]

Hey my favorite fandom!! <333 I've come back to bfw_ because of the wonderful efforts of gandeldalf for our discord server. The ARG was SUPERRR fun and I am happy to take part in it. I love this game to death, i always talk about it honestly. I'm glad to be a part of it these last two years <3 I've been here since the demo and it's honestly my entire life.

Here are my silly human designs for the OS(es?). Nothing too serious, but i just wanted to do it.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[gingerswagfreckles]

It's really alarming to see a bunch of posts about how it's based to share your sensitive data with the CCP getting 30k+ notes. You guys love sharing that you're not immune to propaganda meme but idk how many people have ever actually internalized what it says at all.

[al-mayriti]

hey do y'all know of somewhere i could learn about excel and how to properly use it??? i feel like if i learned the basics i would use it all the time but it's very daunting to me rn. also i don't know how well places like coursera or skillshare are, i don't know if they're more scam than actual places to learn stuff

[ratcandy]

Ok I said I'd remake this poll out of curiosity so I'm doing it again. Sorry. My curiosities

indulge me

[thehecklingmouse]

back in the akademiya kaveh holds alhaithams hand or something so alhaitham looks through every book on romance to determine if that means kaveh likes him back.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Moral Orel hit me in a sweet spot. I think it’s beautiful seeing fans on different paths discussing how the show touched them. I’ve seen people who’ve left the church, agnostics, atheists, and Christians all say the show spoke deeply to them. Of course the show’s black humor on religion offended many, especially before its last season aired, but I think the show’s resulting legacy - connecting to people who’ve both left and who’ve stayed - demonstrates successful nuance to how Moral Orel was crafted.

The show’s creators have said it’s not against religion per se, it’s against hypocrites. Even with the first season, I felt that and found appreciation (frankly, joy) for what was satirized. Here was a show speaking up, exaggerating, and lampooning the facets of Protestant American Christian culture I’ve vented about in confidence to relevant friends and family - without, like many modern shows which tackle this subject do, mocking followers themselves, faith itself, and suggesting to viewers one way of life is better than another, one group of people is (ex: intellectually) superior to another.

Some people have stepped away from Moral Orel and said, “This show comforted me when I left church,” or outright, “This show taught me there is no god.” And that’s not an unfair way to interact with Moral Orel because it doesn’t preach what you “should” do there (a sign of mature writing, really). I stepped away from Moral Orel and said, “This show comforted me in the areas I get frustrated,” which assuages my feelings and makes me more confident in my faith and place within culture.

I feel awkward in contemporary culture because I was raised with minimal secular exposure - daughter of a worship pastor, student at a private Christian school until high school. Meanwhile, in adulthood, I didn't attended church functions for over a dozen years. My group of friends have largely been non-Christians who hold negative opinions about the religion and don’t live remotely similar lifestyles to what I was raised with. I love what I've learned from them. Unfortunately, this also means the cultural building blocks that make me who I am seem shared by no one I'm around, which, even though I'm in my 30s, remains disorienting.

On the flipside, I'm the weirdo with the third eye in Christian spaces, too. I’m an ever-thirsty knowledge-seeker who strives to comprehend forbidden topics from all angles. I spent my twenties researching, questioning, rebuilding knowledge, and critically analyzing everything about the Bible. Church attendees and services feel painfully artificial, with mental blockers to topics I feel are critical to understand.

In either community I partake in, I feel “off.”

I’m grateful to have been raised by parents who didn’t pussyfoot around issues, with a father who deep-dives research. Discussions, delving, and digging into the hard stuff has always been fostered. My family spoke to pastors when we disagreed with their theology. I grew up around people who practiced passive acceptance, but my family was not that.

In the last year, I’ve returned more strongly to my faith and have been reintegrating with the Christian community. In some areas, my faith has grown and, humbly, I’ve learned much from peers. Despite stereotypes, I want to note that, in certain fields, the church community has always been deep and meticulous! And there are so many beautiful and uplifting areas in the church. But likewise there are those areas that get assumed, aren’t questioned, and aren’t… responded to well by questioning spirits. There have always been areas in the church culture I find disingenuous, foolish, illogical, limited, oversimplified, denialistic, or susceptible to hypocrisy and immorality. I’m not better than any person on this planet, but I’m rubbing shoulders with a community that has different blinders than I do, who don’t even consider asking the types of questions or seeking out the information I find necessary for a solidified faith.

Moral Orel disparages the toxic elements of Protestant culture, the misinterpretations, the artificial facades, the mindless assumptions, the poorly-hidden underbelly, all the areas Christian community can and does go wrong. It makes me feel justified feeling awkward in two worlds: someone for whom Christianity is deeply important, but someone whose mindset doesn’t jive with the rest of the town. Someone who can find and wants to find the best lessons outside of Christianity. Someone who believes in questioning, rethinking constantly, raising her eyebrows at common notions within church culture, and striving for the actual love, sincerity, dedication, and goodness our faith should be based on.

[neverendingford]

.

[bmpmp3]

^ Rikka's autopitch trying to sing the bridge of this song