#like i know it basically stems from the fact it was easier for me to get an A in STEM classes while putting in minimal effort
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Supernatural and the Concept of Grace
Hi! It's your friendly neighborhood Media Mime and I'm here with a wall of text about my insane thoughts on how Angels work.
From the TV show Supernatural.
I don't know what I'm doing with my life.
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These are headcanons, mind you, so they aren’t supported by the show. I just think way too much about stuff like this.
This all stems from how beings from a different plane of existence would be borderline incomprehensible to humans. The whole, true form and voice not being viewable/hearable led to me thinking about them in more abstract forms.
I’m going to give you some weird background stuff below, but feel free to skip to the end if you’re just here for the Grace mechanics and things.
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My day job is as a Math Adjunct, so you can imagine I have a bit of a fixation on recurring principles, formulas, geometry, and so on.
It’s my jam.
Specifically, I have a focus on Mathematics in Nature. It's fascinating to me that we see the same shapes and patterns recurring over and over again in all natural formations.
I want to stress that to get into this kind of thing, you don’t actually need a background in Math. There are several resources online that provide examples and visual guides to this field of study. I’ve provided a visual guide below of some of my favorite phenomena as well as a basic (very basic) explanation of the principle.
I ain’t getting paid for this right now, so you get what you get!
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Now is also a time to mention that I took some psychedelics in my 20s that made me See Some Shit. This is not meant to be inspirational. I just think I should mention it because you see a lot of Stuff on them, not always Stuff you want to see. You can look up information about psychedelic geometry and skip the hassle of ingesting things you probably shouldn’t.
Don’t do drugs kids, or whatever.
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The Fibonacci Sequence is where numbers ascend by adding the two previous numbers to itself. This plays a key role in something known as the Golden Spiral. For a very basic explanation, you take a square and draw an arc from one corner to the next and repeat with bigger and bigger squares.
1,
1 + 1 = 2,
1 + 2 = 3,
2 + 3 = 5,
3 + 5 = 8,
5 + 8 = 13,
and so on.
The curve itself is seen in the way plants grow, shells form, and weather formations to name a few.
(The following are not my images, but they are readily available online. )
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Tessellations are repetitive polygons (shapes with 3 or more connecting lines, think triangles, squares, hexagons) that form together, without gaps.
In nature, the real world, there are examples of malformations, but Math is an explanation of the ideal principle.
We can see these structures in scales, honeycombs, and so on.
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Fractals are where we see the same pattern repeat at smaller and smaller forms of itself.
There is a lot of overlap of this with the Fibonacci Sequence (these patterns often appear INSIDE of the spiral), but it is its own concept.
Fun fact, fractals play a significant role in Chaos Theory, which I will not get into here because we would be here all day.
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Anyway!
Sorry!
Carried away there.
Back to Supernatural (what an insane transition) and how this wraps into my concept of Grace.
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Angels are filled with this kind of naturally occurring phenomena, a sort of endless collection of patterns. They are essentially manifestations of this idea or at least they process the physical world in this way.
Castiel mentioned eating molecules ONE TIME and well, I ran with it.
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A couple of examples I feel strongly about, using Castiel as an easier point of entry than say, Lucifer or Gabriel:
Angels think in a series of sensations, like a form of Synesthesia. Synesthesia is a concept explored in both psychology and cognitive neuroscience where people express the feeling of multiple senses activating at once. So for instance, the words might leave you with an impression of color or sounds may give you a physical sensation. I think Angels can, and do, adopt a more human perspective the longer they interact in the physical world. This is especially relevant during the time they are essentially made human, but I think the way they interpret information remains abstract. Just a fun fact, if you have Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (which is usually shortened to ASMR), you have a higher chance, according to some studies, of having a form of Synesthesia.
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Angels also think in patterns. For Castiel, in the beginning: His thoughts are very vibrant. Primary colors denote curiosity. The structure of those thoughts are very rigid. He thinks more in straight lines rather than curves. The movement of the thoughts is calculated and repetitive. Learning something for the first time is difficult, so splitting it into individual pieces is easier to comprehend. This is where we get The Face from, you know the one. He perceives things in his own way which makes him socially awkward in human form. As he gets more familiar with the physical world, and the boys in general, his perspective shifts. He has more robust colors dedicated to the people or objects he interacts with and they shift around easier. His thoughts are less linear and more curved and organic. He has less set structure because he isn’t learning as much anymore, he has an understanding he can build off of and make more defined to himself. Learning to love humanity requires flexibility that doesn’t come naturally to Angels, so he actively works at it.
Seeing souls is easier than interpreting the actual look of people. This is a doozy, but we will take Dean as an example because I’m Destiel/Deancas pilled. To Castiel, Dean looks the way he looks, smells the way he smells, sounds the way he sounds, and so on in physical form. Castiel learns to interpret him in that way as the series goes on, but his soul, the essence of him, has its own set of sensations. The following are not literal, although I’m sure some would translate that way. He sounds like a crackle of fire and a low drum. His colors are darker oranges and blues and greens. He feels like a soft rain and sun on a warm day. He tastes of barrel aged liquor and smoke. He smells like a hearth and earth after it rains. He feels like every aspect of the impala, from the cold metal to the supple warm leather. Obviously some of these senses shift and change from time to time, but that forms the basis of what Castiel recognizes as Dean.
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Grace is at least partially visible to other angels and partially felt by humans. Other angels can see each other in their vessels. So they have a concept of what they look like in their true forms, despite being hidden inside of something. This implies they can experience similar sensations as the other angels they look at, although I don’t like the idea that they can see their “thoughts” necessarily. I would imagine they can “feel” a sudden intense set of emotions/sensations from another angel however, in the way that humans can tell someone’s emotions through facial expression or tone of voice.
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Humans can learn to experience angels, albeit in a form that is easier for them to comprehend. Dean doesn’t experience anything special about Castiel when they first meet, outside of the generic information we get about Angels and the obvious senses he can use: seeing, hearing, smelling, (gods I wish tasting was on this list but! Alas!) As Dean gets closer with him, he can start to “hear” him. I like to think he sounds like a pleasant hum or a slight ringing, similar to a wind chime, depending on his mood. Dean, specifically, makes him hum lower than usual. If he were to hum out-loud, it would harmonize with the way his grace sounds. It takes longer to perceive colors, but I think Dean would see the little flashes of blue, similar to the way Castiel’s eyes get when he’s using his powers. This is why I typically put a little blue squiggle between them when I draw them together. Plus other senses, sorry but this is long enough as it is. You likely get the point by now!
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Anyway, I’m very happy that literally anyone has even a passing interest in my interpretation of these things.
Formatting this was a nightmare and I feel particularly insane today.
#supernatural#spn#my stupid little frog brain#more of my abstract thoughts on grace#spn headcanon#somehow it all comes back to math#if anything enjoy the pretty pictures of nature#yes i’m mentally ill what gave it away#castiel#supernatural angels#sorry for posting like its the 2010s
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You made a post about Leliana idolizing and putting the people she cares about on pedestals - how do you see this playing out with Josephine? I think Leliana describing her as being "an innocent in love" to the Inquisitor is part of it; kind of warping her friend into this pure and virtuous saint. But this seems a less bad idealization than Leliana can do with a romanced warden or Divine Justinia - it only comes up in this one avenue with Josepine and doesn't seem to color the rest of their relationship. Why do you think Josie gets less of this behavior, or am I missing some part of their dynamic?
omg hi anon any day I get asked about Leliana is a good day. :)
SO my personal read is her idealization stems from the person she builds up in her own head and her memories, easier done with someone that's dead lol. Take for example, Justinia. Leliana is not blind to her faults (she is though in other ways), but whatever Justinia needs to do, and by extension, do to her, is to "do The Maker's work". She even says directly "Justinia was worried about using me, as Marjolaine did" however she follows it up no with a denial of being used, but that she was "needed", which justifies everything to her. (And as an aside it can be a whole other post but arguably is a necessary evil but I digress.)
Talking about Justinia's morals and actions isn't the point of this post, but to Leliana, she is not only Good she is (as mentioned) "doing The Maker's work" because the sheer scale of their work, as well as Leliana's belief she was saved, vs saving herself at her lowest point, is more heavy than Josephine's relationship with her. BUT it still follows the same sort of "the person built up in my head" as mentioned with Justinia being Good.
I do think the mentioned scale plays a role and also we just don't see them interact on-screen a lot, but the fact Leliana speaks up at all about a potential relationship, and her opinion of "innocent in love" reads to me as the Josephine that exists in her head is the one she had met, what, a decade ago? when she was actually more naive to the world and what being bard entailed. It was "romantic" and it was "thrilling" until it wasn't.
However, she's not that fresh young face anymore, she is an adult woman that still was trained as a bard, and has dealt with securing peace with nations as an ambassador, even moreso with her work in the Inquisition. And just because she doesn't directly kill anyone, doesn't meant she hasn't led to deaths, or ruining lives, or doing what was needed. She simply prefers to "not make a currency of lives" if there are other ways.
Despite Leliana handpicking her for such a critical role, and Josephine being betrothed on her romance route, Leliana doesn't really get out of her own head with how she views her. I mean even in a non-romance route, Leliana undercuts Josephine's insistence she herself solve the assassination contract on her life, not even trusting her with her own life.
Obviously, Leliana's concerns are valid and she can quietly admit she has "few true friends left" and she "cherishes the ones she has left", and she truly has no way of knowing the Inquisitor's intentions even if they're on good terms, but she still sees the youth that was dazzled by the bard lifestyle and didn't know what she was getting into. Oh like Leliana was--
BASICALLY, wildly overprotective and talking over Josephine despite her being an Adult and Ambassador, much like the fandom forgets she is, is how I could see the faults of their relationship. And I do wish we had a follow up to it in-game, even just a line from Leliana about being scolded. ):
#this was very fun to think abt thank u anon#in my fanon josephine does kinda chew her out some about it#and leliana's concerns are about marjolaine yes but i do love more loving a hero concerns#bc ofc my warden overhears it and it becomes a whole thing#but anyway thank u again kissie#anon#ask#leliana#josephine montilyet
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Not really in the mood for writing a prompt so I’m just gonna ramble about how cool Weiss is in TSF AU
I basically made her the closest thing to a witch I could without stepping into magic territory. It always bugged me how her semblance and Dust was so compatible but it was never tested to its limits, so I imagine Weiss learned to basically be a pro in the field of dust manipulation. Has a real intuitive sense for it, which is why her kids are so good for their age. A lot of it stems from always getting unarmed in battle.
She learns that she can grab a dust cartridge and put a glyph at the end of it to pull it out and construct things like a saber of pure Dust. Eventually she gets creative enough to throw vials and catch them with glyphs to trigger timed explosions.
In crystal form, Weiss gets the hang of making glyphs and simply pushing the crystal into it to create a flame thrower affect. The most reckless and dangerous trick is using the refined powder state. Even with gloves on, the margin for error when throwing or outlining a pattern with it is small cause a chain reaction could lead the effect back to her hands.
Dust for water isn’t actually a thing, but through countless trail and error, Weiss knows how combine fire and ice Dust to create the desire effects. She even helped researcher and companies create vials with ratios already mixed so other huntsman and individuals could have access to the element.
Is the one who helped teach her brother how to use their semblance. Also started the idea along with Ruby to plan “hunting trips” where Weiss or any of her relatives would go off to kill a powerful a Grimm to add to their summon abilities.
Weiss has in fact killed a dragon. Took her an entire month and she did it for free. She learned create magma during this time and gained a fondness for more practical uses of rock Dust. Eventually she learned to make constructs out of most materials. Even lightning.
Is the manger and agent for both of her children when it comes to their professional lives. Most collaborative works don’t make it past her before she even thinks about bringing them up to her kids.
Regularly considered Penny’s science partner in the study of Dust and its utility. One of them is also pitching ideas to the other and showing rough blueprint ideas. Their most popular hit and meaningful success is modern dust weaving into clothes. Suddenly, winters in Mantle weren’t as harsh and Weiss’s daughter could live an easier life with her condition.
Helped fund Oscar’s therapy practice. Was also his first patient. Some might conflict of interest. Those people don’t know Oscar “I’m not gonna sugarcoat it” Pine. Was a super big help in her darker moments after adjusting to parenthood and old family trauma.
Occasionally surprises her friends and family with appearing in a modeling catalog or runway. It helped her gain some confidence back after having twins. She also likes to make a point that Jaune’s wife is incredibly hot so there’s no point in random women thinking he’s going anywhere, and to make any guy that looked down on him feel shame. Jaune matches the energy by also looking gorgeous when the opportunity arises.
Weiss also makes no effort to hide any scars. That includes wearing a half shirt or bikini that shows where Cinder stabs her or the two scars on her face. That way her daughter and even her brother, feel more comfortable about their scars.
If you ask her what her biggest sacrifice is, it’s making sure she never matches hairstyle or clothes with her daughter. Weiss kinda misses the ponytail but Summer will look at her a little funny despite them not being the same kind. Eventually Summer will stop caring and rationalize they look alike regardless of anything they do. They’re both just two pretty ladies other people get jealous of. She doesn’t have this attitude with Winter!!!
The top of everyone’s emergency contact list. Also the only adult aside from Ruby that every child (except her own daughter) feels immensely comfortable with emotionally. Even Yang’s kid is pretty soft around Weiss. Practically karma for how much Weiss’s son adored Yang when he was little.
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guys ive been reading.......
i read 1984 and then Animal Farm.... and just. yeah. rip george orwell you would have loved 2025.....
it's just. so many thoughts but they're all just agreements and add-ons. and also these need to be must read for everyone.
I feel like as a society, on a whole, people have stopped Thinking.
We've reached a point where people either don't do it out of sheer hive minded stupidity or because they've given up so much that there is no point in thinking therefore they just don't. But the fact remains that we Need to. Think and develop ideas. personal ideologies. personal viewpoints and thought processes.
People just don't do that anymore. nobody would even understand if you ask them "everything's fucked lately isn't it?" . I've had irl experiences like this: "what's wrong? everything's fine" no mama..... it's really not......
Censorship making a comeback. Real world issues being ignored.
Literal wars going on and nobody seems to give a fuck.
Quite literal and visible global warming but apparently not a single country gives a flying fuck.
Education wise it's fucked: AI and focus on regurgigating statements rather than learning + so much more.
Overall: Terrible state we are all in. and i barely see anyone in day to day life ever think about it more than "Wow im so stressed". yes now go further. think about it- why? what is the cause? because i dont know why we are all so afraid of addressing the fact that the issue STEMS from the people in power-
We are all so used to navigating all our guilt and concluding ourselves to be at fault (because it's easier and generally what your family/friend/society expects from you)
A constant diversion to "why do u blame everything else? when youre at [___] level?" Well, maybe because fucking everything else shapes me! i am a product of the world i live in. Things that happen do affect me. Things affect people. why should we shy away from such a basic fact? why should i blame myself for the entire world's fucked up-ness when the fuckillionaire is literally burning tons of waste in skies and spreading debris every fucking where? when its entire corporations contributing to pollution, then paying govt to keep their names out, and the govt not doing a single thing to fix it? when they just go after people for having opinions? when they excuse literal crimes but jail people for raising their voice? when patriarchal thoughts, misogyny and discrimination are making a rapid and mainstream comeback?
Why is it always the individual that dares to question the society who is at fault?
What do you mean my audacity? what about their audacity?
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Writeblr Intro circa 2024
Hi writeblr!! Sooo, I've been around here since about 2014. (Yes, I am ancient.) However, I've been dormant for the past 4-5 years. Blame college and a brief stint on Twitter. Now that I'm active again, I thought I should make an updated writeblr intro so ppl know my Deal. Basically, I want to engage with other folks who write fiction (esp original SF), and that's a little easier if I have a clear post that outlines what I do. Here to make connections and hear about your blorbos :)
About me
Hi, I'm Vee! They/them, 23, 💖 🤍 🧡
I do journalism/comms in western New York
My literary jam is feminist/adult SF and gothic lit (OG or modern) 🥀 ⚔️ 🌙
Enthusiastic about gay people, body horror, and sociopolitical allegories
I cook, run, play tabletop games, and occasionally draw. Other than that, I'm mostly writing (for work and for fun)
If you were on pre-2020 writeblr, you likely know me from my eight billion daily tag games. (I still like tag games and appreciate u for tagging me. I have also gained adult responsibilities and better mental health, so I respond very slowly now. <3)
Always happy to get asks or dms, tho as I've noted: I may reply slowly.
Sometimes open to beta read! I only read one longer project at a time, but it's always super fun :)
I tag very consistently – happy to tag triggers for followers/moots
Fun fact: I love mushroom hunting and worked as a mycology TA. #cottagecoreera 🍄 🧚♀️ 🌱
About my creative writing
I write,,,, feminist/adult SF with gothic leanings (surprise!)
Longform and short! Trying to do more short writing this year, and I'll likely share a bit on Tumblr. It's easier to clip a short story than a 150k novel, god bless.
The Aesthetic: moral g(r)ays, Victoriana, androids/cyborgs, Women™, monstrous femininity, incessant Hamlet/Frankenstein motifs, extremely boring socioeconomic worldbuilding, evil queens and/or dilfs, psychosexual witchcraft, probably a cat. Also, an ominous, plot-relevant letter laced with anthrax from your unhinged and brilliant ex-wife. Open if you dare.
Major projects
I'm going to be writing some short work this year, but these are the longer projects that I have going in the background. If I reblog blorbo-related text posts, they probably have something to do with these.
Let me know if you want to be added to any project-specific taglists 😎
Heart of Lead – Series
The big one
Perpetually evolving
Never ceasing
Pls send help I can't stop adding shit
5-book gothic fantasy epic that I'll definitely publish one day but probably no time soon! My bastard child, my wicked firstborn, my greatest love <3
Character-oriented political drama set in a pseudo-Victorian, dystopian oligarchy where everyone's heart is made out of metal. It's about coming of age and discovering queer identity in a world that is absolutely fucked. God is an extraterrestrial lesbian who gives ppl very traumatizing magic powers. There are cyborgs, shapeshifters, and morally gray women in STEM. It's tight as fuck idk what else what to tell u.
Book 1 is about achillean monarchists, and book 2 is about sapphic anarchists. There are only two genders, I guess.
At this point, I've drafted most of the books at least once. Working to refine a lot of raw material atm!
Tag: "heart of lead tag" or "hol tag"
Lost Letters – Book
Aka the current active HoL WIP, and book one in the revised series structure
Length: 80k as of now; around 120-140k when the first draft is finished, I presume.
Genre: adult fantasy, gothic, noir detective drama?? um?? If you want me to frame it in BookTok terms (why?) it's a dark academia villain x villain tragic romantasy. Hrgh.
Summary: Cyborg soldier goes to college, joins a shady socialite frat, and falls in love with the jilted heir-apparent to the throne. Hilarity ensues.
(By "hilarity," I mean a militant revolutionary faction and a tragedy of Greek proportions.)
POV characters: Charles (the cyborg), Dale (the heir), and Cecelia (Charles' sister, a junior detective, the love of my life and potentially the Chosen One???)
This book is twisty and dark and immensely fun to write.
I'm about halfway through the first full draft! Hoping to share snippets and vaguepost about my children here.
Tag: "lost letters tag" (also "hol tag," tho that one's less specific)
The Last of Mortal Tourists – Book
The next longform project on the docket!
Length: a standalone work that will hopefully fall on the shorter novel/novella spectrum.
Genre: literary SF, cyberqueer, psychological space quest
Summary: The consciousness of a dead coding genius, trapped inside a spaceship, seeks a new planet to sustain their sister, the last surviving human, after the destruction of Earth.
If you're here to get wildly philosophical about gender and the myth of essential self, this is the story for you! That's why I'm writing it, lol. 🏳️⚧️ 🚀 🤖
This one started out as a short story (100% finished) which I want to expand.
POV: Archer Alto, the coder. Spaceship? Human? Soul?
Supporting Cast: Pandora, the last human, and Abby, a holographic impression of Archer's childhood consciousness
Tag: "the last of mortal tourists tag" or "tlomt tag"
If you read all this way, you get a whole bouquet of flowers that are certainly NOT poisonous: 🌸 🌹 💐 🥀 🌺
<3
#writeblr#writing#writeblr intro#for my mutuals#scribble-dee-vee#project intro#hi writeblr!#original post#hol tag#heart of lead tag#lost letters tag#tlomt tag#pls feel free to tell me abt u in tags/replies!!#would love to expand my active writeblr connections#and yah like I said lmk about those tag lists#I def want to post more snippets/tags this year
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(Another AU hypothetical involving my Gumm-Gumm OCs somehow farting around Topside and not indulging their usual level of villainy. Still working on their dynamic, but I thought this was fun enough to share. All three are nerds to varying degrees.)
+++++
"You know. The Moon Problem," Zahn said.
"I... don't know," Jim admitted. "What is that?"
"Tell me, what is moonlight?"
Jim was already getting tired of Zahn's tendency to answer questions with questions. "It's... It's moonlight. What other word would we use?"
Zahn huffed, and one of his eyes twitched. "Which means...?" he prompted.
"I'm starting to grasp why he doesn't know how to navigate at night," Ulvek muttered from his corner.
Jim tried not to take whatever offense that was supposed to mean. "Is this like, a riddle?"
"No, just basic fact," Zahn snapped. "What is moonlight?"
"Wait, don't you specifically need moonlight in your spells or whatever?" Jim asked. "Is it inherently magical?"
"Everything is inherently magical, that's the first thing you should know," Ulvek grunted sagely in the background.
"Are fleshlings not reading Al-Kindi anymore?" Dezoka asked. "His Stellar Ray Theory was foundational in - "
Louder, and slightly over his fellows, Zahn griped "That's a completely different lesson, now focus and tell me what moonlight is made of!"
"...Light?"
"What kind of light?!" Zahn roared, grasping his horns. "Does it generate its own?! Hand and Eye! - Where does the vast majority of visible light come from in our solar system!"
"Sunlight! It's reflected sunlight!" Jim peeked over the edge of the table he'd leapt behind with an irritated "Sheesh!" At least whenever Blinky got dramatic while giving a lesson, he was having fun.
"And yet!" Zahn thrust his arm out the cave entrance, waving it around. He seemed to have forgotten his ire entirely, launching fully into an enthusiastic lecture. "I can do this all night, and none of my tissue samples would reveal any petrification, not even on the cellular level! Whatever's so deadly about sunlight doesn't reflect! Or refract, otherwise eclipses would be just as fatal as broad daylight. Both these reasons are why ambient light doesn't bother us, either.
"Sunlight's fatal property," he continued, "for us at least, only hits on the first pass, and only in a straight line. It doesn't bounce. Which is fundamentally different behavior from light itself. The theory goes that if we can figure out how to isolate that property, it would be shown to belong to a new type of sub-particle. This explains every experiment we've recorded on the topic, but we haven't been able to demonstrate, conclusively, just what this sneaky little glorkhole really is, or how to counter it aside from blocking it with solid matter or shadow magic. Due to its properties, it's exceptionally difficult to track down when it's not killing a troll. So until our medical team has a breakthrough, or until we can find a way to isolate it, we're left with inferring the thing's existence."
"Oh. Kinda like Dark Matter?" Jim asked.
Ulvek's hiss carried all the seriousness of clicking his tongue. "Nah, that's like this era's version of Aether. It's a cool theory, and the best your physicists got right now, but it stems from a multidimensional 'optical' illusion your folk haven't solved yet. See, when the space-time 'ripples' of gravitational radiation intersect, they distort the - "
"Actually, yeah, that makes Dark Matter a fair comparison here," Zahn gave Ulvek a stink-eye for his meddling. "These theories are, respectively, the best we got right now to explain what we think we've figured out. It may be a new sub-particle. I admit some personal bias in hoping so. That sounds like it would be easier to develop a more lasting counter against. But it might be a property inherent to sunlight that we've misunderstood."
"It absolutely is!" Dezoka piped up, pulling her helmet off. An ash-colored mane bristled once freed, half-plastered to the sides of her face from sweat, and sticking up oddly in a way that almost hid her horns. One of her upper fangs was missing, the empty space pairing with a vertical lip scar. "The Moon Problem is stupid! We can tolerate up to a certain threshold of ultraviolet radiation, just like we can tolerate up to a certain amount of heat, or water, or annoyances."
"Get back to me when you get that peer-reviewed, Captain," Zahn growled.
"Every troll ever can peer review that!" Dezoka insisted. "You ever been stung by sunlight reflecting off a knight's armor? I have! Why do you think they were so obsessed with keeping it shiny? The fatal property does bounce! Just not always in great enough quantities to overwhelm our regeneration rate!"
"I promise it does not bounce!" Zahn argued. "It's illusory pain! A trick of the brain! Psychological warfare's the name a' - "
"No rap battles in front of the fleshlings," Ulvek warned apologetically. "Weird hypothesis aside, your flow's too powerful."
Both Zahn and Dezoka answered with dejected little huffs.
"But!" Zahn perked up immediately. "Point is, reflected sunlight creeps into Power of Suggestion territory. Your instincts treat it like it's gonna hurt, in order to keep you wary and alive. But it's as harmless as waving a finger through a candle flame! You've always freaked out and withdrawn too soon to find out! Soon as sunup, I'll get the fleshling to stand outside with a mirror, and I'll prove it to you."
Dezoka gave Jim a long-suffering glance as her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Alright…" She pointed a claw firmly at Zahn in the next instant. "But it's gonna be a tiny mirror, you have to wear a cloak - and keep the hood up to protect your eyes! And when you need sun-salve, you're gonna ask very nicely."
"You know, changeling magic provides some unique context to the Problem," Ulvek muttered thoughtfully. "The Pale Lady is a genius. Mass-shunting and glamour can only get you so far, she actually figured out a way to 'trick' either sunlight or troll cells with borrowed human DNA. But from what I think I understand of the ritual, it's almost like just the impression of that DNA acts as an effective shield. Like she more-or-less conditionally assigned the idea of 'fleshling' to a troll, and it worked. I've only seen that kind of technique succeed as a temporary counter-curse. Which lends some serious credibility to her theory on - "
"So what if we try the reverse?" Zahn asked, tapping his chin. "Figure out how she did it, and try assigning 'non-stalkling troll' to something else, and see what sunlight does to it?"
Dezoka's lips pulled back in a false smile closer to a grimace. "Sure. Why not invent some new, cursed reverse-Impure with an identity-bond and a weakness to sunlight?" The false-smile vanished. "Seriously, for once, I want you to take a moment to actually think about the ethical - "
"I'll call it the Basilisk Cannon!" Zahn declared. "If I can harnass this technique in aimable form - "
"Yeah, I'm not gonna let you do that," Jim noted.
"Can't spare enough resources for something that stupid anyway," Dezoka attempted to reassure.
"That's exactly what you said about the Embiggenator!" Zahn pointed at Dezoka accusingly. "And I made you eat those words!"
"You gotta stop taking them as a challenge," Dezoka groaned.
#writing snippet#gumm-gumm ocs#olympic level unhinged yap-a-thon#wild speculations about the nature of sunlight and why it petrifies trolls
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Heylo, I don’t know if you answer to personal relationship questions. I have recently stumbled to your account and I really love your content and I would love your advice on this.
I have recently realised I am not comfortable around masculine energy. I mean I always knew but I thought I had a progress and like I would want a relationship with a guy with healthy masculine energy. Turns out, being around masculine energy still scares me and I just don’t know what to do. How to overcome this uneasiness?
Hmm. I used to be the same way. I’m not sure if my story will resonate with you but see if it helps.
Growing up I wasn’t the beautiful friend. I was the chubby, spectacled, shy girl with a stutter. It took me a while to get myself sorted and feel confident.
But as a result, guys never really paid attention to me till I turned about 16-17. Which, for a girl, is pretty late considering that my friends were all dating boys since 11-12 (not like it even counts but basically the fact their crushes reciprocated their feelings and mine never did was a bit … crushing).
This meant that I began dating boys, that very frankly, didn’t deserve me. I began dating boys who were ready to “settle” for me because I thought I could never get the guys I wanted anyway. Or I began dating guys I would have the upper hand with; as in, I knew they liked me more and I could leave the relationship anytime. I know it sounds psychotic.
Confident guys made me nervous. Even as I grew older, lost all that weight, grew my hair out till my waist, learned how to use make up, got a dermatologist, went to speech therapy and became objectively 100x more attractive, I still felt like that “ugly” 12 year old on the inside even if i showed a very confident front. As my confidence had grown in another aspects of my life, my career, hobbies, academics were good - but men still made me nervous.
I realised that the problem was with me.
The fact that I dated men “below” my level showed what I thought of my own self, what I thought I truly deserved.
My fear stemmed from the fact of never being good enough for a man, not being beautiful enough, smart enough, fun enough. All these other girls were so seamlessly confident and I seemed to only have the fake kind of confidence.
True confidence can be spotted from a mile away.
Here’s what helped me. I began focusing on myself and began cultivating healthy platonic relationships with good men. I can never date these guys but they’re like my family now.
I think what made me sort of wary of confident, healthily masculine men was that their sense of identity was very strong. They knew what they liked and didn’t like, they knew who they were, they weren’t afraid to say what was on their mind. The last guy I was seeing projected exactly this and in that relationship (it was healthy, ended for other reasons) I felt very comfortable in my feminine. Which he was equally appreciative of. But I still felt not good enough.
You need to essentially develop friendships with men. Don’t look at them as creatures from other planets. Talk to them, make them your friend. Men are much more easier to befriend than women in my opinion - I’m always more conscious of myself around women than men. (that doesn’t mean that i don’t like being friends with women; I love my girlfriends, I feel it’s harder to impress a woman than a man).
At the same time, work on your confidence and try to figure out the root cause of why exactly you feel so uncomfortable.
Here’s another post that I had written about this topic.
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Affixes, Clitics, and Particles
i think that these parts of language are really cool! so im going to try to explain them :D also i definitely did not get sent down an hours long rabbit hole of linguistic papers and i also definitely didn't find out that the reason i wanted to make this post is actually a misconception :D i love ignoring things :D
Affixes:
the wikipedia article for affixes says that "in linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form."
in hopefully simpler terms, this basically means that an affix is a letter, or a group of letters that form a single sound or syllable, that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form.
some examples of these are the somewhat well known prefix and suffix, but also the beloved infix:
prefix: undone suffix: spotless infix: abso-fucking-lutely
sidenote: my favorite thing about english infixes is that they pretty much only work with expletives. in fact, there's a tom scott video about expletive infixations!
Clitics:
wikipedia defines a clitic as such: "a clitic is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but depends phonologically on another word or phrase."
in layman's terms: a clitic is a letter, or a group of letters that form a single sound or syllable, that has the function of a word in a sentence, but depends on another word or phrase based on the sound rules of the language.
a few examples of clitics can be seen in finnish (which also has a great many affixes but we're not talking about those right now):
-ko/kö -han/hän -pa/pä -kin
the spelling of the clitic depends on vowel harmony. if you want to learn more, this dissertation is all about finnish clitics!
you may be asking yourself how to tell the difference between clitics and other parts of speech. well this study has just the thing for you! quite a few tests are suggested by the author of this study if you want to be able to tell if something is a clitic or not, including some of the following:
a phonological test observe how the clitic forms a phonological unit with an independent word. (do not ask me how this one works i dont know) accentual test "clitics are accentually dependent, while full words are accentually independent." put simply, if you can't put stress on it, it's probably a clitic syntactic test a word can stand on its own and be subject to normal word processes such as tense changes while a clitic cannot do this
Particles:
"'Particle' is a cover term for items that do not fit easily into syntactic and semantic generalizations about the language[.]"
read: "particle" is a miscellaneous, catch all term for anything that doesn't fit into the above two categories (or any other word categories like nouns, verbs, etc.)
the author of this study (who i'm going to refer to as Zwicky from now on because it's easier) says that theres no such thing as a particle and that its distinction from affixes, clitics, words, and clauses is unnecessary. i think thats an. interesting take.
anyway even though Zwicky just said theres no such thing as particles (which, how could he do that? theres kids around! we dont want to ruin the magic!) he concedes that there is actually a group of words that are commonly called particles that he agrees are actually particles. but he decides to call them discourse markers instead. because fuck you.
i dont like any of the words that Zwicky included so i made a list of my own:
-ね (ne) eh (canadian english) innit (common transcription of "isn't it", british english)
the funny thing is im coming out of this still not entirely clear on what a particle is. i thought i knew, i did some research, realized i didnt know, and now i'm here. based on how Zwicky puts it, it feels like the category of "particle" exists to accommodate the fact that there might be words* that arent affixes, clitics, words, or clauses but it feels like Zwicky is just being contrary. I should probably have done more research but this post was supposed to be done 24 hours ago.
out of context highlights from my research process: - sanskrit - the panini rule - doch - verbosely long section titles
*i dont actually mean words, i mean a morpheme which is a letter or a group of letters that form the representation of one sound that carries meaning, but i didn't want to make that sentence long and unreadable
if i'm wrong, please tell me! i would appreciate being corrected, i know i am not an expert on this topic in the slightest.
#i think this post is about to go off the rails.#which will be quite amusing for everyone except me#and then later me in the future [as well].#i think i'm finally done :D#citing is so much easier on tumblr 😔💕#i can just link the source on the words#i dont have to deal with a stupid bibliography#i really feel like with particles i have like net 0 information gained#but hopefully you learned something about clitics and affixes!!#i def learned about clitics because i only had very surface level knowledge before 🤔#i also dont understand any of the properties of particles given in the paper#i also felt very much like “are the properties of particles in the room with us right now”#like i dont think they were listed#granted i did skim the latter half because i was tired and just wanted to get this done#but still :p#also#a note from myself from about an hour in:#linguistics my beloved <3#linguistics
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ToA x LMK (?)
Had a random crossover idea. Spoilers for people who haven't seen the last season of Trollhunters, but then again that show is years old so like :p
Basically, in the final fight between the Trollhunters and Morgana, when Claire and Morgana go into the shadow realm. Yano how it's not shown? Yeah had a funny idea if Macaque from LMK was coming through, and looked at the two and was like (to Morgana) "Bitch for the last time I told you not to start fights here," and beats the ever loving shit outta her.
Anyways, bro is looking around and is like "oh shit kid you're still here-" as he looks at Claire, who is still recovering from the fact Morgana is dead and gone now, and everything is over, and hey the shadow realm is nice without the fear of Morgana being there looking over her shoulder.
This is my convoluted way of saying that Macaque after seeing a baby shadowmancer, (cause you can never find any of those these days who aren't absolutely ancient) just looks at Claire and goes "you can do better than that" and starts helping her with shadow magic. Maybe at first it was a way to get more power and then he just starts to care for her. But in my head a majority of the reasoning that Mac decided to help her is because it's a dying art and she's probably the youngest shadowmancer in the world at the moment.
I can see a lot of stuff coming out of this. Like just from the top of my head:
-Claire becomes one of those immortal wizards and flash forward to the future meets LMK crew. (from this idea stems my second idea of Pigsy and Tang trying to unlock Claire's tragic backstory(TM) even though there isn't much of that here.)
-Dad Macaque, because, come on.
-ROTT movie just, not happening now that there's a monkey on par with the guy who beat up all of heaven including all it's gods on their side. I'd imagine Demi-gods (because that's what arcane order is listed as on the wiki) is alot easier than gods, and def a lot easier than losing (lol) to Sun Wukong.
-Angsting to eachother. Think of any lmk x toa pairing, and you can make an angst conversation out of it some way or another.
-Half-troll Jim just going to Megapolis with Claire to visit Mac and becoming obssessed with the anti gravity arcade because it's open at night and just hell yeah.
-Lore building perhaps with the two universes mixed together??
-Claire helping out with the shadow play stuff while she visits Mac. Bonus points if she gets a mention in his vent play about the hero and the warrior.
-Toby and Mei playing games together, and Toby getting his ass absolutely handed to him.
-Mac going away to visit Claire during s3 or between seasons to vent about "what the fuck is going on kid- " because alot of the lmk villains don't go outside asia except if they want to rule the world (cough, lbd) so they can't really find him all the way in California, America lol.
-Bonus points if Claire learns how to speak Mandarin or Chinese (i forgot what the LMK gang spoke originally because i'm a silly lil english speaker who only watches the eng dub) so now she's trilingual. Spanish, English, whatever the hell the lmk gang speaks.
I dunno the ToA fandom is pretty dead, and I don't know how many LMK fans know about ToA, so. rip me ig. if this post gets a few notes i'll consider posting the art i made for this so far ('art' as if i'm not talking about a few sketches in my lil book of sketch).
#trollhunters#tales of arcadia#lego monkie kid#lmk macaque#dad macaque go brr#claire nuñez#shit post#but maybbeee turn into a full on au#idk im on the fence#i got art fight to deal with lol#lmk#toa#ok but mk finding about aliens existing-#krel meeting chang'e#please omg i need people to see these sillies i've thrown together
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I see you repost a lot of pro zuko post in the last weeks and I wanted to ask, have you notice how much more anti zuko post have been posted in the last months ? I don’t usually mind zuko metas but the last ones I’ve seen are sooooo full of bullshit, they’ll claim things that didn’t happen in the series or misinterpreting things, to make him appear more villainous or more unredeemable ? kind of weird.
i do understand that the sudden rise of zuko’s hate comes from fanon zuko who’s basically a whole ass new character and certainly not canon zuko, but it’s seriously annoying. like I feel that this happens also with Aang. he also gets shit on by soooo many people for the wrong reasons, always citing things that didn’t really happen (or at least not like it’s usually cited) and… is the atla fandom seriously regressing ? how is it possible to misinterpret things like that in a children show. ofc atla is pretty mature for a children show, but it’s also not some Faustian bible with hours long needed interpretation to understand something.
Oh, of course I noticed. Actually, I used to be a fan of reading canon/fanon Zuko comparison posts, but then I realized something. The people writing such posts (mainly Azula Stans) just took advantage of the hype around canon/fanon Zuko, and the one they call the "canon" Zuko is actually not Zuko from the series at all. Seriously, Zuko is much cooler than all this. In fact, this is just a covered-up hatred in order to expose their favorite (Azula) better than she really is, because of incorrect characteristics and other bullshit addressed to Zuko. In general, the tag "anti Zuko" is blocked because I will not tolerate this diarrhea in my feed, but it continues to appear. This is not a criticism or discussion at all, so it's not worth paying attention to.
It seems to me that Atla fandom has sunk to the point that when I see a person saying the right and ironically obvious things, I almost idolize that person because damn it, is there really a person with brains here. What is happening in the fandom is either a special incitement to hatred for God knows what reasons, or people are really degrading at the speed of light. I know that a lot of hatred for Zuko stems from the ship wars (it's just ridiculous), but there is another point. Due to Zuko, it is easier to put your favorite in a more favorable light (it does not matter what specific example we are talking about) For example, this idea that Zuko is a bad firebender is a lie hammered into his head by his abusive father and the show actively refutes this idea. Some people just benefit from picking it up, it's something like "woooo Zuko is a prince and he's had the best teachers all his life and he's still worse than the "character name". Although this is a complete discrediting of the facts and not a desire to take into account the fact that Zuko's mental problems had a strong effect on his bending. And of course this nonsense about him being bad because he's not a child prodigy. There are many such examples, some of them have become considered canon. For example, that he is bad at firebending and stupider than the rest. Now there is really a lot of mischaracterization and humiliation of Zuko, but this is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to make their favorite seem better. It's just not worth a drop of time.
About Aang, I don't often see content with him, but my God, the reason for almost all of Aang hate is the ship wars. I may be wrong, because I have never participated in ship wars, so this is just a look from the outside. I'm sure that Aang hate reasons are almost the same as what I said about Zuko.
#atla fandom bulshit#prince zuko#pro zuko#atla#aang#pro aang#anti azula stans#all my posts about ships are related to the protection of Zuko not the protection of ships#leave the boys alone#zuko's protection squad#there may be mistakes here as English is not my native language
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A Marine Biology Review Of The Original Little Mermaid (part 1?)
I would love to give this a proper explanation or some decent-sounding context, but really all I can say is: I had an idea!
Okay, well, a bit of context I can provide is that I have a playlist of narrations that I listen to whenever I'm struggling to sleep (they work with 98% effectiveness!), and one of the narrations on that playlist is of the original Little Mermaid story (link to the youtube video/audio of the narration HERE if you're interested). So I've heard the story a fair few times now, and I'm an Ocean Nerd, so I thought it would be fun to have a look at the descriptions of ocean/marine stuff in it and talk about what's accurate and what's not. And, well, I recently graduated university with a bachelor of science, with a marine biology major, so that gives me some validity, right? :P
Note that my intention is not to tear the story to shreds and call it terrible - I just like to analyse and ramble and try to educate when I can. Anyway, I'm just gonna keep going until I decide this post is long enough, and then we'll see if I make a part 2. But without further ado, let's go!
(Final note, THIS is the translation I'm referencing, as obviously the original original Little Mermaid is in Danish, not English)
Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it.
So you might be aware that "fathom" is both a unit of measurement used for the ocean (about 1.83 metres, or 6 feet), and also a word meaning "understand or comprehend", but actually neither of those definitions are at play here! As the Merriam-Webster page for the word says: "By the 1600s fathom had taken to the seas, with the verb being used to mean "to measure by a sounding line". So basically this sentence is saying that the water is so deep that it cannot be measured! Lacking fathom in more ways than one! ;)
Anyway how deep are we talking? Sunlight can't penetrate any further down than 1000 metres (~3,280 feet) at maximum, but really the ocean often begins to "get dimmer" once you go below 200 metres (~656 feet). However, we must also remember that the concept of depth can be kinda relative/subjective (depth is in the eye of the beholder?), and what is considered deep to a dude in 1837 might not be considered as deep to someone like me now when it comes to talking about the ocean. What we can say is that this depth has to at least be longer than the length of a ship's cable, which itself could apparently range anywhere from 169-220 metres. So let's say that the depth is around 300 metres, (~984 feet) - a good, round number, definitely can't be measured by a single cable, and still close enough to the surface that there would be at least some sunlight penetration getting down there. Moving on!
We must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand.
Lovingly, this may in fact be the truest sentence in the whole dang story.
No, indeed; the most singular flowers and plants grow there;
And goodbye to the accuracy!
The only type of flowering plant (i.e. in the Angiospermae clade) that lives in seawater is seagrass, but 1, they aren't exactly known for their flowers (they can be quite small and not always very flower-like), and 2, the deepest water that any species can survive in (specifically Halophila decipiens) is 85 metres (279 feet) - a depth most definitely fathomable, and a bit different to the depth estimation I came up with!
the leaves and stems of which are so pliant, that the slightest agitation of the water causes them to stir as if they had life. Fishes, both large and small, glide between the branches, as birds fly among the trees here upon land.
First of all, I know Hans (yeah I'm just gonna call him Hans; it's quicker and easier) was trying to make an analogy, but when I think of fish moving around at the bottom of the seafloor or like in a reef or something, I'm imagining small fish that dart about, rather than gliding (and for that matter, most birds wouldn't be 'gliding' through a forest either - gliding is for wide open space!)
And second of all, any plants that have thin, delicate stems, are not likely to have "branches" coming off of them, aquatic or not!
(Also I swear I'm not gonna talk about every single sentence but there's just a lot to talk about in this opening paragraph).
In the deepest spot of all, stands the castle of the Sea King. Its walls are built of coral...
Dead coral? Actually, there are some species of deep-sea coral that can grow anywhere from 150 feet to 10,000 feet below sea level, but still, you can't expect any coral species to just conveniently grow into the shape of a massive castle, so I guess it'd just be used as a building material?
...and the long, gothic windows are of the clearest amber.
"Clearest amber" definitely sounds like an oxymoron - 'amber' is also a colour term for a reason! But turns out that the concept of amber in the ocean is not as dumb as I initially thought. Amber, in case you don't know, is fossilized tree resin, and obviously there aren't any actual trees growing in the ocean (more on that later), but there is amber that came from large trees that lived many millions of years ago that got washed away by large rivers and eventually carried to the ocean, and in some parts of the world (most notably in the Baltic Sea Region), amber can (or at least could) sometimes be found washed up on the beach! (But seriously, those windows would be a translucent orange or yellow colour at best).
The roof is formed of shells, that open and close as the water flows over them. Their appearance is very beautiful, for in each lies a glittering pearl, which would be fit for the diadem of a queen.
I'm not sure whether the shells kind of act as 'hatches' that let water and oxygen move between the inside and outside of the castle (helping equalize pressure?) or whether it's just a bunch of clams/bivalves sitting on top of a roof foundation thing, because of the pearl mention which implies that they have an underside. I kinda like my first idea better, though.
on that account she wore twelve oysters on her tail;
I wanna know how exactly Hans was imagining this to work. Like would they all be stuck to the caudal peduncle area (the tail minus the fins)? Would some be on the fins? Oysters secrete a special adhesive substance to help them stick to rocks and stuff, but would that even work on a mermaid tail, and if it did, would it make it harder to swim?
the youngest was the prettiest of them all; her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose-leaf, and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea;
Idk about the skin being "delicate", but honestly a mermaid living 300 metres below sea level, where the sunlight would be somewhat reduced compared to further up in the photic zone, honestly probably would have fairly pale skin (a mermaid living in a tropical coral reef, however, might have darker skin, to be better suited to the large amount of sun exposure).
The large amber windows were open, and the fish swam in, just as the swallows fly into our houses when we open the windows, excepting that the fishes swam up to the princesses, ate out of their hands, and allowed themselves to be stroked.
The windows have hinges? Do they use the same kind of "hinges" that bivalves use?
What are they feeding the fish?
I would love to pat fish underwater though ngl.
Outside the castle there was a beautiful garden, in which grew bright red and dark blue flowers, and blossoms like flames of fire; the fruit glittered like gold, and the leaves and stems waved to and fro continually.
"Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of pure imagination!"
It feels very self-indulgent to me, but honestly I kinda feel like I gotta respect the commitment!
I guess Hans was trying to provide answers/explanations for what exactly the mermaids would eat, but honestly I feel it'd be more likely for them to be largely carnivorous, feeding on stuff like fish, crustaceans, and mussels, with maybe also some inclusions of macroalgae like kelp/seaweed in their diet as well.
The earth itself was the finest sand, but blue as the flame of burning sulphur.
Hmm no I don't think so. But anyway we're gonna be skipping ahead just a little bit now!
She planted by the statue a rose-colored weeping willow.
I hope I don't have to make it clear to you that trees don't grow underwater, and definitely not weeping willows!
She could see the moon and stars shining faintly;
The moon? Yeah sure benefit of the doubt. But seeing the stars from that far down below? Yeah nope ain't no way
(Also, if the water really is that clear, with such high visibility, then there mustn't be many nutrients in the water, and they likely would in fact be some distance away from any coastline, and be moreso in open ocean).
...to lie in the moonlight, on a sandbank...to listen to the sounds of the music, the noise of carriages, and the voices of human beings, and then to hear the merry bells peal out from the church steeples;
Do mermaids have super-sensitive hearing or something? Ain't no way you could hear all of that from a sandbank! Like if it said that this mermaid sister was on some secluded beach near a town, then maybe, but a "sandbank" is a little area above the water level that's out beyond the shoreline! Maybe not super far out to sea, but to hear carriages, people talking, and music? The only way this would be somewhat plausible in my mind is that it was a seaside town, and the sandbank was relatively close to shore, in which case wouldn't this mermaid be at risk of getting spotted???
she swam up a broad river that emptied itself into the sea.
How wide though??? 'River' can be such a vague term, because it might mean something like a large creek, or it might mean something that's a good couple of miles/kilometres in width, if not bigger than that. But for this instance I imagine it as being more like a large creek, like one that might run through bushland after some periods of heavy rain here in Queensland.
On the banks she saw green hills covered with beautiful vines; palaces and castles peeped out from amid the proud trees of the forest;
Again I wanna know what exactly was going on inside Hans' imagination when he was visualising this. Like why are there vines on hills? How close are they to the river? How big is the forest and how many palaces and castles are clustered together in this area? (Ngl this may just be a case of "who cares about the logistics, it just sounds nice", and as a bit of a hobby writer myself, honestly Mood)
the rays of the sun were so powerful that she was obliged often to dive down under the water to cool her burning face.
Again, there are hills and forests close by to the river, yet apparently there are no shadows being cast over the water at all? (Idk maybe she was just swimming around midday). Also was she doing backstroke or was she just frequently stopping to look around at stuff?
She had seated herself upon one of the largest [icebergs], and let the wind play with her long hair,
Sitting on an iceberg??? Girl how are you not freezing? (Also, like with the first sister, how was she not spotted? Like yes all the ships were trying to steer away from the icebergs, but surely that still involves someone keeping an eye on the water to make sure that the boat is moving away from danger and not towards it? And surely a mermaid would stick out like a sore thumb?)
only that the mermaids have no tears, and therefore they suffer more.
Hans casually drops a line like this and then just moves on like it's no big deal, bruh.
Aquatic mammals such as whales do not in fact have tear glands, but they do still have special eye glands that secrete an oily substance to help clean and lubricate the eyes! (And humans are the only species (as far as I'm aware) that produce tears as an emotional response).
she placed a wreath of white lilies in her hair, and every flower leaf was half a pearl.
"Flower leaf" as in petals, or like the actual leaves? And you mean they were made of pearls, or did they have pearl halves sitting on top of them??
Then the old lady ordered eight great oysters to attach themselves to the tail of the princess to show her high rank.
She ordered the oysters to attach themselves to the princess's tail? I definitely somehow missed or forgot that from all the times I've heard this narrated.
Okay so I guess the mermaids can communicate with oysters and likely other sea life (sure why not), and I guess this low-key implies that the oysters are using their natural method of attachment, i.e. special adhesive substance which is kinda sorta like their own form of concrete.
“But they hurt me so,” said the little mermaid.
So like do they actually make it harder to swim? And how long do they stick on for? Forever? Until you tell them to get off of you? How big/small are these oysters?
Oh, how gladly she would have shaken off all this grandeur, and laid aside the heavy wreath!
I mean I guess the use of pearls in the wreath would make it heavier than a typical flower crown, but surely it still wouldn't feel that heavy underwater? With like water density and stuff?
(Though for that matter, how would any sort of crown stay on your head underwater when moving around, unless it was like fixed tight on top or something?)
.
I was originally planning to go a bit further into the story on this post, but I've done a fair bit of rambling already, and I don't want this post becoming too long, so I might go ahead and make a part 2 post (at some point, I can't say when), and depending on how this post goes, I might make a part 3 as well! Who knows!
#hans christian andersen#the little mermaid hans christian andersen#marine biology#the little mermaid og
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The design on that lore-dump is absolutely on-point, by the way. Cool and easily readable. :3 The deterioration of Dark and Heart Matters got me wondering about where Kirby fits into things...I'm assuming he's ah. Y'know. Not natural. :) (And for that matter, how's this affect Meta-Knight...?)
Thank you so much!! I did my best to keep it interesting and easy to read, so I'm super happy it came across that way! :D -- and, I'm glad you asked! i hope you don't mind me rambling for a minute here; i'm always very eager to jump at opportunities to talk about kirby lore lol. under the cut because it got kind of long.
I'll start with Meta knight because he's easier. Essentially, he is the very last of the original line of Puffballs within the primary dimension most kirby games take place in. He does not have enough Heart matter to be able to safely donate any to potential offspring -- if you yourself only have, say, an atom's worth of the stuff, you can't really donate half of it without blowing yourself up in the process. Splitting atoms and all that.
Dark Meta Knight is in a similar boat; as dimensional boundaries solidified over time, some early puffballs got caught in different dimensions and founded their own parallel lineages, of which DMK is now the final product of his own.
Galacta knight is a holdover from a previous generation of puffballs many centuries ago, and has a comparatively higher concentration of Heart matter in his body than either MK or DMK do. He is the only one who I could confidently say would be able to create an offspring without dying in the process, but that'd require freeing himself of the crystal first, which seems very unlikely.
GK is also, like, mega insane from being sealed away for an eternity outside of time, so I don't know that he'd be a great candidate for mentoring a young one, assuming the thought even crosses his mind. Regardless, GK, MK, and DMK are the only remaining true-blue puffballs out there in the galaxy.
I left it purposely vague in the post what I meant about Kirby's unnatural-ness, so that people could feel free to fill in that void with whatever origin story they prefer, whether that be an elder god's dying bid at happiness or a precocious experiment of Nightmare's gone rogue. In cases like these, the "unnatural-ness" just refers to how he doesn't have a lineage stretching back to the dawn of time like MK and the other knights, and is instead the product of something newer.
…buuuut, when it comes to what I personally like to think about Kirby's origins, that "unnatural-ness" has another aspect to it. I like to think of Kirby not as a continuation or reincarnation of Void, but moreso as a sibling to it. That is, if Void's creation of all matter is meant to represent the Big Bang, then Kirby is just that: another Big Bang, possessing infinite energy and potential. It happened spontaneously once, why shouldn't it spontaneously happen again?
The reason why this origin is extra "unnatural" is that, with infinite energy, it might be more accurate to say Kirby is made of Chaos than he is Heart matter. I have another lorepost about how Chaos works here (on the last slide), but suffice it to say that it's basically the "stem cells" of matter, and can twist itself into any matter type its wielder likes -- Dream, Dark, Heart, or Soul.
For Kirby, that has always meant embodying Heart matter, giving him the appearance and powerset of a natural puffball with a high Heart matter concentration. No outsider -- nor even Kirby himself -- would be able to recognize him as anything other than a particularly powerful puffball. Except Meta knight.
Being, effectively, the last of his kind, Meta's experience with other puffballs is quite limited; but he knows enough to suspect Kirby is more than meets the eye. There are little idiosyncrasies that just don't add up.
Kirby's demeanor, his abilities, the fact he doesn't visibly age, that he hasn't begun growing wings or horns after having been alive how long, now? -- his complete disinterest and irreverence toward puffball history, the fact he doesn't have parents, and his willingness to give everybody -- even Dark matter -- a chance. These things would be unthinkable to a "true" puffball. Everyone on the outside looking in assumes the friendly, bouncy Kirby is the "normal" one, and that Meta knight is the overly-stoic oddball, but it is very much the other way around.
When first encountering him, Meta also assumed that Kirby was just a "regular" but powerful puffball child that had somehow slipped through the cracks. However, over the years (and after Kirby's repeated victories against enemies that even MK couldn't ever hope to deal with), these small peculiarities became more and more apparent to MK, sometimes even verging on straight-up uncanny. Nowadays -- and especially after the fight with Void Termina -- Meta knight doesn't know what to think anymore.
Of course, that doesn't stop MK from respecting Kirby as a long-time friend and rival! Even as Meta slowly realized Kirby might be more than even Kirby himself thinks he is, they grew closer as friends and allies. Also, with how friendly and kind he is, Kirby's just hard to hate. They respect each other a lot, even if Kirby's "unnatural-ness" sometimes triggers an uncanny valley response in "true" puffballs.
#aaaa thank you again for asking! writing this out was a lot of fun :3#kirby#my headcanon'd canon#me talking lol#meta knight#ask
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Kitty wants me to ramble about Neuvi and emotions so I will ramble KJHFDSDSF. Basically, everything with Neuvi is a work in progress with him. You’d think that hundreds of years around humans would have taught him a great deal about feelings and whatnot, but the thing is, it hasn’t. He’s still very much learning, and this primarily stems from the fact that he doesn’t actively ask about these things with others. Him talking to W.riothesley that one time during the Carol event, or when N.avia talked to him after it rained when she confronted him about her father, is not the norm. Most of the time, he sits in contemplation and tries to figure these things out on his own as he does not wish to burden others with whatever is floating about in his head. As a result, many of his feelings tend to come out as the rain that falls over Fontaine.
This isn’t necessarily negative emotions as it can rain because he’s just feeling really happy, but during the time where he had to do trial after trial and it made him melancholic, it rained quite a bit as a result of him not knowing how to process those feelings. Sadness is what the Fontanians have connected with rain as it is sadness that is normally what brings it about (this has changed since the incident with the Archon, though). Emotions like love are quite complex, far more than most realize, and as such, it is something that would take him some time to understand and work through as he is still, very much a dragon in human form. Being among humans has opened his thoughts to different things, opening the door to questions he might not have really pondered. It is much easier for him to work through what he's feeling by talking to someone else, but getting him to actively talk about this is not an easy feat without a great deal of trust such as him talking to the Traveler -- primarily because they are an outside presence and not Fontanian.
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I'll make a more thought-out version of this post some time but man religious trauma and plurality can manifest itself in some real fucking particular ways. For me namely it has been through the largely Christian idea (or at least modern/popular Christian ideas in the US) that a being existing in a body other than the percieved original is either an angel or (more likely) a demon.
Both of these things carry huge weight with them, the former in the past making me feel like I have to be some perfect role model or guide and the latter making me feel like everything I do is secretly evil, causing harm to us, or that my existence in our system is something parasitic.
This would be easier to let go of if it weren't for the fact that a lot of popular depictions of "multiple personality disorder" growing up that we can recall from media showed it as essentially one degree away demon possession if even that distance from it.
I have also seriously considered if I could actually be some kind of supernatural or metaphysical beinv multiple times due to this but
1. I do not practice Catholicism anymore, havent since childhood, nor have I ever truly believed in it as it is actually written just been very affected by the guilt
2. The descriptions of angels I have read about from a wide range of sources outside of pop culture, Christianity, and really basic modern readings don't really match up to me or my experiences very much, at least as far as I have read. Some of the shit I read about fallen angels def made my guilt brain worms worse for a bit due to the relations with humans thing and my intrasys stuff but I don't feel confident knowing enough about that subject to even know if I understood what was meant by that correctly. Ultimately my intrusive thoughts on the matter stem more from depictions of these beings that often themselves are vastly oversimplified and not accurate to their various source materials.
I wish people would ultimately not place moral value or harsh treatment toward the condition of those who experience multiple consciousnesses in one body, whether it's due mental or spiritual origin or anything else.
It's so sensationalized as this fucked up inherently harmful experience requiring violent exorcision and I see this mentality bleed into how people view CDDs sometimes whether others realize it or not (this isn't the fault of spiritual plurals btw and they don't deserve to be treated like shit for their experiences either).
And being accepted only as a guardian angel is not inherently more helpful either and has given me complexes that are just as fucked up.
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Character Info: Operator Mag
So, as the title says, I’m going to be posting a list of basic information for my Operator, basically anything that one might want or need to know about her to understand my writing. It’s obviously not integral to read this, but I think it might be helpful for those who may be a bit more interested about the characters I write about. I’ll try and update it whenever I think of stuff, just so it has the most current information. So, for anyone interested, the info is under the cut. It’s rather long, so I apologize in advance, my thoughts ran away from me lol.
Name: Magdalēnḗ, though she prefers to be called Mag. She finds it somewhat funny that she ended up forming an attachment to the ‘Mag’ Warframe. I almost never refer to her by her full name in my writing.
Pronouns: She/Her
Age: I generally write her as more of a teenager than a child, though she still has her moments, which is to be expected given the fact that the Tenno never really got to grow up ‘normally’. If I had to quantify her age other than ‘ambiguous teenager’, I’d say I usually write her in the areas of 14-16 ish.
Appearance:

Personality:
She’s a very caring kid, though tends to be a bit shy. However, she also has some anger issues—that can be pretty intense at times—, which she hasn’t had a chance to properly work through. These mainly become apparent when she’s scared or worried, but Mag can and has said some…terrible things that she regretted almost immediately. (Mostly to Lotus. Almost entirely to Lotus. She can’t take back what she’s said.)
She doesn’t generally work with the other Tenno, but she absolutely will if the mission requires it. Plus, she has to admit, having a squad makes defense or survival missions much less monotonous.
Normally though, if it’s a simple resource-gathering mission or something, she’d much prefer to go alone. She can control the outcome much easier that way. Less potential for others to cause problems or get hurt, too.
She really hates disappointing people, but also gets insanely frustrated when she’s sent on a mission that seems impossible for her to complete (especially alone).
Like most Tenno—at least, I’d imagine—, she can have her moments of being very serious and focused on the task at hand. She was forced to be a child soldier, after all. She had to learn discipline quickly. But, she also has the rare moments where it’s easy to see just how young she really is.
Missions:
She’s a fan of the ‘run sword-first into combat’ strategy. She loves using a bow, but she definitely isn’t the type to fight from afar. With that being said, she does, from time to time, like missions where she can challenge herself by sneaking around.
For spy-type missions, she prefers to enter the vaults in her Operator form. She’s naturally very quiet, and when that combines with her ability to walk around unseen, well, let’s just say she finds herself quite satisfied when she can sneak around right under her enemies’ noses.
Other Info:
She swears. A lot. Lotus probably isn’t a fan, but she allows it.
Mag has some issues with her eyesight stemming from an incident that happened back when the Tenno were still coming to terms with their newfound Void powers. It was an accident. (It wasn’t anyone’s fault. She knows that. Right?). Luckily, she somehow didn’t go blind, but her vision is fuzzier than it should be, and she has issues seeing things at a distance. She’s also prone to migraines—which she assumes stem from the heightened light-sensitivity after the accident—, and seemingly random pains in her eyes. These are more annoying than harmful at this point, in her mind at least.
She really cares about Lotus, Ordis, and her pets. To her, they’re the closest thing to family she’s got.
That’s about it for now! Feel free to ask questions about my characters lol, I have over 100,000 words written about these idiots and would love to share XD.
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Question: I wanted to ask you about emotional scenes. When you were filming Supernatural, you said that initially you had to think of something that made you sad and then once you keyed into Dean, and Dean became you and you became Dean, it was easier to act his feelings because they were your feelings. So when you took on Beau Arlen, that you haven't done for fifteen years, or even a year, and Ben, Soldier Boy, how did you - did you go back to basics and start thinking again about sad moments in your life to help the scene or were you able to key in a lot quicker this time because you're more experienced?
Jensen: Hmm, that's a really good question. Yeah, very perceptive in the fact that I didn't have all of those years with those characters, but there were emotional scenes - much, I would say there was probably more of an emotional, humanistical emotions - [Jensen gets distracted by a commotion in the audience] All right, calm down. Okay, thank you, where's the prayer bowl, let's - I'll, get, there's a story that they're all referencing right now that I told in the Meet & Greet. Yep, see, this is ... great. Okay, I'll get to that in a second. Siddown! I didn't have that history with the characters so I did kind of have to dig into personal feelings. I'll speak about Beau first, cause I'm actually trying to think of what would the emotional scene with Soldier Boy, and I don't know - I don't know that there was one?
Question: There is.
Jensen: Which one?
Question: The one where he's with Butcher and is telling the story about his father -
Jensen: Oh! About his father, sure.
Question: That broke my heart, so.
Jensen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I have an interesting, that actually, now that you bring that up - 'cause see, these things [sigh]. This is the thing about being an actor is my long term memory has been shoved aside a little bit to make room for the short term memory of memorizing lines? So I have intense, there's an intensity in the short term memorization that I have in bringing that to life, and then once I do that, I kinda just ... purge it, and like, let it go. And I don't know, I'm sure there's a psychologist in here that could analyze that and tell me why I do that, I don't know why I do that, but I do it. So we'll go back to, we'll go to Beau first, and I'm guessing you're talking about the scenes when he's talking about his daughter?
Question: Yeah, or also when he's interrogating Avery, and you see the change from sort of like anger and resentment - it's not an emotional scene in the sense that he's crying, but it's really really intense.
Jensen: Right. So that all stems from my - basically I dive into what would I do as a father in this situation. And then how can I relate that to this character. And so I take what I think I know and how I think I would react and then I put that into this character's hands and kinda just tailor it a little bit, and then that's what you see. So even with Dean, you know, the vast majority of Dean? Is me. I just tailored it to tell the story through this character's eyes, but I wasn't trained professionally, I didn't go to school for this, I didn't learn methods, I didn't learn how to separate myself from the character. I basically find what relates to me as a person, within the story, within the character, I extrapolate on that and then I apply it to the character. Same thing really with Soldier Boy. In fact, what I was getting to is that scene, I thought a little bit about - because I have a good relationship with my father - so I had to dive a little bit into something that I was familiar with that maybe didn't, and that was Dean. So I kind of dived into a little bit of Dean and John relationship, even though Dean loves his father and idolized his father for many many years, but there - it was a strained relationship. And at the end of the day, I just pretended. [laughs] 'Cause that's essentially what acting is, you try to find the most honest emotion that you can muster up within yourself, you try to identify that, you try to portray that within this character in order to tell the story. And it's - some people can do it and some people can't. It's like some people can ... write amazingly, some people can do math amazingly, some people can sing, some people can create - paint. I can't paint, I can't draw worth a lick. I mean, I'm lucky to get a stick figure that looks remotely well. But there are some people that just see it and can - and I just, for some reason - you guys seen that movie Good Will Hunting? When he talks about how he can math? He's like, Beethoven could just see the piano and he could play. And I'm not saying that I'm Beethoven as far as acting goes, by any means. But I can play. And so I try to play as much as I possibly can, and that's using what I have in my life, using what I think would be the right emotion, and then I just expand on that.
Question: Ben is just a little boy searching for his father's approval. At the end of the day, which is kind of what Dean was -
Jensen: 100%. Absolutely. So I was able - I'm like, hmm, am I getting typecasted here? Is this? But no, you're absolutely right and so there was some, there was a core relation there between Dean and Soldier Boy and that's why I thought it was such a fantastic plot twist when Soldier Boy was, like, given this opportunity to have a son and a grandson and change that. But then he reverts to his DNA and becomes what he always hated -
Question: What his father was.
Jensen: What his father was, yeah. And that's just great writing, but it's also really fun to take that character on that journey. And then it's just, you know, it's just pretending. It's painting with a paintbrush that I know how to paint with.
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