#outside research is probably needed for a more in-depth understanding

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

how would witch eclipse react to someone (coughcough me coughcoug h) teasing him with suggestive jokes just for shits and giggles (not in a shippy romantic way) :3

welllll...he's been living in complete isolation for basically the entirety of his life (aside from his childhood with KC but that hardly counts cuz the guy never puts a word into a conversation), so he has no idea how to react to something like that, he probably doesn't even know what whatever you said means.

He'll take a good 20 seconds to try to glean and understanding of whatever you said and if he actually catches the meaning his optics'll go really wide. He's not used to affection being offered, it's too much for him to handle. After another 30 seconds attempting to recover his dignity and hide the sound of a plane taking off (his fans aren't used to being overworked ahaha), he'll probably throw some weak insult at you in hopes that you'll be too defensive to keep pestering him with feelings. He hardly ever analyzes his emotions, you think this guy can understand a tease?

If you really wanna get to him, tho, try just giving him a genuine compliment: teasing him wields less of a result compared to outright telling him something nice about himself. If you tell him that you like how passionate he is about his research or something, or that you like the way he speaks, or that you like spending time with him? He'll either freeze and try to keep his insides from spontaneously combusting or just leave the situation entirely, rushing out of the room with some half-baked excuse or insult and talk about 'returning to his work'.

...he's going to get absolutely nothing done for the next 3 hours.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Since people ask me a lot how to research this or that type of mythology or religion I'll just tell you how I go about researching mythology and religion I'm not familiar with in general.

Keep in mind I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy who reads a lot about mythology.

So first, know what you're looking for. What culture's belief system are we looking at? Because you can't just look at a broad region. If you wanna know about "African" or "Asian" mythology generally that will not help you. You need to be looking at something specific. A specific group or religion.

So let's say, as an example, you want to research the stories and beliefs and history of Tibetan Buddhism. Because that's something I'm looking into researching right now, so I'll take you through my process of getting started on it.

So the first thing I do is... google Tibetan Buddhism. Now this is a still-living religion that has continuously been practiced since it's founding, so I scroll past the Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica entries until I find something by the people currently practicing it. In this case, I found an article by the Sakya Monastery in Seattle that gives a basic overview of their beliefs and different types of the religion that is currently practiced. This is what I'm looking for. I want to give myself a fairly good foundation of understanding of what's going on here before I start digging past the surface.

After this, I look for more articles and videos by monasteries explaining the basics. If this were from a religion that is either dead or has not been practiced continually since its founding I would skip all this and just go to the next step. Watching YouTube videos made by outsiders.

So after I give myself an idea of how people who practice the religion present themselves, I go searching on YouTube for overviews. I'm specifically interested in videos made by people that regularly make videos about this kind of thing and take it seriously. Sometimes this can take some digging. Something to look for is people who cite their sources, people who present the facts without outward judgement, and people who acknowledge their own biases while they explain these things.

A lot of these videos often give me ideas for books and primary sources to start referencing. With Tibetan Buddhism there's a lot of the regular Buddhism texts, along with a few others. I'm not looking to become an expert in this religion or convert to it, so I'll settle for reading about these books. I'm fairly familiar with Zen Buddhism specifically and the history of Buddhism more generally so this helps me a teeny bit here but Tibetan Buddhism is very specifically its own thing so I start googling specific stories and types of practices mentioned in the videos and articles I've been using.

Once I have been reading things from various different perspectives and feel comfortable enough to the point where I feel like I could explain the basics to someone who knows nothing about the mythology or belief system, this is the point where I start looking into books. This is also the part where I actually start combing through various Wikipedia articles, following chains and looking through reference sections to see if there's any good sources I should be digging into.

When I look to buy or borrow books, it depends on how in-depth I want to go. As is, I'm probably gonna buy a couple of different books on a beginners guide to Tibetan Buddhism and perhaps something on the history of it. With each book I consider I look up the author. Are they an expert in this subject? Do they practice this religion? Would I rather buy a book by someone that follows the religion or someone that's a scholar of it? Because you will get very different results depending on who is writing it. Things written for spiritual purposes are very different from purely educational books, so what do you want to get out of this research? Are you just looking for entertainment? Do you just want to be more knowledgeable about the world in general? Does someone you love find importance in this subject? Are you doing research for a project? Are you looking to incorporate aspects of this religion into your own life? The types of books you buy or borrow will heavily depend on your intentions and you should be careful about actually reading the book descriptions and reading the backgrounds of the authors to make sure you're buying the correct one for what you're hoping to get out of this.

My purpose in this case is simply feeding my own curiosity, so I'm leaning towards buying Essential Tibetan Buddhism by Robert A. F. Thurman. It's a bit old but it's written by someone that's a professor of Tibetan studies and has translations of some essential texts in it, so it seems like a good starting point for me, and possibly also an ending point. Because like I said, this is mostly about my own curiosity.

If I wanted to dig further I'd probably start looking into the reference sections of various books for other things to read, start digging into lists of primary sources, possibly find free to watch lectures online by people with doctorates in this sort of thing, and read into primary sources I find referenced in the various secondary sources I've been consulting up to this point.

Basically, start on the surface and follow the rabbithole down. And always remember that the perspectives of people who study something in a secular way for a living and people who actively practice a religion will be different from each other. Pick and choose what sources you use depending on what your intentions are. Reading something about Orphic hymns for scholarly reasons or for other research purposes and reading Orphic hymns because you're a Hellenistic pagan who wants to incorporate them into your personal practice are two extremely different things. Both are valid reasons to buy a book on Orphic hymns but the two books that the two hypothetical people here would buy are very very different from each other.

Good luck out there and always be respectful while you're poking around.

[infiniteeight8]

Would love to see more of the 'can't let him find out' Alpha/Omega IronStrange series!

Edit: The first two stories can be found here.

-

Tony can’t stop thinking about Stephen.

The omega is usually so poised, so self-possessed. Seeing him so bedraggled after his heat had been a shock. It had been more than two weeks before Stephen had shown up at another Avengers meeting, and he’d still looked just a little too thin. Tony was certain that he’d needed every minute of that time to recover.

Is it even possible for him to recover completely from a heat that bad? Wouldn’t the wear and tear accumulate over time? It’s been five months since Titan, which means that that would have only been Stephen’s second heat since viewing all those futures. Had the first one been easier? Harder? 

When he finds himself researching heat disorders, Tony knows he has to talk to Pepper.

He brings it up after dinner, when they’re sipping an evening coffee. Or, well, he starts, but all he manages is, “Pep, I’ve been…” Been what? Thinking about another omega? Technically true, but misleading. 

“Is this about all the research you’ve been doing on heat disorders?” Pepper asks.

Of course she always simplifies things for him. “Yeah,” Tony says. “I found out recently that someone I know is having really difficult heats, and he swears there’s nothing to be done, and I—” Tony cuts himself off and makes a frustrated noise. “I can’t stop thinking about it and I don’t understand why.”

“It’s normal to worry about a friend,” Pepper begins, but Tony shakes his head.

“I don’t actually know him that well. Not that he’s not a friend, but it’s not that kind of worry. I get that kind of worry.”

Pepper gives him a thoughtful look. “Did you see him? Just after his heat, I mean. Is that how  you found out how hard they are?” Tony nods. “It’s probably a compatibility thing, then.”

“Compatibility?” Tony says blankly. He knows the theory, but… “Shouldn’t our bond cancel that out?”

Pepper laughs. “Tony,” she says fondly, “our bond is about as shallow as it’s possible for a bond to get. We don’t even sleep in the same bed regularly. It’s not capable of canceling out much of anything.”

“You can’t blame me for assuming!” Tony protests. “The whole point of us getting mated was to fend off criticism! Doesn’t it need to send out, you know, ‘taken’ signals to do that?”

Pepper shakes her head. “The rings and the paperwork do that. Pheromones are weak enough outside of heat that no one really uses them for signaling. Perfume and cologne generally mask them, anyway.”

“Huh. So because I saw him right after his heat—”

“—his pheromones were strong enough to register with you,” Pepper finishes.

“Not to be crass,” Tony says carefully, “but… he smelled terrible.”

“Tony, that probably means you’re more compatible, not less,” Pepper says, fighting down a smile. “He’d just come out of a heat so traumatic that it had you looking up heat disorders. His pheromones were obviously signaling intense distress. The more compatible you are, the stronger that signal is, and the more unpleasant you’d have found it.”

“Right.” Tony makes a face. “Biology is not my strong point.”

“I promise not to tell,” Pepper teases. 

Tony turns the idea over in his head a few times. Compatibility isn’t the be-all and end-all of bonding, he knows, but there are still stories. The intensity of the sex is the stuff of pornos, but the depth of the mating bond… that’s the real fairy tale. Perfectly matched pairs came damn close to sharing emotions. To have something like that…

“If you want to pursue something with him,” Pepper says softly, “you know I’d never stand in your way.”

Tony shakes his head. “He said he wasn’t capable of bonding.”

“Don’t assume it’s that simple,” Pepper says. “Technically, you’re not capable of bonding, because you’re already mated, but mating bonds can be broken. Whatever’s going on with him, it hasn’t stopped him from producing pheromones you can react to. Besides, bonding isn’t all there is to compatibility, or to relationships. Just…” she waved a hand, “keep an open mind.”

This is a side effect of my viewing our possible futures, Stephen had said. And then there was the moment of grief Tony had seen in his eyes.

“I get the feeling that nothing about this is simple,” Tony says slowly. 

Pepper gives him a small smile. “Well. You always do find things more interesting the more complicated they are.”

[alicedrawslesmis]

One thing I like of Les Mis re: Javert is the recurring theme of Surface vs. Depth or like objetive reality vs subjective

Illuminism, the very thing Hugo defends in civilization, progress, republican utopia, the end of superstition and the embracing of science of reason and even in some sense actual light (as in, public illumination, mapping of the sewers, opening doors and windows, opening the doors of the convent) is a good in and of itself.

HOWEVER. However. There is a contradictory theme here of then accepting the hidden depths that we can't see. Javert can only see the outside of things or the appearance of them. He couldn't even feel Marius's heartbeat, and he couldn't conceive of 'grieving' or 'loss' as emotions he could only say 'there will be a funeral'. Because he thinks only in terms of the effects, or of facts (which is part of the discussion we were having of the meaning of fact vs right in french, 'ways of fact'). Javert conceived of himself as a limpid pool but he just now had to come to grips with the fact that he has a human soul inside and he is not, in fact, an empty object or category.

Illuminism is sometimes criticized for this hyper-objectification of reality through a very specific White European lens that doesn't accept itself as biased. "We are civilization and we are the owners of objective truth". This is when anthropology was created, when phrenology started to get super popular, eugenics as well. So another thing I think is super interesting about Javert and this chapter specifically is the open criticism of the illuminism framework. Reality is not, for Hugo, simply a matter of phenomena. You need to consider beyond that when talking about ethics. Pactical day-to-day justice is not real divine justice. Is lying evil? Well first, what even is objective good and evil? You can't simply impose them 1:1 on an imperfect world

and also I find that this is a precursor to phenomenology, but that would take a long time and way more research to talk about. Just saying that Hugo is sometimes contradictory and hella interesting and in a way is also forward thinking but conservative too. And that's why I can't just say Les Mis is this or that. It's not a simple novel and probably the reason it was so hard for people at the time to defend it in the public sphere and why its critics have a really hard time simply like. Having a super basic understanding of what the book says

[perpetually-stargazing]

perpetually thinking about ✨dark matter✨

dark matter is really cool! if you dont really know what it is — that’s ok because we don’t either ;)

** astronomers put the word ‘dark’ in front of something when they have no inkling as to what it is, so when you hear conversations about dark matter and dark energy, take it all with a couple grains of salt 😓

anyway, a basic rundown of it is:

astronomers were calculating the orbits of galaxies and they found out that certain values where much higher than they should be — which, in the world of physics basically means "hi there is more mass here than there should be"

so essentially to kind of break that down we can think of a galaxy as a rotating disk -- so the center and the outside should rotate at the same rate... theoretically.

...but they didn't (are you surprised)

so the second theory was that the outer edge of the galaxy would move slower because of a lesser gravitational pull (kind of hard to explain but when gravity is stronger things usually move faster -- like the orbit of mercury vs the orbit of earth around the sun -- mercury is faster mostly because it is closer to the sun, and experiences a stronger gravitational force)

but this didn't work out either. funnily enough they found that the outer part of galaxies moved faster than the inside.

(NASA, tumblr, this actually explains it way more in-depth compared to my post, if you want more information that is understandable)

?!??!?!?!?!?!?! <- every physicst ever, at some point (probably)

so astronomers were like "ok there is something here that we cannot see because the only thing it interacts with is gravity. no light, no EM, nada."

"...let's call it DARK matter"

because astronomers are very creative

so recent studies have shown that dark matter is actually... everywhere? but heavily clusterd around galaxies

which brings up the new question -- does dark matter help galaxies grow?!?!?!?!

and the theory is yes! dark matter only follows gravity so it follows an interesting filament pattern:

(ESO supernova)

the pockets that are more yellow/white have more stars in them, which funnily enough, indicate that stars follow these filaments to grow

notice how there is SO MUCH DARK MATTER and so little stars in these pockets. this implies that you need so. much. dark matter to make a star, let alone a galaxy.

which is why dark matter is such a huge research topic now. jwst (james webb space telescope, very cool mission, read about it here) is looking at primordial stars -- predicted to actually be made of dark matter. iiiiiif we learn more about these stars, we could quite literally find out a very big piece of the mystery that is the universe.

ok endrant, thanks for reading (sorry if you were reading this and went "hey, you, that is wrong!!" i tried my hardest to be factual but this is kind of a harder topic, so tell me if i missed something or am accidentally spreading misinformation, i will fix that asap!)

[thescions]

what if the wol told gaia abt what they learned abt loghrif from elpis?? how would she react to that information??

Hi! We presume you mean the bit of dialogue from The Perks of Being A Lost Flower sidequest?

Akadaemia Student: Well, nothing…but that's the point, surely. It must be intended as a present─one meant for Loghrif. Mitron is hopelessly enamored, as we all well know! Blue-haired Student: We do? This is certainly news to me! Though now that you mention it, I suppose I have seen sparks between them… I wonder why I never noticed before? That settles it. We need to hurry back and begin an in-depth observation of their romantic entanglements! I can't believe I've wasted all this valuable research time lost amongst the trees… And I would have wasted even more if not for you, good lady.

By the end of Eden, Gaia has come to accept who she was in her past life and who Mitron/Artemis was to her. The problem is that the Mitron that remained did not see Gaia for who she actually was. She kept seeing her as the Loghrif was the woman she recalled as an Ancient.

It kind of mirrors how Ryne was never Minfilia, even when she went by the same name. Ryne is a completely different person from Minfilia, even if they share a similar destiny. Although it isn't quite full reincarnation, it would be rude for anyone to look at Ryne and just assume she is a clone of her predecessor. I.e "Minfilia like the color pink so you must like the color pink too!" sort of thing.

Gaia acknowledges that although she has lingering affection for Mitron, she is not the same woman. She cannot be what Mitron wants her to be in this life. At first, during the last struggles of the Eden raids, Mitron was stubborn and desperate and only held onto her tighter, going so far as to try and erase her memories of being Gaia. That was too much, too far. Mitron acknowledges this when she finally releases her and lets to go be reincarnated herself.

All of this is still a relatively newly-healed wound for Gaia. She is moving forward, but is still young and surely feels guilty over it sometimes even if she knows she made the right choice.

So honestly, if the Warrior of Light were to pop in and go Hey, I went back in time and heard some students gossiping about how IN LOVE Mitron was with Loghrif ! that would... kind of be a dick move. Even if it wasn't said so casually, what would such a statement even accomplish outside of reopening a wound for Gaia? She probably wouldn't react much at all, or shrug it off as if it didn't bother her (it would have), or excuse herself.

She is understandably sensitive about her past, whether it be as an Ascian or her Eulmoran childhood. She is slowly working through it, but for the most part, doesn't want to focus on it if she can avoid the subject.

[openly-journaling]

Citlali - Saturday January 6 2024

It's funny I was just thinking about why we even have a diary or journal or whatever that we even write in. Especially when days have been so uneventful.

Ithaqua is now spending more and more time away from the front and with his now husband Alva (they got married in headspace on the 1st)

Fern/Smidge spends most of his time off with his boyfriend Sorrow and I am now with Fantasy.

Fantasy insists on getting time with his brother so I'm by myself mostly right now. Though Plague joined me at front awhile.

What is going on with our system one can only wonder. We formed Marshmallow recently to protect us over a few phrases that trigger us. So hopefully we can reduce the amount of stress and rapid switching when such phrases set us off.

Marshmallow also insists on almost completely reworking the system (helping people into groups, giving them better spaces, and finding out who's all where exactly since we hardly pay attention to each other outside of our own spaces in the headspace) good for him, he's keeping busy.

I suppose all this journaling is just good for keeping track of things but as far as we aren't concerned our memories aren't split and we remember it all anyway. Feels more like a vent post some days.

I've also caught myself in the midst of consistently having to reassure my bf (Fantasy) and others in the system when they're facing issues and I hope we can improve but it's so strange at times.

Kind of slipping back into Maladaptive daydreaming as well out of boredom while we wait to finally start college on the 11th.

Psychology. If we can get into that we can further study DID/OSDD and endo systems and hopefully uncover the truth once and for all. I would speak of this more in depth on our plans but at the same time there is a selfish part of us that doesn't fully want others nosing in on our research and how we plan to go about it. Thanks to a friend we've been given another approach even on how to study this that may not have been considered before.

We would need several volunteers from endo, endo neutral and anti endo communities and not just from our own perspective. We only know our experiences.

But something we've noticed talking with endos is that they tend to experience some things antis never speak about experiencing. I will not list them here. Still, if there's a chance to learn more, we wish to find out.

But first, I suppose, we start with basic steps. Basic learning. Hopefully it won't take too long for us to actually be allowed to do research and dedicate our life to further understanding this disorder that most other psychologists probably won't delve into.

We'd also like to understand psychiatry. Hopefully one day we'll have a breakthrough.

[grinandshareit]

To A.I. or not to A.I. - that is the question...

Initial reactions:  I have used a chatbot before. I tend to use ChatGPT because I am most comfortable with that platform. However, I decided to try out a new Chatbot called Claude. The set up is different, but overall I liked the ease of use. I enjoy using A.I. to help with ideas and thoughts when I am stuck or need some inspiration!

Confidence in the output:  I feel that based on the question, the chatbot gave good output. I think it is accurate based on other sources that I read, but also know there are probably some inaccuracies. After asking the key questions provided with the follow-up questions, I feel like I have a better understanding of the historical development and evolution of educational technology, as well as the key concepts that teachers need to understand. To verify this information, I cross-reference the output with other sources that are accredited and have been checked for accuracy by outside sources and peers.

Effectiveness of prompts: How effective were your prompts to the chatbot? I think my prompts and questions were effective for what I was looking for and what was being asked to research and find. However, I believe that questioning and prompts can always be improved to get more accurate and more in-depth output.

Opportunities for Improvement:  I would be more intentional with my words and/or phrasing to receive better outout for my goal or research. I would also play around with the chatbot trying out different questions and chats to optimize the output and hone my skills for prompting.

Use in Your Teaching: For certain ages, I would trust the chatbot that I chose to use with my students. However, it would be after much modeling and practice before I just let them loose. I would also give the purpose and intention for using a chatbot as a tool so they understand why and how to use it.

Claude A.I. Chat

[delawarecounty]

Details On Divorce Lawyers

It is vital to ensure that each legal process is completed successfully. In order to do this it is crucial that prior to hiring the services of an attorney examine their track record of success. It is possible to make an informed choice and increase the chance of a successful resolution in your legal case by looking into their prior performance history. It is crucial to consider looking past the attorney's catchy marketing and look at their real performance rate before settling on one. Despite their claims as being the most effective in the industry the track record of their work will speak for themselves. You can find out more about their expertise and find out if they've got the necessary skills to handle your specific case by looking through their prior cases. You can determine a lawyer's efficacy in court through a look at their past performance. This provides a glimpse into their capacity to formulate solid arguments, deal with complex legal structure, and foresee the strategies of opposing counsel. The frequency with which they have delivered good results can help you evaluate their competency and determine if they're the right match for your needs. Although prior success does not guarantee future success however, it can serve as a measure of the skills of a lawyer.

You can tell if they have a history of achieving favorable results for their clients by taking a look at the number of cases they have previously won. This will allow you to assess their consistency. This information is crucial in handling complicated legal instances where experience and knowledge are essential. The ability to negotiate of an attorney may also be inferred from their past results. Through negotiations and settlement agreements, a sizable portion of legal issues are settled outside of the courtroom. Understanding a lawyer's track record of negotiating a fair settlement could be essential to preventing lengthy legal procedures and achieving a mutually agreeable conclusion. It is also possible to learn about the dedication and commitment to their clients through their past performance. A track record of accomplishments shows that they invest lots of effort and time to fully comprehend the situations of their customers as well as conduct in-depth research, and create compelling legal arguments. The result from your legal case could be greatly affected by this level of commitment.

While the past performance of a lawyer is significant however it shouldn't be the only consideration when making a choice. Since every instance is different, several factors may impact the final outcome. It is essential to communicate honestly and openly with any potential attorney you are considering hiring to ensure they're knowledgeable of the particulars of your situation and have the necessary skills to successfully represent your rights. If you are seeking legal representation, it is important to look into the background and reputation of the lawyer. There is a lot you can learn about an attorney's performance in court, their negotiation skills, and degree of dedication by looking at their previous victories. Examining the track record of an attorney considerably raises the probability of a successful outcome, even though it's important to take other aspects into account, such as the relationship and the subject matter expertise for your specific case. So, set yourself up for success in your legal pursuits by conducting a thorough investigation and evaluate the background of an attorney prior to making a decision.

[sciencespies]

How marine predators find food hot spots in open ocean 'deserts'

https://sciencespies.com/environment/how-marine-predators-find-food-hot-spots-in-open-ocean-deserts/

How marine predators find food hot spots in open ocean 'deserts'

A new study led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (UW APL) finds that marine predators, such as tunas, billfishes and sharks, aggregate in anticyclonic, clockwise-rotating ocean eddies (mobile, coherent bodies of water). As these anticyclonic eddies move throughout the open ocean, the study suggests that the predators are also moving with them, foraging on the high deep-ocean biomass contained within.

The findings were published today in Nature.

“We discovered that anticyclonic eddies — rotating clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere — were associated with increased pelagic predator catch compared with eddies rotating counter-clockwise and regions outside eddies,” said Dr. Martin Arostegui, WHOI postdoctoral scholar and paper lead-author. “Increased predator abundance in these eddies is probably driven by predator selection for habitats hosting better feeding opportunities.”

The study included collaborators from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. It focused on more than 20 years of commercial fishery and satellite data collected from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre — a vast region that is nutrient-poor but supports predator fishes that are central to the economic and food security of Pacific Islands nations and communities.

The research team assessed an ecologically diverse community of predators varying in latitudes, ocean depths, and physiologies (cold vs. warm-blooded).

Although there is a growing body of research showing that diverse predators associate with eddies, this is the first study to focus on the subtropical gyre — which is the largest ecosystem on Earth. The research team was able to investigate predator catch patterns with respect to the eddies, concluding that eddies influence open ocean ecosystems from the bottom to the top of the food chain. This discovery suggests a fundamental relationship between predator foraging opportunities and the underlying physics of the ocean.

“The idea that these eddies contain more food means they’re serving as mobile hotspots in the ocean desert that predators encounter, target and stay in to feed,” said Arostegui.

Scientists have long studied isolated predator behaviors in other regions of the ocean, tagging animals and tracking their dive patterns to food-rich ocean layers, such as the ocean twilight zone (mesopelagic); but an understanding of how eddies influence behavior of open ocean predators, specifically in food-scarce areas like subtropical gyres should inform effective management of these species, their ecosystems and dependent fisheries.

This study’s findings highlight the connection between the surface and deep ocean, which must be considered in impact assessments of future deep-sea industries. As deep-sea prey fisheries continue to expand, there comes the need for more information on deep-sea ecology, particularly how much deep-prey biomass can be harvested by fisheries without negatively affecting dependent predators or the ocean’s ability to store carbon and regulate the climate. A better understanding of the ecosystem services provided by the deep ocean via eddies, particularly with respect to predator fisheries, will help inform responsible use of deep-ocean resources.

“The ocean benefits predators, which then benefit humans as a food source,” Arostegui said. “Harvesting the food that our food eats, is something we need to understand in order to ensure the methods are sustainable for both the prey and the predators that rely on them. That is critical to ensuring both ocean health and human wellbeing as we continue to rely on these animals for food.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

#Environment

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Okay so thoughts time! Discussion of spoilers coming up below the cut :)

I think Saturn hits on the head when they say that Star Wars is not made for us. It's not. These shows are rarely designed to appeal to just the current fans because what companies want is more viewers and more money. So yes, we get cameos and references that we as more "dedicated" fans will understand, but their aim is to make a show that is going to continually draw new people in and they won't be able to do that if the show relies entirely on character stories that need countless hours of extra research to understand. Yes, they're referenced, but at the end of the day, you don't need to know their entire story; we didn't really need to know anything about Ventress outside of her S3 episodes, or Cody, or Fennec. Yes, we understand more of the nuances in their characters, but you don't need them to understand the basic gist of the story.

And that both works and doesn't work because by making sure that people watching the show will understand the characters regardless of backstory, you will make the project more accessible, but at the same time you alienate the people who know their past and find that the content you are giving them doesn't always coincide with what you'd expect (looking at you Fives convo from 1x7). It means we're left with references and name drops that don't actually hold much weight in the story but keep older fans invested, thinking that more is going to come out of it than what we will ultimately end up getting (*cough* CX-2 *cough*). And yes, that is a fault in us that we constantly go into these projects expecting more than we receive. It's always the "this would be a great time to talk about Fives" or "The Batch's backstory would be really interesting to explore here", when realistically the chances of any of that happening are practically zero. If it's not necessary to the main story, then you probably won't ever see it.

Fun fact about me, I actually started watching TBB before I ever watched The Clone Wars. I was just starting to get more into Star Wars at the same time as I was getting into RDR2, so when I saw that Noshir Dalal was in a random Star Wars project, I decided to give it a shot (yes Rampart was my in into animated SW... leave me alone). Did season 1 make more sense after I finally watched TCW? Yes. But I managed to digest the show anyway. I didn't get all the hints and the backstory but the key story was something I could follow along well enough. And that's what creators want. People who come into these projects and use the shows as a springboard to get into more content. So the details get missed because the broad premise is the most important thing to these companies.

"Your support, your creativity, and your determination to give these characters what they'd deserve is how we can solve the problem"

YES

Unfortunately, these shows will rarely give these characters the depth that they deserve. With such rich premises to explore, being given the bare-bone basics of a character is so sad to see and is why fandom culture is so important. Does it mean we expect more than we will ever be given? Yes. Do we therefore feel disappointed when our in-depth, complex analyses of characters are never realised on screen? Yes. But think of it this way. We have given these character more life than the shows ever will and because of that they have been able to live and breath in our minds and our hearts.

The perfect example of this is the Domino Twins. Yes, Echo and Fives existed within the show and were always seen together. Yes, we saw that they were close. But the concept of "The Domino Twins"? That was us. That inseparable bond between two brothers, destined never to live their full lives by each others side, who were so close in bond that they were never truly the same without the other? That was all us. So yeah, we get thrown a crappy conversation where Fives might as well have been a stranger to Echo, but because of what we did, we have a pair of clones who are so important to so many people, who mean so much to so many, because of this fandom. Those characters have such a big legacy because of what the fans built from the foundations the show gave us.

And I think that's how we have to look at it. What Disney gives us is just the foundations. Sometimes it's more complex and more interesting, but at the end of the day, the real beauty lies in what the fans build on top of it. Yes, being giving the floor plans alone can be frustrating and disappointing, but we work together and we build upwards each and every time. That's the most beautiful part and that's where we put our faith.

ok, this has been burning a hole in my notes app and i’m just gonna send it out there:

Why (i think) the Finale was Like That:

to preface, if you liked the finale, good for you!! that’s totally valid and i’m not trying to bash that. but i know a lot of people were left wanting more, and i’m one of them. anyway, to my point:

as silly as it sounds, this show is not written for us.

we’re fans. the producers already know we’re gonna watch the show. they don’t need to convince us to give them our attention, they already have it. why waste time digging into random side characters in the larger Star Wars saga when the average person doesn’t even know who that is?

their real job is to convince outsiders to watch. to get hooked. to see an element they like, probably from the main movies, and tune in, even for one episode. if they can get them hooked with fennec or ventress or hell even rex, that’s a win for them.

the plot lines wrap up in such an unsatisfying way because honestly? they cant waste time focusing more on these characters than they have to. the people writing and designing the show might love them and want to include more meaningful resolutions, but that takes too long and costs too much money. you know what’s cheaper and will satisfy the average viewer? kill the mystery clones, cut off the “trauma hand”, and wrap it all up in a nice little “look, she’s joining the rebellion, guys!” moment because the more bland and broad the ending, the more people will understand it.

i mean, remember the Fives mention? Echo didn’t react, he didn’t even stutter, he literally moved the conversation along like they were talking about where to go for dinner like HELLO. we already know they cannot be bothered to show real important emotional scenes because that would take too much spotlight away from the whole star wars politics plot or whatever were supposed to care about. (honestly, who is watching bad batch for the og trilogy implications? woah tarkin and a couple other empire dudes are talking about project stardust definitely gimme more of that and not any meaningful connection between these characters i love)

it’s scummy, it sucks, it especially kills me that the story is basically lost to corporate greed but let’s be honest, this is Disney’s Star Wars. i could literally just leave it there. meaningful moments will always be sacrificed for shock value and character cameos because the random guy seeing an ad is only gonna watch the show if he thinks “oh cool, tarkin, i didn’t know he was in that show, maybe i should see what that’s about.”

and yes, i know, there absolutely is a ton of love and care poured into this show. i appreciate the effort that went into it. i’m just sad they didn’t have full creative freedom under Disney to give us the story we wanted.

but you know who won’t sacrifice story for money? you know who’s guaranteed to have the fans’ interests in mind? you know who does have full creative freedom and is equally pissed about bad show moments and want to do them better? FANFIC AUTHORS. Fan artists, theorists, even roleplay accounts and every other type of dedicated fandom blog is here for that shit and will reshape things however they want a million different ways because that’s the point. the show simply cannot give us what we want, but we can make it ourselves.

your support, your creativity, and your determination to give these characters what they deserve is how we can solve the problem.

i didn’t really mean to turn all “we’re all in this together” here lol but yknow what i really do mean that. i think supporting the community around you is the best option we have for truly enjoying all of this show’s potential.

tagging a few people cause i value your input!! and let’s be honest i’m probably leaving a few things out that you might be able to expand on: @the-bi-space-ace @inkstainedhandswithrings @phantom-of-the-501st

[rynne]

I have seen many au mdzs focus centered fics with the idea that if one the big three of the sects either Lan or Nie found out about Wei Wuxian predicament they would have immediately gone all out to help which kind of baffles me because wasn't the killing of the children and elderly common over there in Ancient China and in canon they didn't care much when the killings of small sects took place ? I always thought that the only reason Lan Wangii kept his mouth shut in the first place was so if if he ever said anything regarding Wwx situation they would have ambushed him regardless of his innocence.

Like the idea 💡 of Wei Wuxian helping out the wens felt very progressive in thoughts that aligned with our modern day morals nowadays.

I hope I wasn't too harsh 😊 and I always 💕 reading your responses since youv'e always been very detailed with your thoughts and feelings.

Thank you for the compliment! Here are basically my thoughts on this:

So, I basically know nothing about this period of Chinese history, and I can’t really comment on things that did or did not happen in that time period and common attitudes towards them. However, that is not really what matters when we're talking about MDZS. If MXTX were an author writing 1000+ years ago for an audience of that time, it would be useful to understand the historical moral framework to better interpret her intentions and how both she and her audience would have viewed the morality in her novels.

But that is not the case. The idea of WWX helping out the Wens feels very progressive and aligned with modern-day morals because MXTX is a modern author writing for a modern audience. I'm sure that she entirely expects her audience to view her story through their natural modern moral lens, and that she crafted her story with that in mind. Furthermore, MDZS is not set in Ancient China, it’s set in MDZS’s version of Fantasy Ancient China, whose rules (including background moral framework) are what MXTX say they are.

(As a side note, while I don't think historical moral frameworks are as relevant to understanding MXTX's work, modern cultural distinctions are relevant. MXTX would also have been writing for her own culture, so there are nuances that those of us outside that culture -- including me -- would miss. This doesn't mean that we can't read and discuss this story, but we should be aware that we might be missing stuff and listen when people from that culture speak.)

However, in general, stories will usually establish their own moral frameworks, which will allow the audience to understand what the author is and is not giving moral approbation to. We can find this understanding through some amount of literary analysis.

This part got very long, so some helpful questions to consider for literary analysis (and how I applied that analysis) are after the Read More.

Useful questions to ask can include:

1. Are we supposed to trust the protagonist/point of view character(s) with moral authority?

It’s not always the case that we are supposed to ascribe moral authority to a story’s protagonist -- Humbert Humbert in Lolita is a famous example. Most of the time, though, the protagonist is meant to be a moral authority, just because that’s easier for an author. There’s a lot of work that goes into undermining the protagonist without undermining the story, and that’s not a technique suited to all stories.

So, are we suppose to consider Wei Wuxian a moral authority? Yes, we are.

Yes, there’s some unreliability in his narration -- but it’s pretty limited to his memory issues, things he can’t reasonably know and therefore makes assumptions about, and his unwillingness to dwell on his own hurts and who/what caused them. In general, his impulse is to do things that the audience would recognize as moral, including helping people in trouble even at cost to himself (Su She with the Waterborne Abyss, Mianmian in the Xuanwu cave, the juniors at Dafan Mountain), paying his debts (to the Jiang family, to Wen Ning and Wen Qing), and prioritizing what he considers to be the moral action over the action that might help him personally (refusing to go back on helping the Wens).

His morality furthermore remains consistent regardless of the situation. He wants to pay his debts to both the Jiangs and the Wens, even though they were on opposite sides of the war. He disapproves of mob justice whether it’s targeted at him or his enemy JGY.

Basically, textual indicators are meant to show that WWX is a moral person making moral choices. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t make mistakes or that his morality can’t slip when he’s pushed too far (torture is considered morally bad, and he does that), but at his default, his impulse is to make moral choices.

All of this is meant to establish him as a moral authority to the audience, someone we ultimately trust to be in the moral right.

1.A. Does the protagonist have an opinion on the issue at hand?

Once the protagonist is established as someone whose morality the audience is meant to trust, you need to see if they have an opinion on the issue whose morality you’re evaluating. Generally, their opinion is what the author wants the audience to understand and agree with.

In this case, WWX very obviously sees helping the Wen remnants as the moral thing to do.

Perhaps more importantly, he consistently sees helping them as the moral thing to do. After his resurrection, there are parts of his life that he re-evaluates. He decides that he went too far during the Sunshot Campaign with the whole digging up dead bodies thing, he’s embarrassed at his past arrogant attitude, and he recognizes the perspective of the people whose loved ones he’s killed.

But he never looks back at helping the Wens and decides he was wrong to do it. He regrets what ended up happening, but he never thinks he should not have done what he could.

2. What other contextual factors might establish a moral framework?

If the protagonist can’t be trusted, or if you want the weight of more evidence, you can look at other tools the author uses to frame the morals of a situation.

2.A. Are there moral touchstones with an opinion?

Often stories will have some sort of touchstone that will help the audience calibrate morality. This can be something like religion, but it can also be a character who is widely recognized, in-universe, as a moral touchstone. The characters and the audience both know when something is right because this touchstone character says it is.

In MDZS, Lan Wangji is basically that moral touchstone. Pretty much everyone in the setting, from his enemies to his allies to random civilians, thinks he’s the most righteous cultivator they know of, who will only do the most morally correct things. (At least, that’s his reputation until he publicly sides with WWX, but by that point the audience has also recognized him as a moral touchstone and understood why siding with WWX does not undermine that.)

LWJ’s opinion on the issue is a little less clear before the First Siege of the Burial Mounds, considering he does not seem to have spoken up for the Wens or provided concrete help even after meeting them, but we still get some clues.

When LWJ finally leaves after the Yiling date, WWX basically says, “If you were in my position, you would be doing the same thing I am.” WWX trusts LWJ’s morality as much as anyone does (if not more), and he’s confident that LWJ would agree with him if he were in that position. LWJ doesn’t contradict him.

More clearly, though, LWJ ends up taking over WWX’s position in protecting the last Wen. Wen Yuan lived because the setting’s moral touchstone saved him.

2.B. What are the antagonists’ opinions?

As a corollary to the moral touchstone, it’s also relevant to consider what the antagonists think about the issue. Unless the antagonists are established as morally upright people who just happen to oppose the protagonist for other reasons, most of the time, what an antagonist thinks is good is something the audience is meant to think is bad, and vice versa.

Jin Guangshan is an antagonist. We are supposed to see him as selfish and immoral. He is in favor of killing the Wen remnants.

Jin Zixun is so bad that not even other antagonists (Su She, JGY) like him. He is also in favor of killing the Wen remnants.

Jiang Cheng has also been established as an antagonist by this point. He and WWX have spent most of the novel on opposing sides by the time we reach this point in the story. He leads the Siege.

Of the story’s other antagonists, the Wen Sect is already gone, and Su She and JGY are at best neutral but are likely some level of complicit in the Wen remnants’ deaths and the hatred towards them. They certainly do not stand up for the Wens.

The important thing about these antagonist attitudes is that they’re consistent. If there were mixed attitudes among the antagonists, then the situation would come across as more morally complex. Here, however, pretty much every bad guy is in favor, which is a sign to the audience that this is not, in fact, a morally complex issue. It’s just wrong.

And in terms of killing smaller sects -- I don’t think the text does indicate that no one cares when smaller sects get killed off. There are two instances I can recall of this happening, the first when the Wen sect is gearing up for war and the second when JGY frames some of his political opponents for the murder of his son and wipes them out in “revenge.” Killing off smaller sects is therefore not a neutral action, but only something the villains do.

2.C. Does the plot validate one moral position over another?

Authors frequently express their themes by having the plot reward one perspective and punish another. Note that when evaluating this, you do have to think about both genre and themes more generally (antagonists might still have good endings, so you might think about how that ending impacts the themes).

In this case, consider how the deaths of the Wen remnants are treated later on in the story. During the Second Siege of the Burial Mounds, the Wen remnants come back to help and protect WWX, Wen Ning, and Sizhui (also protecting everyone else in the process). They saved everyone there, despite the treatment they’d received. The moral characters (WWX, LWJ, the juniors) honor them, while everyone who participated in the First Siege is left to feel awkward about having been saved by those they murdered.

WWX’s protection of the Wen remnants mattered. His love and care for them mattered. They came back to return that love and care for and protect him in turn. The plot validates his choice by having it return meaningful consequences, and it punishes the mob who killed (or approved of killing) the Wen remnants by showing them that they were not straightforwardly in the right.

--

There are more questions you can ask to try to identify a story’s moral framework when you’re not sure what it’s supposed to be, but these are a start.

Basically, the story’s message is that WWX was morally correct in helping the Wens. In terms of fix-it fics, this means that people also want other sympathetic characters (Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue) to make moral choices when given better information. There’s also probably some idealism in there, in wanting leaders like Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue to act morally rather than amorally or immorally (by letting innocent people die, even if not actively killing them), because we generally want our leaders to be moral people. It’s not unreasonable to think that, given the story’s established moral framework, LXC and NMJ might have chosen to help if they had all the information.

And we are, in fact, meant to determine all of this using our modern moral frameworks. MXTX is a modern author writing for a modern audience, so that is the perspective we are expected to bring.

[fatuismooches]

hi there!! this blog is awesome! <3 can i request dottore being soft only for reader? LMAO i know this man is literally insane but i love the thought of him being sweet for his s/o 😭

♡ 𝐃𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐨𝐟𝐭 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 ♡

synopsis: Horrifying stories about Dottore frequently float around amongst the Fatui recruits. However, it's a bit hard to believe when they see him with you.

includes: dottore w/ gn! reader

notes: This is it. One of my favorite tropes ever. Villains being soft for their partner. Thank you anon for this, because I love your thoughts as well!

Everyone knows that he’s like an on and off switch when you’re around. One minute he could be terrorizing Fatui underlings and threatening to experiment on them, but as soon as you appear, his attention is completely diverted from them, and is now wholly interested in you. At this point, everyone knows that if they want Dottore to show a shred of normalcy, you need to be around. Dottore really tries to not treat you differently in public, still calling you an idiot and scoffing, but anyone who works with him can easily see it’s not done maliciously to you. When Dottore’s fellow researchers don’t understand something, he’ll ignore them while subtly insulting them, telling them to figure it out themselves. If you ask, he’ll grumble a bit, but go into full-length, in-depth lectures about anything you need.

The easiest way to unlock soft Dottore is if you knew him during his Sumeru Akademiya days. This Dottore and prime/Harbinger Dottore are different in my opinion. He was scorned in his hometown as well as the Akademiya so these wounds would still be fresh in his heart, even though he never shows it. So if you consistently show him any kind of kindness or positive attention, he would eat it up and slowly start to warm up to you. It would also be easier to get him to do things with you since he was just a student, not a Harbinger back then. (I’m just obsessed with the idea of you and Dottore getting along in the Akademiya. I think the antics you pull on him would be funny, and he would probably get mad at you but can’t bring himself to kick you out because he’s never enjoyed another’s company this much, although he refuses to admit that.)

You’re the first person he tells his discoveries to and your opinion matters more than anyone. Dottore’s noticeably more excited when talking about his research to you because you genuinely will sit there for hours on end while he explains all his theories and data and connections. No one has ever seen this side of Dottore. He sometimes sends you to the Fatui meetings instead of his clones to report because of his confidence in you. Also wants you to accompany him on any mission outside of Snezhnaya. You are always in tow with him wherever he’s going. You’re the only person who has seen his bedroom. You have stolen his mask and worn it too even though it keeps falling off your face.

Dottore doesn’t care about anyone but would raise hell if anything happened to you. He’s one of the strongest Harbingers and takes any rudeness against you as a personal insult to him. You’re the one person he’s deemed worthy enough to be with him, he wouldn’t let anyone else’s irrelevant opinion fly. You’re also the only person who can talk back to him without dying. Cue the two of you having long discussions while the rest of the Fatui watch in fear.

You’re the only thing that can tempt him away from his research. (That, and when he reaches his limits and falls asleep randomly.) The way he treats you is a huge warning sign to the other recruits to keep their hands off you unless they want to be experimented on by Dottore. Even though he’s soft on you, he still can be sarcastic and mean to you because that’s just how he is. But he’s observant and even if he doesn’t notice himself that he hurt you, his clones definitely will. So while he won’t apologize verbally, he’ll do something for you which is his own way of saying sorry. Speaking of being observant, this man knows literally everything about you, probably even more than you know about yourself. Will use this to his advantage to make you suffer or make you happy.

When Fatui soldiers get injured, they are sometimes sent to Dottore if the camps get too full (this is everyone’s nightmare.) He’s a very unethical doctor so his procedures of healing would not be pleasurable. But if you ever get hurt, God forbid, the sadistic side of him would be gone and his smile would disappear. Treats you as tenderly as his deadly hands could. (Fatui recruits still pass on this story for years.)

If you show any personal interest in experimenting on something yourself, Dottore would help you with the process. Gathers all the materials and tools and would be excited to show you the ropes. However, the first time you didn’t tell him what exactly you were doing and in the end roped him into doing some famous kids experiments. He would be baffled, upset, and then get seriously into it by critiquing every aspect of the experiment, by going into long rants about how it’s not very accurate. (It’s futile to explain to him that it’s designed for kids. You and Dottore making a volcano science experiment is real though.)

Pester him to let you braid and play with his hair. He denies this at first, but when you start going to his clones for this, immediately bans you from that and begrudgingly allows you to curl those two long bangs around your fingers. If anyone walks in on something like this, he makes a mental note to get rid of them later <3.

taglist: @heyhazelnut101, @peepopeepopeperoni

[littledreamling]

Trigger warning for mentions of antisemitic historical attitudes and actions throughout the European Renaissance!!

I’m gonna make a longer post about this at some point, likely with references and evidence and other such sources to back up my argument but I’m exhausted rn so I’m just gonna say this*:

We need to give 1789 Hob a little more credit with how much he’s grown since 1389. We all focus on how wrong he was about the slave trade (which is very fair and I’m not excusing his actions at all) but it overshadows another of his lines that’s pretty subtly important and it’s this: “and I’m not Jewish”. More importantly, it’s how he says it.

It’s a joking line, we all probably chuckled at it because it’s such a snarky thing to say in the face of Lady Johanna Constantine’s threat of violence, but when you realize the geopolitical and religious atmosphere of Europe for… well, all of history, it holds a little more weight than that.

Europe has always been pretty deeply antisemitic. During the early 1300’s and into the 1400’s, Jewish people were heavily blamed for the Black Plague and were kidnapped and tortured into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit (poisoning wells with the plague, selling cloth that was laced with the disease, etc). In the 1400’s, Jews were completely banned in the Iberian Peninsula, triggering the Sephardic Diaspora that displaced Jewish communities all across Europe and forced many Jewish people to convert to Catholicism to continue their ways of life in what is now Spain and Portugal. For the majority of the early Renaissance, Christian humanists spent a great deal of time, money, and effort into understanding Jewish thought, Hebrew, and Kabbalah (which is a Jewish mystical school of thought), with the ultimate goal of getting to the root of Christian truth through the Hebrew old testament instead of Latin translated bibles or the Greek new testament. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, antisemitic attitudes ran deep in European society, in every corner of the continent, for the majority of pre-modern history (and post-modern too, but that’s outside the realm of this post).

So imagine my surprise when, after learning about all of this history that is seeped in antisemitism, Hob Gadling (an English peasant who canonically lived through the Black Plague, the Spanish Inquisition, and probably received a Humanist education) said “I’m not Jewish” with almost no discernible contempt. He wasn’t angry at the accusation. He wasn’t even really offended. He says it as a point of clarification, with a small chuckle. And that? That’s big, because he’s lived in a society brimming with hatred for Jewish people for his whole life.

So yes, he made a mistake in stepping into the slave trade as a line of work, but if there’s one thing we learn about Hob Gadling, it’s that he learns from his mistakes. He attempts to atone for his wrongdoings. He’s not always on the right side of history, but he’s willing to put in the effort to educate himself and change his behavior. And I particularly love this example of that, because it’s not obvious. It’s not overt, it’s a subtle detail that the majority of people won’t pick up on, not without the historical context that makes it so impactful. And in any other show, I’d say it was just coincidence, or that I was reading too much into it, but this is the Sandman. This is Neil Gaiman, who is highly knowledgeable about all of this, who does his research, who is himself Jewish. I know it’s not a coincidence and it’s all the more wonderful for it.

*I am in no way attempting to claim to be an expert on this subject. I’m not Jewish, nor am I trying to speak for Jewish people who no doubt have more knowledge and expertise on the topic, I’m simply taking a class on the Renaissance period from 1300-1700 and I’ve noticed some historical contexts that add depth and nuance to episode 6 that I feel is important to share. I would love to start a discussion about this and open the floor for those who are more educated about this time period and Jewish history to have a chance to speak on the topic.

[bluebudgie]

Alright looks like I'll be taking this matter into my own hands after all!

[Rolls up sleeves and starts opening a large can of worms] Thaumanova and the rats.

Neljje is the one I've definitely talked about the most in relation to the reactor meltdown so far.

Got caught in the middle of the actual explosion. Miraculously lived through it, but... it changed his life. "Ley-crazed" as Crystal Desert bounty hunters would later call it. He does not endorse that terminology.

It was a slow, creeping process. A constant humming in his head. Voices. Where from, the ley lines? The mists? Made up? He doesn't know. Sometimes they're friends. Sometimes they frighten him. A growing obsession to study, understand, and later control the ley energy took over his life.

By now he's spent almost a decade under constant exposure to ley energy for his research. If that's really the actual reason. He does feel like he's losing his grip on reality more and more. The world feels... warped. At times nothing make sense. At times absolutely everything makes sense. Does he hate it? No, not really. Some days he feels like he's losing control. But on most days he's content.

Chak excluded, he spends the majority of his time alone. Sometimes his old friend Khivvi comes looking for him in the jungle's depths. At the current time she's convincing him to leave the Heart of Maguuma for a while to come check out this newly discovered ley line hub in Cantha. She thinks he could like it.

He probably will.

Tvekks is probably the least directly involved character of all my witnesses. Was running errands in Rata Sum and just when he was on the way back - Boom. (If that's the noise it made. Probably not. I have a feeling the soundscape was undescribable.)

Naturally he didn't panic any less than anyone inside Thaumanova. Can you blame him though, he knew his then-partner was in there!

He helped set up some tents for the injured outside. Well, tried at least, with his hands shaking like jelly.

At least his boyfriend made it back out alive.

Witnessing Neljje's spiral down into morbid obsession over the following year was likely the most difficult part for him in all of this. Just to be clear – that was not the reason Tvekks left him. He was concerned for Neljje's health, yes, but ready to adapt and learn to live with the changes. He still loved him. But Inquest and Aetherblade related shenanigans ultimately made him flee, and that meant leaving his partner behind as well.

The whole Thaumanova ordeal wasn't the reason he actively started thinking about leaving the Inquest, but in retrospect it may have sowed the first seeds of doubt.

Lahpp was part of a larger team that noticed the impending danger early and managed to evacuate their labs before everything went up in flames. While still inside Thaumanova, they escaped the worst part of the explosion. But obviously other areas of the reactor weren't as lucky.

He mostly spent his time looking for survivors and coordinating their escape in small groups.

That is... until a particularly stubborn individual crosses his way. Luqqah, dead-set on retrieving all her research data out of rooms that have long gone up in flames. They're no strangers to each other, in fact they've been dating for a few years, are broken up at this point – still good friends though.

Lahpp was, relative to the situation, calm enough up to this moment. Stressed? Absolutely. Cursing his constitution? Absolutely. But he kept a cool head. Now losing precious time having to argue with someone he cares about over whether or not she should throw her life away while corpses are burning, walls are crumbling and literal reality is warping around them is not what he needed.

Ultimately they both made it out unharmed, a few bruises aside.

Looking back, the whole Thaumanova disaster just feels strange to him. The evacuation itself? Bad time, obviously. The overall greater event though... was cathartic in a way. He didn't hear about it until things started to calm down some time after the meltdown, but the team monitoring his entire childhood – dead. It didn't really make a difference anymore at this time but still the thought was... freeing. And moving away from Metrica Province to an entirely new place far away was another cut from his past he didn't know he needed. Obviously he could never escape it entirely, but it did help him create some mental distance.

So what about Luqqah? She's definitely not looking back on the events as favourably. She lost everything that day.

What, it was just research data? That data was the result of years of work. That work is her life. It defines her. She is nothing without it. And she's convinced that if someone hadn't gotten in her way she could have saved it.

The first days after the meltdown were bad. Incredibly bad. She didn't see any future for herself.

Of course she did eventually move on. Found ways to continue her work based at least on the experience she gathered – no fire could take what's in her head after all. She didn't move to the newly built headquarters with the majority of survivors but instead decided to travel to different places to start over.

"Time heals all wounds" they say, but a decade later she is still bitter about her loss. Even though she's come far since then – much further than she was before the disaster – she still believes it was a setback in her efforts that she'll never gain back again.

That reminds me I meant to make a "Who of your characters witnessed the Thaumanova reactor disaster?" post.

How were they involved? How did it affect them?

[phoenixyfriend]

Anakin Assists the Jedi Council While On Medical Leave

AU brainstormed primarily by @atagotiak, @gelpenss, and myself.

Basically, a fix-it based in Anakin getting a peek into the daily life on the Council early, and accidentally Figuring Some Shit Out along the way, mostly because Palps Fucks Up.

So, Anakin gets injured in a way that limits him to Coruscant for a few weeks. He can still walk and talk, but he can't fight. The specific injury doesn't matter, just this:

Anakin runs errands on behalf of the council and sits in on meetings to take minutes as a "you're on medical leave but we need all hands on deck, congrats you get to be the secretary until we can send you on stabbing missions again" thing.

Also, there just aren't a whole lot of people with Anakin's clearance level. They had to send out Stass Allie to handle the mission that was originally next on Anakin's roster, and Anakin's the most convenient person to substitute into her position.

He's not super happy about this but he can more or less understand the point of it. Given that he gets antsy about needing to fight almost immediately, he can acknowledge the worth of having something useful to do, if only as the person who's writing down who says what and making sure everyone has the right file on hand.

(Besides, Obi-Wan jokes in a way that Anakin thinks might be encouraging, this is good practice if Anakin ever wants to be on the High Council himself!)

(This is a very helpful conversation.)

BASICALLY, Anakin is resigned to this but agrees because "Usually we have Master Allie handle this but we need her running that mission that was originally set for the 501st, so you get to fill in for her until you can switch back. Think of it as training for eventual mastery or admin or--listen, we're just really stretched thin."

Here's the key thing, though: Anakin isn't supposed to leave the Temple, for medical reasons, so Palpatine doesn't know Anakin is sitting in on Council meetings. They haven't met up since Anakin's last surgery, and because [muffled hand-wave reason] he didn't find out another way, like Anakin comming him or the Council giving him the heads-up about the change in attendance.

It's fine. He's just taking notes and doing preparatory research, he has the clearance, the Chancellor likes him anyway. Hell, they'd have had someone's Padawan doing this, before the war increased the necessary clearance levels. They'll toss in a quick message in the brief they send to Palps that he never reads anyway, and that's really all they need to do. Skywalker's getting some rounded experience and this way the medics won't be freaking out about him stressing his heart after getting electrocuted by trying to spar too early.

Palpatine doesn't talk directly to the Council, he just sends a recording the first time Anakin is there. It's a bit weird, but nothing goes wrong. Anakin's off-screen from whatever device they use to send a response, since he's not technically a member, just assisting for a bit on the part of Master Allie's duties that he's actually allowed to touch (and not the bits that are getting added to Mace, Plo, and Shaak's stuff).

The first four or so meetings are like that. Anakin starts having a bit of sympathy for the Council as he sees how many things they want to do that are hampered by the need for Senatorial approval, things that he would also want to do and didn't think required this much red tape.

About a week in, still mostly recordings with Anakin just sitting on the side playing paralegal, the wheel of fortune turns a few pegs.

Palpatine hands over a an order on the range of injury that a soldier should be treated for, "to ensure that republic resources aren't being wasted on clones that, while expensive, would actually be cheaper to replace than repair."

Oh, he dresses it up in prettier language than that. Anakin doesn't process it as such first.

The Chancellor manages to couch his phrasing in "prioritizing resources for taxpaying republic citizens and employees of the GAR," which... well.

The natborn commissioned officers pay taxes. The Jedi are employees. The clones are neither, because they're slaves.

Probably he frames it as the employees thing, very much the kinda language that sounds halfway ok unless you’re fluent in political bullshit.

And Anakin is really confused at first about why the council is upset by the order because, okay, he would PREFER to be able to use medical supplies on refugees when possible, but he understands prioritizing the soldiers?

He just looks up, totally lost, when someone groans and goes, "That's the third time this year, is he trying to get us all killed?"

And it vibes as such a genuine, aggrieved, sad reaction that Anakin is completely blindsided because it's not the sarcastic, petty resentment he kind of expected? It's just... desperate depression.

And someone gently has to explain that this is the third time they've had resources restricted to only GAR employees and that it's a polite way of saying "prioritize natborn officers, stop wasting resources on clones, we can replace them easier."

Or maybe he doesn't ask, because he's just there to take notes, not argue, and he can see the masters drawing up a response that amounts to "We would like to remind you that our soldiers do not fall into that classification, and to limit their access to our medical supplies is liable to cause a loss of life that we find unreasonably high. Please see the annotations attached to adjust wording so that the clones may receive the same level of care."

Anakin's internally just like "Yeah, that's phrased nice and addresses the main problem, Palpatine will obviously agree and change it!"

And then he comes in the next day and the response comes in and it's just dripping condescension about considering the clones actual people.

"This is why we can't use the bacta tanks on clones anymore, just the patches. We could use them at first, we had a few of the CCs get through fatal injuries with them, but they cut that off and said we could only use the tanks on Jedi and non-clone officers a few months ago. The Banking Clans keep tightening their belts on the army, and the Chancellor insists we put citizens first, and the clones aren't citizens. We've been arguing back as much as we can, but he keeps going on about the economy and we can't... we just can't, Skywalker. We're trying to save as many of our men as we can, but..."

Something like "Allocation of resources reiterated, the Kaminoans have assured the senate that the Jedi are far from exhausting the resources ordered."

And Anakin's like. He can't blame the council for lying about Palpatine's past or future actions. He just saw Palpatine's actions. Those actions were to order people under his control to throw away lives he saw as replaceable commodities.

These are his friends' lives.

His soldiers are being thrown away by a man in a tower that he trusted.

And then that man has the gall to suggest it's the council's fault.

Palpatine is good at what he does, especially in public, he dresses it up in flowery language and everything, but Anakin's just like "Those are my FRIENDS and also this is??? How slavers talked about their property on Tatooine???? FRIENDPATINE, WHAT THE FUCK."

Anakin can be passive aggressive sometimes as well as outright aggressive. So if he brings up the guidelines and why they make him upset in general terms, and Palpatine says something about how he’s sad the council doesn’t care about the clones...

Anakin, internally, having just watched the council scramble to save as many clones as possible within the guidelines that Palps handed down: Uh-huh.

(Anakin is just the gay horror teeth gif from queer eye.)

Just. “Yeah, funny you say that, Palpatine! Because as I remember, you told the council not to waste more resources than necessary while Mace Windu was arguing to expand the treatment range!”

Palps doesn't even have time to salvage the situation or attack Anakin because Anakin just bulldoze rants for fifteen minutes and then storms out.

Anakin... maybe does a little treason and gets a copy of the orders so he can ask Padme "Hey, can you explain the politics of this?" and doesn't tell her who wrote it so she isn't biased (he tells her that this is why he's not sharing the author's/speaker's name), and just lets Padme pick apart all the 'this is a nice way of saying they don't view the clones as people' details.

Alternately, someone on the Council sees Anakin dithering and manages to get him to admit that he's not great at political language and wants to ask someone to help him understand the full implications. The person--Mace? let's go with Mace--is aware that Anakin is on good terms with Senator Amidala, if not necessarily aware of the depth of said relationship. Mace points out that he's probably going to be seeing her soon just because he usually does and, as a Senator, she can get easy access to these sessions since they're not about specific missions, just allocation of resources, etc. It's not an optimal solution, but she's got a bit more free time than anyone else Anakin knows with the clearance levels, like Order members that are actively involved in the war effort.

Anakin dithers and panics and Mace, trying to be helpful, tells him that plenty of Jedi have made friends among the Senate over the years, didn't you know Qui-Gon Jinn was a personal friend of Former Chancellor Valorum?

At any rate, Anakin goes to Padme and asks her to explain it to him, because she knows how to phrase things so he gets it.

Anakin has to have her pause and he goes outside and destroys some things halfway through.

(Anakin maybe thinks back to the times Padmé or Obi-Wan were really obviously frustrated and when he asked, they said stuff like “I can’t stand Palpatine rn, sorry Anakin I know he’s important to you and you don’t want to talk about politics, let’s just talk about something else.”)

(Obi-Wan: I don’t trust Palpatine Anakin: you just don’t like politicians in general Obi-Wan: yes that is also true)

(Obi-Wan does like Bail and Padme but he does also talk a bit about how politicians generally aren’t to be trusted.)