#so there was normal version and smart scientist version and etc etc

[fragiledate]

cringetober day 13: creepypasta !!! my old evil sona :)

[mr-jack-letterman]

More B-Side Verse!

Next up is Error.

This is Trojan, the B-Side verse version of Error.

(click for better quality)

- Within B-Side, Trojan used to be a Science Sans instead of a Geno Sans like Error was.

- Since Trojan originated from a younger and overall nicer Sans variant, Trojan is much more pacifistic and less angry than Error.

- He still destroys Universes, but he's less likely to actually fight people. He does his job and tries to flee as fast as possible when Scribe shows up, only rarely giving in to fighting.

- A glitch is spreading throughout B-Side verse. It seems as though there is no cure, but destroying the infected universes seem to slow it down. So, Trojan does his best to kill off the infected universes using his power, only leaving the uninfected alive. This earns him the title of "God of Destruction" throughout the multiverse as rumor spreads. No one, except Trojan's trusted allies, know of his true motives.

- Scribe and his crew are trying to stop the same corruption, but Scribe believes Trojan is the root cause of it and seeks to annihilate him, thinking destroying "the source" will kill off the rest. He doesn't see Trojan's efforts as "damage control", all he sees is Trojan "spreading more corruption."

- Being alone for so long has made him more like Alphys, very nervous and anti-social, but undeniably brilliant. He has a habit of going on long rambling tangents about data, space, magic, and whatnot. Most people don't understand a thing he's talking about though. He doesn't care, he's just happy to infodump.

- Most people see him as this maniacal mad scientist who tortures people and experiments on souls. Many Sanses like to compare him to some of the abusive and horrible Gasters throughout the multiverse. When, in reality, Trojan has absolutely zero confidence in himself let alone his "mad science."

- Most of Trojan's time is actually spent researching and documenting the different magic and fighting styles all Sans and Papyri have. He finds all the variation extremely fascinating and just rly rly rly wants to learn about it all. (*Cough* undiagnosed autism *cough*/lh)

- Trojan really doesn't have many friends and doesn't get out much. But, unlike Error, he's pretty good friends with Nightmare and his gang of misfits, as well as Cyan, the B-Side variant of Underswap Sans.

- For a long while, Trojan couldn't remember he used to be a Science Sans. Once he did remember, Cyan gave him his necklace as a reminder to never forget.

The rest of these are not rly that important, they're just funky little design quirks I think are cool lmao.

- Trojan is named after a "Trojan Horse Virus" a type of computer virus that disguises itself as a normal program.

- His name is also a reference to the Trojan Horse in Greek mythology. Within the story, not only was the Trojan Horse a smart plan, the monument itself was an alleged tribute to Athena, goddess of wisdom. Trojan is a very smart cookie so using my tism powers I named him after something connected to the goddess of wisdom essentially NSNDNND.

- Trojan's "strings" are less like strings and more like thick ribbons of green binary. Within the Antivoid, similar to Error, Trojan has a bunch of these ribbons hanging from the "ceiling". But unlike Error, written on these ribbons are the names and serial numbers of all the universes he's destroyed. It's his way of remembering them and memorializing them.

- The binary code surrounding him can spell out various small phrases or words relating to what he's feeling. Normally, they just spell out "Trojan". But as seen above in my paper sketches, they change periodically. The translations for the binary can be found underneath each sketch.

- Trojan's eyelights can change as well. They turn into 1s when he's surprised, angry, excited etc, and change to 0s when he's embarrassed, sad, worried, etc.

- When he's overwhelmed or confused, strings of binary cover his eyes.

If you have any questions about B-Side verse or the world itself, don't hesitate to send me an ask or a message!

Original Error by @loverofpiggies

(I hope tagging is alright-)

Extra info about B-Side verse :D

[imperiuswrecked]

One of the main differences between Tenoch!Namor and Comic!Namor is we get to see what Namor could be like if he had lived in a community that loved and respected him and it’s just so wild to me because there are so many comics where Namor is just hated because of he is half atlantean/human. So seeing Tenoch!Namor be more emotionally healthy than Comic!Namor is such a trip.

Comic!Namor: I will keep all my emotions locked up in my heart until I explode in a fury of rage or swim off to some solitary place to cry my eyes out, idk if I’m feeling depressed enough maybe I’ll throw myself into a whirlpool of death. What’s that? A therapist? I am a PRINCE I don’t need a therapist!

Tenoch!Namor: I will talk to you, a complete stranger, about my feelings so I can get you to understand that I really need to kill that scientist. This is both a normal and healthy response to the trauma I endured when I buried my mother.

I’m not saying they are both perfect but damn if these two bitches don’t need some form of therapy.

Also I love the differences and similarities between the two, like Comic!Namor is an avid reader/artist but we rarely get to see it, it comes in small moments, Namor is seen reading a book on a beach, or talks about Atlantean authors, or does his own sculptures etc. Tenoch!Namor is seen painting, and I’m sure he must have other forms of literature/art that he does as well.

The Poet King is such a strong trope within them because they both have very passionate personalities, and they express that in their arts.

I think what I love most is how smart they show Tenoch!Namor in the movie, like he isn’t just their god king, he also is a scientist, bringing the “Sun” to his people. Tenoch!Namor is so freaking smart y’all, not just in a sciencey way but politically he has had centuries to understand people/how ruling kingdoms work.

Comic!Namor is smart in this way as well, but too often Marvel ranks him on the less intelligent side of the smart scale because they don't take into account the fact he has a different set of knowledge than the scientists in the comics. Namor states/shows he isn't a man of science a few times in the comics but he has political/how to run an empire/ocean smarts. He is like a marine expert in a room full of astronomers.

And did I mention how much I love that BP:WF shows Namor being a collector of things from the surface? Like his memorabilia hut is a physical reminder of his past deeds, he keeps items of interest or history for him. He paints the history of his people and adds his adventures in as part of his archive.

Another thought I had: Aside from a historical/cultural pov what if: Is it so he can look back and remember? What if at some point Namor started to forget things because he is so long lived that he feared he would lose so much of his past so he began painting so it wouldn't be gone forever.

I just love both versions of this character so very much 🥺🥰

[spectruminterests]

“The Lives in Time of Katherine Kaye”

A silly story about my silly OCs! (But there is also Drama and Angst!) I’m posting this in case anyone has heard something about my soulless mad scientist and her chaos-gremlin younger self and wants to know more, or just for anyone who may happen to be interested lol.

This is kinda a draft/summary of the story so far and as such, it’s a mess, but it’s still very long so I’ve put it under a readmore! (TW for (fictional/fantastical) medical stuff, medical procedures without consent, self-harm, internalized ableism of the anti-neurodivergent variety, identity confusion, and child harm/endangerment)

Some characters and a little worldbuilding, before the story gets started:

Beastfolk/Auracai (a weird fantasy race I made up that’s kind of like elves crossed with catpeople):

Beastfolk age at about half the rate of humans and look like normal humans, but with semi-retractable claws, thin catlike tails, red eyes, and sharpened canines.

“Beastfolk” is what humans call them, referencing their “animal” traits. They call themselves Auracai (this is both singular and plural)

They’re originally from another dimension that contacts the human world (the main story’s world) only occasionally - essentially rare but not unheard of immigrants in this world. 

Sometimes people end up in the wrong world by accident, without a way to get home, as travel between worlds is more “randomly/accidentally slipping through the cracks” than intentional, reliable travel.

Beastfolk can sense souls when in direct contact with someone, humans can’t. 

Katherine Kaye (the main character/characters)

2 versions of her in the story, the emotionless mad scientist adult and the adolescent little chaos gremlin

Auracai/Beastfolk

Has Autism + ADHD + Anxiety

has a much older brother, Theodore, who’s been taking care of them since they ended up in the human world together

KT (the adolescent chaos gremlin version of Katherine)

28 (equivalent of 14)

Mischievous streak

A prankster

Really intense emotions, prone to overreacting

Senior in high school because of weird aging

Amateur singer/songwriter/musician and this is a major part of her personality

goes by KT because “it’s like ‘Katie,’ but cooler!”

Both a STEM nerd and an artist

Dreams of having an impact on the world, both of changing things for the better and of being cool and famous

Self-perception swings with her moods: often confident to the point of arrogance or overconfidence, but during a breakdown she’s full of self-loathing and shame.

Wants to travel, explore, and live a somewhat adventurous life; an ordinary office job would never satisfy her. Boring AF and a total waste of her potential.

Pigtails/twin tails

Likes to act cute to get what she wants

Dr. Kaye (the soulless mad scientist/adult version of Katherine)

Removed her own soul (heart/emotions/creativity/etc.) in an experimental process, which she tested on herself in a frustrated attempt to prove herself and to stop having such intense mood swings + be more productive and “better” without her emotional overreactions.

Ended up getting stuck in the past because she was researching interdimensional travel in an attempt to find a reliable way to get back and forth between the human world and the Auracai world (in this story time travel creates a new timeline/slightly different reality)

creepy ever-present smile (this was a form of masking and a coping mechanism, and remains a habit)

egotistical and doesn’t really realize the extent of it: she thinks that without a soul she’s become perfectly logical and efficient and immune to emotional biases. (This is revealed to be untrue when she has to reevaluate the idea that her current “emotionless” state is an improvement.)

now has really limited emotional range and is coldly logical most of the time

still has a few common emotional states though: excited/passionate/enthusiastic about her work, frustrated/annoyed/exasperated with people who are “not smart enough to see her vision” or “keep getting in the way,” amused at others’ incompetence or at messing with people, and a state of discomfort/guilt/concern about what she’s lost and what things have come to that is usually easily repressed and ignored, triggered by reminders of who she used to be

Really any emotion she feels is almost always mild enough to easily ignore.

Started promoting her soul-removal procedure as a “therapy” for anxiety, depression, various other mood disorders and emotional issues, and autism-related intense mood swings.

tends to dismiss other people as running on “mere irrational emotion”

Age: ~80s (early 40s) (She basically has a midlife crisis after getting stuck in the past lol)

she doesn’t tend to go by her first name and absolutely refuses to answer to the nickname “KT,” even from Ted.

almost completely lost her creative, playful side. No interest in anything artistic, including the music she used to love. “Fun” is not only unnecessary, but largely impossible for her, and anything involving conveying or coping with emotions? Forget it.

KT’s brother/guardian: Theodore Kaye

Perpetually exhausted, at the end of his rope

Nicknamed Ted, rarely goes by his full name Theodore

~ 50 (equivalent of 25)

Responsible because he has to be

Introverted

Low energy

Autistic (I love giving everyone the ‘tism lol)

Loyal to his sister, has a special connection with the one person who was there for him both before and after getting stuck in a different world

The story so far:

KT sees something about Dr. Kaye in the news and it mentions that she’s Beastfolk, which makes KT think that maybe she and Ted have a relative they didn’t know about. So KT goes on a bit of a wild goose chase trying to contact this person who might just be someone who happens to have the same last name. They meet, and Dr. Kaye explains the time stuff. Ted is looking for help and Dr. Kaye is like “oh yeah should probably do that, younger me will probably be a great collaborator when she’s a little older.” Ted gets the feeling that something is off about Dr. Kaye, but kinda doesn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Clearly, this is his sister, or a version of her anyway, and although KT is a prankster, she’s a good kid. It’d totally be fine to trust her with… herself. Right? Right?

Time passes, Dr. Kaye recommends KT books, KT gets increasingly curious about Dr. Kaye’s weirder habits. She plays pranks on her, thinking her future self will laugh. She’d laugh. Dr. Kaye pretends to be amused the first time, then doesn’t react at all. She doesn’t react to a lot of things, actually, seeming to have no interest in much of anything, not caring about the things KT has liked her entire life. Something must have happened to her in the future that she refuses to discuss in order to create this weird disconnect, right? 

Meanwhile this entire time Dr. Kaye has just been… watching KT be herself, which causes her a slight, odd feeling of discomfort that she can’t seem to explain. 

Beastfolk, unlike humans, can sense someone’s soul when in direct contact with them. Dr. Kaye is careful to avoid touching people and not make it weird, a habit she formed before getting stuck in the past in order to avoid making other Beastfolk uncomfortable with her soullessness, and has become more important now that she’s stuck in the past and is attempting to hide her lack of a soul.  She also usually locks her bedroom door at night, but one night the door is accidentally left unlocked, and KT notices and tries to play a prank by putting a fake bug in Dr. Kaye’s bed while she’s asleep. She touched Dr. Kaye by accident  - she didn’t really mean to violate her boundaries, but she made the necessary contact and what she sensed was terrifying. 

KT: *screams*

Kaye: *wakes up confused* what the hell are you doing???

KT: *too scared to react*

Kaye: I forgot to lock the door, didn’t I? And now you’re in my room staring at me like a deer in headlights. Just what do you think you’re doing?!? 

KT: I, uh, it was just a prank, I didn’t mean to wake you up, you- your soul…

Kaye: *finds the fake bug* you touched me, didn’t you, as you were messing around trying to plant this ridiculous plastic bug for me to find in the morning… and I suppose I should explain things now that the cat is out of the bag, shouldn’t I? 

She explains to KT about removing her soul and KT is horrified, but even more fascinated. She wants to know more, even though she also wants to run very fast in the opposite direction, and her other self is happy to explain.

KT: *holding Dr. Kaye’s hand, still fascinated by the strange emptiness inside of her* Does… does it hurt? Not having a soul, I mean…

Dr. Kaye: It doesn’t hurt anymore… but it did, at first. I won’t lie to you, removing it was… an extremely painful process. Of course, in most cases it’s done under anesthesia… though I obviously didn’t have that option. After the procedure, there’s definitely some pain, some lingering soreness, which is rather unresponsive to painkillers, but the worst of it fades naturally fairly quickly, and in a few weeks it’s entirely gone.  There’s also a certain sense of emptiness, afterwards… it feels like something is missing deep inside of you, which I suppose is true, but it’s a feeling I didn’t find it hard to get used to. That empty feeling never truly goes away, but it’s distressing at first mostly because it’s disconcerting, rather than being painful. It’s something I can sense even now, if I’m thinking about it, but I no longer find it bothersome, and I haven’t for a long time. 

KT: That… kinda makes sense? And you said you don’t really feel emotions anymore? 

Dr. Kaye: Yes, and that’s been an immense relief. No more anxiety, no more meltdowns. 

KT: … no more happiness, though? 

Dr. Kaye: I suppose you could say that… but I would say that might simply be the cost of being free of emotional bias. I do find I sometimes experience mild emotion-like states… I’ve found it unpleasant to be interrupted while I’m working, for example… but such experiences are transient and low in intensity, and as such they are easily dismissed. 

Dr. Kaye then explains her plans to republish her discoveries in this timeline and promote her soul-removal procedure as a “therapy” for a variety of emotional problems, as she did in her own time. KT, understandably, freaks out further. 

Meanwhile Ted starts realizing that something is deeply wrong with Dr. Kaye and wants his sister back. Eventually Dr. Kaye decides her kid self needs her “treatment” a little early because she keeps “being difficult,” as well as wanting to spare her younger self the suffering of having to live with her emotional overreactions. She tries to figure out the best way to present this to KT so she’ll agree to undergo the procedure willingly, but also prepares to do it by force if necessary, convinced that she knows what’s best for them. KT asks Dr. Kaye about her regrets, which with everything makes the repressed issues come back to the forefront. As she tries to say she regrets nothing and to ask KT to follow in her footsteps, these words somehow seem like a lie. KT is horrified, but her screaming and freaking out just solidifies in Dr. Kaye’s mind that she’s overreacting. She lets KT wear out her panic until she breaks down in despairing tears and states that if KT doesn’t stop resisting, she will force her. 

“KT, listen to me. I’m you. I know what’s best for us. This is for your own good. Now, you can be good and listen to reason, or you can keep fighting and I will have to forcibly sedate you. Either way, when you wake up you won’t have to be sad and scared like this ever again. The pain you might feel now will be nothing compared to all the suffering I’m sparing you.” “W… will… I’m never going play pranks or sing or play music or draw or play pretend ever again will I… but I guess I have to grow up and give that stupid stuff up anyway… I… I have to grow up faster like you and stop that nonsense…”

Dr. Kaye realizes in that moment that she hasn’t done a single creative thing, hasn’t hummed a tune, doodled in the margins of a notebook, made up stories to fall asleep to, anything, since the day she cut out her soul. Is that worthless, or is that something she’s subconsciously missed for a very long time? She remembers that cutting out her own soul was originally an act of desperation and self-hate. She reconsiders everything.

 Meanwhile KT is escaping. She runs home to Ted and cries in his arms. Dr. Kaye realizes that she doesn’t actually want KT to end up like her, and tries to apologize for everything, but is pushed away by Ted. Not wanting to waste this chance to tell her past self what she wishes she’d known, she disappears, but begins to write a diary/memoir of all the regrets she’d never let herself “waste time” dwelling on and all the useful life things she knows from experience that were hard or impossible to find in books. She leaves it for KT one day, around the time of KT’s high school graduation, and KT reads it and tries to find her again. Despite Ted’s deep distrust of Dr. Kaye, they reconnect, originally through email because Ted understandably doesn’t want Dr. Kaye anywhere near his sister. KT really wants to apprentice under Dr. Kaye, as working and training under an experienced mentor is common practice for young people in the Auracai world, and she argues with Ted about it. 

“I thought you really wanted to go to a human university? Wasn’t that your big dream?” “Well kinda, but that was before I met Dr. Kaye! She’d be the perfect mentor because she’s doing so many things and they’re all the things I’m interested in!!!” “Are you completely forgetting that she tried to take your soul?!?? As far as I’m concerned, she’s unstable and dangerous.” “Okay yeah maybe she’s a little unstable but she wouldn’t be dangerous at all to me, she didn’t take my soul because she actually listens to me, remember?” “Katherine. Stop for a moment and listen to yourself. I can’t believe this is a conversation we even need to have.” “I’m trying to listen to myself, that’s kinda the whole point! ;) Someone keeps saying it’s a bad idea!” (KT doesn’t consider herself and Dr. Kaye to be fully one and the same the way Dr. Kaye does, but the joke was far too good for KT to pass up.) “You know what I meant, and it did not involve the potential future you that’s a soulless lunatic!” 

Dr. Kaye starts asking KT for advice on moral and emotional matters, and KT feels needed. Ted begins to relax a little, though he still really doesn’t trust her. Dr. Kaye invites KT to join her on some kind of research trip, and KT sneaks away to do so against Ted’s orders. He is livid with her… but it is a little reassuring that she’s quite unharmed and had a good time. Eventually Ted’s attitude of “I am not letting you walk to your death” softens into “I’m not sure if I can stop you, and it’s really on you if you get hurt after I tried to stop you, but please text me every night with an update on your latest song or art project or whatever or just something about your day, something that’s you, so I know you’re okay.” So KT gets her apprenticeship, and the Katherines end up forming a sort of symbiotic relationship, with Dr. Kaye acting as a mentor, guardian, and voice of reason to KT, and KT acting as Dr. Kaye’s heart and soul and conscience. Dr. Kaye is still soulless but is starting to come to terms with it now… not exactly “okay” but no longer ignoring that there was a loss and more willing to listen to others or at least to her kid self. Although she also likes to say that if she regained her former emotional range now, she’d probably have a heart attack… especially when KT is causing trouble.

[flowerslikemadness]

(Spoilers for Faiz, if you care about spoilers for an almost 20-year old show)

I was looking at the rider wiki (mistake, I know, but I needed to look up character names), when I read that the Kaixa belt runs on Orphnoch DNA?? Which needs to regenerate??? *

Putting aside the ‘that’s not how DNA works!’, it reminded me of the whole ‘they’re evolving too fast’ plot point, which similarly had me yelling “That’s not how evolution works!” at the screen. And look, I know kamen rider has a very loose grasp of science; it is a fun show for children with cool toys and explosions etc. But the way the ‘science’ influences the plot is also very bad too.

And, because my brain is apparently a slut for poorly thought out (but fixable!) worldbuilding, it decided to keep me up until 3AM thinking about how I’d do it differently. N.B. I am not a scientist; this will still be relying on magical science a bit, etc.

(Cut for long winded opinions etc)

If, instead of ‘evolving too fast’ (wtf again), becoming an Orphnoch led to a faster regeneration and growth of cells, hence the transformation and powers and healing etc. Which occasionally caused those cells to rapidly destabilize and die, hence the turning into sand. Upon becoming a full Orphnoch, it could happen at any time for unknown reasons. Some live for a relatively normal lifetime, some have one that is vastly shortened. Hanagata, and Smart Brain, are focused on finding a cure for this, pursuing several branches of research.

Genetic experiments on children - I can’t tell if it was a bad translation (possible, the subs I got were very bad), or the writer wanting to have his cake and eat it too, but it was very wishy washy about when the Ryusei students were subjects of genetic research and experimentation, and who ordered it. It should have been all on the orders of Hanagata, who has a change of heart after they are killed as part of the experiment, especially as the experiment was deemed a failure. For later relevance, Kusaka is the control human, the only one with no Orphnoch DNA added. This branch was overseen by Murakami, before his hostile takeover of the whole company, and his particular pet project was the creation of the ‘Orphnoch King’/’Arch Orphnoch’, a genetically engineered ‘perfect Orphnoch’.

The belts - All three belts were different experiments meant to alter the cell destabilization through the power of kamen rider science. The Faiz belt slows down cell regeneration, but only for a short while. Anyone less than a full Orphnoch is rejected, because of safeguards built in to only recognize certain DNA. The Kaixa belt has no such safeguards. It is an attempt to speed up cell regeneration to be faster than the rate of destabilization. Unfortunately for those who are not full Orphnochs, their bodies cannot take the strain of regenerating so quickly and they run out of resources and get sanded. Kusaka, as the control, does not have any added Orphnoch DNA, so the belt is much less dangerous for him to use. The Delta belt attempted to activate the latent Orphnoch genes that are theoretically in every human. It does have an effect on humans and the Ryusei students, giving them a power boost, but also the mood instability that affects new Orphnochs. None of these belts ended up fixing the problem, but Hanagata felt this branch had the most promise.

Experimentation on Orphnochs - Originally a branch made to study Orphnoch DNA and how they work, under Minami (of the fabulous hair), it becomes focused on finding a ‘cure’ for being an Orphnoch. He is one of the few human senior employees of Smart Brain, and one of even fewer who know that Orphnochs exist. Formerly scientific rivals with Murakami (and lovers? they had some vibes), he scorns him when he finds out he is an Orphnoch.

N.B. in this version, Lucky Clover is not a part of Smart Brain, merely a “Murder Humans” club that Murakami is affiliated with, and that he contracts murder work out to.

I have a lot more thoughts about how this show, full of genuinely interesting characters and a good premise, managed to be actually terrible in the end, but that’s a rant for another time. (Yuka and Mari were robbed! Kiba Yuji got a personality transplant for the final arc! Nobody got any character growth that wasn’t walked back a few episodes later! What was with the (accidental?) ‘Orphnochs as metaphor for homosexuality’ thing?)

*rider wiki as a source is to be taken with a handful of salt etc

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

12.what headcanon will you keep implementing in your fics, even if canon ends up contradicting it?

Oh there are plenty that I keep on the back burner.

Membrane’s Grandparents were poor and/or farmers. 

I know in the latest issue it showed scientist parents... But I like to think the smartest man in the world had a more humble upbringing and his Dad had a very strong work ethic. 

The only thing I don’t really like about the Scientist parent idea that the comics showed really DOES mean that they KNEW what Uranium 238 was, knew that their son asked for it, and gave him a never-ending avalanche of socks for Christmas anyways and said it was from “Santa”

Like.... I assume so, Membrane...

Even then, When my parents personally did the Santa thing, Santa would give me the cool gifts, and then the lame gifts like socks were from the parents... 

I can’t help but view the gift of a sock-avalanche from SCIENTIST PARENTS as nothing but an act of mal-intent, even if the issue doesn’t frame it that way.

There’s also the issue of Membrane inheriting Membrane Labs from his parents when their faces are nowhere to be seen if Membrane just took the reigns of an already established company... Sure, maybe his parents made their son the face of their company like some sort of Wendys situation... but Membrane’s ADULT face is what the face of Membrane labs is...  Wouldn’t his parents use his cute child face for a brand? Even if the company had no branding or merch until Membrane took over the company it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

I MUCH PREFER the idea that Membrane built Membrane labs as a company from the ground up based entirely on tenacity, spite and his intelligence. 

The idea that the smartest man in the world just was BORN INTO this lifestyle of science puts a VERY sour taste in my mouth..

ESPECIALLY with the other characters in Invader Zim and in Johnen Vasquez work in general. Characters like Zim and Dib always work hard to get to where they want to be... and I like the idea that Membrane is the RESULT of putting in that hard work, but he completely neglected himself on a social and interpersonal relationship level. 

I’m sure the Scientist parents were meant as a joke to further compare to how Membrane and Dib are alike... and the generational cycle of abuse... and the mean-spirited joke of his parents gifting him socks does fit the IZ world... but I don’t like it.

If his parents were POOR or Farmers, or just didn’t have access to or couldn’t afford Uranium 238, THAT MAKES WAY MORE SENSE to me. 

Then it would seem like his parents did it more as a 

“He won’t ask for anything else.”  or “Naughty children only get socks” thing 

rather than a:

“Yeah, we know exactly what that is and have access to it... but our kid could blow his face off, so have a bunch of socks instead ya gremlin” 

I just like to think Membrane’s childhood was fairly humble, and he was a feral scientist child and really bright and his parents didn’t know how to handle him, and He was an extreme Mama’s boy. Also the Poor upbringing would explain his workaholic tendencies without having the Scientist parents. 

Sorry Eric Trueheart, you can pry “Poor upbringing” Membrane from my cold dead hands.

I will take those character designs and that Grandpa Membrane smoked a pipe though. Those are amazing. 

Zim’s Computer (and all other irken Computers) AI Brains used to be living Irkens before getting culled. 

I made an analysis about it on my old account, but I can’t find it cause Tumblr really screwed up the search engine on that account. But anyways... in two more chapters in Tech Support, we’ll get to find out Computer’s “tragic backstory” (tm) Like that chapter is coming after the current one I’m writing. 

Irken blood is Pink

I don’t care if Dark Green blood makes sense from a biological standpoint... I just need Vaperwave and Cyberpunk auestetics. It’s more of a visual thing.

I think Dib has the potential to grow into a real caring young man if he’s properly nurtured and learns how to grow and I possess a strong dislike “loser” Adult Dib.

I’m sure you know what I mean... Crackhead Adult Dib, Feral Adult Dib, Miserable adult Dib...

Nothing against those Dibs... It’s been shown on the record that Dib having a miserable adult future is probably what Johnen wants for his character. (The doodles and streams I’ve seen Johnen draw of his characters as adults as drug addicts or just working dead-end jobs wasn’t enough) 

I even like asshole kid Dib, and asshole teen Dib, but I really want to believe Dib will mellow out a lot when he gets older and learn how to be considerate. 

Maybe I’m being too unrealistic, and I know there is a MAJOR market for Rat-man Miserable Dib in this fandom... I’ve seen like so many versions of him. But it’s not for me.

I think it’s partially because Dib is exactly how I was as a kid, and I grew up to be a pretty mellow and caring person. (for the most part) 

I just want to see Dib to grow up to be chill and mostly happy. 

Zim is the most defective Irken in the history of the Irken Empire. HOWEVER: By human standards, Zim is fairly average, just neurodivergent. 

I know that I’ve seen some analysis on how Zim, “Almost works” and while I do agree, I still think that Zim is the most defective of his species. 

He’s the only one who caused the Control Brains on Judgementia to go insane and he tends to be a pariah and a liability to everyone around him. Caused the death of two Almighty Tallest and a majority of other things that take place throughout the show, comics and deleted episodes alike. The Comics even mentioned that Zim is completely delusional and has some core memory issues.

(I’ve never even explained how Zim perceives the Judgementia arc in my au yet simply cause he doesn’t want to talk about or mention it yet... ) 

But a lot of Zim’s issues or “insane”-ness as the Irken empire sees it are fairly Normal issues for humans. Zim is just marked as the “most” defective simply because a lot of his “symptoms” are actually just very normal autistic or borderline/bipolar things. And that’s probably what he’d get diagnosed with by human standards.

Zim just feels things too strongly and has a terrible delusional memory and obsessively lies to himself to try to fit the mold of what a perfect irken soilder should be (in his mind) 

I have a feeling some of Zim’s PAK errors can be things as simple as: “can’t sit still.” “first words: I love you” , “short attention span” “overly emotional” and that’s marked as major concern to the empire.

But there are more serious ones like “Corrupted Memory drive.” “destructive” “delusional” etc...

But a majority of the list of what makes Zim, Zim are VERY common autism traits...

so if you give him that human diagnosis and then just examine Zim under HUMAN standards....

He’s not that bad at all.... 

Irkens can purr, chitter, and make a variety of sounds very similar to ants chittering combined with a cat. But typically, only defective Irkens seem to make these noises, and my Zim makes more of these noises and reverts to more primitive irken behaviors when he feels he doesn’t need to keep up appearances to be “NORMAL” anymore. In Irken Standards or Human standards. 

Zim is a weird Irken and sometimes things he does is not indicative to how other irkens act or behave, even though Dib uses it as a framework for a lot of his research, but a majority of it is just wrong because it’s Zim. 

THE COMPUTER IS A CHARACTER TOO! LET HIM DO THINGS! EVEN IN THE BACKGROUND OR A SUPPORTING CAST MEMBER... PLEASE... (I will die on this hill) 

GIR is smart and extremely perceptive. Also a hill I die on. I got into this fandom writing a thousand word essay on GIR and I still stand by all those points. GIR is smart... he’s just feral. And GIR can tend to notice things other characters don’t just cause his world-view is so simple. Zim and Dib think like one of those Pipe Windows screen savers... While GIR thinks in a straight line. 

Zim would rather create a maze to go through to get the cheese, rather than GIR who would just not bother with the maze and eat the cheese. 

GIR has great moments of clarity throughout the show, such as in Plauge of Babies and Walk of Doom

“Dib’s seen us before and he knows where we live”

“But if the big splody goes fast, won’t it get all bad?” 

Anyways... I think that’s it... I probably have a whole lot more. But those are my main ones. 

[blubberingmess]

[Little guy: Bubba] *your view*

Soulmate AU

Pairing: Bucky/chibi!bucky x male!reader

• yes, there will be another part but in Bucky's view :) sorry not sorry

Summary: A life with your grumpy chibi, before you met your soulmate.

Warning: none

Ideas for what chibi!bucky looks like (minus the ears and tail - maybe next time). Drawings aren't mine, also the gif below.

More info about the AU (Please read):

There's no particular time or date when the small version of their soulmate-- or what most people called chibi-- would randomly come out from nowhere, dressed in their favorite/mostly used clothes. They mostly appear when one turned eighteen to twenty-five. On some rare occasions, some chibis won't show up until the person turned to their thirties.

No one knows how it works, not even the scientists. They have never experimented on one because they can't, for chibis cannot be killed no matter how you tried. They only disappears when the real version of them dies. But! They can get hurt, it won't bruise or anything but they can feel the pain.

Chibis don't talk, they communicate through actions and facial expressions from what you've heard. Your soulmate's mood affected the chibi version of themself, will mostly find comfort from their 'guardian' but that's all. People will affect their chibis emotionally, but not physical feelings like pain, hunger, etc.

They also have different personalities, the same personality your soulmate already have and also the personality they would build themselves from how you would treat them.

They eat, drink, sleep like normal people would. They have a mind of their own and as smart as the person they represent.

They also age, their skin wrinkles and their hair grays as well. One woman you found out that her soulmate is twenty years older than her, a few gray streaks of hairs can be seen on her chibi.

Also, they are as small as the size of you hand - even taller depends on your soulmate. But the chibi with the size of your palm are almost always be 6ft < your soulmate. That means if you're smaller than him, your chibi self will be smaller than your palm which means it'll be so much smaller than your soulmate's palm which is.... oh god. You'll get squished! But that's okay, your chibi self can't die ;)

While your soulmate is the person representing your chibi, your chibi's soulmate is your soulmate's chibi :) chibi's are much more emotional - the real emotion of the person. For example; your soulmate is angry at you while his chibi self is not, then that means he isn't actually angry.

More info about them as you read through the story :)

Ask me anything about it if your ever confused or curious and I'll try my hardest to answer it ♡ or this AU is already made, then I apologize if I explained something wrong. This is just how I see this AU would work :)

Also, if you don't like or against fics like this, you are very much welcome to ignore this or unfollow me (igaf, boo) I support LGBTQ+ wether you like it or not~

[Chibi!Winter Soldier]

It was a cold night of December when you first met your chibi, a rather scary meeting to be honest. You were just making yourself a cup of hot cocoa when you heard a shuffling behind you, it was almost inaudible but you heard it.

Slowly turning around, you didn't see anyone, but you did saw something move on the counter just behind the large bowl of fruits you have. There's a pair of steely blue eyes on top of the bananas, quickly ducking down as soon as it saw you snapping your eyes at it. Though, it was no use, it has already been caught and the mop of brunette can still be seen from your point of view.

"You know I can see you right?" Your voice laced with amusement as you spoke, already knew what the small guy is. The chibi tensed, the top of its head poking up more from behind the yellow fruit.

"Its okay, little guy, I'm not going to hurt you," you coaxed the chibi with a soft voice, letting them know you genuinely don't mean any harm. Regardless of how calm your voice sounds, your inner self is currently freaking out at this moment. Heart hammering against your chest as you anticipate on what's about to happen; excited to finally meet your chibi, the mini version of your soulmate!

Slowly but surely, you sees him peek half of his head to the side. Frosty blue eyes staring up at you cautiously-- curiously-- as he analyze your face for a moment before slowly completely stepping out from his hiding place, an arm behind his back.

You immediately noticed the mask that's covering the lower part of his face, and his clothes; some type of tactical gear.

Is your soulmate a soldier or something? An agent?

You were about to take a step forward to properly greet the chibi when he suddenly pulls out a knife from behind him, held by a metal arm, the same arm he's been hiding as he stepped out. A small, but surprisingly intimidating growl emits from him making you lift your hands up in surrender.

"Woah there, buddy! I thought chibis were supposed to be soft and loving? I didn't know they would also want to stab you in the freaking face!"

Another growl before he pulled out something from his thigh holster; a handgun.

You gulped. "Or two. Damn."

He didn't do anything but glare at you, and if looks could kill, you would've been six - no, sixty feet below right now. The chibi's action confuses you greatly, especially after hearing about them being really clingy and sweet towards their 'guardian'; not this!

My soulmate must be a real hot-headed motherfu--

Your thought was cut off by a low rumble that reverberated throughout the whole kitchen, disrupting the tense silence between the two of you. Looking around the kitchen and back down at the small, feisty chibi, you gave him a nervous smile and asks, "You hungry?"

The chibi's eyes flickers at the warm mug behind you then back up at your eyes, silently asking - no- commanding you. You cautiously and slowly dropped down your right hand, stiffening as you heard him cocked his tiny gun.

You doubt it could actually kill you but it still looks intimidating, especially the little guy who is aiming it at you.

"I'm just gonna give you the mug, see?" You grabbed the now warm cocoa and a thin straw you didn't know you'll actually need until now. Slowly making your way towards the counter where he stands, you carefully placing the coffee beside him before walking backwards on your previous spot.

He gingerly lowers his weapons, tucking them back inside his pocket and holster and walked towards the mug, not before giving you a warning look.

"Cookies?" You didng wait for a reply as you began searching through your cupboards, it's not like you expected it considering chibis can't talk.

The intimidating chibi watches you as he took a sip from the thin straw, following your every move with curious eyes. He can't help but feel guilty from his not-so-friendly first impression, it's his instinct to pull out a weapon - well, it's actually your soulmate's instinct, but there's truly nothing in his mind that could push him to actually hurt you.

Your soulmate would've done the same.

Placing the small plate of assorted cookies beside him, you crouched down and watches as he took a broken piece and began nibbling on it, giving you a chance to get a closer look at him.

His mask is now off and resting close to him, making you see his whole face. His lips are pink and a bit upturned on the sides, stubble around the lower part of his face. He looks gloomy and tired, like there's something bothering him for days - even months. No doubt there's not, from how he looks and how he acted a few minutes ago, you could instantly tell that your soulmate isn't like anybody else.

It scares you and excites you at the same time.

You came back to reality when you noticed that something is being pushed right in front of your face, it's a mini chocolate chip cookie. Trailing your eyes from the cookie and to the chibi who's holding it out for you, a smile adorned your face when you saw him looking to the side with a nonchalant look on his face, a small blush on his cheeks.

"Hey bubba? Have you seen my pen?" You mutter-ask from your spot on the couch, looking around for your pen. Bubba (What you decided to call him) opened his eyes from the armrest of the couch on your left, looking up at you while still nibbling on his plum.

It's been three year since your first meeting with your chibi and living with the little guy isn't as bad as you thought it would, just scary. He would still glare at you and send you frosty looks but only when you would do something stupid or idiotic, but he immediately warms up at you after a few days.

Bubba gave you an 'are you serious' look before lifting his flesh hand up and tapping his ears two times before lowering them back down on his half-eaten plum. You kink an eyebrow before reaching up to your right ear and felt the pen you've been looking for the past five minutes, propping your left arm on the armrest behind Bubba.

"Thanks, little dude!"

Bubba just sassily rolled his eyes before he resumed nibbling on his beloved plum, eyes closing in bliss and instinctively leaning back on your arm as he do so.

Who knew the grumpy chibi likes to cuddle and curl up against you when you're reading or working inside your office, sometimes would even take a nap on your shoulder, on top of your head, or your lap kid he feels like it.

What you also noticed is that the little guy likes to eat, a lot, he would practically order you around to make him something sweet or savory, maybe even both. You don't actually mind, you like taking care of him, you just wish you could also take care of your soulmate like how you would take care of the chibi.

You learned that if your chibi would act this way; asking for different kinds of foods and demands affection from you, that means your soulmate is craving them just as much. But sadly, you're not there to actually give him what he needs, you doubt the chibi version of yourself could... maybe?

Oh how it breaks your heart everytime.

Speaking of breaking your heart, how many times had you woken up at the sound of Bubba's whimpers and cries at early mornings around two or four. Everytime he would curl up against your chest, crying and clutching at your shirt as you let him soak your shirt with his tears.

"Hey-hey, it's okay. It's okay, Bubba. Shh, you're okay. I got you, don't worry." you cooed, scooping the chibi with both of your hands. Bubba's shaking immediately subsides the moment he felt your soft, gentle touch on his back, breathing heavily while tightening his hold on your thumb like it's his lifeline.

Glossy blue eyes looking up at you in pain and sadness; almost begging, lips quivering as tears began pouring out from his eyes. Your heart clenched inside your chest as you watched him breakdown in your hands.

You want to calm him down. You want to help him so bad to get rid of the pain, the sadness, but you can't. Unless your soulmate can't calm down, the chibi in your hands won't.

Thankfully, episodes like that don't happened often and doesn't last long - not anymore. A small mood swings here and there but it would almost always immediately diminished after a minute or two.

Your soulmate's chibi must be calming him down. Good job, me that is also not me.

When you go out which isn't that often considering you work from home-- also seeing that you don't have that much friends outside to go away with-- Bubba will be guarded and on your shoulder at all times with his small metal hand on the back of your neck. He'll always have that deep scowl on his face that only softening up when looking at you or when you offer him sweets - ice cream preferably.

You did left him one time, only coming back to a very stressed out and dishielved looking Bubba. Thinking at first that your soulmate is in another one of his heart wrenching episode, but it wasn't. You noticed it the moment you stepped inside the living room and seeing him perched up on the windowsill, his eyes immediately brightens up when he sees you - before frowning once again, crossing his arms over his chest and turning away from you with a pout.

You just sigh and didn't even make a move to hide the smile on your face.

Your chibi is such a drama queen.

[Chibi!Runningawayfromeveryone!Bucky]

You felt something lightly tickled your cheek but you're still sleepy to do anything about it, ignoring the next one your forehead, then on your other cheek, and then your temple. The small of plum and something woody with a hint of gun powder enters your nostril, a familiar scent you grew accustomed to for the past five years with your chibi.

"I'm awake. Geez, Bubba, good morning to you too." you chuckled, patting the said chibi on his head. Bubba grin up at you before giving you a sweet kiss on your nose then began nuzzling into your neck, sighing in content.

The temperature in Bucharest this time of year is quite cold but you're happy that it doesn't bother your chibi, he actually likes it. You decided to have a vacation; just you and Bubba, away from New York, your migraine inducing work - your family. It's all just too much for you to handle.

Bubba was the one who actually chose Bucharest for some unknown reason, he really wanted to go there and who are you to turn him down? Especially when he looks up at you with those big, pleading eyes of his.

Ugh. If this what your soulmate looks like, you don't know if you can handle him. You don't even know if you can say 'no' to him! Now that's scary.

Lifting up your gaze at the ceiling, a frown quickly replaced the soft smile on your face at the thought of your soulmate.

It's been five years since your chibi appeared and you're still yet to see him. You've hang out with the small group of friends you have, relatives, and even visit places you've never visited before with Bubba by your side, but it's all fruitless.

Maybe he's gone? No, Bubba is still here (snoring soundly). Maybe he don't want you? Can't be... right? Bubba likes you and find comfort in your touch. But... maybe it's just Bubba himself and not really your soulmate.

"Bubba stop moving around!" You hissed, gently grabbing the said chibi from your head. He started wriggling around like an excited puppy and tugging at your hair the moment the two of you stepped out from the hotel building, it's a weird behavior you haven't seen him in before.

"What got you so excited, little guy? We're just visiting the market nearby to buy some peaches... Maybe some plums as well. Actually, I'm craving for some corvig."

Bubba half-heartedly listened to you ramble while his eyes roams the market sharply, ears peeled and nose constantly sniffing the air. What you didn't know is that chibis will act like that-- excited and eyes darting from one place to another-- if it means your soulmate is nearby, their senses are tingling and they can feel their heart getting warmer the shorter the distance you are from your soulmate - also Bubba's too.

You stopped in the middle of the market, looking for the particular stall that sells peaches. Bubba is also looking around but for a different reason, absently clutching at his shirt where his supposedly heart is located.

"Why's there no fruit stalls around? Is it on the other side of the market?" You groaned, pulling out your phone. The people around you gave you looks, some with confusion but most of them are uneasiness, thinking you're somewhat scolding your chibi before going back to what they were doing, but now all of them had stepped/walked away from you.

It's not like you cared, the first thing on your mind right now is peaches and plums, also corvig.

You suddenly heard Bubba let out a noise, a squeak-like of grunt before scrambling off your shoulder and down to the pavement with ease. It took you a few seconds to comprehend what just happened before snapping out of it and sprinting towards where Bubba run off to.

Damn, didn't know chibis could run so fast.

"Bubba! Where are-- you." Your last word changed it's aim from Bubba to the man before you, staring back at you with the same surprised expression on his face. His hands are half stretched in front of him before dropping them down to his sides, straightening his back.

Your eyes swing down to the two chibis who are currently busy hugging each other, giggling as hearts and flowers practically floats around them. You watched as Bubba kissed the other chibi on the cheek before nuzzling his head on his shoulder, who squeaked in happiness before burying his face on his chest, obviously much more smaller that Bubba.

The chibi is... you - a chibi version of you exactly; dressed like you and almost looks exactly like you.

Gazing back up at the big version of Bubba or your soulmate, you cleared your throat and was about to step forward to introduce yourself when he suddenly took a step back, his left hand quickly moved to his back.

And then he growls.

You whole body steeled once you heard the sound left his lips and your hands are lifted up in a split second, enough to for him to notice but not enough draw any attention towards the both of you.

With him ready to pull out a weapon behind his back whilst glaring at you with ice-cold, guarded look in his eyes, and you with your hands up in surrender was all too familiar it makes you want to laugh and crack a joke.

"I thought soulmates were supposed to be soft and loving? I didn't know they would also want to stab you in the freaking face!"

Please tag me if you ever tried this Soulmate AU. I really want to read one 💕💕 I hope you enjoyed it. There's a part 2 but in Bucky's view of chibi!You suddenly popping up in his life like fairy god mother.

If there are misused words or wrong grammars, don't be shy to tell me!

[iced-souls]

Be walkin home from school and then I be gettin big undertale ideas just thwacked into my brain-

Ight, so just got the theory that gaster is a being like the people from the movie US, where basically every real world monster, or maybe also human, has like a version of themselves in the void or some section of the void. I’m thinking now that it might be cooler if humans don’t have a version, where the void-guy is kinda connected to the body magic that monsters contain, humans being made of magic more so just focusing on the soul.

ANYWAYS. So, the void-guys are kinda like their original. Their looks have the chance of looking the exact same, but because of of the disconnection most of the time the void-guys end up only having features/resemblances to their originals. Like they’d be related or something. As for how they act, it’s basically pretty much the same thing, except somewhat closer to being exact. The thing that can make the 2 much different is that the void-guy has a goal of fully connecting the 2 bodies, which I’ll explain in a bit.

First, let’s make an example of one of these dudes; let’s use papyrus and void-papyrus. So you probably know what papyrus looks like, so void-papyrus would probably look like some random skeleton, around papyrus’s height but maybe a liiittle shorter, and I think you get the dealio. Personality, papyrus is smart, seems to gain some kind of good relationship before any confrontations, confronts people for one thing, enthusiastic for the things he likes/loves, loves making things, etc. void-papyrus would have the same things, except everything that they do leads towards the goal of connecting the 2/ a goal. May remind of some versions out their of a certain dude. *cough**cough*gaster*cough**cough*.

So now, the goal of connection, what the Frick is that iced?? Well I’m thinking that in order to connect the 2 bodies supposedly 1 of the bodies would have to enter this special lil door within the void that supposedly kills them, sending out the magic from that body, entering the other making “1 being”. Different void-guys have different ways of doing so however because of the personalities. Like, maybe someone like undyne’s version would just get straight to the point and lift up undyne and throw her in, but might not know how to get back to the void-. And maybe someone like alphys’s wouldn’t actually do anything because of anxiety, and possibly spill the beans, but that could make people have a lot of trust in her, so if they go somewhere and void-alphys see’s a great opportunity, her bravery might kick in and result in fooling alphys.

Now back to the beginning, gaster. It came up with the idea that gaster is ‘void-papyrus’, just somehow purposely or accidentally got out the void somehow, and being the first of the void-guys to do so. I think. So knowing papyrus, in gaining relationship’s before confrontation and loving his brother, gaster lives like a normal dude, except not so normal cause he becomes the frickin royal scientist, but you might be wondering how the heck he became the royal scientist rather than papyrus? Because gaster has the goal that involves the science stuff to get back to the void. Knowing that both papyrus and his bro like science stuff, becoming the royal scientist now has 2 gateways. 1, get the materials and permission, meaning no interruptions really, to do stuff. 2, knowing papyrus never really entirely wanted to be a scientist cause there wasn’t as much reason to, if gaster became a big figure/inspo, 1 he could plain and simple get papyrus hired after papyrus gets the inspo, or 2 sans who also likes science get the inspo which could give papyrus more inspo because he’s be working with his brother. So now papyrus and sans are scientists working with gaster. Sans and gaster work great together and are great friends cause gasters pretty much papyrus which means good match. Papyrus and papyrus i mean gaster work great together because they got the same mindset and like the same things. Now you can sort of get what’s going to happen based on the above.

So, the crew works on a machine, gets better relationships, machines done, gaster confrontation time. Might tell papyrus where he’s from, not the goals exactly, but now thinking about my other thing of of this, gaster might have papyrus’s selflessness, meaning he wants to free the other void-guys. So 2 ideas of what happens.

1. Gaster tells papyrus the full plan, papyrus disagrees and leaves. Gaster asks sans to come along for the ride, sans texts papyrus, papyrus now has to go over there to stop it all. So either papyrus gets there and sans, papyrus, and gaster go to the void, or papyrus get sans out of the way and it’s just gaster and papyrus. 1, in the void while trying to get back to the real world, backlash mixes with gaster and something else happens maybe along it all or afterwards causing people to forget about him. Or 2, papyrus get there and in mid machine start papyrus breaks the machines, affecting gaster who’s controlling the dang thing, bringing him to the void all goopy and forgotten. In the blast and moment separates the brothers and gasters existence. Sans might not really know remember exactly what happen, or he does remember, and that could be a cool concept when papyrus and him talk about it.

2. Gaster doesn’t tell him the goal, but tells him about the other void-guys ‘just being stuck there and nothing else’. Papyrus agrees and when they get to the void. Gaster nearly gets him into the door thing, but after papyrus seems suspicious, gaster builds up telling him what actually’s about to happen. In the midst of trying to push papyrus into the door with maybe a bit of wrestling, gaster slightly enters the door, but not entirely, that causes a lot of pain and starts gooping, but gives papyrus the escape gateway, he gets outta there, on his way out using the machine, gaster has some last attempt so being in the range of the machine gets hit with the backlash, causing his erased existence. I like this one cause it’s got ACTION in ma mind-!

Aftermath: papyrus and sans either way still care about him because of the relationships they had with him. Gaster is his wonky looking self as we see in the game.

Now I’m gonna make a part 2 either today or tomorrow for some bonus stuff on the gaster followers and that extra thing I thought about relating to this that I mentioned-

[dipteshblogger]

What is Blockchain?

Unless you have been on a long nomadic trip or, have been living under a rock, you would have come across a term called Crypto-currency, the likes of Bitcoin, and Ethereum. The Transactions of these crypto-currencies are carried out digitally since these are virtual currencies. This is where Blockchain technology comes into play.

Blockchain is a decentralized, distributed ledger technology that records the origin and existence of digital assets using a peer-to-peer network.

In simple words, a large set of a database that permanently records all the Digital currency transactions. Transactions take place on a peer-to-peer basis unlike on centralized data systems of banks. These data blocks are added only after all the other nodes authenticate the transactions and reach a common consensus.

It is sometimes referred to as Distributed Ledger Technology(DLT), which aids the distribution of digital asset transactions (not copied or transferred). This revolutionary technology is a saviour, which the digital assets rely on for transparency. Blockchain reduces the risk of fraud and dependence on third-party verification.

Block consists of data related to digital asset transactions, a unique hash number, and a Unique Blockheader. The succeeding block consists of the hash number previously formed block. These blocks are connected such that it becomes a chain of blocks. Hence named Blockchain.

Let’s consider an Analogy:

Blockchains can be considered as a large set of Data storing structures that are identical to spreadsheets, but you cannot edit the data once that enters, and any changes to that data should constitute a new block, or append!!

These sets of data are not stored in one single centralized server but on a lot of its user’s devices, hence distributed. Of course, there are more functionalities to the blockchain, but this must give you a very simple idea to define this not so easily definable technology.

History of Blockchain

The idea of blockchain protocol was first proposed by Cryptographer David Chaum in his 1982 dissertation “Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups.

However, the year 1991 was regarded as important for the blockchain, when computer scientists Stuart Haber and W Scott Stornetta introduced a practical solution for timestamping digital documents so that they could not tamper.

The technology or the system uses the secured chain of Blocks backed by the cryptography method to store the timestamp documents. MERKLE TREE in 1992 came up with the Blockchain’s Design to make it more efficient by allowing several documents to be collected and stored in one block.

But unfortunately, the patent lapsed in the year 2004. After this, Stefan Konst published his theory of cryptographically secured chains, plus ideas for implementation. Computer scientist Nick Szabo works on ‘bit gold’, a decentralized digital currency. Hal Finney, a computer scientist, and Cryptographic analyst introduced the Reusable proof of work (R PoW). It can be considered as the earliest prototype for Blockchain technology.

However, it took almost three decades to see the first blockchain implementation in the real world by a person (or group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. Nakamoto significantly improved the design using a Hashcash-like method to timestamp blocks without requiring them to be signed by a trusted party.

Types of Blockchain

There are at least four main types of blockchains that are in use: Public blockchains, Private blockchains, Hybrid blockchain & Sidechain.

1. Public blockchains

As the name suggests, these types of blockchains have no access restrictions. These are usually open-source and are transparent to everybody with Internet access. Anybody can take part in the process of validation to submit the proof of work and maybe incentivized proportionately!!

Another very important feature of a public blockchain is that it is designed to be not owned by an organization or an individual, hence completely decentralized.

Ex: Bitcoin blockchain, Ethereum blockchain, etc.

2. Private blockchains

Private blockchains, also called permissioned blockchains, unlike public blockchains, have restrictions on who can access the network. These are administered by an administrator, who approves the access of users in the ecosystem.

Primary users may include individuals or companies who want their transactions or data to be secure and only accessible by the selected few, Hence centralized. The advantage of private blockchain over the public blockchain is that the consensus or verification mechanism takes less time.

The similarities between blockchain are that these perform similar functions :

· Both function as an append-only ledger- where no data can be altered or edited once validated.

· Both blockchains types have a complete set of transaction ledgers on each node, Hence distributed over peer-to-peer.

· Validation is only approved after the majority of the nodes reach a consensus.

Examples: Ripple (XRP) and Hyperledger

3. Hybrid blockchain

Hybrid blockchains are a combination of public and private blockchain systems depending on the needs of the users and the applications. These types are best for companies that are working on some secret projects hosted on a private blockchain, but also have a product that needs to be used by their customers, hence should be a public blockchain.

4. Sidechain

Sidechains can be classified to be blockchain ledgers that can run in parallel with the primary blockchain. Entries from primary sources can be stored and linked if needed, with a different algorithm. It could be used as a backup blockchain.

How does Blockchain work?

Blockchain is a distributed, decentralized public ledger which is a continuously appending list of records that are stored in the form of blocks. These blocks in a blockchain are secured through cryptography, which keeps the confidentiality of the transactions intact.

A blockchain is a time-stamped series of immutable (tamper-proof) records of data that is not managed by a central authority but managed by a cluster of computers, called nodes.

So imagine, John wants to invest in digital assets, so he has to carry out transactions, and he does that on an electronic device! When John requests blockchain for a transaction, he gets connected to a person directly without the interference of any third party like a bank. This is called a peer-to-peer system.

A Block is initiated for storing the transaction details. The data formed at this level is sent throughout the network to identify the transaction’s authenticity. The first Device(node) that verifies the transaction gets awarded.

When John’s transaction gets verified, it becomes a part of this database permanently that stores all the transactions. This database is used additionally to validate other such transactions on a peer-to-peer network, if necessary.

If John wants to sell his digital assets to another person, the original block created while he purchased the digital assets, will remain the same. To record the new transaction between John and the buyer, a new Block will be created on the Blockchain network with another unique number.

Let’s consider an example: A Scientific Research Lab, that is conducting trials for a vaccine against a deadly virus! Every iteration of the vaccine trial is to be recorded to observe the progress! If the data of vaccine trials are saved on a server database, there are chances that the data stored may get formatted, deleted or can be erased/manipulated by Hackers.

But in Blockchain, one can neither erase the data that is once stored nor can they manipulate it. It is so safe, that it has not been hacked despite all the efforts. Any changes to the data result in the creation of a new block, and the previous version of that data remains in its original form. Mainly, this data can be accessed from any part of the world, if the system is connected with the blockchain platform.

Also, the transaction when completed produces data related to transactions and will be stored in blocks, which are chained together with the help of the Hash number of the previous block.

Regarding safety, the network is decentralized, no single person can alter the asset according to their specific needs but has to be validated by the majority of the nodes. As long as a single organization or a person owns the majority of the assets over the blockchain network, the assets on the network cannot be modified or altered. Hence it is safe.

Evolution of the Blockchain technology

All the inventions need timely upgrades to solve the issues related to the previous version and for better performance, blockchain technology also has been modernized over time and requirements.

Bitcoin/Currency

Cryptocurrency, mainly Bitcoin, is the first use case of blockchain technology. It allows financial transactions based on DLT.

Smart Contracts

After the blockchain technology was separated from bitcoin to discover more use cases, the Ethereum blockchain came into existence aiming to execute smart contracts. It is intended to reduce the cost of verification, execution, and fraud prevention. Smart contracts are the predefined computer programs that contain the terms and conditions of the agreements between the two parties. They cannot be altered or changed.

Dapps

DApps or decentralized applications work similar to other normal applications but, the only difference is that Dapps work on peer-to-peer networks such as blockchain.

Blockchain for Business

Blockchain 4.0 aims at implementing blockchain 3.0 in real-life commercial usage. Some of the real-life use cases are supply chain management, financial sectors, and healthcare.

Different types of consensus protocols are used for validating transactions on the blockchain

A consensus algorithm is a procedure through which all the peers of the Blockchain network reach a common agreement about the present state of the distributed ledger. In this way, consensus algorithms achieve reliability in the Blockchain network and establish trust between unknown peers in a distributed computing environment. New blocks in the blockchains are added only after the transaction details are verified and the consensus is reached.

Here are some of the algorithms designed:

1. Proof of Work (PoW)

2. Proof of Stake (PoS)

3. Delegated proof-of-stake

4. Proof-of-Authority(PoA)

5. Proof-of-Elapsed-Time(PoET)

Benefits Of Blockchain in Cryptocurrency

· The need for a physical or trust-based validation process is eliminated.

· Better speed of transactions.

· Better connectivity in a peer-to-peer system.

· Transactions may be carried out irrespective of time, location, unlike banking processes.

· Accessible from anywhere in the world.

· Lower transaction charges. Lower transaction failure risks.

· No risk of double-spending.

· Less fear of account suspensions.

· No need to secure a minimum balance to carry out transactions.

Future of Blockchain

Blockchain has advanced over years and has proved its trustworthy technology. It is easily scalable as a data structure. Blockchain can be used by banking sectors, as Card payment transaction ledgers, in stock markets for keeping a record of stock delivery and verify with ease.

Blockchain enables us to perform more transactions digitally and reduces the risks involved in the present system. The current financial system works on the trustworthiness of the financial institutions or the governments.

The Blockchain system reduces the transaction charges significantly since the verification is done by algorithms in a matter of minutes. without third parties such as banks and financial institutions.

Possible use case scenarios of Blockchains in the Future:

· Maintaining medical records of the patients in hospitals

· Payments or asset transfers around any part of the world

· Real-time IoT operating systems

· Personal identity security

· Anti-money laundering tracking system

· Supply chain management and logistics monitoring

· The voting mechanism for democratic countries

· Keeping records of governance or history

· Advertising insights Original content creation

· Cryptocurrency exchange

· The real estate processing platform

Final Thoughts:

Blockchain, since its inception in 2008, has proved its worth over the current systems in place which is less efficient. Understanding the importance of technology, many central banks and governments have shown interest to study and adopt blockchain for good.

Although there is room for improvement, it is to be observed how technology will be implemented by various beneficiary industries!!

[thearchiveofaus]

The Magnus Archives | Assassination Classroom AU (version A probably)

(long post, so the rest is under the cut)

The archival staff + several other characters are part of some prestigious school’s Class 3-F, for “problem kids” and the bottom 5% of students at the school

Class 3-F always endure horrific discrimination on top of poor learning conditions and it seems this year’s class is no exception

But on the first day of the school year something mysteriously destroys around 70% of the moon, leaving it in a permanent crescent shape

Around a week later, a strange creature appears in their class proclaiming to be responsible for the moon’s destruction, and also their new class teacher

The students are then assigned by the government to kill the creature in one year, during which he will be teaching them both normal school subjects and also train them to become assassins

The unkillable teacher is Elias

(no last name given and also probably no catchy nickname)

He’s not evil or manipulative or anything, he’s genuinely polite and cheery and strict but kind to the students and really passionate about teaching them all

But he’s also really blunt and goofy and extra at times

Appearance-wise I have no idea what he looks like yet (*ﾟｰﾟ)ゞ

but I imagine he’s probably monster!Jon adjacent at least - humanoid but also clearly monstrous, maybe mothy?? wings????, EYES

His expressions do not change (maybe he has no facial features other than eyes at all) but his eyes change color depending on his mood

Normal is emerald green, smug is kinda yellow and glowy, etc.

I imagine he can move and fly really fast but not as fast as Korosensei in canon - Elias goes about mach 16-18 tops, probably

But his reflexes are mad quick it’s really hard to catch him off-guard

Maybe because he’s got multiple eyes and can see multiple directions

He’s also brilliant and can predict people pretty well after observing them enough time

Elias teaches most of the subjects all by himself

Eventually he’s joined by two other teachers tho don’t worry

Adelard Dekker is a preacher turned government agent assigned to monitor Elias and the class, while also teaching physical education and combat (unarmed, with a knife, with two knives, with various guns, etc.) and also marksmanship

Annabelle Cane is a renowned assassin who was assigned to teach foreign languages and social manipulation

Well initially she was aiming to assassinate Elias herself and didn’t care about teaching, but after seeing his dedication to teaching them she decides to stick around

If a student is willing she can also teach them the art of deception, seduction, and/or intimidation as a way to reach a target

Class 3-F is in the school basement, in the area not occupied by the boiler and pipes and other basement stuff

It’s dimly lit and musty, there’s only a classroom and a small and usually understocked science lab, one tiny office (shared between Elias, Adelard, and Annabelle), and a grubby ass unisex bathroom down there

Elias quickly gets fed up with it and digs some big tunnels for them

It’s dark as fuck and kinda spooky but it’s easy to get used to

And Elias put so much shit in the tunnels

There’s literally a sport’s field and marathon track in one of the tunnels so the students can have PE where no one can see?? he tried to add a sunroof to another tunnel??? underground library??? Elias what the fuck

The tunnels do lead to exits above ground in various places, mostly back alleys and stuff, but the students get to class through the main school building mostly

And now for some of the students

Jon was initially aloof and cold to everybody and didn’t trust Elias at all

But then he tries suicide-bombing Elias and he almost succeeds, and he gets both praised for catching Elias off-guard and also scolded for putting himself in danger and after that he warms up to Elias a lot

He’s also really observant and makes notes on Elias’s weaknesses and eventually he warms up to his classmates too

Martin was actually sent down bc he was caught working part-time at a cafe to support himself and his mum (side jobs are against school rules actually)

He’s really sweet and supportive and friendly to everybody but at the start of the story he kinda lacks much of a backbone

Then it turns out he’s got a talent for lying and tricking people and he eventually grows stronger and even gathers the courage to confront his mum

(It doesn’t exactly go well and Martin stays with the Stoker family after that, but he’s far happier)

Speaking of which, Tim’s noticed his little bro Danny acting kinda strange and has let his grades drop to worry over Danny, which led Tim to Class 3-F

Everyone expected him to excel in social manipulation, even maybe taking up seduction, but he far prefers training in marksmanship and has even learned to set up bombs

There’s two Sasha Jameses in the class by coincidence; they’re not blood related (one’s got long brown hair, the other has short red hair; brunette!Sasha is also not white, and ginger!Sasha is taller) but they can work with each other remarkably well

Brunette!Sasha’s actually really smart, but struggled through burnout during the previous year and her grades plummeted, sending her to Class 3-F

Ginger!Sasha’s talent leans closer to disguise and deception as opposed to observation

Melanie and Gerry were both suspended for the first couple weeks, for attacking several students and trashing Mr. Leitner’s office respectively, but they quickly come back in once they’ve done their time

They’re both familiar with Jon; Melanie and him get along like bickering siblings, while Gerry was close to him in first year but they eventually drifted apart

Melanie excels in knife combat especially, and she utterly hates Elias at first and actively targets him

Until eventually Elias protects her from a particularly rash assassination attempt, which earned him her trust, though she’s still mean to him at times

Gerry, on the other hand, is good at both short-ranged and long-ranged combat, and also at making traps

Actually, let’s just say Gerry’s really well-rounded in general; he’s good at a lot of subjects, but doesn’t excel at any in particular

Michael and Helen are both transfer students designed specifically to work together to assassinate Elias; they were intended to be transferred in together, but in the end Michael was sent over first and Helen came later on

Michael is a literal killing machine - a box of guns with the face of a human boy on a screen, meant to provide firepower while Helen attacked from up close

At first he had no programmed personality and only knew attacking, until Elias reprogrammed him and gave him a personality and additional abilities

He installed his program onto everyone’s phones and loves messing with them all, but is really helpful when it’s needed

Helen is considered the superior assassin to Michael, and was meant to cover the short-ranged combat

It turns out that she was actually given this gene thing similar to Elias, giving her similar-ish abilities to her (she’s faster, but doesn’t have the eyes and instead has claws and stretchy limbs(?? maybe))

Eventually Elias convinces her to let the thing go and be a normal student learning with the others

Georgie is in a regular class (3-C), but she’s friends with both Jon and Melanie and regularly defends them both from harassment by other students

There’s also the top five students in each of the core school subjects, all of them in Class 3-A, consisting of Agnes, Jude, Nikola, Manuela, and Jane

(I really cannot think of anything to say about them though ;-;)

Elias’s backstory probably matches Korosensei’s really

World’s deadliest assassin/the God of Death (that’s his literal moniker) is betrayed by his student and captured, then experimented on by some mad scientist

The scientist manning the experiment is Jonah Magnus

Gertrude Robinson was one of his right-hands (who also taught for Class 3-F during the day), but she instead grew fond of Elias and talked to him

And when Elias destroyed the lab in his escape after the moon blew up (because of an experiment rat on the moon surface, it really wasn’t his fault - you might as well read assassination classroom it’s really good and explained in more detail) Gertrude was killed in the ensuing chaos

She made Elias promise to teach the students of Class 3-F for her with her dying breath, and Elias chose to make good of that promise

(I’m also thinking maybe the God of Death doesn’t have a birthname but the disciple’s name was Elias, and the God of Death decides to use that as his own name too)

(that’s all i can think of for now ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ)

[sendin52]

by Denny Hunt for GetWisdom.com

Introduction:

Karl Mollison is a research scientist and psychic medium and has discovered the means through which a tiny percentage of people throughout history have successfully made direct contact with God, Creator of All That Is. With this ability, he has done what any reasonable person in such an unusual and surprising situation would do: ask endless questions! Why is God invisible to us? Why is there rampant evil in the world? Are there dark unseen forces working against us? Why has God not intervened to stop it? Why do good people suffer?

His quest to find the secrets of the Universe led him to real answers for human suffering in the form of a Lightworker Healing Protocol. This protocol is basically a high level prayer to God, for healing; not just any healing, but deep healing from dark spirit infestation, karmic healing from past traumas, and well as emotional and physical healing. The direct contact with God in this case was, and continues to be, in service to healing and not just satisfying curiosity. This fact alone gives some credentials that should be considered seriously before judgment is passed.

Now, it seems, we are about to experience an event being called “disclosure” where allegedly the world’s governments will finally admit to contact with extraterrestrials or the ET’s themselves will make their presence known to humankind.  There are many scenarios and claims about this thing called disclosure.  Karl has asked many questions about this in his channelings with Source Creator.

This is one of them:

QUESTION:

Pres. Ronald Reagan, in a speech to the United Nations to encourage greater cooperation among nations, proposed the idea that if the world were faced with an extraterrestrial invader, we would come together to protect the common interests of humanity. This has been remarked on a number of times as perhaps a telling slip because he has been rumored to have been told there was a large fleet of vessels built by the U.S. military and capable of space travel, so he was aware of the long-standing collaboration of the U.S. government with extraterrestrials. Photos of his typed speech text show this comment was crossed out, which has been attributed to someone in his inner circle editing the speech beforehand, but he rewrote the remark by hand just prior to giving the speech and then delivered it in public. Was this done at the behest of the Extraterrestrial Alliance to test the waters about making disclosure of an extraterrestrial agenda, or was it perhaps divine inspiration to encourage planting a seed about the extraterrestrial presence being a reality?

ANSWER:

“Writers have disclosed that Reagan was told about the Secret Space Program, that creation of many spacecraft developed with the cooperation of the presumed benevolent extraterrestrials was a reality, and that the purpose was for protection of the planet from hostile alien invaders that could become a serious problem. So Reagan was primed with the party line, so to speak, that this Secret Space Program, which you know to be truly the Mercenary Army Program, was not only a helpful adjunct but critical to the future of the world, so he took this to heart and felt quite strongly that it would benefit the world to truly be aware of this. That was the reason for its inclusion in the text of the speech to begin with, as it was a divine suggestion to have this stated openly in order to make people aware, finally, of the reality of the extraterrestrial presence in the world.

So the fact he mentioned this, was not a desire of the Extraterrestrial Alliance at that point in time to make people aware that a Secret Space Program existed, and was far advanced, because they knew it would raise too many uncomfortable questions. This was a divine inspiration for him to include this comment because it was capitalizing on his humanitarian desire for world peace, and the fact that it was edited out was truly an attempt to avoid disclosing, even through inference, top secret information. The impulse for him to override this normal crosscheck to avoid a mistake was divine and the purpose, as you saw intuitively, was to instill the idea of an extraterrestrial presence in people’s thinking. Everyone who heard his speech and everyone who hears a replay of his speech today, is given a divine impulse to pay attention to its true meaning—that there is an extraterrestrial presence, the extraterrestrials are real, they are here, and it is a threat to the world that warrants the world coming together with a common purpose and goal of seeing these interlopers be removed.”

I like to use deductive logic or the law enforcement approach when they are investigating a crime; it is a method of inquiry where I consider motive, means and opportunity. It doesn’t always give me the right answer, but I can sometimes save myself some false moves along the way and also end up with the most plausible answer.

Let’s look at some of the more popular disclosure narratives and see what we come up with.

1) This version of disclosure deals with the possibility that the world’s governments, one or more of them, will finally admit that there are ET’s and they know about them and have interacted with them and obtained technologies. Disclosure will result in the dissemination of free energy technologies with the result being that the state will no longer be able to control the population in terms of labor slavery, taxation, monetary controls, and victimless crimes, etc.  It is kind of utopian speculation about what humans would do if they had free energy and transportation devices that unshackled them from the fascist oligarchs that run the world. A new type of technological freedom will spread all over the world. Manipulative governments and multi-national corporations would subside into the past and become irrelevant. Sober anarchism with the credo - do no harm would rise to the top like cream. In some versions, some form of dimensional ascension would follow.

2) In this disclosure narrative the claim is that ET’s are all benevolent and if they weren’t, they would’ve already eliminated humans so they could occupy earth unhindered.  Perhaps they are just respecting our free will while we work out the kinks. Enjoying the hapless humans as if it were a spectator sport. Rooting for them from the sidelines. Except if we get too far off, like using nukes, they would step in for more direct guidance. They are going to show up because the cabal has gone too far with their enslavement plans or population reduction plans and their disrespect for nature.  When they present themselves, they will let us come to our senses and accept their guidance and assistance. In some versions, some form of dimensional ascension would follow.

3) There are bad ET’s, good ET’s and some ambivalent/observer ET’s and they are all part of what some claim is this large collection of ET races that occupy this part of the galaxy and they are going to make themselves known to humans on earth due to a variety of factors depending on the version within this category of disclosure.  Then the onus is on humans collectively to decide how to navigate within this mass of competing agendas where some ET’s want us dead, some want to exploit us, some want to trade with us and some want to help us. Most of these narratives are quite complex because obviously there are factions of humans who will align with different factions of ET’s and then there might be a political free-for-all where the spiritual aspect is also in play and potentially influencing outcomes. Many proponents of narratives within this category are channelers and/or contactees who portray themselves as academic or providers of lofty and higher-level spiritual concepts. They often fancy themselves as teachers or those in possession of esoteric knowledge. In fact, entire religions and cults are often found within this category of disclosure explanations.

4) There are basically some good ET’s and then there are some bad ET’s and they are both going to appear in some fashion and for some good reason so that we can select which ones to partner with for spiritual/economic alignment and protection. This is a compelling narrative because it is very similar to our alleged history of good vs. evil and prosaic myths of spiritual conquests of light over dark; the good guy/bad guy stories that we never get tired of reading, seeing or hearing. In some ways this is a subset of #3, but I list it separately because of its obvious appeal and the likelihood that this narrative will gain prominence as things unfold. It also works nicely with the savior stories that we find in legends, myths and religions.

Most of these scenarios will put humans in an observer role.  We might have a role in what happens, but it will be along the lines of voting, where whoever gets to count the vote ends up deciding what actually happens. We are constantly checking our beloved smart phones to see what is supposedly happening and what is likely to happen next. One of these versions has to be true, right?

The last one we’ll consider is what we have learned at GetWisdom.com, i.e., the channeling work of Karl Mollison, where he is channeling departed people who have returned to the Light and/or Creator.  In this narrative we are told that there are no benevolent ET’s in contact with humans on the earth plane. They are all evil and have, as their next goal, the elimination of humans once and for all.  There is no particular reason to get rid of us, other than the fact we are unruly and considered high maintenance given the return on investment.  

These evil ET’s upon finding us here on earth again—yes, we were here once before and what we call the Divine Human Free Will Experiment failed the first time around—they set about to genetically modify us such that we would have a poor connection to our higher selves and no connection to our deep subconscious. This made us the perfect hosts for disincarnate evil spirits which infect us humans, AND for the ET cohort that currently runs the earth to control us in the manner they see fit. This cohort is comprised of the Anunnaki, the Arcturians (creators of the soul-less alien grey biological robots) and the Reptilians.  They have a tenuous and strained alliance to control the earth along with all the humans, which they use as a food source, entertainment, and as an energetic host for the evil parasitic entities that infest them and almost all humans on earth at this time. They are atheistic beings with ancient civilizations, incredible technologies and psychic abilities that dwarf most of what us humans can even imagine. Even their soul-less robots can make us fall in love at will and convince us of outlandish things with mind control capabilities and technologies that are quite beyond anything we could currently comprehend. The robotic alien Greys have a peculiar interest in us because they think they can crack the DNA code which will enable them to reincarnate.  This situation has perhaps bought us some additional time. One of these alien races has been engaged with us almost from the beginning of our Creation.  We were created on earth by Creator and the Divine Realm based on the DNA of four races of higher dimensional ET’s, including the Pleiadians and the Sirians. These higher dimensional ET’s have a hands-off policy and are letting this Divine Human Free Will Experiment play out in accordance with the Divine Realm’s rules for this earthly adventure.

So I would claim that this GetWisdom.com version of things is not really a disclosure narrative, because it does not rely on the government or the ET’s doing anything as we see in the other descriptions, 1 through 4 above. In the examples above, either the government(s) are going to admit or reveal something to the general public or the ET’s or some faction thereof are going to present themselves or let themselves be “discovered.”  What is claimed here is not a situation where we are going to wait to see what happens. In other words, we already know what is happening and why.

You could say, we are pre-empting disclosure.  We are giving you the low-down before it really happens. The problem with our version is that it appears to be uniformly bad news.  There is no silver lining in this advance warning. We’ll get to that later. For now, let’s look at these other disclosure narratives and see what they have to offer and whether they can pass the smell test.

1. There seems to be one consistent thing throughout human history; there is always the state or a controlling religion or an upper class oligarchy running the show. What would be the motivation for any of those to reveal something like free energy technologies? How would they be ‘forced’ or compelled to do something like that? How would they benefit?  Some in this camp have claimed that there will be some sort of event where there is a solar flash which results in a higher state of consciousness for humans; an ascension story that goes along with the disclosure.  Perhaps that is how these oligarchs come to their senses and decide that everyone should get access to free energy technologies. Does that pass the smell test?  Where do the ET’s fit in? Do they stand idly by as us humans get intergalactic toys, limitless abundance and somehow a more mature and egalitarian mindset in the bargain? I think there are some compelling aspects to this disclosure narrative, but you kind of have to ignore some other truths when looking at the current state of affairs and the seeming trajectory of human history.

2. If the ET’s are all benevolent what were they doing when the Soviet government was killing more than 60 million of their own people? Or what were they doing when the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan? Or when Mao Tse-Tung was exterminating his population of Chinese citizens?  Or when the gas chambers in Nazi Germany were running at full tilt in 1944?  Is this just part of the free will experiment as defined by these same ‘benevolent’ ET’s? For me, this is the weakest disclosure narrative of them all. I am surprised that there are still so many people who believe that all of the ET’s out there are benevolent. Some say that this is like a hostage situation where these benevolent ET’s are not going to make their move because the evil human government would do even more damage to humans and the environment.  That doesn’t make sense to me. Does it make sense to you?

3. This might be the most intelligent and thus compelling of all the disclosure narratives competing for our attention and ultimately, belief. It seems to fit the ‘as above, so below’ credo from ancient and wise esoteric principles except for what seems to be only a few minor problems. Some of the more popular proponents of this disclosure scenario will explain that humans have been relatively unmolested by negative ET’s and that these ‘enemy ET’s’ will only present themselves in response to humans expanding into space and asserting ownership claims beyond the earth.  They couch the problems that will confront humans as simply ones of lacking knowledge as opposed to moral or spiritual issues.  The existing problems remain obscure in terms of their causes and the possible cures.  There is the enigma of “out there” representing a place where the answers reside because there is already an established ET community waiting for our mutual discovery.  So some of the big questions related to this ET and disclosure issue remain unanswered. Who can we really count on to have the power to see that truth and justice prevail? There is a danger not well defined and a promise equally obscure and we are left clinging to a source that is, at least, recognizing that there might be a problem.

4. This is the one that might emerge as the leader due to the conditioning that humans have already received over many thousands of years. We call it the savior programming. The probable timeline might look something like this: humans muddle through the next several years with earth’s governments falling into abject idiocy in their attempts to create the ideal Orwellian society to serve the ruling elite, with each turn exposing their hand and their intentions for the global population.  This continues until a crisis like a hot world war breaks out or a ‘citizen’ revolution or a pandemic similar to the current COVID-19 one takes a more significant chunk of the human population out of commission either through death and/or economic destruction and then that would be the turning point for disclosure. Then, the ET’s arrive with a developing offer to assist in a planet-wide recovery, either with or without the cooperation of various so-called governmental institutions (such as the US, Russian and/or Chinese intelligence/military’s) cooperation. That might be what everyone will call disclosure.  Some alien race appears to save us from this mess. Maybe these benevolent ET’s are working with a human faction of white hat operatives to assist?  From that, any number of explanations and demonstrations may follow for the sake of convincing the skeptical. The demonstrations of prowess in technology and healing might make a convincing case that some sort of alliance would be the smart move and the need for this alliance would likely involve an evil ET cohort that may be portrayed as the backing for the old elite and Satanic power brokers and their controlling influence on all of the institutions that have failed human kind. There are other plausible scenarios that could be used that would be equally as convincing. Take your pick.  

All of them in one form or another have been nurtured in our media, in Hollywood movies and in the great science fiction novels and our legends and myths going back to before Biblical times. The fact is that the ET’s have been operating on our planet all through history, without helping us in any way, but rather causing untold harm. Who else is carrying out the countless abductions of humans through deception or without their consent? If it is the dark ET’s who already have the Earth in its grip, would they allow benevolent ET’s to displace them when they have humanity as hostages? Do we want an alien war in our midst?

The unfortunate fact, and this is being demonstrated as I write, is that a majority of the earth’s population can be made to believe and do some things that are demonstrably self-destructive and damaging to their long-term survival.  We have been dumbed down to the point of being easy targets for any number of disclosure scenarios.  This is a green light for any of the above described disclosure schemes. Almost any of them could be made to work.

Disclosure, in practically every one of its forms, is a psy-op.  There is really no clearer explanation.

Right now, the price of disclosure is the final, successful and terminal blow to humanity and the Divine Human Free Will Experiment. The second great failure, if you will. The Divine Realm tells us that the purpose of disclosure is to lull us into a false sense of security, to trust ET’s who have been corrupting and subjugating us for centuries from behind the scenes, and allow them to operate out in the open. This is a modern Trojan horse deception, and if we accept their offer, we will be choosing sides with the interlopers. Because the Divine Realm must allow free will, this will mean the undoing of humanity.

This outcome can be changed, but it will take many more people involved in REAL healing and not lip service to benign and empty platitudes, or political schemes of any kind or appeals to our imaginary space brothers or any of the other scenarios predicated on our savior programming installed eons ago.

One of the most telling questions you can ask yourself right now is “Why am I here?” Do any of these disclosure narratives attempt to give you that answer? Is that question even related to the idea of disclosure? If there are ET’s, irrespective of whether they have positive or negative orientation, does that have anything to do with why you are here?

What we have been told by the Divine Realm is that you are here and I am here and everyone else is here to solve the problem of evil and that we are using an extreme version of a free will environment to do that. We are here to heal our perpetrators; the ones who have subjugated us for thousands of years. That sounds even more outlandish than all the disclosure narratives combined, but I am convinced this is true.  It is really the only truth claim that can be used to make any sense out of what we are seeing.

The key to doing this and the chance we have to do such a thing in the face of such overwhelming odds, is our ability to form a partnership with our Creator and with all of the beings in the Light (or Heaven by some accounts) or what we call the Divine Realm. That is our origin and birthright and that is the secret weapon, if you will, that has enabled humans throughout history to survive such horrendous tragedies in history.  

But now we have to do more than survive. We have to heal our perpetrators to the point where they will take their evil away from earth. This will give us a respite and a chance to heal ourselves. This will create a future, for the first time in human history, where we can thrive and grow and reach our full potential as Light Beings incarnated as Divine Humans.  This reality is not currently conceivable to us.  We can only dimly see what this might be like.  Words will fail to do this reality any justice whatsoever, but that is our potential destiny.  

Remember at the beginning of this article where I wrote, “secrets of the Universe led him to real answers for human suffering in the form of a Lightworker Healing Protocol. This protocol is basically a high level prayer to God, for healing”?  This is what we can use to heal these sociopathic ET’s and their complement of dark discarnate spirits that also infest us.  We are love-based beings. Most of us know this intuitively. In our natural state we do not fight and create wars and willingly kill each other. This is an external disease that can be eradicated once and for all. Even the most extreme cases and most depraved beings can be healed enough to save humanity from the consequences of disclosure and its inevitable fall-out.

[kingfulgentiusdjake-blog]

Why do I choose “Teaching” as a profession? I want to be a Hero!

They say "Teaching" is the noblest profession of all. Some people say that it is indeed the mother of all professions because every engineer, architect, scientist, accountants, etc. won't be able to be where they are right now without the help of a teacher. Teaching, for me is a noble profession and I agree that when you teach, you are given the power to mold future professionals in the future but as what Spider Man said, "With great POWER comes great RESPONSIBILITY", that means that the greatest burden was put to us because how a child develops on major areas of their life, depends on us. We are the true life savers! In short, I want to be a "Hero" since I was young because a hero is a person who saves everyone! The question is, what kind of hero do I really want to become? If I wanted to be a "Hero", why did I choose teaching? Let me tell you a story about my life and how I awakened the powers within me that I can use to save people. I was a happy child; but the kind of happiness that I felt was the glory of being able to perform in front of people. I was given the chance to recite the multiplication table, sing songs, recite poems, etc. I was almost treated like a prince. I really felt the love of my parents. I experienced almost everything that a boy would want to have in his childhood. I was taught good manners by my mother, specifically no talking when mouth is full, say "hello", "thank you" and "you're welcome", say "sorry" if I hurt someone, to share my food, but the best thing that my mother taught me was Chivalry. It was taught in a way that if I hurt others especially women, I am a coward. I was taught to pick people my own size and not abuse people "weaker" than me. I was disciplined well. A time came wherein I thought I am a loser. My frustrations in life started when I felt insecure every time I lose, every time a kid gets a toy but I don't because my parents can't afford, every time a boy was voted to be the prince charming but I wasn't, etc. I began to consult my mother and I was taught that not because I lost, I am not smart, lucky or handsome because my time to shine will eventually come and not all the time, I will stand at the top. That stage of my life wasn't the only time that I questioned my relevance to live in this world. There came a time wherein we were asked what do we want to become when we grow up and put integrity to those dreams by planning the things we should do in order to achieve them. First, I wanted to be a theater actor because I love to sing and perform. Second, I wanted to be a CEO of a company because they look rich and handsome wearing their tuxedos. Third, when I was in High school, O aspired to be a famous band vocalist and guitarist. I discovered about "Passion" and I realized that music is my passion even though I experienced a lot of rejections but there was a time that I already questioned my ability and asked my mother "Why do I always not get qualified" but I just got reminded that whatever dream I want to pursue, I should put my heart on it so that whatever rejections I would face, I would still continue and live those dreams up. Again, not because I lost or was not chosen, I cannot do something or won't excel in life.

As I reflected through my life, I realized that I was given a gift to excell faster than others especially if I would just really give an effort. I realized that I have the ability to see beyond things, to see the bigger picture or even the whole picture of why things are happening. I have the intelligence of being able to see and comprehend. One thing in me felt like questioning what really is my mission to this world. I have a lot of things that I noticed majority of people lack. The perception that the world is beautiful was ruined and I was deeply hurt by the reality that is happening, especially now that I'm living in the 21st century era. It hurts that most of the children on the present generation doesn't know how to respect anymore. It hurts that most of the children in my generation doesn't value the presence, teachings and even the love of their parents and teachers anymore. It hurts that people today lost the essence of chivalry. It hurts that people today abuse the freedom of speech. It hurts that discrimination is getting worse. It hurts that people today do good things for the sake of recognition and fame, wherein fact doing good deeds is a must for our everyday lives. It hurts that people perceive sex as a normal thing and not sacred anymore. It hurts that people today, in times where one should listen to one another, listen to be able to just reply but not to understand. On top of all, it hurts that a lot of people, especially those who are given the privilege of professionalism, treat their powers as an opportunity to abuse people and satisfy their greed instead of treating and understanding that "Service" is a great "Responsibility". Many people already lost faith in the hope that "Humanity" still exists. Sad reality is, it is not even easy for us to act towards change but for me, it will be harder if none of us will even do a single thing. If I will not do something to achieve the change we are yearning for, who else will?  

As what my former teacher when I was in high school said, "Don't repeat the mistakes that your forefathers did because what they became, you will become." Now, I am thinking that if the present generation will entrust the future to the next generation without teaching them the values that they have to learn, if the present generation lacks a lot of essential things today, what will happen to the next generation if they will fail to mold them to become the best versions of their selves and people that this world deserves to have? My heart and mind tells me that I'm being called to teach, to treat teaching as a mission and as an opportunity for me to be able to contribute a big thing for our society. I want the world to be in one, acting towards change under my influence through a major global reorientation. If I can easily excel at something, I also want to unleash the fire in people's hearts. I want every child to be not afraid to speak up their minds and stand for what is right. I want them to be able to break whatever manipulative norms that the former generations used to brainwash and take pleasure on the products of their own selfish and evil desires.

Little by little, I will mold every children as many as I can and influence them to put a great value in their existence so that if they grow up, they will be truly labeled as good leaders who will not waste their life, being part of the cycle of repeated mistakes, but rather, have conviction and be committed to do massive acts in order to make this world a better place to live in.

The responsibility to guide and change lives and the ability to mold people and nations is the power that I want to possess and the kind of Superhero I want to become.

[blazehedgehog]

Say Blaze, you mentioned BotW being in your top five favorite games of all time. Care to share the full list with us? :P

Haha, man, somebody always wants these kinds of receipts. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really like committing to numbered lists. I never really think of things in that way. It should be obvious if you’ve followed this blog for any length of time that if somebody asks me for my favorite thing, it’s rare that I can actually pick just one thing and I’ll usually list off a handful.

I mean, I’ll do lists, I have some list requests in my ask box that I never got around to answering, but I will do them eventually, it’s just I never think of them as a set in stone order. They’re always floating around to different spaces on the list, depending on when you ask me.

Without looking at anything else, I’d say my top five favorite games of all time would be…

Yoshi’s Island was a very formative game for me. Anyone who claims Yoshi’s Island wasn’t that great is immediately knocked down a few pegs of respect in my mind. The artwork in that game was transformative, nobody had ever tried those kinds of graphics in a game before, and Nintendo nailed it pretty much on their first try.

And then there’s the gameplay. A lot of games around this era were trying to figure out ways to evolve the 2D action game, when you think about games like Astal, Clockwork Knight, Pandemonium, etc. Most are awkward, with mechanics that don’t always make sense, or don’t feel good to use, but I think the mechanics in Yoshi are incredible. Throwing eggs is incredibly intuitive, and the small expansions like the flutter jump and butt stomp add a little more complexity without feeling overwhelming.

I’m also in love with the game’s boss fights. Some people like to complain that “oh, they’re just really big versions of normal enemies, and that’s lame” but they can go jump in a lake. I remember more of Yoshi’s Island’s boss fights by name than I do some entire games. They may be “just bigger versions of normal enemies” but that doesn’t mean you fight them in the same ways. Fighting your way out of Prince Froggy’s stomach, throwing enough eggs to strike Sluggy the Unshaven’s heart, orbiting the moon with Raphael Raven, each one is a puzzle to be solved and a technical showpiece for the system. Gosh, and who could forget pulling off the trick shot with Navel Piranha.

I only wish literally any Yoshi game to follow it was as good. Nintendo has built a legacy of black sheep Yoshi games in its wake, with the only real comparable game being Yoshi’s Wooly World, and even that isn’t anywhere near as creative or cool as Yoshi’s Island, because it’s stuck in that game’s shadow. All the other Yoshi games have been mediocre at best.

I’d probably put the original Half-Life on this list. Half-Life was a paradigm shift for the first-person shooter that really killed the idea of calling them “Doom Clones.” Levels? Scores? Hyper-machismo? Gone. You’re a nerd, saving other nerds. Even now, in 2019, the way this game tells story remains highly unique. Instead of sitting you down for cutscenes and extended dialog, Half-Life is a “show, don’t tell” kind of game, and it builds its mystery from that. You might understand that the crystal from the start of the game is the same crystals you see at the end of the game, but you don’t understand who keeps secretly watching you. It makes for a narrative that’s simple on the surface, but goes however deep as you want to get.

Gameplay-wise, Half-Life goes to great lengths to make its world feel dynamic and alive. There are no sacred invincible NPCs, Everybody and everything is just as fragile as you are (if not moreso), so a scientist buddy may wander in to the crossfire and get shot, and the rest of his friends may blame you for his murder and refuse to cooperate from that point onwards. And then, of course, are the tremendous military soldier encounters. People will go on about how they aren’t actually that smart under the hood, about how Valve lied about squad behavior or whatever, but they’re definitely well designed enough to feel smart. Again, Half-Life was one of the first FPS games to understand and nail the idea that you don’t have to work within Doom’s concepts. Enemies run around, take cover, and use specialized tactics in order to flush you out of hiding. It was lightyears beyond anything, and if you can get past the game’s dated graphics, it still holds up remarkably well.

And yes, if you didn’t pick up on it, I have been subtly crapping on Half-Life 2. It’s also a great game, but it turns in to a bummer once you really stop and think about what Half-Life 2 does differently and what they ended up getting rid of in favor of a slightly more traditional narrative.

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been in that mood lately, but I’d probably put Mega Man X on this list. There’s not much I can say about this game that isn’t demonstrated better in Egoraptor’s now-legendary Sequelitis video, but the short of it for me is that I don’t love most Mega Man games. They’re fine, I don’t really have any problems with them, but they aren’t for me.

Mega Man X is the only Mega Man game I’ve finished without cheating. It’s just such a brilliantly designed game, and so, so tightly designed. Everything props everything else up, and it lacks the pure frustration and memorization of, like, the vanishing block puzzles of Classic Mega Man.

One of my favorite parts about this game that isn’t mentioned in Egoraptor’s video and didn’t really carry forward through future Mega Man X games is the fact that all of the levels in X1 are literally connected to each other. Actions in one stage have consequences in another. Defeating Chill Penguin freezes Flame Mammoth’s lava. Storm Eagle’s airship crashes in to Spark Mandrill’s power plant. Bosses don’t just have weaknesses, their levels do, too.

The most common complaint I see people relay about Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is that it’s “too easy.” My response is… yeah? And?? A game’s value is not always judged on how difficult it is; plenty of people would tell you that Kirby games are too easy, too, but Kirby is a beloved franchise with legions of fans. It’s okay that Symphony of the Night is kind of easy.

Especially given, that, I feel, the entire point of gaining experience points and powering up your character is to reach that point where you go from chump to champ. What use is gaining strength if you don’t eventually feel strong? Symphony is not a failure in this regard, and exploring the castle and solving its secrets provide enough of a hook even after you start to feel untouchable. And, speaking as somebody who nearly ripped his own hair out with frustration over Castlevania III, being given the ability to style on these creatures is more than welcome.

But what I really, truly love about Symphony is just how much of a love letter it is to the Castlevania franchise and just horror in general. The Castlevania Dungeon has a terrific page that breaks down the hundreds of references the game makes to classical literature, history, mythology, and film. Somebody on that development team REALLY did their homework. There’s so much of that in this game that I feel like I learn something new every time I play it.

It’s also the other half of the term “Metroidvania,” so, y’know. Important™

I know Breath of the Wild would be in this five, but here’s a fifth game anyway: Super Mario 64. I will never shut up about Super Mario 64.

To reiterate: This is the game that invented analog movement. If you’ve played Assassin’s Creed, or Grand Theft Auto, or Dark Souls, or Devil May Cry, you can trace the deepest, raw, fundamental core back to ideas first introduced in Super Mario 64.

And if you ask me, the game still holds up. The camera control could use some work, I guess, but Mario is still just as fun to control today as he was all the way back in 1996. In fact, depending on who you ask, he’s more fun to control in Mario 64, because later 3D Mario games simplified his move set under the assumption he was too complex in this game. But maybe you’re like me, and think that complexity is good. (I wouldn’t even call it complex, it’s more just… robust)

If you want to see a longer list of games I think are my favorites, this GiantBomb list I wrote is still kept somewhat up to date. (And contains a lot more modern games, if you thought these were all too retro)

[jmrphy]

Meta reflections on Jesse Pinkman’s new book, Enlightenment Now, with a special focus on the Joe Rogan chapter

Warning: This was supposed to be a really quick thing about the reception of Steven Pinker's new book, in part just to rev this blog back up as an easier-going place for short, fun stuff. Accidentally it became a 4k-word world-historical meta-narrative about the changing political coordinates of contemporary intellectual life on a razor-thin evidentiary base.

I just read RS Bakker's thoughts on the new Pinker book. I thought they were very stimulating and seemed important/credible—although I didn't grok everything in my one time through on the train. They did, however, motivate me to jot down a few thoughts that have been recurring to me lately. They're not really related to Bakker's post.

I'm not going to comment on the Pinker book, first because I haven't read it; second, because I don't like playing in already overpopulated peanut galleries, it pains my frail ego; third, because, as with many things today, it seems to me the real theoretical points of interest are at a meta level. There's a time and place to use proper names, no doubt, but individuals and their particular products are often red herrings, I think. If I use the name Pinker below it's just for shorthand; this will really be about the larger class of prestigious public intellectuals of which he is only one example (as opposed to, say, the high-brow but unpaid batshit blogger class, the personal-brand-with-a-patreon class, the Youtube philosophy for dummies educator class, the Alex Jones balls-to-the-wall flight from Earth class, etc.). It turns out there are wayyy more ways to be a famous and influential intellectual than anyone could have known when they were in grad school in the 70s or 80s, or even the 90s really.

In fact, I won't even use Pinker's name, to emphasize that I'm really not out here trying to ankle-bite this great and good scientist who is much smarter and more accomplished than myself. Wherever I might want to refer to Pinker as an example, I will instead refer to Pinkman. That way you'll think of Jesse from Breaking Bad, in the form of a prestigious social scientist instead of a meth kingpin.

Highly successful and publicly influential academic intellectuals are playing a very particular kind of game. The logic of this game made sense even ten years ago, but I'm not sure it does anymore. The logic is something like this "Get really smart, make real scientific contributions, earn legitimate credentials and status, then leverage this elevated status to shape the body politic toward the Good (and also be handsomely remunerated, admired, etc. — but hey, fair enough.) I've never met Pinkman or many other famous scientists but my sense is they have given much of their life to some version of this noble vocation. This is an archetypal Liberal identity-mold, a tried and true, recognizable Calling, in a world where such things are increasingly hard to find.

Well, the past decade has thrown up some data points that really make you wonder whether the basic terms of this model still obtain. A few things lately have given me the bad feeling that someone like Pinkman may have invested most of their life in a certain kind of bargain with Liberal Society that, sadly, Liberal Society has now reneged on. I say this is a bad feeling because, if true, it's very unfortunate and I genuinely feel for them.

So what's this bargain I speak of, in a little more detail? First, for background, remember that for much of our history highly talented and creative individuals are typically punished by their groups. Reverse dominance hierarchies, etc., you can't let super talented people get too ahead of the others because then they'll dominate, or group morale suffers, or the group disintegrates, or whatever. Bad things will happen. So they'd cut you down to size at every opportunity. But liberal society was willing to offer super smart and able people a bargain: If you're really smart and able, then you can go off and cultivate your smarts but only on condition that you respect Liberal Society. It's a pretty genius solution actually: let the ablest flourish above everyone else but make them pay a cut of their gains to the cohesion of the whole. Win-win. The society got all the benefits of crazy geniuses solving problems, without them dominating or collective cohesion suffering. The geniuses not only got to enjoy their objective superiority on full blast, they also got to feel like it was all about doing good for others. And maybe it is.

It is the right to generously bestow social improvement that is one of the great joys of being a prestigious intellectual--could you imagine how exhilarating it must feel to have earned, through a life of study, the exalted role of institutionally sanctioned Society Improver at grand scale, how genuinely good it must feel to know that all of your sacrifice and hard work now empowers you to improve the knowledge and character of millions, and the political health of a whole society? Understood a little more rational-choicely, this is one of the key income streams that liberal society pays to its most prestigious geniuses, in return for their lifelong loyalty to all of the official tenets of harmonious Liberal Society. I think the data is pretty obvious in showing that no matter how genius you might be, if you go off the rails of "reasonable discourse" beyond a certain degree you quickly lose all of your standing and influence (on this model, anyway.

(Note that the newer classes of public intellectuals have figured out that if you decline the liberal institutional bargain, then going maximally off the rails can be its own direct path to extraordinary intellectual influence and economic reward. But more on that later, let's stay on track understanding the fine print of the liberal intellectual's bargain with liberal society).

Here's where things get a little shadowy because the harmony of Liberal Society is quite sensitive. It's kind of like a precious baby, and we love babies and would do anything to protect them, but this is how hypocrisy enters in automatically, because Liberal Society requires everyone to presume everyone else is an adult, and to treat everyone as such. For instance, when two groups violently disagree over certain deep moral questions, well, liberal society doesn't allow them to deal with it violently (a good thing perhaps, as Pinkman has amply documented). But what does it do instead?

The simplest way to summarize all of the things that Liberal Society does to reduce violence: It papers over the conflicts, which is maybe a brilliant solution, or maybe an insane, explosive solution that simply hasn't exploded yet — the jury is still out on that one. If Group A thinks abortion is murdering babies, and Group B thinks prohibition of abortion is enslaving women, the only way to deal with such profound and high-stakes ethical disagreement, other than civil war, is to derive some symbolic artifice(s) that will let both groups live peacefully with the other. Hmm, thinks Caesar, do we have anyone around here good at generating clever symbolic artifices? In swoops the knighted genius. The genius is delighted to take a break from self-cultivation in order to contribute to Harmony, and Caesar, as well as the common people, are happy to have someone on hand to explain why I don't have to worry if my neighbor is Evil. Win, win, win.

Thus baked into the vocation of the modern liberal intellectual is, from the get-go, a highly dissimulated condescension and hypocrisy. The liberal intellectual gets their status precisely from a superior ability (earned or inherited, doesn't matter) but they are contractually obligated to treat the normal masses as equals, when they know damn well that in fact, the normal masses are dumber, more dangerous, and in need of Harmonizing by institutions (paper). Also, remember that the genius wants to help, it's extremely rewarding to sincerely help society, but the noble sacrifice the genius admirably contributes to the social good is precisely the papering over, of whatever the normal masses need papered over for their well-being. This is how a basic minimum of dissimulation, condescension, and hypocrisy is structurally embedded in the vocation or calling of the modern liberal intellectual. We might note in passing it's also an avatar of Plato's Philosopher-King, a conceptual-political thought-rut that many progressive intellectual personae tend to inhabit in one way or another (and yes, here, Pinkman is a Progressive, despite some infamy among SJWs).

OK, so the modern liberal intellectual might be forced to pay lip service to a few small Noble Lies, but it's soooo much better than all that homicide and war in the earlier chapters of Pinkman's violence book, that it seems like a no-brainer. "There are political realities, it's not my fault, all I can do is speak the truth in a way that helps society the most. If that means I have to use my words judiciously, is that really so bad?" an elite cognitive scientist might reasonably ask. The only problem is that this entire model presumes that the speech of the prestige intellectual will remain highly weighted relative to the speech of anyone else who might take it upon themselves to explain things publicly.

What if external circumstances change in such a way that the masses start to intuit that the knighted geniuses have quietly been playing a political game all along? What if, empirically, things just so happen to play out in such a way that a critical mass of pretty average people (on the right and the left, and in their own languages and for their own reasons), quietly update their mental and behavioral models of the world in the realization that: "Eureka! I have a strong suspicion that some really serious issues have been papered over for some time now... and I'm not going to be a dupe any longer. I see what's going on, and I can play this game, too..." Well, one thing to note is that if this updating were to occur, even on a massive and rapid scale, there's no reason to believe we would know it anytime soon after it occurred. The next thing to see is that, suddenly, the entire bargain that the prestige intellectual based his whole life's labors on would suddenly be off the table.

So long as your pronouncements are weighted well by institutionalized attention monopolies, your lifelong service to science mixed slightly with Harmony-producing fluff was a reasonable and even maybe noble project. If your prestige loses its weight, then tempering your extreme intelligence with little white lies would be all for nought, because you're about to be left in the dust by new startups who specialize in unreasonably extreme truth-telling ("red pills" and many other colored pills now available) and also unreasonably extreme hypocrisy (self-help bullshit, SJWism, etc.). You'll still have your niche, but your effect on people and society will rapidly fall towards zero (along with the overwhelming majority of other people, including most smart people).

It seems to me that as a sociological phenomenon, Pinkman's recent book dramatizes a lot of what I'm modeling here. I think the world has changed a lot very recently and with many things we're like the roadrunner who's already off the cliff, but we haven't yet looked down to see the vast empty space beneath our galloping gait. In a strange way, I think dumber people have been doing more correct updating as of late, and some of the smartest people have been stubbornly failing to update lately. Dumber people have updated to not listen to a word of what the mainstream intellectual culture says, but smart people have not yet been able to update in response to this updating by dumber people (in part because smart people don't have any way of hearing about how dumber people are updating, and they're not exactly accustomed to caring about it). The inertia of media representations enforces a substantial lag between increasingly rapid techno-economic changes in the distribution of powers and our meager human mental models of where that power is.

All of this has been quite abstract, and I mentioned above that I have some data points, so I'll just end with those. I might have tricked you, accidentally, because to be honest, I've extrapolated this whole bonkers historical meta-narrative from a few very measly anecdotal observations. Well first, I kind of had in mind things like Trump and Brexit, i.e. signals of widespread mistrust of dominant institutions and respectable liberal wisdom. So those are pretty big and real data points for the kind of perspective I'm articulating here. I also have a few more specific ones, although they are very tendentious.

The first one is so silly, you're really going to laugh at me for writing this long post in part because of this ridiculously tiny and personal anecdote. You can write your own blog, I for one sense significant causal evidence in this little story. Basically, I listened to the Joe Rogan podcast with Pinkman about his new book and... Pinkman was fine, he's a brilliant and likable guy... but... something was wrong. Very wrong. Don't tell anyone because it's kind of orthogonal to my personal brand and I have to stay on point, but I've listened to many, many Joe Rogan podcasts. And I'm a professional social scientist mind you, so if anything the Pinkman podcast should be more interesting and effective on me, relative to the average episode. But it was just so... "boring" is not even the word. Flat? Anachronistic? Bloodless? Zombieish? None of these quite convey it, but together they give some sense. The point is that, as a minor young academic but a relative connoisseur of the new media, for me something really significant in the machinery of intellectual experience was failing to fire, so much so that it was quite strange. I was surprised and confused. But now I think I understand it; it's everything I've said above.

The world that Pinkman seems to think he is in, is not the world we're actually living in now. The book will be successful economically of course, but it has no affective-identity constituency, other than people who are already socio-culturally neutralized or priced-in by the current equilibrium. It's hard to see how anything will move or shake from this type of project anymore. Most intellectual figures preach to a choir, of course, so Pinkman is no better or worse for that — but some choirs move and shake and generate novel ripples on world history, while others just sit there doing nothing other than precisely what was yesterday's world history. Some books and podcasts and youtube videos make people want to leave their friends and family to join a jihad, some give you strong confidence that a reality-TV star would make a great president, some give you the extraordinary realization that all of society is controlled by a white supremacist patriarchy; all of these lead to novel, unpredictable schisms and re-aggregations, new social formations and subcultures, which in their affective vitality bubble up, viralize or mutualize or enter into arms races, and end up producing system-level outcomes such as electoral victories, migrations, communicating-contagion shooting sprees, various contagious mental pathologies, as well as genuine self- and community-improvement dynamics, unequally distributed. There's nothing better or worse about the Enlightenment Is Cool niche; it's just that it's identity-affective character seems predicated on precisely what we've recently realized is already gone, as demonstrated by the whopping piece of incontrovertible evidence that was my personal lukewarm reception of Joe Rogan's podcast with Steven Pinkman.

You can say I should not generalize from my personal affective experiences, but my personal position seems like it'd be most conducive to liking and being affected by the Pinkman podcast! I'm not talking about the content of his book whatsoever, I'm talking about the reality he takes himself to be playing in. I don't think it's here anymore. First of all, the halo effect of prestige markers is weaker than ever I think. Once upon a time his prestige would have increased the excitement of listening to him. Today, much less. Second, all of the intellectual action today is coming from unique combinations of intellectual horsepower with identity alignments. Jordan Peterson is blowing up in part because he's a smart, credentialed intellectual with a message but specifically because he gives an image of admirable life for a certain type of person. It's not that JP lovers are now changing the world in a way Pinkman lovers will not, it's that JP's identity-affective alignment is not already priced in by the status quo from which Pinker's authority derives (JP tapped emotional needs not already being supplied, through new media, not prestige; hence the socio-political splash). Hell, Joe Rogan himself, who no Serious Intellectual would even call an intellectual, is making similar waves in the intellectual ecology because his basic intelligence and character combine with a certain affectively attractive performance of life that he offers to certain types of people. I could go on.

The problem for traditional public intellectuals on the Liberal Vocation model is that the image of life they herald is radically unavailable to most people so the aspirational inroad to affective alignment is close to nil; it's actually genuinely contemptible to many people (and this is getting worse as the very real racket-nature of much academia is becoming increasingly transparent; ironically the hard-science backlash against postmodernism might have unintended consequences in this regard); and the information they're able to share with the unwashed masses tends to be freely available anyway. Or worse, listeners/readers can usually find someone rehearsing the same information who also offers an identity-performance more affectively aligned with their own temperament and social position. So vanilla prestige intellectuals don't have a monopoly on the information, they no longer even have an advantage on trustworthiness given widespread mistrust toward most institutions, and they uniquely, sorely lack one of the biggest drivers of intellectual impact in the new ecology: affective-identity alignment with moving and shaking niche audiences. (Although note that, with the global internet, "niche" can very well mean several millions of people). To make matters even worse, their cultivated knack for walking the line of polite respectable "good taste" is actually a negative on the balance sheet of their social influence.

Here's another data point. I was struck by the nearly instant appearance of so many reviews and commentaries, almost all of which were ideologically colored. I don't mean that in a bad way necessarily, I just mean so many of the usual suspects were saying things to the effect you would expect them to say. And when most of those items would appear on my radar, my eyes would just glaze over. But think about the commentary that most struck me, and by "struck" I mean this combination of intellectual horsepower plus temperamentally conditional excitement. I'm talking about the post by RS Bakker that inspired this post (by the way I really wanted to just hammer out a quick 500-word thing, but this always happens, which is why I can't let myself sit down to "write a quick 500-word thing" very often). As I said, I read it quickly on the train, and at this point I don't even really remember what it said. All I know is that it had intelligent comments about Adorno and Nietzsche and their critiques of Enlightenment modernity. It was scientifically competent as far as I could tell, and then it had some kind of batshit scientific extensions I didn't really understand but which seemed promising maybe. It was only after I read the post that I wanted to see who this guy was, and from what I could grok apparently he writes fiction but also co-authored with someone in Nature? (!).

So just reflect on this for a moment. Prestige scientist I admire writes book about philosophical/political topics I am highly interested in, he does a podcast that has no effect on me, a million reviews from prestige outlets come out and I can't feel any reason to care about any of them, and it just so happens that the one item in the intellectual ecology that affected me (e.g. motivated novel production on my part), was maybe the one fiction writer in the world who has a publication in Nature writing something on his personal blog (and I didn't even know anything about him until after I read the piece). That's so strange... or rather, it would be strange if we were living even in the 1970s or even the 1990s, but it's not at all strange today. Of course there exists in the world some scientifically sophisticated blogger able to talk deeply about Adorno and Nietzsche, of course he has a blog, and of course it would find its way onto my radar. Of course it would strike me, and of course as a young academic myself right now I am more motivated to write long blog posts than do my institutional duties. Of course, this is the new reality. The real puzzle is how and why the respectable prestige dancehall of liberalism v1.0 is still populated with a good number of really smart people, when all of the music is clearly pumping out of a variegated, thousand-room warehouse of the less compromising... liberalism flatlining at degree zero.

[keywestlou]

WAR OF THE ROSES

Tonight’s the night! The War of the Roses! A heavyweight championship fight.

The first Presidential debate. Trump and Biden. One and  a half hours. Begins at 9 EST.

I will miss the first half hour. Tuesday Night with Key West Lou.

The combatants have different styles. One a belligerent street fighter The other a gentleman. Forget not Gentleman Jim Corbett.

There was a similar fight 4 years ago. Man v. woman. Trump v. Hillary Clinton. Trump was not a gentleman.

Americans wanted a change after 20 years of the Bushes and Clintons. Understandable. Trump represented that change.

What a change! No one expected what has happened in the past 4 years. Hopefully another change is in the works. Another 4 years of Trump will mean the end of America. It will have become a totalitarian state.

The lifestyle of all will change. Food will continue to disappear from the table, there will be fewer jobs, people will be required to pay 100 percent of their medical bills, etc.

The moment of truth is upon us. The next 4 weeks will determine what our country will be. It will be determined by who is elected President. Hopefully, Joe Biden.

Amy Coney Barrett. A disaster that cannot be stopped.

Today’s Wall Street Journal said she is a Catholic. Tonight would mark 2 Catholics battling since Joe Biden was Catholic, also.

Barrett is not a Catholic. She may have been at one point. I do not know.

Today, she and her husband belong to a charismatic group. Considered a Christian parachurch. No affiliation with Rome. Though Pope Francis likes People of Praise as Barrett’s religious group is known.

I view charismatics as a cult group. One of my family had an experience with the group in 1978. I know full well the impact of charismaticism. A little far out. Weird from my perspective. Like the wife must do everything the husband tells her.

On this day in 1938, the Munich Agreement was concluded. What Neville Chamberlain referred to as “peace for our time.”

Four countries involved. Britain, France, Germany and Italy. Britain and France feared Hitler. They did not want another World War. They came to the meeting prepared to give away everything, including the kitchen sink, to avoid a war.

They did.

The 2 nations agreed that Hitler be allowed to annex Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. Amusing. Czechoslovakia was not  present at the meeting and had never consented.

Historians tell us Hitler called the meeting to pacify Britain and France. He wanted nothing. They wanted to talk. They feared Hitler was preparing to invade somewhere and start another world war.

It became obvious that Britain and France wanted to give Hitler something so he would agree to a peace. A gift, a bribe.

One of the books I read had Hitler and one of his aides in an adjoining room alone at some point. Hitler told the aide in effect he did not know what was the matter with Britain and France. He wanted nothing. On the other hand if they wanted to give him the Sudetenland, he would take it.

Chamberlain returned home to London. As he got off the plane, he raised the agreement in his hand and shouted, “Peace for our time.”

Chamberlain was heralded as a returning hero. He could have been anointed King that day.

Within a year, Hitler marched into Poland and World War II began.

It is believed that one of the ingredients in a coronavirus vaccine will be squalene. It is a natural oil found in a shark’s liver.

To produce one vaccine per person, 250,000 sharks must be killed. If 2 shots are required, 500,00 sharks.

Some flu vaccines have been using squalene. Three hundred thousand sharks a year needed for the flu vaccine.

The world is going to run out of sharks!

The problem has been recognized. Scientists have been testing for a synthetic version which hopefully can be produced from fermented sugar cane.

Key West’s chickens are in danger. Botulism. A yearly outbreak. This year however worse than normal.

The Wildlife Center is asking that people not feed the chickens.

The botulism comes from a bacteria naturally occurring in the soil. When activated, it gets into muddy street water chickens drink from. As to man’s food, people normally break the food into small pieces and throw it on the ground for the chickens to eat. The food becomes contaminated.

Governor DeSantis has made another bright move. Yesterday, he lifted all bans on masks and other items. He also gave restaurants and bars carte blanche as to number of customers and any other restrictions which had involved them.

DeSantis and Trump are birds of a feather. I think Trump is a bit smarter than DeSantis. Doesn’t say much.

The Florida Department of Health has a local office. It has been manned by Bob Eadie for many years. He is bucking his boss the Governor. Eadie says too soon. He wants people in the Keys to continue wearing masks, be smart in crowds, social distance and wash their hands.

The bars and restaurants I suspect will be packed this weekend. Tourists will fly in. Floridians who can drive to Key West in less than a day will rush in also.

The visitors will leave at some point. The rest of us remain. They will also leave the coronavirus they brought with them.

What will the impact be on Key West in 2-4 weeks?

May Johnson continues her merry ways in 1896 Key West.

She seems to be out and about with Fritol lately. She must have dumped Charlie. And then there is poor Ernesto who is always out of town working. Ernesto is supposedly May’s love.

Ain’t no grass growing under May’s feet.

If anyone is not planning on listening to the debate tonight, listen to my blog talk radio show Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou. Nine my time. Those of you who prefer the debate, remember my show is archived immediately and is available for your listening pleasure all the time. www.blogtalkradio.com/key-west-lou.

Enjoy your day!

    WAR OF THE ROSES was originally published on Key West Lou

[workshop-at-mahoutokoro]

Pacific Rim Liveblog Thoughts

I watched Pacific Rim for the first time (yeah, I know) and told the mod of themonsterblogofmonsters that I’d liveblog/give my reactions so here they are.

-I’ll talk about the film in roughly 25 minute chunks.

0:00:00-0:25:00

This film is everything you could ever hope for in a mecha series. It’s quite fun to note all the mecha tropes and plot lines used because this movie executes them so damn well. I know I’ve heard of piloting systems like the one in PR, drifting, but the only one I can think of at the moment is Buddy Complex, which actually premiered in 2013, too. Well. PR’s drifting system is everything I wanted Buddy Complex’s to be. BC was a mess lol.

I’m not well-versed in music and soundtracks, but this one is awesome and memorable, even within the first 10 minutes or so. It’s definitely not one of those shows where you forget the entire soundtrack two minutes after you finish watching.

There were a lot of amusing little gems scattered here and there like: -The Jaeger pilots being like celebrities in the early years. Very realistic and reminds me that I have to watch Tiger & Bunny sometime (the non-Netflix version lol). -The kaiju, as living things, actually adapted to fight against the Jaegers and their pilots. I liked that. -The gallows humor: bad news is, we lost 3 guys; good news is, we have 3  job openings! -“I’m guessing that I wasn’t your first choice” -> you were his first choice! and his only choice! because all the rest are dead! well that was inspiring -Somehow, this woman is standing in front of a helicopter holding an umbrella and the umbrella manages to stay in perfect form. literally the most unrealistic part of the movie xD -Japanese!

0:25:00-0:50:00

Lots of stuff happened in this one. The pacing is excellent- we get through SO MUCH content but it doesn’t feel too rushed. It lingers on certain characters/scenes just long enough so to leave an impact and let it sink in, but it doesn’t belabor any particular conversation or interaction. That’s quite rare in a movie as fast paced as this one.

It was probably also really tricky to pull off the connection between Raleigh and Mako. They meet and bond within these 25 minutes, plus we have other characters who need a few scenes to progress the “kaiju brain” side plot. It really worked though? I think, by having them reach a sort of mutual understanding and not go at each other’s throats right from their first meeting, it makes it easier for them to get to the point where they’re compatible.

Glad they didn’t unnecessarily build tension between them for the drama.

-These two scientists/researchers are hilarious. -YES, let’s just merge our brains with a monster one. NOTHING CAN GO WRONG. -AND it worked! Sort of. Also seemed to be causing a seizure but.

0:50:00-1:15:00

Some more good character development here. I really like how Raleigh and Mako are on the same page, before and after the drift. Again, the story pauses a bit to build tension or connections between characters without lingering too long on one or the other.

I also appreciate how mature the characters are- which would make sense, they’re adults, but that’s not always the case and something that annoys me in other shows/movies/etc. Raleigh certainly tries to convince his boss to hear him out, but after he gave it his all, he does back down for the time being.

Also, there’s no pointless blaming of other parties here for the drama. Raleigh and Mako obviously don’t blame the other for things going south. And at least you can understand why that hotheaded other pilot is angry at them. If they can’t even safely move the Jaeger around in the hangar and have everything under control in a non-combat situation, would you really trust them to have your back when it comes to the real thing? His role is basically to be a sitting duck carrying a nuclear weapon.

-WHY WOULD YOU NOT DISABLE THE PLASMA CANNON?? THIS IS A TEST RUN. -“would you like to try again?” how ‘bout no we nearly all blew up thanks helpful computer lady -“you goddamn moron” <- everyone’s thoughts except the mad scientists guy exactly -You would think they would have figured out a way to deal with the tails smacking or impaling them from behind by now but apparently not. Also a quicker way of killing them aside from beating their heads in with metal fists. -welp, that’s two down. -On a side note, I really like how the water resistance is shown? It’s just neat to see the weight of all their movements, and how the kaiju, like normal animals, are more suited to move quickly through it. -The reactor blowing up couldn’t even act as a suicide bomb though, that’s sad. -lol THE KAIJU HAVE JAMMERS never thought I’d see that on one of them.

1:15:00-1:40:00

Lots of action in this part, so not much to say aside from my reactions.

-So. Uh. If it doesn’t move and doesn’t smell human, you might not need to destroy it? Is that how they work? Kinda funny how it just stops and sniffs them when they run out of power. -At least they ended up on land? Being in the water really slows the damn machines down. -I STILL THINK YOU NEED SOMETHING A LITTLE BETTER THAN A FIST AND A FEW MISSILES. Ok. that’s better. -YES. SMART. Bring a weapon! Why did no one think of this before. Granted he brought a ship but you know. Better than nothing. -whoops flying mecha. -Excuse me. if you had a sword. why didn’t you try to use it earlier. before you got carried 50,000 ft in the sky. -I thought you had to be compatible with the person you’re piloting with? Can you just randomly replace someone?

1:40:00-end

I really like how they gave the side characters scenes to expand upon them and didn’t just shaft them in favor of the main characters. I guess it worked because Raleigh and Mako got along from the start, so they didn’t need to waste time developing unnecessary drama with them.

Also, I always appreciate a movie that doesn’t place an inconvenient sappy kiss moment at the most crucial part of the mission/action. They saved the happy hugging moment until after everything was done! And notably they didn’t kiss? What miracle is this? Instead we got a really heartfelt hug and that honestly had more emotional impact than if they would have kissed. I really wish this happened more often.

-Ah. That explains the drift compatibility thing. -Underwater is a terrible place to be moving those clunky things omg. They move even slower than on land. -OH GREAT IT HAS TENTACLES. -How is that damn thing still alive?? -lol of course it’s up to manual detonation. -Did we figure out how to get past decompression sickness in this movie? xD -lol damn that guy survived? No one even tried to get him out haha.

Overall: This movie just blew me away. It’s phenomenal, not a single thing truly frustrated me like when I usually watch these sorts of movies.