#system in place by next year and that’s not happening obviously no genocide is better than any genocide but the argument that somehow there

[cinematicbookworm]

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[quazartranslates]

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH31

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

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Chapter 31: Star Death Reality Show (XIV)

He did it!

He actually did it!

After running out of this corridor and reaching a safe corner, Qi Leren's flying heart finally fell back to his chest. He collapsed on the ground from how much he had been drained of all his strength, left only with the strength to pant.

Qi Leren had loaded the save file three times in a row just now, that is, he had done it for the first time since the Witchcraft Sacrifice task. He clearly remembered that the last time he had loaded it like this, he couldn’t stand at all afterwards. Today, however, he had loaded the file three times in a row in this extremely challenging high intensity, but he had still been able to burst out of that corridor of death with explosive force… This was not only a breakthrough in physical fitness.

Qi Leren looked at his hand with a hint of thoughtfulness.

Was it because Maria had given him the blessing of the holy light? Since then, although Chen Baiqi let him know every day that his limit was far higher than he imagined, his training days were limited and he couldn't have advanced by leaps and bounds to this extent, even entering the state of "breaking the shell" as described by Chen Baiqi.

In the last few seconds after the file had been loaded when he had run out of the corridor, he definitely broke through the limits of the human body. This was true for speed, agility, willpower, and judgment. Even now that he was out of danger, this breakthrough after exceeding the limit still benefited him greatly.

Qi Leren looked deep into the corridor, and under the faint light he could clearly see the details that he should not have been able to see—peeling walls, broken corners, scattered folders... He hadn't had such good night vision before.

The weakness of his body brought a strong sense of insecurity. Without the peeping eye of the camera, Qi Leren took out a strength potion and drank it steadily, waiting quietly for his body to adjust. His physique was much better now than before. Even if he was trained hellishly one day, he could always continue to exercise without the soreness of exhausted muscles the next day, which made Chen Baiqi very pleased. She had praised him for being much better than she had been, having the ghost-like appearance of a dead dog every day—Qi Leren felt that she was also pretty harsh towards herself.

After his physical strength was restored, Qi Leren stood up and continued to move forward, taking every step carefully.

The scope of this underground facility was huge, so it wasn’t clear whether it was an air defense facility or an underground research institute. However, from what he could see, it was not a particularly high-tech type of place, but rather it had the Soviet architectural style of the Cold War period. The most incredible thing was that this underground facility had electricity! When Qi Leren walked in front of a closed door and pressed the switch, the iron door would still open. It seems that after entering it, there is no detection system like the laser corridor.

What the hell was this place? Qi Leren, filled with doubts, carefully continued to move forward. This underground space was so large that there were even elevators leading levels deeper underground. Because he couldn't read the alien words, Qi Leren could only guess a little from the symbols. There were danger warning signs everywhere. He feared that this wasn’t an air defense facility, but more likely an underground military base built to prevent nuclear war.

However, when this door was opened, the pictures that appeared in front of him made Qi Leren forget his many speculations and affirmed his original expectation.

This was an underground research institute!

This room was as big as two basketball courts and thick pipes ran along all of the walls, ceilings, and floors, so it was impossible to tell where the light source came from. And in the middle of the room, countless column-shaped growth chambers were like rows of pillars, spreading before his eyes to the end of the room. Each growth chamber was connected with a pipe. In the time when they were used, this pipe provided them with oxygen and nutrient solutions. However, after the underground fortress was abandoned, the nutrient solutions became turbid liquid, and the things in the growth chambers had already died.

It was a scene that could only be seen in science fiction movies. Qi Leren was thinking about this as he approached a growth chamber. There was a mass of something in the dirty liquid. Considering that it had been abandoned for many years, there was no doubt that the creature inside was dead, but it had not rotted away.

What was in the growth chamber? Qi Leren took out his flashlight and wanted to take a look at the contents, but just at the moment when he took out the flashlight from his item bar, he heard a click.

Maybe he wouldn't have realized what it was before, but now, even if he heard it in his dreams, he would jump out of bed and fight back—it was the sound of a handgun’s safety being taken off!

Qi Leren flashed behind the growth chamber without thinking and squatted down. He took out the gun that Chen Baiqi gave him and held it in his hand. However, after a short thought, he decided not to launch an attack rashly, but asked aloud: "He Yi?"

"...Qi Leren?" He Yi's voice, which was horribly hoarse, came from behind another growth chamber.

Sure enough, it was He Yi!

Qi Leren put his hand holding the gun behind his back and slowly came out from behind the growth chamber, but did not dare to stray too far from his bunker: "What happened to you and Mark? Afterwards, I sneaked into Annie's house and found the attic in her house. I also found the pipe embedded in the wall leading to the basement. Is that how you came down here?"

He Yi, who was hiding behind the growth chamber, was silent for a while before he came out slowly.

He doesn't seem to be in a good state; his lips are chapped, and there were red burst vessels in his eyes. Instead of relaxing his vigilance, he continued to point his gun at Qi Leren and snapped: "Take your right hand out."

Qi Leren slowly stretched out his right hand from behind his back, but what was in his hand—the gun—had been quietly replaced by his knife. He wasn’t sure whether the invisible camera beside He Yi had been shut off, so he couldn't take out the gun that would be difficult to explain the source of, and he didn't need to use it—dealing with a weak opponent who didn’t know how to hold a gun properly, he didn't need his own gun at all.

With a ting, Qi Leren threw the knife to the ground. He raised his hand and showed a sincere expression: "What happened? You don’t look very good..."

"Don't talk, come over to me and follow my instructions." He Yi gave him a cold look, and his eyes were full of doubt.

"Okay, I'll do it. Don't be nervous. I mean no harm." Qi Leren walked slowly to stand before He Yi and took the initiative to show him the back of his head.

He felt the tension at this time; what had made him so shocked and frightened? After seeing this underground research institute, Qi Leren could vaguely guess: He Yi already knew about the octopus, and he knew that the octopus had parasitized this group of contestants. But at this moment, he couldn't be sure whether Qi Leren, who had suddenly appeared before his eyes, had been parasitized.

But he obviously didn't intend to kill him, otherwise he could have already done so. Did he have some means to detect whether he was infected or not?

He Yi's gun pointed at Qi Leren's head and he continued hoarsely: "Walk forward, go through this door, take the left corridor..."

The two people walked in tandem through the corridors in this maze-like underground research institute. He Yi, who had come here a few days earlier, was more familiar with the route than Qi Leren. He guided Qi Leren all the way to the third floor underground, and then stopped in front of a thick iron door.

"Press the switch to open the door."

Qi Leren did it, the door opened, and the room inside came into view. This was a room like a medical bay with some items that looked like medical instruments.

Qi Leren, who suddenly realized what sort of equipment it was, glanced at He Yi. He stood in front of a monitor and commanded Qi Leren to stand at the wall opposite him.

He Yi, this guy, wanted to confirm whether he had been parasitized, as Qi Leren has suspected.

A blue curtain of light swept over Qi Leren, and He Yi kept staring at the monitor, finally relieved.

But even after seeing this, the calm and even slightly superior temperament of old still did not return to him. He still looked very anxious, even though he tried to restrain himself: "Thank God, you’re not parasitized. Sorry, I shouldn't have pointed a gun at you before. I can explain the ins and outs to you. We’re in danger right now!

"It hatched, it actually... hatched! That monster that almost destroyed all intelligent life in the whole universe is now hidden among us. It’s already bred and is still breeding! According to their habits, it should be that the 'Genocide Day' where they break out and eliminate us all will be the fifth day!"

Today, it was already the fourth day.

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[natsubeatsrock]

So, I watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and...

Not unlike a lot of things that aren't Fairy Tail, I want to talk about it. In a month, I'm going to spend every day for 4 whole weeks talking about things that aren't Fairy Tail. I will talk about Fairy Tail now and then in some of the posts, but the focus of them isn't Fairy Tail. As a warm-up for that, I decided to talk about Brotherhood.

Recent events in the news have made me think about what I like to call "the Scar philosophy". The name obviously comes from my own reasoning about how Scar ought to have seen his quest for revenge. This is the topic of a lot of interesting and often disturbing conversations between fans, especially in regards to Scar's status as hero or villain, within the narrative. I like to divide things into three categories, based on different groups of people related to this whole situation.

The first category consists of only one person: Solf J. Kimblee. He is the man directly responsible for the death of his family. If all Scar wanted to do was find and kill the Crimson Alchemist, this post would be over. I think most people would be fine with his motive and actions. There might be some debate over if he should actually kill him, but considering this is Kimblee we're talking about, I think it would be fine if he did kill him.

The second category is where things start to get interesting. This is where I put anyone else directly involved in the genocide of the Ishvalans. Remember my wording of this category as it will be important later on. The most obvious people in this group are the members of the military who killed soo many Ishvalans. However, this also includes Envy who started the conflict in the first place.

Now, as I see it, this is a section that requires nuance to talk about. Envy and many of the soldiers and alchemists involved were bad and ought to have been punished for their willful and gleeful participation in the slaughter of a people group. However, many of the people who were part of the army recognized the problems with their actions and those above them. They wanted to change the system that was ultimately responsible for the genocide. 

With the end of the series, Roy Mustang prepares to rule the country by learning about the Ishvalan people. If Scar were to kill all of the people in this group, he would lose out on finding people willing to help sustain the restoration of his people beyond their current state as refugees and wanderers. 

One of the big issues with Scar's plan and goals is that it doesn't do much for his people after he's done. Once the state alchemists are done, then what? His rage is satisfied, but the system that he took issue with doesn't change. If anything, his actions could have been used to justify even more oppression for the Ishvalans. 

Now up to this point, the argument can be made that Scar's actions are justified, at least to some degree. Even though people like Roy and Alex Armstrong are sorry for what they did and would like to change things for the better, they still have blood on their hands. In the eyes of some that might be enough for their deaths to the justified by Scar. Their best attempts can never truly replace what was lost. After all, what can equal the value of a human soul? 

That being said, the third category is where my patience for those who argue that Scar was justified ends. This, of course, refers to everyone else who was caught in Scar's path of revenge. The actions carried out to people in this section are what make Scar, at least for the beginning portion of the series, an antagonist. There are two big examples of characters in this group.

The first is the Rockbells. Even as they were working with the military, they were kind enough to treat people, regardless of what side they were on. Ironically enough, it's because of this mentality they were killed. While I am slightly partial to the 2003 explanation for their death, I can't say it was a bad idea to have Scar kill the Rockbells. While it could be argued that Scar did this in a fit of rage, he's willing to let Winry take out her own form of vengeance on him.

Of course, this goes nowhere because of the next example, the Elrics. Remember how the last category was people who responsible for killing Ishvalans? That wasn't the ultimate target of Scar's revenge. His ultimate goal was the death of all state alchemists. That is an important distinction.

While that goal makes sense considering the war got as bad as it did once the state alchemists were involved in the fighting, Ed presents yet another challenge to the logic of Scar's actions. If his ultimate motivation was revenge, then going after the Elrics was useless. If it was the destruction of a group responsible for killing his people, Ed and Al were training with Izumi Curtis when the war happened.

Even becoming a state alchemist is more of a means to an end for the Elrics. They don't enjoy the system they're a part of. They're only using their status for its benefits to their search for the Philosopher's Stone. If there were other ways to get what they needed, I'm willing to bet becoming a state alchemist wouldn't be a part of their plan in the first place.

To be crystal clear, I am not arguing that Scar does nothing right or that he was totally unjustified. The actions committed against the Ishvalans were devastating and unjustifiable. Knowing as much as we do about what happened to make Scar do what he did makes it hard to say that his rage was wholly unjustified.

However, Scar's judgment was still clouded by his vengeance. He purposefully ignored his cultural and religious teachings to hurt people that, at best, acknowledged their wrongs and wanted to make amends for the actions and, at worst, had nothing to do with his reasons for revenge. Even as I would say that Scar's motivation makes sense, he was far from doing the right thing. And it's ultimately because of people that can empathize with him that real change can happen for his people, outside of his search for revenge.

This is one of the many things that makes Hiromu Arakawa's writing of Fullmetal Alchemist so incredibly masterful. Scar's rage at injustice is still wholly justified by the end of the series and his people can start rebuilding. However, he recognizes that there are better ways to achieve a better state for his people than killing people. 

One of the craziest things about this whole theme I realized reflecting on the situation is that his final fight with him isn't against Kimblee. His fight on the Promised Day is with Wrath, otherwise known as King Bradley. Interestingly, his final fight isn't with the man who's directly responsible for the death of his family. It's with the man who, for most people, would represent the ruling powers during the Ishval Civil War.

We do well to learn from this example. The world is a messed up place. The past events of this year alone have been enough proof of that on several levels. Yet, the real issues are, more often than not, with systems and structures that perpetuate injustices. We do well not to castigate all those in said systems and structures without recognizing the many ways that some work to subvert those systems from within. We also especially shouldn't involve people who aren't part of the real problems we're trying to solve. Doing either is more often than not counterproductive to the end goal of true justice.

These thoughts have been stewing in me for just over two years since starting and completing Brotherhood. Between then and now, I've seen a lot of people talk here about Scar's actions on both sides of the "Scar did nothing wrong" debate. And, under normal circumstances, I’m not sure that I would be inclined to add to this discourse, if I’m adding anything to over a decade of discourse by making this post.

However, the real inspiration for this post has come from the more recent events regarding the murder of George Floyd. The outrage is beyond justified and many have made peaceful protests against his death and the system that caused it across the country and even the world. However, many innocent people have been hurt and even killed during the various riots surrounding the Twin Cities.

If you're interested in specific ways to help, click here for a list of funding drives and charities related to the aftermath of what's been happening. This list includes the official GoFundMe's for George Floyd's family and daughter.

[jessiewre]

Day 22

Sun 26th Jan 💜

It’s been a year to the day since we lost Nanny. That’s mad isn’t it. Miss that legend.

Woke up at about 5am because we’d gone to bed too early, but managed to power through and stay in bed till 7am. Phil got up and continued researching his new obsession - a half marathon near Kilimanjaro - and I joined him at 8:30am for Spanish omelette breakfast included in our 25$ a night room. Good deal that init. People say that in London you’re never further than like 5 meters away from a rat. Well thats like me and good deals, there’s always one close by for me to sniff out. Maybe I’m more like one of those pigs and the deals are truffles.

I digress...

The hostel manager was now wearing a chefs coat and I realised he was now the chef. What a multi-talented chap he was. I threw him into a frenzy by asking for salt, pepper, ketchup and chilli sauce, and eventually went into the kitchen myself to assist.

The ketchup was in a huge bucket bottle in the fridge and he gracefully glugged it out into a plastic squeezey bottle that he couldn’t find the lid for. Yum.

Shout out to Stella and Helen who will surely boke at that description of keptchup.

We got bodas to the Woman’s Centre for the recommended walking tour starting at 10am - but there was a big bike race on believe it or not, and so road blocks meant we had to walk the last kilometre. Phil was loving the bike race, I could see his legs twitching like he was imagining himself on a bike that moment, but I soon snapped him back to reality by power-walking ahead to avoid us being super late to the walk.

The sky was rapidly turning a dark shade of grey but Phil assured me that the weather report he’d checked stated that there would be no rain until midday or later.

You may be able to sense where this is going.

We arrived at the Centre and sat in the sofa area for the introduction, and the exact moment the woman began to talk and tell us about the community, the rain began to thunder on the metal roof and no one could hear a word she said. After 10 minutes, the intro finished and the rain actually calmed down a little, but then it went totally crazy again and me and Phil looked at each other like...hmm should we just not do this walking tour.

Another English girl there was thinking the same thing and the 3 of us decided to ditch the tour and head back the next day, while the 3 older people and a young American woman went off in the torrential rain with umbrellas. Umbrella’s are all good and well but I couldn’t see another soul on the streets so I seriously doubted how good a community walking tour would be in this weather. We chatted to the English girl, Esther, and she was ending a weeks work doing research for the Princes Trust who she works for. In a nutshell, she creates programmes for local groups in different countries to integrate technology into their lives to improve their prospects and quality of life. Really interesting! Phil mentioned that she should hang at our hostel later if she wanted as we were planning on trying out the bowling alley on site, and she was really up for that, especially considering she was in Kigali on her own and it was her last night.

The rain eventually calmed down enough for us to jump on a boda and we decided that considering the rain, it would be appropriate to visit the Genocide Museum at this point. We knew we were going to visit it at some point so made sense to be inside during the rain.

We were really hungry though and didn’t want to rush through the museum, so thankfully there was a cafe on site where we had a vege burger and vege panini, both with chips. We decided we’d try and lay off the chips for a while after that meal, it was the chip that broke the camels back.

The Rwandan Genocide museum was a harrowing and necessary visit.

The below information is upsetting, I’ll warn you now.

genocide

noun

noun: genocide; plural noun: genocides

1. the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group.

To briefly summarise, the problems began when the country was ‘colonised’ - or should we say if we’re being honest, when the country was invaded against its will. The Germans were first in 1899 then the Belgians in 1916 and then the Belgian’s decided to split the country into three different groups. Ultimately this created a sort of competition between the groups of people that had never existed before and this was what they say sparked the issues in the country. Fast forward to 1994, and the genocide officially began, over a period of 100 days - neighbours were murdering neighbours, friends were murdering friends. Relatives even betrayed each other. By turning people against each other, the ringleaders were able to sit back and watch the killings happen for them.

Being in the country now, its very difficult to imagine it happening, as it feels vibrant, friendly and safe. But the images in the museum leave you under no illusions. People were mindlessly slaughtered, no one was spared - children, pregnant women and men. It was absolutely mind-blowingly horrendous.

The museum talks a lot about how the international community sat back and let it happen, like Rwanda was on another planet that no one cared about. There is obviously a lot of pain from that which was difficult to read about.

But there were also a number of people who put themselves on the line by hiding people in their houses and gardens, saving many lives. Unfortunately, there were not enough of those people and over a million people were killed. They are still uncovering mass graves today.

There were videos playing with interviews from survivors talking about the guilt they feel from being the only member of their family who survived. But incredibly, they spoke about forgiveness and said they would like to forgive the perpetrators if they were willing to ask for forgiveness. They spoke about moving forward with only peace in mind, as this was what would move Rwanda forward in a peaceful way. By seeking revenge, the violence and pain would continue, they said. It’s unbelievable to hear that from someone who watched their innocent young siblings and mother murdered by machete in front of their very eyes. You can’t even imagine what this person has gone through.

One of the most difficult parts of the museum was The Children’s Room. This section had beautiful photos of child victims printed in large portraits displayed around the room, with a small plaque underneath each one with bullet points of information about the child, like:

Name

Age

Favourite Snack

Best Friend


Then the final point for every child was

Cause of death

The descriptions here were detailed and distressing.

Obviously there is a huge amount of detail missing from this account of the genocide and I urge you to have a read about it if you have time and are interested.

We left there after a few hours taking it all in and went to find the Inema Art gallery, as we’d read about it being a really cool artists space that has had a lot of international interest.

It was different to what I expected, as there wasn’t actually a lot of pieces in there - more like a few extremely large pieces, each priced around $5000. So obviously, we bought two and headed off.

Well anyway, some of the artists were there stood near their art in smart clothes and were hoping for a super rich muzungu coming in and buying everything. That was not going to be us, so we thanked them and headed to the cafe for a little coffee.

Not before I asked them if there were any female artists there.

One guy said No, the women in Rwanda seem to stick to the craft-making and THEN he said that even though many are good at art, he thinks they are lacking in passion.

I said Hmm perhaps you means Confidence, not passion.

He was like Oh yeah, maybe that.

Yeah MAYBE THAT mate.

We boda’d back to the hostel and Phil donned up in his gear for a run. Just before heading off, he finally booked himself a spot onto the Kilimanjaro half marathon in Moshi, Tanzania on 1st March. FFS. Better get practicing on my excited supportive girlfriend look then.

Meanwhile I sat in the hostel garden watching videos on how to use Procreate on the iPad. Suddenly realised Phil had been gone AGES and then he rocked up having run like 10 MILES and then said Oh also, I may have tripped over and potentially broken my toe.

He’d taken out his phone to check the map and ended up kicking a bit of metal sticking out of the group, and then he’d fallen over and made a few new cracks on his phone screen (to join the 5 that were already there).

Wicked.

Phil had a quick shower and change while hobbling around on his bad foot (I hear broken toes are brilliant for half marathons), and Esther arrived at the hostel, so we went searching for a restaurant open on a Sunday. After a few fails, we eventually stumbled across a place called Afrika Bite and negotiated the 10k per person meaty Rwandan platter down to 5k each for a vegetarian version for all of us. It was so good! Garlic potatoes, peanut sauce, rice, vegetables, fried banana, salad, plus some ‘fish fingers’ ordered as an extra. Such a welcome relief to eat something local and delicious. Shout out to those who are reading this blog mainly for the food descriptions.

We went back to the hostel to play in East Africa’s 2nd bowling alley (the only other one is in Nairobi!) and Esther made sure she mentioned she had a ‘bad neck’. That would explain her unbelievably bad scoring thats for sure. Ok now to be fair, Phil the physio also advised that she use the heaviest ball available which turned out to be truly awful advise and after a stagnant run of about 2 points in 6 goes, she tried a really light ball - and actually hit some pins! Go Esther.

Can I also mention that this bowling alley had a system where a bloke hidden at the end would organise the pins and reset them for us manually using a kind of lever system. He always managed to move his hands out of the way before the ball struck the pins of course.

Esther headed back to her hotel and we ended up playing basketball on the two hoops game with Desire the manager. Our quick game of ‘How many can you score in 1 minute’ managed to take over our lives for over an hour. My record was 23, Phil’s 24 (he’s taller init) and Desire managed 33 (well, he works there so ya know). Was addictive and super fun and I got the impression Desire will spend the next year working on his pb.

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

Why I’m Ashamed to Be Christian

So, now that I am literally sick of the Measles nonsense (no, fucking literally, working 12+ hour shifts on an incident management team has got me sick and tired enough to call in tomorrow), I’ve decided to do a non PH rant, though it’ll for sure rear it’s fucking head somewhere in here. Instead, let’s tackle something real fun. Religion! Time to buckle up.  In my half fucking awake daze that I was just nudged out of, something really wild hit me. My faith, my belief in a very specific God with a specific book (though I admit that other religions, so long as their origin is not a company or a tool to oppress others on the outset, are valid/likely just as true) makes no God damned sense.  (For reference, here I will claim my most closely related sect as my own; American Evangelism [though if one were to ask in person I’d say “non-denominational”, but historically, the two are close] and will be speaking as a part of a community I used to closely belong to but now have drifted away from on some granola-crunching dumbassery that is “I am a church of one” bullshit. I’ve wanted to be other things, but ever since I left the Freemasons, fuck all else has had much appeal.) So, first things first, Garden of Eden, right? Pretty fucking cool place, some might have even called it a perfect garden, a perfect place for humans and God to interact? But here’s my hang up with it. The trees of Life and Knowledge, and the rule that Adam and Eve could eat of any fruit except those grown upon that pair. Why even fucking have them?

 When I asked that as a kid in a faith based area, they said because it was a test.

 Of what?

 “Well, of our loyalty to God and our Faith, of course”. 

Except again, what the fuck? Like, I get the idea of free-will, in fact I am a huge believer in individual free will (I’ll get to that in a sec), but here’s the stickler here. As any other creative type will tell you, we want our work to take on a life of its own. Like say I wanted to program a remarkably bright AI, and it worked, and all I wanted was for it to recognize me as its creator and to discover and enjoy what home I could make for it. You know what I wouldn’t do? I wouldn’t give an AI, even with some simulated free will, the ability to break certain rules. For example, I wouldn’t allow it unrestricted access to the internet or my personal accounts. I wouldn’t even give it the concept that such things existed, let alone put it right fucking there to be used. That would be a flaw, an imperfection in an otherwise perfect place. And yeah, there’s something to be said for giving free will with not-free consequences, sure. But two things: 1) Don’t be pissed when the thing happens that you allowed to exist in the first place and thus forced it to be a mathematical certainty now that you’re dealing with perhaps the most curious species to ever exist.  2) Don’t go blaming them for a lack of faith. If anything, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, an act that abusers often use to get what they really want and have a thin veneer of an excuse to make happen. Now doesn’t that sound a lot like a good number of the followers of this faith, as opposed to an almighty, omnipotent, powerful being? Hmm, something to consider there, maybe.  Speaking of followers, let’s actually also take a look at some of the prophets that we as American Christians often hold so dear. Now me? I’m a Luke guy, I like Luke. Peaceful, loving gospel for the most part, and I dig it. Peace and love, baby, that’s all I want coming from stories regarding a higher power that we had to hang up like a fucking tapestry to make sure we got all that love. But do you know who I fucking hate, and who I blame the most for how the American chruch is? Paul/Saul of Tarsus. Thiiiiiiiiiiis prick. This fucking Deus Vult Vulture. Actually in many ways, he really is the archetype to the Modern Evangelical fucking anything. Actively participated in the harassing, attempted extinguishing and successful terrorizing of a marginalized group. Then after being hit back for it, literally “seeing the light” and trying to be the fucking vanguard of said group only to lead it down a path where he’s suddenly the appointed expert of anything to do with the issue. And while he does this, he helps create the most violent and bigoted thoughts in the whole of the religion, and is praised for his visions as he says they are truly from God, and can thus act oh so righteously. This right here is a fucking problem, y’all. Like, I know the whole forgiveness idea allows for some mental gymnastics on how this could even happen, but even then to make a genocidal ass-face your de-facto leader aside from Christ himself for the next 2000 years is a fucking flip that even at the 1988 Olympics, if Christians were America, Russia would give them a straight 10/10.    And yet, for many of us, that’s exactly what we’ve done. Hell, we’ve even fallen into the forced victim narrative of the synopsis of this asshole:  “Oh well, you see, I was a heathen and thus I couldn’t help myself, but then like, the God of the people I was killing talked to me and like, now I have to do this (Take on the “burden” of leading the church) as penance for what I couldn’t help myself over.” We’ve fallen for it so much, that it may as well be hard wired into our nervous system to believe anything resembling it, just as we assume if something is flat, green and on a tree, it’s a leaf.  Maybe it’s why we as a religion (and let’s face it, other Abrahamic religions as well) are so damn good at beating down the marginalized while screaming that we are the saints, we’re the sacrificiers trying to make things better. Like, let’s have some modern day fun with this bullshit, man; let’s see how we treated and in many places continue to treat women.  Of the few churches I have been to, 100% of them had one dual-sided message that made me real fuckin’ uncomfortable, fam:  Part 1) That women cannot be trusted onto themselves and thus 2) Men must take control of them and society to not allow for some unspecified “Ridiculous bullshit”.  (as a fair heads up; I do fully recognize non-binary, trans individuals, etc, but for the sake of brevity I’ll be mostly referring to M/F in the traditional sort of way, because opening up Christianity’s treatment of anything regarding gender fluidity is a Ph.D. thesis for another day)  Now, I don’t know about y’all, but I know damn well that out of all the dudes I know, and all the lasses I know, they’re a pretty mixed fuckin’ bunch. It’s almost like their gender assigned at birth doesn’t really affect how reasonable they could be as people nor how much responsibility they should have. Obviously some cultural practices skew this quite a bit in so far that women are expected to take more responsibility, younger, and for less praise, but if anything that should help destroy, not reinforce that message.  And yet, the idea persists so much in Christian circles. And not just by the men themselves, but the women, also. For the longest time of my church going days, the pastor was a woman. She wholly believed it was just and right that her husband be in charge of everything, that women should be loyal to their men in all aspects. Then again, she also (despite recruiting members primarily from college) did not believe in evolution at all, so there’s that in terms of an intellectual hurdle. But regardless, this inherent submissive attitude within the faith (and even the half-hearted and self-congratulatory “Yeah but we REALLY are the ones making the decisions because we can withhold sex if we want” is essentially that too just a smidgen more empowering), when combined with the idea that men should be wholly in-control (which is a breeding ground for toxic masculinity if there ever was) is shameful. It’s what has allowed so much bullshit in the past, including these recent abortion laws. Now, I’m going to cover abortion in another post (I might get to it tomorrow; It’s been on the burner for weeks), but it’s super pertinent here.  We, as a religion, have allowed ourselves to tell women (just as we tell/told minorities before) that they cannot be trusted with their own bodies, that they cannot be trusted when they speak, and most certainly cannot be trusted to truly hold dominion over anything. And that has allowed the most insidious, hateful, bigoted, disgusting things to happen in the name of God. A God that while I am writing this post I still believe in, but my doubts about how genuine the message has ever been is hitting home. One whose words about peace have been ignored when they could be interpreted or pointed to to support war, where the rich can profit off the poor, or to support sexism, because we as men historically have wanted to control “everything of ours”, or to take the very free will we claim to hold so dear from those who need the ability to make their own decisions the most. Words that have been used to hold down good people from making lives better. Words that in the hands of those who wanted, could be profaned and desecrated and thus allow for profane and disturbing events, both on the grand stage of the world and behind the closed doors of any house in some small town. Words which are held up with a wink and a nod so that followers feel included when they are scammed by some fucking fried chicken joint who wants to make more money to fight against equality, or to pay for another $9 million jet for some asshole who croons about how the poor should be grateful they do not have the temptations of the rich.  To other followers, do you not lament that we are this way? That we have been this way for so long? Because I fucking do.  And to those who have been discriminated or marginalized or whatever else against because of your gender or skin colour or situation or victimization or  past deeds of any sort; I’m sorry. Genuinely, truly sorry you have suffered as you have. Sorry for what people have done thinking it was somehow morally or spiritually justified, sorry that they thought they were saving you. And I can assure you that I will never try to lead you as those before me have tried to. Though if it’s all the same, I’d like to get to hear you, and walk beside you. 

[mhornar]

A Defense of the Tau Caste System, Part 3: Caste Mobility

So in part 1 I talked about the overview of the Castes and the biological nature of their separation.  Part 2 focused on the history of the castes and how that influenced their modern social structures.  We also looked at the internal structure of the castes, and discussed what limitations it provided to rising on one’s own merits within the caste. Now we’re concluding by looking at the other traditionally recognized flaw of a caste system, it’s mobility, or lack therof.

Caste Mobility: So here's where we drift solidly into fan theorizing.  We've already discussed the wide population discrepancy between the Castes.  Fire Caste members serve only in the ground forces of the Tau military.  Air Caste members are so committed to orbital and space travel that they have developed physical variation from the basic Tau biology.  Water Caste members serve as diplomats and free traders.  The Ethereals are priest/bureaucrats.  Every one of these professional focuses represent a very small percentage of the total Tau population. Everyone not in one of these Castes falls into the Earth caste.  It's certainly probable that the other castes include civilian populations, but if so we're not told about them explicitly.  The Water Caste would certainly stretch easily into a similar role at home.  Social workers, marketers and shopkeeps would all benefit from the talents we are told are inherent to the Water caste.  The Fire Caste depends on the Earth Caste to develop and produce their weapons, armor, and drones.  However there are positions in that development chain that require consults with people from the field. We already discussed the “who pilots local transportation” when discussing possible Air Caste civilians. Even with those possible “civilian reserves” though, the professional Castes have one glaring weakness.  Where do they get more personnel if needed? Going back to the biology discussion, we are told by the codexes that the Tau have a strict ban on cross-caste children.  In looking at their histories we also discussed how that strict ban can't have been in place in the beginning as the caste stratification would have taken centuries or millennia to settle during the unification of the homeworld. In 1913, Germany had an estimated population of approximately 65 million people.  During World War I they sustained approximately 2 million casualties.  So in the process of fighting a single war they lost 3% of their population (primarily their young, male population at that).  During the war their total births per year cut in half by 1917.  By the 1930s though their population had returned to pre-war levels, and they had an entirely new population of soldiers.  This time their next war killed a total of 6% of their total pre-war population, without even factoring in their genocide against their own citizens. In the Warhammer 40k setting, casualty rates like those that Germany sustained are a feature, not a bug.  The Imperium regularly hurls crusades numbering in the tens of millions of soldiers at threats.  Space Marines kill thousands of enemy soldiers without taking so much as a scratch themselves.  For many of those factions “recovering from losses” is built in. Orks and Tyrannids simply make more of themselves, through spores and biomass.  Chaos recruits from among those trillions of Imperium citizens.  The Necron have huge galaxy spanning armies hidden away everywhere just waiting to be awakened. The Tau don't do that. They make more soldiers the old fashioned way, by raising children into young men and women and asking them to do the impossible.  When they send their Fire Warriors against a major offensive, what happens if they lose?  Hell what happens even if they win?  Losing an entire generation of German soldiers crippled their nation for a time, but they recovered militarily because all they had to do was wait until the next generation grew up.  They still had 65 million people who could produce possible soldiers.  If instead only 10 percent of the population were genetically allowed to serve in the military and a third of that population died in a single war (or even a single battle for something like Stalingrad) then Germany might never have recovered (especially if their enemies planned to exterminate their entire population if they surrendered, thereby denying them time to recover the natural way). The Air Caste is even more specialized.  What happens if a fleet of Hero class frigates and Colony class carriers is destroyed in battle.  It's not like you can pull your remaining crews off the front lines and tell them “all right guys, for the future of the empire you have to spend the next decade having as many babies as you can.”  I mean if you can get a cease fire...definitely do that.  But you need those crews fighting. Of course there is a huge population they can pull from which solves all of these problems.  The Earth caste is the vast majority of the population.  It has to be because they're doing everything else.  However we're explicitly told that it's the Fire Caste the provides the soldiers, and the Air Caste provides the spacecraft.  The Earth Caste are just civilians.  What if we inverted our understanding about Tau society a bit?  I've noted before that within each Caste there seems to be little class stratification and it otherwise seems to work like a professional track.  What if the Castes aren't instruments of genetic purity, and are instead primarily professional organizations? The Tau believe in serving the Greater Good at all cost.  They gladly lay down their lives in order to ensure that everyone in their civilization will do better as a whole.  While the communist analogy is overdone and inaccurate, the Tau do plan out their economy to a degree.  Children born into specific Castes receive education and training in the professions of their Caste.  We're told that Fire Caste soldiers are so good because they have been trained in the hunting strategies of the ancient nomads on their homeworld.  

You know where hunting strategies derived from wide open plains might not be useful?  On spacecraft boarding parties, where the field of battle is three dimensional, cramped and subject to a wide array of environmental dangers.  The folks who probably would have a natural understanding of those environments?  The Air Caste.  Yet for some reason, it's Fire Warriors who do this job.  Most navies, when faced with the challenge of boarding enemy ships, landing on beaches and otherwise fighting at sea developed some form of specialized marines.  So why did the Tau, arguably the best space navy on a per capita basis (god I loved my Tau fleet in Gothic), decide they didn't need this? What makes more sense is that people born into the Air Caste population are chosen and trained as marines, given the Tau's standard battle gear, and inducted into the Fire warriors for service in space.  Being asked to leave the traditions of your birth family to take up a new family for service to the Greater Good is precisely the kind of sacrifice the Tau have been trained to make.  Over generations this would also breed new capacities and skills into the Fire Caste and make them more effective in their own assigned roles. A Fire caste child who shows no knack for combat, but who has the gift to create amazing music would be wasted as a common soldier.  Why would the Ethereals simply throw away a gift that would stand out exceptionally amongst the Earth Caste, merely to fill a private's slot in a unit of Fire Warriors.  How does that serve either the Greater Good, or the Ethereals' planning.  Especially if that child would end up later having children who might also not fit the mold of the Fire Warrior, creating a cascading effect over time. If large numbers of casualties are sustained or expected to be sustained, why not draw replacements from those amongst the Earth Caste who show a potential for the Fire or Air fields.  By the time you have finished training them, they will be Fire or Air Caste, not Earth.  They might still have relatives in the old Caste, but their family will be in their new one. The response of course is that none of the Codexes or other material say that this happens. Now obviously that's why I said we'd be hitting fan theorizing here. My response though is to once again point out that the Codexes are largely written from an outside point of view (and are also almost entirely focused on the military forces).  An outsider sees the Tau Castes and sees an inviolable wall, because to the Tau once you cross that wall you don't go back.  Your service to the Greater Good means letting your old life go and becoming your new self. This theory is also interesting to me because it might in time allow the other species of the Empire to be drawn into the Castes.  A Fire Warrior could, in the end, be a Kroot, Human, or Vespid just as easily as it could be a Tau. So in conclusion.  The Tau Caste system would likely seem oppressive to those of us who grew up in upper or middle-class American or European society, with the privilege to believe that we could be anything we wanted when we grew up.  To the Tau however it is a valuable part of their society, offers the freedom to climb as high as your abilities take you, and may even allow for Caste mobility in service to the State.  Most importantly though, it is how they determine who among them will offer themselves in direct service to the Greater Good, and to the Tau that is the greatest honor they desire.

[harrish6]

Soft Pink Hearts - Chapter 2 - Living Life As A Ghost Monster

I made up the fourth ghost's name - the Training Dummy - and is no way cannon. The same for the rest besides Napstablook. Happstablook is a headcannon, and so is Madstablook, so that is what I am going to use.

-Start Chapter-

Ghost food, Happstabloo soon found out, is very different from human food. It is made up from ectoplasum, making them able to eat it while Monsters eat food infused with magic only. It tasted like the after taste of what it should be, almost bland besides that little after taste it had. It made her miss food - human food that is - so much. But she knew better then to complain, some children go days without food.

Right now everyone was sitting at the dinner table, a shabby, scared ridden table that they had apparently gotten at the Dump years ago. ghost sandwiches was tonight dinner, some type of small ecto-squares for Napstablook, easier to eat they told her.

It has been a few days since the trip to the royal lab, and the others have not yet let her outside, fearing that she was too weak to. Even as she waited patiently - playing and taking care of Napstablook as much as she can - but she wanted to go out and explore. It also made her wonder if there was a school...

Gulping down the last of her ghost sandwich, she turned her attention to the two older ghosts. "Do I go to school?" Might as well ask, it's not like they don't know about her memory loss about being Happstablook. Might as well ask if she was wondering.

"Nah, we've been teachin' ya what ya needed to know." Madstablook answered, before frowning in thought. "But now that I'm thinkin'....Do ya want to go?"

Happstablook shrugged in answer. "I wouldn't mind it."

Dumstablook jolted up, gesturing with their nubs, magic making Happstablook hear the unsaid words. "But we have never needed to. Why send her now?"

"Because we always had one of us teachin' her, one of always inside in with kids while the other worked. With the way our farm is grownin' we need more hands on deck." Madstablook gruffly explained, shoving more of the see-through sandwich in their mouth. "Puttin' the both of them in school would free us up. In the evenin' we can teach them about ghost's and stuff that the school won't. Besides, Happs needs to relearn a lot, and the school would teach her what she needs."

Dumstablook had nothing to say to that. Happstablook was impressed with Madstablook's reasoning. She always pictured them being the always angry one, seems she was wrong on that account. Or maybe it was only when family was involved?

'But isn't Blooky too young for school? How do Monsters even age? Not by human years obviously as the King and Queen are still alive hundreds of years in the future, and alive during the war that apparently happened quite a few years - human years or Monster years? Is there even a difference? - ago. So is how old is Blooky? How old am I?' Happstablook shifted before asking. "Isn't Blooky to young? What is school like?" She wanted to add 'for Monsters' but held her tongue. Better not add that and make them suspicious. And she can ask later about ages, make things less complicated that way.

"We do not have so many kids that they are separated into classes based on age." Dumstablook started to calmly explain. "That is why Naps would be with you, but he can be put into a different group, classroom, or have a different class if there are other younger children. Almost like a daycare for him, that or they will start him on something else while the older children learn what needs to be learnt. You would be going to the one in New Home if you want to go, as it would be the best choice as there isn't one in WaterFall."

"But what about Snowdin? It's not too far off!"

"The school there, while brand new, has different hours. We want to be able to teach Happs in the evening right? That school lets out a bit too late for us to give them the lessons they need and to reteach her what she has forgotten. The one in New Home starts early morning and lets out in the afternoon, then there are clubs and little classes they can take after school if they want to or the parent can't pick them up straight away. Besides, I've heard good things about it from our number one customer."

"Ain't that bias though?"

'I see. There are not too many kids, unlike aboveground, so it is like in the 1800's or early 1900's where there was only one school and everyone had to share a classroom.' She tilted her head, thinking about it over the two bickering ghosts. 'It would be nice to learn about magic and SOULS....And meet other Monsters.'

Eventually she made up her mind. "I want to go please." The bickering ceased, both of them looking at her in shock before they shook it off. She got the feeling that the real Happstablook didn't say please a lot, that or hated the thought of school. Maybe a mix of both? She can only hope that this would not come back to bite her in her nonexistent butt.

"One of us will take ya both and sign ya up. We'll get what ya need for class later." Madstablook stated, getting a nod of agreement from Dumstablook.

Reaching over, Happstablook lightly poked Napstablook's cheek making them blink. "Happy...?" She giggled lightly. "We're going to go to school together Blooky!" Blooky gave a small sad smile. "Don't worry, even if I make friends you'll always be my favorite~" She cooed out lightly. The older ghosts snorted and chuckled when a small blush formed on the youngest face at the attention they were getting.

that night as she floated over the small bed that they said was her's, thoughts swirled in her mind. Did Mettaton ever go to school? Probably not now that she thinks about it, that means Blooky didn't either.  'Am...I changing too much? Does it even matter?' Then there was even questions about if this all a game, a delirious coma, or she somehow got into the Undertale Multiverse that is real life and not a game. Then there is also the how and why too if she is in either of those three scenarios.

Her last thought before sleep over took her was 'I hope this doesn't blow up in me face, or worse blow up in other's face's'

-The Next Day, Mid-Morning-

Happstablook fiddled with the beanie on her head, making sure it was on right. Because of some magic logic, and a little bit of ectoplasem, the brown and pink stripped beanie can stay on her. She liked the little hearts on it and little tuffs on the side, it was like she had little pigtails. Napstablook had one as well, only without the tuffs and it was white where hers was brown, and light blue where her's was pink.

Right now she was following Dumstablook - who rightful thought that Madstablook might be too....aggressive in a school filled with young children, adult Monsters that might say something that would set Madstablook off, then have to deal with all the paperwork as well, and after that a store where they all have to deal with other Monsters and waiting in line. So the green ghost decided to take them and not chance anything. - to New Home that is a hour and a half away.

Looking at all the buildings and Monsters that she had never seen in any of the walkthroughs online made Happstablook realize something. The human never really killed everyone in the genocidal rout or even traveled through the whole underground in the game. Oh, sure, they killed a whole lot, but not every single one. Alphys or another must have evacuated - or hid - as many Monsters as she could. There would have to be something in place of a murderous human comes along right? So they must have a system in place for them to follow if that ever happens.

"Here we are." Jerking to attention, Happstablook looked over Dumstablook to see a nicely sized white schoolhouse, a nice yard filled with flowers, and a small pond. All in all it looked like a good school, but Happstablook knew what really made the school good or bad, the other students and teachers. They can make you or break you, and kids can be cruel in a way that can do more then break another. "Come on, we have a long day ahead of us."

Floating in, they were met with a long, thin hallway. Glancing about, they saw the office was on one side, and the classrooms on the other. The walls were lined with children's drawings and worksheets, and reminders to parents and other teachers. From all the noise coming from the classrooms, it seems class is in session.

Dumstablook lightly nudged her, making her phase through the office door, them following right behind her. There were a few adults working on some papers, all of them jolting in shock when three ghost Monsters phased through. A lightly red colored Cat Monster, with curly hair and dressed in a orange sun dress, cleared her throat. Her light orange eyes lighting up when she caught sight of the two younger Monsters. "Are you here to enroll....?"

"Yes, I have come to enroll my two cousins." Dumstablook nodded. Not any of the Monsters flinched or showed surprise with the way they communicated, it made Happstablook wonder if that was a normal or at least not uncommon way to do so.

"Then please, right this way!" The Cat lead them to another door on the left side, knocking lightly on it. "Mister Toro, we have someone wanting to enroll two new students."

"Come in!" A deep voice called out not even a second later.

The Cat opened to door for them, and once they floated in Happstablook nearly had a heart attack - or would it be Soul attack? - at the large bull Monster sitting behind a tiny wooden desk. It was almost comical they way the huge, buff Monster sat in the little chair. She was honestly shocked that it didn't break under him. Magic? She may never know.

"Ah! Hello there!" The bull Monster, dressed in a fancy red robe, smiled down at the three ghost as the cat Monster walked back out, shutting the door behind her. "Are you here to enroll?"

"Yes." Dumstablook nodded once before nudging Happstablook forward. "The one in my arms is Napstablook. This pretty little lady is Happstablook. I'm sure you have heard about the magic incident. Madstablook was never the subtle type."

"Yes, he never was." The bigger Monster nodded in agreement, concern and amusement dancing in his small brown eyes as he looked down at Happstablook. "When he flew out so fast that day, face so twisted in worry, so many Monsters thought the worst. He caught a lot of attention screaming and yelling as well. That poor medic is still afraid of being dusted by him." Dumstablook shook his head, looking pained while the pink ghost hid her face with her nubs. "But children are precious, so everyone understands why he did so." Here he smiles. "Now, why don't we get to enrolling them?"

With that, it was a blur of paperwork and questions that Happstablook didn't really understand, if only for the fact that it was about magic and SOULS. They know she had magic, but not what type it would be catechized under, if you could be that is. They knew her SOUL changed color and type, but not the reason why this was. All in all, it was complicated.

On the upside however, Napstablook and Happstablook are now new students at New Home School. They start in three days, that way to give the teachers to prepare and for them to get ready as well.

"Well, I can't wait to see how well the both of you do!" Toro laughed warmly, it rumbled in the little room as he opened the door for the three Ghost Monsters. "I'm sure you both will have a wonderful time here."

"I'm sure they will too." Dumstablook agreed as the three floated out the little office. Giving a little wave goodbye, Happstablook quickly followed after her older cousin who was still carrying her younger cousin.

But just before they could leave out the front door, Dumstablook paused. ".....I forgot!" Dumstablook quickly turned and handed Happstablook Napstablook. "I need to talk to Toro again real quick. Happy, just stay here and watch Naps." And with that, Dumstablook floated back into the offices, leaving the two little Ghost Monsters in the hallway.

Both blinked before Happstablook turned her attention to the smaller Ghost Monster in her hold. "Blooky~" Happstablook cooed out lovingly, making the smaller one blush and give a shaky smile. "Blooky~"

"H-Happy...." Happstablook whispered back in respond to her cooing. This made her squeal silently at the adorableness that is in her arms. With a grin, the pink monster rubbed her cheek against the white one, softly cooing out. "I adore you so much~!"

Seeing that small smile slowly grow a bit was a main reason why the human turned Monster got up in the mornings. Besides the fact that she wanted to do right by taking Mettaton's place, her new family took center stage. She couldn't remember her first one, and that was a mercy all on it's own. Napstablook was so sad, on the gloomy side of the personality spectrum. And that was fine, it's just the way he is. It makes getting a smile all the more worth it.

She would do anything for her ghostly family because they are all she has.

After a few more minutes of Happstablook smothering Napstablook in her affection, Dumstablook phased through the door, floating back to the other Ghost Monsters.

"Sorry about the wait, we can go now." Dumstablook said as he gently took Napstablook from Happstablook. "Let's get your school supplies, then we can go home. We still have a long day."

Happstablook gave a little giggles, making faces at Napstablook, who was looking back at her and silently giggling at her faces. Dumstablook just happily sighed, leading and carrying them respectively out of the school.

They never noticed a pair of eyes watching them go, peeking out from a classroom door.

- A Hour Later, New Home Store -

"I'll have to infuse them with ectoplasm.... But are you sure these are the items you want?" Dumstablook questioned as he looked over what the two others picked out.

Happstablook could remember a bit of what stores were like above ground. They came in all different sizes, filled to the brim with products of all shapes, colors, sizes and type. While she couldn't remember the details of them, she knows that there were tons of options and if you couldn't find it there, then another store would have whatever you needed in stock if the store wouldn't order it in for you.

The store she was in now reminded her that most of the things Monsters can't grow or make came from a dump. Things that humans do not need and want, Monsters scavenge what can be used or fixed, put it in a store, and then sell it. Not a lot of Monsters scavenge, as the Dump can be very dangerous. Not a lot of items can be used too, so it was a gamble.

New Home's Store certainly showed that. It also made Happstablook understand why they don't need a lot of school supplies.

The shop was small and it's shelves were randomly filled. Or she should say barely filled. One side held items from the dump, the other side held items that other Monsters made and/or grew. Prices were random and it was easy to see that there was a shortage on certain items. At least there were a ton of trees in Snowdin, making paper and such thing easy to make. Well, not easy, but available.

Looking at the small shop that seemed so sad, Happstablook realized why Monsters were desperate to get out of the barrier. Why they were willing to kill children to get to that point. Survival was a must, no one wanted their people and children to go hungry or be trapped without the sun. While there is daytime and nighttime, it's not the same as feeling the sun on yourself or seeing the stars shinning brightly as the moon gently shines down on you. She can get why they would go that far, but that doesn't mean she has to like it. Unless the kid was killing Monsters left and right - hurting some in self-defense, not killing them while doing so, is another matter entirely - she doesn't see the point in killing them. Why not wait until they naturally die if they age faster then Monsters normally do and can't get past the barrier anyway without a Monster SOUL - If she is calling the game right. Even then, this might be different. -, if that is the case here?

In any case, she will never understand fully, might never understand it fully, but she gets it.

"Yep!" Happstablook giggled, pointing to the periwinkle - and wasn't that a color she thought she would never see on a old fashion pouch bag - pouch bag that had bubblegum pink hearts - or SOULS she guessed, it was hard to tell anymore what was considered what. - on it. Apparently it was made by another Monster from old clothing they had found at the Dump. The bag Napstablook picked was arctic blue that swirled with a berry blue, also made by a Monster as well.

Happstablook figured she had to be patriotic about the whole thing, buying things made from Monsters. Not that they have any choice right now, as everything is needed no matter if it was made or found. Life and survival must come first, especially when children are involved.

"Then, we have everything you'll need for school now." Dumstablook nodded to the bunny Monster at the registrar, who started to ring everything up. "After I pay for everything, we can start heading on home."

Humming in agreement, Happstablook picked up Napstablook, making them look to her in confusion. "Blooky~!" She cooed out, twirling around slowly above the ground in a gently way as to not panic the smaller ghost. "Soon we'll be starting school!" Rubbing cheeks, Happstablook couldn't help but grin at the thought of school. It meant learning just what the hell were the laws and rules of this place, and magic. Can't forget the magic part of school. Something that was thought to be impossible now was possible. "I'm sure you'll be the most popular one there~! You're so cute that no one will resist you~!"

"H-Happy....no...." Napstablook quietly giggled, flushing slightly at the praise and tender hug.

"No? Why not?" Happstablook gave a over dramatic gasp - channeling the inner Mettation that is inside her. That, or trying to think on how said robot/ghost would react. Whichever really. - "You are much too cute to not be!"

"Now, now." Both little ghosts turn to look up at blank faced Dumstablook that was somehow still giving off the aura of being amused. They lifted up the bags to show that they had paid for everything. "You can continue to have this...'argument' at home. We're done here. Happy, can you carry Naps while I take the bags?"

"Okay!" Happstablook laughed when Napstablook gave a sigh of relief. Shifting the whitish-blue ghost in her little arms, Happstablook floated after Dumstablook. "When we get home, can I ask you some questions about magic?"

Dumstablook blinked, before looking down at her with a smile. "Of course you can. I'll even show you a trick or two if you want.... But only small ones."

"Thank You~!" The pink Ghost Monster couldn't help but cheer out.

If there was one positive to this whole 'Waking up dead' thing, it was that she could now had the chance to do and learn magic.

'Harry Potter, eat your heart out!'

-End Chapter-

I have no clue on the school system for Monsters would be, so I made it up. There is also the case that this is before the game starts, meaning that the school system will change as time goes on, like it does in reality. For now though, it is old fashion on how it is going on in the school, mixing in with present time.

I am also going to be using headcanons and made up science, magic and a whole lot of other things. I'm just warning you all now.

I have so many ideas for this story, you have no idea! I even have ideas for after they get out of the barrier forever. So, this is going to be fun!

[tenscupcake]

electrostatic potential (35/?)

ten/rose. teen this ch. i’m back!!! see ao3 for notes. thank you oodles to @aroseofstone​ for the beta!!! summary: as the doctor and rose traverse time and space looking for adventure, they slowly fall victim to a mysterious energy that can manipulate their emotions. though confused and unnerved by the cerebral affliction, neither of them understands its cause, or realizes that it could jeopardize their friendship. what will it take for them to discover the truth? this chapter on ao3 | back to chapter 1 on ao3

“We've got two separate worlds,” the Doctor explains, growing increasingly animated. “But in between the two separate worlds, we've got the Void. That's where the Daleks were hiding. And the Cybermen travelled through the Void to get here. And you lot, one world to another, via the Void. Oh, I like that. Via the Void. Look!”

As soon as the Doctor places the flimsy paperboard glasses on her face, thousands of green and red particles swarm loosely around him. The particles move independently and randomly, yet they’re contained to a certain area around his figure. They follow him through some invisible force of physics as he sways from side to side, lagging only slightly behind.

“I’ve been through it,” he continues. “Do you see?”

“What is it?” Rose asks. She reaches out to try to touch the particles, but they pass right through her hand undetected, further proof of their immaterial existence.

“Void stuff,” the Doctor answers.

“Like, er...” Rose quickly rifles through related terms she’s learned in the past couple years. “Background radiation?”

“That’s it.” He nods, and whirls her around. “Look at the others.”

Mickey, Pete, and Jake are all surrounded by the same speckled cloud of coloured particles, but they are conspicuously absent in the vicinity of her mum.

“And the only one who hasn't been through the Void,” the Doctor continues, pointing his index finger obnoxiously in her direction. “Your mother! First time she's looked normal in her life.”

“Oi!” her mum interjects.

“But the Daleks lived inside the Void,” the Doctor continues, unfazed, running towards the empty wall on the other side of the room. “They're bristling with it!” He gestures wildly with his hands. “Cybermen, all of them. I just open the Void and reverse. The Void stuff gets sucked back inside.”

“Pullin’ ‘em all in!”

“Pullin’ ‘em all in!” the Doctor repeats with enthusiasm, tugging down on the air with his fist.

“Sorry,” Mickey interrupts. “What’s the Void?”

“The dead space,” answers the Doctor. “Some people call it hell.”

“So, you’re sending the Daleks and Cybermen to hell.” Mickey smiles appreciatively, and looks over at Jake. “Man, I told you he was good.”

But something suddenly dawns on Rose, bursting the bubble of excitement they’d just created.

“But it's like you said,” says Rose. “We've all got Void stuff. Me too, because we went to that parallel world. We're all contaminated. We'll get pulled in.”

“Well,” the Doctor crosses his arms. “I imagine you lot will want to head back to Pete’s world.” He nods his head towards the other four. “Hey, we should call it that! Pete’s world. Anyway, you’ll be safe there. The Void’s only opening from this side.”

“I’m not goin’ anywhere without Rose!” Her mum steps out of line with the others, separating herself from the theoretical return group.

“I know, Jackie, I didn’t mean you.” The Doctor looks to be barely containing an eye roll.

Her mum sidles up next to her.

The Doctor takes a deep breath, obviously contemplating something.

“But you could both go with them,” he suggests softly, shrugging. “To guarantee your safety. Well, yours, Rose,” he amends. “Jackie will be safe either way, as long as she steers clear of the Daleks, but...” he raises his eyebrows, searching both their faces for feedback.

“That’s not gonna happen,” Rose says, chuckling at the ridiculous suggestion.

The Doctor smirks, just a little. He does look instantly more relaxed, but not yet like he’s completely accepted this decision.

“Are you sure?” He asks after a long moment, staring into her eyes, looking very much like he wishes they could hold a private telepathic conversation right now. “The Tyler family, back together again...” he trails off, glancing over at Pete.

Her mum glances over, too.

Pete’s formerly hard glare in the face of their circumstances softens into one of longing as he steps closer to the both of them.

“I really don’t want to lose you again, Jacks.”

Her mum shakes her head. “If Rose is stayin’, then I am, too.” Her tone is resolute.

Pete takes a deep breath, running his hands down his face.

“You’re gonna make this world safe again?” he asks the Doctor.

“Or die trying,” the Doctor assures him.

Rose never appreciates his apparent disregard for his own life, but knows that’s simply how he is. She knew what she signed up for when she made a commitment to him: he’d put his life on the line for one random stranger any day. The whole planet? There’s no limit to the risks he’ll take.

“’S like you said,” Jackie says. “Your ideas worked in that world. You’ve got money. You go back. I’ve had twenty years without you. I’ve learned how to cope on my own.” She stands a bit straighter and puffs out her chest. It’s not easy to watch, her mum talking to a man who looks and talks exactly like her father with something so close to rejection. But Rose understands: she doesn’t want to put herself in a position of vulnerability. To open herself up to be disappointed again.

“Yeah, I’ve got money,” Pete agrees. “But... I’m not happy. Haven’t been for a while. And, I dunno, this just feels like... a second chance. And it feels stupid to squander it.”

“Whatever you’re doing, you’ve got to decide now.” The Doctor hustles past them to one of the computer systems, hurriedly punching in some numbers on the keyboard. “We’ve got to open the breach before it’s too late. Whether or not the Daleks and Cybermen are distracted from world domination by fighting each other, either way the whole planet’s about to be caught in the crossfire of a mutual genocide.”

“I could stay,” Pete blurts out, alternating his glance between Rose and her mum. “If you want.” He shrugs. “We could give this a go.”

Her mum’s tough façade finally begins to crack again, and her eyes well with tears. “I’d like that,” she admits. “But I’m not askin’ you to. I don’t want you to regret it later. If you do stay, it’s your decision. Only yours.”

“Rose, I know I’m not your dad,” Pete address Rose in a rush, trying to obey the Doctor. “But I could be. Or I could try to be. If you want. I don’t want to stay if you don’t want me, too.”

“I want Mum to be happy.” She holds back her intense desire to have a second chance at having a dad, trying not to sway his decision either way. She wants this decision to be between the two of them, not something he does out of misplaced guilt for a daughter he never actually had.

“I want that, too,” Pete agrees. Jackie glances between them both. “That’s it, then. I’m staying.”

“Get to the TARDIS, then,” the Doctor demands. “She’s strong enough to protect the lot of you. Mickey, Jake, get ready to use your dimension jumps for the last time. Now! I’ve got to get this system back online.”

“You two are acting directors now,” Pete says to the two young men, removing the yellow button from around his neck. “The paperwork’s already drawn up. I decided this a long time ago, if anything ever happened to me.”

Both the boys nod, solemn. They exchange gruff handshakes and pats on the back with Pete, and then Rose gets a turn to hug each of them. It happens so fast; none of it feels real.

“Never thought I’d have to say goodbye to you twice,” she murmurs to Mickey, trying to swallow down the lump in her throat as she savours the two seconds she has to hold him tight.

“Me neither,” he mumbles back.

“Thank you both,” The Doctor addresses them, setting a hand on each of their shoulders. “Run that Torchwood better than this one. Please. Take care of Pete’s world.”

Jake addresses him like a military commander. “Yes, sir.”

Mickey nods. “You take care of her.” He nods toward Rose. “Bye, Rose,” he adds only to her, much softer.

With that, they press their buttons and vanish.

Rose doesn’t have time to grieve Mickey’s loss again.

“Rose, take them to the TARDIS,” the Doctor orders. “But then come back here. Turns out I need your help.”

“Doctor, how’re we not gonna get sucked in?”

“I’ve got these.” He walks into the next room and picks up a giant black clamp half the size of his body. “Once we open the breach we’ll just have to hold on tight for a few minutes. The breach itself is soaked in Void stuff, in the end it’ll close itself.”

Rose isn’t convinced those clamps will keep them safe – she’d rather have a pair of full-body harnesses bolted to the wall – but she nods anyway.

“Now go,” he commands, shooing them toward the stairwell.

Rose leads both her parents down several sets of stairs to where she knows the TARDIS is sitting, waiting for them. She commands her to open without even using the key, and once they’re both safely on the other side of the doors, she hugs her mum tightly and tells them both she’ll be right back.

“Don’t you dare go gettin’ yourself killed, Rose,” she commands, thrusting a finger at her.

“I won’t, Mum, the Doctor knows what he’s doin’. He’ll keep us safe.”

She’s back in the white control room with the Doctor in only a short minute. The giant clamps have been installed on the walls, each next to a lever.

“All right!” the Doctor shouts, running into position beside the farther of the two levers. “You take that one.” He nods to the other lever. “We’ve got to push them both at the same time for the breach to open. As soon as they’re engaged, grab onto your clamp. And hold on tight or it’ll suck you right in! Ready!”

“Ready!” she says, getting into position.

“Push!” the Doctor commands.

It’s no ordinary lever: its heavy, old-school interior mechanisms provide a level of resistance to movement she has to use her whole body weight to counteract. After a few seconds of straining themselves, both their levers lock into position with a click and a hiss of air.

“Online,” an artificially generated female voice echoes from the computer.

In that moment, a bright, gaping hole tears itself into the empty opposite wall, and suddenly the Earth’s gravity is no longer the only force acting on Rose. The breach now has its own gravity, tugging her back towards it with a gust of wind. She dashes straight to the clamp on the wall, clinging onto it with both arms as the force pulling her towards the breach increases with each passing second. Glancing towards the Doctor, she sees him glancing her way, too, ensuring she’s safely holding on.

A cluster of three Daleks smashes through the building window, their robotic squeals hurtling through the air with their metal hulls until both are sucked clear into the breach.

“The breach is open!” the Doctor yells. She can barely hear over the whirring of the equipment and the fierce wind being sucked into the Void, but he does sound rather chuffed. “Into the Void, hah!”

The force gets stronger and stronger as more and more Daleks and Cybermen pour through the broken glass and whip through the room en route to the Void. Eventually, it outweighs gravity in its potency, and she has to plant her feet on the base of the lever to take some of the strain off her arms.

The Daleks and Cybermen continue to shout as they plunge horizontally to their eternal prison, passing by in blurs of silver and gold, thicker and thicker... there must be hundreds passing them by every second now.

A long minute passes them by in this manner, her muscles and ligaments and bones aching from the effort of holding onto her clamp and maintaining her balance on the base of the lever. The blaring noise of the torrent of wind, machinery, and the cyborg screams feels like it’s gone on for so long she might have permanent hearing damage.

Until one moment, when one word is evident amongst the incoherent squeals, a familiar and harrowing word: exterminate.

A bolt of blue laser emanates from somewhere in the tornado of doomed Daleks and Cybermen, aiming straight for the Doctor.

But it doesn’t strike him.

The blast instead strikes the lever next to him, and bluish electricity surges down the length of the lever before disappearing in a flash. There’s a hiss and a heavy click and then...

“Offline...”

The current of the blast disengaged the lever. It’s slowly retreating to its default position, inching its way towards the floor ever so slowly.

She glances up at the Doctor, terror in her gaze. The determined look in his eyes confirms her worst fear.

He has to re-engage the lever. It’s like she had just thought to herself: with the entire planet in danger, there’s no limit to the risks he’ll take. Mere seconds have passed with the system offline, and the pull into the breach has already lessened significantly. Rose barely has to hold on to resist being pulled in. Any less, and the wind tunnel carrying the evil into the Void will cease and they’ll all clatter to the ground in this very room. For attempting to thwart their plans, she and the Doctor may well be the first victims of their renewed killing spree, but the rest of the world would quickly follow suit.

The Doctor lets go of his clamp, ducking behind the base of the lever for what support it can offer as he reaches his hand out for the descending lever. His fingers just wrap around it, and he plants his feet at the base of the lever and reaches back to grab onto his clamp with his other hand. He can barely reach across the distance, his long limbs being stretched with the effort to hold onto the lever. With a groan that’s audible even over the continued ruckus of the sentient metal husks flying around them, the Doctor pulls back on the lever. And slowly, an inch at a time, it moves back into position.

With a few seconds of intense exertion, and it clicks and hisses back in a vertical position.

He’s done it. He’s got it.

“Online...”

The Doctor reaches back, trying to twist around enough to grab onto his clamp with his other hand and regain a firmer grip on it, but the blast of strengthened wind and renewed gravity of the breach as the system kicks back into high gear doesn’t allow him to. He struggles to maintain his foothold on the base of the lever, holding onto the clamp for his life with merely one hand. It’s hard enough for Rose to hold on at this point, as the torrent rushing into the breach feels stronger than ever, and she still has both her arms around her clamp.

One of the Doctor’s Chucks slips on the gold surface of the base of the lever. As he tries to fix it, the hand on the clamp slips just slightly. He’s barely holding on by his fingers now.

“Doctor!” Rose yells.

She expects him to offer some small reassurance, some faith that he’s got this, that they’ve got this. He always does. He’s always got some clever trick up his sleeve to narrowly escape death while saving the world. But when he turns his head to her, his eyes are wide with pain and dread, and terror drops like an anvil into her gut.

“Hold on!” she screams, all her sense of calm lost in an instant. The force required to hear her own voice over the wind tears the lining of her throat.

The stream of villains seems to be thinning out. Turning back to the building windows, there’s only an intermittent Dalek passing through it. He only has to hold on a few seconds longer, and she’s sure that once there’s nothing left to devour, the breach will close itself, like he said. He’ll be safe.

One last Dalek tumbles through the air towards the wall, and there’s nothing but air being sucked into the breach for a second... two... it’s got to close now, right?

Rose glances over to the Doctor again. He’s still looking over at her, his face twisted up with his struggle to keep his grip. He’s barely holding on now, and his eyes are almost resigned. Like he’s... no.

Rose. His voice is suddenly in her head, clear as day.

They’d discovered they could do this from a distance several days ago, but he’s never taken advantage of it. There hasn’t been anything pressing enough to require it.

Doctor, whatever you’re thinking, don’t, she answers him, the words slurring together even in her head. Don’t, y’hear me! Just hold on!

His fingertips slip from the clamp.

“NO!” Rose screams louder than she’s ever screamed, reaching out her arm as though she can catch him. One of his feet is still vaguely balanced on the base of the lever, but the pull of the void is too strong for that to hold him: his ankle gives way.

It all happens in slow motion from there: his arms flail for a grip on the lever, but he can’t get a hold on it. Instead, he merely hits his shoulder on it as he falls past it. The impact happens to twist him around such that she can see his face as he falls away from her. Falls toward the wall just like the Daleks have been since it opened, falls straight toward hell. Meeting her eyes, he finishes the sentence he’d started in her mind.

I love you.

In his fleeting moment of emotional distress, the sentiment is carried across the growing distance between them, exploding in her mind in a soft, warm red. The eternal promise embraces her heart in a way so reminiscent of how he holds her, so gentle but so secure. He’s always loved her and always will. But instead of filling her with joy as she often dreamed they would, the words course through her veins like ice, because he’s waited until his final seconds of life to finally confess them to her.

Her only response is the continued scream ripping from her throat.

But just behind the Doctor, the giant shining hole into the Void begins to shrink. Quickly. Before the Doctor has fallen the length of the room, it’s swallowed itself up entirely with a sickening slurp. In a fraction of a second, the breach is gone, and the Void isn’t looming anymore. But it’s already too late for the Doctor. The momentum has already been built, and there’s no stopping it.

The white wall ripples violently as it solidifies back into solid concrete and drywall and paint it was before the breach was opened. As soon as it does, the Doctor collides with it, one loud thud of his body and one heart-stopping crack of his head.

He crumples to the floor, completely lifeless.

As soon as Rose’s feet hit the ground, she’s running to him, screaming incoherent pleas to the universe as tears stream down her face.

 She skids to her knees on the floor next to him, pressing her fingers into his neck to feel for a pulse.

She breathes out a sigh of relief that it’s there. Weak, and slow, but there. She places her hand under his nose, next, and there’s a soft, steady stream of air hitting her fingers.

Okay. She nods to herself. He’s alive. He’s breathing. His hearts are still beating.

“Doctor, can you hear me?” she says loudly, but receives no response.

He’s good at healing, isn’t he? He probably just needs time to recover from this. But how long should she give it?

She pulls back one of his eyelids to look at his eye, even though she has no idea what she’s looking for. She does notice that his pupil is blown wider than it usually is, and, pulling back the other one, it’s pointing in a different direction than the other one was. But she has no idea what either of those things means.

A thin stream of blood drips out of his right ear and onto his suit.

Oh, God. This is bad. The Doctor hasn’t been unconscious like this before. Not from a head injury. He’s going to wake up, right? He has to.

Rose takes off her jacket, and gently places it under his head as she carefully rolls him on his side so she can get a look at the back of his head.

She can’t see anything except for his hair and some blood, so she gently rests her hand on the back of his head, trying to feel for anything unusual. There’s not a detectable crack in his skull or any brains oozing out or anything, so she thinks blood isn’t so bad. But when she pulls her hand away, and his blood is dripping down her fingers, she starts to panic anyway.

Oh, god.

“Help!” Rose shouts, unthinkingly, turning to face an empty room. But everyone that once worked in this building is either dead or evacuated. Her mum and Pete are back in the TARDIS, completely out of earshot. But even if they were here, what could they do? Neither of them is a doctor.

She’s got to call someone.

She reaches into her pocket for her phone, but just as she pulls it out, the Doctor starts convulsing.

Rose curses, her phone clattering to the ground as she reaches for him, trying to hold him steady. He’s on his side, already, at least; she’d read somewhere that’s the best position for someone to be in when they’re having a seizure. But this is bad. From what few medical TV shows she’s seen, head trauma followed by a seizure means that without immediate medical intervention, the patient faces death.

He should regenerate. He should be regenerating right now. But he’s not conscious – does he have to be for it to work?

She could drag him down the stairs back to the TARDIS, hope the ship can tell her what to do. Heal him somehow. But by the time they got there, he might already be dead.

Rose sobs merely thinking that to herself.

Does she call 999? Risk him being found out as an alien and locked in a cell, or worse, taken away for experiments? That is if they can find a way to save him?

Once she’s certain he’s stopped seizing for the moment, she checks his pulse and breathing again. His hearts are still beating, but he’s stopped breathing now.

There’s no time left. His biology is equipped with respiratory bypass, but from what he’s told her, that will only last him a few minutes. There must be a way to get through to him, force him to regenerate.

Slowly, carefully, she rests her fingertips on his temple, closing her eyes and trying to communicate with him the only other way she knows how.

He’s in here, she can tell that much. His mind is still very much alive, even if his brain is struggling to function. But none of it feels right. Where normally she’d need to obtain his permission to reach beyond his automatic mental barriers before connecting with him, this time she slips right inside his mind. Where normally he’d greet her instantly and warmly, inviting her in closer, in this moment he’s not consciously here to welcome her. In fact, he doesn’t acknowledge her in any way.

He doesn’t know she’s here at all.

The surface of his mind is completely empty, devoid of thought and feeling and speech, and yet she can feel him, somehow, somewhere...

She concentrates on following that feeling. Delving deeper inside his mind.

In a few moments, she finally reaches a place where the Doctor’s cognitive faculties seem to be still operating. Visions are racing through his head so fast she can hardly focus on them. They’re all short scenes of the Doctor: here in the Torchwood building, back in the TARDIS... alone.

Rose quickly realises these aren’t memories. These things haven’t ever happened. This incarnation has never been on his own like this – she’s been beside him the whole time.

Is he having visions of the future? A future, rather?

Concentrating harder, it does feel jarringly similar to the other night, when the Doctor showed her the ominous vision of the ‘storm’ his time sense had conjured up beneath the fireworks. The progression of events is hauntingly realistic, threatening him with its feasibility, but not set in stone.

Rose would say it doesn’t matter what he’s seeing in here, and all that matters is getting through to him, because he may have mere seconds of life left. But it does matter, because from her vantage point, it seems like the Doctor doesn’t know these are mere mirages of an alternate timeline. She can sense the permeating fear and grief dominating this corner of his mind as it clings to life, as though he really believes he’s living out these choppy visions. And given the fact he still doesn’t recognize her presence, Rose fears the damage to his brain is even worse than she thought. His time sense has gone haywire, he can’t tell reality from these comatose visions, and many of his neurological faculties have shut down completely. Most gravely, it seems, his respiratory system and his connection with her.

She’s got to get through to him.

DOCTOR! She yells from inside his head.

Suddenly, she’s standing opposite him on a cold, unfamiliar grey beach.

“Rose? What’s wrong?” he asks. He looks distressed, but more out of confusion than his own impending death. He doesn’t look injured, or to be in any pain. His suit and hair are perfectly intact.

“You need to regenerate!” she commands, convinced she doesn’t have time to start from the beginning.

He looks around, clearly scanning the otherwise empty coastline for some evidence of danger to his life.

“Rose, what are you on about?” he asks, his brow furrowing. “I’m fine.”

“Doctor, whatever this is you’re experiencing in here, it’s not real,” Rose insists.

This seems to properly upset him. His face distorts into a sad frown as though she’s rejected him.

“Rose, I know I’m not here properly. Not physically, but… I had to say goodbye.”

His injured brain is so lost in this delusion. She has to snap him out of it.

“No, Doctor! Don’t say goodbye!” She lunges forward and grabs onto the lapels of his suit, shaking him just slightly, trying to break the illusion. The Doctor’s eyes widen in some sort of fear, staring down at her hands in shock.

“Rose,” he gasps out, breathing heavily. “How are you doing this?” He hesitantly reaches his arm up, touching her shoulder like she’s a ghost, like he expects his hand to pass right through it.

“Look, you’re hurt.” Rose gently puts her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to look at her. If she can’t break him out of this spell, maybe she can at least rely on the fact that he trusts her. Or, he once did. “You’re hurt really bad. You hit your head. You need to regenerate.”  

“What’re you… agh!” Before he can finish whatever the sentence was going to be, his legs give out under him and he drops to his knees, replacing her hands on his head with his own.

“Rose,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “What’s happening?”

“Doctor, you need to stay with me.” She kneels down with him, fighting desperately for his full attention. “Can you feel the regeneration energy?”

“No,” he blurts out, frustrated.

He looks up at her, his eyes slowly going out of focus until they more closely resemble his lifeless eyes in the real world. “Rose, we don’ ‘ave much time. Just… needt’ tell you…”

“Doctor!” she shouts, bending down to his level. She can’t give up. “Listen! We’re not on this beach, okay? We’re at Canary Wharf. You’re about to leave me forever. You’ve got to trust me. I can feel it. The fire in your veins. You need to surrender to it.”

The Doctor’s eyes go blank as he suddenly directs his attention inward, trying to search, to focus, trying to follow her guidance.

The end result of this search, it seems, is more agony. The reality of his injuries catching up with him? The regeneration energy? Both? Whichever it is, he groans loudly as he hauls himself to his feet. She looks down at his hand at the same moment he does, watching the golden glow slowly saturate his fingers, radiating light onto his suit.

He gasps for air, and Rose knows she has to get out of here. Fast. Given the violence of his previous regeneration, she thinks holding onto him while this happens is likely to get her killed, instead. She recedes from his mind and jumps to her feet as soon as she’s back to the real world, scrambling away from him as the light bathing his still-unconscious figure burns ever brighter. She turns around and sprints for the other end of the room, sliding onto the floor behind one of the computer desks just as the explosion hits her ears.

A few seconds later she hears him, yelling in protest of the brutal process. It carries on for what feels like forever, and her heart aches for him. She doesn’t remember him being in this much agony the first time around. And that’s when it finally begins to hit her: the first time around. When he changed everything about himself and became the man he is now. Or was. He’s going to be a completely different man when she stands up to face him. And she had no time to prepare herself for that.

Still, it’s far better than no Doctor at all. They’ll get through it.

At long last, the pulsing and yelling ceases and the only sound is the Doctor gasping for air.

She stands up cautiously, peering over the desk to get a glimpse of him.

He’s still lying on the floor next to the wall in his tight brown suit, limbs sprawled out, panting, staring at the ceiling. But more than that: he’s still him. Perfectly styled and touchable brown hair, sideburns, gangly limbs.

“Doctor,” she calls softly, and he whips his head in the direction of the sound instantly, his eyes wide.

“Rose!” He bolts upright and leaps up onto his feet. But after he takes only two steps towards her, he loses his balance and belly flops flat on the floor with an ‘oof!’ With a groan, he gives up trying to move any further, content to wait for her to approach him.

She helps him sit up, and joins him on the floor, wrapping her arms around him tightly despite the awkward positioning.

“Rose, I’m... it’s me,” he says, clearly trying to reassure her. “I regenerated, but... it’s me.” He doesn’t realise it yet.

“Doctor, look.” She grins, making an effort not to outright giggle. She runs a hand through his hair, and grabs his hands and holds them up. He stares at one hand for a long moment, turning it around to view both sides, then runs his hand through his hair like she had. He shifts in his clothes, wriggles his feet inside his shoes. And, for good measure, he twists his arm behind him and reaches his hand up the back of his shirt. The moment he feels the mole between his shoulder blades is evident. Ecstatic, his jaw drops and his eyebrows shoot up on his forehead.

“It worked!” he exclaims. “It worked!”

“What worked?” she asks, genuinely puzzled by how this is possible.

“Rose, you did! You were there, when I was about to regenerate. You didn’t want me to change. I didn’t want to change. It was all I could think about.” He pauses, shaking his head. “Still, I think Bad Wolf is up to something again. This has never happened before.”

“But you said it could?” she counters.

“Honestly, I was just trying to make you feel better,” he admits. “It may have been technically possible, but I didn’t think it ever would.”

Ordinarily, she might slap him in the head for pulling a stunt like that, but it doesn’t seem appropriate at the moment.

Instead, she hugs him again, so glad that her previous hug with him several days before hadn’t been her last. She came so close to losing him.

“I know I said you might end up burning through your regenerations quickly, but this is a bit too fast,” she says, wiping tears of joy from her eyes. “We might be evening the odds too much.”

The Doctor chuckles despite himself, running a hand over his cheek, seeming as thankful it’s unchanged as she is.

“Only got one left now,” he says, his tone oddly light given the subject matter. “Maybe it’s time to retire, then.”

“Nah,” says Rose, laughing along with him this time.

“What was goin’ on in your head, Doctor?” she asks after a moment.

He takes a deep breath, blowing it out through his mouth exaggeratedly.

“I was having visions, premonitions, maybe.” He certainly seems more cogent now; she’s glad brain damage was healed just as well as bodily damage during the regeneration. “Possible timelines. Or maybe just one timeline. With the trauma to my brain, it seems like the tissue itself was having a tough time handling a Time Lord consciousness crammed inside. My time sense was going mad, and for whatever reason, that’s where it decided to send me in my final moments. I couldn’t remember what happened though. Acute amnesia, or perhaps delirium from the intracranial pressure, or some combination was making it impossible for me to tell it wasn’t real. But it did feel... off. I could tell something was wrong, I just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. It was like I was trapped in the Matrix, but couldn’t get out.”

“God.” She’d been so focused on saving him, she hasn’t paused for long to consider how terrifying it must have been for him. How long did it feel like he was trapped in there, before she got to him? Time is such a subjective thing.

“Until you showed up,” he adds with a crooked grin, nudging her with his elbow.

Rose chuckles, content to go along with his attempt to lighten the mood. “I was your red pill.”

“You were. Thank you for saving me.”

“Anytime. Anyway, it was only a few days ago you saved my life.”

“Quite right, too.” He grimaces, like he instantly regrets saying it.

“What?” she asks. The words seem innocuous enough.

“Something about that phrase is putting me off.” He frowns, trying to figure out why with more effort than it seems he should. “Hmm.”

“All right, let’s go, Time Lord,” Rose says, getting to her feet and holding out a hand for his. “You need some rest. You’re gonna get loopy on me again like last time.”

“I am not.” But he almost falls when he stands up, and Rose has to wrap her arm around his waist and support half his weight on her shoulders in order for him to stay upright. “All right, maybe a little dizzy, then,” he admits. “You try regenerating, see how you feel afterwards.”

“Would if I could,” she teases.

They slowly make their way across the length of the room, Rose taking care to avoid the broken glass and other debris littering the room so the Doctor doesn’t stumble again.

When Rose opens the door to the stairwell, both their shuffling feet stop dead in their tracks.

There’s a man waiting for them at the top of the stairs.

A tall, handsome man in a blue trenchcoat.

“Rose!” the man exclaims, smiling from ear to ear. “And... Doctor?” he says, shock distorting his features as he takes in the figure of the man she’s supporting.

Rose gasps. “Jack!”

“Jack?” the Doctor asks at the same time, his tone coloured far more with disgust than excitement.

[ruminativerabbi]

What One Person Can Do

I was intending this week to write about Tuesday’s presidential debate, but then I had the idea to write in a different vein entirely. I actually do have a lot to say about the debate and what its general tenor says about the state of our nation. But as we make our way through these days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot—which is to say between the day on which we own up freely and prayerfully to our own ethical shortcomings and the festival devoted to the formal acknowledgement of the fragility of the human condition and its ephemeral nature—in the course of these specific days, it struck me as a far better use of this space to invite you all to join me in looking at a specific individual, no less brittle and human than the rest of us, who nonetheless had it in him to live up to the image in God in which all are created. Why look down when we can look up?

Some of you may have noticed the story in the paper the other day about a thirteen-year-old Nigerian boy named Omar Farouk who lives in the northwestern Nigerian state of Kano and who had the misfortune to be overheard when, in the context of an argument with a friend, apparently spoke disrespectfully about God. Someone overheard him and made a report to the police, after which the boy was arrested, tried in a Muslim court of Sharia law, found guilty, and sentenced to ten years at menial labor in a local jail. (Nigerian law apparently countenances the existence of this parallel legal system and permits it actually to execute people convicted of capital offenses.) Nor can anyone accuse the Islamic court of being inconsistent: that same day that young Omar was sentenced, the court also sentenced a young musician of twenty-two named Yahaya Sharif-Aminu to death for having committed the same crime. So they must have considered that they were letting the boy off easy by only putting him in prison for the next decade of his life. And all this despite the fact that the Nigerian Constitution guarantees citizens freedom of expression and freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

I also noticed the story.  And then, pausing only long enough to be amazed that I, who have read so much about the Shoah and other instances of genocide, can still be surprised how harsh and cruel people can be, I turned the page and went back to reading about the dozen other disasters reported on that day and allowed the boy’s fate to fade quickly into the background. And I say that as someone who abhors the concept of blasphemy and who tries (mostly successfully) to avoid taking God’s name in vain. On the other hand, lots was going on. California was on fire. The Breanna Taylor grand jury decision had just been released. COVID numbers in New York were (and are) slowly rising. So a boy I never heard of living in a place I also never heard of was treated harshly in a way that no child should ever encounter. What was I going to do about that?

So that’s the difference between people who talk the talk and people like Piotr Cywinski who walk the walk. You’ve probably never heard of him. I also hadn’t, but I probably should have since he is the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum and so a man charged with the preservation of the physical remains of a place of such unparalleled horror that even those words themselves seem inadequate. (For more about Piotr Cywinski, click here. For more about the museum he heads, click here.)

Like myself, Cywinski also read in the paper about Omar Farouk’s trial, conviction, and sentencing. And also like myself, Cywinski has no specific connection—or any connection—to Nigeria at all, let alone to the trial of one specific child in Kano State, a place to which he obviously also has no connection. It is true that Cywinski welcomed the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, to the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum in 2018, at which time the Buhari toured the site and spoke movingly about the experience. (For the official Nigerian government press release regarding President Buhari’s visit, click here.) But other than that one single meeting, there was no ongoing connection between the two. And yet Cywinski saw in their chance encounter a crack in the harsh escutcheon of a mostly uncaring world and the concomitant opportunity to shine some light through it into the darkness.

And so he sat down and wrote a letter to the President of Nigeria, a man whose visit to Auschwitz lasted, so the press release mentioned above, precisely one hour and ten minutes. And in that letter he asked the President to intercede on the lad’s behalf, writing as follows, “As the director of the Auschwitz Memorial, that commemorates the victims and preserves the remains of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, where children were imprisoned and murdered, I cannot remain indifferent to this disgraceful sentence for humanity. Regardless of what [Omar] said, he cannot be treated as fully aware and responsible, given his age. He should not be subjected to the loss of the entirety of his youth, be deprived of opportunities, and stigmatized physically, emotionally, and educationally for the rest of his life.”

So far, so good. But then he made an exceptional offer: as the master of a place in which countless children were murdered, he offered personally to go to Nigeria for the sake of a single child and serve a month of the boy’s sentence…and, at the same, time, to sign up another 119 adults from around the world to do the same thing so that the child’s 120-month sentence would be served by adults far more able to withstand the deprivations and menial labor of prison life than any child could or should. Who these other 119 people are, Cywinski hasn’t said. Just that they exist and that there were far more than just 119 people ready to sign up and travel to Nigeria if the President would permit this actually to happen.

This would not be a popular decision for the Nigerian President to make. A mob of angry citizens took matters into its own hands the other day and burnt Yahaya Sharif’s home to the ground. Young Omar’s own mother had to flee from a similar mob intent on punishing her for having raised a blasphemer. Mobs in Nigeria have also killed individuals merely accused of blasphemy without waiting for anything as time-consuming as an actual trial.

And yet…whatever President Buhari’s decision finally is, the notion that the director of the Auschwitz memorial would offer to leave his home, his family, his workplace, and his nation voluntarily to accept incarceration in a Nigerian prison to spare a child he hasn’t ever met and of whom he only heard the other week when his sentence was announced—that is precisely the kind of gesture that gives true meaning to the old rabbinic notions that there are people who can acquire a portion in the World to Come with a single gesture…and that the possibility of bringing healing and repair to the world is not solely in the hands of saints and heroes, but also in the hands of ordinary people possessed of eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that cannot bear harshness and cruelty at all…and particularly, perhaps, when directed towards a child. Piotr Cywinski’s gesture is an illustration of just how profound a lesson a teacher possessed of the courage to do good in the world can teach merely by leading by example. Yesh adam she-koneh et olamo b’shaah achat. There are those who struggle for years and years to justify their place on earth…and others who do precisely that in as long as it takes to write a letter and make it public.

[tessatechaitea]

Deathstork #9

If this were me, they'd have to stick my cock in one of those arm shackles too. Mostly because I'd have requested it.

I don't know how much longer I can be funny because I'm just getting angrier and angrier at what the Republicans are doing. They were anti-Trump when they feared he might bring some liberal ideas into the White House because he's one of those Hollywood types (plus he expressed quite a few liberal ideas previous to running as a Republican) but now that he's carrying out their hateful and selfish agenda, they're happier than pigs in shit. They are pigs in shit. Hell, they are shit. I don't want to demean pigs. Here's what I just posted as a Facebook status because I'm ready to burn down all of my relationships with people who think Mitch McConnell basically telling a peer who is a woman to shut up (and then not doing the same to my Senator from Oregon, Jeff Merkley, because why? Oh, wait. The why is the easy part, the fucking coward. I wonder how many times Little Mitch got his nose bloodied at school by another boy for being a dick to a girl? Too bad some girls didn't bloody it to (additional note: oh look. More white men were allowed to read the letter on the Senate floor. Go fucking figure):

If you agree with what Trump and the Republican toadies are doing, you are: A. Ignorant. B. Sexist. C. Racist. D. A Coward. E. All of the above. F. Fuck you.

All of Trump's cabinet picks could have had similar names and nobody would have batted an eye, apparently.

Dr. Villain is waiting to speak with Jericho for probably innocent reasons. But currently, Jericho is out sitting on a bench in his Ikon superhero outfit. At least his body is. His mind is inside of a nun. Doctor Super Villain tells Joseph that he's Slade's personal physician. I know when I was a doctor who totally wasn't a super villain at all, I used to hunt down my patients by bothering their family members when I thought my client needed to see me. I felt it was better than waiting for my patients to alert me to a problem. Dr. Villain can't track down Slade because he doesn't know Slade is locked up.

And apparently guarded by cyclopes.

Things you learn from playing Dungeons and Dragons for so many years: A. A little something about courage and B. the plural of cyclops. This multi-part story is called "Four Rooms" but it does not take place in a hotel. The first room is Jericho's office where Doctor Villain is waiting for Slade. The second room is where Slade is being interrogated at the Coast Guard's supermax detention center in Florence, Colorado. I don't know how they get their prisoners there by boat. The man interrogating Slade calls him "Death Strike" which is stupid. He obviously should have called him Deathstork. The man's name is Dex and he's all, "Oh! Oh! So you think you're Jesus Christ, do you?! Well, la de freakin' da!" Actually, he might be a little more adult about it. I can't help but perceive everything through the eyes of an immature asshat. The third room is Northern Vietnam. That's a big room! The star of this room is Xia (the star of the first room was Jericho and the second room, Dex). This is the room I'm going to like the most because Xia has breasts.

See? This room is the sexy room if you're into breasts, face kicks, and camel's toes.

Room Two is the room for you if you're into chauvinists. Some might read some of the things I've written and snarkily say, "Well then that must be the room for you, you buttfaggot!" No wait. Those are the things Deathstork fans generally say to me. What the other "some" might say is "That sounds like the room for you, Tess! You sexist jerko!" To them I would say (and have said!), "You've been reading me completely wrong if you thought that!" I have been known to make sexist jokes on occasion. But they're almost certainly and almost definitely quite probably making fun of the people who think that way. But then that's sort of the problem inherent in satire. Those who don't realize you're making fun of them wind up embracing you as a hero of their chauvinism. I've always been a huge fan of satire because it's generally more intelligent than just calling somebody a cunt but in the current climate where spectacularly dumb people are celebrating the causes of dumbness, racism, sexism, and lunacy, satire might not be the best way to go anymore. It's time to simply look people in the eyes, call them an asshole, and leave it at that. Finally we get to room four! That's the room where they're playing poker. In the pot is an ancient sword called Deathstork. This room also takes place "years after the massacre" in Srebrenica. If I weren't an American and were able to remember things from just over twenty years ago, I would probably remember what that was. But who can remember it since 9-11 happened? That was the worst thing to ever happen to anybody in any country ever. Sorry. My satire is showing again. Unless that's just steamy, bloody, fetid sarcasm. It's hard to tell when you're as angry as I am at the ignorance of my fellow countrymen (and countrywomen! They're no smarter than the men!). The poker game is where Slade gets the name Deathstork (and the sword!). It's also where he meets up with his team of international muckrakers, including Wintergreen. Slade teams up with Wintergreen's men to find General Dragas, the man behind the orders to commit genocide. As they search for him, they run into a little hitch. Wintergreen's translator is Bosniak and wants to see the general dead. Slade wants to the general alive so Slade can pay next month's rent. Usually Slade would win this argument but this is early in his career as Deathstork (the beginning, to be precise). And also the translator has a small army on his side. The Ranking! +1! If you were exhausted beyond belief of searching for an intelligent Deathstork comic, you can finally stop being exhausted! That's because this comic book exists. If you haven't been reading it, you'll have to be a little more exhausted as you hunt down all of the back issues (or just get off your lazy ass to get the trade (or just fucking order it on Amazon since you're already on the Internet, you lazy jerko)).

[mychristopherstokes66world]

They are celebrating and laughing at all of the Americans burning to death in the towers and the FBI held these yids for a week until the dust settled and flew them back to Tel Aviv private first class

Ah yes the Israeli "art students" who had unrestricted access to the towers for weeks

It's rael. https://www.markdotzler.com/Mark_Dotzler/WTC_Artists.html

>Nanothermite >fucked up over 1400 cars >didnt burn a single person >paper all over the place you dont understand much about thermite, do you?

911 report and their models were full of BS. The three towers were brought down by controlled demolition. https://youtu.be/sNriYvuNmu8  https://youtu.be/l_Kmyo8KLTM Http://www.ae911truth.org/ TRUMP knew Truth on 911 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNodh9OlTrQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flnhdhxVR6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoYXihwcp8c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-7bxI_XOoQ The destruction of WTC was an occult ritual. >the Twin Towers represented Boaz and Jachin, the columns at the entrance to the Temple of Solomon >Boaz and Jachin represent the two key energies: ying and yang, male and female, strength and beauty, north and south, up and down (duality - like the Star of David) >WTC builder, Rockefeller, says the buildings are the perfect combination of "utility and beauty"; he also owns Jerusalem museum housing remains from Temple of Solomon >Luciferianism predicts/wants a new age of transhumanism; Kaballah and freemasonry believe one attains perfection by mastering and combining male and female energies >Twin Towers destroyed in consciousness altering event at start of millenium to usher in this new era of transhumanism >Replaced by Freedom Tower where both towers are combined, one up and one down, like a Star of David >2001: Space Odyssey is about man's evolution to transhumanism - he touches the black monolith and transcends human form to a space baby >9/11 happened in 2001, next to the Millenium hotel designed to look like the black monolith >madrid bombing was 911 days after 9/11 >sept 11 is the first day of the coptic calendar, first month is named after Thoth >2001 was the start of the new millenium not 2000 (there was no year zero) >33 years from groundbreaking to destruction pentagon groundbreaking sept 11 1941

https://slate.com/culture/2001/12/bin-laden-s-special-complaint-with-the-world-trade-center.html Yamasaki received the World Trade Center commission the year after the Dhahran Airport was completed. Yamasaki described its plaza as “a mecca, a great relief from the narrow streets and sidewalks of the surrounding Wall Street area.” True to his word, Yamasaki replicated the plan of Mecca’s courtyard by creating a vast delineated square, isolated from the city’s bustle by low colonnaded structures and capped by two enormous, perfectly square towers—minarets, really. Yamasaki’s courtyard mimicked Mecca’s assemblage of holy sites—the Qa’ba (a cube) containing the sacred stone, what some believe is the burial site of Hagar and Ishmael, and the holy spring—by including several sculptural features, including a fountain, and he anchored the composition in a radial circular pattern, similar to Mecca’s. Islam was created by Jews. Take your time, explain away this https://www.scribd.com/document/351436519/Muhammad-s-Inspiration-by-Judaism Jews dominated Arabia and carried genocidal hate for Christians https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/140366/himyar-yemen-al-qaida Judaism and Islam are so similar that one could say that Islam is Arab Talmudism http://www.danielpipes.org/160/the-jewish-muslim-connection-traditional-ways-of-life Erasing Christianity was a Jewish thing before Islam existed http://www.jpost.com/Local-Israel/In-Jerusalem/Massacre-at-Mamilla? Here's the thing, and I say this as someone who believes that the dancing Israelis were Mossad agents celebrating the success of the 9/11 attack, and at minimum, the Israelis had foreknowledge that could have been used to prevent 9/11 which they didn't share because the attack was so advantageous to Israel's interests, but I lost interest in this guy after he interpreted "our purpose was to document the event" as "our purpose [in coming to America] was to document the event". That's obviously not what they meant. They're there giving their cover story, saying that their purpose in taking the photographs was to document the event, claiming that they happened to see it, decided it was important, and therefore took pictures. You can't be that biased in your interpretation, or you're a liability to your own side of the argument. You want your case to be rationally convincing to a neutral audience, and sow doubts in a hostile audience that nonetheless has some intellectual integrity, you don't want to just preach to the choir.

>actually believes in a theory allowed to be pushed on government TV >still no argument pathetic steven jones and alex jones able to talk about 9/11 (((truth))) on cspan??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h50BgNpcYR8 birth of "muh space beams", who woulda guessed its the same faggot shutting down all discussion of the topic? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG3i-Ymm3Uc

Is it just a (((coincidence))) that one group of people have benefited from every US military intervention since 9/11?

I would love for those with the technology to share it with the world to make it a better place, but I'm no level 99 alchemist and acquiring such technology is beyond my means at the moment. If you own a satellite and need help I'd be happy to drop my life and come help you with whatever wizardry it is you're working on. I posted the photos adam green showed so others could see them. No need to be rude, bless your heart

JOIN US  https://www.facebook.com/groups/qanonreports https://twitter.com/CIACLOWN1 https://www.bitchute.com/channel/ciaclown16661/

 well-versed in Urban Moving Systems, years of research. Five years ago, this post would be red hot! Congrats to the YouTuber who obtained them, which Ryan Dawson diligently could not. There were a total of ~75 photos taken by the "Dancing Israelis" confiscated by FBI, so the ones finally released under FOIA are predictably underwhelming. I'm surprised one of the D. Israelis is wearing baggy ripped jeans tbqh. If you're working undercover as a mover, I'd expect slightly more flexible apparel, esp if you're involved in 9/11. The lighter flame celebratory photo is clutch though, glad that was released. Too bad the WTC can't be clearly made out in these grainy photocopies, few normies will pay attention. We already knew, there's no video just pics. My research says that 3 of the movers were low level recon for Israeli intel, but weren't directly involved in planning the attack. Probably cleanup duty, working as sayanim, to transfer people or files post-attack, like a deep bench on a champion sports team. Waterboys of 9/11. Daniel Lewin, imo, remains the head Israeli leader in the 9/11 operation. He was an ex top ranked Sayeret Matkal captain, basically an Israeli Navy SEAL operator w few equals. He was a billionaire computer wizard as well and hardcore rabid Zionut. He was conveniently on Flight 11 seated between two alleged Saudi hijackers. I unironically think he faked his death, gassed the plane, and parachuted out, possibly with undercover Sayeret operatives, as the plane was then remote or automatedly controlled from the ground. >E-Team Just heads up to newfags, the E-Team art students are not Israelis and their full WTC residency was documented and even videotaped. It's on Vimeo, a helicopter ride they took outside the WTC. They're dorks. But obv Israeli art students were doing recon in the months before all over the East Coast. Fingers crossed that one day Dominik Suter, Daniel Lewin, and Dov Zakheim are brought to justice. Keep digging.

>Nothing you posted has anything to do with Jewish dancers why would it? this is ancient news that lead no where back then, and will lead no where now. if you dont know israel had heavy involvement in 9/11 you just have not been paying any attention at all. but to think its just the jews is pretty retarded. bush/cheney are not jews. and papa bush was a major power player. > It's a completely different question what might have been able to vaporize sky scrapers and cause strange patterns of damage to cars. what exactly am i taking away from in this thread by posting this information? these "leaks" are a nothing-burger dead end. its a fucking joke. most people should have seen the interview where they went on tv, tons of people should already know what these clowns look like, what the fuck is the point of releasing this/censoring them so heavily.

>Dancing Israelis https://youtu.be/2XHm56O2NTI https://youtu.be/LbkQddEDPs0 https://youtu.be/fOiCMMMeXE8 >9/11 Trillions: Follow the Money https://youtu.be/n3xgjxJwedA

directed energy weapons/scalar waves/some sort of play on tesla tech. who knows what exactly did it. the fact is, something exists that could achieve what was witnessed. nothing.. i repeat NOTHING explains the big picture of 9/11. this guy produced a lot of similar effects seen on 9/11 whilst mimicking tesla's experiments

>levitation well, there was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yU73pN8CHQ >hologram airplanes no one has presented this, why are you reaching so hard? >explosives caused 1400 cars blocks around to become mangled/"melted" yet not burning a single person

[unfltrdlfe]

As previously mentioned, en route to Cambodia from Vietnam, we were stuck for 6 hours in the Bangkok airport on our layover with nothing to do and 2 food vouchers to use. We had a grand ol time (like really it was actually fun) just wasting time in an airport bar and catching up on life (as if we hadn’t just spent 2 and a half weeks together through Vietnam). What wasn’t mentioned was the primary reason I ended up in Cambodia at all during this grand adventure I’ve been embarking on, is because a dear friend/previous co-worker of mine moved there recently from the states to purchase a hostel and start a brewery! But, he was in the states ironically when we were arriving. So, his place is in Seim Reap, but, we stayed at the Lazy Gecko, run by one of his friends in Phnom Phen.

By the time we arrived, it was late, we were tired, went down to grab a drink, ran into Danker’s girlfriend, and chatted with her for a bit, then went to bed.

Day 1

Accommodation: The Lazy Gecko

Thoughts: The staff and regulars are sexy…and then just wait until you get to Seim Reap!

Okay, on a serious note, I will give the most unbiased way I can review it as I can. The room was really nice and clean. Towels were provided as well, which is always nice! Toilet paper, and hoses were available in the bathrooms (if you don’t know, hoses are the typical way of cleaning throughout SE Asia). Water pressure in the shower was great as well. They also had large water jugs at the reception/bar that you could fill your own water with so you don’t have to always buy water while out and about. The biggest down side for me was that mosquitoes found me in the night. I am the ultimate mosquito magnet. But really, if I’m around, no one else needs to worry as they will come to me. My arms and legs were COVERED! I looked diseased. This is not a joke, no one had seen it this bad.

Mosquito Solutions for  Cambodia!! Once the millions of bites showed up, I went to a pharmacy, they gave me a cream and a pill to take, the bites started clearing up. I also found citronella soap at one of the markets and started using it to wash in the shower. This helped a lot actually. I’m pretty sure I was radiating citronella, in addition to wearing bug replant the entire time I was there. That finally seemed to work. I’m an extreme case, but if mosquitoes like you, you’ve been warned!

After the first night where I was attacked by mosquitoes, we woke up at our leisure, and ordered some food in the hostel (delicious by the way!) Then started asking John of things to do and places to go.

It was raining a lot, so we decided to check out the National Museum which was good. It explained some of the Cambodian history and contained loads of statues and artifacts that had been found around the country.

As the rain had calmed down a little, we decided to just wander a bit and grab some lunch eventually ending up at the market! No matter where you are in SE Asia, the market is always fun for a day. If for no other reason than to just walk around and look at stuff, which is what we did 90% of the time. From there, we were heading back to the hostel, and just wandered around some more now that the weather was a bit better.

We had asked the taxi driver from the airport for advice on places to eat. So, we decided to check one of them out! It was DELICIOUS! The name of the restaurant was Khmer Surin. Good service, great atmosphere and great food.

We took a tuk tuk both to and from the restaurant: tuk tuks are the way to travel in Cambodia! As you go, you figure out what fair prices are and yes you will argue over a dollar. It’s fine.

Day 2

There was another large market we had heard of called he Russian Market, so we decided to check that out and walk around it for a bit. It was entertaining but, we actually preferred the market we had found the day before to this one. Once we had had our fill of wandering around the market, we headed back to the hostel once again. It was hot out and we wanted to go swimming.

We ended up finding this hotel that you could use the pool at as long as you wanted for $5! It was perfect! So that’s really how we spent the rest of the day: laying by the pool, swimming and having beverages. We met some lovely gay men who were there and gave us some friendly travel advice about being in Cambodia. Their biggest tip: be careful of the booze! They said it could come in any bottle with any label, that stuff is moonshine and extremely high in alcohol content. It’s fine, just be aware of how much you consume.

All in all that was our second day! Nice, easy, relaxed.

Day 3

Wildlife Sanctuary!! The Phnom Pneh Wildlife Sanctuary is totally worth the visit. It’s a full day excursion, probably about an hour or so by tuk tuk each way, and completely worth it! Another thing I loved about the hostel, was that they had specific tuk tuk drivers that worked with them, so if we said we wanted to go somewhere, John would go out and get it set up, price and everything. It was really nice.

Fortunately the weather was good as well, so we got our tuk tuk sorted and headed on our way. As we went, the roads were really dusty and so dirt was blowing in our faces. Our driver was absolutely wonderful and made a stop along the way to get us doctor masks so we wouldn’t have to breathe in all the dirt! We didn’t even think about it or have to ask, he just did it as a courtesy!

Once we arrived at the sanctuary, we paid our entry fee and our driver drove us into the park. He dropped us off by the largest Sun Bear habitat and said to just meet him there when we were done. We spent ALL DAY there! It was so fun!!! So many animals everywhere, I still don’t think we saw them all. It’s also really fun, there’s hammocks hung around the park so if you want to take some time to just sit and chill you’re able to. There are also stands around selling snacks and beverages as needed. Once you get over to the elephants, there’s people selling food for them so you can feed them! It’s great! There’s also bananas you can buy to feed the monkeys. We didn’t do that but many did.

After many hours, the dark clouds started rolling in and we knew we should start heading back to our tuk tuk….when he came rolling around the corner! I’m telling you, this guy was the best! We made it out of the park before the rain hit, but as we were on the road it started pouring! Fortunately, ours and most of the tuk tuks have coverings, so our driver just pulled over, unrolled and zipped up the flaps of the cover so we wouldn’t get soaked on the way home, he put a poncho on and called it good. They’re obviously used to it, but we felt bad for him! That rain was crazy!

Once we got home, we just ate at the hostel and hung out chatting with some of the other people from the hostel.

Day 4

Photos from walking around the city

Another super hot day out in Phnom Pneh! But, regardless, we decided to walk it instead of taking a tuk tuk. So, we walked through the city over to the Genocide Museum. The Cambodian Genocide Museum is at a location that looks like a school….which is exactly what it used to be prior to it being turned into a prison. This, as all the other genocide museums I have been to, was a very enlightening experience to have. This was Lacey’s first time at a genocide museum, so I told her if at any point she needed to take a break to let me know. She didn’t need to but, it’s definitely an intense experience. If you’ve never been to a genocide museum, I highly recommend going to any and as many as you can. This was my 3rd museum, in addition to the concentration camp I visited in Germany. Every time, it’s eye opening, shocking, and saddening. It hurts my soul to see so many horrific things have occurred in the world, but it’s good to expose yourself to them simply to know they happened, and to learn from them.

One thing, that’s extremely good in my opinion, especially as an American, is learning about genocides that have continued to occur throughout history. Lacey and I discussed this afterwards. In our public education system, we were taught about the Holocaust, and the way that it was portrayed to us was that it’s the only genocide to have occurred, and after that the world learned its lesson and never occurred again. During my travels, all three of the genocide museums I have visited were of events that occurred more recently than the Holocaust. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the Holocaust was a horrific, tragic event that happened in history and should be taught, however, it should also be taught that this wasn’t the only time it happened an that it continues to occur today. One of the museums I have visited during this year was the Tibetan museum in India, this is of events that are STILL HAPPENING TODAY. As I said, each time you visit one of these places, it’s extremely eye opening and humbling.

What was even more humbling was at the end of the tour, there was an old man selling hi

s book, which I bought, because he was a survivor of the genocide. To be able to see someone standing in front of you who survived all the horrific things you just learned took place in the buildings around you, and has managed to continue life and still be able to smile, is incredible.

  Another huge tourist site in connection with this event is the Killing Fields. They aren’t in the actual city, so we didn’t have the opportunity to go see them, but people we talked to who did said it was absolutely worth the trip out to see them.

A very basic overview of the Cambodian Genocide 1975-1979 : The Cambodian people saw the United States as their enemy, mainly due to what had happened in Vietnam. Due to this, they believed the Communist party must be the right answer if America was so against it. They fought to have their Communist leader. The day they got their wish, there were parades in the streets as they were so happy. The next day (literally), families began being ripped from their homes and from each other. Many were forced to walk hundreds of miles, dying along the way. Others were put in prisons, like the one we saw, tortured and forced to make false confessions to things that had never occurred. Many were killed. Many never knew what came of their families. It was an absolutely horrifying event.

Once we had completed our tour (it took about 2 hours), we decided we wanted to go check out the mall. We had been to the markets, but wanted to go see the massive shopping mall. So, we spent the rest of the day wandering around there, ending up back at the hostel eventually, again just having a relaxed night in, hanging out with other people who were staying there as we were leaving the next morning.

Day 5

Pretty early morning to catch our bus to Siem Reap. The bus was quite comfortable actually which was good as it was quite a long bus ride. We stopped half way to use the toilets, get drinks and lunch. We ordered a chicken rice thing. We were eating and it was fine, until one of us noticed these black strands in it that looked like hair or something. Upon closer investigation, I realized it was actually feathers from the chicken that hadn’t been completely plucked. Needless to say, we were pretty much done eating. I had a couple of more bites of rice but there were some loose feathers floating around. I just couldn’t continue after that. I know it sounds picky, almost petty even, but sometimes when it comes to eating food in foreign countries, ignorance is bliss.

Upon arriving in Siem Reap, we loaded ourselves into a tuk-tuk to get to our hostel, and spent the rest of the night drinking and hanging out with my friend as he showed us around the hostel, the improvements that had been made and still needed to be made as they had just acquired it a few weeks before.

5 days in Phnom Phen As previously mentioned, en route to Cambodia from Vietnam, we were stuck for 6 hours in the Bangkok airport on our layover with nothing to do and 2 food vouchers to use.

[one-of-us-blog]

The Husbands of River Song (Doctor Who Christmas Special)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap “The Husbands of River Song”, the latest Doctor Who Christmas Special. After a long absence, everybody’s favorite rogue archeologist, River Song, is back in the Doctor’s life. What sort of trouble has she gotten herself into this time? And how many people has she gotten married to since we last saw her?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, you done did it, bud! Your last recap was wonderful, and I’m so glad you had such a positive reaction to “Feelings”! I love that episode, too, and it was great to see the Girls stand up for themselves, even when the world (or their own self doubt) is trying to wear them down. You did such a great job, Chief! I wish I could sing your praises all the live long day, but I’ve got my own recap to post, so here goes!

Buttocks tight!

Special directed by Douglas Mackinnon and written by Steven Moffat

We start off on the human colony Medorax Dellora in the year 5343. It’s Christmas day, and yuletide cheer is in full swing. Well, sort of; the TARDIS, covered in snow and ice, has a sign promising any carolers that they will be criticized. A little man (Matt Lucas) approaches the TARDIS and is greeted by the Doctor, who’s sporting a pair of antlers curtesy of the TARDIS. It seems the TARDIS felt the Doctor needed some cheering up, given everything he’s been through lately, and decided to get a little festive with him. He quickly lets the craft know he’s not interested in any holiday gaiety, and ditches the headgear. The small man believes the Doctor is a surgeon, and informs him there’s a medical emergency afoot. The Doctor agrees to help out, once he’s assured the emergency doesn’t involve any singing. The real surgeon, meanwhile, is trying to find the people who hired him. The small man, whose name is Nardole, takes the Doctor to a brightly-colored flying saucer and introduces him to his client, who happens to be none other than Dr. Professor River Song. Despite the Doctor very intimately knowing her, she doesn’t seem to know him, and informs him that she’s hired him to save her dying husband. Ruh-roh!

After the very festive opening credits, the Doctor is brought to River’s husband, who’s a pretty big deal, both literally and figuratively. He’s King Hydroflax, and is under constant guard by some warrior monks while the entire operation is being broadcast to the king’s subjects. He’s also a cyborg, with an organic head sitting atop a massive robobody. The Doctor’s getting more and more flustered; he’s starting to realize that River doesn’t really know him, and he’s not crazy about seeing River flirting with her royal husband. It turns out it was entirely River’s idea to bring a surgeon in to work on the king; the Doctor realizes River really does think he’s a surgeon, which might be a little tricky given that he’s not. He confesses all of this to Nardole, who begins to panic appropriately. The Doctor refuses to bow to the king as he prepares a fake-it-til-ya-make-it operation, and River tells him there’s something lodged in the royal brain.

River takes the Doctor aside, and when they’re alone he tells her who he really is, but she’s still not getting it. She lets him know the thing lodged in Hydroflax’s brain is the Halassi Androvar, which is the most valuable diamond in the universe. River’s up to her old tricks, it seems, as she hired the surgeon to remove the king’s head, not the diamond it’s lodged in. River’s not realy in love with Hydroflax, so much as she really, really wants that diamond. The Halassi people hired her to get the diamond back from the king, who stole it, and she thinks killing the king is the fastest way to get her hands on it. The Doctor’s not crazy about all of this; is this what River’s like when he’s not around? Just running around, having dudes’ heads cut off? Granted, King Hydroflax is a tyrant and a mass murderer, so River’s not really torn up at the thought of causing his death. The Doctor’s obviously not going to let this go down the way River wants it to, but as she’s telling him how much he reminds her of her second wife, King Hydroflax enters the room with his ninja monk guards. Maybe lock the door before you start discussing your assassination schemes next time, River.

King Hydroflax is pretty pissed as his false wife, and says if she wanted his head so badly, she could have just asked. He promptly separates his head from his robobody, and demands to know who River really is. She explains she’s an archeologist and she’s after the ancient diamond in his brain. He’s stolen a lot from good people over the years, and, by golly, she’s gonna steal it all back. She uses her sonic trowel to dispatch the warrior monks, and the Doctor holds the royal head hostage so River wouldn’t get crushed by the king’s giant body. River radios an accomplice named Ramone, who teleports River, the Doctor and the king’s head out of there. The king’s body, which has a mind of its own, vows to track down the thieves and get the king’s head back.

The Doctor’s ready to tell River who he really is, but then Ramone, who’s also married to River, arrives. Turns out River is looking for the Doctor, but she only knows about his first twelve regenerations and has no idea the Doctor has a new face. Meanwhile, the king’s body decides that Nardole has information it can use, so it slices his head off and attaches it to itself to make sure it can keep an eye on him. River, Ramone, the Doctor and the king’s head arrive at the TARDIS, and River decides to steal the TARDIS. Turns out River’s stolen the TARDIS for her own use before, which is news to the Doctor. She sends Ramone away and she and the Doctor enter the TARDIS. The Doctor gets to pretend to be shocked by the interior size of the TARDIS, which he relishes. River gets a drink from a hidden bar in the TARDIS, which the Doctor also didn’t know about, and the king’s head sends out a homing beacon so his body can find him.

River takes off, but the TARDIS just won’t go. The Doctor, still trying to pretend that he barely understands what’s going on, manages to explain that the TARDIS has certain safeguards; it can’t go off if a lifeform is both inside and outside of it, and since the king’s head is inside but his body is outside the TARDIS isn’t having it. Nardole and the king’s body track down Ramone, and the body holds a gun to Nardole’s head in order to get what it wants. River’s ready to kill the king’s head, but the Doctor won’t let that happen. The head wakes up, and informs them that if they kill him, his body will destroy all of Medorax Dellora. It’s powered by a contained black hole, and if Hydroflax dies the body will take out the whole solar system. Hydroflax’s body, with Ramone’s head now attached to it, arrives, kicks in the door and prepares to kill River. Once the body and head are both inside the TARDIS, the Doctor’s able to close the door and the TARDIS takes off, throwing the body off-balance. The TARDIS lands somewhere, and River, the Doctor and the head run outside. Turns out they’re on a luxury liner bound for the Andromeda galaxy, and River’s able to convince a waiter she knows to deadlock the luggage hold where the TARDIS landed.

River causally reveals some information. They’re on the starship Harmony and Redemption, and she’s selling the diamond, not returning it to the Halassi. All the people on the Harmony and Redemption are bad hombres, like committing genocide-level bad hombres, and she’s going to find a buyer for the diamond here. Oh, also, she’s about 200-years-old at this point. The two get a table for dinner, and the Doctor finds out how easy it is for her to convince people she’s in love with them so she can get what she wants. The Doctor’s starting to have doubts about their relationship, then sees she’s reading the diary he gave her. He remarks that she looks sad while she’s reading it, and she says it’s nearly full. Since she got it from the Doctor, it’s safe for her to assume that it has exactly as many pages as she would need and once she runs out of pages she’s not going to be around anymore. She underplays her relationship with the Doctor, only adding to the Doctor’s emotional distress. Ramone, still attached to Hydroflax’s body, asks the crew of the Harmony and Redemption, and they, not knowing anything about what’s going on, proceed to do so.

River’s buyer, Scratch, arrives. She gets her money and she prepares to give him the head, but then it turns out that all the people here are the same species as Scratch. River assures him that she has the diamond, so there’s no need to get testy. She prepares to hand over Hydroflax’s head, but, uh oh, turns out Scratch and all his people love Hydroflax and want the diamond to give to him in the first place. The staff of the Harmony and Redemption sell River out in exchange for avoiding that whole head-removal thing, while River and the Doctor flounder before Scratch. The Doctor’s able to use the devotion of Scratch and his people against them, and use Hydroflax’s head as a distraction so they can get away. Unfortunately, that’s right when Hydroflax’s body arrives.

The body prepares to reattach its head, but unfortunately, it turns out the diamond in his brain is killing Hydroflax. The body decides the king needs a new head, and vaporizes its old one. The waiter knows about River’s marriage to the Doctor, and tells Hydroflax’s body that if he needs a new head, he couldn’t do better than the Doctor’s. River refuses to give up the Doctor’s, and in the process reveals that she doesn’t believe that the Doctor loves her. She loves him, but he doesn’t love her back. She thinks he’s too big and extraordinary to do something like fall in love, and he won’t come to rescue her. River’s so sure that the Doctor isn’t here and that he doesn’t give a damn about her that she tells the body to scan for a Time Lord, and the Doctor knows that’s not a good idea. She finally figures out that the Doctor’s the Doctor, much to her chagrin, and the two of them plan an escape route. River knew a meteor strike was coming, and she planned this whole meeting around it. She and the Doctor manage to escape, but Hydroflax’s body is in hot pursuit.

The body’s set on stealing the Doctor’s head, but he distracts it with the money River was going to get paid for the diamond and is able to short circuit it. River’s trying to save the ship from crashing, but catches sight of the planet they’re about to crash into. It’s Darillium, home to those famous Singing Towers. He teleports to the TARDIS for her safety, but she’s not having that and flies the TARDIS right back to him. The Harmony and Redemption is definitely about to crash, so the two of them hide in the TARDIS and manage to survive. He snatches up the Halassi Androvar, and then sends the TARDIS a bit into the future so he can speak to a man combing over the wreckage of the Harmony and Redemption. He gives the man the Halassi Androvar, and tells him to use the reward money he’ll get from it to build a fancy restaurant on Darillium. He jumps ahead to the future so he can see the finished restaurant and get a reservation, then jumps ahead again so he and the Doctor can have a nice dinner. River runs into Ramone and Nardole, whose heads are now jointly controlling Hydroflax’s body and working in the restaurant after the Doctor saved them from the crash.

River and the Doctor meet up and the Doctor gives River a sonic screwdriver. The two take in the Singing Towers, and River sees that the Doctor is overcome with emotion. She knows there are stories about her and the Doctor out there, and some of them say that the last night the two of them spend together takes place at the Singing Towers of Darillium. She says that explains why he kept cancelling any date they made to come here, and she expects he’ll find some sort of loophole around this. He says that’s not happening this time. Everything ends, and this will be the end for them. Don’t get too gloomy, though, because nights on Darillium last for 24 years, so River and the Doctor will have plenty of time together before the time comes for her to head to the library.

The End

~~~~~

This was a lot of fun! After getting what I honestly think was a bit too much River in the Matt Smith era, it was fun to see her play off of Capaldi’s Doctor. Seeing the Doctor get to fake amazement at the TARDIS was fun, and I liked that we got a glimpse of the sort of misadventures River gets up to when the Doctor’s not around. I’m not sure if this actually is the last time we’ll see River or not, but if it is I’d say it was a satisfying ending to her story.

I give “The Husbands of River Song” QQQQ on the Five Q Scale.

Check back in soon as Eli grapples with some confusing feelings with his recap of the next episode of The Golden Girls, “Zborn Again”, and then I’ll post my recap of yet another Doctor Who Christmas Special, “The Return of Doctor Mysterio”.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for committing polygamy and thank you for being One of Us!

[bublp0pr]

UT time rant

i realised that i never actually discussed my rantings about undertale’s time vagueness, did i? Ohhhhh yessss. This is going to be a fun waste of an hour (insane and evil laughter with conveniently timed thunderstorm in the distance)

Where do i even start?

201X

Ok. How about i start with something obvious? 201X. What the hell does that even MEAN? It’s genius on Toby’s part. Having released the game in a year whose first 3 digits are 201, we can interpret it to just mean some year within the decade beginning in 2010 and ending before 2020. But if someone was dedicated enough to the game to still be playing it all those years later in say 2021, then there’s a whole plethora of choices available to you to justify how you intend on interpreting it. How about i break some of them down? 

Well, the most simple view would be to just assume that the date is still maintains that meaning - that Chara fell into Mt Ebott within the previous decade under my hypothetical example. But if we’re letting this date exist in a time other than the present then why stop there? Everything that occurs within the game to give us some sort of indication of a time reference is circumstantial because the game is set some indefinite time AFTER 201X with Chara falling. 

Now, that being said there are likely some arguments to be made for certain objects we know existed at the same time as Chara - such as a video camera. BUT- and here’s another BIG THING we need to consider here, how do you know that monsters weren’t just more technologically advanced than humans? Look at the technology introduced in the game! The ramifications of a trans-dimensional box in your PHONE! A mass geothermal power system placed directly in the CORE of everyone’s city but that is SO SAFE that no one even worries about it! Technology that literally operates in tandem with MAGIC -by which i mean THE ESSENCE MANIPULATED BY THE SOUL ITSLEF- in some circumstances! This is startlingly advanced stuff. If we assume that monsters WERE more advanced than humans, then do we really have ANY reference to what time era Chara existed in on the surface? My opinion is no. You could argue that were it the case that Chara existed in a time that significantly predated certain concepts than integration with a society who did have this stuff would be difficult but- and again, TIME STUFF TOBY! TIMEEEEE- we have no idea how long Chara stayed with the Dreemurs before they died. So things like the video camera could have been completely foreign to them BEFORE they fell and they just slowly learnt about them down in the mountain. 

‘But wait!’ I hear myself saying because i’m not presumptuous enough to assume anyone is actually going to read this and ask this question lol. ‘The 201 still needs to mean SOMETHING though right? That narrows down possible dates a little...’ Ohoho I’d be wrong. First: the date could be set in the past, in like the year 201 AD, 201 BC or any year within the decade 2020-2010 BC. OR it could be set in the past/present/future of 2010-2020 AD. Second: the X is a vague substitution that, without context can mean ANYTHING. That means it can mean more than one digit which makes the possible date as infinite as the possible values of X (i’m tempted to say more infinite because obviously there’s an AD and BC version for each value but that’s not how infinity works. Figured i’d say so for perspective anyway). Third: since when was 201X a year???? Take another look at that moment in the opening menu flashback, because i assure you that the vague number below the picture of a mountain has NO OTHER INDICATION TOWARDS ITS MEANING WHATSOEVER. 201X could be a day and month, it could be a month and year, heck 201X could just as easily be the geographical location of the mountain by some reference standard. X stand to mean ANYTHING AT ALL. It doesn’t have to be a number.

Is your mind sufficiently blown yet? Because there’s a few other possibilities i haven’t even dared to go into yet. We can’t say with 100% accuracy haha but it’s a good bet that Undertale isn’t actually the reality of our history. Which makes the game a work of FICTION within a FICTIONAL universe. With that comes creative freedom in how time works in general! How society came to agree to understand, measure and interpret time; how history uses time as a reference to the present etc. And even worse, there isn’t even enough evidence to say that it’s set in a real world setting either in terms of humanity. History could be completely different! So would having a date really mean anything to us?! Ok, ridiculous stuff aside, let’s assume that this is the real world again. So what if the date was how monsters measured time instead of us? Do they measure time the same way? Maybe they’re measuring from when they were trapped underground. How would we know?! 

Final conundrum (and this one was actually brought to my attention by a really good web comic actually) : what if the use of determination to reset time didn’t apply to the outside world? The interpretations of this piece of information alone are vast, like the underground exisiting in a closed time loop or having a separate line of time running parallel to the surface that becomes more delayed with each reload or reset. However you consider it, it makes using time from one world not relatively correct to using time in another. (We are not given evidence that Chara actually ever does use determination to alter time within their life underground but there is evidence to suggest use of resetting occurring because of the 6 souls which sufficiently messes us up if we want to use the date as any sort of reference for anything)

So basically, giving us the 4 characters 201X at the start of the game might as well mean nothing to us.

Lengths of time between events

Ok. I want to say now that 201X is the ONLY time we’re ever given any date. So the fact we can’t even use that means we have no idea exactly when anything happened. But that doesn’t matter so much right? I mean, who cares as long as you can follow the stretch of time the game actually does exist in. Right? Hahahahahahaha. 

I’m just going to list all the lengths of time we DON’T know in the game. Take a minute to think over each one.

How long was the war between humans and monsters?

How long did monsters exist underground before the first human came?

How long did Chara stay underground before they decided on the plan with Asriel?

How long after Chara made plan with Asriel did they actually go through with it? For all we know they could’ve been older when they actually carried it out. (not that OLDER means anything when we don’t know how old they were when they made the plan lol. But atleast we knew they were kids then)

How did it take after Asriel died for Toriel to leave Asgore and go to the ruins? Or, to pose a better question, how long had Toriel been in the ruins when Frisk eventually came around?

How long after Asriel’s death did the next human arrive in the underground?

What sort of lengths of time were there between each human falling underground?

How long did each human spend in the underground before Asgore eventually killed them?

How long after Asriel’s death did Alphys inject enough determination into his flower to awaken Flowey?

Depending on the answer to that last question, did Flowey actually exist as the same time as any of the humans who fell? Or was Frisk the first they met? (i’m not counting Chara obviously)

As a rough estimate, how many resets do you reckon Flowey went through before Frisk came in and messed with that?

Unless you think about one of the theories about surface time and underground time not occurring exactly simultaneously because of determination tampering with things, obviously waiting for Frisk had been the longest run Flowey had ever done. How long had he had to wait in that run before they fell? [This one i find really interesting because it gives me an idea of how long he spent playing in each run normally before he would reset too]

How long did it take for Frisk to go through the underground? Is that length of time the same between pacifist and genocide timelines? Can we use real game time as a reference or not?

How long had Napstablook been abandoned by Mettaton for when frisk fell?

How long did it take for Alphys to conduct the amalgamate research?

For how long had Alphys been keeping the amalgamates secret from their families when Frisk fell?

For how long has Papyrus been training under Undyne?

How long has Undyne been head of the Royal Guard?

Are you thoroughly concerned about how little you know about the game yet? These are all things that would give more meaning to the storyline as well. Now, on some of these points you might think, well obviously we can use lifespan as a reference. BUT WE CAN’T. Because

We don’t know a damn about monster life spans

The only info we’re given is based on boss monsters. And that conveniently tells us that THEY DON’T AGE WHEN THEY DON’T HAVE LIVING CHILDREN. And since Asriel is dead, well we have nothing to work with. What really messes me up though is that the only constants we know for sure about across the two points in time, Chara’s and Frisk falling, is Asgore, Toriel and Gerson. Asgore and Toriel teach us nothing because THEY DON’T AGE. With Gerson aswell you might think haha i’ve got this cracked until you realise you have no idea how long a monster’s life span is, how long it takes a monster to reach old age and exactly what stage of aging Gerson is at. May i point out that NONE of the other monsters were mentioned?! That means that for all we know they weren’t born yet. But we have no idea. Were most of the monsters we know alive during the war? I’d have to say probably not but at the same time i have no substantial evidence either way. Another down side of this is that we don’t know how old any monster is in the game, how old the monsters are relative to eachother (like, is sans older than papyrus for example? we don’t know) and how old monsters are relative to Frisk. Because it puts an entirely new spin on everything if the only reason Frisk was called kid and my child was because they were younger than 100, for example, which was the age bracket of a child in their eyes. But we also don’t know Frisk’s age so who the hell knows anything? 

Let’s sum this up

The point of this game is that we don’t have reference for ANYTHING so that we can fill in the details our self. It gives a fan infinite freedom to customise the experience however they want. What this has resulted in is a large community of differing opinions about everything, with everything being technically valid which some consider bad but i just consider fascinating. It’s the best of all worlds really. I hate how vague things are at times when i want a canonically pure origin point for an argument, but i really shouldn’t complain. It’s beautifully done to be honest. And if you never asked these questions you’d never even know how sneaky it is. That’s how good it is. 

So yeah. Time. Undertale seems to have an issue with it. 

[tessatechaitea]

The Flintstones #5

This issue is about skullfucking T-Rexes.

Obviously it's not really about skullfucking T-Rexes! The skullfucking of the T-Rexes will be an analogy for some other modern day activity we engage in to the detriment of our animal friends around us. It'll probably be a commentary on the Westminster Dog Show. Is that a dog show? I think that's a dog show. This issue begins with a salty look at how the most intelligent of us are at the mercy of a population of stupid.

Betty Rubble probably holds the record for person I've had a crush on the longest.

This issue is called "Election Day" because I'm that far behind on my comic book reading. It'll probably be a scathing critique of Republican voters and how after they're done voting, they go back to their secret I Voted Room (which they all have in their houses) to crank some of Rush's early hits while while an Ayn Rand look-a-like beats their genitals with whip made of hundred dollar bills. Some readers might be thinking, "Tess! Why would you alienate conservative readers by expressing such horrible truths?!" Well, I feel the same way about Republican voters as I do about police. As long as the supposedly good police officers refuse to stand up themselves against the corrupt and racist and power mad authoritarian bastards in their ranks, I will never acknowledge any good police officers exist. And as long as conservative voters continue to simply vote Republican when the Republican Party has shown that they have no loyalty to any of their constituents who aren't wealthy or running a corporation, I'll refuse to believe there are any intelligent Republican voters. If you believe a country without government regulations or oversight is better than a country where corporations are allowed to do whatever they want, you're delusional. Because no matter how terrible the system is, at least with corrupt governments, you still have the comfort of possibly being able to vote them out. You can't do shit to a corporation except not buy their product which you're probably not buying already anyway. Although sometimes I think voting is about as useful as stating you're boycotting a company that doesn't even exist in your local area. I think that, when I'm at my most cynical, but at least voters have some kind of access to the people in power. Try getting a message to a corporation and see how fast they don't respond. I mean, I guess that happens instantly but you'll never know until years have gone by that they really don't intend to respond. I know the general response to the previous will be a loud squawking of "What about Hillary? What about Hillary? What about Hillary?" which isn't an argument at all. It's just proof of my point about the lack of intelligence on the conservative voter's side. At Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm's school, they're also holding elections. Some guy named Ralph's campaign slogan is "Vote for me or I'll punch you in the beef!" I like that he adds an exclamation point to it.

Clod is obviously the best pick for mayor. I don't even care about his message. He's just got great headgear!

Fred and Barney are concerned about the anger at the Lizard People because they remember years ago when the people of Bedrock let fear overtake them and they exterminated the Tree People. Back then, the people of Bedrock lived in fur tents and not the great civilization they have now. To get to that point, the trees needed to be cleared so that the construction companies could gain access to the granite to build the city. So Clod's father Mordok convinced the populace that the Tree People were terrible and evil and so fucking in the way. I mean, totally in the way! And not in a good way! They were sneakily in the way in totally selfish and evil ways. Fucking tree people! I'm getting angry just thinking about how in the way they were, just living their fucking lives and wishing to be left alone! Most of Fred and Barney's peers enlisted to wipe out the Tree People because of the cool headgear. Anybody who has ever looked dapper (and felt dapperer!) knows that's a valid reason for genocide. Actually, Fred is convinced to enlist because he has a new baby on the way. No better way to get people to fall in line than to make them feel like their children are threatened! No wait! There is a better way! Make them feel like their material possessions are being threatened and also the income that gets them those possessions and it really helps if you've already convinced them to buy a house so that they're sweating over losing the income that pays the mortgage on the place where they keep all of their material possessions and maybe some babies.

Barney and Betty are having trouble conceiving. Oh yeah! I just remembered Bamm-Bamm was a foundling! I bet he's one of those disgusting Tree People!

Fred and Barney continue to satirically remember their military training in preparation for the Tree People Slaughter (you probably remember it as the Vietnam War) while Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm try to deal with the impending election to class president of Ralph the Bully (you probably remember him as Donald Trump).

Pebbles' teacher is hot. I mean, she's intelligent with a great set of agencies.

Pebbles stands up after Portnoy withdraws from the race to tell her class that they probably deserve getting punched in the beef every day for the next year if they have no problem voting in Ralph. That seems a bit too on the nose, Russell! You're getting me depressed and I'm worried about my beef now! Because Pebbles voices her opposition to Ralph without being scared of him, everybody decides to vote for her. Plus she has protection!

How are we supposed to eliminate bullies from our culture when I audibly cackled at him punching that nerd in the beef?! Am I part of the problem?!

I would like to reiterate from previous commentaries: Steve Pugh is doing a wonderful job on this book. How can you not completely fall in love with Pebbles so joyfully doing the Nixon? Oh man. I just picked up the comic and glanced at the "Aaah! My beef!" panel again and sniggered like Muttley! Back to the hilarious send-up of the Vietnam War (or any other modern American war for that matter. Just fucking take your pick, really), Fred and Barney realize that they were lied to about the Tree People invading when they stumble upon the burnt out ruins of the Tree People's home. That's where Barney discovers a survivor: Bamm-Bamm. Instead of stomping on it with his boot heel like a real American...I mean Bedrockian would have done, he takes it home and cares for it and raises it as if it were a real human person. The Ranking! I absolutely love this comic book. I would give up all of the other comic books for just this comic book. I would marry this comic book and impregnate it with the Anti-Christ. But I'm still going to only put it at #2 on my All Time (if all the time started like last November or whatever) Comic Book Ranking List because I look smarter if I have the intelligent comic book, The Sheriff of Babylon, above the silly, goofy, satirical comic book. And the only thing I really care about is looking smarter than I really am.