#the degradation paper

[getvalentined]

Thinking about the Degradation Paper again and decided I'm just gonna drop the whole outline because this is a project that's already taken literal years but I wanna get some form of it out there. There are citations missing from the outline because there's a separate file with timestamped in-game video links in it, a folder of images to be linked as examples for certain points, and a whole bookmarks directory with every real-world scientific citation, so they're not all pasted in here. I don't assume people will be typing any of them in by hand anyway, I just wanna clarify that I do have citations for everything! It's just writing it all up that is...so extremely difficult.

The whole last section of the outline just says this:

I'll get there, me from the past.

[spooksier]

passages that make you whisper "oh my god"

[ciderbird]

you know considering how many clinically insane takes on history I’ve already seen I’m surprised no one wrote a paper on Alexander I’s sexuality yet. Like Napoleon has a whole book trying to prove he’s bi but Alexander “religious guilt” Romanov who doesn’t have any kids, keeps platonic relationships with nearly all his ‘mistresses’ and is routinely described as effeminate is supposed to be straight? Like there should be at least some sort of discussion about this

[wizzard890]

Bastian and Volo - The Antichrist and his Hound

There once was a boy who served in a castle. The noble family who lived there paid him no mind.

One day, like a blow through the heart, that boy saw God.

Something bright. Something terrible. Something holy, greater than every blazing star: Bastian, second issue of the Duke of Burgundy, seething and ambitious and wrathful.

Souls depart the body through the eyes; the boy never looked away.

.

Bastian was eighteen when he noticed Volo: the young son of a stablehand who had taught himself to read, to carry, to serve. Desperately ready to file himself into a cold and razored sword for Bastian's hand, if only that hand would close like a collar around his neck.

And so, in time, Bastian seized him.

.

It is your turn to see them now, years on, as the storm gathers.

Ecce homo: A Conqueror on a pale horse, his banners flying behind him, with a hunger for heaven on his lips and a burning crown on his head. But that which truly bears his glory runs at his heel.

Ecce canis: A chaste and brutal Galahad, rimed with frost, leading the legions of his Lord to any end, any dictate, as long as he is granted the final honor of slitting his own throat on Bastian's altar.

They are linked by a silver chain. God to slave, king to knight, love to worship. Even death cannot break it.

.

There once was a dog who served his master. The dragon who holds his leash will never let it go.

[killemwithkawaii]

"...!!!"

"...oh shit- I'm so sorry, Sal, I didn't mean to...!!"

"...uh, it's fine [y/n], just... try to watch your aim next time, okay...?" 💓💦

[Prison uniform and no shirt variations under the cut]

(Potential POV: He asked if you fr find him attractive and now the proof is all over his face whoops 😳💦💦💦)

[shinraelectricpowercom]

my Actual most controversial silm take is that the tengwar kind of suck, as an alphabet

[mariesoliver]

I was stressed the fuck out for 2 months worked weekends etc to finish a paper my bosses kept pressuring me to work on so i could meet a journal deadline and now i am almost finished but i feel so drained and i just know this stupid fucking paper is not gonna matter at all it's gonna have 0 impact

[j-esbian]

one of my biggest pet peeves and my smallest hill to die on is when people act like parchment is just The Old Fashioned Paper, or worse, use those terms interchangeably. it’s especially egregious in the fantasy genre, of course.

and i can kind of see how they got there: a lot of surviving texts from medieval europe are on parchment and that influences the way people perceive things; because ofc western fantasy draws a LOT of things from medieval times, that just gets exported along with the ideas that thatched houses are constantly falling apart and gothic churches come pre-blackened with soot

there’s a lot of ground to cover with the history of the written word, but the thing about paper is that it really took off because the gutenberg press made it fast and cheap to make books and paper was CHEAP and much easier to produce. parchment is expensive and, quite frankly, a much more limited resource (and it also didn’t disappear after the printing press took off. i’ve seen books printed on vellum, but by that point it was for the novelty/explicitly because it was so expensive). but it does have significant longevity vs paper, so of course it was usually reserved for important cultural items. people wouldn’t be using parchment to make a flyer for the county fair or to advertise a job, and probably only used it for correspondence if they’re very rich. granted, before the printing boom galvanized literacy levels (because it made reading material cheaper and more accessible), generally only rich people were literate and would have a need for something to read and write on, but there have been pamphlets forever

paper existed before the 13th century and honestly, whether it was anachronistic in real life shouldn’t bother you in a made up setting and anyway PLEASE remember that paper and parchment are not the same thing

[getvalentined]

I'm working on the degradation writeup and....uh.

This is normal, right. This is is a normal thing that normal people do when discussing fictional media. Surely. Surely this is normal.

Jiminy Fucking Christmas no wonder I imprinted on Genesis so hard when he treats Loveless the same way I treat FF7.

[yourheartinyourmouth]

being the only person you know who is struggling is so fucking humiliating.

we’re talking about getting me a job at a gas station. my friends all make $60K plus.

i have to work in a gas station.

[good-night-space-kid]

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you’re thinking of using masking tape for long term labels for the love of everything good in this world DO NOT. That shit degrades so fast and becomes crumbly as hell. Use a piece of paper and put it inside if you can, or use any other material.

[txxxciii]

unpopular (maybe?) opinion: the kombat kids would've definitely worked better if they weren't introduced as the next generation

[falllpoutboy]

just remembered how much of a deplorable movie the last jedi was and convulsed. rian is really going to hell lmao

[raimagnolia]

I get it when you're a kid or a teen, but when you're an adult, 30 years old, and even your stick figures look like shit (ie me), there's a level of shame there.

"So what? Shake it off. It doesn't matter. Everyone starts off that way-" Except artists waaaaay better than me will talk shit about their art. They feel frustration and shame towards something I stare at all year long on my laptop.

When you don't have talent for it? It almost feels like entering a world of masochism, and like... why would I do that.

"I cant draw" then do it bad who gives a fuck.....

[29121996]

.

[getvalentined]

So I'm researching mitochondria to get citations together for my eventual writeup on degradation and I have learned a thing that actually works really well with my theory and I'm really excited about it!

Okay so, the short version is that Jenova operates via the mitochondria, because they're the only organelle that was originally its own separate organism, they divide separately from the rest of the cell; I'm working on a detailed writeup that will have citations about all this but I AM REALLY EXCITED so bear with me here.

The only type of cell in the human body that doesn't have any mitochondria is the red blood cell, which makes sense since they basically eject the majority of their organelles (up to and including the nucleus) to make as much room as possible for hemoglobin to facilitate effective respiration.

This means that Genesis' strain of Jenova would be bloodborne only via white blood cells. White blood cells can pass through tissues and organ walls effortlessly through a method known as migration, which isn't well understood and is also the method by which fetal cells transfer to the mother during pregnancy—something discussed at length in my earlier ramble about when Lucrecia had her seizure.

So basically I'm almost definitely right about how Jenova works! And this is why Sephiroth was told that Jenova is his mother! Mitochondrial DNA is always matrilineal, if he got his from Jenova then she is his mother, in one genetic sense!