#theres more minor symbolisms but i wont explain all that

[creativesparkz]

i think, therefore i am.

[mellonieee]

Mellonie does FOP + A New Wish Analysis: 1

This is what a week of AC and Antifairy brainrot has led to. After this I think I’m going to actually watch through the entire original series from the Oh Yeah! Shorts all the way to Season 10. (Hopefully I wont hate it too much.) And then rewatch ANW again once it hits streaming for the full FOP experience. And also so I could maybe do more of this analysis stuff, its fun.

Plans for later aside, this and any I do in the future, will only use episodes the character actually appears in, and not ones that they are merely mentioned in. Its also important to note that I likely wont use all the episodes the Character appears in.

That old black magic is the introduction to Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, and the Anti-Fairies as a whole. They’re described as “Regular Fairies, but anti.”

This episode establishes a few things:

1.Fairy magic cannot interfere with Anti-fairy magic.

2.On Friday the 13th, Antifairies escape from Fairyworld and cause bad luck. Antifairies are naturally drawn to anything that triggers bad luck to happen.

3.Antifairies can only be seen by humans with anti-fairy goggles.

4.Antifairies are opposites of their fairy counterpart in personality. AW is “incredibly stupid and eats with her feet.” AC is “not an idiot, in any matter once so ever.”

But what’s really interesting about this episode is what Jorgen and Anti-Cosmo have to say about the anti-fairies.

“No one is allowed in Anti-fairy world!”

“You see, we’ve been trapped behind that blasted barrier for centuries.”

Jorgen, you cant just imprison a whole group without expecting any problems. Its no wonder they wanted to escape so badly. Is causing bad luck something, well, bad, enough to warrant the imprisonment of an entire race? The anti-fairies arent good at all, obviously, but they are biologically made to thrive off of bad luck and negative energy. This really muddies the waters when it comes to seeing this as a solely ‘black and white’ situation. Most, but not all, of what AC does is for the antifairies. He’s evil and chaotic by nature, but he’s not evil evil, yknow.

There isnt really anything else noteworthy to say about that old black magic outside of this, but I did notice that AC knew Timmy’s name despite the fact he never met him before that point, somehow. I merely brush it off as a minor goof and just figure AC mustve made a lucky (haha) guess, but if you want a crazy theory to explain it, then maybe anti-fairies share vague recollections or memories with their fairy counterparts. I dont actually think thats true, but theres your food for thought.

The second appearance of the antifairies, The Gland Plan instantly ditches the entire ‘antifairy goggles’ thing, which is honestly for the better, even if I do think it made anti-fairies more unique. They are sadly never getting the invisibilty thing back.

This episode establishes that the faggigly gland is a special organ in a fairies body that allows the fairy to change shape, and that both fairies and anti-fairies have one. Fairy biology in general is really questionable, especially if you factor in the angel forms from A New Wish, but thats a topic for another day.

A few things to note:

1.This is the start of that “Hello, Clarice.” quote that AC and Foop/Irep use. Its a reference to Silence of the Lambs but its a misquote anyway because Lecter never even says hello to Clarice.

2.AC claims that he cant see a thing without his monocle. If he isnt lying about that and isnt using the monocle only as a symbol of prestige, then he has really terrible eyesight and is most likely completely blind in one eye.

3.Despite AC calling his wife a twit, he prefaces it by saying that he loves her very much. Most instances of AC talking to his wife does include him being typically annoyed when she messes with his plans, but outside of that he acts courteous towards her. (“Chin up, my beloved Anti-Wanda! Your savior, Anti-Cosmo, will have you all free presently!”)

4.The more questionable line is when Anti-Cosmo and Cosmo are having the operation and AC claims that if he does live, Cosmo should take his wife. Needless to say, AC words things very poorly at times, but this statement does have them acknowledging that an anti-fairy and a fairy could hypothetically be with one another’s counterpart.

“Cosmo, old friend, since we both carry a piece of each other inside of us, I see no reason for us to do battle. But I warn you, don't look for me.”

AC doesnt hold that much ill-will towards Cosmo like how I figure most would expect him to. He seems to be fed up and annoyed by his counterpart’s foolishness, but he does not despise him.

Right as the episode ends, Timmy brings up the idea that maybe more than the faggigly glands got transplanted. There isnt much evidence to support this outside of the brief voice change Anti-Cosmo and Cosmo had, but I’m starting to think Timmy was right considering how Anti-Cosmo acts in A New Wish.

I dont know if AC and AW retired like Wanda and Cosmo did, but I feel like AC’s very obvious decline in intelligence is a likely theory as to why Irep now seems to be in charge of the anti-fairies as shown in A New Wish.

I frankly can’t see the New Wish Version of AC leading the antifairies compared to how he acted in the old show. Not when he now thinks leaving a cage unattended is a “good idea.” That isnt something AC would say at all if we’re going off of his original characterization. It’s interesting to think of a reason in-universe as to how he went from “not an idiot, in any matter once so ever.” to someone who definitely is not as smart as he use to be.

[kiruliom]

hihi reddit's mogai peeps, welcome to mogaiblr, here's a (not so) small guide by your host Vivian to help you grow accustomed to this place.

press the read more/keep reading thingy to continue, dont worry, it dont bite!

general tumblr etiquette

tag your stuff, they wont be seen otherwise.

do not crosstag (tag a group youre complaining about), or tag unrelated stuff

reblog, reblog, reblog! if you see a post that interests you, reblog! this is super important as there is no algorithm and all the like button does is basically save the post for later

tag triggering things!! [thing] tw or [thing] cw should suffice, dont tag every possible version of a trigger, you only have 30 tag slots, it's the reader's responsibility to block all possible tags as theres no limit on blocked tags. I suggest trigger tagging after the 20th tag as tags after the 20th one dont show up on search (stupid I know) but still gets blocked okay

get a profile photo as soon as possible, this site has a massive bot problem and if youre thought to be one you will be blocked without hesitation

if youre on pc, I highly recommend you get xkit, its a browser extension that helps a lot with your tumblr experience

these are the basics, these have been talked about over and over with twitter refugees as well so I wont drabble on them too much

mogaiblr etiquette

1: keep in mind the intersectionality

the mogai tumblr community has a lot of overlap with other communities, namely the disabled community, nonhuman community and plural community. respect them, and listen to them, for they are your allies. you will see the overlapping community get referred to as "LIOM" a lot (like in my username), it stands for labels, identities and other minorities and is meant to be an all encompassing umbrella.

2: make your posts accessible

as I just said, theres a lot of disabled people in this community, so its important to make your posts as accessible as possible. I will talk more on this later

3: dont be afraid to ask individual blogs

there is no subreddit posting system, and if you just post a general question you likely wont get any answers, if you get seen at all, so dont shy away from asking individual blogs about stuff, if their asks are open, it means they WANT you to talk with them and ask them stuff, so never view it as bothering them. the askbox doesnt always say "asks" and similar stuff though due to being customizable, so just know its the little button to the left of the follow button.

4: check pinned posts

pinned posts are posts that are pinned on top of a persons blog, when you open someones blog, theyll be the first post to be seen upon scrolling down. a lot of people use these to introduce themselves, set boundaries, give request rules, talk about availability, etc. so its important to read these through whenever possible.

more on accessibility

1: image descriptions!!!

its basically where you describe the image, as the name suggests, tumblr has an alt. text function for it but it doesnt always work so little [boxes like this] right under the image is ideal for most, yes it makes it look less pretty, but is your aesthetic worth more than someone whos visually impaired not being able to understand the post? trust me no one cares if your posts are pretty or not. anyway, the ideal way to know how to describe an image is pretend youre explaining it out loud to someone across from you, who cant look at your screen for whatever reason.

2: plain text!

yes, tumblr has a lot of cool text features (like bold or italic, or even colored [PT: like bold, italic, or even colored. end PT]) but this is, again, unfortunately inaccessible, due to tumblr being a broken website it often doesnt register formatted text for screenreaders, plus it can be hard to navigate for people with disabilities even without a visual disability. this goes for fancy text and symbols as well (like stars emoticons or a cursive text font). so you have two options, offer a plain text alternative or dont format text at all. offering plain text can be done in the same way as image IDs (theres even an example above).

3: eyestrain

bright colors are awesome, trust me, Id know, but not everyone can view them properly without a migraine or even worse, a seizure. so its important to tag your posts with eyestrain if you decide to make a brightly colored flag, or even better, do your best to make the flag accessible instead, with slightly duller colors with more (or less depending on the flag) contrast. it doesnt make your flag as ugly as youd think, trust me ^^

4: availability cant do one or more of the things mentioned above for any reasons? dont fret! theres blogs out there that can help you, most of them do this out on their own accord.

currently the most active ones are @plaintextpro , @accessmogai and @transflorall (my blog hehe), who specialize in plain text, image descriptions and eyestrain-help respectively

thats about it that I can think of!!! thank you for reading, and if theres anything you'd like to add, dont be afraid to!

[tumblunni]

Randomly thinking some more about that old game idea of mine that i just call Dark Pokemon for now, lol

Basically a monster catching game where they're treated as monsters? Normal people are all terrified of them and trainers get treated with a 50/50 mix of reverence and hatred. Because trainers are the only way that humans can try and exterminate the monsters, yet theyre seen as cursed people who dont even count as human anymore. Sort of a way to explain little cliches of the genre like kids being thrown out completely alone to travel the world, and you never really having any reason to revisit past towns after you beat the gym. I was thinking itd be a cool way to do it if the game started off seeming like a normal mon catching game and then before you get the big reveal of the darkness you can get subtle hints if you try and turn around and reenter the starting area. Because it goes against expectations it might be missed by a lot of players.

Also the towns are so small and the routes are so straight and narrow because thats how humanity builds society in a world of monster fear. 90% of the world is uninhabited wilderness where only monsters live. Human towns are sorta like sci fi dome cities without the scifi? Surrounded by protective salt barriers and charms and stuff. And if a monster even touches anything its considered cursed, so if one of them makes it past a salt barrier that town is abandoned and any people caught up in the chaos of the barrier's collapse are left to die just in case they've been corrupted. And the roads between the towns are manned by armed guards who are constantly vigilant to repair the salt barriers. But this means they have to live their entire life alone in these limbo spaces between society and the wild, and often most narrier breaches are caused by the guards getting paranoid from the pressure. You need to keep watch for monsters so any movement in the shadows could be one of them, right?? You get situations of roads being blocked off by some crazed guard who starts seeing people as monsters, or one of them pulling the alarm and getting a town falsely burnt down for being corrupted when the monster was really just a leaf blowing in the wind. Or the worst case scenario where nobody ever knows WHAT happened! You just find the road destroyed and the guard gone. It might have happened days ago and nobody knew until a merchant tries to travel between towns and discovers the only road of escape is gone and everyone is doomed to slow starvation. And you can still see the other end of the road just a few meters away, but the superstition is so strong that nobody will risk taking that single step into monster territory. You'll be cursed and that's worse than death, right? You don't want to turn into a trainer...

And then also nobody really knows what determines who's chosen to be a trainer. Inevitably whenever someone shows signs of powers the town will turn on them and make up any excuse that they somehow invited the curse by being promoscuous or athiest or something. And you need to be removed for everyone's safety! Thus begins the ten year old's journey walking the earth in search of a place they can belong...

Tho usually its not just kids, the protagonist and rival is a rare case. All your neighbours are torn between 'its so tragic it happened to kids' and 'they must be REALLY evil to get chosen despite their age!' And i think maybe the rival would be like a sympathetic gary type? Theyre so determined to be better than you because they think if they can prove theyre good then their parents will let them go back home. And this desperation leads them to make bad choices and reject the only friend they have left :( Also them being bad to their monster pals would feel more justified when they were raised in a society that says monster pals are evil and you cant let your guard down cos theyre just trying to tempt you. Listen to the assholes who dont care about you, because anyone being nice is a lying sinner!

Also i was thinking maybe you catch monsters with a magic song or throwing herbs at them or absorbing them into a jewel pendant or something else more magicky yknow? Maybe magical bandages enscribed with spell runes that wrap arpund them like a collar? And so trainers are divided up into weavers who make these catching tools, and then the actual kind of trainer who uses them to catch mons. Weavers are able to stay in human society and act like the pokeball shops, theyre sorta like a 'town witch' or something. Like 'we will tolerate your magic if you never actually make a contract with a monster'. But then of course catching monsters is necessary to defend against monsters, so weavers have to be allowed to make the catching threads and sell them to travellers. But only travellers are allowed to do that sinful mon hugging! But also hey sinful traveller will you please save us from our doom? Basically this is why most trainers work as mercenaries, all this bullshit means that you gotta be employed by some asshole who hates your guts just cos u need food to eat. But blablabla town limit of X days before you have to leave, etc etc...

Also i was considering an element of different towns having different mythology around monsters and trainers? So you never really know whats real or if all of it is bullshit. Every time you go to a new place theyre equally fanatically convinced that some new thing is the real sin and everything the last guy said is eeeeeevil corruption. Sigh! And a subplot i was thinking of is a town with very sexist mythology, where the roles of weavers and tamers are seen as one gender only. And the town weaver is this nice grandma thats trapped in an abusive relationship with a super misogynist gramps. And one of those cloyingly fake-softspoken "rational" sexists who's all 'im just trying to protec u, wrong gender roles are bad for your immortal soul'. And has a million "logical" explanations for why his bigotry is true. Like technically he's "valuing her as important" by not letting her leave the house or socialize with friends, because yknow "im a nice guy who's nice to you trainers, i know your job is important so shouldnt the weavers be working 24/7 to support you?" The frustrating feeling of starting to trust a guy cos he's not bigoted against your particular minority, but then finding out he's bigoted against someone else... Ugh. So ultimately in the end you can succeed at this sidequest and help the grandma make a pact with a cute fairy monster and kick his ass and leave. And possibly get into a cute and mutually healthy relationship with another grandma in another town, so you get to see that and have a bonus happy note to the sidequest, yknow? Also they give you a hug and bake u cookies. (The monster is wearing a cute chef hat!) And then you'd have a place to stay in that town that doesnt have the 'it gets more expensive every night to try and make you leave' bullshit of all the normal inns. And you get to see a cute animation of your monsters all cuddled up in bed too cos they dont force you to leave them outside in the Designated Monster Containment Cage.

Oh! Also randomly i was thinking of another way of foreshadowing! Like when you go to the first inn you dont know any of this stuff about people hating monster tamers and not trusting your tamed mons even if theyre tame. So you'd probably just think that you not seeing your monsters when you sleep is just the game's limited graphics or you keep them in some pokeball equivelant thing. But when you walk arpund the outside of the inn you can see a door to a basement cellar that's got weirdly heavy duty chains and bars even if you assume they store their valuables down there. And maybe when you heal at the inn it never restores your mons to full health, always 10hp away from maximum or something? Or other small hints that theyre afraid of going to the inn and your protagonist is wary about doing it even if you'd think theres no downside to healing. Or maybe you can see another monster tamer visit the place at one point and you can hear banging and growling from the basement...? Or see some of the chains have bite marks in the morning. And the townsfolk wpuld be all 'can you believe how much noise they made?' and expressing fear about monsters being in the town, though itd have to be written carefully to remain vague. But yeah 'lets mistreat these small animals because we fear them' -> they panic and cry for their one human friend in the world while theyre forced to sleep in a damp dark tiny room -> 'that just proves theyre inherantly violent!' Also the trainer is an ungrateful bastard for acting so sullen when they couldnt sleep from worry over their friends :(

But it wont be all depressing yo!!! All the darkness of the setting is dark but the monster pals are still just as pals! I give u grimdark world so i can give u a protagonist of kindness who fights the system and saves people in every town who eventually rise up and are swayed by their kindness into fighting The Old Ways and making a better world as the story goes on! Its like an adventure of creating the pokemon world? You try and sell everyone on the idea of trusting cute monsters instead of being so damn paranoid you inflict all these atrocities upon other humans and even yourself because 'sacrifices are necessary to keep the monsters away'. Fight the symbol of all bigotry!!! The evil team is Team Bad Dads And Politicians!!!

...sorry lol my story ideas are Weird.

[isaacathom]

ok i finished a quick article on Skarhan Vostan (i say quick, it took like an hour and is 800 words, nice), we’re now gonna return to your regular scheduled War of the Roses knock off

now

do i wanna separate these bad bois into houses. cause it is three bloodlines, + Reon I+II. the two reons fall into the Ferean descendant branch, politically, for reasons which become apparent about 20 minutes into the war of succession when Zaloren (Ferean’s son) goes to war with Sumi over her deposing Reon II for being a young sick kid who wont make it to 25. very fun.

im thinking I’ll designate them as three houses. Sumi, Ila, and Ferean. Ila and Ferean didnt actually... participate in the war, though? Ferean cause he was long dead, like that boy was dead before the plague even hit, and Ila because she didn’t really have anything she could do about it, because she didnt have any way to argue her case in a way that would win over public support, since she was a middle child. so she stayed neutral. Taris, her daughter, was just a force of nature and came out like a truck at the end to become like, monarch number 7 for 3 years in there, because Taris didn’t give a fuck about public support. Askila only got in the game because she COULD get public support, though this was on less on a ‘constitutional’ basis and more on the fact she was a better leader than the alternatives. also she murdered the two people keeping her from being able to claim absolute primogeniture. it was a lot of fun.

anyway, what to call them? and how do i wanna present this. the issue is that Ila’s descendants dont come into play as contenders until the 60s at the earliest. the war started in 388. Taris didn’t become Empress until 354. it seems strange to introduce her line at the onset, but i guess for context purposes like ‘hey just so you know these fuckers dont come from NOWHERE, heres the shit’. im okay with that. but i need names. they were probably names deriving from the duchies/whatever that the families each held in their positions as the children of Emperor Iden III. lemme pick some shit. hold on. there IS an issue with that, though - I feel like I’d have to explain why the current imperial descendant doesnt hold the title of the winners. because thats the issue - the winner, Askila, would have herself held title, and while SHE didnt marry a titleholder, her brother did, and it was her NEPHEW who ruled after her, and by rights he would possess BOTH titles in addition to being Emperor and all the other symbolic guff. this arguably only causes an issue for Iden of Ilnon, who is, by blood, the most senior descendant of Zaloren the Conqueror. Like. He just straight up Is that. or, legitimate one, anyway. there are a lot of bastards in there. dont worry about them. i suppose that i could just say that Ila and Ferean had rather minor titles, or that they were split from the monarchy later? theres ALSO the possibility that, at least in the case of Ila’s descendants, that their title was stripped from them when Reon III was executed, due to it being unclear which members of his family had survived. then it simply came about that Askila I never went to reclaim her title, because she had her eyes on the big prize, and so that title died out. it was reestablished later, naturally. Ferean’s line has no such excuse, so they simply had a minor title. which is great! except it has to be more minor than a mark. whoops! County it is.

Ila’s descendants are still listed as ‘House [x]’ for consistency, even if Askila did not inherit that title due to execution shenanigans. Sumi’s line passing its house didnt matter because Sumi’s title was by marriage and at her lines termination, just went right the fuck back  up the tree and found someone else. nice! Could be anything.

I’m thinking. Since Askila’s got taken away, she can be anything, and having her be listed as a Shonyul would be interesting. itd also be really rough because you definitely need a ruler in that duchy, so how THAT was handled with the house ‘cancel’ w/ Reon III is anyones guess. so for safeties sake, lets not give Askila a duchy. sumi can have a duchy. she can be a Shonyul! for shits and giggles. They don’t talk about it. Man the shonyuls are nooot lucky with this whole ‘next in line to the throne’ thing, huh? yeesh.

Askila’s family had the Barony of... hmm. i was gonna give shawa but lets not have two sh- names. the Barony of Vunis. And Ferean’s had the County of Harkad, which still falls into the current Mark of Ilnon (so Iden has it, lucky boy! lemme add these to my table reaaaly quick)

beautiful. that will do as a summary. we’ll do a breakdown at the end showing to which group each of the rulers belonged (Askila count as a Vunis, and Reon II counts as either his own dude, or a Harkadi ruler due to the role of Zaloren as a ‘Kingmaker’.

also im 100% making fucking emblems for these people, i have an hour, im making emblems, hold yalls fucking horses a second im making EMBLEMS. Reon I’s is fine - he has the two headed saval, which I just need to get from the flag (oh jesus) and put into like, a size i like. then ill make the rest based on that. shonyul will be hard because im gonna reuse that emblem for 425 stuff, since the shonyul crest forms the basis of the ‘shonyul flag’, when Muna says ‘yea nah fuck this’. its great

[insidiousflame]

My Spirituality

 So I consider myself to be a very open-minded person when it comes to spirituality. I didn’t always used to be because I grew up christian. And as a result, I was taught to believe in that religion absolutley 100% with no grey areas in between. But of course as a person grows older, they start to question things and branch off into other ways of thinking and morals. For example, I used to be very against gay marriage because I was ignorant, and only knew the bible said it was wrong. But as my knowledge matured about the world and my own faith, I realized how out-dated that way of thinking was. My personal experiences and relationship with God, gave me an abundance of love and wisdom about life. And I had to decipher within my self what to believe, versus what other PEOPLE told me to believe. Along with of course, the many inconsistencies within the text of the bible itself, whole big conundrum i wont get into. It was a tremendous struggle because i always just trusted what other people, especially my parents, told me was right or wrong and that was it. So instead of just going along with a written text, i focused more on what felt right with me and my own heart. And let me tell you it feels so much better. So i still do consider myself a christian today. But theres some magical, controversial bits in between that I’m about to shed light on now.    I have a big interest in the supernatural. Like, not just with the knowledge about angels and demons, but things from the common mythical creatures to straight up chakra and psychic and witchy aspects of it. Magic basically. I have always, from the ripe young age of an elementary schooler, been curious about witchcraft and things associated. The only reason i was introduced to it at such a young age was because I had a friend way back then who was apparently a witch. All I remember was her having this book on witchcraft and wanting to do some spells with me. And i was like “oh that sounds cool!” But somewhere in the mix the parents found out and i pretty much wasnt able to hang around her much anymore. And that was the end of that until a bit later. I wanna say I started learning more about that magical stuff again in highschool. I would end up watching supernatural shows on youtube or researching stuff about tarot cards and crystals etc and I was just so drawn to it. And I again, came into contact with a friend who practiced all that cool stuff and he opened me back up to it with his own tarot which he actually let me borrow at one point. And oh boy was I excited. This stuff...was crazy. It felt like my soul was just passionate with this curious fire. Now there was also this side of me who felt like i was doing something bad because of what I was raised to believe. Basically, if it aint of God, its of the devil. And the devil was gonna try and suck me into this evil stuff. And although i had this excitement, I had a feeling, as I kept working with the cards over and over, that they were telling me to stay away from them. The cards were telling me. Or whatever divine influence around me was. I mean, my parents found out about them eventually and of course gave me the whole “its demonic” schpeal. But i got my own warning signs i started to notice. And this will probably sound really crazy. But honestly....all this stuff is crazy. But still happened mind you. See, the tarot cards consist of what is called Major Arcana, which is your well known cards like “The Devil, The Wheel of Fortune, High Priestess” titles like that. And the Minor Arcana, which contain the suits, “Swords, wands, pentacles, cups” listed Ace through King with numbers of course in between. I kept drawing, The Devil. I kept drawing cards with the number 6 on it. So Immedietley I had the thought of, “Okay. Something is telling me I shouldnt be using these.” So I eventually gave them back to the friend and didnt mess with them again until much later. But of course my curiousity didnt end there. Bitch please. To speed things along, I ended up buying and destroying a couple of decks until I finally reached a spiritual point where I understood the responsibility that was needed to use them. Through those years I spent a loooot of time researching about witch craft, wicca, paganism and all the metaphysical and divination practices of the like. I researched about what the bible said about them and also the concrete history of witchery and the differences of the different terms associated with them. And then I discovered.....holy shit. This shit isn’t this big bad evil that everyone makes it out to be. It’s actually.....very beautiful and artistic and expressive. And I think the mystery and aesthetic and magical aspects of those things is what really drew me in in the first place. Now don’t get me wrong, magic can MOST CERTAINLY be used for evil. It can most certainly hurt you and others whether you believe in it or not. And I think that’s why my spiritual guides, or whatever was happening back then, steered me away from it. Because I wasn’t mature enough to know how to use those tools safely and without getting carried away. Because now i have absolutley no problem using these tools for guidance. Cause I dont abuse them. Because these beautiful practices resonated so much with me, i started to want to incorporate them more in my life in now a more respectful and wise manner. And it was really, enriching for my soul and my view on life. It brought me so much happiness and appreciation for the mystery life has. And I’ve been able to find a comfortable balance with my beliefs. And here is where I’m at today. I am still a believer in the christian God. But I also enjoy incorporating symbolic and ritualistic crafts from the magical culture into my worship. So in other words, i could put myself in the category into an eclectic witch. Eclectic Witches create their own personal practices and belief or religious systems by re-creating or borrowing knowledge and practices from other beliefs, practices, etc.  So they basically see something they like about another’s belief or practice and say “oh i like that, that feels right with me, im going to incorporate that into my spirituality as well.” Which is what im doing. lol Theres a LOT that needs explaining with that because it is so easy for people to get confused and assume things which is why this topic is so difficult to talk about because it goes back into all that history and research. I had to make a whole educational documentation for my parents so they could understand why i like these things, why they arent as evil as they believe and so on. It is very frustrating when you feel like you need to justify yourself to others about what you believe. And i think my experience with spirituality has really opened me up to other’s beliefs and being a whole lot more less judgmental and more accepting and loving of people in general. So in essence, all I’m doing, is a new form of ritual. When I use my cards, i am specific to say I only wish for the guidance from God and his Angels. And everything that he wishes me to know, will be by his will only with no interference of another force or entity. I always make sure to protect myself from the negative energies. I rarely do spells nowadays, but when I do, it is only of a means of feeling like I am doing more than just....talking about it. It makes me feel a little more in control and I again, make sure my intentions are clear with what energies I am working with and I mean no disrespect to God in the works I do and it is only for creative expression and ritual dedicated to him and no one else. And that feels right with me. I didn’t go into much, but crystal healing is another thing I love, although I dont believe in 100% because I’m just always keeping an open mind and completley understand a skeptic’s point of view. But nonetheless I have had my own share of positive experiences with it and do still enjoy working with them from time to time. That’s about all I’ll go into.  And just for your convenience, I will actually link the documents of some of the basic research and explanation on my practices and beliefs in the description if youre curious. The actual couple of fun pages I gave to my parents so hopefully i dont have to explain myself further. lol I would love to touch up on some more spiritual/paranormal stuff at later dates. Have a beautiful day. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cB0avtCEEyoA_-CZKh5OWCz56qXVqoSJu6MLsZtAYIo/edit

[coindex]

SegWit2x Hard Fork C

SegWit2x Hard Fork Could Have Devastating Consequences for Bitcoin Opinion This is an opinion piece and the views of this author do not necessarily represent the views of Cointelegraph. The upcoming SegWit2x fork could generate a black swan event for Bitcoin; that is to say there is a small chance that the fork could have enormous repercussions. The idea of a black swan event was coined by author Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain: The disproportionate role of high-profile hard-to-predict and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations. SegWit2x could be just such an event particularly because the market seems so complacent right now. Despite soon facing an incredibly contentious hard fork with possibly terrific consequences Bitcoin price remains just below its all-time high. The longest chain The upcoming fork has been written about extensively; if you arent entirely sure what SegWit2x entails feel free to check out some earlier Cointelegraph articles. In this piece I want to talk not about what SegWit2x is or whether its good or bad but about the potential consequences it could have for Bitcoin. Lets begin with Satoshis original white paper. In it the creator of Bitcoin wrote: Proof-of-work is essentially one-CPU-one-vote. The majority decision is represented by the longest chain which has the greatest proof-of-work effort invested in it. In case of any confusion Satoshi followed this statement with: Nodes always consider the longest chain to be the correct one and will keep working on extending it. In Satoshis own words therefore the longest of two competing chains is assumed to be the legitimate one. Many have argued that Satoshi would have thought differently in such-and-such situation or that SegWit2x is an exception to the rule for one reason or the other. Nonetheless without Satoshi here to guide us personally it is understood from his white paper that the longest chain is Bitcoin. Full stop. Butbut But Bitcoins core developers dont like SegWit2x! But the SegWit2x code wasnt created and vetted traditionally! But the upgrade isnt needed! But many exchanges are going to call the legacy chain Bitcoin! But! Im not here to argue any of these points. Whether the block size increase is necessary or proper is beyond the scope of this article. It nonetheless remains true that under Satoshis original white paper the longest chain represents the winner the legitimate Bitcoin. Rightly or wrongly thats how Satoshi designed the Bitcoin network. Winners and losers This brings us to the next point: Bitcoins network is going to work exactly as Satoshi programmed it. At present miner support for the 2x hard fork is running around 83 percent. Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song made some rough calculations based on 90 percent miner support for the fork. This is reasonable since statistical variance causes miner support to fluctuate. Song reasoned that if 90 percent of Bitcoins miners follow through with their current plan to mine SegWit2x then: Block 494784 splits to 1X and 2X. Initially 1X has 100 minute blocks 2X has 11 minute blocks on average. 1X and 2X have the exact same difficulty. Legacy Bitcoin (which Song calls 1X) would have 100 minute blocks. This means a single transaction with a high enough fee to make it into the next block would require 10 hours to receive six confirmations. It would take nearly half a day to fully confirm a transaction on the 1X chain! How is the ecosystem going to react to a nearly two hour block time? Given the great slowness of the network an order of magnitude slower than pre-forkhow high will fees rise? If the block size remains the same (on the 1X chain) but there are only a tenth as many blocks fees will have to rise to monstrous levels since there will be 10 times the competition for space in a block. This will be no brief inconvenience either. Song estimates that if the mining split remains as it is today the 1X chain wont experience a difficulty drop until Feb. 3 and block times wont return completely to normal until March 10. Die-hard supporters of the legacy chain will be contending with nearly two hour block times and sky-high fees for about three months! Futures markets and opportunity cost Song points out that in futures trading legacy (1X) Bitcoins are trading for about $6100 each compared to 2X Bitcoins which are priced at only $1100 apiece. He argues that this creates a massive opportunity cost as miners who choose to mine the 2X chain will receive less valuable Bitcoins as a reward than if they mined the 1X chain. However this is only the case if after the fork the 2X chain remains priced at a sixth of the 1X chain. Assuming that the 1X chain has 100 minute block times and fees an order of magnitude higher than they are currently it seems unlikely that 1X Bitcoin will maintain its high value relative to 2X Bitcoin. Its important to remember that since the 2X chain doesnt yet exist the current futures price isnt merely a bet on whether 2X will supplant 1X. Its also a bet as to whether the fork even happens at all. Theres still the possibility of a last-minute compromise or a falling away of support for 2X or the conversion of some Bitcoin core devs to the 2X cause. Until the fork happens the futures price doesnt mean all that much. Of course once the fork happens the futures markets will become moot anyway. In short take the futures markets with a grain of salt. Confusion Assuming the SegWit2x hard fork happens under the terms Song suggests (90 percent of mining power backing the new chain Core devs backing the legacy chain) its likely there will be enormous confusion in the marketplace. Consider that one chain will presumably be functioning just like normal but with even lower fees due to its higher capacity. This would be the 2X chain. The other chain the 1X chain will have only a tenth the hash power of the 2X chain and will have a block time of nearly two hours. The network will quite literally crawl and its maximum transaction throughput will be slashed by an order of magnitude. Politics aside which network sounds healthier? Which sounds more valuable? Game theory Given that the marketplace is likely to be highly confused about which Bitcoin is the real Bitcoin here lies one possibility of a black swan event. Since some exchanges will give the name Bitcoin and the BTC ticker to the 1X chain and some will give the moniker and symbol to the 2X chain its likely that buyers will be confused as to what they are buying. With a lack of replay protection there is likely to be significant disruption on both networks as transactions on each network are replayed on the other. In short the first days following the fork will likely be chaos. The price of both 1X and 2X Bitcoin could crash particularly if excess margin contributes to any flash crashes. Miners will quickly realize that the chaos must end before the value of both networks hits zero. They will likely therefore attack the 1X chain. Considering that 2X miners will have (in our imagined scenario) ten times the hash power of the minority chain reorg attacks against the 1X chain would be easy to execute and highly effective. Such attacks could reverse huge portions of the Blockchainperhaps days worth of transactionsundermining confidence in the 1X network. Bitcoins core devs who unanimously support the 1X chain have said that in the event of any attacks they will simply change the proof-of-work algorithm. While this could work it would require yet another hard fork. It should be remembered that part of Cores opposition to SegWit2x is because hard forks are dangerous yet these same developers propose to foist a risky hard fork on an already unstable 1X network thats under attack by a larger chain. This seems unwise in the extreme. Not only that but changing 1Xs proof-of-work algorithm would tend to undermine its assertion that its the true heir to Satoshis original Bitcoin network. Anything could happen In fact because people are wildly unpredictable and there are such vast sums of money and pride at stake nearly any outcome is possible. One chain could destroy the other completely both chains could co-exist one chain could be more valuable or the fork might somehow be avoided altogether. Nobody knows and if theres anything the market hates its uncertainty. Yet with Bitcoin sitting over $7000 at press time it seems like the market doesnt care at all. Black swans Talebs theory rests on the assumption that high-profile hard-to-predict events can have far-reaching consequences. But everybody knows that the SegWit2x hard fork is coming so doesnt that necessarily negate the hard-to-predict aspect of a black swan event? Not at all. In this case its not the event itself thats hard to predict but the outcome. I keep coming back to the marketright now the market isnt showing any signs of panic or unusual volatility. In fact it appears to be merely consolidating in anticipation of another possible surge. This is irrational. Since the market seems to expect the fork to be a non-event its actually creating the perfect scenario for a black swan outcome. The possibility of mass confusion and price collapse do not seem to be priced in meaning that if such events did occur the market would likely react with panic. Since very few seem to expect any trouble its likely that most traders and investors have failed to make contingency plans. If the fork becomes a black swan event a great many people are likely to have powerful knee-jerk reactions. Prices could easily tumble. Follow us on Facebook

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