#though in the theoretical sense this was bound to happen

[purpleeggyboi]

Welp sucks guys.

Tumblr has decided to remove pride from tumblr.

[vypridae]

WAVING WAVING WAVING!!!!!!

was thinking about sending an ask then you rbed me so hihi!!!! <3

i am curious about cassidy :3 bc you posted about him earlier i think, what’s his thing? you said something like he’s so focused on getting afton he causes hurt to his own side, and i love characters like that so i would like to hear rambles <3

ok so the thing with cassidy is. we dont. know a lot abo it them. a lot of what we know comes from either Batshit Matpat Theories TM or vague context clues from other things BUT im willing to explain my thoughts on this

so, cassidy was the fifth child william killed rkght. theyre super often referred to as “the one you should not have killed” by a multitude of animatronics in UCN (william’s personal hell, presumably made by cassidy):

“greetings from the fire, and from the one you shouldn’t have killed!” - jack-o-chica

“i have seen him - the one you shouldn’t have killed!” - withered chica

“he’s here, and always watching - the one you shouldn’t have killed…” - mangle

so the running theory, at least the one from game theory’s Big Lore Videos Part One (ultimate fnaf timeline) is that cassidy was the most brutal of the murders, which. yeah. could see that happening, “the one you shouldnt have killed” in regards to them and not the other souls? would only make sense their death was much more brutal and enraged them to a point of revenge

the thing is, the only proof i really have for cassidy keeping the others trapped with them is some of the death quotes you get from some animatronics; my main proof being withered bonnie.

“what is this new prison? is it me trapped, or is it you? perhaps it’s us both.”

along with this, if you die to three specific animatronics in ucn (happy frog, orville elephant and nedd bear) you may get secret lines with a quiet child’s voice echoing the line in the background:

“they tried to release you. they tried to release us. but i’m not going to let that happen. i will hold you here. i will KEEP you here. no matter how many times they burn us.” - orville

“this is how it feels. and you get to experience it over, and over, and over again. i will never let you leave.” - nedd bear

“we’ve only just begun. i will never let you leave. i will never let you rest.” - happy frog

the only one of those three that really contributes to the idea of trapping the other souls with them in this personal hell they created for william is orville’s; “no matter how many times they burn us.” though it could just refer to cassidy and william specifically, i cant help but feel like the other souls are included in that.

and plus, ”they tried to release us, but i’m not going to let that happen” i mean come on. if that doesn’t scream “i’m using other people to get revenge” idk what does

im sure theres other voice lines i could theoretically find to back up my claims here but !!! theres just my silly ideas. i really like the concept of cassidy being so infuriated with afton that they go out of their way to hurt him, no matter how much it may hurt the other souls trapped with them in the process.

i could ALSO probably get into the idea of cassidy and william’s souls being essentially bound after between pizzeria sim which is why he’s being haunted by them in hell but that’s another rant in and of itself (i say, with no proof for that at all)

[iwanttobeliv]

[BLF] Episode 1 – Reunited (but it doesn’t feel so good) - Part 3

Back at the Pinzon’s, we see Nicholas and Betty together again.

I’ve always loved their friendship, not only because it has always brought out a lighter side of Betty, but also because it sometimes felt like the only moments we got to see her laughing and enjoying herself. After she becomes part of the Cuartel, she gets some more laughters and a sense of belonging, which I imagine is a first-time occurrence based on the flashbacks we get from her time as a kid and later in the university, but even then, and maybe because she enjoys being part of the Cuartel so much and wouldn’t like to have her ‘membership’ revoked for some reason, Betty is still shy and most of her jokes are the self-deprecating type, especially in the early days.

It makes perfect sense, all things considered. A big part of Betty’s sense of humor is in fact developed as a way to survive all the nastiness of a world that rejects her so bluntly time and time again because of her looks, so we also happen to see her and Nicolas making fun of themselves very often, but it’s with him that we actually see her inhibited version first, more willing to share her thoughts, more relaxed and at ease.

So, getting to see the unstoppable duo, together again, was such a gift! And how amazing it is that over 20 years later Ana Maria and Mario can so unseemly return to them?

The ease and comfort they share being in each other’s company is such a delight, that I do wonder how Nicolas fit in Betty’s life after she becomes a married woman. It’s clear they have remained very close, not only he was around in Ecomoda, but we see Nicolas later in Mila’s birthday videos and I can easily picture him joining them for several meals time and time again, but let’s not forget that Nicolas Mora is also the spark that ignited Mario and Armando’s insecurities back in the day, and we know for a fact that Armando is the jealous type.

My thoughts are that likely they never became friends themselves. The only thing these two men seem to have in common is their love and appreciation for Betty, but likely Nicolas never truly forgot just how much Armando hurt his best friend (I know I wouldn’t) and I don’t imagine Armando ever grows comfortable with Nicolas and Betty closeness and seeing how his beloved wife is and has always been more of herself when close to her friend. One could say: but they were married for so long, how much closer could they be? And while I can’t say this is a universal truth, what I have seen, is that more often than not, while theoretically you should feel comfortable enough to just be yourself and be loved for it when you find ‘The One’, the reality of it, is usually well, easier said than done.

For people who feel insecure for one reason or another �� and we know just how much of Betty’s personal history account for that – more often than not there’s bound to be some struggle to just relax and let it happen, out of some form of Impostor Syndrome. Which seems like a pretty good assumption, especially after Nicolas makes a crack about Betty not being in magazine covers even after she was no longer ugly and Betty says she never stopped being one, not to them.

If that’s how Betty’s felt through all those years and how she still feels, all while Armando is – till this day – a catch, well, it speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

In that sense, friendship can be at times a lot easier to deal with, with less pressure to be anything other than yourself, especially in one as old and Nicolas and Betty’s.

But the reality of Nicolas and Armando’s relationship is likely something will only get hints at, throughout the season, though probably just that, since the writers hardly seem to have the time to show the bits that we actually *need* to see in order to understand what’s what.

So back at the Pinzons’ home, like so many other times in the past, we get Betty venting at her best friend. She talks about how not only Armando but the Mendozas have managed to spoil her daughter and get in the middle of their relationship and, again, I’m not surprised.

While Roberto has always been respectful and eventually recognized Betty’s competence and worth, Margarita never hid her distaste and I can’t imagine she ever truly understood why her precious son chose this woman over her beloved and protected Marcela.

Yeah, family holidays must have been pret-ty awkward.

Next: Cut to flashback.  (I guess now they felt like showing a little more than just telling. And this is when the timeline gets more than a little clunky.)

[theredpharaoah]

I think the Slayer Activation Spell is kind of lore-breaking and doesn’t make sense. The show explanation is that the 1 Slayer at a time restriction was abolished. But this doesn’t work because we know why there’s only one slayer at a time - it’s a Shadow Demon that passes down the power to the next girl. This Shadow Demon doesn’t seem to have any personality at all so I’m assuming its personality is Sineya, as she’s considered to not be human at all(even though she clearly is). But even this doesn’t make sense when we consider Kendra and Faith - how did the Shadow Demon pass on to those two, yet Buffy kept her powers? And how does the Shadow Demon pass on to thousands of girls and activate new girls? Also, what’s the criteria for a girl to be a slayer?

Vampires also don’t make a lot of sense. The Old One Maloker created the first vampire by biting a human and mixing his blood with the man’s before the humans drove him off the earth. But the thing that animates the human corpse and makes a vampire is extra dimensional demonic “essence”. It’s described as a bloodline. I’m assuming that it’s essentially a spiritual lineage. Or basically a demon’s blood that infects the body and resurrects it. But it’s not physical blood, it’s like a spiritual substance that we can best understand by comparing it to blood. Another way to think about it - and kind of gross - is to think of it like sperm. It “impregnates” the hosts body with an entirely new spirit. After that one of two things happens:

1. This spirit merges with the host’s spirit. We see this after Illyria and Fred are resurrected and share a body. And this is what happens with the Slayer Line and the Slayer.

2. The demonic spirit consumes the host’s spirit and only keeps the memories. This is probably what actually happens. The demonic “seed” is much like the Shadow Demon of the Slayers and has no personality of its own. It creates its personality from the human host and their memories. But because the spirit is demonic, things like empathy are either dimmed or turned off completely. And they can have a completely different conceptualization of human concepts like love.

Alternatively, you can think of it like deities in Buddhism. The demonic sire of a bloodline can influence their vampiric children through the part of them within the vampire. This would make it seem like demons aren’t bound by their physical forms - able to inhabit multiple spaces and times at once - at least the Old Ones are able to. So Archaeus would have essentially split off aspects of himself and incarnated them in human corpses. Those aspects of himself then integrated their human memories and their personalities. So The Master, Angel. Darla, etc, would be considered his emanations. It’s similar to how in Tibetan Buddhism you have the Dakini Vajrayogini and all other dakinia being considered emanations of her.

I think what the Slayer activation spell did was that it made it so that each Slayer within the lineage can reincarnate into a new Slayer. So theoretically, there’d be a limit on how many Slayer could be active at one time. But since the line has been around since a primordial age older than what is known to mundane history and Slayers seldom live longer than a year, it’s highly unlikely that limit will ever be hit. Either that, or like Archaeus, Sineya puts some of her essence into a girl to activate them. But now instead of activating one, she’s allowed to activate many. However Willow needed the Scythe’s power to do this spell and activate a bunch of people. This makes me think that Sineya didn’t have the power to activate more than one before. Or you could combine these two and have the Slayer Line operate as its own extra dimensional space. Kind of like how all the Commanders live in the Flame in The 100. Each Slayer that has ever lived can then choose to incarnate into a girl and give that girl the power of a Slayer.

[mithosis]

Would Eamhrys ever consider taking on a Champion of his own?

Woah, thank you for the ask!! That is an interesting question, actually, i've never thought about that!!

Well, if i wanted to be a party pooper, i'd theorize upon existing lore that, since Eamhrys is not a dragon and specifically not a scion of Mordremoth — as in, not his direct offspring — but simply a minion of very juicy Champion status, even if directly molded by Mordremoth, he is unable to create or sufficiently bond with others via his magic in order to establish Champions of his own. He'd probably be able to create other minions, like Shatterer did by corrupting other beings, for example, but not a full-on Champion.

Now, i'm not a party pooper, and entertaining the idea makes stuff more interesting anyway! And Eamhrys might've got upgraded following the deaths of the Elder Dragons, too, so who knows! I'm not gonna discredit that. In this hypothetical, i'd say… it's complicated.

Yapping under the cut

He would never do it, if he could help it.

Shaped by his experiences, and not personally acquainted with anyone from Dragon's Watch to discredit them, it's hard for Eamhrys to view bonding with a Champion as anything other than irreversibly tainting said person, especially if done by a creature forged by a maliciously-aligned Elder Dragon such as Mordremoth. And the bond itself can be something so personal, down to sensing each other's emotional state — he is most probably unprepared for that kind of vulnerability, however at peace he might seem to an outside perspective.

Moreover, a forced Champion is a dead one — in his eyes, nothing is worse than stripping someone of their will, puppeteer them around, even if the influence is vague, and essentially doom them to die at the hands of someone they cherished, or kill the ones they loved instead. He'd never subject anyone to that fate, having experienced it firsthand.

A willing Champion? If anyone asked Eamhrys to make them one, he would refuse (if they even find out he's capable of doing so). He has no interest in having someone bound to him in this way, and it would only further the crippling guilt he has about his origins. He considers every other living being already perfect without the need for interference of such magnitude.

What he doesn't know is that his own being was very likely somehow purified by the druid magic back in Maguuma, so him taking on a Champion would be pretty different to Mordremoth, and a lot safer.

There is a circumstance where a willing bond with someone could theoretically be established, but it would take a lot of "if's" to happen. A mortally injured ally, one foot in the grave. Nobody else to help except Eamhrys, and his healing firebrand magic does not work at all, much less mundane healing kits. The ally being someone he absolutely cannot lose, whether it's family, dear friend, or a colleague he cares about so much he'd be willing to doom them to this new existence. He would be a lot more hesitant to even bring up the topic to a stranger.

Eamhrys would need consent regardless, and, unfortunately for him, in that fragile, terrified state the person might do or agree to anything to survive — though depends on the individual, of course. Only then would he indulge in something so sinful as saving a being from absolute destruction via a Champion bond. He will sustain them on his own magic and heal their wounds, nurse them back to health. He would also be fully prepared for that relationship to be irreversibly broken/changed afterwards and for the saved to hate him. Would even kind of expect it. But he wouldn't be able to hide the guilt and sorrow that he feels towards the situation anymore, since two would be intrinsically linked together :)

In theory, a situation where somebody might convince Eamhrys to connect to a person in this way might occur even without near-death experiences, but the circumstances still must be dire :,) or else he wouldn't even consider it. He's boring that way

Anyway, thank you for the ask again!! This was really fun to think about :)

[amaranthsynthesis]

Alright, most colds last a few days, so if you are still wanting things to poke at: Halsin as a druid (and a person) focuses a lot on nature. The "nature outdid you" line in reference to beauty. Here's the thing though: eventually both he and Ballard have to realize our beautiful boy is at best preternatural. I also don't think he'd be actively transphobic, but I can see that adding a layer of perhaps active skepticism that tends to come up when cis people deal with the concept of self for us. (He's also got some strong binary thinking for nature vs not nature re: cities.)

Which is basically a long-winded way of asking how Halsin's view of Ballard changes as more info happens.

I've been stewing on this for (checks timestamp) four weeks now and I'm still so ajdjdalsdlaj about it. I've been frustrated about it for a couple of reasons--foremost that I really like Halsin as a character, and it's been challenging to think of him more critically, but not insignificant is that it feels like the Halsin we see in-game has had a LOT of context shaved off him with a little bitty pocket knife. Whittled down, as it were! In terms of cut content it feels like he's definitely lost a lot of character nuance, the source of his guilt about the shadow curse, the reason for his dissatisfaction as arch-druid, the conflict between his solitary wild shape and the role he's been forced to take in his community, etc etc. I think in game Halsin has stellar communication skills and an admirable sense of priorities, even in terms of stepping away from the Grove. It's difficult to ascribe weaknesses or blind spots to him as a result!

(kind of besotted, I am aware, it's fine, that's why I imprinted more on messy Gortash as a love interest)

So I am going to talk about a couple of different ways of conceptualizing 'nature', and which end of it I think Halsin comes down on.

The first take on nature is that how you were made is the be-all and end-all. This is the one I am most familiar with, and shoot me if you've heard this before but this is the Catholic idea of it. Your nature is immutable and permanent and defined for you from day one! God's plan, fate's plan, these are truths that cannot be fought or hidden from and all of your actions will only bring you back into their path. This is such a good bed for tragedy to grow from--this is what happened to Oedipus, where multiple people's fear of and attempts to escape from a prophecy are the very things that bring it about in the end!! There is a satisfaction to that kind of tragedy, but that's all this idea of nature can be, in my mind. Foregone conclusions of doom.

On the other hand, the idea that your nature is contained within you and can only be expressed by you, and is constantly changing according to it's surroundings--it is the nature of bears to hibernate, it is the nature of foxes that turns their coats white in winter, it is the nature of salmon to change beyond recognition as they approach the spawning beds. Nature IS change, and to fight change is unnatural; to assume someone else's change is incorrect because it does not match your previous notion of them, or match YOUR internal changes, is wrong. Very obviously I think this is where Halsin would come down on it! With all of the ways that nature changes, up to and including the non-existence of binary sex, I just can't believe he would be anything less than serenely approving of being trans.

Much more likely, I think he thinks that being trans is cool and hot as hell and is super into it (the vibes I get are not chaser, to be clear--but there's a type of person who is just VERY excited to see tangible examples and proof of you having taken direct control over your physical form, you know? Halsin sees bottom growth and goes cuckoo bananas, Halsin gets a handful of little puffy nipple titty and implodes, imo. ally.)

Now, theoretically, this also applies to the idea that a bhaalspawn can change and is not bound by their birth--and in theory I think Halsin definitely would say he DOES think people can better themselves. Faced with the reality, that Ballard doesn't actually think he should stop killing people and just wants to be in charge of when he does--faced with the reality of Ballard's past and that he doesn't necessarily regret it--I do imagine even Halsin 'close my eyes real hard when something confronts my beliefs' might struggle. Again, having not played through the entirety of Act 3 or decided exactly what Ballard's end game is.... there's a very real likelihood of a falling out happening there as Ballard struggles to figure out self determination, but if they break ways I think Halsin and Astarion find solace in each other, Ballard having forged that V and put the work into seeing what the final leg of the triangle would look like.

[creaturefeaster]

wondering for oc reasons - if two (or more) mimes were closely bonded (similar to how n&o are a package deal, in a sense) would they be able to host in the same body? if not, is it ever possible for that to happen?

No, even N & O cannot host the same thing at the same time. One host can only hold the system of one mime, and especially in biological hosts, the conflict of hemolymph would not allow both to exist in the same body.

A mime invades the host's system with their own, stemming out themselves to conform to the innards of the body, and that doesn't leave much room or functionality for a second controller.

That being said, in very special circumstances like in Atromea's case, it is still theoretically possible. Atromea, while mentally two seperated mimes, is fused into one functional being. They have their own unique color of hemolymph and there is no issue of two different colors mixing. Together they could host one body, though it'd probably be a mental mess. As soon as they split up though, they are two seperated bodies and can no longer host in one single individual.

Mimes bound together such as Atromea are a rare case, but obviously not impossible to achieve-- and that would be the only way two mimes could host together.

[365sylviaplath]

what happens when past present and future are indistinguishable?

quantum theory if they weren't afraid to let lesbians in the room

here i am after stewing on *this* sarah schauer tiktok for a bit - which starts with "have you ever hated the patriarchy so much that you ended up teaching yourself quantum physics?" my musings on this concept reminded me that the world's true and foremost quantum physics lecture is found in relationship. hear me out.....

you can read the theories and study the concepts. but maybe nothing will move you more to researching spacetime than when you meet someone who you feel you've already met. you recognize firsthand how theoretical time and space must truly be, and you pursue answers because you're so blown away by what you're experiencing. someone has to have experienced this before. and the further down you go, the more you realize it is all cyclical. cyclical to the point of having no true separation. the theory of relativity tells us that time is not measured in an absolute way - it's more dependent on the observer. past, present, and future all coexist somehow within spacetime, interwoven without much distinction. some days will feel like 5 years ago, others feel oddly futuristic. when you let yourself dream, you can see potential universes unfolding for yourself. you will know today's date, but that doesn't mean you feel it. given that the majority of our best spacetime theories end up being some version of "yeah we can't really make solid rules about this, we're just perceiving the best we can", it's up to you to make sense of your current linear time experience. if the beauty of time is differentiated through the eye of the beholder, who else could meaningfully dictate my experience? i smell a candle in Target and it's 2015.

let's take it a step further - if matter cannot be created or destroyed (the law of conservation of mass, if you're nasty), all of these pieces have been here in infinite configurations for as long as we can conceptualize. statistically speaking, the same groupings were bound to happen a few times. given the whole time debacle mentioned above, there is genuinely no way that some of the same pieces of carbon haven't found each other before. people ask if you believe in love as first sight and you're supposed to pretend it's not universal law. here you are again - i loved you then, i love you now - now is no different from then, then is just an extension of now - i never stopped, i just needed to remember. by this same logic, i already know the great loves of my life, i just haven't remembered them yet! i already know on a physical level what it feels like to love them and to be embraced by them and to be wholly accepted as myself. on both my best and worst days, i remember i am always connected to these loves - i picture them in my head, nameless and faceless but identifiable through feeling. i know the feeling so well because it's not our first time doing this! in the meantime, i find inspiration in connecting with the feelings that seem out of place. i remember to write these love letters i will one day send.

to further complicate things, what we immediately label as romantic love in these sort of whirlwind connections often ends up to be something else, though equally as important. that instant feeling of recognition does not always work out to be a compatible romantic relationship this time around, but this isn't the only thing possible for the dynamic to serve us. love itself is much more vast than any singular romantic relationship. often, love is more about keeping you on the path you're supposed to travel this lifetime. like, "i'm back in this lifetime to remind you of what you will need to find fulfillment, in whichever way it best suits you to learn it". sometimes this apparition of love is actually the embodiment of all of your worst anxieties and fears. your relationship with this person feels so divinely triggering that you have no choice but to bear witness. you might find it easier to love your shadows when they appear to you as someone else. sometimes that entirely random person you find yourself infatuated with is the one who inspires you to find your creative medium/introduces you to a career path you’re passionate about/serves to reflect the parts of yourself you found hardest to love. these relationships are never a waste! you're continually brought closer to yourself. you feel that love, you let it change you, you set it free and it sets you free in return. isn't that what love is all about?

adding a note here- i started reading Notes on Complexity (one of the books mentioned in the earlier tiktok) and one of the first things he says is a dedication to his partner Mark. i swear, any time there is really meaningful interconnectedness theoretical physics-esque discussion that catches my eye, it will have been penned by someone queer. perhaps i am naturally biased toward finding such content, but whatever. i find it beautiful how queer love often ends up turning you into a physicist. love that demands you understand the entirety of the gravity of your situation so you can say with certainty at the end of the day "this whole thing, in its enormous complexity, transpired so i could experience your love - as i always have, to some extent, and always will - beyond this physical form". i want to learn every little detail about how we could find each other and what it means that we did. i want to learn about all of the past versions we've been and explore where we get to go this time. what will we teach each other? what is there to know?

[lumsel]

I read about AGI again, and I got a little irritated, so here's a take a posted on a Discord a few weeks back, here for peer review.

There's a common notion in certain circles that at some point AI is going to go too far, we'll accidentally create a being so intelligent that we are akin to ants to it, and then it'll wipe us all out before we know what's happening. While it's a pretty scary idea, something always been... off about it to me. Predictions of the trajectory of future technology have very rarely been that accurate, and this one is an especially dramatic claim to make. Why should I take this one more seriously? But then again, is there a truth to it? I had a think about the notion, and here's what I came up with:

Imagine... fuckin..... chemistry went too far. Imagine some far future chemist created a material so unimaginably energetic that, upon exposure to oxygen, it created a chemical reaction so violent it destroyed the planet up, wiping out all life in an instant.

Obviously, the analogy to AI here is shaky, because this material can pretty trivially not exist in a way that an actual chemist could probably explain to me. You cannot create an arbitrarily energetic material, there are well-understood laws of physics that defy it.

My proposed question, though, is that why should we assume that intelligence functions differently to energy density? Why assume that an arbitrarily intelligent being can exist with no upper bound, in defiance of... basically every other property in the physical world? Intelligence is, much like all things, bound by laws of physics -- there is a theoretical minimum energy requirement of any given operation. And there is a theoretical minimum time taken for a given operation as well, because you only have so many arrangements of atoms and light only moves so fast. Any given intelligence has a minimum physical size and a minimum energy requirement to function. And then on top of that, you can't easily scale up size linearly, because information takes literal, actual time to cross distances, etc etc etc.

It is entirely possible, and -- hot take -- probable, that the human brain is operating at near-maximum efficiency for its size and energy requirements, and that intelligences greater than that would require both a greater physical size and ever-greater energy input, to a degree that physically limits the maximum intelligence of a being to the energy outputs of the system that produced it.

I say this, to make a proposal of my own: an intelligence that can make perfect predictions of the world around itself-- and act on those predictions in a way that perfectly attains its goals -- is not something that can be assumed to be possible. At the very least, you can't assume it can exist within an arbitrarily small and energy-light structure. It's a concept that makes sense if you think of intelligence as an abstract quantity, as something that exists outside of normal laws of physics, but I'm not convinced it'll be something that can function within the constraints of actual chemistry and physics.

This is not to say it's impossible to make something smarter than a human, but rather, the concept of an intelligence so much smarter than a human -- so smart that even the combined efforts of all humanity would not be sufficient to disrupt it and avert its plans -- isn't something we can take for granted could be made by accident in an AI research lab. I propose that it's possible, even probable, that to sustain an intelligence like that you'd need a silicon slab the size of a football field and three nuclear reactors running at 100% capacity. So to speak.

[aquadestinyswriting]

Happy WBW! In your world, who are the ones in charge? Are they actually in charge, or are they more of a “face” whilst someone else does the work?

Hi Kraken, hope you had a wonderful Wednesday :). My answer is going to be under a cut because it's going to be quite long. It's a messy situation all around given the events that happen in 'The Wizard's Tale' series I'm writing. Tagging in @druidx because she might have some other bits to add or clarify.

I can actually answer this for Toreguarde for once. The people in charge of the city are the Triumverate, a small council of people made up of the Grand Magus, the Chancellor and the General. The three of them represent Magic, Money/Business and the Military, all three of which are considered equally important in the running of a city state of Toreguarde's size.

Technically the Triumverate discuss policies brought forward by the elected Council and either sign off on them or veto them, but all three have additional powers that they can use that govern their respective "spheres of influence", though how much actual power they have can vary by quite a bit.

As of the time I'm writing about, the Grand Magus, Selene Frigidwake, is quite limited in the ability to use the political power at her disposal due to a little law known as The Edict; a law that severely limits the activity of all Adventurers within the city's bounds, but is actually just used to prevent Selene from getting involved in any and all activities that the Council has decided falls under 'Adventuring'. This includes the activities that are part of her job of securing the magical safety of Toreguarde and its people.

Meanwhile, the Chancellor, due to his personal connections with the vast majority of the Council (especially the nobles who own and deal with the various businesses that run within Toreguarde's walls) is a rather more corrupt man, who takes every opportunity to line the pockets of both himself and his cronies, though never to the extent that it truly has an impact on Toreguarde's overall wealth and status. This means he is also easily swayed by the Council to make decisions of policy that are beneficial only in the sense that it increases Toreguarde's influence over that of its neighbours and 'allies'. This, ultimately, leads to the whole dwarven apartheid thing and the Grudge against Toreguarde by Fangthane.

So far, the General is probably the only member of the Triumverate whose job is not impacted by the events of the Destiny's New Servants campaign, but he doesn't do much to improve the situation either because he lacks the influence the other two members theoretically have. This is mostly because Toreguarde is a very young city state (only ten to twelve years old at the time of my writing) and hasn't had time to fully establish its military capabilities.

[siavahdainthemoon]

verbose anon! I have a question - could an agela expand indefinitely? like say, you have sariel, but then you have jimon being the romantic kind (forget the name), then you have clary (a shadowhunter) and simon become parabatai. and would clary be able to work with sariel? would simon be able to? are they all considered an agela, or are there different words for it? can multiple agela exist together? like, say, clary simon jace are an agela, since they'd all be connected like jocelyn valentine luke, but jace is also a part of sariel. or does jace being a part of sariel disqualify him from joining an agela with simon and clary? and could someone who formed a romantic bond with clary become an agela with her and simon, even though simon is connected to someone a part of an agela?

okay this was multiple questions but i was curious /0\

GREETINGS, VERBOSE ANON! (I am working on the character charts, btw. Not sure where to most conveniently post them yet when they're done, though.)

Copy and pasting this next bit from a 2015 answer;

Now, agela bonds come in three types; closed, open, and mixed. A closed agela is one in which every member of the agela is bonded to every other. The Sariel agela is a closed one, because Izzy is parabatai to Alec and Jace, not just one of them, and Alec and Jace are bonded to each other too. Imagine it like a triangle; every point is connected to every other point! An open agela is one in which not everyone is bound to each other. If Izzy had only become parabatai with Jace, for example, then their agela would be an open one - three links in a horizontal chain, not a closed triangle. See? A mixed agela is just that; an agela that contains closed triangles but also open bonds - imagine if, now, Izzy also became parabatai with Simon. There’s still a closed bond between Izzy, Jace and Alec, but Izzy and Simon would have an ‘open’ link. Most agela of 4 or more people end up being mixed.

I think what you're talking about, re there being Alec-Izzy-Jace and Jace-Simon-Clary, is a mixed agela - because Jace is part of both 'triangles', they all make up one agela, not two.

If Jace became parastathentes with Simon, Simon would be joining Sariel, and agela Sariel would turn from a closed agela into a mixed one. Simon wouldn't have a direct connection to either Alec or Izzy, but he would be able to sense them through his connection with Jace - it just wouldn't be as loud or as clear as if they had a direct bond.

Simon could then become parabatai with Clary. Clary would then also be a part of agela Sariel.

Does that make sense?

(I wish I could draw this for you like a family tree, I feel like an illustration would be easier to follow than writing this with words!)

If you took two pre-existing agelae, and one person from each bonded to each other, you get one really big agela instead of two. So it's not really possible to join another agela in the way I think you mean - by joining, you merge both agelae together. If Alec (agela Sariel) bonded with Will (agela Anael) then Sariel+Anael become one agela. (And need a new name, probably.)

While this is theoretically totally possible, I suspect it's never actually happened, historically.

To answer your original question, re how big can an agela get: there is no technical limit to how many agelai you can have, but there is a practical one. Every person added to an agela makes the agela bond stronger; more intrusive, more powerful, more intimate. It’s difficult enough for Alec, Izzy and Jace to keep hold of their own personalities with an agela of three; that becomes harder and harder to do the larger the agela gets. Three to five members is the average size for an agela, not only because of this but also because it’s rare for people to have that close a relationship with so many people. How many of your friends/lovers would YOU want to soulbond with?

I hope that covers everything! If I missed a question or misunderstood something (or you have more questions) feel free to poke me!

[isntthatwrite]

eat your heart out, neil degrasse tyson

here i am after stewing on *this* tiktok for a bit - which starts with "have you ever hated the patriarchy so much that you ended up teaching yourself quantum physics?" my musings on this concept reminded me that the world's true and foremost quantum physics lecture is found in relationship. hear me out.....

you can read the theories and study the concepts. but maybe nothing will move you more to researching spacetime than when you meet someone who you feel you've already met. you recognize firsthand how theoretical time and space must truly be, and you pursue answers because you're so blown away by what you're experiencing. someone has to have experienced this before. and the further down you go, the more you realize it is all cyclical. cyclical to the point of having no true separation. the theory of relativity tells us that time is not measured in an absolute way - it's more dependent on the observer. past, present, and future all coexist somehow within spacetime, interwoven without much distinction. some days will feel like 5 years ago, others feel oddly futuristic. when you let yourself dream, you can see potential universes unfolding for yourself. you will know today's date, but that doesn't mean you feel it. given that the majority of our best spacetime theories end up being some version of "yeah we can't really make solid rules about this, we're just perceiving the best we can", it's up to you to make sense of your current linear time experience. if the beauty of time is differentiated through the eye of the beholder, who else could meaningfully dictate my experience? i smell a candle in Target and it's 2015.

let's take it a step further - if matter cannot be created or destroyed (The Law of Conservation of Mass, if you're nasty), all of these pieces have been here in infinite configurations for as long as we can conceptualize. statistically speaking, the same groupings were bound to happen a few times. given the whole time debacle mentioned above, there is genuinely no way that some of the same pieces of carbon haven't found each other before. people ask if you believe in love as first sight and you're supposed to pretend it's not universal law. here you are again - i loved you then, i love you now - now is no different from then, then is just an extension of now - i never stopped, i just needed to remember. by this same logic, i already know the great loves of my life, i just haven't remembered them yet! i already know on a physical level what it feels like to love them and to be embraced by them and to be wholly accepted as myself. on both my best and worst days, i remember i am always connected to these loves - i picture them in my head, nameless and faceless but identifiable through feeling. i know the feeling so well because it's not our first time doing this! in the meantime, i find inspiration in connecting with the feelings that seem out of place. i remember to write these love letters i will one day send.

to further complicate things, what we immediately label as love in these sort of whirlwind connections often ends up to be something else, though equally as important. that instant feeling of recognition does not always work out to be a compatible romantic relationship this time around, but this isn't the only thing possible for the dynamic to serve us. love itself is much more vast than any singular romantic relationship. often, love is more about keeping you on the path you're supposed to travel this lifetime. like, "i'm back in this lifetime to remind you of what you will need to find fulfillment, in whichever way it best suits you to learn it". sometimes this apparition of love is actually the embodiment of all of your worst anxieties and fears. your relationship with this person feels so divinely triggering that you have no choice but to bear witness. you might find it easier to love your shadows when they appear to you as someone else. sometimes that entirely random person you find yourself infatuated with is the one who inspires you to find your creative medium/introduces you to a career path you absolutely love/serves to reflect the parts of yourself you found hardest to love. these relationships are never a waste! you're continually brought closer to yourself. you feel that love, you let it change you, you set it free and it sets you free in return. isn't that what love is all about?

adding a note here- i started reading Notes on Complexity (one of the books mentioned in the earlier tiktok) and one of the first things he says is a dedication to his partner Mark. i swear, any time there is really meaningful interconnectedness theoretical physics-esque discussion that catches my eye, it will have been penned by someone queer. perhaps i am naturally biased toward finding such content, but whatever. i find it beautiful how queer love often ends up turning you into a physicist. love that demands you understand the entirety of the gravity of your situation so you can say with certainty at the end of the day "this whole thing, in its enormous complexity, transpired so i could experience your love - as i always have, to some extent, and always will - beyond this physical form". i want to learn every little detail about how we could find each other and what it means that we did. i want to learn about all of the past versions we've been and explore where we get to go this time. what will we teach each other? what is there to know?

[amaryllis-sagitta]

Ace microlabels got me, oh no

I'm kind of conflicted about the ace microlabels for a single phenomenon purely because of words - IDK, maybe this reflection helps someone out, though it's bound to be in a minority.

I kinda like the term 'autochorissexual' etymologically, despite the community's general disdain towards it. What I think happened in the article that originally defined 'autochorissexuality' is that the author applied the traditional definition of paraphilias quite loosely and carelessly because he thought inside an old, stinky box. As far as I can get into the reasoning behind that choice, the author insists that the quality of aceness defined as 'autochorissexuality'

must be a paraphilia since it doesn't fulfill the definition of normalized sexual attraction in a very narrow sense that, I think, goes all the way back to a very literal, superficial reading of Freud's Three Essays that's left unadjusted to the modern sensibilities, and then

among the paraphilias, it must be some kind of a fetish, since it very clearly doesn't fit any other subtype. Because of this,

the author needs to find some "atypical object of a sexual fixation" characteristic of autochorissexuality to justify his take on this feature an "asexual fetish". So, his choice falls onto an apparent absence of a self-referential fixation on any objects at all?

Which does sound like a bizzarely roundabout way to talk over the implication that some theoretical choices and a priori assumptions in the very way definition was placed in a wider context might have been defeated there.

So, the author of the term didn't seem to know what to do with it within his presupposed categories, so he shoehorned this new term into a classification that doesn't really fit it if you think about the matter for five seconds. Personally, I think that the author not being ace himself factors into this outcome much less than certain theoretical stubbornness that was not overcome, to the detriment of the coined term. Naturally, the implied connotations with paraphilias rubbed people the wrong way and they can't be blamed about it. (In fact, roasting the original article about autochorissexuality from an insider perspective is a tradition at this point).

But what I like about this term specifically is that the "-choris-" part, most likely stemming from "chóra", suggests a fissure or a pause, an empty space that emphasizes distance, not a lack or a logical negation. As someone whose psychological awareness is largely formed by British object relation theory and the newer psychodynamic theories, I see a somewhat important difference here: a lack of a connection between the identity and the sexual need vs. a connection that's maintained from a distance, through the boundary between imagination or fiction and physical reality (there's a reason why many people who cry against the parasocial objectification of real actors/ creators of fiction turn out to be ace or acespec. We live in this difference that the parasocial horny fantasies seem to be lost on).

Personally, I've always felt that the point in this flavor of aceness is some sort of deeply ingrained dissociation from the normative "mature-genital, real-object oriented" sexual need (to paraphrase the Freudian lingo; the abovementioned phrase means sexuality that aims to achieve a direct sexual intercourse with a whole, real person). Another thing that is not lost on me is the presence of asexual features among the schizoid personality features, whose core seems to be the tendency to multiply the distance between the internal states and the external expression of personality because the physical reality at large is felt as profoundly threatening, overwhelming and oppressive to the self. While these groups don't overlap, there's a parallel theme here that I find interesting (though I might be biased here because I identify as ace and with non-sexual schizoid features like social withdrawal, overactive theoretical mind & imagination, or coping through fiction).

Anyway, the 'chóra' in 'autochorissexual' is what I personally like more than the 'plain' negation embedded in the synonymous microlabels. As far as my personal choices go, my only point against 'autochorissexual' is that it's long and doesn't roll of the tongue that well. Otherwise, I'd fully reclaim that shit and not worry about the initial connotations.

My second pick is 'anegosexual' because I was a literature geek for a long time and then I learned Latin and the bare basics of Ancient Greek in university, and the breach of word formation rules in 'aegosexual' is frankly a pet peeve to the point I can't adopt this term for myself.

I know I'm in a minority with this since most people judge these terms by more subjective impressions and the less fortunate associations, but personally, I need a little more definitional order in the labels if I'm supposed to use them.

I hope this makes sense and wonder if anyone on this website has similar feelings.

[starship-imzadi]

S6 E6 True Q

I don't remember what happens in this episode. Even though I have mixed feelings about Q, and some Q episodes are better than others, I do enjoy John de Lancie's performances.

I like when Crusher's mama bear comes out. Q describing her as "shrill" is something I find distasteful. Possibly misogynistic.

Hang on. So Q reveals himself in a staff meeting. Data isn't in the meeting. Q teleports Picard to his ready room for a brief conversation. Once it's over Picard walks onto the bridge and talks to Data, who is at the helm and somehow already understands why Picard says that Amand's parents were Q and that Q has been on the ship.

Q is so invasive. I must say I enjoy Amanda's reaction to Q trying to take her. I'm not sure why he doesn't understand the concept of tact.

I think it's worth noting that the Q are (nearly?) omnipotent but NOT omniscient. Often the two are conflated but, since they're theoretical concepts, we don't really understand the bounds of what it would mean to be able to do any thing but not know everything. It sounds dangerous; being all powerful but not all-knowing, so you can't know the consequences of your boundless power.

Can Q bring people back to life?...

Topeka Kansas is such a mundane place to die, within the grand scheme of the universe.

I'm not sure why Amanda needs hand gestures but Q doesn't.

I can't tell if Q's lack of a space bubble lends itself to being intimate or predatory.

Riker maneuver

Amanda is pre-academy right? That's way too young for Riker (in actually the actress, Olivia d'Abo, is about 23 here and Frakes is about 40; which would still be a notable age gap.)

Times like these I wish Troi's character was better developed. She's an empath sitting next to a Q who's very jealous of Riker, Troi's on-again-off-again romantic-partner and always-friend. I want to know her read of the room!

Also: poor Riker. I think he gets manipulated most by the Q (I hate the second Q episode where Riker is given powers, but alas it is canon. Thank goodness his character moved away from whatever direction that was.)

I'm not sure what time period this is supposed to be (somewhere in the 1800's I'd guess) with Frakes it's giving me "Noth and South" vibes but could be leaning more Jane Austen; I don't know the difference. Anyway, there's something very satisfying in Frakes having sleeves that are actually the right length. I think subconsciously I'm aware of how uncomfortable the space suits always look so being free of them I feel more comfortable the way the actors look more comfortable.

Consent is so important! I appreciate how gentle Riker is when he's trying to explain why her behavior is inappropriate. I'm not sure I have my wits or talking points well enough collected to make a thorough argument now, but I'd say Riker is the most abused character after Troi. He is also the most overtly sexualized after her. (And I differentiate between being sexual and being sexualized. The latter is done to you by other people without your consent.)

Riker being forced to "love" Amanda makes me incredibly uncomfortable because of how it violates his wishes. I get the sense that she's bothered by the fact that she knows he isn't really choosing her, rather than the fact that she's forcing him against will. And that's a disturbing lack of empathy. (She definitely owes him an apology.)

This conversation between Picard and Q is fascinating. Q seems genuinely serious in a way that is incredibly rare. "With unlimited power comes responsibility. Do you think it is reasonable for us to let omnipotent beings roam free through the universe?"

I wonder if the Q couldn't just strip Amanda of her power? It happened to Q in Deja Q. Why is it up to her not to use her power? (I realize there's more Q in Voyager that I haven't watched but, from what I've seen from reddit search results, other people have had these same questions. Some posited that Amanda would be left with her powers in order to try to continually tempt her to join the Q)

So, is she going to go resurrect her parents?!? Oh, she meant her adoptive parents....well, we still don't know if the Q can bring people back from the dead.

[theohonohan]

Jet engine efficiency, part 2

This post is about the thermodynamics of jet engines.

First, an analogy. I'm going to assume you know what a pumped-storage power station is. It's a type of hydroelectric facility, but it's a way of storing electricity, rather than of generating it.

Imagine a pre-industrial pumped-storage system. A bucket brigade lifts the water to the storage reservoir on top of a hill. When power is needed, a sluice is opened, and the water flows down through a series of waterwheels. The energy that goes into lifting the water up the hill is paid back when it drives the waterwheels.

Now, assume that we have a supply of magic powder, which makes water expand (temporarily) by a factor of five. So one bucketful of water becomes five bucketfuls. If we add some of this powder to the upper reservoir, it will cause the stored water to expand. We can get five times more power from this water as it flows down the hill than we put into lifting it up the hill. The powder turns the system into a power generator, with net positive power output.

What if we started adding the powder, gradually, at the bottom of the bucket chain? Then the water would start to expand before reaching the upper reservoir. We would be lifting a larger volume of water, and the efficiency of our power generation would be reduced. So it is desirable to add the powder only after the water reaches the upper reservoir.

The effect of the powder wears off. We want it to wear off after driving all of the waterwheels, not during.

In a heat engine, the magic powder is heat. In a jet engine, the pressure is analogous to the potential energy of the water in our analogy. Heat makes the gases passing through the jet engine expand. As with the magic powder, we want to avoid heating up the working fluid while compressing it, because this reduces efficiency. An ideal jet engine which compresses its air intake isothermally is theoretically possible: it is described by the Ericsson cycle. Such an engine would achieve the maximum theoretical efficiency for a heat engine (the Carnot efficiency). Incidentally, the way this would work involves regenerative heat exchangers. Heat would be extracted during the compression stage, and transferred to the expansion stage, keeping the gas hot for longer.

In general, though, because heat is bound up with the kinetic energy of molecules in the gas, whenever a gas is compressed, its temperature increases (all other things being equal). So the efficiency of the standard jet engine (which is described, approximately, by the Brayton cycle) is less than optimal.

Jet engines need compressors in order to produce power. The elevated pressure in the combustion chamber is essential: it drives the expanding gases through the turbine and out through the nozzle, resulting in thrust. In a sense, the compression is analogous to the work done by a turbopump in a liquid-fueled rocket: it creates the necessary reservoir of high pressure from which a propulsive jet can flow.

The pressure ratio of a jet engine influences its thermodynamic efficiency, too, though. The higher the pressure ratio, the more efficient the engine. The expansion of the working fluid must happen at an elevated pressure in order for the cycle to produce work.

The formula for the efficiency of a jet engine is the following: \[ 1 - \frac{T_\text{atmospheric}}{T_\text{compressor exit}}\] This can be derived using a trick which involves using the Carnot cycle as a way of measuring areas on a temperature-entropy diagram.

This formula in terms of temperature change across the compressor is a little bit misleading, since, as mentioned earlier, a compressor which resulted in no temperature change would be ideal. It's not the heating of the gas by the compressor that is the useful thing: it's the pressure increase that is useful. Having said that, I should acknowledge that what ultimately matters, for power output, is the area that the four stages of the cycle enclose on a pressure–volume or temperature–entropy diagram, and there are many different potentially realisable cycles. The optimally efficient Ericsson gas turbine cycle uses isothermal compression, like the Carnot cycle, but it's possible to imagine, for example, a cycle which uses isochoric heating to build up pressure and then isobaric expansion (still adding heat) to do work. It turns out that this is not an efficient cycle.

Because the compression process is (approximately) adiabatic and reversible, the temperature change resulting from the compression is related to the pressure change by the formula: \[TR = PR^{\frac{\gamma - 1}{\gamma}}\]

The symbol \(\gamma\) here stands for the heat capacity ratio of the gas (air). So, starting with the information that a higher temperature increase across the compressor will help, it's possible to infer that a higher pressure ratio will increase efficiency. In practice, the temperature at the turbine inlet, rather than the compressor exit, is a limiting factor in jet engines, since there is a limit to how much heat the turbine blades can take.

[cprp-gaoyi]

Celebrating the First Anniversary of the Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP)

Celebrating the First Anniversary of the Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP)

September 8, 2022 marks the first anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP).

One year ago today, I secretly recorded a video announcing the founding of the CPRP in Jiangsu Province, a fallen area of the Republic of China. I first had the idea of establishing an opposition party in June 2021, and I felt that it would be of great historical significance to establish an opposition party in the fallen areas of the ROC before the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party. So in June 2021 I started planning for the establishment of the party. I did some iterative revision and refinement of the text and design from July to August 2021, and by September 8, 2021 I secretly recorded a video, and thus the Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP) was born.

There is also a story about the flag and emblem of the Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP); in early 2021, Communist China began promoting an issue called "preventing the feminisation of male youth", or the strengthening of so-called "masculinity". It was around this time that I could clearly sense a change in attitude towards sexual minorities like myself, and from what I knew about the communist Nazi fascists, this controversial tactic was used to create momentum for further political campaigns.

In early 2021, I had a keen sense that MTF sexual minorities like myself - were bound to suffer further stigmatisation by the CCP in the future. Apparently this happened in the second half of 2021 as well.

It was also in this tense atmosphere that I designed our Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP) flag and emblem - with rainbow flag elements. When I was still in the fallen areas, I thought - how proud it would make me if I did make these public.

The Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP) was established in secret under the Red Terror of the Communist Nazi Chinese Communist Party. Even though I took a lot of security measures to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from finding out, who could guarantee that everything would be safe? So I did take a very big risk in establishing the party in mainland China. But history has come to this moment, and an opposition party is bound to be established.

In the year since its establishment, the Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP) has indeed been subjected to infiltration and phishing attacks from various quarters, especially from the communist Nazi fascists and their followers, and this has indeed shown us the despicable methods used by the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our party.

In the year since the CPRP was founded, our party has gained a deeper and clearer understanding of both international and domestic politics, a level of political sophistication that has been honed through practice.

In the year since the CPRP was founded, the Party has developed a number of members and branches in the fallen areas of the mainland, which is an initial achievement of our Party.

Since its inception, our party has also had many shortcomings - for example, the ideological and theoretical work has not been perfected, the party organization is not strictly tight, the focus of propaganda work is shifted, the means of struggle are not diverse enough, etc. ...... If we are to talk about shortcomings, we can actually summarize too many more There are too many of them ......

Only when we recognise our shortcomings can we make progress.

In this way, I think the CPRP will make even greater and more progress in the future!

In early November 2021, I publicly promoted the Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP) for the first time.

On September 8, 2022, we spend our first birthday with the Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP) for the first time!

Happy Birthday! Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP)!

Chinese Peaceful Revolutionary Party (CPRP)

Party Chairman

Gao Yi

8 September 2022