#too bad oxygen is primordial for humans

[feelisia]

You're so close.

I crave for more,

But you're too far.

[lilartifex]

Ink and Fictober 2023 Day 2: "Don't worry. I've got you."

Inktober Prompt #1: Spiders

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Fandom: Spider-Man/Marvel

Character/s: Peter Parker, one of the MJs, random spider

Additional Tags: Outsider POV

Summary: Jumping spiders are incredibly intelligent and incredibly curious.

This one is quite interested in the strange, spider-like human who lives in the same room, although she doesn't quite understand why he wears such bright colours or why his face leaks sometimes.

Quick Note: There is a pretty detailed drawing of a spider at the end. Just a little heads up!

___

There was a spider in the room.

A young jumping spider, who had only recently reached maturity and had found a nice room to call home. Most of her siblings hadn’t bothered with it because there were always larger spiders there, but she was clever and had learnt to avoid them and their webs.

A human lived there too. A male, she guessed, although she didn’t know much about humans. She just built her little nest, hid away from the other spiders and watched the world go by.

The human wasn’t too bad; he didn’t destroy her webs and even left remnants of his own food lying around, which attracted flies for the spiders to eat. He was protection and a source of food in one. She stayed out of his way, and he stayed out of hers. Sometimes when she had nothing better to do, she’d find herself perched on his bedside table while he slept, pattering about his weird human things. 

One night, the human came home and she sensed something was different. Usually, she just ignored him and kept out of the way until he either stopped moving around or left, but this time something made her poke her head out of her little hole. 

The hairs on her legs stood up. It was the same sense that she got when the other, bigger spiders were hanging around, but slightly dulled. The human (?) threw himself on his soft nest (she knew it was soft because she’d explored it once before) and made a strange, wailing sound that she’d never heard before. After a long while, he quietened down into whimpers, then stopped moving altogether, save for the rise and fall of his breathing.

Her curiosity almost had her crawling out entirely to investigate, but something in the back of her spidery mind made her pause. She twitched. Then she crawled back into her hole.

˖ 𓆩🕷𓆪 ˖

Over the next few weeks, she sensed that something had changed with the human. Something big. The other spiders seemed to know it too.

She found herself venturing out more and more often when he was around, instead of hiding in her little cubby hole. The other spiders had taken to making webs in more visible places as if they sensed that he wouldn’t touch their webs anymore than they’d touch each other’s. The little spider even dared to sit next to him once, while he was staring at the strange device on his desk, staring up at him curiously.

The primordial fear she’d always had was gone; now it was no stronger than her apprehension for the other spiders.

Sometimes he’d come in wearing bright colours, looking a little more like one of them than a human. Sometimes there’d be times when he would react to something the same time the other spiders did. Sometimes he would even scale the walls and the ceiling or create a small nest out of his own webs.

She thought sometimes that he could sense her and the other spiders, the same way they could sense him. A few times they’d even locked eye contact until something had drawn his attention away. He’d never noticed them before that night.

This human, she thought, was strange.

˖ 𓆩🕷𓆪 ˖

Once, she’d been exploring along the rim of a glass cup while the human sat at his desk making strange scribbles. It was always a strange experience, to walk on glass, and she enjoyed the challenge of it.

Until she fell in.

The glass, it turned out, still contained water and she found herself trapped on the surface, unable to take in oxygen. Her spindly legs thrashed helplessly as she tried to make her way out, but she was stuck. And drowning.

Then something huge and pink and smooth dipped itself into the water next to her. The surface distorted as the water tried to cup the strange object, and the spider managed to cling to it desperately. After a moment, it started to move out slowly, taking her with it.

She didn’t dare let go as it steadily rose higher and higher until eventually, she found herself staring into a pair of giant, strange eyes. They weren’t anything like a spider’s eyes, but she knew that’s what they were. And after a moment, she realised who they belonged to and what exactly had saved her life.

“Don’t worry,” said the human, “I got you.���

She found herself being lowered down and left to crawl off his finger when she was ready. She turned around and looked back at him. He looked at her.

This human, she decided, was <em> definitely </em> strange.

˖ 𓆩🕷𓆪 ˖

A few months passed. The spider continued doing her spidery things and the human kept doing his humany things. She wasn’t afraid of him anymore, not since the water incident. 

One night, he came back earlier than usual. He was dirtier than usual too, and when he removed the strange red cap he wore over his head, she noticed his face was leaking water. It wasn’t all that uncommon nowadays, but something about this time seemed different.

She was about to come out of her hidey hole to investigate, when another human, a female this time, burst in, looking almost as scraggly as he did. 

They stared at eachother. The spider stared at them, although neither of them knew it.

Then her human made a strange whimpering noise, like the one he’d made the night everything changed. 

“I don’t know what happened,” he sobbed. “I-I couldn’t - there was so much smoke, a-and-”

The spider watched as the other human stepped towards him wordlessly and pulled him close, wrapping her arms around him tightly. The spider was afraid for a moment that she would eat him - that’s what females do, after all - but instead, she only murmured, “Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

After a few moments, the spider crept back into her hidey hole.

Maybe, she mused, all humans were strange.

[shih-coulda-had-it]

the atoms of our bodies belong to the universe (1/?)

Summary: A Good Omens!AU where an angel and a demon have an Arrangement in Japan, in an effort to replicate whatever made Aziraphale and Crowley immune to the one thing that can kill them. It’s been working for about two hundred years, but as it happens, Satan’s spawned a child some fifty years too early for the next scheduled Armageddon.

.

.

The Principality now known as Nana hadn’t been close to Aziraphale. But she knew that he’d had the longest stay on Earth; six thousand years, fluttering further and further north of his original territory until he settled in England. And right ahead of him (or perhaps at his heels) was the agent of Hell that also held the record of longest duration without discorporation.

She’d concluded thusly that there had been an arrangement of sorts, for the original agents on Earth to last those long millennia. So when Nana received her orders to take flight to Japan--a site of great importance for the future, they had stressed--she determined the first priority was to form… a truce of sorts with the demon.

They were not difficult to find. All she had to do was trace the sulfurous scent of discontent, from point of origin to place of interest: the aforementioned ramen stall.

“One shoyu, extra egg, please,” she called out sunnily, taking a seat next to the silver-haired demon, ignoring how they flinched away.

The chef grunted in acknowledgment. The demon looked studiously down at their bowl of tonkatsu. Their mouth was tilted into a frown, and the lips barely moved as they muttered, “This is unorthodox.”

“Everything’s out of sorts,” she agreed. “Call me Nana.”

“Mm.” Reluctantly, they offered, “Sorahiko.” 

It was a name with implications. Much like hers, she supposed. “So you’re new too?”

“What gave it away?”

“You feel pretty miserable, even for a stationed agent of Hell.” With grace, Nana accepted the bowl, said the customary thanks, and split her chopsticks apart. “My predecessor retired. I think I’m the… seventh to watch over Japan? We generally have pretty good track records.”

“How reassuring,” said Sorahiko drily. “So Hell has six angels to blame for over five thousand discorporations in the past five thousand years.”

“Over five thousand?!”

He shrugged. “I’m number five thousand and eighty-one.” For the first time, Sorahiko glanced up from his meal to meet Nana’s eyes. His were the color of dulled copper, with thin slices of obsidian for pupils. “I’m guessing you’re not here to discorporate me.”

Nana was still coming to terms with ‘over five thousand’ demons trying to survive Japan’s resident angels. Even for an angel, that kind of discorporation count… “No, goodness no. I was thinking about Aziraphale and Crowley, actually. How they’re the ones with the longest records of survival.”

“So?”

“You’re not curious?” she baited.

“About?”

“Hear me out. Usually, we agents get all caught up in discorporating the other agents to get them off the playing field. By your records, we get really caught up. But what if we had a truce about it?”

The word ‘truce’ had him stop eating. His eyebrows were coming together, and Nana could see the demon working through the logistics. She rejoiced inwardly. He was considering it! “You think… Aziraphale and Crowley had a truce?”

“Aziraphale’s no fighter,” Nana asserted. “But six thousand years, Sorahiko. They must have made a deal.”

“... What would a truce entail?”

“Mutual respect. Open communication. Y’know, friendship?”

Sorahiko laughed, but his puzzled expression defanged the derisive tone. “You’d trust a snake?”

She bumped elbows with him. “C’mon,” she cajoled. “I wouldn’t make this offer if I was like my predecessors. Don’t you want to see where Japan’s headed? My superiors said this place was going to be of,” here, Nana imitated their patronizing voices, “great importance.”

“... They told you that too.”

“Figured everyone got that talk.” Nana cocked her head. “So do we have a truce?”

//

“That thing our superiors told us,” Sorahiko said, then faltered. He’d just received the news from Hell, and wasn’t it a blow, that as he and Nana were doing their best to imitate Crowley and Aziraphale, they would also be subjected to the same trials? And what’s more, have a premature trial?

They were on their roof, overlooking the dozens of pedestrians below, a glamour preventing any stray eyes from finding two pro-heroes skipping on the job.

He wanted to conceal the news. Let Hell take their course, and let Nana be none the wiser.

“What about it? Didn’t we agree they were referring to Quirks in that vague, ineffable way?”

… she’d discorporate him over it. This, Sorahiko realized glumly.

“Did you ever think about what they meant?” He scuffed the toe of his boot, anxiety shooting through him.

“Not really,” Nana confessed. “Like I said when we first met. I thought they told every agent that.” She peered at him with those storm gray eyes, the ones that flashed bright with gold divine lightning when she tapped into her grace. Curiosity threatened their entire Arrangement. “What did you find out?”

“Hell… is trying for another child,” he tried framing delicately.

“Like… conceptually?”

“There is definitely a conception being planned,” he hedged. “But also an unplanned conception. That has occurred.”

Nana’s eyebrows rose. “What, he didn’t use protection?”

Sorahiko squirmed.

//

“Quirkless,” said Nana blankly. “I… did his heritage interfere...?”

Sorahiko scratched his chin. “I mean. It’s only in the past two centuries that Quirks finally popped up in the human genome. Maybe mommy Satan gestated too early for Quirks.”

“... So one, never say mommy Satan with a straight face ever again.” As she laid down the law, she tracked the lonely preteen’s path to an empty patch of grass. She and Sorahiko had finally tracked down Yagi Toshinori (she got the name; he found the boy), and now they were stalking the boy via peering down on him from the school roof. A well-intentioned miracle prevented any curious eyes from looking up. “And two, are you certain this is him?”

“You can’t feel it?”

“I can’t say I’m familiar with Satan’s signature, no.”

“It’s…” Sorahiko too studied Toshinori. “It’s like the taste of harsh sunlight,” he decided. How poetic! “Powerful, radiating, and liable to burn the whole earth. Brat might not have a Quirk, but I’ll bet anything he just needs his body to mature first.”

“Hm…”

Yagi Toshinori did not have the happiest origin story. Orphaned at a young age, passed on from foster home to foster home, citing cheap excuses that veiled a distaste for his Quirkless state (and his mixed looks)… it was a wonder Toshinori hadn’t tapped into some primordial rage and unleashed it onto his bullies.

Nana had an idea. “You said that Hell doesn’t care about him anymore?”

“Yeah.” Sorahiko shuffled his feet. “Kill order got rescinded a decade ago, when they figured out no demonic surges of energy were popping up by age four.”

“Goodness,” she muttered. A kill-order. And it wasn’t like Heaven wouldn’t condemn the poor child either—their lack of response to Satan’s prematurely born child of prophecy was due only to Nana’s judicious decision to… forget to mention it. “Wanna hear my proposal?”

“Proposal about what?”

He was in the middle of yawning—broad daylight tended to make him sleepy—when Nana guiltlessly announced, “Adopting the not-Antichrist.” The rest of his oxygen left him quickly, and over the sound of his choking, Nana continued, “Think of it as our next Arrangement. We co-parent the not-Antichrist in preparation for the real deal! Test of good influences versus bad, so to speak.”

“He’s already fourteen,” Sorahiko protested. “What parenting experience can be left?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, indignant. “Did you think we were going to raise the real Antichrist from birth? You said Hell would assign a family for him to grow up in.”

“... Oh, I know what this is.”

“You do?”

“It’s guilt,” he pronounced. “You’re feeling guilty about seeing this kid be all lonely and pathetic.”

Nana made a face at him. “And?”

“He could be a brat!” To prove his point, he gestured below to a preteen vandalizing the school building with a marker (she could see the miracle nudging the kid to form the largest ‘FUCK COPS’ his little arms could manage). Sorahiko then added, “We don’t have to get invested in a life that won’t mean anything in the long run.”

“Who says that?”

“What?”

“Who says he won’t mean anything?” Nana rubbed her knees and climbed to her feet. A little reluctantly, Sorahiko followed her lead. “Aren’t you even just a little bit sympathetic to his situation?”

He scowled.

.

.

[anettamonachisa]

Dear sugar, 

when I was a little girl I was fond of everything that tasted sweet. Your presence was a moment of joy and satisfaction, a necessity, a reward. I loved you madly. Then something changed. I got confused, congested and stuck with my feelings for you. Large unwanted information and experiences accumulated and built a separation between us. I started to commonly assume that you, sugar, are primarily concerned with consumerism and materialism. That you work hand in hand with capitalism, that you divided continents, created political and racial conflicts, polemics about imports/exports, nurtured child labour and espoused immigration restrictions. I heard it many times: sugar = slaves, crops, theft, violence, exploitation, big business, Big Sugar, obesity, diabetes, death, blah, blah. Bewitched by language and gaslighted by the discourse of the Glycocene, I thought of you as stable object, as addictive additive to other things, as part of the dull matter that owns, manipulates and kills. I fixed you in a static space–time, seeing you as inert and calculable. I felt guilty. I had moments when I really hated you.

Boy, was I wrong! My perception of you was so shallow! You are so much more than what we ended up making of you. It’s disgusting how we vilified you. What a combination of oblivious, overweening, judgemental and numb we are! We refined you and then blamed you for so many things. We stripped you off your sacredness, raped your complexity and reduced you to a crystalline looking “pure” matter – now seen as a quick cheap fix, high on energy but devoid of any nutrients or substance. You might find these crystals they forced you into kitschy, and you’re right. Even your name, sugar, became a popular word having both treacly meanings and noxious connotations. For many you impersonate the mischievousness of matter. Some are dismayed by the ‘monstrous ways’ in which bodies like you are subverting expectations, resisting or reworking the meanings imposed upon them. Sadly, you have the reputation of being The Enemy. Yet, most people still can’t resist you. And I understand why. You’re ontologically unstable and teleologically disputable, but I adore you for being such a schizosubstance!

They often give you a bad rap, but what about you as polyethylene, the biodegradable plastic? Huh? Or that you sooth a burned tongue, keep flowers fresh, melt ice and snow (yes, it’s not only salt, you can do it even better), heal wounds, cure hiccups, prevent cheese from molding and remove odours? And if that’s not enough, what about you as breakable glass, artificial silk, medical implants, body and face scrub, hair gel, hair remover, grass stains remover, material for sculptures, yeasts, motor fuels, ethylene glycol, synthetic resins, acetone, and other acetate products? Your material promiscuity is so fertile, when I think of you I feel lost in the infinite.

I want to apologize for being so short sighted and for taking me so long to look properly at your sensual matter. No, you’re not mere matter, you are an event. Now I know you’re an expression of relational materialism at large. I accept the fact that you have multiple materialities and very specific temporalities and spatialities. You are endowed with agency. You participate lively in the articulation of all dynamic assemblages. Look at you, you’re everywhere! It’s miraculous how you appear from nowhere through the astounding process of photosynthesis. And then you’re making ‘things’, you’re a poietic agent for both life and non-life. Actually, ALL life depends on you and we just lurk at the margins of your being. Radical emergence is a feature of your reality. You, my friend, have a big role to play here. Whether it’s organs and organisms, policies and politics, spirit and spirits.

Now every time I think of you, I revere you as a gift coming from the deep space and deep time. I always had a bemusing feeling about you. And then, one day, I found it in a NASA press release: “First Detection of Sugars in Meteorites Gives Clues to Origin of Life”. You appeared in interstellar space and landed on prebiotic Earth. You have been here way before the beginning, allowing for life on Earth to start. You were one of the builders of the primordial molecule, the key component of the RNA world. Your particles travelled the entirety of space for aeons to reach my cells, and will continue to caress me till the end of my days. It’s not only love, or tenderness, or affection, it’s life itself, my life, that I found in your carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms. You’re such an harmonious assemblage of macronutrients! A revolution in evolution! It's easy to measure time using human lifespans, but peering down the billions of years of your history gives me vertigo. When I imagine you could be the key to abiogenesis, I feel like licking rocks. I have the sweet taste from your lips in my mouth. Oh, sugar, the whole Universe just gets sweeter when I think of you! You are so awesome you make me want to fly to the stars right now. You know why? You evoke such a possibility and a magic about looking to the Cosmos that I think, hell yes, it’s possible.

I know that you’re all about free play and dissolution, but I need you to be serious for a minute. My feelings for you are just so entirely intense and complicated, so laden with exaltation, sorrow, ecstasy, bliss and I need to tell you all this. You are that terrible relationship a girl goes back to again and again, no matter the ripping pain every time she does. I know you prefer to feed yeasts to the point of becoming infections and also inflammations or cancer tumours. I know you fuel plaque and bacteria causing tooth decay. I know you affect cognition, accelerate ageing, increase stress, and make me fat. But there is this fulfilment and the feeling of belonging. You stimulate me. My dopamine goes feral when I have you. I can’t resist you. I want to transcend your voluptuous matter. You have the capacity to feed me, to delude me, to modify me, to seduce me, to conquer me, to be me. It’s so difficult to see where you end and where I begin.

You want the truth? All are obsessed by you. They use both your presence and absence to talk about you every day. Regardless if you occur or not, you’re there! Mentioned and used as a slogan or topic or spell. You’re loved when you are and you’re great when you’re not. Creation through disintegration, presence through absence, fullness through emptiness—such paradoxes inspire your existence in the world. It’s so revolting how human-centered and gluttonous we are and then just pointing fingers towards you, holding you responsible for all the crap that happens to us: +kilograms, bad teeth, bad mood, bad economy and what not! To me you’re not “the white death”, “sweet poison”, “sweet killer”, “toxic”, “bad”. No, you’re alive, beautiful, you’re indispensable and I don’t want to live without you. You’re love’s digestible form. My muscles want you, my brain needs you, my nerves rely on you, my blood depends on you. I cannot always see you, but I know you’re there. My mind is the idea of your body.

The only thing I wish is we all take the trip on the side of The Unseen to discover you in your infrastructural and ultrastructural order, in your protomaterial and metamaterial existence. I hope such trip will generate a more subtle awareness of the entanglement of matter and an enhanced receptivity of the complicated web of dissonant connections between (you and all) bodies. You are productive, unpredictable, self-creative, active, you’re an excess force.

You’re giving me the sense that my appetite is primal. My heart, mind and body hold on you because you promise happiness and make me (feel) alive. I hope I don’t sound too corny for trying to see the world in a grain of sugar. But the sweet lust for life, I can only feel it with you.

I need you, and you never disappoint. And that, my friend, is why I love you.

Anetta

[yuckitup-jwd]

Fulldeckisms Part 1

A couple of blocks behind the parade.

A mind like wet tennis shoes... Makes squishy noises when running.

A notch off the timing mark.

A one-bit brain with a parity error.

A prime candidate for natural deselection.

A square with only three sides.

A victim of retroactive birth control.

A statue in a world of pigeons.

About half smart.

Adult child of alien invaders.

Afraid she'll void her warranty if she thinks too much.

Aliens zapped him with a stupidity ray -- twice.

All the sex appeal of a wet paper bag.

Already visualizing the duct tape over his mouth.

An experiment in Artificial Stupidity.

Answers the door when the phone rings.

Argues with herself -- and loses!

As handy as a whiskbroom and twice as intelligent. -- Peter DeVries

As happy as if he had brains / was in his right mind.

Barney's his hero.

Born a day late and like that ever since.

Both oars in the water, but on the same side of the boat.

Brain permanently in power saving / 8-bit mode.

Brain transplant donor.

Cackles a lot, but I ain't seen no eggs yet.

Calling her stupid would be an insult to stupid people.

"Body by Fisher -- brains by Mattel."

$HOME = /dev/null.

3K RAM free, no EMS.

A .22 caliber intellect in a .357 Magnum world.

A 1.0 in a 4.5 installation.

A 10K brain attached to a 9600 baud mouth.

A 20th century man... The guy has no future.

A 3.5-inch drive, but data on punch cards.

A barnacle on the ship of progress.

A black-and-white mind working on a color-coded problem.

A brain like a BB in a boxcar / box of Corn Flakes.

A butter knife in a steak / prime rib world.

A candidate for optorectomy. (Disconnection of optic nerve fromrectum, to repair a crappy outlook on life.)

A day late and a dollar short.

A deadbolt with a broken cylinder.

A dim bulb in the marquee of life.

A face designed in a wind tunnel.

A flash of light, a cloud of dust, and... What was the question?

A great deal of pride, but very little to be proud of.

A gross ignoramus -- 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus.

A hemorrhoid on the face of the world.

A hop, skip, and jump from success, but to get there he'd have togive up chewing gum.

A kangaroo loose in her top paddock.

A lap behind the field.

A legend in his own mind.

A logically defunct twit.

A looney tune.

A lot of feathers but not much chicken. -- Kim Mitchell

A medical mystery.

A mental midget with the IQ of a fencepost. -- Tom Waits

A mind as empty as the sleeping pill concession at a honeymoon hotel.

A modest little person, with much to be modest about. -- Churchill

A natural talent for finding subliminal messages in ice cubes.

A Neanderthal brain in a Cro-Magnon body.

A pacifist out of necessity / always loses in a battle of wits.

A PBS mind in an MTV world.

A penalty kick over the bar. (in soccer)

A peripheral visionary.

A poor excuse for protoplasm.

A quart low.

A real rocket scientologist.

A real space cadet.

A return with no gosub.

A room temperature IQ -- centigrade.

A semitone flat on the high notes.

A single-cylinder brain in a V8 world.

A socketless drone in a plug-and-play world.

A standard deviant.

A teapot with a cracked lid.

A titanic intellect... In a world full of icebergs.

A vacuum-tube brain in a microchip world.

A VGA card and a Herc monitor.

A violin minus the bow.

A walking argument for birth control / post-natal abortion.

A waste of skin.

A wind-up clock without a key.

Airhead / bubble-brain.

Alive today only because it's illegal to kill him.

All booster, no payload.

All cassette, no tape.

All crown, no filling.

All fetch and no execute.

All foam, no beer.

All foliage, no fruit.

All hammer, no nail.

All hat and no cattle.

All hawk and no spit. -- Molly Ivins talking about Ross Perot

All he remembers about his middle name is the first letter.

All his eggs in the same basket.

All his learning curves look like Mount Everest.

All icing, no cake.

All lime and salt, no tequila.

All missile, no warhead.

All of his bytes are odd.

All Preparation, no H.

All shot, no powder.

All signs and no scenery. -- John Taylor

All the lights don't shine in her marquee.

All the notes, none of the music.

All the personality of linoleum flooring / plasticene / putty /caulking / saran wrap / a bowl of oatmeal / a plastic spoon.

All thrust/mach, no vector.

All wax and no wick.

Alphabetizes junk mail / T-shirts / canonical lists.

Always in the right place, but at the wrong time.

Always late... Her ancestors arrived on the June Flower.

Always needs to have jokes explained.

Always responds to "Make Money Fast" postings on the Net.

Always sharpening his sleeping skills.

Always speaks her mind, so usually she's speechless.

An 8080 in a 68000 environment.

An alligator. (All mouth, no ears.)

An Apple //e on UUCP.

An early example of the Peter Principle.

An ego like a black hole.

An example of how the dinosaurs survived for millions of yearswith walnut-sized brains.

An expert on the historical significance of cottage cheese.

An inch short and a stroke early.

An innundated receptacle of primordial ooze.

An intellect rivaled only by garden tools.

An XT clone in a Pentium zone.

Ano-fossal ambiguity. (Can't tell his ass from a hole in the ground.)

Another engineering prototype that should not have been shipped.

Any connection between his reality and ours is purely coincidental.

Any similarity between him and a human being is purely coincidental.

Any slower and he'd be in reverse. -- Gignac

Any smarter and he'd be retarded.

Argues with herself -- and loses!

As bent as a corkscrew.

As bright as a nightlight / small appliance bulb / tulip bulb.

As dumb as an ox.

As focused as a fart.

As happy as the village idiot.

As popular as a French kiss at a family reunion.

as popular as a pork pie at a Jewish wedding.

As quick as a corpse.

As rare as a nine bob note. (Very English.)

As sharp as a bag of wet mice. -- Foghorn Leghorn

As sharp as a marble / bowling ball / beachball / pin head /wet sponge / bowl of Jello / mashed potato sandwich,and twice as smart.

As smart as a politician/lawyer is honest.

As smart as bait / an automatic email responder script.

As smart as Christie Brinkley is ugly.

As strong as an ox and as dumb as two.

As thick as champ. (Irish; champ is mostly mashed spuds and cabbage.)

As thick as two short planks / two half bricks.

As useful as a back pocket in a vest. (Very English.)

As useful as a brick lifevest.

As useful as a cheese sandwich to a drowning ferret.

As useful as a chocolate teapot / fireguard.

As useful as a football bat.

As useful as a fur-lined walking stick.

As useful as a glass hammer.

As useful as a hip pocket on a T-shirt.

As useful as a kickstand on a horse.

As useful as a lead parachute.

As useful as a mint-flavored suppository.

As useful as a spit valve on a guitar.

As useful as a top hat with pockets.

As useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

As useful as an inflatable cheeseknife.

As useful as bolognese sauce on shoe laces.

As useful as bookends down a well.

As useful as green stop lights.

As useful as reverse gear on a lawn mower.

At least he has a positive attitude about his destructive habits.

Attic's a little dusty.

Back burners not fully operating.

Bad spot on the disk.

Baler done run out of twine.

Bandwidth limited.

Bats have flown the belfry, and now he's all alone.

Bats in the belfry.

Batteries not included.

Been napping in front of the ion shield again.

Been one too many times through the wormhole.

Been playing with his wand too much.

Been playing with the pharmacy section again.

Been short on oxygen one time too many.

Been using her head as a mass driver.

Better at sex than anyone; now all he needs is a partner.

Blew his O-rings.

Blew the hatch before the lock sealed.

Blocked one too many hockey pucks / soccer balls / puncheswith his head.

Blown/leaking head gasket.

Born during low tide in / swimming in the shallow end ofthe gene pool.

Born too late -- he'd have been a great Neanderthal.

Born ugly and built to last.

Brain as busy as a hog farmer in Israel/Iran/...

Brain is running on empty.

Brain like a hard drive with no read/write head.

Bright as a Zippo lighter without a flint.

Bright as Alaska in December.

Bright as an acetylene torch -- without an oxygen supply.

Brings a knife to a gunfight. -- Sean Connery, The Untouchables

Brings binoculars to submarine races.

Broadcasts static.

Bubbles/leaks in her think tank.

Buddy breathing with himself. (SCUBA term.)

Built a special showcase for his herd of pet rocks.

Busier than a one-armed paper hanger.

Busier than a one-legged cat trying to cover its excretaon a frozen pond.

Busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

Caboose seems to be pulling the engine.

Calling him a pea brain would be an undeserved compliment.

Calls people to ask them their phone number.

Can be outwitted by a jar of Marshmallow Fluff.

Can discern facts and form predictions with the acumen of an economist.

Can easily be confused with facts.

Can only remember her old passwords.

Can only shoot pool with a left-handed cue stick.

Can't count his balls and get the same answer twice.

Can't dial 911 because she can't find "11" on the phone.

Can't find his ass with two hands and a periscope/compass/map/flashlight/bloodhound/GPS receiver (in a locked closet).

Can't find his couch in the living room.

Can't find log base two of 65536 without a calculator.

Can't hold water in a bucket. (Can't keep a secret.)

Can't program his way out of a for-loop.

Car's only got three wheels, and one's going flat.

Carrier wave unmodulated.

Carries a tire gauge in her purse.

Cart can't hold all the groceries.

Cauliflower for brains.

Cerebrum vaccuoso. (Empty head.)

Changes hands and picks up a stroke.

Charming as a carbuncle.

Cheats when filling out opinion polls.

Cheezwiz for brains.

Chimney's clogged.

Clock doesn't have all its numbers.

Closer to the edge than a bicycle on the autobahn.

Cold / flat / dry as a witch's tit.

Colder than a well-digger's ass in the Klondike.

Collects cards for Craig.

Communications with him is limited to ping.

Confused as a baby in a topless bar.

Confused as a lesbian in a fishmongers.

Conserves toilet paper by using both sides.

Consumes hard drugs as vitamins.

Contributes to collections like this one without searching firstto see if their little gem is already listed.

Contributes to the population problem.

Could only be loved/missed if the minister read someone else's eulogy.

Could qualify as a houseplant if he learned to photosynthesize.

Couldn't balance a checkbook if Einstein helped.

Couldn't be shown that his ass was on fire with a flashlight anda three-way mirror.

Couldn't count to 21 if he were barefoot and without pants.

Couldn't engineer his way out of a wet paper bag.

Couldn't figure it out if God gave him the instruction manual.

Couldn't find his way through a maze even if the rats helped him.

Couldn't find oil with a dipstick.

Couldn't find two Saint Bernards if they were in the sametelephone booth with him.

Couldn't get a clue during clue mating season in a field full ofhorny clues if he smeared his body with clue musk anddid the clue mating dance.

Couldn't get laid if he crawled up a chicken's rear end andwaited his turn.

Couldn't get laid in a monkey whorehouse with a sack ofbananas. -- David Spade

Couldn't hit sand if he fell off a camel.

Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if he were standing inside.

Couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat.

Couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. (Common in Australia.)

Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.

Couldn't run out of sight on a dark night / in a week.

Couldn't scratch his ass with a hand full of fish hooks.

Couldn't tell which way the elevator was going if he had two guesses.

Couldn't think/pee/fight his way out of a paper bag.

Couldn't write dialog for a porno flick.

CPU doesn't pick up on all clock cycles.

CPU is always in powersave mode.

CPU not connected to the bus.

Cranial cavity filled with neutronic matter. (Really dense.)

Cranio-rectally inverted.

Creates his swap file in a RAM disk.

Cunning as a dodo bird.

Cursor's flashing but there's no response.

Dealing with him is less fun than going to the dentist.

Dealing with him is one angst worse than a blind date.

Deep as her dimples / reflection in a mirror.

Defective hard drive / boot sector.

Dense as a London fog.

Depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

Diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

Diarrhea of the mouth; constipation of the ideas.

Differently clued. -- Dave Clark

Dock doesn't quite reach the water.

Does aerobics... in his head.

Does everything the hard way, like making love standing upin a hammock.

Does the work of three men: Larry, Curly, and Moe. (Three Stooges)

Doesn't adjust for leap years.

Doesn't consider his drive a slice unless it lands two fairways over.

Doesn't have a fart's prayer in a hurricane.

Doesn't have a round in every chamber.

Doesn't have all his cornflakes in one box.

Doesn't have all his dogs on one leash / cups in the cupboard /groceries in the same bag.

Doesn't have all the dots on his dice / pens in her plotter.

Doesn't have both oars in the water -- can't even find the damn boat.

Doesn't have elastic in both of his socks.

Doesn't have his belt through all the loops.

Doesn't have sixteen annas to the rupee.

Doesn't have the brain power to toast a crouton.

Doesn't have the sense God gave an animal cracker.

Doesn't have two neurons to rub together.

Doesn't just know nothing; doesn't even suspect much.

Doesn't just wear perfume, she marinates in it.

Doesn't know much, but leads the league in nostril hair. -- Billing

Doesn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his balls.

Doesn't know which side the toast is buttered on.

Doesn't need to worry about excess knowledge.

Doesn't put the cross-hairs on the target.

Doesn't quite sample at the Nyquist rate.

Doesn't suffer from ear pressure when flying at altitude.

Doesn't suffer from stress, she's a carrier.

Don't blame him, he's from Uranus.

Don't know what his problem is, but it's hard to pronounce.

Donated her body to science fiction.

Donated her body to scientists... Before she was done using it.

Downhill skiing in Iowa.

Driveway doesn't quite reach the garage.

Driving at night with the lights off.

Driving down the road of life with his sun shield in place.

Driving with his tailgate down (and stuff is falling out).

Driving with two wheels in the sand / not all wheels on the pavement.

Dropped his second stage too soon.

Dropped on his head as a child.

Dumb as asphalt / dirt / a mud fence / a stump / a sack of hammers.

Dumber than a chicken / box of hair/rocks / sled tracks.

During evolution his ancestors were in the control group.

Ears are redirected to /dev/null.

Easier to count the bricks left than the bricks missing.

Echoes between the ears.

Eight pawns short of a gambit.

Either the good twin or the evil one, hard to say.

Electroencephalographically challenged.

Elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor / penthouse /mezzanine.

Elevator goes all the way to the top but the door doesn't open.

Elevator is on the ground floor and he's pushing the Down button.

Elevator to the brain suite is out of order.

Emails a one-line contribution to this list with a full copy ofthe list attached.

End of season sale at the cerebral department. -- Gareth Blackstock

Enjoys listening to telemarketers.

Enough sawdust between the ears to bed an elephant.

Even a two button mouse gives him too many options.

Even in victory, he's a loser.

Evidence for the theory of a missing link.

Evolved from a toxic waste dump.

Failed the Turing test.

Fell out of the family tree.

Fifty-one cards short of a full deck.

Fighting the war with a starter pistol / water pistol /pop gun / cap gun.

Finds a flat by swapping tires.

Finds canonical humor collections amusing.

Finds Sesame Street / knock-knock jokes challenging.

Fired from McDonald's for having a short attention span.

Fired her retro-rockets a little late.

Flaky.

Flying on a cold shot. (Inadequate force from a steam catapultlaunch on an aircraft carrier.)

Flying/landing on one engine.

Focused like a 12 gauge shotgun.

Fog rolled in the day he was born, and a bit of it never rolled out.

Folds ace plus red jack hand when playing blackjack.

For those who never forget a face, his is an exception.

Foreign substances float in his cranial fluids.

Forgot to pay his brain bill.

Found his marbles, but is playing jacks with them.

Four bits short of a full DEC.

Four bows short of a string quartet.

Four cents short of a nickel.

Fruit looking for a cake to happen.

Full of wisdumb.

Full throttle, dry tank.

Fur coat and no knickers. (Scottish expression.)

Gasoline engine, diesel fuel.

Gates/barriers are down, the lights are flashing, but thetrain isn't coming.

Gavel doesn't quite hit the bench.

Gears grind/don't always mesh.

Gets a charge out of pissing on electric fences.

Gets her mail at an unknown zip code.

Gets his orders from another planet.

Gets hypnotized on the de-spun section.

Gets lost in thought -- it's unfamiliar territory.

Gets parity errors under load.

Gives a lot of bull for somebody what ain't got no cattle.

Goalie for the dart team.

God might still use him for miracle practice.

God's favorite target for lightning strikes.

Goes with the flow... He's a bed wetter.

Good at quantum tunneling but not much else.

Got a life, but wasn't sure what to do with it.

Got help, but it didn't help. -- Bob Thaves

Got his brains as a stocking stuffer.

Got into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn't watching.

Got up on the wrong side of bed again this morning -- like always.

Guillotining him would make only an aesthetic difference.

Gyros are loose.

Habits explainable if he was raised by wolves.

Had a head crash / her server's crashed.

Had his brain been constructed of silk, he would have beenhard-pressed to find the material to make a canarya set of cami-knickers. -- P.G. Wodehouse

Half a bubble off plumb. -- attributed to Mark Twain

Happiness is seeing her picture on a milk carton.

Hard to distinguish from the tail end of a horse.

Hard to tell if he has an ace up his sleeve or if the ace ismissing from his deck altogether.

Has 100-meter talent, but is half a mile into the marathon of life.

Has a bird's-eye view, and a brain to match.

Has a bus fault problem.

Has a divide-by-zero look on his face.

Has a face only a mother could love -- but she hates it too.

Has a few wait states.

Has a full six-pack but lacks the plastic thing to hold them together.

Has a leak in his ceiling.

Has a mind like a mousetrap, but should let some of those poor mice go.

Has a one-way ticket on the Disoriented Express.

Has a personality all her own... No one else wanted it. -- Jim Davis

Has a pulse, but that's about all.

Has a random memory fault.

Has a slow clock.

Has a sparse matrix. (Beware, "matrix" comes from the Latin "womb".)

Has a two-bit operating system.

Has achieved inner peace, but still displays outer obnoxiousness.

Has all her bricks, but no cement holding them together.

Has all the brains God gave a duck's ass.

Has an hourglass figure, but most of the sand is on thep.m. side. -- Thaves

Has an inferiority complex, but not a very good one.

Has an IQ one lower than it takes to grunt.

Has been seen tossing bread crumbs to helicopters.

Has change for a seven dollar bill.

Has delusions of adequacy.

Has FINO (first in never out) memory.

Has her headquarters where her hindquarters should be.

Has his brain on cruise control again.

Has his solar panels aimed at the moon.

Has it floored in neutral.

Has lots of books, but all he does is lick the ink off the pages.

Has no discretionary intellect.

Has no upper stage.

Has nothing to say, but delights in saying it.

Has only one chopstick in the chowmein.

Has over 1000 funny insults saved in a file, but can'tremember any of them.

Has plenty of talent and vision, just doesn't give a damn.

Has resonance where others have brains.

Has signs on both ears saying "Space for Rent".

Has so few thoughts that when he free associates, it's likewatching tennis.

Has the attention span of an overripe grapefruit.

Has the brains of a house plant / turnip (cooked).

Has the Grand Canyon under the crew cut.

Has the IQ of a salad bar / an ice cube / three below houseplant.

Has the keen awareness of an ostrich in hiding.

Has the mental agility of a soap dish. -- National Lampoon

Has the personality of a snail on Valium.

Has the same talent as Dr. Doolittle.

Has two brains; one is lost and the other is out looking for it.

Hasn't caught on that X and Y are relative values.

Hasn't got all his china in the cupboard.

Hasn't got the brains God gave a cat.

Hasn't got the brains of a retarded anvil/oyster.

Hasn't lost his mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere.

Having a party in his head, but no one else is invited / dancing.

He came, he saw, he clutched.

HE CAN ONLY TYPE IN UPPER CASE.

He can push but he can't pop.

He demonstrates that beauty times brains is a constant.

He donated his brain to science but they made an early withdrawal.

He fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

He has a bad brains-to-balls ratio.

He has a good point... Six inches above his eyes.

He has the wisdom of youth, and the energy of old age.

He has two left feet.

He hasn't a single redeeming vice. -- Oscar Wilde

He is a man of few words and he does not know what eitherof them mean. -- Prachett

He is a mouth-breather.

He knows computers... He's not fit for contact with humans.

He went off to cry to mommie/auntie.

[titleknown]

TITLEWave Character Re-Imaginings...

Welp, in the tradition of @dimetrodone I decided I might as well write up copyrighted fictional characters as how they’d exist in my TITLEWave setting.

But, as both a challenge and a proof-of-why-it-needs-to-happen, I’ll be restricting it to copyrighted characters from 1960 and earlier ala my idea of 56 or Bust. Because WHY THE HECK NOT?!

Past the break, because this is gettin loooooong.

Astro Boy- Essentially one of the earliest robots establishing a lot of the groundwork both AI and construction-wise for the androids of TITLEWave, despite his dubious origins as the product of a deranged scientist trying to recreate his lost son Astro’s ended up kind of an icon. So much of what he’s done laid the groundwork for what few rights robots had in this setting, and there’s even some minor religions amongst synthetics in this setting in his name

But, when the world needed him, he vanished. And robot rights backslid, often attributed in large part to a world without his influence. Only to reappear decades later, with no memory of where he had been; except for being trapped in some strange; dark place. And now, having upgraded thanks to years of interest on a bank account set up under his long-dead adoptive father’s name, he works as he always has to try to set the world right, to bring the balance between machines and humans.

Of course, while there are many who profit off the exploitation of sentient machines and present him with a handshake in front but a dagger behind their backs, there are also plenty of new allies for Astro, given the fact that he’s a living legend amongst the robotic community, and there’re a lot of people who’ve been inspired to their own heroism by him

Godzilla- Essentially created less from acts of massive war violence as much as years of societal violence, on a huge New Jersey industrial company town dedicated to the repurposing of nuclear materials and chemical waste into useful products, in a process both grueling; dehumanising and lethally toxic for those on the bottom and a nightmare of crunchtime working conditions for those doing the engineering/research. Said process became essentially automated more and more; leaving more and more people out of work and creating a massive underclass; located right by the heavily polluted coastline.

The problem started when they tried to “purge” said underclass, at first via subtler means by neglect cranking up the pollution levels to unsustainable limits, then by more blatant means, such as experimental toxins and random police experimental-gassings. And, this further added to the primordial nightmare-soup to the point where company scientist Doctor Serizawa tried to raise the alarm about the unsettling; violent biological mutations his research team found in there. To no avail. And then, one night, during the largest gassing raids in historyu; The Midway Street Massacre, the creature came.

Serizawa did eventually destroy it with the Oxygen Destroyer, and sacrifice himself to do so, though millions of lives were lost including several of the company’s highest executives. Curiously, most of the attacks by the creature were centered on the wealthiest areas of the city, much to their chagrin.

But, the story diverges from the fact that, when company scientists came to inspect things, they found the creature’s flesh was growing back onto its bones. And, then they had the alledgedly-brilliant idea to bring it onto land and cyborgize the regeneration creature. This went as well as you’d expect.

The escaped creature now wanders the country, less vicious than its original appearance and now treated more like a natural disaster than a kill-this-abomination-now-level threat. One wonders what goes through its head. Those who have made mental contact with it seem to indicate a creature that is lonely, and in pain. Because like those others living in where it was created, it too is a victim in its own way.

And, there are worrying signs from that original company, because not only do they still posess tissue samples of the creature’s cells, but also there are whispers of whole new strains of creatures they found mutated from the results of the Oxygen Destroyer….

Gandalf/Sauron- A wandering robot that looks superficially like some cheap carnival animatronic of an old man, only to reveal incredibly powerful technology beneath his surface; if it even is technology as we know it. He’s a wise mentor-type to heroic types he finds, but he has an agenda of his own as well.

It involves stopping a similar; but more powerful machine called Sauron, whose original body was destroyed, but who lives on in fragments of his corpus and AI cores; in particular one TITLE-like divice simply known as The Ring.

Nobody really knows where they came from, when asked Gandalf says he simply answers to “A higher authority”

Rick Blaine- Or, rather, Rikki Blaine. Formerly an uninvolved bystander for years running her bar in a place that was essentially a waypoint for those trying to escape from various nightmarish megacorp-owned city states, she finally was spurred to involvement after an old flame of his came with her leftist freedom-fighter husband, which ultimately ended not only in heris aiding in their escape; but also him finding a reason to live; and skimming off a high-level megacorp official to her cause too.

Now she runs an organization called the “Casablanca Foundation” to help people escape not just from Megacorp-states but also the places that are megacorp-states in all but name; or even just generally bad situations. If you know who to call, you can find her.

Bugs Bunny- Called by many nicknames including “the abortion of this age” and “the rough beast Yeats spoke of,” nobody knows where the fuck Bugs Bunnycame from. The best guess of most is that it’s a confluence of multiple biological and parapsychological factors ending up affecting one normal North American rabbit. It is also theorized they came from Brooklyn due to their distinctive accent.

Bugs is essentially an incredibly powerful humanoid lapine organism, unable to permanently die even when flattened; exploded; burned; eaten; chopped to bits; ectcetera, and with remarkable abilities of mental power despite his screwball attitude towards life; with the ability to defy the laws of physics without conscious thought and bar-none high-level abilities of spacial reasoning and behavioral prediction. And able to disguise themselves better than you’d think.

Originally they were much more terrifyingly chaotic, but nowadays they have rules they seem to follow. Namely; no retribution unless either they are provoked or somebody they like gets hurt and no killing. Other than that, if you piss them off there will be hell to pay.

Though, if you can get on their good side (Which is easier than most people think) they can be a jovial; steadfast friend (Albeit one with an often overly-massive ego with a tendency to be overly cocky and quick to fight) and a powerful ally. And, as you can guess by my use of pronouns, they happen to be genderfluid. Because Bugs Bunny

Superman- Despite a more neon 80s-tacular costume, complete with badass bounty-hunter-y mask, he’s still fundamentally Superman, helping people against problems too great for mortal people. He’s the only “proper” superhero in this setting in fact; and while everyone wonders what his real agenda is, nobody suspects that he’s just as genuine as he seems, a Jewish guy from the sticks who happened to be found in a crashed rocketship by a couple of farmers who’s trying to bring Tikkum Olam to the world. Though his reporting is more for television, he still works to report the news of the world at the Daily Star webcast.

Of course, there are a few differences. Like the fact that underneath his human appearance is an anatomy that is far off from human, with him only looking human thanks to the “rebirthing machine” in that original ship that altered him; and in fact perhaps other Kryptonians still out there; into the appearance of the planet’s dominant species.

And, there’s also the fact; with the research into the strange crystal technology linked to his planet and its lethally radioactive corrupted form known as Kryptonite, he’s found that they weren’t quite restricted to one planet. In fact, they were an interplanetary civilization, leaping across solar systems. And then, all at once, they were destroyed. But he’s never been able to find an answer as to by who or by what, or why seemingly relatively so relatively few of them were able to escape. And the few leads bring up disquieting possibilities...

You may ask, why not make expies just like these descriptions?

And I probably will do that in the future with these ideas. But; thing is; there’s power in legacies. There’s power in Superman being a shining neon light in this vicious future, there’s power in Astro Boy coming to set right what has fallen apart in his absence, there is power in Godzilla as the wrath of societal violence, and so-on.

And, while I agree with the truth that even if things are public domain they need to be treated with respect, that’s an argument I’d say for the public domain rather than against it.

Also, if you want to support further content like this, maybe throw a few bucks my way on my Patreon! This was actually decided from two ideas via a poll for those five-dollar donors, and there’ll probably be more in the future...

[agameforgoodchristians]

A rainbow promising that God can genocide you through other means (Genesis 9:13)

"God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!"

- The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin

In another Card Talk about Noah’s story, we ask the questions What do we do with a silent God who kills His creation? and What do we do when a supposedly righteous man remains silent?

We also discuss the Documentary Hypothesis, and how Genesis 6-9 is a narrative composed/redacted from a least two distinct sources. However, whether we separate the narrative into its source material, or read it as one (sort of) unified whole, there is one fact that should remain salient:

This story is not about Noah or humanity. It is a story about God.

God is the main actor. Noah, his wife and kids, the marching Ark animals, and all the bloated, floating bodies that do not make it on the Ark, are all crappy extras struggling for a little more screen time. And oxygen.

 To see this clearly we need to delete our fond (or not so fond) Sunday School memories, Bible videos, picture books, flannel graph, Grandparent-versions of the story. When we do, we see that Noah is not the hero of the story. He’s certainly not the protagonist: the character whose actions and struggle we are concerned with. When we read the text, when we simply count the verbs associated with Noah, we see he doesn’t do much.

A List of what Noah Does in the Story

Before the flood

Noah had sex at least three times, since he has three sons (6:10).

Noah blindly, mindlessly, did exactly what God told him to do (6:22; 7:5-9, 13-16). Think that’s harsh? Read it. There is no initiative on Noah’s part. The text explicitly holds that God said something and Noah did that exact thing. It shows Noah's faithfulness, but it does not an interesting narrative make.

During the flood

Noah opened a window on the Ark and performed the famous bird tests (8:6-14).

Noah exits the Ark after God tells him to (8:18-19).

After the flood

Noah makes an altar for sacrifices (8:20).

Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, gets drunk, passes out, is (most likely) sexually assaulted by his son, and curses his descendants when he wakes up (9:18-27).

 Notice: The text contains no narrative details about building the Ark; No explanation to his sons about their mission; No arguments with his wife about what this all means for their lives; No scenes about the growing, harvesting, or purchasing food for the journey;  No moments of mockery from his neighbors; No preaching to them about the impending doom; No comical gathering of the animals; No record of his inner turmoil, doubt, prayer, strength, or even stalwart faith. None of the things included in Sunday School, sermons, and movies. Noah is an empty suit, a caricature of faith. We get more pathos from Abraham before he sacrifices his son (but just barely).  

Noah is not the hero of this story.

He is not the protagonist. 

God is.

God as Protagonist: A List of what God Does in the Story

God is the primary actor whose struggle is the focus of this drama. The most obvious example of this: God is the only one with any lines: God's the only one who speaks in the narrative. (Never noticed that, did you?) Beyond this, compare God’s verbs (actions) in the story to Noah's:

God looks at the world, says He is sick of our shit, and determines that in 120 years, He will hit reset with the Flood (6:1-13) [See the "Excurus on Methuselah" at the end].

God considers Noah as worthy of saving (6:8-9).

God commands the building of the ark and makes covenant with Noah (6:12-21).

God sends the animals and gets Noah's family on the Ark (7:1-9).

God sends the Flood waters (6:13, 17; 7:4-12,17-20, 23).

God shuts the door of the Ark (7:16) (Yeah, Noah can't even be trusted to handle that).

God commits genocide (7:21-23) (Think that's harsh? Read the language of the verse).

God remembers Noah and animals on the Ark (8:1a) [Bible nerd note: This whole story is a chiasm, and verse 8 is the X. There are numerous ways this narrative can be chiastically rendered, but they all meet at this verse).

God's holy spirit/breath (ruah) blows across the water, causing it to recede (8:1b).

God tells everyone to get off the Ark (8:15-17).

God uses two completely different symbols to promise that the flood won’t happen again (because there are two different sources braided together).

In 8:21-22 (J-Source), God presents the consistency of the seasons as the promise-sign

In 9:1-17 (P-source), God presents the famous rainbow as the promise-sign. God has hung up His bow (as in 'bow and arrow'), and will not again pierce the ra'quia, the boundary established in Genesis 1:6-7 to keep out the primordial waters of chaos (Again, see the "Excursus on Methuselah" at the end for more on the rainbow).

 God did All of this.

God is the main actor in the story. It is God's inner life we are asked to examine, not Noah's. 

What’s more, the story ends with a not too subtle threat in the form of a promise. Baldwin understood this. So did the writer of Second Peter

This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; in them I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles. First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the Day of Judgment and destruction of the godless. ~ 2 Peter 3:1-7

 God’s promise is not that He won’t DESTROY the world again, only that it won’t be with water.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,  Some say in ice.  From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.  But if it had to perish twice,  I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

- Robert Frost 

Why the Flood: Returning to The Beginning

Many scholars have noted that the flood narrative is an inverted version of the creation narrative of Genesis chapter 1, another story where God is the protagonist. We will leave it to others to belabor the numerous ways the flood narrative is a negation of the creation narrative (beyond the obvious God made everything / God destroys everything) and focus on the why of it all.

Once creation was completed, "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day" (Genesis 1:31). Previous to this, "the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters...And then God said, Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters...And then God said, Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so" (Gen 1:1-2; 6; 9).

This bracketing of the primordial waters of chaos is exactly what God was referring to when He begins to rip Job a new one:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

...who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?— when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?" (Job 38:4; 8-11)

In the flood narrative, the world returns to a vast, formless, lifeless void: the dome above and below were pierced, and the waters of deep were allowed to return. And all that remained was the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters and the floating menagerie of creatures He deemed worthy to save. 

But why?  As we Bible nerding-out with the Hebrew, we discovered that the progression of the verbs of destruction are informative: the words God uses for why the Flood waters are coming.

[For normal people]

Genesis 6:11-13

Now the earth was fucking itself over in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was fucked; for all flesh was consistently fucking itself over upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence and they are causing me to fuck up their shit along with the earth.

Genesis 6:17

For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to completely and utterly fuck up their shit from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die.

[For those who can parse Hebrew verbs]

Genesis 6:11-13

Now the earth was “going-to-ruin” [Niphal imperfect] in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth “had-gone-to-ruin” [Niphal perfect]; for all flesh was “actively-going-to-ruin” [Hiphil perfect] upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence and “they-are-causing-me-to-ruin” them [Hiphil participle] along with the earth.

Genesis 6:17

For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to “actively-ABSOLUTELY-ruin” [Piel imperative,] from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die.

  (Note: Why the "bad language"? See our theology of swearing.)

While the flood narrative is a radical destabilization of the world, the text says that we deserved it. This is one example of a biblical principle some (esp. climate science deniers) forget: human actions can bring about chaos, can erode God’s order. Our actions have consequences, for us and our environments. 

From Genesis on, the Bible shows God saying, “oh, you know best? You want something other than the ordered world I've given you? Fine. Then you also get to deal with the rampant chaos that is writhing and waiting underneath: the things that go bump in the deep, that I Am keeping at bay. Enjoy!” 

 Perhaps this is something we should remember. What we do matters. 

Perhaps we should also remember that Noah survives the flood, but drowns in alcohol and the improper affection of his kids. 

Perhaps grace has limits.

Perhaps God will spare us the first time, but the next time... 

 But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we're going to Hell.

And you're just happy that we got a rainbow out of all this (so keep reading)

Excursus on Methuselah

Genesis 5:5-28a states:

When Methuselah had lived one hundred eighty-seven years, he became the father of Lamech. Methuselah lived after the birth of Lamech seven hundred eighty-two years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years; and he died. When Lamech had lived one hundred eighty-two years, he became the father of a son; he named him Noah…

Genesis 7:6 reads:

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came on the earth

So what?

It's Biblical math fun time!

The Flood began when Noah was 600 years old.

Methuselah dies at the age of 969.

969 - 600 = 369 (Methuselah’s age when Noah was born)

369 - 182 = 187 (Methuselah’s age when Lamech was born)

So all the Biblical math adds up. 

Again, so what? 

Methuselah died when the flood began. A detail not missed by Darren Aronofsky when filming Noah.

[Remember how/when Sir Anthony Hopkins died in the movie? No? Go (re)watch it.] 

 Adding to the Biblical cohesion is the meaning of the name “Methuselah.” While there is scholarly debate (isn't there always?) about an exact translation, each permutation is deeply, thematically connected to Noah's narrative: 

"The man of the infernal river" - Do we really have to explain this one?

"His death shall bring judgment" - Again, you've got this one.

"When he dies it shall be sent" - We won't insult your intelligence.

"The man of the weapon (dart/javelin/spear/arrow)" - A man who lived long enough to see "the weapon," the instrument used by YHWH to pierce the dome surrounding the Earth, and let flow the primordial waters.

The first three are obvious, but the last warrants a reminder of the promise of the rainbow. Or more accurately, it should remind us of what the rainbow actually is: a bow. As in bow and arrow/spear/javelin/dart. 

The promise is predicated on God saying He is hanging His BOW in the sky. 

 We just blew your mind. You're welcome. 

[xxionlinemovies-blog]

Life (2017) Movie Review

Checkout Life (2017) Movie Review on http://xxi.online/life-2017-movie-review/

Life (2017) Movie Review

MOVIE REVIEW

Calvin had been doing just fine before the astronauts showed up.

Granted, he wasn’t exactly lively. The single-celled, Mars-based organism had been fairly catatonic for a good 100 million years or so. But who among us couldn’t use a little more shut-eye? Given that his cellular structure is all eye—and all muscle, and all brain—one could argue that Calvin needs more rest than most.

But while Calvin was sleeping, a rover collected him (or her, or it) from the Martian soil and blasted him into space, to be examined by the six-person crew of the burgeoning International Space Station. They start pumping oxygen into his little box. They heat him up, nice and comfy. Once the conditions in the box reach a warm, primordial Earth-like state, Calvin perks right up and starts growing. Why, how nice of these strange bipeds to revive me like that, he might’ve thought to himself in inaudible Martian. They certainly seem frien—OW!

Now, it’s entirely possible that Calvin wasn’t thinking such kindhearted thoughts when the electrical shocks started. Given that Calvin doesn’t seem to possess a heart exactly, it’s possible that he woke up cackling silently, like an alien Snidely Whiplash. Cattle! It might’ve said in inaudible Martian. Bend to the power of the Old Ones! One can never be too sure about extraterrestrial beings.

But whatever Calvin’s initial motivation might’ve been, the events that follow are indisputable: Once the astronauts start a-shocking, Calvin starts a-killing.

Alas for Calvin, there are only so many humans to feed on in space. But the planet below has eight billion of ’em. Now, if only he could find a way down …

POSITIVE ELEMENTS

We don’t get to know our astronaut cast that well in Life, what with all the screaming and dying and whatnot. But these scientists definitely feel super, super bad when one of their own is threatened. And I think every single one of them risks and sometimes sacrifices his or her life to protect their fellow space-walkers to ensure that Calvin doesn’t get to earth.

SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Scientists believe that Calvin has been around for at least 100 million years. “We’re going to learn so much about life,” says researcher Hugh Derry. “Its origin, its nature, maybe even its meaning.”

One astronaut, Sho Murakami, whispers to a picture of his wife and newborn daughter, “I’m coming home.” It’s not completely clear whether he means he’s literally planning on getting home somehow (despite the creature that’s determined to kill him) or means it in a more figurative, spiritual sense—that he’ll see them both in the afterlife.

SEXUAL CONTENT

After the wife of an astronaut gives birth back on Earth, one of the man’s fellow crew members ribs him, “Do they have any idea who the father is?”

VIOLENT CONTENT

Calvin is not a gentle soul. When he’s still pretty small, he grabs hold of biologist Hugh Derry’s hand (protected by a thick rubber glove) and crushes, it would seem, every bone in it. (When Hugh manages to pull free, the hand is completely mangled, looking more like a contorted octopus than a recognizable human appendage.)

And that’s just the beginning. Calvin’s first fatality is a literal lab rat, kept (for some reason) shackled inside the space station’s lab. He wraps the poor, squeaking little critter in his grip and seems to absorb the thing alive, the rat clearly conscious until almost the end.

Calvin then moves on to people: He pries open someone’s mouth and kills him from the inside, blood floating from various orifices—both natural and made by Calvin—in weightless space. He kills another by crushing a coolant container in someone’s spacesuit: The victim eventually drowns in liquid coolant. He latches on someone’s leg, feeding on blood until that person, too, dies. He wrestles with someone in the vacuum of space, leading to another fatality. A mishap with another spaceship causes passengers on the visiting vehicle to lose their lives. Calvin fights with another astronaut in what would ordinarily be a space-bound “lifeboat,” and the results, while uncertain, are not good. Corpses float about weightlessly throughout the film.

The astronauts try to inflict their share of pain on Calvin, too. They attempt to barbecue him with an incinerator and, when the creature escapes outside the ship (he’s an extremely durable chap), blast him with the station’s maneuvering jets (which he’s trying to sneak back into the ship through). They shock the creature when it’s a more manageable size.

Explosions explode. Parts of the space station are shattered. Someone laments war and references a conflict in Syria.

CRUDE OR PROFANE LANGUAGE

Nearly 30 uses of the f-word and another 10 of the s-word. God’s name is misused once, and Jesus’ name is abused at least four times.

DRUG AND ALCOHOL CONTENT

Hugh is initially enamored with the life-form he and the team have picked up. Rory warns him that his apparent affection for the creature is dangerous. “You’re drunk on this,” Rory says. “Wake up.”

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS

Before Calvin becomes a deadly nuisance, the astronauts are interviewed by school children via satellite. One of those them asks how astronauts go to the bathroom, and Sho shows them the apparatus they use, explaining in clinical detail how it works.

CONCLUSION

In our individualistic society, to go “by the book” is often seen as a bad thing. We like to take chances, to color outside the lines, to get out of the box. As such, Life comes with a rather interesting countercultural message: There’s a reason we go by the book. There are occasions when we want what’s in the box to stay in the box.

About half the terrible things that happen in Life happen because someone literally opened doors that should’ve stayed tightly shut. Admittedly, keeping those doors shut often doesn’t feel like the right thing to do, particularly when an imperiled crewman is on the other side.

But ask folks who save lives for a living, and they’ll tell you some pretty sobering truths: You don’t dive in to save a wildly thrashing drowning person because they’ll likely take you with them. You don’t carry someone down from the top of Mount Everest, because if you do, neither of you will make it back. Life adds another example to the list: Best not to mess with super-strong, super-hostile Martian life-forms. We’re all about sacrificing ourselves to rescue others … but when we sacrifice ourselves and don’t save anyone, well, that’s another kettle of crawdads.

Life is a tense, often contrived story—Alien reheated, minus the acid blood. This sci-fi horror story could’ve easily been a PG-13 thriller without all the blood and harsh profanity, and frankly, it wouldn’t have lost a thing. But as it is, Life feels a lot like its Martian star, Calvin: a critter you might not want to let out of the box.