#we're getting meta over here

[eddiezpaghetti]

Okay, so my experience with Stranger Things is a weird one.

I didn't care when it first came out, started to watch it out of "might as well" in 2020, wasn't interested in it enough to make it past S2, forgot about it outside of going "oh, hey, cool, there's a lesbian in it now, I guess," in S3, got really annoyed when "Running Up That Hill" got popular from it because it was a song I listened to on fucking loop after one of my best friends died in high school and I fully expected its appearance in the show to ignore the whole survivor's guilt theme of the song (and was very happy to learn later that it did the exact opposite of ignoring the lyrics), saw people drawing Eddie, suddenly got a lot more interested, watched just the fourth season like a fucking psychopath because I was seriously only there for Eddie, then got interested enough to start the show over properly, having mostly forgotten what I did watch of the show before.

And let me tell you something from the perspective of someone who started with the complete fourth season, who wasn't there from the start, who wasn't tainted by ship goggles or this internal battle of hope and despair, who wasn't theorizing about what the painting could be or expecting Mike and Will to kiss when Volume 2 happened or rooting for Mike and Eleven's relationship to go down in flames or whatever the fuck. Just someone who went blind into Season 4.

It's really fucking obvious that Will and Mike are gonna be endgame.

Like holy fuck. It's so fucking blatant I don't even know why people are nervous.

No sane fucking person would shoot this scene this way if they wanted the audience to care about El and Mike as a couple. Despite being all blurry in the background, Will's reaction to what's happening here is smackdab in the fucking middle, clearly showing that the important part is what's going through his head here. What he's feeling. It's like the opposite of that scene from Kingdom Hearts II where Sora and Riku reunite and Kairi just fucking vanishes into the aether while it's happening because, despite the fact that she was standing between them when the scene began, she doesn't matter to the scene, so she's just kind of gone when the camera angle changes. Will could have been behind one of their heads, or so far in the distance he blends in with the background, but he's not. He's so obvious that despite being massively blurred out, he's still the first goddamn thing you look at. What, you think that's an accident? You think he's in the middle of this dramatic fucking scene because of a mistake? He basically has a big flashing neon arrow pointing at him with "THIS IS THE POINT" being screamed through a megaphone.

And then this?

They're paired up like they're taking fucking prom pictures. Each one of these pairs is so fucking close to one another and so fucking far from everyone else. It's not, "Oh, they're standing vaguely near each other in a group shot," it's fucking Noah's Ark out here. Again, there's no way to take this as an accident. It's not just a framing issue. If they wanted to make the shot look balanced while still not hiding anyone else behind El, they would have scattered people around much more naturally. Even if they wanted to keep Nancy with Jonathan and Hopper with Joyce, there's so much room on that hill for three people to stand on El's left and three on her right. But they didn't do that. They put Mike and Will together on purpose in the most obvious way possible.

Like I get that coming up with crackpot theories is fun in and of itself and I'm not blaming anyone for having fun. I totally get the appeal of arguing a point and reaching for every stupid little thing to pull into it because it's like a game, okay? I've done that. But if you're trying to actually convince someone (whether it's someone who wants to believe or someone who's pissed at the very idea that Mike and Will could be in love), stay away from blue and yellow lights, stay away from costume design, stay away from the existence of closets in backgrounds. And don't worry about whether Mike's gay or bi when he's in love with Will either way. I'll give you a little tip about persuasion: You're only as strong as your weakest argument. Even if you've got strong stuff in there, too, the person you're trying to convince is going to dismiss anything you say as complete insanity the second you start going on an entire tangent about the shape of a character's fucking pocket.

Sometimes, clothes are just clothes. Sometimes, there's a closet in the background because it helps establish that a character is in a bedroom. Sometimes, blue and yellow are just a couple of colors that look nice together. And sure, it might be set designers and costume designers and cinematographers smirking and winking at the audience from behind the camera. But if the show was just those things, instead of those things in the context of everything else, they wouldn't be saying anything of note.

But this?

This tells a story all on its own. Someone with no context can look at this and automatically assume that each paired person is standing with someone they care about deeply, seeking comfort as they watch some sort of disaster unfold. And yeah, romantic couples usually come in twos, and we live in an amatonormative society, so that's going to be the first association anyone makes seeing a bunch of people paired off.

It's the same reason you look at this

And go, "Oh..."

"Those two are probably a couple."

And I genuinely don't understand how people could have watched S4 Vol. 2 and gotten scared. Because as someone who went in with no investment whatsoever, I just looked at these two--

--and went, "Oh, those two are a couple. Good for them." And I moved on. Shut up about the trees for five seconds and just see the forest for what it is.

Oh, and if you're still nervous? Little thing from a storyteller here: You don't leave a hanging thread like "Will confessed his romantic feelings for Mike by projecting them onto El, but Mike either didn't understand or at least didn't say he understood," without coming back to that later. That's Chekov's gun hanging on the wall, babes. It's gonna fire at some point. If Mike was going to reject Will's feelings, if they weren't relevant, they would have had that discussion in Argyle's van. There'd be no reason to leave you in suspense.

[anghraine]

Fun fact: Imrahil of Dol Amroth is only ever described in LOTR as Denethor and Faramir's "kinsman", with no distinction ever made between how he's related to Denethor vs to Faramir. It's only later, when Faramir briefly thinks of his long-dead mother, that she is called "Finduilas of Amroth" and we can deduce that the family connection was likely between Denethor's wife and Imrahil, making him an in-law of Denethor but blood relative of Faramir. We're still not told exactly how Imrahil and Finduilas were related, though.

I always had the impression of a certain degree of tension between Imrahil and Denethor, and also of Imrahil being particularly concerned for Faramir, but his exact relationships with them are quite vague in the narrative. A lot of the names, dates, and family connections among the members of the house of Dol Amroth that we now accept as a matter of course are mainly from a separate document published in Peoples of Middle-earth that explains the most probable origin story for the house of Dol Amroth and has an attached family tree. IIRC the entire existence of Faramir and Éowyn's son Elboron is based on his inclusion in the Dol Amroth family tree in POME and he's never referenced in LOTR (and possibly not in anything else, actually?).

Tolkien definitely did imagine Imrahil and Finduilas as siblings regardless (e.g. I think he mentions it when observing that Denethor's natural beardlessness as an Elrosian Dúnadan would be reinforced in Boromir and Faramir by their additional Elvish heritage through Imrahil's sister), but he didn't actually say it in LOTR.

I do think it's important, though, because it's with this later information that Imrahil taking charge of Faramir's fallen body is conclusively revealed to not be simply a prince rescuing a vague "kinsman" of political/military importance, but specifically a man carrying his dead sister's last surviving child from a battlefield.

(No wonder he and Éomer bonded so much, honestly!)

[queenofmalkier]

Okay, I just have to say it to anyone feeling isolated or picked on or like the Main Character standing against Amazon's Wot-Show wrongs: nobody is mad that you don't like the show. People have different opinions! Different expectations! In a series this long there's dozens of things people will disagree on in terms of importance and that is normal!

You know what nobody likes?

The condescending, holier-than-thou attitude of some individuals who don't like the show who have decided that It Is Actually Bad And Terrible and anyone who likes it is Wrong.

Who constantly invade show-friendly spaces, who review bomb, who basically act like five year olds having a tantrum in the middle of Target.

People who I'm sorry to say don't seem to understand that there's no one way to adapt a series. Think of it like the works of Shakespeare and move on with your day.

The way I'd do it is going to be different than the way you'd do it, which will be entirely different from the way a third person will do it. That doesn't make any of us wrong - and YET you get mad when reasonable people point out that when you say the show is an Evil Bad Wrong No Good Bad Adaptation Without Question you are discounting those of us who think it's honestly not bad.

And then those same people wrap themselves up in a mantle of hurt and victimhood because everybody is being mean to them! Nobody understands!

Honey, we understand talking to you about the show right now is like talking down some drunk guy in a Denny's parking lot who is screaming at the curb. You aren't making rational points. You are Big Mad and trying to make it the problem of anybody who doesn't think the way you do.

I know I've made an effort to be understanding and empathetic about it, I've tried to explain my reasons for enjoying the show while seeing the point of others who hate it, but I'm tired of only receiving "that's cute you think that but Actually I Am Correct still" in return.

There's no growth, no learning, no further understanding. At this point it's bitching to bitch while pretending to be the only one knowledgeable on the subject. It's screaming about "that's not what I'm asking for!" while, actually, the complaints you're making are very much asking for a perfect 1 to 1 adaptation or some secret third thing that remains a mystery to me.

Either way, I love ya'll, I love WOT, I hope like hell this is a taken as the I Don't Know What Else To Do intervention, come-to-maker post it's meant to be but if it's not and you're angry maybe think about why.

[shadystranger]

the switch from worry for sam to appealing.. oh he knows how to fuck him up so perfectly tailored for him

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

The way the MASH fandom tends to imagine the ages of the characters is fascinating to me. I keep seeing people referring to various main characters (except Potter and Radar) as “middle-aged”. While to my knowledge we do not have an exact age for any of the characters, I don’t think this assumption can be correct.

While references to character ages within the show are all over the place, in keeping with typically nonsensical MASH continuity, we do have concrete information from the cast on this. Alan Alda stated that Hawkeye is in his late 20s. This would make sense both for him and for BJ, Trapper, and all other assorted surgeons, given where they are in their professional and personal lives. The one exception to this would be Charles, who David Ogden Stiers mentioned was intended to be in his mid-30s, which would in turn make sense for Charles specifically, as he is clearly farther along in a surgeon’s career path than the others, he is the only doctor who has multiple specialties (thoracic and pediatric), and personality-wise he generally acts older than the other Swamp Rats.   Real life statistics back this up, as well! The age range of the draft at this time was 18 & 1/2 to 35. (Also, notably, those who served in WWII were exempted from taking part in the Korean War draft, which would be evidence that none of the men in the show besides Potter served in WWII, for what that’s worth.) And that range was heavily weighted toward the lower end. When the show makes a big deal about how young the soldiers they treat are, it’s being absolutely realistic: the average age of a Korean War soldier in 1950 was 19!

The character who most inspired this post, however, I don’t think anyone ever mentioned an age for at any point: Klinger. Almost without exception, I see people talk about Klinger with the assumption that he is the same age as the doctor characters. This has always confused me, because I see no reason that should be true! It makes sense that the doctors would skew quite above the average draftee age of 19 because of the age constraints of their profession, but there is absolutely no reason to assume that same skewing would apply to Klinger, a random enlisted person. 

In fact, there are several pieces of evidence in support of the idea of him being younger, perhaps 19-23. While he does call Radar “kid” a few times, implying he is older than him, they are also very close friends and Radar clearly does not treat him with the same “little sibling” attitude that he does Hawkeye & co. (Plus, Radar and Klinger are given equivalent places in the narrative constantly. In just about every other aspect, we are clearly meant to see them as having “equal status”, so why not in regards to age?)

There’s also the whole Laverne thing. The mere fact of his getting married makes him seem older to a modern audience, but we must remember that back in 1950, people tended to marry earlier than today. (Average age of marriage in 1950 was 20 for women, 23 for men.) Klinger says Laverne was his highschool sweetheart, and it’s implied that they’ve been together steadily since then. We know he very much WANTS to get married and have a family. Given the aforementioned cultural norms, if he’s even in his late 20s, it would be weird that he’s not already married before the show starts.  

Additionally, there’s his apparent position career-wise, which is: he does not have a career yet! He mentions a lot of summer jobs doing various different things, usually helping a family member’s business, which would make total sense for a college-age kid with no socioeconomic opportunity to actually go to college. Given how hardworking and eager to learn Klinger is (remember his multiple correspondence courses--another age-appropriate similarity with Radar), if he were middle-aged, he would surely already have a good blue-collar union profession. (Again, cultural norms: they had not yet invented the horror of the gig economy in the 50s lol.) 

This post is getting way too long, but I do feel quite passionate about this subject, especially with regards to Klinger. The fact that Radar’s age is such a huge part of his character, but Klinger is implicitly treated by the show, and thus seen by the fandom, as much older even though there’s no REASON for that..... It makes me think. Especially given the way youth of color are treated in both reality and fiction. Especially given how despicably the other characters treat him in late seasons, making fun of him for being incompetent and stupid. I know it’s really not that deep! But it just makes me think. 

(On a lighter note, I also think it’s useful to keep in mind the canonical age difference between a 32-34 year old Charles and his 26-29 year old roommates. And his age means he NEARLY aged out of draft eligibility, too!)

(”Where does Margaret come into this?” you ask. I’m honestly not sure! I don’t recall any canonical statement of her age either, in-universe or out. It’s important to note, though, that the average age of nurses was definitely higher than that of the male draftees. I couldn’t find data for Korea specifically, but during WWII, the age requirements for the army nurse corps were 21-40, later 21-45. Again, these are medical professionals, so this increased age makes sense. (And the show actually gives us some older nurse characters!) It makes sense for Margaret to be on the higher end of this spectrum, given her high rank and status, but not super high, given that she’s highly skilled and extremely ambitious.)

But beyond individual characters, I wish the age thing were more concrete and acknowledged, just for the sake of the whole tone of the show! I really wish they’d gone out of their way to portray the truth: that aside from the medical professionals, the average age of the enlisted men at the 4077th should be nineteen years old. That all of their patients really are just babies to these doctors (and to the older nurses as well!). It would really help drive home some of the points the series tried so hard to make.

[spherekuriboh]

the difference between the triumph in 'i found you!' and the shame in 'you've found me.' is proof enough!!!

[iniziare]

Tag drop: Dorian Pavus

[marshmallowgoop]

Every time I "finish" an AMV, I create a comparison like this.

The left side is the "effectless" draft—minimal transitions, zero coloring, limited text animation—while the right side is the "final" version I post online. It's a way to assess my work; where did the added effort elevate the edit, and where do my eyes find themselves drawn more to the draft because the "final" version is too busy, too overwhelming, too much?

I'm new to video editing. There aren't even 20 AMVs to my name, and I only seriously started a little over a year ago. My process involves a lot of struggling with what a "good" AMV is, a lot of wondering if I'm doing it all wrong—anxieties that were only exacerbated by a popular post that crossed my dash many months ago. It decried AMVs that don't edit with the full song as worthless, bad, garbage. The kids don't know how to do it right.

Not a kid, but maybe they've got a point!

Still, it was a disheartening sentiment to read. And while I might not know much, I think I am confident in knowing this: there are many AMV styles out there, and the shorter ones may certainly not be everyone's cup of tea, but that doesn't mean that they're devoid of love, time, effort, or passion. The video at the top of this post is hardly 30 seconds long, and it still took over 60 hours of spilling out ideas and cutting clips and learning new skills and scrapping new skills and tweaking transitions and coloring and recoloring and shaking my head and giving up and trying again.

Fan vidders, no matter the style they employ, are devoting their free time and energy to create. It'd be ludicrous to suggest that a movie is inherently inferior to a TV series, or a short story automatically meaningless compared to a novel.

The same should absolutely apply to fan videos.

[dyed-red]

What are your thoughts on how much time Sam’s soul spent in The Cage? If we go by established time lines in the show, 18 months = approx 180 years. But Lucifer is an arch angel and we know angels can manipulate time so I think it could have been longer, or least made to feel longer. I also believe that Sam would have been fluent in Enochian after spending that much time with Lucifer and Micheal. Thank you for answering if you have time! And I hope you enjoy and holiday time you have :)

welp - you did it.

you asked a question i’ve been thinking about for over a decade and unleashed the full fury of my brainworms in action. this is the type of meta i expect like 4 people total to be interested in, but i’m going to spend days working on because I Have Thoughts.

the short answer: somewhere between 180 - 5000 years, with my personal headcanon landing just over 700 years, or 1400 for maximum whump.

The behemoth long answer is under a cut because long and math and meta. Skip to the end if you just want the math. The tl;dr is that SPN canon implies that hell has layers and that time distorts more the deeper that you go, and we can build an equation for that distortion and get to basically whatever number suits our purposes depending on what assumptions we make going in.

Time Distortion in Hell

The length of time Sam’s soul felt/experienced the cage is a function of two factors: how long he spent there in earth terms, and the degree of temporal distortion hell creates.

The first piece is easy if we assume Sam’s soul spent 18 months in the cage* (footnotes at the end).

The second piece... Dean spent 4 months dead (time in earth terms) which was 40 years on the rack in terms of his experience/perception. If we take this assumption that 1 month = 1 decade, we get to use some very simple math to say that Sam spent 180 years in the cage.

But.

I’ve always personally interpreted Hell’s time distortion to run a bit different than a static 1 month = 1 decade. This headcanon derives from some hints in canon (or at least, this headcanon is not actively contradicted by moments in canon) and from other pieces of media.

I believe that the deeper you go into hell, the greater the temporal distortion is.

This is basically like the move Inception, I’m not even gonna try to pretend otherwise. There, the deeper you go into the dream within a dream, the more time dilation there is. It makes sense to me that SPN’s Hell canon works the same for several reasons.

For starters, when Sam's wall is breaking in s6, he has flashbacks where 2-3 minutes is equated with what feels like a week in the cage (episode 6x14). We can take this at perfect face value (meaning that Sam’s soul experienced about 5000 years in the Cage). Or we can interpret this to be a function of the episode he is experiencing, where temporal dilation is exaggerated because of the nature of his flashback, or we can say he is speaking in hyperbole.

I think it makes sense for the truth to be somewhere in the middle - Sam is speaking off the cuff, not entirely literal or exact about how long those 2-3 minutes felt like, but nonetheless honestly that they felt like days, felt much longer than our formula of 1 month = 1 decade allows. And I take that as a realistic reflection of his time spent in the pit.

Another, and far more overt piece of evidence comes in Season 11 when Sam visits ‘the Cage’. In 11x09 (O Brother Where Art Thou), we see Rowena, Crowley and Sam in Hell whereas Dean is on Earth, and there appears to be little to no temporal distortion occurring between the events below and the events above. This remains true in the following episode (11x10, the Devil in the Details) when Crowley phones Dean and when Dean comes down to join them in Hell (and Cas as well shortly after).

So - what gives? Is there temporal distortion occurring in Hell or not? Did they retcon that, forget about it, what?

Well, Crowley explicitly refers to this area of Hell as ‘Limbo’, which brings us to an understanding of Hell’s temporal distortion through the lens of the circles presented in Dante’s Inferno.

Circles of Hell

It’s fair and frustrating to say that canon doesn’t give us much in the way of understanding the structure and hierarchies of Hell. That gives us a lot of leeway, but I like to anchor my headcanons to canon if and when I can.

Thankfully, there is at least some reason to believe that Hell in this universe is structured at least somewhat similarly to Hell in other popular works of fiction that derive their conceptions of it from Dante’s Inferno (which itself is the popular mainstream view of hell that even a lot of Christian/Catholics have adopted, often without realizing at this point).

Dante’s Inferno provides a view of hell that has 9 circles, or layers, each one deeper into Hell than the last. SPN implies the same.

We get this from the use of Limbo, as stated above, since this is the term in the Inferno for the first circle. Crowley refers to Limbo as the “furthest reaches” of Hell, whereas in Dante’s Inferno, it’s the top layer. SPN plays fast and loose with what it takes vs. leaves from real-world mythos, but I take this to mean that “far” or “furthest” not in the sense of depth, but as a place which may be vast and largely empty, and which few demons can enter (since, as per the Inferno, it’s not a place where guilty souls actually end up, so possibly has quite restricted access to demons).

We also get evidence of these circles from Word of God through Sera Gamble, who has apparently said that the Cage is “At the bottom of the lowest depths of the ninth circle of the worst bit of Hell.” That’s pure Dante’s Inferno, ba-bey. (/mcelroy voice)

More evidence comes from Season 8 when Sam rescues Bobby’s soul from Hell, since he goes through Purgatory as a sort of back door to Hell, being told that Purgatory is “Hell adjacent”, which is true as well in the Inferno.

Another within-canon indirect hint of this is the association between Lucifer and ice. Dante’s Inferno keeps that the ninth circle of Hell, reserved for treachery, is a large frozen lake. And in the Inferno and in SPN canon, this is where the Devil is kept, in the Center of Hell, in the deepest frozen depths of the pit, the frozen lake in the ninth circle.

Also remembering that in early seasons, Lucifer and his Cage were buried so deep in Hell that most demons weren’t sure if he even existed. His existence was a matter of faith, no different than humans believing in God, according to 3x04 (Sin City).

Based on all this, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to surmise that Hell is vast, but potentially its vastness manifesting in the way in which it is layered, and that there are regions, planes, or depths that most demons do not or cannot tread to.

But okay, even if you’re on board so far, why do I believe that time works differently at different layers? And what circles have we seen in canon?

Situating Each Circle

My fundamental argument here is that temporal distortion in Hell is more extreme at the deeper depths, in a mathematically determinable way.

If we accept that Hell has nine circles (or planes or layers), then we can assume that we’ve seen three - probably five - of them. There is Limbo, as per season 11 and stated above, in which there seems to be little to no time dilation. This makes some sense if we accept that it’s the surface-most plane*, the first circle.

We have also established what’s in the ninth circle, titled Treachery, which is the Center of Hell and The Cage. Given its depth and the lines from season 3 Sin City, we can assume that, much like Limbo, this is an off-limits zone for most demons. If we accept my argument that times moves differently at the different layers, this is where time distortion - really, time dilation - should be the most extreme. It is the furthest removed from the material plane and the deepest well (do not call it a gravity well do not call it a gravity well do not call it a - )*, dilating time and everything around it at its depths.

In between, we have seen The Rack (where Dean was tortured), we have the Throne (where Rowena sat and kept court, since many of Crowley’s ruling scenes are implied to be on the surface rather than in Hell proper, although any of Crowley’s ruling scenes would be on this same level, I imagine), we have The Dungeon (from which Sam rescued Bobby’s soul as part of the Trials), and we have the glimpse we caught of how Crowley restructured the place into endless lines as a method of torment. There’s also the space where Lilith’s horn is kept, as per the Belphegor and Cas scenes in the early episodes of Season 15. I take that to be the same level as the Throne level, since it seems to be where ruling demons would both preside and reside.

Based on the seeming lack of time distortion we tend to see (in late seasons...) when we get scenes relating the Throne level, my headcanon is that this is the second circle of Hell (Lust). In the Inferno, incoming souls are judged here and then sent to which circle their sins have them belong, so I think it’s at least somewhat fitting for this to be where the Throne is. Keeping it closer to the surface world / material plane also has some advantages if doing so minimizes time distortion, since keeping closer time with Earth allows easier monitoring of Earth and tracking of things like deals etc. It also means that higher ranking aka more powerful demons who preside here are closer to Gates of Hell and therefore have less far to travel when slipping out and onto Earth.

In contrast, I think that The Rack is pretty damn deep. There is a lot of time distortion going on to get to 1 month = 1 decade (especially if we allow that a very small amount of dilation is happening at the topmost circles, even including Limbo). This makes sense to me in that The Rack is a place of exceeding misery and horror, literally the center of Hell’s most violent and excruciating tortures.

For that reason, I place The Rack as circle seven, aptly titled Violence. This is not to be confused with the sin of Wrath, which is actually the fifth circle. Rather, the seventh circle (to quote wikipedia at least), “houses the violent”. What better way to re-interpret that in the world of SPN than that circle hosting the torturers and their tortured? Within the seventh circle are those who committed violence against neighbors, against self, and against God. What better place for someone who sold his own soul (violence against self and against God), who killed?

Of course I don’t think it’s so straightforward that violent souls get sent to The Rack. I think any damned soul can be called there for a torture session. But Dean spent his entire time in Hell on The Rack, and that can’t be standard. Bobby spent plenty of his time in hell in a cell, as per 8x19 (Taxi Driver), and demons come here to torture him.

I don’t think it’s a huge leap for me to infer that Dean was special and spent his entire time on The Rack because they were so determined to use him to break the First Seal, and that most damned souls only do short stints on there, either due to limited real estate or so that souls don’t become numb to the violence (since let’s face it, most demonic torturers probably can’t keep them in anticipation of further horror as well as Alistair can, after a few days or months being cut into.) They’re probably returned to their cells to marinate in the memory and anticipation with only minor tortures until they’re brought down again. This is what we see with Bobby and probably with the endless lineups in Crowley’s redesigned Hell.

So - without too much to go on, I’m going to tentatively place the Dungeon with Bobby and other damned souls as being in the sixth circle, Heresy. It’s a circle described as hosting souls in flaming tombs, which I think fits this notion of a dungeon with cells holding on to souls, and keeps those souls close at hand and ready for another go in the seventh circle where The Rack is held. 

And this allows me to place the endless line as actually being either in the fourth circle, Greed, or the fifth circle, Wrath. The fourth involves a nation of lost souls who, in this pit of hell, lose their individuality and become sort of empty, which fits what we see in that brief clip of the Hell line. The fifth includes a “savage self-frustration” that seems fitting of the concept of that awful endless line, with sullen and angry souls fighting each other in muck and slime.

Regardless of fourth or fifth (I have no strong sense of which fits better), I see that line as being meaningful outside (above) the sixth circle, in a torment that is less acute, as souls that are less unique and differentiated, less violent, less worthy of turning into black-eyed demons.

Because in the Inferno, there’s this critical division between the fifth vs. sixth circles as the transition between the two being the transition into “Lower Hell” and the sixth being behind guarded walls, with another steep drop from the sixth to the seventh, and so on. This makes sense to me as Lower Hell being a place where they keep the Dungeon and guard the doomed souls, whereas that place outside those walls hosting the damned but less special, less differentiated, the more generically doomed... yeah, it just makes sense to me (your mileage, as always, may vary).

This distinction is important also because of that drop down. If distance and depth are important to temporal distortion, then it matters if the first few circles of Hell involve less of a steep drop one to the next. Here we should note that the seventh circle involves three rings, and the eighth circle (Fraud, aka Malebolge, another very strong contender for the location of The Rack since it’s essentially an amphitheater for torture, so I’ll do the math both ways below)*, well the eighth is basically a funnel with 10 separate rings or steps downward.

Why does this matter? So glad you asked!

Increasing Temporal Distortion at Each Level

If you’re following the hints I’m dropping, what I’m implying about getting deeper into Hell and the further drops down at the later levels is that the time distortion in Hell does not increase linearly. It increases exponentially.

Limbo has temporal distortion that is so minor as to be barely perceptible, if perceptible at all. The Rack gives us an explicit (if fuzzy) estimate of 1 month = 1 decade in terms of perception. The Cage is implied to be much, much more than that, at the extreme end up to 2-3 minutes = 1 week in terms of perception.

If the time distortion was linear, meaning that from circle 1 to circle 2, and circle 2 to 3, and 3 to 4 and so on, we should expect that the amount of time distortion from Limbo (circle 1) to the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to be a much, much wider gap than the amount of time distortion from the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to the Cage (circle 9). Like... it should be 7-8x as much distortion.

And I mean, you could take a linear headcanon approach to it. If we accept that SPN Hell has circles or layers as is Word of God and overtly implied by the narrative time and again, you could say that there’s x amount of distortion at circle 1, and 2x at circle 2, and 3x at circle 3, etc, and this would works okay when we got the math right, but like... it’s not my preference given the way canon works.

What I mean (especially for those who hate math so might not be automatically sussing what I’m saying), is that, for example, if 10 seconds in Limbo = 1 second on Earth (sure why not) then if the time distortion increases the same way (”linearly”) at each new circle of hell, then on the Rack we get 70 seconds = 1 Earth second (or 80 seconds = 1 Earth second, if the Rack is in the eighth circle).

That specific math doesn’t check out (it equates to 23.3 years on the Rack instead of 40, or 26.7 if the Rack is the eighth circle instead of the seventh), but to figure this out we should of course work backwards starting from the 4 months = 40 years. Which tells us that each second on Earth feels like 120seconds (2 minutes) on The Rack. If that’s happening at the seventh circle, then a linear difference between each circle of hell means that the time distortion in Limbo is roughly 17 seconds for every Earth second. This math works out a little prettier if the Rack is the eighth circle because that’s an even 15 seconds for every Earth second.

To me, that’s stretching how much time distortion is implied to occur at Limbo and vastly exaggerating what we see with Sam rescuing Bobby from Hell. If Bobby is actually kept in the 6th circle, that’s 102 (7th circle) or 190 (8th circle) seconds in Hell for every second on Earth. It just didn’t seem that Sam was spending a minute and a half in Hell for every second that Dean was spending on the surface in Taxi Driver, but then again, I haven’t rewatched that episode so I’d have to double check to know for sure.

Between those implications about time distortion in Limbo and Bobby’s rescue and even the Throne room when they visit Rowena to the way Dante’s Inferno (which SPN canon clearly drew from) funnels more extremely downward the deeper you go in the circles, to what Sam’s episode of Hell memories could imply about his experience of time dilation in the Cage (assuming we accept his statement about his episode “feeling like a week” even if we don’t take that number at exactly face value)... an exponential increase just makes more sense, mathematically?

And again, for anyone who doesn’t like math or doesn’t know what that means and why I keep using this word “exponentially,” what it means is that the difference between the first circle and the second circle is not as big as the difference between the second circle and the third circle. At each depth, the intensity of the time dilation increases. So that you might not even notice the difference in time dilation between circle 1 and 2, but the difference between circle 5 and 6 is massively noticeable, and the difference between circle 8 and circle 9 is like several times even that big. Like Inception!

So let’s run some final calculations and get you your answer(s), Anon!

Some Final Math and Estimates*

Assumption 1: Equivalent Dilation

If we assume that there is no difference in time dilation from one region of Hell to another, then the ratio that Dean gives us in Season 4 is accurate for all of Hell, and 1 month (30 days) in the pit feels like 10 years. That’s 120 seconds below to every second above.

This would mean that in 18 months in the Cage, Sam experiences 180 years worth of torture.

Assumption 2: Linear Dilation Circle 7

Assuming The Rack is in the seventh circle, then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds on the Rack equates to 154 seconds in the Cage at the ninth level. That would mean that in 18 months topside, Sam’s soul spent 231.5 years in the Cage.

Assumption 3: Linear Dilation Circle 8

Assuming the Rack is in the eighth circle (which, tbh, I kind of thing makes more sense even though I argued differently above, but shhh let’s pretend otherwise), then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds there equates to only 202.5 years for Sam’s soul in the Cage. Slightly less awful! 

Assumption 4: Exponential Dilation Circle 7

The simple way I’m doing this is that instead of taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it x2 at the second circle, x3 at the third, and so on, I’m taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it to the power of 2 at the second circle, to the power of 3 at the third, and so on. I still have to start with The Rack being 120seconds on Earth time and work backwards to get that initial Limbo starting point before I apply the exponent, but otherwise that’s all I’m doing. There are definitely more sophisticated ways we could approach it since that’s a pretty simple linear increase in the exponent, and we could instead make the exponent itself an equation we’d derive through more complex means but... I’m really not about to do that.

So.

If we start from The Rack = 120seconds (2mins), using the exponent assumptions above, then Limbo time dilation is roughly 2 seconds (actually 1.98167 or so) in Limbo for every Earth second (works beautifully for what we see in canon, basically imperceptible), and time dilation in the ninth circle is 471 seconds (7.85 mins) per Earth second. Yes, that big of a difference, because that’s how exponents work.

This would mean that Sam’s soul spent approximately 707 years in the Cage.

What a great number! What a reasonable number, and a pretty damn canon-compliant number to headcanon. I like this number.

Assumption 5: Exponential Dilation Circle 8

As above in terms of the exponent assumptions, if the Rack is actually in the 8th circle of Hell, that much closer to the Cage, then here the math works out so that 120 seconds on the 8th circle being... roughly 2 seconds in Limbo. Because that’s how exponential functions work. It’s actually 1.81928 in Limbo vs. the previous 1.98167, but that rounds to the same thing (2 seconds) in terms of human experience, even if it makes a big difference when we take it out to the difference it makes in months, years, etc.

(But like, this is why I think it’s exponential, because this works so much better for what canon implies about the time dilation there*.) 

Anyway, here, this would mean that Sam’s soul spent roughly 327.5 years in the Cage instead of the 707 from above. That’s a big difference.

Assumption 6: Off the Rails

We can also take Sam’s statement about 2-3 minutes on Earth (having a Hell flashback) feeling like a week in the pit. If we estimate conservatively and go with every 3 Earth minutes = 1 week in Hell, depending on how we approach it (depending on if you go with minutes in a week vs. a month and which way you get to a year), you get somewhere around 5000 years (in my present calculation it’s 4984, but I also calculated it another way to get to just over 5000).

Assumption 7: 9th Circle vs. The Cage

Dante’s Inferno distinguishes between the 9th Circle on its own vs. the Center of Hell as the place where Lucifer resides, right at the deepest depths. The Cage itself is remote in Hell, distant from all other demons, enough so as to be a matter of faith to many of them. If we allow the possibility that this all means that the Cage is deeper than the ninth circle itself*, we can add another linear layer or else another exponent (take our equation to the 10 instead of to the 9).

This works out to be:

Rack 7th Circle, Linear: 257 years

Rack 8th Circle, Linear: 225 years

Rack 7th Circle, Exponential: 1400 years

Rack 8th Circle, Exponential: 596 years

Meaning this is a good place to note that... depending on the final number you want to get to, you can use whichever assumptions you want to get there and justify it by math. Remember kids, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

TL;DR!!!!!

How much time did Sam’s soul spend in the Cage? My headcanon is that he spent probably either 600 or 700 years there, on the assumption that it was 18 months between Swan Song and Appointment in Samarra, and assuming time dilation gets more extreme the deeper that you go in Hell.

For people who want to make more conservative estimates but still embed some complexity to Hell’s time dilation and/or who be more canon-compliant to other glimpses we’ve seen of Hell’s time distortion (Limbo, etc), I think anywhere from about 200 years to 330 years is perfectly reasonable.

For people who want to go with maximum whump, the sky (5000) is the limit, but you can mathematically point to up to 1400 being pretty reasonable.

*Footnotes

1. Because canon plays fast and loose with how many months exactly have gone by, and some people headcanon that only about 4 months have passed in Season 6 before Appointment in Samarra when Death pulls his soul out. I personally read it as more like 6 months having gone by and think this is the more standard headcanon, so your 180 years is the most common interpretation, and definitely the most easy to defend. I also made calculations for Sam having spent 16 months in the Cage instead of 18 months there though, if anyone is interested.

2. There is also the Vestibule in the Inferno as the opening to Hell, before the first circle, and this requires passage from Charon to cross over and into Hell proper. This is where the quote “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here” is from at the Gate of Hell, which of course is evoked in season 5 as the episode in which Jo and Ellen die.

I like to think of the Vestibule in the world of SPN as being any and all of the many Hellgates implied by canon, including the one that opens in AHBL2. No time dilation occurs within the Vestibule(s), as a person has to enter into Hell’s circles to properly separate themselves from the material plane.

3. Not getting into it here but if I ever get around to writing an original piece of fiction about angels and demons etc like I kind of want to, some of my worldbuilding will explicitly connect/relate angels to celestial bodies, like literally to stars, with the depth of hell essentially being a black hole, hence why the closer one gets to it, the greater the time dilation there is. Gravity and heat increase near the center of hell in this unbearable way, and then at the very center, like within the black hole itself, it becomes unbearably incredibly cold, like that frozen lake in which Lucifer is half-submerged in Dante’s Inferno. Lucifer existing impossibly both within and outside the event horizon. But I digress.

4. When you think about how many angels are implied to have died in order to rescue Dean’s soul, compared to how simply Sam snuck into Hell to rescue Bobby, I think the circles of Hell interpretation becomes quite important. If Dean was in the seventh or eighth circle, like especially that eighth circle, that’s so much deeper in than the Dungeon. The angels also couldn’t infiltrate subtly, methinks, and had to storm the walled and heavily guarded gates at the sixth circle, through that dungeon, then fight their way down the three rings of the seventh circle and possibly down into the amphitheater of the eighth. We know that their powers alone can’t kill a demon as powerful as Alistair even on Earth, so on their home turf in Hell, it makes sense that demons would have put up a really solid fight against the angels. This helps resolve some of my own frustration at what seems to be discrepancies in the abilities of angels and how dangerous they are to demons in canon.

5. Please be aware that all maths above involve some rounding, since I didn’t think anyone wanted the detailed decimals. I also calculated months as being 30 days and for simplicity, calculated years as being 12 months. I could rework the math into weeks with 52 weeks being a year instead, which gives slightly different numbers, but it’s work so I’m just going to go with these approximations. Also noting that I used calculated everything using excel to save myself a headache. I’m sorry if there are any errors, especially when it comes to the exponents, my brain got very tired. Please let me know if you find any.

6. When it comes to the exponential ones, if The Rack is in the 7th circle of hell, then if the Dungeon where Bobby was kept was in the 6th circle, then each Earth second is 60 seconds (1 minute) in the Dungeon. That’s more time dilation than I think canon implies, because 60 minutes (1hr) in the Dungeon is only a minute on Earth? In contrast if The Rack is in the 8th circle, then 1 Earth second is 36 seconds in the Dungeon. I honestly think both of these are more extreme than canon implies, but again, it’s been a million years since I watched that episode because it’s written by Bucklemming and I cannot stand their writing. But as a count in favor of the exponential argument instead of linear, if time dilation increases the same amount at each circle then 1 Earth second translates to 103 seconds in the Dungeon (Rack in 7th) or 90 seconds (Rack in 8th), both of which are a lot more dilation than our exponential account.

7. For simplicity, I’ve also ignored the different rings which occur at the 7th and 8th circles. Those would, of course, change the math here as well, and we could add another linear or exponential step for each of those rings. That would lead to some crazy numbers because we’re talking about 13 additional steps. Linearly we’d add a few thousand years, but exponentially we’re starting to talk about a geological timescale. I don’t think it’s productive to make that extreme of an assumption about those rings, but I think we could comfortably stretch the distance between the 7th circle and the pit in which Lucifer’s cage sits at the deepest depths of hell if we wanted to, if you wanted to reasonably get closer to that 5000 years estimate.

8. Since your ask mentioned it, Anon, I realize I don’t touch on Enochian in this post but I have two tag-rambles about my thoughts on enochian and I thought I had a proper post on it somewhere but can’t find it. I could/should probably make a post with a tumblr ficlet about that, since I started drafting a canon-divergent post-Hell fic with Sam and Enochian and there’s like... no chance I’ll ever finish it. But anyway.

Thanks for reading this far, to anyone who did.

[sentient-stove]

"Oh my god he’s dead- we killed a vigilante, OHMYGODOHMYGOD—" A hysterical voice screeched out, decidedly feminine and loud enough that the comn line picked it up.

"He broke in here for no reason first! We have probable cause as to why you brained him with our wok!" The second interjected, calmer than the first, but there was still a line of tension, like they were uncertain about what they were saying.

"Oh my god, oh god we’re literally so dead Batman’s literally going to murder me and you and us and—"

"We're already mostly dead, he can't kill us. Although I thought he had a no killing rule anyways, so maybe we’re safe? Ancients, that is a lot of blood. You think we should call an ambulance?" Static filtered through the comn line before stabilizing again and wow. The residents of the apartment were really just having a full conversation over an unconscious Nightwing- in earshot of a microphone recording every word- like this was a normal occurrence. Maybe it was a normal Friday night for them, Barbara couldn't exactly judge.

"I'm not calling an ambulance, they might arrest him. Hell, they're probably gonna arrest us! Danny, we're fucking unresgistered metas in Gotham, I’m a clone—"

"—Not metas and I won’t let anyone arrest you—"

"—It's the same thing to the government at the end of the day. You're right though. I think I hit him too hard, we're going to lose the deposit with the amount of blood getting everywhere. Head wounds bleed a lot right? Maybe he's not dead."

"He's not dead, we'd know if he was."

"Oh. Right. Man. That is a lot of blood, our IKEA rug is ruined. I liked that rug, you think we could ask him to buy a new one when he wakes up or is he on the normal vigilante salary of nothing?"

“Mhm. I'll go get the med kit, you handcuff him to the table so he doesn't jump us when he wakes up. Keep the mask on- I don’t want to piss off whatever buddies he’s got listening in.”

[dontbelasagnax]

I find as fandom has assimilated towards a capitalist mindset of consumption, there has been a larger focus on fanart and fanfiction- both in spaces that view creatives as "content creators" and spaces where creatives are seen as writers and authors but lauded similarly to celebrities or deities for gracing the common people with their creations.

This has produced a side effect wherein fanart and, primarily, fanfiction are seen as the Best Forms Of Transformative Works... which means that any other type of transformative work is thrown by the wayside.

There should be no hierarchy of fanworks - every single work is a labor of love (or spite... I see y'all throwing middle fingers to canon 😉) and should be recognized as such. Fandom is a community. It's not a transactional relationship. Everyone contributes and interacts out of shared passions and interests.

If you make podfics, gifs, photo edits, fanvids, fan binding, metas, fiber arts, jewelry, fanmixes, translate fics to another language, run/contribute to a fan wikia or compile lore and resources in other ways: I see, appreciate, and cherish all the hard, love fueled work you put into your creations.

Not to say that fanfic and digital art are over-appreciated (Since I do see that many people are allergic to pressing reblog. It's a community. We're supposed to share and communicate. Lurkers are valid but for the most part, interaction with like-minded people is what fandom is intended for.) but the pedestal they are placed on needs to be lowered. Your favorite artists and authors are real people with real lives. They piss and shit just like you. They work in retail and healthcare and are unemployed due to disability. There is nothing extraordinary about them and they are wonderful human beings all the same. No one is better than anyone else. We're all equals here on this playground.

That said, I think we need to uplift the underappreciated fanworks and creators and give them more attention so they are on equal footing with fanfic writers and fanartists. Reblog the gifsets and tell the creator you're in love with how they colored the gifs, keyboard smash in the tags when reblogging a plush doll someone crocheted of your blorbo, try listening to a podfic on your commute home instead of an audiobook and remember to leave a comment when you get home.

As a final note, I want to give a warm hug to anyone who has sat refreshing tumblr or ao3 hoping that maybe someone will tell them they did a good job. To anyone who has considered quitting their fandom endeavors because their posts or works never get as much attention and love as the rest of the artworks or fics in the fandom tags, your creations are worth making and sharing. Numbers do not equate to quality, nor can they convey how loved your creations are by a given person. Only you can bring your unique sparkle to fandom and your presence is absolutely welcome no matter how big or small, grandiose or inconsequential, important or worthless you think it is.

[cobragardens]

Notes on the Scene in Job's Basement

Crowley is not tempting Aziraphale here. He's experimenting on him.

Getting Aziraphale to sin, or even getting him drunk, is not Crowley's intent in this scene. Eating food, taking pleasure in food, drinking alcohol, and even being drunk are not sins in most of Judaism or Christianity (and they're certainly not sins in British Christianity, regardless of any church's doctrine). When Aziraphale turns down alcohol, Crowley just suggests he try food instead; so it's not important to Crowley what Aziraphale tries, but it is important to him that he try something.

This scene is also the first time (chronologically) we see that Crowley likes to drink and likes to be drunk.

We know from

and from

as well as from Book Omens and Word of God that angels have no instinct beyond curiosity pulling them toward eating or toward gender. From this we can reasonably presume they have no instinct toward Beverages either.

That means that in this moment--

--Crowley is very likely the only metaphysical entity he knows on either side of the divide, or even knows of, who has ever experienced a physical pleasure.

And he probably has some Lingering Questions about it, like we all did the first time a physical pleasure blew our minds. Like,

Is it this strong for everyone?

Is there something wrong with me?

Am I going to hurt myself if I do this, like, a lot?

And it's not like the poor creature can ask anyone, because the answers for humans aren't necessarily going to apply to him.

So when he sees an opportunity, Crowley gets that one angel he knows who'll talk to him to try a human thing, and then he watches to see if physical pleasure hits the angel as hard as it hit him.

And that's why he looks so creepily pleased when it does.

Apparently it is this strong for everyone and there isn't anything wrong with him. Now he can relax and get sloshed without worrying, and he even has someone to talk to about how rad human stuff is.

A Dip Into Speculation

We know because we're shown this isn't the first time Crowley has gotten drunk that, watching Aziraphale, Crowley understands what he's seeing. I think it's really interesting that Crowley doesn't laugh at Aziraphale at any point during this scene, and he doesn't correct the way he's eating, either.

Maybe it's because this is what it was like for Crowley the first time. Maybe he got so drunk he passed out and woke up in a puddle of his own sick. Maybe he got so drunk he passed out and didn't wake up at all, and there was Paperwork and he had to get used to a whole new corporation just when he'd got the hang of having legs in the old one. Maybe somebody had to show him how to use a fork or whatever they had going on for eating utensils in Ancient Mesopotamia. I distinctly remember having to learn as a small child to chew with my mouth closed. There is every possibility Crowley doesn't consider the way Aziraphale is eating to be worthy of ridicule because whatever Crowley did the first time was worse.

Maybe he wants to leave Aziraphale set up for later embarrassment over his table manners. Aziraphale was a judgy bitch about the wine.

Or maybe it's something like Let him have this one. There can be rules to it later; let him just enjoy it, once, like a little kid with both fists in their birthday cake.

Maybe it's desire. There is some textual evidence for this. Once Aziraphale learns to eat properly, the way he does it is very attractive, and we know Crowley loves watching him do it.

I don't think it's overreaching even to interpret David Tennant's physical performance of Crowley watching Aziraphale eat as one of sensual or erotic pleasure. I mean--

I'm not saying it absolutely has to be erotic, but it's not a reach, or even a full extension of the elbow, to read it that way.

There's another meta somewhere [I'll link it when I find it again; if you know this meta, please drop it in comments!] that discusses how this exchange in Job's basement is filmed like an erotic scene.

Like Crowley, we all want to kiss this face.

Aziraphale isn't eating prettily, but he's eating lewdly, ravenously, desirously, and it's lit like romantic sex, not like gluttony. Whether that's funny or poignant or hot may depend on the viewer. Here's how Crowley's handling it:

Srs tho, any frame of this scene could have been painted by Artemisia Gentileschi.

Or maybe--and this is my favorite of the available interpretations--maybe this is what it was like for Crowley the first time and he doesn't interfere because he wants Aziraphale to come out of this as someone who's had the same experience Crowley's had so Crowley won't be so totally alone in having had it.

[artemismoorea03]

DPxDC Prompt: Damian's Friend

I feel like this has been done before so if it has please let me know!

-----

Damian is still learning to make friends. Sure, he has Superboy but according to his brothers and teachers he needed more friends. But why should he bother with new friends when one was already such a pain to keep up with? Social cues were hard to understand, jokes didn't make sense, and most civilians were far too squishy. He could end up hurting them accidentally and that would endanger his secret identity.

Though he quickly learned that meeting people as Robin made it considerably easier. That's how he ended up meeting Phantom, a 15-Year-Old boy who seemed rather lost. His only explanation for why he was in Gotham had been, "Listen, my mentor told me to come here and to stick with the birds and the bats. I don't know what that is or why I'm here but considering I don't seem to be able to go home yet I can only assume that I haven't found what I was looking for yet."

Phantom was strange, even for a meta. He didn't know what Gotham was, who Superman or Batman were, he had never heard of the Justice League, or even heard of 'metas' until Robin explained it to him. The kid seemed honest and he was staying out of the way of patrols and stuff which was more than most meta's did.

The only time he interfered with any fight was when Robin was cornered in a fight. In theory Robin would have been able to handle it but in the moment he had - admittedly - been a little in over his head. Phantom showed up and not only got Robin to safety but had managed to take down all of the enemies without killing anybody.

From that moment on Robin considered Phantom a friend and had given Phantom the number to one of the burner phones he kept on him during patrols. Phantom never called but would answer any time Robin checked in.

Which came in handy one day when the entirety of the team got trapped when a building came down, including one very frightened Superboy. The team was arguing loudly among themselves as they tried to figure out how to get out while Batman sat to one side with a headwound.

None of them were in good shape.

They were running out of air.

And the team were fighting and wasting even more air.

"We need more help." Nightwing said, "But I don't think Superman could hear us from here and nobody else in the city will be able to reach us before we run out of air."

"I could call my friend." Robin suggested, leaning against the wall.

"Uh..." Everybody looked at Superboy then each other.

"Your what?" Red Hood questioned.

"Is he saying friends?" Whispered Signal.

"Did you hit your head?" Spoiler asked, walking over as Robin stepped away from her.

"No, this is delirium. The air is too thin in here for him." Red Robin said.

"Robin, all your friends are right here." Superboy said.

Robin scoffed. "I have other friends. You guys told me I needed more friends, so I made friends. It was a task which I completed." He said, pulling out his phone as he silently muttered a 'please work' under his breath.

"Aw! I'm so proud of you!" Nightwing doted as Robin rolled his eyes and hit the call button.

"Yo, Robin, you see the collapse?" Phantom's voice said, sounding weirdly echoed on the line, not that it was unusual for Phantom's voice to do such a thing on calls.

"Bigger problems. I was inside the building during the collapse. Batman is down. Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, Orphan, Signal, Spoiler, and Superboy are all in here with me. We need exfil."

"Oh shit, on my way. I can get all of you out at once but you guys will have to forget what personal space is for a minute." Phantom said as Robin ignored the looks from the others.

"Whatever it takes, but hurry we're running out of air."

"What floor are you on?"

"Basement."

"Got it, I'll be there in just a second." The call turned to static for a moment before Phantom phased through the ceiling and looked at them. "Wow, a party." Phantom said, ending the call and slipping the phone into a bag on his back.

"No time, get us out of here." Robin pushed.

Phantom nodded, "You and you put Batman between you." He ordered Nightwing and Red Hood who after a moment did as they were told, supporting Batman between them. "Now use your free hands and hug me. The rest of you guys hug them and no matter what do not let go of each other or me. If you do you'll die."

"Great, trust the weird glowing kid not to drop us and kill us or die here. This will only go well." Red Hood growled but didn't question it further as they all held onto Phantom.

Robin could feel the ground vanish from under them as they flew upwards through the building and then out into open air. Phantom then took then a safe distance from the building near where the police were and made sure they were all on the ground before he stopped flying.

"There you go. Thanks for riding Phantom-Air." Phantom said, sounding exhausted as he leaned against Robin who frowned up at the taller teen.

"You okay?"

"All good. Been a minute. You guys get checked out. See you around Robin." Phantom said, then flew away as Superboy grabbed Robin's arm.

"Are we going to talk about the fact that your new friend doesn't have a heartbeat?" He said anxiously.

"He... doesn't?" Robin tilted his head.

"No!" Superboy squeaked, "Where did you even meet that kid?!"

"He saved me from being shot. It's no big deal."

"Does B know he exists?" Red Robin asked.

"No."

"Then it's a big deal." The others sighed.

Nightwing shrugged. "Next time introduce us to him properly though, when we're not suffocating in a hole."

"I suppose I will consider it."

Orphan was quiet for a moment, "New brother?"

"NO!" They all said together as she chuckled.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Here, have a spark of hope.

The reality is that no single person can fix the entirety of the current ecological imbalance that has been literally centuries in the making at this point. Yet there are so, so many of us who care, and who are doing what we can to make a difference in whatever every day to day ways we're able. I often think of conservation efforts like the Loren Eiseley story "The Star Thrower" (aka, "the starfish story"). Amid a beach full of stranded starfish, one person cannot possibly save them all, but they can spend what time they have saving those they're able.

And this study shows that these efforts do, in fact, make a difference, not just for starfish but a myriad of species. This meta-analysis of almost 200 studies definitively proves that conservation preserves and restores biodiversity, keeping more species from going extinct. It's all too easy to get entangled in the losses, but we even more need to allow ourselves to celebrate the wins.

That success is crucial to convincing governmental entities and other stakeholders that putting funds toward conservation efforts makes a significant difference and is not only worth the investment, but worth increasing. And, on a personal level, it's necessary for those of us who care so deeply for this world to know when our efforts are having an impact, to buoy us up when the anxiety and grief over ecological destruction wears us down.

There is hope. Keep it up, folks; it's helping <3

[iniziare]

Tag drop: Seele (Honkai: Star Rail). Listen, I used to write her and I miss her a bit, and also: there's Belobog people around. And also, well, she's much more interesting than people give her credit for. Also, prepare for some 'rewriting', because Belobog's pacing in specific ways kind of blew a little bit much.

[scientia-rex]

I've been trying to figure out what the deal is with prediabetes so I can write a meaningful response to an ask I got about it, and I just keep going wait--okay--here's one paper--but here's another one--here's a Cochrane review--but here's a different meta-analysis--and here's newer data from an RCT...

It's nuts! It's bananas. And anybody who says we have good, crisp, clear guidelines around what prediabetes even IS, much less what to do about it, is FULL OF SHIT.

What I really need to know in order to feel more confident about my handle on whether to medicate pre-diabetes is the population incidence. Not prevalence. Because if I take the most optimistic studies about medication as an intervention, specifically, I could be looking at about a 30-40% reduction in risk of progression to diabetes. But! How many people is that, actually? Because medication is not without its harms! We need to compare number needed to treat with number needed to harm, we need to have high-quality evidence that says yes, if we give this medication to everyone who meets X level of criteria for pre-diabetes (it's different in different sources AND it's changed repeatedly over our lifetime!), we will see a level of benefit sufficient to justify making these other people who would not have progressed to diabetes without it endure the hassle and side effects of taking a medication for the rest of their lives.

AND HERE'S THE REAL FUN PART: we don't really know where tissue damage begins! We thought we did! 6.5-7ish A1c. But it turns out there is a marked risk of retinopathy beginning at 5.5! Which is considered normal. AND ALSO we should probably be thinking of it as at least three separate disease based on our current ability to measure--A1c is a broad marker that collapses multiple forms of dysregulated blood sugar, and when we use more fine-grained tests, we see meaningful distinctions that probably affect preferred treatments between people who have impaired fasting glucose, people who have abnormal values on an oral glucose tolerance test, and people who have both. We should treat these groups differently because they reflect different underlying pathways: elevated fasting glucose means your liver is breaking down too much glycogen while you sleep, which is one issue, while elevated post-prandial glucose means your skeletal muscles (OR SOMETHING ELSE they're not totally sure) are behaving abnormally in response to insulin. IT'S NOT THE SAME THING and people with both impaired fasting glucose and abnormal post-prandial glucose are at higher risk of progression to diabetes/tissue damage than people with just one of those. AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT, what is diabetes? What's the best cutoff? What's the best measure? How many underlying pathophysiologies are getting collapsed into the same group????

THE MORE I LEARN ABOUT THIS THE MORE QUESTIONS I HAVE and experts are all being serenely confident while contradicting each other so I have to actually dig in the data a lot harder than I usually do. I've been meaning to do this for months, but one of the presenters this morning made a comment about the benefits of putting prediabetics on metformin that made me go "hm, do I need to start doing that?" and I've gone from my kneejerk answer being "no, we studied this and it doesn't help" to "I don't fucking know and neither does anyone else."

...as always, Cochrane is probably right.