#wonder if the doctors original species was like that

[celestetcetera]

Isn’t it interesting that the no-things have an easier time copying alien concepts over human concepts?

They understand the complexity of the Doctor’s origins just fine. They comprehend the Flux event. They seem to get regeneration enough not to misrepresent the Doctor’s current face (though part of that is plot convenience).

It’s the human things – the things from within our universe – that they struggle with. A consistent shape. Object permanence. The amount of knowledge a human can keep in her mind at once. Doublethink. Slowness.

They understand the Doctor much better than Donna. And doesn’t that make perfect sense? After all, they’re both from outside our universe.

[rockingbytheseaside]

Hi! It's me again! I'm here hoping to inspire you or simply share some thoughts and ideas!

1. What if we knew the harbingers before they became harbingers. For example when piętro was still studying to become a court mage.(At least I think that he was a court mage), or when Capitano was training to become a soldier and we were a doctor or a nurse, we knew dottore when he was a kid and so on and so forth. They believe we are long dead but surprise bitch we are still kicking. I thought that maybe in Dottores and Pantalones part we were an adeptai or simply something that lives a lot longer than humans. And surprise bitch number two we were looking for them the entire time because you know we love them. The moment they see us they think they see a ghost or something that came back to hunt them for their mistakes.

2. And my second idea is much more wholesome. We are simply a kid that adopted them as our fathers/uncles. And they don't want to get rid of us because we remind them of well them when they were kids. Imagine one day they come to a meeting with a kid hiding under there Coat and when ask they are like the meme with Spencer from Icarly with the smoothie and the ostrich.

So yeah these are my brain dead ideas and if they are interesting or something you would like to read more of I would be happy to send more

But anyway remember to take care of yourself first!

(Wha- You said piętro! The keyboard said piętro!!! Only I am allowed to misspel Pierro's name as piętro 20 times a day, dlaczego masz polską klawiaturę?!!)

✧ I always kind of headcannoned Reader as a person capable of living many years - either because they are Khaenri'ahn, another species, or an Adeptus; it's not really up to me. Whatever intricate details people like to imagine are up to them. ✧ Imagine knowing a Harbinger centuries before they were a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps you and Pierro were apprentices to the higher sages in Khaenri'ah, spending countless times sharing secret vows before the Cataclysm separated you. Perhaps you were Capitano's first-ever formidable opponent, one who held immense respect for you as a warrior and admired your enigmatic capabilities, yearning for another battle with you. Perhaps, you knew the young boy Zandik way back in Sumeru and you are the only being left who remembers the ruby-red eyes staring at you with determined wonder. ✧ No matter the backstory or origins of the past, this Harbinger never forgot you, and despite the 500 years of separation, this person would now use all his power and intel to seek you out. Clinging to ancient memories of the past, he still yearns to see a glimpse of you. Even if it means to reach the Abyss and back, he is still seeking.

That, in my opinion, is the best trope for the Fatui fics. Even when I write about different scenarios.

✧ A wholesome Father/Uncle/Teacher Harbinger to smaller reader is just a recipe for comic chaos. You have this high and mighty Fatuus, who with a single gaze can deep his subordinates into silence, yet now this same man is running around the Zapolyarny Palace, trying to catch you because you refuse to do your homework. You will either exhaust him to death, or he will exhaust you from running away and causing shenanigans.

One way or another it ends with both of you dozing off an armchair later that evening. The Harbinger holding you in his arms, wrapped up in a comfy blanket, while he rest his weary head on his knuckles, the fireplace crackling nearby. <3 ✧ As always, lovely suggestions, my friend! I will tag you if I manifest them into fully-fledged fics. Thank you, and hope you're doing well

[ellecdc]

I went to get my teeth checked today and kept on thinking abt how Lily would be a great dentist. Gentle hands, nonjudgmental, would be so accommodating to any requests or requirements you have like noise cancelling headphones or something…. And she would be soooo against the trend of recommending treatment purely based on cosmetics rather than need. Like we have doctor Remus how about dentist Lily 😂😂

you know what? this was so cute that I had to write it - also, the conversations between reader and Lily are real-life conversations I've had with dental hygienists so be nice to me, I'm still recovering hahhaah

dentist!Lily Evans x reader who goes for a routine checkup

CW: written with a fem!reader in mind and references to a medieval woman accused of witchcraft but should be gender neutral/no pronouns used otherwise, reader has a brother for plot purposes, reader had braces growing up for plot purposes, reader has a bar on the back of their teeth for plot purposes, also.....reader doesn't floss DON'T JUDGE

You were lying back on the large vinyl-covered dentist chair pondering what exactly it was about dentists that caused so many people anxiety.

This was obviously a distraction, though, as wondering why dentists were so fear-inducing was far more comfortable than thinking about how anxious you felt right now.

You supposed that as a species, humans were wholly dependent on their mouths; it was how they ate, how they emote, a method of air intake, and also how they communicate. For hunter-gatherers, an injury to one's mouth could very well have led to dire consequences.

Of course, something happening to one's mouth wouldn’t necessarily leave them completely helpless in today's day in age with modern medicine.

And though you may not have been a hunter-gatherer, you were also decidedly not a medieval woman accused of witchcraft awaiting your trial by ordeal. But the longer it took Dr. Evans to join you - leaving you ample time to consider the various torture looking devices while reclined on this chair that looked like it could sprout restraints at any moment - the more you began to feel an awful lot like a medieval woman accused of witchcraft awaiting her trial by ordeal. 

The sound of the door clicking shut interrupted your spiralling as you tried to sit up straighter in your chair only to slide back down to your original position. 

But perhaps this wasn’t your trial by ordeal; perhaps they’d already gone ahead and executed you and you were actually sitting in heaven’s dentist office because surely the beautiful woman adorned in scrubs standing before you with long, thick red hair which had been artfully plaited away from her face was an angel? 

You realised belatedly that you’d been sitting there with your mouth agape staring at her instead of confirming your name for her.

“Yes! Yes, erm, sorry.”

But the angel - Dr. Evan’s, she introduced herself as but insisted you just call her Lily - simply waved you off and pulled a stool over to sit beside you. 

“No need to be sorry! Between the constant whirring of machines and my penchant to speak a mile a minute, it can be hard to keep up sometimes. So! You’re here for a routine cleaning?”

You nodded dumbly at her as she pulled a surgical mask up over her mouth and nose, mesmerised by the way it seemed to accentuate the brilliant green of her eyes which only appeared even greener when she smiled at you.

“Alright, well let’s take a peek at what we’re working with here, shall we?” She asked as she encouraged you to lay back after putting a bib on you like some nappy-wearing child.

Oh god; you didn’t know an angel was going to be looking in your mouth! You were expecting some grey-haired bored doctor with a superiority complex; now an angel will know you don’t floss!

“Wait!” You shouted abruptly, startling the angel doctor and encouraging her to put some space between you, though she schooled her expression very quickly. “Okay, listen, I’m sorry. But you see, I had braces as a kid, and they put these bars behind my teeth! You know, to keep them from shifting? And they’re great - so great, no complaints truly; they’ve done their job, see!” You paused to bare your teeth at her like some socially awkward chimpanzee. “No shifting at all. But! But, you see, my teeth are so sodding close together now - again, totally fine! - but between that and the glue and the bar, it’s sodding impossible to floss. Oh shit I just said sodding to a doctor! Oh my god I just said shit! I’m sorry! I just don’t want you to think I’m some plebeian who doesn’t care about dental hygiene because I do! But I honest to god, hand to my heart walked around with a piece of floss stuck between my teeth for three days after I tried last so I just...sorry…”

You fought to catch your breath and it took you possibly too long to realise the angel doctor Lily was laughing at you; the mask impeded the smile but the crinkles in the corners of her emerald eyes and the gentle shaking of her shoulders gave her away. 

“I’m so sorry, I honestly thought you were about to tell me you were going to throw up on me - which would be fine! Worse things have happened quite frankly.” She chuckled as she seemed to relax back into her stool. “Why don’t we take a look?”

Burning with embarrassment, you did as you were told and opened your mouth immediately, wondering if it was at all possible for her to feel your jack-hammer pulse through the barely there fingertips pressed to your jaw as she peered into your mouth. 

“Well honestly, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of build up anyway! I wouldn’t have known you’d not been flossing.”

“Wait, really?” You asked then, causing her to move her gaze from your mouth to your eyes. 

“There’s a little bit of plaque but nothing out of the ordinary! Basically what I would expect to see from someone coming in for a routine check up.” She confirmed before taking one of her torture devices (a dental scraper) to your teeth as you watched her auburn brows cinch closer together. “Your teeth really are close together.” She murmured mostly to herself.

“I wasn’t lying.” You defended quickly, earning you a bright and bubbly laugh from the doctor. 

“Sorry; force of habit. I hear a lot of ‘I absolutely brush my teeth twice a day’ and ‘I floss regularly’ when I can easily see that neither of those things are true.”

After she had explained what she was going to do, you spent the better part of the appointment with her fingers shoved into your mouth. 

“I do not envy your orthodontist; you have a very small mouth.”

You snorted inelegantly at that as she removed her hands from your face. “My brother would disagree.”

You were rewarded with another tinkering laugh as she inspected her cleaning. “Don’t worry about the flossing hun; I’d rather you come in and have me do a cleaning for you than to hurt yourself or damage your teeth trying to floss.”

“I’m not in trouble?”

“Even if I did have the authority to scold you, you would not be in trouble. But I hope to see you in another six to twelve months for another cleaning!” She said as she walked backwards from the room with one last (now maskless) smile in your direction.

Suddenly, dentists didn’t seem so scary, and you found yourself rather looking forward to your next appointment.

[king-paimon]

Houseki no Kuni Chapter 106 Thoughts: Bon Voyage...

Hello all. I hope these last few months have been kind to you in some way. These months have been... a lot. Some very good things happened, and some very bad. I wish we lived in a world were tragedies were just fiction, but that sadly isn't the case. I won't elaborate, but I promise, I'm okay. I just hope 2024 improves, though I know for many others, just hoping isn't enough.

I'm sorry for this late post. Once again, real life had me so distracted that I honestly forgot about Houseki no Kuni's chapter coming out this month. I only remembered when I saw activity around my older HnK posts.

Well, I finished reading the chapter and it was very beautiful and sad in different ways. I'll share more of my thoughts, though I don't think it'll be as long or detailed as my previous ones to be honest... Though I could be wrong! We'll see how it fairs. And who knows? Maybe I'll make another post to dissect this chapter further. But for now, I'll just write whatever comes to mind and try to make it as coherent as possible. I hope you like it. And as always, please feel free to share your own thoughts!

Here we go!

Thunderous Spectacle: The Final Journey

Once again, Ms. Haruko Ichikawa decided to flex her art skills by making beautiful, bombastic illustrations that encapsulates the chaos that is happening on Earth. And the ship departing looks straight out of a sci-fi movie; my mind went to Star Trek when I first saw those pages. Maybe Dune would be more appropriate; I actually don't know, I haven't read or watched Dune, though I hear it's very good.

I wish I had more to say about the visuals for this chapter, but I think they speak for themselves. I will say though...It's moments like this when I marvel... this was originally about a silly gem child trying to find their place in the world. And this is how their journey is finally coming to an end. Almost nothing is recognizable. This certainly was not how I thought this story, or specifically Phos' story, was going to unfold. I wonder if this was Haruko Ichikawa's plan from the beginning? Who can say...

Speaking of plans... Let's talk about Phos's and Eyeball's conversation.

Manipulation or Consideration: Humanity's Parting "Gift"

That was an interesting conversation Eyeball and Phos had when they were finishing up putting the little pebbles onto the ship. I think I remember stating in the last post how I thought it was odd that the Lunarians had this ship prepared for Phos. I'm glad this was somewhat addressed, but the conversation reveals that there was more behind this literal Deus ex Machina ship.

(I will never stop calling it that)

So if I'm understanding Eyeball's logic, Adamant and the Lunarians were considering Phos in the end? That after Phos fulfilled their last duties to the remnants of humanity that they'd be given the chance to leave the planet with whatever species came about before the planet died- Oh. Wait.

Wait.

Was this the thing that Adamant and Aechmea were alluding to back in chapter 96???

Oh my goodness, I think it was.

As I was typing this and going over some of the saved pages I had from the previous chapters, I saw the one with Euclase and I suddenly remembered their weird conversation with Adamant and Aechmea. I also remembered wondering what the heck they meant in the later chapters since their plan for Phos seemed to only be self serving.

HUH.

( Please let me know if I'm way off! For all I know, I could be making stuff up, but oh my goodness, when I made that connection AAaahh)

This was not how this portion was originally going to go, but there you go. I was going to talk about how twisted but not surprising how calculated everything was from the the Lunarians and the other ruminants of humanity's end. And I was also going to mention how the Doctor also fit into this since she was also calculated and manipulative in her own ways. Despite the different forms it takes, humanity didn't seem to change much in this world...

I was also going to originally say that the Deus ex machina ship feels like a backhanded "gift" for Phos, especially after everything that happened to them. And though I still feel that way, after thinking back to chapter 96, I'm now starting to see Phos's perspective of this gift. That despite everything that they put them through, Phos's former families still left this parting gift for them so they could live on elsewhere after they are long gone and when Phos was free from their duties. It's still a backhanded gift in my opinion, but it showed that they cared... at least a bit.

And the fact that their plan also included Eyeball is just wow. I do not blame his small, comedic outburst for that realization. He was manipulated too from the getgo!

At least in the end, Phos chose not to go into the ship. Phos intended to burn that bridge. Even though this thought was implanted by Sensei, Adamant, and the Lunarians, Phos still made that choice on their own and they are owning it. It's bittersweet, though, because regardless of whether or not they stayed or went, Phos's decisions were still a result of them being manipulated one way or another. Pretty much a lose-lose kind of situation, but at least the choice that Phos chose in the end still aligned with what they wanted in they end.

They are giving Eyeball and the little pebbles a chance for a fresh start while Phos can finally end the cycle... By taking humanity and himself to bitter end...

Or does he?

Goodnight, Phosphophyllite

The final farewell between Phos and Eyeball was touching. In a last minute decision to give Phos closure and in an act of true salvation, Eyeball took the last piece of Phos with him. The true remaining piece of Phosphophyllite. To me, this action felt more earnest and heartwarming than the Deus Ex Machina Ship (but that's just me).

What will happen with that piece of Phosphophyllite? Who knows? Maybe that piece will gain sentience and live a peaceful life with the pebbles? A life free of all the constraints as well as the freedoms that was intentionally and unintentionally reinforced within societies created by the former remnants of humanity? I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

As for the Phos that was left behind? The Phos that we've watch evolve from the beginning to end? They will finally rest.

They will finally, and truly be free.

(Albeit in a seemingly not so pleasant way?? Well, they weren't complaining so maybe the lava and other harsh elements isn't hurting them. I hope that's the case.)

I had the feeling that this chapter will be the last time we see Phos, or at least this version of Phos, and it would be a sad but proper send off.

But after seeing THIS at the end, I'm not so sure:

Of course Haruko Ichikawa decides to be cheeky with that little note. Ma'am. Why did you say this???

Is this her roundabout way of saying that Phos is kind of back to square 1? Of being the lonely, jobless Phos who no longer has a purpose and is left with nothing to do but "think." That's pretty funny/messed up joke if that's what she's hinting at.

But again, we'll have to wait and see.

WELP. That's all I have for you all. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings and I'd love to hear what you thought about this chapter. We're nearly at the end of this saga. We're are almost there...

Please be worth it.

[gretchensinister]

Babylon 5 rewatch, S1 E10: Believers

There was a big gap between episodes in the original airing schedule!

It's Jehovah's Witnesses who are the real-world group that don't permit blood transfusions, right? I know I didn't know that when I first watched this episode.

I wonder what kind of cultural training doctors like Franklin get; I feel like it would be very necessary/complicated when treating many different alien species, even to a lesser degree than a people not permitting any surgery.

I love the idea of spaceships in the future being named after science fiction writers.

It's not important to the plot, but I wonder what the planet of the family with the medical plotline is like that made travel to Babylon 5 the best option for medical treatment, especially because they're not interested in going outside their cultural boundaries.

That is something to think about, how this individual medical case could result in a diplomatic incident.

I realize I don't know that much about how much parental wishes vs. medical intervention works anywhere on Earth.

Ambassador in general referred to with "she"!

All of the ambassadors' refusals are really a summary of their current characters.

Asking the kid what he wants! Finally, a hurdle cleared.

Actually, that's a really GOOD question--what happens after the surgery if that means the kid loses his spirit in that culture?

I keep forgetting to comment on the raider plotline IDK I'm just not that interested in the raiders; they're faceless. I hope Ivanova is having a nice day out--oh.

NOW what's going to happen to the kid???

I don't think...I don't think this is actually going to resolve how you want Franklin. And...no, no it did not.

(I do wonder how this culture deals with accidental, non-life-threatening cuts.)

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Someone recently claimed that the new Davies era of doctor who has no more wokism* than the show used to.

Now, maybe I've just changed in the past few decades, but from what I've heard of the 60th anniversary specials it does seem a tad more concentrated. Cherry-picking SPOILERS, sweeties.

- Donna got married offscreen. To what I can only assume is the last black cab driver in London.

- Her kid is trans. Specifically, non-binary, female presenting, says the wiki.** - In the next episode, we learn the Doctor is gay/bi when he thinks Sir Isaac Newton is hot. I'd smugly say this bit has no real relevance, but...the actual scene does carry the episode theme of accidentally changing reality. It's just the queer bit that seems tacked on. Though it does carry forward themes from 10s era. - Sir Zack himself is played by a half-Indian actor. It's not exactly hard to tell. I'm assuming they're running on Bridgerton logic. https://twitter.com/frozenaesthetic/status/1731332492282429950 - This episode is basically just Donna and the Doc exploring a weird location, and running into monsters, who happen to look like them. It would be a bottle episode, except for the large vfx budget. And yet ol' Rusty somehow managed to awkwardly wedge in an  progressive issue. - In the next episode, the villain explains how he's just exploiting the divisions that already exist in human society, including cancel culture. - no wait he's got a point. Jpg - This is ironic, given that Davies and/or his broadcasting house masters are pretty blatantly on the team that a) coined the word,  b) cancels people the most often, and c) defends the idea of Internet lynch mobs*** (***as long as they're left wing. If not, they're *ist "trolls", even if they're just complaining about the latest sacred cow.) Maybe the Davies was criticizing his own team. * Because the Toymaker was kind of racist back in the day (white dude dressed like a stereotypical Chinese dude), Davies made the new version a bit racist "as a callback to his original, problematic depiction back in 1966." - TVtropes, ref. DW Unleashed. On the other hand, the Toymaker also mocks and dresses as several other cultural archetypes. All the ones I've seen were white European ones. He just does this to everyone, apparently. - Toymaker also weaponizes the Spice Girls hit "Spice Up Your Life". No, I will not explain. Though I will note that a line about the "Yellow man in Timbuktu" was apparently drowned out in the episode. Probably for being a tad spicy. - One new UNIT character is a lady in a wheelchair. When the new Tardis - no, I will not explain - has a wheelchair ramp, she happily points it out. Which makes me wonder why the blue box would be so limited, considering it often deals with alien species. - Also, the same actress played a disabled Companion in the Big Finish audio dramas. I'm not sure why it was considered essential to do so in an entirely audio format, but there have been controversies over this sort of thing before (EG Artie on Glee, various racial voice acting controversies). - At this point, casting Ncuti Gatwa as 15 doesn't even register. Not really a blip on my radar. Black Doc? Whatevs. His sonic screwdriver has Rwandan words on it? So? I go to church with lots of Africans. Heck, I'm a black immigrant to ol' Blighty myself, just from the other side of the pond. Ncuti is, chronologically speaking, more British than I am. - Though given that he's Rwandan-Scottish, there may be some debate on the "British" part. - Wikipedia says the actor is pretty left-wing, but the actor seems good so far, so I'm willing to give him a sha-

Oh, come ON!

Maybe the original person speaking was comparing it to the Chibnall “history has always been a whitewash” era, which had a character who was a paper thin Trump satire. A tad ironic, when the whole point of bringing Davies, Tennant, and Tate back is to play on nostalgia.

*Tangent: that word was apparently voted  the most annoying words in English. Which is kind of hilarious if you know that it was originally created to self-describe certain progressives. And the "you can't even define that word!" meme was almost certainly ripped off from the right wing "what is a woman?" Meme. ** This is apparently because she's part Time Lord, through Donna. It seems a tad interesting to me that a few works featuring non binary characters happen to make them enby due to some sort of supernatural (Omniscient Reader) or sci-fi (SW Squadrons) influence which the vast majority of IRL enbies don't have. ...As far as I know.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Doctor Who - The Legend of Ruby Sunday (spoilers)

So, Sutekh, huh? Not who I would have expected to come back, but I'm interested in what happens. I wonder if they're going to incorporate Sutekh's background from his original appearance or if they're going to retcon him into always being part of the pantheon. In his first appearance in the Pyramids of Mars in the classic series, Sutekh was the last of the Osirians, a species of god-like aliens. Sutekh was the mightiest and tried to wipe out all life in the hopes of preventing the chance something could evolve that would be more powerful than him. It took the sacrifice of the rest of his species to seal him away. The Osirians have showed up in the expanded universe since then.

Doctor Who has a spotty history with its various god-like beings. A lot of EU media calls them Great Old Ones and says they're survivors from the universe that predated the current one and still operate on that universe's more magic-like laws of physics. The Big Finish audio dramas have a 7th doctor story arc which has the Elder Gods, who come from various other universes and play games over whole worlds. Various creatures from the show have been placed in the Great Old Ones and Elder Gods categories, such as the Toymaker, the Great Intelligence, the Gods of Ragnarok, and Fenric. Sutekh was always (afaik) left with his show origin in the EU. Now RTD is introducing his own take on the various gods in the pantheon and has put Sutekh there as well as the Toymaker and the Mara. It could be that the Great Old Ones, Elder Gods, and pantheon are all different names for the same thing or that being a member of the pantheon earned through having that kind of power and they don't all have the same origin.

Its funny how this episodes Sutekh being a CGI smoky jackal monster is a worse special effect than the costume they used back in 1975. If you haven't seen the Pyramids of Mars, go watch it. It's one of the standouts of the classic series.

The Susan red herring made me wonder if Susan should come back as a character. I wouldn't be opposed to her coming back to the show. Her actress is still alive and has reprised the role in the audio dramas.

[passionpluto]

so there's this census thing on neopets that attempts to calculate the most popular pets and it's always bothered me for some reason that i was never able to fully put my finger on until today. even as a child, i always felt like something was wrong about it.

i have a cybunny. she was created as a lenny but i used a morphing potion to turn her into a cybunny. i don't remember when, but i remember she's been a cybunny for way longer than she was ever a lenny. it took me five minutes to even remember what she used to be, because to me, what matters is that she is a cybunny. so case closed, baelia_1 is a cybunny.

except the census doesn't agree. according to the census, a cybunny can't be a cybunny unless it was always a cybunny. morphing or zapping it into one doesn't count. and "real" cybunnies are rare, only available one day out of the year. if you don't have the right birthday, the right origin story, it doesn't matter if you walk like a cybunny and quack like a cybunny, you aren't.

and you'll never be.

from a coding perspective, i get why the devs can't keep constant track of who gets morphed and who doesn't. it's an impossible task! but from a worldbuilding perspective, it shows how completely arbitrary censuses like this would be if everyone could change their form at will. the only reason it would matter in a world like neopets is if, say, a lenny could get a disease that a cybunny couldn't, so you'd need your doctor to know what species you were born as. but otherwise, no one gives a shit if you were alab (assigned lenny at birth) except for elitist assholes who think your way of being a cybunny puts their way of being a cybunny at risk!

and that's how neopets accidentally radicalized me at age 12 by making me wonder "who cares what some census says you are" and made me realize how ridiculous transphobia is by using pound chat logic!

[sandymybeloved]

*Doctor Who fans, please note I'm using Time Lord and Gallifreyan interchangably here, if you want to argue with me about it that's fine, one of these characters cannon species is shakey but I specifically wanted to include them, basically, if you can argue a character is from Gallifrey, they are not misplaced on the list

the correct answer is below the cut, DO NOT LOOK UNTIL YOU HAVE VOTED!

There is no Time Lord named Hadrojassicmaxarodenfoe, I took the name from a different Doctor Who alien, the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe, a large purple blob of a alien who lives in the ceiling of the top floor of a satellite controlling Earth's news, here are the rest

Romanadvoratrelundar AKA Romana:

travelled with the doctor for almost three full seasons, complete with a regeneration into a new actress

Morbius:

you may have known Morbius as a real character in Doctor Who, but did you know he looks like this in his one televised appearance The Brain of Morbius, a serial disturbingly important to Doctor Who continuity as it gave us The Morbius Doctors, hand waved away as future incarnations of the Doctor of Morbius' regenerations until 2020's The Timeless Child confirmed them as the Doctor 44 years later

Omega:

What's under the mask you ask... Absolutely nothing, Omega has no physical body, he remains alive through only insisting he exists

Rassilon:

Look, I have been a fan of Doctor Who since I could walk, and there's still no way I could explain Rassilon even to myself, he is whatever the story needs. Dead, alive, good, evil, maybe I just don't pay enough attention but I do not understand him one bit

Drax:

A time and space travelling mechanic

The Meddling Monk:

its a crime he's only in one televised story

Susan Foreman

The Doctor's granddaughter and original companion, this is the character who's species is not clear, because she left long before the Time Lords or their planet, Gallifrey, even existed in the show

Professor Chronotis

apologies to any Dirk Gently fans who were caught out by this one. In the late 1970s, Douglas Adams was the script editor for Doctor Who, he wrote a story called Shada, which they started filming, but due to strike action never completed, Douglas Adams repurposed many of the ideas he had for Shada into his other works, most notably Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency, Professor Chronotis being one of them, a time traveller teaching at a university. You may be wondering why I include character from a story that was never televised, but Shada has so many reconstructions and adaptations in other Doctor Who media its now more easily accessible than many episodes from the 1960s

[kosmos2999]

In what ways did William Shatner's portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk differ from the way the character was originally written?

You really have to look at the difference between Captain Christopher Pike (portrayed by Jeff Hunter in the first Star Trek pilot, “The Cage”) and Captain James Kirk (portrayed by William Shatner in the second Star Trek pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”) to see the evolution of the Captain in Star Trek.

As originally written, the Captain of the USS Enterprise was a rather dark, tormented man who was already thinking of resigning his Starfleet commission (in the pilot episode) because he was fed-up with the demands of leadership. That was Jeff Hunter’s portrayal of Christopher Pike.

^^^ Jeff Hunter’s Captain Pike appeared as almost a reluctant commander. He was introspective and self-doubting and mostly humorless, and he didn’t want the responsibility of issuing life-or-death orders and leading others into deadly situations.

He didn’t like women on the bridge, either, except for his First Officer Number One (because she had no obvious feminine personality).

Pike was also aggressive. He barked most of his lines, he glared a lot, and he was even violently intimidating (choking a frightened and physically-frail Talosian, for example, and directly threatening to burn a hole through the alien at close range).

^^^ If looks could kill, right. No wonder the Talosians concluded that humans were "too violent and dangerous a species for our needs.”

NBC rejected the first Star Trek pilot for several reasons, including Jeff Hunter’s Christopher Pike, who was considered too intense, angry and not very likable. Gee, wonder why?

Could it be because Jeff Hunter’s controlling wife was often on the set, badgering Hunter as well as the producer and director? That probably made Hunter’s job many times more difficult, and I think it showed in his performance.

When NBC requested a second Star Trek pilot, it was decided to rewrite some characters and do away with others. For example, First Officer Number One was entirely removed from the script; Spock was promoted to First Officer as well as Science Officer; Doctor Boyce (Ship’s Physician and bartender) was also eliminated from the script and replaced with a more down-to-earth country doctor (this was Doctor Piper, who quickly evolved into Doctor McCoy); and Christopher Pike was to be rewritten as a kinder, gentler, more likable Captain.

However, there was a contractual problem, inasmuch as Jeff Hunter had signed to do only one pilot and a series (if NBC bought it)…but he didn’t sign to do two pilots and a series. Gene Roddenberry and Desilu Studios really wanted Jeff Hunter to continue working on the show, but they knew they’d have to cajole Hunter (and his overbearing wife) into signing for a second pilot.

So, Roddenberry called Jeff Hunter in for a post-rejection screening of The Cage to discuss character revisions and signing another contract for another pilot. This is where it got messy.

Desilu production head Herbert Solow was at the screening and described it best:

“In the eyes of the New York and Los Angeles television world, Star Trek was already a failure. But we knew differently and looked forward to running the completed pilot for our star, Jeff Hunter. We hoped it would convince him to do another pilot. Gene and I waited in the Desilu projection room for him to arrive. He never did. Arriving in his stead was actress Sandy Bartlett, Mrs. Jeff Hunter. We traded hellos, and I nodded to Gene. He flicked the projection booth intercom switch. ‘Let's go.’

“As the end credits rolled, and the lights came up, Jeff Hunter's wife gave us our answer: ‘This is not the kind of show Jeff wants to do, and besides, it wouldn't be good for his career. Jeff Hunter is a movie star.’ Mrs. Hunter was very polite and very firm. She said her good-byes and left, having surprisingly and swiftly removed our star from our new pilot.”

–Herb Solow, Inside Star Trek: The Real Story

So, Jeff Hunter just vanished from Star Trek. He wasn’t fired, as some claimed…he quit. Or, more precisely, his beast of a wife quit for him. Two years later (1967), after Star Trek was a success, Jeff Hunter divorced his wife.

As it happened, there was another actor invited to that same screening (quietly taking notes), and that actor was Bill Shatner, who was waiting in the wings when Jeff Hunter opted out.

Thus entered the new Captain of the Enterprise, James R. Kirk.

^^^ Yep, he was actually named James R. Kirk in his first Star Trek appearance: It says so on his tombstone in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the second Star Trek pilot.

Shatner’s Kirk was basically just the opposite of Hunter’s Pike. Captain Kirk was thoughtful but not deeply introspective; he was not tormented but was supremely confident and never self-doubting; he loved his ship and crew, but was willing to take life-or-death risks with both; he was perfectly comfortable with women on the bridge (or just women in general); and he could be humorous, if a little irritating.

^^^ Captain Kirk was a more likable, humorous and confident alternative to Christopher Pike.

Captain Kirk, unlike Captain Pike, was always a ready negotiator, offering an olive branch first and only turning to violence as a last resort; indeed, even in violent scenes, Kirk was typically defending himself.

In short, Shatner portrayed Kirk as a role model for kids. Shatner fully realized that Star Trek was a kids’ show, first and foremost, so he played a kid’s idea of a starship captain…and nailed it.

It became apparent from the second pilot onward that Kirk’s human warmth was a perfect balance for Spock’s icy Vulcan logic (which evolved as the first season of Star Trek progressed). Their dynamic became pure gold for the series and the movie franchise.

^^^ DeForest Kelley’s emotional and quick-tempered Doctor McCoy assumed the role of a counter-character playing against Spock, while Kirk became the reasonable middle-man between the two, and so was born the legendary trio.

By Charles Austin Miller, Investigative Journalist and Publisher.

Found at Quora:

[freneticsir]

seriously? Closed species? Give me a break. They're nothing but a bunch of Avatar wannabes, lacking any originality whatsoever. It's infuriating to see talented artists wasting their skills on such a dumb and pointless concept. And DON'T even get me started on how they feed off people's consumption addictions and profit from the least original idea imaginable. Ugh, it's enough to make me want to create my own so-called ""illegal"" alien furry just to mock the whole ridiculous closed species trend

the TIMING and the irony of WHEN the notif from your post popped out on my screen while I was watching this video ~

wait when you discover that I also ‘waste my talent’ on drawing kinky NSFW furry commissions to make a living. and all commissioners I had so far - are all wonderful people who respect artist’s hard work.

if you want talented artists to not ‘waste their talent’ on ‘unworthy things’ - you’re absolutely welcomed to support them financially and help them to direct their talents towards their actual dreams and ambitions. for example: my TRUE dream since 2014 is to create an animatic series about my alien OC Isay. you can help me to direct my talent towards this dream by subscribing to my Patreon. if I ever achieve at least 500$ monthly income from Patreon - I will finally be able to focus on my original story releasing instead of frantically seeking one way after another to make a living.

just support your favorite artists financially if you want them to stop ‘wasting their talent’. otherwise, you don’t actually give a single shit about artists. you just want them to provide you a free entertainment medium YOU prefer.

P.S.: Sirises - are my alien original species and a crucial part of that exact story which I’ve been developing since 2014 but never had an opportunity to share a single piece of it due to being too busy while trying to survive. my main OC Isay - is a Siris, a main character of this animatic series in question, and my meaning of life. if I’m as autistic artist with depression, PTSD, ADHD and numerous health issues including one that requires surgery can somehow monetize Sirises in the moment of my life when I have NO OTHER WAY to make a living at all due to being a war refugee in a foreign country - I will monetize them to survive so I be able to move towards my dream.

P.S.S.: art - is a luxury item, not a necessity like food or meds. no one forces people to buy commissions, adopts, MYOs (Sirises by the way have a plenty of free options to obtain but of course you’d never bother to check), action figurines, games, physical music albums etc etc etc. it’s always person’s decision and person’s choice how to manage their earned money. and if this little purchase makes person happier and doesn’t harm anyone, and if I can provide this little piece of joy to someone while also making a living myself - why fucking not? it’s their choice, it’s their business. not yours. not mine either. it’s not my place to validate or invalidate the way other adult people manage their income. my place and my only responsibility - is to make sure that I myself have money to pay my rent and bills, to buy my meds, antidepressants included, and food, to visit a doctor, to prepare to my gallbladder removal surgery, to manage my iron deficiency anemia. to survive. and to fulfill my dream.

and it’s not your place to judge me and the ways I make a living,

Monsieur Privileged Anon the Cowardly.

[tyravenholme]

Doctor Who Theory: Bi-Generation

So I've been following the newest series recently like so many others and am loving the current run of Doctor who, especially the last episode as of this post 73 Yards which once again touched upon the fact that ever since the 14th Doctor played a game at the edge of creation, the rules of reality have been changed ever so slightly to now allow for the supernatural, to allow myths and urban legends, fairy tales and folk tales to become reality.

This made me think about the 60th specials what the 14th bi-generated into the 15th and how immediately after the 15th Doctor explains that they have bi-generated, but follows it up with "There's no such thing, it's just a myth, but look at me."

No, I've got two theories regarding this, the first is an explanation. Because the rules of reality have slightly changed and there was apparently a myth among time lord society of one regenerating into two, it makes sense that the first regeneration after the 14th Doctor changes the rules of reality is one based on a myth. I previously thought it was because the Toymaker was having some sort of influence over everything, but now it's becoming more obvious that it's far more than that.

But then I remember a quote which is simple "Myths and Legends all start from somewhere." So where did the myth of bi-generation come from. Given how wild the Doctor's own personal history has become in recent series and how Time Lord society enjoyed keeping their secrets, it made wonder what if be-generation has actually happened before and in the one being that was capable of doing it, the origin of regeneration.

The whole Timeless Child story line revealed that time lords only became such because they found a child from another universe entirely, a child who could regenerate indefinitely as it was their natural (so far as we know) biology. The Timeless Child eventually became the Doctor through much shenanigans, with their memory being wiped and forced to believe certain untruths which even to this day is debatable given the Toymakers line about making the Doctor's history a jigsaw.

Anyway, given the power of regeneration was an ability taken from another species entirely, it's possible the Time Lords didn't know the full scope of abilities tied to it. What if while Tecteun was experimenting on the Timeless Child, one of those regenerations became a bi-generation. This would implant the origin of the myth because it was something that actually happened once, but given Time lord secrecy, they made it so it would remain hidden - but of course, secrets never stay secrets forever.

This of course makes you wonder two things: Where's the other Timeless Child and why is bi-generation even a thing to begin with?

Let's tackle the second question first: We're never given a reason as to why the Timeless Child arrived in this universe, did they happen here by chance or were they sent here? It's unclear, but I wonder if maybe they were sent as a refugee, a survivor of a dying species, the last of their kind, or maybe not. What if they were sent as an Ark for their species, a special variation that would carry on their legacy, one who would not only live forever (maybe) but also at times divide into new beings, no longer being the only survivor? A bit of a thin theory because if they were intentional sent, why send a child to be the survivor of your species? Though if it's an accident, then bi-generation is natural and not engineered, and if that's the case, maybe it's just how this particular species reproduces - though it's been made clear the Doctor has had children so they can procreate in a more traditional way as well.

Honestly, the reasons and explinations could be even wilder than what I've thought up and it may be years before we get any answers.

So, let's tackle the other question. If the Timeless Child bi-generated, where's the other Child? Well, there was one such character we've met once before in classic who that was apaprently the Doctor yet not, an incarnation between their 12th and final regeneration, except, we've not gone passed that point with the Doctor so it no longer makes any sense - though technically you could argue that 12th and final could be any number in between.

I'm referring to the Valeyard, a variation of the Doctor that was explained as being a future version of themselves - or at least, that's what everyone was told.

What if the Valeyard is actually the other half of the Timeless Child, led to believe they are the future incarnation of the Doctor, led to believe that they are at the end of their cycles, and if they want to continue living, continue existing, they must help the Time Lords against the Doctor - we've seen and known the Time Lords can extend regeneration cycles, grant whole news ones, and even bring Time Lords back from the dead (The Master more than once)

I'm not entirely sold on the idea of the Valeyard being the other Timeless Child - but it would be a fun way to bring back that character and then drop a reveal that the Timeless Child bi-generated and they were the other half that came from it - OR even wilder, maybe the Master is the other half of the Timeless Child (hugely unlikely, but a fun thought to think about)

Anyway, those are my theories, though I could probably go on for longer. Looking forward to the next episodes of the current series and hope we get answers as to why the hell the actress Susan Twist keeps popping up in every episode.

[crispinfandom]

In lieu of Project Horizon's soft cancellation and Chessington getting the old plans + 1 more bonus rollercoaster soon... Here was my lore!

CW - Pregnancy-Adjacent, Child-Birth Adjacent, and Miscarriage

-

So my dumb ass started setting up Project Horizon's lore in real time like a good little writer. Originally she was gonna be Oblivion's kid.

Coaster reproduction works very differently from human stuff. Coasters reproduce asexually (outside of a few very rare exceptions). Scientifically, this SHOULD make them an all female species, but whoops me having cis male Coasters was already set in stone sooo

Coasters don't get pregnant. I'm NOT Mpregging Oblivion, I'm NOT!! 😭😭

However, they do experience pregnancy like symptoms such as fatigue, morning sickness, nausea, being overly emotional/hormonal, nesting behaviour, etc etc. Y'know. For some added flare

"Conception" starts when a Coaster has its first mention, whether it be through planning permission, a public consultation, or what have you. A Coaster is officially born into its "child stage" (anywhere from 2-12 years old depending on the target demographic for the final product) once the first signs of construction start, however that may be defined.

The parent Coaster is notified that their child has spawned in by experiencing an intense, excruciating, full-body pain that lasts around 15-30 minutes. Y'know. Just so they know that they know.

HOWEVER! Project Horizon was concieved by this logic, but was never born! Therefore, Oblivion has officially had another miscarriage.

"Wait, another? Who were the first 2?"

Miscarriage 1 was The Smiler. If a Coaster is built in an area with another Coaster that's over 10 years old AND there's no other Coasters of the same manufacturer of the offspring at the park (IE, there was no other Gerstlaurers), then those rides become parent and child.

In 2012, Oblivion was 14, of Coaster reproducing age. However, in 2011, Oblivion was a canon alcoholic. In 2012, he also had other generally stressful life things going on. Therefore, literally less than 2 weeks aftet conception (and before he even really noticed), the parent-child connection was severed and thus marking Bliv's first miscarriage.

Smiler and Bliv are still close. This... Isn't something they really think about. Smiler was handraised by humans and kind of sees one random human as almost being like a parental figure, but absolutely does not see Bliv as like a dad. Probably for the best. Sometimes Bliv looks at Smiler and thinks "hmm. Wonder what life would have been like if things were slightly different," but the thought usually weirds him out pretty quick.

Miscarriage 2 was Oblivion: The Black Hole. Originally (in an out-of-text sense) I planned for Blackhole and Oblivion to have been Husband and Wife, (well... divorced now), and for O:BH to be their kid. I mean... No duh! Seems like a no brainer! But with BH being born in 1982-1984 and Oblivion being born in 1998 (14 years is a parent-child level age gap in Coaster Years) and BH leaving in 2005 and then RANDOMLY still having a kid with Oblivion 10 years later, the timeline didn't really pan out. So, this idea was scrapped. Instead, BH was Oblivion's Mum, and O:BH became Oblivion's sister.

"But wait! Oblivion is 17 years older than O:BH! Why are they siblings?"

If I was starting this lore from scratch, yes! You'd be correct! By my own logic, O:BH would in fact be Oblivion's daughter! Have a cookie, you clever clogs!

Unfortunately, writing is messy, and I already had a bunch of lore I was too attached to to throw away, so I made a compromise.

O:BH was ORIGINALLY going to be Bliv's kid. He conceived her, but before he even knew Gardaland was getting a new Coaster, he miscarried. Some doctors then explained to him that Gardaland was changing their lore and O:BH would be his sister instead.

Bliv's 3rd miscarriage was the aforementioned Project Horizon, obviously. Because Project Horizon was in development for 22 months before the announcement that it *might* be getting moved to Chessington, Oblivion had a lot of time to sit and ponder parenthood. He kind of figured he'd be a rubbish dad. Man can barely look after himself. BUT! He was also kind of excited. Maybe having a kid would be that nudge he needed to actually force himself to have structure and routine in his life, and cook dinner every day instead of just having pot noodle every day for 9 days straight.

However, with Bliv's fertility problems, it wasn't meant to be :(

Now, you may think it's a coincidence that Bliv seems to be a little bit infertile. Well actually, I found a reason! Blackhole also had a miscarriage before having Bliv! You see, there was a Schwarzkopf project planned to go near The Corkscrew that got planning permission in the early 90s, but as you probably know, it never happened. BH was the closest Schwarzkopf, and thus, she suffers the same fate as Bliv. In fact... A lot of Schwarzkopfs do.

Thunderlooper SPECIFICALLY was not expecting to have Nemesis and hated him because it gave him internal issues.

BH got internal issues after having Bliv, which nearly caused her death AND THEN caused Alton to sell her because they didn't wanna pay for her health problems.

Alton Beast (still unsure about the canonicity of this) got sold after having Galactica, perhaps due to reproductive health issues.

So basically, Schwarzkopfs suck at reproducing. This is because Schwarzkopfs were born in a mill, and it kind of screwed them up. Schwarzkopfs having reproductive issues may also explain why 1, Schwarzkopf was a mill in the first place, and 2. Why they're dying out.

But if BH had reproductive issues... and Oblivion has reproductive issues... Who's driving the ship? That's right, it's genetic babieee

TLDR get fucked Oblivion you're doomed by the narrative

[dailyanarchistposts]

Chapter Six. The War on Truth

Before they seize power and establish a world according to their doctrines, totalitarian movements conjure up a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the needs of the human mind than reality itself; in which, through sheer imagination, uprooted masses can feel at home and are spared the never-ending shocks which real life and real experiences deal to human beings and their expectations. The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda—before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent anyone’s disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world—lies in its ability to shut the masses off from the real world. —Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism [122]

In the middle of the lobby of the 50,000-square-foot Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, tumbles a 20-foot waterfall. Two life-size figures of children with long, black hair and wearing buckskin clothes play in the stream a few feet from two towering Tyrannosaurus rex models that move and roar. The museum has a scale model of Noah’s ark, which shows how dinosaurs fit into the three levels of the vessel, along with other species such as horses, giraffes, hippopotamuses, penguins and bears. It boasts an elaborate display of the Garden of Eden in which Adam and Eve, naked but strategically positioned not to show it, swim in a river as dinosaurs and giant lizards roam the banks. Before Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise, museum visitors are informed, all of the dinosaurs were peaceable plant eaters. The evidence, they are told, is found in Genesis 1:30, in which God gives “green herb” to every creature to eat. There were no predators. Only after Adam and Eve sinned and were cast out of paradise did the dinosaurs start to eat flesh. And Adam’s sin is a key component of the belief system, for in the eyes of many creationists, in order for Jesus’ death to be meaningful it had to atone for that sin.

The museum has a theater equipped with seats that shake and gadgets that spray mist at the audience as the story of God’s six-day creation of the world unfolds on the screen and the sound system rocks the auditorium. There are 30-foot-high walls that represent the cliffs of the Grand Canyon, floors that resemble rocks embedded with fossils, and rooms where a “Christian” paleontologist counters the claims of an “evolutionist” paleontologist. It has the appearance of a real science museum, complete with a planetarium, a gift shop, and plaques on the wall with quotes from creationist “scientists” who have the title “Doctor” conspicuously before their names. It has charts, time lines, and graphs with facts and figures. It is meant to be interactive, to create, like Universal Studios, a contrived reality with an array of costly animatronic men and women, as well as looming dinosaurs. It is part of the drive to make real a non-reality-based world, a world of miracles and magic.

“We take as our philosophy that the whole museum will prove that God’s word is true,” says Jean Ampt, who leads the tour through the museum.

The danger of creationism is not that it allows followers to retreat into a world of certainty and magic—which it does—but that it allows all facts to be accepted or discarded according to the dictates of a preordained ideology. Creationism removes the follower from the rational, reality-based world. Signs, miracles, and wonders occur not only in the daily life of Christians, but also in history, science, medicine and logic. This belief system becomes the basis for understanding the world, and random facts or data are collected and made to fit into the belief system. If facts can’t be made to fit, they are discarded or treated as misguided opinions. When facts are treated as if they were opinions, when there is no universal standard by which to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in the reporting of the events of the day, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe, where there is no possibility of reaching any conclusion not predetermined by those who interpret the official, divinely inspired text.

The museum illustrates the movement’s marriage of primitive intolerance with the modern tools of technology, mass communication, sophisticated fund-raising and political organization. Totalitarian systems usually start as propagandistic movements that ostensibly teach people to “believe what they want,” but that opening gambit is a ruse. This insistence on the primacy of personal opinion regardless of facts destabilizes and destroys the primacy of all fact. This process leads inevitably to the big lie. Facts are useful only if they bolster the message. The use of mass-marketing techniques to persuade rather than brainwash allows millions of followers to accept the toxic totalitarian line, having been tricked into believing it’s their own. Ironically, at the outset the movement seemingly encourages people to think “independently” or “courageously.” It presents its ideology of creationism, repackaged as “intelligent design,” as an alternative to Darwinian theories of evolution. The power of these non-reality-based movements is that they appeal to our deepest-held, most primitive prejudices, our classism, sexism, racism—perversions based on fear of complexity or change. So the propaganda contains much of what we already yearn to believe. Its subversive message is that it’s OK to believe what we want, to believe lies.

In the promulgation of the totalitarian belief system, at first we are told we all have a right to an opinion, in short, a right to believe anything. Soon, under the iron control of an empowered totalitarian movement, facts become worthless, kept or discarded according to an ideological litmus test. Lies become true. And once the totalitarians are in power, facts are ruthlessly manipulated or kept hidden to support the lie. Hannah Arendt called the principle behind this process “nihilistic relativism.” The goal of creationism is not to offer an alternative. Its goal is the destruction of the core values of the open society—the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense tell you something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to advocate for change and to accept that there are other views, different ways of being, that are morally and socially acceptable.

The museum will cost an estimated $25 million. It is the work of Ken Ham, a schoolteacher, one of the country’s leading creationists. Other creationist museums are going up in Arkansas, Texas, California, Tennessee and Florida. The museum is part of a massive push to teach creationism in schools, championed by a vast Christian publishing and filmmaking industry that seeks to rewrite the past and make it conform to the Bible. The front lines of the culture wars are the classrooms, and the battle is one reality-based educators are slowly losing. Twenty states are considering changing the way evolution is taught in order to include creationism or intelligent design.[123] Intelligent design has been the code word of the movement since the Supreme Court ruled in the 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard case that creationism cannot be taught in public schools. Intelligent design argues that the slow process of evolution could not have produced something as complex as the living cell. Rather, life was created by an “intelligent agent,” one the proponents of intelligent design are careful to specify is unknown, in order to skirt the judicial ban on creationism. Several states, including Pennsylvania, now have state education charters requiring that students be taught the evidence “both for and against” evolution—although there is no scientific evidence against it. And many Americans buy into the myth. When asked for their views on human origins, only 13 percent of respondents in a 2004 Gallup poll said life arose from the strictly natural process of evolution. More than 38 percent believed God guided evolution, and 45 percent said the Genesis account of creation was a true story.[124] Courses on intelligent design have been taught at the universities of Minnesota, Georgia, New Mexico and Iowa State, along with Wake Forest and Carnegie Mellon, not to mention Christian universities that teach all science through the prism of the Bible.

When Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology was published in 1830–1833, it challenged the prevailing views of how Earth had been formed. Lyell questioned the assumption that unique catastrophes or supernatural events—such as Noah’s flood—shaped Earth’s surface. He wrote that a once tumultuous period of change had slowed to today’s calmer, more leisurely pace. The date of the Earth’s sudden creation, up until then, had been widely accepted as 4004 BC based on the creation story in Genesis. When Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, his findings further eroded the biblical account of creation. Lyell’s and Darwin’s works were catastrophic for biblical literalists. Evolution and natural selection shattered the comfortable worldview of many Christians, who saw themselves as created in the image of God. Evolution reduced the human race to the status of a species, one descended from primates. The scientific accounts of creation and the origin of species became in the eyes of fundamentalist believers the materialist foundation for the human race’s moral and cultural decline. It dethroned Christians from their self-constructed platform of moral and ethical superiority. It challenged the belief that God intervenes in human affairs to protect and guide believers. The ideological pillars of literalist Christianity, which viewed the universe as revolving around and serving the interests of anointed Christians, were destroyed.

Literalist Christians believe that death did not exist before Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden for disobeying God. Death and suffering were introduced by God as a punishment for living in a sinful, fallen world. Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion, however, atoned for Adam’s sin and made possible a return to a deathless paradise. But if the Darwinian account of evolution is correct, then death and suffering were always and always will be a part of human existence. Evolution implicitly challenges the possibility of miracles, the Second Coming of Christ, the Resurrection, and an apocalyptic end to human existence in which the saved are lifted up into heaven. For believers who have found in the certitude of Christian fundamentalism a shelter from despair, a despair that threatens to consume them again if they return to a reality-based world, evolution is terrifying. The miracles they insist they see performed around them, the presence of the guiding, comforting hand of God in their lives, the notion that there is a divine destiny specially preordained for them, crumbles into dust under the cold glare of evolution. Evolution posits what they fear most: a morally neutral universe. It obliterates the fantastic constructs of their belief system. And the steady efforts by creationists to erode the authority of evolution and discredit Darwin are, because of all this, unrelenting and fierce.

“Unlike the animals, mammals included, man is an immortal being who will live somewhere forever,”[125] reads a passage in Biology: God’s Living Creation, a creationist textbook popular in Christian high schools. Human beings are discussed in isolation from other mammals, and brief passages interrupt the chapters with headings such as “The Wonders of the Human Hand.” “Only an omnipotent and all-wise God could have designed and created the human hand,”[126] students read. Computers can never think, students are told, because “No machine will ever know satisfaction at discovering God’s truth.”[127] The textbook, with an index of scripture references, states that “according to the laws of probability, the probability that evolution occurred is essentially zero. Yet, evolutionists believe sincerely that it did somehow happen. We marvel at their faith in the impossible.”[128]

Creationist publications such as this one blame Darwin for spawning most of the evils of modernity including racism,[129] apartheid,[130] Stalinism,[131] the Holocaust[132] and the Rwandan genocide.[133] It was evolution, the textbook states, that “exploded into a worldwide philosophy of ‘kill or be killed’ as expressed by Adolf Hitler and the proponents of the religion of Communism.”[134] Darwin is usually presented as mentally unbalanced and sadistic. An article put out by the California-based Institute for Creation Research is typical: “Was Charles Darwin Psychotic? A Study of His Mental Health.”[135] Believers are told that Darwin, and all evolutionists, were behind the genocides unleashed by all modern tyrants from Hitler and Stalin to Pol Pot.[136] And Christians must be prepared for battle, for war, against satanic forces that lie incubating within America’s secular, evolutionist, materialistic, godless society, forces getting ready to begin a new round of mass exterminations, this time of American Christians.[137]

Darwin, students learn, suffered from deep depression, alienation and constant illness and physical pain once he defied God and published his work. He could not escape divine wrath. “He lost all interest in the higher things of life, the things about man that can only be explained by his being a creature made in the image of God,” the textbook reads. “He lost his love for poetry, music, and literature, and, of course, he could not pray.”[138]

And yet, coming from the modern age, the fundamentalists cannot discount science. They employ jargon, methods and data that appear like science to make an argument for creationism. They have created research and scholarly institutions designed to parallel legitimate scientific organizations. They pump out articles in self-published journals to provide “evidence” that homosexuals can be cured, that global warming is a myth, that abortion can cause breast cancer, that something they call “postabortion syndrome” leads to deep depression and suicide, and that abstinence-only education is an effective form of birth control. Bogus and unsubstantiated claims, all in the service of the ideology, are dressed up to look scientific. This pseudoscience seeps into the public debate, disseminated by a nervous media anxious to give both sides of every argument. Those with contempt for facts and truth, for honest research and inquiry, are given the same platform as those who deal in a world of reality, fact and rationality. The movement’s leaders dress up this ideology as scientific to discredit real science. They have created a “fundamentalist science.” They cannot return to the pre-Darwinian innocence that let their predecessors believe the Bible alone was enough. They need, in the midst of their flight from reality, to be reassured that science—science not contaminated by secular humanists and nonbelievers—is on their side. In this they are a distinctly modern movement. They need the imprint of science and scholarship to legitimize myth. This is a characteristic they share with all modern totalitarian movements, which work hard to co-opt the disciplines of law, science, medicine and scholarship to give to their primitive and superstitious belief systems, systems that allow the rulers to dictate reality and truth, a modern veneer. The “paraprofessional” organizations formed by the Christian Right—organizations of teachers, journalists, doctors, lawyers and scientists—mimic the activities of traditional professional groups (groups in which the focus really is the profession and not the faith). They seek to challenge the legitimacy and power of these traditional organizations. The duplication of the structures and methods employed by the nontotalitarian world, as Arendt wrote, “proved extremely fruitful in the work of undermining actively existing institutions and in the ‘decomposition of the status quo,’ which totalitarian organizations invariably prefer to an open show of force.”[139]

The Creation Museum presents the creationist argument that Adam and Eve were human beings and that God created everything on the earth in six 24-hour days. Adherents to this worldview do not believe that the earth has existed for millions of years or that the first living cell appeared 3.5 billion years ago or that the dinosaurs roamed the planet for 160 million years before becoming extinct, their reign ending abruptly. They scoff at the notion that the dinosaurs could, as biologists suggest, be the ancestors of birds. Instead, they embrace a strict 6,000-year chronology of the Bible. Men and dinosaurs coexisted and were created during the same six-day cycle, wholly and fully evolved. When the biblical flood covered the earth, dinosaurs, along with other species, were sheltered on Noah’s ark. The rest of the dinosaurs were drowned in the flood, and this, as the museum’s exhibits explain, accounts for the vast tracts of fossilized dinosaur bones. Animals on the ark, including the dinosaurs, repopulated after disembarking, but environmental changes meant that the dinosaurs could not adapt and died off. The biblical accounts of sea monsters, leviathans and behemoths are, according to the museum’s displays, references to dinosaurs. They do not give credence to the concept of the big bang because Genesis states that God created waters and Earth on the third day, and the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day. It is a story hardly more credible than the fantasy of a child, but it fulfills a powerful emotional need.

“The Bible tells us that God created all of the land animals on the sixth day of creation,” a brochure from the museum reads. “As dinosaurs were land animals, they must have been made on this day, alongside Adam and Eve, who were also created on Day Six (Genesis 1:24–31). If God designed and created dinosaurs, they would have been fully functional, designed to do what they were created for, and would have been 100 percent dinosaur. This fits exactly with the evidence from the fossil record.”

The museum devotes much of its space to trumpeting what it insists are discrepancies in the scientific search for the origins of life. The dearth of fossil ancestors for major life-forms after the “Cambrian explosion” about 550 million years ago, for example, is used by creationists to discredit evolution, although science furnishes a range of persuasive explanations for the paucity of fossils—for example, that primitive life-forms before the Cambrian period lacked hard body parts that could have been fossilized. The fact that we have any fossils of larger life-forms is an amazing piece of luck, since they can exist only in quite specific geologic conditions. But all this is used against science. And a mantra of creationists, one the museum guide repeats a few times, is: “God is not a God of gaps.”

The creationists act and look like scientists. They couch their language in the jargon of science. They say they can disprove the theory of evolution with facts and evidence. They talk of research and data. It is not enough these days to argue that God wrote the story of Creation and therefore it is true. The movement needs the veneer of science. This is the goal of the museum. Science will prove the biblical account of creation and the literal interpretation of the Bible. Creationism must be defended in a scientific manner, with scientific conclusions disproving the “theory” of evolution and supporting the words of the Bible. Once the “science” of creationism is accepted, the Bible reigns as the undisputed word of God and the sole arbiter of truth. Leaders who interpret the Bible must be obeyed. Creationism is a key part of a system aimed at building a society that relinquishes the capacity to examine itself.

Museum displays say there is no proof that fossils are millions of years old. Evolution, in the hands of creationists, becomes just another unsubstantiated story about the past since “no scientist was there to see the dinosaurs live through this supposed dinosaur age.”

“Some people think that dinosaurs were too big, or there were too many of them, to go on this ark,” a museum display reads. It goes on to explain that in fact there were very few different kinds of dinosaurs. And then there is the speculation that perhaps not all the dinosaurs were full-grown when they mounted Noah’s gangplank. “Even though there was ample room in the huge ship for large animals,” the museum material explains, “perhaps God sent young adults into the ark that still had plenty of room for them to grow.”

We stand in a display room called “the dig site.” In front of us is a replica of a pit with the re-creation of fossilized bones of the dinosaur. The room is meant to explore, from the biblical perspective the work of paleontologists.

The paleontologist “creates a story based on her assumption about ‘millions of years’ of earth history with the help of artists and sculptors,” reads the sign over the dig site. “She transforms the story into ‘believable history’ that appears in films, books and papers. The room shows how the false assumptions of evolutionary scientists end up ‘as facts’ in our public schools and museums.”

This pseudoscience is part of a wider assault on all scientific studies that challenge the radical fundamentalist worldview. There are Christian scientists who challenge research regarding global warming, AIDS, and pregnancy prevention. Christian Right organizations such as the Traditional Values Coalition, whose founder, Paul Cameron, once called for AIDS “leper colonies,”[140] are lobbying to end all programs by the National Institutes of Health related to HIV infection. Members of the Christian Right, positioned inside government agencies, have worked to discredit or silence research by public health officials and censored data that conflict with the radical fundamentalist vision, especially regarding birth control.

Self-appointed Christian “experts” produce glossy studies to displace genuine research. Joe McIlhaney, one of the most prominent compilers of this pseudoscience, has published a brochure, Why Condoms Aren’t Safe, which uses discredited science to prove that condoms do not work. The number of pseudoscientists peddling falsehoods inside the government is part of what triggered the Union of Concerned Scientists in March 2004 to write in its report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: “There is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression, and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration are unprecedented…. World-renowned scientific institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health take decades to build a team of world-class scientific expertise and talent. But they can be severely damaged in short order by the scientifically unethical behavior such as that displayed by the current administration.”[141]

One of the final displays in the museum shows how “a contemporary family experiences daily life without God.” It portrays a household in disarray, with fights and teenager drug use. Licentiousness, alcohol abuse and the breakdown of parental authority are tied to the failure to believe in the creation myth. In this gloomy section of the museum, there is also a darkened, graffiti-covered alley and a sign that asks: “What happens when absolute authority is eliminated and man’s opinion is the only measure of good and evil?”

“A walk through an inner-city alley is the backdrop for a virtual and auditory display of the horrors of a culture that had made man’s opinion the final authority in life,” another sign reads. These displays depict women and men out of control, hooked on drugs, sexually promiscuous, suffering in the stench of a modern Sodom and Gomorrah.

Numerous books purport to offer scientific evidence to back up creationism, including the 550-page The Genesis Flood, coauthored by Henry M. Morris and John Whitcomb. The book, published in 1961, has gone through 40 printings and is the movement’s opening manifesto, the first assault by creationists against evolution from a “scientific” position. It seeks to lay out “evidence” to support the biblical account of creation, attacking an array of research methods that are usually obscure to the lay reader, such as the modern methods of radiometric dating. The authors write off modern research tools as unreliable and trumpet contradictory studies within the scientific community about issues such as the age of the Earth. The heavy use of scientific jargon gives the work a scholarly appearance.

Whitcomb, a graduate of Princeton, where he arrived in 1942 as “a godless evolutionist,” had a conversion experience as a freshman. He interrupted college to serve in the army in World War II, including the Battle of the Bulge, and returned to complete his degree and attend Grace Theological Seminary. He stayed at the seminary for nearly forty years to teach Old Testament. He has spent his life peddling creationism. Soft-spoken, good-humored, he rattles off his theories with the aid of an overhead projector that shows time lines for the account of creation, diagrams of the planets and measurements of Noah’s ark. The morning I find him in Independence, Missouri, his audience is made up of several hundred Christian schoolteachers from Midwestern states. They take notes and laugh as he pokes fun at or appears to puncture the research of secular scientists. The audience, at times, is giddy with excitement. Whitcomb assures the teachers they will be amassing the scientific ammunition to demolish the work of geologists, biologists and paleontologists who dismiss the creation account in the Bible.

“Now you say, ‘Lord, you don’t really expect intelligent, scientifically-minded people to believe that, that the whole universe was created in six days, do you?’” Whitcomb asks. “And God says, ‘Dear reader, I have written a chapter in the Bible called Genesis 1. And it’s called a time block, which means it is not fluffy, frothy and cannot be manipulated, stretched or accommodated.’”

Whitcomb brings up some of the stickier problems in Genesis, such as the account that God created light on the first day and the sun on the fourth day. He posits that God created a “temporary” light until the sun was formed. The reason for this, Whitcomb explains, is that God wanted to abolish the cult of sun worship.

“And don’t think for one minute America has abandoned sun worship, either in public school textbooks, which starts this way on how the world began: ‘Billions of years ago, solar radiation bathed the primeval seas and somehow activated lifeless chemicals and coalesced them into highly complex, self-reproducing organisms that have evolved under solar radiation for billions of years, and as long as the sun keeps shining, life will continue, and when the sun dies out, life ends.’ What you have just heard was a sun-worship service.

“Friends,” Whitcomb concludes, “it took no work at all for Jesus to do this. But astronomers in their debates and arguments on a horizontal, rationalistic level will never discover the correct answer. Don’t expect any textbooks, in any university, as long as the world goes on as it is, to ever, ever come to the right conclusion. Only the infallible, inspired, inerrant, unique written revelation of God has the answers.”

The lecture is met with rapturous applause. The teachers close their notebooks, and several hurry forward to ask more questions or buy books, many by Whitcomb, on the table outside the door.

Similar seminars are being held by creationists around the country. On an April night at Pennview Christian School in Souderton, Pennsylvania, about a half hour outside of Philadelphia, Dr. Jason Lisle, who works for the Creation Museum, sets up his slide projector for a lecture. He begins his presentation by disabusing his audience of about 150 people, mostly students, teachers and parents, of the notion that dinosaurs were frightful creatures.

“God didn’t make monsters,” he says, explaining his theory of the dinosaurs’ diet. “The first T. rex would have eaten plants. Dinosaurs, along with all animals originally, were vegetarians.

“People say, ‘Wait a minute—but T. rex has those incredibly sharp teeth.’ And indeed, T. rex had six-inch serrated fangs—perfectly designed for ripping and tearing into watermelons and cantaloupes and cabbages and all kinds of fruits.

“You see, you think of a watermelon as soft. But in order to get to the soft stuff on the inside, you have to cut through the hard outer exterior. But not T. rex. He was quite ready to eat it off the vine.”

Lisle shows fanciful slides to the audience of raptors and stegosauruses outfitted with saddles, a caveman fighting an infant T. rex, and Adam and Eve strolling in the Garden of Eden alongside triceratops.

“Dinosaurs were docile, gentle, when they were first created,” says Lisle. “All life’s animals would have been gentle when they were first created.”

“People say, ‘Wait a minute. Wouldn’t T. rex try to eat people—try to eat Adam and Eve?’” Lisle asks. But he blames the question on “anti-God, humanistic-based evolution movies” like Jurassic Park.

“I’m not saying it’s wrong for you to see movies like that. But you need to think about things when you watch things like that. How do I process this from the biblical worldview? Is this really accurate?”

He tells the students he did not admit he was a creationist to his professors at Ohio Wesleyan, or at Colorado where he received his PhD in astrophysics. He speaks of the dilemma faced by creationists at secular schools, urging that students not “come out” until after graduate school. “Some professors will just stop you from getting your PhD if you’re a creationist.”

Lisle’s final image on the screen shows a small church with a cross on its roof. Next to it is a large white cross. The large cross has the words “The Church” emblazoned on it. A network of white tree roots, labeled “Creation,” secures “The Church” to the earth. Lisle explains that secular science is attacking the biblical view of creation. In his drawing is a salvo of cruise missiles with phrases “Ape = Man,” “Millions of Years” and “Evolution” printed on their sides as they head in an arch toward the roots. These attacks, he says, are aimed to bring down the cross, to destroy the church.

He shows a slide picturing a small hut with a radar dish on the roof. The hut is labeled “Answers in Genesis,” the church’s early warning system. He flips to a new slide.

The church begins firing lasers—emitted from its cross—at the incoming missiles. The cascade of laser beams strikes the missiles, causing them—and their blasphemies—to erupt into flames.

“Come to the Cross and be saved!” proclaims the final slide.[142]

All attempts to seek truth, however elusive and difficult, challenge the blind obedience and suppression of conscience championed by those who teach one “truth” and one way of being. When only one “truth” is allowed, empirical data becomes irrelevant. Intellectual, scientific and moral inquiry becomes unnecessary. In this new world followers are robbed of the capacity to think. The lies, however enormous and absurd, defy criticism and unmasking because the rational world is discredited and finally silenced. The Creation Museum, standing with its imposing pillars, its sea of parking lots for school buses, 52 acres of groomed landscaping, pond, looping nature trails, animatronic dinosaurs and “Christian” paleontologists, presages a society where truth is banished.

[poisonousquinzel]

yall, y'all, there's a whole part in this book where Harleen's trying to hold little group therapy sessions with some of the female inmates and Ivy is one of them and in the last session Harleen gets drugged via her tea and while they're all originally against her, Pamela saved her in the end after her defense and adamant protests to the idea she was using them.

I’m hallucinating. It didn’t happen. “Oh, but it did happen,” Pamela Isley said, no longer bored. “You’re not hallucinating.”

How did I speak aloud and not know it, Harleen wondered, watching as Pamela got up from her chair.

Pamela was smiling as she came toward her. “Did you know that roots can break through metal pipes buried in the ground? Even crack the foundation of a house?”

All the women were getting up now. Then Pamela was looming over her, with more vines growing out of her hair. Harleen’s cup slipped out of her fingers and fell on the carpet with a distant thump.

The tea, Harleen realized.

“You know, I’m a doctor, too, even if it’s not the kind you are,” Pamela said. Her low voice was practically a purr but there was nothing soft about her expression. “Brand new Dr. Harleen Quinzel. It’s so obvious this is your first job.” She gave a short laugh. “What did you tell yourself you were doing—trying to make a difference? Striking a blow for the looney sisterhood? Or can you actually admit you want to use us Looney Ladies of Arkham to get famous by writing a trashy true-crime book?”

“No! Stop!” Harleen pleaded. It was an enormous effort to speak but she had to get through to them. “I didn’t want to use you—I wanted to show how you’ve all been used! By the police! By the justice system! And most of all by Batman!”

Harleen saw Pamela Isley push herself in front of the other women just as everything went black.

“How did I get out of there in one piece?” she asked.

“Pamela Isley,” Dr. Leland replied, refilling the glass for her. “She saved you.”

Harleen shook her head, thinking she hadn’t heard right. “No, Isley was the ringleader,” she said, sipping the water more slowly this time. There was still a funny taste in her mouth from the tea, or whatever it had been. “She freed the others so they could all attack me.” She felt for her necklace and discovered it was still around her neck: another miracle. “Mary Louise was hitting me with this incredibly heavy doll when I passed out.”

“The doll’s head was stuffed with rocks,” said Dr. Leland. “Pamela Isley loathes and despises all of humanity, singly and as a species. But apparently she loathes and despises you less than everyone else. Quite a lot less. She held off the others and called for help. All four are confined to their cells indefinitely. And, needless to say, they won’t be participating in any more group sessions. Nor will any other patients.”

“But I don’t want to look weak,” Harleen said. “I won’t have any credibility with the patients if they think Pamela Isley can knock me on my butt whenever she wants.”

“Don’t worry about Poison Ivy,” Dr. Leland told her. “Remember, she hates you less than the rest of us. That’ll work in your favor. A lot of inmates follow her lead, and they’re not all women.”

And then when that stupid rose shows up in her office, she's thinks it's from Ivy at first and I'm

This was meant to bring her joy. It seemed like forever since anyone had done something like that for her.

Get a grip, girlfriend, said a small, sensible voice in her head. It’s a flower, not a pile of gold bullion or the Hope Diamond or even a pay-raise. Did you notice that’s a plant? Remind you of anyone?

All the little hairs on the back of Harleen’s neck stood up. Would Pamela Isley—Poison Ivy—try something else so soon? Or was it a peace offering? Sorry we tried to kill you. I won’t let it happen again.

Oh, God, what if Poison Ivy didn’t merely not hate her but wanted to be friends? What would that be like?

Imagine.... imagine how things would be different if it was from Ivy and it was a like little potted Rose plant (so the little plant would actually be alive) I cannot, I physically cannot function

[popentertainment-moviereviews]

DEVO (2024)

Featuring Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale, Robert Mothersbaugh, Jim Mothersbaugh and archival footage of Bob Casale and Alan Myers.

Directed by Chris Smith.

Distributed by BMG. 90 minutes. Not Rated.

Screened at the 2024 Philadelphia Film Festival.

Q: Are we not men?

A: We are Devo.

When the spuds of Devo appeared out of Ohio in the mid-1970s, they completely changed the face of music and were a huge building block of the upcoming New Wave scene. Too eccentric and quirky for long-term success, they did chart a path of oddball artistry for a few years that can stand up against pretty much any band’s songbook.

This documentary looks at the weird ascendance of Devo and also at the path the band’s masterminds took after their brief flirtation with the pop charts.

The members of Devo met as students at Kent State University in 1969, and yes, they do speak movingly about being a part of the infamous 1970 demonstration in which the National Guard opened fire on the protesters, killing four and injuring dozens. In fact, band member Jerry Casale explains here that he knew two of the students who were shot dead.

However, despite the fact that they were part of such an iconic hippie incident – or perhaps because of that fact – Devo were not peace and love types. They took their band name from the theory of de-evolution – that species eventually inevitably reverts to primitive behavior. Or, as the dictionary explains: “Devolution is a process of decline. Something has gone from great to good, good to bad, or excellent all the way to horrible.”

Their music was a form of this reversion, a chaotic and yet somewhat sterile look at rock and dance music that rebelliously undid most of the standards of musical theory. It was odd, but it was also memorable and stood out even in this adventurous musical era.

While they are mostly remembered now for their 1980 hit “Whip It,” the band was far from a one-hit wonder. In fact, they had several other songs hit the charts or get good airplay, including their out-of-the-box cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” offbeat originals like “Jocko Homo,” “Uncontrollable Urge,” “That’s Good,” a cover of Gene Chandler’s “Working in a Coal Mine,” “Peekaboo” and even the theme song for the bad Dan Aykroyd film Doctor Detroit. (The last two songs are the only ones not included in the documentary, which is kind of a shame, because “Theme from Doctor Detroit” actually kind of rocked.)

Devo takes us on a smart, funny trip through the band’s history, from geeky kids to precocious students, to avant garde artists to their current roles of television and film composers.

Are they not men, indeed? Pretty interesting ones, at that.  

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 22, 2024.