#written conversation? yes

[caeslxys]

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but it feels relevant again in light of the most recent episode. Something that’s really fascinating to me about Orym’s grief in comparison to the rest of the hells’ grief is that his is the youngest/most fresh and because of that tends to be the most volatile when it is triggered (aside from FCG, who was two and obviously The Most volatile when triggered.)

As in: prior to the attack on Zephrah, Orym was leading a normal, happy, casual life! with family who loved him and still do! Grief was something that was inflicted upon him via Ludinus’ machinations, whereas with characters like Imogen or Ashton, grief has been the background tapestry of their entire lives. And I think that shows in how the rest of them are largely able to, if not see past completely (Imogen/Laudna/Chetney) then at least temper/direct their vitriol or grief (Ashton/Fearne/Chetney again) to where it is most effective. (There is a glaring reason, for example, that Imogen scolded Orym for the way he reacted to Liliana and not Ashton. Because Ashton’s anger was directed in a way that was ultimately protective of Imogen—most effective—and Orym’s was founded solely in his personal grief.)

He wants Imogen to have her mom and he wants Lilliana to be salvageable for Imogen because he loves Imogen. But his love for the people in his present actively and consistently tend to conflict with the love he has for the people in his past. They are in a constant battle and Orym—he cannot fathom losing either of them.

(Or, to that point, recognize that allowing empathy to take root in him for the enemy isn't losing one of them.)

It is deeply poignant, then, that Orym’s grief is symbolized by both a sword and shield. It is something he wields as a blade when he feels his philosophy being threatened by certain conversational threads (as he believes it is one of the only things he has left of Will and Derrig, and is therefore desperately clinging onto with both bloody hands even if it makes him, occasionally, a hypocrite), but also something he can use in defense of the people he presently loves—if that provocative, blade-grief side of him does not push them—or himself—away first.

(it won’t—he is as loved by the hells as he loves them. he just needs to—as laudna so beautifully said—say and hear it more often.)

[bookshelfdreams]

#Op I need u to know I thought this was about his post-coytal bedside manner when I read the first line#was fully expecting you to wax poetic about how Ed's mediocer attempt at making breakfast was actually a heartfelt attempt to make sure#he didn't feel like he was a One And Done type of thing#I was vibrating#and then it was s1 meta 💀 RIP LMAO (@zo1nkss, on this post)

No, absolutely, let's talk about it. Because this?

This is terrible. Comically bad. The worst anyone's ever done it, I'm sorry to say. The toast looks like it's covered in coal dust. The tea (? I hope it's tea, might as well be Ye Olde Cuba Libre) has clearly gone cold. Ed spooned the marmalade directly onto the tablet instead of just leaving it in the jar like a sane person, for fuck's sake!

Of course that's deliberate; they even make sure we know what the platonic ideal of a nice breakfast tablet looks like with the title card.

It's like an Expectation vs Reality meme. There's a flower, there's porcelain, there's even a plate! Ed, I know you've had breakfast before, why are you so bad at this?

Because, of course, this was doomed from the start.

Ed is panicking, because he knows falling into bed together right after everything that happened in 02x06 was a mistake, and he's desperately trying to salvage the situation.

Ed wanted to take things slow, because he wants stability. He wants to pursue happiness. He wants to build a beautiful life with someone he loves! Breakfast in bed every day!

Instead he to watch the love of his life be tortured in front of him, because of him, and then had to watch him intentionally kill a guy for the first time in his life - also because of him! This is the opposite of what he wanted, for himself or for Stede.

He wanted them both to be safe and happy, but instead they had an evening of horrible experiences and then had sex about it. It's all coming crashing down. Aside form the worst breakfast spread in known history, look how the scene is shot and coloured: The slightest green tint, just enough to turn the light harsh and cold, how far apart from each other they are. Tons of empty space in the frame. How they are backlit, so they are in the shadows, their faces barely discernible.

This isn't a happy Morning After. This is them standing at the ruins of what was supposed to be a beautiful moment, but the violence of piracy broke into it and destroyed it.

Ed knows he needs to leave it behind, once and for all. Throws out his Blackbeard kit to make his decision to abandon the pirate life irreversible. Tries to have a soft, domestic moment, shares the lovely story about Merstede coming to rescue him, in an attempt to salvage his dream of retirement with Stede.

But Stede? Oh, Stede is on an entirely different page. He just had his first real taste of the power violence can grant him. While the torture wasn't fun, in the end, he triumphed! Defended his love, defended his crew! And topped it all off with what was probably the first positive sexual experience in all his 40whatever years of life! He's patronizing and kinda bitchy about the whole spread, because he doesn't get what Ed is trying to tell him. All he sees is Ed being terrible at this domestic bullshit, but that's okay because he thinks he's terrible at it too!

They'll just sail the seas, terrorize the various empires and have adventures together, forever and ever! That's the dream, right? Right???

(Wait, what do you mean Last night was a mistake?)

[itsalwaysforyou]

just remembered a wip i had which was jay at uni meeting normal people and desperately trying to act cool and normal whilst internally screaming about being in a whole new place with all new people and not having his gang with him

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Little celebratory thing: it feels like I'm getting a bit better at alef bet! Even though the vowel markings can feel redundant, they're still something I've been able to remember and recognize individually!

[beneathsilverstars]

obviously siffrin needs to get into notebooking to help w their memory issues but also i think it should be one of those fluffy sparkly purple journals with the high tech locks that break immediately. if you ask what he's writing he starts explaining romantic and political subplots from plays as if they had happened to him at school the other day. recurring characters start to show up, there are references to the eternal school metaphor, the lore gets very complex even though none of it is set in stone.

(i just think that if they try to take notes discreetly, it'll turn out that the most discreet method is to not ever actually do it. but if they can genuinely turn it into a funny bit then it's easier to fold it into their preexisting sense of self, and everyone else can provide positive feedback to reinforce the habit by playing along with the bit. suddenly any attention the note-taking brings is purposeful and has nothing to do with the notes! and it kinda breaks the conversational ice for if they do want to talk abt smth more serious? eventually the song and dance won't be necessary, but at first it helps him feel normal while still taking care of himself and addressing his issues, and later it's still funny.)

[a-gay-bloodmage]

One of my favorite hobbies to engage in is ignoring the canon course of video game romances

[msue0027]

Martha Jones - Jesus Christ parallels (never thought i'd write a sentence like this)

there's the other one who has sent me

For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say. (John 12:49-50)

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24)

I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. (John 5:30b)

I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world. They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him. (John 8:26-29)

[...] for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. (John 8:42b)

etc., and so on...

[kimberlyannharts]

Anyway Amy was extremely based to establish Jason as a traveling rogue Red Ranger with a gritty design that gets into his own crazy solo adventures just to write him out in the first three pages

[dulcewrites]

I have a question about modern fcc. Why you insist on Myrah being a baby machine? Like you said maybe 2 years ago that she is much more than just a mother so why you write her as such that only when she popped up 4 babies (and wants to have 5 one because she has middle age crisis and wants to be 20 again) she is worth something? If they had only Baelor it'd be alright, her worth doesn't depend on whether she births 10 children for targ dynasty lolll

I was thinking about just blocking you (like I’ve done for most if not all the ignorant frankly delusional people I get in my inbox) but I actually want to show people why I genuinely dislike writing for this fandom now. Not saying my writing is perfect or I haven’t made mistakes bc I know I have but like really…. Is this necessary???

[unown]

midnight crying my eyes out over my hair I felt like a lot came out today it’s really sinking in and devastating me

[rapha-reads]

Me when Sang Jiu's brother told her she needed to do dual-cultivation with Ming Ye to get rid of her demonic energy: oh, word?

Me when I realised that nope, it's not *that* kind of dual-cultivation: oooooh *pouts*.

Fanfiction lied to me.

[little-bumblebeeee]

"How gay are you?"

Me:

[queenlucythevaliant]

Guys. Guys. My sisters and brothers in Christ. There is no meaningful way to divide “micro” evolutions vs “macro” evolution. (Explanation got long and really emphatic, so see below the cut). 

Some Christians like to use these words to distinguish current, directly observable processes of descent with modification from the cumulative sum of these processes ie “I can accept that dogs diversify into different breeds but not that all life shares a common ancestor.” This is. Really arbitrary.

Where are you drawing the line between “micro” and “macro”? Typically, people say that they don’t believe that one “kind” can evolve into another “kind.” So speciation? Because speciation is not only observable, but predictable and repeatable.

Okay, so there are a bunch of different species concepts, but for the sake of simplicity let’s use reproductive isolation because that’s what most people are familiar with. A new species emerges when a new population no longer interbreeds with an original population.

This can happen behaviorally (like if a new species of bird has a different mating dance and thus can’t court members of the original species), mechanically (genitals no longer compatible – right- and left-handed shellfish are a good example of this), or at cellular level (sperm and egg no longer compatible), or genetically (different numbers of chromosomes).

Guys. This happens all the darn time. We can watch it happen in real time and see the differences between species accumulate. We can even take a sample population, divide it in half, and subject the two subpopulations to different conditions causing them to diverge. It’s predictable and repeatable. I had a professor who did work like this in Alaskan fish capable of living in both fresh and salt water. His team was able to repeatedly create divergent fresh and saltwater exclusive populations which did not interbreed and had significant physiological differences. I had another prof who worked with cicadas and saw new species emerge because one year there was a big change in local climate and some of the five-year periodicals (I think) didn’t come out and breed for an extra year. They were reproductively isolated from the five-year periodicals that did emerge on time. Over the course of like fifty years they got more and more different from the original population and expanded to fill an empty niche and absolutely boomed in population, expanded geographical range, etc. There are journals full of this stuff.  

Okay, so maybe you mean “kinds” more generally. Maybe you consider all fishes one “kind.” In that case, how do you account for the placement of whales? Or any crown group tetrapods, for that matter? Do you consider primates all one kind? In that case, what do you make of the changes in chromosome number between types of old- and new-world monkeys? If that’s within-”kind” variation in primates, is it also within “kind” variation when it divides chimpanzees from humans? This kind of taxonomy is just entirely untenable. 

It gets even murkier when you look at microbes (my specialty), which don’t differentiate the same way that multicellular life does. Microbes reproduce asexually, and their main source of variation is horizontal gene transfer. As a result, there’s a lot of gray area between microbial species and even very different species are capable of swapping DNA under certain, not-that-unusual circumstances. So even if you want to say that all fishes, for example, are one “kind," then you basically have to group every prokaryotic species together the same way because they are way more reproductively compatible with one another than any broad group of animals you could think of.

And remember, microbes account for the overwhelming majority of life on earth—there are at least 100 million times more bacteria in the oceans than there are stars in the universe. Is this “micro” or “macro”? Mechanistically, it’s much less dramatic than so called “macroevolution” in animals, yet the scale, breadth, and timeframe involved would likely be considered “macro.” Not to mention, getting from the origin of life to the origins of multicellularity encompasses many more large evolutionary leaps that getting from multicellularity to modern man. If you’re willing to call microbial evolution “microevolution,” then you’re seventy-five percent of the way to just accepting that humans share a common ancestors with all other life on earth. If you’re not, well, there goes the entire “kinds” schema again. 

Okay, so maybe the difference between “macro” and “micro” evolution isn’t speciation or “kinds”. Maybe you think that “macro” evolution refers to the greater processes by which very divergent species (say, humans and redwood trees) evolved from a single common ancestor long ago in deep time. Maybe the distinction between “macro” and “micro” evolution is essentially an historical one.

Apart from being very subjective, the big issue with this distinction is that it means that processes which observably occur in the present must have occurred either differently or not at all in the past. This is an absolutely wild claim, and I can’t think of any other subject about which people would say this.  

This would be like saying—huh okay, now I gotta come up with an analogy—it would be like saying yes, I accept that fashion trends change season-to-season at present, but I’m not willing to accept claims that neckties could have come from cravats given enough time. It just defies logic.

Finally, it bears saying that “micro” and “macro” evolution are not scientific terms. I cannot state this emphatically enough. I have never once heard these terms from any professor, bio student, or serious publication. The only place I have ever seen them is in YE Creationist discourse. Christians made them up because some would like to hold two essentially incompatible positions.

[essektheylyss]

the problem with finding some renewed zeal and enthusiasm for writing is that you want to funnel that into all of your seven wips and it slips through your fingers like water as you proceed to focus on none of them

[shalom-iamcominghome]

You'd think I would have an ear to hear between צ and שׁ but apparently I haven't yet??

This is my cue to say "progress isn't linear progress isn't linear progress isn't linear" over and over until I pass out

[inklingofadream]

will draft 4 trillion of teen jon chapter 41 be the one i like enough to not toss? who knows!