#wv theories

[cheezyharu]

What happens 10 minutes before Tempestissimo got killed:

[this-is-chaos-magick]

God... it's been 1 and half year... without her

[shutupineedtothink]

More ep 7 thoughts, now that I’ve watched it twice and processed 🫠

Bookending the episode with Lilia’s fall but first it’s down and then it’s up - sick, twisted, beautiful, devastating, I’m crying

The soundtrack really goes hard in this ep

The wildest part about the “ex best friend” line is all of those things are equally insane - ex, ex best friend, or best friend. Like ma’am what hex were you living in

Babysitter is likely a reference to the comics, but interesting also in terms of WV because we saw Agatha babysit the twins only once I think. Does this mean she actually spent more time with them than we know?

Wow once again Kathryn Hahn is doing so much work in this first scene with Billy, she’s going from snarky to wary to calculating to hurt to i don’t even know. She’s doing a masterclass in face acting.

When they start to climb toward the castle, Agatha has her hands clasped behind her back and initially I was just like ma’am, why are you like this, but then I realized oh. Her hands are tied right now.

Waning moon for the Crone trial babyyyyyy called it

Fun and fast transition to get us into the trial, since we know the deal by now

She’s based on me you know — sooooo, tragic, misunderstood, secretly suffering her whole life, constantly judged by others, uh huh uh huh

Prove it - he really doesn’t believe a word she says! And she looks so hurt by it!

The way Agatha sits in the chair omg girl please chill

This is such like an Indiana Jones trap I love it

God I love Lilia’s visions, changing the perspective to hers, the blurring around the edges - sometimes you don’t need to do much, but it’s hella effective

Actually a lot of good camera tricks in this ep I’m not going to point them all out

It’s about limiting beliefs baybeee - once again the writers showing they know their psych

I’m sorry that tea leaves to the underground transition??? Spectacular

“Well tell me what more I should see when I look at you. No, I mean it” - hey nonviolent communication, how’s it going 🤌

God can you imagine how scary it would be to have these visions as a CHILD

Did you not see imminent impalement in your future?? Lol why did this get me

I get the fake nose on Agatha but idk maybe I could’ve done without it

Teenager his full name LOLOL underrated joke

Dory OMGGGGG

Jen being the ultimate Lilia champion this ep and I love it. Also seems to contradict her behavior even more in Agatha’s trial, but she’s still more snappy with Agatha here too

What are you wearing, I don’t wanna talk about it - bruh every line. EVERY LINE.

Did I mention the transitions are killer

Your task is not to control but to see. - I, I can’t keep writing down every line but

I love that as soon as Jen knows what’s going on, she’s totally on board, just asking Lilia for intel, like yep this is normal now

Ahhh the spell book. Interesting that Lilia finds it.

Ohp - I wish Lilia was here. Ask and you shall receive - see the Billy’s Road theory

She calls him baby again 😭

Is snappy dialogue one of my biggest joys on this earth? I think it is

Proper tarot takes time and care. And leads to large gaping wounds - …. You mean like internal wounds? Like trauma? Like you have to bring up the trauma to heal it? Uh huh uh huh cool cool cool cool you said it Agatha not me.

The Magician, the ability to turn all of your goals into reality - Agatha immediately side eyes him. Bruh.

I’m a forgotten woman. Then remember yourself. 🤌🤌🤌

I was falling. I will fall. - CAMERA. MOVEMENT.

What will you do with your remaining time 🤝 all we can do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us. Iykyk.

The subway baybeee get that House of R theory

God this tarot spread scene is so epic.

Ok Jen being the path ahead… I gotta come back to that

Agatha is the obstacle yep that makes sense (but the obstacle is the way)

Windfall - Billy, miraculous transformation uh yep ok

Destination - Death. Such a good reveal, even if I already knew it. Once again the power of good writing. In the end all roads lead to me. UGH WTF

NOT THE GREEN VINES SPELLING A BIG OL “R” WHEN THE DOORS OPEN

The original green witch…. Ok so she is in the coven… but also Billy’s in the coven? It’s a shared black heart? Or it means you can go one direction or the other… hm.

Ughghghghhh her just giving them each what they need before she sends them onward. She’s the GOAT.

Did I mention the music????

This whole scene is so EPIC. The tower upright fuck it up queen

Oh my God Lilia took her power back 😭

We didn’t see a body unlike Alice I’m holding onto that “see you at the end” lyric with all my might at this point

Time in a bottle was sick and twisted and beautiful I love it

I just… can’t believe this is something I got to witness. Like it’s so good I’m mad about it.

A few other quick thoughts:

Jen being the path ahead… if she was birth in the first trial (see my maiden mother crone trial theory), then maybe she’s also REbirth? It’s a circle sewn with fate… we’re going back to the beginning but emerging from the Road this time. Eh??

Patti…. PATTI!! Where’s her Emmy? Where’s the show’s Emmy???

Not only was this a better time travel plot than the rest of Marvel as I said in another post but it’s also better than time travel in Doctor Who for the last 10 years and that pisses me off low key.

Not to jump ahead but buckle up kids cuz if we’re following the loose structure of WandaVision then ep 8 is our flashback/reliving the trauma episode for Agatha and as much as I was destroyed by this ep I am so not ready for all of that.

Anyway. What a masterpiece. I’m DONE.

[thewertsearch]

Alright, that’s barely wind-themed, and you know it.

John's powers have been getting awfully abstract lately. It almost feels like he's cutting out the air-flavored middleman, and simply charging this ship with the idea of Breath.

Back in my Aspect theory post, I postulated that Breath could represent a conceptual space that includes direction, destination and transportation. Perhaps, then, John is imbuing the ship with the raw concept of being a vehicle, allowing it to continue functioning as one without fuel.

You give your wallet to your loyal chauffeur familiar. He looks puzzled. You inform the party that you will not be going on this journey. You must remain behind and continue looking for your father. But you insist their mission is the most critical of all! You know they can handle it. You believe in them.

At this rate, I'm not even sure the Tumor is getting to Derse. WV's still destined to be Exiled, which means there's a decent chance he'll be ambushed by one of the Midnight Crew's competent members.

At least this means Jack won't be looting the wallet from John's corpse, as I previously theorized.

GG: john!!! i am worried about rose! GG: im pretty sure she is on her way there to look for jack! […] GG: also, um… GG: i guess you probably still dont know about your dad yet do you?

Fun's over.

I think this is going to hit John hard. He's been no-selling Sburb's emotional toll since back in Act 1, but I don't think even he could bottle up grief like this. This might hit him even harder than Rose.

And that’s saying something.

[rickyriddle]

So I have a theory regarding the Agatha What If…? episode. What if Agatha went to Hollywood? The episode doesn't really explain why she made that choice other than trying to get the Celestial’s powers. But I still wonder how she knew and why the regular Agatha didn't make that choice. And then I felt like the ending of the episode was a bit odd and maybe even ooc for her, to get convinced by Kingo like that. So I wondered: what makes this Agatha different from our Agatha?

They are similar, that's for sure. But the what if Agatha feels less… ruthless? Still self-serving and looking for more power, but a bit less murderous. Then it clicked. What if… Agatha never Rio? Now I know, we all love the idea of Celestial Agatha with Rio, both now cosmic beings but hear me out. First we don't know if Rio, as the comic entity of Death, has variants in the MCU. Tho ultimately, it doesn't really matter for this theory. Let's just imagine a scenario where these two didn't meet or never came to be a couple. What would have happened to Agatha?

Regardless of Rio, Agatha needed to steal powers from other witches in order to survive during the Salem years. She was already doing so before meeting Rio. But if she never met Rio, or never dated her, then it would also mean Agatha never had Nicholas. Never created the ballad. Never lost her son. Never started using this specific con based on the Witches Road to gain power as a way to cope with grief.

Now, how would that lead her to Hollywood? Well, main Agatha would have been too busy by first, running away from Rio, and secondly her road con. She'd be unlikely to look for another source of power when she got a successful con going on and unsuspecting witches falling into her lap all the time (as well as literal Death wrap around her finger).

But in a universe where she can't rely on that con or her cosmic wife, I think it's more likely that Agatha would look for power elsewhere, not just the magic she can steal from other witches. Hence why she ended up learning about the Celestial Tiamut and decided to go to Hollywood to hatch her plan to steal his powers.

That would also explain to me why this version of Agatha managed to be convinced by Kingo. Main Agatha would not have cared about what he said imo. But this Agatha isn't as bitter, hardened by the loss of her son and her complicated relationship with Rio. She might be more willing to bond with someone else who might share some of her experiences, possibly with loneliness and being different from their own kind. Agatha was always different from other witches due to her powers and never managed to connect with them, and she recognized that Kingo was also different from his own kind, the Eternals. So she knew he actually understood her and that might have led her to accept his proposition, and friendship.

But the main reason why I start thinking that Nicky didn't exist in that universe is that I cannot bring myself to believe Agatha wouldn't have tried to bring him back. With the powers of two Celestials, she could have rewritten the world like she wanted, yet chose not to and instead remained an actress. To me it feels like she didn't have something she wished to change about the world, which I don't think is conceivable if she lost Nicky in this universe too. There is also no mention or allusion to her dating Rio, so I do feel like these two were just not a thing in this universe and therefore, Nicky never came to exist.

Fundamentally, this is still Agatha, but she's not our Agatha we knew in WV and AAA. Same trauma with her mother and original coven, but different life experiences afterwards that could have led her to a drastically different path. I love agathario and imagining a world where they aren't a couple is hard, but I'm afraid that's what I feel like this episode was. Actually a “What if… Agatha never met Rio?’.

But hey, at least this episode confirmed she is indeed a lesbian, regardless if she's in a relationship with Rio or not.

[ennn]

Look, the show has set itself up for a sequel so obviously I'd be surprised it doesn't happen

Yes, this could turn out to be entirely wishful thinking or nothing might happen because TV development in general and Marvel is a mess and shit happens but here's what I want to believe:

There is a rumour from a few weeks back that they are developing a sequel to AAA that isn't the Vision series.

I know, this seems surprising since many have the impression the Vision series is the last of the Wandvision trilogy BUT considering Ultron is said to be in the Vision series, and it's centred on White Vision as the lead character, I don't expect it to focus on witchcraft or magic, or to have the same themes and style WV and AAA have.

So rumour is that the AAA sequel will be focused on finding Tommy. This came about even before Episode 5 from what I remember.

My theory or possibly deluded thinking is that during the production / post-production of AAA a sequel was greenlit and they ended up editing (or even reshooting) bits of the finale for the setup -- to the unfortunate extent of undercutting Agatha's story and leaving a bunch of things unresolved (for the sequel).

Assuming there is a sequel planned, you can clearly see how the finale spells it out with Billy and Agatha as the leads, Rio as a ready antagonist, the quest to find Tommy, a similar witchy flavour and also similar humour -- and it could also lead into the next Scarlet Witch movie.

Now usually sequels are announced right after the show ends but it's possible they're still working deals or details out. And these may be impacted by how AAA is being received.

But yeah let's wait and see for now.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Uncle Sam paid to develop a cancer drug and now one guy will get to charge whatever he wants for it

Today (Oct 19), I'm in Charleston, WV to give the 41st annual McCreight Lecture in the Humanities. Tomorrow (Oct 20), I'm at Charleston's Taylor Books from 12h-14h.

The argument for pharma patents: making new medicines is expensive, and medicines are how we save ourselves from cancer and other diseases. Therefore, we will award government-backed monopolies – patents – to pharma companies so they will have an incentive to invest their shareholders' capital in research.

There's plenty wrong with this argument. For one thing, pharma companies use their monopoly winnings to sell drugs, not invent drugs. For every dollar pharma spends on research, it spends three dollars on marketing:

https://www.bu.edu/sph/files/2015/05/Pharmaceutical-Marketing-and-Research-Spending-APHA-21-Oct-01.pdf

And that "R&D" isn't what you're thinking of, either. Most R&D spending goes to "evergreening" – coming up with minor variations on existing drugs in a bid to extend those patents for years or decades:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3680578/

Evergreening got a lot of attention recently when John Green rained down righteous fire upon Johnson & Johnson for their sneaky tricks to prevent poor people from accessing affordable TB meds, prompting this excellent explainer from the Arm and A Leg Podcast:

https://armandalegshow.com/episode/john-green-part-1/

Another thing those monopoly profits are useful for: "pay for delay," where pharma companies bribe generic manufacturers not to make cheap versions of drugs whose patents have expired. Sure, it's illegal, but that doesn't stop 'em:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/competition-enforcement/pay-delay

But it's their money, right? If they want to spend it on bribes or evergreening or marketing, at least some of that money is going into drugs that'll keep you and the people you love from enduring unimaginable pain or dying slowly and hard. Surely that warrants a patent.

Let's say it does. But what about when a pharma company gets a patent on a life-saving drug that the public paid to develop, test and refine? Publicly funded work is presumptively in the public domain, from NASA R&D to the photos that park rangers shoot of our national parks. The public pays to produce this work, so it should belong to the public, right?

That was the deal – until Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. Under Bayh-Dole, government-funded inventions are given away – to for-profit corporations, who get to charge us whatever they want to access the things we paid to make. The basis for this is a racist hoax called "The Tragedy Of the Commons," written by the eugenicist white supremacist Garrett Hardin and published by Science in 1968:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/10/01/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-how-ecofascism-was-smuggled-into-mainstream-thought/

Hardin invented an imaginary history in which "commons" – things owned and shared by a community – are inevitably overrun by selfish assholes, a fact that prompts nice people to also overrun these commons, so as to get some value out of them before they are gobbled up by people who read Garrett Hardin essays.

Hardin asserted this as a historical fact, but he cited no instances in which it happened. But when the Nobel-winning Elinor Ostrom actually went and looked at how commons are managed, she found that they are robust and stable over long time periods, and are a supremely efficient way of managing resources:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

The reason Hardin invented an imaginary history of tragic commons was to justify enclosure: moving things that the public owned and used freely into private ownership. Or, to put it more bluntly, Hardin invented a pseudoscientific justification for giving away parks, roads and schools to rich people and letting them charge us to use them.

To arrive at this fantasy, Hardin deployed one of the most important analytical tools of modern economics: introspection. As Ely Devons put it: "If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’"

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Hardin's hoax swept from the fringes to the center and became received wisdom – so much so that by 1980, Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole were able to pass a law that gave away publicly funded medicine to private firms, because otherwise these inventions would be "overgrazed" by greedy people, denying the public access to livesaving drugs.

On September 21, the NIH quietly published an announcement of one of these pharmaceutical transfers, buried in a list of 31 patent assignments in the Federal Register:

https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2023-20487.pdf

The transfer in question is a patent for using T-cell receptors (TCRs) to treat solid tumors from HPV, one of the only patents for treating solid tumors with TCRs. The beneficiary of this transfer is Scarlet TCR, a Delaware company with no website or SEC filings and ownership shrouded in mystery:

https://www.bizapedia.com/de/scarlet-tcr-inc.html

One person who pays attention to this sort of thing is James Love, co-founder of Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit that has worked for decades for access to medicines. Love sleuthed out at least one person behind Scarlet TCR: Christian Hinrichs, a researcher at Rutgers who used to work at the NIH's National Cancer Institute:

https://www.nih.gov/research-training/lasker-clinical-research-scholars/tenured-former-scholars

Love presumes Hinrichs is the owner of Scarlet TCR, but neither the NIH nor Scarlet TCR nor Hinrichs will confirm it. Hinrichs was one of the publicly-funded researchers who worked on the new TCR therapy, for which he received a salary.

This new drug was paid for out of the public purse. The basic R&D – salaries for Hinrichs and his collaborators, as well as funding for their facilities – came out of NIH grants. So did the funding for the initial Phase I trial, and the ongoing large Phase II trial.

As David Dayen writes in The American Prospect, the proposed patent transfer will make Hinrichs a very wealthy man (Love calls it "generational wealth"):

https://prospect.org/health/2023-10-18-nih-how-to-become-billionaire-program/

This wealth will come by charging us – the public – to access a drug that we paid to produce. The public took all the risks to develop this drug, and Hinrichs stands to become a billionaire by reaping the rewards – rewards that will come by extracting fortunes from terrified people who don't want to die from tumors that are eating them alive.

The transfer of this patent is indefensible. The government isn't even waiting until the Phase II trials are complete to hand over our commonly owned science.

But there's still time. The NIH is about to get a new director, Monica Bertagnolli – Hinrichs's former boss – who will need to go before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for confirmation. Love is hoping that the confirmation hearing will present an opportunity to question Bertagnolli about the transfer – specifically, why the drug isn't being nonexclusively licensed to lots of drug companies who will have to compete to sell the cheapest possible version.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/19/solid-tumors/#t-cell-receptors

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[homestuckreplay]

hauntingly relaxing basslines to grow/disappearify pumpkins to

(page 818-825)

Jade irradiates a tasty dinner for Bec, leaving it full of ‘nice depleted steak isotopes’ (p.819). I was wondering about the science behind this, and learned that while radioactive decay naturally gives off heat, it’s probably not enough to cook a steak. Radioisotope thermal generators convert the heat of radiation into electricity, and there’s a lot of theory about radioisotopic batteries that could operate similarly to solar cells, but their efficiency is below 2% in laboratory tests.

This got me thinking about Skaia as a perfect conserver of energy – on page 193, Rose expends six units of build grist to construct three Perfectly Generic Objects. On p.261, she deletes them and regains six build grist. Next page, she uses the recovered grist to build a platform extending from John’s house, and finally on p.485 turns that platform back into six grist to build more stairs. In the real world, there is always a loss of energy and raw materials when changing something’s form, and many games model this (for example, an in game item costing 100 gold but only sold back for 50) to discourage players changing their minds. But Sburb explicitly allows for this experimentation, and a similar principle could explain why Jade’s uranium powered devices are so efficient.

Speaking of Jade’s technology, we see her ECLECTIC BASS, which is a kind of triple keytar. It definitely does not need to exist but it is so cool that it does. Jade (via the narrator) is frustratingly vague again with ‘obviously it's too complicated to play it in person like this’, refusing to clarify what ‘in person’ means, but I’d guess it’s a remote controlled hand or several that can play bass remotely without the limitations of human fingers. Possibly controlled through her other invention: the computer.

Instead of a regular desktop, Jade’s LUNCHTOP works through beams of light emitting from small floating polyhedrons, positioning her literally within the digital space. Amidst floating clouds, extra pixels and jpeg debris, and spinning chromosomes of light is a cool dragon as a wallpaper, icons for Pesterchum, Echidna (probably a browser) and Fresh Jamz!, which has an icon of a musical note over a jar of fruit jam. Is Jade a composer too? Did she write her own hauntingly relaxing bassline that caused the plants to grow? Is this a hobby she and Dave have in common?

Jade’s hauntingly relaxing bassline (p.822) is a great companion piece to WV: Ascend, showing Jade’s island in its current state as opposed to in extended timelapse. The house, with its orbs atop spires, is clearly modeled on a now broken part of the frog statue, and was designed to fit in with the existing architecture and shape of the island (it forms a peak to the small second mountain). The house was built for aesthetics, not function, and is primarily vertical especially towards the top. No wonder Jade ‘almost never use[s] the stairs’.

Putting the timeline together, we know that Jade is about to message John at 16:34 his time (p.110), but they don’t actually talk until 17:25 (p.169), almost an hour later, at which point there’s an explosion outside Jade’s house. In page 822’s animation, an aeroplane flies low over Jade’s island and drops off a delivery (a blue package – something from John, perhaps?). This must be an uncommonly loud sound in a remote area. Depending on how this flash syncs with the timeline, this may or may not be the ‘explosion’. Either way, Jade will be on the computer during the explosion, and as her likely homemade computer involves complete immersion in the digital surroundings, I can believe that she would interpret a noise from her computer as something that’s happening outside her house.

We’ve explored Jade’s room, interests, musical talents, fetch modus, and now computer. In all of these she’s been set up differently to her friends. We have yet to explore the rest of her house and its surroundings (featuring, presumably, strange themed decor, a large humanoid doll and a piece of visual art Jade has created) and to meet Jade’s grandfather, witnessing her attempts to evade and eventually strife with him.

> Jade: Open Echidna and watch your favorite Squiddles episode.

[dearweirdme]

https://www.tumblr.com/dearweirdme/755230566619758592/thanks-for-answering-my-ask-i-was-this-one

• JK being obsessed with JM is an assumption made by jkkrs — the same assumption is used by all other ships JK is involved in

• Jikook did not drink together before Hobi’s enlistment ceremony — that was a manipulated translation by a jkkr who used “language barriers” as an excuse for non-Koreans not understanding what they were talking about, meanwhile other native Korean speakers corrected them multiple times

• JK apparently wasn’t even playing “Letter” on the guitar, as it has now been pointed out by other anons lol

• JK being excited and “giddy” about a project that he is a part of?? No way. He must in be love 🤪

• The uncanniness of JK going live when JM leaves the country is a shipper mindset, because as a tkkr, I can tell you that there’s also a pattern for JK’s lives whenever Tae had a schedule/was busy — I’m sure other shippers have similar theories as well lmao and that’s just confirmation bias

• I think I have an idea of why JK didn’t go to JM’s shows and it’s most likely because he wasn’t even fully aware of JM’s schedule — idk I’m making an educated guess based on JK not even knowing when JM was out of the country or not knowing that his promotions were over (JK said this himself, mind you)

• “Maybe he’s too distracting for Jimin” BFFR ANON they’re in the same band 😭

• JK did not actually know all the words to JM’s songs and what jkkrs like to claim is JK being “mesmerized by JM” while watching his MVs, is JK reading the lyrics (iirc, he literally mentions that he wants to look up the lyrics for that part or something like that)

• JK also consumed every single thing the other members put out too (pls he’s so aware of when they release things) — but fun note (because I’m a tkkr) JK watched Vibe with Tae and was ✨giddy✨ over remembering how Tae misheard the lyrics — also despite not doing a live to show that he was watching Tae’s content, JK was really up to date with any and all things Tae-related (this is corroborated by the multiple times he mentioned having seen the content, or by references he made that came specifically from something that Tae was a part of)

• “It was way more than any other member of BTS” and you’re talking about the interactions they had during a WV live 😭

• Do jkkrs actually listen to anything that jikook say? Because even during Face promotions and when he was busy preparing the album, JM mentioned that he’d been seeing Sope the most often — Hobi and Yoongi also made comments about how often they’d see Jimin, so whyyyyy weren’t jikook seeing each other? Let me guess, they’re too distracting to each other? 😂

• “Pretty involved application process” and it’s just filling out paperwork to choose the buddy program as an enlistment option — it’s wild how jkkrs are suddenly experts on how the SK military works

• Jikook do have a history of working together, so that’s definitely a possibility, but as other people have since pointed out, Yoongi also picked up boxing, and he actually showed up with bruised and swollen knuckles around the same time as Jimin — omg yoonminkook boxing buddies lessgoooo

• Neither of them tell us when they are hanging out, but you know what they do tell us? That they haven’t seen each other in a while, that they don’t know what the other is up to, that they don’t know where the other is. So where do we go from here 🙃 also, the same logic can be applied to literally any other ship, including TK 😭 (we KNOW they’ve hung out more than they’ve mentioned)

• I’m curious what jkkrs think about JK being a cook in the military tbh, because as it’s been reported (by multiple sources, not just bitter JJKs as jkkrs like to claim) JK doesn’t actually sleep in the same area as the rest of the soldiers, but is with a smaller group of cooks since they have differing schedules from the other soldiers — yes, they are still in the same unit

• The irony of saying that Kayla’s blog is cherry picked and that you watch original content and “know the context” whilst typing out this monstrosity of an ask is wild

• If you believe all of that about jikook, what about all of the similar but arguably more compelling things about taekook? I’m almost certain that I can take any “jikook moment” and find a comparable moment between TK or any other ship for that matter because nothing jikook do is exclusive to them

Apologies, I’m sure this is choppy because I was trying to address as much as possible but yikes 😭

Hi @thv-jk97 !

An excellent picking apart of an insane take!

[falloutnewvegastransedmygender]

They put our Chosen Names on our Graves

They call it Progress

They expect the Survivors to be Grateful

They call it Progress

They sell our Symbols on T-Shirts

They call it Progress

They hide us in the Background

They call it Progress

They tell us we are Free

Free to What?

Free to Watch Their Films

Free to Buy Our Symbols from Them

Free to Put our Chosen Names on our Graves

Free to Die

They call it Progress

They Call It Progress

Astra Celeste (2022)

I wrote this post Club Q, and was not quite sure what to do with it.

I know now, I hope it helps bring attention to Trans Genocide. Look at these laws, some i have in more detail than others, proposed and passed that seek to criminalize our existence.

West Virginia: SB 252 (Sent to Judiciary January 17, 2023) Would define being Trans as an obscenity to minors.

Oklahoma: SB 129 (Prefiled to be Introduced February 6th, 2023) Would ban Trans Affirming Healthcare to everyone under 26 and forcibly detransition anyone under that age who has transitioned. This would currently encompass all of Gen Z.

States like Arizona, Montana, Tennessee and Nebraska have proposed bills that would ban drag from minors, but could be enforced in the same way as WV SB 252 in theory.

In 2022

Florida banned Medicaid coverage for Trans Affirming Healthcare.

Bathroom Bans were instituted in states across the country.

Laws banning any Trans Affirming Healthcare for teens have been enacted in several states.

"Don't Say Gay" Bills, again spread across the country in various states.

In Texas the Family and Protective Services were ordered to begin investigating all trans children in Texas and prosecuting their parents as child abusers and all teachers, doctors, and caregivers ordered to begin reporting any trans students they see.

And I ask you

What kind of progress is this?

Stop Trans Genocide

[tenaciouschronicler]

December 18 2024 2009

For all that Jade is a confusing individual, a lot of pages related to her are very integral to revealing lore elements.

She rocks out with her 'dreamed up' arms to her electric bass which translates to the robot having additional arms.

There was some serious work put in to make sure what she dreams up is feasable in the waking work and it just makes me more curious as to the inventor. Im fairly certain its probably her Grandpa but that still begs the question of why? Granpa is somewhere between Mom and Nanna for me on the 'knows Something about this game' scale.

But lets take a look at the lore shall we.

As Jade plays we get to zoom out and see four distinct areas.

In these first two we zoom out from Jades room to see how similar her spire structure is to the one on Earth. Then we see a similar spire a distance away on this moon-adjacent planetary object. Its a vaguely pentagonal shape chained to the main planet (which we'll look at in a bit) on the 'bottom' with the spires on either one of the 'top' two sides. Im already wondering if someone else is in that other spire and who it could be.

Once we zoom out again we see the larger luminous planet, Prospit. The amount of excitement at the name reveal, its real guys! Prospit is also pentagonal in shape. The 'moon' is chained to its top right side with four towers on its bottom left side. We know one of these towers is already active after Johns Kernel prototyping, so their prominent location is probably Very crucial.

And then the last zoom out, arguably the most important one. We get to see Prospit which is orbiting right outside of Skaia. This helps to decipher the map we saw on WVs appearifier screen and debunks my own theory on the placement of everything (for more on that go check out my Sept 28th post here).

So now that we have a better understanding of where everything is in relation to each other, Im wondering if there is a reason for the placement of the four planets. Two are further from Prospit but as they go up the levels will get closer to it. The other two are closer to the dark planet and will move farther away from it. Does this mean these further two are gonna have a harder time helping to protect Skaia, being so close to the enemy? Or are there supposed to be two teams instead, one helping each planet? I think that would suck; the worlds gone, youre in a new environment and now your friends are fighting against you... bad times all around.

For now, Jade is exploring the planet while the robo Jade mirrors the actions back on Earth. Im ready for more Lore!

[thenerdofthegroup]

I fear some of you don’t actually like Agatha and only want lesbians and Rio...

And if you do fine but don’t complain when a show about witches isn’t focusing fully on the romance. Every character needs to be explained and this episode was EXACTLY like WV episode 4. And received the same backlash. It needed to happen and the final dialogue between Agatha and Billy tells us such BEAUTIFUL things about Agatha. How a young child who survived and used their gift should never feel ashamed. She is telling him what she wished to hear and the tears in her eyes of remembering Billy and Wanda in the hex. Just beautiful storytelling and Kathryn’s acting

But ultimately, if there is nothing more than we have been given. I will be livid. Because that IS queerbaiting. To not give us a kiss or showing their backstory etc IS queerbaiting and it would be disgusting. BUT their relationship is the heartfelt whisper behind everything. Every small action, every look, every comment and smile and interaction is beautiful and heartfelt. BUT it is the storyline that will become prominent in the final trio of episodes. It will be and we will get a kiss.

I am personally furious the first kiss of the series about women is between two men. BUT their relationship was not integral to the story. Agatha and Rio’s are. Is that not more important? There will be more. Their relationship is for the latter three because the latter three is pure Agatha. Well Lilia next episode but Agatha is much more there

Anyway welcome back to quick thoughts about Episode 6

The Eastview and Westview flags in Billy’s room were in Agatha’s trial. WHY IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. Jac I am calling you a liar and I don't care (I'm kidding Jac you are doing a great job thank you for every Agatha thing)

Lilia putting the sigil on him is SO GOOD. My personal theory is that she saw what would happen if Wanda found him. It would have ruined both of them. It could have been because that amount of power at that age may have hurt him but Agatha has constantly been kind to him. I think it was because she saw a bad future with Wanda finding him. Idk jury is out on this but it’s a fun thing to think about. Why?

RALPH’S EXPLANATION! GOOOOOOD this is the thing I keep trying to say. Ralph described it as absolute torture. People were literally asking Wanda to kill them over that. And that was less than two weeks. Agatha has been under it for THREE YEARS. AND I would point to ep 4 where the other two was screaming in pain to the curse and she was able to withstand it. Not only does it show the sadness that she has probably been through so much pain that she can withstand it even without magic BUT ALSO think about how much torture she has felt! She deserves to murder everyone around her. My bby

The outside perspective of the interrogation scene was wonderful. Absolutely hilarious. I think the director said to Kathryn ‘make him break’ and that was where they went

And it is just… again so sad to me. She was forced to make an utter fool of herself but people went along with it and helped her. Its so sweet but so heartbreaking. I love you Agatha

The running scene. She got a cramp because she hasn’t left the house for so long

Billy sits in a chair covered in moons

THE RESEARCH SCENE I LOVED IT I LOVEEEEEED IT. and also remember this is a secondary source. I love this in media. Agatha isn’t a succubus she is a siphon but because this wiki is most likely written by a creep they turn it sexual. I mean she could be but you always have to think about WHO wrote it. Just like the Jolene article. Kathryn probably didn't fuck Dolly Parton’s boyfriend but she did get slapped by her and they ran with it, just like a tabloid would. And ALL THE PHOTOS!!! AHHHHHH I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE PROPER RUN THROUGH OF HER LIFE

On the Jolene point I think it’s a fun easter egg because it’s like Agatha’s perspective of Wanda if the ‘lover’ was magic. Look at these lyrics:

I think Agatha is the singing perspective, Wanda is Jolene and the magic is their lover. It is favouring ‘the younger more perfect’ witch (Agatha is better than everyone don't even, I'm just saying from a jealousy perspective)

AGATHA SURVIVING THE MUD AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHH

GONNA SCREAM SOME MORE AHHHHHH

The fact she is one of two witches who has NOTHING and yet still survives the death sentence (which isn’t a death sentence but shouldn’t be escapable) shows how utterly incredible she is. She is a survivor which brings me to my next love

THE DUALOGUE I FUCKING LOVED IT

Okay, originally I thought that she would be mad and angry. But this made so much more sense. Her unseriousness is her hiding her anger and annoyance. But fundamentally she is connected because she relates. Wanda was too late. She was fighting so hard and Agatha tried but Billy… he is a child. He is just like her. But was given a gift not a curse like Agatha. But still, Agatha prioritised surviving and living over anything else. And that is what Billy did: survived. And she respects that. So she tells him what SHE WANTED TO HEAR as a child!!! Its so beautiful!!! Honestly utterly beautiful and Kathryn acted her ass off. Fucking Goddess

And some people are going ‘uh she knew from the start. But why did-’ she lied. ‘Why did what Rio said hurt’- she lied. She had a suspicion at the start but as it went in she thought it was Nick. That shattered around Rio’s comment because Rio would know and Agatha trusts that. Agatha trusts her in those moments. But she did think he was nick then or at least her suspicion and hope tilted towards there which is what I think. She is already covered in mud and embarrassed. Of course she is going to go ‘yeah I always knew. Never had a doubt’. Media literacy is dead my god

AND THE WAY SHE TOUCHED HER BROOCH. That proves to me she did geneuinly have the hope that he was nick. At least in the moment she truly realised the tragedy that Wanda got her son back but she never will.

Her unseriousness. Sometimes a bby girl is a 350 year old serial killer witch

I love you Agatha

And remember this is Agatha’s show. But these character’s need to be fleshed out. But by their explanations we get a greater image of Agatha. But every relationship Agatha has is equally important. I want more romance but this was not the episode for it. The latter three will

[kiwibirb1]

More meetup au stuff because my brain keeps making the sashas extra angsty-

Basic general thing here but the party (which is what I'm calling the entire group think d&d) grows in the order I come up with the aus. Like in the beginning it was just canon and CiH, then BT joined, and so on. (I'm trying to think up some sort of plot but for now it's just an excuse to make them interact.) So the ToaF girls are the most recent additions. Also ages so from oldest to youngest we got BT (34 ish), canon (23ish), ToaF (19-18), WV (16ish), CiH (14ish), and CF (13ish). CiH is only older bc they spent a little longer in Hyrule than canon did in Amphibia (and by extension CF).

Okay now that the housekeeping is out of the way time to make WV!Sasha sad heh (ugh still stuck on their nicknames. Sasha will prob be Vagabond but i dont know what to do for anne and marcy...). So even though he's not the oldest, he kinda became the groups navigator bc he had traveled the most. He like calls put shit that's ahead, but it's always really gruff and pretty much all the speaking he does. Rest of the group just assumes he's shy or something, but he sure don't act it. And his Marcy and Anne are constantly mentioning conversations they had the previous night, despite no one hearing a single word from any of them. Anyway Heron and Domino are practicing their sign one day (everyone in amphibia knows it, most especially the lower classes. Since accidents are so much more common with frogs and toads and Idk other reasons im tryna worldbuild here okay) and Vagabond walks by them and waves. But Heron realizes that the reason she thought Vagabond always waved a little funny is bc it's not actually a wave its hello in sign! (they're like slightly different okay?) Heron tests her theory by signing something to Vagabond and he automatically signs back. So then Heron, Domino, and Vagabond are holding an entire conversation in sign and both the BTs are realizing "holy shit this kid is the exact opposite of shy" so one of them asks why they don't talk more and Vagabond awkwardly explains how he prefers signing but figured the rest of the group didn't know it. So yeah. Vagabond was also like really happy when ToaF joined because ToaF!Sasha was also fluent (WV!Marcy wasn't completely, or at least as fluent as Sasha, same with BT) so he could hold conversations with extra words and shit.

Hmmm oh! All the Sasha's with an eye scar have slightly different ones. WV's is two slash marks right over her eye, going towards her nose, that have nice clean edges because Rosie helped make sure it healed properly. ToaF has two slash marks as well, but they go away from her nose, and are much more jagged bc no Rosie to help. BT has one long thin one going from her hairline to that one spot at the edge of your jaw. Knife wound hehe

[shutupineedtothink]

[Theory] Agatha All Along title meaning + character arc for Agatha

Back on the theory train — here’s another thing that’s bugging me. Why is the show called Agatha All Along, besides the cute allusion to the song. I know for a fact Jac Schaeffer is too clever and too good of a writer to not make it mean something more.

I’m feeling like it must tie into Agatha’s character arc for the show, so let me take you on a little hypothetical journey here.

Spoilers below the cut!

Now that I’ve rewatched those last few episodes of WandaVision, I can’t get Agatha’s flashback out of my head. Particularly her saying, practically pleading, “I can be good” and her mother replying “no, you cannot.” Like holy shit. That’s a condemnation if I ever heard one. A different kind of curse passed down by a different kind of mother.

I’m starting to wonder… what if Agatha was always this powerful, even without the Darkhold. What if she was so innately powerful, her own mother and her entire coven was afraid of her? Maybe they even suspected her of being the Scarlet Witch, and therefore capable of ending the world itself? And because she was so powerful, and every other witch around her didn’t even want to touch her much less teach her, what if she went looking for resources herself? And whether that was the actual Darkhold or something else “above her station” (… I’m not convinced she had the Darkhold yet at the time of this WV flashback scene) that only served as the indictment the other witches needed to finally attack her?

Basically where I’m going with this is… what if Agatha was raised to believe she was bad? If she was always told she was basically evil incarnate, always feared for her power, too powerful for her own good, too powerful to be good, to anyone… her own coven, her sisters, and her mother were afraid of her and shunned her… what would that core belief do to her?

Let’s also assume her coven were the first (maybe only) people she intentionally killed (and even then, in self defense). The way she looks when she takes the amulet from her mother’s body — she’s angry, but how much of that anger is directed at herself? How much of her thought, well, look, they were right. I am bad. I am evil. And there’s no turning back now. And I hate myself for it.

Except maybe, she tries. She’s constantly trying to escape this fate, this identity that was forced on her. She never joins another coven in the centuries after, not only because no one wants her and she has serious trust issues but because she doesn’t want to hurt them, intentionally or not. She doesn’t need their power, she’s already more powerful than just about any other witch. So she studies. She learns the craft. She controls her power. And she leans into the persona of Agatha the powerful evil witch, because why not? That’s what they all think of her anyway. Let her control the narrative then. She wears her reputation like armor, so that no one can betray her ever again. As Rio says, “you’re vulnerable.” And she replies, “only physically.”

Then at some point, the unthinkable happens. She meets Rio, falls in love with her, figures out who she is (not necessarily in that order) and maybe she thinks, what kind of person falls in love with death? Surely that must be even more confirmation that she’s horrible (despite the fact that Rio is not horrible, not really, and certainly not to her). But she tries not to care, and mostly she doesn’t because she’s in love.

And then she has Nicky, however that happens, and she’s absolutely terrified but he is hers, and she loves him like she never loved anyone before. And she’s determined — he will be powerful but he will never think he’s anything less than because of it. He is finally, finally something good that came from her.

And then he too, is ripped away from her, by her own lover Death, and however it happened (even though it definitely wasn’t intentional on her part), she knows it’s her fault. Because she is evil, she is horrible, and this is her fate. She is betrayed by the people she loves, and she is left behind.

But still! She can’t give him up. She can’t stop trying. And she feels the absolutely insane surge of power in Westview and inserts herself into the Scarlet Witch’s hex, when no other witch would even dare get close, because maybe with enough power, with Wanda’s power, she can remake Nicky. (“And you wanted him back.”) She can create somewhere he’ll be safe and everyone else will be safe, and she won’t cause any more damage, to anyone. Death will never find them. She can raise her son in peace. She never wanted Wanda’s power just for power’s sake, she wanted what Wanda created, but better. Her version.

And then that too, was gone. And once again, she was painted the villain.

And now? Now it seems like all the pieces of her past are coming back to haunt her all at once. A new coven of witches who seem impossible to get along with, her lover Death who she tried to escape for so long, and a boy who looks like he might be the version of her son she was trying to recreate, who seems to adore her despite everything she is and wants to learn magic more than anything else. It’s all come back around.

So maybe, through reasons and events currently unfolding, Agatha’s journey on The Road (and the show) is to realize, or at least begin to maybe believe slightly, that she’s not inherently evil. She’s not an inherently bad person, or bad luck, or horrible. It wasn’t all her fault. Nicky’s death wasn’t her fault, even if she couldn’t save him. Death is part of her journey, as it is for us all, and maybe she can learn to accept that, maybe even love the woman who carries that name again, or at least forgive her.

Maybe this boy isn’t hers, but she can care for him and teach him the magic she never got to teach her own son. There can be a coven who actually has her back, who even sees her as their leader, who knows her and accepts her for what she truly is. Extremely flawed, powerful as all fuck, snarky and sarcastic, but the real her.

Not Agatha the evil witch. Not Agatha the villain (because she never was one). Not Agatha the hero either. Just Agatha. All Along.

———

Eh?? 🤷‍♀️

Now maybe in the show it’s not quite as angsty as all this, but Jac Schaeffer is writing this character too complexly and Kathryn Hahn is playing her too complexly for at least some of this not to be true. Agatha’s not just a villain. She’s not true evil. It’s only episode 4 and we basically know for a fact based on her reactions alone that Agatha did NOT sacrifice her own child for the book of the damned. And I just can’t get over the way Kathryn Hahn almost seems to be playing two characters with Agatha, the (evil) witch and the vulnerable Agatha underneath that only seems to surface for Teen and Rio, so far.

It’s fascinating, and I just want to see her get the depth of story she deserves. And we deserve, tbh.

[thewertsearch]

GC: YOU W3R3 STRUTT1NG 4ROUND 1N YOUR D3L1C1OUS K1W1 31GHT B4LL SU1T 4ND RUNN1NG YOUR FR3SH MOUTH 4S USU4L GC: durp yo terezi sup sup gotta beat john gotta beat john GC: hes got a long hood and he does wind, how can i get powers too? [....] GC: [...] 1M L1K3 D4V3 TH4TS GO1NG TO 1NVOLV3 F4C1NG YOUR OWN D34TH GC: 4ND 1M SORRY TO BR34K 1T TO YOU BUT 1 DONT TH1NK YOUR3 R34DY FOR TH4T

Well, at least she gave him fair warning.

Thanks to Vriska, John was able to achieve the god tiers without confronting his mortality. He didn't have to grapple with any of this, and it's possible that he was robbed of some character growth as a result.

That said, I still think Vriska did him a solid. It's just ironic that she thinks she's helping him develop as a hero, when she might be doing the exact opposite.

GC: BUT ONLY 1F YOU PROM1S3 TO TH3 3X4CT T3RMS OF MY 4RR4NG3M3NT, 1N ORD3R TO PROT3CT TH3 1NT3GR1TY OF TH3 T1M3L1N3 >:] TG: the arrangement being the coin flip thing TG: thank god we did that otherwise wed be screwed TG: i probably would have gone back in time and killed my own grandfather oh wait i never had one

lmao

I do wonder if Bro had an adopted family. We know Nanna and Grandpa's background, and Mom was probably the child that Skaianet were apparently raising in their laboratory. (Remember when I thought there was a secret clone of Rose down there?)

Bro, however, is an enigma, even among the Guardians. He has no known relationship with any of the other parents, but was definitely getting foreknowledge of Sburb from somewhere. I'm not even sure I want to know what sort of childhood produces Bro Strider.

GC: 1 TOLD YOU 1 W4S GO1NG TO FL1P 4 CO1N GC: 4ND B3FOR3 1 D1D, YOU H4D TO P1CK 4 S1D3 W1THOUT T3LL1NG M3 GC: GOOD H34DS OR B4D H34DS

Really, the coin is just a rhetorical device. Terezi doesn't need to flip a coin, or even have a coin, because the real flip is happening in Dave's head. His Mind, if you will.

This does raise a lot of questions, though. I hope there isn't a timeline for every conceivable decision you could make. We've sort of discussed the idea before, but I don't think I've really talked about the subtle horror of a multiverse that works that way.

I mean, if there's a timeline for every possible decision - if everyone is capable of making any choice, at any time - then John will randomly kill his friends, for no reason. There are millions of offshoots where he does this. WV will become a monarchist. Dave will take off his shades.

It goes deeper, too. You can't even meaningfully ask why Dave wears shades, because he doesn't. He's constantly taking them off, because it is possible for him to do so. And if there's a timeline where he never takes them off, it's only because that's a decision he could potentially make.

If timelines branch at every decision, with no restrictions, then every single person in the multiverse is constantly doing things that contradict the core of who they are. In fact, there is no core. Everyone is an indistinguishable robot, constantly making every possible decision, simply because they can.

Homestuck could work like this, but I prefer the Discworld interpretation - I think it's more consistent with the comic's themes of choice. In Night Watch, protagonist Vimes is confronted with this exact question, and we get this exchange:

“But sometimes you can’t help wondering: what would have happened if I’d done something different–” “Like when you killed your wife?” Sweeper was impressed at Vimes’s lack of reaction. “This is a test, right?” ��You’re a quick study, Mister Vimes.” “But in some other universe, believe me, I hauled off and punched you one.” Again, Sweeper smiled the annoying little smile that suggested he didn’t believe him. “You haven’t killed your wife,” he said. “Anywhere. There is nowhere, however huge the multiverse is, where Sam Vimes as he is now has murdered Lady Sybil. But the theory is quite clear. It says that if anything could happen without breaking any physical laws, it must happen. But it hasn’t. And yet the “many universe” theory works. Without it, no one would ever be able to make a decision at all.” “So?” “So what people do matters!” said Sweeper. “People invent other laws. What they do is important!

In short, there are some things you would never do, physical laws be damned. It is inconceivable that Vimes would murder his wife, because his current personality is incompatible with that decision. It simply cannot be made to make sense, so it can't spawn a timeline.

Note that this is only true for Vimes 'as he is now'. His moral code doesn't necessarily apply to his alt-selves - or even his younger self, whose code hasn't solidified. Hell, half the book is about making sure Young Vimes develops that code in the first place. There could be an evil John Egbert, but our John can't just arbitrarily turn evil.

So that's how I think it works. There's a timeline for every decision that you'd choose to make, and that subset of decisions will change as you grow. Your development as a person shapes the multiverse, in a very literal way.

[stephen-barry]

During the special session on Sunday, October 6, 2024, several West Virginia delegates introduced a resolution requesting that the state legislature “not recognize an illegitimate presidential election.”

West Virginia Legislature introduced House Concurrent Resolution 203, asserting that supermajority MAGA WV legislature will refuse to recognize the elected president if they can float a theory of voting irregularities in ANY STATE.