#longevity paradox

[collagenbarnyc]

Longevity Paradox: Aging Gracefully with Modern Wellness

The concept of the longevity paradox challenges the traditional view of aging. It describes a surprising contradiction—people are living longer than ever, yet many experience declining health, chronic disease, and early signs of aging. While life expectancy rises, the quality of those extended years can often be poor unless we actively invest in both our internal health and outward appearance. Through science-backed skincare treatments like Morpheus8 and holistic wellness approaches, we can take control of how we age.

[mangakachan]

Back to Sailor Moon for the floriography series! First up is Saturn! 🪐

The flower I chose for Saturn is the white chrysanthemum. White chrysanthemum flowers are commonly used in funerals in East Asian and some European cultures, and is associated with death, bereavement, and condolence. However in Chinese culture it is also associated with the traditional Double Nine Festival, a festival that celebrates one’s ancestors and during which people pray for health and a good harvest. In that context, chrysanthemums, and wines made from the flower, are associated with health and longevity. The two paradoxical meanings is a nice fit for Saturn, the herald of death but also of rebirth.

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

What is true power of Timelord(Doctor especially)?Does he,or other regular Timelord,posses any superpower or skill like Master when he was throwing lightnings or 10thDoctor when he fought with a sword in "Christmas Invasion"?Cause sometimes you have to participate in a direct fight and not all issues can be solved with intelligence,companions or plot twist

What is the true power of a Time Lord?

Let's set expectations early: Time Lords are not Marvel. They don't shoot lasers from their eyes or have the ability to generate bellybutton lint at will (x).

That said, they're not powerless either. Their abilities are just rooted in some biology trickery, psionics, and really aggressive academia.

⚙️ Physical Abilities

Reflexes: Time Lords can perceive in five dimensions. This allows them to anticipate events, movements, and patterns in ways that feel almost precognitive. Combined with faster-than-human reflexes and high neural speed, they can react extremely quickly, enough to swordfight a Sycorax on a spaceship in pyjamas.

Healing: Their bodies are extremely resilient, capable of healing rapidly from injury, and in rare cases, they can even share regenerative energy to heal others, though this cannot resurrect the dead, and comes at a heavy cost.

Stamina & Durability: They don't tire easily, resilient in hostile environments, and are notably difficult to kill. Many master the respiratory bypass system, allowing them to survive without oxygen, and making it extremely annoying to try and suffocate them.

🌀 Psionic Abilities

Telepathy: All Time Lords are mildly telepathic. They can send and receive thoughts, manipulate memories, form psionic links with others, and access minds via physical contact.

Low-Level Telekinesis: Limited to very small objects—game pieces, buttons, the occasional feather. Not battle-worthy, but scandalously underused.

mRNA Memory Access: Yes, if a Time Lord ingests biological matter containing RNA (like, say, a biodata strand or a bit of flesh), they can access that being's memories. Let's all just take a moment to think about that.

⏳ Chrono Abilities

Five-Dimensional Perception: Time Lords exist across, and are aware of, five dimensions. This allows them to perceive time non-linearly, detect anomalies, and occasionally experience flashes of possible futures or lost presents.

Time Sensitivity: They can feel temporal disturbances, like you might feel pressure or heat. This is often described as a hum, a wrongness, or the sensation of being out of sync with the room.

Instinctive Chronology: Most Time Lords have an innate ability to track chronology. They always know when they are, and in most cases, how wrong everything else is.

🧾 Honourable Mentions

Low sleep requirements

Significantly improved senses, including enhanced hearing, sight, and proprioception

Slightly enhanced strength and endurance

Extreme longevity

Regeneration, of course

Higher baseline resistance to radiation, toxins, and temperature changes

Excellent hair

⚡ What about the extremes?

The Master's 'lightning bolts' were the result of a botched regeneration, interrupted by outside forces. What you saw was unstable regenerative energy discharging chaotically, and it's not a standard power set.

Similarly, the Tenth Doctor's glowy floaty moment on the Valiant was a singular event. He spent a year tuning into a mass telepathic network, amplified by the Archangel system, fuelled by the collective attention of the human race. For a brief moment, this allowed him to:

Levitate

Manipulate physical matter (telekinesis)

Manifest shielding

Rapidly heal and de-age

Deliver a well-timed speech about forgiveness

This was not repeatable without a very specific set of circumstances, and definitely not the sort of thing you can just do because you're a Time Lord. That was a one-time paradox-soaked miracle powered by narrative gravity and collective belief.

🏫 So...

Time Lords are powerful—but in the bend-reality-with-an-academic-reference sort of way. Their abilities come from perception, precision, and a lot of cellular firepower, not raw muscle or super abilities.

Related:

📺|🧬👽Some of the weirdest pieces of Gallifreyan biology we've not thought much about

💬|👁️⏲️How do Time Lords see the future?: Overview of the five-dimensional aspect of Time Lords and how they perceive the future.

🤔|🛡️⚡How does healing work in Time Lords and hybrids?: Healing processes with some helpful guides to timeframes.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any orange text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →📢Announcements |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts → Features: ⭐Guest Posts | 🍜Chomp Chomp with Myishu →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[peachy-writings]

PARADOX | Viktor AU Pt. 2

Summary: With access to a lab, Viktor and reader can begin creating a method to get him back to his original timeline. Meanwhile, reader’s past wreaks havoc in Zaun and more context into their true relationship with Viktor comes to light.

Content Tags: Gender neutral reader with They/Them pronouns (no use of Y/N), Kinda follows S2 Pt. 2 canon, Angsty, Vi and Jayce deceased in this universe, Strangers to Friends?

Note: Not edited!! This will definitely be getting its own masterlist because it’s definitely becoming a whole ass series. I’m getting super into all the lore I’ve been imbedding into the characters.

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

The keys to the lab drop into Viktor’s dainty hand with a finality in the way they clink against one another. Metal on metal bounces off the hallway walls like the resonating ring of the town’s bell tower. Professor Heimerdinger and you share a concerned look as Viktor’s hand shakes whilst unlocking the door.

“It is quite the journey to get here from Zaun,” the Yordle remarks.

“Yes,” you concur, the three of you entering the large room together, “Viktor is looking worse for wear today.”

“I can hear you,” the aforementioned snarks. “And I am perfectly fine.”

He is already settling down in a chair at one of the desks, fiddling with the various instruments supplied by the university.

“If you say so…”

Heimerdinger claps his small hands together, eyes widening as he goes into a long winded speech. Viktor and you nod along as the professor scurries around as he speaks about safety and the scheduled check-ins he will be abiding by. He preaches the value of never underestimating the power of magic. Many people have attempted to harness it, some with good intentions, others the latter; but all have failed to do so effectively.

“Devastation is the only conclusion to the story of a great mind attempting to master the powerful forces of The Arcane.”

The way he speaks of it, of the dangers wielding so much power can have, causes a chill to trickle down your spine. Not because of the sentiment itself, but the look in Viktor’s eyes when this subject is brought up. An expression that you can only explain as the pain of having learned such a lesson first hand—or maybe witnessing this happening to someone else.

Heimerdinger leaves the two of you alone in the lab. Silence caresses the tall walls and Viktor seems to already be in his groove, gathering materials on his desk like a bear preparing for its hibernation.

“Eager to start?” You ask as you pace the extent of the room, taking everything in.

Large pipes loop in and out of the walls, lending an industrial feel to the room, and a long desk stretches the width of two walls. On the far side is a smaller desk that Viktor immediately gravitated toward. This lends to a personal theory that he is more of the solitary type. You eventually land in front of a window that overlooks a good part of Piltover from above.

“Indeed. I must get an idea of what materials we have so that I can create the blueprint mockup.”

You hum in acknowledgment. “We should ask Heimerdinger if he could provide dorming for you. I know you refuse to acknowledge it, but these long walks aren’t feasible for you.”

The sounds of his tinkering halt and your eyes meet his when he spins around in his seat. “My leg will not stop me from doing what I want to do. I have walked many miles and will walk many more.”

“While I understand that, this is a longevity thing, not a dig at your disability,” you state firmly, holding his gaze until he relents and tears his eyes from your face. Though he does not move otherwise, body still pointing at you. The conversation is clearly not over.

“How am I to know that the next time you return to Zain won’t be the last time I see you?”

You guffaw in disbelief. “I’ve survived long enough in my city, there’s no need to worry about me like that.”

“No.” For as firm as the word is when it leaves his thin lips, there is a vulnerability in the silence that follows. “I am asking if I can trust that you will come back?“

He wants to say more. You can tell by the way his lips part and then close twice before he dares to look at your face again. His insecurity takes you by surprise. It also offends you just a bit.

“Why would you think I’m that kind of person? Surely you know my character from being around me in your world… As unfortunate as it may be for my sake, I can’t just abandon you.” You turn toward the window, thoughtful. “Not until I have all the answers to my questions.”

Viktor huffs a small laugh, seemingly amused. You let him bask in this confession, if only to placate him into staying at the university. Maybe a little space from him will do you good. His presence is slowly growing on you, and you want to reject it before it can bud into anything. You cannot let yourself care for somebody who has a timer ticking down on when they will leave you behind.

Viktor is working on his list whilst you stay attached to the window, enamored by the details of the city. It disgusts you that this place thrives whilst the under city lives in its shadow, but you still can’t help but to marvel at what you had in another life.

As your eyes map out the streets and count the many people on them, a blue mass catches your attention. You squint at the bridge to the city, watching as a cloud of vibrant, powder blue grows bigger. Your stomach drops, throat tightening as realization takes over. Back when you were younger, after Vi passed, Powder showed you the flares her sister made her.

“She told me that if I ever needed her, to set one off and wait,” the girl explained to you as she fiddled with the canister.

“I will take on that promise,” you vowed, to which she smiled sweetly through budding tears.

In the present, your feet move quicker than you can think, pounding down the tiled university floors. Viktor says something when you fly out of the room, but the pounding heartbeat in your ears drowns it out. All you can think about is Powder, that sad little girl, crying out for your help.

The flare canister clatters to the ground when you nearly crash into Powder, squeezing her in a hug. She hugs you back tightly and you struggle to let go because you know that bad news awaits the space that will separate you.

“It’s your father,” she explains, eyes full of grief. “He sent some of his goons to find you and they burnt down your house before anyone knew what was going on.”

“They what?”

All of the paranoia you had been working on letting go of comes back tenfold, head spinning with multiple realizations crashing into one another like dominos. They found you, they intended to do something terrible to you, and now you have no home. Again.

“I’m sorry,” Powder breathes. “Vander and Silco arranged a search for the culprits, but I don’t think we’ll be able to find them. I’m glad you were in Piltover, it could’ve been so much worse if you were there.”

Her voice shakes, and you can only imagine how traumatizing this all must have been for her. “Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault,” you soothe, and then you pause to think for a moment. “I have to go investigate.”

“But they could still be in the city!”

“I know, but I have to do something. That was my home.”

Hesitantly, the girl nods, and the two of you make the journey back down to Zaun. Realization hits as soon as you see what little remains of your dwelling. Powder watches silently as you scrounge through the rubble for anything of meaning you can recover. You find the city alarm invention Viktor mentioned on the first night you met, and you carefully pick it up. The metal is scorched, the face more lopsided than usual, but it’s still somewhat recognizable.

What will you do now? Where will you stay if not your home? The thought of residing in the upper city makes your skin crawl. Being up there is already an internal battle of ethics for you, but it may now be your new primary stay. If not for anything but your temporary safety.

It’s clear that you are being hunted and those wretched people have information on you. If they already have their eyes on you, the safest option for you, Powder and Viktor would be to stay within the safety Piltover offers. At least until you can figure out what your next move will be. Hopefully that happens before your quest to get Viktor home ends.

After spending a long while mourning the place you’ve called home longer than anywhere else, you talk to Powder and quell her worries. You are sure that you can ask Heimerdinger to make accommodations for you as well as Viktor—he’s already offered—so you have options. While you don’t fully explain what the two of you are doing in the city, she is satisfied that you have somewhere safe to go.

You spend a couple more hours in your city, friends and neighbors give you kind sentiments and some goods for your troubles. An impromptu gathering takes place at The Last Drop and you get a couple of free drinks on the house. You try to enjoy your time as much as possible before Vander basically forces you to get back to the safety of Piltover.

A tearful goodbye with Powder at the same spot on the bridge and you’re off to the city with the little tangible items you still own on your back.

“Where on earth were you?” Viktor immediately questions as soon as you get back to the lab, eyebrows furrowed so deeply they almost eclipse his irises.

Him and Heimerdinger seemed to have been having a conversation before you arrived. Both do a double take of your appearance and you realize you must look an absolute mess. You walk over to the long desk and drop your backpack onto the surface, sighing before turning to the two of them.

“I got a distress signal from Powder… My home was burned down.”

“Oh my,” the professor remarks. “While this is a great tragedy, I do have a dorm room just down the hall set aside. Viktor and I were just speaking about this. If you don’t mind sharing, you are both more than welcome to stay there.”

You nod numbly. “Thank you.”

“I will leave you to it then. And Viktor, those supplies will be requested immediately.”

Without another word, the Yordle scurries out of the room and you slump into the nearest seat. You drape an arm over your eyes and lean back, pulling yourself together for the time being. The clicks of Viktor’s cane on the floor barely register in your frazzled mind, and then you feel a hand on your shoulder.

Slowly, you uncover your eyes and find him sat in front of you on a rolling chair with such concern in his gaze that your heart aches. You can’t break, not in front of him. A deep breath clears your mind for the time being. Compartmentalization does happen to be a talent of yours.

“Are you okay?” He asks softly, that look in his eyes too much for you to bear.

You lash out, compartmentalization out the window in an instant. “What do you think?”

A pregnant pause as he readjusts his grip on his cane and pulls the handle inward, toward his chest. “That’s fair.”

You huff, indignant as you push off the floor to gain some distance from him. It’s petulant the way you spin so your back faces him.

“Was it… on purpose?”

“Absolutely,” you mumble, dismissively. “That fucker is out to get me once again.”

“Who are you talking about? I truly don’t appreciate your secrecy,” Viktor drolls out, as though the words themselves exhaust him to speak.

You chuckle, back still facing him. “I’ll tell you when you answer my questions from yesterday. And don’t act dumb, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

A glance at him over your shoulder satisfies you just a bit. Viktor looks extraordinarily annoyed, but you know he can’t deny the fairness of such a trade. For a single moment, you think you’ve backed him into a corner, but you should expect more of such a sharp mind when it comes to a debate.

“How about we get to know one another a little better then? Before we go diving into the deep, dark depths of our pasts.”

“You probably already know about my fucked up family, that’s not fair,” you reply, one foot gently turning your chair to the side, so that you can see him from the corner of your eye.

His head shows side to side, and his voice softens as he says, “No. I don’t. That’s one thing you never got to open up to me about.”

More questions about his relationship with the other version of yourself arise. If you were close enough to be romantically involved, how couldn’t you have gotten that deep? You suppose that the ferocity in which you hold your past close to your heart could still exist, even if you were to have lived a better life.

“Tell me,” you say, fully turning toward Viktor, “how did we meet? Maybe we can start there.”

He smiles softly and settles in his chair, getting comfortable for the long yarn he intends to spin.

Jayce Talis was a vision of charisma and ambition since he was a child, the perfect foil to yourself. Yet somehow, he was attached to you by the hip like a protective brother. And his mother—that sweet woman—saw you for what you could become and nothing less when she came across you. A tween begging for food on the streets, the same age as her own son. She couldn’t keep her heart from melting at the sight, and her past struggles ignited the decision to take you in as her own.

She was like an aunt, never wishing to replace your parents—not that you wouldn’t wholeheartedly accept her as so—while Jayce became your closest friend very quickly. Going from an extroverted only child to having a new sibling caused him to take on the task of drawing you out of your shell. He would ask you every question under the sun, wanting to know everything about you.

Jayce was the only person you had told about everything that happened before. About your retched father and missing mother. Nary a judgement came through in his words nor his expression. He didn’t look down on you, and for that you loved him dearly.

He knew who he was through and through from the start. His passion for science and his visions for what the world could be drew vivid images on the horizon in your mind. He would create magnificent little gizmos and you would always be enamored by his ingenuity. You liked to doodle silly faces on his contraptions, and instead of being mad that you tampered with his things, he would only encourage you to draw more.

Eventually, he went down the science route and you went into the arts. You attended the same university, but your classes and living arrangements were pretty far from one another. Once the whole Hextech explosion destroyed his Penthouse and nearly took his life, his mom pushed you to look after him more.

This is when you met Viktor, actually picking a fight with him when he came to talk about Jayce’s invention after the authorities confiscated all of his work. You have always been a hothead, naturally. After spending the better years of your life being fiercely protected by Jayce, it was your turn to become that person for him after such an incident.

You were very cold toward Viktor in the beginning, not trusting this stranger and worried about the dangers of their joint project. In an attempt to quell these concerns, you invested as much time as you could into helping them with it. You got to keep an eye on the boys and maintain Jayce’s safety.

Little did you know, it was you who was in the most danger.

Viktor was enamored by how bright you were, how you could come up with such ingenious safeguards for each stage of their inventions. You were practically the safety committee, which led you inherently to look after Viktor as well. Since you would opt to stay in the lab when Jayce was spirited away to do PR, you would spend this time cleaning up and organizing materials. Getting closer to Viktor was inevitable during these times. The two of you slowly built a friendship and would stay up late in the lab, working on your own projects while he did his work. Silent but comfortable; alone together.

As a matter of course, you would talk about any and everything when it became late and the drowsiness loosened your lips. During one of these such nights, you ended up confessing your budding feelings to Viktor, then immediately took it back and told him never to speak of it again.

Of course the ever mischievous Viktor took every opportunity to tease you behind Jayce’s back. You would always scold him, telling him that it would only lead to bad things if you got together. He said he was willing to risk it and sealed the statement with a kiss. You felt ethereal in that moment, like a star sparking in the night sky. It was a special moment, the first kiss the two of you shared, but you were right to worry.

This little budding romance was always fated to be a tragedy.

last chapter here • next chapter here

Taglist: @eternalsams @cosmicporos @omniscientsock @night-fall-moon

[tevanbuckley]

Hi! Heading into season 8 with buck and tommy, do you think it’s about time they cement a relationship for buck as a long term or endgame potential? My impression is that Tim doesn’t like to have certain things set and stone to leave potential for whatever it is he wants to explore but going into the 8thseason, with no idea on how much longer the show will go on for before being cancelled or before a main(s) decide to leave, I would say it’s time to commit to a relationship for buck and they’ve built a good foundation with him and tommy.

also because I can’t imagine another season of the same, relationship -> breakup -> single -> relationship and so on. Buck’s love life being secure in the sense that he’s no longer searching for love also gives potential for newer, fresher storylines to be explored. I just don’t know if a part of Tim is holding out hope that buddie will get greenlit at some point so he’ll continue this single/relationship/breakup trajectory with buck and eddie until that can happen or if he’s ready to move on and let them both find happiness. But if it is the former, to me that would really hurt the characters development and growth and would make even canon buddie feel just bland in a way because they just did it because “they could” now.

my desire is that Tim commits to this relationship and continues to develop it in a way that by 8b affirms them as endgame, I think it would be a mistake not to and let the development fizzle out.

the paradox of tv is that “this couple is for all intents and purposes endgame” and “anything could happen so there is no real endgame” have to awkwardly co-exist. bc nobody would balk at the idea of calling madney or bathena ‘endgame’ yet irl considerations could interfere. or what if tracie gets offered a series regular gig somewhere down the line?

But, this isn’t grey’s, once they have something that works they seem to want stick with it. Even when they had to write JLH out for her maternity leave they did it in a way that made it pretty easy for madney to reconcile.

I think when tim says he “doesn’t have a plan” what he really means is he doesn’t want to write himself into a corner (imo this is what happened in s6 with the couch metaphor but that’s a whole other post). despite being chaotic, writing as they go, does reduce the risk of random loose ends they can’t tie up because a sl got killed half way through cooking.

Having buck in a LTR gives them space to explore new things with buck (bisexuality or not) so now that they’ve found something that does work, that’s had positive audience and critical reception, I think they’d be insane to throw that away.

Also, idk how much I buy into the idea that tim’s secretly a buddie shipper and the only reason he’s not doing it is bc tptb said no. I think he agrees it’s a plausible interpretation of buck and eddie’s relationship, that doesn’t mean it was intentional, that he has any interest in doing it, or that he thinks it would work well as a story within the confines of a network procedural.

I’ve seen others question the longevity the show has at this point but idk, the only character I see stagnating a bit is unfortunately eddie (but I’ll hold off until s8 for a final judgement). And on a practical level, abc has just poured a shit ton of money and marketing into the show, so assuming the ratings don’t tank in s8 I’m optimistic we’ll get a s9. Yes it’s expensive to make, but more than it needs to be tbh. Like there were cheaper ways to have that cruise ship sink, they did not need to write a prohibitively expensive hijacking into it.

really the tldr; is that we don’t know what the future holds but I think there’s every reason to be optimistic the shows heading in a positive direction.

[blackofhair]

Was all female suffering linked to the womb? Was suffering seen as an intrinsic part of female experience?

Biller’s analysis of medieval views on human longevity through until the mid-fourteenth century suggests that scholars such as William of Auvergne (d. 1249) or Albertus Magnus (d. 1280) struggled with a series of paradoxes.

They believed that women suffered as a result of Eve’s sin. Their monthly bleeding was a sign of sinfulness and sickliness—menstruation could be constructed as an illness, and menstrual blood was usually seen as poisonous even transformed into breast milk—but against this was set the strong belief that purgation was beneficial and necessary to female health.

A healthy woman was fertile and sexually active; nuns were sometimes perceived to be less healthy due to their celibacy. On the other hand, it was widely argued that childbearing aged a woman and reduced her life expectancy, whereas childless women, although more often ill, lived longer.

Against all this was the impression that women generally lived longer than men despite their ailments. Biller cautiously suggests that these paradoxes were the result of learned men trying to weigh up their classical education and religious beliefs against experiences of women in their families and communities. They were not isolated from women as scholars and clerics.

from A cultural history of women in the middle ages by Kim M. Phillips

[sgiandubh]

Fractured logic

Anti lore:

'He could act JAMMF only during Season 1, after that he went down the drain. He can't act.'

'His business projects will last as long as his mommies will still be able to buy his booze.'

Ok, Mordor. Let's suppose you are right. But then please explain me like I were 5, why on Earth would *** consistently keep signing employment contract upon employment contract with such an untalented, tactless, borderline stupid (this is the bright impression we are left with after reading your musings) guy?

A media production company like *** is not a charity. I am absolutely sure that they would have had no problems finding someone else to play JAMMF, if the financial results were so abysmal as you seem to suggest, without a single shred of evidence. Or cancel the show altogether: after all, few series have had OL's lucky longevity.

What would be the secret? The mommies, who also hungrily support his business projects? Then why would a major spirits distribution company, such as Southern Glazer's, even consider the idea of partnering with a middle-aged wannabe TV actor, whose only credentials at serious business are a handful of bottle signing events at liquor stores around the US? I mean, you can't reasonably believe a battalion of aging fans, many of whom dutifully followed the circuit, is enough of a sales argument to even draft a business plan, let alone a distribution contract? Surely Southern Glazer's is not a charity, either, huh?

I know, I know. The outside world, where all of us pay taxes and have jobs, is sometimes a very complicated thing to grasp or understand. Both *** and Southern Glazer's mean big business and that comes with all the corporate trappings, not just the interns you love to bash on Tumblr (interested to know if you also behave like that at your respective workplaces: I would happily fire you on the spot /end of shipper fanfic). That is a world of executives, analysts, legal teams, Sales & Marketing departments and, above all, multiple in-house decision-making and vetting procedures. Do you sincerely believe all these people are sinister cretins, or are you simply unwilling to admit you have no experience of or knowledge about the way these things really work, in real life?

Considering your POV, it is a thing of wonder S can read, write or responsibly sign a business or legal document. And yet, here we are: the man works. He has multiple projects. Some of them will be successful, others could also fail: that's just a matter of statistics and probabilities. Such is life and it's fine.

Kindly explain that paradox to me. I am waiting.

[miniorheadcanons]

amy : pokemon x doctor who headcanons

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD.

I made a Pokemon Team for Amy Pond!! Reasons below, but don't get spoiled :D

The Team

Ninetales

I feel like the longevity of Ninetales would be cool if she met a Vulpix / Ninetales around when she was in the pandorica and it helped protect her having heard stories abt her, and I think thematically it fit's amy's storyline

Scream Tail

It felt fitting (given her whole crack in time in her wall business, and how time has always been weird since her childhood) to give her a Paradox Pokemon. I think Scream Tail simply fits best!

Tinkaton

tinkaton fits her energy. erm. sorry idk what else to say here?

Lopunny

Lopunny fits her attitude plus is a friendship evolution, which I think Amy would have the patience for for a buneary. I think it's a cool Pokemon to give her, pretty much. I'm not giving many Mega Evolutions, BUT, I do think she would get a Mega Lopunny, perhaps.

[scentedkarma]

Today I focus on this bracket section.

I am wearing Rosy Cheeks by Boy Smells. It’s new(er) to my collection. I got it during this past Sephora sale (so the beginning of April) which I think is also when Boy Smells re-launched and re-formulated.

So, Fragrantica claims it's more fruity than floral but on me it's generally rose heavy. So I included it in the floral bracket.

I applied it maaaaybe.... 15-20 minutes ago (~10:20am CST)? So right now it smells very floral. But it's still got that jamminess from the black currant and pomegranate that I adore and makes this scent super unique to my collection. (if anyone needs me to explain how something can be jammy, let me know lol i have weird descriptions of things.)

For tracking purposes - I applied it to wrists, inner elbows, and chest. Cuz I'm working from home and whatever who cares. I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt so that might impact longevity. Reddit claims it does. I haven't noticed it? But you never know.

I think I shall wear this scent for 3 days and then Paradoxe Intense (my beloved) for 3 days and we'll see who comes out on top. This was a very unfair bracket.

I'm also very curious how I'm going to handle the samples in the bracket. Because samples only have so much juice. Hm. Something to consider.

[collagenbarnyc]

Cracking the Longevity Paradox: Live Longer, Look Younger, and Feel Stronger

The longevity paradox is one of the most fascinating concepts in health and wellness today. It refers to the contradiction that although people are living longer, they’re not necessarily living healthier. With extended lifespans come chronic illnesses, skin deterioration, and reduced energy levels. But what if there were ways to live longer and maintain youthful energy, glowing skin, and a vibrant appearance? The answer lies in a blend of modern science, nutrition, and aesthetic treatments like RF radio frequency skin tightening and Morpheus8.

[vincentvega0721]

GRIFTER / WILD C.A.T.s

Grifter (Cole Cash) is a superhero appearing in books published by Wildstorm Productions and DC Comics. Created by artist Jim Lee and writer Brandon Choi, he first appeared in WildC.A.T.s #1 (August 1992), as a member of that titular superhero team, during the period when Wildstorm and its properties were owned by Jim Lee.[1] In that incarnation, Grifter is a former government operative and member of the military unit Team 7 and the espionage agency International Operations.

In 1999, Lee sold Wildstorm to DC Comics, and ownership of all Wildstorm characters, including Grifter, transferred to DC Comics. His backstory and continuity remained the same however, until DC's 2011 relaunch of their entire comics line, The New 52, which rebooted the continuity for most of its characters. Since then, the character has starred in his own DC series, and has also made appearances in numerous other DC titles, such as Voodoo, Legion Lost, Team 7, Animal Man and Deathstroke.

The character has been voiced by Colin O'Meara in Wild C.A.T.s, and Danny Jacobs in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox.

Alter ego

Cole Cash

Team affiliations

WildC.A.T.s

Team 7

The Authority

International Operations

Notable aliases

Deadeye

Abilities

Highly skilled martial artist and hand-to-hand combatant

Expert marksman and melee fighter

Psionics (usually either dormant or passive)

Telekinesis

Telepathy

Accelerated healing factor

Espionage mastery

Extended longevity

WildStorm (Image Comics, later DC Comics)

First appearance

WildC.A.T.s #1 (August 1992)

Created by

Jim Lee

Brandon Choi

[betterbemeta]

Part of the reason why ethnostates should not exist (aside from the genocides, which should be obvious to everyone) is that they politically compromise people outside of that state.

Politics, remember, is just a word that means 'decision-making and the means of decision-making for and about groups of people.'

'Politically compromising people remotely' does not sound like as much of a visceral, horrifying emergency as the ethnostate's direct violence, but it is a component to that violence. It perpetuates that direct violence and multiplies it far beyond what otherwise a government could 'influence.' It increases the longevity of that violence and attempts to style its own legitimacy at the same time. Basically, an ethnostate can use 'itself' to mess with the decision-making capability of the entire world, in ways that can't only be explained by a state's power structure or funding alone.

When an ethnostate exists, it is projected involuntarily on the bodies of whatever group it 'favors'-- even people only tangentially connected, like through marriage, or who belong to a subgroup not originally considered, or those who are distant through diaspora. And an ethnostate doesn't truly favor that group, it favors the decision-making power it can reap from that group, regardless of anyone's actual preferences:

An ethnostate makes choices long-distance about and even for those bodies.

It can claim 'threats' to it are also threats to those other bodies, and they do not have to be actual threats.

It can claim to be benefiting those bodies while doing nothing for them at all.

It can force itself into culture and histories it has no actual connection to.

It can 'claim' people who have no investment in its existence and have no political influence within it, use them to weight its goals.

It can make a fake "us" that people around the world never consented to, and if it claims you, it might do anything 'in your name.'

This may all sound abstract. But the consequences are real, and they are dangerous. They are also local, far away from the ethnostate itself. They can get into your family's history and memories, they can get into your social relationships and spaces. They can get into institutions that will decide your future.

Healthy communities are diverse and must reckon with the paradox of tolerance. They represent the will and agency of all those who actually live there, and do not exist to engineer that agency, or their own population. And they do not claim to represent the will and agency of those who don't live there. An ethnostate is dangerous not only for its direct actions, but its implicit statement that all people of some vaguely-defined status are actually part of its state, worldwide-- and their existence alone validates its goals.

[9w1ft]

Sharing my random thoughts since you asked for asks! You don’t have to respond. But I was noticing those articles of Karlie finally commenting on Taylor again came right around the time Biden was being pressured to drop out of the election and the Democratic Party seemed to be scrambling a bit. I feel like the friendship groundwork is being laid to be ready in case Trump is actually re-elected and KK is thrown back into the fire by association. His win in 2016 changed so much for them. Thoughts?

i did ask for asks! 😆

in a way i think what you are suggesting is a little bit paradoxical because if they were operating under the same manual and all things being equal, then the threat of a trump win would have had them laying the groundwork to distance themselves again, not the opposite.

that being said, times are sort of different. and priorities are different, in a way. i could write so so much and if people have other points to bring up please do, but ill just write a little.

one thought i had was that last time around they did not know what a trump presidency would mean, only what we could predict, and now they have something to look at as an example. also, jared had played a notable public role in trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, so the win had immediate optic implications as well as logistic implications to anticipate. this time around, jared isn’t on the trail, and is reported to not want a role in a possible second term. i think ivanka did show up at the rnc last month though and brought jared with her.

to circle back to my second point, i just hope that people consider that a lot of this sort of maneuvering or salvaging or pivoting that they might have done following the 2016 election results might not even really apply this time because they are in a different stage of life. biden’s win in 2020 is an example of this. trump being out and a democrat being in marked the end of a lot of worries and barriers that we assume they put up. but with the pandemic and time spent out of public, i get the sense there was a lot of introspection and reevaluating that went on and we can see that one or two little things entered their lives. now, the stakes are a bit different regardless of who is in office.

taylor’s fame is different in scale now too. i don’t think i have to delineate that for anyone here. but i want to say that it feels like it’s nearly reaching “too big to fail” levels

also, one other point i feel compelled to bring up is that while karlie has gone on to maintain haters, all of all this for the past 8 years has by and large not stopped her ability to succeed with her business and creative endeavors. i recognize not everyone’s gonna agree with me on this because it’s a sort of core talking point that is ingrained in a lot of kaylor thinking, but i do recommend people take a step back to look at this from a birds eye view. even just since 2019. karlie has continued to be the face of a perfume in carolina herrera and even repped the brand at the met gala, she became the face of a cosmetics company in estée lauder and still does campaigns for them, she did a line of sportswear in adidas and has continued being the face of products in the health and fitness sector, has continued to expand her forays into the tech sector, has done stuff for many LVMH luxury brands, looking camp right in the eye has become a meme with longevity that she herself has embraced, re-signed with swarovski and repped them at the met gala, has expanded kode with klossy and created many opportunities for her scholars via her connections with all of these brands that she works with, including people like tim cook, and shes got connections to people like bob iger, she helped arrange a tech panel for the white house, she continues walking the runway when she wants at the biggest events where otherwise she gets invites to, like paris fashion week, she continues doing couture fashion spreads, she now owns two magazines, had a street named after her, like, i could go on and on and maybe someone out there is hemming and hawing about project runway but i sometimes feel like people try to equate what people on the internet feel to what the business world feels about karlie and to push that her bearding ruined her image and prospects.. when in fact she’s continued to do so many thing that surely wouldn’t have happened if this association (and for the “see how you didn’t say kushner!” crowd ill say it, her kushner association) was seen as an actual problem to her clients, that actually have working relationships with her and know her. please understand that im not making this a conversation about values. im looking at the actual business reality and any affects there have been, which i would contend there have been less than people often imagine.

all of this to say, i am very much not convinced that the prospects of a second trump term are a driving factor in their decision making this time. i think it’s more about them deciding if it would be valuable to them personally, a net positive in their own lives, to be seen again. and i happen to think a little bit of this is on us to help provide for them. as a proof of concept. a window for them, in a way, in what could be best expected, if any good should be expected all. but that’s a tangent for another time, methinks.

[touchlikethesun]

I feel like people are being nit-picky and lumping in any and all criticism because shes been on a pedestal for a while and her fans would seek out people who don’t like her to start fights so this slight downfall (shes a rich white women well versed in crocodile tears she will be fine) is an opportunity for any and all grievances. Like when your friend breaks up with someone and you lump in petty complaints like “they chew too loud” with the legit grievances like “they shouldn’t have yelled at grandma”.

no exactly, i think for a lot of people voicing their opinion about tswift rn, they've been bottling up all of their negative opinions for so long because they thought they'd have to deal with backlash from her fans, so now that it is suddenly publicly acceptable to criticise her, they are taking it as carte blanche to hate on her for every little thing they don't like about her - either legit like her detrimental effect on the environment and paradoxal place in politics (how can she be both sooo progressive and yet at the same time have no obligation to speak on politics? it's an oxymoron) or petty like how she personally annoys some people by being self-centered and unself-aware, the latter being not on the same level as the former camp of criticisms at all.

to be clear tho, i do not feel bad for tswift for the current backlash. i do think there are many different choices she could have made and actions she could have taken to cultivate a healthier fanbase, that would have made it possible for her to avoid the current PR disaster she's in, so as far as i'm concerned this is at least a little bit of her getting her just deserts. i really hope her and her team learn from this moment and start encouraging her to behave like celebrity icons that are secure in their status are supposed to behave. (there are trade offs for celebrity status and being able to gracefully accept criticism - at least publicly - is one of those trade offs, and it's something that will help one maintain longevity. think about the difference in how people view beyonce vs nicki minaj, and what's different about their public image/their fanbases. now think about how tswift actually handles her image and her fans, and tell me who she more resembles.)

but also, as you said, she's a rich and powerful white woman, surrounded and supported by dozens if not hundreds of other rich and powerful white people. she'll be fine, and she'd be fine even if she never appeared in public or released a song ever again.

[schafpudel]

This extremely interesting article is locked behind a paywall, so I've... cracked open the page source for the lovely people of tumblr and re-transcribed the article. Have fun.

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Deep in the forests of Germany, nestled neatly into the hollowed-out shells of acorns, live a smattering of ants who have stumbled upon a fountain of youth. They are born workers, but do not do much work. Their days are spent lollygagging about the nest, where their siblings shower them with gifts of food. They seem to elude the ravages of old age, retaining a durably adolescent physique, their outer shells soft and their hue distinctively tawny. Their scent, too, seems to shift, wafting out an alluring perfume that endears them to others. While their sisters, who have nearly identical genomes, perish within months of being born, these death-defying insects live on for years and years and years.

They are Temnothorax ants, and their elixirs of life are the tapeworms that teem within their bellies—parasites that paradoxically prolong the life of their host at a strange and terrible cost.

A few such life-lengthening partnerships have been documented between microbes and insects such as wasps, beetles, and mosquitoes. But what these ants experience is more extreme than anything that’s come before, says Susanne Foitzik, an entomologist at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, in Germany, who studies the ants and their tapeworms. Infected Temnothorax ants live at least three times longer than their siblings, and perhaps much more, she and her colleagues report in a study published today in Royal Society Open Science. No one is yet sure when the insects’ longevity tops out, but the answer is probably in excess of a decade, approaching or even matching that of ant queens, who can survive up to 20 years.

“Some other parasites do extend life spans,” Shelley Adamo, a parasite expert at Dalhousie University, in Nova Scotia, who was not involved in the study, told me. “But not like this. Under typical circumstances, Temnothorax ants live as most other ants do. They reside in communities ruled by a single fertile queen attended by a legion of workers whose professional lives take a predictable trajectory. They first tend the queen’s eggs as nurses, then graduate into foraging roles that take them outside the nest. Apart from the whole freaky parasite thing, “they are pretty boring,” Foitzik told me.

Normalcy goes out the door, however, when Temnothorax larvae ingest tapeworm-egg-infested bird feces trucked in by foragers. The parasites hatch and set up permanent residence in the young ants’ abdomens, where they can access a steady stream of nutrients. In return, they offer their host an unconventional renter’s fee: an extra-long life span that Foitzik and her colleagues managed to record in real time.

The researchers spent three years monitoring dozens of Temnothorax colonies in the lab, comparing the fates of workers who’d fallen prey to the parasites and those who remained infection-free. By the end of their experiment, almost every single one of the hundreds of worm-free workers had, unsurprisingly, died. But more than half the parasitized workers were still kicking—about the same proportion as the colonies’ ultra-long-lived queens. “That was amazing to see,” Biplabendu Das, an ant biologist and parasite expert at the University of Central Florida, who wasn’t involved in the study, told me. And despite their old age, the ants’ bodies still bore the hallmarks of youth. They were difficult to distinguish from uninfected nurses, who are usually the most juvenile members of the colony’s working class.

The tapeworm-laden ants didn’t just outlive their siblings, the team found. They were coddled while they did it. They spent their days lounging in their nest, performing none of the tasks expected of workers. They were groomed, fed, and carried by their siblings, often receiving more attention than even the queen—unheard of in a typical ant society—and gave absolutely nothing in return.

The deal the ants have cut with their parasites seems, at first pass, pretty cushy. Foitzik told me that her team couldn’t find any overt downsides to life as an infected ant, a finding that appears to shatter the standard paradigm of parasitism. Even the colonies as a whole remained largely intact. Workers continued to work; queens continued to lay eggs. The threads that held each Temnothorax society together seemed unmussed.

Only when the researchers took a closer look did that tapestry begin to unravel. The uninfected workers in parasitized colonies, they realized, were laboring harder. Strained by the additional burden of their wormed-up nestmates, they seemed to be shunting care away from their queen. They were dying sooner than they might have if the colonies had remained parasite-free. At the community level, the ants were exhibiting signs of stress, and the parasite’s true tax was, at last, starting to show. “The cost is in the division of labor,” Das said. The worms were tapping into not just “individual [ant] physiology, but also social interactions,” Farrah Bashey-Visser, a parasitologist at Indiana University who wasn’t involved in the study, told me.

"Scientists think of social insects not as single bugs, but as interlaced parts of a giant “superorganism,” Manuela Ramalho, an ant biologist at Cornell University, who wasn’t involved in the study, told me. When one individual acts, others around it react; in a colony, no ant can truly act alone. Parasites of these communities automatically extend their reach to multiple animals at once, a rippling mind-control effect that spreads and amplifies the consequences of infection. Although the tapeworms had infected only a fraction of the Temnothorax workers, they were puppeteering the entire society.

That altered existence might play directly into the parasite’s hands. Tapeworms of these species can’t mature into adults and produce eggs until their ant host is consumed by a bird—a fate that insects in full possession of their faculties try to avoid. But ants who spend all their time lazing around the house make for easy prey; hosts who are pampered and long-lived have a high chance of surviving until they’re eaten. The worm’s most ingenious move might play out in some ants’ final moments, as they trade their natural fear of intruders for a dollop of ennui. When Foitzik and her students crack open infected Temnothorax colonies, the parasitized workers do little more than stare expectantly skyward. “Everyone else is just taking the larvae and running,” Foitzik said. “The infected workers are just like, Oh, what’s going on?”

Down to the molecular level, the parasite is pulling the strings. Sara Beros, Foitzik’s former doctoral student and the paper’s first author, told me she has split open Temnothorax abdomens and counted up to 70 tapeworms inside. From there, the worms can unleash a slurry of proteins and chemicals that futz with the ant’s core physiology, likely impacting their host’s hormones, immune system, and genes. What they achieve appears to be a rough pantomime of how ant queens attain their mind-boggling life span, a feat humans still don’t understand. (The tapeworms’ grasp of ant aging is far more advanced than ours.) The parasites are effectively flash-freezing their host into a preserved state—one that will up their own chances of survival, and help guarantee that their species lives on.

The worms’ MO is subtle and ingenious. They are agents not of disaster, but of an insidious social sickness that sets reality only slightly, barely perceptibly, askew. Infected workers get a taste of invincibility and status, swaddling themselves in youth and the benefits it brings. They also form resource sinks that sap the energy of those around them. They become echoes of the microorganisms they harbor. They are, in the end, parasites themselves.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[asheanon]

"Ethereal longevity and its behavioral effects"

Ethereals are - or can be - long-lived entities. Which can sound pretty rad to those who'd like to live "forever!" Part of the draw to Etherealism is that very element: its "immortality."

In itself, Etherealism is often an existence void of its own sentience - most Ethereals in their "purest" forms are akin to "space jellyfish," simply drifting about the cosmos, consuming to survive and otherwise fading into the, you know, the ether - which is to say the forms it can inhabit may not mentally or emotionally fair well with its lifespan. (As with many unwillingly "eternal" creatures.) This brings about some notable behavioral patterns in sentient and sapient Ethereals, in particular...

In their younger years, many Ethereals often come off as a bit bombastic; what one could consider to be the literal spark or fire in their veins gets to them. They can behave like energy itself; recklessly, powerfully and sometimes unpredictably even to themselves.

However, as most begin to accumulate the decades, centuries and so on (if they manage to without accidentally snuffing themselves out throughout those possible "young and wild" years, one way or another) there is a shift in psychology that most begin to see in the long-lived: a tendency to wander, withdraw or attempt to enter stasis.

Sal is a wandering type herself who sometimes withdraws; growing tired and jaded is only natural for everyone after a while - she does her best to "keep the wonder alive" by actually wondering about and wandering the cosmos. Its vastness could at least suffice in keeping her preoccupied - among many things!

Vance is a withdrawing type. He is beyond wanting to remain awake and aware and often enters a stasis of sorts until awoken once more (to his dismay.) While not all Ethereals attempt to "sleep" after they've grown "too tired," many do withdraw, one way or another. Some eventually tire of trying to coexist with a world they weren't designed to coexist with, really. In fact, they grow tired of many things and simply can't be bothered to entertain an audience of any kind! And again, this, of course, may strike many as very familiar as it is something often seen in a lot of sentient, "immortal" types - such as vampires and whatnot!

Now... having written that, I wrote a lot of that out to be able to better express certain scenes that transpire between fellow Ethereal characters; one in particular being between Sal and Tsun.

In Starlight, Sal and Tsun share a moment where they talk about Life™. They talk about various things, but among those things - relevant to this topic - Sal confesses to how it feels as if Life™/time moves, paradoxically, too quickly and too slowly. Tsuniah commiserates, mentioning how even he doesn't always have the heart to dive back into something deeper with others for that reason. She then mentions how she also grows weary of "the divide" (the divide between long-lived entities and shorter-lived ones) every once in a while and the emotional damage it can do; perhaps more than she used to. And, in turn, worries about the future, sometimes.

It is a very bittersweet moment that draws attention to this aspect of Ethereal lives (and again, other immortal ones as well.) 💙