#psuedo-science

[vinnieharned]

Personality Types are Probably Bunk...

New blogpost: Some thoughts on personality tests.

I’ve always had an inexplicable attraction to personality tests. Part of this is probably part of my inclinations to want to ‘hack my productivity’ by figuring out new ways to make my brain work better, harder, and faster. But I think when it comes to a lot of tests, I just really like the idea of having a label for my tendencies whether that’s introvert/extrovert, or type A type B…

[trombonechurchill]

To Show I'm Thinking of You

BuckTommy, 1251 words, Rated G Prompt Fill for @bucktommyfluffebruary Day 7: Love Notes Read Here or on AO3

Evan was lingering, Tommy could feel it even with his eyes closed.

"I'll be fine, babe. I'm not going to drop dead just because you're gone for 24 hours," he mumbled, sleep rough, into the pillow case.

"That's not funny, Tommy." The bed shifted as Evan sat back down and Tommy hummed at the feeling of Evan's fingers, feather-light across the crown of his head.

"Seriously, I'll be fine, the dizzy spells cleared up, you can relax." Tommy could tell Evan's still torn even before he cracked an eye open and sees the furrow of his brow in the dim light of their bedroom. "You can check in at lunch if it'll make you feel better," he added, snagging Evan's wrist to press a kiss to the meat of his palm.

Evan had already done more than enough after Tommy took a beam to the head out on a call, even before the Post-Concussion Syndrome had set in. Tommy's never had that before, someone fussing over his bedside, holding his hand through the spins and shakes. It's been exhilarating and terrifying all the same time, the free-fall of it. Letting Evan in, showing him all the messy, hurting pieces of himself. To have Evan cup them in his hands and hold them together when Tommy can't.

Tommy felt the gust of Evan's sigh across his face but it seemed he was placated enough to finish getting ready for his shift, brushing one last caress over the faint pink line still lingering at Tommy's temple before replacing his hand with his lips.

"Take it easy today, please," Evan said softly. Tommy grunted in acquiescence. It wasn't like he had much of choice.

"Be safe," he mumbled into the pillow case, managing the barest press of his lips into the empty air. Evan's chuckle overhead was enough to let Tommy know he had gotten the intent across even as he slipped back into a queasy unconsciousness.

—

Tommy awoke several hours later, the sunlight slanting through the crack of their blinds that they could never fully close telling him it was probably closer to midday now than morning. He groaned, stretching and grimacing at the baseline ache that seemed to plague him most days right now.

Rolling to his side, Tommy pawed at the bedside table, reluctantly squinting his eyes back open to successfully unplug his phone from its charger without knocking over the glass of water that had mysteriously materialized sometime between last night and this morning, a bright orange Post-It note stuck it.

"You'll feel better after you shower" it informed him happily in Evan's scrawling handwriting. Tommy slung an arm over his eyes, dropping onto his back to smile begrudgingly at the ceiling.

—

Tommy took a moment to steady himself on the vanity, shoulders bowing as his head hung forward. It grated that he still felt this shaky on his feet, knuckling at his eye until he saw stars and forced himself to straighten up.

"Don't push yourself"

The note was a bright, cheery orange, stuck straight to the mirror square at Tommy's eye level. A smudge of what he suspected was toothpaste lingered at the top corner where Buck must have pressed it down while still brushing his teeth.

"You're not home, you're not the boss of me," Tommy muttered, though he made a point of relaxing his shoulders before pushing off the counter to stare down his next hurdle: The shower.

"The shower chair is your friend :)" The note stuck to the glass door informed him.

—

The shower had helped wash the layer of slime Tommy always feels accumulated when he spent too long at home. 'Languishing' he'd told Evan last night, stretched out in a pathetic heap on top of him on the couch. Evan's laugh in his ear had helped cut down some of the misery.

Achieving more than that today was starting to seem dubious, Tommy already starting to loose steam as he made his way into the kitchen. Standing dumbly by the island for a moment, head filled with static. The brain fog was almost enough to make Tommy miss the dizzy spells, like his mind was hitting a wall and simply stopping any time he tried to complete a thought, train of thought taking a short, sharp drop like it'd had its engine cut.

A flash of orange caught his attention, on the cabinet next to the fridge:

"Take your meds. With food this time."

Right, of course, he knew that, Tommy thought flatly, blinking away the haze and pulling out his pill organizer, a matching blue to Evan's white and black one. Monday's compartment was already popped open on Evan's and Tommy thumbed the flap of it for a moment, smiling softly at the image of Evan popping it open in one smooth motion like clockwork every morning.

There's more Post-Its in the fridge. Because of course there is.

Tommy managed to cobble together enough of a brunch, Evan's running Post-It commentary keeping his company as he pulled the pre-prepped 'brain foods' he'd started putting together the day Tommy was discharged.

"Omega-3's are good for your brain health!" The note on the Tupperware of salmon and broccoli informed him happily before Tommy pulled it off to load it into the microwave.

—

Food and meds taken care of, Tommy was already feeling worlds better as he set himself up on their couch, though not before nearly sitting on a dark chocolate bar someone had stashed on top of a folded blanket on one of the cushions. Tommy was sure the orange note proclaiming it as a "Sweet treat for my sweet treat" left no clue who might have done so.

Another note stuck to the remote informed him of a list of TCM movies Evan had set to record for him (with a reminder not to overdo it with the screentime). Leaning back, Tommy shook his head at the ceiling again, rolling his eyes even as a surge of heat rose up inside his chest, like he'd slipped into a warm bath. Safe and loved.

Tommy reached for his phone; maybe it was time to have that afternoon check in a little early.

—

Buck braced the door with his thumb on the jab as he pressed it closed, gratified by the near silent click of the lock. With any luck, Tommy would still be sleeping and Buck could join him without disturbing him.

It'd been a long shift, made longer with the background worry of Tommy being home alone. Tommy was tough, as hard-headed as they came as he'd assured Buck, but Buck still ached to leave him for so long when he was hurting, muscles immediately unclenching just by sheer virtue of being back in proximity.

Tommy was easy to spot, still and breathing softly on his back on his side of the bed (like a mummy, Buck liked to tease him), blankets clutched tight to his chest. Buck smiled at the sight of orange paper gathered at Tommy's bedside, notes carefully arranged together in a neat stack.

Changing quickly, Buck finally slid into bed next to him, snuggling in. His arm was already raised to throw across Tommy's chest when he felt something crinkle under his cheek. Buck blinked, shifting back up to pull the Post-It from where it'd stuck to the side of his face, smiling at Tommy's cramped writing in the dim light. Tommy was always better with words than Buck was. Straight and to the point.

"I love you"

[brbgensokyo]

i love watching old shit that literally noone has heard about i feel like im a part of a secret club for idiots who spend too much time in databases

[ai-dont-care]

a/b/o yuri but it's loosley based off of meerkats instead of wolves

[girlcraft2003]

Shit rescue. Artfight Revenge for BudderGirlGames (not on Tumblr). OG picture under the cut

[lith-myathar]

.

[teachanarchy]

How Fake Science Won

[menolly5600]

Bruce clenched his hands, unable to do anything but watch and wait and hope. He didn't dare even to take Danny's hand in his, afraid his strangely melting, gelatinous flesh might slough apart between his fingers. Danny was a fighter. A scrappy, bold little thing, like all of Bruce's kids. And he was terrified that he was watching him slip away before he'd had a chance to really tell his newest son how much he wanted him in his life.

After long moments of the IV draining steadily into Danny's arm, Bruce forced himself to exhale steadily. "He's stabilizing. The melting has stopped." His fingers hovered over the back of Danny's hand for a moment before gently resting on his skin. Feeling firming flesh and skin beneath his touch, Bruce stroked gently over Danny's fingers.

Alfred spoke up then, "It appears his vitals are stabilizing. His temperature and heart rate are still low but rising closer to normal ranges."

"Thank fuck," Jason huffed from back near the door. He moved forward to loom over the foot of the bed and scowl down at the kid. "You can stop giving us all heart attacks any day now, ya little brat."

Damian scowled at Jason from across the bed. "Strays are more resilient than you think. He's survived the worst already. He will not die in our care."

"Is that a compliment to our Stray Brother?" Tim asked with a relieved little smile as he moved up past Damian and leaned down to carefully brush Danny's hair out of his face. "You hear that? You better not disappoint the gremlin, Danny. He doesn't give out praise lightly."

Then Tim's face scrunched with confusion as he lifted his hand away and looked at his fingers. He ignored Damian's indignation and rubbed his fingertips together. "What...?"

"Chum?" Bruce asked, alarm prickling at him at Tim's expression.

Tim frowned and reached down to brush his fingers over Danny's forehead again. "He's sweating profusely."

Bruce reached to take Danny's hand in his. Holding him, he could now feel faint micro-tremors running through Danny's flesh in waves. "He's trembling. Alfred, check his vitals again."

"His temperature is up to 95 degrees, but his pulse is fluttering despite being close to finally being back to a normal heart rate."

Still frowning, Tim reached over to get a cotton swab from the nightstand and took a sample of the sweat from Danny's temple. "His sweat is unusually thick and tacky. I'm going to analyze it. Maybe his body is trying to sweat the toxin out."

Bruce was about to nod in acknowledgement, but Danny's fingers suddenly spasmed in Bruce's loose hold. Startled and hopeful, he leaned forward. "Danny?"

His fingers spasmed again and Bruce squeezed back, hopeful that he might be waking. "Danny, can you hear me?"

"Is he waking up?"

"Hey, don't crowd him."

Bruce reached out to run his fingers through Danny's hair, squeezing his hand gently again. "Can you hear me, lad?"

Danny's hand spasmed again, then suddenly a shudder ran through his body. Then another.

Then suddenly Danny convulsed on the bed. His body bucked and heaved uncontrollably as he seized.

"Shit!"

"Hold him!"

Bruce was already lunging up to hold Danny's shoulders as Jason scrambled to brace his legs so Danny didn't hurt himself.

"What?! What is happening?" Damian protested, hovering uncertainly.

"We don't know yet. Here!" Tim shoved the sample he'd taken into Damian's hands. "We've got him. Take that to the Batcomputer and start the analysis. It might be related to this reaction." Tim turned back to force a dental dam into Danny's mouth so he wouldn't bite his tongue.

It was telling that Damian only hesitated a moment before actually listening to Tim instead of arguing with him. Clenching the sample container, he turned with a huff and hurried out to start the analysis.

Tim sighed as he got the block into Danny's mouth as Damian left. Danny was still heaving even as they held him carefully to prevent further injury. Then Tim cursed and stepped back, startled. A green-black sludge started to bubble up out of Danny's mouth and nose.

"Turn him, quickly.". Tim darted back in to keep his head stable as they moved Danny into a recovery position on his side. The sludge dripped onto the towel Alfred tucked under his head. It bubbled and steamed, seeming to sizzle and froth even after his convulsions expelled it from Danny's body.

After a few more harrowing minutes, Danny's convulsions eased, but the bubbling sludge continued to leak slowly from his mouth and nose.

"...What the fuck." Jason flatly exhaled.

Prompt idea: Danny has been attending Wayne family dinners for weeks now and he truly doesn’t know how he got this far

Danny has been without a home or a means to get food for a while because of either identity reveal gone bad or Dan timeline shenanigans. Either way he needs to eat. As a last ditch attempt Danny tries to attend/infiltrate a Wayne family dinner. He’s seen the Wayne kids around Gotham and he’s sure that he could look and act the part enough to get in the door and out with some bread rolls at least.

Was it his best idea? No.

But he sure as sugar ain’t firing on all cylinders rn.

And Bruce already has a gaggle of blue eyed, black haired children.

What’s one more?

Batfam of course notices immediately when a whole new kid shows up, grabs some miscellaneous pieces of food and then prattles off some excuse about “not being that hungry.” (Clearly a bald faced lie) And that they were “Going to the library to study for finals, bye Dad!”

1. No one skips out on family dinners. Even Jason was here.

2. Alfred sets the table for everyone ahead of time and the kid had no place to sit.

3. Nobody in this house studies anything beyond case files.

4. Nobody in this house calls Bruce Dad.

Danny thinks he is suffering from success. No matter where he is in Gotham someone picks him up and insists he’ll be late for family dinner which is unacceptable.

Alfred just wants to feed the boy.

The batkids are amused by his efforts to look as though he’s been here all along.

Bruce is drafting adoption papers as we speak.

[artbyblastweave]

I often have a hard time coming up with superhero excursions worth picking apart that aren't deconstructions, which can be troubling, but then I remembered that one of my favorite cape comic runs is the Morrison/Porter JLA run from the 90s, which is largely just an example-of-the-thing-itself- no deconstruction, no bitterness, nothing but a forty-something issue gleeful run of capes doing unreconstructed capeshit. But even that's banking on a level of familiarity, in the viewer, familiarity with the insane gonzo batshit nature of big-two comics, the barely controlled chaos. Every insane thing that happens is Grant Morrison pointing a gun at you and daring you to call bullshit on the planet entirely populated by superheroes or the dusted-off silver-age villain "The Shaggy Man" or whatever else they've put to paper- it's a superhero comic book. You knew what you were signing up for. Yeah yeah, Superman's blue for the first few issues of this, that was introduced and resolved in another book, roll with it. Yeah Yeah, they've built a psuedo-science-powered machine to give everyone on earth Superpowers for a few minutes to fight off a moon sized murder god, it's a superhero comic, roll with it. It's asking you to recognize that it's drawing its power from its embrace and total exaggeration of the excesses of the genre. It's not necessarily asking you to know what the fuck it's talking about but they do want you to roll with it.

[intersex-questions]

hello friend! I'm just wondering why the h-slur became a slur? I thought it was just the scientific term for intersex stuff, like snails are called that even still I think... I dunno I'm just curious, I won't use it I just wanna know

Hey! This is a great question. Before addressing the actual question, let me clear up some misconceptions.

It is absolutely fine to call animals that are hermaphrodites that word (as of currently--there are intersex people who disagree with this, but I have no problem with it, but I am just one person). It is a scientific word. It is the correct word to use. But intersex and hermaphrodite scientifically mean something different as well. Snails and many many other animals are hermaphrodites and still called that.

Generally speaking, the term hermaphrodite in science refers to an animal that can produce both male and female gametes, i.e., sperm and ova/egg. An animal that is a hermaphrodite evolved to be a hermaphrodite. Their reproductive cycles are based around members of their species being hermaphrodites. But there's many different types of hermaphrodites in animals. Not all have both genitalia at once and not all have more than one genitalia at once and not all members of that species are hermaphrodites.

The term intersex is used specifically for humans or for animals that are typically male/female and have variations outside of the "expected" for their specific species. So, for example, female hyenas, which all have a pseudopenis/phallus created from their very large clitoris, as well as high testosterone, are NOT intersex because it is expected and how all females of their species are. It is how they evolved to exist and reproduce. A female lion that develops a mane, high testosterone, and exhibits other male traits IS intersex because their species does not typically or often have that variance.

If a human has ovotestes (singular is ovotestis), this was and sometimes still is referred to as either psuedo hermaphroditism (this usually refers to cases where the person doesn't have ovotestes though) or true hermaphroditism or ovotesticular disorder of sexual development (none of these are very politically correct terms, but the last is most common medically—I would avoid them). Even though (as far as I know) all/most hermaphroditic animals have ovotestes/both ovular and testicular tissue, which is possible in humans but it is INCREDIBLY rare, as in like, under 1,000 documented cases iirc, they must have male and female gametes like I said.

Humans most likely cannot have both male and female gametes. This isn't really possible. There are no documented cases of a human with ova and sperm. It is theoretically hypothetically possible but it has never happened as far as we know. Like... Maybe it could happen? And there's been billions of people, so who knows! But then in that case, one person who has both gametes would not be the thing that determines what intersex people are called.

But let's pretend that if someone has a penis and vulva/vagina or genitalia that look like that, it makes them a scientific hermaphrodite. (It doesn't, but we're pretending.) The problem with THAT is that it's then incredibly misleading and exclusionary to refer to intersex people all as hermaphrodites because that is only one of the ways someone may be intersex. Intersex is a HUGE spectrum. Most intersex people do not have "both" genitalia!

I think I've covered all I need to say in that regards, I'll edit if I have more to stay and if I'm wrong on anything please correct me.

It's kind of hard to answer why it's a slur, in my opinion, yet also really easy. It's a slur because it's used as one. All slurs are slurs because they're used as one. Any slur has a history of being used offensively and became a slur because it was used with the intention of offense, oppression, derision, etc. At the end of the day, all slurs are technically just sounds, and many of them as a word out of context aren't necessarily derogatory at all. But the word is a slur because it is used as one. The word/phrase "retard"/"retarded" used to be a legitimate medical diagnosis. (Was it ever a good one? No. But it was the language they had/used at the time.) It became a slur because people used it in a derogatory manner and used it to oppress and belittle people with autism, intellectual, and certain cognitive/developmental disabilities. Gay was (and can be still!) a slur. Why? Because it was used as one. Even if gay "meant" by definition happy or such, it was a slur when used towards people because people used it with the intention of it being a slur. Hermaphrodite is a slur because it is: inaccurate, often used to fetishize, misleading, medically and socially outdated, used with intention to belittle, used to oppress, and has offensive connotations. The term hermaphrodite used to describe humans at all came from Victorian doctors who were the ones that used the terms true hermaphrodite and male or female pseudohermaphrodite without any basis on the actual physiological and genetic structures of these individuals and rather to categorize them exclusively based on how they thought their genitalia looked (which told them and tells us nothing about how their body actually varies other than it looks like XYZ). It was and always has been used in stigmatizing, inaccurate, medicalizing manners.

If anyone has anything to add on please feel free. I hope this helped explain some! You can always ask more questions.

[that-ari-blogger]

Where Do We Go Now? (Horde Prime)

The fifth season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power begins on a pretty dire note. I’m not going to spoil the series in this introduction, so go watch the show if you don’t know what I mean, but suffice to say that this isn’t the best of circumstances.

Except, it’s not actually the worst of circumstances either. Things are bad, don’t get me wrong, but if you are really obtuse, you can see a balance emerge here, and I am nothing if not obtuse.

Let me explain.

Spoilers Ahead: (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Star Wars Skeleton Crew)

She-Ra is a story about escaping the cycle of abuse, most clearly exemplified by the horde, but also through Light Hope and Shadow Weaver. From a certain point of view, season five opens with that being accomplished.

Catra is on the other side of the galaxy to Shadow Weaver. She has lost that power that corrupted her, and she has a nominal friend in Glimmer.

For all intents and purposes, the Horde has been defeated. Hordak is no more, and this new enemy is so aesthetically and practically different from its predecessor that it doesn’t feel like the same thing at all.

Light Hope has been set free, She Ra no longer inhibits Adora or acts to control her, and she is showing incredible combat skill without it.

Those are the stated goals of the series and the thematic endpoints of every idea that the series was building up towards.

If it wasn’t for Horde Prime, the series could have ended with the last season and been genuinely quite satisfying. The characters claw their way out of the tragedy, Glimmer was tragically lost, Catra couldn’t be saved.

Instead, the series kept on going and scaled itself up a bit. We suddenly see the full scope of everything, and despite their escape, our characters are still barreling towards tragedy. Breaking free didn’t matter, or at least wasn’t everything.

I think that every season in this show has a different thematic angle to be read through. A different question to ask.

Season one, for example, asked “how do relationships change?” As such, the season spent a lot of time developing the history of Shadow Weaver and Micah, as well as the fall of Entrapta and of course the focus on Adora and Catra. But it also showed the gaining alliance of the Rebels in the context of the previous fall.

In contrast, season four asked “what about everyone else?”

That’s why I pointedly avoided discussing Catra and Adora in detail. The season was about Glimmer and Light Hope and Perfuma and Scorpia. It was about everyone who was tangentially related to the main story but was being broken down because of it. Season four was a season concerned with collateral damage.

Which brings us to season five, and to the question: “where do we go now?”

The events I mentioned at the start of this are only positive from a certain point of view. To everyone else they are either negative or simply different. Everything is up in the air, everything has changed.

Last season, the show wrapped up, and now we are on a different story entirely. We are in a different place in the galaxy, the villain is different in every way imaginable. We have a different arrangement of characters. We have a different genre aesthetic, moving from quirky fantasy to full science fiction

My reading of this season is that it is the hardest step of removing oneself from the cycle of abuse: deprogramming.

The new Horde is aesthetically a modern or psuedo-modern cult, and the verb for breaking free from that is "deprogramming".

This is a story about what happens after someone escapes from that cycle of abuse in the physical sense, and suddenly has to resolve how they act. These are new situations that provide the characters with an opportunity to be whatever they want, and this is the story of those characters making those choices.

Put simply: “What do you want?”

Catra and Adora come into centre stage with mirrors of each other, specifically through their echoes of their previous deeds.

Both react to this new circumstance through changing next to nothing about themselves. They are on the path to redemption, sure, but neither seems to acknowledge that this is a wholly different situation.

“The Horde's the Horde, even in space. As long as I'm of value to Horde Prime, I've got a place in this world. I can work my way up here, just like I did before.”

This gets pointed out in the story as an insane thing to say. But it highlights Catra’s mindset in a concise way to remind the audience and explain her to new viewers.

Catra’s life has been ruined by her desperation for power. She wants to be safe, but instead of seeking that out, she takes the feeling of safety instead, and she does that through clinging to power. I will stress that safety and the emotions associated with it are different things, and Catra’s actions are more in line with an addict looking for one more hit of that dopamine gained from feeling secure.

If she wanted to actually be safe, she would have left the Horde way back in episode two. But if all characters always did the logical thing, then the story wouldn't exist. This isn't a plot hole, it's a character beat.

The key here, as gets stated by Glimmer, is that the feeling of safety is hollow. That ignorance is going to get Catra killed or worse.

Adora weilds a staff in this episode, which has two meanings. One, it's about as far from a sword in how it's used as possible. At least, far from a longsword like that of She-Ra, greatswords are a bit different. It's a different fighting style that has different strengths and weaknesses. But also, we've seen Adora wield a staff before. In episode one. When she was with the Horde.

Similarly, Adora is wrestling with the fallout of no-longer being She-Ra by falling further into her hero complex. She has to save everyone and will burn herself down to feel any warmth. She doesn’t sleep, and devotes herself to duty to take her mind off the situation.

The lesson she learns is that she is not alone, but there’s something else, and it’s the really small moment of the kid with the doll.

The child is obviously enamoured with Adora, and they carry the doll of She-Ra because to them, the two people are one and the same. To them, Adora hasn’t lost anything. To them, that admiration hasn’t gone anywhere.

I will remind you of what we know about She-Ra. Most recently, the First Ones claimed that they chose Etheria because it had She-Ra. But earlier on in the series, Madam Razz said this:

“She-Ra was here long before your people arrived.”

Adora never heard this, as it was spoken to Mara, but the point stands for the audience. Adora hasn’t lost She-Ra, she has shaken off the thing that controlled that part of her life. Now she needs to learn to do it a different way.

In other words, she needs to relearn how she interacts with the world. She needs to deprogram herself of everything the First Ones and the Horde taught her.

Speaking of deprogramming, this episode is named for it’s villain, and there’s something important to discuss about that.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is a series about growing up and leaving your bubble. It is about preconceptions and imagination. It is about change.

Part of how it explores this theme is the villain, Jod Na Nawood.

Jod is introduced as a heroic mentour in the first cliff hanger of the episode. But for the rest of the series until his true motivations are revealed, he is the most obviously suspicious character in the series. To the point where the kids notice.

There is a consistent thing with blue and red lighting in this series, in that everything keeps trying to shoot Jod in blue, but he keeps changing the scene or moving towards the red. For someone who's entire thing is helplessness and forced evil, he certainly makes a lot of bad decisions. Put simply, he is telling you the world is awful while actively removing any good in it. It's the childish excuse: "It's not my fault, it was like this when I found it." No. No it was not.

Obviously, this plays into that idea of not reading a book by its cover. But this is a character who keeps coming up with names and monikers, and who wears a mask at every opportunity. There is more to this man yet.

Then we get the final episode, and we get his backstory, and remarkably, he is wrong about everything.

He claims the galaxy is cruel and uncaring and that there are “a few pinpricks of light”, and yet everyone in the show has been kind to him except the people he actively did harm to. He caused his own misfortune, and people are still kind to him. The kids break him out of jail, their parents save them even at great personal cost. Jod Na Nawood is wrong, and the series ends by flooding him with light just to get the message across.

This is not a morally grey character. This is a villain with a cohesive backstory. Nuance and moral greyness are not the same thing.

But here’s the key thing, Jod is a child who never grew up. He is forever trapped in a moment that the Galaxy isn’t anymore. He says the world is awful and then takes steps to make it worse, and that final shot of his defeat makes it abundantly clear.

Jude Law is hot, but he’s also an incredible actor. If you combine that with good cinematography, you get a moment where the camera looks directly at him as the light illuminates his expression, leaving nowhere to hide, and he looks like a scared child recovering from a tantrum. He looks about to cry. He looks like he's about to say "it's not fair".

There's something to be said for the simplicity of Jod's design in comparison to the rest of Star Wars. Jaba is a slug gangster, Darth Vader has the hat and the cape, and Jod has the helmet. But when you take that away, which the show keeps doing, he's just some guy. He wears clothes that are slightly too big for him, and he has a big ol' gap over his chest. He's vulnerable.

Jod is not good at scheming, he got defeated by children. He’s not particularly charismatic, he lost his crew repeatedly. He’s not a good leader, see my previous point. He’s a traumatised child who refused to grow beyond that.

In that sense, he is a thematic opposite to the main characters. They represent hope (a new hope, you might say), and he represents stagnation. The series asks which idea will prevail, and Jod’s does not.

In She-Ra, the villain is Horde prime, who acts as the symbol of isolation and lack of agency.

Everyone around him is a vessel for his will. He is another version of Shadow Weaver turning her victims into another version of herself. Horde Prime does that literally with the mind chips that will become more important later on in the series.

His interaction with Glimmer is all about confining her. He limits her magic, he shows her images he knows will break her. He messes with her free will.

He's also an eejit. Catra was willing to give him the weapon practically for free. But no, he took the extra effort because he wanted to feel powerful. He's petty and cruel, and he's blind. He's got so many eyes, but he can't see the easiest rout to his plan when it is handed to him on a platter.

This has been a story so far about taking your own agency and being your own person, and Horde Prime is the person who says “no actually, you shouldn’t do that.”

His throne room is a vast emptiness, his power set is about embracing oblivion.

In that way, Horde Prime is a thematic opposite to the themes of the series. The story has been teaching our characters to be free, and Horde Prime tries to get them to surrender.

We will see which idea comes out on top.

Final Thoughts

I want to talk about Shadow Weaver for a moment. This is a season that delves into redemption, and it offers that to everyone, Shadow Weaver included. We will see how that ends, but for the moment, there is an interesting dichotomy.

I think Shadow Weaver does care about Micah and Catra. She saves Micah’s life in this episode. But she doesn’t care enough to do anything about it. She doesn’t care enough to change her ways. Redemption is offered, and she doesn’t take it.

I think that sets up the concept rather well. Redemption is not just something that is offered, it is something that you have to take agency in. You have to redeem yourself. You can get help, and honey, you will need it. But, you have to do most of the work.

I think that makes Catra’s story a bit more impactful.

Next week, I will be looking at Launch, so stick around if that interests you.

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[my-rewrite-academia]

Quirk Analysis #1

As promised, this post is for the quirk analysis of the following three students!

Kirishima Eijirou, Ashido Mina, Hagakure Tooru will be discussed in this post and in that order.

Kirishima Eijirou:

Fatty and oily foods make Eijirou's skin harder, and Izuku hypothesises that it's due to the carbon content. While carbon is often associated with gases or coal, it's in food too, with the content being higher in oily or fatty foods. Eijirou manipulates the carbon in his skin by rearranging the carbon molecules to make it denser, to the point that his mohs level of hardness is equivalent to corrundum (level 9, one level below diamond).

Because of this, eating food containing high levels of carbon makes it so that there's more carbon to push between his skin cells.

While ordinary humans cannot properly digest high levels of carbon, Eijirou's body is able to, not just handle it, but properly digest it. As such, he starts eating activated charcoal, (which is safe to eat in small dosages, though Eijirou can have more), which increases his time limit, and can help him harden his entire body for longer periods of time.

It's also theorised that his teeth are sharp so that he can bite into coal.

Ashido Mina:

The most obvious contender for what her acid is made of is stomach acid, however, if she transported her stomach acid to her skin, it would make her either incredibly ill or she wouldn't be able to digest things, as she subconciously produces acid.

As such, it's much more likely that she's using carbon dioxide. It's usually pointed out as a gas, but it can exist in a liquid form. Carbon dioxide naturally exists in all humans, though typically as a gas that our body filters out through breathing. Mina is absorbing carbon dioxide as opposed to breathing it out and changing it to a liquid form.

She can alter the pH levels, though it's naturally low, around pH level 3, which leads to accidentally dissolving her bed and floor and waking up in the flat/apartment below. Don't ask. She can make the pH levels go up to about 7, which is safe to drink, though it's not recommended, and this allows her to use her acid to slip around the ground.

While she could theoretically try breathing less to increase carbon dioxide intake, but that's very dangerous without proper training. Instead, she takes sodium bicarbonate or sodium citrate pills, which increase the level of carbon dioxide in the body.

Her appearance is not connected to her quirk.

Hagakure Tooru:

Now, if Tooru were truly invisible, she would not be able to see, as the way we see is by light hitting our retinas, which bounces the light to the photoreceptors behind them which send the electrical signal to our brains. If the light passes through you, the light can't hit the retinas, meaning that no information would be sent to your brain, leaving you blind.

As such, reflecting light also cannot be her quirk, as this would lead to the same results, and would make her continuously shine.

Her quirk is actually absorbing and manipulating radiation across her skin. She doesn't feel hot or cold, as seen by her steaming lunch and how she can run around naked without a single shiver, and this is due to manipulating the thermal energy, which is a form of radiation.

Light is also a form of radiation, which is why she can produce flashes from her skin.

This could also mean that she cannot become irradiated by things such as chemical energy, though it's far too dangerous to test out.

Additionally, because of this, it's possible that she can manipulated energy across things made of her DNA, which is proven true when she gets her costume and appear invisible after she wears it.

...

So that's Izuku's analysis of Eijirou, Mina, and Tooru's quirks!

I'm not a master of science, so if there's something that doesn't seem quite right, chalk it up to psuedo-science, please. I did not take A-Levels for science. My knowledge comes from my own research, mainly due to Momo's quirk.

Thanks for tuning in!

[new-holocene]

ode to abandoned projects

normally i dedicate my public facing social media accounts solely to sharing my finished artwork, but I figure some reflection on the past few years of my development as an artist would be worthwhile. I was initially trying to find an old gmod map I made (I didn't find it), and in the process I found a number of screenshots of WIPs spanning the past 7 years. for many of these projects, they were abandoned because I got too busy with school/university.

from march 2017. made in unity. I don't remember the specifics of this project. I think I was trying to make a short narrative walking sim.

from december 2017. I wanted to make a short smw romhack. I remember drawing level designs on a spare piece of paper after finishing a secondary school exam early. one day I'll make a romhack, one day...

from may 2018. I had just replayed marble blast ultra after finding it had a PC port. shortly after I found all the textures were just in the game files and could be modified easily. myself and an old friend wanted to make a 'games repainted'-esque mod. I claim full credit for every marble game since that's included a 🤔marble skin.

from march 2020. a mockup of a piece I was calling 'alignment chart' for the first time I had ever applied for a bursary. this used a mixture of generative art pieces i made in processing and graphic design. this piece is interesting to look back on because it marked the development of my art style for the first time, and the psuedo-cuneiform generator ended up being a recurring feature of my art. my application was rejected because i did not read the terms and conditions to realise it wasn't open to university students - and I was still studying computer science at the time.

from may 2020. I was aiming to participate in the low res game jam but never got to finish due to university work taking up my time. I never fleshed out the mechanics of the game, but the goal was to take care of the tree in the center of the map. it doesn't look like much, but I really pushed myself (or rather, tortured myself) by not using a game engine and writing this in C++ with raylib instead.

from april 2020. this was going to be a browser based demake of five nights at freddy's (a game I've never played and have no interest in) titled "five years at yanderedev's". I figured that it felt too close to participating in lolcowing someone and that it was in bad spirits, so I scrapped it.

from september 2020. a mockup of my homepage sharpfourth.net. I kept the logo and general layout for whats on the site currently, but didn't include the scanner warped images.

from october 2020. I wanted to make a walking sim in the quake engine, but once again, university work got in the way. however, this got me familiar with the basics of using trenchbroom (a map editor for quake), which came in very, very handy for later projects.

from october 2021. myself and some close friends had planned to make a zine detailing how to do DIY feminising HRT in Ireland (and maybe the UK). we never got around to writing it (partly because we feared potential legal repercussions for disseminating medical advice lol), but this marked a further development of my art style.

from october 2021. I had hoped to make a first person RPG in godot. once again scrapped because I got too busy with uni. I spent ages trying to implement a wonky movement system that could be exploited, being inspired by bhopping from source or strafe jumping from quake. the dialogue system was the last thing I worked on. I used trenchbroom again - this time with qodot - for making the prototype map. while making this demo, I realised the potential use of godot and trenchbroom in visual art, something i would revisit during my first gallery residency.

from march 2022. this might be the most unassuming piece in this collection, but it marks a significant turning point in my life. I was tasked with making diagrams for a group project in uni, but given that I was facing extreme burnout and apathy towards the course, I instead "doodled" with the elements of the diagram. this spiraled into me writing my zine/short-story EATARTHU, which I then used to apply for a gallery residency. I was fortunate enough to get the residency, and I dropped out of college to pursue art.

as discouraging as it might be to constantly start and abandon projects, it's important to stop and remember that ever single abandoned game or drawing or album or whatever marked a chance for you to learn and develop as an artist. one day you might very well finish a project, and it'll reflect a bit of every single abandoned one of its precursors.

[olderthannetfic]

Seeing my fandom fight with each other regarding if a Turkish character described as "dark, rich bronze-brown" in skintone is or is not a POC kind of shows how flawed fandom's understanding of race is. He's discriminated against within the story in a way that his coworker, a white Muslim, is not, so it's plainly obvious to me that he is being impacted by racism and is not intended by the text to solely be impacted by Islamophobia, as some people in fandom have claimed. Regardless of whether or not people online think he's white or not, think Turkey is a white or nonwhite nation, etc., in reality, people don't stop and ask you about your ethnicity, nationality, etc. before they decide how to treat you. A man with dark bronze skin is not going to be treated as white by the world. Racists do not pause and ask themselves if he might be X, Y or Z. They see his skin and react.

Fandom doesn't understand that race is a construct and racists will rearrange the construct. You can argue Turkey is in Europe all you want, they'll just change the construct's rules from 'European' to 'European and not brown'. In a discord I'm in right now, I had to explain to some well-meaning and otherwise not unintelligent Gen Z kids about how segregation worked. One of them asked, quite earnestly, what would happen to him, someone who is mixed race, and I had to explain that it very much boiled down to if you were light skinned and capable of passing for white or not. Multiple people brought up blood quantums because USAmericans love us some fractions, but no bus driver, I explained, had ever asked for a person's stats before making a decision. The decision was made purely on a visual basis, usually coming down to skin color. (Although even if you were light enough that you could bullshit your way into saying "I'm Italian!" like my dad's boyfriend managed to do growing up, that only worked when my dad's boyfriend had his hair chemically relaxed and treated to make it the texture of a white person's hair, and it worked best when he was nicely dressed. It was still visuals based. Being 3/4ths white by the math meant nothing.)

Honestly the issue we have underneath it all isn't the terms POC, BIPOC, non-white, etc. The problem we have is that people don't understand what race is. Race is not math and race is not determined by where you're from on a map. It's a social construct. It's not real geographically, biologically or mathematically. To look at it from this very detached psuedo-science POV is to not understand the reality that social constructs are enforced by society via individual experiences.

If a brown man is experiencing bigotry from racists due to his skin color, he isn't white. It doesn't matter where he's from.

--

This is tumblr, so you know what I'm going to reply:

[fo3lonewanderer]

Huge thank you to Doctor Mike for calling out the dangerous crackpot psuedo-science believing idiot that is RFK Jr. The fact that the leader of the department of HEALTH went swimming in a contaminated creek and fell for conspiracy bullshit is atrocious. True embarrassment.

[teachanarchy]

Watch "Science vs. Pseudoscience - Siska De Baerdemaeker" on YouTube