#science: abridged beyond the point of usefulness

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Nevermore is a gothic tragedy. Part I: Classical and Shakespearean Tragedy

This essay assumes that you've read the first season of Nevermore. If you haven't, you'll be eating spoilers.

First of all, a disclaimer: you won't find the term "Gothic tragedy" in theory books, because I just pulled it out of my sleeve. But it seemed appropriate to put it in those terms because, hey, beyond theoretical structuring, genres are also used as a guide to content, and that's kind of what I want to express with this.

Partly because I've noticed that I've called this comic a tragedy on more than one occasion, and talked at length about Lenore and Annabel as gothic characters, but never bothered to delve into these matters, and with the hiatus until (possibly) October, I think it's time to rectify that situation.

But also because I think there are a lot of things in this story that fall into place if you read it under the logic of those genres.

Originally, this was going to be a single essay, but it turns out it took over 2000 fucking words just to explain why it's a fucking tragedy, so I'm going to split this shit in two because I don't want to burn anyone's eyes out.

Tragedy and Types of Tragedy

This is the ridiculously abridged version because this is a really long story, if you want more information on the subject I highly recommend reading Aristotle's Poetics, Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy or watching this OSP video for a more proper introduction. If you're interested in Shakespearean tragedy, The Cambridge Shakespeare is a amazing compilation, and here's the essay that talks specifically about what the hell Shakespearean tragedy is.

Tragedy has been linked to the origins of theater as such, found in the festivals dedicated to Dionysus (if you want to know more about the cult of Dionysus, you can watch this video to start), where poetry contests were held, specifically of dithyrambs: lyric compositions dedicated specifically to Dionysus. This later led to the inclusion of an increasingly sophisticated chorus using masks. This was no longer poetry, but the first expressions of theater as we understand it in modern times, at least for Europe and the countries colonized by Europeans.

Nietzsche also points out that tragedy condenses within itself two opposing impulses represented in the gods Apollo and Dionysus, expressed in the terms "Apollonian" and "Dionysian": order, mathematics and music (understood by the Greeks as science) vs. party, debauchery and chaos. The clash between the beautiful and the grotesque (understanding that the "beautiful" can be disturbing and the "grotesque" can be strangely beautiful). This description is not entirely literal, of course, but it must be kept in mind that in order to have the fundamentals of a tragedy, one must have these two elements: order and chaos. A synchronized waltz between the rigid structures and the rupturing.

Yes, those two are enough.

Step by step, I think it is important to point out what are the transversal elements to tragedy - classical or Shakespearean - that are present in the comic.

The first important concept that appears on this page is Amarthia. The tragic mistake, the first domino that topples the whole stack, is the specific event that sets tragedy in motion, and we spectators of tragedy can only stare in horror at the situation, knowing that everything that follows will go terribly wrong.

At least as far as its protagonists are concerned, Annabel and Lenore's Amarthia has been said but not seen: the dinner party where Annabel will wear pearls, indicating to Lenore that she is in on the charade. From then on, every step they take will bring them closer to the fate we know: the arrival of both of them in Nevermore. This story ends with them both dead.

And if I had to point out the Amarthia of the comic's topicality, I would dare to say that this is it:

And this:

Annabel refuses to explain to Lenore why the plan has to be the way it is, while Lenore agrees to be part of it (the fact that she disagrees with the whole situation is a plus).

The interesting thing about this is that the roles are reversed: before, Annabel sealed the tragic fate of both of them by accepting Lenore's proposal, while in Nevermore, Lenore sealed the tragic fate of both of them by accepting Annabel's plan.

Another important term that comes up here is hybris. While it is true that hybris represents ego, this does not necessarily mean that the hero is self-centered in a personality sense; hybris is the tragic hero's (misguided, of course) belief that they can turn their terrible situation around. And, well…

That ends badly in tragedies. Very, very badly.

At this point, it is necessary to start pointing out the elements of each type of tragedy, because something interesting is happening: within the ancient walls of the purgatory that is Nevermore, a classical tragedy is taking place, while in the past, Annabel and Lenore were the protagonists of a Shakespearean tragedy.

Classical Tragedy

One thing to understand about classical tragedy is that these are stories of humanity versus divinity. The predestined fate that comes upon mortals at the hands of beings superior to them, even if those beings do not appear directly. The external forces superior to the characters do not intervene directly (at least not in most cases), but they put all the pieces in place for the tragic hero to fall headlong into his terrible fate "by their own hand". Yeah, that shit is so unfair.

In Nevermore, fate is represented by these two bastards: The Deans act as the ominous shadow of divinity that sets the rules of this battle royale. For all intents and purposes, this pair of bastards represents the tragic fate of the characters: only one will survive to have a second life. And there is (theoretically) no way to escape.

This is where we start to get into thorny issues. If I had to point out the classical tragedy that Nevermore most resembles, I think I'd get a smile out of Hadestown fans: Orpheo and Eurydice.

Okay, let's review: Orpheo is a highly talented musician who, after losing his beloved, goes to the underworld to find her. Hades and Persephone give him a chance to get her back if he doesn't turn around to see her until they leave the place, he does so at the last second, she returns to the underworld, and Orpheus spends the rest of his life in misery mourning her.

That's the thing, the story of Orpheo and Euridice is a tragedy for the most depressing reason of all: love. What seems like a generous gift from Hades and Persephone is actually a condemnation, because they ask Orpheus to do the one thing he could never do: stop looking at his beloved. In some versions of the story, he can't even hear her as they walk; will she really be her, or has he been tricked? Will she be frightened on this journey and he will not be there to comfort her? What if she has trouble on the road or an accident and Orpheus has left her behind? Orpheus loves Eurydice so much that he cannot save her under these circumstances because he cannot stop watching over her long enough to get her out of here.

Now let's go to Annabel and Lenore, the same thing is happening here, these two idiots love each other. It's probably the only thing they know for sure in this bullshit game. And for Annabel and Lenore, to love is to protect, it's to be the shield that will be there to defend their beloved in the face of adversity, she's been hurt in a terrible way and they will do anything to stop anyone from hurting her again.

But tragic fate, represented by the Deans, has set things in motion for this to quickly go to hell:

For Lenore to understand Annabel's actions, she would have to tell her that's why she's so afraid, why they shouldn't get attached to anyone, why she thinks it's necessary to pretend they don't remember each other. But Lenore can't be okay with Annabel carrying everything alone, because she sees how it hurts her, because Annabel is clearly hurting. She goes to great lengths to confide in Annabel, but she can't come up with a plausible explanation for all this crap either.

For Annabel, becoming a villain and enduring all this pain is slightly less horrible than dragging Lenore into the Deans' psychotic game. But Lenore just loves her too much to let her do that. Lenore could protect her if Annabel were by her side, so why does she keep leaving? She was hurt the first time, why do it to her a second time?

The feeling of not being heard, the frustration that the other just won't listen to her pleas and won't stop what she's doing to allow her to be cared for, runs through both of them because it's the exact same situation, "Why won't you let me do this for you?"

The answer is that Annabel and Lenore are asking the other to do the one thing she could never stop doing: stop trying to protect her. That's why they fight.

This relationship has become a power game that neither can win because they are both exactly the same. A tug-of-war that will only be resolved when something breaks. Hopefully not irreparably.

And speaking of the P-word, let's talk Shakespeare, people.

Shakespearean Tragedy

The good Bard took classical tragedy and brought it back, but changed enough elements of it that it had to be renamed because some of its fundamentals were rewritten. The most notorious of these is that while Shakespeare does not ignore the presence of higher forces or supernatural entities, the fundamental basis of Shakespearean tragedy is not the conflict between humanity and the Fates/Gods.

It is power.

Those who wield power, those who are corrupted by it, and those who crave it. These tragedies speak of moral corruption, the victims of power, and those who sink under the responsibility that power brings.

This is the reason why Shakespeare's tragic heroes belong to the nobility, come from opulent families, or hold important positions. In this case, we have as protagonists two women who were born in a cradle of gold: Lenore apparently comes from a family of old money, and while we do not know if Annabel also comes from a family of old money, we do know that there is no shortage of coins around here.

But status cannot protect Shakespeare's protagonists from the society in which they live, whose agency is sometimes literally represented by people with power. This puts them in a situation from which they cannot escape and which screws them from the start (in other cases the Shakespearean protagonist is the figure of power and seals his own fate). Here, the odds are stacked against them from the start because they are women and, as if that were not enough, lesbians.

I think it's no surprise to anyone that the Shakespearean tragedy most similar to Nevermore is Romeo and Juliet.

Let's review: Romeo and Juliet are two young people who meet at a party and fall madly in love. Their families hate each other, so they cannot be together. The two secretly marry, but after an argument Romeo kills a man and is banished, despite a plan hatched by a priest friend so they can run away together, things go terribly wrong and they both end up committing suicide.

This follows a similar logic to Orpheus and Eurydice: the tragedy here is that these two are in love. But where classical tragedy says, "They love each other so much they can't save themselves," Romeo and Juliet, like Annabel and Lenore, works with two layers of conflict.

The first is the social and political. These young people's families hate each other, so they can't be together. In the same way, Annabel and Lenore can't be together because they're both women.

This is also a reference to one of the central themes of Romeo and Juliet: the clash between tradition and modernity. I think if you squint hard enough, you can see the relationship between these two as Victorian conservatism and homophobia screwing up their lives in the same way that tradition screws up Romeo and Juliet's.

The other layer of the problem is the one that has to do with love: Romeo and Juliet love each other so much that they cannot live without each other. This is what drives them both to suicide, even when they are given the opportunity to continue their lives separately. They love each other so much that they cannot live without each other. Just as Annabel and Lenore desperately want to be together, this is what starts the engine of tragedy when circumstances prevent them from doing so.

Another thing it takes from Romeo and Juliet is the role of the parents as a representation of the power that oppresses the characters. In Romeo and Juliet, the Montague and Capulet lords pull the strings of their children's lives, and it is their resentment that creates the barrier between the lovers. In the case of Nevermore, Ira and Thaddeus are the personal jailers of their respective daughters: Ira wants to get Annabel into an arranged marriage by hook or by crook, and Thaddeus first gets Lenore a fiancé and then keeps her locked up in the fucking attic.

Finally, a tragedy that can be read as a reference to Nevermore, though more subtly, is Macbeth.

The plot is simple: a trio of witches tell Duke Macbeth that he and his descendants will one day be kings. This leads him to murder his cousin, King Duncan, and everything goes downhill from there, because Duncan's murder didn't even amuse the prince.

Yes, at first glance it doesn't seem to make much sense, but that's because it's referring to a specific moment. Specifically, the most discussed and controversial scene in the play: the dialog where Lady Macbeth and Macbeth discuss killing Duncan.

This scene has kept the Bard's fans arguing for centuries: is she manipulating her husband so that she can be queen, or is she just verbalizing Macbeth's wishes that he be allowed to commit the crime, and saying that she will support him in it? Impossible to know unless someone gets a working Ouija board.

This is the same logic that follows the flashback scene where Lenore talks to Annabel about the plan. The important thing here is that the comic decides that the answer is: it depends on who you ask.

Given Annabel's attitude toward Lenore, we can interpret that she does not think she was manipulated or anything. Lenore is not a devious woman who put things in her head, it was her knight in shining armor who came to save her from a marriage she didn't want. Yes, she may have had her doubts, but she definitely liked her chances, enough to accept them.

On the other hand, what this tells me is that Lenore thinks the opposite: that she convinced Annabel to be part of this hoax that ended with both of them dead. A crazy woman who dragged the only person she cared about into a dangerous game that cost them their lives, she considers herself as guilty as the perpetrating hand of the crime.

Conclusion

I think the first time I decided to do a review under this particular lens was when I started to notice where Annabel and Lenore's arcs seemed to be going.

On the one hand, given how things are going, it seems that Lenore has to start taking off the blindfold to realize that things aren't as simple as she thinks, and stop letting others make the hard decisions for her because it hurts everyone.

On Annabel's side, you have a character arc that seems to be aimed at being honest with other people, not letting her fears stop her from making risky decisions, and not dealing with all the bullshit herself.

If what I just said leaves a bad taste in your mouth, that's normal. Because it's fucking unfair.

That Lenore should be the one to stand firm - not out of guilt, but out of responsibility - for her actions feels like shit after everything the poor girl has been through. The same thing happens on Annabel's side, that she has to give in to a situation where it makes so much sense for her to shut down, where it makes sense, even without her background, for her to behave that way.

But that sense of injustice is one of the foundations of tragedies. The feeling that, in her situation, it is practically impossible to think that anything different could be done is the basis of catharsis: the pity felt for the character, the fear generated by identifying with their terrible situation.

The expiation of these emotions, which are produced in the spectator by the fall of the tragic hero.

Now, it is interesting to ask how the fall of Annabel and Lenore will be. The simple answer from a tragic point of view is death, a thing we know has already happened once, why not a second time? After all, that's what awaits tragic heroes. Unless you're Medea.

It's impossible to know how the comic will develop, but it seems to me that this is as far as the tragedy goes. For the next part, I want to talk about gothic novels, female vampires, the female writers of the period, and the last gothic. Believe me, buddies, there is no more obsessive romantic bond than that between a Poe protagonist and their dead bride.

[tricktster]

Is TST for the satanic temple

It is merely a happy happy happy coincidence, but don’t take that to mean that they don’t have my full-throated support and admiration.

Since you kids are on tumblr, I’m guessing a lot of you already know that The Satanic Temple (TST) is not, in fact, a group of people who worship Satan. For those of you who might (understandably) have TST confused with an an actual Satan-worshipping entity, rest assured - supporting TST requires no actual Satan worship - or anything worship, it’s a “non-theistic religion.” 

So, you might be wondering, what’s the point of a purported Satanic church that explicitly does not believe in, nor worship, Satan? 

Great rhetorical question! Thank you for the invitation to geek out! In this essay I will explain why The Satanic Temple is an incredibly clever maneuver to protect the individual rights and liberties of people in the United States of America, and why you should all, regardless of religious belief, stan them. I am sorry! This is going to be a long one! I’m going to use a page break!

(Apologies if anything I say here is really basic obvious stuff that you already know. I will probably cover some familiar ground, but I didn’t get taught about any of this in high school beyond a few throwaway paragraphs in a textbook, so I’m writing with an audience of ‘me in high school’ in mind.)

As you know, the founding fathers did some pretty wild shit when they decided on what the United States of America was going to look like, and among the wildest was the decision that America would not have a state religion. I cannot express to you guys how significant this decision was in shaping American culture... soooo I won’t try because it’s beside the point and this is already going to be way too long. All you really need to take away is the following:

The U.S. constitution provides both that religion and government are to be kept separate, and that the free exercise of religion is a fundamental individual right, and those portions of the constitution have pissed a lot of people off over the last 244 years.

So there’s actually three parts of the bill of rights that are in play here. In the First Amendment, we have the Establishment Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion [The Establishment Clause], or prohibiting the free exercise thereof [The Free Exercise Clause]; or abridging the freedom of speech [...]”

These clauses were the only part of the Constitution that touched on religion until the 14th amendment was ratified in 1868. For those of you who are curious about the timing of a new amendment in 1869 and are as bad with significant dates as I am, the Civil War ended in 1865, and, as such, it’s worth noting that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black people. I am not the first person to note that uh, we are clearly still working on that.

Anyway, for our purposes, the pertinent part of the 14th amendment is the Equal Protection Clause:

“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Okay, very broadly, here’s what each clause actually does:

The Establishment Clause says that the US government cannot sponsor any religion, or involve itself in religion to the benefit of one religion over another. 

The Free Exercise clause says that the US government cannot stop someone from holding a religious belief (or force them to adhere to another religious belief)

The Equal Protection Clause prohibits discrimination on the basis of religious belief

These all look pretty great on paper, but in practice, enforcing them has been wildly hit or miss. I’m going to discuss why, so I’ll say up front that none of this should not be construed as an attack on Christianity. Religious faith is intensely personal, and I want to emphasize that I am in no way advocating for adherents to the Christian faith to be unable to practice that faith. I am a sincere advocate for everyone to be able to freely practice their own religious beliefs (or lack thereof), and that’s exactly what’s at issue here - when one religion is positioned above all others, anyone who does not believe in that particular religion is impacted detrimentally.

So with that caveat in place, it’s important to recognize the following: the United States is, and has always been, a majority Christian nation. 65% of Americans identified as Christian in 2019, which is a historic low. Even ten years back, it was closer to 85%. In accordance with the demographics of the US, Christianity is, if anything, over-represented in US government. 85.4% of US congressmen identify as Christian. 82 out of the 100 senators identify as Christian (I’m not counting members of congress or the senate who identify as members of the Church of Latter Day Saints in those numbers). Furthermore, every single president has identified themselves as Christian - the spiciest America has gotten in re: the religious beliefs of a POTUS was JFK, who was, you know, Catholic.

This is important, because it directly impacts how we interpret what “separation of church and state,” “free exercise of religion,” and “nondiscrimination on the basis of faith” actually mean. When a country is predominantly comprised of people who share the same faith, that faith becomes part of the shared cultural concept of national identity: even though the US is, in practice, relatively diverse in terms of ethnicities and religious faiths (as far as countries go), if you ask someone on the street to imagine an American, they are probably going to imagine a white dude who loves Flag and also Jesus. That national identity is reflected in the country’s chosen representatives, and in return, in the legislation passed by those representatives and the behavior expressly condoned by the government as a whole. The end result of all of this is that in the United States of America, Christianity and the exercise of government frequently intersect.

Take the late forties and early fifties. WWII is over, and two global superpowers have emerged that are at diametrical positions; there’s our old capitalist pal the US in one corner, and in the other, the godless, socialist menace of the USSR. I’m being silly and hyperbolic here, but not about the godless bit: the USSR was officially an athiest state, and the government forcibly converted its citizens to atheism. So, the US squints at this and swings hard in the opposite direction; this is a Christian nation, we are sticking “under god” in the pledge of allegiance, we are putting Ten Commandment sculptures in front of our courthouses, we are mandating prayer in school, and if you have an issue with any of that, you are not a patriotic American.

Some of that stuff from the 50s still exists today (“under god” is still kicking around), but a lot more of it is essentially outlawed thanks to the branch of government that I haven’t mentioned yet, the federal judiciary. How this played out was essentially that someone would be impacted by state-sponsored Christianity, they would sue, and their case would eventually be appealed up to the level of the Supreme Court, who would look at the Constitution, admit that it’s pretty unequivocal about the whole separation of church and state thing, and bar the state sponsored religious practice at issue, or at the very least ensure that the state was not sponsoring one faith to the exclusion of others. So, to return to our ten commandments in front of the courthouse or nativity scene outside of a government building; (I’m really simplifying things here but this is the gist) the court has repeatedly decided, those are fine, as long as you give fair play to any other religion that wants to erect their own religious display there too. It’s either that all religions have an equal opportunity to be represented, or no religion does.

I know, this is supposed to be about why The Satanic Temple is cool. We’re getting there.

Let’s jump ahead to the early 2000s. Bush Jr. is president, thanks in no small part to massive evangelical Christian support, and those evangelical Christians have some demands: they want schools to teach creationism, they’re gunning directly for reproductive rights, and they have had enough of this whole gay nonsense. A lot of legislation gets passed during the Bush era that gives the Evangelical base what they want, and among those big evangelical wins was on teaching intelligent design in schools. This didn’t happen everywhere, but some states basically said that intelligent design could be taught alongside evolution in public school science classes, and that evolution and intelligent design had to be portayed as equally valid theories.

Obviously, a lot people were upset about this, because... well, it’s science class. Among the people who thought this whole thing was bullshit was a guy named Bobby Henderson, who wrote an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education in 2005. Referencing the Supreme Court decisions I discussed earlier (either all religious beliefs get equal play or none of them do), Bobby demanded that along with evolution and intelligent design, Kansas schools devote equal time to teaching the creation story of his religious faith, and if any of this is sounding familiar, that’s because Bobby described his religious faith as “Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.”

The memetic potential of this argument was basically designed for the internet era, and it wasn’t too long before purported adherents to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was filing lawsuits that challenged all sorts of government practices that obviously skewed Christian. They were making classic reductio ad absurdum arguments; if it was ridiculous that the government should promote the message of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in a given sphere, it was equally ridiculous that the government should promote the message of other religious faiths in that same sphere.

The whole pastafarian movement had one major weakness, however - it was expressly, deliberately silly. Nobody could mistake a Flying Spaghetti Monster argument to be made in good faith, and the courts used this to basically ignore FSM challenges that would otherwise be valid. Here’s what the Nebraska federal district court decided in the big Flying Spaghetti Monster case, Cavanaugh v. Bartlet:

“The Court finds that FSMism is not a ‘religion’ within the meaning of the relevant federal statutes and constitutional jurisprudence. It is, rather, a parody, intended to advance an argument about science, the evolution of life, and the place of religion in public education. Those are important issues, and FSMism contains a serious argument, but that does not mean that the trappings of the satire used to make that argument are entitled to protection as a ‘religion.’”

That’s the Pastafarian problem in a nutshell. They had great points, but they weren’t actually a religion, and that left the courts free to disregard their arguments by saying that they lacked standing. “Standing” is legalese for the concept of who is able to bring a lawsuit based on a particular act or law. This sounds esoteric, but it makes logical sense: If your neighbor gets hit by an ice cream truck, is injured, and is now hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole for medical debt, he has standing to sue the ice cream truck driver. He suffered an injury that was caused by the ice cream truck driver, and the court has the ability to direct the ice cream truck driver to pay for his medical bills and pain and suffering etc. If you, on the other hand, decide to sue the ice cream truck driver because they ran over your neighbor, well, did you actually get injured? Would it being about any sort of justice if the ice cream truck driver had to pay you money? If the answer is no and you try to sue anyway, the court’s going to kick that lawsuit out.

Constitutional challenges often die because the person suing doesn’t have standing to bring the case. Remember how I mentioned earlier that “one nation under god” is still in the Pledge of Allegiance? A case about that actually got all the way to the Supreme Court, before it was tossed out for lack of standing - the problem was that a student’s father had brought the lawsuit, instead of the student herself. Likewise, the Flying Spaghetti Monster cases usually went nowhere because the courts would say “okay, you’re claiming that this law is trampling on your right to practice your chosen religion, but your religion is deliberately ludicrous. Your holy book was published in 2006 and heavily features a beer volcano. You don’t actually believe in any of this, so you haven’t actually suffered the harm that you’re claiming this legislation caused.”

So, uh, how the hell does an athiest challenge the constitutionality of laws like the FSM movement tried to without just getting tossed out for lack of sincerity?

Okay. Okay. We’re finally here. Let’s talk about The Satanic Temple.

In 2013, after witnessing how the FSM movement failed to accomplish meaningful change, Lucien Greaves realized that even though the basic concept of what FSM was trying to accomplish was solid, the issue was in its execution. If you wanted to challenge laws that unconstitutionally favored Christianity, you couldn’t be joking around about your fake religion; you had to play it absolutely straight.

What Greaves came up with is incredibly clever. He set about constructing a new religion for the purpose of using the FSM playbook without falling into the same judicial pitfalls. He made sure that the new religion would constitute an actual belief system in the eyes of the law, which involved identifying the mission and core articulable tenents of the religion. I’m quoting them both below because they’re cool as hell:

The Mission of The Satanic Temple

“The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits.

The Satanic Temple has publicly confronted hate groups, fought for the abolition of corporal punishment in public schools, applied for equal representation when religious installations are placed on public property, provided religious exemption and legal protection against laws that unscientifically restrict women's reproductive autonomy, exposed harmful pseudo-scientific practitioners in mental health care, organized clubs alongside other religious after-school clubs in schools besieged by proselytizing organizations, and engaged in other advocacy in accordance with our tenets.”

The Seven Tenets of The Satanic Temple

1. One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.

2. The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

3. One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.

4. The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.

5. Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.

6. People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.

7. Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

Tenets aside, though, this next bit is what just delights me to my core with how crafty it is: Instead of making up his own religious text and history, he went directly to the Bible and said (I’m paraphrasing) “the historical foundation of The Satanic Temple is the exact same as the historical foundation of Christianity. We share the same holy book, and our faiths are grounded in the same tradition. Here’s the only difference: We believe with all sincerity that the character in that book who said ‘hey, try the apple, the pursuit of knowledge is worth rebelling against authority for’ is actually the good guy in the story, and although we are not a theistic organization, it is our sincere religious belief to comport ourselves in the manner espoused by the literary character Satan.”

Holy shit, guys. Holy shit, that is smart. He set up his religion so that you couldn’t attack it for being fake without also attacking Christianity for being fake! Simultaneously, he designed a religion that would reliably produce the perfect reductio ad absurdum argument- you want to display your ten commandment statue on public land? Okay, chill, but per the Constitution, we get equal play, so if you want those ten commandments, you’d better be cool with them sitting right next to our 3000 lb bronze statue of children gazing adoringly up at Baphomet:

Oh, wait, you don’t want to have that statue on government property? Cool. Totally fine. Just take your ten commandments slabs away too, and we’ll call it a truce.

The Satanic Temple exists to protect individual constitutional rights. Regardless of your own religious sentiment, it’s hopefully easy enough to see how incredibly shitty it would be to have your elected government promote religious beliefs that you do not share, to have religious sentiments that you find abhorrent expressly condoned by the government, or to have your own rights of expression and against discrimination constrained by a government that expressly santions only the religious beliefs of the majority, in spite of the concepts expressed in the United States Constitution. The only way to challenge an unconstitutional law is to sue, and it takes a lot of time, effort, and most of all resources to see a constitutional lawsuit through. Organized religion and government entities have a much easier time defending those cases than an individual does in suing them; by supporting The Satanic Temple, you’re directly evening the odds.

P.S. I know I talk a big game about how cleverly The Satanic Temple was designed, but you know how you can tell that it’s actually brilliant? The IRS granted it tax exempt status as a religious entity in 2019. Yup. Even with the IRS directly under the thumb of Donald J. Trump, a man desperate to maintain evangelical support, the IRS finally had to concede that they could not find any reason why The Satanic Temple shouldn’t be treated the exact same way as any other church. Angry that a Satanic entity doesn’t have to pay taxes on its income? Well, buddy, get ready to learn what megachurches get away with.

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 2

All right, time for the next episode! Following anime tropes, since the last one was scene-setting I’m guessing this one will be more world-building and backstory. Not a hard deduction, given the post-credits scenes of Baby Elrics. Onwards!

“Alchemy: The science of understanding, deconstructing, and reconstructing matter.” Thanks for the definition! Caveat that it’s not an all-powerful art, though: You can’t create something out of nothing. To obtain something, something of equal value must be given. And what the heck is with all the creepy faces in what I guess is a blood drop? Anyways, that’s the Law of Equivalent Exchange...

Equivalent Exchange Count: 2

...cornerstone of Alchemy. Which leads to an Alchemy-wide taboo: Human transmutation is strictly forbidden.

First thought:

Abridged!Nail: “There’s a special ability our people share, forbidden even amongst our most sacred clans.” Abridged!Piccolo: “...and we’re just going to abuse it?” Abridged!Nail: “Oooh, maliciously!”

Second thought: And “human transmutation” means what, exactly? You can only cast on objects like walls or elements? Cause my understanding is that the body is an object too. Last episode I saw people launching boulders and summoning fire. What makes the body different?

“For what could equal the value of a human soul?”

… well ok then, question answered? Alchemy only works on inanimate objects? Maybe a stretch to boil the water of another person or manipulate your own blood, but nothing beyond that? In any case, souls in this setting are off-limits. You hear that, Incubator?!

I’d then ask why the Elrics would attempt this forbidden technique… but given the sight of the grave in the last episode, I’m afraid I can guess. This isn’t going to be a happy episode, is it?

Intro sequence! Second viewing I can recognize a few more people, and can tell the difference between Roy and Hughes this time. Still don’t know the names of some others.

Ah well, even if things get sad later we can have fun with captions now! “[train whistle] chugga chugga choo choo”. Ed’s scowling out the train window. Finally caught their ride out of the city that Mr. Freeze delayed? Al asks Ed about ‘this priest in Liore’, if the stories of his miracles are true. Ed doesn’t seem that convinced that someone can transmute flowers out of thin air, thinks it might just be slight of hand… but it could be the “real thing”.

Flashback! Captions helpfully date Ed as Age 11, reading about a “celestial stone” that destroyed the Xerxes in one night. It goes by many names, but goes back to one consistent trait: some kind of object that amplifies alchemy. The Philosopher’s Stone.

Shot of Ed in a chair? Aw dang it’s after the botched Human Transmutation, isn’t it? Ed’s in a wheelchair sans arm and leg, and a big suit of armor’s sitting nearby. Ed’s saying that if they could get ahold of the Stone, they might be able to get Al’s body back. And then starts ranting about how the damn books tell everything but how to find it. Well, sure. If this Stone can actually subvert Equivalent Exchange, get something for nothing, it’d be the most valuable thing in the world. The only thing with value, really. Nobody’s going to write out “here’s a map to this priceless object” rather than go off and get it for themselves.

Flashpresent! Ed’s in a better mood now, says he has a good feeling about this one. Whelp, that settles it, this trip’s a bust. Buddy, it’s the second episode of a two-season show, and you just showed optimism. You’re doomed. Al just digs them deeper as the title comes up.

Episode 02: “The First Day”

Flashback, 10 years earlier in Resembool. A lady named Trisha is calling for Ed and Al. Momma Elric? She finds them *daaaaaawwww lookit the widdle babies with their books and chalk and dawww so cute!* Ahem. She finds them in their dad’s study, Little Al reading while Little Ed sketches out a Transmutation Circle. She says they shouldn’t scribble, but Little Ed says they weren’t and summons a small wooden bird in the circle with an electric shock. Trisha seems a bit shocked. Well, yeah? This is magic, in any setting an extremely dangerous tool, and these are a couple of kids, not even 11 since Little Al looks even younger than Wheelchair Al. Even Hogwarts knew better than to give kids wands before they were 11.

Trisha asks if their dad taught them that, Al fires back “How can he teach us anything if he’s not here?” Hmmm, that’s twice she’s said “Your Dad”, is she not actually Momma Elric? And dang, absent father already, that’s got to be a record. In any case, they just read the books. Oh, but Trisha’s happy about “her little geniuses”? So she is their mother? Yup, Ed’s saying Mom’s encouragement made them obsessed with learning alchemy.

But then, that same year, an epidemic came. And the sickness took her.

...Well dang, that’s what, thirty seconds screentime? What a ripoff, I was just getting to know Momma Elric! I demand more screentime!

(Edit: Oh good Alchemy why did I ask for this?!)

The Little Elrics are sitting in front of their mother’s grave. Little Al says that he’s cold and hungry, asks if they can go home. Once Dad gets back- Little Ed burst out yelling at the mention of Absent Dad, says that bastard doesn’t care about them. He didn’t even come for Momma Elric’s funeral? What the hell, Absent Dad?

So, yeah. Sad motherless kids sitting at a grave, sad music… and now comes the part I’ve been dreading, knowing that the Elrics are the way they are now from a botched human transmutation attempt. Little Ed suggests there might be a way to bring their mother back. Little Al says that all the books say that trying to make people using Alchemy is “A STUPID IDEA, DON’T DO THIS, SERIOUSLY DON’T”. Like, kids? I know it’s sad that your Mom died, but if it was possible to bring a person back using Alchemy, then there wouldn’t be any death in your setting rather than books saying “DON’T TRY IT IDIOT”. But no, Little Al says it’ll be their secret.

Someone named Winry thought she’d find them there? Oh, it’s the third Blond Kid! She says her Grandma says to not cry for lost loved ones, because it makes them feel sad in the next world too. Little Ed insists that they’re not crying, and that she cries anytime her own parents go somewhere. Little Winry insists that she doesn’t, Little Ed keeps teasing her. First off, if Momma Elric’s looking down she’s not very pleased with you teasing a girl in the shadow of her headstone, buster. Second, love interest? Because nothing says “potential love interest” between two anime children like teasing. Little Winry runs off saying she’ll tell her Grandma not to make them dinner, Little Ed immediately caves under the threat to his stomach and runs after her.

Later that night, all the kids are saying thanks for dinner at a house with an “AutoMail” sign out front. Ooh, is this where Ed got his metal parts from?

Granny - oh hey, it’s the lady with the dog from the intro! - says that Little Ed should drink his milk too. He refuses because he hates milk, she just says that if he doesn’t he’ll stay short forever. Ha! Whoa, and here’s a “You’re short!” “No, you’re short!” argument between the two. I like this Granny! Little Winry and Little Al are just eating their food with closed eyes that scream “I am so tired of you two.”

School bells! And the Blond Kids sound a bit older now but not Present age, I’ll call them Kid ____. Kid Winry’s asking about the weird books they’ve been reading in class, Kid Al says it’s a secret and Kid Ed’s a little less refined in his response. Kid Winry does not like this and pfft that is a silly face.

Later Kid Ed’s gushing about how the inventor of stew was a genius: it tastes good even though it has milk in it! But he might actually have a point: the leap of imagination to pour milk into soup for the first time? That’s how a scientist thinks!

I like how this setting is treating Alchemy as a science, all rules and stuff. For one, I get to have fun exploring the rules and trying to minmax it. For another, as much as I like some mystery in fantasy, I feel like it’s more impactful when you can grasp the reasoning behind it.

Although Kid Ed isn’t taking the best lesson from this, talking about how “all it takes is one leap”. Sure, some science comes in leaps, but you’ve gotta be careful where you land.

And so they studied, trained with a humourless-looking alchemy teacher, researched for years to see their Mom’s smile once more.

[optimistic, yet ominous music playing]. Well, that’s encouraging!

Kid Ed’s signing off on a piece of paper with a TC on it, says that they’re ready.

Gah crow! Ok, screw you show, did not need that. Guessing it’s sunset now, given how the spookily-angled house is in shades of red. I get it show, shit’s about to go down. Kid Ed’s reciting chemical amounts, pouring water and drawing out the TC. And finally, some “soul data”, aka blood.

Damnit, stop smiling boy. You don’t know it, but you’re about to cripple yourself and lose your brother in this effort.

The Elric Kids kneel by the TC, and there’s the noise of an eagle screeching as it lights up and starts sparking. Both boys look eagerly at the chemical mix in the center… and then start looking uncertain as the edge of the circle starts smoking and the light turns red. Not good. Al says something doesn’t feel right and music turns ominous as JESUS CHRIST THAT’S AN EYE.

A great big eye just opened up in the TC and oh no Al’s hand just shattered he’s screaming as small tendrils reach out. Ed screams as his own leg breaks and he falls down, seems shocked that it’s “a rebound”. And Al screams and screams as the tendrils tear away at him, his arm reaching for Ed is shattering and his face and

There’s a big black door against a white background, Kid Ed standing in front of it. Where is he? Kid Ed seems uncertain what he was just doing gah creepy voice. “Truth”? Kid Ed’s looking at a white humanoid form, specks of black around it. String instruments start plucking as Kid Ed asks who they are. Truth seems happy to be asked that, says that (she? voice seem female) is the world, the universe, God, Truth, all, one, and him. The door opens behind shocked Kid Ed and argh the Eye is back.

“You have dared to knock on the door. Now, the door is open.” Gah the tendrils are reaching for Kid Ed he tries to get away but they grab him and drag him back. Truth tells him to be quiet, isn’t this what he wanted? Kid Ed screams in terror as Truth says she’ll show him the truth, and then it slams shut. A piano plays as Kid Ed’s dragged down to streams of pictures. Present!Ed says that it was like all of the information in the world was being poured into his brain, he screams for it to stop. Pieces of him are flaking away… but he says for an instant, he was the truth of everything. Getting shades of black hole event horizon here.

The light solidifies as the form of Momma Elric, Kid Ed calls out to her. She reaches out

Kid Ed stands before the Door again, gasping for breath with hand still outstretched. Truth sounds smug as she asks “How was it?” I don’t think I like you, lady.

Kid Ed turns back to the door… and starts rambling that his theory wasn’t wrong, just missing something. Oh dear. Kid, your alchemy theory is great and all, but I think you have more pressing concerns, like the demon you just turned away from.

But Truth says she can’t show him anymore, all that was for the toll of his leg. And suddenly Truth has a smug mouth, says it’s the law of equivalent exchange-

EEC: 3

-and Kid Ed seems to come to gripping the bleeding stump of his leg by the sparking circle. Well, that ain’t good. And crap those are Kid Al’s empty clothes, he’s really gone isn’t he?... ok, all this badness is kinda being undercut by the bouncy, almost carnival-like music playing right now. What’s up with that?

Kid Ed cries about how Kid Al’s gone, how this wasn’t supposed to happen, calls for help, calls for Mom

Oh. Oh God.

The… the TC has stopped glowing. And in the middle there’s an overturned bucket and…

Something that I really hope isn’t alive.

Kid Ed, still bleeding profusely from his missing leg, knocks over the suit of armor and drags himself over saying that they won’t take Al too. Draws a bloody pentagram while calling out that they can take his leg, arm, heart, anything. And casts Alchemy.

…

Wow. Ok then, that was brutal.

Whoa, hold up, that was only the first half of the episode? Jeez, I wasn’t even looking at the time, what else is gonna happen?

Hmm, seems it’s the present again. Clipboard with file on Mr. Freeze? Ah, Hughes is surprised to see Roy still in Central, who says he’s heading back to Eastern Command in the afternoon. Hughes jokes that he expects Roy to come back with a promotion. He gives Roy the final report on Isaac McDougal/Mr. Freeze, since it… hasn’t reached his office yet? Any reason for that?

Roy checks it out, seems shocked to see “Xingese Alkahestry”. Hughes says it’s something “they” have. Who’s “they”? Neither of them know what it is. Something for later?

Walking down the hallway now, Hughes attempts conversation by asking how the Elrics are doing, Roy says that he’s their CO, not their father. Where is good old dad, anyways? Still not shown up? Hughes asks why Roy decided to make Ed a State Alchemist, even though he’s just a kid. Military life’s rough, after all. Roy doesn’t seem to say anything, just waves goodbye… but walking away he thinks that both boys have seen plenty of hell already.

Flashback, four years earlier. [epic strings] as a slightly younger Roy looks down at the bloody TC. Someone named Hawkeye asks Roy oh hey it’s that short-haired blonde lady who had his dry gloves, she reports they aren’t in back either. Roy demands to know where the Elric brothers are. Looks like the authorities know what they attempted. But seriously, Hawkeye? First Fury, now Hawkeye? How many other Avengers are we gonna get out of this?

At the AutoMail building, Granny tells the dog Den to not bark and opens the door- before Roy strides right past her. She chides him for barging in, but Roy just looks around… and sees Kid Ed sans arm and leg, wheelchair held by giant suit of armor with glowing eyes. Roy grabs Kid Ed by the shirt and yells at the shocked kid. Kid Ed lowers his head, and an armored hand gently grabs Roys arm and a far, far too young and sad voice says that they’re sorry, that they didn’t mean it what the HELL is wrong with this show?

Roy’s sitting at the table now talking to Granny as Kid Ed and Al stand by, says that he’d heard about a brilliant alchemist in town so he came to check them out. But he didn’t expect to find someone skilled enough to attempt Human Transmutation or bond a soul to armor. More than capable to become a State Alchemist. If he accepts the position, he’ll serve the military in times of national emergency, in return for privileges and access to restricted research materials, with the potential to recover their bodies, “or even more”. Well, that’s one hell of a carrot. What’s the stick?

Granny raps the table, says that after the boys arrived at her house she went over and saw that… thing. She says that alchemy created that abomination, nearly killed them, and now Roy wants to throw them headlong into it:?

Hawkeye is sitting in the living room, when Kid Winry offers her some tea. She then takes a seat and talks with the Lieutenant, who says to just call her Riza (thank goodness, I couldn’t take her seriously as just Hawkeye), who seems pleasant enough. But Winry seems too subdued for a handshake… and then asks if Riza has ever had to shoot anyone. Jeez, going for the heavy questions here.

Winry says that she hates what “you soldiers” do, that they’re the reason that her mom and dad left during the war, and the reason they’re dead. Um. Wow, ok. And now they’re there to take Ed and Al away too. But Riza says the decision to go will be theirs and theirs alone? Really? Cause here I was expecting a pretty sizable “You attempted a forbidden Alchemy so we have cause to lock you up and throw away the key” stick.

But no, it’s just an offer of a possibility, the chance to move forward rather than stay still. Sit in the chair and wallow in self-pity, or stand up and seize the chance of the military. Their choice, their own path. The slim hope of getting their bodies back. This doesn’t seem to be getting through Ed though, he’s staring ahead with dead eyes.

Winry seems thoughtful now, asks why Riza became a soldier. Riza just smiles and says that there’s someone she has to protect. Roy walks out and says they’re leaving, but Winry shakes Riza’s hand before they go. Roy seems confident that the Elric brothers will follow, but Riza says she’s never seen someone look so defeated. But Roy says he saw fire in those eyes.

Back to the present with [train whistle] chugga chugga chooooo. Aaaand back to the past, Granny asking if he’s sure they won’t regret it. Not why we needed a few seconds back with Present!Ed, but whatever. Kid Ed’s in an operating room now, looks like this is when he turns cyborg. Surgery and rehabilitation will take about three years. Determined Ed says that he’ll do it in one. Granny remarks that he’ll be spitting blood doing that, but he’s eager to get Al his body back soon.

[inspiring chamber music] as a longer-haired Ed spars with Al, trying out his automail arm and leg. Al remarks that he seems to be in perfect shape, and now to try alchemy… huh. Al is surprised and amazed that Ed can now perform alchemy without a TC, like their Teacher. But he can’t, and didn’t see the same Truth that Ed did.

...and then wrench to the head, from a frustrated Winry telling him not to mess up her automail. Heh, ok, after all the gah that’s been this episode, seeing this simple-drawn scared Al and beat-up Ed is a nice change of pace. Heh, and the snarking continues between Ed and the girl who made his automail. Ooh, and a smirking Al? Methinks there’s a shipper on deck!

At Central now, a man with the unfortunate designation of [Subordinate] remarks it’s unusual for Fuhrer Fury to observe the examinations, I assume for State Alchemists. But it’s also unusual for a 12-year-old take the test as well. Fury cheerfully asks about Ed’s automail arm, and Ed’s… confused about who this guy is? You’d think that he’d recognize the Boss, who his neighbor says is… ok, what? “Fuhrer King Bradley”? So the title is Fuhrer King? Pretentious much. Ed likewise does not seem that impressed with the title.

Fury starts the examination as Roy watches on, an Alchemist asks if Al needs something to draw with. [chugging adventure strings] start as Al casts on the ground, Roy is shocked to see he’s not even using a TC as he pulls a spear from the ground. Only Fury seems nothing more than cheerful as he remar- Ed what the hell are you doing? Ok, um. Ed just charged at Fury and got his spear to his neck, at gunpoint he remarks that the examination as is would be a good chance to take out a VIP. Yeah, “nerves of steel” is one way to put it Fury. But Fury walks off saying he still has much to learn about the world… and wow the tip of Ed’s spear just slid off. And now we see Fury walking off with sword drawn, cartoony “ha ha ha ha” symbols above him. Ok, legitimately impressed there. Fury is fast to put it mildly. When did he draw his sword?

Wind blowing the hair of an older-looking Winry, she’s standing next to Al. So Al’s not a State Alchemist, just traveling with Ed? Aw, but Winry’s asking if they’ll go away if Ed passes the exam and becomes a State Alchemist.

Oh, we don’t see the rest of the exam? Just Ed getting a silver pocket watch for his badge? And Fury shows his ironic streak, assigning Ed the code name of “Fullmetal”. Officially Ed is now known as “The Fullmetal Alchemist” (titledrop!). And aw no kid, don’t make that face. Yeah, the name is “nice and intimidating”, but thanks to my lovely commenters I understand the snark behind it.

Back to the train again! [thundering train sounds] chugga chugga. And Ed’s finally sleeping, before being woken by Al because they’re almost there. And yup that’s the cathedral we saw the Goths in last episode. Things are about to go down. Ed’s thinking “Could it really be there? The key to finally getting Al his body back… The Philosopher’s Stone!”

I’m gonna go with “No.”

Post Credits! In Liore, the Elric Brothers encounter Father Cornello, a priest who claims he can perform miracles. Ed does not seem impressed in this scene, though. A lady kneeling at an altar? “Blinded by his promises”, his followers fail to see the blood-red stone on his finger. Which… isn’t a Philosopher’s Stone, is it? Because seriously, there’s no way it can be the all-powerful macguffin this early. So what’s the secret?

Episode 03: “City of Heresy”

“What happiness can possibly be gained by looking away from the truth?”

[earnestlyeccentric]

Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness

Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness

Author: Zach Weinersmith

Rating: 5/5

Honestly, it’s exactly what the title says.

Spoilers ahead.

(more…)

[nyxherself]

If you suspect that you suck, you will probably suck. This is called the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you suspect you are great, you will probably suck. This is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. There’s an obvious deduction to be made here, but you probably missed it.

Zach Weinersmith, Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness

[leiascully]

Fic:  Between A Rock And A Hard Place (Part 5/5)

Timeline: Season 10 (replaces My Struggle in the All The Choices We’ve Made ‘verse - Visitor + Resident + etc.) Rating: PG Characters:  Mulder, Scully, Tad O’Malley, Sveta (established MSR) Content warning:  canon-typical body horror (mentions of abduction, forced pregnancy, etc.) A/N:  I’m collecting all the related stories that go with Visitor/Resident under the title “All The Choices We’ve Made”, because it felt right at the time.  This story is an alternate My Struggle that reflects M&S’ growth/change in the ATCWM ‘verse. I’m weaving canon dialogue into the stories in an attempt to keep the reframing plausibly in line with canon.  

Part One  |  Part Two  |  Part Three  |  Part Four  |   AO3

It's not a surprise the next day when they emerge from the Hoover Building, where they've been supervising the setup of all of the new computers, to see Tad O'Malley's gleaming black limo.  The door opens.  They get in.  

"Glad we caught you, agents," O'Malley says with a grin.  

"We're not hard to track down," Mulder says.  

"It's the chip in my neck," Scully says dryly, and Mulder isn't sure he's ever heard her joke about it before.  But maybe she's spitting into the wind too, reminded of how whoever is behind all this has tampered with her at a molecular level. ��He admits it is easy to direct (or misdirect) that frustration at Tad O'Malley.  

"Hi," Sveta says, waving at them from across the car.  O'Malley hasn't brought out the champagne this time, but she's clutching a bottle of Perrier.  

Mulder leans back against the leather seat.  The car certainly is plush.  The perks of selling out, he imagines.  

"I didn't think you'd come, Agent Scully," O'Malley says.  "After all, your work is so important.  So I took the liberty of coming to you."  He opens a small fridge concealed under the seat.  "Perrier?"

"Thank you," Scully says, accepting a bottle.  "What are you doing here, Mr. O'Malley?"

"Exposing a global conspiracy that's crushing the soul of America," O'Malley declares.  "Agent Mulder knows what I'm talking about."

"You're ready to make a move?" Mulder asks.

"The Truth Squad with Tad O'Malley with a world exclusive," O'Malley tells him.  "The story to end all stories."  

"Why don't you give us a preview?" Scully says, settling into her seat.  

O'Malley leaned forward.  "We begin with a war.  The Civil War.  The United States splits in two.  A new government forms.  They mint their own currency.  They make their own laws."

"They perpetuate the enslavement and genocide of millions of people," Scully murmurs.  

"That enslavement creates the haves and the have-nots.  And the halves begin to believe, to truly believe, that they are above the law.  That they can meddle with the fates and lives of people they start to consider subhuman: black, white, Native American, and everyone else.  An experimental program to create a better person through a variety of methods, including surgical intervention and selective breeding."

Sveta shivers.  Scully looks at her compassionately.  She reaches for Sveta's hand.  

O'Malley doesn't seem to notice their discomfort.  "The shadow government continues to exist after the war.  The genetic engineering of a superior human continues in the shadows of the shadow.  And they have other secrets."

"It all sounds like a ghost story," Scully says in that even voice that immediately sends Mulder into full alert.  "Designed to scare children."

"Children should be afraid," O'Malley tells her.  

"Everyone should," Mulder says, and he sees the shiver in her eyelid that means she's trying not to roll her eyes at him.  "It's a conspiracy bigger and more secret than the Manhattan Project, with tentacles reaching back into the very roots of America."

"The metaphor is mixed," Scully says.

"All the more apt," Mulder tells her.  "The Civil War set the stage and World War I gave us access to new technologies, but it wasn't until victories in Europe and Japan that the drama really ratcheted up for the rest of the world."

"Political and economic conditions became perfect for execution of the larger plan," O'Malley declared.  "The success of the program in the former Confederate states had spread to the re-United States.  Agents of the conspiracy, swearing their allegiance to President Grant, had infiltrated the highest levels of government.  World War I and World War II had weakened the European powers that might have held the US in check.  As it was, they were delighted to accept the offer of help from the United States, and if it came with a price, they were happy to pay it.  Their scientists began working with our scientists.  The project stretched those insidious tentacles to grasp the entire globe."

Mulder grins.  This is his wheelhouse.  Even as much as he's been jerked around and lost his faith, it's still exhilarating to put together the pieces of the puzzle he worked at for half his life.  "Paper Clip.  Experiments in the aftermath of the atomic bombings.  The crash at Roswell leading to cannibalized alien technology and cannibalized alien corpses, all resources that furthered the project."

O'Malley breaks in.  "The bomb was the latest threat of extinction, but not the first.  The energy of the explosions acted as transducers, creating wormholes that drew in alien ships just like the one that crashed at Roswell, ships that ran using electro-gravitic propulsion.  Sacrificing those alien lives with their extraterrestrial biology and their advanced technology delayed our self-immolation on the altar of democracy."

"World leaders signed secret memos directing scientific stuff of alien technology and biochemistry," Mulder puts in.  "All in the name of furthering the project, creating a new species that could survive alien invasion or whatever else might wipe us out.  Classified studies were done at military installations, extracting alien tissue.  S4, Groom Lake, Wright Patterson, and Dulce: all part of a network of black sites where tests were conducted using advanced alien technology recovered from the ships."  He glances at Sveta.  She has one hand over her mouth.  "Tests including human hybridization through gene editing and forced implantation of the resulting embryos in unsuspecting human subjects."  He swallows and tries not to look at Scully, but can't help meeting her eyes.  "Embryos with extraterrestrial DNA."  

Sveta gasps.  "Why do such a thing and lie about it?  Our own government?"

"Aliens aside," Scully says, "the American government has conducted experiments on unsuspecting populations as a matter of policy.  The Tuskegee Syphilis Study lasted for years beyond the point where they could have cured the patients.  The scientists in charge chose not to inform their subjects because they were African-American.  They let them die horrible, preventable deaths, claiming it was all in the name of science.  Genetic material was extracted from a sample of a tumor taken from a black woman named Henrietta Lacks and used without her consent or her family's.  Other people have been sterilized against their will, or stolen from their families.  I doubt we'll ever understand the full extent of the violence done to the indigenous peoples of the Americas."  She exhales loudly.  "While I cannot substantiate all of Agent Mulder's claims, I have found evidence of anomalous genetic material being implanted or otherwise introduced into the DNA of numerous subjects, including myself.  And you."

"What are they trying to do?" Sveta asks.

"That's the missing piece," Mulder tells her.  "We've learned so much, but some part of this eludes us."

"But it's not hard to imagine," O'Malley breaks in.  "A government hiding, no, hoarding alien technology for seventy years, at the potential expense of all human life and the future of the planet.  A government inside the government, secretly preparing for more than a hundred years for the long-awaited event."

"The takeover of America," Mulder says, feeling sick to his stomach.

"And then the world itself," O'Malley says with an almost religious fervor.  "By any means necessary, however violent or cruel.  Severe drought brought on by weather wars conducted secretly using aerial contaminants distributed via chemtrails and high-altitude electromagnetic waves.  Perpetual war waged overseas, a drain on our resources and our energy engineered by politicians to create problem-reaction-solution scenarios to distract, enrage, and enslave American citizens at home with tools like the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and pure old-fashioned jingoism, abridging the Constitution and its promised freedoms in the name of national security.  Every dissident, every minority: a terrorist in situ.  Vietnam, but this time they're doing it right."

"Militarize the police forces," Mulder says slowly.  "Martial law.  FEMA building prison camps.  Mercenaries fighting under our flag, but not under our orders."

"The corporate takeover of food and agriculture," O'Malley says smugly.  "It's already begun.  Monsanto.  Dicamba.  They've got pharmaceuticals and healthcare in their pocket too.  An insurrection of men and women with clandestine agendas to dull, sicken, terrify, and control a populace already consumed by consumerism."

Mulder leans over to Scully.  "I didn't really like Wall-E," he whispers.  She shakes her head at him.

"A government that taps your phone, collects your data, and monitors your whereabouts with impunity," O'Malley says with a flourish.  "A government preparing to use that data against you when it strikes and the final takeover begins."

Mulder nods slowly.  There is a seed of truth in O'Malley's conspiracy-addled rant.  He's been seeking it long enough to know it when he sees it.  The nation is poised on a precipice.  All the rest of it is lies, smoke and mirrors, a way to turn the paranoid and the credulous into easy money.  But somewhere, under eighty mattress-thick layers of right-wing garbage, is a pea-sized truth, and he's the princess shifting uncomfortably.  

"The takeover of America?" Scully asks.

O'Malley leans forward.  "By a well-oiled and well-armed multinational group of elites that will cull, kill, and subjugate."

"Happening as we sit here in this car," Scully says.

"It's happening all around us," O'Malley tells her.

"It's been happening for years," Mulder murmurs.  "The other shoe waiting to drop."

"It'll probably start on a Friday," O'Malley says.  "The banks will announce a security action necessitating that their computers go offline all weekend."

"Digital money will disappear," he says.

Sveta looks startled.  "They can just steal your money?"  Scully squeezes her hand.

"While the banks are vulnerable,  they'll detonate strategic electromagnetic pulse bombs to knock out major grids.  Traffic lights, security systems, everything: gone.  Hospitals will be on backup generators indefinitely.  It will seem like an attack on America by terrorists or Russia."

"Or a simulated alien invasion featuring alien replica vehicles already in use," Mulder murmurs.  

"An alien invasion of the U.S.?" Scully says.

"The Russians tried it in '47," Mulder reminds her.  "Or they took credit for it, anyway."

"They'll take more than credit this time," O'Malley says.  "This goes worldwide.  Everything that has happened for the past seventy years has been engineered by this global conspiracy, these shadow players.  The structures they've built are designed to crumble, tearing America apart at the seams.  They'll build a new world on the ruins of our current one.  It will happen soon, and it will happen fast."  

Scully shakes her head.  "You can't say these things," she tells O'Malley.

"I'm gonna say them tomorrow," O'Malley says with an almost religious fervor in his voice.  

Scully frowns.  "It's fearmongering, isolationist techno-paranoia so bogus and dangerous and stupid that it borders on treason.  Saying these things would be incredibly irresponsible."  

"I hate to say this, Scully, but if this is true, it would be irresponsible not to say it," Mulder says reluctantly.  

"If it's the truth," Sveta says, "you have to say it."  

"It's not the truth," Scully says.

O'Malley grins that smarmy grin.  "Agent Scully, with all due respect, I don't think you know what the truth is."

"The only thing I don't know is where you're taking us," Scully says, ice in her voice.  "Except on a wild goose chase."

"It's lunchtime," O'Malley says.  "I thought you might want something to eat."  

It's clear from the look Scully gives him that there is a long, long list of people she would rather have lunch with before she deigned to have lunch with Tad O'Malley.  In fact, it might be approaching seven billion people long.  

"I think what Agent Scully is trying to convey is that we've got to decline your invitation," Mulder says.

"You believe me," O'Malley says to Mulder with certainty.

Mulder looks at Scully.  She looks back at him, her eyes tight just at the corners.  "I might have, back in the day.  My doctor says paranoia is bad for me."  

O'Malley sits back, disappointed.  Scully's shoulders loosen.  She glances at him and there's something between approval and gratitude in her eyes.  He smiles at her.  

There's a pinging noise.  Scully checks her email on her phone.  Her brow creases.  She scrolls through something, then flicks back to the top and reads through it again.  "This is strange."

"What?"  Mulder leans over.  

"Sveta, the lab retested your samples.  A new tech was running the machines, and a number of test results were compromised.  In fact, they retested your samples twice to be sure.  Your DNA shows no anomalies."  Scully looks up.  "Whatever's been done to you, it had nothing to do with this project."

"Nothing?" Sveta and O'Malley ask at the same time.

"That can't be right," O'Malley says.  "Retest her."  

"I don't want to be tested again," Sveta says.  

"You're my evidence," O'Malley tells her angrily.  "You have to."

"She doesn't have to do anything," Scully tells him.  "She's under our protection now."

"We'll see about that," O'Malley says.  He presses a button.  The driver pulls over.  He opens the door.  "Goodbye, agents.  Goodbye, Sveta."

"What will you do?" Sveta asks him as she climbs out of the car.  

"I'll do what I do," O'Malley says.  "I'll tell the truth."

The car door slams shut.

Truth Squad with Tad O'Malley the next day is a runaway hit: high ratings, viral content, memes, gifs, and a media uproar.  "I promised you the truth today, but that truth has come under assault," O'Malley says, looking into the camera, and they roll footage of Sveta confessing to reporters, accusing him of telling lies.

"I am so sorry if I misled anyone," she says tearfully, wringing her hands in front of her.

"They get her?" Mulder asks.

"She should be safe," Scully tells him.  "They'll work on relocating her."

"Material witness?" Mulder asks.  "That's a bit of a stretch."

"It won't be by the time all of this is over," Scully says grimly.  "I went to the hospital to collect the samples and had our labs run them again."

"And?" Mulder says.

"Sveta and I share a lot," Scully says.  "Including anomalous genetic material."

"O'Malley must be furious," Mulder says, propping his hands on his hips as he thinks.

"Rumor is they're going to pull the plug," Scully says.  "No more truth, no more Squad."

"To his followers, that'll feel like a sign," Mulder says.  "A shot fired across their bows."

Scully shrugs.  "Damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Either we embolden a liar, or we enrage his base."    

"Politics have never been our strong suit," Mulder says.  "You know, there's something called the Venus Syndrome."

"The plant, the planet, or something else I'm afraid to ask about?" Scully asks.

"The planet," Mulder says.  "It's a runaway global warming scenario that leads us to the brink of the Sixth Extinction.  Those with the means will prepare to move off the planet into space, which will have already been weaponized against the poor, huddled masses of humanity that haven't been exterminated by the über-violent fascist elites.  If you believe in that kind of thing."

"Honestly, these days it sounds almost plausible," Scully tells him, leaning on one of the desks.  Whoever has funded the untimely revival of the X-Files has been generous: they have two normal desks and four standing desks scattered around the office.  It's much too flexible a workspace for two people.  

Their phones go off almost in unison.  They both reach for them.

"Skinner," Scully says.

"Skinner," Mulder confirms.  He reads the message:  Situation critical.  Need to see you both ASAP.  

They look at each other.  

"Scully, are you ready for this?" Mulder asks.

"I don't know there's a choice," she says, but she sounds fierce and proud.

There are wheels turning somewhere.  He can almost hear the gears of the world grinding.  They won't get caught in the teeth this time, won't get torn apart.  Whoever is behind everything they've been through will be exposed, finally and totally, brought to light.  They'll have to open the wound to clean it out, but that's all right.  They've finally learned how to heal.  He opens the door for her and they stride toward the elevator together.

[thehorrorofbiopolitics-blog]

Part II: Sci-Fi and Horror

Considering Berlant’s point that the present is “a mediated affect ... a temporal genre whose conventions emerge from the personal and public filtering” we consider how genres of contemporary literature implicate our understandings of the present and the affects that manage its perception (Berlant 4). In particular, we focus on the horror genre, through the lens of science fiction centered around birth. What conventions define this type of work, and what do they suggest about the operation of power and the management of affect? How does science fiction illuminate the operation of contemporary biopolitics? What is the role of the speculative, not only in mirroring our present reality, but in producing it? 

In the introduction to “Science Fiction and Biopolitics,” Sherryl Vint, professor of science fiction at University of California, Riverside, notes the “important reciprocal relationship between imaginative texts and material realities, rightly identifying [science fiction] as a site where we can work through and more clearly understand the preoccupations and presuppositions of twenty-first-century biopolitics” (Vint 170). Vint prompts us to consider contemporary science as a form of science fiction, arguing: “a strange reversal thus takes place: the tools and techniques of [science fiction], a discourse able to make concrete and interrogate the future worlds anticipated in contemporary technoscientific production, have become the tools of technoscience itself” (Vint 165). Science thus relies on speculative world-building to determine its objectives, blurring the distinction between reality and speculation: “the speculative and the material are so entwined that neither can be understood in isolation” (Vint 161). 

Beyond illuminating theoretical possibilities, sci-fi horror is deeply visceral, making relevant insights from affect theory. In “Beyond Psychoanalysis: Post-Millennial Horror Film and Affect Theory,” Xavier Aldana Reyes, professor of English Literature at Manchester Metropolitan University, argues that horror is defined primarily by the response it produces within its audience, an intense and “visceral revulsion” (4) that distinguishes it from other genres due to the “predominance of affect” (5). Reyes argues that horror becomes “a metaphoric and literal work of abjection” (3); horror is both representational and formative, depicting the abject while also condemning certain subjects to abjection through metaphors. Horror goes beyond fear or shock to “corporeal disgust” (Reyes 7). Following Valencia’s argument in Gore Capitalism that violence as spectacle defines popular culture, “the object of art-horror inevitably becomes the non-monstrous body” (Reyes 7). While disgust is tied to the experience of pain, Reyes opens up that audiences: “actively seek the moment of art-horror for its ‘pain’, the ratiocination to be found in a masochistic encounter with disgust” (7). Horror becomes a defining aesthetic of gore capitalism, as audiences find pleasure in the pain and disgust of excessive violence. Sci-fi horror relies on monsters to produce both horror and fascination. The monster is represented as a threat, embodying the constitutive outsider. In “Risk, Fear and Immunity: Reinventing the Political in the Age of Biopolitics,” Han-Yu Huang, English professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan, explains that the genre of body horror contains the figure of the monster as the radical other, who solidifies the existence of the society it opposes:

This monstrous, inhuman radical Otherness beyond imaginary identification and intersubjective, symbolic mediation explains why the monster horrifies and fascinates us at the same time. In other words, the monster, as a fantasy-formation, paradoxically binds us to the Thing, the kernel of our being and society, that is beyond our grasp, by way of its very impossibility. (46)

For Huang, the Other of horror and science fiction is distinct from the human other, with whom we can engage in “symmetrical” dialogue (46). This framing of the monster as a source of “fantasy formation” contextualizes Berlant’s discussion of genre and fantasy as beyond representations of an ideal of the “good-life” (3); horror is fantasy that binds us to the symbolic essence of society by creating a threat that exists as impossibly outside, and definitively inhuman. Huang continues that our “neighborly proximity to the monster constitutes an urgent biopolitical and bioethical issue” (47), as fear transforms “the roles of the state and various biopolitical institutions, of life itself, subjectivity and agency” (47). Life directly opposes both contagion and threat, making the two mutually constitutive. Impending threats encourage subjects to “manage ourselves and our risks” and submit to control aimed at neutralizing threat (Vint 163).

Monstrosity operates through the disruption of flesh, illustrating the fragility of the subject. Berlant argues that the present is defined by the “messy dynamics of attachment, self-continuity, and the reproduction of life that are the material scenes of living on in the present” (15); affect becomes “a metapsychological category spanning what’s internal and external to subjectivity” (16). Horror and science fiction are not only means of illuminating different kinds of being, but also of categorization; for sci-fi horror, the event is that the “human subject dismantled and demolished: a human body whose integrity is violated, a human identity whose boundaries are breached” (Miguel 30). Monsters within sci-fi horror often represent “distortion, deformation, contagion, corruption, and displacement of the body” (Huang 45) -- they both embody deformity, while threatening to destroy the human body’s integrity with violence. This destruction grounds abjection, “because the body it depends on is itself ‘at once captivating and violently repulsive’” (Reyes 11); we are both drawn to, and repulsed by the monster through the duel operation of pleasure and disgust. The disruption of the body thus challenges the existence of both the subject and society, and “unsettles and problematizes the epistemological as well as ontological boundaries between the human and non-human, organic and inorganic, life and death, and so on” (Huang 45). 

In its construction of threat, sci-fi horror defines the human as that which counts beneath a biopolitical order. For example, in World War Z, Vint notes that the society relies on “really blunt bio-political framing, ‘if you’re human you count and if you’re a zombie you don’t.’ In the film, once someone crosses that boundary from human to zombie, they become a member of an undifferentiated horde; we no longer care about what happens to them” (Vint 2014). As biopolitics determines what constitutes both life and a life worth living, sci-fi demonstrates that “death does not come from outside, because from the beginning it is part of those lives – or, more precisely, of these [kinds of] existences because that is the term that follows from the subtraction of life from itself” (Esposito qtd. In Vint 167). As sci-fi positions non-humans as the norm, it demonstrates “the fragile quality of this distinction, how easily one can switch categories when the state of exception operates permanently” (Vint 168). The state of exception refers to the state justifying the abridgement of individual rights as a means of state security (Valencia 52). Indeed, the salience of fear of death produces “a massive culture of death and destruction,” causing our view of “viable life” to be defined by the market; for example, in Daybreakers, a film set in a world where humans are farmed for their blood, “human life easily becomes abjected in favour of a vampiric one” (Vint 167). Sci-fi thus illuminates tools of biopolitical control, as threat informs the creation of life and nonlife.

[brainitworkstechnology15]

The Ultimate Guide to GIAC Mobile Device Security Analyst (GMOB)

GIAC Mobile Device Security Analyst (GMOB) Certification Exam Credential continues to develop in measurement and attain – promising productivity, convenience, and safety positive aspects in practically all walks of life and work. Statista market analysis estimates that the global IoT bazaar might be worth round . trillion US dollars through . This outstanding determine belies the fact that the IoT – to this point at the least – has bootless in lots of situations to are living as much as all the hype and expectations. The truth of the rely is that IoT initiatives are infrequently undeniable sailing. in keeping with Gartner research analyst Ganesh Ramamoorthy, eight out of ten IoT initiatives fail earlier than they re even launched. in addition, it takes months on commonplace to create a bazaar-competent IoT answer.

that is a very long time in such a fast-relocating area. Digitalization certainly has picked up velocity in contemporary years. abounding corporations had already launched into their agenda transformation adventure before the COVID- pandemic, however there is no doubt that the disaster has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies international. The need to catechumen analog items and features into digital offerings and about-face consumer interaction to the digital apple has in no way been as pressing.

 So why does it engage so long to increase an IoT product? In a abridge, IoT initiatives are advanced. establishing an IoT solution includes a lot more than simply sticking a SIM into a tool so as to add connectivity. IoT devices deserve to “see”, “apprehend”, “consider”, “consider”, and possibly alike “odor” their ecosystem. they could handiest do that with the assist of microelectronics. digital chips accept the capability to supply human-like senses to IoT “things”. This permits them to apart process assistance, make choices, and set chains of motion in action. Semiconductor company Infineon refers to this as the experience-compute-activate-join-secure practical movement – as described in the following:

 Sensors mark the starting aspect of any IoT equipment as they capture ecology suggestions and convert it into digital statistics

 Microcontrollers are the nerve center of an IoT gadget, processing this facts and generating handle indicators

Connectivity is the heartbeat of the IoT, bond all of these “things” to every different and to the billow

security options for devices, networks, and records create the all-essential purchaser believe within the agenda apple through protecting information transmission and ensuring the candor of the related devices and networks

It goes without asserting that no longer all IoT machine or provider suppliers are experts in the feel-compute-activate-join-comfy continuum. a home appliance brand, as an instance, can be really expert in refrigeration or consecration applied sciences, but is unlikely to grasp plenty about hardware-based mostly safety or strong connectivity. And in lots of instances, beginners to the IoT space have neither the in-apartment elements nor the funds to put money into dedicated safety or connectivity capabilities. The query is, how can they steadiness the want for speed with the equally pressing need for reputable connectivity, contextual attention, and potent security?

 a technique to speedy-track this technique is by means of partnering with IoT companies similar to Infineon technologies. Infineon has confused beyond the delivery of individual semiconductor products to bring end-to-conclusion solutions that span the entire IoT functional spectrum, blending these with the brought bonus of utility as a carrier for commutual analytic insights. This potential that valued clientele can faucet into Infineon’s synergized competencies for competent-to-run IoT options that cowl all purposeful blocks so they don’t have to invest in setting up safety or connectivity knowledge themselves.

 in keeping with Infineon, reliable connectivity, contextual recognition and potent protection are the three key success elements in designing future-affidavit IoT systems. these days’s buyer expects quickly, reliable access and fantastic accession nice. To give this, connectivity options must guide a transforming into variety of frequency bands and lines in a restricted footprint without compromising antenna efficiency. Infineon leverages innovations corresponding to antenna affability to satisfy these adverse needs, boosting antenna efficiency for the optimum statistics prices, incredible signal high-quality, and longer battery lives. G know-how is one more key automobile within the circulate to carry extremely-quickly and authentic wireless communications in a gigabit-connected society. Rounding out these talents, advanced analytics and “discovering” application are helping to improve these days’s connectivity items for a good better end consumer journey.

 Infineon’s XENSIV™ sensor family unit is assembly evolving person calls for for effortless, interconnected, automatic IoT adventures. XENSIV™ sensors allow issues to “see”, “apprehend”, “believe”, “bear in mind”, and even “smell” their ecosystem. These data streams are processed by means of microcontrollers and became into manage indicators. Actuators then convert the control alerts into contextual actions.

 relocating on to safety, Infineon offers easy-to-combine accouterments-primarily based safety items and solutions equivalent to its OPTIGA™ family unit in keeping with established specifications for quick deployment and interoperability. This makes it possible for groups to accelerate the building and delivery of IoT items and repair fashions without needing to put money into committed safety awareness or construct their personal at ease facilities.

 bold all the connectivity, sensing and protection building blocks are in region, designers again need to address the pace challenge. How can they speed up the technique, get their products to market rapidly, and get a head-open on the competitors? here once more, Infineon has the answer.

 neatly conscious that lacking deadlines isn’t an alternative, the business focuses closely on cutting back time-to-market and giving purchasers the all-critical velocity abilities. acting as a depended on partner in everything IoT, the enterprise works challenging to accomplish consumer design and production procedures as speedy and simple as feasible.

 capture utility development, as an example. It doesn’t must be a time-drinking method if builders have the right equipment and solutions accessible. Infineon has integrated its AIROC™ wireless and microcontroller options to work together and do the abundant lifting, so customers can focus on designing linked, low-vigor instruments with no trouble. Engineers the use of general billow services can depend on Infineon for the middleware so they don’t need custom cipher, which interprets into extra time positive aspects. Infineon’s ModusToolbox™, as an example, is a modern application construction platform that offers purchasers instant entry to an advanced software library that adds pace and great to building methods.

 a further key element in the velocity blueprint is the regulatory factor. acquiescence with regulatory requirements is standard to be in a position to promote items worldwide. Infineon’s software tools and affidavit supplies support customers during the trying out process – even if they are aiming for FCC or CE approval. A rich repository of authoritative substances and tools for microcontrollers, Wi-Fi options, and Bluetooth® products are all designed to support customers get it right aboriginal time – each time.

 moving to the pre-launch date, Infineon has also developed equipment that simplify the remarks technique during alpha and beta checking out so shoppers can without delay identify and get to the bottom of connectivity, believability, and security considerations. This frees purchasers as much as focal point on the amount building process. for instance, the enterprise’s IoT community Intelligence INI solution supports faraway telemetry so bugs may also be mounted earlier than they impact the client journey. Its mobile App Intelligence MAI solution gives the equal afterimage for Wi-Fi onboarding. ultimate for alphabeta testing, INI additionally permits builders to accidentally manage and replace products in the box.

 In summary, by means of accumulation chip spanning the entire purposeful circulate with shiny analytics and knowing development tools and components, agencies can problem weeks – if no longer months – off general IoT construction timelines by way of reducing the complexity inherent in providing IoT tasks at pace and scale.

[weiszklee]

“Aristotle said a bunch of stuff that was wrong. Galileo and Newton fixed things up. Then Einstein broke everything again. Now, we’ve basically got it all worked out, except for small stuff, big stuff, hot stuff, cold stuff, fast stuff, heavy stuff, dark stuff, turbulence, and the concept of time”

― Zach Weinersmith, Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness

I usually operate with a passive assumption that physics is, like, basically worked out–that there are some things to be filled in, but there’ll be a GUT, then a Theory of Everything, and Lambda-CDM and the Standard Model and general relativity will be mostly correct. But reading the “unsolved problems in physics” page on Wikipedia makes this seem absurd. Like, inflation is obviously a kluge, something ugly stuck onto theory because we don’t have any better ideas yet. Dark matter and dark energy definitely seem like they could be kluges. And quantum field theory apparently predicts that the vacuum energy of the universe should give a cosmological constant one hundred and twenty orders of magnitude greater than the one measured? That’s a pretty big gap between experiment and theory! It’s pretty frustrating, even just as an interested observer, to know that there’s a big paradigm shift waiting around a corner somewhere, and not knowing where it will come from or what it will look like. I can’t imagine how the physicists feel.

[painterlegendx]

Simple Guidance For You In Health Insurance Ppo - Health Insurance Ppo

High Deductible Bloom Affairs vs. PPOs: A Guide to Bloom Insurance

Compare HMO, PPO, and CDHP Plans #healthcare .. | health insurance ppo But we all appetite to be accomplished bloom affliction consumers. We appetite our resolutions to how we actuate the best allowance plan for ourselves and those who depend on us to be based on abreast and accomplished decisions.Below is a abounding breakdown of the alphabet soup of abbreviations, plan designs, and annual structures of anniversary of 2 arresting bloom allowance options.High-Deductible and Adopted Provider Organizations PlansLet’s aboriginal alpha with a basal description of each.A high-deductible bloom plan (HDHP) is a anatomy of bloom allowance that offers a college deductible than added forms of acceptable bloom insurance. Having a aerial deductible provides an advantage to the bloom affliction customer by abbreviation their annual exceptional for advancing coverage.A adopted provider alignment (PPO) operates as a arrangement of bloom affliction providers that accommodate bloom services. You are acceptable to appointment doctors in your arrangement or alfresco of it after the charge for a referral. A PPO does not crave you to baddest a primary affliction physician either.

Benefits Of PPO Insurance: Comprehensive Guide For You - health insurance ppo | health insurance ppo HDHPsPatients who rarely appointment the physician’s appointment can absorption an HDHP as added of a assurance net of medical/pharmacy advantage compared with added bloom allowance plans. If you rarely charge to admission the medical and/or pharmacy allowances of your plan, aerial deductibles aren’t absolutely abundant of an issue.Why? Because your charge to admission medical affliction is so infrequent, the abandoned bulk you will acquire on a approved base are your annual premiums, which are about lower with HDHPs. Alike if you do initially accept to pay out-of-pocket, every dollar you do accept to absorb will get you afterpiece to your affair deductible, at which point a archetypal 80/20 bulk allotment plan with the insurer will kick-in. After that, if your incurred medical spending alcove your abroad (MOOP) total, your plan will again awning 100% of your bloom affliction costs.Even with the aerial deductibles of an HDHP, best affairs awning basal antitoxin services. These casework can accommodate bactericide medication benefits, anniversary checkups, and vaccine administering at no bulk to the patient. Although an HDHP may accomplish patients chose amid assertive provider networks, if you do accept a provider aural that network, assertive services—such as your anniversary physical, any claret work, or added basal services—are frequently offered at a discounted rate.That actuality said, best affairs do acquiesce for patients to baddest a provider of their choice, behindhand of whether the plan has accustomed a arrangement with that provider or not. However, by allotment an out-of-network provider, you are electing to abandon the advantageous bulk accumulation associated with in-network providers. Negotiated ante amid provider networks and insurers are, added generally than not, beneath bazaar rates. With lower rates, any abroad costs that charge to be paid will still be lower than if you visited an out-of-network provider—therefore, client beware.Lastly, HDHPs acquiesce for patients to accessible up a bloom accumulation annual (HSA). The purpose of an HSA is to accept blazon of a blockage annual carefully for your bloom affliction spending. The advantage actuality is that an HSA is tax-free. This agency that the funds do not expire, and you can body aloft your HSA until you charge to booty out money for a condoning medical and/or pharmacy expense.

Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) Insurance 7 .. | health insurance ppo PPO Aboriginal and foremost, one of the affidavit that PPOs were created is because they abolish a acute barrier that the allowance plan’s predecessor—health aliment organizations (HMOs)—had in place, and that is the abstraction of a gatekeeper. In an HMO plan, primary affliction physician (PCPs) charge facilitate all referrals to casework provided by addition bloom affliction able and charge act as the middle-man to bouncer a patient’s admission to any casework bare alfresco the PCPs office—hence the appellation “gatekeeper.”With a PPO, there is no gatekeeper, there is no barometer action for services, and no provider limitations or restrictions. In fact, you are not alike appropriate to authorize a primary affliction provider afore seeing a specialist—likely abbreviation accidental visits. Next, with a PPO structure, all payments for bloom casework are paid at the time the casework are rendered.Because the provider is aural network, they accept adjourned ante amid themselves and your insurer. The provider will abide the annual affirmation on your behalf. Again the allowance aggregation will adjudge the claim, accept it (hopefully), and accelerate you a arbitrary of the casework and costs.Another capital aberration abnormally amid PPOs and HDHPs is that PPOs historically do not accept deductibles associated with them, which, is a affairs point to a lot of bloom affliction consumers. In abode of deductibles, PPOs accept anchored costs, which is usually in the anatomy of a co-pay that patients charge pay out of abridged for any allowances received.  HDHPs are about advised for individuals of aloft boilerplate health, bound comorbidities, and who are adolescent and single. This demographic is statically beneath acceptable to charge high-cost medical/pharmacy services. If you don’t abatement aural this demographic, an HDHP may not be for you.

What Is An Hsa Insurance Plan Qualified Health Plans Medical .. | health insurance ppo Also, with an HDHP, the aerial deductibles can act as a bridle for patients to seek medical attention. The initially aerial out of abridged costs can ability up to 5 figures. Back because a PPO, it is important to accept that alike if you accept the abandon to accept a provider alfresco of network, those ante are generally decidedly college because adjourned ante for casework aren’t consistently established.Unlike an HDHP, there is no HSA associated with a PPO unless your plan qualifies as an HDHP. This agency that any casework rendered are appropriate to be paid with post-tax dollars. PPO premiums are additionally commonly abundant college than with an HDHP plan.So, what can we booty abroad from this?HDHPs can be a acceptable anatomy of allowance for the adolescent and advantageous and PPOs are advised for abandon of choice; however, your accommodation should not be fabricated on these factors alone. Rather, your accommodation should be fabricated based on the bulk of money you will save on annual premiums, as able-bodied as the bulk of money you potentially could accord to an HSA annual for medical expenses.With these factors mind, back ambiguous amid the best of these allowance plan designs, you can accomplish your alternative application accomplished and assured accommodation making.

What's Health Insurance? Definition, Examples & More • Benzinga - health insurance ppo | health insurance ppo About the AuthorRyan becoming his Masters of Science in Healthcare Administering from Saint Joseph's University and is currently enrolled in the Masters of Pharmacy Business Administering affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. The affairs is a 12 ages executive-style, alum apprenticeship affairs area healthcare professionals access an all-embracing compassionate of the business of medicines. Currently, Ryan works for the University of Pittsburgh, School of Pharmacy, Affairs Evaluation and Analysis Unit as a analysis specialist. Ryan’s analysis is primarily focused on the opioid catching and provides abstruse abetment to stakeholders beyond the commonwealth in their alternate efforts to abate opioid afterlife ante in Pennsylvania.  Simple Guidance For You In Health Insurance Ppo - Health Insurance Ppo - health insurance ppo | Encouraged in order to my own website, in this time I will teach you in relation to keyword. And now, here is the very first picture:

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[allsystemsarenotgo]

“The Novel”

I've been needing to talk to somebody about something. Last night, somebody I don't talk to very often anymore was willing to give up some sleep to talk to me.

I gave them the abridged version. I knew they needed sleep and didn't have time for a novel.

.

.

.

Here is "The Novel".

---

A child learns their name by having it spoken to them repetitively.

A pet learns its name by having it spoken to them repetitively.

When bullies call you gay and queer repetitively because you've never had a date much less a girlfriend in 12 years, ... At some point you begin to believe it.

When that trend continues to a statistic of 3.25 years of relationship out of 30 years of life.....

You begin to question the things you ever thought you knew.

I was an opinionated ass in high school that knew better but did the things anyways because I had nothing to really lose. Except I did lose alot of pride along the way.

I didn't like many things, and I didn't understand the decisions of many people. There are days that I wish I was still friends with people that I alienated or that alienated me because I didn't believe in drinking alcohol or having kids before college, or at a young age at all.

There are alot of days that I wonder....will I have to be find a lady 8-10 years younger than myself to love me for who I am...and potentially make them have kids at a young age so I'm not the age of their peers' grandpa's when they graduate?

^ That image was me in high school.

I never dated in high school. I courted and got shot down a ...couple... times. I didn't go to parties, I wasn't a part of the cool kids' clique. I didn't really....do anything high-schooley in high school.

And it got me bullied. My eccentricities made me well known. I was generally outspoken and firm on what I believed (no sex, no alcohol, scientifically agnostic) and...it basically made me live in infamy. It got me bullied alot. I was called gay and queer alot. And it wasn't just from 1 or 2 or 5 people.

I had 3 crushes in high school. Two were a grade younger than I.

The first I asked out my Sophomore year. We talked alot, sat next to eachother, did classwork together. We were both above-average students, so the teacher us let us do what we wanted while she dealt with the rest of the class.

That was really what entered me into the downward spiral of depression. I'd never asked a girl out before, much less been shot down. It took me a long time to get over that.

The second I asked out my junior year. We didn't have any classes together, but I had worked my way into her family via a mutual friend. I felt like we knew eachother fairly well.

Getting shot down by her didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. But given the nature of high school, the backlash of her friends and friends-of-friends, and probably half the school altogether...that is what hurt. It showed the true colors of many whom were already primadonna status, approaching it, or (falsely) thought they had it. She did apologize to me after a period of time, and ultimately, she probably made the better decision.

I never asked my third crush out. After being shot down twice in two years, I didn't want it to be three for three. I worked with her, and we got along awesome. Maybe not asking her was a fatal flaw in my life. I will never know. We have stayed friends over the years despite not seeing eachother until earlier this summer. I met up with her twice, and both times wrenched my emotions. I've since found out she is actually taken, which shot down my chance of ever knowing the true answer.

Then I finally went to college.

I went from a school of 450 kids in a town of 360 people to a dorm of 500+ kids in a college of 10,000+.

But I did not change with the scenery. I was still outspoken.

Neither of my roommates liked it.

Neither of my roommates liked me.

I was outspoken enough to write a persuasive essay on Abstinence for my college English class. I didn't see the problem.

Until the Prof said we had to read them aloud, after she had graded them.

Then I panicked. I crashed and I burned.

I felt so....little and insecure.

I wasn't one to force my thoughts on people. Yet, I just had.

Do you know how bad that feels inside?

Pretty damn bad.

One day, I got a message from a high school friend I hadn't talked to in a while. We started talking. In the end, she admitted she had a crush on me through high school and asked if we could give it a try. I was 1.5-2 hours away from home.

It was a hard juggle, but we made it work as best as somebody that'd never had a GF before much less a LDR could.

After a few months of LD dating and the start of my second year of college, a topic came up that would change the rest of my life mentally.

And something clicked in my head.

- What if this girl was 'the one'?

- What if something happened. Would I want to die a virgin?

- What if this doesn't work out. I'll always be the inexperienced one?

That last one hit me hard. There was no way around the fact. And for what I knew, I knew that being the lesser experienced would likely never be a good thing.

(10 years later, a friend put it perfectly....)

I convinced myself to break something that I had let run my life for the previous 10+ years.

I think it's safe to say that very few peoples' first time is "great". But it's a learning experience.

-learn-

-learn-

-learn-

Then we broke up after 9 months.

We rarely saw eachother, it couldn't be that difficult to get over right?

Wrong.

-sulk-

-lonely-

-stressed-

-imbalanced-

And...

-addicted-

I was broken. The fire inside of me had been lit, and nothing was putting it out.

I had a raging wildfire spreading within me within a few short weeks, and no way to control it.

I had just started a job at the school newspaper, running the website. I shared an office with the two graphic design artists. We were getting along pretty well and it was fairly evident that both of them were really relaxed and loose about what they wanted to talk about. I was the reserved one, sitting at my desk, listening with minimal contribution.

Until one day, I finally had the courage to chime in to their conversations. It didn't take much longer before I was in my second relationship.

I learned alot of new and different things during that 2.5 year relationship.

Example: telling her father about my shellfish allergy. It was good because he cooked alot of it. It was because he knew my weakness and made no secret that some things would easily justify using it against me.

I learned to get over my fear of public image. I was dating a woman almost twice my weight. When we first started...dating...I was petrified to be seen with/around her much less hold her hand. Over time that phobia subsided.

I learned that addiction comes in many forms. I spent many nights at her apartment, sometimes I went home and sometimes I didn't. Spending 4 hours a day with her at work and another 4-12 hours with her at her apartment...it got to the point that I missed her when I was away from her. I missed having her company, and I missed cuddling.

I learned that I'm very much a physical contact person. After all those years of being an only, lonely child...I wanted to give and receive physical touch.

She would print off a piece of artwork, I would lay on my stomach on her bed, and she would trace the outline onto my back, then start filling it in. That's usually when I would fall asleep. She would keep drawing as I slept, and eventually I would wake up.

As long as we were touching, I was happy. Sometimes I would lay on her, sometimes she would lay on me, sometimes we'd be side by side with a leg on the other.

I learned that calculated risks are worth calculating to the limit. And that mis-calculating is not fun.

I learned that parents are smart and figure out almost everything.

There was only one real issue and one hybrid issue with the relationship.

Both of us were mentally strained. I could not speak my emotions or feelings. I couldn't handle the 'adulting' conversations regarding the future. I couldn't explain when I was sad, mad, upset, or anxious in voice, only text. I couldn't "use my words". When scolded, I just wanted to ball up in a corner and cry. At the same time, both of our academics were on a downward spiral of death. She ended up dropping out completely and going back to junior college, I ended up changing majors twice and barely escaping with any pride left at all and a very expensive piece of paper that said "Bachelor of Science in Miscellaneous Bullshit". Okay, University Studies...but same thing.

The relationship had evolved far beyond what it had originally been intended to be.

It was supposed to be more of a cover-up for a FWB situation than an actual relationship. But we caught some sort of feelings, and....

.

.

I've been single since then.

It took a few years, but we still talk to eachother and are still friends.

But I miss the cuddles.

I miss the touching.

I miss being relaxed and falling asleep while being drawn on.

I miss...alot of things.

I had a few more crushes develop during college. Some I let go, some I got turned down on. At least none of them laughed at me. 

One of the ones that I let go...I reconnected with a couple months ago. I was going to ask her out...and I kinda did...only to find out that she was secretly in a relationship that hadn’t gone public yet. That was a pretty good kick to the twig and berries, knowing that I was just too late to the party. 

Once I learned about High Functioning Autism, alot of things made sense. I slowly learned better coping mechanisms. I learned to do more "normal" things like making eye contact.

My senior year of college, I met an awesome lady in my coding class. We got along great. She helped crack my shell. We went on walks, we played basketball, we played on pool tables, we played soccer. We sat on balconies and talked. We kind of...had a thing going. She was my only friend to attend my college graduation. We even took a picture together in my cap and gown (which I have tried many times to find. I'm guessing it was deleted....see below).

But we didn't. I wasn't allowed to hug her much less kiss her, even on the forehead (I wanted to...many times). I was barely allowed to hold her hand.

I got shot down. I felt like I was in a plane that was missing a wing and didn't have an ejection seat.

I plummeted into the ground and crashed and burned.

We stopped talking after that.

I still don't know what exactly I did wrong.

I still don't know what exactly I did wrong.

I could say that about many friends that I have lost over the years.

I still don't know what exactly I did wrong.

That was 5 or 6 years ago. I honestly don't remember anymore.

That's how long I have been lonely.

That's how long it has been since I went on a date.

That's how long I have not been able to have an unweighted conversation.

Sure, I have seen my second ex a time or three. But it's not the same. That's not a date. That's not something to lead to the future.

I have a two best friends that I can talk about almost anything with. But I never see them. One lives two states away, the other lives several hours away (any other state besides Texas, and they'd be in another state).

They help. They give me a method to vent. But I am afraid of losing them.

I have lost 3 best friends in my life already.

One cut me out of their life as a birthday present to me after 4 or 5 years, my freshman year in the dorm.

One cut me out of their life after many conflicts over 7 years. We never met in person.

One cut me out of their life after I became a burden to them. We saw eachother on a regular basis, I even stayed at their house once after they tried to break my shell and I (mentally) collapsed into a puddle of goo. They also hurt me once by calling the police for a welfare check, and my parents got involved.

Of the two best friends I have managed to keep, the closer of the two has issues in their own life going on right now. I feel guilty and sad for even talking to them...they have asked that I limit interaction while they try to straighten out their own world. They have also called the police on my for a welfare check, and got my co-workers involved.

I already had a hard time making friends before. Anymore, it's hard for me to trust anyone at all.

I don't have any friends to go places with.

I'm always working my ass off (working 7 days a week these days, haven't had a real day of rest in months).

Social Anxiety says that I can't go anywhere alone. Plus I don't really trust myself alone, much less in a foreign Environment.

How am I supposed to meet a friend, when I work my ass off 7 days a week? When I don't know what resting is?

How do I elevate a non-existent friend to "More than a friend" status?

A child learns their name by having it spoken to them repetitively.

A pet learns its name by having it spoken to them repetitively.

When bullies call you gay and queer repetitively because you’ve never had a date much less a girlfriend in 12 years, … At some point you begin to believe it.

When that trend continues to a statistic of 3.25 years of relationship out of 30 years of life…..

You begin to question the things you ever thought you knew.

Sometimes I wish I was Ace.

Sometimes I wish I knew what I am.

Historically, I can be described as a smart, odd, minimally sarcastic ignoramus. But that is only my personality.

Am I straight? Am I gay? Am I bi? Or am I just hopeless?

Will I ever find love? Will I ever have kids?

Is there something wrong with me that revolts women away?

Will I have to find a woman 8-10 years younger than myself and cause her to have children at a young age to avoid being the age of their peers' grandparents at graduation? If I find a woman now, we date for 3 years, engaged for 1, married for 3, then have a kid...I'll be 37 when they are born and 55 when they graduate high school.

We're the bullies in high school right all this time? I don't want them to be. But what if they are? Or am I just that broken inside?

The things that I like/enjoy...they scare me a little. And that's coming from me. For years I have said I was a sapiosexual (turned on by intelligence rather than personality or looks)...but it never occurred to me, what if the gender lines do not in-fact exist? What if....

These are the questions that keep me awake at night.

These are the questions that feed my depression.

These are the scenarios that feed my anxiety, my trust issues, my loneliness.

These are the reasons that, more than anything....I will never turn down a hug.

Because a hug means you love and care about me.

And I need that reassurance.

But it feels good on the inside, too.

[fifth-dimensional]

[Image description: Excerpt from the book Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness by Zach Weinersmith. Text states:

“1 Physics

1.1 History

Aristotle said a bunch of stuff that was wrong. Galileo and Newton fixed things up. Then Einstein broke everything again. Now, we’ve basically got it all worked out, except for small stuff, big stuff, hot stuff, cold stuff, fast stuff, heavy stuff, dark stuff, turbulence, and the concept of time.”

End description.]

Not a meme

[cardsagainstanme]

Attack on Titan Version

Black Cards

v  What’s Grisha Jäger doing?

v  So, what’s in the basement?

v  Hello, I am Jean and I like ______.

v  Levi’s catchphrase is ______.

v  What is worse than Marco’s death?

v  The new plan to take back Wall Maria involves ______ and ______.

v  Levi’s secret is ______.

v  Beyond the walls, other than the Ocean is _______.

v  The Military has discovered that titans have another weakness: ____.

v  Armin’s latest idea to defeat the titans involves ____, ____, and ____.

v  Sie sind das essen und wir sind die _____.

v  Sasha’s love of potatoes has been eclipsed by her desire for (            ).

v  When the titans broke through the wall, I had to leave behind everything except (           ).

v  Why did Hannes save Mikasa and Eren?

v  In the scouting legion, ____ and ____ are now standard issue.

v  What do the wall worshipers use for sacrifices? 

v  Why are the Beast Titan’s arms so long?

v  What are the soldiers’ titan-killing swords made of?

v  What were the makers of a Slap on Titan on when creating their abridged series?

v  What do the Titans dream about?

v  What 2 things does Erwin use to get ready in the morning?

v  Erwin's hobbies include (             ) and (                 ).

v  The true reason the Asians are almost extinct is (              ).

v  How does Connie shave his head?

v  Who created the 3DMG?

v  Who is the true saviour of humanity?

v  Why didn’t the Santa Claus Titan devour Armin?

v  Jean hasn’t died yet because of (             ).

v  As they don’t do any titan killing, what do the Military Police use their 3DMG for?

v  Eren’s true goal is (            ).

v  When Eren first transformed he went on a rampage because of (             ).

v  The true reason Mike likes to sniff people is (              ).

v  Why do the Titans in the walls stay inside of the walls instead of devouring all nearby humans?

v  Why is Levi so bad at drawing?

v  Why is Armin so cute?

v  After his unfortunate demise, what will Erwin’s eyebrows colonise next?

v  Why is everyone in the series going to die?

v  Why does Mikasa really wear her scarf everywhere?

v  Hanji’s next experiment will use (             ), and (              ).

v  The Scouting Legion rises to the sound of (             ).

v  Hanji’s greatest strength is (              ).

v  Why will Mikasa survive?

v (                ) & (              ), the hottest new ship in Snk.

v  Why does Moblit drink?

v  The new name of Attack on Titan is (                ).

v  What does the carving on Mikasa’s wrist mean?

v  The best way to describe Attack on Titan is (               ).

v  What brings all the Titans to the yard?

v  Erwin created a new encouraging slogan for the Scouting Legion. What is it?

v  What’s the true reason that the humans won the Battle for Trost?

White Cards

v  The precise number of zero people who were surprised by the Female Titan’s identity.

v  People who mistake Thomas Wagner for Reiner.

v  Nile and Erwin’s hideous bolo ties.

v  Petra and Auruo pissing themselves on their first mission.

v  Ereri becoming canon.

v  Armin’s creepy face.

v  Stabbing a titan with a pitchfork to save your delusional boyfriend.

v  Defeating a titan with nothing but a bow and arrow.

v  A screencap of every time Bertholdt makes his “sweats nervously” face in the manga.

v  Hanji and Armin plotting your demise.

v  Fans who still make Bertholdt FUBAR jokes.

v  Connie’s pending genius status.

v  The correct way to spell Jean Kirschtein’s last name.

v  The inevitable deathmatch between Mikasa and Annie.

v  JÄGER!!!!!

v  Jean’s trying to flirt unsuccessfully with Mikasa.

v  A complete list of things Guren no Yumiya doesn’t go with.

v  Ymir and Christa’s not-so-secret love affair.

v  Using blood like other animes use cherry blossoms.

v  Erwin’s eyebrows.

v  All these big-ass trees.

v  Putting your 3DMG on backwards and blasting ass-first into a wall.

v  Annie’s nose.

v  Marco’s other half.

v  A titan’s lack of genitals.

v  Stabbing a man when you’re nine years old.

v  TITANS ARE MY TRIGGER!

v  Dead Anime Mom syndrome.

v  3DMG.

v  Levi’s resting bitchface.

v  Mikasa’s tragic backstory.

v  Titan shifters.

v  Cooking on the evaporating corpse of a titan.

v  Titan puke.

v  Human meat.

v  Jean’s suit vest.

v  The coordinate.

v  Inside of a titans stomach.

v  I don’t what Shingeki no Kyojin is, but I like Attack on Titan.

v  Levi’s cravat.

v  Mikasa’s abs.

v  SIE SIND DAS ESSEN UND WIR SIND DIE JÄGER!

v  The titans inside of the walls.

v  The titan-serum.

v  Lot and lots of death.

v  A scarf from Eren.

v  Losing a leg and losing an arm, before being swallowed by the Santa Claus titan.

v  The fall of Wall Maria.

v  Potatoes.

v  Hanji’s indestructible and unending love for titans.

v  Titan, titan, titan, titan, titan, titan, titan, TITAN!

v  Isayama’s love of body hair.

v  Marco’s holy freckles.

v  The amazing, indescribable walls.

v  Running out of Gas.

v  Moustached Titans.

v  The train wreck that is Junior High.

v  The power of science.

v  Petra being smashed against a tree.

v  The pregnant titan.

v  Historia, the true Queen.

v  Eren’s 8 pack.

v  The Colossal Titan’s Houdini manoeuvre.

v  Getting high on the gas from the 3DMG.

v  Death, pain, and suffering.

v  Piloting a titan like a mech.

v  Killing anyone who makes any progress.

v  The Santa Claus titan.

v  The armoured Titan spouting flames from its mouth.

v  Making a deal with the devil to create the Titans.

v  The Garrison’s drinking problem.

v  The characters whose eyes have sunken in.

v  The meat shield division.

v  Armin’s eyebrow evolution.

v  Armin’s Titan eating Bertholdt while Erwin dies elsewhere.

v  Dinosaurs in the Season 2 opening.

v  Connie’s village becoming Titans.

v  Eren’s unquenchable rage against the Titans.

v  Commander Pixis’s unorthodox obsession with a giant, naked, lady titan who has large breasts.

v  Levi’s tragic backstory.

v  Isabel’s and Eren’s uncanny resemblance.

v  The fact that Titans were once oppressed humans who tried to plot a revolution and were then punished by being thrown off a wall while turning into a titan.

v  The fact that Junior High has bigger volumes than the actual manga.

v  Eren being turned into a Titan by his Dad, then he proceeds to eat his Dad and Keith Shadis is confused and traumatised for the rest of his life.

v  Mikes amazing, Titan-smelling nose.

v  Levi’s special way of holding a teacup.

v  The chapters only come out once a MONTH!

v  The conspiracy of the walls and the Reiss family.

v  The Beast Titan’s weird eyes.

v  The way that Isayama draws hands.

v  Mikasa’s hair strip that comes in front of her face.

v  The fact that Levi is shorter than nearly all his subordinates even though they are teens, while he himself is surprisingly old.

v  The creepiness and deformities of the Titans in general.

v  Eren’s Titan form’s Nictitating Membranes (Third Eyelids.)

v  Farlan’s left over torso.

v  The many screams of Armin.

v  3DMG performances in Bollywood costumes.

v  The fact that Eren means Saint.

v  The fact that any textbook showing human muscles has pictures that looks like the Colossal Titan.

v  The cuteness of a taco on titan.

v  The Shingeki no Kyojin Tumblr fandom. (The embarrassment of Tumblr.)

v  Badass Windex.

v  The fact that Mikasa’s name means 3 bamboo hats

v  The fact that Grisha’s first wife, Diana, ate his second wife, Carla, as the smiling Titan, and was then killed by other Titan’s under the command of his son. (Talk about family issues. )

v  Giant naked cannibals that your parents certainly do not approve of.

v  “BITCHES BOW YOUR HEADS AND PRAISE THESE WALLS!!!!” –A Slap on Titan.

v  Mikasa having to save Eren every other weekend.

v  The fact that Levi’s horses back is taller than he is.

v  Hanji Motherfucking Zoe, the psychopath of the Scouting Legion.

v  The key to the basement.

v  Jean, a regular guy going through Hell.

v  The Avatar of the 104th training squad.

v  The McDonald's parody of Attack on Titan.

v  Saluting with the wrong hand in front of Keith Shadis.

v  Ackerman magic.

v  Guren no Yumiya’s intro.

v  Moblit, the Scouting Legion’s resident drunkard.

v  The white pants of the soldier’s uniform’s magic abilities to deflect dirt and blood.

v  “Your name is ErWIN, not ErLOSE”. –Erwin at some point in his life.

v  Darius Zackly, the man who let a 15-year-old be beaten brutally in front of him in a court room.

v  Nile Dok, the asshole leader of the Military Police.

v  Levi’s height of 160cm.

v  Hanji’s goggles.

v  Farlan telling Levi to be sociable.

v  The ‘I don’t give a fuck’ squad.

v  “I’ll sacrifice your baby for humanity, I don’t give a FUCK!”. -drinkyourfuckingmilk

v  Hazing new recruits by chopping off Eren’s hand and pretending to freak out.

v  Krista Lenz, the Goddess of the 104th training squad.

v  Eren’s sexy Titan form with his chiselled chest and his rebellious face.

v  Horseface.

v  Bertolt's confidence issues.

v  Rainbow 3DMG straps.

v  Commander Erwin’s speeches.

v  3DMG with guns.

v  A titan’s butt-crack.

v  Shoot everyone, kill everything and then declare peace atop a pile of bodies.

v  Being squished into a blob by a titan.

v  Just ram your blade up their assholes.

v  The correct way to pronounce character’s names. (Gene or John)

v  Jean’s hallucinations of Marco after his death.

v  The outside of the walls.

v  Shipping wars in the fandom.

v  Eremika shippers Vs Ereri shippers.

v  A church of wallists crushed by Annie.

v  Jean’s obvious crush on Mikasa.

v  The wall that is on the edge of the ocean.

v  Coconut head.

v  Mikasa force-feeding Eren bread.

v  A Slap on Titan in general.

v  Abridge on Titan in general.

AN: Just to be clear I don’t own Attack on Titan, but me and my friends created our own version of Cards Against Humanity and I wanted to share them. They take awhile to make and coming up with the ideas was a process.I encourage you to enjoy and if you wish to make your own, you are totally allowed to use these or simply take ideas. It is a long post as it has 50 Black and 150 White cards.

Have a good one.

-Claire Bear & Friends

[autobiographyoftheavatar]

"Bhagavad Gita Decoded" is a single volume abridged edition containing talks of His Divine Holiness Bhagavan Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam on the timeless Hindu scripture "Bhagavad Gita" delivered by Bhagavan Sri Krishna, the Incarnation who walked the Planet several thousand years ago in the pre-historic times.  POST  #4 - Extract from the book:                   (Opening Pages X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV of the book "Bhagavad Gita Decoded") Introduction To Bhagavad Gītā Decoded Bhagavad Gītā Decoded book is not a commentary or a modern interpretation on the Bhagavad Gītā. It is the re-speaking, the revival of the supreme secret of the Gītā from the consciousness of the rare living incarnation, Paramahamsa Nithyananda, who embodies the very science and experience of the Gītā. A pure, absolute revelation of the happening of Gītā presented in its original spirit and body language that only an Enlightened being can radiate through the inexpressible energy veiled within His expressed words. To read this book is to obtain an insight that is rare. It is not mere reading; it is an experience; it is meditation. He takes the reader through a inner world tour while talking on each verse. It is believed that each verse of Gītā has seven levels of meaning. What is commonly rendered is the first-level meaning. Here, an Enlightened Master, an Incarnation takes us beyond the common into the uncommon, with equal ease and simplicity. The power of the Living Master’s words, the confidence and energy of Enlightenment, the space of Advaita that He radiates can directly become the experience in us, when we authentically study this book. The absolute truths of life are to be listened and internalized from the direct source, the living presence of those truths, who can also transmit the experience unto us. His Holiness Paramahamsa Nithyananda explains the inner metaphorical meaning and the deep spiritual insights of the Mahābhārat and the Bhagavad Gītā: Understand, this whole history is such a beautiful happening. Mahābhārat is actually your life! Every character in the Mahābhārat teaches so much! We don’t need to go anywhere for our life success or fulfillment or for anything else that we may desire. We don’t need to study any other book to learn the human psychology or the science of living and leaving. Whether we seek righteous living—dharma; or we want to learn business or administration, economy or abundance—artha; or we want to create the best rich lifestyle—kāma; or we want to be a leader and want the enriching life of being enlightened—mokṣa, for all these purposes, we don’t need anything other than the Mahābharāt! Study each character. We will not find any more characters in our life than the characters described in the Mahābharāt! Any character we see in our life is mapped to Mahābharāt’s one character. They are either half or full representation of some character. To know how to handle them and even handle yourself, just see how Śrī Kṛṣṇa handles them and handle them the same way. The Mahābharāt war is a representation of life as it was lived in that age. Vyāsa, its author is an unbiased historian who recorded the whole history as it happened without trying to apply any makeup. People ask whether the Mahābharāt war happened at all! Let me tell you this: If the Mahābharāt was a story and not history, Vyāsa should receive multiple Pulitzer prizes for his highly creative work! The Mahābharāt is the longest literary work in the whole world with hundred thousand Saṃskṛit verses—the longest poem ever written with such delicate harmony of unmatched poetic perfection. It is larger than the Greek epics. Vyāsa had no computer, no tape recorder with speech-to-text capabilities. He dictated and Lord Ganeṣa wrote it down! The Mahābharāt is like an ocean. It has at least 10,000 stories woven into it. All of these are seamlessly woven into the main text even though each is an independent event. Just imagine the effort required to create hundreds of thousands of characters and maintain the integrity of these characters throughout the epic without the help of editors. Do you think anyone could do it today? Because it is impossible to create such a work of fiction, one needs to accept this as a compilation of true incidents that reflect the lifestyle in what is referred to as Tretā yuga, third quarter of Time, in our scriptures. This is how people behaved then and how people behave now. What happened then repeats itself now, again and again! The Great War of Mahābhārat is the fight between the positive and negative thought patterns of the mind called the saṁskāras or the root thought patterns—meaning the deep identity or the earliest memory you carry and create about you and others. Please understand, don’t think you carry only the identity about you, you also carry an identity of the world inside you and look at the world only through that. That is what I call root thought pattern—the identity through which you see you and the world. The positive thought patterns are the Pānḍava princes and the negative thought patterns are the Kaurava princes. Kurukṣetra or the battlefield is the body. Arjuna is the individual consciousness and Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the enlightened Master, the supreme consciousness driving and guiding the individual consciousness. The various commanders who led the Kaurava army represent the major incompletions of root patterns and conflicting patterns that the individual consciousness faces in its journey to Enlightenment or liberation, mokṣa. Bhīṣma, the grand patriarch of the Kuru clan who embodies dharma, represents the pattern of parental and societal conditioning. Droṇa, the teacher of both the Kauravas and the Pānḍavas, represents the conditioning from teachers who provide knowledge including spiritual guidance. Śakuni, the maternal uncle of Duryodhana embodies the pattern of self-hatred, which is cunningness personified. Karṇa represents the restrictive influence of good deeds such as charity and compassion done out of incompletion from the pattern of feeling deprived. Finally Duryodhana represents the ego or the self-denial pattern, which is root of the root patterns and is the last to fall. Parental and societal conditioning has to be overcome by rebelling against conventions. This is why, traditionally, those seeking the path of enlightenment are required to renounce the world as Sannyāsi and move away from civilization. This conditioning does not die as long as the body lives, but its influence drops. Droṇa represents all the best knowledge one imbibes and the teachers one encounters, who guide us but are unable to take us through to the ultimate flowering of enlightenment. It is difficult to give them up since one feels grateful to them. This is where the Enlightened Master, the incarnation steps in and guides us. Karṇa is the repository of all good deeds and it is his good deeds that stand in the way of his own Enlightenment. Śrī Kṛṣṇa has to take the load of Karṇa’s puṇya, his meritorious deeds, before he could be liberated. The Enlightened Master guides one to drop one’s attachment to good deeds arising out of what are perceived to be charitable and compassionate intentions. He also shows us that the quest for and the experience of enlightenment is the ultimate act of compassion that one can offer to the world. Finally one reaches Duryodhana, one’s ego or root-pattern, the most difficult to conquer as it leads one to self-destruction. One needs the full help of the Master here. It is subtle work and even the Master’s help may not be obvious, since at this point, sometimes the ego makes us deny and disconnect from the Master as well. The Great War was between 180 million (18 crore) people—110 million on the Kaurava side representing our negative root patterns and conflicting patterns (saṁskāras) and 70 million on the Pānḍava side representing our positive patterns. The War lasted 18 days and nights. The number eighteen (18) has a great mystical significance. It essentially signifies our ten (10) senses that are made up of five jñānendriya—the senses of perception like taste, sight, smell, hearing and touch, and five karmendriya—the senses initiating action like speech, bodily movements, etc., added to our eight (8) kinds of thoughts like lust, greed, etc. All eighteen need to be dropped for self-realization, completion or liberation, mokṣa! Mahābhārat is not just an epic history. It is not merely the fight between good and evil. It is the dissolution of both positive and negative saṁskāras (root patterns) that reside in our bio-memory or body-mind system, which must happen for the ultimate liberation. It is a tale of the path of living advaita, the process of powerfully living, radiating enlightenment and causing enlightenment for humanity. READ MORE HERE Bhagavad Gita Decoded - Nithyananda University Press Bhagavad Gītā Decoded book is not a commentary or a modern interpretation on the Bhagavad Gītā. It is the re-speaking, the revival of the supreme secret of the Gītā from the consciousness of the rare living incarnation, Paramahamsa Nithyananda, who embodies the very science and experience of the Gītā.

http://hdhnithyanandaparamashivam.blogspot.com/2019/08/bhagavad-gita-decoded-is-single-volume_33.html

[luckilylindy]

Probably should've included this the first time. We got....

Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness:

Shakespeare's Sonnets, Science, The Holy Bible

And presumably entirely unabridged:

Trial of the Clone, Augie and the Green Knight, Science: Ruining Everything since 1543, Religion: Ruining Everything since 4004 BC, 27 Nerd Disses: A Significant Quantity of Disrespect