#Cosmic Metaphor

[wickedzeevyln]

Straying Off Spaces Unknown

◯ ☽ ◑ Silver Treader ◐ ❨ ◯ Watch her rise like solar flares from an ancient star. Igniting, stripping off atmospheres, scorching civilizations of good will. Watch her drift beyond his reach, beyond his gravity, out of orbit, until she’s gone rogue. Watch her laugh at the speed of light, slip between dimensions, stray off the path like a comet. She is all these. And one day… …she will look up…

[twinkle-art]

still life

[tvlandofficiall]

[doctordaymytoiletsister]

Let's kill God.

[Should We Be Picking Out China Patterns Or What?, Bailey Herdé / The Borgias 3.10 / Normal People, Sally Rooney / The X-Files 5.19 / caption from Mythic Quest 4.05]

[chimerafeathers]

actually i still have thoughts building on my interpretation of the timeline question from this timeline post

two main things. first, what Isabeau says about his Change

it's a metaphorical death, of course. Isabeau is still alive and did not literally, physically kill himself in order to Change. but even so, the person he "would" have been without that Change is "dead." he's still him, he's always been him, the kid he was is still in there but he's still Isabeau. there is only one timeline.

but, second, it's like. sometimes you remember a turning point in your life—an opportunity you took or didn't take. a coincidence that led to you meeting your best friend, or a choice that led to some of the darkest moments of your life, or a circumstance that you could have never controlled at all that, nevertheless, you can see how it shaped you as you are now, for better or for worse.

and maybe sometimes you are overwhelmed with something about how your life as it is now. and you find yourself mourning, deeply and sincerely, something that never existed. the death of that possibility, that "timeline" where you made a different choice, were born into a different family, had met a different person, had met the same person but at a different time.

would you be happier? would you still be "you"? would it be better if you weren't? would you be better?

there's no way to know. you are you, and have always been you. there is only one timeline.

...but for Loop...they make a choice, and their continuity is cut. they become the circumstances that change how the story plays out. they get to watch, from the outside, the "what if" scenario that would have led them to the happiness they sought.

it doesn't matter if the party or the world "literally" died and were rewritten in the wake of their wish. they are mourning something that never existed—a world where they are the one who is embraced and accepted without hesitation by a party who knows them. the party that could have given them that is dead, the version of themself that could have had that is dead, they are removed from the happy "what-if" even as it plays out before them. the grief and guilt are real even if the deaths are metaphorical.

there is only one timeline, but they can never again be THE Siffrin who loves their party instead of A Siffrin who changed beyond recognition. their choice destroyed something they can never get back. a party who loved them, and not their replacement. they're dead, they're gone, they're replaced with people who only know to turn that love towards someone else who wears their face.

but of course, of course the opportunity for reconnection still exists. no matter what details change, no matter if the party from the Prologue and the party from ISAT are the same exact people or some rewritten version of them, the fundamental cores of them prevail. and they are predisposed towards loving each other. their happiness is still within reach—it will just look different than they had thought.

[braincellwhatsthat]

ok. instead of the setting sun and moon, what if kyokao was like the sea and the moon. yknow how the tides are affected by the moon and all that

[babygirlgiles]

It’s hard to articulate it, but I think why the “I live in darkness” characterization of Matt rubs me the wrong way is because Matt actually has an incredibly rich and vibrant perception of the world. I’m talking about lines (that I mostly remember from more recent runs but there could be older ones I’m forgetting) that are like “I can’t see the light so I must be the light” or things about how he has to be the light in a world of darkness. And I get why it’s a compelling metaphor. His emotional landscape is often a very, very dark one and the things happening to him and around him and usually pretty twisted and messed up. It concisely articulates how much he cares about helping and serving others, which is the main source of meaning in his life. Plus, it advances the really heavy emphasis on Christian themes they’ve been hammering in the past several years.

But idk whenever they use that metaphor to characterize Matt, it always jars me because it’s really way, way too close to negative stereotypes of blindness and vision loss. And the metaphor is always extra jarring because it doesn’t feel accurate to the character at all. We know Matt doesn’t live in a dark, empty landscape. He can smell every individual strawberry at the fruit market. He describes listening to the hundreds of heartbeats on a plane as conducting a symphony. He perceives his loved ones as a rich tapestry of scents and sounds and textures. He says his senses make him feel like he’s touching everything around him all at once. How is that not a bright and vibrant world? How is that “living in darkness”?

[sir-fluffbutts]

do joie's regeneration powers have any effect on his relationship

actually ☝️🤓

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

his regeneration abilitys IS the reason how the relationship happened in the first place

he accidently severed his finger on a paper cutter and needed to go to this private facility to get it "woked out"

they sent him to his now bf who keeps his job as a "vet for different species" cause its basicaly provides him with unlimited taste samples of all the different alien species

apparently he find joie tasty af and 1 year later they are dating 😌

[jupitermelichios]

so you've probably seen the news that riverdale ended with the main 4 in an actual, canonical, poly relationship

and that's amazing for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that the number of canon poly relationships on tv are miniscule and also it brings the number of canonically straight main cast members down to 1. Ethel is legitimately the show's token straight representation. love that for her

but to get the full impact of that news, you really also need to know that in order for the polycule to form:

Jughead's transdimensional angel girlfriend has to destroy multiple other timelines to create a new stable timeline for the polycule to live in. timelines destroyed include the one where jughead is immortal and trapped forever in a bunker underneath riverdale, and one where tony and fangs's magical timetravelling gay baby is fighting an evil wizard for control of a train full of evil ghosts

Jughead's magical transdimensional angel girlfriend then returns to the newly created main timeline, and restores the main cast's memories of all the other timelines, which she does by forcing them to watch the show riverdale. That is not a joke or a metaphor she even goes to the trouble to bring a colour tv back to the 1950s so they can watch in colour, except for Clay and Julian, because they did not exist in any of the previous timelines and they're sad about it and refuse to watch a show they're not in.

(Well, Julian technically did exist in the original timeline, but only as a ghost possessing a haunted doll, which doesn't really count)

(Also for some reason as well as the main cast, she makes dilton doily watch it, despite his only contributions to the show being a) dying as a human sacrifice in the og timeline, b) trying to blow up the planet and then dying because of it in the rivervale timeline, and c) gay kevin telling people he has the biggest dick in the 1950s tlmeline, and honestly, I feel like it would be kinder to just not show him any of that)

(ethel does not get to watch riverdale, because she did the only sensible thing any riverdale character has ever done and fucked off to a normal town to have an actual life, because as well as being the token straight character, she's also the token sane one)

After watching Riverdale, all of the main cast except Jughead and Betty decide it sucks and they hate it, and ask tabby to rewipe their memories and only give them the cute bits and not all the serial killers and shit, because the writers have run out of time for subtle metaphors and they weren't sure the audience had fully grasped that the entirely last season of the show is a weird metacommentary on the criticisms people have of the show riverdale so they're just straight up going to have archie andrews look straight to camera and say that the show should have been more like the comics

also I have no idea how only showing them the happy bits works, because that removes 90% of the entire plot so I assume they just have a bunch of completely out of context sex scenes and meals at the diner and nothing else. possibly also some musical numbers, idk if I'd count those as happy memories personally

Betty and Jug chose to keep their memories of the Gargoyle King and Betty's 2 long-lost secret gay serial killer brothers because they're edgy (and also because the writers are annoyed at all the people who say the show should be more like the comics, so they have the smartest characters say they liked the actually and everyone else is being a wimp about all the serial killers, because again, we have run out of time for subtlety)

Having had his memories restored, Jug's like "oh hi tabitha, my secret transdimensional angel girlfriend, I haven't seen you for months, I've really missed you. I'm so glad you're you're back. i love you so much"

And she responds by telling him that she'd chosen to write herself out of the timeline when she fixed in, and she has to return to the great big diner in the sky (not a joke, heaven is a diner in the riverdale universe and, it is heavily implied, also in our universe, so that's something to look forward to), so she freezes time halfway through kissing him and just nopes out of time and space. which is also how I would handle all break ups if I had angel powers tbh

since jug is now single, and all 4 of them just got multiple timeline's worth of fucking one another mainlined straight into their brains, the main 4 decide to all start dating

(they are probably inspired to do this in part by betty's sister, who in the new timeline is a burlesque performer who's stage name is Polly Amorous)

As far as I can tell from the last episode, they tell gay kevin about this and literally no one else, for reasons known only to themselves

also genuinely can't tell if this was the writers wanting a poly relationship for them, or if they just couldn't be bothered with the internet slap fights that would have followed them picking individual monogomous ships to be endgame

they also, hilariously, refuse to say that archie and jug are dating, I assume due to network restrictions, despite archie being canonically bi at this point, so betty's just like 'well sometimes I go to veronica's and we fuck, and the boys do... something we're not going to talk about'

the final episode of the show is a flash forward where as a now old betty is dying, jughead's ghost shows her memories of their teens, in which it's reveal that she has just straight up forgotten about being in a poly relationship

literally she looks at her teen self and is like "wow, I seem weirdly close to veroica jughead and archie" and Jug's ghost has to be like "because we were dating. how do you not remember that we were dating? what the hell? did I mean nothing to you?!"

also old betty specifically seeks out reggie and is like "hey you know how me and you dated, and you and veronica were together for years in multiple timelines, and you archie keep declaring your undying love for one another and nearly fucking, well we're all dating and we specifically decided not to invite you, sucks to be you" and walks away and I have no idea why she did it. justice for reggie

anyway RIP to the greatest television show ever made, it was so gay and so deranged and so meta, and there really will never be anything quite like it again

[the-cosmic-collective-sys-blog]

📻 Today marks yet another entry in this award-winning saga!

The Cosmic Collective in: Oh God Why Does Eggnog Do This To Us, coming right after its acclaimed Thanksgiving special, has an exciting new feature for the December holidays!

I'm now here with (✨)Demi [LASTNAME] and (🗡️) Joshua Alternate Universe, two of the show's main stars; Demi, Josh, what inspired you to drink eggnog on the set yet again?

✨...I forgot how much my body hates eggnog.

🗡️ I LOVE EGGNOG WOOOOOOO

📻 How fun to hear! Now, how exactly does the show make you feel?

✨I'm tired and slightly nauseous and my brain is melting...

🗡️Ditto lmao

📻 I see, I see... well, I hope things get better soon! But before we go, when should we expect another episode of this long-running series?

🗡️Probably next year 😭

✨Yeah, definitely not until next year. The hot chocolate spinoff will be updated pretty soon, though!

📻 Lovely to hear, you too! Take care!

Well, folks, what an insightful interview that was! Stay tuned for the next installment of The Cosmic Collective in: Oh God Why Does Eggnog Do This To Us, as well as its sister show-- The Cosmic Collective in: Wow, Hot Chocolate Isn't Much Better!

[splynter]

I love them guys I love them so much I love Dyode and Emmit so so much im gonna explode and die

[no1ryomafan]

So I finished mazinkaiser awhile ago after months of procrastination on it and for one reason or another I’m not gonna give my solid thoughts on it but there is one specific thing I wanna point out, not as a critique but more so a confusion. That being: I find it weird how Mazinkaiser isn’t the turning point for Mazinger where they finally go “hey the robot is sentient” because it’s not yet near the end literally EVERYONE talks to Venus A as if shes actually a person:

I’m not saying this as a criticism for the reason of my already biased to vaguely sentient robots-because as much as I prefer this angle with mecha, I understand not every and all mecha can approach this because sometimes the robot is JUST a narrative tool and not a character, which is fine-however I’m confused with Mazinger of all things didn’t take this approach when there’s already so much emphasis on Mazinger being tied to gods. I mean, apart from the fact the robots are based off Greek Mythology and there is a constant message of “will it become God or Devil” which feels like it warrants this enough, it would start to make sense if the robot grew sentient because Mazinkaiser is treated as the ULTIMATE Mazinger. (And where have we heard a case where the “ultimate” form of a robot starts to be the one that displays more self awareness *cough* GETTAH🗿)

Especially also within this ova- it seems to do stuff on its own accord to PROTECT Koji, like going on auto pilot as he’s knocked out and somehow keeping him safe from being burned alive in magma, but I cannot tell if this IS a indicator Mazinkaiser is actually sentient or if it’s just all auto pilot. Oh and it’s a more minor thing but also just- the human poses Kaiser and Venus take during the beach episode… I cannot tell if that’s something they wanted or if their pilots just posed them comfortably because lines seem to blur with the robots just being treated as the extensive of the pilots. (Venus is literally based off of Sayakas appearance after all)

It’s just weird Nagai never went this route and just stuck to metaphorical stuff, when it feels like SOMETHING he would do given the nature of his stories and yet the only fully sentient Mazinger media I know is Zero. Of course I still have such a limited window on Mazinger so if this is me actually being wrong please feel free to correct me, but I still will never not find it weird Mazinkaiser lacks this aspect asides from maybe vague allusions to it that may or may not be implying it. Maybe if I ever rewatch it or find more Mazinkaiser content specifically I’ll be able to piece things together a bit more.

[thirdtimed]

unfortunately if i ever developed the lifeseries orv au in my head in earnest i would in no capacity whatsoever manage to be normal about it at all and like. i mean it

[wickedzeevyln]

 ⋆. ˚✮ Opposites ✮˚.⋆

⋆. ˚✮ Vulture ✮˚.⋆ This particular buzzard, smacking its beak, not over carrion, flitting overhead, imprinting itself into the stream of air, savoring silent applauds from an ethereal audience.“Hooray!” An imponderable ringing in his ear. And how he detests anything under his clawed toes.Thinks of himself an eagle,wise beyond his years,a dark wing circling the skyline,eyes tattooed on his…

[greatanddeliciousbread]

My horrible curse is that when I try to write smut it gains sentience and if I look away for a split second the words rearrange into a calligram that strikes me with eldritch madness when I turn back to the page.

[fogwarden]

hey it's me the person who trapped you in the time loop. how are you holding up

YOU. I WILL- wait, uh, well, pretty okay I guess? I've been able to get some stuff done and while I still feel very much stuck in this liminal stage of my life I've taken the first steps to make things better and I suppose in the long run the time loop has served as a good motivation to keep going, even if only as an antagonizing force hEY WAIT COME THE FUCK BACK HERE