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#EDITED to include hereditary
glowsticcc · 24 days
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and that’s all i needed death fam hc lesgo
whole family dresses like they have a hot topic sponsorship, including tallulah, except it’s more the cottagecore stuff (except when she’s in emo mode, in which case she just goes full linkin park)
missa smells like death, but not in the cold, smelly rotten way, but warm, like sleep or the roses set on top of a gravestone (it’s one of phil’s favorite things about him)
missa and chayanne both have brown and heterochromatic eyes respectively, skull masks just make your eyes blue (personal design) (sans undertale???)
after missa was recognized as her father, tallulahs puppy dog eyes got 5 times more effective (wet cat trait is hereditary)
she taught chayanne and now they team up to make phil get them whatever they want 🌘^🌒
even if they all go to sleep on their section of the bed, they always wake up piled on top of each other 
chayanne got the “taller younger sibling” curse, and while insisting it’s because tallulahs horns make her taller, face to face he’s looking at her chin
missa is tuned to phil’s laugh, and if they are in a crowded room and he hears it its like that one clip of asap rocky hearing rihanna laugh during an interview 
chayanne smells like lemons. i have no reasoning for this but i know in my heart its true.
phil will just absentmindedly play with missas hair if their talking and close enough 
phil taught the kids how to swim, his hollow bones give him a lot of buoyancy 
in physical combat, tallulah and chayanne are always at each other’s backs, fighting in almost perfect sync with each other 
head bonks as shows of affection 
missas more of a cuddle bug and phil’s like one of those big dogs that you could push over and they’d be happy with it. phil could be having a separate conversation and missa would just come up from behind and snuggle him and phil wouldn’t bat an eye 
if i think of more ill add more in an edit yippee
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asksythe · 9 months
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House Jiang’s Lost Founder - Jiang Chi - Lost canon detail from the novel - Wen and Jiang, how their names foreshadow their fates
Did you know the man who founded House Jiang is named Jiang Chi 江迟? 
This name is not included in any materials from the official novel, the Donghua and its character data sheets, or even the live-action drama Chenqingling. 
The name Jiang Chi was mentioned only once in chapter 56, Sandu 12, The Three Poisons - 12, of the original web novel version of Modaozushi before it underwent rewriting and editing in 2016. Here  is the full passage in which it was mentioned: 
云梦江氏立家先祖江迟乃是游侠出身,家风崇舒朗磊落,坦荡潇洒,虞夫人的精气神与之完全背道而驰。而江澄模样和性子都随母亲,天生便不投江枫眠之好,从小诸般教导,始终调不过来,是以江枫眠一直表现得似乎不是太青睐他。
Lit: The ancestor and founder of House Jiang, Jiang Chi, came from a knight errand (traveling hero) background. His House philosophy revered open-mindedness, earnestness, purity of heart, fairness in dealing with people of all castes and backgrounds, and unrestrained by rules. Yu Furen's personality is in direct contrast with his House philosophy. Jiang Cheng had a similar personality as his mother and was naturally not a favorite of his father. Regardless of how much he was taught from a young age, he still couldn't understand this (the House Philosophy). This was the reason why Jiang Fengmian's behavior seemed to suggest a lack of favor. 
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I. The Wen and Jiang founder’s names and how they foreshadow their historical positions and final fates: 
Wen starts things. Jiang ends them.  
The Wen founder is named Wen Mao 温卯. Mao 卯 is an ancient word specifying the 4th shih (double hours) of the day, from 5-7 am in our modern time. Mao is also the time when court officials started their working days in ancient times. The royal court began with Mao. 
In other words, Wen Mao’s name foreshadows the fact that he’s the one to end one era (the era of the cultivation sect) and begin another era (the era of the cultivation house/nobility). This was in the novel during Wei Ying’s first class in Cloud Recess. Lan Qiren asked Wei Wuxian who was the person that ended the cultivation sect era and began the cultivation house era. 
On the other hand, the Chi in Jiang Chi 江迟 means late, slow, outdated, behind in era. 
This name foreshadows Jiang Chi’s place as the “last of the herd” and “reluctant follower” in Wen Mao’s cultivation house era. Wen Mao started the rise of the house system and the ending of the sect system. Yet House Jiang, despite being called Jiang Shi like its historical peers (Wen Shi, Lan Shi, Jin Shi, and Nie Shi) had the system of a sect and not a house.��
Because of how Jiang Shi was created and its system rooted in the sect system, House Jiang continuously prevaricated between being a sect (in all but name) and a house in the novel under Jiang Fengmian’s reign.  
House Wen massacred House Jiang. The eradication of the original Jiang Shi is the spark that ignited the Sunshot War. 
Wei Ying, the last member of House Jiang who still holds Jiang Chi’s philosophy, is key to making the defeat of House Wen possible.
Jiang Cheng, the last biological Jiang, headed the Burial Mound Siege and slaughtered the last of biological Wens, with the only surviving Wen child becoming a Lan.   
II. The difference between a sect and a house: 
There are overlapping areas between a sect / zongmen 宗門 and a house / shijia 世家. So it’s easy to mix up these two concepts. However, the novel highlights the key difference between these two systems itself. 
Sects prioritize the inheritance of their philosophy and teaching.    
Houses, on the other hand, prioritize direct bloodline hereditary. 
This is crucial in things like deciding who the next generation leader will be, as well as the policy in treating their members. 
Under the sect system, barring unforgivable mistakes or heinous crimes, the eldest disciple inherits the title of sect heir and next-generation leader. 
Under the house system, the previous house leader’s son inherits the title of heir and the position of next-generation leader. 
For example: under the sect system, Wei Ying is the heir and will inherit the leadership. Under the house system, Jiang Cheng is the heir and will inherit the leadership.
Similarly, sects place far less importance on a person’s caste and background and have fewer and less restrictive rankings. Sects are meritocratic. 
Houses, because of their nature and the heredity that is central to their concept, have extensive and incredibly strict rankings of their members. Houses are nepotistic. 
For example: Wei Changzhe was Jiang Fengmian’s sect brother under Jiang Fengmian’s father’s time. In the book, Jiang Fengmian called Wei Changzheng his sect brother. Wei Changzhe also accompanied Jiang Fengmian to Cloud Recess to study and met Cangse Sanren there. These are privileges not allowed to house servants. But from Jiang Fengmian’s time forward, because of Yu Furen’s influence, he was called a house servant. 
In the novel, Yunmeng Jiangshi was a house undergoing a crisis of identity. It has the name of the house, the trapping of a sect, and constant chaos and confusion as to where it was going, the ranking and positions of its members (with Wei Ying holding the title of eldest disciple and still treated like a servant being the most glaring part), and who its next-generation leader would be. 
Well, until the death of Jiang Fengmian and the eradication of the original Yunmeng Jiang Shi put a stop to that confusion. Jiang Shi under Jiang Cheng’s reign is a house through and through and completely disconnected from Jiang Chi’s House Philosophy. 
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Good Omens Masterlist
The following fanfictions are not mine. This is simply a list of oneshots (sometimes fanfics) that I have enjoyed.
Credit goes to the creators, thank you so, so , so much for writing this!!!! They are all so good!!!!
Containing following characters:
Anthony J. Crowley
Aziraphale
Gifs do not belong to me!!
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Crowley:
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English Tea ( by @okay-j-hannah )
Love Of My Life ( by @massivelycreepypineapple )
Good ( by @darling-i-read-it )
Don't call me angel ( by @theveryinsignificantpotato )
It's like heaven taking the place of something evil ( by @wanna-rock-n-roll-in80s )
Dating Crowley Would Include ( by @deleted-blog-29583 )
Through history to get to you ( by @erideights ) | Part 1 | | Part 2 |
"The Sin of Love" ( by @magicrowiswritingstuff )
Falling ( by @alexa-lightwood-blog )
His Sunglasses ( by @fortune-fool02 )
Reveal ( by @deleted-blog-29583 )
He Has To Start Believing He Deserves Real Happiness ( by @companionjones )
My Heart’s Already Sinned ( by @metaphorical-love-for-a-car )
Insults ( by @alexa-lightwood-blog )
galileo ( by @touchstarvedwriter )
The Rough Guide to Courting ( by @fortune-fool02 )
Demons are Drama Queens ( by @starks-hero )
Lashing Out ( by @applepiewinchesters )
Aziraphale:
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You Matter to Me ( by @applepiewinchesters )
Titles & Editions ( by @okay-j-hannah )
What it is like to be the human s/o of Aziraphale ( by @sips---tea )
"Come with me if you want to live. I always wanted to say that." ( by @bonniebird )
Found Out ( by @applepiewinchesters )
Mornings ( by @the-ineffable-musings )
Aziraphale comforts a crying reader ( by @callsign-dragonbaron
Heaven of a Human Spirit ( by @metaphorical-love-for-a-car )
Imagine Aziraphale being protective over you and your unborn child. ( by @multifandomfix )
Four Times Aziraphale Wanted to Kiss You, And the Time he Finally Did ( by @applepiewinchesters )
Worked Out For The Best ( by @/bowieandqueen11 )
Just….Friends… ( by @fly-flower-fanfics )
Mortally, Yours ( by @ourownsideimagines )
Paperback Prophets: Platonic ( by @ships-n-giggles )
Hereditary Enemies ( by @eiressofinspirationwrites )
Perfect Stranger ( by @applepiewinchesters )
Aziraphale & Crowley:
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You’re a Police Officer ( by @applepiewinchesters )
Lover ( by @applepiewinchesters )
Godfathers ( by @metaphorical-love-for-a-car ) | Part 1 | |Part 2|
Let Your Soul Breathe ( by @malereader-inserts )
Two Turtle Doves ( by @starks-hero )
Feathers ( by @asphodelandpomegranate )
Are You Trying To Romance Me? ( by @witches-and-cows )
Touch Starved ( by @charzard-lord )
In Sickness and in Health ( by @massivelycreepypineapple )
Who Wants to be Queen? ( by @ourownsideimagines )
Armageddon Puts a Strain on Things Doesn’t It? ( by @eiressofinspirationwrites )
Eternity ( by @acedesigns )
Interesting ( by @begaywritefics )
Scars Of The Past ( by @coyotestarcraft )
More of you to love ( by @ourownsideimagines )
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executeness · 2 years
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Nona the Ninth comes out in two days (TWO DAYS) and I still haven’t posted my crackpot theory about JohnGod’s powers. Specifically, I’m skeptical that this man is exclusively or even primarily a necromancer. Necros draw their power from and manipulate thanergy, the energy released with death. JohnGod draws his power from Alecto (or from Alecto-knows-where), but I think he manipulates and has influence over thalergy, the energy held by living things.
Consider the manifestations of his powers:
Healing the Seventh adept aboard the shuttle, about to depart the Erebos (Ch 6)
Taking the shuttle and the physical bodies of his Lyctors into the river (Ch 6)
The unmelting candles and unrotted roses around Cytherea’s body (Ch 16, Harrow’s conclusion on unknown basis)
Healing Harrow after an encounter with Gideon the First (Ch 20)
Immobilizing all his Lyctors, half-exploded Gideon the First included, during the soup incident, though notably not “the shrapnel spray from the Saint of Duty” (Ch 25)
Somehow removing both Harrow’s construct and all debris of Gideon the First while also healing Gideon (Ch 25)
Similarly dissolving Harrow’s “bone gunge” after she pulls Gideon the First from the incinerator (Ch 31)
Preserving Cytherea’s body even after Wake had it up and wandering about, as mentioned when Harrow found it under her bed (Ch 38)
Immobilizing everyone while interviewing Wake (Ch 50)
Ejaculate of bizarre longevity (Ch 50, Wake talking about the sample)
Reassembling after his Mercymorn-induced explosion (Ch 50)
Blowing Mercymorn’s heart out of her chest (Ch 50)
Somehow moving Gideon-in-Harrow’s body across the room untouched (Ch 50)
Powering the sun? Mentioned a few times
Resurrection? I think it’s safe to assume he actually did it, and that he kept the people who became the renewal of the Ninth in stasis for 10,000 years.
There are also things that are implied to be his powers, or that I suspect to be his work:
The ten bodies from Canaan house with their thanergy frozen and even “bacterial thalergy” totally absent (Ch 2)
Immobilizing Mercymorn (“ froze as though dipped in liquid nitrogen” and “ramrod straight and still”) (Ch 6)
Just. A bizarre absence of death and dead things in favor of healing and control of living bodies. Not at all sure where the unmelting candles and sun fit in.
Whatever the hell is going on with the Mithraeum, namely “These wires were thronged about with bone, with glistening strands of fat wrapped around some of the threads of copper, instead of plex; they reeked of naked thalergy, and their purpose was still not immediately apparent to you.” (Ch 16)
Edit: And his 1 yr old daughter survived breathing nerve gas plus those theorized attempts on her life by Crux, though no idea how this would be hereditary
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Making a list of horror movies & series that feel queer somehow (probably just campy, me reading into shit, or me being gay for the killer idk could be any of those tbh) or are just straight up explicitly queer. Btw by horror I’m including any and all subgenres and stuff that intersects it.
So far I’ve got Saw, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Repo! The Genetic Opera, Cabin in the Woods, Hereditary, Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Silence of the Lambs, Scream, Black Swan, Warm Bodies (idc if they’re a straight passing couple, zombies are queer allegory fight me), Lisa Frankenstein, Sleepaway Camp, Phantom of the Paradise, Hannibal (series), Jennifer’s Body
Stuff in blue I haven’t seen yet & stuff in orange I’ve seen but it’s been so long that I don’t remember much about them so shhh no spoilers please <3
PLEASE RECOMMEND ME STUFF!!!!!
Pleeeeeaaaaseeeee please please!!!! They don’t even have to be queer, I’ll find a way to project onto them regardless :3 all I ask is that they’re good or so bad they’re good. Leave a comment, reblog with tags, leave me an ask, or DM me if you have something in mind!
Edit: I’m updating this whenever I’m recommended something! :D
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halleyuhm · 1 year
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Welcome to my plot bunny farm! 💜
I'm Halley (she/her), and I'm 21.
ENFP-T. Which means everything is improvised, I regularly forget to write and tag, and I can't commit to a favorite color. Don't be surpirsed if my blog changes palettes or layout.
I love reading almost any genre, so if you have any book recommendations, let me know!!
I'm up for tag games, ask games, asks and anything social. I love social interaction!
Now, for the little bunnies who are grown up enough to jump out their burrow 🐇:
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WIP INTRO
Genre: fantasy.
Status: plotting.
Tag: #wip: june
What you can expect: blind main character, healing quest, shapeshifters, friendships and foeships, prophetic dreams, earthy tones, moon spells, flowers, and fungi, (not) feeling enough, crystals and sigils, self-acceptance, rituals, potions, barefoot on the soil...
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Genre: Contemporary fiction, slice of life
Status: Fixing plotholes, reducing number of words and editing.
Tag: #wip: lxvi
What you can expect: coming of age, online friendships, healthy and toxic relationships, love development (including love for oneself), character growth, family, lies, sexuality...
🩸Ichor.
Genre: High fantasy.
Status: planning and world-building.
Tag: #wip: ichor
What you can expect: Medieval-like setting, magic realms, and portals, shapeshifter winged creatures, mythological beings, chimeras, blood-based magic, battles, military training, betrayal, prisons, unexpected allies, common enemies...
✨By the stars foretold
Genre: High Fantasy
Status: writer's block
What you can expect: DRAGONS, witchcraft academies, 4 narrators with different backgrounds, cultures, ideologies, classical nature elements..., a war, religious and royalty plotting, tournaments, bustling city life, astronomy references...
👥Hazel's eyes
Genre: Low / High Fantasy (still deciding which setting fits best).
Status: plotting.
What you can expect: elemental sorcery Academy, ghosts, plotting, treason, brewing war, hereditary abilities, lineages, student life, magic creatures, higher stakes than it looks like, mysteries and secrets, extense worldbuilding...
That's all for now. See you around~ 💜
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cauldronlakefiles · 2 months
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So I was working on a write-up regarding Alan's origins, but not-a-mimic beat me to it, so I am going to take what remains and post that! An unnecessary expansion on a theory, if you will.
So the author of the post had an awesome theory about how Alan may not have ever been human (go read it!). There are plenty of hints to this, and here's a few more.
Found in Poem 2 and on the Quantum Break blackboard, William Blake's quote from Auguries of Innocence:
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"Every Night & every Morn Some to Misery are Born Every Morn and every Night Some are Born to sweet delight Some are Born to sweet delight Some are Born to Endless Night"
This stanza from Auguries of Innocence are a reflection on how some are simply born into the lives they lead, and that they are doomed to circumstances out of their control. Additionally, this was placed directly above the line "The meaning of Christmas lights- Birth of the Savior." This could be incidental, but rarely are things in Remedy are.
Now, we could take this as a reference to his mental health: in the Alan Wake Files included in the collector's edition of the first game, it was revealed that Alan's mother had spent most of his childhood in a psychiatric facility. The general instability of his home during his formative years and his mother's mental illness could lead to his unavoidable state. But, I'll refer you to the next poem, Poem 15:
"More than anything His dearest wish He wanted to go from there To leave But he could not change his heritage The blood in his veins was ink And the crown was too tall To pass through the door He was doomed to remain A king forevermore"
The main character of this poem is implied to be trapped somewhere, but he cannot leave due to his heritage. The "ink blood" and his "tall crown," both things gained from a parent, kept him locked away. Furthermore, this snippet from Poem 1, which directly inspired Dark, Twisted, and Cruel, has this ending stanza, which we now know refers to Scratch/Alan:
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We know Alan cannot create something out of nothing. The Demiurge (also I am going to rewrite this later but for now it covers the basics), as a false creator, can only make something out of per-existing matter. But whose to say that the one before him, the Monad, can't?
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From Poem 16, we see that Tom Zane declares himself the creator. And I think he- or whatever is left of him- is going to fulfill his vision through Alan.
I think he is intended to be a vessel to contain the Dark Presence and to remain in the Dark Place, to replace Barbara before him, so that her body could be set free. That's why he can't die down there. That's why he is bothered by light. That's why he is the most suitable vessel for the Dark Presence, and the creator of at least a Dark Presence. He was made to be, for lack of a better reference, the Hollow Knight.
Now, genuinely, you could very easily read this as a metaphor for mental illness. I think it is! The Spiral, the Dark Place, terms like "paranoia" and "mania" being used to describe Alan's mental states on several occasions; the whole game is a love letter to early psychologists. However, Remedy has a tendency to make their themes more literal, subtext taken to the front, and I think they could be using Alan destined to be trapped as a metaphor for hereditary mental illness.
And of course, this leads us to a more unsettling revelation: he was doomed from birth. His actions, or lack thereof, never mattered. He was always going to be trapped in the Dark Place, and he was never meant to leave. We'll see if he's out of there by the next game, breaking from the chains of inheritance, but I have a suspicion that the Final Draft ending may have been a red herring.
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In the wisest words of @bonefall: “Getting tweaked on purpose is practically the mark of a species' intelligence.” (Found HERE)
So I started looking into ways to get my fictional war kitty cats tweaked! :D
EDIT: If y’all enjoy this research, take a look at my rewrite!! I tend to dip down deep into a lot of various aspects, and end up including a lot of it into the story itself!! ^^
DISCLAIMER: Do not give any of these things to your real life pets to ingest in light of what is described below, especially not without doing research or asking the opinion of an animal healthcare professional. This guide is merely an attempt to share some fun knowledge and additional world building for a FICTIONAL society of cats. You should never try to give your real life animals things described in books or writhing unless they’ve come from people who actively know what they’re doing and have something to prove it.
LIQUIDS
SYRUPS
With the easy access that these cats have to multiple trees, the syrups that they have the ability to make aren’t just limited to maple! Various nut producing trees (walnut, heartnut, butternut, etc) boxelder, alder, birch, and pine (amongst others) are all notable for their sap, which can, of course, be turned into syrup.
Though these sorts of syrups are primarily for flavor. The syrup that these guys would mostly be looking to for some fun times would come from other sources…
Namely valerian root syrup! If catnip can be compared to marijuana, then valerian root specifically might be a bit more like phencyclidine in terms of behavior, or isobutyl nitrite (rush) via chemical effects. It is commonly used in small doses by veterinarians to treat stress and anxiety in animals.
This is probably the only thing on the liquid list that might actually be safe for cats to ingest. But I want to stress again: Do Not give your pets anything from this list; I am NOT an expert in this field.
MEADS
Mead is probably the easiest for these cats to make, should they have any sort of access to honey.
Rather than adding yeast, which can be harmful to cats alongside being quite difficult for them to get their paws on, mead is to be fermented! Natural, less harmful yeast comes from the air (room-temperature water and honey is the ideal for fermentation) or it can be added via fruits or spices.
This is not safe for irl cats, however in small amounts, or fictional feline friends can enjoy some ol’ fermented honey-and-water fun.
CIDERS
Since the cats have used the prefix “Apple-”several times, we can clearly see that they know of apples. Which in turn, I’m sure, means they have access to them.
A natural, non-harmful yeast lives on the surface of apples straight from the stem, and as soon as it’s pressed into juice, it will ferment and become alcoholic on its own when left in a contained space and at a steady temperature.
Depending on the time it’s left to it’s own devices, that will affect the taste.
Keep in mind that all of these liquids are pretty high in both natural sugars, as well as containing sugars purposefully added; excessive sugar isn’t healthy for cats, so should they be able to make these, the danger of overindulgence should be stressed.
HERBS
CATNIP
Also known as Nepeta cataria, catswort/catwort, and catmint, catnip is an herb that is most well-known for its affects on felines.
It is most commonly used as a recreational substance and has been observed to have many different effects on various cats. One-third of cats have been noted to not be affected by catnip, and it seems that the behavior is linked to genes and age, and is usually hereditary.
The herb can improve relaxation, which may reduce anxiety, restlessness, and nervousness, making it a prime option in terms of medicinal uses. For recreational uses, however, it may cause cats to act in a number of different fashions, however the most common are as follows: excessive rubbing, rolling around, pawing, licking, and chewing when exposed solely to the scent, while consumption is followed by sleepiness, anxiety, bursts of energy, drooling, purring, biting, growling or meowing loudly.
MATATABI (Silver Vine)
While catnip is the most well-known, matatabi is reportedly more potent and effective. Silver vine contains more and different compounds that cats like and respond to, and, unlike catnip, silver vine’s effects are nearly immediate and last for a much shorter amount of time.
Also unlike in catnip, matatabi is most effective outright consumed, especially in the forms of sticks! Chewing on matatabi sticks, twigs, and shoots is not only a good way for cats to still feel the effects (which are the same as catnip’s, though with a more prominent lean into relaxation and stress-relief), but also an excellent way to keep up with dental hygiene!
Alongside being a a recreational substance, matatabi also has medicinal uses! It contains a significant amount of vitamin C, and is known to lower high blood pressure and provide relief from arthritis pains. In especially large quantities, its leaves may also have a mildly hallucinogenic effect.
TATARIAN HONEYSUCKLE
Honeysuckle berries, flowers, and leaves are toxic to cats and should not be given to them under any circumstances. It is exclusively the wood part of the plant that is safe, and is most often used via scent sprays and toys.
Unlike catnip and matatabi, tatarian honeysuckle specifically has been reported to not possess the same age effective limits that it’s counterparts have. As such, it is a prime choice to stuff into toys (for our cats in question: at the center of moss balls, inside of fabric toys, stuffed into woven mats, etc), especially for younger cats.
Tartarian honeysuckle also has an extended growing season: producing leaves, flowers and berries very early on during spring, and shutting down only late into the autumnal months. It grows quickly and tall, however it is invasive and can very quickly choke out other plants should it be left to its own devices.
FOODS
MUSHROOMS
Raw mushrooms are difficult for cats to digest, so any mushrooms eaten by this guys should only be done so if they have been thoroughly cooked and softened up.
Psilocybin mushroom specifically can be used for this purpose. Some psychedelic mushrooms can also be used for medicinal purposes via treating some forms of treatment-resistant depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and other mental health disorders.
Most hallucinogenic mushrooms used for recreational purposes are toxic to pets, however. Look HERE for various listings of mushroom poisoning and toxicity, alongside any potential symptoms found in some pets for some of these mushroom poisonings.
SEEDS
Various seeds can be used and are safe in moderation for cats.
Raw, unwashed poppy seeds specifically are some of the most popular - and some we see used even in Warriors canon as medicine! The seeds are most commonly boiled and made into teas that supposedly relieve pain, while other teas are simply used in an attempt to wring out the “high” and relaxation from said poppy seeds.
BERRIES
Mulberries specifically are the only berries I’ve found that are safe for cats to ingest while also providing some sort of recreational reaction.
Ripe fruit is a nice snack for cats on occasion! The hallucinogenics come from unripened berries, mature leaves, and the white sap that they produce.
Unripe fruit may (and probably will) cause stomach discomfort, neurological system hyperactivity, and hallucinations when consumed.
Repeated Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: Do not give any of these things to your real life pets to ingest in light of what is described below, especially not without doing research or asking the opinion of an animal healthcare professional. This guide is merely an attempt to share some fun knowledge and additional world building for a FICTIONAL society of cats. You should never try to give your real life animals things described in books or writhing unless they’ve come from people who actively know what they’re doing and have something to prove it.
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hollowdeath · 3 months
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about me!
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my name's lilly, i'm 22, & i'm from midwest america.
i'm currently in school getting my BFA in photography & digital media with a minor in art history & plan on graduating with honors in 2025 ! after that i hope to get my masters in photography & work for myself.
obviously i love photography & design, but some of my other hobbies include painting, cooking/baking, reading, writing, & scrapbooking/collaging.
however, my main (favorite) hobby is harry potter!
i also have an editing account on tiktok!
ALL pictures i post are not mine, they are from pinterest.
i mainly use tumblr mobile 📲
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some silly facts about me if you care !
infp + cancer/libra/cap + gryffinpuff = always crying
favorite colors are dark green, burnt orange, maroon, mustard yellow, & other autumnals
fall/winter supremacy
i have a cat named jay with a stubby tail !!
i've been with my partner for 7 years & he's the best <3
other random hyper-fixations i've had/have: spiderman, criminal minds/spencer reid, twilight, dan & phil, billie eilish, south park, family guy, garfield
i've been on (& off) tumblr since 2012!
i love music, some of my favorite artists include billie eilish, tyler the creator, mac miller, amy winehouse, nirvana, korn, smashing pumpkins, mitski, the 1975, slipknot, paramore, & tame impala. i also love classical music and jazz, so i typically have those genres on shuffle at any time of the day. message me for my spotify/stats.fm!
i love horror movies, my favorites are creep/creep 2, sinister, the vvitch, hereditary, and, of course, the saw movies
other movies i love that aren't harry potter or horror: the basketball diaries, whiplash, interstellar, edward scissorhands, the nightmare before christmas, forrest gump, shawshank redemption, & napoleon dynamite <3
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if you'd like to follow me on my personal social media accounts, just message me! i'd love to make some friends here <3
thank you!
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comidyye · 4 months
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HAIII HI IM ASH !!! im a TEENAGE brain surgeon FANARTIST whoo Also likes to make SH🥩Tposts and Edits here an theRRe !!!
they / He ★ minor ★ neurodivergent ★ excluusivly english Srry!!!
I USUALLY ONLLY REALY POST stuff about my CURENT HYPERFIXATION !!! My twitter IS pretty Dead rn And On tiktok (SAme @) I uslly post edits / memes!! CONTENT ⚠️ : ART MAY INCLUDE (TAGGED) GORE /BODY HORROR /BLOOD /EYESTRAIN .. anything suggestive is highly UNlikely However
ART: #doodle ★ RANDOM: #rambljngs
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HERESSZ SOME OF my Strong Recent / curent fixations! ALSO : WHen i Fixate on a series i Usually have one character Im Obseszed w/.. I wil List them 2 !
★ slashers/slasher adjacent ( curently: martin (77), billy lenz, leslie vernon, henry barrow)
★ spooky month ( bob / dexter) ★ yu-gi-oh [ s0 & dm ] ( ryou / s0 yami yugi) {reoccurring} ★ fnaf ( glitchtrap, vanny, funtimes, springbonnie) {reoccurring} ★ wii deleted you ( henry morris) {short} ★ kirby ( marx) {reoccurring} ★ animatronics - All kinds!! halloween/scary, old kids bands, theme parks ( rockafire explosion, circus playhouse band) ★ smile for me ( dr habit) ★ childs play franchise [ 1-2, 7] ★ super paper mario ( dimentio) {reoccurring} ★ welcome home - eeh... ( wally / eddie) ★ madness combat ( tricky)
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"SO WHATS WITH THE CLOWNS">!>???????/
CLOWNS ARE PROALY MY BIGEST SPECIAL INTEREST! I KEEP A RUNNING LIST OF ALL THE FICTIONAL CLOWNS I KNOW. i have a google doc with MOST of them However the list is originally made/updated in Discord so the doc is likely an inaccurate count of the clowns. LAST CLOWN COUNT TOTAL: 178 CLOWN DOC If you know a clown not on the list send me their name thru The ask box Please! Fictional clowns from established series only - no ocs or anything !
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OTHER INTERESTS NOT PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED CAUS holy moly thhrz a LOT
IN GENERAL : obscure, surreal, crreepy stuf !!! ... I <3 HORROR
GAMEZ : DAY SHIFT AT FREDDYS(!), rhythm heaven, Klonoa, NiGHTS, um jammer lammy, splatoon, Omori, Balan wonderworld, undertale, deltarune, needy streamer overload, dropsy, FAITH: the unholy trinity, league of legends(ONLY FOR FIDDLESTICKS AS A CHARACTTR-I DONT PLAY), killer frequency, happy hills homicide
SHOWS/SERIES : dont hug me im scared, the walten files, BUGBO, Ena, My little pony, kaiba(2008), tokyo mew mew, devilman ovas, milky way & the galaxy girls, the amazing digital circus, bee & puppycat, over the garden wall, infinity train, garfield & friends, gloomy bear, tokyo mew mew MOVIES/MUSICALS: ride the cyclone, mean girls(musical), rocky horror picture show, trick r treat, re-animator, killer klowns from outer space, inu-oh, benny loves you, day of the dead(for bub), house of 1000 corpses, behind the mask: the rise of Leslie vernon, black christmas (1974), martin (1977), texas chainsaw franchise + chucky franchise CONTENT CREATORS: MARRKIPLIIER, JERMA! failboat, Dougdoug, dead meat, wicked masters, dawko, ANDY LAND, Itemlabel, CHRBRG, j-gems, lumpy touch, matt rose, planet clue, RTGAME, ooftroop, astralspiff, vernias MUSIC ARTISTS: WILL WOOD & LEMON DEMON . ... Chonny Jash, tally hall, CREATURE FEATURE, ROB ZOMBIE, icp, that handsome devil, oingo boingo, nero's day at disneyland, rusty cage, maretu, the stupendium, MSI(....Eeh..), duran duran, mcr, s3rl, stolen babies(!). i am a hereditary connoisseur of 80s new wave/alt
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DNI UHHH JUST DONT BE A BIGOT?!?! + FUCK PROSHIPPERS .. Dont piss on people 4 Their Interests n OH Sfw interactions Only Please SO nsfw dni Thannkz.. Just puting that out there Just in case.
BOUNDARIES:? Just Use common SEnse i would Think !! i dont think im crazy chronically online - school comes First Unfortunately . But if yurr that inntreseted in becoming Friends juuss lemme know howevrr You want .. Even with my own friedns I don't talk a lot however so dont expect full convos from me All the Time
ASK BOX..? anything related to me Just dump in there !! questions r whatevaa ... art requests about my fandoms r on the table, but dont expect me to do them!! low chance but still, shoot your shot COMMISIONS? generally dont do them + Especially dont have set pricing HOWEVER if yur interested Ask and im sure we can work something out somehow : o))) SHIPS/OCS N SHIT? i generally dont really have any ocs n dont Really selfship unless like Platonic - I'm not a big shipper but may have a rarepair here and there - Real chill shit REPOSTS/USING ART? tell me if Yoou want to repost something somewherer - even if i do give the thumbs up Credit is required!!!! Feel free 2 use my stuff as a pfp just don't claim it as Your own -- Give Credit if someone Asks . Bare minimum Stuff
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FUN BLINKIES/ STAMPS/GRAPHICS N SHIT
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WOWOAOAOWA YOU MADE IT THIS FAR WHO EVEN ARR YOU >!>???!?>??
WELL thank You 4 Coming By &lt; 3333333 SEE U AROUND!!!!!!!1
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iceicewifey · 1 year
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I don't know if you've talked about it before (if that's the case I apologize), but may I ask about your hc of Nilla's white streak? 👀
aaa of course you can ask ! i've only really mentioned it a couple times so i don't mind talking about it ;w;
so the all white hair from heritage for the future has a hold on me that i don't think i'll ever recover from (/lh) but i've been rewatching the anime a lot lately and the brown is growing on me. 👉👈 i think i mentioned my headcanon that depended on the white hair, but it kinda got me thinking about how i could keep the headcanon somehow, but then i remembered about something called poliosis.
poliosis, also called poliosis circumscripta, occurs when you have a white streak in your hair, contrary to your natural hair color. This can affect hair on any part of your body, including your eyebrows and eyelashes, as well as the surrounding skin. — WebMD
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excuse the quick edit, i had to upscale this particular settei sheet as the wiki only had a really small one so it's a bit messy plus i'm not on my main pc at the moment, but anyway the anime already gave him a section of hair that was a lighter brown than the rest and editing that streak to be white seemed like the best spot to put it.
also did an edit of his bluray gallery sheet too along with all the screencaps but god help me i'm trying to be normal but i'm so obsessed with it ... i just think it's really cute okay djfhvnbhjgf
kinda shy about this but apparently poliosis can also be hereditary, so we'll see if i can contain myself and not give white streaks/patches to noel and/or aaliyah too
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byneddiedingo · 7 months
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Milly Shapiro, Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, and Alex Wolff in Hereditary (Ari Aster, 2018)
Cast: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Woff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Mallory Bechtel. Screenplay: Ari Aster. Cinematography: Pawel Pogorzelski. Production design: Grace Yun. Film editing: Lucian Johnston, Jennifer Lame. Music: Colin Stetson.
There are films that leave a depressive miasma with me for days. I'm thinking particularly of George Sluizer's The Vanishing (1988, not the 1993 American remake) and Michael Haneke's Funny Games (1997, not the 2007 American remake). For a time, I thought Ari Aster's Hereditary was going to have the same effect on me, and it might have, if it hadn't devolved into a mere gory supernatural thriller with an overcomplicated backstory. It begins extraordinarily and creepily well, with a pan through the miniatures created by Annie (Toni Collette) in which one of them turns into the actual room where her son, Peter (Alex Wolff), is oversleeping on the day of his grandmother's funeral. A menacing gloom remains in the film as the family, including father Steve (Gabriel Byrne) and daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro), goes to the funeral and returns home. Even when we come home, there's a sense that something is off about the family and their obvious mixed feelings about the deceased. Ari Aster, in his feature film debut, skillfully handles the atmosphere in the somewhat sinister old house (aided by Pawel Pogorzelski's dark but not too dark cinematography and Colin Stetson's ominous score). Aster manages to gradually introduce the exposition about what's eating at Annie and her family. The performances are marvelous, especially Shapiro's obviously but enigmatically disturbed 13-year-old Charlie. I was with Aster's film all the way through the appalling accident that turns the story in a new direction. Then Ann Dowd, a fine actress whose career seems to have become defined by her performance as Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale, shows up to reveal the movie's indebtedness to The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) and Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968). Unfortunately, Aster's film has neither the coherence of the former nor the wit of the latter. In the end, it has to be remembered for Collette's performance, which should have had an Oscar nomination, not just for Annie's distraught moments but also the one at the film's climax when her face turns from horror to a kind of pleased amazement.
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The Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing, held earlier this month at the Francis Crick Institute in London, closed with a statement that “heritable human genome editing remains unacceptable at this time,” adding:
“Public discussions and policy debates continue and are important for resolving whether this technology should be used. Governance frameworks and ethical principles for the responsible use of heritable human genome editing are not in place.”
Pointing to “risks and unintended effects” of gene editing, the statement warned that “Necessary safety and efficacy standards have not been met.”
The statement may have prompted sighs of relief from those who were concerned that the summit’s participants would exploit the event to immediately push for changing the law banning human germline (heritable) genetic modification (HGM) in the U.K.
Indeed, it was a significant step back from the conclusion of the previous summit on HGM in 2018, which concluded that “it is time to define a rigorous, responsible translational pathway” toward clinical trials of germline editing.
But the statement failed to meaningfully engage with the biggest ethical question around HGM. It focused on how to make the technology acceptable by improving “safety and efficacy,” while failing to lay to rest the specter of eugenics that loomed over the summit.
The anti-eugenics group Stop Designer Babies has pointed out that legalizing HGM will inevitably lead to a eugenic society of genetic “haves” and “have-nots” in which wealthy parents can choose “designer” traits in their babies, such as skin, hair and eye color, IQ and athletic prowess.
In the worst-case scenario, those who can’t afford genetic “enhancement” would be banned from reproducing. And the statement doesn’t clarify whether, if scientists manage to solve the safety issues yet “public discussions and policy debates” come up with the answer that HGM should continue to be banned on ethical grounds, that decision will be accepted.
This question must be faced head-on because contrary to common belief, eugenics didn’t die with the Nazis. It is very much alive and kicking in scientific circles in the U.K. and U.S.
Yet conspicuously absent from the publicity around the summit were the disconcerting eugenicist connections and views of some of the scientists associated with it and, historically, with the venue that hosted it, the Crick Institute. That topic will be returned to later in this article.
Exploiting people with genetic diseases
The media coverage of the Crick summit — featuring quotes from its participant and allied scientists — was far less cautious than the summit’s official closing statement. The media strongly focused on the claimed need to gene edit humans to cure serious genetic diseases that lead to disability.
For example, the Observer’s science editor Robin McKie wrote:
“Ministers must consider changing the law to allow scientists to carry out genome editing of human embryos for serious genetic conditions — as a matter of urgency.”
To back his bullish position, McKie quoted not the organizers of the summit, but the findings of “a newly published report by a U.K. citizens’ jury made up of individuals affected by genetic conditions.”
That report, said McKie, is “the first in-depth study of the views of individuals who live with genetic conditions about the editing of human embryos to treat hereditary disorders” and was presented at the summit.
Who could possibly argue with that? Except as Dr. David King of Stop Designer Babies has pointed out, “There is no unmet medical need for HGM, so why is this summit even discussing it?”
Available alternatives for genetic diseases include genetic screening of IVF [in vitro fertilization] embryos, adoption, donor eggs or sperm embryo screening, or somatic gene therapies.
The latter are not heritable, only affect the patient and don’t raise the ethical concerns about eugenics that plague heritable HGM.
Although somatic cell genetic manipulation could, in principle, also be used for “enhancement” (e.g. improved athletic performance), this would not be heritable and it’s already been banned by the International Olympic Committee, as it’s seen to offer an unfair advantage akin to performance-enhancing steroid hormones.
In addition, although major safety and efficacy issues persist with somatic cell gene therapy, which needs to be addressed, this is also true of heritable HGM.
There are also indications that the citizens’ jury was manipulated and deceived. Pete Shanks of the Center for Genetics and Society noted that in their discussions of heritable gene editing, the citizens’ jury participants were asked to make the questionable assumption that the technology would be safe and effective.
That’s false — many research studies have found that gene editing causes genetic errors, which could result in cancer or other severe diseases. It only takes an edit in a single cell to go wrong to result in cancer down the line.
The ghost at the feast
Anyone reading McKie’s article would assume that the push for legalizing HGM was driven by patients with genetic diseases. But that is not the case.
The “ghost at the feast” who is not mentioned in the article is one of the organizers of the summit and its most prominent frontman, the Crick Institute’s professor Robin Lovell-Badge, who gave the Eugenics Society’s Galton Lecture in 2017.
Yes, there still is a Eugenics Society in England, founded in 1907 and still going strong under the rebranded name, the Adelphi Genetics Forum.
Lovell-Badge has found his way onto every committee involved in organizing efforts to weaken the rules around HGM, most notably the key committee advising the U.K.’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) on plans to change the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act later this year.
Lovell-Badge recently got excited about the seriously dystopian idea of “super-soldiers” genetically engineered to tolerate exposure to biological weapons. He also refers to GM (genetically modified) “Super Humans” in the current Cut and Paste exhibition at the Crick.
The genetic have-nots: ‘Deaf, dumb, and blind’?
Professor Jennifer Doudna, who shared the 2020 Nobel chemistry prize for her role in inventing CRISPR gene editing, has enjoyed an image makeover similar to Lovell-Badge’s in the current PR blitz in support of HGM.
She is quoted by the Guardian as excitedly predicting, “We’ll definitely be seeing genomic therapies for heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, eye conditions and more, and possibly some preventative therapies as well.”
That’s all well and good, provided they are somatic gene therapies, where the genetically engineered changes will not be carried over to future generations.
But what is conspicuously missing from the Guardian piece are Doudna’s broader views, such as those expressed in her book, “A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution.”
The following quote, to those sensitive to eugenic tendencies, is chilling:
“Gone are the days when life was shaped exclusively by the plodding forces of evo­lution. We’re standing on the cusp of a new era, one in which we will have primary authority over life’s genetic makeup and all its vibrant and varied outputs. Indeed, we are already supplanting the deaf, dumb, and blind system that has shaped genetic material on our planet for eons and replacing it with a conscious, intentional system of human-directed evolution.”
It is perhaps not coincidental that Doudna’s word choices — “plodding,” “deaf, dumb, and blind,” which she applies to natural evolution, in stark contrast to the brave new world of “human-directed evolution” — could have been taken straight from the eugenicists’ playbook when describing disabled and other genetically “undesirable” people.
Replay of 1997 life patent directive
The hype surrounding the Crick summit is not the first time that people with genetic diseases have been exploited by those wishing to promote the genetic engineering and patenting of life.
The Crick’s use of the citizens’ jury report to argue for the liberalization of HGM is a chilling replay of events in 1997, where disabled people with genetic diseases were deceptively exploited to lobby for a change in EU law that enabled the patenting of living organisms and their genes.
In fact, but for this tactic, agricultural GMOs (genetically modified organisms) would probably never have gotten off the ground.
The exploitation was led by people linked to the LM network, a bizarre and cultish group that favors no restrictions on extreme technologies or corporate power and has infiltrated the U.K.’s scientific bodies for many years.
This group, known as the LM network, has over many years shamelessly exploited disabled people and people with genetic diseases to further its pro-corporate aims. And the evidence presented here suggests that it’s still doing so.
Back in 1997, as GMWatch’s Lobbywatch website reported, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) turned up at the parliament building in Strasbourg to vote on a law to allow patents on life.
This law, if passed, would allow for the patenting of genes, cells, plants, animals, human body parts and genetically modified or cloned human embryos.
But the Life Patent Directive was unpopular with the public and politicians. Only two years earlier, MEPs had vetoed the directive and were expected to do the same again.
As the MEPs approached Parliament, they were confronted by wheelchair-bound protestors in an event organized by the lobby group, the Genetic Interest Group (GIG).
GIG director Alistair Kent had rallied protestors suffering from genetic diseases by claiming that they were about to be denied the chance of a cure if MEPs did not vote for the Life Patent Directive. This time, the law passed. GlG’s lobbying is widely credited as having been decisive in its approval.
Complaints from patient interest groups
GIG’s action attracted complaints from the very patient interest groups it was supposed to represent. The groups pointed out that GIG’s policy had always been against gene patenting. Alistair Kent issued a letter restating the anti-patents-on-life views of the group, which were officially unchanged. So how did he come to behave in such a contrary fashion?
Commentators noted that GIG’s lobbying had been part-funded by SmithKline Beecham, a company lobbying aggressively for the directive. But there may have been another factor besides money — GIG’s policy officer, John Gillott.
Throughout the patents on life controversy, Gillott was running a guerrilla campaign against the very people who should have been GIG’s closest allies — environmentalists.
“The Directive has been vigorously opposed,” Gillott wrote, “by environmental campaigners who say it is an aspect of the ‘race to commodify life’ which amounts to ‘biopiracy.’” Gillott dismissed such views as “rubbish peddled by the environmentalists.”
Gillott’s message board was a magazine called Living Marxism (LM), of which he was the science editor.
LM began life in 1987 as Living Marxism, the monthly review of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).
The RCP started out as a far-left Trotskyist splinter group. In the early 90s, however, it underwent a drastic ideological transformation. Its leaders turned their back on seeking mass working-class action.
The real contradiction in society lay, they seemed to argue, between those who believed in increased human dominance over nature and those who did not.
They declared a war of ideas on those they saw as the enemies of human progress. The RCP’s new vision championed “progress” by opposing all restrictions on science, technology (especially biotechnology) and business.
Gillott was a key contributor to “Against Nature,” a Channel 4 TV series that promoted GM crops and represented environmentalists as Nazis responsible for death and deprivation in the Third World.
Also featured in the program was another LM contributor, Juliet Tizzard, then director of the science lobby group, the Progress Educational Trust, which supports embryo cloning and opposes restrictions on genetic technologies — and has strong links with the pharmaceutical industry.
Tizzard was previously head of policy and communications at the HFEA, the organization currently spearheading the push to legalize human genetic engineering.
The current chair of the Progress Educational Trust is Lovell-Badge.
Entryism
While LM ceased publication in 2000, its spirit lived on in its offshoots. The RCP adopted the tactic of “entryism” — infiltrating an organization to influence its direction.
Suddenly its members were sharp-suited and organizing seminars. By the mid-90s, Living Marxism had become the innocuous-sounding LM, while the RCP had been liquidated.
LM-ers were increasingly heard in media debates on contentious issues such as GM crops and climate change.
LM-colonised lobby groups include Sense About Science, the Genetic Interest Group, the Progress Educational Trust and the Science Media Centre. Sense About Science and the Science Media Centre have consistently promoted GM crops.
Lovell-Badge is on the board of trustees of Sense About Science and is a regular spokesperson at the Science Media Centre in defence of the interests of these organizations, which align with those of their corporate funders.
HFEA: Regulator or lobbyist for HGM?
Currently, in the U.K., research is allowed on discarded human embryos from fertility treatment, but the embryo must be destroyed after 14 days and cannot be implanted for a pregnancy.
But the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority (HFEA), the U.K. fertility regulator, thinks that the law should be changed to make it “fit for purpose” and “relevant,” now that science and society have allegedly “moved on.”
Again, the HFEA keeps the focus on new “treatment options” for people with serious genetic disorders.
How is it acceptable for a regulator to push for changes in the law to suit a minority lobby that is deceiving and exploiting people with genetic diseases is a question that doesn’t seem to occur to the mainstream media, or indeed to the HFEA itself.
A new kind of techno-eugenics
Stop Designer Babies warns that the current wave of hype around HGM for the treatment of disease promoted by the Crick summit is really a move to normalize eugenics.
The group says the legalization of these techniques will inevitably and rapidly generate a commercial market for “enhancement” traits.
That danger is recognized in an article in the Guardian titled, “Forthcoming genetic therapies raise serious ethical questions, experts warn,” which rightly draws attention to experts’ fears that legalizing human genetic engineering will fuel “a new kind of techno-eugenics.”
The experts see this development as unstoppable. Professor Mayana Zatz at the University of São Paulo, Brazil and founder of the Brazilian Association for Muscular Dystrophy, said she was “absolutely against editing genes for enhancement,” yet added, “There will always be people ready to pay for it in private clinics and it will be difficult to stop.”
Professor Françoise Baylis, a philosopher at Dalhousie University in Canada, believes genetic enhancement is “inevitable” because so many of us are “crass capitalists, eager to embrace biocapitalism.”
However, if the current widespread bans on human germline genetic engineering remain in place, a eugenic future is not inevitable.
Stop Designer Babies points out that 70 countries ban HGM because of its inevitable trajectory towards eugenics. So if the U.K. legalizes HGM, it will be an anomaly.
Worryingly, the recent wave of media articles, including those in the Observer and Guardian, don’t even entertain the idea of retaining the current ban — which after all is as simple as keeping the status quo.
Instead, they focus on how HGM can be governed once it’s (allegedly inevitably) legalized. That’s a perverse choice, given that there are workable alternative solutions for genetic diseases (as mentioned above).
Eyewatering cost
While the Guardian article notes that there are “serious ethical questions” around HGM, the main ethical question highlighted in the article is the eyewatering cost of gene therapies, which “will put them out of the reach of many patients.”
This is correct — gene therapies often cost millions of dollars per dose, meaning that they will not be widely deployed even if they have been proven effective in treating the targeted conditions.
This could lead to a society divided between those who can afford to genetically engineer their children and those who can’t, leading to discrimination in many spheres of life and even to a ban on the “genetic have-nots” reproducing.
U.K. and U.S.: World leaders in eugenics
Stop Designer Babies places the Crick’s summit in the context of a long and continuing history of eugenic thought and practice, in which U.K. and U.S. scientists have played a leading role over decades.
Notable among these scientists was the English scientist Francis Crick, under whose name the Institute was set up, and the American James Watson. As well as being the discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953, Crick and Watson were keen eugenicists.
For example, Crick said:
“We have to ask, do people have a right to have children, or at least to have as many children as they please? … And if the child is handicapped, wouldn’t it be better to let that child die and have another one? And what about a child that is born incurably blind? Is there any reason nowadays for keeping such a child alive? In other words, should we not have an acceptance test for children?”
HGM: Ethically unacceptable
While the new push for legalizing HGM is presented as offering cures for otherwise incurable genetic conditions, this is deceptive.
Workable and ethical solutions to genetic diseases are available now and non-heritable somatic gene therapies are being researched. Even if current safety issues are overcome, heritable HGM will always be ethically unacceptable.
The organizers of the Crick summit have not firmly rejected heritable HGM on ethical grounds, so we are not reassured about their intentions.
Legalizing heritable HGM would represent a step on the slippery slope to a eugenics-based society.
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sinceileftyoublog · 1 year
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Colin Stetson Interview: The Enticing and Inviting Score for The Menu
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BY JORDAN MAINZER
John Williams. Hans Zimmer. Howard Shore. These are some of the few heavy-hitters you associate with film scoring, especially around awards season. For horror films, you usually think of folks like John Carpenter or Dario Argento. But over the last half-decade, a rash of electronic or avant-garde classical producers and musicians have made names for themselves as in-demand movie composers. Two of the nominated composers for the Oscar for Best Original Score this year are experimental band Son Lux (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Hauschka’s Volker Bertelmann (All Quiet on the Western Front). And since 2018, in-demand horror director Ari Aster has employed the unmistakable stylings of instrumentalists and electronica masters for his first three films, Hereditary, Midsommar, and the upcoming Beau Is Afraid. It’s saxophonist Colin Stetson, who we’ve covered many times live, reviewed, and interviewed, who offered his talents to Hereditary, the film that essentially broke him out as an accomplished film composer, and the name you think of when thinking about a new wave of leftfield film scorers.
The latest film to take advantage of Stetson’s compositional prowess is Mark Mylod’s comedy horror satire The Menu, released in theaters late last year and currently streaming on HBO Max. About an inter-connected group of diners traveling to an exclusive restaurant operated by a celebrity chef (Ralph Fiennes), the film’s sort of a cross between Midsommar and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out films. Like Hereditary, the frames and the sounds on The Menu are inseparable once you’ve seen the film; that is, listening to Stetson’s original soundtrack, though it is its own piece of music, you can’t help but see the faces of Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, and Hong Chau and remember the biting, horrific events that unfold in the film. It’s also another unique entry in Stetson’s ever-growing oeuvre, its palate based in orchestration and string instruments like violin, viola, cello, bass, mandolin, and nyckelharpa, along with the usual saxophone as well as Tibetan bowls, piano, and choral vocals. Sax arpeggios and pizzicato strings, including plucked piano strings, helped Stetson achieve the ultimate contrast of light and dark, beauty and harshness that pervades each frame of the film and its overall arc and mood.
I spoke with Stetson late last fall over Zoom from Montreal about The Menu, his score approach and process, coming up with soundtrack track titles, and how composing for film compares with making solo studio albums. Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.
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Image courtesy of Milan Records
Since I Left You: Was there anything unique about your approach to your score for The Menu in comparison to your approach to other scores you’ve done?
Colin Stetson: This one was certainly the most decidedly rhythmic at its core. So much of the bones of it is bounded in a very crisscrossing, rhythmic scaffolding, this thing that can be fun, light, and prancing at times, and also incredibly tense and driving and static.
SILY: I noticed the rhythms when listening to the first track and first single, “All Aboard”. Why did you choose “All Aboard” as the first taste of this soundtrack, in terms of it being track 1 and the first piece of music revealed?
CS: It’s a good one in terms of the first taste of something in this story. It’s the first music that happens in the film, within a minute or so of the beginning of the film, and it sets the stage so much for what happens later. A lot of the themes that are more or less weaving through all of the rest of the film start out here, in more or less innoucuous ways. They’re cloaked in a delightful sheen to entice and invite rather than forebode. I liked the idea that it would be the same opening invitation to the music as well.
SILY: When you score films, do you think about the scores as eventual standalone pieces of music, the soundtrack?
CS: Not first and foremost. I am very aware that--and this is a little more process and functional--for my initial reactions, I'm usually crafting music to picture. There’s always things from the first cut that are going to change. In many instances, on the soundtrack album, I will use my initial cue [of music] rather than what it may get edited into down the line. What ends up being manipulated on picture, in my opinion, is now standing up and propping a picture, but it might not stand on its own in a musical context. I’m aware that sometimes there are changes made to music outside of my control, outside of anything that will end up on a record. [What’s on the record are] my cuts, for lack of a better term.
SILY: Even when you’re not making music for a film, do you find yourself, in the process of musicmaking, being inspired by imagery or having images showing in the background when recording?
CS: Absolutely. It’s one of the things that’s been ever-present in my solo music, namely, and across the board for me. It’s all world-building and storytelling, very truthfully. Virtually all of the music I’ve made, the way I make it, there’s a corollary narrative structure. Imagery is something that for me informs the arc of an overall album. I’m not just making collections of songs, and those songs aren’t just collections of parts and sounds. There’s more of a thoughtful intent baked into every bit of it.
SILY: With regard to your use of vocals on the score for The Menu, did you have any newfound inspirations or intentions?
CS: There was always going to be this element of the sacred, the revelatory, the worshipful aspect to all of it. Wrapped up in the main character of the chef is a very profound love for the subject matter and craft. It felt apt for that to be represented by vocals, especially as the film neared its climax.
SILY: Is coming up with track titles for the soundtrack as simple as taking a cue from what’s happening in the movie? Are they difficult to mull over?
CS: Not really. Some of them are quite obviously what they were on a cue sheet. “Taco Tuesday” was the cue all along. Did I think of possibly changing that? Yeah, but when was the next time I was going to have the option of naming a song “Taco Tuesday”? It ties intrinsically to the film and doesn’t give anything inherent away, and it’s certainly not lofty. The track sheet, when you see it on the back of the album, there are aspects that ultimately tie in with the arc of the film’s story. I like to have some of the titles be rooted and reflected in that. Sometimes, I take it from dialogue and try to boil it down to an essence of what it is that scene is doing. Others are a little bit more esoteric. It’s not like album titles on a record of mine. Those are usually a lot more exhaustive, because ultimately, the score has its story. It has its narrative. All these cues were written for picture, for themes happening in the film. When I’m making my own solo record, the narrative and the language used is coming from a world nobody gets to see except for me. I do tend to take a different tact with that titling in comparison to soundtrack titling.
SILY: “The First Cheeseburger You Ever Ate” will also never be a Colin Stetson title.
CS: Absolutely not, but at the same time, it ties it to the film and is representative of a bigger idea in peoples’ personal experiences. That piece of music is the most loving, beautiful, angelic, childlike. It’s embracing and getting back to basics and everything made anew. That title gets to be tied very concretely and nods to experiences we had.
SILY: How, over the years, have you grown as a composer?
CS: I’d like to think in most ways. [laughs] Certainly in terms of the process. I’ve learned how it is I like to work and have streamlined that process. With every job, [there’s] something new I haven’t opened up with before. By the end, I feel as though that toolbox and comfort zone has expanded. Compositionally, I’m more able to react to picture in ways that really serve it. I’m able to do more with less. I can always sit back, watch the finished product, and understand where things really work, work, and are fine. For those that are fine, you understand how to make it, on another offering, work. In this, as in everything, it’s all a path. I can adore the object after it’s made and still understand the things about it that I can learn from and improve in subsequent offerings. I am lucky in that I have a strong sense of love and admiration for the objects I make and an equally strong instinct for the self-critical. I can identify things I deem learning instances for improvement. It’s just a constant state of that with no real destination. 
SILY: Have you ever done a live score to a film you’ve composed for? If not, would you consider it?
CS: There’s talk of that to come, so we’ll see. There’s certainly talk of presenting music from scores live. With luck, time, and effort, it will start to happen in the coming years.
SILY: What’s next for you in the short and long term?
CS: I’m working on another feature I can’t talk about yet. I’m in the midst of two solo records that will see the light of day in the next year. Uzumaki is finally coming out. There are numerous other things in the works, but those are the ones right on the precipice.
SILY: Are you making more Void Patrol music?
CS: There are certainly gonna be some shows. Who knows? I’m sure we’ll get up to something.
SILY: Do you tend to consume unrelated media when you’re writing or recording music?
CS: I expose myself to certain things when I’m working on certain things: You can’t help but be influenced by what it is you’re filling your head with. I try to shepherd my overall existence in particular ways when working, depending on the space I want to be in. I don’t know I’ve ever practiced in total abstinence. The years I did Hereditary, I didn’t watch horror or listen to anything in that genre. Certain things can be mired in trope that I like to stay away from. I have a permanent abstinence on the types of things that might lead one in a direction that’s a bit more heavily trod.
SILY: That said, is there anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?
CS: I’ve read a book recently I did not enjoy, so I won’t talk about that one. [laughs] In the fall, I tend to get into a very re-ready space. I read two Jim Harrison books recently that I always enjoy, The River Swimmer and Returning to Earth. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by [Haruki] Murakami, which is my all-time favorite. Christopher Paolini’s To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was fun, beautifully imagined sci-fi and reads like watching a movie. It’s visually very striking and almost popcorn in terms of how accessible and fun and encompassing it is. Similarly, Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary was a cover-to-cover, fast, fun, effortless read.
Music-wise, I’m not coming up with anything new, so I’ll leave it at the books.
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wahbegan · 2 years
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The Black Phone Review
So, since there isn’t much in the way of an actual review of the movie in The Black Phone tag, primarily because it’s full of....ahem....other things, I thought I’d give writing one a spin, since I do that sometimes.
So far, i honestly have no idea if the Stephen King curse of having 95% of all adaptations of his work suck shit is hereditary or not. Joseph Hillstrom King, better known as Joe Hill (whose pen name is apparently because he doesn’t want to live in his father’s shadow, but honestly i think it’s because he doesn’t want to go by Joe King because it sounds like a fake name the fucking Joker would make up), only has four adaptations to his name, present company excluded. So far. The Locke and Key Netflix series, the NOS4A2 AMC series, and the films In the Tall Grass and Horns. And In the Tall Grass was co-written with Stephen King, so it’s more like three and a half.
Now I’ve never seen the tv shows because i haven’t read Locke and Key and because NOS4A2 is by far and away my favorite of Joe Hill’s novels, and i almost know for a fact that it would disappoint me because of the love i have for that book and the image of it built in my head. But they both got good reviews. Not STELLAR, but good.
In the Tall Grass was received about as well as any other adaptation Stephen King gets his filthy mitts on, and Horns was pretty much considered mediocre. Just...fine, i guess.
So we’re in this limbo here with Joe Hill adaptations, which is a shame, because by and large, i actually (HERESY ALERT) tend to like his work better than his father’s. None of his movie adaptations have been just hilariously fucking awful like a lot of Stephen’s, but none of them have really been fucking solid gold diamond-studded hallmarks of cinema like the select few of Stephen’s, either.
So it’s a bit odd to me that Scott Derickson picked The Black Phone to adapt. I mean Hill only has four novels to his name, the rest being comics and short stories, and someone already has the rights to The Fireman, while Heart-Shaped Box languishes in development Hell for idk 15 years, so it’s understandable he’d go for a short story.
But still, The Black Phone is a very simple story, about ten pages long, with all of the action confined to a brief kidnapping scene and one room. Certainly an ambitious thing to try to tackle, but i was worried about how much expanding on the story the movie was going to have to do.
I was then further worried by the trailers, because whoever edited them honestly needs to be taken out back and shot. Those despicable fucking trailers that just take you beat-by-beat through the movie, first of all, and also edited lines of dialogue to, inexplicably, make them sound much less natural and much more expository and heavy-handed than they actually were.
Also, you may remember Scott Derickson as the lad who did Sinister. Ohh, now it makes sense why he’d pick this movie, he fucking loves mixing true crime with dead kids jump scaring his audience. And I was worried it would be too much like Sinister, where the truly fucking harrowing part of that movie (the snuff films) ended up taking a backseat to his love of dead kids running about and over-the-top goofy looking villains.
Again, this wasn’t helped by the trailers, which put the dead kids and the killer’s mask (not present in the original story, in which he was just some fat, gross-looking guy) front and center, including a group shot of all the dead kids blocking the road that Derickson pretty much copy/pasted from Sinister.
But this is Joe Hill, i thought, and i actually have a girl to take to see it, and it’s getting good reviews, so what the hell.
So does it do it? Does The Black Phone finally make a Joe Hill adaptation that is as extremely good or extremely bad as one of his dad’s?
Well.....no. Not...really. Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of movie that is so good it’s going to be culturally revered or anything.
This is all just my expectations, though. Which muddied things a lot. My advice? Just don’t watch the trailers at all, and don’t think of Sinister or the legacy of Stephen King when you watch it. And for the sweet love of merciful Christ, don’t think of what lurks in The Black Phone tag on tumblr. Take it as its own thing.
Because as its own thing, it’s a very fucking good movie. 
Everything Sinister did wrong, The Black Phone does right. The supernatural elements are actually used fairly lightly, and almost all the horror in the movie comes from how fucked up the all-too-familiar true crime situation is. A boy stops to help a seemingly clumsy, friendly doofus who took a pratfall and spilled his magician’s act all over the pavement. The next thing he knows, he’s got wasp spray in his eyes and is being bundled into a van. And this isn’t the first time. 
Those kidnappings serve the same purpose the snuff films in Sinister did, but are a lot less in-your-face and just let you simmer in the implications.
Even Ethan Hawke’s masked child-killer, The Grabber, doesn’t appear very often. It’s the tension. The mystery of what, exactly, he does to kids between kidnapping and murdering them. The horrible but very nicely restrained descriptions of some, but not all, of the atrocities committed on his victims. The heavy implication, but refusal to outright confirm that he’s a pedophile. The agonizingly long shots of his victim trying to escape his basement dungeon, knowing that he could appear at any moment.
This wouldn’t work as well if The Grabber wasn’t acted superbly, but he really is. Ethan Hawke is fucking terrifying, which is not an adjective I would have ever used for him before, but he really is. He plays The Grabber with this....softness is the wrong word, but at least a front of it. A disquieting and jarring childishness in some scenes, a clear immaturity. Whether he’s just stunted emotionally or putting on a front for his victim’s sake isn’t clear, but either way it gets under your skin.
Especially because they never tell you anything about this guy. Not even his name. There’s no backstory of abuse, no rounds with his therapist, no diary, nothing. All we have to go on is Ethan Hawke’s excellent performance and tiny scraps of implication. It makes his behavior and mood swings harder to predict in a very refreshing way. 
Like most abusers, he wasn’t angry the majority of the time. Wasn’t outwardly threatening. Even his weird Devil mask, while ostentatious, seems to be less of a fright mask and more of his own bizarre, childish way of expressing his mood and persona at the time. He swaps it out between a completely mouthless version when speaking to the protagonist just after the kidnapping, a sickening grin when he dotes on his victim and brings him food, and an exaggerated, pouty frown when he waits at the top of the stairs, shirtless, holding a belt, just waiting for him to try to escape.
I know a lot of people think that image is hot. Let me be clear, it is probably the single scariest fucking shot of the movie. I just couldn’t stop thinking of some incredibly damaged, sick motherfucker imitating what he saw as a kid. Making a vaudeville horror show out of child abuse. 
Yes, this is one of the most effective horror movie killers in recent history.
But there’s so much more to the movie than that! The protagonist and his sister are also both played fucking stunningly, both being given a LOT of VERY heavy material to work with. Abuse, bullying, the kidnapping that forms the crux of the movie, and they nail it. The sister’s hysterical screams and sobs as their father beats her while the brother watches, angry out of his mind but paralyzed with fear is....
Jesus.
This movie is very gritty, by the way. Not in an over-the-top, in-your-face way, just a...an air of detached realism. It’s set in the late ‘70s, but instead of the nostalgic sheen recent media puts over everything from that fucking era, it’s portrayed in a very naturalistic way. There’s some lovely use of 8mm film, the lighting and costuming department did a very good job capturing the look of the era, and most importantly, childhood in the ‘70s, when beating your kids was still pretty normalized, missing faces got printed on milk cartons, and stranger danger was at its peak. 
It’s not glamorized at all, is me point. 
BUT it’s also not all doom and gloom. The kids are the main stars of this movie, and they do an amazing job at not just being victim, but being survivors and rising above the bullshit they go through. The protagonist’s little sister in particular is an incredible character, given some of the best lines in the movie.
And over the titular Black Phone...the dead children are played as scary a bit. Thrice, in fact. There are three jump scares, one of which made a woman in my theater scream. But for the most part, they’re not played for horror. They’re played for a surprisingly meditative melancholy. They’re played for just fucking sadness at the young lives cut brutally short, whatever innocence they had lost.
And by the end, they’re played for a sense of camaraderie in darkness that really fucking tugs at your heartstrings. I was not expecting this movie to be as emotional as it was. 
So in the end, The Black Phone is gripping, tense as fuck, psychological, pretty fucking harrowing, depressing and cathartic all at the same time. The direction and art are quite nice, and i don’t have many problems with it.
James Ransome’s character is a little weird, sticks out just a mite, buuuutt that can be forgiven. It is also very Stephen King-y, with absolutely psychotic bullies and an abusive alcoholic father, although his abuse and alcoholism are both contextualized in a bizarrely grounded way.
Finally, yeah, just a content warning, in case you haven’t already picked it up. As I said, there are no explicit mentions of or depictions of pedophilia  but it is heavily implied. No kids are shown being murdered, but they do talk about it, and they do get the shit kicked out of them both by other kids and by their parents. I mean violence against children is the principal theme of this movie so, while it ultimately ends on a pretty uplifting note, i’d still avoid it if you’re squeamish about that sort of thing.
But will it be remembered alongside The Shining or The Shawshank Redemption? Or even the recent IT movies? Fuck no, but i would venture a guess and say it’s definitely the best Joe Hill adaptation to date
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jinxneedssleep · 1 year
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I posted 1,383 times in 2022
That's 1,383 more posts than 2021!
116 posts created (8%)
1,267 posts reblogged (92%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@pacificwaternymph
@taketwoinink
@gardenergulfie
@thatfaecreaturee
@the-tyler-as-in-skyler
I tagged 1,339 of my posts in 2022
Only 3% of my posts had no tags
#empires smp - 270 posts
#empires smp s2 - 189 posts
#fanart - 83 posts
#mutuals - 74 posts
#mafia mutuals - 67 posts
#pearlescentmoon - 56 posts
#hermitcraft - 54 posts
#esmp fanart - 44 posts
#asks - 44 posts
#stranger things - 43 posts
Longest Tag: 140 characters
#based on dana's art from the toh exhibition i knowwwww darius helped him choose this outfit. this is uncharacteristic amount of drip for him
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
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Empires Shulk Adventures: Part 2.5
197 notes - Posted July 13, 2022
#4
Empires SMP incorrect quotes: Love Triangle edition (Shelby, Joey, Katherine)
Joey: Regular soda is too sweet!
Katherine : Diet soda has a weird after taste!
Joey: No! Ugh, oh my god. Diet soda is THE BEST! It doesn't have sugar! It's SPICY!
Katherine : It has other weird stuff in it! I'll take REGULAR sugar in my REGULAR soda!
Joey: It's SO SWEET like it's a dessert though! Diet feels more like a drink!
Katherine : I'm going to physically attack you.
Joey: Which is better, Shelby?
Shelby: Oh, I usually drink water!
Katherine : Wha- NO!
Joey: DISGUSTING!
—————————————-
Joey: I apologize for saying 'fuck' in front of Shelby.
Katherine : You just said it again.
Shelby
Joey: I am not a role model.
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Shelby, to Katherine : If Joey doesn't say "I'm King of the world" within an hour on that boat, I will give you my next pay check.
Joey, within 5 minutes of getting on the boat: I'M KING OF THE WORLD!!!
—————————————————
Katherine : I think I did fairly well on my anatomy quiz! :)
Joey: I forgot I was doing a test.
Katherine : Joey.
Joey: I said the vertebrae was the back stick because I thought it was funny....
Shelby: Joey.
———————————————
Shelby: The odds of this happening by coincidence are vanishingly small.
Katherine : I would say infinitesimally.
Joey: And I'd say teenily-weenily. We all know words.
See the full post
206 notes - Posted August 8, 2022
#3
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This is literally them.
223 notes - Posted August 9, 2022
#2
Screw Eddie falling first. I am a firm believer in down bad Steve and oblivious Eddie who isn’t used to getting affection
333 notes - Posted July 10, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
Empires smp thoughts: Modernization
Someone pointed out that the empires smp s1 cast are royalty, compared to what the s2 cast is. With the thousand year time skip, royal bloodlines have been made nonexistent. With the empires collapsed and no suitable heir, the survivors of the rapture developed modern governments. With the exception of Glimmer Grove, the Order of succession for the rest of the continent is not hereditary. Hence why none of the rulers refer to themselves by noble titles, unlike S1. “It’s mayor actually” The only other princess is Gem, who is self proclaimed.
Modernization includes technology as well. The S1 cast endured long meetings and communicated through letters deliver by messenger bird. The type of bird carrier varied between empire. (Rivendell used snow owls, Lost Empire had parrots, etc) They only resorted to communicators in emergency situations; whereas in S2 timeline, unless they are discussing trade deals, a communicator is all they technically need.
Due to most written text being destroyed, the only preserved document the historian guild has access to is the Ocean Queens journal; which has faced considerable damage. A thousand years has changed a lot of the language. The letters found in the ruins has a vastly different writing structure, compared to universal ‘Common.’ It’s the empires equivalent of Shakespearean English compared to modern English. This has caused much context to be lost in translation.
353 notes - Posted August 3, 2022
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