#Existential Geography

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of "Where"

The philosophy of "where" explores the ontological and epistemological nature of place, space, and location. It asks not just what something is, but where it is—and what that where means. This idea touches on metaphysics, phenomenology, geography, identity, and even ethics. Here's a breakdown of key aspects:

Ontology of "Where"

Place as Being: Philosophers like Heidegger argue that place is not just a backdrop for events but is essential to our experience of being. "Being-in-the-world" means being somewhere, not nowhere.

Topos (Greek for "place"): Classical philosophy (like Aristotle's) treated place as the "innermost boundary" of a body, making location an intrinsic part of an object's identity.

Epistemology of "Where"

Knowing Through Place: Where something is shapes how we know it. For example, context affects meaning—physically (a sculpture in a museum vs. a junkyard), socially, and politically.

Situated Knowledge: Feminist philosophers like Donna Haraway emphasize location as central to understanding—"objectivity" is always situated.

Human Geography & Phenomenology

Place vs. Space: Place is imbued with meaning; space is more abstract. A house becomes a home through experience, memory, and identity.

Lived Experience: Phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty see "where" as deeply tied to the body—our perception of space is not geometric, but embodied and emotional.

Ethics & Politics of "Where"

Displacement & Belonging: Questions of where we belong—or don’t—shape debates in migration, colonialism, gentrification, and environmental justice.

Territory and Power: Political philosophy engages with the ethics of place—who controls land, whose spaces are protected, and whose are erased.

Metaphysical Paradoxes

Nonlocality in Physics & Thought: In quantum mechanics and mysticism alike, where becomes less fixed. Can something exist without a fixed location?

[kolhii-head-chronicler]

Do you guys think that whenever the Toa Metru/Turaga eventually got around to mapping out the island of Mata Nui, that they completely freaked out when they realized it was the same general shape as Metru Nui?

Like, yeah it’s bigger, but that still must have been a super jarring realization. A whole new place no one’s ever been to before, yet it’s the same shape as the home they had to leave behind? That must have been a little weird, at least at first.

Did they take it as a sign from Mata Nui that just further confirmed that this was where they were meant to bring the matoran? Or were they just collectively like, ‘nope we’ve been through enough weird crap, we’re not questioning this!’

[phinnking]

its occurring to me that i might not actually hate geography and just thought that bc every time i had to do geography as a kid it entailed perfectly colouring in and labelling a map of canada

[paigetics]

While I'm here I want to talk about how Epic characterises Odysseus, and why criticisms that Jay “gives him a conscience” misunderstand both the Odyssey and what Epic is actually doing.

First: the claim that Homer’s Odysseus didn’t feel guilt or grief just isn’t true. He does express regret, sorrow, even shame, just rarely in the moment, and rarely in overt ways. But the man weeps constantly. He breaks down when hearing songs of Troy. He mourns his fallen men. He carries the weight of what he’s done, even if he couches it in calculation and cleverness.

And when people say Jay’s version of Odysseus is somehow "softer" or overly moralized, they’re not only flattening Homer’s character — they’re missing the thematic project of the musical entirely.

Jay isn't writing a story where Odysseus learns "to be ruthless and let go of mercy." That’s one thread. But if we take it as the core arc, then yes, you might reasonably ask: why does he hesitate to kill now, when the Iliad Odysseus did far worse without flinching?

The answer lies in "Just a Man," the linchpin of the musical and a crucial catalyst for Odysseus’ internal arc. In it, he’s asked to kill an innocent child, and he does. But not before hesitating, asking: "Will these actions haunt my days? / Every man I've slain / Is the price I pay endless pain?"

The killing of the infant, possibly the darkest moment in the musical, comes as he says, “I’m just a man,” right after asking, “When does a man become a monster?” He drops the baby as he says it. We’re not meant to believe he’s not a monster. We’re meant to see that he doesn’t want to believe it.

That moment haunts the rest of the show. He didn't become ruthless when he dropped the baby, he already was; war changed him so completely that at the end of it, he was able to kill a baby that looked just like the son he left 10 years prior, and that terrifies him.

And the fear doesn’t go away. In "Open Arms," Polites is essentially telling him that war has changed him, and he carries it with him even now, after it's over. That truth unsettles Odysseus so deeply (who in the song prior is literally running "full speed ahead" away from his actions, away from war, convinced he can just get home and leave it all behind) that a goddess has to intervene to steady him.

When he faces the Cyclops, he tries to justify the violence: "It's just one life to take / And when we kill him, then our journey’s over." But the tone is clear: this is self-reassurance.

And Odysseus does this a lot in Epic! There’s a pattern of him trying to reassure himself and his crew that they’re almost there, that if they can just get through this trial, they’ll be home. He insists that their journey is nearly over again and again, that their families are still waiting, that everything will be fine, that they can still make it home.

But these aren’t promises, they’re hopes dressed as certainty. He has no real reason to believe any of it. It doesn’t matter. He says it anyway. Because if he stops believing it, even for a moment, the weight of what he's done, and what he's become, might crush him (we see this play out explicitly in both "The Underworld" and "Love in Paradise"). These aren’t just reassurances. They’re quiet, desperate lies. Mostly to himself.

Even delirious with exhaustion, he clings to this idea: "So much has changed / But I'm the same, yes, I’m the same."

But he isn’t. And he knows it. Odysseus is afraid the war will never end, not because of geography or gods, but because he’s afraid the war has already changed him beyond return. And that is one of the major ideas we can take from the Odyssey. As Emily Wilson observed, the long journey home is not just physical, it’s existential. The question isn’t just can he return, but who will return if he does.

So when Odysseus later embraces brutality, when he says, "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves / And deep down I know this well," it’s not a turning point. It’s a confession. He’s admitting that this capacity for violence has always been there. And it’s Penelope’s danger that makes him stop pretending otherwise.

That’s the true arc: not from man to monster, but from denial to acknowledgment. Not the loss of conscience, but the unbearable weight of it.

And that’s why it matters that it’s Penelope who is in danger when he finally stops clinging to who he used to be. It’s for her sake that he embraces what he’s become. And in that moment, he knows she might not love him anymore. He chooses the path that will lead him home no matter what anyway.

[pedges-world]

Get to Know Your Moots

@burntheedges Always comes through with the Polls and Prompts. I've been wrestling with health challenges, but this Valentine's is a win for my self-love journey. Approaching my one year Tumblr anniversary and thought I'd introduce myself a bit more...

What's the origin of your blog title?: Pedro Pascal lists a friendly nickname of Pedge in a BBC interview, and Tumblr is where I exist with him parasocially. It’s Pedge’s World, I’m just living’ in it!

OTP(s) + shipname: Okay I’m a Tumblr baby so I had to look these terms up. But I’m the OG fan nerd. Star Trek, Star Wars, Harrison Ford, LOTR, Narnia, Marvel, D.C, Disney, Broadway, Sherlock, Harry Potter…I’ve really jumped around. I don’t often ship, but maybe Benny/Frankie, Han/Leia, Pedro and anyone…Not sure I understand this term…

Favorite Color: Every color is on the table for me. I love variety.

Favorite Game: I like any of Lego Themed Video Games because you never really die

Earworm: Abracadraba Lady Gaga, Father Figure George Michael

Weirdest Habit: I think my brain works weird. It’s supes philosophical and existential.

Hobbies: Legos, writing, music, acting, painting, art, Disneyland, reading

If you work, what's your profession: Teacher, Artist

If you could have any job you wish what would it be: I thought I wanted to be a mom/wife but that didn’t happen. Then I thought I wanted to be an actor and that DID. But then I realized I wanted to live EVERY life and that wasn’t possible.

Something you're good at: Mentoring other artists

Something you're bad at: Geography and natural sense of direction

Something you love: Humans

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: Art philosophy

Something you hate: Hate and prejudice, particularly as it triggers my own self-perception

Something you collect: Mugs, Books, Legos

Something you forget: Don’t know. I forgot.

What's your love language: All of them. I’m an emotional slut.

Favorite movie/show: WTF? Pick one? No.

Favorite Food: Salad

Favorite animal: Dog…or unicorn.

Are you musical: Y.E.S.

What were you like as a child: Not even much shorter. Pure.

Favorite subject at school: English

Least favorite subject: P.E.

What's your best character trait: I love hard and uniquely.

What's your worst character trait: Self harm and the way it negatively impacts others

If you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be: Health

If you could travel in time who would you like to meet: Jesus, I guess :)

Recommend one of your favorite fanfics: I guess it’s Tumblr lore, but I LOVE “A Lover’s Pinch” by @hier--soir . It’s unfinished, so if you want a heartbreak, this is your angst…

Happy Valentine's y'all, I loves you mooots....

[misfitwashere]

ROBERT REICH

JAN 31

Friends,

The following is by Jean Chrétien, who served as prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003. It appeared in The Globe and Mail, Canada’s most widely read newspaper, on January 11, 2025. 

Canadians will never give up the best country in the world to join the U.S.

Jean Chrétien

Today is my 91st birthday.

It’s an opportunity to celebrate with family and friends. To look back on the life I’ve had the privilege to lead. And to reflect on how much this country we all love so much has grown and changed over the course of the nine decades I’ve been on this Earth.

This year, I’ve also decided to give myself a birthday present. I’m going to do something in this article that I don’t do very often anymore, and sound off on a big issue affecting the state of the nation and profoundly bothering me and so many other Canadians: The totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our very sovereignty from U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.

I have two very clear and simple messages.

To Donald Trump, from one old guy to another: Give your head a shake! What could make you think that Canadians would ever give up the best country in the world — and make no mistake, that is what we are — to join the United States?

I can tell you Canadians prize our independence. We love our country. We have built something here that is the envy of the world — when it comes to compassion, understanding, tolerance and finding a way for people of different backgrounds and faiths to live together in harmony.

We’ve also built a strong social safety net — especially with public health care — that we are very proud of. It’s not perfect, but it’s based on the principle that the most vulnerable among us should be protected.

This may not be the “American Way” or “the Trump Way.” But it is the reality I have witnessed and lived my whole long life.

If you think that threatening and insulting us is going to win us over, you really don’t know a thing about us. You don’t know that when it came to fighting in two world wars for freedom, we signed up — both times — years before your country did. We fought and we sacrificed well beyond our numbers.

We also had the guts to say no to your country when it tried to drag us into a completely unjustified and destabilizing war in Iraq.

We built a nation across the most rugged, challenging geography imaginable. And we did it against the odds.

We may look easy-going. Mild-mannered. But make no mistake, we have spine and toughness.

And that leads me to my second message, to all our leaders, federal and provincial, as well as those who are aspiring to lead our country: Start showing that spine and toughness. That’s what Canadians want to see — what they need to see. It’s called leadership. You need to lead. Canadians are ready to follow.

I know the spirit is there. Ever since Mr. Trump’s attacks, every political party is speaking out in favour of Canada. In fact, it is to my great satisfaction that even the Bloc Québécois is defending Canada.

But you don’t win a hockey game by only playing defence. We all know that even when we satisfy one demand, Mr. Trump will come back with another, bigger demand. That’s not diplomacy; it’s blackmail.

We need another approach — one that will break this cycle.

Mr. Trump has accomplished one thing: He has unified Canadians more than we have been ever before! All leaders across our country have united in resolve to defend Canadian interests.

When I came into office as prime minister, Canada faced a national unity crisis. The threat of Quebec separation was very real. We took action to deal with this existential threat in a manner that made Canadians, including Quebeckers, stronger, more united and even prouder of Canadian values.

Now there is another existential threat. And we once again need to reduce our vulnerability. That is the challenge for this generation of political leaders.

And you won’t accomplish it by using the same old approaches. Just like we did 30 years ago, we need a Plan B for 2025.

Yes, telling the Americans we are their best friends and closest trading partner is good. So is lobbying hard in Washington and the state capitals, pointing out that tariffs will hurt the American economy too. So are retaliatory tariffs — when you are attacked, you have to defend yourself.

But we also have to play offence. Let’s tell Mr. Trump that we too have border issues with the United States. Canada has tough gun control legislation, but illegal guns are pouring in from the U.S. We need to tell him that we expect the United States to act to reduce the number of guns crossing into Canada.

We also want to protect the Arctic. But the United States refuses to recognize the Northwest Passage, insisting that it is an international waterway, even though it flows through the Canadian Arctic as Canadian waters. We need the United States to recognize the Northwest Passage as being Canadian waters.

We also need to reduce Canada’s vulnerability in the first place. We need to be stronger. There are more trade barriers between provinces than between Canada and the United States. Let’s launch a national project to get rid of those barriers! And let’s strengthen the ties that bind this vast nation together through projects such as real national energy grid.

We also have to understand that Mr. Trump isn’t just threatening us; he’s also targeting a growing list of other countries, as well as the European Union itself, and he is just getting started. 

Canada should quickly convene a meeting of the leaders of Denmark, Panama, Mexico, as well as with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to formulate a plan for fighting back these threats.

Every time that Mr. Trump opens his mouth, he creates new allies for all of us. So let’s get organized! To fight back against a big, powerful bully, you need strength in numbers.

The whole point is not to wait in dread for Donald Trump’s next blow. It’s to build a country and an international community that can withstand those blows.

Canadians know me. They know I am an optimist. That I am practical. And that I always speak my mind. I made my share of mistakes over a long career, but I never for a moment doubted the decency of my fellow Canadians — or of my political opponents.

The current and future generations of political leaders should remember they are not each other’s enemies — they are opponents. Nobody ever loved the cut-and-thrust of politics more than me, but I always understood that each of us was trying to make a positive contribution to make our community or country a better place.

That spirit is more important now than ever, as we address this new challenge. Our leaders should keep that in mind.

I am 91 today and blessed with good health. I am ready at the ramparts to help defend the independence of our country as I have done all my life.

Vive le Canada!

[hellsite-folklore-archivist]

WIP

History

(Link to new post)

Folklore

Basically subcategories of posts that share a specific theme.

Reblog Escalation: Series of reblogs where different people commit to the same bit, but in escalating absurdity.

"Are fedoras really that bad?" / The hat long post

(Reservation: the phone/book post)

(Reservation: the dress from shirt post)

Dream Obama: Raw, intense lines spoken by Barrack Obama in people's dreams and shitposts.

The next life is simply another place we’ve never been before, and we’re all going to go explore it together.

To become god is the loneliest achievement of them all

Violence for violence is the rule of beasts

Humans are Space Orcs** + Earth is Space Australia**: Posts showcasing the quirks of human anatomy and psychology, and earth's unique geography and biology as something that extraterrestrial beings should fear or respect.

Stabby the Roomba

Shakespearian Renditions: That short trend where long posts / conversations between users were rewritten in iambic pentameter and antiquated language to mimic Shakespeare's plays.

(Reservation)

Wizard RP: Comical posts where users pretend to be a wizard from old school swords-and-sorcery fantasy stories.

Goncharov: A fictional mafia movie attributed to Martin Scorsese whose details were invented through people posting metas and fan content as if it were a real movie. A media experienced only through its fandom, if you will. (Tumblr's crowning achievement ngl)

Broken Posts: Posts that are bugged in some way. Usually shows up as 0 notes or a missing notes counter.

Canine Metaphors: The use of dogs and wolves to symbolize anger, trauma, devotion, loyalty, and protectiveness, usually in metaphors involving sheep (such as predatory wolves and protective sheepdogs), teeth, and bondage.

Intimacy of Violence: Violence and gore depicted as affectionate, romantic, or even sensual and erotic.

Folktales

Tales - fictional and non-fictional - that have circulated around the site for years and left an impact on overall site culture.

The Basement Micro Story Tweets

The City God Pigeon / I am neon at night, the rain in the light

Connecticut Clark

Dream: Fish with Human Teeth

Dream Comic: The Magazine

Dream Comic: The Venomous Snake

Down with the cis bus

The Existential Mushroom Post / You cannot kill me in any way that matters / Decay is an extant form of life

The Frog and the Scorpion

The Frozen Ones

Gnome Fight

The God of Arepo

It's Over, Be Still / The New Year Saga

Lexicon

Words and phrases that have wormed its way into my day-to-day vocabulary.

Blorbo from my shows

Do we think that maybe a vegetable would cause less despair

Down with the cis bus

The Existential Mushroom Post / You cannot kill me in any way that matters / Decay is an extant form of life

Hold my flower / Kick his ass babe I got yo flower

How dare you say we piss on the poor

I am the library of Alexandria that never burns

i lik the bred / Cow licking bread poem format

Me, an intellectual

Modern Litanies

Moon moon

No take only throw

None pizza with left beef

Remember that you can't save everyone - Remember that you have to try

Spiders Georg

Very beautiful, very powerful

Very very slow tigers are chasing me

Poetry

Atoms never touch / The song expands to hold us both

i lik the bred

Something Wicked This Way Rides / Cowboy Witch

Subway Rat

The Tiger by Nael, age 6

[i-hold-deaths-hand-in-mine]

the coven at the edge of the world! (an au agatha all along fanfic)

A whimsically existential tale about five witches living near the edge of the world, and the cosmic entity that decides to tell them they're not.

Read the first chapter here (if you wanna).

This is a map of the floating island of Westview, made peculiar not by its geography, but by its people.

Featuring...

Paleontologist Jen Lighthouse Keeper Alice Bog Witch Lilia History Scribe Billy Cosmic Chaos Causer Rio Grieving + Murderous Agatha because I can never just let her have a happy life in my fics

[dyssonant-skyline]

So I had some ideas for my rewrite of the Ring's of Hell... geography wise... but your idea for the rings of Hell/circles is very interesting and your ideas are very fascinating tbh

the rewrite: Hell's geography exists as a distinct dimension situated beneath the Mortal Plane, known as the Human Hellaverse Realm. Protected by a block of eldritch entites/matter/dead stuff and dead stars, dark matter and asteriods (idk about this though) This underworld structure resembles a funnel or an inverted cone, comprising seven progressively smaller realms organized into seven concentric levels or rings. These rings lead down to a rift that serves as a gateway into the Abyss, described as an infinite, turbulent sea within the Omniverse, representing the primal dimension of this vast cosmic reality. The transitions between the rings are not merely physical; they entail shifts across existential planes, acting as conduits that facilitate travel for denizens using Hellavators to move between the different levels.

These infernal express elevators are a luxury reserved for the privileged few. Sinners, the general denizens of Hell, are firmly rooted in their designated rings. Only with the express permission of a Sin or the elite Lucifer Clan can they hope to obtain a travel clearance, a permit rarely granted and fiercely coveted. Centuries of wear and tear on the infernal express elevators have taken their toll. The immense pressure from the rings above has fractured the crust between them, creating a network of treacherous tunnels. These cracks, invisible to the untrained eye, offer a desperate escape route for some sinners. Driven by the allure of a better life or fleeing hardships like Valentino's exploitation in Pride, they embark on a perilous journey through the "tunnels."

The safest passage comes at a steep price. Shady hellborn, often from Greed, have mapped their own routes, acting as guides or selling these maps for exorbitant sums. They exploit the desperation of sinners, charging outrageous fees for potentially incomplete information. Most, however, brave the tunnels alone or in small groups. The uncharted labyrinth swallows them whole, offering a chance of escape but no guarantee of reaching their desired destination. They might even find themselves back where they started, their hearts crushed.

This is only rudimentary I may add more things later tho

This sounds super interesting!! I love the funnel structure/cosmology a lot. Especially the portal/rift at the bottom. Not sure if it is an allusion to Inferno where Dante goes to the bottom of hell and ends up in purgatory? (I really like Inferno's set up of hell can you tell? haha)

Hellavators are rad and I like the lore you set up with tunnels, I feel like there is a lot to explore there. It sounds like you've really thought through the tunnels and how hell's society would interact and react to them. Have you thought about what kinds of caves you'd base them off of or if they would differ between layers?

You sent this a long time ago so if you've gotten to think or iterate on this even more I'd like to hear about it!

[baeddel]

thismorning i've been reading some articles, posts, student guidelines, etc. about "plagarism vs. allusion" or "plagiarism vs. intertextuality", partially out of some anxiety about my own writing that contains allusions. doing so i found this article (click), which talks about plagiarism in relation to philosophy. he says that plagiarism in philosophy was common 'as late as Hume' and describes it like this: "philosophers would rehearse the arguments of those before them, often in direct, but unsourced, quotes."

i know that people do see it that way (there was controversy a while ago about Kripke stealing arguments from somebody else), but it still surprises me. in that post, a couple of parts down, about fighting, i rehearsed arguments made by Clausewitz in On War. Clausewitz talks about the difference between existential conflicts concerning the fate of nations and conflicts which are merely about capturing one or two provinces, etc. he also distinguished between a tendency towards 'total war', a full exertion of force, which is limited by the concrete factors of reality concerning the political situation, financial commitments, the geography, and so forth. then he says that the interaction between the tendency towards total war and the limitations imposed by reality produce the specific character of the actual war. i'm using these ideas in the post, and i try to flag it by using the same language; when i talk about fights which are and are not 'existential', and how specific fights are produced by the restrictions placed on them. i'm obviously thinking about one-on-one combat using the arguments i read in Clausewitz.

but i don't mention Clausewitz in the post. am i plagiarizing Clausewitz, so doing? i'm not going quite as far as the quote describes by copying whole sections, but things like the Kripke controvery were over something much closer. probably nobody would accuse me of plagiarism for it; but if, for example, i wrote a book where i went into the argument in more detail, and a reviewer noticed the dialectic from Clausewitz, even using some of the same terms, they might say: 'this hack writer is trying to pass off Clausewitz' arguments as their own!' and accuse me of plagiarism. at that point, they would probably have a good argument, pointing to those sections which i mentioned and showing the similarity in the same way, perhaps also illustrating it with quotes from On War's opening chapter. at this point, many people might be convinced that i was trying to pass off Clausewitz's arguments as my own. similarly, if i was a student and i handed it to a professor, and they had just the night before been reading about Clausewitz, they might recognize a few key terms and become suspicious that i'm cheating; after their suspicion has been roused they could find plenty of confirmation in a similar way.

in most of the articles, posts and student guidelines i read (including the linked one), the difference between plagiarism and intertextuality or allusion is handled by some version of this: authors include allusions because they want you to recognize the allusion, while authors who plagiarize don't want you to notice. however, in the case of philosophy or non-fiction, doesn't this kind of break down? i don't necessarily hope you notice that i'm borrowing the ideas from Clausewitz. instead, i'm writing the post to work out my own thoughts about it. and because i've read Clausewitz, my thoughts are influenced by the arguments that Clausewitz made. this is where the idea of plagiarizing arguments is problematic to me—isn't the entire point of reading a philosophical book that i hope i will actually start thinking that way? why learn the arguments if not to make them?

[waltzing-rats]

MUSASHI HIGH SCHOOL HEADCANNONS

Tenga too!! Pretty Please

Wow okay! Thanks for the big ask anon!

(This is all my brain being silly mixed with my personal interpretation of the characters. If anything seems ooc i am sorry, and feel free to share your own headcannons on these two!)

High School Headcannons

Musashi ‼️

To me, he seems like the kind of person who gets along with literally everyone (especially the jocks) but has a hard time actually making close friends. I think he misses the BIC sometimes (and onigawara yoohoo)

Y’all know how in season 3 ep 1, he says he basically has no plan for high school and expects to help out at his family’s farm afterwards? Well, what if he runs into the same problem mob has in s3 and basically has an existential crisis. :)

Like. Maybe he can’t focus on academic stuff and he feels bad about it, so he pushes himself a lot in sports, to the point where people have to tell him like ‘dude you’re gonna break your bones’.

On a lighter note, i think it’d be cute if, during weekends, he and Tenga do study sessions so they can both stay afloat (and hang out more often)

Tenga helps him with essays and language subjects while Musashi helps Tenga with biology and geography :3

This is more of a self indulgent one, what if he joins the school hockey team huh. What then. C’maaahhh he’d look STELLAR in those uniforms

His guy classmates sometimes talk about the girls they’re talking to, or just general romance stuff, and he sits there like •_• i do not think this man’s love life improves

To add onto the hockey thing, I’m certain that the BIC takes him to dinner after games. It’s like a ritual

Goes for a run every day :3 he’s real stubborn about this.

This is the kinda guy who needs to be tied to his bed when he’s sick.

Oh but you know he listens in on gossip sessions. Nosy king

Tenga 🌀

He goes to that art high school but he’s still really timid about it. Like he basically only shows his art for class critique and to Musashi (:3)

I feel like he gets more and more punk in his fashion as he gets older. Spiked jackets, fingerless gloves, chunky tall boots, the whole package! I feel like, as he leaned away from the gang aesthetic, this was the next ‘rebellious’ dress style to try. (Don’t worry, the pomp stays)

He also can’t focus on academics, but it’s a bit different from Musashi. All in all, his grades are better than in middle school, but he still struggles with memorising and staying awake in class

I am a big advocate for neurodivergent Tenga, so I do think he gets overstimulated in class sometimes. Hides in the bathroom so he doesn’t snap at anyone though

Plays drums sometimes? Idk i can just see him making noise

Makes some friends, but has a hard time actually letting anyone in

Feeds the stray cats outside his block :) talks to them too (hes suuuper embarrassed about this)

He and Musashi text throughout the day :) once they both manage to emotionally open up, they just text randomly, whenever they want ( Tenga: MY SOCK GOT WET Musashi: My teacher yelled at me :/)

Y’all KNOW he doodles on the edges of his notebooks. Oh and i think he develops carpal tunnel at some point because of the constant writing and drawing, poor boy :(

He’s just a sleepy guy… he just wants to nap please let him nap on his desk don’t wake him up with your calculus just let the punk boy have his sleepy time (Anemia? Maybe he needs more sleep than other kids?)

Exercises whenever he can (sometimes he can’t bring himself to and he feels guilty about it)

[cheesefromthegreatbeyond]

UPDATED INTRO POST

Hiya! I’m Linkus!

I use any pronouns, so that’s cool

I’m lesbian and genderfluid

Here are things I like:

whatever I’m hyperfixated on (as of writing this it’s tf2)

dungeons and dragons!

video games (animal crossing, Minecraft, terraria and tf2)

cool people!!!

things i don’t like:

Existential thoughts (if you know me irl you’ll get this)

Pointless argumentz

irritating sounds

Interests

Tf2

Mouthwashing

The Stanley Parable

warrior cats

wings of fire

regretevator

books

geography

singing

playing violin

im Scottish!!! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I know @criminalcinnamon, @emilynyaesmp, @brilliantburmese and @i-eat-worms-for-breakfast @mochazoo irl so that’s cool

Music I like:

spinifex gum (sang with them in London once, top teir)

the burning hell (recorded a couple cassette tapes with them that was cool)

Nick cave & the bad seeds (just peak. Do I need a reason)

the rants (someone I know’s son is in it so that’s cool)

Black Country, new road (idk theyre cool)

Miracle musical (why not)

Will Wood & The Tapeworms

Tally Hall

uhh yeah that’s basically it

have a nice day 😊

[skinks]

I guess above anything else I’m just fascinated by how things are constructed or designed, plus the theories and logistics behind why they’re designed that way. whether that’s about the design principles applied to something massive like a theme park or industrial shipping yard, or the mechanical building blocks of musical instruments + artistic influences that go into constructing a score for a film, for instance. tell me how that shit is made please. and why. it’s actually no wonder film is so special to me because not only is the final product a work of art that can move you existentially, but the actual physical production of a film is a beautiful triumph of logistics and construction. AND THEN!! most infrastructural design is subject first and foremost to the limitations of its location, which is where the maps come in. I love navigation and maps so much… human history is shaped by geography, and everything we’ve invented has to take it into account… maps are an account of everything we can see and where we can go and what we can do there. in 2025 I’m gonna get really into radios. and orienteering. yes I did already produce a radio show for 4 years in high school but I would like to take a walkie talkie apart and go for a walky talk somewhere

[crmsnmth]

Time's a Bitch, Change is a Bastard

The venues we earned our punk rock pedigree in don't exist anymore because everything changes And there's new bars where the old one's were standing Even the geography of the sidewalks changes I regret not taking more pictures Grabbing stills for the days when I grow old See that person, remember that name But we lived in moments which we carelessly believed we didn't need pictures because we knew it happened

The lake shore has changed from the nights we'd circle it sneaking off into the cemetery to mess with kids on Halloween Keeping tradition alive but now all those traditions change Nobody follows our rituals, they made they're own It's slightly depression as you begin to realize your age And that ever closer existential crisis is coming Because everyone dies and you have to face it because death is one of the rare things that never changes

The style we wore is out and being made fun of and I still dress the same as I did back in 2008 Because, like death, I can't seem to figure out how to change At least I stick to my convictions and swore this wasn't a phase, mom.

[tyrantisterror]

It struck me that my little fictional world didn't have its own take on the Eldritch Abomination trope, and that felt like a big oversight since it is one of my favorite monster archetypes (even if I'm annoyed at how often the label gets thrown onto monsters that don't really count these days). So I tried to figure out where in my cosmology I could fit something that counts well enough, and eventually came to a solution that satisfied me.

In my setting, magic comes from the astral plane, i.e. the dimension between the mortal world and the afterlife, which is limitless like the latter but shaped by the imaginations and minds of creatures that live in the former. Magic leaks out into the mortal world during the Lost Epoch, strengthening the connection between the astral plane and the mortal world, giving even more substance to the concepts that have been developing in the astral plane.

While some mortals wander into the astral plane and colonize it, creating fairylands within it, there are depths of the plane that are too divorced from reality for mortals to enter safely. This is where the true Fae come to be - creatures not made of matter mutated by magic, but of pure magic itself, which is to say, creatures of pure imagination. There as as many of these beings a there are normal mortals, but the strongest of them are the Eldritch Dream Lords, who represent recurring dream motifs that mortals have. They include:

The Lord of the Chase: a primal source of dread made manifest, it is the Thing That Is Going to Fucking Get You.

The Lord of Anxiety: a more complex, existential dread, focusing on humiliating horrors like the loss of hair, teeth falling out, or being naked in public at inopportune moments.

The Lord of Beauty: all that we find lovely and attractive, often exaggerated to impossible extremes and so compelling that we hate to leave its side.

The Lord of Flight: the rush of being able to escape the confines of gravity and the limits of one's mortal form, and to soar high into the splendid unknown with newfound power.

The Lord of Falling: the sensation that one is plunging deep down and fast to an inescapable doom.

The Lord of the Depths: a vast and cavernous space that one is falling into, enormous, inescapable, dark, and lonesome.

The Lord of Comfort: the sensation of being at ease, at home, with what is familiar and pleasant.

The Lord of the Labyrinth: the uncanny and endless geography of the dreamscape itself made manifest, an infinite procession of buildings and locales all sewn together in a ceaseless maze that mortal minds wander through without purpose or end in sight.

There is no death in the domain of the dream lords, for they are so far from the mortal world that death holds no meaning. Everything in their realm is endless, nothing is impossible, and yet they desire to escape it. Without mortal imaginations, they will lose shape and substance, and the individuality they've developed will fade away, which is a prospect they despise. They want nothing more than to fuse their realm with the mortal world, to make imagination real, and to walk among the mortals who shaped them into what they are. The consequences of this could be disastrous for mortal kind, because if imagination became real, then every horror mortals have thought up would become real in an instant. It would quite possibly end badly for the Dream Lords too, as they would now be prey to death, a force they have never understood. So perhaps it is best that, so far at least, their desire to become one with the mortal world seems quite impossible.

But impossibility, like death, is something they can't comprehend.

[centrally-unplanned]

Could you elaborate on when Israel was legitimately under threat of conquest? I thought they were always militarily superior?

In recent years yes, but they didn't started that way. They double+ did not start that way in 1948! But it does require clarification. The Arab-Israeli war was intensely lopsided:

The population of the countries arrayed against Israeli was easily 10 to 1; with far more equipment and resources at their disposal. And while how much of this was rhetoric vs reality is intensely disputed, the Arab League put out many statements for public consumption of their intent to expel the Jewish population and ~maybe kill them all, so given the lopsided numbers and the rhetoric of ethnic cleansing you can see how this war would be seen, both in Israel and abroad, as existential.

Now, it turned out in this conflict the Arab states were a bunch of bickering idiots, far more invested to their selfish ambitions and personal vendettas, and commanding famously incompetent armies. They were highly non-committal to the operation; the tiny Israeli population actually fielded a larger army than the whole Arab coalition, and Jordan for example marched in, annexed, the West Bank, then promptly stopped fighting. So Israel won the war handily; but you really can't take this too far. If these countries ever decided to stop being incompetent morons, then it would be a very different story - their combined resources vastly overwhelmed Israel's, and the geography of Israel means that the moment they lose once, they can lose permanently.

And through the 1950's up until about the 1970's, that threat was ever-present. Both sides were intensely aggressive to the others and in particular Egypt & Syria continued to have strong political forces pushing for military action. They were frequently supported by the Soviet Union giving them arms & aid; at one point Egypt and Syria actually united as one country! The United Arab Republic, 1958 to 1961, and Israel was a strong motive for that union (though Jordan was more of one), only undone by a coup in Syria in 1961. Israel faced insurgent attacks on civilians sponsored openly by its neighbors all through the 1950's and 1960's, and fights three major wars against Egypt and sometimes Syria - in particular in the Yom Kippur War Israel suffers some its first major defeats at the hands of Egypt, showing their growing strength. At this point its not actually in the cards for anyone to 'remove' Israel, but Egypt & Syria still haven't recognized Israel as a country, so the tension is still very high. Israel does a ton of shit too ofc, taking sides isn't the point; you can just see that the situation is very tense, and Israel is up against countries that vastly outnumber it and are always one bad battle away from occupying the small country. This is only 'safe' if you constantly presume incompetence on Egypt, Syria, & Jordan's part; that isn't a safe assumption.

After 1973, however, the US and others help broker a permanent peace between Egypt & Israel, which culminates in the 1978 Camp David accords and Egypt recognizes Israel. They have been at peace since. Also fun fact, this is part of why the US gives annual blank check military aid to Israel - we give military aid to Egypt too, still do to this day! We essentially bribed them into making peace. But anyway, after this Israel never faces a real threat from a large state army; instead its all terrorist organizations in Lebanon and stuff like that. So in the 1970's through to the 1990's the Israeli security situation shifts from being surrounded by large countries actively organizing military operations against them to every single one of them abandoning that goal, and pushing for things like a two state solution in Palestine instead.

So to move to opinions, you can see how from 1948 to 1978, once the fallout from the formation of Israel is settled and you aren't gonna try to eliminate a sovereign nation because that is what we call a bad idea, there are going to be a lot of moments where you need to back Israel to keep the peace (like if the USSR is pumping weapons into Egypt, its the Cold War, you balance it). US policy towards Israel, alongside most European countries, is formed in this time around that dynamic. But in the modern era all these threats are gone - Jordan isn't going to try to conquer Israel, that is fucking ridiculous. But Israel still acts like that is a thing, like it needs "security space", and like its military isn't vastly superior and its neighbors aren't trying anymore to compete with that. And US policy is locked into indulging that.