#I put down some fundamental ideas

[bunnimy]

Everytime I try to write a fanfic of mcd or mystreet I just end up thinking of the whole story from start to finish in my head and realize a whole hour later that I never typed anything down

[dankovskaya]

I put on attack of the clones last night for background noise but I ended up actually just watching probably 80% of it and the funniest shit in the world possibly the best moment in the entire prequel trilogy is when they first get to Naboo and check in with the queen + council and they're just talking abt the republic and keeping her safe whatever the fuck and then one of them finally acknowledges Anakin like "Master Jedi what do you suggest?" and Padmé INSTANTLY says "Oh Anakin isn't a JEDI he's just a padawan learner. So basically I was thinking--" and Anakin. Reasonably. Is like "Hold on a second" and she cuts him off AGAIN like "EXCUSE ME. Anyway, I was thinking..." and makes him fight for his life to actually get w word out. Literally WHY does she do that to him its so fucking funny.

[dee-the-red-witch]

How to ACTUALLY date a trans girl

(This column was originally submitted to Autostraddle as a reply to their "A Trans Guy’s Guide to Picking Up a Trans Girl" but since they've apparently passed on it, it gets to be posted up free everywhere else instead.) Picture this- you’re a trans woman who’s been in transition for three years now. Your dating life has gone from abysmal to amazing in alternate fits and spurts and you’ve found not just one, but three awesome partners despite the many, MANY pitfalls you’ve experienced along the way. And then one day, your social media feeds ping up with screencaps of a guide to picking up girls like yourself. Needing a good laugh, you click through. And read. And proceed to smack your forehead with your own palm in frustration a few times and giggle and some other lines on the first readthrough. But things feel off, so you read again. And begin to seethe. And then start opening up the Word document and start typing frenziedly into it. Because honestly? At the end of the day, as a trans lesbian who dates all sorts of people on non-male parts of the amorphous spectral mass that is Gender, I feel like I’m obligated to. I wanted to go into that first reading and find a column that actually got things right, and this was so far off the mark in the worst ways, so I feel like I have to set some things down on paper. Because this guide reads, in so many ways, like everything my cisfem friends have complained about in the straight dating scene for years. Reading through it that second time, I felt almost the exact same sense of of sheer grease and sleaze that I’ve felt reading incel pickup guides. I felt like I was being seen as a pretty object at best and a disposable sex toy at worst. I wasn’t treated as human. At best it was a bunch of stereotypes, none of which applied to me. But under it all, I saw other bits- the tricks an abuser used to lure me in. The lies my rapist fed me. The excuses made by folks online for why I should be treated like a monster or thing because of my identity. You know, the specific blend of misogyny that singles out transfem identities in general- transmisogyny. And since we’re addressing the elephant in the room, I want to address a few particular points from Gabe’s article before I give you some real idea of how to go about this. And I want to emphasize here- this is after editing out a page of swearing, going over Gabe’s own past history of transmisogynistic writing, and just cutting it down to the actual points where the original article really went wrong, and also pick up a few points at the end that’ll actually work well for trans guys or anyone else who might be interested in a relationship with a trans girl. First off, if you’re trans as well? Stop playing the ‘we’re both trans’ card. ESPECIALLY if you’re coming at it from a ‘Why yes, I used to be a woman’ angle. For one, you’re telling us at the same time that you see us as former men, which is usually very much not the transfem experience (Personally, I always felt like I was putting on a ‘man’ act. All the time. Badly.) and for another, you’re being transphobic to yourself and your own identity. If we’re there to date you, it’s as the man you are- be that guy.

Secondly, just because the trans woman experience shares similarities with the experience you had trying to be a woman up until you came out and transitioned, it also has staggering fundamental differences, and your attempts to relate are going to highlight those differences in ways that aren’t going to work in your favor. We didn’t get to go shopping in public, or if we did, it was fraught with fear at being caught out in the early stages of transition, followed by massive frustrations with both trying to figure out where we fit into women’s sizing. And then discovering that absolutely nothing available in local stores, including thrift shops, would fit right, especially not that cute choker we’d always been drooling over. That nothing smelled right for lotion or perfume because we were dealing with a body chemistry that was going through a slow shift on HRT. And we don’t need or want to be reminded of just how much we stand out from the other girls in those kind of regards.

Also, maybe, just maybe, don’t do things that would get seen as completely misogynistic and creepy if you pulled them on a cisgender woman. Don’t go digging into her socials- stalkers and chasers pull that crap and it’s beyond tiresome. Don’t try to deduce what her pretransition life was like, that’s for her to share, if she chooses to. Don’t see her as a stereotype- some of us never played New Vegas, owned cat ears, or like thigh-highs. On that first date if you ever get there, don’t bring her flowers, lovebomb her like mad, constantly find little ways to touch her, any of that- if she has any experience, she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop in response, because she’s had this treatment before and it ended oh so badly. Just be yourself. And get it through your head that the bear is still definitely a choice regardless of everything- after all, we have examples like Gabe to prove that transmisogyny certainly isn’t limited to cis folks.

What should you do? Treat her like any other woman. Treat her like a human being, because we get so little of that, even from the rest of the LGBTQIA+ community. Yes, you’ll more than likely have to take initiative, because we’re used to seeing our attractions, needs, and desires as being perceived as aggressive or predatory by others. When you touch her, do it with assertion and intent- none of the little brushes and stalker moves- ask if you can hold her hand, or put an arm around her, so she knows you actually want to be here and want contact with her. Listen to her, and pay attention- let her be open and honest about her experiences and interests, and remember what she tells you, because she’s going to need to know that she’s wanted and valued for who she is and what she’s into, and it will be part of how she connects to you. And finally? Common sense and communication- every last one of us is different in a lot of ways, and asking or making room to talk about things from physical contact and sex to social activity or group outings or anything else can save a lot of blunders from ever happening. All in all you can and should date trans women! Please! A lot of the best relationships I’ve ever had were with other trans girls and I don’t regret any of those. But you have to put down the pickup guides, stop seeing us as fetish dispensers and sexy lampshades, and actually deal with us as people, first.

[grunckle]

On stars, guardians, and Rain World’s cosmology.

One aspect of Rain World lore that’s asked about quite a lot but normally never gets satisfying answers is the topic or Rain World’s space/universe/cosmology. Despite first impressions though, there’s a lot more it than meets the eye, so I thought I would compile most everything we know about it.

For one, to get it out of the way, Rain World isn’t on a planet, and its universe is fundamentally different from our own. This is something Joar has talked about on occasion.

He also said on an earlier dev log how Rain World functions more like a fantasy world where it doesn’t hold much relevance than a real sci-fi like planet.

“Oh, another thing - Rain World isn't a planet lol Cheesy Or I guess it might probably be on a planet, just as Lord of The Rings, Sex And The City, Zelda and Frankenstein's Monster are probably technically on a planet, but just as in those examples the planet aspect isn't really relevant at all. Rain World is more of a fantasy world or a dream world, not somewhere you can go in a space ship ~”

But even if it’s not incredibly relevant, it’s clear a lot of thought was put into Rain Worlds fictional cosmology, this was even mentioned by James.

So, that being said here's what we know about Rain World's cosmology in game.

The biggest indicator of Rain World's unique cosmology is that the Farm Arrays deep pink pearl just mentions celestial spheres, which are aspects of older cosmological models.

"This one is just plain text. I will read it to you. "On regards of the (by spiritual splendor eternally graced) people of the Congregation of Never Dwindling Righteousness, we Wish to congratulate (o so thankfully) this Facility on its Loyal and Relished services, and to Offer our Hopes and Aspirations that the Fruitful and Mutually Satisfactory Cooperation may continue, for as long as the Stars stay fixed on their Celestial Spheres and/or the Cooperation continues to be Fruitful and Mutually Satisfactory." ...May Not as long as the Stars stay fixed on their Celestial Spheres Grey Hand, Impure Blood, Inheritable Corruption, Parasites, or malfunction settle in Your establishment."

More subtly, there's also a mention of the ground colliding with the sky.

"If you leave a stone on the ground, and come back some time later, it's covered in dust. This happens everywhere, and over several lifetimes of creatures such as you, the ground slowly builds upwards. So why doesn't the ground collide with the sky? Because far down, under the very very old layers of the earth, the rock is being dissolved or removed. The entity which does this is known as the Void Sea."

You could chalk this line up to flowery language, but considering the presentation of the rest of the dialogue, it sounds more like an actual aspect of this world.

We know from the Chimney Canopy echo that the sun rises.

"From within my vessel of flesh, I would perch upon this spot to observe the rising of the sun."

And from the top of The Wall we can see the moon and stars (confirmed to be stars by Joar in the previous screenshot, instead of satellites or something else) , which are green!

So, what does this all mean? I think we can entail a few things with what they've given us.

For one, the mention of the ground colliding with the sky implies some sort of firmament, which isn't an unusual concept in the general realm of celestial spheres.

But on the topic of celestial spheres, the pearl actually isn't the only place we see the concept. Guardian halos are very similar to depictions of celestial spheres, and also astrological clocks.

You can make of this as you will, perhaps the astrological references being tied to guardians could hint at the nature of karma, but there isn't much to really delve into that idea.

For what it's worth, celestial spheres are also core concepts in Gnosticism, which Rain World is heavily inspired by. I explain it more in this post about Void Worms, but for a quick synopsis in Gnosticism there are seven planetary spheres, and an eighth above them; the planets and stars are fixed to their spheres. These things just further cement the fact that celestial spheres seem to be a key aspect of Rain World's cosmology, and it would also likely imply it's universe follows a geocentric model.

For a bit of a more out-there theory, people have pointed out how the view atop the wall stretches really far, going far beyond what we could see on a spherical planet like Earth, which has led some to theorize that the world is also flat.

But what is probably the most important aspect of Rain World's cosmology is the nature of dust. Dust builds up, and the bedrock of the world is eaten away at by the Void Sea. Civilizations rise and fall into the sea as new ones are built above it. Many, including myself, believe that the world exists in a sort of state of equilibrium. The world is dissolved from the bottom, then that falls back on the world as dust; even in the final moments of the game we see dust suspended in the void sea depths.

And hey, even void worms are described as being star-like.

"Oh, interesting. This is a diary entry of a pre-Iterator era laborer during the construction of the subterranean transit system south of here. In it they describe restless nights filled with disturbing dreams, where millions glowing stars move menacingly in the distance."

Cyclical, recursive, something else entirely? We can never really pin down the true nature of Rain World's cosmology, but the things we do get hint at something strange and unique. It's such an interesting aspect of the lore, and it seems like Videocult will continue to make mysterious cosmologies in their future projects...

[foodfightnovelization]

ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight

Holy chips! It's an exciting time to be a Foodfight! fan, because ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight is finally out! This really is THE definitive documentary on the insanity behind the movie, and it finally answers the question of just what was going on behind the scenes during production. Since I helped out with research (and I even get a short line of dialogue at 45:19) I've already seen everything that was shown off, but had to keep quiet until all the interviews were conducted and the documentary was finished. But now it's out and everything has been made public, the cat's out of the bag (the Fat Cat Burglar?) and I can talk about all the production material that's been shared.

Before I get into any of that though, I'd highly recommend you watch the documentary for yourself. It's insanely well researched and put together, and having worked together with Ziggy Cashmere (the documentary's creator) I know how hard he dedicated himself towards making this all possible. If it weren't for him, the most interesting Foodfight! discovery would've been finding the novelization, and we would have never gotten any real insight into how this movie came to be. It's also a documentary that really speaks for itself- I don't want to say too much about what it reveals since it's all expressed far better through its narrative and the interviews with people who actually worked on the project. My favorite is the interview with texture artist Mona Weiss- she tells such horrifying stories about how she was treated by Larry and other crewmembers, yet does it all with a sense of humor that makes it clear she's enjoying getting to talk about her crazy experiences. It's clear Foodfight! was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish, and there's nobody to blame for that but Larry Kasanoff himself. The movie was rotten from the top down and despite the countless talented animators and artists working on it, nothing could fix the fact that it was fundamentally mismanaged in the worst way possible. I think the quote from producer George Johnsen summarizes it best: "Foodfight! was a good idea that unfortunately lost its way during production. The technology, the art, and the direction were not in sync. Many very talented people gave their all to make the picture, but more understanding of process from the top was needed for it to succeed."

But if you saw the documentary, you already know all that, right? So instead, let's talk about the behind-the-scenes material that's finally been shared! You can find everything I'll talking about HERE on archive.org-

It's worth following the link and checking it out for yourself- there's so much it'd impossible to discuss everything. Artwork, storyboards, bloopers, models, a nude render of Lady X, an interview with Larry Kasanoff, the list goes on and it's still being updated! Despite the documentary already being out, people who worked on the movie are continuing to share new material! It's pretty incredible- for the past year I've ran this blog all I've really had to discuss are two tie-in books, and now there's so much Foodfight! material I can't even keep up with it.

I mean LOOK at all this, isn't it fantastic? The character art by Jim George showing off just how much better these designs originally were, the countless environments showing off just how stunning Marketropolis could've looked as well as the strength of the core idea "what if a supermarket came to life at night", and insanely detailed storyboards for a 7-minute pitch reel that was used to sell the movie to investors. Normally, I'd be ALL OVER this because it's all just incredible, but there's something far, FAR more fascinating than any of it.

There are even multiple drafts of the script (one from 2005 and one from 2007 respectively) and normally I'd be insanely fascinated by those too, making extremely detailed posts explaining the differences between the drafts and how they compare to the novelization, but there's something else that was found that blows ALL of this out of the water and is easily one of the most monumental lost media discoveries of ALL TIME.

That's right, a rough cut of the ENTIRE movie from 2005 has been found, containing nearly ALL the completed animation from earlier on in production. I mean, that's mindblowing right? We first got sent this around a month ago, a little while before the documentary came out, and I literally stopped everything I was doing at work to just sit and watch this. This is the closest we're ever going to get to the "original" version of Foodfight! after all- only 7 minutes of footage was ever actually made before they switched to mocap, made solely for the aforementioned pitch reel, and this workprint contains practically all of it! On top of that there are some great storyboards in here, as well as some truly hilarious ones cobbled together from 3D renders, and the plot is far better than what we ended up with, a lot of the more inappropriate jokes being absent. This rough cut is actually pretty similar to the novelization in that regard, and it also contains scenes that we'd previously only read about in there.

For example, in the novelization there's a snowmobile chase through the mountains, with Brand X soldiers on snowmobiles and a heavy avalanche close behind. This scene was completely left out of the movie itself, but in this workprint it's here! ALL the previously novelization-exclusive scenes are included, and this rough cut is seemingly based on an even earlier draft of the script than that- here Brand X are still defeated by a flood, whereas by the time of the novelization it'd been changed to a lightning storm. There are SO many exciting differences in this workprint, the snippets of original animation we get to see are SO good, and it's SO much better than the movie itself that I think it by far deserves the crown as the DEFINITIVE version of Foodfight! There's so much in it I want to discuss, that there's no way I can fit it all into this one post...so stay tuned, because in the next few days I'll be doing a FULL analysis of the 2005 workprint, pointing out all the extra brand mascots not in the finished film, and generally just gushing about how amazing it is.

I mean, this is it. Just take it all in for a second- the original footage was considered lost media for over a decade, and now it's practically been found in its entirety, embedded in an early cut of the whole movie...isn't that just phenomenal? All the mysteries have been unraveled, all the questions have been answered, and now we can relax, take a deep breath, and watch Foodfight!...the REAL Foodfight! Make sure to enjoy it, and join me next time for my analysis!

[antigonick]

Wait why do you hate mike flannigan? Just curious

Oh boy...

Because I think he sucks. I think he's a marketing-thirstrap who likes to use titles of horror classics to get some attention on his work, but he strips them of everything that makes them them, and fills it back up with vapid, unnuanced, trashy surface level bullshit. I love creative and liberal adaptation, but his "adaptations" are title and cultural-aura thefts to sell the absolute nothingness of his clumsy, clunky, tell-but-never-show stories. He's performative as hell (empty representation / tokenisation, apparently unaware discrimination glorified as awareness, empty rotating of cast and archetypes with no exploration whatsoever, empty gesturing at political/ social/ philosophical ideas with no actual significance or values).

Most important of all for the topic (since this was about horror), he's hailed as a master of horror when he's just so, so, so terribly bad at it. To me, he literally works AGAINST what horror is about—its complexity, its subversiveness. What he does is making palatable what should unsettle us, what should make us think further than ourselves. There's something fundamentally political and philosophical about horror; capitalising on its simplification-for-consumption is symptomatic of something uglier and culturally-spreading that I HATE. Flanagan is a perfect agent of that. Everything has to be streamlined, simplified, dichotomised and flattened. If you can't deal with hidden messages, with nuance and mystery, with subtext, with blurring boundaries to the point of discomfort to yourSELF, you can't do horror. Flanagan leaves nothing to mystery, to ugliness, to the unexplained or the many-explained, to rawness or openness and layers (for someone who pretends to adapt Shirley Jackson and Henry James, what a joke).

All in all, he just shoves his boring, expected, chain-made story beats down your throat, doesn't even bother with building a story beyond what he puts on screen (think even back to Hush, the complete lack of actual motivation from the aggressor, how fucking lazy can character writing be?). Then he razzle-dazzles that with a bit of gratuitous (and undeserved) shock-value on top to cover up his tracks, which just makes it more insulting. Tear-jerkers and animal death for success value? Yeah, as classy as everything else, I guess.

I feel like I've rambled a lot in this... okay enough bye

[arthur-lesters-middle-c-key]

I’ll forever be annoyed that Malevolent doesn’t stop to recognize the significance of a PIANIST choosing to bite off part of his PINKIE FINGER. No matter the hand, the pinkie is maybe the second most important digit for piano playing, behind the thumb. (Second and third fingers, SIT BACK DOWN.)

Your pinkies are hyper-attuned to hit the right notes in a root chord, pick out an overall melody while the rest of your hand is playing a harmony, hell, it’s the start of most scales. As a pianist, I’ve put years of procedural memory into training just my pinkie fingers to do their jobs and if I lost part of one I would be devastated, even as a hobbyist.

There’s so much symbolism potential there, too! I love that John in general has control of Arthur’s left hand, which on piano controls the low notes, the accompaniment to the melody, and the root and stability of almost anything you play. It mostly supports, though can sometimes intertwine with the right hand or branch off into cello-like melody of its own (chopin does this a lot it’s great). That conceptually fits John SO WELL. Not to mention the idea of Arthur being so guilt-ridden with Faroe’s death that he distances himself from being a pianist at any opportunity, only to be reeled in by an Eldritch force that explains EVERYTHING to him as piano… the possibilities make me scream.

…Unfortunately though, I don’t buy the ‘the symbolism is there’ argument for this one, it’s FAR too niche to expect the average audience to know what exactly a professional pianist would value (besides the ~oooooo no don’t break my hands~ beat that every pianist character in a thriller/horror/action story ever seems to have gone through at some point), and malevolent goes out of its way so often to explain symbolism.

I think my frustration is that Arthur having trauma surrounding piano, losing direct control of his left hand, and losing/replacing his top pinkie joint, doesn’t have many narrative consequences. (Didn’t even talk about how a wooden pinkie would probably fundamentally change the sound/timbre of your playing, which would be cool to see reflected.) Arthur seems to be able to play piano fine even with John controlling his hand, and enthusiastically does so at several points post- starting to process Faroe’s death in the dreamlands. It’s fine as a narrative choice, there’s a story to tell after all, but I’ll always miss the character intricacy that could come from exploring these consequences and backstory specifics.

[yandere-daydreams]

tw - fem!reader, emotional manipulation, possessive behavior, prolonged imprisonment.

“Mistress prisoner?”

There was a knock, the sound of hoofed feet shuffling against a tile floor. You shrunk into yourself, suddenly thankful you’d chosen to take such a claustrophobic linen closet to seek refuge in, that Neuvillette’s awful gowns provided so much fabric for you to bury yourself in.

“Mistress prisoner? Are you alright?”

Another knock, a round of hushed whispering. Clearly, he’d sent more than one, this time.

“Should we get a healer for you, mistress?”

You swore under your breath, burying your face in your knees. Curse your bleeding heart.

Slowly, taking pains to wipe the lingering tears from your cheeks without wrinkling the fine silk of your sleeve, you pushed yourself to your feet. He was a bastard of a man, an underhanded thief masquerading as the living embodiment of justice, but tragically, Neuvillette had caught on to the only weakness you had in this palace of unearned punishments and hollow promises. You would be able to bear it if he thought of you as a petulant child, too stubborn to accept his protection or his love, but you couldn’t bring yourself to be quite so heartless when it came to the melusines.

You pulled the door open, resting your shoulder against the frame. He’d sent three, this time – all wearing modified garde uniforms and none standing taller than your waist. They were clustered close together, but as you emerged, the centermost girl stepped forward, this one totting pastel pink skin and curling horns and cheeks you’d give anything to squeeze. “We spoke with Monsieur Neuvillette,” she started, clearly shy despite having appointed herself as the leader of their little group. When she paused, her gaze fell away from yours, dropping to her feet. “He said you wouldn’t mind if we asked why you don’t want to attend the opera with us, tonight.”  

Oh, you were going to throttle that old man.

You forced yourself to smile. No part of you wanted to be seen in public with your captor, to hear onlookers praise his kindness, his willingness to care for even the most irredeemable of criminals while knowing he wouldn’t make it past the first aria before finding some reason to pull you into some unused dressing room and abuse his authority yet again. But, explaining the length of your hatred to the creatures he showed so much fondness toward would be like trying to tell a child that their favorite candy was the source of their aching cavities. You were better off saving your breath. “Neuvillette didn’t mention that you’d be coming with us.”

“It was supposed to be a surprise.” It was the blue one, this time – with flowers dotted across her arms and legs and a tone so meek, it was all you could do not to take her into your arms and promise her that you’d go to as many operas as she could stand to attend. “He said it’d help to raise your spirits.”

You let out a soft coo, crouching down to their height. “It was a very sweet idea,” you said, fighting not to melt at the sight of their little, doe-like noses and big, star-filled eyes. “And I very much appreciate that you three would care enough to try and cheer me up. It’s only…”

You paused, clicked your tongue. Predictably, the third member of their little trio (who had yet to uncross her arms or drop her adorably pointed glare) chimed in. “What is it? We don’t have all day, y’know.”

“Well, I might not be at my best, but Monsieur Neuvillette’s been awfully lonely lately too.” Lonely – that was one way to put it. It was hard to imagine he’d even be capable of feeling anything so fundamentally human. “I’m afraid, if I’m having so much fun with all of you, he might feel a little left out. You can understand why I wouldn’t want to do that to him, can’t you?”

There was a round of nodding heads, of words of affirmation. The leader piped up first, both hands balled into fists and wide eyes bright with a resilient spark. “We won’t let Monsieur Neuvillette get lonely!”

“We won’t leave his side!”

“We’ll stick to him like glue!”

With a breath of a laugh, you pulled the little trio into your arms and press a kiss into the tops of their heads. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear, girls. I’ll see you at the opera house tonight, and remember–“

This time, you didn’t have to fake your smile.

“Don’t let Neuvillette go a moment without your delightful company.”

[starcurtain]

Some Evidence in Favor of Jade

One thing I've constantly seen in Jade hate posts is the idea that she's trapping good and innocent people like Aventurine and Topaz and chaining them down to the IPC.

But I actually think it's this act--choosing Aventurine and Topaz to be her proteges--that tells us a lot about whether Jade is a fundamentally bad person or not.

First, it's key to understand that Jade is in a significant position of power within the Stonehearts. When Diamond chooses not to appear, it's often Jade who goes in his place and acts as his voice. When it comes to making administrative decisions on who will get to join the Stonehearts, Jade had a direct hand in supporting Topaz's ascension (by accepting recommendations) and an even more direct role in Aventurine's ascension, choosing and testing him for the job herself.

So Jade is a character with enough power to have a strong say in who gets to become a leader in the IPC. She possesses enough authority and trust from Diamond to catapult a wanted murderer like Kakavasha straight up 45 ranks in the Star Rail universe's single most powerful corporate entity. She helps to decide who rules.

And who has she picked with that power?

Aventurine and Topaz are both good people. Although they'll do whatever is needed to advance the IPC's aims, they're both essentially kind-hearted and unwilling to put others at unnecessary risk. They both deeply value friendship and exhibit many of the other positive traits one associates with heroes--loyalty, generosity, gentleness, and honesty. Topaz takes a hit to her own reputation and rank to protect Belobog. Aventurine, infamous for high-stakes gambles, specifically spells out that he absolutely refuses to cheat his way to victory.

In an organization that is otherwise known for the literal colonization and extermination of civilizations--in an organization that puts wealth and material value above anything but their own god--in an organization with people like Obsidian who literally want to turn things into a bloodbath--Jade's top picks are both quintessentially good characters.

She is extracting value from them. She is profiting from their work for the IPC.

But Jade had the power to promote complete monsters into the Stonehearts. She could have picked heartless, profit-driven villains who would have forwarded the IPC's goals at the expense of the human element entirely. She could have promoted more evil into an already evil organization. But she did not. Jade chose to support two disadvantaged young people who had clawed their way up from the bottom while still maintaining their principles. At least two of the Ten Stonehearts are people the Trailblazer can associate with without extreme moral guilt, thanks in part to Jade.

The people that Jade chooses to throw her support behind mean something. Topaz and Aventurine's presence in the Stonehearts indicates that Jade is capable of not only recognizing goodness--but has actively chosen to elevate (at least relatively) moral people into positions of authority. This act, choosing to promote and support inherently decent human beings, speaks greatly to Jade's sense of who deserves power--and, from there, to her own sense of justice.

Just something worth thinking about, I feel.

[katakaluptastrophy]

You know how it goes: through some incredible circumstances, God and a young woman living under the shadow of an oppressive empire have a metaphysically unusual baby who grows up to be a general nuisance, won't stay dead, and sports a few additional holes...

It's the third Sunday of Advent and I'm a little concerned Bible studies for weird goth kids might be turning into a series... Let's talk about the Blessed Virgin Mary and Commander Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity.

Wake was probably never described as "gentle", "meek", or "mild", but there are a few similarities: distinctive outfits, snazzy shrines, commitment to putting down the mighty from their seats, and of course babies with great and terrible destinies niftily conceived without sex.

On the topic of conception, let's clear up a common, uh, misconception: the term "immaculate conception" does not refer to Mary becoming pregnant with Jesus. It's Mary's own conception.

Why are we talking about how Mary was conceived and what does this have to do with lesbian necromancers?

To answer that question, we have to go back further still, way before Mary's conception. Back to these guys and their unfortunate snack cravings:

Remember how last time we talked about the concept of being in a state of grace? Well, the Christian read on Adam and Eve is that a state of grace was, as it were, the factory setting for humanity. They were fully in tune with God, there was no sickness or death, there was no sin. Until, that is, the whole unfortunate business with the apple. The first sin. The world is fundamentally altered. Humanity is expelled from paradise, burdened with sin, death, disease, patriarchy, and work. Worse, this sinful human nature turns out to be sexually transmissible: every human being is born tainted by this "original sin" of Adam and Eve.

This is why Catholicism is so big on baptising babies: even if they're many years off being able to commit any sins themselves (a sin has to be something consciously chosen and understood), they're still contaminated by that original sin of Adam and Eve. Baptism is understood to erase original sin, wiping the slate clean.

Bear with me, we'll be back to necromancers soon I promise. Have a picture of Mary beating up the devil while an angel holds baby Jesus:

OK, but what does Adam and Eve's danger snack have to do with Mary's conception?

The "immaculate conception" refers to the idea that unlike every human being between Adam and Jesus, Mary was conceived without the contamination of original sin. The rationale for this is complex, but essentially boils down to something like the saving power of Jesus not being bound by piffling things like time and space and thus saving his mother before her own conception and allowing himself to also be conceived and born sinless.

But the important bit is that something specific about Mary means that she is uniquely able to be pregnant with Jesus.

You may be starting to guess where this is going...

Because while unconventional pregnancy seems to have been the plan from the get-go for Jesus, it was not with the artist formerly known as The Bomb:

“I had the baby,” said Wake. “The baby I’d had to incubate myself for nine long fucking months, when the foetal dummies these two gave me died.”

“Oh, God, it was yours,” said Augustine, in horror. “I thought you’d used in vitro on one of Mercy’s—”

“I said they all died,” said Wake. “The dummies died. The ova died. Only the sample was still active, no idea how considering it was twelve weeks after the fact, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“So you used it on yourself,” said Augustine. “Anything for the revolution, eh, Wake?”

We have to assume the foetal dummies plan was hatched by Mercymorn, a brilliant scientist with a myriad of experience. If the problem encountered by Wake were as simple as Lyctoral infertility, I suspect Mercy would have spotted that long before.

But what do Wake and John have in common that Mercymorn or any of the other ova-having residents of the Mithraeum did not? They are both (to some extent at least) factory setting humans: unlike everyone else in the Dominicus system, they never died and were resurrected, nor are they the descendants people who were. John's abilities, while macabre, are not straightforwardly the necromancy otherwise practiced in the Houses. That necromancy is a direct result of one specific act of taking that resulted in the very nature of the world changing: a thanergetic system, inhabited by human beings who, necromancer or not, are fundamentally tainted by thanergy and by the after effects of that action of John's. You might call it a sin. An indelible sin. He does.

It's not an exact parallel, but necromancy certainly occupies a space not dissimilar to original sin: the result of a single action, tainting every descendant of its progenitors regardless of their actions of abilities.

And then enter Gideon, born in space away from the thanergetic energy of the Dominicus system to a mother lacking the 10,000 year intergenerational burden of the resurrection and necromancy. The child of Jod, born to die.

[thejoyofseax]

Why We Can't Have Medieval Food

I noted in a previous post that I'd "expand on my thinking on efforts to reproduce period food and how we’re just never going to know if we have it right or not." Well, now I have 2am sleep?-never-heard-of-it insomnia, so let's go.

At the fundamental level, this is the idea that you can't step in the same river twice. You can put your foot down at the same point in space, and it'll go into water, but that's different water, and the bed of the river has inevitably changed, even a little, from the last time you did so.

Our ingredients have changed. This is not just because we can't get the fat from fat-tailed sheep in Ireland, or silphium at all anywhere, although both of those are true. But the aubergine you buy today is markedly different to the aubergine that was available even 40 years ago. You no longer need to salt aubergine slices and draw out the bitter fluids, which was necessary for pretty much all of the thing's existence before (except in those cultures that liked the bitter taste). The bitterness has been bred out of them. And the old bitter aubergine is gone. Possibly there are a few plants of it preserved in some archive garden, or a seed bank, or something, but I can't get to those.

We don't really have a good idea of the plant called worts in medieval English recipes. I mean, we know (or we're fairly sure) it was brassica oleracea. But that one species has cultivars as distinct as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, Savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, and gai lan (list swiped from Wikipedia). And even within "cabbage" or "kale", you have literally dozens of varieties. If you plant the seeds from a brassica, unless you've been moderately careful with pollination, you won't get the same plant as the seeds are from. You can crossbreed brassicas just by planting them near each other and letting them flower. And of course there is no way to determine what varietal any medieval village had, a very high likelihood that it was different to the village next door, and an exceedingly high chance that that varietal no longer exists. Further, it only ever existed for a few tens of years - before it went on cross-breeding into something different. So our access to medieval worts (or indeed, cabbage, kale, etc) is just non-existant.

Some other species within the brassica genus are as varied. Brassica rapa includes oilseed rape, field mustard, turnip, Chinese cabbage, and pak choi.

We have an off-chance, as it happens, of getting almost the same kind of apple as some medieval varieties, because apples can only be reproduced for orchard use by grafting, which is essentially cloning. Identification through paintings, DNA analysis, and archaeobotany sometimes let us pin down exactly which apple was there. But the conditions under which we grow those apples are probably not the same as the medieval orchard. Were they thinned? When were they harvested? How were they stored? And apples are pretty much the best case.

Medieval wheat was practically a different plant. It was far pickier about where it would grow, and frequently produced 2-4 grains per stalk. A really good year had 6-8. In modern conditions, any wheat variety with less than 30 grains per stalk would be considered a flop.

Meats are worse. Selective breeding in the last century has absolutely and completely changed every single species of livestock, and if you follow that back another five centuries, some of them would be almost unrecognisable. Even our heritage breeds are mostly only about 200 years old.

Cheese, well. Cheese is dependent on very specific bacteria, and there are plenty of conditions where the resulting cheese is different depending on whether it was stored at the back or front of the cave. Yogurts, quarks, skyrs, etc, are also live cultures, and almost certainly vary massively. (I have a theory about British cheese here, too, which I'll expand on in a future post)

So, even before you go near the different cooking conditions (wood, burnables like camel and cow dung, smoke, the material and condition of cooking pots), we just can't say with any reliability that the food we're making now is anything like medieval people produced from the same recipe. We can't even say that with much reliability over a century.

Under very controlled conditions, you could make an argument for very specific dishes. If you track down a wild mountain sheep in Afghanistan, and use water from a local spring, and salt from some local salt mine, then you can make a case that you can produce something fairly close to the original ma wa milh, the water-and-salt stew that forms the most basic dish in Arabic cookery. But once you start introducing domestic livestock, vegetables, or even water from newer wells, you're now adrift.

It is possible that some dishes taste exactly the same, by coincidence. But we can't determine that. We can't compare the taste of a dish from five years ago, let alone five hundred, because we're only just getting to a state where we can "record" a taste accurately. Otherwise it's memory and chance.

We've got to be at peace with this. We can put in the best efforts we can, and produce things that are, in spirit, like the medieval dishes we're reading about. But that's as good as it gets.

[frigidwife]

i would like to ask ur opinion on this bc u are one of maybe 5-6 iwtv blogs that i trust and i don't know if i am simply biased but i think u are very thoughtful and fair in ur analysis of iwtv. because even among self-proclaimed louis lovers/understanders, i have seen the idea that louis "could not and would not" save claudia from the fire, or choose her over armand, or that louis was also abusive to claudia if not the Most abusive, or that he "let" lestat/armand destroy her. and i agree that louis failed claudia in some ways (though saying that feels much too vague at this point) and that liking characters doesn't mean apologizing for their flaws and i understand the reflex to spotlight claudia's mistreatment as many fans are so quick to dismiss her importance. but i think people get so caught up in emphasizing claudia's tragedy that they end up falling into victim-blaming rhetoric and ironically de-legitimizing really important aspects of her character and impact. so i wanted to ask though, how do you think louis actually did fail claudia? and should we call claudia's death louis' failure?

ty for valuing my opinion 🥹 i agree w you completely people emphasize claudia's tragedy at total expense of her personality...which sucks bc i love her personality...i think louis actually primarily failed claudia in the exact way that every single parent fails their child. if you've read frankenstein it's about the inherent monstrosity of creation--inherent hubris of creating something whether it's a creature, a work of art (the novel itself!), or a child (shelley's miscarriages and her relationship with her parents haunt the novel). you create something that is a part of you and a mirror of you, you confer your expectations as naturally as breathing, even with the best of intentions, but now the creature/novel/child exists outside of you, outside of your body and your imagination, autonomous, with desires and effects you couldn't have dreamt of, and there is something terrifying and painful in that chasm even in the best of conditions. and this is more broadly true of loving anyone. and in that sense i don't think louis's turning of claudia is really more selfish than having a child ever is. it's not an aberrant or evil desire. so that's one layer.

and then the next layer is the conditions. louis cannot stop seeing claudia as his daughter, even if he calls her sister. she'll always be his daughter. and again this is an almost fundamental condition of being a parent. even if ur parents make an effort--and louis is making an effort--to see you as equals, that foundation is underlying it and can't come undone. the problem is that normally, even if maybe you're always a baby to your mom deep down, you're also functionally an adult in the real world. but claudia is an adult who is constantly belittled and condescended to and treated as a child from all corners. so she goes from louis who can't see her as her own person because he cant stop being her parent to an outside world that can't see her as her own person bc it's structured to deny children's autonomy, and girls' in particular, and especially black girls'. AND THEN the abuse. “you chose lestat over her again and again” i think people take daniel as word of god a lot even when the show has demonstrated that daniel is less than careful talking and thinking about abuse, when it comes to both louis and claudia. Louis chooses to take lestat back, can’t kill him for good, chooses to commit to armand, tells her to put up with the coven’s abuse. those are choices that hurt claudia terribly. but they also exist in the context of abuse. over two decades of debilitating destroying violence and then a new man who tracks him down and dangles his and claudia’s life over him as penalty from the jump. louis is constantly calculating risk based on what they’ve experienced and the same way claudia’s trauma drives her into the waiting arms of a cult, louis’s means he sees enduring as his strongest means of survival . and even from before that from keeping his family afloat under jim crow —performance, self sacrifice at the expense of closeness with grace and paul; using “weakness to rise”. so when louis tells claudia to endure its bc he cannot imagine a way out. which is a failure sure and something claudia can and does resent him deeply for but is entirely and categorically different from what lestat and armand inflict on her . his “choosing armand” is never really about him liking armand particularly it’s him deciding he knows what’s best for both of them—again seeing claudia as his child—to the extent that he won’t even tell her about armand knowing their secret.

this isn’t selfless it’s foolish it’s prideful but the story very clearly is not Louis picking a man over his daughter. (claudia calls out what he wants in a companion in 2.01—“if he can’t call you pretty and take you ballroom dancing” Armand won’t even light his cigarette). i think people have constructed this narrative which funnily enough is the exact same one armand uses to gaslight louis with in 2.05 ("you threw around her name for cover, but you always went back to talking about him" or something like that). Which is really obviously a victim blaming narrative lol like the amount of joke posts that r essentially saying Maybe if louis wasn’t so cock hungry his daughter wouldn’t be dead. Okay?? i think its absolutely fucking insane to call her death louis's particular failure when she was lynched. by armand

and you can tell by episode 6 claudia has realized louis isn’t picking armand over her. her frustration with him is with this martyrdom that she never asked for or wanted, that clearly isn’t “you and me” either. Like you cannot tell me she believes “imagine me without the burden of her” means louis is happy and relieved to see her go Bc she’s not stupid and she’s seen him happy before. If she really thought he meant something like that she wouldn’t behave towards him as she does in the rest of ep 6 and doing the trial. completely ignoring her personality

there is also a hopefully really small subset of people who think pointing out how patriarchy works Is gender essentialism who posit louis as the primary perpetrator of misogynoir in order to justify their fundamental queer human right to call lestat femme . and then expect pats on the back for acknowledging #intersectionality . which is. absurd.

[souliebird]

[[and then I met you || ch. 8]]

Series: Daredevil || Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader || Rating: Explicit

Summary:

A one-night stand years ago gave you a daughter and you are now able to put a name to her father – Matthew Murdock. Everything is about to change again as you navigate trying to integrate your life with that of the handsome and charming blind lawyer’s and Matt realizes he needs to protect his new family from not only Hell's Kitchen but from the world.

pt: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Words: 3.9k

There is a pigeon perched on the streetlamp that sits on the north corner of the block. It's got some sort of stick, most likely, and has been unsuccessfully trying to make a nest for the past hour. Given that the streetlamp is curved, this is a very bad idea, but the bird doesn't know that. The poor things weren't meant to be in the wild and a single stick is not going to save its egg from falling off if it chooses to lay it there. But it keeps at it, picking up the stick and putting it back down at different angles. 

Matt very much understands the dumb bird's struggles. He has no idea what the hell he is doing, either. He felt, finally, after many a year, he actually had his shit together. And sure, maybe it was held together with duct tape, a lot of ibuprofen, and multiple prayers, but it was stable and balanced. He had a handle on things, for the most part. 

He was doing what he loved, in all aspects of his life - defending people with the law and with his fists. He had Foggy and Karen, and he was working more with the Defenders, and he could be in Frank's presence without a fist fight happening. There was a drop in crime in Hell's Kitchen - he'd stopped the last two crime families who had tried to set up shop here before they even had a foot hold. 

Then everything in his universe changed and Matt is now the human equivalent of a pigeon trying to lay an egg on a streetlamp. 

He never thought he would be a father. It was something he dreamed about, in the deep recesses of his mind, but he never thought it would be a reality. Not with Daredevil. But, oh did God love to yank on his chain and remind Matt he had no clue what His plans were for him. 

Matt wouldn't change it for the world, though. Something fundamental in him changed the moment the words had left your mouth and when he met Minnie for the first time, he knew he was a goner. 

He would happily throw himself into the pits of Hell if it would make his daughter smile. 

He wants so much to be a good father. Everything in him aches to be half as good as his own father was to him, but he doesn't know how, and he is terrified of fucking it up. 

Because if there is one thing Matthew Murdock is good at its fucking things up. Especially when he thinks he means well. 

So, Matt is taking in all the lessons God has taught him over the last few years and going against his instincts and he is going to ask for help. 

Foggy and Karen should be at his door any minute, if they stop pausing to talk on the stairs, and Matt is going to tell them everything. 

He hasn't been this nervous in years and he can't stop pacing. He's pretty sure he's going to wear his path into his floor if he keeps going, but he just adds it to all the other damage the apartment has incurred over the years. It's not like he's getting his security deposit back anyways. 

He wants to open his front door and yell at his friends to hurry up, but he doesn't want to alarm them. They know something is up with him, Matt apparently wears his emotions on his sleeve, but they don't know what. He suspects Karen might have an inkling because Karen has an extra sense when it comes to detecting secrets, but Foggy is clueless and Matt doesn't want to worry him. 

He allows himself to stop pacing once they reach his landing and tells himself to walk calmly once they knock on the door. 

He prides himself in not wrenching the thing off its hinges from his nerves and gives his friends a beaming smile, "I thought you'd never make it up the stairs." 

"Oh good," Foggy chimes, clapping Matt on the shoulder as he walks by, "He's still being weird."

"I'm not being weird," Matt counters quickly, only for Karen to pat his cheek when she passes him.

"You're being weird."

He shuts and locks the door before following them into his main living area. Foggy goes straight for the fridge, browsing his beer options while Karen takes residence on the couch. He doesn't need to be able to see to know she's staring at the two big binders sitting on the coffee table. 

"Buddy," Foggy starts, popping three beers open with a hiss of the bottles, "the past few weeks you have been Grade A weird. You keep getting this dopey look on your face and spacing out. And usually," he continues, walking leisurely to the couch and handing Karen her beer first, before giving Matt his, "I would suspect a woman, or a man, because the heart wants what the heart or dick wants, but I know Matt Murdock falling for a girl weird. This isn't that type of weird. And this isn't Daredevil weird, because you get broody when it's that. This weird? I don't know this weird. So, spill Murdock, why are you being weird."

"And don't tell us it's nothing," Karen adds. Her beer sloshes in the bottle, indicating she's pointing it at him. "Because I agree with Foggy. We don't know this weird."

Matt deflates just slightly. He guesses he's been way less subtle than he thought he was being.

"Fine, I've been weird, BUT," he says with emphasis, "It's for a very good reason and I want it on the record that I was not hiding anything or keeping it secret. I was confirming all the facts before presenting my case. I.." he pauses to choose his words carefully, "didn't want to get ahead of myself." 

"You didn't want to get ahead of yourself?" Foggy confirms and he gives a nod. 

The response is for both Karen and Foggy to take long sips of their respective beers. Matt's nerves are too riled up to drink his, yet so he starts to scratch at the label to get the energy out. 

"So, this is Devil related?" Foggy asks. There's a hint of disappointment and exhaustion in his voice and it makes Matt's heart hurt. He has really put his best friend through it, hasn't he? 

"No. Well, yes, but no. It's complicated." Because the Devil is involved by default because it is Matt and it will be something that needs to be addressed down the road, but for right now, no. Not Devil related. 

"That's not very reassuring," Karen points out. 

"Just tell us, buddy. Whatever it is, we're here for you."

That makes Matt's lips turn down, "It isn't a bad thing, Fog." 

"Well, we wouldn't know that because you've told us nothing," Foggy counters.

His instinct is to keep bantering with Foggy and he knows they can go at it for another hour, but he reminds himself of his resolve and settles back into the couch. 

He's practiced his speech about a dozen times but all of it dies in his throat and the truth comes out on its own, blunt and to the point.

"I am a father."

Foggy has the more intense reaction, confirming Matt's suspension that Karen had an idea at the truth. His best friend inhales sharply, heart starting to beat harder in his chest. His body is sending all sorts of signals, and this is one of the times Matt wishes he could see - just to know what expression Foggy has. 

It feels like hours before Fog finally says something.

"You're going to be a father?"

"No," Matt corrects, "I AM a father. I already am."

Karen leans forward, her spine creaking and her hair swishing, "The little girl. From last week. That's her, isn't it?"

Matt nods, feeling a smile start to pull at his cheeks, "Yeah. That was her."

"Oh my God, Matt!" He hears her weight shift as she pushes herself across the couch and right into Matt, loosely throwing her arms around his shoulders. He leans into it, hugging her back with the arm not holding his beer. "She is adorable!"

"She is, isn't she?" He preens. 

Foggy's brain finally seems to process the information and he sits on the arm of one of the chairs, like he needs the support, "Wait, no, that was a toddler, wasn't it? That child was like five."

"She's three. And a half." Matt says as Karen pulls away from him to go back to her spot.

Foggy's bottle of beer sloshes and Matt imagines he's holding up his hands in a mock surrender. "Sorry, three and a half. Plus, nine months that would…Jesus, Matt, that's before we started the firm. The first time."

"Blasphemy, Foggy. And.. Yeah, the Christmas before we started the firm. When we were still at L and Z," he allows himself a sip of beer before diving into his explanation, "That Christmas party we went to, the one good one we ditched the L and Z one for."

Foggy shakes his head, "I was with you that whole night, Matt." 

"Until you ditched me for the French woman," he gently reminds his best friend. 

Foggy goes quiet and he must be trying to remember. Matt can tell Karen is watching like a hawk, keen eyes and ears trying to unravel the whole story. 

"I forgot about the French woman. She ditched me and I guess I assumed you left and…" Fog trails off.

"Well, I did leave, to be fair," he reminds them. "Just not alone."

"Jesus, Matt," Foggy repeats and he lets it slide this time. He'll say an extra Hail Mary for him. "Did you not wrap it up?"

Both Karen and Matt give a bark of laughter.

"Of course, I did. And she was on the pill, but you know that is not a guarantee." 

"Why come forward now?" Karen asks, redirecting the conversation. 

"She didn't know who I was. She says she tried to find me, and she wasn't lying. Then she saw that interview we did and recognized me," he tells them. 

He hears Foggy rub at his jaw and Matt just knows his brain is going into lawyer mode.

"But why did she tell you," Karen pushes, and he can tell she's looking for an angle that isn't there.

He ducks his chin just slightly and goes back to playing with the beer label, "It's not like that. It's not. She wants what is best for Minnie. She wanted me to be aware and have the option to get to know her. She was fully prepared for me to turn her away. She had already signed the forms waiving her right to ask for child support. The only thing she wanted was to know my family medical history."

"Her name is Minnie?" Karen cooes and that warms Matt's heart. He suddenly very much understands your need to gush over your daughter.

"It is. Winifred Love. She goes by Minnie or Mouse," he knows he's smiling like an idiot, but he can't help it. 

"That is such a sweet name," Karen hums and he can hear her smile.

"It is," he agrees, then he tilts his head towards Foggy, his voice dropping to something almost apologetic. "I didn't tell you because I wanted to be sure. She wasn't lying when she said I was the father, but that could have been because she believed I was. And I am. We got a paternity test and I wanted…I wanted it to be official. Real. Before I told you. And now it is. My name is going to be added to her birth certificate. I filed the paperwork and everything."

He can't nail down how Foggy is reacting and that scares him. He doesn't want his best friend to be upset with him, again. He was really, really trying to do the right thing this time. 

Foggy finally, finally pushes himself off the chair and steps around the coffee table before enveloping Matt in a tight hug. Matt hugs him back, just as tightly.

"I'm so happy for you, buddy," Fog breathes against him. The corners of his eyes start to sting, and Matt tells himself he is Not going to cry.

Foggy holds him for a good thirty seconds before letting go and stepping away, "Okay, before we jump into the whole Daredevil -"

"I'm going to tell her," Matt cuts his friend off. He puts his beer down and leans forward to put his elbows on his knees, "Not right now, but I completely intend to. If I can trust her. I think I can, but we've only just really met again. But I've learned. From both of you. I want to do this right. I want to tell her about my senses, first, and then we can build up to the other stuff. Once I am completely sure I can trust her."

Neither Karen nor Foggy respond to him right away and he has the feeling they are having a complete conversation with just their eyes. He waits. He doesn't want to rush them either. Matt wants to go into this with all of them on the same page. It's important to him. 

They are his family, too. 

"Tell us about them," Karen finally says and Matt doesn't even try to fight the grin that spreads across his face.

He tells them your name, then reaches for the first of the binders - the one that is twice the size of the other.

"She's…she's Good. You'll like her. She, uh, made me this, kind of big guide to our daughter. Everything I need to know and it's…in Braille. She knew I couldn't read print, so uh, all of Minnie's life she's been requesting copies of documents in Braille for when she found me." He pushes the binder towards Karen, and she picks it up in a flash, starting to flip through the pages. 

"This is pretty detailed," she hums, before cooing again, "There's pictures. Look, Fog." 

Foggy walks around the couch to stand behind Karen. Matt can tell that even though they are both Happy for him, they are worried, and he more than understands. He knows once he tells them more, that worry will fade. 

He just needs to drop the final off the bombshells. 

He licks his lips, clears his throat, then throws himself into the open, "Minnie is like me. She has my senses." 

They both go as still as they can, taking identical sharp inhales. 

"Not as…intense as mine, I don't think, but she has them. I.. Confirmed it. She could hear an ice cream truck four city blocks away."

"Matt…" Foggy starts and Matt shakes his head.

"We had a conversation, Fog. Clear across the park. I was whispering. She's…she's like me. She was born with it, but she's adapted, for the most part. Her mom just thinks she's sensitive, and she is, and she…she.." he motions with his hand, trying to convey what he wants to say, "Her mom helps. She gets her these headphones to block out sounds and all these things to help her. She just does it, she's doesn't question the why. All those little stupid things that make my life more annoying - the smell of cleaning supplies and how food tastes like the sewer or that certain fibers feel like sandpaper - Minnie deals with those and her Mom does her best so that she doesn't have to suffer. And that's…I need your help." He taps the second, smaller binder. "She made me a guide, so I want to make her one. I just…I don't know how." 

He deflates a little. Over the past two weeks, he's done his best to type things up, things he thinks will help, but he has no clue if any of it makes sense to anyone but him.

"Oh, Matt," Karen hands the big binder off to Foggy, then leans forward to take Matt's hand in her own, squeezing it tightly, "Of course we will help you." 

"We will make the best how to deal with your bat radar guide that has ever existed, bud. You can count on us," Foggy adds, starting to flip through the binder himself.

That evaporates Matt's doubt, and he huffs out a laugh, "I don't think there is another guide, Fog."

"Then we will set the standard for human bat radar guides," Karen counters with mirth. 

"I'll drink to that," his best friend says, once again moving so he can grab his drink. He raises the bottle in a toast, "To the best damn bat radar guide there will ever be, and to Matt, whose man whore ways have blessed us with another him!"

Matt scoops up with beer with a laugh and clinks his bottle against Foggy's, Karen's joining a moment later. 

"To Minnie," Karen adds and that makes Matt beam.

"To Minnie!"

"To Minnie!"

They all take long pulls on their beers then set them down on the table. 

Matt can practically feel Karen grinning at him, "What?" 

"I want stories," she says, reaching over to shake his arm, "You've told us the big picture, I want to know about this little pumpkin. How many times have you gotten to meet her?"

"A few times," he says, unable to hide his own smile. "She calls me Mister Matt. We haven't told her who I am yet. We want her to be comfortable and I…want her to want me to be her father, you know?" He hears both of them nod and he keeps barreling on. "She's…she's perfect. She's so sweet - she loves to use her manners, you know? Please and Thank yous. And she just wants to help, with anything. She's pretty good for a three year old at being a Guide. I'm learning a lot about what she thinks is important."

"What is important?" Foggy asks, and Matt can hear the underlying happiness in his voice and that makes Matt giddy. 

"Colors. How soft something looks. If it has a name and how it's feeling." He grins and adds, "At the park she was telling me how we can't walk in the grass because it's rude and hurts the grass' feelings. And that we can't pick flowers because it takes them away from their families and makes them sad."

Karen cooes, "That's the sweetest thing."

Foggy huffs fondly, "She wanted to pick flowers with you?"

He shrugs and ducks his head a little, "Kinda? She was talking about how to make flower crowns and bracelets."

"Is she going to make you a flower crown?" Karen asks, and Matt can sense her leaning towards him. The teasing in her voice has him guessing she's got her Mischievous look on. 

"Maybe."

"That's so sweet."

"It's so 2014," Foggy adds with his own teasing.

Karen throws one of the throw pillows he's somehow accumulated at Foggy, "She's a baby, leave her alone."

Both he and Foggy laugh and Matt can't help but get his own dig in, "Like you would deny a flower crown from her."

"Damn right, I wouldn't," his best friend bites back. "I'm accepting all flower crowns, hair braiding, nail painting, and tea parties. I am going to be the best uncle she could ever dream of - wait, does she already have an uncle? Do I need to do research? I'll out Uncle anyone."

Matt shakes his head, "No, it's just the two of them. No other family. It seems like a sensitive topic, so I haven't.. Pushed. She hasn't either, but my background is a little more…public?  I haven't told her about Maggie, yet."

The couch groans as Karen leans back into it, sipping again at her beer before humming, "Well, it will be easier to keep your late night activities under wrap. Less people to question things?" 

"That's a way to put it," is the response from his other friend. Matt shakes his head at both their words.

"I told you I want to tell her, once it's safe. I need your help with that, too," Matt pushes himself up and starts to pace behind his couch, "With everything we've been through, all the things we've been working on as a team - and I know most of that is me with all my bullshit and issues." He stops his walking to rub at his jaw, "I know…I know I'm going to be bad at this. I know I'm going to fuck something up. I've done it to both of you countless times. And I can't give up on being the Devil, we've seen how it goes when I try to go either way, so I need to find the balance quick but I can't.." He trails off slightly as the emotions swell in his chest at his self sabotaging this and he has to inhale deeply to keep himself from getting too worked up. "I can't lose them. I can't."

"Oh, Matt," Karen whispers. 

He's so caught up in his own emotions he doesn't hear Foggy get up and actually starts when he's clapped on the shoulder, "Matt, let me say this with my full heart, and I know Karen will one hundred percent agree, and I'm pre-facing this with I love you and you are my brother and best friend, and I think this is exactly what you need me to tell you. If you pull any of the bullshit you did with us with them or anything similar, I will personally drop you into the Hudson. After Karen is through with you."

It catches him off guard, but his best friend is right and it is exactly what he needs to hear. 

"There would not be anything left to dispose of," Karen cheerily adds and Matt doesn't need super human hearing to know she's telling the truth. 

He nods in understanding to both of them, "Thank you." He needs to properly thank them for so many things, but he doesn't know how and all he can do is repeat the words. 

"So," Foggy starts again, squeezing Matt's shoulder before shaking him a few times. "When do I get to meet my newest niece?"

"Once we tell her the truth about who I am to her. I'm going over for dinner tomorrow, to try and be in more everyday things to get her used to it all." He wonders if his excitement about the dinner is showing through. He gets to visit where you and his daughter live and that always says so much about a person. He wants to be let into that bubble. 

"Wait!" Karen gasps, turning more in her seat so she is facing towards the two of them, "If Foggy gets to be Uncle, does that mean I'm an Aunt?"

"Do you want to be?" He asks, because it is obviously a 'yes' in his mind. 

Karen considers this, Foggy narrating, "She's debating on her head, doing the whole tilting it one way and then the next." 

"Oh, hush, Fog! Of course, I want to be!"

This quickly dissolves into playful bickering.

"Aunt Karen has a good ring to it."

"Oh, like Uncle Foggy is much better?"

Matt grins and finds his way back to his seat and his beer. He grabs the bottle and takes a long sip, listening to two of the most important people in his life bask in the glow of their little family getting bigger. 

Maybe, just maybe, he isn't as helpless and lost as he thinks he is. 

Maybe it will all be okay. 

He just needs to have faith. 

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[inphront]

thinking tonight about griddlehark as doomed by not seeing power and control as linked/trying to have one without the other.

harrow is desperate for control over every aspect of her situation, breaking down the moment anything happens that she can't predict or change or have agency in, but she's consumed by guilt and horror at the idea of being in power. she takes so much pride in necromancy as an element of her world and life where she is capable and a genius and in control, and it's a massive source of internal contention because one of the biggest gears turning her character is the cost of that control, and the fact that necromancy is inherently caught up in power dynamics. ianthe notices this about her in the epiparados: she's used to having her hands on the reins, can't cope when they're taken off, and doesn't have the personality to put them back on. harrow wants to run the ninth for the sake of having control over it, but situations like her birth where she has clear power over it make her want to die. she wants control over gideon, but is horrified by the power differential involved within necro/cav relationships. harrowhark deals horribly with uncertainty. she doesn't want power, just certainty, and therefore control. much of her arc involves the recognition that it is impossible to control an equal, which is her fundamentally impossible want: to be gideon's equal without giving her the right to leave, to be necromantically capable without the leveraging of power over her house that this requires, and the ability to align the world with what is just without the social position or the force so often involved in making meaningful change.

meanwhile, gideon has never felt important to anyone. her most fundamental desire is to be important to someone, and this manifests in her military fantasies and rebellion against authority as a desire for power. she wants the status and the catharsis of being at the top of a podium she's spent her life crushed underneath. but she doesn't put much thought into actually using any of this power she wants so badly. gideon doesn't want power for the sake of agency, but for the sake of admiration, which is how she ends up as a figurehead-- someone theoretically in a position of total power, with no control over even her own body. even her self-actualization as a cavalier was, to some extent, an acceptance of a title and a position within the empire under the understanding that she would be used. expressions of power, such as killing crux, don't feel good to her, but the concept of power itself, of having important parents and prestige and a big sword and recognition, do.

and how can they explain this to each other? they're both trying to take opposite halves of a mutually inclusive set. it's no wonder, then, that the tragedies of their relationship are desperate attempts to give each other things they don't want: gideon's death makes harrow far more powerful under terms harrow can't control. harrow then attemps to control those terms, and by extension to give gideon back her life and her agency, which gideon interprets as revoking the power she had over harrow's emotions and memory (as well as her imperial title, which may not indicate much power but sure does mean more than "indentured servant to the ninth"). for much of gtn, harrow had both power and control, while gideon had neither, and i expect this to switch when they interact in atn because it is impossible to only have one. in this way, their relationship raises a lot of questions about power structures as a whole: what do you do when changing the world requires you to leverage power against other people? what do you do when positive recognition inherently comes with a responsibility to be cruel? when relinquishing your capacity to hurt people limits your capacity to help, and when getting out from under the boot means putting it on? how do interactions with power and control interpersonally reflect systemic influence?

idk mostly i just shake them

[secretgamergirl]

How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

[russanogreenstripe]

So many good moments in Ep 5 of Burrow's End, but this is the one that sets my mind buzzing the most. The idea that community predates identity. We know mama, dada, and baba before we know not only their names, but our own names. And in the season all about family, community, in-group versus outgroup? This feels like such an important idea, and it was came up likely on the spot. It's fascinating to think about, and touches on such big themes about Burrow's End in general.

My mind keeps trying to read "name" as "self," and come up with something like "we have to know others before we know who we are," but I think there's a fundamental error in that idea. Neurologically, we just start off with just "Me" - one of our basic senses is what is "Me" and what is "Not Me." That's fundamental to further categorization, and faults in that sense is where things like depersonalization / derealization come from. Names are just labels, and they're not even the first labels we have for them.

This ties into another point that a lot of people had when watching the trailer at the end of Ep. 4 and during the live reaction of Ep. 5 - the idea that because Sybil was so reluctant to say her brother's name after he died, that it was the result of some top-down oppression within Last Bast and further proof that it's not as idyllic as it seems. Now, Last Bast almost certainly isn't a utopia, and I'm sure we're going to learn more about that in the next episode. And it's possible that it is a top-down enforcement that Sybil, having been raised in Last Bast, has internalized. However, there's a chance this isn't the case.

Less than 30 seconds on Google turns up several cultures that have taboos around speaking the names of the dead - Aboriginal mortuary rituals, the Apache of the Southwest US, the Tolowa tribe of California, the Yanomami on the border of Brazil and Venezuela, certain Romani/Irish Traveller groups, and almost certainly more. While it initially seems unfathomable to Western cultural mores around remembering and memorializing the dead, it's just as possible possible that instead of a method of social control, it's simply a cultural taboo.

https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/gravematters/2017/04/18/aboriginal-mortuary-rituals/

And as Aabria has commented both during the live discussion and general discord channels,

Aabria's a smart cookie, and I trust that she's done plenty of worldbuilding and put tons of thought into how Last Bast's society works. We've seen she's great at her cultural analysis while in the DM's chair in both Misfits & Magic and in A Court of Fey and Flowers. Culture and society are interwoven in all of her games, and where does all that start? With family.