#anchoring of the thread

[dougielombax]

DON’T make me anchor your thread I swear to GOD!

[a-wartime-paradox]

I don't think The Enemy winning is bad

Now, unless I've missed something major in all the articles I've read on FP and The War, the Enemy don't actually seem to have an agenda (this also leads me to believing they don't exist, but anyhow that's for a separate post).

If the Great Houses win The War, they are the sole rulers of the Spiral Politic, and I don't know about you, but I'm not really comfortable with one Culture ruling everything (*cough* *cough* the British Empire *cough* *cough). However, if the Enemy wins (which also means their identity must necessarily be non-collapsed), then multiple time-domiant factions can coexist. Closest scenario to the normal universe would simply be multiple God Factions (such as the remains of the Great Houses, the Osirian Court, the Celestis, and the Eleven-Day Empire), which wouldn't be particularly bad afaik, as long as they aren't at War with each other. Alternatively, the universe would return to Carnival (pre-anchoring era), which again I think only appears like a bad thing through the propoganda lense of the Great Houses.

[that-butch-archivist]

"Ruth Ellis, Golden Threads Celebration 1995," from the documentary Golden Threads

source: The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs & Writings on Love, edited by Beatrix Gates

[intuitive-revelations]

While I've got critiques of a few choices (eg. bigeneration, the Season One reset), one thing I've got to commend RTD for is that the story arc of things getting "more supernatural" / the universe shifting from sci-fi to fantasy is actually a pretty perfect way of continuing the shows overall myth arcs without actually requiring knowing all the backstory.

Not only does this follow on from the Time Lords currently being gone again (which itself was kind of built up from the previous Gallifrey arcs and the Master's character development), but also is more or less exactly what the Ravagers wanted to do in Flux. They wanted to undo the Anchoring of the Thread, recontexualised in terms of the Division's universal interferenc. While time and its laws have somewhat stabilised for now, we are indeed now seeing Rassilon's laws of rationality starting to collapse. I would strongly argue this started even before the 60th anniversary, between the time loop in Eve of the Daleks and the constellations literally rearranging themselves in the sky in Legend of the Sea Devils.

Even outside of the shows main arcs, New Who has already dipped its toes into the concept that there are older creatures which don't necessarily run on science in the same way as everything else, or that are from outside the universe / incompatible with it. Primary examples being the Carrionites, Racnoss, the Beast and Abaddon, Weeping Angels, Solitract, arguably even The Timeless Child. The Dark Times have also been prominantly featured in stuff like the Time Lord Victorious series and Titan Comics.

We've also being seeing entities like Eternals gradually returning (Zellin, Rakaya, maybe Time) who were originally established as leaving the universe in the wake of the Time War in RTD's Series 1 backstory in the DW Annuals. We've even seen quite significant emphasis put on the Sisterhood of Karn and their connection to Gallifrey, something primarily developed in the EU with the Pythia lore, which also links into the likes of the Visionary in The End of Time.

All this being said, none of this backstory is (for now) important for new viewers to know. All they need to know is that Fourteen fucked up in Wild Blue Yonder, and now things which were once outside the universe, like the Toymaker, are starting to leak into it. They don't need to know, for example, that the TARDIS may only have been able to access edge of universe thanks to the scale of the Flux's destruction.

Ultimately this feels a lot like his approach with the Time War. While it was a logical conclusion to the classic series (hence why we get so many time wars / destructions of Gallifrey in the EU), with Genesis, Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks all particularly serving as build up for a Dalek attack on Gallifrey, and indeed were all included in said prior-mentioned DW Annual articles along with the tension de-escalating 'Act of Master Restitution', none of that was important for new viewers in 2005 to know.

This being said, I do suspect some past context will return in the future, just as it did over New Who. For example, we're bound to be reintroduced to the idea that the Time Lords established rationality in the universe, maybe name-checking the Division as part of their interference. I also stand by my previous theory that we're likely to eventually see Rassilon return after his exile in Hell Bent. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if he served as the face of an effort to bring back the Time Lords in some form, opening up questions of their oppressive history (expect the Timeless Child's trauma to be emphasised) and whether the universe is better off without its fantastical elements suppressed, even if this does open the universe up to the dangers he fought like the Vampires, Carrionites, Great Old Ones etc. (Particular emphasis on the last of these, given it's sort of implied the only reason eg. the Great Intelligence isn't a full-power Cthulhu Mythos Yog-Sothoth is because of the Anchoring.) Perhaps the Sisterhood of Karn's newfound influence on Gallifrey in the wake of the Time War and Lungbarrow could play a role here.

[hersurvival]

Byssal threads attach and tangle,

Filaments spread, like vines,

Tethered together.

We both mistook the other for a rock.

Anchoring to what we thought

Was solid, static, steadfast

To the churning of the water around us.

Found ourselves grasping,

Holding to one another.

But at least we are not alone,

Wherever these waves may take us.

@nosebleedclub June 5th - Scallop

[holliano]

My art class are learning to cross stitch this term. So obviously as their main pattern they are doing my beloved house.

And because they are beginners I am making a demo.

Instead of sewing houses, I’m sewing a house.

I just need to do the windows, roof and stairs tomorrow before class!

[murillo-enthusiast]

♦ Will Wright's Dead Frenchmen ♦

Previous: (1, 2)

"OH MY GOD, WHAT'S HAPPENING." -- @your-dandy-king

―-―-―-―-―-―-―-―-―-―-―-―-―-―-―

Soult hears Murat's shout, faintly, from where he is standing outside staring at Brun(?) who is uncharacteristically overtaken by a fit of distress. He would go inside, but he does not want to leave whatever the hell is going on with Brun(?). So he shouts back.

Soult: MURAT. HAVE YOU COME BACK TO YOUR SENSES?

―-― Cad:/> Brun: Continue freaking the fuck out. Brun.exe: OH MY GOD! WHAT IS THIS?! WHOA! THAT WAS SO CLOSE! I... I... I... I don't even know what to say. Or think. Or do. Everything feels so... surreal. And then, from inside the house, comes Murat's voice. His voice? He's alive? But how?! ―-―

Soult: GET DOWN FROM THERE BRUN RIGHT THIS INSTANT.

♦ Brun.exe: YES SIR! I... I need to... I need to... I can't even think straight anymore. This... this is... too much...

―-― Cad:/> Brun: Promptly fall asleep when you get to the ground to recover your energy. Brun.exe: ... I'm so tired all of a sudden. The adrenaline rush must have worn me out. I feel like I could just... sleep right here on the ground. ―-―

♦ Brun.exe: Zzzzzzzz...

Soult: ...

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

just bc u didn't like the answer to the question doesn't mean the question didn't get answered

[mutinouscaptain]

🍏

[dougielombax]

I never thought we’d actually get to see Eremites and the anchoring of the thread on screen in Dr Who.

Talk about unexpected

[a-wartime-paradox]

I forgot to make this post when I saw the quote, and now can't find it, but when reading the Book of the War's entry on either the Great Houses or History (I can't remember), it said something like "of course, the universe had been around for billions of years before the Great Houses [or the anchoring? Can't remember]" and like. Of course. The Big Bang happened 13.7 billion years ago and the Great Houses's chronology only has them existing for 10 million years before the War. But previously I'd put this down to the Great Houses's chronology being separate from the rest of the Spiral Politic.

This is because I just couldn't comprehend a universe without History (which the Houses created). So I believed that the pre-anchoring era was formless and begging-less, and that the Big Bang was actually a Great Houses retcon.

But I was wrong, I guess 🤷‍♀️

Anyone else have this wrong interpretation?

[that-butch-archivist]

"Christine Burton and friend, Golden Threads Celebration 1995," from the documentary Golden Threads

source: The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs & Writings on Love, edited by Beatrix Gates

[justashadetalkative]

Details: Phosa & Linast

Mundane video technology hits something not unlike an uncanny valley for Phosa & Linast on two fronts:

1) Their spacial awareness is intense and encompasses the electromagnetic field around them, so trying to process 2D images as representations of 3D objects & space was a learning curve for them. Even after they learned the trick of it, it’s still more like viewing an autostereogram than anything natural or automatic. (They have to trick themselves into perceiving it as looking at something that is very far away and outside of themselves, even as it's (usually) radiating from inside their range of perception.) 2) They don't have a brain that smooths a rapid sequence of images into a perception of smooth motion for them, and while their conscious processing speed isn't precise or rapid enough for them to truly discern the actual movement of light through space (unless working with large enough distances), they can still sense it to some degree. Between those two factors, it's like touching a vibrating surface; they sure as heck couldn't count the individual jerks, but they can feel that something about the motion isn’t smooth.

Some of these factors were mitigated during that human incident, and it went a long way towards helping them figure out how to interpret 2D images the way most sighted humans do.

[countlessrealities]

Unconventional first meetings

@muses-inn sent: [ MIXED ] : in a restaurant or cafe, both muses’ orders are swapped due to a mix up (Morty getting served the 3 cups of water that Ashton ordered for Creepy, Weepy and himself)

In spite of what he might say while he and Rick were going through a fight, Morty doesn't make it a habit to go on adventures on his own. At most, he heads back to the places where Rick's drunk rampages have created more trouble than favour and fixes them, so that they don't have yet another piece of the multiverse hunting them down, but those trips don't count as adventures in his book. Not really.

After all, as his grandfather would say, adventures, to be called such, need four things: conflict, stakes, a way for Rick to benefit from them and, clearly, the two of them as a duo. Even if he wouldn't admit it, to avoid being mocked, the boy is extremely fond of this definition.

So, him sitting in a tavern in a world that's a mixture between high fantasy and sci-fi counts, as most, as an interdimensional trek. Not that it could have been more than that. He knows too well what the scientist thinks of that sort of planets.

Morty's thoughts are abruptly interrupted as three cups of water are set down in front of him, instead of the slightly alcoholic local drink he has ordered. The teen stares at the for a long moment, eyes wide with confusion, and then whips his head up to inform the server of the mishap...just to find out that they have already walked away.

Oh geez, this is really awkward.

"...Uh..." He lets out, carefully looking around for a group who might have ordered the three cups of water.

Most of the patrons are alone or in pairs, so he has no luck until his eyes land on a guy who has two dragons' heads sprouting out of his back. Is that kind of thing normal around there?

Still, he seems to be the only one who counts as a "trio", so the teen gets up, balancing the three cups in his hands, and carries the drinks over to the man's table.

"H-Hey, sorry for bothering you, but...Uh, I-I think these were meant for you and your...friends?" Amber eyes skittishly glanced at the dragons. They don't seem particularly friendly or cheerful. "A-Anyway, here's your...water."

[neverendingford]

Idea first came to me after I said something like "a thousand needles sewing you to a canvas of pain" and so I decided to make it real as best I could.

[conkniving]

july 2, hiland mountain correctional facility ft. @scyboo

there was something cathartic about expecting the particular visage of the one person who could sympathize with the current state of fallon's life. before, the tales of stella's incarceration were the sort of imagination that was just it: of which to fathom. now, it was real and it was a night terror she couldn't escape. suiting the mood, the skeleton in question was sporting a fading bruise on the crest of her cheek from a weak hook she caught when scrabbling in the cafeteria. it, of course, did not bode well for her to add volatility to her record but goddamn it, fallon wanted a fucking cigarette and there was no helping serving up another bitch's face on her meal tray rather than the 'food' they served here. the only reason she was even allowed this visitation was because the guards had begrudgingly admitted that the other inmate had ignited the mishap by stupidly believing the new blood would be an easy target to harass. the faint flicker of light in earthen eyes diminished immediately upon seeing it was not stella who awaited her at a preordained booth, but ziv. it should still be noted that their presence rather garnered another reaction, and any reaction was better than not at this point. sinking into the uncomfortable chair and whipping the receiver to her temple, "what the fuck do you want?" was the gut greeting that perhaps abruptly to the both of them morphed into something... panicked. another thought sparking in the frontal lobe. "wait, what are you doing here? is stella okay? did something happen?"