#and what the implications are if they're the same universe

[mel-addams]

Single Out the Shadows

[Image ID: A tiny Yugi stands, backlit and barely visible, at the end of a long, dark hallway. Most of the lights and parts of the walls are broken, with loose wires hanging in loops from the ceiling. Nearest the camera, on the left side of the hall is a room labeled "Inhabited Child," and through its glass door a small, hunched-over girl in tattered clothes can be seen. The room across from it is labeled "Paranormal Fungus," in which a large, bizarre pod is visible.

Strewn across the floor of the hall is broken glass and debris, as well as a few facility members' corpses. One has a creepy doll sitting on its torso, and another is pinned up on the far wall by rebar. Stretching along the length of the floor, starting at Yugi's feet and ending in the light cast by the closest rooms, is the ominous shadow of Yami Yugi. His Eye of Anubis, used for judgement and Penalty Games, is glowing bright yellow within the shadow's head.

/End Image ID]

~

Bakura: Where's Your Heart That Beats for Me?

Yugi: Single Out the Shadows

Marik: Waiting Silently for Hours

The Nursery in Secret World Legends is a horrible nightmare facility, with plenty of places to put poor Yu-Gi-Oh! kids, via "possessed child" crossover shenanigans. So after I did the screenshot edit with Bakura, I figured I'd go ahead with doing Yugi and Marik, as well. After all, they each fit the "Inhabited Child" experiment.

There is actually a tiny child that stands in that doorway in-game, I just drew Yugi over her. She also doesn't have the dramatic magic shadow…just hovers ominously, and skitters off when you step into the hallway proper. If you were to turn and look over your shoulder here, you could see the last remaining bright section of this hallway, and the isolated room Marik is in.

For those unfamiliar, Sleepless Lullaby is the quoted song—and is the only thing that plays in the Nursery, on loop, as a way to (try to) condition and pacify the kids. (As you can see, it did not end well for the folks running the facility.)

[prokopetz]

Not posting this as a reblog because I don't want to screw with somebody else's notes, but the whole "theological implications of Tolkien's orcs" business has some interesting history behind it.

In brief, a big part of why the Lord of the Rings Extended Universe™ is so cagey about what orcs are and where they come from is that later in his life, Tolkien came to believe that orcs as he'd depicted them were problematic – albeit not because of, you know, all the grotesque racial caricature.

Rather, he'd come to the conclusion that the idea of an inherently evil sapient species – a species that's incapable of seeking salvation – was incompatible with Christian ethics. Basically, it's one of those "used the wrong formula and got the right answer" situations.

In his notes and letters, Tolkien played around with several potential solutions to this problem. (Though contrary to the assertions of certain self-proclaimed Tolkien scholars, there's no evidence that he ever seriously planned to re-write his previous works to incorporate these ideas.) In one proposal, orcs are incarnated demons, and "killing" them simply returns them to their naturally immaterial state; in another, orcs are a sort of fleshy automaton remotely operated by the will of Sauron, essentially anticipating the idea of drone warfare.

Of course, this is all just historical trivia; any criticism of The Lord of the Rings must be directed at the books that were actually published, not the books we imagine might have been published if Tolkien had spent a few more years thinking through the implications of what he was writing. However, the direction of his thoughts on the matter is striking for two reasons:

Tolkien's orc conundrum is very nearly word for the word the problem that many contemporary fantasy authors are grappling with fifty years later. They want epic battles with morally clean heroes, and they're running up against exactly the same difficulty that Tolkien himself did – i.e., that describing a human-like species who are ontologically okay to kill is an impossible task.

After all the work he put into solving this impossible problem, one of Tolkien's proposals was literally just "what if they're not really killing the orcs, they're just sending them to the Shadow Realm?"

[thatlittleegyptologist]

Out of curiousity, do you think most national museums are participating in the same kind of thing that the British Museum is, i.e. holding onto items that they stole in conquest / archaeological items that other nations are requesting back?

I always wonder if we should be looking at the bigger picture rather than just this one spotlighted issue (not that the spotlight isn't important in raising the issue originally).

oh goodie we're digging up stuff I wrote from 2 years ago...yay

Okay, for starters, let's look at how you've phrased your question. Currently, the heavy implication is that this is all the BM is (i.e. it only holds colonial loot and contested items), which is false. Yes, it does hold colonial loot from the British Empire. No one is disputing that. It also holds contested items such as the Parthenon Marbles and the Rosetta Stone. What it also holds are many items taken from digs where the country in question permitted them taking them, and then also gifts and other such non colonial requisitions.

Mostly, I need to stress, because as someone who's adjacent to museums this drives me insane: Framing all museum collections as Bad and only containing Bad Items from Bad Deeds doesn't give you the full picture and if you don't have the full picture you can't really address the issue of repatriation properly. It's the classic 'All or Nothing' mentality and I'm begging people to seek nuance on complex topics such as this. Also governments suck and so hearing repeated 'well museums suck because XYZ' means they're more than happy to simply defund them, which they already are doing and that's not helping stuff like repatriation either.

In short, if you're asking does any other museum have a law like BM63 (I wrote 68 in the post because...I'm bad at numbers)? Not as far as I'm aware, no. The BM is unique in that instance where the government literally created a law to prevent it from divesting of its collection.

Do other national museums hold colonial looted artefacts and contested items? Yes. Lots of them. All over the world.

Germany's Neues Museum holds the bust of Nefertiti, which is contested.

The Louvre in Paris has multiple Italian artworks that were stolen in the 1790s that Italy wants back.

The Horses of St Mark's (in Venice) were stolen from Greece by Constantine in the 1200s. (Not really all that contested but they were definitely stolen).

Yale University holds numerous items from Machu Picchu. The 1911 dig had permission from the Peruvian Government, but the items were supposed to be returned. I believe (don't quote me) that less than half were originally. They have subsequently been returned, but this is not an uncommon story.

There's a bunch of Nazi looted artworks that are in museums that need to be returned to their rightful owners.

The MET museum in the US and everything it got from Douglas Latchford (this is ongoing, with some repatriations having already happened)

The National Museum of Australia also got caught out by that guy.

To be fair, the MET Museum has a problem with looted artefacts in general from the 70s onwards as they tried to compete with the European collections and thus ended up gaining a lot of 'not properly provenanced artefacts'. There was a gold sarcophagus they returned only recently that was looted from Egypt post-2011.

The Bible Museum in the US has...stuff it shouldn't (there's a lot and I'm not listing it).

*voice dripping with derision* Whatever the Hobby Lobby is up to

I could go on!

Focusing solely on the BM is a result of a US-Centric mindset, and a pervasive anglophone bias in things people will read. (Or in other words: It's fun to shit on the Brits and most of you only read English anyway.)

This has the unfortunate effect of making it seem like the BM is only museum in the world doing this, and they're not. Not in the slightest. Many museums, national or not, will have colonial looted items if that country has, at any time in the past, waged expansionist wars against other nations, no matter how brief. If your local museum has artefacts from Not Your Country there's a good chance they were looted! Again, I stress that many many artefacts that left places like Egypt were part of agreements with the Egyptian government (called partition agreements) whereby the Egyptian government took first pick of artefacts from a dig and then the dig organisers could take the rest. This hasn't happened since UNESCO World Heritage Convention 1975, which prohibits new artefacts from leaving countries which is also why I will bonk on the head with a cardboard tube anyone who says Archaeologists/Museums are still stealing things.

So yeah, if you're looking at repatriation, you'll be much better looking at the bigger picture and understanding how all this came to be in the first place than you'll ever be making memes about the BM stealing things on the internet.

[orchidbreezefc]

ok. years have passed and we've had some distance, so i'm finally gonna take the leap of faith that tma fandom is finally ready to hear me on this. let's talk about tannins.

161 was the first tma episode i heard on early release, and i felt the bit where martin declines wine and cites tannins was pretty obvious in its implications. cool, got it, say no more.

imagine my surprise when i was one of maybe three people i saw read between the lines there, in a fandom famous for red stringing--a fandom that immediately caught the much less obvious thread of ignition sources in the same episode. i'll spell it out: alcohol is an issue for martin.

maybe it just felt obvious because addiction is a pet issue for me--as it is for jonny, who has said everything he writes is filtered through a lens of addiction. i don't know if that's due to his own experience or a loved one's, and i won't speculate; i also don't know if martin personally struggled with drinking or just avoids it for fear he would, but alcohol would fit what we know of his family. his dad walking out and his mum spiralling into bitter wallowing and verbal abuse? i'd bet one or both of them drank, yeah.

on a basic level martin tries to decline alcohol, and that alone should have raised eyebrows given what we know of martin and, again, a fandom that dissects everything. we already knew martin "K" blackwood lied about his personal life and his family in particular, especially pre-canon, which is when this flashback took place. i was shocked that everyone took his flimsy excuse at face value with no further questions.

and the excuse is flimsy. martin turns down wine by--nervously--exclaiming tannins are "a proven headache trigger!" which sounds like trivia from a magazine cover and not the words of someone who actually has headaches--and it hasn't come up before or since. jon, confused, points out that tea, a drink martin consumes to a degree that is memetic both in- and out-of-universe, also contains tannins, and martin squawks a panicked, "what?!"

if tannins are enough of a concern for martin that he knew they're in wine and so avoids it, why didn't he know they're in his drink of choice? why does he still drink tea at the time of canon, and why doesn't he struggle with constant headaches from consuming 'a proven headache trigger' day in and day out? why, indeed, would someone avoid wine and not tea?

when sasha insists martin drink he caves and agrees to 'just a drop'. i imagine him pouring it in a plant, which admittedly he could have done if tannins really were the issue. i will say that i, for one, would be less likely to falsely agree to something that makes me physically ill than to a private issue that i'd rather not be pressed on any further. this scene also establishes martin's birthday was an ice cream party instead of the more traditional visit to a pub.

also, this scene was in the first episode of the final season, as one of three flashbacks that could have been to any pre-canon event in the archives. prime narrative real estate. not really time one would waste on establishing the important character context that martin has... headaches. which never comes up before or after, even regarding the week he spent in spiral town. but you know what is pretty crucial character background...?

it felt like a no-brainer, and yet all i saw was h/c fluff about jon attending to martin's headaches. and i hate feeling bitter about disability representation. i want folks with chronic headaches to feel seen and have fluffy escapist fantasies. i don't want to be mad about people portraying a character with a disability. but, guys? you got the wrong disability. jonny sent a clear message, and it went over fandom's head.

[gay-jesus-probably]

Okay so I have a lot of thoughts about the whole thing of the Gerudo being a race of entirely women, with the only exception being one man born every hundred years, and that man automatically being their king. Now this worldbuilding comes from Ocarina of Time, and there's obviously a metric fuckton of unfortunate implications there, because it was 1998. And it seems that Tears of the Kingdom is sticking with the lore of Gerudo men being extremely rare and becoming the King of their people, which once again has a metric fuckton of unfortunate implications because it's 2023 and Nintendo has somehow gotten even worse about this shit.

But let's set aside the whole... everything, and look at this from just the in-universe perspective. How does it work? I mean, it's pretty clear that there is no overlap between the kings; the old ones are normally long gone by the time a new one is born, but the Gerudo manage to take care of themselves during the hangtime. So they must have an established system of government and leadership that doesn't involve a king, and somehow that system is set up in a way that does a smooth transfer of power once a new king is born and old enough to take the throne. But why bother always declaring a random guy to be your King when you already have a perfectly functional system in place?

I mean again, the whole thing has a lot of sexist implications, but we're not looking at this from a real world context, we're examining it in-universe. And we could just go the lazy route and say that their king is in charge just because he's the only man, but I don't like that. I mean come on, the Gerudo are a race of entirely women, and most of their outside problems come from Hylian men being creepy about it. They are entirely a matriarchy; there is literally no reason for their culture to have an inherent respect for men, even if the man in question is one of them. And they're desert people; they live in an extremely harsh and dangerous landscape, if they don't have their shit together, they will die. By sheer necessity, their culture needs to put a lot of value in being practical, because if they're stupid about things, people die. They really can't afford to have a shitty leader take over, and just letting some guy take the wheel doesn't really fit with the way their culture must otherwise work.

So again, why the fuck do they bother having a King?

I think it's mainly just a ceremonial position. Yes, if the guy is a good leader he'll be in charge, but if he isn't good at being a King or isn't interested in the job... fuck it, they've already got a functional government system that's been leading their people the whole time, why fix what isn't broken? The title of Gerudo King isn't about leadership or power. I think it's more about belonging. Because the Gerudo are a culture where every single one of them can be defined in the same way... and there is exactly one exception once a century. Men are considered to be inherently outsiders at the best of times, and more often they're enemies. A man born into this culture is a natural outsider; he is completely unique, and that means he doesn't really fit into his community. And well... when someone is fundamentally different from the rest of their community, they tend to be ostracized.

So I think that's why the position of Gerudo King exists. It isn't about them needing or even wanting a man to lead them. The title of King doesn't need to involve any leadership at all. It's about giving the man born every century a place in their society. It's a way of saying yes, you are one of us, you are a Gerudo, you belong here, you are wanted and you are loved.

The Gerudo know that every hundred years, one of their children will be fundamentally different from all of his peers. And so their society is built to ensure that a child who is completely different from them will still be loved and accepted. He will always have a place in their society. He doesn't need to earn their love, he has it just for existing. These are his people.

The title of Gerudo King isn't an inherent position of authority. It's a promise of acceptance.

[maniacwatchestheworld]

We Need To Talk About Danny's Power Level.

I was hesitant to make this post, but the more I think about it and the more I see... We really HAVE to discuss this. Generally speaking, I really don't want to be seen as someone who is trying to ruin people's fun within this fandom. I want to inform, and while I have issues with some of the very prevalent ideas in this fandom, I don't want to tell people what they should or should not be making! I want people to follow what they find fun to create! But this power level thing...? I think that it has some rather concerning implications to it that need to be examined and discussed! This is an actual, decently serious problem, and after considering it for a time, it occurs to me that I may be one of the few people in this community that recognizes this issue as an actual issue and has the authority to speak on it...

You NEED to stop making Danny so incredibly overpowered in the DPxDC space.

Now please don't misunderstand me. I understand the value of a good fun power fantasy and making Danny more powerful than God can be fun and cathartic if you have a negative history with the Christian faith. But this insistence on the Ghost Zone being The Most Important Thing Ever and Danny being The Most Powerful Entity Within It is actually actively warping how people interpret and think about DC canon as well as certain characters within its canon to the point of unrecognizability as well as robbing characters of what makes them interesting, the point of their stories, and their agency within it. But most importantly of all, all of this is just... Generally, genuinely dismissive and shitty towards most religions, cultures, beliefs, and faiths that people practice, ESPECIALLY the faiths of POC and other minorities. And this is specifically an issue that DC does not have and that people within this space are making an issue by refusing to let the Ghost Zone and Danny have some limitations.

So that you understand where I'm coming from, please understand that I'm a person of color (I'm half Filipino) and that I'm Buddhist (a religion that I decided to convert to and embrace after a lot of thought and soul-searching, even if I'm not very good at practicing it). It also needs to be stated that in the DC universe, all religions and faiths are true and real at the same time, and they all have more or less equal footing as any other faith or religion or mythology explored in this multiverse. Christian heaven and hell are real. Reincarnation is canonical to the DCU. The Greek Pantheon is real and they are just as real and powerful as the Norse Pantheon. (By the by, just to let you know, yes, people in the real life modern day do actually actively worship both of these pantheons today.) Different alien planets have different faiths, and there is precedent for them being real as well. (Hey! Fun fact! Kryptonians are polytheistic!) It does seem that some form of animism is real within the DCU (within concepts of The Red and The Green)! And there is even representation for indigenous African faiths and beliefs within this shared universe! One of the genuinely wonderful things about the DC universe is that all of these faiths are real, they're all valid, and they are all more or less on equal footing to one another! If all the religions and afterlives and gods of each pantheon went to war with one another, it would genuinely be difficult to know who would win, or who would even stand a chance of coming out of this conflict alive!

In fact, a lot of characters and storylines within the DC universe are actually DEPENDENT on all of these faiths existing and being equally valid at the same time. Do you know where Billy Batson gets his powers from? The phrase "SHAZAM," if you didn't know, is actually an acronym for the names of the gods and heroes that he derives his powers from. (Solomon, Heracles, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.) And it's implied that each person with SHAZAM powers has different heroes and gods that they derive their power from! (Black Adam derives all of his powers from the Egyptian Pantheon. Mary Marvel derives all of her powers from female gods and heroic figures.) Many of Wonder Woman's stories involve her interacting with various different pantheons. Xanthe Zhou gets their powers from traditional Chinese folk ancestor-worshiping practices. Ragman is a Jewish character whose suit is a powerful Jewish artifact- a suit made out of the souls of sinners that was created to protect the Jewish community. Sun Wukong is an actual character in the DCU and he is JUST as overpowered and immortal ×500 as he should be! And there are like... At least 3 entirely different characters that either are iterations of, claim to be, or pull their powers/inspiration from Anansi! DC celebrates a lot of faiths and religions and are bringing in more beliefs and faiths into their universe all the time! TONS of characters derive their powers from their religions, faiths, and beliefs! And DC celebrates them all as being real and valid to all who practice them! ... And you want them all to be forced to be under the same umbrella and less important and powerful as Danny and the Ghost Zone...

Bringing up ideas of ghosts and afterlives are always going to be loaded subjects because they often inherently rub up against actual living people's practiced religions and beliefs. But a belief in ghosts and dimensions better suited for them is also a valid belief that real life people have. And there is precedent for these beliefs also being real within DC canon. But DC only manages to get away with crossing over as many faiths as it does by saying that they are all real, valid, and while you might see less of some pantheons and more of others, they all exist and are doing their own thing just like they do in real life, just off panel... Are you beginning to see what the problem is...?

In the DPxDC fandom's eagerness to incorporate Danny into the DC universe and to make him powerful enough to go toe to toe with the likes of Superman, it seems that most people immediately overcompensated and that no one has really thought to slow down, stop, and actually think about what they are implying. Because the most common headcanons that I have seen regarding the Ghost Zone and other afterlives and religions? It's that they are all parts of the Ghost Zone, but are all ultimately subordinate to it. And since Danny is the Most Powerful and Important Person in the Ghost Zone... This implies that all religions, faiths and beliefs are less important and are indeed subordinate to the Almighty Danny. That all deities and the people following them should just bow down to Danny's might. This is something that DC, in spite of all of its flaws, has managed to avoid. These religions are REAL religions! Actual faiths practiced by actual people! We are NOT talking about dead, irrelevant pantheons that no one alive worship anymore! We are talking about living, active faiths and religions, some of which colonizers have tried to eradicate from the world! Some of these faiths have been suppressed! Some of the people who practice these beliefs have faced genocide for them! And so saying that the Ghost Zone is bigger, better, and that Danny is more important than any single other faith and afterlife...? THAT'S A SHITTY THING TO DO! You are literally doing the shitty Christian missionary thing, but with a fictional afterlife that consists of fictional characters that you know are not actual religious beliefs! You're landing on the sandy polytheistic shores of the DCU and declaring that the Ghost Zone is actually vaster than every faith already in the DCU and that Danny is more powerful and has authority over your gods! That your beliefs and faith and religion should just take a backseat to the Danny power fantasy! That your real, lived religion is not more important nor should it be respected when Danny is in the room! Of course the Buddha should bow down to Danny! Of course the Jewish people should renounce their faith and worship Danny instead because he's better and more powerful than the Jewish God! Why should people pray to their ancestors when Danny ultimately gets to decide what happens to everyone's ancestors!? If they want good things to happen to their ancestors in the afterlife, they should pray to Danny instead! Not like any form of prayer works or matters in this universe anyway because Danny is Almighty! And he doesn't hear the prayers! By making all faiths subordinate to Danny within these stories, you are saying that anyone who practices these beliefs and faiths within these stories are not valid in their beliefs. The only belief that matters and is real in this universe is the Ghost Zone and whatever will appease Danny the most. And while the characters in these stories are not real, the religions, beliefs, and practices they engage in ARE. And so you are implying that real people's faiths and religions don't matter. You are just dismissing real faiths and beliefs as not something worth thinking about or respecting within your works! You are saying that this fictional American white teenage boy and his goopy green land is more important to you than just being respectful of real people's faiths, beliefs, and religions. That your power fantasy is more important than saying that a person is valid for holding on to their beliefs. That when it comes down to it, that you would rather people choose your Danny power fantasy over their religion being portrayed as important and valid. That is honestly insulting. And really alls that you've done is impose monotheism onto the DC universe. You're just enforcing monotheism on people with extra steps. But instead of it being the Christian God, you've put Danny in that position. THIS IS A SHITTY THING TO DO! THIS SHOULD NOT BE THE DEFAULT HEADCANON THAT PEOPLE HAVE IN THIS FANDOM! PLEASE STOP!

Please understand. I know that you didn't do this on purpose or mean to imply this intentionally. I know that you didn't realize that you were insulting and undermining actual faiths and religions by pushing these ideas on the fandom. If one or two people had these thoughts and headcanons and didn't think very much about what they are implying, this would not be a problem. But for this to be the default is VERY disconcerting! As a Buddhist, it does feel genuinely shitty and insulting to imply that Danny has authority over the Buddha and that he outranks and is more powerful than Sun Wukong. It's not fun to think that my beliefs matter to you less than continuing to play with your Danny power fantasy. That you don't think that the pursuit for enlightenment and inner peace is real or worthwhile. That you would find my pursuit of compassion over everything else to be silly, stupid, and laughable when stood next to Danny. I know that you don't mean it. I know that's not what you meant to imply. But it is what you imply by making every faith subordinate to the Ghost Zone. And as someone who has a faith that is so often seen as subordinate to others and just a silly little play fantasy that doesn't matter and isn't real, it's depressing and uncomfortable to see this community as a whole unknowingly echo these sentiments. People in real life don't think that my faith is valid. People don't believe me when I say that I'm Buddhist. And as someone who is Filipino on top of that, I can't help but to think about the utter tragedy of my ancestors being forced to convert to Christianity or die. To forget their beliefs, pretend they never mattered, and embrace Jesus. To be forced to believe that their indigenous beliefs didn't matter. And so many of those indigenous beliefs are now lost and forgotten to their living ancestors (including myself) for it because to the Christians, their belief in Jesus was ultimately more important to them than just letting the Filipino beliefs and religions peacefully exist as they were. It's uncomfortable to me that you would rather I just embrace this view of Danny and let him be more important than and be an authority over my religion. That I should just be comfortable in Danny being more important and better than every religion that people actually practice in real life. That I should just forget the insult to my and any other religion that you make by placing Danny as more important than, and to "just have fun." But I can't. And these ideas are everywhere in this fandom. Even in stories where it shouldn't matter or doesn't need to be present, it's there. This reminder that you don't take my faith seriously- these ideas that Danny is more important than my faith are ubiquitous to this community. An issue that wasn't present in either of the original source materials. Because they thought about it and so went out of their way to not imply it. But here, people are just not willing to make that courtesy for even a second.

But it doesn't have to be this way. You can do better! I know that you can do better. And it isn't even difficult to do! All that you need to do better is to simply... Just... Think about it. When you imply or say "all afterlives are part of the Ghost Zone" actually think about ALL afterlives! Christian and Atheist and Greek ones, yes. But also Asian and Native American and African and South American ones too! Is that kind of thought fair towards Native American faiths, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Palestinians, Hellenists, Animists, and every other person and group that practices a faith? Or does this have majorly fucked up implications towards some or all of these people? If the answer is yes, you can proceed, but you need to be mindful of that fact and just think about it, even if only a little. Even if it's just a small acknowledgement that you don't know what you're talking about or that you are choosing to ignore some of the fucked up implications you're making here for the sake of the story in the tags. I just want you to take a moment and think through the implications of what you are making, and to make a choice on whether you should proceed or reconsider things. If you choose to proceed with the fucked up implications, that's fine. It means that you can do so with other mindsets in mind and can possibly use these ideas in interesting ways! At least you made a stance to possibly be shitty towards some people for the sake of your fun. At least you made the choice to say that some people's beliefs just don't matter to your story. This is a neutral statement. Some works of art are just not made for some kinds of people. And that's fine. But it is always better to knowingly acknowledge and make that choice than to pretend that it isn't there. And if you didn't realize that's what you were doing? If you reconsider and choose to turn back on this idea? At least you made that choice and didn't just passively follow the rest of the crowd to get here. Hopefully, thinking about it will make you more mindful about your art in the future and therefore make it better! The only thing to do about it is to acknowledge that you weren't thinking about the implications, but that you changed your mind, and move forwards with your life.

Now just to be entirely clear, I'm not telling you that I want you to feel guilty about being inconsiderate towards other faiths. That doesn't really do anyone any good. I won't get any satisfaction from you feeling guilty about it or internally punishing yourself for it. Just actually give what you might be implying more thought in terms of religion next time and do better. It's alright to make mistakes. We are all just human and we all make mistakes. Sometimes we don't even realize when we've made a mistake. Just strive to do better next time, be more willing to let go of these ideas that you're so attached to, allow yourself to see things from another perspective, and move on. Sometimes, it's better to just leave things alone. Sometimes you shouldn't meddle and try to rework ideas that were perfectly good on their own to begin with. Sometimes nothing that you personally can add will be a positive contribution. Sometimes the only thing that interfering will do is over-complicate things and rob the idea of what made it so interesting and powerful in the first place. But it's okay to leave it alone. It's going to be okay. I'm not angry. Just disappointed and a little frustrated. But it's better if you are able to just drop these things and move forwards with mindfulness in the future.

As an alternative, I think that it would generally be better for the Ghost Zone to just be its own thing separate from the other afterlives. Equal to other afterlives and not all-encompassing of them. It can be connected or related to other afterlives, but being greater than them as a whole is just a very uncomfortable and cruel implication. You don't need the Ghost Zone to be the most important thing in the multiverse. And Danny does not need to be the most powerful thing in existence. Please. It's okay to have power fantasies. But the invincible overpowered stronger than all Gods Danny should not be the overwhelming norm here to the detriment of everything else. It's only when you let go of Danny NEEDING to be the MOST important thing in the multiverse can you start to really dive into some of the more interesting sides of characters on their own terms and not on yours! Like... Did you know that there is one ghost character in DC called The Spectre and that he's the literal personification of the wrath of God? Did you know that Xanthe Zhou as a spirit envoy is actually half dead and half alive? Did you know that The Wizard Shazam is actually, secretly an aboriginal god? Did you know that in the DC universe that Judas Iscariot still walks the Earth to this day, doing vigilante work to atone for his betrayal of Jesus? Did you know that Ra's Al Ghul's mom has met and hung out with some of the demons that Sun Wukong fought against in Journey to the West? Hell, did you know that Damian is Buddhist!? Imagine that. Danny coming in and telling Damian that he's more important and more powerful than Damian's entire religion. That the Buddha is just a lackey of his and that he rules over all afterlives, including nirvana and cycles of reincarnation. I'm certain that Damian would take that very well and accept it wholeheartedly! Don't you agree with me?!!?!???!

I personally think that all of this is better and more interesting if characters, their religions, and ideas in general are able to interact with Danny's world on their own terms without being forced to fit within Danny's box! You don't need to try to force everything within DC's universe to fit inside Danny's. DC wouldn't ask for Danny's universe to conform to theirs! They would just add everything that Danny's universe has to offer on top of everything else they already have! And trying to fit the entire DC multiverse within the scope of Danny's universe... It's too small a box for too large of a universe! Sometimes you can just let things not be deeply connected. And sometimes things don't need a complicated explanation and it can literally just be magic. There's nothing wrong with trying to tie everything together in a neat and succinct way. But sometimes you need to pull your view out a little and look at what you're doing and genuinely ask yourself if what you're doing actually adds depth, or if it does more harm than good and makes everything worse, make less sense, and more complicated or not. It's okay to fall down the rabbit hole sometimes. I completely understand that happening and do it all the time! Just remember to be mindful about it!

Either way, if you're going to insist on desperately clinging onto these ideas of Danny being the Most Important and Powerful Thing in the Multiverse to the detriment of literally everything else, that's fine. But just be honest with what you're doing and why. This isn't a Ghost King Danny AU. Kingdoms don't have unequivocal power over other and all kingdoms. It's a God Emperor over all Gods Danny AU. Nothing wrong with that concept in of itself. Just tag it properly as something like "God King Danny" so that I don't have to deal with it and the implications you're making about my religion with it. That would be enough! I would be happy with that! Just make your choice. Think about what you're doing, why you're doing it and choose. If you choose to keep going, that's fine! All the more power to you! Have fun! But be honest about what you're making. I may not like it and think that it's an overdone, overplayed idea at this point, but you're free to do it! So go forwards and make what will bring you joy! But now that you've thought about it a little, hopefully you'll continue with a little more knowledge and foresight. And hopefully that will make your work even more interesting and better for it! And if you decide to change course, I'm glad that I was able to sway you and get you to see things from my perspective and come to my side on this. At the very least, hopefully this will help to vary up ideas within the fandom a bit and you won't just take ideas that are happening in this space entirely for granted and as givens! I have so many ideas on interesting ways that these intersections can go and characters that you can use, and ways to look at this community that offer so so SO many interesting story directions! I'm so happy that you've decided to come with me on this journey! You're going to make something great, I'm certain of it! So let's make something wonderful together! I believe in you! There's a lot of fun to be had! ^.^

[raedas]

where in the locked tomb universe are we?

or: a tentative guide to the solar system in the locked tomb and which houses go where :)

[id: a diagram of the solar system, including pluto, with additional white text overlaid over each body. the sun is labeled dominicus, mercury is labeled the sixth, venus is the seventh, earth is the first, mars is the second, jupiter is the third, saturn is the fifth, uranus is the fourth, neptune is the eight, and pluto is the ninth. /end id]

note: i'm pretty sure people have put together similar analyses before, but i wanted to try my own hand at it! and please feel free to share if you disagree with me on anything & your own evidence and thoughts <3

evidence & analysis under the cut!

THE NINTH HOUSE:

okay, this one is pretty much just a freebie. if you didn't know that the ninth house was on pluto, then, uh... sorry! i'm not going to exhaustively go through all the evidence for this one, but some things that stick out are the cold, gideon's awe at how close the first house is to the sun, and the fact that it's the "ninth" to begin with—the house that wasn't really meant to exist, perfectly in line with the planet that isn't really a planet THE FIRST HOUSE:

this one is given to us just as much, if not moreso, than the ninth. with that in mind, i'm just going to do a quick run through of the evidence that the first house is earth: it's very blue and covered in water, there are ruins of civilization, it's "the first", so on and so forth. home, sweet home :)

THE SIXTH HOUSE:

Then he said, "The sun has stabilized. Hope the Sixth House didn't get cooked in the flare." (Harrow the Ninth, 490)

this line is pretty much the entire selling point for the sixth being on mercury, the closest planet to the sun! (until they run away to the other side of the universe, that is)

THE SEVENTH HOUSE:

There were other planets that made their homelands closer to the burning star of Dominicus--the Seventh and Sixth, for instance--but to Gideon they could not imaginably be anything else than 100 percent on fire. (Gideon the Ninth, 67)

the implication here is fairly obvious: the seventh and sixth are on venus and mercury, or vice versa. thankfully, since we have the sixth squared away as mercury, it's pretty obvious that the seventh is located on venus

BONUS MYTHOLOGY FACT: venus is the roman goddess of beauty! (also known by her greek name, aphrodite). "seven for beauty that blossoms and dies", huh?

THE EIGHTH HOUSE:

"I squeal so long and so loud that they hear me from the Eighth." (Gideon the Ninth, 26)

while this line is obvious hyperbole, to me it implies one of two things: either the eighth is the farthest planet from the ninth, or it's right next to them. and since we know that mercury already has its hands full with sixth house, i think it's safe to assume that the eighth is on neptune, the ninth's next door neighbor :)

THE SECOND HOUSE:

"We went through the same shitty questions of what to do. What about the Mars installation, what about the fusion batteries?" (Nona the Ninth, 74)

john helpfully offers this tidbit to us when he's recounting everything that happened leading up to the apocalypse to harrow. i think it says a lot that there was a mars installation even before the apocalypse properly hit, and it makes sense that said installation would eventually become a proper House, with a capital H

BONUS MYTHOLOGY FACT: mars is the roman god of warfare (known in greek as ares)! looks at the second house and how closely they're associated the cohort... yeah, i think that speaks for itself

THE THIRD & FIFTH HOUSES:

"I thought we'd end up on the Third or the Fifth, or a sweet space station, or something." (Gideon the Ninth, 56)

"We are not becoming an appendix of the Third or Fifth Houses," continued the necromancer opposite." (Gideon the Ninth, 58)

okay, here's this bit where things begin to get a bit hairy. repeatedly throughout the books, we're told about how the third and fifth are the two "big" houses. harrow's scared of them and worried they'll make the ninth one of their appendixes, gideon originally thinks the entire lyctoral meeting will be on one of their planets, so on and so forth. with that in mind, it really isn't that much of a stretch to think they'd be situated on the two giants in our solar system: jupiter and saturn. we'll come back in a moment to sort out which is which!

THE FOURTH HOUSE:

aaaand uranus is the only planet left! congrats, fourth!

THE THIRD & FIFTH HOUSES (again):

"Naturally [Isaac] is Pent's protégé. I hear the Fifth takes special pains with the Fourth... hegemonic pains, some may say." (Gideon the Ninth, 170)

from this quote, as well as the whole of jeannemary & isaac's relationship with magnus & abigail, we can surmise that the fourth house is very close to the fifth house (hegemonic though it may be). it's reasonable that that metaphorical proximity is reflecting (or caused by) something else: physical proximity. with that, i think it's fairly safe to assume that the fifth is on saturn, putting the third on jupiter

DOMINICUS:

aaand finally, the center of the solar system itself! i really, really don't think it needs sharing that dominicus is the sun, as long as you accept that the locked tomb takes place in our own solar system. however, i do think the meaning of dominicus is worth sharing. coming from latin, it translates roughly to "lordly", "belonging to god", or "of the master." very subtle, john, very subtle.

[lovebugism]

I would love to request a drabble for punchy x Steve where maybe they're hanging out together with the group for the first time and punchys a little nervous to see how they'll react to see seeing as her whole vibe is so different from every other of Steves exes basically lol

i had so much fun with this request!! hope you like it, anon! from the punchy x steve universe — the one where steve comforts you when you're too scared to tell his friends about your relationship (1.2k)

bug's summer fic fest ♡

Steve’s been waiting all night to kiss you.

He knew inviting the whole gang over for a swim would put a wrench in his plans to love on you all night, but he didn’t think it would be this hard. Not holding you feels a little like a knife in his side. It hurts worse than every beating he’s ever taken, combined.

So he doesn’t waste a second to sneak out behind you when you leave for a smoke break. He waits exactly five minutes before following you out through the front gate. He finds you sitting on the hood of your car — a pretty little thing in all black sat upon a rusted tin can. 

You’re wearing a knit coverup over a one-piece bathing suit. It's about three sizes too big for you. The puffy sleeve falls to your elbow when you take a drag of your cigarette, then crawls back up to your wrist when you flick the end of it. The staunch smell of nicotine contrasts with the warmer scent of a dewy summer night.

“Think I can bum a smoke from you… buddy?” Steve asks when he climbs the hood to sit next to you.

The nickname is so obviously pointed. You laugh, high and airy. Smoke billows from your lips as you giggle. 

Dustin asked if you were dating earlier that night — deep blue eyes twinkling with hopeful embers you hated to snuff out. “Sorry, kid, but we’re not dating,” you fibbed in response, patting Steve on his shoulder. “We’re just a couple of best buds, aren’t we, bab— I mean, Steve?”

It wasn’t your best work by any means, but it got everyone off your back. That was all you really wanted to do, anyway.

“Always, Stevie,” you singsong as you pass him the lit cigarette between your fingers.

“Think it would be too much to ask for a kiss, too?” the boy wonders with raised brows and sparkling honey eyes.

You melt. 

“Never,” you hum with a shake of your head, already gravitating towards him. You had a tendency to do that a lot — to drift his way like he was a magnet compared to the metal of you. He welcomes you just the same, pressing his mouth to yours like his lips were made to do it.

The kiss is chaste and innocuous, gentle with the makings of a man who’s wanted to kiss you for several agonizing hours.

Your lips click in protest when they part. He smiles as he watches your heavy eyes flutter slowly open. You’re met with his pretty pink lopsided smile. “Think we should tell ‘em tonight?”

You lean away from him, pursing your lips to the side of your mouth as you ponder his question. 

You’d love to tell everyone about Steve, more than just your core group of friends. You want to shout your adoration for him from the rooftops, let it sing across the universe and back. But love was more complex than simple words, and the implication of that terrified you.

After a few moments, you shake your head — lazily and with your nose scrunched.

“What do you mean?” Steve laughs. The sound is bright enough to illuminate the starry evening. It’s bright yellow compared to the velvet blue sky. The boy rests his weight on one of his arms and gestures with the other. “We’ve gotta tell ‘em sometime, babe. ‘Cause if they find out on their own, I’m gonna be the one dealing with the bitching.”

“I just like not having to talk about it,” you confess with a quiet shrug. Your chin turns to your shoulder when you look over at him, meeting his glittering gaze with a meeker one. “I like just being with you and not having to talk about the… gross, icky, lovey stuff.”

“The gross icky lovey stuff?” Steve echoes with jettisoned brows.

“Yeah.”

“Like what?” he deadpans, bringing the lit cigarette to his mouth. “How in love with you I am?”

“Exactly,” you joke back with a feigned disgust.

Steve scoffs out a laugh as he hands the stick back to you. Smoke leaves his mouth in a wispy grey cloud. 

You hold the thing between your thumb and forefinger, but don’t move to take a hit of it. He knows it’s something deeper, then — something more you want to say. You keep it inside and get all in your head about it, though. Your eyes glaze over as you look off into the distance. Steve can read you like a damn book.

“What else?” the boy blurts.

Your eyes go wide as they flit back to his. “Huh?”

“You look like you wanna say something else.”

You blink at him for a moment, then shake your head innocently.

Steve reaches out a hand to nudge your shoulder. A soft smile tugs at the corner of his pink lips. “Come on. Just say it,” he urges gently. “Lay it on me, babe. I can take it.”

You laugh in response. It’s halfhearted, though, and your smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

“I don’t know,” you sigh with the same barely-there grin. Your eyes turn away from his, gaze going glassy as your stare turns to the darkening sky. “It’s just… The last person your friends saw you with was Nancy. And I know Robin is well up to date with all your other flings, ‘cause she said, and I quote, ‘he certainly has a type.’”

“Well, that’s just Robin,” the boy shrugs with pinched brows. “She’s an idiot. Sometimes she just kinda says stuff.”

“I’m just saying that… I’m not your type, you know?” you confess sheepishly, like it’s some deeply hidden secret. You have no idea it’s why Steve loves you so much — not despite how different you are, but because of it.

“I know,” the boy nods, meeting your timid glance with a bright grin.

“And I’m just scared that… that they’ll think it’s weird. You know, that we’re… together.”

“It is weird,” Steve affirms with a chuckle. “That’s why it’s so cool!” 

Your brows pinch. “…Really?”

“Yeah! I fucking love being your boyfriend, babe! And they’re gonna love you being my girlfriend!”

He says it all with wide eyes and pink smiles, so confident like it’s all obvious to him. He makes it sound so simple, smoothing out all your buzzing, complex insecurities with ease.

You scrunch your nose in response. “You think so?”

“Definitely,” he scoffs with a firm nod, then tilts his head to his shoulder. “Well... Robin will be a little jealous, probably. Dustin, too. And Eddie’s already got a whole complex about it, so…”

“So they’ll hate it,” you summarize with a smile.

“They'll hate all the gooey, icky, lovey stuff, sure. But they’ll love you— I mean, they already do. Way more than they love me.”

“You sound very sure about all this, Harrington.”

“It’s impossible not to love you, Punchy,” Steve confesses, growing suddenly very tender. “Everything you do— it’s like you’re made of, fucking— flowers or something.”

“Flowers?” you giggle.

The boy huffs. “I’m just saying that you’re too perfect not to fall in love with, okay? They’re gonna love you because it’s against human nature not to, you know?”

You don’t believe him. 

You know he’s not lying, but you don’t believe him. 

But rather than arguing, you reach out a hand for the one propping up his weight. You rest your palm along his knuckles and smile. Your skin buzzes when you touch him — Love? Euphoria? A schoolgirl giddiness? You’re not sure.

You just know happiness when you see him, touch him. 

Steve Harrington is a happily ever after.

Yours, hopefully.

[alchemicaladarna]

Hey so while the server is closed for now, can we go back to QSMP prison for a minute? Because I think we moved on way too fast from ghostbit, Abueloier, and the implications of their relationship.

Ok, just so I don't get this wrong, that old man was Abueloier, right? He was working as a janitor for the prison, and the ghost of his old friend that he betrayed has been haunting him for what, 60 years?

Was it confirmed that the ghost was related to qCellbit? Like an ancestor, or was that just a headcanon? Because listen, if that ghost was qCellbit's grandpa or something, then everything about Spiderbit (all the way from when we first met Abueloier just became more tragic and hilarious)

So, I'm going to take the headcanon that the ghost in the prison was q!Cellbit's grandpa for my own timeline:

Ghostbit and Abueloier are individually arrested by the Federation in their 20s (???)

They meet in prison and become friends

They plan an escape together

As time goes on, Abueloier became paranoid and less trusting of Ghostbit

Just as when they're about to escape, Abueloier betrays and kills his beloved friend and is damned to a life sentence as a prisoner

After more than half a century has gone by, Abuleoier's grandson is engaged. He's heard some stuff about the guy, but he still wants to meet the guy his son is about to marry.

Then he meets qCellbit, and finds out he has the same voice and the same face as his old friend. How haunting is that?

Then qCellbit is just set on killing him and absolutely hates him (for all the right reasons ofc)

Isn't that just the most poetic form of karma? To be forever haunted by, not only the ghost of your old friend, but you also continue to see his face and be reminded about your betrayal in the man your grandson chose to love...

God, in every universe and timeline, Spiderbit is just doomed by the narrative, aren't they?

[dreamingon-forever]

AoT Character Tarot Cards + Merch Sets Implications and Meaning Explained

Every pairing explained here is from the official sets sold together here: 💜💚

Levi and Hange:

[Levi as Judgement]:

According to Tarot, The Judgement card represents some kind of prosecutor that decides whether someone else had sinned, and delivers punishment as seen fit. It can also mean that one's life comes to an important decision period, where they're asked to take action accordingly.

[Hange as The Lovers]:

Hange's Lover card represents partnership and cooperation between two individuals, as well as the general meaning and embodiment of love in itself. The lover card also represents shared values between lovers, temptation of the heart, as well as give and take between two lovers.

[Judgement + The Lovers]:

When combined, the two cards read as if there's an important decision to be taken in accordance to a matter of the heart. It usually represents two lovers coming to decide whether to take a step forward together or choose a separate path. It represents two lovers who are met with a difficult decision, usually one where they would let their hearts come together and choose a life alongside each other. While the other path is the one where they must separate, usually due to differences in careers or duties. Despite it all it represents two people who love each other making a judgement on where they take their relationship. Which makes a lot of sense when looking at Levi and Hange's relationship. Given how long they've known each other, always being seen as a half of the other, it was only time for them to gain feelings towards the other. Not to mention the forest scene when they both decided to put their feelings behind for the sake of humanity, although both wished nothing more than to be together.

Also, note how both cards have the same angel calling judgement upon the humans depicted. Almost as if being burdened by the same judgement and fate.

Ymir and Annie:

[Ymir and the Magician:]

Ymir is represented as the Magician. The magician represents manifesting one's own ending with their will, making what they desire something to strive for no matter what.

[Annie and Strength]:

Annie represents Strength, attributing to both mental and emotional strength. Where in order to be achieve what one wants, they have to face their fears to overcome any obstacles in their way.

[Magician + Strenght]:

When combined, they represent how one is in charge of their own stories in the end. If put in enough energy and you face your fears, nothing can stand in your way of what you wish to accomplish. Similar how we saw these two characters have the strongest personalities in the show, but both had demons to fight to get to their desired paths. But neither gave up and instead pushed on, pushing for the ideal end they wanted.

Berthold and Reiner:

[Berthold as the Hermit]:

The Hermit represents a time or period of self reflection. When one looks introspectively at themselves and tries to answer their inner turmoil and take the time to answer their inner selves.

[Reiner as the Chariot]:

The Chariot represents sheer will to push forward. To push yourself through willpower and strength. One cannot stay still if one wants to achieve something.

[Hermit + Chariot]:

When put together, it means that after reflecting and figuring out what they want, they gain a new insight about themselves and embark on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth. In the show and manga, we saw how these two were given a task as soldiers, but lost themselves when getting close to their enemies, making them take a step back and question their true purpose. But after finally reflecting and figuring out where they stood, they grew to think on their own, forging their own paths.

Sasha and Connie:

[Sasha as the Sun]:

The sun represents happiness and fortune to come. It also symbolizes a time where everything comes to fruition and comes together to aid in your destined path. "It represents the universe coming together and agreeing with your path and aiding forward movement into something greater (Wiki)."

[Connie as the Star]:

The Star symbolizes newfound hope. New realization and hope which leads one away from the darkness and into a bright future ahead.

[The Sun + The Star]:

When combined, it dictates the moment of darkness and unknown being gone. A bright and illuminated future opening up before one as it gives newfound hope, where success is on the horizon. If we place Sasha and Connie together, it might present how Sasha was always the bright one in the friend group, bringing hope and happiness. After she died, it seemed that it was the moment everyone's goals finally aligned, and the beginning of the ending came to be. It also affected Connie as although he lost his best friend, he realized her death opened up a future that was as bright as her, where their goals would finally bear fruit, and that her death wasn't for vein.

Jean and Historia:

[Jean as the Fool]:

The Fool is a card that talks about taking a leap of faith. Not knowing the outcomes nor the chances of something happening, yet still having faith that something would work out. It can be a foolish antic, but sometimes the leap of faith is what you need to get to the end of the road as you put your faith into the universe and the future.

[Historia as the Empress]:

The Empress represents maternity, familial bonds and creation of life. Further analysis show that the Empress also is the card that is open to changes, and welcomes them.

[The Fool = The Empress]:

Together they formulate this notion that letting go of things and ideas that are old might be the right path to take. It might be foolish as to put full trust into something one can't fully predict, but being innovative and taking the chances can sometimes be the solution. Jean is known to be a fool of himself from time to time, and while full of himself, he is always willing to jump into the unknown if there's a chance to help his friends. And for Historia, although she's also given birth to a real baby, she's usually the one in the friend group who comes up with innovative and out of the box solutions.

Erwin and Armin:

[Erwin as the Hierophant]:

The Hierophant is a card representing an older souled figure, a teacher or mentor of some sort. Someone who has extremely well formulated knowledge and is there to guide and teach others.

[Armin as the Wheel of Fortune]:

The Wheel of fortune when looked upright and in reverse can depict different meanings. When upright it can mean good luck and fortune to come, where the universe is on your side. Downright can mean misfortune and lack of support. It shows how turbulent and unreliable life can be, and that you can't rely on luck to follow through.

[The Hierophant + Wheel of Fortune]:

In combination, it tells the individual to go after their desires instead of sitting and waiting for luck to come. Together it shows that one needs to know and stand firmly with what they believe in, and despite times of turmoil as life is never set in stone, one can push to the finish line if they strongly hold to their believes. Similar to how Erwin held onto his belief that his father had been right about humanity being outside the walls, despite what he'd been told he pushed forward to uncover the truth. And in turn, influencing Armin who also had the same vision of a life outside the confinements of the walls. Because they both pushed through, keeping true to their core believes, they managed to be the voice that carried them to the end.

Eren and Mikasa:

[Eren as the World]:

The World is the last card in the deck. It represents endings to a cycle in life where one comes to terms and becomes one with the universe. It's the last event before everything filters back into the universe, and starts once more with the Fool- the first of the deck. "It is also said to represent cosmic consciousness; the potential of perfect union with the One Power of the universe (Wiki)."

[Mikasa as Justice]:

Justice as its name says, it's the fairest decision one can make at a certain time for a situation. The decision cannot and will not be changed as fairness is the right answer. It's also depicted as a figure holding up two swords, ready to strike in the name of fairness.

[The World + Justice]:

When put together it represents completion, as well as full awareness and fully coming to control one's thoughts and emotions. Romantically it can be seen as coming to terms that the relationship had run its course, as well as seeing it as it is and understanding that it's at its last stage. It's the end, but because it IS the end, it means there's a beginning somewhere else- with someone else. When looking at it from the Eremika perspective, we all saw how despite being in love with each other, their relationship was always doomed to be a failure. Mikasa was also the one who cut the final string holding them together, understanding that whatever they had wasn't meant to be. It's also interesting to see how Jean is depicted as the Fool, the first of the deck when The World, which is Eren is the last. Meaning that after Eren, Mikasa's true happiness was the next stage, which is Jean.

Final thoughts:

So this took me about 4 hours to write and put together. But I really hope you guys enjoy reading through it and are as surprised as I am about the accuracy of the tarot cards and the characters they represent. An immense amount of thought had gone into the creation of this set, and I cannot for the life of me get rid of the chills that cover me as to how perfect the tarots fit each character and their personality/situation. I also want to point out that based on this, it does seem very obvious that Eren and Mikasa, and Levi and Hange were meant to be couples. Their tragic love stories match up exactly to what the tarot combination imply, and I think that's beautiful as it is tragic.

Please do share the love and leave comments and likes to let me know if I should continue doing content like this or if you guys want me to do something similar in the future. I'm interested to see how you guys feel about this.

Also, I would like to thank @beatotsundere for helping me put some things together. Share the love by visiting their website if you want to purchase AoT merch!

[carpisuns]

the most hurtful thing about the rise of AI art, to me, is that the importance of lived human experience is up for debate.

you could say a lot about the ethical implications of it all and how it negatively impacts actual artists—how their work is being stolen and fed to bots without their permission, how they are losing ownership of their own artistic expression, how they're are losing their jobs because AI can "replace" them. but people will always find a way to talk their way around it. "if they didn't want people to use their art, they shouldn't be posting it online." "you can't own an artistic style." "the generated art piece is not actually their art. it's not stealing." and the real clincher: "i don't know what to tell you. that's just progress."

i feel like so many people see this issue through the lens of charlie bucket's dad getting fired from the toothpaste factory because a machine could place a cap on the tube more efficiently. but making art is not the same as screwing a cap onto a tube of toothpaste. it's emotional. it's meaningful. it's expressive. the end result is informed by the experiences and choices of the creator. and the viewer's experience is different knowing that a human is behind those choices—that there was real choice involved at all.

you could argue that AI art retains the inherent humanity of art, because it uses samples of real art made by real people—a whole collective pool of representative humanity. but it's not really the same. it's just an echo. an illusion. a mimic of life without the spark that actually makes it alive.

when i look at art, i want to think about the human behind it. i want to feel connected to them. i want to ponder their choices and notice their details and appreciate their skills. i want to look at it and feel something, because the artist felt something when they made it.

sometimes i see a cool piece of art and get excited. but when i realize it's AI, the emotion is gone. "what's the difference?" someone might ask. "if you liked it before, why don't you like it knowing it's AI? the image didn't change. it's still the same." and sure, visually it's the same. but emotionally it's not. i can't make a connection with it anymore. because there was no real intention behind it. i can't search for meaning in it, because there is none. when i look at AI art, even visually impressive art, i feel nothing. there's no wonder. there's no connection. the only possible feeling for me is, "wow, technology has come so far! neat."

it doesn't even have the appeal of "art" created by nature, like the Grand Canyon or the ocean or the night sky. those create a sense of wonder because there was no human involvement at all. the beauty came from the universe itself, and it feels like a gift from nothing and everything at once, and it's that beauty that so often inspires humans to make something in its likeness.

but AI art feels like a weird in-between of the art made with no hands and the art made with human hands. like pseudo-clay molded with empty gloves. it's sort of uncanny valley–ish. something almost human but not quite, so it always feels a little off. with human-made art, mistakes are understandable, expected, even endearing—a reminder that a person made this, and people are not perfect. but that weird offness of AI art just feels wrong. like a glitch in a simulation, reminding you that what you see was never real.

but really, even if AI was always completely indistinguishable from human-made art, the viewing experience would still be fundamentally changed. we make art to connect with each other, to see and be seen, to speak and to listen. but when i look at AI art, i don't know how to listen for a song. all i hear is the whir of cogs in a machine.

some people might point out that we're all just machines too. that AI's 1s and 0s are really no different from the synapses firing in our brains, and we draw inspiration from everything around us the same way AI draws from the samples in its generation bank. it's different to me, though. maybe i just feel this way because i myself am a creator, and i want to feel like i have something special to offer. but i have to believe there is meaning in the choices and expression of humans that there isn't in the choices of a program.

i'm sure this is just doomsday talk and it wouldn't actually happen, but the idea of AI eventually being handed the primary "creative" role over human beings is frankly devastating, even terrifying. i don't want to live in a world where all the art around me was generated automatically from a prompt and spat out onto a conveyer belt. it would be an inexpressible loss to me.

this isn't to say that AI doesn't have a place at all, or that we should abandon our exploration of technological advancement. i just hope that as this issue gets bigger, we remember the real point of art. when we are sad or lonely or angry, all of us turn to art. whether it's visual art or music or film or writing, art tells a story. we take comfort from the stories we tell each other, and it means something that those stories come from other people. art is and will always be a bridge between us and the rest of humankind.

so while our technology continues to develop, i hope we guard that bridge. I hope we protect the creative space of artists who want to tell stories. i hope we keep the demand for emotional expression high. i hope we honor the humanity of human-made art. if AI art is a truly reflection of us, i hope we keep looking toward the figure that cast the reflection, keep seeking the voice that started the echo.

[thenixkat]

that 'humans are space orcs'/'earth is space australia' thing really aggravates me.

In one part b/c of the aftertaste of whiteness the folks writing it tend to have (where the majority of what they put as 'universal' human culture is straight-up white shit a lot of the time) Especially the all humans are the same shit just, no. Very no. Like, there's implications if humans do only have one culture/language/etc in yer setting b/c it implies someone did some genociding and forced assimilation.

And the other part being that I have a Biology degree and like?

Austrailia isn't actually that extreme or that different from anywhere else on Earth. Humans are litterally not unique even on this planet, we're just the only homos left (for now, we won't exist forever. the lifespan of species, especially mammals isn't terribly long comparitively speaking). Humans aren't the only species on this planet that uses fire, or washes food, or wears things, or uses tools to hunt, or even the only things to throw spears, or drasticlly change the envornment to suit our needs, or do agriculture.

-> Convergent evolution is a thing. More likely than not alien visitors would probably have run into something similar to us at some point.

-> Anywhere where life exists, life competes and fills niches. Any alien world would very likely be just as much a 'death world' b/c predator/prey/parasite/disease interactions tend to make shit weird and dangerous.

(side note: All worlds are fucking death worlds, just in general. If a planet has life shit dies, if a planet doesnt have life then introduced life will die without protections b/c its native conditions arent fucking compatible with life)

Another part is the inherant lazy writing these people do for their aliens.

And also I just don't care for Human Exceptionalism. Just in general. especially when fuckers who think that Human Unexceptionalism has been a trend when they're talking about shit that uses the Human as Normal/the EVeryman trope and ??? that's still fucking human exceptionalism to make humans the baseline and every other species the weird/different ones

[random-dragon-exe]

OK but the fact that witches have fangs but they're not visible because the art style doesn't show it, yet they deliberately chose to give Adrian prominent large fangs is pretty entertaining to me as an art nerd.

Like animating fangs on characters (from what I've heard) is difficult because they have to be consistent and be kept the same size whenever the character talks.

Yet despite all that, they still chose to give him larger fangs than most witches.

I mean there have been implications that witches have fangs. One example is Gus's bucket list.

So witches do indeed have fangs but they're not visible to the audience, but they are indeed there. In universe, they have baby fangs that they lose, then later their adult ones grow in. (Kinda cute ngl)

There there's also Katya, who has fangs but they're smaller.

So I guess that all witches have fangs, but only a select few have more prominent ones than others.

It could be that Katya and Adrian have some beast or biped in their family tree somewhere. So that's why their fangs are more visible.

In Adrian's case, it seems that it's true for him as he also has his tail. Not too sure about Katya though.

And then there’s the outlier Eberwolf who I'm pretty sure has fangs, yet they're only shown when he enters "power up beast mode". (I might be wrong on some of this I haven't seen Eberwolf scenes in a hot minute)

Idk, this is just me putting my thoughts into the void. Hope you enjoyed my analysis I guess lol.

[wovenintosilk]

Hii, hope you're doing well!❤ I'm here to ask for a request (if they are open, if not, just ignore this) for Miles (both the spiderman and the prowler). Okay so, the reader (can be female or gn) is best friend with both Mileses(idk how to write names in English in plural, sorry) and in the Earth 42! Miles' (the prowler) she/they died (how optimistic) before he became prowler but, in Spiderman! Miles' universe she's/they're alive. 42!Miles is in love with her/them and very sad 'cause she's/they're dead. The Spiderman! Miles is not in love with them since he met Gwen and fell in love with her. Also, the reader is super - duper smart and she/they help(s) the Spider Society sometimes with technology and etc for money, but it's not a spider person themselves. So, when Miles Spiderman goes to the wrong universe , the reader also goes there and when Miles (spider) wakes up, she wakes up also tied to a beating thing(idk what's it's name) and she's like "Nah, idk, I can't do pretty much without my tech and you took it" and just chill and calm, not caring pretty much about the situation since she/they can't change it (and if u can, please insert a word fight between Miles the prowler and the other Miles, where the prowler is like "She's a very good person, they did so much for both us, and is alive in your universe and still you choose to fall in love with a person who you may not even see again tomorrow and weren't there for you in your worst time?" And the spidey just tries to convince the prowler to let him go to his universe to save his dad) Thanks and sorry for a request this long 😭(and sorry if u didn't understand something, English isn't my first language) ❤❤

CW: References to Death

F!Reader (Use of She/Her Pronouns)

Word Count: 1300

━━━━━━♡♥♡━━━━━━

A haze hung heavily over your eyes, clouded your vision as you tried to wake up and ignore the harsh throbbing at the back of your skull. Had you hit your head on something? You couldn’t even remember what had happened…

You followed Miles home. What he wanted to do had been dangerous and risky and could destroy everything both of you knew.

But it was Miles. All the times he’d had your back, both in and out of this dimension… you couldn’t leave him to fight this kind of battle by himself. After stepping through the portal, you’d only had a short period when you could look around before something hit you.

You flexed your fingers, surprised to find your arms restrained.

Alright. Damage control then. You could feel the leather pressing against your back so that must mean you weren’t tied to a wall or anything like that. A little shuffling revealed that it was movable to maybe a punching bag?

Which meant you should be able to rotate a little if you just adjusted your weight and… there.

The punching bag swung around as you slowly came to see two expressions staring at you – one panicked and uncertain while the other appeared an uncertain mix of neutral and confident.

But both versions were the same person. Miles.

And they both seemed very surprised you’d woken up.

“I didn’t think I would see you here,” you said, forcing your voice to work so you could croak out something and break the silence. “Uh… either of you, I suppose.”

Quick thinking made you aware of a few small problems with your current predicament. Perhaps largest of which you could see in the purple lighting surrounding you. The lair of the prowler and given the clothing choices of the new Miles, one you might know better than you wanted to.

“She’s alive.”

It was said so simply. Without question or thought. Yet it hit like a punch into your stomach as the implications of the words dug much deeper than you expected.

“Am I not meant to be?”

The Miles you didn’t know, shrouded in darkness and purplish-green hues stepped forward to get a clearer look at you. Something unnatural hung in his expression – it worried you how blankly he watched you. “No,” he eventually said. “No, you’re not meant to be alive in this dimension.”

The twisting feeling in your gut got a thousand times worse as you stared at him. What was that supposed to mean. Had you died here?

“Well,” you said. “I don’t think I’m meant to be dead in my dimension so have no plans to change that.”

“Why did you follow me?”

This time, the question came from the Miles you knew. The one who you’d spent countless hours speaking to. Yet he looked at you as though you’d betrayed him by following him through the portal. Maybe he thought you had.

“Nobody else knows where I came,” you explained. “They… they’re too occupied with everything else to waste time on me.”

“You should have stayed where you were safe,” the new Miles said and you felt like a tennis ball with how much you were being spoken to by both. “This dimension isn’t where you’re meant to be.”

“I didn’t really know that,” you complained. “I don’t routinely look at every dimension and see if I’m alive or not in it. All I did was follow Miles.”

“Then he shouldn’t have let you follow.”

Miles looked rather offended at his counterpart’s comment. “I didn’t even know she was going to do that. How was I meant to stop her if I only found out she followed me a few seconds ago?”

“You should pay better attention.”

You couldn’t help but wince at that, feeling almost validated in your own insecurities regarding the lack of consideration provided by Miles most days. Ever since he learned about the other Spidermen, things had felt somewhat strained between the two of you. After all, you couldn’t swing through the city with him or relate to all the secrecy and experiences of the superheroes.

“I have to get home somehow,” your Miles finally said. “Both of us do, alright? If you let us go, we can help save our dad.”

“Your dad. How is she alive?”

“What?”

The new Miles gestured to you and slowly turned to face Miles. “Did you save her?”

“From what?”

“Then she must not have been with you when it happened. Why? What were you doing instead of spending time with her?”

You were starting to get very confused but something else caught your attention. The build-up of Miles’ electricity, flowing steadily from his touch against the chains. He had a plan to escape from this – if only the other him didn’t notice.

“When did it happen?” you asked. “Maybe I can tell you.”

The date he said meant little to nothing to you. It was fairly recent and if you remembered well enough, you didn’t even see Miles that day. You’d meant to but by the time you arrived, he’d already been long gone with –

“You were with Gwen,” you said and then hurried to add. “She’s another… friend of ours.”

“Another friend from a separate dimension.”

Okay, so there was no getting around that. You nodded slowly, trying not to show how sensitive the topic was. You liked Gwen well enough even though she rarely truly socialised with you.

The new Miles scoffed. “So, he abandoned you for somebody new but I don’t see her here. She didn’t follow him.”

The awkward silence he caused nearly made you wince. Gwen’s betrayal still ran deep in Miles and you knew this topic wasn’t a great choice for right now. Still, you needed to keep speaking to maintain the Prowler’s attention so he wouldn’t notice the escape plan.

“Gwen had other things to deal with,” you told him. “And I wasn’t abandoned.”

“Do you believe that?”

You didn’t. But you weren’t exactly going to turn the attention back onto your Miles right now so you gritted your teeth.

“I’m sorry I died here,” you said.

“Obviously. You weren’t meant to. I tried… I don’t understand how it’s fair that you get to be alive in the dimension where another version of me forgets that you exist. And then you’re sent here and he gets angry at you. Strange.”

A break in the façade of the Prowler. For a second, the emotionlessness changed and you saw an actual response to how you felt.

“I’m not angry,” Miles defended himself. “I just need to get home quickly, alright? This is more important –“

“No, it’s not.”

As though a cruel joke in your favour, you saw a flash of something in the new Miles that you’d always wanted from the one you knew. The look of a person who could have once returned your feelings.

And so, you hesitated in speaking and he turned back to your Miles just as an explosion of electricity sent chain links in every dimension.

For a second, you met his eyes and watched him mouth that he’d be back right before he bolted for one of the windows. Glass shattered everywhere as his counterpart shook his head and bolted after him.

You groaned and rested your head against the punching bag, left alone in a warehouse.

The chains loosened around you and you had only a second to react before you landed on the ground. You winced and rolled your shoulders, turned around to find the last person you ever expected to.

“Come on,” Aaron says. “Boy wouldn’t want you to stay here and wait for him.”

You didn’t know which one he was referring to but without many options, you followed him into a harshly different world to the one you grew up in.

[bulkhummus]

some opinions on the latest arc and episode 230

While there are some things I enjoyed about this new episode and arc, it felt rushed. I hate to be critical of a show I love, but we all know the level of work they're able to produce, and the hype around this arc felt like it deserved more than the effort it seemed to receive. I of course thoroughly enjoyed a bit of background on Carlos (and some of the fun stuff the episode did) but getting over the shock value of this information left me feeling conflicted. I think what it comes down to is two things. The arc was rushed, and the things that have just have naturally progressed did not.

They didn't give any of the hard hitting moments enough planning/time/space to have the impact they could have had. We did not see any of the build up of Carlos becoming fed up with Janet and the University. All of a sudden he was. We did not have time to feel conflicted about Carlos leaving town for an unknown reason. All of a sudden he did (and returned mid episode). Cecil's town, the very thing he exists for, is literally nearly gone and he doesn't give us an ounce of poetry or prose to describe how he's feeling? On his radio show? We're just told that it is. This episode in particular just felt like people talking at me instead of telling me a story. The only moment that I felt held any weight, that moved me as a piece of writing, was the moment the child of the glow cloud outwardly processed their grief that their parent would not be returning and implications about predecessors taking on the role/title of those that died which is very interesting (for Carlos, for Cecil, as a concept in general). I, quite frankly, don't care about what they THINK science and life is. Show me through actions they take that demonstrates it. Show me through action and progression.

It has never been more apparent to me than this episode that they write episode by episode instead of considering the full scope of an arc and what it means for their characters. If you are going to adapt the structure of your show to write a mini arc, you can't approach it the same way. And they KNOW this. Writing episode to episode is a delight when its new stories and one offs and bits and pieces. Writing an arc implies some sort of episode to episode progression of a building plot. They've done it before, beautifully even (Of Love and Horror, Egemony, A Matter of Blood, the Lee Marvin episodes to name just a few) and yet this arc was disjointed and felt flat. I've read their books. I've read other things they've written. They're capable of adapting stories into a more "linear" plot with an unreliable narrator. The writers just didn't give it the time and space needed to develop a story that felt natural.

Which leads me to my next point. Natural progression. I've said before I have never once looked to Night Vale for any sort of continuity (it's a show that defies it which I LOVE) but there is a difference between continuity and being sloppy. It doesn't work when half of your arc seems to be you trying to figure out what the hell you're trying to say. A lot of the major points in this latest episode were directly contradictory. We were introduced with the idea that Carlos was sort of afraid of Janet and by her being there. All of a sudden, with no moment that tips him over the edge shown, he stands up to her because he was arrested? We were introduced to the idea that Carlos was deemed a failure by the university, and yet the scientists were quick to leave Lubelle's side in the end. The town was showing clear disdain for him, and not one character stepped up to offer some delicious conflict and tell Carlos it'd be better if he left? To his face? I don't even want to delve into the handling of Blakes character, because quite frankly, he did nothing for the plot because he was tossed back and forth between writers to do what they wanted him to do in that episode (is he against janet, with her? does he hate Carlos? like Carlos? which is it? its not unreliable narration) The arc was framed by Carlos' time spent at the University, about him becoming a Night Vale citizen in his literal anniversary speech about living ten years in Night Vale, and yet, there was no satisfying exploration (I'm not even asking for direct REASONS) as to why he might have left, why he never went back, or any of his involvement there. Saying it was all about love just... Isn't enough for me. Not when Carlos hasn't interacted with his town to demonstrate that life he's built, or how much its hurting him that they're rejecting him again. Not an ounce of how this has effect he and Cecil's relationship (again, Cecil is a chronic over sharer).

It slowly became less about delving into Carlos as a character and his relationship to this town, and processing perhaps grief from the DOW, and more about the shock value of losing beloved characters with no satisfying consequence or action. And then there was little things, specifically in this episode 230. If Janet announces something and it's framed in a way that it should upset Cecil (her telling him about the DOW) then he should have some sort of response to it. Even one line. Nothing. On HIS radio show. Not even a pause where it's made known that he HEARD her.

The whole arc just felt like it was trying to do much and gave itself a time restraint. They are the writers AND producers. No one is forcing them to stay within an episode limit. Especially not when it was hindering their ability to tell a good story.

And I think that's the kicker for me. It didn't feel like an episode of Night Vale. Sure they've played with format before, but this episode (230) didn't even remember that the show is built around Cecil telling stories. Even the episodes that have played with format/structure in the past have involved Cecil telling a story. Through his perspective. Voice appearances always offered some sort of relief to his bias as an unreliable narrator. There are so many interesting ways to incorporate voices instead of just some weird back and forth between two characters. Frame it as an on air interview where Cecil can't get a word in. Frame it as angry voicemails. Have Carlos tell us he's leaving via voice memo, and Cecil dealing with that ON AIR. Stop explaining what is happening and SHOW Us. You expect me to believe, a show that is so heavily influenced by its narrator time and time again, that Cecil was not angry? Was not heart broken? Was not begging Carlos for answers about anything at all? Annoying need to know everything anxiety riddled Cecil Palmer?

They're good writers. And I don't expect every episode to be like, life changing, but again, with an arc that was so heavily anticipated by everyone for so many years, it feels like a disservice to create a story that feels so thoroughly at odds with itself in tone and direction. I hate to sound so critical because I LOVE Night Vale with my whole heart, you guys know I do, but I can be critical of it when it's merited too. And I will continue loving it despite being critical, but I just wished the writers would slow down and maybe, I don't know, read some of their old episodes. And who knows! Maybe it's not over. Lubelle is not confirmed dead, Carlos having an interest in the DOW still is concerning, his parent was mentioned as some point of interest etc etc etc. Like there's a lot they can still do with it, but they just have to, you know, do it.

[chaotic-archaeologist]

hi internet bro, You posted Duolingo Yiddish the other day. Are you taking it as a heritage language ? Did you hear it growing up? How do you feel about studying it (in the Duo version of study)

I ask because I am curious about learning the language of my ancestors, but don't have a clear place to use it- whereas my workplace is multilingual and it would be more practical to learn the trade languages I hear every day.

but I still want to help revitalize indigenous languages and culture.

Hey there, thanks for asking!

I'm learning Yiddish because it's the language of my ancestors who fled Russian and Lithuania in the wake of pogroms at the beginning of the 20th century. When they reached American there was a great deal of pressure to assimilate.

One of my great great grandfathers was very proud of his ability to speak English without an accent, something that he associated with his success in starting a business which would later give him the ability to send my grandfather to college, making him the first person to do so. On the 1920 census, that great great grandfather's native language is listed as Jewish, which was sometimes how Yiddish was referred to.

My grandmother grew up in a house with Yiddish speaking parents. They were orthodox, but her father didn't wear a kippah outside of the house because of the pressure to assimilate. Her parents only spoke Yiddish when they didn't want their children to understand what they were saying. As a result, my grandmother never learned.

So I'm learning Yiddish for the same reason I wear a kippah, because my not-so-distant ancestors didn't feel like they could. Because it makes me feel connected to them, who and what they left behind, and the generations of Jews who have kept Yiddish alive both in Europe and diaspora communities. Certainly, it's less "practical" than learning Spanish or Chinese or Arabic or any number of other languages that are more commonly spoken.

But if we only learned languages because they're practical, what happens to the languages that don't make the cut? What happens to the languages that have been deliberately suppressed by colonialism and genocide and assimilation? There are many different reasons to learn a language; practicality is only one of them.

I'll be honest: I'm conflicted about the Duo version of Yiddish. Here's a really good article that explains the debate over the dialect of Yiddish that Duolingo chose to use for their course. The TL;DR is that Duolingo teaches Hasidic Yiddish, a popular dialect but not a universal one. Different dialects result from different communities, and there are political implications for choosing one over the others.

But Duolingo is free, and it's easy for me to spend ten minutes in the evening practicing a few words. It's not the best language learning platform by any means, but it has the language I wanted to learn and it meets my (admittedly simple) needs. After a year or so (and I'm maybe 50% of the way through the course) I find myself able to read simple texts and understand snatches of spoken Yiddish.

I'm also a member of the Yiddish Book Center, which I would totally recommend. They have lots of great resources for learning Yiddish and for interacting with Yiddish culture via literature, oral history, music, art, etc. Most of their programming is in English, and is easily accessible. There are other organizations out there doing great work to support and revitalize Yiddish, this is just the one I'm most familiar with.

(mazel) מאַזל

-Reid