#but he isn't. he's not. he's not built for that and he doesn't need to be to be in character or to handle it the way he did like.

[coimbrabertone]

Closing the Doors is Bad for Indycar

Today, Indycar has announced its charter system.

On face value, I see the case for this being a good thing. The likes of Ganassi, Rahal, Coyne, Andretti, and Penske themselves have been in the sport for decades and I see this as a way of giving back to them. The teams that have been in Indycar and contributed to its great moments and iconic races deserve some sense of security and a financial safety net should they choose to cash out.

I mean, the fact that such historic names as Newman/Haas and Forsythe are completely gone from Indycar racing is pretty sad.

That part is good, however...the problem I have with the charter system is the numbers.

There will be 25 charters.

Of these, 22 charters will receive leader circle money.

Additionally, 27 grid slots will be the norm outside of the Indianapolis 500.

I disagree with every single one of these numbers. 25 charters is an arbitrary number and it has caused a 3-car limit to be instituted in Indycar, leading to Chip Ganassi Racing having to cut two cars and fire a whole bunch of people.

2024 Rookie of the Year Linus Lundqvist looks like he'll be out of a job for 2025.

2023 Rookie of the Year Marcus Armstrong is getting farmed out to Meyer Shank Racing, which will have a technical alliance with Ganassi for 2025.

Meanwhile Kyffin Simpson, who is 21st in points in the same team that won the championship with Alex Palou this year, is expected to take over the chartered CGR #8 because his father owns Ridgeline Lubricants which is a major sponsor of the team.

This is what the charter system is for? Getting people fired and ensuring a paydriver keeps his seat? Ridiculous.

And three of these charters not getting leader circle money...quite frankly this rule only exists because of Penske Entertainment being cheap and not wanting to spend more money than they already do. It makes absolutely zero sense to have chartered cars not getting leader circle money.

The purpose of the charters is to give back to the teams that have made Indycar what it is? Well, only giving money to the top twenty-two doesn't do that.

And twenty-seven grid slots at races outside of the Indianapolis 500...this part arguably pisses me off the most, because there is no reason for this rule.

Garage space at Mid-Ohio? There were thirty-six Craftsman Trucks at Mid-Ohio in the 2023 O'Reilly Auto Parts 150 last year, you can find a couple of extra pit stops.

Toronto has a weird pitlane ever since that hotel got built? Move it. Hell, a few years ago we had a pileup, and the pace car took the cars under the Princes Gate and onto a closed road over there, make that the pitlane! How cool would that be? Cars peeling off underneath a neoclassical arch to get into the pits.

You can make more than twenty-seven cars work.

Indycar just doesn't want to.

They want twenty-five charters and the two Prema cars for next year, that's it.

Furthermore, it sounds like the plan is to decrease that limit to twenty-five cars total, so every car left will be chartered.

This rule, along with the money for the top twenty-two, makes me think that the plan is for Prema to eventually force out and buy out a Dale Coyne or an Ed Carpenter Racing.

So much for protecting the owners, huh?

Thus, this rule isn't really about protecting the owners, it's about producing artificial exclusivity. The same kind of shit that Formula One has pulled to Andretti, and now the series that Andretti races in wants to do that as well. It's cynical, it's hypocritical, and it's not good for the sport.

Zak Brown of McLaren has said a lot of good things when it comes to Indycar's future, but one thing he said that really irritated me is that idea that quality is better than quantity when it comes to racing.

First of all, quality and quantity are not mutually exclusive here.

Second of all, quantity sure spiced up the show at Milwaukee with the amount of lapped cars that the leaders needed to negotiate, providing for constant drama and always giving chasing cars the opportunity to close in.

Third of all, Indycar is not Formula One, and it should not try to be Formula One.

Indycar is great because it races on so many disciplines: road courses, street circuits, short ovals, superspeedways, all of it. But another thing that makes Indycar great is how open it has been in comparison as well.

Formula One has limited teams to running two cars, Indycar has traditionally allowed teams to run as many cars as they want. Some teams ran one, some ran as many as five or six, and that's beautiful. It's given teams the flexibility to expand and add a car if they want to, meaning that it was always theoretically possible for a big team like Penske, Ganassi, or Andretti to pick up your favorite driver.

That's going away.

All the teams in 2025 will run either two or three cars, with the small teams generally running two and the big teams generally running three. That's not fun.

And with this charter system capped at twenty-five and more inclined to shrink rather than expand, it doesn't give any flexibility for the future.

Ed Carpenter Racing could sell tomorrow to the infinite money glitch that is the Saudi Public Investment Fund, and they'd still only have their two cars available, with limited options to ever acquire a third.

Limited options to ever climb to the level of Penske and Ganassi.

Thus, it only serves to reinforce the stale duopoly that has dominated modern Indycar.

I don't want to be negative about Indycar. I want to unconditionally love this sport, I want to be excited about seeing 235 mile per hour laps at Michigan, Pocono, and Fontana, I want to see drivers cutting through the streets of Surfers Paradise and Vancouver, I want to see a classic photo finish at a Chicagoland or a Kansas.

I want to see Arrow McLaren taking the fight to Penske and Ganassi, I want to see RLL get better and bounce back on the ovals, I want to see Andretti Global come to the Indianapolis 500 with an armada of five or six cars like they used to.

I want to see competition between chassis manufacturers and engine manufacturers, I want to see cars that look fast and innovative but can still bump and bang side-by-side or protect a driver in a high-speed crash. I want a series that doesn't tuck its tail and run away the moment football season starts.

Instead, Indycar wants to be aging cars that look like crap racing around street circuits in Dallas and Denver (for the third time) with one of Will Power, Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin, Scott Dixon, or Alex Palou winning.

And you don't even get the benefit of running an ancient formula because of this arbitrary limit on the number of cars. There are 60-65 Dallara DW12s in current service amongst the teams, more if we count older chasses, show cars, and rebuilt tubs, so why on Earth are we insisting on only racing twenty-five of these goddamn things?!?

I could understand if there was a new car in limited quantities, but this car is old and there are a lot of them out there, so if we can't get a new car, at least, at least, let us experience the benefit of this 13-year-old car but running as many of them as possible every race weekend.

But we don't.

The series continues to make the most mediocre decisions possible while hoping that great racing can make us forget about all their mistakes.

That doesn't really work when you have an offseason from September to March full of your bad decisions.

In other news, MotoGP made me happy with a tense battle between Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini in the closing stages of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Misano ending with Bastianini barging his way through to take his second win of the season. While in F1, Lando Norris dominated at Singapore and even managed to lead the first lap from pole position.

Baby's first good race start...I'm so proud.

NASCAR at Bristol Night also happened, but uhh...yeah, the less said about that, the better.

[thr0wnawayy]

Hello! Been really enjoying your MHA takes especially the aftermath, it had me thinking but what if Hawks and the HC were responsible were for wiping out Izuku's record in the Final War. We know there was people recording Izuku's battle with Tomura but yet people not knowing about Izuku and acting like he is some mysterious legend just didn't sit right with me. But if they knew, OFA was going to disappear and there would be no Symbol of Peace in the short term until Mirio arrived (bleh). Then it would make sense why Hawks and company would delete this stuff for any number of reasons. It would be this weird sort of propaganda where the collective is glorified. While still retaining the status quo until they can find a stronger Symbol because I refuse to take seriously Mirio being number 1 cause his quirk is overrated.

This would help explain why Izuku's role in the war is essentially erased and no one seems to have remembered him despite being the deciding factor, but his depression/guilt means he doesn't care to talk about. It would be overwhelming for Izuku because the propaganda would only assert that his role was meaningless despite it being the contrary. Of course, it doesn't help that nobody does anything to help lift Izuku from his mental problems.

What your saying is absolutely plausible, however there are a few things that conflict with your theory.

No one really knew about OFA in the first place. This is a massive fuck up on Hori's part, as "canonically" only 3 people really know about OFA (5, if you count sheild and Melissa)

The fact is, the general public isn't really aware of what OFA was. To their knowledge Izuku might have been one of AFO's science projects or something of the sort, which could have created problems in trying to reestablish "order".

Thus the Commission thought it best for OFA to just fade into the background and that meant nipping every bud related to it. Including Midoriya.

You see, All Might is covered. He's made a name for himself and even though there was panic after his retirement, he's still one of the only people capable of standing firm. That alone grants him a level of protection and support networks that Midoriya clearly lacks.

The second issue is that the idea of a symbol is so ingrained with All Might (or rather the idea of AM) that OFA is connected to that by proxy.

The Commission needs a hero that doesn't exist anymore, because in a post Liberation War Japan? They can't exist.

Not when people have been exposed to how rotten the current system is underneath and no 'new coat of paint' will ever be enough to change that, no matter how fanciful the lie.

Midoriya by his very nature (and failings) as a hero, cannot become 'the greatest' in this world, because what once passed for the greatest turned out to be a human trafficking piece of shit, who was killed by his victim's own hand.

Izuku's record wasn't so much wiped, as much as he just gave up. He went so went so far off course that he wound up in a worse position than when he started and dragged everyone with him in the process.

The reality is a culture built on "out of sight, out of mind" when it comes to crime. MHA's Japan does this, but far, far worse and that isn't sustainable. Not when you have massive critics like Japan does.

Japan is in a free fall, Toshinori is one of those people, hopefully I'll get around to writing that mini chapter fully.

Hawks doesn't have the brains to lead. As seen in the U.N Meeting, he's a horrible politician (being a child soldier will do that). He's used to taking orders and polishing the boots of whomever is giving them, not sitting down and discussing how they (the nations) can use their power to make the world a better place.

As for the Hero Boards, due to the lack of participation, they fluctuate violently every term due to the smaller voting pool. Mirio's rank is only semi-consistant, with him constantly switching to number one and number three every odd poll showcase.

The portion of the public that still look up to heroes see him as a model person, but not a model hero. As they look for a hero that will never come.

The truth is there cannot be another All Might in the same way there can never be another AFO (Pre Kamio ofc). They were titans of their time, only able to exist because of the circumstances unique to their times.

There's a saying that is often misquoted

"The survival of the fittest"

This is an incomplete version of the phrase, the correct version is: "The survival of the fittest to adapt"

That is what evolution is, an arms race.

There will never truly be another All Might, there may never be another League Of Villains. But it doesn't matter, because some way, somehow.

The pieces will slot into place and then the real fun can begin. So long as their are those who slip through the cracks. So long as the current society stands.

There will always be that child that everyone can see, but choose to ignore.

They can lie to themselves, have them put on a happy face, shunt them to fitting into the current "mold" and then go home and wash their hands of responsibility because "I did my part".

It won't make them any less guilty.

It won't make those children any less adaptable.

[kandicon]

*writes the same exact headcannons in slightly different scenarios over and over again*

[miabrown007]

going crazy about kaz brekker hours

[whatisthisnonsense]

"mutants are poc analogy" "mutants are queer analogy" Listen, X-Men and as such mutants as a whole should really be disability representation, and I mean representation and not analougous to it they just occassionally also get to blast ice while having furniture not built for them, struggles with keeping their mind in the present, and constantly having people casually discuss sterilizing or euthanizing them and being considered either dangerous or simply incapable of understanding when they get mad about this. But nobody is ready for this conversation.

[avatarofwar]

i saw you talk about wolf a few times from sekiro and was wondering if you'd want to share more of your thoughts on him or sekiro as a whole, the game really interests me compared to other dark souls games so i wanted to ask

sorry for the late reply but oh boy do I have thoughts abt wolf. trying not to spoil the game, so I'm gonna refrain from talking about the story. might go into just restating known things about the game, but I'd much rather play it safe and not spoil the story

before going to that. the game is very much different from dark souls (setting wise, while taking place in a fictional country it is in a historical setting. I cannot comment on the setting properly bc I don't know much about the time period, however), most notably in the combat (primarily shifting from a dodge-centric playstyle to a parry-centric playstyle (significantly easier than dark souls/elden ring parrying, however), with dodges having significantly shorter i-frames and being very unreliable for dodging attacks). it's very different but something I really enjoy, even if I'm not as good as I am at typical soulsborne combat. it's really fun when you get the hang of it, and while I might not be The Best at it (which is mostly bc of how different it is from soulsborne games, so ofc I'm not as good at is as I am at the other fromsoft games I've played), it's something I can still enjoy

a huge thing about sekiro is the difference in how the story is told. in soulsborne games the story is something you have to figure out; progressing through the main path doesn't give you enough to piece everything together if you don't read any lore. with sekiro, however, the story is significantly more obvious, on account of the playable character having unique ties to the world and its characters, rather than going the soulsborne route of being one of many people (wording hard, but the chosen undead for example is no one special, just one of many undead trying to link the flame). it's a very different method of storytelling, but is still something really good. for as much as I adore having to actively hunt down lore and story in soulsborne games, it's also great experiencing story through natural game progression

wolf is also canonically disabled (loses his left arm at the start of the game) and has a really fucking cool prosthetic that is a whole part of the combat system (even though I personally keep forgetting to use it). so good for him. he deserves a prosthetic that can have deadly weaponry attached to it. like a mini-flamethrower. he deserves a mini-flamethrower, as a treat.

putting the wolf thoughts beneath a read more because this is getting long and I might spoil some stuff (mostly relationship with another character, I'll try to refrain from story spoilers. also spoilers in general, but there might be some), and he has definitely become a blorbo (additionally, content warning for abuse)

first of all. wolf makes me want to throw myself off a cliff and I mean this in the most positive way ever. he is great and I love him but man he needs so much fucking therapy and he doesn't even realise it (therapy probably doesn't exist in that time period, but besides the point). he is very much traumatised and has been heavily shaped by it and doesn't even know it.

prior to the events of the game (I forgot how long ago it was) he was orphaned by war and got taken in by owl, a shinobi and also a piece of fucking garbage. owl raises wolf to be a shinobi under the iron code, with the number one rule being loyalty to his father (owl), with his master (kuro, the divine heir) a close second (and also to give his life for his master if necessary. which is also a whole other thing to get into).

owl is very explicitly abusive. he raises wolf as a tool rather than a person, and that upbringing severely affects wolf as a character - he is an incredibly capable shinobi, but lacks any skills other than that; he does not know how to be a proper person, he is a loyal wolf, but he does not know how to be anything other than that. hell, without spoiling too much about the context, there is a cutscene in which owl actively attempts to guilt trip wolf, going as far as using fake tears (saying anything specific is very spoilery. this isn't even the only horrid thing he's done, but I'm trying to refrain from too many spoilers).

wolf canonically does not value himself without anyone to serve (we see this at the beginning of the game, as events prior to the start of the game not yet known about leads him to believe he has no one to serve, and thus no purpose, so he isolates himself from the world in a well for 3 years). while he does have compassion for others (most notable example being concern over victims of dragonrot), he starts off the game driven primarily by duty. he is loyal to a fault, willing to do anything for kuro, but also valuing his service to kuro more than himself (cannot remember the exact wording, but when kuro expresses concern for how many times wolf has died for him, wolf states that it does not matter as it was in service to him).

there's also the fact that wolf canonically eats uncooked rice and genuinely doesn't know - as a fully grown adult - you are supposed to cook it, which is... genuinely something awful if you truly think about it and what more it implies about his upbringing especially considering it's one of the most basic things you could learn how to make (just... says a lot about owl if you seriously think about it).

he is a loyal wolf, but he doesn't know how to be more than that. he doesn't know how to just... exist for himself, to be his own person separate of his duty and he doesn't even recognise just how fucked up it is, because how could he, when he was shaped into this as a child, when his own father wanted him to be nothing more than a tool to use.

I could say a lot more about his relationships with other characters (that are actually good people) and how it just. makes me lose my mind, but this post is almost 1k words. so, simply put, kuro genuinely caring about him makes me so fucking emotional, especially bc of owl; his father might be horrible and an abuser, he might not know how to be more than he was raised, but at the very least he can serve someone who actively cares about him and his wellbeing.

[gh-0-stcup]

[wizardnuke]

yalls tags on the caleb astrid post are all SO spot on thank you for understanding the uh. canon that was given to us. not saying that anyone doesnt. but i am.

[illithilit]

That moment when you realize that Mourndax is so flippant about everything bc ofc he is. Man's barely had any agency in his life under his parents' control, and he's less than five years removed from that. He hasn't exactly had time to learn how to make decisions of his own, and acting like you don't give a shit what the outcome is, or that you've simply changed your mind about it for no particular reason is a lot easier than admitting to still remembering how much the leash hurt when pulled on.

[vanillashusband]

I'm not sure how I forgot this but I honestly can't believe that wukong's house is literally just a single roomed shack with one couch, a tv, two coffee tables, and a laptop. I am not exaggerating! MY MAN DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A BED OR A KITCHEN?? yeah... he needs me. 100% he needs me. I have no idea how he survived this long on only chips and take out hfhdgvd

[ranvwoop]

for aforementioned gem au. fusions. techno is known to be Good At It. he's awesome at pretending to be put together enough. He can put aside whatever is going on for the task at hand. (there is, also, an aspect of being A Means To An End but he says he doesn't need to worry about that until it bubbles over and he does have to worry about that.). Phil + Techno are called Watermelon Malachite and they have this absolutely down.

Ranboo is the opposite end of the spectrum and he is awful at it. They try sometimes. Phil tries to teach him and Techno tries to teach him and I'm not sure if Tubbo is a gem but if he was they try because it's #Romantic (and Tommy says c'mon man it's easy, don't you trust me, ohh wait you just fuse with Tubbo don't you). He can't do it. It simply does not take.

Until Ranboo gets poofed for wayyy too long and they put his gems in his room. He is NOT coming out. (He is afraid because of identity reasons. Experiments analogous). Eventually Phil and Techno are like ... .... he's not like Dead are they. So they try fusing w/ him as a last resort (As shown is possible in EP Change your mind, for some reason)

Except now Technoblade is stuck in Ranboo's subconscious as well . He has to talk and coax him out, heartfelt conversation which is absolutely the strong suit of both parties,

and my long and convoluted explanation for why No ranboo doesn't fuse. but also peerpress fusion is a very fancy Eudialyte (That exists consciously for a whole 3 minutes of Hey! That's neat! before becoming unstable and unconsciously for an undetermined amount of time facedown on ranboo's floor)

[kelpcakie]

I try not to post Mandalorian spoilers but I need to rant really quick. Scrolling through the Mando posts for today's episode really makes me feel like I'm the only one who's incredibly annoyed at several aspects of the episode?? I was yelling at the tv so much and this webbed site has people praising it and I just don't get it

[kotaerukoto]

i saw this tier list appear on my dash so I thought that I'd do it for Makoto n his ffxiv verse. It was very fun!

[softgrungeprophet]

johnny storm should be a twink and i will die on that hill

[daydreamerdrew]

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #268

[shanastoryteller]

i know supernatural is the show of missed opportunities but man. the trials really get to me - what a perfect way to reboot and reset this show that you're artificially extending for ratings. it could have been really, really good, actually

so the trials of god is a way for someone to gain the ability to seal the gates of hell and the gates of heaven

they have the translation for hell, they know that slamming the gates of hell shut means calling all the demons back home and locking the key. it's logical, then, to for them to believe the same is true of the one for heaven - that it calls all the angels back home and locks them away where they can't do any more damage

peace, for the people of earth, outside of the influence of angels and demons. that's got to be worth it, right?

so while sam is completing the hell trials, they get the angel tablet, kevin gets translating, to figure out the angel trials. or maybe metatron helps nudge them along to figuring it out, since him being the big bad here isn't really relevant and they are in a bit of time crunch

canon doesn't tell us what the heaven trials are, except that the first one involves a ritual using the heart of a nephilim. they make it sound like they're carving it from their chest, but what i would do is

have a nephilim offer you their heart from their chest (gain their loyalty in a binding ceremony)

create grace from freshwater (there is no rain that falls anywhere on earth that is safe to drink and god said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters)

find a human soul to guide you to heaven (babel fell but the stairway was built and those with wings have no need of stairs)

so sam is in the midst of the hell trials when dean sort of accidentally on purpose completes the first heaven trial and then the brothers are on parallel train tracks heading in the opposite direction

sam works to close the gates of hell

dean works to close the gates of heaven

demons and angels both working to stop them

sam completes the trials. he restores crowley's humanity and he dies and the gates of hell are closed

but that's not the end

metatron says they can close the gates if they're willing to pay the price. canon says the price is sam's death, but frankly that doesn't make any sense. what's the death of one human against the horrors of hell? and remember, metatron doesn't know the winchesters. maybe another angel would make this comment, knowing how the winchesters have weighed the safety of the world against their brother and left the world out to dry, would think this a price worth warning for. but metatron wouldn't bother, wouldn't even think of it, if that was the only price

the gates of hell close and malevolent spirits explode across the globe, evil spirits and angry ghosts causing death and destruction everywhere

hell serves a function and now the gates are closed and every evil human soul is forced to stay on earth, causing as much destruction as it can

that's the price for closing the gates of hell

except. except. aren't the hell trials interesting?

kill a hellhound. rescue an innocent soul and return it to heaven. purify a demon and restore their humanity.

the trials are not to prove if someone is worthy of closing the gates of hell. it's to prove they're capable of setting hell to rights

the trials are if things got too out of hand, if things were taken too far, and hell had to be put back in it's place. sam dies and ends up exactly where azazel wanted him - ruler of hell. all the demons and souls are trapped with him and what he has to do, while he has them all there, while they can't escape, is exactly what he did to get there

he kills the hellhounds, leaving only those meant to patrol hell. he releases every innocent soul bound there. he purifies the demons one by one, who he either releases as innocent souls or who to pledge to do their job as demons of hell - punishing evil, containing evil - in penance for what they did before (how do i even begin to make up for what i've done, crowley had asked, and this is the answer)

meanwhile, dean, heartbroken, completes the heaven trials and dies

and the gates of heaven slam shut and all the angels are stripped of their grace and expelled from heaven and dean finds himself in charge of an empty heaven

the trials are for when things have gone too far and heaven must be rebuilt, after all

good souls pile up, no one who dies able to truly leave earth, and given enough time they become twisted things that must be hunted along with the spirits of evil men and women who cause chaos from their last breath

dean has work to do. he has one angel - the nephilim whose loyalty he earned in the first trial - and this is what he has to do. he recruits more, to replace the ranks, he creates grace and hands it out judiciously. he sends them to guide the good souls home, using the stairway that the former angels wouldn't be able to use even if they wanted to, and each good act and deed earns them a little more grace. former angels throw themselves into the fight for humans, because they know it's the only way that dean will return their grace to them and lift them back into heaven

and in fighting for them, in living like them, they learn to love these creations of their father that they'd despised. they see what he saw and the thought of destroying this place in a civil war becomes unthinkable to them. they are once more the angels god intended them to be

in this, dean and sam fulfill their destiny as lucifer and michael's vessels. not in letting them in, but in pushing them out, in doing the work each was intended for but refused

only when there is only evil human souls being punished and caged, only once the demons are once more working to run hell and earn their release to heaven, does sam reopen the gates of hell

only when there's a full choir of angels once more, committed to their cause, only once there are souls working with reapers as it once always was, does dean reopen the gates of heaven

they're called the god trials for a reason. above and below, sam and dean act as god, putting things back in their intended places

they could stay. they should stay. keeping house, making sure it all goes smoothly, eternally keeping earth safe from angels and demons both

they're called the god trials for a reason. not even god could resist the paradise inbetween that he'd created

dean doesn't know if sam is going to return to earth. he might stay in hell, and if dean becomes human once more, then what's the point? he'll live and die a human, get stuck in heaven, and be forever separated from the brother he loves

sam doesn't know if dean is going to return to earth. he migh not be able to, might be stuck doing his work - sam assumes if the hell trials did this to him, then the heaven trials did the same to dean, and the idea that dean could have failed the heaven trials after he dies doesn't even cross mind. if he returns and dean's not there then he loses it all, he never again gets to see the brother he loves

but when, exactly, haven't they been willing to risk everything for each other?

dean falls as lucifer fell, throwing himself towards earth

sam rises as michael did after the fall, pulling himself towards earth the same way michael once pulled himself to the top of heaven

what's the use of being a god without his brother, after all?

dean and sam are reunited on earth, human once more

no more angels, no more demons, heaven and hell functioning once more as they should. we're back to basics, a clean slate, all of the rest remade and set aside by their own hands (it's literal and a metaphor, the way the show could have remade itself with the trials, after setting aside kripke's plan while at the same time recognizing that the design of it - two brothers who love each other going across america and fighting evil - is the thing that made it worth watching to begin with) and now it's them again, brothers forged in blood and sacrifice and love, and a new appreciation for the humanity they gave up and returned to

and then we get my beloved monster of the week with no stupid too high stakes, convoluted bullshit involved, beyond the occasional angel who dean refused to reinstate and demon tracking down miscreant souls and, every once in a while, a person or creature or something in between squinting at them and going - weren't you two gods?

nah, they say, all corn fed grins and the dimples their momma gave them, we're brothers