I’ve played soccer most of my life and I do know there are concussion headbands some people wear to keep them safe when they head the ball since concussions are very common in soccer from headers (the only safe place to head the ball is about right on your hairline and you don’t always get it right lol). Nancy and Eddie def researched and got him one after seeing him head the ball for the first time and freaked out. Steve hates wearing it
First, thank you! I am very much Eddie and Nancy in the soccer part of the saga. I don’t play sports so big thanks to all the people that are giving information and ideas.
Second, I love the idea of Nancy and Eddie being very strict parent/understanding parent about it, but Eddie is the reasonable one and Nancy might just be fully insane.
“This is bullying.”
Steve sulks deeper into the couch, crossing his arms over his jersey in a full pout. He glares at the headband and then gives Eddie a pleading look, “I don’t want it.”
“I know, baby,” Eddie says sympathetically, “But-“
“Too bad,” Nancy cuts in. “Do you know how common concussions are in soccer? You decided to play Concussion: The Sport. Dress like it.”
“No one else is wearing one. I’ll look dumb!”
“Okay, then. Maybe we don’t stop a speeding ball with our head then,” Eddie tries. “How about that?”
“No,” Nancy answers even though the question wasn’t directed at her. “Not good enough! Wear the headband or we’ll get you a helmet.”
“Eddie!”
Eddie stalls for a second and then points to Robin, “You won’t look dumb. Robin has one too.”
“She looks dumb.”
Robin’s just like, “Hey!”
Nancy moves and sits on the coffee table in front of Steve with a look that has faced down interdimensional monsters and sexist bosses all the same. Steve’s going to wear this headband or he’s not playing and they both know it when she says, “Would you rather look stupid now and be able to remember it in five year or be drooling all over yourself when your cognitive functions starts declining after another head injury.”
“Hey, too far,” Eddie chastises, hitting her shoulder. “…But take that into consideration, Stevie. I want you to have fun but-“
“It’s going to mess up my hair!”
Nancy throws up her hands, “Then we’ll shave your head!”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie swears under his breath. “Wheeler, reel it in and take a walk. Let me talk to him. Jesus.”
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so funny how gale pulls himself out of his suicidal slump purely by finding something new to unhealthily fixate on. just complete 180 immediate full steam ahead to the next unhinged idea. he sees that crown and goes Ok im not mentally ill anymore! 🥰 (is obviously still mentally ill. in a new and exciting way)
like people will complain about the lack of emotional resolution to the plotline and while i get it, to me that is a feature not a bug. my mans is not Emotionally Processing a fucking thing. this is the guy who had a year to brood in his tower and learned nothing. zero personal insights. act 3 gale is manically distracting himself from dealing with anything all whilst backsliding into hubris bc he is unable to comprehend a middle ground between Gods Specialest Boy and Gods Wretchedest Fool. i love him so much
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AEIWAM: Why DOES the God Machine decay, anyways? It's operating outside of time and space. For that matter, I have Other questions about it. Why does it generate existence in the first place? Does it change its composition over time? Does it communicate with others like it? Did someone make it?
Strictly speaking, there is no reason for life to exist, here or in the fic. This is all just a very fun accident. Life exists in the 4 dimensions we're familiar with not because there is a reason FOR life to exist, but because there is no particular reason for life to NOT exist.
I think it's the same in twelve or two hundred forty-seven dimensions. There's no reason for life to NOT exist outside of our understanding of time and space, so there's not particular reason to think it does not exist.
So the life machine exists, not because it was made, but because there is no reason it should not exist.
One thing that does seem to be true across different dimensions (and by "dimensions" I mean "measurable spectrums in which reality can exist", not "Alternate universes") is that death, or at least, entropy *does* exist. The universe we live in will eventually experience heat death. Time unravels under specific conditions and indications are that those conditions will eventually become dominant. All things, even the laws of physics, eventually die.
So the Life Machine dies, because for some reason, all things do.
...But also
Things are born for no particular reason.
The big bang happened for no particular reason other than nothing was stopping it (kind of literally). Some people think that the universe will not experience heat death at all, but a dimensional collapse that crushes it all back together, before it explodes again, like a cosmic inhale and exhale.
Perhaps the Life Machine is not dying at all, so much as this version of it is reaching the next phase of it's life cycle, and it departs it's mortal coil not for oblivion but it turns to goop to reform into a body measured in entirely different dimensions.
Which is a bit of an upheaval for its microflora.
The Life Machine generates life in the same way you and I 'generate' the conditions of our intestines that support bacteria. If you ask most people, they do not think their primary purpose in life is to play host to billions of microorganisms, but that is very much something we do, and depend on.
Likewise, the Life Machine is misnamed, because it's got purpose beyond human understanding, like how humans have purpose beyond the understanding of eyelash mites. It's doing it's own thing, we just live here. but if all our microflora and fauna were to leave, it'd be a major problem for us, and if all life were to stop, it'd be a problem for the Life Machine.
In the Tarot, "Death" symbolizes change, and the Life Machine is Dying in the sense that it's definitely changing. Whether that change is the change from caterpillar to butterfly or from whale to whalefall is beyond the comprehension of Mortals, or even things like The Soul King.
Soul King's job is to keep the souls alive through this, and they achieve this by exploiting the fact that this change is also when the Life Machine reproduces. Regardless if the current Life Machine becomes a butterfly or a corpse, it's offspring will have suitable conditions for life to continue. Maybe this is a gift form parent to child- the life machine passes her internal flora to her offspring like a mother transfers her own colonies and antibodies to her child via colostrum. Maybe the Life Machine isn't thinking of it's offspring at all and this is all just the machinations of the parasites to propagate themselves into a new host for the sake of future generations.
Either way, neither action is planned or designed, but are still acts of love from a parent to child. Woman and Nematode alike loves her daughter.
TL;DR: As Above, So below, in the gooeiest and most incomprehensible but deeply loving way possible.
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