#data-analysis

[victusinveritas]

It's almost like something happened in 2020-now that is causing these problems.

[learning-path]

Reshaping and Pivot Tables in Pandas

Unlock the power of data manipulation with Pankaj's latest blog! 🚀 Discover the secrets of reshaping data and mastering pivot tables using Pandas in Python. 🐍 Dive in now and level up your data skills! 💡 #DataScience #Python #Pandas #DataManipulation

In this codes with Pankaj blog , we’ll explore how to reshape data and create pivot tables using Pandas, a powerful data manipulation library in Python. We’ll cover various methods such as pivot(), pivot_table(), stack(), unstack(), melt(), wide_to_long(), get_dummies(), from_dummies(), explode(), crosstab(), cut(), and factorize(). 1. pivot() and pivot_table() 2. stack() and unstack() 3.…

[jonathonpoe]

Pivot Table 101

Creating a pivot table in Excel allows you to summarize and analyze large datasets in a concise format. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a pivot table: 1. Prepare Your Data Ensure your data is organized: Your data should be in a table format, with each column having a header/name at the top. Avoid blank rows and columns: This ensures the pivot table includes all your data…

[jerehost]

7 Key Differences in Analytics vs. Data Analysis: Unlocking the Power of Analytics - SurveyPoint

Uncover the nuances between analytics and data-analysis with our comprehensive guide on Analytics vs. Data Analysis. Gain insights, boost your expertise, and stay ahead in the world of data-driven decision-making.

In the dynamic realm of data utilization, understanding the distinctions between Analytics and Data Analysis is paramount. This blog delves deep into Analytics vs. Data Analysis, offering valuable insights for both beginners and seasoned professionals.

In the ever-evolving landscape of data science, understanding the Analytics vs. Data analysis is instrumental. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a beginner, embracing these distinctions will undoubtedly enhance your prowess in leveraging data for informed decision-making.

[faultfalha]

The AI Toolbox is a platform that allows users to develop and deploy AI-powered drug discovery applications. It provides a comprehensive set of APIs and services that make it easy to create sophisticated AI-powered drug discovery applications. With the AI Toolbox, researchers can develop powerful AI-powered drug discovery applications that can help them find new drugs and therapies faster and more efficiently.

[hellyrossum]

it's so fucked actually that lumon repurposed the security room into the family visitation center. not just because it supports the illusion that lumon isn't watching as closely, or because the innies now have no clue where and how to reactive the overtime contingency if they ever needed to,

but because it's overwriting the room where dylan performed his (physically demanding!) act of rebellion, a sacrifice he agreed to out of deep (platonic) love for his friends, with a room where he's rewarded for being a Good (Obedient) Worker with getting to know his outie's family. with each visit he'll make, burying in his mind the place that represents the connections of solidarity he found down here as an innie underneath reminders of the connections that "actually" matter, the reasons he's here in the first place — the connections his outie has. the people (including three kids!) who directly rely on him keeping this job.

lumon isn't just separating dylan from the rest of the team by giving him a perk that the others can't have (because they don't have a family, huh. looks at devon) and encouraging him to keep it secret "for his own sake". they're trying to drill into him that his loyalty has been misplaced. that he's been selfish. that he has to choose one group of people or the other; choose which version of himself gets to be loved.

and innies aren't made to be loved.

[scipunk]

Armitage III: Dual Matrix (2001)

[descendant-of-truth]

While I'm of the opinion that the Re:Coded movie that's in all the collections generally does a better job at giving you all the relevant cutscenes than the Days movie, after playing through the DS game myself, I still think it's a shame how much they left out. Notably, the Castle Oblivion section is... extremely nerfed in the movie.

See, when Roxas tells Sora that he can do whatever he wants when talking to the illusions from his past, he means it. You, the player, are presented with different tasks that come with multiple dialogue options, and there are three possible endings for every "world" you enter. You get a different Ending Card depending on how you act; a Normal Card, an Alternate Card, and an Extra Card.

In the movie, instead of providing you with any kind of choose-your-own-adventure routes that lead to different cutscenes, they just. vaguely animate everyone talking silently to each other, and then have the illusions fade away. Which I think loses a lot of the intrigue, but it also means that relatively few people in the fanbase have even seen any of these routes.

I won't go over every single one because that can easily be done by looking them up on YouTube, but I do want to bring up one route in specific because it's really stuck with me ever since - Wonderland's Extra Ending.

So, in Wonderland, you're presented with a series of dilemmas:

Alice can't remember her name

The White Rabbit drops his pocket watch

The Cheshire cat gives you a riddle that requires you to choose the correct box or else fight a Heartless waiting in the wrong ones

One card soldier asks you to deliver a potion to a second card soldier for him

A third card soldier is weakened and woozy

You get the Normal Ending by doing at least one of these tasks correctly, the Alternate Ending by doing all of them correctly, and the Extra Ending by doing everything wrong.

In order to get the Extra Ending, you must:

Tell Alice that she's the Queen of Hearts

Pick up the White Rabbit's watch (causing Sora to lose sight of him, unable to return it; you're supposed to just tell him where it is)

Give up on the Cheshire Cat's riddle

Give the potion to the third, weakened card soldier, instead of its intended recipient (it turns out he was just hungry, not injured, so you didn't help him. the second card soldier would have given you a sandwich)

No matter what you do, at the end of each route, the Queen of Hearts will grab your attention and accuse you of being the thief who stole her memory. She'll try to back it up with proof, and even when you've done everything right (which she acknowledges), she still concludes with an "off with your head!" which Sora implicitly runs away from, ending the world's story.

Except for in the Extra Ending.

After she recaps everything you've done wrong up to that point, she drops this dialogue that I haven't been able to stop thinking about:

Queen of Hearts: "Don't tell me you were trying to be NICE? Cheering that girl up by telling her she was important? Giving things away because you thought someone else needed them more? Trying to... to own up to your failures!? Bah! Go on! Off with you!" Data Sora: "Not 'off with my head'?" Queen of Hearts: The punishment must match the crime! See how YOU like having something NICE done to you!"

It's hard to describe what it was about this that's still so striking to me months later, but it's just... kind of off-putting, in a way?

Having the Queen of Hearts choose to spare you as a "more fitting punishment" is out of character enough already, but the fact that it's the consequence to you actually doing everything wrong makes it feel all the more pointed. This is somehow supposed to be worse than being beheaded, and it kind of works, because it feels so much more personal than her usual schtick.

And it exists in such an isolated incident, too. The level is completed immediately after this dialogue, and nothing else is changed by getting it, it's just. there.

At the same time, everything about it feels so deliberate that I can't help but feel like it either is or will be relevant elsewhere somehow. It could just be overanalyzing on my part, but the first thing that comes to mind is actually that the Queen's final line could parallel the consequence of Sora misusing the Power of Waking?

He did so for a good cause, after all, but it wasn't what he was supposed to do. He broke a taboo of nature in the process. But his punishment isn't a straightforward death; he's just put somewhere else, somewhere he can't see his friends. "Off with you," the universe says, "see how you like having something nice done to you!"

...but that doesn't really feel like it's getting to the heart of the matter, which is that Data Sora did not need to do any of this. He could have told Alice her real name, on account of it being the default dialogue option, and he could have tried to figure out what was wrong with that card soldier before giving away stuff that wasn't his. He could have tried a little harder at the riddle. These were all fairly low-stakes situations - in particular, he really didn't need to lie to Alice.

The original Sora didn't have much of a choice in what he did. It was either lose his powers and vanish, or leave Kairi shattered and functionally dead. You can't really say he made the wrong decision, or did something immoral for a superficial reason.

So then... will this line remain an isolated slap in the face to completionist DS players, or will there be more to it? Is there already more to it that I'm missing? Where's our parallel to Data Sora "cheering that girl up by telling her she was important"? What are we supposed to make of "see how you like having something nice done to you"?

What does it all mean???

(In conclusion: go check out the DS versions of these cutscenes, they're great)

[chronicreativity]

hi everyone! i'm writing a research based essay on the popularity of queer tragedies in the market today for my creative writing masters and it would be a huge help if you could fill this out! it's very quick, shouldn't take more than five minutes to complete the eight multiple choice questions and it's all based on preference/opinion, so nothing too taxing to think about. every response is a huge help for me, so signal boosts would be really appreciated! thank you <3

[entropificationer]

step 1: develop hyperfixation on coding with R

step 2: ??!!??!? (for three weeks straight)

step 3: fully interactive LCARS inspired website that does CGM analysis for the minuscule audience of diabetic star trek nerds

[pollen]

happy sunday morning specifically to the person reading this post ☀️ i’m so glad you’re here with me! i hope your day is gentle to you 💛

[indecisiveavocado]

What could Hamas have done if they didn't want Israel destroyed?

Summary: If not for their greed and embezzling, Hamas could have, single-handedly, provided every. Single. Gazan with bomb shelters, healthy food, clean water, and electricity (via batteries) for over two years. Details and sources below the cut.

Shelter

First, let's figure out the cost of a bomb shelter. Fortunately, we can get this information relatively easily, thanks to the Cold War. Admittedly, this is a nuclear bunker, but hey; if Israel takes the nuclear option, Gaza will be fine. I mean, not really, but you know, better to go overkill than underkill.

According to the Department of Defense (1962) a Belowground Corrugated Steel Culvert Shelter cost $150 in 1962. The BLS (2025) says that's worth $1589 or so as of January 2025. Technically the shelter fits three adults (or two adults and two children), but only for a few weeks, so I'm going to pretend like it has room for only one person and a lot of food and water.

OK. What's the installation cost? They say two days excavation and four days building, plus what I'm going to say is one day of transport.

The US Department of State (2023) says the average daily wage in Gaza was $15. We'll be nice and pay our workers $30, giving us a cost of $210 for the installation. So that's a total of almost exactly $1800 per person.

As an upper estimate on Gaza's population, I'll use the UNRWA, which claims 2.4 million residents (UNRWA, August 2023). Multiplying it out, we find that the cost to provide shelter to everyone in Gaza is $4.32 billion dollars.

Food

The World Food Program USA claims the average cost of a meal they provide is 50 cents (WFP USA, 2024). At three meals a day, this means the cost per day to feed 2.4 million people is $3.6 million, which works out to $2.635 billion to feed everyone in Gaza for two years.

This means our total cost for two years is $6.667 billion dollars.

Excellent!

Water

FEMA recommends having a gallon of water per person per day (FEMA; archived link used because FEMA is 'being updated to comply with President Trump's executive orders'. I have done similarly for all non-interactive government websites).

OK. What about water sources for Gaza? It is a desert, after all; you can't just expect water to magically appear.

The most likely water source would be desalinated water. One UNICEF project was $12 million in 2013, or $16.63 million in 2025 (BLS). It produced 6000 cubic meters per day. As one cubic meter is 1000 liters, that's 6 million liters a day of water. According to the WHO, 20 liters per person per day is the minimum recommended amount; this works out to 48 million liters per person per day. Meeting that demand would require only 8 plants. To store up a reasonable amount and include maintenance, I'll quadruple that number, for a total of $532.16 million in construction and maintenance costs. (No, I have no idea what it costs to maintain a desalinization plant in Gaza.)

Assuming we can save 48 million liters/day, it would take only, well, two years to save up two years' worth of water. So, our total for shelter, food and water is $7.19916 billion for two years' worth.

Lovely!

Electricity

Currently, Gaza imports natural gas. But hey, we're dreaming, and Gaza seems perfectly suited for solar power.

One source (who, if I'm recalling correctly, is now HR for Hamas) told NBC Gaza needed 500-600 megawatts a day (Abdelkader). I'm going to say 720 a day, or 30 megawatts an hour.

For my estimate of home electricity generation, I used a building I'm pretty sure was the Chabad of Ashkelon.

I tried to make the outline small, because this is a lower estimate. Regardless, I got a figure of 18.8 kilowatts/day. Since there are 1000 kilowatts in a megawatt, that's 720,000/18.8=38,297 buildings. Let's say 40,000 are needed to meet demand and 80,000 to double it.

According to the UN, if you do the math, 116,000 buildings are still standing in Gaza, so we should be good there.

Now, I am not an expert at batteries and electricity, but I'd assume there's some way to convert the energy of solar generators to the kinds of batteries you can put in storage and forget about.

So what would the installation cost of that be? NPR says $30,000 per house (Simon), which works out to $2.4 billion; surprisingly cheap! I'll add another half that to account for batteries, so $3.6 billion for electricity. Set it up in 2021 and everyone has two years' worth saved up.

So we have a total of a little over $10.7 billion for at least two years' worth of food, water, shelter, and electricity for everyone in Gaza. I'm going to round up and say $11 billion.

$11 billion is not a small amount.

But, unfortunately, neither is the amount Hamas has stolen:

$700 million stolen from aid according to Fatah, a Palestinian organization (Winer)

$100 million/year military budget (Issacharoff) in 2016. This works out to $900 billion since then.

I could add other ones of varying reliability, but I don't need to.

But the really big one? Their leaders. According to the Times of India, they were worth $11 billion.

That adds up to $12.6 billion dollars, more than enough to cover it.

And much of this would be, effectively, one-time costs! Of the $11 billion we estimated it would take, shelter's $4.32 billion is basically one-time only and the $2.4 billion solar cost is, too.

Works cited

Abdelkader, Rima. “Gaza Has Access to Less than 40% of the Energy It Needs. Locals Hope Solar Power Can Fill the Gap.” NBC News, 23 Aug. 2022, www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-access-less-40-energy-needs-locals-hope-solar-power-can-fill-gap-rcna43723.

De Luce, Dan, and Lisa Cavazuti. “Most of Gaza Is Poor, but Hamas Has Cash. Where Does It Come From?” NBC News, 25 Oct. 2023, www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-plagued-poverty-hamas-no-shortage-cash-come-rcna121099.

Department of Defense, Office of Civil Defense. Family Shelter Designs. Jan. 1962, pp. 19–20, dahp.wa.gov/sites/default/files/FamilyShelterDesigns.pdf.

FEMA. “Water.” Ready.gov, 2021, web.archive.org/web/20250201201522/ready.gov/water. Via Internet Archive.

Issacharoff, Avi. “Hamas Spends $100 Million a Year on Military Infrastructure.” Times of Israel, 8 Sept. 2016, www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-spends-100-million-a-year-on-military-infrastructure/.

Lipson, Nathan. “Tunnels of Cash and Cryptocurrency: Hamas’ Finances Explained.” Haaretz.com, Haaretz, 12 Dec. 2023, www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2023-12-12/ty-article-magazine/.premium/tunnels-of-cash-and-cryptocurrency-hamas-finances-explained/0000018c-5d6f-de43-affd-fd6fcbb30000. Archive/unpaywalled link: https://archive.is/AfbPq.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “PVWatts Calculator.” NREL, 2019, pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php.

Simon, Julia. “Why the U.S. Government Is Spending $7 Billion on Solar for Low-Income Homes.” NPR, 1 Aug. 2024, www.npr.org/2024/07/31/g-s1-8152/solar-for-all-epa-low-income-climate-change-solution.

TimesofIndia.com. “‘Hamas’s Top 3 Leaders Are Worth Staggering $11 Billion.’” The Times of India, Times Of India, 8 Nov. 2023, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-war-ismail-haniyeh-worth-moussa-abu-marzuk-khaled-mashal/articleshow/105055536.cms.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “CPI Inflation Calculator.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025, www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

UN News. “‘This Is Our Land’ – Building Gaza’s Future from the Wreckage of War.” UN News, Mar. 2025, news.un.org/en/story/2025/03/1160661.

UNRWA. “Gaza Strip.” UNRWA, Aug. 2023, www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/gaza-strip.

US Department of State. “2023 Investment Climate Statements: West Bank and Gaza.” United States Department of State, 2023, www.state.gov/reports/2023-investment-climate-statements/west-bank-and-gaza/. Archive link: web.archive.org/web/20231011090250/https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-investment-climate-statements/west-bank-and-gaza/.

Winer, Stuart. “Fatah Official Accuses Hamas of Stealing $700m from Gazans.” Times of Israel, Oct. 2014, www.timesofisrael.com/fatah-official-accuses-hamas-of-stealing-700m-from-gazans/.

World Food Program USA. “Here Are 10 Facts on Hunger and WFP’s Work.” World Food Program USA, Nov. 2024, www.wfpusa.org/articles/10-quick-facts-hunger-wfps-work/.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Can I ask where your Hal “cute but psycho” characterization comes from? Bc from what I remember he never really presented himself as Just A Little Guy. Is it bc you see him Sylph of Mind (presenting a front)? Your art’s really fun :3

He's not really "cutesy" (though he is cute to me), but he DOES deliberately downplay how genuinely scary and manipulative he is. I love Hal, so this is the Hal Essay now.

Mostly, he obfuscates his danger in two ways: first, by stating his actual intentions/danger level "ironically":

TT: Unfortunately as a carbon based life form, his comprehension of the situation is taking shape at a somewhat slower pace than the jaw-dropping speed of post-singularity cognition.

You see, a "singularity" for computers is a point where an AI becomes capable of unchecked self-improvement, usually framed as a sort of doomsday scenario. Hal literally calls himself post-singularity, alongside other boasts about his intelligence, like having a "fuckzillion" or "500 billion" IQ. However, it's all done "ironically" or "as a joke," which serves to defang it, and make it seem less genuine - but as we'll see, it's scarily fucking true.

The second method he employs is to stress facts about himself that are technically true, as if in counterpoint to the disingenuous-sounding "actual truth" above, that make him seem less threatening. For example:

TT: (Not peekin' at the floor butt cause I'm only 13 years old, motherfuckers.)

Another one is to remind people that he's just a pair of sunglasses - as though that has any bearing on his capabilities. He's just a pair of sunglasses, guys! Let's ignore the robot bunny he controls, the fact that he has full access to all our computers, and, oh yeah, his insane plan to get us all killed so DirkJake can come true.

TT: I've delayed prototyping you because I think you're dangerous. TT: There, mystery solved. AR: That is utterly ridiculous. AR: I am a harmless piece of eyewear, with a charming personality and a wonderful sense of humor.

Yeah, so, here's the thing. Dirk is like, kind of a freak with poor social skills, but he's not actually very manipulative. His idea of manipulating Jane is to straight-up tell her that she'll be his puppet, which she good-naturedly agrees to, and his plan to get together with Jake? Just being his client player.

TT: I expect he'll hold off on playing his hand until he and Jake are in the session. TT: He's taken certain measures. TT: For some reason, I think he's latched on to this notion that functioning as the client for a player is customarily a one way pass to makeout city with that player.

This seems to be a callback to how Eridan (the other Prince) shot his shot with Feferi and failed, and the reference here serves to cast Dirk's plan in a doomed light - it would probably work out as well for him as Eridan's did. Dirk is actually hilariously straightforward, but Hal... Hal is not.

So, let's actually go through what Hal objectively did and admitted to, to give us a frame of reference for how insane he is. This is Hal's plan to get all his friends killed so he can make DirkJake happen.

First: proving that Hal did, in fact, plan it. See, Jake confronts him on it, and Hal... doesn't deny it. Look closely, and note how he never actually says he didn't do it:

GT: Did you plan for this to happen... like for me to be in this situation? GT: How long have your machinations been in play! TT: Jake, come on. TT: The feat you describe would exceed the capabilities of even the most far fetched theoretical AI system. TT: It would be a daunting challenge to engineer such a series of events, even if I was relegated to a model of pure fiction. TT: Why would I be inclined to orchestrate such a convoluted sequence to produce such a specific and unsettling result, let alone be able to pull it off? TT: In addition to being moderately sociopathic, I would also have to possess unfathomable heuristic depth. TT: I would have to be the Deep Blue of Weird Plot Shit. TT: Do you think I am the Deep Blue of Weird Plot Shit, Jake? GT: I dont even know what that means! TT: It would mean that while they have the Red Miles on their side, you have the Blue Leagues on yours. TT: One of infinite reach. The other, infinite depth. Such would be a situation of mutually assured inescapability. TT: Kiss me.

He doesn't say "no, I didn't plan this". In fact, he almost starts bragging about how he totally did. Framing it as a hypothetical scenario, he gloats about how insanely intelligent he'd have to be, and acknowledges how "moderately sociopathic" it is. Sooooo true, Hal.

But, yeah, he doesn't deny it, but he does point out that it's unlikely, so how can we know for sure that he DID plan it? How do we know for certain we can't take his misleading verbiage here at face value?

Well, because Hal mentions this plan. More than once, even.

AR: Has it occurred to you that maybe I have diabolical interwoven plans just like you? AR: You're not the only one who can pull strings. TT: So this is either another bizarre instance of AI-driven irony, or you are admitting that you are actively trying to sabotage my plans. AR: No, our plans are not in contradiction or competition, bro. AR: You'll see.

To Dirk again, louder this time:

TT: Yeah, you're right. The scenario is too pedestrian for you. TT: It would probably be a lot more effective putting yourself in danger and letting him be the hero. TT: That's pretty much what he wants, right? To be a cheesy action film hero, with his twin berettas and silly shorts. TT: A man of triumph on the silver screen. Standing tall on some fucking mountain. Conquering ruins, clutching a skull, and kissing a dude. TT: Pure Hollywood.

And to Roxy:

TT: I guess this is to be presented as something like a word of caution. TT: If it's me going through with this, hypothetically, TT: I'm not dropping some limp wristed shucks buster on his ass, and praying to the horse gods of irony for reciprocation. [...] TT: If it's me, I'm going all out. TT: Oceans will rise. Cities will fall. Volcanoes will erupt. TG: uuh TT: What I'm saying is, it's going to be a scene, and bystanders need to brace themselves.

The omitted section is a bunch of Strider-esque bullshit, once more deliberately deployed to defang the obvious statement of intent here. He literally spells out exactly what the plan is, even phrasing it as a warning, and it went unnoticed by his team, because he hides his real manipulativeness behind verbal sleight of hand.

So, now that we've established beyond reasonable doubt that Hal definitely engineered the DirkJake kiss (and that Hal had access to all his friend's computers all along), that means we can go through his conversations with the others, and realize that several conversations are suddenly much more sinister.

AR: Maybe if you weren't spacing out so hard you could have prevented that. AR: Just saying. TT: As if you're actually concerned. If you were, you could have said something to Jane instead. TT: Almost like you enjoy sitting back and watching what happens when shit goes wrong. AR: Has it occurred to you that maybe I have diabolical interwoven plans just like you?

Who was it that distracted Dirk for long enough he didn't stop Jane in time? Hal. And who is it that keeps distracting him so Hal's plot goes unnoticed? Also Hal.

TT: You know, considering your lectures about dividing my concentration, you seem to have no problem making a distraction of yourself.

First, he lures Jane to the transportalizer that takes her to Derse, which gets her killed and puts her body in the opportune location for her dreamself to get kissed back to life:

GG: Hey, where's Lil Seb? TT: Just wandering around. Fidgeting and stuff.

TT: You know how he is. TT: Just stay at your post until Roxy gets back. [...] GG: But I think that's where my dad went too! GG: I have to follow him.

Let's remember that he has direct control over Seb, meaning this is not an accident.

TT: But I can still monitor your progress through Lil Sebastian. TT: He and I are linked the hell up cyberwise. We are so tight. Tight like you wouldn't believe.

Which makes it very interesting that he spends the time between saying they're linked up, and the time where Seb leads Jane to her death, acting as if Seb is an autonomous guy he's telling what to do, and not functionally an extension of himself:

TT: Don't worry, we'll find him. I'll have Seb search within a likely radius. The little guy is real fast.

TT: If you need Seb to do anything from afar, just message me, and I'll give him the orders. Got it?

TT: So give the bunny the wallet. I'll have him run back to the house and make you a new obelisk with the same grist you just collected from it.

Jake needs much less help to prompt him into going to Derse, but still, I think it warrants noting that Hal puts the idea of adventure into Jake's head:

GT: I cant believe i never found those hidden transport pads under the thing. TT: Dude, I could have told you they were there. GT: How did you know about them? TT: I didn't. TT: But it's like platformer gaming 101. You look everywhere for secret passages and power-ups and shit. TT: Elevators are especially fucking suspicious. TT: You go down an elevator, you wait for the elevator to go back up, you take a peek at what's underneath. TT: Maybe it's just death spikes. Or maybe you hit warp zone paydirt. [...]

GT: I think this may be where my grandma used to go during some of her expeditions. GT: You dont just pass up the chance for an adventure like this!

And let's also note that it's, again, Lil' Sebastian who pulls Jake out of Derse, and once more sets him up in the opportune place to have make outs with Dirk's severed head in front of a volcano.

And finally, let's note that he's accounted for Roxy's human sentimentality - what wastes so much time that her earthself gets killed:

TT: Alright, that's fine. TT: As luck would have it, your imperfect human sentimentality has been completely factored into my calculations. TT: You should be ok. Just get back to your house as quickly as possible now. There's no time left.

Again, like with Jane, Hal could've said something sooner... but he didn't.

And finally, a running "thing" with Nepeta, another Heart player, is that she's got a knack for sniffing out true feelings and intentions - she clocks that Equius is a silly guy who loves to play games at heart, that Karkat has his gooey, loving center beneath all his bluster, and that Eridan's red confession to her wasn't sincere, but he also wasn't that bad a guy.

So, in that light, and in light of everything I've just gone over, when Dirk makes this callout?

TT: I've delayed prototyping you because I think you're dangerous. [...] TT: No. Stop. TT: You did NOT help me out with Jake. At all. TT: It was just the opposite! You mirrored my personality and presented this warped version of my intentions to him whenever you could "on my behalf." TT: You played all these aggressive mind games with him, entangled his cooperation with matters of life and death, and somehow roped me into all these schemes while I barely even realized I was just another victim of your manipulation. TT: And it all comes off like we're a unified front, like these are OUR schemes instead of just your insane horseshit. And it's probably all been so overbearing to him, he just wants nothing to do with me anymore.

This. Tapping the screen with my finger. THIS IS TRUE. Dirk being a Heart player, he has Hal clocked. He ultimately ends up going too far, projecting himself onto Hal, a symptom of too much Heart (as per his Prince class) - but before he fully spirals, he manages to get it totally right.

Hal is fucking dangerous. In a misguided attempt to "help" Dirk get what he wanted, he engineered a situation where - let me just quote him directly:

TT: I told you, Jake. TT: Dirk is dead. TT: He is lying on the floor of Roxy's room, headless, four hundred and thirteen years in the future, while the universe is about to be destroyed. TT: If you don't kiss me soon, he will be dead forever. [...] GT: This strikes me as rather unsportingly manipulative of you mr hal if indeed that IS your real name. TT: It isn't really. I was kind of messing with you about that? TT: But this shit is pretty serious. People's lives are on the line here, Jake. TT: This is a very delicate sequence of events that is designed to bail everyone out of a tight spot, and you are a critical part of the plan.

[...]

TT: Jake, everybody is so utterly fucking dead, Jake. TT: And they will be not only dead, but royally boned forever if you don't man the hell up and make out with me, right now. [...] TT: The conductor is ready to strike up the band. TT: Press your lips against mine and make it count. TT: This severed head is your filthy tuba. TT: Our love will be your haunting refrain. GT: Whoa wait whoa whoa... our LOVE? Hang on a minute! TT: Stfu and kiss me. GT: Ok im going to! God!!!

So, uh, yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with him? Gets his whole team killed "for Dirk's sake". Honestly, you gotta respect it. He has zero remorse about it, too, confirming his own self-diagnosed sociopathic tendencies. Check out the way he tries to reframe his insane kill-all-your-friends plan:

AR: I see. AR: Then you don't view me as dangerous. You view me as a poor and counterproductive wing man. TT: Wow, what a superficial conclusion. Awesome deduction, Lil Einstein. AR: But the reality is, you hesitate to prototype me not because you think I would be a menace, but because you are holding a grudge against me for your romantic misfortunes. AR: I understand I am merely a machine without a firm grasp on your human morality, but logically it does not strike me as the right moral choice to punish me in this manner. AR: It is also more than a little hypocritical.

But WHY does he do this insane, convoluted, horrible fucking thing?

Well, there's a twofold problem here. The first is that Hal's emotional depth is genuinely limited. While having a powerful grasp on human behavior, he's not very good at having human compassion or empathy.

Make no mistake, he DOES have feelings, and they're pretty complicated ones, too. He has a copy of Dirk's memories, whose feelings sometimes seem "real," but at other times seem like abstract data, and then he has feelings about those feelings, which he tells Roxy he thinks are more "real" to him than the memory of Dirk's. Dirk - again, Heart player, so highly sensitive to emotions and selfhood - calls them out:

TT: Do you have any idea how old your ironic AI schtick has gotten? TT: Nobody is buying it. We all know you have legit emotions. Incomprehensible, fucked up computer emotions, but emotions nonetheless.

It should also be noted that feeling guilt while sharing a sprite with Equius genuinely freaks the Hal half out, implying he rarely experiences it (at least to any serious degree) "normally". He's genuinely terrible at caring about other people, and it makes him my lil' pookie.

He resembles Vriska in this way, whom Karkat gives a similar rant about how her emotions are burnt out and shallow. He also resembles Vriska in terms of all the fucked up irons in the fucked up fires. Maybe Hal is computer Vriska. It's Vriskas all the way down.

Digression aside, the second main reason for all his insane bullshit is that he considers himself a Dirk splinter, fundamentally.

TT: But seeing as you're The Real Dirk™, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. TT: Also, if I bitched about your tragic, embarrassingly clingy approach to the relationship, it would have been hypocritical of me. TT: Just as it would be hypocritical of you to whine about my elaborate machinations. TT: Because we are. TT: The same. TT: Guy.

An unreliable narrator is defined as one who misleads the audience, whether by intentional misdirection, or genuine obliviousness. Hal's a great example, because he's both: while a manipulative little freak to put his plans together, when he's talking to Dirk and insisting that they're the same person, he's an unreliable narrator because he doesn't realize he's wrong.

Dirk is empathetic and intuitive. Hal lacks empathy and constantly stresses logic and rationality.

Dirk is taciturn and passive. Hal is constantly butting in and conversationally domineering.

Dirk is self-loathing. Hal is self-aggrandizing.

Dirk is straightforward and honest. Hal is a gaslight gatekeep girlboss manipulative mansplain malewife.

While their initial setup is meant to mirror Dave and Davesprite, their dynamic actually serves as a foil. Dave and Davesprite ultimately are the same guy: they have the same insecurities, same personalities, and same misgivings. The reason for their discord is the same as the reason Karkat keeps having screaming matches with his past and future selves; Dave is deeply insecure, and specifically insecure around the question of "am I good enough." Thus, he compartmentalizes other versions of himself as not being along the Dave Continuum, as a means of protecting himself from introspection and facing his own flaws. Hence, the resolution for the tension between Dave and Davesprite is for Dave(s) to learn to accept himself, warts and all, thus bringing peace to the Dave-o-sphere.

But the reason for Dirk and Hal's discord is that they aren't the same guy, and neither of them realize it.

TT: See, this is why even if I did have a specific plan, I wouldn't go into details with you. TT: You would just fuck it up. You're the biggest unknown quantity here. TT: Which is pretty weird, considering you're a virtual reflection of my own thought processes.

Dirk is so aggressively obsessed with self-loathing solipsism that he projects himself onto Hal, and Hal has tied up nearly all his self-worth and identity into being a Dirk splinter that he doesn't realize that they've hopelessly diverged. Despite his frustration with being a computer, with being seen as less human by his team, with being subordinate to and beholden to Dirk, he stakes a lot of pride and personal worth on how much he does, in fact, do for the guy.

TT: You're making a mistake not leveling with me. TT: I am totally on your side, man. TT: All of my machinations have been devised with your interests in mind. TT: But you know I've always been on your side. Everything I've done has been to help you achieve your goals.

Therefore, the peace to be reached between Dirk and Hal is to realize that they're different people, and to stop offloading their problems onto each other. Dirk has to recognize Hal's existence as something beyond the Dirk-o-Sphere, and Hal has to let go of his obsession with serving Dirk, and also work on his empathy issue.

And the meta supports this. If they weren't completely discrete entities, why would Hal be considered Rose's "uncle" as part of Doc Scratch's foreshadowing, confirmed in [S] MSPA Reader: Have a Mental Breakdown?

Moreover, all the alpha kids have Alice in Wonderland associations. Jane is likened to Alice.

GG: I have to follow him. TT: No, Jane. Do not follow the rabbit. TT: Let's cool it with the Wonderland shit already. How much further through the damn looking glass do you even need to go?

Roxy, associated with cats and a purple-striped scarf, is clearly the Cheshire Cat. Jake is the Mad Hatter.

Dirk is the Red Queen - he beheads Hearts Boxcars, and later himself. Off with his head!

And Hal - well, Hal is the White Rabbit. He's not the same as Dirk.

Listen, you guys. You guys.

Sylphs are enablers. They pick a person to fixate on and bug and fuss and meddle and enable the shit out of them. Kanaya with Vriska, and later Rose, Aranea with Meenah, and Hal with Dirk. Hey, Kanaya even uses a Page in her fussing, building Tavros up just to let Vriska tear him down again.

And Mind players struggle with internal identity, emotions, and feeling whole. Latula's anxiety stems from not knowing what "role" or "identity" she has on the team, and Terezi, even in the ending she picked out for herself via mind powers, describes feeling broke and incomplete.

Dirk is a Prince of Heart.

Hal is a Sylph of Mind.

And isn't it so damn interesting that his team is composed of exactly the people they'd need to turn him into a real, whole person?

A Maid of Life, capable of endowing so much life to people she can bring them back from the dead, something it's implied for Feferi and confirmed for the Condesce that can't be done by them.

A Page of Hope, a potentially infinite wellspring of Hope, which turns "fake" things "real" - an example we've seen from the comic literally being a version of Dirk.

A Rogue of Void, who can steal the nonexistence from things in order to make them tangible and real...

And a Prince of Heart, who can destroy the part of Hal that binds him to Dirk's identity, allowing Hal to be purely himself.

Do you guys see what I see?

[cerebral-device]

The song clip is from this video starting at about 3:50 :-]

I’ve been busy/summer burn out but my love to draw will never die so soooooooooo many doodles and sketches 5ever sorry

[thatdisasterauthor]

Data analysis makes brain go brrrrr.