#hes a philosopher and obsessed with the nature of dreams

[thanatoseyes]

I forgot we were planning new characters and I sent my DM a message.

It just reads, the devourer "nature's wrath"

No context, no explanation, just that.

[chadobi]

When I wasn’t sure if I’d get back into this account, I started writing to calm down a bit, and since I’m obsessed with Bayverse Donnie, I had to let the stress out somehow, haha.

Anyway, hope you guys like it!”

Night at the Museum

Bayverse!Donatello x reader

The mission was supposed to be quick.

In, out, no problem.

Retrieve a stolen tech device that some high-end thief stashed inside a museum exhibit — easy enough. Mikey had already volunteered to stay on comms (a little too eagerly), Leo was on patrol elsewhere, and Raph… well, Raph hated museums.

So it ended up being you and Donnie.

You didn’t mind. Not at all. Actually, you were kind of excited.

It wasn’t every day you got to break into the Museum of Natural History in the middle of the night with a 7-foot-tall mutant genius.

Besides, you liked Donnie. Maybe a little too much.

Maybe a lot too much.

The skylight creaked as Donatello silently dropped down into the dark exhibit hall, scanning the area with a soft whirr from the goggles resting above his eyes.

You followed, landing more clumsily than you meant to, but he steadied you with one large, gentle hand on your back. Just briefly. Just enough to make your heart stumble a little.

The museum was quiet. Dim security lights cast long shadows across the dioramas and display cases. Time felt different here, slower. You could hear your own breath.

Donnie pulled out his modified tech tracker, scanning for the stolen device.

“The signal’s faint, but it’s somewhere in the west wing. Possibly near the biological sciences hall,” he muttered, typing fast. “Shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.”

You nodded.

Twenty minutes, and then you’d be gone.

That’s what you told yourself.

But twenty minutes turned into thirty. Then forty.

Because the second you passed the ancient civilizations exhibit, you slowed down. Your eyes lit up like stars in a planetarium.

“Oh my god,” you whispered, walking past the glass display of Greek pottery. “This is an actual kylix. That design’s from around 500 BCE- probably used during a symposium.”

Donnie blinked. “A what now?”

You turned to him, grinning. “An ancient drinking party. They’d sit around talking about philosophy and pouring wine. Socrates was probably wasted all the time.”

“…Not how I pictured classical philosophers, but okay.”

He followed you as you drifted from case to case, words tumbling from your mouth without hesitation, the Mongol Empire, Egyptian medicine, early Islamic astronomy. It was like watching someone enter a dream.

You weren’t just reading plaques. You were remembering.

And you were glowing.

Donnie had never seen you like this.

Eventually, the tracker led you both to the natural sciences wing — a darker, quieter section of the museum, lit by the eerie blue glow of underwater exhibits and bone-white casts of ancient skeletons.

The tech you came for was easy to grab. Stashed behind a climate-controlled insect display, tucked inside a fake fern. Donnie secured it in his bag without a second thought.

But neither of you moved to leave.

You were standing frozen in front of the massive glass wall of the biodiversity exhibit, staring up at the suspended skeleton of a blue whale.

“You okay?” Donnie asked softly, stepping up beside you.

“Yeah,” you breathed, eyes wide. “It’s just… I used to come here as a kid. My parents couldn’t afford much, but on discount days, we’d take the subway in and I’d run straight to this hall. I’d pretend I was a scientist.”

Donnie’s chest ached a little.

He looked at you… really looked. The awe on your face. The fire in your eyes. How you stood there with your hoodie half-zipped, looking like someone who had the universe mapped out in her heart and still wanted to learn more.

“You ever consider going into science?” he asked quietly.

“I wanted to. Biology, maybe. But… I don’t know. I was always better at the humanities, philosophy, history, culture. I love systems. How people work. What they believe, and why.” You glanced at him, a little embarrassed. “That probably sounds dumb next to the stuff you do.”

He was silent.

You looked down.

And then…

“Don’t ever do that. Please.”

Your head snapped up.

Donnie was staring at you. His voice was low, almost hoarse.

“I think your brain might actually be hotter than your face. And that’s saying something.”

You blinked. “…What?”

“I mean-” he groaned softly, covering his face with one hand. “That sounded way less weird in my head.”

But you were already smiling.

“Are you flirting with me, Donatello?”

“…Yes?” He peeked through his fingers. “Is it working?”

You stepped closer. “That depends.”

“On?”

“Are you always this into girls who nerd out about dead empires and whale skeletons?”

He chuckled, low and nervous. “Only one, so far.”

Your heart did that annoying skip again.

And you were standing so close now. You could smell the faint scent of metal and coffee on his gear. His brown eyes locked with yours, and for a moment, the museum didn’t exist. Just the hush of breath. The hush of maybe.

Then, with a voice barely above a whisper, he added:

“You make me want to learn everything I don’t know. That’s… kind of a superpower.”

That did it.

You reached up, slow, testing, and brushed your fingers along his jaw.

He leaned in like it was gravity.

And in the shadow of ancient bones and glowing dioramas, you kissed him.

You didn’t leave the museum until two hours later.

But Donnie didn’t mind.

Because he’d found what they came for.

And so much more.

[imsosleepyofyourbull]

I talk about it a little in this post and its various comments, but I think that the themes of life, death, and immortality that exist within KNY are genuinely some of the most interesting parts of the series at large. The most prominent and straightforward example of this exists within Muzan’s desperate quest for a perfect eternal life, which directly conflicts with Kagaya’s belief in the longevity of the human will. The former is concrete, physical, and simple where the latter remains abstract and very difficult to define.

It’s obviously displayed in Kagaya’s death scene;

But is also scattered throughout the manga in different moments — Sanemi’s first meeting with Kagaya is one of them, because it’s where Kagaya first mentions how little he thinks his life matters when he has an heir to continue aiding and leading the organization for him. He finds his eternity in the long standing effort his family (both biological and chosen) has made and will continue to make in freeing the world of the demonic blight. Which is a philosophy that he makes sure Muzan knows is followed by everyone who fights and lives or dies for the organization and its cause. The young men and women who didn’t pass Final Selection, the demon slayers on Mt. Natagumo, Rengoku, and so on so forth.

He dies knowing that he has a guaranteed legacy, and that Muzan’s inherent nature as a demon means he will never be allowed to do the same. Why do you think he becomes so angry when Kagaya mentions how his death means the death of all his demons too? He knows just as well as Kagaya does how limited he is. There is no one to avenge him or continue his work if he fails the way Kagaya and the Ubuyashiki have always had the Demon Slayer Corps. And even when the organization disbands, they have the certainty of a peaceful, demon-free future waiting for them. That is what they have all worked for, and the desire for tranquillity will always exist within humanity no matter who the enemy becomes.

Yorichii understood that very well… but his older twin brother, Michikatsu, could not fathom it.

He was utterly befuddled by Yorichii’s smile as he thought of the uncertain future, imagining a generation even stronger and more capable of saving lives than they were. He didn’t help the Sengoku Era demon slayers develop breathing styles or teach them or do anything because he wanted to be remembered — it was because he believed in the cause as earnestly and as fiercely as the old families who had followed it for centuries before him. By his own admission, Michikatsu had become a demon slayer out of insecurity and jealousy. He questions how his younger brother managed to leave so much more of himself behind when he was the one who became immortal, but he did this to himself.

He abandoned his wife and his children alongside his personal honor and his dreams and his cause and that’s why he can’t even begin to fathom Yorichii’s hopes for the future even when its manifestation is standing right in front of him;

Together, Yorichii and Michikatsu act as the second biggest philosophical contrast in KNY. They are the everlasting legacy of a man who could not care to leave one behind and the forgotten samurai who was utterly obsessed with the idea of having one, but didn’t know what that really meant. Tanjiro and Muichiro are also wonderful examples of this, because Tanjiro has absolutely no direct relation to Yorichii, and yet he effectively acts as his heir. On the other hand, Muichiro is explicitly noted to be Michikatu’s descendent by Kokushibo, but he is originally thought to be a Sun Breather’s descendant and rejects Kokushibo altogether. More than that, Kokushibo is the one who ultimately kills him.

Michikatsu literally and metaphorically kills any chance he has at having a legacy with his own hands, while Yorichii aids Tanjiro long after death.

It’s a beautifully painful contrast.

[phoenixrisingastro]

Astrology of Naruto Characters: The Big Three Edition

Naruto Uzumaki

Sun: Sagittarius

The eternal optimist and adventurer, Naruto’s Sagittarius Sun embodies his boundless energy and unyielding faith in his dreams. He’s the flame that keeps burning, no matter how dark the night.

Moon: Aries

Emotionally driven and fiercely protective, Naruto’s Aries Moon shows his impulsive yet passionate heart, always ready to fight for what he loves.

Rising: Leo

Charismatic and larger-than-life, his Leo Rising makes him impossible to ignore. He’s destined to be the center of attention, whether he wants it or not.

Sasuke Uchiha

Sun: Leo or Cancer

A king without a throne or a deeply emotional soul haunted by loss—Sasuke’s Sun teeters between Leo’s pride and Cancer’s sensitivity. His core burns with ambition, yet his heart aches with memories of home.

Moon: Scorpio (4th House, Negatively Aspected)

Pain runs deep for Sasuke, with a Scorpio Moon in the house of family. This placement reflects his obsession with avenging his clan and the emotional scars that drive him.

Rising: Aquarius or Leo

Detached and rebellious as Aquarius Rising or commanding and charismatic as Leo Rising, Sasuke’s presence leaves an indelible mark on everyone he meets.

Sakura Haruno

Sun: Virgo

Sakura’s analytical mind and practical nature reflect her Virgo Sun. She’s meticulous, hardworking, and always striving to improve herself.

Moon: Libra

Emotionally, she seeks harmony and balance. Her Libra Moon highlights her struggles with relationships and her desire to connect meaningfully with others.

Rising: Cancer

Sakura’s gentle, nurturing energy aligns with Cancer Rising, showing her deep care for her team and her journey toward emotional maturity.

Itachi Uchiha

Sun: Gemini (8th House)

A brilliant strategist and master of secrets, Itachi’s Gemini Sun in the 8th house reflects his dual nature—one of compassion and one of calculated sacrifice.

Moon: Scorpio (Conjunct Rising)

With a Scorpio Moon conjunct his Rising, Itachi’s emotional world is intense and transformative. He bears his burdens in silence, embodying the depth and loyalty of Scorpio.

Rising: Scorpio

His magnetic, mysterious aura and his ability to command respect align with Scorpio Rising. Itachi carries the weight of his decisions with grace and power.

Kakashi Hatake

Sun: Aquarius

Innovative and unique, Kakashi’s Aquarius Sun highlights his forward-thinking and unconventional approach to life and leadership.

Moon: Scorpio

Beneath his laid-back exterior lies a Scorpio Moon—intense, secretive, and deeply loyal to those he holds dear.

Rising: Sagittarius

His Sagittarius Rising reflects his humor and philosophical outlook, inspiring his students in unexpected ways.

Rock Lee

Sun: Aries

Pure determination and fiery energy define Rock Lee’s Aries Sun. He’s the embodiment of perseverance and courage.

Moon: Virgo

His emotional world is practical and disciplined, reflecting a Virgo Moon. He channels his emotions into self-improvement and loyalty.

Rising: Sagittarius

His optimistic and inspiring nature aligns with Sagittarius Rising, making him a beacon of hope for those around him.

Orochimaru

Sun: Scorpio

Obsessive, power-driven, and transformative, Orochimaru’s Scorpio Sun reflects his dark ambition and relentless pursuit of immortality.

Moon: Aquarius

Detached, experimental, and innovative, his Aquarius Moon fuels his eccentric experiments and boundary-pushing mindset.

Rising: Capricorn

Methodical and calculating, his Capricorn Rising mirrors his ability to play the long game and command respect through sheer determination.

Hinata Hyuga

Sun: Cancer

Gentle, nurturing, and deeply emotional, Hinata’s Cancer Sun shows her unwavering love and loyalty to those closest to her.

Moon: Pisces

Her dreamy and empathetic nature aligns with Pisces Moon, reflecting her quiet strength and deep sensitivity.

Rising: Libra

Hinata’s soft-spoken grace and natural charm align with Libra Rising, making her presence calming and harmonious.

Which Big Three resonates most with you? Let me know your thoughts or share your own interpretations below!

© PhoenixRisingAstro, 2025. All rights reserved

[licncourt]

I didn’t want this post to end and was mad when it did. Please talk about it some more… if you can

https://www.tumblr.com/licncourt/777520467743588352/something-i-think-is-really-interesting-about

I'll do my best, I'm so glad you liked it!!

When it comes to Lestat and his conflict with Louis over killing specifically, I think it's important to examine what causes him to have such a strong emotional reaction in these disagreements throughout the book and why Louis had no chance of actually fixing Lestat the way he was "supposed to". There was no curing or containing Lestat's evil because his embracing of it was pretty damn load-bearing for his ability to continue functioning.

Lestat's targeted and intense spitefulness in the face of Louis' moral qualms is something we actually don't see from him much, hardly at all in any other context. It's uniquely triggering to him, rivaled only by their fight in TotBT iirc. I think the surface level issue here is his fear of Louis turning out like Nicki and spiraling into his own inescapable darkness if he doesn't embrace vampire nature. The other thing going on here though, at least in my opinion, is Lestat's overwhelming bitterness and anger regarding his own situation and the dream he lost.

In much the same way as Louis, goodness/being good weren't just on Lestat's mind prior to Magnus, but a sort of obsession or at least rumination. That similarity is gone by the time they meet, but it clearly haunts Lestat based on how he reacts to Louis. By that point, he's accepted the inevitability of evil as a part of his life but he's not truly at peace with it. Louis' continued insistence on the feasibility of ethical vampirism drives him into a rage because it's reopening the wound for Lestat to hear all of this, rubbing salt in it every time they have this fight.

It's obvious that Lestat knows what Louis wants isn't possible and there's no going back, but he can't get Louis, someone he obviously sees as an idealized moral authority, to validate this belief for him. Instead, he has to constantly reiterate and fight for and dwell on this fact that hurts him so deeply to even acknowledge. It's like he's saying "I know there's no hope for this, so why can't you just accept it like I had to and stop torturing us with your attachment to the life we both wanted and know we can't ever have".

Lestat has never had the luxury of impracticality like Louis has. His whole life has been survival, the reason he learned to subsist on darkness in the first place. Louis' time for agonizing and philosophizing is a privilege Lestat has never experienced. Hunt for food or die. Kill the wolves at any cost or die. Move forward in your own monstrosity and live with the unlivable or die. He's used to disappointment, he's used to sacrifice (voluntary and involuntary), and he's used to facing brutal realities day after day and year after year. Embracing evil is more survival and Louis is refusing that survival for them both.

Sometimes when he's trying to convince Louis of why he should embrace this part of their lives, it feels like he's convincing himself of something too, or that these are things he's said to himself once upon a time. He can't let go of goodness without complete implosion, so his only option is the "good at being bad" image he clings to so intensely.

[sorcave]

After finishing my term exams, I have come to an odd realization about Henry Winter and how he reminds me of Nietzsche.

I am no philosopher; please forgive me if this is totally nonsensical. But did anyone else sense a strong whiff of Nietzsche in Henry's character?

A tell is that both suffered from excruciating headaches periodically. More importantly, I think, in an early book Nietzsche describes the tension between the Apollonian and Dionysian mindsets. Henry is an extreme aesthete and thus an Apollonian. He is obsessed with books, art, perfection. As Bunny observed, "He's always up in the clouds with Plato or something."

But he longs (like Faust) for release from his staid, scholarly condition. So, he becomes fascinated with the Bacchanal. Participating in it frees the wild Dionysian in him. He becomes a Superman, dominating the others with his wits even bedding the prize (almost) everyone wants, Camilla. Henry admits that, as an Apollonian, "...my life, for the most part, has been very stale and colorless. Dead, I mean". But after the Bacchanal, Henry has learned "to live without thinking". And now, the newly-minted Dionysian Ubermensch observes "That surge of power and delight...the sudden sense of richness of the world." The new Henry claims that "...I know that I can do anything that I want."

He is Beyond Good and Evil.

But the tension between what he has become and who he was originally is too great. The erudite scholar has become a cold-blooded murderer. His suicide marks a choice between the two polarities. When Richard sees him in the dream, Dead Henry fusses with flowers. He has restored his Apollonian nature. He is now ethereal, beyond the pull of the Dionysian which corrupted him.

Nietzsche had a rather troubled relationship with Wagner after a fracturing of the earlier idealisation of him. Beyond the philosophy and into the biography of Nietzsche himself I thnk there are further interesting parallels. Even Cosima/Camilla have some overtones of Nietzsche's perspectives of Wagner/Henry.

Does this make sense? Or does it read like one of Bunny's term papers?

This is also mildly brought about by @ratticus-the-emperor posting about how the greek class brings about their dionysian and apollonian nature...

[xuexing-lumi]

☆꧁🌙 Love Life & Soulmates꧂☆

🪐 WHO’S SECRETLY CRUSHING ON THE BTS MEMBERS?

╰─ aesthetic tarot pick • softcoded by Lumi ✧

“when the spotlight fades, who haunts their heart?”

🌙 You are now reading from the altar of Lumi. This is a channeled reading. The question: who is secretly yearning for each BTS member? (🃏 3-card pull • general energy • romantic undertones • ethereal insight)

✦ the spread

Card i – their energy

Card ii – their secret feelings

Card iii – what they’d say if they could

--X--

💌 WHO'S CRUSHING ON JIN?

Card I – The Queen of Pentacles

A grounded, nurturing admirer with a heart full of care and warmth. This person is likely mature or maternal in vibe, someone who radiates calm and stability. She might be a chef, artist, or someone who nurtures others professionally or emotionally. Her affection is practical but deep, expressing through little acts of kindness rather than words.

Card II – The Knight of Cups

A hopeless romantic behind the scenes. She’s drawn to Jin’s gentle nature and beauty, cherishing him in quiet ways. She dreams of tender moments but keeps her feelings wrapped in poetic mystery, expressing love through art, letters, or music. She may be hesitant to confess but holds him in her heart like a secret treasure.

Card III – The Empress (Reversed)

Despite her deep love, she battles feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. She fears she’s “not enough” for someone as radiant as Jin, which keeps her silent. Still, her nurturing spirit shines in private, and she wishes to care for him in all ways, hoping someday he’ll see the softness she carries.

Channeled Whisper: “He deserves a softness the world rarely gives him — and I’m here, quietly offering it from afar.”

💌 WHO'S CRUSHING ON YOONGI (SUGA)?

Card I – The Hermit

A soul wrapped in quiet depth and introspection. This admirer might be a writer, poet, or artist — someone who resonates with Yoongi’s solitude and complexity. She understands pain and silence, often retreating inward but burning with unspoken admiration.

Card II – The Star

She sees Yoongi as a beacon of hope and healing, believing deeply in his power to inspire and save. Her feelings are hopeful, spiritual, and filled with reverence. She prays for his happiness and dreams that one day their souls might align.

Card III – Page of Swords (Reversed)

Obsessive curiosity clouds her feelings. She pores over lyrics, interviews, and snippets, searching for hidden meanings and secret messages meant only for her. At times, this fixation causes anxiety and longing, but it’s fueled by pure devotion.

Channeled Whisper: “His silence speaks louder than any poem I’ve ever dared to write.”

💌 WHO'S CRUSHING ON HOSEOK (J-HOPE)?

Card I – The Sun

A radiant soul who shines with warmth and joy, this admirer is vibrant and full of life. She might be a dancer, artist, or someone whose presence uplifts others effortlessly. Her energy is bright, and she feels inspired just by knowing Hoseok exists.

Card II – Ace of Wands

A spark ignited deep within her chest — this crush is fresh, fiery, and full of potential. She feels awakened and empowered by his light, as if he’s a muse stirring her creative fire. There’s excitement and possibility in her longing.

Card III – Seven of Pentacles

Patient and hopeful, she’s been nurturing her feelings quietly, waiting for signs, and willing to invest time and energy in a dream that feels distant. She imagines a future where her devotion might one day be noticed and cherished.

Channeled Whisper: “He doesn’t know it, but he taught me how to bloom from the darkest soil.”

💌 WHO'S CRUSHING ON NAMJOON (RM)?

Card I – The Hierophant

A seeker of knowledge, tradition, and spiritual truth admires Namjoon’s wisdom. This admirer is scholarly, poetic, or deeply philosophical — someone who respects his mind and soul guidance. They see him as a teacher and a kindred spirit.

Card II – Temperance

Her connection to him feels balanced, harmonious, and fated — like two halves of a cosmic equation reunited. She believes they have met in past lives and that her love is patient, healing, and transformative.

Card III – Nine of Swords

Despite her deep feelings, anxiety and fear of invisibility haunt her. She overthinks every word and gesture, wondering if she’s simply another shadow in his vast world. Still, she holds onto hope, afraid to let go.

Channeled Whisper: “His words saved me — even though he will never know.”

💌 WHO'S CRUSHING ON JIMIN?

Card I – The High Priestess

A mysterious, intuitive soul adores Jimin from the shadows. She is likely spiritual, perhaps practicing tarot or moon rituals. Her feelings are deep, secret, and cloaked in magic and longing.

Card II – Page of Cups (Reversed)

She struggles with shyness and insecurity. She has youthful, pure love but lacks the courage to express it openly. Her emotions swirl in silence, hoping Jimin might sense her presence in dreams or quiet moments.

Card III – Two of Pentacles

Torn between hope and fear, she balances her longing with the practicalities of life. She’s afraid of rejection but can’t stop herself from holding onto fantasies of being noticed by him.

Channeled Whisper: “He feels like a poem I wrote too young to understand, yet I keep reading.”

💌 WHO'S CRUSHING ON TAEHYUNG (V)?

Card I – Knight of Pentacles

A stylish, consistent admirer watches quietly from a distance. She is reliable, thoughtful, and might express love through small gifts or supportive messages online. Her feelings are steady, even if unspoken.

Card II – The Lovers

A soulful, cosmic connection pulses beneath the surface. She feels destined, believing their energies are intertwined in a profound way, even if their paths haven’t crossed.

Card III – Five of Swords

Jealousy and insecurity lurk in her heart as she sees other fans competing for his attention. She worries she will never be chosen but holds onto silent devotion, promising to love him quietly forever.

Channeled Whisper: “Even if he chooses another, my heart will whisper his name always.”

💌 WHO'S CRUSHING ON JUNGKOOK?

Card I – Strength

A powerful, brave admirer is drawn to Jungkook’s energy. She might be athletic, a healer, or someone who fights her own battles with quiet courage. She admires his resilience and passion.

Card II – Ten of Cups

She envisions a complete, joyful future with him — love, family, and happiness. Her feelings are hopeful and earnest, dreaming of shared warmth and home.

Card III – Four of Cups

Despite her dreams, she feels unseen and sometimes rejected, uncertain if Jungkook could ever notice someone like her. She retreats into daydreams but struggles with doubt.

Channeled Whisper: “I don’t need to be chosen; just knowing I exist in his world is enough.”

✦ do you want a personal reading like this?

🌸 I offer:

Celebrity Tarot Reads (K-Pop, BTS, Actors)

SP Manifestation Guidance

Future Love + Shadow Work Spreads

Moon-Coded Letter from Your Twin Flame

Channeled Audio Readings + PDF Summaries ✧ First reading? Ask for a free pull!

—

📩 DMs Open: @xuexing-lumi Tumblr inbox

🖤 closing words from Lumi

“Hearts don’t need stages to perform. Love will find a way to ache in private. If you're longing for someone faraway — spiritually or physically — let me hold the light with you.” — Lumi, the moon’s bride

—

Have a good bam!

(ignore):

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Peripeteia - TSH

TW: sensitive topics, explicit content I have two things to specify about Peripeteia: it is written from Henry's point of view and it was inspired by "the master" lines from Vita Nova by Louise Glück. On another note, I feel this is an opportunate time to share my TikTok account: @ aionter. I do post, rarely, but whose to say my fate cannot be altered? My reposts, however, are prominent and mostly informative with a few slip ups. Enjoy indulging in my writing.

Does peripeteia, that cruel rapture discontinuing and altering the string of fate, strike in one clear, definite moment, in a flash of divine, or does it seep into the fabric of time altering it with unforeseen fingers? If such a moment does exist, tell me, can I crawl my way back to the life before it, like the pitiful, pitiful man that I am? If I am truthful, my wish to return to the life before, or rather, more accurately, the perturbation of the current one, is what constitutes the reason for my continuous insomnia, migraines and above all my inability to function. Nothing that has worked as a cure before, or at least an amelioration, has succeeded in aiding me this time. I have tried every familiar remedy but to no avail. This unexpected and unfortunate failure left me with one dangerous, possible solution, one that requires me to put myself under a metaphysical scythe: a histoire, an accurate, mostly truthful, final attempt at understanding the basis of my condition, and respectively of them, the anomalous cause and singular symptom of it all.

Few people know what it means to be embarrassed by your flesh and blood, and even fewer acknowledge the genuineness of this unorthodox sentiment. It is often met with a certain disregard by people who believe it to be the depraved product of an unmeasurable arrogance, instead of the quiet, sombre and perhaps paralysing knowledge that it actually is: a phantom limb of a false connection. It is an unfortunate thing to be acquainted with alienation from a young age. It dissolves any security or sense of belonging and, as compensation, teaches yearning. However, humans, no matter how small, are adaptable beings and they can learn to deal with this longing, as well as with the half self-imposed isolation that inevitably follows. After all, when one is forced to live in exile, one grows fond of one’s cage.

I do not believe in luck, but I do believe I must have done something in another life or must have been born under the wrong star to find myself in this unfortunate category of people. My refuges are two: dead tongues and books (my first read was a children’s copy of Greek mythology procured from the school’s library which sits on my shelf to this day because I couldn’t make myself return it). The former was something which caught my attention later in my adolescence, at around thirteen if neither my memory nor my grey cells are playing tricks on me. This combination of passion and comfort, naturally, turned me towards the classics, and they, without much effort, became my obsession and defined my place in the universe. This mania turned me into somewhat of a monk, a fanatic not of saints but of mad philosophers, not of one inscrutable deity but of a pantheon of dead gods, not of scripture but of the eccentrics of ancient languages. 

Perhaps because of my childhood circumstances, existence still eludes me. It is something I endure rather than inhabit, tolerated like a prolonged fever dream, or the distant, teasing echo of a reality never meant for me. The exception is, of course, what keeps my world spinning, my mania, because everything else is boring and depraved of any sublime.

Throughout my childhood, I’ve often heard the phrase “everything in moderation” repeated by my excuse of a father every time he would catch my nose buried between dust-coated pages until the very words became a mechanical reflex on his lips. Soon followed my books falling all around me on the floor, sometimes even losing their track and deviating towards the open window. I imagine his actions came from his wish that one day I might take over his company, and his firm belief that reading was not something his son should be doing in order to prepare for the task. Nevertheless, that did not stop me from gathering the wet, torn or bent books, and nursing them back to health, only for them to be destroyed once again and for me to mend them until the paper gave out. I never once considered that the phrase he kept muttering might have a seed of truth in it until my devotion towards my studies started to abate. The routine, which to avoid being dramatic was my whole life, had transformed itself into something mundane, devoid of meaning. I knew it was only a matter of time before my knowledge would start to seem too garish until the absolute classics started diminishing. 

The Bacchanal should have stayed what it was meant to be: a precautionary measure designed to halt the growing dullness. Instead, it mutated into a beast far beyond my grasp, an uncontrollable surge of madness that I could neither restrain nor surrender. Alas, I could not let the sublime fade, that was simply out of the discussion. What exactly happened during the ritual I’m afraid I cannot tell with the highest of accuracies, not because I don’t want to, but rather because the numerous places in which the action unfolds have mixed together into a blur of motion without a definite start or end. The sequence of that night had long ago dissolved into a fevered, disjointed nightmare. What I do know is that I followed the guidelines left by Romans: become a vessel of ecstatic torment, feast as if the gods themselves demanded it, and indulge in carnal debauchery until the line between pleasure and agony vanished. 

Anything else that had happened that night did so under the influence of divine madness and at the will of Bacchus. I was not the sole host of my mind when I was running through the woods in the form of a wolf, or at least something similar. I was not myself anymore but rather the most primal version of me, intelligence but without the shackles of civilization. The trees were nothing but a blur of fading lines slowly losing themselves in my peripheral vision. I felt nothing of the twigs and branches that clawed at my limbs, or the penetrating cold that should have stung the cells of my bare skin. I knew I had been blessed. 

That is when I first saw her, one half of them. She was surreal, I remember my instincts telling me, with a glowing aura amplified by her long blonde, almost white hair that taunted me through the darkness of the woods, like blinking stars in an otherwise black desert of void. How could I not follow, when she begged me and my animal self roared in abandon? My vision was focused on her, for she seemed to shine brighter than the moon as if she had eaten it and its luminesce. I chased her for what else should I have done, when she with her skin, an eerie hue of bruised violet and spectral white dress, too short to cover her vulnerable knees, was the only clear thing in my sight? I do not remember the exact amount of time until she slowly found her way inside a lake, each careful step a silent dare, a provocation aimed at me as she succumbed to the darkness.

The forest was without life, but she, oh, she at that moment in the breathing lake she promised to fill my yearning. I had to follow, didn’t I? I wanted to keep her, to ingest her very essence. Into the lake she melted, a liquid tomb swallowing her whole, and I dove. I searched the cold depths with my hands for her like a madman clung to sanity. Then, in the faint serpentine streaks of moonlight that slithered into the water, I saw my limbs darkening towards decay. I reached, curious, unaware with one purple-blue finger towards my other hand only to watch the flesh disintegrate into nothingness, unveiling the smooth, indifferent bone beneath without a single drop of blood. I was rotting. When I opened my mouth to scream, he, the other half of the strange duality, interrupted me. He shoved me down with brutal insistence, my head colliding against the jagged bottom. I remember his white hands, far paler than hers, tightening around my neck and squeezing as if deriving pleasure from my humanless state. His face remained a statue as I struggled, my hands desperately attempting to remove his, to escape his grip but above all his dead, dark eyes. 

I did not care much for drowning at that moment, in fact, I did not care for anything but the delirious rage that made me want to rip out his vision, to shatter his illusion of dominance. I reached out and drove my thumbs into his eyes. With every centimetre I pushed deeper, his eyes gushed out liquid punctuated by a crackling pop.

I do not know the moment when I returned to reality. The only logical theory is that I gradually regained my senses and my consciousness, but nevertheless, I found it strange to see that I am alive and unrotten. 

I have a bad habit of avoiding anything that scares me. And so naturally, when they started reappearing at first as quivering, indistinct shapes and then as unmistakable figures standing in the distance, I decided to convince myself that I was not seeing anything, that it was nothing but a post-traumatic hallucination. Despite my deep-rooted fear, my interest in them grew when I realised they work together towards a common goal. She is the siren, and he the restless weapon, both meant to end me. And perversely, as time passes I find my yearning for her intensifying and a strange curiosity forming for him. Even now, as he is standing twenty meters from my window, watching me, unmoving in the blizzard, I can make out his pure black eyes which along with her blinding blonde crown have etched themselves into my memory for an indefinite amount of time.

Having put the events onto paper as truthfully as I could, I now come to realise that there is one way to reverse my peripeteia: to severe myself with my own hand. Judge me if you will but obsession, no matter how identically raw and consuming it may feel settling inside us, is never truly the same as another’s. It is a rational, simple, final move in their deranged game. The most devoted souls are indeed the ones devoured by their own madness.

[dumbtruk]

The Clockwork Creation

The thunder roared, splitting the night in two, as jagged bolts of lightning illuminated the darkened skies above the lonely Snezhnayan lab. You stood outside the towering building, feeling your heart race with anticipation, knowing what lay within. Your hands trembled as you clutched the edges of your cloak tighter, hoping the cold night air would soothe the anxious energy surging through your veins.

It had been weeks—months, even—since you had seen him last. Il Dottore, the brilliant, enigmatic man you once knew, had withdrawn into his secret laboratory, obsessing over his latest experiment. Letters were few, and each one more cryptic than the last. His mind, once so sharp and full of purpose, seemed to unravel further with every success.

The heavy oak doors of the lab creaked open as if sensing your approach. Stepping inside, you were greeted by the harsh smell of chemicals, the scent burning in your nose. The place was darker than you remembered, the air thicker, suffocating.

You had known Dottore for years, working alongside him in pursuit of knowledge, always fascinated by his mind, his ambition. But something had changed in him. The brilliant scientist you admired had begun to twist under the weight of his obsession, pursuing power and discovery without regard for ethics or consequences.

It all started with one question that spiraled into madness: Could life be recreated?

Dottore had once confided in you his dream to conquer the boundaries of mortality, to shape life from death, to bend nature’s laws. What was once a philosophical debate had transformed into something real, something terrifying.

You swallowed hard, your footsteps echoing through the empty halls as you descended deeper into his workshop. Every corner was filled with the remnants of abandoned experiments—half-constructed automata, strange, ticking contraptions made of metal and sinew, and medical devices whose purpose you dared not imagine.

The sound of whirring gears and clanking metal grew louder as you approached the heart of the laboratory. In the center of the dimly lit room stood a towering figure—Dottore.

His back was turned to you, hunched over a large table littered with surgical tools, tubes, and vials of unknown substances. Sparks flew from the apparatus around him, filling the air with the stench of burning metal. He didn’t notice your presence at first, so consumed was he by the work before him.

“Dottore,” you called out softly, your voice barely audible over the hum of machinery.

He stiffened, then slowly turned to face you. The moment his eyes locked with yours, you knew he was no longer the man you once knew. His sharp red gaze gleamed with a feverish intensity, and a twisted smile tugged at his lips. He looked gaunt, hollow, as if sleep and sanity had long since abandoned him.

“You came,” he said, his voice low, smooth, but tinged with something unsettling. “I knew you couldn’t stay away.”

You took a hesitant step forward, your eyes scanning the room. On the table before him lay the culmination of his work—a creation. A body. It was large, humanoid, though something about it was grotesque in its stillness. The flesh, stitched together in patches, was pale and unnatural. Tubes connected to the figure pulsed with dark liquid, and electrodes attached to its temples sparked occasionally as Dottore worked feverishly on some unseen adjustment.

“What… what have you done?” you whispered, your throat dry as you stared at the lifeless form.

Dottore’s grin widened, his hands twitching with manic excitement. “I’ve done it. I’ve surpassed them all—Celestia, the Archons, the very laws of nature itself. I’ve created life!”

Your stomach churned at his words. “This… this isn’t life, Dottore. This is an abomination.”

His expression darkened, the once playful glint in his eyes replaced by something dangerous. “You don’t understand, do you? You never truly understood the potential. This creation—this being—is more than life. It is perfection, designed by me. It will be the first of many, a new race crafted from the brilliance of science and human ingenuity.”

You shook your head, taking a step back as the horror of it all sank in. “You’re playing with things no one should. This… this thing you’ve made—it’s not natural. You can’t just stitch together parts of the dead and call it life.”

Dottore’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, you saw a flash of the man he once was. But that moment passed quickly, and the mad scientist was back, his voice dripping with condescension. “Natural? Do you think nature cares for the weak, the fragile? I’ve improved upon it. I’ve made something better. It can’t die, it can’t fail, and it will serve me as no living creature could.”

He moved closer to the table, his hands hovering above the switches and levers of the device connected to the body. The electricity in the room crackled with a strange energy, the tension thick and palpable.

“I invited you here,” Dottore said, his voice softening in an eerie imitation of warmth, “because I wanted you to witness the future. You’ve always understood me, haven’t you? You’ve been by my side for so long. I thought… you might appreciate the genius behind it.”

You stared at him, torn between the loyalty you once felt and the growing horror gnawing at your heart. He had lost himself, his brilliance consumed by ambition and madness.

“This isn’t right,” you whispered, taking another step back. “I can’t… I can’t be part of this.”

Dottore’s smile faltered, the disappointment clear in his eyes. For a brief moment, you saw a flicker of hurt, but it was quickly replaced by the cold, calculating gleam you had come to fear.

“Pity,” he murmured, turning away from you. “I had hoped you would understand. But I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. When my creation awakens, the world will understand. You will understand.”

With a flourish, Dottore pulled the final lever. The room exploded with light and sound as the machinery roared to life. Lightning arced from the coils overhead, striking the body on the table with violent force. The air buzzed with raw energy as the figure convulsed, its limbs jerking in unnatural movements. The smell of burning flesh filled the room.

You watched in silent horror as the body twitched and spasmed, the once-lifeless form beginning to move with purpose. The creature opened its eyes—dull, glassy orbs staring into the void—and let out a low, guttural groan.

Dottore’s laughter echoed through the chamber, a sound of pure, manic joy. “It lives!” he shouted, his voice trembling with triumph. “I’ve done it! I’ve conquered life itself!”

The creature on the table sat up slowly, its movements stiff and jerky, like a puppet being manipulated by unseen strings. It looked around the room with blank, unfocused eyes, its mouth opening and closing as if trying to form words. But it was clear—this was no miracle of life. This was a mockery of it.

You couldn’t take it anymore. “Dottore, stop this!” you cried, your voice breaking. “This is madness!”

He turned to you, his eyes gleaming with a wild fervor. “Madness? This is brilliance! This is what humanity has been striving for all along. To become gods!”

But as the creature rose from the table, its body shaking with each movement, you saw something flicker in its eyes. Fear. Confusion. Pain. It was no god—it was a broken thing, pieced together by a man who had lost sight of what it meant to truly live.

The creature let out a low, mournful wail, its hands trembling as it looked down at its own patchwork body. For a moment, you thought you saw the smallest spark of humanity in its eyes, a brief glimmer of recognition. And then, it turned to Dottore.

The scientist stepped forward, his arms outstretched in a gesture of welcome. “You are my greatest creation,” he said softly, his voice filled with reverence. “You belong to me.”

But the creature’s face twisted into something dark, something primal. With a sudden, violent movement, it lunged at Dottore, knocking him to the ground. The two figures struggled, the sound of ripping flesh and grinding metal filling the air as Dottore’s creation fought against its maker.

You watched in horror, frozen in place as the scene unfolded. The scientist’s screams echoed through the lab, but there was nothing you could do.

In the end, Dottore’s obsession, his need to control life itself, had destroyed him.

As the creature stood over his broken body, it turned to you. For a brief moment, you thought it might attack, but instead, it simply stared. There was something in its eyes now—an understanding, perhaps. A sad, broken understanding of what it was and what it had been made to be.

And then, without a sound, it turned and lumbered out of the lab, disappearing into the cold night.

You stood there, the wind howling outside, your heart heavy with the weight of what had transpired.

Il Dottore, once the brilliant mind you admired, was gone—consumed by his own creation, a monster of his own making.

[chemicalmorality]

Wish World Not-Live Blog! Spoilers ahead, obviously:

She’s gonna kidnap that baby. I do like that she hasn’t killed them yet.

“I am afraid it is because I will be taking a little baby.” Lol.

I am really hoping this reality warping thing isn’t the Rani’s own power and it’s explained in a different way. I am betting that this is the case, I doubt they’d just give her random god powers.

Not big on Nursedoc but I do get a kick out of the shippers going crazy over every random little thing so watching them scream at a full on peck is going to be fun to see.

Fucking Conrad. Hate this guy.

“Uncle Connie.” BLEH BLEH BLEH

“John Smith” yeah predicted that. Poor Ruby. God I know she doesn’t remember 73 Yards but she just keeps on being put into these situations alone…

“I have someone expressing doubt.” Hmm interesting.

Mel!

The dinosaurs…Rani you are iconic even if I am very worried about how they’re going to portray you.

Wow they are forced into hell.

A “slip” as the glass shatters is really nice.

Hiding in nature where they can’t see you “slip.” I wonder if Belinda knows more than she lets on?

I don’t know why the Rani is doing the propaganda but I’m begging you, don’t have her be obsessed with the Doctor.

“She’s so beautiful.” Jesus fucking christ I would never see the day my KateRani dreams would be validated.

I hate this dynamic between the Ranis.

Did they kidnap Conrad?

Wait. Is CONRAD the baby????

Nope.

A HARBINGER BABY???

“The One Who is Lost” Hmmm….is all of this to find this guy?

SHE REMEMBERS 73 YARDS??

Oh no…Timeless Child stuff? How did the Rani find out?

SUSAN

ROGUE?

“I love you” but they only met for like an hour

Theory: this is all to get him to open the Chameleon arch he got from Tecteun

Tables????

I wonder if this is connected to philosophy. Tables are like, the object to use when making a philosophical argument.

People are going to rightly talk about this episode and how Belinda and the Doctor’s relationship is heteronormativity, and it is, that’s clearly the intent, but that doesn’t erase the fact that the Doctor is an alien!! Gender doesn’t work the same for him!! He’s flirted with women in this incarnation, and even though he clearly has a preference for men in this regeneration, that doesn’t erase that he’s pansexual/bisxeual whatever you want to call it. I’m just not ready for the wave of biphobia in the fandom.

“Oh yes Doctor…” oh god please don’t make this a Master situation

No…god. Why is she being playful like this what is going on. WHAT THE FUCK NO NO NO NO NON NO

“People said we were lovers” ew ew ew ew WHY ARE THEY BUTCHERING HER WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO MY GIRL WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCKKK

What the fuck

This is worse than i thought

I might actually have to drop the show for a while what the fuck is going on

I hate this why is she just the Master

"we are both the rani" alright pack it up

Wait, are they talking about Omega? OH MY GOD

Wait are they having Omega be Tecteun please no

[sanmonmusoutan]

they're not quite fleshed out, but i thought i'd share my headcanons for the past lives, and former human names, of gummi, chocolate and pine before they became jiangshi...!

to me, narrow created the jiangshi when it was younger as just something to draw. then, later, when narrow grew up, it created names and backstories for them. some of those backstories are partly based off of figures in history, particularly an emperor from the chinese sui dynasty, and a chinese philosopher. for the time being, these are surface-level inspirations, but i intend to do further research later on 🙏

themes of death, grief, and suicide follow, so please exercise caution when reading...!

gummy: her human name was kugumiya megumi. (久々宮 恵, surname → first name.)

kugumiya is a surname that consists of the kanji 久, meaning a long time, 々, a kanji indicating repetition of the last, and 宮, meaning shrine or palace. 恵 means blessing. these meanings did influence my thoughts for her backstory...! not only that, gumi appearing in both names is intentional, since i figured narrow would try to implement name puns in each name.

she was a musician (as pictured in the image,) and she was affiliated with a shrine. perhaps she played for religious ceremonies, or simply as a hobby alongside her shrine duties.

gummi was a cheerful girl, someone a little too fond of sweets and other delights. despite being stubborn and quick to be angered, she was an embodiment of fun and joy. though, in truth, she burdened herself with a lot of grief. grief for all the people around her that passed away (perhaps from plague or war?) but most specifically, the mentor figure in her life. the person that taught gummi music.

she played music for fun and joy, but also as a tribute, as something to channel her prayers and feelings into. the concepts of grief and tribute are major themes for her.

gummi's cause of death was being lost at sea. perhaps after playing something to the ocean, to let those who are gone hear her. or, simply playing, frolicking.

chocolate: their human name was chou kanra (長 神羅, surname → first name.) 

長 means long, which has no specific relation to chocolate, but it is a homophone to 蝶, meaning butterfly, which is related to their character. 神 means god or deity, and 羅 means silk or gauze. it is not as clear of a name pun as gummi's human name, but still somewhat similar sounding... it is meant to be vaguely either chinese or japanese, as narrow hesitated to give them a clearly chinese name at the time.

chocolate was an author, philosopher, and perhaps a poet too. the main inspiration for their character is zhuang zhou's butterfly dream parable, something that is mentioned within the song itself, as the second to last lyric. it details zhuang zhou dreaming of being a happy and carefree butterfly, but awakening from the dream, finding himself contemplating if he is a man dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being a man.

in this timeline, chocolate was the one who wrote this parable, much later than it was first written. their sole focus in life was writing, honing philosophies, contemplating the intricacies of anything and everything around them. in particular, they were dedicated, if not madly obsessed, with their butterfly parable. chocolate constantly wrote about it, debated it, and even wished to test and prove it.

mental illnesses, their obsession in philosophy and literature, and their wish to prove their parable and metamorphose, eventually got to them. chocolate died by suicide, falling from a height, the flight of a butterfly that they wished for.

pine: his human name was bai nanbao (拜 南宝, surname → first name.)

拜 is a rare surname in chinese, meaning to bow to or to worship. the hanzi for it is also used to transcribe bye-bye in chinese. (拜拜 👋) a grim nod to pine's nature as a jiangshi... also, the variant of this hanzi that is used in japanese is 拝, which appears in the lyrics of for dear life as 拝まれて. 南 means southern (which is traditionally associated with sun and light,) and 宝 means treasure. the romanisation system commonly used for chinese is pinyin, where 拜 would be bai and 宝 would be bao. this is what i use. however, in wade-giles, they would be pai and pao. when pronouncing the name with the W-G romanisation, it sounds much more like pineapple... 🍍

he was mostly known as a brash and arrogant crown prince in late imperial china, but was also an artist. pine's character is directly inspired by emperor yang of sui, an emperor regarded as one of chinese history's worst tyrants. in his youth, the emperor had his older brother deposed through lies and deceit, then ran more schemes to secure his place as crown prince.

an excerpt from the wikipedia article on him is as follows:

Emperor Yang was also a patron of the arts, having expanded the number of foreign orchestras (from across Asia) at the Sui court from seven to nine. He was, in fact, quite a gifted artist himself, but one prone to horrible fits of jealousy and stubbornness, who seldom listened to the advice of more talented individuals. He was a talented poet but killed two poets after he found their stanzas to be superior to his own.

pine was quite similar. he was conceited yet still horribly insecure in his craft, brutal in his pursuit of being the best artist. pine behaved as he pleased, all while trying to earn the favors of his parents and secure himself a role as the heir.

he abused and fooled around with his newfound power, which likely caused him to get into deep trouble. his cause of death was capital punishment, being beheaded. i headcanon that as a jiangshi, his head falls off sometimes because of that... 😭

here are more thoughts, and below them, picrews that are how i imagine the three looked like as humans...! these are not historically accurate, especially pine's. his is meant to look much more like a c-drama prince 😭

[peyoso]

#i don't know what this is about #but i'm here for every word

@areiphilos you've activated my trap card! (ttrpg series ive been obsessed with since middle school). World of Darkness is a series of ttrpgs where you play as a monster <3

Anyway imma lay out the second au (dw about mummy!dallas): long age Faeries and magic existed freely but as human civilization rose so to did they're disbelief which manifested as banality��the death of whimsy and disbelief in the fantastic—which was a poison to the fae. this forced them to either abandon the world, escaping into the Dreaming, or become Changelings: fae souls reincarnated into mortal bodies.

Sidhe are fae nobility that escaped to the fae homeland of Arcadia within the Dreaming and closed the gates, but some stayed and became known as Autumn Sidhe. Thats what Ponyboy is <3

Ponyboy (then Chrysippe) was something like a muse in Ancient Greece, inspiring artisans, poets, playwrights, philosophers, etc etc. As banality rose, he was pushed north into the forests of Europe where he met Dallas (then Dalkr). He's a Gangrel, a type of vampire that's more animalistic/feral/wild. They fell in love and as the world got increasingly more hostile to Pony, he used magic to bind their fates together and became a Changeling; dying and being reborn mortal.

So the AU is them throughout Pony's lives getting up to all kinds of trouble <3

Pony reborn > he awakens to his fae nature and remembers > them finding each other and spending the rest of Pony's life together > repeat

[ipraygreywords]

The copy has rarely actually seen Rezo, but he's occasionally seen the portrait of Rezo that's in his Sairaag manor. It's a peculiar sensation to look at a flat object, and know that particular arrangement of colors is meant to represent him- or rather, someone else- and it makes his hair stand on end and stomach clench. He'd say it's anger that does it, but there's more than a touch of fear, particularly the existential kind, behind it. -prayersrefrain

How does one survive a life without clear boundaries? So the water and the sand are both wet, but where is the shoreline?

And when the tide comes in and the unwitting are caught in its pounding-mallet force, who is to blame: the water for its nature, or the land for yielding to that ineffable force?

Rezo bites his tongue, which is already dry; he wonders if that's a typical parasymathetic nervous response to resurrection, or simply guilt.

And what good does idle philosophizing do to the people who drowned? What damned good is it? Rezo hates dialectics sometimes; he hates that he could say, 'yes, I was Shabranigdu's unconsenting vessel all my life; and he didn't draw a dotted chalk line between where he ended and I began; and it doesn't save all the people i hurt, in his name, for my dream.'

I was hurting absolutely, immutably, indescribably; AND that changes nothing.

There is a blank soul writ-over by my unwelcome touch. I have become Shabranigdu to this clone, as I did to Taforashia. As I did to Ozel and Erisiel. As I did to my own beloved grandson.

"It wasn't me," the sage breathes, in his gentle, ponderous baritone. "Not wholly. But that changes nothing. You suffered and didn't need to."

How does one stomach the requirement to atone over and over and over again, to face after unseeable face, in the wake of a futile and all-consuming obsession?

"And that is my fault." He is careful not to draw nearer his creation. "I can't imagine there's anything I can do to help, except speak aloud that you are right to despise me. You are right, to be sad. You are right, to want to be more, and different, than I. I know you don't need my permission to feel, to know, these things. But now they are said."

Gods, I'm sorry. In the end, I'll have to apologize to more people than I ever saved.

"Perhaps it might comfort you to know that I am as unsure of who I am as you. This is the first time I have existed without Ruby-Eye stuck to my soul. And that, well. That's quite scary, isn't it? To just be you, and no one else, alone in your skin."

---------

@prayersrefrain (20 million years later DDD: )

[morgana-ren]

Gross boy incel Tomura is 🔥🔥

Oh God, you are so right.

No matter how old I get, how much time passes, whatever else have you, I am still utterly obsessed with that angry lil' freak of nature.

I love all of my hyperfixations, but Tomura was the true first. The one that sparked this whole shitty blog and my shitty writing and all of it. There's just something about him that gets me.

He's a fucking wreck. That's what it is.

He's a hate-filled, angry, vicious, snapping little mongrel. He curses the world around him to the point of aspiring to burn it down. He sits in a dark room all day, plotting and dreaming and escaping. The world looks at him with disgust and he looks back in equal measure, apathetic to the judgement he receives because the world is a filthy, wretched place and like a damn its judgement means fucking anything. He never learned to deal with his grievances and so they seep from him and infect everything he touches. Deep down, he is in excruciating pain and grief becomes anger becomes violence.

I think I could never truly leave Tomura because I get him. I understand it. I don't wanna change him and make him a fucking hero or clean him up or make him more palatable. I want him: The hateful, venom-spitting little arsonist who wants to watch it all burn. I wanna close the blackout curtains when the sun rises with him. I wanna sit in a wretched little room and eat dollar store ramen. I wanna spend too much time playing video games and talking about what we'd do if we had the power to enact actual change.

.......Or maybe I just wanna live on my knees for him and I don't have to make it all fuckin' deep and wannabe philosophical lmao. I love this little man so m u c h.

Been a while but I'm sure I've got some ideas tucked back and away somewhere for him lmao

[denimbex1986]

“Genius is no guarantee of wisdom,” says government official Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. It could be the blockbuster’s banner statement. Since the release of Nolan’s thrilling, bombastic film, the culture has been caught in the firestorm about how to explain the personality of the eloquent, esoteric J. Robert Oppenheimer and his creation of the first and only people-destroying atomic weapon to be used against civilians. Where Hollywood traffics in Oppenheimer’s ambiguity as a historical character, two small but potent nonfiction forebears ask a more pointed question: what is the responsibility of scientists to their societies?

The Day After Trinity (1981) and The Strangest Dream (2008) evacuate the mythical tropes of the tortured genius biopic that Hollywood loves to rehearse in films like The Imitation Game, Hawking, and A Beautiful Mind. Now enjoying a renaissance, the films are neither unforgiving nor hardline, but offer sharper moral clarity to the Oppenheimer dilemma, presenting a more complex (and condemning) portrait of the father of the atomic bomb: a patriot, philosopher-king, skilled public administrator, scientific collaborator with military and government, emotional naif, egotist, and polyglot.

Nolan’s story arcs towards Oppenheimer losing his naivete upon realizing that he has given humanity the power to destroy itself. Designed to wrap around each filmgoer’s own worldview and politics, the film is as politically open-ended as you might expect from a major blockbuster. In his press tour, Nolan articulated a more explicitly conservative stance that chimes both with the Great Man theory of history (another biopic favorite) and the Cold War military doctrine that justified the development and use of atomic arsenals against civilians.

“Is there a parallel universe in which it wasn’t him, but it was somebody else and that would’ve happened?” Nolan said in the New York Times. “Quite possibly. That’s the argument for diminishing his importance in history. But that’s an assumption that history is made simply by movements of society and not by individuals. It’s a very philosophical debate…. he’s still the most important man because the bomb would’ve stopped war forever. We haven’t had a world war since 1945 based on the threat of mutual assured destruction.”

That’s also the idea behind the official policy of the nuclear superpowers: deterrence. Horror, in other words, was necessary to prevent even greater horror. The very same doublethink led to Harry Truman’s honorary degree, conferred for ending the war.

How reluctant was Oppie? In Jon Else’s The Day After Trinity, a documentary originally made for public television in 1980, Oppenheimer’s collaborators deliver ambivalent, guilty testimony to a static, non-judgmental camera. Screening on the Criterion Channel, Else’s doc points to the great pleasure its subject took in being appointed the leader of the grandiose bomb project, with the cosmic job title of “Coordinator of Rapid Rupture.” The lens pans patiently across grainy, grayscale photographs that have the natural air of science fiction; the film feels more of a piece with Chris Marker’s La Jetee (1962) than a typical historical documentary. After all, Oppenheimer was not just the enabler of the weapons that could annihilate us all, but of the high-stakes hallmarks of modern spectacle itself. The awe-inspiring images of mushroom clouds over Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki are now instantly recognizable in the core visual grammar of contemporary entertainment and media. It’s hard to imagine an idea better suited to Nolan’s exalted, maximalist esthetic and his stories of obsessive male protagonists pressurized within towering patriarchal systems of power.

Oppenheimer positions the atomic bomb as the creation of a brilliant, creative personality. But The Day After Trinity revels in the administrative scale of the Los Alamos project necessary to make a mechanism to trigger, in a millionth of a second, a violent chain reaction with a flare brighter than a hundred suns. A walled city of six thousand staff, at a cost of $56 million. Seven scientific divisions: theoretical physics, experimental physics, ordinance, explosives, bomb physics, chemistry, and metallurgy. All of America’s industrial might and scientific innovation connected in this secret lab with its billions of dollars of military investment.

“Somehow Oppenheimer put this thing together. He was the conductor of this orchestra. Somehow he created this fantastic esprit. It was just the most marvelous time of their lives,” says Freeman Dyson, a rather eccentric theoretical physicist who became Oppie’s colleague at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. “That was the time when the big change in his life occurred. It must have been during that time that the dream somehow got hold of him, of really producing a nuclear weapon.”

In this vision of the A-bomb narrative, Dyson posits that Oppie’s aims switched from finding out “the deep secrets of nature” to producing “a mechanism that works. It was a different problem, and he completely changed to fit the new role.” We begin to see more clearly a portrait of an outsider with a wild desire to be at the center. All the work the whiz kids were doing over the years was always designed to contribute to the war. (All the films remove Oppie’s more demonstrably radical tendencies, his belief in a world government, for instance, which he mentioned offhandedly in the New York Review of Books in 1966.)

The closest we get to Oppenheimer himself is his pale-eyed, doppelganger brother, Frank, who gives the impression of a visionary living in a purely abstract realm. He stammers a little when he speaks of the moment when he and Oppie heard on the radio of their great bomb in action. “Thank God it wasn’t a dud… thank God it worked… Up to then, I don’t think we’d really, I’d really, thought about all those flattened people.” He still seems stunned. If nothing else, Frank gives weight to the storytelling trope of scientists as hyperintelligent but flakey space cadets at a remove from the humanity of it all. “Treating humans as matter,” as Los Alamos collaborator Hans Bethe puts it appallingly. Another contributing scientist says he vomited and lay down in depression. “I remember being just ill,” he says. “Just sick.”

The doc swirls with clips accumulated from Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories, National Atomic Museum, American Institute of Physics, and Fox and NBC newsreels, while Paul Free’s authoritative narration hovers like an omniscient voice from the depths of the Cold War itself. Then, there is Oppie: a figure of stricken elegance in his rakish pork pie hat. Typical of documentaries constructed in a postmodern style, what it all means is never explicated. Ambiguity presides over clarity.

Most directive is Dyson’s testimony. “He made this alliance with the United States Army and the person of General Groves who gave him undreamed-of resources, huge armies of people, and as much money as he could possibly spend in order to do physics on the grand scale,” Dyson says with his flashlight perceptiveness. “We are still living with it. Once you sell your soul to the devil, there’s no going back on it.” Los Alamos, in this counternarrative, was not just an ivory tower but an irresistible paradise for genius-level scientists simply interested in new discoveries and mega-gadgets.

Dyson is a dubious fellow to emerge as the truthteller, given the inconsistency of his own legacy. His unorthodox theories are worthy of their own Nolan-esque treatment. He advocated growing genetically modified trees on comets, so that they might land on other planets and create human-supporting atmospheres, and eventually became a climate change denier based on his distrust of mathematical models. But his intelligence is irrefutable, and his distance from the Manhattan Project gives him a guiltless perspective and authority absent in Oppie’s other colleagues. Dyson, a greater antagonist than can be found in any mere Marvel movie, diagnoses Oppie as the self-induced victim of a “Faustian bargain.”

“Why did the bomb get dropped?” Dyson asks, his tie a little too big, his combover a little too combed over. “It was almost inevitable. Simply because all the bureaucratic apparatus existed at that time to do it. The Air Force was ready and waiting… The whole machinery was ready.”

Dyson also refutes the refrain of Oppenheimer’s responsibility for the catastrophe. “It was no one’s fault that the bomb was dropped. As usual, the reason it was dropped was that nobody had the courage or the foresight to say no.” Dyson pauses to let this sink in, then looks down and wobbles his head tragically. “Certainly not Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer gave his consent in a certain sense. He was on a committee that advised the Secretary of War, and that committee did not take any kind of a stand against dropping the bomb.” This measured oral history is fatal to the view of Oppie as a gentle humanist.

Dorothy McKibben, who ran the Manhattan Project’s office, chimes in with crystal clarity: “I don’t think they would have developed that [bomb] to show at a garden party. I think they were going to do it.” In archival footage, General Leslie Groves plays the role of plainspoken pragmatist: “It would have come out, sooner or later, at a Congressional hearing, if nowhere else, just when we could’ve dropped the bomb if we didn’t use it. And then knowing American politics, you know as well as I do, if there had been an election fought on the basis of every mother whose son was killed after such-and-such a date, the blood is on the hands of the President.”

Through these testimonies, the convention of the conflicted scientist and the myth of an A-bomb created in self-defense give way to a mantra of winning the war, and winning quickly. Valuing American lives over other lives. Avoiding a bloody invasion of the Japanese mainland. Months before Hiroshima, orders had been given to leave several Japanese cities untouched, to provide virgin targets where the impact of the new bomb could be clearly seen. Afterwards, a scientific team from the US was sent to Japan to study the effects. Footage rolls, in The Day After Trinity, of news clips of hospitalized burn victims.

In films on the Manhattan Project, questions of conscience are commonly seen through the assenting viewpoint—that of the scientists who continued to work on the bomb, even after Hitler’s defeat. One essential perspective is obscured, black-holed in subterfuge, even. Physicist and European refugee Joseph Rotblat made crucial discoveries in the fission process, and went on to specialize in nuclear fallout. He moved to Los Alamos in 1944 but defected from the project on grounds of conscience upon learning that the Nazis could not build such a bomb. He was the only scientist to turn his back.

“If my work is going to be applied, I would like myself to decide how it is applied,” Rotblat says in the 2008 Canadian documentary The Strangest Dream. Streaming on the National Film Board of Canada’s platform, the film traces his renunciation of A-bomb development and his role in the Pugwash Conferences, where scientists and statesmen gathered to discuss the reversal of nuclear proliferation. The film renders a fairly straight treatment of its quiet subject, with the visually rich backing of a vertiginous collage of disparate forms, including spooky Cold-War era footage and clips of the Trinity mushroom cloud. Oppie is not in the film, but the narrative takes place in the fissures he helped wrench open; he lurks like an ever-present ghost behind the character of Rotblat, who stands as his angelic nemesis as he tries to transform physics into a humanitarian project. Like Oppenheimer, Rotblat was also accused of espionage, but he was eventually awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to the disarmament campaign.

Notably, Rotblat is entirely absent from Oppenheimer, despite being described as a brilliantly offbeat individual—a “mad Polish scientist”—by a former student in The Strangest Dream. It’s a curious historical erasure and a missed chance for a dramatic clash. Then again, perhaps Rotblat is too steady and untragic, incorruptible and unmemeable for his own big moment, let alone the blockbuster treatment. Oppie’s genius wasn’t just in his Faustian bargain but in the way that he spoke and the way he held himself, quoting Hindu philosophy and smoking till the end of time. I suppose film culture is more interested in the flawed, tortured luminary than the staunch, principled dissenter or the morally engaged scientist.

Prosecuting the melancholic drama of the ingenuous mastermind requires substantial historical selectivity. Most cinema narratives hew to the oft-cited rationale for the A-bomb’s development: its function as a deterrent to a Nazi explosive. But in his essay “Leaving the Bomb Project,” Rotblat wrote, “Groves said that, of course, the real purpose in making the bomb was to subdue the Soviets… Until then I had thought that our work was to prevent a Nazi victory, and now I was told that the weapon we were preparing was intended for use against the people who were making extreme sacrifices for that very aim.” With more than a dash of elegiac melancholy, the working thesis of The Strangest Dream is that Rotblat’s moral strength insulated him against Oppie-style tragedy.

Insofar as the The Strangest Dream and The Day After Trinity position the Manhattan Project as an unholy alliance of physics and the openly violent arm of the state, they do so via the absent presence of Oppenheimer, who, flush with government cash, personifies the uneasy collision of science and military. Today’s ventures in AI offer the same science-ethics conundrum, and we don’t seem to be any closer to resolving it than at the moment of Oppenheimer’s mythic quandary. Looking at the images of the Los Alamos exertions, you can almost faintly hear the words of today’s STEM bros: disruption, innovation, brilliance. Wondrous and diabolical, the A-bomb is presented in these documentaries as the freakish outcome of public-bureaucratic entrepreneurialism. (They are weaker on the tangled history of superpower competition and atomic technology.) It all depends, of course, on what humans do with the technology we develop.

Given what we know about capitalist society at present, things aren’t exactly looking up. Just a decade after The Day After Trinity, the Cold War victory lap was being run at the box office. A new, end-of-history generation of studio filmmakers was writing a euphoric, Fukuyama-esque version of reality into pop-culture lore: in blockbusters like Independence Day (1996), The Core (2003), and Armageddon (1998), American pluck saves humanity from wholesale destruction; anxiety surrounding US dominance over the international order is undetectable, and the US military is either prominent or necessary. Before them all, The Day After Trinity suggested that technology’s triumph is the very crux of the problem.

Today, Oppenheimer reifies a political crisis—superpower competition for atomic arsenal—as a conundrum of personality, tech, and naive genius, even as it centers the wild fraternity of science, military, and government vital to create the A-bomb. But the political arrangement of power and resources seems like more of an objective, inevitable fact about the world in The Day After Trinity and The Strangest Dream. If there’s such a thing as sober, mournful spectacle, these films manifest it.

Oppenheimer is long gone, but his legacy—the capacity of a self-destroying humanity, and the late-capitalist spectacle of that mushroom cloud’s bright flash of light—lingers. He did not sign the Einstein-Russell Manifesto against nuclear war. He never apologized for his role in bringing the bomb to life. Atomic technology is now standard. The world’s nuclear powers currently possess an estimated 12,512 active warheads. More than enough to wipe out the planet.'

[dianamitey2k]

What I Learned About Hobbes

...and why his Leviathan is just Daddy Issues in a Cape (now with bonus authoritarian fine print, emotional flashbacks, and a Reverse Uno card)

Thomas Hobbes thought people were naturally selfish, violent, and terrified of dying. His solution? Give all the power to one guy and call it a “social contract.” Obey him, stay in line, and maybe you’ll get peace in return.

✒️ You Can’t Call It Injustice If You Already Signed the Contract™

“Nothing the Sovereign Representative can do to a Subject… can properly be called Injustice or Injury.” — Leviathan, Chapter 21

That’s right. If the ruler ruins your life? Not injustice. It’s just you punishing yourself via your representative. Hobbes: Live, Laugh, Legal Gaslighting.

Also, the sovereign doesn’t answer to you. Only God and Nature. So basically, if you're harmed, take it up with the cosmos.

🔄 Reverse Uno: Sovereign Edition

You can’t resist if someone harms you. But you can defend someone else—unless it’s from the sovereign. And you must assist in punishing others… …yet cannot resist if the punishment is on you.

🃏 “No, you can’t resist. Yes, you must assist.” —Hobbes, casually

That’s not justice. That’s philosophical Uno, where the sovereign plays the “Skip,” “Reverse,” and “Draw 4” cards in one turn.

⚖️ Public Ministers ≠ Public Defenders

Hobbes’s “Publique Ministers”—judges, legal officers, tax guys—aren’t neutral. They’re arms of the sovereign. They don’t serve the people. They serve the throne.

Legal protection? Conditional. Recourse? None. Fairness? The vibe check is rigged.

💸 Errour Is Incident to All Mankind (But Somehow Not the Sovereign)

“Errour is incident to all mankind.”

Translation: “If the sovereign screws up? Oopsie. Still binding.”

So if you owed someone money—or didn’t—and the sovereign changes his mind? That’s law now. Contracts? Property? Truth? All up for reinterpretation depending on His Highness’s mood. You're not protected by precedent. You're at the mercy of someone's philosophical improv.

🧠 Trauma Lore: Daddy Ditched, Hobbes Dipped

Hobbes’s dad abandoned the family when he was a baby. Then during the English Civil War, Hobbes also dipped, fleeing to Paris. Just like his dad.

After that? He wrote a book about how we all need a mega-dad with absolute power to keep us safe.

Leviathan: The Attachment Theory Fanfic No One Asked For™.

He didn’t write for “mankind.” He wrote for his inner child.

📎 Bodies Politique? Only If Dad Says So

In Chapter 23, Hobbes says you can have civic groups, guilds, or assemblies. But only if the sovereign allows it.

“No other can be Representative… but so far forth, as he shall give leave.”

Your local council, protest group, mutual aid network? Gone if Daddy Leviathan doesn’t like the vibe.

📚 Job History? Chaotic.

For a man obsessed with order, Hobbes lived like the patron saint of side gigs:

Tutor

Translator

Scientific collab bro

Travel buddy

Political ghostwriter

Court hang-around-and-write-about-power guy

No wonder he dreamed up a sovereign. He was tired.

⚠️ Culture Shock Incoming

I get it—I wasn’t there. I didn’t know the guy. Maybe Hobbes was doing his best with the tools and traumas of the 1600s.

But from the 21st century? Reading him is like opening a how-to manual for benevolent tyranny. You authorize absolute power. You can’t call anything unjust. You hope he’ll be fair.

It’s not just outdated. It’s political vertigo.

📌 TL;DR

His Realism? A royal safety blanket with Latin footnotes.

His solution? Obedience in exchange for silence.

His legacy? A theory dressed like political science that’s actually a memoir titled “Please Don’t Leave Me.”

📚 Read it yourself: Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (Full Text - Google Books)

Tags: #hobbes #leviathan #philosophy roast #daddy issues in a cape #tumblr university #social contract my foot #absolute power absolutely not