#i THINK i got the main points...

[theriverbeyond]

I would love to hear about your theory that John moved the solar system!? I’m so curious about the potential evidence!

THANK YOU FOR ASKING this is my pet theory. my baby. my lovingly crafted tinfoil hat. also pinging in @liesmyth for insight/if i forgot anything

the theory is, John moved the solar system to Elsehwere, and the Mithraeum sits in the Milky Way galaxy, where our solar system used to be.

BoE was searching for the Nine Houses for thousands of years. until proven otherwise, they are canonically the descendants of the FTL ships John let escape. so: they know where Earth is! they know where the solar system is! they had 5,000 or more years to look, AND they had spacefaring tech! why couldnt they find it?

The Mithraeum is described so lovingly it makes my brain itch. the way John calls it "home"? listen. idk it is vibes

it is "set in the midst of a circumstellar disc", "an ancient jewel within so much dead gravel". what else is a "circumstellar disc"? the Milky Way galaxy. vibes

as we learn in HtN chapter 14, the Mithraeum is "lit by thanergetic starlight". not thanergy starlight. thanergETIC. the only other thanergetic star system we know of is..... Dominicus. our sun, killed and reborn. when the cohort/lyctors flip planets, they aren't capable of turning them thanergetic. and yet!!!! the Mithraeum is surrounded by thanergetic starlight. (like yes John said that they "nuked the stars with thanergy and now they'll shine forever" but he's a lying liar who lies, and we KNOW that killing a planet with thanergy doesn't turn it thanergetic. so like..... what is up with that)

John CAN TERAFORM. in NtN, John 19:18, he is described as "rais[ing] up parts of the earth that had been covered by sea". we know he can control the human body but this is a WHOLE new dimension and level to his powers and its implications are wholly unexplored. i can believe that he has (or had, at the time) the power to move a solar system.

The Mistborn Connection. John & Rashek parallels are just really strong and i can't ignore that. Rashek moved the planets around and therefore I think it is not impossible that John might have as well

so the question next is: why? why would john do this? and i think there are 2, potentially overlapping options:

fear and guilt, like a child hiding the cup they broke. John did not do this out of malice. he was scared and overwhelmed and fucked things up because of it, and maybe he hid our solar system because he couldn't bear to face the consequences or awknowledge the true extent of what he had done

it was an accident. John ate everything, killed everything, and he was absolutely not in his right mind when trying to put everything back. and not only that, he went to medical school, which as i (someone going to clinical science school) can tell you, means you know jack fucking shit about astrophysics and planetary science. he's only human, even if he became a god. he was unqualified and very stressed.... anyway let me tell you. if that was me we would all be soup

like i KNOW this is kind of ridiculous and weird. and it is tinfoil hat enough that i wouldn't be pressed at all if it turns out to be totally nothing. but like. it COULD be something, ya know?

[whetstonefires]

Hey you said something about the my hero academia creator being unhinged about sexism, do you mind explaining?

I tried to write like, a thorough explanation of this and it just got longer and longer and longer and I have not touched this series in actual years and yet I've still got all these receipts a;lkjk;lfasd.

So rather than trying to build the whole massive case, here's a pared-down version. It's normal to have sexism in media, and shounen manga especially. Everyone does it. The level and mode and intentionality and so forth all vary, but of course it's there.

What's not normal is to have lots of varied and interesting female characters with discernible inner lives, and on-page discussion of how sexism is systemic and unjust and holds them back in specific ways, and then also deliberately make consistent sexist writing decisions even where they don't arise naturally from the flow of the narrative.

Horikoshi is actively interested in gender and sexism, he's aware of them in a way you rarely see outside of the context of, you know, fighting sexism. He is hung up on the thorny issue of what women are worth and deserve and how power and respect ties into it. He genuinely wants, I think, to have Good Female Characters, and not be (seen as) A Sexist Guy!

But. He doesn't actually want to fight sexism. He displays a lot of woman-oriented anxieties, and one of the many churning paddlewheels in his head seems to be that he knows intellectually that morally sexism is bad, but emotionally he really feels like it ought to probably be at least partly correct.

There are so many things I could cite, and maybe I'll get into some of them later, but the crowning item that highlights how the pattern is 1) at least partly conscious and deliberate and 2) about Horikoshi's own weird hangups rather than simply cynical market play, is Mineta Minoru.

The writer has stated Mineta is his favorite character. Mineta is also designed to be hated--that is, he is a particularly elaborate instantiation of a character archetype normally deployed to soak up audience contempt and (by being gross and shameless and unattractive and 'unthreatening') make it possible to include a range of sexual gratification elements into the narrative that would compromise the main characters' reputations as heroic and deserving, if they were the actors.

Good Guys don't grope girls' tits and run away snickering in triumph, after all. Non-losers don't focus intense effort around successfully stealing someone's panties. Nice Girls don't let themselves be seen half-dressed. And so forth. You need an underwear gremlin for that. So, in anime and manga, longstanding though declining tradition of including such a gremlin, for authorial deniability.

Horikoshi definitely uses him straight for this purpose, looping in Kaminari as needed to make a bit work. And yet he has Feelings about the archetype itself.

The passages dedicated to the vindication of Mineta, then, and the author's statements about him, let us understand that Horikoshi identifies with the figure of the underwear gremlin. He understands the underwear gremlin as a defining exemplar of male sexuality, at least if you are not hot, and finds the attached contempt and hostility to be a dehumanizing attack on all uh.

Incels, basically.

It's not fair to write Mineta off just because he's unattractive and horny (and commits sexual harassment). Doesn't he have a mind? Doesn't he have dreams? Doesn't he have human potential?

So what's going on with Horikoshi and gender, as far as I can figure out, is that he knows damn well that women are people and are treated unjustly by sexist society, but however.

He also understands the institutions of sexism as something protecting him and people like him from life being nebulously yet definitively Worse, and therefore wants to see them upheld.

So you get this really bizarre handling of gender where obviously women's rights good and women cool, women can be Strong, and the compulsory sexualization imposed by the industry isn't them or the author, and so forth.

But also it's very important that in the world he controls, women never win anything important or Count too much, and that jokes at their expense that disrupt the internal logic of their characters are always fair game, that women asked about sexism on TV will promptly get into catfights amongst themselves, and they are understood always in terms of their sexual and romantic interests and value, and sexual assertiveness and failures to perform femininity well enough are used to code them as dangerous and irrational, and that the sexy costumes are requisite and will never be subverted or rebelled against--at most they might be circumnavigated via leaning into cute appeal.

And that Yaoyorozu Momo, who converts her body fat into physical objects, is being frivolous when she wants to use money to buy things instead (rather than as sensibly moderating her Quirk use) and is never encouraged to eat as much as possible at every opportunity to put on weight and even shown being embarrassed by hunger (even though Quirk overuse gives symptoms that suggest she's been stripping the lipids out of her cell walls or nervous system to keep fighting) and always, no matter how many Things she has made, has huge big round boobies.

[canisalbus]

Im sure u get a ton of asks but I just wanted to say I followed your art on deviantart when I was a kid like seven years ago and it was one of my biggest inspirations as an artist, its been really cool to see your style and technique develop and be honed into what it is now. Also it’s cool and hopeful? To see Machete’s arc through all of that and I’m glad he’s found peace.

I think theres like a sort of trauma? In the transition to being a kid/teen to being an adult. But then on the other side you come to peace with the things you struggled with or at least figure out how to cope with them. Idk if that makes sense but,, that’s how the evolution of your art makes me feel.

Also I’m curious if characters like Riaro and Masque exist in your headspace anymore or if they are long gone ?

It makes me honestly really moved to think that there's people out there that I've never met and never will, but my art has meant something for them. From what I've gathered, there's quite a few that found my work when they were young but continue to relate to it as adults, maybe from a different perspective but still.

I'd imagine that if you're roughly my age, you probably were going through the teen/early twenties angst around the same time I was. I think some improvement has happened recently, especially during the past year or so, and while I'm still struggling with serious mental health stuff every day I feel like I might've gained some semblance of stability and sensibility and ability to feel joy, at least for now. It would be wonderful if that was perceivable through my art in a way or another. I don't know, this is just stream of consciousness stuff. I guess I'm lowkey wishing the same kind of recovery and growth for people that suffered with me when I was hopelessly depressed. It's entirely possible I could slip back eventually, but right now I'm feeling more alive and inspired than I've felt in years and I'm trying to maintain this course.

[egophiliac]

they have now revealed another character for ride kamens, hayate, and it looks like he's a kr jin homage? glad they confirmed that it's not only titular riders getting representation, but still, a pretty off the cuff surprise for me

yeah, Jin is a welcome pull, but a pretty weird one! I saw the post when it dropped (don't ask why I was looking at twitter at 3 AM) and the replies were. very confused. :') nice to see some Jin rep though! and if this opens the door to characters based on more deepcut riders, all the better!

of course, if they really want to stay true to the spirit of Jin, we know what he'll be like

[agir1ukn0w]

y'all really think we don't know coriolanus snow, son of crassus xanthos snow, is a (future) dictator and mass murderer who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, the vast majority of whom are children, including finnick odair??? y'all really think we don't know that even as a youth he's already a controlling, narcissistic, scheming, calculating, traitorous son of a bitch?

you've severely underestimated our powers of media literacy, and also of knowing the difference between reality and fucking fiction.

[crescentfool]

the persona 3 protagonist 25th anniversary nui in food appliances!

[teastarfall]

i have no clue what im going for w/ my artstyle anymore exploding on the spot right now ^_^

[corvidinthewoods]

going to ramble a bit about hbomberguy, not the latest video directly more about some of the reaction to it. full disclosure i am a patron of his, have been for a few years, and became a fan of his channel years before that. i think maybe six years ago? give or take.

im maybe experiencing cognitive dissonance bc its nice that something ive enjoyed for a long time is gaining new audience, and of course new criticism. my initial reaction has been one of resistance that i need to check.

but after reading a bit more of the criticism im like. i kinda of agree? only kind of. i feel like the criticism is maybe not directed at me (or types of fans like me) but at folks for whom this is their first encounter with hbomberguy and are hailing him as a career-ruiner and gleefully enjoying the takedowns. dont get me wrong, takedowns are fun and they’ve always been core to his channel. his oldest stuff was debunking and clowning on right wing youtubers. but thats not all he is? and i dont like the idea of him as this Great Takedown Guy because personally the stuff i like best is his media criticism.

and thats not in the way some folks are like “oh yeah i enjoy hbomberguys media analysis but not his political stuff” i like both. but i think if folks are disregarding that side of his channel then theyre not like. idk how to word this im not the best writer. theyre missing out? or missing the point?

my personal favorite hbomberguy video is Halcyon Dreams. I also really enjoy Scanline (which is both him and shannon strucci), the CAD SLA, and the whole And Here’s Why series (especially speedrunning and pathologic). in much of hbomberguy’s other work, he will disagree with creators or producers in ways that aren’t career endings. and i don’t imagine he’s trying to become a person who does that all the time? i see behavior of his that indicates this to me, such as not naming who took his joke in the uber, explicitly saying “if you go harass Somerton you are worse than him”, and how most of And Here’s Why is neutral to positive, even tho the Garbage ones may get more views. the Sherlock has the highest

uhh where am i going with this. i always got points off for my transition sentences in essays

i guess im saying like. i don’t think it’s fair to just view the hbomberguy channel as waiting for the skeletons to come out of the closet. but i also dont think fans (especially y new fans) should put him up on this pedestal, particularly as Guy Who Destroys Careers. its not a good idea to idolize ppl in general, and its not great to live in a mindset of waiting for the next target for you to justify harassing.

[fromtheseventhhell]

"Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don't match, and you get the famous creative differences thing – that leads to a lot of conflict." On his experiences in Hollywood, he continued: "You get totally extraneous things like the studio or the network weighing in, and they have some particular thing that has nothing to do with story, but relates to 'Well this character has a very high Q Rating so let's give him a lot more stuff to do'." [x]

George confirming that one of the things that influenced the show diverging from the books was the decision to give characters greater importance based on their "popularity", as if that wasn't already extremely obvious lol

[moongothic]

New headcanon crocodile is fucking colorblind

Canon, next

[ciderjacks]

hey if u guys r sad about ofmd and want another show with gay people to watch you should consider watching Deadloch. It’s really good it’s really really good uh it might get a second season if the creators decide to do that.

if you watch good omens you’ll be able to watch Deadloch they’re on the same service. Uhhhh One of the actors from ofmd is there shes one half of the main duo (the other half is played by Kate Box who’s an amazing actor and Dulcie is now one of my fav characters ever) gets to wear an open Hawaiian shirt for like 3 of the 8 episodes which is a bonus. It’s extremely gay and it’s fun and beautifully written and no queer characters die and it’s satisfying and funny and Please watch it I’m begging you please watch itPLEASE

[proudfreakmetarusonniku]

like i see people say stuff like “rei is a deconstruction of the idea of like the perfect girl in a male gaze-y way” and and i'm ready to agree until they go “it’s because she’s creepy and weird and bad!” like no. rei's a deconstruction of misogynistic ideas of womanhood because they’re ideals forced upon her that damage her, not because she’s in any way “creepy”. like, the fact she’s a fourteen year old girl who was basically used as a substitute wife by her father bc she looked like his own dead wife is not something that is meant to make rei look bad like holy shit.

like both rei and asuka are very obviously like. showing fantasised and misogynistic ideas of an idealised woman don’t work irl yeah. shinji's misogynistic view of them is wrong. but that’s not because rei and asuka are bad people it’s because like. “fourteen year old who's flirty and seductive” and “fourteen year old who's a quiet obedient object” are major signs of abuse and trauma and anyone actually acting in those ways at that age clearly isn’t normal. asuka is desperate for attention in any way she can get it, even unhealthy and dangerous ways. rei is at the very least I has a weird pseudo-incestous enmeshment filled abusive relationship with her father, even if she's not actively being sexually abused. asuka is seeking support, rei is a grooming victim. these are not things that are flaws in their character the entire point of subverting the expectations is to show how those expectations are unhealthy to rei and asuka like. god.

[aj-thegreatest]

Me wanting the Dungeon Meshi: Falin Solo Spinoff series knowing damn well that’s never happening

[lit-in-thy-heart]

[ID: the train hitting a school bus meme. In the first panel, an empty school bus edges over train tracks and is labelled 'writing planned angst' with a train approaching. In the second panel, the train crashes into the bus and knocks it off the tracks. The train is labelled 'different angst suddenly writing itself'. End ID.]

[significant-ace-nnoyance]

How do you feel about Leah Sava Jeffries as Annabeth Chase, and why should we throw Leah a huge parte for being the annie we always deserve but never got much of

HELL YEAH ARE YOU KIDDING ME LEAHBETH IS THE BEST THING THATS EVER HAPPENED TO ME THIS ENTIRE YEAR OH MY GODS AND GODDESSES im fully self aware that "i look like i would have been an annabeth kid" and its because i FOR SURE WAS WHY WOULDNT ANYONE BE she is The Character the MOMENt the ICON of the AGES and leah is adapting her energy to screen so ???? perfectly ?????? like did rick just shake the book and she fell out ??????? what sorcery is this?? ??????

no but in all seriousness leah is killing it as annabeth and its super clear that she did her research and understands the character (in interviews she talks about how she read annabeth povs in later books and did research on greek mythology and athena so she could understand the lightning thief not just from percys pov but from annabeth 🥺🥺 she so annabeth coded irl i adore her) and it genuinely shows like ive microanalyzed all her expressions because her facial acting has so much DEPTH and LAYERS and OH MY GODS leah deserves all the parties and we are so privileged to have her as our annabeth chase <3 imagine being that talented at like 13

im super excited to see what additions she makes to the character in this adaptation!!! already i think she's really highlighting annabeth's battle strategy smarts over just booksmarts which EVERYONE ALWAYS FORGETS ABOUT SHES NOT JUST A BOOK NERD SHES A FUCKING GENERAL HEAD OF THE ATHENA CABIN MOST FORMIDABLE DEMIGOD AT CAMP AS A 12 YEAR OLD the duality is giving me LIFE and i love how she gets to boss around percy and grover (leah also talked about loving to get to be in charge and competitive as annabeth which shes SO REAL FOR THAT shes such an annabeth type) BUT ALSO YOU ALREADY GET TO SEE HER VULNERABILITIES AND INSECURITIES AND THE WAY SHE CARRIES HERSELF THAT MAKES HER SIMULTANEOUSLY COOL BUT ALSO IS A REFLECTION OF TRAUMA AND POOR EMOTIONAL COPING yeah basically shes not just giving us annabeth shes giving us annabeth but MORE and its making me understand her character BETTER and in a NEW way (and if you have anything to say about her portrayal in the show i will genuinely pull up with a full ass powerpoint slideshow because IF YOU MEDIA COMPREHEND FOR TWO SECONDS AND KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HER CHARACTER IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE AND ITS SO JUICY AND JALKDJFKBL)

i think about that shot of her looking at percy using medusas head through the screen porch ALL THE TIME. and her delivery of "grover can you tell your friend to pull himself together" LIKE THATS WHEN SHE TURNS TO HER PROTECTOR FOR HELP AND IT HAS A LITTLE BIT OF A SASSY IM-BETTER-THAN-YOU-PERCY VIBE TO IT BECAUSE SHES HIDING THE FACT THAT SHES SCARED AND UNCOMFORTABLE TO TALK ABOUT HER RELATIONSHIP WITH HER UNAVAILABLE MOM (and percy sees right through that just as she sees right through percy and oh my gods if i get started on percabeth ill never shut up)

anyways thanks for giving me an opportunity to go on a mini rant about leahbeth i could say so much more because when i say ive analyzed every frame my girl is in i am NOT joking

but ill just end by saying that anyone who is upset by show annabeth being black literally did not understand her as a character or the percy jackson books in general so they can stfu and get their little butthurt wrong opinions out the door bc they dont belong here anyway <3 rick and becky also talked about how they hired black sensitivity readers to help write annabeth's blackness more authentically into her character in the show so very much hoping that they do that well! and im overall just super excited to see what changes they make to adapt my favorite character to a new era, a new medium, and a new audience!

go treat yourself to some leah interviews because i actually adore her and will protect her and annabeth (though arguably theyre one and the same) with my life <3

[blueper-saiyan]

I’m overanalyzing something that’s canonically not meant to be thought about, for fun, so here’s a speculative Saiyan biology question: how often do they actually need to eat? I’ve sort of joked about the possibility that it’s like large predators irl where they gorge themselves occasionally and then wait until the next big kill. This would balance out the amount they’re eating to closer to a normal human, just a surprising amount in one sitting, and dodge the thing I’m about to go off the deep end about. But I think they’re probably supposed to need that amount frequently? Which is like, rodent levels of frequency and portions, but unlike a small mammal, a huge amount of actual food consumed. It’s fine if there’s only a handful of Saiyans on a whole planet but how did that work when there was a lot of them? That’s a massive amount of food, where is it coming from? Are they mostly feeding their army by taking food from conquered planets? They’d still need to be producing enough for their homeworld. Is it being farmed automatically and that’s how they can have the majority of their whole species be soldiers? But like, Gine has a job processing meat, so it’s clearly not entirely automated. Stuck thinking about Saiyan agricultural production and supply logistics help.

Unfortunately, I can also say that almost immediately after finding out the amount that Saiyans eat, the back of my mind did jump to “how fast do they starve?” Like, is that a much bigger threat for them than a human or do they have about the same amount of reserves, even if they’re eating more? If it is way faster, how does that affect how they view food/hunger? As a fun irl example, hummingbirds have such an insane metabolism that they would potentially starve to death if they slept at night. So they don’t sleep like normal, they enter a state that’s more like hibernation to slow their metabolism down enough to survive. Many hummingbird species are fiercely territorial because they need access to their food source or they starve. I imagine a theoretical hummingbird society would be thinking about food differently. And because this is my indulgent post where I get to talk about animals, I’m also going to bring up vampire bats, which could also potentially starve if they can’t feed within two days or so (I did not go deep into scientific literature to find original numbers and sources for this estimate I’m sorry true bat fans. Actually same goes for the hummingbird estimate but I know more about birds.). Unlike the more territorial hummingbirds though, vampire bats roost together during the day in colonies, with the same other bats repeatedly. And their food source can’t be guarded like a flower patch can, so there’s less purpose to territoriality. So they can form long term friendships with each other by interacting in ways like grooming each other. Within these friendships, when one bat gets a meal during their few-hour-a-night feeding window, but the other one doesn’t, the one who got enough food will often share with their friend to keep them from going hungry. Then their friend returns the favor when their roles are reversed, keeping them both alive, along with the rest of their friend network.

So those are some very different responses to needing food nearly constantly. If I were deeper in ecology mode I could probably try and come up with explanations based on the types of food source and territory and other factors for why, but I’m here to apply this to Saiyans lol. Honestly, a cooperative strategy would make more sense given that they’re pretty human-like, but that’s certainly not the sense we get given of their society. Were they always super individualistic or is that a recent development? Are they even actually individualistic or is that fully a societal role thing (elites are different from lower class warriors)? Or is the idea that they don’t cooperate partly a lie made up after their deaths anyway? Speculative biology for intelligent species get the extra layer of culture just to make things more messy and fun. We also know pretty much nothing about their original home planet and the actual context that shaped them, so I don’t get to apply other factors, like how easy it is to defend food sources or how important it is to stick together. We probably won’t ever get to know anything more about their original homeworld/Sadala, which is disappointing given that we got hints about it, but it does leave more room for speculation.