#i have some things to say that include comparing it to dante's peak

[purble-gaymer]

THESE MOUNTAINS SHOULD NOT EXIST

a rant/essay about dreamland's topography

disclaimer: i am a second year ENVS student and may get some details wrong. i don't really feel like sending this to my advisor (the local geologist) to proofread, so it'll have to do. i think she has more important things to do right now than read my kirby rant

to begin, we have to establish some basic rules about geology:

how do mountains form?

mountains come to be in a few ways: shifting plates and hot spots. hot spots are technically also to do with shifting plates, but we'll get to that later. let's talk about the plates first.

there are two kinds of tectonic plates: continental and oceanic. ocean plates are denser than continental plates, which means when an ocean and continental plate converge, the ocean plate will subduct under the continental plate. when two continental plates converge, because they are of similar density, they will collide. this process creates mountains.

mountains created by converging continental plates can be seen, for example, with the Himalayas. in this case, the mountains were formed by the Indian plate pushing up into the Eurasian plate. this method is off the table for dreamland because it is shown to be a peninsula (or at least a thin strip of land) surrounded by water.

ocean-continental convergence also creates mountains, but in a different fashion. this is the more relevant method because dreamland also has a volcano, an active one at that.

when ocean plates subduct under the land, they are forced down into the earth until they reach a melting point. sometimes this newly formed magma travels back to the surface, creating a hot spot. if this magma breaches the surface, it forms a volcano (that eventually cools into a mountain). this method can be seen in the Cascade mountains and the Andes.

the volcano/mountain's proximity to the coast depends on how steep the ocean plate's descent is. if we take a look at how close dreamland's mountains are to the shore...

...the ocean plate would have to be hitting its melting point almost immediately after subducting. forgive me for thinking this is unrealistic.

however, the inclusion of a volcano in this range is realistic! an O-C convergence would create a volcano like this. its portrayal within the show isn't really correct, but that's a post for a different day.

how this could potentially happen

not all hope is lost for the ocean-bordering mountain range, sort of. there are a few things that could have happened in popstar's history to cause something like this.

firstly, we should look at the Appalachian mountains. how did they get there? the North American plate is bordered on its east side by a mid-ocean ridge, where new crust is being created.

the Appalachians came to be around the time Pangea was coming together--the collision of the North American and African plates created the mountain range, and over time Pangea split apart, forcing the mountains away.

any map of tectonic plates will reveal a large split through the Atlantic ocean--this is a divergent boundary, where plates are being pushed apart in favor of creating new lithosphere (crust/upper mantle).

so, with all this in mind, there are a few things it could mean for our mountain range:

dreamland is actually an island, and we don't know because the overhead view doesn't show it

this would mean hot spots are relevant again: if a plate moves over a hot spot, magma can form into islands, especially volcanic ones. this is how Hawaii was formed, and why it is prone to volcanic activity. given that dreamland is an island, this would explain the presence of mountains. Hawaii's tallest peaks are still inland rather than right on the coast, but it's close enough.

2. a new fault/divergent boundary formed between dreamland's mountains and the opposing plate that created them

new faults aren't uncommon, though they don't always succeed. the New Madrid Seismic Zone, for example, made a small break in the American Midwest, but didn't get much farther than that. a successful fault or new divergent boundary could potentially push dreamland's mountains away from their neighboring plate. this is more like what happened to the Appalachians--though they're pretty far inland, so take that as you will. the new boundary would have to form quite close to the mountain range for them to be right on the shore like this.

3. the water has eroded away the land leading up to the mountains

now this isn't really one i have any backup for, i just wanted to throw it in because it came to mind. while it's possible for the ocean to have greatly eroded the land if it's been here for a long time, the mountains would still have to be very close to the shore to end up where they are. dreamland's proximity to the ocean could imply it has a delta at the end of the peninsula, and maybe one of the routes is along the mountains so the channel eats away at the shore for a while...who knows. but this one doesn't feel too realistic, either.

conclusion

as far as i'm aware, it isn't completely impossible for these mountains to exist, but they aren't exactly realistic, either. their proximity to the shore leaves too many questions that are hard to answer without any information about popstar's history and plate tectonics. most likely, dreamland is on an island, and was created as its plate moved over a hot spot. the existence of an active volcano implies that it is still sitting over this hot spot, and will eventually move away from it.

i must really miss my geology class if this is what i'm doing with my spare time. thank you for reading.

[adaru32]

The Red Devil’s Chronicles’ March & April 2023 DMC News Updates: PoC, Trend, Merch, And More

Hey, how’s it going? Here are some more Devil May Cry news updates I’ve collected in the past couple months: 1. The Peak of Combat mobile game has made progress. You can find all of their latest updates and announcements on their Youtube channel.

2. Megaman collabing with Devil May Cry V.

3. Capcom had a spotlight survey that went for 2 weeks, with Devil May Cry being on the list.

4. Prime1Studio making more Devil May Cry V merch. b) Including NabeHands making more Devil May Cry figures. c) And there’s now Devil May Cry Vinyl records.

5. Vergil and Nero trended on Twitter for a bit.

6. Lady's Devil May Cry 3 and 4 voice actress Kari Wahlgren won an award.

7. New CAPCOM artwork featuring Dante and Nero. 8. KFC Spain showed off a Vergil cosplayer ordering some KFC.

My Thoughts On These Updates:

1. It’s not just their Youtube channel you can check out the latest things happening with Peak of Combat, but there’s also their Twitter page which includes polls at times. I saw one poll that baffled me where they asked which gaming device they preferred us to slay demons on. SamSung phones won by a looooong shot compared to the other options which were iPhone, PC, and gaming console. I commented saying that I prefer both PC and gaming console, but chose gaming console since it’s what I grew up with.

2. So many Devil May Cry V collabs. It’s cool but it would be nice if the other Devil May Cry games can have turns collabing as well. I’m aware DMC4 and DMC1 had some collab events before, but DMCV seems to be the only thing that’s getting the most collabs.

3. It sucks that in order to take the survey you had to be a CAPCOM member...I know it’s free and keeps a record on how many fans are interested in their products, but it annoys me when you have to sign up for stuff in order to participate in something that you know you won’t often take part in and your profile just sits there. Not just CAPCOM but other companies as well.

4. It’s cool how Prime1Studio’s going strong and still coming out with new Devil May Cry V merch, 4 years after its release. Then again, Devil May Cry V is still expanding in popularity. I just had my cousin tell me recently that one of her friends is a huge Vergil fan but has never played any of the games, and this friend finally bought all the games and plans to play them whenever he gets the time. b) NabeHands has been doing an amazing job on the figures. Looking forward to more Devil May Cry figure projects from them. c) I wonder what the Devil May Cry tunes would sound like on a record player or jukebox (also huge congrats to the fan artist StelarPidgin for being a part of the project by making the artwork for the records). I’ve heard people argue that they prefer the sound of music on a record player or jukebox compared to a cassette tape or CD player (even speakers from a laptop or phone). I don’t have a jukebox and record player myself but I remember my one grandmother having a record player before it got really old and worn out, and I can kinda remember that the music was nice and clean with the right touch of bass compared to other music playing systems. 

5. Usually it would be just Dante, Devil May Cry, or DMC that would be trending on Twitter. It’s nice to see the other characters from the series taking the trending spotlight.

6. Big congrats to Kari Wahlgren for her award. She is a great voice actress. Speaking of her, I still need to find out why she didn’t get credited for voicing as Lady in DMC3 and 4.

7. With CAPCOM showing off more Devil May Cry in their advertising shows how popular of a series it is, and gives a bit more hope about more future titles coming sooner than later.

8. It’s really cool and interesting to see when restaurant chains recognize certain media and implement them into their advertising, promotions, etc. 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

The Divine Comedy Theory, Part 1

All right, here’s my Divine Comedy theory that I’ve been working on the past few weeks. First, let’s remember that tptb said the golf club in Still represented the 9 circles of Hell. The 9 Circles of Hell come from Dante’s books, including Divine Comedy and The Inferno. So they’re obviously using those books as symbol templates.

But the point is, that much of it isn’t a theory. It’s fact. Tptb CONFIRMED this. It’s now just up to us to try and figure out the interpretation, HOW they’re using it. And that’s what I’m attempting to do here.

We also saw a sign reading, “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here” near Rick and Negan in S8. That is also a Dante thing. In the Divine Comedy (TDC) that sign is seen when one is entering hell. More on that later.

I decided to divide this into 2 parts because it’s very long. Today, I’ll summarize the Divine Comedy itself and talk about how seasons of TWD might correspond to the different circles of hell. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about Still and the “Abandon all Hope” sign. Here we go:

THE DIVINE COMEDY: A BREAKDOWN

The story starts on Good Friday and ends on Easter. Obviously, that's a good sign.

We start with Dante who is lost in the dark wood. Above him, the sun shines on a mountain peak and he attempts to climb it to get to where the sun is, but his path is blocked by a leopard, a lion, and a shewolf. (Yes, I'm side eyeing the she-wolf thing as well.)

Discouraged that he can't get to where the sun is, Dante returns to the dark wood. He sees the ghost of the poet Virgil, who says Dante's path must take him through Hell but Virgil will guide him and eventually he will reach his beloved, Beatrice. He also tells Dante that Beatrice, who is deceased, and two other holy women are the ones who sent Virgil to him. They knew of his plight and took pity on him. (I really think this is probably the tie to the three Marys.)

So, they head into Hell. This is where we get the sign, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." 

The first region that Dante enters is actually the anti-inferno. It's what you might call the antechamber or waiting room of hell. There are still people there, though. Those who couldn't commit to good or evil, fence-sitters who wouldn’t make a choice. They chase a blank banner while hornets bite them and worms lap up their blood.

To actually get to the gate of hell, Dante and Virgil have to go across the river. They do and then they reach the first circle of hell, which is called Limbo. Here, there are pagans. Those who never knew Christ.

The second circle is for those who committed the sin of lust. They swirl about in a terrible storm. The third circle is for the gluttonous. They lie in the mud and endure a rain of excrement.

The Fourth Circuit is for the avaricious and the prodigal. They charge at one another with giant boulders. I was a little confused by why the prodigal would be here. In the Bible, the prodigal isn't generally regarded as a crime or sin. But reading further, the prodigal son did waste the resources that his father gave him before returning to his father and asking for forgiveness. So, these are people who are wasteful in a really bad way. Apparently, they charge at one another around a semi-circle, smack into each other, turn around to go the other way, and repeat it all again.

In the fifth circle are the wrathful. The struggle with each other in the river Styx which is a swampy and fetid cesspool. The Sullen are also there, and they lie beneath the water, choking on the mud.

The sixth circle is for the heretics. The circle is populated by tombs which are surrounded by flames.

The seventh circle has three rings and houses the violent. The first ring is for people who are violent toward others. They spend eternity in a river of boiling blood. The second ring is for those violent toward themselves (suicides). This is kinda interesting. They endure eternity in the form of trees. (I don’t think TWD uses the trees as suicides, necessarily, but maybe more for people who inadvertently caused their own deaths through their actions. I was thinking about Deanna saying of Pete, “Let the trees have him.” Which suggests she’s consigning him to hell. Just a thought.) The third ring is for those violent toward God (blasphemers) violent toward nature (sodomites) and violent toward art (usurers).

The eighth circle is full of evil pockets of people. There are 10 pockets. I opted not to go through them all here because, at least for now, I don’t think they’re relevant. Just ten types of sinners such as flatterers, thieves, people who took bribes, etc.

Finally, the Ninth Circle. In order to reach it, they descend into a well that leads to a frozen lake. In the first ring are those who betrayed their kin and they are standing up to their necks in the frozen lake. The second ring holds those who betrayed their country, and they are standing up to their heads in a frozen lake. In the third ring are those who have betrayed their guests. They lie on their backs with only their faces sticking out of the water. The fourth week ring is for those who have betrayed their benefactors and they are completely submerged.

At the center of this ring is a shrouded, gigantic form which is Lucifer. He has three mouths that are chewing on three sinners: Judas Iscariot, Cassius and Brutus. Those who famously betrayed their masters.

Dante and Virgil climb down Satan's clothing to get to the very bottom of the 9th circle of hell. Interestingly, Dante is carried on Virgil's back. So, we have a serious piggyback going on here.

After they climb down Satan, they cross the river Lethe and emerge from hell on Easter morning before sunrise.

HOW IT MAY CORRESPOND TO TWD:

Okay, so that’s a very broad synopsis of TDC.

Let's talk about a few different ways we can possibly interpret this. First off, my very general theory is that (and we’ve said things similar to this before) that the post-apocalyptic world = hell and in a sense all our characters are Dante. Which means the walkers in this analogy represent the souls who are already in hell. Think of it this way. In the story, Dante is a living person that has to pass through hell. In fact, in many of the circles, the gate keepers and such try to keep him from passing because he’s still alive. But he always gets special permission to do so. So, it’s a “being alive among the dead” sort of theme. The dead, of course, being the walkers.

And the reason that’s important is because some of how we can interpret this is based on how walkers are portrayed throughout different seasons. Let me also say that this is a very loose interpretation and I’m by no means positive I’m interpreting this right. Some of this is hard to nail down.

So, I tried to make different seasons and arcs of the TWD story fit the different circles of hell. For example, I would say this analogy really starts in S4, because I think it's purposefully placed and wouldn't have begun heavily until Gimple took over. So, I think all of S4 was the anti-inferno or antechamber before they got to hell. In the same way that S4 foreshadowed many coming arcs, this was just a little bit beforehand.

Crossing into hell would be Beth and Daryl's separation. I was thinking that the first circle, Limbo, which is described as housing those who never knew Christ, might be Terminus. (Beth is the Christ figure and she never made it to Terminus.) The second circle is for those who lust and they walk about in a terrible storm. I thought of 5x10 and the storm they went through there. The third circle is for the gluttonous. This one stumped me a little bit. Its still rain and a storm, but it talked more about mud and people being blown around in the storm. So, it could be part of 5x10, but I also thought of the big storm they had in FTWD S5. I'm not sure about that one.

The fifth circle talks about people running at one another with huge boulders. I thought of the rock quarry in S6. 

Total side note: I was looking for a picture of the rock quarry to put in here, and I came across this pic below. Quint means 5, and then of course it actually says “Gate 5.” I’ve always thought this pointed back to S5, to show that Glenn’s death fake-out is a template of Beth. But this may also point to this being a symbolic representation of the 5th circle of hell. Just saying. ;D

Then there's the sixth circle. It talks about people struggling with each other in the river Styx and it swampy and fetid. The thing that came to mind here is the swamp walkers in S8. This was when Tara was still trying to kill Dwight and Daryl and co took all the kids away from Alexandria and to Hilltop. Remember, they made a big deal about swamp walkers? So I wondered if this could be in line with that in season eight. The walkers show what circle of hell therein.

Another tier of the sixth circle is tombs surrounded by flames. I think the thing that embodies that more than anything else we've seen would be the Whisperers. We saw the burning of Hilltop and the Whispers represent death anyway. I could see Alpha representing a heretic in various ways, not least because they pretend to be walkers when they’re not.

What I’ve said so far is what I discovered and got super excited about a few weeks ago when I first started doing this. Because it told me that by using this template, we might be able to get an idea of when Beth would return.

But you can probably see the first problem I ran into. If we’re only at the sixth circle, we still have three more circles before Beth returns, right? (Assuming that she returns at the end of this and Dante emerging from hell on Easter will signal Beth and Daryl reuniting.) But I don’t think it will be three more seasons or whatever until we see her. Truly.

So, I kinda got stumped because even reading through the seventh, eighth and ninth circles, nothing was jumping out at me that suggests we’ve seen the events corresponding to those circles, yet. I'm sure we could find some way to compare them to events in the story, but just nothing really obvious stood out.

But don't despair yet. I was originally a little unsure about this, but I started looking at the actual events of Still, it made me feel much better. I think I understand now why it's laid out this way.

So once again, come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about Still, and then about Rick, and maybe about the chess theory. Stay tuned!

[dontdowhatisayandnobodygetshurt]

How are Jesse and vrox? I miss them

:’) They’re doing great Nonnie!! Just for you, here’s the SFW alphabets I wrote for them (belong the cut because they’re a tad long):

VROX:

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Vrox is very physically affectionate. Cuddling, putting his head on his partner’s shoulder, holding their hand, kissing them no matter where they are, wrapping his arms around their waist, playing with their hair, getting them in a headlock, he’s very touchy.

B = Best friend (Who is their best friend? How did the friendship start?)

Vrox doesn’t have any best friends, he has a lot of friends but the way he feels for them is kind of equal all-round. If he had to choose, he’d say Jesse is still his best friend.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Vrox is big on cuddling. If he and a partner or even a friend are sitting or lying down together, he will cuddle them. One of his favourite positions is lying with his head or his feet in his partner’s lap.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Vrox considers himself settled down. His and Jesse’s apartment is his home base that he ranges from, at the end of the day he can always come back and be disgustingly domestic and cute. He thinks cleaning is boring but he genuinely enjoys doing the dishes, because he can blast whatever music he wants and sing to it loudly and nobody is allowed to complain because he’s cleaning up. He’s not bad at all at cooking, he’s just lazy and prefers eating cereal.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

He’s not great or very considerate at it. He’d probably just very clearly drift away and ghost them, until they confront him or he finally bites the bullet and breaks up with them. He’s very blunt, even if he tries to say it kindly (or not, depending on why he’s breaking up with someone) and his break-ups usually lead to fights and yelling.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Vrox is a very loyal person, but he thinks legal binding is stupid, a waste of time, and shallow compared to how he feels for his partners. He really, really doesn’t see the point, but he would go through with it if his partner wanted to, and yes he would end up crying.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He’s never really gentle gentle. He’s either rough or he’s playful or he’s intense. Varying degrees of asshole, from endearing to picking a fight. But that just means that when he is gentle, it means something much more.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

He likes hugs, but he prefers giving them. His favourite hug is coming up behind someone, wrapping his arms around their waist and resting his head on the top of theirs or on their shoulder, depending on how tall they are.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Often. Vrox isn’t one to curb his emotions, if he’s feeling a lot of affection, he’ll say it. In a new relationship he says it pretty quickly and casually. Vrox feels anger very intensely, but he feels love just as fiercely.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

He’s the most jealous in his trio, but he’s still not that bad. He tends to act it up sometimes to be dramatic. It’s not very deep, just little flashes of “I want them, not you” but nothing bad, and he gets over it quickly.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss? Where do they like to be kissed?)

He’s very passionate, he goes for it without any insecurities. Sometimes he can go a bit too hard a bit too fast, but it’s not too bad.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Vrox is great with little kids, he’s the guy who waves or makes funny faces at babies in stores until they laugh. He doesn’t desperately want kids of his own, though, and teenagers tend to rub him the wrong way – he likes to be the most sullen, angry thing in the area at all times.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Vrox really doesn’t mind early mornings, but that will not stop him from complaining loudly through yawns. He likes having a long lie-in, conversation and cuddle before he gets up. Most of the time he showers early.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Normally there’s some kind of music and bad dancing, maybe chill binging of a show or movie, making dinner in the messiest way possible. Also, sex of some kind, he has a high libido and he just likes being close to those he loves. If not, definitely cuddling or sweet touching.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Vrox really can’t hide his emotions or secrets if he tries. Pretty much what you see is what you get. He will open up willingly more and more as the relationship goes on, though, about his frustrations with himself and how he wishes he didn’t have this emotion management issue.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

I know this may come as a shock, but Vrox is the least patient person on earth. Unless someone really can’t help it, then he’s a bit more considerate… but not by much.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about their partners? Do they remember every little detail they mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He tries, but sometimes info just doesn’t stick in his brain. He will occasionally forget anniversaries, but for some reason he’s better at remembering tiny insignificant details.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in their relationship?)

With Jesse, it was when he first met him, and when they had their first kiss. Nothing had ever calmed him down so quickly in his hound form and he never would have thought he would be worthy of someone like Jesse. He cried after their first kiss and just held him through the rest of the night, treasuring every second. He never stopped.

With Dante, it was when Vrox comforted him after a PTSD episode. Despite his sulking and annoyance at Dante for being so tough on him, he knows Dante only does it to keep him – and those around him – safe and that he just wants to help him. Being able to be there for him in a moment of rare vulnerability really impacted Vrox. It was also a good reminder to him that he wasn’t the only one struggling.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect their partners? How would they like to be protected?)

Vrox is protective… of everyone. If a stranger is harassing another stranger in the subway he will shove between them, if somebody is being really rude to a retail worker he will call them a dickwad. Even if it makes the situation worse, he just can’t let it go. He likes taking the spotlight off the person being attacked: he’d rather the situation escalate at him, rather than them. God help if somebody he actually cares about is being harassed. As for being protected, it makes him feel special, safe and loved.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

He usually forgets anniversaries until the last minute when he runs and buys a gift. If you want to see Vrox panic, just ask him “do you remember what today is?” and he’ll shit himself. With dates he’s more casual but he always makes sure his partners have a good time. He likes giving gifts and seeing people’s faces light up, so his loved ones expect a few gifts every few months. If he sees something that even vaguely reminds him of them, he’ll buy it in an instant. 

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Let’s be honest, Vrox can be difficult to love. He has mood swings, days where he’s inexplicably furious, he can be lazy and too blunt. However, he is aware of all of these things and actively working every day to get better. His bad habits include: forgetting to vacuum until the dust bunnies start unionizing, being a few minutes late to everything, and liking mainstream pop music.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

He’s a pretty vain bastard. He knows full well that he’s hot despite all his scars (and, frequently, bruises) and he capitalizes on it. The reason he’s late to most appointments is he’s trying to get his hair to sit exactly right (fighting a losing battle, his hair obeys no man, woman or person.)

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without their partners?)

Yes. He’d still have his friends and family that is the pack, but without Jesse and Dante he might have become a nightmare.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

He wears his partners’ clothes when he’s feeling very unstable, to try and hold onto the thought of what matters most to him.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

Jesse using up all the hot water with his longass showers annoys him. Dante being such a bossy, demanding asshole annoys him even more. In general he hates people who pity him or act like he’s delicate or like he’s going to blow up at them if they don’t step carefully around him.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?)

He usually sleeps on his stomach with his pillow in a death grip, or spooning.

JESSE:

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Jesse’s very affectionate with both words and physical touch, but the peak of his affection lies in very companionable, warm silence. He wants his loved ones to know how much he loves them all the time, with many small touches, gestures and words. He’s very encouraging and he likes holding hands – he’s gotten more comfortable doing it in public, too.

B = Best friend (Who is their best friend? How did the friendship start?)

Practically the whole pack is his best friend, everybody adores him, and he has a lot of human friends, too. He gets along great with a hound named Taylor, another named Lisa, Heath, Noah, and he’s friends with June, too. But he still considers Vrox his best friend, because that’s what they were before they started dating and that’s what they still are.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

He loves cuddling, he’ll almost never protest it, but he does need his space sometimes, especially if he’s trying to concentrate on something: for example, he really doesn’t like being touched or held while he’s trying to sleep, it distracts him too much.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

He feels very happily settled down. The only nagging detail in his 1910’s brain is that he’s not married yet. He’s a very good cook, since his mum and dad taught him well, and he’s very diligent with cleaning. His spaces are messy, but they’re never dirty.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

He’d think about it very long and hard, and then have a heartfelt conversation with his partner and pray that it ends cordially because he never wants to hurt somebody he loves or has loved.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

He is a very devoted person and was raised with a much stricter commitment policy by his parents and society at the time. When he loves somebody and he can’t imagine life without them, he’ll start to think about marriage – even just for the thought. Tying the knot is the dream.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Jesse is a very sweet person. He’s very considerate and he never wants to hurt anyone – but he’s not above playfully teasing, punching people’s arms or ruffling their hair.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

He enjoys hugs a lot, he just needs to be alerted to when somebody’s going to hug him. (If Vrox is going to hug him from behind, he’s gotten in the habit of tapping Jesse lightly on the shoulder before he grabs him.) Despite the fact that he’s pretty lanky, he gives beautiful hugs, you can just tell how much he cares about you through the hug.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Jesse was reserved with those three little words for a long time, but through his years with friends and partners he’s relaxed with it a lot more. He still never wants it to lose its meaning, though, it’s never just a throwaway thing to him.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

He felt a lot more insecure at the beginning of his relationship with Vrox, and because of that they opened their relationship very slowly. Now he’s very comfortable in himself and knows he’s irreplaceable, jealousy is mostly a bad memory.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss? Where do they like to be kissed?)

He’s a very safe kisser, he knows what he’s doing and follows his partner to match their mood. He often cups his partner’s face or plays with their hair or strokes patterns on their skin while he kisses them, it’s very cute – also when he’s really having a good time he won’t be able to stop smiling which interferes with the kiss in a very cute way.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

He feels very awkward around babies and very young kids because he never knows how to deal with them, but he’s very good with teenagers.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Jesse likes sleep-ins, but he also doesn’t mind getting up early – despite falling asleep late the night before. He takes most of the early shifts for his work, so he eats breakfast, has a shower, then he kisses his boyfriends goodbye and off he goes.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Jesse is a massive night owl and he’ll often stay awake till 2AM or later. He has a lot more energy at night so expect him dancing feverishly in his socks to music in his headphones while he does chores he neglected during the day.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Jesse doesn’t hide the things that happened to him, but he also never tells anyone unless they ask. He’s pretty open about his emotions, though, he knows that keeping secrets in any relationship is bound to end badly so he never lets things sit and rot, he’ll always communicate his feelings.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

Jesse is a painfully patient person. He won’t lose his cool with anyone – except bigots. Unreasonable people who are just filled with hate and don’t want to learn anything or respect other people just existing? He will need to be held back.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about their partners? Do they remember every little detail they mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He remembers most things, big and little, but if he’s stressed or busy things will slip a bit.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in their relationship?)

With Vrox, it was the first night he did karaoke with him. The pack’s a bunch of idiots so they hold karaoke nights in the communal area. Jesse was still very much in his shell, but Vrox got him up on stage. Vrox was in a super good mood that night too: he didn’t try to pressure Jesse, he just told him it’d be fun with a big genuine smile and Jesse trusted him. They sang together and hammed it up in the most dramatic way possible, and Jesse was shocked by how much fun he had. It was the moment he realized he didn’t have to have his guard up around everyone, and that he genuinely liked Vrox – despite having some reservations about this abrasive white boy beforehand.

With Dante, it was when Jesse was feeling very, very low again – the lowest he’d felt since he killed himself. Dante noticed and reminded him that he was here for him, and Jesse finally took a big step and opened up. Dante dropped everything to listen and comfort him about it. It was the first time somebody had really been there for him since his parents died. He trusted somebody for the first time in a long time.

(Note: Dante dropped everything for him because he still felt guilty about not being able to be there for him when he first arrived in Hell. It had been a busy, bloody night with a lot of new arrivals, and unfortunately Jesse slipped through the cracks and had to deal with his shock, confusion and despair alone. Dante will never forgive himself for letting that happen to him, even though it wasn’t his fault.)

The first time he kissed them both were also very, very big moments for him. He holds them close to his heart.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect their partners? How would they like to be protected?)

Jesse is very protective. He doesn’t really care what people say or do to him, he’s very used to it, but if somebody goes after anyone else, he’ll be furious. Even though both his boyfriends are bigger and scarier than him and they can take care of themselves, he’ll still try and put himself between them and the aggressor – whether to defend them or try and deescalate the situation. He picks a surprising amount of fights for such a sweet guy.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

What makes a date enjoyable to Jesse isn’t the location, it’s just spending time with his partner. His dates are chill, intimate and fun. He doesn’t often get gifts for his partners, but when he does, he makes sure they’re really special. Anniversaries are important to him – but again, he doesn’t like to make a massive deal of it, he just wants to enjoy his partners’ company.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

See, letter S. He tends to get into heated arguments and not caring when the situation escalates to dangerous levels, even if he could be hurt. He uses up all the hot water in his showers, but that’s more because he has to take proper care of his hair. He can put others’ problems and emotions above his own. There are random bits of dried paint around the apartment because he zones out while he paints, gets up to get something, and forgets that he has wet paint on his hands. (Yes he has gotten paint in Vrox’s hair before and yes Vrox screamed like he was shot, to which Jesse reached out without even looking and put a big blue handprint across Vrox’s face.)

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

He keeps himself looking presentable because hygiene and ‘good impressions, not just the first one’ were always drilled into him by his parents. He used to have a lot of dysphoria surrounding his appearance but since he transitioned he’s learning to be confidant and that he looks handsome and hot as fuck, as Vrox and Dante keep reminding him. He also knows that if he flashes his dimple at someone, he’ll always get what he wants because it’s just that cute. He does kind of hate his borderline baby-face though – it makes ordering drinks and getting into clubs hell.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without their partners?)

He wouldn’t be incomplete, but he definitely feels more with his partners. He’d still have a ton of friends and lovers and fuck buddies without them, but he wouldn’t feel this specific love that makes him feel more than anything else.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

His favourite food is Skittles. Vrox doesn’t understand how he can like them better than M&Ms. This petty argument has been going on for years now.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

He hates that Vrox has to be caged so often, but that’s more because it makes him sad than anything else. Dante not taking care of himself and then ending up in a PTSD stress mess because he doesn’t chill and look after his own mental health frustrates him, mostly because Jesse has to pick up his pieces and help him be put back together again.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

He normally sleeps on his side with his arms wrapped around himself, kind of curled up. He has nightmares often.

[parkpavilion]

The Best (well, favorite) Books of 2021

The voice has spoken from the top of the highest pinnacle of the pavilion and the revelation has been handed down, so let the cheering commence from the assembled throng! Congratulations to the winners of the most cherished prize in all of Literaria, a spot on the Madison Books Best of the Year list! I always exaggerate awkwardly when it’s time to announce my Top Ten list for the year, because it’s silly to pretend that I’ve really assessed every single title released in the past twelve months. I have as always, though, given it about as good a shot as anyone could and am happy with the results. I won’t say proud, because that’s an emotion reserved for the authors who did the hard part and wrote these books. They’re the ones who should be puffing out their chests, and I hope they are.

The other thing I always do when creating my Top Ten list is forget how to count. It’s just too reductive to limit myself to ten choices when brilliant books galore are being published every year. So in 2021 I didn’t stop until I reached 30 titles, broken into three categories. How did I select the ones I did? I’ll keep you in suspense no longer.

In looking at everything I’d read this year, it was unexpectedly easy to winnow the fictional wheat from the chaff. It took barely more than a glance to see that 20 books stood out from the rest, but then I dithered for a good long time, trying to cut that figure down to a more reasonable number. After weeks of fruitless sorting and resorting, I suddenly noticed that my list was already neatly split. I had ten in hardcover and ten in paperback, all published for the first time  in 2021. Obviously I was meant to have two Top Ten lists for fiction. 

The hardcovers came mostly from the big publishing houses, and mostly from established writers. All immensely satisfying, even exhilarating reads, but compared to the paperbacks, collectively more traditionally told tales. There are some interesting resonances between paired titles--blends of science and family dynamics in Bewilderment and The Stone Loves the World; cozy metafictional narration in The Sentence and The Book of Form and Emptiness; and alt-history in Matrix and Civilizations.

The paperback list is characterized by the adventurousness typical of smaller, independent presses, featuring more diversity in form, style, and language and culture of origin. Four books come from US writers while the rest are international, including a Canadian of Sri Lankan heritage, a Norwegian, an Argentinean, a Chilean, a Croatian, and a Franco-Korean who now resides in Switzerland (and whose book I chose before it won the National Book Award--go me). There are novels disguised as history (ELADATL and When We Cease to Understand the World), novels of war and peace (Kin and White Shadow), short story collections (Farthest South and A Perfect Cemetery), a passionate urban love story (Jacket Weather), satirical commentaries on the perilous state of things (Dante’s Indiana), and uncategorizable miniature extravaganzas (Trafik). 

Having had a hard enough time evaluating all these, I didn’t even try to rate them against what I thought were the best non-fiction titles of the year. So I gave them their own Top Ten list. Three of those are books about writers, including George Saunders on the famous Russian greats (A Swim in a Pond in the Rain) and Susan Bernofsky on the lesser-known Robert Walser (Clairvoyant of the Small, which for me beat out other excellent literary bios about Pessoa, Sebald, Stoppard, and others). The real standout of the trio, though, was the magical A Ghost in the Throat. 

Then there was big-picture anthropology/natural history (Four Lost Cities, The Dawn of Everything, and Homewaters) and meditations on human achievement and folly (Albert and the Whale and Imaginary Peaks). One scofflaw made its way into the inner circle, too. I’ve always been scrupulous about considering only titles published in the current year for my favorites lists, but I was so charmed by my recent discovery of 2019′s highly idiosyncratic Treasure of the Castilian or Spanish Language that I let it break the rules. Since it really goes back all the way to 1611, I figured it wouldn’t hurt. 

Over the next few weeks we’ll be using our newsletter to highlight the Top Ten lists from Madison Park’s other booksellers, but you can get a peek at all of them on our website now if you like. With all these fantastic books to choose from, you’re certain to find a new favorite or two of your own among them, and we bet you have some new ones to tell us about, too.

--James

[thewalkingsnapplecap]

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Who Started the Flat Earth Conspiracy Theory?

Contrary to popular belief, a decent percentage of the human population has known definitely the Earth was roughly spherical for over two thousand years. Hardly impressive, as noted in our BrainFood Show podcast, bees also use this fact in their own absurdly fascinating navigation and in communicating directions to other bees.

As for humans, we took a little longer to realize this, with Pythagoras (6th century B.C.) generally credited with being the first known person to have suggested a spherical Earth, though the idea didn't exactly catch on at this point. Aristotle (4th century B.C.) agreed and supported the hypothesis with observations such as that the southern constellations rise higher in the sky when a person travels south. He also noted that during a lunar eclipse the Earth's shadow is round. Much more definitively, the 3rd century BC head librarian at the Library of Alexandria, Eratosthenes, built on their ideas and managed to calculate the circumference of the Earth with remarkable accuracy. How? He simply used the knowledge that at noon on the Summer Solstice there was a well in Syene where the sun shown directly down to the bottom, with no shadow. Thus, at noon on Summer Soltice he used a rod to measure the angle of the shadow made in Alexandria and found it to be about 7 degrees or about 1/50th of a circle. With this information, he now just needed to know the exact distance between Syene and Alexandria to get the circumference of the Earth (about 50 times the distance between Syene and Alexandria). He hired a survey crew, known as bematists, to measure the distance, which they found to be about 5,000 stadia. He then concluded the Earth must be about 250,000 stadia around. Depending on which stadion measurement he was using, his figure was either just 1% too small or 16% too large. Many scholars think it likely that he was using the Egyptian stadion (157.5 m), being in Egypt at the time, which would make his estimate roughly 1% too small.

Moving on to the so called Dark Ages in which Christianity supposedly squashed such outlandish ideas as a spherical Earth, the truth is actually the opposite. In Christian medieval Europe, 7th century Catholic monk and scholar Bede produced an influential treatise that included a discussion of the spherical nature of the world. This work, The Reckoning of Time, was copied and distributed to clerics across the Carolingian empire. Later, in the 1300s, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy also describes the Earth as a sphere and again nobody seemed to have a problem with this.

The Catholics and later other branches of Christianity weren't the only religious sects that seemed to have its clergy and scholars almost universally think the world was spherical. The Islamic world also concurred. As historian Jeffrey Burton Russell sums up,

With extraordinary few exceptions, no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat.

Beyond the academics of the Western world, even the most empty headed sailor knew the Earth was spherical simply by the fact that ships disappear over the horizon with the bottom first and then the mast the last to be sighted. A similar effect is observed when spotting land from a ship. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to realize the sea's surface must curve continually.

Despite this, there really still is a tiny percentage of the populace of the developed world who believe the world is flat.

You might at this point be wondering just how many? While internet comment threads make it seem as if the percentage is large, the reality is probably drastically less. (Comment trolls gonna troll.)

As for some numbers, according to a 2018 poll run by the massive market research firm YouGov, the 8,215 responses which were chosen to have a high probability of accurately representing the wider adult populace, showed,

84% of respondents said they have always believed the world is round

5% stated "I always thought the world is round, but more recently I am skeptical/have doubts",

2% stated "I always thought the world is flat, but more recently I am skeptical/have doubts"

and 2% went with "I have always believed the world is flat".

The remaining 7% stated "Other/not sure".

While the good people at YouGov certainly know their stuff with respect to getting accurate data that represents the wider populace, we were curious as to what a larger sample of our own audience would reveal, though with the caveat that a general internet poll can sometimes be notoriously inaccurate. But for the curious and for whatever it's worth, our poll asking more or less the same questions received over 72,000 votes. What were the results? Approximately

96% of respondents stated they "firmly believe the world is round",

1% went with "I used to firmly believe the world is round, but now have doubts"

1% voted for "I firmly believe the world is flat"

0% stated "I used to firmly believe the world is flat, but now have doubts"

1% noted "I am not sure what I believe on this issue."

These numbers seem surprisingly reasonable for an online poll when compared to something a little more rigorously implemented like the YouGov poll. While our numbers skew more towards Round Earthers, this is perhaps to be expected given we know definitively that our audience skews towards being much more educated than the general populace.

And just because we were curious about the many, many online trolls who, as stated, it's our pet hypothesis are actually making it seem like there are a lot more Flat Earthers than there actually are, we did a follow up poll which got 54,000 votes. For whatever it's worth, in this one, approximately

9% of respondents stated "I believe the world is round, but sometimes say online it's flat"

2% stated "I believe the world is flat and advocate this position online"

The remaining 89% stated "Neither applies to me."

(And, yes, we know those numbers don't add up to exactly 100% in either case, but YouTube's polling system rounds to the whole number, so here we are.)

Those numbers out of the way, this finally brings us to who started the relatively modern Flat Earth movement and how on God's oblate spheroid Earth this movement is actually growing in an era where nearly all human knowledge is almost literally at everyone's fingertips?

The genesis of the modern Flat Earth Society started in the mid-19th century thanks to one Samuel Rowbotham of London, England. Dropping out of school at the tender age of 9, Rowbotham would eventually become convinced, or at least claimed he was, that not only was the Earth flat, but that everything we see in the heavens is actually only a few thousand miles from the Earth- stars and all. While his ideas were absurd for an incredible number of reasons, even given the technology and scientific knowledge of his era, what Rowbatham had going for him was he was reportedly incredibly quick on his feet in debates and an extremely charismatic speaker, able to twist the words of even the best academics. It didn't matter if he was actually right or not, only that he was better at convincing laypeople than the academics he regularly debated, or at least good at creating reasonable doubt. As noted by a contemporary article published in the Leeds Times,

One thing he did demonstrate was that scientific dabblers unused to platform advocacy are unable to cope with a man, a charlatan if you will (but clever and thoroughly up in his theory), thoroughly alive to the weakness of his opponents.

Besides making a small fortune public speaking, he also wrote various works including a book aptly titled Earth Not a Globe. Rowbotham ultimately created the Zetetic Society, which, besides advocating for a flat Earth, also advocated that only facts one could prove themselves could be accepted as true. On the side, Rowbotham also began going by "Dr. Samuel Birley" and making money selling people on cure-alls and life extenders of his own invention, among other such activities.

While by the early 20th century the society he started had gradually faded into even more obscurity than it already was at its peak during Rowbotham's lifetime, all was not lost. The truth cannot be killed so easily! In 1956 when mankind was on the verge of putting a satellite in orbit, Samuel Shenton of Dover, UK, came across the former works of the Universal Zetetic Society, the successor to Rowbotham's, and was hooked. He then established the International Flat Earth Research Society (IFERS) which adopted some of the ideas of the Zetetic Society before it, most notably, as you might have guessed from their new name, that the Earth is flat.

Of course, his timing wasn't exactly ideal given the launch of Sputnik in 1957 which, beyond being in orbit, put out a signal that anyone with a little know-how could track, very clearly demonstrating the spherical nature of the Earth.

This didn't faze him in the slightest, however. He simply noted that satellites circled over the disc of the world and that, "Would sailing round the Isle of Wight prove that it were spherical? It is just the same for those satellites."

When pictures of the Earth were taken from space clearly showing the planet's spherical nature, the man who strongly advocated trusting what you can see with your own eyes stated, "It's easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye."

When astronauts came back still believing the Earth wasn't flat, he went with the catch-all explanation for any conspiracy theory when no other suitable explanation can be thought up- "It's a deception of the public and it isn't right."

Despite the giant, roughly spherical mound of evidence staring the members right in the face, including the variety easily confirmed by anyone with a modicum of knowledge in physics, the society did not die completely, though by 1972 had dropped from a peak of about 3,000 members down to around 100 spanning the globe.

That same year Shenton died and Californian Charles Johnson more or less took over the remnants, creating the International Flat Earth Research Society of America. Johnson also advocated that there was a global conspiracy with regards to the very flat Earth, not just today, but spanning millennia. To quote him, this was a conspiracy that "Moses, Columbus, and FDR all fought" against. Beyond that Columbus most definitely thought that the Earth was roughly spherical, simply misjudging its circumference, we're guessing Moses didn't have to fight anyone on this one as the Ancient Egyptians firmly believed in the concept of a flat Earth, as did seemingly the Hebrews around the time he supposedly lived.

So what exactly do the world's governments and countless scientists and high school physics students throughout human history have to gain by convincing people the world is spherical instead of flat? Well, Johnson advocated that this is a tool used by scientists to get rid of religion. Of course, as noted, Christian scholars throughout history on the whole advocated for the very spherical Earth and we're not aware of any major religious denomination the world over today that goes with the flat Earth model, so no apparent conflict... But, hey, we guess Eratosthenes must have really had it in for those Ancient Egyptian and Greek gods...

In any event, despite Johnson's less than compelling arguments, over time this new society actually gained followers up to a peak of about 3,500 members under his leadership. Disaster struck, however, when a fire at headquarters destroyed some of the records of membership in 1997. Ultimately Johnson himself passed away in 2001 and the society was temporarily just as dead.

All was not lost, however, as there is no medium greater than the Internet at giving humans ability to discover the truth in anything for themselves... if we weren't all so lazy and our monkey brains not so chock full of cognitive biases.

And so it was that in 2004, one Daniel Shenton created a discussion forum home for the mostly dead Flat Earth Society and by 2009 a new wiki website was created in its place, with the society slowly growing from there to apparently around 500 members to date. There are also many Flat Earth pages and channels on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube sometimes exceeding 100K members or subscribers of a given page, channel, or profile, for whatever that's worth.

In the latest incarnation of the society, as with their forebears, the modern group strongly advocates for only accepting that which you can see with your own eyes and prove with your own efforts. As they note on their website,

The simplest is by relying on ones own senses to discern the true nature of the world around us. The world looks flat, the bottoms of clouds are flat, the movement of the Sun; these are all examples of your senses telling you that we do not live on a spherical heliocentric world. This is using what's called an empirical approach, or an approach that relies on information from your senses. Alternatively, when using Descartes' method of Cartesian doubt to skeptically view the world around us, one quickly finds that the notion of a spherical world is the theory which has the burden of proof and not flat earth theory.

As for the model of the Earth they go with, while there is some dissension among the ranks over exact details, the current belief advocated by the Flat Earth Society is that the the Earth is disc shaped. The North Pole lies at the center of this disc and there is an ice wall surrounding the outer most parts of the Earth that keeps the oceans contained. This wall is nearly impossible to reach owing to the fact that NASA is closely guarding it, ensuring no one ever gets close enough to see it for themselves. NASA also is extremely active in generating satellite photos of the Earth and generating other data all meant to keep people believing in a spherical Earth. Seemingly the Google Earth team must be in on it too, clearly abandoning the company's long held unofficial mantra of "Don't be evil."

As evidence of this conspiracy and how far reaching it is, they also point out on their website that the United Nations emblem strongly resembles the Flat Earth Society's view of what the Earth actually looks like.

(We guess clearly showing the logo design team, led by industrial designer Oliver Lincoln Lundquist, in 1945, didn't get the memo that the true shape of the Earth was supposed to be a secret. You had one job Lundquist!!!

To be fair, however, when his team designed it, it was originally just supposed to be used on the badges at the United Nations Charter signing conference, so only for people who already knew the Earth was flat... Fun fact, Lundquist did, however, make up for the screw up by later designing the classic blue and white Q-tip box.)

In any event, you might at this point be wondering how the Flat Earth Society believes commercial airlines and ships the world over continue to seemingly travel in one direction and manage to circle the globe. Well, this is because these ships and planes are literally circling. They state, "circumnavigation is performed by moving in a great circle around the North Pole."

As for how the ship and plane captains don't seem to be aware of this, in modern times it's because GPS devices and autopilots are designed in software to simply make it seem like the craft is circling a globe and not continually turning slightly. Of course, it's not clear how they account for people tricking themselves when navigating before or without GPS, which has only been ubiquitous for a couple decades or so. (See: Who Invented GPS and How Does It Work?)

There's also the fact that fuel burn on these ships and airplanes are carefully calculated, particularly important for planes where weight and balance is always an essential consideration if one doesn't want to die a fiery death. Thus, if they were really traveling in the way the Flat Earthers claim, the fuel requirements would be different, sometimes vastly so. (No surprise here that Big Oil must be involved...)

As for, you know, the whole day and night thing, this is explained on their website "The sun moves in circles around the North Pole. When it is over your head, it's day. When it's not, it's night. The light of the sun is confined to a limited area and its light acts like a spotlight upon the earth... The apparent effect of the sun rising and setting is...a perspective effect."

How exactly the light from the Sun only works as a spotlight isn't clear. It's also not clear how the phases of the Moon and lunar and solar eclipses work given this spotlight model and given they believe the Sun is always above the Earth...

Moving on- as for the many people who claim to be able to see the curvature of the Earth when on high altitude commercial flights, well, the Flat Earth Society, who advocated trusting your own senses over what anyone tells you. tells these people, to quote, "Quite simply you cannot... the windows on commercial aircraft are small and heavily curved. Even if they flew high enough for a person to see curvature, it would still not be visible to passengers."

As for the issue of someone with even a half way decent telescope being able to see the spherical nature of other planets in the solar system, including them spinning away, the Flat Earth Society claims,

Planets are orbiting astronomical objects. The Earth is not a planet by definition, as it sits at the center of our solar system above which the planets and the Sun revolve. The earths uniqueness, fundamental differences and centrality makes any comparison to other nearby celestial bodies insufficient - Like comparing basketballs to the court on which they bounce.

As for how gravity works in the flat Earth model, it turns out that, "The earth is constantly accelerating up at a rate of 32 feet per second squared (or 9.8 meters per second squared). This constant acceleration causes what you think of as gravity. Imagine sitting in a car that never stops speeding up. You will be forever pushed into your seat. The earth works much the same way. It is constantly accelerating upwards being pushed by a universal accelerator (UA) known as dark energy or aetheric wind."

You may have spotted a problem with this explanation given the whole issue of eventually exceeding the speed of light. In fact, if constant acceleration at 9.8 meters per second squared, it would only take about a year for the Earth to reach the speed of light.

Well, they've got you covered, explaining: "Due to special relativity, this is not the case. At this point, many readers will question the validity of any answer which uses advanced, intimidating-sounding physics terms to explain a position. However, it is true. The relevant equation is v/c = tanh (at/c). One will find that in this equation, tanh(at/c) can never exceed or equal 1. This means that velocity can never reach the speed of light, regardless of how long one accelerates for and the rate of the acceleration."

...

Anyway, as to what lies below the Earth, this is heavily disputed among Flat Earthers. But it doesn't really matter as you can't get there anyway. You see, to quote Flat Earther Robbie Davidson in an interview with Forbes, "We don’t believe anything can fall off the edge, because a big portion of the flat earth community believes that we’re in a dome, like a snow globe. So the sun, moon and stars are all inside. It’s very high but all contained inside. So there’s no way to actually fall off of the earth."

Given it only takes a modicum of effort to disprove pretty much everything said on their website and prove definitively for one's self that the Earth is roughly spherical without needing to trust any scientist or government, you might think the Flat Earthers just aren't trying. Well, you're kind of right, but there are exceptions! Case in point- limo driver Mike Hughes who managed to raise about $8,000 thanks to a Flat Earth fundraiser. Why? To build a rocket to reach the heavens with to once and for all prove the Earth was flat.

Reportedly the final hilariously fitting steam powered rocket and launch platform cost around $20,000 and took about ten years to build. With it, Hughes managed to achieve an altitude of almost 1,900 feet, which while kind of impressive for an amateur built home made rocket that could carry a human, was nonetheless not able to achieve his objective of getting him to space.

If only it was possible to build more powerful rockets... Or if there existed a balloon designed to be able to soar into the heavens with some sort of device on board that could capture and store what it sees through an eye like apparatus... Or, stick with us here people, if a human going along for the ride was a requirement to show NASA hadn't tampered with this futuristic visual capture device, some sort of bird-like machine that could carry humans above 1,900 feet...

On that note, for a mere $12,000-$16,000 Hughes could have purchase a charter flight ticket to not only take him higher than altitudes of 1,900 feet, but also take him to Antarctica to see the massive ice wall for himself. Or if the Flat Earth society wanted to pool together their resources, for prices from $25,000-$70,000 they could charter a flight to the South Pole itself. Though, a thing they don't tell you on the vacation package brochure is that while you can go visit the South Pole, NASA subjects everyone that does to severe mental retraining to ensure all memories of the ice wall have been erased and replaced with pleasant, but very wall free, recollections.

All joking and head scratching aside, it's always important to note that many of the core psychological quirks that see Flat Earthers intractably convinced the Earth is flat in the face of all evidence to the contrary exist in all of us. Monkey brain gonna monkey. We further all have many beliefs we firmly cling to just as tenuously supported by our level of knowledge on a subject, though thankfully for most of us the absurdity isn't quite so easy to spot, allowing us to safely continue to think of ourselves as superior to mere mortals with alternate ideas...

In the end, we all firmly believe many things that aren't true at all and no amount of evidence could ever convince any of us to change our minds on some of these things. Food for thought.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

Who Started the Moon Landing Hoax Conspiracy Theory?

What Causes the Smoke Trails Behind Airline Planes High in the Sky?

The Mysterious Black Goo of Venezuela: La Mancha Negra

The Secret Society of Journalists Known as the Order of the Occult Hand

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[consciouslyrebel]

Japan As A First Timer: Be Prepared.

This is the eighth installment of my Japan travelogue. Read my first impressions here, my visit to Odaiba here, my visit to Akihabara here, my last day in Tokyo here, my first day in Kyoto here, my shrine visit here, and my traditional inn excursion here.

After nine days in Japan, my sleep schedule finally caught up to Tokyo time. That meant that instead of getting up at 5 AM to write my travelogue, I woke up just in time to go sightseeing.

Our final two days in Tokyo passed like a blur, as we made the most of our Japan Rail passes and cheap subway fare. Instead of climbing Tokyo Tower or the Skytree, we went to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Center, a free observatory where you can see both. We ate crepes in Shibuya, saw peak cherry blossom bloom among the temples at Asakusa, and in Harajuku I bought myself a capsule wardrobe on a dime.

Now that I’m home and have had some time to reflect, however, I would rather spend my final post not recounting, but sharing the most valuable things I learned traveling to Japan. If you’re planning on making your first visit there, here are my top ten suggestions:

Take an internationally run flight if you can.

On the way to Japan, we took a United Airlines flight, which was exactly like any domestic flight except that it was 13 hours long. On the way home, however, we flew All Nippon Airways and it was leagues better—roomier seats, footrests, personal TVs on the back of each seat. What was especially cool is that, aside from blockbuster films, the TV also came with dozens of documentaries on Japan. They would have been great to watch on the way there.

Get a JR Pass if you’re planning to leave Tokyo.

Much fanfare has been made of the Japan Rail (JR) Passfor foreigners. For about $250, you get a pass that will allow you to access any JR line in the country for seven days, including several different shinkansen (high-speed) trains.

I was in Japan for 10 days and couldn’t bring myself to spring for $500 on the 14-day JR pass, so John and I used the Tokyo subway for the first few days we were there, activating our JR passes on the day it was time to visit Kyoto. This turned out to be a great idea! Not only are Tokyo subway fares extremely cheap (in the $2 range), but very easy to get from electronic ticket machines, which all have English menu options. With such low prices, it would have been very hard to justify a JR Pass just traveling around Tokyo. However, a 7-day JR Pass conveniently costs about the same as a round trip ticket to Kyoto. In conclusion: it’s only a great deal if you’re planning to travel outside of Tokyo, and not so much of one if you’re not.

Bring cash and a way to get more.

Japan is a cash-based society and many places that you might expect to take credit card normally—like McDonald’s—do not. A lot of stores simply aren’t equipped to take card and usually have a sign out front on the rarer occasion that they do. We ended up taking cash out of ATMs twice on our trip, at 7-11 and the post office, both recommended. I also recommend taking a card without any foreign transaction or cash withdrawal fees, like Capital One.

Also, since everything from 1 yen to 500 yen (about $5) are coins, I highly recommend bringing a coin purse with you, you’ll need it. After realizing how often I took mine out, it wasn’t any surprise to me that coin purses are one of the most common souvenirs at tourist shops.

Convenience stores are your friend.

If I could bring one Japanese thing back to the US, it wouldn’t even be those cool toilets with the heated seats—it’d be their convenience stores. Where else can you get a filling, semi-nutritious meal for about $5 American? From their ambient music (usually an instrumental version of a Beatles song) to their easy-to-use ATMs to their friendly staff who will go out of their way to understand your bad accent to the food that they WILL heat up for you right then and there, I wish I had one. If I had one instead of my local Rite Aid, I would probably never cook again.

Almost every morning, I now admit, we ate breakfast at 7-11, grabbing sweet melon or bean jam bread and hot coffee (or, on one occasion, cocoa milk that was certainly darker and more bitter than any kiddie chocolate milk), and saving ourselves dollars and time while we were at it.

Eigo o hanashimasu ka? / Do you speak English?

Though I strongly recommend that you learn Japanese before visiting Japan, you should at least know just this one phrase. Don’t be fooled by Japanese modesty either—as long as somebody doesn’t say “iie” AKA “no,” they speak well enough. Some of the most articulate English speakers told us they spoke English “just a little” or “not well.”

There are also places where people are more likely to be good English speakers—train stations, airports, and major tourist attractions especially. Try to save your questions for those places.

The five-story pagoda at Asakusa.

Bring hand sanitizer and a plastic bag everywhere.

In the end, there were only two things that I didn’t like about Japan. First was the lack of soap dispensers in many public restrooms. People would exit the stall, dribble some water from the sink over their hands, and leave. I thought at first that maybe soap was mixed into the water—the toilets are high tech, maybe the sinks are too? But no luck. To avoid finding yourself without soap after using the bathroom, always carry hand sanitizer with you.

The second thing that was hard to live with was a lack of trash cans in public spaces. Apparently this began as an anti-terrorism measure in 1995 after a cult attacked the Tokyo subway by leaving explosives in public trash cans. Now the only trash cans you can find in Tokyo are privately managed, at convenience stores and the like. I got used to carrying a plastic 7-11 bag in my purse and just putting my trash in it, dumping it out at the end of the day.

A wifi hotspot is essential.

When we arrived at the airport, we picked up our eConnect hotspot at the airport post office and instantly had data on our phones. At any time, we could make calls to the US, check out Google maps, or be assured of wifi connectivity even in remote places (like our mountain inn).

I think I used my phone in Japan more often than I usually do, and I always had it open to a couple specific programs. First, a yen to dollar conversion, so I could always tell instantly how expensive something was. Second, a Japanese to English translation window in Google. Third, jisho.org, a fantastic kanji dictionary, so I could more easily read signs.

Want to surf the net like an American? You need a VPN.

Like many Japonophiles, I’m a big anime fan. In fact, I review anime professionally for Anime News Network, a North American fan resource. The anime season finales were airing while I was on vacation, so I needed to watch those final episodes and review them for my work.

But when I tried to access US streaming sites, like Crunchyroll, Funimation, Daisuki, and even Hulu, I wasn’t able to see a thing. None of these sites have permission to air shows online to Japanese users. In order to let them know that I’m actually an American, I had to first connect to my Virtual Private Network (VPN) that I run off of my Raspberry Pi mini-computer back in my Virginia apartment. If you’re curious about setting up a cheap VPN before your trip, I  once wrote a tutorial about how to turn a Raspberry Pi into a VPN.

Bargains take effort.

Japan seems to reward an adventurer. In general, the further away you go from the train station, the cheaper everything becomes. Souvenir shrine amulets at the entrance to the Fushimi Inari Shrine cost 800 yen; amulets at the top of the mountain cost 500. Women’s shirts at the entrance to Harajuku’s most fashionable street, Takeshita dori, cost anywhere from $15-$30. But when I stumbled into basement shop Smile Market, I found comparable clothing for around $2.50.

This might be obvious advice, but I just want to encourage you to keep walking before you make any purchases. There might be more of the same later on, and for less.

Tokyo Skytree, as seen from Asakusa.

Take it one thing at a time.

From the moment I booked my trip last August, I received tons of useful advice for cool stuff to see and do in Japan. Planning out my trip, I originally had a more ambitious itinerary that would allow me to check a lot of these experiences off the list, but after John had to get emergency surgery on the eve of our trip, I decided to scale it back a ton, to just one activity a day. I thought that would be “taking it easy.” I was wrong.

I haven’t traveled internationally for eight years, and back when I visited Italy I was advanced enough in my language studies that I was reading Dante’s Inferno. When you don’t know the language or the culture, the little things intensify. Stuff you take for granted in your home country, like visiting the post office or ordering a coffee with skim milk instead of whole milk, are suddenly on hard mode. Doing one of those things first thing in the morning, when I am refreshed and have my best language skills at my disposal, is OK. Doing one of those things at the end of the day when I’m already tired, not so much.

Since I’ve gotten back from Japan, a lot of friends and family have asked me, “Did you do X? Did you do Y?” And I’ve had to answer in the negative. I did not see everything in Japan, or close to it—and yet I still wrote a 10,000 word travelogue about the things I did see. I don’t feel like I missed out at all, and you won’t either. One thing at a time.

[totesmccoats]

Batman #33

To close out the last arc, last issue, Catwoman accepted Batman’s engagement proposal. In this arc, she has to meet the last supervillainess that Batman proposed to.

Honestly, seems like a weird hazing ritual for Batman to force on Catwoman. “Thanks, for marrying me – but first, we gotta go to the desert, break a whole bunch of laws, and upset multiple Justice Leagues so you can meet – and possibly be murdered by – my ex.” Unless this was Catwoman’s idea? Sounds like it could’ve been her idea.

Back at the Manor, Alfred breaks the happy news to the Robins (and Duke), who don’t exactly take it well. Especially Damian, who blames himself, and is also the only Robin to realize that this involves his mother.

And, as weird as the premise is, King has not let Batman down yet, and this issue promises another instant-classic arc. He opens the issue with a scene right out of a western: Batman on a horse, handing a shotgun to Catwoman, who uses it to put a second horse out of its desert misery before continuing on their trek across the desert. Then, immediately cuts to Jason Todd wrestling with Ace for his jacket back in Wayne Manor. The Manor scenes really highlight how much the Robins have been missing from King’s run on Batman by demonstrating how well King writes each of them in dialogue with each-other, from Dick telling Duke about the cow in the basement, Duke criticising Jason for telling him to lighten up Batman, and Damian – the youngest one there – dismissing all of them as children until cracking under the news.

Joelle Jones is killing it on art, with a thick inky style that puts everything in high-contrast and gives Batman and Catwoman’s desert adventure a two-fisted pulpy feel. It admittedly doesn’t translate too well in the Manor, where the extreme shadows can’t be explained by a desert sun beating down on everything. Bellaire perfectly matches Jones’ lines with flat – almost cell shaded – saturated colors that also convey the extremes of the desert.

My biggest issue with the book, and it’s not this book alone, is that Damian is still drawn as just a white kid. Like, they show Talia – his mother – as a brown woman, and yet Damian doesn’t look like he has a hint of middle-eastern/south-asian in him. I know that in real life not all children of multiracial heritage look like a half-and-half combo of their parents, and some traits are more dominant than others; but in a medium where diversity is an issue, I don’t see why DC doesn’t take advantage of having one of their more prominent characters having a mixed race heritage to actually depict a person with that background in their art.

  Superman #33

Superman has just gotten comfortable with Luthor flying around and Metropolis’ other hero, when Lex is forcibly summoned to Apokolips to reclaim his throne as God of the planet (See: Darkseid War). Lex tries to contact Superman, asking for assistance, but Supes ignores the messages, believing them to be frivolous invitations to listen to Lex brag; that is until Lex forcibly brings Superman, and by accident Lois, and Jon, to Apokolips.

I am really not used to Superman and Lex Luthor being friendly with each-other, as they are in the opening to this issue. It’s honestly kind of disturbing. Just feels wrong. But the following scene, where Lex inner monologues to himself about becoming the people’s newest and native-born hero, and their increasing dependence on him; that’s peak Luthor. That’s the Luthor that makes sense to me.

This isn’t the best opener to an arc, mainly because the back half is Superman refusing the call to action twice, essentially just stalling the story and filling up pages so that we can end on the cliffhanger of family being split up on Apokolips.

Still, we haven’t gotten a good Superman on Apokolips story in a grip, so maybe this’ll be it. Sucks that it’s probably definitely going to compare badly to the other current Apokolips story going on in Mister Miracle tho.

  Green Arrow #33

Having crippled the Ninth Circle by taking out their satellite, Oliver returns to Seattle – now Star City – to find it almost completely remade in the vision of its new corporate overlords. Historic and cultural areas have been razed and replaced with luxury high-rises that have pushed out the middle and lower classes. And Green Arrow returns only to find himself defending one of those overlord-developers from an activist threatening to literally crush him under one of Seattle’s oldest trees that the developer wants to cut down anyway. Things have changed.

Meanwhile, Oliver is still under trial for the murder of a woman who – twist! – is still alive; and despite what Star City has become, the Ninth Circle is still disappointed by Moira Queen and Broderick’s progress, giving them a vote of no confidence; and Dante is also back, and hiring Shado for one last job on behalf of the Circle.

Percy continues his amazing run on the series, effortlessly setting up multiple story threads for this new arc, while developing the political backdrop of the new uber-capitalist Star City that Green Arrow will confront philosophically and physically through the story. Green Arrow’s been one of the more fun, solid, and smarter books since rebirth, and Percy seems poised to continue that trend.

The standout of the issue is artist Jamal Campbell, who previously worked on the fantastic Green Arrow #27, and who I hope stays on this book for a long time. His work is comparable to Francis Manapul’s, but a touch less stylized, preferring to use less dramatic curves compared to straight lines and angles; and a more toned down palette that does reflect the sort of lighting you would see in a cloudy north-western city. This is not to say that Campbell doesn’t have a sense of the dramatic. His designs for the various masks for the Ninth Circle are all fantastic, like some sort of dark zodiac, each of them brimming with style and personality. And he dips into the style of a steamy romance novel for his title page, where a shirtless Oliver lifts Dinah, who wraps her legs around his waist, over a bannister to give her a kiss. And then there’s the scene where Shado fights off a squad of ninjas, where every kill-shot has it’s own stark white-on-red panel. If DC’s smart, they’re gonna want to give Campbell whatever books he wants.

  Wonder Woman/Conan #2

As he slumbers, Conan dreams of the day he had spent with Yanna as a child, climbing mountains with the dark-haired daughter of a tribe of exclusively women. In the waking world, he is chained to another dark-haired woman who calls herself Wonder Woman. He tried to rescue her from a life as a gladiator servant only to get captured himself, and now the two will be forced to fight to the death. But it seems that another power has other plans for the Barbarian and the Amazon. And they have other plans themselves, with Conan winning the fight but refusing to kill Wonder Woman; which gets them both thrown on a pirate ship as forced labor.

Thankfully, Diana does have more to do this issue, even if it takes her a majority of it to remember her name. Simone actually writes a neat joke involving her name; Conan saying something with the words “Die Yanna” next to each-other gives Wonder Woman pause. But even if she has more to do, and takes the lead by the end of the issue, this version of Wonder Woman still feels underdeveloped, perhaps owing to her existence still being a bit of a mystery box. Considering how much time this issue devotes to the young-Conan and Yanna flashbacks, it’s gonna be weird if Diana isn’t somehow related to her. It also doesn’t help that she spends a good chunk of the issue not talking.

There are fun moments in this book, like a crow-lady biting a man’s fingers off for soliciting her, Conan waking up to discover he held Wonder Woman’s hand all night, or Wonder Woman bonking a man in the face with his own lute; but overall characterization is so thin – and mostly delivered by 3rd person narration – that it’s hard to really care about the protagonists. It’s a weird issue for Simone to have as a writer, who usually doesn’t presume empathy in her stories. Maybe it’s because this is a limited series crossover?

Another niggling thing – Wonder Woman’s breasts are distractingly large in this book. They’re bigger than her head and like, perfect spheres. This is bad, like, even for comics – even for Conan comics.

  The Wild Storm #8

Marlowe gives Angela the sparknotes version of what he and HALO are doing on Earth, which conveniently leaves out anything she might find threatening about why they came here, and gives her full access to his resources in exchange for her data. Meanwhile, King’s team at IO have made a breakthrough by uncovering Cole Cash’s identity, and are planning their next – possibly treaty-busting – moves of their own.

And in Amsterdam, we’re introduced to two more characters resembling but not identical to those from the previous Wild Storm. The first is Shen Li-Min; the latest incarnation of The Doctor (not that one), who uses her powers to psychedelically heal people by taking them on vision quests. The second is one of Shen’s patients, who her session doesn’t quite work on because she’s not exactly human. She’s a techne named Jenny Sparks.

Despite another issue full of exposition, including the introduction of two new characters, it’s Davis-Hunt and Buccellato who really get to flex their muscles with sequences involving interstellar travel, two psychedelic trips into character’s minds, and one visit to an extra-dimensional hospital. I’m mostly familiar with Davis-Hunt’s horror work, and am glad to see that he can do bright and colorful and trippy just as effectively, even if there remains a twinge of the uncanny even among his bubblegum pink skies. And you *know* that more than one person is going to get a tattoo of Spark’s heart – because that is one badass visual.

  Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #5

At the top of the issue, Vulture kidnaps Mason and blows up his lab while Spider-Man and Mason’s assistant, Uatu, are still inside. And Teresa only manages to escape by grabbing a prototype web launcher and hitching a ride with Vulture. And while she rescues Mason, Spider-Man has to confront his most dangerous nemesis: heavy rubble.

That’s right, it’s a recreation of everyone’s favorite, Spider-Man #33. But, Peter’s better at this now, so it’s not that big a deal. What is a big deal is that now Peter’s got two people he has to hide, Teresa and Mason; and because of that photograph, the authorities will be looking for him, too. Luckily, he may be getting some help from an unexpected source, J. Jonah Jameson.

This isn’t Zdarsky’s strongest issue, probably because of the sense of urgency in this part of the story, which doesn’t leave room for the types of asides and extended character beats that often give his work their pop.

Kubert, however, must have found something inspiring in the script, as he does some of his more interesting work in this series so far this issue. I particularly like his use of framing things in the reflections of Vulture or Spidey’s mask; and Kubert also illustrates some really good of Spider-Man emoting through his mask, really showing him struggle while lifting heavy rubble, for instance.

  Kill or Be Killed #13

And we’re at the issue that closes the circle, bringing us to the cold open all the way back in #1, with Dylan going through the mob base, shotgunning everyone in his way. But before that, a revelation. Just before the shootout, Dylan had been obsessed with the demon, and decides to look through his dad’s stuff to see if there’s any more information about it. But he discovers something else entirely: a half-brother from his father’s first marriage whose suicide lines up perfectly with when his father started drawing the demon. A demon born out of one suicide by a man who committed suicide, and revived by his other son’s failed suicide attempt. Dylan isn’t one to miss a pattern.

But what I find more interesting than this new discovery is, again, how radically Dylan has transformed as a character. His obsession with the demon begins when he thinks to himself how proud the demon would be by his murdering two people in three weeks. And upon learning about his brother, and reminiscing on his father’s isolated and disappointing life, he is overcome by anger rather than sadness or empathy. Dylan’s obsession with the demon feels more introspective than otherwise, him unconsciously looking into how he so easily became a murderer.

Phillips illustrates this transformation subtly, by putting Dylan’s face in shadows more often than not, and especially when there are other people in the panel whose faces remain unobscured. Besides quite literally illustrating Dylan dwelling in darkness, it also creates a visible distance between him and other people. And the transition in style, from the series’ main style to the more photorealistic illustrations done in-universe by Dylan’s father is impressive as it always is; though it’s weird to be leafing through a comic on the subway only to suddenly be looking at a sci-fi pin-up.

  Bitch Planet: Triple Feature #5

The final collection of Bitch Planet shorts done by guest creative teams, who get to paint their own corners of Kelly Sue and De Landro’s dystopia, and one of the strongest.

The first story, by Matt Fraction, Elsa Charretier, and Nick Filardi is a brilliant twist on the “grandma/pa during holiday dinner” story. Kimmy brings her boyfriend, David Zeiss, home for his first Christmas, but warns him about her Grandma, who says some crazy things. But, instead of being anti-semitic, Nanna instead interrupts with stories of lesbian experimentation in college, and how women used to have their own jobs and weren’t just pleasure machines for men. It’s delightful! And, I honestly flipped back to the cover to see if the art was done by Bruce Timm, who’s style I want to say definitely inspired Charretier’s own; though she thankfully doesn’t give every man and women the exact same proportions.

The second, by Jon Tsuei and Saskia Gutekunst, follows two friends, one white, one asian, as they audition for the same role in a movie. If you even barely follow any actual Hollywood news, you can probably already sense where this is going. Gutekunst’s art in this isn’t really my taste; she uses a kind of manga-light style with soft colors and gradients. It fits the narrative because of the whitewashing story-line, but it’s just looks like a half-step in one direction, and another half-step in another.

The last story, by Nyambi, Bassey, and Eyang Nyambi, and Chris Visions is a doozy that creates a link between appropriation of black culture and beauty with the police violence against black bodies. When a white girl goes full blackface to join her friends at a danceclub, she gets pulled over by cops and can no longer rely on her whiteness to get out of a ticket – or much much worse. It’s the most Twilight Zone story in this anthology series so far, and one of the best encapsulations of the idea that America loves black culture and hates black people.

Comic Reviews for 10/18/17 Batman #33 To close out the last arc, last issue, Catwoman accepted Batman’s engagement proposal. In this arc, she has to meet the last supervillainess that Batman proposed to.