#it's just that as humans we've come to a point where we need to function properly because that's what's best

[hel7l7]

Are you anti self-dx entirely?

To be honest... I don't know. There's so much nuance to make on the entire subject...

And everything I say about this feels wrong. I just hope everyone is careful with it all.

( Edit: half of the tags on this got deleted bcs apparently there's a max tags you can add... anyway enjoy the ramble if there are any more questions please ask them bcs I do not want misunderstandings or anything ;))

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

How do you feel about the representation ( or lack thereof) in TOH?

I'm not sure to which representation you're referring to but I will try to be comprehensive. Just a note: representation in media is highly subjective; one person may feel seen by a show's representation, another may not. For example, as an ace person, I don't feel like Lilith is good ace rep because it is never even mentioned in the show. It's only in supplemental materials. If your show is going to tout itself as being diverse then the bare minimum you should do is put that diversity front and center so that even the most casual fan can see it.

If you like Lilith's representation or any other character from the show, then I will not take that from you.

The rest will be under the cut.

The biggest draw the show has is its queer representation; we've come a long way from Korrasami, now we have our main character in a sapphic romance that forms a key part of both characters. We have pride flags as a casual part of the background, non-binary characters, and no one angsts over being queer, it's just a normal state of being. I feel like this is the strongest aspect of the show in terms of representation and I'm glad people are feeling seen as a result of it.

Where I feel the show needed more work on was racial/ethnic diversity. TOH is a rather white show; despite Luz being biracial and having poc friends, most other significant characters are white-coded. Eda, Lilith, Amity, Belos, and Hunter are all white or white-coded characters and they take up significant portions of the overall story while Gus, Willow, Raine, and Darius are in supporting roles. This is especially egregious with Gus and Willow since they're the first witches that Luz befriends but they don't have as much focus in the later seasons, especially once Hunter is introduced. It's also worth noting that any kind of character development the non-white characters have is nearly always in relation to white characters: Willow and Amity, Gus and Hunter, Raine and Eda, and Darius and Hunter/the previous Golden Guard.

Another thing that others have pointed out is that despite the number of poc in key roles, the overall aesthetic of the Boiling Isles is very Euro-centric, even in the Deadwardian Era (its name a pun on an English monarch). It's such a missed opportunity to not play around with the overall aesthetic of your show and have it be more unique looking, maybe take influence from real world cultures and apply that to how magic is used based on a character's background.

The show is also touted for its disability representation and neurodivergent characters; however the former is more of a metaphor and the latter wasn't intentional. Fans noticed that Luz displays signs of ADHD and Dana admitted that she wasn't written that way but approves of the interpretation. It's great that fans can project their own head canons and for the creator to be fine with it, but it would have been even better if she was written that way from the start; really show how people perceive her as different because of how she is. We got some of this with how she struggled in school and how she loves learning but not about what the boring topics in school but by then, it's rather late. I feel like the show had a missed opportunity showing how isolated Luz was in the human realm; we got her high jinks and school pranks but nothing really that would make her an outcast and thus want to leave Earth.

Eda's curse as a metaphor for disability has been well-received but it makes me wonder what a disabled witch would look like in the show? Someone who was born with weak magic (Willow doesn't count she was in the wrong track). How would they navigate the track system? What aid would they need to perform basic magic? What prejudice would they face?

We get that in the form of Hunter, who while technically not a witch, functions as a disabled witch. And we get how he had to work twice as hard to earn any decent respect but it's not really because he lacks magic, it's more due to the fact that the coven heads perceive favoritism as the emperor's nephew.

We get some more challenges a disabled witch would face when Eda loses her magic but it doesn't really go anywhere and she utilizes her harpy form and seems to get along fine.

When I think about how disabilities are usually represented as just metaphors in popular media, I think of Toph. In Avatar, Toph is literally blind, there's no metaphor here. But the show is extremely clever depicting how she navigates the world using earth bending and justifies why she is the master of her craft because she was taught by the original earth benders and uses it ALL the time.

TOH could have done something similar by having a character with a real world disability and think of a creative way to show how they utilize the magic in their universe.

Basically, the show is very good at depicting queerness, but could have been better in its disability representation, and definitely dropped the ball on its poc characters.

[blackthorn-legion-irl]

I know you're doing a whole bunch at the moment, but if you ever get time could you tell me a bit more about your world

yeah, i can do that - today's a rest day but this won't be too intensive so we good

okay, so. like i said before, we have games based off a whole lot of other worlds - the geography at least for here and the parts of your world i know are pretty similar, so the worlds probably branched off - think like. uh. not the instant kind of evolution the more general one. - more recently than ones with different geography like the mushroom kingdom.

i live in basically galar, although with more traits of kanto/johto/hoenn/sinnoh (here they're all parts of the same country) than galar has. also you know chairman rose? our government is full of dudes like him and it suuuucks

parallel to the human world is the demon world - think like. hmm. you probably heard stories about the distortion world where giratina lives? it's similar to that. demons are probably best described as our equivalent to pokemon, except the average demon is able to speak human-comprehensible language. there's a lot more of them than there are humans, but most of them are content to just chill in the demon world rather than come over here. by this point we've worked out how to coexist with them - there'll still be the occasional one who wants to cause trouble, but.

our equivalent to pokemon moves is demon magic which some humans also have access to, though generally they need external help with it. i probably could through my app if i modded the functions to actually work on my OS, but it's low priority. there isn't a defined type system in any way for demons, though spells and attacks have associated elements, and it depends on the individual what the effectiveness is.

i don't know how new demons are formed. we don't even have eggs they just show up. slushy won't tell me either.

[monk-of-figaro]

Fanfic: Every King Needs His Guard (by Rynling)

I found this story on Archive of Our Own. Approximate read time is probably around two or three minutes (unlike this blog post of mine, which is now probably clocking in around ten minutes of read time because I can't stop having thoughts).

Here's the author's description:

Cid finds his way from his outpost on a solitary island to the kingdom of Figaro, where he offers his services to the king. Edgar is duty-bound to protect the people who come under his care, while Sabin will do anything to protect his brother.

SPOILERS AHEAD

This story has stuck in my brain in a very uncomfortable way, which is an odd way for me to begin since my goal with sharing fanfics is to highlight what I liked about a story. But this one took me a bit to appreciate, I think, because it was much darker than I was expecting.

This story made me ask myself a question I had not given any prior thought to before: Given all his history and his actions that took place before we meet him in the game, does Cid deserve to be redeemed? He is, after all, the primary scientist through whose work and "genius" an entire species was subject to torture, experimentation, and death - to say nothing of the human cost of his work for the Empire.

This question had never really occurred to me because by the time we meet Cid in-game, he's already shown to be remorseful about what his work has enabled. There seems some level of obfuscation - either deliberately through the game's designers, or by the expectation of traditional allyship that the "Cid" character plays in each Final Fantasy title, or perhaps both - that separates Cid from the monstrosity of the Magitek factory and its purpose. To me, the horrors of Magitek science were more associated with Kefka, although in retrospect, that association may have been due more to my own biases - associating the obviously evil factory with the obviously evil man.

After the factory section of the game, Cid isn't really seen again until Celes' introduction into the World of Ruin. That entire sequence frames him very sympathetically; he first functions as Celes' caregiver, then as her adoptive "grandfather", then as her first palliative charge, and finally as the catalyst for her own emotional nadir (or alternatively, as the much more boring guy-who-points-her-to-the-staircase-with-the-escape-raft).

All in all, the framing of Cid throughout the entirety of FF6 paints him as a misguided but lovable father figure, who rescues the Returners and then Celes before quietly and nobly succumbing to the mentor's death required for our hero. A "good guy" death.

But is Cid really a "good guy"? Moreover, should a "good guy" be allowed a chance at redemption if all his prior work arguably led up to the destruction of the world?

"Hey, this is a blog about Sabin! Why are you yammering on and on about Cid???"

Okay, fair point. Although also, shut up; I can do whatever I want.

If Cid's redemption is the question posed, this fanfic provides an answer as seen and carried out by Sabin.

(See? I was going to bring it back around!)

This fanfic is presented mostly from Sabin's viewpoint in third-person. Although he doesn't say a word the entire story, we get tremendous insight into how well he knows his brother Edgar, and how far he'll go to protect him not just physically, but emotionally and - with surprising awareness - politically.

This story stuck in my brain in a very uncomfortable way because Sabin gets his hands dirty in a way we've never seen. By the end of the story, on a surface level, he appears as nothing more than a hit man, a thug, or a goon. I thought it was very out of character for him to simply be the brutal "muscle" for doing dirty work.

But because the story kept bouncing around my brain, I've since realized that it's exactly in character for him. Sabin loves Edgar to the extent that he's willing to be his unofficial, unsanctioned executioner. He wants Edgar to keep his hands clean so that he can be the ruler he needs to be. He understands Edgar's true desires without needing them to be spoken, without needing to make eye contact, without Edgar needing to break a part of his own soul by even acknowledging the darkness he desires. Sabin reads this darkness solely by watching his brother's face, and by knowing Edgar's soul as well as he knows his own.

It may be Sabin's attempt to repay Edgar for the sacrifice he had made for Sabin. Edgar shouldered the burden of the kingdom so that Sabin could have his freedom, and now Sabin will shoulder the burden of retributive justice so that Edgar may have his peace.

I'm not sure whether I'll adopt this version of post-game events into my own personal head-canon; I honestly think I need more time to reflect on it. But I'm very glad I read this piece. It's one of those works that challenged me in a surprising way, and will likely color how I think about the world and characters of FF6 forever.

Rynling has several other pieces that I've also enjoyed tremendously, so I highly encourage everyone to check them out. I can't wait to write up about "The Queens Tears" later.'

You can find Rynling on AO3, as well as a couple of Tumblr accounts:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynling/profile

https://pocketseizure.tumblr.com/

https://rynling.tumblr.com/

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Man those people on your ‘why are you straight edge’ poll are really showing their disdain for people who engage with any sort of drug… if I may add, I voted for having a medical restriction (my liver is failing thank youuuu immune system) AND I also take prescription opiate medication to help with pain. Every time I take my painkillers on days where I’m not working so that I can enjoy my hobbies I have complicated feelings about it because anti opiate rhetoric is just EVERYWHERE and it’s like… I just want to have a nice day. Getting over the ‘oh but it can be ADDICTIVE’ stigma is so important and it’s really not different just because I have a prescription. People who are so nasty about drug use for recreation are so stressful to me.

Ikr it's like people have such disdain for addicts, and drug users in general. I get upset about this because while I personally am a very casual user and I spend most of the time sober and am self assured so I can walk people being dicks about it off, but I know addicts and their lives are hard enough without all the stigma piled on top of it. I just wish everyone could be addiction neutral and pro harm reduction but they're so moralistic about it. I wasnt the politest I could have been about people not drinking and having sex because I was trying to keep it light and I know people take things like this really serious and it kinda backfired.

But like I totally know what you mean about the opioid thing. I really think that our society could benefit from being a little more addiction neutral, because yeah sometimes substance dependency does ruin your life, but I'm neurodivergent and I've met people where I think that doing life with drugs is better for them. Like you raise a great point about opioids. They're dangerous and addictive but if you're in pain because of a disability you need pain management. It's not really an option if you want to lead a normal life. There's a lot of heroin addicts who got that way because they needed pain management and their doctors refused them on the basis that they might become addicted, but taking a daily pill to improve your life, while it may be illegal depending on the substance, isn't bad. I bring up my own neurodivergence because I've heard of the same thing with ADHD and stimulants. Most people who have an ADHD diagnosis can get an Adderall prescription, but undiagnosed people and people falling through insurance cracks will sometimes turn to the street version. And it's like those people, both the ones with a script and the ones who are self medicating, should not be forced to live a substandard life because of someone else imagines there's some purity to a life without drugs. The goal should be to get those people the drugs they need in the safest way possible.

And I come down really easy, to the point where I forget to take prescription meds and don't experience any ill effects, but I have a friend who experiences a come down from their adhd meds thats not unlike the comedown ive seen from my other friend who's a meth user, and this friend with the ADHD meds can't function without them. But when the doctor and the pharmacist get them their meds on time they live a perfectly happy fulfilling life. That's what I mean when I say I'm addiction neutral. Most people who get addicted didn't just pick up heroin or whatever one day for shits and giggles. When I fuck around with "highly addictive" substances I make sure I'm in a good place and it's not a problem to drop them. People who develop problems are usually either they're escaping from something or self medicating. The goal for society can't be to never do drugs we've had drugs literally for longer than we've been humans.

I've heard second hand of a study which I haven't gone looking for, I might, because as you can tell this is a bit of a soap box for me, where they gave Heroin addicts a prescribed dose of heroin like you would pick up Percocet for chronic pain at a pharmacy, and because those addicts weren't shooting up mystery amounts and worrying where they were going to get their next hit from so they didn't start rattling and all the other things that make addicts lives hell, they were able to start doing things like holding down jobs. That study should have been a game changer. I want addicts to be able to live, and selfishly I want to be able to go to the drug store when I'm bored and say "one mdma high no fentanyl please" and leave with something to spice up the afternoon. That's like, not a moral failing on my part even though I'm not self medicating I'm just having fun.

The way the war on drugs has ruined drugs, which like, genuinely drugs are sort of magical when you think about it. Not just the fun ones either. Like when I was a baby I had a really bad bladder infection that absolutely would have killed me if I had had that same situation just like 100 years ago, but my mom was able to force a pill down my throat and it went away. Since then I've probably had at least a dozen little things like that that would have killed me dead if someone hadn't invented a chemical that could interact with my body and make it genuinely not a problem. and the fact that we have that for things like chronic pain and we're too afraid to use it because of stigma is so insane. Like god forbid people get high.

[coffee-bat]

Hi again! So you got any ideas about what Tropy and Cortex did during their time together during their exile with uka uka? So many years together they must know each other so well, including their habits, likes, dislikes, etc

It’s just so funny imagining the arguments they could have now, just stuff like

“Cortex you broke my screwdriver!” “Oh yes we’ll atleast I didn’t leave the toilet seat up at night!”

Or the chance for any romantic time, or atleast maybe them both being touch starved or lonely, needing each other because they’ve got human needs that uka uka cant fill

Plus the fact you know they’re both so egotistical they just HAVE to have someone to flex on otherwise they’d perish from boredom, these boys live on spite

Gosh the limitless potential 👀✨

OK OK I'VE STALLED ON THIS ASK LONG ENOUGH

i'm so sorry it took long, i just have so many thoughts on this and this is a rare opportunity so i wanted to make sure i don't miss anything i'd like to say 😭😭 i still will def miss something

so!!! full agree with everything you said. they DEFINATELY know most if not all of each other's habits and quirks intricately (tropy comments on how cortex chews food?????). started with noticing the basic things, like what position they sleep in, then eventually they just instinctively know what the other would do in any situation/scenario possible. every aspect of the way the other works and acts would probably become second-nature after spending that long together. they know all of the other's likes and dislikes, even if they didn't personally see/witness those preferences (considering they're trapped in a semi-wasteland).

cortex has definately traumadumped. multiple times. tropy is now acutely aware of every mentall illness his ass has, whether he likes it or not.

on a seperate note: i've always kinda assumed that the place they're trapped in is a complete barren, time-standing-still wasteland, where they neither age, have any resources, nor have bodily functions, but after thinking about it the "chewing" comment, cortex having a wooden stick, and the fucking hand-made crash doll would probably imply that's not the case. there are some resources and plants(again, the stick), and while not aging or anything of the sort they HAD food. so i guess we can add "scavenging together" to the list of bonding activities.

also, from what we've seen, the place doesn't seem to be dumbass-proofed, so for another bonding activity, they probably just constantly took turns patching each other up for the dumbest injuries known to man. tropy's armor tubes got caught on a branch, he fell forward and broke his nose, cortex ate a weird fruit and got sick, tropy tried to show off the "stepping on lava" trick and burned his fucking foot, cortex tripped and stabbed himself on a sharp rock, so on. tropy will never stop holding neo's embarassingly low pain tolerance over his head, and cortex won't be able to see tropy as threatening ever again after seeing him cartoonishly hopping around on one leg.

i LOVE the stupid arguments, your example is 100% what i imagine their conversations after being freed to look like. tropy just radiates the "obnoxiously leaves the seat up and refuses to change the habit out of a sense of pride" energy 💀💀

and i love LOVE the idea of them realizing they actually do need company and touch after being stranded for a while. they'd probably each come to realize this about the same time but with varying degrees of being upset at the realization. bonus points if either one or both of them have already been supressing some kind of feelings. they'd probably both be initially to proud to admit it even to themselves, much less let it show to the other.

though, an excuse for that: if we assume the wasteland is like other desert-like environments (it looks like a rocky desert), then it'd be likely to have major temperature drops at night. which would be the perfect excuse to seek physical closeness "for warmth". both would probably start contemplating it after a few cold nights, but i like to imagine it'd be tropy who openly suggests it first. of course, acting distant, and explaining the idea Logically and Scientifically. whether to keep up appearances or try to convince himself, who knows.

they're cuddling Only For Logical Reasons, No Other Reasons At All what are you talking about. they're definately not touch-starved. and none of them is in denial, at all. tropy definately doesn't feel at all protective ever. just two guys being dudes.

okay that's- all the thoughts i've managed to organize. it's probably still an incoherent mess i'm sorry.

i'm just bouncing them around in my head like the dvd logo i can't form more cohesive thoughts than this 😭 (or maybe i can when i have less to say and i'm less stressed about getting out every thought i've had in my life, i don't know. i just couldn't make this one any more coherent. i hope the general point is at least understandable💀)

[calliethetrekkie]

Star Trek TOS S01E04: The Enemy Within

Original Thoughts

"So The Enemy Within was a legit tense episode of Star Trek. I’m a sucker for the whole good/evil sides of a person being split into separate beings kind of scenario, and the contrast of the Kirk's is interesting and freighting. The Good Kirk struggling as he slowly loses his ability to be decisive without his more assertive half was also compelling and helped give more insight to his character, which again I’m a sucker for. The final breakdown of Evil Kirk was also intense and helped give some personification as well. A well-played scenario all in all. However, the episode is bogged down by one big factor: the outright tasteless treatment of the attempted assault on Yeoman Rand, or at least the aftermath. It’s unfortunate, but the story and conflict with Kirk was still a worthwhile watch."

(Original Post, edited from original)

Rewatch Thoughts

You ever had an episode that you like about 95% of, but there's a moment or two that really bogs it down? Yeah, as my original thoughts alluded to, this is one of those cases.

I'm going to avoid going into that scene. I did it before, and I was able to at least tolerate it this time (though fast-forward also helped). I also don't want to risk triggering anyone on a topic that I myself don't feel qualified or comfortable talking about from a show that took place in a different time. That being said, the scene still made me uncomfortable, and even moreso how the aftermath was handled. That is all I'm going to say about it, let's move on.

Thankfully, I have nothing but good things to say from this point. Even despite what I said above, this was one of the episodes I had really enjoyed the first go around, and I'm happy to say I still felt that way. This one has so much that I can go into concerning the plot, the philosophy, and Kirk himself and how his relationships with Spock and McCoy are showcased here. I don't know where to start... but I guess we're gonna try.

I love the concept of having Kirk split. His good half and his bad side as separate entities. The good Kirk seems like how Kirk would normally be, but as time goes on he deteriorates into being indecisive, lacks any ability to assert himself, and just seems to be becoming more meek and insecure. The Bad Kirk is, as Kirk so elegantly puts it, more like a wild animal. Aggressive, violent, easily-provoked, and while by no means unintelligent, he's prone to being driven by fear and instinct. He does, however, have the strength, assertion, and ability to act that Kirk needs to be an effective captain and leader.

We tend to look at our worst traits and try to lock them away. It's terrifying, the thought of having this potential ugliness inside you. An ugliness that could drive you to doing unthinkable things. The Bad Kirk, with the lack of morality, threatens McCoy, is willing to harm other crew members, and what happened with Rand can speak for itself. Kirk would sure as Hell never do anything like that unless he had a good reason under any circumstance. But without the good half to balance it out, the bad half is in its most raw form. Unable to be tamed or controlled, and without that self-control, who knows what a person could be driven to do.

But in the end, without any darkness, what are left with? We lack a certain will-power. A certain assertion. A certain strength that can only come from feelings such as fury and desperation, for example. Anger can be a powerful motivating power, as we've seen in real life for both good and bad reasons. It's as McCoy told Kirk, we need the darkness. It doesn't make you automatically bad, it's a part of what makes one human. Makes one whole. Without that darkness, the good Kirk cannot be the captain that he needs to be and he can't afford that. He still has the traits he needs, such as his logic and morality, but without the balance he is giving into passiveness and uncertainty. Neither the good nor the bad can exist and function apart. They need to exist together, no matter how unwanted one may be.

The episode handles it incredibly well. Honestly, I think that this was the episode that really sold me on Kirk as a character. Up to that point I had only the pop-culture depiction of Kirk to go on. Which came off as a reckless, womanizing, arrogant hot-shot. I could not have been more wrong. This shows Kirk in one of his most vulnerable states. He can't perform the duty that defines his identity. Yet, as Spock points out to him, he can't let it show because otherwise it will cause unrest among the rest of the ship. He sees himself at his worst, and the fact that he has to merge back with it is terrifying. Why would he want that? How can he accept that such a feral being is a part of himself? Is himself? And what is he himself left as without it? Seriously, I just wanted to hug the poor guy through most of the episode. And despite it, he still shows his dark side so much empathy and care.

I think what most helps represent this struggle is his interactions with Spock and McCoy. I detailed a lot of it here, but here's the brief version.

We have Spock with Kirk as his second-in-command and trusted friend, having been asked by Kirk himself to speak up if he feels that he is slipping. He has to remind Kirk of what happens if he tells the ship the full scope of the situation. He's the one that Kirk trusts to help him face the Bad Kirk in the lower decks, unwilling to let anyone else see it. He's the one who has to inform Kirk of what he is losing and what the end result will be. He's not doing it to be cruel, but it is the reality, and it can't be ignored. That's Spock's job as First Officer, to be able to keep the captain on track and step in when needed. He's also ultimately willing to take the risk of merging Kirk back when it could kill him, certain that such a thing will not happen and even if so, it must be done so that they can rescue the landing team. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

Then we have McCoy with Kirk. We don't get it as much as with Kirk and Spock, but it's very much still present. He tries to assure Jim that he can still act as captain, seeming almost offended that Spock would seem to question him. But he does ultimately admit that Spock is right, comforting Jim and talking with him to help him find the self-assurance he needs to go through with it. Then he refuses to allow Jim to go through the transported, utterly against risking his life despite the lives of the landing party in the balance. McCoy is worried about what is of concern at that moment, as we already saw in The Corbomite Manuever, and in this case it's Jim.

Kirk is left in the middle. He sees both sides, but in his current safe that's as far as it can go. He can't make a decision on what to do. He can't make any command decision, even needing Spock to take over talking to Sulu at one point. Thus, Kirk's left with the two and can neither choose nor compromise, ultimately just having Spock keep working on the transporters and McCoy conduct an autopsy. It shows how important both perspectives are, but as his role is to normally mediate it, we also see how it is when he can't. The two sides are left unresolved. It ends well enough with Kirk ultimately going through with the transporters, but it still shows how much Kirk both needs Spock and McCoy and how much they need him.

So with all that said, my final thoughts? This is a great episode. Great plot and concept, great pacing, great character moments with Kirk especially, it's all very well done. I guess Shatner's acting isn't going to be for everyone, but I think it worked alright, and I think he did pretty well with Bad Kirk's breakdown at the end. The only thing holding it back is that one part that unfortunately bogs it down enough that I can't give a perfect rating still. But all that said, this is one I'd very much revisit if I felt like it. I had a lot of fun coming back to this one, and I'm glad I did.

Original Ranking: 4.5/5.

Rewatch Ranking: 8/10

[My TOS Reviews]

[TOS S1 Reviews]

[Previous Review] / [Next Review]

[salty-dracon]

Trying, and possibly failing, to understand the new Valorant map trailer

I like examining Valorant lore and stuff. Here are my thoughts on the trailer, based on what I already know about the lore up to this point:

Brimstone, who was a former Kingdom mercenary, has officially decided to break off all ties with Kingdom. We know he was part of K-SEC before, and still had good ties within their ranks until recently, until he made his associates angry and they cut off all ties with him. Brimstone appears to have been in turmoil over this, but it seems that in this cinematic, he's finally turned against them for good.

Underneath Los Angeles, Kingdom built a portal to the “Interverse”, which requires a lot of power but we don’t really know what the Interverse is. It doesn't look like the usual portal between Alpha and Omega. It looks goopy and purple. However, we can surmise based on what happened in this trailer that it’s where Gekko’s four funky friends, the Radivore polar bear that bit Deadlock, and potentially some other creatures came from. We also know that Kingdom has been sending crates there, but we don't know why, nor do we know what's in them.

The Alpha squad was there to shut it down, but judging by the fact that the Kingdom scientist locked the control panel before running away, Kingdom needed to keep it operational at all costs. At first the Protocol tried to shut it down normally, first by using a passcode and then by slicing off a researcher's thumb, but both attempts failed, meaning they needed to use force.

As Gekko noted, the portal looks like Wingman- or at least has the same purple accents, fluid-filled body, and triangular particles inside. We know from previous Range patches that the Radivore bear and Gekko's creatures are functionally the same. Furthermore, when Wingman bit Gekko, or did something to him, Gekko and Wingman were able to communicate telepathically to some extent. (This might have also already been done- Sage mentioned in a previous note that "Gekko's account of the creature bonding process contradicts our every assumption", and most creatures don't bond to humans by biting them and forming telepathic bonds with them.) So the Interverse is likely where all Radivores come from, and it's likely many of them have the ability to form sympathetic bonds. We've also learned that Radivores can split their bodies via mitosis, that or another Wingman escaped the portal before it blew, as evidenced by Gekko finding a baby Wingman. I think it's the former, as the baby Wingman seemed to recognize his best friend. Also they wouldn't just... kill off Gekko's ult. That would cause confusion.

Deadlock's attempt at shutting down the portal from the outside caused it to become unstable and spread its area of influence (?), which didn't hit Brimstone or Reyna to that strong of an extent. That being said, there is some kind of an echo effect created by the portal, where any sound created is repeated a few seconds later. I'm unsure if this is a dramatic effect, or it's actually an effect of the Interverse. It also did render the humans immobile, while Wingman was able to move around normally. So we can assume that on some level he's used to this sort of environment.

Once Wingman did whatever he did, the portal spit out energy and sucked it back in, then exploded outward with so much force that it created a massive crater in the facility's parking lot. I'm really unsure how Wingman managed to accomplish that with just some nanowire spooling. Furthermore, parts of Sunset appear to have been affected by the same "floating island" effect as Venice, which Project Landfall was attempting to fix.

We also know from the preview of the map itself that the portal's frame is now half-submerged in purple goop, meaning, yeah, it's been destroyed, but it's probably dangerous down there.

Brimstone's final words in the trailer- that Kingdom was attempting to stop the bleeding, and that the real enemy was Omega Earth- leads me to believe that it was actually the goal for Kingdom to repair the effects of the detonated spikes on Alpha Earth, but Legion took advantage of that to steal more of Alpha's radianite.

My biggest questions are still "how did Wingman manage to shut down a multiversal portal with just some nanowire?". As well as "what was Kingdom transporting through the Interverse?" and "What even is the Interverse, and how does it differ from the supposed multiverse that the Guardians were aware of?"

[wearevillaneve]

A Killing Eve Season 4 Analysis by Archamasse/Reddit.

Spoilers to follow, naturally, and high risk of TLDR -

They had a different showrunner every season, so each season seemed to start somewhere a little different to where the last one left off. The cast were outstanding but the seasons all seemed naturally a little disjointed because of it. There was a weird sense each showrunner had both a slightly different take on the show's internal morality, and didn't necessarily recognise how far the characters had travelled since the initial elevator pitch. So everything kept soft-resetting every season and going somewhere at a slightly different angle to where it was before.

The interpretation of the previous themes also seemed different to each person, and this became a major issue towards the end, because it seemed really confused about what it was trying to say. There's a weird, growing dissonance between what the show seems to feel is self evident and what it's actually... evidenced.

It keeps acting there's something uniquely dark in Villanelle, for instance, but by the time we get to the end of S4, almost every character has done some absolutely terrible shit repeatedly which the show treated as black comedy.

Villanelle is an assassin, so she's BAD bad - but we've just seen EVERYONE kill people and do morally pitch black stuff, and people regularly pull comedically grumpy not-dead-after-all reveals - so it's no longer clear why she is a uniquely lost cause, especially as we've been seeing her become increasingly humanised at the same time.

The show's whole premise needs us to take it for granted that murder is terrible and bad when Villanelle does it, and doing it proves she's a monster - but at the same time, when everyone else does it it's treated a punchline.

And since seemingly half the time her victims turn out to be alive after all anyway, the distinction between goodies and baddies is obscured a little more every episode. No problem... except multiple major plot points keep coming along that assume said distinction can still be taken for granted.

The last season also did a weird thing where the two central characters technically had no clear reason to be apart, but the show seemed to want them apart anyway, simply to keep mining some of their old dynamic, and it felt transparently contrived and a little wasteful as the episode count ticked down. The writing started to feel more about trying to find reasons not to move beyond the starting premise than actually developing or delivering on it.

Then after all that, in the finale, they did get together properly. And we saw them work surprisingly well as a couple - Villanelle having become a reasonably functional human being, and Eve having steadily embraced her dark side, to a point they met in the middle.

...only for Villanelle to be fairly randomly killed and Eve to be left distraught at the very last minute. No follow up or anything afterwards, just that. That's where it ends.

The speedrun relationship and abrupt death felt like a cheat after the strangely paced, water-treading season before it, and everything they said to explain it made even less sense of the decisions involved. Supposedly we're to interpret it as a product of the fact the two would never work - but they seemed to work very well? Really well? Like, "they both seem happier than we've ever seen them and this would have been a hugely fun double act to have been watching all season" well? And the thing that made them not work was completely external and outside their control?

We're also told to take it that Eve's parting scream was "triumphant", now that she's "free" of Villanelle's influence and can go back to a normal life, but that's not remotely what comes across on screen - she just looks devastated, and then the show ends. That's it, there isn't really room to extrapolate anything from it. Besides which, by now the show has shown us at great length that Eve's "normal life" was suffocating her and her streak of darkness is inherent. The idea she'll just return to her drab old life after all this is miserable, and there's a weird undertone to the idea that she was being externally corrupted away from her grey, straight life by the les/bi temptress woman, one she's now "free" of.

So you've got a final season that doesn't really seem to know what point it's making, topped by an oddly spiteful out-of-the-blue ending that neither feels earned by the season before it, nor like a conclusion to the story we've just seen overall.

Ultimately, it comes across like the showrunner wanting to prove to shippers who's boss or something, but the problem is, in this case, the shippers had a point - the fact these two characters are besotted with each other is fairly central to the show's whole actual premise and plot structures, and the dynamic between them. Killing one off so arbitrarily serves so little purpose apart from shock value that it does have a weird smack of Hays Code about it, like somebody felt morally obliged to have the evil bad girl done away with, as a box to check, to wrap up once they got done with everything.

It's just a very strange season, with an ending that feels like it showed up out of nowhere. I think you could justify doing the actual death if you really wanted, don't get me wrong, but that's not a season of storytelling which did. It doesn't really feel like it has a clear point and the circumstances - shot on a boat - have a kind of strained soap opera goofiness that makes it feel especially cheap.

I'm honestly at a loss as to what purpose it was supposed to serve or what the thinking was. Not alone did I not enjoy it, I've no real idea how I was supposed to feel about it instead. I can’t even tell what they failed to show me.

LINK

[momentomori24]

Finished Johneawesome's latest video of chapter 5 and I already have a very horrific theory. This is mostly going to be debunked pretty soon but I think this is fun:

So I think we all already saw coming that the meatbuns were suspicious as hell. With how addicted the people of Kanai are to them, they were bound to be relevant to the plot in some way. I think I distinctly remember jokingly thinking they're made of humans and that's wherethe 'unique taste' comes from (probably because I've been really into Cooking Companions recently lmao), but now I think that's actually the case. If that's the case, why feed your city human meat? What merit is there to that aside from just twisted, sadistic enjoyment to feeding your blissfully unaware citizens their own people? And why even go through all that effort to do it?

First, the game explicibly states that Homunculi can only eat human flesh to sustain themselves and we know that to be the case because we see them chase Yuma and Kurumi around and feast on dead bodies. However, we also see them eating the meatbuns that are dropped by Ama-Pals scattered around the area. Heck, the factory where they make the blasted meatbuns everyone loves so much is in the Homunculi infested/corpse disposal dump we call the restricted area, so I think that alone just straight up confirms it. We also know that the only way to tell a homunculus apart from a person is their blood. Both red and pink blood is used in the game. At first I just thought it was just a style choice to give murder victims pink blood and regular people red blood, but I don't believe it's the case. And if that's so, then that changes everything we've known up until this point completely and for the absolute worst.

We know that the Homunculi all bleed pink blood. We see it leak from their eyes when they try to attack us. Every murder victim, all citizens of Kanai Ward, also bleed pink. But we know for a fact that the same does not go for the detectives, specifically Yuma and Desuhiko. We see Yuma's blood in the Mystery Labyrinth whenever Shinigami needs to a question appear. We saw it in the real world when he smeared his blood on the lock in the Amaterasu Express. Both times it came out red. Desuhiko's nose-bleed is also red.

We know this rule doesn't hold up for all of them because Yakou also bleeds pink, but unlike the others he lives in Kanai Ward and has his whole life. The game also states that Homunculi will grow sick if they do not consume human meat. Everyone in Kanai Ward is pretty much addicted to the meatbuns. Kurumi even says that they're considered the comfort food there. Yakou is always hungry for them and complained how he can't function without having eaten first before sending Yuma off to get them.

I didn't think much at all of the latter when I first heard it, but in this context it seems... really sketchy. What if the people in Kanai Ward are all actually Homunculi? Could that be why the meatbuns are made from human flesh? To unknowingly sustain them in a practical and subtle way?

Ok, this is getting completely outlandish but this is my theory so I'll continue going: How did they manage to turn everyone in the city into Homunculi? I think this is directly related to the Blank Week Mystery. Just going off the name the case seems to involve something being missing and the photo for the solution key shows an empty road with nobody present. Is that maybe a hint that for an entire week all of the civillians just randomly disappeared? Should that be true, then this is going to be the time where everyone was either turned or replaced with Homunculi (and also makes Makoto extremely suspicious since he appeared around that time). According to maybe-Vivia's note, Homunculi can become injured and ill, can be handicapped or blind, so can easily slip into society without anyone noticing. But once they 'die', everything is repaired upon renewal. Death is what acts as the trigger for rebuilding their cells and apparently only takes a day.

The Peacekeepers are always so quick to dispose of bodies in the city. They always say it's due to the fact that the rain makes the corpses spoil quicker, but what if it's actually that the bodies will end like the Homunculi in the restricted area? So they dump them there to wander around there instead so nobody ever finds out? Most of the ones we see are people that have died throughout the chapters and even Zilch is included-- but coincidently the Master Detectives we met on the Amaterasu Express are totally absent. We know that Homunculi have pink blood and so do the people of Kanai, but we never confirmed anything for the those Master Detectives because they were all burned to death (which is something John points out in his video). And I think that's intentional. Because if they had bled their blood would've without a doubt be red, making us immediately question the usage of pink/red blood from the beginning and finding the truth so much sooner. And I think that's absolutely genius writing if that ends up being true. Awful for all the characters involved obviously, but great for me because we are entering some really messed up territory.

Who knows, my theory could be wrong but I'm pretty confident it's going to go into that direction in some way and I'm totally hype.

[strawberry-muffin-crisis]

Coming in hot from the kotlc fandom, asking if you would be willing to rant about Sophie (In general or as the main character, you choose) because I saw your other rant and you raised some very good points. Especially the self insert oc. I'm still raging from the fact that she rejected Dex and /then/ kissed him to say "Hey, this is ultra mega delux proof that I don't like you"

Boy howdy you better believe I'm willing!!

Also thank you for the ask, this is the first one I've gotten like this and I'm so excited :D

So first of all, if anyone needs a recap of what I've already said concerning Sophie and her undeserved position of the main character, find it here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/smoltolmuffin/685796011734712320?source=share

Sophie kissing Dex to prove she didn't actually like him:

Makes me think of that GIF. You know the one.

Yeah, that one.

First of all: WHO DOES THAT? Who even has the courage as a-- *googles this* 13(?)/14(?) year old to kiss somebody you might have a crush on?? Maybe elves are just Built Different™, but based on what we've seen of their emotions/encounters so far, they seem to function similarly to humans, so idk.

But seriously. Which preteen(???) girl actually goes "omg okay close your eyes i wanna try something" and then actually does it? And then actually stays in the same room as the dude she just kissed??? And then is casually like "huh. no that doesn't vibe at all, maybe we shouldn't see each other for a while"?

Idk but if it was me (which it wouldn't be, I'm not that brave), I wouldn't do it in the first place, and if I did for some reason, I'd immediately get the heck outta Dodge, if you catch my drift.

And it really wasn't fair to Dex either! (I could go on an entirely separate rant about how Dex is one of the most underrated, overlooked, underappreciated characters in KOTLC, but I'll spare Ye Olde Mutuals for now.) That poor boy really did have a puppy crush on Sophie. Imagine if your crush was like hmmm im gonna kiss you (experimental). You'd be stoked! And then your crush kisses you(experimental)!! You'd want to explode with happiness!!! And then your crush says "nah fam lol", and where does that leave you?

Sitting in the Friendzone with the rest of the fallen.

Not cool. I'll probably always hate Sophie for that.

Sophie in general as "the Gifted Kid"

The kid needs a break. In my opinion, her role as The Chosen One Who Is Not Like The Other Girls has gone to her head. Sure she's tired of the war, and sure she's sick of being so depended-on, but does that stop her from effectively flipping the middle finger at any (and all) authority and running headlong into more danger without telling people the plan? Heck, does she even HAVE a plan?? Because if she did then either I'm stupid (which is an entirely valid and possible option) or there isn't any plan, other than the extremely vague "defeat the Neverseen", WHICH, in my eyes, has dragged on FAR too long.

Give us the defeat of the Neverseen back in Everblaze. Give us a new threat--something else going on in the world besides "oh no. they're still here. oh no. time to not actually be able to end their terrorism, despite the fact that I am in fact Sophie Foster, the OP Fortnite Kid of literally every YA author's dreams. Or nightmares. Who knows."

Give us some other problem in the world! Give us something that doesn't require one (1) tween girl (how old is she at this point? i lost track??) and the boyband ft. some girls to go save the world yet again because of a COMPLETELY ORIGINAL TROPE, namely "all adults are stupid. ALL of them".

Some people could argue here (you know who you are and I love you :D) that Sophie has adequate reason not to trust the adults in the series, especially the Council, especially the Black Swan, especially-- oh wait. We're not trusting anyone. That's right, my bad. After giving Sophie a break, we're gonna give these tropes a break. Kay? Good. It's about darn time.

If we have to have a global war(?) going on, give me someone with experience (not Sophie!!) and a good place of mental stability (again, not Sophie!!!!) to be in charge of fixing the world's problems. Let an adult do it. Why aren't the adults doing it? SHANNON??? Each time I try to come up with an explanation for why the adults in this series are so incompetent, I get worked into a corner because? what are they doing? We haven't seen enough behind the scenes with the Council to make any speculations on "are they actually the bad guys or is Sophie just going through a particularly strong rebellious phase".

We could talk about Sophie being the leader of Team Valiant. And then right after that, we're gonna talk about how hard we cringed at that awful team name (YOU KNOW YOU DID. WE ALL DID.) I gotta agree with Keefe on this one-- Team Fancypants would've been better. Anything but Team Valiant, oh my GOSH.

It's really not fair that the OP kid gets to be the coolest. Fight me if you wish, but isn't it about time that some of our beloved side characters got some more attention? I'm mainly thinking of Dex here. Why can't Sophie take a backseat for once?

~~~

so i've tired myself out...

if this made enough sense and you'd like me to rant more please leave a comment saying so or drop another ask 💀, if you want me to lock myself in a closet and never do this again...

understandable, have a nice day

[kaleidoscopic-quiddity]

Upside-down and/or superpowers questions that may be answered in season 5

I don't think every single question on this list should be answered, nor would it be good for them all to be, since then it'd leave no space for fan theories and personal interpretation, but I do think season 5 is going to tackle at least several of these questions

Questions about Will:

How did Will survive as long as he did in the UD?

Why single out Will Byers specifically? We know now that its not just by chance that Will was taken and then possessed, so why him?

How did Will manipulate the circle of lamps in his room when Holly was there despite that he was likely exhausted/dehydrated/etc?

Similarly, how did Will talk to Joyce via the alphabet xmas lights when he would've been far too short to reach them and, again, likey on very low energy? Were the letters even there at all for him in the UD seeing as it's stuck in time?

Why is the UD stuck on the day Will went missing?

How did/does Will's true sight actually function? Is he a 'living gate' like some people have theorized?

How did Will call the Byers house phone from the UD and get a clear enough connection to the point where Joyce could hear his breathing?

If Will can feel Henry's feelings, can he feel Will's?

Does Will have latent telekinetic/psychic powers? If so, were they repressed due to trauma? How come Will and his family, especially El, haven't noticed them?

Is Will touching his neck when he feel's Vecna &/or the Mind Flayer's presence a reference to the chip that El pulled out of Henry's neck?

Questions about Henry:

How was he born with telekinetic and psychic powers?

Why did his powers develop/manifest around the age of 12 (give or take a couple of years) of all ages?

His powers mirror El's in that he has telekinesis, and Kali's in that he can make people see things, is this an intentional parallel?

Why did nobody look for him after he was comatose and then taken by Brenner? did he have no other relatives? Was it a government cover up?

What is his ultimate goal? We know he wants to destroy the social constructs he deems arbitrary and oppressive, and create a new world, but does he want to massacre humanity? Rule over them?

Why couldn't he remove the chip from his neck by himself? El took the chuck of Mindflayer out of her own leg in S3

How exactly did he survive as long as he did in the UD? Sure he had incredible powers, but so does El, and she still needs to eat and drink

Why does music specifically of all things cut through his Influence? Is it simply just because it 'reaches deeper parts of the mind' like the Pennhurst doctor explained?

Are the parallels between him and Will (sensitive kids, likes art, quiet and awkward, etc) intentional? Did Henry single Will out because he sees himself in Will?

Why did Brenner decide that Henry couldn't serve his needs and instead look for/create more kids with powers?

What was the chip in his neck for, was it just a tracker? Did it release drugs or electrocute Henry? Why don't El and Kali appear to have ones?

Does Henry realise how hypocritical it is of him to call UD beautiful because it was 'unspoiled by mankind' only to enforce his own will upon it and twist it to suit his goals?

How did Vecna dissappear into thin air after being shot out the window of the UD Creel house?

Questions about the Upside Down:

Did it already resemble Hawkins before Will got taken? Did Will consciously or subconsciously shape the UD into mirroring Hawkins

What is the UD? Is it an alternative dimension? A parallel universe? Hell?

Was the giant cloud that Henry shaped the Mind Flayer out of already alive and/or sentient?

Was everything in the UD already a hivemind or did Henry them all?

Why does heat, specifically, hurt UD creatures?

Are those air particles actually toxic? Were the lab staff just being over cautious? Or is most of the extended party going to develop a mysterious lung disease in a few years time?

How come we've seen numerous demobats and demodogs, but only 2 (or 1? Its kind of unclear) demogorgons?

Why is the demogorgon bipedal and humanoid? Did it already exist naturally as part of the UD or did Henry make it?

Does the UD exist for the entire planet, or even universe, or is it just limited to Hawkins?

Were the vines spreading in season 2 an early attempt at setting up and opening more gates to swallow Hawkins? Or did they serve a different purpose?

Was the UD already there before El sent Henry to it? Or did she create it when she opened a gate for the first time?

Questions about the numbers, superpowers, and Terry Ives:

All of the other numbers seemed to have telekinesis and psychic abilities like El, was Kali an outlier?

Did Terry Ives already have powers before she was involved in the ST version of MKUltra?

Terry's research into missing kids shows that not all of the numbers were taken at birth, and Kali was even kidnapped all the way from England, thus it can be assumed that the numbers don't have their powers just because their mothers were involved in MKUltra, so how and why do they have powers?

If Terry did gain her powers specifically from the MKUltra experiments, why hasn't this been replicated? Do all people have the potential for superpowers if they do the right thing?

How many numbers were there in total? Are El, Kali, and Henry the only remaining surviors of the lab?

How exactly did El open the gates? What does opening a gate into an alternate dimension have to do with being telekinetic?

Were El and Kali the only female numbers?

Food, particularly sugary ones, appear to give El the energy to use her powers, so does using them count as a bodily function? Does it burn calories?

Other general questions:

What is the 'In-Between' black void space El looks for people in? Is it a real physical dimension like the UD? Or is it purely a manifestation of El's powers when she's in sensory deprivation?

How did El actually save Max? Did she manually beat her heart via telekinesis? Did she 'give' Max 'life energy'? Can she just straight up heal physical injury?

Is there a limited range on how far El can look for people? In season 1 she finds some Russians so how come she never found Hopper, despite almost certainly trying at least once to look for him?

Why were the Russians studying the UD and the democreatures? Was the plan purely just to use them as weapons?

Can the UD be 'sealed off' for good?

[harmonyckrs]

Day 20 of Twisted Pleasantview: More Videos that Lazlo(?) Sent Us as a Cry for Help (I think)

THE PREVIOUS DAY

NAME: ROSALINE CAPULET

LIFE STAGE: TEEN

STATUS: ALIVE, FUNCTIONAL

SPECIAL NOTES: A pacifist at heart, and the only human teen from Veronaville not participating in the feud.

---

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT 1:

A: Hello! I just thought I'd come check on you. How are you feeling, outside of, you know, being locked up?

L: Don't talk to me.

A: I'm guessing you're sad. Well, how about I spruce up the room a little?...there we go. A nice snapdragon bouquet! Got it from Florence.

L: You think some fucking flowers are going to make me feel betteR

A: Well, what would?

L: Letting me get the FUCK OUT OF HERE! And for you to get your fucking memories back so you'll stop acting like a puppet to Crystal!

---

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT 2:

H: And she got her job back as a Drive Thru Cashier! Not to mention her son became an Overachiever recently. I couldn't be happier for them both!

L: Why are you telling me all of this?

H: Aktu and Zoya would never understand. They hate humans.

L: Only because they were programmed that way.

H: Hm...well, you do have a point! If they interact more with humans, then maybe they'll start to warm up to them! If Chrissy could get to them, I'm sure someone else can, too!

L: ...Yeah. I guess you can say that.

H; You always seem so sad when we talk. Are you feeling okay?

L: Yeah, it's just...do you have any memories of being at a breakfast diner? You trying to hit on a waitress before spilling chocolate milk on your shirt in front of her?

H: No? Why do you ask?

L: ...Forget about it.

---

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT 3:

Z: What's up, dude?...you've been taking a bit of a liking to those snapdragons, huh? I'm surprised they're still alive.

L: Aktu said they're enchanted, so I don't need to water them and they never die. It's just good to feel like I'm taking care of something.

Z: Yeah, I get that. I imagine it keeps your mind away from Nova.

L: ...

Z: Aw, too soon? Sorry, man. It's been like, five years, so I thought you would've been over it by now.

L: Why would I be over her tearing MY OWN CHILD away from me?

Z: Laz, she's a damn robot! She can't feel emotions or anything, and besides! She's Chrissy's child too. And also, we're calling her Viola now.

L: Why?

Z: We've got a new town to take over, so she gets a new name. People are already on high alert for "Nova Curious."

L: This was not what she was built for...

---

R: Oh, I remembered Viola. She was so sweet...helped me realize that I was ace, too. I can't believe she was just a robot this whole time...

P: That must've been hard to find out.

R: Well, it's more important that we're able to stop her before she tries to do it again.

P: Yeah, that sounds good. Think Grandpa and Grandma will get paranoid if I'm gone for too long, and they don't really want to be associated with either the Capulets or Montagues. No offense.

R: None taken. So, we can confirm that the fairies seem to be working for someone named Crystal, and they had their memories erased in the past that's preventing them from remembering something that would cause them to rebel.

P: Seems so. And everyone in Strangetown is apparently a sleeper agent for Crystal, too. But if that was the case, why would Tank and Vidcund get abducted? And wouldn't it make sense for Ripp to go after one of us, instead of running out of school to capture someone?

R: Who's Vidcund?

P: Oh, right! You weren't there. Let me fill you in...

THE NEXT DAY

[apexart-journal]

Mvelo Mahlangu in NYC, Day 4

The beautiful sun showed it face today and bathed New York in sunshine. From the apartment, the illusion was that it was warmer out. I was very wrong. It in fact felt a little bit colder than the previous days.

Today, I was headed to Brooklyn again for a class in Tree pruning & care. Once I got out the train station in Brooklyn, I knew where I was. I was right by the Domino Sugar Refinery that I saw from yesterday's cruise tour. I definitely knew I wanted to stop by the factory after the class. Walking towards the community garden, I noticed a little Japanese convenience store and quickly went in. I felt like I was in a genuine Japanese store back in my grandparents hometown and when I saw all the deserts, nostalgia hit me.

With an onigiri in one hand and packaged mochi in the other, I happily continued the walk. I really liked the area of Brooklyn I was in. It was a lot more quiet, not a lot of tall buildings, and very residential areas with many coffee shops around. In Manhattan, it's very easy to feel isolated, where as here, I felt like I could bump into an old friend.

The community garden was a little slice of nature surrounded by residential buildings. It was refreshing too see as I haven't seen any parks or open land yet. The instructor William started talking to us about trees and how they grow, what organs they have and their functionings. Sometimes in the rush of life, it's easy to forget that trees are also these living organisms that are trying their best at each moment to survive and are not just in existence for the purposes of humans. William spoke to us on why we prune trees, what to identify and what tools are needed. The primary reason we prune trees is for human aesthetic choices, then comes the other reasonings like keeping tress healthy or giving it the best chance to live longer.

As we went around pruning and sawing parts of the trees off, I must say, I really did think about how we humans keep trying to bend nature to the confines of our society. Cutting or 'pruning' a young trees branch off because we predict it to grow into the building next to it which will cause a problem in the future... If there were no buildings around would we still do the same thing? Supposedly pruning does not harm the tree if done correctly and is done in winter as opposed to summer to avoid infection & disease from entering the 'wound'. So another question begs "At what point do we let nature run its course and at what point do we step in to intervene?"

I'm definitely caught in this thought that we've separated ourselves so much from nature that we forget we are a part of it too.

After the freezing walk about and pruning of trees, I decided to quickly walk to the Domino Sugar Factory. It was refreshing walking based on line-of-sight as opposed to constantly looking at my phone for directions. The building was incredibly huge. What fascinated me the most was the relationship between the former original brick exterior and the use of glass as the new interior/exterior. So almost like a glass box with a dome above, nestled into a big brick box. That is the best use of architectural coexistence in preserving history that I've seen so far. I need to do more research on the building to contextualise and understand its functions better.

I sat by the river, ate some lunch and made my way back to the apartment to go rest. Body clock is still adjusting so I was really exhausted. Once I got to the apartment, I extensively cleaned the space and prepped for the last activity on my calendar which was a guided meditation class. I took a 15 minute nap only to wake up 3 hours later and 20 minutes before the online class. feeling a bit drowsy I pushed on into the meditation class which helped me relax more as I called for affirmation "I forgive myself and everyone" amongst other affirmations. Apparently each area of your body houses a chakra which taps into different aspects of emotion/feeling. This took me back to the conversation the night before I had with someone who also attended improv jam where he spoke on chakra's and how his meditation journey has helped keep him looking and feeling youthful.

Right afterwards, I fell asleep and reminded myself to watch the movie "Into the woods" in the morning.

[seobud]

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[jeremy-ken-anderson]

Spider-verse, Angels, What We Measure

The things we associate with the divine is not What There Is to the divine.

It's what we can see, and/or what impacts us in the places and on a scale where we comprehend it.

That which we never perceive, collectively, we claim not to exist.

Scientifically, this serves. But also scientifically this has no basis, and a decent scientist will tell you so.

What is an angel? Some accounts say a beautiful man with wings who had children by one or more of the women in the village; children who then had no wings but did seem to have impressive abilities. Some accounts say a voice from the heavens. Looked upon, as we were asked to, the being had many eyes, formed in rings upon halos of light, wings and fire. The voice told us what was to come, and what we must do. This kind of thing is shockingly detailed but gains us very little ground toward answering the question of what an angel is. The two accounts differ on as straightforward a question of "is an angel a thing of flesh?"

By the nature of these events, if you assume they happened and everyone involved was being honest on the topic of their own lived experience, there remains an issue of vast swaths of unseen information. Questions like, "Why?" and "How?" are left practically untouched, and "What?" remains rather vague.

The question of "Why?" is seldom discussed and the reason given is that this can't go beyond speculation. That the "why" of godly things is not something to be known by humans. But many take it a step further and forget that "Why?" was ever a part of the missing information. Perhaps they fill in with their own theory and, in absence of proof to the contrary, they take that as truth.

This leads to weird questions of veracity. Like, how would a human distinguish between a demon - in some lore literally an angel who happens to be on the outs with the divine - and an angel? We admit we don't know any of what's going on behind the curtain but then make assumptions about our own capacity to judge what we haven't seen.

Were those angels who begat nephilim angels as the other ring-of-fire angels would call them? And vice versa? Would angels be offended if you referred to their fallen kin as Not Angels? There's all this lore hidden from us by virtue of the things we're talking about being of a core state we do not (and potentially cannot) understand. But we make all kinds of confident declarations about what a True angel is. About what is and isn't an angel. About the properties, purposes, and nature of angels.

Even if we trust our religion of choice absolutely and assume all the lore within scripture is true, we must assume functionally everything else is just made up. In terms of how much we can trust it, it might as well be.

This is one of the weird places I get to looking at Spider-verse.

Miguel has this utter certainty that being broken down by a failing of personal responsibility and driven by a need to make good on a debt that literally can't ever be repaid without resurrection powers is necessary to being Spider-Man.

We know he's been watching a lot of stuff in a lot of universes.

We also know he's biased as fuck. He's got his own hang-ups. And everyone wants to think other people think like them. Outside of contrary evidence almost everyone defaults to this mindset.

I also find his place as the gatekeeper for who does and doesn't get to be declared "really Spider-man" pretty funny, because a lot of fans rejected his comic series as just not being very spider-manny. A lot of his themes and even powers feel more like someone stuck Morbius into a spider-man outfit?

I dunno. There will always be Secrets of the Universe (or Multiverse, I guess) that we don't know. It's really important to recognize the points where you don't know things, and quit acting like you do when you hit those blank points in your own knowledge. We've absolutely got to keep working with the best knowledge we have. But the fact that it appears to have been functional so far doesn't mean we should ignore the possibility that it's faulty. The water pulling away from the beach does not mean this is a good time to play in the sand. It may seem that way, and indeed will be that way, until the tsunami arrives and suddenly it is Not At All a good time to be on that beach.

Assumptions that anomalies and everything associated with them are inherently a problem but the spider-verse travelers' travel methods aren't...Well. Those are some assumptions. And when you think about it, they're assumptions that happen to align with what a big group of people who want to Make It Right and can't do that in their own world would want to believe.