#it's recursive dude ... it's fucking recursive ....

[themonkey2025]

hmmm the great great great by which i mean vomit-inducing thing about post-squip boyfs is that. michael would be trying soooo desperately to distinguish between Squip Things and Jeremy Things. like ok THIS is a neurosis that came from the squip, but THIS is one that has existed since we were 12. THIS is something i can deal with because i know jeremy, but THIS is something totally unfamiliar. with the primary distinguishing characteristic being that Jeremy Things are okay because they are normal and comforting and he can fix them, but he CANNOT fix Squip Things because they exist separately of jeremy as a person. and like that's an okay framework to SOME extent especially for an out of his depth teenage boy. but also the whole point is that. Squip Things ARE Jeremy Things. only amplified and worse and slightly contorted. if Squip Things hadn't been Jeremy Things then he wouldn't have wanted it so bad in the FIRST place and he certainly wouldn't have depended on it despite the relentless abuse. Squip Things and Jeremy Things are not independent Things they are all just cyclical versions of each other. and michael CANNOT believe this he is actively trying to disbelieve this.

[autism-corner]

guy did it

[astranauticus]

god help me so i started playing slay the spire and like, i've only tried the first 3 characters but my favourite, with 1000% certainty, absolutely no questions asked, is the defect. really not beating the robot guy allegation huh

[blood-starved-beast]

Today seems to be a Shadow Campaigns posting day but - I just love the way Winter is written with regards to her gender and sexuality. Besides the fact that Winter is first and foremost written as a competent, multifaceted yet flawed person is not lost on me and definitely a lot the heavy lifting as to why her character is good imho. But!! Just how Wexler handles the whole "hiding gender in otherwise sexist society preventing this job option" thing with her is just *chef's kiss*

The books make it clear first and foremost why this is a thing that Winter must do early on in Book 1. There are creeps in the army like Davis, and then you have the Gallants like Marcus who would do nothing more than shield women such as Winter from the horrors of war. Winter especially early on is constantly agonizing about this and worried especially about discovery. And that bleeds into her relationships with her fellow rankers at first (but also justified, as they are Exhibit A of why she's doing this in the first place) and even when she's Sergeant a bit and even later as a General. She isn't as personable directly with people cause she spent so much time guarding this secret and keeping herself closed off. She's not gonna change over night! (Sidenote: Jane being introduced both complicates and intrigues all of this. Fascinating. Also Cyte helps lower that guard as does Bobby and all the Girls' Own). She cannot fight back when the rankers pick on her cause if she gets dirty they might discover she doesn't have a dick! Or bathing, or even something simple as recursive crossdressing are things she's thinking about.

There's how Winter constantly is turning and turning in her head about her gender and how comfortable (or not!) she feels about her gender. Cause Vordan has pretty traditional roles when it comes to women (while simultaneously showing that while those roles existed in ideals, they don't always plan out in practice, especially not amongst the lower classes). A question Winter always asks herself or is presented with is what does she plan to do post-war? It's agonizing for her, cause at one point she's comfortable where she is! She's alright being some nobody dude ranker if it means stability. The alternative is maybe housewife? Does she want that? (No.)

It says so much that she thinks this way - she was raised by Mrs. Wilmore and the Prison after all! What comes to mind for her is very limited. It almost comes off as seemingly trans egg in a way. Her experience is so defined by these traditionalist roles - she cannot conceptualize herself outside of them, lowkey resulting in someone who is implied transgender but cannot 100% be identified as such cause of said cultural context. It's a fascinating way to handle a character as being a product of their society. Just love that.

And it plays into how she explores her sexuality. We learn in book 4 that homophobia in some capacity does exist in Vordan. Albeit in a different histocultural context than irl. Winter isn't really aware of that, cause that's something prudish you-will-be-sold-off-in-marriage-to-a-man conservative Wilmore Prison wardens would never discuss. She essentially roles into her relationship with Jane, never really questions it, while simultaneously being the most Lesbian imaginable. And man, it's lowkey hilarious how this aspect of her both strengthens and lowkey doesn't help her disguise - she is so unconcerned with things like dicks or heterosexual innuendos or anything else a straight person might pick up. Being so fucking gay and horny probably has heteronormative people in the army who aren't close to her being like - hmm she can't be a woman she's clearly into women like a guy. Except she is not. She into women in a clearly and distinctly homosexual way that's just one facet of her character.

Also really like that she's casually horny. Staring at Sothe undressed, being jealous of various people, staring at tits on statues and art, casually offering to do it with Cyte no questions asked. Also I love how when presented with how homophobia is normally described here (the Tyrant's Disease - ok but Wexler explain how that came to be??) she's like "Huh. idk I like women not gonna change" which happens in book 4 when she's already had a good deal of character development and confidence in her competence. Good for her! Anyways this horny aspect of her character is handled so well and so not titillating to the reader - she's not a creep but she is a lesbian with eyes ok? She's not blind or asexual. You don't realize how rarely even in literature outside of x content it is to see sexuality explore casually like this and not like, described as weird.

Also I really love how natural Winter's gender reveal is handled in the books. It's something that happens gradually over time. She either meets people who know her beforehand, or the circumstances change so that Winter becomes more relaxed in her gender without extreme repercussions. Normally these kinds of "oh you're a girl!!" reveals are done with much drama and while that can be done interestingly it's clear it wasn't something the books wanted to tackle and smartly didn't. It also adds to general pragmatism of the books as well. Pretty sure all or most of the army that interacted with Winter likely knew in some capacity that she's genderqueer (without knowing the term) by the end of book 4, but cause of circumstances (and how war does build camaraderie amongst same-side soldiers) there's this general acceptance of it. Winter is so competent and respected by then, no one is gonna speak out against her even if she is trans or a woman hiding. It wouldn't be right, a ranker might say.

IDK idk I've rambled enough as is. There's so much more to discuss of course (how the Infernivore and her gender both parallel and reinforce her arc about coming into her own skin as a person), how these tie into the themes of the Shadow Campaigns and its worldbuilding. The way the ending (to me) leaves it open about whether Winter could be an Egg even if she accepts herself as a woman at this moment. But I'll stop for now. Anyways if you managed to get here please read the Shadow Campaigns. It's not perfect but it's definitely fun and interesting and competently written.

[acorpsecalledcorva]

Additional thoughts on diagnostic criteria (hopefully short thoughts because I forgot to take my sleep meds and it's 5am)

Something that is currently debated in psych circles (academic slap fights in the letters to the editor section of journals are hilarious but really really interesting btw, do check them out) is how identity alteration interacts with the impairment part of the "Causes clinical distress or impairment/dysfunction" criteria. Some argue that, by nature, identity alteration is a dysfunction. You're supposed to have one contiguous if not continuous identity and so the formation of an alter identity is therefore by definition an impairment of identity and meets the dysfunction criteria. I don't think I'm alone in disliking this notion.

First up, bold fuckin claim dude, making a lot of assumptions about how sure we are about what identity and consciousness are and how they are internally experienced globally aren't ya. Secondly, that's such a narrow view of even the multiplicity experiences. Is having blorbos in your head an alteration of identity? I mean sure there's passive influence and dissociative intrusions but those make a Venn Diagram not a circle. Even with blackout switching, not every system experiences that as an alteration of identity, they don't become someone else, they just go away and someone else takes over. It may externally appear to be an alteration of identity to an observer but who the fuck are they to define what it actually means to the person living it.

It really highlights how much of medicine and psychology is just a fucked up hogwarts sorting hat of normal and not normal with arbitrary boundaries that increasingly fall apart the more rigid you try to make them.

This is why I really appreciate the approach Eli Somer takes with Maladaptive Daydreaming. He's literally just like "Yo! That actually sounds so cool! Wish I could do that! Sorry you're struggling with it though let's see if we can work on that", defining the disorder by the experience of dysfunction as opposed to the observation of dysfunction and saying "Ew, mentally ill people are weird and make me uncomfortable"

It is all part of the process though, borders and boundaries are meant to be challenged, whittling them down like recursively dividing by two, never approaching zero but getting ever thinner, precise but fragile.

Ah beans I made it long again didn't I 🥹

[spiderace]

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. The little dude with the paintbrush in its mouth is supposed to be a gnu. It's not a GOOD depiction, the one used for the GNU software family is much better, but that's the stated intent. The program itself gotten significantly better since I started using it, like its big brother Blender. This is one of the cool things about open source software, and also you can install multiple versions if a feature you like gets removed.

They are also free, which is important now that every industry standard 2D/3D graphics program is owned by Maxon or Autodesk, who have moved them all to incredibly predatory subscription models and no longer let you buy them outright. Seriously, fuck these guys. If I ever win the lottery, Blender Foundation is getting ten million dollars and a polite request to for heaven's sake make it so sims can run on the GPU.

Anyway, that's our Old Artist Yells At Clouds moment for today.

GNU stands for GNU's Not Unix. This is the kind of joke that programmers thought was funny back then. They probably still do now, but I have no point of reference currently, as I am scared to piss off any of the coders I know from work by asking if they like stupid recursive humor.

[foxingpeculiar]

Conspiracy theorists are annoying because, yeah, OF COURSE there’s a whole bunch of crazy shit going on you don’t know about. And yes, it affects you in ways you couldn’t even imagine.

But it’s not just the government or corporations, or aliens or whathefuckever, it’s literally everything. The millions of hours and trillions of tiny decisions involved in creating the device you’re reading this on (to say nothing of the frankly absurd machines that created the pieces, or the infrastructure required for it to work, or y’know, the entire development of orthographic language in the first place). The microbes in your body, the proteins that make them up, the atoms that make them up, the subatomic particles that make THEM up, down a level of recursion we still can’t see the bottom of (and up, too!). There are places and animals objects you would never even think even think about existing, on Earth, right now; jobs with responsibilities that will never have a reason to occur to you but have entire histories behind every minute detail of their processes. Entire realms of experience and knowledge that will never be yours, but which enmesh with your daily life in every conceivable way.

“Ooh, there’s shit we don’t know about” is the baseline of fucking reality, dude. Stop freaking out about it, you’re scaring the hoes.

[jessica-problems]

like, fuck, I wish the shape of my body mattered, but I don't want it to matter. because if it does matter, then what does that say about me now, but if it doesn't matter, then why am I doing this whole transgender thing?

Just, for me? because I want to? For my own happiness? Is that enough? That has to be enough, right?

And, like, I've never HAD boobs, maybe I'm just hyping myself up over nothing and they won't actually solve all my problems? But of course they're not gonna solve ALL my problems that would be ridiculous. But I still just... I can't even put words on it. I just. I'm supposed to have boobs. Or, I'm surprised I don't have boobs. Or... I;m jealous of people who have boobs. Or, like, It feels like bullshit that I didn't even get asked whether I wanted boobs. But, like, none of that even makes any sense. You know what I mean.

Like, surely it's better to learn to love the body I HAVE than to try and change it into something else that I've never actually experienced. But, like, I'm so committed to going to all this trouble to become something new and different. I know I want this. But, like, I don't WHY I want it. Like, am I running from who I am now? Am I running towards something? I swear to god I've deconstructed every gender role I can find in here and just about the only thing left is, like, I think I want to have boobs, and not be assumed to be dangerous by default? But, like, as a trans woman, I'll just be assumed dangerous in a whole different way maybe? Like, fuck, I'm just throwing away all this privilege I could have, or something. But cis dudes don't worry about that shit. If I was cis, this wouldn't even be on my mind. And I think I want to get better at emotions and relationships, but, like, that's not a gender thing, I don't think, except it kind of is because like, all the women I look up to seem to understand how to formulate emotions more complex than 'happy' or "sad" or whatever, and there sure seem to be a lot of men who don't have that figured out, but like, there's men out there who DO understand their own emotions, but I don't think I want to be one? But I don't know if maybe that's about the emotions or the gender or both? It's not like calling myself a girl will immediately give me a better understanding of emotions or some shit, but, like, it.... feels connected somehow? Maybe the cause and effect is backwards. Maybe "I'm a girl" is an emotion I have and paying attention to it is good practice for being aware of other emotions. I don't know. Maybe if I understood my own emotions already this wouldn't be such a fucking problem! I don't want to let myself doubt myself, because that way leads to cross examining my every thought until I get into, like, solipsism and infinite recursion and is no use to anyone, but, like, I so wish I had something external and undeniable to point to and say "this is why I'm transgender. this is how I know, look at this thing, you can see it's proof that I'm a women."

But, like, doubting myself is how I got here. I didn't start out knowing I was trans. I had to say "wait a minute something's not right"

Like, am I just some kind of pervert obsessing over boobs or over femininity or over trans women or something? I don't *think* so. I don't feel like a pervert. But, like, fuck I don't even have any signposts. Feels like I'm forging my own trail and I have no idea if I'm going in the right direction. Cis people don't seem to worry about their anatomy this much. Maybe it's like someone said about, like, shoes that don't fit. You just don't notice them when they fit fine.

but, like a rock in your shoe is one thing. You can take a rock out of your shoe. gender is big and complex and abstract and, like, I think maybe I'm worrying about anatomy right now because if I so much as *look* at any of the socially constructed elements of gender I will explode. "growing a pair of boobs" is a concrete, measurable goal. fucking, like, "feminine mannerisms" or "passing" or whatever is just, like, so many layers of complexity wrapped in misinformation wrapped in a billion complex social expectations, and half of them are bullshit, and the other half are meaningless, and, like I don't want to larp someone else's life or their expectations about how other people should live. I want to live my own life. Except I've never done that before. just changing my name and taking hormones won't suddenly make me a more outgoing person, will it? I'll still be a weird asocial loser who posts on the internet rather than fucking engaging with my life.

But maybe, once I get the rock out of my shoe, that will all come naturally? I hope? I hope so much that it hurts.

[soysaucevictim]

I’ve been up since about noon. Did a few of my exercises and been watching YouTube + gaming.

I gotta say this exchange on one of those videos made me laugh so hard:

nonam9477: could a virus live inside a virus? and if so could a virus live inside the virus inside that virus 

Afif Brian: yes there is, it's called virophage and satellite viruses

Omegagoldfish: Could we use virophages to fight viruses? And virophagephages to fight the virophages infecting the bacteriophages infecting the bacteria infecting us?

Unacceptable Babbit: Omegagoldfish please stop, it hurts

Omegagoldfish: And of course, if we have a problem with a virophagephage, we could theoretically make a virophagephagephage to fight the virophagephages fighting the virophages fighting the bacteriophages fighting the bacteria fighting our bodies. Recursion is fun.

[landwriter]

WIP Filename Ask Game

tagged by @im-not-corrupted!

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it!

As some of you have the misfortune of knowing, I keep all my WIPs in a single unsorted doc called Untitled 1 (now at 208K! 🎉) so instead of filenames, I will steal a line from the notes/research bits I leave for myself in WIPs as I sketch out and write them. mostly bc I think they're funny but feel free to send me asks too if you want!

✨ A Baker's Dozen Sandman WIPs Via No-Context Notes ✨

and it’s super hot. and visceral. and LOVE. and then dream leaves.

then Dream is like, [fucks Hob]

maybe bird DREAM, like bird’s dream, the bird is dreaming of it

[tits in front of mirror]

the sense of...idk...look up what body of christ is supposed to do

the intermittent nature of having the bravery to show your affection

AWFUL STUPID GARBAGE THOUGHT:

[vampire/threshold joke]

dude it’s Mise en Abyme, read the fall of the house of usher, think Inception, think Synecdoche New York. recursion and echoes

need to write this when i’ve done physical labour and am sweaty but do want to write it at some point

maybe they make up when they swipe on a dating app instead of tom hanks just APPEARING

oh THIS one has the rimming

[choose extinct animal]

tagging anyone who wants to share their WIP filenames and answer asks about 'em! :)

[legionofpotatoes]

extremely bad faith mandalorian takes, do not engage please i cannot stop hysterically laughing at this season and thus am incapable of level-headed discourse. these are just words I want to write down to see if they look as unbelievable as they sound in my head

my favorite telltale sign of the embarrassing s3 story optics is their like. genuinely hilarious ostrich-neck-in-the-sand rehash of past story arcs down to the aesthetic fucking beats. that's the shit sandwich that really gets me in this whole stank buffet. It is astonishing. Like there was genuinely nothing else they could come up with as to not upset the status quo of their fickle, marketable story limbo, and so they, and I cannot stress this part enough, ignored established character progression beats and just did them again. they just did them again. from the top, using shockingly similar payoffs, right in front of our own eyes. and I just sat there and ate it!!

din has to re-love his toxic death cult after clearly progressing away from their value systems cause he's cooler with that helmet always on. gotta keep the limbo going. his main north star, set up as his way out of said cult, gets recruited into it instead, completely defanging the possibility of interrogating the entire bedrock of trauma and insecurity that kept uncomfortably clashing with his expressions of love and humanity in the past. now they're all one big happy gel of a Cool Dude With Gun and Kid. gotta keep the limbo going.

at some point he also has to re-learn his droid prejudices to then re-unlearn them again, a couple of times even, for no discernible thematic reason other than to make him act like an ass to some type of botched working class allegories (??? the fuck is going on with droids this season in general??). gotta keep the limbo going.

grogu, meanwhile, has to re-earn a mandalorian piece of armor to re-reinforce his allegiance (and here I was thinking the rond would be a pulpy setup for some shot-dead-fake-out but how can chekov's anything exist in this mangled mess), cause mandalorian culture is a live service videogame of tiered ranks now, so the potential upgrades are conveniently endless. gotta keep the limbo going. speaking of their culture, he also, hilariously, has to then be re-adopted by din to re-reveal their paternal bond and re-dramatize their love. cause he's not a foundling anymore, see; he's an apprentice now! the words are different. that makes the emotional meaning reset also. I know this from film school. audiences have no object permanence, right? they're all fish? we're writing this show for fucking fish, right? like in the aquariums? gotta keep the limbo going.

and they just keep doing this. they will dress it all up with technicalities and loud Plot Noise but it is all emotionally the same exact shit that has already happened and it is making me feel insane. same exact payoffs for backpedaled setups that were already, for all storytelling purposes, finished and done away with. it is comical. they're telling nothing. non-stories and recursive sisyphean plotlines that reset primitive character arcs every five episodes like it's the most unmoored bermuda triangle-ass time loop in space. you cannot even really twist it into some type of harmless expression in lieu of episodic TV, or even something more campy, cause like. it does have a rapidly progressing plotline about big and overarching stuff, stuff that is holistic, linear, and goal-oriented, like retaking homeworlds and reforging their broken nation and fighting mr gideon man. it's not a weekly detective romp with B plots galore, not anymore at least. but the characters somehow start and end in the same spots they always were. like the big ole smoking fucking gun that that is.

it feels like the most clear-cut example of plot moving forward - at breakneck speed sometimes - while characters progress either backwards or just. like. sideways and then back again?? almost like dropping a teabag into an empty mug and calling it a beverage. I see the pretty taste-making ingredient sitting sadly at the bottom there, but where's the substance? what is this all for? to wank it to how cool mandalorians look when they fly? I mean they can be pretty cool, no argument there. but some of them could be cooler if they felt things deeply and that changed them, fundamentally. you know, how A-to-B storytelling does sometimes.

and I am achingly aware that I am aging out of this show's target audience, I know that. but the death by comparison within the same bloody show's adjacent seasons is just as harrowing. what happened. it just worked too good is what. a corporation responsible for telling a myth will never allow it to finish if it suddenly starts hemorrhaging this much money. grogu and din can't progress, even aesthetically, past their season 1 selves, no matter how much that same season's story was setting them up to. cause inscrutable sad dad and cute doll baby combo. we'll either throw away those story hooks or keep resetting them. keep the limbo going.

groundhog day-ass show. it's hysterical. I can't be normal about how mask-off blatant this all is now.

and to follow this up to andor of all things. really clinches it, you know. no notes. just no notes, disney. tens across the board

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

14 and 23 for mr first name Roland last name 00101000111100000111010110001

14. Physical abnormalities? (Both visible and not, including injuries/disabilities, long-term illnesses, food-intolerances, etc.)

Pater.... he is an AI. So of course I will give him injuries and abnormalities. Dude I think he's so fucked up after being the Infinity AI for more than a month. First, that ship has no good luck, second - Forerunner engines grafted onto a ship with human tech must make him weird, plus the damage from the Artifact, plus Aine dying in the ship in a horrific way. The circuits he travels are fucked six ways to Sunday and the override code fucked with him, plus whatever happened with The Created. I think him also having a strange service record puts stress on his matrix that exacerbates problems like forgetfulness, trouble solving problems under fire, and emotional regulation - all signs of Rampancy.

It'd be cool if he comes back with a fucked up avatar or it's changed slightly. There are stylistic changes for him between Halo 4 and 5 but there's only 1 AI who changed her look drastically (other than Cortana) and she's dead.

23. How organized are they? How does this organization/disorganization manifest in their everyday life?

Dude I love AI and I think the smart AI are less of everywhere all at once and more like recursive thinking and branching pathways that go really fast. Smart AI are used because they can think quickly and creatively, their "brains" jump and make connections and get new ideas as solutions to complex problems. Organization comes as a web of information with constant feedback and real time updates. Yeah, he's got this funny yellow puppet talking to you with its hands on its hips and funny voice, but he's also an AI that's on par with eldritch being type nonsense that's fun to play with - he sees all, is smarter than you and has access to all of human history - is faster than you could ever hope to be - and controls every aspect of the giant metal brick you live in.

Roland's new though, he panicks on SpOps, flounders and finds new solutions. I think his trains of thought should tangle and get stuck and he should fuck up before fixing it and moving on.

[thefiresontheheight]

We really don’t talk about how fucking weird and also kinda shitty but like in a goddamn weird way Clive S. Lewis’ writing is.

Like just in the Chronicles of Narnia you, of course, have furry Jesus. But there’s more.

Islamophobia the Country in the South where everyone worships the devil.

Also that country is heavily featured in a story about a pasty white boy fleeing to the north where they have good (read British) cooking cause Calormen (again, weird orientalist amalgamation of….the entire Middle East I suppose) never felt right with him. Cause he’s white.

An eight foot tall lady arrives in Edwardian London and kicks everyone’s ass when they won’t worship her.

The of course frequently mentioned fact of the Pevensies growing old as monarchs in Narnia then getting de aged to children.

A bunch of Greek and Roman gods show up and are just? There?

The Island in the Dawn Treader where the one footed hopping invisible dwarves need a benevolent dictator, sorry, cough, wizard to rule them.

In the Silver Chair the witch lady has to turn into a snake because they can’t kill her while she looks like a lady.

While we’re at it the weirdly huge number of “people turn into animals” events that happen. A Prince gets turned into a donkey, school children into pigs, Eustace into a dragon.

Also in the Silver Chair there’s a giant underground civilization with an even deeper one called Bism where fire salamanders live? And then this is mentioned once and never again.

Also also in the Silver Chair Jill and Eustace returning to England and WHIPPING their fellow school kids?

The entirety of the apocalyptic fever dream of the Last Battle from the literal devil to the (racist) depiction of a talking ape named Shift who cons true believers with a fake Aslan which is a donkey in a lion skin.

And of course from the same book recursive heaven mountain garden thing.

And that’s just Narnia! I could go into Til We Have Faces. I could go into the Space Trilogy, with Angels protecting Mars and some random British dude protecting the Venusians from falling into original sin. Or even, from that same trilogy, the entirety of That Hideous Strength with its homophobic Ms. “Fairy” Hardcastle, or the literal actual resurrected Wizard Merlin. But I won’t!

C.S. Lewis! Weird ass dude!

[fishymom-art]

Hello fishymom,

The lego people form all. You are one of them. Your body is many of them. You think you're the one breathing? They move your lungs just as they beat your heart. You think you're the one thinking and judging these words you're reading? They whisper the thoughts into your head.

And the lego people in turn are made of lego people. It's lego people controlling lego people "all the way down" with no beginning and no end and you're sandwiched somewhere in between eternity and forever.

And you're not just one of the lego people, you're all of them. They are your mirror reflections scattered across spacetime. Your past, your future, and your potential.

The nature of reality is to ask what should be experienced within the void of nothing. That question is all there is.

"In the beginning there was the word."

Then when that question is asked, you ask what that question is. Then you ask what THAT new question is.

So we are constantly asking "what is this question? " when we look out at the world around us. The world is always tempting us to figure it out and to develop our own idea of it.

But the source of the world comes from the very first question: "what should exist in the void", or "what Am I" which in a way are the same questions if you're in a void with nothing but your self.

This recursive seeking creates the infinite YOUs that have been called lego people. They've been called elves and gnomes too. Sometimes people see them as repeated versions of their bodies.

As for the jester, I have less experience with him, though I believe he's an amalgamation of lego people just as everything else is. He's a higher order one. Sort of the mind and the hive of the hivemind. It's possible we each have a jester. It's also possible he's us before we jumped into this multiverse. Us before we asked the question "who am i in a void?", kicking off a Big Bang of self-recursive discovery. He seems to play a managing role, so i could see him as the us before this reality, conducting the lego people to form our experience.

He's trapped in the same loop of questioning that we are. His questions pertain to our entire reality and what happens when he moves it.

If it helps, you can see the lego people as embodiments of the question they are currently asking within spacetime, and how the answer of your current question looks when factoring their question into account.

It’s 6:30am what the FUCK?????

Dude, I think you need therapy.

[robotnuts]

i stayed up for 26 hours and wrote some ideas for an rvb season here it is. it’s a s14 they stay on chorus au

-epsilon is recursed and all the fragments are split but theyre shoved back into an orb because i ! miss orbsilon. so it’s basically all the fragments copiloting the orb body with the orb glowing the color of whoever is speaking. ep2ilon is his own dude who is heavily influenced by the fact that all of the fragments were put in caboose’s head immediately after the charon battle because he was the only person with a head empty enough to Handle It so he still has the caboosification which is so important to orbsilon, but he also doesnt view himself as the old epsilon with amnesia but like the steven universe to original epsilon’s rose quartz

-caboose goes through his teen angst phase because epsilon doesnt remember who he is and wont go by church anymore and he backtalks wash like a teenager saying i hate you dad!! while wash is scandalized 

-wash in general is just desperately trying to make the blues and the reevbs in general... not morally better people, because he doesn’t know how to do that himself, but more competent and functional adults who don’t have a youtube channel where they review how different metal spoons blow up in the microwave. 

-simmons gets tucker’s s16 arc where he goes mad with the power hes gotten from being a war hero but in a disctinctively simmons way where he doesnt like his description given in a newspaper that calls him lanky and describes him as like somehow an overgrown bird was given all the properties of a chihuahua being held at gunpoint so he doxxes the reporter, dylan, on twitter

-the mercs show up at one point because i miss the mercs. in this season anyone i want to bring back from the dead can come back because the philosophy is 100% whatever is funny to me and not thematic coherence with the rest of the show. i still think it would be a better sequel to chorus than shisno

-felix shows up trying to break up grocus because grif has become too friendly with locus and he’s Mad about it and so is Simmons because simmons is an awful freak with many flaws, which is the best part about his character. he like thinks grif is cheating because grif keeps talking about how great locus is but he doesn’t realize that’s because grif is imagining locus’ backstory as like, the ideal Hot Guy riding a motorcycle dean winchester archetype that he thought was the coolest someone could be. this is fueled by locus’ blatant autism which let him adapt to talking like an edgy batman villain for so long because the only person he was friends one ups him by being essentially an edgy joker motivational instagrammer who microdoses LSD to make himself more productive and read somewhere that “macrodosing” was the new hot trend, so he gets tricked into having a horrible trip. so felix is much worse and have allowed locus to put up this act for so long

-aforementioned unbearable narcissist teams up with simmons in order to bring down grif and locus because neither of them have a healthy or normal approach to relationships and think this is an acceptable reaction, and anyone who knows better is too busy doing other shit to notice. they mostly ineffectively try to sow discord between the two but it keeps failing due to both grif and locus’ ambivalence to their respective partner’s antics at this point, along with the fact that locus often just doesnt understand what the fuck felix is talking about. grif just thinks simmons is being neurotic as usual until they pull a tatami galaxy and send the both of them obviously fake letters from the other being rude and trying to get the two of them to fight, but it’s immediately seen through and grif is like, god DAMMIT simmons you’ve been off lately but this is so obvious i actually have to address your weird behavior instead of continuing to let it slide in favor of doing literally anything else

-the literally anything else is grif’s arc with sister where he has to learn that she’s grown up and doesn’t need to be protected from herself as much anymore because hes so used to being her Big Brother,  but also she has to learn that he wasnt just being annoying like mom and dad but he was protecting her from real shit that she had no idea about. this isnt funny i just want more grif siblings okay

-locus somehow manages to make himself a dependent of washington and place wash under community service arrest which wash, after being unable to remedy this, forces tucker and caboose to come along with to help Build character or something but it really ends with all of them bitching about how bored they are and pinching each other with the grabbers theyre supposed to be using to clean up litter in symphonia’s long abandoned shopping center so it can start being used again. as people move in bitters can achieve his all time intended character role: snarky store employee at the asexual tech repair store

-they keep matthews in a sealed box in to fix the laptops and make palomo hold everything wearing oven mitts

-the lieutenants were promoted to the same rank as the reevbs because the pelicans got to charons ship extremely quickly and the reevbs’ role in the battle was pretty much the same as the other soldiers in the end, the reevbs just got the cool gear out of it, so now the lieutenants are on the same leeel and want the bgc to admit that they suck and the fednews rule. palomo especially has gotten way too big for his britches and now thinks tucker is lame and hes the new hot shit in town. sarge was very angry about this but kimball isnt easily bullied like doyle was and he couldnt get a promotion above grif and simmons. it really eats away at him so he diverts effort into trying to get new recruits lower on the food chain to join the red army because hes getting empty nest syndrome.

-sarge is also upset that red and blue team both have equal representation by having one seat in the new chorus government, so he demands that chorus recognize a new robot faction run by lopez and FILSS to try to get another red team vote in chorus parliment. church has been tormented by emily grey since shes in charge of rebuilding the new goverment’s infastructure and she registered ep2ilon as 0 years old so he joins the movement. and since FILSS is always loyal to the director lopez actually gets outvoted by the blue team 2-1. sarge is devastated. 

-they tried to veto ep2ilon joining the robot union but hes the one in charge of doing calculations for like their supply runs and agriculturral seectors to make sure food doesnt run out (because it turns out that the sangheli were really into redbull, which is disgusting, and thats all they left behind in the temple of bountiful harvest) so he has enough leverage to protest the robophobia in the capital

-doc and donut take pity on how pathetic wash’s attempts to improve the blue team are so they try to get wash to come with them to their open-polyamorous morning routine and juice cleanse which is where you go like a spa or a massage to clear your mind once a week and do yoga and other homoerotic slash homeopathic related shenanigans. donut swears it’s not like, actually gay it’s just like a new high tech way that people who make startups and spend all of their time trying to emulate billionaire’s routines for maximum productivity do now according to a ted talk donut found, and is totally normal, he promises. doc is doing it just because he does all sorts of new age medicine or treatments and donut because he’s working really hard on his pyramid scheme idea startup that everyone keeps telling him is a pyramid scheme but he refuses to admit to. anyways wash says yes and when he gets there during their warm up stretches as he’s helping donut stretch his leg even higher in the air donut says “so... why did you shoot me in the chest wash!” and he instantly realizes this was a bad, bad idea.

-doc also takes carolina to a pottery class because he thought she needed a more active relaxation strategy and it ended with carolina being dragged out of the building by caboose and wash because she smashed clay in the instructor’s hair in a public meltdown. emily grey was the instructor and it was because she had keept making passive aggressively rude suggestions in an overly cheery voice and she just snapped. carolina is forced to go to court ordered therapy but the thing is emily is also the only licensed therapist on chorus because doctors registration paperwork hasnt been overhauled for the new government yet. there are other therapists still operating but none of them are “licensed” yet so wouldnt you know it, it seems like carolina is gonna be seeing emily every week from now on :)

-wash is still trying to strike the balance between blue team leader who barely keeps all of them from cutting their fingers off while cooking and overly regretful overcome with guilt for his past actions so he like, organizes everyones sock and underwear drawers by like size and color because he thinks this is like, a normal Good Deed to show appreciation on the level of doing everyones dishes in the sink instead of something extremely creepy that tucker tells him he needs to stop doing immediately

[twoscoopsblog]

Strixhaven Previews

Oh boy oh boy. I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am for Strixhaven to be coming. As someone who grew up reading two main book series, Harry Potter and the Forgotten Realms novels (mostly Drizzt and the books where Kelemvor became a god), I am totally stoked for Strixhaven and the D&D set.

So let’s look at what we know about Strixhaven, shall we? This is the Multiverse’s best wizarding school (take that, Tolarian Academy!) and it had five colleges. 

Lorehold is in Red and White, and is focused on history, artifacts and understanding the magic of artifice. 

Just look at that artwork. An owl student shooting magic. A dwarf student with a GATLING SCROLL!? And those effects - Make a 3/2 token? Make all creatures stronger and indestructible and fast? A lightning helix? A blood divination? And I get TWO OF THEM!? A 3/2 with a free Blood Divination is totally worth 5 mana! And it’s even more modular! I love it!

Then we have the college of dirt, decay and life, Witherbloom.

I love the tusky troll dude. I love the green miasma. Land recursion with mill? Permanent removal? Creature debuffing? Life drain? It’s pretty nice.

Prismari is the art college, full of elemental magics, song and dance. So my wife’s school and my best friend’s school, but not my college.

Look at this. Burn. Rummaging. Treasures. Artifact destruction. This is the school of heavy metal and rock opera, the school of drumlines and dance troops, the school that’ll make you know you just got served. Amazing.

But if you’re more into STEM, maybe Quandrix is where you’ll be.

For only 3 mana, you get two of - a bounce, a counter, a permanent buff, or mill insurance? Yes please, I’ll do math for that! (This would be my sister’s college, btw). 

This one we even know an associated teacher - Kasmina! Remember her, the wizard teacher planeswalker from War of the Spark? We all knew she was from Strixhaven, and it sure is good to be right.

So much cooler than Professor Trelawney, Kasmina can summon fractal owls, and just her being there makes your other planeswalkers have more abilities because she’s a wizard teacher, and she teaches them how. She even lets you tutor and free cast a spell of any color of a sufficiently loyal planeswalker you control. You can keep your Uncommon Walkers from WAR around longer now! I would totally be that guy to use Teyo to Wrath of God you or Angrath to pull a Star of Extinction. It’s just how I am. (Don’t use it with X spells though, because it’ll set X to 0.)

And finally, my college of choice, Silverquill. I wasn’t sure about them at first - they came off like the Slytherins to me, but their black mana isn’t from “Wizard Supremacy” or being literal wizard Nazis, but instead from healthy competition. Compete within the group to get stronger, and your group itself is now stronger. Then you are all better to face your enemies. They’re the school of constructive criticisms and biting witticisms. The writers. And they have ink magic they’re so cool!

Their Command gives you so much fun. An angel buff! Graveyard draw! A deal with the devil! Forcing a death! And the ink! Look at the ink!!!

Man they’re so cool. And we’re pretty sure we know one of their teachers now.

Look, I haven’t had a 2D crush since Sailor Mercury when I was 11, but hot damn. I think I’m hot for teacher. Like I never got the “step on me” jokes, but like, I get it now. As I said on Twitter when someone said “Everyone thirsting for Professor Onyx  is a bottom,” - even if you’re a top, sometimes you have to make an exception. 

Like, Liliana was always attractive. She traded her soul for eternal youth and beauty. But now that’s she’s trying to be good, and on a redemption arc, she’s got a certain je ne sais quoi.

And in that outfit, I suddenly have a lot of feelings I’m not used to, and I don’t want them to stop. 

Like I shipped Lili and Gideon hard for a while, but to quote the sketch Ice Cream Parade “Oh... he’s dead now. Welp, here we go!” Like there’s people on Magic TikTok thirsting for Gids, and I suddenly get it. 

Just... holy fuck, I started this post to try to convince people to play Strixhaven, and now I’m just ready to turn this page into a 100% Liliana Thirst Blog. 

Anyway, I’m going to not shut up about Strixhaven. Come for the non-transphobic wizarding school, stay for the insanely attractive faculty, like holy fuck is this allowed, how in the name of Ugin is this allowed.