#notion vs roam

[t3ch-wizard]

something i just realized! (small analysis)

(PROLLY not the first one to figure this out, but here my thoughts goo!)

Soo, we all know about the Turbo flashback we were shown in the first movie. Growing envious and jealous of the spotlight being stolen by that new RoadBlasters rolling in, Turbo goes turbo with the mission to TAKE over the new game, yadda yadda, he fails and skids the HELL outta there. But my big brain noticed something.

1- In comparison to the scene where Ralph and the other villains from Bad-Anon rode the carts from Pac-Man to GCS, the speed Turbo seemingly travelled at is ridiculiously fast!

Considering we see him sitting in his red kart before, this can only mean one thing. Turbo RACED HIS WAY THERE, literally! Even the carts of respective games go faster than the speed he went at, and no normal character such as short stack can run that fast (no, not counting Sonic). Hot shot was desperate for attention that badly.

2- It bugged me how there wasn't the notion of anybody trying to stop Speedy in his tracks. What about the Turbo Twins, didn't they get wind of Turbo's plans and attempt to hinder him? What about the Surge Protector, or ANYONE else in that manner?! Then, moment of clarity hit me.

It was opening hours when the RoadBlasters Incident had occured. This means that AT THE TIME, the Game Central Station was near to empty, spare the Surge Protector roaming around. Now keep in mind the "opening hours" thought, I'll get to that in a bit.

Basically, when Turbo maneuvered his kart shooting out of TurboTime STRAIGHT into RoadBlasters, no one stood in his way and in this short span of time, the Surge Protector wouldn't have been able to block him.

Poor man probably saw something red and white whoosh past his vision and not comprehend what was about to happen. Whoopsie to him I guess.

3- How Turbo escaped honestly had me on a chokehold here. Since the movie showed us the following three scenes after each other directly, I assumed it happened in the same moment RoadBlasters got busted.

But wait, this was Felix explaining to Calhoun/the audience the important chunks of Turbo's story, which means he left out anything that wasn't necessary for us to know! And because two workers (who didn't seem to be employees of Litwak) were rolling out the two cabinets, some time had passed for them to get there, which further then implies that TurboTime and RoadBlasters had to be unplugged sometime later on the same DAY.

What we see in the real world VS. what we see in the game world of an arcade game varies drastically. Although the screen of RoadBlasters was displaying a glitchy killscreen, we don't see what happens to Turbo and the RB racer exactly. Seeing the chaos he had inflicted upon RoadBlasters and the main character of it, Turbo would've abandoned his vehicle behind and scrambled to the exit, realizing there were no means of fulfilling his plan anymore. All that mattered to him was getting to safety under the wire to seek shelter elsewhere. Staying in RoadBlasters would've resulted in him getting unplugged along with the game. Going BACK to TurboTime was a (death sentence) confrontation with the Turbo Twins, escaping to ANY other arcade game would've arisen suspicion both to players AND to game characters. Turbo didn't have that many options.

--

What happened in the meantime on the outside, you may ask? Here's where we tread a bit into theory territory:

Remember that RoadBlasters was a FAIRLY new game that just came into the arcade. Litwak wouldn't have tossed it out as quickly as we'd seen it!

I believe he took the time to get the game's systems checked by a professional, see if it was just a minor memory problem or a tweak to be done on the system and then get it back working. However, due to the fact that Turbo jumbled up the game's code altogether when colliding with the RoadBlaster racer, repair seemed beyond reach after tinkering on RoadBlasters for so long. You can only do so much after hope dies for your new game.

As for TurboTime, I can imagine it this way. The kids who were playing RoadBlasters definitely told Litwak about the odd Turbo sprite dashing across the horizon before RoadBlasters crashed into oblivion. The second arcade cabinet was most likely inspected as well for any "issues" and truth be told, that cocky racer with that golden trophy was just not showing up no matter how many fixes you did.

The Turbo Twins? Oh, they had to endure the consequences. Had to hear Litwak being reality-checked by the technician that for all the popularity TurboTime had garnered over the years, the game had to go into retirement. Merely forced to stand in the black background, well-aware of the fact that they'd go down with TurboTime, without seeing Turbo's face one last time ever AGAIN. Tragedy, I know.

--

Now now, I DID say to keep in mind the opening hours aspect just earlier. Here it comes into fruition!!

4- Now, while we have gotten some explanation of how Turbo stayed in hiding for nearly ten years, it's not really clear how he managed to do that during all this time when video game characters were crowding GCS left and right after the incident.

As established in the movie/in this post, all characters of their respective games normally head to their game portals when the arcade is about to open. No bit was strolling to hit the rounds, you see. Everyone was occupied with their own game.

Though, the RoadBlasters incident was surely not a day anybody would forget anytime soon. Neighboring cabinets would've witnessed the horrors of RB unfolding between their eyes, the fleeting voice lines of "Turbo-tastic!" ringing in their ears a second too long. But even then, even WHEN everybody saw Turbo's deeds, how could somebody stop him? How could ANYONE in that matter step out and do the right thing? What if somebody had noticed a character missing from their title screen too? What if something went wrong?

What (presumably at the time) was Turbo's DEATH was no demise any other character wanted to go through. So, they had to stick to their programming. Act as if they were blissfully unaware of the falls of two beloved games in the arcade. Keep up the facade that somehow, everything was fine.

And so, with nobody knowing that hot shot was on the run, Turbo took the run for it. Dashing past the unaware Surge Protector, staggering left and right, he escaped into the bowels of GCS where nobody would find him. At least, until he came up with a new plan. A SOLID plan. One that would make up for the loss of a failure he took part in.

By the time the Surge Protector had partially pieced together the events at closing hours, it was far too late. The criminal was already gone, no trace left behind. Alas, the term "going Turbo" was coined, the act of game-hopping to a foreign game to your own in order to jeopardize and take control over it.

Once the new and flashy racing game Sugar Rush was plugged in, this gave the hiding ex-racer a chance for a comeback, albeit under a different name. With the arcade about to open, Turbo made his way to the new game portal, determined to get he what he had wanted back all this time..

.

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That is, BY A̸̤̥̓̿͌̾͋͐͠͝N̷̨̪͍̩̼͙̤͉̹͍̥͕̈́̅͛̅͊̂͋̆́̏̈́̊͜͜Y̵̮̘̠̯͍͒̇͒̔́̑̀̚͝ MEANS NECESSARY.

[monstercampus]

What kind of relationship does Priam and Antón have? Antón is a high ranking noble vampire and Priam is a fairly ordinary werewolf. Did they click immediately or did their friendship take some time to develop. What is the general attitude between werewolves and vampires? Would vampires gossip about Antóns roommate. Did Priams pack have any concerns?

I absolutely love your writing and the wonderful world you’ve created. I’m enamored with the lore especially. It’s just so good!!

TY!!! hehe i love writing it just as much <3

The general consensus between vampires and werewolves is that, despite a long history of conflict between the two species, there's only some residual grudges lingering about rather than full-blown hatred. If anything, it's more likely that humans will perpetuate the notion of werewolves vs. vampires from popular idioms to porn categories, but it's a bit out of style to pretend there's a big feud especially when there are so many monster types roaming around nowadays. It's definitely-mostly-considered a "grampa you're getting dementia" kind of conflict rather than anything wholly profound.

Which directly contradicts the relationship Priam and Antón have. They get into it a lot. For as often as they get along they have twice as many instances of arguing or fighting outright, which usually turns into a wrestling match on the living room floor until somebody shouts 'uncle'. It's generally considered somewhat snobbish to judge another monster by their species (with exceptions, of course) so only Antón's more noble, well-bred vampire peers have anything to say about his roommate, thinly veiled by criticisms of his brutishness or lazy nature to cover it up.

On the other hand, the werewolves knew Antón somewhat around the same time Priam met him, because they met on the first day of school--when Priam was trying out for the football team, and accidentally launched the ball right into the back of Antón's head as he walked by. As you can imagine, it made for a rather awkward introduction later when they were introduced to each other as dormmates by the R.A, an icepack held to the vampire's skull and a glare piercing through his new roommate's forehead. Since then they've had a kind of evolving rivalry, where sometimes they're cool and sometimes they get into it like siblings. They're kind of like an old married couple, or at least squabble like they are. In truth they actually like each other a lot and enjoy spending time together, even if their personalities clash more often than not. In fact, up until the human came along, Priam's fellow werewolves often made jokes about Antón being "the ol' ball and chain" just to tease him--but now he's got a new cutie to share with too!

[kharrneth]

Khornate Biology: Hypercarnivory

Though one might imagine Daemons of Khorne to be strictly carnivorous, this would be in error. Insofar as daemonkind aligns with any notion of biology, the Daemons of Khorne would be most accurately described as hypercarnivores: most of their diet is other creatures, but it is supplemented by fruit, fungi, and plant-material. However, it should be noted that most of the material involves blood-- from Bloodfruit to the corpse-flowers that Bloodflies feed upon.

Khornates prefer flesh from creatures and alongside being a dietary requirement, much like battle itself, there is rank and dominance underpining the consumption of blood and flesh from "proper" creatures vs plants or insects. Similar to Chimpanzees, the highest ranking and fiercest Daemons of Khorne in a given blood-pack or blood-host consumes the most meat.

A community of Khornate daemons may keep a communal grove of sorts, a practice that is viewed with a range of attitudes. This grove serves as a reliable source of sustenance, both of blood and battle. Many creatures of Khorne roam the Ragelands and all hunger for blood, meaning these communal blood-gardens ("Goredens") attract all manner of "guests". In many cases, this is the point, as interactions between the grove keepers and intruders of all stripes inevitably ends in battle.

Not all visitors are animals; those blood hosts more given to roaming often target the sedentary grove communities the way raiders might a village in the mortal world. These battles are particularly vicious, as the Grove-Daemons are defending a shared territory from conquerors and the raiders believe they are purging weakness from the land.

Much blood is spilled and the Blood God is pleased indeed.

[tobiasdrake]

I'm of the opinion that the police can never be defunded or abolished by outside sources, because the owners of this country would never ever allow it.

However. I think it would be possible for the police to abolish themselves. How, you may ask? One word: paranoia.

You likened the police to a mafia/gang. And if there's anything an organized crime group hates more than anything, it's squealers. The general notion people have is that cops don't snitch on their own, unless they wanna get fired or dead. But if there was enough evidence planted, enough disinformation online to make them distrust everyone they know within the force both in and out of state...it could escalate to full-on police vs. police wars. And at that point, the owners will start putting the hammer down on them.

I realize this sounds insane, dangerous, and will probably get a lot of people killed (if it's even feasible). So I'm hoping you can poke holes in this, but I don't have any other ideas. How do we defeat the cops?

Societal change over time.

The only reason we can't just abolish all police institutions today is because there isn't political will to do it. We have neither politicians willing to abolish the police nor a voting public whose majority opinion agrees with abolishing the police.

This being a democracy, "Most people don't agree with you" is a problem for any policy you want to get passed. There certainly are workarounds; The fascistic right has gone to great lengths to force-feed unpopular policies to the American public through anti-democratic measures. But we don't have that option. Nor should anyone.

The end goal is to preserve, reinforce, and empower democracy.

Which means that a lot of "leftist" policies (including basic shit like the idea that a democracy is even worth having) have to be installed democratically.

We're never going to be rid of the fascistic murder bands until we've first diminished the attractiveness of fascism. As long as Americans think fascism is neato, they're going to be comfortable with keeping the roaming murder patrols. Right now, they want a white supremacist militia on their streets. They want there to be guns pointed at us because our ideas are scary and foreign.

The only way our ideas are going to stop being scary and foreign is by winning political victories, and sowing ideological seeds through enacting good policies.

Part of which means clawing back from the undemocratic chains that have been placed on us. Abolishing the legislative filibuster to erase the legislative deadlock and allow for Congress to do their jobs. Reclaiming SCOTUS, which at this point can probably only happen through court-packing. And, of course, fighting back against voter suppression.

And, of course, it means nominating candidates for political office that hold progressive ideas and then successfully getting those candidates elected. If we want to see society shift, we need to both be putting people into office who want to shift society and unchaining the locks that would prohibit them from doing so.

And at the activist level, of course, we need to be pushing these ideas on the general public. Shaping the conversation and influencing the way voters experience reality, so that they won't shrink away and glare with contempt at our public figures with contempt for saying things like "Trans rights are human rights."

A big reason that we're in this mess we're in right now is because the right has gotten very good at those things. Shaping voters' minds, nominating candidates who will uphold their beliefs, and empowering those candidates to action while disempowering their enemies (us).

It all comes back to politics. If we want to vanquish the police, if we want to enshrine healthcare as a human right, if we want to protect and uphold our education system, if we want to restore women's reproductive rights, if we want to empower labor unionization, and so many more things...

The only way that can happen is by winning enough political victories in the activist, electoral, and public office spaces that society agrees to change in the directions that we want it to.

[thenixkat]

Alright. Apocalypse Zero OVA Episode 1 I have a hypothesis that I won't find Apocalypse Zero to be as skeevy as I find Dandadan in spite of the everything so lets find out Bring on the titty bear with acid blood! man this artstyle is ugly. We have a bear with rock titties vs a teenage boy wearing nothing but a speedo and some thigh highs parent wearing clothing actually appropriate for the snow: Child dont use brute force againt the acid blood titty bear you will get burned child: Fuck that, who cares how I'll look fucking punches the bear to death and doesnt flinch as he's burned by the acid teh bear;s not actually dead. teh sibling of indeterminate gender with slit pupils for some reason decides to jump in and use energy attacks to elegantly make the titty bear explode into a puddle of gore

teh sibling gets slipped by dad for being too extra with the attack this artstyle is not good. also teh eyes are enormous apparently the demons are here b/c humans have no hope for the future after several years of violent earthquakes caused an apocalypse why is the unmanned armor crying blood? why does the pink glowing armor set have hair and tits? not directly spikes on the bush where are the demons getting their BDSM and leather fetish gear?

that's teh scene that reviwers were acting like was so horribly gorey? really? are folks just not seeing kids squeezed like fucking toothpaste till their intestines spew out of their mouth all that often? Thus far Apocalypse Zero has been really funny

also its the fucking apocalypse… why the fuck are kids still going to school? and where are they getting the bleach to keep their uniforms so white?

why do student ids still mean things. also the Teachers have swords and pull them on a strange teenager approching their school until the MC clarifies that he's… a transfer student? thus fucking rundown ass school building. yet everyone;s clothes are immaculate also why do random characters who arent? demons? look like fuckin goblins?

why are the police and phones still operating? why do you have an attendance policy? just just its wild to do a school setting for the series but everying is apocalypse and there's maneating BDSM demons and titty bears just roaming around would it not be more sensible to do a roaming superhero type thing instead? those are some big ass cockroaches also apparently the school is still operating to try and raise the kids right to change things. ok ya got bottled milk in the apocalypse? with proper lableing? why this girl's name Whoria? its probably not spelled like that but it sounds like that

also our MC is aroace, unbothered, and does not belive in the notion that people are things that can be owned

Take a shot, that's sexual assault. ALso this demon washed the blood and guts off this kid and managed to keep his uniform pearly white b4 strapping him to a bed to have her way with him

hahahah sucked the face off this boy. like that's objectively awful but the execution is hilarious to me also its not framed for titillation unlike certain series with depicting kids being sexually assaulted. which yes is a really low bar but Dandadan didn't fucking clear it

the bush! hahaha also human face nipple pasty! sewn directly into her skin how teh fuck do you recognize yer classmates face after its been turned into a nipple pasty? his face wasnt that distinct

also why are these kids Christian? Is the Japanese Christian population big enough to hold out through the apocalypse to teh point of still making schools and shit. cause like there's a lot of crosses and shit in this bitch

the MC after saving Whoria at the demon kicking him: I have no desire to fight you, pls stop kicking me teh superhero armor is very proper, gives Guyver vibes to me, you'd think it'd be sillier given everything else huh MC ends the fight be fucking tranquilizing the demon she gets up quickly tho and then sproughts bone spikes and spits fire this bitch is horny Bowser isnt she? either that or Godzilla with the vibes. Sadly she doesnt transform into a furry

hahahahah! SO the MC gut punches the demon, presumably killing her and also making her vomit up a pile of human bones and the half digested boy she assaulted earlier who is somehow still alive and moving and saying that he's so cold hahah this? this OVA grossed people out that much? Its so over teh top

no she's not dead yet. And she's apparently having a great time aroace MC @ the demon: Your defination of love is selfish and invasive, it's an act of violation then he kicked the demon's head open and now she's dead did the MC burning teh corpses that the demon puked up…? release their souls???

The MC's sibling who's gender I'm still not certain of even if they've got tits now has joid the side of evil and is a general of teh BDSM demon army death to humanity for persicuting the demons and fucking over the envornment to create a utopia for demons huh the sibling has pet gimps dressed in human skins suits to caress them while they drink their wine on their throne

me: this gore is barely gor---hahahahahaah! …is the flower at the end of teh long flesh covered stalk a penis? i woundt be surprised if its a penis

squirmy sounds ok it wasnt a penis…yet. giant blue leather daddy demon the flower was a tongue and does electric attack now there's a dick and balls and the dick has a face on its head and its a microphone this demon does terrible karaoke into his dick

the demon can shoot lightning from his dick

the MC uses dehydration powder to kill the downed demon to keep it from exploding the MC reveals his identity after Whoria identifies him by voice yeah if my dad gave me powered armor with built in heels, hair, and nipples on teh boobplate I would murder his ass too yeah I'm half through teh OVA and Apocalypse Zero is thus far less skeevy than Dandadan to me. It also has fewer children being sexually assaulted by the halfway mark

[michaelkennytv]

Notion vs Roam vs RemNote vs Obsidian

[pierdutaintimpsispatiu]

THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD - romanian edition

There can be no religion without culture and no culture without religion

(that being said, all cultures around the world have their own myth of creation, pre-christian or any abrahamic religion that has spreaded around the globe)

Our myth speaks of a primordial sea... or, rather a primordial ocean, seeing how big it was. In the darkness of the universe, two beings (twin brothers, most oftenly regarded) watched this sea of nothingness and became inspired.

It's worth to mention these beings names: FÂRTATUL and NEFÂRTATUL (yes, if this second one seems.familiar, it is because after christianity was adopted in the region, it became a nickname for the devil, as it was bad to call the fallen angel by any of his given names: devil or lucifer). But mistake not the paganism, so vague in its lines between good and evil that these notions barely existed as well shaped concepts, with its predecesor. None of the twins is supposed to be seen as purely good or purely evil in romanian mythos.

Fârtatul asked the primordial frog, the first animal he encountered in the vast sea, to swim to its bottom and pluck out some mâl (wet sand). Hence, the land came to be.

But there was just a plain terrain, dry and unlivable. So Fârtatul talked with the primordial hedgehog, the first creature to roam the newly made earth. And it became to walk around, digging with its small paws and claws until water sparked to the surface: rivers, lakes, seas and such on. Where the land creaked under the pressure, valleys formed and the puddle of earth the hedgehog threw behind in its search for water became mountins.

However, the twin brother, Nefârtatul, mumbled about the darkness around (for he kept bumping into things in this new world and couldn't see a thing). Therefore, he made the Sun and the Moon, and so the day and night appeared, lighted more or less by their patron own.

Yet, something still was missing. And both Fârtatul and Nefârtatul tried to fill the gap they felt existed. Each made creatures they soon deemed imperfect. First were the giant CĂPCÂNI (later known in our fairytales as căpcăuni). These were humanoid beings, tall enough to catch their feet into the mountains and fumble to the ground. They had half of a human face and half the one of a dog and they were bad for they were violent and mean.

So the brothers raced again with each other and created the BLAJINI. Cute, sweet, dwarves, as the name enables (blajin in romanian means kind, nice). But they couldn't fetch for themselves and the primordial twins took them into their own realm.

Next came the beings with multiple arms, and even later, the halves/halves (half human, half other animals). Until humans were created.

Legends say both Fârtatul and Nefârtatul created humans at the same time. To be like them in all aspects. Therefore some humans are more like Fârtatul and some, like Nefârtatul (remember, there is no good vs. evil concept here).

<<<<<<<<<<●>>>>>>>>>○<<<<<<<<<●>>>>>>>>>>

more will come soon :)

and also soon i shall find in my mess of a computer and link the sources 😔😪

[germanpostwarmodern]

Berlin’s postwar architecture has often been portrayed as a competition of the systems, capitalism vs. communism, a notion that is hardly debatable but which of course falls short of providing a comprehensive picture of the two Berlins. The Stalinallee and the Hansaviertel surely are examples of the competitive spirit on both sides of the Berlin Wall that have been used to either underscore the progressiveness of the West or the lack thereof in the East. But the opponents gradually closed ranks as documents the present architectural guide: „Baukunst der Nachkriegsmoderne. Architekturführer Berlin 1949-1979“, edited by Adrian von Buttlar, Kerstin Wittmann-Englert & Gabi Dolff-Bonekämper and published by Reimer Verlag in 2013. It contains some 262 buildings, structured along typological chapters which are preluded by concise essays addressing the respective developments in the cities. Although the guide naturally cannot cover all postwar modern buildings it nonetheless provides an almost complete overview of the high points in Berlin East and West, each presented in photos, texts and occasional plans. In so doing the author’s underscore the multifaceted social and individual creative values of Berlin’s postwar architecture. At the same time the differing paradigms regarding town planning and architectural representation fall into place, essential background information for roaming the unified Berlin of today.

„Baukunst der Nachkriegsmoderne“ is an exemplary architectural guide that invites the reader to explore the fascinating architecture of postwar Berlin while also perfectly working as a standalone portrait of it. The only downside: it is out of print…

[regulusfate]

the start of the chapter:

No thrones nor jewels would ever take that, the ingrained instinct in humanity and it’s gasping breaths that struggle forwards with the longing to survive. That is all they were surrounded by, and indistinguishable from any other beast that roamed their land.

His eyes swallowed every sight with some notion of distaste, a sour aftermath clinging to the back of his throat, a gentle misery climbing the walls of his face to settle clenched within his jaw. And the world passed by ten times quicker than when he truly looked.

vs the end of the chapter / how it’s going:

“How odd.” George mumbled, her fingers gently rubbing her back as he came to join her on the doorstep.

“This will be nice won’t it, George?”

“It’ll be the best, my dear.”

She relaxed, eyes closing in a moment of relief, and he squeezed her hand with his free one.

“Lets explore before they find the best place to hide the biscuit tin.”

She laughed, and allowed him to walk her inside, tugging the door shut behind them.

.. I don’t like it ?? or the rest of the 3k words like why are longfics so hard to write omgosh

[cheesybadgers]

I've been sitting with 8x16 these past few days and thinking about seasons 7/8 as a whole and how misdirection/fake-outs, red herrings and bait-and-switch have been recurring themes.

There was the whole of Buck, Bothered and Bewildered where Buck spent the episode desperately trying to get Eddie’s attention only to end up kissing Tommy but really, it was about Eddie the whole time. There was Kim, who appeared to Eddie to be a Shannon doppelgänger but obviously, she was wasn’t actually Shannon. There was the whole Hotshots storyline with the 119, AKA a fictional version of the 118 and a show within a show and Brad pretending to be a real firefighter. There was Eddie saying “I’m straight”, which appears to be leading (eventually anyway, if Tim Minear stops fucking around and causing havoc for 5 minutes) towards him realising that’s not in fact true. There was Buck posing as Freddie Fakeman in order to sublet Eddie’s house. There was Buck denying even the possibility he’s in love with Eddie, when everything else suggests he is in love with him. There was the policewoman who kidnapped Maddie and was a serial killer whilst also giving the appearance of investigating the murders when she was actually trying to set up someone else to take the blame for her crimes. There was Eddie lying to Chris and his parents about still being a firefighter when he was actually an Uber driver. Then there was the Bobby of it all, of course…

I've seen a lot of people say how pointless/overly prominent the plot with the mother and baby was in 8x16 if its only purpose was for Athena to come to terms with her grief and to face up to organising Bobby’s funeral. Which is why I feel like its purpose was more than that and the ‘mother thinks dead child is actually still alive but isn’t’ vs ‘everyone thinks Bobby’s dead but he’s actually alive’ theory is possibly correct. Because Athena wasn't in denial about Bobby's death per se; yes, she was dragging her heels on the funeral arrangements because a funeral would make his death feel more real, but she wasn't going around trying to convince anyone he wasn't actually dead like the mother of the baby was. It wasn't introduced into the narrative at all that she ever doubted he was dead; she was just having difficulty processing her grief and coming to terms with him leaving her to deal with it alone.

So, I think either that whole mother and baby storyline was for the benefit of in denial viewers (which would be extremely fucking cruel and callous when it was the show that actively encouraged people to believe and theorise there was a possible fake-out death in the first place, but admittedly, not out of the question where Tim Minear's pettiness is concerned), or it was foreshadowing and is eventually going to serve as a mirror to Bobby's casket being empty but unlike the baby, he's still alive somewhere in a government science lab (especially in light of Chimney having to chase them to release Bobby's body after two weeks of nothing). That was where I assumed the storyline was going throughout the episode, BUT...I did also think it would be awful pacing to introduce all of that in the same episode in which Bobby is also revealed to still be alive. Like, don't get me wrong, this whole charade has felt pretty damn pointless and contrived in any case, but that would be especially pointless lol.

I'm not trying to defend the writing here, because the execution has been terrible...and tbh it just proves the notion I already believed existed that ideas are not the hard part of writing. Contrary to popular belief, it's extremely easy to have ideas for what you want to do with a story (I constantly have a tonne of them roaming round my brain for my own WIPs), but it's how you convey and connect those ideas in a coherent narrative that's the hard part.

Of course, I could be completely wrong and all the theorising in the world can't necessarily save us from poor writing decisions and we may just have to come to terms with that by the end of season 8, but if you take the bigger picture into account, plus the whole Wrath of Khan parallel and everything that has been going on behind the scenes and in interviews etc., I don't personally see why you would discount the possibility of a fake-out death just because you've been told Bobby is dead, given the show has gone out of its way to misdirect the audience and/or characters in multiple plots across the last two seasons to the point where it's starting to feel a bit one-note that's it's the main storytelling device the writers keep falling back on.

This is obviously not meant with any disrespect to Ravi, but Eddie - an actual army veteran - going against direct orders from a US army Colonel to save his team, given a lot of his PTSD stems from not being able to save his team in Afghanistan, would have absolutely SLAPPED.

[quinnfebrey]

Hi, timeline anon again 🙋🏼‍♀️ I liked your theory about the timeline in the bunker. It’s so interesting to hear other people’s thoughts and headcanons, and I have no one to discuss this masterpiece with, so thank god for Tumblr and you ❤️🙏🏼 😆 I see why you would think Shelby is the first one they talked to, but I’m not sure that fits. The agents comments of the suit, how they should approach her vs the others when he wore a sweather. And that the girls have been there «so long without seeing each other». And agent Young says most of the times he just wanna give them a hug. But I don’t know, anything is possible ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ After rewatching, what I don’t get is how/why the are allowed to walk to their interviews alone!?! I mean, it seems so strickt there, locking in everybody etc. Keep up the good work with tour tin hat, like I said, I LOVE IT ❤️

right now i’m taking what they say about preconceived notions of the girls with a grain of salt just bc we don’t really know how long they’ve been watching them

but i agree i don’t understand how toni was just wandering around at the vending machine? or dot jamming around the halls? maybe the girls that don’t seem suspicious get to roam, and shelby and leah are locked up lol? idk. i’m confused

[fic-for-fic-sake]

The Journalist and the Winter Soldier

Description: You’re a journalist in New York City who is preparing to interview the infamous Winter Soldier, James Barnes. During your interview sessions you find that your relationship with him may go beyond that of journalist and interview subject. Can the two of you keep things platonic or will the lines become blurred along the way? Previous parts can be found here. 

Chapter 4: 

The next morning you took way too much time deciding on an outfit to wear to your follow up interview with Bucky. You couldn’t wear anything too formal, it’s not like your office was on Wall Street or anything, but something too casual could send the wrong message. You were going for a follow up interview after all. 

Eventually you managed to decide on a black dress that came mid-thigh with white flowers on it. You smiled at yourself as you twirled in the mirror, sometimes wearing pants all the time bored you, so you were glad for the upturn in the weather. Just to be safe you threw on a white gray pleather jacket and topped the outfit off with black heeled booties. Perfect, this outfit said ‘I’m here for a follow up interview but also I’m cute if you wanted to notice’. 

Making sure you had all your notes with you as well as a pen and a pad of paper, you got your keys and made your way back to the Avengers Compound upstate. You stopped at a Starbucks drive-thru for a quick coffee and then continued on your way. On your drive you couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. You wondered which version of James Barnes you would get today; the closed off, reserved, media conscious man, or flirty Bucky who made your heart beat just a little faster. 

You showed your ID badge at the gate and as you pulled in you could see Bucky outside waiting for you. Shit. You weren’t prepared for this at all. You tossed back the rest of your coffee, not at all minding the mild scolding to your tongue and back of your throat, as you parked your car. You quickly pulled your purse, which contained all of your interview materials, from the passenger seat before you exited the car. You noticed Bucky approach you and you took the opportunity to quickly smooth down the skirt of your dress, making sure it was presentable after the long drive. 

“Wow, if I knew you were gonna dress up, I woulda changed.” Bucky teased, giving your outfit a quick once over. His roaming eyes over your form made your throat go dry. You shifted nervously under his gaze, shuffling from foot to foot and making the gravel beneath you crunch in response. 

“It’s nothing, just business attire. Besides, you’re not on camera today anyway so what you’re wearing is perfectly fine.” You commented, taking in his current attire. You guessed when he said ‘break in his schedule’ he really meant it. It looked like he had just come from the gym. A black tank top practically clung to his sweaty torso, revealing every place his muscles rose and fell. Black joggers hung loosely from his hips, giving you a small peak of his hip bones. His jet black hair was pulled into a messy bun with some forgotten strands clinging to his face, in short, he looked like an Adonis and you weren’t okay. 

You noticed that when you mentioned there wouldn’t be a camera today he seemed to relax more, uncrossing his arms, one black and gold and the other flesh, from his chest. 

“So, what are we talkin’ about today then?” He asked, leading you towards a clearing across from the parking lot. 

“While my editor and I were going through the footage last night, I realized I didn’t have a sound bite of you talking about the differences in life in the 1940s vs. life now.” You explained, following him to a bench that sat under a blossoming willow tree. The scene made you feel nostalgic for home when you used to sit under a similar weeping willow and read books aloud to your stuffed animals. Your mom and always said you were born a performer, she wasn’t far off. 

“What is it?” Bucky questioned, pulling you from your thoughts. “I lost you there for a minute.” 

“Oh sorry, I had a willow tree just like this when I was a kid. Just made me remember and all.” You replied, sitting down opposite him on the dark wooden bench. You noticed there was a golden placard on the back of the chair ‘Howard Stark, good at inventing, okay at parenting’. It made you smile. 

“I knew him you know.” Bucky commented, noticing where your eyes had landed on the bench. 

“What was he like?” You asked, eyes blown wide in awe. Bucky chuckled lightly at your 

reaction, you guessed he got that question a lot. 

“A little of what you would expect, a lot of what you wouldn’t.” Bucky replied with a faraway look in his eyes. You sensed a story coming so you pulled out your phone and began to record, Bucky didn’t object. “He was arrogant, yes, a cad, even more so, but he was also kind of reserved.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Whenever he was working he would sit in whatever space we provided him with for 

hours. Sometimes he would forget to eat or even sleep. You could always tell when Stark had an idea in his head that he couldn’t shake, it was the only time he ever really shut up.” Bucky recalled with a wistful smile on his face. 

“Sounds like you knew him well.” You remarked, jotting shorthand down in your notebook, blue ink scribbling across the white expanse of the page. 

“Not as well as others, but that wasn’t really my area. I was more of the follow orders type, not really one to give them out.” He said with a shrug. 

“Why not?” 

“It never really made me comfortable. When I was growin’ up I had to look after a few people so it felt nice to not have to do that, even if for a little while.” He pondered. 

“What?” You questioned, noticing how his gaze didn’t fall on anything specific, just kind of staring and thinking. 

“I...uh, I’ve never really thought about that before actually.” He replied bashfully, bringing his right hand up to rub the back of his neck, a slight blush creeping on his cheeks. He was cute when he was flushed, you wondered if you could make it happen again. Damnit, focus, you’re here for the story not for the man. Even if said man was being incredibly charming without so much as lifting a finger. 

You made a split second, maybe stupid decision. You unzipped your booties and brought both of your legs on the bench and sat criss crossed. You made a show of readjusting yourself making Bucky chuckle in bewilderment and then you placed your notebook back in your lap. 

“What are you doing?” He questioned, looking at your new position and then to your booties laying haphazardly in the grass. 

“I’m just getting more comfortable. Interesting story and all.” You answered simply, a slight smile playing at your lips. You looked down at your notebook and remembered your next point, “You said you had to look after a few people when you were growing up, who did you mean?” 

“I was the oldest of four and my dad didn’t hang around much, so I kind of took up the responsibility of looking after my younger siblings.” Bucky started, “and then one day I met Steve, when some punks were trying to take his money. We were fast friends after that. But he was always getting into trouble which means I was always getting him out of trouble.” 

“Captain America getting into trouble? What a scandal.” You gasped, putting your hand over your heart and feigning shock. Bucky laughed, a real, throw your head back need to catch a breath laugh. You held your breath. He looked beautiful when he laughed, like for the slightest of moments the weight of his past actions wasn’t sitting on his shoulders. Like all of the preconceived notions people had of him just faded away and he was free to just be himself. You guessed that was what he must’ve looked like all the time all those years ago. But just as soon as it appeared, it was gone again, much to your displeasure. 

“Steve got into a lot more trouble than people think. He faked multiple enlistment forms for Christ’s sake. But he’s my best pal and I never once hesitated to help him out, super suit or not.” Bucky said, with more conviction behind his words than you think you had ever heard from anyone. “That’s one of the differences from the 40s to now, now Steve can kick enough ass on his own.” 

“I’m sure he still appreciates your help though.” You replied before you had a chance to think about what you were saying. 

“What makes you so sure?” 

“It’s better to go through life with someone, if you can. Friendships, especially like the one you and Steve have, are a rare breed. If I had one like that I’m not sure anything could make me let it go.” You said earnestly, again forgetting yourself. 

A silence followed as Bucky took in your response. He shifted so that he was facing you on the bench, he tucked one of his muscular legs under him and swung his metal arm around the back of the bench, resting it there. You felt his gaze burning into the side of your face so you decided to turn to face him as well, unprepared for how close the two of you were. Not close enough to be indecent but not faraway enough not to be either. 

“Are you normally this open as a journalist?” He questioned, bringing his black and gold metal hand to rest under his chin. 

“Are your normally this open to journalists?” You replied cautiously, but with a hint of teasing in your voice. 

“Touche.” 

You shook your head and rolled your eyes in response. Unsure if his response warranted any other kind of reply. 

“That’s another thing that’s different.” He commented casually, pointing to your expression. 

“What?” 

“How people communicate. Back in the 40′s we were just more upfront about things. There wasn’t all this reading between the lines nonsense.” 

“Well you also had polio.” You rebutted. 

“Okay, point taken.” Bucky said, putting his hands up in mock defeat. After about fifteen more minutes you felt like you finally had enough material. Looking at the notebook in your lap, you gave your notes one more once over before you closed it again. 

“Well, I think I finally have everything I need. Thanks for agreeing to meet me again Bucky.” You announced, placing your shoes back on your feet and standing up. 

“I should be the one thanking you.” He said, as the two of you began the trek back to the parking lot. It was only a short distance which you found yourself suddenly disappointed in, you didn’t want this to end. 

“What for?” You questioned, hiking your purse further on your shoulder. 

“Besides Steve, I hadn’t been that open with anyone for a long while. You’re a real gem, you know that?” 

You could feel a flush work its way across your own face now and you tried your best to hide it from Bucky but to no avail. You could see him grinning from the corner of your eyes. 

“Well, this is me.” You said breathily as you unlocked your car and threw your purse into the passenger seat. Bucky walked with you over to the drivers side and opened the door for you. As you got in he leaned against the top of the door frame, looking down at you with a look in his eyes that you couldn’t quite place. But you knew how it made you feel, you felt like hummingbirds were fluttering around in your chest cavity, begging to break free. You tried to catch your breath, hoping he wouldn’t hear your pulse quicken at his look. 

“When can I expect to see this interview of mine? Sam keeps pestering me about it.” He joked, still looking at you with those piercing blue eyes. You imagined he was looking straight into your soul, into your very being. It was unnerving and comforting at the same time. Seriously, what was it about this man? 

“It’ll be out in about two days but if you want I can send you it when we’re done editing, so probably sometime later today.” You guessed, doing anything to see him smile again. It was worrying the effect he had on you. 

“I’d like that.” He said with his head cocked to the side in mock contemplation, some of his black locks falling into his eye as he did so, making him look more handsome than you thought was humanly possible. God you really needed to get out of here. 

“Well, the sooner I leave the sooner you can see it. Bye Bucky, talk to you later.” You said, closing your door but leaving the window down in case he decided to grace your ears with another response. 

“Bye doll, looking forward to it.” He answered cheekily. Bastard. You pulled out and the moment you got out of the gate blasted your music on high. Anything to overpower the sound of your heart thundering in your chest and the wayward thoughts in your head. 

Taglist: @heatherhollowayst @perrythefrickinplatypus

[twitchesandstitches]

Miscella Vs the Fleet: old wounds

Spinel was something of an outsider to the Fleet, and walking through the rubble that had been a street market only a few hours ago, she felt that she was missing out on a lot of context.

Robots, humanoids, chimeric mash-ups and the periodic holographic manifestation of digitally encoded mind-states sat against the wall, nursing their wounds, wincing as medic-clerics carefully extracted acids specifically designed to counter the most common methods of regeneration against the Fleet. People who had chitinous bodies or alterations had watched their armor melt and then screamed as the acid had bitten at flesh and blone; those with powers centered around manipulating energy had been hit by anti-magic devices that disrupted the delicate flow, causing their bodies to break apart and explode on the spot, surviving only through sheer bloody-mindedness.

Gems weren’t immune. Spinel vaguely recalled agonizing pain before she poofed, and whatever it did had set the delicate balance of mutagenic forces plaguing her into overdrive; even now, the corruption raced through her, her projection slowly warping and turning acidic, spiritual pain sliding inward. And her Gem, mounted between breasts so large they made up a massive chunk of her entire mass, was a mass of jagged mineral, her rosey-red tinting into a dark and horrible shade of purple...

She heard it. The call of, of the thing from beyond the stars. The slow whisper, sliding into the back of her mind, drowned out just barely by the voices of other people.

But there were warm hands, kneading into her projections weak points where she got too rubbery to even move, pumping enough magic to stabilize it. It was a magic like fire, warm and, and kindly.

“Can you move?” Said a deep, rumbling voice that almost all solid baritone.

Spinel nodded, painfully standing up. She looked up into a tall and imposingly massive figure that could have been an ogre, or perhaps a goat, depending on how you looked at it. Perhaps even a nicer variety of demon.

The massive and exceptionally masculine figure sighed in relief; muscles individually larger than Spinel herself shifted beneath shaggy white fur, and a long face crowned by huge horns smiled softly. “That’s good. Please move carefully; I’m not sure how your magic might have been compromised.”

Asgore, she��d heard him called. The King of the Monsters, and a whole lot of other titles that made it sound like he’d seen a lot of extremely nasty things, and it was strangely appealing that he’d taken a bit of a shine to her.

Spinel frowned at the soldiers being led away; they weren’t local. None of them looked particularly modified on a biological or cybernetic level, though their fancy uniforms (very sleek, with a bit of an angular vibe to them) were definitely performance-enhancing exoskeletons. Power armor, she supposed, though not as clanky and ritualistically maintained as the sort you saw in her new group. The soldiers were a mixed group, of all manner of species, but whether it was a primate’s face or an avian turian’s mandibles or a glowy energy monster, they all had the same shut-down look of someone who was just doing a job and considered your presence to be beneath them; small time bullies who used what power they had to humiliate anyone they felt like.

They all had the same logo on them, which looked a bit like an infinity symbol surrounded by a spiral branching off into arrows pointing in multiple directions. “Who ARE those guys?”

“Miscella Incorporated soldiers, I believe,” said Asgore. “They have many private armies, of mercenaries and other such ruffians, but I suspect these are one of the in-house special forces they employ for touchy situations.”

Spinel blinked slowly. It had been a long day, not helped by a war rapidly escalating from a minor argument all at once. As best as she could tell, there HAD been a ship arrivng earlier, apparently to discus some trading rights.

And then there’d been yelling. And some of the Fleet members got way more intense about it than she’s ever seen, and they’d thrown punches after someone called them ‘disgusting mutants’, and then things really got out of hand.

At one point, a two-mile long ship had crashed right onto a city.

“So what the hell happened!?” she asked. “It was just a business thing; why’d they make it personal?”

Asgore sighed, looking very tired. “You should know... I’ve been with this group for a long time. Ever since we were nomads, roaming from world to world and fleeing our many enemies.”

Spinel glanced at him. Now did not seem the time for a history lesson. “Sure. You weren’t really the Fleet yet, right? You and your monsters joined up early on, then I guess Gems started finding you, and lots of other people... but it wasn’t like the way it was today. Things were a lot more fractious, you were always in danger, and the guys who’d form the Cobalt Stinger pirate empire were still with you.”

“Yes. Back then, we hadn’t run into those brutish sorts of the Imperial Commonwealth either. Our main enemy was... well. Miscella Incorporated.”

“...Why?”

“We passed near their worlds, and they took offense to us. You see, we didn’t use any of their currencies, we weren’t interested in buying any of their stuff save supplies or interesting gear, and most of all, we didn’t want to settle down in their lands and submit to their restrictive policies.” Asgore frowned. “Mega corporations, like Miscella, institutes some very harsh restrictions for their people. Depending on how the local branch implements it, they can often be little better than legal slavery. People are legally the property of whatever sub-corporation that has them employed, and they cannot move to other planets, change careers, or gain additional income without approval. Sometimes, they are even forced to have surgery and monitoring devices installed so they cannot think thoughts that Miscella would disapprove of.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yes, that’s what we thought. We told them no. We said, on many ocassions, that our pride wasn’t worth whatever profit they offered. So things got much worse from there; Miscella is a bit of a control freak, as a whole, and since we would not comply, they tried to force us into either compliance, or to wipe us out and indoctrinate us.” He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know if this kind of policy is company-wide, or if we were simply unfortunate enough to be in the crosshairs of a particular branch that hated people who were from social margins... but they killed us, hounded us, chased us across hundreds of worlds. We fought back, and killed lots of them. At times, we were a roaming horde, destroying their towns and claiming the ruins as loot, just to survive. Revenge, and so on. And it wasn’t the Stingers alone that did such a thing, I can tell you.

“So blood for blood, and then both sides wanted revenge for the revenge we’d already taken, and so on. And so forth. It went on for a long time.” He sighed. “And so, now, there is a lot of bad blood.”

“Ain’t you guys ever tried to make peace, or at least force a cease fire?” Spinel asked. “We’re one of the biggest, baddest societies around; a single one of our heroines could clobber a whole army of theirs, I’m thinking.”

“True enough, but force alone is not a terribly attractive notion to all the clans, and given the scale of Miscella’s holdings, such total war would require absolute agreement among all the clans... and you know we argue far too much for that!” Asgore laughed, and then grew serious again. “But, miss Spinel, it’s not just revenge. Even if we didn’t have generations telling us, with bloody stories, not to trust them or give them an inch, our philosophies are wholly incompatible. You know, I think, that we in the Fleet believe that life, absolutely all forms of sapient existence, has the right to be free and become whatever it chooses, and to help all others prosper and live in contentment?”

Spinel nodded. “Yeah. I suppose that’s a reason I’m still here.”

“Indeed. Well, Miscella, I’m sorry to say, largely regards all people as resources. Sometimes... literally. Sometimes simply as markets to tap, or employees to use. But inevitably, they see people as tools and assets, fit only to serve their interests. Almost like a divine right of kings, but based on their own existing wealth and power; they consider themselves to be the rightful rulers of all existence, and all us must fall into line with how they think the world ought to be. They treat deviance from their cosmic agenda - which is an actual thing they have, some sort of flow chart of ultimate heirarchy and organization - as a personal affront. And we are nothing but deviants, you know!”

Spinel laughed. “I know!”

“So, our ideals and views are... too different. We see people and want them to be free. They see resources, and want to bring them to heel. Even if not for our mutual resentment, that would breed other problems. But ultimately, they are our oldest enemies.” He sighed. “And sooner or later, there will be war.”

“...We’d win that one. Right.”

Asgore looked troubled. “That’s the problem, though. I’m sure we’d win. The question is, how can we decisively win a war against such a powerful group, with our honor intact?”

[walkonwalkonwithhopeinyourheart]

[OC] A quick scouting report on our new signing - Takumi Minamino via /r/LiverpoolFC

[OC] A quick scouting report on our new signing - Takumi Minamino

I want to preface by saying that it took me some time to actually find time to write this quick scouting report lol but to also watch several matches because I wanted to put something out that is accurate. Its actually really hard to find videos and statistics of Minamino's because the Austrian Bundesliga actually don't even track advanced stats aside from goals and assists. Of course I'm not an expert or anything so take everything with a grain of salt.

Positional Fit

I guess we should start with just exactly how he will fit with our team. I've seen a quite few questions asking about exactly what position he will play etc.

This season so far, Salzburg has lined up in a 4-4-2 diamond, flat 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, and a 5-3-2. And in each of these lineups, Minamino has lined up as a RM/RW, CM and a traditional number 10 who plays right underneath the striker.

Minamino's versatility is a big plus because looking at the system we play in, he's able to slot in a variety of positions. In our bread and butter, 4-3-3, he can slot in as a CM or in the wing positions. When we switch to a 4-2-3-1 at times during a match, he can slot in as the CAM or RM. In a 4-4-2, he fits perfectly as a RM/RW.

I would like to point out that although technically he never played as a LM/LW, imo I think this is a position he is able to play as well. Salzburg never used him in that position because of Szobalszlai who is a strictly LM so it forced Mina to play more in the centre or right. However, during matches you will see that Minamino really can roam anywhere in Salzburg's system and can do the same for us.

Obviously no one really expects him to be a starter for us and I'm sure thats something he considered and is okay with too. With the sheer amount of matches we're playing this season, combined with our ambitions to win everyone of them - there will be plenty of matches in which he comes on a substitutue and matches where he can start.

Can he play as a false nine?

This is a common question and notion that I see often in this sub, and imo I'm not sure whether he can or cannot. On one hand, he has certain qualities that can help him excel in that role (which I will mention a little later) but I also feel like the false nine role is such a unique position that you cant just put a good midfielder in and expect him to excel. Bobby's hold up play, underrated strength and absurd IQ is really hard to replicate. But I'm not here to act like Ik everything so thats something we'll have to see in the season but I do have my reservations.

Strengths

Home vs Liverpool

Away vs Genk

Away vs Napoli

These are just the three last UCL games he's played in and his respective heatmaps for each. If a player is going to excel on this team, before any technical ability, before any skills or goals; the work-rate, the engine must be there and Minamino has it.

He is quite literally all over the pitch and watching him on film, he runs around like an animal pressing and harrying players. He averages 2.5 interceptions per 90 for Salzburg and tt helps that Salzburg is a team that emphasizes a lot of high pressure and quick counter-attack play which Minamino has been excelling in.

On a technical level, he really is exceptional. His touch, passing, and shooting is incredibly sharp and crisp. What I love about him the most is how tidy in possession he is,he has incredibly quick feet and reflexes, almost like the ball is glued to him. Here's a couple of more to enjoy.

Sure, he's skilled and has tekkers but what makes a skilled player an actually good player is vision and IQ. The ability to see space and openings just a half second before the defense can react and it's one of Minamino's biggest strengths. With the quality of forwards we have, its going to be a joy to watch passes like these Man there's so many more but you guys can look at it yourself on Youtube or something. I must say his half-turns are fucking orgasmic. Reminds me so much of Lallana's half turns, I swear they look identical when performing them.

Minamino's quick touches, great link-up play and clever one-two passing along with his ability to put in an accurate cross now and then is extremely valuable in games when we have to break down a Burnley, for example.

And although I hate using assists and goals as a measure of goal output, its worth mentioning that he has scored or assisted a goal every 115 minutes for Salzburg. What that does show me is how intelligent and involved he is in a team's scoring output.

What is often underlooked is how intelligent his runs are and how underrated his off the ball movement is. Now these runs don't always lead to a goal or assist, they seldom do but it puts the defense in a difficult position and opens up spaces for the likes of Haaland and Hwang Salah and Mane.

Weaknesses

It was quite hard to pinpoint any specific weaknesses in his game to be honest, From watching a lot of Asian football, what I notice in Asian footballers is when it comes to the technical aspect of the game, they're very exceptional.

Of course, you have to question if he can handle the transition to the PL. Playing in a much more physical league with less time on the ball and pose some problems for the 5'8, slight build Minamino. But we've seen similar players with that size excel.

Verdict

7.5 million for a player of his quality is more than a steal. Considering he came at that price and the quality that he will bring to our squad is truly amazing. He will bring the necessary depth to a team that will be hounded with fixtures and more than that he brings quality depth.

I think he'll be a great rotational piece and might even play a bigger role in seasons to come if Lallana/Shaqiri depart the club. As a fan I'm super excited because he's a joy to watch but I'm sure Minamino himself is very excited. Klopp can take his game to the next level as evident by similar players to Minamino such as Kagawa and Lallana.

TL;DR: Minamino good.

Submitted December 13, 2019 at 05:25AM by deadassynwa via reddit https://ift.tt/34mf6Fr

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The magic theatre of High Weirdness

In Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf we visit a mysterious and strange magic theatre, where some pretty weird things happen. Meant for madmen and madwomen only, the price of admission is nothing less than one's mind. In High Weirdness, you are invited to enter another kind of magic theatre. It is a place of magic and madness, heaven and hell, beauty and terror. Luckily, the price of the ticket is not your sanity, but just the price of the book, High Weirdness, the latest literary exploration by Erik Davis.

Erik Davis, PhD

A long-time Boing Boing pal, Erik Davis is an intellectual of the highest caliber: a persuasive and provocative essayist, an erudite and unconventional scholar of religions, a charismatic and engaging speaker, an adventurous-minded tripster and all-around experienced explorer of the edges of our reality. Davis is one of the most admired and refined interpreters of all matters mystical, psychedelic and occult. His decades' long travels in hyper-reality—roaming seamlessly from musical festivals to Burning Man to academia—make him a uniquely qualified cyber-anthropologist, a keen observer of our contemporary and turbulent cross-cultural mazes of techno-mystical realms, fringe subcultures, neo-shamanic practices, pop mythologies, conspiracy theories, and spiritual impulses. For those who arrived late to Erik Davis' extensive body of work, let me single out three important contributions: his classic (and still  relevant) read Techgnosis; his musical hermeneutic homage to the Led Zeppelin IV album; and his podcast, a cornucopia of weekly interviews with artists, intellectuals and all sorts of weirdos, all concerned with the cultures of consciousness.

Consensus Reality vs. High Weirdness

High Weirdness can be seen, in part, as a playful assault on reality, which, after all, is a complicated business. We all go through life, trying to make sense of things, navigating a so-called "consensus reality." Our very notion and understanding of what "reality" is (and, as a consequence, our own experience of it) is dependent and mediated by an existing matrix of institutions and cultural frameworks. These frameworks filter, shape and organize the world through shared and enforced patterns of perception, signification, and conceptual organization. In other words, whatever we ultimately come to believe to be possible, real, legitimate, or reasonable is a function of these structural mediations at play. We are all subject—more than we are generally able to acknowledge—to what our culture has programmed us to believe about the way things are and how the world works. However useful and necessary these structures and frameworks are, they are too limited, flawed, and incomplete to encompass of the whole spectrum of reality. To paraphrase a famous Aldous Huxley piece: every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the consensus reality into which s/he has been born. We are beneficiaries inasmuch it allows us to build a coherent and useful model of reality; we are victims in so far we believe that this reduced awareness and understanding of reality is the only thing there is. The point is: there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. And sometimes, weird shit just happens: the rug is pulled from under our feet, our known terrain and categories won't work anymore, and our familiar consensus reality threatens to crumble to pieces. We are not in Kansas anymore. We are entering the space of high weirdness, which can include intensely bizarre and extraordinary experience, paranormal phenomena, overwhelming synchronicities, extraterrestrials communication and direct encounters with nonhuman entities, mystical seizures, occult effects, and psychedelic experiences.

Whenever faced first-hand, such anomalous experiences are ontologically confusing, potentially disturbing, and unnerving. They deeply shake our very model of reality, our beliefs about the nature of consciousness and the physical cosmos itself. Inherently ambivalent and paradoxical, high weirdness events have a peculiar mix of sacred and profane elements, both alluring and scary, terrifying and blissful, a blessing and a curse.

Trying to dismiss these "perturbations in the reality field" (as Philip K. Dick called them) as mere glitches, or hallucinations, or delusions, or pathological conditions is a shallow oversimplification. The stale rhetoric of rationalism and materialism falls short in providing satisfying answers or sustainable explanations concerning these enigmatic and compelling events.

High weirdness is a kind of incandescent magma running underneath the quiet crust of our ordinary consensus reality: be it by mere accident, or disciplined training, or intentional ingestion of psychoactive compounds, high weirdness can erupt into one's life—potentially everybody's life—with an unannounced and unpredictable degree of power.

Read the rest:

https://boingboing.net/2019/06/28/the-magic-theatre-of-high-weir.html

[adamworu]

i never really was a big fan of anime kaworu cuz i always thought he was made to be a sort of throwaway character that moreso developed shinji’s character than anything- especially after reading the manga and watching the rebuild movies, i felt this particularly so... but my opinion can always be easily changed!! why do you like anime kaworu best; could you explain what you see about his personality to me?? im really really interested! :>

There’s so much I could go on about Anime Kaworu’s character!

I really, absolutely feel that Kaworu isn’t some throwaway character (or anything along the lines of being stale). Kaworu’s character is based on his identity, and his anxieties manifest from that for a pretty good reason. Imagine the feeling of knowing that your action or even your inaction, will alone make you responsible for the absolute annihilation of an entire species (now imagine this at age 15). I think this is where Anime Kaworu’s tragedy comes in. He is in all parts Nagisa Kaworu, Tabris, and the Final Messenger. He is someone rather engrossed into lilin culture but also someone bound to their progenitor, as a child to its mother (yes,a dilemma of Kaworu’s is bound in if it is right to return to Adam). I’m also sort of convinced that with Kaworu’s hesitance during his descent to Terminal Dogma, that he did not want to choose between lilin and angels. I feel that his death in choosing lilin came from him feeling that had to be done if it meant humanity could be unharmed (esp. with Impacts and all).

(There’s also a bit of irony of Kaworu singing Ode to Joy....)

 Some really good ways of finding more about his character is  how the AT Field usage in original Eva source material is both literal + figurative; how one uses an AT Field implies who they are, and therefore why they use it. Kaworu uses his to shut himself off from the rest of the world, considering the idea of choosing lilin or angels is a reasonably paralyzing thought to have. The question is, given with how and why he deploys one of the most powerful AT Fields, can we concur that he deals with problems via self-isolation? I get that idea that this adds more to Kaworu’s irony as a character, because of how open he comes across as. He bottles up and isolates himself with that, so is it possible that he does that with large problems or does he do that with all his problems?

Another example of his character can be found through Free Will vs. Determinism (which I highlighted in Eva’s narrative here and how Kaworu is an example of that). Kaworu being on the Free Will end on that spectrum makes sense when you consider Kaworu is all-too aware of his actions and it greatly bothers him, as I’ve stated before. Ascribing to the notion of free will means that you’d have to be aware of your actions if you want to have any chance at bettering your reality or the reality of others. Free Will goes beyond the idea of being able to make choices; Free Will implies that you are to blame for what you do rather than outside forces.

Kaworu’s self-awareness doesn’t just involve his responsibility of allowing his angel brethren or lilin to roam Earth, but also his abilities. Considering how powerful he is, he’s basically holding back and the most powerful of his abilities (that we see) is shown defensively. Kaworu could have powerful offensive capability (HIS, not through the Evangelion), but since he has qualms on harming humanity, it’s possible we don’t see this (this isn’t exactly about Kaworu’s personality but rather his ability, so I think it’s worth a read!).

Anime Kaworu/Vanillagisa is a fairly ironic and tragic character, and the tragedy is a bit deeper when you take a peak at who he is and how all-too aware he is of that.