#subvariant

[janebdean-blog]

‼️‼️💉🆘BE INFORMED — GET VAXED & MASK UP🆘💉‼️‼️

[0zp1n]

Sometimes I forget I have free will and can change my art style however please. So have Charlie Charming from TLOS and how I imagine he looks as a human. His hair is in a ponytail for context. This was only supposed to be an art study and yes here we are.

[the-void-painter]

What kind of void is your void?

I̸͍͙̯͈̓̾͒́̈́t̷̠̲̪͙̝̰̥͚̻̖̫̦̗̪̎̎̀͐̑̿̋͜ ̵͚̥̖̹̩̒̈́͋̽̿͂́̄͌̅̂̋͘̚͝ì̷̧̢̯̮̹̰͚̩̮̫̯͈͇̊͆s̷̢͙͎̪̪̠̥̓͌ ̵̤̱̓t̵̡̧̞̲̩̅̀͆̏͑͊̓̍̐̽̄̚͘̕͝ḩ̶̙̏̇̉̈e̴̡̢̼̙̭̻̣̫̗͖̗͔̾͒͆̓̀̀̇͐̾̕̚̕̚ ̶̛̛̳̞͚͚̫̟̞̟̦͓̜̥̊͗̃̏̏̔̔̌͝͝͝͝á̴̧̡̻̺͖̭̜̬̃̚̕ͅl̷̝̳̣̲̬̻̼̲̹̫͂̚͝l̶̨͚̬̞̼̈̋̕ ̷̥̗͛̐͜ȩ̵̳͎̫͖͖̯̀̈͌̅̐̎̾̓̐̈́͂̒̊͜͠͝ͅn̸̹̘͔̱͍͉̩̼̠̪̙̎͋̒̎͐̔̽̄͆̚̚͜c̸͓̜̲͔̥̗̜͚̪̯̿̾̈̒̋̓̕ơ̶̗̎̄̉͂̿̕͜m̶̧̢̰̭̘̫͖̮̹͓̫͓̘͕͋̆͜͝p̴̧̘̺͍̗̳̲͖̀̓̆̒̐̀̓̿̃͐̈́́͘͘͠à̵̳̥̗s̶̱͖̳̯̲̟̟̈͘͜͠ͅs̶̨̻͔̯̪̱͍̘̖̼̬͉̰̞̅i̵̖͌̄̍̐͒̉͑͐̓̿̕͘n̸̛̗͉̘̻͔̭̬̮̪͍͎̺͇̉̐̈́̋̈̏̈́̅̋͑͠͝͝g̴̢͓̮̭͓͗̋̑͐͗́̇̕͝͠͝͠ ̷̳̥͈̜̜̞͍͖̭̣͋͊͆̀̋̕̕v̸̡̜̠̀ơ̵̱̫̞̝̟̦̄̓̈́̊í̷̧̩̺̘̟̼̳͚͐͐̈́̒͗̉̊͠͝d̵̥̬̯̬͉̙͎͔̻͍͖͂̀̑͊́͋̆͛̒̓̌̾̋̈́͝ ̵̛͈̩̟̠̦̥̩̄͗͐̒̄̔͂͑̉͝w̴̅͂̎̊̂̌͂͘͜͝h̵̛̛̻̥̻͍͎̽̋̈̈́̿̀͋̚̕i̵̙̲̦̣͈̿̌̋̈́͒̔̎̉͜c̷̜̳͈̮̮͓̘͎̘̬̊̓̓̈́́̕ȟ̴̟̬̻̖̞͔̩̝̙̣̟̅̊͆́͊̈́͂̄̋̋̄ ̷̮̪̝̱͍̩̲̮̣̜̯̻́̋̎̏̇͘f̷͇̳̤̣͍̖̣͕̼̻̺̮͋̆̅̇̀̏ͅe̸̡̛̥̩̹̖̠̥̞̝̞̠̜̗̓͑͆͛̈́̊̅ę̶̢̛̝̠͎̞̼͔̎̈̾͂̋̉͗̕̚̚͘͜d̴͉̥͍̻͚̩̟̥̈́͌̒̔̋̄̓̈́͆́̃̒͝͝ş̷̙̩͚̜̹̟͔̩͈͍̈ ̶̩̕i̵̥̞̋̍̈̾̐͑̈͂́́͘n̵̡̡͖̳͙͍̥̻̙̬̱͈̚t̶̜̫̼̄̈̐̓̕o̵͈͆̈́̀̍͆̿́͛͒͋̚̕̕͝ ̶͍̗̤̺̏̄̊̄̌̉ä̶̦͎̪̟͓̜̤̲͈͍̆̊̽̀͛̊͌̈́̒̾͂͗̿͜͝l̶̨̝̪͖̰̱̠̜̲̫͎̹͊͂̓̇̓̑̇͌̕͝ͅl̵̡̻̟̇͑̎͐̒̐̆̀́̕͝͠ͅ ̷̡̛̠͈͈̠͍͇̻͔̍̄̒̑͊̾̂͐̍͗͑͜ó̴̧͖͚̳͚̜͎̰̥̺̲̪̄͐̽t̴̡̨̛̙̼͍̦̫͍͔̭̳̮̺͔̣͒̏̾͋̚ẖ̵̩̦͆͗̀̒̃ȩ̵͍͓͓̘̪̯́̊̅̅̽̕̕͜r̴̼̈́̐́̕ ̸̨̛̜̟̤͉̗͚̦̪̪̜͗͑͑̈́̑̆̔̈́͗̈́̕͜͝͝s̵̮͓̎̅͒̈́̀̕͝͝u̷͓͐b̴̧͎̥̩͎̣̗̹͕̲̼͍̹̳̋͛͆ͅv̷̗̬̫̗̳͕̙͕͔̠͇̥̎̀͝ą̶͇̞͚̜̦̮̮̥̬̭̎͋͗̔̋ͅr̴̛̛̄̇̓̓̀͑͠��̧̻͔̜͚̮͔͓͎̺̂̚i̸͍͚̗̘̿́̓̎̽̚͜a̷̮̘̝̐̉̂̎̋̐̄̏̉̇͌̒̃͠͝ǹ̵̨̡̳͕̝̞͚͕̲̼̮͕̭̠̎̏t̴̡̘͇̱̫̘̬͗́s̶͔̤̩̦̠̔ ̴̮̜͉͍̩͚̖̒̀̎̇̀̋̉͑̉̈́̓ͅy̸̢̗̱̤͉̬̼̱̠͓̜̔̔̿̐͊́͛͛̒̕͝͝ǫ̵̰̞̯͎̯̮̮͙͚͕͇͓̤̉͂̌̍̉ȕ̶̺͖͑̑͛̀͑̌͊̃ ̶͚̱͔͈́̏̾́̑̊̊̃̕͘͝m̶̢̨̛̫̹͍͖̠̋̈̔̄͛̿͘ï̶̢͓̬̤͉̲̬̜̟̼ͅḡ̶̨͇͉͈̮̜̘̼̝͝h̴̡̧̨͕͓̳͓͔̣̜̭̻̘͓̒̉͆̓̔̾͐t̶̖͍̉̊ ̶̨̨̧̖̟͈̥͍̮̮̰̎̂̋̽͛̌̍̒͘͘è̴̛̬͖̙̦͙̙̈̇̌̓̑͝n̷̛̥̣͕̦̘͕͖͓̹̠̅̄̂̾̀̍̌͌͘̚͠͠c̴̤͙͙̪̑̉̀̆̈̒̈́̑̈́̚͝ͅỡ̵̧̝̼̜̘̥͉̑̆͌̄̓̀͌͝͝ù̵̡͉̜͈̠̟̏̈́͆͗͑͊͝ņ̵̨̢͈͙̣̼̬͕̾̌̆̎̇̐̃͊̏̚͜͝t̵̙̟̬̜̻̠͛́͆̊̂͒̅̄̂̇̏̕͝͝ę̷̧̲͚̤̩̲̹̜̙̠̺͍͔̓ŗ̸̧̱̤̫̬̞̘̜̻͚̬͙̖̿́͂̅̈̄̄͝

[gothmods]

I dont think dressing goth but not listening to the music inherently makes you a poser but i do think if you've never made any real attempt at exploring the goth music scene or its history or even adjacent music scenes then that is just kinda sad and very boring of you

[rightnewshindi]

कोरोना वायरस JN.1: भारत और विश्व में 2025 में फिर बढ़े मामले, जानें इस वैरिएंट के बारे पूरी डिटेल #News #RightNews #HindiNews

[exampurnaukariadda]

COVID-19: India Logs 441 Fresh Infections As Active Cases See Dip

The Union Health Ministry confirmed on Saturday that 441 new COVID-19 infections have been reported in India, while the number of active cases has dropped to 3,238. The ministry’s statistics, updated at 8 am, shows that no deaths were reported in a 24-hour period. The number of daily cases was in double digits till December 5. However, with the arrival of a new COVID-19 variety, JN.1, and the…

[xtruss]

A detail view of a face mask on September 24, 2021, in Kohler, Wisconsin. Donald Trump and conservatives across social media are heightening awareness to potential mask mandates due to new cases stemming from coronavirus variants. Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

United States: Mask Mandate Comeback Sparks 'We Will Not Comply' Movement

— By Nick Mordowanec | August 31, 2023

will not comply' movement is slowly formulating across social media, spurred by Donald Trump's renewed focus on mask mandates and COVID-affiliated lockdowns that he initiated at the pandemic's inception.

Trump, in a video posted Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter, vowed to reject any "fearmongering" of new coronavirus variants and if elected president pledged to cut federal funding for entities like schools and airlines that follow such protocols.

Trump was the individual who set the original mandates and lockdowns in motion, however, when coronavirus cases escalated exponentially starting in March 2020. At the time, he urged individuals to avoid bars, restaurants and other areas where 10 or more people were gathered in the hope that the virus would dissipate by that summer.

"'Do not comply' means your [sic] not going to go to work if your employer requires a mask as part of the 'mandate' not law; your [sic] not going to wear one at the Dr, Dentist, restaurant or stores," wrote one Facebook user. "Imagine if everyone did not comply how that would hurt our government or economy.

"If every American did not go to work or buy anything at all for one or two days things would get real. We are all slaves to our Government until we stop conforming to the demands and dollar."

New coronavirus variants now emerging with case spikes in certain parts of the United States include EG.5 and BA.2.86. Major companies like Pfizer and Moderna who were highly involved in the swift rollout of vaccines at the height of the pandemic are scheduled to release a new vaccine in mid-September to combat the omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, pending approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A CDC spokesperson told Newsweek on Thursday via email that the center's advice for individual and community actions around COVID-19 is tied to hospital admission levels, which are currently low for more than 97 percent of the country.

"CDC continues to recommend that all people are up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines and take steps to themselves and others," the spokesperson said. "Anyone may choose to wear a mask at any time."

Time may tell whether the discussion around mandates and lockdowns is alarmist considering that very few places in the country have COVID-related measures currently in place.

One, for example, is Morris Brown College, a small Atlanta-based historically Black college, which told students to adhere to mask-wearing for a two-week period due to an influx of COVID-related cases.

"Dear Atlanta College, Regarding your precautionary mask mandate... I have a precautionary Foot I'd like to shove up you're a**!" wrote comedian and former Saturday Night Live actor Rob Schneider on X, in response to the Morris Brown mandate. "But don't worry, it's just for the next 14 days! For your own protection! Ps. Students WAKE UP, SHEEPLE! SAY NO!"

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin released a video on X of her literally shaking her head when confronted with hypothetical mandates, even burning some masks outdoors.

Libs of Tik Tok, which has 2.4 million followers on X, is encouraging individuals to ignore all mandates and pledges to support impacted businesses—and even pay any fines for noncompliance.

One X user posted that she would ignore mandates instituted by Trump, President Joe Biden or anyone else.

"I won't mask again," the user wrote. "I don't care what Trump or Fauci or Birx or Biden or any other governmental agency try and push again. I won't deal with the anxiety mask wearing brings me again. Not going to cover my daughter's beautiful face or force her to deal with the frequent painful breakouts again. Nope. For my child, I say, never again."

[ricisidro]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jun Isidro (@rcisidro)

#COVID19 #Omicronsubvariant #Arcturus is the most predominant variant circulating in the #Philippines at 37%.

It's more transmissible but poses a low risk to infected people, according to the #DOH’s risk assessment.

The #WHO elevated #XBB116 as a variant of interest in April.

[visenyaism]

What are your feelings about Maekar Targaryen? He gives me Stannis vibes personality wise - stiff, not charming, stern, and traumatized by an incident in their youth (killing Baelor)

So Maekar is to me definitely a product of GRRM running his asoiaf characters greatest hits compilation while writing Dunk and Egg. Like the main character is Brienne who spends the middle book with Girl Jaime, we have Renly II Blackfyre, Egg reads as Bald Arya most of the time to me, and Maekar IS Stannis Targaryen.

He is so bitter and tortured and miserable from being overlooked as a younger brother and then the second he isn’t everything goes to shit. I like that unlike Stannis. Maekar is under no delusion that he is special. He seems fully aware that he ruins everything he touches and just withdraws himself from society at summer hall mired in grief and paranoid about Bloodraven as a result. The ease with which he was like I have given all of myself to parent my first two sons and I have failed them utterly so I’m going to let a random 16-year-old from flea bottom who I met today and I murdered my brother over take custody of my last one is CRAZY. I wish he remembered that he had daughters.

What’s really juicy to me is the fact that when he does get the throne, despite hating and not trusting Bloodraven, he does keep him on his hand of the king and let him run the realm some more. I know they had something crazy going on. Also based on all of his children, and also his general demeanor I do think Maekar and his brothers might have been the inflection point for Targaryen Dragon Madness (legit mental illness subvariant)

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Pandora Dewan

Levels of the virus that causes COVID-19 remain high across the U.S. despite recent decreases in positive case reports across the country. However, viral activity varies significantly across different states, new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows.

As of September 21, the overall viral activity level in wastewater across the country has been demoted from "very high" to just "high," although "very high" levels are still being detected in 13 states. These are particularly concentrated in the Midwest. Twenty-one states now exhibit "high" levels of wastewater activity, and nine are classed as "moderate."

Meanwhile, "low" levels have been detected in six states, with "minimal" levels, the lowest classification, seen in New York.

After a surge in COVID-19 cases this summer, infection rates seem to be on the decline. Positive tests now account for 11.6 percent of all COVID tests (excluding at-home testing) in the U.S., down 1.8 percent from the previous week. Coronavirus levels do remain high in certain states, especially those in the Central U.S.

The map below shows which states have seen the highest detections in wastewater.

(Follow link for interactive map)

Viral levels in wastewater are a helpful indicator of disease prevalence within a population.

Recent spikes in COVID-19 cases have been largely driven by a new class of subvariants nicknamed FLiRT after the position of the mutations on the virus' spike proteins, the projections that allow them to enter our cells.

These proteins are also used as targets by immune systems and vaccinations, so changes in their structure can allow the virus to bypass the body's defenses more easily. However, existing vaccines are likely to provide at least some form of protection against more severe symptoms and long COVID.

As of September 28, the now dominant subvariant, KP.3.1.1, accounted for more than 59 percent of all U.S. COVID-19 cases over the previous two weeks, according to the CDC, with the FLiRT variants accounting for more than 80 percent of cases in total.

However, while the U.S. has seen a steady rise in infections over the summer, hospitalizations and deaths have remained relatively low. It appears that the new FLiRT variants, while more infectious, do not generally cause such severe symptoms.

The symptoms include the following, according to the CDC:

Fever or chills Cough Shortness of breath Fatigue Muscle or body aches Headache Loss of taste or smell Sore throat Runny nose Nausea or vomiting Diarrhea

More vulnerable individuals may still be at risk of severe illness, so it is important to self-isolate if you receive a positive COVID test.

[mariacallous]

Updated vaccines against Covid-19 are coming, just as hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus are steadily ticking up again.

Today, the US Food and Drug Administration authorized new mRNA booster shots from Moderna and Pfizer, and a panel of outside experts that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to recommend the shots to everyone in the United States ages 6 months and older. Once Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Mandy Cohen signs off on the recommendations and the vaccines are shipped, people can start getting the boosters.

The recommendation is projected to prevent about 400,000 hospitalizations and 40,000 deaths over the next two years, according to data presented at the meeting by CDC epidemiologist Megan Wallace.

This year’s mRNA vaccines are different from the 2022 booster in a key way. Last year’s shot was a bivalent vaccine, meaning it covered two variants: the original one that emerged in China in 2019, plus the Omicron subvariant BA.5, which was circulating during much of 2022. This fall’s booster drops the original variant, which is no longer circulating and is unlikely to return. It targets just the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which was dominant throughout much of 2023.

Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines work by introducing a tiny piece of genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA, that carries instructions for making SARS-CoV-2’s characteristic spike protein. Once it is injected, cells in the body use those instructions to temporarily make the spike protein. The immune system recognizes the protein as foreign and generates antibodies against it. Those antibodies stick around so that if they encounter that foreign invader again, they will mount a response against it.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the virus has acquired new mutations in its spike protein and elsewhere. These mutations result in new variants and subvariants that diverge from the original virus. When enough mutations accumulate, these new versions can more easily evade the antibodies created by previous vaccine doses or infections.

The constantly evolving nature of the virus is the reason health regulators decided last year to update the original mRNA vaccines, which were designed against the version of the virus that first appeared in 2019. This year, once again, the virus has changed enough to warrant an updated booster.

In June, an advisory committee to the FDA recommended that this fall’s booster be a monovalent vaccine—targeting only the then-dominant XBB.1.5 subvariant.

At that meeting, committee members reviewed evidence suggesting that the inclusion of the original variant may hamper the booster’s effectiveness against newer offshoots. “The previous bivalent vaccine contained the ancestral spike and thus skewed immune responses to the old spike,” says David Ho, a professor of microbiology at Columbia University whose research, which is not yet peer-reviewed, was among the evidence the FDA panel reviewed. “This is what we call immunological imprinting, and it results in lack of immune responses to the new spike.” He thinks taking out the old variant should optimize the immune response.

But over the past few months, even newer Omicron offshoots have arrived. Currently, EG.5.1, or Eris, is the dominant one in the United States, United Kingdom, and China. Meanwhile, a variant called BA.2.86, or Pirola, has been detected in several countries. Pirola has raised alarm bells because it has more than 30 new mutations compared to XBB.1.5.

Even though the new boosters were formulated against XBB.1.5, they’re still expected to provide protection against these new variants. “The reason is, while antibodies are important in protection against mild disease, the critical part of the immune response that’s important for protecting against severe disease is T cells,” says Paul Offit, a professor of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania and member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee.

These cells are a different part of the immune response. Unlike antibodies, which neutralize a pathogen by preventing it from infecting cells, T cells work by eliminating the cells that have already been invaded and boosting creation of more antibodies. Both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccines produce long-lasting T cells in addition to antibodies.

It’s why, Offit says, when the Omicron wave hit in late 2021 and peaked in January 2022, the US didn’t see a dramatic increase in hospitalizations and deaths even as cases rose significantly: People’s T cells kicked into gear, even when their antibodies didn’t recognize the Omicron variant.

“In some ways,” says Offit, when it comes to vaccine booster development, “it almost doesn’t matter what we pick to target” because the coronavirus has yet to evolve away from T cell recognition. “Everything works.”

Scientists think T cells are able to protect against severe Covid because they’re recognizing parts of the virus that have remained unchanged throughout the pandemic. “I suspect that as we continue to vaccinate, there are some conserved regions [of the virus],” says Jacqueline Miller, Moderna’s head of infectious diseases. “So even with the accumulation of mutations, we’re still building on previous immunity.”

People who have hybrid immunity—that is, have had a Covid infection and have also been vaccinated—seem to have the best immune responses to new variants, she says, which suggests that previous exposure shapes and improves immune responses to new variants. Preliminary studies show that antibodies generated by previous infections and vaccinations should be capable of neutralizing Pirola.

Earlier this month, Moderna issued a press release saying that clinical trial data showed that its updated booster generated a strong immune response against Pirola, as well as the more prevalent Eris variant.

In a statement to WIRED, Pfizer spokesperson Jerica Pitts said the company continues to closely monitor emerging variants and conduct tests of its updated monovalent booster against them. Data presented at Tuesday’s CDC meeting showed that Pfizer-BioNTech’s updated booster elicited a strong neutralizing antibody response against both Eris and Pirola.

The FDA expects that Covid-19 vaccines will continue to be updated on an annual basis, unless a completely new variant emerges that requires a different approach. “We will always be a little behind the virus,” says Ho. “In this instance, we won’t suffer too much, but that might not be the case going forward. Surveillance is imperative.”

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

What are your theories about Skully? I have seen many say that he is dead, others say that he has been trapped by the book for a long time. And recently I saw that they said he is the narrator of the book. Personally I think he's trapped but I can't say for how long yet, but it's strange that Grim found the book in the middle of the street.

I’ll be straight with ya, chief 😶 I haven’t been thinking about Skully theories beyond the ones I’ve seen while scrolling socials. I’d like to wait a little more to see how the story plays out and see if we can glean any more suspicious details from him… Or maybe my brain’s still too scrambled from the high of pulling L*ona on my first 10-pull and it isn’t working properly, who knows—

I think Grim finding the book in the middle of the street is just a convenient plot point to get the story rolling? Sort of like how for the Stitch event everyone was conveniently gathered in the library to look for books. The students for this event were looking around at a used book sale (and Skully even reports being present at the same used book sale prior to being sucked into the book himself), so it was probably part of that. They might explain it later, but I don’t know if anyone intentionally planted it there. Again, it was probably a narrative shortcut.

Since I wouldn’t want to just reply to this ask with that half-baked and boring answer, here is a summary of the prominent theories mentioned in the ask and the points from part 1 that support it. After the key pieces of evidence are introduced, I will give my thoughts and point out some questions I feel still need to be answered in later parts of the event. As they are now, I don’t think any of these theories stand strongly on their own without that missing information being filled in to complete the narrative.

“Skully has been trapped in the book for a long time” theory:

This theory posits that Skully has been trapped in the book for far longer than the NRC boys have. In fact, he’s from the very distant past.

This theory assumes he entered the book intentionally or by accident but stayed because he’s such a Halloween otaku.

We see the NRC students getting sucked into the book from modern day Twisted Wonderland… but we have no guarantee of when Skully was sucked in.

Skully speaks in a very formal way, sometimes even moreso than Jade (I won’t get into the specifics here, but an example would be that he uses honorifics for everyone, even those his own age). He also uses the suspiciously archaic form of I (wagahai), which you rarely see in modern Japan.

Weirdly enough, Skully knows who Jack Skellington is (and Jack is known in the village where he claims to come from), but no one else in Twisted Wonderland does. This could imply that Skully is SO old that Jack Skellington was completely forgotten by history.

Skully comes off as a loner and isn’t comfortable talking about his school life. Under this theory, such behavior could be read as concealing secrets about his past and true origins.

I think the most damning evidence people point to for this theory is that even though Skully knows what magic is, he doesn’t seem to know what a magical pen is, and he doesn’t own one either. From Lilia’s School Uniform vignette, we know that magical pens had different forms over the years based on changing trends, so maybe Skully is used to magestones being different in design or not using magestones at all.

He doesn’t know who THE Malleus Draconia is, which is an oddity.

Variants of this theory sometimes place Skully as an old NRC or RSA student; if Skully is placed in NRC, a further subvariant of the theory assumes he was sorted into Ramshackle before it fell in disrepair.

“Skully is dead” theory:

Similar to the first theory (key carryover being that Skully is from the past), but assumes Skully is dead, either from being killed by something in the book or his spirit lingering in the book somehow after death in the real world due to extreme fanboying over Halloween.

His spirit may feel unfulfilled or have regrets (which is how a ghost forms i Twisted Wonderland), and so remains as a ghost that becomes most tangible on Halloween die to heightened magical energy. The latter piece of lore first stated the first Halloween event, but Malleus suspiciously reminds the audience that Halloween is “the one day a year when ghosts from the other side visit the world of the living” this event.

Some phrases he uses are… odd. For example, he uses “moshi” as a greeting instead of “moshimoshi” (which is much more common). The use of the former is connected to a superstition about ghosts who may spirit you away if you respond to someone calling out a single “moshi”.

He gets excited when the NRC students mention they know Halloween. This detail could be attributed to Skully being a Halloween otaku, but some have suggested that maybe he got excited because he’s from an era in which Halloween has yet to exist, hence his surprise when others already claim to know it.

“Skully is the book’s narrator” theory:

Exactly what the title of the theory says.

I think this one largely comes in part from the opening scene where Skully is in a black void and seems to be speaking to someone as if beginning a story about Halloween.

Him generally being a fan boy about Halloween and the founder of it can also ready like a creator that’s WAY too much into his own creations. He also has kind of the chunibyo energy for this.

If Skully is the narrator, then it makes sense why his promotional artwork shows him by default in the sketchy storybook style + Nightmare Suit (provided by the book). He IS the book, so this would be his “default” look.

A variant of this theory incorporates the previous two. Basically, it assumes Skully became the narrator after being sucked in a long time ago and/or dying and his spirit being infused into the book.

I think these theories make the most sense if like… “stacked” or combined with one another. However, they still leave a lot of questions unanswered, especially if we only consider the first (and what I believe to be the most popular) theory. If Skully has apparently been trapped in the book for much, muuuuuch longer than the NRC students have (again, assuming him being dead is not true), it raises various issues. For example:

… What was he doing this whole time while trapped in the book??? Did he just wander the woods?? It sounds like he never visited Halloween Town and potentially meet his lifelong idols UNTIL the NRC students arrived. He never opened any of the holiday doors even though they’re the one “different” thing in the woods? So Skully was literally being the forest boogeyman for generations and generations???

How does time and aging work in the book versus irl? Because like… why is Skully still so young looking even though he’s supposedly trapped in the book for hundreds of years or even longer than that?

If he were from that long ago, his vocabulary and attitudes would be way more different than what we see right now. For example, there was definitely prejudice towards magic in the past, as well as the usage of derogatory terms like “witch” and “wizard”, yet Skully doesn’t speak like this or express any behaviors to indicate he is used to being scorned for his magic.

Almost 700-year old Lilia clearly remembers magical pen designs over the years as well as the discrimination mages faced. This implies Skully would not only have to be 700+ years old, but even significantly OLDER than that, old enough to the point where literally no one recalls any information from that era. This is hard to imagine given Twisted Wonderland’s modern capabilities (for research), its reverence for historical figures, and… oh yeah, the race that lives for literally hundreds of years at a time that can probably recall those Jack Skellington stories. The only reason I can think of for why Jack was censored and forgotten is… simply not passing down the story through history, similar to how Briar Valley never passed down the stories of what happened to Maleanor, even in history books. This still means a few generations of ALL fae agreeing to not share what is ultimately a harmless story about the founding of Halloween. Why though?? It’s nowhere near as serious as what happened to a prominent political leader.

If Skully was trapped in the book for so long, how does he know about Foothill Town? He specifically mentions it as well as the used book fair going on there (which is how the NRC boys got sucked into the book in the first place). Foothill Town and the concept of used book fairs couldn’t have existed the thousands of years ago as the timing of the theory seems to suggest. Unless he somehow knew about what’s going on outside of the book from within it? But nothing indicates that.

RSA students don’t use magical pens for combat, they are shown to use swords. Likeswise, we see other mages using non-magical pens to attack, like staves. Maybe Skully is just from a country or school that doesn’t use magical pens to channel magic and instead uses another conduit.

I don’t think we should necessarily default to NRC or RSA for Skully’s school. There are many smaller arcane academies out there, such as the unnamed one Vargas went to. It’s possible that Skully attends one of those other schools.

There are also obvious points against the other theories. For the “he’s dead” theories: ghosts supposedly cannot handle physical objects, so how did Skully handle the book, especially outside of Halloween and magic school grounds? Idia also uses archaic terms (something the characters also point out), so it could be an otaku thing rather than indicating Skully’s age. For “he’s the book’s narrator” theory: while the Nightmare film has a narrator, book narrators have not yet been established as “a thing” in this type of event. Furthermore, how is Skully, a resident of the book, able to know what’s going on in the outside world?? The Halloween Town residents are able to glimpse into the human world using a pool of water in the center of their community, but it sounds like Skully has never been to Halloween Town before.

So really 😅 I don’t buy the current theories unless all those points get clarified or resolved first. There’s still too little to go off of, I think…

dbjsbaibqkakw I probably talked for longer than I should have on the topic, but 💦 I hope you found this useful as a summary + my thoughts on those popular theories :DD

[oleworm]

One interesting thing about The Passenger (2023) that I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is how it begins not unlike a typical action-thriller involving a violent man and a hostage situation—and indeed the trailers market it as such—but then as the story progresses it unexpectedly turns into a rape and revenge film.

Benson’s violence and aimlessness, the cluttered house, the dirty car full of trash, the chronic dissatisfaction that permeates his existence, which he projects on Randy and the waitress, Marsha—all of these are sequelae to the traumatic event suffered at the hands of his teacher, implied to be of a sexual nature, but we do not discover this until two thirds into the film. Then it all falls into place. The mere fact contextualises the character. On second watch, his bizarre rants, the timing of his tics, his decoration of the giraffe plushie take on a new and sickening meaning. Or rather, we can access a meaning that is closer to the truth, when before we had been kept in the half-light in much the same way that Randy was, trying to make shapes of the shadows that make up Benson’s fractured personality. The “toughness” is a façade. We find that the tells were there from the beginning.

In this subvariant of the revenge genre the wronged person is usually a woman, who often goes on the revenge journey herself. Other times she serves as the device for a man to go on a rampage to take revenge on her behalf. When men are protagonists to these stories, it is almost always on behalf of the woman wronged, but they are rarely the ones directly affected. Acts of sexual violence are not supposed or expected to happen to men, in the imagination of the dominant culture.

The scene where Benson walks up to his teacher and beats him to death is filmed as if the man were an evil thing, a monster-memory, a representation of Benson’s trauma rather than a person. The man is not emphasised in a way that we are invited to sympathise with him. He barely speaks. His face is seen but briefly. Later it becomes a hole of gore. The focus is on Benson and his struggle, his dissociated state, his raging and his fear. It makes sense that the actors later spoke of this as the moment where Benson comes the closest to killing Randy, when he begins to ask questions about the man he has just turned into a bloody ruin.

Though it is the teacher that chokes on his own blood, at the closing of the scene it looks as if Randy has to go out to Benson and rescue him.

[becquerel]

subvariants of caninegirl are deeply important. doggirl most well known followed shortly by wolfgirl. third place solidly foxgirl but only because you dont think of them first when you say caninegirl. that all being said we mustnt forget the importance of coyotegirl jackalgirl and tanukigirl. if you want to get specific there are many variants of these listed girls like bush doggirls maned wolfgirls so on and so forth. luckily we live in a society with many such girls

[wilwheaton]

The rise of the new subvariant illustrates the challenges public health officials face trying to keep up with an ever-evolving virus, Topol said. “The ‘pandemic is over’ culture is the last thing we need to confront the pressure we’ve put on the virus to find new ways to get us — to find repeat and new hosts — and evade our prior immunity,” Topol wrote in a Substack post Sunday.

What to know about the new covid subvariant EG.5, nicknamed ‘Eris’

I want it to be over, too. But it isn’t. So I’m going to take my precautions, encourage all of you to do the same, and not be a dick about it.

[deviae-support]

Mod Coining: Traits

Perisex and Intersex traits + potential subvariations, all opt-in.

Deviæ only means "deviate from" and does not mean deviæ is a sex category, it is purely a term to denote how a perisex/intersex body is affected by a deviatypal trait (i.e. bodies are treated differently when they have congenital/sensory differences to them as opposed to not having it at all and some mullerians can be seen as lesser than others because of what they have/experience.)

____

Deviperi - A term for perisex deviæ folk who's unspecified body is deemed unnatural, animalistic, or synthetic by deviatypal traits such as polymelia, mosaicism, somatization, transition, etc.

Devimull - A term for perisex deviæ folk who's mullerian/female body is deemed unnatural, animalistic, or synthetic by deviatypal traits such as polymelia, mosaicism, somatization, transition, etc.

Deviwolff - A term for perisex deviæ folk who's wolffian/male body is deemed unnatural, animalistic, or synthetic by deviatypal traits such as polymelia, mosaicism, somatization, transition, etc.

Devinter - A term for intersex deviæ folk who's unspecified body is deemed unnatural, animalistic, or synthetic by deviatypal traits such as polymelia, mosaicism, or somatization, transition, etc.

Due to the vastness of intersexness, there can't be a flag for every single one of these variants, but the symbol may be used on another flag to denote what it is.