#which is just more proof that the entire species may be like that

[kahluah]

Bro, the original storyboard are still up. Chelsea being Nerissa was a last minute change , which is why the twist doesn't make much sense. If you watch directors interviews you'll find that they intended Chelsea to be a Regina George mean-girl. Also they describe the twist as fun lmao.

Look, I understand there are storyboards. I also understand that stories can change while they are in production. I'm not doubting the storyboards exist and that an initial draft of the movie at some point had them as two characters.

There are interviews where they discuss how the story was still open for input, so, you know, suggestions, changes, alterations, all that good work currently in production stuff, when the studio opened back up with the hybrid set up about half way through the development. Just because some of the storyboards in the beginning had something does not mean it will always be there in the final product. Things change. "You'll find they intended Chelsea to be a Regina George mean-girl" fine, but it obviously didn't stay that way. And, as I've said before, there is enough information in the movie for the reveal to be guessable. I'll say once again, I figured it out when "plan get the Trident" was suggested by Chelsea. I'm sorry if you feel it makes no sense, but like I've talked to multiple people that were able to predict the twist so idk what to tell you there.

But, I am also just dubious of how you guys keep pushing this whole "last minute" change thing. In the storyboards I saw, even as separate people, Chelsea is still evil and turning into a giant fucking mermaid to enact revenge. Other than the name of the character, and a portion of her motivation being that she was avenging her mom (with the whole other bit still being the whole "becoming ruler of the ocean and taking over everything" thing), the overall reason for the end fight is the same. Chelsea would have still been manipulating Ruby for that goal of getting the Trident, killing the krakens, and becoming Queen herself. The only thing that would really truly change with these storyboards is her age, so to me it sounds like this "it's a last minute storyboard change that makes no sense!" is some form of excuse/denial so that people feel alright to ship them again and write good end fix it fics.

Also to be a bit more snarky here...

If you watch the directors interviews, you'll find that they say that Ruby is a character "stuck between really strong women; amazingly strong women... and a lot of people have a lot of ideas about how she should be living her life, and this journey she goes on is figuring out how she wants to... because her heart's in the right place in every frame of the film; she has no ulterior motive, and she's so empathetic to her friends and everyone around her. I think that was really the sweet spot that we, working with the animators and with Lana - You know we love that you're doing that because that was really the goal in an idea about this coming of age story." Gee that kind of sounds like what I've been saying this movie is about; her relationship with these women. Multiple other interviews also put emphasis on the relationship between Ruby and her mom, Her mom and Grand Mama, Ruby and Grand Mama, Ruby and Chelsea. You know, the people I've mentioned in my other posts. It's clear that by the time production was wrapping up that this was the direction and intention of the movie.

To be fair I've also seen where they describe Chelsea as a Regina George type mean girl, and it really fits the high schooler vibe she has going on, but it's clear that not all of that stayed through till the end of production.

I can also imagine a version or original idea for this movie being one where the kraken family and the mermaid family were supposed to be foils of each other, but to be fully fleshed out we would have needed more world building and the plot would have had more focus on the war itself since that would have been the ideal point to sure how these two families diverged from each other. They would both have the starting point of the end of the war, and a broken relationship between mother and daughter (one because the mother was killed and the other because Agatha left). But from the multiple interviews I've seen where they wanted the focus of the movie to be on Ruby herself and how she interacts with the other women in her life during this coming of age story, that plot wouldn't do it justice. There is too much background information that you would have to supply to showcase both sides of the story and Ruby's personal journey would suffer for it.

When talking about production of the film, multiple interviews also talk about how they developed the feel for land/the town vs under the water, the humans vs the sea creature, and some of the actual character design elements like Nerissa's water hair. I haven't seen one where they talk about the lore of the war and how they fleshed out how the under the sea politics work and how those were a super important part of developing the story and production direction of the movie... At this point who knows how much of that they had ideas for, we would have to wait for more storyboards or an art book, but my point is that it isn't what they wanted the focus of the end product to be about.

Those storyboards were ultimately changed and by combining Chelsea with Nerissa and having her be an adult, it tightened up the core of the movie being Ruby and her relationships with women in her life (since one was no longer a peer). The story of Ruby growing into her own was able to have the sole spotlight rather than having to split it between two different family stories.

A lot of people who work on and promote things in interviews will describe it as fun. It is a very easy way to get across "I enjoy and approve of this thing we did". What do you want them to do? Break the flow of the interview and take up all the remaining time by explaining in exacting detail when and why the change happened during the development, and their exact thought process in doing it, and who exactly suggested it, and who supported it, and how much of the story that they had at that point in time of production was changed by it? Like I'll admit I'm curious to when it changed, but when I'm watching a 10-20 minute interview on YouTube I would rather they cover more than just one little thing.

[superiorsturgeon]

out of curiosity, why do you like sturgeons so much?

A chance to info dump about my favorite fish…?!

I grew up in the Great Lakes area of North America, where fishing is pretty popular but everyone knows that fish populations aren’t anything like “the good old days” when people took out huge numbers of fish while messing up their spawning sites. I got pretty into fishing when I found out that I could catch bluegill in the surrounding farm ponds, and once in a while my family took me to an isolated fishing cabin for vacation, but for years I never encountered a wild fish bigger than a kilogram or two.

BUT THEN…

I found out about sturgeon! They were HUGE fish that had once lived in the rivers and lakes all around my home, and better yet, fish almost exactly like modern sturgeon had existed all the way back in the Cretaceous period alongside the dinosaurs, and they STILL EXIST TODAY!!! The fact that small numbers of these huge dinosaur fish still existed made them seem almost like a real-life lake monster/cryptid, except that we had proof of their existence!

Furthermore, there’s just nothing else like them. Sturgeon get big. Like, REALLY big. The record for the largest sturgeon was almost 11 meters/24 feet long, which is colossal for freshwater animals. They have armor plates of bone running down their sides, and at the same time they don’t have bony skeletons. They also have a crazy mouth structure, which allows them to actually pop their jaws out like a tube and suck up food. And on top of all of this, the adults are absolute tanks. I’ve seen skin nearly 8mm thick, and it’s so tough that people make leather out of it, and they occasionally lose fins or even entire gill plates and just keep on swimming! (I found out about that last one when I tried to wrestle a big female out of a river and my hand went straight into her gills. She didn’t seem that bothered by it!)

For a long time I filed sturgeon along with Alligator Gar, Giant Mekong catfish, and Yangtze paddlefish as a semi-legendary fish that may still exist, but I was never going to see except possibly in an aquarium, until I enrolled in graduate school. For those unfamiliar with grad school in the US, it typically involves both high-level classes as well as an independent research project the student designs and carries out with help from an experienced professor. When my mentor asked what kind of thing I wanted to study, I tossed out “sturgeon” as one such possibility, expecting to hear that I would probably have to limit myself to more common/accessible species.

I was blown away when she said “Actually, I think I know a guy…”

For the next several years, I got to ride along collecting wild adult sturgeon, gathering eggs, and raising the baby fish in a lab and in a hatchery. I was holding something that I had thought of as a semi-mythical lake/river monster in my own hands! I got to see a river choked with giants as big as 2 meters long, and I got to hold a 5-centimeters mottled baby whose armored scutes were still sharp and possessed the little arrowhead shape and big black pectoral fins that remind me of Mickey Mouse ears! In the video below you can even see a little heartbeat! (Don’t worry, this little guy was returned to the tank soon after to recover from his anesthesia!)

Sadly, I didn’t find anything super groundbreaking in my research, but my experience DID land me a job working in sturgeon aquaculture! If you’ve ever had caviar that wasn’t poached, it probably came from a sturgeon farm, and if you want to see a lot of big fish up close, this is a good place to do it! I probably personally handled more individual sturgeon than there are wild fish in several sturgeon species. In addition, while the wild broodstock I mentioned above might reach 2 meters and over 50kg, the sturgeon I dealt with at the farm would easily double that, and there were a LOT of them! I got to see sturgeon behavior that had never been recorded in field guides, and even a few crazy one-in-a-million mutations like the infamous “ghost” sturgeon!

I even got the opportunity to cook my own sturgeon meat (Yeah, I basically turned into the Touden siblings from Dungeon Meshi except for sturgeon instead of RPG monsters). I got pretty good at making smoked sturgeon, but the meat is also good on the grill or baked, and people have been cooking them in various ways for centuries.

My favorite part of the job was physically wrestling the big fish! Sturgeon are easier to grab than other fish with the right know-how, but a human-sized fish often has its own plans for the day and won’t always cooperate. I was pretty good at moving the adults by the time I left that job, but it was still a wild rodeo every time!

Even more exciting was how we spawned each new generation of sturgeon. In the wild, they form massive spawning runs in big rivers that in the past would be enough to tip small boats, but in a lab or farm we have to use other means. I’ll spare you the details, but I am one of a small number of people who have surgically extracted eggs from a live sturgeon and sutured them back up to swim another day.

The tldr of this essay is that sturgeon are a big, crazy-unique fish that have been around a long time, and I’ve spent a lot of my career handling and working with them. There’s just nothing like them for a fish nerd and they’re damn cool!

(Clip art not mine, I think @sturgeonposting drew or shared it!)

[cripplecharacters]

Hi. I have OCD (and various other mental illnesses) and have a character who has OCD. However, this character lives in a setting with aliens who are basically psychic with extra steps (they communicate via electromagnetic fields and can identify and interact with humans brain's electrical impulses.) What I'm wondering is should I make it so these aliens can like, easily distinguish some types of neurodiversity. i.e. they can easily recognize OCD character because his thought/brain patterns are more "repetitive?"

Personally I'm very torn on this. On one hand it feels validating because like a sort of "proof" that the difference is there and to ignore it is foolish. But at the same time it feels reductive to be, even indirectly, identified primarily by disability.

Possibly relevant, I don't think all neurodiversity should be easily identifiable by this species. Like I don't think autism could be identified (too much variation) but maybe something like DID could (parts of the brain field are somewhat "segregated")

Thank you for your ask! I think if the aliens have had contact with humans (or similar alien species) before, they might have some knowledge on what conditions are associated with certain thought patterns. If the aliens haven’t specifically spoken to humans on the matter they might make their own classifications which would probably look a lot different than ours (especially with how wide symptoms vary in one condition and how many symptoms overlap in so many conditions).

Your character doesn’t have to be only identified by their OCD, that may be what stands out at first to the aliens but if your character is well rounded they can be identified by their other traits. For example, when you first meet someone you might think of them as ‘the person with the interesting fashion sense,’ but as time goes on and you learn more about them you associate them with more traits.

Have a nice day!

Mod Rot

Hi!

I think that it's an interesting idea! I feel that it would make sense for an alien psychic creature to recognize that there are some "thinking patterns" that some humans sometimes have. As an example, I can see how they would pick up that certain people have a very specific Pure O pattern just from psychic-ing various people.

Depending on if/how the topic of mental health/neurodiversity exists in the alien society, they might not even necessarily consider it as such. If they don't recognize the pattern as a disorder, they might just think of it as a type of thinking that humans just have, like how they can perceive that some humans have brown hair while others are redheads (while readers would probably pick up on what is implied if they know anything about OCD). The alien aspect gives you a lot of possibilities!

As someone with OCD, I don't see it as "reducing" at all. It's true that his thoughts happen in a different manner than most peoples', but there's still content in them, right? His OCD is just affecting them, which is just how that works. The only exception here is that his OCD process itself is a part of the story - unless you decided to put his entire character's focus on how Weird and Exotic that is, you should be perfectly fine. I think it's an interesting part of worldbuilding to add!

If you are really worried about him being "identifiable" by his OCD, you can always make it so that different OCD types are seen as distinct (or, from an alien's perspective, perhaps even unrelated). For example, someone who's thought process is occupied with visual intrusive thoughts, versus one who is mainly having a specific compulsion-obsession pattern over and over, etc. - this will show OCD as the wide range that it is, and definitely not as "a label" that someone could just be instantly identified with. You can also make sure to show that every person's thought patterns are different to some degree (even if they're as neurotypical as it's humanly possible), and perhaps those with OCD's patterns are just hyperspecific enough to be recognized as more different; a "genre" of thought patterns of sorts. Because at the end of the day, they will also be people who don't have OCD who might share a few of these "OCD patterns" (and who don't fully get read as having it, maybe as adjacent at best), as well as two people who do have it and whose brain patterns don't match at any point, who still do get read as having OCD despite all that. It's a spectrum, afterall, so the brain patterns would be too!

I think that if you have OCD yourself, you can do basically anything you want with this. As I said, you have an interesting concept that you can tackle from a bunch of different angles, and I would love to see a take on it by an author with OCD! :-)

mod Sasza

[incorrectmhatweets]

More MHA plot bunnies:

Merfolk edition.

Aizawa works at a security company that sends out different people for different contracts and jobs. He gets sent to an aquatic testing facility for a three month stint. Everything seems above board, but one day he stumbles upon a lower floor that is full of captured/raised in captivity young merfolk. Sure, his job can be kind of shady sometimes, his boss leaving out details, but he prefers that so he can take a paycheck and not feel too much guilt.

After some snooping he finds out that the entire group of young adolescent mer, both an endangered species and also a very dangerous species, is set to be sent to another facility where they will be euthanized, as they are getting to the age where they are too old to be manageable for testing, though their bodies will continue to be used for science both before and during and after their deaths.

When people are chosen to take the armored truck that he knows will be loaded with mer, Aizawa offers to go, giving the other person he was meant to take them with food poisoning so he and he alone will be in charge of the truck. He takes it, knowing this will more than likely be the last thing he does but tired of his same old routine. At least his death will mean something, even if he is throwing it away for a species of creatures who would probably kill him if they met in the wild.

The company realize what he is doing when he deviates off course.

Soon enough he is heading for the nearest pier with his huge bullet proof truck, gunning for the edge, police and private military and helicopters on his heals.

He is injured in the crash, but doesn’t let that stop him from unlocking the back of the sinking truck, and breaking open a few to give them the best chance at escaping before causing a distraction and fighting the trained humans while the mer help eachother break free and escape.

He is dying and bleeding heavily while the last of the mer escape with minimal injuries, several attacking and shredding the humans that are trying to kill him and stop them. He feels webbed hands wrap around his ankles and pull him under and he knows he is going to die. Suspects that they don’t care to tell the difference between a human that is helping vs a human that is hurting after all they have been through in the labs. He understands as he is dragged deeper and deeper, his head splitting and air being forced from his lungs from the pressure.

Before lips press to his and more water is forced into his burning lungs and he just knows this is it. He can’t see which of the mer it is, it’s so dark his deep. He is still bleeding from a bullet he took for a mer he rescued. He feels lips over the entry wound and feels sharp teeth digging in and he would scream if he could. Why is he still alive?

Just as he believes he is about to pass out again he feels more pressure against his lips and more water is forced into his burning lungs. Sharp claws scratch along his neck and his ribs as he kicks and for some reason he isn’t dying but he wishes he was. He is thrashing, hands coming to his neck and mouth, feet kicking, eyes rolling back as a mouth presses against his again and more water is forced into his mouth, almost like it’s trying to give him CPR instead of forcefully drowning him.

And that’s when it clicks. And he thrashed harder because yes, he did save these adolescent mers, but he never planned to become one of them! He didn’t know that was possible! And if he becomes one of them, does that mean he has to continue caring for them, regardless of how little he actually knows about their kind and the ocean?

What about other, older Mer that reside in the deep? How will they take his presence? The mer may be able to force him into being able to breath under water by cutting gils into his neck and sides and forcing a biological change that makes no scientific sense, but he definitely doesn’t develop protective scales or a fin instead of legs, though he does start to form a telepathic mind link to his small school of mer. His class, he affectionately starts referring to them as in his mind. And while he will fight like hell to protect them, he is still a very squishy human compared to their still growing and still very powerful predator mer bodies.

And he is very much seen as nothing more than an intruder and a nuisance to the much larger, dangerous, downright terrifying adult Mer that find him and his class and want to take the adolescent Mer in and have them join their pod.

[cringefaecompilation]

I think what gets me about the fan debate over Bells Hells reactions to the vision from Aeor is that some people think there is a right or a wrong.

That there needs to be a right and wrong for these incredibly conflicted and nuanced characters to rally behind. None of these guys were staunchly pro-gods before this once FCG was gone and yet they’ve been present and ready to help from the time the Vanguard and Ludinus were revealed as threats.

That entire vision showed mortals, primes and betrayers alike making incredibly dubious decisions. There isn’t much of a way to predict what the Hells will think. The only thing I hope this will show them is that division is nothing new or unique to mortals; and the main threat is still this demonstrably evil mortal trying to use everyone with power he doesn’t possess in a revenge quest.

if i may jump off your ask to make a post abut something that's been frustrating me for a while: this was never about the gods explicitly. it's been about power since day one.

it's about both the pro and anti god societies of the world being jingoist murderers that will kill anybody they disagree with. ludinus going out of his way to commit mass genocide on species he deems inferior to steal their power. the eugencist oppressive societies on both ruidus and exandria with the weavemind and aeor. opportunist abusive accelerationist cunts like zathuda and delilah who only want to watch the world burn so they can get ten seconds of eternal glory before the planet is rendered inhabitable. even "good" people in power have their biases that screw over underprivileged folks "for the greater good"

and how the hells react to power: imogen seeing it as an all-consuming force that can kill you (which she keeps getting proven right about lmao), laudna and chetney seeing it as an unambiguously good thing that can get you respect, ashton and fearne and dorian understanding it's bad and rebelling against it each in their own ways, orym and fcg understanding it's bad but resigning themselves to their belief that some people are just inherently more worthy of it and they're only meant to be followers... it's a very complex situation!

and downfall made me hate ludinus more because how the fuck can you watch all that and then proceed to do the exact same shit you condemn the gods for doing? how can you look at cassida being used as a tool by aeor and have her concerns brushed off by the primes and mocked by the betrayers and then proceed to use her as nothing more than "proof" that the gods suck and do the same to liliana? if he digs in his heels and tries to say that what he's doing is totally different and he shouldn't be questioned for his actions because he has a finite lifespan i'm punting him off a cliff.

[aventvrina]

was talking with ren (also thank you terios for sending that post as well) about this and i'm gonna say while i would love for Ena to be Gaiathra since it'd be excellent world building, I'm not inclined to believe that they are the same entity

while they all share the Sigonian eye coloration and have heavy similarities, there's also a lot of contradictions separating them.

the similarities are as follows:

tricolor eyes

triclops/triple faced

resurrection/life cycle themes through the three stages of live

HER/THEY

" the silent and unassuming Gaiathra Triclops, with HER immense and weighty torso, quietly encompasses all the living and deceased in Sigonia " (same imagery as Ena)

these by themselves are solid enough evidences to assume they're the same entity, even more if you consider Sigonia as a planet who was under the Order's protection and fell into ruin after their absorption by Xipe, since it's said that every civilization that was under the Order went through calamity after their disappearance. In texts when referring to Gaiathra, she's written as HER much like when one refers to Aeons as THEY.

however that's mostly where the similarities stop. and while we can argue that the themes are similar, since Gaiathra employs martyrdom to her people as a way to tune for their sins. Gaiathra practices are not the same as Ena's, neither are her blessings.

Gaiathra represents fertility, trickery, and travel, themes that aren't related to Ena. There's also the second name of Gaiathra, Fenge Biyos which seems to be related to Baba Fingo, a male deity that comes out during the Kakava to protect the Romani people. The themes of Baba Fingo and Gaiathra actually merge since to Avgin's, Gaiathra is seen as a mother goddess, protector and guide to her people. There's also the mention that Gaiathra does not need music to sing her praises, while Ena is all about the harmonious choir.

and I know that it could all be part of the Enigmata/Mythus doing by mythologizing Ena on Sigonia but I don't think that's the case.

however there's no denying that Gaiathra and Ena are extremely similar and for that i offer you some ideas of why that might be without implying that they are the same entity:

Gaiathra could be of the same species as Ena ( some Aeons like Orobos and Long share species with those who follow their path, it's entirely possible for Gaiathra to be the same situation)

Gaiathra is an older entity than Ena (we just assume she's younger cause Ena is considered part of the Old Aeons but Gods aren't under the same category as Aeons in HSR so it's possible She predates Ena and her path (which also could give way to thinking of Ena being a descendant of Gaiathra/a Sigonian who ascended))

Gaiathra is an original Emanator of the Order who perished (Emanator's might just as well be Gods whose to say there isn't somewhere out there worshipping an Emanator instead of an Aeon?)

as a final note i want to talk about Aventurine's eyes since they are the main factor at play here. In game, Aventurine's eye are enough to get him recognized as a Sigonian but not as an Avgin. Thus it's safe to assume that everyone in Sigonia-IV will have the same characteristic. however, his sister implies that his eyes are blessed, a proof of Gaiathra's blessing which leads me to think that his pattern might be unique. sadly we can't confirm this without seeing what another person from Sigonia might look like to understand just how unique Aventurine's eyes are in comparison. supposedly there should be Sigonians spread throughout the cosmos as many migrated due to the harsh conditions so we may run into some along the travels but we never know.

[sweetbabymantykes]

Actually, Dhelmise isn't a single celled organism, that's a common misconception. Seaweed is a macroalgae, which is a multicellular form of algae. Single celled marine algae are diatoms, too tiny to see with the naked eye and also kinda what glass comes from I think?? I dunno I only know about the big stuff.

That said, research is still being done in regards to what type of seaweed Dhelmise should be classified as. While it seems many will develop a preference for green algae, it's rare for them to consist of that alone; most will still have traces of brown and red algae, and records exist of specimens that opted more for those than the usual green. Oh, but no correlation has been found between algae type and their color, I should mention— trying to figure out how and why exceedingly rare red Dhelmise form is an entirely different can of Orthworms, let me tell you. (Not as difficult as finding a way to ghost and anchor-proof a pokébean container, though...)

The issue is already complex just by virtue of the fact that they technically consist of multiple different organisms in the genetic sense, such as, say, both dead man's fingers and giant kelp. It's like trying to classify lichens. The real kicker is that the species consistently shares the same general body plan and shape, even between populations that primarily utilize entirely different types of macroalgae.

In fact, depictions of them from hundreds of years ago, when they were first encountered by sailors, share a remarkable amount of similarity in basic shape. Though, they did apparently vary in size to a greater degree; some used rocks and driftwood and would be small compared to today's average, usually described as shorter than a human. Others may have made use of entire Wailmer and Wailord falls— perhaps the remains of their unfortunate prey— if some other depictions and descriptions from those times are to be believed. (It is important to take into account the possibility of embellished stories and the like, as interesting as the latter sounds...)

Dhelmise really are quite the mystery, even among other ghost types! It still isn't well understood what causes them to form in the wild to begin with. We know from captive individuals that they are capable of asexual reproduction through fragmentation, similar to many other types of seaweed, but that creates genetic clones and wouldn't explain the diversity amongst wild populations. The prevailing theory involves souls lost at sea, but there is little conclusive evidence to support that.

Ah, I should probably stop rambling on about this now, though. I tend to get a bit carried away, which is weird given how I used to not be interested at all in this sort of thing... What getting reverse chosen by your first Pokémon while visiting family on the coast does to a mfer. Sorry 'bout the wall of text!

I feel like a fraud. I got a fact about aquatic pokemon wrong. It's fine, it's fine, I can still keep my reputation, Dhelmise isn't a water type, it's a grass type. And I actually don't know that much about kelp to begin with, so I guess that's what my problem is, haha.

That aside, man. I could listen to people tell me about other pokemon forever, don't apologize! My sister is really into ghost types but she's not really chatty, either, so it's really nice to hear about them from someone else. Previous Johto anon in a fight with your dad- give this a read! Everyone else, too, I had no idea about their historical 'chains'...

[princesscolumbia]

Star Trek Captains, A Review and Categorization II - The Wrath of Polling

I'm 100% sure it's due entirely to people not knowing the poll existed, but where the support of Capt.'s Rios and Seven are annecdotally strong, I've got numbers for Spock, Batel, and a surprising tie for third of Scott and Saru.

Without further ado...

Captain Spock

At least four generations of Done With Your Shit™️. Your ideas are stupid and wrong and he can prove it mathematically...which is why he can't get enough of Kirk, weird lil' himbo twink just dual-weilds the middle finger at the No Win Situation and Spock has to check his calendar to make sure Pon Far didn't arrive early! (We get it, Spock, we've all been there, right ladies?)

Scorecard

Enterprise Captains He's Given 'The Eyebrow' to: 4

Civilizations unified: 2

Ancestors whose name rhymes with "Barthur Cronnan Spoil": 1

Amount of time he kept one ship in battle-worthy condition when all the others of its class and generation were being mothballed, destroyed, or lost to the future: 40 years

Siblings he just never talks about: 2

Category: Space Elf

Captain Batel

Probably the one person in Starfleet that can always call out Pike on his shit. Maybe not Mom to Pike's 'Dad,' but not bad as the cool stepmom. Yes, Chris, she'll take care of Chapel while she deals with her boy issues, we'll have some girl time, it'll be fun!

Scorecard

Number of Pike fans INSANELY jealous she managed to land in Pike's bed: Like, all of them!

Number of musical numbers while in command: 1

Number of musical numbers that singing voice should have been given: ...a LOT more!

Amount of patience to deal with Pike's mid-life crisis: 9,001

Category: Step-MILF that will teach you how to drive when Dad (Pike) gets too 'back-seat-driver'-y

Captain Scott

Crouching Engineer, HIDDEN BADASS! Kirk may sit in the Captain's chair, but we all know who the Enterprise lets put her engines to bed for the night. This man can make any engine or transporter you can think of just sing, all in perfect accompaniment to his bagpipes.

Scorecard

Times he accidentally created a time machine (with Spock on assist): 1

Times he accidentally hosted a murdering parasite: 1

Times he out-drank an extra-galactic entity bent on stealing HIS ship: 1

Times he tested transwarp beaming with an admiral's dog: [0/1] <- YOU open the box! I'm not collapsing that waveform!

Times he unironically used the line, "There be whales here!" in a 23rd century space vessel: 1

Category: Miracle Worker

Captain Saru

Proof that a prey species can unequivocally kick your ass. Ride or die. This man will take your spaceship, captain it efficiently, and give it back to you better than when you got it. Alfred to Burnham's Batman. Might call you "Daddy," but we know who wears the belt.

Scorecard

Evolutions (you know, like Pokemon): 1

Autistic crew he's whole-heartedly supported and mentored: 1

Category: Tol Cinnamon Roll

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Don't forget to vote!

[ruthlesslistener]

If you're alright with answering what is the difference between a conquerer and a coloniser? Or is your issue more based in the fact that people call PK a coloniser to remove guilt from the radiance rather than the term itself? Not trying to be smarmy here, I genuinely don't get the difference between the terms, is it just a difference of settlers?

Yep, there's a lot of difference! A conquerer is someone who takes over a territory that wasn't originally theirs, whereas a colonizer is a foreign power that sends groups of people to settle in a foreign territory to establish control over it. They're both terrible, but the means of control is very different; when a foreign power conquers another state, the populace largely remains the same, but the style of life/rule may change, or conquered peoples may have to pay a tax to the state that conquered them. Historically, it could vary between the conquered peoples having no change in life at all to them being placed under a tyrant regime that they despised, which makes it vary in how horrid it is (but it's still bad. Cannot stress enough how bad it is!!). The Pale King falls under this title because both him and his wife ruled over the beetles, which were native to Hallownest, but they did not displace any native species; there was merely a change in religion and (presumably) a way of life.

Additionally, we canonically know that the Moth Tribe allying themselves with the Pale Gods was what allowed him to displace the Radiance, though I hesitate to place any blame on them at all because the Pale King has a notorious trend of speaking half-truths to get bugs to stay under his thrall, which means that they very likely did not understand what they were getting into at the time. However, the main point remains clear: the arrival of the Pale King did not displace any of the native tribes from their homes, even though it caused a vast variety of other problems. We also do not have any canonical proof that the Pale King had any hand in the actual downfall of their numbers, either, which makes sense because getting rid of them = getting rid of a significant chunk of the worshiping resources that he needs as a god. He likely still fucked them up terribly, but that's another post to be made entirely. The point is, he is a conquerer.

Colonization, on the other hand, directly involves the displacement of native peoples or species in order for the invading forces to exploit their resources. This is where the concept of settlers comes in, and it is always verified to be a brutal, awful business, because the end goal of it is to wipe out all the native peoples and species and to remake the earth into either Kingdom 2.0, or a mining spot for resources to enrich the empire back home. To colonize an area requires either the genocide of the previous inhabitants or the forced assimilation into the culture of the settling group, as well as the destruction of native habitat and any other landmarks that are important or sacred to the native peoples of that region. The land is destroyed and remade to the settler's desires, or it is drained dry of resources to be sent back to the motherland. The whole point of colonies is to brute-force their way into new territories in order to bolster the strength of the ancestral land, which does not come in the form of the natives sending tithes and taxes, but comes from direct seizure of the land. Both the people in power and the individuals of the original nation are involved in the colonization effort, with the settlers often being brainwashed by propaganda into believing what they are doing is 'righteous' and that either enslaving or murdering the natives is 'doing god's work'. There's typically a religious or eugenics perspective applied to this as well: the native tribes are seen as 'less civilized' than the settlers, and so it is the settler's god-given duty to subdue and 'civilize' them, usually by either enslaving them or by forcefully assimilating them into settler families and culture. It's evil. It's fucking evil.

As for my issues with the Pale King being called a colonizer: I primarily hate it because it both removes guilt from the Radiance and places blame on the beetle tribe, but a not-so-insignificant portion of it is because I fucking love history, and seeing it used as a buzzword for problematic characters makes me want to scream. There is almost no greater evil in the world than colonization (well, apart from capitalism), both from the social and the ecological perspective. Because it is evil. There is no nuance to it. And there are still people to this day who suffer from the effects of it, and still get abused by the nations responsible for it, so not only is this something that should NOT be used flippantly and VERY MUCH SHOULD NOT be used as a buzzword just because you hate a fictional character, writing a story where a colonizing force is being challenged should always view the native group as the ones in the right. Because they are. They're being shoved out of their homes and killed and having their culture destroyed because some greedy fuck and their braindead populace with a superiority streak saw them as less than human. There is no fucking way that you can take any sort of rebellion against that evil and claim it was wrong without allying yourself with the colonizing force. I'm normally all for nuance, but here, there is none.

So when you claim that either the Pale King or the Radiance is a colonizer*- which they canonically aren't- you are inherently setting the other up as the victim. And because you're doing that, you're automatically setting them up as the group whose actions are justified, because if you condemn it, you fall into very, very dangerous territory. And given how fucking horrifying the Radiance's actions were? How she's the main antagonist of the story, how she's shown to be directly responsible for mass indoctrination and genocide, how she forced herself into the minds of the other native tribes that were separate from her conflict with the Pale King and made them preach about giving in to her light and then killing them afterwards because they were only tools to her? There's no fucking way. There's no fucking way that you can make that comparison. Equating the horrors that she did in her selfish rampage for power and revenge to the actions of people desperate to get their homes back is fucking horrifying. She killed millions of people and tortured many more so that she could have complete dominion over a kingdom that wasn't her own, and forced her control on unrelated parties to boot. There's no fucking way that you can place any of her actions in good faith outside of maybe 'her infecting everyone was her scrambling to come back from the brink of death', but even that doesn't account for the infection of the Mosskin, the forced preaching from the Moss Prophet (someone who belongs to Unn!!), the ruin she made of Deepnest, and the pacts she made with the mantises. She's just as bad as PK, and she's just as much of a selfish, power-hungry control freak as he is. The only difference is that she's more openly violent while he was outstandingly neglectful, and that's not even getting into the whole possibility that she was the one who caused the downfall of the original Void Civilization that founded Hallownest.

(Also Bardoon's dialogue on the infection seems to imply that she mind-controlled the bugs in the kingdom in the past which is a whole other can of worms. But since I don't think that the Pale King's 'free mind' shtick was any better for various other reasons, I'm not going to go there)

And NOT ONLY THAT, because colonziation requires the effort of the populace, you're also laying the blame on the tribes correlated to both of those gods- tribes that both suffered immensely from their strife and had nothing to do with any of the crimes that they committed. The Seer may bitterly remark on the foolishness of her ancestors, but there's no way that they would have been able to understand the full consequences of their actions. That's something that the foresight-having God of Mind would have known, and is a guilt that she or her people have absolutely no reason to carry. The Beetle Tribe certainly existed pre-Hallownest and likely lived in the caverns that made the Forgotten Crossroads and the City of Tears before the Pale King arrived; there's fossilized remains of them everywhere, and Lemm has dialogue on the bugs of Hallownest worshipping the Void even before the Old Light came along. Not only that, but they were not a militaristic race, and all of the evidence of their architecture in the territories of the other tribes seem to be there for trade or transport, as the bulk of their territory is composed of the Forgotten Crossroads (very literally a trading hub), and the City of Tears (where they actually lived). Additionally, they canonically had very little contact with their ruler because he was a fucking recluse, so they weren't exactly following his orders to take over areas that weren't theirs. Hell, they didn't even know the truth of the Infection because their coward-king wouldn't tell them the cause of it; both the beetles and the moths were innocent, as well as all of the other tribes that got swept into the conflict and destroyed, and that is the core tragedy of the game's main story. These were not settlers. These were innocents. And them helping the Knight on their journey- who was a victim of both the Pale King and the Radiance-is significant because of that very reason. They all were innocent.

So long story short, yes there's a difference, yes people misusing or pretending otherwise seriously bothers me, and yes I have a very good reason to be extremely concerned about those misinterpretations and the spread of them outside of technical accuracy, thank you very much.

(*I can argue that the Radiance was not a colonizer despite most likely having a claw in the Void Civilization's downfall because her territory appears to have been in the Crystal Peaks/Resting Grounds, as evidenced by her strong affinity with the refractive crystals, the pink and gold hues, the iron gates wrought in her image in the Resting Grounds, and the fact that the Grounds themselves have a purple hue to them, a midtone between the pinks of Crystal Peak and the blues of the underground caverns. So even if she destroyed the original civilization-likely because void magics pose a direct lethal threat to her- she did not settle in their territory. The White Lady is hard to tell, but given that her roots are massive around Kingdom's Edge/the place where the White Palace was built, it's very likely that she sprouted and grew in Hallownest. And the Pale King is for sure not a colonizer, because we know with 100% certainty that he came from over the Wastelands, shed his form, and became ruler of the Beetle Tribe with the help of the Moths; he had no worshipers from where he previously was. Likewise, he married the White Lady and shared territory with her, so no actual displacing of native tribes or gods occurred, it's just that he and Radi had an absolute shitfit over who got to be in control over those two populations.)

[arminreindl]

Calumma benovskyi and the rafting Chameleons

I am on four levels of procrastination right now, procrastinating on Wikipedia projects I started because I procrastinated on other wikipedia projects.

Anyways, Calumma benovskyi is a species of chameleon named in 2020 on the basis of a almost completely preserved skull. This little guy is special for many things, one of which is the incredible preservation. That's practically the whole skull, mandible plus three neck vertebrae, which is incredible as chameleon fossils are RARE AS HELL.

As you can say its a pretty humble looking animal, an oval skull widest at the point where the frontal and parietal meat, narrow pointed snout, large eyes and a flat headcrest, all packaged into a rather small animal.

Calumma benovskyi is a member of the genus Calumma (shocker I know), which is still around today. Calumma contains over 40 species of varying shapes and sizes, some with decently big headcrests or elongated nose crests. Some examples include the Parson's chameleon (JialiangGao), Boettger's chameleon (pbertner), the globe-horned chameleon (Matthijs Kuijpers) and the blade chameleon (Emanuele Biggi).

However, what makes Calumma benovskyi so special compared to all of these is where it was found. The thing is, modern Calumma species are endemic to Madagascar. The genus is found nowhere else on earth. However, oddly enough Calumma benovskyi is from Kenya's Hiwegi Formation on Rusinga Island (Lake Victoria). Continental Africa. How did that happen?

The answer is simultaneously simple and complex. Obviously there must have been some faunal exchange between mainland Africa and Madagascar, chameleons make that obvious enough and there are other animal groups found on both landmasses (or at least have close relatives on both landmasses). For instance the iconic Aye-Aye of Madagascar has relatives on the mainland as recently as the Miocene. So it wouldn't be unusual to assume that chameleons could have originated on the mainland and only later traveled to Madagascar. This however competes with an older hypothesis that suggests that chameleons evolved on Madagascar and dispersed from there to the continent. So which is it?

Well Čerňanský and colleagues, who named Calumma benovskyi, agree with the African origin for several reasons. For one, the Kenyan species is the oldest known member of this genus. If its on the mainland during the Miocene then perhaps thats where they first evolved (tho this is hard to proof given the absence of fossils). Then there's the matter of phylogeny. Generally speaking, on a phylogenetic tree these guys are surrounded by groups from mainland Africa all around. There's some outliers, like the genus Brookesia that is believed to have arrived in Madagascar much earlier during the Paleocene and the big-nosed chameleon which turned out really weird. But in broad strokes it seems that the Madagascar groups branch away from African ones. Finally on a practical level one has to consider ocean currents. In the paper its argued that during the Oligocene and Miocene, when the second chameleon dispersal may have taken place, currents would have been directed away from the African coast and towards Madagascar. So if a chameleon were to sit on a branch that, through some events ended up in the ocean, it would be swept out towards the island. But a chameleon starting from Madagascar would have to go against the currents to reach Africa. Logically, it just makes more sense for them to have gone eastward. This only changed later during the Mid Miocene. And since Calumma benovskyi lived during the EARLY Miocene, before the shift in currents, it couldn't have come from the island. The conclusion seems simple. It is the oldest known Calumma species, most of the more basal groups are continental and currents at the time only go away from Africa. Case closed?

Weeeeeeeell not entirely. The phylogenetic analysis throw a few curveballs into that neat little package. For the time being I'll ignore the fact that the long-nosed chameleon was recovered as more basal than some African groups in some analysis, as the authors explain that this is likely just the results being fucked over by its weird head. The real problem instead lies with the specific position of Calumma benovskyi and the sister group to this genus. The later aspect concerns the genus Furcifer, another group primarily found on Madagascar (and some other islands that don't matter right now). Following the works of Tolley and colleagues, who also were among those suggesting an African origin, Furcifer is the sister group to Calumma and branched off from them during the Eocene. So if Calumma originated on the mainland, then so must have the last common ancestor between the two genera? Now that doesn't exactly overthrow the hypothesis of course. Both could have split on the mainland and separately arrived on Madagascar, not a big deal, just not as neat. Speaking of things that aren't as neat. Analysis shows that Calumma benovskyi is fairly derived. In simple terms, as far as we know its not the ancestor of the Madagascar chameleons but sits among them. Perhaps then there were multiple dispersal events in Calumma itself or perhaps this position is simply not correct. After all, if Calumma was around in continental Africa, then it seems likely that there was a much greater diversity of chameleons present, one we simply don't know from fossils. So perhaps further discoveries, new taxa, would help make sense of something that now just doesn't have all the pieces yet.

Whatever the case, the authors still hold on to the African origin and it does still make sense when considering age, currents and the surroundings. Hell, the species name itself is a reference to this hypothesis, tho the guy they named it after has a really dubious life history that puts Baron Münchhausen to shame. But I digress. Perhaps this is simply something that will make a lot more sense once we find out more.

To wrap things up, here's the only two serious paleoart pieces of this species I came across. The first published in the year of the animal's naming by Connor Ross/RajaHarimau98 and the later not too long ago by Joschua Knüppe. Because if there's an obscure animal chances are Joschua drew it.

And finally, here's the Wikipedia page that skips the theatralics and has a bit more of the anatomical stuff for those really interested. It also has all the sources and none of my struggling to make sense of the mess that is chameleons traveling across the Indian Ocean. Just the stuff from the papers. Calumma benovskyi - Wikipedia

[summersmithlatinxgyatt]

THIS THEORY IS OUT ON @the-rick-parasite-theory-archive

PART 2 OF MY RICK META-PARASITE THEORY IS OUT AND IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THERE THEN FOLLOW AND SKIP THIS POST wait actually don't do that please read my 8.4k word theory that took like. Over a month to write just follow that blog for similar content :'(

Recap + Corrections

Welcome to part 2 of the Rick Meta-Parasite Theory. This is the follow-up to the greatest Rick and Morty theory. Last time, we established that Rick was a meta-fictional parasite that came from outside of the canon to take the place of Rick Prime. There was a bunch of proof for this and it retroactively changes the entire narrative of the series in a consistent way. This new part is also going to be based off the first one, so go read that and gas it up with reblogssssss 🔥

This new part is going to be broken into several distinct parts because there’s more proof and confirmation for this theory through specific segments. Let’s start out with some clarifications:

I throw around the phrase ‘parasite’ a lot. To clarify what a parasite actually IS, it’s an entity that can attack the mind and the memories of a person to enter the narrative of the Rick and Morty series. Nearly all of them are meta-fictional as well.

I called Evil Morty a ‘counter-parasite’, which isn’t exactly true. He is simply another parasite. In the moment, I meant that he can attack other parasites. However, they ALL do this. The grander narrative of this theory is just parasites fighting one another to get to their host, Rick Prime. It’s survival of the fittest and by calling Evil Morty a ‘counter’ to parasites, I made it sound like he was made for this or is some antithesis when my proof was to show he was falling in line with the motifs of parasites I set up. This includes how Evil Morty had access to technology targeting a Rick’s mind and body, so he’s just a flat-out parasite.

As if it wasn’t mentioned before or obvious enough - Yes, C-137 is the child of Doc and Mharti. And he went after Rick Prime because he resembles his ‘dad’, Doc. I just didn’t say it because it’s a gross idea that still somehow works because the idea is that he is leeching off himself

There’s more proof of a shared parasite family tree as well. I pointed out that the Federation is made up of aliens who built memory devices to enter Rick’s mind. But the one Gromflomite agent they send in has a physical reaction to nearing Rick’s backstory and realized he was honing in on it. This means that genetically, they would be able to detect memories and use this to create these kinds of devices. If this is a sense they naturally have, they’re just building off it. The best way to explain this would be to think of it as how we’ve built telescopes to amplify our sense of sight. These Gromflomites are doing the exact same with their innate sense of memory/origin tracking. Although the memory parasites from Total Rickall may not be the original root of this species or its larval stage, they are for sure related and all intertwined in some way. I ended up realizing that making a family tree for this was incredibly hard and probably not worth the effort for this theory, even though I kept promising it. If I eventually find way better proof (yes, somehow better than all these long theories), I’ll consider making a family tree for every meta-parasite in ‘The Animal Theory’

In general, I don’t actually read or watch many theories on this show. I know about the classic Season 3 ones, but I’ve stayed in my own world for the past few years. I AM aware of the theory that the Total Rickall parasites came into the house via the ‘Mortynight Run’ rocks Rick collected. There’s a couple extra links I could be including like how Fart can read minds and this could make him a parasite (since he’s also being hunted by a Gromflomite), but the weird detail of this episode being next to Auto-Erotic Assimilation and the implied parasite family tree or evolutionary line is better and has more throughlines of proof. If I did keep this theory in mind, the implications would be way harder to unpack. For example, why is a Gromflomite hunting down something that is related to parasites that I recently tied back to a huge family tree/species of parasites that contain the Gromflomites instead? This theory is already complicated enough - this entire recap and correction section is already lengthy.

This also brings us to the next needed clarification, that being about why parasites even exist at all. This will be a broad breakdown that isn’t needed if you already understood the last theory’s point about parasites hunting Rick:

The Central Finite Curve is in the midst of the ‘actual’ multiverse that has infinite possibilities that aren’t isolated according to Rick’s importance or even lack thereof in reference. This is referred to as the non-canon of the show. Everything outside of it requires beings that are formless or can push through this chaotic multiverse with natural ease. On a meta-fictional level, entities like Previous Leon can do this just fine because he can traverse through any narrative and its narrative archetypes. He’s even seen using his own portals (or what was said to be a hole in the fourth wall).

I also recently learned that Shoney’s is NOT a parody of Denny’s. It’s a real chain that you can actually visit if you are a weird Rick and Morty fan. So this theory will ignore the claims I made about the fear hole being a tunnel through hyper-reality that connects to a real Denny’s, since Shoney’s is JUST AS REAL. However, it will be revised in this theory. I just thought I’d clarify here that it isn’t a parody at all and you guys can also go eat at Shoney’s like Rick. Weirdos.

I won’t be addressing a good amount of existing theories, like the Mortynight Run I mentioned before. I WILL shout-out @rickle-n-mort-enthusiast for some insane proof they found regarding the usage of C-137 as Rick’s assigned dimensionality that builds off my previous proof of C-137 being a false prime code. I’ll also be refusing to mention a LOT of things in this theory solely to keep things shorter and simpler. That means I’ll be removing the portion talking about the Non-Canon Adventures, a portion that tried to scrape together any proof regarding the talking cat that Jerry befriended, any proof regarding Birdperson (outside of a small Phoenixperson mention at the end), any proof regarding the anime, any more leaks, any other theories, any other implications or inspirations outside of Doc and Mharti or Back To The Future, and just anything you might not have seen mentions here. Either way, a lot of that stuff is saved for the inevitable Part 3 once I’m not as burnt-out from writing and editing this 8,000 behemoth.

Random Smaller Proof

I decided to go for ‘That’s Amorte’ because of its food motif and to see if Season 7 can rectify this theory further. Although it doesn’t instantly prove the entire main premise, there’s scattered remnants of this theory. We do see a small amount of memory erasure and tampering going on in this episode. Rick mentions sped-up lifespans and cloning as well, which is going to be important at the end of this theory and for ‘The Animal Theory’ coming out after this. Although you could make the point that people being eaten = parasite theory proof, it’s a little counterintuitive once you break it down further. At the end, no one else wanted to eat the spaghetti after actually seeing the memories of the person whose guts they were eating. Everyone BUT RICK. You can call this proof, but the spaghetti comes from suicide, not memories. As a result, I’ll just keep it here in case anyone was wondering about its inclusion in this theory. It has small bits of proof but the entire EPISODE isn’t supporting much. Surprisingly, an episode that DOES support this theory and even the idea of memories being eaten is ‘The Ricklantis Mix-Up’

Citadel Already Eats Memories

The Citadel knows the power of a Rick’s memories. Specifically, two Ricks have their memories fine-tuned and used as flavoring for a wafer

Simple Rick’s memories linger on a younger Beth and his times with her, kept on a loop

Meanwhile, Rick from dimension J-22 has his memories on a loop, specifically the memory of leaving the harsh working environment of the Simple Rick’s factory

The factory has the technology to loop memories into food. What’s interesting is that this is where the show first mentions the curve by its name, specifically using the term ‘iterations’. This is the official term for what I’ve been calling ‘deviation offsets’. Simple Rick seems to be 16 iterations off the curve. This doesn’t mean he’s literally not listed on the curve. I take it to mean that he’s in the first 16 iterations of a system based on Rick Prime, meaning he’s very close to Prime. And the entire point of this theory is that Rick C-137 is a parasite that feeds on memories and the mind of Prime. And here we have the memories of a Prime-esque Rick LITERALLY BEING EATEN.

Then we have J-22, who tries to take control of the situation and literally takes over his place later on. J-22 is stated to be ‘more Rick’ than any other Rick there. The parallels between the narrative of Prime and C-137 literally don’t stop. It shows that C-137 caused a butterfly effect and caused other Ricks to be based on him. Not in the sense that they follow up his narrative through “What if?” scenarios - rather, they directly follow his footsteps. This also confirms the idea that his narrative is very easy to recreate, what with Slow Mobius’ wife and Summer following his footsteps when they need to hunt down a given Rick or Prime-esque enemy in their life.

And the carry on top of J-22’s demise is that they end up using his memories and mind for a new batch of wafers. Feasting on a Rick’s memories.

I’d also like to draw parallels to how Previous Leon seems to feed on memories quite literally. And this would also explain why Rick is hunted too, not just because he’s any other parasite. The new two reasons are that he’s still the “false prime”, the Rickest Rick. He’s confused as Prime and the hero of this franchise

And two, Rick C-137 is easier to locate. Even though he couldn't hunt down Prime, that very journey is what shaped him. They go for the next best thing

And just one more minor detail - of course it makes sense that honing in on Prime is important. If you could get memories from the edges of the curve, you would stay at the outer edges. Yet we see parasites entering in constantly and hunting down C-137 - meaning it’s closer to the center axis, NOT the edges where the end of the curve and the main multiverse begins.

This shows how a Rick’s memories are fuel in the Citadel, but this acts as support for my previous theory since I said that meta-fictional parasites use C-137’s memories as fuel. The Galactic Federation, Previous Leon, The Self-Referential Six, Evil Morty, the memory parasites in Total Rickall, etc.

‘Rickmancing the Stone’ shows that Rick can transfer memories over into another being to create a parasite. He draws from ‘muscle memory’, saying he’s done this before. He injects it into Morty’s arm, creating a vengeful arm that is drawing from its own memories and acts on its own while using Morty’s body for its own benefits - textbook definition of a parasite.

How Does Evil Rick Exist?

Here’s a question to anyone who read the first part - If the idea of deviation off-sets for the curve are true, then how does Evil Rick exist? Rick C-137 is a parasite from outside of the canon PRETENDING to be a Rick based off the image of Prime. However, there’s still somehow Ricks based on C-137. Evil Rick is explicitly one of them because he HIMSELF mentions he’s a few deviations off Rick C-137, with only one Rick standing between them said to be ‘weird’. So I think a few things can be hypothesized.

I think each dimension pops up in real time based on events. Several series follow this logic, where an event in one universe causes it to branch off into another. After all, the curve explicitly is slightly based on each previous dimension and their outcomes. The reason I view Evil Rick and his dimension as an impossibility is because there is no Rick to be based off. There is merely a parasite pretending to BE Rick Prime, but there’s still some logical consistency.

We later on know that Evil Morty is another entity like Rick C-137. He’s able to breach the mind of Prime easily and shut down his decoys. He managed to get Rick’s backstory - something that I pointed out EVERY meta-parasite is just dying to do and is the secret overarching narrative of this series. And the greatest proof I can give you is the fact that he controls Evil Rick through his brain. He’s able to do all this mind stuff and later on escapes the curve entirely, noting that it’s also not that big of a task for him to take down Prime. Considering that this is a shared goal between C-137 and Evil Morty, that further aligns them both as parasites. But Evil Morty already has another Rick host - HIS Rick. He’s the definition of a host he’s using to anchor himself in more ways than one. I’ve mentioned how the anchoring works to ‘canonize’ these characters, not to mention that it’s being used to infiltrate the curve and the Citadel of Ricks itself.

This seems to be what Evil Rick’s dimension is mirroring regarding C-137. The parasite narrative of a narrative parasite. But why is it Morty this time?

Rick’s arrival into the curve caused another dimension to pop up, affecting the nearby ones into being distorted and causing it so it is fixated on this parasitic arrival. Now, we have Morty as the parasite. It’s as simple as that. That explains how these two exist even though they should’ve been based off a genuine Rick and Morty.

However, it seems that this proof continues further. We have Morty’s Mind Blowers - an episode and schism that shows that Rick consistently erases and alters Morty’s memories. This should be VERY alarming considering that the theory is constantly built on smaller instances of memory-tampering, and here we are with a big one. If anything, I think this is better proof that Evil Rick and Morty are based on the meta-parasite angle of C-137 to the point that I’d almost say it’s canon.

Rick tampers with Morty’s memories often. He’s practically his lab rat. I mentioned earlier that in Rickmancing the Stone, he created a parasitic arm using its memories alone on Morty. He’s also said he’s done it before - he clearly HAS with this type of memory on hand. Evil Morty would go on to experiment on HIS Rick and HIS memories. Evil Rick even eventually gets a hold of Rick’s memories of Morty, showing that Evil Morty has created a host that can do this work FOR him. It’s a consistent staple among these characters I keep deeming as parasites.

I remember I had an offhand comment that implied a sort of ‘hyper-canon’ that involved Denny’s. I understand that it was very strange and may have seemed out of context, but it was actually a crucial piece for the second part of this theory. The idea is that Denny’s is the original higher-layer franchise that had its lower-layer parody be important to the Rick and Morty curve narrative, existing as Shoney’s and its own existing in-universe franchise

As stated before, the entire reason that Rick C-137 was stated to be a non-canon/outside of the canon parasite is because he’s a parody deviation. He was removed from the parody and its source that he became his own thing entirely - or rather, later on modeled himself in the image of another franchise. To be fair, the idea of how Rick C-137 exists in a Rick image when I claimed that Rick Prime was the first ever Rick in this Rick and Morty franchise is just one big chicken-and-egg paradox. But we have better proof of how deviation offsets (as I coined it) work. We have Memory Rick becoming sentient due to the fact that he is a perspective based on a memory of a younger version of Rick.

The Incestual (Meta) Paradox

I’m gonna have to try to keep this one simple by starting with a useful comparison. I mentioned Doc and Mharti, which was the original Rick and Morty. It’s a parody of Back To The Future, and this parody is the groundwork for the entire show and theory as well. On a literal meta level, Rick C-137 is the child of Doc and Mharti as the show developed away from its parodic roots. Back To The Future has a subplot wherein Marty McFly travels back in time and nearly causes his younger mother to fall in love with him. This is a perfect representation of the time paradox that this show has on a meta level as well, ironically enough, which is due to the fact that I do NOT know what came first - Rick C-137 or Rick Prime. This is referring to their designs but also because I don’t know how many universes existed when the two met. 0? 1? 2? A few dozen? All of them?

Rick C-137 being a parasite means that Rick Prime must have come first so he could have someone to target. That is unless we follow the logic of appearances being chronological dictations because again, that’s a more meta timeline. I used it to try to prove that Rick created alternate decoys of his family to get his show on the air and continue being a total meta-parasite, which means that Prime probably didn’t exist at the time and he didn’t have some sort of goal.

By process of elimination though, we can try to see who came first in a less risky way. I know this part seems easy and useless, but it’s because we need to understand WHO defines WHAT.

Seeing as how C-137 as a dimension still is part of the Central Finite Curve while their narrative affects the rest of the Curve, it means that they are ingrained in it and crucial to it. Prime HAS existed there for long, yet C-137 is being replicated as though he’s just another Rick variant. Yes, he’s a parasite and he’s trying to fit in. As you’ll see later, there’s more proof that he even gets caught doing this parasitic fake Rick life. Being the ‘Rickest Rick’ means you can actually slip into the Curve and be manipulated by it, yet he’s not being dragged along. That means we have a ‘Rick layer’ and the actual parasite underneath. He’s forcing it by leaning into it so hard that it should’ve given it away from day one - and it almost did. That’s probably another reason that Rick Prime decided to take everything away from him. The difference between Rick Prime and Rick C-137 is a lot like comparing a diamond formed deep in the earth and one that was artificially cut. While the cut diamond is far more perfect and pushes the idealized beauty of diamonds, it’s very obvious that it was artificial. That is the best way to explain the idea that Rick is a parasite that is trying way too hard to fit in. To everyone else, he’s a flawless diamond that inexplicably formed under pressure when, in reality, it was done to maximize his survival and intelligence to survive while in the Central Finite Curve and continue living as a parasite. I know that this theory takes away from some of his greatest moments of love for those around him…and it does, I won’t lie. The way this works is that Rick knows he’s in a show. He is an actor, in another sense. The character he is playing is based off Rick Prime, while it’s more like he’s an actor who has beef with the character and actor that is Rick Prime. It’s layered, like I said, and on a meta level it’s fitting with how both characters are voiced by one actor.

The paradox is simply that Rick is going after Rick Prime originally due to his…attraction warranting him to do what his…fathers of Doc and Mharti did as well. And since he’s festering within his own cosmology and fighting over a version of himself, it’s a boiling pot that can be metaphorically digested as incestual. It’s just the ‘Rick layer’ doing this fight that is paradoxical. THis is all very wordy, but the reason this is all being mentioned is for the end part and far more meta layers.

Rick as a PARASITE is just his normal form.

This parasite was formed from Doc and Mharti, but ended up finding a perfect host to also base themselves off to create the Rick Layer

This Rick Layer is everything else we see that is affected by the Curve. His parasitic conflict changes the curve and other dimensions that aren’t even BASED on him or Prime entirely because it isn’t the Rick Layer doing this. Rick C-137 cannot possibly have his conflict reflected because the Central Finite Curve does not concern itself with two dimensions at once. Rather, it’s because Rick has such a chokehold, like a leech that refuses to let go and drains the blood of the Central Finite Curve all for himself, leaving it weak and basing it off the most popular event going on right now.

The Ads Are Canon

This is still going to be crazy and I need you all to hear me out. I think the ads are important to this theory. Specifically, the fast food commercials they’ve made in collaboration with Rick and Morty. The promotional material for the show seems to exist in its own layer as well, with the Season 1 promo showing Rick was already aware of the difference between a ‘show’ and its promotional material, demonstrating that they had no backside because it was not needed. If Rick cares so much about his show and tracks each season and narrative, I’m 100% convinced that he created these promotional selves to be sentient and help get the show on air. He has meta technology on hand so this wouldn’t be too hard. I could probably say the same about the Pringle Morties, but things like the sentient Wendy’s food items…why would Rick invent food that wants to kill him that has 0 association with him? This is where the bulk of these theories begin, so strap in.

The Wendy’s ads are surprisingly the main smoking gun of this theory. In one of them, we see them impersonate the family to trick Morty into doing a commercial. Rick literally says they’re using his likeness. Wow. It’s almost like this ENTIRE theory is about Rick C-137 using Prime’s likeness as a parasite to infiltrate his franchise’s reality. So that means these guys are their own parasites outside of reality as well, who have come in to impersonate the family.

One of the commercials shows these sentient food beings also trying to kill Rick and Morty, with Morty sporting a flat blue-lined ax. This weapon looks VERY similar to the one seen in Season 3’s opening, with Morties being trapped in plastic and weapons in their plastic casing. This also reminds me of the fact that we see a Butter Morty in the opening of Season 6 that is acknowledged in the meta episode. This means there’s several food manifestations acknowledged on a meta level. So now, time to get into another connection that’s a little flimsy:

For some reason, there’s a food motif going on with meta levels and memories.

The meta-parasites eat the memories of their hosts or host realities.

The memories of two Ricks similar to C-137 and Prime are used to flavor wafers being sold at the Citadel of Ricks.

When Rick is compromised and his memories are infiltrated by the Gromflomites, he was in a Shoney’s and later visits a McDonald’s before going to his origin story, then all the way back to Shoney’s to reveal they never left to begin with.

The fear hole is located inside a Denny’s

And now we have these sentient food items alongside Butter Morty being noticed and Morty in a commercial also having a reference to one of the season’s openings.

Any other commercials are quite lackluster and I could easily explain them away as being promotional material that pre-Rick Layer Rick is doing. Not ACTUALLY before the events of the show, but I mean the version of Rick that was making those commercials with the Smiths I think are decoys he made to market himself and make sure he’s on air to hunt Prime down. That can explain how the Pringle Morties also work. Summer’s reaction could be that, well…she just saw rampant Pringle Morties come through effortlessly, or that this is the actual Summer here. The real one we see in the show, not some other decoy. Rick’s trust in Summer would explain why he doesn’t hesitate to remove the veil of reality and say it’s just a commercial in a dire moment rather than just a normal occurrence, similar to when he told Morty he’s in a commercial for the show before it aired. It seems that back then, it was more cynical while now, it’s to affirm her that it’s a commercial as a way to hope that it doesn’t go fully haywire. Also, the Pringle Morties still tie into this food motif. Robots can draw from very basic memories (anyone remember how Morty’s decoy in Rickmancing the Stone is eating spaghetti and how the episode shows that muscle memories translate into actual memories and instinct?) as also shown in Fear No Mort with a robot Rick made being scared as to why it has child memories. They are likely running on end with memories of Pringles and are decoys Rick made that are being used. It’s reminiscent of how, in Edge of Tomorty and the theory I made on its fascist dimensions, the back-up bodies from the vats are being monitored and restricted by a higher controlling government. These were taken from Rick just for this commercial and run rampant to promote themselves in an uprising revolt against Rick’s wishes, which wouldn’t be the first time this happens to one of Rick’s inventions after all.

I could make a point about that fear hole again, but that is going to be saved for later. This will be a good transition into the segment about the fear hole, actually.

The Fear Hole Is A Tunnel

This one is another stretch for now, but there’ll be proof to ease you into this. I mentioned that the fear hole stretches across every layer of reality we see because it was using Morty to understand Rick on a fundamental level. It was able to recreate Diane, which is interesting to think about for a moment. Diane doesn’t exist and the only one coming close to recreating her was Prime himself. Keep this in mind because I have more proof that the fear hole knows about the true nature of Diane, which also means that it seemingly transcends time and space. This would be viewing the story from a higher state rather than just being a timeline, as Diane is erased from existence, making it meta-chronological. Obviously, WE THE VIEWERS can still see Diane before and after her erasure. But Morty doesn’t know anything about Diane. It’s more that it is taking Morty’s raw thoughts and allowing them to be shaped with the context of who each character is. That’s also likely why we see background characters from his school pop up at times and even Nancy showing up (i’m not gonna fangirl right now I swear). It’s because it’s drawing from his memories to fill in certain gaps at times. He knows these people way better and uses them as stand-ins while gapped knowledge of other individuals is filled in. That also explains how Rick’s intentions were revealed. Morty didn’t KNOW Rick until the fear hole filled in the details he was unaware of, allowing him to realize that Rick didn’t jump into the hole with him.

After all, we fear what we do not know. The fear hole allows people to get over their fears by explaining them and removing unknown factors, which is a very real way to counter one’s phobias.

Let’s skim over the fact that I managed to finally explain the fear hole because this is JUST the start, kind of like how I managed to explain how the Central Finite Curve works and then explained even more mind blowing stuff. First of all, how does the fear hole know this? How does it actually know every little thing about EVERYONE, not just Rick and Diane? The fear hole appeared in a Denny’s, a location similar to Shoney’s, which has brought comfort to Rick. It’s also a place that he stays in mentally during the events of ‘The Rickshank Rickdemption’. This means it’s using a place similar to Rick’s comfort to slowly ease everyone into this situation. Again, this is reflecting similar methods of unpacking one’s fears. The fear hole is what I refer to as a tunnel. I don’t know if I’d also call it a parasite, even though it seems to display some level of sentience. The man in the suit could be its mind personified, but that’s for later to solve. Let it be known that IF it were a parasite, this could likely be its main host to entice people into its trap.

Anywho, if this fear hole connects through layers, then it likely pierces through every possible layer and meta layer. This would concern itself with the ads and promotional material, as I already said. And these worry themselves over marketability and using Rick’s likeness. Being more Rick than Rick. Being a Rickest Rick, like C-137 - emphasizing the point about sentient food ads trying to take Rick’s place.

And the Story Train manages to have a setting that tracks marketability as well, meaning Story Lord similarly tracks this as a mechanism of the train and reality, especially concerning Rick and Morty. The end of the first Story Train episode literally ends on an ad that the Citadel of Ricks was using to promote their Story Train toy set, meaning that the Story Train is technically an ad that is placing itself in the vicinity of other Ricks to be marketed and sold - much like the sentient Wendy’s food items. But is there any further proof that the Story Train and fear hole are TRULY intertwined?

Yes.

We can start off by showing that anything in the fear hole isn’t canon by definition. It is presupposed canon instead, implied canon. This is because our view of the fear hole relies on Morty’s knowledge of the world being currently shaped by the fear hole’s actual knowledge of reality. The first part of this theory explained that the outer reaches of the Story Train are considered non-canon and need an anchor. Otherwise, they spiral out of control with no direct medium. The reason that there can still be narrative spirals within the train is because it can happen quicker with nearby sequences going off - Rick and Morty can suddenly be in one story and exit into another because it is contained within the train. In the fear hole itself, it is going off what Morty knows as the fear hole’s knowledge guides him. Outside of the Story Train, literal continuity is needed or else you risk entering an uncontrollable story that has no anchor, no amount of truth to it at all. At the same time, I considered the non-canon to be the actual multiverse. This is the multiverse that surrounds the Central Finite Curve, this time being INFINITE instead of finite, and where Evil Morty fled to. This would also be similar to the chaos of the fear hole. A perfect analogy would be the fact that a sector of this ‘actual multiverse’ was contained under the premise that Rick is important, giving us the Central Finite Curve. The same happens with the Story Train containing its own continuity while the fear hole contains its own point of view with Morty inside of it. All of these line up, meaning that the Story Train must be using the fear hole as a tunnel.

But this still needs just a bit more evidence to it. How would the fear hole contain greater layers of reality AND the Story Train if it stays in a Denny’s at all times?

As we already know, the Story Train and the fear hole have countless layers to them until one resolves into the next in a transcendental format. You can go to the control room of the Story Train or realize your true fear in the heart of the fear hole. At the same time, the Story Train needs continuity to stay anchored and a medium. Otherwise, it’s similar to the chaotic multiverse outside of the train. And Morty didn’t know he was even in the fear hole at times until he himself realized it and eventually escaped it with the realization of what his actual fear is and what actually lies out there. To Rick outside of the fear hole, he had no idea what was even going on inside the fear hole. And then I remembered the fear hole demon guy in the suit.

Holy shit. He’s the key to this, LITERALLY. He was the one that brought them there, practically a symbiotic relationship with the fear hole. That memory energy and fear keeps it constantly flowing, sure, but there’s another important thing to mention. He not only explains what it is OUTSIDE of the hole, but explains how it works INSIDE of the hole. His sentience persists inside the fear hole because he is intertwined with it. Knowledge conquers irrational fears. Knowledge is how one escapes the fear hole, by either coming out smarter than their phobia or being blissfully unaware of its nature like Rick and staying away from it. And knowledge/awareness brings life to the Story Train and is the key to surviving the outer multiverse/non-canon. The fear hole’s manifestation demon (no idea what to call him) is the one allowing people to slowly escape with knowledge to anchor them to each layer - much like the Story Train. And we know the Story Train isn’t sentient, so I think that the fear hole is utterly massive in comparison to it.

It seems to contain knowledge it shouldn’t. As I said before, it knows what Diane looks and somewhat acts like and that Rick can see through her simulated flaws. It does this all from Morty’s flawed views of the world. In the first part of the theory, I said it reached into the “hyper-canon” of our real world and Doc and Mharti to reach Rick’s origin story. I don’t really stand by that view, but I think it can reach it by virtue of its size and magnitude. It reaches out and swallows the entire franchise - which thematically fits with containing the entire series so far by being at the very end of it (so far at least).

Just a small tidbit as well - Previous Leon was going through what Rick called a hole in the fourth wall. This is likely what the entire fear hole is, as it’s a fitting explanation that also ties in an actual statement from ‘Full Meta Jackrick’

I don’t know if the fear hole falls into the category of being a meta-parasite due to how large it is, but because it is said to feed off fear, then that is enough to class it here. To conclude, it seems that the Story Train practically uses the fear hole as a tunnel to reach every layer of reality possible. The ads exist on a layer here as well but are just as valid. I mentioned a ‘higher power’ and it’s likely this fear hole itself. If it gives a view through one’s perspective and shows the true higher layers or things one wouldn’t normally notice by filling in the blanks, it explains how Rick just KNOWS about these products perfectly without ever interacting with them. Going back to the actor comparison, it’s like Rick or anyone else is reading off a script. In a way, he is because he’s being fed this information through the fear hole. And seeing as how the fear hole creates a very convincing reality that can only be debunked through minor flaws (Rick notices Diane glitching out, Rick is the one who tears the wallpaper to show they’re in a Pringles ad), then it’s safe to say that these locations we see in these commercials takes place in the fear hole and probably different layers.

What does Rick get from this, though? He’s seen being paid in the PS5 promo (not related to food but still being used for this fear hole proof), but I think what matters the most is that he’s getting publicity. If he cares about being aired, then he cares about connecting himself to these other products and attaching his name to it - like a parasite.

Furthermore, it makes sense because he allows himself to parody or be parodied - such as the God of War or Ghost of Tsushima commercials. I said that these were the things that gave him life and still give him life. These are quick bursts of life for him, being able to effortlessly leech onto other properties and parody them or be parodied by them. The fear hole fills in the information for him so it’s not as hard. And since parodies fundamentally revolve around overlapping or blatant narrative archetypes, it makes sense why Rick was constantly referencing narrative archetypes such as cliches or story formats on a whim. He NEEDS to understand them to allow himself to keep living and it is the basis to understand many scenarios he’s in, which would explain why he later on uses meta technology that reveals things such as foreshadowing or Chekov’s Gun hidden in plain sight through a - I shit you not - meta-reality, or as he calls it, a meta-canon. That means that these things are a part of a canon connected ONLY through meta layers, so it practically confirms these things are connected together

Oh, and let’s not forget the whole minor narrative archetype of soup being used in Full Meta Jackrick. Just one more food connection to mention, though…

Hardee’s.

Hardee’s is the ONE outlier that threatens to debunk all of this. All we have is Rick letting the Hardee’s sentient burgers into Morty’s room with delight. And that says that he isn’t afraid of them. I didn’t want to mention it because of this entire build-up…BUT, it’s probably just him having some fun on set or experimenting with creating his own sentient food to counteract Wendy’s.

Rick Created Diane and Beth

I saved the very best for last. I briefly said that Rick wanted to ‘canonize’ himself and blend in as a Rick with a normal Diane and Beth. This is somewhat not true. I think that Rick was paralleling Prime’s current narrative to be the very first Rick to create portal travel, leeching off of Prime’s work and his life. Even though we never see this, Prime says ‘echoes of my daughter’ in his fucking amazing speech, meaning that Beth does exist for him too. This is what everyone else is basing themselves off of. So where exactly did C-137 locate a Diane and Beth if he’s faking this life as a parasite?

He didn’t. He made them.

You’ll quickly realize that this single portion could be its own great theory, but this acts as the greater support for this two-part theory. I think that Rick created his Diane and Beth. What’s the proof?

First off, we know that he’s an inventor. Even though portal travel was out of his reach, he was using technology early on to identify Rick Prime and his features. This means he has facial technology and yes, scans his own MEMORIES into a photo, which is another mini-bombshell of proof. This allows him to KNOW what Diane and Beth look like to create these blueprints in the first place.

Rick has the ability to create artificial intelligence and artificial humans as well. He once created a creature that mimics Jerry’s voice perfectly. He has created clones and decoys of his family. He has Diane’s voice still integrated into his technology. And this technology is clearly sentient, Rick allows them to have free will and opinions of their own - whether it be the Diane AI, the ship, the sentient lightsaber, the Morty clone that gained actual emotions and feelings before shutting itself down, etc. This is famously difficult to pull off, but it’s what many would argue separates a robot from a conscious being. The creation of free will into a robot would mean that these were real enough to Rick and their own ‘people’ in a way. So this shows that it’s clearly possible, but there’s way more than this.

Despite him being able to give free will to his creations, they’re still not perfect. ‘Rickmancing the Stone’ shows him whipping up Summer and Morty clone-bots that are pretty faulty. His clones were quick but not perfect - except one.

Space Beth.

Beth’s clones seem to have the most amount of work put into them. This got to the point where Rick couldn’t even tell who the actual clone was, not to mention that in ABC’s of Beth, he gave her the option of a clone already. It’s probably because Rick has had more time to perfect Beth’s clone rather than Summer and Morty…which shouldn’t be true. Wouldn’t it be paradoxically easier to create a working clone of someone younger rather than your older daughter you’ve known for longer? Not really. Because even if he was absent in Beth’s life and would have more reason to make a better clone for his accident-prone grandson he needs for adventures, it means that he has more experience creating a Beth clone.

Like the very original. Further explaining that very identity crisis both Beths have.

It’s also an interesting parallel to draw between him, Prime, and Simple Rick. At the very beginning, I said that Prime and Simple Rick were very similar to one another according to their placements along the Central Finite Curve. Simple Rick’s greatest invention is said to be his daughter Beth. And Rick C-137 took that VERY seriously - his greatest invention is still Beth, following Rick Prime’s footsteps.

The reason he’s making these two is because he’s a parasite, he’s not an actual Rick based off Prime. Since it’s just both of them in this war, he doesn’t have an established family because he isn’t an actual Rick based on Prime, this is merely a disguise. That’s why he allowed himself to be explicit as the ‘Rickest Rick’ when this disguise falls flat once Prime kills off Diane and Beth. Even though these are ‘fake’, these are advanced creations and Rick would be kind of a lonely guy. He clearly has a major disconnect that not even Morty can pin down in the fear hole since he can’t even give Rick what he truly wants - that Diane is STILL fake and inaccurate.

Why did Prime then kill off every Diane?

Because it’s a perfect amount of control and universal timing. C-137 can’t go out of his way to perfect the technology and lay low in another universe. I mentioned how he travels to other dimensions to blend in, but that’s with an existing universe. Prime was stopping him from starting over in another universe. Instead, he enters the existing lives of other Ricks - like a fucking parasite.

Considering that Rick meets Diane nearly across every dimension, Prime would either be interrupting the current relationship or soon-to-be relationship between a Rick and Diane across any given dimension. It means that Rick C-137 would either run into a dimension that doesn’t have a Diane yet or she’s dead. The reason Beth isn’t killed off is, well…no Diane means no Beth, in a way.

Although there isn’t enough proof that Diane was created, the proof is simply that C-137 is just going off ‘fake it until you make it’. I have to keep hammering this point home because otherwise, people would point it out as a fallacy when it’s just the basics.

Also, yes, it’s still a reason to be distraught. He likes the multiverse because he can access ANY Beth he wants at this point. It means he doesn’t have to create clones and that’s probably why he takes liberties nowadays compared to his older clone - Beth. And the dude once tried to befriend a fucking robot that serves butter. If he does that, he would for SURE be distraught at these free will top-of-the-line artificial humans he made himself dying right in front of him by the man he’s trying to control and whose life he’s trying to steal. He’s shown a good amount of compassion for his creations.

And another small piece of proof is that the fear hole shows Diane glitching out during it. I know that this is Morty’s view, but let’s follow the logic of the fear hole in the lens of this theory. It’s slowly molding a perfect Diane for our Rick, imagined in the mind of Morty. That would be his Diane. Although we’re getting Morty’s views, it’s being molded by the fear hole and its powers, alongside its knowledge on Rick and reality. That would be creating a perfect Diane that only shows its flaws when it acts slightly robotic and off before actually glitching, like a piece of technology. This also isn’t even his Diane, a point shown at the beginning. This is a perfect harrowing allusion to the fact that Rick C-137 has no Diane at all. That’s why he ended up creating one, it’s a stolen invention. I mean, let’s not also forget that Rick Prime had fake hosts of his own depending on technology. It just seems like a Rick thing to do to create humanoid robots that can trick people into thinking they’re ACTUAL humans, as it was so convincing that it kept tricking Rick and required the aid of Evil Morty.

Even more proof from previous parts includes the weird detail that, in the same fear hole episode, we see that the robot that Rick makes for Diane has memories of a child before short-circuiting and neglecting its own programming. Again, this seems to be a common theme for these robots, but this shows that memories fuel life into these robots - more proof that C-137’s Diane and Beth must have had its memories siphoned off existing variants off the curve

I’d also like to mention that Rick mentions making robots for the Federation. What does he call the Gromflomites in the pilot episode? ‘Robots’.

Now, I’m going to just insert this next theory at the end since we’ve gotten enough proof of Diane and Beth being artificial humans. I have nowhere else to put this, but considering that Rick in the pilot was portrayed as senile, missing obvious details, and quick on his feet with lies or excuses, perhaps he made robots for the Federation that got replaced by Gromflomites. We also see that they have access to a blue portal that can apparently reach outside of the curve. The one time we’ve seen a blue portal is when Rick was originally making them, the ones we see in Rick’s backstory that the Federation’s Gromflomite agents themselves witnessed (even if it was a false origin). I’m going to consider the pilot as also being a part of the canon, perhaps it takes place very early on in the timeline and there’s just a gap between it and the first actual episode. Anyways, I’m mentioning this because if Rick went against the Federation, they would want to tap into Rick’s vulnerability. That means using his technology in more subtle ways, taking him and his friend, and tracking his origin story. This is done in three ways:

-Don’t use agents created by Rick and instead use his technology that can be altered or won’t turn on them

-Track down his friends and alter Birdperson using technology Rick gave them. This would be possible due to their bond and the sheer irony of it, as well as hinting at the fact Rick’s technology perfectly works on his best friend.

-Start to amplify and reuse Gromflomite innate senses and build their own technology based on it to track memories and parasitic minds, eventually using it on Rick himself.

This shows how it FINALLY wraps around, showing that Rick’s influence truly pans out and graces everything, as we saw that the Central Finite Curve changes from his conflict and new life hunting Rick Prime down.

To cap off everything that’s been said here, we have more proof for the narrative I was laying out. Rick C-137 is a meta-fictional parasite from outside of the canon who is trying to impersonate Rick Prime, the actual Rick of this franchise. He has used his inventive demeanor to fabricate a false life in the process yet was found out by Rick Prime, who he only followed closely because it resembled one of his fathers and as a way to slip into this system of potentially infinite bodies to take control over too.

The life of a parasite needs it to actually take over a body. Way back in Part 1, I showed that the multiverse and non-canon out there is chaotic and ruthless. These meta-parasites push themselves through this chaotic sea to fund a host to replicate or take over narratively speaking. That’s why Rick’s greatest invention is portal travel - the one way to eliminate this entire issue. It is this reason why he holds it close and is an icon inseparable from him.

[the-rick-parasite-theory-archive]

Recap + Corrections

Welcome to part 2 of the Rick Meta-Parasite Theory. This is the follow-up to the greatest Rick and Morty theory. Last time, we established that Rick was a meta-fictional parasite that came from outside of the canon to take the place of Rick Prime. There was a bunch of proof for this and it retroactively changes the entire narrative of the series in a consistent way. This new part is also going to be based off the first one, so go read that and gas it up with reblogssssss 🔥

This new part is going to be broken into several distinct parts because there’s more proof and confirmation for this theory through specific segments. Let’s start out with some clarifications:

I throw around the phrase ‘parasite’ a lot. To clarify what a parasite actually IS, it’s an entity that can attack the mind and the memories of a person to enter the narrative of the Rick and Morty series. Nearly all of them are meta-fictional as well.

I called Evil Morty a ‘counter-parasite’, which isn’t exactly true. He is simply another parasite. In the moment, I meant that he can attack other parasites. However, they ALL do this. The grander narrative of this theory is just parasites fighting one another to get to their host, Rick Prime. It’s survival of the fittest and by calling Evil Morty a ‘counter’ to parasites, I made it sound like he was made for this or is some antithesis when my proof was to show he was falling in line with the motifs of parasites I set up. This includes how Evil Morty had access to technology targeting a Rick’s mind and body, so he’s just a flat-out parasite.

As if it wasn’t mentioned before or obvious enough - Yes, C-137 is the child of Doc and Mharti. And he went after Rick Prime because he resembles his ‘dad’, Doc. I just didn’t say it because it’s a gross idea that still somehow works because the idea is that he is leeching off himself

There’s more proof of a shared parasite family tree as well. I pointed out that the Federation is made up of aliens who built memory devices to enter Rick’s mind. But the one Gromflomite agent they send in has a physical reaction to nearing Rick’s backstory and realized he was honing in on it. This means that genetically, they would be able to detect memories and use this to create these kinds of devices. If this is a sense they naturally have, they’re just building off it. The best way to explain this would be to think of it as how we’ve built telescopes to amplify our sense of sight. These Gromflomites are doing the exact same with their innate sense of memory/origin tracking. Although the memory parasites from Total Rickall may not be the original root of this species or its larval stage, they are for sure related and all intertwined in some way. I ended up realizing that making a family tree for this was incredibly hard and probably not worth the effort for this theory, even though I kept promising it. If I eventually find way better proof (yes, somehow better than all these long theories), I’ll consider making a family tree for every meta-parasite in ‘The Animal Theory’

In general, I don’t actually read or watch many theories on this show. I know about the classic Season 3 ones, but I’ve stayed in my own world for the past few years. I AM aware of the theory that the Total Rickall parasites came into the house via the ‘Mortynight Run’ rocks Rick collected. There’s a couple extra links I could be including like how Fart can read minds and this could make him a parasite (since he’s also being hunted by a Gromflomite), but the weird detail of this episode being next to Auto-Erotic Assimilation and the implied parasite family tree or evolutionary line is better and has more throughlines of proof. If I did keep this theory in mind, the implications would be way harder to unpack. For example, why is a Gromflomite hunting down something that is related to parasites that I recently tied back to a huge family tree/species of parasites that contain the Gromflomites instead? This theory is already complicated enough - this entire recap and correction section is already lengthy.

This also brings us to the next needed clarification, that being about why parasites even exist at all. This will be a broad breakdown that isn’t needed if you already understood the last theory’s point about parasites hunting Rick:

The Central Finite Curve is in the midst of the ‘actual’ multiverse that has infinite possibilities that aren’t isolated according to Rick’s importance or even lack thereof in reference. This is referred to as the non-canon of the show. Everything outside of it requires beings that are formless or can push through this chaotic multiverse with natural ease. On a meta-fictional level, entities like Previous Leon can do this just fine because he can traverse through any narrative and its narrative archetypes. He’s even seen using his own portals (or what was said to be a hole in the fourth wall).

I also recently learned that Shoney’s is NOT a parody of Denny’s. It’s a real chain that you can actually visit if you are a weird Rick and Morty fan. So this theory will ignore the claims I made about the fear hole being a tunnel through hyper-reality that connects to a real Denny’s, since Shoney’s is JUST AS REAL. However, it will be revised in this theory. I just thought I’d clarify here that it isn’t a parody at all and you guys can also go eat at Shoney’s like Rick. Weirdos.

I won’t be addressing a good amount of existing theories, like the Mortynight Run I mentioned before. I WILL shout-out @rickle-n-mort-enthusiast for some insane proof they found regarding the usage of C-137 as Rick’s assigned dimensionality that builds off my previous proof of C-137 being a false prime code. I’ll also be refusing to mention a LOT of things in this theory solely to keep things shorter and simpler. That means I’ll be removing the portion talking about the Non-Canon Adventures, a portion that tried to scrape together any proof regarding the talking cat that Jerry befriended, any proof regarding Birdperson (outside of a small Phoenixperson mention at the end), any proof regarding the anime, any more leaks, any other theories, any other implications or inspirations outside of Doc and Mharti or Back To The Future, and just anything you might not have seen mentions here. Either way, a lot of that stuff is saved for the inevitable Part 3 once I’m not as burnt-out from writing and editing this 8,000 behemoth.

Random Smaller Proof

I decided to go for ‘That’s Amorte’ because of its food motif and to see if Season 7 can rectify this theory further. Although it doesn’t instantly prove the entire main premise, there’s scattered remnants of this theory. We do see a small amount of memory erasure and tampering going on in this episode. Rick mentions sped-up lifespans and cloning as well, which is going to be important at the end of this theory and for ‘The Animal Theory’ coming out after this. Although you could make the point that people being eaten = parasite theory proof, it’s a little counterintuitive once you break it down further. At the end, no one else wanted to eat the spaghetti after actually seeing the memories of the person whose guts they were eating. Everyone BUT RICK. You can call this proof, but the spaghetti comes from suicide, not memories. As a result, I’ll just keep it here in case anyone was wondering about its inclusion in this theory. It has small bits of proof but the entire EPISODE isn’t supporting much. Surprisingly, an episode that DOES support this theory and even the idea of memories being eaten is ‘The Ricklantis Mix-Up’

The Citadel Already Eats Memories

The Citadel knows the power of a Rick’s memories. Specifically, two Ricks have their memories fine-tuned and used as flavoring for a wafer

Simple Rick’s memories linger on a younger Beth and his times with her, kept on a loop

Meanwhile, Rick from dimension J-22 has his memories on a loop, specifically the memory of leaving the harsh working environment of the Simple Rick’s factory

The factory has the technology to loop memories into food. What’s interesting is that this is where the show first mentions the curve by its name, specifically using the term ‘iterations’. This is the official term for what I’ve been calling ‘deviation offsets’. Simple Rick seems to be 16 iterations off the curve. This doesn’t mean he’s literally not listed on the curve. I take it to mean that he’s in the first 16 iterations of a system based on Rick Prime, meaning he’s very close to Prime. And the entire point of this theory is that Rick C-137 is a parasite that feeds on memories and the mind of Prime. And here we have the memories of a Prime-esque Rick LITERALLY BEING EATEN.

Then we have J-22, who tries to take control of the situation and literally takes over his place later on. J-22 is stated to be ‘more Rick’ than any other Rick there. The parallels between the narrative of Prime and C-137 literally don’t stop. It shows that C-137 caused a butterfly effect and caused other Ricks to be based on him. Not in the sense that they follow up his narrative through “What if?” scenarios - rather, they directly follow his footsteps. This also confirms the idea that his narrative is very easy to recreate, what with Slow Mobius’ wife and Summer following his footsteps when they need to hunt down a given Rick or Prime-esque enemy in their life.

And the carry on top of J-22’s demise is that they end up using his memories and mind for a new batch of wafers. Feasting on a Rick’s memories.

I’d also like to draw parallels to how Previous Leon seems to feed on memories quite literally. And this would also explain why Rick is hunted too, not just because he’s any other parasite. The new two reasons are that he’s still the “false prime”, the Rickest Rick. He’s confused as Prime and the hero of this franchise

And two, Rick C-137 is easier to locate. Even though he couldn't hunt down Prime, that very journey is what shaped him. They go for the next best thing

And just one more minor detail - of course it makes sense that honing in on Prime is important. If you could get memories from the edges of the curve, you would stay at the outer edges. Yet we see parasites entering in constantly and hunting down C-137 - meaning it’s closer to the center axis, NOT the edges where the end of the curve and the main multiverse begins.

This shows how a Rick’s memories are fuel in the Citadel, but this acts as support for my previous theory since I said that meta-fictional parasites use C-137’s memories as fuel. The Galactic Federation, Previous Leon, The Self-Referential Six, Evil Morty, the memory parasites in Total Rickall, etc.

‘Rickmancing the Stone’ shows that Rick can transfer memories over into another being to create a parasite. He draws from ‘muscle memory’, saying he’s done this before. He injects it into Morty’s arm, creating a vengeful arm that is drawing from its own memories and acts on its own while using Morty’s body for its own benefits - textbook definition of a parasite.

How Does Evil Rick Exist?

Here’s a question to anyone who read the first part - If the idea of deviation off-sets for the curve are true, then how does Evil Rick exist? Rick C-137 is a parasite from outside of the canon PRETENDING to be a Rick based off the image of Prime. However, there’s still somehow Ricks based on C-137. Evil Rick is explicitly one of them because he HIMSELF mentions he’s a few deviations off Rick C-137, with only one Rick standing between them said to be ‘weird’. So I think a few things can be hypothesized.

I think each dimension pops up in real time based on events. Several series follow this logic, where an event in one universe causes it to branch off into another. After all, the curve explicitly is slightly based on each previous dimension and their outcomes. The reason I view Evil Rick and his dimension as an impossibility is because there is no Rick to be based off. There is merely a parasite pretending to BE Rick Prime, but there’s still some logical consistency.

We later on know that Evil Morty is another entity like Rick C-137. He’s able to breach the mind of Prime easily and shut down his decoys. He managed to get Rick’s backstory - something that I pointed out EVERY meta-parasite is just dying to do and is the secret overarching narrative of this series. And the greatest proof I can give you is the fact that he controls Evil Rick through his brain. He’s able to do all this mind stuff and later on escapes the curve entirely, noting that it’s also not that big of a task for him to take down Prime. Considering that this is a shared goal between C-137 and Evil Morty, that further aligns them both as parasites. But Evil Morty already has another Rick host - HIS Rick. He’s the definition of a host he’s using to anchor himself in more ways than one. I’ve mentioned how the anchoring works to ‘canonize’ these characters, not to mention that it’s being used to infiltrate the curve and the Citadel of Ricks itself.

This seems to be what Evil Rick’s dimension is mirroring regarding C-137. The parasite narrative of a narrative parasite. But why is it Morty this time?

Rick’s arrival into the curve caused another dimension to pop up, affecting the nearby ones into being distorted and causing it so it is fixated on this parasitic arrival. Now, we have Morty as the parasite. It’s as simple as that. That explains how these two exist even though they should’ve been based off a genuine Rick and Morty.

However, it seems that this proof continues further. We have Morty’s Mind Blowers - an episode and schism that shows that Rick consistently erases and alters Morty’s memories. This should be VERY alarming considering that the theory is constantly built on smaller instances of memory-tampering, and here we are with a big one. If anything, I think this is better proof that Evil Rick and Morty are based on the meta-parasite angle of C-137 to the point that I’d almost say it’s canon.

Rick tampers with Morty’s memories often. He’s practically his lab rat. I mentioned earlier that in Rickmancing the Stone, he created a parasitic arm using its memories alone on Morty. He’s also said he’s done it before - he clearly HAS with this type of memory on hand. Evil Morty would go on to experiment on HIS Rick and HIS memories. Evil Rick even eventually gets a hold of Rick’s memories of Morty, showing that Evil Morty has created a host that can do this work FOR him. It’s a consistent staple among these characters I keep deeming as parasites.

I remember I had an offhand comment that implied a sort of ‘hyper-canon’ that involved Denny’s. I understand that it was very strange and may have seemed out of context, but it was actually a crucial piece for the second part of this theory. The idea is that Denny’s is the original higher-layer franchise that had its lower-layer parody be important to the Rick and Morty curve narrative, existing as Shoney’s and its own existing in-universe franchise

As stated before, the entire reason that Rick C-137 was stated to be a non-canon/outside of the canon parasite is because he’s a parody deviation. He was removed from the parody and its source that he became his own thing entirely - or rather, later on modeled himself in the image of another franchise. To be fair, the idea of how Rick C-137 exists in a Rick image when I claimed that Rick Prime was the first ever Rick in this Rick and Morty franchise is just one big chicken-and-egg paradox. But we have better proof of how deviation offsets (as I coined it) work. We have Memory Rick becoming sentient due to the fact that he is a perspective based on a memory of a younger version of Rick.

The Incestual (Meta) Paradox

I’m gonna have to try to keep this one simple by starting with a useful comparison. I mentioned Doc and Mharti, which was the original Rick and Morty. It’s a parody of Back To The Future, and this parody is the groundwork for the entire show and theory as well. On a literal meta level, Rick C-137 is the child of Doc and Mharti as the show developed away from its parodic roots. Back To The Future has a subplot wherein Marty McFly travels back in time and nearly causes his younger mother to fall in love with him. This is a perfect representation of the time paradox that this show has on a meta level as well, ironically enough, which is due to the fact that I do NOT know what came first - Rick C-137 or Rick Prime. This is referring to their designs but also because I don’t know how many universes existed when the two met. 0? 1? 2? A few dozen? All of them?

Rick C-137 being a parasite means that Rick Prime must have come first so he could have someone to target. That is unless we follow the logic of appearances being chronological dictations because again, that’s a more meta timeline. I used it to try to prove that Rick created alternate decoys of his family to get his show on the air and continue being a total meta-parasite, which means that Prime probably didn’t exist at the time and he didn’t have some sort of goal.

By process of elimination though, we can try to see who came first in a less risky way. I know this part seems easy and useless, but it’s because we need to understand WHO defines WHAT.

Seeing as how C-137 as a dimension still is part of the Central Finite Curve while their narrative affects the rest of the Curve, it means that they are ingrained in it and crucial to it. Prime HAS existed there for long, yet C-137 is being replicated as though he’s just another Rick variant. Yes, he’s a parasite and he’s trying to fit in. As you’ll see later, there’s more proof that he even gets caught doing this parasitic fake Rick life. Being the ‘Rickest Rick’ means you can actually slip into the Curve and be manipulated by it, yet he’s not being dragged along. That means we have a ‘Rick layer’ and the actual parasite underneath. He’s forcing it by leaning into it so hard that it should’ve given it away from day one - and it almost did. That’s probably another reason that Rick Prime decided to take everything away from him. The difference between Rick Prime and Rick C-137 is a lot like comparing a diamond formed deep in the earth and one that was artificially cut. While the cut diamond is far more perfect and pushes the idealized beauty of diamonds, it’s very obvious that it was artificial. That is the best way to explain the idea that Rick is a parasite that is trying way too hard to fit in. To everyone else, he’s a flawless diamond that inexplicably formed under pressure when, in reality, it was done to maximize his survival and intelligence to survive while in the Central Finite Curve and continue living as a parasite. I know that this theory takes away from some of his greatest moments of love for those around him…and it does, I won’t lie. The way this works is that Rick knows he’s in a show. He is an actor, in another sense. The character he is playing is based off Rick Prime, while it’s more like he’s an actor who has beef with the character and actor that is Rick Prime. It’s layered, like I said, and on a meta level it’s fitting with how both characters are voiced by one actor.

The paradox is simply that Rick is going after Rick Prime originally due to his…attraction warranting him to do what his…fathers of Doc and Mharti did as well. And since he’s festering within his own cosmology and fighting over a version of himself, it’s a boiling pot that can be metaphorically digested as incestual. It’s just the ‘Rick layer’ doing this fight that is paradoxical. THis is all very wordy, but the reason this is all being mentioned is for the end part and far more meta layers.

Rick as a PARASITE is just his normal form.

This parasite was formed from Doc and Mharti, but ended up finding a perfect host to also base themselves off to create the Rick Layer

This Rick Layer is everything else we see that is affected by the Curve. His parasitic conflict changes the curve and other dimensions that aren’t even BASED on him or Prime entirely because it isn’t the Rick Layer doing this. Rick C-137 cannot possibly have his conflict reflected because the Central Finite Curve does not concern itself with two dimensions at once. Rather, it’s because Rick has such a chokehold, like a leech that refuses to let go and drains the blood of the Central Finite Curve all for himself, leaving it weak and basing it off the most popular event going on right now.

The Ads Are Canon

This is still going to be crazy and I need you all to hear me out. I think the ads are important to this theory. Specifically, the fast food commercials they’ve made in collaboration with Rick and Morty. The promotional material for the show seems to exist in its own layer as well, with the Season 1 promo showing Rick was already aware of the difference between a ‘show’ and its promotional material, demonstrating that they had no backside because it was not needed. If Rick cares so much about his show and tracks each season and narrative, I’m 100% convinced that he created these promotional selves to be sentient and help get the show on air. He has meta technology on hand so this wouldn’t be too hard. I could probably say the same about the Pringle Morties, but things like the sentient Wendy’s food items…why would Rick invent food that wants to kill him that has 0 association with him? This is where the bulk of these theories begin, so strap in.

The Wendy’s ads are surprisingly the main smoking gun of this theory. In one of them, we see them impersonate the family to trick Morty into doing a commercial. Rick literally says they’re using his likeness. Wow. It’s almost like this ENTIRE theory is about Rick C-137 using Prime’s likeness as a parasite to infiltrate his franchise’s reality. So that means these guys are their own parasites outside of reality as well, who have come in to impersonate the family.

One of the commercials shows these sentient food beings also trying to kill Rick and Morty, with Morty sporting a flat blue-lined ax. This weapon looks VERY similar to the one seen in Season 3’s opening, with Morties being trapped in plastic and weapons in their plastic casing. This also reminds me of the fact that we see a Butter Morty in the opening of Season 6 that is acknowledged in the meta episode. This means there’s several food manifestations acknowledged on a meta level. So now, time to get into another connection that’s a little flimsy:

For some reason, there’s a food motif going on with meta levels and memories.

The meta-parasites eat the memories of their hosts or host realities.

The memories of two Ricks similar to C-137 and Prime are used to flavor wafers being sold at the Citadel of Ricks.

When Rick is compromised and his memories are infiltrated by the Gromflomites, he was in a Shoney’s and later visits a McDonald’s before going to his origin story, then all the way back to Shoney’s to reveal they never left to begin with.

The fear hole is located inside a Denny’s

And now we have these sentient food items alongside Butter Morty being noticed and Morty in a commercial also having a reference to one of the season’s openings.

Any other commercials are quite lackluster and I could easily explain them away as being promotional material that pre-Rick Layer Rick is doing. Not ACTUALLY before the events of the show, but I mean the version of Rick that was making those commercials with the Smiths I think are decoys he made to market himself and make sure he’s on air to hunt Prime down. That can explain how the Pringle Morties also work. Summer’s reaction could be that, well…she just saw rampant Pringle Morties come through effortlessly, or that this is the actual Summer here. The real one we see in the show, not some other decoy. Rick’s trust in Summer would explain why he doesn’t hesitate to remove the veil of reality and say it’s just a commercial in a dire moment rather than just a normal occurrence, similar to when he told Morty he’s in a commercial for the show before it aired. It seems that back then, it was more cynical while now, it’s to affirm her that it’s a commercial as a way to hope that it doesn’t go fully haywire. Also, the Pringle Morties still tie into this food motif. Robots can draw from very basic memories (anyone remember how Morty’s decoy in Rickmancing the Stone is eating spaghetti and how the episode shows that muscle memories translate into actual memories and instinct?) as also shown in Fear No Mort with a robot Rick made being scared as to why it has child memories. They are likely running on end with memories of Pringles and are decoys Rick made that are being used. It’s reminiscent of how, in Edge of Tomorty and the theory I made on its fascist dimensions, the back-up bodies from the vats are being monitored and restricted by a higher controlling government. These were taken from Rick just for this commercial and run rampant to promote themselves in an uprising revolt against Rick’s wishes, which wouldn’t be the first time this happens to one of Rick’s inventions after all.

I could make a point about that fear hole again, but that is going to be saved for later. This will be a good transition into the segment about the fear hole, actually.

The Fear Hole Is A Tunnel

This one is another stretch for now, but there’ll be proof to ease you into this. I mentioned that the fear hole stretches across every layer of reality we see because it was using Morty to understand Rick on a fundamental level. It was able to recreate Diane, which is interesting to think about for a moment. Diane doesn’t exist and the only one coming close to recreating her was Prime himself. Keep this in mind because I have more proof that the fear hole knows about the true nature of Diane, which also means that it seemingly transcends time and space. This would be viewing the story from a higher state rather than just being a timeline, as Diane is erased from existence, making it meta-chronological. Obviously, WE THE VIEWERS can still see Diane before and after her erasure. But Morty doesn’t know anything about Diane. It’s more that it is taking Morty’s raw thoughts and allowing them to be shaped with the context of who each character is. That’s also likely why we see background characters from his school pop up at times and even Nancy showing up (i’m not gonna fangirl right now I swear). It’s because it’s drawing from his memories to fill in certain gaps at times. He knows these people way better and uses them as stand-ins while gapped knowledge of other individuals is filled in. That also explains how Rick’s intentions were revealed. Morty didn’t KNOW Rick until the fear hole filled in the details he was unaware of, allowing him to realize that Rick didn’t jump into the hole with him.

After all, we fear what we do not know. The fear hole allows people to get over their fears by explaining them and removing unknown factors, which is a very real way to counter one’s phobias.

Let’s skim over the fact that I managed to finally explain the fear hole because this is JUST the start, kind of like how I managed to explain how the Central Finite Curve works and then explained even more mind blowing stuff. First of all, how does the fear hole know this? How does it actually know every little thing about EVERYONE, not just Rick and Diane? The fear hole appeared in a Denny’s, a location similar to Shoney’s, which has brought comfort to Rick. It’s also a place that he stays in mentally during the events of ‘The Rickshank Rickdemption’. This means it’s using a place similar to Rick’s comfort to slowly ease everyone into this situation. Again, this is reflecting similar methods of unpacking one’s fears. The fear hole is what I refer to as a tunnel. I don’t know if I’d also call it a parasite, even though it seems to display some level of sentience. The man in the suit could be its mind personified, but that’s for later to solve. Let it be known that IF it were a parasite, this could likely be its main host to entice people into its trap.

Anywho, if this fear hole connects through layers, then it likely pierces through every possible layer and meta layer. This would concern itself with the ads and promotional material, as I already said. And these worry themselves over marketability and using Rick’s likeness. Being more Rick than Rick. Being a Rickest Rick, like C-137 - emphasizing the point about sentient food ads trying to take Rick’s place.

And the Story Train manages to have a setting that tracks marketability as well, meaning Story Lord similarly tracks this as a mechanism of the train and reality, especially concerning Rick and Morty. The end of the first Story Train episode literally ends on an ad that the Citadel of Ricks was using to promote their Story Train toy set, meaning that the Story Train is technically an ad that is placing itself in the vicinity of other Ricks to be marketed and sold - much like the sentient Wendy’s food items. But is there any further proof that the Story Train and fear hole are TRULY intertwined?

Yes.

We can start off by showing that anything in the fear hole isn’t canon by definition. It is presupposed canon instead, implied canon. This is because our view of the fear hole relies on Morty’s knowledge of the world being currently shaped by the fear hole’s actual knowledge of reality. The first part of this theory explained that the outer reaches of the Story Train are considered non-canon and need an anchor. Otherwise, they spiral out of control with no direct medium. The reason that there can still be narrative spirals within the train is because it can happen quicker with nearby sequences going off - Rick and Morty can suddenly be in one story and exit into another because it is contained within the train. In the fear hole itself, it is going off what Morty knows as the fear hole’s knowledge guides him. Outside of the Story Train, literal continuity is needed or else you risk entering an uncontrollable story that has no anchor, no amount of truth to it at all. At the same time, I considered the non-canon to be the actual multiverse. This is the multiverse that surrounds the Central Finite Curve, this time being INFINITE instead of finite, and where Evil Morty fled to. This would also be similar to the chaos of the fear hole. A perfect analogy would be the fact that a sector of this ‘actual multiverse’ was contained under the premise that Rick is important, giving us the Central Finite Curve. The same happens with the Story Train containing its own continuity while the fear hole contains its own point of view with Morty inside of it. All of these line up, meaning that the Story Train must be using the fear hole as a tunnel.

But this still needs just a bit more evidence to it. How would the fear hole contain greater layers of reality AND the Story Train if it stays in a Denny’s at all times?

As we already know, the Story Train and the fear hole have countless layers to them until one resolves into the next in a transcendental format. You can go to the control room of the Story Train or realize your true fear in the heart of the fear hole. At the same time, the Story Train needs continuity to stay anchored and a medium. Otherwise, it’s similar to the chaotic multiverse outside of the train. And Morty didn’t know he was even in the fear hole at times until he himself realized it and eventually escaped it with the realization of what his actual fear is and what actually lies out there. To Rick outside of the fear hole, he had no idea what was even going on inside the fear hole. And then I remembered the fear hole demon guy in the suit.

Holy shit. He’s the key to this, LITERALLY. He was the one that brought them there, practically a symbiotic relationship with the fear hole. That memory energy and fear keeps it constantly flowing, sure, but there’s another important thing to mention. He not only explains what it is OUTSIDE of the hole, but explains how it works INSIDE of the hole. His sentience persists inside the fear hole because he is intertwined with it. Knowledge conquers irrational fears. Knowledge is how one escapes the fear hole, by either coming out smarter than their phobia or being blissfully unaware of its nature like Rick and staying away from it. And knowledge/awareness brings life to the Story Train and is the key to surviving the outer multiverse/non-canon. The fear hole’s manifestation demon (no idea what to call him) is the one allowing people to slowly escape with knowledge to anchor them to each layer - much like the Story Train. And we know the Story Train isn’t sentient, so I think that the fear hole is utterly massive in comparison to it.

It seems to contain knowledge it shouldn’t. As I said before, it knows what Diane looks and somewhat acts like and that Rick can see through her simulated flaws. It does this all from Morty’s flawed views of the world. In the first part of the theory, I said it reached into the “hyper-canon” of our real world and Doc and Mharti to reach Rick’s origin story. I don’t really stand by that view, but I think it can reach it by virtue of its size and magnitude. It reaches out and swallows the entire franchise - which thematically fits with containing the entire series so far by being at the very end of it (so far at least).

Just a small tidbit as well - Previous Leon was going through what Rick called a hole in the fourth wall. This is likely what the entire fear hole is, as it’s a fitting explanation that also ties in an actual statement from ‘Full Meta Jackrick’

I don’t know if the fear hole falls into the category of being a meta-parasite due to how large it is, but because it is said to feed off fear, then that is enough to class it here. To conclude, it seems that the Story Train practically uses the fear hole as a tunnel to reach every layer of reality possible. The ads exist on a layer here as well but are just as valid. I mentioned a ‘higher power’ and it’s likely this fear hole itself. If it gives a view through one’s perspective and shows the true higher layers or things one wouldn’t normally notice by filling in the blanks, it explains how Rick just KNOWS about these products perfectly without ever interacting with them. Going back to the actor comparison, it’s like Rick or anyone else is reading off a script. In a way, he is because he’s being fed this information through the fear hole. And seeing as how the fear hole creates a very convincing reality that can only be debunked through minor flaws (Rick notices Diane glitching out, Rick is the one who tears the wallpaper to show they’re in a Pringles ad), then it’s safe to say that these locations we see in these commercials takes place in the fear hole and probably different layers.

What does Rick get from this, though? He’s seen being paid in the PS5 promo (not related to food but still being used for this fear hole proof), but I think what matters the most is that he’s getting publicity. If he cares about being aired, then he cares about connecting himself to these other products and attaching his name to it - like a parasite.

Furthermore, it makes sense because he allows himself to parody or be parodied - such as the God of War or Ghost of Tsushima commercials. I said that these were the things that gave him life and still give him life. These are quick bursts of life for him, being able to effortlessly leech onto other properties and parody them or be parodied by them. The fear hole fills in the information for him so it’s not as hard. And since parodies fundamentally revolve around overlapping or blatant narrative archetypes, it makes sense why Rick was constantly referencing narrative archetypes such as cliches or story formats on a whim. He NEEDS to understand them to allow himself to keep living and it is the basis to understand many scenarios he’s in, which would explain why he later on uses meta technology that reveals things such as foreshadowing or Chekov’s Gun hidden in plain sight through a - I shit you not - meta-reality, or as he calls it, a meta-canon. That means that these things are a part of a canon connected ONLY through meta layers, so it practically confirms these things are connected together

Oh, and let’s not forget the whole minor narrative archetype of soup being used in Full Meta Jackrick. Just one more food connection to mention, though…

Hardee’s.

Hardee’s is the ONE outlier that threatens to debunk all of this. All we have is Rick letting the Hardee’s sentient burgers into Morty’s room with delight. And that says that he isn’t afraid of them. I didn’t want to mention it because of this entire build-up…BUT, it’s probably just him having some fun on set or experimenting with creating his own sentient food to counteract Wendy’s.

Rick Created Diane and Beth

I saved the very best for last. I briefly said that Rick wanted to ‘canonize’ himself and blend in as a Rick with a normal Diane and Beth. This is somewhat not true. I think that Rick was paralleling Prime’s current narrative to be the very first Rick to create portal travel, leeching off of Prime’s work and his life. Even though we never see this, Prime says ‘echoes of my daughter’ in his fucking amazing speech, meaning that Beth does exist for him too. This is what everyone else is basing themselves off of. So where exactly did C-137 locate a Diane and Beth if he’s faking this life as a parasite?

He didn’t. He made them.

You’ll quickly realize that this single portion could be its own great theory, but this acts as the greater support for this two-part theory. I think that Rick created his Diane and Beth. What’s the proof?

First off, we know that he’s an inventor. Even though portal travel was out of his reach, he was using technology early on to identify Rick Prime and his features. This means he has facial technology and yes, scans his own MEMORIES into a photo, which is another mini-bombshell of proof. This allows him to KNOW what Diane and Beth look like to create these blueprints in the first place.

Rick has the ability to create artificial intelligence and artificial humans as well. He once created a creature that mimics Jerry’s voice perfectly. He has created clones and decoys of his family. He has Diane’s voice still integrated into his technology. And this technology is clearly sentient, Rick allows them to have free will and opinions of their own - whether it be the Diane AI, the ship, the sentient lightsaber, the Morty clone that gained actual emotions and feelings before shutting itself down, etc. This is famously difficult to pull off, but it’s what many would argue separates a robot from a conscious being. The creation of free will into a robot would mean that these were real enough to Rick and their own ‘people’ in a way. So this shows that it’s clearly possible, but there’s way more than this.

Despite him being able to give free will to his creations, they’re still not perfect. ‘Rickmancing the Stone’ shows him whipping up Summer and Morty clone-bots that are pretty faulty. His clones were quick but not perfect - except one.

Space Beth.

Beth’s clones seem to have the most amount of work put into them. This got to the point where Rick couldn’t even tell who the actual clone was, not to mention that in ABC’s of Beth, he gave her the option of a clone already. It’s probably because Rick has had more time to perfect Beth’s clone rather than Summer and Morty…which shouldn’t be true. Wouldn’t it be paradoxically easier to create a working clone of someone younger rather than your older daughter you’ve known for longer? Not really. Because even if he was absent in Beth’s life and would have more reason to make a better clone for his accident-prone grandson he needs for adventures, it means that he has more experience creating a Beth clone.

Like the very original. Further explaining that very identity crisis both Beths have.

It’s also an interesting parallel to draw between him, Prime, and Simple Rick. At the very beginning, I said that Prime and Simple Rick were very similar to one another according to their placements along the Central Finite Curve. Simple Rick’s greatest invention is said to be his daughter Beth. And Rick C-137 took that VERY seriously - his greatest invention is still Beth, following Rick Prime’s footsteps.

The reason he’s making these two is because he’s a parasite, he’s not an actual Rick based off Prime. Since it’s just both of them in this war, he doesn’t have an established family because he isn’t an actual Rick based on Prime, this is merely a disguise. That’s why he allowed himself to be explicit as the ‘Rickest Rick’ when this disguise falls flat once Prime kills off Diane and Beth. Even though these are ‘fake’, these are advanced creations and Rick would be kind of a lonely guy. He clearly has a major disconnect that not even Morty can pin down in the fear hole since he can’t even give Rick what he truly wants - that Diane is STILL fake and inaccurate.

Why did Prime then kill off every Diane?

Because it’s a perfect amount of control and universal timing. C-137 can’t go out of his way to perfect the technology and lay low in another universe. I mentioned how he travels to other dimensions to blend in, but that’s with an existing universe. Prime was stopping him from starting over in another universe. Instead, he enters the existing lives of other Ricks - like a fucking parasite.

Considering that Rick meets Diane nearly across every dimension, Prime would either be interrupting the current relationship or soon-to-be relationship between a Rick and Diane across any given dimension. It means that Rick C-137 would either run into a dimension that doesn’t have a Diane yet or she’s dead. The reason Beth isn’t killed off is, well…no Diane means no Beth, in a way.

Although there isn’t enough proof that Diane was created, the proof is simply that C-137 is just going off ‘fake it until you make it’. I have to keep hammering this point home because otherwise, people would point it out as a fallacy when it’s just the basics.

Also, yes, it’s still a reason to be distraught. He likes the multiverse because he can access ANY Beth he wants at this point. It means he doesn’t have to create clones and that’s probably why he takes liberties nowadays compared to his older clone - Beth. And the dude once tried to befriend a fucking robot that serves butter. If he does that, he would for SURE be distraught at these free will top-of-the-line artificial humans he made himself dying right in front of him by the man he’s trying to control and whose life he’s trying to steal. He’s shown a good amount of compassion for his creations.

And another small piece of proof is that the fear hole shows Diane glitching out during it. I know that this is Morty’s view, but let’s follow the logic of the fear hole in the lens of this theory. It’s slowly molding a perfect Diane for our Rick, imagined in the mind of Morty. That would be his Diane. Although we’re getting Morty’s views, it’s being molded by the fear hole and its powers, alongside its knowledge on Rick and reality. That would be creating a perfect Diane that only shows its flaws when it acts slightly robotic and off before actually glitching, like a piece of technology. This also isn’t even his Diane, a point shown at the beginning. This is a perfect harrowing allusion to the fact that Rick C-137 has no Diane at all. That’s why he ended up creating one, it’s a stolen invention. I mean, let’s not also forget that Rick Prime had fake hosts of his own depending on technology. It just seems like a Rick thing to do to create humanoid robots that can trick people into thinking they’re ACTUAL humans, as it was so convincing that it kept tricking Rick and required the aid of Evil Morty.

Even more proof from previous parts includes the weird detail that, in the same fear hole episode, we see that the robot that Rick makes for Diane has memories of a child before short-circuiting and neglecting its own programming. Again, this seems to be a common theme for these robots, but this shows that memories fuel life into these robots - more proof that C-137’s Diane and Beth must have had its memories siphoned off existing variants off the curve

I’d also like to mention that Rick mentions making robots for the Federation. What does he call the Gromflomites in the pilot episode? ‘Robots’.

Now, I’m going to just insert this next theory at the end since we’ve gotten enough proof of Diane and Beth being artificial humans. I have nowhere else to put this, but considering that Rick in the pilot was portrayed as senile, missing obvious details, and quick on his feet with lies or excuses, perhaps he made robots for the Federation that got replaced by Gromflomites. We also see that they have access to a blue portal that can apparently reach outside of the curve. The one time we’ve seen a blue portal is when Rick was originally making them, the ones we see in Rick’s backstory that the Federation’s Gromflomite agents themselves witnessed (even if it was a false origin). I’m going to consider the pilot as also being a part of the canon, perhaps it takes place very early on in the timeline and there’s just a gap between it and the first actual episode. Anyways, I’m mentioning this because if Rick went against the Federation, they would want to tap into Rick’s vulnerability. That means using his technology in more subtle ways, taking him and his friend, and tracking his origin story. This is done in three ways:

-Don’t use agents created by Rick and instead use his technology that can be altered or won’t turn on them

-Track down his friends and alter Birdperson using technology Rick gave them. This would be possible due to their bond and the sheer irony of it, as well as hinting at the fact Rick’s technology perfectly works on his best friend.

-Start to amplify and reuse Gromflomite innate senses and build their own technology based on it to track memories and parasitic minds, eventually using it on Rick himself.

This shows how it FINALLY wraps around, showing that Rick’s influence truly pans out and graces everything, as we saw that the Central Finite Curve changes from his conflict and new life hunting Rick Prime down.

To cap off everything that’s been said here, we have more proof for the narrative I was laying out. Rick C-137 is a meta-fictional parasite from outside of the canon who is trying to impersonate Rick Prime, the actual Rick of this franchise. He has used his inventive demeanor to fabricate a false life in the process yet was found out by Rick Prime, who he only followed closely because it resembled one of his fathers and as a way to slip into this system of potentially infinite bodies to take control over too.

The life of a parasite needs it to actually take over a body. Way back in Part 1, I showed that the multiverse and non-canon out there is chaotic and ruthless. These meta-parasites push themselves through this chaotic sea to fund a host to replicate or take over narratively speaking. That’s why Rick’s greatest invention is portal travel - the one way to eliminate this entire issue. It is this reason why he holds it close and is an icon inseparable from him.

[kahluah]

Your Ruby Gillman post is great but I'd like to add that Grandmama isn't necessarily neutral trust, like Ruby can mostly trust that she's not lying or hiding things from her but there is one way that she can't trust her, because Grandmama shows her prejudice towards humans (which Ruby definitely doesn't agree with) pretty early it leads to Ruby completely disregarding her warnings about mermaids later on, because she already knows she can't trust her grandma's opinion on one species so why would she have any reason to think mermaids are different

like she doesn't even think twice that Chelsea might be anything other that what she appears, and part of that is because of Grandmama's biases causing Ruby to overlook any warning signs if that makes sense

Writing this right before bed, apologies if it's sort of disjointed.

It's still presented neutrally; there is no conflict caused by this between Ruby and Grand Mama. It's true that Ruby having experience with humans may have been why she discarded the opinion on mermaids which led to everything happening, but they didn't argue over their opinions and their newly formed relationship wasn't shaken in any way by their differing viewpoints.

Ruby also had no issue reaching out to Grand Mama for the training. If their relationship after that first meeting was negative, she would not have done that so easily; we would have seen her being conflicted about reaching out for the training and debating on if she should do it or not. But Ruby was not apprehensive over seeing more of Grand Mama.

While Ruby hid that she was in contact with a mermaid (which was hidden from everyone) it was still open knowledge that she liked her life on land with the humans and there was no friction caused by this and Grand Mama's prejudice against them. Grand Mama may not want to get to know humans better and will keep being prejudice against them, but she wasn't trying to convince Ruby to forsake her human friends. And once the mermaid info dropped, the reaction was concern for Ruby without any hint of "she's in so much trouble for not listening to my advice/perception on mermaids".

Ruby was also very optimistic that if everything went to plan, she could change Grand Mama's mind about her prejudice towards the mermaids; Ruby was putting trust into building that relationship into a positive one. It was a very new relationship, but she didn't think "Even if we have proof that we can live together Grand Mama won't believe it" she thought that Grand Mama would believe it if shown proof.

Even when teenagers have positive relationships with adults in their life, they hide things if they think there will be a negative reaction. They may fess up eventually if they think circumstances make it less of a blow to the relationship, but hiding something doesn't necessarily indicate a negative relationship. Had a great conversation with an Uncle this weekend about how his son was hiding the fact that he smoked weed until he got a prescription for it and could legally smoke it. (The pains of moving states and being bound by different laws; he didn't need the prescription before lol, still hid it before then though). They have a great relationship with each other and do things together for fun all the time. But to him, his dad (and mom) have always been by the books and,,, for lack of a better word 'protective'. The parenting style was certainly more sheltering than what I had. Anyways, his dad knew what he was doing (he was a teenager before too after all),,, but the point is that hiding something that the younger one may view as "the adult won't like it if they knew I did this" isn't an indicator on the entire relationship dynamic. He thought his straight laced dad wouldn't react well to him smoking weed, hid it, but while it was "hidden" they still view each other positively.

Ruby thought that Grand Mama was just being one of those stubborn old people set in their ways, so she was going to hide it until she could prove those notions wrong, but there was not any broken trust or mistrust between Ruby and Grand Mama. In fact I would say that Ruby was investing trust into forming a positive relationship since she thought she could change Grand Mama's mind

[sburbian-sage]

Native Witch of Breath here, also been a Witch of Might and Witch of Void, though currently a Heir of Hope. I gotta say, I personally put a lot of stock in familiar theory! I just don't think it applies to every Witch in every session, and the was that cherub was doing it was pretty crazy.

It can be part of the progression of a cryptical class, I think. Witches can be hard to understand, so they in turn get something that's usually not even the same species, or thinks very differently to them, that *they* have to deal with not being able to understand. (Not sure if Mages have an equivalent? Maybe they do and it's just not as obvious.)

It also ties into the whole "Witches usually prototype something terrible" thing. Often the sprite actually is the familiar- a familiar doesn't need to stay with you the entire game, just long enough for the game to try and get the point across.

My first session, I prototyped my pet bird that died. It was a very touching reunion, but it was SO eager to leave, and I had to keep convincing it to stay, until I eventually realized that sprites leaving was part of the game, and that as a Breath player I shouldn't be restricting something's freedom anyway, even if it was to much of a birdbrain to really explain itself.

In the session I was a Witch of Might, it was admittedly a little more metaphorical. I was going out of my skull trying to understand the "Might is water" thing, and so I took the glitch FAQ's advice, and went to stare at an ocean.

And then after doing that for an hour I lost it because I was under a lot of stress in general and this was the last straw and blew up the beach (bombkind FTW). But after I was done, I saw all the water, pooling in the craters I left, flowing together to join the whole, and suddenly something clicked. After that point, it was really hard to conceptualize water as NOT being alive, an ever-present being in the vapor around me, that I had to learn how to ask for help. Like how the water could only pool once I made the craters for it, I needed to figure out that same kinda stuff for other situations.

...And than as the Witch of Void, I didn't have one. Which, I guess makes sense, but I HAVE heard of Void Witches that do have a familiar, so whatever.

So yeah, I guess I don't have any solid proof here, I get that any of these things could have happened to any player- but my point is, it's how Witches RELATE to these things, that's different. Every player has a sprite that leaves them, but a Witch may find that it's oddly related to their aspect. Every player has to figure out their aspect and listen to it's whisperings, but as a Witch I practically saw it as another player in it's own right. And then sometimes maybe it just doesn't happen, I dunno.

Finally, I think this is a stretch, but it might even be part of why Witches get that weird crazy boost to gardening? Plants are also living things that are different from you, so a plant could be your familiar, and it would be bad if it died or never got planted before it could fulfill it's role?

Very interesting. Or because you discussed plants, intreesting.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, it seems like Familiar Theory doesn't relate to an actual game construct, so much as it refers to a sort of (para)psychological event, not unlike the Third Man Factor. It's not that Witch players somehow gain access to special pets when that's normally impossible, it's that the cryptical nature of Witches is isolating, being deliberately obtuse and interacting with the game in such a manner that no other player could relate to the Witch even if it wasn't mechanically penalized. So the Witch, in a way, conceptualizes a companion or other meaningful relationship who they can relate to (alleviating the isolation) and who communicates with them or otherwise imparts meaning in an obtuse, nonobvious, or cryptic manner (acting as a Witch to the Witch, as you said, or perhaps being a Class-analogue of the normally Aspect-oriented Whispers).

If anything, this seems somewhat comparable to the various SBURB mental disorders. Not to imply that you're a repeated sufferer of mental delusions, mind, only that it's a special psychological phenomenon that could only really be understood in the context of SBURB. Not to mention that the mental disorders are all deleterious in nature (hence "disorder"), while Familiar Theory seems mostly positive.

Emphasis on mostly, because as we know the Cherub Witch of Hope is off her rocker. With all of this in mind though, I wonder if it's possible to "diagnose" her, in a way. She called her brother "a beast to be tamed", said that "controlling him was [her] only hope", and that he was her "reward" for making it through the session. She's not currently a Witch of Hope, I think, that's her Native Title and I don't know what she is currently (her brother's Native Title is unknown but he's currently a Mage of Rage). A fair amount of this boils down to her believing that her brother is innately evil or destructive (even though he seems pretty pleasant), but how much of this relates to Familiar Theory? "Reward" implies a certain amount of possessiveness, less like she's the student and he's the teacher, more like she's the owner and he's the pet. As far as "Familiar Theory as the Third Man Factor" goes, SBURB is already stressful, and a duo session would be doubly stressful at least. Especially because only one "side" is active at a time, halving the rate at which progress is made, and depriving an already loney Witch of anyone she could possibly talk to. I think I have two theories now.

Theory #1 is that she underwent a sort of stress meltdown in her first session, and underwent "Familiar Theory" towards her brother as a coping mechanism. She ascribes negative intention to him, and felt like she was their only chance at survival, with him as a malicious millstone. As an active harbinger of complexification, wielding rejection, she began putting up a facade of saccharine disposition, and adopted a drive to sublimate her alter ego. A strengthening of willpower that let her fully embody active Hope, pushing against the odds and rejecting any undesired outcomes, including those of an unsuccessful session, and her brother achieving dominance (or equilibrium). Of course, abusers derive power from mistreating others, so she isn't letting her "Familiar" go unless she can be forced to. This theory accounts for everything, of course. His needing to be tamed (malicious intentions ascribed), controlling him is her only hope (internalizing rejection), her reward (someone she has power over), and the material conditions for a Witch to seek a Familiar.

Theory #2, of course, is that she isn't even understanding Familiar Theory correctly, and is instead interpreting it uber-literally. This theory accounts for her being a skeevy weirdo with a loose grip on reality, because she is the Cherub Pet Gal.

[beevean]

What bothers me about how forceful/unbased some neurodivergency/LGBT+ headcanons are is how they give off the vibe only neurodivergent or queer characters are allowed to have anything going for them. Not even anything special! Let's take TMOSTH: Tails feels empathy for many things? Autistic! Espio speedread a book to spoil the ending for Knuckles? Autistic! Or what you pointed out in Archie, with Shadow stating he likes his motorcycle? Autistic! As someone who only recently found out they might not be entirely neurotypical, I recall quite disliking and feeling somewhat hurt that every single thing a character did immediately gets spun around to fit the OP's projecting, with the attached "fuck the straights and the neurotypicals only gay people would ever do this" that tends to come along with it (where the thing "only gay people do" 99% of the time is the most basic thing in the world). It's almost like people don't want to consider that the most normal, down-to-earth, "boring" (used in the way such OPs tend to use it: as an easy jab) neurotypical cishet person can feel empathy for many things, speedread, or like a motorcycle. I feel like there is more behind that due to the state of the world at large, but it's annoying to see have to come across it in fandom all the time, and then have the "proof" be complete nonsense or entirely taken out of context to "support" the statement. Not to mention the "joking" accusations of bigotry if you do not share such headcanons that occasionally get added as well.

Another example I thought of the moment I hit the "ask" button: Surge getting revealed as Sonic's "clone" and the ENTIRETY OF TUMBLR immediately deciding this meant Sonic was trans. The fact they aren't even the same species nor look alike in the slightest and the fact I thus promptly got very worried about the biology knowledge of the entirety of Tumblr aside, thank god that shit died down when it got revealed Surge legit was just some rando Starline plucked from the streets with no relation to Sonic.

You hit the nail on the head.

When autistic headcanons are created from the basis of "X has a passion for Y!", I'm here like... do you think autistic people are the only ones who can feel any sort of love or attachment over something? Do you think neurotypical people can only blandly tolerate things? Isn't hyperfixation something much, much more intense than a passion? Isn't autism much more than "being shy and with something they love", and isn't ADHD much more than being excitable? This shit makes legit harder for people to realize if they're neurodivergent or not because I swear that literal human nature is deemed to be "divergent". If "neurotypicalness" is associated with being an emotionless, insensitive asshole, no wonder no one would want to identify as, or call their favorite character, neurotypical!

Don't get me started on how for some people "straight" is a synonym for boring and "gay" is a synonim for fun and quirky. Shocker: love and fun are not limited to non-cishet people. It's not a "weird", exceptional state of humanity. Cishet people can have a personality too.

lmaooooo I remember that headcanon, good times. Speaking of which, while the headcanon "Sonic is trans because he doesn't have chest fur" is... something, I side-eye people who headcanon Surge as trans. Oh, you think that the nasty, aggressively masculine bully is trans? It doesn't look good in either direction :) (same for the people who headcanon her as a lesbian, despite her having 0 meaningful interactions with female characters, solely because she's "butch". I wouldn't want to do that, but I may be biased lmao)

[szalonykasztan00]

Tamlin Vs Water-wraiths Vs Tithe

In the post, @aho-dapa ask a question on Why Tamlin as a High Lord didn’t do anything regarding the fact that Water-wraiths possibly kill and cannibals other fae in his land. Well, answers depend on a few criteria.

But before that, I wanted to state something.

When I refer to this scene in Chapter 9 I assume that Alis was talking about this particular Water-wraith that came to the Tithe. However, after thinking about it for some time I concluded that it might be that Alis was talking about this group or the entire species, not that particular one that was just a representative. (I don't know if that counts as fea racism we don't have enough information on that. From the book I assume that it might be but I am not an expert on racism in general or fea racism if that was even it). 

We don't know anything/minimal about the cultural, historical, social and economic background of the Fea nations. Much less about their biologic (excluding High fea and IIlirians I guess). World of feas seems to operate on semi-animal rules as well as human rules. It gives a very strange mix that allows many possibilities for which rules apply and when. They obviously have taxes but at the same time, magic chose the strongest fea of the court to rule it. Feas are also possibly highly religious creatures so there is that aspect.

So depending on when water-wraiths were created (evolve?), people may have a different view of them. 

If they were created with the rest of the fea in their current form/behaviour, then punishing them for doing something considered natural (trying to fill their hunger by any means necessary) by The Goddess would be religious blasphemy and morally wrong (may result in an uprising or revolt). 

IF they were a curse to be like this later in the history of the world, the fea may consider their ever-hungry existence as a punishment in itself.

It also brings the question of where is "the line" for creaturs that in their existence need to take something from other sentient creatures. Like succubus or incubus for example. If they feed from someone and they accidentally kill them then there is no proof that that was an accident. It would be needed to be treated the same and for many court citizens, it results in death/imprisonment. 

I think is highly possible that fea in general, as well as Water-wraiths, are rather-territorial creatures. Thus they usually don't leave their "territory". Thats give the possibility that the amount of water-wraith victims is objectively low. (Kinda like socially exaggerated shark attacks). 

The thing is that there might not be enough evidence to properly judge the cases. Water-wraiths seem to operate on a killing plan :

Drown.

Eat to the bone or with the bones.

Dispose of the evidence on the bottom of their habitat.

If there was no witness then there is no certainty that there was a crime at all. People just go missing in the woods (with a lake) or near a river. It might be a really big open secret. But until there is a witness/evidence that will give lawful reason to search particular Water-wraiths habitat.

That part depends solely on how you see Tamlin and his regin.

There is also a question of priority. We know that Tamlin was HL for +/- 400 years with 50 under Amaranths's occupation, which limited, an unknown amount, his ability to rule and change his court. We also know that Tamlin got a court similar to Hybern in terms of cruelty, possible laws and most definitely people. On top of the court being burdened with losing half of its territory or/and moving the borders, and possibly sanctions and reparation that damage SC's economy. And we know that Tamlin's father would not care about common people or other lords that he didn't like/respect. As far as we can debate Tamlin may spend he's rule by making and enforcing laws that were more urgent to him. (Maybe he ended child marriage (it seems to me as something important to him), giving some equivalent of minimum wage to the people, etc.). He has to deal probably with the opposition of lords, that didn't die in war and share a worldview with his father. In the end, he manages to transform that little Hybern into the place where fea comes to get safety, where people are devoted to him to the point that are willing to sacrifice themself for his cause, it may not be perfect but going there.

There is also an interesting thing. We read that it was I think another day of the Tithe or at least it long into the Tithe when the Water-wraith came. Right? So there wasn't someone before who couldn't pay the Tithe before? Was the Water-wraith the first form thousands of people that came to the Tithe that couldn't pay? Maybe (and it's a thing I read once in fanfic but I like that explanation) she was trying to prey on F/erye's lack of knowes/experience like when Tamlin's first time collected Tithe? That's why he was so rough about it? (remember Tamlin is not good at communication/he was embarrassed and Lucien may not be there at the time same with Alis).

That would be it form me. To summarise:

Religus, philosophy and moral reasons of fea wolrd.

Precedent of law

Social prejudice vs reality

Lack of means to prosecute the crime/lack of crime.

Tamlin's just not there yet as a High Lord.