locuas642

[locuas642]

Honestly, I do find Paranormal ghost stuff separate enough from magic that giving out more scientific explanations doesn't bother me.

But the thing with Ghostbusters, while they do give a ton of explanations about what ghosts are made of and how they are able to capture them they... dont actually explain the ghosts as anything other than ghosts? the "science" is more a way to connect the dots of giving out the characters way to interact and fight the supernatural element than to say "this thing? is actually a mundane thing"

Like the climax of the movie is literally "okay, that's a Literal God who just came to our world. Scientifically, we are SUPER fucked"

Generally speaking I'm not really a fan of the trope where it turns out that something previously established as being magical turns out to have a science fiction explanation instead.

For example, like how in Ben 10, I believe a character in one season thought that they were learning magic, only for in another for them to learn that it's actually more like a mutant power resulting from them being related to aliens somewhere.

Similarly, as HP Lovecraft's work shifted from fantasy-horror to dark science fiction, things that previously described as being magic (the Dreams of the Witch House, for example) were later reframed as people accessing a kind of math or science that enabled them to bend space-time. The Necronomicon becomes less of an evil spell book, per se, and more a reference book about aliens and their abilities as interpreted by an old timey person who couldn't conceptualise such things.

I don't know, I think that it cheapens it somehow?

I'm somewhat more ambivalent over the Clarke's Law idea (where any sufficiently advanced technology is distinguishable from science), as depending on how it is used it can still act as a overlapping with actual fantasy still. For example, the way magic (and how specifically wizards study/use it) in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is informed from his time as a press officer for a nuclear power station. Magic is treated in a similar manner to radiation and the like, but still operates AS magic would do.

Interestingly, the manga/anime Dungeon Meshi also puts a tone of worldbuilding into both the ecosystems of magical dungeons as well as the physics of magic itself (the biology of magical creatures, how the energy that powers magic is theorised to come from an alternate dimension "where infinity exists" etc.). It's emphatically still a fantasy setting, tropes and all, but it uses a form of science to explain how magical stuff works while maintaining that it's still all magic, if you get me?

The third option, which tends to be more rare, is the idea that something scientific turns out to have a magical explanation rather than the reverse. So, for example, in the Rivers of London novel Foxglove Summer, protagonist and trainee wizard Peter Grant ends up in part of the UK which tends to have a lot of UFO sightings (rural Herefordshire)... only for it to turn out that the alien sightings and abductions area actually caused by elves very similar to those from the Discworld novels (who exist in a pocket dimension that can only access other worlds at certain times of the year).

This is, itself, an inversion on the theory among UFO enthusiasts that stories about fairies and such in folklore were more primitive folk describing UFO encounters, with it turning out that it was ALWAYS fairies, it's just folks' frame of reference changed for the more "logical" scientific explanation (aliens) instead. This was itself referenced within the Discworld novels themselves, with the coming of the elves being forecast with a sudden spike in crop-circle activity (a phenomena claim is caused by aliens, rather than bored rural folk making Art).

I don't know, it basically comes down to how it's done in all honesty. Personally I like it when Science and magic are defined as two separate things, but I can appreciate when people use science as a way to help conceptualise how magic works in-universe? Such as the time in the comic Planetary where a character uses simplified computer analogies to describe the physics of magic to someone.

Reality has a form of operating system, and magic is the means to manipulate it to the user's own ends via a specific method or sequence of actions.

[locuas642]

Sphinx Temple

You climb all the way to the top and that's when things get weird.

print here

[locuas642]

The United Kingdom has returned 32 gold and silver treasures stolen from the Asante Kingdom more than 150 years ago in what is today’s Ghana on a six-year loan, Ghanaian negotiators have said. The artefacts, comprising 15 items from the British Museum and 17 from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), were looted from the court of the Asante king during the turbulent 19th-century clashes between the British and the Asante people. Ghanaian authorities have for years tried to reclaim gold treasures looted by British soldiers from the Asante kingdom, which is also known as Ashanti.

Continue Reading.

[locuas642]

[locuas642]

I’m so emotional about dinosaur stuffed animals,,, there are these creatures, extinct long before any of us were alive, but we found their bones and their eggs and their footprints. And we made drawings and models of what they could’ve looked like. And we made them into stuffed animals so we could hold them. We made them soft so we could love them. I’m sobbing

[locuas642]

[locuas642]

"common refrain, where's waldo? where is waldo? in times of war, where's waldo? people are dying in the streets, where the fuck is waldo? i'll tell you where he is. hiding on the goddamn beach somewhere. i can't find him. what kind of ally is that?"

- demi adejuyigbe, 2024

[locuas642]

What I take from reactions is that the people behind the Velma show saw all those YouTube videos that were like "I mean it's not good, but I think the people behind this show did care for Scooby Doo in their own way" and were fucking Livid people thought that and so they made sure nobody could watch Season 2 without understanding they fucking hate the franchise

#velma #hbo #hbo max #scooby doo #wbd #warner

[locuas642]

CREATURE????

[locuas642]

the squire, the knight and the princess

[locuas642]

[locuas642]

one time i told a guy with a huge punisher decal on his car that i loved the punisher but that i'm too scared to have any of his merch because in the current political climate i wouldn't want people to think i support killing police and the man had. no response whatsoever. he was smiling and completely frozen in place. i'd never seen anyone bluescreen that hard

do with this information what you will

[locuas642]

there’s a fat bear roaming around the area I live in every night and everyone keeps posting ring footage of him

[locuas642]

[locuas642]

there is a Gaston Vs. Beast joke somewhere in there

There's a whole bunch of TikTok drama at the moment after someone posted a video asking "would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a strange man?"

And the men are *very upset* that nearly every woman replied with "....obviously a bear."

It's honestly wild (I think some of these guys think that bears are movie monsters, craving human flesh).

But it boils down to this- they want you to expect the worst from the bear and the best from the stranger, and they are deeply offended that this isn't the case. 🤷

[locuas642]

I have read the manga and it's insane.

It's a western (and I DO mean a western) set in the aftermath of the russo-japanese war about a treasure hunt of which a surprisingly lot of it is about weird cuisine and eccentric people.

And I don't mean like with Dungeon Meshi.

Hm, seen the book around but I've not idea if it's any good or not.

...

Y'know, still kind of surprised there hasn't been a live-action adaptation of Black Lagoon?

[locuas642]

Communists and anarchists will spend all day talking about abstract concepts and structures like capitalism and the state, but willfully ignore the very real, tangible curse placed upon me by the foul necromancer