#Children of the Atom 2 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

afeelgoodblog · 1 year

Text

The Best News of Last Week

⚡ - Goodbye Fossil Fuels, Hello Renewables: The Energizing News You Need

1. Fungi discovered that can eat plastic in just 140 days

Australian scientists have successfully used backyard mould to break down one of the world's most stubborn plastics — a discovery they hope could ease the burden of the global recycling crisis within years. 

It took 90 days for the fungi to degrade 27 per cent of the plastic tested, and about 140 days to completely break it down, after the samples were exposed to ultraviolet rays or heat. We really see a solution within five years, according to environmental scientist Paul Harvey, an expert on global plastic pollution.

2. Topeka Zoo welcomes new African Lion as female sprouts mane

The Topeka Zoo has welcomed a new African Lion to its pride, a male, as one of its females started to sprout a mane following the 2021 passing of the pride’s last male.

The Topeka Zoo and Conservation Center announced on Thursday, April 13, that Tatu, a 4-year-old African Lion, has arrived in the Capital City. He comes to Topeka from the Denver Zoo and his arrival marks a time of growth for the zoo.

3. This barber opens his shop on his day off for children with special needs – and all of their haircuts are free

On his day off, Vernon Jackson still goes to work, opening up his Cincinnati barber shop, Noble Barber and Beauty, for VIP clients: children with special needs.

It's something he's done since 2021. "I was hearing so many horror stories that parents were going through with other barber shops and just the barbers or stylists having no patience with their child," Jackson told CBS News. "So I figured I would compromise by coming in on my day off so there were there would be no other barbers or stylists in the shop and I could give them the full attention that they need."

4. Renewables break energy records signalling ‘end of the fossil age’

Experts are calling time on the fossil age as new analysis shows wind and solar power produced a record amount of the world’s electricity last year.

The renewables generated 12 per cent of global electricity in 2022, up from 10 per cent the previous year, according to the report from clean energy think tank Ember. Last year, solar was the fastest-growing source of electricity for the 18th year in a row, rising by 24 per cent from 2021.

5. New nuclear medicine therapy cures human non-hodgkin lymphoma in preclinical model

A new nuclear medicine therapy can cure human non-Hodgkin lymphoma in an animal model A single dose of the radioimmunotherapy, was found to quickly eliminate tumour cells and extend the life of mice injected with cancerous cells for more than 221 days (the trial endpoint), compared to fewer than 60 days for other treatments and just 19 days in untreated control mice.

To explain it in simple terms because this is so freaking cool: There is a radioactive atom attached to a drug. The target cell eats the drug and the energy coming off of the radioactive atom kills the target cell

6. Colorado passes first US right to repair legislation for farmers

Colorado farmers will be able to legally fix their own equipment next year, with manufacturers including Deere & Co obliged to provide them with manuals for diagnostic software and other aids, under a measure passed by legislators in the first U.S. state to approve such a law.

Equipment makers have generally required customers to use their authorized dealers for repairs to machines such as combines and tractors.

7. When a softball player falls after hitting a grand slam, this is how her opponents reacted

youtube

----

That's it for this week :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to reblog

#Youtube

1K notes · View notes

intuitive-revelations · 8 days

Text

Random headcanon I came up with early this morning, because I’ve been thinking about Gallifreyan language recently:

The reason why so many Time Lord things are decorated with circular Gallifreyan, often too impractically to actually be read (eg. on the Moment), is because it’s a cultural touchstone that remains from pre-/early-Pythian Gallifrey’s use of magical runes and sigils.

Presumably it was more typically Old High Gallifreyan used in that time (though The Timeless Children does seemingly confirm circular Gallifreyan existed at least as far back as Rassilon's time, if not earlier), however. Twelve describes it as ‘the language of the Pythia’ in The Lost Magic, and as Eleven says in The Time of Angels:

ELEVEN: There were days, there were many days, these words could burn stars and raise up empires, and topple gods.

This is obviously very reminescent of the Carrionites' (themselves from the Dark Times too) "word-based science" from The Shakespeare Code:

MARTHA: What did you do? TEN: I named her. The power of a name. That's old magic. MARTHA: But there's no such thing as magic. TEN: Well, it's just a different sort of science. You lot, you chose mathematics. Given the right string of numbers, the right equation, you can split the atom. Carrionites use words instead.

In other words, while they probably weren't actually intended as such and may have their own specific meaning, whether they be poetry, namesakes, histories, instructions, whatever... these are basically protective wards:

[ID: Five screenshots of Circular Gallifreyan in New Who.

1. Rassilon's Inner High Council meeting in The End of Time Part 2. The table and headrests are inscribed with circular Gallifreyan.

2. The Moment in Day of the Doctor. Gallifreyan writing bends round the edges of the wooden frame.

3. The 'whirligig' rotar in Eleven's second TARDIS, inscribed with individual Gallifreyan symbols.

4. Set photo of the glowing Gallifreyan writing on the steps of Thirteen's TARDIS.

5. Tecteun's laboratory in The Timeless Children. Circular Gallifreyan lines the light above her, and a door in the background.]

As a side note - if they actually are kind-of intended as a form of protection, perhaps this is why we were only introduced to Circular Gallifreyan in New Who, despite it seemingly existing through Gallifreyan history. Because it was retroactively inserted into Gallifreyan culture as a form of defense during the War in Heaven / Last Great Time War?

Regardless, this also opens up questions how many other Time Lord traditions are holdovers from the Dark Times.

For example, who's to say that the renegade naming tradition didn't begin as a form of protection from hexes - either from hostile forces in the pre-anchoring universe, or from oppressive magic-users back on the homeworld? This may also be connected to the change in Gallifreyan name format before and after the Intuitive Revelation (eg. ancestral -sti and -sor names), though shifting power structures, gender roles etc. presumably played a role too.

Heck, is this one reason why Gallifrey's own name has changed over its history? From Jewel to Gallifrey in Rassilon's time to try and protect it from vengeful Pythian curses. From Gallifrey to just 'the Homeworld' in the War to protect it from new rituals of alternative histories and paradox?

#Doctor Who #Gallifrey #Gallifreyan #Circular Gallifreyan #The Pythia #DW Theory #DW Meta #Doctor Who EU

202 notes · View notes

reconstructwriter · 6 months

Text

Star Wars Fix-it: The Holonet Edition

The well-bribed algorithms of the Holonet should have relegated Tookruta1387’s clip to the tender hearts of a few friends. The days of spontaneous viral posts – without credits to grease the wheels – died not long after the rise of megacorps in the Republic. But the poster was either lucky or savvy enough to play the algorithms because “Jedi Being Cold” exploded. Screens, conversation, even news. And their post was just the start of a trend…

“Jedi Being Cold”: An old transport ship, frost coating the inside of its windows. A corner swathed in a nest of robes. Within three padawans snuggle together, fast asleep. If they were cats they’d be purring. One is purring despite a lack of feline attributes. A hand nudges them with a datastick, only for it to float away to a cloud of similar items.

“Jedi Being Cold” part 2: A snow-covered lake. One knight finishes sculpting a realistic snow tiger. Two others Force push each other like hocky pucks across the ice. One goes flying towards the statue. An expression of ‘oh crap’. Incredible, Force- assisted acrobatics deftly avoids the sculpture but crashes right into the sculptor in a tangle of limbs, sending them skidding into a snow-bank. The third Jedi pokes their head into the many-limbed hole and gets snowballed for the trouble.

“Jedi Stealing Children”: A child at a slave auction. A robed figure swoops in like a hawk, slicing through chains with their lightsaber and ripping apart cages with the Force. The camera pans to one slaver Force shoved into a cage, clearly furious as the Jedi escapes with a whole crowd of people, many children.

“Jedi Stealing Children” becomes the title for 1287 pictures, clips and gifs before someone adjusts the algorithm. This makes them surprisingly hot commodities on the Dark Holo, especially the one with a Nautolan Master dramatically fleeing the capture attempts of a horde of children – ending in one dramatic arm reaching out as kids bury him

“Jedi As Warmongers”: A young Padawan, blood splattered, has a ‘does it get better’ look on their trembling face as they stare up at their Master. The Master is even grimier and gorier as they gather their Padawan up with an ‘I’m sorry but no’. The Padawan weeps and shakes, burying their face in their Master’s robes, who has silent tears down their face. In the background is a war zone.

“Jedi as Warmongers: part 2” Has war holomovie music playing in the background as the snap-thumm of a lightsaber echoes, vivid blue piercing the dark. The blade raises over something, is brought down…over a block of cheese and loaf of bread. The Jedi padawan gleefully declares: “Grilled Cheese for all!” The sound of sprinting footsteps is heard and a dramatic “Noooo,” from a Jedi Knight.

“Jedi as Warmongers: part 3”: The music has switched to aftermath of war horror, the kitchen looks like a cheese atomic bomb hit. The children are cleaning up and one wipes cheese with bread and pops it in their mouth: “grilled cheese for all!” An adult admonishes “You spit that out right now that’s not sanitary.” In the background the Jedi Knight is doing the same thing.

“Jedi Showing Off” Is Yoda’s contribution to this mess – which is just him going through an entire stack of photo-albums on his previous padawans. He opens the last book to Dooku the Padawan when Dooku the Master barges in: “Stop this indignity immediately!” The camera shows an intense close-up of someone’s palm. “Who even taught you how to operate holo-video? –” feed cuts off.

“Jedi Dignity”: Feed resumes from a different perspective as Master Dooku – previous camera still in hand – gives Yoda and several other watching Jedi a lecture on appropriate Holonet-posting behavior. “Not appropriate baby photos are?” Yoda asks, a card-shark’s spread of pictures with Dooku’s baby face. Dooku yanks them out of Yoda’s hands. “Not without m-the person’s permission!” Does a double-take. “Are you filming –?” Horrified glower. “Mace you traitor!” Video abruptly cuts off. Permanently this time.

Not even algorithm adjustments – and there are clearly several – can stop that from becoming viral. “Mace you traitor!” becomes slang for the latest generation. Mace himself rolls with it. Dooku attempts to entomb himself in the archives until this all blows over.

Actions may speak louder than words but memes speak loudest of all.

324 notes · View notes

jojotichakorn · 6 months

Text

i love how the show made sure 1) to show us that for once boston was extremely reluctant to make sexual advances on someone and atom absolutely did all the work, and then also blamed boston for not wanting to see him again, despite the clearly established boundaries; and 2) to explicitly frame the fact that boston as a gay man (particularly a promiscuous gay man) is seen as predatory by having chueam verbally frame the situation as the classic deeply homophobic "homosexual preying on the young and inexperienced and turning them to the "homosexual lifestyle"" idea (reflected in anything from 1961's "boys beware" short to the current "protect children from drag queens" moral panic), and y'all are STILL somehow saying that boston is at fault here, just because he is a shitty friend and a selfish person. like i'm sorry, but a leap from these honestly regular human traits to literal blackmail and sexual assault is not as obvious and easy as some of you seem to think.

#and because i know the internet is a place where nuance goes to jail - yes it is right that chueam BELIEVES her brother #BUT that does not mean we cannot dissect the way she frames it; the reasons why she believes it (because they also have a lot to do #with the fact that boston is promiscuous which in reality has nothing to do with it); and the wider commentary this situation makes #since it is still fiction and we already know the truth - there is nothing wrong with talking about the issues that are brought up here #only friends the series #ofts #archer speaks

265 notes · View notes

jubileemon · 28 days

Text

Why Adam Wilkins is the most hated character on Invincible?

He has a very rocky relationship with his daughter and is generally unsupportive of her decisions and aspirations to be a superheroine.

He's a misogynist who holds outdated views on gender roles and chastises his daughter for not having traditionally feminine aspirations as a way to cover his insecurities and fragile masculinity. He states that the only reason he ever let Eve become a superhero was because he assumed her then boyfriend, Rex was going to "protect her", even though Eve is extremely powerful herself.

While it's shown that he does care about Eve and most of his disdain for his daughter's career choices come from a place of worry about her welbeing and the welbeing of those around her, that is simply too weak of an excuse to justify his actions, as he damaged his relationship with his daughter because of his own choices, to the point Eve started to actively dislike him. Even though he sometimes brings up good points, such as calling out Eve for using her powers in an inconsequential manner, the way he goes off about them doesn't help and only further cements him as a bad father.

While it's shown he had a good relationship with Eve when she was a kid, ever since the day he learned she had a special ability to identify atoms and molecules, Adam began forming a disdain for his daughter and started acting rude and abrasive towards her.

He was also rude to her babysitter after he started praising his daughter's advanced intelligence. He initially refuses to send her to a school for gifted children, calling her a freak. When Eve didn’t show up to her birthday, he ate a part of the cake and when called out by her, he furiously yelled at his daughter.

When she runs to her room he rudely yells at her that that he and his wife are the only family she has.

While it's implied that he does genuinely love his wife (especially in the flashbacks seen in the Invincible: Atom Eve special), it's rarely ever shown onscreen, and it's stated that they frequently fight a lot. It's also implied that he might even be psychologically abusive towards her as well, to the point she's completely submissive to him and enables his behavior.

Season 1

After finding out that Eve had broken up with Rex after she found out he was cheating on her with Dupli-Kate, Adam lashes out at his daughter, telling her to forgive him, saying that "everyone makes mistakes".

When Eve tells him that she's considering quitting the superhero career, Adam rudely tells her that it was "about time".

When Eve decides to leave her family home in order to become a full-time superhero away from them, Adam doesn't respect her choices and further insists that she quits her dreams in order to live a "normal life". He even told Eve to her face that the worst day of his life was when she got superpowers, something that really hurt Eve emotionally.

Season 2

While he does take a job at Burger-Mart in order to provide for his family after being fired from his previous job at the furniture store, Adam is shown to have been very reluctant to do so and puts the blame on the superheroes for having destroyed their corporate office, essentially blaming his daughter for getting fired.

He stubbornly refuses to get his daughter's help for income, purely out of a place of insecurity, and still persists on lashing out on Eve, despite her being very understanding towards him.

After Eve uses her powers to turn an apple into gold and gives them to sell it, Adam angrily refuses to do so and, later on, even throws the apple in the trash.

During their argument in Eve's second visit to their house, he blames her for an accident in Chicago, where Eve had used her powers to build on an abandoned lot, not knowing it was actually unstable. While Adam tries to rightfully talk some sense into Eve to not use her powers irresponsibly, he's still overly harsh to her, telling her that her powers don't make her a hero, they make her dangerous.

Overall, Adam is generally an unpleasant and rude person who is unreasonable to his daughter for no good reason, and is by far one of the most hated characters in the series.

#invincible #invincible atom eve #atom eve

86 notes · View notes

v-ternus · 7 months

Text

the lost myth of true love

Day 2 of Kinktober- Tail Play

[prompts courtesy of the lovely @kroas-adtam ]

Explicit | Mountain and tWaterDew

Summary: Mountain introduces Dew to a new world

below for your consumption :)

Its a perfect late afternoon, Mountain thinks. He’d managed to finish his work in the greenhouse earlier than expected and he got to watch the start of the sunset as he was locking things up. On his way back to the ghoul wing, he got to watch some of the ministry children play in the courtyard– hopscotch is what they said when he had wandered over and asked. As he weaved through the hallways, a nice cool breeze followed and carried with it, the decadent smell of Aether’s workings in the kitchen. It was all peaceful, and it was some much needed calm.

But what really tops the cake for Mountain is what’s waiting for him just atop his nest. He cracks his door open to see the new water ghoul leaning against his pile of furs and cushions with a book in his hands. He recognizes it almost immediately– a hardbound edition of Metamorphoses by Ovid. Dew looks up at the earth ghoul and his face warms with a smile.

The two had gotten very accustomed to each other in the months since Dew’s summoning. The way their elements entwined made things easier– they just both got each other. They knew how to coexist together in perfect harmony and neither could be happier. Where things changed was during one stormy night, a mere few weeks since Dew had come topside.

Mountain had peered into Dew’s room that night after he heard small whimpers. He saw Dew’s skin, slick with sweat and he felt so hot he was almost burning. When Dew moaned as Mountain’s fingers met his skin, Mountain knew what was happening. He helped him through that night, his first heat. He held him close to his chest as he buried himself deep. He listened closely to each moan and each high pitched whine whenever he prodded at that special spot that made Dew see stars. Everything from that night is burned so deeply into his mind– and he wants to give Dew more. He’d give Dew his heart if he could.

“Where are you at now?” Mountain asks as he rids himself of his work clothes, stripping down to his boxers and a white sleep shirt.

“Im just about through Orpheus and Eurydice.” He watches Mountain pad over as he sets the book down on the bedside table. The earth ghoul continues his stride until he’s crawling towards Dew. He straddles a pair of spindly thighs and reaches forward to cradle Dew’s cheeks in his hands. He places a chaste kiss on his lips.

“What do you think of it?” He brings their lips together, this time for a real kiss, not actually giving Dew any time to answer. His tongue slips in past Dew’s lips and he swallows the moan that rumbles from Dew’s chest. He pulls himself back from Dew to get a good look at his puffy lips and flushed cheeks. It takes Dew a second to remember that Mountain had asked him a question.

“He really loves her,” He says, breathless. “Really, really loves her.” He knows that it sounds juvenile, hell it even feels that way too, but Dew can't find any other word to describe it. Orpheus loved Eurydice so much, enough to descend into the underworld for her. His love was so grand, so intense that it swayed gods. It was impossible for Dew to even describe a fraction of that with mortal words, they just wouldn't do it any justice.

“Yeah he does droplet.” Mountain punctuates his words with carefully placed kisses right over Dew’s eyelids. Then his nose. Then the sharp angles of his cheekbones. He keeps going, doing his best to touch his lips to every atom that makes up his love.

“Does he remind you of anyone?” There’s a joking tone to Mountain’s voice. Dew just gives him a nice hum.

Of course he reminds me of someone Mount. He says the words to himself, lets them echo in his mind because he’s too nervous to speak them aloud. Instead, he crashes his lips back onto Mountain’s. He cant say it, but he’ll do his damn best to show it. He laps greedily against Mountain's mouth, pulling him impossibly closer. Dew drinks him down like he’s the first sip of water after 40 days and nights in the desert.

There’s no retreat in his efforts, and soon enough Mountain feels like he’s actually stealing the breath from his lungs, unable to take a proper breath with the way Dew seems intent on consuming him. He taps Dew’s neck, and it's enough of a gesture that it seems to pull Dew back from the edge.

Mountain takes in a few breaths to get his bearings before posing what should be some of the last coherent words of the evening. “Can I show you something?”

“Anything.”

Mountain peels himself out of Dew’s lap and situates himself against the headboard. He watches the confused look plastered across Dew’s face as he pats his hand on his leg.

“C’mere.” Dew keeps the confused look but follows the request, facing Mountain and straddling his thigh.

“You’ll tell me to stop if you don’t like it right?” In all of the moments they’ve shared like this, Mountain always asks.

“Always Mount. But what’re you talking about?” Dew knows that Mountain wouldn't do something to hurt him, but now knowing what awaits him has nerves twisting in his gut.

“Just give it a sec hmm?” Mountain says as he cradles Dew’s face again, drifting his thumbs over the delicate skin. “I need you to drop your glamor for this love.” Dew obliges, releasing the hold he has on his magic, ridding himself of the near constant tension at the crown of his head.

As he relaxes, the skin on his neck opens up to reveal his gills, glowing just like the bioluminescent swirls that paint the rest of his skin. His scales along his arms shimmer in the warm light of the sunset. The sight makes Mountain gasp. It's something truly special to witness Dew’s true form, and he savors it everytime.

Dew watches as Mountain lets his hands drift to his waist and squeeze at them affectionately. He stares at how far his fingers reach– Mountain’s fingers could wrap around his whole body with no effort. But what really gets Dew going is the quickly growing tent in Mountain’s boxers. He grinds down against Mountain’s leg then, searching for some type of friction now that he has an idea of what’s in store for him.

Mountain rocks Dew forward, making him lean flush to his chest. He brings a hand to the space between Dew’s bony shoulder blades and uses the grip to hold Dew close. His other hand laces itself into the soft, golden hair and tugs on it just enough to angle Dew’s face towards him. He gives one last kiss on the tip of Dew’s nose before tracing his finger down Dew’s spine. He feels each ridge and feels goosebumps form. He stops just above where a certain appendage juts out of their mortal vessels.

“You ever touch yourself here droplet?” He asks as his large hand wraps around the base of Dew’s tail. Dew mumbles a quiet no, almost as if he was embarrassed. What a shame, he thinks, Dew should know every bodily delight, especially considering how sensitive these human bodies are. A twisted pride blooms in Mountain, another addition to his ego. Another first for Dew, at his own hands.

“N– no,” Dew stutters, unable to pull in a full breath with the sudden fire coursing up his spine. “Fuck… that’s sensitive.”

“That it is bug.” This time, Mountain strokes it, starting at the base and gently tugging a few inches.

“It turns out shoving hellbeast into human bodies lands us in some fun situations. Some wires get crossed when we drop our glamours, the body doesn't know what to do with our tails.” He speaks almost aimlessly as he continues to tug at Dew’s tail.

“I remember when Zephyr first had me like this, they were my first too.” This time, Mountain lets a finger drift to the underside of Dew’s tail, stroking at the space between it and his tight hole. That was Mountain’s own spot. Even the slightest touches sent him hurtling towards the edge. What’s the harm in trying it on Dew?

It turns out, there’s a lot of harm. Dew just about lights on fire as Mountain skims the rough pad of his finger against him. It's too much and not enough at the same time. His brain cries out for it to stop, but it begs for Mountain at even the slightest suggestion of him slowing down.

“I was a little newer than you I think,” The gentle movement of his hand stills as he removes his finger and drags his thumb over the sensitive base instead. Dew feels like his face is about to melt off. He digs his head into Montain’s shoulder and exhales into the sturdy muscle. It doesn't work. He doesn't know how Mountain can stay this calm and collected as he falls apart in his lap.

He tries to coach himself through the fog, tries to breathe through each slow brush of Mountain’s hand. It proves just as futile.

“That’s a good boy,” The praise doesn't really make sense to him, he isn't doing anything, or at least that's what he thinks. “Take what you need baby.”

He realizes he’s been unknowingly grinding his still clothed cunt over Mountain’s thigh, coating it in slick that he’s sure is making a wet spot on the bed below. Mountain has been able to feel each twitch of Dew’s cock against him and it's done nothing but spur him on. It's almost become a mission to him, to pick Dew apart until he’s a bumbling mess.

“Mount, you gotta… wait. Fuck, hold on” Dew contests. He doesnt know how much longer he can last.

“Are you sure?” Dew knows how to make this stop, he knows exactly what word to say to get Mountain’s hands off of him.

“-yes. N–no. I dont know.” Dew sounds like he’s on the verge of tears, but Mountain knows they’ll be good ones. “Can I cum Mounty? Please?”

Mountain feels his heart bloom at the request. He weaves his free hand into the hair on the back of Dew’s head and runs his nails over his scalp, scratching at that spot that calms Dew down during thunderstorms and bad bus rides and turbulent flights. He comforts him, because what’s about to happen is going to hit him like a truck.

“Of course my love,” He thinks he’s more excited about this than Dew is, he’s always excited when he gets to make his siren feel good.

Mountain holds him to his chest tight, and spurs on each roll of his hips with a stream of ‘good boy’ and ‘there you go’ whispered against his temple.

“Get me nice and messy droplet, whenever you’re ready.” It doesnt take much more for Dew to tumble off the high cliff of his pleasure. One soft brush of Mountain’s finger against the underside of his tail has him cumming silently as he keeps rutting against Mountain’s thigh. To drive it home, Mountain wraps his hand around the base of his tail one last time and squeezes softly, just until he feels a wet gush against his leg.

“So good for me Dew, you did so well.” He whispers his praise as he pries his hands away from the now sensitive muscle and brings it up to Dew’s lower back. He feels each twitch of the small body on him, each jerk as his body works through the earth shattering orgasm. Underneath it all, he can feel the gentle rumbling of Dew purring.

Dew doesn't know how to express himself after that, and even if he could, the words wouldn't come out how he wanted them to.

“That… was. Mount, that–”

“I know.” Mountain says it so matter-of-factly that if he wasnt spreading gentle touches across Dew, he’d think that he was bored.

“You?” Dew asks. ‘What about you?’ is what he means to ask, but the words get lost between his brain and his lips.

Mountain chuckles at the fact that the first thing Dew does is ask about him. He always wants to check on everyone else, he wants to make sure they’re taken care of. Even if it means that sometimes, he’s set on the backburner, letting himself be burned by the flames.

“Im fine Dew.” Mountain insists, hoping its enough to convince Dew to relax for once. Stubborn as he is, the water ghoul doesnt let up. He musters up some strength, just enough to angle his head so that he’s almost face to face with Mountain.

“Let me help Mount, you didnt….” The worry that drips from his words makes Mountain’s heart swell. The love they have for eachother knows no bounds.

Mountain buries his nose into Dew’s hair and inhales the cool, crisp scent of his arousal. “I did bug. I did.”

#the band ghost #mountdew #mountain x dewdrop #water dewdrop #water ghoul #earth ghoul #dewdrop ghost #fire ghoul #dewdrop ghoul #ghost band #nameless ghouls #ghost band fic #ghost band fanfic #kinktober 2023 #kroas kinktober #ghostober 2023 #ghost kinktober 2023

120 notes · View notes

lazyworksinprogress · 8 months

Text

a very long post about hozier - unreal earth

Index:

Lyrical allusions

Visual imagery

Reading list

Interviews

Reviews

Lyrical allusions

The lyrics on Unreal Unearth are informed by texts such as Irish writer Flann O’Brien’s philosophical 1967 novel, The Third Policeman, Dante's Inferno, and Jonathon Swift.

De Selby (Part 1)

At last, when all of the world is asleep You take in the blackness of air The likes of a darkness so deep That God at the start couldn’t bear

"Human existence being an hallucination containing in itself the secondary hallucinations of day and night (the latter an insanitary condition of the atmosphere due to accretions of black air) it ill becomes any man of sense to be concerned at the illusory approach of the supreme hallucination known as death." The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien

Bhfuilis soranna sorcha Ach tagais 'nós na hoíche Trína chéile; le chéile Bhfuilis soranna sorcha Claochlaithe is claochlú an ealaín Is ealaín dubh í Bhfuilis soranna sorcha Ach tagais 'nós na hoíche Trína chéilе; le chéile Bhfuilis soranna sorcha Claochlaithe is claochlú an еalaín Is ealaín dubh í

Although your bright and light […] You arrived to me like nightfall, you come like nightfall You and I sort of mixed together You and I metamorphosized So that same idea of you can’t see where one begins and where one ends that, that is some kind of metamorphosis of some kind

“a body with another body inside it in turn, thousands of such bodies within each other like the skins of an onion, receding to some unimaginable ultimum”

De Selby (Part 2)

What you're given, what you live in Darlin', it finds a way to live in you

"The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles"

First Time

Remember once I told you about How before I heard it from your mouth My name would always hit my ears as such an awful sound

First Time refers to Beatrice Smiles: Canto XXXI - Dante's meeting with Beatrice after being left by Virgil, where she rebukes him for his sins. Dante does not remember his name but recognises Beatrice. He was dunked into the River of Forgetting by Matelda

“Respond, you of poor memory, confess. _Lethe awaits. Your thoughts are undeterred.”

These days I think I owe my life To flowers that were left here by my mother Ain't that like them, giftin' life to you again

Francesca

In Dante's Inferno, the character of Beatrice embodies love inspired by God - she is a religious object that should inspire faith, devotion, and salvation. By contrast, the character of Francesca da Rimini is encountered in the Terrace of Lust. She was a medieval noblewoman who was killed by her husband, Giovanni Malatesta upon discovering an affair between her and Paolo Malatesta (his brother). She represents love that leads one's soul to destruction.

I would not change it each time Heaven is not fit to house a love like you and I I would not change it each time

"Love led us to one death, conjointly felled. __For him who slew us, Cäina waits below."

I Carrion (Icarian)

One deep breath out from the sky I've reached a rarer height now that I can confirm All our weight is just a burden offered to us by the world

This song has a connection with Inferno 17. Phaeton, Icarus, Daedalus and Arachne: are symbolic of Ulysses, the embodiment of transgression in Dante’s personal mythography. Icarus is a figure of fear for because he was equipped by his father to alter the boundaries of man's physical nature. It is the sin of pride that leads one to folly.

Eat Your Young

“Eat Your Young”, a contemporary riff on the Irish writer Jonathan Swift’s 1729 satirical essay “A Modest Proposal” that suggests Irish people eat their children to alleviate their hunger and poverty.

Come and get some Skinnin' the children for a war drum Puttin' food on the table sellin' bombs and guns It's quicker and easier to eat your young

The first verse also contains allusions to Canto 6 of Inferno - this level is related to "gluttony" but it's used by Dante to discuss the political landscape and moral failures of the City of Florence. Gluttony, in this case, is defined as excessive desire for dominion and power. So Hozier comments on inequality and poverty with a distinctly political air.

Damage Gets Done

Here Hozier refers to Canto 7 of Inferno and the concept of misura - a lack of moderation or self-control

And darlin', I haven't felt it since then I don't know how the feelin' ended But I know being reckless and young Is not how the damage gets done

In this Canto, Dante is discussing wealth management - hoarding and wasteful spending. While avarice is a traditionally Christian sin, Dante inserts the sin of prodigality by himself. This tells us that Dante's moral standard is not essentially Christian. Hozier also plays with the intentions of the texts he refers to and inserts his own takes on philosophy and biography. Very Dantean, if you ask me.

Who We Are

I think this is a narrative shift similar to Canto 8-9 where the fallibility of Virgil is explored and the tension between faith and fear.

You only feel it when it's lost Gettin' through still has a cost Quietly, it slips through your fingers, love Falling from you drop by drop What I had left here I just held it tight So someone with your eyes might come in time To hold me like water Or Christ, hold me like a knife

Son of Nyx

All Things End

The mystery at the heart of Inferno 10, the mystery that generates its enormous poetic power, is the connection of love to sin.

All Things End is superficially about the end of a relationship but it's also about heresy. The specific heresy in the canto is Epicureanism: materialism that suggests the soul dies with the body. It is a denial of the idea of an immortal soul and a "wilful separation of the soul from God". The Epicureans in Canto 10 are represented as eternally trapped in the temporary and ephemeral materialistic reality of the present. They are denied what is eternal and transcendent (ie divine)

And all things end All that we intend is scrawled in sand And slips right through our hands And just knowing That everything will end Should not change our plans When wе begin again

To Someone From A Warm Climate (Uiscefhuarithe)

‘Uiscefhuarithe’, as described by Hozier, is an irish word for ‘something that has been made cold by water’.

Butchered Tongue

The Genius annotation gives a lot of detail here: In “Butchered Tongue”, Hozier tackles the 7th Circle of Hell Canto XII to XVII, known as the ‘Circle of Violence or Hell of the Violent and Bestial’ which is one of the lower circles of Hell and is divided into three distinct rings, each punishing different types of violence. The track focuses mainly on the first ring called the ‘Outer Ring’ where those who commit violence against others and their property are punished by being submerged in a river of boiling blood called the Phlegethôn, and centaurs patrol the area, shooting arrows at those who emerge from the blood.

The song has a number of allusions to the horrors of colonial violence.

Anything But

I think this song refers to Canto 26 which establishes the critical metaphor that equates desire with flying. Here Dante encounters Ulysses - the embodiment of the epic wandering hero.

"But here one must fly, I mean with the swift wings and the pinions of great desire."

Canto 26 is critical of imperial ambitions and expansionism as Dante casts the city of Florence as a giant bird of prey whose wings beat over land and sea. This is thought as representing a specter of tyranny.

Dante presents Ulysses as the ultimate flawed hero that embodies the expression of desire as flight. Hozier expresses his desire for flight and wandering in Anything But.

I wanna be the shadow when my bright future's behind me I wanna be the last thing anybody ever sees I hear he touches your hand, and then you fly away together If I had his job, you would live forever

Abstract (Psychopomp)

Here Hozier references a childhood trauma of witnessing an animal being hit by a car and Canto 28. It's somewhat alike to the canto in a metatextual sense because it presents a gruesome picture. In Inferno 28 souls are mutilated by devils. The language is pretty clinical and graphic, like the song.

"Who, even with untrammeled words and many attempts at telling, ever could recount in full the blood and wounds that I now saw?."

The poor thing in the road, its eye still glistening The cold wet of your nose, the earth from a distance

Unknown / Nth

This one has a lot of references that have been discussed by Hozier for its allusions to the ninth circle of Hell and Cantos 34. The ninth circle is sometimes referred to as treachery but the sin is fraud.

betrayal is fraud committed against those who trust us

Hozier said he conceived of Satan/the Devil as the first prisoner of hell. I've got to link the Digital Dante article about this Canto because it's very relevant:

You know the distance never made a difference to me I swam a lake of fire, I'd have walked across the floor of any sea Ignored the vastness between all that can be seen And all that we believe So I thought you were like an angel to me

First Light

One bright morning changes all things Soft and easy as your breathing, you wake Your eyes open at first a thousand miles away But turning shoot a silver bullet point-blank range And I can scarce believe what I'm believing in Could this be how every day begins?

"Whichever day it was, it was a gentle day – mild, magical and innocent with great sailings of white cloud serene and impregnable in the high sky, moving along like kingly swans on quiet water. The sun was in the neighbourhood also, distributing his enchantment unobtrusively, colouring the sides of things that were unalive and livening the hearts of living things" - The Third Policeman

Visual imagery

"Down into the earth where dead men go I would go soon and maybe come out of it again in some healthy way, free and innocent of all human perplexity." - The Third Policeman

"Not everyone know how I killed old Phillip Mathers, smashing his jaw in with my spade." - The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien

“If a man stands before a mirror and sees in it his reflection, what he sees is not a true reproduction of himself but a picture of himself when he was a younger man”

Reading list

“Eat Your Young”, a contemporary riff on the Irish writer Jonathan Swift’s 1729 essay “A Modest Proposal”

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien: an expert investigation

Bestselling author Michael Foley celebrates a comic, Kafkaesque masterpiece and explores what makes it great. But why was it cannibalised

The Irish Times

The Icarian Community Nauvoo | Paul M. Angle

Re-admitted to France, Cabet made plans to move his ideal society from the printed page to reality. In December 1847, he announced that Ic

fee.org|Paul M. Angle

An overview of the 1798 Irish rebellion

Interviews

“We betray ourselves in the act of opening up to somebody and believing so much,” Hozier says, passing a hand across his face. He looks weary, all of a sudden, voice cracking a little. “Our eyes betray us, our hearts betray us, our minds betray us. And that’s the ‘Nth’ reference: we open ourselves up to something, only to betray ourselves…”

Hell, at Least According to Hozier, Never Sounded Sweeter

On the eve of his return to the spotlight, the Irish crooner mulls over Ovid, 'Inferno,' and his status as the internet’s forest king.

Vanity Fair|Condé Nast

Hozier: ‘I think everyone goes through their version of hell’

The Irish artist is releasing his long-awaited third record ‘Unreal Unearth’, which was inspired by Dante’s Inferno. He speaks to Roisin O’C

The Independent

“There’s a subtle element and I wanted to be light and playful with it. The album can be taken as a collection of songs, but also as a little bit of a journey. It starts with a descent and I’ve arranged the songs according to their themes into nine circles, just playfully reflecting Dante’s nine circles and then an ascent at the end”

the album reflects upon two of the nine circles of hell: gluttony and heresy.

“There’s some moments that are a bit more old school and stuff that’s Nineties grunge sounding too. For other moments we were leaning into playing with a lot of synthesisers. But we’ve arranged the album into circles and the EP just represents two of those – those soul moments within it.” - Rolling Stone Interview

Divine Comedy explainers

Dante's 9 Circles of Hell: A Guide to the Structure of 'Inferno'

Here's a structural overview for the nine circles of hell in Book 1 (Inferno) of Dante Alighier's Divine Comedy.

ThoughtCo

Full Glossary for The Divine Comedy: Inferno

Absalom Bible. David's favorite son; killed after rebelling against his father: 2 Samuel 18.Acheron the River of Sorrow.Achilles Greek Mytho

cliffsnotes.com

Dante Alighieri: Mythology in the Divine Comedy

Mythology in the Divine Comedy Throughout Dante’s work “The Divine Comedy”, the author uses Greek and Roman mythology to elevate and to pro

ITAL3550SLU - Medieval & Renaissance Italian Literature

Reviews

Hozier - 'Unreal Unearth' review: Epic, expansive and ethereal

On his third album, the Irish sing-songwriter utilizes simplicity and space while venturing into new sonic territory — Read the NME review

NME|Aliya Chaudhry

Hozier: Unreal Unearth album review — solitude, spirituality and a touch of Dante | Financial Times

The singer’s roar is as impressive as ever but he also deploys other vocal styles to fine effect in his third album

ft.com

On Unreal Unearth, Hozier Makes His Boldest Work Yet

On Unreal Unearth, Hozier works through biblical source material and Dante's Inferno to make sense of isolation and human sorrow.

Paste Magazine

Hozier – ‘Unreal Unearth’ album review: A beautiful, angst-filled journey through the nine circles of hell

'Unreal Unearth' dives into the concept of Dante's Inferno.

Far Out Magazine

Unreal Unearth review | Hozier merges pop with profound prose

From the haunting echoes of Irish folklore to the pulsating beats of indie pop, this is Hozier at his artistic peak. Read our Unreal Unearth

whynow

Album: Hozier - Unreal, Unearth

Only a few artists can be said to have exploded on to the scene like Hozier. The solo, Irish musician – full name Andrew John Hozier-Byrne –

theartsdesk.com

#hozier #unreal unearth #andrew hozier byrne #de selby part 2 #eat your young

115 notes · View notes

punkitt-is-here · 6 months

Note

I don't really think putting fallout 4 in the same boat as 3 and 76 is really fair of that anon, fallout 4 doesn't have AS MUCH to say about nukes as 1 2 and NV but it does have something to say, the institutes placing of a nuclear reactor in the middle of their home is what directly leads to their destruction in all 3 endings where you don't side with them, it's hubris, that they think they can toy with this power with 0 precautions the same way they've constantly toyed with the lives of the people who will eventually use it against them, and not trying to save people from the blast turns a companion and an entire faction permanently against you

Far Harbor has something to say as well, destroying any of its 3 factions is horrible, as is what you need to do to prevent any of them being destroyed, but even though the children of atom are all about the bomb being a good thing the game does not shy away from the fact you destroying them and their home with one is a horrific act, the same way slaughtering everyone in Acadia is, the same way turning off the generators protecting far harbor is, its awful.

Fallout 4 isn't trying nearly as hard as the other 3 titles, but it's trying hard enough that I'm willing to go to bat for it to an extent

I haven't gone all the way through Fallout 4 myself, just played the first couple hours and didn't enjoy it so much I turned it off, but I've watched many people play it through and read a lot about it. I'll give you this fair defense in the askbox, that's the least i can do!

#my posts #asks #anon #fallout

56 notes · View notes

ceasarslegion · 13 days

Text

From what i know about WW2 history as well as film history i do wonder if the "giant monsters, big mechs, advanced tech, existential threats to the whole of mankind, and the children will save the world" trope that is so ubiquitous in anime has anything to do with shifting social polarities in post-war Japan. I never really noticed it until a Kingdom Hearts boss guide pointed it out to me, but you don't really see that trope much in western media, unless it's media clearly inspired by anime like how Pacific Rim is basically a third culture kid director's live action take on Neon Genesis Evangelion. Meanwhile, that kind of larger-than-life existential sci-fi is in absolutely everything in Japanese pop culture.

Anime culture really came about in post-war Japan. You can see a lot of proto-anime in their cinema before and during the war, but anime really became ANIME afterwards, with all the unique forms of storytelling and artistry that is specific to anime. It's not like other forms of animation, it's really it's own beast, right down to the art style that isn't used anywhere else.

And I mean, it makes a weird sort of sense, if you think about it. You don't come out of what Japan went through without some serious nation-wide intergenerational... something. Isolationism, imperialist fascism, 2 atomic bombs, realizing they need to change with the world or it will leave them behind, thrusting themselves into the tech sector to try to get away from that sordid past, but the foundations that created that sordid past are still there in their grind culture that is somewhat reflective of the old samurai. There is undoubtedly a weird pull there, where one side is pulling them towards the future, while the other towards tradition, meanwhile if you live in modern Japan your grandparents probably remember being A-bombed.

Technology is rarely if ever portrayed as anything less than positive progress in anime. It's always a tool to destroy this organic monstrous enemy homegrown in Japan. Even if there's some really bad caveat to its use (like in, again... Neon Genesis Evangelion. I wish I could turn my shitty coworkers into LCL), it's the ONLY way to defeat it. It's a necessary evil, and therefore a public good. Technology usually represents the future in sci fi, and the fact it's usually teenage and young adult heroes who wield it I don't think is a coincidence.

And then you grow this media presence that becomes known for its use of giant monsters and fighting robots and kid heroes who spit in the face of tradition to rip them apart with laser beams. The jokes about Dragon Ball Z super saiyan fire balls are funny, but I wonder how much those things come from this desire among the younger post-war generations to break from this isolated traditionalism that led to their role in the axis atrocities of WW2, and how much they've been uncritically looking to the future to do so, by any means necessary?

Godzilla is the personification of both the Nazism and the bombings it led to, after all. Like he wasn't just a big scary lizard, he was the monster they had to defeat to preserve themselves from destruction.

#some thoughts

21 notes · View notes

girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 2 months

Text

tuesday again 2/13/2024

writing cover letters like "Market Research Firm 953989464860, will YOU be my Valentine?"

also, a fallout 4 femslash fic for femslash feb

listening

Fresh Blood by the Eels off their 2009 album Hombre Loco. i would say this is another "i think a vampire probably wrote this low, grooving track" but there are several howls featured. wikipedia says it is about a werewolf. this song sounds like it has a simple bassline and simple drums but it knows what it's about. it's probably secretly really complicated but i specced in knowing about fabric, not about music.

youtube

it makes me want to ice skate really fast and also sounds like watching broken highway lane dividers go by late at night. fascinating that the back half of the four-plus minute song is fully instrumental. definitely a song for when you are traveling, or perhaps proceeding. spotify

Sun down on the sorry day By nightlights the children pray I know you're probably gettin' ready for bed Beautiful woman get out of my head I'm so tired of the same old crud Sweet baby I need fresh blood

i've been mainlining The Black Keys' album Brothers so it makes sense this popped up on my Discover Weekly spotify playlist

reading

in 2015, the year i dropped out of college, the closest comic/weird nerd shit store was a forty minute drive from my house. i bought the first issue of the serialized anthology comics magazine The Island bc i liked the Moebius-esque cover by Brandon Graham, before i knew who either of those artists were or that i liked them. i think it was ten bucks, and having to show my drivers' license really sticks in my brain for some reason. the point i am slowly approaching is that the magazine only ran for fifteen issues, and i didn't buy any other copies bc ten bucks a month was too dear for me, but it was a tremendous incubator for artists i would end up loving. about half the time i stumble across a lovely self-contained book that knocks my socks off i find out it started life in The Island.

All his life, Hank Cho wanted to join the ranks of the Habsec—the rulers of the orbital habitat his people call home. But when he finds a powerful, forbidden weapon from the deep past, a single moment of violence sets his life—and the brutal society of the habitat—into upheaval. Hunted by the cannibalistic Habsec and sheltered by former enemies, Cho finds himself caught within a civil war that threatens to destroy his world. A new barbarian sci-fi adventure by SIMON ROY (PROPHET, JAN'S ATOMIC HEART, Tiger Lung), originally serialized in ISLAND MAGAZINE.

Simon Roy's Habitat asks: do you want to hear a story about a generation ship gone wrong? this is a guy who really knows how to draw mechs and all their fiddly bits and loves doing it, which is a really transferrable skill to lovingly detailing the crumbling brutalist neo-mesoamerican architecture. the Habsec cannibals and their bits and pieces of scavenged armor blend in so well, it's genuinely shocking when we see someone in full, kept up, incredibly colorful armor. gorgeous, gorgeous book. love a fucked up generation ship.

found while perusing the stacks of the library that was closest to a bunch of other admin errands i was running, bc i finally have a tx drivers license and can start collecting tx library cards

watching

im also asking myself why the hell i'm watching yellowstone with my bestie and her husband. it has every trigger warning and a lot of them would make me decline the experience had i looked them up beforehand. however, the inevitablilty of each little tragedy feeding into the circular threshing maw that is the Dutton family is really clicking for me. like well! that mom sure did die in the most traumatizing way possible! and wow that really does go a long way toward explaining why the daughter is self-medicating to an alarming degree AND why no one else is doing anything about it bc they're all still mad at her for being very tangential to her mom's death!

the amount of Stuff that happens per episode is truly astonishing. one of my favorite parts of the ttrpg Beamsaber is the downtime between missions, bc you get to have some really bonkers interactions with people who don't usually interact. despite its huge cast, Yellowstone doesn't yet feel incoherent or like it's jumped the shark in its first season bc it's really successful at getting its huge cast to have unexpected interactions with each other. this sounds a little bit like praising it for knowing how to be good television, but this is a neowestern about a land grab that's also a familial dynasty drama that's really leaning into the familial dynasty part of it. it would be very easy for this to become incoherent or bad at switching between storylines, but so far it's really good at it. it's not beamsaber or black sails bc nothing will ever be beamsaber or black sails but it's really scratching that itch of many small rapidly shifting factions and rapidly shifting political goals bc each child is their own horrible little faction and they have a lot of time where they're trapped in cars or helicopters together getting around their ranch, which is simply too large.

we're trying to watch the yellowstone franchise in release order, and the yellowstone prequel with tim mcgraw came out between the first and second seasons. we will not be continuing this. this is a bog standard wagon train western. cripplingly boring after the brazen insanity of the first season. also i think it is in poor taste at best and irresponsible at worst to show a suicide on screen.

i said i don't know why i'm watching this but i do know why i'm watching yellowstone, and that's bc my bestie keeps seeing tiktoks about it. sometimes im influenced in real life

playing

changed my sheets this week and didn't chortle at the TOP OR BOTTOM tag which is how i know im having. a brain time. another way you can tell im having a brain time are these screenshots of the Breath of the Wild map. as you may or may not remember from last week, last week i had very little of the map filled out.

now is this EXPLORED? good heavens no. i have under 40 shrines DISCOVERED. i have simply beelined to each tower and went VERY fast. or was very sneaky. the three towers i have not bothered to climb yet are the ones i would have to actually fight some guys about. fuck the akkala tower for real.

i love to accidentally get way too close to dragons and die. some fun things about this run: incredibly, exceptionally rainy. except for the stint in the literal desert and the five minutes in the snowfield it has been raining about 70% of the time, which has made climbing very annoying. another fun thing about this run: exceptionally low ancient shaft drop rate, which makes getting ancient arrows to safely kill guardians from afar very difficult. bc as discussed above i have optimized this little blond boy to be very fast and very sneaky to get up the towers very quickly in the two minute spans of time it is not raining.

another fun thing about this run: not very good at successfully spitting out riders next to horses. you can only see the tip of spinch's hat bc he is underground.

i have unlocked the elephant and the falcon, i haven't gotten much farther than finding painkillers for the goron boss and stalled out at the yiga clan stealth mission. bc despite liking being a sneaky fast sniper out in the world, i fucking hate an enforced stealth mission. i don't think i ever got past this part in my other run either.

not jacked enough to unlock the master sword, i think you need twelve hearts? i would rather have more stamina so i can get faster horses + the princess's horse.

after i unlocked a bunch of towers i spent a goofy amount of time in the Lake Floria system herself hunting for treasure chests (there are easily fifty chests in the water. wild) to get the 10k rupees to unlock the last great fairy. i also spent several real-life hours video game mining video game ore. this was deeply annoying bc i sold off all my gems to get 10k rupees and then had nothing to get those sweet sweet high level upgrades with. this was the point on sunday night where i realized i was getting irrationally annoyed with a game that is supposed to be fun, and is NOT meant to support the kind of grinding i was doing. that was enough video game for one day thank you.

did you know there's a korok in the shrine of resurrection? me either.

also did you know magnesis ACTIVATES on the windmills in Hebra but i can't figure out how to get close enough to any of them to do anything about it. annoying.

this has got to be so funny from ganons point of view. i unlocked the elephant and the falcon in under a week of in-game time and then spent several in-game months mining and collecting clothes. would that make ganon more or less anxious d'you think

making

cross stitch update. this confetti in the rover square. i am dying. here’s what it will look like finished, and a link to buy the pattern

i had such high hopes for pin stitches as a thread finishing method but i had to rip out a mistake near a pin stitch and accidentally ripped out the entire pin and single confetti cross stitch. so what the fuck. i am an insane woman who likes to fully submerge and lightly hand wash projects before they get framed to remove all the oils (yes i wash my hands before stitching, i do get paranoid) and i am not confident pin stitches will hold up to that. oh well. the loop method is pretty great in halving the number of ends i have to weave in, even though i feel like it is extremely wasteful and leaves me with lots of short useless lengths my cats would love to eat. so the gains from halving thread management are really not offset by the meticulous cat management i must embark upon every time i do my fun relaxing hobby.

and the back, which is a horror. and will only become more of a horror. but once this is framed no one will actually see it so it's FINE. i am FINE with this. i started this knowing there was going to be lots of confetti. that's the point of this masochistic pattern

i wrote the first chapter of this fic last summer and outlined the emotional beats (but not much else) while procrastinating moving and have finally lightly polished the first chapter and threw it on the archive. im trying to let things molder less and just fucking post them in the hopes this activates the writing part of my brain again but who could say what's going on up there. this is still something that hasn't quite returned to me post-covid round 2

this will eventually be an E-rated 5+1 fic fixing all the fucking bullshit around Cait Fallout4's companion quest. she will NOT go in the magic chair that tortures her into not being a junkie and being the perfect waifu. she is going to stumble backwards and accidentally into some harm reduction and get railed by a mean top. the mean top and the harm reduction won't fix her but they certainly won't hurt.

#being unemployed is great for the amount of Stuff in these posts even though it is very bad for all other aspects of my life #tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

27 notes · View notes

ufonaut · 3 months

Text

"a disaster beyond description" - the parallax view on parallax (& coast city's destruction)

i've often talked about the importance of pre-parallax retcon hal jordan, what a radical move his downfall had been for an art medium so uniquely focused on status quo and how much walking that back in post-2005 continuity damaged the character & his development. however, something i've become increasingly interested in lately is the outsider point of view on the magnitude of coast city's destruction and hal's descent into madness -- the reverberations of one of the darkest days in the dcu were far and wide for a good long while there but rarely acknowledged outside of nostalgia pieces nowadays and even more rarely understood as a thoroughly visceral, well-written, well-planned arc that intentionally portrayed the superhero world as largely unsympathetic to the trauma of one of their own but the average civilian as grappling with that loss nearly on the same scale that hal did.

to that effect, i thought i would show a highlights reel of this outsider POV and how much it adds to the weight of the pre-2005 story. while i've accepted some tie-ins to major events (ie zero hour 1994, final night 1996), this will feature titles entirely unrelated to green lantern presented in real life chronological order by publication date in order to showcase the impact that's compelled me so (that's no convergence: green lantern, no legends of the dcu #33-36, etc).

"every office, every home, every school and hospital is atomized. the west coast and its entire ecosystem is instantaneously shattered-- and more than seven million men, women and children that once called the coast city area home-- die."

to set the scene, the explosion that destroys coast city actually appears in superman 1987 #80 (cover date: aug 1993) as part of hank henshaw and mongul's plan.

the destruction had spread as far as santa barbara & the los padres national forest. getting closer to ground zero, hank henshaw also proceeds to resolutely take care of a handful of the sole survivors:

(adventures of superman 1987 #503, cover date: aug 1993)

you all know the reading order here. past the return of superman and the events of emerald twilight, the first outsiders to have gotten the news are the darkstars

whose immediate course of action is to brand hal jordan a criminal (darkstars #23, cover date: aug 1994)

and as zero hour-induced temporal anomalies keep coming up, the darkstars start seriously considering further tampering with time in order to prevent "the creation of a power-mad monster" (darkstars #24, cover date: sept 1994).

it's a sentiment that the majority of hal's justice league colleagues share, as zero hour: crisis in time and the final night both tell us, but a more sympathetic view comes two years later in the spectre 1992 #47 (cover date: nov 1996)

and a more neutral one from waverider in superman: the doomsday wars #2 (cover date: dec 1998)

interestingly enough, more details of the in-universe perception of hal's actions comes from deadman: dead again

where we learn that "sources close to the JLA" have actually issued a press statement naming hal as wholly responsible for the green lantern corps massacre, with no hint that they've been equally forthcoming about the motive behind his actions (deadman: dead again #4, cover date: oct 2001)

the last pre-retcon word goes to superman: day of doom #3 (cover date: jan 2003), a sobering portrayal of the immense horror of coast city's annihilation and subsequently a look into the reality that had made hal snap:

post-retcon, nostalgia pieces like dcu: legacies #8 (feb 2011) and dc retroactive: superman - the 80s (oct 2011) both treat the mad-with-grief version of the story as the truth -- as does the 2015 convergence event --but outside of these few instances, the tour de force of storytelling that is this years-long arc has been cast aside in favor of an unnecessary retcon. as the zero hour: crisis in time 30th anniversary approaches, i'd say it's just the right time to remember that hal (unrepentant hal, power-hungry hal, hell-bent on making everything right hal) had had a perfectly proportional reaction to the tragedy he'd endured, if not outright a justified one.

39 notes · View notes