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#like i said theorizing was one thing and reading about it was... completely different
ms-scarletwings · 8 months
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The Speculative Analysis About Irkens No One Asked For: Part II
Hiya! Back at it again with not shutting up about the lil green dudes. In case you found this first, here’s the Part One of this spiel, touching on some of the environmental theories about Irk and its cyberpunk-leaning cultural direction. While this post is dedicated to a more biological look of what’s going on with the Irkens, there was some leading context and other tidbits back in that one you may also enjoy, too.
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So, carrying through what we previously set up, I want to… admit off the bat that, I found it a little difficult at first, you know?-To pick an angle I wanted to sink my teeth into. With how old the show’s become and how creative & enthusiastic a fanbase it attracted, it’s getting hard to really note (or theorize) something about Irken anatomy that hasn’t been said before somewhere. And don’t get me wrong, that’s awesome and I love almost every word of it I’ve read. A lot of it from various sources is almost certainly going to bleed together into the first half of this. So, keep it in mind, yet I will try to chew a little deeper into the questions we can’t actually answer with just a rewatch of the show, all good? Because there’s a few more base things we know from the canon I’m going to include to start listing: - Irkens lack any visible form of nose or ears, but are equipped with a pair of sensory antennae. Presumably, these organs fulfill the same roles, as they do in real-world insects. - Irken organs are obviously very alien, not well explained, artificially enhanced, and hard to compare to that of a human’s- outside of their general body shape, the presence of a primary brain separate from the PAK, and the fact that they do possess something of an internal skeleton. - A petite race on average (relative to humans), Irkens universally follow an unquestioned social hierarchy based on individual height. - Irkens are endowed with a remarkable ability to regenerate and heal superficial injuries, even up to repairing the damage of being nearly skinned alive (chest-down) or severely burning their corneas within a matter of hours. - Their preferred diet is one that is rich in (if not primarily made of) refined carbohydrates, and while they seem to tolerate fatty sources, such as processed dairy, their anatomy is poorly suited for dealing with high-protein foods like beans and meat. - In fact, all forms of contact with exposed animal meat itself will cause it to dissolve and meld into their own flesh, via an incredibly painful process. - On contact with water from Earth, their skin will receive harsh chemical burns (This has been explained by Vasquez to be a consequence of impurities and man-made pollutants, which Irkens seem sensitive to). - While I’m already on a roll about their skin, it also contains/produces a substance capable of killing lice.
Now, I think we’ve all heard a lot about sqeedily spooches, but does anyone else want to keep marinating a second longer on the topic of s k i n ? Because I have some damn thoughts to release about Zim’s outer casing.
Let’s Get Chemical
First hot take, and the hill I am willing to be slain on: That ain’t actually skin! At least, it is nothing chemically alike to Earth-native vertebrate skin. I’ve given all of the above and the general running theme about Irkens resembling arthropods a lot of thought, and I’ve come to about the only conclusion I could that makes their dermis equivalent… make sense.
See, one of the biggest traits that sets apart invertebrates from other animals in real life is the “innie or outie” skeleton question, but you gotta understand that the “skeletons” that bugs and crabs have would still be considered something completely different from our endoskeletons even if they were on the inside. The hard tissues that make up OUR skeletal systems are mostly made up of a *collagen (remember that word!) frame that is reinforced by calcium, phosphorus, and other minerals. The hard parts of an ant’s skeleton, on the other foot, are mainly composited of chitin.
Chitin, now, is a very neat substance. It’s a polysaccharide, meaning that it’s made up of a bunch of sugar molecules chained together. This makes it distinct from proteins, which are made of amino acid chains instead of carbs. Chitin is also one of the single most important structural polymers in the universe to a ton of existing life. It makes up the literal backbone of arthropods and the cell walls of all fungi. We’ve even found it in fish scales and some amphibians. So, must also be important to humans, right? NAH. Not a chance. Higher animals actually long ditched the ability to synthesize the stuff, and are not any the worse for it, since there’s more than one way to stick a bunch of creature pieces together. For two examples, keratin and *collagen are proteins we naturally synthesize that functionally do the same thing. Keratin is the hard substance that makes up hair & fingernails, and collagen is practically the wonderglue of flesh: It’s a fundamental binder that holds together your bones, your skin, your precious muscle meats, the ligaments, the tendies, the nerves…
pretty much the whole person blueprint if you get the picture.
And thus concludes your (VERY overly simplified) highshcool bio class recap, but what the hell did that have to do with the cartoon spacemen again? I’m gonna round back to them through a funny secret about exoskeletons, actually: They have a softer part, too! Chitin’s hella diverse in its forms and utility. What’s in an exoskeleton is actually a version of it modified with other materials (like what’s done to collagen in bone) to make it so rigid and shell-like. A purer chitin, on the other hand, is more leathery and flexible, less like the shell of a beetle and more like the squishy wall around a caterpillar or maggot. Even the hard bodied insects still have an endocuticle layer like this hiding just under the “shell”, still considered part of the whole exoskeleton, but suddenly looking and acting more like we’d call a skin.
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Eh, see where I’m going with this? My conviction is this- Irkens may have used to be even more arthropodal in an earlier stage of their evolution, including BOTH an internal skeleton, and some form of protective exoskeleton in their body plan. And hey, maybe the two were extensions of the same system once, too. You recognize something like that in modern tortoises when you remember that their “shells” are actually just the bone structure of their own ribcage. Then, let’s say that Irkens later saw the loss of their heavier exocuticle, leaving behind the endoskeleton and the flexible inner (now just an outer) cuticle of what used to be an entire body shell. This could have been a gradual change, via natural selection, or it could have been another artificial mutation brought on by technology- wherein the elder brains decided the feature was less efficient and simply phased it out of the cloning process- the same as the loss of their species’ sexual organs.
But, you’re thinking, why on Irk would the loss of an entire badass armor layer be beneficial to their fitness? Few reasons- For one, they are cumbersome and limiting. The downgrade on freedom of movement and flexibility they would be for a bipedal humanoid is self-explanatory enough. When it came to structural integrity, the inner skeleton would have already done a well job with little modification. For all the protection they provide, they don’t leave much room for expansion, and need to be shed in order for the animal to grow any further or to recover from certain injuries. The process of molting itself would be an excruciating process for any intelligent species to have to endure; one that also temporarily leaves the critter in a very vulnerable and stressed state for every molt. To advance from more primitive origins into a dominant race, manual dexterity and mobility would have to take a front seat over a small amount of modest defenses, and mind you, Irk long ago woulda managed to compensate for that loss in the form of advanced weaponry (obviously).
I’m also of the mind that the shift away from an exoskeleton could have even been the key to allowing the Irkens to even grow to the size they are now. Recall back to Part One for a second, where I shared the likely case for Irk having a massive bulk behind its gravity field. Gravity is a hard thing on any skeletal structure, representing a constant strain to be fought against when moving, growing, and bearing weight .There’s a lot of factors behind why we don’t have horse sized spiders or elephant sized lobsters IRL, and weight is actually one of them. Notice how terrestrial isopods only get about to the size of a bean, but the aquatic ones can top out at over a foot long? And that’s only having Earth’s level of gravity to struggle against, let alone however harsh the conditions would be on a larger planet. So, there’s my framework for explaining what I think the aliens’ cuticle is not; however, what does that mean for what it is, besides “feels and looks like a grub’s”?
Well, look again at some of the extraordinary things it can do.
Cooties Immunity
“Germs” was a memorable episode that posed a very legitimate question to the viewer. Why IS IT that foreign pathogens aren’t a bigger concern for the invaders? They’re literally sent off to other worlds to blend in: Socializing with the native inhabitants, eating their foods, and living in an alien habitat. In the case of an undiscovered rock like Earth, our infectious diseases would have no reference available to the Armada whatsoever. Sure, species incompatibility would provide some protection, but the risk of something carrying over and adapting is always still there. Zoonoptic jumps happen all the time with bacteria and viruses, and Zim’s body temperature IS in the normal human range. And what about fungal pathogens, or parasites-
Oh, wait, the lice episode gave it away right there.
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I love this sequence so much, because it’s coincidentally like, an exact “art imitates life” parallel to something a real species of primate does. Black lemurs live in the same area of Madagascar as these vibrant, red millipedes.
The millipedes are special because when threatened, they secrete a poisonous substance from their skin. The lemurs are special because they like to grab the bugs and nibble them for no other reason than to make them release those toxins. Those chemicals are then rubbed into their fur, because somehow the lemurs figured out it makes a really handy mosquito repellant. The lemurs also like to get completely zonked out on the chemicals too but eyy- Point was it stands to reason that Irkens may also secrete small amounts of their own potent toxin from the cuticle, perhaps for more hygienic than defensive purposes. This secretion would be responsible for protecting them from parasites and topical infections. Could it also make people blazed out of their minds? …Maybe? I think I’d like to promote the “Just Say No” policy on the matter of licking aliens, though. Ffs at least ask them out to dinner first.
When it comes to other kinds of sick, looks like it might be the trusty old PAK to the rescue here again. I imagine that, being an intergalactic, partially mechanical civilization, the Irken race has come down this road enough to put in a workaround. A standard PAK contains the entirety of the population’s collective knowledge/history- which would include a catalog of all known infectious agents they have encountered across the universe. Some kind of nanobot-bolstered immune system that could detect and respond appropriately to new threats isn’t out of the question, nor should a feature that can automatically administer the appropriate medicine directly into the wearer’s bloodstream. For all this awesomeness, nonetheless, there remains a downside or two that they haven’t quite conquered..
The Meaty, Sweety, Mending of DOOM
Anyone ever actually think about how as far as resilience is concerned, Zim is practically an X-man compared to any Earthling? He has regenerative capabilities that surpass anything else on earth, save idk, bamboo shoots, if even. Injuries that would leave a human permanently disabled only seem to incapacitate an Irken for a few hours to a day at most. They’re all the more tough to put out of commission when considering that a PAK doubles as a form of backup life support, ready to “soft reboot” the host with a quick jolt if it detects a sudden drop in vital signs. It is tempting to credit the same device as the source of this healing boost as well, teasing the nanobot suggestion again; however, I see a chance instead to bring this back a step.
Although not as quick-acting as Zim, or Skoodge’s healing, there are some remarkable examples of regeneration in real arthropods, from repairing tissues/organs to replacing entire lost limbs. What the aliens are packing doesn’t seem all that different, only refined (through years of bioengineering) to work at a truly frightening efficiency. It shows through in their diet as well. Almost always, if we see a member of this species eating on screen, and believe me there was no shortage of examples, what are we watching them shovel their face with?
Space doughnuts, space popcorn, space Fun-Dip, sodas, and curly fries. Sure, there’s plenty of calories here, no doubt with the amount of carbs and grease that could even turn the stomach of a college freshman, but is this… nutrition?
Yes. Just not for us.
Like their civilization, we have also turned the mass production of sweet-packed, fat loaded foods into one of our favored art forms, and there are scattered pockets of our planet that can enjoy these items in cheap abundance. The catch 22? Obesity and heart disease. Meanwhile, Irkens are so metabolically blessed that they can follow the same lifestyle and actually be thriving by it. We know that the majority of human food is utterly toxic to Zim, but then there were waffles, a literal stack of dessert and butter that pretends to be a breakfast…. Our guy was experiencing the “finally some good fucking food” meme from the first bite off that plate, but this can’t seriously be healthy,or if it is, then how?
Well, if I did sell you on the idea that much of their tissues and skeleton swaps out a chitin base where we would be using protein, there you go. Sugars for the building blocks to synthesize the connective/structural tissues for maintaining the body, and the bulk of the energy required to keep it running. And I won’t make the leap and suggest that’s all they have.
After all, the Irken equivalent of sandwiches do actually seem to contain “lettuce” and something that people will say looks like meat slices while not convincing me. I can get behind the thought of the natural or maybe original Irken diet to be a mix of plant matter and supplemental fungi, but everything I’ve put together implies that they are completely unfit for processing the goodies in animal flesh.
Overwhelmingly, I believe that the only time they possibly even seek out more sources of amino acids is going to be when they are smeets. That’s how it works in many wasp species. I.e. The growing larvae are the only ones that actually get to reap from the hard work of a colony hunting down enough protein to feed them with, yet the adults live out the rest of their lives more than content to gorge themselves on nectars and fruits exclusively!
And you even could put that aside, but you’ll have to grapple with the ungodly thing that happens every single time you see Zim touching a piece of meat. Would be awfully convenient to blame it on his personal brand of weirdness, or earth contaminants, but we remember this was a weakness that Tak approached fully aware of and expecting.
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We know that polluted water can burn them. We know that beans and other foods can give them grotesque allergic reactions. Well what in the horrifying name of Resident Evil is this, though? Buddy pals, I think we got some unintended consequences of that bio-hacking on hand. Collagen and chitin aren’t just functionally similar to each other, they are practically analogous building blocks.
For a WILD science fact, consider that there’s a ton of ongoing research into the application of chitin and chitin-derivatives into having a role in tissue engineering, as a hypothetical scaffold in lab cultured meat, and as an effective wound dressing ingredient.
What we’re seeing with incidents like Dib throwing that Bologna at Zim could be an extreme form of the vise versa, because I know a certain protein that processed meat happens to be pretty high in :)))
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Imagine the coupling of this with the bioengineered genome of Zim’s kind being so… reactive to a foreign intrusion, yet also flexible to modification. Maybe it is the acids, or some contaminant/seasoning on the meat that first damages the cuticle. That healing ability kicks in, but doesn’t stop where chitin does, readily binding to and with the collagens in these strange tissues that are sorta like an Irken’s but also just enough not like an Irken’s that it also kicks the immune system into overdrive. Think of all the pain and inflammation of a poison ivy rash but if the damn plant itself could also fuse itself with whatever you brushed against it. I think Zim actually had an understandable reason to be homicidally pissed off for that Bologna assault. Also how the Bologna virus was accelerated in Zim’s body. Once it had incorporated itself into his own DNA, it was game set and match with the speed and help those cells had to replicate themselves.
And uh, yeah, I think this post has gotten about as long as it reasonably should be here. I did have a couple more points I really wanted to get out of my brain about the Almighty Tallest, and I think that would be a good launching point actually for a possible (and hopefully final jfc) part three to this. Till then I got some off-topic scoliids to taxidermy 👀
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cubitozinc · 8 months
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OK. SO. THOUGHTS. Thoughts in a more actual structured and. Intelligent manner this time.
ok. Ok. so what did we learn today? we learned that there are at least two different cucuruchos. and we learned that q!jaiden has, somehow, somewhere, at SOME point, worked with the federation before; "years ago" according to one cucurucho. (and technically it is a possibility the cucus are just lying about that to do god knows what with jaiden but i Really don't think that's the case this time). cucurucho even said specifically that jaiden help Itself. and we saw a new federation building filled with "offices" that are just fucking jail cells and qjaiden's gonna be in there for the next like. Weeks having to do god knows what for them.
so what does this mean? well, we know for a fact that cucurucho (i know there are 2 now but i'm just gonna talk about it in the singular DJHDSHDFJUSFDKH) has favored jaiden for Basically the entire duration of the island. jaiden was the first person cucurucho ever approached on the very first day, it appeared to her several times in the first months of the server as well and now she has been trying to build a true and genuine friendship with it. and we can also assume now that the reason jaiden has insisted so much that cucurucho has a true and kinder side to it is because at Some point in the past... she saw that side for herself. even if something tried to make her forget that.
cucurucho has favored jaiden from the start, and the reason appears to now be that she has some sort of past in the federation. today's reveal caused some to think maybe this means the au, headcanon or theory that jaiden was created by the federation as a child and raised in their facilities is canon—i don't think we have enough evidence to back this up yet. cucurucho said that "years ago" (could be a few years, could be decades) she helped the federation with something, and with the way i read how this is phrased, it wouldn't make sense for this to be referring to the test tube baby theory. she could've done something with them as a full adult. you can't fully rule blue bird out, no, but there are other possibilities.
lots of them, in fact. jaiden could have just been some completely regular person that somehow ended up working with the federation for whatever reason. she could have been one of the original theorized 24 islanders who inhabited the island before our current batch. hell, she could be something else entirely, but with all this on our plates now i can't help but think back to when q!fit said that everybody on the island is here for a reason. jaiden probably isn't even the only one in her situation, at this point, because who's to say there aren't more islanders who had a past as close with the federation as jaiden's is now implied to be, which have now forgotten it because of the federation's own power?
and in a meta sense, jaiden is a very good storyteller. i wouldn't be surprised if she's had ideas or plans for whatever is going on here for a While now, even before the project blue bird idea became a thing in popular fanon. but again, you can't actually rule anything out, in all truth.
so all theorizing aside today was. So much. but oh my god it was so good. Fucking round of applause for jaiden and the admins dude i am FLOORED!!
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doberbutts · 3 months
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I also think- having recently seen a post that said Blue Eye Samurai isn't a queer story, it just has queer elements- that sometimes it feels like fans cannot make up their minds.
Do we or do we not want stories that treat being gay as a perfectly normal, perfectly common experience the same way straight people are depicted in every story to ever exist?
In BES, no one is outright stated to be queer. That's partially because in Japan, until Japan felt the need to sanitize itself to appeal to foreigners, it wasn't unheard of at all for men to be gay. Multiple famous samurai and swordsmen and nobles were either outspokenly gay or are commonly theorized to have been gay in modern historical readings. Abijah making multiple references to swinging both ways, Kaji's offer of a male prostitute, the various scenes we have of men being together in sexual positions, they're not met with surprise because homosexuality was an acknowledged thing that happened.
Taigen's erection while he's wrestling Mizu, even though he doesn't yet know her secret, is treated awkwardly because they're supposed to dislike each other and also he's supposed to be in love with Akemi, not because "whoa bro no homo".
(This is also why I keep saying that it's difficult for me to put into English words what I think Mizu's gender is, because gender and sexuality quite frankly did not work the way my 2020s American brain wants to contextualize it, and I think it's important to consider the cultural aspects here esp in a show so heavily leaning on a racial story)
However, compared to many other shows out there even regarding the same area and country, BES is significantly more queer than the majority of them produced in the last 30 years. Is Mizu herself queer? Well... maybe, depending how you define it. Back in the day, otherwise cisgender crossdressers and male-impersonators were still grouped in with those we'd call transgender nowadays. She seems to be exclusively interested in men, but also seems to be equally receptive to considering herself sexually as both a man and a woman pairing with men, than as a man or woman pairing with women which she has adamantly refused with zero interest on multiple occasions.
Is Taigen bi? I mean, maybe! He seemed more mortified that he had an unwanted erection in front of someone he wanted to impress and play with, than that he had it over someone he considers a man, using the excuse that he misses his would-be fiance.
Abijah certainly seems to be bisexual, considering we see him having sex with both women and men, and his various sexual references talk about both men and women as well. This is ignoring whatever weird sexual tension thing he's got going with Heiji, who seems both receptive and repulsed by it.
And, not to be remiss, but there is a reason I specified that homosexuality among men was pretty known. Due to the more rigid policing of women's sexuality in this era, homosexuality among women was less commonly reported (though I have heard stories of noble women and their handmaids, or the working poor women, or among prostitutes living together in the brothels, so also not unheard of but perhaps less accepted as women were largely bought and sold in marriage and sex trafficking) - but even with all of that, Kaji and Kinuyo have something together. Whether that is a mother-daughter thing, or if they were lovers, is up to interpretation. The implication that out of everyone at the brothel that Kaji genuinely cares for, Kinuyo was special, and that wasn't a particularly uncommon arrangement historically if I'm hearing about it 400 years later in a completely different country.
So this "well it's not a queer show" and "if I was told this was a queer story I'd be disappointed" is honestly just ridiculous hooey to me. Do you want characters who are able to explore their sexualities without looking over their shoulder out of fear of homophobia, or not?
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natureismynature · 8 months
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I'm finally home and ready to talk about The Book!!
So, this book I've been talking about was found by Roier yesterday when he was looking for Cellbit in the castle. I don't think anyone thought much of it since Grandma's room is kind of a hotspot for almost all of Foolish's pranks. But I'm telling you, this one is NOT a prank. Especially not when said book was found accompanied by a VERY illegal gun.
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Now. Here's the contents of the book.
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i hope this finds the right person... hide it for now, be careful who you tell.
7 space 27
no one suspects a thing
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that was a giant middle finger... asshole
no meaning. just for fun :D
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3000 cielo 0
could someone find this first (alternatively: someone could find this first)
Ok, now that we've laid that all down, I'm gonna start rambling and theorizing under the cut
If you guys remember, Forever tried to barter Foolish's gun for his silence/lesser aggression. But Foolish told him he already had other plans for the gun... and I guess this was it.
I suspect he did this during that time Aypierre was doing a 24-hour stream and he randomly logged on. He usually logs on offline nowadays if he was hiding something from chat and other people... anyway, that's not the point! The point is the binary code on the first page and whatever the hell that was on the last.
The binary code translated to "7 space 27" which means. Literally nothing. Or DOES it?
Because I refuse to believe Foolish just randomly typed out binary code on a secret book handing over his gun to whoever finds it (most likely assumed to be Cellbit) which ACTUALLY translates to something. So I dug around and bullshitted my way to find a SOMEWHAT acceptable conclusion because I am not delusional and will never be as smart as Cellbit.
Keep in mind I have no fucking clue how enigmas work and used a chart for this bullshit. Specifically this one:
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According to this chart, if we take the translated code and refer to them as our decimals, we've got 7 and 27 to look at. Now, if we look at our decimals' rows, we will get BEL and ESC as our ASCII symbols.
I searched up what they meant and they are literally:
BEL - bell, alert
ESC - escape
Now if we take those and complete the "sentence" that was there originally it would become "Alert space Escape" which is... something... but don't quote me on this, I could be 100% wrong.
But enough of that because my brain is already mush. Let's check the next one!
Next one being "3000 cielo 0"
I looked up what cielo meant, and it had various different meanings, but the common denominator was that it was high up. (i.e. sky, heaven, roof) But it could also be used as a term of endearment like mi cielo (my heaven) or something along those lines. And 3000 is some kind of angel number or something that means love and stuff.
My immediate thought upon searching up these two is the phrase "I love you 3000" but I might be grasping straws here. This might just be cords to a place somewhere up high with 3000 and 0 as the x and y axis. But you know, I like to make things harder for me.
Honestly, if you're still here and reading this paragraph, then I applaud you for being smart enough to understand whatever the hell I just wrote down.
There are two wolves inside me. One that thinks Foolish didn't really mean anything by these codes and the other that KNOWS he's smart enough to do this (AND would absolutely get help from the admins if he didn't)
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meatballlady · 20 days
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The Hidden Prophecy Hypothesis
Here I am throwing an idea into the mix for s2 theorizing. Maybe it has been mentioned before, lmk if there are related metas out there already!
(disclaimer to not tag Neil!!! I don't want this to be shot down if it's a real possibility)
Here's my proposition:
At its core, the idea is that there is an information disparity between A/C and the audience, based on some source of knowledge that was not directly mentioned in S2 (i.e. hidden from the audience).
Between the events of S1 and S2, A/C came into contact with some sort of information about the future/H&H's strategy(ies)/etc. I'm calling this the hidden prophecy, but it could really be anything at all! A copy of Hell's plans from Shax, human prophecies, thorough reading of past assignments, etc.*
Immediate interpretation of the prophecy: In order for the apocalypse to happen, Aziraphale and Crowley need to kickstart it together.
Another main point of the prophecy: The trigger for the prophecy's events will be that someone (some angel?) will show up alone unexpectedly and ask them for help.
Also included are some vague details/triggers for the prophecy (which end up happening in S2 but aren't clear until after they happen)
Obviously A/C are not fans of this idea. They have an ongoing disagreement about the interpretation above, in fact.
Aziraphale believes there is a deeper interpretation of the prophecy if they research it enough. i.e. that they can work together without accidentally starting the apocalypse
Crowley believes they shouldn't fuck with it - that they should avoid each other entirely once the triggers start happening, to completely avoid any risk of accidentally kickstarting the apocalypse by working/being together.
* my partner believes this has to do with the second Agnes Nutter book. There are still many many ways to get a prophecy to someone even if the pages were burnt.
Cue season 2.
Open questions this could provide answers for:
Do the characters have more information than the audience and if so, why does it still look like they're flailing? They don't know "what's actually going on", they just have different expectations/starting points than the audience.
Why Crowley reacted very poorly to Gabriel showing up, and why he was so angry about leaving "so. this is how you want to do it." He thinks Aziraphale has ruined it already by asking for his help; also he doesn't want to stop talking to Aziraphale yet (he never will ofc)
Why Aziraphale got so pissy when Crowley said he wouldn't help with Gabriel "but if you won't, you won't." He thinks they can work together on the Gabriel thing, so obviously they don't need to avoid each other yet!
The weirdness about the apology dance: There was additional context to it, even though it was, ultimately, about the Jimbriel thing. Crowley was apologizing for being wrong about needing to not work together, not for not wanting to take care of Gabriel
Why they continue to look for clues outside of the Jimbriel question. They are looking for other prophecy triggers/apocalypse triggers.
Why Aziraphale acts with urgency around the ball. He is suspicious that Crowley was right and this is his last chance to host something for him.
Why the Metatron wanted Aziraphale (and possibly Crowley) back in Heaven
The final fifteen. They finally realize that Gabriel wasn't the trigger; the Metatron was. Aziraphale is still desperately insistent on working together, despite "realizing" Crowley may be right that they shouldn't. Crowley wants to work together but thinks they can't. They're both conflicted - about being right or not, about what the prophecy actually meant, and about how they will move forward. Maybe they both now agree that they shouldn't work together (which in s3 we will find out is actually incorrect), but they also both don't want to stop.
Loose ends from s1, such as the second prophecy book, the lack of mention of A/C addressing "the really big one" (i.e. because they already have and just don't bring it up)
Why "they aren't talking" now, per Neil - they think that it would move the apocalypse along to do so.
Why I like this idea (so far):
It doesn't retcon the final fifteen (only provides additional context)
(the additional angst potential for the final fifteen)
It is easy to explain to an audience
It is an "elegant" solution, i.e. doesn't ask more questions than it answers
Understanding of S2 would not be required to understand S3 - it just provides additional flavor to s2.
Open questions this doesn't seem to provide (direct/immediate, at least) answers for:
Maggie
The flashbacks
The 25 Lazarii miracle
The Halo
What Crowley was doing in Heaven
The discontinuities
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olympianbutch · 1 year
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What do you think about people who are in their periods praying, giving offerings and/or approaching the altar? I read that you weren’t allowed to enter the temples in ancient greece if you were menstruating so I have that doubt
Χαίρε, anon! ((:
So, of the hundreds of inscribed temple regulations we have from ancient Greece, not a single one bars menstruating women from participating in ancient Greek religious life.
There are four exceptions to this rule, though calling them "exceptions" is admittedly very generous.
To begin, all four inscriptions come from late antiquity and they all belong to temples of Near Eastern import. Of note is the fact that not one of these four temples belongs to a Greek god. This suggests that certain Near Eastern traditions did exclude menstruating women from participating in religious life, but the same cannot be said about Greek women. Why is that, though?
The four inscriptions (which were written in ancient Greek) give us some clues. For starters, the word "menstruation" is not explicitly used in temple inscriptions found on the Greek mainland; it is instead referred to as a "female matter." This skirting around any direct mention of menstruation is representative of the near-complete segregation of the sexes in ancient Greece.
To put it simply, Greek men did not discuss "female matters," or the female body, for that matter. Doing so was considered extremely taboo. So taboo that physicians—by and large—did not treat female patients, meaning most women died of illness. Addressing menstruation in direct terms would mean that it was no longer out of sight and out of mind, and the Greeks likely wanted to keep it that way.
The issue is made doubly complex when you realize that we don't actually know how ancient Greek women managed their periods. Experts like Dr. Helen King—a classicist who specializes in menstruation in ancient Greece—theorize that women of means maybe wore linen cloth to catch their menses. Poor women (who couldn't afford such expenditures) likely remained in their homes to bleed freely.
What does any of this information tell modern-day worshippers? Well, it suggests that we simply don't know enough to be able to say one way or the other whether or not menstruating Greek women were excluded from religious life.
It most certainly tells us that menses management is way different now than it was back then. And unlike our religious predecessors, we now have personal hygiene products we can use to ensure we don't bleed out at the altar lol 😆
In general, I don't think it makes sense to pretend like modern worshippers can't menstruate and worship at the same time. There certainly isn't enough ancient evidence to suggest that was the standard, so why make it the standard now? This is definitely one of those things where I'm like "do what feels most appropriate to you."
I don't menstruate anymore, but if I did, I'd probably still worship. Alternatively, if I was on my period and feeling mentally unclean/generally gross, I wouldn't (unless I was approaching the gods for some relief).
I know people who take breaks from their religious duties while menstruating, and I know others who don't make any changes to their routines at all. It all depends on your personal comfort level. Just like how everyone's period is different, everyone's worship is different! And that's OK ((:
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welshoot · 2 months
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Twisted Wonderland and The Black Cauldron
This theory honestly seemed so far-fetched when I first came up with it before Twisted Wonderland got localized, but I felt like writing this so here we are.
There might just be a connection between Twisted Wonderland and  The Black Cauldron (film or novel). Before I get into the wild theorizing/analysis I would like to say that this post will contain major spoilers for the book and film of The Black Cauldron as well as for Twisted Wonderland, so proceed at your own risk. Also, this is going to be very long, so be forewarned
This entire theory comes completely from this image:
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This is the mirror chamber from Twisted Wonderland, a room we seem to keep coming back to in terms of potential lore importance. I don’t really know why, but when I saw this image for the first time my mind immediately flew back to this:
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I guess it’s something about the green stuff coming out the thing up top that reminds me of the titular black cauldron from one of Disney’s worst performing films, The Black Cauldron (1985). 
Now, The Black Cauldron (1985) is a bit of a dark spot on the history of Disney’s animated movies. All in all, it is generally forgotten and most everyone likes to pretend it doesn’t exist because of how poorly it performed when it came out compared to the amount of money Disney sank into it (at a $44 million it cost more than $40 million budget of The Little Mermaid [1989]). But, notably, The Black Cauldron (1985) also contains one of Disney’s most terrifying villains. The Horned King. 
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Now, if you’ve never seen the movie or read the book, the Horned King intended to use the titular black cauldron to unleash an undead, immortal army and intends to become “A god between mortal men” (quote from the disney wiki page for the man himself). Interestingly, considering he’s wanting to amass an undead army, the Horned King is quite skeletal himself. Outside of that, there is very little known about this character. He is very mysterious, very evil, and is implied to have magical powers though he hardly ever uses them. An additional point of interest for the sake of this theory is the fact that the castle of the Horned King is in horrible shape. Sort of ramshackle if you will.
The film version of this villain is very different from the book version. The book version is not the primary antagonist, rather he is the antagonist's champion warrior until death. With that said though, he is still quite ominous. No one knows his name and his title comes from the horned mask he wears. In the book he doesn’t seem quite human and is rather bestial. Another potentially interesting point is that, in the film, his goons are identical to Maleficent's and he is connected to dragons.
Now, for this theory, the Horned King may or may not come into play, but the black cauldron itself is important. In both the book and the movie, the only way to destroy the black cauldron (and it is evil and needs to be destroyed so that the undead/immortal army can’t be made) is for a willing sacrifice to go into it and die. While in the movie, the sacrifice is saved this is not the case in the book.
Now, the whole undead immortal army thing makes me wonder about the overblot monsters. We know from Ignihyde that the blot monsters can exist after the death of their host which makes them a sort of undead immortal monster. They also seem to be wholly obsessed with magic, and the magic mirror of NRC is suggested to be incredibly unique and very magical. So, if the green thingie under the mirror is the cauldron, it might be possible that the overblots are happening to form an undead/immortal army that will obey whoever holds that mirror simply because they themselves want the magical power of the mirror. In such a case, the only way to stop such an army would be to destroy the cauldron (i.e. give it a willing sacrifice). The only question is, who?
In the Disney film, the willing sacrifice (who was brought back to life because it is a kid’s move, albeit a sort of creepy one) was Gurgi. He sacrificed himself so that the protagonist (Taran) wouldn’t sacrifice himself to save his friends. Gurgi was, simply put, an ever hungry, greedy about food, cowardly, and cheerful but annoying sidekick to the lead. It’s never really explained what, exactly, Gurgi is but h had blue eyes and was small and fluffy. Here’s a picture:
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Now, we have to consider Grim here. Small animal companion, constantly hungry and greedy for food, fairly cheerful but with a penchant for being annoying, has blue eyes, and we don’t really know what he is. If the theory that each character in Twisted Wonderland has two inspirations (one heroic and one villainous) is true, then Gurgi may very well be part of Grim’s inspiration. And if that’s the case he would be a likely candidate for the willing sacrifice. If that is the case, the situation would probably have something to do with stopping the Prefect from sacrificing themselves (or something).  
In the book version of things the sacrifice is the jerkish, second prince Ellidyr. He is not revived and he sacrifices himself as a way of making atonement. Character-wise, he is the edgy character for the book, though notably he is also a more complicated character for the series. He is also incredibly strong for unexplained reasons, has a deeply hidden sense of honor, and if he sets himself a goal he will see it through. And, as a final character note, he is the foil to the protagonist of the tale.
Now, Ellidyr’s character can match up with several different individuals in Twisted  Wonderland, making it hard to say who any other potential willing sacrifice candidates might be. It could be Leona, a rather jerkish second prince, but he would need a specific reason. It could also be a tie-in to whoever’s hand the player took at the start of the game. However, there is one final option who is present simply due to the virtue of their placement in the story. The Prefect.
While everyone else has shades of villainy, the Prefect is implied to be the most upstanding person at NRC, though they may manipulate others if they feel forced (Octavinelle Chapter and forcing Leona’s hand into helping). As such, their position as outsider in a world with no identifiable way home and resident nice person does unfortunately put them squarely on the chopping block as a sacrifice. Especially since it is implied that they are becoming friends with the various characters at NRC.
There is also the idea of: does someone even want to create any army of overblot monsters? And, to be honest, I really don't even want to consider the implications of such a thing or go into to trying to figuring the who and why of that question, plus this post is already pretty long.
In the end, this is just a wild theory that I thought was rather intriguing since I personally think it would be very amusing if Twisted Wonderland made use of Disney’s black sheep movie in such a pivotal way for the plot. With that said, I highly doubt such a thing will come to pass, though I would find it incredibly amusing.
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adarkrainbow · 11 months
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A class on fairy tales (1)
As you might know (since I have been telling it for quite some times), I had a class at university which was about fairy tales, their history and evolution. But from a literary point of view - I am doing literary studies at university, it was a class of “Literature and Human sciences”, and this year’s topic was fairy tales, or rather “contes” as we call them in France. It was twelve seances, and I decided, why not share the things I learned and noted down here? (The titles of the different parts of this post are actually from me. The original notes are just a non-stop stream, so I broke them down for an easier read)
I) Book lists
The class relied on a main corpus which consisted of the various fairytales we studied - texts published up to the “first modernity” and through which the literary genre of the fairytale established itself. In chronological order they were: The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Lo cunto de li cunti by Giambattista Basile, Le Piacevoli Notti by Giovan Francesco Straparola, the various fairytales of Charles Perrault, the fairytales of Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, and finally the Kinder-und Hausmärchen of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. There is also a minor mention for the fables of Faerno, not because they played an important historical role like the others, but due to them being used in comparison to Perrault’s fairytales ; there is also a mention of the fairytales of Leprince de Beaumont if I remember well. 
After giving us this main corpus, we were given a second bibliography containing the most famous and the most noteworthy theorical tools when it came to fairytales - the key books that served to theorize the genre itself. The teacher who did this class deliberatly gave us a “mixed list”, with works that went in completely opposite directions when it came to fairytale, to better undersant the various differences among “fairytale critics” - said differences making all the vitality of the genre of the fairytale, and of the thoughts on fairytales. Fairytales are a very complex matter. 
For example, to list the English-written works we were given, you find, in chronological order: Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment ; Jack David Zipes’ Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion ; Robert Bly’s Iron John: A Book about Men ; Marie-Louise von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales ; Lewis C. Seifert, Fairy Tales, Sexuality and Gender in France (1670-1715) ; and Cristina Bacchilega’s Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. If you know the French language, there are two books here: Jacques Barchilon’s Le conte merveilleux français de 1690 à 1790 ; and Jean-Michel Adam and Ute Heidmann’s Textualité et intertextualité des contes. We were also given quite a few German works, such as Märchenforschung und Tiefenpsychologie by Wilhelm Laiblin, Nachwort zu Deutsche Volksmärchen von arm und reich, by Waltraud Woeller ; or Märchen, Träume, Schicksale by Otto Graf Wittgenstein. And of course, the bibliography did not forget the most famous theory-tools for fairytales: Vladimir Propp’s Morfologija skazki + Poetika, Vremennik Otdela Slovesnykh Iskusstv ; as well as the famous Classification of Aarne Anti, Stith Thompson and Hans-Jörg Uther (the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification, aka the ATU). 
By compiling these works together, one will be able to identify the two main “families” that are rivals, if not enemies, in the world of the fairytale criticism. Today it is considered that, roughly, if we simplify things, there are two families of scholars who work and study the fairy tales. One family take back the thesis and the theories of folklorists - they follow the path of those who, starting in the 19th century, put forward the hypothesis that a “folklore” existed, that is to say a “poetry of the people”, an oral and popular literature. On the other side, you have those that consider that fairytales are inscribed in the history of literature, and that like other objects of literature (be it oral or written), they have intertextual relationships with other texts and other forms of stories. So they hold that fairytales are not “pure, spontaneous emanations”. (And given this is a literary class, given by a literary teacher, to literary students, the teacher did admit their bias for the “literary family” and this was the main focus of the class).
Which notably led us to a third bibliography, this time collecting works that massively changed or influenced the fairytale critics - but this time books that exclusively focused on the works of Perrault and Grimm, and here again we find the same divide folklore VS textuality and intertextuality. It is Marc Soriano’s Les contes de Perrault: culture savante et traditions populaires, it is Ernest Tonnelat’s Les Contes des frères Grimm: étude sur la composition et le style du recueil des Kinder-und-Hausmärchen ; it is Jérémie Benoit’s Les Origines mythologiques des contes de Grimm ; it is Wilhelm Solms’ Die Moral von Grimms Märchen ; it is Dominqiue Leborgne-Peyrache’s Vies et métamorphoses des contes de Grimm ; it is Jens E. Sennewald’ Das Buch, das wir sind: zur Poetik der Kinder und-Hausmärchen ; it is Heinz Rölleke’s Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm: eine Einführung. No English book this time, sorry.
II) The Germans were French, and the French Italians
The actual main topic of this class was to consider the “fairytale” in relationship to the notions of “intertextuality” and “rewrites”. Most notably there was an opening at the very end towards modern rewrites of fairytales, such as Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, “Le petit chaperon vert” (Little Green Riding Hood) or “La princesse qui n’aimait pas les princes” (The princess who didn’t like princes). But the main subject of the class was to see how the “main corpus” of classic fairytales, the Perrault, the Grimm, the Basile and Straparola fairytales, were actually entirely created out of rewrites. Each text was rewriting, or taking back, or answering previous texts - the history of fairytales is one of constant rewrite and intertextuality. 
For example, if we take the most major example, the fairytales of the brothers Grimm. What are the sources of the brothers? We could believe, like most people, that they merely collected their tale. This is what they called, especially in the last edition of their book: they claimed to have collected their tales in regions of Germany. It was the intention of the authors, it was their project, and since it was the will and desire of the author, it must be put first. When somebody does a critical edition of a text, one of the main concerns is to find the way the author intended their text to pass on to posterity. So yes, the brothers Grimm claimed that their tales came from the German countryside, and were manifestations of the German folklore. 
But... in truth, if we look at the first editions of their book, if we look at the preface of their first editions, we discover very different indications, indications which were checked and studied by several critics, such as Ernest Tomelas. In truth, one of their biggest sources was... Charles Perrault. While today the concept of the “tales of the little peasant house, told by the fireside” is the most prevalent one, in their first edition the brothers Grimm explained that their sources for these tales were not actually old peasant women, far from it: they were ladies, of a certain social standing, they were young women, born of exiled French families (because they were Protestants, and thus after the revocation of the édit de Nantes in France which allowed a peaceful coexistance of Catholics and Protestants, they had to flee to a country more welcoming of their religion, aka Germany). They were young women of the upper society, girls of the nobility, they were educated, they were quite scholarly - in fact, they worked as tutors/teachers and governess/nursemaids for German children. For children of the German nobility to be exact. And these young French women kept alive the memory of the French literature of the previous century - which included the fairytales of Perrault.
So, through these women born of the French emigration, one of the main sources of the Grimm turns out to be Perrault. And in a similar way, Perrault’s fairytales actually have roots and intertextuality with older tales, Italian fairytales. And from these Italian fairytales we can come back to roots into Antiquity itself - we are talking Apuleius, and Virgil before him, and Homer before him, this whole classical, Latin-Greek literature. This entire genealogy has been forgotten for a long time due to the enormous surge, the enormous hype, the enormous fascination for the study of folklore at the end of the 19th century and throughout all of the 20th. 
We talk of “types of fairytales”, if we talk of Vladimir Propp, if we talk of Aarne Thompson, we are speaking of the “morphology of fairytales”, a name which comes from the Russian theorician that is Propp. Most people place the beginning of the “structuralism” movement in the 70s, because it is in 1970 that the works of Propp became well-known in France, but again there is a big discrepancy between what people think and what actually is. It is true that starting with the 70s there was a massive wave, during which Germans, Italians and English scholars worked on Propp’s books, but Propp had written his studies much earlier than that, at the beginning of the 20th century. The first edition of his Morphology of fairytales was released in 1928. While it was reprinted and rewriten several times in Russia, it would have to wait for roughly fifty years before actually reaching Western Europe, where it would become the fundamental block of the “structuralist grammar”. This is quite interesting because... when France (and Western Europe as a whole) adopted structuralism, when they started to read fairytales under a morphological and structuralist angle, they had the feeling and belief, they were convinced that they were doing a “modern” criticism of fairytales, a “new” criticism. But in truth... they were just repeating old theories and conceptions, snatched away from the original socio-historical context in which Propp had created them - aka the Soviet Union and a communist regime. People often forget too quickly that contextualizing the texts isn’t only good for the studied works, we must also contextualize the works of critics and the analysis of scholars. Criticism has its own history, and so unlike the common belief, Propp’s Morphology of fairytales isn’t a text of structuralist theoricians from the 70s. It was a text of the Soviet Union, during the Interwar Period. 
So the two main questions of this class are. 1) We will do a double exploration to understand the intertextual relationships between fairytales. And 2) We will wonder about the definition of a “fairytale” (or rather of a “conte” as it is called in French) - if the fairytale is indeed a literary genre, then it must have a definition, key elements. And from this poetical point of view, other questions come forward: how does one analyze a fairytale? What does a fairytale mean?
III) Feuding families
Before going further, we will pause to return to a subject talked about above: the great debate among scholars and critics that lasted for decades now, forming the two branches of the fairytale study. One is the “folklorist” branch, the one that most people actually know without realizing it. When one works on fairytale, one does folklorism without knowing it, because we got used to the idea that fairytale are oral products, popular products, that are present everywhere on Earth, we are used to the concept of the universality of motives and structures of fairytales. In the “folklorist” school of thought, there is an universalism, and not only are fairytales present everywhere, but one can identify a common core for them. It can be a categorization of characters, it can be narrative functions, it can be roles in a story, but there is always a structure or a core. As a result, the work of critics who follow this branch is to collect the greatest number of “versions” of a same tale they can find, and compare them to find the smallest common denominator. From this, they will create or reconstruct the “core fairytale”, the “type” or the “source” from which the various variations come from.
Before jumping onto the other family, we will take a brief time to look at the history of the “folklorist branch” of the critic. (Though, to summarize the main differences, the other family of critics basically claims that we do not actually know the origin of these stories, but what we know are rather the texts of these stories, the written archives or the oral records). 
So the first family here (that is called “folklorist” for the sake of simplicity, but it is not an official or true appelation) had been extremely influenced by the works of a famous and talented scholar of the early 20th century: Aarne Antti, a scholar of Elsinki who collected a large number of fairytales and produced out of them a classification, a typology based on this theory that there is an “original fairytale type” that existed at the beginning, and from which variants appeared. His work was then continued by two other scholars: Stith Thompson, and Hans-Jörg Uther. This continuation gave birth to the “Aarne-Thompson” classification, a classification and bibliography of folkloric fairytales from around the world, which is very often used in journals and articles studying fairytales. Through them, the idea of “types” of fairytales and “variants” imposed itself in people’s minds, where each tale corresponds to a numbered category, depending on the subjects treated and the ways the story unfolds (for example an entire category of tale collects the “animal-husbands”. This classification imposed itself on the Western way of thinking at the end of the first third of the 20th century.
The next step in the history of this type of fairytale study was Vladimir Propp. With his Morphology of fairytales, we find the same theory, the same principle of classification: one must collect the fairytales from all around the world, and compare them to find the common denominator. Propp thought Aarne-Thompson’s work was interesting, but he did complain about the way their criteria mixed heterogenous elements, or how the duo doubled criterias that could be unified into one. Propp noted that, by the Aarne-Thompson system, a same tale could have two different numbers - he concluded that one shouldn’t classify tales by their subject or motif. He claimed that dividing the fairytales by “types” was actually impossible, that this whole theory was more of a fiction than an actual reality. So, he proposed an alternate way of doing things, by not relying on the motifs of fairytales: Propp rather relied on their structure. Propp doesn’t deny the existence of fairytales, he doesn’t put in question the categorization of fairytales, or the universality of fairytales, on all that he joins Aarne-Thompson. But what he does is change the typology, basing it on “functions”: for him, the constituve parts of fairytales are “functions”, which exist in limited numbers and follow each other per determined orders (even if they are not all “activated”). He identified 31 functions, that can be grouped into three groups forming the canonical schema of the fairytale according to Propp. These three groups are an initial situation with seven functions, followed by a first sequence going from the misdeed (a bad action, a misfortune, a lack) to its reparation, and finally there is a second sequence which goes from the return of the hero to its reward. From these seven “preparatory functions”, forming the initial situation, Propp identified seven character profiles, defined by their functions in the narrative and not by their unique characteristics. These seven profiles are the Aggressor (the villain), the Donor (or provider), the Auxiliary (or adjuvant), the Princess, the Princess’ Father, the Mandator, the Hero, and the False Hero. This system will be taken back and turned into a system by Greimas, with the notion of “actants”: Greimas will create three divisions, between the subject and the object, between the giver and the gifted, and between the adjuvant and the opposant.
With his work, Vladimir Propp had identified the “structure of the tale”, according to his own work, hence the name of the movement that Propp inspired: structuralism. A structure and a morphology - but Propp did mention in his texts that said morphology could only be applied to fairytales taken from the folklore (that is to say, fairytales collected through oral means), and did not work at all for literary fairytales (such as those of Perrault). And indeed, while this method of study is interesting for folkloric fairytales, it becomes disappointing with literary fairytales - and it works even less for novels. Because, trying to find the smallest denominator between works is actually the opposite of literary criticism, where what is interesting is the difference between various authors. It is interesting to note what is common, indeed, but it is even more interesting to note the singularities and differences. Anyway, the apparition of the structuralist study of fairytales caused a true schism among the field of literary critics, between those that believe all tales must be treated on a same way, with the same tools (such as those of Propp), and those that are not satisfied with this “universalisation” that places everything on the same level. 
This second branch is the second family we will be talking about: those that are more interested by the singularity of each tale, than by their common denominators and shared structures. This second branch of analysis is mostly illustrated today by the works of Ute Heidmann, a German/Swiss researcher who published alongside Jean Michel Adam (a specialist of linguistic, stylistic and speech-analysis) a fundamental work in French: Textualité et intertextualité des contes: Perrault, Apulée, La Fontaine, Lhéritier... (Textuality and intertextuality of fairytales). A lot of this class was inspired by Heidmann and Adam’s work, which was released in 2010. Now, this book is actually surrounded by various articles posted before and after, and Ute Heidmann also directed a collective about the intertextuality of the brothers Grimm fairytales. Heidmann did not invent on her own the theories of textuality and intertextuality - she relies on older researches, such as those of the Ernest Tonnelat, who in 1912 published a study of the brothers Grimm fairytales focusing on the first edition of their book and its preface. This was where the Grimm named the sources of their fairytales: girls of the upper class, not at all small peasants, descendants of the protestant (huguenots) noblemen of France who fled to Germany. Tonnelat managed to reconstruct, through these sources, the various element that the Grimm took from Perrault’s fairytales. This work actually weakened the folklorist school of thought, because for the “folklorist critics”, when a similarity is noted between two fairytales, it is a proof of “an universal fairytale type”, an original fairytale that must be reconstructed. But what Tonnelat and other “intertextuality critics” pushed forward was rather the idea that “If the story of the Grimm is similar but not identical to the one of Perrault, it is because they heard a modified version of Perrault’s tale, a version modified either by the Grimms or by the woman that told them the tale, who tried to make the story more or less horrible depending on the situation”. This all fragilized the idea of an “original, source-fairytale”, and encouraged other researchers to dig this way.
For example, the case was taken up by Heinz Rölleke, in 1985: he systematized the study of the sources of the Grimm, especially the sources that tied them to the fairytales of Perrault. Now, all the works of this branch of critics does not try to deny or reject the existence of fairytales all over the world. And it does not forget that all over the world, human people are similar and have the same preoccupations (life, love, death, war, peace). So, of course, there is an universality of the themes, of the motives, of the intentions of the texts. Because they are human texts, so there is an universality of human fiction. But there is here the rejection of a topic, a theory, a question that can actually become VERY dangerous. (For example, in post World War II Germany, all researches about fairytales were forbidden, because during their reign the Nazis had turned the fairytales the Grimm into an abject ideological tool). This other family, vein, branch of critics, rather focuses on the specificity of each writing style, of each rewrite of a fairytale, but also on the various receptions and interpretations of fairytales depending on the context of their writing and the context of their reading. So the idea behind this “intertextuality study” is to study the fairytales like the rest of literature, be it oral or written, and to analyze them with the same philological tools used by history studies, by sociology study, by speech analysis and narrative analysis - all of that to understand what were the conditions of creation, of publication, of reading and spreading of these tales, and how they impacted culture.
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pttucker · 3 months
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Yoo Joonghyuk thought about something related to that for a moment or two. If it was impossible to restore the complete 'Kim Dokja' no matter which story you wrote, then just what was the existence called 'Kim Dokja', in the first place?
[Shall we get going, then?] "Alright." All they could do for now was to complete this lengthy journey, and also, to find the suitable intermediary who could deliver their story. "This time, the married couple writers over there look to be good candidates."
You ever feel like a Skyrim NPC who just got attacked but then five seconds later goes right back to doing what you were doing with an absurd "must have been the wind" while there's literally an arrow sticking out of your knee?
Because that's how I feel right now.
HOW COULD I HAVE GOTTEN SO MANY THINGS RIGHT IN MY GUESSES BASED ON THE MOST OBSCURE EVIDENCE AND SYMBOLISM BUT THEN COMPLETELY IGNORED WHAT WAS LITERALLY BEING SAID ON THE PAGE IN RIGHT FRONT OF MY FACE!?
Okay, so, yeah, I just now realized after combining these two things above that the novel has literally been stating outright that Kim Dokja's soul has been scattered all through the various universes, our universe being one of them, and that he has been reborn as many different people all over the place, many different people who don't remember being Kim Dokja, who don't look or act like he did, who maybe aren't even a "he," who are maintaining the worldlines by subconsciously dreaming of them, who are supposed to read ORV so that a new conclusion can be imagined...
WE ARE LITERALLY KIM DOKJA!
HOW DID IT TAKE ME THIS LONG???
AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Or, at least, any one of us could be Kim Dokja without realizing it. Though, at the same time, we really are all Dokja ("reader") in a way even if we maybe aren't the Kim Dokja...the Kim Dokja not technically existing anymore because he scattered into too many tiny pieces...unless of course we imagine him back into the story.
AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I just wanna bang my head against the desk because of all things to not get...it was literally right there! I even theorized that we could could maintain the wordlines for Dokja since we are reading ORV. Even waaaaay back many many chapters ago when I pointed out that we are actually the omniscient readers because there are scenes in ORV that we see that technically Dokja in the novel does not see. So he's not actually omniscient...unless he's also one of us...
Just...ahhhhhhhh!
I really wondered if it was going to circle back to us being the readers since it's literally mentioned things like "what if somebody is reading my story" but I just now put all these pieces together and it wasn't even that hard of a puzzle.
I love how everything just flows together so perfectly, of course I love it, but I do feel a bit silly now. 😅
...If anybody asks, I'm going to say it's because Kim Dokja is notoriously oblivious about the most obvious things and, apparently, Kim Dokja could very well be me.
So there.
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redsparko · 3 months
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Hopefully this reaches the right audience.
I’d like to talk about Maya Sokolov and her writing and the analysis of what Miss Rina Kent could’ve done with her character and her story. I know Rina said in one of her Insta stories that for sure Remi, Maya, Vaughn, and Gareth were not getting stories. I can be fine with Remi and Vaughn not getting stories (Remi not so much but I can live) while Maya and Gareth I can feel some potential with.
And I get it from Rina’s POV, miss girl has written like 35 books within 3-4 years. And if she feels no passion or connection with certain characters then she won’t write it. I understand and agree with that completely.
It doesn’t mean I won’t have any ideas about it yeah? Even if it’s not canon that’s what makes it fun.
Anyway back to the point, Maya Sokolov and her character
She falls under the lines of the Queen Bee, diva, bitch. Something like Silver, Nicole, and Reina. I absolutely love those three. Personally, Silver should’ve gotten the trilogy, Reina was done dirty lowkey, and Nicole’s story (Empire of Hate) left me with wanting more groveling. But out of the three I found I relate to Nicole more.
It’s the inferiority complex. I love that shit, I have it too, and I eat it up. And that’s clearly scene in Maya too. In the end of GOR it’s referenced/implied/canon that Maya was jealous of Mia and made a monkey’s paw type wish that came true.
There’s something so raw and sad and powerful in that that can and should be shown in Maya’s character (speaking from personal experience) feeling something so negative that it results in an act of hurting another person you REALLY care about because it comes from a place of deep sadness and insecurity.
Maya can act like the biggest girl boss and look at everyone like they’re the dirt beneath her feet (literal quote from GOR) but that does not disguise the fact she can only act like that because no one else will ever hate her more than how she hates herself.
And as readers we can really see it, and even theorize it from in between the lines. In GOF we read about Nikolai’s thoughts about the twins.
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There are people saying that GOR ruined the relationship and wished it never happened. I can’t say the execution of it was done well but I can’t say it was a total trash fire either. It’s a 50/50 depending because there are good things I absolutely loved and things that could’ve been improved.
But mostly people are saying that the relationship between Maya and Mia was sabotaged and it would’ve been better if it never happened. I disagree, I prayed for times like this to come—kidding, but the layers of anger and frustration and love in the relationship between them makes the relationship deeper. But we never get to see that in its completion.
Think of Landon and Brandon in GOF. We love them so much because behind that ire and blockage from both sides they came through that and love prevailed. This is why I stand by Rina Kent MALE friendships/relationships. They’re much more complex and thought out than the female friendships which come off as somewhat shallow. I’ll make another rant abt that later.
What I wish was done better was mentioning the difference in Maya, Niko and Mia’s relationship. It’s clear that Niko likes Maya less than Mia. And Maya feels less than Mia because she’s seen that Mia is favored. It’s not Niko’s fault but it’s like an unconscious thing, he’s just closer with her because he sees that he is similar to Mia. It’s a common and natural thing, you’re just closer to people you feel like you can relate with. That checks out.
I feel like even both of Maya’s siblings only see her for what she pushes herself out to be, a shadow diva who sees herself as superior (obviously hiding an inferiority complex). They don’t stop to acknowledge that maybe she’s compensating for something? Especially Nikolai, in that quote saying that he and Mia would fuck up each other’s demons but what abt Maya? You can’t be close to her because she doesn’t have flaws or negative thoughts or demons either?
This feels less like a “it’s Nikolai’s personality” issue and more like a “Rina Kent wrote Maya to be nothing more than her character archetype”
Other than that, I also wanna mention Maya’s relationship with Ilya and how it could enhance her character and dynamics.
Ilya is down to earth, not egotistical like Landon, or notoriously violent or volatile like Nikolai, nor with the high status like Jeremy. He’s a perfect match for Maya.
It’s mentioned by GOR from Mia’s POV that Maya wants someone high status with lots of money (I agree, get it girl slay) but Ilya is not those things. He’s just a bodyguard and the money in comparison isn’t that good. But he can see Maya for who she truly is, someone who is hurt on the inside, insecure and needing some help.
It’s not what she wants but it’s what she needs. She needs someone who won’t isn’t already existing in the circle who prefers Mia to her.
Although I do wanna say that I love the angst in early chapters if Maya felt some jealousy and sadness from believing that Ilya prefers Mia to her (seeing as how Ilya doesn’t regard Maya with the same reverence as other boys do) and he’s actually friendly to Mia while he’s bitchier to Maya. It’s all part of the angst. But endgame wise he would choose Maya cause he sees right through her and is more interested in the true part of her that’s vulnerable and scared to love in fear that the one she loves will love Mia more.
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trlvsn · 7 months
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Please I would love to hear more umineko thoughts from you
oh my god you should NOT have asked. i'm on episode eight but i have so many. do NOT read this if you haven't read umineko, you HAVE to go through the experience completely unspoiled. tw: incest, christianity, death, but none in a positive light
my most recent thoughts have been provoked by the riddles in episode 8 and how kyrie and rudolf had just told eva they do not fault her for any harm she caused ange. it strikes you as odd at first, because they would never say that, but then you realize two things: this is very similar to the golden land and this is battler's chessboard. battler already knows about sayo and what she wanted from his as beatrice, what she wanted from everyone as beatrice: recognition. she is a girl who used to follow god's tests so blindly and has sinned so badly. she wants people to see her innocence, know of the sins that harmed her, forgive the sins that she caused herself. that is, at the end of the day, what everyone wants, and battler is treating everyone like it, in honor of beatrice. this is a very difficult topic for me to see in media. the idea that every person, no matter how horrible their actions and nature, has a heart and wants forgiveness, is something i can't accept because i, too, am human. what would i be if i forgave and understood everyone? what would i be without hate and revenge and a personal view on things? if i accepted everyone's truths, there would be nothing of myself left. but the idea is true, and i have to know it deep down, tame it carefully.
my thoughts overall, though? i could never put them in one single post. this novel is amazing in many ways - it's a love letter to an entire library of books, it's a love letter to love, but there is also no good love in this story. there is fake love, true love, great love, but there is no love that is good, normal, because the ushiromiya family didn't have it in the first place. kinzo built this family on blood-stained gold and adultery. this family is like a locked room itself in many ways (god, they even represent it with the incest), and nothing good ever happens in a locked room. while i haven't yet reached the end of episode 8, i hope they all die. i hope ange never really survived the fall from the building, actually. i hope it ends, i hope the room exploded and there is nothing left of the ushiromiya family now, not of the gold, not of the love, not of the anything. it probably won't be like that, though. bern promised there wouldn't be a happy ending.
sayo's story is the greatest story i have ever seen a character have, no joke. "greatest" as in enormous in it's tragedy and richness, an endless universe collapsing in on itself because it can't, of course, exist with just one person. of course she did everything wrong, nothing right has ever been in her nature.
i also loved the biblical symbolism, of course. how could i not. the figure of god specifically is something so subtle i almost missed it, but at the end of the day, three girls share that imaginary friend - sayo, maria and dlanor. for all three, it's their father/authority figure/commander in different ways. sayo ends up burning kinzo again and again, commiting rightful patricide, and also essentially rebels against god by giving up on his test and befriending demons. it's a nice touch. i have my own issues with the demon summoning (i dabbled in the occult long before playing umineko) but it's just a technicality.
anyways, serious stuff aside - loved the toxic yuri, loved the fuckedupedness of it all, loved the fact that the narrators are NEVER reliable and you shouldn't listen to the game, like, at all, but also you should. i was frequently theorizing about the origins of beatrice during my playthrough and talked to my friend about it, who had already finished umineko long ago. at a point of episode... 6? 5? i basically said "fuck this, i'm not even going to try. shannon is beatrice, shannon is part of beatrice, kannon is beatrice, fucking everyone is beatrice. i give up" and it was really hard for him to, like, be normal. thank you [REDACTED] for not spoiling anything. i am on my way to finish episode 8 and obsess about the music forever.
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avaritia-apotheosis · 7 months
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Shannon Number
Danny and Damian have a conversation. The chessboard has traditionally been neutral ground. 3rd installment of the Hey Brother AU
A DPxDC crossover // Read on [AO3] or [FFN] // Fic Masterlist
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Chess was a game Danny never learned to appreciate until later in life.
It just wasn’t a game that he found interesting. An idea first born from a strange preconception that chess was a game for geniuses and the rich, and then, later on, evolved to hatred just to spite Vlad. Mostly it was to spite Vlad.
It was Dani that ended up changing his mind. As each other’s only constants, time had only driven the two closer together. Early after their first century of living, the two of them began to retreat from society to live an idyllic life in some remote cabin with enough woods for Dani to run around in, and the night skies dark enough for Danny to observe the stars. They still appeared when called—a hero’s work was never done—but for the most part, their existence to the rest of the world eventually shifted from ‘people’ to ‘figures of myth and legend.’
Retreating from the world would do them good. Gave them time to adjust to the cruel reality that everyone who once knew them outside of the name Phantom was six feet below.
One of the many things they did to pass the time was play chess. Dani, apparently, was a huge fan of the game, even as she said that she wasn’t the best at it.
“Vlad taught me,” she said. “Before, I mean. It was, like, one of the first things he taught me that didn’t have anything to do with acting like you. Chess was probably the only time where he treated me as his daughter instead of his experiment.”
The chess set Dani bought from the nearest department store for twenty dollars. It was one of those Classic Game Collections, where the box had ten different board games to play and a dozen others that didn't require a board. Their chessboard was just a thin piece of cardboard with black and white checkered boxes printed atop it, a row of numbers on one side and letters on the other. Printed on the other side were the same checkered patterns, sans the numbers and letters. Probably for checkers.
Danny knew the basic moves of each piece, but not much else. That was Dani’s forte. Throughout their many, many chess games, she taught him about all the different gambits, openings, games, and defenses people have done. It was…interesting, really. 32 pieces, 64 squares, an endless combination of games.
“Do you think chess has a winning strategy?” Danny asked one rainy afternoon. They’d moved to play chess on the floor so that they could give their table and poor hands a break. The back of his own palm still stung after one too many rounds of Slapjack.
Dani was laying on her stomach, chin propped up by her arm, legs swinging. She picked up a white pawn and moved it forward two spaces to E4. “What, like, if you move these pieces in this specific order at this specific time, you’re guaranteed to win 9/10 times?”
“Something like that, yeah.” He responded by moving his black pawn forward one space to C6.
She shrugged, moving her other pawn to D4. “Maybe? Some people believe there has to be one. A way to ‘solve chess,’ or something like that.”
Danny moved another pawn to D5, baiting Dani. It was a classic Caro-Kann Defense, a patient strategy, meant to give him as much control over the center of the board as possible.
Dani continued. “It’s all theoretical, though. Kind of like how people theorize about the ‘perfect game of chess.’” She developed her white knight, A2 to C3, completely ignoring her center pawn. Danny captured it in his next move, taking the plastic piece off to the side. “There’s this mathematician, you know, from way back when, that tried to show people that trying to use brute force to ‘solve chess’ was stupid and impractical, because he calculated that there were at least 69 trillion possible games after the first five moves.”
“Wow. That’s…a lot.”
“Mhm.” She hovered her hands over her knight but drew back. Sitting up, she adjusted her positions so that she was sat cross-legged across from him. “In total, I think he estimated around 10120 possible games? Counting illegal moves and assuming that the game lasts 40 moves as usual.” 
“That’s more atoms than there are in the observable universe.”
“Wait— really? How many are there?”
“About, uh, 1078 I think?”
“And you just know that?”
“What, like how you just know how many possible chess games there are?”
“Ok, good point.” The white knight went on the attack, toppling over the black pawn on E4. Dani gave the board one more glance as she pocketed her captive, a gleam in her eyes. “Anyway, the perfect chess strategy is probably in there somewhere, but at that point, who cares? It’d take forever to actually find it. And if someone does figure out the perfect 100% win-rate chess move, then is chess even a game anymore?”
Danny shifted his sitting position, almost mirroring Dani. One leg crossed, the other propped up for his chin to rest on. “I guess not.” He drummed his fingers against the top of his socked feet. “It wouldn’t be as fun, anyway.”
It was time to get his knights out of their pen. Then, he could start freeing up his bishops. He moved his black knight to D7, giving the queen behind it some protection.
Dani nodded. “Vlad once said that chess is a game of errors. In the end, you’re just waiting to see who makes the first mistake and who’s smart enough to capitalize on it.” She moved her queen in front of her king, blocking the bishop next to it from the playing field.
“That’s such a Vlad thing to say.” Knight to F6.
“I know, right?” She laughed. “It was one of the worst parts of him teaching me. I’d make a move and then he’d click his tongue and say something like ‘oh no, that wasn’t the best move you could have made’ which freaked me out so much. But, like, who cares, really about making the best move all the time? If people did that, then every chess match would end in a draw, and what’s the fun in that?” Knight to D6.
Dani grinned, wiggling in her seat. “Checkmate.”
Danny blinked, looking at the board once more. “Aw, fuck.”
His king was completely entrapped by his own pieces and the D6 knight was in a perfect position to capture. Even if he did try to remove the threat with his pawn, he’d still be checked by Dani’s queen.
“It’s 74-30 going to me, and….65 draws?”
“Sounds about right.”
“Want another round?”
“And have you beat me again? Hell no. Let’s just play checkers.”
◆◆◆
Danny wasn’t the one who taught Damian chess. That would be Ra’s al Ghul.
Technically, Ra’s taught both of them. Though while Damian took to it like a duck took to water, Danny…did not. Or, at least, he pretended he didn’t. Ra’s once said that seeing how someone plays can give you a glimpse into their mind, and Danny would rather Ra’s see as little of his mind as possible.
Chess with Ra’s was literally a game of “how long can Danny stay in the game without resorting to any kind of strategy.” Honestly, it reminded him of his early days as Phantom. No thoughts, just punch.
(Ra’s ended up brushing Danny off as strong but with no head for strategy. Talia gave him a strange look in response to that. She had seen Danny’s matches against his brother and had quite a different opinion.)
(When Ra’s found out that Danny never took any of their games seriously…
Well— thank god for his mother.)
Whenever Damian asked for a match, Danny would oblige. Honestly, chess wasn’t his favorite game in the world but it was his little brother asking and there were only so many things you could do in the League outside of training or missions or lessons.
It was also one of the few instances that Damian would willingly seek him out.
Long story short, the chessboard was neutral ground.
So when Danny finally, finally managed to sort himself out (hopefully, probably) enough to return to Gotham, he invited Damian for a game of chess.
Discreetly.
Danny wasn’t sure how bad of an impression he made on the Waynes and he didn’t want to make it worse by tripping their alarm or knocking on the front door. So instead he contacted Damian through more, ah, roundabout ways. A king’s piece he fashioned out of his own ice, clear as glass, with an engraving on the side that spelled out ‘Park.’ He placed it somewhere Damian would be able to easily spot in his room and left.
◆◆◆
A small shadow was cast over him around the time Danny died another round in his shitty mobile game. The ‘High Score’ screen popped up for a few seconds before being overtaken by another thirty-second ad; the fifth one he got in the past fifteen minutes.
Damian placed the king’s piece in its rightful spot, surrounded by the other crystalline chess pieces Danny had made himself. “Kingsway Park. It was child’s play to figure it out, are you underestimating me?”
He turned his phone off, flipped it around with his thumb and middle finger, before setting it face down on the wooden chess table. “Figured I’d go for efficiency, but if you wanted me to set up a scavenger hunt for you, that could be arranged.”
“What, like that escape room you built in Nanda Parbat after mother asked you to test my deductive skills?’
“Hey, I could’ve made it much worse.”
“Danny. You made me translate the entire FitnessGram Pacer Test from morse code to Esperanto to English to decode that last lock. How did you even know about the FitnessGram?”
Danny cheekily grinned. He was actually kind of proud of that one. The solution itself was very easy to people who already had to suffer through the FitnessGram, but considering that Damian (and supposedly Danny, but that wasn’t the point) had never even heard of it back then, it had taken him more than an hour to solve it in its entirety. Sure Danny loved his brother to death and back, but he was not above being petty when Damian was a being a brat.
“Are you just gonna stand there all day, or are we gonna play?” Danny gestured to the empty seat across from him.
“Chess. Tt .” Damian pulled up the seat and plopped himself down with a huff. “Do we really still need a board game to talk?”
“Hey, neutral ground is neutral ground. Gotta make sure you don’t yell at me.”
“I won’t yell at you.”
“Just because I died, doesn’t mean I got amnesia. I distinctly remember you screaming at me to fight you almost every time we met.”
“I was challenging you to a duel .”
“Ambushing me with a sword isn’t very sportsmanlike if you ask me.”
“I was only making sure you weren’t resting on your laurels.”
“Hah. Sure you were.”
One of the reasons Danny chose Kingsway Park—other than it being a public area that had enough trees and tall bushes to give them privacy—was because it actually had decent chess tables. The tabletop was made of a dark-stained wood with a chessboard engraved on top, and a single wrought iron column that held the table bolted to the floor. The chess pieces were lost at some point in time, though, but that wasn’t a problem for Danny. He made his own pieces out of ice. The white pieces were made with barely any mineral content to produce that crystalline quality, and the black pieces made out of frosted ice made it appear cloudy.
Damian eyed the board. “So I get white?”
“We could always draw for it.” Danny opened his hand. “Here, give me your king.” He took both king pieces and hid them behind his hand, mixing them up. When he finished, he presented them to Damian, one piece in each fist. “Your pick.”
Damian picked left.
Danny uncurled his fist. The black king.
“Well,” Damian said. “You’ll need all the advantages you can get.”
He stuck his tongue out. “Shut up and give me your pieces.”
They exchanged their pieces. And with that, they had begun the game with Danny moving a pawn to E4.
Pawn to E5.
Knight to C3.
Bishop to C5.
“I’m sorry.” Knight to A4. “I know I already said it over the phone, but I should probably say it again in person.”
“Tt.” Damian’s bishop captured Danny’s pawn on F2, now leaving the white king in check and with only two ways to escape. “So are you actually going to explain what you meant on the phone?”
Danny’s king took the bishop. “What do you want me to say?”
Black queen to H4. Check. “Maybe start by explaining what you meant about father.”
“It’s…nothing you really have to worry about.” The white king moved diagonally to E3.
Damian placed him in check again, moving his queen to F4. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“I had a realization, I guess. Do you know what made us such good assets to the League?”
“Our skill, no doubt.”
“That, yes, but I’m talking about something else. What makes us so good at what we do is that, officially, we don’t exist . Birth records, legal ID, Social Security, hospital records— all of that shit that people are supposed to get when they’re born? We don’t have that. For the past ten or seventeen years, there had never been anyone by the name of Danyal and Damian al Ghul, and that lack of presence gave us an advantage. The less of a footprint we leave, the harder it is for people to find us. Rumors are one thing, but unless the documentation is there, we’re veritable ghosts.”
“Where exactly are you going with this?”
“I’m saying that Damian al Ghul never existed up until he became Damian Wayne. And as Damian Wayne, that anonymity you have is lost. You exist now, in the world. In official documents, in papers, on the internet— you are real . And because you now exist in the real world, socially and legally, the Waynes have more familial claim to you than I ever will.” King to D3. “I guess I got, heh, spooked at the idea of it all. That if I made a bad impression—which I ended up doing anyway—they’d have all rights to keep me away from you and the ability to back it up too. Well, maybe not completely, but you get what I mean, right?”
Pawn to D5. “You’ll always be my brother,” Damian parroted.
King to C3. “As Talia al Ghul will always be your mother. Doesn’t change the fact that you chose the bat over her.”
Damian glared, knocking over the white pawn as the Black Queen captured the E4 square. “And what is that supposed to mean?” 
“Nothing! Nothing, I just…” Danny moved his king again. “I’m not…I’m not trying to antagonize you, I swear I—” He sighed, shoulders slumped. “Damn it. Why is it that neither of us managed to inherit Talia’s way with words? That would have been so helpful right about now.”
He rubbed his face with his hand before setting both palms down flat on the table. “You know what, I— I think I should just, umm… Gimme a sec to figure out what I want to say.”
Damian tried to give off this air of nonchalance, poker face masked squarely in place. But Danny’s too experienced with the different facets of Damian al Ghul—( Wayne. Damian Wayne, now)— to be fooled by it. He could see the cracks in the slight crease between the brows, the way the jaw was too clenched, the shoulders a bit too straight. Not that Damian ever slouched, but there was a certain tightness present in his posture that indicated Damian’s worry.
Danny looked down at the chessboard once more. They’ve been moving pieces every so often during their conversation. Danny’s king was busy dancing its way across the board, always so close to being captured but managing to wiggle just out of reach. Damian’s pieces were more aggressive, all his resources turned to capture the white king. Danny had lost a knight. Damian had lost a queen.
The black knight advanced to C5. Danny nearly wanted to laugh.
“Look, I’m sorry for what I said. It’s…insecurity, I guess? I don’t know. Other than mother, you’ve been my only family for so long. And it’s one thing to know that you have other brothers, but it’s another thing entirely to, you know, see them.”
“Really, you? Intimidated by them?” Damian scoffed. “Grayson and Brown are too silly for their own good, Todd, despite what you might assume from his demeanor, is what they call a ‘nerd,’ and Drake has such a severe caffeine addiction that I’m surprised they hadn’t yet sent him to rehab.”
White king to B4. Black pawn to A5. Check.
“Cain and Gordon are alright, I guess. And while all of them are formidable heroes, none of them could ever match you. And none of them would I consider more of a family to me than you.” The white king captures the black knight. Damian’s second knight had begun to advance. “So I don’t understand why you are so apprehensive about all of this. Did you not also wonder about our father when we were little? Were you not the one that imagined fleeing the League to find him? Well, we found him. And he wants us—”
Danny slammed his bishop down, ice cracking between his fingers. Check . “I was thirteen and stupid and the only thing that was on my mind at the time was getting you out of the League.” He raked his hand through his hair, fringe falling over his eyes. “You’re out now. We both are.”
Damian stared at him. Calmly, he moved his king out of check. “What is this really about, brother?”
Danny didn’t answer.
“You know, I always wondered how you always seemed to be so open but still managed to be so secretive.” He advanced his pawn. Check . “You keep dancing around this conversation and it’s…I don’t…just tell me what you want to say to me.”
The white king stepped away.
“You already said that the League let you go. That mother let you go. There’s no external hurdle that would keep you from joining me at father’s side.”
Danny’s bishop was captured by the black knight. Danny took the offending piece out of play.
“You’ve always been the more heroic one. The one to stand up against injustice even if it meant failing the mission. You would have no trouble settling in.”
Damian’s bishop advanced to B7. Check.
“You’re afraid that father would keep you away, but you’re wrong .”
King to B5. Bishop to A6. Check.
“He grieved for you. He worries for you, even now. Did you know that there’s even a goddamn room in Wayne manor that was meant for you? It was where you would have grown up if mother never hid you away. He kept it . Refused to tear it down even when he thought you were dead.”
King to C6. Bishop to B7. Check.
“I don’t get it. I don’t understand . You want to stay with me but you don’t want to deal with the Waynes, and I don’t understand why .”
King to B5. Bishop to A6. Check.
“They’re good people, Danny. They were good for me and they’ll be good for you, so I don’t—”
King to C6. Bishop to B7. Check.
“I don’t—”
King to B5. Bishop to A6. Check
“Can you stop playing games and just look at me?”
Danny snapped his eyes up, meeting Damian’s gaze. His brother was red-faced, brows scrunched together. His shoulders were wound tight, almost shaking.
He looked down at the board. A three-fold repetition. If they keep continuing, it’ll turn into five-fold, or a ten-fold, or— Well, they could keep continuing till the end of time but it would never change the fact that Danny had nowhere to go that won’t end in a check, and Damian would forever be trapped trying to catch him. The game would go on forever and ever because you couldn’t skip turns in chess. You had to make a move. Had to make a decision.
Danny couldn’t run anymore.
The game would end in a draw.
He took a deep breath. Ran his hand “his face, rubbed his eyes, then wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. Then he looked at Damian, again.
(Sometimes, Danny couldn’t help it. Sometimes he’d look at Damian and see, in his place, someone Danny used to call cousin. Used to call sister.)
Ten years old. So young. Too young, really, to deal with all of Danny’s bullshit. All of their family’s bullshit.
“Do you know,” he began, “how old I am?”
Damian stared at him in confusion. “You’re seventeen.”
“Well, yes, but actually no.” He laughed, inwardly. “It’ll be hard to explain, and maybe I’ll finally figure out how to tell it to you someday, but for now I want you to keep in mind that I’ve lived much longer than just seventeen years.”
“All of this—” Danny gestured to his surroundings. The neatly trimmed green hedges. The passing joggers. The dog barking in the distance. The wide canopy of trees that shaded them. The flock of birds flying in the bright expanse of clear blue sky. “Being born, growing up, having parents, having siblings, making friends. Living and mourning and dying. In another world, in another life, I’ve done all that before.
“I buried my parents with my own hands. Then my sister. Then my friends. I watched everyone I knew grow and age and die . Even the only other person who was like me, eventually they left too.”
When Death eventually came for Dani— (and it did come, the both of them could feel the signs years before Death ever appeared. Could see it in the way Dani would start melting more and more, and each time it’d take longer to put her back together. Her small hands would push the green ooze of her not-flesh into the right spots, holding it in place as Danny injected a larger dose of Ecto-Dejecto, praying that the serum would still work.) — it came quietly. One moment, she was sleeping in her bed. The next— gone.
Danny took her remains off the coasts of Denmark and scattered them in the ocean blue.
(Her favorite princess was the little mermaid.
“She dissolves into seafoam at the end, did you know that? A lot of people like to leave the story off there, called it a tragedy, but— That’s not really true. She became seafoam, sure, but because her heart was so good she became a spirit of the air. That’s— that’s a much better ending don’t you think? It’d be nice if…”)
Drawn back to the present, Danny continued, “The thing about letting people in, Damian, of loving them, is that it hurts . It hurts knowing that one day they will die and you will be left alone. Because you were always the one being left alone.” He locked eyes with Damian and saw his confusion, saw his worry. “It’s inevitable, Damian. One day I will bury mother and one day I will bury you. That, alone, will break me . Do you really want me to add more people to that list? There’s only so much I can take.”
Danny saw how the Wayne family interacted with one another. Observed their little quirks and personalities when he was nothing more than a shade haunting Damian. Danny knew, knew with full certainty that if he joined them he would come to love them. And he can’t—
Not again.
Mother and Damian were enough.
They were already too much.
“Do you want to know something I’ve learned as Robin that I never thought I’d have to learn?” Damian said.
“Being sensitive to other people’s emotions?”
“Shut up. No, I’m talking about the multiverse. Infinite worlds that are so similar or so different to our own, with infinite versions of you and me.”
“The many-worlds interpretation, yeah.”
“I’ve never had to deal with being thrown into another dimension or meeting an alternate version of me, but father and the rest of his associates have dealt with it enough times that they’ve developed procedures and contingencies in case something like that happens. It was no problem memorizing it, of course, but as I looked into the different universes father had encountered, I began to realize just how… vast everything is. So many worlds, so many universes that are shaped by our choices alone. Some are worse, some are better, but none of them are really perfect .
“Maybe somewhere out there, there’s a universe where everything is fine and no one gets hurt. Maybe there’s a universe out there where we all made the right choices at the right time and we all get the happy future we want. But trying to anticipate every future, every ending, to find the best one is—”
“—A fool’s game.”
Damian nodded. “What’s important, I’ve learned, is to focus on the here and now. We can plan for as many contingencies as we want, but at the end of it all, someone’s going to make a mistake and we just have to learn to deal with it. ”
Danny stared at him, then laughed. He reached over the table to ruffle Damian’s hair, and though he could see his brother scowl at his hair being mussed, Damian didn’t try to push his hand out of the way. If Danny squinted, he could even see that the tips of Damian’s ears were pink. “When did you get so smart?”
“Oh please, I had always been the more intelligent of the two of us.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Danny withdrew his hand, and Damian’s face sobered once more. “I won’t— If you don’t want to become part of the family, then I won’t push you. But please don’t try to push out others either. In my experience, doing that just makes you even more miserable.”
Danny’s eyes softened. “I can only promise to try .”
“That’s all I’m asking for.”
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I loved your take on Antoinette and I think the writers tried their best to convey what she really was to Lestat (she thought she was his accomplice but I think she was his victim too) there is the speech that Louis gave to Claudia after finding them at the hotel that is also for the benefit of the viewers and there is Lestat unequivocal behaviour(telling her to leave her own house without even looking at her, not healing her bite wounds, refusing to go to the same cities he proposed to Louis "there is no place for me other than New Orleans", using her voice in a love song for Louis, the finger and the gloves, waiting more than 20 years to turn her and doing so just to use her as his minion to spy on Louis and Claudia, no reaction when Claudia pinned her to the floor) and yet there are people who say there was genuinely something between them, that he wanted her to be his other partner and that during the murder scene he is crying about her. Even Sam Reid said that Lestat would have killed her if Louis had personally asked (not through Claudia) and that Lestat was proud of Claudia and thought he had underestimated her when she stomped Antoinette's face. Have I watched a different show or was this thing less straightforward than how I perceived it? What do you think?
You brought up very valid points the writers used to show the differences in how Lestat behaved with Antoinette vs. how he behaved with Louis. I’m right there with you, and I agree with everything you mentioned.
I think the thing causing people to believe there was more between them is because Lestat keeps going back to her over a period of several years. I’m theorizing they think, if she didn’t mean anything, he would fool around with others too. You know, his “variety” he claimed to like. It might be unpopular, but I also see Antoinette as a victim. She loved Lestat. There’s no doubt about that based on what we saw. She loved him, adored him, catered to his every whim. I mean, she agreed to lose a finger for him. Lestat, because he could read her thoughts, knew that. He knew how she felt about him. For Lestat, it was “everything for Louis”, but Antoinette was “everything for Lestat.” Look at the way she coddled him in the hotel scene. “I know. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I love you, Lestat.” No way our boy Louis would respond to one of Lestat’s outbursts like that. Remember the “Fuck you!” argument? So yeah, I think that’s why Lestat kept going back to her. At least with her, he knew he was loved. The problem was she wasn’t Louis.
I think the ultimate telltale demonstration of this is, again, the hotel scene when Lestat shows visible disgust over Antoinette. He tolerates her kisses, mocks her dreams, and literally cringes away from her missing finger. Like you said, he doesn’t heal her bite wounds when that was the first thing he did for Louis in the afterglow. Compare that to the very next scene of sex with Louis. The complete reverence and worshipful kisses he’s showering all over Louis. He literally kisses Louis’ heart. Compare the spiteful, resigned half-assed “I love you too” to Antoinette with the tender, emotional “I love you” to Louis in the park. There’s no way he was like that with Antoinette. Sam confirmed Lestat thought it was magnificent when Claudia stomped her. Can you imagine Lestat thinking it was magnificent if someone stomped Louis? Absolutely not. And also, like you said, Lestat would have killed her in an instant if Louis asked for it.
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spaceaudyssey · 4 months
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One thing that I think no one has pointed out yet about this doctor who episode (the star beast) is it's take on the genetic memory theory
According to Wikipedia:
In psychology, genetic memory is a theorized phenomenon in which certain kinds of memories could be inherited, being present at birth in the absence of any associated sensory experience, and that such memories could be incorporated into the genome over long spans of time.
And BBC news:
Behaviour can be affected by events in previous generations which have been passed on through a form of genetic memory, animal studies suggest. Experiments showed that a traumatic event could affect the DNA in sperm and alter the brains and behaviour of subsequent generations.Dec 1, 2013
While there is more studying that needs to be conducted in order for this to be fully proven, it has been theorized as a possible reason as to why people may be born with certain fears or phobias to which there is no other explanation for. ADHD and other forms of neuro divergence are another human trait that has been theorized to be as a result of genetic memory. Again, it has not been fully proven, so I don't want anyone who reads this, to think that this is 100% fact. Read this with caution.
In the case of Rose in the star beast episode, She grew up her whole life, subconsciously remembering little things her mother experienced, and a lot of those experiences have fully affected Rose's own life, from the toys she makes, to how she even chose her own name.
Before I go on, I want to add that, on the comment of gender, from what very brief research I have done, I will not speak on behalf of gender when It comes to genetic memory, as I have not seen studies conducting gender identity in connection to genetic memory. While it could be possible that Rose is experiencing this gender identity because of the DoctorDonna meta crisis effect, this does not mean that she definitely is experiencing this because of DDME or genetic memory in general. Gender on its own is a complicated concept, a social construct, and that's its own set of scientific research that should be respectfully explored before we even consider that genetic memory can interfere in any part of one's gender identity. Also this is a work of fiction. Keep that in mind.
As I have stated before, The DDME is a major part as to why she has made the toys that she has made. It has basically become present in her imagination and probably her dreams. And without knowing it consciously, she helps out in saving London by pressing buttons she never pressed and saying words she's never said before. The instinct (DoctorDonna) in her mind and body kicked in when it needed to. In addition she shares this connection with her mother and it's all because of her mother, and the doctor. It was a connection she didn't even know that she had until it happened.
While I don't think it was done on purpose, the DDME is in a lot of ways a more fictional and exaggerated metaphor for genetic memory theory. While I don't think people can remember the exact things that their parents and grandparents experienced, and y'know, glow and start acting completely different, I feel that any kind of traumatic experience that is very intense to any individual, has the possibility to change the brain chemistry of future offspring and create more or less, a defense mechanism. I.E. the body keeps the score. It can also have the ability to give future offspring the similar likes, interests, and abilities of their predecessors, but to a lesser degree (because there are a lot of other factors that need to be considered when it comes to the development of an individual person's personality, such as their environment, and who they're friends with etc).
At the end , Rose states that basically she feels like herself now. Part of that is in comment to her gender identity, but it's more than that, because now she realizes why she has made those toys, why Rose is her name, and maybe other things that we didn't see in the episode, like maybe her personality, her dreams, her imagination, any reasonings behind decisions she's made in the past (similar to her mother giving her lottery money away), and maybe anything about her that might come across to others as "different". The main difference between her and someone in the real world, is that she has a major answer as to why. We people of the real world can only make a guess as to why we are the way we are. But Rose has the gift of having that answer (or the answer to some things she might have questioned, but probably not everything). And now she is fully embracing it and feels at peace with herself. It has also probably made the bond between her and her mother even stronger because of those shared experiences.
Basically I'm just fascinated in the topic of genetic memory theory, and this episode really brought it back up for me. After noticing the behavioral patterns of women on my maternal side, and how it made us connected in a way, I started to think that the possible reasons for why I have anxiety (or partly) could be due to traumatic experiences of past ancestors. This might not be true, but it would be quite a life changer if it actually was proven. Being able to have that knowledge in general would be quite powerful in the studies of mental health.
Oh and one more thing, in river song's case, I don't know if it's the same or not. The tardis interfered with her genetics, but idk if it shaped her personality, or her regular non-timelord abilities or whatever, but I guess it's possible. It's also been a while since I've watched any of her episodes. I just thought I'd bring that up because that's another person that has been affected by the doctor since before birth in some way.
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nycbabyjoey · 1 year
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I posted 16 times in 2022
That's 7 more posts than 2021!
11 posts created (69%)
5 posts reblogged (31%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@nycbabyjoey
@femmified
I tagged 15 of my posts in 2022
Only 6% of my posts had no tags
#ab/dl - 14 posts
#diaper caption - 13 posts
#diaper humiliation - 13 posts
#ab/dl caption - 13 posts
#mommy kink - 7 posts
#mommysbaby - 7 posts
#diaperboy - 7 posts
#ab/dl girl - 6 posts
#ab/dl boy - 6 posts
#ab/dl babygirl - 5 posts
Longest Tag: 25 characters
#choose your own adventure
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
Diapered With No Way Home
NSFW 18+ Only
Contains ABDL Content
"I heard Daredevil shows up at the end!" Tristan exclaimed.
His friend Noah covered his ears. "Agh," he responded. "Don't tell me that. I haven't been on Twitter in weeks just so that I don't read any spoilers."
The two walked through the theater with tubs of popcorns in their arms and tickets for the newest Marvel movie Spider-Man: No Way Home in their pockets. The pair of lifelong Marvel fans had returned home from their respective colleges just in time to continue their tradition of seeing the newest Marvel release together.
And this wasn't just any ordinary Marvel film. No Way Home was going to open up the Marvel multiverse. Characters from outside the MCU timeline like Doc Ock or Venom could show up and Tristan and Noah had watched the trailer reveal close to a hundred times, theorizing on what possibilities the multiverse could unfold for future films.
However, the one thing that the two friends could have never predicted was about to unfold tonight. A real-life ripple in the multiverse was about to open up in their very theater.
It happened all in a flash. They both felt the ripple affect their surroundings as they were unwittingly transported to another dimension. They collectively did a double take, only noticing a slight uncanny difference in the first moment. The theater looked almost exactly the same at a glance; however, Tristan quickly realized that everything had gotten bigger! Or... they had gotten smaller. The ticket-taker, who was now looking down at them, had grown in proportion with everything else. Tristan and Noah spilled their popcorn in shock.
"Do you need help finding your Mommy?" the ticket-taker asked, bending down to one knee in order to meet their eye level.
"Oh boys," said a voice. Tristan and Noah were immediately swept up by the arms of a ten-foot-tall woman! "You know better than to run away from Mommy, now don't you?"
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Despite their cries and screams for help, Tristan and Noah were taken to the cinema's bathroom (the woman's restroom, mortifyingly) by the giant woman they only knew as "Mommy."
Although they didn't understand how they had arrived in this new dimension, their brains quickly raced to understand its rules. People from this dimension ranged from ten to twelve feet in height and the world's objects were obviously designed to accommodate them. People of Tristan's and Noah's height, around five and a half feet, were treated as children.
So, Mommy began removing their adult clothes: graphic tees, ripped jeans, and boxer briefs, leaving the two men to hide their naked shame with their hands. One of the other women in the bathroom giggled at that, causing the two to blush even more.
Tristan was changed first into a pair of training pants covered in designs of different characters from Paw Patrol. He did as he was told when Mommy asked him to raise his arms, fearing retaliation. She dressed him in an green-and-white striped shirt and snapped a pair of shortalls in place, making feel and look the part of a toddler. But, it wasn't complete until Mommy shoved a bulbous baby blue pacifier into his mouth.
Unfortunately, Noah, who had been waiting to pee just before the start of Spider-Man as to avoid leaving during the middle of the action film, had unfortunately released his full bladder into his pants at his initial sight of the giantess. So, his eyes went wide as Mommy pulled an oversized diaper out of her bag.
Noah eyed the jump from the changing table to the bathroom floor, which was actually quite far relative to him, and took the leap. There was no way this woman could put him in a diaper! Tristan watched intensely as his friend ran his way across the bathroom floor. However, Mommy's leg length was much longer and so she simply had to idle behind a fully sprinting Noah and was able to reach him in only a matter of steps.
For Noah's disobedience, he was placed ass-up on the changing table as Mommy delivered a few light smacks to his poor exposed bum. Tristan noticed that Mommy barely put any energy into what could be described as "taps," but Noah's reaction to each one was that of an absolute beating. The grown man was left red-faced, sobbing, and snotty by the tenth one. Knowing better than to question Mommy now, Noah laid as silent as possible as his crotch was wiped, powdered, and taped inside the diaper.
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197 notes - Posted January 15, 2022
#4
St. Philomena's (Choose Your Own Adventure)
NSFW 18+ Only
Contains ABDL/BDSM Content
Note: Something special I made to thank all of you for 1000 followers! Enjoy your time at St. Philomena's Reform School. Comment to let me know which ending you get and, if you're really feeling up to it, see if you can unlock every single ending!
You get home from another long week at work. You throw down all the mail from the mail on your dining room table, sitting down to sort through it all. Gas bill, electric bill, insurance, bill, bill, bill. Had your life really become this dull and mundane?
It was at this moment you got to the last package in the pile. It gave you pause. The return address read, "St. Philomena's Reform School for Misbehaving Adults." You thought that there must be some kind of mistake, but the address matched your name.
You tore the package open. Inside was a plaid gold and turquoise schoolkid's uniform. But, unlike a child's uniform, it was made to just your size. Puzzled, you read the letter that came alongside it.
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Click here to accept your invitation.
305 notes - Posted May 20, 2022
#3
From Chad to Charge
NSFW 18+ Only
Contains ABDL Content
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Nicole blushed. She wanted to listen to what her date was saying, but she got lost in his beautiful blue eyes.
Nicole had matched with Zeke on a dating app and they had hit it off straight away. Ok, so Zeke wasn't Nicole's usual type - she usually went after tough guys. But, she had been burned in the past and she thought Zeke was cute. Plus, straight off the bat it was clear he was INFATUATED with her. His first messages skipped the usual flirts and pickup lines; he jumped straight to wanting to take her to dinner, offering to pay for it all, etc. It honestly came off a bit desperate, but Nicole had to admit that seeing the cute boy practically beg to take her out was pretty hot.
"So, what do you do for a living?" Zeke asked with a boyish smile.
"I'm a front-end developer," Nicole responded.
"Oh..." Zeke said. "Is that with, like... computers?"
Ok so he doesn't seem all that smart, Nicole thought to herself. But, maybe she liked that for once. She could tell this guy was eager to make her happy and it was only the first date! She could use a bit of a Labrador boyfriend. In fact - it was a bit rude to notice - but Nicole could see the bulge in the man's pants he was so excited.
Nicole took a sip of her drink before she began to dumb down her explanation. Before she got a chance to explain, however, Nicole was interrupted as a couple walked up next to their table. Zeke's goofy smile disappeared as the woman appeared to be upset with him.
"Tr- Trish?" Zeke asked nervously, clearly recognized the woman. "Wh- What are you doing here?"
The woman who Zeke had called Trish placed her hands on her hips. "That's Mommy to you, young man," Trish responded. "And I should be asking you the same thing."
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420 notes - Posted August 26, 2022
#2
The Hypnotist
NSFW 18+ Only
Contains ABDL Content
"You are about to fall into a deep sleep"
Rachel nodded with her eyes closed.
"Now... sleep!" the hypnotist commanded, swinging a pendulum in front of her.
Rachel's head dropped as the hypnosis took control and she entered her trance. Her hand continued to hold on to that of her husband, Evan.
The hypnotist James turned to his friend Evan. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" he asked. "Once I alter her mind, it can't be changed."
Evan nodded. He had put a lot of thought into this. It was the last chance to save their marriage. The pair had moved in together after their wedding ceremony to disastrous effects. Evan worked an eight-hour job in banking and it was too stressful coming home after a long day of work to a messy house and no dinner made. He knew he shouldn't expect that from Rachel, who also worked eight hours albeit in teaching, but with both of them working, there was no way their shared house would be habitable.
He had asked Rachel to quit before, but she had taken it as quite the insult. She found it unfair that she should be the stay-at-home partner and she only got angrier when Evan reminded her that he made significantly more banking.
So, he turned to his friend James. Evan hadn't believed hypnotism could actually work. But watching James help people break their bad habits or forget about former loves, Evan had realized the effectiveness of James' profession. So, he asked him if he would help the couple with their situation.
Of course, Rachel would have never had made herself a willing participant. Evan made a small white lie that she would be hypnotized to quit smoking, and under those circumstances, she had excitedly agreed. He did feel bad for lying, but it was to help both of them. And so, Evan prodded James to finish altering Rachel's mind.
James sighed. "When I snap my fingers, you will awake," he instructed. "And your main priority will be taking care of Evan and your house."
James snapped and Rachel woke from the trance.
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Evan and Rachel returned home while Evan patiently waited for the hypnotic spell to take effect.
It wasn't long until it did. The next morning, Rachel sat down with Evan and explained to him that after some thought she had decided to quit her teaching job so that she could look after him and keep the house clean. Evan applauded her decision, internally hyping himself up for a clean house and fresh dinner for when he returned from work.
And for the next week of work, that's exactly what he got. His clothes were picked up off the floor and washed, the carpets were vacuumed and spotless, and the dishwasher was empty each day. Better than all that, Evan got to sit down as soon as he got home to a cooked dinner: chicken, scallops, pasta, stroganoff, you name it! All the guilt Evan had from his manipulation had washed away. This was the life.
The second week, however, things began to noticeably change. Yes, the house was still clean upon getting home. But, his wife's dinners started to change. Chicken was replaced by chicken nuggets; pasta by mac and cheese. Instead of getting a beer with dinner, Rachel would pour him a tall glass of milk.
"Do you think you could make that mushroom stroganoff again?" Evan finally asked on Wednesday in front of a plate of pizza bagels.
"Silly boy," Rachel condescended. "You wouldn't like mushrooms. They're icky." She stuck out her tongue as she tied a napkin around her husband's neck in case he clumsily dropped any of his dinner on himself.
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623 notes - Posted May 27, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
Rage Quit
NSFW 18+ Only
Contains ABDL/DDLG Content
Dodge. Dodge. Heal. Slash. Special Attack. SHIT!
Melanie punched the armrest of her couch. "Fuck!" she shouted. Those advertisements weren't kidding. Blood Legends VI: Underworld had just come out today and supposedly it was the hardest game in the series.
Melanie was a self-proclaimed pro at Blood Legends, but she was not a gracious loser. She mostly resorted to playing campaign-driven video games now since her bad attitude when losing had caused most of her friends to avoid playing competitive multiplayer her at all costs. She had even been disqualified from local tournaments for poor conduct. A grown woman throwing game equipment in rage was frowned upon.
And the new game had proven itself to be a challenge so far. Despite her proficiency at the other entries in the series, Melanie had found herself stuck at the game's second boss for an hour and a half. If she lost to the Necromancer one more time, she would have to return to Nabonidus Castle and farm more healing potions.
The game may have been hard, but not everything in the advertising had been true. Melanie had heard that supposedly the game would punish poor gameplay by affecting the player's real life. She had scoffed. How would that even be possible? Besides, she had lost to this boss long enough and the only way her life had been affected had been the enormous loss of time.
Melanie walked up to the Necromancer once more.
Slash. Slash. Combo. Dodge. Slash.
"WHAT?!" Melanie screamed, standing up and stomping as the necromancer killed her character with a blast of dark magic. "Bullshit! I hit fucking dodge! This game fucking blows!" Melanie threw her controller across the room in an absolute tantrum. Though the controller left a crack in her wall, her outburst didn't end there. She flipped over her coffee table before laying face down on her couch and screeching into her couch.
"Looks like somebody isn't MATURE enough for this stage," the Necromancer cackled as "GAME OVER" appeared on the screen. "Try again."
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Mel sighed and sat back up. Odd, she thought. She hadn't heard that dialogue response so far. No matter, she acknowledge that she may have overreacted. I mean, how hard could this be? If she really focused and gave it her all, she could beat this. She grabbed her stuffed unicorn Princess from the other end of the couch and cuddled it for good luck.
After a brief moment, she went to return to the game before realizing that her controller had landed on the other side of the room where she had thrown it. With Princess in one hand and her other hand firmly planting her thumb in her mouth for sucking, Mel toddled over to where the hole in her wall was in her adorable unicorn skirt and pink-and-purple striped fluffy socks.
She grabbed the Fischer-Price controller from the floor and sat her butt on the floor in front of the TV, not having the energy to jump up onto the couch itself. Her eyes locked and her thumb removed from her mouth, she was ready to tackle the challenge and pressed "Resume" on Necromancer's Math Adventure.
She only needed five correct answers to defeat the Necromancer's magic with the power of math. "13+9" appeared on the screen. Mel placed her babyish controller on her lap and held up her fingers to count. Wait, she only had ten fingers. Mel frowned. After a moment of thought, she remembered! She could start with three fingers and pretend it's thirteen.
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9!" the grown woman counted out loud as she held up an extra finger for each number. She had two fingers up at the end. So, the answer was... twenty-two!
"Blast!" the onscreen Necromancer cried. "Your math is too powerful!"
"Yes!" Mel cheered following what seemed like an incredible victory. Only four more questions.
"4 x 7" followed. Mel let out a high pitched whine. Multiplication?! No fair! She was no good at times tables! She used all the power in her brain to focus. 20, she guessed. Wrong. 26. Wrong again. Her final guess was 32.
"Looks like your math skills weren't good enough to defeat me," shouted the Necromancer. "Better luck next time!"
"Poopy!" Mel yelled as the "GAME OVER" text reappeared. "That's no fair! Multiplication's too hard! No fair! No fair!"
Mel continued to shout as she kicked her arms and legs against the floor, causing her beloved stuffie Princess to take a beating against the ground. Once her fit ended, she threw Princess at the couch and crossed her arms letting out an audible "hmph."
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761 notes - Posted March 4, 2022
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prince-kallisto · 4 months
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hey! so i saw the tags you left on that post about wish, and i was wondering, have you listened to any of the songs from it? if not, then i wanna provide some context for one of the things i mentioned: there's a song called "at all costs" and without context, it sounds a lot like it could be a romantic duet. i've seen that before the movie came out people theorized that magnifico was singing about his wife amaya for his part of it! but then, in the actual movie, it's a duet between asha and magnifico and they're both singing about... the wishes that magnifico keeps trapped in these little balls in his study. and how both of them want to always stay right beside the wishes, keep the wishes safe in their arms and fight for the wishes at all costs because nothing else ever made them feel so happy. it even turns out that in the original demo for the song, the lyric "i wanna promise as one does" was "i wanna love you as one does"! so people have been using this to back up the idea that star may have been meant as a love interest for asha at one point. and i believe it because the song feels so out of place with the way it's actually used lol. also i share your feeling of being absolutely obsessed with the original concepts for wish, i keep feeling tempted to buy the artbook so i can read all the production info for myself and admire the art, when i didn't even like the movie very much 😭 seeing the concept art people have shared on here just makes me feel like there was so much lost potential in it.
OH MY GOODNESS 😭😭😭 I listened to the song just now, and I’m??? I had to reread your ask to make sure, because the song sounded so romantic that I had no idea what the context was 😭😭😭 It’s honestly a very beautiful song, so like you said, it feels very out of place on how it was used. The reveal of that demo lyric definitely makes it sound like it had an entirely different context. It’s very strange that a potential romance song seems like it was repurposed in such an odd manner. It is funny to see the comments on this song though, as some people even want this song at their wedding haha! It shows just how misplaced this song is, if the villain of the movie and the protagonist (who have no romantic relationship or ties at all) have their duet interpreted this way. I suppose if you really think about it, the context is there, but musical storytelling tends to be a bit more clear with the motives and story, y’know? 。゚(゚´ω`゚)゚。
I haven’t really listened to the other songs, as some of them I immediately didn’t like haha. I DID listen to Magnifico’s “villain song” of “This is the Thanks I Get?!” And…yeah. I really wanted another Disney villain song again and I adore King Magnifico’s design, but that song is very strange, especially with how odd lyrics that don’t give Magnifico a villainous appeal or motive really. I think it would’ve been really cool if the song brought in leitmotifs from previous villain songs? I’m not sure how to describe it haha, but I can totally imagine a bit of Scar’s theme of “Be Prepared” get involved in the chorus of the song when Magnifico says “And this is the thanks I get?!” I don’t know the next thing about songwriting though haha, but as a 100th anniversary movie, they really should’ve gone all out with at least the villain song.
And right?? The peeks of the concept art is so stunning to me. It’s almost funny when they show us the concept art and how gorgeous and unique it is compared to the final product🧎 Clearly the concept artists and writers had beautiful visions in mind, and just the still pieces of concept art feel infinitely more lively than what I’ve heard about the movie. I’d love to see the full concept art book too, I’m just amazing at the skill and imagination of the artists! I’m still very surprised at the song you recommended me to listen to haha, the vibe was completely different than I expected. \(//∇//)\ Thanks for the ask, the topic of this movie is so interesting to me and what could’ve been haha 🥲💞💞💞
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