#ALSO OKAY NOTABLY LACKING:

[meat-wentz]

pics of pete that make u wanna bend him over the nearest surface

#pete wentz #fall out boy #fob #you are not immune to pete wentz #no one is #he has a charm about him that is indescribable #ALSO OKAY NOTABLY LACKING: #more novena/arma angelus/2002 pete with the earrings #red 2004 buzzcut #pink dye job #blonde buff dilf #long haired tennis star #ask #anon

[bunni-v1]

the latest post was real funny lmaoo, do u think u could also write abt the 2nd and 3rd years finding out the prefect is a girl? doesn't have to be immediate, take ur time <3

Second Years Find out You’re a Girl?!?!? (NOT CLICKBAIT) 

TW: Swearing; You have a smell (Ruggie); Floyd and Jade; Bunni can’t write Silver lol

Info: Ruggie, Jade, Floyd, Jamil, and Silver x Reader (Separate; Platonic/Romantic)

🍓Hiiii. Skip the intro if this isn’t ur first rodeo and buckle up cowboys (and cowgirls, and cowtheys, and cows). There is a notable lack of third years and dorm leaders because!!! They get their own part rip. I will (eventually) add links to the other parts, but I have a lot of homework to catch up on from being sick all week so it has to wait :). BTW it's long, but each part is pretty even. Love you all enjoyyyyy <3

First Years

Ortho & Sebek

Third Years

Dorm Leaders

-Okay so, I know we’re all wondering, how the hell do you get away with hiding your gender for so damn long?

-Firstly, those ceremonial robes do great at hiding the figure. The only tell would maybe be your hair, but feminine men aren’t unwelcome at Nightraven College, so you mostly get a few questioning stares and that’s it.

-Secondly, Crowley wants to save his own fucking ass. He already has to hide from the press that he has a MAGICLESS student from ANOTHER DIMENSION here, he doesn’t need the fact that you are a woman ALSO on his plate. So, obviously, he helps you hide your gender from others.

-Grim knows, of course, and he keeps his mouth shut for a few yummy cans of tuna (and threats of being expelled from Crowley <3)

-Even when you were just a janitor, he couldn’t have the rumor that he put a “helpless” young woman to work. (Like it wouldn’t be expected.)

-So how do you two do it?

-Baggy ass uniform. Crowley gave you at least three sizes too big.

-Your figure is completely hidden. Sure, you look completely homeless, but at least you’re hidden.

-For your voice, you simply deepen it. After some point, you blackmail Crowley into giving you a potion to help with it, since it's so taxing on your voice. (Or maybe your voice is naturally deep!)

-Sam provides you (for an unfairly pretty penny (not too different from your original world…)) any feminine hygiene products you might need.

-Honestly, you’re set for being cared for, but it’s the adjustment period that’s the hardest part. 

-Truly, it’s very jarring to suddenly be thrown into both a magical world and be isolated in a man's world with nowhere to hide.

-At least in your world you had other women who could understand your struggles. Here though? You’re completely alone.

-You notice how… messy some of these guys could be. How some of them smell… really rancid. -How rough they were with you and each other.

-Honestly, it’s kinda eye-opening. The way men show affection to each other is oddly refreshing to watch and experience!

-Ace and Deuce specifically are a good… trial run.

-That’s not what we’re here to talk about though…

-For the most part, it's incredibly easy to hide yourself for the first while on campus. Everyone on campus is so self-absorbed that they don’t bother questioning you.

-Your only real risk factor is Savannaclaw, but it's easy to avoid those guys (minus Jack, of course).

-However, you can only hide your gender for so long… It’s mentally draining to keep up this facade all the time around people you care about.

-So… how do they find out?

Ruggie

-Ruggie is… unique when compared to Jack. 

-The three beastmen in the cast are all oddballs in this case, but I feel Ruggie is the oddest.

-See, Ruggie finds out nearly immediately. I’m talking like… first day when you and Grim set the school on fire immediately.

-It’s my personal belief that he has the strongest nose between Leona, himself, and Jack so he doesn’t have to be close to smell that something is different about you.

-Now he wasn’t sure for sure. The smell of a person, especially humans, has a lot of factors playing in them. Plus the fact that you’re… not exactly a normal member of Twisted Wonderland’s Society.

-But he had a hunch. That hunch was only confirmed when he decided to steal your sandwich for Leona. 

-He got a nice big ol’ whiff of your smell, and he won’t lie and say it didn’t throw him off, for a second. He almost lost control of his spell on you.

-Luckily he didn’t, he got his sandwich and got away, but it left him with a lot to think about.

-(Bunni interjecting opinion here, my bad) See, Ruggie isn’t exactly afraid of the women in his cackle. They’re civilized people, after all, they’re not out there beating on every guy they see, but they are kind of intimidating.

-He was raised to respect and fear women by his granny, and he’s never really had anything that directly opposed that moral code impeded in him.

-That was until you started to get a little too involved in sniffing Leona and him out for injuring other students.

-Why couldn’t you keep that stupid little nose of yours where it belongs, huh? You’re making more trouble than it’s worth.

-Tries a ton of different ways to scare you off for your own good, but you are damn stubborn and Ruggie both hates and admires you for it.

-You figure he and Leona both know you’re a girl. Hell, Leona outright implies it every time he sees you (thank god your friends of choice are morons). 

-Ruggie though? He looks at you weirdly. You can’t be sure, but he’s a bit more cautious around you. Careful he doesn’t hurt you, but also sure to give you a spook or two when he needs.

-It’s all so odd.

-It’s not till Leona overblots that both of you get your closure. 

-Both you and Ruggie are left alone to recover after your friends leave and Leona’s family drags him away for forced bonding time.

-He can’t help but test the waters.

-“Yer weird y’know.”

“Gee, thanks. That’s how you talk to the guy who saved your life earlier.”

“Hey, that’s how I talk to everyone. Don’t matter if you saved my life or not.”

“Whatever. What's so weird about me then.”

“Why’re ya hidin’ who ya really are.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Yeah, ya do, yer the one who was insistent on that gym shirt that’s clearly three times yer size.”

“…

…..

…Fiiiiine. You got me.”

-He’s smug about it for the longest time too. Constantly cracking jokes and poking fun at you.

-Honestly, it's the start of a really cute friendship! 

-You two are far more chill and friendly after Leona’s overblot. So much so that Grim, Ace, and Deuce call it into question, but he won’t tell if you don’t.

-Besides, you need a good friend to hang around where you don’t have to constantly hide who you are all the time.

-He’s the chill presence that you need on campus, and he’ll keep his mouth shut with no problem. (So long as you keep providing him that sweet, free lunch).

Jade

-He doesn’t think you’re too good at keeping secrets.

-Unlike the beast men, he doesn’t have an amazing nose. In fact, Jade would say his smelling ability is rather lackluster compared to Floyd or Azul. 

-However, he has a crazy scary intuition.

-He doesn’t know right away, of course. He doesn’t have x-ray vision to see through your baggy uniform.

-What gives it away for Jade is your mannerisms. The way you react to different things your more… masculine peers do or say. The discomfort on your face with the more touchy-feely students on campus.

-To our lovely (bastard) Jade, it's all a dead giveaway. He knows by the start of book three when you first make your deal with Azul.

-It’s like he’s looking through you in that crowded little office. His gaze and placid smile pierced through your skin.

-He won’t say anything to anyone though. What fun would that be? 

-To him, it's quite funny seeing how unaware both he and your friends are of the truth.

-He gives you the chills every time he’s around you, but he’s not giving you any reason to believe he knows anything more than what you’ve told him.

-He uses the correct pronouns and treats you as he would anyone else. The only thing is that he’s got this knowing glimmer in his eyes.

-It scares you. Not in the ‘oh god he’s gonna do something to me,’ way, but in the ‘Oh god he’s looking at me again, why is he looking at me again’ kinda way.

-He really does not give you an inkling of an idea that he knows. Just stares at you, smiling like a creepy doll.

-Eventually though, at some point after Azul’s overblot, he corners you (quite literally).

-You honestly think he’s about to kill you, he’s very tall and his face doesn’t change as he leans down to whisper in your ear.

-“Your secret is safe with me.”

-And he walks away.

-What. The. Fuck. Honestly, the scariest thing he could’ve done. Scarier than anything Floyd could ever do honestly.

-To his credit though, your secret is safe with him! Floyd and Azul find out completely on their own, and in fact act surprised when you ask if Jade was the one who told them.

-And honestly, if you can ignore how scary his smile is, he’s always lovely to talk to when you’re in his serving section at the lounge.

-He’s actually the one who convinced Azul to give you a part-time gig when you tell him about your… difficulties affording Sam’s prices.

-Makes sure that your uniform fits the way that makes you most comfortable, and keeps the more rowdy customers AND servers (including Floyd) away from you.

-Very kind! Very weird! 

-When you ask him why, he just tells you, “What’s the fun in letting our little secret get out.”

-Creepy! But at least you’re sort of safe around him.

Floyd

-Now, I am aware that Floyd is a very smart person. As smart as both Jade and Azul, in fact.

-However, homie has ADHD like crazy, and if something doesn’t have his attention he is not learning anything about it.

-Therefore, when it comes to you being female, it takes him a little longer than Jade and Azul to figure it out.

-You don’t really pique his interest for a while. Sure, you’re from a different dimension and all, and you’re a magicless student at one of the most prestigious magic schools ever, and you defeated two of the strongest students at NRC’s overblots.

-So what! Who cares! Certainly not Floyd!.

-You don’t interest him, plain and simple. He finds you kinda boring beyond all that “superficial” stuff out of your control.

-That is honestly for the best, you think, You sort of have Jade’s attention already, and that’s scary enough for you.

-You’ve heard the terrifying tales of what Floyd does to Riddle, you’d rather not be an object of his “affections.”

-It’s not until he’s forced to pay attention to you that he gets… interested. (Yayy for you!)

-It’s not immediate, of course. 

-He thinks you signing the contract with Azul so confidently is really funny. 

-Your determination to pretend you’re not scared of him and Jade is kinda cute, sure.

-When he realizes you’ve caught Jade’s eye he really starts to wonder about you.

-What is so interesting about you that Jade, his brother who only ever really liked peculiar people, has been keeping an eye on you like you’re his prey or something?

It really makes him think, but he doesn’t get it. Seriously. What's so different about you.

-Realizes what’s up when your baggy uniform manages to hug just the right place just long enough that he notices in the heat of battle.

-He gets it now, Jade. How silly you are, little shrimpy, hiding something like that from everyone.

-Suddenly, after Azul recovers from his overblot, Floyd is really friendly with you. 

-Not even in the creepy, stalker-ish way that a lot of people like to portray him as. (Though he does, in fact, do a lot of creepy stalker-ish things. It’s in his blood, he’s an underwater predator after all.)

-It’s more like a really, overly excited, not well-trained puppy who just wants attention from its (new) favorite person.

-And, you have to admit, he can be pretty pleasant to be around when he’s in a good mood! He’s funny, easy to talk to, and always has something fun he wants to do.

-It’s annoying to him that everyone gets in the way of him talking to you, though. He’s not gonna hurt you or anything, just wants to give you a squeeze is all.

Jamil

-Jamil has literally no reason to interact with you, ever.

-He, quite honestly, tries to avoid you at all costs.

-Trouble seems to follow you everywhere you go, and with Kalim always trailing him like a puppy, it’s not a mixture he wants to deal with.

-So, Jamil doesn’t know. Nor does he care to know at all. He doesn’t want to know anything about you.

-Alas, you both attend NRC. Nothing goes well at NRC.

-So, you bump into him in the kitchen during winter break. 

-If he’s completely honest, you are incredibly nice and easy to be around. Smarter than he’d thought too, seems that your bad luck only comes from your goodness of heart.

-It couldn’t hurt to let you eat with the rest of the dorm just this once… could it.

-It could. It very much could.

-It’s in his nature to be observant. He easily picks up on people's mannerisms and tells them so he can adjust to them as quickly as possible.

-Your mannerisms, however, are particularly different from every other guy on campus. 

-You act more like you belong in Pomefiore in a lot of ways, and you tend to flinch at the slightest bit of contact.

-You keep your distance, wear baggy clothes, and your voice sometimes sounds really strained.

-All of these things are odd, but… everyone at NRC is a little weird. He’s a little weird.

-So what. He writes it off and moves on.

-That is until he has to give you the Scarabia uniform after pointedly deciding to kidnap you for a while.

-Your very visible discomfort at the idea of having to wear the new clothes, which he picked specifically to be closer to your actual size, was quite a big giveaway for him.

-He simply smiles and hums and goes to fetch you something a little bigger, for your comfort. He’s not a monster after all! He wouldn’t want a young lady to be uncomfortable around him.

-Keeps it to himself, like a little prize. He was the only one who knew, and he wanted to keep it that way for a while without letting you know.

-It was for no reason other than to fuel that ever-growing ego in his chest.

-However, he gets a little annoyed when Kalim asks him if he thinks you’re a girl or not. He also gets very annoyed when you outwit him and fly to Octanivelle for help.

-Then he finds out that not only did Kalim manage to figure it out on his own, but Jade, Floyd, and Azul have known for ages now.

-It’s just a fun little bonus stressor that adds to his ultimate overblot.

-The overblot in which he exposes your secret to the whole of Scarabia. The overblot where he is just a little too creepy for you to be okay with him for a while.

-Needless to say, you do not have a good relationship with Jamil after all of that.

-He does, however, apologize properly for what he did during his overblot during the music training camp arc.

-You two never really fix things, but you become amicable enough. 

Jamil doesn’t really care enough to try and out you to the rest of NRC, but he does owe you a semblance of kindness thanks to what he put you through.

-So he makes sure Scarabia students and Kalim don’t go yapping to everyone after school starts up again.

🍓I have to be fully honest before I write this, I don’t… know how to write silver. I’m not up to date with chapter seven, and he hardly has any in-game content, so I’m sorry if I got him wrong. I’m trying my best to learn the Diasomania characters, but I don’t have the time to sit down and read ALL of chapter seven. (I do, however, have the time to get about 30 hrs a week on Mercy overwatch so maybe I should get my priorities straight…)🍓

Silver

-Silver is one of the last people to find out on campus.

-Not only do you never hang out with the Diasomnia students (other than Malleus), but you and Silver have absolutely nothing to talk about.

-He’s always in a weird sleep-fueled daze, and he’s super quiet and stern. He’s not exactly an easy guy to talk to, but he is nice when you do talk to him.

-The greatest extent to which you’ve interacted with him is through Lilia, and you hardly interact with Lilia outside of Malleus.

-So yeah… Silver doesn’t really have a chance to find out on his own.

-Besides, even if he did suspect something, he’s too upstanding and nice to bother asking you about it.

-Like Jack, he would just assume you were trans, or you’d tell him if you wanted to tell him. 

-Besides, gender isn’t all that big of a concern at NRC, let alone for someone who was raised by a pretty open-minded guy like Lilia.

-So, really, Silver has no reason to suspect or ask anything at all.

-However… he does… overhear Lilia talking about something like that with Malleus.

-More specifically, Lilia scolded Malleus and made him promise not to say anything to anyone else. (Silver wonders who he might’ve spilled to…)

-It’s not like it’s his business. You two aren’t super duper close or anything. He’s a royal guard anyway, he can keep his mouth shut. Besides, he could’ve just misheard the conversation.

-.

-..

-…

-….He’s kinda curious though. Damn his human nature, he just wants to know that’s all.

-So, he asks you outright one day.

-“Are you a girl?”

“…No hello?”

-He doesn’t get why you’d hide something like that. Women are strong, what’s the point in hiding that you’re a woman.

-You explain it to him, and suddenly he’s much more sympathetic.

-Offers to protect you if you ever need it out of the goodness of his heart. (What a sweetie)

-Otherwise, he doesn’t change all that much, maybe waves at you in the halls now, but he’s not going out of his way to talk to you unless you want him to.

-He’s another good guy <3

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #x reader #bunni's treats 🧁 #twst headcanons #ruggie bucchi #jade leech #floyd leech #jamil viper #silver twst #ruggie bucchi x reader #jade leech x reader #floyd leech x reader #jamil viper x reader #silver x reader

[canyourfavesurvivecastledracula]

Hacker

@would-we-be-friends-if-i asked:

Alec Hardison (hacker/tech genius, cinnamon roll, does NOT like heights but can deal with them if he must)

@pomrania writes:

The ones I'm uncertain about are Nate Ford and Hardison. Hardison mostly because there's very little tech for him to use, thus his master-class specialty isn't available and he'd have to be judged on more "normal" factors (although he's also a skilled grifter).

@r0sequarks writes:

Hardison is definitely dead. He is not meant to go into the field alone. His grifting style is notable for getting him dangerously in over his head on multiple occasions. Plus, he’s out of his element with nothing to hack. My boy’s getting eaten. Probably at the shaving incident since I doubt he’d take the crucifix.

@darthlordcommie writes:

Hardison: He's a hacker, he gets a bit too smug, his skill set is useless. Slurp slurp.

---------------------------------------------------

WRONG! WRONG! YOU'RE ALL WRONG ON THE INTERNET!

(intended lightly I love you all dearly)

I get where you all are coming from but like okay. Let's break this down.

Yes, it is true that Hardison's fatal flaw is overconfidence and getting a bit too impressed with himself. Yes he overcomplicates things. He's a genius and he knows it and that gets him into trouble. But this is not going to be a problem for him in Castle Dracula because:

Hardison is the member of the crew with a healthy respect for the supernatural

(Yes, yes, Parker believes in the supernatural, but that's not quite the same. Parker believes in the supernatural the way she does everything else - idiosyncratically.)

I'm surprised to see doubt that he'd accept the crucifix. Hardison, again uniquely among the Leverage crew, is godfearing. He's the one getting qualms about stealing from a church - not Nate, whose church it is. There is no way he'd refuse a crying old lady bestowing a religious artifact on him for his protection - his Nana raised him better than that. Not only is he a Polite Young Man, but there are some things you don't mess around with, and divinity is one of them.

And vampires are another! Hardison has two features that are going to offer him a lot of protection: he's extremely culturally literate and he's afraid of things that are scary. The others approach Dracula as a Mark; Hardison is the most likely to approach him as a vampire. If he were able to just nope on out of there he would. Hardison does not want to be here, doing this.

The cultural literacy is a bit of a double edged sword, because he might be operating off the wrong set of vampire lore, and if he comes in visibly armed against vampires Dracula will perceive him as a threat and kill him. This is where his tendency to go too far comes in - given the choice he would enter the Castle with like three braids of garlic around his neck and other unsubtle markers, and this would get him immediately killed. But if he only realizes he's in a vampire story after he becomes a prisoner, when he lacks the ability to outfit himself, then his knowledge (and fear) becomes his best weapon of defense. He can't get overcocky because there is nothing in here to inspire him own confidence. He'll be too terrified to be smug. And that's what's going to keep him alive.

One of you speculated that Nathan Ford is the most like Jonathan Harker of the crew. I couldn't disagree more. Hardison is. He's intelligent, assured and proud of his own skills, afraid of things that are scary, inclined to shit-eating when the situation permits it, young and idealistic, madly in love with his autistic wife, [century of your choice] up to date with a vengeance, a polite and sweet-faced young man, godfearing, skilled in encryption and decryption, constantly referencing his favorite media, logical and methodical, researches everything, and is afraid of heights. There's a reason I make Jonathan's catch phrase "Age of the Clerk, baby!" The novel Dracula is a technothriller and to the extent it's applicable in the late Victorian context, Jonathan is the Drac Attack Pack's hacker. And not just because he hacks Dracula's head off. Who presents the Documents and Backstory at the beginning of every Leverage episode? Hardison does.

All this to say, provided it takes him long enough to figure out that Dracula is an actual literal vampire that he can neither nope out nor arrive in full Blade cosplay, I think Hardison's stay in the Castle plays out almost exactly like the novel as written. As I said, I very much don't think he'd refuse the crucifix, so he won't die shaving. He'll absolutely panic like a rat in a trap before calming down. When he doesn't get cocky he does in fact know how to play a Mark quite well, so he can play the game with Dracula well enough for his fear and discomfort to be funny. He'll know he's going to die and act accordingly. He's gonna be real unhappy about that sheer drop but he will brave it as a matter of life and death. He is not going to go out to get devoured by wolves when he has the option of not doing that. There's nothing to hack and a decided lack of orange soda, but you can't have everything.

I seem to be in the minority here, but I actually do think Alec Hardison can survive Castle Dracula

#leverage #leverage: redemption #Alec Hardison #crooks #leverage week

[triptychgardener]

Hello sorry if this is a bother but I am asking in good faith where is the reading for transmasc nepeta. I’m asking this cuz of your last ask (the June one) and I see aradia Dirk and Jane. Thoes all I have seen post and analysis about. But I have not really seen anything about nepeta.

Okay so first thing you gotta understand is that gender in Homestuck, for lack of a better way to say it, can be understood in how characters reflect and relate to each other. That being said to understand Nepeta's gender, we gotta understand the gender of at the very least one other person.

Dave.

And more specifically.

Davepeta, Homestuck's very own first(ish) trans character.

Davepeta is noted to be a sort of platonic ideal of existence for both Dave and Nepeta. Somehow, through a strange series of cosmic coincidences, these two end up making an odd sort of parallel. Both having a strange relationship to a man who loves him some goddamn horses. The whole Akwete Purrmusk thing. I mean, Dave canonically engaged in semi-nonironic furry roleplay with Nepeta offscreen, and given what we know about what becoming a furry in Homestuck means, it's not a leap to describe this as their ideal form.

But, although we don't see a lot of Nepeta's character arc, we do see a lot of Dave's. He struggles his whole life under an incredibly oppressive masculine force (both of Bro and, indirectly, Lord English), and once the game is over ends up deconstructing and largely rejecting that.

So when Davesprite, who's also probably been thinking about this for even longer, bereft of purpose or identity, finds a kindred soul in a spunky catgirl... well the rest is Davepeta.

And similarly, there are points in the story where Nepeta acts kind of uncomfortable with how others see her as exclusively something to be protected. The whole "Dear, sweet, precious Nepeta" grates on her early on, as Equius uses it as an excuse to control her actions. The whole of moiraillegience as it is originally explained (i.e. one party helps to calm down an especially brutal and violent person from outbursts of anger, and in turn that person will protect the more docile, even-tempered soul from external harm) even kind of FEELS like the way heterosexual relationships are portrayed in a lot of conservative spaces, where women are nuturers and caretakers while men are protectors. And Nepeta is supposed to, in this situation, be the person who helps Equius manage his emotions, which she feels some consternation at!

Now, over the course of Hivebent, their relationship appears to evolve and get a bit more balanced, but it still carries these overtones of "I will protect you, and you will handle my outbursts." Notably, when Equius goes to seek the Highb100d, and leaves Nepeta behind.

And of course not after roleplaying as each other.

Which. I mean come on.

But notably, Nepeta doesn't just stay put! She doesn't really want to be protected all the time! And when push comes to shove, she leaps out to defend, or at the very least avenge, her best friend.

And then, we don't really see Nepeta for a while!

Until we get to the end of the comic.

During their whole "date", Nepeta seems a little uncomfortable with Jasprose's affections. She may be a bit flattered, but Jasprose also fully admits later that she was frankly looking for any girl she could fall in love with after the tragic death of her girlfriend and possible more tragic untimely resurrection.

But then the pivotal handshake happens, and we get to see who is perhaps the most happy being in all of Homestuck.

Then we get into some of the only actual discussion of gender in Homestuck. We don't get much besides that, for both of their lives, Dave and Nepeta both felt something was missing. Something felt wrong that they couldn't quite place that made them both miserable. I don't think it's a massive stretch to say this could be gender dysphoria.

And when they combine, they feel the fullness of the gendered experience they were missing, melded together like a two-piece puzzle.

Now while the abovementioned "strong identities as a boy and a girl" might throw you off, I would point to what Victoria Lacroix said about this passage: note the lack of the word "respectively." I rest my case.

Now full disclosure, my personal headcanon for Nepeta is genderfluid transmasc. The whole affinity for roleplaying lends itself to a more shifting identity and I just think Nepeta, given more time, would love exploring the little nooks and crannies of gender.

This isn't going into the more complicated shit with Gender when it comes to Equius and Dirk and all that other stuff. Here's a quick summary so you can see exactly how my brain is broken.

Anyways, thanks for the question! I hope I answered my thoughts on the topic adequately! If other people have more to say about this, please feel free to add on!

#whoof this was a long one #asks #anon

[toadlessgirl]

Okay, time to get pretentious and REALLY talk about this shot.

So put on your over-analysis goggles, and let’s talk about the Imperial Cog, Renaissance-era military forts, 18th century prison architecture, the military-industrial complex, the surveillance state, and why this single shot of Mon Mothma standing in a doorway in “Nobody’s Listening!” (the 9th episode of Andor season one) is making me so feral I want to kiss Luke Hull and his entire production design team right on the mouth.

For those of you not in the know - the shape on the screen behind Major Partagaz is the crest of the Galactic Empire - often called the Imperial Cog. It appears throughout Star Wars media on flags, tie fighter helmets, uniforms and as a glowing hologram outside ISB HQ.

In canon it was adapted from the crest of the Galactic Republic. 

irl it was created by original trilogy costume designer John Mollo. Mollo has stated that the symbol was inspired by the shape of historical fortifications.

Bastion forts (aka star forts) first appear during the Renaissance with the advent of the cannon. Their shape eliminated blind spots, allowing for a 360 degree field of fire.

An apt metaphor for the Empire. Powerful, imposing and leaving you with nowhere to hide.

The Imperial crest also strongly resembles a gear or cog - hence the common “Imperial Cog” nickname.

Given how inextricably linked military and industry are, it’s also an apt metaphor. Both alluding to the Empire’s massive industrial power, and how it treats all of its citizens with a startling lack of humanity, valuing them only for what they are able to produce for the Empire.

The idea of the cog is repeated in the shape of whatever it is that they’re producing in the prison. They’re literally cogs in the Imperial machine making more cogs for the machine... while inside a larger cog.

This shape, in relation to a prison, also references something else which was almost certainly intentional on the production team’s part.

In the 1791 British philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham proposed a design for a prison he referred to as the “panopticon” - the name derived from the Greek word for “all seeing”.

The basic design for the panopticon was a large circular rotunda of cells with a single watchtower in the center. The plan would allow a single guard to theoretically observe every cell in the prison, but more importantly cause the prisoners to believe they are under surevillance at all times, while never being certain.

Later philosophers (notably Michel Foucault) used the panopticon as a metaphor for social control under totalitarian regimes or surveillance states. The perceived constant surveillance of a panopticon causes prisoners to self-police due to the belief they are always being watched, even if they don’t know for certain that is true. They live in constant fear even if nobody is actually watching them, even if “Nobody’s Listening!” 

The idea of the metaphorical panopticon has in more recent years been adapted to many other examples of social control: CCTV, social media and business management...

Like the concept of cubicles in an open floor plan office.

So that all being established - let’s finally talk about Mon Mothma’s apartment.

The cog shape is everywhere. There’s hardly a shot where at least one cog isn’t visible. Every room is connected by cog-shaped doorways.

The shape serves as a backdrop to most scenes, often centered and featured prominently.

(Side Note: The cog also appears as a repeated pattern on room dividers with the interesting added detail of intersecting lines that make them resemble spider webs.

The fact that Mon is often filmed directly through these web-like screens (particularly when conducting rebellion business) leads me to believe that this was a very intentional choice.

Even in the very heart of the Empire the nascent Rebellion is starting to build a web of networks and intelligence.)

I had originally presumed that the repeated appearance of the cog was just Luke Hull and his production team adding some brilliant visual storytelling to their already amazing sets. But the following line from episode ten leads me to believe they intended for these details to have an in-story explanation as well.

When speaking to Tay and Davo Skuldon about the apartment Mon states that “It’s state property. The rules are strict on decor. Our choices for change are limited.”

While it’s unclear whether the “state” in this instance is Mon’s home planet of Chandrila or the Empire itself - that second option makes the decor even more insidious.

If Mon’s apartment is Empire property that means the shape of the doors is intentional in-world, not just for the sake of visual storytelling. It means that this was a conscious decision by the Empire. A reminder to even the richest and most powerful of its citizens that they are always watching - whether you can see them or not.

Which brings us back to our original shot.

My favorite thing about this shot isn’t just that is shows how very alone Mon Mothma is. 

It isn’t just that she’s in the heart of the Empire, surrounded and dwarfed - just another cog in their machine.

It isn’t just that’s she trapped in her own metaphorical prison, worrying her self sick about who may be watching, not safe even in her own home.

What makes this shot truly extraordinary to me, is that right in the midst of the Empire you can see a new symbol forming.

Forming with Mon Mothma right at the center.

It’s a bit blocky, still constrained by the the harsh lines of the Empire, but giving how intentional every design decision on this show has been I find it pretty hard to believe it’s there by accident.

A symbol that will one day adorn the helmet of a boy from Tatooine.

One that will come to represent what all rebellions are built on...

#andor #andor spoilers #star wars #HOW IS THIS SHOW SO GOOD? #mon mothma #production design #history #long post #whose extensive knowledge of star wars and the history of the criminal justice system is useless now MOM

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Not my usual content but just wanted to say with the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes hype right now (I’m so excited) I’ve been surprised by how many people I’ve seen saying they didn’t realise that Snow’s first name was Coriolanus because they thought it was Cornelius, I don’t know where that’s come from but it means you’re missing out on the symbolism of his name!! And I love the symbolism of his name so I wanted to talk about it.

“Coriolanus” is the title and main character of a Shakespeare okay based in the life of legendary Roman hero Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus. I want to be clear this is not a play I have personally studied so I’m not an expert! But the play is about politics and particularly the power that language can have in politics, and anything Coriolanus lacks in language ability he makes up for with violence. He has attachments to only feminine figures in his small family despite being presented as a stereotypically masculine figure himself, and his ultimate tragic flaw is his pride and arrogance. It is possibly notable that in the play Coriolanus is a high-born noble of Rome whilst Snow struggles for livelihood in the Capital, but I think it’s really important that his situation never led him to feel empathy for anyone else, particularly in the districts, the way it did Tigris.

“Coriolanus also explores the questions of what makes someone a hero, and whether or not one can be both a hero and a real human”

It is a while since I’ve read the books but I think there are very clear parallels to draw from the key themes of the Shakespeare play and the character arc of Suzanne Collins’ character, and I find that really interesting.

However, as I said, I have not studied Coriolanus myself so if anyone has and has anything to add or dispute please do so, I would love to hear more I’m genuinely very interested

#hunger games #the hunger games #coriolanus snow #lucy gray baird #ballad of songbirds and snakes #ballad of songbirds and snakes trailer #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #catching fire #mockingjay #district 12 #Coriolanus #bosbas #shakespeare #book analysis #dystopian books #dystopian

[calypsolemon]

okay let’s try and analyze anthy’s reactions during duels and why she sometimes is just completely still and other times she’s like “utena watch out!!” and other times she’s full on interfering. also how her relationship with utena and vice versa changes during the whole season

Lune you had no clue how much you were asking for when you sent this partway thru our watchthru lmaooo

I think the easiest question to answer here is "why she is completely still sometimes" and well it's that... most of the time she doesn't need to do anything. Anthy has been acting as the rose bride for what is clearly a looong time, and her "job" (her real job, as commanded by Akio, not what she presents to the duelists) essentially amounts to subtly manipulating people into projecting their desires onto her, so they will fight to own her. Usually, by the time they are at the arena clashing swords, Anthy has already done everything she needs to - the pawns are in place so to speak, she only needs to watch them play out their parts.

Beyond that, Anthy is generally emotionally disconnected from what goes on in the duels, despite the fact that they influence who she is going to have to live with. Though some duelists may, on a surface-level, treat Anthy better than others, and that might lead her to attempt to subtly push duels in her favor when she can, she ultimately sees her abuse at the hands of duelists as an inevitability, just another Thursday in the life of the Rose Bride. Therefore, apathy is the default Anthy emotion for any given duel.

So lets talk about the times when she is Very Much Not Apathetic

From the very first duel, she actually does express shock at Utena winning the duel with just a wooden sword. I will be honest, I dont actually put much weight onto this moment. I think its just sort of a natural reaction to someone so uninvested in either Anthy or the power she represents, winning the duel in such a dramatic way. I'm not even sure at this point she's clued in to Utena embodying Dios.

More notably, we have Miki's duel, which is the first true sign of mid-duel intervention by Anthy. By this point Utena has had an actual moment of "Dios coming down from the castle to possess her," which... depending on your reading means either Anthy, Akio, or both see some sort of potential in Utena. So she blatantly throws the duel for Miki by directly contrasting the idea of protecting her she's purposefully built up till this point.

The most notable reaction from the first arc, though, would be in the second duel against Touga.

This is after we get one of the only direct confirmations in this arc that Anthy is actually beginning to care for Utena; the scene where she is sitting alone, imagining Utena across from her at the table. In this moment, when Utena is fighting for her princely ideals despite the risk of actual death, Anthy is (for lack of a better term) triggered into recalling when Dios was gravely injured and still attempting to act as prince. And whether it is through the protective instincts of those memories, or just straight up being pulled out of concentration of what she's doing, it causes her to accidentally throw the duel for Touga, by rescinding her power from his sword.

So, we basically have two precedents set for Anthy reacting during duels: She sometimes consciously interferes as a strategic move, and she sometimes has a genuine emotional reaction, usually in relation to her memories of Dios being triggered and/or potential care for Utena. I don't actually think these two things are mutually exclusive, however, and they become muddled as we move into the Black Rose Arc.

Anthy definitely begins to be a lot more lively during these duels, from interacting with the objects on the tables, to giving Utena's sword the blessing, to yelling for her as she catches her mid-air. Is this because she genuinely cares for or is concerned about Utena? Is projecting Dios onto her? Or is it just because Utena winning is what is necessary for the duels to function? Maybe some combo of all? Who knows

The most notable Black Rose Duel reaction, to me personally, is when Anthy downright demands Utena pull the sword from her against Wakaba. Its very uncharacteristic of her, and I believe its because, despite the Black Rose Duels being something she has a hand in, she may genuinely be concerned for her own life here, as she has built up Wakaba to be actually, murderously jealous of her personally, and Utena is actively refusing to fight.

As we move into the final arcs of the show, we get one of the most blatant Anthy duel disruptions to date:

The sword of Dios disappears mid-battle, and instead of remembering Dios in the face of fighting against impossible odds, it is now Utena's words of friendship that spur her to jump in front of her, and draw her own sword from her chest. I really think this is one of the most significant mid-duel actions Anthy takes besides the final duel. It shows that Anthy's emotions are no longer being spurred on by simple relation back to Dios, but rather by the genuine care that Utena is showing her. Even if their relationship is about to be mired in turmoil thanks to Akio's interference, it was starting to become something real, and it was also starting to break down Anthy's carefully built walls.

I'm getting eepy and also this is getting long, so I'm going to stop the analysis train there. I could get into the final duel but quite frankly I think thats an essay in and of itself. Anthy's reactions during duels is really a fascinating topic and you could probably go on forever talking about it (just like everything else in this show)

#rgu #revolutionary girl utena #anthy himemiya #girl this is loooong lolllll #i hope you're happy lune #sorry if i didn't really answer everything but it was a lot to put in one ask

[lettersfromthelevant]

So... the sports scene seems to be doing great, huh?

They suspended Russia, the country that initiated the invasion and killed civilians, while allowing Ukraine - the country invaded and attacked - to compete. However, Israel is also attacked and invaded with over a thousand of our civilians brutalized and we're the ones to get banned now? Okay. "Safety concerns" my ass.

The sports scene is becoming increasingly hostile to Jews and Israelis, which is nothing new. We've seen hostility such as this before, with the most notable occasion being Hitler's ban on Jews in the Olympics. The excuse for banning us this time around is "safety concerns." A transparently bullshit claim that can be seen through just by looking at these same organizations' reactions to Russia and Ukraine. As I mentioned earlier:

They suspended Russia, the country that initiated the invasion and killed civilians, while allowing Ukraine - the country invaded and attacked - to compete. However, Israel is also attacked and invaded with over a thousand of our civilians brutalized and we're the ones to get banned now? Okay. "Safety concerns" my ass.

The rock climbing ban is particularly egregious because it highlights a trend that has been present since the Munich Massacre in 1972. They claim our safety is paramount to them, but when our lives are actively endangered they do nothing to actually protect us. They erase us from public life because it's easier for Jews to just not exist than it is for gentiles to unlearn and prevent antisemitism. They are not interested in doing the work to ensure our inclusion and safety, as demonstrated by the appallingly awful German response to the Israeli Olympics team being taken hostage.

Israelis are intimately familiar with security concerns due to terrorism. What confounds me is the complete apathy and lack of interest in improvement that the rest of the world shows when our lives are threatened. The Munich Massacre marked a turning point in how Israel conducts counter terrorism and national security, but the rest of the world clearly didn't care enough to change. On the contrary, they seemed actively invested in preventing us from securing our safety. The U.S. actually warned the man who orchestrated the attack that Mossad agents were after him. Not-so-fun-fact, did you know that the CIA were best buddies with the PLO?

Clearly, gentile society has drawn an invisible line in the sand and if Jews cross it we are excluded and browbeaten. Things might not be as severe as they were during Hitler's tyranny, but the climate might be shifting in that direction again. This incident is not sports, but has the potential of crossing over: Iceland has threatened to pull out of Eurovision unless Israel is banned from competing. They aren't citing security concerns as their reasoning. Instead, they are fully stating that they are politically opposed to Israel fighting against Hamas and that it goes against Icelandic values.

Apparently, the innocent Israeli lives lost are not important enough for Iceland. I wonder how they would react if a terrorist organization invaded their country, mass raped and slaughtered 1,200+ people, and then kidnapped hundreds more. This is the standard Jews are held to. We are banned when we defend ourselves.

(source)

I don't really know how to end this post, other than by saying, this is why I will always be supportive of things like the Maccabiah Games. Institutions led by Jews, for Jews, provide us with places to go when we cross the invisible line. I meant to publish this around mid-January, when the news about the climbing team broke, but I got side-tracked by antisemitism in another industry because it is infesting everything now. I completely forgot the original conclusion I had for this. I don't want to fear-monger. I'm really tired of envisioning such a bleak future for my people, but I can't help noticing how quickly things are escalating and how easily all of our supposed allies are trying to restrict us from everything, take control over our government, and dictate the future of our people for us.

We really only have each other, and it's essential we maintain the strong bonds that allow for us to persist the antisemitism constantly thrown by a world that has never forgiven us for surviving.

[nevadancitizen]

moved house recently and the movers literally destroyed my insect display case and the specimens inside so i drew the sillies with the insects i think would represent them best to soothe the pain. explanation below the cut (be warned, it’s long and so so fucking nerdy)

(+ sanford bombardier beetle follow-up)

okay so first is doc with a madagascar hissing cockroach. despite cultural connotations, cockroaches are some of the smartest insects (up there with bees, wasps, and termites (which they share an order with — blattodea)), and doc is nothing if not the brains of SQ. madagascar hissing cockroaches are some of the few insects that stay with their offspring for a long while, therefore protecting them. doc is also protective of his men in a somewhat similar fashion, albeit from a distance and behind a cold, stern demeanor. also these roaches can’t fly, and doc can’t drive. there’s a joke in there somewhere but i can’t find it.

then we’ve got hank with an assassin bug. there’s not really any notable species within the family, so it’s just supposed to be a general insect within reduviidae (but not an ectoparasite). some assassin bugs transmit chagas disease, which is mostly always unwanted and detrimental, much like hank’s presence to anyone outside of SQ (or within the SQ, because hank’s loyalty mostly just faults to his own bloodlust). assassin bugs also have one of the most painful insect bites but, unlike hank, they use chemicals (injected via proboscis) to induce pain rather than ripping and tearing. still, the end result is the same.

obviously, what else would sanford have other than a hercules beetle? they’re one of the strongest insects (as evidenced by the horns on their head and prothorax), and sanford is, unarguably, the strongest grunt of the SQ. male hercules beetles use their horns to grapple and fight (both for territory and mates), and sanford also uses very melee-heavy tactics while fighting. they also use their horns to leverage and throw their opponents, and sanford uses his hook with similar tactics. these beetles are very hardy (due to their exoskeleton and hardened elytra) just like sanford, despite his usual lack of clothing and armor.

lastly, there’s deimos and the australian tiger beetle. they’re known as the fastest species of tiger beetle (up to 9 km/h or 5.6 mph) and — not sure if this is canon or a universally accepted headcanon — deimos is the fastest grunt of the SQ. these beetles run so fast and hunt so aggressively that their sensory system literally can’t keep up and their eyes shut off, so they have to stop often (for just a fraction of a second) to regain their faculties, which gives their prey several chances to escape. this reflects in deimos through his jokey demeanor and tendency to not take things seriously until it’s too late. thankfully, the australian tiger beetle is only listed as “near threatened” on the red list, unlike deimos, who is totally fucking dead.

thank you for coming to my ted talk which is just me smushing my two special interests together like a child mixing play-doh

#riptide’s drawings ✏️ #madness combat 🆘 #also peek at doc’s filed-down claws i really like that little detail #madcom #madness combat #madness combat deimos #madness combat sanford #madness combat hank #madness combat 2bdamned #madness combat doc #deimos #sanford #hank j wimbleton #2bdamned #madcom deimos #madcom sanford #madcom hank #madcom 2bdamned #madcom doc #madness: project nexus #project nexus

[pulisicsgirl]

this is me trying - mason mount

summary: Mason is having trouble putting his frustrations into words, but Y/N is there to help him work it out

pairing: Mason Mount x reader

word count: 2.1k

warnings/tags: hurt/comfort, a good bit of angst and some mentions of self-doubt, but then a little fluff at the end, established relationship

requested: no

notes: surprise!! i felt inspired to write this after the last couple of rough games, so i put this together pretty quickly tonight. i'm still working on part two of the request, but i wanted to get this one out there! also i don't usually do this, but this fic draws some inspiration from 'this is me trying' by taylor swift (hence the title), so feel free to listen to that while you read! this is something i'm thinking about doing more often, so let me know what you think!

It was another disappointing draw for Chelsea FC: a goalless draw at home to Liverpool.

To put it bluntly, the squad that Chelsea put on the field looked… uninspired. They lacked any sort of consistency or passion.

And of course, you were disappointed and frustrated to see Mason remain on the bench for the full 90 minutes.

After the game, you found yourself wandering down toward the field end of the tunnel, searching for him without going too far out into the stadium. You hadn’t seen him emerge as you waited with the rest of the families in the lounge and decided to take matters into your own hands.

As you peeked out from the tunnel, you spotted him over by the players’ bench, fiddling with the laces on his shoes. Most everyone had cleared out of the stadium by now, the seats empty and an ominous silence falling over the area that usually held such a high energy.

Mason stood up fully, noticing you as you took a couple of slow, cautious steps out of the tunnel toward him. Your arms were tucked behind your back innocently, swaying slowly back and forth, and if he wasn’t feeling the way that he was currently, he would’ve melted at the sight.

He approached you, greeting you at barely more than a whisper before he pulled you into a brief hug. The smell of sweat and grass that typically filled your nose when he hugged you after a match was notably missing. After all, he hadn’t been able to do anything to work up a sweat.

When he pulled back from the hug, he kept his arms loosely around your shoulders. “You go on and head home and I’ll meet you there in a bit, yeah?” he muttered quietly. “I’m gonna run a few sprints here before I head out, just stretch my legs a bit.” He forced a small smile, but he didn’t pretend to think that you believed it. He knew that you saw straight through his façade—you knew him far too well for that.

You just nodded at him with a short, “okay,” and released his waist from where your arms had been holding him close. He pressed a short kiss on your forehead before he turned and jogged away toward the goal line.

You began to walk back toward the tunnel, but before you left, you turned, watching Mason for a few moments.

He alternated between sprinting and jogging back and forth, up and down the field. His head hung low, and you could see the despair and sadness written all over it. Mason was always a team player, but in the private moments, he couldn’t help it when the lack of playing time and the way that his managers no longer seemed to trust in his abilities started to chip away at his morale. And you knew that, even if he didn’t express that to you.

Deciding to give him some time alone to reflect, you turned to leave, a heavy weight of sadness for Mason weighing on your heart.

About an hour later, you found yourself tidying up around the house, anxiously awaiting Mason’s arrival. He had texted you not long ago to let you know that he was on his way.

You were determined to talk things through with him tonight. You had done your best to allow him to have the space that he wanted, but you knew that the more he kept these things to himself, the worse he was getting.

The two of you learned very early in your relationship that you were both the kind of person to try to deal with things on your own. If something would happen or you had something on your mind, you would bottle it up and just try to power through it. This caused a lot of issues in the early months of your relationship, and the two of you decided together that you needed to do better.

So now, you both held each other accountable. As you learned and grew together, you gave one another space when it was warranted and confronted the other when it was necessary. This time seemed to have grown into one of the latter.

You heard the brief jingle of Mason’s keys as he pulled them out of the lock in the front door, shutting it behind him. Mason’s bag could be heard plopping onto the floor as he seemingly dropped it at his feet.

You wandered toward the front door, eventually finding him in the living room. He was sitting on the couch, elbows resting on his knees with his head in his hands. His hair was slightly damp—clearly he had taken a shower at the stadium following his sprints.

You approached him slowly and stood in front of him, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. He didn’t jump at the sudden contact, telling you that he had known you were there.

You trailed your fingers from his shoulder, up his neck, and under his chin, titling his head so that he was looking at you.

“Hey, baby,” you whispered. He didn’t respond, dropping his elbows from his legs. You took this as an invitation and sat down with your legs on either side of his. He leaned back into the cushions of the couch.

Neither of you spoke a word for several long moments. You rested a hand on his jaw, stroking his cheekbone slowly with your thumb as he leaned into the soft touch. Your other hand rested on the junction between his neck and shoulder.

You took a moment to admire his features: the soft creases by his eyes that grew more intense when he would smile, the gentle curves of his nose, the stubble along his jaw that tickled your hand, the scattered freckles that adorned his cheeks and nose. You looked over his face, adoring each part of it.

However, Mason seemed unable to look anywhere close to your face, his eyes cast downward and staring at your lap. He rested his hands on your hips, but his fingers don’t find their way under your shirt to rub small circles into your skin the way they usually do. The light that usually fills his eyes is absent, replaced by a dull and far-off look.

He knows what’s coming. He knows you need him to talk to you about what’s going on in his head. But he can’t figure out how to put into words the sorrow that seems to sit on his chest like a weight, causing him to feel a constant pressure against his ribcage as his heart physically aches.

He’s pulled from his wandering thoughts by your lips pressed softly to his nose, a gentle kiss meant to communicate all possible forms of reassurance to him.

At this, he finally raises his eyes up to your face, not finding the pitying look that he had been dreading. Instead, he saw pure love in your eyes and a desire to help him in any way that you could.

“Talk to me, baby.” Your thumb continued to stroke his cheekbone, hoping to soothe some of the turmoil you could see behind his eyes.

He pressed his lips together tightly, still trying to muster up the courage and the right words to voice his thoughts.

“I just…” he hesitated. “I don’t even know what to say.”

Your lips turned down in a frown, thinking for a moment. “Okay… talk to me about what you’re feeling right now. Are you sad? Angry?” You tried to help him put words to the things he was feeling. “Anxious?”

“Anxious, yeah,” he nodded slightly. “And sad, I think.”

You smiled slightly as you began to feel that you were making progress. Your moved your arms further up his shoulders, threading your fingers through the hair on the back of his head as you scratched his scalp gently. “Alright, tell me what’s making you feel anxious.”

Mason’s eyes slipped closed for a moment, and he subconsciously tilted his chin up, leaning back into your touch. You gladly let him have that moment of peace, soothed by your gentle voice and soft touch.

“Just… a lot of changes at the club right now. Still trying to adjust to new players. New gaffer now.” He spoke in short, choppy statements, blinking his eyes open as he was unpleasantly drawn back to reality by his own words. “Things are still up in the air with my contract. The fans are saying all kinds of stuff. I had to drop out of international duty. I’m trying to come back from an injury, and I haven’t played a minute in weeks.” His voice grew a little louder with each word, and you placed both of your hands on his cheeks to try to calm him down without shushing him. He noticed the gesture, realizing that he was starting to work himself up, and paused to take a breath.

“I feel like they don’t trust me anymore.” His eyes were misty when he said this, and you felt your heart crack into pieces.

“Who doesn’t trust you? The coaches? The fans?”

“Kind of both, I guess. But mainly the coaches.” He casted his eyes downward again, too ashamed to look at you in what he felt was a moment of weakness.

You lifted his head up once more, leaning your forehead against his so that he was forced to look you in the eye.

“You listen, and you listen good, Mason,” you started, pulling a slight chuckle from him at your actions. “Don’t you ever go doubting your abilities as a football player. You are the most naturally gifted and creative player I think I have ever seen, and your accomplishments speak to that. The managers who have gotten the privilege to work with you love you, and if anyone can’t see that, they’re insane. Sure, this season has been rough, but you are one of eleven men on that pitch at any given moment, with several more sitting on the bench who all make some sort of contribution to the successes or failures of this team. This responsibility does not lie solely on your shoulders.”

Mason nodded at you, and you could see him trying to swallow back tears. The simultaneous pain and relief of confronting his dark thoughts was overwhelming.

“I know this last month has been hard for you, between injury and big changes at the club, but you’ve handled it so well. You may not believe me when I say it, but you’ve been so strong through all of the unexpected obstacles that have been thrown at you. And I am so proud of you for that.”

At these words, a tear finally spilled from his eye, rolling down his face. You wiped it away with your thumb, pressing a kiss to both of his cheeks.

“Things will work out with your contract, baby. I know you want to find a way to stay, but they always say that sometimes one door has to close so that others can open. Who knows what kind of success and growth you’ll find at a new club, or if you get to stay here, you can find it here, too. Wherever you go, you’re going to be incredible, okay?”

He nods wordlessly, eyes still shining with tears.

“Take a deep breath.” The two of you take one together, breathing out slowly as you gaze into his eyes. “Try to focus on the good things. Your family is all in good health. You got to see your nieces over the weekend.”  A small smile breaks out on his face at that. “You’re spending your career doing the thing that you love most. And you’re not slowing down anytime soo—”

“And I have you,” he cut you off, barely more than a whisper. You were caught off-guard by his words, taking a moment to look over his face and calm your heart that had begun racing.

“And you have me,” you smiled back at him, resuming the way you had been scratching over his scalp a few minutes ago. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

Mason wrapped his arms fully around your torso, pulling you into a tight hug as he buried his face in your neck. You felt the warm tears dropping onto your skin and kissed the side of his head, continuing to scratch his neck and shoulders as you held him in your arms.

“Can we just stay here for a while?” His voice was muffled by your shoulder, but you were still able to understand him,

“Of course, sweetheart. As long as you need.”

tag list: @masonspulisic @chelseagirl98 @thoseboysinblue

#mason mount #mason mount x reader #mason mount imagine #mason mount imagines #mason mount fics #footballer fics #footballer imagine #footballer imagines #football imagine #football fics #mason mount fluff #mason mount fanfic #mason mount one shot #mason mount angst #mason mount blurb #chelsea fc

[bixbythemartian]

Okay, I wasn't going to say anything, but I've seen posts about this get passed around. And it's probably too late to push back on this, anyway, but I'm so frustrated I feel the need to say to say something. This is coming from a place of love- I just hate seeing this going around, and I want to offer some perspective on the matter.

First of all, regarding that poll where the user did not know how to pronounce 'Miette'- if you look in the replies, it doesn't take long to discover that the OP was genuinely confused about the pronunciation and, when corrected, was working to get it right. That poll came from a place of innocent ignorance. I hope the OP took it down and stopped reblogs and turned notes off or whatever, because some people said some awful shit. I hope you are the kind of person who is kind and understanding, in the face of such ignorance. Or, if you can't be that, I hope you can at the very least be quiet. (And props to the people in the replies who patiently and kindly explained things to the OP.)

Second of all, I've seen a lot of posts talking about literacy rates, and I'd like to point out that English literacy has very little to do with figuring how to pronounce a French fucking word, goddamn. The OP just didn't know. The dunking, the pointing, the laughing- rude, unnecessary, not helpful.

Thirdly, in response to the complaints of 'they don't even teach phonics in schools these days'- that's bullshit. Because the odds are very good that they didn't teach phonics in schools when you went to school, either.

When I was a kid, it was called Whole Language. It was the new hot literacy technique, and a lot of schools adopted it. It used cueing techniques and sight words and was very similar.

If you're a millennial, you might remember the commercials for Hooked on Phonics, and you might conclude that teaching phonics in schools was perhaps not common, if you think about that for a bit. If it was worth it to sell a whole reading tutoring program for struggling readers based in phonics, perhaps it might lead one to conclude that phonics weren't as common as other methods, right? You might not have been taught phonics to start. What you do know about phonics, you might have picked up in the past 20-30 years, right?

Okay. Lets go back further, you know Dick and Jane? It was based on, more or less, the same sight words principle, and those primers date from the 1930s, although I don't think that teaching technique came really into vogue until the 40s.

If you are alive, today, in the United States, the likelihood that you were not taught phonics in school is well above non-zero. Especially if you're a millennial.

The notable exception is the 1970s. And during that period of time, there were probably plenty of schools that still used fucking Dick and Jane. And plenty of schools that were starting to adopt Whole Language, because while it was popular in the 80's and 90's, it was developed before. So, Gen X, you didn't get out of this unscathed either, though you had a better chance of getting a phonics-based reading program, I think.

'Kids these days' are not less literate because they were taught wrong. A great deal of us who are alive and speak English as a first language were taught wrong.

(I also think this is the common way English as a Second Language is taught and I'm sorry if you learned sight words, it's so much less intuitive than phonics, and English phonics aren't particularly intuitive. But I know a lot less about this, and I'm not sure.)

The reason some younger people struggle with language and words that I, for example, don't, is that I've been reading and speaking the language a lot longer. That's it. That's likely the same thing for you.

Please quit mocking people for their lack of information, for a start. I don't blame you for not knowing this about the literacy programs, for example. I had to do a lot of research on this. Right? Odds are good, you didn't know this.

And you are hitting people who struggle with literacy for other reasons- English as a second language, for example. The people who deal with dyslexia, there's plenty of autistic people who struggle to communicate fluently in their first language, and many more people who struggle with learning, speaking, and otherwise communicating in English for a huge variety of reasons.

Even if you're right, you're hitting people who had no choice in the language method they were taught from. They were five.

I don't think people mean to be unkind, generally (some do, but we block and move on), but it's really frustrating to a lot of snark circulate without the greater context of 'actually, a lot of English speakers of all age groups were taught English this way, especially USAmericans' and 'hey, what does English literacy have to do with pronouncing a French word, anyway?'

Okay? Okay.

Love you bye

#literacy

[lasthaysileeshipper]

okay so this is the big gadge passage but like… I have a question. when haymitch teases katniss, she assumes he’s implying that there’s something going on between madge and gale, but we know katniss is the definition of an unreliable narrator. you know who ELSE delivers the strawberries to madge (and who madge has way better chemistry with)? KATNISS. isn’t it just as reasonable to say that haymitch could be implying something about madge’s feelings towards katniss? (yes ik peeta says ‘I didn’t know madge knew gale’ before this but… I’m just saying...)

like… is it really that big of a stretch? they notably “don’t talk about boys or other girls,” madge gives katniss a priceless family heirloom that carries a lot of emotional weight knowing full well she may never get it back, kisses katniss on the cheek before she leaves for the games, and then brings her mother’s expensive medicine to help katniss’s friend. she doesn’t call gale by his name, even though we know she knows it. she calls him katniss’s friend. I really don’t think it’s about gale specifically, I think madge would’ve brought the morphling regardless of if it was peeta, haymitch, or whoever else that’d been whipped, so long as they mattered to katniss.

one day I will write a long post about madniss, aka (one of) baby’s first hunger games ship(s). one day…

also sorry for the lack of posts recently, I’ve been shadowbanned since the 26th of July.

#madniss #katniss x madge #the hunger games #thg #katniss everdeen #madge undersee #once again if you do ship gadge that is fine #i just don’t see it personally #I’ve been freed from tumblr jail and now I must scream!

[canon-transgender-virgil]

ALRIGHT I HAVE SOME TIME SO LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS (also shut up i only noticed the typo when i was taking this screenshot-)

Okay, so I noticed a common theme in all the videos that orange (or Orange) is in: right after you see the color orange, you can see some form of shame or embarrassment in one of the characters.

Let me explain.

Let's take the flash card scene from Learning New Things About Ourselves.

As many people know, right when you see Logan crumple up the flashcard in his hand (like the upwards POV shot), you can see orange light coming from up the stairs. Many people (as I've pointed out, like, three times now) believe this to be the first time we see Orange show up.

Now, logically, many people take seeing the color orange show up when someone is visibly angry to mean that Orange is the representation of anger, but I think I disagree.

Look at Logan's face immediately after the flashcard hits Roman.

That's not anger. That face says a lot of things, but it doesn't say rage. It says, most notably, "I wish I hadn't done that".

AND! I can't believe I forgot about this but Logan literally says "I do regret throwing that paper at puppet Roman" in the Five Years Later episode! He says the words "I regret throwing the paper"!!

I'm going to get back to the Five Years Later video later but keep that in your mind.

I wouldn't put much thought into this if it was just a one off thing, but it's not - Logan's not even the only who exhibits this sort of behavior!

In Putting Others First, what is the first live action scene we see (that isn't the recap of course)?

That's orange. That is Thomas bathed in orange.

And again, Thomas may be angry here but this anger is mainly directed at himself for letting himself go to the wedding and not the callback!

Patton I feel is in the same boat, where he regrets or else is embarrassed by not being able to answer "Logan's" questions (for context here, Lilypadton's eyes are orange).

And then there's Working Through Intrusive Thoughts.

Logan was mad of course, but I think, once again, this is more so the regret of not putting his foot down earlier and making Thomas listen to him (hence the lashing out not thirty seconds before Thomas decides to abandon their plan).

Alright, on to a more solid bit of proof: the Five Years Later video.

There is a whole segment in this episode about C!Thomas and the other characters talking about their regrets.

Aside from the aforementioned Logan's regret of throwing the paper at Roman, there were some other notable reactions to this question:

Roman's regret of making Thomas go to the wedding in the first place (cementing my earlier point that that wasn't fully anger on Thomas's face but rather regret about the situation entirely) is a major one, but then there's Virgil's entire CVS receipt of a list (ranging from "boiled carrots" to "achieving consciousness" - mans is full of regret), to Roman's mirrored regret from Logan's about wishing he'd thrown something at Logan before Logan got the chance to throw the flashcard at him, to Janus's regret of "lack of attention to detail" (which, while unrelated to this discussion, I thought was an interesting point to make before the release of the season finale - hopefully we get to see more disguised Janus content in the finale? 👀👀 )

It's also interesting to note that in the Five Years Later video Remus is the only one who doesn't have any regrets about, you know, anything. That makes sense obviously in the context of who Remus is as a character but it also tracks that the one of the only characters who doesn't seem threatened or scared of the Orange Side has no regrets.

This is all I have for now, but if anyone would like to add on to this please do.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #ts logan #ts roman #ts patton #ts virgil #ts janus #ts remus #sanders sides theory #sanders sides theories #orange side theories #orange side theory #orange side #ts orange side #god it took me so long to get back to this draft i have a whole ass different name

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

the shroud parents

Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this for a while 🤔: “Why are the Shroud parents so warm and loving when the impression we had of them from Idia are so... negative?” And then I realized it’s very obviously because CHARACTERS CAN BE UNRELIABLE NARRATORS.

Like. That does NOT mean that what happened to the characters didn’t actually happen. The events very obviously DID happen as described (especially as it pertains to post-OB flashbacks), but it’s how the characters tell the information that paints the perception of events and how certain elements are presented or omitted entirely.

***Content warning: I briefly mention a few dark topics under the cut (including suicidal ideation and depression) and link to a related post on those topics!!***

As an example, let’s look at the Shroud parents. Idia previously described his grandma and dad as being very gloomy and negative people. He also says his parents as being the types to value results over their children’s feelings. We also notably do not see Mr. or Mrs. Shroud in Idia’s backstory flashback when he was going through a difficult patch of coping with Ortho’s death. This all led to us having an impression that the Shroud parents were cold, distant, calculating, and just overall not very good parents. Then we meet the parents in book 7 and Mrs. Shroud is SUPER bubbly, and both parents readily welcome Ortho as an official member of the family. It’s a huge juxtaposition which completely recontextualizes the information Idia previously gave us.

Idia is Mr. Doom and Gloom, a huge pessimist. It could be possible that he was greatly exaggerating elements of his parents’ personalities, usually when it pertains to them asking him to do something he doesn’t want to (ie pulling him out of school to research on his classmates). Alternatively, it’s implied that he barely left his room for two years following Ortho’s death. The lack of the Shroud parents in Idia’s flashback could indicate that as their own method of coping, they distanced themselves or they gave Idia space to heal on his own. Or maybe Idia was even the one who actively shut his parents out? It’s extremely possible, especially given that there are theories floating around that Idia’s memories and thoughts are greatly impacted by grief, depression, and/or suicidal ideation.

This makes me kind of want to go back and reevaluate all the other OB boys’ flashbacks and see just how much of the information could have been colored by the bias and the perspectives of the storytellers 🤔 POV actually adds a LOT to whatever is being told!! Like you can tell in Riddle’s flashback that even though he now knows his mom’s parenting has fucked him up, he doesn’t appear to hold any ill will toward her. He’s moreso confused and unsure how to proceed, feelings which are perfectly encapsulated by Riddle asking why his chest still hurts, even though he has followed every rule his mom has set for him. As a result, Riddle is shown to be a lot more hesitant and charitable to his mother compared to other people.

Interestingly, fans are quick to bypass Riddle’s own neutral telling of his story and demonize his mother (I think maybe because his circumstances are more relatable?), whereas with Idia he tells us the worst of his parents and it paints our ideas about the Shroud parents in accordance with Idia’s telling.

I also wonder if the fandom’s assumption that Leona’s whole country despises him or that Azul’s mom didn’t know about him being bullied is true at all??? Because if you think about it, Leona’s flashbacks only ever depicted palace servants talking badly about him, which are not representative of all of the Sunset Savanna. We don’t meet locals that speak badly of Leona in his hometown event either??? Then for Azul’s flashback, you can’t really take omission of information as confirmation of anything.

This line of thought also applies for the information the boys relay to us; how much of it is embellished or slightly altered in order to project a certain outward image to their peers? Especially considering how NRC is teeming with (mob) students ready to pounce on you if you seem weak??? It’s really interesting stuff to think about.

#Ignihyde #twst #Azul Ashengrotto #Leona Kingscholar #twisted wonderland #Riddle Rosehearts #Idia Shroud #Ortho Shroud #disney twisted wonderland #spoilers #notes from the writing raven #tw // depression #tw // suicide #tw // suicidal ideation

[cellarspider]

13/?? Science interlude!

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We return to Prometheus, where I am taking a break to ramble about my job. A thing that I love. It will be a nice change. Also: weird blood!

I have been informed that some methods of accessing tumblr do not play well with long alt text rambles. To keep the flow between the main text and alt text separate, I’ll be copying the longest ones below the main text and citations. Captions that I think are going to be long enough to need this treatment will be marked with “Overflow Ramble [number]”, so they’ll be slightly easier to find. It’s not a perfect system, but Tumblr is not a perfect website.

And I am going to need the overflow space this time, because we’re getting into genetics!

After electrocuting a decapitated alien head until it exploded into a shower of green gore, the creatures that claim to be scientists stuck a bit of the goop in some sort of very science-y DNA machine, leading to this:

“Let's have a look at its DNA. Isolate the strand. Okay. Compare it to the gene sample?”

“[Overlay… Processing… Processing… DNA MATCH.]”

“Oh, my God. It's us.”

I want this preserved for posterity, because this made me absolutely hoot. They avoided fake science technobabble by going so far in the other direction that it becomes equally meaningless.

What the scene is trying to say is “this alien shares the vast majority of its genetic material with humans, indicating that they are in fact related.” 

I will get to how one would actually determine that, but first: The head turned into green goop. Green goop. Humans are notably not prone to turning into green goop. Otherwise Nickelodeon would’ve probably been shut down within a week.

(Image credit: Rich Fury/KCA2021/Getty Images for Nickelodeon)

This annoyed me so much that years later, I dug up a possible explanation that backfills this with cool biology.

Humans, and almost all vertebrates have hemoglobin-filled blood. And on a tangent that I must follow: The only vertebrate that doesn’t is the icefish Channichthyidae family, commonly known as the white-blooded fish. 

You’ll never guess what’s special about them. 

Yes, somehow these fish manage to live without hemoglobin, their blood only having 10% of the oxygen carrying capacity of their red-blooded cousins. Hell, most of them also lack myoglobin, which stores oxygen in muscle. The loss of myoglobin isn’t just a one-off event either, genetic studies have shown that these icefish have seen four distinct branches of their family tree lose myoglobin independently of each other. They have a wild series of adaptations to permit this, but basically they were already in such cold-oxygen rich water and moving so slow that they didn’t need all that extra oxygen-having stuff. They lost it, kept going, got bigger hearts, weirder muscles, and just kept going. They’ve actually expanded their range in the past 30 million years or so!

I love them! Evolution is wild. You know what’s also wild? There’s green-blooded vertebrates. Yes. You read that right. Yes, they still have hemoglobin. What they also have are staggering levels of biliverdin, which human bodies only produce when breaking down hemoglobin–when a bruise takes on a greenish hue, it’s because the dismantling of the blood under your skin has created biliverdin. While it’s generally been thought of as just a breakdown product, some research suggests that it also has protective effects against a number of diseases. In moderation, though. If you have enough of it to actually turn a bit green, you’ve got jaundice, which is not a thing you want to have. 

But for a number of fish species, bush frogs, and skinks, they have way more biliverdin. 

(Austin, C. C., & Jessing, K. W. (1994). Green-blood pigmentation in lizards. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Physiology, 109(3), 619-626.)

Humans usually don’t have much circulating biliverdin at all, so the table above compares someone with untreated jaundice to a number of other species–fish with two to fourteen times that amount, and the green-blooded skinks have twenty-two times as much! These creatures have green blood and turquoise-colored bones, and we still don’t know why. Maybe it’s protection against diseases, maybe it’s protection against parasites like malaria, maybe it’s to make them really blend in with foliage. Could be all of those at once, could be none of them, we don’t know! What we do know is that, as with the icefish, the green-blooded skinks in particular have independently evolved this feature four different times. (Rodriguez, Z. B., Perkins, S. L., & Austin, C. C. (2018). Multiple origins of green blood in New Guinea lizards. Science Advances, 4(5), eaao5017.)

(https://australian.museum/blog-archive/amri-news/amri-three-tiny-green-blooded-frogs-sing-like-birds/) 

(https://web.archive.org/web/20180619143048/https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/09/30/why-do-mysterious-lizards-have-green-blood/) 

We have no mammals identified with biliverdin-filled green blood, you would need a lot of tweaks to how our bodies function to make this work. But it’s not literally impossible, like I thought in the theater! I’m quite sure the prop department didn’t do this level of research on the subject, but think about it! 

I love biology! It’s! So! Weird!

And because I love biology, you’re not getting rid of me yet. My chosen field is genetics. This movie has presented me with a laughable sci-fi depiction of what we do. 

So! What do we actually do, when we want to find out how related we are to another species?

I’m going to get into excruciating detail, so here’s the top-line summary: We extract the DNA, mash it up into readable little chunks, use some wicked cool machines to do the actual reading, and then we compare the target DNA with our DNA, and do some cooler stuff the movie isn’t aware of. A competent analysis would not only be able to tell you how much overlap two genomes have, but also be able to estimate how long the two species have been genetically distinct. 

Is this way more than the movie needed for this plot point? Yes. But they didn’t actually have to do this at all, they could’ve just said the truth that science fiction usually ignores for budgetary reasons: “there’s no way these beings independently evolved to look so much like us, we have to be related.” 

(Although even Star Trek, despite being the classic example of “putting a rubber thing on an actor’s forehead to make them an alien”, actually does acknowledge this. Precisely once. TNG s6e20, “The Chase”. It has never been mentioned again in the main line series, possibly because Rick Berman didn’t like it.)

Now. Time for me to take you all on a grand tour of DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. You are all getting into the Willy Wonka boat with me. You have no choice.

So! You have a sample you’ve taken from a non-human mammal, one that’s never been genetically analyzed before. You are very lucky. You get to do fun stuff.

But before you get to sequencing, you have to purify any DNA in the sample. Your sample is full of all sorts of other biochemical gunk, and when cells are happy, DNA is packed away in the nucleus–you need to crack those open to get at the DNA. 

Next, you need to break the DNA into chunks, that’s #1 on the diagram above. For most of the past twenty years, this has meant chunking DNA down into pieces 25-50 letters long–just enough to probably get something unique over most of the genome, though you will have some areas that look identical at that tiny scale. In recent times, we’ve been getting better and better at what’s called “long read sequencing”, which at this point means fragments of several thousand DNA letters in length–though that’s still pretty short, compared to human chromosomes though: the average length of a human chromosome is 134 million letters long.

Depending on the sequencing technology and its needs, the sample may also need “amplification”: getting copied over and over using a protein originally harvested from hotspring-loving bacteria (#2). I always love that bit just as a concept: it’s one of many places where the modern study of genetics uses the microscopic, biological machinery of proteins for our own use! 

After everything’s prepared, Then the sequencing itself can occur. That too is wild–the most common versions these days use tiny little fluorescent proteins to tag each letter of the DNA and read the sequence of lights (#3!). Some use infinitesimally tiny electrical modulations as DNA passes by a microscopic reader. There’s loads of different ways, anything works, so long as it can be read by a computer.

All this takes place in machines that are either small enough to fit on a countertop, or big enough to look like a fridge, and come in Apple White or Cheap Plastic Appliance.

Because you have a new species, you’re building what we call a reference genome. This tries to capture as much of the entire genome sequence as possible. Here’s an interesting wrinkle, though–A lot of samples won’t be just DNA from your target species! You might be picking up microbial DNA along the way as well. That can be really interesting and worth knowing about, though! Some people spend their whole careers studying the genomes of microbes found on people’s skin, or in their bodies. You’ll be computationally sorting out which sequences are in contiguous, mammalian chromosomes, which are from mitochondrial DNA (those cute little powerhouses have their own genomes!), and which come from microbes.

At the end of it, you have sequenced an entire genome. Because you want to find out how related it is to humans, you compare it to our reference genome–The human reference genomes we use is an assembly made from multiple individuals.* We use the reference genome as a common point of comparison that we refer to when studying genetic variation.

*Though if you’re working with data form the Genome Reference Consortium as is usually standard, one anonymous African-European donor, RP11, is still the backbone of the reference, accounting for 70% of the latest assembly.

(https://mk.bcgsc.ca/telomere-to-telomere-human-genome-assembly/posters.mhtml)

So, we’d compare this new mammalian genome to our own–how much overlap would we find? A lot. How you define our similarities and differences from other species can change the answer, but you’ll expect a lot of overlap. Some areas of the genome diverge faster than others, others are highly conserved–generally the more stable it is, the more important it is for our function. 

Through many, many, many studies and corroboration with the archaeological record, we’ve worked out how to estimate how long ago two species diverged from each other. Actually, you’d rarely be comparing between just two species at this stage–get out all the other relevant reference genomes you’ve got! Compare them all! Build a phylogenetic tree–the modern version of that “tree of life” idea that Darwin popularized. Then you’ll have a more accurate sense of how your mystery species relates to everything.

(https://www.embl.org/news/science/a-new-tree-of-life-allows-a-closer-look-at-the-origin-of-species/) 

I’m going to go off on a tangent to end this post, because that’s just the start, taking the entire genome of a single individual. This is what most people think is what we always do. But no! That’s expensive overkill for most experiments. Once you’re familiar with a species, and you’ve sequenced DNA from many individuals, you can identify areas where lots of them have sequence variants. These can be completely benign, differences that make us all unique, or make an individual more susceptible to disease. This allows us to target what we want out of DNA sequencing: Are we trying to diagnose an illness? Identify a person from a tissue sample? Or are we doing something more exploratory?

Depending on what you want, you select anywhere from a handful of locations, up to tens of thousands. The closest many people have gotten to this stuff is through ancestry services like 23andMe, which uses this kind of sequencing.

But that’s not all! There’s so many different targets to choose from, depending on what you want to do! So many techniques to get DNA in different ways! And we still haven’t gotten to the part that I actually work on.

I’m a computational geneticist. I get all the gigabytes of data that comes out of these experiments and I get to dig into the details, the patterns that emerge between genetic code and the details of the organisms we study, the connections between genome sequence and other, wilder things we can collect data on, the dizzying complexities of what goes on every microsecond of every day in every cell in your body.

I love my job. 

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Citations for alt-text rambles:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_YuTMDkWfI 2. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.116129 note: this source lists the image as credit to “J.M.B.”, which is not how I’m used to seeing images credited. Those are the initials of one of the authors, but I thought it meant “Journal of Molecular Biology”, so I went on a half hour wander around the internet trying to find where the hell this fish blood came from. 3. https://www.thebhs.org/publications/the-herpetological-journal/volume-13-number-4-october-2003/1729-01-hyperbiliverdinemia-in-the-shingleback-lizard-tiliqua-rugosa 4. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0264.2009.00952.x 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrill#Characteristics 6. https://www.vogue.com/article/dune-part-two-costumes-jacqueline-west-interview 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.29564.08327 8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357946568_New_approaches_and_concepts_to_study_complex_microbial_communities 9. https://karobben.github.io/2023/10/30/Bioinfor/PacBio/ 

Overflow Ramble 1

 the fuckin “DNA MATCH” machine. I already wrote a 380-word alt-text about this thing last time. I’m not doing it again. I’m going to talk about things I like instead. Such as Dune: Part Two! Yes! I mentioned it last week and then didn’t ramble about it after seeing it. Well, NOW I WILL. tl;dr it’s good, go see it. I only vaguely remember the book, but I liked the changes they made to center the fact that no, Paul becoming Lisan al-Gaib is not actually a good thing.

Man, it’s nice to see a movie where the costumers and set designers got good time to work on their craft. (cite 6) Even the generic Harkonnen soldiers looked great–reminded me a lot of my beloved Warframe, probably because the costume designer was using H.R. Giger for inspiration there. Everything felt real. Even the stuff that definitely wasn’t–the gigantic spice harvesters and ships felt like living, physically present beings. The sand worms looked great. The movie did a fantastic job visually communicating the massive size of so many things. Especially because the camera remains restrained: no weightless zipping around, the camera itself follows paths and finds locations that make sense. 

Chakobsa continues to be a fantastic conlang, now the work of both David and Jesse Peterson. It’s heard a lot more in this movie, and there are some great flourishes with it. While there isn’t as much Arabic vocabulary in it as in the original books, I remember from DJP’s work streams that he definitely was using the grammar of Arabic as one of his touchstones. Most key words remain Arabic though–jihad was removed, but it made me double-take in the theater when Stilgar referred to Paul as the Mahdi.

I’m of two minds about lowering the Arab influences on the Fremen–on the one hand, missing representation, which included some explicit ties to real world anti-imperial struggles in North Africa and the Middle East. On the other, these first two movies are about how the Fremen are manipulated by a colonial power, using their adherence to a faith that was manipulated by a different colonial power. They become both hapless victims and also perpetrators of colonial violence, with only Chani seeing through it.

I think the general decisionmaking process on cultural changes was motivated by a desire to remove some of Frank Herbert’s bad ideas–particularly around the Harkonnens, thank fuck. That seems to have been the thinking around altering the Fremen a bit as well. Did it succeed? Not my place to say. On all other notes, I have no reservations recommending the movie. It’s a very earnest attempt to bring that world to life, and I think it succeeds.

Overflow Ramble 2

A figure showing the basic steps of the standard Illumina sequencing method (cite 7). It is broken into four sub-figures:

Library Preparation. The genome is snipped into small fragments, then adapters are attached (“ligated”) to stabilize the molecule and make it behave. This creates a “library” of DNA that will be read from.

DNA library bridge amplification. The adapters on DNA fragments stick to a prepared plate, which is covered in little clusters of molecules that specially attach to those adapters. Biochemical processes are then carried out in repeated cycles to duplicate (or “amplify”) those fragments in such a way that the clusters on the plate are all filled with copies of just one DNA fragment.

DNA library sequencing. The DNA is modified so that the four letters it’s made out of all glow a specific color, with each DNA letter shining in sequence. This is pure awesome and I love it.

Alignment and data analysis. Because of some details on how step 1 is done, you have lots of fragments that create an overlapping patchwork of sequences. This allows (most of) the genome to be pasted back together by looking for overlaps (“contiguous sequences”, or “contigs” for short).

Congratulations! You have just attended an abridged graduate-level introductory lecture on Illumina sequencing.

Overflow Ramble 3

A diagram of PacBio Systems’ sequencing technology, Single Molecule, Real-Time Sequencing, or SMRT Sequencing, because scientists love acronyms. Pretty much every step is different from how Illumina does it. I cannot find a diagram that’s both brief and also good at explaining what it’s showing, so this is the best I could find. It’s split into four parts with attendant text, which I’ll try and explain as well.

“SMRTbell template. Two hairpin adapters allow continuous circular sequencing.”

Library preparation basically involves taking a longer chunk of DNA and splitting it in half lengthwise, in such a way that the two strands of DNA will form a single-stranded loop. This is called a SMRTbell library. Why? I have no idea! 

“ZMW wells. Sites where sequencing takes place.”

Then, these are fed into SMRT Cells, which contain zero-mode waveguides (ZMWs). I was once told what this means, and I have completely forgotten, but it sounds like something from Gundam.

“Modified polymerase. As a nucleotide is incorporated by the polymerase, a camera records the emitted light.”

What I do understand is that at the bottom of each of these little holes, they stick a molecule which the DNA sticks to. This molecule, a polymerase, has precisely one job: make more DNA, an exact copy of what it’s latched onto. So you give it this loop of DNA, feed it a soup of free DNA letters, and it starts cranking out a new strand. 

“PacBio output. A camera records the changing colours from all ZMWs; each colour change corresponds to one base.”

Each one of the DNA letters given to the polymerase has a special modifier, on it which flashes a color when the polymerase slots it into the new strand it’s making. A camera picks up this flash. And, because the DNA is a circle, the polymerase doesn’t know where to stop–it just keeps going and going until something breaks or it runs out of letters to work with. This means that even if the camera misses a flash the first time, it will have more chances to see it, and confirm what it already saw.

Wait what in the fuck this figure was from somebody’s thesis (cite 8), but that wasn’t what actually got this into search results. What got it there was a github page with a vtuber avatar sitting in the corner?? What??? (cite 9)

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#Prometheus 2012 #Prometheus (2012) #I go rogue and refuse to talk about the movie #or rather I spend 4600 words talking about a quarter of a scene as a springboard to talk about my job and how cool it is #I kind of envy people who work on wild population genetics #but also their sample sizes are tiny and bad for my particular specialty #so I'm giving a broad overview on how reference genome assembly works and I've only ever done phylogenetics on intraspecific variants #yes this is how much I talk about bits of my job that aren't even directly my job #because working in genetics is SO COOL #tomorrow we'll be back to analyzing inexplicable characters and androids poisoning people don't worry

[human-sweater-vest]

okay so we’ve seen glenn and ron so far in season two and they’ve been kind of what I expected.

glenn is pretty much the same as he was season one. it makes sense, he’s set in his whole thing, he’s vibing in hell with morgan and is sporting the same chill stoner vibes as before. the notable thing with him was that there wasn’t really animosity between him and nick (which also makes sense given their whole deal in season one). he’s always been far removed and it makes sense that in season two he’s still rockin with it.

ron then was a really touching surprise because he continued to grow as a person (insert beth may snickering here). he connected easily with scary and hit me like a fucking freight train with the line about him being sorry that she didn’t realize that losing terry jr. was her loss too. he’s this strange intermediary between the men in their family because willy took advantage of her needing someone to validate her pain, terry jr. was seen as a cause of it and therefore couldn’t help ease it truly (until things were too late), and then ron is here being his odd little self and extends sympathy to her because he also lost terry jr. and can understand. kudos to beth for ep. 41 because she rode the line between comedy and genuinely heartfelt and deep emotional moments like a champ.

and now here’s where we turn to speculation:

I’ve seen a lot of folks saying they’re worried about henry (and I feel like he’s probably going to warrant that because duh, it all comes back to the oak family when it comes to the doodler). however! my first point here is that we shouldn’t ignore darryl.

I feel like we see the most thought going into the oaks (and again, rightfully so, will and anthony are serving us trauma and drama on a platter) and I think one of the sacrifices with that comes at the extent of the wilson boys. the darryl/grant arc was the first time I really, truly got what dndads was all about. specifically, matt’s incredible line where darryl is replying to the other dads saying that he should showcase vulnerability to grant with darryl snapping and saying that he can’t be fully honest because he’s putting on a brave face because he doesn’t know if they’ll make it out and if he and carol will even stay together if they do. that line then contrasted later when he says that if grant asks him a question he’ll do his best to answer truthfully which allows for the big emotional connection they were lacking.

the wilson father/son relationship hinges on the idea of not being able to love the pain away and we see that extend into the next generation in a deeply tragic way. grant can’t make his mental illness magically disappear by loving his son despite how badly he clearly wants to. he can’t “we’ll talk about it later” his way into a healthy relationship where he’s able to offer his son both stability and truth. he’s fucked up and traumatized and never fully dealt with things and he’s dealing with the ramifications.

so how do we think darryl feels about that? how do we think darryl would feel knowing that he couldn’t love away grant’s mental illness (which isn’t something you can do, but he feels immensely guilty about in season one) and seeing the disastrous effect it had on the relationship between his son and grandson to the point where linc no longer refers to him as a dad? I personally really do think that he’ll act as a balm between the two and finally provide that space for them to become father and son again.

there’s truly so much I could say on the wilson family because I’m fascinated by the transition between the most stereotypically masculine family dynamic to a queered one (in both senses of the world) and how the thru line for the generations is this idea of not being able to 1. disclose the truth out of a sense of protection (see: frank hiding his marital and monetary issues, darryl hiding his martial issues and fear of not surviving faerun, and grant hiding who he is and what he does) and 2. love away the pain/illness.

and now we turn to the oak boys. I’m operating on the assumption that henry will be the last dad that they seek out because 1. glenn and terry jr. are in the same spot which means we get a two for one combo deal in hell 2. lark and sparrow clearly have a bad or at the very least strained relationship with their dad and will be less likely to jump on seeking him out and 3. the oak family started the whole doodler thing in this show so it makes sense that they’ll end it.

and for the sake of transparency: here’s where my bias comes through. henry was my favorite season one dad. normal is my favorite season two kid. will campos if you’re reading this, I want you to know that if I could simultaneously give you an academy award and sue you for emotional damages, I would.

the oaks have the most literal device explaining their generational trauma. hildy was ripped from her world after her companions were brutally killed in front of her, barry is a piece of shit, henry has the weight of both his father and having to be a father despite not having a role model, lark and sparrow are fucked up beyond belief in a manner of ways that starts at fucking their twin’s spouse and ends with starting the literal apocalypse. and then there’s normal. bearing the brunt of it all when he wasn’t even given the support to. he’s been carrying the weight of expectation since birth. his sister is hero, he’s normal and yet he’s anything but. that’s a whole other essay (catch me writing that when it’s not 2am).

back to the twins and henry though. from their view it’s bad right? lark hates his dad and destroyed the world. sparrow was an accomplice. I can’t imagine that things were easy after the doodler was released in the oak-garcia household. ESPECIALLY — and this has had me uncomfortable since we learned it offhand in episode 29 of the season — because henry and mercedes had another kid. first things first (and this might just be a me and my cultural background thing), but a minimum decade age gap between your first and second kids is A Lot. especially given the context here that henry struggles with being a father for the aforementioned reasons and his children literally Ended The World. I dunno about you but I think that I’d avoid having more kids at pretty much all costs at that point. but he and mercedes don’t. and hey maybe birdie/birdy was an accident. but my suspicion here (and I very much might be reading too deep into something mentioned in a literal “see you again” parody) is that birdie was a second chance kid. which would fucking blow if you were the aforementioned dad-stabbing—eldritch-creature-releasing child because it would look like your dad had gone “okay well that didn’t work out I can’t find a way to make these kids work so let’s try another one” which would justify the distance and dislike of henry from both of the boys.

I’m a very big fan of henry. he’s fucked up in the exact way I like my fictional men and also reminds me of guys from the city I grew up in which is both appalling and endearing. however, this is absolutely a move I could see him justifying to himself which morally makes me wanna walk into the sea and from a character/story standpoint makes me wanna jump up and down in glee. I really, truly am hoping that things pan out like that and we see a henry who loves his beautiful boys very deeply, but also gave up on them in exchange for a do-over.

I’m especially excited to see how he interacts with normal because my first instinct based on season one without my fucked up and evil birdie theory is that he’ll love normal and make him feel special and seen while my second post-birdiegate instinct is that he’s just not going to care anymore and therefore do fuck-all for normal. he has the energy of a man who eventually just stops trying because he can’t ever make everything better. will campos, if you deliver on that, I’ll figure out how to sneak the oak family into an academic paper.

finally (for now), I’m predicting that the familial reunions will reflect the how the anchors broke. glenn, ron, and darryl will be love while henry will be hate. I think there’s a lot of possibility there that I can break down when it’s not almost 3am. thanks for reading! lmk what you think, I really want to discuss this with folks and get your takes!!

#yes! the formatting is whack! I’ll clean it in the morning! #dndads #oh dndads you make me so silly #I sit down and go hmm I like the new arc set up and suddenly it’s two hours later and I’ve written 1500 words about it #sponsored by adhd and brain rot #dungeons and daddies #big ol ramblings on #henry oak #lark oak #sparrow oak #darryl wilson #grant wilson #if any of the daddies see this #know that my promise at the end to will is true and I’ll go through with it and @ y’all #dndads season 2 #gonna trademark birdiegate #cheers