it is all chaos and entropy. the thing is that the chaos and entropy make it beautiful and lovely.
yes, it's true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is terrifying. i have lived through some of the unfairness - i got born like this, with my body caving into itself, with this ironic love of dance when i sometimes can't stand up for longer than 15 minutes. i am a poet with hands that are slowly shutting down - i can't hold a pen some days. recently i found a dead bird on our front porch. she had no visible injuries. she had just died, the way things die sometimes.
it is also true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is wonderful. the sheer happenstance that makes rain turn into a rainbow. the impossible coincidence of finding your best friend. i have made so many mistakes and i have let myself down and i have harmed other people by accident. nature moves anyway. on the worst day of my life she delivers me an orange juice sunset, as if she is saying try again tomorrow.
how vast and unknowing the universe! how small we are! isn't that lovely. the universe has given us flowers and harp strings and the shape of clouds. how massive our lives are in comparison to a grasshopper. the world so bright, still undiscovered. even after 30 years of being on this earth, i learned about a new type of animal today: the dhole.
chance echoing in my life like a harmony between two people talking. do you think you and i, living in different worlds but connected through the internet - do you think we've ever seen the same butterfly? they migrate thousands of miles. it's possible, right?
how beautiful the ways we fill the vastness of space. i love that when large amounts of people are applauding in a room, they all start clapping at the same time. i love that the ocean reminds us of our mother's heartbeat. i love that out of all the colors, chlorophyll chose green. i love the coincidences. i love the places where science says i don't know, but it just happens.
"the universe doesn't care about you!" oh, i know. that's okay. i care about the universe. i will put my big stupid heart out into it and watch the universe feast on it. it is not painful. it is strange - the more love you pour into the unfeeling world, the more it feels the world loves you in return. i know it's confirmation bias. i think i'm okay if my proof of kindness is just my own body and my own spirit.
i buried the bird from our porch deep in the woods. that same day, an old friend reaches out to me and says i miss you. wherever you go, no matter how bad it gets - you try to do good.
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"Mano po."
Pagmamano (Tagalog) - "honouring-gesture;" a sign of respect towards elders
A continuation of sorts, of this other drawing I made of the Feänorians, which was roughly inspired by Filipino culture. I originally planned on completing this for @nolofinweanweek, specifically the first prompt about how Fingolfin and Feänor's families got along, but life got in the way and I didn't finish it in time. More background/my long rambles under the cut:
Pagmamano - touching the back of an elder's hand on one's forehead - is not restricted to family, but it's usually done in the context of elder family members. I have many memories of attending family reunions and being told to follow the other kids to "mano po" a grandfather, aunt, or uncle. While Elves don't have elderly relatives, per se, I thought this image was too fun not to draw. Also, I love envisioning Feänor as that cool uncle who gives the most amazing gifts but like, the kids are intimidated by him, so they have to be told (and supervised) by their parents to line up and greet him properly. Fingolfin's just standing there making sure his kids all greet their uncle. (Maedhros, presumably having already finished his greetings, is sidetracking Fingon.)
All this to say, I think that these guys didn't have the perfect relationship. But. You can't convince me Finwë didn't get the whole family together from time to time on some sort of family reunion camping trip. And Feänor just has to begrudgingly tolerate it because he can't say no to his dad. While the kids, obviously, have a great time.
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Jazz becoming the next big Gothem villain is such a solid concept. Theres so much to explore.
She targets corrupt mental institutions. Corrupt companies who destroy their workers state of mind so they wont quit. She attacks landlords who make it impossible for people to live comfortably.
She is the staple anti-hero of anyone struggling to get back on their feet. People should have to work three jobs just to afford a crappy one bedroom, no utilities, half bath, in crime alley apartment, with a roommate.
Shelters should be aiming to gain a profit instead of using the donations to support others.
She is tired of these big name heros leaving children to clean up messes. She has watcher her own brother wither away to a shell of his former self trying to make a change and she is sick of it. Hell she herself is a child but if this is what it takes, then this is what it takes.
Enter from the left The Manipulator™️
Feared by all corrupt. People think she has mind control or something. When she targets someone they make almost a full 180 in their ways. “She will do anything to get her way or to make people into what she thinks they should be. And she mist be stopped” cries big business.
In reality she is the worlds best damn psychiatrist ever to be known. She doesn’t force anyone to change but gives them the choice to be better. To see how much more they can be. And it terrifies them. Helps them find themselves again and to move past their troubling pasts. No force and no mind control. No manipulating. No one but those who she has helped know the truth but when they tell the truth it only fuels the fire of her being controlling.
Theres one thing also fuelling the flames of mind control. Thats the fact that every single major hero to go after her can’t. Any who approach her find themselves no long near her. Superman just wants to talk, well she doesn’t, and he is then back in his city?!? Batman is stalking her to figure out how to deal with her but once he gets too close he suddenly finds himself in the batcave?
At first they think it’s teleportation but time is passing? Theres video feed and tracking of no they just went back themselves. No response from them the whole trip. As if possessed. (Lmao it’s just good brother danny pranking his sis a little by making her seem all powerful but also protecting her anyway he can. Or could be Dan instead)
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Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.
G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.
An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........
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