*it’s the finals for tournament 2 but don’t forget the winner has to face the tournament 1 winner

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Nathaniel J. Northland- Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites by Joy Demorra

Lady Ursula- Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites by Joy Demorra

Wei Wuxian- Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

once more around the sun!! :3

it mattered because when my brother asked me what if this is the happiest you'll ever be? the best you'll ever get? the thing i felt was fear, not peace. everybody thought you were so perfect for me. even i thought you were "helping me grow". i had to challenge every internal clock. make myself more thoughtful, more kind, more beautiful.

i told my therapist it was good because i like the changes i made and there's something so strong about saying i did that. the problem is that i can like the difference all i want, but i changed for you. something akin to getting your name tattooed, all my progress is stamped with fuck you.

it was the happiest i'd ever been and also the best i'd ever gotten. i would still get in the car and think what the fuck just happened.

so aisha just tweeted this....

and im looking at those last two emojis 😐😳....

and i remember that lou said this....

...and this....

...

...what does it MEAN??

:D I love Nicky so much

I'll be making these into (handmade) stickers and will be giving them out for FREE at both the upcoming Elfia event and at Heroes Dutch Comic Con (summer edition)

I actually don't think anyone from the Netherlands follows me on here but uuuhh if you do plan on going to one/both events, keep an eye out for someone in a badly made Taylor cosplay and you will be granted with one of these bad bois >:)

STRANGE NEW WORLDS

2x07 // Those Old Scientists

the gorgug-porter conversation is interesting to me because like. yea for the overwhelming majority of the conversation porter’s being shitty & trying to fit gorgug into a box that gorgug just does not fit into by trying to make gorgug’s relationship with his rage more focused on the aggression aspect of it. but then there’s also this specific thing that brennan brought up again in the ap, which is that gorgug’s relationship with his rage is wholly “this is a tool i use to protect my friends.” which isn’t a bad thing! but that’s his Whole relationship with it, & gorgug seems to place next to no value on his rage in relationship to himself. which is problematic, because it’s first & foremost his rage.

being raised in a household with a sort of toxic positivity largely meant that, whether or not it was his parents’ intention, gorgug internalized the message that more traditionally “negative” emotions such as anger are the wrong response to something. part of the reason he prioritizes his artificing is probably because it’s “fixing” things. in comparison to being a barbarian, which gorgug associates with “breaking” things. good vs. bad behavior, in his eyes.

it’s a totally unacceptable bar to measure a 16 y/o by, but i do think part of porter’s reasoning for not letting gorgug multiclass is him recognizing that gorgug generally does not value anger as a valid emotional response to something, at the very least for himself. & that directly conflicts with what being a barbarian is, because whether you like it or not, that rage is what fuels you. but again, barring a kid from pursuing something they deeply care about in part (not entirely, porter has a lot of more bullshit reasons) because of their fundamental values & world outlook is crazy.

so yes, 98% of porter’s reasoning is pretty shitty, immature, rife with a toxic view that there’s only one proper way to access rage, & generally not a good thing to do as a teacher, but also within that reasoning is the 2% of ‘there is a fundamental part of yourself that you only value if you can use it to take care of other people & you need to accept that as something that can take care of you, too.’ but that’s something to discuss with a therapist or a guidance counselor, not something that should hugely impact gorgug’s academic future.

Birthday boy at the bottom of an ancient ocean

Keep thinking about how time in Frieren is measured in years since Himmel's death. The fact that at this point in the anime, he's been dead far longer than Frieren travelled with him, and yet, that's still how she relates time to this world.

My thoughts on how the Milgram mv machine works based on the evidence we have:

(I know there’s been discussion about where exactly the interrogations take place, but wherever they are,) the prisoners are made to sit in a specific chair near the wall that houses the machine.

It’s ordinarily hidden, but the wall panels shift aside to reveal it when the mechanical sounds play in the dramas. As well as the walls moving, the chair transforms to restrain the prisoner and attach whatever it takes to access their brain. The fact that none of the more frightened prisoners try to run or break it makes it seem like they physically cannot. This is why Fuuta sounds so panicked, and why Amane is suddenly helpless in front of Es in their T1 vds.

(My mind conjures very classic sci-fi mad scientist machines with wires, pipes, lights, nodes, needles, etc, but I’d love to hear how other people visualize it.)

In some vds (maybe all? I’d need to check,) you can hear Es take some steps right before their iconic line -- it would make sense that for safety reasons, the power mechanism is placed across the room. Once again it could be anything, but the sound effect makes me think of one of those giant wall-mounted levers you have to pull down.

The voice dramas don’t really provide the type of crime details that an actual interrogation would reveal, and it’s odd that they’re placed before the extraction rather than after Es gets to see the new details. This leads me to believe the machine functions with priming. All Es needs to do is get them talking about their murder, so it’s on their mind.

The video produced is much like a (non-lucid) dream. Even if the prisoners figure out that this is how it works, they can’t control it just by thinking really hard about something else. The murders produce the strongest emotional affect, and that’s what it picks up on. If someone else used the machine, it would default to whatever gave them the strongest emotional reaction in the ~15 minutes beforehand, hence why Es’ video focuses on their daunting task ahead. (The Undercover theory is still a bit loose, though, given the private shots that Es wouldn't have known about). It’s why the videos are usually closely linked to the vd topics/beats. I also like to think that the reason their prisoner colors appear so much is because they’re looking at those colors on their uniform 24/7.

The bell rings to inform Es that it’s the optimal time to use the machine -- the prisoner has been thinking about things for long enough that the video will be about their crime, and if the conversation lasts much longer they’ll start thinking of other things. It’s at a different time for each prisoner because it’s based on the specific conversation. I guess Jackalope is listening in to the interrogation, timing it perfectly. (The only one that kind of messes with this theory is Yonah, because they just keep talking afterwards lol, but it could just show that the interrogation is still in Es’ control.)

Their “Sing your sins” is the final priming nudge to get them to think of their actions as a sin, revealing their guilt.

Once activated, the prisoner enters a sort of trance/sleeping state. It’s very much like REM sleep, with the machine forcibly activating neurons and recording the output. The prisoners have asked Es what they saw, meaning they don’t remember the mvs. I like to think the prisoners do experience the mv in real time, acting as the major version of themself that appears, but can’t remember it afterwards. It’s when you experience a dream, but as soon as you wake up you’re just left with fleeting emotions and memories right on the tip of your tongue.

The video plays immediately upon extraction -- whether on a huge projection or little screen depends on which room it’s in. It simultaneously saves the memory so that Es can rewatch it later (on those old TVs in the jailbreak mix). The machine downloads the song and video together, but requires special parts to retrieve them. The technology is pretty new and fragile, so if one is broken, there might be a delay between when Es can hear the extracted song and see it with the video. (That’s my justification for Kotoko’s delays -- after 9 prisoners the parts wear out, or maybe Mikoto himself overheats it with his complex situation.)

Based on the lack of conversation we get afterwards, I picture Es leaving before the prisoner wakes from the trance. The machine adjusts their brain back to normal before they awaken, restraints freed and able to return to the rest of the prison.

It’s very much like a dream, so it’s not harmful despite the amnesia/head injuries the prisoners have. It does, however, exhaust them. Brain activity alone takes a lot of energy, so forced brain activity with added emotional strain would cause them to feel pretty drained the rest of the day.

.

Warrior Nun 1x1