THEY TURNED GERUDO DESERT INTO AUSTRALIA AND SHIPPED OFF ALL THEIR CRIMINALS THERE AFTER TAKING DOWN A DARK SKINNED KING GANONDORF HOLY SHIT
The most telling thing though, and I am not sure whether they intended this or not, but the Gerudo are conspicuously not mentioned in Wind Waker. Ganondorf, and Nabooru’s stained glass window, are the only two pieces of evidence they ever existed.
Not to mention, the only thing beneath the sea is Hyrule. According to Daphnes, anyway. Death Mountain isn’t its own thing. the Zora’s domain isn’t its own thing. the Desert isn’t its own thing.
nah man
it’s all Hyrule
Link and Tetra will never know otherwise. Daphnes, even as he destroyed Hyrule itself, made sure that it would always dominate historically. he got to define that Hyrule owned everything before the end.
DON’T LISTEN TO GANONDORF POURING HIS HEART OUT AND NOT KILLING YOU
IT’S A TRICK HE’S EVIL HE’S LULLING YOU INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY
STAB HIM
BURY THE EVIDENCE
NOW BUILD A NEW HYRULE AND SINGS SONGS ABOUT HOW GREAT AND FAIR THE OLD ONE WAS FOR EVERYBODY
*go build a new Hyrule on land that’s already occupied by somebody, colonize
YEAH FUCK THOSE STUPID TRAIN LOOKING MOFOS
ANNEX THE SHIT OUT OF THAT LAND
and remember, hylians are descended from divinity, heirs to the heavens and the Goddess’ providence. Your monarchy is infallibly Good and Divine. You have to protect the land from, uh, demons! Narratives like this have never gone poorly in history. Never.
Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.
Arepo built a temple in his field, a humble thing, some stones stacked up to make a cairn, and two days later a god moved in.
“Hope you’re a harvest god,” Arepo said, and set up an altar and burnt two stalks of wheat. “It’d be nice, you know.” He looked down at the ash smeared on the stone, the rocks all laid askew, and coughed and scratched his head. “I know it’s not much,” he said, his straw hat in his hands. “But – I’ll do what I can. It’d be nice to think there’s a god looking after me.”
The next day he left a pair of figs, the day after that he spent ten minutes of his morning seated by the temple in prayer. On the third day, the god spoke up.
“You should go to a temple in the city,” the god said. Its voice was like the rustling of the wheat, like the squeaks of fieldmice running through the grass. “A real temple. A good one. Get some real gods to bless you. I’m no one much myself, but I might be able to put in a good word?” It plucked a leaf from a tree and sighed. “I mean, not to be rude. I like this temple. It’s cozy enough. The worship’s been nice. But you can’t honestly believe that any of this is going to bring you anything.”
“This is more than I was expecting when I built it,” Arepo said, laying down his scythe and lowering himself to the ground. “Tell me, what sort of god are you anyway?”
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth. I’m a god of a dozen different nothings, scraps that lead to rot, momentary glimpses. A change in the air, and then it’s gone.”
The god heaved another sigh. “There’s no point in worship in that, not like War, or the Harvest, or the Storm. Save your prayers for the things beyond your control, good farmer. You’re so tiny in the world. So vulnerable. Best to pray to a greater thing than me.”
Arepo plucked a stalk of wheat and flattened it between his teeth. “I like this sort of worship fine,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll continue.”
“Do what you will,” said the god, and withdrew deeper into the stones. “But don’t say I never warned you otherwise.”
Arepo would say a prayer before the morning’s work, and he and the god contemplated the trees in silence. Days passed like that, and weeks, and then the Storm rolled in, black and bold and blustering. It flooded Arepo’s fields, shook the tiles from his roof, smote his olive tree and set it to cinder. The next day, Arepo and his sons walked among the wheat, salvaging what they could. The little temple had been strewn across the field, and so when the work was done for the day, Arepo gathered the stones and pieced them back together.
“Useless work,” the god whispered, but came creeping back inside the temple regardless. “There wasn’t a thing I could do to spare you this.”
“We’ll be fine,” Arepo said. “The storm’s blown over. We’ll rebuild. Don’t have much of an offering for today,” he said, and laid down some ruined wheat, “but I think I’ll shore up this thing’s foundations tomorrow, how about that?”
The god rattled around in the temple and sighed.
A year passed, and then another. The temple had layered walls of stones, a roof of woven twigs. Arepo’s neighbors chuckled as they passed it. Some of their children left fruit and flowers. And then the Harvest failed, the gods withdrew their bounty. In Arepo’s field the wheat sprouted thin and brittle. People wailed and tore their robes, slaughtered lambs and spilled their blood, looked upon the ground with haunted eyes and went to bed hungry. Arepo came and sat by the temple, the flowers wilted now, the fruit shriveled nubs, Arepo’s ribs showing through his chest, his hands still shaking, and murmured out a prayer.
“There is nothing here for you,” said the god, hudding in the dark. “There is nothing I can do. There is nothing to be done.” It shivered, and spat out its words. “What is this temple but another burden to you?”
“We -” Arepo said, and his voice wavered. “So it’s a lean year,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before, we’ll get through this again. So we’re hungry,” he said. “We’ve still got each other, don’t we? And a lot of people prayed to other gods, but it didn’t protect them from this. No,” he said, and shook his head, and laid down some shriveled weeds on the altar. “No, I think I like our arrangement fine.”
“There will come worse,” said the god, from the hollows of the stone. “And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”
The years passed. Arepo rested a wrinkled hand upon the temple of stone and some days spent an hour there, lost in contemplation with the god.
And one fateful day, from across the wine-dark seas, came War.
Arepo came stumbling to his temple now, his hand pressed against his gut, anointing the holy site with his blood. Behind him, his wheat fields burned, and the bones burned black in them. He came crawling on his knees to a temple of hewed stone, and the god rushed out to meet him.
“I could not save them,” said the god, its voice a low wail. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so so sorry.” The leaves fell burning from the trees, a soft slow rain of ash. “I have done nothing! All these years, and I have done nothing for you!”
“Shush,” Arepo said, tasting his own blood, his vision blurring. He propped himself up against the temple, forehead pressed against the stone in prayer. “Tell me,” he mumbled. “Tell me again. What sort of god are you?”
“I -” said the god, and reached out, cradling Arepo’s head, and closed its eyes and spoke.
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said, and conjured up the image of them. “The worms that churn beneath the
earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost
before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath
your teeth.” Arepo’s lips parted in a smile.
“I am the god of a dozen different nothings,” it said. “The petals in bloom that lead to
rot, the momentary glimpses. A change in the air -” Its voice broke, and it wept. “Before it’s gone.”
“Beautiful,” Arepo said, his blood staining the stones, seeping into the earth. “All of them. They were all so beautiful.”
And as the fields burned and the smoke blotted out the sun, as men were trodden in the press and bloody War raged on, as the heavens let loose their wrath upon the earth, Arepo the sower lay down in his humble temple, his head sheltered by the stones, and returned home to his god.
Sora found the temple with the bones within it, the roof falling in upon them.
“Oh, poor god,” she said, “With no-one to bury your last priest.” Then she paused, because she was from far away. “Or is this how the dead are honored here?” The god roused from its contemplation.
“His name was Arepo,” it said, “He was a sower.”
Sora startled, a little, because she had never before heard the voice of a god. “How can I honor him?” She asked.
“Bury him,” the god said, “Beneath my altar.”
“All right,” Sora said, and went to fetch her shovel.
“Wait,” the god said when she got back and began collecting the bones from among the broken twigs and fallen leaves. She laid them out on a roll of undyed wool, the only cloth she had. “Wait,” the god said, “I cannot do anything for you. I am not a god of anything useful.”
Sora sat back on her heels and looked at the altar to listen to the god.
“When the Storm came and destroyed his wheat, I could not save it,” the god said, “When the Harvest failed and he was hungry, I could not feed him. When War came,” the god’s voice faltered. “When War came, I could not protect him. He came bleeding from the battle to die in my arms.” Sora looked down again at the bones.
“I think you are the god of something very useful,” she said.
“What?” the god asked.
Sora carefully lifted the skull onto the cloth. “You are the god of Arepo.”
Generations passed. The village recovered from its tragedies—homes
rebuilt, gardens re-planted, wounds healed. The old man who once lived on the
hill and spoke to stone and rubble had long since been forgotten, but the
temple stood in his name. Most believed it to empty, as the god who resided
there long ago had fallen silent. Yet, any who passed the decaying shrine felt an ache
in their hearts, as though mourning for a lost friend. The cold that seeped
from the temple entrance laid their spirits low, and warded off any potential
visitors, save for the rare and especially oblivious children who would leave tiny
clusters of pink and white flowers that they picked from the surrounding
meadow.
The god sat in his peaceful home, staring out at the distant
road, to pedestrians, workhorses, and carriages, raining leaves that swirled
around bustling feet. How long had it been? The world had progressed without
him, for he knew there was no help to be given. The world must be a cruel place, that even the useful gods have abandoned,
if farms can flood, harvests can run barren, and homes can burn, he
thought.
He had come to understand that humans are senseless
creatures, who would pray to a god that cannot grant wishes or bless upon them
good fortune. Who would maintain a temple and bring offerings with nothing in
return. Who would share their company and meditate with such a fruitless deity.
Who would bury a stranger without the hope for profit. What bizarre, futile
kindness they had wasted on him. What wonderful, foolish, virtuous, hopeless
creatures, humans were.
So he painted the sunset with yellow leaves, enticed the
worms to dance in their soil, flourished the boundary between forest and field
with blossoms and berries, christened the air with a biting cold before winter
came, ripened the apples with crisp, red freckles to break under sinking teeth,
and a dozen other nothings, in memory of the man who once praised the god’s
work on his dying breath.
“Hello, God of Every Humble Beauty in the World,” called a
familiar voice.
The squinting corners of the god’s eyes wept down onto
curled lips. “Arepo,” he whispered, for his voice was hoarse from its hundred-year
mutism.
“I am the god of devotion, of small kindnesses, of
unbreakable bonds. I am the god of selfless, unconditional love, of everlasting
friendships, and trust,” Arepo avowed, soothing the other with every word.
“That’s wonderful, Arepo,” he responded between tears, “I’m
so happy for you—such a powerful figure will certainly need a grand temple. Will
you leave to the city to gather more worshippers? You’ll be adored by all.”
“No,” Arepo smiled.
“Farther than that, to the capitol, then? Thank you for
visiting here before your departure.”
“No, I will not go there, either,” Arepo shook his head and
chuckled.
“Farther still? What ambitious goals, you must have. There
is no doubt in my mind that you will succeed, though,” the elder god continued.
“Actually,” interrupted Arepo, “I’d like to stay here, if
you’ll have me.”
The other god was struck speechless. “…. Why would you want
to live here?”
“I am the god of unbreakable bonds and everlasting
friendships. And you are the god of Arepo.”
I reblogged this once with the first story. Now the story has grown and I’m crying. This is gorgeous, guys. This is what dreams are made of.
the fact that placebos can work even when you know they’re placebos is so fucked up. what the hell is up with the brain
like some kind of fucked up wrinkled goblin that won’t unlock the chemical secrets if you just ask politely, you have to give it some kind of pill. you can tell it that the pill doesn’t do shit, but it doesn’t care, it just wants the pill
A few years ago I had the privilege of proof-reading a dissertation on drug addiction interventions which touched on the placebo effect (because it turns out successful addiction interventions share the basic elements of the placebo effect: a desire to get better, a change in one’s beliefs about one’s condition, and a positive relationship with a trusted authority figure).
How the placebo effect works, in terms of feedback between the brain and (presumably) the inflammatory system, is still unknown. But the logic of why the placebo effect should happen is not that mysterious. There are two basic principles.
One, pain is protective. A lot of the conditions we take medicines for are in fact interim defence mechanisms. Pain stops us doing things that damage our bodies. Fever kills pathogens. Vomiting gets rid of poisons. Fainting cuts the work-load on the heart.
Two, healing takes resources. Before the body commits to expending those resources fully it needs to be certain they’re not needed for something else, like fighting off a secondary bacterial infection. And of course the circumstances in which we get sick in the first place are the same circumstances in which we might want to hold resources in reserve for dealing with further assaults on the body.
This means that our healing systems will stay in the interim condition until they get a signal of some kind to let them know that our circumstances have changed and full healing is a good investment now. What part of our body processes that kind of complex information? The brain, that’s what.
The information basically needs to take the form: “Something external has changed and we have confirmation that as a result we are going to recover from this condition.” Apparently our healing systems can tell when we’re just making it up to jolly them along.
The logic is presumably the same in most species, but in humans, being language-users, that external change can take the form of someone whom we trust to know what they’re talking about saying “These pills will do the trick. Drop into the pharmacy on your way home and hand them this bit of paper.”
Most likely the signal from the brain takes the form of some kind of hormone, triggered by a new emotional state.
The word for the subjective experience of that emotional state? Hope.
This is his Jokers first day on the job, and he’s being such a good boy.
Donald W. Cook is a Los Angeles attorney with decades of experience bringing lawsuits over police dog bites — and mostly losing. He blames what he calls “The Rin Tin Tin Effect” — juries think of police dogs as noble, and have trouble visualizing how violent they can be during an arrest.
“[Police] use terms like ‘apprehend’ and ‘restrain,’ to try to portray it as a very antiseptic event,” Cook says. “But you look at the video and the dog is chewing away on his leg and mutilating him.”
Cook says the proliferation of smart phones and body cameras is capturing a reality that used to be lost on juries. “If it’s a good video,” he says, “it makes a case much easier to prevail on.”
The new generation of videos is capturing scenes of K9 arrests that are bloodier and more violent than imagined by the public. An NPR examination of police videos shows some officers using biting dogs against people who show minimal threat to officers, and a degree of violence that would be unacceptable if inflicted directly by the officers.
…
In fact, in many videos, the release of a dog appears to escalate the violence of an arrest.
“You just look at the dog as the source of pain and you do everything you can to address that pain,” says Seth Stoughton. He’s a former police officer, now an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina who studies police use of force. “Those shouted commands — you’ll deal with that later, when the pain stops.”
And yet suspects who kick and try to shake the dog off are often accused of resisting arrest.
i don’t care what this dog in particular is being trained to do. furthering the idea that police dogs are somehow cute or good directly contributes to injustice and the perceived acceptability of police violence
My aunt rescues and rehabilitates german shepherds, and the vast majority are failed police dogs. The rehab process for these dogs is intense. They are trained to be hyper vigilant and to resort to violence. They are often is worse condition than formerly abused animals.
I spent a summer training one of these balls of anxiety. She was too fast and strong for my aunt to train her, so I did it. The biggest hurdle was getting her out of the mindset that biting someone gets her a treat. I had to let her bite my arm, forcible break the hold, and kennel her all without giving her a response because these dogs are trained to equate someone screaming at them as Go Time.
By letting her attack me and showing her that I was stronger than her and then not allowing her to play with the other dogs was what finally got her to stop attacking whenever she heard a loud noise or was surprised or just felt like it.
She still had to be homed in a gun-free, pet-free, child-free home because of the sheer anxiety she was bred for. These dogs are not cute, they are horribly mistreated.
concept: I am granted one wish by the universe, which is to live long enough to see the continents form back into one large supercontinent. For hundreds of years, I bide my times meeting new people, learning new hobbies, taking apr tin life and culture. For thousands of years, I explore new planets now that space travel is easily accessible. Eventually, I am grounded on earth for good, for millions of years. Mostly alone.
With no humans left to make conversation, I wander at my leisure, sometimes sitting for a very long time, sometimes walking for months on end, swimming across seas, cataloguing the rise and fall of plants and animals, doing cartwheels up mountains, and napping for millennia at a time near fault lines so I can be rocked to sleep by the rumble of the Earth.
Every few million years, I make my way back to the very edge of one continent and watch the progress of the convergence. I swim across the gap and take a look at it from the other side. I try to remember my geology 101 class from 50 million years ago. I can’t remember why continents move in the first place. I decide it doesn’t matter why. They just are.
Eventually, it’s been 125 million years. I don’t know that exactly, of course. I haven’t been keeping track. But there is only about 10 meters left between the final land masses that need to meet to satisfy me. Of course, by now, the land is one large mass, but I’ve been waiting for it to meet in this particular spot. For more than 100 million years. So I sit and wait.
Some sort of insect hops onto my knee. This is amazing, I think. I haven’t seen an insect around here in 10,000 years. Where did it come from? I’m staring at it until it eventually dies, and then I stare at its body until it becomes dust. Finally, I look back up.
The continents have come together. I wasn’t paying attention. I fuckin’ missed it.
“oh my god” the universe says. “to fulfill your wish you have to SEE it happen, you were VERY specific. now you have to wait for them to separate and come together AGAIN.”
i’ve mentioned this here before, but it will remain one of the most ideologically influential experiences of my life: when i was in fifth grade i did a report on post traumatic stress as manifested in veterans of the vietnam war, and my father did me the huge favor of connecting me w/ a vietnam vet friend of his who was diagnosed with PTSD, assuring him that while i was only ten i was bright and curious and he should be as honest with me about his experience as possible.
i remember entering his office with my tape recorder, sitting in a chair that was too big, and asking him questions about war, and his life after war, while swinging my legs over the edge of the chair. i remember being very, very quiet as he spoke of pulling the car over on the highway for fear of crashing when his hands would shake uncontrollably in response to song on the radio or a smell that he couldn’t be sure was real or sense-memory. and of ruined relationships and anger and american hypocrisy.
and i also remember that was the day i learned what “valor” meant. he used “valor” in a sentence and i didn’t know that word, and when i asked him to explain “valor” he became very quiet. and i can’t remember precisely what he said, if he ever offered me the dictionary definition or not, but i do remember him looking very sad, and saying something about our country’s idea of “valor”, and also something about a broken promise. and there was an edge to his words that i couldn’t parse at the time that i would later come to understand was bitterness, that he sounded bitter.
to this day i can’t hear or read the word “valor” without seeing sunlight coming through his office window at a slant, close-to-sunset light, and feeling the kind of quiet, confused, completely internalized panic a child feels when they sense that a grown up is trying very hard not to weep in their presence.
Do you think regular dogs see police dogs and think “oh shit, it’s a cop”
My service dog avoids them b/c their trained to be aggressive and look threatening at all times which means their body language is a warning when non aggressive dogs look at them. If ur dog avoids confrontation like mine, then they will generally avoid police dogs.
so the stormtroopers right. if they think u didnt fire ur blaster they inspect it & if you didnt they send you for reconditioning.
maybe. thats why. they never. HIT. anything.
they dont want to be punished but they dont really want to hurt anybody.
maybe.
DUDE
well this is an entirely strange new level of sadness
This has been observed in conflicts through out the last century and a half or so, Soldiers deliberately firing high and missing.
Oh. My. God.
Trooper QG-3148 was a sergeant placed on the Death Star a scant five months ago, but they had wanted to be part of the Imperial Forces since they were a small child. They were the best shot in their squadron with blasters, second best with rifles and had never missed a target when deployed.
So when that kid running around with the Princess crossed their path trying to escape, QCG3148 lined up the first shot to take them out…. and missed. The Princess with no world and her rescuer dashed off down another corridor and QG-3148 gave chase slowly. Couldn’t make it seem like they weren’t chasing the rebels, that would only put QG-3148 in trouble.
In every hallway they passed, troopers were marching in time, blasters at the ready. But no shots hit and none of the rebels were harmed. No words needed to be spoken between the ranks; they had all seen the destruction of the planet Alderaan and knew what needed to be done.
It was a secret between the Stormtroopers that the brass buttons had no notion of; orders were to be followed unless they proved to cause harm to your brothers and sisters. Veteran trooper CC-2224, nicknamed Cody among the troops, was adamant every Stormtrooper followed this creed before clearing them for duty. It seemed that every Stormtrooper on the Death Star remembered that lesson; many of them had families on Alderaan, after all. And now they were hurting.
well, shit. and that explains why hux’s stormtroopers CAN hit what they aim at. i mean, i haven’t seen tlj yet, but in tfa i quite clearly recall them rolling over that village like a lawnmower over a tennis ball. with a single exception, they were not firing to miss.
because they’ve been, as hux said, indoctrinated since birth. i imagine stormtrooper culture in the first order looks a lot more gung-ho than it did in the empire, because brendol hux was kind of a twisted genius in the brainwashing department, and armitage improved on his methods.
which brings us back to finn being a precious gem, because he was raised to be all HOOAH GET SOME but he still said no.
Actor David Suchet was taught how to eat a mango in ‘polite company’ by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. On May 2 1990 Suchet was at a private lunch at Buckingham Palace, per the Queen’s invitation. It was his 44th Birthday. He discovered the Queen likes to invite people from all walks of life whom she finds interesting.
During lunch, Suchet was served a mango and suffering from an acute attack of nerves, he turned to Prince Philip, confessing he didn’t have the slightest idea how to deal with the fruit. That provoked an enourmous laugh from Prince Philip, who replied immediately, ‘Well, let me show you,’ and demonstrated what exactly one should do. Suchet was relieved he wasn’t left floundering and was now able to eat the fruit in front of him.
Later that day he told the story to Brian Eastman, the producer of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, and asked him if they could include it in the episode they were soon to film, 3×09: The Theft of the Royal Ruby.
“We sent a copy of the finished film to Buckingham Palace on DVD, and I’m thrilled to say that it became the late Queen Mother’s favourite film. Indeed, whenever I’ve met the Duke of Edinburgh since that lunch, he always calls me ‘the mango man’.” – David Suchet, Poirot and Me
just moving along like everyone else 