please stay hydrated

so finding vicitms still upsets/shocks shinichi. having said that… this scene. finding ran’s seemingly lifeless body doesn’t just shock shinichi.

it absolutely horrifies him.

usually when shinichi finds a victim he quickly recovers from the initial shock. if the victim is still alive shinichi tries to help them in a calm and rational way, if the victim is dead he immediately starts investigating. even when his friends are involved (heiji, detective boys) he manages to stay focused and keep a somewhat cool head. but this scene is completely different. he doesn’t do any of the things he’d normally do. in this scene he isn’t composed. he isn’t his level-headed self. he’s in a state of complete panic. he’s so distressed that he even calls out ran’s name without any honorifics. he doesn’t think at all. he only feels. the second he enters the room he throws all rationality out the window. the second he sees ran in that condition he stops being a detective and learns what it’s like to be in the shoes of a worried loved one.

shinichi is so shaken, when ran falls asleep again he’s terrified, assuming this time she really died. once he realizes that she’s not seriously harmed he finally starts investigating. you think he’s now back to his usual collected, practical self? you couldn’t be more wrong.

during the investigation he can’t get ran out of his head. he desperately wants to know who the culprit is and why he almost drowned ran of all people.

when the case is finally solved shinichi is furious.

shinichi has rarely been this pissed during the revelation of a murderer. he is so emotional during this case, even hours after the murder attempt on ran. this makes me think that shinichi must be traumatized by the event because when he enters the room and finds her still body he fears that she’s dead; later when she falls asleep in his arms he is convinced she died in his arms. he thinks she’s dead for two whole moments. that must be so frightening considering how protective shinichi is of her. i mean c'mon… he worries like crazy when she’s sick, seeing her in emotional pain is agony for him, he looses his cool whenever she’s in possible danger no matter how slim the possibility may be, he ran across a burning bridge for her, put himself between her and a killer who tried to stab her with a knife, shinichi would do ANYTHING for her. after all he basically vowed to protect her since the first time they met..

since their first ever interaction

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

TL;DR: On June 4, 2026, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published “Move Fast, Surveil Things,” confirming through static code analysis that Meta has already deployed facial recognition code to millions of Ray-Ban smart glasses. The internal “Name Tag” feature converts every face in view into a 2,048-number faceprint array and matches it against a stored database. An EFF researcher activated the feature in debug mode and watched the glasses detect a known face in real time. Meta’s spokesperson says this is just “evidence of exploration.” Exploration doesn’t ship to millions of devices. This is staging for launch, and internal documents show Meta planned to flip the switch while privacy groups were too busy to fight back. ...You don’t need a central database when every user builds their own local faceprint collection. The faces still get scanned. The biometric data still gets created. Meta just outsources the storage to your phone, and the legal liability to you.

-via State of Surveillance, June 7, 2026. Emphasis mine.

But good news! There are things you can do to protect yourself and your community. As quoted from the article:

What You Can Do

Assume You’re Being Scanned

If someone near you is wearing Ray-Ban Meta glasses, treat it like a running camera, because it is. The small LED indicator that’s supposed to signal recording can be covered with tape, and Meta’s “always enabled” mode processes video without activating it [6]. The Nearby Glasses app can detect Meta Ray-Bans via Bluetooth.

Lock Down Your Meta Profiles

Name Tag matches faces against Meta platform data. If you have Facebook or Instagram accounts, set your profile photo to something that isn’t your face. Make your accounts private. Better yet, consider whether you need them at all. Every photo of your face on Meta’s platforms is training data for identifying you later.

Support the Legal Pushback

The EFF, ACLU, and EPIC are fighting this on legal, legislative, and technical fronts. Texas’s investigation proves state-level enforcement works: Meta paid $1.4 billion last time Texas came knocking over biometrics. Push for biometric privacy laws in your state. Illinois and Texas showed the way.

Don’t Buy the Glasses

Every pair sold expands the surveillance network. Meta has shipped millions already. Each one is a camera pointed at everyone else. If you own a pair, understand that the facial recognition code is on your device right now, and Meta can activate it with a software update whenever they decide the political moment is right.

Hey good news they're already quietly removed the code!!!!

Public outcry matters!!!

This moment is immediately followed by Joey sternly telling him not to give up ("Yugi! Don't give up, okay?!"). Which could be seen as him instantly clocking where Yugi's mind was starting to wander based on his own understanding of his words. But admittedly, it feels a little out of place. A little sudden. Which can absolutely work considering how much stress they're in. It makes perfect sense he'd jump the gun and try to steer Yugi away from that line of thinking as fast as possible, any way possible.

But a reason I find Yugi's part of this whole scene so intriguing is that this time its the alternate translation that has Yugi take it so much harder, so much more explicitly negatively. Something we've come to know is mostly a VIZ characterization (I also talk about it here). In the other translation, Yugi says

which is met with

Here, Yugi speaks with certain finality, he isn't losing hope he's already lost it. The towels been thrown and he was ready to verbally accept this defeat. This is it. His grandfather is going to die and him alongside his closest friends are probably going to die too. They were never meant to win and in hindsight they were doomed to fail from the start.

Joey, hearing these words that sound all to final, tell him "Don't give up so easily Yuugi!" Here isn't just telling Yugi not to give up, he's telling to to not lie down and take the situation like nothing can be done to change it. That's why he's so damn stern about it. This is still a matter of life or death and it gets a thousand times more serious when the members of your group start to accept and end that doesn't have to exist yet.

This goes back to what we discussed yesterday with Joey recognizing Yugi's word choices as reflections of his own past thoughts. He can't stand the thought of Yugi falling into that pit, that sick dog mentality--not even for a second. THAT is why he looks at Yugi as though there is absolutely zero room for argument. He refuse to let Yugi think he's just allowed to wave white flag so quickly.

And now, lets get to the part of the scene that made me once again go 'fuck it i need it now'. Like earlier we'll be be looking at the official VIZ version before we sink our teeth into the translation I was original familiar with.

Yugi tried to keep hope he did, longer than he would have normally (remember this is the same guy who figured a good day would happen someday, aka later rather than sooner, after his interaction with Sozoji) and now he can feel it actively slip away. They've been trapped in that empty room sitting in silence for who knows how long and not one thing has changed. No clues no hints. Nothing. Everyone is still lost on what they could do.

Maybe it does end here. Maybe his grandfather is really going to die. Maybe his friends are too. And that's a thought too heavy for him to handle which leads into the scene we discussed the other day.

Now I hear you going, "Jack how the hell does this differ from the VIZ translation?" Well I'm so glad you ask because the answer is once again the choice of phrasing and the possible implications and possible alternate readings they have.

Here Yugi doesn't specify what he's talking about. Sure with with our surface context you can very easily decipher he's referring to the room. But this is Yugi we're talking about. His internal monologue often serves to show us what is beneath just the literal context. That's why his lack of specification is so striking to me.

Because it now reads to me as he's talking about himself. His life up until this point. It's been so long, but nothings changed. While, yes, he has a wonderful group of friends now, has anything else actually changed? He's still getting picked on. People still don't respect him, just before all this DEATH-T bullshit happened he had gotten attacked by a grown ass man and had his most prized possession stolen from him because he kept beating the guy at a arcade fighting game and was happy to be winning. Because he was happy. It's always when he's enjoying himself, isn't it? Or at least when he yearns to be. He's always been yearning. His presence brings others down with him, doesn't it.

The life of Yugi Muto has always been a stagnate one, hasn't it. DEATH-T was simply his reminder. His wake up call. He was living in the fantasy of loving and being loved for a little too long, he had to see that in spite of the passage of time--nothing has actually changed.

“Just Stop Your Crying” / “It’s the Sign of the Times”

Being hemochorial carries with it a major advantage and a major disadvantage. The advantage is that our babies are born with maternal antibodies already in their bloodstream, pushed across the more efficient placenta. Creatures like cats and dogs and horses and cows and yes, goats, will die if they don't get at least a few days of nursing, while we can survive on milk replacer from the hour of birth.

The disadvantage is that pregnancy becomes harder on the mother. In fact, humans are in a sense the most hemochorial of all, our placentas implant more deeply even than the other great apes.

This is in part due to climate change messing up the balance of the dry and rainy seasons. The floods have a ripple effect and are also causing landslides and other disasters.

People have died, and will continue to do so. Here are some news Articles: The Guardian RFI The Sun Nigeria PM News Nigeria Here are some charities you can donate to to help: Nigeria: The Borgen Project Ghana: NADMO Côte d'ivoire: Disaster Relief

Togo and Benin are also severely affected. Please consider donating if you’re able or helping spread the word. I have a slightly longer post on my blog that I'll be updating if anyone needs more information.