like a moth to the flames

Hypertime Mark Waid created this really cool concept called Hypertime, specifically for people like you. The idea is that time is like a river with tributaries constantly flowing in and out, so time is changing all the time and nobody even realizes it. That's why Black Canary had the wrong eye colour in that one issue of Justice League you thought might be valuable. Hypertime.

Something something something Zero Hour I'm going to be completely honest here and say that nobody actually read Zero Hour. It's probably responsible for changing whatever that thing is. Because, you know... entropy... and stuff.

The original concept that humans complete the act of creation by making bread from wheat is from the Talmud! And the specific "wheat but not bread, grapes but not wine" phrasing is from Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel but it is missing "clay but not bricks".

And among trans Jews the sentiment was already popular before I ever started seeing this specific phrasing so I knew, knew, knew a Jew and likely a trans Jew was involved.

As it happens, Ortberg's friend Julian is Jewish and they have strongly negative feelings about the way the quote has been removed from the context of their life as someone trans and Jewish. They used to have a thread up on xwitter about it but have since made their account private and only have a very terse FAQ online from which you can glean the treatment they likely received when being more open about their Jewishness, relationship to transness, and the interaction of both.

Gwen: I don’t believe that of you. You were so full of hope.

Lancelot: I was wrong. The world is not like that.

Gwen: I still see the hope in you. I do not accept it is gone.

Lancelot: I have thought of you often. Have you thought of me at all?

Gwen: I thought I would never see you again.

I realised this conversation could also apply to Merlin & Arthur when they meet again. Merlin is Lancelot, having lost hope in destiny after loosing Arthur to it. Arthur is Guinevere, the person who remembers the light that Merlin used to be and tries to bring it back.

Lancelot: It’s the truth. For all my words, for all that I believed, I have come to nothing.

Gwen: You are everything that is right with this world.

Lancelot: I did not know you felt that way.

Gwen: I didn’t even know I could feel this way about someone.

Lancelot: Then you have given me a reason to live.

Compare that to Merlin believing that he and Arthur would bring about the golden age only for that destiny to be ripped away from him at the last moment, Arthur believing Merlin to be all that is good and right even though he never says it to him explicitly, Arthur not knowing that he loved Merlin until he was about to die (oh wait that’s just my headcanon), and Arthur being Merlin’s reason to continue living even after 1500 years.

first, an alternative to the doorbell:

We cut the bell away, attached a spring to the wire and to this another piece of wire, which had a block of wood fastened to one end and the whole was so contrived that the least pull of the bell handle at the door woudl send the block of wood with a dull, heavy, thud, to the floor of the room and the ... vibration it caused never failed to attract our attention.

but the one that brought tears of laughter to my eyes was this alternative to an alarm clock:

We had one [alarm for waking deaf sleepers] in our house ... for a long time and it always worked perfectly. The simplest is a cord attached to teh alarm wheel of a clock, passing from the drum to a point in the cieling over the head of the bed, where a small spring or trap is fixed with a little wire, upon which a pillow or cushion can be hung. The alarm being set at the desired hour, when it strikes, the drum winds up the cord and the pillow ... drops upon the sleeper, who is aroused thereby.