#over-analysis

In the original Episode 2, we visually see the hundred powers last for over 5 minutes, dragging out into even when the ice rink collapses. This in turn implies that the time it takes for Kotetsu and Barnaby to arrive at the Rink and THEN deal with that whole situation on top of the rink becoming unsteady, it's within ~10 minutes at best.

The movie attempts to rectify this power usage, splitting it up between two power uses, one use to get there, and another to try stop the rink from toppling. Pacing wise, the latter makes sense on paper.

But then you have Isaac, who failed to escape. And he genuinely has no excuse not to have escaped. The pathways got cleared out, on top of it being heavily implied Barnaby and Kotetsu escorted Tony out the long way, taking the stairs down and out. However, Isaac is still stuck in the rink, banging on the windows for help. Isaac ran off by himself after Kotetsu put him down, and SHOULD have found one of the cleared out pathways that 100% exist because everyone made it out safely through them.

Searching for 10 minutes and somehow finding yourself back in the rink, sure, I guess that can happen. Trying to leave for an HOUR and FAILING??? I'm sorry Isaac you failed the natural selection test. Like, did you just give up? What are you doing? Isaac-

So, Fiddleford and his memory gun.

It is, as usual, impossible to be 100% sure of much about the Portal era, considering that Ford's view of reality seems to have already started becoming distorted by the time he began writing Journal 3, and it is true that Fiddleford's signs of trauma after, say, the gremlobin incident, or his nerves when he realized what the probability of failure was, were actually pretty reasonable responses to the things that he was going through. However, Ford does act as though he's always been a bit concerned about Fiddleford's nerves, and when everything is taken into account, it seems more probable than not that the man does/did suffer from some form of anxiety disorder, probably in the OCD 'family.' Once I accept this premise, his story rapidly becomes a solid metaphor about the dangers of self-medicating.

Yes, yes, I know. The moral of the story is to deal with your problems...but nevertheless: the memory gun works as a metaphor for drugs and compulsions and how they don't really solve your problems, and it works especially well, I think, as a metaphor for alcohol and/or sedatives (Ativan, Valium, etc.). When used judiciously and with deliberate goals and limits, these things can be highly useful, or at least do more good than harm (alcohol is an antiseptic, for a lot of history it has been safer to drink than the average water supply, and it at least used to sometimes be 'prescribed' to people with certain heart problems who couldn't afford expensive medications, nerve pills are actual medicine, and as for the gun, we have the canon examples of the end of 'A Tale of Two Stans' and the finale). If you start to feel you need a drink after work every day to keep coping with your job, though, or needing a nightcap just to go to sleep...that can go real bad, and that's if you aren't developing this habit on top of OCD and/or one of its sister disorders. Fiddleford does appear to have such a disorder, and while he already had some ritualistic behavior (his Cubik's Cube, his alleged superstitions around graves, his tendency toward trichotillomania, the amount he checks and rechecks his work), he really loses control of himself when he gets access to the memory gun.

I suspect, between the temptation to instant relief it presented him every minute of every day and the secretive nature of it (no doctor supervising him, nobody frowning disapprovingly into his trash can, etc.) that memory gunning himself at the slightest inconvenience became both addictive drug and compulsion for him at some point, to the point that he was eventually frying his brain for even such a minor stressor as cutting himself shaving - or rather, for such seemingly minor stressors, since to him...who knows what that looked like? Anxiety Brain is wonderful at forming objectively sketchy connections that spiral into long chains of increasingly frantic 'reasoning.' From an outside viewer's perspective: it's a scratch, big deal. A path I could imagine Fiddleford's brain going along might run more like: "I cut myself shaving - why are my hands so shaky, why did that happen - were my hands even shaking, or was I just not paying attention? I can't do anything right! I can't even shave right, never mind raise a kid right! Which reminds me that I haven't seen my son in six months, I might as well have been cheating on my wife, I'm a terrible husband, a terrible father, just a terrible man, why didn't I do something before things got so out of control?? I could have stopped all of this, but now my Friend is out of his mind, he might end the world any day now, I don't know if my wife would have me back at this point if I even had the guts to go home and beg, and now I have this cult to run - but how can I run a cult when I can't even be man enough to face my own family? And it's slipping out of my control, I never meant things to go this far - They're all gonna turn on me, Stanford and Ivan and Emma-May are all gonna team up and murder me, oh God, it all makes sense now - !").

And then the gun made all that noise just...stop. He could sleep. He could run a cult. He could do things other than worry about Ford blowing up the planet any day now, or what was going on at home, or if the things he saw in the gremlobin's eyes could really happen. As soon as it started, he could just...make it all go away, as often as he wanted, at the click of a button. And by the time the side effects started becoming obvious, and he was losing his ability to speak properly and tearing his hair out without even remembering he'd done it and stealing clothes off scarecrows, well...thinking about those side effects, wondering if this thing he feels he cannot live without anymore could be responsible for them, was almost as distressing as thinking about all those motor accidents. Which, naturally, meant it was time for another mind wipe/drink....

So, in today’s episode of “LycoRogue way overanalyzes things”, I think ZagToon has actually given us some pretty decent evidence to more-or-less lock-in when this special takes place.

The key to narrowing it all down relies on this quick shot that the Miraculous team deemed worthy to grace us with:

This is Adrien’s bodyguard starting up a meditation app just as the flight from Paris to NYC is about to take off. This, plus the sunset showcased in the next few scenes, will help us start to narrow it all down.

Well yeah. Though... why was it ever an eagle?? Shouldn't it be a dove, for the Holy Spirit, or something?

*looks more closely*

Huh. Those are flames that bird is rising out of.

That's not an "Eagle Lecturn", that's a phoenix!

(Why'd he keep the book attached??)

[Edit] Ahh, I'm told Eagle Lecterns are common, at least in the UK. Probably here in the US too, looking at the examples from Wikipedia. Looks like they're usually standing on globes, and echoing the Tetramorph thing, for (usually) John. I DO get why John the Evangelist would be a symbol associated with a lectern used for sermons (though it's also probably just that Eagles with outstretched wings work better than lions and bulls as lecterns, on that front, eh?)

Even so, that's different than this lectern - they aren't usually rising out of flames! So this Eagle Lectern is still, I maintain, a Phoenix!

Personal reflection is a powerful tool that allows us to examine our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. It helps us to understand ourselves better, recognize our strengths and weaknesses, and make positive changes in our lives. However, while personal reflection can be a positive force for self-improvement, it also has a dark side. In this article, we will explore the dark side of personal…

As the months go by, the next impedement in life approaches. I fear this one in particular not because it's something I haven't faced, but moreso the fact that many things depend on the success of this one task. Could you say I'm feeling the pressure of relying on a best-case-scenario? Personally, this blog is probably a testament to worse things that've happened. In the meantime, I'm currently planning a plot to get me through until Movember.

So what else is new since our last pain-wracked post on this belatedly updated blog? Well, it's a public holiday today apparently, so here I am posting something for all your crackheads fans out there who can't get enough of this stuff I'm typing. And yes, I am still continuing the *other* blog, albeit the lustre of its content is starting to dull a bit.

In a more long-term sense, I am feeling some pressure to dive into the world of adult content, only to drown shortly after. Before you get all technical with me on what "adult content" is, let me just clarify that is SPECIFICALLY FOCUSSED on matter like cooking ability, new home options, actual hobbies. You know, things adults assume about each other at a generic social gathering.

While I am taking things one step at a time (see the first paragraph of this post), it still concerns me  that I still don't have a reaction plan for these things. That is, what is my expected best case scenario? The all-inevitable worst case scenario? Variables to consider? Some might think I'm overthinking and hyper-analysing some of life's most trivial matters. As with most things discussed on this blog, we'll turn this issue inside-out like a deep-fried turducken if we need to. Because what else is there to talk about these days? Politics, news, memes... It's all been done before.

And as I watch into the near-eternal sunset of time, I sigh heavily and cry a single tear as I think the thought: "Why do I have to be in this predicament?". Admittedly, I am the primary reason I am in these problematic situations, almost as if it's the call of destiny to strive frivolously for the next mirage that the desert of life has to offer. Perhaps I was better off giving up from the get-go? And then risk the loss of what could have been the next National Treasure? Yeah, the thought of Nick Cage didn't seem to help.

But nonetheless, we have no choice but to march on. In failure or success, for friend or enemy, time cares little for its participants. I think I've been on this morose road before last year, to which similar thoughts were thought of. I guess the only real option is to pick ourselves back up and walk the lonely road, the only one that I have ever known.

'Til next time, young padawan.