With Phenomenal Cosmic Powers come a reasonable audience question.
Where does Genie get his references?
Everything takes place in the same universe at the same time*
It is the same universe, but Genie doesn't obey time rules
Genie can break the 4th wall
He transcends universes/dimensions and learns about Goofy Tigger Tink and all
Its Just Robin Williams (love him but this is the boring answer)
Something else?
Voting ended onMay 16, 2025
*this one is like if everyone in Aladdin would get most the references because they are rather common. Maybe not everyone else understands everything, but any character could get any individual joke. Unlike the second choice where Genie pulls different references across time that could be lost on everyone else because it's too old or hasn't happened.
On Alternate Realities, Eolving Paint, and Bugs. With Possible Spoilers for the Last Episode of "Star Trek: The Lower Depths"
Just another one of my back-tracking and re-tracing the many paths I took wandering down one of my winding trail of thoughts:
With the right tectonic activity, erosion, and distribution of rocks of varying compositions; in enough time, I could see nature easily form a mug-shaped formation out of "chaoitically"-arranged rocks. I feel the example given for entrophy of there being no-unbreaking mugs actually goes to show that one must put energy in a system to realize the least likeliest of outcomes.
This insight comes from my thinking about how if there are "multiverse-s"/"many worlds"/"parallel universes;" thereoitically, one wouldn't have to leave earth in search for alien lifeforms. One could just observe this planet from these alternate dimensions, and eventually we'd see every possible world that's out there, assuming the "multiverse" is infinite, unlike this universe). How did that lead to entrophy? My imagining that the further the alternate Earth(s) resembled our own, the further away it's likelihood. Meaning that it would be easier to peering into parrallel Earths with the fewest differences from ours, and requiring more work to reach Earths with more remarkable dissimilarities. The idea of needing to take more and more energy to make possible more extreme variations of reality was where I forked into thinking about mugs and entrophy.
((A lot of my 'exploring alien life through parallel Earths' thoughts were inspired by episode "Fissure Quest" from "Star Trek, Lower Decks," which I had recently watched, you see…)
And THAT comes from my pondering speculative evolution; where I was wondering if and how other lifeforms could naturally develop human-like behaviors that naturally gives them advantages over other animals. Specifically, how could creatures covergently stumble upon the idea of finding hidden predators/preys by forcibly "making them easier to see?" Humans do this inavertedly by enviornmental destruction and painting everything white, giving advantage to only those with albinism and polar bears. I know sonar and echolocation are already a similar stragey, but what about actually "marking" a target (living and moving, that is), in a way where they are visible and/or tracable?
Now, I've thought of a few possibilities, some more costly on natural resouses, than others. Co-depedent relationships seem the easiest. Using an animal that's easier to see to track down animals that aren't, in exchange for security or shared food. Symbiotic relationships with micro biomes on the skin/hair could do the trick too, where a creature could naturally shed them about, and if they land on something that they want to eat/avoid, those symbiants provide a unique reaction, making them easier to sense. That's most likey to be scent-based, instead of sight. Hard to make visual adjustments to predators/prey in a color-spectrum exclusive to a single species, after all.
(* @theoctopuslady, inadvertedly explaining the shortcomings of "highlighting" your target, in a way that makes that target more revealing to anyone and everyone else, as well. It's at about the 14:32 mark of their "Tier Zoo" reaction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGsBqMILGgY )
I fear that indiscrimate spraying would be the hardest stunt to pull. Sprays are already best used as an offensive/defensive weapon in the animal kingdom. The energy and resources needed to just periodocally burst out scents, or even pigments, in an area large enough to maximise the chances of hitting anything of interest, seem way too high. Especially at the rate that other lifeforms emit sound waves to achieve that very effect. I can't imagine any synapsid managing that without the means of paint-guns, carpet-dusters, or other externally-sourced ingenuity. Perhaps plants with the means of an explosive and vast seed dispersal could be coaxed to developing seeds with chemicals that affect one animal's ability to be sensed or not sensed by others. Probably in a commenselistic relationship; I doubt it could come to benefit the plant in any way.
However, I did think of two bizarre ways that could work. One is where a flying preadator spots prey in an area that's difficult to reach, like having to navigate through tree foliage or something. What that predator could do is develop prehensile hemorroids that allow them aim and shoot out small projectiles—"paint pallets," I'll call them—to hit said prey instead. There could be multiple outcomes to this that could also be combined to maximize effectiveness. The "paint-droppings" could leave a pigment that's difficult to clean, so that the prey is easily spotted when it moves to more favorable areas for easy-access. But for more immeadate gratification. The pallet could have irritants that cause the prey to injure itself or slow down to try and remove it, giving the aerial preadtor time to maneuver over to it. It could also come with scents that repel other competing predators from swooping in to catch the now incapicated prey…
The second idea was of a colony/bee-type of stinging inscect which leaves their stinger which, instead of having a poision sac, has a sack full of chemical traces that the rest of the colony can track down to attack the creature en-masse…
*(Note that some new ideas I had, while writing all this, got mixed in, especially in the flying-predaror part)
…And why did I start thinking about all that? Because of this bug I saw in the hallway of the apartment building. Which I'm sure had evolved a masterfull camouflage that renders them practically invisible—were the poor thing in their own enviornment:
