#bizarre motorbikes

[zansims4]

[littlemissmaples]

🎂PICK A CAKE!🎂 II Who is your fs? + General Messages ( this second part wasn't intentional, kinda just happened lol)

Pile 1: 💚

• Your fs is very, very, very "segsy" I hear, haha (I was asked to spell it that way) they're giving me this very calming energy about them. They say "that's my mind baby" they're very flirtatious and could either be black, mixed or middle eastern, perhaps Arabic. This is more of my ethnic pile. I do sense there's the chance one of them has a beard–

Ooooh wait, one of them? Is there 2? Here I'm getting more of a masculine energy here so could it be you're not sure who your fs is and you're just debating what it is that you want? That's alright. I don't think that you're battling between 2 people, I think you're battling between 2 versions of yourself and 2 different ideals. What it is that you want and you think that you need. Or perhaps you might have a misunderstanding of what the kind of guy you want is. I'm getting some of you are in a relationship right now and you feel like things just don't connect. "You're a princess" for some of you, your father treats you well, listen to them because it's true when they say that you deserve better. Or perhaps you're involved in an arranged marriage, I feel that you still have the chance to step away from this it doesn't matter how far along you've been in this game, speak up now or forever hold your peace...

Anyways, I feel that your type is "the bad guy" maybe you like older guys or you currently like an older guy. If not I'm getting some of you, the person that you like is your fs but you're too stuck in your mind, waiting to be saved to realize it, that they're more than happy to develop something with you but while you dont have to take the lead, it's important to take the initiative and let yourself be known, let yourself say that you're interested, it's okay to let yourself be "saved" and pulled away from all of this but only if you tell them, otherwise they're going to keep on sitting back on their motorbike, completely unaware of your feelings. For a lot of you, you already know this person but they havent realized their feelings yet. Spark that initial light and set it all ablaze, they'll follow along and take care of the rest. But you have to communicate, they assume their silence is "self-respect" and they dont see you as a damsel in distress, reflect for sometime and see how you would like to go about all of this.

But in short terms who is your fs??

A guy that you already know that is somehow always on your mind even if you dont think about him much or hold heavy romantic feelings for him at the moment.

But just know this If you need it, he wants me to tell you: "I think about you too." For some of you "I think about THAT" too" perhaps a moment happened between the both of you. Be attentive and careful yes, but ultimately, at the end of this game we call life we all die. So follow your heart, choose your own path and cause a little chaos if you have to. But most of all, make sure you have fun 💛

I'm sorry if I didnt answer your question, but this is what's coming in.

Pile 2: 🧡

• Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Wow! Jeez, your first impression of this guy is going to be bizarre is not jaw dropping. They almost feel like they're a celebrity! If they're not a celebrity I feel like they're like a celebrity-look-a-like, they have a very similar face, tone of voice, even a matter of walking as someone that you like. This might be a singer/song-writter, actor for some or even a YouTube. I'm getting they might be in college and they could be white, I keep seeing Timothee Chalamet in my head but I'm getting he's more of a Tom Holland kind of guy, while your fs looks exactly how you want, he is a little bit more of the masculine kind. And for those of you who are a masc energy reading this I get the sense that, much like my fem readers I get the feeling maybe some of you actually want that "spiderman" type of love or a Tom Holland and Zendaya kind of scene about the two of you. I feel like you might, but I'm also getting that you need to not let yourself fall in a daydream too much, not because you wont have this but because you shouldn't reduce your partners and future romantic relationships into just this. I get the feeling that for some of you, your fs isn't who or how you think they are but they have traits of how believe they could be and what it is that you envision them like. But you should be flexible with this, just a little bit, I promise you'll have your dream come true but for many of you, he may sound a bit "manlier" perhaps you wanted him to have softer, more delicate features and he does but those traits dont encapsulate him entirely and for my fems, perhaps she may not be as tall as you like and maybe she might not hold traits like Zendaya but she's definitely gonna be your type. This energy Is just now coming in but some of you may be lgbt, have many types or simply are poly. That's great! But the same messages apply to you, you'll have your dream! You can have your cake and eat it too! But you have to step back for a minute and reflect for something, who are you? What kind of life do you want? Who do you want to be with? Why? Why not? I'm not saying tear yourself into parts but I'm really getting some of you ( I'm hearing "us" some of you dont separate yourselves from a group and see yourselves as individual persons in society and instead as a "unit" while is great, you are more than that) succumb yourselves to a lot of subcultures or reality just societal ideals of what you believe your life should look like. Take inspiration and make your own life worth living and stop looking at everybody else's as the "perfect guide book" to follow. There is no perfect anything and it's incredibly harmful to yourself and others to believe that there is, you dont know why people are the way they are or what happens behind closed doors. Follow your own path and make something beautiful out of you, even if it resembles somebody else's or looks completely different. Some of you need to come out the closet, haha, (once you feel safe and comfortable to do so of course). I'm been pulling in many directions in this pile so I'm going to cut it here. Know that you are okay and that the path you seek will find you but you need to let yourself realize that you're a unique individual with a mind of their own, let yourself have fun on the path that you walk on and choose if you want this one or not. You can get on an off of it as many times as you want and even choose a new one as many times as you like.

In short words, who is your fs? For some of you, you dont want a future spouse, you just want a life partner and a friend a you will find that, you will find the people who match you and fall into the right place. – For others of you, know that your future spouse is currently looking for you and they are exactly as you envision, if not better. The only thing about them is that you might have a couple traits off such as their nose or skin tone and perhaps ethnicity. They might have some "imperfections" as well that you might not think of, maybe they have braces and for some of you I'm hearing "knee surgery" so it's likely one of them has had an injury and either has a scar they're worried about or they have a slight subtle awkwardness to their walk. Dont worry so much about this, some of you overthink about these imperfections and for many of you I'm getting they're not even there and you're just anxious, I promise you'll be okay, haha. The universe knows your heart and it is good and full of love and that love will go into the right hands. You'll be alright, now go rest your pretty head, some of yall have been up all night 💤💤

Pile 3: 💜

• Wow. I cant even tap into your energy, I just tapped immediately into theirs. This personal is serious, this person means BUSINESS maybe even HAVE a business. They're not playing, they seriously want a commitment. I'm getting that they're a "hot mess" but they may just be very passionate. Much like pile 1 this personal may be black, if male brown skin, tall, tall, tall~ and very endearing gentle eyes. If she's a woman then by LORD she's gorgeous, likely darkskin, clear skin, lip gloss and possibly Christian, she takes her faith very seriously but as serious as she may be or come off she's actually so silly and goofy and just the sweetest soul to have around. She wont play about you. This won't apply to all of you but for some of you this person might be mixed and freckled or a red head, possibly a July Leo (or this might just be you) though this is for a few of you so take only what resonates. Your fs is very well read and well spoken, they're very educated although I'm getting for some of them they never went to college, for a few of you though they already have their masters or are on their way of getting it. They might have a similar background to you and or have the same political beliefs. Honestly what I'm getting from this is almost like a "background check" kind of vibe haha, they're like handing me a clip board and having me be your middle man and "vet" for them, I feel like you might be "hard to approach" or you dont just let ANYBODY in your energy like that, you dont just give anyone YOUR time of day and they're aware of that so they're not playing ANY games and getting straight to it and letting you know straight away why they are a great candidate for being your one and only partner. Although I am getting that they are kind of "flawed", not flawed as in bad but flawed as in, they come off as perfect but I believe you may somehow see through it, that while they are very confident and self sufficient and honestly, very, very, very remarkable, reliable and most of all loyal and dependable, they genuinely are a great catch..while you know all this you also know how they seem to be missing a piece of themselves, theres a loneliness in this and it's very gentle, very tender and childlike. They're very mature but ultimately, they just want love. They want love at it's rawest, purest form, they want to be infatuated with you, by you, lost in you, they want to crave you and admire you and receive at least fraction of that same love as well if possible. They're are a hopeless romantic and altho they may not show it at first I feel like you'll get that first wall to crumble without much effort, the rest of it will simply just dissolve the moment you're finally with them. This person wants something serious and if it applies for some of you even marriage and children or both. But even if you dont want this, it doesn't matter because they only see you and not a check list of things to cross out. They want to share something true with you and see how it blossoms into something beautiful.

This one has heavyyyyy 18+ messages in them, it was hard to hold back from typing them but for a lot of you before you go off doing the do with this person know that they are INTOXICATINGGGGG and soooooooo irresistible and they treat you sooooo so good so WRAP IT UP!!! BECAUSE THE TWO OF YOU HAVE VERY MATCHING ENERGIES AND ARE VERY VERY FERTILE SO IF YOURE NOT USING SOME KIND OF CONTRACEPTION (birth control, condom etc) YOU  W I L L  HAVE BABIES!!! 🍼👶🍼👶😭😭

Safe sex = Great sex, take care now✌

(I'm being so serious, wrap it up, some of yall dont listen, I get the heat of the moment might be fun or take you in but babies are a serious 18 year long commitment and if you're not ready for that please don't be hard headed and keep you and your partner safe. Thanks!! That's all bye! 💛💛💛)

[twilit-tragedy]

Like, who wrote this? What were yall on writing this dialogue? 😭

Oh, the pain~ I'm replaying the CLANNAD visual novel and I've no one to share funny bits with

[honourablejester]

Every time I go back and watch Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, I’m amazed all over again by the panoply of genres this movie and the VHD setting in general indulges in.

The story is set in “the distant future, where vampires rule the night but their numbers are dwindling”. It sort of plays like a weird techno-gothic post-apocalyptic sci-fi western? Over the course of Bloodlust, we start out in a cross-bedecked gothic city, head to a meeting in a ruined church straight out of western, complete with rifle-armed cowboys on guard, go full fucking Dune in the middle with D riding his biomechanical horse across the back of field-sized sand manta rays migrating across a massive duned desert, head to a small canyon town that's a hideout for various yokai, stop off at a roman ruin in a lake and a massive science fiction stronghold with a mirror-cloaked exterior and automated defense lasers, before heading to the final showdown in the massive crimson techno-gothic castle of Carmilla the vampire queen, which doubles as a spaceship. Because the vampire D has been pursuing this whole time wants to go to the endless night of space to be with his love.

The team of hunters competing with D are armed with, variously, a massive fucking hammer, an absolutely ridiculous arm-mounted crossbow that launches roughly 2000 silver arrows a second, a singularity shooting pistol, and an astral self that flies around the battlefield like an angry sparkly ghost that shoots lasers.

Conveyances include said already-mentioned biomechanical horse, a horse-drawn carriage drawn by similar horses, a full-on motorbike, a massive armoured motor truck-slash-tank, and also said previously-mentioned spaceship.

Let’s just say the aesthetic is simultaneously all over the place, and weirdly unified. It’s a far flung dystopic future run by gothic creatures of the night, after the slow apocalypse that has led to their dwindling. So you have futuristic technology and gothic medieval sensibilities in bizarre but functional post-apocalyptic union. It’s really cool.

Possibly helped by the fact, mind you, that this movie is just stupidly beautiful and so gorgeously animated that you’ll forgive it a lot of sins. But it isn’t actually committing too many. The weird genre blend makes sense, and the vibe is cool and coherent enough that you’ll roll with it.

[canmom]

I’m wondering if you’ve ever read that scrapped antisemitic Zeta draft by Tomino? It reads like an alt-right shitpost.

This is news to me - though I'll admit my Tomino knowledge kind of begins and ends with the declaration of the 'New Anime Century' and the 'kill em all' reputation from Ideon. my impression was that he had a kind of generally newagey attitude with the newtypes and everything. which is not incompatible with swallowing some antisemitic conspiracy shit.

Though as far as bizarre inexplicable antisemitism in anime, the case I do know about is Ichirō Itano's Angel Cop OVA, which apparently goes all in on some protocols of the elders of zion conspiracy shit. Itano is not otherwise like a nazi or anything, none of his other work has anything like that, he's mostly known for reckless antics like strapping fireworks to his motorbike or blacking out in a fighter jet while researching for Macross. so the only explanation I have for that is that in Japan, it must have just looked like a wacky foreign conspiracy theory that they could play around with, rather than something incredibly charged with modern day prejudice that gets people killed? I don't even know, though. The Diary of Anne Frank was a bestseller in Japan, it's not like people aren't aware of the Holocaust having happened. just strange

[jinxekkotimebomb]

Joseph's Bizarre Motorbike.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Mongabay Environmental News:

Michael Harvey recalls the moment he first saw a flock of yellow-crested helmetshrikes flitting through a cloud forest in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: the first confirmed sighting by scientists of the species in 16 years.

“It was more bizarre and exciting than I could have imagined,” says Harvey, an ornithologist and assistant professor at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).

In December 2023, he and a team of U.S. and DRC ornithologists and herpetologists trekked for weeks in cars, on motorbikes and on foot to reach the Itombwe massif, on the western edge of the Albertine Rift, a vast ecoregion of mountains, valleys and forests spanning five countries in East Africa.

Harvey and a DRC assistant had left their camp to hike up a ridge to look for cloud forest birds. When they reached a fern meadow in a natural forest clearing, rain clouds swept in, and thick swirling mist reduced visibility to around 10 meters (33 feet).

“I’m in the meadow, and inside the cloud forest, I start hearing these wild, snapping sounds and squeals that sounded like wind-up toys,” Harvey says. “Then, out of this pea-soup fog, I see these jet-black shapes, almost blacker than black, starting to emerge in the fog, and I raise my binoculars and that’s when I can see these brilliant, bright, whitish-yellow crests on the birds, the yellow eyes, the yellow eye wattles, and the pink-red legs.”

It was a small flock of six to eight yellow-crested helmetshrikes (Prionops alberti), a species he’d only previously known from books — and one that scientists hadn’t sighted since 2007.

“They were interacting with each other, making these bizarre sounds and doing acrobatics right on the edge of this clearing and then they sort of melted back into the forest and moved down the ridge.”

Finding the yellow-crested helmetshrike wasn’t the main reason Harvey went to Itombwe, though it was a “dream bird” that had been at the back of his mind alongside the Itombwe owl (Tyto prigoginei) and Itombwe nightjar (Caprimulgus prigoginei). The latter two haven’t been recorded by scientists since 1996 and 1955, respectively.

The main reason Harvey went to Itombwe was to obtain a genetic sample from the Grauer’s broadbill (Pseudocalyptomena graueri), a tiny, brilliant-green bird that’s the sole species in its genus. He succeeded: both observing a pair of Grauer’s broadbills and taking a genetic sample. But his first encounter with the helmetshrikes, and further ones the team had during the six-week-long expedition, stick vividly in his mind.

[ultramanginger]

Alien vs Predator rewatch thoughts...

Since Romulus was coming out, I rewatched every Alien and Predator film in order and I offer a thought for each movie:

Alien (1979)

It's a classic that has some incredible ideas that are still scary and fascinating to this day, but...

Watching it in HD, it's hard to miss some really cringey moments, like the Alien jazz hands and the way that Lambert and Brett's death scenes are so similar that they use some of the footage shot for one for the other.

Not to mention, the more you read about the making of the film, the more you realise it being good was luck rather than skill, as so much of it was the way it was to keep costs down. A lot of what Scott would have done with more budget and freedom would have been just awful.

Still great, still a classic, but not even the best of the franchise, let alone reason to consider Scott the one to make Alien great again...

4 stars

Aliens (1986)

Perfect movie. No notes.

5 stars

Predator (1987)

Exceptional action movie and an exceptional scifi horror at the same time. Like Alien, it would have been terrible if not for blind luck. None of the pieces should have worked together, but somehow the whole ascended above the sum of the parts.

5 stars

Predator 2 (1990)

Much maligned and it is VERY 90s, not to mention it meanders around a lot of filler. Focus on the good parts, however, and there are great ideas and some great scenes. A worthy classic.

4 stars

Alien3 (1992)

The making of this movie is absolutely a better story than the plot. Taking a script about the devil on a wooden space station and turning it into a popcorn horror flick was impossible, even for Fincher, who still deserves credit for making something so incredibly fucking bleak. The effects don't hold up, the edit is a mess, but it's still watchable.

3.5 stars

Alien: Resurrection (1997)

Fuck Joss Whedon, but Resurrection is basically an early Firefly pilot and that works. Lots of people don't like the movie as they hate the characters, but they're no less deplorable than any of the other Alien crews.

Is it perfect? no, but this bizarre mix of Alien lore expanded in a crazy direction, Firefly, and French arthouse direction is a hell of a mash-up. Not only does it have some great ideas, but I genuinely enjoy it.

4 stars

Alien Vs Predator (2004)

Cheesy, slightly vacuous, unlikely to win cinematic plaudits, but completely terrible? Not at all.

Event Horizon showed that Anderson can do worthy movies (at least one), and this is not him at his best, but it's still very watchable.

3 stars

Alien Vs Predator: Requiem (2007)

It's obviously not defensible. This movie is trash, but it's probably not as bad as you remember. There are some fun ideas executed passably. There are also some terrible ideas executed poorly. The attempt to do Alien and Predator as a teen horror movie is actually kinda interesting, even if there was no way it would ever work.

2.5 stars

Predators (2010)

Such casual misogyny. Like... so much...

Aside from that, this is pretty good. It still has that classic Alien and Predator luck that salvaged some garbage script ideas (drunk predator motorbike gang?), but overall it does feel more like a fun non-canon EU novel rather than an actual part of the franchise.

Prometheus (2012)

3.5 stars

I went on a journey with Prometheus over the years:

It's a fucking terrible Alien move

Actually, it's not a bad cheesy scifi horror if you pretend it's not an Alien movie

Actually, no, it's still a shit scifi horror, it's just a better scifi horror than it is an Alien movie

Please, someone take Alien away from Scott and send him home?

2.5 stars

Alien: Covenant (2017)

So, Scott started off like:

"No-one cares about the Alien! Let's give them a movie about mental pseudo-archeology that pretends to be an Alien movie!"

With this movie, he was like:

"Sulk. Fine, I guess people like Alien, but lets put Aliens in my mental pseudo-archeology movie so I don't have to admit it sucked!"

It still sucks and this weird hybrid mess is even worse than his straight mental pseudo-archeology movie.

Not to mention, why did they finally let him do Alien sex, even if it was just watching? Please keep him away from these movies!

2 stars

The Predator (2018)

Woof. I thought Predators was offensive.

How a man with Tourettes can make a character with Tourettes feel inauthentic and offensive, I don't know, but Black managed it.

This had so much potential with Shane Black writing and the cast and the budget, but it's just total crap. Yes, they completely reshot the ending, but even the original ending sounds bad.

2.5 stars

Prey (2022)

Just a complete joy. This is all I want from a Predator movie and movies in general. That this not getting a cinematic release put people off is ridiculous. Go watch it.

5 stars

Alien: Romulus (2024)

Attempting to connect Alien with Prometheus in the final act was stupid enough to put people off a movie they admit was otherwise perfect. This shows just how bad Prometheus was and why Scott needs to go.

Yes, the final threat is not ideal and no-one wanted a reference to Prometheus other than Scott, but this movie is otherwise so good that you HAVE to forgive that, particularly if it spawns a new franchise of good Alien movies without Scott.

5 stars

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

if any of these apply, im begging you, please reblog and tell me the tags about how you/your family did it. i think it would be very funny.

honestly reblog and tell any bizarre family stories youve got in the tags. it would be good enrichment for all of us.

also if you want more details about these, send me an ask, im physically incapable of shutting up

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group J Round 2: #J1 vs #J2

#J1: Two high school girls overcome mommy issues with the power of YURI!

#J2: Two girls wander the post-apocalyptic world

Details and poll under the cut!

#J1: Flip Flappers

Summary:

Cocona is an average middle schooler living with her grandmother. And she, who has yet to decide a goal to strive for, soon met a strange girl named Papika who invites her to an organization called Flip Flap.

Dragged along by the energetic stranger, Cocona finds herself in the world of Pure Illusion—a bizarre alternate dimension—helping Papika look for crystal shards. Upon completing their mission, Papika and Cocona are sent to yet another world in Pure Illusion. As a dangerous creature besets them, the girls use their crystals to transform into magical girls: Cocona into Pure Blade, and Papika into Pure Barrier. But as they try to defeat the creature before them, three others with powers from a rival organization enter the fray and slay the creature, taking with them a fragment left behind from its body. Afterward, the girls realize that to stand a chance against their rivals and the creatures in Pure Illusion, they must learn to work together and synchronize their feelings in order to transform more effectively.

Propaganda 1:

Flip Flappers is a magical girl show that brings its own unique twist to the genre, while still being reminiscent of older classics. It has incredibly creative visuals, good characters, and an absolute banger soundtrack! The deeper messages of the show are about finding the courage to start making your own decisions and living your life the way you want it, growing up, and the struggle against controlling authority figures that entails. While it is a fun show, the emotional moments it has hit hard! It also has a yuri narrative (seriously, they even get taken to an all-girls Catholic school yuri setting one time), which I’m sure the himejoshis on this webbed site would appreciate if they saw the show!

Propaganda 2:

Look, sometimes Magical Girl Shows have fights that are just kinda… ehh. You ever wanted to see magical girls beat the SNOT out of monsters in amazingly animated, incredibly physical fight scenes? Give Flip Flappers a shot! And if you don’t, that’s fine too, because the shows genre changes every other episode anyways.

Flip Flappers has a little something for everyone. It has amazing characters. It has slick transformation sequences. It has stunning fight scenes. It has horror. It has yuri. It has mommy issues. It’s fun for the whole family!

While one would think the constant tone-shifts would leave the series feeling kinda all over the place, Flip Flappers keeps itself grounded with its amazing character work. The main two characters, Cocona and Papika, bounce off of each other incredibly well. They have so much chemistry, and it’s refreshing to see a show that actually does something romantic with its two main leads instead of just kinda dangling it in front of your face and then chickening out at the last second.

In conclusion, this show is the embodiment what having ADHD and being sapphic feels like. Give it a shot!

Trigger Warnings:

Flashing Lights/Flickering Images, Gender Identity/Sexuality Discrimination, Guns, Kidnapping, Nudity.

Depictions of child and emotional abuse, both at a side character and a main character. Control over children is a common theme in the show.

#J2: Girls’ Last Tour (Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou)

Summary:

Amid the desolate remains of a once-thriving city, only the rumbling of a motorbike breaks the cold winter silence. Its riders, Chito and Yuuri, are the last survivors in the war-torn city. Scavenging old military sites for food and parts, the two girls explore the wastelands and speculate about the old world to pass the time. Chito and Yuuri each occasionally struggle with the looming solitude, but when they have each other, sharing the weight of being two of the last humans becomes a bit more bearable. Between Yuuri’s clumsy excitement and Chito’s calm composure, their dark days get a little brighter with shooting practice, new books, and snowball fights on the frozen battlefield.

Propaganda:

Above everything else, this is a show about how human life and curiosity will continue to exist even in terrible circumstances. The two main characters are super charming, so following them around is fun, but even beyond that it’s just a gorgeous show. The scenery is often awe-inspiring and beautiful, as is the soundtrack. Despite the show taking place after the end of the world, it can be surprisingly uplifting as the girls (and the audience!) find wonder and joy in the world around them. Definitely a show more people should watch!

Trigger Warnings: There are some flashbacks that depict the war that ended the world, but they are not graphic. Some blood is shown, but not much else. Main characters own guns, though they don’t use them on other people.

When reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

If you want to criticize one of the shows above to give the one you’re rooting for an advantage, then do so constructively. I do not tolerate groundless hate or slander on this blog. If I catch you doing such a thing in the notes, be it in the tags or reblogs, I will block you.

Know one of the shows above and not satisfied with how it’s presented in this tournament? Just fill up this form, where you can submit revisions for taglines, propaganda, trigger warnings, and/or video.

[fattofitemma]

Motorbike gear, no idea!

As a pillion princess on my husbands motorbike; I invested in new gear last year and spent money on trousers and jacket. The assistant had to keep bringing me bigger and bigger sizes as bike gear is bizarrely sized.

After a long winter, we got the bike out yesterday, and I put the trousers on, and they immediately fell down. I asjusted the velcro straps but they were like clown pants.

I had to settle for my husbands kevlar jeans, and we rode to the bike shop. Due to the weird sizing, she kept bringing me trousers, but this time, it was smaller and smaller. I've never worn flattering leathers before. I love them.

I am, however, hoping not to be stressed that I'm going to put the weight back on. I've gone from UK size 20 to UK size 12 in 4 months. My brain hasn't adjusted. I still think I'm a 20. I look different in the mirror, but I don't believe the image to be accurate. I can't explain it.

[johnbierce]

Vietnamese Urban Design and Autodidactic Fails

Being an autodidact sucks sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, most of the time it's an absolute blast! I genuinely love learning and exploring new domains of knowledge. There are, admittedly, a LOT of pitfalls- missing out on basic important domain knowledge, reinventing the wheel, misunderstanding expert consensus due to remove from the field, etc- but the times that being an autodidact sucks are a lot less common than the pitfalls.

When I'm exploring domains of knowledge I have actual training and schooling in- geology and history, most notably- I'm much better at knowing how to track down answers I lack. I have a firm enough grounding in the basics, contacts with experts, and clear routes to more advanced ideas, that it's generally easy for me to track down any answers I need.

With many of my more autodidactic obsessive interests, though, I lack that foundation, and frequently find myself unable to even articulate what question I should be asking to pursue my curiosity!

Take urban planning/ design. I am genuinely passionate about the topic, and I'm always reading new books on it. But I lack a genuine background in the topic.

So when I'm walking around Vietnamese cities, I can point to all sorts of interesting stuff that accounts for the wild variances from American cities. More mixed used planning, streets that are designed more for motorbikes than for cars, the near-absence of walkable sidewalks (they're really more motorbike parking most of the time.)

I've managed to track down a lot of answers over the years. Like, one major distinctive feature of Vietnamese cities is thin, narrow-width, medium height buildings. Three to ten stories tall, no windows on the side (just the front and back), seldom more than one or two rooms wide at the front, but stretching way far back. And they're jammed right together, no gaps. There's not a single reason for this, but a BUNCH of them. These include:

Vietnamese building codes don't have easements or building separation requirements- people generally just fill their plots up ALL the way.

Vietnamese folks in some areas often built their homes behind their stalls at market, meaning they had very limited frontage, so had to build longer houses.

Longer houses are often better in the heat, similar to shotgun style houses from the American South.

Vietnamese cities are just plain cramped! There's a hundred million-ish people living in a country only two-thirds the size of California, after all. Not much room for wide plots!

More mixed use planning- tons of business owners are just running mini-marts, pharmacies, or restaurants on their ground floor. (It's totally normal to see the family kids doing their homework or playing with toys in some corner of a pharmacy or minimart!)

etc, etc. I'm sure there's many reasons I'm missing.

(Vietnamese rural architecture has a lot of differences, and some similarities- high ceilings to deal with heat are common across the country, but rural homes are often wider, single-story affairs, with three front doors in a similar setup to Vietnamese temples.)

But there are SO MANY other questions I don't even know how to ask. Like, I can see that there's something really weird about some of the intersections in Hanoi (besides the frequent absence of traffic lights, the absolutely insane interweaving traffic, etc), but I have no way to articulate what's so strange to me. I recognize that there's something different than I'm used to, but I genuinely don't have the basic knowledge or pattern recognition to point it out, and it's only present in some intersections. Literally the best I could do to explain would be to physically take someone to a few of these intersections and gesture vaguely.

Other differences I can point out- to stick with intersections, the bizarre hugeness of some of them. In such crowded cities, whose widest streets are still fairly narrow by American standards (a four lane highway is huge for Vietnam), some intersections just loom colossally bigger than expected. There's just so much open space in the middle, like they were going to put a roundabout in, then got bored. I can hypothesize about why they're so big- like, I'm pretty sure the way that traffic tends to interweave motorbikes and cars is part of it, and the way that motorbikes either move in packs/schools or shelter from oncoming traffic in the lee of cars going in their direction is all part of it, but I don't know for sure. Are there infrastructural reasons to do with plumbing and sewage? Are there weird little bits of urban history behind it? How much is it affected by the frequently more-than-four, frequently odd-numbers of streets entering the intersection? How much does it have to do with the fact that people take "the right side of the road" and "one way streets" as more of a suggestion than a rule? (Vietnamese traffic is terrifying before you get used to it.) What about the greater presence of street food vendors?

I can point out the differences there, and I can ask at least halfway coherent questions, but I genuinely struggle to find the paths to answer these questions. With the increasingly enshittified returns from Google searches, the problem is even more exacerbated!

I could ramble a lot more about Vietnamese urban design (how much more bottom up design there is, how much more visible certain parts of infrastructure are, all the cool climate adaptation solutions Vietnam is coming up with) for a while- much in the same manner as an excited small child- but as a strict autodidact in urban planning, I've just got HUGE gaps in my knowledge. The knowledge I do have isn't negligible, by any means- I read about it a TON, and it's resulted in me being excellent at city design in my novels (if you'll forgive a little tooting my own horn.) But my knowledge that I'm so proud of breaks apart on the iceberg of actual existing urban design here.

So... I try to stay humble, as an autodidact. I regularly pick up books on the basics of topics I'm interested in- I can't tell you how many times I've gone back to basic physics and chemistry works for refreshers. I never want to be one of those pompous, iamverysmart autodidacts talking down to or dismissing actual experts- and I definitely don't want to go anywhere NEAR the autodidact path that results in messianic complexes. (Looks pointedly at Eliezer Yudkowsky.)

Part of me wants to just start taking online classes again, to be a lifelong formal student. I'm fortunate enough in my career that I probably could justify that, especially since being a research-heavy author is one of the things I'm known for as an author. I just don't have the executive function/spoons for more formal schooling at this stage of my life, unfortunately. There's a reason I have seven years of university and no degree under my belt. (Another issue with Vietnam? Really hard to get ADHD meds, they aren't fond of stimulants here.)

I'll never stop being an autodidact, though. I just love learning too much.

[larathia]

There's a bizarre kind of sweetness to Girls und Panzer that makes me think someone started the project on a whim and then went "nonono I'm SERIOUS" only to find the concept wasn't lending itself to seriousness without a LOT of mental gymnastics.

Like. You can tell, up front, that basically this anime was written by somebody that just really, really loved tanks. All the tanks. Big tanks, little tanks. All the tanks. And they had the not-too-weird thought of "well, girls and guns is hot. And girls and motorbikes is hot. So, if I put cute teenage girls in tanks, that's gotta be hot too, right?"

And as far as that goes, he wasn't wrong. But then, poor ideas-guy, they started trying to make that make sense. So there's whole bits about how the WHOLE COUNTRY loves tankery. There's tankery shops, and tankery cafes, and whole naval cruisers set aside for tankery battles. And the advertisements are all about how tankery is a 'feminine art' and will make women more beautiful and desirable and so on.

At which point I started thinking "You're overthinking this, writer person. You prooobably should've just stuck with 'girls in tanks = hot'."

And then...the Traditional Japanese Girl mindset met 'tank' and you can just see the worldbuilding collapsing. The tanks are too loud! The seats are uncomfortable! The paint scheme is drab! Cleaning tanks gets you sweaty and dirty! ...All of which kinda flies in the face of Tankery being seen as a 'feminine art', because if this world as set up REALLY THOUGHT THAT, the girls wouldn't be having those reactions.

They certainly wouldn't be having the reactions of 'let's paint our tank red and reflective gold and cover it with flags', or 'paint it pink', or 'decorate it with delicate lacy curtains and soft cushions and cute stickers'.

Please note that I am not saying tanks can't be (or aren't) feminine. Or that 'driving a tank' is somehow not feminine. I am saying that the worldbuilding of the anime is trying to have it both ways, by saying tanks as we know them are inherently feminine while at the same time having every girl in the setting who isn't raised in the art finding it unpleasant and uncomfortable and in need of ...well, what Japanese culture tends to think of as 'feminine touches'. If Tankery in this setting really IS a 'feminine art', then the tanks would either ALREADY LOOK LIKE THAT, or the girls would be just fine with them as they are.

(Much like we don't bat an eye at 'horse girls', who are just fine with mucking out stalls and other 'heavy/unpleasant work' related to horses, yet they aren't seen as less 'girl' for this - on the contrary it's often seen as a perfectly normal thing.)

....I do love that they're making a distinction between 'tankery' and 'warfare'. It feels kind of like the distinction between 'fencing' and 'actually trying to kill an opponent with a sword' at times, but it's intriguing.

That said, I may have to rewatch this series a few times because the pieces don't mesh together quite right and that tends to make me want to write fanfic. (I mean Our Heroine STARTED THE SERIES WITH IDENTIFIABLE PTSD WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT IT.)

[sugaroto]

Does anyone know if this was a cartoon or not?

Like I have this memory of this specific cartoon but I only remember seeing it once and bc I've never seen it again I'm not sure whether it was real or whether I dreamt it or something

I guess it was like a different version of the 3 pigs and the wolf

Cause what I remember was that the 3 pigs lived together and there was like a "gang" or something of wolves that wanted to eat them

But because they couldn't they came up with a plan

Which was to leave a baby wolf outside of their home so the pigs would raise it

And so they adopt and raise the wolf, and I specifically remember a scene in which they take him to school and he's like "bye dad, bye dad, bye dad" cause all the 3 pigs are his dads

But I think when he became a teenager he was like ... going through a phase I guess, like a bad boy or something, and he wanted a motorbike

Ps: at the beginning of the movie the wolf-gang all had motorbikes

But the pigs didn't let him have an evil motorbike

And I think the wolves had been stalking them the entire time, waiting for the right moment to go and continue their evil plan with the kid, like "Hey great job now let's eat your dads" (which of course he didn't remember cause he was a newborn)

I think the wolves might have given him a motorbike and the pigs didn't like that? Idk I don't remember anything else

Ok this is very bizarre but I'm sure I saw it as a movie, does it exist or did I make this whole shit up and then convinced myself it was a movie? Was this a fever dream? What the fuck?

[bumblingest-bee]

i have been waiting my whole life to tell someone about this. lord of the rings modern AU. bilbo baggins disappears after his own retirement party to travel the world like he did back in the '60s, but not before leaving frodo an old ring with a note that casually says "i found this on my travels and it turned out to be a priceless ancient artifact. please return it to the museum where it belongs. by the way, the mafia might be chasing you for it." a bizarre roadtrip across europe in a shitty old van with all of frodo's friends ensues. gandalf is one of bilbo's old stoner buddies from uni. gimli drives a motorbike.

What's the fic you would write if you had the energy for it? Ambitious, complex, novel-length—the fanfic you'd make if you could.

[asolle]

Click on the link to download or stream Music Music Music fall 24 episode 9: https://app.box.com/s/t8vd7wuq8fmzodcnjx978cxy1honeq4z

Playlist:

The B-52's - Cosmic Thing Flying Lotus - The Lost Girls Madness - The Prince Cardboard People - Afterlife Porno for Pyros - Pets New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle Cake - The Distance Honeymoan - Crush Phantogram - Running Through Colors Amyl and the Sniffers - Motorbike Song SOPHIE - Reason Why Major Lazer - I'll Make Ya Talking Heads - No Compassion Modest Mouse - Float On/Ocean Breathes Salty Bad Bunny - Neverita King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Phantom Island Jungle - Problemz/Dominoes They Might Be Giants - Doctor Worm (live) Toro Y Moi - Girl Like You (live) Tom Waits - Going Out West (live) Belle and Sebastian - Lazy Line Painter Jane Au Revoir Simone - Crazy/The Lead is Galloping Myd - Let You Speak Peter Bjorn and John - Music SunYears - Slipping Away The Smile - Zero Sum Nine Inch Nails - Zero-Sum