#i mean it was probably inevitable but

[kradogsrats]

can we talk about how this absolutely FUCKS the entire societal lore by giving one rando a last name when LITERALLY NO ONE ELSE has one

Lore on Captain Skall!

[edwinisms]

you ever think about how edwin got like. no warning, no time time to process, nothing, when he reappeared on earth faced with the fact that virtually everyone he knew in life is dead. his parents? probably died in the 1950s or so (at best) almost forty years prior to edwin’s return. if any of his classmates were still around, they’d have been elderly, possibly senile, and in a few years they’d all be gone– except, of course, edwin. nothing looks the same, cars look like spaceships, there actually are spaceships, he can no longer see the stars, and everyone he knew is dead.

[ollylotl]

heyyyy i just dropped a completed multichapter 58k words prime defenders fantasy au fic. if you like greyscale arc, or ghostknife, or general pd shenanigans in alternate universes, maybe check it out :D

[transingthoseformers]

I've been thinking about future situations where the maltobots are all grown up, and the human Maltos are long gone

Transformers have long, long lifespans, after all

Maybe things are doing well

Maybe the terrans keep in touch, maybe they don't live with each other anymore but they still talk

Maybe humans in general are still around, maybe they're not

Maybe the Cybertronians are here, maybe they aren't

Maybe there are other new terrans, maybe there isn't

There's lots of maybes in this scenario

But

The one thing that's for sure

They still miss their human family.

The events of Earthspark are in the distant past for them now, but they'll never forget it.

[vaguely-concerned]

Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.

G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.

An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........

[pianokantzart]

The live action Legend of Zelda movie had better aesthetically be just like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves but with big practical effects monsters or I don’t want it

[the-way-astray]

alright everybody can we please stop tagging me/talking about me in the notes of pro keefe/sokeefe posts. i know strieefe has made it so that it's really funny to talk about how much i love him and how much i'm in denial when i say negative things about him under those posts (and that's all in good fun and not the problem), but we have to think about the fact that the ops are just trying to make a positive post and probably don't want a keefe hater in their notes /srs

[lumiilys]

ofmd cancellation is interesting to me because on one hand it made me love the show so much more than i already did but i also miss how i felt before the cancellation. I miss wondering what s3 would look like, i miss looking forward to renewal, i miss looking forward to seeing stede and ed's relationship develop, i miss the pure excitement and happiness (without the twinge of sadness i always get now). But the cancellation also really cemented my love for the show and i probably wouldnt love it quite as much as i do now if it had never happened. hmmmm its strange!

[eddis-not-eeddis]

I am the most hopeful of pessimists

[keshetchai]

As someone who enjoys religion blogging/discussions, I've come to realize that it's a good practice to be aware of the general signs/symptoms of religious-OCD thinking (aka scrupulosity), because if the conversation is taking on all the hallmarks of scrupulosity, it's actually a definitive sign that we cannot meaningfully and compassionately engage in a conversation about religion in a healthy way. I've actually had this play out a significant number of times online, and when I realized what it was, I also began to realize that the intrusive thoughts/obsessive and compulsive thinking are only ever fed by continuing the discussion with that person.

[[ Important edit to clarify why I am saying it's not healthy — made after I went back to look for more concrete facts about OCD or anxiety (I have GAD, not OCD, but many resources overlap since they're both anxiety disorders):

When Reassurance is Harmful — this explains how/why reassurance-seeking specifically about an OCD fear is a compulsive behavior, and engaging with reassurance-seeking interferes with recovery/management/treatment.

This table from the Anxiety Disorders Center lists key differences between Information Seeking and Reassurance Seeking.

This IOCDF page on Scrupulosity info for Faith Leaders identifies "symptom accommodation" as enabling. Two of the examples of doing this by participating in the OCD behavior are: "Engage in excessive conversation focused on if-then scenarios (e.g., "If I did this, then would X or Y happen? And what if Z was involved? How about W?")" And, "Repeatedly answering questions about ‘correct’ religious or faith practices."

That page also goes on to outline more info about reassurance seeking. "Although providing answers to (often simple!) questions may seem harmless, providing reassurance serves to maintain the anxiety disorder cycle." (This BMC psychiatry article cites a lot of related studies establishing this.)

The IOCDF page on What is OCD and Scrupulosity? ]]

Imo, the responsible thing to do is to recognize that (even if the other person hasn't outright stated it/isn't diagnosed)* the conversation is not about religion, it is about needing mental health support from professionals and experts. Talking to me, the layperson who enjoys chatting theology and my religion — is not only not helping, but is actively harmful. I'm not just talking about the person who I replied to today, either. Like I've said, I've seen this happen dozens of times in various online forums.

*[while I am against diagnosing strangers on the internet, it's important to realize A) lots of people don't know what Scrupulosity is, so it's possible they've never considered this is a mental health concern that could be treated, and that B) for the purposes of my concern, it doesn't matter if they actually have diagnosed OCD. The only thing that matters is that their thought-process causes them genuine distress/fear, and every response given to them seems to only incite new/additional distressing questions/thoughts, or further entrenches the original distress.]

Ultimately, any discussion aside from "you might want to speak to a mental health professional about scrupulosity OCD" seemingly puts me in the position of feeling as if I am being used for their self-harm. I hate that feeling. I do not want to be leverage for fear and pain. I have GAD, I despise the idea that I am making things worse.

No matter how much I love religious discussion, the answer in these cases is always "please reach out to an OCD specialist/mental health professional. I am not qualified to discuss this." And then to stop there. I have never once seen anyone stuck in this compulsive thought spiral be reassured or feel any better by hearing from someone else's approach to theology handled with things like empathy, compassion, logic, or even atheism. It doesn't matter what we say, how we say it, or how we relate to our own religion. The urge to engage in this kind of conversation in order to chat about religion is a sign that we are not equipped to help.

You can't have a conversation here, because intentionally or not, ten times out of ten, you are adding fuel to the fire. Just like people can't simply tell me something that would erase/talk me out of my ADHD/depression/anxiety disorder, you also cannot simply argue/reassure/persuade people out of scrupulosity. We should not try. We have a responsibility to consider that it's outright harmful to do so, and to disengage.

[caeslxys]

What didn't gel for you with the ritual? Was it how Delilah is still... kinda around? Or how the characters reacted?

The Delilah thing has me concerned but I felt it was an overall positive for Laudna, and I'm just curious of your thoughts!

oh I'm actually elated delilah is still around, if she were perma-gone I would've honestly had more problems with it 💀

not because it isn't a wonderful thing for laudna! it is! I'm so happy she has more control over her life and choices!! she deserves it so much!!

but. as someone deeply invested in that narrative. that its been built up for about 100 episodes (I believe it was 4, when delilah was first officially revealed?) and was (semi-)concluded in a ritual that took less than an hour to complete, that they discovered less than a full game ago, and that they proceeded to then not talk about at all in any significant way was deeply disappointing. a culmination that should have been this massive emotional upheaval fell overall flat to me bc of how rushed it felt.

But that's just me! and some of it was my own expectations and my own distaste for the pinion as a solution since well before they realized that's what it could be. but at least she's still there! so it's not truly over yet!

[thelastspeecher]

My work's report of injury form says to write what item exactly caused the injury

Which means that I get to struggle for a few minutes before typing "ground"

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[note-boom]

Things I have learned from the Untold Origins Arc (anime version)

The ADA is so very literally the founding of a family

Seriously, Asagiri, don't be shy. Give us more on the special abilities lore. What was it with that play and the angel symbolism and also the mystery abilities are surrounded with in the decade before the whole Dark Era thing?

Odasaku really should have lived till at least the DoA arc cause my man predicted like half of its themes and plot at age 15. And I thought he could only see a few seconds into the future?

What it means to punch someone's face in because that's exactly what Fukuzawa did to that nameless soldier

Cows: Ranpo 🤝 Kenji

How old is Fyodor Dostoyevsky?!?!

Natsume Soseki is absolutely a combination of Mori and Fukuzawa in that he's a mysterious, competent loner-type mentor figure but that he's also kind of a creepy middle aged dude lurking in the shadows and watching everyone

ANYWAY. Congrats Fukuzawa. You are now a dad.

[transingthoseformers]

Imagine that Bumblebee was born before his sire and carrier became Megatron and Optimus Prime, wait does that count as young unexpected pregnancy, so technically sparkling Bumblebee was In the middle of everything the beginng of war and last sparkling to born.

OOOOOO????? That has to have consequences, and also swings his age closer to depictions of him like we see in Earthspark as opposed to say tfp (probably) (probably)

[nostalgia-tblr]

speaking of doylist explanations, i do tend to default to one on the question of why missy has a(n interrupted) redemption arc when the other versions of her don't, which is definitely down to the fact that all the new who showrunners seem to go with the view that master as a character exists to be a dark mirror of the doctor, and moffat's the one who doesn't view the doctor as fundamentally good but as someone who has to continually choose to not be terrible. so if the doctor can choose to be bad then by extension it must be true that the master could choose to be good. it's like poetry, it rhymes!