#it's natural to feel frustrated

[anarchonist]

That post about guilt and shame only being effective as deterrents but not in inspiring anyone to change their behavior in any meaningful way got me thinking about those other posts about progressive circles consisting way too much of people not with a desire to do something right but instead with a fear of doing something wrong, and...

Yeah. Those two are related. Guilt and shame are the weapons of the status quo, designed to instill in everyone with a conscience a fear of failure, of hurting others, of being a bad person. And it's pretty fucked up when people are being shamed for that, since, well, shame doesn't inspire any meaningful change. So the problem persists, deepens, even. Since by shaming someone for not getting over that shame, you've now discouraged them from thinking about that instilled shame and maybe finding a solution.

It's shame and guilt all the way down. Perhaps shame and guilt could be used against people who tend to shame and guilt others in order to shame and guilt them out of shaming and guilting others? I don't know. And that's a true shame.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

I saw your post about bugout bags and like ... bracketing the Gestapo Doorknock thing, when did the "correct" response to a natural disaster become to immediately flee and go into refugee mode? The negative fantasy here is heroically saving yourself while your idiot neighbors die, instead of making the kinds of community connections that people actually use to survive and respond to disasters.

I get what you are saying about community connections being the best path to resiliency, but you should very much flee from floods and wildfires when at risk, to name a few. Ideally while making sure your neighbors are also getting out of Dodge, all assuming there has been ample warning for this particular disaster. But sometimes, there are scenarios where you just have to go that very moment.

For all their talk of bugouts bags, I don't think the capital-P Preppers actually want to leave their home bunkers.

The same American Exceptionalism that causes people here to have Lone Wolf apocalypse fantasies also makes them think they can survive a hurricane in a coastal flood zone.

There is an element of humility required to leave one's home possibly permanently. But that's the key difference, here -- the Preppers aren't as interested in survival as they are in ushering in some kind of new World Order.

You see this type pop up every now and then as a hurricane sets its sights on a town -- the people who make it a big point to talk about what they'd do to a looter, should the Big One hit. These are folks who are not interested in becoming a refugee amd are fine with the risk of staying home, if it means they can shoot people from their little castles.

I also saw more mundane selfishness when I did hurricane rideouts for emergency operations in my old Florida city job -- part of our comms was to remind people that we could *not* send anyone out to help them peak-storm. Sometimes, fleeing (aka, saving yourself) is what keeps other people alive -- they don't have to risk their lives saving you because of your stubbornness.

So, I'm a bit skeptical of fleeing being a power fantasy. What's more likely to happen in a lot of natural disasters (especially those with lead times) is you either get renegade fools in clear danger refusing to leave, or uninformed folks not at risk who panic and think they need to evacuate when they should just hunker down. (And then there are the unfortunates who should evacuate and want to, but cannot because the system has failed them in some way.)

That said, for a longterm crisis, community absolutely is key. And even in a short-term crisis that requires an evacuation, one is presumably fleeing *to* some place that will have other refugees, and it's in one's best interests to build community even in these temporary conditions.

[ambrosia-vinca]

Am I tripping or are many people misreading Mary Kirby's answer re: Spite's confusion about the almost-kiss between Rook and Lucanis?

Spite doesn't think Lucanis should have kissed Rook in that moment. Spite is a demon of “Gleefully not giving people what they want.”

Rook wanted Lucanis to kiss them. Lucanis didn't kiss them.

Spite, as a demon of nope, then goes: Yes! Good! You denied them! Wait. Why are you sad?

[starry-bi-sky]

yall ever think Shen Yuan went through like, internet withdrawal after being transmigrated into Shen Qingqiu? Like, he's canonically a NEET shut-in who did nothing but spend his time online, you can't tell me that for the first week or first few weeks of being SQQ he wasn't twitchy.

Like, reaching instinctively to his pockets for a phone that wasn't there, having an obsessive itch in the back of his mind that he should check and see if X or Y novel or webcomic has updated -- only to realize he can't anymore and being irritated by it. Wanting to go and see if there's new posts about this or that, but again realizing that he can't.

When he's bored or uncomfortable or just feels like wanting to escape he tries to go for his phone to distract himself, but oops! Not there anymore, and now he has to find a new and different way to distract himself from his feelings. And going through system notifications, quests, etc only does so much.

And there's that Tetris Effect too. SQQ makes a mistake while writing and instinctively goes to backspace on it except hey-ho that's not a keyboard and now he just dipped his pinkie into a bottle of ink or on a still-drying letter.

With him scrambling to fix his reputation and learn how to be a peak lord, I think his abrupt cold-turkey from all things internet would just be another straw on the camel's back that he promptly Ignores until it goes away on its own after he acclimates to his new surroundings.

[mariocki]

Gareth Thomas returns - still running a car hire service, now inexplicably called Tom Lewis - in Public Eye: The Bankrupt (6.1, Thames, 1972)

[nnoragamis]

people who complain about the length of skip beat are cowards tbh. personally i would read 1000+ chapters of kyoko mogami being an insanecrazygirl forever and ever. because i have Taste.

[cautiouslyyyoptimistic]

Still think about Mo Xuanyu from time to time. Like what the fuck. What a nothing burger. You learn little rumors here and there about him. That he's gay, mentally ill, harassed fellow disciples, had incestuous feelings for his brother, and was kicked out of his community because of it, ect.

And you think "wow, this novel about how bad rumors and mob mentality is is so interesting! Everyone has a different truer side to them that is hidden by public perception! Can't wait to learn the twist about the mentally ill incest pervert gay man who's body the protag is occupying! I bet it's a classic case of the guy being found out or thought of as gay, and then gross rumors like incest that caused him to be kicked out of his community was added on later. because historically queer people were oppressed and ostracized because they were seen as obscene, incestuous, pedophile perverts, ect by homophobes. Wait, what's that? We learn jack shit about him? All the rumors are never confirmed or denied 100 percent? Most likely everything we know about him is true? No canon typical empathy flashbacks? He's just... Not a character we need to think about?"

It makes me insane. Welcome to mdzs, we have gay people like wangxian and uhhhh *looks at smudged hand* More Xanax.

[lemongogo]

is this the part where i say i like jaymel . bc i do

[specialagentartemis]

The end of a fandom fixation is such a bittersweet feeling. It’s like a fever breaking; you were in the throes of it for a year, two years, however many, it’s all you think about, you want to discuss it and create for it and relate everything back to it, it’s the constant running background noise of your brain. And then something happens or maybe nothing happens. And one day you realize that you don’t really care like that anymore. You don’t feel the desire to check the Tumblr tag or keep up with the AO3 tag and the fan conversations spinning ideas about it don’t give you the urge to join in. You sit down to your fanfic WIPs and don’t really see the point. You’re looking forward to the next installment but don’t feel the need to Do Fandom about it. It’s gone from your Fandom back to a thing you just like.

[puppppppppy]

I made a lmk oc

[lemongogo]

oo u want 2 draw soo bad..

[bonefall]

wait, why can’t a decent amount of the members in proto-thunderclan not hunt?

A lot of them have serious physical disabilities! It's enough that it poses a logistical problem, which they are committed to overcoming together.

Thunder Storm's three legs makes him slower than his companions. He's ferociously powerful, but like a male lion, he has to rely on his "lionesses" to slow a large animal.

Bright Storm has asthma from her heroics trying to save SkyClan cats from a fire. She's taking that from Gray Wing, who is famously the first major death now. Like her son, she has a difficult time with chasing prey.

Bumble is dyspraxic. She's a terrible hunter and fighter and struggles with self-worth because OTHERS used it to dehumanize her, and continues to, even after an entire society forms out of love of her.

Sunlit Frost has permanent nerve damage in his arm from the fire, and ends up working so hard that it makes his disability worse. A bite on the good paw from Snake becomes infected after he refuses to sit out from digging graves after the First Battle; I am planning a chunky B-plot about Sunlit coming to terms with the fact he has to retire early.

That's FOUR major members of a small group with physical disabilities that make hunting hard or impossible. They have a lot of logistical problems that I will actually be exploring solutions to.

[mightydyke]

Watched Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind a few nights ago and I loved it so much. Obsessed with all the metaphors and the symbolism. When Kushana said she wanted to destroy the toxic jungle in order for humans to rule the world again, but we know or can guess that humans trying to gain too much power is probably the exact reason why the toxic jungle is so dangerous. And then we learn that the jungle itself isn't toxic, it's just the soil and water that has been poisoned by human activity!! And the fact that the forest actually purifies the water! And of course Nausicaä discovers this by going into the jungle and learning about it. She's a hero because she studies ecology.

I also loved the theme of the danger of violence, and also Nausicaä trying so hard to stay as pacifist as is feasible even when violence is so tempting. During the battle in the castle in the Valley of the Wind when Tolmekian soldiers are invading, Nausicaä fights them off but she's blocked by Yupa and her sword goes through his arm. My friend was like "surely if he's a master swordsman he knows not to block with his arm?" but I was like "No it shows the damage of violence and how war hurts everyone!!" Another moment that seemed really key to me was when the Tolmekian airship was getting attacked and Nausicaä goes to steal a gunship. Kushana sees her and smiles because she thinks Nausicaä is going to use this ship for battle, that she's been seduced by violence, but then Nausicaä uses that ship to save Kushana! She transforms this weapon into a vehicle of peace, when using it for violence would be so easy, she chooses a different path and that scares Kushana more than anything, which is why she tries to take back control using her gun in the toxic jungle, even though Nausicaä knows that this is only going to cause more suffering. Of course there's the ending where she stops the stampeding Ohm not by force but by empathy, taking the pain of the baby Ohm onto herself when she goes into the acid lake trying to save it, and her dress is stained from it's blood, symbolically allowing its suffering to change her so she can understand it, bringing peace by sacrificing herself, not the Ohm (honestly you could read Nausicaä as a sort of Christ-figure but that's a whole other post). For me, a big thing that really resonated with me and drove in the idea of choosing peace over violence even when it's really hard was every time that Nausicaä cried. Every time she cried I felt like I understood the frustration and feelings of powerlessness so vividly. When she tells Yupa she's going to cut off the water to her underground plants so that they die, just like how the jungle is going to die, because the Tolmekians are stronger and forcing them to go along with the plan, and I could *feel* the anger that everything she'd worked so hard for would be destroyed because she wasn't powerful enough to stop it. And this feeling of helplessness is so similar to when she tried to hide a baby Ohm but it was killed by her own people and her own father. And when she learned of Pejite's plan to use the Ohm to destroy the valley of the wind and she just cant convince these people not to murder her valley. And when she sees the baby Ohm and how much it's been injured and she says something like "I'm so sorry for what we did to you" whilst crying... I felt that so much. And all the time it's because she realises the value in all life, and she can't convince people who see life as worthless compared to their greed, but because she knows life is so valuable she can't respond with violence, but her path of always valuing life works in the end! She doesn't need any weapons when she has compassion and ecology.

[nellasbookplanet]

Sorry but my thoughts are still on the nature of death in dnd (and other fiction where resurrection is possible), specifically on the implications it has on worldbuilding.

Resurrection magic existing kind of makes for cultural issues that have no parallel in our world. Some of it compares - such as the inherent class divide and tensions when the rich and powerful can literally buy their way out of death (a class divide is a class divide, this just digs the chasm deeper, which I'd love to see explored more in media btw) - but the implications on grief and acceptance are on another level. In our world, there is no bargaining with death. So much of our lives is spent coming to terms with the fact that we will all die one day, and mourning and moving on whenever death strikes near us. We experience stages of grief like denial and rage and bargaining but in the end there is no escaping it, no matter how hard you work or beg or rage. Clinging on can only hurt you. It's pointless. All you can do is move on, and it is so hard.

But if death is conditional. Impermanent. Something that can be defeated with money or power or faith. How do you ever move on. On a societal and cultural level, there should be entire rebellions based around who has access to resurrection. Powerful people offering resurrections as incentive would be all over the place, with desperate people selling their souls and freedom and entire lives to save a loved one. Would soldiers fear dying, seen as disposable, or would they fear being brought back again and again to die eternally on the battlefield?

But on an individual level. Is acceptance of the inevitability of death even possible when it’s no longer inevitable? If you decide that no, you can not give up everything to go pursue resurrection of your child, will you hate yourself? You could save them. Why aren’t you? Why aren’t you doing everything in your power? How much do you hate the people who have this power but won’t offer it freely? If you yourself are brought back from the dead and find out most of your loved ones just, let you go, would you hate them? Would you feel abandoned and betrayed? If you’re watching from the afterlife and see your loved one, who’s been working to get you back, decides to accept your death and move on because they have found new love, would you find a way to fucking haunt them? Oh, you think I only lived for you? That I don’t want life just because I can’t have you, too? How selfish is that. But how selfish would it be to bring someone back only to salve your own feelings of guilt, whether they want to or not? Would there be an entire industry of mediums based on people needing to ask their loved ones if they wish to remain dead or not? How much more powerful would hate and love and hubris be in this world, lacking the absolute limit of death?

[dyketennant]

oh i can already tell i’m about to have some really unpopular opinions about the edge of sleep tv show

[silasthecreature]

One day I'll crawl out

From the system that I was planted into the very day I was born

Made to grow into, roots digging deeper

Until I pull out every fiber of my being

One day I'll move far away from there

From everything I've ever known

I'll settle down in the woods in an old house

With herding dogs and houseplants

Drinking tea on my porch in the morning

One day I'll let myself be exhausted

From the mud i trudge through every day

I'll curl up on the floor like an old dog

Rest my head on my paws

And let sleep consume me like a black hole