#the pedant answers

[pseudophan]

why did a tram yeeted itself into an apple store in oslo, nora?

great question but it was funny as fuck. the way it drove like head on into the apple store looked like it was aiming for that specifically 😭 no one got seriously injured (i think four people were hurt but it wasn't anything extreme) so thankfully i get to joke about it because this photo is SO funny to me i'm sorry

this is the energy dan was channeling when he said he was gonna dig up steve jobs

also tram in norwegian is trikk and because this was right before halloween every comment section i've come accross about the incident has just been filled with 'trikk or treat'. which is a bad joke but one i unfortunately found funny every time

[dnpbeats]

i think the whole big fan accounts. it being a thing is kinda interesting cos they absolutely are a thing just in a different way. To me people like Nora and Bethanie are the phannies on tumblr. I’ve seen asks a few times that Bethanie answered where people have told her they’re parasocial about her, i also remember her posting about how many people recognised her at the wad recording shows. With Nora I see regularly people saying they aren’t even phannies anymore and haven’t been for years but they still follow her cos she’s pseudophan

We’ve shifted away from the fan accounts and the fics etc but the parasocial culture to some blogs is still very much in play

yeah I agree! that’s kinda what I meant when I was saying that well-known blogs still exist but it's not the same as Big Name Fans™ ten years ago. bc like sure there's X blog that everyone in the fandom knows, but there's not the culture there used to be where people would regularly identify themselves as fans of the fans yk? (at least not in a literal way)

[lord-squiggletits]

for the director's cut meme: I am very fond of Cooling Off, and interested in the "thank you for protecting me"/"not shooting you is an obvious tactical benefit", because the one doesn't quite follow from the other and I've wondered what your reading of that is...

Cooling Off, the fic in question, and the relevant excerpt:

"By the way... thank you for protecting me during that battle. I appreciate it." [...Prime, not shooting you is just an obvious tactical benefit,] Megatron said. [And since when did you need anyone to protect you? I think you hit your reality processor on the way down here.] Optimus' chuckle was low and quiet, resonating slightly through the barrel and grip of Megatron's alt-mode. "I would shoot you any time you let me. I enjoy the feeling of a well-crafted gun in my hands."

Ah, this one was written almost 2 years ago, so it's super not fresh in my mind. But this bit is easy enough for me to explain! The intention was to show some subtle megop banter: as in, they aren't lovers in this scene, and they can't even really be friendly because the (mostly irrelevant) background of this is a temporary faction truce. But nevertheless, I wanted to have some banter in which the pair of them betray their fondness for each other. Also, Megatron is really tsundere about his side of the affection, obviously.

In this part, Optimus is trying to distract Megatron from transforming out of gun mode (bc he wants to keep holding him) and opts to show gratitude towards Megatron. Basically, trying to distract Megatron with soft, friendly feelings.

But Megatron, being tsundere and unable to acknowledge for pride/political reasons that he likes being around Optimus too, deliberately sidesteps Optimus' gratitude by essentially expressing "Don't thank me, I would be shooting you right now if it weren't for the fact that keeping you alive helps us fight our common enemy." He's essentially rejecting Optimus' attempt to connect as people via compassion and gratitude and responding by saying their relationship is pragmatic, nothing more. Which is also followed up in a subsequent line:

[You're a good shot, Prime,] Megatron eventually replied. [Why don't we keep it at that until we get out of here? And stop fondling me, you're embarrassing yourself touching a gun like that.]

Again, Megatron is deflecting Optimus' soft and affectionate emotions by putting on a veneer of pragmatism, a "we only work well together because we have to" style of deflection and denial. But this time he returns Optimus' emotion a little by giving him a compliment about his shooting-- a useful, pragmatic skill, not one about OP as a person. So Megatron is returning OP's warmth a little, but being sure to do it in a way that maintains the plausible deniability: he is, of course, only working with Optimus because it's a tactical advantage, and he of course only likes being held in gun mode because Optimus is a good shot. But he also leaves a little bit of mystery by saying "Why don't we keep it at that until we get out of here," as if implying he's interested in reciprocating OP's affections in a more optimal location.

TLDR: Megatron is being coy.

Remember that ask I answered a little bit ago about how Megatron and Optimus are the kind of people that have invisible conversations underneath the surface of every seemingly superficial/everyday discussion? This is a prime example of that.

[brittlebutch]

i kind of hate to say it because i feel like i'll get pushback for it,,, but i kind of feel like if you're going to be making informational posts about autism online you do need to be reading actual autism research and literature. at least some of the times. like you can't just make things up and then present them as fact.

[sissiarte]

Do you have a favourite Celtic god, mines Brigid, she’s basically Celtic Apollo if he was a boy and was the hid if like 10x more things <3

Oooo yes, she's really cool and a very interesting figure!

(Not sure if it counts, but celtic is a very lose term so I'm going to count her in) Navia! There's not really much about her but has been generally identified as a fluvial goddess and they made sword offerings to her in rivers which I think is really cool. I think she was mainly worshiped by continental celts and not really in the isles, but I might be wrong! Also from a very early period, as I said not sure if she counts, more pre-celtic or something like that I supose.

But I like her mainly bc there are many places named after her in the region of Spain where my family is from, so!

[woodsborostabathon]

maybe its bc im simply too autistic (in general but also abt these movies) to Not be bothered by it but whenever i see one of those memes where its like “i would survive scream bc i never answer the phone lol” its like brother. no you would not. ts dont even matter at the end of the day. like half the ppl who end up dying in these movies do not even get a call to begin with. aint nobody call wes, liv, and/or anika and look wtf happened to them 😭

[alrightbuckaroo]

Nice ask attack! Is there a fic you really want to write but haven’t yet?

Hi Andie!! I hope you've been doing well 💖 If only I could describe the Pandora's box you've just opened! You'd be itching to close it.

I believe I currently have 20 WIPs in the folder right now, so I would say there's quite a few, with the Old West AU definitely being at the top of the list.

I fall more in love with it the more time I spend away but I also want to get it done so I can finally share it. I think I've rewritten the first 5k words like three times hahaha

That said, I'm also really excited to finally finish the bounty hunter au, the 1940s au and the rolling thunder of your fingertips. I would give it a nickname too but I don't think there's a quick way to say "the au where tk is a journalist who falls into a dom/sub relationship with famous hot weatherman carlos" so, the title it is.

But yeah, any of those! I think the worlds are going to be extremely immersive, and since world building is one of my favorite things to do, I get the chance to be super self indulgent hahaha.

Thanks so much for the nice ask attack 💖

[freckliedan]

Hi!!! I just wanted to talk about how Dan and Phil as a brand is so relatable to neurodivergents in the way that they've been treated recently. So DnP built their careers off of being "weird" and "quirky" and socially awkward. That was Their Thing. Dan spoke for years about being violently bullied (quotes such as "being punched in the head by dickheads" stand out as a pre-BIG example of just how violent it got at times), Phil had the Why I Was a Weird Kid series, they both were frequently talked about as being "weird" and "awkward" by other YouTubers - they WERE the "weird" ones of the vlog group. The ones that awkward teens could relate to. Unfortunately, this got the attention of the #imsoquirky crowd who talks like they're experiencing all of these things while also being the same people who would mock me for my autism.

And that's the crowd now saying Dan is too old to be posting catboy photos or saying that the two of them "give the ick now, idk why." And I just can't help but notice how much I relate to that as an autistic and ADHD person. So many times over the years, I've made "friends" who were slightly into my interests, but then got weirded out by how hard I went into them. I think what we're seeing is the same thing happening to Dan and Phil. Drawing cat whiskers on your face to answer questions? Well that's "so cute and quirky"!! (/s). But actually playing as Catboys in JRPGs, dressing up in cat ears, making animal noises (which the two of them always did but ig this group overlooked), etc? Well that's "too far" and "so weird."

I think Dan especially got hit with this because he has more subscribers. When he talks about being bullied, most people can relate to that. But then when he goes and honks a horn in a game repeatedly (which tbh I've done before myself, very ADHD coded of him) or talks about hiding behind vending machines to avoid talking to people, that is suddenly "too annoying/weird" for some of the audience that got into him for his "relatably weird" content.

Sorry this is such a long ramble, but basically Dan and Phil have accidentally become the perfect examples of how kids with autism/ADHD/social pragmatic disorder/nvld/dyspraxia *insert other neurodivergencies that can cause atypical socialization* are treated. People might find your initial "quirkiness" relatable because everyone feels awkward or socially anxious at times, but it's when they see that you are Actually Just Like That and it's not to be #relatable that they turn on you and start saying that you're "too much" and "too weird."

Dan and Phil were the "weird" ones of the British vlog scene, and those of us who tuned into the younows or watched their older videos knew this, but someone who only subbed after watching a meme review or the two of them playing undertale might have assumed that they were the "right" kind of quirky/weird.

This is probably incoherent, but I hope you get what I mean.

this isn't incoherent! just such a well thought out ask i don't have anything to add. there's really specific ways i'm comfortable talking abour dnp + neurodivergence & neurodivergence in general so it's not something i've ever done super in depth posts abt!

i've actually gotten a few really lengthy asks like this over the last few weeks, so this is to you and to my other askers: i really appreciate that folks want to share their ideas with me but sometimes i genuinely don't have enough to contribute in response to add on to what's being said! and that makes it pretty impossible to answer asks like this.

so this is to everyone: feel free to @ me in the replies on your posts! (doing that leaves things cleaner than @ ing in the body of a post, which in my experience means folks are more likely to engage, if that's what you're looking for). especially loop me in about dnp + neurodivergene or dnp + gender!

this isn't a promise i'll rb or even see things, this website's functionality is shit, but like. it's actually way easier for me to see and support than if yall are sending me essay length anons, and this way i + others can find more people who share the same opinions as us! make ur own posts & ppl will follow u i prommy

[mecachrome]

no wait please go on more about oscar’s winning mentality… and most of all whether/when you think there will be tension of a fracture with lando because i’m sure it’s inevitable 🤧

hi anon!!! :') haha okay well this might be an annoying hot take but the reality is that i don't think there's such thing as a "winning mentality" in the first place T__T or idk how you meant it (and of course please feel free to elaborate if you'd like!) so i apologize sincerely if i'm completely misinterpreting your question, but for me personally what i appreciate from oscar is rather certain qualities he possesses / has been said to possess that i believe put him in a favorable position to better attain an optimized performance threshold, if that makes sense, which maybe sounds pedantic and many would argue is essentially a winning mentality but i still try to be careful with how much i correlate driver intangibles with outcome-based hypotheticals because i find that many fans + journos + team personnel alike can be eager to perpetuate an ideal of a "mentality monster" or "a future wdc" as though either construct is delineated by the same universal qualities when imo that simply could not be further from the truth…

…i've started and deleted like 5 paragraphs about car/driver/team development & the service ecosystem of professional sporting industries & human tendency toward recency bias and arbitrary pattern recognition but much of this is most likely not relevant to your question at all so let me try to be a bit more brief LOL.

the short of it is: motorsport and f1 in particular are interesting because all professional sports are entertainment products that rely on human unpredictability, but the level of agency its primary actors are privy to and the degree to which certain intangibles (e.g., mentality, drive, Wanting It, Dawg/60 as i say when talking about hockey, and in some sports even individual marketability) are upheld as competitive instruments vary widely per the nature, construction, contact level, global reach, etc. of each sport. with f1 the "front-stage" end product is of course the race package media companies are contracted to present to a global audience, but its primary actors (drivers) occupy a unique position in that they are both the vehicle facilitating that product but also occupiers of another, both figurative and literal, Vehicle that is in itself its own end product, only designed and manufactured in a back-stage black box. and so most of the time in sports, the entertainment is not only the product itself but also the discussion generated around the product, which is then enhanced by the exchange of external data and anecdote, but the problem with f1 is that this sort of end-product inception and the inherent secrecy of car development makes for third-party analysis of the sport that is equally complex and limiting… as in, f1 fans are constantly being inundated with soooo so much data because it's literally a sport built on relative numbers, but all of that data is pretty much useless without proper contextualization—sure, you can look at public telemetry all you want, but you can't really present an informed conclusion on certain approaches or styles or deficits unless you also identify nuances of both the car's inherent characteristics and its specific set-up during the session. which is also how i feel about evaluating driver mentality!!!

basically i think there's no such thing as a meaningful "winner's mentality" at the top level of any sport because everyone wants to win, inherently, and without this ambition you wouldn't be in f1 to begin with. i also think the adjacent idea of a mentality uniquely crafted to becoming a winner is in itself a vague concept for f1 because there's less of a binary quality to performance than compared to other true team sports (yes you technically lose every race you don't win, but it doesn't explicitly count against your season record). in this case i'll define it as becoming f1 wdc… which of course we all know is contingent much less on driver influence than on team direction and development, and again is why i dislike the practice of saying x or y is "wdc material" because that's a very meaningless metric at the end of the day.

god okay i know i never shut up about andrea (SORRY AGAIN.) but personally i really love the way he talks about oscar because i think he understands this relativity very well, and that a driver should develop specific, identifiable, and objective actions in order to support the optimization of their processes (and thus performance!) rather than to achieve any specific outcome (winning). that is to say… i guess honestly, my idea of a "winning mentality" is simply not having a marked preoccupation with winning in the first place, because what matters most is being able to consolidate the right now of what you can control in order to support the later of what you will achieve, and letting the results speak for themselves instead of getting caught up in the idea of needing to or wanting to win (when that should already be a given). which i do think oscar embodies! some astella quotes:

“I don't look how far we can go. I just look [at] what do we have to do now to go as far as possible?" (qatar press con)

"For me what is important is just a sense of journey. The results take care of themselves, so what you really have to focus on is, every day, try to be better than yesterday." (speedcafe) 

"I'm not one that works by targets or expectations. I really work by process, by identifying what's the right approach, what's the right vision, and then let results come to you. [...] Let's not think about the results. Let's just think about ‘how do we deliver performance projects in this many areas of the car, such that we can be innovative, such that we can be fast in developing, but also developing at a pace that is sustainable over time?'" (btg)

My God… That's Oscar Piastri's Music!!! anyway i guess what i'm trying to say is that i don't really think there is any true characteristic a world champion must have because it is less about the characteristic itself and more about how it interacts with other characteristics and the way a person manages this sum total—take the idea of "consistency" for example, which is often liberally applied to drivers without any temporal/material granularity. do we mean over an entire career or a season or during a single race length? do we mean consistency in terms of race craft or qualifying pace or a specific metric like race starts and reaction time? being consistent is good if it means that you're consistently getting high positions relative to your competitors, but it can also veer into an overly conservative approach. so to me everything requires a very finetuned balance of raw pace, consistency, adaptability, and a healthy capacity for self-reflection, and it's why i really liked the way andrea talked about how oscar had natural speed as a rookie but also took this incremental approach to his weekends by working toward his maximum session over session, because pushing the limits in fp1 is useless if you're still navigating and identifying new areas of opportunity. but of course this then also relates back to the timeline of adaptability and how everything in motorsport is = the faster you can "adapt" (within a weekend but also over the course of a season) the higher your stock is, so this gradualism must also be well-managed. and the thing is that a driver's capacity to adapt as they move onto newer categories and face new technical regulations is something we as outside observers cannot truly predict or project even though we all love to try!!!

there is a whole spiel about defining what adaptability even means in motorsport here but i'll spare everyone. i think it's very fair to say that oscar is a generally adaptable driver (in that he can get up to speed with the technical components of a new car quickly, that every championship he won in his junior career was in a new chassis, that he has an ingrained "awareness of what the opportunities are" when driving and the "capacity to self-recognize where there is more to come from either himself or from the car," and he so far has shown marked improvements over the length of a race weekend that reflect positively relative to rookie expectation), and it can be assumed that his most pronounced weakness from 2023 will be much better mitigated now that he has crucial track experience in hand, since tyre degradation is expressly something simulator work cannot fully prepare you for. but at the same time i really reject any notion that ~now that he's not a rookie + because he's an adaptable driver + his mentality is sooo much better than lando's (when again it is about the Sum Total of characteristics and not how one specific characteristic is reflected in previous wdcs) his pace will immediately match/challenge lando's~ because first of all, no, and second of all the quantitative mystery is still, how much of that race-pace deficit can better management annul for oscar (or conversely how much of it is simply inherent to him)? so there are too many variables… and anyone who tells you they can predict that is lying!

also re: Potential 814 friction…!!!!!! i guess again as i always say there are really too many variables to make assumptions here... and i think it's hard to imagine, actionably, what a fracture would even look like for them, since lando and oscar are both people who manage the on/off-track separation well and i honestly don't really foresee any huge professional fallouts even if they do have to fight for positions on-track more frequently. but like andrea said, if oscar wins before lando then it means (unless it's a truly fugazi win lol) that mclaren has a car capable of winning, and i again reject this idea that lando is so mentally weak that he isn't capable of being motivated by that, and equally it is actually a Good Thing for a team to have "two #1 drivers" so long as that relationship is well-managed... will they even have two #1 drivers next season (i.e. will oscar really be that much closer to lando)? and if so will it be well-managed? that i cannot tell you!!!!!

honestly teammate dynamics are not something i'm ever confident in extrapolating much from because there are so many contingencies to Who wins first / does anyone even win at all (X to doubt) / who outperforms whom (and how do we measure that) / who "leaves more on the table"... all of that stuff......... but it is definitely a very interesting question. and i will be eager to witness how their relationship develops based on the mcl38's performance next season and of course its performance relative to rb/merc/fer!!!

[valentjin]

art summary 2023 (template from here)

[bunnys-beetlejuice-blog]

I recently saw a renaissance painting that reminded me of the early chapters of your western au, "The irritating gentleman" (1874) by german artist Berthold Woltze

It has made me want to re-read the story

<33

i love that piece! defo a tone inspo image for lydia on the train. all black and clearly in mourning and still her feelings are ignored by the men around her. another reason why cowboy beej is so endearing to her so quickly- here's an adult who listens and treats her thoughts as important!

[annabelle--cane]

helen missed a great opportunity to maliciously exploit the lack of communication between jon and georgie during season 5. like bitch could have twisted the whole thing about jon killing avatars into something much more obscure for georgie to stop him being allowed in the tunnels but homegirl chose to destroy her trust gained from melanie by trying to eat arun. I need to write this fic

I must confess that I'm a sucker for aus where the distortion is let loose to wreak havoc on people's relationships, it's so fun to watch.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

The bit about Xie Lian's father seeing himself like a son of god is probably a reference to the fact that chinese word for emperor Tianzi literally means Son of Heaven. If wiki is to be believed, in both China and Japan the termin "was interpreted literally [...], whose monarchs were referred to as demigods, deities, or "living gods", chosen by the gods and goddesses of heaven." In Medivial Europe there was something similiar, what with divine rights of the king and whatnot.

thank you for this! i think this does check out and is consistent with what some other people have told me. and yeah, gotta love legitimacy stemming from the mandate of heaven/divine right of kings. it’s the stuff all the best historical dramas are made of tbh.

[tumblezwei]

So really Blake is just as problematic as ghira is, why do we as a fandom just accept this?

"We as a fandom" accept Blake being "problematic" because we've already criticized the WF subplot to death. Like, dude. We know. We know the message put forth by the WF subplot is ignorant at best, trying to rehash the argument but this time arbitrarily focusing on a specific character isn't really doing what you seem to think it's doing.

And outside of the WF, Blake has plenty to love and plenty more depth. The message she's been written to believe is a single aspect of a complex character. It is entirely possible to criticize that subplot while being able to wholeheartedly enjoy Blake and the themes surrounding her.

If you can't, that's a you problem.

[bluespring864]

dont know if you're watching the rat - Thompson match. but he just had the biggest tantrum I've seen in a long time, not only was it totally embarrassing ,but he was also so violent with the umpire

not surprising, unfortunately. What else is there to say about that. He has anger management issues but I don't think he ever acknowledged he should work on them.

[resplendent-ragamuffin]

Hi

I'm asking you this bc of your latest post about Mikveh.

I don't want to talk to actual rabbi irl, due to the sensitivity and identity issues.

My question is this:

I'm Jewish.

I'm on-off sex worker

I'm female.

Should I go to Mikveh? Are there any spesific things I should do, due to my circumstances?

(this is an open question).

Thank you

So first off, huge caveat: I am in no way a halachic authority. I'm just a frum nerd. I also have no personal experience using a mikvah, as I am not in a situation where it is relevant to me yet. There are multiple opinions on just about everything in Judaism, and any answer would also be heavily dependent on where on the observancy spectrum you are--Orthodox and Reform are going to have very different answers, especially on something like this. Additionally, rulings are often tailored to a specific person's circumstances--which is one reason why you need someone knowledgeable, because they'll know what nuances may apply.

I would really strongly encourage you to find a rabbi you can trust, and/or talk to a mikvah guide. In your case I would probably recommend an open mikvah, as they are more likely to be understanding. The mikvah guides are there to help, and if they're doing their jobs right should be discreet and respect your privacy. Likewise a rabbi making rulings should be keeping your business to themself, and shouldn't be gossiping or anything about what you tell them. There isn't any sanctity or privilege like Catholics have during confession, but it's just common decency.

That said, and coming from an Orthodox perspective:

Hesitantly, I'd say yes? But as I say this is pretty much an educated guess. I know that among those who are not celibate outside of marriage, there has been a movement to go to mikvah for niddah, but there has also been pushback (mostly on the basis of "you shouldn't be having sex outside of marriage, so you're trying to do a mitzvah on a sin;" as I understand it those who are against pre/extramarital sex but pro-mikvah tend view it as "you shouldn't be having sex but if you're going to you should make sure you aren't tamei"). This is why I'd recommend you talk to an Open Mikvah; they're frankly less likely to be judgemental in a case like this.

(To be clear, I am not intending to come off as judgemental myself, or to say that "all Orthodox people are judgy about this--Orthodox Jews aren't a monolith any more than anyone else is, and the "two Jews three opinions" rule applies to us too. I'm just quoting things I've heard the one time I was in a discussion about this, which was years ago. I'm really not an authority on this topic.)

However as myself a "waiting 'til marriage" Orthodox type I really can't give you a particularly strong answer. And like everything else, any answer would depend on where on the spectrum of observance you fall, and even then there would probably be multiple answers.

My followers might have more useful answers?