Interplanetary Exchange Student

I sent my inner child to work at a steel cable plant to make some extra cash and it got mangled in an industrial accident and died in the hospital so I really don't have to protect it or whatever anymore. good luck with your self care stuff though

i was an inner child once, but then my mom gave birth to me, and that sucked, so i have decided to end the cycle of abuse by never having an inner child of my own

Bro put it back??

i'm going to grate it onto my pasta

it is DARK

we may be eaten by a Gru

How Far From London Can You Get By Train In 12 Hours

Slime mold looking for more nutrients

Slime mold escaping London in 12 hours

i mean slime molds apparently can solve the traveling salesman problem better than we can, so... i trust them https://www.livescience.com/8035-slime-mold-beats-humans-perfecting-traffic-networks.html

My dash is trying to convince me that "The Game" is actually Mario

You are forced to live in only one type of biome for the rest of your life, how do you react? You can leave and visit other countries or places, but only if they are in the same biome:

Spin the wheel to find out your biome.

this is cool but only because it guarantees that tropical rainforests will continue existing for the rest of my life

...oh wait. "the rest of my life."

...it does not specify how my life ends.

tricky fae questions. you got me.

ah well. at least i would not be the first to go extinct due to the destruction of my rainforest habitat

Lately, I’ve been thinking about people who really want to see romance in Disney movies again. It’s perfectly fine and valid for them to want that, but sometimes, I feel like they want to see romance in the wrong kind of Disney movies.

Take the Frozen movies for example. Yes, Anna definitely has a love interest in Kristoff, but the romance between Anna and Kristoff was never meant to be the main focus of those movies. The main focus of the Frozen movies is the sisterly relationship between Anna and Elsa, and I actually think they do a great job with that. Not to sound cheesy, but Elsa is a Disney character that I relate to a lot, mostly because her struggles remind me so much of the experiences most autistic women go through every day. That, and she also gives me major aroace vibes, and as someone who’s both autistic and aroace, I find that really cool. That’s why, to this day, I’ll never understand people who demand that Elsa have a love interest, especially since her character’s entire arc was never about that!

Then, you have Moana, another well-liked Disney Princess movie that doesn’t revolve around romance. Yet, for some reason, there are people out there who really want to force a romance between Moana and Maui, which is not only extremely out of character for the both of them, but very creepy, given the massive age gap!

Wish was definitely the kind of movie that would’ve benefited greatly from a good romance, but Moana and Frozen? Not so much.

Spin this wheel of ~300 AO3 tags three times.

seeing people on this site getting horny over robots is pretty funny as someone with a degree in them. half of yall are gonna lose fingers (or worse) to pinch points once the first consumer-grade android models roll out in a few decades. you know the memes about how closing the cybertruck's trunk can cut off your finger? imagine that but with an elbow joint. your cybergf is slurping your shit crazy style when she gets a forced firmware update that zeroes all of her servos including the ones controlling her teeth. and none of this shit will be covered under warranty. fuck a safe word, you'll need an e-stop button

everyone in the notes saying "umm the risk is part of the appeal": if you can't even have basic respect for the level of damage machines can accidentally inflict on you and instead get horny over it, androids would view you similar to the way trans women view chasers. you're not even concerned with the trauma accidentally cutting off your finger/dick would inflict on them. all you care about is you

you walk up to a robogirl at a bar and fumble your way through a pickup line about wanting to get caught in her pinch points and she tilts her head a little and waits before saying anything and you think she didn't hear you but she was actually taking a picture of your face, overlaying this over it, and sending it to her group chat with all the other robogirls in your city

Tumblr was super slow loading images just now n I got this

I think a lot of the problems in the world are connected to how easily people assume that

1. every large system of human interactions is essentially ruled by a monarchy, and

2. all effects of any given action happen instantly at once.

any time a change is happening-- whether it's in the laws of a nation, the management of an organization, the policies of a website, anything-- people will bring up problems that they fear the change will cause

but if the change happens and these problems do not instantly happen, the whole issue gets forgotten

but if the problems just take a while to happen... then by the time they do happen, the response is NOT "oh hey i guess this is the ultimate result of passing that new regulation 3 years ago"

instead it will be: "this is something new, meaning it has been done JUST NOW by the person who is currently the most well-known figurehead in charge of (insert organization here). That person is in charge, and therefore has the power to instantly make any changes that can be imagined, and therefore that's who did this."

humans need to start learning about both democratic decision-making and long-term effects of things, if we are going to survive in this world. and we are not off to a good start

Some rando: You should think about stopping your prescription

Me: My pills make me not want to die tho

They: You shouldn’t want to die, that’s not normal

Me: Yeah that’s why I’m taking my pills

Again: But you aren’t the *real* you when you’re on your pills

Me: I’m the alive version of me

An actual doctor, once: “Relying On A Chemical Crutch For A Hormonal Imbalance Denies The Fortitude Of The Human Soul”

Me: Cool so like I’m agnostic

They: “But you might be on pills the rest of your life!”

Me: “So?”

Good! That means that I have a “rest of” my life to continue living!

Thanks to the pills.

Meanwhile, no person ever: “You should think about giving up your insulin/antiretrovirals/beta blockers/anti-rejection drugs/prosthetic legs/daily multivitamin, because using those your whole life is bad for some reason”

Oh no, they do that too.

I have a kidney transplant. A woman once told me she didn’t believe in organ transplants and that people should just die when they’re meant to. 

Sounds like a great set-up for a murder

People who are fully healthy, fit and neurotypical seem to think they are that way because they’re doing something right that the rest of us haven’t thought of, and not just because they got lucky

Speaking of the luck of the non-disabled…I once terrorized a Karen who was using me to teach her entitled kid that disabled people are Other and should not be treated with respect. I told her (truthfully) that until I was twenty-eight, I wasn’t visibly disabled. Then a defective chromosome that I hadn’t known about kicked in. So my luck ran out. But until then, I had been normal–just…like…her. 

The sheer terror on her face as the concept of “You mean I’ve just been lucky so far?” seeped into her brain was a thing of beauty.

People who are fully healthy, fit and neurotypical seem to think they are that way because they’re doing something right that the rest of us haven’t thought of, and not just because they got lucky

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“You are one stroke of bad luck, common viral illness, or traumatic event away from being just like me” is honestly the most terrifying thing you can tell an abled person - and you should. I was healthy and fit and doing everything ‘right’ too - right up until some inner switch flipped and my body crumbled right out from under me.

just remembered a night out at a poetry slam thing when we’d switched up from a cane to an elbow crutch (because we hadn’t yet realised we needed a wheelchair) and some rando at the thing asked us about our crutch (as abled people will) so we said “some neurological bs” and they said “hope you get better soon” and we said to them levelly “oh this isn’t getting better” and the look on their face

This is a very hard thing for many people to grasp, because... it challenges so many of the things that, for them, make life worth living.

the idea that there's an inherent justice to the world, and those who consistently do right will eventually see some good results from it, something that makes it all worthwhile.

the idea that you are safe.

the idea that you deserve whatever good things you have. (and that you don't have any reason to give up your own happiness to feel bad for others who lack those things, or give up your own good fortune to share with them)

and that lacking good things happens for comprehensible reasons-- so if you do the right things, you don't have to fear ever being one of those who lack. (And that you actually have any real way of knowing what "the right things" even are.)

the idea that we, individually, have any power over what happens to us.

the idea that free will is actually meaningful, and that the few meager things about our lives that we can (somewhat) control are actually capable of making a difference against the vast enormity of what we can't control.

...

...the fact that none of these comforting thoughts are true, feels awfully bleak and hopeless.

To the point that, if your own life hasn't yet forced you to give up those beliefs, you might find yourself unable to let go of them, because the alternative is too terrifying

As someone with mental and (increasingly) physical disabilities, my own mental health fights a battle against this hopelessness every. single. day

...

and, like.

I believe there IS actually some hope for something better...

if enough people can come to the agreement that a lot of people's good fortune (including good health) IS really just luck... and that the bad things in their lives (often even including bad behaviors!) can get at least somewhat better with help from others...

if enough of us could someday let go of the concept of deserving and not-deserving... this focus on blame and punitive justice, and this obsession on bad circumstances being deserved punishments

and if enough of the more fortunate people could contribute from their own lucky circumstances to help others... with no thought of who deserves what, and no other goal except making a world that will, in general, overall, be better for pretty much everyone

then...

Well, I'm not saying this will make everyone's life live up to the current unrealistic ideal of perfect health.

(It won't! there will still be people with severe problems, both mental and physical! And if people's current expectations don't change a whole lot to go along with it, there are gonna be a lot of people who think this whole societal improvement was a failure, even if it does succeed!)

But. if humanity can find itself capable of this big, big shift in worldview? then... there is hope. For something better. Not great, not perfect, but... better.

And it's hard enough to believe this is possible sometimes. Because, again-- even if I do all of what I think are the "right" things, in order to work toward this better world? That doesn't necessarily mean anything will come from all my hard work.

Like everything else, it'll depend on luck. And on the combined actions of lots and lots and LOTS of other people, none of whom I can control at all.

But it's all the hope we've got, so... I still try.

rudolph the red nosed reindeer

I've been feeling insane about this for a good ten years because I remember that the books that I read as a kid all had stories where the protagonist was completely normal and they found an object or a book and learning to read the book or use the magical object was what made them into the cool hero, and then part way during my childhood suddenly all the new books had heroes that were the hero because they were born the hero, and they were just temporarily uncool because they didn't know that they were born special.

And I know that these things are trends that come and go, but I'm 30 years old now and the "you can only be born special, you can't work to achieve great things" narrative just WILL. NOT. DIE. as a trend in YA lit.

Can we PLEASE go back to "find a weird book in the library and accidentally become an all powerful wizard because you can read aloud" being the dominant narrative of youth fiction?

I've been thinking about this post ever since I saw it a few days ago and it made me realize that this trend is in part, a result of our society as a whole deciding that wanting power or to be special is an inherently villainous trait, or at least an unsympathetic one.

Because the thing about being born special is that it's not a choice the character made. It's something that happened to them, and it is also inescapable and immutable. A character who is born special, born to be a hero, gets to resist and be reluctant and struggle against Specialiness. They get to lament how much their kick ass powers complicate their life, and how much they wish they could just go to normal school dances instead of God-Fairy mixers. They can prove to the audience again and again that they don't really want to be Special, and given the choice they would be anything but Special. Their are other ways to get a character in this situation (usually prophecies, happenstance, or just being chosen by some organization or individual who doesn't give them a say in their Specializes), but being born Special is just easier to write, and also usually gets combined with the others anyways.

But on the flip side someone who picks up a Special Item or works to be Special is committing a grievous sin: the pursuit of power and the conscious rejection of being Normal. If they could choose not to do the thing, or to put the item down, then they are an active agent in their own pursuit of Specialness, and society has trained us to think That Is Wrong. The unspoken implication is that any character who would choose power and Specialness is throwing away a more pure, simple, better existence in the name of their own desires, which is Bad. Only Bad Guys want power. Bad guys are greedy, grasping, discontent, and arrogant enough to think they deserve power and Specialness. If power corrupts, then those who seek it out are surely already inherently corrupt in some innate fashion, and thus at best unsympathetic.

But if the character is born special the audience has permission not to judge them. Having a normal/simple life is not an option, so we don't think less of them for not choosing that. We can't. As a result the character doesn't have to feel guilty about being a mermaid king, or a mega wizard, or a half angel or whatever, and that means the audience doesn't have to feel guilty for rooting them.

I'm not certain how I feel about this.

"any ordinary person can become special through hard work and doing the right thing" often feels like the same American Dream bullshit we've been told forever while we get blamed for not having pulled ourselves to success by our bootstraps.

"you are special inherently" can VERY easily veer into eugenics-- although it also has a lot of appeal among people who have faced marginalization for something outside their control... because it provides the hope that maybe the thing we've been beaten up for, and told to hate ourselves for, might actually be something worth being proud of.

reading the wiki for the american psycho movie every single thing it’s saying about christian bale has me in tears …….. he literally wanted the role so bad he got that buff in two weeks, rejected every other offer for 9 months while the producers tried to get dicaprio to be patrick bateman bc bale knew dicaprio would chicken out, went to dinner with the director and the guy who wrote the novel IN CHARACTER apparently scaring the shit out of the novelist, took the role for $50k, and then made all his costars think he was a giant freak bc he never fucking broke character, and APARENTLY LITERALLY HAS CONTROL OVER HIS SWEAT GLANDS AND USED THIS IN THE BUSINESS CARD SCENE

ok thanks for the info wiki

Hey Paul!

It brings me comfort that, for a brief moment, Jared Leto genuinely believed Christian Bale was going to kill him with an axe

I have not seen the scene in question and I have no reason to assume it was a nude scene

but I don't care, I am still going to take extra comfort in imagining that Jared Leto genuinely believed Christian Bale was going to kill him with an axe while wearing nothing but sneakers and a strategically placed sock

I was cleaning out my office and found an old floppy disk

hey honest question, did anybody have GOOD stuff happen to them in 2024? cause it was really bad for me and for most people i know, so it would be nice to hear about anything that's been going WELL for any of you. even if it's small stuff. just to know there's light out there.

Mixed, for me. Moved back to Minnesota from California, meaning I gave up a lot of what I loved there. Several of my relationships have ended or changed a lot, and things will never be quite the same.

But! I got a job that pays better and is more emotionally manageable than anything I've had in ages... and an apartment cheap enough that I can actually save money... and I'm learning a lot about myself and what I truly want in life, as I experience living on my own again.

I am hopeful that I'll be able to build something approaching the sort of life I really want, now.

one of the first times i took shrooms i came up with this joke that was just a fake ad campaign. "it's the TUMS™ "Valentine's Day in July" Sales Event!" and i thought this was so unbelievably funny i kept trying to explain it but i couldnt get the words out. i kept saying "the tums..." and then id just start crying

this also happened to me smoking we'd a few years ago i came up with this thing of ronald reagan having a disgraced bastard child named "foot" and i got into an argument w my bf over whether or not it was funny but i was laughing so hard at foot reagan that i couldnt talk so i had to type this in notes app to defend myself

see this is me, at baseline. Straight up Dadaist sense of humor. The times I've tried marijuana pretty much nothing changed about me whatsoever. I am laughing at Foot Reagan until my entire chest and abdomen hurt, powered by nothing more than whatever psychoactive substances my brain makes all by itself

me making jokes: "this pun has at least five layers, which all connect to each other at multiple points in a brilliant feat of literary engineering. nobody will laugh at it because they have no idea which part they are supposed to get."

me laughing at jokes: "foot reagan" (passes out from asphyxiation)