Yeah, I'm really dwelling on this analogy I came up with today that your relationships with people are like gardens the two of you tend together.
It's such a helpful perspective for me both on the relationships that are thriving and the ones that are not. And on the ones that basically don't exist.
Sometimes I think about all the other highly intelligent species we "share" this planet with: orangutans, orcas, crows, elephants, and more, and I really feel the weight of the damage humans have inflicted.
It's been shown that we have not even gotten close to understanding the complexity of these creatures, what they are capable of, and what they understand, and it's depressing that we don't respect them as conscious beings simply because their consciousness is not like ours.
@mozz
My jaw dropped because I watched that movie, but I don't think I fully grasped that as an interpretation. It makes perfect sense now that you say it. I should rewatch it with that in mind.
It will never ever, ever happen because he's not British, but I swear to God, Guillermo Del Toro is possibly the best person on the planet to helm #DoctorWho right now.
Just give us ONE season of Del Toro Who. It could be glorious.
I have a lot of sympathy for men as fellow victims of the patriarchy, but something that I think doesn't really get directly addressed when talking about helping guys deprogram from that is that if you are someone who experiences misogyny, even having a conversation with someone who is genuinely trying to do better can be like getting a caustic substance on your skin. It burns on contact.
If you're a victim of misogyny, helping guys out of it can be absolutely appalling for your mental health.
BTW, if you're a dude looking to examine how the patriarchy harms men and how it must be dismantled for all of our sakes, The Will to Change (bell hooks) is a great place to start.
Oh dear me. I just visited the Mandela Effect subreddit to read a post and comments about how "the sun used to be yellow, and now it's white," and I think a lot of these folks are not doing well.
If someone describes feeling like everyone, including their family and friends, is avoiding a topic and trying to deceive them, well... "scientists replaced the sun, and it's a conspiracy" is not the most obvious conclusion.
@artemis I was at the inaugural lecture of a new professor, and his presentation was about how our social relationship with children has changed and how this is evidenced in the visual dynamics in family photographs across that time. He built a whole edifice about the lack of emotions shown in early photography and the formality. I got to ask "Isn't that just because you had to sit still longer for old process cameras?" and the facilitator for the event literally said "No further questions"
The Fediverse has altered my brain, because as soon as I see an image I want to share, I start mentally formulating alt text (I did have to search to find out who the bottom middle is supposed to be because that did not read as Buffy at all).
I have discovered that I really like image descriptions.
I like reading other people's image descriptions because they can help me contextualize or interpret the image, and I actually like writing them too. Often I'll notice things that I didn't before or it will help me understand what I find interesting or significant about something I'm sharing.
I also feel a sense of accomplishment when I write a description for a complex image because that takes work, and I feel proud of it. 😁
Just saw a post about someone who thought it was inappropriate to teach grade school girls how to use a tampon (many girls get their first period during that time), and it just makes me so mad, because I literally did not understand my vulva or vagina growing up, did not even have a word for either of them. Frankly I didn't know my vagina existed until I got my first period at 11.
It is simply horrifying the way AFAB children's bodies are kept mysteries even to themselves.
Look, a child with a penis learns about their genitals: they learn a name for it & understand at least some of the things it does, because you can't exactly hide it from them, since it is external. Don't people with vaginas deserve to have information too?
Biden is a fucking stick-in-the-mud centrist on his best days.
I haven't seen any signs at all that he's interested in actually courting the youth vote. The election ads he is running are wildly out of touch with the experiences of young Americans (or heck, Americans under 60, honestly). He's running campaign ads about how great things are right now. How tf does he plan to win votes?
We're traveling this weekend, and I just feel so terrible about leaving the pets. We have folks stopping in to care for them and give the dog exercise a couple times a day, and it's only two nights, but I still hate it.
This is going to be Kiwi's first ever experience with being left alone without humans for more than, like, 10 hours. Hopefully she & Bean will keep each other from getting too lonely. And poor Ripley will have a very boring time of it...much too much box time for my liking.
My group is doing a play-by-post playthrough, and I have to say I think the game lends itself well to that style of play, so if you struggle to get a whole group in-person/playing synchronously, this could be a fun one to keep some roleplay in your life.
It's a good game for ppl who enjoy imaginative collaboration & well adapted for #GMLess (or GM-lite) roleplay.
Personally #PlayingGod is a game I would be backing even if I weren't lucky enough to help roadtest it.
It can be hard to come up with games that are good for #GMLess play but also not too intimidating roleplay-wise (if you want to just take your turns without much roleplay or fanfare you can or if—like me—you live to create roleplay characters, you can have fun making choices on how to become the kind of god you want to be).
I'm told this is largely a Midwestern thing (correct me if I'm wrong, I suppose), so I want to share the Gospel of "oh, it's going" as a response to "how's it going" (these are pronounced with the "in" sound not "ing" but "goin'" looks weird).
Some days things are not great and someone asks you "How's it going?" and you just can't bring yourself to say "good".
So just say "oh...it's going" in a kind of tired tone that sounds a bit like a sigh.