Man, one characterization of Vader that I love but rarely see is: Vader as deeply religious.
Because from an in-universe perspective, that’s so weird! Vader and the viewer know that the Force is not a matter of faith, and that it does in fact give him powers up to and including the ability to accurately see the future, but the galaxy at large doesn’t know that and his fellow Imperials definitely don’t. I think the point of Motti, besides introducing Vader’s ruthlessness toward even his own faction, is to demonstrate that Force use is not just a known factor of the Star Wars universe.
In that context, Vader is inexplicable. Not only does he have uncanny and inscrutable powers, like those the murdered Jedi are rumored to have had, but he is the only figure in the Imperial military who seems to talk about his religion. At least among the military leadership, he’s not secretive about it; if he’s got to leave a conversation to hunt down Obi-wan, he’ll just come right out and say that he has supernatural knowledge which he needs to go address now. He wields a banned, antique Jedi weapon. He has several times invoked the Force while speaking to his officers.
In-universe, the general public doesn’t know why he’s like this! The Empire isn’t a theocracy; besides banning the Jedi religion, Emperor Palpatine doesn’t really seem to make a lot of overtly religious policy choices, and I don’t think the general public knows if he subscribes to any specific faith. Except for people who know what the Sith are, Vader just seems like an extremely devout sole adherent to a religion that is all but dead, its other practitioners hunted for treason. He’s like if the president had a weird murder pet who was a Catholic nun, only Catholicism was banned and all other church officials had been murdered by the government.
also like if catholicism was banned because it was DEFINITELY fake lunatic bullshit that so-called ‘catholics’ made up specifically to seize power from the former government, except the murder nun has just turned your manager’s blood into wine right in front of you and you’re both just standing there watching him die horrifically in the middle of your fucking office
This is excellent meta, also Vader-as-murder-nun is an eerily accurate analogy
i dont see why i cant start a trend, so here goes. lets try to build back our attention spans. lets try to focus on just one thing for as long as possible. lets not watch those “asmr for people with adhd” videos where they fuck up adhd folks even worse. lets resist the urge to reach for our phones when watching a movie. lets read the articles we reblog, even when theyre boring. i know its hard, i have adhd too, but its worth it. i also know that this hard work doesnt always seem super impressive to other people, so id love for yall to tell me in the tags or replies if youve done something, no matter how small, for your attention span. you deserve to feel like youve taken back some of what social media has ripped from you
this art by david horvitz changed me as a person. we’re attentionmaxxing this fine hot girl summer
Since the whole thing with NaNoWriMo has gone down, I’ve noticed that one of their former sponsors, Ellipsus, has cut contact with NaNoWriMo because they do not support their stance on AI; I didn’t know what Ellipsus was, but upon further research I’ve found that they are a writing platform that works a lot like Google Docs and Microsoft Word, only with a heavier leaning on the story-writing aspect and connecting with other writers - and they also completely denounce any use of AI, both in the writing process itself and in the use of their platform. I really appreciate that.
Since this is the case (and since I’ve noticed Google has begun implementing more AI into their software), I’ve decided to give Ellipsus a try to see if it’s a good alternative to Google Docs (my main writing platform). It’s completely free and so far, I’ve found it simple to use (although it is pretty minimal in its features), and I really like the look of it.
I figured I’d spread the word about this platform in case any of you writers would want to give it a try, and if you do, let me know how you like it!
one thing tumblr has unironically done to improve my mental health is completely rewrite how i view disgust as a concept. there is no higher compliment to me than being told i have something wrong with me and should be ashamed of myself when i’m just living my life in a way that is perhaps odd and hard to understand, but ultimately as harmless as you can get in our society. which probably wasn’t the intention of all the advice i got in therapy to reframe my negative thought patterns as more positive ones, but it’s doing great things for me.
people around me: ugh what a freak. loser. weirdo. if i were you i’d be so embarrassed. how do you convince yourself your life is worth anything when you choose to live it like this.
me, who found some of the kindest and most passionately purposeful communities of people among the freaks, losers, weirdos, and other unwanted rejects:
Three of the four elements are represented in types of hockey; Air hockey (air), field hockey (earth), ice hockey (water). Fire hockey needs to be a thing.
fire hockey 100% does not need to be a thing
Yes. Yes it does.
Fire hockey already exists. Welcome to pelota purépecha, or Mayan Fireball hockey.
If you are going to speak about other cultures, at least have the decency of getting your facts stright: Maya =/= P'urhépecha, nor any of these cultures are interchangeable with other Mesoamerican/Prehispanic cultures (like the Aztec/Mexica). Just so you understand this better:
P’urhépecha
Maya
Ok. Having said that, let’s move on to the “fire hockey” game itself.
The game is called Uárhukua Ch'anakua, meaning “stick competition”, although the name can change depending on the region were it’s practiced.
The ball, or zapandukua, is made of wood, stone, or rubber wrapped with cotton fabric that is left soaking on petroleum for a few days before the game, when it’s ignited.
The sticks, or uárhukua, are also made of wood. Their size and weight varies depending on the player preferences.
Originally there was no time limit, so one match could last for days. Nowadays they last about half an hour (or until the first score is made).
Each team has five players and at least three reserves. Substitutions are unlimited but have to be notified to the judges so they can decide when it’s pertinent to make the change without interrupting the game.
It is a game of honor. If a player gets penalized or expelled, it not only means dishonor for them, it means dishonor for their team.
It is kind of a Big Deal, with actual tournaments taking place on the P’urhépecha region and other places like México City.
The Uárhukua is usually played at night because the fiery ball symbolizes the sun moving through the sky. You can imagine just how impressive it looks to have a literal ball of fire bouncing across the field.
So now that you understand fire hockey a little bit better, you can go make your Avatar Hockey AU in peace, I would actually like to see how it turns out :)
Self-reblog to share the info again, because people in the comments keep thinking this is a Mayan game when it’s not 🤦🏻♀️
I saw your post about estrogen and nicotine. Do you know if there's anything out there about other forms of smoking (weed is the one I'm specifically curious about). Thanks 😊
this one seems to be a toss up, however the endocannabinoid system is closely linked to and affected by hormones, and vice versa. it would seem as for some people, using estrogen hrt can cause the body to become more receptive to the effects of cannabinoids, whereas others find that using cannabis may make them more or less susceptible to processing estrogen HRT.
however, there are a very small amount of studies being done on this, and some of them seem dubious at best or rather flimsy. many of the studies i read have inconclusive answers, whereas with nicotine, there are a lot more studies being done on the matter. it seems that for most people, using cannabis will not affect estrogen HRT anywhere near as much due to nicotine as a substance neutralizes estrogens and dilutes the amount of them that you have in your body.
here’s some information on the matter, which shows the subjective and inconclusive results, ranging from person to person, study to study:
I saw your post about estrogen and nicotine. Do you know if there's anything out there about other forms of smoking (weed is the one I'm specifically curious about). Thanks 😊
this one seems to be a toss up, however the endocannabinoid system is closely linked to and affected by hormones, and vice versa. it would seem as for some people, using estrogen hrt can cause the body to become more receptive to the effects of cannabinoids, whereas others find that using cannabis may make them more or less susceptible to processing estrogen HRT.
however, there are a very small amount of studies being done on this, and some of them seem dubious at best or rather flimsy. many of the studies i read have inconclusive answers, whereas with nicotine, there are a lot more studies being done on the matter. it seems that for most people, using cannabis will not affect estrogen HRT anywhere near as much due to nicotine as a substance neutralizes estrogens and dilutes the amount of them that you have in your body.
here’s some information on the matter, which shows the subjective and inconclusive results, ranging from person to person, study to study:
story about a heist team doing a heist of colonial museums and returning unethically stolen sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony to their original communities
but the story isn’t about them
the story is a legal thriller about the repatriation coordinator and the pro bono lawyer who get frantically called in by that community when an artifact goes missing from a museum and shows up unexpectedly at their doorstep and now they are in a shit ton of (potentially international) legal trouble because the heist team did not take the legal ramifications into account, and no one else believes them that they didn’t steal it, and The Law is saying they are legally obligated to return it to the museum and are also probably going to go to prison for this, and activists are protesting, and it’s rocking the repatriation world, and it’s turning into a huge Thing
But is there a UNESCO rep???
ABSOLUTELY there’s a UNESCO rep
Tbh I’m kind of endeared by the idea of a reverse heist team. Like the tropes of the heist team but they’re all members of the rapidly assembled legal team instead. The lawyer. The museum repatriation coordinator. The UNESCO rep. The Indigenous historian. The local community liaison. All working together to solve the problems the heist team left.
Yess yess I neeed this. I fucking love movies where a group of experts etc sit together and try to Get To The Bottom of It, with most of the tension stemming from research, and the intellectual, philosophical, and legal issues at stake. (All the President’s Men being the Ur example of this specific genre.)
story about a heist team doing a heist of colonial museums and returning unethically stolen sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony to their original communities
but the story isn’t about them
the story is a legal thriller about the repatriation coordinator and the pro bono lawyer who get frantically called in by that community when an artifact goes missing from a museum and shows up unexpectedly at their doorstep and now they are in a shit ton of (potentially international) legal trouble because the heist team did not take the legal ramifications into account, and no one else believes them that they didn’t steal it, and The Law is saying they are legally obligated to return it to the museum and are also probably going to go to prison for this, and activists are protesting, and it’s rocking the repatriation world, and it’s turning into a huge Thing
But is there a UNESCO rep???
ABSOLUTELY there’s a UNESCO rep
Tbh I’m kind of endeared by the idea of a reverse heist team. Like the tropes of the heist team but they’re all members of the rapidly assembled legal team instead. The lawyer. The museum repatriation coordinator. The UNESCO rep. The Indigenous historian. The local community liaison. All working together to solve the problems the heist team left.
Yess yess I neeed this. I fucking love movies where a group of experts etc sit together and try to Get To The Bottom of It, with most of the tension stemming from research, and the intellectual, philosophical, and legal issues at stake. (All the President’s Men being the Ur example of this specific genre.)
nearly had a medical emergency today because - and i cannot stress enough how little i am making this up - a helicopter landed in front of an open grain silo while i was getting off my ship and i am deathly allergic to the wheat that said helicopters rotor blades proceeded to blast in my face at full force. the cosmic forces are plotting against me ass situation to be in
[ID: anonymous question reading: helicopter deadass said gluten tag ///end ID]
Just remembered that time I had a nightmare that I was banned from the wiki for “abusive commentary” and when I looked at what I said it was just me calling Alto Clef a twink.
[Image ID: The ‘finally’ meme image of a man holding up a beaker with green liquid. The prior image - of a person with a shrimp head & fins edited over their head and hands, frying rice with the caption ‘dude no fucking way’ - is shrunken and horizontally flattened to fit over the beaker. The caption reads ‘Finally’ ‘The shrimp that fried this rice’. End ID]
“the fandom has decided - ” “everyone agrees that - ” “we all know that this is the only right way to - ”
if there is one thing about fandom that is 100% true all of the time, without exception, it is that you can never get an entire fandom to agree on ANYTHING.
Yeah I love manipulating my friends for my own gain, the gain is called “hanging out”, obtained via such cruel tactics as “showing interest in stuff they like” and “being generally complimentary and charming”
Chasing photorealism is a fools errand, it takes more and more time and resources to achieve smaller and smaller improvements, and it ages poorly because it becomes even more obvious that you failed to achieve the style you were trying for.
One* of the Big Problems with the games industry is a side effect of this. For years games basically got technological leaps “for free”, and a lot of the advertising of games was built on this: look how great this game looks! The game we made five years ago didn’t look this great.
Which was fine back when you were jumping from a PS1 to PS2, or a Nintendo to Super Nintendo. Your games just looked better “for free” because the resolution was higher and the hardware was so much faster and able to draw more polygons and run more shades, etc.
But as the above post shows, that only goes so far. We’re past the point where the tech gives you free upgrades.
Think of it like: Imagine you manage to double the resolution of your console for the next version. Sweet, right?
Well, how amazing that is is gonna depend real heavy on if your console looks like this:
Or this?
You double the resolution of the former, you go from an Atari 2600 to a NES. Big jump!
You double the latter, and… Well it’ll look a little better for the fraction of your audience that has really big expensive TVs. Not nearly as revolutionary.
But your industry is stuck in the mindset of “your game has to look better than last year’s game!”. So what do they do? They don’t go for tech improvements, they go for content improvements. More intricate worlds, character models, more game modes, more playable characters, more voiced lines, more textures, more everything.
And yeah some of that is good and fun, but this situation is underlying the budget crisis of modern games.
Games are requiring more and more work to make, because of the need to look better than last year. More work means more cost which means the budgets for AAA go higher and higher (there is a mobile boardgame tie-in with a budget of HALF A BILLION DOLLARS).
And the high budgets mean your publishers are being more conservative, less willing to take risks, and way more likely to go for “sure things” : sequels and reboots and mass appeal ideas.
Because if now costs 200 million dollars to make a game, you better be real sure your game is gonna be a massive hit. Way more sure than when you could release a game for 10 million, you know?
Anyways, tl;dr: the game industry relied on tech advances giving them a free visual quality upgrade that when that automatic upgrade treadmill slowed down, their budgets exploded and now it’s crushing the industry.
genuinely very interested in what the people in the notes think the pilot was doing
this has to be what was going on yesterday bc i was 40 minutes early getting back and my homies were like hello i thought you were supposed to land at 6. and i was like. me too
Yeah I guess I’m obligated to say hiiiii. I fly airplanes. They’re so fucking safe it’s actually frustrating for us. I promise you that the administration who won’t even let hobby pilots fly for ten days after taking a Benadryl aren’t going to be letting commercial pilots do anything that will intentionally put you in danger.
The reason that flight times can be so different is mainly dependent on three things: the specific aircraft, the route, and the wind. I could go on tangents about all of these, but the point is that you can be flying the exact same plane on the exact same route at the exact same airspeed… and still get drastically different travel times due to the wind fucking with your ground speed.
(Ground speed = true air speed + wind component, if you care.)
And if you’re worried about pilots ramping that shit up to the maximum velocity… you would know if we did. Because we would have to point the nose down for the whole flight. The engines are already often operating at their maximum thrust any time you’re departing or ascending— but as my flight instructors have screamed at me since the day I started flying, “pitch for speed, power for altitude”. I’m not even sure you can hit the “never-exceed” velocities in a stable airplane without slamming the stick forward and nosediving that thang.
We also have this handy color coding on the air speed indicator! (And similar coding on the vertical tape versions in those newfangled glass cockpits.)
Lastly, almost every commercial flight is going to have two people up front. Even if the captain does something stupid, the first officer is there to say “hey, don’t do that” and make corrections accordingly. Even if they do agree to do something dumb, someone on the ground is going to tell them to cut it out. Nobody just gets to fuck around up there.
Flying is safe and fun. Mass transportation rules. Give me money so I can pay my Garmin Pilot subscription.
ALT
