"Morgan can't be trusted with full control over Serra" I think it's important to remember that Morgan doesn't actually *have* full control over Serra.

Morgan making Serra do stuff has fun dark potential, but like Serra herself says:

in episode 1 she would shut down when Morgan told her to, but this was only because she believed herself to be an Add lacking free will. the second Serra learns from David's journal that she's actually a completely unshackled AI, that illusion falls away, and she presumably would no longer respond to Morgan's commands.

note also how at the start of the episode, when they first meet and Serra is in distress, Morgan's command doesn't work. in this moment, she was too emotional and the command didn't even register. she doesn't *have* to obey Morgan, even this early, she just generally does in episode 1 because she thinks she has to.

A lot of fans appear to forget that Serra is not a robot. She's a full-fledged human being who happens to also be a machine. It's a weird idea to wrap your head around, but it's so important!

Serra has free will and an internal life and a capacity for spirituality just like any person. Hell, I don't even believe she obeyed Morgan during the trial because she thought that she had to; Serra understood that Morgan knew the situation far better than her and figured she ought to play along — in other words, Serra was deliberately masking her free will

Morgan and Serra are so attached to one another because they each occupy an uncomfortable grey area between "human" and "not human". They both hide their true natures because society can't handle what they are

As far as either of them know, Morgan and Serra are the only people in the entire world who understand each other. Morgan staked her life to save Serra because it's unfair that Serra (a literal angel who's done nothing wrong) would have to die but Morgan (a psychotic, inhuman serial killer) gets to live. Though one is flesh and the other is metal, they're the same on the inside

Morgan is so neurodivergent (autism + psychopathy) that she can't see herself as a person, rather a thing that acts like one. She hates how others see her as a person when she believes she's something lesser. She claims to be not human but is forced to act like human regardless

Serra is an "android" (for lack of a better term) that is so sophisticated that her mind is indistinguishable from an autistic human. She hates how others see her as an object when she knows she's something greater. She claims to be human but is forced to act like she's not human regardless

Each of Nth Circle's game comment on AI. Model Employee deconstructs the "AI girlfriend" trend, Märchen Line explores what could happen if humanity totally gives up its collective free will to AI, and of the Devil explores how, if we really could make a fully sapient machine, would it be more human than some actual humans? How would those humans feel about it — sympathy, jealousy, fear and anger? How does society square this with how capitalism already treats human workers like robots?

stone age isekai where an upper paleolithic hunter who can't get any gatherer pussy gets run over by a mammoth and reincarnated in a primitive world, like acheulean stone industry level. he wows the local peopls with his knowledge of advanced technology like microliths and dugout canoes. rapidly his tribe begins to dominate the local area and he wins the respect and admiration of its members. the women are amazed by his cave art and he has flirtatious but completely sexless relationships with a tsundere gatherer with small breasts, a nurturing motherly gatherer with large breasts, and a surprisingly feminine hunter

I think about this post a lot. Like, what is it like for him. Your average Isekai is so artistically incestous that every protagonist has seen a dozen different subgenres of isekai themselves, and even the earliest of the genre had the concept of different worlds, or different cultures.

To an upper paleolithic, to whom his many cultural and technological tools are as natural and eternal as the mountains themselves, all spread across any human he might've seen millennia ago, what does he think? Does he think he's come across some lost tribe of children, somehow never taught any of the natural parts of the world? If they cheer him for his brilliance, does he feel like a lost father, respected by these giant children? If his home culture has legends of times before discoveries, or of gods of long ago, does he ever wonder if they, too, came from true adulthood that he himself can never see? Does he ever realize the flat chested one actually likes him?

That's a 100,000+ year time jump. If an upper paleolithic hunter went back in time 120,000 years he would end up in the acheulean stone industry era, and if I went back in time 120,000 years I would also end up in the acheulean stone industry era. You could fit all of history from the bronze age to the present in that space over 20 times and still only be in the very late acheulean stone industry era. But the people back then would still be as human as you and me.

The Birdcage (1996)

"I confessed, to the wrong priest" is my favorite line in Wake Up Dead Man, because it's so subtle and yet so kind. Martha has been so dismissive of Jud the whole movie. Not outright mean, of course, but she clearly saw him as a tenant who sometimes gave her a hand rather than a priest, and put him down when he seemed to overstep by acting like one. The line is an admission that not only Jud is a priest, he's a priest who does share the beliefs she's built herself over for decades. Even disillusioned by Wicks's self-serving hypocrisy, he still allows her to see her faith as a moral pillar. It's saying "I should have trusted you, and if I had, maybe none of this would have happened".

It's the "because you are a good nurse" of the movie.

Where and when did people come up with the notion that actors are constantly improvising their lines and big reactions? And why is popular opinion so hellbent on it to the point that it makes actors seem less talented for the thing they are hired for: acting! They are not being hired to write! It’s actually bad in most cases if actors are expected and encouraged to improvise lines—especially in dramas! Certain comedies, sure, but those actors are being hired for the skill of improvisation, because it’s a different skill set. A good actor can take a script and deliver the lines as written in a way that feels organic and true!!! Why do some people not get that?! The same is true for blocking and certain actions! Like, are people not considering how shitty it would be to work on a collaborative creative project where there’s no agreement ahead of time?? Sex scenes and arguments especially!! Where’s that interview with Billy Zane where he thought the people who assumed he improvised the table/tea setting throwing were ludicrous? Could you imagine how scary that would be for everyone?!! And moreover, they have to know where to film if the camera is kept steady nevermind the lighting and boom mics jfc. Do people really think actors are the ones calling the shots from writing to cinematography to music to ADs to choreography. That is the director’s job!!! If they are not doing that then they are a bad director!!!

read a book review where someone said "I didn't like X character so I skipped all their chapters. really wish this book had [thing present in X character's chapters]."

and.......I guess that's fine because we're all free citizens in this beautiful world, but I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know you could just skip chapters.

I think it’s the fact that they rated this book that threw me so much. because they gave it a low rating and said “I wish we’d learned more about Y character’s family” BUT WE DID! IT WAS IN THE CHAPTERS THEY SKIPPED! I’M GOING TO HAVE AN ANEURYSM

LMAOOOOO welcome to Being an Author. One time I got a goodreads review on A Taste of Gold and Iron which said it "didn't have any worldbuilding in it" never mind the fact that it's a second-world fantasy and this setting is inspired by the Ottoman Empire and has matrilineal inheritance which means they have three different words for "father" and a maternal uncle is more important than any of those, and they've got a two-god religion which explicitly influences some of the characters' choices and perspectives and part of this religion involves basically doing therapy with a temple priest, and that's not to mention all the countries and languages mentioned, or the magic system where some people get sort of a psychic synaesthesia when they touch metals --

no worldbuilding in this bad boy tho

the literature equivalent of those "I replaced half of the ingredients with others and the cake turned out bad" cooking comment sections

Do you know how weird it feels to casually make future plushie plans and feel like I’m thriving with my art career while ICE is threatening to go door to door for “immigrants” and “criminals” (visibly brown people) and I have to carry proof I’m American with me every time I go out? I say this specifically here because I know it’s a majority white American website. Like I already thought of who I would call and go stay with if I were to be deported lol. I’ve soothed myself with “maybe it wouldn’t be so bad as long as I don’t get shot at or disappear”. And it’s just annoying because my white peers do not have shit like this weighing on their mind, they can choose to just fucking draw

I cannot emphasize how much I’m literally a US citizen who speaks good english (with an accent, but it’s something) and these are the thoughts I’m having. Imagine how it feels when you’re actually an immigrant and you can barely parse what the masked trigger-happy asshole with a gun is screaming at you.

I’m an Indigenous person who gets mistaken for Hispanic on a daily basis because Indigenous x Italian= olive complexion, dark hair/eyes and features that aren’t purely Eurocentric

When ICE came into my job I was terrified. I felt like I was going to be sick. I work with primarily immigrants (non Hispanic, but still) and our company policy is to answer their questions but try not to let them in the back rooms without a warrant. I’m a manager. I had to be the one to handle it.

I was sweating the whole time. I had forgotten my ID in my wallet, which I left at home because my mom was watching my child, so in case she needed to get anything. I had no proof I was a citizen. They kept asking me questions about myself, and my one coworker with an “ethnic” name. The woman kept looking me up and down. My name is a European name originally but has become very common in the Hispanic community (think Mary or Angel ((though yes I know Angel is for boys/men)) ).

I’m certain that the main, maybe only, reason they didn’t ask for my ID (that I again didn’t have) or arrest me is because she commented on my first name. I told her it was a family name, just like my French middle name. She repeated my very common, very White, middle name. I confirmed it. She visibly relaxed before chatting for a moment. Then the left.

When they finally left, I sat in the back and cried. I had been thinking I was about to never see my family again that entire time. I was just at work.

I’m trying to create art and live my life. My writing/art career is finally starting to pick up, and despite being a citizen, being born here, being on my fucking ancestral land, I’m in a constant fear that ICE will take me.

They’ve done it to other Indigenous women who they hold for weeks or “lose”.

your doctor can be the person you trust the most in the world

you can think they are genuinely doing everything they can

and they can get on the ground on their hands and knees sobbing and tell you that your symptoms or conditions have no treatment, and that they super promise they looked, and they could wail while they say they wish they could take your pain away from you but there are no more tests or treatments anywhere

and still be lying to an extent where googling your own damn medical conditions or symptoms will readily pop up a shitload of already existing, well-known treatments that can boil down to a pill or few a day. or that diagnosis relies on some specific but relatively straightforward tests

and in fact I have heard probably hundreds of stories that boil down to exactly that. if your doctor tells you the only treatments for POTS are salt or propranolol or exercise, or none at all, or that it can be ruled out without a tilt table or nasa lean test (especially if they say "your blood tested negative for POTS" when there literally is no POTS blood test), your doctor fucking SUCKS

by the way, back when my doctors promised I had POTS and nothing more severe: my actual tilt table test results showed orthostatic hypotension and autonomic failure, conditions that are significantly more deadly, from the very beginning. I had orthostatic hypotension and bradycardia (low heart rate) instead of just heart rate go up, which was a big indicator that I was fucking dying. on the tilt table my blood pressure was 70/30. that is lower than some people in an actual coma. I almost died multiple times due to misdiagnosis and lack of appropriate treatment and my length and quality of life will now forever be worse because of how long it took me to get treatment. I can never get my life back and will likely never be able to be fully independent in the way others can, and I will likely remain in pain every single day for the rest of my life while my conditions continue to get worse over time, as has been the case for a very long time.

DO NOT BECOME RUNE. I COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED FROM MOST OF THE HELL I WAS FORCED TO LIVE. GET ACCESS TO YOUR MEDICAL CHART AND LOOK AT IT ASAP

WHAT IF...?

Season 01, EP. 09 – (What If... the Watcher Broke His Oath?)

when i worked at cracker barrel (vision darkens for a moment) we all got custom aprons with our names embroidered on them but not for 90 days bc the barrel isn't gonna invest in custom embroidery if you can't hack it. so until you get your own aprons you wear an apron that says 'rising star' on it. the issue being every single other person who works there is wearing aprons with their real names. so every single day for 3 months customers would be like 'can we get a table for 4? thank you, Rising Star. and what an interesting name!'

Rising Star would genuinely be a very lovely name but it wasn't mine and I did just think it was funny that the power of the Apron Name had such command.

Me for the last 15 years: Starting a timer when you have to wait for something or stand in line can be helpful, because no matter how impatient you feel you can check the timer and remind yourself it has not been several eternities and has in fact only been five minutes.

Me setting a timer when I got to bag claim just now: I'm so clever! I will now be reminded that it's only been five minutes and bag claim usually takes about twenty!

Me looking at the timer thoughtfully: ...another Very Neurotypical Moment With Sam, it appears.

FTR it was 17 minutes from "arriving at the bag claim" to claiming my bag, so right on time.

Someone tagged this post "#it’s all fun n games until baggage check takes over an hour" which is 100% legit; a common sentiment in notes is that sometimes you don't want to know how long something has taken. But that is one of the reasons I started doing the stopwatch thing in the first place!

On the one hand, timing something is about reminding myself "No, it's only been five minutes," but it is ALSO about knowing when something is taking way longer than it should.

If I'm put into an exam room in a doctor's office, I start a timer. Because I have been forgotten about in a doctor's office before, I get nervous that I'll just be sat in there forever, and the timer tells me "No, they haven't forgotten you, it's only been 10 minutes." But it also tells me if I have been there longer than appropriate (generally more than 40 minutes) so that I know when it's justifiable to flag down a nurse to find out what's going on.

At bag claim, because I know it usually takes about 20 minutes to get my bag, I don't get concerned until the timer passes the 20 minute mark without any bags appearing. At that point I know I need to take off my headphones and start paying attention -- looking at signage, maybe asking someone if I'm at the right carousel. Maybe don't worry yet, but start double-checking. Perhaps the delay is unavoidable and it'll just be an hour, but at least, having asked, I KNOW it'll be an hour, and the timer will tell me when the hour is past and I should maybe check in again.

Now, if the bags do start showing up before 20 minutes but my bag hasn't shown up by the 40 minute mark, I know that again it's time to put my head on a swivel, and at the 50 minute mark it's time to go speak to someone in the baggage claim office. This has more than once helped me locate my bag when it's accidentally been sent to the wrong part of the airport. There is no point at which, without the timer, I would go "man this is taking a long time" and then actually go ask, because I wouldn't actually know how long it had been.

The timer both prevents me from worrying before I need to and tells me when to start worrying -- essentially, because I'm both perpetually impatient and also infinitely patient, I've outsourced my patience to a stopwatch. And because I time a lot of things, I now know the average time a lot of things take, which helps me calibrate my concerns appropriately. Ten minutes is a long time to wait for a burger from McDonalds, but it's actually on the short end of the time it takes to get a burger from Shake Shack. It's not a long time to be on hold with the HR office of my old employer, but it's longer than I'd usually be on hold with my pharmacy. Et cetera.

I know I say this all the time but I still find it hilarious that I didn't know I had ADHD until I was forty years old.

just want to add that I've started timing myself doing everyday chores and tasks and having a more realistic, personalized idea of how long things take has helped a lot with my time blindness.

I only just started, and it's not yet habitual, so there's only a small bit of info, but it's already made it easier to avoid rushing or getting stuck in waiting mode because it takes out a lot of the guesswork.

And it lets me have grace for myself when something is really taking it out of me. I'm right, this *is* taking forever and it isn't usually this hard, so what's going on? Do I need to rest? Eat? Did I forget my meds? Am I overwhelmed? Etc.

I feel like a scientist gathering and applying data.

Showers on typical days only take "about ten minutes" (me, 2025), therefore, I CAN shower before my appointment that's two hours away.

Contrary to popular belief, doing a quick tidy takes "less than half an hour" (me, 2026) and will not take the better part of a day. I don't need to dread or put it off because I can start a 20min episode and I'll be done before the credits roll.

The proposed estimate of "10-30 miserable minutes in the cold when the warm blankets are right there" (time blindness and depression, 2024), is erroneous, and based on pre-medicated data. As tempting as it is to go straight back to bed after peeing, my research shows that brushing teeth, including "prep and cleanup," rarely takes more than four minutes and may even improve morale and momentum when getting up for the day.

This is awesome and hey guess what: you ARE a scientist gathering and applying data!

I'm super proud of you and everyone who is working to keep their lives together in the face of disability and the general horrors of the world right now. Keep up the great work! And if things slip a little that's ok too. None of us are perfect. Just keep taking notes...for SCIENCE!

fuck this low sodium bullshit. when I search "high sodium" on food ordering apps I want to find food with sodium so high it has a fucking warning label. not "no salt" and "low sodium" foods.

is there any food company out there that markets their products as high sodium or is everyone in this industry truly a clown

not electrolytes. not supplements. I want to see HIGH SODIUM on cans of food

my life depends on salt

if your takeaway from this is to try and explain categories of food that are often high sodium to me you have read my post wrong

this is a post about programming and food marketing.

how long do you think I have had orthostatic hypotension and autonomic failure. I appreciate wanting to help but I do not need anyone to explain to me the categories of food that pop up when you google "high sodium food" or I would currently be very dead.

even if a category of food is often high in sodium, I still have to read every individual label, because even canned soup and ramen range from 2% daily value to 100%+ daily value sodium. and even then those are individual flavors of individual products from individual food manufacturers that are not sold everywhere or not always in stock.

I want to be able

to search, directly, on every relevant platform where food can be searched/ordered, based off of what that specific place currently has in stock:

"high sodium"

and get high sodium foods

and not low sodium or literally just electrolyte mixes and salt

popular nutrition 'science' is run by clowns. everything is bad for you. avoid fat. avoid carbs. avoid calories. avoid salt. we are being sold starvation as a luxury good.

I forget at this time the name of the specific medication but there is a medication that raises blood pressure that was almost banned (or made harder to access?) in the united states because the US food and drug administration could not name any medical condition where raising blood pressure was a good idea. so they opened it up for comment to see if anyone could present any good reason why blood pressure-raising drugs should be allowed

dysautonomia international had to bring people in to testify that basically went: HELLO???? ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING

and this was not in the 80s or something before the internet, google, social media. this was within the past ~10 years.

Oh hey I had a similar problem! My doctor had no idea how to treat my hypotension so all she could really do was tell me to buy salt tablets :(

your doctor had no idea how to google "hypotension medication"? wow she sounds pathetic

here, some ideas for her and anyone else who allegedly went to med school:

https://www.drugs.com/condition/hypotension.html

Hard agree. I downloaded a food tracker just to keep an eye on things and it’s like “youve had a lot of carbs today :( you’re over your daily limit”

There’s no “I’ve been prescribed whole grains” button! No I do not need help reducing my salt intake I’m literally pouring out salt in my hand to try to have enough.

My mom was like “why are you eating full salt nuts” because I ate low salt ones my entire life and she seemed genuinely baffled before I reminded her that salt is what keeps me upright. It’s just so steeped into everyone

The only existing nightmare meds started out as a blood pressure lowerer and they supposedly are very effective but i wouldn’t know because it almost killed me. (Didn’t know my blood pressure was low to start at the time, just knew I fell and couldn’t get up) And no one is like “we need to make a second version of this that raises your blood pressure actually” bc the lowerer is a solid 2 in 1 😭

do you, by chance, mean propranolol

edit: wait unless you mean nightmare as in literally nightmares. my bad. propranolol is just a nightmare of a medicine that frequently gets called the "only" dysautonomia drug by dogshit doctors. it is not even a good medicine for its class of drug

Having EDS is softly singing the lyrics to “Dem Bones” as you pop your joints back into place but adding the caveat of “theoretically.”

“The thigh bone’s theoretically connected to the hip bone, the hip bone’s ALLEGEDLY connected to the back bone, but it’s really more of a suggestion at this point.”

#why do my allergy flares make my joints unstable#this seems like a major design flaw#the human body is a farce of construction

@wordspill I'm not sure if you wanted an answer or not, but the reason is increased mast cell activity affecting connective tissue.

This happens to everyone during allergic responses, but if you have compromised connective tissue or something like arthritis (which we now know mast cells play a major role in, with tryptase specifically degrading cartilage, suggesting that better mast cell regulation may prevent the onset of osteoarthritis), the effect is more noticeable after an allergic reaction.

So if anyone has ever wondered why their joints hurt more or their muscles feel stiff after an allergic reaction, that's why! It's your body's inflammatory process going haywire until the mast cell activity return to normal.

Another little thing featuring my homebrew gods because I can’t stop myself

I have heard the voices of the people