@mint-choco-rooibos great job you made such a banger one liner comment that not only did it spawn in my brain that writing excerpt out of a fanfiction it also spawned a whole comic in my mind many hours later i just had to draw LMAO
I think it’s worth noting about Ralsei’s development in the latest chapter that there’s a really common misconception about what’s going on with her. There’s a lot of memes and whatnot of her being an egg- being clueless and unaware about how obvious it is that she’s trans.
But this chapter explicitly debunks that.
The entire argument between her and Flowery is that she is refusing to let herself be happy. That she’s the only one holding herself back. She openly expresses euphoria about the possibility of being a princess, but offloads the responsibility of her own autonomy to others. She resigns herself to the role of the Prophecy, and outright laments this position.
Ralsei isn’t clueless. She knows who she is and who she wants to be. She’s not an egg, she’s closeted. Her journey isn’t about self discovery, it’s about unshackling herself from expectations and letting herself be who she wants to be.
This is easily one of the CRAZIEST videos I've ever gotten. I was rafting down a river when a Yellow Jacket came, landed on my bright pink waterproof phone pouch, and started drinking from the water droplets that had gathered there.
The most amazing part is how the water droplet magnifies the Hornet's mouth parts, so you get to see them up-close!!!! It was FASCINATING to witness!
Here's some of my favorite still shots from that video:
one of my friends in a discord server was talking about how they were nervous about their first scheduled acupuncture appointment. another friend offered to do a tarot reading for them. sent this picture.
in my little pony universe youd go to a job interview and theyd be like so how does your cutiemark reflect your dedication to this position. And every time youd have to spew some bullshit about how your cutiemark of two tennis rackets actually means youre a team player and good at multitasking and view the market like a playing field. or whatever. and you wouldnt even get the job
remember that guy that had a single auditory hallucination that told him he had a brain tumor and the exact location and then he went to the doctor and it was fucking right
[Full text] A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices
December 1997
DOI:10.1136/bmj.315.7123.1685
Authors: Ikechukwu Obialo Azuonye (Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust)
Introduction
A previously healthy woman began to hear hallucinatory voices telling her to have a brain scan for a tumour. The prediction was true; she was operated on and had an uneventful recovery.
No previous illnesses
Born in continental Europe in the mid-1940s the patient settled in Britain in the late 1960s. After a series of jobs, she got married, started a family, and settled down to a full time commitment as a housewife and mother. She rarely went to her general practitioner as she enjoyed good health and had never had any hospital treatment. Her children had also been in good health.
In the winter of 1984, as she was at home reading, she heard a distinct voice inside her head. The voice told her, “Please don't be afraid. I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend and I used to work at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, and we would like to help you.”
AB had heard of the Children's Hospital, but did not know where it was and had never visited it. Her children were well, so she had no reason to worry about them. This made it all the more frightening for her, and the voice intervened again: “To help you see that we are sincere, we would like you to check out the following”—and the voice gave her three separate pieces of information, which she did not possess at the time. She checked them out, and they were true, but this did not help because she had already come to the conclusion that she had “gone mad.” In a state of panic, AB went to see her doctor, who referred her urgently to me.
I saw her at the psychiatric outpatients clinic, and diagnosed a functional hallucinatory psychosis. I offered general supportive counselling as well as medication with thioridazine. To her great relief, the voices inside her head disappeared after a couple of weeks of treatment, and she went off on holiday. While she was abroad, and still taking the thioridazine, the voices returned. They told her that they wanted her to return to England immediately as there was something wrong with her for which she should have immediate treatment. By this time, she was also having other beliefs of a delusional nature.
She returned to London and I saw her again at my outpatients clinic. By this time, the voices had given her an address to go to. Reluctantly, and just to reassure her that it was all in her mind, her husband took her by car to the address in question; it was the computerised tomography department of a large London hospital. As she arrived there, the voices told her to go in and ask to have a brain scan for two reasons—she had a tumour in her brain and her brain stem was inflamed. Because the voices had told her things in the past that had turned out to be true, AB believed them when they said that she had a tumour and was in a state of great distress when I saw her the next day.
Brain scan requested
In order to reassure her, I requested a brain scan, explaining in my letter that hallucinatory voices had told her that she had a brain tumour, that I had not, personally, found any physical signs suggestive of an intracranial space occupying lesion, and that the purpose of the scan was essentially to reassure the patient. The request was initially declined, on the grounds that there was no clinical justification for such an expensive investigation. It was also implied that I had gone a little overboard, believing what my patient's hallucinatory voices were telling her.
Eventually, after some negotiation, the scan was done in April. The initial findings led to a repeat scan, with enhancement, in May, revealing a left posterior frontal parafalcine mass, which extended through the falx to the right side. It had all the appearances of a meningioma.
The consultant neurosurgeon to whom I referred AB noted the absence of headache or any other focal neurological deficits related to this mass, and discussed, with AB and her husband, the pros and cons of immediate operation as against waiting for symptoms to appear. In the end, it was agreed to proceed with an immediate operation. AB's voices told her that they were fully in agreement with that decision.
These were the notes of the operation, carried out in May 1984: “A large left frontal bone flap extending across the midline was turned following a bifrontal skin flap incision. Meningioma about 2.5” by 1.5” in size arose from the falx and extended through to the right side. A small area of tumour appeared on the medial surface of the brain. The tumour was dissected out and removed completely along with its origins in the falx.”
AB later told me that when she recovered consciousness after the operation the voices told her, “We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye.” There were no postoperative complications. The dosage of dexamethasone was halved every four days, and then it was stopped. She was on prophylactic anticonvulsants for six months. Antipsychotic medication was discontinued immediately after the operation, and there was no return of the hallucinatory voices or the delusions which she had expressed.
Discussion
AB telephoned me last Christmas to wish me and family a merry festive season, and to tell me that she had been completely well in the 12 years since the operation. It was this telephone call that brought this case to mind again.
It is well known that intracranial lesions can be associated with psychiatric symptomatology. But this is the first and only instance I have come across in which hallucinatory voices sought to reassure the patient of their genuine interest in her welfare, offered her a specific diagnosis (there were no clinical signs that would have alerted anyone to the tumour), directed her to the type of hospital best equipped to deal with her problem, expressed pleasure that she had at last received the treatment they desired for her, bid her farewell, and thereafter disappeared.
I presented her case at a conference later that year. AB attended and was closely questioned by several people about the various aspects of her experience. The audience was split down the middle. People who would be called X-philes today rejoiced that what had happened to her was a clear instance of telepathic communication from two well meaning people who had, psychically, found that AB had a tumour and sought to help her.
The X-phobes had a very different formulation. According to them, AB had been given the diagnosis of a brain tumour in her original country and wanted to be treated free under the NHS. Hence, they surmised, she had made up the convoluted tale about voices telling her this and that. But AB had lived in Britain for 15 years and was entitled to NHS treatment. Besides, she had been so relieved when the voices first disappeared on thioridazine that she had gone on holiday to celebrate the recovery of her sanity.
There was a group at the case conference who offered a different opinion. Their view was that, the total lack of physical signs notwithstanding, it was unlikely that a tumour of that size had had absolutely no effect on the patient. “She must have felt something,” they argued. They suggested that a funny feeling in her head had led her to fear that she had a brain tumour. That fear had led to her experience of hallucinatory voices. She may have unconsciously taken in more information about various hospitals than she realised, and this information was reproduced by her mind as part of the auditory hallucinatory experience. The voices expressing satisfaction with the outcome of her treatment were her own mind expressing its relief that the emergency was over. And the total disappearance of psychiatric symptoms after the removal of the tumour showed that these symptoms were at least directly related to the presence of the lesion—and may, in fact, have been produced by the lesion itself. I have obtained the patient's signed consent to publication.
im making a list of media ive watched/played/etc this year with brief thoughts… perhaps reviews?
for the first time in like 3 years, i've finished working through my anime to-watch list (more or less). but i still have plenty of "ehh maybe i'll watch it" anime so i expect that to be most of this list again.
words below the cut
January
1/ Suzume
yeah somehow im starting off with a movie!!! anyway, please observe this incredibly short review that completely sold me on this movie:
so is NephaCrystil correct? yes. this is extremely mushishi, but it's also heavily mixed with elements that are NOT very mushishi: action. modernity. i'd say it takes the focus of mushishi and uses that as an integral theme, but one of many. i think if i saw this in 2010 during my "must watch everything even remotely similar to mushishi" phase it'd be incorporated into my personality.
anyway, less meta talk: i'd say there are three themes here: people are kind, people live full lives, and places are animated by the people that live there. the lattermost theme is the mushishi-like, and the one that builds the movie. this is also the theme that's kind of tied together with a single line that i can NOT find (trying to skim through the movie again lol). but importantly, each theme reinforces each other theme. it's beautiful and makes me feel happy ok!!
i feel i should add... there are several annoying moments that could ruin the movie if you care too much about them. the "i'm fading into death... psyche!" stuff, you know the tropes. but i think they're fine. deployed tastefully enough that it doesnt detract from the overall etc imo. ive also seen a lot of "it's good ig but it's not Your Name" and yeah Your Name is better but this differentiates itself enough that the comparison seems odd to me.
April
2/ Interviews with Monster Girls (2017)
yeah that's a 3 month gap. ive been watching NOTHING this year. anyway:
a lot of uncertainty melted away over the course of these 12 episodes. yeah it's annoying sometimes, but it knows when to reel itself in. and most importantly, it has a heart. it's about supernatural kids but it's also about parenting supernatural kids. im about to dive into a sort of analysis that has spoilers:
an inherent property here is that each kid has some sort of supernatural characteristic unique to them. this could have been a show about telling them to embrace that power and rise above everyone else. it's not. this could have been a show about telling the kids to suppress the "disabilities" that set them apart, and making sure they fit into society. it's not.
the thesis, which is very very clearly stated multiple times, is that these kids are kids. their supernatural aspects are one facet: a facet that shouldn't be ignored, but also shouldn't be emphasized.
what im saying is that the show is woke and i love that
you know what's most shocking to me though? one of the "kids" was a 24-year-old succubus that tries her best to look uninteresting and live a normal life. and the show REALLY restrained itself from turning this into a train wreck of fanservice / jokes.
and, somehow, they flipped the concept on its head. through multiple B-storylines, the show explored what it means for a woman to struggle with her own relationship to lust as she considers starting a romantic life. it's insanely compelling imo, though it was never really resolved, and tbh i'm not sure that anyone has deft enough of a pen to draft the story i want to be told here. that's kind of an aside though
i want to emphasize that i was really impressed by this show and i'm surprised by the middling reviews i saw. well, ok maybe not that surprised: it's an anime that did reach into the bag of anime tropes to tell its story, and episode 10's technobabble is among the worst of it. but even with all these blemishes, the heart shines through. good shit.
May
3/ Gameoverse Pilot (2026)
something about this one beckoned to me, so i gave it a watch. i'm writing this after just finishing the episode and im mad at how good it was. no cut wasted. appeal off the charts. it captures a certain joy and fun of cartoons that aren't that serious but also yes they are.
i adore how it dropped you in media res without really explaining anything, then gave the answers later as the perspectives completely shifts. the shifts! that's another thing i really admire here. instead of brick jokes you get jokes that become serious points later. i'm in awe at how they set up Gobbles arc, both in-episode and for the future. possibly my favorite character??? how did this happen.
everything in this show feels so intricately designed. catnip for my brain cells.
4/ Frieren (Season 2) (2026)
i really enjoyed the first episode. it had that really fun pacing where they introduced a concept and then twisted it later, yknow? but the connections between each episode felt... none. it felt like a bunch of little vignettes and also one swordfighter arc. was the first season like this?? i honestly remember it feeling more cohesive but it's been a while. i walked away from this feeling pretty meh. it felt way more like baddie of the week show with a vague goal that's unresolved in ep1 and unresolved in ep10.
it's not even bad, just. meh. :\
June
5/ Among Us (the show) (2026)
owen dennis? hmm well. i guess i will give it a look. (immediately gets hooked and marathons the whole show at once)
i am surprised at how well they built a MASSIVE cast of characters that all feel unique and interesting and memorable despite just being. yknow. ඞ
granted, they did this with a lot of really clever solutions: each character has a pair that kinda halves the number of characters u need to remember, and everyone's name just being a color is a really efficient shortcut.
biggest regret: not watching this with someone else. the show's great but i think pausing to bicker with a friend about who the imposter is would truly elevate the experience. do that if u can.
6/ Deltarune (Chapter 5) (2026)
this feels like what ive been waiting for. this chapter felt like payoff for seeds that were planted 11 years ago.
i feel like ive barely scratched the surface of what this game has to offer. im writing this a few days after playing and i havent stopped chewing on the details.
im shocked at the turns the weird route has taken. it went from something that made me uneasy to something that captures me.
i really enjoyed The Character that everyone hates. glue. i feel like i can't give a quick summary of what this experience did to me, perhaps because i'm still experiencing it.
July
7/ Backrooms (2026)
i was told this had an unconventional structure and... yeah it kinda does! it has multiple distinct arcs and they're structured quite nicely.
there's an easy pitfall to horror movies, and perhaps any type of mystique: explaining too much. the mystery keeps you in the place. you gotta keep wondering. each answer should come with a new set of questions.
backrooms does this quite nicely imo. the way that the movie ends by explaining its opening... it feels like it could keep going, but i think that runs the risk of explaining too much. leaving you with that unresolved feeling is choice.
also, this is an audiovisual feast all around. delightful
