The Road to Narnia

I like to overthink about things

[josephbrassey]

“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

And I refuse to let the cynics own a chunk of my heart.

[gudamor]

Happy Smallpox Eradication Day

[anarchistmemedistro]

[anarchistmemedistro]

New Study Once Again Shows Trans Women Have No Physical Advantage Over Cis Athletes

Researchers analyzed data from almost 3,000 trans women.

Body composition and physical fitness in transgender versus cisgender individuals: a systematic review with meta-analysis

Objective To compare body composition and physical fitness between transgender and cisgender individuals. Design Systematic review with met

[animentality]

[batsandboba]

“scientists don’t want you know” is a phrase that always cracks me up because if you actually meet a scientist they will be shaking and crying like an overstimulated chihuahua with the need to let you know

[stillnaomi]

using violence to liberate people from sweatshops, unsafe mines, and grinding poverty isn't the same as using violence to impose those things on people. the idea that violence is morally repugnant regardless of context is a belief that every oppressor throughout history would love for the oppressed to hold

[jackkdaniels]

when i was a kid i decided that killing people was bad therefore war was bad therefore the military was evil. and adults would tell me it's more nuanced than that and i would understand when i grew up. well i'm a grown up now and idk i still think that killing people is bad and war is bad and the military is evil

[parkchanwoohoo]

Once you start noticing how the incapacity to handle discomfort affects how people live their lives it's actually pretty shocking how it ruins pretty much every conceivable aspect of existence. Interpersonal relationships, romantic and platonic. Career and education opportunities. Your politics Your willingness to go anywhere. The kind of food you eat. The kind of art you expose yourself to and your ability to read it. It's never just one thing, it touches everything, and once you notice it it's like suddenly being able to see germs or something. Just this horrific catastrophe people look at you askance for screaming about. As I grow older and see what became of my friends and peers who could not learn to handle discomfort, the more I'm like. This is a genuine societal issue

[parkchanwoohoo]

When you can't handle discomfort, eventually discomfort itself starts to feel like you're under attack. Your body enters flight or fight mode, and your amygdala starts screaming at you that you are In Danger even when the "danger" in question is like, making an unpleasant phone call or like, you're reading a book about something gross.

Your ability to make frank assessments about your situation becomes compromised, because, well, when you're under attack who's going to stay still and go "Let me think this through?" Of course you're going to panic. The phone call isn't just unpleasant, it's potentially life-ruining. Someone is going to think you're dumb and that's going to be TRUE and then I guess you die or something except dying would be better. The book isn't just gross, it's actively coming for you, tainting your mind with the memory of its contents, it has RUINED you.

Obviously, you want to try avoiding danger whenever possible. So you create a world in which you avoid all dangerous things. Traveling? Well that's scary, what if you get robbed or lost? Better to avoid it (plus there are so many things to read, rules to remember, forms to fill out... it's just too much, it makes you uncomfortable, which means YOU'RE IN DANGER, what if you FORGET SOMETHING CRITICAL? Better to avoid). A new job? Well what if it's worse than your current one? You at least know the rules here. The unknown is so much more uncomfortable, which is DANGEROUS, so better to stay where you are. A dark-skinned foreigner? Do they even speak English? You don't know how you'd communicate. They don't know the laws here, surely? Plus what if other people think you're racist? It's so uncomfortable which means THEY ARE A DANGER. Best to avoid at all costs, keeping your bag clutched tightly to your chest. Vaccines? You don't really know what's in them. The explanations have a lot of words you don't understand. That makes you feel suspicious and dumb, which is DANGEROUS. You said something that was kind of rude? UNCOMFORTABLE. THIS PERSON IS ATTACKING YOU. FIGHT OR FLIGHT. Someone says you were incorrect about something? DANGER. Someone says you reacted impulsively and seem to have misconstrued someone's words as a personal attack? YET ANOTHER ATTACK.

Eventually you lose yourself and become this. I don't even know. This totally reactive thing, unable to think analytically about anything (which is uncomfortable and a danger), unable to assess harms, unable to encounter anything new without having a meltdown. And none of it is a real escape because, well, you've created a life defined entirely by aversion to discomfort, which is the most uncomfortable life you can possibly imagine. Of course such people end up falling into fascist ideas about Why Your Life Sucks. When you build a life around trying to maintain as comfortable an equilibrium as possible, you cauterize the parts of you capable of growth, expansion, creativity, learning; at the same time, the knowledge of your own stuntedness is haunting so best not to think about that either. The world becomes this horrifying mirror maze where the only way to survive without offing yourself is by projecting your flaws onto others, bitterly externalizing your self-hatred (who could live like this and NOT hate themselves) just to avoid turning it inward. You end up living like a hollowed-out sea urchin

A lot of people I've met seem to think that mental healthiness is characterized by a lack of discomfort whatsoever, and are therefore justified in building a life where all discomforts can be avoided. On the one hand, I completely understand the impulse. Lord knows I have had colossally shitty times and wished I could just retreat into bed and fall asleep for as long as needed for everything to blow over. But like. You also have to understand that that's a fantasy, not a solution. When you have grown up living a crap life with nothing but discomfort, the ability to avoid it feels like exercising autonomy. But you really do have to be careful about making this your life ethos. I know so many people who have lapsed into total learned helplessness, so consumed by discomfort (mentally catastrophized into dangers) re: looking dumb, looking rude, looking X, looking Y that they just. Idk. Don't do anything except be bitter. You don't have to be that way. The solution isn't "tough it out" because that's also just a manifestation of your inability to handle discomfort. I also hesitate to say the solution is to focus on how much better your life will be when you do X and Y, because the entire point of the inability to handle discomfort is that it constantly manifests in precluding the possibility of even wanting X and Y in the first place since to want it and not be able to do it IS in itself another source of discomfort.

Idk what the solution is, exactly. I just think it's important to understand that sometimes things can feel awful and still not necessarily harm you

[stargazerlily7210]

Shout out to Loquitor Latinae from back in the day on fanfic.net, whoever you are, and wherever you are, now.

Thanks for writing a duology of paranormal Soriku/Akuroku/Strifehart fanfics that I still think about, to this day.

As one of the only fanfic authors whose username I still have memorized, I hope you have a great 2026.

[moniquill]

[stargazerlily7210]

I just rewatched The Day of the Doctor, and something clicked a bit more than it had before, regarding The Moment. And I honestly can't tell if this was the point all along and I just didn't make the connection because I was too caught up in the references and having Billie back on Doctor Who, or if this is just my new headcanon.

(Obvs, spoilers ahead if you haven't seen the 50th or finished Rose's episodes)

So, what do we know about The Moment?

-It's also called The Galaxy Eater

-It was invented by 'The Ancients of Gallifrey'

-The Time Lords are so scared of the thing that of all of the Forbidden Weapons locked away in the Omega Arsenal, it's the only one they've avoided deploying until now.

-The reason the Time Lords are so scared of it is because, according to legend, it was so powerful of a weapon that it developed a conscience.

-Not that it became conscious. That its AI woke up one day with strong enough moral compass to get angry at them for wanting to use it.

But I think it wasn't thanks to the Time Lords that it developed a conscience. I think it was very literally Rose as the Bad Wolf during Parting of the Ways.

Why?

Well, when we first meet said AI, it's taken the form of Rose as Bad Wolf (duh). Which gets played off as a bit of a timey-wimey joke, claiming it picked that look to appeal to The Doctor and just got the timeline wrong.

But now I'm thinking it's more than that, cause let's be real. If we're dealing with an AI smart enough to design its appearance to appeal to someone's preferences, it can make excuses for the same reason.

It doesn't know or care who Rose Tyler is. But even before it names itself Bad Wolf (which it has a VERY strong reaction to, for a weapon that has nothing to do with Earth or Humans, and wants nothing to do with the Time War or the Daleks) it still shows a propensity for Wolf imagery, telling The Doctor the noise outside was "just a wolf".

It also didn't do a copy of Rose, despite saying it chose "this face AND form" for the Doctor. Which I'd think it would have if it was truly just pulling an image from The Doctor's future memory (Billie having aged 7 yrs since we last saw her aside, because so had David and that clearly wasn't an issue to redesign his look around). Instead it wore its clothes and hair styled in a way that Rose would never have worn.

But it sure does appeal to the same aspects of The Doctor's character that Rose brought out in 'em. And laughs about The Doctor's comment that he could kiss her ("Oh, Bad Wolf Girl! I could kiss you!" "Yup! You will..") despite not knowing for sure who or when Rose Tyler was to The Doctor less than an hour ago.

So I suggest that when Rose absorbed the time vortex and was doing her 'gotta literally reshape matter and reality to protect My Doctor' thing, that included inserting her/Bad Wolf's consciousness into The Moment, way back when.

Like she did when she brought Jack back to life but had no control over how much life she shoved into him. Or how when she scattered the words Bad Wolf across spacetime as a trail of breadcrumbs, she also unknowingly named that beach in the parallel universe's Norway, Bad Wolf Bay.

"I bring life!" Sure did, and then some.

"I take the words. I scatter them across space and time." No kidding.

"The Time War Ends!" I mean, come on. Why would that be any less unintentionally accurate than the rest of her actions?

The Doctor says in Utopia that if a Time Lord had done what Rose did, they'd become a vengeful god. (Side note, when The Master finds out the Doctor had pulled the final trigger, he even says, "You must've been like God!") But he argues Rose's humanity having fueled her actions is what stopped her from succumbing to the same fate. Not that she didn't have the power of a God in that moment.

If I'm right, though. With the reality breaking power that Rose as Bad Wolf definitely had, and that The Moment is suggested to have; I think Rose literally rewrote the end of the Time War by putting her consciousness in The Moment. Fixed points don't matter when you're literally the Time Vortex channeled through a lovestruck teenage brain.

I think that until Rose went all supernova, The Doctor *had* used the Doomsday (hah) Weapon to stop the war. But as Bad Wolf, while she was seeing all realities at all times, she saw a way to "protect [him] from the False God (aka. him)" via inserting herself into said weapon.

It's not that he just didn't remember because crossing timelines. It's that he *had* done it until Rose went glowstick goddess on him.

Final bit of evidence? There's no reason for The Moment's trigger to have looked like that in the end. It doesn't even look like any other piece of Time Lord tech, that I know of.

But we already know that less than a day after Parting of the Ways, Rose will watch The 10th Doctor get really excited about a Big Red Button.

She went the extra mile and made the button shaped like a Rose. It even has petals.

[stargazerlily7210]

"No one cares about me", "Nobody cares whether I live or die"

Are you looking for an excuse not to listen to those voices?

Have you ever been a fan? Of any artist/creater/performer's anything?

Because that person you are a fan of. Who inspired you and countless others. They may not know of you personally, but the idea of you. The idea of there being living, breathing, thinking, feeling individuals out there who genuinely love and have been touched by the very things they have poured pieces of their own heart and soul into, is so often the connection, however illusory or tenuous, that inspires them.

Whether or not you and your love is appreciated by those around you, it is what keeps the people who inspire you going, whether they know you exist or not.

[leefi]

[gay-impressionist]

If you are silent about your pain they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it - Zora Neale Hurston

[staticsable]

This is one of those posts where I feel like I'm doing others and myself a disservice by not sharing. I wish someone had shown me this a long time ago.

Maybe I'd be having to do less work to break out of this shell, now.

[dduane]

...All of the above.

Tell your truth, and don't be afraid to have it be heard... because this is not a dress rehearsal.

[mochagabu-deactivated20231118]

It's difficult when you've spent years being a "good person", a "exceptional one" and the first time you complain, people left you. Even some of the ones who say they loved you. But once the fake people leave you, the trustful ones will be able to enter.

[stargazerlily7210]

Omg. The reason neurotypicals can break social rules w/o it standing out but neurodivergents can't, and it feels like all neurotypicals know the rules but can't really communicate them is because the rules don't exist. That's just how their brains work. In the same way that people with related or similar neurodivergencies gravitate toward each other and jive so well. Because our brains work similarly and/or well together. It's not like a secret knowledge or an inability to learn or pick up on what are seen as basic rules or obvious experiences. It's just an artifact of our brains working differently that has been exacerbated by the current systems.

[cherryhomo]

just wanted to share the National Down Syndrome Society’s message for this year’s World Down Syndrome Day (21st March) 💛💙

[naamahdarling]

Powerful message that lovingly includes multiple disabilities, united. I love this.

[anotherpapercut]

all video games should have a “I’m shit at video games but I’m curious about the story and I don’t want to watch a let’s play” mode

[anotherpapercut]

I am

[anotherpapercut]

I made this post because I am disabled and no matter how much I practice there are some games I will never be able to play because I physically cannot move my fingers the way you have to and the responses to this post from other disabled people, people who grew up unable to play video games, and people who just aren’t very good at them has been extremely enthusiastically positive, while people who apparently can’t conceive of the idea that some people will never be good at gaming condescendingly comment, tag or send me asks telling me to try easy mode or to get good despite the fact that the feature I’m describing already exists in some games and mods. if you’re part of the latter group, consider that some of us can not ever be good at video games and we still deserve to be able to participate and have fun

[heart-sprout]

Ok, real talk, if you play PC games I use a program called Wemod that has settings for almost every game ever and you can change them to suit your needs Unlimited health? one hit kill? unlimited items? They can’t mod multiplayer games, but every genre of game imaginable is on Wemod so I use it for everything from stardew valley, subnautica, hades, farming sim and more! It mods the games to your level of ease without needing to mess with any files or get deep into webpages for mods yourself It is a life changer

[stevviefox]

FYI ⬆️⬆️⬆️

Only passing along as the only games I play are on my phone.

[random-nerd-queer]

Get an older sibling and have them play the game and you watch

[raevenlywrites]

One, this is older siblings who watch younger siblings play erasure, two that’s not the point. People deserve to enjoy the experience of playing a game for themselves. Watching someone play is fun. Playing yourself is a different kind of fun.

[beggars-opera]

There are so many reasons why someone wouldn’t want to be challenged by a game, and it’s ridiculous that people can’t fathom someone requiring a different gameplay than themselves. 

Back in the dark ages when I was a kid and we got our first computer, my dad noticed that I was sad because I wanted to play computer games like him, so he would let me play his games in god mode. Should a five year old have been playing Ultimate Doom? Absolutely not. Did I enjoy the shit out of it, particularly the part where I couldn’t die and could just wander around aimlessly machine gunning demons to death with no real goal in mind? Hell yes.

[gimme-the-gun-ill-shoot]

Also, no one should have to explain the reason they want to play the game in god mode.

That is absolutely none of your business, if someone wants to play the game with max items, weapons, armor, money etc., whatever reason they’re playing that way for. YOU, the anon on the internet have no business knowing or shitting on how they play. It’s THEIR game, and THEIR gameplay experience. and I hope OP was able to play their game the way they wanted to without being stymied by the games mechanics.

[strangelingincarnate]

Oh shit, I have something for this!

Can I Play That?

Can I Play That provides accessibility focused game reviews and news. For Disabled Gamers, By Disabled Gamers.

Can I Play That? is a fantastic resource for fellow disabled folks who want to play video games, as well as non-disabled video game devs who want to make their games more accessible. I highly recommend checking it out!

[0sbrain]

if you’re interested in videogame accesability, i recommend LauraKBuzz and Stephanie Sterling video.

both of them are disabled trans creators who make great game reviews and video game industry commentary respectively.

i cant recommend sterling’s video on mouthwashing enough

[imbeingtauntedbyachild]

[palindrome-mystery]

From what I recall, the first time I saw 'rainbow capitalism' from a big brand was this image from Oreo in 2012.

It created a lot of controversy. Calls for boycotts and such. But Oreo didn't take it down. They were unapologetic and didn't try to appease the homophobes or backtrack.

And I know this sounds weird, but it was like a shift. Proof that public opinion or acceptance of queerness was widespread enough for a company to consider it profitable.

[cryoverkiltmilk]