#discussion board

[master-of-the-railway]

Relating to your post on the subtle angst of being a machine, I hunger for all the possible physical angst elements. Where is the fear of limited or increasingly costly repair parts? Where is the worry of the shrinking pool of mechanical experts (engine troubleshooters)? The simple inescapable awareness that one's moving parts are constantly degrading? Horror relating to corrosive/damaging environments? Complex emotional trauma and strange coping mechanisms in response to the reality of their entire "family" slowly *literally* falling apart?

YES!!! YESS!!! FUCK YES!!! SOMEONE THAT GETS IT!!!!!

going to. put this under the cut bc I have SO MUCH TO SAY.

You get it SO well, so many good points there. All things come to an end, and engines especially can be kept alive for over a hundred years if they are well taken care of, but there's so many who are not as valued or who simply cannot be taken care of as well as their owners want to take care of them. And they can rarely do things about it. It's honestly admirable that some of the Sodor engines have worked so hard to protect and preserve their fellow rolling stock. Oliver is a beloved little engine, but he likely stays up some nights thinking about how if Douglas hadn't happened upon him, he wouldn't even be here right now. He'd have been melted down ages ago. Not to bring up Hiro again but he is literally the first engine that comes to mind when I think of this sort of thing. He went to Sodor so excited to be helpful and useful and was promptly abandoned not long after he'd broke down. He was stuck there for god knows how long and if Thomas hadn't found him, by accident mind you, he would've corroded and died there most likely. And yet he would've rather done that then get scrapped. Almost as if he wanted to pass away on his own terms. Like I mentioned before, we're shown often that most of the kind-hearted engines (specifically on Sodor) will put forth their best effort to keep any machine out of the smelters. Thomas listened to Hiro's story and was likely deeply disturbed that Hiro had been abandoned like that and not a single person dared to look hard enough to find him when he was still on Sodor this whole time. But with his horror, came understanding, because he knows the reality of even some of the most famous locomotives at times can be harsh and even deadly. And Spencer showed no care or concern at all, not only that, but he almost seemed delighted to inform Sir Tophamn Hatt of Hiro's existence purely to ensure that he was scrapped. He knew nothing about Hiro. He doesn't even LIVE on Sodor. And yet he took great pride in the concept of getting the old engine scrapped. As if that does not mean the very end of an engine's life. It's honestly really unsettling to me how quickly Spencer jumped to that conclusion. Not to mention the tearful horror in Hiro's voice when he was yelling out to Thomas whilst trying to get away from Spencer.

Henry was locked in a tunnel for fearing the rain would damage his coat. How often did he beg those workers that would come by to let him out? How many times do you think he cried feeling like he'd failed his entire railway and that he'd never be released again? There was no sympathy shown for him. And no acknowledgement to the terror he very likely felt for the time he was trapped there in that tunnel. He got sick not long afterwards, the anguish he went through in that time period was probably something awful. Most all machines are at the mercy of their employers. They don't have the appendages to escape the situations they get in that some humans might be able to get out of. If you deprive any machine of their fuel they cannot go anywhere. If you refuse to repair them they cannot go anywhere or function properly. There's a reason they pride themselves on being really useful. If you're not really useful, you're either sent away or you're...well...sent somewhere to be scrapped. It's the way the world works with real, non-sentient machines...and it seems like the TTTE universe operates on those same principals despite being a world where 99% of all heavy machinery is alive and can think and speak for themselves. Sometimes it's just progression, sometimes it's business, but at no time is it ethical. They are alive. They have wants and desires and emotions and fears, yet very few of the humans in their world seem capable of understanding that. There's so many scary things that come with being an engine. If you're too slow and you get less done than a new model, you're likely done for unless somebody cares enough about you to take you in and restore you. Sodor seems to work overtime to preserve old rolling stock, I'm sure they would've taken incredible care of Hiro had he not went home to Japan, and it seems like they did miss him there considering that he's still very well taken care of when he comes to visit Sodor after he'd moved back home. But there's so many engines who don't have that luxury. Hiro just as well could've been sent back or left sitting still, of course whoever owns him now clearly cares for him a great deal. The other types of machines aren't as touched on as our beloved engines are, but they surely experience the same kind of stuff. Airplanes may just as easily feel the same anxieties as old steamers do. They get antsy when they can't fly because what is a plane good for if it can't get off the ground? There's just SO many things to talk about. I really do think the fandom should include things like this in angst content more bc there is a lot of the show's own canon that is genuinely unsettling when put into real world perspectives.

[chiffonfluff]

Doing a college discussion board are soooooo painful to do it feels like 10 thousand explosions to start one. And don't forget the required tasks of having to reply to 2 or 3 people

[assignmentassists]

I am offering free academic essay writing service for 1 to 2 page assignments. Contact me through discord server or user name above. Hurry while the offer lasts.

[wtf-tfw]

do you think that there's ever been a Dutch baby that was a Woman? Discuss in the comments section below and reply to at least 2 classmates.

[secondhand-goose]

you're in his dm's, I'm in his discussion board comment thread at 11:58pm. we're not the same. "great insight David!"

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt.4

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.5] [Pt.6] [Pt.7] [Pt.8] [Pt.9] [Pt.10]

Danny was sitting in the back, his backpack obnoxiously taking up the seat next to him, when the door to the lecture hall creaked open near silently.

“What are you in here for?” Danny asked the guy who crept into class. He sympathetically took his backpack off the Seat of Shame and allowed the guy to sit down. Funnily enough, they had the same hair and eye color.

“Gen Ed. Undecided. You?” The guy grunted quietly back.

“Environmental studies. I’m Danny.”

“Tim.”

With the implicit understanding of two people in a required class they could not give less than two fucks about, Tim and Danny tuned back into the lecture. When the class was assigned group work, Danny looked over to see Tim softly snoring, head slammed down on the table.

“Tim. Wake up, dude.” Danny poked his shoulder.

“Huh? Class over?”

“Nah, we got group work. Discussion board.”

“Oh shit, thanks for waking me up. Wanna team up?”

Danny shrugged. “Sure. We should aim to post it in the middle so the professor doesn’t read our answers to the class.”

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Any idea what we’re talking about?”

“Kind of?”

“Good enough for me.”

——

Tim Drake kept seeing Danny Fenton around on campus.

“Danny! Dude, what are you doing?”

Danny turned, gloved hands full of crumpled trash. “Picking up after the student population, apparently.”

“Didn’t think environmental studies was that serious.”

“Global warming is very serious, you jerk,” Danny smirked at him, crossing the grass to put the trash into the trash can. “Reduce, reuse, oil shouldn’t be spilled in water and all that.”

“Basic stuff,” Tim grinned. Nice, he basically had a friend past Bernard now!

They were friends, right?

“And yet humanity fails to comprehend it. Incredible. Incredibly stupid that is.”

“They get it. Major corporations just don’t care.”

Danny sighed. “True that. You on your way to your next class?” He took off his biodegradable gloves off (nitrile and nylon, baby!) and chucked them into the trash.

“I’ve got free time, actually. Prof cancelled for his daughter’s surgery.”

“Oh, shit, that’s rough! You wanna go downtown and join the strike?”

“A strike? What for?” Even as he asked, Tim hiked his bag higher onto his shoulder, ready to go. They fell into step as the two left campus.

“Apparently, Quillan Pharma was doing some shady shit at their manufacturing plants. I think it’s like killing kids, and pouring toxins into the ground.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. Oh! Poison Ivy’s gonna be there!”

Tim blinked. He casted a sideways look at Danny. Sure he’s been here long enough to know… but it couldn’t hurt to check. “You know she’s an eco-terrorist, right?”

“Okay, but like… people suck sometimes. And all she’s asking for is like don’t kill the planet. And she doesn’t do that whole mind control thing too much anymore! The Sirens are so cool. Plus, one of my best friends at home might actually kill me if I don’t try to get her autograph. Poison Ivy is like, Sam’s personal hero.”

Tim snickered. “Yeah, okay. Mind if one of my friends join? His name’s Bernard.”

“The more the merrier,” Danny nodded. “Ooo! Hot chocolate. Want some?”

Danny bought three drinks as Tim trailed behind, texting Bernard.

“He said yes.”

“Cool! We should meet up somewhere before the drinks get cold.”

Well, Danny got the autograph. Tim got a new friend, and Bernard got a drink from his crush.

——

“Oh, you’re the glowing dude that Batman always talks about!”

Danny blinked, eyes scanning the wing-like cape and the yellow emblem on the hero’s suit. Danny was indeed glowing, stars and nebulas freckling across neon green skin, and glowing hair the color of a white dwarf star, tinged with the blue from his ice core.

“I… have absolutely no idea who you are,” Danny lied, like a liar. He’s found a surprising niche of entertainment in messing with the local vigilantes and he’ll be damned if he missed this opportunity.

He heard a snicker from the comm lines as Red Robin visibly brushes it off.

“I’m Red Robin. Why are you picking up trash?”

“Picking up after you humans, apparently.”

The both of them blink, feeling a weird sense of déjà vu. A moment of awkward silence passed before they both shook it off.

“Are you here to help? No offense, but the track record for you people is terrible.” Danny strode over and grabbed a bag. He opened it, and shook it at Red Robin’s face. “See? Batarangs, these odd bird looking ones, the R’s. Seriously, pick up after yourselves!”

“Oh, woah, can we have these back?”

Danny yanked the bag back before Red Robin could get close. “Pay me. These were incredibly tedious to pick up. Especially the batarangs. I mean, I even found a whole bunch of old rusted ones in the middle of the bay. What did you do, dump an entire bag in there from the air?”

Red Robin sighed and took out a wad of cash, with tracking fluid all over it. Danny grimaced, smelling the odd scent on the money. “That’s not real cash. It smells off. Are you trying to give me counterfeits because you’re broke?”

Red Robin gaped, oddly offended. “No! They’re real!”

“Doesn’t smell like it. It’s stinkier than the trash. Go get the one with the money, the litterer. Tell him I’ll be back the next full moon. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Danny grumbled, disappearing on the spot to watch Red Robin flounder with the stack of cash and the piles of dead bodies on the shore.

“What the fuck even is my life these days?” Red Robin wondered out loud, stuffing the cash back into his pocket. He looked over the plastic wrapped bodies and slumped, sighing.

Oddly enough, Danny felt a sense of sympathy. Well, he’s not getting paid for sympathy. He’s not getting paid at all tonight, actually. Danny flew off, plunging once more into the depths of the significantly cleaner waters, and used his ice to scoop out oil stains.

Danny glanced around and sighed. He had a lot of work to do.

——

“So you’re saying he’s like a werewolf mermaid fae child immortal god thing, right?”

Bruce grunted.

“B, what the hell are you smoking these days? You know drugs are bad, right? Do we need Superman to give you that PSA?” Jason snickered.

Tim, massaging his arms from having to haul an ungodly amount of dead bodies, grunted. He’s so similar to Bruce that it gave the people currently in the cave hives.

“He said full moon. I don’t think we can track him with regular stuff. The bugs kept shorting out.”

“Oh boy,” Dick sighed. “Don’t fall off the spiral cliff, Tim. You’ve got midterms to think about so no stalking the guy.”

“Yet,” Tim shot back, changing out of his suit.

Bruce grunted, setting aside a huge stack of cash.

[opsychblog]

Date: April 14, 2023

In “Reducing intentions to resist future change: Combined effects of commitment-based HR practices and ethical leadership”, something the authors said really stood out to me: “…if the organization's HR practices embody a philosophy that sees employees as a valuable asset; has a long-term focus; and is based on the principles of humanistic values, organizational support, and trust, employees will be more willing to contribute to the organization's success” (Neves et al., 2017). I think this is really important. From what I’ve heard from friends and family, they feel very unmotivated in an environment that treats them like just machines. If a company were to treat their employees like they are valuable and important to the success of the company, then I feel like they’d be much more motivated to work in general. I also found it interesting to read about linear regression and bootstrapping methods because we’re learning that in my statistics class right now, just as a side note. Finally, the results that the beneficial effects of commitment-based HR practices were conditional on the actions of immediate supervisors and their ethical guidance, and that individuals were not resistant to change only if commitment-based HR practices were put into place, was interesting. I never thought of it this way. I know in general people are resistant to change, but learning that there are ways to combat this was interesting!

In “Conflict Cultures in Organizations: How Leaders Shape Conflict Cultures and Their Organizational-Level Consequences”, I learned about collaborative cultures vs avoidant cultures vs dominating cultures. Avoidant cultures negatively related to branch-level creativity, and dominating cultures negatively associated with customer service and cohesion (Gelfand et al., 2012). Collaborative conflict cultures positively related to cohesion and potency and lower levels of burnout (Gelfand et al., 2012). I thought this was interesting because if I remember correctly we talked about how collaborative cultures in organizations are better in general because it leads to lower levels of burnout and better work ethics and working together. Finally, I liked how the article mentioned how leaders’ styles are important in relation to conflict cultures. If organizations strategically select and/or train leaders to create different conflict cultures in organizations, then perhaps different outcomes can come from it and more collaborative cultures can bloom. 

Gelfand, M. J., Leslie, L. M., Keller, K., & de Dreu, C. (2012). Conflict cultures in organizations: How leaders shape conflict cultures and their organizational-level consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(6), 1131–1147. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029993 

Neves, P., Almeida, P., & Velez, M. J. (2017). Reducing intentions to resist future change: Combined effects of commitment-based HR practices and ethical leadership. Human Resource Management, 57(1), 249–261. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21830 

[medicalunprofessional]

ohhh hell yes

[mitzielalfaro]

DB 6.1

This is my assessment of one of the scenes in the third episode of House of the Dragon.

Photo Credits: HBO

[corseque]

“Vivienne would defeat Solas” have you listened to their banters? There’s no way, man. She underestimates him to a truly silly degree and she also makes him purely angry in a way we rarely see from him because she reminds him of the evanuris. She would be toast

[faelapis]

the more "intellectual" terfs have tried to claim for a while that they toootally support intersex people. that it's only ever trans people who "use" intersex people... but now my whole feed is them immediately transvestigating an intersex woman for participating in sports, calling her a "man." would be funny if it wasn't so horrifying.

[pansyfemme]

just a heads up that enmeshment with your therapist is a sign that you need a different therapist. you go to these people to offload and heal, but if you're emotionally enmeshed and that's keeping you from bringing topics forward, that is no longer a healthy relationship nor a therapist that should be treating you.

just so you're aware. your therapist should not be an uncle figure you're afraid to talk about embarrassing stuff with, he's an impartial audience to help you heal. that emotional connection is now HINDERING you from healing.

honestly! me making one personal post! does not tell you the full story! while i defintly have an emotional connection with him- i have had other therapists in my life in and out the entire time. i seek help from other sources frequently! i said it was like talking to an uncle simply because of the fact he’s known me since i was a child, which makes talking about adult topics at times a little embarrasing because he knew me when i was 11!! he is not like an uncle to me in an other respect, i have a seperation. and i have openly discussed this with him and why im uncomfortable at times!! but we talk it out!! because its my therapist and me making one post doesnt mean you know everything!! geez!! also ive been embarrassed to talk about sex with every other therapist ive had!! not your call to make!!

[coastarrx]

I shared this in class last week

[writterings]

hobbies when you live in the countryside:

walmart

parking lot

driving around and stealing trump signs

going to the next town over and shoplifting

weed

[man1cpixiedreamcowboy]

mr. logan brat howlett

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Randomly thinking about “tolerate it” (narrator voice: it was not random) and how under the cloak of fiction it is ostensibly inspired by works like “Rebecca” (which Taylor said she read during the 2020 lockdowns I believe?), with the line of “you’re so much older and wiser” indicating that the speaker is significantly younger and inexperienced compared to the person she’s speaking to and a pretty direct reference to the plot of the book.

But I saw something somewhere once that stuck with me about how it might not be referring to relative age between the characters but chronological age as in the passage of time in a relationship. And that made me think about how in a contemporary context, it might not necessarily be referencing an actual age gap between the two characters, but rather a sarcastic or cynical response to the man’s claims that he has matured (“you’re so much older and wiser [than you were before/than you were when we met/etc.]”), which then made me think about that line in relation to the woman. And that it could be taken like, “you act like you’ve matured so much in our time together and like you know everything, while I’m supposedly still stuck as the girl I was when we first met.”

Which then made me think of the “right where you left me” of it all and did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen time went on for everyone else she won’t know it and the bit in Miss Americana where she talks about how celebrities get frozen at the age at which they got famous, and how she’s had to play catch up in a lot of ways not just in her emotional growth but kind of in general. (Which also made me wonder if she’s ever been called out for immaturity/lack of curiosity/lack of education about things in her life…)

Which then made me think about the rest of the song, and @taylortruther’s posts yesterday about “seven” and “Daylight” and the way Taylor idealizes her youth yet contrasts it with an almost sinister reality in its wake, and the line, “I sit by the door like I’m just a kid,” because the discussion raised that her relationship let her recapture some of the childlike joy and wonder she’d lost. So this line is a double-edged sword: the speaker sits by the door with childlike hope that the person will come home and cherish her, but on the darker side, feels like the child dealing with the monsters she doesn’t have names for yet and the feelings of isolation she felt as she aged.

I’m not saying the song is necessarily autobiographical; like most of the songs on folkmore, it’s clearly a fictionalized story based on media she’d consumed and created, but we know a lot of the fictional songs were infused with her own feelings and experiences and… This idea swirling in my head picked up steam and now I kind of can’t stop thinking about it. Sorry but I’m a little obsessed now.

Like maybe it might start to shed light on why she identified so strongly with the novel in the first place…