#logic people

[leavemebetosleep]

Family portrait. Child is named Minx. Bonus:

Make a stupid uninvited personal comment to a stranger, and get an answer you didn't want to know.

[prolibytherium]

One of my all time biggest pet peeves with historical(ish) fantasy is when the writer constructs a religion with a clear bias that it's stupid and false and therefore only the Stupid People and/or commoners believe in it and all the smart/elite main characters are like, quasi-atheists or otherwise just routinely flout established religious conventions of orthodoxy and/or orthopraxy because they're Too Smart for it or etc.

It's usually an extension of assumptions that people in the past were just less intelligent than in the contemporary, just being like "I know that the sun is a star millions of miles away that the earth orbits, but this ancient religion describes it as a chariot flying through the sky" and not really bothering to learn the context and just (consciously or subconsciously) settling on 'that's a crazy thing to think and was probably believed in because they were Stupid'.

And that whole attitude pisses me off so much. People were as 'smart' 10,000 years ago as they are today. These beliefs aren't just desperate, random flailing to explain phenomena that could not directly be accounted for either, it's not like people just looked at the sun and went "Uhhh I don't know what the fuck that thing is, actually. I guess it might be a chariot or a boat or something?? Yeah let's go with that." and based entire religious practices on this. Every well-established belief system exists within broader contexts of cultural values/subjective perceptions of reality/knowledge systems/etc, and exist as part of a historical continuum of religious practices that came before. Even when not Materially Correct, they have context and internal logic, they're not always dead literal with zero levels of allegory, and they're never a result of stupidity.

[lastoneout]

the whole guilt-tripping language in posts about important topics paired with how I'm still getting bitches in my notes talking about why it's actually good to tell "bad" people to kill themselves continues to prove to me that a lot of people have absolutely no concept of social justice or activism outside of assuming the worst of and then viciously attacking strangers on the internet

[waterme-stories]

Chewing on a headcanon that Wade let Cable walk away... and he wasn't going to make the same mistake with Logan

[apollos-boyfriend]

so my younger cousin is flying in to visit from brazil on sunday, and will be staying here for like, the entirety of july. which, don't get me wrong, is super cool! i love the kid! but it felt like a super weird move, considering his parents are the SUPER strict and borderline helicopter parents. even the smallest prank/roughousing with him/his little sister would lead to a strict talking to from his parents, he couldn't ever do anything without their clear permission, that sort of stuff. so letting him fly at alone at 16 to a whole different country and stay there for a whole month seemed WILDLY out of character. additionally, it just felt like a super last-minute trip. it's not like we have any plans to do when he gets here, and the flight itself and stuff only got booked like, midway through june.

and i was talking to my mom about it, kind of trying to nudge some answers out of her, and after a while she went, "yeah, i think they're sending him over here to get away for his boyfriend. see if the distance breaks them off." which, first of all, surprised me because last i checked, they didn't KNOW he had a boyfriend. literally everyone in the family did EXCEPT for them because while that entire side of the family being semi-conservative, his parents (mostly his dad) are EXTREMELY old-fashioned. so clearly something already went wrong. and considering the only reason the rest of the family knew is because one person found out and it spread like wildfire, i have a sneaking suspicion he wasn't the one to tell them, either.

and second of all. they're sending him HERE. to try to make him forget his homosexuality. i couldn't do anything but just wordlessly gesture to the multiple pride flags scattered around my room, then to myself, because really? he has like two other cousins in the us and they're sending him to me? honey i am about to introduce this kid to queer scenes you have never even heard of. he'll be returning home with labels only shrimp can perceive

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

Hot take: I actually think men and women are meant to work together and complement each other and not like,,, dislike each other and be divisive.

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[adestroy]

I got a request for more tiny Spock so here is...more tiny Spock

[united-under-skyfall]

leverage is so fucking funny. man manages to find the most mentally ill and neurodivergent group of thieves on the market + an even more mentally ill guy whose literal job description was trying to chase all of them, and forces them into a found family speed-run by trying to blow them all up. they lowkey stage a full fucking country wide coup and are like eh 🤷 just another wednesday. this might be a fun place to vacation tho i guess. sophie shows up to her own funeral twice. they're so good at convincing people of their shit that they make a guy's body start reacting to an illness he doesn't have because it isn't real. go completely out on a limb and basically hand this one guy a new password for his computer so they can get into it and he goes with it. parker and hardison have straight up just "fake it 'till you make it"d into the fbi without even attempting to cover their tracks beyond just These Two Guys. half their clients never asked to be their clients and don't know they're their clients, and the other half are random people who find them who fuckin knows how, meanwhile no government agency can track them down without selling their soul to sterling. they make a point to have a dramatic scene w a Big Bad Shadowy Government Guy who doesn't actually get caught or brought to justice or anything telling them he's going to hunt them all down, and in any other show this would probably earn at least a minor arc later on but he literally never shows up again. an entire season finale hinged on a cake and a bunch of clams. they accidentally made eliot a celebrity not once, not twice, but three times. parker blew up her foster parents' house when she was like. nine. and it's hardly a footnote. hardison is just casually an artistic prodigy but it's only ever brought up for the most background of background gags. eliot's biggest beef with parker and hardison for like two and a half seasons is that they won't stop making weird food with lasers and refuse to realize they can't make a decent beer to save their lives. sophie's immediate response to being shot is to call her shooter a wanker. there's a character who has literally killed a man with a mop and they had the audacity to only put her in one episode.

[hellenhighwater]

Genuinely being a single woman in my thirties, living alone, is such a mixed blessing sometimes. I do love my house and when I'm here I literally never want to leave. But on the other hand, I do get tired of leaving to go hang out with people, even though I love seeing them. Especially because I have such a great group of friends but they live all over the place, geographically, and therefore most of them don't know each other. And I actually really love hosting? But I never have people in my house because logistically it's always more practical for me to go to them than vice versa.

But sometimes I buy new old dishes and wanna just have a little fancy wizard party, but all my guests are far away. Please may I have the teleport spell. Or a high-speed commuter rail system.

[ryllen]

no, but pinecones is really beautiful isn't it ?

[a-most-beloved-fool]

makes me a little sad when star trek ignores IDIC. like. vulcans are logical. that is true. But 'logical', for vulcans, does not amount to 'without compassion,' and it definitely doesn't amount to 'racial superiority.' Belief in 'infinite diversity in infinite combinations' should NOT result in the weird racist/speciest stuff we're getting in some of the newer treks. It does make sense that some vulcans are discriminatory. They're still flawed. But that should not be common or expected, like it seems to be in SNW. If it is, then it's a race of hypocrites, which. doesn't seem very true to Star Trek's message.

I think TOS Spock does a pretty good job of embodying this. Not always, it was the 60s, after all, but mostly. He was often trying to find non-violent routes, and get by without killing - even if they were in danger or had already been attacked. (See: the mugato, and the horta (until Kirk was the one in danger, lmao. t'hy'la > IDIC), the Gorn ship). Kirk, in his eulogy, calls him the most human soul he's ever known, and I've always read that as Kirk calling out Spock's overwhelming compassion.

It's just so much more interesting when Vulcans get to be radically compassionate. I want them to believe that everything and everyone has value. I want them to respect all ways of being. I want them to find ways for even very non-humanoid aliens to exist unfettered in society. I want them to see hybrids and think that it's amazing. Also, like, disability rep. I want Vulcans to have The Most Accessible Planet and available resources because they want everyone to feel accepted and valued. It makes for better characters and more interesting stories.

[bambeebirdie]

Okay consider Bruce Wayne is the very well known bankroller for the Justice League. Batman is still part of the league, but they don’t know he’s Bruce Wayne. So, due to Bruce Wayne being such a well known figure and very obviously connected to the Justice League, that has kinda made him a target for certain people which means the Justice League has decided to assign one of their members to help keep him safe. Insert notorious billionaire fighter Superman becoming the part time bodyguard of Bruce Wayne in this epic superbat romance

[qcomicsy]

Alfred comes home and there's a whole noise from the kitchen.

Alfred: Is everything okay?

Damian: Dumbass is coming out.

Alfred: Oh.

Alfred (to Dick): ...I figured this day would come sooner or later...

Dick:

Alfred: Don't think I didn't saw it my boy, and pardon me if I should said something before...

Dick: No, no, no it's not

Alfred:... I mean It was obvious from the start but I figured I shouldn't press-

Dick: Alfie It's not

Jason: No, no let him finish.

----

Batman: Yes, my kid also came out to me recently.

Superman (to Dick): Oh wow, that's great! I'm proud of you buddy.

Dick:

Dick: What

Tim: It's me.

Superman: Oh

Superman: Oh wow, thats great! I'm proud of you buddy.

Dick: No, wait you can't just-

----

Jon: I'm just glad in not being alone in this, you know.

Titans:

Dick: It's not me.

Titans: "Oh, right. Sure." " Yeah we knew it" "Totally"

[foldingfittedsheets]

Some years ago I was having lunch with my nana at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. It’s important to know for the sake of this story that my nana is a little old Mexican lady who nevertheless mistrusts everyone except white people. We were having a nice time, chatting and eating.

Then midway through the meal she leaned in close and said, “Sometimes… do you think they reuse the rice to make rolls?”

I turned to her in surprise and said, “No, why would you think that?”

“Well,” she said, “You know… those people never like to waste anything.”

We stared at each other across the yawning chasm of her previous statement and finally I managed, “Nana, that’s racist.”

“It is?”

“Yes. It is. Not all Asian people behave the same, and assuming they do is racist. Just like not all Mexican people are the same.”

She looked down at her meal, nonplussed, and I realized that her actual fear of spoiled food hadn’t been addressed.

I sighed and added, “You know, restaurants all get inspected by health inspectors and have to maintain certain codes. And the health inspector is probably also racist, which means non white businesses have to be even more careful. So the rice will always be fresh.”

She brightened immediately. “That’s true!” She ate another roll, secure in the knowledge that racism would keep her food safe.

Then she said, “I could be a health inspector!” and I nearly choked.