can’t wait for the final boss battle of duolingo when you fight the 50 foot owl armed with nothing but your wits, a sword, and your shaky grasp of verb conjugations
A tribute to Mr. Stan Lee. Can’t imagine growing up without all those superheroes and stories he created. I’m currently speechless after finishing these though, so let my pictures speak for themselves.
thinking about the statement that all maladaptive coping mechanisms were helpful and, well, adaptive, at some point, and that they become maladaptive when the circumstance changes or when their detriments outweigh their benefits, and how the framework of “this is no longer helpful to you” is probably better than “this is a bad habit/this is bad for you.” How much better “you don’t have to live like that anymore” feels than “that’s a bad habit you picked up when you were in a bad place.” “It’s ok, you can look now,” vs “you’ve been tainted/infected/sullied by a previous bad circumstance.”
Thought about this today while reading about hermit crabs.
Hermit crabs start out their lives tiny and defenceless, and they choose a small shell to protect them. When they grow too big for the shell, big enough that it stops them from growing more, they abandon it and move on to a shell better for them at that size.
Does that mean the old shell was a terrible mistake? No, because it protected them back when they were smaller and more defenceless! But now it’s limiting their growth, and it’s time for them to find a better shell.
Humans, like hermit crabs, pick up shells when we need protection. Sometimes, we need to ditch those shells to keep growing! If we look at them as shells instead of Irredeemable Moral Failures, it’s a hell of a lot easier to let them go.
I got so sick of the cheesy Christmas playlist at work so I snuck in a version of All I Want For Christmas Is You where half way through the vocals change to Welcome To The Black Parade
Watching the customers slow down and squint in confusion is giving me life.
This is the song
Tea what the fuck I’m howling oh my god
I love you guys omf
I AM LAUGHING SO FUCKING HARD THERE ARE TEARS IN MY EYES
OH
MY
FUCKING
G-D
LISTEN TO THIS BEAUTIFUL UNHOLY MESS
THIS IS GLORIOUS I DON’T KNOW WHY PEOPLE ARE FURIOUS
I was about to say that I think it was Ambulon showing up – Tarn seems to make that the hook for his blackmail, which I’m sure ends up contributing in some fucked-up ways to how much Pharma comes to resent Ambulon. I figure that if every head doctor at Delphi had the same arrangement with Tarn, someone would have noticed the death rates by now, and/or we would have heard something about these previous doctors and how they wound up leaving the position.
But then you mentioned the idea that Tarn might have known Pharma from before and oh, I like that idea. It’s not that far-fetched; Ratchet knew Shockwave and his little gang of Outliers, and even participated in the Matrix Heist with Tarn (who,IIRC, almost dropped him on top of the fake Matrix). Pharma knew Ratchet, quite possibly before the war. Maybe Pharma was even involved in repairing Tarn’s head and hands after his empurata – and maybe he’s been desperately trying not to give away that he recognises Tarn’s frame, if not his mask or designation. Plus, we know from Grindcore that Tarn’s got a habit of seeking out those he used to be close to on the Autobot side and fucking with them cruelly, as a way of dealing with his own self-loathing over his Autobot-adjacent past. I can absolutely believe he identified Pharma as both a likely source of t-cogs and someone he wanted to personally torment.