Offbeat TTRPG Adventure Arc:

This Spring, I reserved a room online, at a Best Western motel, and received a pop-up message that said, "Thank you for submitting."

My apologies for not getting a screenshot.

@strange-aeons

This is not a god-emperor.

This is a god whose name is "Emperor."

Long-dead, he was the last ruler of a once-powerful empire whose cultural influence outlasted it.

Was he deified in his lifetime? We no longer know. But he is deified now.

While his memory lives on, his true name has been lost. At some point, the word "emperor" ceased to have meaning except when referring to him, therefore his name is now Emperor.

I'm thinking of rewatching MH after many, many years, but I missed a lot by only watching Marble Hornets and totheark. Would anyone have suggestions on how to find a good selection of the other content without spending hours trying to track it down and contextualize it?

Why is this simple fact so hard for people to understand

While on that again, I notice that people do this thing where they're like "TME is useful because it describes how people who are not trans women can and do invent malicious rumors and harassment campaigns about trans women and everyone believes them".

And I'm sorry to point out but it's not just "TMEs" that do this. I have been around here for many years and I can confirm that trans women are just as happy to invent or reblog callout posts and generally do abuse by proxy. Just like everyone else.

There isn't really any kind of identity category that makes someone inherently safe, principled, or progressive.

In near-future speculative fiction story, highly politicized faction refuses to use pronouns completely. Including indefinite pronouns. Including first-person pronouns.

Can conceivably be pro- or anti- inclusivity ideology, small group or large group.

Faction's speech is weird and stilted, although similar to English "brevity wording" found on signs and instruction manuals. Surprisingly easy to understand, considering complete restructuring of speech pattern and grammar.

Same group does not use contractions, but unrelated. Abandonment of contractions pure affectation driven by pomposity.

Blog post is self-demonstrating.

Full disclosure, I've never actually seen Melancholia, but from your video, I arrived at a very different interpretation of Justine's character… it occurred to me that, if someone was used to hearing that the world was doomed, and had both ruined their own life with their actions and come to full acceptance of the fact that they had nobody to blame but themselves for their situation, that discovering that the entire planet genuinely IS doomed, in short order and quite demonstrably… wouldn't that come as a great relief? None of the guilt or crises would matter any more, because the advent of Melancholia would be so much more immediate… and since nobody can do anything about it, there would be no pressure to try, no pressure to be "productive."

It doesn't quite meet the definition of sanity in the ordinary sense, but when inevitable doom is rushing towards the entire planet, I kind of think the definition of "sanity" would shift, as values and priorities shift, because most of what we think matters… would suddenly no longer matter.

On a weirder note, I used cosmic bliss-horror when I put unicorns into my original high-fantasy worldbuilding project. In that world, unicorns are fearsome interdimensional incursions that cannot abide the impurity of the world's setting… Mesmerizingly beautiful, but lethal without exception. But they also contain a Mr. Toots reference, because I simply cannot help myself. Yes, my unicorn's ultimate ability is a discharge of superheated, rainbow-colored plasma (B308), shot out of its ass. But it's magical plasma, and when it burns you right to the bone, you fall under the Ecstasy spell (M139) as an affliction.

Who's afraid of the big bad eldritch horror?

And what happens when you're not? We made a video on it!

Not telling your kid they have a learning disability, chronic illness, mental illness etc. so they can “feel normal” actually does the opposite. They will not feel normal if they do not have the context to understand that their normal will be different from that of their peers.

I kind of doubt that Vivaldi's student orchestra at the girls' school was full of incredibly talented instrumentalists, who could toss off his fast bravura passages without a hitch.

I can't help but imagine them as an ordinary school orchestra, most of whom aren't particularly good or talented... and they all dread orchestra practice, because Fra Antoni refuses to either simplify his masterworks for beginner players, or accept the results. Concerts always sound utterly horrible, everyone slogging through music they barely can play, at various tempos that are all less than Vivaldi is beating, and he's always purple and hyperventilating by the end.

I didn't notice who reblogged this and I was WONDERING where the heck it was going...

Which made it all the sweeter to find out it's an Emberlynn joke!