it does kind of slaughter me a little bit every time i'm reminded of how near-universally associated slenderman is with the phrase "collect my pages" when the fundamental conceit of the game being referenced is that slenderman will hunt you down with murderous intent if you so much as go near his pages
YOU LOVE MILKCAN #MILKCAN
stage 1 emo/weeb phase board
Auntie Macassar disappeared only for Loonette to suddenly start getting letters from another globe-trotting yellow-wearing relative
I'm glad his transition went so well
Folks have got to understand that they probably aren't messed up by some Secret Big Trauma that they just can't remember; but rather by a million tiny microtraumas that they do mostly remember but don't even register as traumatic because nobody actually understood that these things would cause trauma, much less stack on each other over the years.
Not sure if I've told this story here before, but once upon a time, I didn't really get the point of most protests happening my area because I viewed them as "preaching to your own echo chamber" in a lot of cases. Ex: I saw people do a climate march through a very liberal university campus within a very liberal city, and I was just like "Okay, everyone here agrees with you. This place has crazy aggressive sustainability goals. What is the point of this?"
Then when Roe fell, there were a lot of protests outside the courthouses in cities near me, and though those city courthouses do serve the surrounding rural areas as well, the cities themselves are all rather progressive and left-leaning, so once again I was like "Okay, what is the point of this?" but I went anyway just for the experience. We stood on a street corner with our signs. Most people driving by honked in agreement with us. A few people yelled "abortion is murder" at us out their car windows, and we yelled back "abortion is healthcare!" Cool, okay, still didn't get the point because it's not like we were changing any minds or there in large numbers (we were no threat to any power structures), and the city already largely agreed with us.
But then we got another SUV that pulled up and yelled "abortion is murder!" at us (both husband and wife this time). Looked in the back seat, and they were traveling with their daughter who was maybe 13ish. She locked eyes with me, gave me the most serious look I've ever received, and gave us a thumbs up just above the window ledge so that her family couldn't see.
And that's the day I learned that protests are not always about threatening entrenched power structures but letting people in isolated ideological bubbles know that there are other perspectives and that if they share them, they're not alone.
Twighlight: Rainbow dash did you seriously post "me after fapping my boner" in the castle group chat?
Dash: Oh dang I meant to send that to the friends group chat but like, aren't all the same people in the castle group chat?
Twighlight: first of all the rules of the friend group chat clearly state that memes go in the meme channel. secondly... CELESTIA AND LUNA ARE IN THE CASTLE GROUPCHAT.
princess celestia in the group chat: 🤣🤣🤣
princess luna:
I keep having dreams about meeting magical beings and asking them if I can take a picture so I can prove they are real and not forget them. And they say no.
And like. Hypnosis is REAL and is an actual altered state that we don't understand, that I can't explain in words, that I can't capture.
I just woke up this morning feeling like "why am I bothering even pretending hypnosis is about science? Why do we not just call a spade a spade?"
I think hyperrationalism is actually limiting, like literally I think if you stick to "this is a science" you can't do the Really Big Stuff.
I think the only thing that prevents me from fully doing that is the hunch that I'll be misunderstood.
We have a lot of our jargon and methods from science, that's fine. Science is necessary. But maybe in my own personal mind, I can just see it holistically for what it is.
I think hypnosis fits the definition of magic perfectly, has in fact been called magic over human history, and I think that makes people uncomfortable.
But I think we should sit with that discomfort. WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING about it. And it's OK if that makes it a touch otherworldly.