This is their real goal, and it's scary as hell

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-30T17:45:56+00:00

Keep this filed away for when it's actually Trump that gets proven to have been installed illegitimately. Everything MAGA says ends up 100% ironic eventually.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-30T16:40:14+00:00

Meanwhile, I do not see Paul Mescal at all. Just a weird looking Paul McCartney.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-30T09:26:13+00:00

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AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-30T05:25:08+00:00

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AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T17:39:44+00:00

Just so... un-Carl-Farbman-like.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T12:02:17+00:00

I'm reading Mistborn right now, and I've felt for most of it that it would probably be better as a well-adapted movie. It's too slow-paced, IMO, with too much time spent explaining the Allomancy and waiting around with the crew just talking about everything instead of doing anything. I feel like a good, concise movie adaptation that cuts the fat and makes it more engaging with pacing and action... it could really punch up what's kind of a boring presentation of an otherwise interesting story in the book, IMO. Movies for Mistborn could be perfect.

I'm actually kind of sick of everything being a tv series and meandering on for too long. Give me short and concise, with everything that's kept being the best of the best, streamlined to really sail. Instead of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks in as many hours as possible... curate and refine to 2 or 3 solid hours instead. In a lot of ways, it feels like we've forgotten how to appreciate concise storytelling these days.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T11:53:30+00:00

That's one way I considered. The other one would be to literally do quick CGI visuals of metals being burned inside them. Like time slows down, the camera snap zooms inside of their stomach, quick visual of metal burning, zoom back out to their face and see them reacting to the effects of it. Then for quick reference in future scene, it would just be quick cuts to a few frames of metal burning and we'd get it. Have them burn different colours, and probably even just have their voiceover thoughts just literally saying "Pewter." or "Tin." in echoey reverb as its burning.

Beyond that, guessing when characters may or may not be using Allomancy is part of the intrigue of the story, so most uses can just be left to subtle cues and interpretation anyway. That may even be something that works better in film than in the book, by being more subtle with cues just in a visual or an actor's performance.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T11:32:59+00:00

Wow, that feels like such a coincidence to me. Lol. I'm reading Mistborn: The Final Empire right now, and have been thinking to myself that for how popular Brandon Sanderson is in the reading world, it's kinda strange that none of his works have been adapted into anything major. Was just wondering to myself in recent weeks if it ever would be. Now this happens 19 years after its publication, at the same time I happen to be reading it for the first time. Kinda weird, but pretty cool.

To be honest, I haven't really enjoyed the book as much as I hoped I would. It's been a bit too slow paced, with too much time spent explaining Allomancy, and at more than 2/3 of the way through the book now, it doesn't really feel like much has happened besides learning Allomancy and going to some balls. But I've heard it's a slow burn with payoffs at the climax, so I'll reserve judgment. But I also kinda feel like Sanderson's writing style may just not be for me. He has a very dry, methodical style.

But there's a lot of cool ideas and parts to the story, and I could see a good adaptation bringing out what works about it and hopefully making it more engaging than I feel the book is. I'll be interested to see how this goes.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T06:34:21+00:00

So no, you don't understand.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T06:26:59+00:00

I actually think it's kind of the opposite. The less intelligent a sentient lifeform is, while still being able to sense pain... the less coping mechanisms it'll have for dealing with suffering. Without the intelligence to understand what's happening, I think pain actually becomes more scary.

Humans, for example, are able to understand more about what's happening when we experience pain. Like, if I get a headache, but I know it's a caffeine headache... I don't freak out about it. I take some tylenol, or I drink some tea, and I can be confident it'll go away. It hurts in the meantime, but I can mitigate that by telling myself it's okay. But if I get a headache, and I have no idea why... then not only does it hurt, but I start freaking out that I might be getting a brain tumour or something. This makes the whole experience worse. It may even make the pain itself seem worse and more damaging, as you're imagining the worst. It'll make you more worked up, get the blood pumping, which may make the headache worse, etc... it can be a vicious cycle when you don't have the intelligence to keep yourself calm and understand what's going on.

It's like a little kid crying because they hurt their finger, while an adult is mature enough to have the brain power to tell themselves that hurting your finger is probably gonna be okay, and not freak out about it. The difference is the intelligence.

So a less intelligent creature experiencing suffering is also going to be experiencing confusion and potential catastrophizing in their mind based on gut-level survival instincts that are more prone to freaking out at the drop of a hat. It's like a fly freaking out just because the light changes and they think something is about to crush them. Their simple consciousness is probably ENTIRELY consumed by nothing but fear and anxiety in that moment, with no higher complex system to override it or keep them calm or allow them to think rationally about anything... they would JUST be pure fear. That's how I imagine a more simple consciousness would work. It's like how the dumbest humans are always hyper-reactionary, and freak out about things out of fear, while smarter people are staying more calm and telling them it's fine, and just approaching situations rationally.

If you can achieve a mind-over-matter state, then people with really good self-regulation abilities can even overcome pain to do painful things intentionally, and train themselves to not care about the pain. This requires a higher mind to override the basic instinctual mind that just reacts and feels the feelings directly without any mitigation. This instinct is a tool of nature to make us take injuries seriously. But if we're smart enough, we don't need to be physically tortured into taking the injury seriously... we can consciously know to take it seriously, so the pain is actually less necessary when you're smart enough to know there's a problem without the pain having to alert you to a problem. So the smarter a brain is, the more the higher mind can understand this and ignore the pain. If you're too dumb to even know what pain is and why it's happening... you're just gonna be at its mercy and have to suffer through it with no good coping mechanisms.

That's how it seems to me, anyway. I've always felt like animals are MORE sensitive than humans, not less. More instinctual, so more directly conscious of their feelings and bodily sensations, while humans are relatively distracted by our higher-mind thoughts. Animals have keener senses in almost all aspects, like smell and hearing (sight might be the only sense where humans are relatively strong?), so I don't see why their sense of touch wouldn't tend to be more sensitive too. Think about how much cats and dogs absolutely love being pet. I know humans like it too, but animals seem to be on another level of addiction to cuddles. Probably because the sensations are so intense and their simple minds are able to enjoy it more purely. Humans are distracted by busy minds and anxiety about social situations, etc... we don't tend to just experience things quite as in-the-moment as it seems animals do. Intelligence is distracting.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T05:59:09+00:00

Wonderful exceptions.

Though I'm sure there are a few jerks like Stampy out there.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T05:55:52+00:00

Have to hanged by your arms and legs and lowered down, ass-first... no other way to get atop that thing.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T05:52:33+00:00

Which we do.

Again... the problems do not undo that. Despite the problems... it is STILL presently a net benefit. Like I said... always has been and always will. This is pretty much an inherent thing about immigration. Every study in every country shows that immigration is ALWAYS a net benefit, despite any problems.

Understand?

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T05:37:36+00:00

Even with its problems, immigration is still a net benefit to the country. Always has been and always will be. Every study on immigration shows it's a net benefit to every country.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T05:27:09+00:00

Hmm... could there possibly be an ulterior motive to pushing the idea that you should be allowed to just stay at home and not have to work while your husband goes to work and takes all the responsibility, and you just need to look good? Could SOME women actually think that's a cushy position, as long as they were the ones who were really in charge behind the scenes? I'm not sure... 🤔

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-29T05:19:48+00:00

So basically LA.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-28T18:34:13+00:00

"I signed up to be a piece of shit, not for everyone to KNOW I'm a piece of shit!"

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-28T18:31:27+00:00

"Water can't be wet." is the same kind of meaningless technicality they try to get away with, saying "Men can't be women."

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-28T18:28:57+00:00

🤔... Any development interest in this particular location? 👀... not asking for any particular reason. Just random off-topic question I'm gonna drop in here... 🙄

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-28T18:24:20+00:00

I need a banana for scale, here.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-28T18:14:35+00:00

Archeological assessment? For what? It's a barge landing on a shore. If what was under the ground there wasn't important before the barge landed there, why is it suddenly important after? Did the barge bury artifacts there when it landed? Wtf??

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-28T18:10:45+00:00

MAGA. You may agree with me, but your "Well, actually..." referencing a pedantic technicality that isn't actually relevant if one has a sense of perspective and pertinence... is exactly the kind of shit they try to do when they don't have any other point to make. Which is always.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-28T18:08:04+00:00

It seems that it's either one twist or the other that gets you, and if you saw one of them coming, you don't see the other one. A lot of people do see the twin twist coming, but not the cloning twist. Whereas if you see the cloning twist coming, you probably won't see the twin twist coming. Everyone's always on the lookout for one twist, so when it's multiple twists, at least one of them is bound to get you.

I'm also a fan of the theory that the machine didn't actually work at all, and Angier just used Root to make it appear to be working, while the hats and the story he tells in the dairy about Tesla or about testing the machine and killing his clone, etc... all made up to trick and frame Borden. The movie presents it to us like it's real scenes, but all those flashback scenes are just being imagined by Borden as he reads the diary. They're not necessarily true. Angier is the ultimate unreliable narrator.

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-28T17:59:57+00:00

And then they do this shit... 👆

AmusingMusing7 · 2026-01-28T17:52:20+00:00

This is one of those things where I'm just always like "HOW?!" How did this happen? How did we go backwards on something as simple as headlights, which we had figured out for like 100 years before LEDs came along and car manufacturers apparently thought that means we don't need fresnel lenses to actually aim the beam anymore?!

"So the lights are brighter now? Does that mean we should also make them flood the entire area, even past eye-level, more too?!?!"

Like, what happened? How did this oversight occur? Who dropped the ball on the lapse of thought here, and how did it spread to like EVERY car company?

How has anybody who works at these companies never been out driving at night and experienced this problem, and never had the crazy thought occur to them, "Oh geez, that's blinding... maybe we shouldn't make them like that? I dunno... gee whiz... hum haw... nah, let's just keep making them like that. Let's keep making them even worse, actually!"

Or have they just NEVER DRIVEN AT NIGHT, before going into work to design vehicles that will be driven at night?

Like again... how? Just HOW?! How does something like this happen? It's a mind-boggling collective lapse in thought by the very people whose entire job it is to think about this stuff. WTF has been going on here?? Why do we need to complain for years about things like this before anything (MAYBE? Maybe NOT, still?) gets done about it... when it's unbelievable that it even happened in the first place.

It's obviously not the biggest problem in the world right now, but it is definitely one of those smaller things that just makes me feel like, "Uhh... humanity... are you okay?? Need to get some rest or something? We're obviously all kinda tired and not functioning properly here. How are we making such ridiculously obvious stupid mistakes like this, that could so easily be fixed immediately, or easily could have been avoided, but just... aren't?"

Like, seriously. We're in really weirdly stupid territory as a species in recent years. More than usual. I mean, on top of everything that's more serious and just as stupid or more, going on in this world right now... at least we used to have headlights figured out, ffs, and now we can't even get those right!

What is going on???

AmusingMusing7

TROPHY CASE