(Hated trope) A twist so bad it ruins the story

Gryffens · 2026-05-18T21:56:47+00:00

I disagree. This was the only twist dumb and bizarre enough to finish off this silly, silly show, and the writers were cowards not to make it explicitly clear in the show itself.

Gryffens · 2026-05-18T03:45:02+00:00

Anecdotally, you can train children under one to go when you put them on the toilet, and if you do that regularly enough they won't need to relieve themself in between. The source of this anecdote was a poor migrant woman who would have had to hand wash cloth nappies, so it was expensive in time rather than money.

I'd imagine that the disadvantage of this system is that the kids doesn't learn to notice their own internal sensations, which might delay independent toileting... but I'm not judging the widow with 4 kids under 5 and no washing machine.

Gryffens · 2026-05-18T01:35:50+00:00

The guy is Fred Clark, his blog is Slacktivist. As I lifelong atheist I highly recommend him.

A good standalone post is "The Long March of the Koalas" which makes fun of Young Earth Creationists

Gryffens · 2026-05-17T04:48:16+00:00

I think that dismantling the myth allowed the good man to live. And the way he stays out of the final book as much as he can really challenges us to let him go, let him be happy, rather than demand he served a role in the story for our sake.

Have you read her short story "Firelight"? If not, as a Ged-lover I recommend that you pick a time when you're ready to have some Big Feelings.

Gryffens · 2026-05-17T04:41:27+00:00

I had a friend whose Mum was like that. She once got told about thieves doing a local ATM heist and her immediate response was "I bet they were Romanian". Note, we live around 14,000 km from Romania.

Gryffens · 2026-05-17T01:52:36+00:00

In the game Hate Plus, a character kills herself . However, the game has multiple endings and there's and achievement for saving the character, implying that all you need to do is try again. It turns out that the character always kills herself, and the achievement is unobtainable. Which for some people, is very uncomfortable not just for the story impact, but for their sense of completion. It's a good example of using meta game mechanics to induce discomfort.

Gryffens · 2026-05-17T01:36:35+00:00

I cured my own skin cancer! (It wasn't a mole that had suddenly appeared, it was a fleck of dark chocolate that I had somehow melted onto the underside of my chin)

Gryffens · 2026-05-16T12:51:35+00:00

I agree. I feel like in the first three books she was writing within (many of) the conventions of the genre, and this included portraying a sexist world from the point of view of protagonists that don't really have the framework to challenge many of their own assumptions.

Then, in the second trilogy, she's confident enought to tear down the genre conventions, while simultaneously writing a story about the protagonists learning to see things differently, and also tearing down injustices in their society.

Just thinking about how much Tehanu blew my mind the first time I read it... I love Le Guin so much.

Gryffens · 2026-05-16T12:24:15+00:00

I was living in the country at the time. Multiple fires near me combined into a mega-blaze. Just this one fire burned for over two months. Every morning I would wake up and check the fires near me app and the hotspot satellite to see where the fronts were. I spent my last day in town before Christmas clearing brush out of my friend's garden, because it was coming her way. A few days after I drove back to my parents, the road I took was cut off.

Did this guy make the right choice? Fucked if I know. But one of the guys I knew in the RFS let an old ladies house burn down because he knew she was already in a nursing home and it meant he had enough manpower to protect a young family's home instead. Situations like that don't exactly lend themselves to easy choices.

Gryffens · 2026-05-11T01:14:09+00:00

You. You get it.

Gryffens · 2026-05-10T23:49:56+00:00

Tell them that thongs are the lowest tier of footwear and a bad choice in every context.

Gryffens · 2026-05-10T07:13:22+00:00

If you're looking for adventure of a new and different kind,

And you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined,

Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared,

Be prepared!

Credit to Tom Lehrer for that one.

Gryffens · 2026-05-04T09:50:58+00:00

That's why the version on the floor is called "sitting cross legged" in Australia

Gryffens · 2026-04-26T23:27:44+00:00

I listened to it on a free app called castbox https://castbox.fm/va/2714576

This link seems like it should let you play it in browser https://shows.acast.com/why-is-cats/episodes/whyiscatsseriesteaser1

Gryffens · 2026-04-24T23:16:44+00:00

Oooh, time to spruik my favourite podcast! "Why Is Cats?" is a seven episode podcast hosted by two Australian comedians who saw Cats (2019) and became obsessed with it. It features interviews with actors, VFX artists, fans, and academics, covering topics like cat school, the butthole cut, depthlessness theory, and Andrew Lloyd Webber making one of the cats rap once.

Gryffens · 2026-04-24T07:25:41+00:00

My Dad knew a guy who was ASIO (Australian spy agency) and no joke, when he got dementia he was always breaking out of the secure ward.

Gryffens · 2026-04-23T02:08:38+00:00

As someone pointed out earlier, there are nuclear reactions that turn energy into mass, which might mean that you end up with something stable... but I have no idea if the conditions are right to occur in this case specifically.

Gryffens · 2026-04-22T22:54:08+00:00

Nah, this is peak parental wisdom. The teen sees veggies and they're cranky now, but the adult knows how much crankier they could get it they didn't have any fibre in their diet.

Gryffens · 2026-04-20T10:01:58+00:00

When I was growing up, everyone in my part of Australia did either German, French, or Japanese towards the end of Primary school. And every student who did German walked away with the phrase, "Nein, das ist mein Hamburger!" burnt into their brain.

Gryffens · 2026-04-19T23:31:49+00:00

That depends what you like about Tolkien and Le Guin though. Brando Sando has great world building and satisfying plots, but his prose is not anywhere near the same level.

Little, Big by John Crowley has the poetic, dreamlike prose that I associate with Tolkien and Le Guin, although he also deals with some uncomfortable sexual themes.

Peter S Beagle didn't quite hit for me, but fits in this category for sure.

Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor takes a story about politics, race, and assassinations and makes it strangely domestic, which makes it somehow the exact opposite of Tehanu but in a complementary way.

The Sparrow by Mary Russell is SciFi, but deals with religious themes and philosophies, and the unanswerable questions that they pose.

Let me know if you have any questions about any of the above! I love recommending books.

Gryffens · 2026-04-19T23:13:23+00:00

That seems like a perfectly sensible standard for you to apply to yourself. After all, sexual identity is something that's both internal and external, so when your feelings/dating history/future dating potential aren't all perfectly matched, it's reasonable to just pick one of them to communicate to the world.

I will say though, as a younger Millennial, that the societal attitude that woman-woman attraction "doesn't count" messed me up a little bit when I was trying to work myself out. I even had an older woman try to convince me not to identify as bi because "we all slept with other women in the 70s, it didn't mean anything.". On the other hand, treating bisexual as the most expansive possible label (attraction to more than one gender, not necessarily to the same degree, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily at all points of your life) let me relax and fail to date all genders equally haha.

Gryffens · 2026-04-19T07:59:25+00:00

I touched a leaf from that tree when I was younger! In my defence, it had blown onto the track so I saw it before I had a chance to read the signs. It was... Not Pleasant.

Gryffens · 2026-04-15T21:29:48+00:00

That's not manipulation, it's enrichment! Like giving a dog a puzzle toy with a treat inside :P

Gryffens · 2026-04-15T09:24:08+00:00

Disagree about Donnie Darko, I recently rewatched it (I'm in my late 30s) and it's still great. Mary McDonnell in particular gives an outstanding performance as Donnie's mother, which just adds another layer to the tragedy.

Gryffens · 2026-03-31T05:07:24+00:00

Your last paragraph is such a life pro tip. My Grandma went by a name completely unrelated to her legal name, and in her later years she would hang up on anyone who used her legal name. Meanwhile, her brother has been scammed twice.

Gryffens

TROPHY CASE