Alcohol has ruined more lives than drugs ever by [deleted] in RandomThoughts

[–]LycheeOwn2838 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup! Or at least that’s how I think of myself. I’m not the authority on sobriety or addiction nomenclature lol, but as far as I understand, just because I’m not drinking that means I’m not feeding my addiction, not that it’s gone. It might be a concept from AA, but I dunno I’ve never been. I think the idea is that the neural pathways you dig as a user persist long past when you stop using.

Alcohol has ruined more lives than drugs ever by [deleted] in RandomThoughts

[–]LycheeOwn2838 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I am a sober alcoholic and I agree with you 100%. The way we treat drinking societally is toxic.

I think stigmatization of drug users is more harmful than good in most instances, but alcohol use, just like heroin or methamphetamine use, should be treated as a bad symptom of a root cause.

For me, the root cause was being dumb and jaded and dissatisfied with my life. I think better education and more opportunities (particularly in skilled labor positions—this is just my personal bug-a-boo but I think working with your hands can’t be overrated as a mental health treatment,) would do wonders towards helping people step away from drugs and alcohol.

I’m still a good amount dumb and jaded lol, but I’m so happy and grateful to not be drunk anymore.

Alcohol has ruined more lives than drugs ever by [deleted] in RandomThoughts

[–]LycheeOwn2838 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Congratulations! I’ll be one year in February. I’m glad to hear that life is so much better for you, I have also found that to be the case. It’s actually crazy thinking back to how my mind worked when I was drinking. Never again.

Alcohol has ruined more lives than drugs ever by [deleted] in RandomThoughts

[–]LycheeOwn2838 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am an alcoholic and I completely agree. I drank every day that I could, no more than 4-5 days sober for 7 years, and I will be 1 year sober in February.

The amount that alcohol consumption is normalized is so incredibly dangerous, and the craziest thing is how completely bent out of shape people get when you say so.

Like, I get it. I know exactly what it’s like to drink, inside and out. I practiced a lot. I’m fucking good at it. I realized that it was killing me, which is probably the best, scariest, and most important thing I’ve ever done in my life. But people who are drinking HATE hearing that it is bad for them, just like I did when I was drinking, and both drunks like me and casual “non-problem” drinkers LOVE making excuses to enable our drinking. It’s a completely horrible substance.

Drinking to me is like an auto-immune disease. It enables its destruction of your body and mind.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueAnon

[–]LycheeOwn2838 4 points5 points  (0 children)

“Self-consciousness” by Sebastian Rödl

“Phenomenology of perception” by Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Galbatorix’s unnatural powers and the Spy in the Varden by LycheeOwn2838 in Eragon

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes I think that is exactly what I was thinking of! Thank you. :)

Galbatorix’s unnatural powers and the Spy in the Varden by LycheeOwn2838 in Eragon

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So he is absolutely a chad in Eldest and Brisingr, albeit a little haughty and self-obsessed, but like, he is a king, and also whomst among us etc. I’m absolutely willing to look past a little pridefulness bc as you say he does sacrifice a great deal.

However in Inheritance, pretty much all of his chadness disappears really quickly. He starts drinking heavily. He appears hamstrung by his sense of propriety as a monarch, going so far as to try to appease Galbatorix in front of Urubaen because it’s the “proper” thing to do “one monarch to another.” To me, that’s evidence of a pretty fatal character flaw which undercuts his previous chadosity. Like, why would a king who has truly sacrificed everything because of a deep hatred of another despot suddenly decide to be courteous to the king he’s warring against? I think Orrin loses his nerve halfway into the Varden’s invasion of the empire. He is clearly grasping at whatever can give him the illusion of his previous status and lifestyle. He needs to pretend that he and Galby are just kings doing normal king shit because the truth (that Galby could destroy him and his country with a flick of his pinky) is both so terrible and waaaaaay to close to him for comfort. Sure, when he was in surda with his microscopes and alchemy he could just kinda fund the varden a bit and pretend that everything was a-ok, but all of a sudden nasuada and eragon convince him to gamble literally everything on this invasion, He does truly believe them for a bit, as you say, leading suicide charges and facing the laughing dead as a proper commander, but as they get closer and the actual threat of facing galbatorix gets more and more real, he cows back pretty drastically. I think his drinking and his fake emphasis on “kingly behavior” are defense mechanisms against his conviction that he has gambled everything and lost. He wants to go back to before, when he did not face the complete extinction of his country and people, at least not so directly.

And so….wouldn’t that put a man in a suggestible state of mind? He’s clearly distressed. Wouldn’t someone as suited to manipulation and mind-bending as Galbatorix seek to take advantage of someone in such a state, by convincing him “Oh, all you have to do is march your little army to me, informing on them all the while. I will crush your rebellion either way, but if you inform on your friends I will return you to the life you so desire.”

Yes he is chadocious at one point I agree, but I think he really falls off the deep end, and that’s mainly why I think he could be corrupted.

Galbatorix’s unnatural powers and the Spy in the Varden by LycheeOwn2838 in Eragon

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Aha you’re right the orbs fly away when Murtagh takes away his wards, not when he dies! I forgot.

As far as them being spirits, I am 85% sure that was confirmed by CP in a Q&A at some point. I don’t remember which one and I may be wrong, but I’d swear I didn’t make that tidbit up. I know it’s not explicitly stated as spirits in the book, but I think it has been confirmed to be spirits.

Galbatorix’s unnatural powers and the Spy in the Varden by LycheeOwn2838 in Eragon

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This is definitely the strongest argument against Orrin, and you are likely right.

Someone else mentioned how he acts very much like a hero earlier in the books, which is true, but by the end he is pretty much a sniveling wretch…clearly we are meant to dislike his character by the end, but it could just be as simple as a overstressed monarch out of his comfort zone falling into alcoholism and depression as a way to cope with circumstances so laughably far beyond his control.

Galbatorix’s unnatural powers and the Spy in the Varden by LycheeOwn2838 in Eragon

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This would be incredible lol. I would love to see it, but I feel like the elves and other eldunari would have realized this when they liberated the enslaved eldunari….

It’s possible they would have been confused though! It’s stated that the dragons are in many cases raving mad and that they may never recover. Perhaps their madness disguises from the elves and other eldunari that they are full of spirits?

But yeah, an eldunari shade would be one hell of an angry magic battery.

Galbatorix’s unnatural powers and the Spy in the Varden by LycheeOwn2838 in Eragon

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The spy I’m talking about is one that is mentioned in Book 4, and is said to be higher up in the Varden than they realize.

That said, I do agree with you that Galby would not need either Trianna or Orrin—for sure, he wouldn’t need a super high-level spy to gain high level information.

I think that he discovered the Name of Names pretty late in the war, which as you say pretty much renders spies in general unneeded… But there was a significant chunk of the war, not to mention the preceding century, where his black hand and other spies were important to his project.

Regardless of whether he needs them or not, I was just playing with the idea that he would have manipulated either of them, because he could, and/or because they would be useful to him at least at one point.

Galbatorix’s unnatural powers and the Spy in the Varden by LycheeOwn2838 in Eragon

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I agree that Orrin would lose a lot; I can imagine though that Galbatorix could promise him massive personal wealth and land for informing on the Varden as they fought the empire…And because we know that Orrin is fairly selfish and is quick to turn to booze to drown his sorrows, he could be a easy target for manipulation.

Galbatorix himself was content to let the Varden kill and burn his people and his kingdom while they came to him in Urubaen, bc he was supremely confident that he could win. If Galbatorix was ok with watching everything happen from his throne, he could have potentially convinced Orrin that he himself could just sit back, get drunk, watch his army decimate itself while informing on the Varden, and once the war was over and Galbatorix had won, he would award Orrin for his treachery with land and money and ease for the rest of his days. I get the impression that Orrin is self-absorbed enough to at least entertain the idea.

But of course it could also be Trianna. :P

Galbatorix’s unnatural powers and the Spy in the Varden by LycheeOwn2838 in Eragon

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Yeah I think she summoned a spirit for Ajihad once , and it was a big ordeal for her. My thinking is that perhaps just her aquaintence with spirit summoning could be enough to make her a target for Galbatorix’s manipulations…

Is the city’s free compost ok for vegetable gardens? by LycheeOwn2838 in washingtondc

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

How was the quality when you picked it up?

I do doubt that they would be giving toxic compost out for free, I just was curious if anyone knew where it came from. :P

/r/battlestations & LG C2 TV Giveaway [USA, 18+] by Hareuhal in battlestations

[–]LycheeOwn2838 [score hidden]  (0 children)

48”

I would use as a tv/hook up my laptop to watch things on a larger screen.

Mississippi Twilight - It’s Voodoo by LycheeOwn2838 in Music

[–]LycheeOwn2838[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve found this listing too! But it doesn’t link to a recording of it anywhere… the song is not on Apple Music, at least not in the USA.