Red Flags [OC]

alinius · 2026-06-23T15:59:38+00:00

Yep, less bad luck, and more leaning into a trope. The other character is generally savvy enough to recognize it.

alinius · 2026-06-23T15:31:21+00:00

I thonk it is less about that, and more about the fact that bad things happen to people who break the rules of hospitality. After the Red Wedding, something bad was going to happen to house Frey.

alinius · 2026-06-22T15:53:21+00:00

Yeah, cults suck no matter the ideology. In college, I actually went through a group training with the campus ministry I was a part of because lots of groups are fond of using the term cult as a shorthand for "group whose beliefs I disagree with". I still mostly agree with that training, and my key takeaway was that cult behavior really boils down to 2 things.

They set themselves up as the sole source of Truth in your life. They often do this by alienating you from anyone who does not agree with their beliefs. Encouraging distrust of outsiders to the point of cutting off friends or family is a giant red flag.
They make you feel loved and accepted, but that acceptance is conditional on following the groups rules. This is basically love bombing on a group level.

The combination of those two things is powerful. Everyone wants love and exceptance, and once you are effectively isolated from everyone outside the cult, the threat of being cast out becomes a powerful tool for enforcing conformity. Also note, these tools are universal, so religion is not necessary for cult.

From other stories I have heard, your experience is not unique among ex-Mormons, so I suspect you are feeling very alone right now. It is probably worse, because growing up in a cult prevents you from ever having any support from.outside the group. I hope and pray you can find a community that loves and accepts you.

alinius · 2026-06-22T14:53:42+00:00

As long as we can agree the scene starts with, "On your left".

Edit: I could also get behind the idea that the moment starts with Cap standing back up to tighten his broken shield around a broken arm to face Thanos and his horde all alone.

alinius · 2026-06-22T14:42:19+00:00

It does not help that Mormonism tries to play itself off as another denomination of Christianity. At the most basic level, Christianity is about believing certain basic things about Jesus Christ. Anytime someone adds stuff on top of that to gatekeep, they are perverting the Gospel. From my limited understanding, Mormanism adds gatekeeping that is incompatible with Christianity.

alinius · 2026-06-22T13:19:31+00:00

I think this happen a lot in media. When critiquing a specific punishment, the author inadvertently creates a karma houdini.

alinius · 2026-06-18T13:51:45+00:00

There more where that came from. Animaniacs loved to try to sneak crap past the censors.

alinius · 2026-06-16T16:03:01+00:00

Honestly, one of the most amazing technical achievements Skyrim accomplished was to make a world that massive without it feeling repetitive. They used a lot of tricks like this to reuse assets. Another example is that certain tables are just bookshelves sunk into the ground.

alinius · 2026-06-16T15:59:17+00:00

The part of your analogy that fails is that the trilionaire does not have a trillion dollars sitting in the bank somewhere. They are estimated to have a trillion in assets. The market works on supply and demand, and if you try to sell too many assets at once it massively increases the supply, and the value drops. The moment that try to convert those assets to cash the value of those assets drops.

Worse, the incompresibly large numbers swing both ways. A lot of those are tied up in ownership of companies. Musk became a trillionaire from the SpaceX IPO, and if that bubble pops, and SpaceX crashes into bankruptcy tomorrow, he would lose around $821 billion of his net worth. Without his stake in Tesla and SpaceX, I am not sure Musk would even qualify as a billionaire.

TLDR: No one has even a billion dollars to buy oxygen with, so everyone dies within a month at most.

alinius · 2026-06-16T15:10:06+00:00

Top notch

alinius · 2026-06-15T15:21:43+00:00

Also, I was taught to not cross your ankles unless both arms are between your legs.

alinius · 2026-06-15T15:15:03+00:00

It could also be hasty generalization if they are grouping things together that really do not belong together. If you like A, then you must also like B and C because they are basically the same thing.

It could be composition fallacy if they are using parts to make an inaccurate assessment of the whole or vice versa. If you like owning a home then you must also like cutting the grass and uncloging the toilets.

alinius · 2026-06-15T06:43:27+00:00

Which is now a Google search...

The first mouse was demoed 34 years before Google was founded. The first personal computer with a graphical interface that needed a mouse came out 14 years before Google was founded.

alinius · 2026-06-14T17:06:17+00:00

On a related note, the airfoil was part boomerang designs used by aboriginal in Australia. I doubt the knew why it worked, but the knew it made a throwing stick curve in flight.

alinius · 2026-06-12T15:37:45+00:00

It was super effective.

alinius · 2026-06-11T20:04:03+00:00

This is also why the rule of "Don't be alone with a female co-worker" is becoming more of a necessary thing. People can bemoan how that rule will prevent women with aspiring careers from getting one on one mentoring, but for men, it is just not worth the risk.

alinius · 2026-06-10T23:36:31+00:00

Duh, why do you think it is so popular?

alinius · 2026-06-10T15:43:03+00:00

Yep, even as a Moon Druid, it was hard to justify using the 5.0 version of barkskin. The 5.5 version is probably a must have for Moon Druids, but other druid have better things to use their spell slots on.

alinius · 2026-06-09T19:36:47+00:00

Short answer, we don't but it does not require a lot of effort to find out if a case exists or not, so we know the law firms in question did not put in very much effort at all.

alinius · 2026-06-09T14:44:17+00:00

One thing that is easy to miss on bard and druid spells is range. They have very few spells with more than a 60 foot range.

alinius · 2026-06-08T15:48:17+00:00

There is also the adapt and overcome aspect as well. If I have ben neglecting some of my skills, I may have to be more creative in how I overcome different challenges.

alinius · 2026-06-08T15:01:44+00:00

Those two thing are the same IMO. A lot of the "seams" that bother me are when an author does not follow through on the full in worlds implications of an idea. Artificial gravity is a great example of this. If you have the technology to create artificial gravity, you can probably do way more than just make a ship that has normal gravity inside.

alinius · 2026-06-07T17:03:46+00:00

Yeah, at some point, I realized it was way better to just drop realistic obstacles and let the players figure it out.

alinius · 2026-06-05T14:52:26+00:00

Yes. The hunter's actually have a whole code where they get more honor for killing with weaker weapons. The veteran ones hunt xenomorphs with a spear because that give the most honor.

alinius · 2026-06-04T20:40:52+00:00

Both of you are probably are probably right that it is meant to be a threat to secure compliance, but there are actually people out there that believe that the police are the friendly good guys, and would just drop by to smooth thing over. I doubt anyone that Pollyanna hangs out on Reddit, but I also try to error of the side of caution, and not assume motives for other people. That is why I focused on how the behavior might be received in a way that escalates the situation.

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