Stepos Venzny

The Terminator TV show feels the most prescient. They took a chess playing computer and said “This seems to play chess like a human would and that means it’s basically the same as human consciousness. Let’s try to teach it morality by talking to it and then have it run the military.”

Then it spent the rest of the series more interested in Lego Bionicles than Jesus and nobody on the project ever said “You know, maybe this thing that wasn’t at all designed to run the military is a bad fit for running the military.” They were just chilled by its indifference to their values and really hoped they could reason it into being something it’s not by the time they give it the power to kill everyone.

It’s not unusual to say something less controversial than what you wish you could say, so it tracks that someone who wants to say “I’m a boy” would say “I’m a girl who isn’t girly” in a time where the truth is presented as less of an option than it is today. It’s not that trans guys and tomboys are the same thing, it’s that the same label can be either true or a euphemism when applied to different people.

What gets me about the original post is it looks like it’s saying I as an unambiguously masculine man could wear a dress and be called ma’am by a stranger and when I respond “I get why you’d say that but I’m actually a man wearing a dress” then there’s an expectation the stranger might respond “don’t be ridiculous, that’s not a real thing. You’re obviously a trans woman.” I just don’t see this kind of scenario playing out.

It is possible to crossdress/be gender non-conforming without being trans

I’ve never heard anyone suggest otherwise. Who are you having this argument with?

Is this a show about medieval fantasy time travel and I’m just not getting it?

The three main perspectives it follows take place at different points in and over different amounts of time but each one is internally completely linear and then they all end the season at the same point as each other. Basically, the less you’re making an effort to follow the plot the easier it is to follow because keeping track of the interconnectedness distracts you from the straightforward character stories.

This isn’t me trying to convince you to go back, to be clear, I’m just hoping this will give you some closure.

There are a bunch of adorable space critters that you’ll think are that when you’re watching the movie, and they certainly were marketed and merchandised like crazy, but they’re actually there due to the unwanted presence of adorable Earth critters during filming. They couldn’t shoot the scenes without including these birds that lived where they were shooting so the solution they came up with was CGI-ing weird faces on them and including some close-ups to make them look deliberate.

I’m comfortably above average but comfortably below genius, not entirely sure whether that fits your personal definition of high so it felt worth clarifying.

In school, it meant that learning was something I could do with no actual effort. Without studying and without doing homework aside from what I did at my desk to pass the time before class started, I had as strong a grasp on the subject as the students who did and comfortable grades. Then when I started college, that passivity suddenly didn’t work anymore and I had no idea how to cope with it. I never actually learned how to learn, formally speaking.

Emotionally speaking, that whole thing was awful. It sucked when it was easy because I was so bored, it sucked when it was hard because I was so frustrated. I actually failed out of high school due to low attendance at the very end, then tested into the local college without a diploma because I still knew the material even with the problematic attendance, then got suspended from college due to now-for-the-opposite-reason low attendance and never went back. There was also unrelated shit going on, to be clear, but this that I’m describing was not a small part of my overall psychological state.

As an adult, it doesn’t mean much of anything. While it’s a bit easier for me to learn things than it is for the average person, the ease with which I learn things doesn’t matter anymore because it’s largely happening without other people’s direct involvement or on any kind of schedule. On the occasion there needs to be an actual work training lesson I attend, it’s something that only happens for a day and enduring a single day of tedious education is so very achievable compared to it being my entire life.

The biggest impact these days is that it makes me hate Aaron Sorkin.

Force Awakens: I can’t recommend it but if it were already on I wouldn’t turn it off. Pretty much just repeatedly yelling “Hey, remember when you liked Star Wars? This is kinda like that!” But it’s inoffensive as nostalgia bait goes, a fairly well-made toy commercial.

Last Jedi: It has themes and character development and adds depth to the setting. Uniquely among the trilogy, it is an actual movie made by actual adults. There are some pacing issues but it’s pretty solid on balance. Not amazing or anything but I’d say it’s worth the average Star Wars fan’s time.

Rise of Skywalker: People were very upset that Last Jedi had been an actual movie, so this reversed course on that decision and HARD. There is literally nothing there at all behind the jingling of its keys in your face and it jingles them very aggressively.

Seems like a him thing. I wouldn’t look into it unless it starts happening a lot with different people.

I’m gonna have to side against Doc Brown on this one, as much as it pains me to say.

If so, they haven’t told me.

They’re not pretending to be your friend, they’re trying to be your friend. They’re prolonging your interactions, sharing their thoughts and feelings with you. They want to spend this time not feeling lonely.

The extent to which this is age related is that they probably don’t have as much energy to split between their work life and their social life as you do. If that ever becomes a struggle for you, that cliche of old people playing a lot of card games and board games exists for a reason. Organizing regular games gives you people to hang out with without always having to figure out when and how.

As for the rest of it, the struggle with change and the arrogance, all I can say is to try to be humble but then that’s good advice at any age. It’ll even help you cope with annoying coworkers right now.

This is “proper”: 😀

This is “old-timey”: :D