/ot/ - Off-topic

Christmas thread.

I remember reading somewhere a while back that a lot of the, "unanswered questions", in SEL were actually answered in Digimon Tamers. Both were directed by the same person and DT is notable for it's darker tones and bizarre themes. Do you think there's any merit to this, or was it just some guy looking too deeply things and seeing something that isn't there? What do you think the parallels are, if any? At the very least, both have sentient digital beings.

What was that thread that way just posted and deleted by that 18 year old girl? It was so painful to read. Jesus how pathetic. Complaining about shit when she had pretty much every advantage. Oh boo hoo, rejected by any ivy league when you got bs and cs from your ap classes and didn't even do sports when you had a talent for it? I'm just sobbing for that poor girl. How tragic and not all all predictable. But, seriously reading that shit made me want to drown a puppy.

Who else likes Golden Boy? I watched it a few years ago and ever since I've been smitten. It kind of represents an unrealistic ideal that you still strive to come closer to. As far as, "ecchi", shows go, it's definitely one of the best as that part is only in the side-lines and never gets in the way of the plot. I like its episodic nature, which I think should be more common.

Discuss

Does anybody still care about Thanksgiving?

So, what are you up to today, ubuu? I've finally managed to have some free time so I'm wasting it drawing a bit and translating some songs I've had on queue for a while.
Also sei, for the love of god, change the snow to damn snowflakes already, please. It's getting on my nerves that tohno has proper snow while we don't.

I know this might sound edgy, but here I go anyway. I've been thinking about human predictability a lot lately. It seems to me that with a lot of things people seem to follow some kind of program, like their actions and words are automated and not their own. This is both on a day to day basis, and during unusual events. It's not just going through the motions, it's too exact. Let me use an inevitable event as an example: the death of Miyazaki. Thinking about this is actually what triggered this train of thought. When Miyazaki dies, I can already tell what will happen in far too exact detail. At first everybody will be in shock, but then they'll once again go into autopilot… Big news sites and tabloids alike will all publish the same article as each other about what a great man and inspiration he was and how he shaped the dreams of children and all of that white noise. People on social media will talk about they watched his movies as kids and how upset they are. Some people will make memorial videos on youtube talking about how great he was and they'll all go on and on like they're reading the same script, but slightly doctored to give the illusion of diversity. Ghibli will make a statement about it and maybe even make something in memorial to him. Right after that blip in time, it'll be gone and people will almost instantly snap back into their regular programming. That's it. It didn't even happen, and yet the feeling of it is already palpable. I wouldn't be too surprised if all of those articles were pre-written. My point is it's not like Ghibli will use their remaining funds to build a plane and kamikaze it into the United Nations head quarters. This example is just on the big scale, but I see it everywhere. Am I alone in this, or does anybody else feel it?

When I was a kid I used to kill ants for fun. The methods in which I did this were peculiar enough for me to want to post about them. Just to be clear, I have never hurt any other animals, nor have I wanted to do so as a kid. Besides insects and spiders, I actually love animals. Ants were in a strange sort of limbo for me because while they weren't large enough for me to be afraid of them, I still could not feel even a shred of empathy for them. Being in this limbo is what allowed killing them to be fun to me.

My favorite weapon of choice was a serrated butter knife and my favorite method of killing was to very slightly tap them with the flat part of the blade. Even the tiniest bit of force would cause sever damage to them. I would scout for a victim and once they were selected let them know of my presence by tapping the knife on the ground near them. I would chase them around for a while before finally landing a blow. After the first tap they wouldn't be able to run anymore, but they would still keep moving. A lot of the time their antenna would be bent and some of their appendages would be broken. I would let them walk around a little before tapping them again and again and again until they stopped moving. Here's the first interesting observation that I made about their behavior. If an ant is still capable of moving it's body, but it is sure of its own death, it will curl up into a ball and twitch until it stops moving. Most of the time I tapped them to death before this could occur. The second method of killing would be to simply cut them in half, which required more coordination than I thought it would. I was surprised to discover that if cut low enough, they would continue to walk around after. On some occasions, I thought I saw some kind of trail of flesh following behind them.

I discovered a few, "human", like traits in the ants behavior, although, I may be projecting. For instance, ants that have been cut in half seemed to display more erratic behavior than tapped ants. They were more aimless and frantic in their movements. The reaction of ants to them was also far greater than tapped ants. Ants seem to show some form of fear. Besides killing ants, I also used the knife to both illicit a reaction from them and push them from one location to another. When two healthy ants were pushed into each other they always panicked greatly when put into contact with each other. This panic was far greater when one of the ants was damaged in sPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

The 4400 is just a shitty version of Jojo. I don't know whether you heard of the 4400, here's a summary: 4400 people are abducted by aliens over varying points of history. All of them are returned to earth at the same time and they're all the same age as when they were abducted. When they land they have special powers for some reason. Every person has a unique power that is somewhat reflective of their personality. The show itself follows a special police force made to monitor the 440 and apprehend any of them if they cause trouble. The show starts of being episodic with them finding and arresting various dangerous 4400 members. Shit starts to get more convoluted when scientists figure out that the powers are caused by some green ooze and if people inject that into them self they can either develop powers or die. Somehow this green ooze start being distributed illegally. The police team now also has to combat any person who developed powers and uses them for criminal actives. All of the powers are kind of dull like making people do what you want, or killing people around you when you get stressed, or never forgetting anything. Nothing very interesting. People don't use them in creative ways. The story gets more and more convoluted with time travel and mind control and eventually some guy gets the power to make the people around him either die or also get powers and the whole thing becomes a massive cluster fuck that didn't even get a proper conclusion because it got cancelled. Has anybody else watched this train wreck?