Let's Talk About: Mentopolis and The Scattered Mind

Not gonna lie, reading the takes Tumblr peeps have on what's going on in Mentopolis is kind of raising my expectations on how the show is going to unfold. That said, nothing could have prepared me for how this episode ended. Nothing.

And speaking of not being prepared… Wilton?! Wilton with the character art looking like a wrinkly pair of--

How I wish we could get a bonus episodes of Dimension 20 seasons of just the players reacting to the character artwork. Because much like I would have loved to see how Bob the Drag Queen and Jujubee would react to Nyruth, I would really really like to see Freddie Wong and Mike Trapp react to Wilton as well.

Now onto the episode content itself;

Hank Green's "I think it's time to unlearn that?" Chef's kiss. The whole thing with The Fix being built to be menacing and scary but Hank's innate kindness and softness still shining through? I don't remember if it was Brennan Lee Mulligan or Brian Murphy or Aabria Iyengar who said something about how your tabletop roleplaying character is you but through a stained-glass. I feel like that really applies to Hank and The Fix.

Alex Song-Xia, once again, has impeccable one-liners in this episode. Trapp doubling down on his character's… tenacity? Amazing. Danielle Radford is taking no prisoners in her game-play, and I love all of her facial reactions. All of them. Freddie Wong's choices in game continues to astound me, and you never know where he's going to zag next.

But my second chef's kiss for this episode goes to Siobhan Thompson's "Fucks Expletive." That was some very quick thinking that really fleshed out a part of this world, and one character's background, with just two words. And that's not mentioning all of the in-character choices Siobhan makes that truly, truly elevates this episode as one of the funniest and most enjoyable couple hours of content on the internet.

I can't wait to see what happens next. Because, really, after that ender of a scene, I need to know how it all plays out.

🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️

🕯️ Manifesting 🕯️

🕯️ Cool People Who 🕯️

🕯️ Like to Discuss 🕯️

🕯️ Cool Things and 🕯️

🕯️ Don’t Just Lecture Me 🕯️

🕯️ On Their Not Fun Nonsense 🕯️

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i am once again talking about parallels

i’m in love with moon taeil.

send me asks please i’m bored and tired

platforming palestinian joy is just as important as sharing the suffering they're enduring during this genocide. despite continued displacement and bombardment, you cannot steal their joy and spirit. happy birthday to this sweet baby 🖤🇵🇸 may they grow up to see a free palestine

edit: @saffronlesbian made a video description for this post!!

[vd: a screen recording of a tweet from the 20th of April 2024 with 2.5 million views, from Ruhi @/ruhi_hi. the caption reads, "This video of this little Palestinian angel celebrating his bday in a refugee camp" followed by three emoji of a smiling face with teary eyes. the video clip is 11 seconds long and shows a one-year-old baby seated on the sandy ground, smiling hugely and clapping his hands while people sing to him from offscreen and a large cake is placed in front of him. stuck into the top of the cake is a decoration that reads "happy birthday" in english. the video has the tiktok handle @/ibrahim.jamal99 visible in it. /end vd.]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

i wake up and i am immediately thinking about those characters. i eat breakfast and i am thinking about those characters. i do chores and i am thinking about those characters. i do any work, i study, i walk the dogs, and i am thinking about those characters. i go to bed and i am thinkign

when birth is depicted as body horror, as an act of violence

The secret Dungeon Meshi sauce that's getting people to eat better is that it's so non-judgmental. Senshi and the rest of the gang never talk about what not to eat besides things that taste bad and literal poison. They don't even talk about "health" that much besides the importance of a balanced diet. It's so much easier to eat well when you think of food simply as something your body needs, and that it's often worth the extra effort to make it taste good, especially when you understand how to connect "things your body needs" with "things that taste good"

Hi, feel free to take my new uquiz to discover what kind of vampire you are!

guy who's stuck in a timeloop for so long he stops wanting to leave it. guy who started out trying to escape but slowly grew used to and became comforted by the familiarity of the repeating day. guy who is no longer who he was before the timeloop. guy who is offered a way out and violently refuses it because he can't leave, doesn't want to leave. guy who escapes the timeloop by chance or force or accident and doesn't know how to live anymore. guy who keeps going through motions that don't match the situation and keeps having conversations that aren't actually occurring. guy who panics every time he realizes he can't predict the next instant. guy who left the timeloop but still lives with it.

It’s like Dr. House always said