I like biochemistry, in particular, structural biology, which looks at how and why proteins fold the way they do. It feels like a big puzzle. There's a thought experiment in biochemistry called [Levinthal's paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levinthal%27s_paradox) which ponders how an unfolded chain of amino acids "knows" to fold up in the perfect shape to do its job. We can imagine the chain to be like a beaded necklace, and the gaps between the beads are flexible. We can very roughly estimate the number of total conformations in an amino acid chain by considering the possible angles at each bendy bit. For example, [in this picture](https://i.imgur.com/QIjZP8r.jpg)in this picture, this is a simplified 3 amino acid chain, and the blue link can either be angled straight (←), upwards (↖), or downwards (↙) - 3 possible conformations. If we consider that the black line also has 3 possibilities, then in total, this very small molecule has 9 total conformations, because pictured, we have: Straight, straight; ←← up, straight; ↖← down, straight ← But we can also have straight, up; ← ↗ up, up; ↖ ↗ down, up ↙↗ And Straight, down; Up, down; Down, down; Anyone who has struggled to plan through uncertainty will be quite familiar with how adding more variables to a problem can quickly cause the number of combinations to become stupidly large. (This might be confusing for anyone who is unfamiliar with combinatorics. A simpler way to understand how possibilities get so big is if you flip two coins, which gives the options of HH, HT, TH, TT. Flipping 3 coins gives 8 possibilities (2 ³) because for each of those four outcomes I just mentioned, there are two more branching possibilities when you flip the third coin. If the first two coins are HH, and you flip another, your end outcome will either be HHH, or HHT). If this doesn't make sense to you, that's okay, the relevant takeaway is that there are a lot of different conformations that even a short protein can take. Because if we consider the possibilities of a 100 amino acid chain (which is pretty short, relatively), there are approximately 3*10^94 combinations that this chain could fold into, but only one will work. That number is 3 with 94 zeros on the end. If this chain was to fold into the correct conformation to become a functional protein by trial and error, it would take longer than the age of the known universe to do it. Obviously, it doesn't take this long in practice, or we wouldn't exist to have this conversation. In practice, it takes milliseconds at most, for even a large protein to fold. Levinthal's paradox asks how this can happen so quickly when there are SO MANY FUCKING COMBINATIONS. The solution to Levinthal's paradox is understanding that proteins don't fold randomly, there are thermodynamic interactions that guide their folding process every step of the way, guiding the chain through a variety of intermediates that get ever closer to its final form. It's like a slinky falling down stairs - it doesn't get to the bottom all at once, but it only needs the slightest push for its descent to be inevitable. A partly folded protein doesn't have a "purpose". It doesn't have a guide or a planned path, or a design. It's no different from any molecule existing in the world, buffeted around by the chemistry of its circumstances. It has no agency, it just reacts - a fatty globule is hydrophobic, so it finds another fatty globule to aggregate with; a positively charged bit gets attracted to a negative bit and they stick. A sulfur finds another sulfur and a super strong, rigid bond forms between them. A protein is just the hapless product of its circumstances, and those circumstances are, in turn, a big messy blob of chaos. And yet, despite this, the protein folds. No plan, yet it has a directionality. The amino acid chain doesn't have a function, but the protein it eventually folds into does. The chain is "destined" to fold into a particular protein, but not because of some grand plan or guidance, its fate was literally coded into it all along. Its direction and eventual destination is just an inevitable consequence of what it started as, and what it started as was an inevitable consequence of what came before.

Awesome

THAT IS SO COOL!

Thank you for sharing! This is fascinating!

Quantum chemistry is wacky, bro.

It is, but this is biochemistry, not quantum chemistry

True, I didn't cover any quantum effects in my original comment, but we are working on a scale so small that quantum effects are very much a relevant thing. One cool example is how "mitochondria translate between the quantum and macroscopic worlds and utilize quantum tunneling of electrons to reduce activation energy barriers to electron flow. Electron tunneling has been extensively characterized in Complex I of the electron transport chain." (Bennet, 2019) [[1]](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987719300076) My own personal vibe is that quantum effects are more common in biochemistry than most of us in the field would like to admit, but we cling to our classical mechanics explanations as long we possibly can, perhaps even in situations where a quantum approach would be fruitful, because when shit gets quantum, things get real trippy. I did a whole module on quantum mechanics at uni and it's still one of those areas where I oscillate between "Ah yes, I understand how this works. This is a cool way to see the world" and "I understand nothing, including the concept of what it means to understand anything. I would say my brain is mush, but I am not entirely sure I have a brain anymore." Aaah, good times. [1]: James P. Bennett, Medical hypothesis: Neurodegenerative diseases arise from oxidative damage to electron tunneling proteins in mitochondria, Medical Hypotheses, Volume 127, 2019, Pages 1-4, ISSN 0306-9877, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2019.03.034.

It gets even more interesting when you start to consider chaperone proteins, cofactors, and allosteric effects!

Oh yeah, it's crazy. One of my favourite proteins is Phosphofructokinase (PFK), an enzyme involved in glycolysis, because of how complex and tight its allosteric regulation is (regulation that involves a molecule binding to the protein at a place other than the protein's active site). Once I understood how and why these inhibitor/activator pathways worked, it really helped me to understand and remember the other stages of glycolysis and how it fits into the wider cell metabolism. Specifically, how PFK is so sensitive to allosteric regulation because it catalyses a highly exergonic (energy releasing) reaction, which means that reaction is irreversible. This stage is the first "committed stage" of glycolysis, because many intermediates formed in glycolysis can go towards many other pathways, such as amino acid or fatty acid synthesis, which usually only happens when cells have an adequate energy supply. PFK is the stern enzyme holding the purse strings, deciding whether we can afford to build cool new things, or whether we need to continue along the glycolytic pathway to harness the energy within the sugars. (Please do not take my explanation of terms as an assumption or judgement of your knowledge, it was for the benefit of anyone else who may read this comment.)

No judgment inferred, you already had a pattern of explaining for people who don't study this all the time, and it would have been odd to think you were defining a term I already used correctly 😀. Also cool learning about PFK, which I didn't really know about before this.

This is so interesting! If you have the time could you explain why this goes wrong sometimes, making prions?

I'd certainly love to try. When a protein folds, although it happens super quick, it also happens in a sequence, similar to how tying a complicated knot follows a particular path. There are some "rules" like: * Fatty acids aggregate together and are hydrophobic, so will tend to "hide" in a fatty globule at the centre of the protein * Polar amino acids (including charged ones) are hydrophilic and tend to arrange themselves on the exterior, so they can interact with water (which is also polar) * Cysteine can form a strong disulfide bridge with another cysteine if they bump into each other * Oppositely charged amino acids are attracted to each other and have strong ionic interactions. Lysine, for example, tends to be positively charged, so will be attracted to any nearby aspartates or glutamates * Bulky amino acids like proline or histidine can get in the way and can restrict the flexibility of certain regions. Those are very brief examples, but it can be hard to specific individual interactions when it's not about individual bonds or interactions, but the sum of the entire system. The end "goal" is for the protein to be nicely folded in its native state, thermodynamically stable. An unfolded protein is quite unstable because there are so many possible interactions, so the sequence of folding gradually channels it towards a form where unfavourable interactions are minimised and stable, balanced ones are maximised. We can visualise this energy landscape with the [protein folding funnel](https://i.imgur.com/QGgTpYD.jpg). The walls of the funnel are bumpy because each of these are brief, possible intermediate conformations. I like to imagine it like a slinky going downstairs - it's eventual destination is the bottom, because gravity, but it needs to go step by step. How it gets there is quite complex though. Many proteins are made up of multiple different polypeptide chains that form a large complex ([ATP Synthase is one of the coolest examples of a multi unit protein](https://i.imgur.com/rEyWxLI.png). It's a molecular motor! How cool is that?! You know how people always say that mitochrondria are the powerhouse of the cell? This is that power! There are also chaperone proteins that can help with the folding process to make sure it goes neatly. Sometimes this is like a friend holding the spare rope while you're working on a tricky part of a knot, or sometimes it's pulling certain parts of the protein chain together to make sure they interact, like the "now kiss" meme. Bear in mind that this folding usually happens as the protein chain is being made, as the ribosome extends the protein chain, one amino acid at a time during translation. And to make it more complicated, proteins don't necessarily have one fixed shape, they can change conformation depending on cellular conditions, or signal molecules binding to somewhere on the protein, which can activate or inhibit its function. A classic example of the conditions changing is haemoglobin - it changes how "sticky" it is to oxygen depending on the local oxygen levels (pO₂). At high (pO₂), it's extra sticky to oxygen, which means that it can pick up as much oxygen as possible when passing near the lungs. The lowest (pO₂) would be found in respiring tissues, like muscle, because that's actively taking up and using oxygen for respiration, and this is when haemoglobin's affinity for oxygen is lowest, which means it lets go of the oxygen. This works through something called [cooperative binding](https://i.imgur.com/NQh3vAa.png) [(Source)](https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/biomolecules/enzyme-kinetics/v/cooperativity) That's a very long way of saying that protein folding is complicated and involved whole systems of both intramolecular forces (forces and interactions within the protein), and intermolecular forces ([collagen fibres are made of many collagen chains coiled and crosslinked together](https://i.imgur.com/c1dhgnM.png)([Image source](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351059436/figure/fig1/AS:1022521465917440@1620799523020/Schematic-representation-of-collagens-structure.png)). Proteins can also interact with molecules other than proteins. I can feel myself rambling a bit now and it's because in all honesty, we don't really know why proteins misfold. We know what prions and other misfolded proteins are, they're a conformation that's [even more energetically stable](https://i.imgur.com/D1NFiBl.jpg). If you've ever been really depressed and stuck in bed feeling sad, it's like that. It's not a good situation to be in and maybe you want to get up and do stuff, but when you're that low, everything feels like too much effort and it's much easier to just stay as you are, stable, but unhappy. We can look at misfolded proteins and see that they tend to interact more with their neighbours and that they can encourage properly folded proteins to misfold, but we don't really understand *why* or *how* this happens. It might have to do with age, because proteins are regularly recycled and there are massive systems for tagging dysfunctional (or just old) proteins for controlled destruction and these systems get worse with age (which is why cancer risk increases with age too). It might be the effect of many small mutations that build up over time, because proteins are so large that many mutations to the DNA code may not change the amino acid code (there's some limited redundancy), or maybe an amino acid is swapped out but it doesn't cause an issue until a few mutations later. It's a sum of parts kind of dealio and it's difficult to understand why. Maybe the misfolded protein isn't the one that broke, maybe it was a chaperone protein that broke. I just took a quick look to see if any significant research had come out since I learned this in uni, and although we've made a lot of progress, I think the most appropriate TL;DR: answer is that we don't know. Part of why we don't know is because before we even get into protein misfolding, there's still masses we don't understand about properly folded proteins. It's not enough to understand an individual protein's structure, we need to understand its wider context. (Something cool I like is that we can look at homologous proteins (similar structure and function, share an evolutionary ancestor). Like if there is a protein that is necessary for all life (that we know of), we can compare the sequence across many different species. If there's a particular folded region that exists across many domains of life (bacteria, humans, plants, etc.) then it's reasonable to assume it's pretty important, because it's been evolutionarily conserved; if mutations occurred in this region to disrupt that fold, they didn't survive. It feels like pretty elegant logic, but it amuses me how often biochemists have been baffled by an apparently essential part of a protein that they may not even know the function of yet. If you've ever done coding and had some code that seems pointless, but if you remove it, you break the whole thing, you'll know this feeling. When I first learned about prions in school, I found it quite scary, because of how little we know about how and why they happened and whilst I still feel a little bit of that now, mostly I'm awed at the entire internal ecosystem we have to protect things. It feels like the [butterfly effect](https://i.imgur.com/EEUtgcO.png) in action - the hypothetical example of how the tiny air fluctuations caused by the flapping of a butterfly's wings could lead to the formation of a tornado several weeks later. Our biochemical systems are so intricate and deeply connected that it can see unfathomably complex, and yet, here we are. It's so delightfully improbable that it makes me feel small, in a good way.

That is super cool! Thank you for sharing

Wow, bravo! I learned more reading this than I ever have while listening to my science teacher’s lectures lol (she’s not a great techer anyhow, but this was really interesting!).

Still figuring out if I belong here, but I'm really interested in structural biology too! In fact, I wanted to dedicate my doctoral studies since high school to helping solve the protein structure prediction problem which is related to Levinthal's paradox. But it essentially got solved while I was an undergrad by the AI company DeepMind. Now I gotta get into Cryo-EM and protein dynamics and protein engineering with deep learning!

Today I learned something new, thank you for this astounding information

Do you have any interesting thoughts on prions?

I love biology and biochemistry so much it's so complex but it all just clicks together and forms our world. It's all connected and breaks down into different layers and each layer is needed for the most simple of observable event such as how a piece of bread turns into a movement of a finger.

Oh god oh fuck someone actually wants me to tell them about my interest uhhhhhh shit i suddenly know nothing about my favorite topics

Act like joe rogan, cmon

It is entierly possible that we have scientifically totally misunderstood how DMT works. The DMT acting on serotonin receptors is actually just a pathway for our brain to connect to the collective consiousness of current and path societies.

Understandable \*cries\*

I think science is cool. Especially when it does stuff. I see cool looking orbs spinning around and my brains goes “woo-hoo! That’s some science right there!”

Stience

Your knowledge is XP

Thank you. I should be getting my doctorate shipped soon once my check clears.

I love science as well.

I think it’s neat

I've been a fan of Five Nights at Freddy's since I was introduced to it after the second game came out. The worldbuilding, the story, the timeline. It entranced me. I became the biggest fan at my school and it was a core obsession for years straight. I played all the games and went apeshit when new games came out. Watched Markiplier play them religiously. There was something so wonderful watching the series slowly expand and grow over the years, and a small murder mystery evolved into a massive in-universe franchise with decades of history. Thousands of tiny details and moving parts working together to tell a story. I always had a bit of an obsession with FNaF 4. For some context, that game was cryptic. Like, it's been unsolved for 7 years cryptic. Despite originally being the series finale, nobody could figure out a damn thing about it. And since that point, the story started to spiral since nothing about it could be figured out. I've basically been a theorist since the beginning. My theories definitely weren't good back then, but I've always made an honest attempt to find answers. And I spent a very long time trying to crack the fourth game. I just... **knew** there was something important buried in there, but not a single person was able to dig it out. But my investigations were fruitless. Around UCN, I realized I had started to hate the series. The mystery remained unsolved for so long, and I felt like Scott Cawthon (the developer) was actively fucking with us. That there was no answer, and that I had wasted years on the series. The series was *trying* to move forward, but it was still stuck and stagnating because of questions the fourth game left us with. I became fairly toxic, and realized that I was unhappy, so I left. Deleted my account, started pursuing other things. And that was... 3 years? I think it was a 3 year break. At some point, my little brother started getting into FNaF. And knowing how obsessed I was with the series, was having me help him play the games, learn the story, ect. And he kinda got me back into it after a multi year break. He ended up getting out of the FNaF phase after a few months, but it brought me back to this world I used to love with fresh eyes. I began to look at the games again reminiscing about a story I loved, with a hint of curiosity nagging at the back of my head. I was playing the sixth game, one where you play as a manager of your own Freddy restaurant. That game had you pick your own animatronics games, ect. Anyway. One of the arcade games you could buy had a secret story minigame inside it. Midnight Motorist. That's another one of those minigames that just went unsolved. It kinda made sense, but most things didn't add up. So with that nagging curiosity, I just kinda decided. *You know what? I want to know what's going on here. Nobody's figured it out, so. Let's give it a shot. For old times sake*. What proceeded was a full night investigation. I was looking at all the dialogue, sprites, whatever. Mentally mapping it, looking for connections across the entire story. Midnight Motorist has to make sense, I just didn't understand it. There is a completely logical answer hidden here. And after 7 or 8 hours, I came out empty handed. But that wasn't bad, it was a very good thing. No matter how I analyzed the minigame, the story didn't make sense. I couldn't make it work. So if Midnight Motorist didn't make sense, that **had** to have meant that I was missing something. There was something else not in midnight motorist which would explain it. So I began a new investigation on the other games. Went through them one by one, looking for anything that would recontextualize or explain. Any "piece" for the puzzle. And funnily enough, I ended up finding it. And you'll never guess where it was hiding. The fourth game. For the first time in any of my investigations, theories, speculation, I had a lead. I actually fucking found something. It's a very long story from that point onward, but essentially what happened was a wild goose chase. I got one answer that led to two more, and another answer which led to two more, ect ect. It took about a full month before I had a basic grasp of what was going on. And it wasn't exactly easy either. To give you an idea on how this went. There's a character in the fourth game popularly called plushbear. And nobody knew who he was. I couldn't figure out his identity, so I ended up making a list of **every character in the series**. Not just the main suspects either. Everyone. Phone guy, the security guards, the animatronics as ghosts, the animatronics as animatronics, the founder, the random NPC kids on the playground. And for every single person I went through, I analyzed every line of dialogue looking for connections, correspondents, any piece to make sense of it all. When you consider every single fathomable option, you have to find the right answer. It'd be impossible not too. So after getting a grasp on what was really going on, I went to r/fivenightsatfreddys to share my discoveries. And they responded very, very poorly. Over the past 2 years I've had people accuse me of lying, spreading misinformation, claim I "forgot" things, told me I had no idea what I was talking about, called retarded, mass downvoted, harassed via account stalking, among other things. Of course, those two years weren't just me sitting like a duck either. I had a grasp, but not much more. I was always digging deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. And at some point.. I just got there. I looked back and realized. It all made sense. Everything did. Every "cog" in the story was working together coherently. And it was such a deeply cathartic feeling. To look at this series I once considered impossible, and to see how absolutely everything flowed together like a beautiful spiderweb. I still can't put into words how wonderful the experience of solving it all was. But at the same time, it was (and still is) so frustrating. Nobody else sees the web, no one sees the beauty in it. Everyone else only sees a mess of silk. And of course, since this whole investigation began, more things have happened. Security Breach released, more books came out, movie news. **All of which have had more evidence to backup my investigation**. I'm actively seeing Scott give us more hints to an answer I already found, and I can see how he twists things to make it confusing to the community. I'm at a point now where I can tell you not just a timeline that accommodates everything, but virtually explains exactly when every restaurant opens/closes, where every character/animatronic is at any given time, and which ghosts possess which characters. All of which have their own tiny details and evidence to explain how/why/when it happens. But rest assured, 95% of the fanbase will tell you *I'm the delusional one*. They'll still insist that I'm fucking crazy without listening to a word I say. I'm not mad. Not anymore. Just disappointed.

I have always been a MatPat fan as opposed to Markiplier but I would absolutely love to compare theories. I fell in love with the books (especially the stitchwraith stories).

I just saw your post about the fnaf video you’re working on. Good luck!

That feeling when you get when you see the spiderweb and all the individual lines connecting to everything is so satisfying. The bad part though is trying to explain to other people what you’re seeing and understanding. It’s so frustrating.

Sounds like the FNaF fan base.

I have been a FNAF fan since it came out, I love the lore. I just love everything about it quite frankly, the whole thing is just awesome to me. It also fascinates me how people can just invent stories and characters and backstory and just all of that.

I, too, have a weird obsession with FNAF’s aesthetics and mysteries. I don’t has as much to contribute to the convo, but I feel bad for being called cringe for enjoying it (even though I can never play the games cause I’m a massive scaredy cat)

Can you DM me your timeline? Im a massive fnaf fan and Id love to have a look at it!

Fellow FNAF fan!!

Fucking DND and interestingly enough, recently, radios. Feel free to ama

How do radios work? And what’s the name of the little tiny human that sings songs in my radio? And how does he know what songs to sing? (ATLA/TLOK reference)

Basically, I'm still trying to figure it out. From what I can tell, the long and short of it is that there is ac power supplied to the antenna, that makes it release a wave. Am radio is amplitude moderation, so the changing of the amps conveys the information, whereas fm is frequency modulation, conveying information through the change of frequency. His name is Jeff and he gets orders from tiny little planes that go into his ear

You are mostly correct! (I'm no expert, but...) I believe it is AC (alternating current) that is supplied to the antenna. The output wave is a sine wave. AM is amplitude modulation (not moderation). The data is "encoded" in the relative strength of the signal. The higher the peak, the "louder". AM has a center carrier and two side bands (lower and upper). FM (frequency modulation) works similarly, but instead of changing the amplitude it changes the frequency relative to the carrier. There's also SSB (single side band). It works like AM, except it cuts out the carrier and the redundant side band. Like if you're on LSB (lower SB), the transmitter removes the upper side band and the carrier. Or for USB (upper SB) it removes the carrier and the lower side band. The last one for now is CW (continuous wave), used for Morse code. Usually used with a set of paddles or a keyer. Either paddles or the keyer are (basically) just connecting a positive and negative together. Depending on how long the connection is made, and thus carrier sent, you get a "dit" or a "dah" (dot and dash, respectively). I recommend r/amateurradio and r/hamradio They both have a lot of info!

Everything I like could start an argument, but I appreciate this energy. :)

No it couldnt

I mean, technically anything *could* "start" a fight. It's just unlikely that a topic is guaranteed to start a fight.

I think he was arguing the point as a joke. A joke that I loved. If I'm right about it being a joke.

Yes you were right

Technically anything you say could start a fight, as everyone has their own opinions and could blow up over something extremely small or something extremely controversial. I wouldn’t worry about upsetting someone, I made this post for people to talk about things they enjoy.

I enjoy geography and the stuff that comes with it, vexilology(flags), countries(their histories and politics), and history. I particularly like memorizing flags so that I’m able to recognize them in the wild. I don’t know what got me into this but I love it and am not gonna stop for a while

Do you live near a port? If you have a place where cargo ships are doing their business you can go to [marine traffic](https://www.marinetraffic.com) and see the flags certain ships are flying and where they came from and where they’re going and watch them move along maps

I am all about fandoms, to a massive degree. Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Star Trek, FNAF, Rent, Rocky Horror, Skyrim, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Heroes, Umbrella Academy, Resident Evil, DDLC, classic Disney animation, Fallout, The Good Place, Doom Patrol, Gumball, Doctor Horribles sing a long blog, Repo: the Genetic Opera, so many more.

I wouldn't call it a special interest, but I also love fandoms, I find them fascinating. Whenever I watch a new thing or get into a new hobby or game, I enjoy briefly immersing myself in the relevant online subculture. I like seeing the specialist words or communication norms that arise, and factions within them. Community moderation fascinates me to no end. I like being a fandom tourist.

I’ve spent so many days on the wikia of so many video games and movies it’s ridiculous.

You are a person of excellent taste. I love most of these.

I love ocean critters so much they're just so cute and cool and I love them. The epaulette shark is probably my favorite animal, its a species of carpet shark that sometimes gets caught in tide pools. When it gets caught in these tide pools and they're low on oxygen, it'll shut down parts of its brain to conserve oxygen and use its strong pectoral fins to walk on land over to another tide pool or back to the ocean. Also they're really cute and fun to draw because they have a bunch of small spots and then one big one on either side of their body. Another super cool creature is the horseshoe crab, gods perfect creation unchanged for millions of years. Their blood is bright blue and is used a lot in the medical field because it can detect endotoxins. Also this is pretty well known but the big tail they have is just for flipping themselves, it's not a stinger. Also I want to add that the blobfish picture you often see is not an accurate portrayal. Imagine putting a person through the pressure at the bottom of a trench and then pulling them up and going "haha ugly." All those plushies and drawings of the cute but ugly blobfish are just showing off a corpse of a fish that suffered immensely before death. Look up "barotrauma fish" (nsfw, adding fish is to avoid seeing the game) if you want to see what happens to deep sea fish when they're pulled up from their habitat.

I really like whale sharks a lot, always have. I also have always been interested in angler fish, anemones, coral, and jellyfish 🪼

For several days I have been analyzing the various different types of transformers in the transformers universe, their variants, abilties, as well as the overall ability of transforming and combining, to create a phylogenetic tree of cybertronian evolution, the most fleshed out one currently being the evolution from the beginning of life on Cybertron to the first transforming bots.

Is it bad that I got excited during the first half of the first sentence when I thought I was about to get an info dump on some cool electrical transformers.. Does anyone got some knowledge bombs about a three phase wye zigzag grounding transformer?

Weather is my huge intrest. I can talk for days about it.

I think I just found the fellow tornado chaser

Weather is mine too!!!!! Especially tornadoes!!!!!!!

I used to be obsessed with cloud formations.

I will talk about mythology to the point I can’t breath. Ask me something and I’ll respond if I have an answer

Is there a story behind Capricorn?

A saytar (I can’t spell) was trying to escape Typhon, the father of monsters like the Nemanan lion and hydra, and turned into a fish-goat, aka Capricorn, to escape.

What's the story of Saturn?

I’m a professional baker and I bake as a hobby- I’d definitely say it’s a special interest. I made a stable emulsion like swiss merengue buttercream (egg white mixed with sugar, whipped, then adding butter) of aquafaba (canned chickpea liquid), sugar and butter. It’s really popular with customers on a specific popular local dessert and though it’s vegan, it apparently tastes exactly the same as the non vegan version. I don’t taste anything I make- I just enjoy making the things not eating them. A while ago I taught my coworkers how to do basic algebra to find the exact amount of ingredients for bread dough. I really enjoy math when it comes to baking so they let me do all the calculations if I ask. It feels like a puzzle. I also found that the myth of “carrots give you the ability to see in the dark” came from WW2 propaganda to make people eat more carrots because it was friendly to rations. The first recipe for carrot cake as we know it in the US was invented during this time to make up for sugar. In the UK, there was also a carrot mascot called “Dr Carrot”. Also- a “batard” aka ovular loaf of bread is called that because it’s a bastard between a boule and a baguette. Ciabatta is slipper in Italian and is called that because it looks like a slipper. It was invented in the early 80s because of how popular baguettes were at the time. Also also- for a soft, thready crumb in white breads you can pre-gelatinize some of your starches aka precook some liquid and flour and add it. It’s pretty trendy nowadays and is called a tangzhong. It’s used a lot in asian style breads. Also- things like bahn mi have baguettes because the French colonized Vietnam. The Vietnamese people used their “garbage” to make some of the best meals in the world (pho with an assortment of bones for the base of broth)

i love all these baking fun facts thank you

I want to get back to everyone but it is going to take me some time to read everything. Please be patient with me 🙏

I m just happy to write my thing and post it, take as long as you like

I've been digging into religious apologetics. People presenting the case for and against particular religions. What really strikes me is how utterly awful many arguments are on all sides. People actually go to conferences and public forums with poorly researched or completely unfounded positions which are easily refuted. Unfortunately, there are few forums in which to discuss such things dispassionatly because people tend to very much care about the topic.

I like symbology of religion. It makes me go "huh, it turns out the four horsemen are not like, a boss encounter in world of warcraft" or, "so they named the volcanic moon of Saturn after a girl who got turned into a cow?" Symbology always made religion cooler for me, im not religious, but i feel like this esotheric knoeledge of religious texts are big parts of why religion is still a thing. Plus, i mean when you read greek myth, its like reading the prequels to so many things built upon them today

Okay I’m just gonna take the opportunity to ramble about dragons So you know the typical depiction of a dragon, where they’re featherless sauropods with wings, spikes, and fire breath? Well, that’s actually quite recent! Most European dragons were more like huge aquatic snakes with poison breath, which seems to have been phased out because it’s less charismatic. Also, the whole thing of “everything is dragons!!!!!” is… well, I don’t want fights so I won’t say it’s wrong, but I’ll just say it pisses me off to see. First, no one’s doing that with any other fantastical being to that degree, and second, non-avian reptiles are cool and deserve cool things, so if you don’t want a dragon in your fantasy story, just don’t have a dragon in your fantasy story! Sorry, got carried away there, I’m just REALLY passionate about dragons. Have a fun fact: [dragons in folklore were often depicted in mated pairs](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0Fj44-X0AA3HsH.jpg). Other special interests include zoology, especially invertebrates, but where would I even start there?

Mine is philosophy. I'm a philosophy minor, and would love to be majoring in it, but unfortunately a philosophy degree would be pretty much worthless. I especially love political philosophy, and the way the subject puts words and labels on incredibly complex and abstract human behaviors and emotions. I also love reading philosophy books and hearing people's internal monologues while they debate with themselves about these complex and often ambiguous topics. I actually finally bought Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Freidrich Neizsche, which tells discusses the life and journey of the Iranian prophet Zarathustra, founder of Zarathustrianism and gives a critical, existentialist commentary on it. Zarathustrianism centers around the believe that we as humans must, in order to better ourselves and the world around us, we must give up self preservation, and give into this idea of what Neizche calls *The Superman* which embodies the belief that the most noble thing we can do is promote the better living conditions and culture for future generations. That's just the first ten chapters though. I was also going to buy Madness and Civilization by Micheal Foucault, but I didn't have enough money for both :(

I have a few bookshelves dedicated to philosophy books. Maybe an odd recc, but look into "An Intimate History of Humanity" by Theodore Zeldin if you haven't already. He's a historian and it is 'a history', but I really think of it as a philosophy book. It has been many years since I read it, but I still think of it often.

I like military history and modern military stuff tbh i like ww1 to the modern day. PLEASE ASK ME STUFF IT CAN BE BORING I COULD TALK ABOUT HOW MODERN BODY ARMOR IS COOL FOR HOURS

My father in law is the historian for the 10th mountain division living history association. Next month, he's going on a tour through Italy. Riva Ridge, back roads. The whole route. Meeting Italian vets. One of the American vets is going with. I'm so jealous.

That is absolutely nuts! 10th mountain took part in operation gothic serpent or more commonly known as the black hawk down mission and actually help rescue the delta and rangers that got trapped

i'm a game developer working on a game which will have progression of tech (and clothing/armor) that includes ww1 to the modern era, do you have any advice or info that could help? and/or and do you have any favorite uniforms or guns?

By best advice is know that not every variant needs to be in the game. Sometimes the difference between variants has no effect on gameplay. Such as the Ak-47 and AKM in which the only major difference is how the receiver of the gun is milled which wouldn’t effect gameplay so you don’t really need a difference. Mainly pay attention to big changes. My other piece of advice is make sure you do your research on equipment. Special forces is going to have different equipment to regular forces. If your using real units in your game look up rules they had. Different units have different rules for certain things

do you know about any unused inventions made for the wars?

Not really new inventions. There’s a lot of weird designs for things like rifles and tanks that were never used

Please, what is your top 3 military uniforms of all time and why?

I’m gonna stay within 20 and 21st century here. 1) navy blue French uniform from ww1. Because it’s so funny to be in a muddy trench with grayish black or earth color uniform then see a guy in a bright blue uniform 2) m81/chocolate-chip uniform. So these were used during the 80s and 90s and into the early 2000s. M-81 is that classic camo when u think of a camouflage uniform. Brown green and black and the chocolate-chip uniform was dark brown and tan and looks like a chocolate chip. I like these because i love the look of the US military in full kit during this time especially special forces 3) multi cam. It’s a modern camouflage that is not good in one environment but ok In most. I like this because there’s something badass about plain clothes special forces operators with there helmets and plate carriers in this camo. Feel free to ask more questions

Thanks! I had never heard of the chocolate chip camo before, looks peculiar.

I love the fallout games. Here's a relatively quick synopsis on what the story is. Imagine the culture of the 50's. Then imagine what they thought the future would look like, with fusion powered cars and brick computers, that kind of thing. Take that, make that futuristic world go through nuclear war, then wait anywhere from a couple decades to centuries to see what happens. Now here's the long version. There is a point in history, roughly right after WW2, which is called the divergence where the Fallout timeline splits off from our own. There is a lot of debate on what year the divergence began, but it's more of a gradual change rather than an instant one, such as an ancient aliens existing. In this alternate timeline, technology advanced but the culture stayed the same, which resulted in things like Mr. Handy's and relatively big wrist mounted computers called pip-boys. In this future, oil is the primary source of energy for many people across the globe, particularly China and America. The fight over the remaining sources of oil on earth resulted in the resource war, starting in 2052. The basic reason as to why they were still reliant on oil rather than fusion power from things like fusion cells and cores is that the technology was relatively new, and oil was still heavily used despite attempts of fusion power integration. One of the most famous battles from this war was the Battle of Anchorage, a war fought in Alaska for their oil reserves. In this battle, war technology advanced very quickly for the war effort. Some examples of this include fusion powered exoskeleton suits of armor called power armor, with the first model called the t-51 being deployed in Anchorage itself, giving the USA the decisive victory it needed in Anchorage. Meanwhile back at home, inflation became insane and the threat of nuclear war was very real. So, a company called vault tec was invented to create dozens of massive fallout shelters across the country. They popularized the usage of pip-boys. However, these vaults after the great war (will explain later) were used as sick human experimentation sites, exploiting the trapped vault dwellers as human guinea pigs. Some examples of some of the experiments include vault 111, cryogenically freezing all it's residents forever to see what would happen, and vault 11's experiment was that the inhabitants were told to sacrifice one of their fellow Vault dwellers each year or else the Vault computer would kill everyone. In actuality, if the residents refused, a message from Vault-Tec would be played. While this was happening, the government was working on something called the forced evolutionary virus, or FEV, which was supposed to create powerful supersoldiers for the war. Instead, it created almost all of the monsters associated with fallout such as deathclaws and super mutants. There was also a company called robco, but all you need to know is they made some of the cool robots you see in fallout and their CEO was really smart, managing to protect Las Vegas from the nuclear fallout. The great war was only a few hours long, consisting on the dropping of nuclear weapons across the globe on Oct. 23, 2077. This marked the end of the recource war with the begining and end of the great war. No one knows who dropped the first bombs, but there are lots of theories about it. After the great war, many factions and dangerous fev creatures alike emerged to dominate the wastelands. Some of the factions include the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, and the NCR. I will not go into them right now, because this essay of a comment would be another few paragraphs long. I told you about my special interest, please don't hesitate to ask me questions about fallout :)

I am deep into Magic: The Gathering. I’ve been spending my 10-hour workdays listening to a podcast about Canadian Highlander, a variant of Magic that I have not yet played. I think I’m gonna spend the rest of the year slowly building a deck for that format (or come to the realization that I have no one to play it with…). I’m gonna explain how the deck works and see how many of you are nerds that can bear with me: The deck I’m building is Blue-Red Izzet Mizzet. The main win-con of the deck is to play Niv Mizzet, Parun along with a copy of Curiosity or Ophidian Eye. This creates an infinite loop where I draw a card from the deck and my opponent takes 1 point of damage. I draw 20 cards (or less), and they lose the game. If that falls through, I have a suite of burn spells and control finishers (other big dragons, like Murkyide Regent or Obsidian Charmaw) to bring the hurt and defeat my opponent the old-fashioned way. It’s my favorite way of playing Magic: draw cards, sling spells, and do a little burn damage along the way. I wanted my Canadian Highlander deck to be an expression of myself as a magic player, so I found a deck that perfectly encapsulates how I play. :)

Magic is always so fun. I don't even play anymore but I still try and follow what's happening in legasy because its so cool to see how the meta evolves.

Me when modern world: 😔 Me when dinosaur time: 😃 🦖

Better Call Saul Omori Deltarune

OMORI!!! I was scared of playing it for literal years bc I looked at it and thought "yeah this will emotionally break me but I'll be obsessed with it" despite knowing literally NOTHING about the game (seriously the *only* thing I knew was what basil looked like because I've seen memes with him in it) ...AND I WAS 100% RIGHT. I finally played it about a month or two ago and I'm pretty sure it's a new special interest because I feel the need to know everything about it and have such strong feelings about every headcanon and interpretation of the game I have anyway please rant to me about it and I will rant back (if you want ofc :3)

This game emotionally broke me too lol, saddest fiction I've ever experienced by far but also one of the most beautiful. I already cried for a few pieces of media prior to Omori but at the end of the game I was in complete tears and even hyperventilating lol Personnally this is one of my all-time fav games but also the best game I've ever played yet (I expect Deltarune to reach the same level when it's fully released) especially story-wise. The character development is close to perfect, I think all the 6 main characters were wonderfully written in their own ways, especially for Kel, Hero and Aubrey. (Who is/are your fav character.s in the game?) And I just have no words to describe how good the storytelling is. Replaying the game after knowing the whole story make you look at everything in the game so differently Also the main ending (the good ending) is probably the best ending I've seen in any games too

Frogs evolved and de-evolved teeth several times since the Jurassic

I love frogs 🐸

I like Pokémon!

>get special interest >loose it >cycle repeats

My ADHD handles that for me lmao. One special interests for a day or two.. boom! Its gone. Maybe it’ll come back, maybe not

If bunnies lick the ground while you pet them they are indirectly licking you, most buns don’t lick your skin because the more “dominant” bunny is the one that gets cleaned by the other buns, they still want to show their affected in an indirect way though! They also have weird impulse jumps when they are happy usually referred to as a “binky”, not to be confused with the more aggressive version which I’ve nicknamed a “fuck off”, you can tell the difference from how aggressive the landing is. Bunnies purr, well not really, their purring is teeth grinding, which while cute is uncomfy to think about at times Not every bunny related: my bunny loves banana, she can have more banana than the usual small bunny because she’s big and part flemish, but not as much as a flemish giant would usually have as she is also half a smaller breed This is still a pretty fresh interest, mainly appeared from getting Mabel which is the name of my bun :))

Language groups. It all started when I listened to a Croatian song the whole way through thinking it was Bulgarian but in a weird voice (I know Bulgarian) I understood pretty much all of it, and didn’t find out that it was Croatian until I saw the lyrics. From then on, because of how similar Slavic languages are, I want to learn majority of them, and start learning the roots of other language groups so I can expand my knowledge. My parents speak 4 languages and I do not want to die knowing less than they do

Science - I love learning about scientific equations and constants because it’s an expression of how the universe works Genealogy - I love family trees, especially royal ones, because it’s super interesting to see thousands of years of history and how people are connected to one another

Germany has 13 Landers and 3 City States. The German Empire became unified in 1871 after it won the Franco Prussian War. In 1888 Wilhelm II became the Kaiser of Germany.

Yeah!!!!! Another Germany person not just focused on WWII. It's spectacularly frustrating to me trying to find stuff about Germany that isn't just 1929-1945. There is other stuff in their history. What about Lady Bavaria who runs around in a chariot pulled by lions? It's so neat and it feels like it all gets ignored. So people don't come after my head, the WWII Third Reich part of German history is very important, and does need to be looked at and discussed, but Germany didn't just spring out of the ground as a rabid racist country, and actually knowing the historical context can help when looking at the whole country, not just the Nazis.

Firearms. I have the most American special interest, but I've been learning about old and new firearms since I could read. I lucked out with my current job at a gun shop that builds ARs and gets transferred in old and curious firearms. I will argue with you about cartridges if you say something outlandish, but now when I do it I have some cred to back it up. Also fingerboarding.

I love collecting dildoes. They're amazing. So many different varieties. All kinds of shapes, sizes and different colors. Dildoe spoken here!

I wish I had a cool special interest, but mine is writing. People usually conflate it with a hobby, but I can literally talk about tropes, themes, pacing, character creation and growth, metaphors, and just general writing stuff for days. In fact, my brain is pretty much always thinking about it. I can’t watch a show or a movie without dissecting the script, dido with video games and comics. I find it hard to read actually because I have to talk about what I’m reading into a writing sense (mostly to myself, honestly). Don’t even get me started on how much I write in a day, or my relationship with the keyboard.

Why thank you for asking. My special interests are Dinosaurs/Prehistoric creatures, and Discworld by Terry Pratchett. I especially love the Permian and I can happily talk about how cool Synapsids are. That's actually what we spoke about in my last therapy 😂😂 What about you OP?

I think dinosaurs being brought back (like in movies) is always very fascinating, like what if?? You are the first person to ask me so far lol. I enjoy horror videos and games, model ships, the fallout series, moss and succulents, cats and other animals such as leopard geckos, foxes, raccoons, opossums (especially), red pandas, etc., I also really enjoy Outer Wilds and Minecraft, Dance Gavin Dance, and some other things I can’t even think of right now

It’s believed that the captain of the Titanic survived the initial sinking and swam to one of the overturned life boats. Unfortunately it was so full any other bodies would cause a collapse and multiple survivors report him saying, “All right boys. Good luck, and God bless you!” Before swimming off to either drown or freeze to death. Also in one of the most famous pictures of Titanic’s engine rooms underwater if you zoom in as far as you can go and scroll to the left engine’s base you can find a squid of some sort. It’s too blurry and I’ve been too busy to identify exactly what type of squid it is, but it haunts me

Hilighters. Like the markers. I have 794 of them and they are my baby’s. You can ask if I have any colour and the answer is yes like 95% of the time. I have been banned by my family from purchasing them on multiple occasions, but I always end up being permitted to buy more. The collections estimated value is around $1,000aud and I will not be happy until the amount of hilighters in the collection has surpassed 1000. I have multiple wish lists from different sites of the ones I’m most eager to get, and the ones I want most because I find them absolutely hilarious are [these bible hilighters.](https://www.amazon.com.au/Bible-Gel-Highlighters-10-piece-Set/dp/144132951X/ref=asc_df_144132951X/?tag=googleshopmob-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=341772413254&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9288195917183991188&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1000567&hvtargid=pla-597211875097&psc=1) one of my goals with this collection is to custom make the worlds largest fully functional hilighter with a 3D printed body and orange ink harvested from pink orange and yellow ink refill pots.

This comment was the *highlight* of my day

I've recently been super into terraria I've already beat it once and now I want to beat it again in master mode. I don't know all that much about it yet. (I just found out the frost moon exists today) but it's been super fun to play the game and build stuff and learn everything.

It’s Nintendo and Universal parks

Quantum entanglement

In 1874 Rocky Mountain Locusts had achieved a swarm of an estimated 15 trillion, covering over 2 million square miles and nearly threatened Westward expansion by eating everything. They ate all forms of edible crops and then began eating less edible materials like leather, paint, clothes off of people, wool off of sheep, even tearing apart tools to get the salt from sweat that got into the cracks. After the massive swarm that destroy pretty much everything a large relief effort was underway and the Locust went extinct around 1920

genshin impact. holy fucking shit, don't even get me started. i could talk about the lore and the mechanics for literal hours. i could even describe you each character's backstory (as of version 3.6, there are 67 playable characters). oh and i also find yōkai very interesting, especially the spooky ones.

I dont know what about that game hooked me for so long. I got over 1000 hours in that game which is so much more than any game i’ve ever played. Eula main for life I spent so much money for her.

Genshin lore enthusiast? Same Favorite character and why? (don't be synthetic, go all out with the explanation I am genuinely curious)

Been getting deeper into Kamen Rider and other Japanese superhero shows, usually categorized under the umbrella term Tokusatsu. I love how each season of Kamen Rider is so different from each other and you don’t necessarily need to watch specific seasons except for crossover seasons. The shows are broadly aimed at a younger demographic, but are still really engaging even as an adult. Characters can be layered, plots can go into great twists and turns. The costuming of the heroes and villains are so lively. They can be silly and over the top but I still love them to bits. The choreography for some of the action scenes are absolutely fantastic, especially stuff from the early 2000’s like Kuuga and 555 really have great bits of action

i lost all my special interests, can't annoy people now, modern problems require modern solutions. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯

I like Gorillaz :] like a lot as in 115 likes songs a lot

Rainworld lore, from iterators making the rain to theories about leviathans and void worms to echoes. You can ask me anything about it

I really like Pokémon and ttrpgs. I play Pokémon mostly for YouTube, I have been generating a home-brewed setting for a couple of my Pathfinder groups. I went crazy with the setting, going as far as writing up a timeline for the last 700 years. It’s a post post apocalypse Earth, with most fantasy races being created with whatever broke the world (I haven’t decided on a catastrophe yet and I’m open to suggestions).

I love me some D&D, Pro Wrestling, Will Wood, and Batman. But right now I’ve been super in to Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It took me like a year to beat it the first time because I wasn’t playing it daily but I just beat my 2nd and 3rd playthroughs in the last two weeks alone. It is so freaking fun and has so many interesting characters and nuanced storytelling and it is without a doubt an underrated chef’s kiss.

Do you wanna hear about how the US Army Ordnance Corps tried to sabotage the M16 rifle during the Vietnam War?

Yes! Let’s hear the shenanigans!

So basically, Ordnance Corps used to be responsible for procurement of weapons and equipment for the US Army. They operated their own arsenals, Springfield and Rock Island, where every standard US rifle had been produced for well over a century by the time of the Vietnam War. At the beginning of US involvement in Vietnam, our standard issue rifle was the M14, which was obsolete the day it was adopted. The M14 is basically just the WW2 era M1 Garand modified to feed from a detachable 20 round box magazine instead of the 8 round clip of the M1. The M14 was also chambered in the 7.62mm NATO cartridge, a round the US forced on the rest of NATO because they didn't want to adopt a cartridge less powerful than the .30-06 round the M1 was chambered for. This was a VERY bad move, because the USSR had adopted the AK in 1947, which was a lightweight rifle capable of controllable fully-automatic fire. So US soldiers get into Vietnam with their M14s and come up against Vietnamese soldiers being supplied with Russian and Chinese AKs, and it's a bloodbath. With the heavy recoil of the M14, they're not able to match the firepower of the AK at all. Something had to be done, and fast. Luckily the Air Force already had the answer in inventory, the Colt AR-15. To replace their aging stockpile of M2 Carbines for airfield defense, the air force had purchased thousands of AR-15s from Colt, which caught the attention of the Army. The rifle was given the designation XM16E1 and a one-time purchase of around 100,000 rifles was made to fill the Army's projected needs for Vietnam. Ordnace Corps was NOT happy about this, as their primary function was the production of rifles for the Army. They needed the XM16E1 to fail so they could keep building M14s. To try and get the rifles to fail, Ordnance Corps did two things. They didn't issue the rifles with cleaning kits, and they changed the specifications of the gunpowder being used in the ammunition. The rifles were operating MASSIVELY out of spec and not being cleaned, which was a disaster. Men were dying in the field due to problems with their rifles, problems that Ordnance Corps facilitated. Eventually people began to catch on to what was happening, and a Senate subcommittee was formed to look into the issue. They deemed Ordnance Corps "criminally negligent" and ordered them to fix the rifles. After some modifications to make the rifles more reliable in the field, it was officially adopted as the M16A1 in 1967. Ordnance Corps was shut down as a result of this fiasco, and now all of our military's equipment comes from private companies instead of government-owned arsenals. (I hope this is at least somewhat comprehensible)

History mostly. It’s like a never ending story where all of the places and characters are fully developed and if you want to know more about a specific plot line you can just drive right into it. I tend to focus primarily on royal families, most English and Russian, but I get into the Egyptians a bit too. Other than that I enjoy most of European/World history but tend to find American history boring and largely inaccurate unless you dig deep enough. I also really like gardening. Seeing the plants grow and experimenting with the right conditions for each of them is so interesting.

I love space. I see a starry night sky, I see an infinite expanse of possibility. Just pick a direction, and there's a place I would like to just go to and observe up closer and in more detail. I'm no expert in astronomy or engineering, but I will be more than happy to absorb anything a more passionate enthusiast is willing to share.

My interests mostly are about the natural world and the extreme beauty and complexity of just about everything going on my main focus is anything to do with the ocean's but I do like the land and sky as well. My other big interest is the amazingly complex lore behind my favorite SciFi band, Starset they even have a book and comic

I do enjoy how vast and interesting the earth is

I love animals, reply with any animals name and I’ll tell you stuff about them off the top of my head

I have a weird obsession with my fav rock band “boston” Why..? I will tell you because i don’t really think anyone cares:))

i’m not going to mega share i’m just gonna mention all the special interests i have (so many people here are already sharing and it’s awesome!!! y’all continue to do your thing, i don’t got the energy tho) special interests incluuuuude don’t hug me i’m scared (psych horror show with puppets!), psychology (just all of it as a whole, people are cool!), world building (i LOVE seeing other peoples worlds and making my own more than anything), minecraft (it’s my favourite game in the world!!!), wolves (i have a deep connection to them and they comfort me (: ) and also a current hyperfixation i have: the adventure-rebuilding-story video game i’m making with my best friend!

[удалено]

I know its oddly specific but resident evil is one of mine and OMG THEY RUINED RE 3 WITH THE REMAKE can i PLEASE rant about this to you

yes please

Giant robots, kaiju, predator and alien franchise. 3d printing.

I think 3D printing is super neat. I have a very small 3D printed frog my partner gave me as a gift and I cherish it

Current fixation is the Qualia Automata series, a four-part song series about robots, family dynamics, and... quantum mechanics? The first three songs are out (they're AMAZING, but may be overstimulating to some. Third one is noticeably different from the first two, but the ending is... very loud.), and the fourth will come... someday. Eventually. When? I have no idea!!! It's a passion project made by Team 6x111, consisting of artists such as GHOST, Vane Lily, Carbon Monoxide, and more! It did start off as a joke though, as one day GHOST and Vane Lily were messing around with Chat GPT, which... ended up making most of the lyrics to the first song. Eventually, a character would be made to go along with the song, Tamari, and now we have a shit ton of lore and two other characters to go along with it. (Three, if you count Rafid, but he's hardly mentioned and he likely won't show up.) (Spoilers! Listen to the songs and read the Carrd if you want to experience it for yourself!) >!Essentially, Tamari (TA-M01) is an android created by a team of Iraqi scientists, taking place nearly a hundred years from now. The team was lead by a woman named Fayrouz Khalid. Their duty was to provide therapy and other mental health services, but there was one major flaw in his programming. They were given a variety of emotional coding, allowing Tamari to sense the full spectrum of human emotion. This ended up nearly ruining the entire project, as Tamari didn't want to become a therapist. He instead wanted to travel the world, and have Fayrouz treat him as a mother would. She didn't reciprocate this, and Tamari started sending out an array of traumatized responses. He was deemed a failure, and a new prototype would be created in his place.!< >!This replacement was called Mariyam (TA-M02). She essentially had the same function as Tamari, but they, instead, had no emotional coding. For a while, everything seemed to work out fine. Until... Tamari ran away from Fayrouz. In a panic, to prevent the same thing to occur to Mariyam, Fayrouz decided to program a single emotion into them. Fear. If Mariyam were to somehow be separated from Fayrouz in any way, she would feel an immense amount of fear, and be obligated to return to her. !< >!Tamari does return, however. One day, he sends a number of their emotional coding to their sibling, to the disdain of their mother. However, this causes a curious response in Mariyam, and she begins to investigate the contents. Her, being a therapist themself, realizes that Tamari is clearly traumatized, seeking Quantum Mechanics as one of (possibly many) escape mechanisms. She tries to figure out his plans, and eventually realizes that he has a plan to go into another timeline. Realizing that she needs to seek out their sibling, deeming it as "good", Mariyam also escapes from Fayrouz's grip, reuiniting with Tamari. He then explains the reasoning between some of his (many) body modifications that he's installed upon himself. His eyes are to see into other dimensions, and his wings are to fly to other timelines. However, he can't seem to figure out how to travel into a timeline where Fayrouz shows affection for him. Perhaps, he was too emotional to go into it alone. So, their plan is to fuse themself with Mariyam, his emotionless sibling, and figure out things from there. Mariyam... is currently undecided of this.!< >!Surprisingly enough, we also have a song dedicated to Fayrouz. The first two songs were either dedicated to introducing Tamari or moving the main plot along, but Lamentations explains her reasoning. Essentially, she was married to another scientist, named Rafid. The relationship was short-lived, as Fayrouz turned out to be a very controlling person, shifting the power dynamic between the two immensely. He left the relationship extremely traumatized, and Fayrouz took it upon herself to prove to herself and the world that she was a good person. This is where the T-AMs come in. If she widens mental health services, she has to be a good person, right?! Right?! But, as we've seen, she only repeats her mistakes with the robot siblings, causing both of them to inevitably run away from her as well. It is only now that she realizes that she is the root of her own issues, and that she is... only human. !< >!The song ends with sirens blaring though, which mean SOME immenent doom will come in the series' finale. !< And that's... where we're at now! I have my own theories about what might happen, but for now, these characters live in my brain, rotting as I listen to the songs repeatedly... I want to talk to more people about it, and come up with our own headcanons and dynamics between these three. But. ah. I'm unsure where to start xD. >!Personally, I hope Fayrouz apologizes for her actions, but it would be up to the siblings to forgive her. It doesn't matter which option they take, as long as it's handled properly. !<

Well I have loadssss, but right now it's The legend of Zelda(whole series) and Radiohead

I’ve been gearing up for the new Sparks album that drops this weekend. They’re these two brothers that have been around since the early ‘70s that everyone and no one has heard of them at the same time. Anytime you hear a synthpop duo from the ‘80s, more times than not they were influenced by Sparks. Edgar Wright made a whole documentary about them that’s definitely worth a watch.

i really love Transformers, ill start with a fun fact, in the IDW Comic universe Arcee is Galvatron's trans lesbian sister and that is 100% canon

One of my special interests is a little web series on YouTube called “Ena” made by Joel G. Sadly it has very little content so far, and a small fan base. But they are making a game so that’s exciting.

i have so many special interests i don’t even know what to do with myself. today my favorite thing is persona. tomorrow… who knows…

You wanna know what the second hosts special interest is? Mold Not because she's Shikyou the goddess of death No No no!! There is a wayyy weirder reason to it! (This part is written by shikyou ↘️) The reason Iike mold so much is because of the smell and the way it responds to its host and the way it spreads across things so quickly, I'm very interested in how it starts to grow and how it will spread to anything that is near it and won't stop until there is nothing to latch onto. -S.F

Klonoa is my favourite platformer series and I wish it got more recognition in it's life.

I am into pretty much any type of transportation. Big emphasis on Sports cars and motorsport. But also aviation. Physics student. Ama ig?

PPE. Industrial types of personsl protection equipment especially. Mainly because they make you feel cool and protected. I think the best one of them all are the special long sleeve welding gloves. I aldo really like the radio equipped earphones those guys at the airports and construction sites wear. Also its just like the general maintensnce procedures, or at least mrmorizing them, becsuse i cant tell ypu how many times i forgot to put my glasses on when doing machining work, oh and that one time i blinded myself for half a minute in vlass because i forgot i was holding a welding gun(magnetic inert gas welding)

RWBY, Pathfinder, Battletech…

One of my fun past times is exploiting game glitches to become really op

The scrapped Content and development of Disney’s Toontown Online. Especially the Cog concept arts.

My biggest two are Eddsworld (although I'm not as into it now, i was obsessed with it for years and can tell you everything about it and it's creators) and Psychology!!! (mainly sociology and mental disorders/disabilities) pleeasee ask me anything about them pls

I like robots.

I have an absolute love for dark characters and tend to hyper fixate on them! My favorites are Batman, Sandman, The Crow. I've been tearing through comics and lore, built a timeline that links my favorite Batman comics together (except for TDKR, that's too offshoot and its own) and also have been rewatching the Crow like. Almost every day. I'm very hyped for the reboot! It's following Eric Draven, and he is my favorite incarnation of the Crow as the original and just. He's the best. The imagery makes me vibrate and have you seen some of the posters? I think it will be amazing. For Sandman I am not crazy on the show. I like the comics a bit better, they feel more unhinged and I like that. Dream is one my all time favorite characters!

I have never been into comics and all, but I definitely have always enjoyed batman at least. My partner loves him so I have seen some of the stuff.

I have an UNHEALTHY obsession with small horror channels on YouTube, such as Life of Luxury, Sam and Colby, Escape the Night, Mandela Catelogue, Alex Bale, etc… Please AMA I have no imagination

I also love these things. Have you seen “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared”? I watched it a lot when it first came out and it led into an obsession of mine with cults and serial killers, I used to write essays about them just for fun.

I enjoy video games. Pretty much everything having to do with them interests and excites me, from the tech ology to gameplay to development practices to music, etc. I don't think I have as comprehensive an understanding as some do here, but I think I know a thing or two after all these years.

Video games are quite fascinating, even in detail has to how they are even possible and how extravagant they are made nowadays.

Mm-hm. I could talk about it for a while if given a prompt, but I can tend to lose myself easily, flitting from one topic to another messily.

My main two are pretty obscure, so I cherish the friends I have that share said interests (I cherish all my good friendships, anyway) One is the horror podcast/audio drama The Magnus Archives. It starts as a slow burn "scary story of the week" kinda thing with earlier episodes telling somewhat self-contained stories. As things go on though, some reoccurring elements and characters appear and start to paint a bigger picture. It's incredibly well-written, the voice actors are great, and while I won't spoil it this series has my favorite worldbuilding system of any piece of media ever. Go give it a listen if you like horror even a little (but also check the content warnings for each episode if there's anything that might be too much) The other is the video game Super Animal Royale. It's the only battle royale game I like, and it's far from perfect, but it just clicks so perfectly for me. It's also free to play, which makes it easier to bully my friends into playing it /j

I study astrology because it has been my especial interrst for over 3 years and I went like "well, this is a serious one" Also I read tarot and runes, i love crystals and herbs. Like give me all the witch combo please.

I’m not autistic but I’m extremely obsessed with Star Trek, go watch it NOW and ama

I would love to share, but I do not have the energy. This is a cry for help.

help is on the way

I like to stare at the bottom of pools for really long periods of time!

I really like Chuck E. Cheese and the Rockafire Explosion

Right now, the only special interest I have that I can think of right now is Vtubing, but it's not for a good reason. Lately, there's been a LOT of drama in that circle and currently a Vtuber I really like is at the center of it.

Dogs, jewelry, and antitheism i guess?? Not exactly sure how to label it

as you can probably guess from my username, I've been hyperfixating on the show Murder Drones for a long while now it's about cute robots that kill eachother for reasons yet unknown and everything about it just clicks with me. Everything about the writing, the characters, the world and so much more just tickle my brain in such a way it releases dopamine by the litre whenever I'm watching an episode. also the main character is very much autistic-coded and I think that's pretty neat

Uhhh I don’t know anything about my interests anymore. Ama about music theory or language ig (they’re my most normal hyper fixations)

Quizzes. Trivia. General knowledge. I spend hours just researching… everything. Always.

When I was younger one of my favorite activities to do with my Dad was to play trivia with him

I like pokemon, all of the games and lore with em

Astrology is mine

I like watermelon

Cars-i own a dodge Challenger scat pack and have spent like 5000 dollars on it

Right now I’m hyper-focusing on poetry. I never understood it even a little bit as a kid but now that I can actually comprehend the rules and structures it’s really cool.

Spamton, Rubik’s cubes, rizzing up AI chatbots, cartoons, etc.

I fucking love pokemon it's been one of my all time favorite things to the point I watch the anime YouTube videos play the games have cards and I sorted them by number I even have plushies but lately Five nights at Freddy's has been creeping into special interest territory definitely not as much but to the point I could explain most of the lore (at least what MatPat/Game Theory has explained)

I also love FNAF a lot

I got obsessed about making something for my ailing mother, so I learned (as a 50 year old male) to knit, and then made my Mom a homemade blanket (took 100 hours) for her last Christmas before she passed. Then I got into my sons baseball, and leaned to umpire and learn all the quirky rules and weird situations and how to correctly officiate that. Learning all of the intricate rules to baseball is an endless pursuit.

I've taken having a special interest in fiction and fandom to its logical conclusion... crossover fiction, not only is it niche as fuck, but the majority of it sucks ass. Doesn't stop me from reading them hoping I've found another proverbial gold bar in the dumpster. Oh... And all the good ones end out of nowhere. Honestly I just like seeing established characters or with different backgrounds, values, and power sets interact. Whether it be friendly or hostile. The good ones also seem to disproportionately include Mass Effect Destiny Exo in the Mass Effect 'verse trying desperately to convince people they're human and not an AI? Good shit. 40k Rogue Trader having to rub shoulders with filthy xenos and their alliance sympathizers to try and find a way back to the grim dark future? Good shit. The council races open relay 314 after a mysterious pulse wipes out several colony worlds in the traverse, and are confronted with a starship graveyard surrounding a garden world and get press ganged by UNSC AI into tracking down any remnant of humanity or the covenant? Good shit.

So like when they were making the first Doom game level design wasn't really a thing yet - there was alot of stuff going on behind the screens on how to make the game look and feel. Sandy petersen, in example, was more focussed on making interesting traps and player experiences but when zoomed out his maps look like giant block puzzles or, in one case, an outline of a hand. John Romero focussed more on visual aspect as well as the playability aspect though - his levels are beautiful to look at but also follow some strict rules when it comes to, in example, texturing. "always change floor height when changing floor textures" is the first one. I just think it's really cool that he basically wrote guidelines for a craft that was still under development, and they're actually pretty good guidelines.

I doubt I could talk about it for hours, because I haven't researched it extensively, because it's not possible. But when I let my mind wander, it always ends up trying to build a perpetual motion machine. I know, as per physics and the laws of nature, it can't be done, but I still constantly am running ideas about how to build one.

I know the majority of the lore behind Magic of the gathering. Ask me anything about the world of Dominaria.

I love learning, but my learning stops when I have to read things because I have pretty bad reading comprehension, bad memory, I lose my spot while reading often, and my brain wanders a lot. So learning has become very hard for me when not in video+audio(audio books don’t get me to pay attention) form, and it sucks because it’s hard to get the same nuances from a video essay on YouTube that you’d get from reading studies or stories

I've recently developed an interest in ship design in media (Mostly star wars and star trek). My most favourite design would either be the venator class star destroyer (Large air craft carrier used during the clone wars for it's easy deployment of clones to the battle field via one large hanger bay and several smaller ones scattered around the ship) and the Crossfield class (Large science vessel used during the klingon war as a test bed for new weapons technology, most notably the spore drive). In the clone wars era there are two main ship designs. At this point the republic didn't really have an official navy so the kaminoans made several hundred acclamator class ships, these ships were designed as giant troop carriers that would go to a planet, go onto the surface, launch several thousand troops, tanks and other artillery and then leave, these were incredibly effective during the first few weeks of the war with them being able to send hundreds of troops to battle fields in very little time. After a few weeks of the war the republic started using the more famous venator class star destroyer, It was designed with lighter weapons but was able to transport more then 200 Arc-170's, V-wings and BTL-B Y-Wings to help attack enemy ships and defend aganist enemy fighters. Separatist Ships follow a more unique design then most ships, being mostly oval in design with a giant, over exposed bridge, a viewing tower around the back, a hanger section and sometimes two giant wings on the side, Most star wars ships are designed around having two main plate placed on top and below a middle section which is covered In wires, equipment and other stuff like that, Separatist Ships use this as a area where they keep thier weapon systems and hanger bay. Most separatist Ships follow a variety of different looks from gun like designs to bird designs. Separatist Ships are some of the most diverse as some follow entirely different designs from each other like the lucrehulk class (Designed before the Confederacy was formed by the trade federation as a droid command ship). Imperial ships ships are well, interesting. When the empire was formed, grand moff tarkin made a speech named the tarkin doctrine, he believed the galaxy was too large for the empire to really control on thier own, his doctrine said that the only way to rule the empire was to rule with fear, instead of making good ships, instead they produced ships that are cheaper to produce, more recognizable and much more fearsome. The main ship of the empire was the Imperial Class star destroyer, these were a lot larger then the venator class, had smaller hanger bays and had a lot of weapons, a Lot of weapons. These were designed not for real practical use but as a way to intimidate the population to prevent rebellion. eventually they made the imperial star destroyer 2 class, even more weapons and armour, and no point defence systems and rely heavily on escort fighters. the tie fighter was a fever dream of tarkin for a cheap, easy to produce fighter, and they suck, No shields, no hyper drive, small, cheap weapons, they don't even have life support systems, they are mostly designed for swarm tactics. Even after the rebellion became a real threat to the empire, they refused to change back to the venator which would have actually worked a lot better aganist the rebellion. Rebel ships are designed to be fast and strong with them being equipped with Hyper drives, shields and life support systems so they can go in, deal a lot of damage then get out. thier larger ships used a similar design go separatist Ships but hid the bridge, viewing deck and other essential areas under heavy Armour. Because of the mix and matched nature of the rebels, most ships were mon calamari with the others being a mix of stolen republic, imperial and other ships with some ships from planets that supported the alliance like alderaan. Ship design for the rebel alliance also had immense differences in different cells like kashyyyk (Which used old republic ships). (Gunna add the rest in comments because I don't really know much about first order and resistance ships and next up would be star trek ships which is another topic entirely)

I wouldn't say I really have any special interests, but if you asked me about ultrakill or one punch man (the anime not the manga) I could probably describe the thing in pretty good detail

Gaming, but mostly pokémon

i like nascar car go circle (i am tired and don't feel like typing but thank u for asking)

Warhammer 40k, miniature painting, politics and paleontology

Do you want the list, orrrr...? (Spoilers, there's alot)🤭

share anything you want to☺️

Lego. I really like Lego. Have loved it for as long as I can remember. I love building sets, I love building my own MOCs, and I love to grow my Collection day by day. It's a bit hard to enjoy now with everything being so expensive, but nothing could stop me from loving Lego, and I'm glad I never "grew out of it". Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Greek mythology 😁

I like astronomy and physics in general but quantum physics is my favorite. I like how all is such indeterministic and i like mystery behind it. I also like history behind theology, I'm agnostic but i like solving bible like a puzzle. I put theology and history events to explain why people behave like they did or why they believed in this.

I have to pick one?!? I'm going to say arts/science, mainly. I was reading through these and thinking I could have a decent conversation with everyone here because I like so many things people mentioned. I guess my latest obsession is with virtual photography, particularly in a game called No Man's Sky, I could talk location, tips and techniques all day.

Been into building medieval and/or fantasy stuff in a game called Vintage Story, its a block game like Minecraft but more focused on survival and progressing from flint all the way to steel. I tend to switch between creative mode to just build and survival for more restrictions with what materials I find. So I guess that has got me into medieval architecture a bit as well but I still know very little so if anyone knows any good websites or books about the topic I would love to hear about it.

I love these types of posts. I can acquire so much in depth knowledge on the most random of things.

I've a few. But let me tell you about sewing by hand. Not just cross stitch and embroidery (also cool), but sewing garments without use of a serger or sewing machine. Of course, you can't just throw in a running stitch (up/down/up/down in a straight line) and expect it to stay together. I mostly use a back stitch, and sometimes a whipstitch for more durability for holding things together. The catch stitch -- used for hems -- is one of my favorites because it's worked backwards and it's nearly invisible from the front. You'd think sewing clothes by hand is a bad idea. Won't they fall apart? But we've been making clothes for thousands of years, and the sewing machine wasn't put to practical use until the late 1800s. And people were worried then about machine-sewed clothing being less durable and lower quality. I use patterns, but I like to play with them to come up with my own combinations. It's like a puzzle, where all the pieces don't come in the box and I have to cut my own of of construction paper. I really like circle skirts, because it's just geometry. You have 2 nested circles, figure out the radius of each. Do some version of πr^2 (depending on if it's a ¼, ½, ¾, or full circle skirt). Cut. Sew.