Oh my god. So my mom has proposed a total ban on political debates on Thanksgiving and she intends to enforce this by not only putting up a sign at the dinner table….but by also arming everyone with cheap plastic kazoos….which we will toot aggressively if The Discourse™ begins to occur…..
I’m so glad.
Bad and naughty discoursers must be silenced by the KAZOO OF CIVILITY.
my brother is teaching his cat how to high five by giving her a treat every time she successfully taps her hand to his hand, which is all well and good, but now she thinks that she is entitled to food every time she high fives someone. i can’t eat in the same room as her anymore because she’ll just bap my hand rapid fire and then go nyoom straight in for my pizza like no Kelly that’s illegal go finish ur own dinner
“No Kelly, that’s illegal.”
So, a while back, I was using clicker-training to teach my cat Taz tricks. She learned very quickly and it was a good experience all around, but we had to hide the clicker.
Taz had learned that the clicker meant she got treats. So she would find it, carry it up to people, step on it to make it click, and then SCREAM AT THEM to give her the treats she was clearly owed because the clicker had made a sound.
you know how taako is a dick at the start of the podcast, like more than usual, back before he starts really caring about the people around him?
i headcanon that a reason why he’s so pissed at lucretia, other than the obvious, is bc she made him be alone, truly alone, for the first time in his life, and taako got to learn what he’s like when he doesn’t have people to lean on.
bc he always had lup, even when he had no one else he always had lup, and when they joined the starblaster he had a solid group of people for a hundred years. whenever he got dangerously towards the neutral side of neutral good there was someone to pull him back.
but then lucretia takes those memories, and suddenly all taako has, all he ever had, is himself. he does what he has to and he closes himself off more than he ever had when he had lup or the starblaster crew. taako becomes a version of himself who’s only ever had himself to rely on.
and even when his memories come back and he’s whole again, he still knows what he became when he was alone with no one to lean on or pull him back, and he doesn’t like that person. i think taako believes that’s what he’s like, deep down, and he hates it, and now he’s stuck with that knowledge forever.
This is something I’ve thought for a while.
Taako’s a pragmatist, a realist, he’s always been that way even when he had Lup. He’s more than willing to do the hard arithmetic, destroy the crystal to keep it from the Hunger or watch the Grand Relics slowly destroy Faerun knowing it’s preferable to the alternative. That’s who he is.
It’s just that without Lup, he’s more of that person. That person never had any checks or balances on their selfishness. That person never knew the stalwart love of a sibling who was always there for them. That person believed they grew up alone, that the world was harsh and cruel and held no mercy, that you had to be as harsh, as cruel, in order to simply survive.
(It’s part of why I think the idea that Taako wasn’t in complete, dominant control in his relationship with Sazed is crazy. Taako with Lup, maybe. Taako without Lup? Not a chance. He exploited that poor sap for all he was worth. But because Taako’s not as clever as he thinks he is, he didn’t see how that would end.)
Taako with Lup almost certainly wouldn’t like Taako without Lup. And vice versa, which is almost worse.
