u/MCWarhammmer

In the source material, Captain Smollett's first name is Alexander. I can't think of any way in which it would be a pun or play on words in context. Does the name 'Alexander' have some offensive connotation in like Australia or something? Was the writer just working from hazy memories of the book and misremembered a name? It's just such a weird tiny meaningless thing to change for seemingly no reason.

I love Persian cats so much but I have tragically never met one in real life. If anyone else in Austin, Texas has a Persian cat who is chill with strangers it would absolutely make my day if you could bring them to a public park so I could see and touch one in person. I need to boop their little pushed in nose before I die.

Me and a friend are taking Amtrak from Austin to Los Angeles on the 10th and the train has a four hour layover in SA, which would ordinarily be great, but the problem is it's from 10:45-2:45. Is there anything interesting downtown that's open around then?

I want to headcanon that Annabeth and Grover just found a lost dog poster for Gladiola while Percy was out and told him Grover talked to the dog to see if he'd buy it, but I'm not 100% sure if there was another scene I forgot about where satyrs were confirmed to actually have that ability.

Apparently according to Witness eschatology, only 144,000 people will get to actually go to Heaven Heaven and hang out with God and Jesus when Armageddon comes, and the rest will merely get to be immortal on a utopian paradise Earth. Only members of that 144,000 are allowed to partake of the bread and wine at the annual Memorial of Christ's Death, except that there's no external test or vetting on any kind to prove you're one of the anointed, anyone is free to self-identify. With 9 million Witnesses worldwide, I would've expected them to have gone over that number and revised doctrine long ago, but apparently that hasn't happened yet. How is this maintained? When you really seriously believe in a religion, it's very easy to see mundane events as messages from the divine. Did anyone here ever know anyone who claimed to be part of the anointed 144,000? How did they claim to know?

The specific case is, the trading card game Magic: The Gathering has been doing more and more crossover sets with other IPs in recent years, and several Wizards of the Coast employees have publicly pledged to resign if they do a Harry Potter one because of JK Rowling's opinions on trans people, which people have said that given that it takes years to develop a set would give us an advance warning if that's going to happen. But doesn't that defeat the whole point of the NDA they sign to not reveal that information? Would Wizards be able to prohibit them from quitting their jobs until the official announcement?