Yay, Suzi. Lots of rain~ma for Colorado.

So I'm guessing a gift of something covered in beads would be a bad idea.

Weirdly, I think I'd be okay with that. For me, it's something to do with patterns, and not even all patterns. I just know it (or feel it) when I see it.

And I totally did NOT click on the flaming Z link.

I swear, it's just fire! Monochrome fire! But she couldn't really even talk about it, it was making her heart race and she was visibly flinching. She tried to get me to bring it up again, so she could steel herself, but it clearly wasn't working.

That link of other people saying it bothered them--I don't even know if she could read it, but I will tell her that it's there, and that there's a Buffista that shares her squick.

It is *totally* the weirdest phobia I've ever encountered though. I can't make the lotus pod DO NOT CLICK, GC!!! even vaguely disturbing to me. She got one on her plate once, and someone had to take it off and hide it under their lettuce. Which she regarded suspiciously for the rest of the meal.

I think banning people and telling them to sock puppet back in is entirely the wrong solution. I think banning them is unfair (if they're not pursuing, recruiting, or regaling), but hiding them when they come back--I'm assuming that they outed themselves, right? Then that should be their problem. Giving everyone else a false sense of security (did they take him up on this suggestion? who is that new person????) and an overlarge sense of paranoia is doubly dumb and not good modding.

I swear, it's just fire! Monochrome fire!

I kind of think the honeycomb/lotus pod thing is freaky, especially close-up. I wouldn't call my reaction phobic, though. Just "Ew, too many holes!"

Anyway, I clicked your monochrome fire link, and I wonder if somehow the texture made a pattern that got too close to honeycombing?

I do have to say the "lotus boob" thing does really bother me, but not to phobia levels.

The fires scare me- I am glad I live in blizzard/ice storm country and not fire country.

"Ew, too many holes!"

When I try and fake it, it hinges on worms coming out of all the holes. But that's about potential worms...I don't know if it's the same thing.

I guess leaking pus would work too, if it's the right colour.

Oh, god, if it was pulsating and seeping...and moist!

Good god, what exactly is my motivation here?

I can't do IO9 today. Everything is too difficult, and today is too difficult offline. My god, the freakouts. I'm so fucking old, man. They're all "We'll make a lifeboat! It'll be just like before!" Don't flatter yourself, kids. That community can't actually survive and thrive without the content around which it now accumulates. I can't always say when they can, but I'm pretty sure of myself when I point out ones that can't.

Because I'm old. And battered.

I don't see how that faming z would trigger the phobia, but then again I don't share it so not really working from a place of understanding it viscerally in the first place. (Except for the skin-dwelling frog babies. Freaking at the sight of THAT I get all too well...)

I am weirded out by saying Colbert is doing better arouse-face here: [link] , but maybe this has to do with my singlehood? Is that what it's supposed to look like? Because I may have been confusing some cues...

When I try and visualise the chick with the spermatophores in her mouth, I think I'm working with a lotus podlike visual. And I guess I got my worms.

I think today is garlic fries.

OMG you guys are killing me! t shudder

I am trying to think if I currently have any real phobias. When I was young (up through my teenage years, actually), I was screaming and crying afraid of thunderstorms, teeter-totters, slides, amusementpark rides, ladders, russian hogweed, and any weird mutated animal or plant.

Now, I don't really encounter these things- but I can do ladders and thunderstorms. I don't LOVE ladders, and I like to be firmly planted on the ladder (unlike lighting technicians), and I am not at all afraid of thunderstorms.

I don't care for bridges, but I am able to walk over them. I really don't care for grated bridges, and have to force myself. I guess the only real thing is that I cannot ride a bicycle over a bridge, I have to walk it. I would say that my fear of falling on a bicycle isn't really unfounded, though.