still laughing about the part of the maddie and buck conversation where she’s trying to get to the heart of him essentially coming out to her and he keeps being like NOT THE POINT. and she’s like ISNT IT?????

why is religious Christmas imagery all so joyful and pleasant? where is the inherent horror of the birth of Christ? A mother is handed her newborn child, wailing and innocent. Her hands come away sticky. Red. Simply by giving her son life she has already killed him. He is doomed from the beginning. Her love will not save him from suffering. Because the thing cradled in her arms is not a baby, it is a sacrifice: born amongst the other bleating animals whose blood will one day be spilled in the name of what demands it. the night is silent with anticipation. Mary, did you know? That your womb was also a grave?

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

sometimes I think of all the on-the-surface warm, well-meaning but deeply ineffectual advice and attention john gives harrow through harrow the ninth (make some soup and get some sleep! get a hobby! don't be so hard on yourself! self care harrow! as long as I need take no actual responsibility in this relationship whatsoever I would have loved to be your dad!) set up against the stark truth that with his other hand he has been staging her attempted horrific murder again and again and again like a living nightmare on the logic that it will 'put her down or fix her'. and then I find that I wish there is a hell. a special hell where twitch streamers turned necromantic death emperors go

I know a normal amount abt waistcoats

As much as I adore conlangs, I really like how the Imperial Radch books handle language. The book is entirely in English but you're constantly aware that you're reading a "translation," both of the Radchaai language Breq speaks as default, and also the various other languages she encounters. We don't hear the words but we hear her fretting about terms of address (the beloathed gendering on Nilt) and concepts that do or don't translate (Awn switching out of Radchaai when she needs a language where "citizen," "civilized," and "Radchaai person" aren't all the same word) and noting people's registers and accents. The snatches of lyrics we hear don't scan or rhyme--even, and this is what sells it to me, the real-world songs with English lyrics, which get the same "literal translation" style as everything else--because we aren't hearing the actual words, we're hearing Breq's understanding of what they mean. I think it's a cool way to acknowledge linguistic complexity and some of the difficulties of multilingual/multicultural communication, which of course becomes a larger theme when we get to the plot with the Presgar Translators.

When ppl will create a "curvy" girl character and get pretty much the whole body's proportions right, obviously they're putting emphasis on bust/hips but it seems like it's being executed well--- except that they completely, fully, and deliberately, skip the stomach entirely. Just nothin there. Not even a whisper. I'm like. Just sack up, make it make sense and be honest with yourself by making it official and say it's canon that they got a tummy tuck. You cowardly ass, yellow bellied, wet brained, upside-down dog mouthed dirty bitch.

hot guard summer

Trans dude whose favourite NFL team are the Packers

hear me out on scag x split guys. they both start with "s" it's practically canon.

@nowfallc PICTURE!! FOR YOU!! PLEASE TAKE IT!! <3

Say it’s likely there will be a Brokeback Mountain reference in s5 and nobody bats an eye.

Say it’s likely that the final byler fight will be inspired by this scene and society goes wild.

soukoku's brand of trust where it's so not obvious yet painfully clear to everyone at the same time.

like at first everyone in the cast might see them and actually buy how much they hate each other but one mission later they're convinced skk can read each other's minds and are so intuned with one another they can find each other deaf, dumb and blind.

chuuya will let himself be swept up in a flood and be played at the side of a madman, knowing dazai has a plan, that he'll make sure they both oull through. dazai will sit and keep an unwavering stare down the barrel of a gun and let his partner fire it into his skull, with all the confidence that chuuya will not let him die.

and everyone thinks there's no blind faith because there's only deeply familiar trust; they know every part of each other, they understand each other, they can pinpoint the ins and outs of their partner's thoughts and feelings, they know how to read each other, know what makes them tick. and so everyone else in their lives thinks their trust is the trust between two halves of a single soul that is familiar with the other enough to place their lives in a rival's hands.

what they don't see is what goes even further, where they wordlessly bare to each other the parts that aren't known. chuuya will surrender his soul to unleash a being of calamity with only the belief that dazai will bring him back, save his life, stop him from razing the world to the ground.

dazai will reach out his hand to a boy he barely knows with solid faith that they will beat this enemy together, he will openly laugh until he's teary-eyed, express his worries, and his blatant shock, share his musings out loud without a facade of an all-knowing genius who doesn't struggle to understand his foes.

i don't even know where i was going with this but they make me INSANE

you ever just have a lot, a LOT of feelings all at once about a character and not even remotely enough words or brainpower to FORM the words to describe everything you're feeling. so it feels like you may explode. yeah

I can't stop thinking about Colin on his travels. Colin, alone, on a journey to 17 different cities, across several countries. Colin on his own.

Colin who writes letter after letter, to his family, to his friends, and barely gets a response back. How long before he understands that they didn't get lost in the mail? How long until he realizes that, just like when he was a boy, no one has the time for him? The space for him? How many letters unanswered before he lets it finally take root and fester in his mind?

He could have died on that tour.

Would they even notice? Would they see when the letters slow until they cease? Would they wonder why? His mum, surely (maybe, possibly, but she has enough on her hands, besides, and he's never been a concern, in need of her assistance, before), but anyone else? Anthony on his honeymoon, Eloise a stormcloud personified, Benedict taking on the familial responsibilities, Fran preparing for the marriage mart and in Bath, regardless. Daphne, his closest sister, a mum running her own estate.

Greg and Hyacinth who enjoy his stories, but are children.

Pen who ignores him. No explanation, no goodbye.

Colin who has no one in his corner. Colin who travels city to city, putting on personas. Will they like me? What about now? Colin who has hardly anything to read from the people he loves. Who do not think of him.

And yet he thinks of them. Brings them back gifts, writes his recollections for them until it hits him that, oh, they don't care. They don't care what he's doing, how he's doing. They didn't want to hear it before, when he was there with them, and they do not want to hear it now, either. Did they even open those envelopes? Did they see them come through the post, just as proof he's alive, and shrug off the contents? Did they look? Once, Colin sends an empty page. No one notices. Easier, then, to send just the outsides. People only ever care about the outsides. Pretty and prim in neat packages, uncaring of what lies beneath. Sea sick on the rocking boats, staring up at stars on the continent, Colin grows aware, but not bitter. Sad, but resigned.

He loves his family, he loves Pen, loves them to grace, loves them to it's okay. It was him, he determines. Too chatty, his letters too long, uninteresting, his passions dull or droll, or else, worse, he's displeased them in some way. Colin who takes refuge in stranger's arms and homes, who dreams and tries to sate his curiosity. Colin who pretends, because anyone, anyone but him would be received better, he's sure of it. Colin who must talk too much, surely, and with no one to listen. Colin who learns to hush.

Yes. Remarkable- as in, I have many remarks about it.

How many times did he go to excitedly write of what he did that week, and stopped himself, knowing it was a waste? How many times did he write and throw into the fire a letter asking Why don't you see me? Why don't you care?

If he didn't make it, how long would it take for anyone to notice? A month? Two? A year? Would they wave it off as his frivolity, denounce him as a flake and fume about the funds? Would they wonder where it was he had lost himself off at?

He cannot fall into that, so, he writes in his journal, instead. Of the ache of it, of how he longs for connection, for understanding, for someone to take him seriously. He keeps it with him, this log of his discontent, of his folly and felicity, of his pitfalls and pains.

If he didn't make it, would they realize all that's left of him is what he sent them, not even a body to bury? Did he look over the side of a bow of a boat and look at the churn of the ocean and think of how many bones it held? Did he tip his face to the sun? How many new scars did he earn? Who did he befriend?

Who did he become?

Somewhere along the line, Colin learned. He learned the real him wasn't wanted.

Somewhere along the line, somewhere between Patmos and Paris, Colin left Colin behind.

And, somewhere along the line, Colin laid face to face with loneliness in his bed, and it wrapped its arms around him.

So I've been wondering about one particuar point on the "Jiang Cheng marriage recquirement" list and it's the one about low cultivation.

Now on its face, except for the "must be nice to jin ling" point, the whole thing just looks like the most standard list of "ideal wife characteristics under a patriarchal society." naturally beautiful, graceful and obedient, coming from a good family, voice not too loud, etc. This leads to either the interpretation that jiang cheng really wants that (doubt dot png) or just... put all the most stereotypical things on a list even though that's not what he really wants.

In that context "cultivation must not be too high" sounds like a typical "men are scared of women who are smarter/stronger" thing. you know, the dudes who feel 'intimidated' when their wife or girlfriend makes more money than them.

...Except wasn't Yanli openly mocked for her low cultivation? Like, wasn't one of the reasons Jin Zixuan was such an ass to her initially because he shallowly assumed her lower cultivation made her an unworthy marriage candidate? Jin Guangshan may hate women who can read but society overal doesn't give the impression that high cultivation in women is seen as something undesirable. I mean... a wife that never looks like she's over 20 even as she starts aging? yeah I have no problem believing a misogynistic society is okay with high cultivation.

So if it's not there just to fit the stereotypical standard of an ideal wife...

Jiang Cheng, are you just describing your sister?

LIke?? Every single point on this list applies to Yanli. All of them. I don't mean this in a freudian incest-y way but in a "jiang cheng are you so unaware of what you want in a partner you just took the only woman you've had an unambiguously good relationship with and hoped no one would notice???" way. Does he know the difference in what you should like about your sister and what you should like in a spouse? Is he even aware he's doing this? Jiang Cheng answer meeeee.