Okay, HEAR ME OUT!

I legit believe Alastor can't stop smiling!

Like, I loved his little smile speech in ep 7 and I think he stands by it but I feel like whoever he made a deal with forced that smile on him, to like mock him.

In like a " OH, you're always smiling? Well let's make it permanent then" sort of way, cause how do you explain this then?!?!

First of all! He is shocked and dumbfounded here! His guard is down, the mask is off and so is the voice, why isn't the face?!

Secondly, here! You're telling me he can take a blow like that and still keep up the smile? No way! This is a deadly hit!

And finally, this! His Shadow is not smiling and it was said that it's like an extension of him! It's showing his true feelings because HE physically Can't!

P.S. I forgot about this too.

These stitches that probably prevent him from talking about his deal.

Like it could be just so he looks like a voodoo doll but why wouldn't they make it look like the smile is stitched On and not Shut ?

And that green! Why would they incorporate it into his outfit if it was his own power, like with Vox for example!

The fact that I am being driven crazy by the strange obsession a lot of tma Tumblr users have with a wrong interpretation of Michael Distortion is actually so Distortion coded it's kinda funny

The other day, I was doomscrolling on Reddit when I bumped into a post about CC and after reading and interacting in the comments I felt that people judge her too harshly and they don't really understand her character 😭

C'mon, guys, two wrongs don't make one right. No, CC didn't deserve to be bullied all the time. There were pranks that IRL would be interpreted as assault! Besides, she was often insulted just for being her. Yeah, she was the main antagonist and yeah, she had a rather unpleasant personality (especially in the first seasons). Like, it's a moot point to discuss that, but the "good people" also had their shortcomings lol Sometimes they also acted selfish or were kinda of aloof (quick examples here, Fran post-season 3 and her obsession with the "take it back"... and now I reference it, Max's emotional immaturity too. Fran sometimes wasn't a good "bestie" for Val...). Yet, their faults are overlooked while CC's ones are not.

She is what she is, but, to quote herself, "I'm not a well woman". Do you expect a person of her social class, who was basically raised by nannies (divorced and "busy" parents who compensated with throwing a lot of money, standoffish siblings), to become a nice woman and for that bullying is justified? CC's treatment by the audience is a little bit unfair, imo 🥺

Also a gif below from @sayingitwithgifs I find useful to illustrate my wall of text

August you little piece of shit.

Could you stop and think for once before doing something, especially when you already know that Day likes you romantically?! You already knew that you could not reciprocate his feelings so you decided to lie and pretend hoping it would make Day feel better?? What kind of rationalizing is this? Dude, c'mon.

Day is not just dealing with his romantic feelings here and you cannot just assume that you can fill in a role temporarily just to give him good memories and feelings. NOBODY FEELS GOOD BEING LIED TO. Take your pity and stuff it up your ass. I cannot feel any sympathy for him. If you want to make Day feel good and happy be genuine about it. It's very simple.

If you already knew that you did not like him that way, then why did you initiate that kiss?

Did Day confess directly to you so you felt the need to take some action? NO.

Did Day tell you that he had a crush on someone and you were scared of losing him? NO.

Then why would you kiss him and then reject him when he kisses back? What tomfoolery is this? Are you living in your imagination and you think your actions have no consequences? Did you suddenly think that by kissing him things would naturally fall into place? NO AUGUST. THAT'S NOT HOW LOVE WORKS.

Bees. Fucking bees man.

how many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man

him 🥺

I FORGOT TODAY WAS THE DAY WITH NO ELECTRICITY THEY TOLD US ABOUT A FEW MONTHS AGO I KNEW ID FORGET ABOUT IT THE DAY IT WOULD COME

Jin Ling, man I pity the kid.

The Untamed Spoilers (Up to Episode 47)

*I haven't read the novel, I will update this when I do. Also, this is a rant, not some analysis, so this is heavily opinionated on what I just binge watched for the past week.*

Dead parents, raised during a time after war but during the corruption and manipulation lead by his own clan, his clan leader being human scum without him even knowing, his martial uncle being the one to have had killed his parents, bullied because of him being an orphan, raised by his maternal uncle who can't handle his emotions well either.

This kid gave me the impression of an arrogant spoiled kid who always let uncle take care of the messes he creates. But Jin Ling has impressed me and made me feel so bad for his character. He's just a teen, so of course he's going to act like a bit of a brat and be super emotional. But, him being emotional is explained and a little justified. Not just the trauma and the bullying explains and justifies it but so does the fact that he was practically raised by Jiang Cheng, the guy not well known for keeping his temper in check.

Jin Ling gets aggressive and easily on the defense because that's how he had to be his entire life. Emotionally defensive and physically defensive. He especially gets this way with Wei Wuxian, obviously because of what he's been told all his life. That Wei Wuxian is basically the root of all of his problems, he's the one that killed his parents, so he's the cause of all of his trauma right? (I have a separate rant for how I think Wei Wuxian is only half responsible for that).

But, as Jin Ling had an inkling of an idea that Mo Xuanyu was actually Wei Wuxian, he still interacted with him in a somewhat civil way, helping him and defending him, because he was never really hurt directly by him. After finding out that it really was Wei Wuxian, Jin Ling stabs him, as a way to get revenge? Feel justice?

And everything that unfolds after that, both Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng feel conflicted, they want to be mad at Wei Wuxian, they want to still believe that their anger, their grief, their feelings overall are justified, that the impression they've had of this man for years is what they really think. I mean, it's pretty hard to truly believe someone you thought of as a nasty, disgusting, manipulating, lying, malicious killer would actually be a responsible, caring, thoughtful, and very self-sacrificing individual. Of course Jiang Cheng knows all of that, but he can't just let go of the first hand experiences he's had with him all of his life.

Meanwhile, Jin Ling, he's so conflicted with how to feel because what he's been told all of his life is contrasting heavily with what he's personally experienced.

Also, the scene where Wen Ning is trying to see if Lan Sizhui is really Wen Yuan most likely made Jin Ling very cautious, aggressive, angry, and depressed because he was maybe jealous. Jealous that he can't have a nice, touching family reunion like how he did. Well, also because Wen Ning was also the direct cause of his father's death, but besides that, the scene probably felt like a huge slap in the face.

Jin Ling's family history isn't perfect, but he at least has two family members who are willing to protect him and keep him safe (I am of course including Wei Wuxian even though I know he isn't blood family or even considered Jiang Cheng's brother anymore).

I just wish him the best, I wish this kid can learn how to cope better with all of his trauma, that he can grow up to know the full truth about what had all went down.

When he broke down crying in front of everyone, all I wanted to do was jump into the screen and hug him, comfort him. This kid seriously needs a therapist.

Asså det är nånting som ändå är så fking roligt med att folk anklagar Tattoo för att vara plagiat. För hmmm, vilka kan de va som har skrivit låten, hmmmm, KAN de va våra kungar G-son och Jimmy Jansson (svar ja, det är det)???

Jimmy har fan skrivit 33 mellolåtar, och G-son har fan i mig skrivit, och håll i hatten nu:

🥁🥁🥁

99 (!!!!!!!) låtar för mello och eurovision????

👏90👏 fucking 👏9👏

Varav 61 av dem är för Sverige, men övriga är

11 för Spanien

6 för Norge

5 var för Danmark och Finland

3 för Georgien

2 var för Polen och Malta

&

1 var för Cypern, Lettland, Rumänien och Belgien

(Källa Wikipedia, jag tänker bara utgå från att de stämmer för tänker inte göra nån mer research än så lol)

Asså ge mannen ett break, klart att han inte kan skriva 99 helt 100% superorginella, never ever heard before ultra hittdängor??? Gubben skulle ju fan vara omänsklig isåfall

”Tattoo låter EXAKT som Winner takes it all” nej det gör den verkligen inte, men även om den gjorde de skulle de fan vara rimligt tbh

I feel like every little thing with my job sets me off now, so I'm sorry if you're tired of me ranting about it and then continuing to work here. I'll keep this "below the fold" so you can move on if you're not interested. I really won't be offended and I have no true way of knowing which of the dozen or so of you will read this anyway. Also, it's me so I'm not looking for sympathy but I'm also trying to learn not to push away other people's affection so...do what you want?

Also, if you feel like this is something that could be part of some larger conversation about work and capitalism or whatever, then please feel free to reblog it. I don't really think this will be enough to explode my career, and if it does, then it was on shaky enough ground anyway.

The company I work for got acquired by another, much larger and more famous company (and a rather infamous one here on Tumblr) about five years ago. Eh, why am I being cagey? I work in email compliance and privacy for Marketo and we got acquired by Adobe.

Anyway, I'd been through a couple of acquisitions before but this one was pretty cool. A big name Silicon Valley company! A cool campus to tour in San Jose! A new office space in the same city I lived in, and with only a 45 minute walk from home to office! Really, pretty cool.

Over time the excitement on my part and Adobe's part seemed to wane a bit. There were new acquisitions and we were no longer in the spotlight. That's alright, things happen, time moves on, and ultimately I just kept working, because abuse never stops and companies keep buying lists.

But after my mentor left for another company we got a new manager, and he's great, but he's been with Adobe for a while, and most of his focus is on the Adobe part of the business that he manages, and he cares about us and fights for us when he can, but we're definitely not his primary focus. Also, in the past couple of years the workload that myself and my one coworker/colleague do has steadily increased. To make things worse this year they finally implemented a huge change in what CRM we're using and it's causing all kinds of havoc because most of us who are directly working with customers now have to manage two portals or figure out which customer matches with which or educate yet another person on where to go to accomplish what they need. We also started getting direct feedback loop (FBL) reports from a new company that seems to only send them in a new-ish format that has been accepted across the industry but is honestly not really used by it, but our system can't parse it so we have to process every single one manually rather than feed it to a bot that can automatically process it, further increasing our workload. We've also been told that there's a team who can help us to automate certain aspects of our work, so we submitted examples of what we need help with and they said it seemed doable and since then...nothing. To top it off, during a recent "town hall" quarterly all-hands I asked a question in the chat that was basically "In light of the strong performance we've done can we hire more people to support our customers and colleagues?" and the answer is "No, because we don't want to have to lay people off if there's any kind of downturn."

Okay, so...not great.

So now, today, the day before Thanksgiving, the week after Open Enrollment closed, the day after I accepted the Year End Check In on my calendar - which will be grueling because, as noted above, we've been over worked and under staffed so I haven't been able to get to any of the projects that I was hoping to get to this year - I saw an email from Adobe that looked like it was part of the corporate spam we get every freaking day, and it was from the HR company/portal we use, so I clicked on it and

OOPS

Looks like you clicked on an Adobe Phishing Test Link

Read here to see how you could have prevented this...

And I'm incensed right before a holiday, and I just hate it.

Because as much as I hate to admit it I really bought into the corporate capitalism of America from a young age, bought into the shiny toys and apps and promises of "helping" people ("And if we happen to turn a profit, that's great, too!") to the point that my dissolution with capitalism has been a long, slow, denial-ridden journey.

And that's because it can be all too easy to regard those earning the joke that is minimum wage as being the only victims of capitalism and wage theft, but if we're being honest just about anyone who isn't making millions of dollars a year to tell the world and their subordinates how great their company is is really just sitting in a pot of water that is slowly getting hotter.

We're all being paid the least amount of money that companies believe they can get away with while trying to extract the most work out of us they can legally get away with, and they're probably getting even more than that if we're being honest.

So to get regular emails about how this organization put us on a list of the best places to work for or another invitation to another seminar about how I can work on being more efficient or less sad because, you know, that's apparently 100% my doing, and then get an email that I don't bother to really scan because, like I said, given everything it seems pretty legitimate, to be told "Well, you fucked up" was just the one more thing that I didn't need this year.

I really hate to sound like the middle-aged white man that I am, but I'm just tired of not being respected for the working professional that I am. I've been in this role for eight years. I know how to talk to customers about the actions they've taken that have caused harm to their reputation, or what abuse has been foisted upon them by malicious actors; I know how to engage with Support and customer managers and run Compliance Team meetings that focus on what's important; I know what blocklists are important and actually affect our customers; I know, engage with, and am friends with people who run the email servers at companies you know and might actually use; I'm one of two people who manage thousands of IPs and domains for thousands of customers, trying to protect the network's reputation and safety from the customer's own actions and also outside actions of people who would do nothing but abuse our systems all day if they could.

And what am I told by my company?

"We can't help you because it would make us sad if we had to let people go! :("

"Have you considered not having the feelings you're experiencing during work time and just working more instead?"

"Uh, oh! We send you so much spam that you fell for our trick! This is all your fault."

What does the company value? Is it me and my time?

No surprise, AI is the buzzword of 2023 in the tech world, and email is seen as more of a forgotten backbone that I think people believe is 100% automated. Meanwhile the valiant few of us are knee deep in water in the bottom of the boat with duct tape and Gatorade.

When I've complained about work or my career in the past it's felt more like angry grunts; this is kind of the most articulate that I can really be about it.

I'll be 46 next year when I take my sabbatical. If something doesn't really change at all I might have to make some tough choices.

I'm afraid of trying to change careers or companies (if I even can; people much more experienced than I am are being laid off right now).

I'm afraid of trying to go back to school while I'm working because I just don't think I'll have the bandwidth for it, and I don't know what I'd go to school for, or if it would pay what I'm earning now.

I'm afraid of staying where I am.

I know I earn okay. I know I have benefits and that I can work from home in my pajamas.

But I also know that the good times I have with work are less and less these days, and opening my laptop is more of an invitation to an assault on my confidence and self-worth than ever before. And that's just not sustainable.

People will come up with any excuse to use AI for "cute trends" so they don’t have to feel bad about using a software that trains with stolen art. "It’s just for fun". Learn how to draw or commission actual artists and stop using AI that uses stolen art to create your "fun trends". Or at least admit you don’t care instead of acting smug about it.

everytime i read this passage in Eric’s book i want to hug and cry with him. while i love all four 10cc members equally, i still feel for Eric for the way Graham, Lol and Kevin left him out of the loop when they were trying to sort out the direction the group was headed. Eric didn’t deserve any of that, if they had any issues with him the three of them should’ve came up to him and talk it out instead of going behind his back and leaving him high and dry.

this is just a prime example of how poorly Eric has been treated by his equals over the years, and i don’t blame him for staying out of the spotlight. because of his unprecedented talent and good heart, people have taken him for granted. he doesn’t get enough credit for all the contributions he’s made in the music industry being a music producer/engineer/multiinstrumentalist.

the reason i am bringing this all up is because i am still extremely upset at a recent post someone made about not crediting Eric for writing his version of “Yvonne’s the One” a song he co-wrote with Paul McCartney. i don’t care that these people were trying to make an analysis of their fandom, but at least have the common decency to give credit where credit is due.

Eric Stewart is not 10cc. Eric Stewart is Eric Stewart. simple.

Me after blacking out for a whole hour writing an angst Huening Kai fic and it actually turns out quite good:

DONT GET ME WRONG, ITS A BUNCHA WORD VOMIT BUT LIKE GOOD WORD VOMIT YKYK I AM SHOCKED.

Thinking about deleting my entire online existence, hiding under a rock and letting earth reclaim me

Maybe I'm just an idiot who doesn't know how to properly appreciate music, but I do believe knowing the context of why a musician wrote a song or an album makes it a little bit more special.

Like, did you know that Mariah wrote All I Want For Christmas It's You during a horrible Christmas? Every year her dysfunctional family would ruin the night so she wrote about what the perfect Christmas would be like for her. And now she is the fucking queen of Christmas!

And, again, maybe that's just me! But I find the song more endearing and inspiring after knowing that.

Or isn't Silver Springs more iconic because of that insane live performance? Doesn't Beautiful Boy make people cry because John died and never saw his kid grow up?

You can draw parallels from Debut to Reputation to Red because Taylor writes about her life, and you want me to believe we would be better if she just... didn't? Can't buy that, sorry.