It's very possible that the only way to ensure you don't become a conservative old person is to keep checking whether you're wrong. Every time. Genuinely mull over the opposing viewpoint even and especially when it's uncomfortable. You absolutely cannot a) consider yourself safely incapable of terrible principles because you're a good person, or b) treat a your disgust reaction to something as a moral truth. You can't get comfortable. Tiring! But you'd rather be tired and choose the right path, you know?

“Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”

had a smidgen of a dream about chapter three and needed to illustrate it

if you ship scc please don’t interact w me 👍

Hmmm just gonna spit this headcanon out in text post form since A. I don't think I could exposit it well enough in image form and B. It's not actually textually/thematically substantiated and I don't like actually staking my stuff on just vibes alone*

But anyway. I'd say it's pretty evident that all the islanders forgot their names, right? King obviously. Because why the hell else would he do that, but also Siffrin No Middle Names No Last Name.

They're 'pretty sure' they've 'always' been 'Just Siffrin' 'as long as they can remember'. It's a pretty cruel twist of the knife to say that they don't even get to keep their birth name as a memento, which is why I'm saying as such.

My utterly unsubstantiated claim is I think it'd be cute to say that Sisyphus *is* the name Siffrin initially picked, assuming the myth of King Sisyphus is recontextualised as idk, just a play or something in the setting. But I like the idea of Siffrin going 'oh shit 🫵 he's just like me fr' at a tortured fictional character long before the irony kicks in.

As for how Sisyphus -> Siffrin. I think that chronic mumbler and emotional doormat Sif just did not correct people who misheard the name during their time travelling, and went through enough places with incompatible phonologies (pronounceable sounds in the language) without ever really writing it down that it just got kinda. Changed until it was unrecognisable, and Siffrin just went with it until the earlier pronunciations slipped out of their swiss-cheese brain. And they just kinda don't remember any of that.

Also, something something the horrid realisation that Siffrin also named themselves after a King. Just not as blatantly.

*(though I think there's something here about Siffrin, a guy from a belief system that seems to thoroughly disincentivise autonomy and self-motivated choice continuously having their hand forced to make changes/choices they don't want but have no choice but to... It's not solid enough to really back this up tbh, but it informs it.)

Anyway.

Do you think that people who invent things with very destructive consequences are blinded to the downsides of it more by money or more by scientific curiosity?

I think the downsides are not always immediately obvious. Coal-fired electricity looks a lot more attractive in 1882 when there's literally only one such power plant and the global population is like 18% its present value. TNT was invented as a yellow dye, and it's so stable its usefulness as an explosive wasn't discovered until thirty years later.

We have this collective mental image, promoted by simplifications of historical narratives, that the inventor is a lone genius who through his labor produces an artifact and all its consequences in a single moment in time, and without which the thing would never be invented. Pretty much every point in that narrative is wrong. New technologies are the culmination of many different discoveries; there are enough very smart people working at the cutting edge of these fields that if one of them did not discover the principles behind these inventions, another almost certainly would sooner or later; and the exact applications of new technologies, nevermind how they will change society when those applications are utilized, often take years or decades to discover.

Now, I think there is an extent to which, as a working scientists, you can reasonably be held to account for the work you do. If you work at the Acme National Horrible Death By Chemical Weapons Laboratory, and invent a new, horrible chemical weapon, you do not get to go "oh no!" in shock when somebody dies to your horrible chemical weapon. And sometimes scientists do have a pretty good idea of how their technology will be used--the Haber Process was originally invented to manufacture fertilizers, but its application to the manufacturing of explosives was pretty clear to Fritz Haber, and he joined the German effort to develop deadlier chemical weapons pretty enthusiastically.

Men like Haber seem historically to be motivated not by intrinsic greed, but by the things which motivate us all: the desire to provide for their loved ones, the approval of their peers and the respect of their colleagues, and their status in society. The problem with respect to scientists who know damn well what they're doing isn't that everybody working at the Acme National Horrible Death By Chemical Weapons Laboratory is greedy and the job pays too much; the problem is that society, by and large, respects you and looks up to you and fetes you at public events and talks about what a patriot and a community leader you are if you do really well at inventing new, horrible chemical weapons.

salt in our memories

Luz and Amity are into fantasy, Gus and Hunter love sci-fi. I feel very strongly about Willow also having a human realm pop culture nerd obsession and I like to think that it's superheros

Hiii I have nothing to do at work so of course I have to day dream about different dark!Bucky scenarios (I do not condone cheating but this is really hot to me aaaa)😩 like imagine your husband and Bucky have always had an ongoing rivalry, They worked together, went to college together, hated every ounce of each other. One night you’re at the bar with your friends when Bucky comes over to you and buys you drink after drink after drink, taking you back to his house. He’s throwing you on his bed and ripping your clothes off, kissing you hungrily. “Get ready baby, this is gonna be much tougher than you’re used to.” “Please.” “Yeah? Is he not satisfying you baby? This pretty pussy deserves to be treated right, luckily I’m here now.” He’s so rough with you, fucking you harshly, the dirty talking is driving you crazy. He’s so cocky and cruel, bending you in several different positions and pounding into you for hours. If only you had seen the camera… (part 2??? Bucky making your husband watch the video 😭) -💒

This, a thousand times over 😵‍💫 and I can just imagine throwing all the stuff at him that you wouldn't dream of doing with your husband. Maybe your husband really doesn't let you explore your fantasies and if you've got one chance to do that, you're determined to take it.

Especially if Bucky is quite a bit rougher than you're used to while still being so respectful. He got the impression that you're not being fucked how you want to be and he wants to give you everything you dream of when you touch yourself. He's not necessarily rough with you because he wants to be. He's rough because that's what you want.

If he's feeling extra filthy too, he'd fuck you in the bed you share with your husband. You're on your hands and knees on the bed, presenting your glistening pussy to him, enjoying the sensation of him smearing your arousal over the tip of his cock.

"Fuck, do you know how bad I want this?" He hums quietly, trailing his leaking tip over your slick folds. "Do you know how badly I want to press inside you? You've made such a mess. Bet you feel like fuckin' Heaven and he doesn't even appreciate it."

With his free hand, Bucky grabs a handful of your ass, squeezing just enough that you feel it hurt.

"Don't want to rush this though." His tip lines up with your entrance, teasing the little fluttering hole and God, you're desperate. "I want to take my time. Want to make sure every time your head hits this pillow, you remember how it feels to have every. Last. Inch of me slip inside you."

You can't have him wait any longer though so you press your hips back onto him, feeling just the tip slide into you. "Good girl, that's it. Fuck yourself on me. You need this, don't you? You need to be fucked right for a change."

He's not wrong. You couldn't stop now, even if you wanted to so you keep going, taking all of him. The weight of him inside you is delightful.

"Oh God, you're perfect. You feel like you were made for me." He doesn't dare move. Instead, he takes a second to just enjoy the wet heat of your body and the snug fit of you around his cock.

"You are. A fucking. Dream." He tests the water with a few shallow thrusts, rutting his tip against the sweet spot inside you. You're so wet, you're convinced you must be dripping onto the sheets and your eyes roll back in your head at the very thought.

This is how sex is supposed to feel. You didn't think you could crave anyone the way you do now. "Buck, please." You whimper, rolling your hips back against him, pressing him as deep inside you as possible. "Don't be gentle."

You hear him groan and feel his fingertips trail down your spine, making you arch your back into the bed. "Is that what you need, sweetheart? Can tell just by looking at you that you need it hard and fast and rough tonight. I'll be gentle with you tomorrow morning, I promise. Gotta work some of that tension out of you first. Bet you haven't cum in months."

You don't like that he can tell so easily but you're not surprised either. The first sharp thrust knocks the air from your lungs but all you hear is a pathetic sob, followed by the crack of a hard spank to your ass and the blossoming, stinging pain he's inflicted.

You're not surprised that it only makes you wetter.

I just finished watching the first two episodes of succession for the first time and seriously what the fuck is going on with tom and greg. they were together on screen for less than two seconds and tom was immediately like you wanna kiss me? oh I see. mhmm. yeah. you wanna kiss me so bad. literally embarrassing. suck my dick. I’m joking. omg I’m literally kidding don’t take me seriously. the look on your face oh my god you actually thought I was being serious? really? because I was. you want me carnally. you want money but you want me more. JUST KIDDING OMG

and greg is just standing there like 🧍 what.

roman is free in the sense that he is free from waystar, but he is not free in the sense that he has 'escaped the cycle.' roman realized everything is bullshit and left, but that's not what actual meaningful freedom would be for roman. what rome needs is for business and family to finally make a clean separation, for him to be allowed to love his family without molding himself into an image of logan that he isn't. waystar has always been the only way the roys know how to interact with one another, and it still is. in that sense, nothing has changed. roman's declaration about the nothingness of waystar is not actually a change, because he still marries waystar to family, and thus believes family is nothingness as well -- functionally, there's little difference between that and the opposite belief that both waystar and family have meaning and are 'real.' what the roys need is to realize waystar is bullshit and family is real, but roman went from thinking both have meaning (family has meaning thus waystar has meaning) to thinking neither do (waystar is bullshit thus family is bullshit). nothing changes, the cycle keeps on cycling. finally family has been severed from waystar (what he's needed all along -- he's never really cared about the business, only his family, and the business was the only way he could be with his family, so he tried and failed time and time again to mold himself into the businessman his dad wanted him to be), and while this is a good thing, it's coupled with his realization of the hollowness of the family itself. in hindsight, this was inevitable, i think -- if waystar royco was the beating heart of the roy family (which it was), there's no conceivable severing of the two that would allow the family to maintain functionally intact.

i do think that roman will have relationships with his family after the finale (shiv is definite, con is likely, kendall is also likely because roman is incapable of not being around his family and can't imagine a world in which they don't return to each other somehow), but he's aware for the first time of the nothingness of their bonds, something that everyone has already known except for him -- something, i think, that isn't even entirely fair. they do love each other. there is something there. and now that waystar is no longer part of the equation, maybe there's hope for real relationships beyond transaction, beyond business, beyond logan. but none of them believe that to be possible. roman always used to, but for the first time, i think he's not sure. he's free of waystar, but the roys never managed to functionally healthily uncouple family and business, so being free of waystar also means being free of family -- it has to mean that. he's convincing himself it's all nothing and he doesn't care, and that won't last. but, in my opinion, neither will the distance between the siblings. i think it'll take time, but they'll come back together, albeit in varying degrees (i doubt shiv and ken will ever have quite the same relationship again, for instance). roman is free of waystar but not because he realized it's not necessary for family -- because he 'realized' family is not necessary, that family is nothing too, that everything is nothing. it's an empty sort of happiness, unsustainable and hollow. but i do think there is hope. i think it'll be okay for rome in the long run (family-wise, at least). i just don't think nihilism is a salve capable of healing deep cuts, only a bandage allowing them to stay hidden for a little while longer.

in life and in death, waystar royco and the roy family are eternal partners, inextricable from each other -- and so long as the two remain conceptually married, it'll be hard for roman to find legitimate happiness: if one is dead, then the other must be too. he ends the series the same as he started it, believing fully in logan's conception of family as a business unit (meaning now that both are bullshit), people as economic units (meaning now that both are bullshit), and roman himself as the son who couldn't be the heir and thus was never much of a son at all. logan dominates his worldview just as much as it always has. sure, roman acknowledges that everything is bullshit now, but that's even more logan than his previous viewpoint which was a naive sort of belief in family. now, it's all just bullshit. everything's bullshit. it's logan with nihilism as the dominant frame (rather than capitalism), but regardless of roman's thoughts on the meaning of things, the structure of the world is the same one that logan taught him. he is free from waystar, but he is haunted by its ghost and always will be.

Telling content creators it's wrong to explore artistic freedom and be independently funded by fans, and they should instead continue taking advertisement revenue from google* is

NOT

the anti-capitalism stance actually.

*(Yes, google owns youtube.)

he/they octavian is real who else cheered

descendants tweets [22/?] Aziz edition

.

I think bpd is a bullshit stigmatizing label thrown at women to pathologize what is very obviously a response to prolonged childhood trauma and would be better labeled as C-PTSD. that being said my god I am bpd as fuck

I rly don’t see how ppl be 20+ shipping kids anymore tbh… like, it’s so rampant and I don’t see the appeal to it anymore being as tho I’m in my late 20’s.