I so unbelievably I want to do cosplay but my hair is fucking GREEN

There is some pretty shocking footage out there of the Baltimore bridge collapse early this morning. I've already seen some incredibly wrong, incredibly insensitive Hot Takes about how shitty the bridge was to have fallen after being bonked by a boat, etc

Please don't be that person.

The facts will come out. Speculation is silly. In addition to loss of life, the Francis Scott Key bridge was a major arterial in that region's highway system. Its loss will be felt for years, and not just to daily commuters.

Baltimore harbor is closed. No shipping at all. This will impact supply chains in ways we cannot even assess yet.

It's pretty fucked up.

One massive, legitimate way to improve as a writer or artist or in any creative endeavor really, is to become absolutely obsessed with something and to allow yourself to be weird about it. Genuinely mean this btw.

Word of mouth really kept me away from Scott Pilgrim for like a decade cause I was told it's this shitty book aimed at incels and he's a pedo and then I read it recently cause of the netflix anime and it's like "this guy sucks and all his friends barely tolerate him and he's trying to feel like a big man by leading on a 17 year old girl he's not actually interested in and everyone including the narrative acknowledges that that's pathetic and he should grow up. anyway let's explore how men see women as a means to their own self actualization but fail to acknowledge that they have lives of their own" like wow this is the book yall were talking about?

ITS NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH EP1 I CANT DO THISSSSSS

WALLACE WELLS SWEEP

Height gap romance except the shorter one is frequently depicted in situations where they are contextually taller. The taller one sitting while the shorter one looms over them. Both of them lying in bed with the taller one’s head pressed to the shorter one’s chest. The shorter one straddling the taller one’s lap and leaning down for a kiss. The taller one on their knees as the shorter one tilts their head up. Please, it makes me go feral

the winners

Scott Pilgrim is, I think, the best example I can think of for establishing a setting's Nonsense Limit. The setting's Nonsense Limit isn't quite "How high-fantasy is this". It's mostly a question of presentation, to what degree does the audience feel that they know the rules the world operates by, such that they are primed to accept a random new element being introduced. A setting with a Nonsense Limit of 0 is, like, an everyday story. Something larger than life, but theoretically taking place in our world, like your standard spy thriller action movie has a limit of 1. Some sort of hidden world urban fantasy with wizards and stuff operating in secret has a nonsense limit around 3 or 4. A Superhero setting, presenting an alternate version of our world, is a 5 or 6. High fantasy comes in around a 7 or so, "Oh yeah, Wizards exist and they can do crazy stuff" is pretty commonly accepted. Scott Pilgrim comes in at a 10. If you read the Scott Pilgrim book, it starts off looking like a purely mundane slice of life. The first hint at the fantastical is Ramona appearing repeatedly in Scott's Dreams, and then later showing up in real life. When we finally get an explanation, it's this:

Apparently Subspace Highways are a thing? And they go through people's heads? And Ramona treats this like it's obscure, but not secret knowledge. Ramona doesn't think she's doing anything weird here. At this point, it's not clear if Scott is accepting Ramona's explanation or not, things kind of move on as mundane as ever until their Date, when Ramona takes Scott through subspace, and he doesn't act like his world was just blown open or anything, although I guess that could have been a metaphor. there's a couple other moments, but everything with Ramona could be a metaphor, or Scott not recognizing what's going on. Maybe Ramona is uniquely fantastical in this otherwise normal world. And then, this happens

Suddenly, a fantastical element (A shitty local indie band finishing their set with a song that knocks out most of the audience) is introduced unrelated to Ramona, and undeniably literal. We see the crowd knocked out by Crash and The Boys. but the story doesn't linger on the implications of that, the whole point of that sequence is to raise the Nonsense Level, such that you accept it when This happens

Matthew Patel comes flying down onto the stage, Scott, who until this point is presented as a terrible person and a loser, but otherwise is extremely ordinary, proceeds to flawlessly block and counter him before doing a 64-hit air juggle combo. Scott's friends treat this like Scott is showing off a mildly interesting party trick, like being really good at darts. The establish that Scott is the "Best Fighter in the Province", not only are street-fighter battles a thing, Scott is Very Good at it, but they're so unimportant that being the best fighter in the province doesn't make Scott NOT a loser. So when Matthew Patel shows off his magic powers and then explodes into a pile of coins, we've established "Oh, this is how silly the setting gets". It's not about establishing the RULES of the setting so much as it is about establishing a lack of rules. Scott's skill at street-fighter battles doesn't translate to any sort of social prestige. Ramona can access Subspace Highways and she uses it to do a basic delivery job. It doesn't make sense and it's clear that it's not supposed to. So later on, when Todd Ingram starts throwing around telekinesis, and the explanation we're given is "He's a Vegan" , you're already so primed by the mixture of weirdness and mundanity that rather than trying to incorporate this new knowledge into any sort of coherent setting ruleset, you just go "Ah, yeah, Vegans".

iconic

Ramona Flowers dyeing her hair in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

It's 2031, and Hermitcraft Season 15 has just started.

DocM77 has created a machine that adds a new dimension. Zero mods, no resource packs, just redstone and glitches. He is using Netherite blocks for his redstone circuits.

JimmySolidarity joined two seasons ago, and has died first every time. He is very careful this season, but other Hermits kill him first on purpose.

TangoTek has built Decked Out 4 in the End. It is roughly four times the size of the main island, and the dragon has been captured and sealed in an obsidian box so that it will make a cool sound effect in one specific room.

SMajor joined five days ago, and he has already been in a fan-favourite duo with half the server. His Ao3 tag has quadrupled in size, and his tumblr tag is full of art vaguely shipping him with just about anyone with a face.

Pearl has been a landscaper, a janitor, a postmaster, an accountant, a bus driver, and a librarian. Running out of public service jobs, she has started showing up at people's houses in real life with teas and coffees. No one's sure how she gets there.

Etho's tissue box has finally disintegrated, and everyone is excitedly recommending him mic stands. He is trying to hide the fact that he has put an exact copy of the box in its place already.

Zombie Cleo has become so adept at manipulating armor stands that they can perfectly recreate literally anything. Including things that by all rights should not exist. New viewers occasionally complain about lovecraftian nightmares and mental issues after seeing them. Cleo and their older viewers laugh like it's an inside joke.

Happy 3 years to 3rd life smp!

Is this anything

"And so it turns out he not only lied about having created the Roblox oof sound, but his portfolio is totally inflated, he wasn't the first American to work on Sonic, he didn't work alongside Miyamoto, and he wasn't even on MTV Cribs"