#the "American Dream" has ended

[dev-solovey]

Reading up on the history of American Idiot (album) and realizing exactly how revolutionary it was and I just have to yell about it for a hot second

So, before they started working on American Idiot, the band was having problems and they were thinking they were going to break up. But for a couple of reasons, they switched directions, most notably because they all felt strongly about the Iraq War and how it was manufactured by greed and warmongering from the Bush administration, which was amplified by the news media. I read a quote from Billie Joe Armstrong where he talked about how the news media was becoming "more of a reality show" than it was news, and he couldn't have been more right. In fact, that problem got worse, and now we're living in an era of rampant misinformation where everything is politicized to a point where just supporting human rights for marginalized people is considered controversial. The song American Idiot came out in 2004, and when Donald Trump first visited the UK at the beginning of his presidency, it was the top played song on every UK radio station, 12 years after it was released. Most things would be culturally irrelevant at that point.

When creating the album American Idiot, a lot of thought went into it - they had a very specific message in mind, and their goal was to send that message to youth. This is because they realized at some point that their fanbase was a bunch of teenagers, and even though they hadn't necessarily intended it that way, they suddenly had a platform with the youth of America and they decided they ought to do something good with it. The drummer, Tré Cool, said something along the lines of "I've never really liked the idea of preaching to kids, but I realized we don't really have a choice at this point." And I love that so much because like, so many people who get rich and famous just become completely out of touch, and when they get a platform, it's very easy to exploit that platform, influence them with terrible ideas, or encourage them to act in terrible ways for self-serving reasons (ex: JK Rowling, Andrew Tate, Dream, Logan Paul, Onision, etc etc). Green Day refused to allow themselves to get to that point. They know the platform they had gave them power and they made an active choice early on to be responsible with it. And a lot of that moral code comes from the fact that they came up in the DIY punk scene in Oakland, which held its members to a very high standard of ethics, a code that they still follow even after they were disowned by that scene when they signed on with a major record label in 1994.

The song American Idiot has a message of "this mass media hysteria is manufactured bullshit, don't fall for it," and it is not subtle about that message. It punches you right in the face. I remember being 12 years old and listening to it and thinking, "yeah, I don't want to be an American idiot." And now, at the age of 28, I am a staunch leftist who is firmly against the atrocities the US government commits, and I feel strongly about stopping misinformation. So I can say with absolute certainty that they succeeded.

I also get like, really upset when people say that American Idiot is the album where they sold out, because that's objectively not true, both for the reasons I've provided above, and also because of the song Wake Me Up When September Ends. Not a lot of people know the story behind this song, but it's actually a song that Billie Joe wrote about the experience of his dad dying of cancer when he was 10 years old. The story, as he tells it, is that when he came home from school, his mom gave him the news, and being (understandably!) upset, started crying, ran to his room and slammed the door. When she knocked on the door to try and talk to him, he shouted "wake me up when September ends!!" in response. It took him decades to be able to write this song, and it shows because it's the perfect grief song, having been played at benefits for 9/11, hurricane Katrina, and so on. The first time I heard that song it reduced me to tears, because you can hear the intense sadness in it. A "sellout" would never write a song like that!! (Side note: maybe stop tweeting at Green Day to wake up every October 1st, it's super tone deaf given the subject matter,,,)

Anyway, I think I'm done being autistic about Green Day (that's a lie, they'll forever be my special interest), so TL;DR:

Thank you, Green Day, for creating a generation of leftists who aren't about the bullshit

#green day #American idiot #wake me up when september ends #billy joe armstrong #tre cool #mike dirnt #iraq war #bush administration #misinformation #i will die on this fucking hill

[centrally-unplanned]

I love deconstructing 'lifestyle' articles like these, they are such a gold mine of biases and narrative formation by the chattering classes. Here we have a wonderful premise:

Now, Ms. Margo is living a dream of many American women who are seeking relationships abroad, some of whom cite the toxic dating scene in the United States

Well, no objection from me that the US has toxic dating norms. But, hm, idk, 'many women' - is this a true trend amoung the American Female? Lets see who this article features:

Ms. Margo fell in love with the city (and its men). She found a gig teaching English in Paris and moved there after she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in May 2019.

Okay, not *that* crazy but I do think I know what kind of Sarah Lawrence grad gap years in Paris before her law degree;

For Cindy Sheahan...At the end of 2017, she quit her job and traveled throughout Southeast Asia for leisure, and she started using Tinder.

That isn't...most people can't list as their full time job "Dating in Thailand";

For Frantzces Lys...she started a podcast called “Chronicles Abroad” with her co-host, who had met Ms. Williams, 40, in Malaysia. In 2018, Ms. Lys interviewed Ms. Williams, the founder of a consultancy, and the two kept in touch. They started dating years later.

Oh yeah the extremely relatable situation of a podcast host and boutique consultancy founder travelling to Mayalsia!!

“When you decide to just live your life for yourself, you actually end up stumbling upon people that match your energy and the same ideals and values,” said Ms. Lys, a 42-year-old founder of a wellness company.

Oh a wellness company, who hasn't founded one of those!!! And a link to their company, wow thanks NYT, that was definitely gonna be my follow-up for Ms. Lys:

Cepee Tabibian, who moved to Madrid at 35 from Austin, Texas, felt similarly.

Okay that could be normal, what do she d-

In 2020, she met her partner, who is Spanish. Now, she is the founder of She Hit Refresh, a community that helps women over the age of 30 move to a different country.

Jesus fucking Christ none of these people are real. They are full-hog in the industry of packaging and selling their Life of Insight & Discovery for $500 an hour over zoom sessions to non profits hosting leadership seminars, their dating isn't dating its brand management. I don't doubt they authentically love their life but this, shockingly, is not a trend, is not a sample, is not ethnographic data, this is an ad buy by a sliver of globe-trotting wealthy woman masquerading as journalism.

Absolutely the only relatable person is:

Alexis Brown, for example, noticed a lack of “effort and intention” from the men she was dating in Atlanta, where she attended Spelman College.

When she traveled across Europe for vacation from October 2022 to January 2023, however, the people she dated made it clear that they wanted to spend time with her.

Who takes way more words than is necessary to tell me she had a polycule stretching from Paris to Prague during her study abroad, which, good for her, that is what study abroad is for. Shockingly, this is not a new development in the collegiate experience!

Buried amoung the branded bullshit is Alexis's real gem and the only true 'thesis' of the article:

“The dating culture in the U.S. is that it’s cool and normalized to be indifferent to someone and not really express how you genuinely feel,” Ms. Brown, 23, said.

Which is essentially that in Europe people will "express emotion" unlike the cold, busy America. I don't doubt this, but I would hope a writer at the NYT's could have slightly more social awareness; the 'reason' Americans do not "express emotion" is that if they did you would dump them right on their ass on the first date.

Someone telling you, to quote Ms Margo:

“This one guy was like, ‘I ran through traffic just to look into your eyes once, and if you don’t want to go on a date with me, I can die happy knowing that I just met you,’” said Ms. Margo, a 28-year-old English teacher from Los Angeles.

As an opening line is cringe and uncomfortable, because they do not know you. They are lying and you know they are lying, it is a horrible foundation for a long term relationship. American dating norms have been hammering this lesson home on every participant (but if we are being honest, its primarily women hammering this home on men) and it is probably right to do. Anyone who does this lacks credibility.

But when you are in ~*Paris*~, you don't care about their credibility, because you lack it yourself. You are on vacation, you have no future, just a sequential present. If the guy who tells you your eyes are his world turns out to be a clingy failson who requires at least a blowjob a day to keep his mood stable, you can just *get up and leave the country*, you cannot be trapped because nothing is keeping you there. By placing an ocean between yourself and your social standing you can radically change your standards.

And you know what, there is something to that! Maybe the 18-point-checklist you mentally process every Tinder swipe through as you plan out your dream wedding on Cape Cod to a status-swollen ghost in a Tom Ford speckle-gray blazer while on lunch break from your quant analysis job at a digital marketing start-up in Chelsea isn't the best baggage to bring into a first date! Through radically shifting your social context it might be possible to jar your brain out of what is holding it back. Its not what you found in Paris, but what you left behind in America, that could actually make a difference... and that reality could give this article some heft.

But then say that instead of trying to sell me on the idea that:

For Ms. Margo, a Black woman who attended predominantly white institutions throughout her school years, she felt ignored in the United States, as if she “was not an option,” she said. In Paris she felt seen.

France is less racist than the campus of Sarah Fucking Lawrence against black people. No wonder the humanities are dying if they are teaching this level of self awareness.

#haven't stretched that Last Psychiatrist muscle in a while - good times #mini-essay

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Will we never see the day the Harkles get what they deserve rumour tracking anon? I'm losing faith and I'm really tired. They are saved from all those scandals that demand their answer just with this one incident. I cannot anymore

I know, anon. It's really frustrating to see them keep getting away with it, almost as if they're constantly rewarded for bad behavior.

Some things that have helped me (bolding for emphasis to break up the giant chunks of text):

Taking breaks. Just walk away from it. A day, a weekend, a week. There isn't a whole lot happening in the BRF to counteract the Sussex shenanigans so Harry and Meghan are dominating the news There are no tiara or glam events. No tours/foreign visits. No projects being announced. 3 out of 7 senior royals are on medical leave and the ones who are working don't generate the same kind of headlines, attention, or coverage. Take a break from all this - maybe do a deep dive into another royal family or read historical books about the BRF (especially ones that pre-date the modern House of Windsor) or non-text books (like Angela Kelly's books or Chris Jackson's photobooks).

Spend time pursuing a creative hobby. I find that doing something creative helps keep my mind from wandering to the Sussexes and the nothingness coming from the BRF too often. Some of my creative pursuits: baking and cooking new recipes, DIY and craft projects (I love going to Goodwill, thrift stores, and architectural salvage places for home decor and furniture. Also, I'm not saying you need to pledge allegiance to Catherine, The Princess of Wales in every aspect of your life, but I'm also not not saying that Kate's Ring is an excellent accent color for an end table), learning how to make craft cocktails (it was a pandemic thing), and organizing decades and decades of family photos.

What I also find a cathartic is fanfiction writing. I've had dreams of being a writer since I was Princess Charlotte's age but listen. I cannot stick to a plot for the life of me, because I always want to know "what happens next." But let me tell you. It is hugely cathartic to write a fanfiction novel where a Meghan-like evil witch gets everything she deserves and a Harry-like tortured prince is redeemed by the pure love of an ordinary American girl (okay, that one was pre-Oprah before we all learned how truly messed up Harry is) or where a revenge fantasy where a Harry-like spoiled brat loses everything when he treats his saintly Kate-like girlfriend abominably and when he tries to win her back, she's fallen in love with a Henry Cavill-like swashbuckling Real Man or where the Harry-and-Meghan-like entitled spoilt prince and his wife try to overthrow the saintly and universally loved heir but the Queen swiftly, immediately, justly, and properly handles them with eviction, termination, and worldwide embarrassment. You can do everything to your characters and you can make them suffer in a way the real Harry and Meghan may never.

Find trashier, more trainwreckier drama to get stuck in. Bravo, anyone? A new season of Vanderpump Rules has just started, Summer House is about to start, and two of the villains from OG Vanderpump Rules (Jax and Kristen) have a spinoff series that's about to launch.

Changing your perspective. There's a famous leadership quote about problem-solving: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. In other words, you have to take big things (big problems) one at a time, piece by tiny piece. So yes, the big "elephant" is that the Sussexes look like they have everything - they still have titles, they still have massive million-dollar deals, they've got the Olive Garden, the BRF isn't stopping their PR. But also look at everything they don't have anymore:

They can't use their HRHs.

Their RPOs were taken away.

Their royal charities and patronages were taken away.

Charles isn't paying them as much money, if he's even paying for them.

Everyone is blaming them for hastening Philip's and The Queen's deaths.

They were evicted from Frogmore Cottage.

It took six months for the palace website to add Prince/Princess titles to Archie and Lili but it was instanteous to change George, Charlotte, and Louis to "of Wales."

Charles calls them "Harry and Meghan" or "my other son and his wife."

The family doesn't want to be seen with or around them. Even Eugenie seems to have abandoned ship these days.

William isn't taking Harry's calls.

Lili doesn't have a webpage on the royal website.

Harry's military titles and honors have been revoked. All he has left is the merit-based rank he "earned" as an enlisted soldier. (Which is being generous.)

Their Spotify deal was cancelled early. (Scobie admits this in Endgame.)

No more social media birthday greetings/shout-outs from official royal accounts.

Nothing has come out of Netflix except a whinefest docuseries that no one has taken seriously. Everything they've pitched gets shot down and Meghan isn't getting the talent she wants for her movie.

The only awards they're getting are the ones that they pay for - no Grammys for Spare's audiobook, no Emmys or Golden Globes for their documentaries or the Oprah interview, no Pulitzers or Literary Awards for their books. No Nobel Peace Prize for their recordbreaking humanitarian aid work.

They got the knockoff Kennedys (William got the real ones).

Meghan isn't "in" with A-List Hollywood. The celebrities she's been namedropping haven't had commercial box office hits in at least a decade. She isn't hosting or presenting at award shows.

Meghan isn't getting the lucrative influencer sponsorships and merching she wants, which is why she papwalks in parking lots.

Their foundation is a joke and their philanthropy/giving is increasingly under scrutiny for things that don't make sense.

Their "good deeds" are actually ulterior motives designed for maximum PR and celebrity bandwagons, rather than actually helping underserved communities.

There is actual, open, frequent speculation that their children aren't even real and that has to hurt as a parent.

The British press doesn't take them seriously.

They're a comedy punchline, and not just for satire. The Golden Globes made fun of them. The whole world laughed at them after the "car chase."

Harry's lawsuits aren't going well. He's now trying to relitigate a court finding so he doesn't have to pay his fines.

Elton John isn't flying them anywhere anymore. Oprah and Gayle have cut ties. Ellen DeGeneres seems disinterested. Tyler Perry noped out.

Harry's balding is atrocious. (I mean, really. In the overhead camera angles of The Queen's funeral, his bald spot jumps out at you from a mile away. Not even William's bald head stands out that much.)

They/Archewell bleed staff faster than a flesh wound.

Andrew -- ANDREW! -- still has a royal residence, still has RPOs, still gets papped with members of the royal family, still gets friendly press coverage (on occasion), still gets to wear/use some of his honors (like the RVO at coronation).

Eugenie got to have her own personal social media while Harry and Meghan got a "business" account.

The Sussex wedding was overshadowed by so much drama that still persists to this day (thanks for the Markle v Markle lawsuit, Sam!).

Spare made everyone realize Harry is as bad as Meghan and it's not all on her.

Harry's "Hero Harry"/Queen's Soldier PR persona has been completely and thoroughly shattered. Everyone knows it was just a publicity facade now.

Harry isn't even getting the "William's brother" edit anymore - that's now Mike Tindall.

They were erased from most of the Platinum Jubilee - their only official event was the service of thanksgiving. They didn't even get Trooping - Meghan had to arrange for a pap to take her picture to show us they were at Trooping.

They were erased from the Coronation - Harry got lumped in with the extended family (vs the line of succession, order of precedence, or working royals) and didn't get into any of the official programs, memorabilia, or portraits.

They've been shunned by most of British aristocracy - no invite to the Grosvenor wedding later this year.

No royal christening for Lili, and it's exceedingly more and more likely that the BRF hasn't met her yet.

The British media/press actually shows up and will be the first to defend the BRF against Sussex allegations when it really matters.

There are accusations of stolen valor against Harry because he seems to be supporting American military more than British military.

Harry's African charities, of which he is the figurehead, are in crisis with the discovery of SA and other allegations.

Supposedly Harry's role with BetterUp has been downgraded/demoted.

Invictus Games is going through some serious money issues. There's talk of cutting Harry and Meghan loose because they aren't/can't fundraise, and you know they won't go down swinging.

I'm sure there are more, but my point is that even though it looks like the Sussexes are getting away with things, they really haven't. after all, it's death by a thousand cuts...or eating an elephant piece by tiny piece -- it builds up over time.

Also I just realized that the Kate's Ring paint chip linked up earlier shows it being more of a teal or an inkier blue. It isn't - it's more of a cobalt blue or a royal blue.

#ask #brf #sussexes

[niuniente]

Regarding fandoms and comments, I've recently had negative comments that tell me I'm not good and should just quit writing. Well, it worked. I no longer am able to write without it affecting my mental state. People who do the bullying do it to get rid of authors they don't like that doesn't fit their mindset. When does it end? I didn't want it to hurt my mental health and get me to quit, but it did.

People treating each other badly whenever they can never ceases to make me sad.

I try to think the quote "hurt people hurt people" when dealing with negative people. Happy, balanced people, who view others as their equals, have no need to leave negative comments, send hate messages etc. to others just because they can.

Take a little break but don't let anyone stop you from doing what you love! I try to keep this mentality and I always think about how Billy Idol (80's famous singer) just kept pushing forward whenever someone or something said no to him:

When he was a child, he wanted to play a guitar. Parents said "No, you can only play a violin" -> Billy secretly got himself a guitar with 5£ at the age of 9 and learned to play it by himself.

His teenage girlfriend dyed his hair white. Everyone said it looked horrible on him -> Billy kept the white hair and made it his trademark.

He discovered punk and FINALLY managed to put a band together in his late teens. Too bad that London, where he lived, had closed all bars and pubs from punk bands. They weren't legally allowed to play anywhere. -> Billy and a few other guys established their own place for all punk bands, where all where welcome to play.

He went to university to study music. He was bullied and ostracized by other students as he was too weird, too freaky looking and listened to punk instead of jazz -> He was lonely but staid in the school and kept his looks and music taste.

He started to dislike being a band member and wanted to have a solo career. Everyone said you can't make it, you suck, you can't make compose a shit -> Billy decided to start a solo career as Billy Idol anyway.

When he started to get a little footing in the Europe, he decided that he wants to go to USA. It would give him better markets and more chances to succeed. Too bad that Europe's most famous punk band, Sex Pistols, has just epically failed in their attempts to make it in the USA. America hated punk and Billy Idol was nobody compared to Sex Pistols. Everyone called him delusional for having such stupid dreams. -> Billy went to USA anyway

In America, all record labels he went to said the same thing; you will never make it here. You sing punk and we hate it. You sing with British English and we hate it. You look so fucking ugly that no one will come to see you. If you want to succeed here, you need to change your music style for radio friendly stuff, change your accent and change your looks. -> Billy thought that if singing with American accents helps, he does it. Otherwise, fuck you. This is the music he wants to do and this is his style and how he wants to look. -> This decision led him to become super famous. Everyone loved his music and the fucking ugly guy became one of the 80's sex symbols, and his music videos were literally directed to sell with sex to the female audience.

Also, it was told him with dead certainty by many people that your music will never play in radios. EVER. Well, what do you know, his music still plays in the radios, 40 years later :3

So, keep going! Keep writing! There's audience for every single style out there and just because some asshat wasn't impressed, it doesn't mean others wouldn't like your stuff.

I mean, how much emphasis do we want to put into asshats words anyway? Which matters more; some random asshat's feelings or our own joy and inspiration when we do something creative?

#ask niu #creativity

[floralcavern]

Greek Mythology incorrect quotes

Achilles: Bro, I had a dream we fucked. 

Patroclus: Bro, relax it was just a dream. 

Achilles: Huh, gay, I wouldn’t fuck you. 

Patroclus: You wouldn’t? 

Achilles: I mean, unless you want to-

Patroclus: As top in this relationship, I think we should-  Achilles: I can't believe you're pulling rank on me.

Hades: I was going to suggest we do Marilyn Monroe and JFK roleplay, but I’d get way too into it. 

Persephone: What- how? 

Hades: You’d be like “come to bed … Mr. President” and I’d be like, “I need to increase the amount of American military advisors in South Vietnam by a factor of 18.”

Achilles: This bloodline ends with me. 

Peleus: That's the fanciest way I've ever heard someone say "I'm gay".

Apollo, trying his first ever cup of coffee: I am ENERGY! 

Artemis, an avid coffee drinker, on her twelfth cup of the day: Someone slap me awake or I am literally going to fall into a coma in ten seconds.

Dionysus: I’m having salad for dinner! 

Apollo: 

Dionysus: Well, fruit salad. 

Dionysus: Actually, it’s mostly grapes. 

Apollo: 

Dionysus: Okay, it’s all grapes. 

Dionysus: Fermented grapes. 

Apollo: 

Dionysus: 

Apollo: 

Dionysus: It’s wine. 

Dionysus: I’m having wine for dinner.

Athena: Ha! Don't you know the trappers trap can trap the trapper? 

Athena: I must be losing it, I'm quoting Ares.

Zeus: Do you guys hear something? 

Hades: I hear the sound of you shutting the fuck up.

#Greek mythology #patrocolus #Achilles #patrochilles #hades #persephone #persephades #Peleus #Apollo #Dionysus #Athena #Ares #Zeus #apollo #artemis #Incorrect quotes #The Illiad

[florida3exclamationpoints]

Steve's arc in Age of Ultron is so important to him, it's so compelling to watch, it's so well done. I tried to explain it with the main quotes from the movie that bring it out because I'm obsessed.

"I don't think I can afford a place in Brooklyn." "Yeah, but home is home, right?" Steve just looks away and clenches his jaw in a very Steve way. He doesn't agree with Sam, he doesn't even nod. Brooklyn, the geographical location, is not home. Not in the way Steve needs a home.

"Captain America. Pretending he can live without a war." The end comes back around to this one. It stings because it's true. He knows it. What else does he do? Nothing. He doesn't have a home to go back to, as established very early on.

"The war's over Steve. We can go home. Imagine it." And then everyone in the room disappears. And then he sees himself dance with Peggy. And then he's alone again. That was him imagining it. All he could see was a flash of them dancing, but God he looked happy in that flash. Everyone else was gone, he couldn't imagine anything else, because he doesn't know life without war. He wants to. All he can reach is a second of Peggy. But he doesn't know what it was like for the soldiers in ww2 who went home. The only part he does relate to, actually, is the ptsd. Which he also sees in the dream. He flinches at a camera flash and sees wine on a shirt as blood. What else is there after the war for him? All he ever hoped for was a dance. He never even got that. And that was all he could see.

"We can go home." He hears her voice again when he looks at Clint's house. It's the perfect image of an American family home with a big yard for 2.5 kids to play in. Completely normal. That wide shot of him standing on the porch but he's still wearing his uniform, it shows everything he wants but all that he's left with right now. He looks so out of place with his uniform and shield on. And he turns around and walks away because he can't even stand to look at the house. That's supposed to be him in there. He was supposed to go home.

"Isn't that the why we fight? So that we get to end the fight? So that we get to go home?" That's what really set him off, but the whole conversation really. Tony says "looks like you walked away alright" and Steve looks at him with so much resentment. Like how do I look fine? You think I'm fine? But all he says is "is that a problem?" because he can't talk about it. Especially not to Tony, but not really to anyone. Tony says "I don't trust a guy without a dark side." Steve says "let's just say you haven't seen it yet." He's obviously saying he has one. He's been in a bad place as much as Thor and Nat since the dreams, Tony just chooses to see him as a symbol. But he's not about to explain himself. And he's leaving the door open for the option that he might lose control and everyone might realize how dark his dark side is. It wasn't a promise no one would ever see it. It was just that Tony hadn't seen it yet. Now, as much as I love Tony, he was really ignorant for pulling the so we get to go home? It's not like it's hard to see. Steve gets genuinely mad, rightfully. He hasn't stopped fighting since he started, he's never gotten to go home, he's finding himself almost looking for fights because that's all he knows. But he wants to go home so bad, and it's not even an option. Tony wants to fight about if Ultron could save the world, and that they should take the opportunity so that Clint can go home to Laura, and Tony can go home to Pepper, and Nat and Bruce can work out their stuff, etc etc. And Steve's on the other side of the conversation, not even agreeing with the concept of Ultron in the first place, but he has nothing to fight for. He's not defending his stance so that he can go home, he's doing it because he believes it's right. And what else is he going to do if he's not defending something? When he ripped the log in half, it was a glimpse of his dark side, but only if you know what he's thinking. He's mad, he's lonely, he's grieving. And he takes it out on the log.

"The simple life." "You'll get there one day." "I don't know. Family, stability... the guy who wanted all that went in the ice 75 years ago. I think someone else came out." This is the first time he's admitted that he wanted that. Even in TFA, he showed interest but not that explicitly. Since he's woken up, he's avoided it completely. He didn't even answer Sam when he said "home is home." He's finally acknowledged it and admitted it. But he puts the responsibility on himself. "I think someone else came out." That's not really true. In TFA, he said he'd "settle for just one" girl, then that he was waiting for "the right partner" to dance with, and then he promised to dance with Peggy. While he was actively crashing the plane into the ice, in fact. The guy who wanted family and stability went into the ice, yes, and he made it very clear who he wanted that family and stability with. He didn't exactly come out as a different person. He came out 70 years later, so his chance at family and stability with her was gone. This whole time he's been distraught that he couldn't go home. He wasn't all of a sudden saying I just dont want to. He was saying there was no family and stability left for him to want. It wasn't him that had changed, it was the circumstances, and he was trying to live with that.

"You alright?" "I'm home." Yes he was. But he didn't look very happy about it, did he? He was at the Avengers compound. Tony wasn't staying to train the new guys because he was going home to Pepper. Clint was already home. But Steve was still in the middle of the fight. He's not really pretending he can live without a war when he just knows he can't. Even as he says "I'm home," you hear soldiers marching in the background. It's eerie. He's trying to get by because what else can he do, who is he if he's not Captain America? He hasn't been able to be just Steve in a long time. He's not even trying to find just Steve, he left just Steve in 1945 with Peggy. "Someone else came out" ? Captain America came out.

#i tried to write this one mostly seriously .. without the brainrot .. bc it's literally so important #its the core of Steve's character do you understand #steve rogers #age of ultron #avengers #avengers:aou #peggy carter #steggy #tony stark #marvel

[lostinwalmartmymomleftme]

What r ur dreamswap headcanons :3

Have to redo this bc Tumblr hates me:

* 7 each

* Human Ver. Specific

Dream

Dream 100% has something that’s dedicated to Ani, (hospital, orphanage, medical organization, etc.)

To add more depth to him being Latino, I choose to believe he’s Chilean-American

He doesn’t like to be touched, but would never correct anybody on it because he doesn’t want to offend anyone and he doesn’t view it as a priority or concern 

Only has one scar and it was prior to the incident (tm), nightmare, dropped a bowl, and a shard of the ceramic cut dream deep enough to form a scar, and subconsciously Dream doesn’t want it to heal, so it doesn’t fully heal, though it is fairly faint, it’s on his wrist directly above the bone 

He’s probably some form of genderqueer, yeah, doesn’t know it and refuses to look into it because he just doesn’t view it as important, he probably goes by pronouns 

His magical blondness, skips a few streaks of his hair, so he has black streaks that he dies blonde to match the rest of his hair

Canonically multilingual, speaking both English and Mandarin, though I would like to add that he can fluently speak Latin, modern Spanish, and French

Bonus: Dream does that OCD thing (w/o actually having it) where all of his pens when they’re laying on his desk are at the exact same place, in a perfect little row

Nightmare

He sits in trees and people watches, like he sits up in trees, kind of in forests and watches people on picnics and fun little family outings, and tries to imagine what his life would be like if it hadn’t been what it is 

His hair is extremely heat damaged, because he totally straightens it (it’s the only thing about him that’s allowed to be straight /j)

Extension on him canonically being Latino: I think he’s Peruvian-American

For some reason collect bottle caps (like the little metal ones you get on alcohol bottles (he doesn’t drink though))

He has a peanut allergy

Despite being an insomniac, whenever he does actually sleep, he starfishes

He doesn’t like looking in mirrors, there’s anything wrong with it, there isn’t really reason why he doesn’t like it, he just find it unsettling and he covers the one in his room with a blanket

Ink

He has one of those canopy beds, but the actual canopy part is custom painted and embroidered (by himself) with band logos, TV show logos, characters he likes, etc.

He is really bad at spelling, professional emails are more like word scrambles

If someone were to ask him to draw them, he would draw them, claim he made mistake, tear it up, then draw a stick figure, and give it to them

Usual Ethnicity one: he actually doesn’t know his ethnicity beyond being Latino, but he is Cuban-American

He’s emo and claims his favorite color is black, but it’s orange which is equally as bad

He has no real gauge of his own pain tolerance and usually has to be forced into medical situations by other people, usually Dream when he reports back to him

Ink’s allergic to bleach and ant bites

Cross

He hasn’t had his first kiss

He uses Old Spice cologne in the classic scent. But he does it to a NAUSEATING level.

He’s Irish, ethnically. I don’t make the rules.

He’s minorly lactose intolerant

This man owns like five Tamagatchis

He makes really good bread for some reason? Like this man SLAYS a sourdough

Cross uses 3-in-1 bodywash

(This is a Tamagatchi if you don’t know)

Blue

This man wears hair curlers to bed 100%

He’s really bad at math

Probably advocates for eating healthy (being a yoga instructor, possible influencer)

Blue is so ADHD to me

American-Italian/Portuguese

Has never made a bed in his LIFE

Blue seems like the kind of man who would burn water

Error

Clean freak, he prefers to keep the house clean, but it ends up a mess anyways because Cross and Nightmare always end up messing it up

Easily the best driver of the Meme Squad

His lock/homescreen is an inspirational quote

LOVES the rain, finds it calming and loves the smell of it, but hates getting caught out in the rain (loves the aesthetic, hates the actual thing)

Maybe American-Moroccan?

He likes dark fantasy books

Was top of his class when he had been in school, prior to his amnesia

Kevin

Can read. (Can’t write (no thumbs))

Can and does steal from the meme squad

Bonus:

How long I think it takes DS to get ready in the mornings:

Dream takes a solid hour and a half

Blue takes an hour

Nightmare takes 45 minutes

Cross and Ink take 15-20 minute for the sake of layers

Error and Finch take like 5 bc they dress really basic

dreamswap by @\onebizarrekai

#dreamswap #dreamswap dream #ds dream #dreamswap finch #ds finch #ds error #dreamswap ink #dreamswap error #ds cross #ds ink #ds nightmare #ds blue #dreamswap cross #dreamswap nightmare #dreamswap blue #dreamswap headcanons #ds headcanons

[vesperpharsalius]

I read the quote you posted from golden son and I didn’t immediately read the tags so I was going crazy because I remembered the scene differently, but since I have only read GS translated in my language I thought it was a translation change. But now I feel dumb because what are the RR snippets I need more of whatever that was because that was beautiful, the lancelot part got me screaming crying and throwing up. please help😭

Thanks for the ask!

My copy of Red Rising (which is just a standard American mass–market paperback I bought back in 2016) has a teaser for Golden Son at the end, excerpts from Ch. 11–12, which cover the Gala. It is mostly consistent with the corresponding parts of GS, with less dialogue and detail and overall polishing than the actual book, but there’s the occasional thing that got cut or changed in the final version. Strangely, the teaser at the end of my GS is identical to its corresponding scene in Morning Star—it’s the prologue—so I’m not sure whether this was deliberate.

Here’s the official version of THAT scene:

He of the bloodydamn golden curls is with the girl who nursed me to health in the winter, who helped me remember Eo's dream. His hand on her waist. His lips whispering into her ear. As surely as Cassius au Bellona put a sword in my stomach, he now sticks a dagger in my heart.

His hair thick and lustrous. His chin cleft, hands steady. Shoulders powerful, made for war. Face made for the hearts of court. And he wears the rising sun of the Morning Knight. The rumors are true. It rips through the party. The Sovereign has made him one of the twelve. Despite the fact that I won the Institute, he's risen higher, tearing through the Dueling Circuit on Luna like an ancestor possessed. I've watched him on the HC, watched him stalk around the Bleeding Place as another Gold lies near death.

But here, now, he dazzles, charms. Face split with a white smile. In his Golden body he has all I have and more. He is faster on his feet than I. As tall. More handsome. Wealthier. He has a better laugh and people think him kinder. Yet he has none of my burdens.

And this is the teaser from RR:

He of the bloodydamn golden curls is with the girl who nursed me to health in the winter, who helped me remember Eo's dream. His hand on her waist. His lips whispering into her ear. As surely Cassius au Bellona put a sword in my stomach, he now sticks a dagger in my heart.

His hair thick and lustrous. His chin cleft. His hands steady. Form powerful. Shoulders made for war. Face made for the women of court. And he wears a crown badge. The Sovereign has taken him for one of her lancers. Despite the fact that I won at the Institute, he's risen higher, tearing through the Dueling Circuit on Luna like an ancestor possessed. I've watched him on the HC, watched him stalk around the Bleeding Place as another Gold lies near death. He stalks like a famished beast as if one life cannot sate the hunger that roils inside him.

Here, now, he dazzles, charms. Face split with a white smile, he is the man fit for stories of romance, a Lancelot galloping from myth to steal a woman who could have been, but never was, my Guinevere. His is a charmed birth. He has all I have in his Golden body and more. He is faster on his feet than I. As tall. He is more handsome. Wealthier. A golden knight. He has a better laugh and people think him kinder. He does not have my burdens.

As you can see, the final version is a little more eloquent and better–worded. The teaser is rawer and a little clumsier. But… whoever cut the Lancelot and insatiable beast bits out should go to Deepgrave, fr, because they’re just 🤌🏽

With the exception of THAT scene, the differences are minor, the Final Cut being obviously superior and often opulent by comparison. Still, there are some notable omissions that didn’t make it, like—

A brief but important conversation between Darrow and Karnus (where he guzzles like, four glasses of wine in less than a minute; Eagle Rest needs an AA chapter, apparently) about butter, in which they establish that A) Lunese food has too much butter and not enough salt and that B) butter is disgusting and makes them feel like pigs.

Karnus also mentions that Julian loved butter so much he ate it by the stick, alone. Wtf, Julian.

Darrow also remarks at one point that A) Martians pride punctuality and always arrive on time, that B) Venusians disdain it and are always fashionably late, and that C) Lunese either come first or last, to keep people guessing and mess with their heads, ofc.

(I like to imagine the Raa being equally punctual and Dido coming to dinner two hours late wearing a diaphanous dress and body glitter, getting criminally offensive side–eye.)

Secret canon facts! Reblog for Lancelot Cassius and Carny Julian.

#dassius #darrow x cassius #i said what i said #the Gala was fueled by Dassius UST #and rampant Bellona alcoholism #red rising #red rising saga #golden son #darrow of lykos #cassius au bellona #karnus au bellona #julian au bellona #Gala appreciation post #alternate version #weird little inconsistencies

[charmedreincarnation]

The painter and their dream

Life is a canvas, and we are the artist. With each passing day, we choose what colors to use, what shapes to create - ultimately, each one of us has the power to paint our own reality.

Meet Georgina. Georgina is a dreamer. She never stops visualizing her future; the colors she wants to use are not just a figment of her imagination, but an intentional design she puts into practice every single day.

Georgina knows what she needs to manifest her ideal future: perseverance, creativity, and sheer willpower. She uses each one of those elements to build the life she desires, turning the abstracts into concrete results.

Whether she’s pursuing her dreams of being a fashion designer or planning an exciting holiday, Georgina applies all of her skills and resources to make it happen. She sees her actions as brush strokes in a painting that she hopes to be proud of in due course.

Being a dreamer isn’t easy. People don’t often understand why Georgina is putting in the effort when the outcome isn't always guaranteed; however, she refuses to give up on what matters to her. She holds onto the moments when her vision becomes tangible; these moments give her the strength to keep going.

Rather than giving into the fear of failure and disappointment, Georgina boldly focuses on the beauty of the present, and continues creating her masterpiece. Her journey is something to be admired, and we are all witnesses of her creative endeavors.

At the end of the day, we are all dreamers who paint our reality as we go. Life is our canvas, and we have the power to bring our dreams to life if we believe in them enough.

As the iconic American painter Edward Hopper once said, “If you could say it in words, there would be no need for the painting.” This quote gives us an insight into why painting is so powerful—it is a way of conveying what cannot be said in words.

This analogy can be applied to reality itself—the canvas of our lives is blank and ready to be painted each day, with our beliefs and choices about how we live making up our reality. The issue with that is that many of us remain unaware that we have power to create our own reality.

Instead of painting our reality by creating positive beliefs, and taking conscious ownership of what we create, we often succumb to negative thought patterns that paint a reality full of stress and anxiety. On the contrary, when we take ownership of our reality, we become aware of the paintbrush that we have always had in our hands. We can choose to paint a beautiful life—one full of love, wealth,beauty, and joy—if we develop an understanding of how our thoughts and choices manifest in our outer world.

Ultimately, it is our responsibility to take ownership of our reality and to realize that we can paint whatever picture we choose with our thoughts and actions. And although our painting may have blips and blotches along the way, we must always remember that we have the power to choose how our lives look. By letting go of limiting beliefs, and learning how to utilize the power of positive thought, we can ultimately choose to paint a reality filled with optimism, openness and opportunity.

What we think, we become'? Well, I believe it to be true. It's like what Edward Art said, “You are the painter of your own reality. You choose the colors and you decide where each one will go.”

Our reality is like an empty canvas. It's up to you to put down the paint and decide what you want it to look like. Just like a painter takes time creating a beautiful piece of art, we too can take the time to create what we want our lives to look like. It's about becoming aware of what you're creating and acknowledging that you have the power to do so.

So, take a step back. Find some peace and quiet and ask yourself what your reality looks like. Really take a look around and observe your environment. Is it how you want it to manifest in your life? If it's not, take the necessary steps to make changes. Focus on the future that you can create.

Think of it as a puzzle that you have all the pieces to. You have full control over your energy and the thoughts and beliefs that you carry with you. Visualize how the pieces will fit together to create the life that you want. Who knows, you might even surprise yourself with what you can create.

Once you become comfortable in taking charge of your life and shaping it into what you desire, it can become quite enjoyable. Enjoy every step of the process. Take small strides and be patient. Feel mindful energy and set intentions for how your life should unfold.

When self-awareness kicks in, you'll realize that you're in control of creating your life, just like a painter creates his art with a brush and canvas.You will rightly embody your thoughts, but choose them wisely because you have full power and control over your life." This is your own special work of art called life, so live it vibrantly. You deserve to create the beautiful art of what we call this life so why not paint.

I will leave you with one last quote from Edward Hopper: “Someday everything will be beautiful.” He believed in the beauty of possibility—that with the right mindset, anything is possible. So let’s take ownership of our reality and use our paint brushes to create our beautiful painting.

#law of assumption #manifesation #manifesting #reality shifting

[bracketsoffear]

Spiders-Man (Marvel) "He’s a collection of sentient spiders that are Peter Parker and took his identity. They are spiders, but they also manage to maintain the role of spiderman, keeping control over New York City, and probably terrorizing more than one person with the fact that they can disassemble themselves and crawl all over people."

Director Lee Harvey Oswald (The Department of Truth) "In The Department of Truth, the protagonist’s boss (and the director of the titular department) is a much older Lee Harvey Oswald, though it’s not explicitly known which version of him he is. As in, what story of the assassination is true? Is he the CIA stooge? The innocent patsy? The lone gunman? Our protagonist muses this question in the second issue and can only conclude: “He’s probably not the one killed by Jack Ruby.” And looking at the picture the comic paints of who he is now, he seems much more the type to spend his time in Howard Hunt’s circles than Kerry Thornley’s, if you know what I mean. He has become the image of the perfect Cold War-era fed with his browline glasses, dark suit, quips about a new generation gone soft, and an ever-present cigarette. And that’s because he always has been that. He joined the Department as an agent when he was 19, working to counter the Soviets and gain information on their country’s equivalent of the D.o.T. And we, the reader, do not know what happened on November day in Dallas, but neither does he, it seems. Kennedy stood against the Department and it was his job to take him out, but in that book depository, he saw the Scarlet Woman (see the Extinction poll) holding a sniper rifle, ready to tear apart the country’s sense of truth with a bullet. (Well, three.) But as the story of the assassination spread, so did the idea of Lee Harvey Oswald, the concept of the shadowy assassin that was seen on the front pages, the conflicting theories and paranoias made manifest. To quote Hawk Harrison (another character), “the living embodiment of every horrible thing people think the government is capable of, filled up into a man-shaped thing.”

And we don’t know which one was saved and which one was killed. And neither does he. He’s left contemplating whether or not he’s truly real or simply another fiction, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. Reality is relative, he’s no less real than this country is. No matter how human he may or may not be, he might as well be American paranoia personified in function. He’s a man desperate to do whatever it takes to uphold the ideal of what America is supposed to be, that Shining City on a Hill; a man fighting in a war of propaganda and information and disinformation, a war of stories and ideas. To quote Indrid Cold, he’s simply a “dream this country is having.”

For a brief moment though, he tried to escape from what he is in the way so many privileged young people of the 1960s did: growing his hair out and running away to San Francisco in search of drugs, free love, and an answer to his problems and existential malaise. He found the first two, the last is debatable. He finds himself in bed with an unnamed woman with whom he shares his fears about his nonexistence, about the country's nonexistence, only to pull a gun on her when he realizes that she laced his blunt with LSD. ‘Who the hell are you, and who do you work for?’ He asks, pointing the weapon in her face. “Do you know who I am?” She simply answers: “You’re not going to hurt me. I’m just a pawn in a bigger game. A patsy.” She knows. Of course, she does, she’s Company, a CIA agent involved with MKULTA, the agency’s infamous failed attempt at brainwashing its own citizens. “Was it you?” he asks, “Did you pull the trigger?” She tells him that they’re not the ones in control, that “Everyone misses the real conspiracy, don’t they? We’re the little shadow puppets they control. We do what they tell us to do. Some very smart, very dumb people thought they could control what America was without getting blood on their hands. They thought they were storytellers. They thought they were selling Coca-Cola and Chevrolet and hot dogs. They wanted to tell America that “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and they wanted America to believe it. Isn’t that right, Lee? But it’s not a wonderful life. People know that. People don’t want to get along. They want to fuck and feel good and feel righteous. The Department of Truth is selling America its own version of The Truth. Telling everyone Why We Fight. Why We Buy. Why We Believe. But it’s not working, is it? You know it’s not working. You can see the cracks forming all around us. You can see the fracturing. The Counterculture… It’s such a perfect little weapon. These kids think they’re fighting against some big war in Asia, but they’re on the front lines right here in Haight-Ashbury. They eat the lotus flower and they see themselves as little gods, and see their desires as something larger than they are. They sing their little protest songs, but they’ll be voting Republican before their first grays come in. I’m just a pawn. A patsy. I feed the kids the drugs and my bosses tell me that it’s to wash their minds, to see if we can push them, control who they are and what they think. It’s not working… This whole MKULTRA thing… Not how the men in suits want it to work, but me and the kids on the ground, we’ve been seeing it. They do it all on their own. They brainwash themselves. They become rancid, and bloodthirsty, and we have to feed them the blood they want.” “I don’t understand,” asks Lee. “Who killed Kennedy?” “You’re so fucked up that you can’t even how funny that is…” she continues, “Is it my bosses in Langley? Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex? The big bad commie-hating war machine, not willing to back down in the fight against the hammer and sickle, even if means having to kill our best and brightest? Is it Queen J. Edgar Hoover and his black-suited goon squad terrified that the kids are going to rise up and shoot their parents in their sleep? Is it the Italian mob, and Hoffa, and all their mobsters and teamsters angry that they’re losing their foothold,” No, she says. “It’s the same as it was in ‘63. It wasn’t any of them. It was you. It was me. It was all those kids smoking reefer on the street and thinking about free love. You can’t just tell them that things are going to be better forever like your idiot bosses thought. The kids want to fight for themselves. They want to own it for themselves. You need to let them taste glory.”

Lee wakes up with a campaign button in his hand: “NIXON’S THE ONE!” The next time we see him, he’s meeting the new president in the oval office, once again wearing a suit with his hair cut short. He has become almost exactly what the unnamed agent described, with one major difference. He succeeds.

History is, of course, written by the victors, and facts can be rewritten by them as well. After his “death”, the previous Director (Frank Capra, director of It’s a Wonderful Life) put him in the Department’s archives to try and figure out who the Scarlet Woman was, only for him to use the research to find a new way of doing things, a way to shift reality through manipulating what people believe to be true on a large scale through media, and symbolic imagery, and simple lies that serve to reinforce what the public wants to believe about this country, and for that, Richard Nixon appointed him to the job we know him in, Director of the D.o.T. Director Capra was a naïve idealist who truly believed that the American Dream was not only real but could be achieved through hard work. Lee knows that the American Dream is a lie, but my god, he will do what it takes to make it real, no matter how underhanded the tactics. If you can control the narrative, you can control the Truth.

For most of his tenure, it was the height of the Cold War, there was a distinct enemy to push against. It was a conflict of countries, of ideologies, of two superpowers trying to keep their way of life at the expense of the other, and it was the U.S. that won out. There is another version of the 20th century, the one that was once real, where the founding ideals of the USSR were much closer to being realized within its border, it was something better than what it became, but the U.S. won the propaganda war and what was once simply a fact had become a hazy fiction that never happened. And so the victor rewrites history. And how does one become the victor? Through whatever means necessary, from fabricating events that later became real, to assassinations, to media manipulation, to the creation of the Satanic Panic itself, playing off paranoia and Christian nationalism to strengthen the idea that America is something that exists, that the American Dream is worth fighting for. (And of course, in the case of the latter, to deflect media attention from the whole Iran-Contra Deal.)

And what did this victory get him? A hell of a lot of guilt and a shattered, post-truth society that he’s left trying to clean up the pieces of. The Department is no longer fighting an ideological battle against an equally matched enemy, they’re floundering against the misinformation and conspiracies they once spread, desperately trying to keep reality from falling into the hands of far-right reactionaries using their own methods (and in Lee’s case, his own stories) to try and rewrite reality in their favor. The D.o.T. is rotten to its core, an organization founded to uphold American hegemony, but now, they’re the closest thing to the heroes of this story simply because the other side is so, so much worse. Like Pandora desperately trying to stuff the evils she released back into the box, they’re trying to contain the lies they wrought upon society.

The phrase “post-truth society” is often thrown around concerning the present political moment, but the comic posits that this isn’t new. There has never been a unified societal truth. But it sure as hell is worse now when any internet fascist can go and rant about whatever fucking bigoted conspiracy they stake their brand on and sway thousands to their side. And we need to fight that at all costs. But preserving the status quo is not the way; I mean, look where attempting to do that left us. No, there’s another way. And that’s coming clean about everything. No more secrets, no more attempts to shape the narrative towards your ideal, the public needs to know. (And that’s the power of government transparency and the Fourth Estate, babey!)

Finally, I leave you with this monologue: “I know you don’t trust me. I don’t care. I’ve done enough bad shit, and spent the last sixty years of my life lying through my teeth every goddamn day. I don’t need you to trust me. But I need to trust you to know that the ends justify the means. You’re sour over your star-faced man. Hawk told you that he stoked the fire there, tried to make it seem realer than it was. That we had a vested interest in people believing that Satan was lurking behind every corner. I was younger then. I was stepping boldly. I was trying to defend the dream of what America was supposed to be. Not let those Russian fucks dictate our future. I’ve done many things that haunt me, more than you can imagine.”

#web poll #the magnus archives #the web #poll #marvel #the department of truth

[goneahead]

I got tagged by @demeter1111 back when wattieza forests were still a thing. sorry for being a disorganized noodle!

15 questions and 15 mutuals:

Were you named after anyone? When was the last time you cried? Do you have kids? Do you use sarcasm a lot? What's the first thing you notice about people? What's your eye colorScary movies or happy endings? Any special talents? Where were you born? What are your hobbies? Have any pets? What sports do you play/have played? How tall are you? Favorite subiect in school? Dream job?

KNIGHTS! NEW QUESTIONS! (obligatory obscure Monty Python reference)

What famous person, alive or dead, would you want beside you during a zombie apocalypse?

Hanibal of Carthage. He is super smart, a great fighter—and he comes with elephants. Lets be honest, elephants would be super cool in a zombie apocalypse. Especially zombie ones😁

If they made a movie about you, what would your theme song be?

since I’m a nomad, The Great Divide by National Park Radio😉

Which muppet character would you be willing to go on a date with?

Gonzo—as long as Gonzo sets up the date. Cuz you know Gonzo would set up a wild date😆

What is the weirdest thing you have ever eaten?

I was served whale blubber at a party once. Do NOT recommend🤢

What is the weirdest thing you still eat?

I really love peanut butter on my crepes😋

You can have any extinct or fantasy animal as a pet. What would you choose?

The enormous pteradactyl, Quetzalcoatlus. With a handy riding harness. And maybe some water ballons…😏

List a very boring fact about yourself.

I am an American mutt. My parents were from very different parts of the country, but all four of my grandparents came from families that settled in the U.S. in the timespan 1630–1730.

You are granted a wish to have any food you want—but the catch is you will have to eat it twice a day for the rest of your life. What do you choose?

**ponders** popcorn or freshly baked cookies or popcorn or freshly baked cookies or popcorn or—

You can choose any singer or band to play at your funeral. Who do you pick?

Nat King Cole. Everyone can roll up the rugs, and dance the night away!

What line of poetry or doggerel is forever stuck in your brain?

Charge of the Light Brigade: “Into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of hell/Rode the six hundred.” I used to quote this at work, usually when we were getting overrun. For some reason, my bosses were never amused. Then again. they also didnt appreciate it when I would tell them ‘I would like to inform you that the barbarians are at the gates.”😂😂😂

You can bring back an item of clothing that has fallen out of style. What would it be?

We really need to bring back the clothing of the Han Chinese. Imagine if we could all walk around in loose, flowing comfortable clothes. Also, wearing hanfu means long flowing belts—which means we could turn all the cool stuff we currently put on our key chains into belt decorations. With tassles. Cuz modern clothing haz a serious lack of tassles. Just saying…

You are granted the gift of being a were creature. What animal would you choose to change into?

Definitely were-otter. Much scampering, much floating—and lots of fish. Also, I wouldnt have to worry about villagers and pitchforks, cuz seriously, who is gonna be scared of a were-otter?

What is the most useless fact you know?

The last person to collect a Civil War pension was Irene Triplett. She passed away in 2020. Also, in 1916 the U.S. Postal Service changed the rules, and you can no longer mail more than 200 pounds/90 kilos in a single day. Why? Some guy was building a bank in Utah and realized he could save on freight charges by just having the bricks mailed. Yes, ALL of the bricks😂😂😂

You are going to be locked, all alone, in a place for 24 hours. Which place do you choose?

Um, tie. The Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art or the Gilcrease Museum😍

What is the superpower you want and whats the superpower you DONT want?

Best superpower? Making quarters appear wherever I want. No, seriously. Think about how much fun you could have, in a super sneaky way. College kid walks by—put a few extra quarters in their pocket. Seniors sitting on a park bench—now there are handfuls of quarters in the bottom of their purses. Tip jar at the coffee shop—add another layer of quarters. Also easiest superhero name ever. Just stick a pencil behind your ear and call yourself ‘Drawn and Quartered’🤣🤣🤣

The worst superpower? Anything to do with ice and snow. Nope nope nope!

ok tagging @distilled-prose @cowandcalf @teruel-a-witch @ellena-asg @wordrummager @torrentialmonsoon @sherrylephotography @ends-2-beginnings @itwoodbeprefect @alex-a-roman @mikefrawley @firstfullmoon @gracebriarwoodwrites @maureen2musings @stephmcx and cuz I changed the questions @demeter1111 also tagging @neil-gaiman cuz I know he wont answer, but I am super curious about his answer to question one😂😂😂

#answered #new questions #zombie elephants

[zephyruswrites536]

I’m going to make a statement about Mammalian Sighing Reflex because I used to be a strong SBI-DSMP fan, still SBI fan. So if you dislike DSMP in any capacity and just want to hate move away, I don’t like Dream, I was never a true fan of him, as I said SBI.

Now, any Lovejoy fans who also know Wilbur Soot or the ones like me who went through Wilbur’s music and then was there for Lovejoy’s first EP.

Mammalian Sighing Reflex is such a good album. Someone on Reddit described it in its literal sense(I believe) that Mammalian Sighing Reflex is the Reflex that makes a Mammal stop itself from drowning because it needs to stay alive. A human however can stop this from self-control. It’s our primal instinct to save ourselves and that’s what it’s about, the primal instinct to not drown yourself. I probably summarized it slightly wrong- who knows.

As I am American I did not get this first and I believe we were last… anyways

Every song matches up to the next, it’s like Abbey Road’s side B but more depressing. Honestly the whole second half of the Album just hits closer to home than the rest and it just sounds good to me anyways.

I was saying, I can like almost anything Wilbur specifically makes because I have know and heard and loved his music for years now, almost two and a half.

Also, I forgot to mention- the reflex is a panic attack in the animal to survive, it knows it’s dying and is terrified/panicked. Well, any long term(I know I’m not an OG but i have been a fan for two and a half years) Wilbur fans know he has anxiety- I forget if it’s Social or just generalized- but he has talked about having Panic attacks from a young age.

That clues in the album name as well as a decent portion of the songs’ content.

Don’t fully listen to what I’m saying because the music is flowing through my ears and I’m picking up little bits so.

I don’t know which exactly but one of the first four songs there are lyrics about being on tour or heavily suggest a band kind of perspective.

He talked about having a panic attack on stage because he’d forgotten how to play “La Jolla” and I think that’s connects again to the album name.

What I was going to say though is again, before Lovejoy was a thing so SBI DSMP or Wilbur fans are thé ones I’m speaking to now, we all know the beginning of 2021 sucked for Wilbur. In “I don’t think it will end”(very good, makes me feel seen and that’s what this album is for) he describes how he hides away, and a very popular Crimebois quote is when he had talked about how he was sleeping in till the afternoon then would just scroll aimlessly on his phone but Tommy would text him saying “come talk to me” so he’d get up and get ready. The cycle he talks about fits in with that very well to me.

Wilbur splices recordings of himself into it, I know because almost all of us who were his fans in 2020 and 2021 know about the “field video” where he talks about how he could be easily killed by a sniper and not be found for days. From that I can recognize his younger voice and I think it’s in at least two videos, Amazon Standing Lamp and Glass Chalet- I believe-.

That’s all the investigation I’m doing from subconsciously picking up lyrics, so here’s this. This is obviously not my normal content so Good Omens and Our flag means death and The Magnus Archives enjoyers I’m sorry, but the creator means a decent amount to me and now does this album.

#mammalian sighing reflex #wilbur soot #wilbur music #mammalian sighing reflex album #I like music ok #it’s giving Maybe I Was Boring #and that’s my favorite Will album #so

[radical-revolution]

Dear fellow beings,

In yet another of our human narratives, we’ve labelled the old year as finished. And therefore, the old year must inevitably be followed by a “new year”. With those man-made categories, along comes something even more ludicrous called a “new year’s resolution”.

These new year’s resolutions require looking “back” and looking “forward”. When we do that, we see that things in the world haven’t been too easy in the recent past. And from the way it’s all going, it looks like the future won’t be easy either. Ecological destruction is one big reason. Another is that the old lords and masters are so threatened by newbies who want to be just like them and particularly by those who are managing to achieve that.

But we’re caught: How can we stop a billion Chinese wanting to clean their butts on the toilet seat the way a few million Japanese clean theirs? And how can we deny the aspiration of a billion Indians to water their lawns and dry their clothes with automatic dryers the way Americans do? The pain felt by those who were once lords as they watch the rise of subordinates is splendidly captured by none other than the great Satyajit Ray in his beautiful film Jalsaghar.

And if all the wannabes do get what they want, like a billion Indians and Chinese getting their own cars, taking holidays in campervans or on Mallorca and Aruba, and a whole lot more, which they surely deserve as much as those who presently have all that, then what? Surely that will not only accelerate ecological destruction but may well lead to global warfare as the former lords and masters use all their might to cling to their old privilege and control.

So, in the big picture, it’s hard to make an upbeat new year’s resolution for the world from anyone’s point of view. All I can do personally myself, is re-resolve to follow what Gautama taught.

I came to this resolution because the only way I can liberate myself from the delusion of expecting a perfect society is to follow this man Gautama. And because the only way I won’t be caught in the games of the dream is to wake up from the dream, not by adding even more systematic dreams in the name of politics, the economy, science, technology and the rest.

I also want to put effort into letting other human beings know what Gautama taught. I have come to realize that the only reason why people like Gautama, Lao Tzu and Mahavira are not widely known today is because of colonial and neocolonial might that has convinced itself that its own modernity is “the end of history” and convinced the rest of the world that westernization and modernization are one and the same.

That is why Obama quotes Kant and not Mahavira, why Deng Xiaoping quotes Karl Marx and not Gautama, and why people in the larger world only know about Kama Sutra not Arthashastra. I have read philosophers like Aristotle, Kant, Hegel and Marx, though of course not thoroughly. But I have also not read the Buddha’s teachings thoroughly. Still, I’ve so far not found any insight into so-called reality that these western writers have said that the Buddha has not said, and I’ve found so much that the Buddha said that those writers have not even begun to say.

It's one thing for traditions to die out if they are archaic, useless, or harmful like female infanticide, genital mutilation or forced enslavement. But the degeneration of genuine wisdom traditions into nothing more than objects of anthropological interest is a grave and even dangerous loss to humanity.

So I ask those who share my concern and aspiration to join me in this or a similar resolution. May this year bring you wakefulness and cheerfulness. And in doing so, may that bring us confidence and free us from panic and anxiety.

— Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

[kaiyablog]

bawling my eyes out in the sunshine state: The Floria Project movie review

“This movie made no sense … It had no plot whatsoever .. the ending didn’t make any sense” (Zia’s Google Review, 2024).  

While Zia may have only rated Sean Baker’s film, “The Florida Project,” one star, her reasons are precisely what makes the film such a masterpiece. The film follows a mother (Halley, early 20’s) and daughter (Moonee, 6) through a Florida summer living at Magic Castle Inn and Suites, a  budget motel less than 20 miles from Disney world. Halley and Moonee are at the bottom of a capitalist society, with no viable means of upward mobility. Much like life, there isn’t a distinct beginning, climax, and resolution to the story and Baker doesn’t invent a happy ending for a story representing people without one. 

The movie captures the slice of life spirit, especially because it is shown from the perspective of Moonee. Baker wonderfully captures the mind of a 6-year old with quotes like: “Ooh a spider lets see if it farts,” and “I love oranges but not the lid.” But it’s not just the portrayal of kids’ play, it’s the insight into how they see objectively dysfunctional surroundings. The only way viewers know Halley turned to prostitution is because Moonee has to take a lot of baths with loud music playing and try to understand the subsequent ostracization her mother faces from neighbors. 

While the film isn’t shown from Halley’s perspective, it paints a representative picture of her situation. She relies on TANF and free food from her friends with jobs to provide for her daughter, because no matter how hard she tries, she can’t get a job anywhere. After trying everything else, Halley resorts to stripping and then prostitution. In a highly capitalist society in the shadow of Disney, the only way Halley can make money is to sell her body.  

Baker is not afraid to talk about sex in controversial ways. Sex is one of the recurring motifs of the film, with portrayals of sex work, pedophiles, boob jobs, and nudists with varying degrees of ambivalent representations.  It’s also interesting how the kids intersect with the idea of sex. The kids' most exciting summer moments are when Gloria is shirtless at the motel pool, and they can look at her “boobies.” The kids might not know what sex is, but the film reveals just how much they are influenced by a society that capitalizes on sex.

My only critique of the film is that there is almost too much unnecessary symbolism and unexplained motifs. For example, why the pedophile? There was one three minute scene about him and then never touched on again. Why were there constantly scenes of helicopters flying overhead? That said there were symbols and themes I appreciated. For example, it’s clear whether a character was important by their name. The main characters are: Moonee, Halley, Scooty, Dickie, Bobby, Jancey, and Ashley. Rainbows are a symbol of better things to come, often reliant on money (the pot of gold at the other end). The movie is characterized by bright colors in the surroundings (green nature and the motel is purple), the way characters dress and Halley’s hair and tattoos. The color is symbolic of childhood wonder and the perceived brightness of Disney World. 

The final motif that I think had the biggest impact was the appearance of the American flag at the scenes that would make any nationalist question their faith in America. The irony felt the strongest when DCF comes to take Moonee away. Even though Moonee is in a dysfunctional situation, the film makes viewers frustrated in the system. Taking Moonee away to bounce between families for 12 years is not a solution. Halley is not perfect, but she loves Moonee and would do so much more for her if she had a reliable source of money. 

The ending of the film turns the American Dream on its head. DCF tries to take Moonee but she runs and escapes. She sobs outside her best friend Jancey’s motel door. Jancey grabs her hand and together they run to Disney World and hold hands in joy together outside the real Magic Castle. (Filmed on an iPhone 6 so that Disney would not make money on the film)

One of Moonee’s quotes from the film is, “Do you know why this is my favorite tree - cuz its tipped over and it's still growing.” Despite living in one of the poorest communities in America, Moonie still finds joy in life. That said, there is no possible happy ending for Moonee as her mother is arrested and she goes away. That’s precisely why the non-sense ending that many Google Reviews complain about is so beautiful. If you want a movie that will have you sobbing and questioning everything, as well then this is the perfect film. 

Sources: 

Sean Baker explains why the ending is imaginary: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-the-florida-project-review-20171005-story.html

A look at the experiences of people actually living in the motels outside Disney:https://newrepublic.com/article/164335/homeless-gates-disney-world-florida-sunbelt-blues-review

#the florida project #florida #poverty #ron desantis #fuck desantis

[reasonandempathy]

Responding to an idiot

Idiot:

"Mmmmm so Hitler didn't get elected by promoting a form of nationalism that he promised would end in a socialist utopia? Or have I read the propaganda from the 30's wrong?

He got elected via a socialist grift just like every soviet, south American, and east Asian dictator.

His best guess was that the revolutions of the early century failed becuase there was in group conflict, hence the desire to create an ethnostate.

So regardless of whether or not he was a true blooded Marxist, he absolutely did run on a policy of collectivism that he wanted to implement after the war, and was dead before he could attempt to realize the promise.

The point here is to show just how easy it is for evil people to take power by promising socialism, justifying the corruption of any and all checks and balances and personal liberties in an attempt to realize a dream that will never work."

I wanted to take a crack at it, so I did.

Mmmmm so Hitler didn't get elected by promoting a form of nationalism that he promised would end in a socialist utopia? Or have I read the propaganda from the 30's wrong?

You read it wrong. Hitler explicitly broke Nazi ideology away from any sort of "socialist utopia." To quote Hitler in Liberty Magazine on July 9th, 1932:

‘Why’, I asked Hitler, ‘do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party program is the very anthesis of that commonly accredited to Socialism?’

‘Socialism’, he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, ‘is the science of dealing with the common weal [health or well-being]. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.

‘Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality and, unlike Marxism, it is patriotic.

Hitler's "socialism" wasn't universal, wasn't communist, wasn't marxist, promotes private property, and is just "dealing with the common health and well-being."

He got elected via a socialist grift just like every soviet, south American, and east Asian dictator.

He expressly got elected on anti-communist and Law & Order propaganda, which got him elected to a relatively minor party. He was invited into the ruling power structure by the right-wing conservative politicians who wanted to co-opt his popularity among disaffected younger people.

His best guess was that the revolutions of the early century failed becuase there was in group conflict, hence the desire to create an ethnostate.

His explicit belief was that the Aryan German Empire would've conquered Europe and ruled it if it weren't for "Bolshevists" (his word for left-wing people and marxists) and Jews, which is related to but not foundational for his desire for an ethnostate. He wanted an ethnostate, believed that they were the natural order of the world, and believed that "Aryans" were naturally the best. In fact, Jews were weird and weak for not having an ethnostate.

So regardless of whether or not he was a true blooded Marxist, he absolutely did run on a policy of collectivism that he wanted to implement after the war, and was dead before he could attempt to realize the promise.

I don't know how to explain that collectivism =/= socialism. Nationalism is collectivism. That didn't make Joseph McCarthya socialist.

The point here is to show just how easy it is for evil people to take power by promising socialism, justifying the corruption of any and all checks and balances and personal liberties in an attempt to realize a dream that will never work.

He very explicitly would run on not being socialist and not wanting socialist policies, as described in his interview in June of 1932.

It's amazing how people find themselves so confidently wrong on literally everything they say.

#nazis #hitler #socialism #nazism #original content #politics #political theory #history #nazi germany

[sapphicbookclub]

Author Spotlight: Jenna Jarvis

Although club members got to read it a little earlier, Jenna Jarvis's Ride With Me is now available for everyone! To celebrate the release, check out Jenna's essay on writing about road-trips and the outlaw below.

Ride with Me is a queer romance about a pair of disaster bisexual sisters-in-law who take a long drive west across the United States together. One is trying to run from her marriage, the other trying to have her great American road-trip. It’s my first non-fantasy book, but in many ways it felt very familiar for me to write, since Digging for Heaven was also, in its way, about travelling with someone. I love nothing more than a good road-trip story. In fantasy, all my favourite sections of the Song of Ice and Fire and The Lord of the Rings or more recently N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth series were the ones trapping two or more unlikely characters together for the duration of a journey. I loved reading about how they deal with the mundanity of putting up with another person for an extended length of time. Comedies like A Goofy Movie, Little Miss Sunshine and Are We There Yet? delighted me as a kid and gave me a love for stories about people only talking about their problems after reaching boiling point. It can be easier to talk seriously when in motion, and these films hinge on that. The famous Ladybird scene of our titular character throwing herself from her mom’s car to avoid further conversation with her is often on my mind when writing car dialogue.

There’s a lot of things that have mythologised the United States for me. It's inescapable, omnipresent as a cultural hegemony with a history and mythos invented in full performative view of the world. Their road-trip stories are inextricable from the aesthetics of the western, and the long and loaded history of going west to reinvent yourself: enmeshed with the colonial legacy of manifest destiny. To celebrate the legacy of the solo gunslinger canonised by the movies is to ignore the black and brown bodily reality of the cowboy, and the question of who becomes memorialised or pitied when living beyond the grip of “society���. With his camp imagery and post Brokeback cinema impression the cowboy has become a popular queer hero. But as with most things in American history whiteness is still critical to that image, and that extends to the movies playing with the image of the outlaw going west.

Thelma and Louise’s Thelma spend much of the end of the film in a t-shirt emblazoned with the confederate flag. The Devil’s Rejects has Otis quote white supremacist Charles Manson. In To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, a dream of a queer comedy about three drag queens in an impractical car, race is an absolutely cutting and often jarring wedge between the characters and to a lesser but key extent between the film and a modern audience. The Blues Brothers both uplifts and pushes from the centre its black characters, the plot pointless and voiceless without them and yet never very interested in them. Supernatural ran for fifteen seasons from the Bush administration, its characters driving around their country unchecked executing those more outside of society than themselves. Throughout the series they are regularly assumed to be white supremacists. None of this theming, to me, reads as incidental, even if it wasn’t intentional on the part of the various creators.

But road-trips always feel hopeful too, at least while they’re still moving. They’re romantic, in a sense of riding off into the sunset with a Just Married sign (Just Married being another hugely influential movie to me, I’m sorry to say) – but also to leave alone, as to an extent both of my characters feel they’re doing at the beginning. The act of driving at all is empowering: the act is proof you’re of age, and deemed trustworthy by society, and bold enough to control a dangerous vehicle (can you tell I can’t drive). It’s the fantasy of getting away from it all, of maybe never returning to where you came from. It’s the opening/ending of Showgirls, it’s the high midpoint of Barbie, it’s the hysterically cutting twist of Gone Girl, it’s a cross-genre favourite focus for an endless number of songs.

I’m probably going to keep writing road trip stories forever, because they’re some of my favourite ways to make characters interact with each other. But as with any genre or structure I approach, it helps to keep in mind what’s come before, in both an inspirational and damning sense. So many of the images that sing to me that I wanted to write about here are also coming from a symbology of American capitalism and individualism – the highway and car, or in this case, van - over lands forcibly emptied of their indigenous people. That haunts most stories tackling them, and remembering those ghosts felt critical even when writing a light-hearted rom-com.

For more on the complicated queer history on the cowboy check out Kaz Rowe’s video on it which I was trying really hard not to completely plagiarise here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0AOwdODmMA

#wlw books #booklr #lgbt books #contemporary #book recs #sapphic books #diverse books #guest post