#Complicated Illusions

[tobiasdrake]

My understanding of evil, age 0-10: MY NAME IS SMOG SMOKESLY AND I RUN THE POLLUTION FACTORY, IT PRODUCES POLLUTION!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

My understanding of evil, in my teens: You can't really boil things down to good and evil. People are complicated. Everyone is the hero of their own story, and someone who seems evil to you is actually doing their best from their own perspective. If you could walk a mile in their shoes, you'd understand. There is no such thing as evil.

My understanding of evil, in my twenties: Look, it's basically just tribalism. We are all necessarily thrust into competition with one another. There are always going to be winners and losers. Whining about evil is just being upset that you lost the game.

My understanding of evil, in my thirties: MY NAME IS SMOG SMOKESLY AND I RUN THE POLLUTION FACTORY, IT PRODUCES POLLUTION!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[annespooky]

NME | 17 août 2021

Manic Street Preachers : “On s’est guidés dans l’oubli” Nicky Wire et James Dean Bradfield disent à Andrew Trendell comment leur rejet des dissensions a façonné leur glacial et personnel 14ème album, The Ultra Vivid Lament. Continue reading Untitled

[melancholyflower]

NME | 17 août 2021

Manic Street Preachers : “On s’est guidés dans l’oubli” Nicky Wire et James Dean Bradfield disent à Andrew Trendell comment leur rejet des dissensions a façonné leur glacial et personnel 14ème album, The Ultra Vivid Lament. Continue reading Untitled

[lu-sn]

in kpts, almost everyone in the mafia is trapped there. a good half of them clearly want out.

porsche vehemently doesn't even want in. he resists to the best of his ability, and even once he's in, he still dreams of that bar on the beach. chay would drop the mafia in a heartbeat, if he felt that it was possible. kim's already got one foot out the door. kinn wishes he could have even half of what kim has, but he's been thoroughly convinced he's never allowed to have it.

so despite all these characters who would love to be let loose, who would kill for a chance at true freedom — would run off into the sunset and never look back — it's interesting that the narrative gives the slightest promise of freedom to the two characters who didn't know it was possible, who never even thought to dream of it. vegas and pete do not understand the value of what they've been handed.

will they ever understand? will they ever see that freedom as a gift instead of a curse?

[spitblaze]

I'm not a psychologist or a politician or anything approaching an expert about literally anything except a few specific video games but I feel like so many people wouldn't be agonizing over the moral implications of one (1) vote if we as the less-than-uppest-of-upper-crust had the ability to meaningfully affect change in ways other than 'spend money/do not spend money, vote for the red or blue tie'

[funnykinky]

[cypheragent]

i think to claim US citizens are privileged over those in the global south is almost always but not inherently true. whenever this subject comes up the first thing i think about is the fucking abysmal conditions on many reservations, of the fact that native people in this country still live under occupation, are citizens of their own nations but forced to be US citizens as well, under which they are gravely oppressed and their cultures and sovereignty threatened. one could argue that these are unique cases, if even willing to concede at all the extent of native oppression in this country. but to me, as a native, these individuals and experiences are not simply an afterthought. as i said, they come to my mind immediately. the fact that most people do not even consider them at all in these discussions only proves my point about how utterly fucking dire the oppression of this country's indigenous population is. we, especially those of us who struggle the most, are forgotten and erased constantly.

when some people are only US citizens by force, when they are among the indigenous population and live under occupation, i simply could not agree that these individuals benefit from that oppression. how could they? occupation is not a privilege. tell me, are you aware at all what the conditions are like on many reservations in this country? i'd also like to emphasize that native genocide is an ongoing project. it has not ended. it continues to this day.

[bedlamsbard]

the 2010 film Centurion is deeply frustrating to me because it desperately wants to be about the Varian Disaster, every single beat in this movie would fit near-perfectly for the Varian Disaster, you could relocate this film temporally and geographically to Germania and not change literally anything except some of the names, and yet because Hollywood considers Britannia way sexier and more exotic than Germania it is set in Britain. this movie should be about the Varian Disaster! in every way but geographically including the drawback of the frontiers this movie is about the Varian Disaster! and yet. it is not about the Varian Disaster.

(the movie itself is fine. like, it's Agricola slander and Tacitus is rolling over in his grave, but my tolerance for historical inaccuracy is pretty high these days. don't go out of your way to watch it, but like, it's fine. if I had a nickel for every time Olga Kurylenko has played a Roman-hating British woman warrior I'd have two nickels, which is not a lot but it's weird it's happened twice etc.)

[kingofdinosaurs]

i think a lot about how mohg and morgott's great runes are found together...

[recurring-polynya]

please enjoy this hot take my husband dropped on me at lunchtime today:

you know, the one thing Aizen never did was try to convince everyone that someone else had secret total hypnosis powers that they were hiding as something else. Like, "You all thought Captain Hitsugaya had ice powers, but he is, in fact, casting illusions on you as we speak." That would have been so on brand for him and also hilarious.

[tatersgonnatate]

Is gender even a thing anymore or like... we're done with that nonsense yeah?

[red-hot-moon]

My most boomer opinion is that I hate that almost all daily online services require me to sign in with my smartphone. My smartphone is currently broken so I can't even sign into my bank account or my e-mail.

My second most boomer opinion is that I fucking hate that opening devices and replacing the battery so they can go on working for another few years is considered fucking illegal by most companies.

I don't consider doing everything online and/or with my smartphone convenient at all, because when it gets stolen or broken, you're basically handicapped. I don't want to have to make an account to find out where the mail service has delivered my package! I don't want to have to sign in with my e-mail to be able to open a locker at a concert hall! I don't want to have to get a new phone every two years! I don't want to have to go online to turn on my tv! I want off this ride!!!

[lover-of-mine]

I hope I'm not just a gifmaker to you but also someone who made you think the two firefighter dudes were actually together for a while there.

[ursie]

Lumping sokkas actor in with actual native people is weird. That's a white man with no connection to his supposed ancestory and culture, the others are very open about it

I didn’t? I said even if you believe he’s ndn (I don’t but I don’t want to also debate that on the post)-the colorism is still an issue. As he’s whitewashing the character either way. The featurism still applies. The post was about the whitewashing of the indigenous cast he is the most egregious example.

[dasmondkuss]

Gosh, I want to write soulmates so sickly.

Not that crap of love or meant to be. I don't want fate or any of its synonyms. I want to write about that bond you can't substitute with anyone else. When you separate/walk away, and years have passed only to find yourself dreaming about that person because it's the only symbol that could give meaning to your experiences, so you crave for them and wish to see them again, even though you know it'll be wrong person, wrong time one more time... but there won't ever be someone like them. Ugh, it's so annoying that one devil does not drive another out.

[outlying-hyppocrate]

i am not used to novelty, and i don't think i ever will be; i am used to cold limbs, white eyes, sharp teeth, soft brown sepia, liquid in the taste, the taint is what now fills my blurry eyes, everyone is sclera when the pupils cry (everything is merciful and everything is soft and we are all marshmallow candy on the 31st of the new month expiry is an option not an option but the sell-by-date corroborates strange things whenever we can come across)