#IT TRULY WAS SUPERIOR

[vesselmade-a]

never had any doubts tbh

[owlbelly]

so. i understand where the sentiment "listening to an audiobook is the same thing as reading the book" is coming from - i mean, yes, the bottom line is you are taking in the same words in what is possibly a more accessible (or maybe just more enjoyable) format for you! and i'm 100% in agreement that "book snobs" who say "no you didn't really read it" if you listened to the audiobook are full of shit. ofc you should engage with stories in whatever way works for you, there is no moral or intellectual superiority to reading words off a page vs. listening to them

but it also is different? an audiobook is a performance. choices a narrator makes about line readings can drastically influence the meaning of the lines. even just different voices, accents, etc. - there are creative choices being made by the person delivering the words to you, and that affects your experience of the story in a different way than if you were making those choices in your own head. it might even change the way you visualize what's going on!

this isn't a bad thing it's just An Actual Thing & i think it's worth talking about. it rubs me the wrong way when people act like accommodations (and for many people audiobooks are an accommodation) always result in a completely identical experience, or even that they should, & if you suggest that people accessing media in different ways are having different experiences it's somehow ableist

anyway on rare occasions i really enjoy audiobooks but mostly they are much less accessible to me than words on a page (i need to be able to reread, flip back and forth, go at my own pace) & i also just really strongly prefer to encounter a text on my own before hearing someone else's performance of it, if possible! again i don't think it's "better" to read a physical book i just think it is a Distinct form of experiencing a story & acting like the two things are entirely the same is sort of doing a disservice to both

[mielplante]

[lilacpaperbird]

and if I say that the whole "sam thinks he's better than dean because he went to college and thinks he's sooo smart" criticism is 0% based on canon material and instead it's 60% based on fanfics and tumblr posts relying purely on headcanons, and 40% a projection of their own academic inferiority complexes... then what?

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Today, the country indeed looks alien. The America many of us believed we knew now appears stranger in retrospect: The anger and resentment we may have thought was pitched at a simmer turned out to be at a rollicking boil. And one of liberals’ most cherished shibboleths from 2016—that Trumpism is a movement for aggrieved white men—unraveled in the face of a realignment that saw the GOP appear to give birth to a multiracial working-class movement. A second Trump presidency is the result of this misjudgment.

Democrats are a coalition party of the center-left

The Left has traditionally been associated with egalitarianism, which is by necessity concerned with the masses, the common people, the working class, but also the dispossessed, the marginalized, the disadvantaged

The modern Democratic party traces its roots most directly to the New Deal coalition of the 1930s, which it understands to have been a robust working-class and labor-rights movement

They also see themselves in the 1960s cultural revolutions and their repudiation of hierarchy, itself generally seen as the position of the common person, the masses, but also the dispossessed

The party takes its name from Andrew Jackson, great champion of the Common Man, at least as understood at his time, but it goes back to Thomas Jefferson, famous for declaring that "all men are created equal," and now excoriated for failing to live out that egalitarian principle

The Democrats are a party for the people, understood as capaciously as possible, the party that repudiates narrow nationalism and jingoism, in favor of spreading the benefits of American society widely, in opposition to favoring the privileged few

Why am I reminding you of all these things that you already know?

Because they believe so deeply that they are right in every way that matters, or at least incomparably superior to their opponents, they cannot begin to imagine repudiation from the very people in whose interests they thought they were acting, let alone in favor of the very person they swore was an existential, even murderous threat to those very same people

I think to appreciate the sensation, you might imagine a thief broke into your home, and then your family kicked you out in favor of the thief; someone broke in to ravish your spouse and they called the police on you; a sex offender told your children explicitly what he wanted to do them, and your children fought you to get out of your arms so they could crawl into the van knowing full well they'd never see you again

The shock is so existentially horrifying, such a betrayal of reality itself, that it would require rethinking all your most basic assumptions about the political order, human beings, and worst of all, yourself. Why would they do such a manifestly insane thing? Is there something I don't know? What did I miss? What did I do wrong? What do I do now?

Democrats cannot meaningfully internalize that they are the party of the privileged and the elite, by their own philosophy they are themselves the enemy, they write a blank check for the most lurid excesses of anti-colonial violence and call it "exhilarating" without dealing with the fact that given their assumptions, in this society, they are the power and not the resistance

But it's hard to ask yourself these kinds of questions and most people don't have the nerve for it, and so what we see instead, in another little paradox of human nature, is they're going to blame not the ravisher but the spouse

TL;DR, self-examination is hard, so now Democrats hate Latinos

[queermania]

No but seriously why is Robbie's Dean so good and why can't anybody else write him that well?

berens: dean is the straight guy who led me on and broke my heart in college

gamble: dean is the gay guy who led me on and broke my heart in college

robbie: dean is just a little guy who likes to dress up in outfits and nerd out with his lesbian bestie oh and also he's in love with cas and everybody knows it but cas

[utilitycaster]

I truly have no patience for "criticizing a creative choice is disrespectful" as a statement. If you can't tell the difference between sending hate or harassing creators/fans, vs. saying "I didn't like this and here's why" you are an idiot. And on the flip side if you're a creator and someone says "I didn't like this" without any sort of personal attacks or hate involved, simply on the basis of critique and personal preference, and that makes you feel bad enough to stop creating then maybe you should step back and either get offline or make room for someone who has an actual creative vision that isn't "I want everyone to like me."

[its-emimi]

Some Käärijä shirt designs I've made recently (just for fun, these are not to be used/reuploaded anywhere) 💚🦩

[demaparbat-hp]

the audacity you literally have to make a GENOCIDE SURVIVOR (whose entire culture was decimated by the fire nation) proudly work for the imperial fire nation army in some fuckass au? zutara shippers are never beating the colonial apologism allegations.

Woah, okay, I wasn't expecting this. I'm a firm believer that people should, first and foremost, treat each other on the basis of respect, so I'll do my best to explain this to you, clearly, and with the benefit of the doubt in mind, okay? I'm a nice person like that.

First of all, I'm working under the assumption that you haven't read these posts, and thus don't have all the information I've shared about the AU. I've been as clear about this subject as I can be, especially in my replies but, for the sake of fairness, I'll say it once again again:

I do not condone nor find it moraly correct to justify a victim of war joining the side of the ones responsible for her people's genocide.

I try to view this AU, and war in general, through a mature, realistic lense. Turning Katara into a victim with glorified Stockholm Syndrome isn't really my style. It's honestly insulting and deeply disturbing for me, as a creator, a woman of color born in a country that has a very, very long history of colonialism, and an empathetic human being, that anyone would believe me capable of thinking like that.

That being said, I know I really shouldn't, but would you like me to give you a step by step response?

(...) proudly work for the imperial fire nation army (...)

Okay, like I said before, I'm going to assume you saw only the artwork, didn't read either the tags or the two separate, in depth posts about the characterization and plot in this AU I made literally twenty four hours ago, and drew your own conclusions instead.

First of all: Katara doesn't proudly work for the Fire Nation army. That's her cover, as it is Zuko's. She joined Zuko and his crew, all traitors to the throne and good, honourable people, under the pretense of hunting the Avatar. Truly, they're destroying the Fire Nation military from within. And are, most definitely, not proud soldiers of the Fire Lord.

Katara hates the Fire Nation. But if joining a Fire Nation crew is what she needs to do to end the war, she will do it.

And, honestly, these are not excuses. But context is important, and it's not healthy to draw conclusions from the title instead of actually reading the book, if you know what I mean. It could get you in trouble some day.

And, please, I'm begging you—this has been talked about a lot, and I don't really like drama all that much, so I won't even rise to the accusations of condoning a non consented, colonialist and abuse apologist relationship.

That's just rude.

[majorasnightmare]

choosing to interpret and characterize mintharas sexuality and her partner preferences as violating cultural norms in menzoberranzan because she doesnt desire the "right" kind of person in the "right" kind of way, and as a result of that minthara being constantly surrounded by people trying to gain her favor (because Baenre) that she can't form close relationships with, surrounded by suitors but never comitting, short one off affairs that never amount to anything, because the last lover she had, she has to kill

minthara being all alone in a crowded room. how she just thinks thats how she'll always live her life. at the epilogue party surrounded by people who enjoy her company and think fondly of her and she still feels alone and wants to leave to get away from it. pinning everything she wants out of someone onto her partner because she genuinely doesn't think she'll have anything else

theres just something sooo. like going through high school and you have crushes on the right people but everyone around you can still tell your doing it wrong even though you have no idea what you could possibly be fucking up. im doing everything right, im doing what you told me to do to survive, im exactly what you want me to be, what am i doing wrong? what can you see that i cant? i dont know how to want any other way. i dont know how else to love.

maybe im just meant to be lonely. maybe all i need is just one person who understands and ill be fine. theres just something about me specifically that repulses people away. its my fault, its my responsibility, ill just live like this, i just need to survive it

are you done talking to your friends? can we go home?

[ghostedtea]

yuko was the first girl we romanced in reload and i'm still mad they didn't give her a yukata and kimono

[orangesyellow]

#YouDownBadIfSheCanMakeYouSmileLikeThis

[norringtondeservestheworld]

"Brienne should have slept with Tormund, not Jaime! He would have treated her like a queen!!!"

Brienne everytime Tormund is near:

[fashionxuk]

More Photo VIsit this link

[fictionadventurer]

Such a lovely day. One of those I want to keep forever. A rare real-life example of that Shadow of the Bear quote about needing to do something very crazy, but very right, just fun and good and beautiful. Explaining it takes away from it, but it involved ice skating, the perfect winter weather, a bunch of adults having fun like children. It's one of the first times I've truly felt grateful to live in a place with cold winters, getting to have experiences that warm climates literally can't have.

I can think of very few events where everyone involved agrees it was so much fun. It's the first time I've ever noticed someone's eyes truly shining with joy.

And then hot cocoa and Christmas baking and the yearly family viewing of The Santa Clause. Great day all around.

[hellfire-fist]

Guys I bet one of Zoro's kinks most favorite thing to do, is taking care of Luffy; being the one Luffy gets comfort from. I'm telling you he loves that shit, I can feel it!

I bet he loves it whenever Luffy chooses to be vulnerable with him. He likes being able to protect Luffy. He likes that Luffy depends on him wholeheartedly. And although he knows the man can very well protect himself from strong adversaries, if he gets the chance to, he'll always volunteer to take on whoever, just so Luffy wouldn't be so burdened.