#SO MUCH SALT

[sillysecretwriting]

Me, a POTS person who essentially only drinks electrolytes with added salt, watching other people just drink water, being confused, like your body just ABSORBS WATER?! That's amazing!

[lifblogs]

COVID isn’t just a fucking cold like right-wingers say. It still fucking kills. It ruined a poor kitty’s life, making it so she had to get shots every single day, and it killed her. “Just a cold,” my ass.

The poor owner had to sell her belongings, and furniture to even pay for this kitty’s treatment. And now the owner is left without her kitty. This is serious.

Yes, I know how it negatively impacts disabled people—oh, I sure as hell know it personally—but I can’t fathom the fact that people act like this is nothing. What happened to this kitty is real.

[lediz-watches]

Suspicious Minds

I uh… I may have lost my patience slightly in this episode. I’m sorry in advance.

But SERIOUSLY EVEN CARLOS MADE ME MAD. ARGH.

I’m liveblogging The Winchesters as a Supernatural!virgin. Please keep my lack of knowledge in mind if you continue...

In episode thoughts:

Oh dear! Gracious! Oh, my, I do so hope an honourable gentleman has come to – why, that’s not a gentleman! Goodness!

Such luck! I shall murder this woman with such style and grace! How wonderful!

Sorry, I’m done now.

Oh, Mary looking for life outside hunting! I actually am shocked this time.

But I’m reminded by how weird American college is. The idea of going to uni without knowing what you’re studying is so foreign to me. We apply for specific courses, and the entrance requirements change depending what you’re planning to study. In a non-American school, Mary would need to have a plan before even thinking about applying. It’s so odd to me.

Aww, Carlos is super twitterpated still.

And an idiot.

You know, some people think Mary Poppins actually is an eldritch creature, for the record. Just a good-aligned one.

…This actor looks familiar. Pause. It’s going to bother me until I find out.

MISTER SHEFFIELD! I KNEW IT! Mwuahahaha yessss! Okay, carrying on.

He feels like a future Lata. Except he’s distressing. Monsters may be monsters but I’m not on board with lobotomising people into service, believe it or not.

I take back my Lata comment. He’s like an evil Lata. Creepy good.

Oh, Roxy. Welcome back.

They’re acting like she looks like a mess, but she’s still gorgeous. Show, come on. She needs to clean some messy eyeliner and brush her hair. Some people spend hours on that look.

Lata… don’t you pull an Ada, on me.

Oh, this creepy dude is creepy but I’m kind of enjoying it, I’m not gonna lie.

You know, I know who Dean is, because of course, but if I didn’t, I would not have any reason to give a damn about the akrida wanting to kill him. I would, however, be confused about why they want to kill him. He has not yet actually had anything to do with the akrida, as far as I know, he’s just been AROUND. This is yet another instance of this show needing Supernatural to make sense.

Creepy good isn’t lying to you, kids, he’s just not telling you his life story. Why do you care why he’s got a vendetta against your enemies? Honestly, the way this group worries about morals sometimes is so all over the place. PICK A LANE. And don’t just tell me you’re hypocrites, that does not excuse you.

Oooh, Lata, I do hope you’re having fun in between shop talk dreams~!

Oh no. Creepy good did lie to you. He’s the assistant. How terrible?

Oh, no. In addition to LOBOTOMISING SENTIENT CREATURES he also did human experimentation. How shocking. Again, I have to wonder at the morals and ethics of this show. I think this is a me-problem, but I do not like the whole we-draw-the-line-at-physically-hurting-humans thing. If you’re willing to accept a guy torturing and enslaving sentient creatures, you should be willing to hear the context of the human experimentation. I’m not saying I’m okay with it, I’m just saying these characters should be. Be mad about it, sure, demand explanations, sure, but don’t go in guns blazing.

…phony accent, oh god, no, don’t do that, please. This actor is so very British, and that Southern Twang is a notoriously difficult accent to pull off.

…I like Roxy’s decision here. I like the allegory. Remember, and recover, and grow beyond your pain.

Oh, of course creepy good is creepy bad. But I stand by my statement about ethics. Of course he’s proven bad, but up until he did all this targeting the main characters bit, these characters feel like the type who would go along with bad morals For the Greater Good.

Who the heck is big guy and where did he come from?

Golems. Kay. The show has not explained how they work in this context. Golems, as far as I know, are creatures baked from clay and given a degree of sentience. And yet Mary is acting like they’re unforgivable magic.

Oh, look, John’s trying to be charming again. I wonder if the goo will go in his mouth.

…well, it didn’t, but uh… that’s a real human looking creature you just mercilessly killed in gruesome fashion.

And a legitimate human you just killed in less gruesome fashion.

ETHICS!

Mary. Mary, note what you are saying. Apply it to the actions John has taken so far. Please, Mary. Mary, please. Don’t say ‘us’, say ‘you’. Say ‘you’, Mary.

Okay, Carlos, I forgive you so many things, but comparing Roxy’s situation with yours is not particularly forgivable and you need to just not. Just no.

That was some TIMING, Millie. And cops. I was going to say what Akrida!Kyle is doing is almost a compelling twist on hearsay cases, but it’s been dramatised a bit much. You were so close to making me invested in a John storyline, show! So close!

Okay. So a few things here, and I think the main one I should address is my own prejudice. Because it’s another one of those things that stops me from watching a lot of fantasy and sci-fi if I’m honest.

I don’t like the idea that just because something is not human (strictly or otherwise) it should be considered fair game. There are multiple reasons I don’t like it, but I think in the end it comes down to this assumption that it-is-different-from-me-and-therefore-less. What this show calls monsters are all clearly sentient creatures with lives and thoughts and emotions. Even the akrida, which have basically been portrayed as worker drone ants, have jokes and preferences that were highlighted IN THIS EPISODE. They’re… remarkably human for CGI monster bugs.

But the show just Accepts As Fact that monsters are bad, humans are good. Even as it shows that humans are not good. They will slaughter monsters wholesale without blinking, and the Men of Letters quite rightfully seem to think of hunters as vicious killers willing to do terrible things in the name of what Dean calls righteousness, but physical harm to a human is Bad.

I mean, look how quickly they almost turned on Ada for the crime of (gasp) having a consensual relationship with a djinn. She had to rush to defend herself. Why? Maybe Supernatural gave a big long reason about why djinn are bad, but in all the stories I’ve ever read, they’re usually just as petty and loving and fickle as humans, with some extra power and less emotional control. Big deal.

And yes, Creepy Good was bad. I don’t mind him being bad. What I mind is the way Mary and John framed him as untrustworthy not because he did terrible things but because he… let himself in to the building that is much more his right to play in than theirs? They do realise they’re squatting in the Men of Letters’ house, right? Ada is literally the only one that’s supposed to be there. He had a KEY.

And the golem. I don’t have the context to understand the response Mary had to the golem. So as much as that dude came out of nowhere, so did the whole concept of him! Golems are not… the myth of golems is not consistent enough to just throw a golem into the story and have it be acceptable. Frikkin homunculi are more consistent and more recognisably Bad than a golem and yes I know in some stories they’re the same thing but golems are usually made of clay and homunculi are human parts and that would have fit Mary’s reaction a little better when mostly I’m just like golems are moving objects, so okay, cool use of magic?

-FURIOUS FLAILING CONTINUES FROM LAST EPISODE-

And Carlos and Lata, usually I love you guys, and Roxy’s story was so good but my god, the A-plot absolutely DESTROYED my willingness to put up with THAT UTTER NONSENSE where you would DARE compare being SCARED of INTIMACY with A FUCKING RAPE ALLEGORY.

THAT, MY FRIENDS, MADE ME VERY ANGRY.

…

Deep breaths.

…Okay, gonna take a break from this show for a minute now, before we move onto chapter eleven. …more breaths.

(or back to chapter one if you dare.)

[theautumnaldemon]

it’s my favorite

salt & vinegar chips are snacks for fucking masochists. literally the entire flavour of the goddamn chip is “acetic acid, which will hurt your tongue, and then just salt on top of that to hurt it worse”. it’s brutal. this chip is designed to hurt you

[kiddokori]

Donate eSims through Connecting Humanity or Crips for esims for Gaza

Visit gazafunds.com to be given a random gofundme to donate to

Email your representatives (if you live in the US) using afsc.org

Donate to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, Medical Aid for Palestinians, or Pious Projects to help provide mutual aid

Learn more at decolonizepalestine.com

[salt-baby]

yes, doctors suck, but also "the medical ethics and patient interaction training doctors receive reinforces ableism" and "the hyper competitive medical school application process roots out the poor, the disabled, and those who would diversify the field" and "anti-establishment sentiment gets applications rejected and promotions requests denied, weeding out the doctors on our side" and "the gruesome nature of the job and the complete lack of mental health support for medical practitioners breeds apathy towards patients" and "insurance companies often define treatment solely on a cost-analysis basis" and "doctors take on such overwhelming student loan debt they have no choice but to pursue high paying jobs at the expense of their morals" are all also true

none of this absolves doctors of the truly horrendous things they say and do to patients, but it's important to acknowledge that rather than every doctor being coincidentally a bad person, there is something specific about this field and career path that gives rise to such high prevalence of ableist attitudes

and I WILL elaborate happily

[teamugdraws]

The lockers are real, but they're not useful.

(I think they were once useful, but that was when they were big. I think they were shrunk to avoid the shoved-in-locker incidents we hear of in the ancient tales?)

A modern American locker is perhaps half as wide as your shoulders, and perhaps four times as tall as it is wide, and is typically stacked on (or under) a similarly sized locker. Logistically, this presents a challenge when accessing the locker, as it means that you have four person's-worth of locker in one person's-worth of space; or rather, four people accessing their lockers at the same time may have to do so while all attempting to occupy the same space.

(even electrons can only occupy two-to-a-spot; the American educational system is not known for its rigid adherence to scientific plausibility)

Should you manage to reach over (or crawl under) your compatriots to actually reach your locker, you will find that it is precisely too small to fit your middle-est textbook, even when inserted at an angle. You will just have to carry your larger textbooks with you at all times.

You will, in fact, have to carry all of your textbooks with you at all times. The so-called "passing period" between classes has been progressively shrunk, in attempt to prevent students from "loitering", "speaking to their friends", or "having a moment of peace". You will not have time to swap out your books at your locker; God Help You if you need to visit the bathroom or travel to a classroom on the far side of the school.

(I think I gave up on my locker after less than a year; after that I just carried everything, everywhere. This is why american kids have such big backpacks)

'Standing at your locker talking to your friends' exists only in TV and movies, as a narrative convenience.

hey Americans?

what the fuck is this? this isn't real right. it's made up for tv like those metal lockers

[timethehobo]

Just a young, talented Watcher meeting a friendly little wisp.

[fishbloc]

it's been a while

[shandzii]

You got a favorite cookie? 🤔

ok it's been a week(?) since the cookie rot started so here's the verdict

[elaboratingisfortheweak]

Ah finally, the monstrosity has come full circle

No vanilla extract because my recipe doesn't call for it.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Never underestimate the healing power of a good meal!

(For @nibbelraz!)

[mohntilyet]

illario as the grandchild that is most like caterina is something i'm loving to chew on. the grandson that took her lessons to heart the most. kill anyone who sees your face and knows your name, "we are not revolutionaries", the first out of the two to prioritise the contract. power at any cost, and the only one to lean into the unnecessary abuse that their grandmother told them was tradition. why is anyone surprised he allied with the venatori? and then there's illario's considerable skill in infiltration and manipulating any mark, he has always had the charisma that lucanis lacked. illario isn't attached, he has/can/will use someone and immediately drop them; "that does free me from promises i don't intend to keep". he can lie about how much he cares so well that he fools a magister into believing he loves her. he kills zara without hesitation to cover his own tracks, meanwhile lucanis blindly promises a young girl in the middle of a siege that he will help her find her father. even the lessons about family stick with him, and in this entire messy power struggle, he never actually orders anyone to directly kill caterina or lucanis, not until he's backed into a corner.

and even after all that. despite even lucanis believing illario should be first talon, lucanis is still the better killer. illario is not strong enough to be the brutal assassin caterina needs him to be. so when lucanis seems to fill the role his mother left, grief and love for her dead heir apparent remains, and any of the other qualities caterina needs in her next talon doesn't matter. whatever his mother was, lucanis has to be. what illario does doesn't matter, because he will always be second best to caterina's memory of her favored daughter.

[g0ddyke]

Forcemasc except instead of pushing you to go to the gym, it's pushing you to do your physio. it's pushing you to take up space and take your wellbeing seriously - use your mobility aids, take your meds, stop letting other people push you too hard. stop pushing yourself too hard. Understand that you deserve to be here, deserve to be who you are, deserve to be respected. That your masculinity isn't defined by your physical strength or your athleticism or how you look or what other people think of you - it's just part of who and how you are, and now you have someone who sees that. That sees You, and won't let you back down from who you really are.

[tatterdemallionsails]

I'm sure I'll die mad about it. The question will be how many I take with me.

Give this person an award!

[hinamie]

so just know, I'm healing / even though it don't feel like it

insp