#TOPIC 1:

[stopper-my-heart]

Nothing like Heartstopper S2E8 removing some of Taylor Swift's "seven" lyrics just so that the singing can specifically come back in at "Or hide in the closet" while Isaac is processing difficult emotions related to the book he's reading (i.e., Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen).

Did I mention "Or hide in the closet" hits just as the camera focus finishes shifting away from Isaac?

This is fine

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love

[arataka-reigen]

The main reason for the decline of shoujo anime for me really is that girls/women will still consume shounen while boys/men will not consume shoujo as much, so for producers if you have to choose between a shoujo or a shounen you will go for the shounen because you know you will be able to get both audiences while with shoujo the audience will really be majorly female and you will be losing money from half your audience. And that is also why shounen these days incorporate a lot of shoujo tropes into their stories (ikemen, romcoms, etc.) but still do it in a way that is mostly targeted for boys (male protag, big boobs and heavy sexualization of female characters that is not as present in actual shoujo stories), they do it to make sure they will grab both audiences. That is not to say that seinen and shounen can't do great animes like these (just look at horimiya and skip to loafer), but it also means we get a lot of anime that is trying to do the same but in a very harmful and sexist way (just look at shows like rent-a-girlfriend and the millions of bad isekai that come out every season). So, shounen is stealing shoujo tropes and making them worse (most of the time), and we're eating that shit up simply because there is no actual shoujo coming out as often as it did before.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

y'all need to get a grip. you blab all day about how much you hate bigots and hateful people and how evil it is to dehumanize anyone and then you turn around and say "kys" and "i think [x] should all just kill themselves" and other disgusting, violent and childish trash

so many people on here are just full of hatred and vitriol and turn into frenzied sharks anytime the target 'deserves it' and they think they can get away with it and not be called bad people. then they whine about how sad it is that we can't all just get along and if only all the evil people in the world would stop doing evil things wouldn't that be nicer

you're just as vicious, hypocritical and fanatically puritanical as the caricature you have made in your minds of the people you think you have nothing in common with. if you've ever told someone, ANYONE to kill themselves you're not advocates of justice, you're not artisans of peace, and you certainly don't have any moral high ground that would allow you to pass judgment on others

[hunrising]

What’s baffling to me is that according to what western governments/media said these past days, hamas shouldn’t have attacked civilians in response to the violence they’ve been suffering for decades because it violates international laws, and I agree, civilians shouldn’t have been victims of an attack like this. However now, according to those same people, Israel has the absolute right to defend itself and have no other option but to respond aggressively, no matter how many civilians get caught in the crossfire, and thus also violating international laws? I’ve been racking my brain to see if I’m missing something, or if all of these politicians and journalists are intentionally contradicting themselves in order to please each other?

[mysecretwindowuniverse]

1x7 | Penguin's Umbrella ☂️

In between all the deaths via weatherballoon, clones, mutants, and resurrections, I still maintain that the biggest suspension of disbelief Gotham ever asked the audience was to pretend that Oswald wasn't stunningly pretty and most definitely didn't have a comically long line of eager suitors vying for his affection at any given moment

[sukibenders]

Some fans: Eloise is such a fake feminist, doesn't she see how some girls and women enjoy marriage? Doesn't she see how her privileges give her luxuries others don't? She's so selfish. She doesn't even use her words to support other women!

Also same fans: I wish Eloise would stop talking, like her speaking about feminism at every turn is getting old. Can't she just be quiet and let everyone enjoy the fun? Like yeah talking about women's lack of personhood without a male figure in society, or how they can't go to university, or how sometimes they marry men who will only hurt them but need to for their status is sad to see, but THE ROMANCE-

[bonefall]

Heads up! There is going to be a very long and detailed post about making sausages dropping in a few hours.

It's got a big red content warning and a readmore, so nothing is going to get gruesomely dropped on you, but make sure you add "butchery" or "cw butchery" to your tag filters to be extra safe if the idea of processing animal carcasses is upsetting to you!

It also has an image of sausage casings before they're scraped. I tried to whack the post with as many CWs as I can think of but I'd recommend "cw meat" or "cw organs" if you need them.

[tetheredbysin]

you wanna know what I think about almost every day? this clip.

when this video first came out I didn't think too much about it, just a "oh haha, look at them being adorable teammates, how fun"

but then shortly afterwards I realized that this is nico. nico who's 184cm (6-ish feet) tall. nico who's 10cm (about 4 inches) taller than kev. nico who raced most of his career in F1 that did not have a minimum weight for drivers. nico who is so tall, that even with the minimum weight limit introduced, he still has to watch his weight more than most. nico who lost a chance of a ferrari seat because he was too heavy.

gaining muscle and voluntarily putting on weight must be the most foreign, insane thought in his mind. I can only imagine what it's like for him to see his teammate act so nonchalant about possibly weighing more the next season because kev, even with equipment, is comfortably below the weight limit. and nico's not a naturally lanky dude either, he carries a lot of mass just based on his natural physique. this is someone who has always been at a disadvantage because of something he cannot change and it genuinely keeps me up at night.

[vroom-vrooms]

Mark Webber is currently running to Jenson Button to form the “in love with Fernando Alonso” club

Or to fist fight him for Fernando’s hand idk

[aurorangen]

By now, Suzume had settled into a routine. With her time off, she visits Mrs Kobayashi to keep her company and to help around the house! She filled the loneliness in her life and every time Suzume came, Mrs Kobayashi's smile was brighter.

[sashisuse]

hm… thinking about childhood best friend!suguru…

you saw him for the first time when you moved away from the city after the unfortunate passing of your parents. your grandmother stuffed you into her car and drove off, taking you to a little town where doves were stuffed into cages so that they may never spread their wings. you are sad and lonely on the day you move in, and right away, you spot a gloomy looking boy your age watching you from the window of your neighbor’s house. despite everything, you smiled and waved at the boy next door. he seemed surprised at first, but he smiled and waved back.

(you don't think you would ever regret smiling at him, no matter where you would wind up twenty years from then.)

you properly meet him only a few days later, when you are looking for a quiet place to sit outside of the house. he is there, too, and you approach him with the same smile you offered him days prior. you introduce yourself to him and ask him for his name.

“geto suguru,” he told you. suguru stared at you for a moment after that, observing you silently. you would come to learn he often did that. “would you like some tea?”

(you don’t think you’ll ever regret accepting his invitation, either.)

in that miserable town filled with miserable people, you and suguru just clicked and stuck together. you two were practically conjoined at the hip, despite the fact that suguru had a reputation for being so strange. you never minded or understood where that came from. you heard from your grandmother, who spoke with suguru’s mother from time to time, that he was just a strange boy. that he made stories up and blamed things on ghosts. that he was unfairly gloomy and difficult to raise. you never understood why people were so mean to him. he was quiet and polite, the best friend you had ever had. you followed him everywhere, and that made you a bit strange, too. but there wasn't a single thing anyone in the world could say that would make you not want to follow suguru around. you would follow him to the end’s of the earth if he asked. he was your best friend, after all, and you were his.

you both could talk for hours and hours about anything and everything. books, movies, tv shows, games, school... you laughed together and played together and that was the way it was. the way it was always supposed to be. you and suguru. suguru and you.

you remember the day everything changed oh, so clearly. the cold weather nipped at your nose while the air felt dry and cold in your lungs. you were trailing a bit behind suguru as you both ventured home from school. he was looking off at something in the forest but quickly diverted his attention away. the action did not go unnoticed and your eyes moved to the forest as well, trying to see what suddenly made his expression sour.

your feet stopped moving the second your eyes laid upon the thing in the woods. it stood out amongst the gray and brown of the cold trees — that strange, ugly beast. it twisted and curved in what should have been an impossible way with seven eyes, each of them oozing some green liquid.

"suguru?"

your fearful cry of his name caught him off guard as you reached forward, grabbing at the sleeve of his sweater. he looked at you in concern. you looked like you want to cry and he hated it. he hated that you looked so fearful, that you sounded so fearful. he wanted nothing more than to make it better, than to fix the problem that he wasn’t even aware of yet.

"what is that thing?" you asked with a quiet whimper.

suguru almost didn’t believe it at first. up until that very moment, he had lived his life hearing that something was wrong with him. something was wrong with him, because he saw things no one else could see. monsters, ghosts, creatures — whatever word you wanted to use. he saw them. his parents never understood. they seemed more disturbed by the fact that suguru never grew out of it, rather than the words he was saying. instead he kept it to himself. he learned to lie about it, so his parents stopped looking at him with such disdain. and at some point, maybe he began to lie to himself. maybe he began to believe that he was driving himself crazy. that he really was just seeing things.

but in that moment? in that moment, when you, his best friend, the one person in the world who had never once looked at him like he was strange or treated him as such, were seeing it, too?

you saw it. you saw it, too. you saw the monster. he’s not crazy.

he was not a liar.

and then, none of it really mattered. not when he snapped back to reality and realized just how scared you were. he couldn’t have that. he couldn’t let that happen. what kind of best friend would he be if he let you hurt like this? you saw them, too, which meant they wouldn't leave you alone like they did most people. they never left suguru alone once they realized he was watching them. so, he decided. he decided that from then on out, suguru would be your protector. because he may be young and he may not fully understand the concept of love, but suguru geto understands that he loves you. he loves you so much that he cannot bear to see you hurting. he loves you enough to decide he will bear it for you, and if he cannot take it all away from you, then he will still be right by your side to bear as much as you will let him.

by the time you are both teenagers, you have both become acutely aware of the things you could each do. magic or perhaps superpowers. you both had your theories, but you couldn’t think of any superhero that had to eat monsters and get sick from the taste of it. you would hold suguru’s hair back as the contents of his last meal threatened to come back up after he had to eat one of those things. suguru would hold you up as your vision blurred and darkened, as your body grew tired from the strange abilities you had. but you did these things to protect one another.

to take care of one another.

[putting-kaufmo-in-places]

some similarities i noticed:

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

MDZS Notes + Analysis — Chapter Two: “Reincarnation”

Three main things stood out to me when rereading this chapter: the theme of status, our intro to WWX, and the information we’re given about his state after death.

…Well, four things, but the other one will get its own post.

The theme of status is immediately introduced* with ‘MXY’’s treatment and the backstory of MXY and his mother, yet again showing just how well MDZS’s ideas are integrated into the text and how well it’s paced! You’re introduced to every important theme so, so early on. Two screenshots are analysed below:

(See: entitlement of the upper classes towards the lower classes, and how this can exist even between members of the ‘same family’; and arguably the idea of debts between a richer family and someone who was 'taken in'. There are a surprising amount of parallels between MXY and WWX, but I'll make my own post about that)

(See: once again, differences in status between members of the same family, and also the worse, and disposable, treatment of one daughter because she was "the daughter of a servant". Now, why does that phrase sound familiar...?)

Also, MXY's mother was sixteen when she attracted JGS's attention... if you somehow needed even more material to hate the guy...

We also get introduced to WWX’s personality(!), which immediately disproves the rumours from last chapter on how he'd cast the world into ruin:

(That's one of the first questions he asks after waking up – I love how he's so concerned about this! It shows us two important things, too: 1) Morality is important to WWX, and 2) Doing immoral things seems to be out of the ordinary for him. Both of these stand in direct contrast to the picture of WWX we were painted earlier!)

(Same thing here, along with showing us some of the (healthy!) pride WWX has – he wouldn't be offended at this if wasn't something he held as important within himself)

(I use this quote again, but here it's once again proving that the vengeful, evil WWX who'd sink the cultivation world into "nothing but chaos and despair" at the first chance he got... very much does not exist.)

(And finally, it's explicitly confirmed here that he's not the type to take exessive revenge and take pleasure in it... at least at this point in time, because. MXY definitely had reason to think this considering Sunshot!WWX, if everyone had been working from the truth. But importantly that isn't who he is now, and isn't who the WWX villified by the cultivation world was – imo that's including Nightless City, we'll get to that when I reach it. But note that actions during the Sunshot campaign aren't even mentioned in the prologue, because, shock, they actually helped the cultivation world win the war! Though that doesn't mean they weren't part of rumours + the WWX hatred mill later.)

Then some non-morality related things:

This is just really funny to me, with how the makeup being badly applied (:o) is enough of an issue to merit a thought – WWX I love you.

And then this way of thinking comes back a few times esp during the earlier chapters, enough to be noted I think.

Confirmation on WWX's status after he died – it's not anything new to point out, but this chapter does give us rare insights into what state he was in during the post-death, pre-rebirth period.

So, he was somewhat conscious, enough to be aware of what he was(n't) doing – seeking vengeance, haunting the living – and was seemingly in control of those actions. However, he was specifically a "wandering ghost" – his soul didn't pass onto the afterlife or "return back to Earth"** like the body-offering spell's caster's would. He was conscious that a long time had passed as well, and this long period of downtime where he could accept + deal with what happened in his first life is what likely allowed him to be so well-adjusted the second time round – even taking into account the remarkably good way he tends to deal with things in general (cue the "forgetting the wound when the pain fades" quote, it summarises WWX's mindset really well)***.

Also, as for resisting the summons from the prologue – I'm wondering how much was due to WWX's experience with resentful energy + general capability (if that affects it..?) allowing him to consciously refuse, how much was due to WWX not being the type to hold onto resentment (so possibly spells targeting ghosts, full of this resentful energy, wouldn't be as affected?), and how much was due to the relative lack of knowledge about how ghosts/resentful energy works compared to WWX. Or, if it was something else. Either way, achieving the impossible, that's WWX for you :D

It is interesting that he hasn't heard a voice in ages despite wandering, too – do ghosts just not hear the same way, or did he deliberately avoid areas with people? I could see both, the second being more likely, especially considering how many people wanted to summon him back for... less than stellar purposes.

Misc:

Poor Mo Xuanyu....

--

*Well, reinforced – in the prologue, one of the things said about WWX is that "if not for the YunmengJiang clan’s adopting and teaching him, he would have been a hobo living on the streets", which is among the insults people throw. So of course, class-affecting-perception is tied to WWX from the very beginnning! But this is the first time it's actually explored, not a throwaway line.

**Though that may be what's literally happening to WWX's soul here – it is wandering around Earth – I don't think that's what this line refers to. There's a very good meta on how different translations handled that line, I really recommend it (tysm @/mxtxfanatic for finding it)!

***It would be very interesting to read a fic where it felt like no time had passed for him since his death, actually! Though the extremely stressful circumstances are gone, it would still be interesting to see a WWX for whom the Siege, Nightless City, Qiongqi Path etc are pretty recent – but only in fic territory, since I'm so, so glad we got the WWX we did in canon. Also, I'd love to see a fic maybe exploring some of his time as a ghost...?

[danieldrivesfast]

Hey, so, if you think what Will Buxton said about Daniel and George is okay, funny, or somehow acceptable in his scope of work, you're a bad person. Full stop.

(Honestly, saying Oscar is great because he has no personality is also not okay, but I don't expect people to understand that.)

Buxton's job is to speak objectively about Formula 1 racing, not attack these drivers' personalities or who they are as people. George and Daniel are two of the most sincere people on the grid, according to the people who know and work with them. George wearing his heart on his sleeve and being his goofy self (while also being the advocate for driver safety and fairness in competition) and Daniel being kind to everyone he encounters and trying to keep an upbeat energy no matter what doesn't harm the sport in any way, unless humanizing drivers is somehow a problem.

I'm (not) sorry the cool kids didn't pick you, bitchboy.

What Buxton said about George is especially egregious when you take into account all the things calling him "Talented Mr. Ripley" implies, the closeted gay man part in particular.

I guess it's easy to attack people like George and Daniel who always meet bullshit with grace and kindness. It would be nice if they'd meet this particular bullshit by calling him out to his face and refusing his interviews, because there's no world in which what Buxton said is okay or remotely professional.

[carlyraejepsans]

Out of curiosity what instantly ruins a soriel fic for you? I promise this isn't for my own fic 😁

Sans remembering resets. Not even a Soriel specific thing, I catch one whiff of it in any UT fic and it immediately kills any interest I might have had in it. Same with Sans being suicidal (he is not. lmfao)

But let's see, Soriel specific... hm. It's hard to explain what it is that they do wrong specifically. But there's a brand of h/c fics with sans being the comforted where you can tell the author has not taken into account everything that is also wrong with Toriel. She's just there to offer comfort, which I'd argue is something Sans would do more often with how evasive and private he is about his own issues (and how we have literal in canon examples of him comforting her instead, even before they officially met each other)