#YOU DON'T HAVE ALL THE FACTS!!!

[apollos-olives]

before october 7th this blog was a meme page btw.

[bixels]

In the past, people in the Animal Crossing community would make fun of Tom Nook as a sleazy landlord. Since then, he's really rehabilitated his image as this 'heart of gold' businessman (he's the one who puts bells and furniture in trees for you to find! he adopted orphans! he donates to charity!), but New Horizons genuinely paints the most devious version of him.

He's successfully privatized settler colonialism: you pay HIM to move to a "deserted island" (which apparently the oceans in the AC world are just full of) and start a colony that he is directly invested in. At best he's running a weird vacation package scam (you arrive on the island with no money and in debt for "using his services"). At worst, he's using you to set up company towns. For god's sake, he literally has his own fake currency that he forces you to use to pay off your debt. But don't worry, he's repackaged it in a way that definitely doesn't sound like an MLM scam: the Nook Mileage Program!

You're no longer just his tenant or his temporary part-timer, you're his business lackey. The entire tutorial section of the game has you spending actual weeks running around completing tasks and doing hard labor to set up his colony. You're even tasked with preparing his properties and finding buyers for them. No, you aren't a tenant anymore. You work for the landlord. You are directly responsible for finding tenants for him. And he doesn't even fucking pay you. Not for setting up town hall and museum, or his nephew's shop –– which is the ONLY store on the entire island that sells necessities –– or bringing KK Slider to town, or helping populate his town. Not a single cent. No, actually, you have to pay HIM to BUY infrastructure like bridges and stairs and park benches. And all the while, he's telling you're the "resident representative"; you get to call the shots! That the reward is the community's progress. That what you're doing is in everyone's best interest (but most importantly, his).

Since NH's release, people have done a lot of legwork to say that Tom Nook isn't a capitalist while the game shows him at his very worst. He owns the only general store in town. You're forced to use a phone that he modified and branded as his own. Buy Nook-branded furniture and merchandise at the self-serve kiosk in the town hall, a governmental building! There's no conflict of interest here!

But hey, if you're tired of being the landlord/business mogul's goon, you can also find work as a deluxe resort home designer for a company that also pays you in their special company currency that can only be used to buy their products instead of a real salary! Because that's what the Animal Crossing franchise needs! More vacation homes!!!

[wasyago]

various tango doodles

[knifearo]

being aromantic is like. hey btw you're going to live a life that is the culmination of most of society's worst nightmares. sorry lol ✌️ but then you turn around and take a really good hard look at it and it turns out that living in that nightmare is fucking awesome and you get to wake up every day and take that fear that other people have and laugh and hold it close until it's a great joy for you instead. and being happy is a radical act that you define instead of someone else. and you're sexy as fuck that's just a fact of life i don't make the rules on that one

[cutiesigh]

❤️🖤🩷

Wuthering Waves has taken over all of my free time recently, so here's a sketch of Scar!Ren I originally shared in da 14DWY Discord!!

[zecoritheweirdone]

wanna preface this by saying that i am. So normal. anyway i just spent the last week redrawing scenes from mystery skulls animated but as that hermitcraft au i posted about a couple times. you guys should watch msa it is. so so good.

[isatartdump]

Would do the entire dialogue but drawing Bonnie crying is the bane of my existence! HA

Anyway my reaction to when this entire dialogue was over was just. Hihi.

[kaiserouo]

"Huh."

[uncanny-tranny]

I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.

It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.

[puppetmaster13u]

Meme Prompts 14

[la-pheacienne]

George Martin, 2013: "In a very basic level winter is coming for all of us. I think that’s one of the things that art is concerned with: the awareness of our own mortality. “Valar morghulis” – “All men must die”. That shadow lies over our world and will until medical science gives us all immortality… but I don’t think it makes it necessarily a pessimistic world. Not any more pessimistic than the real world we live in. We’re here for a short time and we should be conscious of our own mortality, but the important thing is that love, compassion and empathy with other human beings is still possible. Laughter is still possible! Even laughter in the face of death… The struggle to make the world a better place… We have things like war, murder and rape… horrible things that still exist, but we don’t have to accept them, we can fight the good fight. The fight to eliminate those things.There is darkness in the world, but I don’t think we necessarily need to give way to despair. One of the great things that Tolkien says in Lord of The Rings is “despair is the ultimate crime”. That’s the ultimate failing of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, that he despairs of ever being able to defeat Sauron. We should not despair. We should not go gentle into that good night".

JRR Tolkien, 1962 : "One reviewer once said, this is a jolly jolly book, all the right boys come home [...]- this isn't true of course, he can't have read the story. [...] Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . . . (He quotes Simone de Beauvoir) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident, and even if he knows it he would sense to it an unjustifiable violation.' Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key spring of The Lord Of The Rings".

"Lotr is all rainbows and unicorns and Asoiaf is nihilistic and grimdark". Wrong, and wrong. In all its hope and radiance, lotr often gets very dark, and despite all the death and suffering, the hopeful moments in asoiaf shine bright. The meeting point of these two is this: having hope while in despair, and even better, refusing to give up because you have to go on despite not having any hope left.

[benevolenterrancy]

what I'm learning is that MXTX series really have ☆*: .｡The Range｡.:*☆ and that my first impressions often don't survive for very long...

MDZS, initial impression: ooh revived necromancer that everyone fears, this is going to be dark and revenge-fuelled

MDZS, subsequent impression: these are Silly Lil Guys off on a romcom murder mystery

SVSSS first impression: nerd who got isekai'd into a shitty novel, crybaby puppy dog imprints on him

SVSSS subsequent impression: how many times now has the love interest tortured the main character? should I start a tally?

(i've only just finished SVSSS bk2, please no spoilers!!)

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[coldzonkprofessorturtle]

An Affair to Remember

Alright, let's get into Affair the Series, which has been giving me brainrot the past few weeks so feels like a good time to get into an analysis of why I find it so fascinating. Eventually I'd love to do a deeper dive into Thai GLs and that industry (that's a whole other thing though) but after having seen my share of them (Gap, Show Me Love, TSOU, The Loyal Pin) I've really found myself falling into the rabbit hole with Affair the Series and the way it depicts friendship, love, and acceptance.

Deep dive below and also thank you gif makers for your work 🙏🏽

(also will go over events from episodes 1-5, so spoilers ahead if not up-to-date)

So first off, I have read the novel, which is the first time I've finished one of those for a GL and quite frankly, the translation wasn't that great but the story still came through. I won't refer to it much and will base this on the show as I think they've done a fantastic job with the adaptation and fingers crossed continue to do so.

Where in most GLs the core conflict is external. The main couple can't be in love typically due to familial/cultural pressure or a man interfering (that still exists to an extent here) the main conflict in Affair is simply that Wan and Pleng love each other too much but they do so in different ways.

When we meet Wan and Pleng they're 17 years old and have spent their entire lives together. They're sisters but not and while Wan seems to have a social circle, Pleng really has no other friends outside of Wan. The spoiled rich girl and the maid's daughter. Couldn't be more different if they tried and yet by circumstance their lives are as intertwined as it gets.

At 17, they have different ideas for their futures. Pleng is musically talented, wins every contest and is financially set. She can live the life she wants. If she wants to be a musician then so be it. Her parents love and support her and there's no pressure. Wan on the other hand has an overbearing mother (and a resentful father), no prospects for her future but at least she has Pleng.

Despite her parents, Wan loves wholly and openly. She knows she loves Pleng and while she doesn't yet know it she does know that Pleng loves her too. I would argue that Wan truly knows herself, which is why she comes across as so self-assured in their younger years. She's slowly trying to guide Pleng to understand herself too.

Pleng, however, has never had to sit with her emotions in the same way. Take this as differences of personality, class and upbringing. Now that they're 17 and entering adulthood, Pleng has to start engaging with the world (and her emotions) rather than hiding behind the rich, insular lifestyle she's had up to this point.

As the idea of boyfriends comes up, Pleng starts to lash out. She's jealous, she's pushy but really she's just in love with her best friend and doesn't know it. Everything starts happening too fast. Wan meets a boy at an art gallery, Aunt Wi pushes Pleng to help Wan get with Ek, Pleng's dad is extremely stressed and she doesn't know to what extent and throughout that Pleng is dealing with her feelings that for some reason just won't go away. Feelings that Wan keeps bringing up in her over and over.

Pleng is a mess. She doesn't know how to connect with her peers, she knows something is wrong with her dad, she sees that Wan is seemingly moving forward in a way that she's not (dating a boy) and whether she realizes it she continues to isolate herself.

From Wan's perspective she couldn't care less about dating Ek. She's already completely devoted to Pleng (in ways that Pleng doesn't even know).

They're 17, hormonal, gay, and incapable of seeing each other's perspective. Wan wants Pleng to let her in. Pleng can't help but push everyone away.

As soon as Pleng starts to really come to terms with her feelings about Wan. That's when everything falls apart. Her dad kills himself, her mom goes into cardiac arrest, all of her family's assets are seized and she's now orphaned and staying with Wan's parents who clearly and vocally have no space for her. Pleng who was already struggling to find her footing before that fateful night now has absolutely nothing to stand on.

The break point is when Pleng finds out about Wan's academic achievements and that Wan had been hiding that truth about herself their entire lives. Wan has always been intelligent and capable but hidden herself behind a veil of ineptitude. Wan in loving Pleng puts her on a pedestal to her own detriment. She has no issue blighting her own light so that Pleng can shine but from the moment we meet 17 year old Pleng in the show we see her pushing Wan to better herself. Wan thinks loving Pleng means her own success doesn't matter whereas Pleng loves Wan and all of her potential.

They both love each selflessly but while Wan would burn the whole world to keep Pleng warm, Pleng loves Wan despite her own existence. So when Pleng leaves she writes,

"Your parents will feel at ease. And you'll finally get to live your life as your true self... I know you love me but I also want you to love yourself. And be proud of who you are."

For Pleng, her leaving is the ultimate way to show her love to Wan. A clean break. She runs away so Wan can thrive but here's the thing Wan needs Pleng to keep her grounded. Pleng does too but she can't see it at this point. Too much has happened and so, in her desperation she removes herself. She is her father's daughter after all.

So when 13 years pass and Wan has spent that entire time holding on to whatever she can to keep herself close to Pleng (becoming a doctor, riding a bike to work, marrying Ek, separating herself from her parents); Pleng has become a ghost of herself. Wan has imbued herself with all the things she thinks/knows Pleng would like while Pleng is stuck in a cycle that she can't get out of: play music, make a bit of money, pay rent, rest, repeat.

Pleng never reaches out to Wan because why would she? Her loving Wan means staying away and on top of that there's a sense of shame of what her life has become.

So when they finally meet again it's too much. Wan is successful but she's still clearly in love with Pleng and while it was all Wan's doing, in a way her success is a direct result of Pleng's influence. In removing herself, Pleng slowly begins to realize not just that she took Wan's smile with her but the why and how. Wan's changed and devoid of the joy and innocence that Pleng loved most.

They slowly fall back into their natural rhythms but Pleng still can't accept her own presence in Wan's life. Wan is back to pushing (albeit more aggressively then before - time was wasted) and in pushing Pleng, Pleng pushes back. If they take their relationship that one step further, what then? What if it falls apart? Why not just stay in a cycle where nothing shifts? What if there's another ringing shot in the distance and everything changes in a moment?

If there's one core trauma to Pleng as a character it's her desperation to not feel like a burden to anyone. Especially Wan. And then she finds out that Wan (though separated) is still married to Ek and she can't accept that she could have ruined Wan's potential happiness. Not understanding that Pleng herself is Wan's happiness. Pleng feels like a disruption because at the root of it the thing she wanted above all for Wan, "I also want you to love yourself. And be proud of who you are" is not something that Pleng accepts for herself.

I'll leave it there and hope the show navigates the situations that are about to come as well as they have so far but kudos as Affair manages to oh so gracefully skirt what could otherwise be an incredibly toxic relationship. Somehow they manage to give these two characters so much grace despite their flaws. And truly that's also a huge credit to Sonya and Lookmhee's abilities.

It's chaotic and messy but in coming back together these two might just realize that's how they both best shine.

[dimeadozencows]

This came to me in an early morning queer haze

Kissing my medics good morning (I am your husband heavy and I love you)

[starry-bi-sky]

danny and officer martinez's relationship in "late at night, when the nightingale sings" in a nutshell:

Martinez: FREAK! GET YOUR FUCKING KID!

Battinson, on the other side of the crime scene: he don't bite

Martinez, with Nightingale firmly attached his arm, visibly biting him: YES HE DO!

*points at them* Danny is the Bugs Bunny to Martinez's Elmer Fudd.

Another Officer: i can't believe you're fighting with an actual twelve year old. Martinez: i swear to god that is not a twelve year old, that is a little hellion that crawled out of batman's shadow one dark and stormy night and decided to dedicate his existence to tormenting me. Officer: Are you really that mad about him putting a sticky note on your back-- Martinez: thats not the point

in danny's defense: the word "freak" is. a mini beserker button for him for.... obvious ghostly reasons, so like, even if its not directed at him, he still very much unappreciates Martinez's insults at Battinson. Danny may or may not be projecting.

he's not going to hurt the guy! not in any serious or permanently disfiguring way at least! But he is going to leave mean sticky notes on the square part of his spine that he can't reach, and stick salt in his 3AM Late Night Crime Scene Coffee, and kick the bottom of his heel while he's walking so he stumbles. And other petty, infuriating things that tally up and boil over, over time.