#and i wanted to post about this because i think this conversation is important and unlearning these expectations is also important

[dykespirk]

I think both tos and aos Jim survived Tarsus. but I think tos Jim was older (15-17) and aos Jim was younger (10-12).

I think tos Jim became the de facto leader of children survivors (as we see with Kevin Riley and Thomas), because of his age. That Jim carries the survivor’s guilt of not being able to save more kids—of watching the youngest ones die (ostensibly) in his care. his coping mechanism is thus leadership—usurping and clinging to positions of authority in an effort to save others; he craves authority, wants and needs to embody it to turn it into something that would’ve saved the others, would’ve saved him. Starfleet becomes his white whale. he needs the myth of Starfleet—an intergalactic emblem of peace, carving through deep space purely to discover (and defend). he embraces starfleet’s militarism because it echoes his understanding of power (some evils need to be defeated; innocents need to be protected). Jim also loves to defend—to entrench and hold boundaries (with the Klingons, the Romulans, with any hostile life). deep space is at the same time mystical—where birth and rebirth are always possible, where miracles happen every day—and orderly, where regulations and boundaries are clearly defined. Jim finds solace and role stability in this space, defending others, acting as a father figure, and indulging in hyper-independence & isolation.

that’s how we get tos Jim, who’s desperate for connection & intimacy, but ultimately clings to his leadership role like it can sustain him—like it’s all that can sustain him. (love, you’re better off without it, and I’m better off without mine. this ship, I give, she takes…I’m the captain…I’ve lost the enterprise, I’m losing command…nothing is more important than my ship) the guardian role is essential to his self-image.

conversely, aos Jim was the child. he was the scared, too-skinny kid who had the rug ripped from under him. aos Jim is born into a world where fatherhood/authority is already dead; George Kirk’s absence is a gaping hole in his life. Starfleet’s idealism makes martyrs, but it also cannibalizes its men to sustain its ideals. George’s replacement, Frank, neglects if not abuses him. that Jim witnesses the complete breakdown of authority. he watches Starfleet come with too little, too late. he sees the older kids die. he watches his only solace from Frank’s terror, his fresh start, become a waking nightmare.

that Jim learns that no one is coming.

his coping mechanisms are withdrawal from the system entirely; to bare his teeth at it, to claw at it, to draw blood. scare them before they can scare you. act bigger than you are. appearances are everything. to distrust authority entirely. give up on Starfleet, because Starfleet is an empty vaccum that will take and take, ineffectual at its core and hypocritical at best.

instead of being defined by his attraction to space, aos Jim is defined by his inability to stay still; his distaste for Earth, for Iowa, for groundedness. for him, staying in Riverside is a kind of self-harm, one he doesn’t understand how to escape and ultimately believes he deserves.

this Jim is lonely not because he uses distance as a defense, but because he’s so distrustful of others, he genuinely can’t imagine an open hand. (enlist?)

that’s how we get the Jim that ultimately cares way more about his crew than his ship; who latches onto Bones like a leech and craves Spock; who wants connection with far less shame has absolutely no expectation of receiving it. this is the Jim that blares sabotage while charging into battle, says fuck you to the admiralty, and would rather die saving lives than live with taking them—that’s what I was raised on.

there’s also the fact that tos Jim is a Jewish man written in an era of liberal internationalist optimism underscored by the early Cold War and the shadows of the Shoah whereas aos Jim is the flashy product of peak commercialized Hollywood in a post-9/11, post George-Bush America. anyways.

[unoriginalcontent]

Been thinking a bit about this post; I do believe that to empathize with Trump voters, at least on an intellectual level, is important for purely pragmatic reasons. The idea there is that the right wing propaganda machine is a menace that no one knows how to deal with, and so if we can understand the concerns and anxieties of the conservative voter, we might have an opportunity to demonstrate how Trump is tangibly not addressing their problems and turn them against him. And hell, even if they did vote for him out of bigotry, maybe they'll still be willing to turn on him out of self-interest. However much it sucks, many of these people will not care if you simply point out that his policies harm other people. They've already set the human cost aside as acceptable losses, or else they outright support harming these people, which is why a different strategy is necessary for them. If we can get conservatives to turn on Trump, then even if it's not for the right and morally-correct reasons, that's still a win.

Of course that's all in reference to conservatives who were probably already predisposed towards whoever has an R next to their name on the ballot. When it comes to leftists who refuse to associate with democrats out of protest, I just don't know. I can understand that someone might want to vote out of self-interest and also believe that a Trump presidency is beneficial to them. Obviously they're likely to be wrong, but it's not hypocritical to have believed a lie and acted accordingly. Conversely, I think most leftists are people who will claim that government and voting shouldn't just be about self-interest, and that helping other people is a worthy end unto itself. And yeah, they should have known better.

If you're educated enough on the issues to have known all of Harris's shortcomings, how the hell do you not also know Trump's? If you know them both, how the hell can you conflate the two as equally bad?

We have this idea in the left that our systems are bad, and therefore we can never make progress until we destroy the systems entirely and build something new from the ashes. If you believe that, then please get your head out of the clouds because that's what Trump and Musk are trying to give us, and it turns out to be bad. We live in the system, we depend on the system, if we didn't then it wouldn't matter how many federal programs Trump is trying to abolish. Even if you specifically will be fine, you're writing everyone else off as an acceptable loss. It's not wrong to imagine and strive for a better world than this one, but unless you have viable alternatives ready and waiting, you won't get there by breaking things.

Maybe it's unfair to blame the current situation on people on the left who didn't vote for Harris. I don't even know how much blame matters at this point. And yet I think this is an important thing for all of us to keep in mind. Your moral clarity can be used against you. No matter how good and pure your ideals are, the real world has to come first. And right now that means acknowledging that a huge portion of our democracy chose Trump. And they don't care if you're hurt from his policies, or if I'm hurt, for a lot of these voters your suffering is probably just sugar on top. OP is absolutely right, they probably don't regret wishing leopards onto other people, but that doesn't mean it's not worth convincing them that we should stop the leopards before their faces are eaten. People are going to be poisoned by food which they voted to deregulate, and a part of me wants to think of that as justice. I feel angry. I feel spiteful. These people are taking human rights violations and touting them as victories, fuck them. But anger and spite won't fix anything, even from our side. And no matter how awful some of these people might be, together they're a hell of a voting block. I wish that I could force people to care about the suffering of others, but I can't. And so I hope that it's possible to at least get them to care about themselves.

And if you do think of yourself as progressive, and you still refused to vote for Harris, then I think OP is right, and you really do take a look at yourself. It is true that many of our problems are created and perpetuated by larger institutions beyond our control, but when it comes to democracy, it's not enough blame the system. You're a part of the system. If you don't want to participate, you need to have an alternative that is—crucially—viable, actionable, and realistic in the immediate short term. If you don't have that, which I guarantee you don't, then high-stakes elections are not the time for moral grandstanding.

Sorry for rambling here on your post, I'm probably a bit scattered. I've been having a lot of discussions with people about this sort of thing lately. Whatever strategy the left has for winning hearts and minds, it clearly hasn't worked if someone like that can still win the popular vote. I don't know how to fix that. But I think we all need to be a lot more comfortable ceding the moral high ground if it means making progress in the trenches.

Trump voters owe me financial compensation.

[da-janela-lateral]

Mezato is a very intriguing person despite her position as a side character restricting the audience's knowledge on her, but there are some implications I have become very interested on.

During her conversation with Ritsu post-LOL Cult arc, she mentions something akin to "people really aren't born as equals", referring to how Mob is so disadvantaged compared to Ritsu even thought they're siblings. However, that also says a lot about her motivations. Mezato has two main reasons for organizing the Psycho Helmet Cult and trying to make it influent (with Mob's help as their messiah): 1) it sounded fun; and 2) she wanted to take part in such a massive event. Although the "fun" part can be attributed to the fact that well, she is a fourteen year old with a weird perspective, both motivations are directly associated to not only Mezato's passion, but her opinion on herself.

First of all, she becomes fixated on anything that appears worthy of her attention. It kickstarts her adventures as the school journalist, hunting for any kind of news that she believes to be interesting, and by that she doesn't mean "math class is cancelled": Mezato goes far beyond, from catching shoplifters red-handed to infiltrating a cult that supposedly brainwashes its members. It's clear that the mundane is not enough to her. Mezato wants the current biggest thing. This is one of the reasons she gets so interested in Mob, and being so obsessed with the worldchanging, Mezato cannot bring herself to care as much about the common, the mundane. This way, she can only see entertainment, or better put, value, in what stands out.

Equally, Mezato wants to participate in something she sees as 'big'. Being someone who is so attracted to the flashiest parts of reality, she wants to have an active, direct role regarding them. It makes her feel entertained. It makes her feel fulfilled. It makes her feel special, most of all, because even being in the Biggest Thing's shadow removes her from the condition of banality she disdains so much. That's what makes the Psycho Helmet Cult sound like such an excelent idea, as hollow and uncritical it could be.

But what does these beliefs say about Mezato? Simple. Mezato doesn't think she can be interesting or valuable by herself. She is not shown as pretty, or academically gifted, or athletic. She doesn't appear to have friends. She doesn't even have an ability with the occult like Mob does. Mezato is a normal, lonely girl who has no other excuse to be noticed besides her imprudent detective work, but worse than that, she thinks she can't change. Mezato will never be attention-worthy as herself, so she appeals to inserting herself in whatever interesting thing she finds in the hope that it'll make her Someone by association. She could be a loser, a nobody, but at least she helped build something that is wonderful, and that is the closest she can get to being important.

Her interests and achievements, in this sense, are more like an extension of herself than a result of her passion. A passion that isn't understood by anyone else. A passion that others ignore and are annoyed at, which only reinforces her loneliness and her obsession with chasing after Big Things. If she succeeds, she will finally have a part of herself she can be proud of. After all, there are a hundred wonders in the world with the potential to change everything; there is only one Ichi Mezato and she can never be like them.

[genderqueerdykes]

when i come out i usually find myself immediately trusting cis dudes more. because if they have a problem, ill know immediately and be able to cut that shit off. on the other hand, ive been "accepted" by cis women, only to have that acceptance taken away if i become too masculine , or theyll try steer me a more feminine direction while not directly saying anything. so then when i try to bring up issues its like "how dare you!!! im not a transphobe!!!"

that aint to say one group is more accepting than the other. for awhile i thought ciswomen were more accepting when actually i was a younger transguy who hadnt caught on yet. in my experience cis guys just immediately make it clear, and theres something about that that makes me feel a lot safer and not like im walking on eggshells. the cis women in my life who do support me are important and i love and appreciate them all, but there needs to me for conversations around more covert transphobia that even Allies can fall victim too

everyone is capable of being an asshole or shifting the goal posts and it's not okay for people to assume cis women can't do this. ive had a lot of cis women just constantly change the playing field and only accept me under certain conditions or if i performed manhood the way they wanted me to. i've had some cishet men do this too but honestly not very many. cishet men can be assholes but a lot of them are also just upfront and honest and it's a trait i'd rather appreciate

i'd rather someone just straight up tell me they don't want to associate without forcing me to guess or play mind games. i don't like when anyone of any gender does that. but i appreciate that a lot of the cishet men in my life have been very transparent about how they feel about interacting with me and i think its helpful as hell.

a lot of cishet men also just really do not give a fuck about queerness in a very productive way. as in "that doesn't pertain to me at all that's your business and i just want to be your friend. if you wanna tell me you can, but i'm not prying you for answers." i've had so many cishet guys treat me this way. most of my friends have been cishet guys and they've all been chill as hell about me being queer.

people need to accept that a gender doesn't make you evil, nor does it make you exempt from being called out for doing harm. thanks for sharing your experience, it deserves to be heard

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I've been doing a lot of reflection as of late, especially after this past class.

This past class was about the Torah and Tanakh in general, and the way the rabbi talked about the commandments (specifically the ten commandments) has made me really reflect on how I interpret them, specifically the fifth commandment, or honoring your mother and father.

This is a commandment I have wrestled with for a long time - in fact, it brought me away from g-d at multiple times. I was severely abused when I was incredibly young by my mother, and I used to feel insulted at the implication that I were to honor her while she got to live a better life. It was hypocritical, in my eyes.

But this rabbi surmised that this particular commandment was because parenthood is an act of creation, something that is like the g-d from which we come from. My realization is this: I don't think we're necessarily meant to take even these commandments literally.

I this particular commandment is more of a call to honor creation - creation is a gift, and like any gift, many people simply will not like it and will discard it. The person who abused me created me, but she did not honor creation. She didn't honor me, but I can still honor it.

I have started to honor creation much more. I'm too young, too unstable, not mature enough to be a father (though I fantasize about it), but I create all the time. I create relationships, I create with my hands through crochet. I create memories, I create my world. And I can honor who I am and where I came from that made me who I am. I've been learning one of the mother tongues of my family (Italian, since part of my family originates there) and it was judaism that inspired me to do this.

I don't think g-d wants me to honor my abuser. I think He wants me to remember the Holy action of creation. When I am a father, that act of creation will be Holy, and indeed, I am already joyful about the thought.

I have seen many people struggle with this particular commandment, but I think this perspective helps me personally. I don't think I ever have to forgive my abusers (plural), and I don't think I am commanded to simply because they happened to be family. I am commanded to recognize the holy, to elevate the mundane. In doing so, I will remember g-d. Through creation, I honor g-d and everything he has done for us, for me, and for our collective people.

[crooked-wasteland]

Oh dear. My brain gets easily overwhelmed by compound questions and I compensate by reponding in broad ways to cover as much ground as possible, but I think you had expected me to go deeper. My apologies. Let me see if I understand what you are asking precisely.

The explanation you are looking for is in how the Goetia function like celebrities, you meant that as a physical behavior? Because I admit there isn't a single one action that is a direct comparison to celebrities. In relation to Stolas' position, all we have is the Harvest Moon celebration where all Stolas appears to do is make a speech, open his portal, and then just hang out. It's a purely ceremonial and performative spectacle.

So going back to the original post where I deconstructed power, the question is what purpose does the spectacle serve? If the power was centralized in Stolas and his position in the aristocracy, then it should have been more focused on deifying Stolas for his magic and affirming the social dynamics of their society.

But it is precisely the fact this is so underdeveloped that we can't actually attribute any weight to it. So when you take away the power in a scene like that, it becomes entertainment.

And that's why I think the larger conversation with Elcee is relevant as the central focus of my position revolved around world-building and how the lack of it stripped these characters of the necessary context to elevate their positions to one of actual power.

Your next two paragraphs are a bit more closely related so I will treat those as a separate conversation, because what you are talking about here are the different types of power: Hard Power and Soft Power.

This is the archetypal duel between intellect and brute strength. The terms Hard and Soft power are coined in regards to international relations.

Hard power to a nation is their military. In an example, say America wants Canada's oil fields. Anything in relation to the use of one's military, even simply as a threat, is an expression of Hard Power. Trump lining up troops along the border would be a display of Hard Power.

Soft power is the socio-political side. It is NATO, the Red Cross, USAID. Soft power is charity in exchange for political influence. Financial and material support to another country that is experiencing unrest, famine, disease, and war. These business-style agreements and friendly negotiations are how power is maintained.

So in regards to Stella and Stolas, Stolas has all the hard power. The person in any true danger when the two of them are together is Stella. The only things that can kill Stolas are angelic weapons of a very high caliber. But Stolas could just turn Stella into stone. She isn't killed, but physically rendered completely incapable of causing him harm.

Or more in line with his show characterization, he could just leave. The leniency provided towards victims of abuse is the understanding that the abusers and victims are equals outside of the abusive dynamic. The tendency of abuse to psychologically disempower the victim is real, and why many victims stay in these dynamics. Let alone the ways the victims are physically isolated.

There is no "belief" in powerlessness with Stolas. This character reached across dimensions to reanimate corpses in order to summon himself the good old fashion way. That is cosmic levels of power. There is nothing stopping Stolas from just scooping up his daughter and hopping through a portal, save for his own arbitrary choice to stay and blaming that choice on his child.

If we switch to Stella's side, it's important to note what is and is not canon. What Andrealphus tells Stella is that she will lose everything to Octavia if Stolas dies. So that means Octavia, being heir, is entitled to everything that her father inherited from his father. So the title, Manor, money, and other assets Stolas inherited and accrued. Meanwhile Stella is only entitled to what she brought into the relationship. Because the noble lineage of higher rank has a winner-takes-all method of inheritance. It's why being acknowledged by one's parents' families was such a big deal.

And it is necessary to remember Andrealphus is a Marquis, meaning that is also Stella's rank of birth. The European aristocracy ranks from the top down:

As seen here, Stella was brought up the ranks to Princess. In a divorce, she would be entitled to some reparations in the form of monetary compensation, but would lose her title.

But if the title was so important to Stella, she should be wanting to protect it at all costs. The thing that contradicts that is how she embarrasses her husband. Because her title is one she acquired from him, devaluing her husband is directly going to devalue herself among the other Goetia. So we can't even get to the conversation of Soft Power because her canon behavior would have ruined her reputation alongside her husband's.

What would have been in line with this behavior would have been Stella seeking a divorce from the beginning. Making Stolas look bad would have only assisted in her being awarded more reparations for how terribly he treated her. It would be how Paimon would "clean up" Stolas' image in the courts.

And please note that I am focusing solely on titles, not sex. I am functioning on the assumption that if Stella was a princess who married beneath her, Stolas would be in the same position as she is in the canon.

On a completely unrelated aside, I am approaching the conversation of Stolas and his abuse from the duel viewpoint in how the show wants me to see him and what his abilities contextualize his actions. The only way to justify Stolas' cheating the way the show wants me to requires Stolas being trapped in the relationship due to forces outside of himself, or have him just admit that he cheated on Stella to hurt her. Which the show explicitly denies.

The show is too scared to just let Stolas be cruel in retaliation to her cruelty, and I think most Stolas Critics would be less hostile to the character if the show would just allow him to do terrible things for the sake of them being terrible. The aspect that endears an audience to problematic characters is the catharsis we feel through them. Him lashing out against Stella being acknowledged for what it was would have entirely changed my whole position on the show.

But because Stolas is magically and socially superior to Stella, you cannot argue that his cheating is also innocent. It's not removing the significance of his abuse. But his cheating is not excused by it due to the context. It isn't elevating cheating over abuse, merely saying they are unrelated and mutually exclusive. Those are two separate conversations in their entirety that cannot be used to justify each other.

But I think that covers all of it? I do hope I was able to give you a better response this time. My apologies again. Please let me know if I got anything wrong.

I've seen your tweet which criticizes the worldbuilding in Helluva Boss and how the Goetias feel like "Hollywood with royal titles" rather than true aristocracy, and I would like you to elaborate on that, if that's OK.

Thank you so much for this ask as I never got to expand on this point at the time. For those not in the know, the user is referencing this exchange on Twitter.

As much as the elites of our world would like to disperse the truth, the reality is that all societies are constructed around power. Who has power, how and why. That is the fundamental basis of every social dynamic from children on a playground to the politicians in our governments. So the very first thing we should even approach in regards to the narrative is how does power work in this universe?

So when I responded to Elcee in the tweet being referenced, I am evaluating power and power structures. Mainly there are two wholly different constructs of power between something like the aristocracy and celebrities.

The closest thing to an aristocracy we have in our modern day are the financial oligarchs of Capitalism. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, etc. They have control everything from how our political parties engage with us to how we think based on the wealth they were born into. They curate our lives behind the scenes in ways that sound worthy of a tinfoil hat, but isn't a conspiracy. The wealthy were threatened in the 1970s by an educated proletariate. In response to our questioning the Vietnam war, the higher education that was once free or at least extremely affordable suddenly became prohibitively expensive.

So much so that only the financial aristocracy could access it. Whereas working class individuals are forced to jump through hoops and prove themselves suitably subservient to the existing power of the oligarchy in the form of scholarship applications, teacher recommendations and application letters before being granted access. This is not a mistake or how it's always been, this is by design.

Meanwhile, Celebrities are not elites. While we think of celebrities as being overpaid and living in luxury, it only takes a glance over at Chappell Roan to see the difference. When Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or any large corporate CEO walks the red carpet, they are treated as royalty. When celebrities walk the red carpet, they are commodities.

Celebrity is the modern day face of the American Dream. Gone are the days of a single family home and a white picket fence. The boom of content over art, luxury over practicality, and excess over comfort is directly the result of selling to the world the idea of capitalistic success, which just amounts to perpetuating the system of turning humans into money. And for as much money as these celebrities make, it has been proven over and over again that they are just as susceptible to poverty as any other working class individual.

Celebrities are products we buy, and when we stop buying them, they vanish.

Meanwhile the aristocracy, the financial oligarchy, thrives in obscurity.

The difference in power is about who still has it when we no longer see them. And the more invisible and pervasive it is, the more real it is. However one as an individual thinks about the celebrity class, they are simple a different type of specialized tool to the true power behind the scenes.

With that differential in mind, the Goetia function more like celebrities rather than CEOs, and while Elcee fails to see the bigger picture, that subliminally tells the audience that someone with the title of prince, with armies sworn to his allegiance and infinite cosmic power, is no different than a working class joe.

This isn't intentional propaganda, however. It's not her trying to further the agendas of Jeff Bezos intentionally. Just like my other post covering how Medrano tries to excuse cheating, not realizing the only time one can argue such a blanket concept of forgiveness for such a betrayal can only happen when the option of choice is non-existent (ie Divorce is not on the table for reasons outside of the characters’ choices), this is the danger of not engaging with media with your mind turned on. You will innately, no matter how careful someone tries to be, engage with the material through the eyes of the creator.

Celebrities and average people are the same: commodities in the face of real power. But Medrano cannot tell the difference between someone like Elon Musk and his employees. She sees the aristocracy, the ones who were born into a legacy of wealth, as “hardworking average folks”. And if you aren't thinking, you might find yourself implicitly believing that too. Deeper entrenching the power they have over you as an individual and society as a whole.

How we got to where we are in our real lives is mirrored in the media we consume. And that isn't an accident.

[fazmid]

the problem with having the same online handle for so long to the point where it kind of just became your name to you without calling to your mind the thing it's referencing anymore is that. well. that reference is still being broadcast to other people. and I'm not sure how much I want to do that anymore.

[milfbrainrot]

i feel like i type so much more than is reasonable when i do talk to people but i also don't get to socialize a ton so i just have soooo many words in me and if i'm like, tired or short on time, it is so much harder to restrain to the already-pushing-it point i can sometimes manage ;-;

[ryp3004]

"Did you know I have a daughter?"

Addison looks up from the floor. Rebecca is leaning against the balcony rail, the thumping of bass and the shouts of party goers almost drowning her out.

"What?" She blinks. Christ, whatever Lisa put in those shots must be messing with her hearing.

"I have a little girl. Ryanne. She's four now." Rebecca looks over the city, the lights of Hollywood painting her face. It's the most serious she's looked since they met.

"She lives with my parents. Because I'm here." Addison knows Rebecca's hammered. Hell, that was the whole reason they came to Lisa's party. To celebrate a job well done and staying at Hollywood U.

So why isn't she slurring? Why is her voice so clear?

"I love that girl so fucking much." She has a sad smile on her face. "But I left her with the two most vapid, image obsessed people in California." She snorts. "And that's saying something."

Addison blinks at her, trying to keep her in focus.

"And you know why I did it? Why I left my baby with the people I hate most in the world?"

"Why?" Addison slurs. Rebecca's eyes are bloodshot.

"Because I'm a coward." She whispers, voice cracking. "Because I was afraid of her. Of being a mom. Of what people think when they see us together. When they hear her call me momma. All I can see are the fucking looks they give me. And all I can imagine now is how everyone will look at me when they find out."

She runs a hand through her short hair, her rings pulling out a few loose strands.

"Everyone always told me I'd be a screw up, but I always thought 'They'll see. They're gonna regret this when I'm famous. When I'm making the movies they pay to see.'... but what if they're right, Addi? What if all I'll ever be is a teen mom who got her 15 seconds of fame and never got over it?"

Addison stands on shaking feet and leans against the railing with Rebecca.

"You won't be," Addison puts her head on Rebecca's shoulder. "You're a force of nature, Becs. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is gonna know your name." She pokes at Rebecca's cheek. "And I'm more upset that you're not showing me pictures of the baby than the fact that there is a baby."

Rebecca snorts and pulls out her phone. Her home screen is of a little girl with curly pink hair holding a daisy to the camera. Her eyes are sparkling.

"She's got your colors..." Addison mumbles absentmindedly. Rebecca snorts again.

"Yeah, she's the spitting image of her dad." Rebecca studies her for a moment. "Are you drunk enough to forget this in the morning?"

Addison frowns. "Forget what?" She slurs.

That must be the right answer, because Rebecca looks back out over the balcony.

"I miss Ryanne like a mother fucker, but I'm glad I don't have to worry about her for a while..." She admits quietly, words almost lost on the wind. "I'm happy I can be an irresponsible kid for a bit, y'know?"

Addison nods, eyebrows pinched. "Definitely, Becs. That happened to my friend's mom, I think." Rebecca huffs a small laugh. "What happened?" Addison frowns. "I dunno, what happened?"

She holds Rebecca's arm tighter.

"Becs, I'm gonna throw up."

Rebecca immediately jumped into action, quickly escorting Addison to the bathroom and holding her hair while she emptied her stomach.

"Becs?"

"Right here, babe."

"I think you'd be a good mom."

[maeamian]

I understand why that person from the country of Georgia is mad that people aren't getting it right, but also the only part of their post that actually points out it is talking about the country rather than state is the flag that they use, they say "The place I live" which could be either, they talk about the legislature being lethally transphobic which could be either.

I can understand why the particular double name can cause a lot of frustration especially when you're trying to talk about something serious, but sometimes when there's communication problems between you and an audience they are partially your fault.

[movietonight]

While there are things to criticise mash for and those conversations are important to have some of what I read can be explained very easily by reminding yourself

It was a TV show

On a budget

From years ago

From America

Written by a variety of human writers

Who used characters and plots to tell stories

Within a certain number of minutes

[aho-dapa]

This fandom is honestly...

Like, there is something to be said about fandoms in general and how they've changed as a whole generally but

There's also something about how the acotar fandom is especially toxic like

The idea that a post is surprised a murder hasn't happened yet and I found myself agreeing??? Is honestly telling

Like, also. A massive part of this is shipping and maybe it's because I have my corner of this fandom, but even then shipping the "wrong" thing in general has become something I honestly have to take in consideration when thinking of my mental health and if I can personally be prepared for any backlash??

This fandom at large doesn't feel safe and that's majorly concerning tbh

Maybe instead of saying shippers as a group are doing harm, we should just disavow harmful actions in general and not be complicit in it idk???

[ourladyoftheflytrap]

People will come online fuming with hate and anger about Anything and expect everybody to instantly understand and validate them instead of being concerned about.... the genuine hate and anger. You know that behavior wouldn't fly in front of IRL strangers

[dennisboobs]

this is genuinely... so funny to me. like the hilarity of copypasting rational tweets. i'm literally right. it's not even a funny copypasta because it's literally just. objectively correct. it's a criticism of twitter culture and that makes it funny to you because...... god forbid you actually have empathy for other people. caring is for losers if you're on twitter dot com, you have to be snarky and funny at all times.

[headknight-oh]

Just noticed that there hasn’t been much, if any, coverage on the mangione trial in like a month. Like since he plead not guilty, there hasn’t been any major coverage on the proceedings. I just tried to look up anything about the past month and I genuinely cannot find anything. Nothing about it they’re still in jury selection, nothing about any rulings, nothing about the defending attorney or even opinion pieces. Like I know why there’s not much coverage, but nothing at all? Like we got CONSTANT updates about the depp/heard case when it was happening, but now that it’s something about an important issue that would have been the case of the decade in times past, it’s radio silence.

It’s so incredibly disturbing that they’ve filtered it out of the media and that people don’t care enough to demand it be covered. People treated it like a trend and aesthetified it to the point that an actual act of resistance means nothing now.

Also there’s like no concrete evidence in this case. It’s all circumstantial. I feel that everyone forgot that, and because of it, the idea that “innocent until proven guilty” as a precedent is very much in the process of being undermined

Edit: Putting this here again because I keep getting people misinterpreting what I’m trying to say: You guys, I know there’s nothing new to report on. What I’m saying is that when something like this happens, everyone talks about it. Every talk show and opinion columnist and political analyst will talk give speculation and reaction and opinion on it. Like when columbine happened, every news outlet talked about it for months before the trial ever happened. It happened in 99 and the rulings didn’t come out til 01 or something. And even if they never directly mentioned columbine, they would talk about gun violence and bullying and how police weren’t trained for situations like that. They talked about the surrounding issues. Like yeah there’s nothing new that the media has access to rn, but no one is making opinion pieces about the judges conflict of interest, no talk show is having a 20 min segment about gun violence or the state of healthcare. Twenty years ago, it would have stayed in the news cycle at least passively until the case moved forward. But now it’s been phased out almost completely. And I know coverage will pick up when the trial starts. I know courts move slowly. I’m not trying to push conspiracy. I was simply making an observation that it was strange that there was almost no talk about it, that it’s been phased out of news cycles, and how there’s no widespread conversation about the issues surrounding the shooting.

Also, I only used depp/heard in the original because it was the most recent case I could think of. And because I was tired and thought this post would be seen by like 20 people max, so I didn’t bother wording it as precisely as I could have. Columbine and the OJ Simpson case are better examples to work off of.

I just wanted to clarify what I meant so I stop getting comments that misinterpret what I’m trying to say and people being rude about it

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Another mini update because I think I deserve to talk about this:

I am changing game plans! I'm not sure if I've mentioned this but... The shell stitch is such a yarn eater. I have four rows of shells, but you actually don't see that there are about eight rows in this because there are intermittently small ones to set up the space for all the shells. These four rows have basically eaten up ninety percent of my skein of 210 yards (192 meters). My question is: should I make one more shell stitch row before transitioning into double crochet, or is four sufficient?

My new plan now is something like this: shell stitch four rows, double crochet until I reach the center of the tallit. The middle will be a few more rows of shells, then back to double crochet until I make it to the other side. I genuinely can't think of a worse idea that thirty-three inches (eighty-four centimeters) of solid white in shell stitch.

(Do note that my camera has completely altered the colors. It does this automatically and I hate it so much. These colors are so much richer and more interesting than how this camera decided to mess with it)