#at least it was useful like a decade later
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pixiecaps · 3 days ago
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do you think if mia had chosen to stop existing instead of jaser sofia would be alive? since she is the error in the cycle, the impossible thing that isnt meant to happen. understanding that in this context would mean that sofia is meant to live Or at least not die there per say. like calisto said only the god of fear could bring her back but the existence of mia is what throws everything off.
and i keep thinking about what calisto wrote in those last few documents in the cathedral. and his initial scene with veríssimo where he explicitly states that “but fear.. its impossible when you already know whats going to happen. do you understand?” so yes he saw all the visions including his own death so he knows like the others how hes going to die. but what makes him different is he doesnt feel fear or thats what hes implying. similarly to veríssimo who cant feel fear. which to me means calisto like veríssimo is marked by the god of fear. that is their element.
i also like that calisto doesnt know about mia and you learn that immediately. veríssimo says “all stories need an ending and its because of that im here. to end all of this. to save her.” talking about mia. and calisto says. “save her? you left to forget her!” talking about sofia. so calisto has no idea already. he believes that veríssimo abandoned sofia with no motive because he isnt aware of mia. the cycle itself is already teetering.
now considering this even before using the explosion ritual on himself and presumably dying he tells veríssimo, “i’ll see you in the other ending.” in his mind hes going to be the one to save sofia since he knows that the god of fear will bring about the other ending. none of this will have happened. sofia will come back. the thing is.. mia is the one who existed in the end. jasers choice predetermines whether sofia dies or not. mia was the part of the equation that calisto didnt consider because he couldnt have known.
another interesting part is when calisto states, “i understood the prophecies of the unhaunted one. i solved the enigma of fear. 
 what did i do?! I FULFILLED MY ROLE!” which we see throughout the game later on where calisto job in this cycle was to decipher all of jasers visons and guide the other agents to repeat the cycle etc etc. THEN HE SAYS “im going to bring her back.” again talking about sofia. which means that calisto did everything he did in that cycle with the motive of bringing about the other ending or in other words calisto wasnt just driven obsessively mad with the enigma of fear cause he wanted to solve it out of curiosity but because he wanted to save sofia. a great example of this would be the last document with the drawing of sofia that says, “only the god of fear can bring her back. only i can do this.” because his role throughout everything was to be the one deciphering all the visions. he was in charge of overseeing and successfully placing the pieces for the other ending to happen. but as we know sofia coming back to life doesnt happen. and im curious to see what calisto will do with that if anything?
cause the implication of the ending we got is that only mia truly remembers what happened and also that everything we saw never happened. so will calisto not even realize that everything he sacrificed to save sofia actually didnt work or pay off? im most anxious to see what calisto will be like now. especially with how quick he sent the group a text message. theres gotta be a certain self awareness to it all. for him at least. suddenly coming back to life and no one knows who you are cause its been decades? its interesting. i think i’d be Most interesting if we get calisto back and hes somehow still obsessed with the enigma of fear and getting sofia back. because that would alter everything so much more again.
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casadefreewill · 7 months ago
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I can’t believe I did this-
I submitted a project based on a fic years ago and I just used my old school’s social media to track it down. Anyways fic rec for Forgotten by NorthernSparrow cuz I’m about to go read that again
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A pic of part of the project
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iminmywritersdungeon · 1 month ago
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I just had a really interesting thought abt Cassandra kiramman and what the ventilation in zaun might’ve meant for her. Of course, this is all under the assumption that it WAS her, which it might not be, but that’s a different post
So in the bit where Caitlyn hears her talk about the Gray and the plans to filter it, she sounds so much younger. So picture this.
Cassandra Kiramman is young. She’s the bright, new, inexperienced head of House Kiramman. And she has a dream. She wants to change things. She wants to make a difference in her cities and she wants to do good. It’s hard, sure, a lot harder than she thought it would be, but she manages to achieve part of her dream. She builds a ventilation system in the Undercity, to lift them out of the dirt and be truly one people.
After doing that, she knows that if she really wants to make a change, she needs more power. So she goes for the big guns: a council seat. It takes a while, but she claims her spot in piltovers governing body and-
No one cares. No one cares at all about the things she’s trying to do. Heimerdinger is living in his own world, Hoskel just wants a pretty girl in his lap and wine in his cup, Brackken is more preoccupied with destroying the Undercity than building it, Lianna is too focused on international trade and on and on it goes. Her dreams are shot down time and time again, in endless loops of paperwork and ribbon cuttings and never actually getting anything done.
So what does she do? She stagnates. She can’t get anything done, so she doesn’t even try. Her bitterness and resentment grow until she points it at the people she used to try and help. Why did they all have to be criminals? Surely if they could at least act like upstanding citizens, then maybe her plans would go through with the rest of the council.
Fast forward and she has a daughter of her own now. She’s young and bright and she wants to help people but Cassandra knows how that goes. People down there don’t want to be helped, so why even bother trying? Caitlyn brings home a stray into her house and lets it bark, and she gets them a meeting with the council because she knows that spark in her daughter’s eye, she knows nothing will come of it, but for all the things she could have done, she needs to let them try
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lunarharp · 1 year ago
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lazy scribbling of my baldur's gate 3 characters
#*emerges from 430 HOURS of life-changing playtime blearily like a lost and confused kitten*#i lost my interest in drawing bc everything is too sad & horrible right now. it was a luxury and privilege to lose myself in this instead#what follows will be my personal and trivial emotions about that#i'll do better proper drawings later. for me. they are both so very dear to me... deeply dear...unforgettable journeys of fate#truly have played like one possessed for the past few weeks. you have no idea. what do i do now. what do i do.#their personalities are so vivid to me though they mostly made the same choices. both intersex and they/them - canonically <3#i missed out on FOUR PARTY MEMBERS in my first playthrough due to not understanding anything whatsoever.#gloaming ended up with wyll and pavane romanced karlach and astarion. and ended up with the one i did NOT plan on. this wasnt the plan#one of the most fulfilling romance paths i've ever..i cant say more..it all got too immersive and now i have to just.. MOVE ON ??????????#live in THIS world where i can't gut imperialism personally and emerge alive from that?#without Long Resting? without my character requesting a kiss from their beloved after a tough day ??#without preparing my little spells? without channelling divinity from my death god to keep us all alive?#without dyeing my man's clothes fancy colours for him? without him Approving whenever i lie and double-cross our enemies#without sharing clothes with my ex? without choosing to eat the heavy food first so that the weight is easier on her Carrying Capacity?#without orchestrating ways for all of my friends to kill the abusers that ruined their lives for a decade or even 200 years?#without experiencing degrading horrors on a daily basis but in a cathartic way where we always make it back to our rooms at the inn#WITHOUT SPEAK WITH ANIMALS???????????#at least there's music. just like with persona 5 that will always be with me. always#like how p5 melodies take me back to those feelings. those rich and personal feelings.... BUT THIS WAS A WAY MORE NUTS EXPERIENCE#i thought i would hate it. i did at times. thought it would desensitise me to various things. it did. but there was so much more..it was...#Well anyway *continues my life* imagine if dnd was real..something to think about
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mariocki · 2 months ago
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Shadows of Fear: Did You Lock Up? (1.1, Thames, 1970)
"And they didn't make much mess?"
"No, not really. They forced that door. Smashed the cabinet, slashed a sofa. And kicked a hole in the bedroom door."
"Ah. Big mistake."
"What is?"
"Never lock inside doors. Anything you can to keep them out - but when they're in, let 'em get on with it."
"I'll remember."
#shadows of fear#single play#roger marshall#1970#classic tv#thames#kim mills#michael craig#gwen watford#ray smith#mark mcmanus#malcolm kaye#charles leno#having come to something of a premature pause in my New Scotland Yard watch (the first ep of series 3 isn't on the YT playlist I've been#using and is proving quite tricky to get ahold of) i thought I'd revisit this brief lived anthology series for the creepy season. i first#watched this about 10 years ago and my memories of it are scant to say the least‚ so it seemed like good viewing for the season#the production history of SoF is lost in the mists of time (unless someone out there wishes to enlighten me?); this first episode was shown#in June of 1970‚ but the rest didn't follow until January of the following year; probably this acted as a sort of pilot to gauge viewer#reactions to another vaguely horrorish anthology series (the previous decade had been ripe with them‚ tho we rarely see their like today)#and then there's the odd case of the final ep‚ shown almost 2 years after the series ended and running to half the length (and generally#feeling like an entirely different format) but I'll come to that when (and if) i get to the episode itself. this debut ep is... well it's#fine. i was excited to see Marshall's name in the opening credits‚ one of the most dependable of old tv writers and I'd quite forgotten he#contributed to this show. but the issue here is simply one of length. the plot is solid‚ a suitably grotty little tale of a family man's#mounting obsession with the burglars who broke into his home. it would make a good ep of Tales of Unease (shortly to begin on Thames'#sister broadcaster LWT) or a few years later as an episode of Tales of the Unexpected; both being 25 minute shows. but this clocks in at#close to 50 mins and there isn't really enough to it to sustain that longer running time‚ leaving it feeling a little stretched thin and#flimsy. a shame‚ because Craig and Watford are putting in excellent performances as the middle class couple whose reactions to the burglary#slowly shift as time passes (he goes from prosaic acceptance to fixated malice‚ she from shocked indignation to making peace with it all)#no big surprises in where the play is headed or how it plays out‚ but that's often the case with these things; it's often just as much#about the horrible foreknowledge of what must come than some shocking twist‚ and this plays it about right. it's just too long is all.
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sundial-bee-scribbles · 2 months ago
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In case it's hard to read/understand: "If I had a nickel for every time I had a story with a blonde girl named after a plant, who has a German father and a French mother but absolutely hates said mom, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice."
weird, extremely-specific tropes in my stories: pt 1
#oc liveblogging#ughhhhhhh i really CANNOT afford to be procrastinating rn but i know this happens when im extremelyyyyyy fucking stressed.#creative/art related classes always get me for this reason bc ill use 'wait but i need to find inspiration!' as an excuse to procrastinate.#fuckkkkkkkkkk. UGH IM NOT EVEN WRITING SOMETHING FROM SCRATCH ITS JUST A FINAL REVISION BUT IM CONVINCED IT SUCKS#the worst part is hkjhkjGHKJ I HAVE TO PRESENT SOME OF THIS SHIT AT AN. INTERNATIONAL FUCKING CONFERENCE GUYS. GUYSYSSSS#anyways this post is sadly not related to that. nothing im presenting is related to my ocs [un]fortunately lmao#ive just been thinking rotating various oc stories around in my head again ourgghhhh.#and i realized this LMAO. i mean maybe technically not 2 separate stories anymore because im recycling a lot from one for the other?#one of these was already established lowkey and the other was something i made for an assignment for a class like 2 years ago#i actually don't know if petunie will be blonde in her final incarnation?? ive always imagined her as silvery blonde ig but idk#if ill keep that. she doesnt have proper colors like colin but at least colin has his design set more straight somewhat.#and all the recent petunie development is lowkey really fucking funny to think abt. i girlbossed with her character development so#hard that she really replaced lucian as a protagonist HAHAJSDHKGJ. ok well not 100% kamille's story is a shoot-off#of lucian's technically? i guess? it started becoming that and now its solidified as that lowkey bc same town same place time period people#but man if im not careful i might accidentally make kamille/petunie's arc THE default one and lucian's main one the offshoot instead#a lot remains to be seen. but also yeah the other one who's story is mostly getting recycled (myrtille) actually ALSO HAD HER MOM#COME FROM THIS SAME FUCKING PLACE BASICALLY. a few decades later but still bruh given developments for lucian's story too its just like#at this point im noticing a pattern man wtf is wrong w/ women who come from this town specifically lol. đŸ˜”đŸ„Ž#this town in general is just fucking cursed though i think ahkjshkg. i mean that jokingly and literally lolololl i gotta. work on it. but y#I HATE IT HERE WHY ARE WEIRD LITTLE FUCKING TOWNS WHERE BAD SHIT HAPPENS ALWAYS A CONSISTENT TROPE IN MY STORIES /silly#I DONT EVEN COME FROM A WEIRD LITTLE TOWN MY HOMETOWN IS LIKE. AVERAGE NORMALISH NOT SUPER LARGE??? IDFK?????#haaaaaaa fuck i need to finish this by the end of TODAY I S2G!!! SO I CAN MOVE ON TO ALL THE OTHER SHIT I OWE FUCKKKK
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shuicheese · 2 months ago
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I'm thinking about my dreams again bc I might actually try to finally map things out (this post made me do it) and I'm realizing a trend;
there's too much water
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boypussydilf · 1 year ago
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if my math is right in fionna & cake simon is almost 60 years old. hes actually old now crazy. this just got really funny actually. Why are we taking this man on dangerous adventures hes 59. 1059 depending on how you wanna count it. Please be careful with him
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vimbry · 2 years ago
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heardle being sold to spotify only for them to pick their exclusively US indie/pop top 40 streaming stuff from the past 4 years nobody knows and tank it less than a year on is a tragicomedy
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foldingfittedsheets · 6 months ago
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Mattresses, unbeknownst to many, are a lot like cars. Every year new ones roll out, they’re always tweaking and innovating and you’ll never find the same one you loved decades ago when buying a new one.
Where I sold mattresses had a three month return or exchange program for this reason. New beds take a while to break in, and they’re a big expense. Your body is used to the old one. So we made sure people were loving it. If a bed got returned we’d take it back, sanitize and clean it, then sell it again on clearance.
To sell these we always had to disclose what clearance meant to customers, and they had to sign that they knew what they were getting. (FYI, not every company is as
 forthright about the used bed situation)
In clearance we had beds that were floor models, we had returns, and more rarely we had old models whose line had been discontinued. These clearance beds were always final sale, so a bed could only be sold twice.
Now, the manager at the store I was working at had realized a vital fact. Clearance beds in the warehouse didn’t sell, especially old models that salespeople weren’t familiar with. And even more especially in odd sizes, like twin extra longs. So he set up a split king on the showroom floor to exhibit clearance beds, pulling all those forgotten twin extra longs out onto the showroom.
Almost all of these were brand new discontinued models. Beds I’d never learned in training were exhumed to be displayed. The manufacturers had moved on to new lines and they’d been left behind. Why would he take such in interest in selling old stock, you might wonder? Because we made double commission on the sales margin of clearance beds, and if we’d had a bed long enough they dropped the cost in the system so it was a fucking cash cow to sell these. Even with huge discounts the commissions were wonderful so it was a win win.
When I got started I was jazzed about this program, I was so on board to sell weird old brand new beds and make a ton of money. I had a wonderful older couple come in, looking for a split king adjustable set. This was a white whale sale.
The current clearance models on the floor were a latex mattress that was brand new despite being of an age to start first grade, and a tempurpedic floor model. The couple laid down and it was like magic. They each loved the bed they’d laid down on. They wanted to buy the whole shebang.
I. Was. Thrilled. I told them about the clearance program and what that meant, and they weren’t bothered in the least. I wrote up the sale then dashed into the back, fizzing with excitement to tell my manager what I’d done.
“You sold the death bed?!” He asked in delight.
I pulled up short, my smile freezing in place. “What
?”
“Didn’t you check the notes?”
I hesitated for a long beat then slowly shook my head. You see, dear reader, all beds had a personal history. Every clearance bed had logs written up by the person who took the return, as well as warehouse crew after sanitizing. It helped us know what to expect when selling them. “Wasn’t it just a floor model? You said it was a floor model
”
He slowly shook his head. I checked the notes.
It turned out, it had been sold as a floor model. The first time. But the company had made an exception and taken it back as a return two months later. Why? Because it’s owner had passed away.
I stared at the computer in horror and my manager shrugged. “They signed the clearance form. Technically it was a floor model.”
“We know for a fact that a man died in that bed!”
“What they don’t know can’t haunt them,” he said philosophically.
The man came back a week later for more sheets, utterly delighted to tell me how well they were sleeping. I clamped my teeth down around the secret of the deathbed, choosing to let them love their new bed without the stigma. Only one person would be haunted by that deathbed, and it was me.
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jadedbirch · 1 month ago
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Gather around, my young friends and fellow dinosaurs, let me tell you about some BULLSHIT no one ever tells you about. I'm talking about menopause and perimenopause. Now, menopause has a very stringent medical definition. You have to not have had a period for exactly 12 months and a day to be considered in menopause. All the bullshit before that day once you start going through The Change is considered perimenopause. Here's some bullshit you might experience that people actually talk about when you're in perimenopause:
- shorter time between periods
- irregular periods
- hot flashes and/or cold flashes
- fucked up sleep
- OMG NIGHT SWEATS
- Vagina as dry as the Sahara desert
- lighter periods and/or endless bleeding like it's The Flood but it's in your pants
- lack of interest in Adult Fun Times
This time of joy can last anywhere from a couple of years to a god damn decade and there's no medical way right now to predict it.
Here's some of the REAL bullshit they don't tell you about but your dinosaur aunt is here to let you know:
- You can start perimenopause in your 30s, don't listen to idiot doctors who tell you you're "too young" because they don't know your body like you do.
- Perimenopause will make you HELLA DUMB. Seriously, I'm talking Bigly broken brain. Brain fog? Check. Short term memory? Wave goodbye to it. Ability to make words form out of thoughts? Yeah, good luck to you.
- Perimenopause can cause horrible fatigue because in addition to losing estrogen, you're also losing testosterone. Oh and that also leads to muscle wasting, cool cool.
- Things might suddenly hurt more because estrogen is known to be neuroprotective.
- If you're super lucky like I am, and like to collect rare illnesses, you might even get Burning Mouth Syndrome 💀
- And meanwhile, while you're going through this bullshit, you'll be getting gaslit by doctors who are operating based on 30 year old debunked data about how HRT causes breast cancer (not really) and that they shouldn't put you on it until you're in actual menopause. (Data shows starting HRT early can potentially prevent Alzheimer's in later years.)
- There are entire online clinics right now (I use Midi Health) focused on providing care for peri and menopausal patients and they will happily prescribe you HRT even if your regular PCP or OBGYN do not (if you meet the criteria). I've been pretty impressed with how holistically they view the patient. For full disclosure, I learned about them from my integrative health doctor and they do not accept Medicare (yet).
I'm 46 years old right now and I've been symptomatic for perimenopause for the last 8 years, although it's gotten the most dramatic in the past 2 years or so, which I hope means I'm almost done, holy hell. Yeah I was on the early side, but if it can happen to me, it can happen to you, so it's never too early to think about these things. And I hope to at least spare some of you the mind-fuckery I've been through because no one told me about most of this stuff, including my own mother who just DOESN'T REMEMBER what happened to her and now I completely understand why. And because I also have a connective tissue disease, I used to just dismiss my pain and fatigue as being caused by that illness rather than the loss of hormones.
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Anyways, this is why we need Elders in our lives, so they can do Grandma Story Hour like I just did and validate you when the entire medical field tries to gaslight you. I hope you've found some or all of this educational/useful. Please share with your friends because we really do NOT talk about this stuff enough. (Ewwww Moon Blood!)
Stay well, and don't let the bastards grind you down!
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nexttothelamp · 7 months ago
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.....
#the legal battle will take so long#this is going to be the hardest thing ive ever done and maybe will ever do#life has and will change forever. for the better? i hope but i dont know#is this the right thing to do? yes#does that make it easier? ....only slightly. and itll have to be enough. and i realize now that it is#but oh god does it hurt. im a victim too maybe the oldest one? oldest one alive anyway. that i know of#i cant. believe it#hindsight is 40/20 in this case but fuck#a part of me wants to tell him#to pull him aside and say#i know what you did. i know what you did and its going to come out.#and if it was only in the past i might choose to let the dead rest#but i cant let you near those kids. i can only pray to a god i dont believe in that its not already too late#but baby axel still has a chance#i know with this shit system i wont be able to take the kids from derek#but i can put you away and maybe thatll be enough#i wanna tell him that im going to the police and they WILL be coming to his mothers house#and i wanna tell him that because i loved him. So MUCH once#that im giving him the chance to kill himself and take the cowards way out before its too late#i... mean that a little too and that hurts the most#i cant kill him even though id like to choke the life out of him myself#i cant ruin my life for the man that tried to already#but it would save us all so much trouble if he did us all a favor and shot himself in the fucking skull#theres always going to be more kids and hes gotten to 4 over 2 decades at least. and those are only the ones i know for certain#hes just a pedophile. it makes so much sense now#fuck. fuck.#maybe in a few days ill be able to think about something else#can barely focus on trump getting convicted lol#id say delete later but i wont
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21st-century-minutiae · 1 year ago
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In the early 21st century, Socrates stands as one of the most, if not the most, famous philosophers. He is known for the Socratic Dialogue, a method of arriving at the truth where the teacher asks questions to direct the learner to contemplate the problems with their assertions. He is also famous for stating that he only knows one thing, and that is that he knows nothing.
This level of epistemological skepticism is heavily associated with philosophy in the early twenty-first century mindset.
The image listed is that of 'The Thinker,' one of the most famous statues in the early twenty-first century. It, and its pose, are strongly associated with deep, thoughtful contemplation. In this context, it can be understood that it is serving as a 'mood tag' of sorts. The words themselves are ambiguous in tone, as it might come across as despairing. By juxtaposing it with 'The Thinker' readers will understand they mean it is a curious, thoughtful way, not a sad or frustrated way. It is this association that brings Philosophy and Socrates into context, despite not being present in the words, or in the statue.
The heavy-handedness of using an entire photograph, and the context of the website can allow readers to infer that the above series of posts are humorous in nature, even if the contemplation might be legitimate.
I’m the opposite of an empath I don’t know what anyone is feeling or thinking at any time
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prickly-paprikash · 8 months ago
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Kendrick doesn't just hate Drake as a person. He hates the very idea of Drake.
Hip-Hop is rooted in revolution. In defiance. These are the songs of an oppressed group of people, and decades upon decades people have hated it. Accused of being meaningless and invalid. Media outlets took steps to belittle hip-hop and make sure it isn't recognized as an art form and as a means to fight back.
2Pac spoke of wealth disparity and inequality. Tupac was literally a member of a communist organization when he was younger and never stopped speaking against capitalism.
Lauryn Hill spoke of the struggles a woman faces. Not just women, but black women. Salt-N-Peppa. Queen Latifah. MISSY FUCKING ELLIOT.
N.W.A made sure people knew about police brutality and violence against the Black community.
And now, in this day and age, we're also experiencing an explosion of Queer Hip-Hop. Lil Nas X is at the forefront of this. Lil Uzi Vert came out as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, even when they knew that a lot of their fans would never use it or even respect them for it. Auntie Diaries, a song about a young man who grew up in a transphobic environment and bought into those beliefs, but could never fully do it because his Uncle loved him so much and taught him a lot of life lessons, and that wisdom translated to him accepting his cousin as a woman as well.
Drake is none of that.
He's the perfect representation of what people think hip-hop is. Flexing. Posturing. Objectifying women. A fucker so insecure he bought 2Pac's ring just to feel like he's part of the black community. Rejected by Rihanna publicly. Tried to groom Millie Bobby Brown. Kissed and inappropriately touched an underage girl during his concert. His songs have inspired so many young boys to treat girls like shit. His belief that the amount of rings and chains and cars he has is the true meaning of success.
Additional Edit: This is my fault. If this post gains more views, then it would be remiss of me not to add to this. It was my fault to begin with, not stating this beforehand because while I did know, I got lost in celebrating Hip-Hop in a place that doesn't usually do so, and rightfully so.
2Pac did fight for wealth equality and better social living for the black community. He also has a long, long history of battery, domestic abuse, and sexual harassment against women. Specifically against women of color. He made a song to celebrate his own mother, but outright refused to give the same show of respect to other women in his life. His hypocritical nature was brushed off in later decades, just the way I did now.
N.W.A is the same. Sexual assault charges, violence—they spoke of Police reform, but refuses to give the same treatment back towards the women in their lives.
50 cent refuses to backtrack on any of his misogynistic lyrics.
Modern rappers of today, such as the dead XXXtentacion. 6ix9ine. Kodak Black.
I do love Hip-Hop. I love rap. And the music itself has always been anti-authoritarian at its core, because those are its roots. And I was happy that circles that did not normally know of it or enjoy it were getting into it, even for one thing like this rap feud.
Lil Nas X, Little Simz, Childish Gambino, Missy Elliot, Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill—rappers who have at the very least consistently tried to put their money where their mouth is. Who have tried to act in accordance to what they rap and write and sing for.
@shehungthemoon @ohsugarsims finnthehumanmp3 were the ones who rightfully clarified in the comments. I know an apology won't correct my hypocrisy or my stupidity. I should have added all of this before making this post, but I wanted so badly to celebrate a genre of music but failed to do my due diligence in showing a better, holistic view of it. If anyone felt triggered, offended, troubled, frustrated or any other intense negative emotions surrounding this, please do block me. I'm sorry.
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mcmansionhell · 6 months ago
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the motel room, or: on datedness
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I.
Often I find myself nostalgic for things that haven't disappeared yet. This feeling is enhanced by the strange conviction that once I stop looking at these things, I will never see them again, that I am living in the last moment of looking. This is sense is strongest for me in the interiors of buildings perhaps because, like items of clothing, they are of a fashionable nature, in other words, more impermanent than they probably should be.
As I get older, to stumble on something truly dated, once a drag, is now a gift. After over a decade of real estate aggregation and the havoc it's wreaked on how we as a society perceive and decorate houses, if you're going to Zillow to search for the dated (which used to be like shooting fish in a barrel), you'll be searching aimlessly, for hours, to increasingly no avail, even with all the filters engaged. (The only way to get around this is locational knowledge of datedness gleaned from the real world.) If you try to find images of the dated elsewhere on the internet, you will find that the search is not intuitive. In this day and age, you cannot simply Google "80s hotel room" anymore, what with the disintegration of the search engine ecosystem and the AI generated nonsense and the algorithmic preference for something popular (the same specific images collected over and over again on social media), recent, and usually a derivative of the original search query (in this case, finding material along the lines of r/nostalgia or the Backrooms.)
To find what one is looking for online, one must game the search engine with filters that only show content predating 2021, or, even better, use existing resources (or those previously discovered) both online and in print. In the physical world of interiors, to find what one is looking for one must also now lurk around obscure places, and often outside the realm of the domestic which is so beholden to and cursed by the churn of fashion and the logic of speculation. Our open world is rapidly closing, while, paradoxically, remaining ostensibly open. It's true, I can open Zillow. I can still search. In the curated, aggregated realm, it is becoming harder and harder to find, and ultimately, to look.
But what if, despite all these changes, datedness was never really searchable? This is a strange symmetry, one could say an obscurity, between interiors and online. It is perhaps unintentional, and it lurks in the places where searching doesn't work, one because no one is searching there, or two, because an aesthetic, for all our cataloguing, curation, aggregation, hoarding, is not inherently indexable and even if it was, there are vasts swaths of the internet and the world that are not categorized via certain - or any - parameters. The internet curator's job is to find them and aggregate them, but it becomes harder and harder to do. They can only be stumbled upon or known in an outside, offline, historical or situational way. If to index, to aggregate, is, or at least was for the last 30 years, to profit (whether monetarily or in likes), then to be dated, in many respects, is the aesthetic manifestation of barely breaking even. Of not starting, preserving, or reinventing but just doing a job.
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We see this online as well. While the old-web Geocities look and later Blingee MySpace-era swag have become aestheticized and fetishized, a kind of naive art for a naive time, a great many old websites have not received the same treatment. These are no less naive but they are harder to repackage or commodify because they are simple and boring. They are not "core" enough.
As with interiors, web datedness can be found in part or as a whole. For example, sites like Imgur or Reddit are not in and of themselves dated but they are full of remnants, of 15-year old posts and their "you, sir, have won the internet" vernacular that certainly are. Other websites are dated because they were made a long time ago by and for a clientele that doesn't have a need or the skill to update (we see this often with Web 2.0 e-commerce sites that figured out how to do a basic mobile page and reckoned it was enough). The next language of datedness, like the all-white landlord-special interior, is the default, clean Squarespace restaurant page, a landing space that's the digital equivalent of a flyer, rarely gleaned unless someone needs a menu, has a food allergy or if information about the place is not available immediately from Google Maps. I say this only to maintain that there is a continuity in practices between the on- and off-line world beyond what we would immediately assume, and that we cannot blame everything on algorithms.
But now you may ask, what is, exactly, datedness? Having spent two days in a distinctly dated hotel room, I've decided to sit in utter boredom with the numinous past and try and pin it down.
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II.
I am in an obscure place. I am in Saint-Georges, Quebec, Canada, on assignment. I am staying at a specific motel, the Voyageur. By my estimation the hotel was originally built in the late seventies and I'd be shocked if it was older than 1989. The hotel exterior was remodeled sometime in the 2000s with EIFS cladding and beige paint. Above is a picture of my room, which, forgive me, is in the process of being inhabited. American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) hotel rooms are some of the most churned through, renovated spaces in the world, and it's pretty rare, unless you're staying in either very small towns or are forced by economic necessity to stay at real holes in the wall, to find ones from this era. The last real hitter for me was a 90s Day's Inn in the meme-famous Breezewood, PA during the pandemic.
At first my reaction to seeing the room was cautionary. It was the last room in town, and certainly compared to other options, probably not the world's first choice. However, after staying in real, genuine European shitholes covering professional cycling I've become a class-A connoisseur of bad rooms. This one was definitively three stars. A mutter of "okay time to do a quick look through." But upon further inspection (post-bedbug paranoia) I came to the realization that maybe the always-new brainrot I'd been so critical of had seeped a teeny bit into my own subconscious and here I was snubbing my nose at a blessing in disguise. The room is not a bad room, nor is it unclean. It's just old. It's dated. We are sentimental about interiors like this now because they are disappearing, but they are for my parents what 2005 beige-core is for me and what 2010s greige will become for the generation after. When I'm writing about datedness, I'm writing in general using a previous era's examples because datedness, by its very nature, is a transitional status. Its end state is the mixed emotion of seeing things for what they are yet still appreciating them, expressed here.
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Datedness is the period between vintage and contemporary. It is the sentiment between quotidian and subpar. It is uncurated and preserved only by way of inertia, not initiative. It gives us a specific feeling we don't necessarily like, one that is deliberately evoked in the media subcultures surrounding so-called "liminal" spaces: the fuguelike feeling of being spatially trapped in a time while our real time is passing. Datedness in the real world is not a curated experience, it is only what was. It is different from nostalgia because it is not deliberately remembered, yearned for or attached to sweetness. Instead, it is somehow annoying. It is like stumbling into the world of adults as a child, but now you're the adult and the child in you is disappointed. (The real child-you forgot a dull hotel room the moment something more interesting came along.) An image of my father puts his car keys on the table, looks around and says, "It'll do." We have an intolerance for datedness because it is the realization of what sufficed. Sufficiency in many ways implies lack.
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However, for all its datedness, many, if not all, of the things in this room will never be seen again if the room is renovated. They will become unpurchaseable and extinct. Things like the bizarrely-patterned linoleum tile in the shower, the hose connecting to the specific faucet of the once-luxurious (or at least middling) jacuzzi tub whose jets haven't been exercised since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wide berth of the tank on the toilet. There is nothing, really, worth saving about these things. Even the most sentimental among us wouldn't dare argue that the items and finishes in this room are particularly important from a design or historical standpoint. Not everything old has a patina. They're too cheaply made to salvage. Plastic tile. Bowed plywood. The image-artifacts of these rooms, gussied up for Booking dot com, will also, inevitably disappear, relegated to the dustheap of web caches and comments that say "it was ok kinda expensive but close to twon (sic)." You wouldn't be able to find them anyway unless you were looking for a room.
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One does, of course, recognize a little bit of design in what's here. Signifiers of an era. The wood-veneer of the late 70s giving way to the pastel overtones of the 80s. Perhaps even a slow 90s. The all-in-one vanity floating above the floor, a modernist basement bathroom hallmark. White walls as a sign of cleanliness. Gestures, in the curved lines of the nightstands, towards postmodernity. Metallic lamp bases with wide-brimmed shades, a whisper of glamor. A kind of scalloped aura to the club chairs. The color teal mediated through hundreds if not thousands of shoes. Yellowing plastic, including the strips of "molding" that visually tie floor to wall. These are remnants (or are they intuitions?) of so many movements and micromovements, none of them definite enough to point to the influence of a single designer, hell, even of a single decade, just strands of past-ness accumulated into one thread, which is cheapness. Continuity exists in the materials only because everything was purchased as a set from a wholesale catalog.
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In some way a hotel is supposed to be placeless. Anonymous. Everything tries to be that way now, even houses. Perhaps because we don't like the way we spy on ourselves and lease our images out to the world so we crave the specificity of hotel anonymity, of someplace we move through on our way to bigger, better or at least different things. The hotel was designed to be frictionless but because it is in a little town, it sees little use and because it sees little use, there are elements that can last far longer than they were intended and which inadvertently cause friction. (The janky door unlocks with a key. The shower hose keeps coming out of the faucet. It's deeply annoying.)
Lack of wear and lack of funds only keep them that way. Not even the paper goods of the eighties have been exhausted yet. Datedness is not a choice but an inevitability. Because it is not a choice, it is not advertised except in a utilitarian sense. It is kept subtle on the hotel websites, out of shame. Because it does not subscribe to an advertiser's economy of the now, of the curated type rather than the "here is my service" type, it disappears into the folds of the earth and cannot be searched for in the way "design" can. It can only be discovered by accident.
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When I look at all of these objects and things, I do so knowing I will never see them again, at least not all here together like this, as a cohesive whole assembled for a specific purpose. I don't think I'll ever have reason to come back to this town or this place, which has given me an unexpected experience of being peevish in my father's time. Whenever I end up in a place like this, where all is as it was, I get the sense that it will take a very long time for others to experience this sensation again with the things my generation has made. The machinations of fashion work rapaciously to make sure that nothing is ever old, not people, not rooms, not items, not furniture, not fabrics, not even design, that old matron who loves to wax poetic about futurity and timelessness. The plastic-veneered particleboard used here is now the bedrock of countless landfills. Eventually it will become the chemical-laced soil upon which we build our condos. It is possible that we are standing now at the very last frontier of our prior datedness. The next one has not yet elided. It's a special place. Spend a night. Take pictures.
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stychu-stych · 2 months ago
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Could we have some of your Lamb head canons please?
I'm going with my modern au because it's my little obsession right now sijssj
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I'm cutting the post so it wouldn't be so long. The whole description is below
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So the whole thing with Old Faith as the most powerful religion and Bishops is mostly the same like in the game. The world looks similar to our in 1700s, sheep was hunted down over the decades and Lambert was in the group of the last ones. That group was caught and killed, Lamb was lucky enough to be outside the camp at this time but they didn't enjoy their freedom for so long. As a single sheep it was hard to survive on their own
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Lamb seeing their wife for the first time sjsbsjsh
Lamber was caught some time later by bounty hunters. However, an accident happened when Lamb tried to escape one night - there were shot in the stomach badly enough that further travel was impossible without them bleeding out. So since Lamb was going to die anyway, the bounty hunters figured out they'd at least bring Old Faith their head. They didn't wait for Lamb to bleed out first, so that death wasn't fast or easy.
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First years as a cult leader weren't easy. Taking care of the flock, learning how to fight, figuring out how rituals work, it was a lot for young Death's vessel. Lamb couldn't get used to their new role for some time. But Ratau was a huge help, beloved rat-dad was as much supportive as he could
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After their first century as cult leader, Lamb began to feel comfortable in their role, perhaps a little to much I would say. Their grow their wool and started to pay more attention to their appearance and to the things that brought them pleasure. They started to fully enjoy their immortal life, to be too self-confident focused too much on themselves. They liked being in the center of attention, with the flock fully devoted to them. They even started to add a new tattoo with every kill of a Bishop or their the most devoted followers (as a trophy)
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Beginning of XX century, Lamb become TOWW's little killing machine, no fear of death or pain. Ready to die, just to stand up and go killing again. They were fully devoted to Narinder in the most toxic way, ready to do absolutely everything just to make their god satisfied. Lamb didn't even realize how obsessed they were with Narinder at that time
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Modern times, with Narinder already indoctrinated into the cult. Lamb as a selfish, egocentric, ready to do everything to achieve their goals bastard. Still unhealthy devoted to Narinder but this time in a different way - on one hand madly in love with him, on the other hating him with all their heart because of he did to them. Either way both of those strong feelings keep them close to him
Jeez this post took me more time to write than to draw djdbdjdj I'm soooo bad at writing
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