#because I will not live a fake life

[beemintty]

they’ll never understand what it’s like to walk into that place as my authentic self knowing that they won’t love me for loving you….

they will never understand what it’s like to feel so unwanted in a place that is supposed to be home….

they will never understand the pain that’s dealt just by standing in that room and being me…..

they will never understand…..

[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!!!

[littlefankingdom]

I saw another post criticizing Bruce for having children fighting at his side, and I must say: tell me you don't know shit about the batkids' stories without telling me. Bruce fucking tried to stop those kids from being vigilantes, but they keep doing it behind his back, so he decided the best thing to do was to give them the proper training, an armor and to have them stick at his side so he can watch over them. You know, like a parent telling their underage children that they can drink alcohol but only at home where they can watch over them.

Dick became Robin because he wanted revenge over his parents' murder. He would run out in the street of Gotham as a 8 years old, all alone, to go fight Zucco. Bruce helping him make Robin was the compromise to keep Dick safe, because the child would not listen. (And yes, it wasn't the case in the very first canon, but it was like the 40s. Do you know how many kids fought against the Nazis in Europe at that time???)

Barbara Gordon is not his daughter and he has no authority on her being a vigilante. He cannot even ground her.

Jason became Robin after helping Bruce take down Ma Gunn's school. It is implied by Bruce, while talking to Dick, that he offered Robin to Jason as a way to gain a child because he missed having Dick around. He didn't need a Robin, he just missed having a kid. Bruce used the Robin mantle with Jason like people use churu to appease stray kitten. AND JASON'S DEATH, let's talk about it. Jason ran away, which leads to him being killed, after eavesdropping on Bruce and Alfred talking about Jason's mental health. Jason is benched as Robin, but not because Bruce thinks he killed someone like fandom says, but because Bruce knows it is not helping or healthy for Jason. They are talking about getting him help for his traumas and how violence is not helping Jason. And, when he is older and has healed, they can try again if he wants to. That's why Jason or people saying that Jason died because he was a soldier, or blaming Bruce for Robin's existence is false. When Jason died, Bruce was against Jason being Robin for his own health! And Jason knows that, he heard the discussion, he wasn't bench like how so many of his siblings are, with little to no honest explanation. Jason died in the Robin's costume because of his own stubbornness, not because of Bruce. (And that's not blaming Jason for his death. He is not to blame, but neither is Bruce. It's just about the Robin's colors. Jason would not have been wearing them at the time if he listened to Bruce.)

Tim Drake imposed himself as Robin. Bruce was against it, Tim literally went "Don't care, didn't ask". And Tim was already following them around before. Bruce already have Jason blaming him for making Tim Robin when he had no control over that.

Stephanie Brown became a vigilante before Batman knew her. He has tried SO MANY TIMES to make her stop, and so many fans hate that he did it. Make a choice, is it bad that he didn’t stop her more or that he didn’t let her more be a vigilante? He even got his kids to try to make her stop. AND SHE IS "KILLED" TO TEACH HIM THAT MAKING KIDS VIGILANTES IS BAD WHEN HE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE OF HER BECOMING ONE AND TRIED TO STOP HER! No shit the man blames himself for things that are not his fault, everyone does it.

Cassandra Cain was 17 when she becomes Batgirl, so I don't know if she counts. But when Bruce tries to make her stop for her own health, with the support of Barbara and Alfred, Cass is devastated and doesn't obey him. She puts on her costume and fights him physically.

Damian Wayne was trained as an assassin. In every version of him being introduced to Bruce, Bruce is against making him Robin and Damian keeps sneaking out. Damian wants to prove himself to his father so bad and refused to be kept away from the fight. In the comics, it's Dick, DICK, that makes him Robin when Bruce is gone, because Bruce was against letting Damian out at night.

Conclusion: Bruce is a tired father of a bunch of kids that cannot understand they should stay home at night and not be vigilantes.

[cametotheshowinsd]

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? (2024) written & directed by Taylor Swift

So tell me everything is not about me …but what if it is?

[mean-vampyre]

Movie so good it makes you want to kill yourself

[thosewildcharms]

The 7x12 parallel with Michonne dropping her sword when she thinks Rick might have died and then running up to hug him when she realizes he's okay :')

listen. LISTEN!!!!!!! THIS PARALLEL IS EVERYTHING TO ME.

we talk a lot about how rick can't live without michonne because like, that's established. we know that. and in case we didn't know that they spelled it out for us by having him say it in plain english.

but it's also abundantly clear that michonne can't really live without rick either. yes, she kept it together for her kids in seasons 9 and 10, but she was not the michonne we had spent the last few years watching her become - she was closed off and hard and felt more like season 3 michonne whenever she wasn't around her kids. if you're ever in the mood to feel completely devastated an easy way to do that is to watch that scene in 9x06 where judith slowly tiptoes towards michonne's bedroom door listening to michonne talk to a rick who isn't there because she thinks no one can hear her, and it becomes painfully clear that michonne's grief and pain is a living thing this family has to navigate around even six years later. and that's when she still believed he was alive.

to actually drop her sword while surrounded by walkers shows a complete disregard for her own life, and it's so automatic, like her body shuts down before she can even process it. i saw someone, i think it was on twitter, call it "passively suicidal" and it's true! i like to think she might have picked the sword back up but it certainly didn't look she was going to in 7x12. i like to think that if rick had died in 1x06 she'd have gotten it together and gone back home to her kids who need her. but what would a michonne who definitively saw rick die with her own eyes even look like?

my point here is that as many many people have observed michonne's love for rick is expressed through her actions much more than her words, through what she does for him and because of him and how she reacts to him. and these two scenes are the equivalent of rick saying "without you, i die." seasons 9 and 10 were her equivalent of figuring out how to be dead and and live. her running towards him when he turns out to be alive is a relief, because what if she can't figure out how to die all over again?

she's the strongest woman alive and can survive anything but i'm really glad she didn't have to.

[pidgefudge]

anything is possible if you block out the real world and retreat into the expansive catalog of elaborate fantasies you've developed over the years as a coping mechanism

[lover-of-mine]

I was reading some of your spies comments. And decided to take a few hours to just watch Buddie and Tommy scenes. And it was interesting because while I completely ignored them, I now understand why they are pissed.

As a Buddie shipper, S7 was actually 10/10, no notes, fully recommend. We were served in every aspect behind the scenes and in interviews. And we ate every scene!!!! It was Buddie at perfection, really. In turn after the wedding. When I saw the medal ceremony, I just sighed. Then, in the finale, the whole time, I was getting excited maybe it was cut. But no, there it was.

After re-watching, I remembered 2 things. During speculation, they swore that the desert scene was going to be BT go Karting (remember they thought it was his truck), and they thought he had a big Maddie scene. And one was Bobby, and the other was JLH acknowledging yeah, sure I sat behind him. Also, there was a Hen, Karen, and Tommy scene cut, right? No big declaration of what their relationship even was. Hooking up, situationship nothing.

And back to the dinner scene when I view it from them. We had a heavy buddie family moment. That leads to Buddie at the hospital together. Then, when the danger is gone awkward dinner. Then, it ends with a heavy Buddie scene. It wasn't even placed at the end of the episode. A total throw-away scene.

I mean I guess I get why they are so salty now??

Imma be honest with you, after the 706 kiss, I was kinda expecting Tommy to have Taylor's level of involvement in the plot, especially after we saw he was at the station for 709, I was fully bracing myself for an episode like 411 focused on building their connection. I was always in the "Buck is not the one in the desert" speculation, so I wasn't thinking about the go-karting, but I was ready to admit it would make sense. Make them go on a date, make something go wrong, bond through first responder effort, kinda like how Buck and Taylor bond through detective work. And then he was barely there. I feel like even our initial speculation where Buck would leave a date because of the crisis with Chris would've been better for the relationship because that type of situation would force the relationship to be defined in some way. The dinner is just there to remind us of how bad Gerrard is. It's 57 seconds that add no definition to the relationship, it just lets us know they are still hanging out, there's no touching, no declaration about what they are. And it's completely buried by the weight of the buddie scenes. Buck and Eddie were being partners and co-parents and there was this tiny scene that's mostly there to remind the audience of who Gerrard is rather than to actually build their relationship because all they got is a really weird-toned scene that makes Tommy seem very dismissive of Buck's feelings. Again. When I was doing the math on how much screentime they had I was legit shocked. Because they had 4 minutes in 7b. The kiss scene in 704 has 4 and a half minutes. The kiss scene alone is more screentime than he had in the rest of the season. He made it known Buck is bisexual, he helped Buck come out and then he vanished into the fog. People got so caught up in the way 911 had a canon m/m ship involving a main character that they built a fantasy on what the relationship would look like, even more so considering the space we had between 704 and 706 that upped everyone's expectations and a lot of these people just kept doubling down because they were in too deep to walk themselves out when the show didn't deliver. What do they actually have? Two kisses, two and a half dates and kink joke? All that after being told the relationship was "thriving"? Even the interview with Oliver and Lou didn't deliver. And at some point, people need to accept they were prompting what Lou was saying in those cameos, especially now that well dried up. Them being mad makes a lot of sense. But, obviously, we're the delusional ones because our ship, uh *check notes* hasn't kissed?

[monitorkernelaccess]

it’s just like. sooooo telling that marcille remembers the good version of her dream as being fun because she was on an adventure with her friends/figures that represented her friends. like she’s not happy at the end because she defeated death. she doesn’t even say they find the treasure they were looking for. she’s just happy that they’re on the adventure :)

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

the high prices of fucking Everything is so exhausting i stg

[steakout-05]

been drawing a sorta reference thingy for Salesman Barry in the timeloop au i've been rotating around in my brain for a while recently :] it isn't as much a character design reference as it is more of a reference for how Barry's mental state begins to deteriorate as he starts having intense deja vu and nightmares every time his timeline gets reset upon death and he tries to piece together what is going on out of pure desperation and instincts (he is being experimented on and doesn't know it yet). i want to throw him at a wall (affectionate)

it is still a WIP as i haven't drawn all the details yet and i want to change the colours as they look too dull on my pc,,, also here is the original sketch :D

[goldkirk]

.

[maulfucker]

This song is making me want to start yet another fic to never finish,, "Tell me... Where is your hideout? Who are we running from? I'm starting to think that you were right, and now I'm afraid of letting go of your hand...." Maul giving up on his Mandalore plan and deciding to just stalk Kenobi to tell him about his vision. Staying illegally in Obi-Wan's room because I love putting these guys in situations (and because Maul would NOT leave him alone until Obi-Wan actually accepted Maul is right, which he won't). Following Obi-Wan to Utapau and helping him escape after the clones attack, feeling equal parts vindicated and enraged (because he was proved right but Sidious still won). Them being on the run together....

[tullycicero]

the funniest part of being in dark academia spaces etc online is that you do really begin to see how like fake all of it is when people are posting and reblogging pictures of your own university (and romanticising your own degree) and they've all just been... desaturated to high heaven like no the shortcut to your lectures doesn't look like that - nothing weirder than seeing people look up to what is essentially half of your life as an aesthetic pinnacle and meanwhile there you are doing studying the classics in an old british university and that is not the vibe

idk it just makes me laugh, seeing photos that can literally include the outside of my own student bedroom being romanticised when i can see very clearly that the sepia filter is blasted to 100 and there aren't tourists everywhere

[pupkou]

this is very deeply cringe to me

[doctorbrown]

MCFLY JULY ‘24 ⸺ 「 28 / 31 * ON THE RADIO 」

October 8, 1984

How he was convinced to undergo this massive undertaking wasn’t the question. Emmett knows exactly how it happened. Left to his own devices, things had begun piling up and now that their newest side-project was underway, the so-called mega-powered amplifier, they would need to clear away more space before the garage became even more of a tripping hazard than it already was.

The more appropriate question he needs to ask is why he is attempting this in the first place when he knows he will commit to the task for two hours, perhaps slightly longer than that if he’s focused, before his attention is called elsewhere and the task abandoned for the three-hundredth time over the years.

Then the why swings the front door open excitedly, shouts ‘Hey Doc, I’m here!’ and Emmett slides a two-tiered box of two-plus decade-old paperwork to the side of the couch in what has become the designated garbage pile.

“Hey, uh, Doc, you home?”

“Over here, Marty.” Marty follows the sound of his voice over to the couch. “I figured I’d try and clear up some room now that we’re going to be building your amplifier in here over the next few months.”

Marty looks around, noticing the additional layers of paperwork and other seemingly random things strewn across the floor, and frowns slightly. “If it’s too much trouble, we don’t have to do it. You’re working on your other thing, that thing you won’t tell me about a—”

“Marty, I wouldn’t’ve agreed to build it with you in the first place if I didn’t want to. Or if I thought I couldn’t juggle both projects.” After a second, Marty smiles, a visible weight lifting from his shoulders. Emmett stands, passing him a stack of old, yellowed papers that he accepts without question.

“I thought you had a research project you were supposed to be doing.”

“I do. Actually that’s—hey where do you want me to put these?” Emmett gestures to the discard pile and Marty curiously flips through a couple of the documents before dropping the whole pile on top of the box. “That’s why I came. Earlier than I thought I would, anyway. Doc, you ever heard of The War of the Worlds?”

“The book or the radio adaptation?”

“Both, I guess. But mostly the radio adaptation. It was a book first?”

“It was. Written by H.G. Wells. Do you remember me telling you about his other book The Time Machine?”

Marty presses his lips together. “Mmm, yeah, kind of. This guy turns a sled into a time machine and then goes to the future, right? And a lot of things aren’t great there. Didn’t you say they stole his time machine?”

“That’s a quick explanation of it, but essentially, yes. He wrote a lot of plausible science regarding the time-travel into his novel, which I quite liked, and the idea of his time machine—” Emmett stops, waving a hand to get himself back on-track. “Anyway, you were asking me about War of the Worlds. What do you want to know about it?”

Marty flops onto the couch and starts digging through his backpack, producing a crinkled, horribly yellowed newspaper. The tagline reads ‘WAR’ ON THE AIRWAVES: RADIO PLAY STIRS TERROR ACROSS NATION and Marty grins up at Emmett from behind the page. Emmett’s brows fly up as he accepts the proffered paper, unfolding it to read the rest of the front-page news article.

Halloween hoax turns deadly!

Thousands of radio listeners were seized by panic during a dramatization of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds performed by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air between 8:15 and 9:30 o’clock last night, believing Martian invaders had come down to attack the Earth.

Households all across the country were disrupted, radio waves jammed due to volume, mass hysteria caused people to flee their homes en masse to escape—

“I was going to write my paper about the invention of radio and how it changed our lives, so I went to the library. Mom and Dad, well, they weren’t so helpful and this is before they were born anyway.” October 31, 1938—Emmett hums. No, his parents were likely just born around that time, far too young to remember it.  

“Almost everything I’ve found about this radio play just talks about how Orson Welles caused so much chaos and panic on Halloween back in ’38. To the point where he had to publicly apologise for freaking people out. Any chance you remember that, Doc? That you were listening to it? I’d kinda like to hear it from someone I trust.”

The memories have adopted that fuzzy quality that time often brings to them, their integrity broken down at the edges to where they are still recognisable, but the smaller details have since faded, been sacrificed to time.

Emmett remembers being eighteen, lounging in the most comfortable chair he had, tuned into CBS, eagerly awaiting the radio adaptation of Wells’ novel. He remembers hanging on their every word, devouring the reports as if they were the real deal, scientific papers published by one of his heroes.

For an hour, he had suspended his disbelief, allowed himself to be dragged into the reimagined world created by Welles and his troupe, and thought about fondly once it had ended, to the point where he’d pulled out the novel to reread.

“I was a little older than you when that broadcast happened and yes, as a matter of fact, I was tuned in.” Marty’s eyes light up and he leans in, eagerly awaiting the story. “This was forty-six years ago so I don’t remember every single detail about the broadcast, but I remember being impressed by the effort put into it. Welles and his troupe did a great job of making it sound very realistic despite the outlandish material he was working with.”

“How’d he do that?”

“He performed it like it was a news bulletin happening in real-time. So he had fake accounts from scientists, from government officials, from ordinary people at Grovers Mill—the novel happens largely in London, but for the play, they moved the invasion here, focusing on New Jersey and New York instead—who were watching the Martians come down, witnessing the destruction, talking like everyday people. In that manner, it was very convincing. I remember being glued to my radio, even appreciating all the changes they had made.”

Marty’s expression turns thoughtful. He can see the gears turning in the boy's head, but what he could possibly be thinking in the moment is a mystery. “So you weren’t afraid at all?”

Emmett chuckles. “No. And not just because I’d been listening the entire time and knew it was just a play. These newspaper articles”—he holds up the one Marty passed to him, indicating the clearly polarising title—“aren’t indicative of what actually happened.”

Marty pinches his brows together and Emmett continues. “For one, nobody, at least not that I saw in California, ever ran out of their houses screaming. It was only ever in the newspapers that that happened. I doubt most people even tuned into the radio show—back then, science fiction wasn’t widely popular amongst people yet, not like it is nowadays—and one look outside would have told people immediately that this was not real. Besides, the Mercury Theatre was scheduled to be performing War of the Worlds at that time; it wasn’t a secret.”

Marty’s expression falls slightly and Emmett finds himself wishing the reality of it could have been far more interesting to match up with the stories perpetuated in the news. He passes the paper back to Marty.

“Then where’d all these stories come from? Do you think he expected this to happen?”

“I think that’s the million-dollar-question, isn’t it? Orson Welles was a very talented man of the theatre; I think he had a vision in mind with that play and he knew exactly what he was doing. However, I believe he didn’t expect the media to use his performance as a stepping-stone the way they did.” Or, maybe, he expected exactly that.

They may never know the truth.

“But if I had to guess, it was the newspapers' way of trying to stay relevant. Around that time, most people owned radios and it became the primary source of news and entertainment. Newspapers were starting to become a medium of the past. Not unlike now, how video is replacing radio as the prime source of media entertainment.”

“Video killed the radio star!” Suddenly, Marty stuffs the paper back into his bag and hops off the couch, startling Emmett. “Not gonna lie, Doc, I was hoping you’d have some crazy story to tell about the panic, but I think you’ve given me exactly what I was looking for!”

In his haste, Marty nearly trips over the couch as he tries to vault it, searching for the quickest way to the door.

“Oh, Doc! Do you mind if I use you as one of my sources for this paper?”

“Sure, go ahead.”