#i don't believe that's the case and it's completely irrelevant to the fact that he's far older than louis regardless but still

[feedingicetothedog]

new age discrepancy i noticed while reading the caption of this post:

Lestat de Lioncourt. 179 years in the Savage Garden. 148 years the blood-drinker, the bringer of death… the deer come up the trail

179 years in the savage garden and 148 the blood drinker would mean that lestat was turned when he was 31. however later in the same ep

which would make him 34.

it's just like how depending on what info you use louis was turned when he was 32-34 (if he was born in 1878 and turned in 1910 as he says during this scene, then he's 32. if the birth year on the gravestone is correct and he was turned in 1910, then he's 33 which is what he said he was in ep 1. however, there's that timeline that shows louis being turned in 1911 so if the birth year on the gravestone is correct then he would be 34)

conclusion: none of these vampires can remember how old they were when they were turned and are just approximating

[mae-i-scribble]

My post on How I Attended and All Guys Mixer picked up a few more notes than I was expecting recently and it reminded me that I've been wanting to talk about how appreciative I am about how the series handles sexuality. I'll only be talking about the manga here bc I haven't seen the live action drama nor do I plan to. But I just think it's really neat that with our 3 male protags we get to see 3 very unique reactions to 1) learning that crossdressing is a thing and 2) how they in turn feel attraction wise.

I'll start off with Asagi as I feel his is the most straightforward in that he just takes everything in stride. Literally nothing phases him. Thanks to that he's the most nonchalant of the group, just chatting up and trying to make friends per usual. He's confused somewhat, but doesn't pay it any mind and just tries to get to know everyone as he would any other new friend. Personally, I can really see an aro/ace argument for Asagi due to the way he's just, completely unaffected and uninterested in the romantic ongoings around him. He compliments the girls and such but even when the manga is going pretty hard pushing its other pairings Asagi and Fuji truly just seem like good friends. I'm not delusional, this is a romance manga that from the get-go clearly has these pairings in mind to all get together romantically, but until it happens I can gaslight myself into believing my aroace truth (is coping so bad).

Going from most chill about everything to 2nd most chill we have Tokiwa. Tokiwa is an interesting case in that he's polite to such a degree that he does his best to mask his initial confusion and shock (to the extent that yknow, a comedy manga will allow). Though it doesn't really work because he is very overwhelmed by the situation at hand. However, I don't think this is attributed to the girls' crossdressing alone in the same way that Hagi can't get over his initial shock of the concept. Tokiwa's chief concern isn't the "weirdness" of it all but the fact that he came here expecting a meet cute with a cute girl and instead is getting a meet cute with someone equally as charming but with none of the reserved attitude we see Suo have while she's fem-presenting. My boy is not worried about gender norms he is worried for his sanity due to the attractive person flirting with him.

Honestly, this panel here implies that he finds masc-presenting Suo even more attractive. The fact that he even tries to reassure himself that because Suo is a woman this situation is less flustering is very interesting. Not that it does anything. Pouring one out for Tokiwa for real. As the manga goes on, Tokiwa gives off the vibe of someone who is comfortable with his sexuality enough that the gender presentation of the person he likes is irrelevant, both are attractive to him in different ways. Again, while Suo's crossdressing is a point of interest in the sense that it's not something he understands or gets intuitively, he doesn't have nearly the same level of crisis as Hagi does. His attraction to Suo is never questioned- rather it seems to be a question of whether or not he thinks Suo is genuine in her flirting.

And our last boy is Hagi, poor beloved Hagi who is having the time of his life trying to figure out that hey, sometimes people don't dress or present stereotypically. It's a rough life for you Hagi. However, his inner conflict is very gripping. I find his reaction and subsequent coming to terms with the idea of crossdressing a very realistic take on the subject much more akin to your average person being introduced to everything for the first time. It never feels mean spirited even if Hagi can be offensive in this thoughts and comments at first- it's born from a place of genuine confusion, both towards himself and towards the girls. Hagi falling in love with Kohaku, while a little to rife with misunderstandings for my taste, I think is a wonderful narrative of how even being straight doesn't mean that there is one way to feel attraction. While Kohaku throws around the idea of him being bi due to him being attracted to Kohaku while she's masc-presenting, Suo best sums it up when she says that it's not about the words or the looks, its about who it's coming from. And given that we haven't seen Hagi struggle with this from anyone else, it's a safe bet to say he likes Kohaku as masc-presenting, not necessarily masc-presenting people or men in general. Attraction as a fluid concept is something most straight romance stories, let alone a comedy based one, seldom bother to explore along the gender spectrum. Hagi's struggle to understand himself and what his attraction to Kohaku means to him personally is such an interesting take that it elevates the entire storyline out of miscommunication hell almost (just almost).

Idk idk this feels like a very silly rant to have but I do in fact love this manga more than a reasonable amount and this is definitely one of the top reasons for it. I would love for it to get a bit more attention but I shall settle for rereading it for the 20th time I suppose

[fandoomrants]

It's all fun and all but people should stop saying "James forgot his wand" or "Regulus couldn't swim".

For the first one:

Realistically thinking, they probably don't carry their wands with them at all times, especially at home, that's their safe space. Imagine if someone's at your door. What's more, you know there's a limited number of people who can be at your door, and you trust them. Would you be ready for an attack?

Or, I present you with this scenario - let's compare wands to something people usually have with them at all times nowadays, but probably won't be carrying all the time at home. Cellphones. If someone's at your door, would you go open carrying your phone with you? Especially if logically, it's a very close friend? Chances that you do is only if you were using it at the moment someone showed up. But you're at home. You could be doing something else and that'll be the last thing on your mind.

Maybe James was with Lily and Harry before that. Or he was making dinner/tea. Or whatever. Because he was at home, and he felt safe.

You see, the whole tragedy comes from the fact that they trusted Peter. They trusted him unconditionally, the Secret-Keeper can't be just anyone. Also, if someone's your Secret-Keeper, it doesn't make sense to check if they're really them because the whole point of the spell is about no one else being able to come, right? So chances are, they thought it's him at the door. Halloween is a bigger thing for wizards. They could have expected him to visit, or at least not being surprised by it. Grabbing a wand is not the first thing that'll cross his mind.

So the point is, James couldn't have just forgotten his wand. He didn't feel the need to carry it with him.

(Also, even if he had his wand, do you think it would have helped for long?)

As for the second:

With all of the fanarts, fics, and stuff including hands dragging Regulus down, one would think that it wouldn't matter if he could swim, or not.

I think that even if he wasn't a good swimmer, he would have had a chance to get to the other end of a completely still lake, floating.

However, I don't think even an Olympic swimmer would have a chance to survive if there was someone literally pulling them down. And those inferni weren't one or two, were they?

Even if he was a great swimmer, he didn't stand a chance.

Also. Most (all?) spells don't work on inferni.

Also. He must have been really scared? Just because he's a wizard and had seen weird stuff before, it doesn't mean that something like that wouldn't scare him and have influence on how things went down (that was one unintended pun).

He was also ready to die.

So all things considered, his swimming skills were the least of his worries, and the most irrelevant thing in the situation.

In conclusion, these are funny jokes that make funny memes from time to time (the kind of funny that make you cry after) but it's strange that people would actually believe these were the cases, and headcanon these characters as forgetful/unable to swim when all things considered point to the fact that it wouldn't have mattered.

[yesimtrashforit]

Ok, first and foremost, Rest In Peace Liam Payne. I was never really a listener of One Direction, but you can't deny that he had a wonderful talent and made an impact on so many people's lives. He made so many people happy and that is a beautiful thing. I really wish his family and friends comfort and peace during this hard time. The stuff that TMZ did was absolutely disgusting, by the way. Completely inhumane and disrespectful. Losing a family member, a friend, a brother, is one of the hardest things in the world and that happening with media swarming over every detail is not normal. My condolences to them.

Now, as a long-time fan of Stranger Things, I recently heard that SOME people are saying some absolutely terrible things like "why liam, it should've been noah schnapp." I know I've avoided posting about Noah's whole controversy because I know that it's a touchy subject for so many people and the reason I usually come on here is to provide a break from that chaos and bring people together.

It is my opinion that no matter what you think of Noah and what he has said or not said, it is certainly disrespectful to Liam Payne's family, friends, and memory to rope in a completely unrelated situation to all this.

I think it's somewhat pointless to even form a strong opinion on his situation, considering that these are people most of us have never and will never meet or know personally. These are real people. I can't believe that is something that gets confused and forgotten.

Putting that somewhat aside for a second, I just feel so strongly about standing up to hate and prejudice especially when it results in bullying. You may agree with what I say, you may disagree and that is fine. But at the end of the day, if you're wishing someone you don't even know dead, you're a part of this problem.

Like I said, I obviously don't know Noah personally, and I'm not going to be the person who's like "well, he clearly has good intentions!" because I don't know that. Taking a surface-level opinion on this, I think it is kind of understandable for people to think of him as a bit ignorant for what he's said or done. We're human beings, we're judgy as hell. Despite that, it is unjustifiable to send homophobic and anti-semetic messages to anyone. No one deserves that. I really hope that Noah is staying safe through all this. I wouldn't wish this upon anyone. This conflict overseas is messy and complicated and I believe it is counterproductive to focus on people's opinions about it, rather than the issue as a whole.

Whether he likes it or not, Noah has influence and it's a tricky thing. No one is perfect and we should stop expecting that from people who we don't know. And that's that. Things may or may not have been misrepresented or misconstrued, but that is irrelevant in this case. He's a young actor with a platform and he has used that to voice how he feels. He may or may not fully understand what the implications of that are and that is not my place to judge. Has his opinion on this conflict changed the fact that hundreds of thousands of people for the past year have been massacred and are going through unimaginable suffering? Likely, no.

But I understand people's anger.

Like so many of you, I am absolutely appalled and disgusted and heartbroken by the loss and pain that has been happening overseas and I am deeply frustrated and angered that the IDF and Hamas are committing and have committed these atrocities against innocent people. Families that have been torn apart, homes and businesses and schools gone. Words cannot express how unbelievably horrific that is. From human being to human being, I sincerely and deeply hope that this will end. Every human life is so precious and valuable. Please please please remember that.

To anyone in Gaza or anyone who has been affected by this, I can't imagine what you're going through, but know that there's millions of people overseas who are praying and hoping for your safety and happiness. Everyone deserves a chance at a safe, healthy and secure life.

No matter where you stand, I implore you to not get caught up in petty drama and remember what really matters: donating, memorializing people who've lost their lives, supporting others in need and spreading peace and love in the face of violence.

Violence is never the answer.

Be kind and respectful to one another.

Once again, rest in peace Liam. You are very loved and missed.

I know I mainly focused on Noah's situation here, but that is not what matters right now. I just wanted to get that out there. Instead, let's remember a great and talented musician today, okay?

-Allie

[tacky-optic]

OK so i've been in this fandom for well over a year now (since the end of october, ew) and zenigata is still my favorite. so after all this time, i'm finally slapping down some of my thoughts about the version of the loud angry rectangle that runs around in my brain and this nightmare of a franchise in general. as a new year treat.

most of these have actually been in my notes since february or march, made as semi-sporadic thoughts while i trudged through the series. i wonder if it's obvious what installment i was watching/had in mind for each of these, lol. anyway i found these at the bottom of my lupin notes folder back in october, plopped them here, then forgot about them again, oops.

but they're here now! at the very end of 2023! under the cut! you can even read them, if you want!

zenigata is selfish. there is a genuine drive to help people and do what's right, but pursuing lupin specifically? 100% an ego thing. zenigata pursues lupin (the world's greatest criminal) because he feels like he's obligated to (as the greatest cop (and not that he necessarily thinks this about himself presently, but subconsciously)). it stopped purely being 'the right thing to do' after the amount of chases hit double digits -- probably even earlier than that.

so what does he really want to achieve here? who knows, because he sure as hell doesn't lololol.

but seriously tho. it's probably simple human connection. or acknowledgement. he's always operated on a different level from everyone else, likely to the point of boredom and/or unfulfillment, so once he comes across someone that might operate on a level higher than him, of course he gets obsessed. game recognizes game and it's liberating.

he's most likely used to "it's only a matter of time" and not much else, so i bet the realization that "it's gonna be tough to catch this guy, isn't it?" was exhilarating because he NEVER had to think that before. and honestly, good for him. he seemed to have been a different sort of miserable before, but at least this new version allows for some bouts of genuine enjoyment.

he had to have said "because i'm the only one who can" at LEAST once, right? which is true! he is the only one who can. that's why lupin keeps him around. zenigata is the single legitimate threat that lupin hadn't managed to get rid of/ sway to his side and that amuses him to no end. he really likes that stubborn old man. he's great.

it's obvious that his skills would be far more useful and impactful on literally any other criminal case, yet he ACTIVELY CHOOSES to allocate his time to chasing after someone who simply can't be caught. and what's even worse is that he IS the only person who can catch him, maybe even end it all for good, but it's reached a point where he simply doesn't WANT to, solely because the chase is THAT entertaining/enriching/compelling to him. calling it a compulsion is great, actually. he's obsessed, doomed by the narrative, consumed by his ideals, etc. etc, and he's completely trapped by cartoon logic. i doubt he knows anything else.

the dark infatuation is great and all, don't get me wrong, but i really enjoy those bouts where he kinda just exists. he's living his best life, candidly enjoying what's going on around him or the (comparatively) simpler aspects of his job, and all that stuff up top becomes irrelevant, at least for a little while. i don't think he's wholly doomed, per se, just that we won't be seeing an "after" for him in any official capacity. because again, cartoon logic. he's got a role to fill, even if it's an objectively shit one -- but he makes do, and the fact that he is allowed to do other things is enough for me.

y'know, in hindsight, i think the live-action show impacted how i view this guy the most. i really do believe he doesn't have to be defined by his role in lupin's story. at heart he's a chaser, a dreamer. he keeps trying, over and over, and despite everything, he hopes. if he was none of those things he wouldn't even be after lupin in the first place, or lupin would never recognize him as his true rival.

....maybe i'll actually manage to finish some of the wips i have about all that stuff one of these days, lol.

as far as other media goes: parts 1, 2 and 4, tokyo crisis, ep 0: first contact, g vs r, and fuma are all pretty high up there, too. maybe a smidge of koike if i'm feeling particularly angsty, but until zeni's title movie comes out i wouldn't put too much weight on that one.

i'd be remiss to talk about the guy's most popular pairing, right? i mean, i gotta. it's lowkey kinda wild how luzeni never fascinated me to a point where i'd feel compelled to write or draw much of anything for them. they're like, all the worst aspects of fujilup/jiglup smashed together lmao. THAT'S INSANE, THEY'RE INSANE TOGETHER AND IT'S SO GOOD. but nah, jigzeni. we'll, uh.... we'll leave that for later.

my guess is it's because the fandom satiated any itch for luzeni that would've been there otherwise, like, right off the bat. the fics alone are so incredible to me and have greatly impacted how i see zeni in their own right. i should really re-read some of them. and maybe you should too, so--

LIST JUMPSCARE!! i read all of these (and more!!) this year!! and yes, they all involve zenigata!! i don't half-ass this obsession, just like zeni lmao. just be mindful of ratings and tags, ofc. explicits are red but the rest is reader's discretion. and if by the incredibly slim chance any of the writers of these see this, thank you for sharing your works, they're really friggin cool B)

Knave of Diamonds/Thoughts May Dim/Under Your Hat

In The Margins Of Another Life

Sunrise, Sunset

Judo in the Schwarzwald

unsaid/lucky strike/cold hands

The Language of Flowers

With Enemies Like These/All Along The Watchtower/Fair Game

Friends Don't Let Friends Diss The Chef

Fates Entwined

The Many Deaths of Kōichi Zenigata

mean luzeni series/Secondhand Vanity

Disreputable Company

Smother Your Sorrow

Kintsugi/how to hit on Zenigata and not actually hit him

pour déplacer un autre/My Dear Icarus

Fifty-Two, No Longer Counting

Smoke and Moonlight/Off the Record

this doesn't even scratch the surface, hah. i think i might like to read but i can't be entirely sure.

my favorite part of this fandom is probably how moldable all of the characters are; you can pick and choose from so many different types of media and sculpt the finer details however you want, but at their cores the character's fundamentals still shine through. it's how we get those fics and fanarts and even text posts like these going on about headcanons. this cast feels like people that've taken on lives of their own outside of their (frankly problematic) source material and that's super neat.

so at the end of the day, there really is no definitive version of zenigata, or any of the others for that matter; just a handful of constants. all of those bits and pieces from up top are a part of my zeni, in one way or another -- but i like a dozen other zenigatas too, even ones that might go against those points. he's definitely been my favorite for a straight year for a reason. maybe one of these days i'll figure out how to actually finish a story all on my lonesome and you'll be able to see my version of him in action ;)

so that's that, i guess. here's to another year.... and hopefully more lupin content, lol. i might not trust tms but i trust the fandom. it's a small but strong and good one and i'm glad to be part of it, even if it isn't in the most active capacity.

anyway pls keep drawing zeni like twice the size of everyone else lmao. tms are cowards for giving him stick arms like lupin >:((

[healbellls]

// Don't reblog this post, I don't want it being spread around!

Headcanuary 2024

Day 8 - Birthday

I know in the past I used to give my muses birthdates (in fact, I believe that info can still be found in some of my muses google docs). But let it be known that for actual worlbuilding purposes, the dates are completely irrelevant and make no sense at all. So, I completely disregard them. It is way more likely that the pokemon world, has its own set of months, and in some regions cases they may follow an entirely different calendar altogether.

Don't mistake my words, I'm not saying they don't celebrate their birthdays in most cases. I just don't see any purpose in doing anything with them (outside of some dash shenanigans that I really don't partake in, there isn't a reason to actually do any of that).

With that out of the way:

Brendan and Barry enjoy spending their birthdays in the company of their family and close friends. Even though, this was impossible to do, while they travelled abroad. Especially Barry, who spens many more years travelling, across the globe. He has had several birthdays he practically spent on video calls with his family and friends, that stayed back in Sinnoh;

The likes of Matsuba and Drake don't actually know when their birthdays precisely are. They never celebrate such date. Although, Drake can actually learn such fact about himself, through looking for official papers about himself. So, at least in his case it isn't a complete loss. But Matsuba is a lost cause;

Juan goes far an beyond in making his birthdays an entire spectacle, on its own. His fanbase is well known for making enormous tributes to their idol, in this very special date. Juan also enjoys hosting huge luxurious parties to celebrate it;

Morty and Rowan prefer smaller things, with only a select few people around them to celebrate it. Rowan may spend this day with his significant other's company. Whereas Morty likes to seek out either Eusine or Zuki's company, if either options are unavailable, he seeks out establishments that gives out free food for his birthday.

[charlessmiths-wife]

season four: fuseboxes biggest wasted opportunity.

(this has been sitting in my drafts for a few months now, almost a year 😭 may be slightly irrelevant to post not given how all talk of season four appears to have died out and looking back I’m not really saying anything that no one’s said before - but still, I’ll post it for the sake of it! :))

before starting, I'm going to admit, seasons one, two, and four are the only seasons I've ever fully played. I've never completed a playthrough of season three or five, they could both be brilliant idk (though I'm guessing not, judging by what others have said).

on my recent playthrough of litg s4 (yet another Angie route, some things never change) I was suddenly struck with the realisation that season four could've been gold for fusebox... and yet, it isn't.

i think it's important to recognise season four has its successes.

-> in terms of diversity, season four is arguably by far the best. it delivers a diverse range of characters from all ethnic backgrounds. it has gender diversity (limited, all be it, and there's still far for fusebox to go in this area - but it was a start). it delivers two good female li options (at least, imo) with a slow burn female li and one you can couple up with immediately (again, fusebox still is far to go in terms of properly catering to its wlw/lgbtq players... but... it was a start). finally, unlike seasons one and two, it doesn't always push this "girls are more drama" narrative which can sometimes be seen, notably in season two. the seasons depiction of female characters still isn't perfect, don't get me wrong, but in the case of season four I'd chalk this up to the fact it had ass writing, as opposed to season two, where I genuinely think some of the female characters suffered from misogynistic writing.

-> the characters are great. at least, in concept. I personally love Angie, Youcef, and Bruno - yet I can recognise the concepts of other characters are gold. like Will? an islander with commitment issues who slowly learns to open themselves up to love? could've been gold. Angie? a woman who slowly falls in love with her best friend? discovering not only her sexuality but also herself in the process? THE OPPORTUNITIES WERE FUCKING ENDLESS. Tom? Youcef? Thabi? Lexi? EVERY. SINGLE. CHARACTER. HAD. A. PERFECT. CONCEPT.

-> the designs were good. this is a personal opinion, but I think the designs of season four characters were much more in the league of season one and two than season three and five. again, this is a subjective opinion - but its one I do believe and see as a strength. (I mean... have we seen Angie? Thabi? Najuma? Will? I'd have been all OVER some of the mfs in that season).

in short, a huge strength of season four is that it, in theory, had a diverse and interesting cast of characters and routes - all of whom came from different backgrounds and circumstances.

in theory.... season four was gold.

except, in practicality, it wasn't.

now, I could talk for days about the weaknesses of season four - but at the end of the day I think it all comes back to what dozens of people have already said about me.

the writing was - in the most simplest of terms - absoloute balls.

there are dozens of examples of this.

take the dylan drama. what was the writing of that? Dylan was written to be a complete untrustworthy asswhole, how could we have ever believed anything that was coming out of his mouth when the man was characterised to be a liar from practically the first moment he opened his mouth?

now... had Dylan been characterised as some kind of likeable charmer... the drama potential would have been ENDLESS. it would have been far easier to see why MC/ their LI might believe Dylan.. and the angst that could have been produced from that!! endless!!

in my personal opinion, the Dylan drama is just generally dumb and could have easily been sorted out with one (1) three line conversation between MC and their li of "hey, did you cheat on me or is Dylan talking shite?" "yea/no" "aight bet" - but still, even tho it is dumb, it could have been made less dumb!!

and there's tonnes of drama which could have been great in theory but was awful in practice. like the lexi/kobi drama. or the juliet/kobi drama. or the valentina coming in and wanting our partner drama.

SO MANY MISSED OPPORTUNITIES!!!

one example of a HUGE missed opportunity in my mind is the Angie situation.

don't get me wrong, I fucking love Angies route. I only ever seem capable of playing it on replays, and I think Angie is one of my fave litg characters... well, ever! BUT HER ROUTE COULD HAVE HAD SO MUCH MORE ANGST. I STAND BY THAT.

throughout the entirety of season four, Angie always seems uncomfortable with romantic feelings. she says it herself she has trouble finding a connection, and she's incredibly cynical.

and then, she finds out she does have a connection - with none other than her best friend! who's a girl!

LIKE..? HELLO FUSEBOX! THE POTENTIAL FOR THE MOST ANGSTY LESBIAN STORY EVER FUCKING TOLD WAS RIGHT. THERE.

it's always bothered me how Angie, for the most part, seems chill with the fact she's just had a major life realisation about herself.

because, trust me, as someone who's been Angie before, it's not easy!

you spend your entire life thinking your one thing, then you find out your the exact opposite, and (in Angie's case) you've been lying to yourself for the better part of 30 years.

THE FUCKING ANGST WAS THERE.

give me angie distancing herself from MC because she's so in denial of her feelings and she thinks ignoring them will make them go away.

give me angie slowly coming to terms with the fact that, she can't ignore them. she can't make them go away. she's a lesbian, she always has been - and she can't deny that part of her anymore.

give me angie tearfully coming to the MC - choking up an apology/explanation and a confession of feelings all at once.

and just... give me more angst. the angst that should have came with someone discovering something huge about them after 29 years.

but looking beyond Angie. I think me biggest wish in terms of better writing is not only better writing for the drama, but better writing for the routes.

bruno, james, and najuma share largely the same route. most of the li's have the same/similar dialogue - and pretty much all of them have the same reaction to the dylan scenario.

these people are individuals - they have different reactions. I want to see that. the players deserve to see that.

we get it in season one. we get it in season two. we deserved it in season four.

TLDR; I think it's a mistake to assume season four was doomed from the start- it wasn't, and by saying so it almost feels as if we're letting fusebox off the hook, so to speak, for it being bad.

season four had the same concept of drama mingled with a unique cast that seasons one and two had, yet it didn't have the same quality simply because fusebox couldn't be bothered anymore. they didn't want to put in the writing and produce a genuinely good season.

season four was fusebox's biggest wasted opportunity - dare I say it could have been in the same league as seasons one and two, had Fusebox actually been bothered to do their job.

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

https://www.tumblr.com/sizzlingpatrolfox/741968357112283136/thank-you-for-talking-about-mijoo-cause-i-just

Do you really not realize that you react to Daeun the same way taekookers react to jennie and mijoo?

What's the point of looking for ways to not believe that Jimin had a girlfriend? Since when is this something unreal or bad? I guess most pjms just want him to have a boyfriend, not a girlfriend, and that's funny. The photos of Jimin will never be leaked and he will never walk with his girlfriend/boyfriend by the hand in Paris. Because he has a brain and he knows how to hide his relationship. So will you always now deny his relationship with someone (who is obviously not a guy) because there is not enough evidence? Well, it's convenient.

Do you remember that picture of the guy in Jimin's sweatshirt? Pjms had no problem with the theory that this was his boyfriend. But now we have a girl who literally lived in the same apartment with Jimin for a while and suddenly you have a thousand reasons not to believe that they were in a relationship. And I don't give a fuck about this daeun, I'm just sad that pjms turned out to be no better than taekookers. I really thought that if there was obvious evidence that Jimin had a girlfriend, pjms would accept it. But it turned out that you all also know how to look for reasons not to believe in what you don't want to believe.

Pjms please raise your hand if you really believed Jimin was dating that guy wearing his shirt.

No hands raised. Exactly.

Because nobody actually believed that. Sometimes a joke is just a fucking joke and that's why being straight is so wrong, because you have no sense of humour.

I don't even have to look for reasons to not believe. In fact, it looks like you are looking for reasons to believe in it because how the fuck does someone find an unknown actress on Instagram and starts looking at her stories?? How?? That's what's weird to me. She wasn't an idol, she has absolutely no relationship to any member or anyone from their circle of friends. You literally clinged to a completely unknown actress after Santa Monica beach rumour failed, after Jimin being a parent of two failed.

"I don't give a fuck about this daeun" meanwhile you have her notifications on😭

Did you know a trans woman who owns a gay bar blocks away from Jimin's home followed him and only him on Instagram? That zzinu, Jimin's best friend, goes to her parties? She follows all of BTS members now, but for a couple of years she only followed Jimin. Did you look for her circle of friends to check if someone else lives in 91? Literally so many people I could connect Jimin too if I really wanted to and was jobless and obsessed enough to go stalking their Instagrams. But I just don't care. I was never the type of fan to go searching for that, I didn't even know about daeun until months ago, while y'all have been talking about her for years. That's how irrelevant the whole thing is 😭

Is this man living with Jimin, too? Wait, no, I mean.. Did he live with Jimin for a while?

Hell, even Jimin and Jungkook had the same dishware during the same you say daeun was living with Jimin. I wonder how can Jimin have the same items as two other people simultaneously, he was dating both at the same time?

A mattresses shop followed Jimin and Jungkook only for a while, and then followed Hoseok. I assumed that meant they had bought stuff from there. Were the three of them sleeping together?

I have made jokes about Jimin and women, too. I've also been around people, "fans" like you who so badly want to gossip about things that just don't exist and it's annoying. I don't mind talking about Jimin dating anybody, I just don't see anything worth talking about it in the relationship you so badly want to believe in, so bad that you go searching strangers Instagram stories trying to come up with something to make a case. I'm sure you can find someone to talk about it, since it's so confirmed and obvious there must be a lot of people out there ready to discuss it, so just go find them. I don't see anything worth discussing and I just keep going in circles on this topic.

I don't even talk about taennie except mentioning in passing the fact that they were fucking, because I don't have anything to say about taennie either. And it doesn't mean anything that I don't know what to say. It just means I don't have anything to say, like 😭 oh my god look at tthe same table what a lovely couple 🥰🥹 is that it? Jimin is literally not even part of those conversations - he's nowhere in the picture and all you want to discuss is inanimate objects. Just think about that. You're literally asking me to discuss inanimate objects. And that's what you're just not getting it and mistakingly think that I have a problem with Jimin dating women. I don't have any problem. It's you who takes offense on the fact that I don't believe in this particular rumour. Why do you have a problem with me wanting to see at least a photo of them together? Let's unravel that first.

"If there was obvious evidence" that's the thing. It's not enough evidence to convince me. If you're convinced, that's on you. To me, you're no different and you're just as ridiculous as jikookers who thought Jimin was living with Jungkook because they owned the same pots.

[silkjade]

we brainrot together whether you like it or not! It's you're fault you made such an interesting au with alhaitham.

i'm not too sure about how you see Teyvat with mermaids but listen. what if mermaid!reader who finds greater appeal in developing erudition than drowning humans for fun? (unfortunate in it's own way if alhaitham happened to be the one time they tried to do so)

like do mermaids have magic like the witches on the surface?? alchemists??? mermaid!reader being either of the above but being really good at what they do. so imagine all the unknowns of the surface and alhaitham being the one opening they have to explore it

i'm loving this idea that reader and alhaitham engage in a battle of wits all the time (or annoying each other) and that's a huge part of their dynamic.

(also as a side note. would something like mermaid scales be worth a lot on the surface? the lore seems to suggest that intelligent beings aligned with an element are often physically imbued with a lot of elemental energy? possibly sells good for alchemy, magic, medicine, etc depending on how you see it? just a food for thought :) )

ヾ(^▽^*)))

oh my gosh nonnie I LOVE you for sending this ask

okay so in the mermaid au, I hc that most mermaids are of the classic drowning/luring humans to death kind. I mentioned offhandedly in pt2 that some were interested in the human world though! and of course each mermaid would have their own opinions on humans, which can change depending on their own experiences. ex: the current mermaid!reader and whatever they've got going on atm is mostly due to alhthm having soundproof earpieces + the fact that he knows their kind-of-forgotten (to humans) language. I'd say mermaid!reader would also have to have at least a little innate curiosity and interest to the human world in order to agree to the deal. ugh I kind of wish I made this series into full fics so I could've expanded on this more (๑′̥̥̥▵‵̥̥̥ ૂ๑) but if not for the circumstances, mermaid!reader would've been more like the one in this ask

I did think about a sea witch, but it was irrelevant to the current storyline so... LOL anyways. it wasn't going to be like a ursula-type sea witch but more along the lines of hexenzirkel/lisa/signora. since their tails become legs when completely dry, it's very possible to go on land to study human alchemy and stuff, but otherwise they don't have any special magic other than their very alluring siren song. oh! but they are immune to hydro, like hydro slimes (but hotter) ₍ᐢ. ̫.ᐢ₎

this isn't set in stone for this au but, mermaids originate from the dark sea (ik it isn't actually a sea, but it's technically anywhere outside the rule of The Seven, so let's just assume there are also oceans). they're an ancient race that existed alongside the seelie, and after witnessing the destruction of the entire race because of the one human/seelie marriage, that's when they started drowning humans just in case. and then it just continued on for forever.

ok I've been thinking about this next part a lot haha. yes! their scales can be used in alchemy (another reason to drown humans ig lmao) but since mermaid scales are rare and hard to come by as it is + they haven't been seen in so long, most modern alchemists just don't know about it. also I wanted to incorporate irl lore from some folktales that say mermaids grant wishes. so some humans believe that based on old legends but I haven't decided yet if they actually can or what the criteria would be if they could.

honestly i have half a mind to make a spinoff(?) series afterwards maybe that has more plot and lore and angst, since rn I'm currently just building their relationship(??) but I'm glad you enjoy their dynamic because I love writing banter, it's one of the easiest things for me to write !

anyways tysm for sending this and giving me a chance to write down all my scrapped/unused ideas ‎ͼ(ݓ_ݓ)ͽ

[stop-yanderedev]

If Jelly opened up to me about Alex's actions toward her along with the receipts that represented their interactions, I wouldn't be making a video about it. I wouldn't even really tell anyone about it because it's not my trauma to talk about. Instead of trying to get internet clout, I'd be trying to help Jelly in any way I can. That is all there is to it.

Getting Alex in trouble with the law would offer far more vindication than internet karma points. I'm glad that I sat through that entire video about the situation because it shouldn't be pushed under the rug, so to speak. But, due to the circumstances that led up to the video being released, I'm led to believe that the video itself is a double-edged sword.

In other words, I feel super conflicted because of how I know about this whole situation. I feel like the knowledge regarding the whole thing should have either came from Jelly herself or that video Ally posted very much should have been delayed until Jelly felt comfortable with publicizing the situation. Because again, the whole thing with Alex was trauma that Jelly faced first hand. Not anyone else.

I don't care what Jelly's age is. Like y'all said, even if she were 18, a 35 year old shouldn't be pursuing someone who I'd barely an adult. I'd reckon an 18 year old would only be an adult in legal speak only, especially since you're still a teenager at that point.

Right. At times, I almost feel disingenuous calling out Ally for making the video, because after all, we all watched the video. And do we regret watching it and learning that info? No!

But I know that’s a silly thing to feel. It’s good that we have this information, and it’s good he’s experiencing…well, at least some kind of punishment, but I still really wish it would have happened differently. Including if it meant the public being in the dark for then. We didn’t NEED to know, and this is a situation with an outcome that hinged on being on a need to know basis.

The parties that were meant to be responsible in this situation talk about how Jelly doesn’t know what she’s getting into, and how this situation is “bigger than her.” Ally posted the video anyway because “Jelly wasn’t in her right mind.” But the adults here are still failing to grasp the gravity of it themselves. It shows in how they handled it. They might as well have wiped their ass with this potential case and flushed it down the shitter.

Of course, if Jelly isn’t 16, which we really don’t know for sure yet, there might not have been a legal case to be had in the first place. But regardless of Jelly’s age and whether there was truly a case or not, Ally could’ve done better, and Alex is a pedo. In fact, Jelly’s age, her intent, all of that, is completely irrelevant to Alex’s actions, and people aren’t getting that. (Plus, if Jelly was an adult posing as a minor, she still could’ve submitted the evidence to law enforcement, especially since she’s said there’s other victims who haven’t come forward yet.)

Why do we care if Jelly is 16 or 18, as it pertains to Alex? It’s irrelevant. For all I care, she could have been a 50 year old dude running a sting operation. In fact, I would have preferred it that way, personally, so at least a young girl wasn’t being traumatized by how gross he is.

Alex thought he was talking to a teen girl, end of story, this wasn’t the first time, it most likely wasn’t even the second time, and it’s starting to look like it might not be the last, either.

-Isabelle

[unbiasedbookaholic]

The Perfect Marriage - Jeneva Rose

⚠️ Warning: Spoilers ahead ⚠️

This book was disappointing, to say the least.

What confuses me about this book the most is the high rating it’s received. That cannot be real. 4.5 stars…for this? The entire thing reads like a terrible Wattpad book, and the overuse of details by the author completely ruins the immersion. No, we do not need to know that her power suit was heather grey and that her LV shoes were not her favorite. It’s a phony way to present the character as “meticulous”, especially with the overuse of “Every strand was put neatly in its place”. The character of Sarah is painted in that light, but she makes so many careless mistakes. Additionally, the writing is amateur and laughable for an almost 5-star book. One example:

“He gives me a look of contempt so deep that I can actually feel pain from the cut he surely hopes it would make in me.”

I don't want to analyze what the hell a quote is supposed to say. I want to keep reading. Although the book is meant to be a casual read, there are times when the dialogue does not make much sense. Those examples can be found in the fact that the book is extremely vulgar, and makes all of the characters extremely unlikeable. Sarah does not need to call every woman who disagrees with her a "bitch", and Adam is the most alpha-male misogynistic asshole of a main character I've ever come across. How are you going to be upset at Sarah as she talks with the sheriff, and assumes she's sleeping with him. Not only that, but he has the audacity to get mad at her, although he's had an affair for over a year and a half.

The absolute biggest plothole and one of Sarah's mistakes is the fact that she is an attorney...representing her husband...in a case where he's on trial for the murder...of his mistress. Although people say that she is unfit to represent her husband, which she is, does no one question her being so close to the case? Kelly Summers' husband gets questioned, but she has an "alibi" and gets off just like that. The huge conflict of interest in the book is extremely distracting.

Another thing, the constant mentions of the fact that the characters do, indeed, have rough and animalistic sex is tiring and irrelevant to the plot. I believe a good story does not need a tired and unrealistic sex scene, depicting how big the man is and how small his partner is compared to him. Anyways, while having smut in a book is not the end-all-be-all when it's brought up in great detail every couple of chapters, it's completely distracting from the story and takes out the "mystery" of it. Was this book written by a horny teenager or a sexually frustrated adult? We'll never know.

Lastly, the thing that infuriates me the most is the ending. To save the entire "big reveal" until the very end, and to cut to 11 years later is completely lazy writing. Although the author attempts to wrap up everything in a nice little bow, many things are left unanswered. Was Kelly Summers cheating with another man besides Adam, willingly? The author kind of dismisses it as "her being a slut", but it kind of just gets dumped on us. Why would Sarah murder Kelly while being so close to the case? Again, why did no one question HER involvement in the murder? Not to mention, she had an alibi with her assistant, Anne. Was that completely bogus? Leaving questions open-ended does not work in the author's favor here. To have an entire book's worth of exposition, then to dump it all out at the end is the finest example of lazy writing and poor planning. Of course, the reader is going to be shocked that the wife killed the mistress (although that trope is overplayed) because we, the readers, were not given anything. There was no subtle foreshadowing as to who the murderer might be. If I went back and read it again I guarantee I would still be completely confused as to how Sarah was the murderer. This book was a waste of time, I recommend it if you want to get a good laugh out of a book rated almost 5 stars by people desperate for "sexy" writing.

[talkingpointsusa]

I Watched Charlie Kirks Awful MAGA Conference So You Don't Have To.

America should classify this as a national embarrassment

Well folks, consider this the Talking Points USA Christmas Special (not sure if I can get this all done before Christmas because there's a LOT of ground to cover but we'll see).

In case you weren't aware, the far-right student group Turning Point USA held their annual four day AmericaFest conference and the guest list was a who's who of far-right assholes. Many people at AmFest went viral for their extremely deranged comments, particularly revolving around Gaza. I can't wait /s.

Considering that the blogs name is a literal jab at Turning Point USA, I figured what better way to celebrate the end of the year than by fact-checking and making fun of the biggest event they have held this year?

So, let's get into it shall we?

First thirty minutes of the livestream of day one are waiting for the livestream to start. Then the national anthem, then more singing, then finally 49 minutes in the man himself arrives, Charlie Kirk. In case you aren't aware, Charlie is the founder and CEO of Turning Point USA and the reason why this is all happening (and as a result my current mortal enemy).

Charlie is somewhat hard to place on the grifter VS true believer scale, but he certainly does take a lot of money from right-wing billionaires. Since there are multiple speakers here, they'll all be referred to via their names after the timestamp (especially since sometimes they are speaking to each other and there are probably some speeches you want to read me dunking on as opposed to others). Charlie has his own show which we will definitely talk about on the blog at some point, but for now let's see what he has to say to start off the party!

Also, trigger warning: Racism, transphobia, sexism, misogyny really just all the ism's and everything wrong with the right in America. God, these people suck. Let's get on with it.

50:13, Charlie Kirk: "13,000 people in Phoenix Arizona for the largest multi day conservative event in the history of this country."

Does Charlie not realize that 13,000 people isn't all that impressive? I mean, not to rain on his parade or anything but the Toronto Pride Parade (for example) had 2.4 million spectators. If you want a similar political event, what about CPAC? I would imagine that CPAC has pulled more people in the past.

Anyway, moving on. Charlie does some completely irrelevant crap. "Give it up for the staff", listing some of the countries who have attendees at the conference, then his actual speech begins.

52:06, Charlie Kirk: "We're living through a top-down revolution everybody. We're living through a revolution that's different than most others. It is a cultural revolution, similar to Mao's China, but this revolution is when the powerful, the rich, the wealthy, decide to use their power and their wealth to go after you."

Charlie Kirk, taker of right-wing billionaire money and a man who has made a career out of defending the literal richest man in the world, has the absolute gall to play the "the rich are coming for you" card. And by the way, Charlie himself has a net worth of $27 Million and has a salary of $900,000. That's more than I can imagine making in my entire lifetime. Pretty much everybody speaking at this conference is equally wealthy. So, Charlie and his band of dimwits are certainly members of this class he's talking about.

Also, there is no way "some guy I don't like is president" is even comparable to Mao's China!

52:28, Charlie Kirk: "Instead of building hospitals and improving our country, they are spending their money to destroy the greatest country ever to exist in the history of the world."

Surely Charlie and his fellow wealthy right-wingers can spend their money to build hospitals and improve the country....right?

52:56, Charlie Kirk: "This country has never lived through the wealthiest hating the country."

This statement makes zero sense.

The fact that he's saying "this country has never lived through" implies that America has went through a period with the wealthiest hating the country, yet America is still around? So I guess either America has lived through the wealthiest hating the country or America has never had the wealthiest hating the country before.

Charlie Kirk's orator skills are almost on par with Dave Rubin's.

54:13, Charlie Kirk: "I inherently don't trust you if you have an office in DC."

Guess Charlie doesn't like the Republican Party, you know the guys Trump is campaigning under, much. Also, might I add that a lot of the people speaking here are congresspeople from DC. So don't give me this "Oh, I hate Washington and the government" crap.

54:18, Charlie Kirk: "You know what the other division is? It's the powerful and the well connected versus the middle class."

"Now, let me and my wealthy friends explain to you why you should vote against your best interests."

I'm leaning towards Charlie being a grifter as opposed to a true believer the more he talks.

55:01, Charlie Kirk: "The elites don't mean well when you have a wide-open border and 12,000 people are coming across the border every single day."

Biden is dealing with the ruins of Trump's immigration policy. When the Trump Administration made it absurdly hard to get into the country legally people naturally decided to try and come in legally.

Also, what was being done by the Republican's to fix the problems in Mexico that are causing the illegals to want to come here? An overpriced border wall? I'm not saying Biden is doing great at solving this humanely either, but this isn't a Democrat caused issue.

55:08, Charlie Kirk: "The elites don't mean well when they go after our children and they castrate our children in the name of 'medicine'"

As I say every single time one of these clowns calls gender-affirming care "castration", puberty blockers and hormones are reversible and are not being used on children.

Surgery is only available to people 18 and up and hormone therapy is only available to people 16 and up. Let's see an example of a child being given surgery before we make stupid claims, ok?

55:14, Charlie Kirk: "Our elites don't mean well when they put (I think he meant "take", again Charlie is such a master speaker) the leader of an opposition political party and try to put him in jail for 700 years."

Donald Trump being the leader of an opposition political party doesn't make him exempt from being put on trial for crimes, one of those being attempting to overthrow the entire government!

55:57, Charlie Kirk: "11 years ago, when Turning Point USA started, I could not have imagined what God had in store for this organization."

TIL that God is a cabal of right wing billionaires.

56:17, Charlie Kirk: "By the way, god bless Elon Musk I hope he sues Media Matters."

"Yeah, I hate elites....except for the richest man in the world. Since he let my shithead friends back on Twitter and agrees with my racist beliefs he's ok."

56:27, Charlie Kirk: "Where they (Media Matters) attack Turning Point and they say 'Oh, Turning Point just does events.'"

A): How is that an attack?! One of the main things Turning Point USA does is coordinate events like this. What does he want people to say? That Turning Point is the rebellion or something?

B): That's not even in the top 100 problems with Turning Point. For example, one of their main issues is that they have a history of rape at their student conventions, but I doubt Charlie is ever going to mention that. Also, platforming people on the far-right but we'll talk more about that later.

56:44, Charlie Kirk: "Elon Musk liberating Twitter will go down as one of the greatest free speech victories in the history of Western Civilization."

I guess Elon is one of the good elites because he let Nazi's and Alex Jones back on Twitter, goes to show who Charlie here aligns with.

56:51, Charlie Kirk: "You know how awesome it is where we can log onto Twitter and we can say 'Yeah, you know, Dylan Mulvaney, he's a man. Rachel Levine is a man, and kind of like a creepy pervert honestly.'"

So all I am hearing so far is that this "Twitter liberation" consists of allowing people like Charlie to be nasty and cruel about people they've never met's sexual orientation. I would like to see that evidence of Rachel Levine being a pervert, too bad they don't have that evidence because all this is is a way to attack transgender people for being who they are.

57:06, Charlie Kirk: "That January 6th is probably an inside job, it's more of a fedsurrection than anything else."

Now would be a great time to remind everybody that on January 5th, Charlie tweeted out that Turning Point Action and Students for Trump were sending 80+ buses of patriots to D.C to "fight for the president", then deleted the tweet when he realized it could get him into hot water legally.

Charlie Kirk isn't just running cover for an insurrection he knows was caused by the right, he's part of the reason that it happened in the first place.

57:12, Charlie Kirk: "And that 99% of people on January 6th did nothing wrong?"

Wait, I thought it was a "fedsurrection". So, just so we're clear, the insurrection was led by the feds but also even if they were Trump supporters, 99% of them didn't do anything wrong when they tried to overthrow the government.

We're only on day one out of four and I want to rip my hair out and eat it.

57:14, Charlie Kirk: "That we can go on Twitter and say that George Floyd wasn't a hero and that Derek Chauvin was targeted in a Soviet style trial that was anti-American and un-American."

Like every single other human being on Earth, George Floyd wasn't perfect, that doesn't make Derek Chauvin killing him excusable. If holding the police accountable is anti-American, American's live in a brutal police-state where the police can run around killing anyone they want.

Side-note, anti-American and un-American are the exact same thing only said in a different way. Something that's anti-American would be inherently un-American.

57:34, Charlie Kirk: "One of the main victory of 2023 is that we can say 'That's BS'. No, you're not going to trans our kids."

Nobody is "transing kids" because you cannot change somebodies sexuality. This "think of the children" rhetoric is just a framework that people like Charlie use to justify their irrational and bigoted hatred of a minority group that, like all of us, just wants to live their lives.

58:04, Charlie Kirk: "When we started Turning Point USA, we started in a very very humble way"

Charlie Kirk's father, Robert W Kirk, was a wealthy architect who was actually project manager for the Trump Tower (oh what a tangled web we weave) so this isn't exactly a "rags to riches" story on Charlie's part. Also, here's a bit on how Turning Point is being funded.

Charlie tells his version of the story about how Turning Point started. It's not really anything important.

1:00:33, Charlie Kirk: "A recent poll shows that high school boys are the most conservative that they have been in 50 years."

All the right-wing ghouls that have bandied this poll about as proof that young boys "seeing the light" and becoming conservative fail to mention that a whopping 64 percent of boys identified as "I don't know", which makes sense considering that high school boys are normally more concerned about getting their homework done and getting into a good college than politics.

Essentially, this poll doesn't say what Charlie says it does. Shocker.

1:01:04, Charlie Kirk: "They want a guy with a lisp zipping around on a lime scooter with a fanny pack, carrying his birth control, supporting his wifes career, while he works as a supportive stay at home house-husband."

As we'll see later on when we get to the guy who goes on a rant against suffrage at some point during this conference (Day three.), there's this bizarre trend of boldfaced misogyny that runs through the entire event.

Also, that sounds like a nice guy and a supportive husband? The guys supporting his wifes career and her choice not to have children (I'm guessing he means condoms when he says "birth control", I always find it so dumb that these guys are both anti-abortion and anti-birth control).

What's Charlie's "ideal" male? From the sounds of it, it's guy who "puts his wife in her place" using his fists because hey, that's masculine!

1:01:29, Charlie Kirk: "At Turning Point USA we resoundingly reject this. We believe in strong, alpha, godly, high-t, high achieving, confident, and disruptive men, are the hope, not the problem, in America."

These kinds of hyper-masculine gender rolls, when pushed as the be all and end all of being a man, have been shown to be harmful to young boys who don't fit these norms. It's essentially putting pressure on young boys to be this specific person that often times they're not, not to mention the harm this rhetoric does to boys who fall on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

The truth is that there are all kinds of men, and that's great! What makes us human are those beautiful differences, and people like Charlie Kirk are downplaying that. And for what? The fact that they hate women, they hate minorities, and they hate LGBTQ+ people.

It comes back around, like most things do with these people, to a complete and utter lack of empathy.

Charlie plays a video of him arguing with some guy on a college campus, he proceeds to mock him (and has the gall to call himself and the people at Turning Point USA "Warriors", Charlie Kirk is one of those grifters who really sniffs his own farts).

But Charlie does ask the guy in the video to ask him to name something he's said that's racist and the guy, since he's a college kid who can't immediately rattle off every single thing Charlie Kirk has said, doesn't answer. So I took that as a challenge and found some things that Charlie Kirk has said that are, in fact, racist.

On July 14th, 2023, Charlie Kirk declared that Michelle Obama was one of the black women who "stole a white persons spot".

On November 16th, 2023, Charlie defended the antisemitic remarks that Elon Musk made on Twitter by saying that "Some of the largest financiers of left-wing anti-white causes have been Jewish Americans"

On May 19th, 2023, Charlie declared on his show that "Prowling blacks go around for fun to go target white people."

Those are just some examples of Charlie Kirk being a raging racist, and I'm sure when we start covering his show we'll find more. So the claim that Charlie has "never said anything racist" can be disproved with a 20 second google search.

1:04:11, Charlie Kirk: "There are no genders, two sexes, and unlimited personalities."

The no genders and two sexes thing is a completely scientifically inaccurate and overly simplistic way of looking at gender. Plus, what about intersex people? Even ignoring the countless studies saying that gender is a massive and wide spectrum, saying there are two sexes is completely innaccurate if you think of even that one example.

Let's talk about this unlimited personalities shit. First of all, your sexuality isn't a personality. That's a bizarre and ridiculous characterization. Since Charlie is cisgender, is his personality "I'm Charlie and I'm cis"?!

Let's also not forget that Charlie just went on a massive screed about how men can only be hyper-masculine caricatures. I guess there are unlimited personalities but in Charlies world, males can only have one.

Charlie then does what is basically an ad for Turning Point USA. Really this entire opening speech is just an ad for Turning Point USA with bigoted garbage peppered in to excite the audience. Another video of "Charlie Kirk destroys a lefty with facts and logic", in it he asks some women "What is a Woman?" in an attempt to rip off Matt Walsh (and we'll get to the OG What Is A Woman at some point, believe me).

1:07:54, Charlie Kirk: "Newly launched Turning Point Academy"

When the right says that the left is indoctrinating children, point towards stuff like this and PragerU Kids. Turning Point Academy is basically teaching materials geared towards Turning Points right wing values.

Oh, but a pride flag in a school is indoctrination.

More unimportant crap. Charlie whines about COVID lockdowns a bit, if I were him I'd just pretend that time period never happened because him and the rights whole thing that the left was going to never end the lockdowns and we'd be stuck in a left wing dictatorship never came to pass. Again, if the church decided to hold big services during COVID, people would have died. Bashes George Floyd some more and finally introduces "Turning Point USA Faith", which seems to be Charlie's mission to turn every church into the Westboro Baptist Church. Talks about how great Candace Owens is, irrelevant. He basically says nothing in this segment so we don't need to talk about it (especially with how long this blog post is gonna be). After that, more bigotry!

1:15:50, Charlie Kirk: "You know, some people say 'That's not very tolerant', good! I think we've tolerated enough nonsense over the last decade, don't you?"

Oh poor Charlie, I feel so bad for him. How awful that he's being forced to tolerate trans people existing.

For Gods sakes, and they call us the snowflakes. This is guy who has devoted his entire career to basically throwing a giant tantrum.

Verbal ad for Turning Point Action, says more hateful stuff about trans people. I don't care and I'd just repeat myself. He keeps throwing BS 'counter-arguments' like "Charlie, Turning Point Action is too aggressive". I'm shocked he didn't say "You know, people say to me 'Charlie you're too handsome and intelligent'". That's the level we are at.

1:26:27, Charlie Kirk: "If you're a young person in here, and you say 'Boy, what do I wanna do for my life'? Honestly, you should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible, period!"

First of all, you should wait until you find someone who truly makes you happy, no matter how long that takes. And if you don't want to marry at all or you marry but don't want kids, that's totally ok too. It's a free country and if these guys dictated the way we all lived our lives, half of us would be dead. Plus, the divorce rates of people who marry young speak for themselves. 60% of couples who marry between the ages of 20-25 end up divorcing compared to 25% if you wait until after 25.

Second of all, unless you have a really stable source of income to support them, having as many kids as possible in this economy is a really bad idea and will just lead to kids growing up poor and miserable.

1:26:46, Charlie Kirk: "Everyday I receive emails from young women filled with regret, in their late 30's, saying 'Charlie, I'm sobbing as I write this email because what you talk about on the show is exactly right. I have a couple college degrees, I have a great job and almost no debt, but I was told to forgo having a family but now I'm looking around and I have a lot of cats and no kids.'"

In the history of things that never happened, this is one of the things that never happened the most.

Shoutout to all the cat owners reading this by the way, hope your fur babies are doing well and I am glad you've made it this far (as is the case with all of you).

1:28:43: "The globalists are worried that you are waking up."

As I've said before, in far-right circles the term "globalist" is a common dog-whistle for "jew". Given all the people speaking at this conference who have a history of antisemitism and Charlie's own history of antisemitism which I mentioned in passing earlier, I don't see this as anything but intentional.

Charlie's speech finally ends and it's time for Roseanne Barr's speech. This is one of those "viral" moments from the conference since Roseanne went on a bizarre and racist rant about how a Muslim capitulate is going to spread across the world led by "stalinists". Roseanne Barr, for the uninitiated, is a former comedian and current Conservative "comedian" who has came under fire for seemingly embracing the alt-right. She's also a holocaust denier, although she claims it was sarcasm....sure it was. In short, I fully believe that the MAGA movement has rotted this womans brain.

We have what is basically a commercial break and then Roseanne takes the stage. The beginning portion is just a very extended "thank you for coming" but she's already speaking in a rather slow and unhinged way, the audience is pretty quiet. Then, the unhinged bit begins.

1:42:47, Roseanne Barr: "Do you wanna talk about how great it feels to like, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, FIGHT!!! FIGHT!!!!! FIGHT!!!! And then win?"

Yes, she said fight that many times and yes, it got more deranged each time she says it. Compared to Charlie Kirk's very political and self congratulatory speech, this was a completely different ballgame and the audience could tell as well. There wasn't really any applause for that fight thing, the audience really did seem like it was stunned into silence.

I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of feel sorry for Glenn Beck here. He's up after Barr and he has the weight of picking up the pieces of the conference after a deranged screed. Half the audience is gonna be riled up after Barr leaves and the other half is gonna be wondering "what the hell just happened?" None of them are going to care very much about what a guy who is basically "The Alex Jones at home" has to say. But I guess we shall soon see.

Also, I can't communicate this really easily through text but the second she took the stage I could immediately tell she was wasted. While I obviously wasn't there live, the general way she speaks is slurred and incoherent. She's tripping over her words and is jumping from bizarre tangent to bizarre tangent with no focus whatsoever. She's totally drunk and I recommend you watch the entire speech to see what I mean.

So the two keynote speakers advertised in the thumbnail are total busts. Charlie's speech is basically him doing an awful Trump impression whilst advertising for Turning Point USA and Roseanne is doing hers completely wasted. I would not be happy if I paid $60 for this crap.

She drunkenly reads Patrick Henry, it's not really anything to talk about or fact check. Then the insanity truly begins.

1:47:49, Roseanne Barr: "I'm just all in, you know, I said 'I'm all in' cause you know if I ain't all in they're gonna put my ass in a gulag."

Hey Tim Pool (Who's also speaking here but we'll get to that eventually), since you went off on Maddow for sarcastically saying that Trump would put her on trial for treason, you'd better come take a look at this.

Before you say she was joking, her tone is dead serious here. I'm not sure if it's the booze or if she's genuinely so delusional she thinks she'll be put in a gulag if Biden wins.

I do believe that, unlike a lot of the grifters here, Roseanne is a true believer. However I believe this is because she is legitimately mentally ill and that QAnon and MAGA dumped gasoline onto the fires of her delusions.

1:48:03, Roseanne Barr: "I don't really wanna...go to a reeducation camp and have to give all my money away to a bunch of losers who never know how to get a job"

I genuinely feel bad for this woman. Not that it excuses what she's done but this is clearly not a woman who is mentally well. If you factor in the traumatic brain injury and history of mental illness she has, this becomes a whole lot darker.

I know someone who has paranoid delusions and Roseanne sounds like a drunker version of her. I'm not a psychologist but I think Roseanne genuinely has something going on mentally. Plus, you're clearly not in a good headspace if you show up to a major speaking engagement completely wasted.

I think someone in her life needs to step in and get her the help she needs. Instead, shitheads like Charlie Kirk, Alex Jones, and Ben Shapiro are parading her around like a circus attraction and encouraging her delusions because she's a celebrity who's on their team. The sad thing is that if she was offered psychiatric help, she'd turn it down thinking that it's "leftist reeducation".

1:48:18, Roseanne Barr: "If we don't stop these horrible, communist, do you hear me? I'm asking you to hear me. STALINIST, COMMUNIST, With a huge helping of Nazi fascist thrown in."

I obviously don't need to explain how the left isn't a bunch of Nazi's and how this red terror stuff is ridiculous and so inaccurate that a majority of the right abandoned it when the mid-90's rolled in. Not to mention the fact that communism and Nazism are two opposing ideologies, look at WW2 and you'll see that communists and nazis don't get along too well.

Imagine being a member of the audience right now. You're expecting a comedian to lighten the mood after a serious speech from Charlie Kirk and instead you're met with a rant from a woman who is clearly mentally disturbed. No wonder they're silent, they're witnessing this womans booze and conspiracy fueled mental breakdown live.

1:49:01, Roseanne Barr: "To replace every Christian democracy on Earth now, occupied do you know that?"

Someone should send this to Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing up at the Daily Wire since she's gonna be working for them soon!

If you want a case study of what MAGA does to the brain, look at how this woman went from a seemingly progressive actress to rambling about how every Christian democracy is "occupied" (?).

1:49:44, Roseanne Barr: "We just want the truth about EVERYTHING THAT WE FOUGHT, AND DIED, AND SUFFERED TO PROTECT! WE JUST WANT THE TRUTH."

She legitimately sounds on the verge of tears here, and unlike Alex Jones who fake cries all the freaking time I think it's legit.

I mean, I get that it's Charlie running this thing and he's made a career out of embarrassing himself to "own the libs" but if it was me I would be working overtime to make this go away and make Roseanne stop talking.

You've got to keep this in context. Charlie just spent a good hour telling me that Turning Point USA is a serious organization and that some of the great thinkers of the conservative movement are going to be speaking at this conference, then the second he leaves the stage Roseanne comes on and has what is basically a televised psychotic break.

If I were him I'd first of all get Roseanne off that stage ASAP. I'd probably apologize and speak about more Turning Point USA business related stuff for the rest of her timeslot and then usher Glenn Beck in as was planned. Then I'd apologize again on Twitter and assure that Turning Point will be putting steps in place to get Roseanne the psychiatric help she needs. Just leaving this unaddressed makes Charlie look like a dick who is exploiting a mentally ill woman (which he is) and Roseanne look completely delusional (which she is).

1:53:04, Roseanne Barr: "Like gay and libtard, woah that's a double. That's some hard MKULTRA mind control to get over there."

I don't know what's more disgusting, this statement or the fact that some members of the audience cheered for it. Again, I do think she's mentally ill, but that only goes so far and I can't handwave blatant and disgusting homophobia.

I find this bizarre given the fact that she was quite progressive back in the day, even introducing gay characters into her show. She even attended the Clinton inauguration while out of character. I admit to having never watched Roseanne or it's reboot, but watching clips of Roseanne during interviews back in the day on YouTube is like a night and day difference, and not because she's older.

Not much more that's important is said by Barr and the speech concludes. Another ad for TPUSA and Charlie's book about how college is bad, since he's a college dropout this feels rather salty. Then Glenn takes the stage.

For those who don't know, Glenn Beck is a former FOX News host who now runs BlazeTV which is also the home of his show. His schtick is basically being a dime store Alex Jones. We probably will cover it at some point depending on how easy it is to access.

Whenever I think of Glenn I think of this:

The second he opens you can tell that Glenn is good at getting the audience engaged, which is good because the audience probably spent the entire break talking about how completely insane Roseanne is. This makes sense considering that Glenn has television and media training which has probably kicked into overdrive. He does some things to engage the audience and they work pretty well. It's not really the most important speech in the world so we'll probably skip a lot of it.

2:05:20, Glenn Beck: "I am so tired of being against the communists, the progressives, the insanity that is today."

Man, the Cold War never ended with these guys. I mean, I get that a certain generation of these guys were inspired by the John Birch Society and Glenn is one of them, but it might be time to modernize your nonsensical conspiracy gibberish.

2:05:41, Glenn Beck: "Let me show you some things on the chalkboard."

This caught my attention immediately. If you watched the clip I linked above you'd know why.

For those who aren't aware, Glenn Beck is/was notorious for drawing up and ranting about nonsensical diagrams on a chalkboard that supposedly prove his conspiracy theories...you know, like sane people do. He'd also fake cry a lot.

I don't think Glenn Beck is a true believer like Roseanne in the same way I don't think most of the guys who currently or formerly worked at FOX like Tucker Carlson are. Glenn, unlike Roseanne, doesn't have any evidence to suggest that he's mentally ill or really any evidence to suggest that he's doing this for anything other than the money.

2:06:18, Glenn Beck: "In Europe, what is the left? Communism, go on, say it!"

This is a completely insane thing to say.

In 1989, Romania's communist party ceased operations making it the last communist ran country in Europe. Nowadays, most of the former Eastern European countries are democracies, as are the countries that weren't ever communist to begin with.

What Glenn might be talking about here is Russia, but that isn't true either. Russia doesn't have a communist government, they have a far-right dictatorship.

2:07:16, Glenn Beck: "Fascists (in America) are on the left as well."

Oh really? So Donald Trump, the number one reason we are all here, isn't a fascist when he does things like calling his political opponents "vermin" and retweets quotes from literal fascists?

Fascists absolutely are on the right in America and Glenn knows it.

2:08:01, Glenn Beck: "What is the far-right in America? (Someone in the crowd yells "freedom" so that's where we're at). Anarchy, that's the extreme right."

Meanwhile a lot of members of the far-right, especially guys like Nick Fuentes, want to create an authoritarian theocratic dictatorship. So no, the far-right isn't anarchy.

And don't these guys complain about "left-wing anarchists" all the time? So I guess they're on the right now!

Glenn talks a bit about the constitution and how we're headed for fascism and does the same "You VS the unspecified elites even though I'm extraordinarily wealthy" thing that Charlie Kirk did earlier. Then he goes full conspiracy theorist.

2:18:38, Glenn Beck: "You can break the law and develop a virus in conjunction with China then cover all of that up, close the world down, be responsible for millions of deaths, an economy...just blowing it up around the entire world, telling people, taking their god given right away to make their own medical decisions."

So I guess Glenn believes that American and China both created the virus together, but how does that make any sense? If America and China created this together, to what end?

The lockdown is more or less over so the rights prediction that COVID would be used to usher in a left-wing dictatorship is demonstrably false, not to mention the zero pieces of evidence that America had any role in the creation of the virus.

2:21:01, Glenn Beck: "We're now worshipping the planet, the planet above all things.

Wanting to address climate change, which is a massive threat to the survival of the planet, isn't "worshipping the planet". If that's the case, than solving any problem is worshipping that problem.

2:21:58, Glenn Beck: "It is imperative that we know who we are and we know we are fighting not flesh and blood, but evil itself."

The "spiritual war" is one of the more insane talking points that the right in America likes to play these days and it's classic dehumanization of the opponents as well as a very good manipulation tactic.

Instead of "fighting" a political party that is ideologically different than you, you're now fighting against the literal incarnation of the devil and evil itself. This is a tactic that dehumanizes anyone opposed to you as either demons or influenced by demons and puts pressure on it's followers to never change their beliefs, after all you don't want to be on the side of evil!

This kind of manipulative language is used by another group, cults. By casting the world into this black and white framework of "our side VS pure evil", it prevents people who subscribe to MAGA ideology from engaging with points that the left, or really anybody who isn't a far right extremist, brings up because they are "evil".

I would argue that if anybody is holding up things as false idols, it's them. These people worship Donald Trump as the human embodiment of pure-good because that's how people like Glenn Greenwald keep the grift money flowing. As a result, Trump is elevated to a messianic level in MAGA circles to a point that could be easily argued is sacrilegious.

Glenn continues to play the fear card. Again, making the audience scared of the left works perfectly in his favor. This fearmongering is great for filtering people over to the Blaze where they'll buy Glenn's products to "fight evil" or whatever. There's nothing more we need to talk about in his speech, let's move on to the last speech of day one, Patrick Bet-David.

It starts with the VP of Patrick's company hawking some app he created, which is a great introduction to the biggest grifter here.

Patrick Bet-David is the CEO of the PHP Agency, an insurance MLM that has been accused by multiple people of being a pyramid scheme. He is also the founder of Valuetainment, a podcast geared towards "entrepreneurs". My main exposure to him was that time he interviewed a completely wasted Alex Jones in a hotel room (which was covered excellently by the Knowledge Fight podcast). We might cover him again here but how interesting his show is is completely guest dependent. He had Hannah-Pearl Davis (who we will DEFINETELY talk about later on) on at one point for example.

Patrick is a pure grifter through and through. He's made money off of the profitable scam of running a pyramid scheme and now he's making money off of the profitable scam of being a right-wing grifter.

His speech isn't particularly interesting and these guys are driving me nuts so we probably won't spend too much time on it. I will say that he's the most charismatic out of all of these guys. The beginning of his speech is about his background, not really important for our purposes.

2:58:31, Patrick Bet-David: "We are now afraid to pray in schools but we're ok with teaching all these other things to our kids, I'm not OK with that."

Good news Patrick, there's no need for your kids to be afraid to express their religion privately in school. As a matter of fact, it's quite common! Pew Research found that four-in-ten public school students say they routinely see other students praying before sporting events (Pew Research) and that about half of teens in American public schools say they sometimes see other students wearing religious symbols and jewelry.

However what that's code for is "We don't have religion in the curriculum anymore", and I think that's a good thing.

If you want your kids to have a more religious schooling, there are options available. Catholic and Christian schools exist. Public schools absolutely should keep religion out of the curriculum out of basic respect for people who may not practice that religion or are even secular!

Religion in curriculum at schools would also violate the separation of church and state. Since public schools are funded by property taxes, they are an arm of the state.

Patrick then lists off people who are "the enemies". These include unions (naturally this MLM huckster hates unions), LGBTQ indoctrination (which is a buzzword for LGBTQ people existing), and globalism (There's that antisemitic dog-whistle again.)

He then says a whole lot more of nothing. This is a lot like a Jordan Peterson motivational speech, just bland platitude after bland platitude. He talks about how they've gotta be "leaders", whatever. Then he decides to be a bigot, know your audience I guess.

3:05:06, Patrick Bet-David: "The second enemy are three communities."

Great, more us VS them. "Remember, these people are your enemy. That's why you've got to buy my crap!"

3:05:06, Patrick Bet-David: "Number one is the tolerant Christians"

If you actually look at the Bible, you'll find out that many of the things Christ said in it are encouraging tolerance. Here are some examples;

"With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love," - Ephesians 4:2

"And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” - John 8:7

And finally;

“Judge not, that you be not judged." - Matthew 7:1.

So unless Patrick is completely free from sin, which he isn't because he's an MLM con-artist and a hateful right-wing grifter, he should just shut up...at least that's what the Bible says.

3:05:36, Patrick Bet-David: "Do you think Jesus was a guy going around saying 'Yeah, yeah, it's ok'?"

Actually, yeah. He literally hung out with prostitutes and hung out with sinners in the Bible. I'm not an expert in theology by any means, but I do know that in the Bible one of the things that pissed the pharisees off was that Jesus would eat with sinners.

The second one he lists are "do your thing libertarians", blah blah blah. Then it's something about "spineless conservatives", blah blah blah. This guy feels like he's doing a bad Jordan Peterson impression. Let's end this bloody thing before we all lose our sanity.

Conclusion:

So, what did we learn? Well, for his big first day of AmericaFest Charlie had; A mentally ill washed-up comedian, a conspiracy theorist, and an MLM con-artist who desperately wants to be Jordan Peterson. If these are the great thinkers that will lead America into a brighter future we are truly fucked. Maybe we'll do more days of this thing, maybe not.

Whatever happens, cheers and I'll see you in the next one.

[biblicalhorror]

Zaylor Midnights, Part II

And we're back! If you haven't yet, please peruse the disclaimers I covered in Part 1.

Let's jump right in!

8. Vigilante Shit

Here's where we start to get some more Catwoman vibes on this album.

"Cat eye sharp enough to kill a man"

Also some generic Gaylor lyrics:

"I don't dress for women / I don't dress for men" Oh so you're bisexual? Okay got it. Case closed.

"Picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife"

Also the implication she fucked Scooters wife is too funny to not mention. She loves a divorcée ;)

9. Bejeweled

Initially I was fully prepared to write this one off as a song about Jake or John or even Calvin and therefore irrelevant to Toë, but holy crap is this MV gay as hell.

Opening, of course, with the scene where Laura Dern satirizes the concept that a proposal from a prince being "the best thing a girl could hope to achieve"

Note this Kravitz quote from the earlier GQ article:

We'll come back to this later.

Anyway, Taylor plays Cinderella in this music video, who rejects the proposal from the prince (played by Jack Antonoff, who has the same initials as Joe Alwyn), impresses the Princess (played by Zoë Kravitz) with her burlesque routine she learned from queer burlesque icon Dita Von Teese, and ends up taking the castle for herself.

Basically, another song that has nothing to do with Zoë but is extremely gay (in context of the music video, at least)

10. Labyrinth

I go back and forth on this song. I've heard other people theorize that it's about trying to end a relationship and then falling back in love with the same person again, which I think is a totally valid interpretation. It could be that.

However! It sounds to me like it's about the feeling of finding yourself falling for someone new and your traumatized brain is so focused on what could go wrong that you get completely ahead of yourself and start mourning a relationship that hasn't even started yet. Taylor is a Cancer moon, which is a moon sign that is deeply introspective and retrospective. The "labyrinth of my mind" could be referring to the twists and turns her mind takes to convince her that every relationship will end in catastrophe based on the way past relationships have panned out. Past becomes present becomes future in this song. Maybe it's about finding her connection with Zoë after the fallout from a Karlie or Lily breakup? Maybe Joe cheated on her and she found comfort in the arms of Zoë and they became a polyamorous couple? Who knows.

11. Karma

EDIT: I've found some articles claiming Zoë is a songwriter on this one and others that do not mention her. I believe there was initially a mistake on the Apple Music pre-release info, so for now we'll say she's not in a fact a cowriter for this song.

Taylor Swift clearly has a complicated relationship to gender and womanhood. Many of her friends called her "king" in their 2021 birthday posts:

In Dear Reader, she explicitly refers to herself as a "cursed man."

Queer women also tend to have complicated relationships with gender due to heteropatriarchal society. Some lesbians and queer women use he/him or they/them pronouns for any myriad of personal reasons. It's not too far-fetched that these women could possibly call each other by male pronouns/adjectives sometimes.

Zoë had this interview where she talks about High Fidelity, identifying more with male roles because they're often written to be more complex and nuanced due to misogyny in film/tv, and how passionate she is about how "women can be fuckboys, too"

"Karma is my boyfriend" but also "Karma is a queen" >>> "Karma" is both genders and neither gender. (Note: Zoë has a tattoo of a crown on her finger)

"Sweet like honey, Karma is a cat" First of all, that's pussy babe

Also, these two stone cold weirdos apparently have the same method acting technique:

"Flexing like a goddamn acrobat, me and karma vibe like that"

What else could "flexing like a goddamn acrobat" refer to other than Zoë playing a superhero famous for her acrobatics (and/or Taylor being in Cats (2019))

these two weird Sagittarius girls love to simply vibe together as cats or otherwise

"Karma is the guy on the screen coming straight home to me"

Not "Catwoman of my dreams" but "CAT WOMAN OF DREAMS" this girl is horny as hell and loves dreaming about women

Sweet like JUSTICE = another batman reference, of course

12. Sweet Nothing

Written by William Bowery who we think could be Zoë

Zoë also lived in London from 2020-2021, she could possibly have gone on holiday to Wicklow (in Ireland) after filming for The Batman wrapped

Taylor made her meals throughout covid isolation and a birthday dinner in December of 2020. Nice to Have a Friend in your pods with you, huh ladies?

Also, remember when Zoë crossed the picket line for the Oscar's party and then made a "joke" about the Will Smith situation being uncivilized? This is a song about a couple of out-of-touch insanely rich girlies who just Can't Be Bothered and also happen to be in love

Speaking of which, if this is in fact a song about Joe Alwyn, it's a (pretty) lie. "All that you ever wanted from me was nothing." Being in a relationship with Taylor has gotten him movie/tv roles, a Grammy, etc. He's gained so many accolades just by being associated with Taylor. If he doesn't want any of that, why does she keep jeapordizing her own image as an artist to get him awards? Zoë likely genuinely wants nothing from Taylor because she's been famous her entire life. She doesn't need Taylor to pull any strings for her to get roles or accolades.

13. Mastermind

This song is Taylor being very tongue-in-cheek about how this lover she's been singing for four albums about is actually a target she decided on long ago

Starts with a hand touch in a crowded room (obvious Gorgeous reference), that Bowery hangout did look awfully crowded, didn't it?

Dominoes cascaded in a line >>> hair falls into place like dominoes (Gold Rush)

All the wisest women had to do it this way / WE were born to play the pawn in every lover's game (as in, WE women are forced to play these roles)

Two lines that could reference Zoë's tattoos:

"I'm the wind in our free-flowing sails">> Zoë has several pirate themed tattoos

"And the liquor in our cocktails" >> "être toujours ivre" (always be drunk) tattoo

-----

And that's it for the 13 original Midnights tracks! Part 3 will be looking into the 3am tracks.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

[therealvinelle]

I've always wondered this, but what do you think the Cullen's political viewpoints would be, given their individual backgrounds? if vampires don't change after they turn, then surely they would all be extremely racist (especially Jasper). would this not come up at some point? they aren't like the Volturi because the Volturi are too old to care, but the Cullens are young enough that they have been brought up with opinions on stuff like sexism, racism, homophobia and the like.

Oh fuck.

You get an early answer because otherwise I'll just chicken out and delete this one, pretend I never saw it.

UMMM.

Since I'm guessing you meant American political viewpoints, we need a disclaimer. I am not American, and not too knowledgeable about your politics. Not just in the sense that I don't follow the day-to-day drama, but as I am not an American citizen there are several things I don't know, can't know because I've never lived in your country and therefore can't know what the effects of living in a country ruled by American policies is like. What I do know is based off of the news in the foreign section, social media (by which I mean tumblr posts), and Trevor Noah's Daily Show.

I am an outsider looking in.

Which is really rather appropriate, since the Cullens are too.

The Cullens go to high school and college, Carlisle works, they pay taxes, they own real estate, and submerge themselves in American culture. Esme, Edward, Rosalie, Emmett, and Bella are young enough that this is in many ways their world, and apart from timeouts they've more or less spent their entire lives, human and vampire, integrated into American society.

Not fully integrated, mind you, they do what they need to to fit in and get to school or, in Carlisle’s case, to work. They go no further. No extra-curriculars for the kids, no book clubs for Esme, no game nights for Carlisle. They walk parallel to humans, not among us.

In addition to this they're obscenely rich, which puts them another thousand miles from the experiences of your average American. They won't deal with the health system, which means healthcare is a non-issue, they're not going to need welfare or other social programs, unemployment is another non-issue. Name your issue, and the Cullens don't have personal stake in it. Even the climate crisis won't be a problem for them the way it will for us.

What I'm trying to say is, American political issues are a concept to them, not a lived reality. Just like they are for me. So hey, you made a great choice of blog to ask.

I'll also add here that you say the Volturi are too old to care, and I agree- from an ancient's point of view, racism is a matter of "which ethnicity are we hating today?", and it all looks rather arbitrary after a while. Same with every other issue - after a while it all just blends together into "what are the humans fighting over today? Which Christian denomination is the correct one? Huh. Good for them, I guess."

I can't put it any better than this post did, really. The Volturi are real people, humans are nerds and tumblr having Loki discourse. Aro thinks it's delightful and knows entirely too much about Watergate (and let's be real, Loki discourse as well), but the point I wanted to get at is that politics really don't matter to vampires.

And I don't think they matter to the Cullens either.

So, moving on to the next point while regretting I didn't put headlines in this post, I'll just state that I don't think vampires' minds are frozen. Their brains are unable to develop further, and they can never forget anything, but... well, this isn't the post for that, but in order for this to be true of vampires they would barely be sentient. They would not be able to process new impressions, to learn new things, nor to have an independent thought process. Yes, we see vampires in-universe (namely, Edward, who romanticizes himself and vampires) believe they're frozen and can never change, but there is no indication that this is a widespread belief, or even true. Quite the contrary - Carlisle went from a preacher's son who wanted to burn all the demons to living in Demon Capital for decades and then becoming a doctor and making a whole family of demons. Clearly, the guy has had a change in attitude over the years. Jasper, in his years as a newborn army general, slowly grew disenchanted with his life and developed depression. James initially meant to kill Victoria and hunted her across the earth, then became fascinated and changed his mind about it.

Had these people been incapable of change, Carlisle would still be hating demons, Jasper would be in Maria's army, and James would still be hunting Victoria.

It goes to follow, then, that they are able to adapt to new things.

The question is, would they?

Here I finally answer your question.

So, we have these people who don't really have any kind of stake in politics, who keep up to date all the same (or are forcibly kept up to date because high school) and are generally opinionated people.

Where do they then fall, politically?

(And this is where you might want to stop reading, anon, because I'm about to eviscerate these people.)

Alice votes for whoever's gonna win. She also makes a fortune off of betting each election. Trump's 1 to 10 victory in 2016 was a great day to be Alice. MAGA!

The actual policies involved are completely irrelevant, she does this because it's fun. Election means she gets to throw parties. Color coded parties for the Republican and Democratic primaries, and US-themed parties for Election Night! (Foreigner moment right here: I at first wrote "Election wake" before realizing that's not what y'all murricans call it.)

Alice loves politics. Doesn't know the issues, but she sure loves politics.

Bella votes Democrat. She actually knows about the issues, and cares about them. This girl is a Democrat through and through.

Carlisle doesn't vote. I can't imagine it feels right. Outside of faked papers he's not a US citizen, this is meddling in human affairs that he knows don't concern him.

More, this guy has never lived in a democracy.

In life, Carlisle lived under an absolute monarchy that, upon civil war, became an absolute theocracy. From there he learned that vampires live under a total dictatorship.

For the first 150 years of his life, democracy was that funky thing the Athenians did in history books thousands of years ago, no more relevant to him than the Ancient Egyptian monarchy is to me. Then the Americans, and later other European countries started doing this.

Good for them.

There's this mistake often made by those who view history from a... for lack of a better term, a solipsistic standpoint. A belief that the present day is the culmination of all of history. “My society is the best society, the most reasonable society; all the others had it backwards. Thank god we’re living in this enlightened age!”

The faith in our current system of government is one such belief. We (pardon me if this doesn’t apply to everybody reading this post) have grown up in democracies, being told this is the ultimate form of rule, and perhaps that is true - but remember the kings who have told their subjects they had were divine and the best possible ruler based on that. Remember also that most modern democracies haven’t actually been democracies for very long at all, America is the longest standing at some 230 years (not long at all in the grand scope of things) and they have a fracturing two-party system to show for it.

Every society, ever, has been told they’re the greatest, and their system of government the most just. Democracy is only the latest hit.

This is relevant to Carlisle because he’s immortal and decidedly not modern. Democracy has not been installed in him the way it was the rest of the Cullens, Jasper included. To him- well, it’s just not his world. He has no stakes in our human politics, and as he is older than every current democracy and has seen quite a few of them fall, he’s not going to internalize the democratic form of rule the way a modern human has.

I think the concept of voting is foreign to him.

It requires a level of participation in human society that he’s simply not at. He does the bare minimum to appear human so he do the work he loves, but nothing more, and I find that telling.

As it is I think he'd be iffy about his family doing it. He won’t stop them, but in voting they’re... well it’s kind of cheating. They’re not really citizens, none of this will affect them, and by voting they’re drowning out the votes of real human voters. He does not approve.

Edward votes Democrat. He's... well he’s the kind of guy who will oil a girl’s bedroom window so he can more easily watch her sleep without being discovered, justifying it to himself as being okay because if she were to tell him to get lost he’d stop immediately. Same guy is so sure that he’d leave and never return again if she wanted him to, except this is the man who returned to Forks to hang around his singer, knowing there was a significant chance he might kill her. To say nothing of his Madonna/Whore complex, or of the fact that he tried to pimp out his wife twice, and was willing to forcibly abort her child.

This guy is very much in love with chivalry, with being an enlightened and feminist man who supports and respects women, while not understanding the entire point of feminism, which is female liberation.

He votes Democrat because he’s such an enlightened feminist who cares about women’s rights.

Emmett doesn’t care to vote, but if he has to he votes Republican. The guy is from the 1930′s, and has major would-be-the-uncle-who-cracks-racist-jokes-if-he-was-older vibes.

Esme doesn’t vote, that would require getting out of the house.

More, I just... can’t see it. I can’t see her being one to read up on politics and The Issues, period, but if she has to then I doubt she’d be able to decide.

Jasper doesn’t vote. Alice can have her fun, he does not care.

There’s also the whole can of worms regarding the last time he went to bat for American politics.

I imagine he stays out of this.

Renesmée doesn't vote. She has no stock in the human affairs. Who would she vote for, on what grounds? When Bella tries to pull her to the urns, she points out that she's three years old.

Rosalie, guys, I’m sorry, but that girl is definitely gonna vote Republican. Perhaps not right now as it’s become the Trump party of insanity, but the Mitt Romney type of Republicans? Oh yes.

And for the record, yes I imagine she does vote. To step back from politics would be another way she was relinquishing her humanity, and that’s not allowed to happen. So, yes, she goes to the urns, less for the sake of the politics involved and more because like this, she’s still a part of society in some way.

Now, onto why I think she’s Republican, I think it’s both fiscal and social.

This girl was the daughter of a banker who somehow profited off of the Depression, and who then became part of a family with no material needs that would soon become billionaires thanks to Alice. Poverty to Rosalie is a non-issue, as it is I imagine she views it as a much lesser issue than what she’s had to deal with. The humans can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, Rosalie’s infertility is forever.

Rosalie’s empathy is strongest when she’s able to project onto others, and she won’t be able to project onto the less fortunate at all.

Then there’s the fact that the Republican party is all about traditional family values, and pro-life.

Rosalie, a woman from the 1930′s who idolizes her human life and who‘d love nothing more than to get to live out this fantasy, is down for that. And as of Breaking Dawn she’s vocally pro-life, so there’s that.

This all being said I don’t think Rosalie cares to sit down and fully understand these politics she’s voting for, the possible impact they’ll have- that’s not important. What’s important is what voting does for her.

TL;DR: I bet anon regrets asking.

[daisiesonafield-blog]

Hi! Gina recommended you as someone who might know where to find/have a holivia timeline. This was my original question to Gina.

Do we have a holivia timeline from fall 2020 or earlier? Did we find out jeff's wedding + pics were in November or something? Also, there is much confusion on how they met and developed. Gossip says many different things. (we know its a stunt but some people don't think so)

e.g.,

they are long time friends way before casting for DWD

they met on the set of DWD (even though she is the director)

not long time friends, but they knew each other from mutual friends

met shortly before filming for casting

Also, some believe they started seeing each other before the split with Jason, while others think the breakup happened before harry and o even knew each other. All of this drama and the controversy make me sad.

BTW I am not implying Harry would ever be friends with someone as problematic as olivia.

Hi dear,

Just off the bat, let me clear some things up:

They were never friends - they had no association prior to DWD

We don't know for a fact the day they met or under which circumstances. But it's safe to assume that Harry's agent sent in an audition tape, then he auditioned in person at some point (as this is how it goes). And if you think he got the part without the audition, I don't know what to tell you other than that simply showing any lack of understanding about how the industry works much less about how reality works.

They're not actually dating, so this before/after she broke up with Jason discourse is completely irrelevant because they never "started dating". You can't start dating someone you're faking a relationship with for PR.

On that note, it seems this needs to be said:

A stunt = not real, fake, pretend.

In this case their "PR relationship" = not real, fake, pretend.

They're just pretending for the press - posing for pictures to make it look like they're dating when in reality, they're not.

I don't understand why people are still hung up on this definition or if Olivia "cheated on Jason" with Harry. HOW can you cheat with someone you aren't even dating? The answer is: you can't. That's what a stunt is, fake. Please. If Olivia and Jason broke up, it has nothing to do with her "dating Harry", because she isn't. Whatever sketchy breakup timeline she and Jason have are independent of Harry and his own personal life. This whole timeline issue is due to press-fed narratives from "inside sources" with contradictory stories. All this was meant for was to create more drama and buzz for this exhausting Hollywood PR stunt.

Here's a Holivia timeline, from 2020 thru after the stunt dropped. And here's a follow-up.

Here's a post showing how Jason is involved in the Holivia stunt.

Jeff's wedding was in January, the November rumor has been debunked for ages. Here's a post about it.

Here's a post that explains why the Holivia stunt exists.

Here's more about Jason: In chronological order and from most recent.

Here's a post about how to make a stunt more believable

Check out these tags about:

PR strategies

Holivia

Yachtgate 2.0

Hollywood

And if you check my blog (on a computer, doesn't show up on the app/phone) you'll find TONS of other links where you can learn more about the industry, closeting, who Harry is, paparazzi, fake relationships, fake long-term relationships and closeting, and much more.

Hope this helps!

[melody-of-lost-souls]

Hi!

So I don't understand why everytime Sasuke is doing something nice for Sakura, it's considered romantic? Like Idk, Sasuke saving Sakura just so she won't get a concussion is romanticized. Him trying to show affection by thanking her is romantic. Giving her a hand to help her get up is romantic.. Anything that a regular teammate would do for the other in their case is romanticized..

Like, do they lack so much chemistry to the point that Sasuke addressing her by her name will be romantic?

Hello :) Well i think a lot of facts have to do wit this topic: 1) The fact that they are canon makes people believe that every interaction before the canon statement foreshadows their (non existent) relationship. So despite none of those interactions were meant to be romantic maybe, people, fans will see them as a foreshadowing hence will say all of that content was romantic. 2) The lack of content they have, in order for this canon pair to become well...canon, leads to their fans to see any (few) interaction they have as a romantic foreshadowing. They believe every interaction from them is Important to both relationship, but reality is that those moments were only meaningful for Sakura, not sasuke.

3) Well this is not only in naruto , but in a lot of medias that some people cannot see a friendship between a woman and a man and think everything leads to sexual/romantic desires. Also, this one is attached that many people believe all characters are straight until proven the contrary. For example, Tenten and Neji. They have beautiful and great friendship <3 I never shipped them, but if a relationship between these 2 were to happen we wouldnt be that surprised since they were very good friends. This is how a good friendship is portrayed ( and people tell me kishimoto does not know how to write romance- bonds -or women) But the deal is, A BIG PART of the fandom believed they were in love¿¿¿¿¿¿ Why? I dont know, just because they have , not even chemistry, but a good dynamic, dudebros believe they wanna tear off those clothes.

-Thre is this OVA in 3d crossed ways/paths. Where Sasuke saves Naruto and Sakura. He FIRST kicks naruto away so he doesnt get attacked by the enemy, and then he take sakura in his arms. Dudebros and SS fans were crazy because OMG HE TOOK HER IN HIS ARMS <3 <3<3<3 and ???? I mean, yeah you can see it as romantic but he also saved naruto. And also, she is A GIRL. Was other way to save her despite not taking her in his arms? Did they want him to kick her as with naruto? XD

4) Sasuke didnt interact that much with women, because he just didnt want to and the narrative didnt put him in that situation. So that Sakura is one of the few women he interacted with...well SS fans flies their imagination and headcanons. But they completely erase Karin lol

5) Concluding I think the main reason is the first one. The fact of being canon makes people see their "relationship" through another lens plus they have maybe 1 or 2 "romantic tropes" (which SNS wins in here ofc) so people will believe this is enough. But something is sure, Sakura and kakashi are somehow very irrelevant in Sasuke life. Sakura and Kakashi can be replaced by any other character and the feelings will be the same. Replace Sakura or erase her from his life and plot will remain almost intact. If we can take sakura away from Sasuke life, and the plot won't be affected by his pov, how important is she in the end? I ask SS fans to do this exercise.