#it's about having a conversation

[respectthepetty]

Waiting for a Choice?

Nobody talks with Day. All of the interviewees talk about him but none of them actually speak to him. Mork was the first one to go back-and-forth with Day by asking him questions, and Mork looks at Day too. When he entered the room, his comments are at Day. Before that, everyone treated Day like a ghost merely haunting the room.

And even though this game of 21-questions is horrible, Mork says the silent part loudly.

Because to Mork, this is all about choices. He believes his sister chose her fate and abandoned him in the end. To him, he had no choice in the matter. She decided their futures for both of them. Even though she is dead, he has spent an entire year not living.

Day's family does this too. Night tells Day they are at the Society when they are already there. It's an afterthought to tell Day where they are going, and he doesn't ask Day if he wants to go in either. It is "where will you wait?" Where will you wait while everyone else goes about their lives? Will you wait here or there? Those are his options. To wait. He is allowed to wait while everyone else lives, but he can't participate.

This is a place for the Blind, yet Day can't go in, and when he does, the receptionist pities him, and his brother gets upset.

By all means, this place should be THE place for Day with its "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always wanted" inspirational word vomit, yet all the people stare at him.

Then, on the way home, Day's mother tells Night to speak to Day about the documents even though Day is sitting right there hearing the entire conversation.

Being a caregiver to a family member is extremely difficult. Mostly if animosity already exists.

And even though it's an English translation, the use of "have" is the subtle shift in a family relationship to a caregiver dynamic. A brother has to take care of his younger sibling. A brother now has to rely on his older sibling. Regardless if Night wants to help, he has to. Regardless if Day wants Night's help, he has to take it. They don't have a choice.

When Day exits his car, a point he made to Night, Night hesitates to go after him because they are in the middle of traffic and in the middle of a fight. Yet Mork runs into traffic to get Day, and for the first time in the episode, Day gets asked questions: "Are you okay?" and "Where are you going?"

It hasn't mattered if Day is okay up until now. It hasn't mattered where Day is going because he has to go where he is told. He doesn't have a choice. According to everyone else, he is a living ghost. He has been stuck for a year regardless of what he wants, so even when he gets home, his mother asks him one question without waiting for a response before immediately asking Night what happened.

So Day returns the small gesture of conversation to Mork by asking another living ghost if he has anywhere else to be.

Which jump starts their second game of 21-questions.

Because neither is telling the other what to do. Similar to their first conversation, it's a shit show, but they are both engaged in this shit show. They are not being told to participate. They are not being told what to do. They are being asked questions and they can decide to answer or not. They get to choose. And they chose each other.

Which leads to the mom finally asking Day a question.

Mork is going to be crap at taking care of Day at first, but Day doesn't need someone to take care of him. He needs someone to see him. Day isn't a ghost of his past. He isn't haunting his own story. And he isn't okay. He is unhappy because he has nowhere to go and nothing to look forward to . . . according to the people with lives. He is waiting.

So the guy who is also stuck with ghosts from his past haunting him simply asking questions is enough of a reminder that they are both very much alive, so they must make a choice to actually live.

Which is why Mork asking Day, not his mother or brother, but Day when he starts is very important.

Because these two are stuck in the present with pasts that haunt them. But now they have a future of endless choices.

They just have to ask the right questions.

No, not that!

Much better.

[beebfreeb]

Messaging people for the first time is so hard. What am I supposed to say? Like, "You seem really odd and your blog intrigues me. Do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters?" What! Whatever. I will just follow you back and stare at your blog with my big beautiful brown eyes.

[heritageposts]

The Eurovision song contest is facing intense scrunity and accusations of discrimination after it rebuked Swedish-Palestinian pop star Eric Saade for wearing a Palestinian scarf in the opening act of the semi-finals. Saade, whose father is of Palestinian origin, kicked off the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden on Tuesday evening with a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian and Arab male headdress, wrapped around his wrist. [...] In response, the organisers of the contest, European Broadcasting Union (EBU) released a statement saying it "regretted" that Saade wore the scarf. "The Eurovision Song Contest is a live TV show. All performers are made aware of the rules of the contest, and we regret that Eric Saade chose to compromise the non-political nature of the event," it said. [...] Eurovision later posted clips of the performances of the other two opening acts on its social media pages, but did not share Saade’s, prompting social media users to share the performance on their personal pages to show support for the artist.

Waving Palestinian flags, wearing traditional Palestinian garments, or if we're being honest, just being Palestinian, is now officially "too political" for Eurovision.

Literally, all Saade did was wear a keffiyeh around his wrist—while being Palestinian—and that was enough to get a statement from the EBU, and have his opening performance scrubbed from Youtube.

If you're not already boycotting Eurovision this year, then what the fuck is wrong with you?

Below are two statements from Saade. The first one, giving his reason for participating, was posted a few days ago, and the other was in response to the EBU accusing him of 'compromising the non-political nature' of the Genocide Song Contest:

Reminder again to BOYCOTT EUROVISION 🇵🇸

[theoldaeroplane]

worried that thing you put in your art or writing or game or music is too self-indulgent, too self-referential, too niche for anyone but yourself? fear not! you can do whatever you want forever. and you should.

[lesbianfakir]

You’re placed in a room with an animal. The door is closed and you cannot leave. The animal is completely calm and has no intent of harming you. You are in no danger unless you provoke the animal in some way.

[blanc-ci]

Captain!! Saying stuff like that only enforces that mindset!!!

[castielsprostate]

i hate you "influencers", i hate you tiktok, i hate you "content creators", i hate you "unalive" and "s€x" and "dr/ügs", i hate you instagram, i hate you consumerism, i hate you family friendly, i hate you puritans, i hate you facebook, i hate you family vloggers, i hate you violating other people's privacy, i hate you modern day social media

[kibermonakh]

sooooo triple-S team (Starscream-Soundwave-Shockwave) being the High Guard means that they are far older than Megatron and probably worked with Primes directly… just like Sentinel... And before carrying out his betrayal, he could have tried to rizz them (and fail miserably) so that they would more likely to continue working for him...

[valtsv]

there's this specific kind of "bad"/unsympathetic victim narrative that i'm obsessed with when it's executed well, where someone's trauma response is to become increasingly destructive and selfish, at first in the hope that there will be consequences - that someone will follow the broken, bloody trail they're leaving behind them and try to stop them - because that will mean that they've been seen. that someone has finally noticed them, acknowledged their pain, and done something about it. but then, when those consequences never arrive, or are too easily brushed aside, they realise that they're enjoying being in control (or the illusion of control) for once far too much to stop, and start to buy into this delusion they've begun to construct for themselves, where what they're doing is Justified, Actually, because of what they've endured to reach this point. they've long since crossed sunk cost fallacy event horizon. to look back now would be unbearable. which is, of course, when the consequences they cannot so easily ignore arrive, and they're forced to reckon with the fact that they've mistaken the grave they've been digging for a great and gleaming tower, the crumbling walls of which are now starting to collapse inwards on them. it's such an inevitable but compelling tragic route to go down.

[technically-human]

Payneland² 

[the-crooked-library]

my absolute favourite devil's minion dynamic, ft: my last night's text conversation with my husband

[quantumshade]

there's an interesting thing rtd said from the commentary about the "real mom" line:

i get not liking the line but like. it's an intentional mistake and an intentional character choice, and something we'll return to in the future, and that seems like important context to have when talking about the episode.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Cassidy knows how to “help” Michael Afton

[hoots-the-owl]

My sister and I are having a heated discussion, please give your input

[bixels]

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

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

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

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

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

[araremonaka]

Me core