#sorry i yap so much

[afurtivecake]

with the sunshine court i liked the insight into the ravens and them individually + as a very fucked up whole

any opinions/comments about the ravens, nest, and tetsuji and all of that?

ooh yes i very much enjoyed the bits about the ravens in tsc as well.

and god yes. the thoughts i have on the ravens are...many.

my main comment is that we can't underestimate how much the whole collective punishment thing fucks people up and how much resentment it breeds. being made responsible for the actions and behaviours of someone else, for example, child being made responsible for their siblings, is something we know can mess people up. and the ravens basically take that concept and built it into their institution. the ravens are set up in a way that mimics a familial power structure. you have the coaches at the top as the 'parents', the ravens as the children. also keep in mind that raven pairs consist of an older raven and a younger one, which mimics a older sibling/younger sibling dynamic. (it reminds me of how yakuza hierarchies are built around familial structures using terms like parent/child to describe boss/subordinate relationships and brothers/sisters to describe a relationship that's on an equal footing. but that's perhaps a different discussion for another time)

so what you have is an older raven being made responsible for the actions and behaviours of a younger student and a younger raven who is reliant on the older student to teach them how the nest works and how to survive being a raven.

this would mean that the older raven would be suffering punishments they know they don't deserve because their younger partner is just not going to be as good yet. it would be on their shoulders to correct their partner so that when they get in front of the coaches, they're not going to be a shit-show. can you imagine the resentment that creates?

i can easily picture a situation where they both get a scolding for something the younger raven messed up on and then once they're alone, the older raven berates their younger partner again for getting them into that mess. like, don't they want a place on the lineup? don't they want to succeed? then stop being lazy and start get their fucking shit together because they both know which of them really deserved to be called 'worthless' by the coach back there. and the younger raven can't do anything about it because they know they're not as good. they know they have to do better so that this one person who's been helping them through every confusing aspect of raven doesn't get punished for things they don't deserve. but neither of them will blame the coaches even if they know in the back of their minds that it's really the coaches' fault.

by the time the older raven graduates, the younger raven would be in a position to receive a newbie as a partner and guess what? the tough love that trained them up to that point worked for them so that's how they would treat their new partner.

of course, this is just one possible form a raven dynamic can take, but like, isn't that so incredibly fucked up?

of course, it's not all bad. raven partners clearly do look out for each other and probably comfort each other when they can. but just because they care for each other, doesn't mean they're any less violently angry with each other for the roles they've been forced into. there's so many more nuances to this than i can talk about all in one go.

and the thing is, they don't even need to be violent towards each other for this sort of thing to take a psychological toll. and like, having grown up being made responsible for a younger siblings' behaviour, i know it's all about the feeling that no matter what you do, you're not going to be good enough. it's like, if you're not better than your sibling (raven partner), you're a failure and will be treated like you're lower on the hierarchy. but if you are better, then you're still a failure because that would mean you let your sibling (raven partner) be worse. like i spent a lot of time resenting my siblings for being the reason i got shouted at and also for not coming to my aid when i needed help or comfort, even though i know they couldn't have done anything and it wasn't their role to have done anything anyways. i even spent a long time feeling bad for how hard i was on my siblings and feeling guilty that i wasn't as kind as i ought to have been. that i should have comforted them more. and the real kick in the teeth was them telling me that they were grateful for what i had done for them. that my hard attitude had gotten them through a lot and helped them get their shit together. and fuck, that made feel even more guilty. i wanted to shake them and be like, 'no! don't you get it? i should have been kinder! you should have felt supported no matter what you did!"

and i think about this a lot in relation to riko and kevin. i think about how being made responsible for each's success and failure might have tainted their relationship as brothers, how it might have introduced an element of anger and resentment to what could have been a supportive, caring relationship.

(as for tetsuji, well. i just picture him as the amalgamation of every hardass asian father i've ever known, turned up to 100. and uh... ha.ha. it's unpleasant, is all i'm going to say to that. )

--------------

the whole point of this, "ask me for an opinion and i'll tell you why i have it," exercise is to examine how my personal biases and background impact how i view this work. which parts of the work do i pick up on and relate to due to my own experiences? and i think this question about how i see the ravens exemplifies what i've been trying to do here. i'm not saying that my interpretation is any more correct that anyone else's. i'm saying that we all read things a certain way for personal reasons and that it doesn't matter what our opinion is, it's all part of interacting with and enjoying a piece of media!

so if anyone has opinions they want to hear from me, please ask! or go forth and share your own opinions!

[arminsbf]

6, 9 & 28 🩵

MIAAA THX 🩵🩵

6 - what are you excited for?

i think i’m just excited to live my life… there have been some hard times but i’m doing really good now and i’m excited to be able to live my life to the fullest and enjoy myself!!! i’m just glad to be alive yk :3

9 - is confidence cute?

yes absolutely!!! in dating men, i don’t mind if he’s a little bit shy but… confidence is really important 😓 if it’s not obvious enough… i’m always gonna be the more submissive or like… docile (??) one if i’m dating a guy so like… i don’t want him to be super shy 😭 with women it’s different because it’s not like i’m looking for some type of dominatrix to take care of me,,, but confidence is always great to see as long as it’s not too much!!!!!

28 - what was the last thing that made you laugh?

so i’m staying in a hotel with some friends right now, and we were all very tired after flying. last night, i woke up at like 1 am half-asleep. i really needed to pee, but, for some reason, i felt like i couldn’t use the bathroom in the hotel room. i guess in my dream world it wasn’t there or something. so i get up and try to leave the room… and the door is locked. so i get back in bed super angry. my friend wakes up thinking that i let someone in the room or something, then he sees me all angry in my bed and he’s like “dude what,” and he laughs, and then i’m mad at him because he’s not taking me seriously. i’m like “i have to piss and i can’t get out!!” all annoyed. he tells me the bathroom is literally right there next to my bed, so then i finally go and get back to sleep.

we just laughed about in the morning because i was so mad over nothing, and tried to leave the room for no reason… we were talking about what would’ve happened if the door was unlocked because i would’ve just been wandering the halls looking for a bathroom 😭 i think i was just delirious from the jet lag and all the flying… but i was definitely embarrassed after all that 😓😓😓

[heartorbit]

figure skating set right now please. thanks

[tatretot]

hellooo danandphilgames buddies!! happy belated 10 year (more like 5 but shhh) anniversary :-)

[elysiuminfra]

i want to talk about walmart for a second. if you haven’t worked or known someone who worked for walmart, you probably don’t know how bad it is. most people don’t, so i want to talk about it.

there’s a points system for absences. if you miss work, and can’t cover it with accrued time off (because you don’t just Get time off - it builds up over time. it takes about a month of straight work to get a day off.) you get a point. five points and you’re at risk of termination. all managers - team leads, and above them, coaches - have the power to excuse points so that you don’t get fired. some do, so you don’t lose your job. most don’t. five days, that’s it.

if you miss more than three shifts of work due to a medical issue, you have to go through a third party company (which isn’t really third party.) to get a medical exception so you don’t lose your job. it is hard to get this. they need a lot of documentation to prove that you somehow deserved to miss work. they don’t accept regular doctors notes. this is somehow nebulously legal. you are also forced to work while sick and infectious. flu, strep, covid, doesnt matter for all departments except produce and deli. even then, they only send you home if you throw up *at work* or have food-related illnesses. every other department you’re not allowed to go home. more than likely you are being exposed to someone who’s sick at walmart, because its either come in sick or get fired.

i work hard. everyone *has* to work hard. you are on your feet 8 hours a day. you can’t sit. there are no surfaces to sit on. some departments are harder than others. i worked in OPD, the online grocery fulfillment department. i would walk, bare minimum, 7 to 8 miles a day, hauling sometimes over 200 pounds of groceries. every day. now i work in the deli. you are constantly moving. this is very typical for the deli - you are given too many tasks to perform in one day. most days i can barely get enough done. i know people don’t take their legally entitled second breaks. I know people who have to work off the clock just to get everything done. my department - as is *most other departments* - is understaffed. i cook, clean, work the slicer, and dispense food at the same time. and trust me when i tell you the standards of cleanliness in my department is high, but in practice it is very, very poor. simply because there is usually only one of us working back there, and we just can’t do everything right all at once.

none of the “fresh” food in the bakery / produce area is fresh. the bread is baked in store, but the dough is made and frozen elsewhere. sometimes it’s been frozen for weeks. everything is shockingly artificial. same with produce. you’re better off buying your produce elsewhere, or even locally. walmart has been fraught with recall after recall.

people are cheated out of retirements. so many people I know that are at retirement age simply can’t. there are people working here in their 70s. they are being overworked. there are a lot of teenagers that work up front. they are being overworked. I know two kids who are disabled that work the register. they aren’t allowed to sit. one had to fight to be able to get a medical accommodation and only got one when he threatened to sue, because not taking a doctor’s note for an accommodation is illegal. they do it anyways. there are so many people i know personally that are disabled, have chronic pain, have mobility issues, and can’t sit. or walk miles and miles a day. one of my coworkers recently quit because she tore both rotator cuffs in her shoulders from this job. this job disables you. it kills you. (just look up how many people have died on the job due to negligence. it is not a small amount.)

even the prices are fake. sales are fake. rollback is fake. i notice how things are priced and they rarely change, even when they say they’re on sale. it’s a scam. you are being scammed.

we are overworked and underpaid for our labor. (speaking of, wages used to be higher by several dollars a couple years ago. they lowered them. my department paid 20 an hour. it only pays 16 now. almost all other departments are at a flat 14. it used to be 16.)

wage theft, lack of breaks, overtime violations, lack of sick leave, chronic understaffing and chronic abuse from management, not terminating employees that sexually harass coworkers, and piles and piles and piles of responsibilities. all of this is to say, walmart only operates because of how much they exploit their workers, and it’s in the top of the Fortune 500 list. it is impossibly dire. and it is in EVERY SINGLE store, because that is just how the work culture operates.

all salaried management is also given guides on union busting. unionization is impossible. there was one store that they completely shut down because of successful unionization efforts, laying off hundreds of people, and blamed it on “faulty plumbing.”

one last thing - if you are assaulted by a customer, you cannot defend yourself. nobody can help you, because none of us are allowed to put our hands in any capacity on a customer. if you are assaulted, you have no choice but to run and hide. I’ve heard of a worker at my store that was assaulted repeatedly over several days from people who would come in and beat her. they weren’t banned, and she was fired for fighting back. if you fight back, you’re fired immediately, no exceptions.

all of this is to say shop elsewhere. buy locally. buy at other stores. you will get better quality items and produce literally ANYWHERE else. if you can’t, be kind to Walmart workers. theres abuse at every step of the chain. even on the supply side. walmart is a corporate dystopian monster that only makes its money off of intense labor violations.

tl;dr don’t shop at walmart. it’s not worth it

[kenchann]

uh oh

also change my yuus outfit www

[blossoms-phan]

[eightspringdays]

I've been crying the whole DAY. Look back is literally an ode to someone who loves to create, who works their ass off to improve at it and sometimes it just doesn't matter because they are still going to be people that will be better than you and then you think you don't love that much anyway, so why care to keep doing it at the end? You enjoy it better as an spectator, without all the trouble that comes with doing it yourself

Until you remember WHY you started loving in the first place, why despite the fact it takes time, it's stressful, makes you angry, makes you sad or even if people tells you that you should be doing something else... at the end, still makes you happy, still makes you find people who love the same thing as you and you made them happy too, still makes you feel that you can do something that comes from you and no one else can because it's You.

And if you worked so hard for it once, it was for a reason, and sometimes you just forget what it was, but doesn't mean it isn't there anymore. Because the past you, the now you and the future you, come from the same place and it deserves to be happy, and that's unique and it is something worth working for

[theythemmer]

phinktober day 11: ur fav AU

i dont rlly do AUs so i just drew them how i wish they would dress xo

(dan’s tats r carnations and snowdrops and phil’s r roses and honeysuckle. for no reason 🤗)

ALSO bonus version w makeup bc i couldn’t pick <3

[heshmmity]

i cant even fully explain how much i love bill and mabel's friendship. they paint their nails pink together. throwing sleepovers with candy and grenda, he is like a girl dad but uncle to all of the girls. (including pacifica, shes also a guest on parties when she isnt busy)

bill gives mabel dating tips (poorly. these tips suck.) and all these tips suck bc bill is a pathetic dude. he literally whines to mabel every time ford is busy with researches and ignores him for five minutes. mabel knitted like a million sweaters for him with personal designs (sooo much doritos jokes)

and they dont allow ford, stan or dipper on their sleepovers. bill teaches girls how to play all sorts of gamblings and at first he was like doing all sorts of giveaways to girls but then he realizes that he cant actually win them in damn poker. he lost a lot of sweets that day. sweets and dignity

i have so much headcanons for them helppppp

[luxbub]

The bond between a girl and the middle-aged actor she saw in a movie years ago and now coincidentally has a big fat crush on is unstoppable

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

jesus fuck the BBC Radio 4 Sherlock Holmes audio dramas are gay

I mean, I heard Mary accuse Watson of marrying her "under false pretence" while his heart belongs to Holmes

I heard Holmes and Watson reciting Tristan and Isolde to each other about "existing only in each other, wrapped in love"

but Watson being so scared to tell Holmes that someone wrote a play about him where he's straight! "you're not angry? it's hardly in character"

insane. hilarious. iconic.

[satandoesntwannabehere]

HAPPY 9TH ANNIVERSARY UNDERTALE !!!

and a couple silly things from the past couple of months

[mellohiizz]

@saiintvalentiine hello. the npc fic left me absolutely in shambles i needed to draw them.

[arson-09]

Have been seeing some discussion again about tamlin being a good High Lord or not and I just have to remind everyone of one of the best little facts from acotar I never really seen mentioned.

Acotar, Chapter 25 Page 221

She [Alis] simply said, "Summer Solstice. The main celebration used to be at the Summer Court, but... Things are different. So now we have one here, too. You're going."

"so now we have one here too..." Because of amarantha and Tamlin being just a good person he allowed anyfae from any court to come to spring. And because no one could really go back to their courts for their respective solstice celebrations, Tamlin made sure Spring Celebrated all of them

I just think that's such a cool fucking thing. That Tamlin cared for the people coming to spring for safety, and he made changes to help everyone feel comfortable and at home. He cares about the people who live in Spring, he cares so damn much :(((

[luminique]

HEAR ME OUT, one sided love?? Imagine s/o doesn’t like lighter back, being oblivious about lighters feeling and only see lighter as a friend meanwhile lighter is so MADLY in love with them and is aware of s/o not liking him back but he can’t help it because you’re the only one that makes him feel this way even if his feelings aren’t reciprocated… they’re so doomed think about the potential angst!! 🫤

lighter isn’t perfect. his body is littered in scars of his past, his actions are solutions to mistakes he had made before. to say that he deserved something as rewarding as love didn’t sound right to him, but oh, would it feel right if it was from you.

it was definitely not an immediate fall, rather it was slower like starting a fire. you bring the materials you require, some wood and a starter. it’s difficult to get a fire going, even he knows that with his lighter in hand. his hand gets warmer the longer the flame is out but it doesn’t compare to the accidental grazes of your hand against his gloved ones.

he had poked you once with the spikes on his gloves. the look on your face when you brought your hand up to rub it while you apologized for it. why were you apologizing? every soft “sorry” that came out of your mouth was like sprinkling water onto the fire. best to get fresh firewood so that it doesn’t go out.

ensuring that the fire is a consistent flame is also important to prevent accidents. accidents like playfully taking off his sunglasses and putting it on yourself while imitating him. somehow, that didn’t cause the fire to go out, in fact, it made it burn even brighter than before. the redness on his face when he watched you was comparable to the orange and red hues of a fire.

he stayed close to the fire, close to you. feeling the warmth of love on his skin, finding it calming but also terrifying. it doesn’t rain often in the outer ring but that doesn’t stop him from worrying that it would all of a sudden. so he lies awake at night, thinking about all of the possibilities, the what ifs and its outcomes.

he thought he had considered everything. from keeping the fire from going out, to ensuring it was a stable flame, to tending it slowly and carefully. what he didn’t consider was getting too close to the fire, burning through what he thought was tough skin.

he was too focused on trying to maintain a certain personality, not quite showing his interest in you. so when caesar was talking to you about her love stories while everyone was hanging around the bar, his heart rate increased. just like how consuming alcohol affects one’s mental and physical state, so does it affect a fire. maybe someone poured his drink into the flames as he watched it burn even brighter than before, making him eavesdrop on your conversation.

but a large flame meant a higher possibility of getting burnt, and soon he saw the burn marks on his skin. as you continued to talk with caesar, the longer he let the fire burn him. how you had said that real love wasn’t like the stories, how you seemed disinterested in romance, how you had believed that no one was interested in you. at that moment, he ended up getting more drinks from burnice, hoping it would soothe the roaring flames within him. he drank so much and fell asleep to the soft crackling of the fire, your voice acting as background noise.

he woke up to the coldness of the bar counter pressing on his cheek. the fire had been put out by you when you tapped on his shoulder. the memories of last night flooding into his mind like water. maybe it was all some nightmare and you did like him back, but the sudden coolness of your touch made him realize the reality of it all.

you didn’t like him, and not because he did anything wrong but because he didn’t do anything in your eyes. you were feeding the fire in his heart and he mistook that fire for your heart too. he sat up straight, took one look at you and shook his head. you still cared for him, came with water and woke him up gently. he never intended to get so severely injured because of his own growing feelings for you.

his own feelings, you didn’t even know he had any for you. the pile of ashes, you both stared at it and yet only he knew that fire existed. the flames had misled him, danced around his heart that craved for you, that only asked for you as its fuel. now all he can do was sit next to what was once a big fire, feeling the cold on his skin despite the layers. no warmth left, no light left, no love left.