#dated cultural references

[thefugitivesaint]

''Nickelodeon Magazine'' #3 - Holiday 1993 Source This will be my only acknowledgement of Thanksgiving. Consider the holiday thusly acknowledged.

[technically-human]

I love your art so much its so amazing, if you get a chance would you draw some jealous ivo☺️

I love your jealous ivo so soooo much

And thank you for the amazing are you do

I like to think Stone understands everything the Doctor says except the references

ko-fi

[nocofamilyau]

Has Shawn ever been allowed to come over to the house? Or is Dave too worried he’d make a mess?

not really, like sure Dave is the closest with Shawn in terms of being friends out of everyone in his class (not really that much in terms of options) but he isn't necessarily close enough to Shawn to have him over (and yea, Noah and Cody haven't seen him too often but to them he seems like one of those feral kids you'd rather not be around unless you want all your stuff snooped into... or possibly worse)

*hypothetical situation in motion up here ^^*

[your-unfriendlyghost]

idk why but in my mind your an Outsiders character that came to life

lol thanks

In case your gen wonderin why, it’s cos I’m a teen boy with a (formerly) greaser-ish haircut who wears leather jackets and talks a lot about the Outsiders lol- you see me and the Outsiders characters drawn in the same artstyle and I give them my own life experiences when I write. Causes an association of ideas, that kinda thing, I reckon

[21st-century-minutiae]

if you don't mind, could you do an explanation of this image?

The above is an intentionally mangled mashup of memes. Part of the humor is the intentional low quality, which is a common factor of "shit posts" (online posts with minimal ''shitty" effort given to them in contrast with "effort posts").

The base top image is "Among Us" a social deduction video game involving a small number of aliens infiltrating and trying to kill off a larger number of astronauts, who must either identify the aliens or complete tasks without dying. The social deduction aspect of identifying imposters during a meeting and the simplistic art style both became common sources for memes in the early twenty-first century.

Here that meeting is used to share an opinion, which, in the style of this meme, is intentionally mangled and misspelled. The opinion, translated, is that the speaker wishes for the 21st century video game Cyberpunk 2077 to fail to install on computers that already have the 21st century video game Fortnite on it.

Cyberpunk 2077 was a greatly acclaimed single player game about dealing with a dystopian future where megacorporations have crushed everyone and the only form of law is contract law. Fortnite, on the other hand, is an extremely popular and heavily monetized battle royale game. Fortnite, because of its popularity especially among children, is often looked down upon. The implication here is that Fortnite is equivalent to the miserable products produced by the fictional megacorporations of Cyberpunk 2077 and, as an acclaimed (and more snobby) game about violently rejecting such corporations and products, it would be appropriate for the game to reject Fortnite players.

The second picture is a deformed mutation of another meme, where Kronk, from the early twenty-first century movie, The Emperor's New Groove, is imagining his shoulder angel saying "No, no, he's got a point." Kronk's face , has been replaced by the red crew member, who usually represents one of the aliens in the game, likely indicating they have bad intentions. Furthermore, the red crew member's face has been replaced by a troll face (like the face of the presenter in the first image) to intentionally lower the quality of the image and to evoke a specific emotion associated with the particular image.

The shoulder angel has been replaced by Keanu Reeves, an early twenty-first century actor who notably played the part of an important character in the Cyperpunk 2077 video game. At the video game conference announcing Cyberpunk 2077 and Keanu Reeve's participation, an attendee shouted out "You are breathtaking," to the actor. This event itself became a meme. Here the word "point" has been replaced by "breathtaking" in reference to this meme.

A denizen of the early twenty-first century may be confused by the above, or they may understand it to be an intentionally low quality amalgamation of low effort shit-posts with no real point to it, appropriate to the "internet troll" subculture of the early twenty-first century. They may conclude that a child had a great deal of fun making and posting the above. But the nature of every single reference is niche and topical (if not outdated), and it would not be expected for it to be found funny py people even five years older or younger than the target audience, if anyone found it funny at all.

[incorrectsibunaquotes]

The real mystery is why House of Anubis stopped referencing Twilight so early on

[bookinit02]

every time i get too far into booktok i become enraged and it’s not even for the reasons you would think

[foolishlyzephyrus]

i love when i completely forget about some silly asinine detail and am gently reminded when i rewatch. like what do you mean supermassive black hole is unironically in a doctor who episode?

[itspileofgoodthings]

almost every time I’ve spoken on Taylor publicly I haven’t said what I really want to.

[schizotypalpd-culture-is]

STPD culture is two coincidences = something is happening in the fabric of the Universe and it all has to do with Me

.

[knightsvow]

this is so mean I love chatfics/socmeds fics when they're done right....you wouldn't get it

[kyndaris]

Legends and Lattes

While you, dear reader, may initially think this post is about Travis Baldree's novel of the same name, I am here to quickly disabuse you of that notion. In fact, I shall do you one better and admit I have yet to even read the book sitting on my shelf, begging to be read. Heck, I even bought the prequel not too long ago: Bookshops and Bonedust. And before you say anything, dear reader, I will get to it.

Eventually.

It just so happens my blog is not solely a book blog. Nor am I a BookTuber/ Booktoker by day or by night. So, you know, it's very understandable why I've not read through this, assumedly masterpiece of a tale. Plus, I also have a lot of other hobbies like badminton, videogames and my own actual writing. All of which detract from my reading time.

Then, of course, there's my dating life, which, albeit is slowing down because I've mostly given up on men. And well, the women are certainly not biting as often.

What's a 32-year-old supposed to do except pine for the love of a fictional character? Karlach, I'm looking at you for when I finally start playing Baldur's Gate 3.

As you've no doubt picked up on, this blog is yet another entry into my forays of dating. This time round, I met up with a woman (third time's the charm, maybe? We're still chatting on the occasion although the topic has shifted into more a creative enterprise). It started with her liking one of my Hinge prompts, and after thoroughly checking her profile (she had actually cropped up in a few of my recommends previously), I thought I would do her the courtesy of matching.

It was followed by a brief conversation on mythology before the two of us went down the tabletop role-playing game route where we both tried, and failed, at playing grifters stealing personal information. Now we're on a journey to stop the Goblin King. The dastardly creature has stolen her identity, leaving naught but an empty vault of where it should be. And because of that, I, the handsome rogue in this situation, must continue masquerading as a Nigerian Prince as we go forth to acquire a magical sword with the ability to track goblins.

So far, we've made it to a small town called Bree. Although we did try to ride towards Bag's End, a number of black riders passed us by and Keyleth - the codename I've decided to use in this instance to refer to my date - was insistent we put a stop to their evil plans. Not that we know they're evil.

They simply have business with a halfling and are being very difficult about anyone who might be in their way.

As you can see, dear reader, we are most assuredly not in Kansas anymore.

That said, we did arrange to meet at a cafe halfway between where we live in what is fittingly named The Shire for Sydneysiders like me. It should be noted that unlike me, Keyleth does not live in Sydney. Rather, she is situated in the coastal city of Wollongong. You'll remember it as a place I visited not too long ago with a group of friends as we tackled a dastardly difficult escape room.

At the time, though, Keyleth's path and mine had not yet crossed. A shame, truly, since there are quite a few choice burger places in Wollongong we could potentially visit if I didn't mind the long drive down.

The cafe was named 7th Heaven. To my dismay, there was no raven-haired bartender or a blond courier. What it did have were a number of brunch options such as my go-to meal in almost every situation: Eggs Benedict with a side of smoked salmon. Keyleth ordered a milkshake and Eggs on Toast, adding on top of it a rasher or two of bacon and some delectable avocado.

By the end, though, she'd barely touched it - having eaten only one piece of bread and egg, some bacon and hardly any of the avocado.

Keyleth was the first to arrive - most probably due to the limited number of trains and because she had further to travel. I arrived just shy of the appointed time at 10. When I arrived, I had not quite expected the shock of dyed red hair to greet me. After all, in all her previous photos - both on Hinge and on Whatsapp - Keyleth had sported long blonde hair.

Still, she was keen to give me a hug, though I was quick to advise I wasn't much of a hugger. Or even a physical touch kinda gal. Yes, I'm more willing to accept it from a woman but it's not something I tend to do. And it's certainly not one of my key love languages.

Once I had sat down, we chatted idly about how our week had gone. After putting in our order, we began the painstaking process of learning a little more of the other. Keyleth learned I was an only child, whereas I learned she had a sister. Some of our family dynamics were talked about before we moved to more dangerous topics: like my favourite musical and whether or not I am actually a theatre kid (spoiler alert, I am not. Yes, I've been to four musicals in the last four months but those are baby numbers compared to the actual musical nerds out there. Or so I hope).

We also chatted about the weird role-playing experience unfolding on our messages, with Keyleth confirming the Goblin King was none other than David Bowie from Labyrinth.

Then, of course, we also talked a little about our dating experiences. Given I was asexual and she was demisexual, it seemed prudent for us to address the very big elephant in the room of what an actual relationship would be like. Both of us were a little uneasy about jumping immediately jumping into relationships as we required time to get to know the people we would be committing a significant portion of time with. Lust is certainly not a thing either of us experienced at first sight. And in order to catch feels, a strong emotional connection must be created first.

I, certainly, have not been in an actual relationship of significance with another. At least in the romantic sense. I do like to think I have many meaningful friendships with the people in my life though it's anyone's guess if they agree. More than likely, they find me egregious or too sardonic for their tastes (in fact, I recently had a nineteen-year-old university student at my work place call me epigrammatic!)

We also bonded over how difficult it was to date cisgender men!

But while the conversation was invigorating, our brunch date did slowly come to an end. Given the immediate surroundings didn't have any other interesting diversion, we paid for our meals and headed back to the local train station. A little unfortunate but sometimes that is how the cookie crumbles.

After all, it would be the height of rudeness to remain at a table for several hours afterwards when all our food was taken away.

Will there be another date with Keyleth? I'm not quite sure. Our conversations were pretty easy-going, flowing from one topic to another.

It was certainly better than the date I had with Tip Top.

As always, time will tell if anything will come of it, but I'm hopeful in obtaining a new friend if nothing romantic blossoms from the encounter. Of course, there is still Dikottir.

And while we haven't exactly had a sixth date/ meet-up, both of us will have gone to PAX in Melbourne by the time this blog post goes up. So, keep your eyes peeled for that riveting entry. Or not.

In the words of the founder of feminism himself, Rhysand, "It's your choice, Feyre darling."

As an aside, I can't say for sure if that's an actual quote from the book but it certainly feels like something he would say. On that note, I need to stop reading books like ACOTAR. I mean, it's no Fourth Wing, so I'm glad for that. But it's definitely not the height of fantasy literature. I was hoping for.

Anyways, THIS WAS ANOTHER EPISODE OF DATING 2.0! WILL A ROSE BE FINALLY AWARDED TO A SUITABLE SUITOR? YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL WE COME BACK FOR THE NEXT UPDATE!

And now, back to the weather!

[morporkian-cryptid]

Urgh, I had a perfect plan for the events of Hanafuda Part 3 to take place in autumn because the arcs' titles refer to spring summer and autumn; there should be an important scene taking place during Momijigari festival (autumn equivalent of Hanami) followed by Goemon visiting his ancestor's graves on the specific national shinto holiday for grave visiting...

And that goddamn holiday falls on September 23, while Momijigari takes place from the end of September to the beginning of December.

Fuck my life.

[croik]

I think I just need to stop listening to Red Valley until it's all the way out and someone can confirm for me that there's meaningful forward movement on the plot. It's doing exactly what I'd hoped it wouldn't, and even for 20 min trapped in my commute, I just can't bring myself to care about what's going on. Who cares about these people! S2 ended in the future already - I want to know what's happening to THEM, not catch-up on a bunch of characters that are long dead and unlikeable. Bleh. Insert clever joke about putting it to sleep wake me up when it's over ha ha so cheeky.

[idcallmyselfhuman]

i NEED the people who translate hsr achievements into english to know that i am fucking in love with them

[cto10121]

Clown OP: Shakespeare has tons of pop cultural references, homeboy was obsessed!1!!1!!1! 🤪

Shakespearean scholars trying to date literally any play: So based on this random reference to an earthquake, we believe this play was written in either 1590 when this earthquake happened OR in 1594/5 when that other earthquake happened OR it could have been written in the late 1580s when Shakespeare was parking horses OR it could be the early 1590s because some passages that computer analysis date to that time OR it could be a completely fictional earthquake that Shakespeare just invented for the purposes of the play hahahahahahahahahahaha kill me