shiroikabocha - Tumblr blog

[shiroikabocha]

I feel like indie video game devs are secretly conducting some sort of unethical mass social experiment to identify the exact most tedious and aggravating thing people will willingly watch a streamer play.

[shiroikabocha]

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

[shiroikabocha]

Thank you to @sleepnoises for making the original poll & for giving us the idea to to this :)

Sorry if we couldn’t get your favorite on here, we were limited to only 12 options (11 if you don’t include the “other” option).

[shiroikabocha]

you know, before i started watching star trek, i thought ppl were just saying it was gay bc they liked the idea of kirk and spock being a couple, but as i've been watching it, i have realized no, they really meant it. "why mr. spock... you almost make me believe in miracles." the city on the edge of tomorrow. "i know your affection for spock." spock being fucking ecstatic that jim is still alive in amok time and even smiling. kirk looking at spock like he holds the whole universe in his eyes when he's talking about the most boring shit. like it's not just kinda gay, it's like spock and kirk were written as an actual loving couple but, y'know, it was the 60s and they couldn't really do that on tv

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I'm learning so much about Brasil today.

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What exactly is going on with Taylor swift? Did she do something wacky or just release a shit album that's so bad it's funny?

okay i have done time as a swiftie and i now watch over those weirdos like im david attenborough so you’ve come to the right place.

ur correct about it being an album so bad its funny. but theres more. im very sorry but this will be long.

so basically since like 2016 she was in an apparently steady and normal long term relationship with a blond man called joe alwyn whose only character trait is knowing how to shut the fuck up (and i love him for that)

then in april 2023 it was announced that they broke up while she was on tour but bc the relationship had been uneventful and boring this whole time, the general vibe from everyone was “huh thats kinda sad, oh well”

i might be mixing up the timeline a little here but a couple weeks later there were some articles about how she’s now dating matty healy from the 1975. people were mostly just like “pfft its just tabloid shit it cant be true” and then at the next 1975 gig, marty pointed into the camera and said “this is for you, you know who you are, i love you” before playing a love song. THEN at the next taylor gig she did the exact same damn thing and the swifties hit the fan.

to make a very long fuckin story short, they dug up a bunch of dirt about how this dude is a nasty little racist misogynist rat and he needs to get away from their poor little innocent billionaire princess. some people get kinda heated about whether these accusations are true and tbh id rather eat glass than get into that shit myself

SO, swifties outnumber us all and raised absolute hell online while taylor brought this guy to all her concerts and let him perform with the opening acts. her publicist released some statements saying taylor knows what her fans are saying and she doesnt give a fuck. but also said they’re not super serious and are just having fun together.

during all this, theres a small group of swifties that have decided to break away and become very pro-marty and essentially pit him against aforementioned blond man joe alwyn. their general narrative is that because joe loves being quiet and doesnt really do Celebrity Things, that must mean he was ashamed of his relationship with taylor. this is where we get the beloved He Lets Her Bejeweled meme

this fannade narrative becomes more relevant in a bit

at some point during this relationship she releases the joe alwyn breakup song You’re Losing Me, which just describes some very standard long term relationship breakdown stuff. they have different life goals and they’re drifting apart and the communication is breaking down. she kinda wants him to do something to save it at the eleventh hour but that wouldnt be realistic. very sad oh well.

theres a small amount of kicking off from the fandom about he’s awful for this but only bc they’re addicted to the idea that their favourite billionaire is the worlds most tragic victim and honestly whats new

and here starts the very fucking weird trend of her publicist releasing statements that are very clearly deliberately backing up the weirdo fan theories. a lot of “taylor and matty are showing up for each other UNLIKE HER LAST RELATIONSHIP and he is proud of her UNLIKE JOE ALWYN” like..alright.

anyway ratty and taylor break up after about a month of publicly dating and she sings some sad songs and cries at her concerts but everyone mostly forgets about the whole thing.

about a month later travis kelce asks her out and they end up dating and the white women of america collectively cream. personally i dont get it because i dont know what sports are and the only travis im familiar with is the tractor from bob the builder but i digress. the 35 year old deadbedroom swifties are going CRAZY. they’re saying these two are gonna get married and have ten kids and global superstar taylor swift can finally achieve the only real success for a woman: marriage and motherhood. because football man is the only Real Man she has been with due to the fact that he is tall and wide and bearded.

its severely tragic and vicarious

once again the focus does not remain on the couple. they’re turning on poor puppydog joe alwyn again. this time he’s evil not only for being “ashamed” of her but also for wasting her time by not marrying and impregnating her, because as we have established, thats the only point to life as a woman. how dare he waste all that time locking her away in the six mansions that she owns.

and her publicist does the same shit as before with the “he supports her and shows up for her UNLIKE JOE” bullshit. all of these people are over 30 and have never experienced a real problem.

this creates a cycle that is honestly kind of concerning, where the fans invent a strange theory, the publicist backs it up, the swifties add to the theory, the publicist back up the new additions, and so on. taylor continues dating travis and they go to each others concerts/games and act like a relatively normal honeymoon phase couple. the narrative has massively broken away from the reality.

so this continues, people hyping up travis and hating joe. at this point i want to note that taylor and her team have spent a lot of years crying about how the nasty misogynistic media only ever cares about her relationship drama and ignores her art because they hate powerful women or something. the irony is that just about every bit of publicity she’s done over the last year+ has been directly linked to whatever breakup or boyfriend she’s going through currently. they’re definitely not hiding that this is the PR direction they’re going with.

so, with the weird fan rumours continuing to reinforce themselves, the swifties become very confident that their imaginations are telling the truth. they stalk joe alwyns social media presence, of which there is very little. but if you go out looking for mess you never come back empty handed. they find that he has been around women. because he is an actor. and some other actors are women. anyway they fully believe this is proof that he cheated, and they launch harassment campaigns against these relatively small actors, who end up having to private their accounts. then the swifties find another woman to harass for being “the other woman”. it goes on.

then the abuse and domestic violence accusations against joe alwyn are created. not from taylor or anyone close to the situation. only from the fans. her PR team have at least stopped reinforcing the fan theories at this point, but the ball is already rolling.

when she announces her new album, the swifties ERUPT with joy that finally she is going to end joe alwyn, the man who im pretty sure has just been chilling in his house this whole time. the harassment of anyone and everyone deemed in any way guilty continues tenfold. they are openly tweeting about finding him in london and physically attacking and/or killing him (he’s not a huge celebrity and is often just hanging around alone with no security team or anything. im sure these threats arent serious but they feel kinda more dangerous when the target essentially just hangs around as a private citizen)

the album promo is pretty much just.. “hey i dated this dude and he made me sooooo sad isnt that interesting, swifties?” over and over again. each new post brings a bigger wave of joe harassment. they’re champing at the bit for taylor to tell them all the many ways he hurt her so dreadfully.

then the album leaks and its all about matty healy, which is very funny on the dismayed swiftie-violence front but also just..terrible in that she used the harassment of joe as an album promo tactic when the album barely mentions him. the only thing she really says about him is that he suffers from depression and it made their relationship difficult.

..and yeah, the album is about how she’s been obsessed with marty for over ten years and she fantasised about him while in her long term relationship, and theres maybe some overlap of the two relationships. the irony. all the “this man hurt me so much!!!”-type lyrics that were released to promote the album were actually about matty, not joe. a lot of the swifties are continuing to double down on hating joe bc they cant accept that the matty relationship even happened. theres a song about how much she hates her fans for hating her relationship with rarty. its called but daddy i love him. its a whole embarrassing mess for everyone involved, including me for typing all this out.

and after all that most of the songs fuckin suck

[shiroikabocha]

I just think that it'd be funny if, after all this speculation about how horrible Crowley's Fall was and his drunken rambling of "a million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulfur", it turned out he just had the longest most boring elevator ride ever down to basement Hell and then stepped in a very small puddle of warm sludge of questionable origin when the doors opened.

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it’s like they designed JFK airport’s international arrivals hall to make me ask myself, Why did I come back

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I got actual work done this weekend but more importantly I drew PAM WHO DEATH FORGOT

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Strange fact: In 1972 Australia's Ministry of Health was renamed the Ministry of Helth in a wider attempt by the government to reform English spelling to be simpler.

It did not take, and was dropped 3 years later.

[shiroikabocha]

OH MY GOD, TARE IS REAL

I CAN GIVE THE MACHINE MY BOTTLES AND IT GIVES ME €.15

NOW I CAN BE REAL HOBOCOP

[shiroikabocha]

While in Amsterdam, I’ve heard people using the term “colleague” more than I’m used to. Like the person checking tickets at the Rijksmuseum saying “my colleague inside the doors can check your coat for you”

I like it! Warmer than “coworker” but not so personal as “friend,” respectful without being deferential. Fills the same niche as “comrade” without the same political connotations. I’m gonna use it more.

After all, are we not, every one of us, esteemed colleagues in this grand scholarly pursuit we call life?

[shiroikabocha]

is a man not entitled to the sweat dripping down his own balls?

[shiroikabocha]

There should be a red light district but for cat cafes instead of brothels. Cats sit in the windows. You can look at them or play laser-pointer with them for free, and if you pay you can go inside and pet them.

Could call it the Red Dot District.

[shiroikabocha]

When it comes to John, I have zero interest in condemning him. First of all, it's boring. You mean destroying the world and lying to your friends about it is bad? Shocking. Groundbreaking character work.

Second of all, I'm just not all that comfortable with condemnation in general, not when it comes to whole-ass people. Actions, for sure. I am ready to wholeheartedly condemn pretty much every decision this man has ever made, but I'm only comfortable doing that with a side of compassion for the man himself. Tamsyn said once in an interview that some of the discussion she's seen about Harrow is unintentionally very cruel to people with mental illnesses, and I feel similarly seeing a lot of the discussion around John. If I'm going to try to figure out where he's coming from, why he did the things he did, and what he thought he was accomplishing by doing them, I'm not at all interested in coming at those questions with contempt or disgust.

To me, the main question when it comes to John is: What do you do when you feel that you're unforgivable? That you've fucked up so completely no one will ever love you again, unless you lie and trick them into it? How do you deal with shame? And while part of the answer is definitely "Holy shit, not like that," what I'm most interested in is: what should he have done instead? At what points in his narrative could he have changed his course? And at what point, if ever, did he become right about it being impossible for him to dial it back and turn around?

[shiroikabocha]

im just crying while scrolling through the mfa's digitized 18th century drawings which include a really soft and loving drawing of a baby snoozing thats titled "the artist's daughter" thats just radiating love, and also some very weird German birth certificates from a town in Pennsylvania that a man in 1771 painted mermaids and flowers and lions on

there's just something about these acts of love through art, man... they're really getting me tonight.

[shiroikabocha]

UPDATE: they sell coffee at the bar! Fascinating!

things I’m learning about Amsterdam on this here honeymoon: the stores with the green cross on them do NOT sell weed, those are normal pharmacies. The weed is sold in the stores that say “coffee shop.” still not sure where they sell the coffee.