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"Cuomo conceded defeat late Tuesday night and said he called to congratulate Mamdani." As my friend Bernie Sanders says, "They've got the money, but we've got the people." Congrats to @zohrankmamdani.

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huh !

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misstwisted on instagram

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I know that some British people take umbrage at Americans calling the Great British Bake Off relaxing, but it's just because GBBO is such a different kind of stressful from American baking shows.

American baking shows will be called something like "Cupcake Knife Fight", there's horror movie lighting everywhere and dramatic stings every 5 seconds. All of the contestants are shit talking each other and fist fighting over the one single deep fryer provided by production. It will show the judges all whispering to each other at their super villain table overlooking the whole kitchen, and one will be like, "Oh my god. Everyone look at Brenda right now. She's straight tanking it." And it will cut to Brenda, who is running around covered in flour and crying and also bleeding for some reason. Then you get a clip from an interview with one of the contestants, and they're like, "I really need to win this. Without this award money, I'm gonna need to close my restaurant, sell my dad, and live out of my car. AGAIN." Then the giant digital doomsday clock overhead lets out a horrid klaxon, the judges tell half of them that their cupcakes taste disgusting, and one of them gets eliminated and sent to walk down the dramatically-lit shame hallway never to be seen again.

Meanwhile GBBO is in a lovely, brightly colored tent, there are delightful and friendly hosts/jesters there to keep everyone entertained, and all of the B Roll is of like... a bumblebee going into a flower, or a lamb running in a field. And yes, there will be moments where someone will mess up their timing or something, and they'll be looking at their bake through the oven door like, "oh gosh I don't think this will rise in time!" Then they stand up to find Paul Hollywood directly behind them ominously. His creepy whitewalker eyes will glow white, and he'll say something like "the 12th of June. 2035. Drowning." And his eyes will go back to normal and he'll walk away. Then the baker gives a playful grimace to the camera and says "that didnt sound great, did it?". Cut to a sweet looking older woman sipping tea on a stool and she says "oo I do hope that Prue enjoys the taste of my sugary, sticky baps!". Then, at the end, someone gets a gold star for doing good, and the loser of the episode gets in the middle of a giant group hug. You see all of them at the end of the series at a giant carnival with their families and the post credits informs you that all of the contestants have become a Partridge Family-style traveling band and stayed friends forever.

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CALL 1-800 TOLL-FREE!!

Youtube link!: (x)

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i don’t know how to explain to you people that no matter what a country’s government is like i do not and will not support the US indiscriminately bombing that country’s civilians and i don’t know why that’s a controversial take tbh

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every time i go outside i am astounded by the power of sun and air

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You know what, enough time has passed and I've given media reviews/reccs in the past, so I'm gonna recommend Pixar's Win or Lose as seriously worth a watch.

I came into the show with zero expectations a few months ago and was pleasantly blown away by the writing, art direction, and character dramas.

Win or Lose is an original drama mini-series created by Pixar that follows a co-ed middle school softball team and the week leading up to a big championship game. Each episode picks one character, either a kid or an adult, and focuses on their perspective/storyline during that week. So in the first episode, we notice a lot of weird mysteries or threads in the background (Why is this character crying uncontrollably? Why are these two fighting?). As the show progresses, we get to see each character's sides of the story and how they interconnect with and affect each other. It's very, very well written and well crafted.

Each episode also tackles a pretty mature and at times distressing theme about growing up and parenting, similar to Inside Out. Here's a one sentence synopsis of each episode's general conflict and theme to give you an idea. Spoilers ahead:

Laurie, who's terrible at softball, desperately wants to impress her father, the team coach, but is dragged down by anxiety, visualized by a growing blob that whispers intrusive thoughts.

A geeky, middle-aged middle school teacher tries to get over a break-up with online dating.

Rochelle, who's the eldest "forced-to-grow-up-too-fast" daughter of a struggling, social media-obsessed single mother, must raise money on her own to pay for her team fee, falling into dangerous situations with older teens.

Following the perspective of the single mother during the events of episode three, we see her side of the story and the complicated ways she works to fend off judgmental parents and support her daughter.

An imaginative but lonely little brother of a softball player becomes friends with a group of teenage outcasts, for better and for worse.

A boy and a girl on the softball team begin dating, but undergo relationship troubles when the boy's insecurities about coolness, honesty, and masculinity cause him to lash out.

Kai, a Black, trans-coded girl on the team, must balance her self-confidence and love for softball while appeasing her sports-loving father, who pressures her to always be her best.

The culmination and climaxes of each episode's arcs and conflicts collide in the big championship game, with a main focus on the team coach/father from the first episode, who's ready to burst from the stress and tension of an impending divorce, his anxious daughter, the game, and mid-life feelings of worthlessness.

Each episode also features a creative way of externalizing and visualizing emotions, concepts, or mindsets like anxiety, e-dating, and pride. Rochelle transforms into a tall business woman with shoulder pads when she goes into money-making-mode. Gravity flips and disappears when she feels like she's losing control of her life. Some episodes even feature completely different animation styles. As a result, each storyline is presented through an unreliable and exaggerated perspective that prioritizes the protagonist and skews reality, often shown through the eyes of a child.

These screenshots really don't do the animation justice, you need to see it in motion to get the appeal. The dialogue is snappy and fun too, and the characters are immediately charismatic and likable. Here's a clip from the first episode.

The two biggest controversies this show had were 1. its art style and 2. the censorship.

The art style was ridiculed and criticized online for looking "grub-hub commercial-ish," which has been said about previous Pixar movies as well (Luca and Turning Red). The characters are extremely cartoony, with sometimes weirdly exaggerated proportions. And admittedly, some of the designs are not it (the noseless barista...). But I think a lot of people and artists will agree that even if the art direction looks strange to you, it grows on you quickly. Pixar knows how to animate and they know how to work with their own models. Plus, given the limitations and labor of a 7-episode show, it makes sense that things had to be simplified. With the gorgeous lighting, textures, and colors, the show's style really reminded me of stop-motion or Nintendo games. It's just fun.

Secondly is the report that Disney made Pixar censor and re-write Kai's episode, which was originally supposed to be an explicit exploration of her trans identity as a young girl and an athlete. The animatic of the original version of the episode was leaked online. The news and decision is extremely disappointing, worsens the final show, and really reveals how careless and conservative Disney is about representation. But if you watch the actual episode, you'll notice all the ways the crew tried to circumvent Disney and maintain Kai's trans identity through coding and nods to gender dysphoria/guilt/expression/affirmation/euphoria. (Her storyline made me cry too.)

I don't want to come across like I'm defending the censorship. An episode dedicated to a POC father-daughter relationship as they navigate Kai coming out as trans while playing sports on Disney+ would have been so powerful and important for family audiences. And they try to supplant the trans storyline with a clumsy softball vs. baseball edit. But I've seen talk about how this storyline was completely erased or how this show is straight up transphobic, and that's just not true. The crew did their best with a truly shitty situation.

If you like shows like Craig of the Creek or Bluey or Steven Universe, you'll probably like this one too.

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"born in the wrong era" but there's no particular time period i'd rather be living in, I'm just pissed af at having to live through the global resurgence of fascism

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Artwork and CRT display

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i get back from my lil me day touching grass (sand), open my phone and the first thing i see is the US fucking bombing iran and the media manufacturing consent to invade the middle east like its 2003 again holy fuck im so tired