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finally, a way too long and yet not exhaustive list of my favourite video essays:

tell her I'm sorry

the ouroboros of grief: a video essay

ocean waves - studio ghibli's (accidental) queer film

the last unicorn: a love letter to humanity

sesame street created the perfect secular grieving ritual

penda's fen: the greatest movie you've (probably) never seen

this wikipedia article hides a sorrowful secret

understanding snapewives: religion, fandom, sociology & erotica

tiktok gave me autism: the politics of self diagnosis

studio ghibli's apocalypse and the atomic bomb

the blind eternities | a void between planes

bo burnham vs. jeff bezos

we need to talk about call me by your name

why the hell do I own a copy of the fountainhead?

dead doesn't mean gone - a haunting of bly manor video essay

you can't save the galaxy in a day

in search of a flat earth

my neighbour totoro: what's real?

a modern greek tragedy: kentucky route zero

legacy, chronicle & every other reimagining of the craft

the art of religious interpretation (midnight mass vs god's not dead)

the tragedy of the monster

the molting house | a guided tour of duskmourn

control, anatomy and the legacy of the haunted house

control, lovecraft in the modern day

outsiders: how to adapt lovecraft in the 21st century

how a forest digests you

video games, the forest, and the things that live inside them

my transformers midlife crisis

an unhinged deep dive into wicked's biggest pothole

the wasteland of jordan peterson

majora's mask retrospective

breaking down true womanhood & black girlhood in media

chances to change - a happy death day video essay

the villain of edith finch

saurian cinema: capitalism killed the dinosaurs (and we're next)

dark souls 3 is thinking of ending things

midnight mass: christianity and trauma

why knights of the old republic 2 is beautiful; an analysed playthrough

stranger things & the meaning of life

every zelda is the darkest zelda

madness, memory, mill & discard

the autistic horror of don't hug me I'm scared

I wish I could (and don't) hate buffy season 6

transition regret & the fascism of endings

the strangest pair in nature

what is no-face?

the dolphin house

searching for god in film

a desperate deconstruction of stephen king's it

everyone's cheating at chess (allegedly)

I saw the tv glow, the matrix, and trans gnostic stories (a video essay)

playing stardew valley made me question everything I've ever loved

myhouse.wad - inside doom's most terrifying mod

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My name is Nour, I’m 18 years old. I once dreamed of becoming a doctor—to help people, to heal, to bring hope. I studied hard and believed that education was my way out😭.

But the war took everything.💔

In a single moment, my home was destroyed. Everything I loved—my books, my memories, my dreams—was buried under rubble.😭😭💔💔

Now, I live with my family in a torn tent. It doesn’t protect us from the cold or the burning heat. We have no food, no clean water, no safety—nothing.😭😭💔💔

Every night we sleep not knowing what tomorrow will bring: a chance at life… or more pain.🍉🍉

My mother is elderly and needs care. I used to dream of helping others, but today I can’t even help my own family.💔🍉

I’m reaching out to every kind heart reading this: please, help us. Any amount, any support, means the world.🙏🙏💔🍉

Your kindness could help us survive… and maybe, one day, I’ll return to school and chase my dream again.❤️

link gofandme

To donate or contact: [Insert your donation link or contact info here

Be our voice in a world that’s forgotten us. Be the light in our darkness.❤️

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ⓘ Tip You can skip part of the day by taking a nap.

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i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping

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I know for a fact that this has been posted elsewhere on Tumblr, but I wanted to share this:

This is a document ful of resources about things you can do politically that are not voting or going to protests. As a disabled person who struggles at protests, this is incredibly valuable. It has tons of resources about mutual aid, political education, migrant justice, disability justice, and much much more.

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Reading the new checks that might come in due to the Online Safety Act in the UK and this is actually bullshit

[Image Transcript:

And how will I prove my age?

There’s a number of methods a site or app might use to ask you to confirm your age. They might do this check themselves or use another company to do the check. These methods include:

Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age. 

Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.

Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.

Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.

Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your age.  

Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18. 

Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours.

End Transcript.]

Not only is this such a fucking breach of privacy, but this is going to hurt adults in vulnerable and abusive situations. Some adults don’t have bank accounts or credit cards or even a fucking phone. I’m one of them. I could not give half of this information even if I wanted to. What the fuck is this. Fuck the UK government. This isn’t going to protect kids, this is just going to hurt adults, and I know full well when they say “sites that allow pornography” they’re going to be going after sites that have huge amounts of queer content, like tumblr and Ao3. Queer kids are gonna lose their fucking communities because of this shit. Abuse victims are going to lose online support systems because of this.

I’m genuinely fucked off about this, and worried about whether I’m going to lose every single one of my online friends. Anyone in the UK, please email your MP and sign this petition. It needs to reach 100k signatures to pass through Parliament.

I’m only hoping the backlash will be big enough for them to stop implementing these measures.

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AND ANOTHER THING

(sorry)

idk how familiar you are with asian dramas/asian languages but can we pls talk about the honorifics because hhhhh it's so so so important in the show

joowon addresses dongsik with the honorific -ssi showing deference and distance, and it's also based on age; dongsik and jaeyi, jihwa, jeongje, and jihoon do without that, because they grew up together and are very close, so you get the -ya, -ah, and often the diminutive, cutie -ie as they speak to each other to show closeness

so when, eventually, dongsik calls joowon by his name instead of his title (inspector), and calls him joowon-ah, it's narratively significant because their relationship to each other has changed (and I can't wait for you to get to that part!)

it's one of my favourite things about japanese/korean media, the use of the various honorifics to illustrate the relationship people have to each other and how they change over time to show degrees of intimacy.

aurghhhhhhh shut up.... 😭😭😭😭 no thank u so so much for this though..... truly the worst part of foreign media is me knowing that i'm missing out on so so so many subtleties like that!!!

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In an alternate universe, where stories weave themselves into the winds and moonlight whispers secrets to the stars, something extraordinary is about to unfold! Join our fan fiction writers from different corners of the world as they craft their stories. Each writer brings their own magic, and together, they set out to rewrite the destiny of Gaon and Yohan. These aren’t just stories—these are love letters to the characters they adore. Join our storytellers as they weave fierce battles of "what if," epic sagas and true love’s first kiss.

Presenting this year’s TDJ writing Collaboration with the theme - Folklore/Fairytales. Writers will be anonymous and unveiled after the celebration (August 22nd!)

July 3rd: Fan art!

July 4th: The bough bends but does not break

"My parents used to read me stories from this book when I was young."

"The book must mean a lot to you." Elijah says, curious to know more but too proud to ask for more information. Gaon is more than happy to swallow his pride for Elijah. And it is not only Elijah who is curious about the book.

Gaon sees a long, slender hand run a finger through the hardcover and a chill settles behind him. He pointedly does not flinch though he cannot control the involuntary shiver.

Gaon and the reflection of reality in fairytales: a study of finding the truth and standing up for yourself

July 10th: Stories Like These

Ga on is a lonely Prince, keeping the court of his slaughtered parents. One autumn evening, a travelling band of poets and performers call and are welcomed through the castle gates. Their leader, an unusually gifted bard, proceeds to charm everyone with his words but it seems there is more to his stories than just the passing of a dark night.

Very loosely based on tales from the 1st and 4th branch of the Mabinogion, Medieval Welsh tales of magic, family and bloodshed

July 17th: Yo Han vs perchtenlauf

Ga on comes to europe after Elijah plans a trip to the Austrian alps. They are being domestic and figuring themselves out during a sleigh ride, a hearty dinner…and during a surprise encounter with some devils

July 18th: And Please, Don’t Drive Me Blind

Gaon is blindsided when his childhood best friend, Soohyun, is ripped out of his life without warning by an arranged marriage. Despite their promises to write to each other, Soohyun goes radio silent. Rumors abound around her mysterious groom, a reclusive Duke whose wives throughout the years have all gone missing under suspicious circumstances. Impulsive and reckless, Gaon leaves his current life behind, vowing to find Soohyun and save her from her unknown fate no matter the cost.

But Gaon may be in over his head.

Like a moth to the flame, Gaon cannot seem to stop himself from becoming inexplicably drawn in by the dark and mysterious Duke. Is the Duke truly the cold-hearted killer of rumors, or is there more to him than it seems?

Gaon quickly becomes entangled in a complex web of deceit, tragedy, murder, and a family curse.

The things of myths and legends are very real. And ghosts are knocking at the door.

July 24th: The Tale of Kang Yohan

Kang Yohan is a fae. His plan for revenge has been in process for a very long time, but his motivations change when he meets Kim Gaon and tries to bring him into his world.

July 31st: The Heart to Free Me

A story of an outcast who ends up in the clutches of a beast - Which one between the two of them turns out to be the devil in disguise? After all, what is the difference between a man and a monster?

August 1st: The Emperor and the Moon

Gaon took what belonged to Yohan, in order to stop him from crossing the point of no return. And that resulted in their separation for thousands of years to come until penance is done. Loosely based on two different stories. A Chinese myth about Chang Er who floated to the moon. And a historical figure who was the first emperor of China.

August 7th: Can The Nightingale Speak?

“When death finds you, may it find you alive."

The King silences, hands an incessant, unforgiving sword upon tongues. He watches in silence.

When Kim Gaon enters the court, fresh-faced and eyes lit with rebellion, a nightingale dips from her golden perch to seek his cage instead.

August 8th: The Fox Brother

Based on a Korean fairytale, the Saltseller and the Fox. Kim Ga On is a fox that stole the skull of Kang Yohan's older brother in order to kill the nobleman who stole the land of the peasants who used to feed him. Things get complicated when Kang Yohan binds him and decides to use his powers in his revenge quest.

August 14th: The Prince and the Frog

As prince Kang Yohan ventures out into the world in search of purpose and a cure for his loneliness, he stumbles upon an unlikely companion. A series of fateful events leads them on an adventure full of surprises.

August 22nd: A Songbird’s Proximity to Death

For the young emperor kim gaon, death and freedom - intertwined and inseparable - have never been strangers. The former has confined him, limited him, grounded him. The latter he finds in the empire's loveliest songbird: the nightingale, kang yohan.

We hope you can join us on this journey! Details to follow☺️

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If you get a star ⭐️ in your inbox. It means your moot appreciates you, and your efforts in the community. Send this to 10 mutuals to continue the love!

omg thank you !!! i'm so honoured by this

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Hi everyone and welcome to the Gahan Fairytale collaboration (which I will now call The Devil Judge Folklore Creators Fest!)

Tagging people that I know have confirmed they are participating. Is there anyone else I am missing? (I have tagged many of you in discord so you can disregard this message if you’ve read it there!) If not, looking forward to seeing everyone’s creations!

Does anyone have any initial questions before I break down how the next month will go? It looks like we have about 17 - 18 collaborators so the schedule will be two to three creators uploading their fic a week. It’s awesome because it will align with the rewatch parties as well!

Ideally, we’ll want to begin posting stories from July 3rd so I’m hoping everyone will be finished BUT if not, as long as I know in advance, I can tweak the schedule to give them a later posting day.

Once I hear more from everyone, I’m thinking :

- Weekly Check-ins (just to make sure everyone is in a good place)

- An “official” schedule next week

- Next week, I’ll also DM each of you to find out what your story is about (just a general idea along with any possible triggers that will need to be tagged. We’ll call them out in the Collection Info section as well

- A poll on whether you all would be cool if we post our stories anonymously to start, with a big reveal of all authors at the end (it will be a fun guessing game as well! And a fun way to interact with stories).

Writers:

@clawbehavior @technitango @bellarkeandclintashaandsuch @deathandnonexistentialdread @fuschsiaflowerrising @gayautisticraccoon @lelephantsnail @maddie-moonshiiine @some-call-me-menace @stars-after-dark @yohanmoon @absolutesuffering @jehan-d-art @batzmaru65 @mayykit

Art:

@tenderlywicked

Hoping I’m not missing anyone…

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about some of the people I interact with. I have a coworker who I am pretty sure is a MAGA type, and she is also a lovely woman who is dreadfully overworked and so good at connecting to patients when they call. I can see the conflict on her face when she talks to me, a gigantic tranny dork who speaks Spanish and affirms the LGBT community, but can also talk to her about her cows and knows about guns and stuff. I can see the fear in the eyes of my former Young Men’s leader when he misgenders me and realizes that I’m not an ideology but a person he has known for a long time. I can see the way my extended family stop and stutter over political discussions when they realize they are talking about me. And I don’t know why but lately it’s just made me think about my neighbor as a kid.

When we moved to Arizona, we moved next door to a lovely retired couple - John and Lucy. John was a veteran of WWII, he had an M.D. and a Ph.D. in radiology, and he LOVED us to pieces. His wife, Lucy, was a sharp and gifted woman - well spoken, very observant, and VERY clever. I just know that she used that cleverness as a mom to great effect, because with my and my siblings she always managed to find a way to send us home with candy and treats for a week despite my dad’s protests. We loved them, growing up, and even though they have long-since passed away I love them still, and I love what I learned from them.

John was, as stated, a WWII veteran. He was enlisted as a rifleman, and later as a front line medic, starting at Point Du Hoc and moving inwards to France and towards the Rhine. He let me do a report on him in 6th grade where he shared war stories with me he had kept to himself his whole life - he said it was out of respect for his friends who didn’t get to come home and tell their stories.

He said he told me because he knew I could respect the memories of his friends.

He showed me his collection of medals, and which he’d kept hidden away in a sock in his attic because he’d feel an immense grief any time he saw them. He had wanted to be a doctor his whole life, prior to being drafted he was studying medicine and had taken the Hippocratic oath to Do No Harm. He saw his medals as a reminder that he had Done Harm.

After telling me his stories he was able to convince himself that while he had Done Harm, it was only because his only other alternative was, to him, cowardice. He chose to be brave even if it meant acting against his Oath because he felt that if he didn’t do it someone else would have to go in his place and he would be responsible for the harm that befell them. I don’t think that’s true, but for him it was and that was something no being on earth could have ever dissuaded him from believing.

He shared wild stories - melee combat on the beach, clearing artillery bunkers, receiving a Purple Heart for being injured in hand-to-hand combat with a Wehrmacht rifleman he said he felt pity for because they were the same age and he had to imagine the man he was fighting had been drafted just like him.

He shared how he was awarded a Silver Star for charging a machine gun nest, but shared that he was most proud of not killing anyone in the process. He threw a grenade with the pin still in it and when the machine gunners jumped to avoid being blown up they were killed by someone else so he didn’t have to do it. He took the machine gun and shot the other machine gun in that French field to pieces so he didn’t have to kill the people operating it. He said they were giving out Silver Stars like candy but I knew he was being modest.

He told me about being redesignated as a medic, about how he crawled for about 500 yards on his belly to rescue an injured tank driver, then threw him over his back and crawled the same 500 yards back (1000 yards total) to treat his injuries. He said he met the man in an Army hospital in England after his spine was broken by a high explosive panzer shell was fired through a hollowed out French farmhouse and landed about 20 feet away from him.

He told me about all the people he helped and saved as a medic, he told me about his work in radiology and research after the war. He showed me a hallway that was quite literally wallpapered with academic honors he’d earned as a researcher. He told me about how his first Fourth of July back was a horror show for him because fireworks and German artillery make very similar sounds. He told me about how he woke up in a cold sweat well over half a century later hearing the screams of German artillery men being burned alive with flamethrowers, or hearing his own voice apologizing to the young German soldier he stabbed in the heart at Point Du Hoc.

He told me that when he was asked to present at a medical conference in Germany 25 years after the war ended that he was so scared he couldn’t step off the plane, and that his wife had to hold his hand and lead/pull him with her. He said he was not scared because he was worried about being triggered, but because he knew that someone somewhere outside of that plane had the course of their life irreparably altered by his military service. That to someone out there he was the cause of immense suffering and harm. That some unwitting waiter could be the son of the Nazi Officer he stabbed in the heart with a 12-inch hunting knife. That some woman asking questions in the audience would be the daughter or widow of a man he sent to judgement with a .30-06. He was scared that they would hate him.

He knew what the Nazi’s had done, he knew better than anyone I’d ever met. He’d watched the documentaries, he’s seen the PoWs returning from camps, he’d seen the civilians massacred and tortured by their regime, but he also knew that among the monsters were people like him - idealistic 20-somethings who only wanted to make the world better and were ripped away from that life by the Nazi war machine. And he spent his whole life mourning the loss of innocence and peace that was forced on so many people by such a corrupt power.

To be honest I don’t know if I could do that, but he could. He told me he could still feel the dead and lost with him, both when he slept and when he woke. He told me he thought he’d go to his grave never having told a word of this to anyone. That the stories of him and his friends and allies would disappear silently with him and those like him. That he had wanted that until he realized that he didn’t have to sell out to share the stories - that he could give the stories away for free to someone who would love the people in them, and not just the content of them. He didn’t want his stories to be used as Patriotic Pornography by some TV network or magazine. He wanted the people he knew to be respected, he wanted their memories to be honored and loved, and he entrusted me, a 12-year-old “boy” to do that.

He told me for years afterwards that after telling me these stories that he slept better than he ever had. That by sharing the stories with someone who could hear Him over the din of victory and glory and honor and revisionistic history. Someone who could see the man in the story and not just see the plot of a battle being won. He wanted to be human, and he wanted the people he saw die to be human too - everyone, not just the people on his side. He wanted someone to see and to know the anguish of having to look someone in the eye as heartblood muddies the ground beneath them and hope that they understand that this was not an act of love or hatred but an act of desperation. To hope that you had just taken out One Of The Bad Ones instead of a medical student or a poet who had been drafted. He wanted me to see how hard he had worked since then to build a world without scarcity, to build a world of peace. He wanted me to know SO badly that the cost of violence, any violence, even necessary violence, is always ALWAYS paid by both parties involved.

I think about the rise of the new right wing - the new Nazi movement’s traction in politics, and I feel sad and scared - the world that Johnathan J Yobaggy, my neighbor, my friend, and my hero, worked SO hard to build is being done away with by people who do not understand the cost of the path they are entering. I can see brief moments of recognition in the eyes of some of the people I mentioned - The former young men’s president who immediately regrets misgendering me and hen he makes eye contact with me and sees Me staring back at him and not a faceless “ideology.” I can hear it in the voice of my uncle who quietly comes up to me to apologize for some homophobic comment he made absentmindedly. I can see it in the eyes of racists and sexists being interviewed on TV when they realize that they didn’t vote for a concept, they voted for a real thing. And honestly, I have mixed emotions about it. Because while I understand frustration with the status quo, the importance of basic human needs like affordable good and rent, and I know the fear that comes with feeling powerless, I also can’t help but grieve the endless wheel of history bringing us back to this God Damned Fucking Place again. I hope we can avoid this fate, not just for our sake but for the sake of everyone who has ever tried to make the world safer. For everyone who has ever tried to make up for human nature, for everyone who has ever placed themselves on the offering plate to protect others from the cruelty they know lies just under the surface of mankind’s tenuous grip on progress. I want SO badly for there to be a solution to this, for the people who idolize the Nazi party and the impact of fascism to see that the price of this path is paid in more than just blood but in soul. That they’re allowing themselves to be devoured too. I want for the centrists and the fence sitters and the idealists who want to “change it from the inside” to see how dangerous our politics have become. I want them to see that they’re losing the things that make them great in exchange for a security blanket that’s now become far far far too small to ever work for them again.

Safety found in the past is already gone, and safety found in the future is only as real as a daydream. That any ideology that promises that by “joining us now we’ll make things rough so we can make things safe in a decade” is a promise made by those who will not have to fight the battles they send you to.

I don’t know if America was ever really great, but as long as John was alive it felt great to me. There is no ideology that can replace a neighbor. No tax plan that can replace a friend. No grocery bill that can replace community and connection. No amount of budget cuts that can replace kindness. No amount of suffering from people I hate that will ever make more love. I don’t know how to make America great, but I know how to make my America great and it is not by selling out integrity and compassion and community and fucking humanity to make eggs and gas cheaper. It is by seeing and hearing the people around me. I’m not Mormon anymore, but I still know the value of mourning with those that mourn and comforting those that stand in need of comfort. I’m not Christian anymore but I still have Eyes That Can See and Ears That Can Hear. I want to make this all stop but I can’t stop the collective power of tens of millions of people so instead I listen to my MAGA coworker tell me about how sick her kid was last week. I make jokes with my Young Men’s leader. I hug my uncle. I let them see me fully, as a human and not an ideology. As a woman and not the concept of gender. As a whole person and not someone who can be easily summarized or boiled down into something short and quippy. And I let them know I can see them fully too, and I can see all their humanity as easily as they can see mine. I just have to hope that this works - that enough people can See and Hear the people in their lives who matter to them to bring them out of their personal world of forms and into the real world.

I am probably, honestly, just spiraling a little bit. I took my ADHD meds today and in addition to helping me focus they make me a little anxious so I doubt things are as bad right now as they seem. But just in case there’s any truth to the way things seem to be going, remember, and I mean this seriously: Be kinder to each other, be gayer, and read more Terry Pratchett.

And for the love of god day hello to your neighbor.

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going on pinterest and commenting “hmm… i find this really.. pinteresting…!” on every single post i see

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"I miss 2D animation, 3D is so lifeless!"

No, no - from an avid and avowed lifelong 2D animation lover - what you miss is stylization.

Something animated to be "hyperrealist" isn't appealing to me anymore because it all starts to look very... samey. It'll age.

But if you have a proper sense of your style...

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EVERYONE(!) I’m blazing this post because at this pace we might barely hit 1,000,000 signatures—or just fall short. PLEASE reblog this post, no matter where you are from, so we can reach as many EU citizens as possible and end this horrible practice!

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Hiya TDJ friends!!!

After the success of the collaborative AO3 fic last year, we’re writing again!!! This time, the theme will be Fairytales/Folklore!

Here's how it works: each person will write a Gahan AU based on any Fairytale/folktale of their choosing!

We are aiming to have the stories posted for the fourth anniversary of The Devil Judge! This will coincide with the rewatch parties we have planned to celebrate the fourth anniversary!!

If you are interested in joining, let us know!!!

We also have an 18+ discord that will be used for some planning and for the rewatch parties but we will communicate on tumblr as well (if discord is not your thing but you’re interested in writing).

We hope you can join us!!! Please let us know by June 3rd If you’re interested in joining! (To give amble time for writers to write and also plan the layout). More info to come once we have all participants confirmed!

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sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four