#@Transactional

[mewvore]

Sometimes you need to read something twice to get it. You might need to watch a movie three times to understand it. You might have to have that album on repeat for a week until the lyrics make any sense. You're allowed to engage with it and can keep engaging with it until it means something to you. People will see a painting at a museum and laugh about not getting what the big deal is but like you can come back, you can see it at another time, and maybe that next time it'll be different for you. I'm of the belief the "media literacy crisis" would solve itself if more people just sat down and did it again. Watched, read, played, listened, etc like I don't think people are getting more ignorant necessarily I just think we're not glorifying personally replaying things nearly as much as we should be.

[probablybadrpgideas]

Real Reasons Dragons Hoard Gold

Tax evasion scheme

There are no other options

The king's entire army is unable to stop this dragon from taking all the gold

And then the taxman comes along

"Oh no, I would tell you my assets, but they're all in the lair of a dragon. Guess you'll have to mark me as having no money and deserving of a significant tax cut!"

Then the taxman leaves, and what happens?

The King finds a bunch of adventurers and tells them to fight the dragon

And suddenly the dragon- who need i remind is superintelligent, an archmage, strong enough to tear a giant in half and took down an entire nation's military not last month?

"Oh no! I cannot defeat five traumatized weirdos! I am slain! I guess you'd better take all this gold back to the king"

And all is well until next tax season when Oh No! The dragon has "somehow" revived and has taken all the gold again!

Someone needs to expose this, guys. This is why we still have medieval tech after 3000 years- all the funding's vanishing into unlisted dragon accounts.

[fear-is-truth]

݁.﹒ being bruce wayne’s (platonic) sugar baby

your relationship with BRUCE WAYNE is quite simple, really. you are his “sugar baby,” but not in the traditional sense. there’s no sex-for-payment arrangement—just the occasional gift or dinner date, and a lot of time spent in his manor. you’ve learned how to read him, how to make yourself available without pushing too much, how to slip into his world in a way that never feels like an imposition. and he appreciates that.

this afternoon is no different: you’re straddling his lap, legs folded on either side of him as he works. his attention is fixed on the papers in front of him, but he doesn’t seem to mind your presence. the small crease in his brow softens slightly each time your fingers comb through his hair. after a moment, bruce sets down his pen.

“you know,” he says, his tone dry but not unkind, “you’re making it awfully hard to focus.” your hand freezes, and heat rushes to your cheeks instantly. “oh,” you mumble, starting to pull back. “i wasn’t—sorry, i didn’t mean to—” before you can finish, bruce gently catches your wrist, guiding your hand back toward him. his fingers slide easily between yours, interlocking with ease.

“relax,” he murmurs, bringing your hand closer to his lips. the kiss he presses to the valley between your middle and ring knuckles is tender and warm—effortless, like it’s something he’s done a hundred times before. it feels painfully natural, even though it’s the first time. “just don’t expect me to get anything done if you keep this up.”

[dedfly]

Girl I about to write long ass critique of weddings and marriage like I'm some mister cynical but i actually love weddings and well weddings drama

Anyway here is me getting married to smilk

Don't make his cute look and sentimental sibbing at the wedding fool you he's fucking bridezilla

[satoblue]

the first time you had sex with satoru he actually ended up paying you for it — casually sliding you money across the table as if it’s the most normalest thing in the world while you both sat to eat breakfast together the next morning. he was so confused when you gave him the most offended look ever — but he was really happy that you slept with him! satoru didn’t get around a lot bc of work and nobody has been able to grab his attention like you have before so he didn’t really know what to do in this situation. all in all, he was just grateful you fucked him in the first place and hoped you’d continue to date him after this

[shotmrmiller]

thoroughly obsessed with the idea of knight!141 buying a girl off her parents instead of understanding that them taking someone from their humble family to start their legacy is a tremendous honor.

they're so used to seeing the influence money has, the power it holds on the court that his first thought after seeing her hang wet, threadbare clothes by a hut made of wattle and daub was, i got enough gold on me to take her home tonight.

[ozzyeelz]

hey I'm normal haha. um. what if u draw some more heavy and medic cuddling haha that would be crazy hahaha.........

HAHA THAT WOULD BE CRAZY….. *hands you these then runs away*

[bananaheathen]

So much discourse is discoursing right now, but as I scroll this morning, I find myself thinking again and again about what we owe each other.

Probably someone wiser than me has said all of this better than I have. But if you’d like to join me for a little morning ramble about what we owe each other (and love and art under capitalism??), come on in 💛

I think capitalism has made us believe, on some level (on every level??) that money is the highest and best thing we can ever give anyone. And that if we give someone our money, they owe us. Which, in a transactional sense, they do.

If I go into a store and give the cashier my money, they owe me the goods I paid for. It's worth noting that what I do with those goods when I leave — how much time and energy I give them, how much I think about them or enjoy them, how many memories become associated with those goods, or the stories I tell myself about those goods — are not something I paid for. Those things aren’t at the whim of the little guy I paid for the goods, or even the store that employs the guy I paid. You could argue that how much I enjoy the goods is determined by whoever is in charge of manufacturing/growing/creating the goods. But even then, it was my choice to buy THOSE goods, and not someone else’s. I gave money, I got the thing, and now we’re even. 

Now, late-stage capitalism has also made us believe that we DO have something else to give. And while it isn’t more valuable than money, it can be turned into money, making it sometimes as valuable. And that thing is: our attention.

If we’re paying a lot of attention to something, it can be used to advertise to us. It can be used to get us to pay for something else. To buy more goods. To spend our money for more time with the thing we can’t stop paying attention to. 

And when we’re paying a lot of attention to something, it feels personal. For example, I spent a solid two years of my life writing a more than 600,000 word fic about One Direction. I was (and still am) paying A LOT of attention to them. They got so much of my dedicated time and energy and attention during that time, that it would make sense for me to feel, in the society that we’re in, that they now owe me something. Because on top of all the attention I’ve paid, I’ve also spent money! I’ve streamed music! I’ve bought albums! I’ve bought vinyl! And merch! And film tickets! And concert tickets! I’ve traveled to see shows and that means I’ve spent even more money! And did I mention all that attention I paid???

And this is where we run into trouble. Because actually, those boys don’t owe me anything. I gave them my money, yes. And, like the store example earlier, I got my goods. They gave me singles, and albums, and vinyls, and merch, and concerts. They also gave up most of their privacy and a fair chunk of their childhoods giving me content. And I didn’t pay for that content in money, but I did pay for it in my attention. And I would argue, on that score, we’re actually pretty even. What they gave up to get me to look at them, and what they’re still giving up to keep my attention, is a lot. It’s more than I can comprehend as someone who is not famous. And yes, they have fame! And money!!! Which as you may remember, according to capitalism, is the ultimate thing!!!!! But they’ve lost a lot to get it. And they’ve lost a lot to keep it. We don’t know, and shouldn’t ever have the privilege of finding out, just how much they’ve lost. But even just looking at it superficially, it’s obvious it’s a lot: The right to grow up and experiment with identity outside the public eye. The right to grieve in private. The right to have a private sex life. The right to have your personal physical boundaries respected. And so on. 

And sure, I’ve lost things too. Certainly time and energy and sleep and occasionally my mind. But I do have a certain advantage: I could always stop paying attention. I could always stop giving them my money. They can’t stop chasing my money and attention because that’s part of their job. But it isn’t mine. I have the choice to walk at any minute. And what I have to remember is that if I choose to stay, it’s not because they still owe me something. 

It’s because of all the things that I’ve gotten for my money and attention that have nothing to do with the transactional side of it. The friends I’ve made, the art I’ve discovered, the self-discovery that art has inspired, the feelings and the memories and the connection to community. The love I've found.

(For me, those are the secret things no one tells you are worth quite a lot more than money.)

And the difficult truth is, whether I agree with the choices they make or not, they don’t owe me different ones. I can feel upset if it seems like they aren’t the people I thought they were, in the same way anyone can upset me in this way. But my choice to keep them in my life or not, is on me. If they’re not a person I can hang with anymore, then they aren’t. And that can be painful and sad, and I’m allowed to feel my feelings about it. But it will never be that they owed me something else, or something more. 

And this is, I guess, the point I’m coming to:

Love is not a transaction. We don’t love people so that they will love us back. We love people despite ourselves. Despite the desire to get something in return. Sometimes we love people who love us well, and sometimes we love people who are shit at loving us. Sometimes we love people who make us the center of their world, and sometimes we love people who might never know we exist. Love isn’t a currency. Your love isn’t worth a certain amount in exchange. It’s so much bigger and broader and better than that. It’s so much more powerful than money, but it also doesn’t work like money. Not in interpersonal dynamics, and certainly not in parasocial ones. 

This is one of the more impossibly tricky things about loving anything or anyone. The only thing love means for sure is that you care. That you’ve allowed yourself to be vulnerable enough to put your heart into something. There’s no other guarantee. There’s no speaking to the manager if you don’t get what you wanted from it. (Believe me, I have tried.) 

It can feel, when we give our money, and our attention, and most of all our love to someone, that they owe us everything in return. That they should try to protect us, and love us back, and give us content, and give us goods, and make all the right and best choices all the time. And those should be the ones that we personally agree with, because those are the ones that are RIGHT. (And I know, I’ve made this last part sound childish, but anyone who has loved someone really intensely knows, it feels a little childish sometimes. That young feeling of wanting to be cared for, and taken care of, and surprised and delighted, and appeased.) 

But at some point, we learn that love isn’t a transaction. It doesn’t guarantee us returns. And the way a person loves us, when we’re a nameless, faceless part of a group that has given them a living, isn’t going to be the same as the way someone in our lives who knows us might love us. And the way we love them isn’t the same as the way we love the people we actually know. We’ve gotten our money’s worth. And the content keeps coming in exchange for our attention, whether we like what we get for our attention or not.

And the love — the love that makes it hurt so much when the content we get isn’t what we wanted, when the person does things we don’t understand and we feel like they don’t love us like we love them, the love that makes us believe we were owed something more because our hearts are in this — the love is ours to make of what we will. To write stories with, or make fanart about, and build memories around. To make friendships and families and love stories out of. It’s ours to reblog and retweet and repost and gif. It’s ours to spread and share and extend to as many people as we can. It’s ours to learn from, and grow from, and grow up with. No, the love isn’t transactional, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s wasted. 

I love you.

[wyrmwright]

bro he does NOT want to hear you practice your villain monologue

[lagomoz]

honestly it's extra tragic to me that with Muu's help Haruka was improving his writing so much

exactly how much time is passing is weird, but she can't have been teaching him that long. Muu is a teenage girl with zero teaching experience, zero experience with intellectual disability and no outstanding linguistic talent. she's not dumb, but there's no mention of her being an exceptional student or being any kind of prodigy

and yet with her help, even in an environment like torture murder prison, he significantly and noticeably improved. not only did his writing/kanji/vocabulary make a huge leap forward, he became far more confident

he just needed someone, anybody, to care about him

[mabbbish]

they’re so lame

[mastercardpussy]

[varpusvaras]

How writing angst goes

[fumifooms]

Dad always said I was like him

Meijack and Chilchuck Tims Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui

^ 1: Moony moonless sky, Fatima Aamer Bilal / 2: Bug like an angel, Mitski / 3: Woodtangle, Mary Ruefle / 4: The Third Hour of the Night, Frank Bidart / 5 & 6: FROM THE MAKERS OF "TWO-MOM ENERGY DRINK," IT'S "LET YOUR FATHER DIE ENERGY DRINK,", Daniel Lavery & Cecilia Corrigan / 7: Batman: Year Three (1989) / 8 & 9 : FROM THE MAKERS OF […], Daniel Lavery & Cecilia Corrigan / 10: Wilt, CJ the X / 11: How Do We Forgive Our Fathers, Dick Lourie / 12: Milk and honey, Rupi Kaur / 13: And My Father's Love Was Nothing Next To God's Will, Amatullah Bourdon / 14: Moony moonless sky, Fatima Aamer Bilal / 15: Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong, Ocean Vuong / 16: untitled, Joan Tierney v 17: Drunk, The Living Tombstone / 18: unknown

When your father tried his best to provide for you but he worked all the time and even when he was home he was either tired or stressed and he’s always liked to get drunk to relax and cheer up. When you know he values work ethics and respectability so you grew up to be capable and quiet. And when he says you’re like him you’re sort of puzzled, does he really know you so little, or does he know himself so little? But you like the feeling of your father ruffling your hair so you accept it, and still you stand next to your mother just as silent and just as stoic as her during family gatherings. He leaves again and again and when your mother leaves him nothing changes, really. You wonder if it’s more telling that you know him better than he seems to himself or that you don’t know him as much as you wish you did, or that you don’t think about him all that much these days. Out of sight, out of mind. And he’s never really been there, even when he was there, after all.

[prideprejudce]

also i love that they introduced the criston/alicent affair in the most non-romantic way possible. there's no declarations of love and "you are my everything" or anything flowery like that, in fact it feels very transactional and just driven by lust and the desire for basic human comfort topped with awkward post hookup small talk afterwards of "bit chilly today innit" while not looking at each other