#(some of these were your choices people)

[tiredyke]

every time queer discourse surges on this site everyone is so quick to jump to “it was actually the evil lesbians who divided us” because y’all heard the term “political lesbian” and never bothered to figure out what that meant

[bonefall]

As a big sibling with a lil sib with epilepsy, when they read TBC they Honestly thought if they got struck with lightning reciting the lord's prayer they'd be cured like Shadowsight is from their epilepsy. I had a discussion with them on how that's not how it works, but ge was so upset they took it away from Shadowsight that he hasn't picked the books back up and has stated that 'he hopes Ashfur wins and starts a new religion.,'

I do not even know how to respond to this besides saying that your little sibling is 100% right to be pissed and I now also hope Ashfur wins and starts a new religion.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

not me typing a whole rant about some catholics being insufferably smug about their "better looking churches" while ignoring the history behind the barebone austerity of protestant churches and then deleting it all because my seething anger isn't christ-like either

*gnaws on wood* God help me love your children even when they are absolute prigs

[dustyfairywings]

So you know how Takayoshi gifted Akemi two songbirds in a cage together as a sincere apology for his mother?

I think those two birds are meant to symbolize both Akemi and Takayoshi. They are both marginalized in some way despite their privilege. Akemi as the daughter of a lord and Takayoshi as the disabled second son of the shogun are both denied agency in their roles despite their privilege. Takayoshi and Akemi both are song birds in a gilded cage. Two pawns to the political and social machinations of their parents. Akemi a victim to her father’s political aspirations and Takayoshi evidently a victim to his mother’s social manipulations.

(Aside: and possibly emotional abuse/neglect, with the way he was forbidden from speaking to women and who knows what actually happened to this first wife. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that it seems to me like this is all in service of maintaining a “respectable” image of the family, and cannot risk having people know he has a stutter. just spitballing here)

If I were to make a prediction for season 2, or a wish, it’s that I would like to see Akemi and Takayoshi form a genuine bond and alliance as two privileged-yet-marginalized individuals having to navigate a politically fraught and rigidly hierarchical society, and I think there’s at least some textual evidence to support this being a real possibility.

They demonstrate in the show Takayoshi is no fool and that he’s clearly an educated and well-read man. Take how he engages with Akemi’s poetry during sex compared to Taigen as an example. He simply has a disability and is somewhat submissive and subdued (likely due to being shamed or ridiculed for his stutter and getting little to no support as a child). They are capable of being intellectual equals. Any sort of power or control Akemi would gain over Takayoshi is by virtue of the kindness and empathy she is showing him, not because she’s outsmarting him. I believe Takayoshi is willingly surrendering himself to his wife and cognizant of this fact.

I think we may see a dynamic where Akemi will both advocate for her own political ends but also at times advocate for and try to protect her husband where she can where familial and interpersonal relationships are involved. I really really hope their union will be one that grows in political power through the healing power of love, compassion, and solidarity between two marginalized individuals.

They can acknowledge the humanity in each other and see each other as equals in their shared pain and victimization, and find empowerment through each other. If they cannot be their own masters at least they can be each other’s sole masters.

Takayoshi and Akemi may be two songbirds stuck in a gilded cage, stripped of their freedom and humanity. But they at least have each other and together they can harmonize.

[corpsentry]

at the asian american studies sponsored movie screening i run out of my seat to press a button for the presenter and you look away, not in shame, but in anger

go make your own movie.

One where you’re the star

and everything’s my fault

the way you want it to be. I know, it’s easy

to let someone else hold this grief

and sit in the bathtub,

all dressed up to go to the party.

Maybe in this movie it’s your party

and I the party crasher,

holding cymbals and a baseball bat, et cetera.

But we don’t stop getting older when we’re angry

and you’re only twenty,

can’t listen to lullabies at night,

can’t sleep without a blanket

over your head like you’re scared

of your own shadow. God, go

write your own movie.

You could do it,

you’re still

pretty. Angry? Me too.

The bathtub’s overflowing,

the bathroom’s flooding

with whatever you couldn’t say

to the poet with their palms glued shut

in a cheap simulacrum of prayer.

Didn’t you say you were tired? Angry? Me too.

Upset? Unhappy? Me too. Hungry? Lonely? Me too. Me too.

Standing barefoot in the grass

I remembered the month of bad weather.

How I parted the fog with broken hands each night,

looking for your voice.

Oh, I will not forgive you.

Not like this.

With your fingers splayed

against the brute February sky,

lips cracked open like windows,

waiting, like you always are, for me to say the first word.

[fortyfive-forty]

i've been ruminating a lot on it because i think i'm bad at putting my thoughts into words but i need y'all to understand that while there are absolutely a lot of Not Good Things about the finals being held in saudi arabia for three years...the way people seem to treat is as morally black and white is shortsighted and unhelpful.

realistically the players traveling there will be protected. it may be uncomfortable, it's certainly not ideal, but they will travel there for a few weeks, play their tennis, then leave. there are a lot of women, a lot of queer people who actually live in saudi arabia who cannot just leave, who are actually subjected to laws and social climates...and to me it just seems very disrespectful to that actual lived experience, for everybody to sort of turn their noses up and get on their high horses. of course, if the players wish to opt out, that is their choice, but that is their choice to make. that's their judgement. not ours.

and then, what about a tournament like miami? florida is literally experiencing one of the worst active regressions that i've seen in the us (granted i'm young). things like critical race theory and lgbtq+ ed are being removed from curriculums, rights for trans youth, trans healthcare, etc. are going backwards. abortion rights? gun violence? and yes i know that the laws and climate in saudi arabia are different gravy, i understand that, but my point is, no one would ever DREAM of arguing against hosting a tournament in miami despite all of these issues. and we can extend this to a lot of other tournaments! i mean, all the outrage about fifa hosting a world cup in qatar, but we don't have any of these sentiments about doha? i've seen other people bring up that the finals were hosted in singapore when gay marriage was still illegal there. we've already talked about italy's fascist prime minister. and i could go on and on and on about the war crimes of countries like the us or the uk - is the us not participating actively in genocide right now? where is the standard? if you argue against hosting the finals in saudi arabia for the reason of human rights, to me it seems you have to uphold that standard for the location you do land on. and i can guarantee, you will not find a single country in the world with clean hands.

i want to be clear i am not arguing that hosting the finals in saudi arabia is a good thing, especially for three years, especially because it's definitely going there because of money, and not for any of the "good" reasons i think some people want us to believe about "improving the region" (which is very weirdly white savior-esque anyway). i don't really have an official "conclusion" to this discussion.

what i am arguing is that i think a lot of the protests against saudi arabiahosting the finals are more an example of implicit anti-arab bias and islamophobia, rather than genuine discussion. key word implicit: i don't think most people are purposefully trying to be anti-arab/islamophobic. or at least, i'd like to believe nobody is. but i also think, particularly in the west, there is already so much of this xenophobic sentiment ingrained. and this is why i think it's really really REALLY important to check ourselves when we talk about it instead of just jumping straight to the human rights conversation without a second thought.

i'll say it plainly: i don't think the finals should be held in saudi arabia. but for me, it has more to do with sportswashing, with the dangers of the way money is thrown around in sports, and because i think it's more evidence that the wta doesn't care about player welfare but rather about making a profit (what else is new). human rights are absolutely a concern of mine, but how is it fair to hold saudi arabia to a standard that we don't seem to care about for literally anybody else?

literally look at the us's ugly ugly history, past and present, and tell me why we deserve to host a tennis tournament.

[danielslaw]

RALPH MACCHIO AS DANIEL LARUSSO      favorite fashion choices (part 1?) in the karate kid trilogy.

[solarflare-s]

the try guys did not kick ned out because he cheated on his wife they kicked him out because he had a relationship with one of his employees. yes the cheating is bad but the bigger issue is that the person he cheated with is someone that reports to him and relies on him for a paycheck

[ode-to-fury]

Kk I was just on tiktok and unfortunately was forced to read (opened them by myself) the comments on an Astarion bad ending vid and can I just say I don’t think people that have him ascend just to see the sex scene deserve any rights and also they should be banned from romancing him

[july-19th-club]

nooooo not your first two reasons for staying in the city you are legally trapped in instead of absconding forever with billions of dollars worth of stolen art being the married couple who have slowly but surely absorbed you into their relationship and welcomed you into their life. a guy who has never had a place he wasn't obligated to leave feeling at first trapped by his circumstances but then coming to enjoy the idea of a permanent home and unwilling to be pressured away from it . surely no further events will transpire that might cause him to lose faith in this ideal and, feeling it necessary, strike out once again into the lonely world as a traveling thief with no port of call and no living name

[sh0rtins0mniac]

He's going to be the next Norm Twinkelstein I'm telling you now

[vacancy90]

Summary of the CX World Championships 🌈 in Tábor 2024 🇨🇿

Men U23, Ladies elite, Men Junior, Ladies U23, Men elite

[on-a-sunbeam]

So please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Alias ever really talked about how awful the whole doubling process would be? Like, the actual process itself would probably be pretty painful, sure, but remember going through puberty and having your body adjust to all that? Except this time your entire DNA is being changed. But not your brain, apparently. (WHICH, while I'm rambling, according to this report, you 100% can identify different brains from each other. In Alias, however, they say you can only tell if someone's a double through their eyes, which means that the person's actual brain is also changed, so I guess Alias just casually tried to tell us that souls or something of that ilk do, in fact, exist, and then never mentioned that again)

Which puts us in a very unique position! Because your brain's shape is now different, it's literal dna is different, and that does affect you as a person, except no?? It doesn't effect the doubles? As far as we see they're the same person. Ignoring the way more fun option of this does effect the doubles and maybe they start to show traits that the original had which would've been SO much fun but whatever, let's just say that your brain shape/makeup doesn't matter. Everything you do, everything that makes you you comes from something else. Your soul, your spirit, Rambaldi controlling you like a video game character, whatever.

This would make being a double really, really suck. Because your consciousness just got poured into this new body, essentially, which means that you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW TO USE IT. The proportions are just wrong, first of all. Maybe the original's legs are a little longer. Now you have to walk up a flight of stairs, and not only are their legs longer, maybe they're a little thicker. Maybe they have a bad knee that you never knew about. Maybe they work out a lot and their legs are way stronger than yours were. Even if you guys were exactly the same height and lived exactly the same way, you would still have fundamentally different legs.

But for the sake of argument let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say okay, so maybe you still have your soul/consciousness/whatever, but that just contains your memory and personality and what not. All of the physical aspects are controlled by your brain, which should be suited to your body either way because that's how the process works. (Disclaimer: I am not a scientist and have no idea what I'm talking about) Okay, fine. That's fair. Except...even if your brain can move your legs perfectly, wouldn't it still be terrifying to remember that this isn't how they normally move? Your body might be perfectly functional, but your mind still wouldn't be used to functioning it.

(And this is all very sudden, too! I mentioned puberty earlier, but that is something that a) still takes place in your own body, with your own brain. It's hormones changing, not DNA. And b) might come faster for some people, but you know, generally takes a little longer than a couple-hour long surgery)

Also if we were to go that route, what would happen if the original person say, had some mental condition? That's a brain thing, not a soul thing. Your physical brain is now the same as theirs, so would you inherit that too?

In conclusion: local idiot rambles about how Allison should've misjudged a step and fallen down a flight of stairs and gotten adhd from Francie.

[absolutelyarealperson]

I think Boston got a happy ending. He's getting a fresh start, and everything in the finale just felt like it was setting him up to leave for America with no regrets or loose ends.

He apologized for the things he did wrong, and pointedly did not apologize for the things he didn't do wrong. He's a messy boy and I love him for that, but he absolutely did some things worth apologizing for, so I'm not mad at the fact that the show let him apologize. He did everything he could to repair his relationships with his friends, and for the most part, he did repair them. Cheum is happy to welcome him back into the group. Ray is still protective of Mew, and is always going to side with Mew over Boston when forced to choose, but he doesn't seem to harbor any hard feelings of his own. His friendship with Mew is irreparably broken, and that's kind of ok with me. It's true to life; some relationships you can repair, and some you can't. But Boston did what he could. He doesn't have to hold onto guilt or wonder what would have happened if he reached out.

The friend group dynamic was never going to go back to what it was before, because Boston was leaving the whole continent. There was always going to be a shift. We were always going to end up with all of the others getting close and having experiences together without Boston there. But he fixed things enough that they're staying in touch.

And he and Nick broke up a bit earlier than they would have. But they would have broken up anyway. That relationship always had an expiration date. Boston set it up that way on purpose (I feel like knowing it had an ending was the only way he could give himself permission to even try for the first time, but that's probably a whole other post I could make). And he got to learn about himself. He likes romance; he can fall in love. It's just that romance and sex are two completely separate things for him. And he's moving to NYC! You know he's going to find some like minded people and figure himself out further, and find fulfilling relationships that work for him, now that he knows more about his wants and needs.

And it's so much better that Nick didn't follow him to New York. I cannot see that ending well. Because once Boston and Nick both learned enough about themselves to have an open and honest conversation about what they wanted in a relationship, it was clear that they loved each other AND they wanted fundamentally different things. Somehow a clean break for a reason other than the move to America feels better. They're not holding on or trying to stretch out the end so it hurts more or longer. They loved each other. It meant something. And it ended. The end doesn't make the rest matter less.

And Boston, a Boston who learned and grew from the events in this series, is planning to be totally out in America, away from his dad. No more hiding. No more worry about black mail. He's the person taking the photos and choosing to make them public as art.

Everything about the finale just felt like it was setting Boston up for a fresh start in the best and cleanest way possible. Repairing the ties that could be part of his support system, even across continents. Cutting ties that were only going to hold him back or hurt him worse. Letting him get things off his chest, so he could leave without regrets or what-ifs. I think this episode was so good to Boston.

[moodr1ng]

"cave exploring gone wrong" it didnt just 'go wrong' if ppl die in there its bc they or the ppl w them fucked up!! stop slandering caves caves dont do anything they are spaces!! all THEY are responsible for is the inescapable, gaping, constant call to home of their depths. once you answer it thats your problem..

[yesfatchicks]

ngl i hate 'proving the bullies wrong' redemption stories where the victim becomes gorgeous, successful, rich. that's not proving them wrong. if anything it's proving them right.

bullies don't bully people because they're ugly or fat or poor. it's their choice to be cruel, to decide that people deserve cruelty if they don't meet some standard of attractiveness or wealth or intelligence or other bullshit social standard.

it doesn't stop being deserved if it turns out the bullies targeted them mistakenly and they weren't ~actually~ ugly, or fat, or poor, or aren't any more. it was never deserved.