#and goes 'that's perfect. good job.'

[watercolor-wings]

Y'all I do not even know how to describe the level of small town gossip going on at my workplace right now, there's this asshole landlord going through a divorce that he is quite literally plastering biblical quotes about on giant CalTrans signs in our town, and some shit's going down between him and the Starbucks and y'all everyone is so here for it. If this man ever leaves town, there will be so many celebration parties.

[sestrahulk]

Kira Manning through the years in Orphan Black & Orphan Black: Echoes

[swagging-back-to]

finally went and got my GED diploma a year after i graduated :)))))

[goldenpinof]

.

[coconut530]

NEW CRANE WIVES SONG = NEW LENORE SONG

[betelgeusing]

marty hart's cyclical return to praising family as THE thing that keeps a man grounded, stable, and happy (specifically in pointing out that rust DOESN'T have a family) even as flashbacks show him spiraling into jealous macho violence as he lies to, mistreats, and destroys his family over the course of multiple affairs (by which he deliberately steps outside of and away from his family despite his wife's best efforts to get him to reconnect and step up to be the family man he sees himself as)

vs

rust cohle's repeated excoriations of the idea of individuality and personhood and the stupid self-centeredness and entitlement that comes with saying "I, a human being, matter to the universe, and the things I do matter", an ideology he carries for years and waxes poetic on for his interviewers as late as 2012, even as he obsessively works himself to the bone to get justice and resolution for the victims he's assigned and ultimately to protect children from the powerful and dangerous people who want to brutalize them

[willowser]

My dummy thicc brain considering adult nerd bakugou fr bc we keep our interests into adulthood u know? We dont toss em out as we age (generally) he's got a typical office job that pays decently well, has his routine and friends both old and new and coworkers who he hates (relatable). But his apartment has y'know playstation and xbox consoles, maybe even one of those custom lit entertainment centers. All the games in alphabetical order. LE posters or art framed with a bookshelf with video game and TTRPG art books and manuals plus collectors edition statues and figures. He has 30 year old settled down man money he can swing it.

But unless you ask he just does not bring up shit about himself like that shhh in Denki's streams he really is just A Guy (honestly reminds me of WRTVS where most of the friends are streamers but half never show their face and they all use aliases and shit) so the moment he sends a Discord friend request you're like "wtf how tho???" And one day maybe you're playing a scary game just for the hell of it set up a stream bc maybe it wont be as spooky with a chat but u got like one viewer 😂😭 and u know discord integrates with twitch so mr. Explodo sees you're in game and surprise your discord is the same as your twitch so catch yourself trying not to sound amazed through the mic when he pops into your chat like "scared yet?" 💀 ~ Trashy

YES OMG EXACTLY !! we keep our interests in adulthood !! and we get that adult nerd money !! 😭✨️ this is exactly how i picture him 🥺 and his house and his setup 🥺 his house is so modern and clean and taken care of, but it's all just a bunch of video game and fantasy/sci-fi movie stuff 😭 i love that for him !! 😭 adult nerd bakugou i want to hold you closely !! and can you imagine the shit his coworkers probably give him 💀 like bro you're 30 and living like that and don't have a partner STOP HE'S SHFHWJDBAJA 🥺

this is so cute tho like. besides the fact that it would be scary as hell to have his deep ass voice coming through the mic out of nowhere 💀 it's just you two 🥺 and he's just watching and not really saying a whole lot bc it's probably a little weird but you maybe haven't played this game before so he's telling you like, "no, you have to find the missing piece before you can fix it. 'm not telling you where 'cause you should'a paid attention," LOL what a bully. and when you get scared, it makes him laugh — not like a lot, but just a little, though it's your reaction to him that has him smiling, really. all "it's not funny 🥺 i almost had a heart attack 🥺" and he's like, "calm down you're fine 😒😏" ajdhshaja !!

and before you know it, it's been a few hours and way past his bedtime and you're both trying to find a way to say goodbye, but 🥺 you don't really want to 🥺

[canwehavehextonite]

A PARENT AT WORK TOLD MY BOSS I SAID SMTHING THAT GAVE THE VIBE I WAS ONLY IN IT FOR THE CHECK???????? IM A CAMP COUNSELOR????????

[the-sunshine-dragon]

.

[bobtheacorn]

The thing that happened to Steven Universe is happening to Bluey and I hate that I’m living to see it

[whentherewerebicycles]

IT’S HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dr-lizortecho]

i think this website has ruined me- everytime my boss tries to give me a compliment i gotta awkwardly smile and say thanks biting down on my tongue to keep from smiling brightly and saying “thanks it’s the trauma” and twirling away from her

[spark1edog]

build a bear workshop interview tomorrow 😳

[royalwhumpness]

I’ve been gushing over Gary Oldman today both online and offline, and I have come to a realization. Gary Oldman’s skill and diversity cannot be understated. He’s a phenomenal actor and a genuine chameleon that shifts and molds itself to fit in whatever movie he is in.

While researching him a bit and looking over headshots I was passively thinking “I wonder what kind of guy he is…” and then I realized that “huh, I really can’t read his face… he blends in so well to his characters because I truly don’t know what kind of person he is.”

And that got me thinking even further… he doesn’t have an online presence (that I’m aware of) and he doesn’t allow his fame to force him to make public stances on political or religious or other controversial topics. He doesn’t go to Hollywood parties. He doesn’t use his stardom to bring attention to himself outside of acting.

I think that’s one of the key things about him. I don’t look at Gary Oldman and think of interviews or of popular tweets or controversies he’s been in. The only thing I can think about is how fucking good of an actor he is and the other roles he’s played. (Aside of course from consistently thinking how cute his smile is)

He’s not your average celebrity. He is just an actor, a really good actor, and that’s super fucking impressive.

[marypsue]

Ahh also as an addendum to my previous ask about the age swap (which I might’ve accidentally labeled as the body swap fic due to the foibles of being awake unexpectedly early ), I was curious what your criticisms are regarding Robin and Will’s treatments by the Duffers? I know you’ve alluded to being bothered by both but I’d be curious to hear more ( if you have the time/hankering!)

Hooboy. Okay. Buckle in. 

Obviously this is going to be a combination of actual literary analysis and Big Feelings That I Have, so like, please don’t take this as any kind of moral dictum on what to or not to watch, or how to or how not to interpret what you watch. Also, a lot of what makes me uneasy and unhappy about how canon deliberately handles queerness (as opposed to when it does queer things apparently by accident, which as you may have noticed, I have considerable amounts of fun with) has to do with behind-the-scenes context I’ve read about, so there’s a certain degree of Telephone involved. And I’m still only halfway through season four. There’s just so fucking much of it. 

With all that said. 

The behind-the-scenes context I’m most specifically concerned with are the season-one pitch bible(? I think that’s what it’s called) (which, it should be noted, ended up diverging in some quite significant ways from what ended up in the show) where the Duffers first raised the possibility that Will might be gay, and the anecdote that Joe Keery and Maya Hawke were the ones who decided Robin should be queer and had to really push for it and wrote and choreographed that scene in the bathroom. Put the two together, and it tells you that the Duffers planned that there would be One (potentially) Gay Character in their show. 

And that character was the one they spent an entire season directing violent, vicious, eventually outright murderous homophobic hatred at through the mouthpiece of a couple of bullies. You can say what you want about revenge narratives and those characters ultimately getting their comeuppance, but for Me Personally, it sucks all the fun and escapism out of season one to watch it thinking that those bullies only got punished when they aimed that vitriol at someone to whom it didn’t literally apply. Also I still have to sit through however many episodes of that vicious homophobia onscreen regardless, so, like, that’s a walk in the park anyway. /sarcasm 

And then there’s that whole bad business in season three, where it’s never been quite clear to me if we’re supposed to see Mike as having been in any way in the wrong. Kind of scuppers the argument, to me, that we’re supposed to be on Will’s side. And season four, which so far has had Will tagging along after people who are supposed to be his best friends but mostly don’t seem to give a single damn about him, doing absolutely nothing but looking morose and sullen and tragic and *coughcough* Artistic, and causing Problems for the nice straight couple. 

(Tangential to the point I’m coming to, but also, my son deserves better than to be reduced to a soggy cardboard standee with ‘GAY’ scrawled across it in magic marker the way season four seems to be angling toward. All the Byers, but especially the Byers boys, deserve better than season four seems interested in giving them. But I digress.) 

Also. I love Robin. If you follow me, you probably know that. I’m a hardcore, ride-or-die Robin girl. But. With Robin, from what I’ve heard of the context, the Duffers never intended for her to be queer. They wrote a girl who was smart and funny and sharp and talented and a little bit mean and a little bit insecure and a little bit weird but in an interesting, endearing way - as a love interest for Steve. 

And then, as soon as season four rolled around, once they’d been pushed into making her canonically, on-screen queer (in a beautiful, tender, heartfelt, true-feeling scene that they didn’t fucking write), suddenly she’s had a complete personality transplant. Suddenly, she’s an awkward, bumbling, annoying loser who’s only funny when she’s the butt of the joke, who’s no good at anything and who nobody really likes except maybe for Steve, an outcast even amongst the freaks. When she does do something smart or competent, everyone around her reacts with shock, like it’s wildly out of character instead of how her character was originally written. One of these versions of Robin was written with ‘gay person’ in mind, and it unfortunately wasn’t the one we were obviously supposed to like. 

In both cases, I get the feeling that the storytelling issues stem from this like...assumption that queerness equals isolation and misery and tragedy, and that there’s nothing to queerness outside of that. That there’s something inherent to queerness, something pitiable but repulsive, that causes the isolation and misery and tragedy (not that those things are imposed from outside, by, say, violent homophobia). That it would be absurd to imagine that queerness could ever be joyful, or playful, or that someone might ever, given the chance to choose, not choose to be straight instead. Or that there could be enormous friendship and community and heart and pride in queerness, or even that queer people might find friendship and community and strength in each other. Or even fucking talk to each other, ever. 

Which is especially infuriating, because the whole central theme of season one (besides surface appearances being deceiving) is that community and care between people who are very different but discover they have more in common than there is that separates them is what saves the day! That love comes in all kinds of forms, and they’re all important, and that love can be stronger than fear! 

But apparently, according to the Duffers, queer love doesn’t count and queer community doesn’t exist. It’s just isolation, misery, and tragedy, and I guess we the watchers are supposed to sit outside of it and pity Them for it (and be quietly, sneakily, a little bit nastily grateful that it’s not happening to Us). Because of course nobody watching the show is queer. Of course. This show is made for normal people. 

It’s part of the same attitude I’ve also seen play out with the Duffers’ inability to just let a white dude be bad. Oh, they want to talk a big game about how they’re on the side of the freaks, and bullies are bad, and everybody should be respected and appreciated for who they are. But when it cuts down to the bone, when applying that precept to a girl or a person of colour or a queer person makes a straight white guy come off as a monster, they keep trying to dodge it. 

The more antagonists they try desperately to rehab without ever acknowledging why they were antagonists in the first place, the more it starts to look like they simply don’t really believe that the people those antagonists hurt really matter. That, somewhere deep down where the assumptions that are so baked in you don’t even realise they’re assumptions live, they don’t really believe that girls, or Black kids, or queer people are as fundamentally human and deserving of respect and compassion as their beloved awful straight white men are. That what they really think about bullies is that bullies are bad because the bullies picked on them, instead of the kinds of people who deserved it.

(See also: that time a twelve- or thirteen-year-old Sadie Sink didn’t want to have to do a kiss in the Snow Ball scene, so the Duffers, who had just been joking about having her do it, actually made her do it. For multiple takes. Specifically because she didn’t want to. And then later related that anecdote to the press. Because they thought it was funny.)

Anyway. Personally, I’d prefer canon just never say anything definitive on the matter of Will’s sexuality and stop trying to push the narrative in that direction, so I don’t have to watch the Duffers spectacularly fumble yet another attempt at Writing About Marginalised Groups. 

(Also, this is absolutely not me saying Watch A Different Show - I’m here writing fanfic for this stupid show, it’d be pretty fucking rich of me to try to tell people to stop watching it. But I’d really love for many of its fans to get some more exposure to less-mainstream, more deliberately queer literature and film, so y’all can see what it really feels like to be seen and acknowledged and loved by a story, on purpose. I get it! I do! I too have wanted very badly to feel like something I loved, loved me back. 

But you don’t have to content yourselves with scraps. And you definitely don’t have to be so concerned with those scraps that you blame your friends, cousins, siblings, brothers in arms for ‘stealing’ some kind of ‘representation’ from you by asking to be seen and acknowledged and loved as well. The bastards who’ve been withholding that recognition from all of us would love nothing more than to watch with amusement, gorging themselves on a banquet, while we tear each other apart over a couple of discarded bones. Don’t give them the satisfaction. We don’t have to be isolated, pitiable, pathetic, miserable tragedies. Put the hollow promises of exclusionism and respectability down. There is queer art and literature and film and community and joy and love in abundance that you don’t have to beg anyone for, and you are invited to participate. This is me inviting you to participate. 

And cordially inviting the Duffers to meet me in the woods behind the 7-Eleven.)

...

tl;dr the way the Duffers treat queerness when they do it on purpose feels like a combination of othering, contempt, and misery porn, and I hate it. And that, in a nutshell, is the rant I’ve been sitting on for the last two-and-a-bit years. I’m getting down off the cafeteria table now. 

[s-cullayy]

Forget a gym membership. Work in your local produce department. A bushel of cucumbers is 50lbs. So are the bananas. So are the lemons. So is everything. Lift it above your head and pause to wait for a customer to slowly pass. Then go push 500lbs from one side of the store to the other. Do it again. Do it again. Do it ag-