#but it's interesting

[anonymousdandelion]

Occurs to me that Christian cultural hegemony can be pretty well encapsulated by the fact that it is normal for people to say "Happy Chanukah to those who celebrate," and it is normal for many of those same people to say, "Merry Christmas, everyone!"

[theoutcastrogue]

[From a 2014 article by John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats. He's talking about how a random spam email ended up inspiring a part of his book Wolf in White Van. Later, in 2020, the album Getting Into Knives came out, and I think it inspired its artwork too.]

"It took years for me to be able to just reflexively delete spam, or filter it so that I never see it at all. I blame the spammers for this; the quality of their work took a sharp nosedive at some point. But during whatever period of the internet’s growth you’d call the early 2000s, it seemed like you’d still get some winners: things that had been typed up by a person, sent out to a bunch of email addresses they’d bought or rented for 5 or 10 bucks from the only guy who was ever going to make any money in this particular exchange. Most of them went directly, if manually, into the trash; but once in a while, there’d be one that seemed to earn, at the very least, the minute it’d take me to read it.

The one I’m remembering here was subject-lined SUPPLY OF KNIVES. [...] The subject line opened on an all-caps email that boasted, in ornate, antiquated English appealing to the reader’s more refined sensibilities, about the high quality of the knives on offer at an external website. You shouldn’t click on links in spam email. I live my life on the razor’s edge! I clicked the link.

I want to tell you about these knives: They were beautiful. They were weird. They had elaborate designs in the handles, moons or stars of wolf heads, and special grips, and a variety of points. They were made from metals whose pedigrees were described lovingly, and had been struck — smithed? wrought? — via processes I knew absolutely nothing about, but that sounded fantastic, difficult, arcane. It’s the joy of specialized language: When you’re an outsider to it, it can’t help but sound cool.

Of course this is the whole idea of any operation like this. SUPPLY OF KNIVES could well have been, and probably was, a company in Ohio who’d stumbled across an old warehouse full of knives, and knew enough about sales to describe these things in the most exotic terms they could find. I’m pretty immune to pitches: Who likes to feel like he’s being pitched? But somebody involved with SUPPLY OF KNIVES had had just enough authorial flair — that, or true faith — to caption each knife’s mysterious, blurry accompanying JPEG with a description whose constant recourse to specialized vocabularies seemed to say, “You’re not even reading this unless you already know about this sort of thing. Let us therefore speak like the fellow travelers we are.”

It was like a trade catalog for roadside bandits in need of knives.

I can’t speak for everybody, but I know that when I was a child the life of the roadside bandit seemed like a pretty romantic way to go. I looked at all these knives and read the descriptions and was just generally delighted about the whole thing, so I saved the email in a “memorable spam” folder I used to keep that had maybe two other emails in it. A few years later, Apple came out with this robotic-arm-screen iMac you never see any more, and we were long overdue for a new computer so we got that; and then, after a while, I got myself a laptop, because I was traveling all the time, and eventually both the old iMacs ended up in the basement, and they were both asleep but alive until fairly recently, as far as I knew.

But when I went to check for the email, it was gone. The old blue iMac is dead, bricked, lifeless. Searches on the term “supply of knives” on this laptop and on good old robot-arm-screen find nothing. The backup CD for the blue iMac drive is probably in a drawer around here somewhere, but that’s like saying, “The coin I had in my swim trunks’ pocket is probably somewhere in the ocean.” There is no SUPPLY OF KNIVES. There’s only the memory."

[source]

And this is the wonderful cover art of Getting Into Knives. Back cover and promo material below. Note that "Knives International" and "Knives Wordwide" are not real companies, they appear to be a callback to that elusive spam email.

[heelkenny]

"Regardless if Hangman is my friend, regardless if he's my- my- my significant other, my brother, what matters is that he has my back."

-Kenny Omega on his relationship with Hangman Adam Page leading up to AEW All Out 2020

[avaetin]

So... it's always been a question where Nico's sword came from. Some say it's forged. Some say that it might previously belong to another god. But what if, and a strong what if, it's the Espada de Anibal? Associated with Hannibal Barca, a Carthaginian general who commanded the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the Second Punic War?

Maybe his ancestry had Greek ties? Because there is contact between Greece and Africa as early as 14th century BCE.

[sluttyhenley]

i just think it’s interesting

[duncanor]

Okay here's my thoughts on the episode

That's it.

[figureofdismay]

G-d it's really 3 different times that mulder has almost certainly had to launch protracted 'getting scully to eat' campaigns, after her abduction when she was 'maintained' who knows how for 3 months and had to get back on her feet, with the cancer and treatments and recovery 2 years later and again with the gut shot 2 years after that. How many times do you think he sat by her bed and tried to distract her while she struggled through a protein drink? Did the 'oh I just accidentally made too many sandwiches or pieces of toast or they put in extra fries or "free" dumplings maybe you'll take these off my hands' or planted them in a diner until she ate some soup and crackers or a plate of scrambled eggs or a milkshake while trying not to seem to insist too much, ie enough to trigger an "I'm fine" and a stalking off. No wonder he's hung up on the non-fat yogurt cups and salads with a teaspoon of dressing after multiple times of joining in to will her back from half starvation in order to get her strong enough to recover from near death experiences. Like, we have done this when it was unavoidable due to miserable circumstances, why are you doing it yourself on purpose?? 😥

Though perhaps that's a reason for her, the familiarity of completely utilitarian food that's always 'safe.'

[madwheelerz]

[bklynmusicnerd]

It's interesting how much the first half of the game still isn't being fully understood by the whole jury. Cirie and Felicia had to keep explaining that FBJ had no power and basically just got lucky that she was never a pawn during their reign.

[nikethestatue]

I’ve been wondering if when Azriel was a child, locked in the cupboard, he might have been in Hel? or the Void? And what if that somehow ‘Made’ him, and allowed him to understand the language of the shadows, wield Truth Teller, and have all his unusual powers?

What if his cupboard was like a Wyrd Key that opened up different passages, to other realms?

Would he be the one to talk Bryce to Hel? Because he’s been there before, literally and figuratively speaking?

[kamomie]

Listen.... I genuinely think Forever is trying to do good, and I think today was a major goof. Not only was it kinda confusing, like, is it just memes? Was the law actually implemented? Why let Roier vote thrice? But it was also hurtful to Bad.

But I also got reminded of one of my former theories that if we assume q!elquackity was the decoy, and the federation actually wanted someone else as president, then it might've been Forever. And again, I genuinely think Forever is trying his best to do good and I don't think he would deliberately work with the federation to hurt his friends and family, but Cellbit also wasn't aware he was working for the federation for weeks, soooo.... It's also clearly something Bad is worried about, but we shall see.

Edit: I realize this is a bit incoherent but it's 5:50am and I need sleep, imagine I explained why these thoughts correlate lmao

[natasha-in-space]

Saeyoung casually breaking my heart in a late phone call...

I do find it interesting how prominent dreams are for Choi twins. There are multiple instances of them having dreams (or nightmares in Ray's case) that give us a glimpse into their inner thoughts or desires. Like Saeyoung always being the protective figure that saves his other half in his dreams. I don't think there ever was a moment where he dreamed of them just being happy without him needing to either help or save his brother in one way or another. Really gives you a good understanding of how he views himself.

[basingstokemercury]

I love Klingon space shanties this sounds vaguely Jewish in melody

[saeraas]

there’s an ongoing theory that Abe no Seimei is the Merlin we all know since he is referred to as the “Japanese Merlin”. There’s also a line from Kiichi Hogen for Merlin, saying " The Mage of Flowers. Ah, it's been a truly long time. If I recall correctly, the last we met was mghghgh-!  What are you doing? Why you cover my mou-”.

Which comes my point being that if Merlin being Abe no Seimei is true (if it happens or not, idk) then it’d be kinda funny if Merlin accidentally runs into Douman one day and they recognize each other like

[gerudospiriit]

[I've been once again thinking about how terrifying Nabooru's ability to rip a person's spirit from them is, and how it leaves them as just a husk, a shell, but also how these husks might become Redeads/Gibdos. It would make some sense because I imagine that these husks left behind are still animate just...mindless and lacking their individuality in short. So I'm considering extending the HC to these husks becoming these monsters. Maybe only under certain conditions? Maybe when they're more evil or magic users or something? Or maybe just all the time, idk. I'll have to give it more thought.]

[pinkytoothlesso11]

This is pretty dark, but if the Arcane Order had taken Jim as a baby from Barabra in order to turn him into their loyal champion, how different do you think that Jim would turn out?

Whether or not Barabra witnessed the kidnapping of her son is up to you.

Oh, and I will say this: The Green Knight and Jim downright hate each other.

I think a Jim taken by the Arcane Order as a baby would be VERY different from Canon. He would verge on being a villain, being raised to kill at a young age and to view all other humans as contemptable.

I think Barbara would believe her son died, as that would be easy enough to make possible by Bellroc and Skrael, and in their eyes of she thinks her son is dead, then she won't try and find him.

The Green Knight is all but a puppet to Bellroc and Skrael and Jim hates that he's bigger and stronger than him and the fact The Green Knight takes every opportunity to remind him.