#declarations of intent

[mumblelard]

the lodger's new roommate or the lodger's old roommate, a tale of woe

i mounted them using the forty pound command strips and the lodger ripped them down thrice. message received

also, i'm into site specific maps lately and thinking a lot about hand drawn maps. i drew a map of the roads between my girlfriend's house and mine and i like how it turned out

i treated myself to early solstice presents this week: fancy new earbuds that sound so good, new trail shoes, a pink krink k-42 with an opacity that will make you swoon, and a t-shirt by an artist i like. i am still struggling with wanting stuff

i hosted all four of finn's cats yesterday while pest control treated their building. we had a nice visit. kreg keeps saying she wants to live here but i know she would miss her finnie

it got in the high fifties yesterday. i opened all my windows to let the fresh air flow and did a big clean. it was such a pretty day

i have been writing more poems lately. they are built like tiny verbal wunderkammer and filled with bright treasures i find on my rambles. i think, with practice, they are getting better

i'm making cornbread stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and roasted chicken this weekend. a makeup dinner for the traditional thanksgiving feast i missed last month

this year has been so packed full of change for me. a struggle that has plagued me for the last four years ended in a most dramatic way. a brutal passage that i survived, mostly, intact. i wish it could have ended some other way, but at least now, it's finally over

[bbbbbbbbatman]

Bruce gets accosted by reporters and one of them asks "Is it true that you're in competition with Superman to win Batman's affections?" and he is so taken aback bc what the fuck are they even talking about? There are a million questions going through his head such as, since when was superman into batman? since when was this public knowledge? wtf did bruce say to imply that he was into batman as well? And he doesn't have an answer to any of these questions so he just smiles and says, "No, I'm not. The word competition implies that Superman has a chance, which he does not."

why did he say that? Bruce doesn't know, it just felt like that's how Bruce Wayne would've responded bc what's more Brucie than fighting with Superman for Batman's heart? anyway, upon reflection, this was maybe not the best response in terms of long term consequences, but he's committed to the bit now.

a week after all this goes down, news reporter Clark Kent is caught saying that Batman deserves better than Bruce Wayne, so is a third suitor putting his hat in the ring to win over batman?

[stars-obsession-pit]

Right Actions, Wrong Target

So i just had an idea…

What if the GIW’s course of action was actually right?

Or, well, more accurately: what if it was mostly right for the situation they started in, and their main failures were in where they took it from there.

Expanding on my ideas/thought process here:

So in this idea, the GIW was founded in response to a specific discovery by the government:

An underground pool of a strange substance that didn’t resemble any known chemical. It glowed a toxic green, perpetually churned as if boiling, could be lethal to the touch for living things, and could cause things to spontaneously animate in the area around it.

Stagnant, corrupted ectoplasm (not that they had any idea what ectoplasm even was at the time).

Those original researchers encountered ectoplasmic entities around the pit, but not ones like those in Amity Park.

Inhuman things.

Shades whose memories of life had all but faded except for the strongest emotions (usually negative emotions like anger, pain, or fear). Animals driven mad by the pit’s influence. Reanimated food and other organic material.

Things that objectively were dangerous to normal people and that couldn’t be meaningfully communicated with.

So, lacking any better option to respond (or even the knowledge of if such a path was possible at all), they set protocols to contain (and, potentially, dispose of) the entities.

And this is perhaps a bit of a tangent but their ridiculous uniform cleanliness standards could also have a justification too.

The unknown substance would eat through or change just about any material they tested it on. Considering the dangers they had already witnessed it pose to living things (never mind the possibility of other long-term side effects), they decided they had to be extraordinarily careful with their safety precautions.

Thus, incredibly thorough decontamination protocols were set up and strictly adhered to.

White clothes were the best option to allow easy identification of any stains. For agents in the field without proper equipment to run a full scan, it was safer to treat all dirt like a potential hazard.

And so on.

Their policies may not have been perfect, but were created with actual logic behind them in response to their situation at the time.

But then when they expanded outwards to research other similar phenomena, that’s where they truly failed, both as scientists and as basic moral people.

They didn’t adapt to new data. Rules that had been created with scientific reasoning behind them became instead a form of gospel and a means of exerting control over others.

They declared that all ghosts were unfeeling monsters to be locked up, studied, and disposed of (despite all evidence to the contrary). Cleanliness changed from a precaution to a ritual to be practiced unfailingly in all circumstances as a sign of loyalty (thus the “cleanliness breach” thing the agents comment on in the show in a few places).

[dawnthefluffyduck]

ralsapril day 1 - raven

[andhumanslovedstories]

I started watching Black Sails in 2017 or 2018 on the recommendation of my good friends and also literally every gay person on the internet. I got thru seasons 1 and 2 and started 3, but I was like “god this is intense, I better take a small break.” And now that about seven years have passed which I spent diligently avoiding any spoilers and refusing to remember the ones I accidentally did see, I think I’m finally ready to find out what happens to those crazy kids.

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

The platonic/familial ("&") vs romantic/sexual ("/") binary of ao3 is kinda frustrating. I get why it's a thing, but like. Sometimes I just want to see the two characters and I don't care if they're kissing or not! and having to decide which half of the content for them to look through at any given time is annoying.

Not even to mention trying to tag my own works when idgaf about relationship labels and categorizations like that, or when it's an ambiguous or queerplatonic relationship, or otherwise doesn't fit into the platonic-romantic/sexual binary.

[laurasimonsdaughter]

My ebooks will be on the move

I currently have two free ebooks available on various platforms (Apple books, Kobo, etc.):

Coffee and Faerie Cakes, my urban fantasy romance

Fullerton Parsonage, my Northanger Abbey retelling

But since Draft2Digital merged with Smashwords their terms and conditions have changed in a way that will not let me upload anymore of my Austen works, so I'm considering moving to a Dutch self-publisher instead.

This would possibly mean print on demand physical books (!), but might also mean that I can no longer offer my ebooks completely free. So if you want to grab them, grab them now!

[thesummerstorms]

Anyway, it's obviously a default texture but it is fun to confirm that Lucanis's favorite mug that he's always carrying is in fact "from" (or at least matches with due to video game modeling) the tea set you give him as his companion gift.

[mira-likes]

When I first watched s2, I mentioned how I expected the emperor to have Thoughts about Fan Xian entering the Fan ancestral hall. I just didn’t see the emperor loving the idea of Fan Xian declaring himself as part of the Fan family after the emperor had very deliberately revealed his real parentage. I'd forgotten that the emperor actually brings up the subject in episode 10!

Right after Fan Xian stages that excellent show in the Imperial Court and gets the Censorate to investigate the Second Prince, the main dad council convenes. The emperor muses on how Fan Xian's scheming is deep for his young age, and segues from that to saying, offhand: “Is Fan Xian registered in the Fan ancestral hall? It’s better that he isn’t. His personality will bring a lot of trouble to the Fan family in the future.”

And because the emperor is very hard to read, there could be different options here!

Maybe the emperor means to emphasize the trouble part. In the discussion that follows soon after, he indicates he's miffed that the Second Prince is being so publicly investigated, and intends to protect him as his son. So he could be straight up saying: it may be better for the Fan family if you're not inextricably linked to Fan Xian and all of his future fuckery.

Or then the emperor is issuing Fan Jian a warning of a very different kind. Given that the emperor brings up the ancestral hall topic right on the heels of talking about Fan Xian's plotting acumen in an impressed tone, he could also be saying: hm, that kid just got more interesting… so let’s all remember that he is my kid, fellas, and not get ideas about registering him officially as yours.

To Fan Jian’s credit, he immediately and pointedly chortles that Fan Xian’s last name is Fan, ancestral hall or no, and Fan Jian is ready to take responsibility for all of his chaos. Like, in any case that man wants to stand his ground as the Main Dad. It’s no surprise that later in the season he’s touched by Fan Xian’s decision to enter the Fan ancestral hall and is fully onboard with the idea. But I do wonder if this little moment foreshadows an eventual conflict there...

[britneyshakespeare]

you know something i don't like about modern culture (and i wonder to what extent the prevalence of dating apps has to do with it) is that you're, seemingly, not supposed to ask people you just meet in real life on a date anymore? you're supposed to ask them to see you individually to hang out, and you're not supposed to call it anything...? people act like declaring intent is impolite or something.

this absolutely sucks if you're a woman on the receiving end of this kind of thing all the time, from men you don't wanna see privately that way. i've felt so much guilt about it in my life. whether i say no or yes. i know i'm giving that man hope that it's a date, that i wanna go on a date with him if i agree to see him for coffee or whatever. but if i don't wanna go on this undeclared date, i have to reject the very concept of spending time with him at all, which feels SOOO much meaner and more personal, doesn't it? it feels like that to me. and if i do go, and i don't wanna go on another one (because i never enjoyed the it-pretty-much-being-a-date element of the time), it feels like i'm crushing his hopes after puffing them up just a little bit.

and it's like. "date" is not a dirty word. we have so many expectations nowadays around things. women used to sit around and wait for a man to propose to them, and it would be basically the only decision they could make in their life. not even really the choice to marry, but to whom they get married. and obviously marriage was very serious.

as courtship continued to develop into modern dating and boyfriend/girlfriend culture, it sort of decentralized the importance or marriage and valued getting to know someone you like romantically, with the implicit assumption that you're doing it with the attempt to better choose the 'right one' by spending quality time with them. decent enough. although even the words boyfriend and girlfriend are much more serious than they used to be. they did not always imply a serious commitment like they do today, especially if you're... basically, just not a kid anymore.

people have a certain amount of expectation of what anyone over 18 should do or want to do with a "partner"—like, if this were the 1940s, i would've had several "boyfriends" in my adult life, but i never called them that, and the modern sense of that word would not be accurate. if i went on a date or two and flirted with them, that'd be enough to say "yeah i went out with a boyfriend." i'm mostly indifferent to this change of vocabulary, but the point is i have no word to describe any of those guys that i just gave a chance, never felt much for, and didn't wanna keep seeing. not bad things; it's just experience.

and if we aren't bold enough to call things dates for the sake of the atmosphere not losing the low-stakes nature... it's like, no, it doesn't do that. it's just two people spending time with the elephant in the room. perhaps that makes it feel more relaxed if both people really are doing it with the same intent, let's-just-see-if-we-get-along, figuring out if you like someone you don't really know very well yet. testing it. but like. that can be a date. that's what a lot of dates are. when you meet the person on a dating app and just grab coffee without setting higher expectations, you wouldn't hesitate to call it a date. if it's that person from your college class, that's ruder or more presumptuous, somehow?

a date doesn't have to be a candlelit dinner with the violinist standing by. a date doesn't have to be high romance. a date doesn't have to end with a kiss or lead to a commitment, if things go decently. a date certainly doesn't have to result in two people having sex. a date can be nonchalant and friendly and just trying to discover if you have any chemistry with this person who piqued your interest. why is that NOT the initial expectation anymore? why is "date" a dirty word? why?

[simplybybea]

Did this before I'd even finished Prodigy season 2 so here is some angsty commitment rock and its tether to a ghostly Chakotay trying to get home.

Digital oil and Janeway asking the universe desperately to send him home to her.

[frogmuse]

Peter Lorre ❤️ ❤️

[satancopilotsmytardis]

#Assumed Relationship #Crossdressing #Realization #Porn with Feelings

So Dabi isn't sure why Duster has been spending more time with him lately. He thought when the other man said that he wanted to be with him more, that meant that he wanted to keep an eye on him in the field, not when Dabi was just hanging around base. But they're together a lot now and it's kind of driving him crazy. It's not like being around Shig is necessarily bad, they've been getting along way better actually, but he doesn't have any time to himself practically and that means that he doesn't have time for his... hobbies.

Yeah, he likes to put on some lingerie and a skirt and go get absolutely railed. Yeah, that's a little weird, but of all the weird things about Dabi's life, it's one that's not hurting anyone so he doesn't give a fuck. Problem is that now that Shig is his shadow, he can't go out for it anymore. Fine. He'll make do himself. He really should have locked his door though.

[age-of-moonknight]

“Knight Time in the City,” Phases of the Moon Knight (Vol. 1/2024), #2.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Penciler and Inker: Jorge Fornès; Colorist: Lee Loughridge; Letterer: Cory Petit

[triptychofvoids]

Doc, I’m dead

*falls down and starts sinking into the tiles like quick sand*

-🧸

well im not sure how much i can do to help with you clipping through the floor like that

[palin-tropos]

my comrade in mazov we WILL be playing with the semantic ambiguity between Party (political organization), party (hedonistic celebration), and party (group of adventurers in a role-playing game)