#just lower level

[theworstcreature]

Going to see if i can listen to thirsty for the next 4.5 hours straight

Might update as time goes on

Might just devolve into madness

[inkskinned]

what is with men being mad any time a woman raises her voice where did that even come from. someone posted a video of a small electrical explosion, and the top comment was of course the woman screams. the second comment is women try not to scream challenge, level impossible. i had to go back and watch the video again. there is, somewhat fainty, a little gasp emitted off-camera, more of a yelp than a scream. it is mostly lost in the crack of the explosion. afterwards, you hear her voice, shaken, say, are you okay?

i am helping one of my friends train her voice pitch lower, because she wants to be taken seriously at work. she and i do each other's nails and talk about gender roles; and how - due to our appearance - neither of us have ever been able to be "hysterical" in public. we both appear young and sweet and feminine. she is cisgender, and cannot use her natural voice in her profession because people keep saying she appears to be "vapid". we both try to figure out if our purposeful voice lowering is technically sexist. is it promoting something when you are a victim to it?

a storm almost sends a pole through a car window. in the dashcam, you can hear the woman passenger say her partner's name twice, crying out in alarm. she sounds terrified. in the comments, she is lambasted for her lack of calm. how is that even fucking helping?

in high school, i taught myself to have a lower voice. i had been recorded when i was genuinely (and righteously) upset; and i hated how my voice sounded on the phone speakers when it was played back. i was defending my mom, and my voice cracked with emotion. it meant i was no longer winning the argument: i was just shrieking about it.

girls meet each other after a long summer and let out a little joyful scream. this usually stops around 12-14, because people will not tolerate this display of affection (as it has the effect of being passingly annoying). something about the fact that little girls can't ever even be annoying. we are trained to examine each part of our lives (even joy) for anything that could make us upsetting and disgusting. they act like teenage girls are breaking into houses and shrieking you awake at 3 in the morning. speaking as a public school educator: trust me, it's not that bad, you can just roll your eyes and move on. it does not compare to the ways boys end up being annoying: slurs in graffiti, purposefully mocking your body, following you after you said no. you know, just boy things.

there's another video of a man who is not allowed to yell in the house, so he snaps his fingers when he's excited about soccer. the comments are full of angry men, talking about how their brother is unfairly caged. let him express himself and this is terrible to do to someone. eventually the couple has to address it in a second video: they are married with a newborn baby. he was trying not to wake the infant up. there is no comment on the fact women are not allowed to yell indoors. or the fact that it could have been really alarming or triggering for his wife. sometimes i wonder if straight men even like women, if they even enjoy being in relationships with them.

for the longest time, i hated roller coasters because it always felt inappropriate and uncomfortable for me to scream. one of my friends called me on it, said it was unusual i'm so unwilling. i had to go to my therapist about it. i don't like to scream because i was not raised in a safe situation, and raising my voice would have brought unsafe attention towards me. even when i am supposed to scream, it feels shameful, guilty. i was not treated kindly, so i lack a basic form of self-protection. this is not a natural response. it is not good that in a situation of high adrenaline - i shut up about it.

something very bad is happening, i think. in between all the beauty standards and the stuff i've already discussed - this one feels new and cruel in a way i can't quite express. yes, it's scary and silencing. but there's something about how direct it is - that so many men agree with the sentiment that women should never yell, even in an emergency - it feels different.

is the word shriek gendered automatically? how about shrill or screech? in self defense class, one of the first things they tell you is to yell, as loud and as shrilly as you can. they say it will feel rude. most women will not do this. you need to practice overcoming the social pressure and just scream.

most women do not cry out, even when it's bad. we do not report it. we walk faster. we do not make a scene. what would be the point of doing anything else? no matter what we do, we don't get taken seriously. it is a joke to them. an instagram caption punchline. we have to present ourselves as silent, beautiful, captivating - "valuable."

a woman is outside watching her kids when someone throws a firecracker at them. she screams and runs towards her children. in the comments, grown men flock together in the thousands: god. women are so annoying.

[dragon-subway]

ok but what do you think cemeteries on coruscant are like?

[antimony-medusa]

Okay I'm so tired this might not be sensible but I just want to say I am loving what QSMP is doing with the Federation workers. Look at them! They have parties, they have a coffee break room, they have partners and hopes and dreams! And also the unethical human experiementation and the torture and the dystopian regime. And fun posters of each other!

It's such a fun depiction of an evil organization, and I think so much stronger than just moustache-twirling villains. These guys have crushes on people and pick up vocal tics from islanders and get each other with rainbow jelly, and also they can be trusted about as far as we can trust them. It's delicious villains, I am crunching it in my jaws.

[alicentflorent]

I don't know if this will make sense but the women on game of thrones (when they were adapting the full source material ASOIAF) actually felt like women living in a feudalistic society and most of them were layered, three dimensional female characters and there was enough world building that we understood the world they lived in and how this impacted who they were. In HOTD however, it doesn't feel like they even live in a feudalistic society and they are clearly being written and viewed through a modern lens and this is obvious when you see the people involved in the show constantly comparing their women and the storylines involving them to the modern, real world ("women for trump", Hilary Clinton losing the election etc) when there are plenty of historical women and historical examples they can compare it to, I mean Rhaenyra was literally based on empress Matilda!! but they aren't capable of world building this medieval style society despite the fact that the books have already done it, another show has already done it but these showrunners and writers aren't capable of writing a story without allowing their modern world views to affect it and not in a critical but authentic way but in a "I'm going to treat these women as if they haven't been socialised in a feudalistic society where misogyny is the norm and another fatal flaw in the system and write these characters like they should know better than to act like Noble women living under feudalism.

[ask-but-beware-the-consequences]

Pov: You're a can of booze

Pickles: WOOOO Nate'n! We gonna save this can of boooze! With the helicopterrrrr...!

Nathan: With the helicopter, yeah! LIKE A RESCUE.

Pickles: We gon'na make Bay Watch jelous!

Without the water booze effect:

And upside down, to see Nathan's face better:

[system-architect]

i desperately wish gw2 had more food-centric lore. i think about asura food more than is probably particularly reasonable. they're sort of implied to like molecular gastronomy in the lvl500 chef quests which is fitting and makes sense, but surely not every asura is eating bespoke Pea Spheres day in and day out right? i think my favorite angle on them is a sort of 50s-80s american-esque food style where there's a huge emphasis on things being Convenient and Scientific, so you'd get a lot of absolute slop tv dinners and canned items that have labels boasting how they were nutritionally fortified and contained your day's complete vitamin intakes and so on. a lot of jellied things. i do also fully believe they would have + eat soylent.

[jakeperalta]

I get why people complain about the overexposure of celebrities..... I'M sick of hearing about taylor and I'm a fan :/

[skania]

OnK Chapter 149

I know it doesn’t mean much coming from me because I’m always complaining about Aka’s writing, but…

And I mean it when I say that I expect nothing 😭 This was literally my first ever OnK-related reblog and its tags are more relevant than ever lmao

These, too:

#honestly I didn’t think too hard about any of this during my first read #because the romantic endgame seems so obvious that it kind of discourages guessing lmao #but re-reading these chapters has made me appreciate Aqua’s side of his bond with Akane a lot more

Back when I first got into OnK, I mentioned that Akane was the entire reason I kept reading the manga. I didn’t care about the romantic subplot, found Aqua/Kana extremely obvious and predictable, and Aqua plain boring.

It’s only during my second read that I paid close attention to Akane’s interactions with Aqua and I ended up playing myself into both, caring about Aqua and shipping him with Akane lol

This chapter has made me realize that despite everything, I'm not emotionally invested in whether they end up together or not. I’d prefer it, obviously, because Aqua truly is at his most interesting whenever he’s around Akane, and their dynamic has the best development in the manga (so far).

But it’s just like I said before: If they don’t end up together, that’s just Aka’s loss, not mine. I’m just here for Akane 😂

And as an Akane fan, I feel like the best thing for me to do right now is to just take a step back and watch things unfold, because Aka will do whatever he wants regardless of how any of us interpret his manga lol

So instead of posting the long post I originally wrote about this chapter when the leaks came out, I'll just share a a clown gif because in hindsight it was silly of me to expect Kana out of all people to have any sort of meaningful insight into Aqua 🤡

And a couple of things that caught my eye because I can't help myself:

Kana didn't even see Aqua and Akane have any sort of meaningful moment, just those two standing in each other's vicinity was enough to make her throw herself a pity party. How many more times is she going to pity herself and give up? How has Aka not tired of writing her this way? Where did her development from the Scandal arc go? 🤡

So Chapter 147 featured Kamiki thinking Ai doesn't love him and Kana thinking Aqua likes her. It even had a helpful "Cut 139: Misunderstanding" panel and everything. Will this mean something? Who knows!

Kana used guilt-trip! It was super effective!

Oh the irony! Poor Akane looks like she's been hard at work convincing herself that she's over Aqua. And you know what? I cheer for her and respect her energy 100%. I'd rather see her doing her mightiest to help him without any ulterior motives than to have her crying for him and hoping to get back with him every other chapter lol

Akane calling Kana out for her pity-party and for being cowardly was so cathartic that if I didn't already stan her, I'd have become a fan right now 😭 It also means that Aka is 100% aware of the way he writes Kana, so when will she finally be allowed to grow?

Kana's praise to Akane made me so sad though because yes, Akane is pretty and she's talented and she's kind. That's sweet of her to say. But that's not what made Akane someone special to Aqua: it was the way she understood him. The worst part is that Kana ends her praise by saying that Akane is a "goody-two-shoes" but... that's the opposite of how Akane views herself. She sees herself as someone who's not decent and not normal. So it's no wonder that while she gets flustered (it's her dear kana-chan praising her), she seems to get a bit sad/frustrated afterward. After all, for Akane it's probably the opposite. Men would prefer a decent, normal, bright girl like Kana - Aqua included.

I wish someone would tell Akane that she is too ignorant of her own charms and that she doesn't have to act like an adult all the time. Truly the pot calling the kettle black! Sadly, unlike Kana, Akane seems to have no one in her corner in this manga. Aqua was the only one there and the poor guy is barely even a character anymore lol

Overprotective mother or controlling ex-girlfriend? Take your pick!

The English translation left something pretty important out in these panels. Akane doesn't just say "if you have a girlfriend", she says "if you have a precious/important girlfriend". This distinction is very important because it goes to show that... as expected, Akane doesn't think she was an important girlfriend to Aqua. It's like she didn't count and Kana would be the real deal. Oh, Akane...

Which takes me to her very silly, very convoluted yet very predictable plan (in true Aka fashion).

When Akane thinks “I know exactly what you hate”, I imagine she means that Aqua hates hurting and endangering those he cares for. So I'm guessing Akane thinks that if she plays matchmaker and quite literally throws Kana at him, someone he has a soft spot, then Aqua won't be able to go through with his revenge because that would mean breaking Kana's very fragile heart.

In other words, it looks like Akane is going to try and use Aqua's guilt-complex against him and her weapon of choice is love. But not her love, obviously, because as far as she's concerned, her romantic love already failed to save him.

Granted, using Kana's romantic feelings to her advantage is kind of... well, wrong. To quote Akane herself, [Kana] is neither her pet nor her property, but a person. But I'm guessing that Akane may be falling victim to the same loophole she got caught in in Chapters 96 - 98. She thinks she knows what's best, so she's putting her own beliefs aside for the time being.

Kind of like Aqua, actually.

And, ironically, it's Aqua himself who first realized how easy Kana is to use.

So! All in all, I'm here for Mastermind!Akane but I hope that Aka will actually make it worth our while. Will Kana realize that she's about to be used as a chess piece in this Proxy War? Who knows, characters in this manga seem to walk in circles, only being allowed to grow when it fits the plot 😂

Last week we wondered whether Aka would subvert expectations or go the predictable route, and down the predictable route he went. His way of making it less predictable is by including a twist in the form of Akane's ulterior motives, but will this be enough to allow this ol' used trope to lead us someplace new? I guess we'll have to keep reading to find out, but given the quality of the writing lately, I'm not expecting much lol

[creekfiend]

I don't have a problem with the funnier-as-a-(type of person) blogs conceptually but often the posts people tag them in were in fact funnier when they were about the original things they were about, and new levels of funniness were NOT actually unlocked when considered from the perspective of (specific type of person) like what you mean is that the post REMINDED u of this and that's not quite the same thing in a way where I always have this autism reaction of like THAT'S NOT ACCURATE IT IS FUNNY ON ITS OWN MERITS

like once someone tagged one of my clown car full of mice posts "funnier as a system" and I was like no that's. not correct it is not funnier that way it's in fact equally funny either way I promise. the reason for this is that either way it is a clown car, that's full of mice, and you must envision this. it matters not if you are a system or not a system. it crucially depends on the mice that are in the clown car. do you see

[mathewton-cl]

As An IzuOcha Shipper…

…them not ending up together isn’t the problem.

Horikoshi taking the “leave it up to interpretation” approach and then proceeding to COMPLETELY AVOID ADDRESSING their relationship status is the problem.

Horikoshi failing to tie up that one last loose end for Uraraka’s character arc (not closing off her feelings) is the problem.

Again, I ship IzuOcha. Still do, because I’m stubborn. Would I have liked for them to end up together, even if it was only a somewhat blatant implication that could be handwaved? Obviously. But you know what? Maybe I would be upset if the story went out of its way to explicitly de-confirm any chance of Midoriya and Uraraka being a romantic pairing, but I’d at least respect it and understand it a lot more if the story let Midoriya and Uraraka actually talk about this, or at the very least SHOWED US them talking about this. I’d understand if Uraraka completed her character arc by having a heart to heart with Midoriya and telling him that her feelings have changed, her priorities have changed, and Midoriya understands and they remain good friends. Let’s be real, romance isn’t Horikoshi’s strong suit, despite his many attempts to leave romantic implications throughout the series. I’d completely understand if he just had Midoriya and Uraraka talk and they didn’t end up together, because at least then it still provides both of their characters with closure.

But no, that’s too simple. Let’s just “leave it up to interpretation,” because it clearly wasn’t that important, right?

Well, as many people on the internet have already brought up, if it wasn’t so important, why did you spend so much time putting emphasis on it? Why did you have Uraraka, up until the FINAL WAR, have her crush on Midoriya be a crucial part of her character (it wasn’t her only character trait, mind you, but it was still important)? Why did the penultimate chapter have the class come to comfort Uraraka and tell her that they can talk to her… and then come the next chapter, Uraraka apparently hasn’t done anything regarding her supposed crush on Midoriya? For literal YEARS!?

…see, this isn’t even a shipping problem anymore. This is a character problem.

Horikoshi, for whatever reason, chose not to include a romance for the main character and his supposed love interest. And again, that’s fine, not every story needs to be a romance. Two problems with it here though (well, one problem and an observation):

1) Choosing to not at least address the romantic subplot with a “I think we’re better off as friends” encounter, thus actually concluding the subplot and providing a sense of closure, not only leaves the result feeling underwhelming and frustrating, but also actively damages Uraraka’s character arc. We can have her address the problem that caused people like Toga to exist, but heaven forbid she talks about romance with Midoriya.

2) Despite his supposed aversion to romance, Horikoshi still went out of his way to give Gentle and La Brava wedding rings… he’s willing to establish a side romantic pairing without bringing too much attention to it, but he can’t be bothered to do something similar for the arguable MAIN pairing? It’s the “Togata has special clothes so he doesn’t end up buck naked, but Hagakure’s still gotta go commando” debacle again…

I’ma go ahead and wrap this up ‘cause I don’t wanna keep y’all much longer, but like… being optimistic, this ending was… functional. I’ve got my problems with it, obviously, I don’t think it was BAD bad… but it certainly wasn’t good. It works. Barely. And it’s ‘cause of stuff like this.

Midoriya and Uraraka didn’t need to end up together, truly. All Horikoshi had to do was put the smallest amount of effort and give us something of substance, something with closure. Instead, we got what we got.

I get that he was exhausted and wanted the manga to be over… but that excuse only holds up for so long.

[lloke]

There's something that kinda fascinates me about those elaborate gnostic divine hierarchies where the highest God -- who is unimaginably remote -- first emanates a bunch of lesser powers, who then emanate another level of powers and so on until you get down to the demiurgic creator of our own world who exists on a fairly low level of the divine ecosystem. I guess all these intermediate layers of divinity appeal to me because of the way they kind of create a sense of scale regarding the true vastness of the divine realm and the power and majesty attributed to the ultimate God. It's like those astronomical comparisons that try to help you visualize the immensity of space by explaining that so many thousand Earths could fit inside Jupiter, and so many Jupiters inside the sun and so on -- telling you to imagine something impossibly huge, and then to imagine something so huge it makes the first thing look miniscule in comparison, in order to give you that mindblowing feeling of "omg space is so big!!" Similarly these divine hierarchies are like: "Oh yeah, that god who created our whole universe and could crush us with a thought -- the one who maybe other sects say is Top God? He's actually the lowest man on the cosmic totem pole; there exist gods as high above him as he is above us puny mortals. And even they aren't the greatest gods out there..."

IDK even though I don't believe in any of it I guess aesthetically I just prefer a sense of the divine that's actually massive and awesome and incomprehensible over the aspects of religion that try really hard to make God Almighty #relatable to human beings.

(But maybe I also kind of think of this stuff as just a metaphor for the actual nature of Ultimate Reality, which is in fact huge and incomprehensible and non-anthropocentric when you're not viewing it from a religious angle.)

[pjharvey-moved]

it's sooo funny how many autistic girls on instagram are like no one believes me that i'm autistic bc i'm HOT because like that definitely is true, no one knows what do with autistic women who are able to conform to traditional ideas of femininity bc of the ridiculous idea that autism is Extreme Male Brain that has persisted for so long, but also every other post from these people is like omg just because i'm the most sexy femme fatale goddess to walk the earth doesn't mean i'm not autistic #positivity ... like i love the self confidence girl but it's so strange to act like us lucky ugly nonfeminine autistic women have it so much easier

[mourning-again-in-america]

"mansplaining is only when a less qualified man is talking over and explaining a mutually understood concept to a more qualified woman! it does NOT refer to trans men explaining their own oppression!"

cool, so now that you've gerrymandered sexism so that it's less of a viable weapon against you and yours, now all you need to do determine when mansplaining occurs is 1. Unambiguously determine the gender of both individuals, 2. Unambiguously determine the relative qualifications of both interlocutors, and 3. Determine whether or not experiences with oppression might be informing the alleged "mansplainer"'s argument. Have fun!

Edit: I charged like a bull seeing red, and forgot an important qualifier in the supposed redefinition of mansplaining. It's only mansplaining if the man thinks that they have higher qualifications than the woman purely because of sexism, which is a simple task to figure out, you just probe into someone's mind to see if they acted Wrong because they have the Evil kind of thoughts, the kinds of thoughts that must be purged and shown no mercy, not because they're neurodivergent or anything. I'm sure this is trivial to figure out, without any possible false errors. Especially given that mansplaining itself is often used as a demonstration of why someone is sexist.

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

headcanon that scorpius was a sick child and was in and out of hospital constantly, perhaps related to astoria's blood curse but not directly. his immune system isnt very strong, and everytime he gets sick they're terrified that it's the blood curse but also whatever else it could be, because it's always so sudden and so intense and they call healers over to the house who recommend this delirious feverish 4 year old is hospitalised immediately, and you'd think it'd get easier to some extent because they'd be used to it, but everytime they feel like this is it, this is the time he'll walk in to the hospital and not walk out again

[kitocrystal]

Drawing shiposts to unwind from all the stuff happening in Inky Mystery B)

The End alternate version:

Aaaand here’s JaAC Bendy!

I recommend you guys go check out “Just an Alley Cat, I Swear!” By SpectorOdyssey, one of the authors for Inky Mystery.

There isn’t a lot of chapters currently for the fic but it’s got an interesting story and also- BABY BENDY.