#rolls eyes at capitalism

[magicpotatothoughts]

Thank God Hualian is canon because Mu Qing and Hua Cheng rarepair would be the judgiest, cattiest, most savage couple in the 3 realms combined

[wizzard890]

Hello! I'm someone who really enjoys makeup, but has recently in the past few years begun to view makeup and the makeup industry more broadly as something that is really detrimental to women. You seem to be in somewhat of the same position, and I admire your thoughts, so I was curious how you reconcile those positions or if you feel the need to reconcile them at all? Please ignore this ask if it's intrusive or weird lol

You can't reconcile them. You really can't. The beauty industry exists to churn out propaganda, inventing flaws and offering us fixes for a price, before moving on to the new (usually opposite, so you don't already have the tools) trend.

I'm in my thirties, I've seen the beauty industry turn into a nightmarish hydra that I never could have imagined as a teenager. The speed with which people create and zero in on new physical nitpicks, the ubiquity of filters and plastic surgery, that skincare (literally unless you have a specific ailment, a soft cleanser and nothing else will do you just fine) has become a lunatic self-flagellation in the name of some kind of nebulous Purity, just the endless chasing and chasing and chasing of that new thing that new miracle bottle, whatever will finally make you less disgusting for living in a human body. It's rancid. But it’s always been like this. Just slower.

And it's important to be intellectually honest about all this. The reason we think we look better with our lips a certain color, or our skin being a certain texture is because beauty culture has spent hundreds of years and trillions of dollars rotting our brains. None of this is real. You know that you find the people you love the most attractive when they're comfortable and bare faced and being themselves. Contour would change literally nothing about your feelings in that moment.

I enjoy makeup. I like gold eyeliner and deep berry lipsticks and a stain of blush. Why? Because I also have brain rot, and think I look Better with it on. You can't dismantle the entire wretched apparatus on your own, but you can be clear with yourself about why you believe what you believe. As my wife pointed out when I talked to her about this ask, even saying "I just like to decorate my face" doesn't hold water. You don't know what you natively like to do with your face, when it comes to beauty. You've spent your whole life marinating in propaganda. It gets into everything.

Due to my Ancient Years, I am no longer expected to be Young And Hot, which means I don't put on makeup on to run errands, and I don't feel like a full face is necessary to see friends or get dinner on a weeknight. I've started trying to treat makeup like I'd treat a pair of high heels: sometimes it's nice to feel dressed up, and in some environments heels are part of the dress code. Sometimes you wear heels to show your partner that you put in extra effort for them, or to make sure someone knows you took an occasion seriously.

Tellingly, heels also exist to fix a "failure" in your appearance.

It's like finding smoking sexy. Smoking kills you, unambiguously. And yet....it's hard not to feel like you'd be cooler if you had a cigarette in your hand. No one is immune to the manipulations of propaganda. But it is propaganda, plain and simple, and we shouldn't twist ourselves in knots to defend the lies it tells us, or try to make them ~praxis~. Beauty culture is exactly the same.

[catharusustulatus]

She still calls him Dingus, but Robin has recently started to branch out with the nicknames for Steve. Maybe it’s an any-day-could-be-the-end-of-the-world sentimental thing, but he doesn’t mind. He loves it, in fact. Robin calls him “-Ven Diagram” once, calls him Knucklehead, Eyelashes, Bagel Boy. Which is fair.

He calls her Rob, Robbie, Sir Robin. Freckles, Smarty Pants. He calls her Elisabeth (her middle name) when he’s feeling cheeky. He calls her Ro-Bo-Rob over the phone, calling before bed after he’s gotten home from dropping her off, he can’t seem to go fifteen minutes without her. Like she’s his second beating heart. He does his best robot impersonation to make her laugh, her chuckle over the landline the only thing that gets him to sleep these days. He tells her good night, knows she’s twirling the cord as she says “alright, love you Steve. Time for bed, for real this time.”

[essektheylyss]

Thinking about Loxlee Manufacturing is so wild because, you know, they make lightbulbs. Those lightbulbs are the reason countless people in the Fold survive and make do, and those aren't even people within the Trust. They are probably the vehicle through which the Trust is able to establish notaries beyond their current boundaries and make a convenient example for notaries to put forward. The fact that it bears the name Loxlee allows the Loxlees to automatically be the Most Valorous People in Trust society, and they're not even the ones making the lightbulbs. In fact, they're employing child laborers— ahem, I mean, disadvantaged young interns who are getting an education and experience.

Really just makes me want to do a propaganda flyby of the Loxlee Headquarters islet and drop the Communist Manifesto in pamphlet form because holy hell somebody's gotta do it.

[somebodylovesyougcv]

im sorry but this yassification girl boss pop culture juggernaut of a dnc convention just makes me roll my eyes like i thought we were over fangirling american politics. lil jon is announcing a group of delegates who are gonna vote for another american imperialist to be a presidential nominee while their american imperialist bombs rain down on palestinian people in an open air prison. like can we please put all of this dnc shit in a global context? the democrats are allegedly paving a path forward for americans, but what about a path forward for palestinian people? for the people that america doesn’t actually care about (which is most of us anyways)?

[entropic-introspection]

Is it funnier if the antagonist

1) Is from the future, but promptly took a baseball bat to the timeline to hide from time cops by forcing an alternate universe, with them needing to push things along occasionally to stay hidden, or

2) Claims the above, but we the audience are given clues they are actually an isekai protagonist lying out of their ass to explain their horribly scattershot future knowledge and weird mannerisms

[comradecowplant]

Love how the new PLL writers were like okay FINE fans were right to point out that A was never really a slasher villain and continuing to use that moniker for these new villains is a slap in the face to the original evil girlbosses-- Mona, Cece, and Ello Spensah-- who worked 👏 hard 👏 scheming and stooging (sometimes YEARS of preparation!) in order to torture the original liars...... so for these new girls we will call the villains B instead :)

[dickotomia]

Well Boom was kind of amazing, best episode of the season so far to the point it got me questioning if Moffatt is good actually. Which he is not but in this episode his whole Shtick works very well, and all the bad elements of his writing are subdued enough that they doesn't matter

[the-mountain-flower]

You know when an ad is so annoying/bad it's almost funny? Bc Spotify's been doing that lately.

Every time it advertises Premium it's like "don't miss out on this big deal!" "Special offer! You can have Premium for only $10.99!" "Limited time Premium offer!" "Don't miss out on $10.99 per month Premium!"

As if it's not. The exact same price. Every time. Every single one frames it as a special, limited-time-only offer, when it's just the exact same as the regular deal you can get at any point. i don't buy it, for reasons that won't be swayed by saying it's suddenly "special" when there's zero change. I'm not going to "miss out", bc there's nothing to miss out on. If I'm not spending $11 monthly on it, a hyped up ad for the same thing isn't gonna do shit.

Like seriously, I was THERE when they announced they were making Premium be $11 monthly instead of $10 monthly. They made a big deal about inflation meaning they had to blah blah blah (say it like it is: price gouging).

I can't be reckless with my finances. I read, calculate, and carefully consider the price. That's the case for the vast majority of people.

Do they REALLY think we wouldn't notice this was literally nothing special?? It's insulting.

[chamerionwrites]

99% of farmers' market/craft fair customers are very nice but there's always one dickhead who's either hugely offended that you aren't charging sweatshop prices for hours of labor, or just negging you in some weird nonsensical way.

[mzannthropy]

The new BBC adaptation of Murder Is Easy: first part, so far so good. I read this book only once, a long time ago so I don't remember much, therefore I cannot comment how accurate it is. They made the main character, the one who investigates, Luke, a Nigerian, and they showed a bit of Nigerian culture, there was a club he went to where he met his friends and they ate the food. The village where the murders take place looks really picturesque and it's all visually pleasing. Part 2 tomorrow.

[zealli]

I have to prep for holmat and i dont think ill have the doujin ready in time…

[starblaster]

i just think “transformative” fiction can go too far sometimes. it’s how we ended up with works of fanfiction being turned into the shittiest novels in the english language (both sides now by peyton thomas, fifty shades series by e.l. james).

and yeah, maybe these are extreme exceptions. but fandoms at large do still have a problem with the transformative fiction mentality; there are an alarming number of fans who impose their interpretation on the source material and it's starting to feel like people only want to interpret works through their own skewed, insular perspectives and they don't want to do any of the work required to effectively interact with a text or a piece of media. this isn't a "we can all have our headcanons" post, this is a heavy "please remember than an author actually wrote this and had their own intentions and you have to at least fucking try understanding those intentions first" suggestion.

and obviously my point is not that there is 'only 1 true interpretation' at all. but it would be worth your time as a critical thinker to recognize if/when your interpretations have become too far removed from the source work and that distorted interpretation is impacting your ability to engage with texts/media in a meaningful way.

[lyssified]

hanging out with my old neighbors today that i havent seen for 2 years and i don't think anyone gave them the memo that im a little bit of a freak now

[brunetterightsactivist]

Tiktok has reached the wearing makeup is a feminist act stage lmaooooo

[skrunksthatwunk]

"hey HEY what do you have in your mouth!!! sit SIT. SPIT IT OUT GIVE IT—" but instead of talking to a dog it's me about my parents using the word overstimulated as nothing but another way to make fun of our anxious traumatized dog for doing things they find inconvenient or unreasonable or illogical (and, by extension, everyone who uses the term for legitimate reasons). (WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM!!!!!!!!!! AND ALSO WHERE THE FUCK DID THEY HEAR IT BECAUSE I DON'T USE IT AROUND THEM On Purpose BECAUSE I KNOW THEY'D BE ANNOYING ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)