#self-exploited

[khruschevshoe]

You know, it's rather interesting to me that Taylor Swift's parasocial relationship with her fans is honestly more akin to a YouTuber than a writer's. When I scroll through her tag on tumblr/Twitter, it's far more regarding the connection to her personal life/relationship developments than the actual metaphors/fictional story she might be telling. Everything comes back to how her songs reflect back on her relationships with Joe/Matty/Travis/Jake/insert ex-boyfriend here. And what fascinates me about it is that even though she complains about it, she leans into that very perception because it strengthens the parasocial bond.

The marketing for TTPD so clearly being about Joe Alwyn and the songs to Matty Healy. The marketing/video for Red TV so CLEARLY being about Jake Gyllenhaal, with so many of the new lines in All Too Well specifically being digs at him (I'll get older but your lovers stay my age, casting an actor that looks like him for the video, specific lines in I Bet You Think About Me). The fact that songs like Getaway Car and Bejeweled and Gorgeous and London Boy and Lavender Haze being picked apart at time of release and long after for signs of relationships crumbling. The way she uses surprise songs in relation to her relationship development with Joe/Matty/Travis. The damn TTPD "stages of grief" playlists where she deliberately undid/changed the meanings of old songs just to keep her audience speculating on her love life.

It's not sexist to point out that her wielding her love life is a marketing tool and that the strongest connection to her audience isn't the strength of her writing/the composition of her music- it's her deliberate crafting of a connection between her music and her personal life, leaving the audience invested in her music as an extension of Taylor the Person/Girlfriend rather than Taylor the Artist.

[thirdity]

We optimize ourselves to death. Relentless self-exploitation leads to mental collapse. Brutal competition ends in destruction. It produced an emotional coldness and indifference towards others as well as towards one's own self.

Byung-chul Han, Capitalism and the Death Drive

[pied-piper-pluto]

as a big proponent of Making Your Own Webbed Site For Your Webbed Comic myself, it bothers me how, every time naver webtoon gets caught mistreating specifically its contracted artists, that news gets used as a jumping off point to promote self hosting/reading self hosted comics... it feels like a self-interested distraction from the actual issue of "this company is screwing over people it has contracts with"

[bioethicists]

it's quite offputting to me when ppl can't disentangle their hatred for capitalism from a hatred for... new technological innovation? the ways in which capitalism has shaped the development of certain technologies has been deeply negative, not to mention that imperialism ensures that new technology is usually produced via extractive relationships with both the planet + ppl in the global south.

but this weird tying of capitalist impact on innovation (+the idea of what is/is not innovation) to hatred of innovation itself (or even more disturbing valorization of "the good old days"/implications that technology is causing social degeneracy) is baffling to me. perhaps it is impossible to achieve specific technologies without unconscionable resource extraction practices, in which case they should not be pursued. but so many ppl act like there is something inherently morally suspect in pursuit of tech such as autonomous vehicles or AI or automation, independent of the material conditions that produced them/that they may produce.

tesla is evil because they exploit ppl for profit + participate in an economy built on the exploitation of the global south + use 'innovation' as a marketing tool to mask serious safety concerns. they're not evil bcuz they want to make vehicles that move on their own. there are actually a great deal of fantastic applications for vehicles which move on their own? equating technology with moral decay is not a radical position; you need a material analysis of why technological innovation has become characterized by harmful practices.

[usertoxicyaoi]

"I've done almost all the painful things, dirty things and things I hate. But, pain and fear, they're inevitable. What I fear more than such things, is wishing."

HAPPY OF THE END (2024). EPISODE FOUR.

[aroanthy]

kiryuu sibling stasis post-32 is so interesting to me. nanami tries to leave and is (temporarily but also, crucially, violently) prevented from doing so by touga and akio. after this experience she puts distance between herself and them: she leaves touga’s phone in the car, she resigns from the student council (though she dons her old uniform still), she repeatedly dismisses and undermines the authority of the rose code, of end of the world, of akio, of touga. but she’s still in ohtori, isn’t she? uncomfortable with the idea of leaving, uncertain if it’s really possible. she tried before, and it hurt her. deeply. it’s so interesting to me, nanami’s agency and how she limits her exertion of it after 32, when she realises it for what it is. contrast that with touga, who accepts this weird stalemate between them, who is, really, uninterested in having any relationship of any kind with nanami if he can’t gain something from her. he’s very passive with her after 32, compared to the passivity he’d always feigned towards her before in order to stoke reactions from her and then exploit them. i was thinking about how touga has always been able to sever his relationship with nanami, but chosen not to; first out of a sense of obligation (‘we should live to help each other’) then a realisation of how that could be exploited. i was thinking about how nanami has never realised her ability to leave, in part because it is limited by touga and the harm he does her. i was thinking about the desperation and confusion akio calls out to anthy with as she leaves. i was thinking about how different that is to the kiryuus’ strange semi-breakdown; touga doesn’t want or need nanami, and nanami might love her brother but she cannot trust him or feel safe around him, doesn’t want to see him anymore; she’s itching to leave, and just a little scared (you know, because last time she tried that her brother assaulted her), and he’s not doing anything because ignoring her means he doesn’t have to deal with the emotions of her leaving or staying. something something gendered power dynamics something something tragic siblings

[blackbrownfamily]

Black Panther Party For Self Defense

[iridescentscarecrow]

chainsaw man 29 / chainsaw man 153

"humans or devils: what side are you on?"

[rexscanonwife]

Ok FINE maybe I'll listen to Epic the Musical

[angelbitezzz]

Some writing under the cut

Prev - Next - First

Plus: Bonus

It was quiet now. Just the sounds of her peaceful breathing and the ambient rustling of the wind through the pine trees outside. The TV was muted, only on to give some light if the human was to wake up. Not that she was likely to—healing was an exhausting process, and apparently even more so to beings made of physical matter.

Sans leaned against the wall next to the television, arms crossed over his chest. He hadn't moved in...oh, if he had to say, maybe 3 hours? He'd parked himself there once Asgore had deemed her no longer at risk of dusting—no, wait. Humans didn't do that, did they?

He was learning a lot about humans today.

For one—the blood.

Comics didn't do it justice. Most of what washed up down here was kid stuff, tagged with that old "Approved by the Comics Code Authority" nonsense that he was beginning to suspect was just straight up censorship. Of course on a factual level he'd known that humans had blood; he wasn't stupid, he'd skimmed waterlogged science textbooks with interest.

Did you know that humans have nearly five liters of blood in them? If they lose about 40% of that, they're dead. That's about 2 liters, give or take. It's so little blood. Just 3 liters makes a gallon. Humans were walking around with just above a gallon of blood inside them, sloshing all over the place.

It's heavy, too. Well—humans were heavy in a way that most monsters couldn't be. They were just stuff, collected together in a bag of skin and liquids. Angel weight approximately 150 pounds, if he had to guess. Limp, it felt like more.

His hands tightened on his arms, bones digging into soft fabric. Dried blood flaked off a dark stain along his chest and right arm, just where his left hand rested. It was uncomfortable. He didn't move his hand.

Could Sans even describe that unique, awful, stomach-churning feeling of sheer nausea at the memory of feeling it seep into his clothes? His mind went back to the first drop, that single, perfect, ruby red drop that'd plopped down onto his white glove and soaked into it. Like a blooming rose.

He felt a fullbody shiver pass through him, rattling in the air softly, too quiet to disturb her rest.

...Why couldn't he stop focusing on it?

His gloves were in the trash now. He couldn't bring himself to take off the jacket, though, regardless of the blood dried on the fabric.

Blood was dark when the cells within died. Brown didn't go well with blue. He really should go wash it. But then, the blood hadn't washed off the gloves. So where did that leave him?

Pupils tracked where the drop had fallen from, sliding up along a tree trunk until it landed on the dark figure overhead, hung over a particularly thick branch. A hand hung down, fresh red drip drip dripping. The faint purple glow of her headset was the only reason he even realized who it was, as hidden in the leaves as she was.

It was a blur. He reacted without even really thinking of it, reaching up and grabbing onto her soul with his magic, pulling her down almost too harshly. It prompted a breathless whine of pain from the nearly unconscious human, his brother gasping next to him as she slumped down into Sans's waiting arms.

"SHE'S...IS SHE...?"

Home again, no time to speculate. Her HP was low. It was dropping. He CHECKED and found it steadily beeping down, sending electric panic down his spine. More blurs. Pawing at purple clothes, assessing the damage, an awful wound that would've made him lose his lunch if he'd had the stomach to do so. The smell strong and iron, mixed with the fragrant perfume of the trees she'd been caught in. Bandaging her with Papyrus's help, watching in despair as she bled through and began steadily staining an old shirt of his, a bead of blood sliding down the side of her face from her nose and swiftly drying, sticky red on brown skin still dark from the sun. Fuck. Fuck.

Nauseated, he flicked his gaze back to her face on the couch. She was sleeping peacefully. Her features were soft and relaxed, open, no pain present. Not like earlier, when she'd been unconscious and clearly in so much pain that she couldn't help but react even while down for the count, crying and moaning while they'd tried to fix her up. The flickering TV cast ghoulish blue light on her face, an arm slipping out of the blankets and flopping limp downward.

He needed to know more. More about human bodies. He needed to make sure this couldn't happen again. He'd half a mind to wake her up and force her to quit their endeavor altogether, if not for Asgore's insistence that she gets rest.

Was her chest rising with her breath? Was it?

Struck with a sudden, uncharacteristic paranoia, he pushed off from the wall and approached on silent feet. He reached and pressed a hand to her chest over the blanket.

A steady rise and fall. The vibrations softly reverberated through his bones, easing the tension that had coiled in his shoulders. He felt stupid. He kneeled and gently took her fallen arm, raising it to tuck it into the blanket again only to stop, digits still pressed against her wrist.

"her heart," he thinks. "of course."

A soft flutter beat against his fingertips. Like he'd caught a butterfly in his hands. But this...was in her arm, or rather, her wrist. Small, insistent. Steady. Warm.

Sans really should tuck her arm back under the blanket. He should. He doesn't. He raised it somewhat and adjusted his grip, tilting his head as he focused on that feeling. He shut his eyesockets, letting the rhythm drum against his fingers and beat the fear out of his body. He'd never actually touched her skin before, had he? Always wearing those gloves. In his panic, earlier, he'd never registered how warm she was. The warm pulse of her heart was all he could focus on now.

"It's okay. I'm okay."

Her words earlier had been so insistent. She'd been so concerned about Papyrus's reaction to her near death that she's jumped to soothing him rather than focus on her own injury. Was it that she knew her magic would hold out? Or had it only been for his brother's benefit?

He wondered how often she'd had to try and push away the pain to reassure someone else.

He put her arm back under the covers and adjusted her make-shift pillow, the blue cape folded in on itself until it resembled the bed-sheet it used to be. Then he stood and stepped away, his body disappearing into the shadows before she could stir at the disturbance.

She would be fine.

[not-another-robin]

The people have spoken!! Mighty Mouse lore drop under the cut! Very 5th grader core but it means a lot to me. Hope you enjoy!

The original Mighty Mouse, MJ Fierro, was a young soldier in the eighties who volunteered to be a super soldier experiment. She was granted heightened strength, agility, constitution, and senses - but her powers were deemed too unstable for the field, so they simply abandoned her. With her new powers and no help from the government, she decided to help her community of La Puente, anonymously thwarting injustice. She gained the local name "Mighty Mouse" because of her stature, but refused any accolade. After ten years of fighting, she left crimefighting behind her to start a family.

Fast forward 25 years, and MJs body is starting to deteriorate. A devastating cancer has formed, possibly caused by the experiments done to her. She passes away before 50, leaving behind 3 children.

The youngest of these children, Marcel Montgomery, starts to experience changes at the age of 18. Weird things are happening - they don't know their own strength, their senses are becoming overwhelming, and their clumsiness suddenly leads to no injury. After investigation, it seems the mutated DNA from their mother was passed down to them alone, activated at the same age their mother recieved her powers.

Marcel idolized their mother and took all of her lessons on heroism to heart. They decide that with great power comes great responsibility, and with the help of their friends, they take up the legacy of Mighty Mouse. They are bad at it. They lack coordination and any skill, and they start to worry their powers might attract undue attention to their family. They need someone to teach them.

Marcel strikes out on their own to the most super-crime infested city in the world - Gotham. Jumps right into the deep end. Alone, they start their search for Batman. He just seems like the mentoring type - I mean, how many robins are there at this point?

During a scarecrow attack, Batman encounters the new hero trying to get help. They get civilians to safety, but he warns them to stay away from the source. Sorrounded by scarecrow gas, Batman is in a vulnerable position - and Mighty goes in any way. Affected by the gas, Mighty starts to panic, momentarily distracting scarecrow and allowing Batman to neutralize him. He takes Mighty back to the cave for inspection after hearing their fears of not being able to protect their loved ones, and failing their mother.

At the cave, Batman insists Mighty is in over their head. They know that, that's why they're here. Mighty begs Batman to take them under his wing, just wanting to do right by the world and their mother.

"I just want to be like you. I want to be like her."

Batman knows the feeling.

And thus Mighty Mouse is the new sidekick in gotham! Posing as a personal assistant to Bruce Wayne, and also just being a personal assistant to Bruce Wayne, Mighty Mouse is born.

[fras-redacted-shapes]

Alan Wake (whose face and voice we find on Thomas Zane and Casper Darling, respectively) ends up in an antagonistic relationship with Alex Casey (whose face and voice we find on Sam Lake and Zachariah Trench, respectively).

Casper Darling and Zachariah Trench? By the end, their relationship was antagonistic.

The Casey-Trench voice was once a guide-friend for Wake-Darling.

And then, they were fighting.

One was suspicious of the other, thinking he was lying, hiding something.

While the other was unaware of the darkness that was growing and consuming the former's mind, his ignorance letting it fester. Feeding it, even.

The original faces, Thomas Zane and Sam Lake? In this latest iteration they've spoken with their own voices while in the Dark Place, only in the presence of a camera.

Alan Wake and Zachariah Trench? In the end, while in a nightmare dimension, both get shot by a woman who both of these men meddled in their lives, threatening the well being of their loved one.

At least one had a hand in his fate, willing it, accepting it. The other? He was fully gone, his will overtaken by the nightmare.

A version of Alex Casey did say it after all. He and writer, they were the same.

And finally, the real Sam Lake? By happenstance he offered his face for a collaborative project, and became a symbol. Even if he tried to fight it, tried to replace it, he had to concede. The story demanded it, as if writing it wasn't enough, the narrative claimed his visage.

There's no need to make overt mentions or put the image of the Ouroboros in posters. The serpent is interwoven in the fabric of the narrative itself.

[hippolotamus]

(Way more than) Seven Sentence Sunday

Thanks for the tags @jesuisici33 @daffi-990 @diazsdimples @tizniz @spotsandsocks @wikiangela @fortheloveofbuddie @wildlife4life @indestructibleheart @steadfastsaturnsrings @elvensorceress @honestlydarkprincess @spaceprincessem I haven’t gotten to all of your snippets but I will and already know they’re amazing and everyone should check them out 💖

Mirrorball (aka pole dancer Buck) won the poll yesterday so here are some sentences from that (prev snippet here) Unsurprisingly, he is producing as many feels (if not more) as I expected. So, uh, sorry about that (but also not sorry at all).

The pole – warmed by the house lights, previous performers, and heat from the three hundred something bodies legally allowed by the fire marshal – presses through his black mesh shirt, around the vegan leather chest harness, finally grazing his spine. He applies more pressure, allowing it to bear more of his weight, raising his arms and caressing the brushed stainless steel like a lover. A gentle touch he’s never experienced but aches with longing for anyway.

Just after the first musical bridge, a series of twangy guitar riffs and soulful keyboard notes, a member of the bachelorette party – maid of honor according to her hot pink sash – approaches the stage. There’s a bit of a wobble to her gait, but she’s still holding her own as she confidently struts forward to offer some bills she not so subtly clenches in her teeth.

If Buck was interested in her, he would make a show of crawling on all fours and take the proffered cash between his lips. But he’s not, so he holds onto the pole as he swings around, dipping low to pluck it from her with his fingers, giving her a wink as he does.

It’s possible she’s familiar with his act because she pouts a bit at that, even as the rest of her group cheers and wolf whistles, tugging up her cutoff short shorts to further reveal the swell of her ass as she flounces back to her seat. As if she’s daring him to reconsider lest he miss out. And maybe he will, if the offer’s still there at the end of his shift and he’s feeling lonely enough.

Buck tucks the money into a hidden pocket between the waistband of his royal blue hotpants and his dance belt. The stuff is loaded with enough germs, he’s not particularly interested in having it touch his sweat beaded skin before redistributing it out in the world.

When he resumes his routine, letting his gaze drift to the back of the room, he works to quickly recover as his breath catches in his throat. Dark eyes suddenly look impossibly darker – hungry and possessive – as lips wrap around the mouth of a beer. It’s tilted back in such a way that they never break eye contact. Maybe it should scare Buck, make him consider asking Bosko or Williams from security to see him to his jeep. But, strangely, it doesn’t.

The opportunity to let that process or sink in passes when his music ends and he begins collecting stray cash that’s been tossed on stage. In the time it takes him to stand back up, and throw a flirty kiss to the audience, he realizes the back table is empty save for a bottle and a chair sitting askew as if the occupant left in a hurry.

No pressure tagging @lizzie-bennetdarcy @disasterbuckdiaz @eddiebabygirldiaz @shortsighted-owl @stereopticons @911onabc @apothecarose @barbiediaz @buddierights @chaosandwolves @eowon @fionaswhvre @gayedmundodiaz @giddyupbuck @heartshapedvows @hoodie-buck @ladydorian05 @lemonzestywrites @loserdiaz @messyhairdiaz @monsterrae1 @rmd-writes @statueinthestone @singlethread @the-likesofus @thekristen999 @theplaceyoustillrememberdreaming @thewolvesof1998 @underwater-ninja-13 @vanillahigh00 @watchyourbuck @welcometololaland @weewootruck @your-catfish-friend and anyone else who wants to share 😘

[aedesluminis]

Prieur's last written letter

On the anniversary of his death, 11 August 1832, I want to share this very touching letter (for me, at least) that Claude-Antoine Prieur wrote to a certain Simone Frilley.

Simone was a young woman in her thirties, married with a pharmacist, Monsieur Frilley; he, Monsieur Monnet and their respective consorts where among the very few people that Prieur considered as friends and met with during the last years of his life, that otherwise would have been in complete loneliness. Indeed both his beloved daughter and grand-daughter died in 1831, not to mention the death of Catherine-Elisabeth, his life-long lover, which had happened just a couple of years before.

Despite Claude-Antoine's care for his friends and the many presents bought for them, despite the two being aware of Prieur's decision to include their names in his testament, thus leaving them with a great sum of money, both Frilley and Monnet never really returned his acts of generosity and affection and, in the case of Simone, he was always met with indifference, if not utter despise on various occasions, as the letter below shows.

5 May 1832, Could you ever take pleasure in making and leaving me miserable? Perhaps you ignore it and you will be surprised by that. But no, you know my feelings and you know that your friendship is indispensable to me. Whatever it is, without affection, without friendly words from your part, without receiving any invitation to come to see you and chat together, I am overcome with grief. Every time I come back from your place, I am sick. Your cold manners for me, they kill me, they make me do sad comparisons, they painfully remind me of other times. I truly feel unwanted and a complete stranger in your midst; you seem unapproachable. Ah! I say to myself, it is in vain that I wanted to adopt you as my niece. This makes me feel forsaken, abandoned and now all I am left with is a withered existence, consumed by useless regrets.

— G. Bouchard, Prieur de la Côte-d'Or, un organisateur de la victoire p. 428-429

Original in French: Pouvez-vous, disait-il, vous complaire à me rendre et me laisser malheureux? Peut-être l'ignorez-vous et en serez-vous surprise. Mais non, vous connaissez mes sentiments et savez que votre amitié m'est indispensable. Quoi qu'il en soit, sans un air affectueux, sans paroles amicales de votre part, sans invitation de venir vous voir pour causer ensemble, je reste abîmé dans le chagrin. Chaque fois que je reviens de chez vous, je suis malade. Vos manières froides pour moi me tuent, elles me font faire de tristes comparaisons, elles me rappellent douloureusement d'autres temps. Je me sens tout à fait étranger et de trop au milieu de vos entours ; vous me semblez inabordable. Ah ! me dis-je, c'est donc en vain que j'ai voulu l'adopter pour ma nièce. J'en suis délaissé, abandonné, et je n'aurai plus désormais qu'une existence flétrie et consumée par d'inutiles regrets.

[blackbrownfamily]

Cleo Sol

[dearth-in-serendipity]

Being able to dictate one's life is a luxury only a few have, and it is still a dream for many. Saying no is seen as an offense, saying yes is seen as a doorway to exploitation, and many don't even get to decide.

ds.