#the consideration of it

[loquaciousquark]

My dog is getting old. This has happened to everyone in the history of the world who has ever loved a dog.

It's my turn, horologically speaking, to watch age catch up to him. I keep trying on the grief to see how it fits. Today I'm more sanguine; today I'm remembering the good days and the good years. The lump in the throat still hurts.

It's hard for him to stand up now on the bad days. Especially in the evenings, especially when a few hours ago he'd flung himself wall to wall with joy when I got home from work; and especially first thing in the morning when he wakes stiff as a board in the hips. On the good days he can still take the four stairs up to the living room in one light-speed jump when he's on a tear, though he trusts the kitchen linoleum much less than he used to. Today's a bad day. Yesterday was worse.

There's a faint discolored patch on my quilt where he sleeps. Right side, foot. It took half a decade to show up, and every few months I give it an extra soak in a bleach-filled bathtub. It still never really goes away; besides, he puts it right back on. Not tonight, though. Tonight he sleeps in the front room, because the stairs up to me are too hard. He watched me go up tonight without him and his tail drooped so low it touched the floor. He's only been mine eight of his eleven years, but I was there when he came home the first time, when he was exactly eight weeks old. I held him up in one hand like a waiter's tray and it was easy. He's ninety pounds now and I can't help him much at all.

German Shepherds are prone to hip dysplasia. Half-breed, half-hipped, I'd hoped, but on the bad nights he struggles to get up on those back legs like he's heaving ballast off a sinking ship. The husky part of him just seems to make him shed and yell, especially when I'm late getting home. I'd hoped for a little more time from the mix, maybe. But maybe not.

He's finally gotten used to fireworks. Thunder's mostly all right now, unless it's very bad. The washing machine is a new terror; sometimes I forget until it goes into the spin cycle and he lifts my legs off the ground trying to crawl under me. He eats books when he's anxious, when I've committed the temerarious crime of coming home and leaving again in the same day. Cold Mountain is nothing more than shredded cardboard and a few strung-together chapters, a sacrificial lamb to preserve Catherine, Called Birdy and Holes. The Private Patient died years ago.

He didn't want to come indoors tonight. The dryer was going, almost as bad as the washing machine, and there were stairs between him and bed. He let me coax him in at last, because I can't lift him and can't push him, and he made it clear that when he stiff-leg trotted inside he did so because he loved me, not because he wanted to. I sat with him while he found an acceptable patch of rug in the front room; I cooed and petted him and gave him a treat he didn't earn. He still whined when I left and looked like he wanted to get up, but didn't think he could make it.

He's getting old; it's his turn. His muzzle is turning white and his eyes have gone cloudy with cataracts. 2+ nuclear sclerosis, maybe -- probably all a little blurry, that's all. No PSCs, no cortical spoking; central vision's honestly probably fine. The vet keeps saying dogs adapt well. He can certainly see the stray cat who keeps lurking on my front porch. I'd like them to be friends, but a week ago he got out and chased her off like a bullet from a gun. His hips were good that day, and adrenaline covers a multitude of sins.

I have a picture of the first time we took him to get a Christmas tree. He's sitting and looking up and his head isn't even high to my knee. I remember watching him tear around the dog park lap after lap after lap, the single mixed greyhound out of fifteen or twenty dogs the only one who could keep up with him. I have pictures of him at the end of nearly every lecture I give; lately I've been tripping over them like rocks, stony little griefs worked loose from a streambed when the water moves too fast.

I'm thirty-five years old. I keep thinking that every dog who was alive on the planet when I was born is dead. Most are long dead. My dog has meds to help, which is comforting. I have a vet who will help me put him to sleep in my home, his home, when the time comes. Two to four years, she guesses, maybe, if he doesn't get cancer. When I watch him struggle to stand up I wonder if that's not too long for kindness.

It's a very human thing to miss someone before they die. Dogs don't do that. They live in an endless now, like a kid in a yellow summer. Now, I love you. Now, it hurts -- now it stops. Now, I love you.

I want that for us for what's left, for whatever one two three four years we have. When it happens, I want him to die in no pain, looking at me holding him where all his toys are, his favorite rope, his purple pig, his leash, his tennis balls. I want him thinking nothing but Now, I'm tired; now, I'm happy.

The empty place at the foot of the bed hurts tonight. The grief stings and bites, worse because I know I'm borrowing it ahead of time, because he's asleep fifteen feet below me, warm and full, even if tonight's a bad night and the stairs are too hard. I have to sit in it, though, just for a few minutes. Try it on for size. It's his turn, I keep thinking, and mine. Everyone who has ever loved a dog has done this before me. Now, I love you. Now, I miss you. Now, it hurts.

[thestuffedalligator]

My brother-in-law has a Thing where he gives me increasingly rare copies of The Bee Movie and it’s long since gone from “Goofy running gag” to “I don’t know how much money he’s willing to commit to this bit and it Scares Me.”

Where the fuck can we go from here

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i will never understand why more people in their 80s don't commit felonies. you reach that age and surely there's something illegal you always wanted to do but didn't bc Consequences

dammit, GO FORTH GRANNIES!!! rob an armored car! hold up that bank! tunnel your way into fort knox! what are they gonna do, sentence you to 20 years? good fuckin luck with that

[avatarfandompolice]

But don’t worry guys they got Asian actors so it’s perfect :) :) :)

[coolerdracula]

saying “visual style" because, for example, if you would swap your current wardrobe for an identical, ethically made counterpart, there would be no visible change

[solardrake]

like these are butch lesbians to me

[guiltandrecourse]

[comes crawling out of the podcast covered in blood] its really good you should listen

[dragonomatopoeia]

i'm always a bit unsettled by disdain for intellectual or creative labor in leftist spaces. there's this commonly held belief that academics are a bunch of rich old white men, rather than a wide variety of people who are barely getting by. most lecturers in universities are adjuncts living paycheck to paycheck. authors make very little money as a general rule. most researchers are overworked and underpaid. and yet there's still this idea that academics are overcompensated to sit around and smoke cigars together while making shit up

[rhinestonesox]

Half-foots are highly discriminated against in the world of dungeon meshi.

They have a difficult time living in places outside of their own territories because places where larger races live aren’t built for their size and crowds can be dangerous.

they’re the least valued race by long lived races because their life spans are the shortest out of all the races. this means that they’re dehumanized and often considered disposable. their superior senses make other races use them as “lures” when hunting succubi/mermaids (usually dying in the process).

They’re often mistaken for/treated like children because of their appearances, and because of this they have a difficult time getting jobs because it’s assumed that they’re immature/can’t handle it.

Because of this, when living outside of Half-foot territories they’re forced to get money by any means necessary (often resorting to crime), so other races stereotype them as “cunning” “greedy” and “manipulative”.

On top of that, members of long lived races who tend to fetishize them.

Even the name “Half-foot” is discriminatory.

Ryoko Kui does a fantastic job at world building.

But even after all of that, im not gonna stop talking about how bad i wanna put Chi Chi in my pocket.

[aquitainequeen]

The WGA has two main stipulations. First, the guild wants to make sure that “literary material” — the MBA term for screenplays, teleplays, outlines, treatments, and other things that people write — can’t be generated by an AI. In other words, ChatGPT and its cousins can’t be credited with writing a screenplay. If a movie made by a studio that has an agreement with the WGA has a writing credit — and that’s over 350 of America’s major studios and production companies — then the writer needs to be a person.

“Based on what we’re aiming for in this contract, there couldn’t be a movie that was released by a company that we work with that had no writer,” says August.

Second, the WGA says it’s imperative that “source material” can’t be something generated by an AI, either. This is especially important because studios frequently hire writers to adapt source material (like a novel, an article, or other IP) into new work to be produced as TV or films. However, the payment terms, particularly residual payouts, are different for an adaptation than for “literary material.” It’s very easy to imagine a situation in which a studio uses AI to generate ideas or drafts, claims those ideas are “source material,” and hires a writer to polish it up for a lower rate. “We believe that is not source material, any more than a Wikipedia article is source material,” says August. “That’s the crux of what we’re negotiating.”

In negotiations prior to the strike, the AMPTP refused the WGA’s demands around AI, instead countering with “annual meetings to discuss advancements in technology.”

The looming threat of AI to Hollywood, and why it should matter to you by Alissa Wilkinson

[classycookiexo]

[zoe-oneesama]

No one finds it weird that the Fashion Designer didn’t go to his own runway..?

Episode 50 Part 7 First < Previous > Next Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5 Ep 41, Ep 42, Ep 43, Ep 44 Ep 45, Ep 46, Ep 47, Ep 48, Intermission, Ep 49

Bonus:

And you'll deserve it.

Ko-fi | Patreon

[handweavers]

tourism entry agreements for many countries are completely unbalanced and unfair. did you know that people with a canadian passport can go to malaysia without applying for a visa / obtain an automatic tourism visa upon arrival, but if you have a malaysian passport you have to apply in advance for a tourism visa to go to canada? sometimes months in advance? any canadian can just show up to malaysia unannounced and they'll be let in, but my malaysian family has to beg the canadian gov for permission in advance (and get DENIED) just to come see me for a couple weeks. this is what it's like for most western passport holders in general, just because you are allowed free entry to the global south does not mean people in the global south are allowed free entry to the global north.

[contakaidigon]

I sign it from Gorgug. I forget how to be myself all the time.

I love the resolution of this that we got because I love Gorgug but also consider: any of these kids talking to each other even a little bit about their problems.

There’s just something about that moment when you realise that the decisions you make due to your own self-confidence issues impact the people you care about. Realising when you forget to be yourself, your friends who love you miss out on you too. And maybe you could even try to give yourself a break, for them. Idk man this season is going crazy and all i can do is draw pictures about it

[geezmarty]

I’m gonna be honest. wyll is a noble. astarion knows how to carry himself like one. WHERE is the arranged marriage fake dating slowburn it literally writes itself

[canisalbus]

Ok ok hear me out: it could end in tragedy,, AND have a happy ending. The attempt(s) on Machete’s life force him to flee, he doesn’t even have the chance to find Vasco. Cue gay longing for at least a few years while Machete despairs over the loss of his love, his life, his status. He and Vasco only reunite (again) in their later years. Their relationship is forever flavored with loss and loneliness, but that only means they savor every moment that much more

I also I would like to see them as old men. Vasco would be so droopy :)

You gave me such old dog brainworms.