Rewatching Truman Show for the first time in a long time, and the detail that’s stuck with me this time is the set design.

The characters drive modern cars and hock modern products, but it’s all presented with a veneer of 1950s wholesome applecheeked Americana. Truman’s life is presented as an escape for the audience from the drudgery of the modern day, and the aesthetic they’ve chosen for this is the post-war economic boom. This is the simple time, the movie says. This is the good time. Doesn’t the modern day suck? Let’s go back and see our friends from the days when life was good.

And it’s a lie. Truman’s life is a lie, and the image of white picket fenced suburbia they’ve presented is a lie. It’s an elaborate construction to recreate a false memory that’s comfortable for advertisers. The movie is a satire, but it’s also a very blatant statement against the nostalgia for a golden age which never existed. It’s a lie. It doesn’t exist.

I don’t know. I’m spitballing. I’m biased because I despise mid-20th century Americana and I naturally treat it with hostility, but it’s very gratifying to see a movie kind of agree with me.

Autumn is here, folks, and your local Iowan is here to remind you of the basic principles of Corn Maze Safety:

• Make sure you go with a partner! You don’t want to be alone and lost in the maze!
• Take a map! You may want to try navigate on your own, but it’s best to keep a guide handy in case you lose your way!
• Bring a water bottle with a sealed top! It will keep you hydrated, and the closed top will stop any water from spilling on the thirsty corn. Remember, thirsty corn is docile corn!
• Wear long sleeves! Although dead leaves aren’t quite as sharp as green leaves, they can still cut you. And they will, if you give them the chance.
• If a stalk does draw blood, spill some water from your bottle on the ground near its roots and move on. Hopefully, the water will quench its thirst long enough for you to escape.
• Be careful what you eat before you go into the maze! Avoid cornstarch, corn syrup, and all corn products. The corn can smell itself in your blood.
• Remember, scarecrows are there for YOUR protection. As long as the corn thinks you’re with others, it won’t make any sudden moves.
• If you see a scarecrow wave, wave back. It gets lonely, and you will too if you’re not kind.
• If you are alone in a cornfield, pretend you’re talking to a friend! The plants have ears, but no eyes, and they are easily fooled. Get out before they catch wise!
• The breeze is lying to you; don’t listen to it. It cannot lead you home.
• If you’re lost, look to the sun for directions, not the shadows. The shadows like to watch you struggle.
• Never, ever walk off the provided paths! The paths are safe routes carefully created by the farmer. If you leave the path, you may never see it again.
• Keep an eye on the time while wandering! You don’t want to be in a cornfield after dark. You really don’t.
• In a pinch, many people try praying to the Harvest God for assistance. This is often a poor choice; you’re just as likely to be harvested as you are to be helped.
• If you see a single green corn stalk among the brown, turn around. You don’t want to know how it keeps itself warm in the cold.

Remember, Corn Mazes can be fun autumnal activities if you’re careful! Just follow these simple rules and you’ll almost certainly make it home.

proposing what I'm going to call Gaylor's Razor, which is: never explain normal shit as being part of a secret message that can only be decoded by over-analysis.

"These Taylor Swift lyrics are actually coded messages saying that she's a lesbian and is forced to stay in the closet! Any lyrics that are clearly about being attracted to a man are just to throw us off the scent!" Sometimes people, like Taylor Swift, are straight and write about being straight, because they are straight.

"The fourth series of Sherlock was deliberately bad because it was actually a coded message to us fans that there is a secret fourth episode that will make Johnlock canon and will actually be good!" Sometimes writers (even experienced writers who are normally good at their jobs) will write something that's not good, because no one is perfect. They're not going to waste everyone's time and money and energy creating something terrible on purpose as part of a grand master plan.

"Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the Canadian Olympic ice dancers, are secretly married (with kids)! Their public relationships with people who are not each other and them repeatedly saying 'we dated as kids and now we're just friends' are just to hide the truth! Which they need to hide for some reason! Their relationship is obvious just from their physical chemistry when competing! JUST LOOK AT THIS TWO SECOND CLIP OF HIM BLINKING AT HER!" It seems counterproductive to put all that thought into hiding a relationship that doesn't need to be hidden but then also telegraph that same relationship in front of millions of people through planned choreography.

"But BB, what about times that people really are speaking in code or hiding something due to outside influences?"

• If it requires huge leaps in logic, like adding all the letters in a sentence together and dividing by seventeen and that number matches the binary sequence for the color yellow so YELLOW MUST BE SIGNIFICANT, it's not a secret code.
• If it requires focusing on teeny tiny details but discards huge ones, like analyzing someone's micro-expressions but handwaving away what the person is actually saying out loud with their mouth, or focusing on one specific line instead of the entire scene or song or whatever, it's not a secret code.
• If both supporting and contradictory evidence are used to come to the same conclusion (ex: when Taylor says something that I interpret as gay, that means she's gay, and when she says something that I interpret as straight, that still means she's gay and just hiding it), it's not a secret code.

Trying to apply fandom meta analysis techniques to real life is a really good way of fall into conspiratorial thinking that can be easily exploited. You can totally try to predict what's going to happen in a story or choose to interpret a scene in a specific way; you can't do that in real life with real people. That way lies the kind of nonsense that leads to shit like "this image of pizza on a children's toy is actually subliminal messaging by The Cabal™ that proves that Pizzagate is real."

Unironically I think the early to mid 20s age group in America has unbelievably bad consent boundaries on all levels and so much language to defend it but this makes me sound like elon musk if I say it however the commonality of someone who will be like “I had 47 panic attacks and it’s your fault” if you tell them no is insane

my dad thinks the concept of shipping is hilarious. my parents are cool, they know about my online presence, it's fine. dad doesn't scroll my blog or anything, though--he's usually too busy watching dubiously homoerotic pro wrestling clips or playing valheim--so his idea of shipping culture is bizarre

damn near every time I mention im working on a fic or piece of fanart, he gasps in hopeful anticipation and asks "tamatoa and heihei?!" and he always acts bitterly disappointed

no, dad. i'm not writing or drawing anything where a 50 foot crab and a literal chicken have any kind of relationship at all. you've been asking me to make this ship happen for almost nine years now and the answer has always been no. it's a running gag, of course, but--why would you even think of that?! what kind of shit do you think happens on ao3?!

Robot creator sees their creation say they want to be a girl and they're just like

"How the hell did that happen??? I could've sworn I- no yeah honey of course I support you. I'm obviously going to modify your shell to fit how you feel but I programmed you and I put nothing about desire for gender in there??? Like I need to figure out how th- NONONO, I FULLY BELIEVE AND SUPPORT YOU AND EVERYTHING I SWEAR. YOURE A GIRL AND YOU GET TO DECIDE THAT, but if your programming is able to change or you can change it I need to know how it's happening so your programming doesn't corrupt and erase who knows what vital function- IM NOT SAYING THAT YOU NEED TO NOT BE A GIRL TO LIVE, PLEASE LISTEN- "

do you ever form close relationships with people in your dreams and then feel a little sad when you wake up

having the Aviation Accident Investigations Autism™️ has actually done wonders for the way I process and respond to my own fuck-ups

joining the war on kids reading any book they want on the side of kids reading any book they want. simply you will be fine. it's even good to be confronted with things you don't understand and even find upsetting, uncomfortable and difficult. it's a surprise tool that will help you later.