"came back wrong" but it's from work

damn i wish u guys could read this fic i haven't written and this fic i haven't finished writing and this fic i'm putting off outlining and this fic i outlined but haven't started and this fic i'll never write and this other fic i haven't written and this fic that exists only in vague impressions in my head that fall apart every time i try to commit them to the page and th

[ID: A photo of a tiny tan kitten peeking out from under a Winne the Pooh blanket. End ID]

my favourite thing on tumblr is reblogging a post like "oh that mutual is gonna love this" and then seeing them reblog it from you

the fact that billy went from this

to this

and this

is WILD to me as a person who experiences one minor inconvenience and makes it the entire worlds problem, let alone me being actively depressed.... i cannot fake an emotion to save my life. and hes out here putting on a whole ass show like he wasnt just crying in his room. king of compartmentalizing! (somebody please get him a therapist)

#i am FASCINATED by the way he can so easily put on a mask#like this mans entire personality on the show is an act! its all a trauma response! and people are out here acting like they know who he#really is#you fools. you utter clowns. HE doesnt even know who he is#mans spent so much time putting on a facade he doesnt even know whats real anymore hes fooled himself

oh so the moral at the end of stranger things is just gonna be "if ur upbringing is dysfunctional and ur struggling to cope then u should just KILL YOURSELF so everyone else can have their happy ending w/out u"?

in the contemporary world, the most fundamental human right - and, it often seems, the least protected one - is "being both Allowed and Able to go Somewhere Else." the rest is commentary.

the torments of prison are predicated on Not Letting You Leave. the most terrifying and degrading aspects of childhood are predicated on Not Letting You Leave. misogynists wail and moan and fearmonger about divorce and equal opportunity employment because they Allow Wife To Leave. borders and immigration restrictions exist, in no small part, to Prevent People From Leaving countries where they will be exploited and/or oppressed. fuck you for trying to leave. fuck you for exerting any control over your life whatsoever. that makes you the one at fault, actually.

david graeber described three fundamental freedoms: freedom to move, freedom to disobey orders, and freedom to reorganize social relations

Gonna step outside my usual programming a bit because that light pollution take and a lot of the responses to it aggravated me so much.

No, wanting to see the night sky isn't a twee retvrn to ghibli-ass take. It's not a matter of some anprim impulse to dismantle industrial society for ~nature aesthetics~, it's an extremely visible symptom of environmental degradation that gets downplayed because the externality seems trivial to most people: "Oh no, the night sky, what ever will we do without it."

But it actively disrupts light-sensitive circadian rhythms in plants and wildlife, which disrupts foraging patterns, reproductive and hibernation cycles, and contributes to wildlife population declines. It's not the major contributor to those declines, but it's an additional point of stress in an ecosystem already stressed by climate change and other forms of industrial pollution. And so much of it is wholly unnecessary.

I don't think people realize how far-reaching the problem is, either. That light isn't just confined to the places people use. You don't escape it by just taking the bus to the edge of town. That light carries, in some cases for hundreds of kilometers. Death Valley has some of the darkest skies in the US, and yet, the dome of light above Las Vegas is visible on the horizon over 250 km away! Anywhere within 50 km of a major urban center, just about anywhere in the world, never gets darker than a night under a full moon.

And this is very much a recent problem too. Before the switchover to LEDs, it was relatively expensive to light places. That meant actually accounting for the energy use and making sure it was being used where it was needed. That light was also warm-colored, so it didn't travel as far. With the decreased cost of lighting, it became standard to light places like daytime whenever they might be needed. Lighting didn't get safer, it just got more thoughtless.

The reason you see astronomy-types sounding the alarm most loudly is because they're the ones who have been seeing the full effects of light pollution and its encroachment on dark skies. It's a hobby for me too, but it's partly because I am a night owl who grew up in a small town with nothing else to do. I used to be able to clearly see the Milky Way horizon to horizon when I grew up in the mid-00s. The last time I visited about five years ago, I could only see it overhead. The population has fallen by like 10%, but the skies are brighter. I can tell when the college decided to leave the football stadium lights overnight. I can tell where the car dealerships that added overnight display lights are. I can even see when trucks with the fuckass LED light bars are coming over a hill from 5 km away.

I'm all for well-lit, safe, and accessible spaces for people to work and play at night. But there is an impact from lighting, and it can and should be regulated like any other point source pollution. It's a pretty straightforward and materialist assessment. But go off about the big scary anprims are coming for your society so people can see the stars I guess, that's not at all a reactionary response to hearing about a problem

this brief scene with angel and val is insanely compelling to me. it's about the way angel tries to play with val when the car door first opens, putting on this little theatrical performance to invite val to comment on it even before he's had a chance to gauge val's mood. and once he does, when val is just cold in response, he's confused and tense because he was clearly expecting something else and now val has gone off script, which immediately knocks him off kilter. from that point forward he's looking back at val repeatedly for cues that val won't give him, which also doesn't seem to be normal for the way it makes angel visibly uncomfortable. like, in a normal situation, would val have laughed and given him teasing feedback when he asked for it in the car? would val have told him a little about the client to prepare him and make him more comfortable? does angel normally feel like he and val are co-conspirators in this performance they've rehearsed a million times, rather than val just shoving him out on stage alone with no lines prepared? either way, it's obvious that angel's over-the-top hypersexual mask is something that he lets down around val, at least to the extent that when he does it in front of him, it's for a joke or as a reflex and not in earnest. it's almost the same way he's been joking with husk all season. he joins val in leaning against the door, hesitates, takes a deep breath, and when val is still silent and standoffish against all these small bids for connection angel finally gives up, ducks into the room, and puts the mask back on. it's painful because you can see how hard he was trying to figure out why val was so unhappy, you can see his multiple attempts to diffuse the weird tension and make things feel normal again. plus, seeing valentino, who is normally so loud and abrasive when he's angry, act so stony and curt like this with angel in particular is incredibly eerie and really makes you feel the mounting dread of the whole scene alongside angel

warm baked goods are insane. something so beautiful and almost maddening about absolutely tearing into them when they’re fresh. feeling warm all over after. I really do get vampires for real

people still regularly jumping on this post like “ummmm…” “what was that last part???” “not where i expected this to go AT ALL” what’s not clicking. Something is wrong with YOU. not me.

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Always watching🎙️📺

by talos this can’t be happening is a mandela effect because the actual phrase is by the gods this can’t be happening and i’ve never heard anyone say the former in game

by talos this can’t be happening

the phrase by talos this can’t be happening is actually from a rupaul roleplay blog who left their husband in a cage with no food and water for a few weeks and the husband died sorry to be the spoil sport but it does have an origin and it is a very tumblr origin in nature

Here’s the post they’re referring to for context

One under-appreciated breed of fic writer are the ones who hyperfocus on logistics to the exclusion of all canon shortcuts, and thus usually strike upon an awesome way to flesh out the worldbuilding or characters.

Like, I’m not necessarily talking realism here since often it’s still pretty far from realistic, but more like, “someone has to be running spies in this fantasy kingdom, and we’ve seen the whole royal court, so which background character is it? How does that change these three major interactions?” Or “real life historical nobility did in fact have some things to do that were like jobs, how does this human disaster cope with running an estate?” Or “there’s no reason for a sci-fi robot detective to know how to whitewater kayak, where’d she learn?” Or “if this guy is serving the emperor directly he has to be way high up in the space empire servant hierarchy, why is he doing this menial task for someone else? What’s his motive? Does he perhaps have the secret space telepathy?”

Anyway I’m always DELIGHTED to find a fic or writer who asks these questions because the fics themselves are universally bangers.

person who knows how logistical things works has picked up the cannon, hefted it thoughtfully, and put a single chalk mark precisely on the problem.