“I think I know how the staff likes to be treated after all these years” hits so hard. ilya has been secretly paying close attention to shane for seven years. what makes him tick, what he loves in bed, his hockey skills, that he loves ginger ale and has a cottage where he does yoga and his parents’ names are yuna and david and david reads the new yorker. he has been gathering up all of these pieces of shane and holding them inside of him. before this, we only ever get pieces of it (is the ginger ale cold enough?). but in this episode we finally get to see him own up to that and put his knowledge of shane on full display. I know what you like in bed, shane, I know that you like to be pinned down and fucked hard and teased. I know you like to be bad. I know that you do your yoga over there and I know how to refocus you when you’re panicking. I could map your freckles by heart. you have a weak backhand. I love you.

“after all these years” made me cry

simply dont monday

We need to coin a term for this movement of books, films, etc that market themselves as being wildly salacious and horny, but ultimately the apex of their erotic sensibility isn't any worse than something you'd see in an HBO show from 2003 and/or do so while having the horniness mostly be contained within the tone and style of twee fanfiction where all the sex is called "spice." Like stuff that frames itself as being the sexiest thing since sex, completely transgressive and radical in its expression of it, while also presenting all its horny material to you while holding your hand and giving you a glass of warm milk.

*sighs, rolls up sleeves*

Okay, I want to preface this wrt people tagging this with Heated Rivalry that I get it—I do. From certain perspectives the frenzy surrounding the success of HR seems in line with the above post (ie “the sex isn’t even that explicit!”), but in my opinion, that’s kinda a bad read from a craft standpoint. I’m not saying that’s some sort of moral or intellectual failing (passing moral judgements on how ppl consume and interact with media is not it), but it is a fundamental misread on what constitutes sexual content and what constitutes erotic content in media—plus how those two things alchemize with personal taste and exposure.

To a certain degree it doesn’t matter how technically explicit a sex scene is—there is no percentage of cock n balls or number of moans or whatever that tips sexual content into the realm of the erotic, and it’s also incredibly subjective from person to person, culture to culture etc. what constitutes “erotic.” What I’m seeing a lot of these days with the popularity of romantasy, “spicy” BookTok stuff etc. is people (mainly straight identifying cis women) engaging with sexual media for the first time and also talking about it semi-openly for the first time within an overwhelmingly puritanical, sexually repressed society (let’s focus on USAmericans as our sample for now).

When you’re A) raised in a heteronormative culture of sex-as-taboo, of course something like the sexual content of ACOTAR is going to feel revolutionary to you. For lots of queer people, people who have gotten the chance to examine and explore their sexuality more thoroughly etc., well—not so much. For people who have never had the chance to examine what about sex is actually erotic for them, stuff that seems super vanilla and bloodless (and heteronormative) to us lil freaks (/affectionate) will be mind blowing to others.

And that’s one of the reasons I think Heated Rivalry has the world in such a chokehold (heh) right now—the sex, while not super explicit all things considered, *is* undeniably erotic. Erotic in this context means embodied, emotional, connected to the narrative, and deeply personal—not just technically explicit. It also centers cis men being emotionally vulnerable and demonstrative with each other which is something everyone who exists within a patriarchal, misogynistic, often emotionally repressed and downright violent culture wants to see more of. Seeing two cis men enthusiastically, emotionally bone down doesn’t feel revolutionary for a lot of us, but for the normies, it’s cracking the ice (I’m sorry—I can’t help myself) on the surface of an extremely buttoned-down, shame-centered core of American sexuality that still views all sex (but ESPECIALLY queer sex) as illicit, dirty, and taboo.

It's a terrible year to be someone who cares about wildlife and nature. At the very least I will try and spread awareness of what is happening.

Meda DeWitt, Alaska senior manager with The Wilderness Society, said that with Thursday’s announcement the administration “is placing corporate interests above the lives, cultures and spiritual responsibilities of the people whose survival depends on the Porcupine caribou herd, the freedom to live from this land and the health of the Arctic Refuge.”

Tribal leaders in some communities further north, in Yup’ik communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region, have expressed concerns that development of a road would harm the migratory birds important to their subsistence ways of life.

once again:

self-awareness check, list five things you like that aren't media pieces in the tags now ‼️

They really are annoying kids winding their dad up, and I love them for it

Dennis Whitaker and his little mullet

The Pitt (s2)

The difference is that jealous Ilya looks homicidal while jealous Shane looks suicidal

@raccoonboywrites coming correct as always

they deal with human shit, dog shit, body fluids, razors and broken glass, hazardous chemicals, dead animals, live animals, flammable, corrosive, and poisonous substances, they are more likely to get cuts and punctures than most jobs, and those cuts and punctures are more likely to get serious or exotic infections...

and if they didn't do it for like just a few days, your city would be unlivable.

Garbage collectors went on strike in Memphis and within only 3 days Memphis had an estimated 10,000 TONS of garbage piled in the streets

That strike should have been taught in school and is worth reading about, to remember how hard people have fought to get as far as we are, and how hard we have to continue the fight to get where we need to be

Speaking of janitorial and sanitation workers who routinely get overlooked/undervalued: if you’re ever visiting someone in hospital and want to bring something nice for the staff, make sure you bring something for the facilities workers! The nurses are usually the staff that get the most goodies (and yeah, rightly) but the ppl who clean up the bio spills, empty the trash, change the linens etc. almost always get overlooked. Show these absolute heroes some love and respect when you can. 

Dutch resistance members celebrate at the moment they heard of Adolf Hitler’s death over the radio, May 1945

this will one day be us

Paul Evans

If you had to get a tattoo from the last show you watched, what would it be?