women in PHLEGM (poetry, history, language, english literature, ghost stories, music)
Keni
will byers stan first human second
Claire Keane
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
Mike Driver
d e v o n
Cosimo Galluzzi
No title available
Peter Solarz
todays bird
macklin celebrini has autism
Show & Tell
art blog(derogatory)

⁂
we're not kids anymore.
trying on a metaphor

titsay
AnasAbdin
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
cherry valley forever

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@absurdlyriveting
women in PHLEGM (poetry, history, language, english literature, ghost stories, music)
an old woman walked into my shop today. I greet her with a "hello!"
she suddenly looks incredibly confused. classic pinched face expression. eyes wandering the store. so I say as polity as possible, "you seem like you might be confused?"
her, very seriously: "no, I'm not."
me: "ok." I am now deeply regretting saying that. but I don't know what else to say because she has confused face. (this must have been her concentration face??)
her: "so I have a question."
me: "yes, ok." nods, ready for the question
her: "so my kids inherited some stamps..."
me: nods and smiles
her: says absolutely fucking nothing
me: still waiting for the question
her: still paused, looking at me expectantly
me: thinking to myself, 'is it rude to ask her what the actual question is? because what's the fucking question? what does she want?'
her: still paused staring at me
me: ...
her, finally: "so do you buy stamps?"
me: "...no ma'am. this is a comic book and board game store."
I work at a collectibles store, aka hobby shop. We usually pitch it one of two ways (pretend I wrote more words and not just the general idea).
We sell games/comics/collectibles
We sell pop culture items
No video games, electronics, etc. We're talking analog tabletop stuff. Dungeons & Dragons. Comics and TPBs. Action figures. Trading cards. Nerd stuff.
We are also connected to an antique store. That means there are 2 entrances. You can enter directly into my shop, or go through the antique store first.
Today a woman entered all of 2 feet into the store from the antique side, spent 3 seconds looking around, and loudly exclaimed, "Oh look, a DVD store!"
Ma'am. We do not have a single DVD in here. Anywhere. At all. Whatsoever.
I texted this interaction to my coworker. He replied:
You should have said, "What is a DVD store?"
Folks I wish I was that funny in the moment, and thought to say this with a completely straight face.
I work at a collectibles store, aka hobby shop. We usually pitch it one of two ways (pretend I wrote more words and not just the general idea).
We sell games/comics/collectibles
We sell pop culture items
No video games, electronics, etc. We're talking analog tabletop stuff. Dungeons & Dragons. Comics and TPBs. Action figures. Trading cards. Nerd stuff.
We are also connected to an antique store. That means there are 2 entrances. You can enter directly into my shop, or go through the antique store first.
Today a woman entered all of 2 feet into the store from the antique side, spent 3 seconds looking around, and loudly exclaimed, "Oh look, a DVD store!"
Ma'am. We do not have a single DVD in here. Anywhere. At all. Whatsoever.
Who wants to read a super long rant I wrote in the middle of the night without my glasses about how TV writing for this one show should be better from a non-writer who has no business commenting on any of this? You do? Ok, here you go.
So I just watched the St Denis Medical pilot. I recognize some of the cast, including one of the main characters — the nurse in charge. Really like that actress (Good Girls anyone?). But overall I found that the show was just… not very funny. (I didn’t like The Office either, I’m sorry. But I do like Parks & Rec)
And look, most pilots aren’t great and it does actually take time for shows to find their footing. We shouldn’t all be so hasty to write off a show because of its pilot. Still though, I couldn’t stop thinking about this one thing.
I really could not root for the head nurse.
Just. No.
you can pry starting sentences with 'and' or 'but' out of my cold, dead hands
op how does it feel to be the most correct person on earth
an older gentleman, who regularly shops at our store, came in the other day. I could not for the life of me remember his name. he’s just a guy who comes in sometimes.
he immediately starts poking around and finds a rope (possibly a lasso, I didn’t investigate) and brings it to the counter.
now, customers are allowed to bring things to the register for us to hold while they shop. it’s a big building. makes everybody’s life easier when we do this. and whenever people leave something(s) we ask what name to put it under. if I had remembered his name I wouldn’t have asked, but alas.
so I ask what name I should put it under. he thinks for a second and then replies with a name I have literally never heard in my life.
it is not his name. I am very confident it isn’t.
“you know, like in the bible”
“no sir, I’m Jewish and I don’t understand the reference.”
he does not explain
he just walks away
I do not know how to spell this name
I don’t even remember what it was to try to spell it for you now because I had truly never heard it before and it wasn’t the easiest to pronounce
I enter him into the system as ‘rope’
he tells another coworker that it’s saved under this name I cannot spell
coworker also doesn’t know the name and just points to him from across the room
“ah yes, that’s for rope guy. check the saves under ‘rope’.”
he buys many more items and we all just avoid bringing up the name
we pull up the saved ‘rope’ at checkout
at no point do I ever find out his name
he leaves
I realize that the name could have been a bible character who saves babies or a bible character who murders babies and I would have never known the difference because I am not part of the bible fandom
I’m sure I will see rope guy again, but who knows what name he’ll try to stump me with
sometime after he leaves one of my coworkers says to another: “I wonder what he does with all of that stuff. he comes in and buys a bunch of random items semi-regularly. is his house full of eccentric things?”
other coworker: “actually he just puts them in his garage. he buys lots of stuff and it goes in his garage never to be seen again.”
me, thinking to myself but too afraid to ask: how do you know this…
an older gentleman, who regularly shops at our store, came in the other day. I could not for the life of me remember his name. he’s just a guy who comes in sometimes.
he immediately starts poking around and finds a rope (possibly a lasso, I didn’t investigate) and brings it to the counter.
now, customers are allowed to bring things to the register for us to hold while they shop. it’s a big building. makes everybody’s life easier when we do this. and whenever people leave something(s) we ask what name to put it under. if I had remembered his name I wouldn’t have asked, but alas.
so I ask what name I should put it under. he thinks for a second and then replies with a name I have literally never heard in my life.
it is not his name. I am very confident it isn’t.
“you know, like in the bible”
“no sir, I’m Jewish and I don’t understand the reference.”
he does not explain
he just walks away
I do not know how to spell this name
I don’t even remember what it was to try to spell it for you now because I had truly never heard it before and it wasn’t the easiest to pronounce
I enter him into the system as ‘rope’
he tells another coworker that it’s saved under this name I cannot spell
coworker also doesn’t know the name and just points to him from across the room
“ah yes, that’s for rope guy. check the saves under ‘rope’.”
he buys many more items and we all just avoid bringing up the name
we pull up the saved ‘rope’ at checkout
at no point do I ever find out his name
he leaves
I realize that the name could have been a bible character who saves babies or a bible character who murders babies and I would have never known the difference because I am not part of the bible fandom
I’m sure I will see rope guy again, but who knows what name he’ll try to stump me with
Because the “shrodinger’s queerbait” nonsense will never go away, indulge me an analogy (and a long post).
wlw ships are the “made from scratch” cake in a world where we only ever expect cake mix from the box.
Say you have a show where, in the first interaction between a male and female character, there is a red box. It could be a Betty Crocker box of cake mix. Because all it takes is just one smile — one wink — one raised eyebrow— and the fans don’t question it. We’re clearly making a cake here. The box is red.
Meanwhile, you have two female characters building their own relationship that have elements that could build to romance. There are eggs in the fridge. A few more episodes, there’s flour in the pantry. Sugar. Baking powder. Queer fans start whispering…we could be making a cake here. Other fans scoff “you will read into anything. They’re just eggs! Everyone has eggs in their fridge!” Maybe so, maybe not. They are written off as discrete ingredients, nothing to see here.
That red box is still sitting in the pantry. Obviously we’re going with that one, and it’s definitely cake mix. That guy and girl stood next to each other again.
The wlw relationship is now full-on batter. It was a cake recipe all along, but it’s not baked yet. The crowd that wrote off every ingredient is now saying the writers are just going to “squander” that box that could be ready-made cake mix or that they’re being “forced” to bake a cake with the very ingredients the writers deliberately bought and put in their pantry.
Now it’s in the oven, the cake is baking. That crowd will still insist it’s forced, or maybe its actually something else, or it’s rushed, or it’s pandering. Whether the writers painstakingly built a pantry to make the cake they truly wanted or they were cultivating good ingredients and realized they had the fixings for a more decadent cake and went there, it doesn’t matter. It’s still a recipe. One that fans who always have to piece together ingredients had hoped for or saw from the get-go, despite being scoffed at and disparaged. Just because that crowd didn’t see (or refused to see) those ingredients as part of a whole, doesn’t make it any less of a recipe.
And wlw fans shouldn’t have to keep writing essays to demonstrate that the wlw “cake” has all the ingredients every cake mix does, or keep pointing out that fans were ready to believe a cake was being baked when they saw a nondescript box, but that they’ll do anything to discredit or doubt the cake from scratch that’s now cooling off on the counter.
It is partly a function of heteronormativity from the audience in immediately seeing romance in any whisper of interaction between m/f characters and passing off all charged interactions between female characters are sisterly or platonic. And it also comes from writers, who are either being cautious so as not to spook corporate overlords or audiences, or who are preserving plausible deniability.
To take the analogy further, box cake mix is fine! It works! It is, practically speaking, what a lot of folks know by default. I thought I was a Duncan Hines girl once myself. Vanilla cake mix has the ingredients measured out, it’s a safe bet, it tastes like cake.
But it doesn’t mean every red box is cake mix. And it doesn’t make the cake that had to be pieced together from scratch due to censorship, caution, time, narrative build-up, what-have-you, any less of a cake.
Made a new poster! :)
ryan gosling this. ryan gosling that. margot robbie made barbie what it is. she OWNED it. put respect on her name
(not to hijack a very wonderful barbie post that I totally agree with and support 100%)
but you know who else does earnest portrayals really well?
just wanted to put this out there into the world.
because genuine earnestness can also make for some great comedy.
thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
I'm glad I decided to watch this one instead of just thinking I'd already posted it.
video was muted, so for half a second while flipping he starts to go right and I was like "bitch I better not be seeing someone almost die on my dash today."
then I realized.
and then I was like, I bet I know which song is playing rn. 😏
Things fanfic is reputed for inserting into the source material:
Sex
Things fanfic actually inserts into the source material:
Sex
Holding hands
Bizarre misunderstandings
Meticulous descriptions of food and clothing
The author’s unaddressed traumas
Found family
Plausible explanations for existing plot holes
Additional plot holes
Exciting new frontiers in speculative physics, economics, chemistry, biology, zoology, psychology, theology, and/or ontology
Tax evasion
Gender
Very bad puns
What fanfic often removes from the source material:
All beds except one
This has no right being this fucking funny
actually you know what that's exactly it i would rather someone add 5 parantheticals after every sentence than use tone indicators it's 1. accomplishing SO much more in terms of clarity 2. extremely funny to look at depending on how they're used
observe:
"is this real? /gen" — i thought /gen meant "general" for ages. i would not be able to understand this on first sight a few years ago and is thus ineffective
"is this real? (genuine question)" — i fully understand this without issue
"is this real? (genuine question) (can't tell) (very realistic) (looks real) (scary) (photoshop?)" — is not only incredibly clear it's also very funny to read all of these thoughts stapled together while also in their own parentheses. it's also the most useful because now i can actually address all parts of what they are asking me with as much specificity as BOTH of us need
example response:
"yes it is" (genuine answer) (I am a professional who can tell) (as intended) (I know right) (yes) (no).
I open and close this app like it's a fridge
am I the only one who still instinctually and without my control swap the word reblog with rebagel?
istg I probably saw someone use it like 2 times and I can never not call it that in my head ever again.
please rebagel if you agree.