Something Intelligent

[salaidard]

We’ve been replaying bg3 and I’ve been reminded of how much I love Auntie Ethel, the most important character in the game <3 (right???)

[dailymusicians]

MEGAN THEE STALLION via Instagram (July 7, 2026)

[dollhair]

Something about the bastardization of the story time and time again proves that nobody in power really cares about the people who would resonate with King’s Carrie White. A girl so ugly and repulsive she’s been removed from her own story. The societal need for women and girls to be constantly perceived as attractive is what fuels a fair amount of her torment in the book, but that person isn’t even allowed to exist on the screen. We cannot empathize with her; it isn’t allowed. It’s fascinating to me.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

"Awesome. Ilya can do it" is my reaction to SO much shit I see from this fandom.

"The second line isn't a demotion" "Awesome. Ilya can do it"

"It doesn't matter who holds the captain title since they're equals who have equal say" "Awesome. Give Shane the title then"

"It doesn't matter how much they're being paid since it's all going to the same household" "Awesome. Ilya can take the paycut"

"If they want to be on the same team, one of them needs to move" "Awesome. Ilya can go to montreal"

Anyway I hope everyone keeps the long game haterism coming. I follow like 3 blogs for this fandom because my requirement is that you have to absolutely hate the long game and the way Shane is treated before I click the follow button so like I'm loving your blog lol

Yeah it’s really the disparity in how Shane and Ilya are treated both in the fandom and in the narrative itself that exposes the fact that Shane’s position is very much worsened in the long game. Every single one of his losses are treated as not a big deal for Shane but unthinkable for Ilya.

The biggest textual evidence is in the move and paycut. Ilya expressly contemplates moving to Montreal for Shane at a paycut and immediately rejects it as unthinkable because he doesn’t want the paycut. But when it’s Shane, the idea is quite literally laughed off as a joke. Why would he worry about being paid his worth? He has a rich husband who will take care of him.

So many people insist that it’s not a demotion to have Shane on the second line. Awesome. Why shouldn’t Ilya be on it then? If it’s not a big deal for Shane, it’s not a big deal for Ilya.

Losing his captaincy is another big thing. You could make them equals on the team so easily. At the very least give Shane an A. There is absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t have gotten an A. He is the most qualified person on the team three times over. It is incredibly common to still give players that are new to a team the A if they are veteran star players, and Shane is both. Why the fuck would he not have an A. The only thing not giving him an A does is cue him up for a mean joke about how he was demoted.

Ilya straight up tells him at the end of the long game to not even think about being captain because it’s staying with him. And it’s once again being posited as a joke, but it’s a cruel joke in the context.

And while they can’t actually be co-captains, there’s only 1 C on the ice at a time, they could get very close. The Minnesota Wild spent 9 years rotating their captain every month. The Boston Bruins had two players serve as effective co-captains by giving one the C during away games and swapping it to the other during home games. There’s precedent for respecting two players as leaders in the team this way. But the long game goes out of its way to disrespect Shane. He is outright laughed at for not having a leadership role. It’s so fucking cruel.

We need to end this fiction that Shane was a bad captain. That is directly contrary to the textual evidence. He led his team to three goddamn Stanley Cups. That man is the most qualified one on the Centaurs’ roster and somehow his happy ending is to be underpaid and overlooked for positions he is absolutely qualified for, because what implications could that possibly have for an Asian wifey man. At least give him the goddamn A.

If Shane’s ending isn’t degrading in some way, then awesome, Ilya can do it. Shane is the one who had to have his reputation be fucking shredded. Ilya can take one goddamn hit

[poprocksromance]

Watch me going absolutely feral at people who think TROY BARRETT, recently reformed POS, “earned his A” and we can’t give it to Shane. Bullshit. Shane’s three rings earns him whatever the fuck he wants.

If Ottawa was smart, they go hey. We can’t pay what you deserve at the start of your contract. So instead we will give you:

As many damn bonuses that they can get away with for if Shane performs well and gets them to the playoffs again

They backload his contract heavily. They’ll figure it out later, but he’s making what he deserves later on in the contract term 100%. After all, with this combo they could have a serious Cup run this year. Ilya will get a paycut later to compensate.

First line minutes. If he’s technically second line, Ilya and his line are getting extremely similar minutes a night. And Shane is on all the special teams.

Captaincy. Ilya gets the payday, Shane gets the C. If this cannot be stomached for some reason, rotating C position that give Shane preference (like he holds the C the entirety of the playoffs)

Anyway. I have found catharsis in writing my own version of TLG that’s not stupid as hell this is basically what is going to happen in it.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

"Awesome. Ilya can do it" is my reaction to SO much shit I see from this fandom.

"The second line isn't a demotion" "Awesome. Ilya can do it"

"It doesn't matter who holds the captain title since they're equals who have equal say" "Awesome. Give Shane the title then"

"It doesn't matter how much they're being paid since it's all going to the same household" "Awesome. Ilya can take the paycut"

"If they want to be on the same team, one of them needs to move" "Awesome. Ilya can go to montreal"

Anyway I hope everyone keeps the long game haterism coming. I follow like 3 blogs for this fandom because my requirement is that you have to absolutely hate the long game and the way Shane is treated before I click the follow button so like I'm loving your blog lol

Yeah it’s really the disparity in how Shane and Ilya are treated both in the fandom and in the narrative itself that exposes the fact that Shane’s position is very much worsened in the long game. Every single one of his losses are treated as not a big deal for Shane but unthinkable for Ilya.

The biggest textual evidence is in the move and paycut. Ilya expressly contemplates moving to Montreal for Shane at a paycut and immediately rejects it as unthinkable because he doesn’t want the paycut. But when it’s Shane, the idea is quite literally laughed off as a joke. Why would he worry about being paid his worth? He has a rich husband who will take care of him.

So many people insist that it’s not a demotion to have Shane on the second line. Awesome. Why shouldn’t Ilya be on it then? If it’s not a big deal for Shane, it’s not a big deal for Ilya.

Losing his captaincy is another big thing. You could make them equals on the team so easily. At the very least give Shane an A. There is absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t have gotten an A. He is the most qualified person on the team three times over. It is incredibly common to still give players that are new to a team the A if they are veteran star players, and Shane is both. Why the fuck would he not have an A. The only thing not giving him an A does is cue him up for a mean joke about how he was demoted.

Ilya straight up tells him at the end of the long game to not even think about being captain because it’s staying with him. And it’s once again being posited as a joke, but it’s a cruel joke in the context.

And while they can’t actually be co-captains, there’s only 1 C on the ice at a time, they could get very close. The Minnesota Wild spent 9 years rotating their captain every month. The Boston Bruins had two players serve as effective co-captains by giving one the C during away games and swapping it to the other during home games. There’s precedent for respecting two players as leaders in the team this way. But the long game goes out of its way to disrespect Shane. He is outright laughed at for not having a leadership role. It’s so fucking cruel.

We need to end this fiction that Shane was a bad captain. That is directly contrary to the textual evidence. He led his team to three goddamn Stanley Cups. That man is the most qualified one on the Centaurs’ roster and somehow his happy ending is to be underpaid and overlooked for positions he is absolutely qualified for, because what implications could that possibly have for an Asian wifey man. At least give him the goddamn A.

If Shane’s ending isn’t degrading in some way, then awesome, Ilya can do it. Shane is the one who had to have his reputation be fucking shredded. Ilya can take one goddamn hit

[astriiformes]

To be quite honest with you all I do think that aro/ace-spectrum fans in fandoms where people are desperately inventing crossover ships and humanizing non-human characters in order to have a conventionally attractive guy to ship the main character with, instead of possibly having to enjoy a story with no romance in it, have the right to refer to everyone else as cowards.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

actually I think you should be normal about ordinary citizens of authoritarian countries and yes that applies even to that country you're thinking of right now

[dragon-in-a-fez]

"but they support [dictator] and [violent action]!" okay is it possible that a combination of propaganda, election rigging, and authoritarian crackdowns on dissent could lead a population to look like it supports something most people would find distasteful under more reasonable circumstances

[ashlgcostumes]

I pull up my slide show. The first slide says “I do not want to financially support the Church of the Latter Day Saints in any way”. There are murmurs of agreement and approval from the room

Next slide. “Brandon Sanderson is a member of the LDS”. The muttering has changed tone

“It’s not a very big amount of money though.” Someone in the audience pipes up. “His cut is only a small fraction of the cost of the book, and then-“ my next slide shows an income breakdown, it is titled ‘a small fraction of $10,000,000 is still a big number’

I’m sweating. The following slides explain tithing rules. The vibe of the room has shifted. I start to doubt I’m getting out of here alive

[fuckblast]

[dyk-tv-theme-song]

Do you recognize this TV theme song? #696

I know this and can name the series

I know this but can't name the series

I might know this

I've never heard this

Voting ended onJul 16

[dyk-tv-theme-song]

Do you recognize this TV theme song? #675

I know this and can name the series

I know this but can't name the series

I might know this

I've never heard this

Voting ended onJul 9

[knucklecurve]

And they were "rivals."

Amber Glenn and Lena Lemon for HBO Max

[jackfuckingtwist]

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000) dir. Joel & Ethan Coen

— What was I supposed to tell 'em? That you were sent to the penal farm and I divorced you from shame?

[elbiotipo]

More than "here in the Southern Hemisphere we have inverted seasons :)" thing, which is TECHNICALLY true, I would go a step further and encourage to think about that "much of the world does not exactly has a spring-summer-fall-winter season sequence as they show in cartoons"

[paperdragonsong]

I will scream about this to anyone who listens forever. AUSTRALIA DOES NOT HAVE "ENGLISH SEASONS BUT BACKWARDS" and the insistence that it does creates a massive layer of alienation from the natural world.

I never really realised how much difference it makes until I went to England and realised that here the change of seasons is an obvious, visible, physical change in the world. Like, everything REALLY IS orange and foggy in autumn! In spring there are flowers EVERYWHERE, so much more than any other season, and the trees really do have all blossom and no leaves. Even if it doesn't snow, in winter there's frost all the time and the trees are bare and the sky is visibly greyer all the time. You don't need to be told "this date is the first day of spring", you can SEE IT (although this is getting way messier and less precise due to climate change).

By contrast, most places in Australia the seasons we're taught feel like arbitrary categories - and is it any surprise considering they're colonial constructs? Orange-leaved autumn and blossom-covered spring is a cartoon stereotype with no relevance on a continent where ALL NATIVE TREES ARE EVERGREEN!! Snowy winters are a joke in the desert, and even sunny summers don't ring particularly true considering that much of the country is in the tropics, where summer means monsoons - not that I've ever seen the concept that WE HAVE A MONSOON SEASON taught at an Australian school.

Most Indigenous nations around Australia had six or more seasons, revolving around wet and dry times as much as hot and cold, and marked by the appearances of certain native animals and flowers. Schools need to start teaching the real seasons, and explaining that climate cycles are too complex to generalise globally, or else we will keep raising generations who view the natural world as hostile and unpredictable and climate predictions as generally irrelevent and frequently wrong - and I'm sure I don't need to spell out why that's a problem in the era of climate crisis.

[tiredtransgal]

i want to add that 40% of the world's population lives in the tropics, and the 4 season model just doesn't make much sense for a lot of places in there. usually it's just the wet season/monsoon season and the dry season. it's often hot year round.

the 4 season model as you and i know it is a european invention, though 4 season models aren't unique to europe! most notably china has the same type of season subdivision.

in general the way humans define seasons is largely subjective and varies across cultures. the one you were taught is not at all universal!

[squirmitherium]

Would you beat your current phone/computer wallpaper in a 1v1 fight?

I would pound their ass immediately.

I would, but I choose not too (for moral reasons).

Fair chances on both.

I would be the one getting slimed.

…what.

Voting ended onJun 24

*you have to provide an image

[neshatriumphs]

Juneteenth is about Black people who were officially technically supposed to be freed from enslavement. Nobody else. Nothing else. It's not a POC day. It's not a "freedom for all" day. It's Black folk, Black culture, Black emancipation, SPECIFICALLY. Any other observation for Juneteenth is gentrification.

[neshatriumphs]

Your Juneteenth reminder that just because they made it a "national holiday," it's still not. It's for the celebration of Black Americans being freed from slavery, finally.

It's from Texas. We been welcoming other descendants of the enslaved. But we close the gate and draw the line with "everybody."

[neshatriumphs]

Bringing this back on Juneteenth because making Black observations a national holiday didn't and doesn't end racism and the nonblacks are more insufferable than they have been in my lifetime about Black American people and our things.

Happy Juneteenth to those whose lives would not be actively free without the day happening. See the rest of you tomorrow.

[powerbottombrucespringsteen]

The thing is nobody at pride is evaluating you to determine if you’re queer enough to be there because they’re too busy thinking “it’s so hot out” and “why is this lemonade 12 dollars?”

[queenrhaenyras]

Sinners (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler