I am complicated

[annieginny]

Nothing unites the mediocre as strongly as the desire to tear down someone/something exceptional.

[spidermaninlove]

[annieginny]

I love how everyone was coming at you for claiming that Tom and Zendaya were messy and petty during their breakup, then immediately after that, there's video evidence of them being messy and petty towards someone.

Let me just say that TZ being savage af in front of that TV crew might be my favorite Tomdaya moment to date.

[nattikay]

"um.....hi :)"

u know that corny fanfic trope where characters meet their past/future selves ha ha yeah

still can't believe how FAST they CANONICALLY speedran Neteyam Lo'ak and Kiri lol, like that actually happened wow

[nattikay]

Tìtusìranìri Neteyam nume! Neteyam learns to walk!

[nattikay]

...they're not even all that interested in the story tbh, they just think it's funny when she calls him skxawng ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[nattikay]

bonus: he may be a skxawng, but he's a self-aware skxawng hrh

DOUBLE bonus: after the story!

aaaaand a few quick notes on Jake's grammar under the cut:

sooo in Na'vi, the idiomatic way to say "you're right" is ngaru tìyawr, literally correctness to you, as opposed to the more literal nga lu eyawr you are correct. After discussing it a bit in the practice channel over on Kelutral, the reason seems to be that "nga lu eyawr" makes it sound like the person's whole being is somehow "correct" or not, rather than whatever idea they're expressing.

The reverse of this should be ngaru tìkxey incorrectness to you (or in this case, ngaru ke lu tìkxey incorrectness not to you/you have no incorrectness)...however, because Jake is a non-native speaker who by his own admission struggled a lot learning the language, I thought it'd make sense for him to go for the more literal-English-translation "po ke lu keyawr" even though it is technically incorrect. I think it's interesting trying to write him with more imperfect Na'vi, especially earlier on, and this seemed like a reasonable/believable mistake for him to make.

so tl;dr just a disclaimer: no Jake's grammar is not technically correct here and yes it was done intentionally after checking to see what the correct way would be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[nattikay]

[nattikay]

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

all goofing aside I genuinely don't understand the urge to reimagine Taylor Allison Swift as a secretly queer icon when the pop music scene(TM) is like. literally overflowing with women who actually like women. Gaga and Kesha and Miley and Halsey are right there. Rina Sawayama and Hayley Kiyoko and Rebecca Black and Kehlani and Victoria Monét and Miya Folick if you're willing to get slightly less top 100. Janelle and Demi for them nonbinary takes on liking girls. like what are we doing here. like I'm not even saying you can't enjoy Taylor but why would you hang all your little gay hopes on her.

[thepuppeteer-andthetrashmob]

Isn’t Lady Gaga bisexual?

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

yes that is indeed why she's on the list of famous women who like women

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

why have multiple people reblogged this with some horse-assed "um actually most of these people are bi or pan" did I fucking stutter I said they like girls. what is your point. I'm going to kill you.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

#op probably has this post muted but the icon is too real.

the icon is because of this post

[wildflower182]

POV: you make a good post and then encounter tumblr reading comprehension

[inyourwildestdreams22]

Zendaya is the secret weapon of LVMH as she causes sales to soar

The Euphoria actress, 26, is the face of Bulgari jewellery and since this spring has also been representing Louis Vuitton: specifically, the

💅🏻

[artsimpourtzi]

I'm reading some of tz tumblr posts and just thinking... It's funny af how short people's memory is. As soon as The Rock publicly donated a few? mil (which is pennies for him) everyone instantly forgot about his ego the size of Texas. And as soon as DF and FU started writing that another movie is postponed "because studios refuse to fairly pay actors and writers," everyone instantly forgot how they'd constantly throw so many of those same actors (except for a few film twitter darlings) under the bus with clickbait headlines just to get hate engagement for years. C'mon guys bfr.

I don’t like this type of ask 🧐 if you feel I’m going back and forth tell me so (which is kind of difficult since I’ve always said I mostly root for the rock and how much he has achieved by embracing his niche regardless of his ego, and I haven’t praised df for how they’re covering the strike) otherwise tell it to whoever annoys you

[jechristine]

This is directed at me, I’m pretty sure, so I guess I’ll respond.

The Rock: I applaud that his donation made such a splash that it was widely publicized. I’ve been saying that I think A-listers should be public and vocal and loud with their SAG-AFSTRA messaging. I don’t think this is the moment for behind-the-scenes activism only. The Rock managed to give and send a clear message in one fell swoop, and good for him.

Discussing Film: yes, I think their support for the unions has been great these last few weeks.

Anon, I think what’s wrongheaded about your approach here is that you are taking my praise of specific actions as adulation of the entire person (The Rock) or account (Discussing Film). But I was just raising up specific things that they’ve done that have been good. I have put forth no opinion about the Rock’s ego or Discussing Film’s clickbaity headlines.

The mirror image of this ask are those I get when I criticize Tom or Zendaya. I get angry anons telling me that I “hate” them or am faking my support or something. But that is not true either. I try to keep my praise and criticisms specific here. Humans are complicated and our thinking about them should be as well.

Sorry you’ve gotten in the middle @artsimpourtzi 🫡

[eywacries]

AVATAR (2009) · dir. James Cameron

[just-your-average-tangerine]

Holy fucking shit queer people really fucking hate masculinity

Like, I know anyone following me has seen me talk about this shit but fuck

This queer movie review podcast is talking about 70s glam rock fashion (a favorite of mine) and the one host says "an effeminate man is his true self, because masculinity is fake, the only way to be real is to be feminine"

Like, what the fuck? First of all, way to discount generations of queer people, and displays of queer masculinity, great job. Second, tell me you've never spoken to a trans man or a butch or literally anyone who's ever been forced into a feminine social role or feminine presentation without telling me.

I hate how pervasive this attitude is. I hate how it makes it uncomfortable, at best, to exist in queer spaces as someone who is not, can not, and does not want to be sufficiently feminine.

[spacelazarwolf]

anytime ppl tell me masculinity is inherently restrictive and violent i think abt the fact that peak jewish masculinity is studying talmud and taking care of your family and giving your wife multiple orgasms.

[tbposting]

"It's become easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism," and in much the same way, I think it's become easier for a lot of people (including and in many cases especially men) to imagine the end of the male gender than to imagine positive forms of masculinity.

But we're gonna fucking have to. There needs to be a positive vision of what masculinity can be so that men, once they do the work of abandoning the patriarchal, racist, supremacist and bigoted forms of masculinity that they are taught, have somewhere better to go, and someone better to be.

Like, yes, I know it's tempting to be like "not my problem, fuck 'em, let them figure it out." And to some extent fair enough, this is work whose primary burden should fall on men and masculine people. But cis men don't have a monopoly on masculinity. Spare a thought for transmasc people, spare a thought for nonbinary and genderfluid folks with masculine expression, or, hell, butch women who incorporate parts of masculinity into their womanhood. It's their fucking gender too, y'know.

[roach-works]

i mean they/we have figured it out. there’s tons of cool and fun alternatives to toxic masculinity. as was pointed up upthread, plenty of jewish men have this on lockdown, and there’s plenty of other cultures besides that we could all celebrate and learn from too. and then even queer-specific types of masculinity like leather daddies, bears, bulldykes, butches, transmascs of all stripes... are right now authentically celebrating their masculinity.

so the problem is really everyone else who needs to pay attention and behave themselves, in this situation.

like, to wring our hands, at this point in time, and say ‘oh we need to figure this out, we need to come up with a good masculinity, we need there to be a positive solution’ is letting everyone else off the hook for being the problem. because there’s already dozens of great ways to be a good man, and there are millions of good men, loving themselves and loving each other and loving everyone else around them too. that’s done. that’s solved. we did it.

now it’s the rest of the community’s turn to actually meet us where we’re at.

[tomdayaland]

Them and their inside jokes from the start. <3

[zapbib24]

Still in the 2016 rabbit hole and she really loved recording him, that's flirting 101 🤧

[zapbib24]

But seriously they'd been in Atlanta for less than 2 months and that's how they were acting in front of everyone's salads on that stage? Crush era TZ has a special place in my heart 🤧

[saul-tortellini]

[hamletthedane]

100% Disagree

It’s an underdog story about classism in which the folk hero (Johnny) is confronted by a powerful man (the Devil) who tries to exploit the hero’s perceived ignorance and inferiority by offering a great reward with impossible odds. Although Johnny warns him that looks can be deceiving, and that he’s going to regret the dare because Johnny is the “best there’s ever been”, the devil is blinded by his greed and arrogance.

The devil creates an awful cacophony of technically excellent fiddle playing that would be impossible for Johnny to replicate. It’s a trick.

But Johnny just grins at him and starts to play “simple” classic country fiddling songs - Fire On The Mountain, House Of The Rising Sun, and Daddy Cut Her Bill Off. He doesn’t rise to beat the Devil - he simply creates his own music from his home, in the style that he knows, and his love of it and the familiarity of the music make his “backwoods” fiddling more perfect than the Devil could ever achieve.

It is thus the devil’s pride, not Johnny’s, that allows Johnny to Bugs Bunny his way into a golden fiddle.

(In that sense, I do agree that it is the most American song: in a land of prejudice and inequities, great power lies - dormant but ever-present - in those we underestimate and attempt to exploit.)

[mylordshesacactus]

It’s so easy to underestimate the significance of the fact that all of Johnny’s songs are classic folk-americana tunes, honestly! Like, of course thematically what matters is meeting “technically challenging but obnoxious” with “genuinely skilled and beautiful, you just didn’t expect him to be good because he’s poor,” but the music choices are significant for another reason.

Bluntly: Standards.

Sure, the Devil’s portion of the song is extremely technically challenging to replicate....but that’s only relevant to us, retelling the story and trying to replicate it. He didn’t have that standard to be judged against. He just did a bunch of complicated lightning-fast screeching, and tried to set Johnny up to match him, and lost when the kid refused to play that game. The bargain, after all, wasn’t “anything you can do I can do better”. It was just “I’m a better musician than you” and Johnny is the one who actually understands what that means.

But also: all of those name-dropped tunes are incredibly iconic. They’re at least as extremely technically demanding, but more importantly, if Johnny had fucked up even one note it would have been immediately obvious. Every musician in that area knows those tunes. He had to play them perfectly, blend them seamlessly together, and put his own spin on them in order to meet the challenge, and there were no imperfections for the Devil to claim victory over.

All the Devil had to do was make noise. Nobody could tell him that he did it “wrong” because the obvious retort is “no, that’s exactly what I was trying to do, if you think I did it wrong then let’s see you do it better” and that, right there, is the trap. 

Johnny had more heart, of course--that’s the point, that lightning-fast fretting work is nice and all but if you don’t understand and respect the history and culture and the interplay of music you’ll always be lesser than those who do. But he also gave himself the better demonstration of skill, because he did the harder thing, and held himself to a pre-existing standard.

(Also he didn’t summon an entire goddamn backup band to do the heavy lifting for him, but like. Of course this is the American folklore Devil, the trickster-spirit archetype figure who is really more akin to the Fae and not the actual Christian concept of Satan, but “the Devil cheated” still isn’t exactly an instant disqualification. That’s kind of a given. He is, after all, the Devil.)