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[myfavoritedemons]

Started using the phrase “that’s cilantro to me” to refer to the presence of a story element that completely ruins a piece of media for me, disproportionate to its actual badness.

[aymmgreen]

so i saw this the other day 😭

[myriad-thoughts]

tumblr cut off the reply, and I was going to reply with the same thing. :)

[myriad-thoughts]

and the original AO3 reply was the OP and not Rei Ami... weird.

[aymmgreen]

Happy birthday aymm! this is 🎲 anon by the way.

Thank you for the polytrix edits and other kpdh crumbs that you always share with us.

Life may not be where you thought it would be right now, and I know it’s tiring to hear this especially since I don’t know anything about your situation but I hope you stay strong. Please stay strong. I am here for you.

here's my little gift to you~

Mira had never liked birthdays. Not because she hated getting older. Not because she hated cake. She just hated the waiting. The waiting to see if anyone remembered. The waiting to see if anyone cared.

Back then, birthdays usually passed like any other day. Maybe a greeting from her family if they remember. A rushed “happy birthday” from someone who only knew because a calendar reminded them. She’d learned not to expect anything.

So when the clock on her bedside table blinked 11:59 PM, Mira was exactly where she always was on the eve of her birthday. Alone. Curled beneath her blanket.

She glanced at the time. 11:59. 11:59. 12:00. The day arrived quietly. No messages and no surprises.

Mira laughed softly to herself. Of course. She reached over to turn off her lamp. The door exploded open.

“WAKE UP, BIRTHDAY GIRL!” Mira nearly launched herself off the bed.

“WHAT THE!” Zoey came barreling into the room like a hurricane, carrying something lopsided and suspiciously on fire.

“MAKE A WISH BEFORE THE CANDLES MELT THROUGH THE CAKE!”

“ZOEY, WHY IS IT LEANING”

Behind her, Rumi stepped into the room. Much quieter. Much calmer. A little flour still dusted one sleeve of her hoodie. She looked vaguely annoyed to be awake. Or maybe embarrassed. With Rumi it was always difficult to tell

“Happy birthday,” she said.

Simple. Soft. Then she immediately focused her attention on the cake instead. As if she’d already used up her allotted words for the evening. Mira blinked.

“You made a cake?”

Zoey scoffed.

“We” made a cake.”

“I mixed ingredients.”

Rumi folded her arms.

“You also almost set the oven on fire.”

“Technicality.”

Mira laughed. A real laugh. The kind that slipped out before she could stop it. The cake was terrible. Absolutely terrible. And somehow that made it better.

From somewhere down the hallway came a voice.

“If you’re all awake, the kitchen gets cleaned before breakfast.”

Celine.

Without missing a beat, Zoey shouted back:

“YES MAAM!”

Silence.

Then:

“…Happy birthday, Mira.”

A door clicked shut again. The house went quiet. For a moment nobody said anything. The candles flickered. Zoey stood there practically vibrating with excitement. Rumi lingered near the edge of the room, hands tucked into her sleeves.

And suddenly Mira noticed something. They looked tired. Really tired. Training had been brutal lately. Hours and hours every day.

They should have been asleep. Instead they’d stayed awake. Waiting for midnight.

Mira stared at the cake. Then at them. Then back at the cake. Her throat tightened unexpectedly.

No.

No, no, no.

Not now.

Suddenly Mira couldn’t breathe. Because nobody had ever done this before. Not at midnight. Not first thing. Not like they’d been counting down the seconds until her birthday started. Not like she mattered that much.

“Mira?”

Rumi’s voice softened.

Mira looked down quickly.

Too late.

A tear landed on her blanket.

“Oh.”

Zoey froze.

“Mira?”

“I’m fine,” she said immediately.

Which only made more tears spill down her face. Her voice cracked.

“I’m fine."

She wasn’t. Years of pretending birthdays didn’t matter suddenly hit her all at once. Every forgotten one. Every lonely one. Every time she’d told herself she didn’t care. Because apparently she had cared. A lot.

The next thing she knew, Zoey was hugging her.

“ABSOLUTELY NOT.”

Mira laughed through her tears.

“What?”

“No crying on your birthday.”

“We wanted to be the first people to tell you.”

Mira looked up.

“The first?”

“Midnight counts,” Zoey said firmly.

“So technically we win.”

Win what? Mira didn’t know. But something inside her cracked open anyway. A place she’d kept locked for a very long time. Not because she was sad. Because she wasn’t. For the first time in years, she wasn’t.

And while Zoey complained that the candles were melting and Rumi tried so hard not to laugh, Mira realized something she never thought she’d have.

A birthday she wanted to remember.

And people she wanted to spend every future one with.

oh my goodness 😭 AAAAAA BEST GIFT EVER??? thank you 🎲!!!! its been awhile 🥺🥺🥺

you love putting mira in the blender huh kdjdjakahah also good god the feels 🥹 she's finally able to celebrate her birthday with the ones that finally loves her aaaaaaaaa

[myriad-thoughts]

Happy Birthday Aymm, and thank you Anon. :)

[sashaforthewin]

[sunshinetheinspiration]

[quasi-normalcy]

I think that Xena, for all of its ridiculousness and cheesiness, did a better job of conveying the allure of evil than just about any other series I've ever seen. Like it understands that violence, no matter how justifiably it starts out, is addictive, and that hatred poisons you until you can't feel real joy anymore, and it's strange to me that I've never seen it laid out so simply elsewhere.

[rachandroll]

...so THAT'S what sleeper cell activation feels like. Because yes, YES, LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS, because Xena is such an interesting lightning-in-a-bottle-case study! While I would never discount the work done by the writers, Xena as a show is almost perfectly positioned both historically and structurally to consistently explore that theme.

The first puzzle piece is that Xena was a syndicated show at the tail end of syndication's total dominance of a distribution model. For those too young to remember a time when ongoing plots and prestige dramas weren't the norm, syndication is big part of why older television shows almost entirely kept plots contained to one or two episodes rather than having them span seasons. See, when a show is syndicated, it is licensed out to individual television stations/affiliates to be aired as reruns. The individual station chooses when to air them and in what order, and whether to just skip episodes they don't like in favor of the ones most likely to draw eyeballs, etc etc. The more a show is licensed, the more money you make on it, so there is an incentive to make each episode standalone to make them appealing to each station by enabling them to toss on whatever episodes they like without it being a problem for the casual viewer. Also, before streaming, easy access to dvds and episode recording, and the like, a show could not assume that even its fans would have necessarily have seen every episode. "Catching up" was not an easy thing, and reserved for the most dedicated, doing shit like physically mailing bootleg tapes! Therefore, shows needed to have a consistent formula that didn't lock out the person who couldn't watch last week for whatever reason. Characters remained within more of a status quo. Xena is a "monster of the week" style show, like X-Files. I mention X-Files intentionally, because it was one of the first to really break that no-ongoing-plots structure, and that shift affected its contemporaries, like Xena, who also started to follow suit.

That alone doesn't account for Xena being so primed to explore those themes, of course. Even staying within the same fictional universe, Hercules (which Xena is a spin-off of) and Young Hercules don't even come close to Xena's complexity on the subject. But that's because Xena's premise is perfectly positioned to interact with those practical constraints for this outcome in a way those shows aren't. The status quo that syndication demands remain mostly in intact is that 1) Xena was evil and really good at it, 2) she is trying to do good in the world now as penance but can never undo what she has done. Every episode is about Xena trying to save people while dealing with the consequences of her actions as a warlord. The fact that she was evil cannot be changed or diluted nor can the fact that she must continue trying to redeem herself, otherwise the show is over or is unrecognizable to the casual viewer. But this is also an action show, sometimes cartoonishly so, so she must also be fighting consistently! The core spectacle is violence and the core story is why violence is often evil. There is an inherent tension there that the writers either needed to interrogate earnestly or ignore, and they chose the honest, interesting route. They gave Xena a costar who is innocent and principled but loves Xena, and had her always asking why and trying to understand how Xena could be that person, while being put under similar pressures herself. They had Xena continue to use the tools she has, including violence, for good ends, and wrestled with the answers as to why that was ok, why the violence she did then and the violence she did now were different—and sometimes decided they weren't. They showed Xena struggling with falling back into those old habits because they are seductive and easy.

If someone asked "are there so many episodes of Xena where you find out someone tried to get her to change her ways many years ago and failed because that is a really great standalone premise, or because violence as a tool and power and vengeance as motivators are corruptive and hard to stop using once you start," the answer is yes. The show is cyclical because violence is. But also because it is syndicated.

It's fucking rad and interesting.

[planetsoda]

who remembers this tweet

[planetsoda]

this is your annual pride month reminder that queer rose is real

[myriad-thoughts]

But how are there only two Ace / Rose fic?

Someone (who is not me because I couldn't do it as well as it deserves) should improve that.

[aymmgreen]

MY GIRLS 🥺

from the netflix shop!

[frozenartscapes]

Gwi-Ma manages to get into Celine’s head and starts laying into her about her various insecurities, underlying guilt, and general fears engrained in her soul.

After a moment he stops, waiting to see just how crushed her spirits are. He waits for the old hunter to crumple to her knees and give herself willingly to him.

Celine heaves a tired sigh. “Are you done?” she asks the disembodied voice in her head.

Her tone is so cold, so disinterested and unimpressed, that the king of demons sputters. “I… These words do not affect you?”

Celine scoffs. “‘I was a horrible caregiver for Rumi’?” she repeats with a mocking tone, “Please. I think worse things about myself before I even have breakfast. Try harder or stop trying.”

Gwi-Ma would blink in astonishment if he had eyes. “You…may need actual help,” he states dumbly.

Celine nods in approval. “Now you’re starting to sound scary.”

Gwi-Ma leaves her alone after that.

[coffincoitus]

a scene must be included PRIOR to sex where the characters READ their birth certificates OUT LOUD so the reader will know they were born on the SAME DATE to avoid any disgusting AGE GAPS

[camille-lachenille]

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

I AM WHEEZING

[oberonsson]

Dame Archer kicks McDougal’s Scots ass there in the rain at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire - August 11, 2018 - Photo by Douglas Herring

[anarcho-wormism-deactivated2019]

😮

[garrettauthor]

Oh NO.

[treacleaergia]

me, a sheltered noblewoman: Pray who is that brave knight? Dame Archer:*turns around* me: gasp! *instantly in love*

[dirtyriver]

Alicia Archer

[ex-sang-uination]

my bi heart………

[ohmightysmiter]

I’VE NEVER SEEN THE ADDED PICS

[hrefnatheravenqueen]

[nyx-belial]

*dies*

[garrettauthor]

Oh shit.

[notlostonanadventure]

GAY KNIGHTS

[unicornofdarknessstuff-deactiva]

Fellas I’m real gay

[thecarrott]

@0hheytherebigbadwolf HELP!!

[0hheytherebigbadwolf]

Every June this inevitably winds up back on my dash. And I appreciate that. And I will reblog it. Every time.

[stunningpicture]

Failed panoramic.

[ianre-d]

define failed

[lonelovebird]

dude

[roguesquirrel]

the dream is collapsing

[gatheringbones]

[“I want to suggest that patriarchal masculinity has acted like an overprescription of antibiotics, effectively killing off healthier, more magical modes of the masculine so regularly that it has become difficult for them to grow back. What has been left behind culturally is similar to my scorched gut. Too much empty real estate. No wonder problematic figures bloom like candida. They don’t have any competition. They are harmful only in that they have too much free space to grow.

So I am not surprised that so many intelligent, curious men find themselves listening to and reading the work of these fungal overgrowths. They aren’t presented with enough compelling alternatives. Confronted by the toxicity of the patriarchal masculinity, they search for something else. Anything else. I am sympathetic with their heartache and their questing. Where are the healthy stories? Where are the compassionate, fertile masculinities?

I am changing my tune. I don’t think it’s helpful to try to erase or “kill off” these problematic figures. They only come back stronger, sapping us of our strength as we try again and again to disprove their faulty logic. Instead, I want to overwhelm them. I want to crowd them into a very small corner of the cultural gut.”]

Sophie Strand, from The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine

[just-another-cat-blog]

pride month!!!

[lemonsharks]

Is that a miette?

[jeanjauthor]

Pride for you!  Pride for a thousand years!!

[lost-and-cursed]

you COME OUT to miette? you come out to her as queer? oh! oh! pride for mother! pride for mother for One Thousand Years!!!!

[unrealcosima]

Enemies with benefits be like

[myriad-thoughts]

The only thing slow is those two... Spoilers below the cut. Enjoying this one partly due to the excessive cuteness (esp Wine) but also the relatively low stakes - it's not life and death and the threats, while real, aren't because the characters are artificially stupid (they are competent in their areas but inexperienced).

☑ Committed relationship ☑ Exclusive relationship ☑ Want to tell each other everything ☑ Insecurity until they talk. ☑ Constantly thinking about the other one ☑ One talking the other into living with her for a week and getting smug about it. ☑ Buying each other gifts ☑ Making each other food ☑ Comfortable with lots of non-sexual physical contact. ☑ Repeated "sex isn't why I'm doing this" (promptly followed by sex). ☑ Keep forgetting to keep up the enemies front (it's only still working because people misinterpret things). ☑ if it was a romantic relationship the people around them would be going "will you two just fuck already" but they already are. ☑ ... more The only reason they have to hide it left is the risk of causing mass casualties by sugar poisoning.

[fluent-in-lesbianism]

Ignore my ask, I'm high and did not read your pinned post lmao my bad

I will not ignore your ask bc it genuinely made me chuckle

[myriad-thoughts]

unfortunately kisskh requires google and doesn't work on firefox. :( and the other site I watched on region blocked now, so I can't even subscribe there :(

[myriad-thoughts]

kissasia.net (mirror site for kisskh) is currently working (and only uses google for fonts, but that seems to include subtitles), we'll see how long that lasts. got my GL fix for now though. :)

[biglawbear]

I'm instituting a new policy of "if I can't easily read your crusty scanned PDF then I'm sending it back to you, telling you to get your shit together and save your .docx as .pdf, and causing snakes to manifest inside your house"

[christaaah]

this but also if you are in accounting and you have an Excel file please do not save it as a PDF or take a screenshot of it and then paste it into another Excel file

[biglawbear]

I take it back whatever you have going on is way worse than what I was dealing with holy shit

[firstbornsons-deactivated202605]

@thesummoningdark hello?????

[thesummoningdark]

yeah no this is a real thing an actual human being said to me

[biglawbear]

Good afternoon to everyone in the notes having a horrible time! Y'all are fighting demons I never knew existed!! I think every person that makes you do stupid time wasting shit like this because they refuse to learn basic computer literacy should be fired!!

[json-derulo]

I'm not gonna articulate this well, but there's this phenomenon I keep seeing on the left that I'll call "bean soup rhetoric," wherein someone fails to understand that they are not the target audience for a particular message, or just can't conceptualize why a speaker would craft their message differently to resonate with a target audience that doesn't already completely agree with them.

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

Tailoring the argument to the things she already cares about does not mean we're forgetting that she has more privilege than most—entirely the opposite, in fact. A privileged ally can be extremely valuable. Jennifer votes in every election. And so do all the other ladies at her book club, and church, and in the PTA, and those folks listen to Jennifer. There's a reason both parties were courting suburban women so hard in the last election cycle! If we can find common ground with her on this, if we can get her calling her representatives and talking to her friends and phone-banking and door-knocking and making a stink, that's how the needle starts to move. If I can convince her to take her support away from the candidates who are actively restricting my rights and throw it toward those who want to restore and expand those rights...then I'm sorry, but Jennifer is a more valuable ally to me than the people who agree that the legal boundaries of gender ought to be abolished altogether but refuse to actually do anything except complain online about how both sides are equally bad because the right is trying to force everyone to drink the cyanide kool-aid while the left keeps serving bean soup and they don't like bean soup

[vaspider]

"Meet people where they are" is Activism 101, and people seem to be allergic to seeing that this is exactly that.

"Bean Soup Rhetoric" is a very good concept.