I always love seeing this comic because it interprets Tumblr as a gigantic theater ruled by absolute chaos where sometimes somebody just stands up on their chair and shouts and we all pay attention
this happened during the pre-chopped era so idk if anyone remembers this but there was this one episode of cake challenge where they had to make birthday cakes for one of the judges and this one contestant HATED that judge so she made this like, giant slab of undecorated yellow cake and stuck a bunch of skewered strawberries on it (i think the judge was like. known to have a scott conant red onions-like relationship with strawberries) and then she set it on fire and presented the burned mess to the judges table. anyways i think about that at least once a month it’s so aspirational
Okay, so I remember this episode clearly, I had it saved on my DVR till it busted.
Okay, the cake artist here is named Stevie, and she is one of the few I have no respect for. She is an Artiste and italics can’t quite portray the disdain dripping from my mouth when I say that.
To give you a rough example of why i feel that way, let’s go back to her first time on Challenge. The contest was rice krispy treat (*couch* I mean cereal treat) bridges. What Stevie did was have a wooden frame tilted at an angle with strings for the bridge cables, which she wrapped in seaweed. Notice something I didn’t include in that description? Yeah, no cereal treats in the cereal treat contest. In fact, nothing really edible at all. In a food challenge. Plus if I remember correctly the thing fell and broke. So yeah, she came in last place and actually complained how the win was stolen form her because the judges were too blind for her artistic vision. Yeah. One of those.
So let’s break down this train wreck, shall we?
For starters, it wasn’t terrible on purpose, her initial plan was to show up Kerry Vincent and make her have to acknowledge her superior skill. But things started going wrong almost immediately. take the Strawberry Spikes. Stevie realized her cake wasn’t going to be as tall as the rules required (apparently she read them this time) so she used those to make up the height. The weird crinkly edging, for I don’t remember what reason she plated the outside of the cake in Sugar sheets. I think it was to make it look smooth but it didn’t work out. Especially when she kinda snapped half way through and just started tossing chocolate syrup, honey, and whatever else she could on.
And then the best part. Stevie decided the cake needed candles. And by candles, I mean little ramikins filled with alcohol. Which she lit on fire. Fun fact about sugar sheets - they are highly flammable. So yeah, Stevie set her cake on fire during the judging.
I honestly think it looks better post fire extinguisher.
On the flip side, let’s talk about Jason Ellis, aka the guy who won.
He’d also taken heavy criticism in the past from Kerry. And he built his whole cake around showing her how much he’d listened and improved. He started his planning process not with ‘Birthday cake’ but ‘what do I know about Kerry and what she values in cake’. And made this
Clean, elegant, and precise.
These two cakes symbolize the difference between learning from criticism and getting butthurt.
Oh my god, I vaguely remember watching this? But looking at the photos, Stevie’s cake was even more of a dumpster than my mind pictured trying to come up with the memory. Like, holy shit.
I think we should go back to the Internet age of boom boom boom boom and caramelldansen and pretty rave girl and nightcore and those badly edited amvs and like those sparkles and shit.
The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, one of which has fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut decides that due to the robots’ bigotry, the Galactic Republic should not admit the planet. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing himself to be a black man.
Apparently the Comics Code Authority tried to prevent the author from making the main character black.
Boy did they! It took the writer (and the company) threatening the CCA with a lawsuit and telling the guy to fuck off (literally) to get this thing printed:
Comic Historian Digby Diehl recounted in Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives:
This really made ‘em go bananas in the Code czar’s office. ‘Judge Murphy was off his nut. He was really out to get us’, recalls [EC editor] Feldstein. ‘I went in there with this story and Murphy says, “It can’t be a Black man”. But … but that’s the whole point of the story!’ Feldstein sputtered. When Murphy continued to insist that the Black man had to go, Feldstein put it on the line. ‘Listen’, he told Murphy, ‘you’ve been riding us and making it impossible to put out anything at all because you guys just want us out of business’. [Feldstein] reported the results of his audience with the czar to Gaines, who was furious [and] immediately picked up the phone and called Murphy. ‘This is ridiculous!’ he bellowed. ‘I’m going to call a press conference on this. You have no grounds, no basis, to do this. I’ll sue you’. Murphy made what he surely thought was a gracious concession. ‘All right. Just take off the beads of sweat’. At that, Gaines and Feldstein both went ballistic. ‘Fuck you!’ they shouted into the telephone in unison. Murphy hung up on them, but the story ran in its original form.[18]
You know, it’s times like this that I am deeply comforted, knowing that history isn’t just everyone being nice and polite and better than the current generation. Sometimes it really is just people bellowing swear words over the phone to get shit done.
the difference between tumblr and twitter is that pretty much everyone on tumblr needs some kind of compassionate intervention in their lives, but at a low background level. Twitter has 99% normies succumbing to internet brainrot and 1% just the most outlandish personalities you’ve ever seen.
your average tumblr personality is a shaking dog in a Sarah McLachlan appeal, with enough time and care they can be rehabilitated and placed in a loving home. your average big-time twitter account should be sent to a prison colony on the moon
Friend I was here for the bone stealing witch. Even as the sun and moon hid their eyes and averted their gaze I saw the witch walk without fear of the laws of God nor man and steal those bones and sell them on etsy. The amputated toe. The breast milk jewelry. A man who against any law of heaven desires to own another human as a pet reblogged my star wars discourse posts. You want to talk about racefaking cannibal mermaids?? Bah! How many kickstarter scams for cartoons that sounded unbearably twee have come and gone? How many stars risen and fallen? I remember when this site had a sizable userbase of meth enthusiast who just posted aesthic shots of their stash and rigs. Where are those crank aficionados now? Gone like so many others. And yet I remain!
And when I tell you that twitter is worse than any of that you should heed my words!!
Wheeeeen the moon’s in the sky, Wei Wuxian’s back to life, he’s a-peaceful. 9/10
Lan Wangji sees through Wei Wuxian so quickly it’s almost Embarrassing. Imagine being so Predictably Self-Sacrificing. Imagine being in love with someone so Predictably Self-Sacrificing. 4/10
Lan Wangji has never taken anything so seriously. This is The Most Deadly Serious Piggyback That Has Ever Occurred. This Piggyback is absolutely Non-Negotiable. 8/10
Lan Wangji Gently Menaces Nie Huaisang. He knows and we know that Nie Huaisang doesn’t need anything close to a Classic Lan Wangji Menacing to fold like a Very Expensive and Delicately-Painted Fan. 7.5/10
Get you a soulmate who cares about your hydration like Lan Wangji cares about Wei Wuxian’s. 8/10
Oh, the Nie Clan was so against demonic cultivation when it was Wei Wuxian doing it, but as soon as they need to Placate Their Angry Knives all bets are off? Lan Wangji is So Unimpressed. 4/10
History’s Most Homoerotic Duet. 9.5/10
Yes. 8/10
This is definitely a Great Idea. There Is No Possible Way It Could Go Wrong. 4/10
You said that wwx is always 'deliciously informal', and I've been wondering if he's doing it deliberately... Like we know if he felt inclined to, he could talk on the same level of formality as lwj, but maybe part of the reason he doesn't is to differenciate himself from jc and the other young masters so that people like madam yu and others wouldn't feel threatened. Obviously he's also naturally an awful gremlin with no manners but...
(kind of a follow-up to an aside I made in this post)
ooooh okay so I’ve been thinking about this ask for quite a long time, partially in hopes that my brain would deliver on something like this monster of a post again, but nothing’s really leaping out at me because I think this is just part and parcel of Wei Wuxian’s character
Wei Wuxian is not only one of the most well-spoken characters in the show, but he’s also:
one of the most literary
one of the most courteous
one of the most adaptable
characters in the entire show.
I’ve written several posts about the various references Wei Wuxian makes -- whether it’s poetry (or prose) that Wei Wuxian himself quotes, or innovating on a line of his own, he’s routinely one of the most cultured characters in each scene. He’s capable of walking up and down the sliding scale of formality, of register, of poetry, of style, as the moment requires. It just so happens that he often chooses the most informal register, the most casual of manners.
Part of this, I think, has to do with his upbringing in the Jiang Sect -- class is a recurring topic/theme in CQL, and a lot of it gets funneled through Wei Wuxian, who exists in a transgressive/liminal space. He’s the son of a servant, and is also a talented cultivator in his own right; he seems to be a carefree, flippant young gongzi but also has vast depths of insight and compassion; he has both a connection to a more pedestrian, more ordinary, more earthly world as well as access to the spirituality of the exclusive, elite, and elitist cultivational world. Wei Wuxian becomes a chameleon, capable of performing at whatever level of society is required of him, and this manifests in his language as well. He can do perfectly formal, self-referential third-person with Lan Yi; he can go toe-to-toe in cocky swagger with Xue Yang.
And there are advantages to being more informal -- Wei Wuxian teases Lan Wangji for this when they try to gather information, because there’s no way people would feel comfortable opening up to that icy expression, Lan Zhan, come on, the gossip is best in the taverns. Wei Wuxian teases stories, information, entire plot points out of minor characters with that silver tongue of his. Wei Wuxian, to borrow a sociological term, is capable of passing in a way that is both deployable skill and coping method.
Wei Wuxian can be exquisitely well-mannered, but, for the most part, actively decides not to be. He looks at the rules of courtesy in society and goes “no thanks,” which is how he annoys Lan Wangji into becoming friends with him. He looks at the expectations of society and goes “no thanks,” which is how he can initiate revolutions, whether it’s through his alternative cultivation or refusal to bow down to oppressors. Wei Wuxian can conform to society -- he simply chooses not to.
This is is why the moments where Wei Wuxian performs etiquette with exquisite form and appropriate address are often some of the most emotional scenes in the entire show.
There is, of course, worst reunion ever in episode 20, where Wei Wuxian looks Lan Wangji in the eye, bows, and calls him first by his courtesy name, then by his title. Wei Wuxian weaponizes the conventions of etiquette to push Lan Wangji away.
Likewise, in episode 30, Wei Wuxian bows to Jiang Yanli with tears in his eyes -- because he sacrificed the right to call her shijie when he seceded from the Jiang Sect, and must therefore accord her the appropriate courtesy. In this case, Wei Wuxian’s adherence to etiquette is his own recognition of the changed status, as well as the sacrifice he asked Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli to make (that is, to let him go).
And to a certain extent, this linguistic flexibility is something that everyone has -- most of us, I think, are proficient both in the language of memes/internet slang as well as academic discourse -- but I inclined to say that Wei Wuxian takes it up a level to linguistic virtuosity. He has a sharp wit, a keen ear, and poems for days; he has both the guts and the inclination to jettison society and/or societal opinion if he disagrees with them. Wei Wuxian is a force to be reckoned with, and not just on a cultivational level, but also on a linguistic, literary level as well.
[The artist, putting a simple cake next to a much fancier one: “Aw man, that guy’s cake is way better than mine.” The Audience, gleefully holding up a knife and fork “HOLY SHIT! TWO CAKES!”]