Think Happy Thoughts...or not

Thoughts and ramblings. No real sense to it all.

[beeishappy]

Stephen Gets Down to Prince’s When Doves Cry at the National Museum of American History. Props for singing along with the amazing background vocals, BEST.

[doublism]

they used to make smackable technology. you used to be able to hit your tv when it didn't work good.

[wizardarchetypes]

when I was a kid I had an old tv in my room that would always turn to unwatchable static in the middle of shows but one night my sister and I were watching Naruto & every time Kakashi was on-screen the static cleared so we were like “hahaha the tv looooves Kakashi.”

I had a Kakashi bookmark so we held it up against the screen as a joke but the static actually cleared up. Mystified, we tried different bookmarks and objects with the same plastic material but nothing else worked, only the Kakashi bookmark.

We ended up taping it to the corner of the screen and it stayed there for 11 years until we moved out. When I was older people would be like “can you move the bookmark off the screen” bc it did sort of block a bit of the view but I would demonstrate the static issue and everyone was always just like “huh. what the hell?? well…alright.”

No explanation, but thanks Kakashi.

[scarletjedi]

I had a similar tv! It was a tv with a built in dvd and vcr because it was in college and I’m apparently old now. But! The dvd player never wanted to play- unless it was Chicago (2002). First, we would put that dvd in, let it start, and then swap it for the movie we really wanted to watch. It got to the point where we would put in the dvd we wanted and sing “he had it coming!!!” At the screen at volume. Fucking worked *every time*

Bizarre.

[inkcurlsandknives]

I miss when technology had real personality, instead of fake ones designed to generate lies and nonsense and spy on you.

[dozydawn]

[caitlikescoffee]

[the-acid-pear]

[jennserr]

[neil-gaiman]

I never use Tumblr, but I figured this was a good way to ask this..

As a reader is it harmful to continue to buy books during the writers strike? I'd think it would be beneficial, giving money to the writers, but if this is about them not being paid for their work then maybe publishers aren't giving them the right amount from book sales either?

I'm ignorant, I'll admit, which is why I come to you, someone I see very involved in this strike for your thoughts.

Thank you for your time taken to read this, even if you don't respond.

The writers strike is not about publishers or books. Please buy as many as you can always.

The WGA is for writers of film and television, and the companies that make film and television.

[notsomeoneyouknow]

I feel like I need to summarize something that Neil actually often explained before.

Some people seems to be under the impression that the writing strike is, like, a symbolic protest about the concept of writing in some way rather than a specific conflict over work and compensation for those works.

There are also seem to be some confusion on the concept of “picketing” and “boycotting”. Imagine the writers are factory worker, and the studio are factory owners. The WGA is doing a strike by not working, and they “picket” by standing outside of factories and dissuading people from working. Are you a member of WGA? If you need to ask probably you’re not. Are you writing something that’s supposed to be worked by member of the WGA? If not, that means you’re not a scab, and you’re not “crossing the picket line”. If it’s an actual factory, non-union member generally help the picket by helping the union members dissuading people from entering the factory.

Boycott though, is a different thing. The member of general public can boycott something by abstaining from buying a product or using a service, in an attempt to pressure the service provider. Sometimes the union will call for a boycott if they think if it will help them pressure the producer, sometimes they will not, if they think using the product/service is more helpful for the union. The only one who knows whether boycotting or not boycotting is more useful, is the union.

[madenthusiasms]

A few other details:

A boycott of TV/movies/streaming right now hurts the writers and actors. It takes money away from them and plays into the studio lie that nobody wants their work.

BUY BOOKS BUY BOOKS BUY BOOKS. Most authors are barely scraping by; see discussions on bookblr about how long it takes to pay royalties out.

Preorder books when you can. It tells the publishers how many to print.

Buy from indie stores whenever you can. Jeff Bezos doesn’t need any more of your money. Indies will ship to you. Bookshop.org is doing its best to be an Amazon killer, but you can always go straight to a store. My faves include Malaprops in Asheville, Browseabout in Rehoboth, and One More Page in Arlington. I have to say, Malaprops puts particular effort into making sure the books travel safely.)

Looking for novelty without new TV and movies about to stop coming out? Indie bookstores have mystery crate subscriptions!

Nowhere Bookshop has multiple subscriptions: Fantastic Strangelings, Happy Endings, and Nightmares From Nowhere.

The Ripped Bodice has Read, Romance, Repeat boxes.

And as always, support your local library. They need it!

[katestewartt]

"He and I...go back a long time."

[whetstonefires]

You know what I realize that people underestimate with Pride & Prejudice is the strategic importance of Jane.

Because like, I recently saw Charlotte and Elizabeth contrasted as the former being pragmatic and the latter holding out for a love match, because she's younger and prettier and thinks she can afford it, and that is very much not what's happening.

The Charlotte take is correct, but the Elizabeth is all wrong. Lizzie doesn't insist on a love match. That's serendipitous and rather unexpected. She wants, exactly as Mr. Bennet says, someone she can respect. Contempt won't do. Mr. Bennet puts it in weirdly sexist terms like he's trying to avoid acknowledging what he did to himself by marrying a self-absorbed idiot, but it's still true. That's what Elizabeth is shooting for: a marriage that won't make her unhappy.

She's grown up watching how miserable her parents make one another; she's not willing to sign up for a lifetime of being bitter and lonely in her own home.

I think she is very aware, in refusing Mr. Collins, that it's reasonably unlikely that anyone she actually respects is going to want her, with her few accomplishments and her lack of property. That she is turning down security and the chance keep the house she grew up in, and all she gets in return may be spinsterhood.

But, crucially, she has absolute faith in Jane.

The bit about teaching Jane's daughters to embroider badly? That's a joke, but it's also a serious potential life plan. Jane is the best creature in the world, and a beauty; there's no chance at all she won't get married to someone worthwhile.

(Bingley mucks this up by breaking Jane's heart, but her prospects remain reasonable if their mother would lay off!)

And if Elizabeth can't replicate that feat, then there's also no doubt in her mind that Jane will let her live in her house as a dependent as long as she likes, and never let it be made shameful or awful to be that impoverished spinster aunt. It will be okay never to be married at all, because she has her sister, whom she trusts absolutely to succeed and to protect her.

And if something eventually happens to Jane's family and they can't keep her anymore, she can throw herself upon the mercy of the Gardeners, who have money and like her very much, and are likewise good people. She has a support network--not a perfect or impregnable one, but it exists. It gives her realistic options.

Spinsterhood was a very dangerous choice; there are reasons you would go to considerable lengths not to risk it.

But Elizabeth has Jane, and her pride, and an understanding of what marrying someone who will make you miserable costs.

That's part of the thesis of the book, I would say! Recurring Austen thought. How important it is not to marry someone who will make you, specifically, unhappy.

She would rather be a dependent of people she likes and trusts than of someone she doesn't, even if the latter is formally considered more secure; she would rather live in a happy, reasonable household as an extra than be the mistress of her own home, but that home is full of Mr. Collins and her mother.

This is a calculation she's making consciously! She's not counting on a better marriage coming along. She just feels the most likely bad outcome from refusing Mr. Collins is still much better than the certain outcome of accepting him. Which is being stuck with Mr. Collins forever.

Elizabeth is also being pragmatic. Austen also endorses her choice, for the person she is and the concerns she has. She's just picking different trade-offs than Charlotte.

Elizabeth's flaw is not in her own priorities; she doesn't make a reckless choice and get lucky. But in being unable to accept that Charlotte's are different, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Charlotte.

Because realistically, when your marriage is your whole family and career forever, and you only get to pick the ones that offer themselves to you, when you are legally bound to the status of dependent, you're always going to be making some trade-offs.

😂 Even the unrealistically ideal dream scenario of wealthy handsome clever ethical Mr. Darcy still asks you to undergo personal growth, accommodate someone else's communication style, and eat a little crow.

[notbecauseofvictories]

Can you tell me why Frodo is so important in lotr? Why can't someone else, anyone else, carry the ring to mordor?

but someone else could.

that’s the whole point of frodo—there is nothing special about him, he’s a hobbit, he’s short and likes stories, smokes pipeweed and makes mischief, he’s a young man like other young men, except for the singularly important fact that he is the one who volunteers. there is this terrible thing that must be done, the magnitude of which no one fully understands and can never understand before it is done, but frodo says me and frodo says I will.

(when boromir is thinking of how he can use the ring to defend gondor, when aragorn is thinking of how it brought down proud isildur, when elrond is holding council and gandalf is thinking of how twisted he would become, if he ever dared—)

but then there’s frodo, who desires nothing except what he has already left behind him, and says, I will take the Ring.

it is an offer made out of absolute innocence, utter sincerity. It is made without knowing what it will make of him—and frodo loses everything to the ring, he loses peace and himself and the shire, he loses the ability to be in the world. It’s cruel, the ring is cruel, it searches out every weakness you have and feeds on it, drinks you dry and fills you with its poison instead, the ring is so cruel.

and frodo picks it up willingly. for no other reason except that it has to be done.

(the ring warps boromir into a hopeless grasping dead thing, the power of the palantir turns denethor into an old man, jealous and suspicious, it bends even saruman, once the proudest of the istari, into a mechanised warlord, sitting in his fortress and bent over his perverse creations—all the best of intentions, laid waste)

but there’s a reason gollum exists in the narrative, which is to show—well, to show what frodo might have been. because even as frodo grows mistrustful and wearied, as the burden of this ring grows heavier and heavier, he is never gollum. he is gentle to gollum. he is afraid—god frodo is so afraid for 2/3 of these books he is so tired and afraid, but he keeps moving, he walks though it would pull him into the ground, because he asked for this, he said he would.

someone else could have carried the ring to mordor, I suppose. the idea of a martyr is not dependent on the particular flesh and blood person dying for some greater purpose. but such a thing has to be chosen, lifted onto your shoulders for the right reason, the truest reasons, and followed into the dark, though it would see you burnt through and bled out.

I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.

[mushfromnewsies]

y'know say what you want about tumblr (and I have), but this is still probably the simplest and most powerful distillation of the heart of the Lord of the Rings I’ve ever read. I think back to it all the time

[stars-bean]

My Fair Lady (1964) dir. George Cukor

[catvvizard]

[burningvelvet]

a twitter thread that actually killed me

[thinkhappythoughtsornot]

Did I maybe forget my login to this account for uhhh months and months possibly?

[hottdoggblogg]

[mudwerks]

iconic

[thekwikemart]

this sequence is one of my all time favourites and screen caps wouldn’t do it justice

[televisiongifs]

Silence in the Library DOCTOR WHO

[flowerytale]

Natalie Díaz, from “American Arithmetic”, Postcolonial Love Poem (2020)

[copperbadge]

I’m enjoying how when everyone fled to Tumblr from Twitter, we were very concerned and posted a lot of handy guides to Tumblr Community Practices and warnings about what to do if a Twitter immigrant doesn’t understand the rules.

And now we’ve got refugees from Reddit on the way and we’re all sitting on the hillside watching their trucks kick up dust as they roll down the road in the distance, looking at each other, saying “Yeah…I been to Reddit. Hell, I got a sister married a Redditor. No need to worry, they’re about on Tumblr’s level. They know the score.” 

[catchymemes]