i love that i have to go to menswear to find a shirt a human being in the world would wear and then when i do it takes me .5 seconds to find it. I love that
me: i need a plain black t shirt
target women’s section: would you like to have a giant scoop neck that would definitely like completely show at least one of your boobs. would you, an adult woman, like to wear a crop top? would you like to look like a human piñata. BLACK? I think you mean jewel tones babey!
target men’s section: yeah sure. it’s the first thing you see as you walk into the shirt aisle. have a good one
Women’s section: would you like a shirt made out of tissue paper that costs $34.99??
Men’s section: here’s 25 normal tshirts for a quarter
Women’s Section: Would you like to play fucking guessing games with our arbitrary sizing systems and style names? Also, we added a bunch of fake pockets for your personal inconvenience!
Men’s Section: Here’s a bunch of pants organized by the exact inch length of your waist and legs. With pockets that can hold more than just a credit card.
Women’s Section: Oh you want a plain tee-shirt? Here you go, it’s completely see through so you either have to a) wear something else over it or b) let everyone see your bra!
Men’s Section: Here’s an amazingly comfortable shirt that no one can see your undergarments through. Have a nice day!
Women’s section: if you’re a nerd? I guess you wanna show titties and have glitter huh???
Men’s section: Here this has the hogwarts crest on it and it’s like five bucks
Women’s section: you want shorts? I guess that means you want something really short huh??? Might even see your butt??
Men’s section: Here’s comfortable shorts that are longer than like 15 cm long, have a good day
i found the post again
Women’s section:you want a hoodie? Well here’s one that’s tight fitting and accents the one thing you don’t want to be seen, miss!
Men’s section:hoodie? Oh sure, here’s a loose fitting one that is perfect for hiding lumps of death have a nice day young man
Women’s section: pockets? Yeah sure of course! We’ll give you fifty fake pockets.
Men’s section: you can put your first born in one of ten pockets and still have room for more things
Women’s section: RUFFLES AND GLITTER
Men’s section: here’s some quality fabric, come again when your shirt gets a small hole after 32 years
ABSOLUTELY ACCURATE
Women’s section: Oh, you wear this size from another store? Good luck!
Men’s section: Oh, you wear this size from another store? Good thing everything is standardized and one pair should fit you!
Now what? After 3 weeks of protests and educating ourselves and educating others, how do we keep the momentum going for this civil rights movement? How do we make permanent change?
the twitter thread the artist created after this was one of the best situations i have ever seen in my whole life:
Somebody give this ignoramus a piece of actual shark skin and tell him to rub his face with it, let him find out just how “smooth” sharks really are.
Somebody did. I use it as a pillowcase because it’s so smooth.
But buddy.
Shark skin feels exactly like sandpaper. It is made up of tiny teeth-like structures called placoid scales, also known as dermal denticles. These scales point towards the tail and help to reduce friction from surrounding water when the shark swims. … In the opposite direction, it feels very rough like sandpaper.
I’m still trying to write this damn essay on food systems but I’m very tired and at this point I mostly just feel like screaming about how fucked up and bizarre and unethical it is to treat food as an economic commodity??
It’s bad for farmers, whose livelihood rests on a knife’s edge that is unlikely to survive as little as two years of bad luck Which then also forces farmers to make decisions about land use, crop rotation, pesticide and fertilizer use, etc. which are motivated by an economic bottom line, rather than by what’s good for the land or the environment
It’s bad for grocery stores, which run on a likewise terrible profit margin because they have to waste a massive amount of food as a consequence of having everything avaliable all the time (eg, the only way to guarantee always having apples is to always have more apples than you can sell, so you never sell out, which means some will go bad and be wasted) Which is Also bad for the environment, bc it means production must be accelerated even more than the actual need for food would demand
It’s bad for people who eat food, aka everyone, because being able to eat well becomes a cost-based luxury and people’s ability to take care of themselves food-wise becomes subject to a whole crapfuck of market forces that are beyond their control
It’s bad not just locally, but globally, as the stability of local food systems everywhere is destabilized by what happens to be cheap on the global market
And what’s cheap on the global market is grains subsidized by the US government, which in theory gives farm subsidies to try and protect farmers from the issues in point 1, but the subsidies are so badly structured that the vast bulk of the money goes to the people who own corporate megafarms in the midwest, and produce massive quantities of grain which floods the global market and undercuts all other food prices, and actually further destabilizes the farmers even within the US who are most as risk
It’s honestly astonishing we’ve gotten this far down this godforsaken rabbithole but how do we get out
like. The fact that food production – what gets grown, and how much of it – depends on the whims of the fucking market and not what people actually need to eat
is just. so fucked.
It’s difficult to coherently express why the whims of the market are so far diverged from what people actually need, but they really really are.
Basically the whole supply/demand principle only works as advertised if: -people could do without the commodity in question if it becomes too expensive (thus providing incentive to lower prices so people start buying again) -every consumer has roughly the same amount of money (otherwise the market responds only to the demands of the wealthy) -every producer is on roughly equal footing, in terms of the resources they invest in their production (otherwise a wealthy producer can undercut the market to drive others out of business, then raise prices once they control the market) -things which are being bought and sold retain intrinsic value over time (that is, commodities may devalue but never become worthless)
and… none of those things are true of farming. The first few are probably intuitive, but to the last one: Food is in general perishable, so it must be sold while it’s good – there’s no holding out until the market is better. There’s no real-time adjusting to market values either, what’s on the market is however much you grew this year, so any market prediction involved in deciding supply is running at least a year in advance, and in general the factors most strongly effecting the product supply are like. the fucking weather. and not demand at all. Also, there is an amount of food which is the Necessary amount, and any amount over is waste and worthless – because people can only eat so much – while any less is a catastrophe.
There’s a strong pressure to err on the side of producing too much – so you have a safety net if the yield is bad, and so there isn’t mass starvation – but that in itself floods the market with excess and devalues the product (at least from the farmer’s perspective, but the number of price markups that happen throughout processing, distribution, and retail sale bring the price up to the point where food is still often unaffordable even while farmers are going out of business)
It’s all just… shit. Just a total shitshow. Economics just does not work on food production! It just doesn’t!
We’re only finding out recently that a lot of animals have colors and patterns that we cannot see because they’re outside of our visual range. It calls to attention how much of the world we can’t experience because our senses are limited.
When we shine UV lights on them, they glow pink or blue, but these are the colors that we CAN see…. they could be a bunch of different colors, which we SEE as all pink.
It’s also interesting to consider that most of these animals are not aware of having glowing patches on their bodies…. isn’t it also possible that we have skin or hair patterns that were not aware of? . . (There is actually some research out there to support the idea that our own skin fluoresces as well and that there are gender differences in the pattern and glow.)
Humans do have invisible stripes! They’re called Blaschko’s Lines, formed as skin cells divide at the embryonic stage. Normally we can’t see them at all, though certain skin conditions follow those same lines.
Apparently this is roughly what we’d look like, if our eyes could see in a different spectrum:
Dunno about you, but I want to use this in a story someday. Aliens can see our stripes and we can’t! Magical transformations follow Blaschko’s Lines! A subtle sign of lycanthropy is darker hair there! Wizards are bald with that cool spiral on their heads!
Speculative fiction is so much more fun when you can speculate about something strange but true.
THIS??? IS THE COOLEST???? SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY EVER??????????? AAAAAAAA THAT IS FLIPPING AWESOME!!!!!
When Zuko apologized to uncle Iroh in the tent cause he was so
ashamed of his actions and what he’d done to the only person who
unconditionally believed in his ability to do good >>>>>
So okay, I’ve given this rant before but this is another good time for it.
Structurally speaking, ATLA did something important with Zuko that, in a purely mechanistic sense of narrative development, I think a lot of people don’t notice immediately, and that even fewer people who want to emulate what was done with him get.
Which is Zuko is made a protagonist VERY early, and the show goes out of its way to continually place Zuko into situations where the audience empathizes and roots for him.
This happens in literally the second episode of the series, if we count the two-part premiere as a single episode, which I think we should. The A-plot of that episode, “The Southern Air Temple,” is Aang reckoning with the genocide of his people… but the B-plot?
The B-plot is the introduction of Zhao, and more specifically, his introduction in a way that is calculate to shift the audience, whose introduction to Zuko did NOT engender a ton of sympathy to him, directly and forcefully onto his side. They want Zuko to kick Zhao’s ass.
This continues all through book one and book two. Remember, Zuko is never, ever the main villain of this series. That’s initially Zhao, followed by Azula and Ozai. (Plus various temporary players like Long Feng.) Whenever Zuko isn’t placed into direct conflict with the other protagonists, he’s always written and presented in a way that is careful, VERY VERY careful, not to make him too monstrous, and to make us root for him. He’s placed right next to Iroh, who is designed for people to like, and that reflects back onto Zuko; we want Zuko to be better than he is because we want Iroh to have good things.
Put aside for the moment whether any specific character, including Zuko, deserves their redemption. If you’ve decided you’re going to do that, you have to erect the proper narrative scaffolding around them, and it extends to far more things than “did this person not do things that were too horrible” and “is this person genuinely sorry and is working really hard to atone.” There’s a difference between protagonist and white hat, but if you want someone to eventually wear that white hat, you REALLY need to establish them as a plausible protagonist early on.
Yeah, it was made obvious from the get go that Zuko is definitely nowhere near Zhao’s level of nasty, which in turn means he’s nowhere near Azula’s and nowhere in the scope of Ozai’s.
1.)
He made a deal with Aang to leave the Southern Water Tribe alone if Aang went with him. When Aang escaped with help from two of those tribe members, Zuko didn’t demand they go back and destroy what was left of the tribe as revenge. He didn’t even think of it as an option. There was no split second where he went, should I/shouldn’t I?
2.)
This is repeated. He corners the Avatar somewhere, causes some damage to the area in the ensuing fight, but does not stick around to raze the village/monastery to the ground and kill the people when he doesn’t get what he wants. Doesn’t consider this a necessary action even once.
3.)
The Iroh&Zuko relationship is juxtaposed with the Zhao&Zuko relationship. Both older men have more power over him. Iroh is a retired War General and Prince who is not banished. Zhao is a Commander in favor of the Firelord, who is also not banished. We could tell early on that Iroh is wise and despite being on the bad side, seems to be pretty chill. We took a liking to him immediately. Zhao is the opposite. He is very much like early!Zuko. Impulsive, rude, loud, cocky, etc… But why is he more annoying? Why do we root for Zuko as opposed to him?
Because we see what Zuko is like with his Uncle Iroh. Iroh does not rub in the fact that he’s banished. He doesn’t use that when reprimanding him for his attitude or his failings. That is a hot iron and he knows it. It’s to the point where Iroh can bend fire in Zuko’s face and Zuko is perfectly relaxed over it and doesn’t once believe his uncle will hurt him. There is a lot of faith in Iroh, from this angsty teenager, and it’s very obvious with their interactions.
Zhao is not trustworthy from the start. We’re shown this by how both Zuko and Iroh are hesitant to interact with him and don’t want to linger in areas he has control over, for too long. They even lie to him despite him obviously having more favor in the Firelord’s eyes than either of them do. Zhao’s personality opposes both Zuko and Iroh. And as we like Iroh, we want him to win and have nice things, as stated above. But Zuko&Iroh is a package deal. And as Zhao reveals himself more and more to be nasty even if it’s subtle, we want Zuko to win even harder.
And even when Zuko wins and he’s in the prime position to do to Zhao what Ozai did to Zuko for also ‘speaking out of turn’… he doesn’t do it. He walks away. He is the bigger man in that scenario. And Iroh further puts shame onto Zhao when he goes against the sacred rules of the Agni Kai because he can’t handle a loss to a banished teen. We are shown that Zuko follows rules and has honor, which is reinforced by Iroh’s, ‘even in exile, my nephew is more honorable than you’. Iroh’s Word is basically Law at this point. Sf he says it is so, then he must be right and the audience accepts that. He knows Zuko better than us and hopefully we’ll get to understand more as the story progresses.
Already by the 3rd episode, we’re shown that Zuko is in no way the worst person from the Fire Nation. In fact, we’re given a sort of scale now from the four major Fire Nation people we know of. Iroh–Zuko——-Zhao–Firelord.
We’re also hoping that Iroh rubs off on Zuko enough for him to also become wise and learn to chill out.
4.)
When “The Storm” finally rolls around, we’re pretty invested by then in the Iroh&Zuko relationship and that episode gives us so much more info into Zuko’s character and we are shown that Iroh is right. He has honor and he cares for others. And yet it’s obvious the Firelord doesn’t because we see Zuko do the right thing(protesting the plan to treat new recruits as cannon fodder) in the wrong place, and then his face gets burned off by his father because of it. And further, he’s banished for refusing to fight his own father. What sane parent wants to do battle with their own child? What sane parent banishes their child for speaking out of turn at the defense of their own peoples’ lives? What the fuck is wrong with the Firelord?
Zuko was punished severely for showing compassion and having a kind heart. And Iroh(and the ship crew even) is properly mortified by the punishments his nephew received for it, which in turn affects the audience’s perception of this situation. Iroh doesn’t like it, it’s especially bad then.
Now we start wondering why does Zuko wants to go back to the guy who burned his face off?! Iroh, talk some sense into him! PLEASE!
Halfway through S1, they got us to the point of wanting Zuko to have a redemption arc.
Making the audience want a character to be redeemed is also very important in this. We were shown he has redeemable qualities. We want that pay off! Do it justice!
Jeff Bezos and Amazon are a fucking blight upon the working class. He got rich by treating rank and file employees like hot garbage toiling under dehumanizing, backbreaking conditions for shitty pay. When there are this many random strangers across various sectors/departments of a single company sharing similar horror stories, that can’t be dismissed as just a few disgruntled ex-employees. Grievances like these are why I quit using Amazon. They made my life easier at the expense of thousands of hardworking people being mistreated and disrespected behind closed doors. (thread)
The craziest thing about all this to me is there are still people who will say that he’s worked hard for his money and so we should be happy that he’s going to be the first trillionaire. If you are one of these people… fuck you.
Amazon racked up an extra 30 billion during this pandemic and js nkw cancelling the $2 hazard lay…
i like the sistine chapel ceiling a lot better now that i know it was painted by a gay man who was motivated entirely by spite
Wait… whaaaaaaaaat? Where can I find the story behind this?!
Lol, here’s how my art teacher explained it:
The pope went to an artist, saying “We want you to paint the Sistine Chapel”.
At the time, one did not simply say “No” to the fucking Pope. But this artist really didn’t fucking want to do it. So, clever little cookie goes “Dude I’d love to, but I’m unworthy of such an honor! You know who’s an even better painter? Fucking Michelangelo! Go check him out!”
So, the Pope trots his little ass over to see Michelangelo and straight up tells him “I want you to paint the Sistine Chapel, and what’s his face said you’re the fucking best in the whole wide world.”
Now, Michelangelo, is one of the few people who would genuinely have been sassy enough to tell the Pope to go fuck himself. Besides, his true passion lies in sculpture, not in painting. Don’t get me wrong, he’s good at it, but he likes sculpting more. And just like the clever cookie artist, he knows that painting the Sistine Chapel is going to be a bitch. But he said yes. Why, you ask?
Pride.
If he turned the pope down, it would be as good as saying he actually wasn’t the bestest in the whole wide world and like fuck he was going to let that stand! So, he spent the next several years painting the Sistine Chapel, bitching about it to anyone who would listen (seriously, the letters that he wrote are fucking gold!), and attaining new levels of pettiness never before seen!
There are cherubs doing hand signs that were (at the time) the equivalent of flipping the bird. He painted a great big picture of the gates of hell right behind where the Pope’s chair would sit! And so much more!
Michelangelo had exactly zero shits to give by the time he was done painting that fucker.
someone post the letters & cherubs
Those are the cherubs, and in the second picture there are the gates of hell.
The guy on the right, the one with the snake biting his private parts, is actually a cardinal that was angry at Michelangelo!
And, just so you know, all the people in the picture were painted naked. Then, after Michelangelo’s death, the pope listened to the cardinal and he asked to a painter to add the clothes.
ALSO; The skin of Saint Bartholemew has Michealangelo’s face on it because he felt as though he was being skinned alive because painting the chapel was such a BITCH
this man was every level of gay pettiness oh my goodness
SOME MORE STUFF:
so 3 of the 4 ninja turtle artists were all connected in this drama in some way, michelangelo, leonardo da vinci, and raphael
the asshat who sent the pope to him for the ceiling job? fucking bramante, the artist of st. peter’s basilica. his apprentice was raphael, and bramante thought that michelangelo would fail the painting and then raphael could sweep in and save the day because guess what? raphael was talented as FUCK and if he was able to do a better job than THE michelangelo? he would have a path straight to being Rich and Famous and michelangelo would’ve been humiliated and never taken seriously again
all of the ninja turtles were gay as fuck, and this is relevant bc raphael was painting the pope’s meeting room/study at the same time as michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the chapel, and one day lil raphael thought “hey i’ll go see what’s going on with mikey and see how bad he’s doing” but SIKE BITCH, michelangelo was doing a fucking FANTASTIC job so raphael went back to the study that he was painting and added michelangelo’s face in it despite the painting being of the philosophers of old. raphael was a petty gay bitch but he knew talent when he saw it and michelangelo had talent and gained raphael’s respect
michelangelo was also a petty gay bitch and he painted tons of people naked which was Bad and Inappropriate but he refused to cover them up so the pope then got a bunch of other dudes to paint robes and towels and shit covering up the genitals which is why there are so many people with half-assed cloth over their crotches (see: the dude holding the skin of st. Bartholomew)
the painting raphael did? it’s not anything little, it’s this fucking masterpiece we all know and love
it was no small thing that raphael did, and he is clearly a fucking amazing artist
bramante, the original dude, hated michelangelo because michelangelo knew leonardo da vinci and they both called each other out all the fucking time and bramante was a friend of leonardo’s and didn’t like this so yeah he’s also a petty gay bitch
michelangelo never knew this was all a setup for him to fail, but he didn’t fail so good for him
random: michelangelo spent so long painting the ceiling in such an awkward position with his head bent back and to the side to look up that he was permanently disabled in a hunched position. the sistine chapel job did a bad number on his neck and back
so yeah, 1500s drama is fucking hilarious, here’s a small article on this but ignore the last paragraph about raphael going back to his own work and “scraping it off the wall”, the work they’re referring to is the one shown above and all he did to it was add in michelangelo because he’s a gay bitch in love he respected the hell out of michelangelo and admitted that he was doing a fucking awesome job with the sistine chapel
hope you enjoyed this bunch of random knowledge that i do not know how i came across knowing but i do
This just in: all the artists of the Renaissance (including the writers) are just petty gay bitches.
you don’t know what petty means until you’re a gay artist forced to accept major commissions from the roman catholic church
The church: so what are you going to paint?
Michelangelo: cocks. Just. So many cocks. On everything.
The church:….
Michelangelo (still trying to get out of it): cocks or no deal
ifesbob 