any time parker has a fancy little hairdo i just imagine her sitting on the ground in front of eliot while he works on it with a mouthful of bobby pins

Are you trying to kill your mother? Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

Group of us were sitting underneath a staircase in the back of a bar huddled over the only table that would fit all six of us when my friend asks another for something in Spanish.

“A what??” Asks the second friend, Cuban.

First friend, Salvadoreñan, repeats while pointing at a straw. “A pajilla.”

“You mean an ABSORBENTE?” the Cuban says a little too condescendingly, because across from them the Colombian goes “Not a napkin dumbass, a pitillo” to which the Puerto Rican snaps “It’s a fuckin sorbeto, a pitillo is a joint” to which I screamed “Why do your people refer to it as Italian ice cream it’s a god damn popote what is wrong with all y'all” and that’s the night when we realized there’s 11 different ways to say “straw” in Spanish

This reminds me of the time I (a Floridian) was in a voice chat with A New Yorker, A Texan, A Canadian, a Brit, an Aussie, and a Brazilian; and the Brazilian was the only one not having any trouble understanding what anyone was saying.

this is all fantastic and valid but in the movie the reason he’s failing spanish is because he missed like eleven classes due to various minor life inconveniences such as his rebellious nature and the fact that he is spider-man

skill issue

We have already averted truly apocalyptic levels of global warming.

Yes, read that again. Let it sink in. This is what the science now says. We have already averted truly apocalyptic global warming.

To quote David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth, from his huge feature in the New York Times:

So we've already averted truly apocalyptic warming, and we've already cut expected warming IN HALF in just the past five years.

The pace of technology, of innovation, of prices, of feasibility, of discovery, of organizing, of grassroots movements, of movements in other countries around the world, have all picked up the pace so fast in the last five years.

Renewable technology and capacity are both increasing at an exponential rate. It's all S-curves, ones that look like this:

-via The Economist, June 20, 2024.

How much more will we manage in another five years? Another ten? Another twenty?

I know the US is about to fucking suck about the environment for the next four years. But the momentum of renewable energy is far too much to stop - both in the US (x) and around the world.

(Huge shoutouts to India, China, and Brazil for massive gains for the environment in renewables, and Brazil for massive progress against Amazon deforestation.)

We're going to get there.

Say it with me. We're going to get there.

Also, I want to add something: I really hope that people finally understand we ARE going to have to change to build resiliency for the disasters we will face, and I really wish people would realize that disaster resiliency doesn't have to be survivalist preppers or everything being brutalist and miserable. For example, one major disaster mitigation change we need to make is undergrounding all power lines that are possible to be in dry, windy areas. This change will be expensive (and possibly require nonprofit public ownership of power companies!) BUT it only has upsides, especially if the power grid is laid under streets/in other areas where no one would normally dig without pulling permits/knowing what's there. No more catastrophic fires due to downed power lines, or fires from aboveground power lines at all. Steady power with far fewer outages during wind and bad weather. No outages from car accidents into poles or mylar balloons. Electrocution accidents involving someone's ladder, vehicle extensions, whatever won't happen anymore. A common cause of crashes of low-flying aircraft will be gone. On an everyday basis, you won't be smacked with a random splat of bird crap (a bus stop I used to use a lot had overhead lines, I ended up with pigeon shit on my sunglasses, in my hair, on my shirt) and some ugly visual clutter is *gone.* The only even *potential* downside might be removing a tried-and-true way of tornado spotting/wind damage spotting (power flashes from breaking lines) and the money/expense factor which would more than pay for itself many times over.

Thank you for the addition!! This is so true!! And it's the case in one way or another in basically every major sector of society. We'll have to make a lot of changes. Some of them will cost a LOT up front. Some things will have to be changed on a societal level, as well.

But we can make those changes, and increasingly, we already are.

(Also there will just be way fewer power lines, period, because so much electricity will be switched to distributed solar or even, I think, distributed wind. We're going to see a massive uptick in buildings that can just. Make electricity themselves. Especially in more remote areas, where power lines often get less maintenance.)

Actually that no punctuation plot hole ooc wattpad fanfic written by that 12 year old will ALWAYS be better than character ai. And I love that 12 year old btw

I love every shitty fanfic ever written, I’ve written some of the most shitty fanfic ever written, and I love it BECAUSE it’s imperfect and human and made for love not for popularity or profit. Generative AI has no place in schoolwork or academia but even LESS in fan spaces. Because without the love, what’s the point?

Write.

Write like shit.

But WRITE WITH LOVE.

Also being a shitty writer is a near-universal experience because it’s where we all start. LLMs can’t improve because they don’t think. They don’t really write either. They just play with probability and put out something that’s not illegible but certainly isn’t good.

hey why are the Van Helsings always the Vampire Hunting Family in modern Dracula stories. Abraham Van Helsing might be the guy who knows stuff but his family is off in the Netherlands and/or dead and totally uninvolved in the plot. Abraham's great-great grandson has no reason to be doing backflips and chopping off heads or whatever

You know who is a family who hates Dracula so so much and would totally teach their kids how to hunt vampires? The Harkers. Give me a modern vampire story where the protagonists are about to die when out pops Quincey Arthur John Lucy Abraham Murray Harker the Fifth, armed with a giant knife and an encyclopedic knowledge of train schedules

it's a modern american AU so he doesn't even get to ride any trains anywhere. he just really likes trains. he spends the entire story bemoaning america's absolutely piss poor passenger rail system before at the climactic end of the battle he contrives to knock the vampire onto the tracks right as a mile-long freight train passes through (six worrying minutes behind schedule).

Liz Toohey-Wiese, 2024.

"A sign installed in the largest wildfire burn I’ve ever seen, along the BC/YK border. Borrowing the aesthetics of BC Recreation Site signs, once again pointing to the overlaps of outdoor recreation, resource extraction, and the consequences of the climate crisis. Most recreation sites in BC exist along previously built logging and mining roads.

“Forced into a great and difficult transformation” was a line I heard in a lecture on Buddhist philosophy I was listening to on my drive up north. But it became another mantra I thought about while living in a place that’s been utterly transformed by resource extraction over the past century, and as I thought about the burnt landscapes I drove through."

More here.

A solid way to accept someone’s feelings.

i’m gonna die still laughing at this

I gleefully showed this to at least four people and nobody got the joke so

« If you have to ask yourself where you will find the time to read, it means the desire isn’t there. Because no one has the time to read. Children don’t, teenagers don’t, adults don’t. Life is a perpetual obstacle to reading.

“Reading, I’d love to, but what with my job, the kids, the housework, I don’t have the time.” “You have so much time to read—I envy you!”

How is it that Ms X, who works, runs errands, raises kids, drives her car, loves three men, goes to her dentist appointment, is moving next week—how is it that she finds the time to read […]?

Time spent reading is always time stolen. Like time spent writing, for that matter, or time spent loving. Stolen from what? Let’s say, from the duty of living. Which is probably why the subway—this stinking symbol of the duty of living—is the world’s largest reading room.

Time spent reading, like time spent loving, increases our lifetime.

If we were to consider love from the point of view of our schedule, who would bother? Who among us has time to fall in love? Yet have you ever seen someone in love not take the time to love?  I’ve never had the time to read. Yet nothing has ever stopped me from finishing a novel I loved. 

Reading doesn’t belong to the societal organisation of time. Like love, it is a way of being. The issue is not whether or not I have the time to read (no one will ever give me that time) but whether or not I will gift myself the happiness of being a reader. »

— Daniel Pennac, Better Than Life

i’ve heard a lot of people talk about the EXCELLENT potential of a high intelligence/low wisdom dnd character (i.e. an brilliant academic who keeps setting their dumb ass on fire because they always store their wand in their back pocket)

but i’ve not seen any posts about the equal potential of a high wis/low int character (i.e. someone incredibly perceptive who gives deep and meaningful reassurance to their friends and then 5 minutes later asks what a can opener is)

I don’t think any movie will make me feel the same ethereal sense of otherworldly sorrow and disembodied awe as that scene in Lord of the Rings where the loyal son is sent off into a doomed battle to please his vindictive father while Pippin sings a mourning song of his people

I was like 12 and high off this shit

These movies CHANGED ME

This is one of my favourite parts of the whole trilogy. It’s haunting.

And that Pippin takes actually a happy walking song of his people, because Hobbit songs are generally happy and about food and drink and gifts and things, and *transforms* it into a mourning song.

The song is from Fellowship, before all the heavy plot hits and they’re still in the Shire. It’s about walking, and how eventually all the bad things that scare or sadden you will fade away and you’ll be home warm by the fire.

And Pippin takes it, changes the lines, the key, and sings a song that is truly fit for Denethor’s great hall.

Knowing Billy Boyd gave his own melody to it and everyone had chills after hearing him sing it. This is how you get actors involved with the story and character, this is how amazingly well these films were cast. Fans have been singing that haunting tune in echoing halls and caves and towers for 20 years now and it never loses its beauty.

And even better: Billy Boyd composed the tune to the song and then performed it for Peter Jackson and everyone else while filming. They only did one take! That very first take is the one that’s used in the film! He’s just that good!!

Every now and then I like to pull up this video of Billy Boyd being endearing and silly and choked up about Boromir’s death scene, and then performing this song upon request:

I sing it as a lullaby to my children but I use the original “away shall fade” to make it less sad because they’re just babies. uwu

Not even my fandom and I have chills.

You know what, I’m not done. Every aspiring writer should watch that scene and keep in mind the axiom “every person is the protagonist in their own mind,” because Denethor and Pippin are having TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONVERSATIONS.

Here’s the translation of how it goes.

WHAT DENETHOR SAYS: can you sing, Master Hobbit?

WHAT DENETHOR MEANS: I want entertainment and you’re from far lands. That’s a novelty here.

WHAT PIPPIN HEARS: I don’t care that I just sent my son to his death. Entertain me.

WHAT PIPPIN SAYS: yes. Well, well enough for my own people. But we have no songs fit for great halls.

WHAT PIPPIN MEANS: yes. But not for you. And our songs aren’t for people who engage in such cruelty.

WHAT DENETHOR HEARS: yes, but I’m embarrassed because mine are simple folk, and you’re very grand and regal. There’s no way I could be of any use to you.

WHAT DENETHOR SAYS: and why should your songs be unfit for my halls? Sing me a song.

WHAT DENETHOR MEANS: we’re all equals culturally. I’m a benevolent ruler, I don’t think your songs are inferior to those produced by my skilled musicians. Let me engage with your culture.

WHAT PIPPIN HEARS: I have literally already forgotten about my son. I’m more interested in entertainment and food, things you normally adore and which I’m making a mockery of by my actions. So sing to me songs of those things you love, entertainment and food. My son doesn’t matter to me and shouldn’t matter to you.

And then Pippin sings.

WHAT DENETHOR HEARS: what a pretty little song.

WHAT PIPPIN IS SAYING WITH THE SONG: fuck you for doing this to your son, who I love. Fuck you for doing this to me, as I mourn. Fuck you for making a mockery of the things I love, when it’s clear you don’t care for them any more than you do for YOUR SON. Your child, who you should want to protect. If you won’t mourn in these halls, by everything I hold dear I swear SOMEONE will.

Pippin can’t say any of this out loud. But his word choices are extremely deliberate. And so are Denethor’s! He does not see himself as a bad person! I don’t know enough LOTR to know if he’s a villain or just an asshole, but the important thing here is HE THINKS OF HIMSELF AS NEITHER. He’s a good guy who’s had to make some hard choices, that’s all. It’s the editing that tells you he’s not actually that at all.

This is a MASTERCLASS in “everyone is their own protagonist” and if this is the standard the movies rise to all the time I understand why y’all love them so much, because holy shit. That’s incredible.

@lotrheritageposts

LOTR Heritage Post

movie called technically blonde where she goes to trade school instead

No but you don't understand. Rocking up to Welding class with 100% barbie pink tools is such a POWER MOVE.

"Jeremy, I'd really like my orbital sander back ^_^"

"... didn't know it was yours..."

(Legit excited, no sarcasm) "Someone ELSE has the original Box 20-Volt Brushless Cordless Detail Sander with Dust Management?!?!?!?!"

"...no..."

Teacher walking up like "Miss Woods, is that a nail file"

(Elle, blasting compressed air to get rid of the nail file sand)

"Actually, its an emery board. But yes! :D It's a finer grit than what we have, and I've always found these easier to handle"

"...Ok, fair enough."

Elle making friends with the 6 year old daughter of one of her classmates. (Child care ain't cheap, I get it. Bring your kid to class)

Elle learning how to drive a forklift/motorcycle/semi-truck

Elle giving an impromptu lecture in the break room about what gifts to give their wives/girlfriends/mothers

Fucking laser cut "bless this mess" sign on her locker (I lied. It would totally be live, laugh, laser)

Elle's car breaks down and 20+ dudes coming out to show her how to fix it. (And realizing her mechanic is ripping her off)

Every single guy in the building filled with instant despair when she gets with one of the butch lesbians in the program.

Gimme plzzz

Proposal: She takes her car to a mechanic and it's beat for beat like the original movie scene at the dress shop, where the mechanic *tries* to rip her off and she nods along and then eviscerates her with precise technical details.

The rest of Elle's class now shun that mechanics' shop and tell everyone else to as well, so that place ends up going out of businesss, which allows someone else in the class to open up a sparkling pink and perfectly trustworthy shop of his own.

Hey you.

Chair Stop-Motion 🪑💨 Made with 444 pictures taken over 10 days

Learn from me: https://kevinparry.tv/learn

holy SHIT Kevin