Racing Turtles

The Breakfast Club (1985) dir. John Hughes

And the wisest monk said "young one, you reject the unenlightened ways of Hazbin Hotel, but not three years ago, I recall you posting twink Wheatley in great enthusiasm. You must not hate what you discard on the path to enlightenment. All of our old selves are within us, and we must imagine them lezzing out."

"Funny" said the wisest monk "That cringe is whatever your gay ass was super into like three years ago."

"But master!" Said the young monk, "Did you not also post One Piece AMVs three years ago?"

"Luffy is badass." Said the master, "He has never been cringe."

shoutout to the woman from my high school martial arts class who liked to get me in joint locks and then joke about how I was easy to catch. you cannot comprehend how psychosexually formative that was for me

imagine, if you will, having an adolescent half-crush on someone way older than you, which is also confusingly blurred up with admiration of them as a role model. now imagine that you and that person are in a social environment where it is acceptable to (platonically, consensually) choke someone. I think I was very normal about it considering the circumstances

she would demonstrate takedowns on her husband (also in the class, and who was not a small man) before we got to try them and the first time I saw her twist him around and down onto the floor like it was easy my entire abdomen clenched

I cannot stress enough how eager this guy was to be manhandled (womanhandled?) and flipped around by his wife. he was her de facto guinea pig whenever she got to teach and I never saw him unenthusiastic about it. he'd set himself up for a joint lock fully smiling. the other adults in the class occasionally teased him about it (being so quick to let your wife put you in a submission hold tends to raise a few eyebrows), and I always kind of wanted to defend him but what would I have said? like, don't worry. I won't judge you. I also like being pinned down by your wife

That last sentance really hits ya like a psychosexually formative takedown

Obi-Wan's shit eating smirk is EVERYTHING.

Every second of Obi-Wan's life from the beginning of time to after his death has been shaped and influenced by the Force. He's seen things some of the greatest Jedi Masters in history - some Sith Lords - couldn't conceive of. He's stood on a planet that was the Force, he's trained the son of the Force and embodiment of the Force's destiny, he's currently staring right at the grandson of the Force. He's spent years in hiding because his only hope was Luke's destiny, and now that destiny is in motion, proving his hope wasn't vain. He can feel the hum of every life in the universe on his skin, in his mind, in his heart. He can touch the fabric of the universe and has been doing it practically daily since he was a toddler. He has lost EVERYTHING and EVERYONE to the gigantic cosmic clash of the agents of light and darkness and yet he's still fighting because he knows the Force so well that he's sustained by the knowledge that good will prevail.

AND THIS GALACTIC IDIOT

WHOSE WOOKIE BFF WAS FRIENDS WITH YODA

WHO IS TRANSPORTING GENERAL OBI-WAN KENOBI AND THE SON OF ANAKIN SKYWALKER TO MEET WITH LEIA ORGANA

IN THE MOST FATED ENCOUNTER OF THEIR TIMES SINCE OBI-WAN AND ANAKIN'S

IS TELLING LUKE SKYWALKER

IN FRONT OF OBI-WAN KENOBI

THAT THE FORCE IS HOGWASH

Obi-Wan is DYING this is the most fun he's had since the early days of the Clone Wars the trip was worth it for this moment alone

Someone help him

when you're young it's incredibly annoying how old people smirk condescendingly at you for making totally reasonable statements about self-evident truths

when you're old the reason you're smirking condescendingly is because the alternative is laughing hysterically and if you do that too much the adorable children don't drive you places when you want them to

Small thing that breaks my heart:

When I was in third grade, I told this boy that it would be my birthday in four days, and he said, “okay, then I’ll buy you flowers.” Four days later he comes up to me and says, “my mom wouldn’t let me get flowers but I found you this violet in the grass.” That in and of itself was iconic and so so sweet, but it gets better.

A month later, I had to move, and because it was third grade, the teacher made everyone write me letters to say goodbye. His said, “I hope you have so much fun in your new house that you forget about me. I hope that you’re always happy and you never miss us. I’m sorry I never gave you flowers, but I can give you some now.” And he fucking. Drew me flowers.

No, Joey, I never forgot you. You are the reason I have standards in this life, and I’m so grateful to have known you. I hope you’re happy, wherever you are, and I hope that the rest of your days are filled with as much joy as you gave to me. I spilled water on the card about five years ago, and half of it is a a jumbled mess now, but I still have it. It’s the only card I still have.

The funny thing is this dude and I hardly ever interacted. I knew he played football because he was on the town’s kids’ team and my brother was on the middle school team, and I knew he was one of, like, three Joeys in our year. I had a crush on him but obviously never communicated that because it was fucking third grade, but somehow those three interactions imprinted on who I am as a person. I am forever changed by Joey from third grade.

Earthbound (Nintendo, 1995)

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, to listen to doctors and get my flu vaccine and any shots i could because they remembered Before.

then they started fighting Covid precautions.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that the ozone was disappearing and the earth was dying and we needed to recycle and save the planet.

now my parents think climate change is a myth.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that racism was a plague, that we had to love and accept everyone, that we should never judge before walking a mile in their shoes.

then they told me that protesting for my Black siblings was wrong.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that we needed to give to the poor. working at soup kitchens. making quilts. collecting food and money and supplies. building houses. because it was the christian and just plain right thing to do.

now they look at me, on food stamps with their grandchildren, and lament the "welfare state".

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and that any rich man, especially an immoral one, should never run our country.

you can guess who they voted for.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, so very much.

when did they forget?

Time to bring this back. Again.

Apparently this is evergreen. Dammit.

I remember adults telling me, as a kid that girls can be equal to boys in all fields including athletics. Now, they consider girls to be delicate flowers who could never hope to compete against boys.

i think straight up one of my favorite set pieces in all of homestuck is the chamber at the core of the battlefield where the tumor sits. where there's these stone tiles on the walls demarcating the aspects and lunar sways of the players of the session. a place that might have had another vitally important purpose in a proper session maybe

@wideasleepanddaydreaming. good fucking tags. that's exactly how this feels

i feel like a lot of the 'i hate kids' crowd would be more tolerant if they understood that due to a kid's limited experience of the world that 4 hour flight might just be the longest they've ever had to sit still for or that trapped finger might literally be the most pain they've ever felt in their short life or they might not have ever seen a person with pink hair ever so of course they want to touch it or nobody's told them yet that they can't run around the museum and they only just learned cheetahs are the fastest animals so of course they want to put that to the test. how were they supposed to know etc etc.

some of you in the notes.. i would say read the room but you didn't even read. the post

The cultural impact of “boomer” as a pejorative has been disastrous and I’m not even kidding

Gen z is not exceptional. Large swaths of gen z propagated Facebook-uncle tier misinformation to smear Amber Heard for speaking out about their favorite pirate actor. People are convinced “deadass no cap on god” is “tiktok speak” and not butchered AAVE. Many are already starting to define themselves as a generation of work ethic and meritocracy, unlike those whiny debt-riddled millennials. It’s becoming humiliatingly clear that this generation is not exceptional, it’s not radical just by virtue of being young (and we won’t be young forever), and it’s not going to fix everything “once the boomers die out.” We are speedrunning the stereotypical “hippie to Reagan voter” trajectory of the boomers, whose counterculture at the time frankly puts ours to shame. So are you going to put in the work, or are you going to gloat about being young and special and then shit yourself when you turn thirty?

There's a phase that small kids go through, when they've just learned how to talk enough to have something sembling an intelligent, intellectual argument. They like to practice this by wanting to disagree about anything - mainly general statements that were not 100% perfectly waterproof. If you tell a 4-year-old that bananas are green when they're raw, and they turn yellow when they're ripe, there's a good chance that they'll give you that "well that can't be right" frown, and start to argue. Surely not all bananas that are yellow are always ripe.

Unfortunately humouring them about these arguments is very important for their development and a great opportunity to teach them more about how the world works, so you'll sometimes end up arguing about things like these, and every single time when you explain that's not how something works, they'll come up with another argument starting with "but what if-", until you are forced to admit that yes, if someone did for some reason take one single green banana, spray-paint it yellow and then expertly textured it to look just like a ripe banana, and then break into a grocery store in the middle of the night to slip that one painted banana into the display of ripe, edible bananas, then that one specific yellow banana would not be ripe and ready to eat.

As far as the child is concerned, this means that your entire initial statement was false, and you were wrong and they were right. Their need to be correct about something has been satisfied. Fortunately, most children grow out of this phase eventually.

The ones that manage to survive into adulthood without growing out of it end up on Twitter.

i have probably told this story before but in community college a friend and i took an english class as a night class that was longer (like three hours) so it didn't have to meet as many days. and while the professor was going over the syllabus she mentioned we wouldn't always need to stay the whole three hours

so my friend was like "do you think we'll be home by eight on tuesdays"

and the professor was like "??? do you have a schedule conflict?" and she seemed rightfully a bit peeved about this because we were clearly precocious college teens and she was an older lady with a smoker's rasp that also didn't want to be there

so i was like "no it's fine, it's just that house is on at eight" because this friend would also come over to my place to watch new episodes of house as they aired because my dad didn't care that she smoked during the commercial breaks

and the professor was like "oh shit you're right, yeah you'll be home by eight on those days"

house heritage post

aged up

When I was in middle school, I tried to learn how to crochet. I knew how to knit already, so I figured ‘how hard could it be’ and used my Christmas money on a brand new set of aluminum hooks and a how-to book.

To say it was difficult was an understatement. I spent hours pouring over my book, begging to gain some inkling of understanding from what felt like incomprehensible runes. My reward? One lopsided trapezoid of lumpy fabric and a resolve to never pick up a crochet hook again.

And so life went on, I finished middle school and high school without giving crochet so much as a second glance. In college, I read about how crochet couldn’t be replicated by a machine, it was unique in a way that knitting and many other fiber arts weren’t.

For Christmas last year, my girlfriend gave me what I now consider to be my most prized possession: a crocheted plush of my favorite pokemon. I raved over her skills and, since she never learned how to knit, we decided to have a yarn date at some point and teach each other our respective skills.

We never did get around to that yarn date. She passed a few months after our declaration, leaving me to inherit what was left of her yarn.

Nearly a decade after my initial attempt, I got ready for the toughest battle of my life. My weapons? One skein of yarn, a YouTube video, and a crochet hook that I had somehow never gotten rid of.

I slowly made my way through the video, redoing my work a couple times until I was satisfied with my product: a small, slightly misshapen rectangle.

I looked at my pristinely-made pokemon plush with hope for the first time in months and thought to myself, ‘maybe crocheting isn’t the hardest thing in the world, maybe you were just 12.’

Maybe this isn’t the hardest thing in the world. Maybe I’m just 21.

before i was a faggot or a tranny or an autist i was weird and surprisingly just being weird is enough to make people treat you like all of the above

"why are so many of your friends queer" because they're the only people who accepted me as a weird neurodivergent teenager when it felt like the whole world was against us and everything mattered too much.

this is one is important as fuck i see so many people not understand this and it drives me crazy

"Sburb ruins, mythic challenges, and personal quests generally tend to come off as shallow busywork, stage props, or set pieces in a spurious Hero's Journey. Rose either faintly glimpses this truth at this early stage, or she's just hitting her rebellious teen stride. Either way, she doesn't take the surface value of the quest seriously at all, and only wants to smash it apart and loot the secrets. My sense is that the average reader reacts to this impulse unfavorably. Because readers watch the formula play out so often, they are trained heavily to respect the journey of the hero, to anticipate and crave its fulfillment, to see it as something verging on contractual in their relationship with a story. So a gut-response to this recklessness is like, "ROSE, NO! STOP THAT! You simply must complete your quest and play the rain!" What comes with this view is the feeling that her evolution as a character is only being delayed for a bit while she gets some anti-narrative foolishness out of her system, and then we'll get down to business and watch her do her quest, play a whole BUNCH of rain, and reap the narrative satisfaction. There's just one problem: she never does that. This candy-coated Kiddie Kwest is at no point ever taken seriously by Rose or the narrative itself, nor should it be.

When trying to parse character arcs, we look out for certain beacons. So when we hear "play the rain," we're like, ah, GOT IT. That's Rose's arc. Once she finally gets over this destructive teen bullshit, she can wise up, play the rain, and her arc will be finished. Wrong. This is almost a red herring arc. Her quest on this planet, its patronizing presentation, its intrinsic shallowness, is a mirage surrounding her that represents a fully regimented series of milestones for achievement and personal growth, much as society dubiously presents to young people in many forms. The true arc-within-the-arc is actually an upside-down version of what it appears to be. What Rose is doing now, which seems to be misguided recklessness taking her further away from the truth of herself, is actually better seen as a good start to her real journey: breaching the mirage of regimented growth, exposing it for the charade it is, and pulling the truth out of it. The real conflict in her arc comes not from the fact that she refuses to take it seriously, by destroying it and taking shortcuts. It's the opposite. It's that, upon trashing her planet, she continues to have this nagging sense that she should be taking this quest seriously, much like how a young adult may have a nagging sense of guilt that they aren't "being an adult right" by the time they approach adulthood. And this nagging, unanswerable guilt arises from the truth that the regimentation of adulthood is completely fake. It was always a mirage. Learning this, making peace with it, is part of the growing process for many, and it is for her too." -Andrew Hussie

intrinsically queer as fuck, too, btw

god it drove me absolutely NUTS to watch people assume grimdark!rose was a Fallen Woman whose destructive power was gruesomely evil and whose goals had been totally suborned by cosmic puppetmasters. because homestuck, famously, played every single trope as straight as an arrow.

just, fandom at large assumed this grimdark->evil thing so hard that they completely ignored everything that actually happened which was that she was totally fine and got some pretty useful stuff accomplished.

we're so trained to take male autonomy for granted, and to expect female characters to only ever act in service to higher powers, that the extremely obvious inversion of the badass striders being tortured puppets bound up in the poisonous chains of compulsory masculinity went over a LOT of heads. and the fact that rose knew what she was doing AND she was right AND she was *a good kid who helped as many people as she could, whenever she could* was a nearly indigestible pill to swallow.