I've said it before and i'll say it again: THAT IS NOT A FUCKING METAPHOR, JOHN GREEN

Thanks for tagging me in this. I agree that what Gus thinks is the metaphor is not the metaphor in The Fault in Our Stars, but I do think there is nonetheless a metaphor lurking there.

In The Fault in Our Stars, Gus is indeed engaging in classic teenage attention-seeking by putting a cigarette in his mouth but not smoking it, and he justifies this by claiming it's a metaphor for his agency, for his control over what happens to him. "You put the killing thing between your teeth but don't give it the power to kill you." As if you have the power.

But of course, the reader knows this is not a good metaphor. This is not how power or agency work--you don't actually have control over what happens to you, and (as Gus eventually realizes at the very end of the novel) you don't have any say in whether you get hurt in this world.

The actual metaphor is that despite our furious attempts to establish a feeling of agency, we never actually have it. And so of course Gus is wrong when he says, "It's a metaphor." The actual metaphor is that when Gus desperately needs to express his agency over what happens to him, he's not even strong enough to buy a pack of cigarettes, let alone make a choice about whether to smoke them. That's the metaphor--Gus thinks the cigarette stands for the control individuals have over their fate; the actual metaphor is that the cigarette stands for the control we lack, for the fault that is in our stars.

Okay i actually love this analysis

WAIT WAIT WHY ARE Y'ALL ADRESSING JOHN GREEN DIRECTLY

PLS TELL ME JOHN GREEN DID NOT RESPONDED TO MY SHITTY POST PLS TELL THAT'S NOT TRUE

Sorry, @sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog is the John Green

THIS IS MY WORST NIGHTMARE JOHN GREEN IT WAS TRULY A JOKE I HAVE MEDIA LITERACY I SWEAR

i would be the best unreliable narrator i dont know shit that goes on around me

squint for me real quick

Jumpscare?

Penis?

Loss?

What exactly are you presenting me with, OP? 🤔

i mean alright, might as give that a

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE

That's actually really impressive

Lean back and just barely open your eyes to look at the image, it's impressive.

Son of a BITCH! That really is impressive.

I'm generally of the opinion that trying to resurrect prematurely cancelled shows is like necromancy—odds are they'll come back wrong.

Except for Galavant. Any Galavant revivial will be funnier the longer it stayed cancelled.

Tags pass peer review, etc, because they SO perfectly capture the spirit of the show.

PSA for Switch owners

The latest 11.0 update means that Google Analytics is a thing on the switch and turned on. What that means is that Nintendo has a deal with Google to share with them your data for advertisement purposes.

To turn it off

Please spread the word. Really shitty of Nintendo to just quietly start allowing Google to spy on users for advertising.

So glad I decided to fact check this. I would have gone my entire life without knowing it was a Russian doll shark situation.

side eyeing everyone who has an nhl twitter/blog but isn’t hyping up the pwhl right now. like get on that immediately please

like this is so important yet yall keep hyping up the most basic hockey guys I have ever seen. please for the love of god support women’s hockey and help ensure these women can keep going.

IT’S QUEER WOMEN ON ICE!!! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT!!!

recap for those who don’t know/weren’t aware WHY this league is so important and why we should support it — this is the first season of the professional women’s hockey league (pwhl) in which these female athletes (olympians, former u18, and college stars, ect) are being properly compensated for their skills — AKA making enough to not have to work two jobs while also playing hockey — it’s not millions but it’s enough — starting at 35k, average at about 55k, and each team will carry a minimum six players signed to three-year contracts paying them $80,000 annually. The highest salary is rumoured to be at 120k. The league already has a collective bargaining agreement as well that covers the next eight years. There have been successful women’s hockey leagues in the past, but none began with the kind of staying power this one has.

it has 6 teams

The first season began on Jan. 1, 2024, with each team playing a 24-game schedule, 12 games at home and 12 away. All games are be streamed FOR FREE on the pwhl’s youtube channel. In Canada you can also catch the games on sportsnet, cbc, and tsn depending on the day. Link to the schedule.

This is so big for not only women’s hockey, but women’s sports in general. This league was crafted together as a labour of love by women’s hockey alumni like Jayna Hefford and other female athletes such as Billie Jean King. People who love the sport, and women’s sports in general and want to see it develop and succeed so little girls can have a dream and goal of playing professionally like boys do.

support this league. It’s our best shot

justice for C. S. Lewis’s line “battles are ugly when women fight” being read as “women are bad fighters” and not “when women are forced to go to war, that means that the atrocities have come too close to home” and like in context of, you know, when he was living, and like, also, now, it kinda makes sense what he’s getting at

to clarify, I think this line is meant to be read as descriptive of what occurs in wars, and especially what was occurring during the wars of Lewis’s time, which were horrific in particularly novel ways; it is not prescriptive for every single instance of women fighting back in the world

the fact is that for the majority of human history, up to the present day, in fact, women have not been called upon to go to war; some have volunteered, but in most instances of women being involved in battles it is usually indicative of the fact that the war has come to the homefront

Absolutely. It makes a lot of sense for this to come up in the context of this story. Narnia is a magical world that has parallels to our world. The children are sent to the countryside for their safety as London was experiencing air raids during WWII. In the UK at the time, women were drafted to work in non-combat roles to support the war effort. As the war went on, the possibility that women might eventually be drafted to serve in combat was on the minds of the public. They knew that Russia had already reached that point. The British parliament even had women between certain ages register for a potential military draft. It was a last resort. They would do it if necessary, but everyone knew that it would mean that the war had gone very badly for the Allies if they reached that point.

So, I read Father Christmas's lines less as a message to readers on whether women should fight in war, and more of a way to raise the stakes. He's saying the situation ahead might be dire, and he's speaking about it similarly to how the children would have heard adults talking about the war back home.

I asked my girlfriend what she considers a Round pokemon to be and she sent me this.

i’m team “not all transformative works are fanfiction, fanfiction is a specific modern phenomenon founded on a specific relationship between reader and text that doesn’t require historical proofs to be a legitimate form” up until people start being snotty and obnoxious about it and then i am there going “hamlet is gesta danorum fanfiction”

oh there’s my team

fanfiction requires copyright laws and a community who deliberately bends them, unless it’s arthuriana and the 27 super speshul best knights who are all the king’s nephews, or i’m talking to the comicbro who worships frank miller

(tags via @nonasuch ) why stop there when you can whip out dante’s self-insert OC fic, just for sheer pettiness

Posting hole

Lol

yeah yeah carbon nanotubes. but what about the copper nanotubes.

I bet you'd need some high quality copper for that huh?

not again you mesopotamian son of a bitch

Christmas advice for ladies (crossposted from Old Weird Scotland on mastodon, with permission)

I want you all to keep this in mind!

The Devil Wears Prada was supposed to teach me about the dangers of forgetting who you are and putting work over your partner but what it taught me is that sophisticated older women with a lot of power are very, very sexy

ok but if bruce wayne somehow came upon zuko fresh out of banishment he would lose his mind.

black hair? check. bad parent(s)? check. trauma? double check.

bruce: how’d you get your scar?

zuko: my dad got mad at me for saying that killing people is wrong so he lit my face on fire and banished me.

bruce, vibrating with excitement, already pulling adoption papers from his utilility: that’s terrible. how do you feel about capes.

Zuko: Do you mind if I wear this blue demon mask?

Bruce: *sniff, tear in his eye* Not at all.

*Zuko fighting the Joker*

J: "wan na kno w h ow i go t thes e sc ar s"

Z: *rips off mask* i don't give a fuck

I’m still stuck at the “batman has adoption papers in his utility belt”.

“Quick, it’s time to use the Bat-adoption papers!”

Bat-option papers

Okay, but you’re missing the best part of this.

Alfred and Iroh complimenting each other on tea while they discuss their overly dramatic children.

iroh: once, i told zuko that he needs to work on his inter turmoil. he screamed at me that he had no such inner turmoil, and then proceeded to go to a cliff during a thunderstorm to scream at God to strike him with lightning

alfred: master bruce and i have that interaction at least three times per week.

@absentlyabbie​

I see your "Alfred and Iroh as tea bros" and raise you "Alfred and Iroh as tea rivals"

Consider

(later)

excellent addition

hey bruce spent a lot of his bat-study abroad in the far east and has kind of a weeb weapon collection so proposal, what if Bruce appreciates Iroh’s tea

while Zuko is enthusiastic about cream and sugar

further fueling their dad-figures’ passive-aggressive rivalry?

You had me at Zuko vs. Joker, I was crying by the Eastern vs. Western tea service

Wait a minute. Batman and Zuko have the same arch-nemesis.

Mark Hamill

Saw the last comment and my brain would not rest until it happened

this post has everything

this was an enjoyable ride. i liked the scenery very much. smooth suspension, nice height, several fascinating loops. 10/10 would go again.

Wow I'm tired. It took me a minute to figure out how Vader has Mark Hamill nemesis when Vader is live action and not animated. I'm... going to bed now.

@thebibliosphere

my favorite era in history is the one where people discovered you could make cartoons out of typography and newspapers would run articles that were just like “today dennis the intern figured out how to draw a dog with the typewriter so here it is”

time is a flat circle

“if women want equality then they should be drafted” what if — just hear me out — what if nobody should be drafted. not even *looks behind my shoulder* not even men.

"Should trans people be in the military" See I don't think anyone should be in the military