Yike.

2/12 Today Soup-Nose The Goat attempted to climb through the new gate into the sheep pasture. Her escape attempt was foiled by the devastatingly brilliant scheme of The Gate Is Open, Soup-Nose.

When she tried to back out of the gate, she kept catching it on her horns and pulling it toward herself, until eventually she pressed herself tightly between the gate and the fence and had to be rescued.

The center cannot hold. One day the sun will swell and devour the earth, and there will be no sea. One day, there will be nobody left who remembers the taste of noodles. One day entropy will squeeze out the stars and all will be still and lukewarm. The bells can never be unrung. But remember this: once, just once, a goat was prevented from escaping a fence. And nothing will have been in vain.

I think this last paragraph is possibly one of the finest pieces of writing in the English language. I think of it often.

"and her solution was NOT to kill her parents?!" Adaine-

Lilo & Stitch is a great example of a story that has no villains. It has antagonists, sure, but most of them are well-meaning. The worst person in the film is that little shit Myrtle, but she’s not in the film that much anyway.

Since this post is getting traction I want to clarify how not-villainous the antagonists are:

The "villain" of Lilo and Stitch is, rather directly, societies and social systems that write people off and do not provide support and care.

It is obvious to the audience -- and deliberately presented this way by the film -- that it is better for Lilo to stay with her sister, even if her sister is a bit of a mess and not financially stable. Mr. Bubbles is not evil. He is there because he wants what's best for Lilo, and he is not unreasonable to think that the sister without a job who leaves the stove on and whose house nearly burned down two days later is not it. The solution is not to "defeat" Mr. Bubbles; the solution would be for society to help Nani succeed, rather than watch as she fails.

Similarly, no one provided any help to Stitch when he was created and discovered. They wrote him off as an abomination, something too dangerous to be destroyed. They weren't evil, and it wasn't unreasonable to think that the experiment created to be an agent of destruction would be better off scrapped. But what would have happened if they had at least tried?

Lilo and Stitch are two characters who were caught in systems that were cold, uncaring, and unsupportive, even if the people in them were not evil and were, in fact, just doing their best.

It's a movie about people who have been written off finding one another and building a found family where they can get and give the support and care they didn't get from the people with authority and I love it so much.

we talk a lot about ohhhh what if my calling is to be the greatest mammoth hunter ever and I'm wasting my talents in the modern era but we never think about what if Thog from 30,000 BCE was the only person ever born who could get a sub-7min Donkey Kong Country any%, and he never got the chance. what about thog

no but if sandralynn dated bobby dawn her taste in men is hysterical cause so far her known dating history is -cleric of sol -literal devil -werewolf with a wild past turned kindly school counselor -gilear

wait guys ive got it her type is ‘employable according to arthur aguefort’

vampirism poses the question "what if there was a fundamental, horrible, unending well of want in your soul that, if truly satisfied, would lead to great pain for all those you hold closest and, in turn, their absolute and total revilement of you?" and naturally as a person with no problems I don't relate to this in any way at all.

vampirism also poses the question "what if someone you loved, through no fault of their own, needed something from you, and giving it to them and seeing them happy provided you the greatest joy, and you were the only one who could do it, but at the same time it was slowly draining all your life out of you?" which is also a completely unrelatable idea to me because I'm a normal person with no issues.

"ugh this is not what vampires are about :/ you've been poisoned by contemporary vampire romance"

VAMPIRES WERE BEING SEXY BEFORE DRACULA WAS EVEN A GLINT IN THE MILKMAN'S EYE

NEVER LET THE HATERS TELL YOU THAT VAMPIRES SHOULDN'T BE SAD AND HOT

#SEXYVAMPIRESFOREVER

as a Jew I find the antisemitic trope of the Wandering Jew endlessly fascinating and there’s a version of it that lives rent free in my head that I can’t get out

because yes, we have been cursed—not by G-d, but by man; not for anything we’ve done, but for libel against us—and the curse antisemites have forced on us is that we must wander forever. we don’t get a home, here or there. we aren’t allowed to put down roots in diaspora, but we aren’t allowed to return either; regardless of which we do, the nations try to drive us out and impose their sentence on us: you must wander some more

there is a deconstructed version of the Wandering Jew that I want to reclaim, not as a testament to our sin but as a witness to the nations’, how they’ve treated the wanderer in their midst. on some level, a witness to how the nations treat all wanderers: Jew, Roma, bedouin. but ultimately, a testament to the libel & persecution we as Jews have endured & persevere through

this Wandering Jew is a weary old immortal forced to wander by hatred that goes before him through the nations, who has seen those nations come and go, empires rise and fall, and bears witness to our plight through every one, waiting for injustice to be righted so he can finally rest

he is a strange traveler you meet on the road. he pitches a tent in homeless encampments, and he’s a kind and compassionate neighbor, but fairly private. you’re camping in the woods and he’ll sit down at your fire and swap stories. you may meet him by the side of the road; he’ll help you with a flat or a bus fare if he has the change to spare. he may be at the bus stop asking for change himself. he picks up odd jobs here and there, just enough to get him to the next town.

he’s visited most synagogues that have ever existed, even ones no one else is left to remember, long ago destroyed, for which there’s no remaining record. he talks fondly of the details of this congregation’s Torah scroll or a joke he heard at that one (though the humor gets lost in translation; guess you had to be there). his companionship is a balm to weary travelers. you can see in his eyes that he has seen some shit—some you wouldn’t understand, and some only you could. he tells you about some sahlab he had once decades ago, and how he wished he had asked the woman who made it for the recipe, because he’s never been able to find anyone who makes it quite like that.

he’s wise, in a reserved and quiet way, but very idiosyncratic & stuck in his own ways (after more than a thousand years of norms constantly changing you stop giving a shit). he is haunted by the past. he treasures things no one else can remember, memories that would otherwise be left to time. he feeds street cats. he remembers a tabby with a cauliflower ear that followed him when he was in Istanbul. he usually buys his clothes from thrift stores, but from time to time likes to splurge at ren faire vendors for old styles he was fond of & wish never went out of fashion (he’ll absolutely kvetch about any techniques or materials they got wrong though).

he writes poetry in dead Jewish languages only he can still read; sometimes he writes in a mishmash of Jewish languages all smooshed together. he has very strong opinions about klezmer (he can’t stand it; he respects it as an expression of Jewish culture, but he has never cared for the sound) and he will argue about it for hours. he refuses to eat pizza if it isn’t dripping in tahini. he had a crush on barbra streisand’s grandmother.

wait! before you go, let me give you the Cowboy's Goodbye *kisses you passionately. with tongue.*

This album is about how two men broke her heart just months apart and how she was quite literally going through a mental breakdown while trying to put on a front while performing for millions of people on a world tour but you wouldn’t know that because you’re either so caught up in trying to figure out who each song is about or your so caught up in your hate for her that you’d rather make fun of her in her most vulnerable, raw, and honest state just to make yourself feel better

they're calling me the irrational white boy because when I retreat to my bedroom I grow angelic wings of bone and sinew

Jews… it’s almost time

the angel staying over at my house asked for a nightlight in their room and i told them buddy, don't you produce your own light? what're you gonna do with more? and they said they wanted to see why people like it so much. and also that the nightlight i own is blue and they're been trying to understand color. anyways i think they've stared at it for an hour now

the angel staying over at my house said their eyes hurt from staring, so i took them to the store to get some eye drops. well midway through the medicine aisle i turned around to see them flashing in and out of colors like a combusting star, so i asked them what was up without looking directly at them. they told me that there were too many people at the store and they forgot how they looked. which. is understandable to be honest they've only been on earth for a little over 24 hours. my phone started to melt a little when i showed them pictures of themself, but my hand feels fine even though they held it while calming down. they're currently resting and i am not sure what to do with 5 empty bottles of eye drops

the angel staying over at my house has been eating my food for the past few days and i don't really know if they can taste it because the food sort of bursts into ash and fire before it reaches their mouth? but they seem to enjoy eating it or at least watching me cook. they tried to help me fry some onions earlier but the stove flame turned from blue to white and the onions started crackling instead of sizzling so they backed off. however they have the ability to chop garlic like a pro

the angel staying over at my house is taking daily walks with me around the neighborhood and i don't think they know about animals yet. we were going past someone's house and this labrador started barking at us. normal, right? but the angel staying over at my house asked me if that was music. and i had to stop and think about that one for a second. in the end i said it can be music to us, it's just that the dog doesn't know it (and may never know it, which is a real tragedy). then they asked me what's a dog

the angel staying over at my house went to the library with me and they wanted to know if humans actually dream or if that was something people made up for television. guess what the staff told us that the full name of the angel staying over at my house couldn't be printed on a library card so i just said well couldn't we have one anyways? and now we do but it's really like the first third of their name and not written correctly. oh well. i have to go help carry some huge books about neuroscience into the house

today the angel staying over at my house came up to me and started crying tears that melted through my carpet. told me they realised they wouldn't be able to use their library card after they left earth and i. i honestly forgot that was going to happen. but i told them hey dude that's just how humans feel too. can't read all the books, but the fact that you got to read some is worth bragging about, right? they could tell all of their angel friends about the cool stuff they've done. and they said that they used to think that the world was so small and that humans were being petty about missing earth but now they live here and they feel small too. and they're not sure what to tell their angel friends.

so i asked to hold their hand again. they didn't burn me this time, either. and i asked them if this moment felt small to them. they said it didn't.

anyways we made popcorn and watched it's a wonderful life. they told me that angels don't speak like that at all by the way

I just heard my mom tell my brother, “when you die, you will go outside and garden until your father says you’re done” and it took me a second to realize that my brother was playing a videogame and this was not a theological discussion.

Purgatory

The Garden of Death

Watercolor and gouache by Hugo Simberg, 1896

you guys are getting queerbaited big time but its kinda beautiful to see in 2024. firemen arent gay everybody knows that.....

shoutout to myself who didn’t know 911 was a show and thought this person was tagging this as spoilers for September 11th