obsessed with the target audience for ‘the invitation’ almost definitely being people who write/read yandre vampire au fanfiction

Just saw The Invitation and honestly Evie’s character absolutely should have married him and been rich and powerful as fuck and idc If that’s a hot take

I wouldve married him and his wives with no hesitation

The thing is that Loid thinks of himself as a completely average normal person, which means whenever Yor has anything in common with him hes like "excellent, we are so good at being normal. I picked the perfect wife, she even knows about poisons"

You’re laughing. They named Baby Yoda Grogu and you’re laughing.

ResLife in a nutshell:

[ID:

A tweet by @/karla_estrada22 posted on twitter for android at 10:50 AM on 8/13/2020 that reads:

“If Biden-Kamala wins,

Would you still be with us on the streets against police brutality and ICE?

Would you acknowledge that under the new administration kids will still be caged, families separated, and black folk still dying?

Or would you go back to brunch?”

End ID]

From The Little Girl from the 1981 Lego Ad Is All Grown Up, and She’s Got Something To Say.

“Toys are supposed to foster creativity. But nowadays, it seems that a lot more toys already have messages built into them before a child even opens the pink or blue package. In 1981, LEGOs were simple and gender-neutral, and the creativity of the child produced the message. In 2014, it’s the reverse: the toy delivers a message to the child, and this message is weirdly about gender.”

HOLLA!!!!

A lot of people don’t realize, but the Friends and Elves themes are actually LEGO trying to fix the massive mistake they made with gendered marketing in the ‘90s.

LEGO panicked in the ‘90s. They were losing money hand over fist as video games and movies occupied more of kids’ time. In response, like a lot of toy manufacturing at the time, they took a sharp right turn into highly gendered marketing. They made sure that all the new parents of the Reagan/Bush era knew that LEGO was safe and not challenging for their little boys’ masculinity. ALL of their advertising went to promoting LEGO as a “boys toy”, and they invested in “action” themes and cartoons for boys, like Clutch Powers and Bionicle. Even plain, non-themed bricks were advertised exclusively by and for boys. They even reduced the number of different colors and the vibrancy of those colors to make sure the bricks seemed masculine enough.

This came back to bite them, as naturally it should. They, along with the other toy companies in the ‘90s, pressed so hard with the gendered marketing, that there was literally no crossover market in most areas anymore. They had alienated half of their customer base. Those Reagan/Bush parents they were so worried about bought into the gendered marketing hook, line, and sinker. Many of these parents (especially the conservative ones with more money to spend on toys) wouldn’t even consider allowing their little girls to shop anywhere but the “pink aisle”. I know many women who grew up in the ‘90s have stories about that, of parents and other adults telling them they couldn’t shop anywhere else. There are parents all over, but especially in conservative markets like the Bible Belt, that will still not buy a toy for their girl unless the box is pink.

Because LEGO had remade itself as a “boy’s toy,” it had now been purged from the market of girls’ toys entirely. They tried to get back into the “pink aisle” with the Belville line, but Belville was shit, because they were made to appeal to the conservative parents rather than the kids. They were mostly about big, awkward dolls with almost DUPLO simplicity to the build aspect, most pieces were incompatible with regular LEGO system bricks, and they were just not fun.

Then, in the late ‘00s, someone at LEGO had the brilliant idea to actually ask little girls. They spent 5 years and millions of dollars doing hundreds of focus groups with girls with their parents not in the room to influence what they were saying. The resounding response? The girls wanted the exact same brick their male siblings had, but with more color variation, detail work, and also could we have people that look like people instead of blocks with arms?

LEGO Friends is the result of this feedback. Released in 2012, it has been the best way for LEGO to sneak past conservative parents and into little girls’ hands again. Friends is all LEGO brick, but as the little girls requested, it comes in more, brighter colors, has more small, storytelling-themed details, and features characters that look more like people. The sets were a bit tentative that first year, not a particular challenge to build, but have since gained complexity rapidly as the line took off. If you look closely and actually build the sets, you will notice that while the boxes are pink, the builds are usually another color. Still generally “cute”, but rarely exclusively pink. The pink is mostly the box to get it past the parents who see nothing but the box.

LEGO Friends is the third most popular LEGO theme of all time, after Star Wars at #1 and LEGO City at #2 (mostly because City has been there forever). Think about that. Five years, and it has beaten the sales numbers of most other LEGO lines in the last 80 years since the company was founded. Additionally, the LEGO Friends theme has entirely shifted LEGO’s statistics. In 2010, surveys indicated that the gender breakdown of end-users of LEGO products across all themes was 90% boys, 10% girls. In 2013, one year after Friends was released, it had shifted to 60% boys, 40% girls. That’s across all themes. Some quick market research discovered that little girls would get a Friends set or two, and then expand into other themes. Because obviously my town with a juice bar and a cupcake shop has to have a police station or a pirate fortress too, mom.

And LEGO added the Elves theme last year, specifically because older girls wanted to tell more complex and fantasy-themed stories with their LEGO builds. Elves is targeted at a slightly higher age group than Friends, and the complexity of the Elves constructions rivals any Star Wars set of similar size. Every single development with “girl” LEGO in the last 5 years has been at the express feedback of actual girls.

LEGO still has a long way to go to fix the mistakes of the ‘90s. There are still marketing people in the company who don’t fucking get it, and think that they’re just shilling “girl LEGO.” There are still a lot of old white men in very high positions in the company who don’t understand what’s going on, they’re mostly just coasting on what market research and focus groups are telling them. And some themes, like Ninjago, are still very clearly marketed for boys while Friends and Elves are marketed for girls. They have a long way to go to fix what they broke.

At the same time, if you’re unwilling to allow a pink building toy to be a gateway to other building toys just because it’s pink, the problem is not the pink building toy.

LEGO Friends I’m sorry for all that I said about you

The entire nation of Japan: “this guy is the best we have”

every single resident of Hasetsu: “this guy is our hometown hero”

Multiple young rising star athletes: “I idolize him so much”

5-time world champion: “he has so much talent and potential”

Hundreds of thousands of people across the planet: “this guy is a force to be reckoned with for a multitude of reasons”

Yuuri: “haha i’m such a fucking LOSER i’m so pointless,,,,so replacable,,,,a nobody,,,,”

But like this is what mental illness does to you? Like I’m pretty sure there is a part of Yuri who looks at Victor and thinks “I’m such a horrible person I fooled Victor into thinking I’m worth his time”

Like you can’t accept any praise because it’s just proof that you’re such a despicable person that you tricked people into thinking you aren’t horrible.

The fact the YOI team understands that so well is one of the reasons I love this show

jeff bezos being set to become the world's first trillionaire because of everyone online shopping during lockdown

sleepy fox gang

when christian artists change the line in hallelujah from “maybe there’s a God above” to “I know that there’s a God above” >:c

#idk why i’m so unreasonably angry#maybe cuz it’s my fav line

it’s also because Leonard COHEN (!) was Jewish and this is a quintessentially Jewish line, and changing it to that level of Annoying Certainty is stripping it of its Jewish meaning and imbuing it with that particularly American smug evangelical Christian attitude that makes me tired, so very tired

THAT IS EXACTLY WHY

I don’t think I’ve heard any cover artist sing my favorite verses You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah I did my best, it wasn’t much I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you And even though It all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

um woah

I will always hit the reblog button so hard for Hallelujah but ESPECIALLY mentions of the elusive final verses which are just about my favorite lyrics ever. Why do people always omit the best part of the song??

In Yiddish

In Hebrew

In Ladino

Yeah, I wonder why the verses that reference specific Jewish mystical and chassidic concepts that aren’t readily understood by American “I love Jews, you know, Jesus was Jewish!” Christians never get any airtime. Funny that.

You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah

These are specifically about Chassidic Jewish theories of the holy language, how each letter and combination of letters in Hebrew contains the essence of the divine spark and if used correctly, can unlock or uncover the divine spark in the mundane material word. And of course, there are secret names of God which, when spoken by any ordinary human would kill them, but if you are worthy and holy and righteous can be used to perform miracles or even to behold the glory of God face-to-face. The words themselves have power. Orthodox Jews often won’t even pronounce the word “hallelujah” in it’s entirety in conversation, because the “yah” sound at the end is a True Name of God (there are hundreds, supposedly) and thus too holy to say outside of prayer.

None of this is to mention how David’s sin in sleeping with Batshevah (the subject of much of the song, with a brief deviation to Shimshon and Delilah) is considered the turning point in the Tanach that ultimately dooms the Davidic line at the cosmological level and thus dooms Jewish sovereignty and independence altogether. From a Christian perspective this led to Jesus, the King of Kings, and that’s all very well and good for them, but for the Jews, the Davidic line never returned and is the central tragedy of the total arc of the Torah. Like, our Bible doesn’t have a happy ending? And that’s what this song is about? There’s no Grace - you just have to sit with the sin and its consequence.

Of course, Cohen is referencing all of this ironically, and personalizing these very high-level religious concepts. Like the point of this song is that Cohen, the songwriter, is identifying with David, the psalmist, and identifying his own sins with David’s. The ache that you hear in this song is that the two thousand year exile that resulted from one wrong night of passion and Cohen feels that the pain he has caused to his lover is of equally monumental infamy. Basically, in a certain light, the whole of Psalms is a vain effort for David to atone for his sin and I think Cohen was writing this song in wonderment that David could eternally praise the God who would not forgive him and would force him and his people into exile. But he ultimately gets how you have to surrender to the inexorable force of God in the face of your own inadequacies and how to surrender is to worship and to worship is to praise - hence, Hallelujah. You can either do the right thing and worship God from the start, or you can fuck up, be punished, and thus be forced to beg for His forgiveness. It’s the terrible inevitability of praise that’s driving him mad.

Like honestly, I identify with this song so strongly as an off-the-derech Jew, I sometimes wonder what Christians can possibly hear in this song, as it speaks so specifically to the sadomasochistic relationship that a lapsed Jew has with their God. It’s such a different song from a Christian theological perspective it’s almost unrecognizable, man. This song continues to be a wonder of postmodern Jewish theology and sexuality from start to finish. Don’t let anyone give you any “Judeo-Christian” narishkeit. This is a Jewish song.

(Sorry about the wild tangent it’s just 2AM and I love this song so dang much, you guys.)

holy shit. woah.

This.

That last bit from @stoneandbloodandwater, that’s a great articulation of the well of feeling, memory, storytelling, and culture packed into one of the most Jewish songs ever to get real famous. The song is both surrender and defiance, and that those are actually a single path together, not two opposite choices.

character in a fight scene: *restrains their opponent by pinning them against the wall by their wrists*

me:

character in a fight scene: *pins their opponent down by straddling their waist and holding their wrists to the floor*

me:

character in a fight scene: *lifting their disarmed opponent’s chin slightly with the business end of their weapon*

me:

character in fight scene: *pins down the opponent and leans in close to whisper in their ear*

me:

character in fight scene: *restrains the opponent by twisting their arm/s behind their back and pinning them to the wall chest first with their own chest pressing against the opponents back*

me:

Character: *distracts their otherwise equally good/better opponent by flirting*

Me:

Some of you haven’t read the entirety of the All For The Game series in a three day span and let it completely take over your life and it shows

Reblog to make a transphobe uncomfortable eating M&M’s

They did the same with the Brown M&M

Clearly they’re together too, two happy Trans Women Lesbians.

Breaking news: terfs banned from m&ms forever

girls hmu. not looking for anything serious, just a wife and kids and a house