I Swear Im Funnier Than My Icon

Thank you for sharing.

Remember, folks, Wetlands are nature's water treatment facilities. Protect them!

was reminded of that youtube channel that records footage of that bridge that scalps trucks today. one of the fascinating developments that's happened since i last heard about it is that, in one of their many attempts to stop the trucks from being can-opened, they installed a traffic light that detects when a vehicle that's over the allowed height is coming and turns red so the driver can stop and hopefully notice the signage all around that's screaming "YOUR VEHICLE IS OVERHEIGHT TURN AROUND" and avoid an accident. However as a result sometimes drivers see the light turning yellow and IMMEDIATELY start flooring it to avoid having to stop, ensuring that the roof of their truck just gets fucking annihilated instantly. Really beautiful stuff you should check it out

the comments have me in tears

@rogue-bard

It DOES have a sign. It turns on when it detects something too tall for the bridge. It even flashes. And the traffic lights will go red to get people to stop when it detects an over height vehicle so they read the signs. (note this lovely example where the lights are red, because the truck thought it was better than the lights)

every time I see this post I've forgotten how clearly signposted the canopener bridge is, and every time it hits me like a truck (hitting the canopener bridge and getting the top of its trailer ripped asunder)

jokes to make after failure that aren’t self-deprecating:

I don't wanna hear one more bitch saying that contacting your senators&reps doesn't work

Btw, this is FAR from getting rid of the land selloff from the BBB. Keep at it. Mike Lee specifically is notable because he's from Utah, the state that's pushed for that sell off very heavily for mining income.

This is also a great case for coalition building. A lot of the weird hunter dudes/Ducks Unlimited people etc are absolutely against this. You may agree with them on almost nothing else, but if we can work together on this...

Y’all I just learned that unusually high sugar and carb cravings are a symptom of dopamine deficiency

If you’re adhd and experience a deep and all-encompassing urge to eat cake at least five times a day boy do I have news for you

Oh yeah, this is a hell of a thing. Years before my diagnosis I used to snack hardcore on chocolates and particularly candy whenever I was writing and insisted it ‘helped me think’. Turns out that yup, that was my ADHD brain demanding sugar for the dopamine machine to help me pay attention.

(These days I just keep a bottle of high-glucose sports drink handy and slowly sip my way through it when I need to focus instead of slamming back whole packets of Nerds.)

Can confirm via lived experience. I’m known for my sweet tooth and consuming a LOT of sugar daily, which never seemed to affect my ‘energy’ levels the way people say kids get hyperactive on sugar. It in fact simply helped me be steadier. 

Since I started taking ADHD medication, my cravings for sweet snacks have gotten down to almost zero, except if I need to make a specifically mentally challenging task. Wish I knew this before I only sought diagnosis past 30 years old…

*halfway through a bag of sweets* WHAT

*on my five chocolate bar this hour* 

I’m sorry, what? (shoves chocolate in my mouth)

Yuuuuuup. I used to sneak a few oreos during passing periods before a stressful class would start. (As the teacher. Lol)

Turns out I was self medicating! Ha……

anyway you should always remember that all those foreigners you see dying on the news are just as real people as you are who have just as much interiority as you do. there is nothing about you that makes you more important and it is by pure chance that you are not in their position. in fact, this holds for all of history. every person, no matter the horror of the fate that befell them, had just as much interiority as you do. i feel like some people haven't fully internalized this.

EDIT: let's use this post for something good. if you are considering being annoying in my notes, please instead consider donating to gaza soup kitchen. thanks!

If it makes you feel any better, he hated it too.

This is the funniest and saddest sentence I've read all week

In my opinion it's a lot more healthy to be able to own that you dislike someone for petty reasons than to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to make everyone you don't really vibe with out to be a bad person actually

warning : spoilers for materialists, mentions of SA

The Materialists made me feel sick. Not because it was brutal, but because it was so pleased with itself. Because it inserted sexual assault into a story and called it honesty. Because it took one of the most common, devastating violences women endure and treated it like a stylistic device. Something to add gravity. Something to sharpen Lucy’s arc. Something to balance the tonal ledger.

But the camera doesn’t stay with Sophie. The film doesn’t sit with her. It doesn’t honor her. It doesn’t even keep her in the room.

Instead, it sweeps her under the rug. Lets her scream offscreen. Refocuses its gaze on Lucy’s existential unraveling, as if Sophie’s assault were just a detour. A single, dark tile in the mosaic of someone else’s story.

And this, this is the part where I become “difficult.” The one who ruins the vibe. The one who stands in the lobby after the credits roll—not charmed, not impressed, but angry. Not because I misunderstood the message, but because I understood exactly what it did.

Sophie is not a character in this film. She is a device. A hinge. A pivot point in another woman’s narrative. She is allowed to scream once, cry once, accuse once, and then she is folded into the margins of Lucy’s development like a crumpled receipt at the bottom of a designer bag.

And I am tired—so tired—of watching women make films about women, only to find that they, too, have learned to replicate harm in the language of symbolism. Still finding a way to include sexual assault and call it nuance. Still using violence against women to prove the film has something to say.

The film says it wants to interrogate love. Modern dating. Transaction. Commodification. And yet, the moment it gestures toward sexual assault, perhaps the most violent transaction of all, it refuses to slow down. Refuses to linger. Refuses to look at the wound it’s created. It moves forward like it’s made a point. Like it’s said something brave.

But that’s the lie. That’s the wound that doesn’t close.

Because it didn’t have to be there.

It wasn’t built toward. It wasn’t unpacked or allowed to shift the narrative. It didn’t complicate Lucy’s values. It didn’t challenge the structure. It didn’t change anything.

It happened. It hurt. And then it vanished, like a whispered statistic. One in three. And if it’s so common, why frame it like a twist? If it’s so honest, why not sit with it?

I am exhausted by this kind of cinema, the kind that pats itself on the back for including trauma, but never dares to show what it costs. That uses assault not as a rupture, but as a rhythm. As a beat. As evidence that the film is serious.

But it isn’t serious. The brave thing, the truly difficult thing, would have been to stay with Sophie. To give her more space, not just to suffer, but to exist. Not just as an idea or a burden for Lucy to feel guilty about, but as a woman. As a person who was hurt in a way that does not resolve on cue.

But that would have complicated the arc. That would have meant disrupting the aesthetic. That would have meant stepping outside the dress and the lighting and the curated sadness. And cinema hates when women’s pain disrupts the aesthetic.

I know what the defenders will say: it’s not glorifying it, it’s reflecting it! But reflection without care is not art. It’s replication. And replication, without critique, is complicity.

You cannot say sexual assault is part of dating culture and then treat it like background noise. You cannot claim to care about the “brutal honesty” of modern romance while reducing a woman’s assault to a plot beat designed to deepen someone else’s arc.

It’s not brave to include it. It’s not radical. It’s not thoughtful to throw it in and then move on. It’s cowardly. It’s insulting. It’s violent.

And the fact that so many critics call this bold, that they nod solemnly and say “finally, someone’s telling the truth”, only makes me angrier. Because we’ve always told the truth. Women have been telling it for decades. In essays. In whispers. In voicemails. In buried tweets. In hospital reports that no one reads.

But it never counts unless it’s curated. Unless it’s stylish. Unless it’s packaged as prestige. Unless it’s part of a clever genre subversion from a director with Oscar buzz.

Sophie’s assault didn’t challenge anything. It upheld everything.

It was a narrative performance of harm, a stylish nod to the suffering we’re expected to endure quietly. And I will not be grateful for that. I will not call it honest. I will not applaud the inclusion of trauma that serves no one but the film’s own self-satisfaction. In Materialists, assault isn’t the rupture. It’s the justification. The sacrifice required to give the film emotional weight. It’s the shadow cast on a carefully arranged frame so the director can murmur, “See? I’m paying attention.”

But I want to say this:

Paying attention means not using us.

Paying attention means not discarding us.

Paying attention means knowing the difference between representation and reproduction.

And this film reproduces harm. Elegantly. Quietly. Beautifully. But harm, nonetheless.

It tells me Sophie matters because she got hurt, but only until Lucy learns something from it. It tells me assault is part of the system, but not worth lingering in. It tells me one in three is enough to include, but not enough to center.

And that is what I cannot forgive: the idea that trauma must be seen, but never felt. Referenced, but never grieved. Aestheticized, but never honored.

I’m not asking for purity. I’m not asking for silence. I’m asking for accountability. For films that don’t use our wounds as wallpaper. For stories that don’t treat a woman’s pain like it’s just another step in someone else’s plot. I’m asking that if you include our pain, you let us stay in the room.

But Sophie is not allowed to stay. She is written out.

And Lucy gets a ring.

If telling the truth about dating means re-traumatizing women in increasingly aesthetic ways, then perhaps the truth isn’t the goal at all. Perhaps it’s still the same thing it’s always been:

Critical praise.

Aesthetics dressed up as daring.

A film that wears trauma like silk.

A director who says, “I had no choice,” when in fact, she did.

She chose this.

And I choose to say: it didn’t make the film better.

It made it cruel.

And if I sound angry, it’s because I am. If I sound repetitive, it’s because the movies are. If I sound like I’ve ruined the vibe, it’s because the vibe was built on silence.

I don’t care how clever the final shot was. I don’t care how well Dakota Johnson wears the dress. I don’t care that it was based on a statistic.

I care that you turned that statistic into a subplot and called it cinema. I care that you built the scaffolding of your film on another woman’s pain, and never looked back. I care that you didn’t have to include it, but you did. And you called that choice necessary.

It wasn’t.

It was violence.

And I will not thank you for it.

"tumblr humor is only funny to tumblr users" NOT true. those bitches on pinterest love us.

Can we talk about how that was the perfect cross-cultural example? I was like "oh this sounds so pleasant, how is it-" then Pumped Up Kicks came on and i was like "oh. Oh yeah okay."