it’s really frustrating how you have to wait like, 2 weeks before you can drink milk after you buy it. i know you gotta wait for the date on the bottle but like why cant the store just sell the milk thats ready?

Kinzo continues to be a disgusting man, and I keep imagining the Witch in the disclaimer page stomping on his corpse after he dies.

Taking off my anger goggles for a moment to analyze the scene, this is what feminists mean when we point out that in cishet relationships a female domination kink is still in service of a man's ego.

Kinzo is begging for humiliation, for the scorn of a beautiful woman, but Beatrice (the witch/the temptress/the frigid whore) must still smile! The punishment he asks for is Kinzo's sweet reward, the fantasy of her claim on his life still a bond tying him to her. For Beatrice to kill him is for her to service him because he wants death. To kill is to fuck. To die is to be united for eternity.

This is an abuser's apologies. Making it about him. Imagining forgiveness. Imagining death. The only thing he cannot abide is silently living with his own actions until the end. Rehabilitation without rewards.

The fact Nanjo and Genji are witnessing his depravity and Kinzo doesn't even care. This is a man lost in the sexual pleasure of his own delusions.

Given that this scene is from Battler's perspective, it makes me wonder just what exactly he knows about Rosa's con artist ex. Does he really, actually think that Rosa is married, or is he just trying to throw a fig leaf on over it to be considerate? Do I even think that Battler's capable of being that tactful?

On another level, I wonder whose idea this nasty little dig was.

It does also occur to me that the extra space could be Ange's, since the bout of illness that kept her from coming was pretty sudden. Still, I think the dig at Rosa is probably more likely than it just being Ange's spot, considering... literally everything about the Ushiromiya family dynamic.

Never mind, the extra space was Nanjo's. Good grief, I'd actually forgotten about him for a minute. (And yeah, I knew Battler couldn't be that tactful.)

Given that this scene is from Battler's perspective, it makes me wonder just what exactly he knows about Rosa's con artist ex. Does he really, actually think that Rosa is married, or is he just trying to throw a fig leaf on over it to be considerate? Do I even think that Battler's capable of being that tactful?

On another level, I wonder whose idea this nasty little dig was.

It does also occur to me that the extra space could be Ange's, since the bout of illness that kept her from coming was pretty sudden. Still, I think the dig at Rosa is probably more likely than it just being Ange's spot, considering... literally everything about the Ushiromiya family dynamic.

Women in Shakespeare

Also like to point out that when her mother says “I was your mother much upon these years that you are now a maid,” (translation: I had you when I was your age) you have to remember her father’s words: “earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,” (translation: all the other children died.)  The whole plot point of Juliet being an only child is explained by her mother being a Margaret Beaufort type who had her first child too young and it damaged her past the point of being able to bear more children.

Margaret Beaufort died in 1509. She was a major player in the Wars of the Roses, the swirling on-again-off-again civil wars that consumed England from 1455-1487. Romeo and Juliet was written and first performed in the early 1590s. Your average English person of Shakespeare’s day would probably have had at least a vague understanding of who she was and what happened to her, because she was a key figure in recent history and was still getting passed around as a cautionary tale.

There are two great problems with what happened to Margaret (and that her parents are trying to do to Juliet). One is easy for modern people to spot (but was also a common response back in her own day). And that’s the moral implications of what was done to her. She was too young to be married, and it was horrifying that she was forced into it so young. Every one of the adults around her either acted immorally or failed to protect her. They were wrong. This is what modern people see, and it’s important to remember that people back in her day mostly agreed with it. You’re supposed to think it’s fucked up! When girls were married that young (and it didn’t happen often!) it was a formality 99% of the time. It was for dynastic or financial reasons (the girl has lots of money and/or land and/or a title that her husband wants), but the “couple” don’t consummate their marriage for years. And it’s not just that they would have separate bedrooms. They might not even live in the same country until the girl was in her late teens and physically and mentally mature enough to bear and raise kids. Hell, a lot of times they didn’t even meet until the girl was older! They had this thing called “proxy marriage” where you would have two separate ceremonies, in two separate places, with each party saying their vows separately, one in one city and the other in a different one. So, yeah, sure, the girl was technically married at 12, but she didn’t actually meet her “husband” in person until she was 17 and they didn’t start sleeping together until she was 20. That was a thing they did.

The other problem, the one that modern people don’t notice, is dynastic. See, marriage wasn’t generally because you loved someone. It was because you had the resources to support a family, and you or your family wanted to pool those resources with someone. It’s about “our family has these resources, and we want that to continue.” It’s about continuity across generations. It’s about making sure that your children and grandchildren have the best possible resources to survive and thrive, whether those resources are land or a trade or a title or money or whatever. In order for this to work, you have to have kids! The family and the family’s resources depend on the married couple having children. If the couple doesn’t have children, the marriage is a failure. And that failure affects not only the couple, but both families. This is a really big problem. And you can’t have just one kid to pass on the family name, because half of all kids die in early childhood. If you want to be safe, you need several kids, to be sure at least one will survive to adulthood (when they can marry and pass on the family name and resources.

You know what happens when a girl has her first pregnancy too young? She is very likely to either die in childbirth, or have complications that destroy her future fertility. Just like Margaret Beaufort. Just like Juliet’s mother. In other words, the marriage is a failure, not just for her, but also for her family, and her husband (who can’t divorce her, it’s not allowed except in extremely rare circumstances), and her husband’s family. So even the people who didn’t have a moral problem with adult men having sex with pubescent girls had a practical problem with girls married too young because you are very likely to destroy the entire purpose of the marriage by doing it. As Shakespeare reminds us in the play through Juliet’s mother having been married too young and only having one child.

Shakespeare is telling us “yeah, this is fucked up. but even if you’re the kind of awful person who doesn’t think girls marrying too young is morally wrong, it’s also a problem for practical and dynastic reasons, don’t forget that by doing this wrong thing you are very likely to destroy what you most want out of it.”

Whoever wrote that Vanguard message did so with shaking hands, between sobs & swigs of bourbon straight from the bottle.

They're right, though. Now is exactly the wrong time to make dramatic investment moves. Everybody's shit is doing the same thing; unless you need your retirement money in the next twelve months or whatever, you're better off leaving it alone and waiting for the eventual correction. Like, this is not a comforting lie, this is good advice!

Adultier adult here, having had to talk to my retirement management people earlier this week. (I hate it. It's useless. But I told them to divest me from anything that holds TSLA in the portfolio/fund because Elon is an asshole and the company's financials are shit.)

This week has caused about three percent (3%) of my 401(k) to vanish.

And that's okay.

I can't touch that money without a tax penalty (or emergency) until the 2030's. It's not paying for cat food or keeping my electricity on. This is a privilege not everyone enjoys (yet).

If you're in a position to have any kind of investments, don't do anything rash and/or bananas with important chunks of money. (My financial guy gave me this advice, too. I specifically asked about cashing out the whole fucking thing.)

TUMBLR'S AGING USERBASE

There's a lot of news this week, so I understand if people haven't seen this yet, but I want to be super clear that the Democrats are doing another thing that the "Do something!" people want: create a shadow cabinet.

This, by the way, is in addition to the other thing that the "Do something!" people want that the Democrats have already done: Start a town hall series.

I mention this because I'm not doing the thing anymore where you don't pay attention to what Democrats are doing because you aren't informing yourself and then you complain that Democrats aren't doing something that they absolutely are doing, and then 100 idiots share your uninformed post and you all help Democrats lose elections while insisting you had nothing to do with it.

I still lay awake at night, quite literally, thinking about the acolyte

I've heard a lot of arguments about why it was bad in the time since it was cancelled, and I genuinely have not been able to find one that I can't explain away in a sentence or two

because that show was amazing in my eyes, and I miss it so much. the high Republic is my favorite era and I loved seeing what I had read about translate on the big screen in a really satisfying way

YouTubers who criticize just to criticize and get clicks are the death of fun, not letting anything sit in your mind before you form an opinion on it is just blatant bias, a decision that was already made.

it was the first Star wars show made with the female gaze, and it was the fastest I've ever seen a show cancelled. It was the first starwars I felt was made for someone like me (obsessed with saber fights and all)

guess that tells me all I gotta know

I think The Acolyte is really pointing to the similarities between the Jedi Order and police (specifically American police) - Torbin being the unfortunate focal point of that (though Sol was heavily influenced by the 'hero/savior' role that is common to police too).

The Jedi put a massive amount of emphasis on combat training. They have lightsabers that they go on a whole-ass pilgrimage to create, they learn from the age of 6 (at least) how to use it/block blaster bolts/attack, etc. and then they're sent out into the field.

American police get HOURS AND HOURS of firearm training, are taught that every time you step out into the community, you're walking into a war zone where everyone wants you dead and anyone could pull a gun on you at any moment to try to kill you.

Then when they (both police and Jedi) go out into the field...it's mostly sitting around doing nothing. It's paperwork. It's driving around. It's talking to locals about non-lethal things - or at least, things that aren't about an evil person shooting at you. It's boring.

That is one of the major things new police officers note is that they thought the job would be high-adrenaline, exciting and dangerous (due to all the copganda on TV) and when they actually got in, it was so so so so so so so boring to them. They didn't see the value in helping out their community through non-violent means, they wanted to be part of a shootout and kill the bad guy and be a big hero! (This is a major problem with the US military as well, and with the cops in this country being trained AS a military force, there's no wonder there's such a huge overlap in this thinking)

So what do they do with all that weapons' training and ideas of being a flashy hero? They LOOK for an opportunity to escalate situations. They seek out 'dangerous' neighborhoods so they can 'get some action' (see: the officer who murdered Tamir Rice). Someone reaches for their wallet to pull out the ID the officer told them to get and that same officer shoots them dead because 'I thought they were reaching for a gun!!'

Torbin seemed to be running into the same situation on Brendok. He was trained as a warrior (just look at how expertly he deflected all those bolts, how he was able to keep Kelnacca from immediately killing him), he didn't expect his Jedi missions to be quietly sitting on an 'uninhabited' planet for weeks just taking environmental samples. He was itching for a different type of mission - or at least to be able to go home. So when a drop of action comes around, he's far too eager to jump on the opportunity and 'do something'. That 'something' being attacking the locals with the intent to steal their children because he's just so tired of being on a 'boring' mission.

Idk, just something to think about when looking at why the Jedi reacted the way they did and why 'peacekeepers' seem to only be interested in combat rather than exploration. Maybe it has a bit to do with their training and the propaganda they're taught about the Order. I don't know a single eco-biologist who was itching to pull a gun on local populations - maybe because they're trained to want to study things rather than being given tons of firearm training. If the Jedi were trained a little more on non-violent activities and a little less on lightsaber training, their outlook when going on missions might be different.

I mean--- they were based off of samurai and samurai films/ period dramas → 時代劇 (jidaigeki), but now they're white n stuff (so in a way the cop-ness is showing). Given this background (historical warrior class that served mostly warlords) ofc they'd adopt violence in their repertoire, I don't get why ppl are upset over this system being flawed, why not allow this cut throat take on the order? I honestly think it serves as a more significant message than the usual 'good guys being good' mindset

100% - I think the Acolyte did a great job at pointing out the flawed system which is why so many people hated it. They don't want to think of the Jedi as anything other than their perfect 'noble warrior' group they can idolize while ignoring what a 'peacekeeping' force that's hyper-violent actually looks like.

I think stories like this are vital and should be encouraged rather than cancelled