the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.
sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.
you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.
it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.
but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.
they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.
they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.
barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.
and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.
but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.
they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!
this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.
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To this day I still think "I wish squids were real" is the funniest example of ascended canon ever. Like, the first Splatoon game comes out, someone makes a Miiverse post just saying "I wish squids were real" (already peak comedy), "I wish X was real" becomes a meme in the Splatoon community and gets reposted everywhere.
Then two years later Splatoon 2 comes out and
Literally iconic
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yknow it’s more than a little sad that every artists ‘hand-wringing panicking’ about what ai would do to the industry and how it would replace a lot of the already slim meat-and-potatoes jobs we rely on to survive were overwhelmingly proven true months after the technology really became widespread. It’s sad that convention space is being taken up by enormous booths full of cheap ai prints soaking up the limited space and money available at cons, it’s sad that competitions are getting flooded with ai generated pieces, it’s sad that i’ve seen a lot of ‘man. i’m just gonna go work at target, i can’t compete with this.’ from ppl who have been working in the industry for YEARS.
But it’s INFURIATING to see supposedly leftist game devs and indie ttrpg makers on here try and astroturf a PR campaign for ai to make using it for their projects more socially acceptable, and in order to do this paint artists as pearl clutching hysterics. As if anyone would blink on here if factory workers threw a brick through a window when they were being replaced by automation, but because art is never respected or treated like actual labor our industry collapsing is just kind of a big joke.
Like I saw someone compare the gay sex cats to Duchamp LIKE NO!!!! THEYRE NOT!!! The people who would get pissed off at Duchamp’s fountain are a very specific demographic!!!! Namely fascists!!! Like the implication of a statement like that is actually absurd. who is the fascist in this analogy, 25 year old nonbinary artists?? If you don’t want to pay artists to do your backgrounds for your indie game like just SAY it. (edit: additional context bc this got out of hand but I’ve looked at the blog of the person who said this and i’m walking back the salt I expressed here. It’s a nuanced take that wasn’t expressed super clearly in the post that went viral and he’s elaborated on it a lot in a way that makes me feel this was an unfair interpretation of his words. My bad)
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"Well, this is a bad idea," Tim says, hands on his hips as he surveys the mess they’ve made in the cave.
"Nah," Danny replies, twirling his screwdriver in the air in what is probably meant to be an impressive trick to inspire confidence, except he fumbles it and it clangs to the floor loudly, "we good. If a younger version of myself hasn't come forward in time to stop me, how bad can it be?"
"Shouldn't it be the other way round?"
"What?"
"Normally, it's an older version of yourself going backwards in time to stop you, right?"
"Not in my experience."
Danny's grin is impossibly feral and a shiver runs up Tim's spine.
"This is definitely a bad idea."
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the choice between Edward & Jacob is not a question of which relationship is healthier or which partner is best suitable for Bella. neither is correct. neither is best. neither produces a happy ending for Bella. at the end of the day this is still a vampire novel. any choice Bella could make would yield, at best, a bittersweet happily ever after.
if she chooses Edward, she gets the terrifying Breaking Dawn ending: a girl who rejected her call to grow up has hung her love & her eternity on an emotionally stunted partner who hates himself marginally less than he loves her. she's a teen mom with a kid she never wanted who perpetuates the generational trauma passed down from her parents. by keeping this child, the Cullens have set the stage for an uprising/cold war against the Volturi who are likely to take revenge in order to maintain power. Bella is living in a tenuous "dream come true" wrapped in a nightmare & doesn't realize it.
choosing Jacob is the true coming-of-age ending that rips the stitches out of a wound that never fully healed. even if we ignore the fact that she ends up with a man who sexually assaulted her (we must bear in mind Jacob's character is influenced by smeyer's racism, but it did happen), they can't have a secure romantic relationship. based on the high imprinting rate of the pack, Jacob will likely find his imprint in his lifetime & will lose himself to the imprintee. he will no longer be her Jacob. he will inevitably abandon her (whether he wants to or not), & she must reconcile with the reality that she will always be inadequate to Jacob's imprint. & say he never manages to escape the vampires? he will presumably not age for a long time, meaning the relationship Bella always feared with Edward (her being an old grandmother while he stays forever young) remains a possibility. this is the story of a girl who slaps a Band Aid on an open wound & calls herself healed while flinching every time she sees the shadow of the knife that cut her.
if she chooses neither (team therapy), her healing requires her to lose or be at least partially disconnected from everyone she cares about. Bella must spend the rest of her life shut out from one world while never fully existing in her human world ever again. she must always keep secrets. she can never go back home. even in the unlikely event that she manages to escape the Volturi, the threat of being hunted by vampires will never leave her. in addition, she must face her worst fears (aging, losing Edward) while always keeping in mind the immortal life that could have been hers, if only.
even the "healthiest" option produces scars that will never quite heal.
Twilight is a horror. Twilight is a vampire novel. Twilight is gothic. Twilight is fiction. neither Edward nor Jacob is a "bad" choice because neither will give Bella her happily ever after. the choice between Edward & Jacob is simply a matter of which horror story you prefer to read.
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