#lukewarm takes

[quantumfeat72]

ok i just had a humans-are-space-orcs thought

i grew up in bear country. like, the “you can’t leave food in your car because the bears will break your car and eat it” kind of bear country. so up there people make sure to teach their kids how to avoid getting eaten by bears. and you know the number one thing you do to avoid encountering a bear in the first place?

you make sure it hears you coming

if you’re hiking with a friend, you talk loudly the whole time. if you don’t want to do that, or you’re alone, you wear bells or something else that makes noise. because bears aren’t stupid, they know humans are trouble, and they don’t wanna fuck with you any more than you wanna fuck with them

like. think about that. bears are walking tanks. they can cave in the door to a house or move around a 500 pound dumpster like its nothing. you can shoot a bear with a gun and not do much more than piss it off. a bear could absolutely pick off one lone human on a hike for a free meal. but bears never hunt humans, and they rarely attack humans

like imagine an alien visiting earth and their human friend hands them a bell and says “when we go through here we gotta make sure the local apex predators know exactly where we are at all times”

and they’re like “...oh, yes, of course. the other predators on earth must have learned that they can’t kill a human, and it’s better to avoid a fight if you can”

and the human says “no, if a bear attacked us we’d die”

and they’re like, wait, what?? you want to give our exact location to something that could easily kill us? do you have a death wish??? and their friend is like, no, look, bears don’t fuck with humans if they can help it

not because they can’t, but because they know better

#humans #humans are space orcs #earth is space australia #space orcs #lukewarm takes #mine #and YES it is more complicated than that #but 'bears dont like to be startled and are more likely to attack if theyre scared and confused' #and 'they don't really hunt much of anything besides fish' #just don't quite have the same poetry to them. im a fiction writer not a scientist #i've been working on a prequel to that humans-are-space-orcs story i wrote forever ago #in part because it broke 1000 kudos which like #holy shit #but yeah i have a draft that i gotta work on some more but im hoping to have that out soonish #100 notes #DAMN that was quick :o #500 notes #1000 notes #5000 notes

[durnesque-esque]

So I was listening to "The Big Picture" talk about Maestro (which was possibly the most boring movie I've seen all year) and it occurred to me that it's basically Hamilton.

Man is obsessed with his work, his many works, he works so much and yet he has this beautiful wife he credits with supporting him through all his too much work and he has affairs on the side.

The only difference is in Maestro the wife dies first. The podcast framing of Maestro is what made me think of this - like the movie wants to show the wife as an equal part of the story, and yet it never really presents her as a full character or gives her much solo air time. On the podcast, Amanda makes the point that if the movie were really about Felicia, it'd be called "Maestra" and that's what made the Hamilton connection for me - that the ambiguous title was meant to allow folks to consider Eliza as well as Alexander.

But ultimately, Maestro is a whole lot of nothing out of what was a rather extraordinary, if also problematic, person. I mean, it's a fine movie - some of it very excellent, but mostly it feels like it didn't do much with the vast dramatic amount of material in Bernstein's life. There was so much plot in that life that got not really used or rendered at all by a very prettily shot film.

So yeah, Maestro is boring and less successful Hamilton.

#hamilton #maestro #lukewarm takes

[455wwwww]

"main character should be relatable to your audience" WRONG. DEAD WRONG.

MC should be amusing to watch

like the most weird kitten in the litter, like your favorite fish in the tank, like that one branch on the tree under your window which always catches your eye, like a lone ant going somewhere away from its peers, like a bird building its nest from wires, anti-bird spikes and cigarette butts, like a passing cargo train with its assorted wagons covered in graffiti and markings, like moon reflection in waves formed by departing ship, like tall grass bending under heavy wind, maybe even like a carnival you suddenly stumbled upon while mindlessly strolling, or even like that construction site next to your home — like anything else what makes you think "shit, I really need to do a whole bunch of much more important stuff but I just can't stop looking".

#writing #writelbr #writing tips #enri screams into the void #im just tired ok? #lukewarm takes #especially for this weirdo-obsessed site

[mlobsters]

my hottest supernatural take: the production quality of the show could be increased by a significant degree with a better musical score

#supernatural #spn musical score #i find lennertz occasionally good-inoffensive mostly but gruska often goes for the most cliche and bland option #it's perplexing! my emotional connection is often riding on the score and i get thrown off by the music on the regular #i was having emotions over the music picked for the fucking gag reel in hannibal today when looking for something #and was yet again struck by the difference music selection and original compositions make #i feel bad ragging on the composers all the time but it just blows. #lukewarm takes

[oddlysweet]

#PALESTINE #🙌🏽​🇵🇸🙏🏽🇵🇸🙌🏽 #lukewarm takes #it’s not rocket appliance

[the-cooler-phantomowlet]

writers who do the "girl character needs to choose between guy1 and guy2" bs and call that a love triangle are cowards and they can fight me

#lukewarm takes

[sepia-stained-sunset]

He's a fictional man who's been on this Earth for longer than I have. He doesn't need me fighting his battles

#the number of batfamily members this could apply to though #lukewarm takes

[largestliar]

I do not like how The Jokester was post credits scene for The Batman movie personally I woulda preffered Scarecrow or Mr. Freezd they have a lot more potential they havent explored in movies. Thank you for listening to my opinion on a year old movie.

#the batman #mr. freeze #scarecrow #the joker #lukewarm takes

[medusapetrichor]

semi recently i was precomatose in the icu because of an automated technical malfunction and when i mentioned this to one of my medical team the other day he was like "you seem pretty unbothered at that", and my thought was well it's not like it was a design flaw or anything so what's the point being bothered if i a) have nobody to be bothered at and b) am glad and happy to have survived so why shouldn't i celebrate that instead of moping (however this is my attitude towards myself, other people are a completely different matter)

anyway this is going to be an increasingly interesting train of thought/conversation to be had at some point, the more we become reliant on tech, algorithms and ai in general in our lives and infrastructure

at some point things will happen where blame needs to be placed and i feel like we should start thinking about that earlier rather than when it inevitably happens on a large scale

#health tech #tech reliance #tech ethics #ai #corporate ai #voice assistance services #self driving vehicles #look at me dreaming about justice over here #disability tumblr #disability #chronic illness #autonomous vehicles #lukewarm takes

[purelyutilitarian]

I’m a firm believer in the idea that “Reg” is pronounced both Regg (rhyming with egg) (short for Regulus) and Redge (rhyming with edge) (short for Reggie which is short for Regulus) and it’s up to the reader to decide who is saying what.

In my opinion, Sirius’ friends all say Redge because Sirius has always called him Reggie. Regulus’ friends say Regg because Regulus never allowed them to say Reggie, and only around fourth year did he start to begrudgingly allow the shortening of his full name.

#regulus black #lukewarm takes

[emilnikos]

I need non autistic people to realise meltdowns are a real debilitating thing that has a serious effect on your mental and physical health NOWWWWW!!! The way its been trivialized and lessened pisses me the fuck off. It's not a tantrum and it doesn't come from "being too weak-willed" it's painful and it's embarrassing AND MOST OF ALL IT'S INVOLUNTARY!! Don't claim to be an ally to autistic or disabled people and then make fun of people who have meltdowns. Literally get the hell out of my sight

#i can't believe i have to day it but autism /is/ a disablity. its disabling. meltdowns are part of that. #'oh this is a lukewarm take' you dumbshit fucks have been throwing the word neurodivergent and meltdown around so #casually they have both been said at me with the same disdain as a swear word. you guys will accept making fun of autistic people #if someone jn your circle who is 'cool' does it first. at your big ages. shut the hell up

[quantumfeat72]

did i ever tell y’all my way-too-serious analysis of carly rae jepsen’s hit song “call me maybe”

cause like, my hot take about that song is that it’s way more interesting if you take it at its face a bit more than most people do. like yeah it’s a song about a girl giving her number to a guy she just met, but there’s another layer to it if you actually pay attention to the verses

i threw a wish in the well don’t ask me i’ll never tell i looked at you as it fell and now you’re in my way

i think most people assume the “wish” she’s referring to here is a wish for a man, but to me the implication is that it's for something else - fame, fortune, what have you - but is corrupted on the way down, when this dude gets in her way

actually, the phrase “in my way” is used a lot in this song - not to mean “in my face” or otherwise metaphorically calling attention to itself, but literally in the way of what the girl really wants. case in point:

i’d trade my soul for a wish pennies and dimes for a kiss i wasn’t looking for this but now you’re in my way

here she lines up two potential trades as an explicit contrast - her soul for a wish, her soul for whatever she threw into that well, but for a kiss? pennies. dimes. she follows that with “i wasn’t looking for this,” not to imply that she’s fortunate, but to emphasize that this isn’t what she wanted and express her frustration as she realizes that this is also something she wants

i don’t have anything to say about the pre-chorus, chorus, or bridge, so on to the second verse:

you took your time with the call i took no time with the fall you gave me nothing at all but still you’re in my way

here she’s expressing that, yeah, she doesn’t know this guy and more importantly, he doesn’t know her and hasn’t shown any signs of being interested in her - at least not like she’s interested in him. it shows a self-awareness that people tend to assume is absent from this song: that she knows it’s a stupid crush. she knows it’s not important. this song is about that! it’s about the way her infatuation with this random dude has taken up so much more space in her head and heart than it has any right to - he gives her nothing, but he’s still in her way

i beg and borrow and steal at first sight and it’s real i didn’t know i would feel it but it’s in my way

and here, she shows a sort of acceptance of her feelings, describing them as real, even though they were unexpected. she also, for the first time in the song, distinguishes them from the guy himself - “it’s in my way”, not “you’re in my way,” which i think shows a bit of like, growth? changing characterization on the part of the singer? idk

tl;dr “call me maybe” is... i mean it’s not deep, exactly, but it’s deeper than you thought

#lukewarm takes #mine #sorry for the lack of art recently #im in a weird limbo between life situations rn so even when i have time i've been kinda distracted #oh i don't think i've mentioned here that i graduated #with a bs in math & highest honors lol #i'm gonna become a bureaucrat

[strawby-jelli]

Okay so I just watched a video of a boy who once identified as trans still got bottom surgery after he realized he was cis and people were so fucking rude? Like just because this cis dude has a vagina people were calling him transphobic and wishing death upon him.

So this is a reminder that when we as a community advocate for bodily autonomy and gender surgeries that means everyone regardless of gender can do whatever they want with their bodies.

If someone who is cisgender wants top/bottom surgery THEY CAN GET IT. If someone wants facial plastic surgeries that we usually find creepy like buccal fat removal or eye lifts THEY CAN GET IT. And here’s the really controversial one but if someone wants to do things that harm their body like hard drugs or diy mods THEY CAN DO IT!

Because body autonomy isn’t just “I can get bottom surgery to pass” or “I can get an abortion” it’s also all the wild stuff that makes us uncomfortable and that’s okay.

#hot take that should be lukewarm #body autonomy #gay rights #trans rights #lgbt #lgbtqia #queer #queer punk #madpunk #bisexual #lesbian #gay #pansexual #asexual #aroace #aromantic #genderqueer #gender nonconforming #agender #bodily rights

[aphrocheesiac]

I have now seen a minecraft free Palestine post as well as a bionicle one. Like, your heart is in the right place, I support you, I think it's great you're using your art to show support, and I'm sorry that my gut reaction to those posts is to laugh. It's just hard to take a political message seriously from a toa or a steve.

#Lukewarm takes #minecraft #bionicle #Please send me more of these unhighed Fandom fp posts #I weirdly love how earnest they are

[mlobsters]

supernatural s15e1 back and to the future (w. andrew dabb)

find it a little weird that they're using the bob seger famous final scene song for the season premiere big recap thing, they used this song in an episode - for kevin's funeral pyre in 9x10. maybe they've reused a song like that (poignant moment within an ep and then a recap, they reuse recap songs certainly) before and i just didn't notice, did this time because that song is in my main playlist from when i watched that s9 episode. typing all that up, what a pointless thing to care about. not sure i vibe with the clips and music selection but they're really hit or miss for me in general. music thematically, yes. anything else, ehh

also been thinking like. i don't see why s13-14 (and 15 remains to be seen, obviously) are said to be so much worse than say, s7-12 (though 11 had bright spots for me not seen since way, way back - or hey, better than *gasp* s1-5 at times because it occasionally focused on good feelings in a way that was just not happening before.) and i'm sure i'm in the minority yet again but i just haven't particularly liked the main plots for most of the seasons. and while i had some big issues with s6, it didn't go campy-ridiculous for me until the leviathans. and again, for me, pretty much everything since has gone that direction. some not campy, but all pretty ridiculous. i tolerate, not delight :S but i'm here for the characters and relationships, so i keep on keeping on.

anyway. dark and jittery longer than i deem necessary battle in the graveyard which somehow became not a death sentence in between the season break

DEAN Great. So we go outside, we get ripped apart. We stay in here, w-what, starve to death?! CAS Well, I wouldn't starve. DEAN Well, good for you.

LOL good one, cas

CAS He's an abomination! BELPHEGOR You're an abomination with that stupid, dumb trench coat.

ooh burn. and so true

BELPHEGOR I mean, the last time I was on Earth, I mean, I was human. Ah, it was a while ago. I mean, but, you know, we were all worshipping this giant rock that looked like a huge penis, and... Anyway, folks back then, you know? Had a lot of humps. I mean, a lot. Look at 'em now. I mean, look at you. I mean, you're, uh, you know, gorgeous. DEAN What? Okay. When are you gonna get out of that body? BELPHEGOR Eh, when I find another one. I mean, I would've jumped at the cemetery, but all those meat suits were a little too, uh, you know, wormy. Difficult to blend, if you will

giving me leonardo dicaprio accent/cadence there with the wormy bit. weird. also mentioned dicaprio way back when he was in that nougat scene in 13x01. anyway, i mean this is something. can't resist the whole new character for the same actor thing. but seems like a more fun role for calvert

music they've got playing while sam and cas search the houses is pretty unique. i like it. this really muffled deep fast percussion. miracle. and jay gruska?? okay, i see you!! look at you, sir!!! finally coming up with a win

the killer clown makeup, good!

the blood mary wig and makeup, HORRENDOUS. reminds me of the knockoff ringu girl in 7x18. called it party city costume and makeup 🤪

spn s7e18 party on, garth

handy that the spell that needs a human heart, there's an abundance of freshly dead people around. i don't have the energy to even ponder what this demon's agenda is

BELPHEGOR What? Oh. No. I-I mean, uh... – I'm a fan. DEAN Excuse me? BELPHEGOR Yeah, I-I didn't want to say it in front of the other guys, but when you were in Hell, with Alastair, I, uh... I got a chance to watch you work. And, I mean, the things you did to those people, I mean, it wasn't torture. It was, um... It was art. DEAN Yeah, but that was a long time ago. BELPHEGOR Depends how you look at it.

dean surprisingly chill about this conversation. far more chill than i am. maybe he's been doing some work

so every door in hell opened, including the cage. ok. so is that how they finally address adam?

stupid god weapon which i assumed was lethal no matter what, well. festering at least.

and some sort of hallucination flashback vision who knows what i don't know what with evil!sam and dean begging sammy. great, visions 3.0?

lol, seen the gag reel gif from this scene where misha calls him dean instead of sam

it's fun that they're doing new spellwork magic stuff with a character, but. clearly it's gonna be some big Thing, what with how useful and powerful it is

not remembering why dean's being snippy with cas. i guess because he doesn't want to talk about jack dying? they've pretty well glossed over it

little more fester-y. needed some gooey bits to dab off with the gauze

DEAN Okay. Hey, do you remember when we were little? What I would do to distract you whenever I'd rip off a Band-Aid or something like that? SAM Yeah. You'd tell some stupid joke. DEAN Yeah. Knock, knock. Come on. Knock, knock. SAM Who's... DEAN Still got it.

cute cute. i don't care if it's pandering i will take any and all pre-series anecdotes

SAM Yeah. So, when Chuck… God… said "This is the End," I guess this is what he meant. DEAN Yeah, well. Screw him. He's been playing us this entire time. Just when we thought we had a choice. You know, whenever we thought we had free will. We were just rats in a maze. Sure, we could go left. Sure, we could go right. But we were still in the damn maze. Just makes you think, if all of it… you know, everything that we've done… What did it even mean? SAM It meant a lot. We still saved people. DEAN Yeah, but what for? You know? Just so he could throw another End of the World at us and then sit back and chug popcorn? SAM Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But… now he's gone. DEAN You think? SAM That's what he does. He gets bored and… and… and… and pulls the ripcord. I mean, that's what he did with Apocalypse World and… and probably with all of them. He moves on, starts another story. But you know what? Good. 'Cause if he bailed, it's just us. For the first time. It's just us. DEAN And about three billion ghosts. SAM Yeah, well, what's one more Apocalypse, right? But, seriously, if we win… When we win this, God's gone. Hm. There's no one to screw with us. There's no more maze. It's just us. And we're free. DEAN So you and me versus every soul in Hell? I like those odds. SAM Yeah, me too. DEAN Well, you know what that means. We got work to do.

also will always accept sam and dean vs the world

i'm not totally understanding this jumping to the conclusion that chuck is gone-gone. what with his repeated stated desire last episode that they're his favorite show. would presume he's just orchestrating his big farewell season arc

jay, it was too much to ask for good music throughout, i know. the music backing sam and dean's conversation at the end made me roll my eyes lol

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 15x01 #spn musical score #jay gruska #andrew dabb #lukewarm takes

[oddlysweet]

Rami Khouri on DemocracyNow!

#lukewarm takes #iydknyk #free palestine #🙌🏽​🇵🇸🙏🏽🇵🇸🙌🏽