Is It Just Me Or Have People Suddenly Started Using "the X Of Y" Instead Of "y's X" More? It Comes Off

The Four Millennial Horsemen of Things Not Yet Identified:

- a Jigglypuff as seen from above

- loss

- not lupus

- Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up

AND THEN OUT OF ALL OF THOSE THEY ALL USE THE SAME ONE (1) OUTHOUSE ANYWAY

REALLY NOW, MAGS. NO OUTHOUSES. NOWHERE TO SHIT.

One of the first "oh wow, theory can actually make the world seem less obtuse" moments I ever had was about perfume ads. It seemed to me like everyone had somehow decided TV perfume ads had to be weird but also that TV ads for perfume *must* exist and there was no other way for them to be.

I took a class where this came up and I finally read what's obvious to me in hindsight: The one sense that perfume appeals to is the least conveyable via any other senses. The closest thing to a straightforward pitch you can do with perfume is to list off its scent notes, but those aren't necessarily meaningful to most people, and even to those who know, we can't know how the scents work with each other and on our individual bodies.

So they sell some kind of fantasy of how the smell will make you feel instead. All ads for anything sell a fantasy, but perfume can't pretend like there's anything else there but the fantasy. It's like a distilled, pure kind of cynical consumerism there. Like the Eau de Parfum of capitalism, where other types of ads are Eau de Toilette.

A lot of things that seem like they came out of nowhere are easily explained. This isn't just a classic science/skepticism thing. There are historical, sociological, and cultural explanations that make the world seem a lot less weird to me.

Granted, the explanations can be horrifying rather than comforting. So much of what we consider to be American norms and values are just eugenics, for example. Still, I prefer wrapping my head around it to shrugging and ignoring.

This is all to say, the Gucci ad with Elliot Page, A$AP Rocky, and Julia Garner is more interesting to me than I thought it would be :3

Spoiler warning for relatively advanced level of plot in Hades 2. I've gotten pretty far in it.

I am beyond fucking heartbroken for Hades himself. I am devastated.

He fucked up raising Zagreus. Yes, he eventually reconciled, apologized, all that, but it took until Zag was well past childhood. Zag himself had to do the (flaming) leg(foot?)work to make it all happen, too.

By the true ending of Hades 1, you know that Hades knows that he fucked up with everyone, from his wife to his child to his Olympian relatives to his loyal Chthonic court members.

Melinoë is the child born of his rekindled relationship with Persephone. She is his chance to be a good father right from the get-go. He probably did whatever the Greek god equivalent of Lamaze classes and reading What to Expect When You're Expecting might be. I can imagine long and difficult yet loving conversations between Persephone, Hades, and Zagreus about how much they want the better version of their family to be the one that welcomes the new baby into the underworld.

And then, wham! Hades's own father shows up to be like "healing from ur toxic masculinity? learning that emotions are valid? caring about others? knowing better to do better? LOL BISH U THOUGHT" and takes it all away. Prior generations doing all they can to prevent cycle-breakers from healing. Too real.

I realized all this in the encounter where Hades tentatively and oh-so-tenderly asks after Mel's well-being and she responds with "LORD FATHER I AM AN INSTRUMENT OF VENGEANCE AND I HAVE NOT YET HAD IT SO HOW DO U THINK I AM DOING". Calling poor Hades "defeated" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Then, in the encounter right after that one, he expresses his regret that he, Persephone, and Zag weren't there to watch her grow up. And then HE ASKS HER WHAT HER HOBBIES ARE?!?! And seems saddened by the fact that her response is, yet again, "LORD FATHER I AM AN INSTRUMENT OF VENGEANCE AND I HAVE NOT YET HAD IT SO WHAT DO U THINK I DO WITH MY TIME". He is just so damn sad and full of regret.

He is the most dynamic character in the series, even without Hades 2 being unfinished. The series is named after him for a reason. Hades grows, changes, regrets, learns, all that.

My. Heart.

you know how I know you’re gay?

Went to Costco for my updated booster+flu shot. Pharmacist asks me if I've had any vaccines in the past 4 weeks. Yes, I reply. Which one, she asks? Monkeypox, baby 🏳️‍🌈

the virgin mainstream anglophone pop artist: DO NOT do things to ur appearance that I can notice, girl. I do not like it (:

the chad timeless bollywood crooner: the tinkle of your anklets and perfection of your eyeliner is sublime, oh love of my life. use your dupatta to lasso me in so that I can inhale the sweetness of your perfume

sometimes-overlooked bit of queer history

The practice of clinics, centers, bars, universities, organizations, etc. giving out free condoms, while menstrual hygiene products remain expensive, may seem like a patriarchal nod to the needs of cis-het men over those who menstruate.

It absolutely is not.

Handing out free condoms was, is, and always will be (as long as the patriarchy exists, anyway) a radical act. It is a result of the movement to mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS in the face of deathly inaction on the part of most mainstream institutions at the time.

That any of us ever believe that free condoms are a product of the patriarchy is a victory for the homophobic erasure of the fight against HIV/AIDS. I once fell for it, too, but it's simply untrue.

Yes to free condoms, and yes to free menstrual supplies.

Knowledge is knowing that it's Frankenstein's monster; wisdom is not looking for a lab coat when you Find Frankie.

British Egyptologists were the original weebs.

While it's true that drugs aren't never the answer, they definitely aren't always the answer.