Megatron's First Night After Battle

This tweet lives rent-free in my head now. Hands-down the best comment about the relationship between art and artist.

“Don’t allow your wounds to turn you into a person you are not.”

— Paulo Coelho

Every single odd number has an “e” in it.

Monument valley & cores by qing ying

“some people don’t deserve redemption” redemption isn’t something that’s deserved, it’s something someone does. it’s making the choice to change the way you live your life, to be better, to do good things instead of bad things and try to make up for the bad things. and everyone can and should do that, at any time, no matter what they’ve done. we can’t change the past, but we can choose what kind of person to be now and in the future. we have the responsibility to do so. it is so completely not about “deserving.”

Y'all

Im not on tiktok and never have been, but I downloaded RedNote just to see what is up, and I am witnessing something truly amazing

The Chinese user community is giving the American tiktok refugees an overwhelmingly warm welcome, meanwhile the American users seem to have collectively agreed that not only will they not let the app be taken over with English and they will provide Mandarin subtitles for everything, they are LEARNING MANDARIN. Ive scrolled through so many videos of Americans offering greetings in Mandarin to try to acclimate to the new environment and be respectful, and speakers of both languages are posting lots of tutorials on language basics and internet slang in Mandarin

My God, there is an AMAZING outpouring of curiosity and delight among everyone to learn about each others cultures and daily lives. People are posting videos of landscapes, cities, towns, and natural areas in USA and China, posting recipes and traditional foods, vlogs of everyday life, and reaching out to find people with similar hobbies.

And it's not just young people! There are loads of videos from middle-aged American guys who have come to post about fishing or motorcycles and are now happily chatting with Chinese users sharing the same interests using Google translate

One American guy who was like. in his 60's had a comment on one of his videos that was like "Red Neck?" and he replied "Yes!" and I just about fucking lost it

Also the Chinese users love, and I mean LOVE, Luigi Mangione. He is apparently broadly adored in China. There is SO much fanart and SO many edits.

There are many threads initiating Chinese users to ask questions of American users about the USA, and vice versa, and everyone on both sides is clearing up a lot of misconceptions. Some of the questions I saw a lot from Chinese users were: "Is it true that American parents kick you out of the house as soon as you turn 18" (not often, but sometimes) "Do you all really wear shoes in bed" (NO!!! Apparently a lot of characters in American sitcoms are shown lying in bed with shoes on which I never noticed before!) and "are there really guns everywhere" (yes).

For the most part Chinese content creators seem just overwhelmed by the sudden influx of hundreds of followers that are super enthusiastic about what they're doing. A lot of them have made posts about how initially they thought the uptick in follower count was some kind of error, or that there was some kind of joke or prank, but then they realized the interest and enthusiasm was genuine and now they're welcoming all the newcomers.

I found several posts by Chinese users saying that this felt like a really profound historical moment, where these previously separated worlds are suddenly smashing together and suddenly there is freedom to learn about each other's cultures and connect. One of them said something along the lines of "This is a 21st century Tower of Babel and even though I'm an atheist I hope God lets this tower stand." OUGH MY HEART.

The app itself works a little bit like a video-based version of Pinterest. It's not really my thing so I probably won't be on there long term but it's been amazing to see what's happening.

trope i really like is self-loathing characters desperate for the catharsis of punishment for frankly rather selfish reasons who r also obsessed with repeatedly pressing others into hating them and hurting them as essentially a method of self harm. yes baby continue making it worse for urself and everybody around u instead of doing an actually productive and effective journey of improvement

everyone needs to stop framing bill cipher as this flat static character that has no significant backstory because it’s pissing me off

due to the release of the book of bill AND the website unlocking new lore, we know that bill literally massacred his whole race/world in an attempt to liberate them through chaos as they denied his ability to see the third dimension

he spent his whole life up until that point being the only one to see the stars (that’s kind of fascinating if you ask me)

ALSO don’t forget that bill is a liar! so many people are jumping to conclusions and deciding that because bill said that he doesn’t care about what happened to euclydia, then he doesn’t care. don’t take his statements at face value because he’s fooling you too!

you have to look at the context and his actions. not only is bill lying to you (the reader) he is lying to himself! the example I’m thinking off is in the book of bill he talks about his childhood and describes how everyone loved him when we know that’s not true (because what he could see was illegal and taboo) after that, when he talks about the massacre everything gets blurry and he can’t fully describe it.

bill is lying to himself to soften the blows of reality. when people like time baby or his therapist try to ask him anything related to his past he clams up and won’t say a word.

he is lying to himself just like he lied to ford, just like he lied to dipper, just like he lied to mabel, and just like he’s lying to the reader.

he is constantly putting himself on a pedestal and convincing people that he’s the greatest! when he knows there’s something wrong and can’t even remember through all the lies he’s created!!!

this is not me saying that he’s an excusable villain (because he’s absolutely not) but me saying that he’s an multi-faceted character that people keep writing off as simple.