Love Is Friendship Set On Fire

anyone who told you much ado about nothing is good and worth watching was RIGHT and you should listen to them

@keuhkopussirotta / fleabag / jamie anderson / holly warburton / richard siken / mitski / aracelis girmay by @heavensghost / philip pullman

So apparently, over the summer, Quibi (the shortest-lasting streaming service ever lmao) did a quarantine project called “Home Movie: The Princess Bride” where a bunch of celebrities recreated The Princess Bride in tiny chunks at home.

And like there was no permanent cast, all these celebrities seem to have gotten a scene or part of a scene to do (i’m not sure exactly, I did not ever watch Quibi and thus haven’t seen this yet), and then they just… recreated it as best they could. At home. Under quarantine.

So like, you had Jennifer Garner in a blanket cape playing Princess Buttercup AND the Booing Old Woman with a crowd comprised entirely of stuffed animals:

Or Taika Waititi paying Westley off a badly-drawn Inigo on a piece of cardboard held in front of someone’s face:

And it’s all just delightful.

But my absolute favorite part of this thing that I’ve sadly never seen but assume is probably absolutely hilarious and a treasure and I want to find it some day and watch the whole thing… is that Carey Elwes is in it.

As Prince Fucking Humperdink.

I'm saying this from a place of genuine care: if you are seeing ghosts or shadows or having nightmares... and sageing, eggshells, Crystal's, and psychics arent cutting it..

Please.. please... check for things like gas leaks, water damage, vermin. I'm not saying your house isnt haunted, I'm just saying that carbon monoxide poisoning looks a LOT like being haunted.

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

Neil Gaiman

the friend zone isn’t real

To Hell with Those “Date a Girl Who...” Essays; Date Any Girl You Want

It seems like every other essay on ThoughtCatalog these days claims to have discovered the perfect kind of girl to date, the girl who will be your other half, the girl for the relationship that will finally work out this time. Date a girl who reads, they’ll say. She’ll spend hours in your bed with the latest novel, she’ll wear those round patterned reading glasses that make her look so sweet you could just eat her right up. Date a confident girl, they’ll say, a girl who isn’t afraid to wear black lipstick or dance on the bar with a dozen guys leering at her.

But the idea that girls come in prepackaged categories, that girls come in different kinds like Barbie dolls or chocolates, is bullshit. Date any girl you want, because no girl is perfect like what they’ll try to convince you of in those essays. A girl with anxiety who constantly worries about the color of her hair or whether everyone in her life is about to abandon her can still be the one you’ll want to be with for the rest of your life. A girl who has never read a book in her life can still teach you as much about love and adventure as a girl who reads voraciously every single spare second. A girl who would rather stay home and eat frozen pizza and watch old TV reruns instead of going out for drinks or heading to loud house parties can make you feel just as whole as the girl who wants to spend all her Saturday nights out on the town. And the girl who eats five thousand different versions of macaroni and cheese for lunch and dinner can still teach you about healthy relationships just as well as the girl who exercises several times a day and eats nothing but vegan flatbreads and salads.

Every single star in the entire galaxy comes in a different color, size, rate of decay than all the other stars. Red dwarfs, blue giants, pulsars - but they all still put on a spectacular lightshow. And although the death of some stars may end in the formation of other stars while the death of still other stars may end in black holes, each ending still paves the way for a new beginning. A relationship with all those girls you were told to date have just as much of a chance at ending in a black hole as a relationship with all those girls that were written out of the equation, just as all of them have an equal chance of ending as a beautiful star.

Because when you tell someone to date this kind of girl, you’re really saying, but don’t date this other girl. She’s not good enough. She doesn’t burn as brightly.

The Big Dipper Never Sets ✨

Look up on a clear night in the Northern Hemisphere, and chances are you’ll spot the Big Dipper — one of the most recognizable star patterns in the sky.

It’s not a constellation, but an asterism: a prominent shape made of stars that’s part of a larger constellation — in this case, Ursa Major, the Great Bear.

What makes the Big Dipper special is that it’s circumpolar — it never dips below the horizon at mid to high northern latitudes. Instead, it appears to rotate around Polaris, the North Star, staying visible all year long. As Earth spins and the seasons change, the Dipper slowly pivots through the night sky, pointing in different directions depending on the time of year.

For centuries, sailors, travelers, and stargazers have used the Big Dipper to find true north and navigate by the stars. Its reliability makes it both a celestial compass and a familiar anchor in the ever-shifting sky.

So the next time you’re under the stars, find the Big Dipper and know that you’re looking at a cosmic constant that has guided humans for generations.

so we've talked about southern gothic but what about northern gothic? is that a thing?

There wasn’t so we invented one!

Southern gothic is a conventional literary genre, but northern gothic fiction would just get encapsulated in the overall Gothic genre. BUT. Tumblr made a meme. Because of course we did. It’s here: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/regional-gothic.

So far I’ve found Midwest Gothic: here here and here

Southern California Gothic, which is  popular (because of fucking course): here here here here and fuckin here

Northern England Gothic: here and here and here

not to mention chucklefucking Alaskan Gothic: really? i mean really?? fuck you. fuck you alaska.

And fuck me there’s even Gothic subgenres for cities that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Kansas City. Minneapolis. Small town Michigan Gothic?? Toronto? Yeah fucking Toronto.

In fact, there’s assorted Canada Gothic? There’s  so much hell-forsaken Canada Gothic, too fuckin much. 

International Gothic? Fuck this. There’s So Much Australian Gothic. There’s Finland Gothic. There is so much more and I want nothing to do with it.

But the worse, the absolute worse of the whole satan-forsaken toxic hellpile: Ohio Gothic. I hate Ohio. I am. from. Ohio. I was born there. One day I will die there. I fear Ohio. Because in Ohio: “Holes in the sidewalk. Holes on the street. Holes on the freeway. Holes in your mind.” And Ohioans know: HELL IS REAL.

favorite video essays:

Why the Shining is terrifying

Why Perfect Blue is Terrifying

The VVitch explained

What makes a movie scary?

Decolonizing Games

Everything ACTUALLY wrong with Silent Hill 2: Revelation

The naked Lady that changed the rules of art

Rogue One vs Star Wars: the fault in our Star Wars

Sandra Bullock & the White Savior trope

Why the costumes in Little Women did NOT deserve an oscar

Why the music in the live action disney remakes is worse than you thought

Coco's feel-good oppression

Disney Princess: reality through fantasy

Pan's Labyrinth: the disobedient fairytale

The mythology of Princess Mononoke