My Attempts At Life

The Prince: Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts -

Enchantress:

And i come back to visit a year later and the motherfuckers have cemented fucking jagged rocks to all the support structures so nobody can sit on them i was fucking livid i hate this shit so much this man had the clothes on his back, a plastic bottle of booze, and a pack of cigarettes, and a place to rest. That’s it. That’s all he had and he still had the kindness and generosity to share what little he had with me, someone who didn’t need it at all

You know what come to think of it, i haven’t met a single homeless person who hasn’t at least offered me a cigarette or something when i’ve talked to them and you sons of bitches won’t even let them have a place to sit down for 5 fucking minutes

1. nils sjoberg

remember that time she wrote a song with calvin harris but used a different name? this is that name, on one of the gravestones. after releasing that she had actually written the summer hit “this is what you came for,” calvin harris, among others, threw a fit on twitter - even though it had been agreed that if calvin and taylor broke up, she could express that she had written the song.

2. the out of the woods dress

this blue dress probably looks familiar! it’s the same one she wore in the out of the woods music video, the last music video of the 1989 era. this poses the same frantic question, are we out of the woods yet? as this grave-digging taylor suggests, not yet.

3. here lies 2014 met gala taylor

at first glance, it just looks like the taylor from before laying there, but after pausing it and going back, one realizes that isn’t zombie taylor, rather 2014 met gala taylor. 2014 would have been the start of the 1989 era, and the out of the woods video was the end of it, thus: by the end of 1989 era, she was ready to “bury” it.

4. the dollar bill

if you look just next to taylor’s shoulder, you can see a good ole george washington. one single dollar bill. is this a reference to taylor’s sexual assault trial recently, and the one dollar she won then? most likely, because if you go to other shots of her in the tub that aren’t directly above her, the dollar bill isn’t there, meaning it was edited in later, which would explain how it got there so late in the game. it stands for the simple victories everyone else gets to celebrate, while she does the same things and gets flack for it.

5. et tu brute

a famous line from shakespeare’s julius caeser, “et tu, brute” means “and you, brute?” right as marcus brutus lands the fatal blow in julius caeser’s, his once-friend’s back. this is a metaphor for all the people that taylor thought she could trust, before they turned around and trashed her name.

6. the tea

probably pretty simple to grasp - the tea is hot. alternatively, she, the snake in the video, gets to serve the tea this time around, or, she gets to lay down her side of the story.

7. car crash + paparazzi

did you see what happened here, at face value? taylor was in an expensive vehicle that got in a head-on crash, but everyone just stood back and took pictures, instead of rushing over to help. is this a reference to all the times that everyone stood back, took pictures, and laughed at her when she was beaten down? yes.

8. the grammy

the grammy blends in with the gold of the car and her outfit, so it’s pretty easy to miss, but there it is, in her hand, even though the car crashed. perhaps the future is being predicted?

9. the birdcage + leg tattoo

look closely at taylor’s leg, and you can see what looks to be a snake tattooed there. not to mention, here she is entertaining in a birdcage, which is guarded. she’s trying to have fun in this prison, biting her tongue, being the girl everyone wants, but she longs to be let free.

10. robbing a bank/stream co., blind for love

besides getting major harley quinn vibes, what else do we notice here? taylor swift robbing a vault, which says “stream company.” remember that time that taylor wrote an open letter to apple music and called her money hungry, even though she was taking her music off to benefit poorer artists? yes, we do. this is what she’s referencing here. also, her shirt says “blind for love” which makes sense, because she frequently refers to herself as a hopeless romantic, someone who opens theirselves up for love, even if it means getting hurt.

11. the squad

without explaining anything else, this scene can be described as a crowd of blank faced people, staring at taylor swift, who stands upon a stage looking menacing, and impressing one message upon the crowd: u, squad. it’s reminiscent of all the times people said taylor swift was over, because her friends, fans, or sales were fake or temporary. this is like a visual representation of the comments people made about taylor forcing people to do things for her to create the image she desired.

12. fake friends

and here we have the mannequins of the girls from the prior scene, chopped up. this one is pretty straight forward, these “friends” that taylor thought she had sometimes turned out to be more fickle and “fake” than she thought. also, can we talk about how taylor’s red boots are reminiscent of kinky boots? because yes.

13. the dancers, i heart ts

before taylor enters the room, the dancers are goofing around, but the second she comes in, the jump to attention, and rip off their jackets to reveal shirts that say “i heart ts.” it’s a throwback to when tom hiddleston wore a shirt with the same message on the fourth of july in 2016, and everyone said that she had forced him to wear it. it’s the same thing as before with the squad - the world decided that she had forced all these people to love her, not that they actually did.

14. the fight for glory

every time you pause this video, you come across a different taylor. squirrel pajamas wanegbt taylor, 2015 bbma’s taylor, 2014 acm’s taylor, wanegbt red tour taylor, 2016 new years rockin’ eve taylor, sparkly guitar fearless tour taylor, bleachella taylor, ballerina shake it off taylor, 2016 vma’s taylor… the list goes on and on. here, you can see them all fighting and clawing, trying to stand on top. it reminds me of “i don’t like your kingdom keys, they once belonged to me,” and the parallels between long live and new romantics in that line alone. all those times, she thought she’d made it to a point in her career where she could be respected as much as other artists in her tier, only to harshly realize she was going to get her name ran through the mud for doing the same thing as everyone else. the fight for glory is steep, and unfair.

15. junior jewels

looks familiar right? not quite! it is the same theme of the shirt, but look closely at the signatures - they’re signatures of actual people this time around. names like ed, selena, este, lena, blake, and ryan, among others, can be seen on her shirt, representing the true friends that stuck with her through her reputation being bashed.

16. “SHUT UP!”

here, all the different versions of taylor are repeating things that the media or other celebrities had said about her, until finally 2009 vma’s taylor repeated the same thing that 2017 taylor said in an instagram post - “i’d very much like to be excluded from this narrative.” the entire time, you can hear camera shutters going off and people chatting, presumably the rest of the world watching as she got torn apart. when vma’s taylor makes this final statement, all the other taylor’s, as well as what sounds to be an entire off-screen crowd, yell “SHUT UP” before the screen goes black. this is a powerful image, and it’s supposed to be. all the times she suffered, and people told her that she was overreacting, faking it, or doing it for publicity. if you feel remorse for seeing young taylor getting yelled at, or sorrow for the taylors falling when she said “because she’s dead,” you’re doing it right. 

nothing in this video was an accident.

1. There are several ways to classify the large cats, one of the more useful ones is into the roaring cats (tigers, lions) and the purring cats (bobcats, lynxes). The puma (also known as the mountain lion) is the largest cat that purrs. I’ve heard it up close, it’s amazing. A cheetah’s purr sounds like an idling motorcycle engine.

2. Kangaroos cannot move their legs independently of each other, they have to move them in sync - when they’re on land. When they’re swimming, they can move them separately. Hopping is their most efficient way to move - a walking kangaroo is awkward as hell. They swing both legs forward using their tail as a third leg to prop up while their legs swing.

3. People often think that flamingoes’ knees bend the wrong way. They don’t - the joint you’re seeing in the middle of their leg isn’t their knee, it’s their ankle. Their knee is up by their body, and it bends the same way ours does.

4. Giraffes only sleep 1-2 hours a day.

5. Bald eagles’ vocalizations are not what you expect. When you see a flying bald eagle in the movies and hear that majestic caw sound? That isn’t an eagle, it’s been dubbed over with another bird, usually a red-tailed hawk. Bald eagles actually sound…not majestic. Kind of like if a kitten could be a bird.

6. Elephants are one of only a handful of animals that can pass the mirror test - in other words, they can recognize their own reflection (and not think it’s another animal, as dogs and cats usually do). They tested this by placing a chalk mark on an elephant’s forehead and then showing it a mirror. The elephant investigated the mark on its own forehead, indicating it knew that it was looking at itself.  The only animals that pass this test are the higher primates, the higher cetaceans (orcas, dolphines), elephants, and weirdly, magpies.

7. One-fifth of all the known mammal species are bats.

8. A kangaroo mother can have three joeys simultaneously at different stages of development: an embryo in her womb (kangaroos can do what’s called embryonic diapause which means sort of putting the development on pause until she’s ready for it to develop further), a joey in her pouch attached to one nipple, and a joey out of the pouch on the ground who nurses from the other one. The amazing thing? Each of her nipples make different formulations of milk for each joey’s different nutritional needs.

9. Bonobos, our closest genetic relative (they are more closely related to us than they are to either chimps or gorillas) are almost entirely non-aggressive, matriarchal, and use sex to solve all their problems. They engage in both same and opposite sex interactions, non-penetrative sex (oral, rubbing, manual) and with any age. That’s an interesting area to work in, lemme tell you.

10. Tortoises have super loud sex. Like, really loud.

11. All grizzlies are brown bears, but not all brown bears are grizzlies (grizzlies are a sub-categorization of the brown bear).

12. Reindeer are the only deer species where both males and females grow antlers. The males shed theirs the beginning of December, the females shed theirs in the spring. So all of Santa’s reindeer are girls, heh. I love telling little kids that.

13. If a rhinoceros knocks off its horn, it grows back faster than you’d expect. One of ours, Rosie, has knocked hers off twice.

14. Gorillas get crushes on each other. And on the humans that take care of them. Male gorillas also masturbate. I don’t know if the females do, I’ve never seen it. Sometimes it’s like a soap opera up in there.

15. Langur monkeys are silvery-gray in color - their babies are bright orange. Like Cheeto orange, I do not exaggerate.

Here’s a secret: it’s not OUR JOB to adapt to the market. It’s not OUR JOB to buy napkins and golf clubs and drive to the mall on the other side of town to make sure it doesn’t go out of business.

Did previous generations kill the horse and wagons after the car was invited? Did those lazy citizens kill the town crier by buying into that newfangled newspaper business?

What people want and are ready to spend their money on will change over time. Today we have different goals and different standards - like I will invite my friends over for dinner and instead of napkins I’ll put a roll of paper towels on the table. And my friends won’t clutch their pearls and hiss “you uncultured swine” at me, because we value that paper towels are cheap and efficient! Napkins may be pretty but some of them end up being unused, and I’ll have to throw them away after the dinner and it’s a fucking waste.

Did your mall end up as an empty husk outside of town because those pesky millennials buy all their clothes online now? You lucky son of a gun. Now you get to use your ~*IMAGINATION*~ and repurpose that ugly windowless box into something actually useful. Why not a nice office space? (x)

Or how about you make the old stores into cute micro apartments? I WOULD LOVE TO LIVE IN ONE OF THESE! (x)

Are the stores fine but the parking lot empty because those cheap hipsters would rather take a bus or bike to the mall instead of buying a car like regular people? Do like they did in Seattle and turn it into a fucking beautiful water treatment facility and park. (x)

This thing collects storm-water runoff to create and provide nutrients to small pools and green areas. It works like a natural creek that ALSO filters out pollutants that would damage the salmon population! AS A MILLENNIAL I CAN SAY THAT THIS IS SO FUCKING UP MY ALLEY YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I WOULD GO TO THAT MALL, BUY A COFFEE AND GO OUT TO LOOK AT THE BIRDS.

Actual fucking plovers. When was the last time a parking lot did something for the environment except gathering upp more roadkill for the scavengers?

I could also go into why no-one is watching shitty sitcoms or boring movies because we have access to so much media that we can filter out the generic stuff that doesn’t appeal to us, but that is an essay in itself. We are extremely capable on spending it on media that speaks to us though (hey this is unrelated but did you know that Wonder Woman has passed 570M$ worldwide?)

TLDR: Market powers are entitled and used to people spending an ever-increasing amount of money on their shitty products. When this trend turns they are too unimaginative and lazy to do something about it so instead they’ll whine about how their former customers are “killing” them.

I take police reports for a living. The number of people who will happily tell someone “Well officer, this fight started because I smoked crack cocaine earlier,” is astounding and also not at all illegal. The criminal charge is for Possession of a Controlled Substance. If you don’t possess any at the time, there’s no crime. The only thing you can get dinged for is if you’re actively on a drug and driving, in which case - DUI.