#*obligatory worm joke*

[daily-beau]

Day 28: Hold him like burgur

[ju-draws-worms]

worm joke read my fan novella

[wormbraind]

lmao look at this loser imagine reading worm. ward forever baby

if this post gets 1944784 notes i will read ward

[anakinsafterlife]

Thoughts on Dune Part 2

All right, friends. Dune Part 2. I absolutely picked the wrong time to start wanting to return to Tumblr, since I'm currently in the thick of Ramadan, but c'est la vie. I'm a bit worried that if I don't review now that I might forget my specific impressions of the movie, though I have to say that if this weren't Ramadan that I absolutely would be going back to see it again in the cinema, which says a lot considering that it's been at least ten years since I've actually wanted to go back and repeat a film instead of just waiting for it to come out on streaming/DVD.

So the movie is good. It is in fact very, very good. It's the Empire Strikes Back of the Dune duology (possibly trilogy), and (much like Empire) in terms of cinematography, music, scripting and acting it's nearly flawless. There are, however, issues, things that might not occur to a majority-Western audience but which are immediately clear to anyone who either comes from an Arab or Muslim background.

What follows here is a deep dive into some of the historical and cultural sources of Dune and some of the ways in which the movie producers, and in some cases fans, have failed to acknowledge those sources.

First of all, it's obvious that the Fremen are meant to be based on the Arabs, but of the the entire main cast there is only ONE actor with an Arab background, and that is Souhaila Yacoub, the half-Tunisian actress who plays Shishakli, the female Fremen warrior who is executed by the Harkonnens. Now, I have to say that this woman was fantastic. Her attitude is completely on point for an Arab, especially a North African Arab: forceful, loud, a bit brash and mocking even under fire. Nicely done. Points to the producers there, but I have to take that point away again because she is literally the only Space Arab who is actually Arab. Javier Bardem, the Spanish actor who plays Stilgard, does have some interesting moments and one of the reasons why I feel that the screenwriters were advised on Arabic traditions/culture. The incident during which he warns Paul about the Jinn in the desert like it's a joke but then immediately turns extremely serious when Paul starts smiling is so in character for an Arab and honestly just a brilliant bit of scripting, but much of the time he also acted more or less like what people *think* a fanatical religious Arab acts like--loud, frantic and unstable.

Not only this, but the "Muslim" behaviour/traditions in the film are at best...vague. People are praying, but in any direction at all. I do realize that this would be a complicated issue on another planet, where the Ka'aba couldn't be pointed to, but there are Islamic rulings for EVERYTHING. Check out the one about praying in space:

Even if they had as a society simply picked a random direction for prayer, they should all be praying at the same time and in the same direction (they seem to do this in larger crowds, but not in the smaller group where we first see people praying). They also definitely shouldn't be talking during prayer or trying to make other people talk to them during prayer (as Chani does), since talking breaks your prayer and you have to start over all over again (during obligatory prayers).

Language, too, is an issue, and a big one, because while I do understand that a conlang was developed for use in this movie, the linguists consulted did know that the language was meant to be heavily influenced by Arabic. Consequently, they've included a lot of fragmentary Arabic in their work. Unfortunately this Arabic is poorly pronounced at best, to the point where I was looking words up and laughing at what they're meant to be based on. For example, "Shai Hulud," the word for the Worms, is based on the Arabicشيء خلود, which means "immortal thing," and should be pronounced with "shai" rhyming with "say" followed by a glottal stop, and the 'h' in "Hulood" is actually a guttural sound like the infamous "ch" in Bach, followed by a long U. Another example is Mua'dib مهذب , a real word in Arabic that means "teacher," but is is actually pronounced with a "th" sound instead of a d and emphasis on the second syllable, not on the last as in French. (Note: I made an error here. There is a word مؤدب , pronounced mostly the same in the movie, but with a glottal stop after the 'u' sound and a short 'i' after the d sound rather than a long vowel, that is usually used to mean polite, urbane, gentlemanly, etc. but which can also mean teacher, although I have never heard it used in this context) "Usul", أصول, Paul's other Fremen name, was likely not, as I had previously guessed, based on the word "Rasool," meaning Prophet, but on أصول الفقه the Principles of islamic Jurisprudence, which also ties directly into a religious/prophetic them. Again, this is pronounced on the long vowel, so with a short first U and a long second U.

I've included the Arabic spellings in here, by the way, so that you can drop them into Google translator and hear how they actually sound.

Now, I do realize that the story itself is set 8000 years in the future and that spoken Arabic as a language would have changed considerably in that time, if it existed still at all, but Arabic is a liturgical language as well as a vehicle for conversation, and Muslims all across the world today use it as a tool for worship. Muslims who have no cultural connection with Arabic often still learn it in order to connect more deeply with religious traditions and simply to perform prayers and other religious duties. Religious scholars consider it to be a necessary duty of the Muslim to learn at least some Arabic:

And keep in mind that the Arabic spoken today across the MENA region is very different (and different in different places) to the Arabic spoken 1400 years ago by the Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him). Given Islamic traditions, the chances of the Fremen using liturgical/classical Arabic for their worship would be quite high, even if their spoken language had evolved past the point of being recognizably Arabic.

Keep in mind, also, that Dune as a whole is an allegory for colonialism, economic exploitation of poorer nations (or making rival nations poor through the same), as well as dehumanization of the views and needs of native peoples in order to make that exploitation palatable to the occupying forces (I thought that this was done quite smartly in Jessica's part of the story; although she is sympathetic to the Fremen, she feels that manipulating their religious traditions is the best way to protect her son, and in doing so she allows herself to dehumanize the people who come to rely on her).

It is, therefore, incumbent upon us not to distance ourselves too much from the intended message by claiming that Dune is fiction and need not too accurately reflect the culture and religion of the people that the Fremen are so clearly based on. The fact that the producers have done little to hire Arab actors or induced any real effort to accurately pronounce the Arabic words or accurately portrayal Islamic practices seems to indicate that they are concerned about identifying too closely with the economic and cultural struggle between East and West, properly because they fear the potential economic backlash, and this despite the fact that Frank Herbert clearly wrote his book to illustrate the fallout of that struggle.

Here is a wonderful article written by a culturally Arab woman:

There are numerous other articles addressing the same issues, but I like this one because it's written by a Muslim woman, who also addresses the "hijab cosplaying" in the movie. I didn't get into that much, but I definitely recognize that it's a problem when Muslim women worry about potential violence while wearing hijab in the streets of Western nations, but the same article of clothing is fetishized in movies and fashion.

I've also seen some comment about the Mahdi mention in particular. This is a saviour-figure in Islam who will come near the end of the world. There is no emphasis on this figure in Sunni Islam, but Shias seem to have a significant body of literature concerning this figure and, from what I understand, believe that he may perhaps have already come, and so there has been some poor reception in that community to applying the label of Mahdi to Paul. Criticisms ranging from insensitivity to outright blasphemy have been levelled regarding this usage. Now, there was some tip-toeing around the prophetic theme in Dune, and rightly so, I believe, since the Prophet Mohamed is the "seal of the prophets" in Islam, meaning the last and final. The fact that Paul was essentially set up as a false prophet by the Bene Gesserit does avoid some of the potential fallout from this, and also makes sense of Chani's rejection at the end of the film, since she felt strongly about Paul acting as a false Prophet.

Again, I am aware that there is internal cosmology within the series itself, and that some fans object to the religion of the Fremen being referred to as Islam, but when the inspiration for the entire ethnicity, religion, and the natural resources at stake are as clear as they are in this series, it's also futile to expect that people will not draw those associations, nor that people belonging to the religion or ethnic group in question may not acknowledge the beauty of the movie, the gorgeous cinematography, rousing music, and tightly plotted story, but still take exception to what is clearly Orientalism.

And it is frankly such a shame that we have to place this movie under that header, because the story of Dune is so sympathetic to the Middle East and its peoples, and as I said in the beginning I actually loved the film and found it very beautiful. It was also exciting to see Islamic themes used creatively in mainstream media, but while Frank Herbert clearly wrote the story as an exposition on the exploitation of natural resources, particularly oil, in the MENA region, the truth is that the racism and exploitation that he was protesting are very much alive today and contribute to the oppression of millions. It's particularly disappointing to see the message of the movie sail over the heads of people watching it when Arab Muslims in Palestine are being dehumanized and obliterated at this very moment, and while Libya was one of the latest Arab nations to be targeted for its oil resources, only a decade ago, with European oil companies moving in directly after the downfall of Ghadafi (which makes the timing extremely suspicious, one might say):

And even after the US finished their occupation of Iraq, Western oil companies remained en mass to continued drilling:

Egypt to this day remains economically destabilized while Western nations exploit its oil stocks, to no benefit at all of its peoples:

I'm sure I could cite dozens of other cases, but it's clear that there is a one-on-one parallel between spice melange and oil, making any protests of apoliticism in an inherently political story utterly vain.

I could go on, but I needn't. In short, this beautiful movie could have done so much good even beyond its obvious artistic merits, but instead it is still towing the political line. Much as was the case for Jessica and Paul, sometimes you can be a Harkonnen and not know it.

[vigilskeep]

thoughts on handersbela? just in general, since you’re so good at thinking about dragon age

this is VERY good timing... i have been thinking lately of Them

i read a little snippet of andersbela fic the other day that wormed its way into my brain... theyre so interesting. putting them in a terrarium to study. with isabela’s avoidance of causes and anders constantly dwelling on his, they’re natural foils who can be lighthearted with each other and also have genuine discussion that brings out a unique philosophical side in isabela plus anders’ humour and slips of i think mixed frustration and admiration at the life she leads. their approach to relationships would create so many sparks (and not just in the bedroom. okay ive made my obligatory joke about them canonically having sex) with anders’ desperation for attachment while he can get it and isabela’s desperate avoidance of the same, and isabela’s need to take care of herself first and foremost and anders being self-sacrificing to the point of self-destruction. with my preference for red hawke i like hawke as a fierce solid support for anders and isabela as someone to lighten and distract; hawke to defend and stand by isabela as no-one has and anders to be gentler and affectionate with her as no-one has but also to challenge her to be everything she’s capable of. but with other hawkes there’s so much you can do too. the POSSIBILITIES

the idea of hawke holding onto them and them both convincing themselves they can risk having this one thing just for a little while... um some assorted thoughts. i think the classic arishok duel aftermath with anders desperately trying to save hawke’s life afterwards and isabela with her heart in her throat knowing it’s her fault is peak drama of all time. i think anders moves in and isabela always leaves in the morning and one time she can’t move because the stupid great big dog got in and laid down on top of her and she likes waking up with them so much and the whole day is full of light and she doesn’t come back for weeks after. i think isabela insists on anders’ terrible lute playing. i think anders doesn’t wear a hawke favour bc he has malcolm’s honour but one day he finds a hole in his coat skilfully patched with a square of blue and gold that doesn’t match at all. i think isabela never fights with as much brash cackling confidence as when she knows anders will heal her before she even stops to realise she’s taken a hit (obligatory “my hands look like this (glowing spirit healer magic) so my girl can look like this (sexy armour)” joke) and anders never feels as safe as when he knows he can count on her to appear out of nowhere to watch his back. i think she’d fascinate justice. i think anders is so bitchy abt her act break disappearing act and isabela snaps right back and that they always make it up to each other repeatedly. i think anders doesn’t understand why isabela keeps leaving and she doesn’t understand how he can bear not to keep moving

they both love hawke so much and they’re both so terrified of what it’s going to do to hawke, is the thing. i was vividly imagining them the other day (i really do mean it when i said this ask was good timing) and there was this rough wistful act 3 dialogue in my head that went like... isabela out of nowhere tells anders he should marry hawke and get out of kirkwall and have a dozen glowing children who talk too much. and he’s vaguely amused and disbelieving as they chatter through the hypothetical (“who’s going to marry us, then? the chantry?” “ship’s captain! right here! you get any old revered mother instead of me and i’ll scratch her eyes out”) but eventually he shakes his head, and says quiet, tired, “if only i could run away anymore.” and then he raises an eyebrow, and says, you should marry hawke. yeah? yeah, marry hawke, get out of kirkwall. have a dozen pirate children with no manners. win each of them a dozen ships to sail. and they laugh through the hypothetical and she says, “it’s almost a shame i’m not the marrying type.” and they both kind of sit there with the knowledge that hawke has lost so much and they’re inevitably going to leave them alone

and then because i’m a sap the last straw is isabela’s chance to step up and fight for what’s right and what’s hers without running away, and anders isn’t cast aside like he always expected but fought for no matter the odds, and hawke gets out of kirkwall and onto the open sea, sailing off with their loves to free the rest of the mages and to learn how to laugh again. and then corypheus rises and hawke is the one to leave them behind after all

also the champion of kirkwall and their bf and gf who can’t stop getting kirkwall burned down is, like, so funny. can’t you three do this at home.

those are my thoughts sorry it got long and silly and embarrassing its late and i love them both so much

[mbari-blog]

Here it is, your obligatory annual dad joke: Why do worms make such great friends? Because they're so down to earth. 🙃⁠ ⁠ Anchinothria fissurata is a deep-sea polychaete worm. Polychaete worms are related to the earthworms we often see in our gardens, but in the deep sea, these worms are incredibly diverse and live in an assortment of habitats. On the seafloor, polychaetes burrow in deep-sea mud, crawl along the sea bed or rocky canyon walls, colonize super-heated hydrothermal vents, and even eat decaying whale skeletons. ⁠ ⁠ They have segmented bodies with paddle-like feet or parapodia on each segment. Most have bristles or chaetae that they use for defense or crawling. They are common in the ocean—about 8,000 species have been described so far—but many new species are still being discovered.

[unhonestlymirror]

I was thinking about why do I feel so good in Lithuania and it helped me to realize something about myself.

Despite the big desire to be accepted by my peers, I've always been sort of... a conservative traditionalist. I am pretty non-ambitious, not a fan of abuse of power, I do not tolerate drastic changes that well, it takes quite a lot of time for me to adapt, I'm not a big fan of fashion - I just monitor it and make my own thing, my life views are rather old-fashioned too and my moral codex is way too strong to immediately achieve from society anything I want... but strong enough to protect someone's honor. XD I'm rather a quiet book-worm mouse... unless I'm laughing or arguing. In real life, I do not even argue that much... And it was pretty hard to accept who I am because my society in Ukraine values completely the opposite qualities.

In Ukraine, people always told me that I must have been ambitious, I must have been the fastest and the strongest to achieve something... Although these words are true, they only demotivated me more. I just wanted to give up on everything more. I just wanted to live in a society which would accept me as I am and give me some time to adapt, in a society in which I wouldn't have to fight for my social status every single day, this was so exhausting. I'm a slow tempo person, I can achieve anything if I am not pushed hard, if I am not psychologically abused.

Why do we have so many good creators from Ukraine? Because in Ukraine, the amount of criticism you receive every day is just insane. Even if you are really good at what you do. Ukraine as a country is like a huge mom - no matter how hard you try, you will never be good enough for her. To develop here, you must be both criticism-resistant and attention-addict. Being born in Ukraine gave me some critic-proof features but it didn't give me desire to share with the world more. It definitely gave me some good sense of humor and ability to destroy anyone in an argument - but it also made me a very closed person and secretly deeply unhappy about my life.

In Lithuania, people are very calm, very chill, very polite and they have very genuine reactions, they do not wear this fake happiness on their faces which is obligatory in Ukraine if you do not want to get in trouble. In Lithuania, they don't chase victory like a lathered horse, they just calmly walk towards their goal without any stops. They do not mock you if you show them your "weak" side. They are pretty straightforward and they like justice. I do not have to compete with everyone for everything here. I am not afraid to be soft here. I am not afraid to be slow here. I am not afraid to be myself here.

It also sort of played a bad joke with me because... of course, I am no longer able to achieve things I was able to achieve before. The war, the emotional and physical burn-out, the simple growing old - I am not as strong as people wanted me to be. I have my own limits - but only in Lithuania I feel like they are being respected. I've always been the one taking care of people, making them feel better - and in Lithuania, I've realized that I've wasted myself and I actually want someone to take care of me and making me feel better, too. In Ukraine, you always have to give all of yourself - and I no longer want this. I don't have an eternal energy generator inside of me. I want to give a bit of myself in exchange for the equal.

[eastgaysian]

tg was fun when it was some people who picked up on a weird dynamic between the most boring white men in the world. like it was funny it was half-joking. now its the yaoi bait that hooked a bunch of taylor swift stans who need a tomgreg microdose every fifteen minutes to pay attention to the story

LMFAO honestly though 💀 obligatory disclaimer that i'm bitching on my own blog etc etc it's Shows and Posts Online. me being annoyed by something is not a moral indictment i'm just a hater and i try to cultivate my online space to be enjoyable. i get easily irritated by perspectives on succession that feel reductive or like deliberately putting horse blinders on, which happens with a lot of fans, but it feels most common or most egregious with tg posting. probably because at this point a lot of fans are tg fans specifically and also because the generalized approach to 'shipping' tends to be limited in focus. whole other can of worms.

anyway it's just like. poisonposting was funny. roadrunner wile e coyote posting was funny. i do not think u need to be themes and narratives posting all the time. i love to hehe and haha. It's just fucking bonkers to me to watch a show and talk about it and say you enjoy it and completely refuse to engage with like. The core thematic ideas and basic plot of it. Why are you talking about yaoi a man has died please put your dick away. Yes sorry the episode is going to be about business and politics in the business and politics show.

it's also insane to me to take away the elements of a character dynamic that are genuinely funny and interesting and unique in favor of making featureless white boy pair #187936782 to be copy pasted into whatever aus and tropes migratory slash fandom is obsessed with at the moment. and then getting really mad about '"''""queerbait''""''" like look me in the eyes right now. Write me a 5 page essay about the significance of greg's reference to prison rape in his bathroom scene in return and what it reflects about how succession depicts sexuality. Quickly.

they suck. they're weird and bad. tom is only interested in (can only justify) being gay when it's imbalanced and coercive. greg is a spineless self-interested slimeball who's too stupid to be truly altruistic or effectively malicious. that's what makes it fun. please stop acting like it's not weird and bad. it's not not not not romantic but more importantly it's weird and bad and funny on your tv screen. That's what tg swag is about

[miiilowo]

obligatory william "i always come back" joke except hes a brain worm

literally I'm in hell

[autilesbian]

rating people’s reactions to finding out i an autistic

‘you don’t look autistic’ obligatory 0/10

‘then how can you read??’ ? i don’t think you know what autism is, 1/10 point for funny

‘girls can’t be autistic’ jokes on you I’m non-binary 0/10

‘oh worm?’ 5/10

‘i know’ 8/10 bitch don’t clock me like that

‘is that true?’ 4/10, 5 points for funny but -1 for thinking I would lie about that

‘damn you can write with both hands the same?’ I’m begging you to pick up a dictionary. that’s ambidextrous. 9/10

‘me too’ oh thank god 10/10

[wormsdyke]

Sorry for suddenly going through your entire worm tag

I saw "not worms" in the notes of something and had to go check out what that was all about

Fun fact! I did indeed name myself after Jane Prentiss' worms

sorry for taking quite literally months to respond to this but im so glad you enjoy the worms!!!!!! the not worms tag was a joke and i dont actually use it, but i do tag all my worms as obligatory worm tag which you are welcome to peruse at any time. i was simply ecstatic to me introduced to jane prentiss as a life long worm fan. my best friend <3

[ju-draws-worms]

The university student and the ROTC dudebro and the unemployed queer with the nicotene addiction and the one working part time at a fish bait shop all walk into a bar on Prince Edward Island!!! No worm. No shelley :):):) the world is healing xoxo

(I love being an artist because I can just create another timeline where they get to live and grow old then BOOM KAPOW there it is. ALIVE BEST FRIENDS FOREVER)

[resmarted]

a few reasons i started telling jokey jokes on stage include ppl telling me since i was a small child that i need to do standup and the fact that locally people have always been able to identify me; in this sense i have always felt some version of cult fame bc everyone who has seen me once remembers it and can recall it when they spot me in a room but no one ever really knew The Story and i felt like eventually i would have to start telling it in a broader sense for public consumption if i was going to keep on living this measly stupid little life. in addition to putting to rest the elephant in the room and essentially finding ways to very quickly and lightly answering “wtf happened to her face” i have many other things i am called to speak on that i think everyone should be constantly speaking about in as many spaces as possible. also i didn’t write my first standup until after a suicide letter where i was listing my passwords and trying to explain in a nice fun to remember way why i couldn’t be here anymore, in a way that made everyone laugh more than cry. then i read it back and was like omg this is actually not bad and would maybe be kind of helpful to other ppl who also hate their face and their existence and can’t bear to live on this earth anymore in this stupid gross fucked up world. i wrote and edited down many many many versions of that until i got down to a solid five minutes i was proud of, performed it for the first time with the stance that this could be responded to with crickets in the room and that was okay because *i* thought it was funny and it made *me* laugh, and it was specifically meant for other ppl who were also dead inside and found nothing to smile about anymore bc they were also severely depressed and blah blah blah. it ended up killing the room and i was validated in my existence for the first time probably ever and other people who are also dead inside came up to me after and were like i was having the worst [period of time] in my life and haven’t laughed like that in so long. the problem is my story is longer and i have a lot more to say than the typical five minute mic allots, so really i rarely do the stuff about my face unless you pay to see the full show bc i have so much other stuff to say and am constantly adding shit to the list, and i am INSUFFERABLE okay nobody likes me everybody hates me guess i’ll go eat worms etc. i go back into my hole for long stretches of time until i am inevitably pulled back to talk about more things, which needs to be prefaced once again with the obligatory face material and edited down to at most 8-10mins for a regular show lineup which means i can get maybe 3-5 of what i Want to say IF i’m lucky. look. it’s like a whole thing, okay? it’s a whole fucking thing and im a whole lot to handle. i have to find reasons to force myself to live on a regular basis and that’s just part of the process. it’s like when you’re young you grow up in a community where people KNOW you and then you get older and suddenly have to find your own communities where people can know you again, and getting to know me is like a very long exhausting ordeal for anyone to take on. so i am basically just like scribbling on the bathroom wall that is the internet at all times so people will be aware that i once existed if i ever do kick it, i’ll have at least attempted to leave my mark. i traverse various art forms in this quest (comedy music other forms of writing etc) and nothing ever really sticks for long and i sort of come and go through all of them in waves. idk what to tell you man i don’t really like me either

[wdwashere]

wormificafion of amphibia

[demenior]

this doodle got out of hand, but like, sam made new friends, and he’s doing just fine.  stop being weird about it dean. everything is fine.

[artbyblastweave]

Recently I’ve had this sense that the endgame of Worm gets slapped with a sort of displaced antagonism towards other serialized works that also go all in on the serial endgame escalation but don’t integrate it into the themes and cosmology as effectively. 

The whole “At the end of Worm, when they fight The Worm,” line of jokes- stripped of context, I realized that to me those feel like the kind of intra-fandom joke you’d see in a series that ran way longer than intended and just kept pulling increasingly absurd antagonists and cosmological details out of a hat. You know the type. Dragon Ball, Supernatural, Riverdale. I see people complaining about Worm’s serial escalation, complaining that the book shouldn’t have moved past street level, complaining that it shouldn’t have explained the cosmology underpinning the powers, and after taking the obligatory slow blinks, I’m always put in mind of the same kind of complaints I’ve seen leveled at series that did things along those line but didn’t plan out where they were going in advance. 

Because the endgame is telegraphed! It’s a book about escalation, about how things escalating push people into a destructive spiral that invites more escalation! The mechanics underpinning the powers directly tie into the books themes of agency and trauma AND the book’s project of modelling a “classic” superhero status quo. The presence of a grand design is leaked into the narrative again and again as early as at least arc seven, the entities plan, struggle, and inept response to their situation perfectly mirrors the societal difficulties they create for their host species. The endgame demonstrates the terminal point of every dynamic shown earlier in the book, from Taylor’s self-destructive martyr complex and Lisa’s inability to anchor her, try as she might, to everyone’s inability to coordinate perfectly due to mutual suspicion and self-interest. And then it stops, too, upon reaching this decided-upon-in-advance terminal point. This was thought out!

I don’t think you can view Worm as having “jumped the Shark” or “run out of ideas” or whatever; it’s not useful to view it’s progression through the same lens you’d use to view an ongoing series. But I think that there’s a strong temptation to do so because it’s serialized. 

(And in fairness, there are definitely web serials that do deserve to be viewed and judged through that lens; I got burned on one recently that started strong but clearly ran afoul of a lack of pre-planning and petered out in the back half. Something to be said for ten years of preplanning.)