#Americans who say 'different to' are deeply annoying to me

[elephantbitterhead]

pedantry

'Confused for' is becoming America's own personal 'different to'.

[grahamkennedy]

this might sound kinda stupid, but following your blog has genuinely had a huge imapct on the way i think about us-centrism online. Im australian too, and after reading your posts I began to notice that I avoid using regional words or talking about moveis/tv/music that i thought american people wouldn't know about. but why should i have to?! its such a simple realisation, but it was pretty powerful to me! you know, i have to learn about 1001 specific american brand names to understand half the jokes on here, but i feel embarrassed talking about idk.. netball?? the impulse to explain any australian specific experience that i mention so that the usamericans can understand it is so annoying! why do i feel the need to have to do that?? I've been trying to get over my cultural cringe surrounding australian art and literature for a while, but i sort of didnt realise how deeply it was ingrained for simple, everyday stuff. its also made me really quite angry too. because in many ways australia IS so similar to the us. yet so many people in the notes of posts about australia are just so deeply apathetic about learning (or even just being respectful of) any sort of cutural differences. needless to say, this often ends up leading to people spouting very colonialist ideas and just being very plainly and obviously racist against indigenous people. but the gleeful ingorance about any country other than than the us is staggering. everyone online has to have an in depth knowledge about us politics, but no one can make a post about the politics of their own country without being forced to dumb it down so that an american audience with no prior knowledge can understand it. sorry for the rant! i wasnt planning on writing this much (or getting this annoyed) but it kind of got away from me! anyway, i love your blog lol <3

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK

I've been thinking of how to reply but the problem is I'm kind of stupid so I didn't know how.

I first started getting super annoyed by this when I got into The Newsreader. It was something I thought 'this has so many themes and ideas and characters that people would so be into' but then as it gained popularity, people, mostly American, got really weird about it. I got an ask that I was very nice about at the time but retroactively pissed me off, being like "well its about Australian history, can an American still watch it???". I noticed similar attitudes popping up, and getting more popular from Sam Reid fans who came over from IWTV.

I think as people who live with USCentrism every day, we still shouldn't get complacent and limit ourselves to Western world views, especially white ones. We need to broaden our horizons as well and also understand the place we have in Western imperialism.

But I'm glad more people are actually starting to understand how prevalent USCentrism is and I'm more than happy to be part of the conversation.

Thaaaaaankkkkk u for this ask.

[sukinapan]

teenage edgy atheist me would be SO mad at me being into religious symbols and concepts now lmao

i've been thinking a lot about how religion affected me deeply despite my family never being particularly insistent on it... like most people in my circles, i grew up as watered-down catholic. nobody was going to church or reading the bible, but we'd go to people's babies' baptisms, I'd chant a guardian angel prayer my grandma taught me every night, and despite my school being secular, we had an optional "religion" (catholic) period in elementary which most of our parents signed us up for.

i've heard horror stories from people who went to actually religious schools, run by nuns or priests, but this was different. my impression is that the school system never took this religion class too seriously, so there wasn't really a specific curriculum to be followed. the teachers would rotate constantly, and there was 0 consistency to the kind of activities we did. we'd dance and sing songs and play games, and then a teacher would pull a written test out of nowhere. the result being i was never properly explained the basics of it.

i was born catholic by default so i had to somehow know what a sin was already (the word sin in spanish sounds almost like "fish": pecado and pescado, so i spent YEARS believing "sinner" was some sort of fisherman metaphor), i never understood what use jesus's death had or why pilatus "washed his hands". i knew adam and eve were not supposed to be taken as real but then why was the rest of the bible? i was immersed into this strange lore that i couldn't make sense of and nobody was interested in explaining it in detail.

the only devout person i knew was my grandma. she was never the hateful discourse type nor did she go around spouting lore that would help me understand. like many women she was just very devoted to a benevolent god and to the virgin mary as a mother figure (i remember a prayer saying "mary, mother of god" and i was confused af since hadn't god created her?).

i'm not entirely sure where my fear came from. i remember my mom just once or twice mentioning god, she was probably just annoyed at me, and said god was going to punish me for whatever i was doing. and i took that SO seriously. i'd also always assumed hell was some sort of temporary place where you just had to repent for a while. i mentioned it once in the car and my dad calmly clarified that no, hell was forever. i was devastated. i became convinced that i was somehow evil and used to picture a scene in my mind where a cartoonish devil would appear in my room at night to take me to hell with him.

i eventually grew out of this, thankfully. we had our first communion ritual through the school, i realized it made 0 sense to me and became an edgelord atheist at 11, to my poor grandma's dismay. but i think the fear and the guilt and this idea of being constantly watched and judged still traumatized me a little. years after i'd stopped believing, i continued to whisper "sorry" to the air after doing something wrong.

but my whole point with this, i guess, is that i've found a new appreciation for my experience with religion. i still have a poor opinion of most it, but there's many elements i'm starting to enjoy thinking about. especially the ones pertaining to latin american syncretism, like the focus on the mother figure amidst absent fathers (i guess you could say god is latam's absent father too), loved ones becoming angels that stay around and look out for you, or miracles sprouting from tragedy. i'm also very tormented by death and it's somehow so comforting to make art about it. i really look forward to continue using these elements in the future🧸ྀི໒꒱⋆

[darkandstormydolls]

I’m going to be honest, sometimes being on the DBDA fandom is hard for me as an aroace

Now, most of my experience in fan spaces has been with American Girl, and since the doll characters are all preteens, we really don’t have shipping and things. So I really wasn’t ready for what I stepped into getting into DBDA stuff on Tumblr

Thing is, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, ships Edwin and Charles. And now, not finding anyone agreeing with my ace Edwin headcanon was annoying, but that’s fine. But the entire fandom agreeing that of course the two of them must be in love? That’s hard for me

I mean, Charles has literally said that he doesn’t think he likes Edwin romantically, but he’s still the most important person in the world to him. And I love that. I thought that they were a perfect example of a QPR, and that’s really rare. I’ve only ever seen I think two other QPRs represented in fiction, and those were both in books (If It Makes You Happy and Not Even Bones). So for me, it was really important to see characters in a show that’s so wonderful in so many other ways represent this kind of relationship.

So it’s really, really hard for me sometimes, to see everyone else saying that of course they must be in a romantic relationship. For me, it can be really invalidating. Lots of aspec people struggle with feeling like they’re missing out because of allo- and amatanormative society making us feel lesser for not feeling the kinds of things that our society prizes above all else. And then, when you think you finally have found a piece of media that represents the kind of relationships that you can have, it’s wonderful and really validating.

And then you realize that everyone else in the world thinks that of course it must be a romantic bond. Of course Charles is in love with Edwin and doesn’t realize it.

But maybe he isn’t. The fact that Charles always looks for Edwin in a room, smiles whenever he sees him, says he’s follow him to the ends of the earth? That’s not explicitly romantic. And I see posts gushing about “oh my goodness look at the way that they look at one another” and… I look at my queerplatonic partner that way sometimes. I love them deeply. My mood lifts every time I see them. And we’re not romantically linked. Because we have a different relationship, one that’s just as deep and meaningful as a romantic one can be

And I’m not trying to tell anyone that they can’t ship who they want to. I’m just saying that it can be hard to see a beautiful relationship of a queerplatonic couple be only ever interpreted as romantic

[stupidsexpotflanders]

Dr. Chase,the physician from The Land Down Under

In the Season 8 episode "Dead and Buried",Chase appeared in a TV show playing a stereotypically Australian doctor on some skit(there was no Watsonian explanation given for this,I love how bonkers House MD can be). Despite the embarassment when House and Taub found the video,Chase's "first and big role" was massively beneficial to him.

It started on early clinic duty,due to a mistake. Chase was approached by some random teenager who saw him online. She was wondering why the actor was dressed like a doctor in a hospital waiting room;

In response,Chase claimed to be an aspiring actor wanting to make it in show business. He donned a fake but convincing American accent and a beautiful smile. The girl,now smitten by the not-so-fake doctor,asked to take a selfie with him;

The other professional at the scene were fuming and confused at the same time. Chase was hidden in plain sight,there was no way to convince the other patients the guy was an actual doctor;

The way out of clinic duty was discovered,and Chase was over the moon. He looked up the girl's social media,lo and behold,she not only posted the pic with him but also said she wanted to see more of him;

Chase created social media profiles for his character,totally separated from his professional/personal ones(that were very low-key and private,especially after the nude pic fiasco. As for professional fame,Chase didn't need more than he had - Princeton-Plainsboro was cozy and high-stakes enough). The character was named Robert Chase as well. Between the fact that his name was already common and the fact that "Doc from Down Under" had way more fame than "Head of Diagnostics/House's Successor",it would make him being hard to found out with search mechanisms(this particular tactic made Robert love the fact that the surname Červený was far too complicated for the immigration officers that recieved his father in Australia. Robert Chase vs Robert Červený says it all). To top it all,the real "Dr. Robert Chase" might look like an elaborate goof;

Now,onto how Dr. Chase would be able to keep the facade and his medical career. His main method of testing the candidates to Diagnostics Fellows is to have them pretend to be R. Chase - regardless of gender,race or any characteristics. Of course,he's keeping tabs on both the new doctors and patients - same doctors see the same patients. It has a double usefulness - the candidates have to be skilled with deceit and quick on their feet while able to be coordinated by Chase himself;

When it comes to the cases themselves,Chase goes see the patients sometimes,but always in a disguise(glasses,a thick beard,make up to look 10 years older and a British accent(canon have him an American accent for no reason,so let me make Chase a fake Brit!);

Oftentimes,Chase is seen making videos of the Doctor. After a while,his videos had extremely simplified explanations of complicated diseases. The simplifications were done by someone who deeply understood the pathologies,anyone with medical knowledge would see it. The cherry of the cake was when American Accent Chase played the dumb person who needed said explanations(but still struggled to understand them). His underlings found it annoying but overlooked it,because Chase was generally competent and nice overall;

Last but not least - Chase got away with all that BS because competence levels and he was fucking his boss. Foreman is just as batshit,he's classy about it tho.

Just gimme Chase being just as chaotic as House,but in different ways,please!

[spamhappyface]

Aromatic Summer| H.P.

Pairings: Harry James Potter x Fem!Reader Word Count:2.1k

WARNINGS: SMUT, praise kink, oral (m receiving, slightly aggressive) deep throat, kinda sir kink! Sub!Harry (kinda) Dom!reader Characters are of age! Plotless…

It wasn't a surprise that Y/n's mother, Teresa, sometimes didn't treat her like a typical teenager. Teresa had decided to send Y/n to Privet Drive for the summer to take care of Harry after the recent incident. Y/n and Harry were more than just friends; they had lost their virginity to each other a couple of months ago. However, they had agreed to keep their relationship strictly platonic since then.

A lot had changed since Harry became the Hogwarts champion for the Triwizard Tournament. The death of Viktor Krum, Y/n's childhood best friend, had left her in shock. She had witnessed his lifeless body during their duel, and it had deeply affected her. Despite being only fifteen years old, Y/n's mother somehow expected her to play the role of Harry's therapist, even though it wasn't her responsibility.

Y/n believed her mother was joking when she approached Mr Dursley with a card from Dumbledore at King's Cross Station. The card stated that she would be spending two weeks with the Dursleys since Teresa was Harry's godmother. The Dursleys, filled with apprehension after reading the card, reluctantly agreed to accommodate Y/n.

Meanwhile, the last thing Y/n wanted was to spend her summer with abusive Muggles like the Dursleys, who seemed to be just as bad as her own mother, if not worse. The initial days with Harry were far from what she had anticipated. Y/n longed for solitude and craved being in the comfort of her own home, or at least with her parents and her little sister. Being at Privet Drive felt like a nightmare she couldn't wake up from.

Despite her disdain for the Dursleys, Y/n knew how to mask her true feelings and behave appropriately in front of ignorant Muggles. She had grown up in the North American Magical community and had attended Ilvermorny, giving her a unique perspective and a deeper understanding of Muggle’s life, including political views. She had engaged in many insightful debates with the Dursleys, or so she thought, until a particular conversation she had with Harry.

"To be fair, Y/n, you look alright, but..." Harry started, trying to convince her to wear something else.

"I know,” she said happily.

"Why don't you try my jacket?" he suggested casually, fetching it from his wardrobe.

"Are you joking?!" she exclaimed, giggling. "We're... how hot is it?"

"Dunno!" Harry raised his voice for a moment before calming down. "Look, it's just that I reckon you should wear something different. Dudley's mates are proper wankers. They're bound to say something, and you know we don't want to get into any bloody trouble—"

"Oh, come on, Harry. It's just a sundress. My mom bought it for me, she chose it, and I'm going to wear it. I look hot and—" Y/n said firmly to Harry, then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was surprised. "Oh, Merlin's beard! Why don't I have a boyfriend or something? I would totally date myself, damn..."

Harry seemed a bit bewildered by her comment but carried on expressing his concerns.

"Yeah, and you look lovely. Look, Y/n, you're stunning. You've got a beautiful smile, gorgeous eyes, stunning hair, and a brilliant personality. But I'm dead serious, please. I'm saying this 'cause I care about you, and those blokes are daft as a brush. They even smoke weed, and sometimes they— I don't wanna get in any trouble for defending you."

"Oh, Harry," Y/n said, her cheeks slightly reddening. "Thanks for the compliments, but I know how to handle myself. You don't have to worry about it. Come on, let's go swing!"

“But you’re wearing a dress–”

Unexpectedly, Y/n lifted her dress up to her belly, revealing a pair of black spandex shorts.

“It’s called shorts, you know?” she said a bit annoyed by his behaviour, putting it down again.

Y/n stormed out of Harry's room, filled with anger, and stomped her way downstairs with Harry trailing behind her. As they descended, Y/n couldn't help but notice the way Mr Dursley was staring at her, causing her to feel increasingly uncomfortable. Mrs Dursley, on the other hand, seemed to be giving her a deathly glare as they continued their stride.

"Where are you two off to, then?" Mr. Dursley inquired, his tone almost gleeful.

"The park," Harry responded icily, heading towards the door, while Y/n offered a forced smile, feeling awkward under the scrutiny.

"Are you really letting her go out like that? People will start asking questions!" Mrs. Dursley muttered with disapproval.

"Let them, dear. Let the lad have some normal company. The girl looks perfectly normal to me. Besides, now they'll think the boy's managed to find himself a girlfriend!" Mr. Dursley retorted.

"Then, aren't you going to say something to her?! That dress is simply..." Mrs Dursley began, her voice trailing off.

"I'm not her father, dear. She can wear whatever she pleases. And... it's not like I care enough to notice," he murmured the last part, barely audible.

Y/n quickly realized that her physical appearance was one of the main reasons why Mr. Dursley treated her with a bit more kindness. She overheard their conversation without much effort, as they weren't exactly discreet with their voices. However, she didn't care. She loved the blue floral sundress and how it made her feel. Yes, she attracted some unwanted attention from older men with their stares and whistles, but she refused to change herself for them. It wasn't the first time she had experienced such behaviour, and she wasn't about to let it dictate her choices.

Throughout their days together, Y/n and Harry found themselves engaged in similar activities—going to the park and returning home. It was only for two weeks, as Y/n's mom would soon come to pick her up, and she eagerly anticipated that moment. It wasn't that Y/n was being selfish regarding Harry's well-being; it was simply that she believed she needed to help herself before she could effectively assist him. However, after a few days, she pushed her own emotions aside to be there for Harry, to listen to his feelings, and yes, even their shared hormones often made it difficult to maintain control.

For Y/n, life was too short to wait around for Ron forever, pondering whether or not he liked her. So it was either him or his best friend.

"Can I?" Harry gasped, his chest heaving, their conversation interrupted by kisses.

Constant friction was made in her entry for her little shorts of spandex against Harry’s old jeans, the hot summer wasn’t helping these two teenagers without the supervision of serious adults who actually could take care of them. Y/n smirked at his comment while she kept making circles on his dressed cock, taking his wrists desperate to put them directly in her tits. Harry gasped one more time between the frantic kisses, he was in heaven.

“You like it?” she asked vigorously.

“Y- Yes… I like it” he said breathlessly “I love it”

Y/n smiled at his answer, moving his wrists to her hips. A more confident Harry moved his hands a bit more where her butt cheeks were squishing them, Y/n go faster at her pace and Harry got his hands under the fabric of her spandex shorts.

“You’re not wearing any underwear?” he asked briskly.

“Maybe, I don’t know. Is that a problem?” she asked teasingly.

“No, no. it’s better like that… Unless you don’t–”

“Are you asking me to have sex with you, Mr. Potter?” she asked naughtily.

Harry was speechless for the first time in a long time, of course, he wanted to, he would be mental if he didn’t want to. His jaw dropped for the small he felt for Y/n’s buoyancy and self-assure she had.

“Y- yes…” he tumbled.

“Oh, Mr. Potter you don’t have to be shy with me. I’ll do whatever you want, how can I help you?” she asked with her eyes fixed on him, now touching slowly above the fabric of his jeans in his cock, getting slowly under the cloth.

“Y/n, I don’t have any contraceptives…”

She knew it would be dumb if she said, «Don’t come inside me», there was still a small percentage of her getting pregnant for a normal teenager, but she wasn’t normal, first of all, she was a witch and the assistant of Madame Pomphrey in the hospital wing that had though her a lot of stuff.

“It’s ok, just don’t come inside of me, Harry. And we have to be quiet, right?”

Harry nodded hurriedly in understanding.

“Are you ok with not coming inside of me, Harry?” she smirked innocently.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s ok, Y/n,” he said panting. “Everything you do it’s ok”

“Really?” she asked, and he nodded in response. “So, it’s ok if I just…” she raised her eyebrows, going down on him.

Her soft hands travelled under his shirt gently caressing his naked abs, leaving him wanting more, with a high libido. Y/n left him a few small kisses in it and Harry looked at her to realize that she was doing a path in which he was desperately dying of pleasure for his panoramic view and his sensitive skin. Sitting on his lap while her curly hair fell over her face while wet kisses ran through his abs. Harry took her soft hair into a messy bun, letting her long eyelashes and soft kisses do the job, his chest grew rapidly, warming up from the girl’s kisses. And when she finished, Harry observed that she had traced a heart in his abs, it caused him so much pleasure to feel her on his lap that he made his head back, pushing his cock a little towards the entrance of the girl, who had liked the reaction while licking her lips, making more friction on her clitoris circling against Harry’s cock. He lifted her black orchid sundress to her belly, caressing it as she lowered the spaghetti straps of her shoulders.

“Can I, do it?” she asked beautifully.

“Please, Y/n,” he begged.

Passing the button on his jeans to the back, unbuttoning it, almost slow burning for Harry’s needs and desires; his heartbeat had increased almost dangerously, even though it wasn’t the first time he had done something intimate with Y/n – it would be his second time – he just felt the same excitement that the first time.

In the past, Harry had no idea what he was doing, he just lived in the moment, and every time he was with her, he felt out of the world. As of now, he was begging her to suck him and fuck him too.

“Are you sure, Harry? Do you want me to do it?” she asked, caressing with her hand the bulge of Harry’s pants, the cotton fabric was giving it a better sensation.

“Please Y/n, just do it, please”

“Hm…” she pretends to think about it for a second, her belly was asking her for something else just than fingers, desperately for something thicker, Harry’s cock.

“Please, I need you, I want you!”

She smiled at him, satisfied “Well, there’s a lot of people who need me…”

“Please, Y/n, I want you!”

She smirked mischievously rolling her eyes, noticing that the sunset was happening, and the beautiful sun was hiding behind the horizon.

“Ok, I’m gonna help you, Harry. Do you want that?”

“Yes, that’s what I want, please! It hurts!”

Y/n shook her head smiling, with the help of Harry hip trusting to take down his jeans and then his pants, showing the now awake cock of harry, it had a little curve that make it go up to his abs, and a bit of white precum was on the tip of it a little bushy but Y/n didn’t care at that moment, his cock was hard and ready to be in action. She took it with one of her hands and the other massaging Harry’s thigh, spitting in his cock almost immediately, stroking it briefly.

“Oh my god… Y/n, just like that!” Harry gasped.

Stroking in it up and down with no mercy in the fast that Harry would come with the visual he had of her boobs falling in front of him, not letting her go making pressure with his legs.

“Just take it out all on me”

“Oh, darling…” Harry groaned. “You do it so good… you take me so well.”

And for some reason that motivated Y/n to put it in her mouth, suck it and taste it with her tongue ‘salty’ she thought. Going up and down as her eyes start to fill with tears, sometimes she never thought about, was Harry pushing her head down to his hard venous cock.

“Ah… keep going!” Harry bellowed, pushing her head harshly to his cock. “That’s it, there… there”

Y/n didn’t even complain about this, she was so turned on, that she was masturbating with Harry’s knee, going on infinite circles. But before Harry could come, he took off her mouth his cock, switch the position quickly with a close of eyes, and cum in Y/n’s belly. Groaning and gasping about how good it was, landing in front of her, kissing her lips

“You did it soo good, darling, so good. Good girl.”

And that turned something on inside of Y/n, maybe the way he quickly switched her to the bottom of the bed or the way he had talked to her.

“Did I, Mr. Potter?”

[jyndor]

I'm not gonna punch left ever. like yes do I have both strategic and ideological disagreements with some leftists? yeah obviously since leftist infighting and disagreement is the feature not the bug.

I'm still not saying I'm voting for kamala but I do think she will be a better opponent than trump. I believe in strategic voting so tbh if your district is a swing district, if you are in a swing state, I think voting democratic is smart because they are at least able to be beaten into some concessions from the left when we are organized. one big issue is the liberals who see any criticism as support for the republicans, and they're gonna be annoying as hell but I do think more people are aware that the democrats suck now than they did during the obama years.

that said, it is totally understandable for people in the global south to be hostile to any us president. and it is reasonable for them to hate us for anything we do politically because all these freaks have done material harm to millions of people globally. so I'm not offended as a white queer us american woman that a third world maoist might hate that I am considering voting for kamala harris. it's cool, they're not wrong to be angry with us americans' selfish politics.

and at this same time imo there is no real path forward for a third party candidate in the us. and it's deeply frustrating to me that so many amazing activists use their time and resources on what is to me a herculean task, running for president as a third party candidate and not even for a party like the greens which has name recognition. I'd rather they focus on local politics and even statewide politics, where they have more of a chance. I also don't think they're wreckers though, I just don't agree with their strategies. and they can call me a liberal or whatever for saying that, that's fine whatever lol I'm not going to punch leftists doing important work.

it is one thing to disagree on strategy, even on ideology and politics. but to assume that they are not genuine in their politics... it's just gross and dismissive. you do not know what you're talking about. I don't love the PSL for a few different reasons but I respect the activism they do, and I'm not gonna disrespect leftist activists doing far more than I ever will, even if I don't agree with everything they do.

tumblr is full of white liberals who might in fact have access to financial resources that many others do not have, and that's important for us to understand because it does impact how we view politics. it does. it's so easy for you vote blue folks to call ANYONE who criticizes democrats bots or russian ops or whatever. it does you no favors politically. you do not want to negatively polarize potential allies by constantly treating them like they've got ulterior motives for not supporting the democratic party.

but most people who for instance supported the uncommitted campaign and who were working to get biden out of the race all these months are likely doing so because we WANT to vote against trump. not that everyone in the free palestine movement is a democratic voter or even is in favor of electoralism, but a lot are in the states. so... it's weird to me that liberals treated us like ignorant wreckers who don't care about abortion or queer rights or voting rights etc, or somehow PALESTINIAN RIGHTS LMFAO I mean I'm trying to stay nice and call these libs racist cunts for speaking down to voters of color in particular but that's what it is.

do you really think the people who are the most tapped into politics are not going to vote??? really???? some won't but most will. especially those in swing districts. do you think that someone like me, who has been politically active since I was TWELVE, does not understand the utility of voting???

as always, your job is not going to be speaking down to people so politically engaged that they are threatening to WITHHOLD THEIR VOTES BECAUSE OF FOREIGN POLICY. IN THE UNITED STATES OF NOBODY GIVES A FUCK ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY. they're doing the work you should have been doing this whole time. you will have to sit with your complacency at some point.

your job is going to be getting off your ass and convincing everyone you know who is not registered to vote because they don't care about politics or don't like politics or whatever that they need to be invested in our political system.

bad news: you will not do that by shaming them for being ignorant or apathetic.

good news: a lot of people are very easy to get on board with shit like rent caps (which biden was just talking about the other day, 5% caps on rent federally! that's amazing and would help so many people - we should pressure kamala to adopt that policy) and reproductive justice. a lot of apathetic people care about this shit, they just don't know how it impacts them or where to start engaging with this shit.

do not pull the smug liberal shit, do not speak down to them, meet them where they are at! ask them about the things that they are bothered about, things like potholes and shit. that matters to people. get them registered, drive them to the polls. you will do more good than shouting at lefties on tumblr dot com. otherwise you're just preaching to the choir.

[elodieunderglass]

Elodie, is there an amount I can pay you to persuade you to translate all of Moby Dick like that during Whale Weekly? It's incredible and I desperately want to read the whole thing. I am serious about the money.

(In reference to this “line by line translation of the first chapter of Moby Dick into insufferable modern idiom” I wrote:)

For those who don’t know, Moby Dick is getting a Dracula Daily treatment starting November 21, which will be called “Whale Weekly.” Rumor has it that it will take ~2 years to complete. I’ve seen a blog called @whaleweekly which is collecting an initial book club, and I believe there’s a discord, etc, so there should be a small community of people to read it with.

People HAVE been deliciously split between “reading this post has been strangely educational, and has made Moby Dick easier to understand in its original form” and “OP this is an active and violent warcrime and feels like acid on my skin,” which are exactly the two emotions I like to evoke in my writing.

And I AM about to go on maternity leave for about a year, so it’s tempting! I get demonstrably weird when my intellectual life is supposed to revolve around babies too much. Based on prior experience I write strange posts like “why are dogs dogs” and get way too invested in correcting people on the internet who are wrong. This strongly suggests, in fact, that I (being mentally healthy ofc) need to be more mature about things and simply go to sea. Or simply have a clear project. And part of mat leave, even with good benefits, is always unpaid and therefore terrifying, so it seems charming and hilarious to counter that by “graduate level analysis of Moby Dick.” CAN YOU IMAGINE. What a conversation starter.

“What are you doing after rhyme time?”

“Oh, putting this thing down for a nap and translating Moby Dick for tips.”

“Translating? Like, into another language?”

“You could say that yeah”

But I’ve never taken money on the internet, so I’d have to think about it. Especially the pressure I would feel was implied to produce something worth paying for. Like, in the first chapter of Moby Dick there’s a whole entire joke to unpack about Pythagoras, beans, winds, and farting. It’s an elaborate fart joke that I just didn’t sit down to unpack because I wrote it on a lunch break: I would feel more compelled to unpack every joke and reference and modernise them, and that would literally become a graduate-school-level course of study.

Also, I really don’t have the education and political knowledge to think deeply and helpfully enough about Ishmael’s/Melville’s racial lenses, nor do I have the savvy and experience to interpret them usefully for a diverse audience, that will naturally consist of people at all different levels of learning. It’s fine enough to translate the first chapter, so that people can see how underneath the 19th century styling, this is an unreliable narrator with lots of things wrong with him, and lots of jokes that you’d miss.

But the layers on layers of “how to interpret Ishmael-via-Melville’s chaotic, festering, toxic, educational, revelatory, exoticising, sympathetic, distasteful race relations - which show the underpinnings of American racial construction and other educational things, and are quite useful for humanities majors to study - without referencing Elodie’s own politics? or having Elodie be annoyed by people assuming that interpreting 19th century literature means that Elodie subscribed to Melville’s beliefs?” (Because I have some experience with reading comprehension on the internet, enough to make me look at some chapters of the Big D and say, I am not touching that in public, not even with a very long harpoon). If it was for a graduate-level or lived-experience or otherwise politically savvy/invested audience you could trust everyone a bit more to get to work on critical thinking and unpacking the translation, but if your audience is naturally assembled because you promised to make something accessible, the intention of the project being to make it accessible to more people, then you have to take your lumps and accept that people will take the translated content in bad faith and will go, like, “wait, this is uncomfortable content!!! I take it at face value! I blame YOU for it!” And I’d have to think REALLY proactively about how I managed that. If I was a scholar of English, literature or politics I would consider it my duty to do so; but I minored in English a long time ago and am on the journey of gradual acceptance that my best contributions are basically just jokes.

This is a long-winded answer to a lovely question, and probably shows way too much insight into why I enjoy comprehending Moby Dick.

[deliciouskeys]

I did that one old OTP meme for Butchlander. Opinions entirely my own lol.

Source template.

1. Who is the most affectionate?

I think HL would be the king of PDA in this pairing. However, I think Billy showers him with more physical affection behind closed doors.

2. Big spoon/Little spoon?

Billy’s taller and HL has much higher need to be enveloped so this is not even a question.

3. Most common argument?

Whether Billy should take Compound V, and as a related topic, whether being a supe makes you intrinsically suck as a person.

4. Favorite non-sexual activity?

I’d like to think they’d both enjoy the outdoors, albeit perhaps in different styles. I would love to read the fic where they go on a roadtrip to camp in some national park out west, and Billy’s all into roughing it in a tiny cold tent, meanwhile HL is having none of that, this is going to be a glamping trip if he can help it. Billy’s annoyed HL decides not to change out of his suit even in the woods, and complains that using heat vision to start a campfire is cheating. HL’s annoyed that Billy thinks swimming in a lake counts as taking a shower, and turns up his nose at drinking beer— it’s illegal to bring alcohol into a national park anyway!

5. Who is most likely to carry the other?

While it’s easier for HL, I can’t see Billy being into it. If HL wants to bring Billy into the air, he’s going to have to do it with an arm around the waist. I think HL wouldn’t mind being princesscarried to bed, otoh.

6. What is their favorite feature of their partner’s?

HL loves Billy’s personality, specifically his honesty, even if it comes with blunt rudeness, and his weird lack of fear, even if it’s due to some malfunction of his self-preservation instinct. Billy will admit to loving how HL feels and sounds when they’re fucking. He won’t admit that he actually loves the emotional neediness.

7. What’s the first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings for the other?

Billy has an existential crisis for a week or two. HL is unruffled, he’s been kind of taken with Billy since they met at Madelyn’s house, and doesn’t really have a problem admitting it.

8. Nicknames? & if so, how did they originate?

HL still likes to say ‘William’ for the mouthfeel and because it sounds sarcastic. ‘Billy’ most of the time. He’ll try ‘babe’ and even ‘honey’ once in a while, usually to vehement objection. As for Billy, I’m sure in bed it’s a lot of ‘cunt’ and ‘little bitch’, interspersed with occasional ‘my good boy’, but outside the bedroom, I think he keeps on calling him Homelander. Sorry, rest of fandom, I can’t get behind Billy calling him John, it makes me deeply uncomfortable for some reason.

9. Who worries the most?

HL! He worries over himself, over Ryan, over Billy, over public opinion. And being around HL, Billy worries even less, because he’s a contrarian.

10. Who remembers what the other one always orders at a restaurant?

Billy because he’s used to integrating all sorts of random details about HL into his memory repository over the years. Also, it’s always a glass of milk, even at Asian places that don’t fucking have it, so it’s memorably annoying.

11. Who tops?

I think they might switch off occasionally, but ultimately HL likes feeling wanted and occasionally just wants to be a pillow princess, and Butcher likes feeling in control of a situation, so Butcher topping is their preference.

12. Who initiates kisses?

I think Butcher might feel bolder that way.

13. Who reaches for the other’s hand first?

I think HL would be all about that. He might even take off his gloves for it occasionally (!)

14. Who kisses the hardest?

I think they are both into rough sex. But if Butcher is Compound V-less, it has to be Butcher. HL’s not going to risk being aggressive with someone who might break.

15. Who wakes up first?

HL, because, does he even sleep, he is a wholesome, hardworking, all-American morning person. Billy does not strike me as a morning person.

16. Who wants to stay in bed just a little longer?

Billy probably. If they’re coparenting Ryan, HL is definitely the parent who has to figure out breakfast.

17. Who says I love you first?

I think HL is oddly more in touch with his feelings than Billy, so him.

18. Who leaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (Bonus: what does it usually say?)

HL with his florid little penmanship lol! It says absolutely mundane shit because HL wants to be in a NORMAL loving relationship above all else. So plenty of “Hope you have a great day! XOXO”, “Can’t wait to see you! XOXO”, “Long distance kisses from your favorite! XOXO”. Billy tries to not let anyone see these, because how fucking embarrassing, but he loves that at least one of them can be this unabashedly romantic.

19. Who tells their family/friends about their relationship first?

HL literally tells Ashley to put “dinner date with Billy Butcher” on his agenda when they just start out. But he waits to tell Ryan in case it doesn’t work out. Billy never tells The Boys and they find out from the news cycle. When they start bombarding him with questions he shuts down and brushes it all off with “what about it”.

20. What do their family/friends think of their relationship?

Vought’s less than thrilled with their apex supe being gay, and specifically dating Billy, who’s screwed them over before, and probably will again. But they’re not going to interfere. The Seven are relieved that HL is too busy and too satisfied with his personal life to go out of his way to torment them. The Boys are mostly distraught, nothing makes sense anymore, what the fuck is this world, but they eventually just accept it. Ryan is really happy he doesn’t have to be in the middle of an ongoing feud.

21. Who is more likely to start dancing with the other?

Ha! Thanks to fanon, I keep thinking HL being into ballroom dancing is canon 😂. I still think HL is more likely to be into dancing, and less likely to be complaining about his ears bleeding from the Spice Girls.

22. Who cooks more/who is better at cooking?

I hope Billy is better, but that eating a Hot Pocket with fork and knife scene is worrying. I just assume HL has never had to spend any time in a kitchen unless he’s pilfering milk from a fridge. I assume Billy has survival level cooking skills at least. They probably get a lot of takeout though :/

23. Who comes up with cheesy pick up lines?

Billy, because he’d do it sarcastically, and HL would get annoyed and offended at how bad they are sometimes, but ultimately it’s still a show of affection, so he takes what he can get.

24. Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear during inappropriate times?

Billy. I think he kind of thrives on making people uncomfortable. I don’t think HL can say anything that would faze Billy that much.

25. Who needs more assurance?

The one who needs public adoration and gets upset about memes.

26. What would be their theme song?

American Woman by The Guess Who. Spoiler, American Woman does not stay away.

27. Who would sing to their child back to sleep?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh… lol. Is there footage of either of these actors singing? I have trouble picturing it. I could see Billy being fine with singing some pop song offkey, although Ryan is going to be laughing instead of sleeping. HL’s not going to do something unless he has mastery of it. [Edit: the verdict is in, and yes it’s Billy, and yes his singing is pretty godawful]

28. What do they do when they’re away from each other?

Billy continues fighting the good fight against corrupt supes and Vought. HL continues to work for Vought and mostly do their bidding unless Billy makes fun of him for it. Hopefully he’s doing fewer evil sidegigs as a concession to Billy, but who knows.

(Art is something I commissioned from the talented @maxkennedy24 )

[bonesplinter]

yk as vile as some of the stuff she's said and done is, i still very deeply i guess sympathize with doja cat? but it's something i feel guilty about as over the years i've been confronting my own internalized antiblackness despite yk. being black. like i'm darker than her, my features are never going to slip under the radar as racially ambiguous, etc. ykw this got longer than anticipated here's a snip

it's just so idk, disheartening to see someone else who while young was idk, so fully of self-loathing and an apparent desire to be hashtag Different that willingly hanging around people who hate you and parroting their talking points that are for YOU and people EXACTLY like you was ever an option, even if just online. like i'm FULLY talking out of my ass and projecting here, obviously i don't know her even remotely, she's a stranger, but that story is familiar and it's just... damn. you grow up with your own blackness being this foreign but ever present Thing that others' actions and words eventually mold into a pall that's cast over you and you resent it but it's You and even then you don't know what it means, exactly.

like i have to think about what being black Truly means to me because what's been available to Me was an imported american experience that's heavily filtered by those in power who decides what gets to be shared which is generally to say, whites. it's not even like utterly alien stuff either, tunes about struggles and growing up poor and dysfunctional families and all that, i've been there myself. but like, i Also grew up as one of the handful of visibly brown kids in my neighbourhood. it's like, disingenuous to Me to adopt that specific type of blackness. my ass was so outside the circle even before i was an annoying little hipster contrarian. like a Big Move for me was to talk with one of the few other black girls at school and eventually get my hair done (which meant relaxed and... well! sorry to my scalp). my family i know and grew up with was Not black and it shows lmao

so i'm like i guess trying to be more mindful of Not being the dreaded culture vulture just to assert myself or some part of me. i try to make room in my own takes for those who actually are black americans who speak on stuff that's well out of my sphere of experience for one reason or another, so it's like <:T hearing the take that she's adopting a blackness that isn't exactly... idk how to word it. organic? i dunno. it's just one person's take but i'm like sensitive to it just being in a similar position myself to uh. that specific niche of black culture igss.

i sort of lost the plot here but i guess seeing doja (understandably!) get torn a new one for courting hateful people once upon a time just made me sad when it was current. like man... been there, done that, hope you heal. also i hope being genuine in a way that's honouring You and who You are no matter your upbringing comes to the front. we all shat on drake's nasty self for a myriad of reasons but larping a culture that isn't what he knows is something that makes Me cringe to death as someone who has more in common with him than anything lmao. likeeeee. c'mon now lol.

authenticity through and through if you can help it, that's all i'm preaching igss. maybe what's You isn't in line with what is the perceived expectation but that's life babe!!! anyways 🗿

[cd-covington]

This is probably more of a personal preference question, but where do you draw the line between using existing words and making new words for a piece/world? It can get ridiculous in some cases, but there are a lot of words that have implications that you don’t necessarily want to invite into the story. I’m trying to write a deeply religious society without the implications of cultural Christianity, but I don’t think reading a book where I create half the vocabulary would be fun for anyone but me.

Hi @workofthehands!

This is one of the oldest questions in SFF writing, and I don't know if there's a good answer for it. Way back in 2009, the SFWA published the Turkey City Lexicon as a guide to writing workshops for beginners, and one of the entries says not to call a rabbit a smeerp. That's apparently a reference to Larry Niven, but I've never read him, so *shrug*. But what the existence of this line item suggests is that writers want to show off their cool world with these horse or rabbits that aren't Earth horses or Earth rabbits, so they make up names for them, and this can confuse or annoy a reader.

Of course, not all subgenres are equal, and in cyberpunk and related genres where the tech and the vibes are important, you see a lot of invented names for things, many of which may or may not exist in the real world, and people who read these genres expect it.

If you have a large lizard/bird-like creature that fills the niche of a horse on your planet, like CJ Cherryh's mecheiti, obviously call it whatever you want. If you call it a horse, your readers will have obvious expectations about its behavior and appearance.

If you have humans going from one planet to another, where they find animals that are kinda like horses but not quite, they can call them horses or maybe not-horses or maybe something you make up. But consider the following:

When Europeans crossed the Atlantic, they found birds with red breasts that sort of resemble the robins of Europe, so they called them robins. North American and European robins aren't even in the same family of birds!

So, in general, I'd say it depends on the specific situation and on the person.

I assume you're asking about things like cussing and blasphemous language, and maybe about things like "priest" or "rosary," so that's the direction I'm going in. I also assume this is an invented religion. Also, I was raised mainstream protestant in the US (United Methodist, mostly) but am not currently a believer.

Cuss words usually reflect what a society finds sacred and what they find dirty. Or as Melissa Mohr put it in her book Holy Shit, the holy and the shit. It's a really fun book about the history of English swearing, and I recommend it.

So you could, for example, make a list of things your society & religion find sacred and what they find dirty and build your cussing around that. Alternatively (or perhaps additionally), you could make a list of the culturally Christian terms you need a substitute for and make them up based on the first set of lists.

Everyone's line is a little different. I personally dislike smeerps but find mecheiti perfectly fine. I think for me, it's the difference between something that exists in the real world and something that doesn't. But with swearing and insults, invent with impunity. I think a lot of genre readers are happy to go along with frells and fraks.

I hope that answers your question! If I assumed wrong about what you're asking, reblog with more details and I'll see what I can do :)

--

If you liked this post, please consider backing my Kickstarter to write a book about questions like this and more, or drop some money in the tip jar. Thanks!

[morkitten]

I jumped into One Piece a while ago

For a long time I did not want to jump into One Piece. I kept telling myself and believed wholeheartedly that a shonen anime that runs for this long couldn't possibly be any good or worth the huge time investment. I know some people really love it, but, the most vocal majority voices that love "shonen anime" will also try to sell you on some really dumb stuff and I feel that my tastes are nearly diametrically opposite to these people. I'd look at lists of "top 5 anime of all time" and it'd just be the 5 most popular shonen in the last 5 years. Mainstream anime fans are often pretty dumb, and they don't watch anything older than a decade, anything more obscure than Shonen Jump. "shonen" after "shonen", all with the same issues, all with the same fetishizing on boring narrative hooks, either stupid or deeply cynical, and there was nothing to convince me otherwise, even though I had friends that swore by it, I rationalized it away as "their tastes are different", "they started when they were young and so they're already really invested in it and it's much less work for them to keep going" and sometimes even downright looking down on it.

The looking down on it part... I see this incuriosity with some other people that I find annoying. I grew up trying to learn English so I could talk to people online with the same interests as me, and the people who I talked with were largely american talking about their own american things, and I had to stretch myself to try to fit in. I had to learn about fast food that wasn't available here, I had to learn culture and language, and it pains me when I see people not stretch themselves at all, when I don't see them be curious or be aware of how much bigger the world is, when I don't see them be curious at all about me because I stretched myself to fit so well. This attitude feels like a barrier to really connecting with others, and I wanted to connect. And the more I tried to open myself up, the more I've been challenged to be more curious, the more I saw these incuriosities in other people, the lonelier I felt. And the lonelier I felt, the angrier I got at what I felt were the instruments of incuriosity. Big franchises that won't ever end that people were way-too-invested in. Anything mainstream. People holding up these things as if they were the best that's ever been, without diving into other, less popular, less mainstream things. It's "Hollywood blockbusters", it's "Netflix shows", it's "Nintendo games". And hell I really do love some Nintendo games, but when I see people not ever reach out of that zone, I can't stand it.

But then I realized that, true incuriosity is preconception. It's judging things before truly experiencing them, and that means diving into the mainstream sometimes, it means diving into all sorts of rivers and waters, and not just picking what I think is best without really trying the others. How can I know what is best if I don't do that? You don't. Thinking that you can know what "good" and "bad" is without trying to diversify your palate is hubris. Thinking that you can figure that out just by vague exposition of its external elements is closing your mind. I was doing what other people were doing when I would tell them something and they wouldn't say anything back because they both didn't experience it and aren't even curious about experiencing it. Communication is a two-way street and I closed myself pre-emptively as retaliation for the ways in which other people are closed. You can only connect with the ways other people relate, and only then you can lead them into more things and foster that curiosity. And I was the one being incurious. And people rationalize these things, "inaccessible", "not inclusive", "too difficult", all these sorts of excuses for what they THINK these things aren't going to be to their taste, and the more I saw them as founded in "feels" and "vibes" and external perception and less on their own experiences, the more I saw my own excuses as flimsy also.

Thanks to a friend who has swore to be extremely curious and has led me down that road with them, I experienced things that I thought were going to be mediocre or didn't even give a single thought about them and came out COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY by them. "Kamen Rider"? That's just silly guys in suits. I might like the older ones, but the new ones? Too toyetic, too CGI, too shonen. Cynical. I couldn't be more wrong. And this is the secret to curiosity, is that you need to WANT to be wrong. And I didn't, I just wanted to be in my ivory tower. Kamen Rider OOO, Kamen Rider Zero-One, these shows made me bawl my eyes out crying. The more I opened myself up the more I forgave myself and understood that I'm not immune to what other people resonate with - sometimes I'm right, sometimes something strikes me as shallow and it is, but I can't "be wrong" if I don't give it a chance. "One Piece" can't be good if I don't ever experience it. It's a comfortable and stupid position.

And the more I watch One Piece the more I'm blown away by it. One Piece is fantastic. It's less "training to be the strongest" (which I've always found boring, which is part of my "bigotry" against shonen) and more about having adventures. It's so adventurous. It's legitimately hilarious. And it made me cry on nearly every single main character's backstory so far. I just got to Tony Tony Chopper. I thought that character was going to be the first one that I was maybe a bit lukewarm on, that I wasn't going to care much. Three episodes of backstory. Ugly, ugly cries. Open sobbing. It's almost too much. But it's not sentimentalism for the sake of sentimentalism, it's not just trying to make you cry for the sake of it, it's building this character, it's giving them the determination, the loyalty, the strong will to be the best person that Luffy's crew needs. Oda feels like he understands that very well.

One Piece so far has all the things I like about Dragon Ball - the cartooning, fun character designs, the sense of adventure and humor, without the things that spoiled DB for me (addiction to battling and training and new forms, stories written completely on the go without any planning). And it's a story that I believe can be as good as it is as "long" as it is because it is so devoted to adventure. It's just like one of those adventure comics, like Donald Duck or Tex Avery, you finish one adventure in one island and then there's another one on the horizon, and sometimes you'll find a new crew member out of that. This is why it's so long, not because it's dragging storylines and character development like a carrot on a stick. "One Piece" is every single JRPG you've enjoyed dearly. It is very Dragon Quest-y. It's Final Fantasy VII. You go to a new village, find your next party member and solve some quest involving your soon-to-be party member's backstory and why they decide to leave their hometown to join you. Sometimes you find a new party member only to have their backstory hit you like a truck later. Sometimes a small character from dozens of playtime hours ago re-appears and it feels like catching up with an old friend. It has that same feeling of "hanging out with your friends" that a good JRPG party has. I'm loving it.

[letteredlettered]

Hello!! If you haven't replied already, could you talk about the "Captain Rogers Goes To Washington 6"? 💕 And if you've already done that one, can you talk about "zombie au"? Thank you ✨

Hello, thank you for asking!!!

Captain Rogers Goes To Washington 6 was my next installment in the Responsible Science series, which is an MCU series focused on Bruce Banner, and one of my favorite things I've ever written. I know, I know, I wrote the majority of that series in 2012; the last installment was finished in February 2013--how could I still be working on it? Well, believe me when I say that I still poke at a fic I started in 2007, and that I still return sometimes to the first fanfic I ever wrote, which I started in fourth grade.

This fic had several things going on: I wanted Bruce to get a serum that would block the Hulk; he would use this in a fic later in the series, and it would go terribly wrong (it actually separates Bruce and the Hulk into two different bodies, which Bruce thinks is great because he doesn't have the Hulk living inside him any more. He doesn't really care that much what the Hulk is up to, because as it turns out, the Hulk is deeply connected to Bruce's emotions, so without the Hulk Bruce basically becomes this cold, emotionless scientist without any social responsibility or compassion. When the Avengers fix the problem by reuniting Bruce and the Hulk, Bruce is horrified--he finds himself without the Hulk even more of a monster than with the Hulk--poor Bruce).

My idea for Bruce to get this serum is that someone would experiment on him; the obvious choice was that he would get captured once again by General Ross. This was great, because the other thing I wanted to deal with in the story was Bruce's relationship with Betty Ross; she's not very fleshed out in the movies, but I really wanted to explore her as a character and Bruce's history with her. This WIP kept getting combined and separated with a backstory I was writing for Bruce that dealt with his relationship with Betty before the Hulk and after.

If I remember correctly, Betty canonically lives in Virginia, so I had to give Bruce a reason to go there. I had him kind of thinking about it and that it was a part of his past he should face, but Bruce doesn't take a lot of initiative, shall we say, so he needed another kick in the pants. That kick in the pants is Steve Rogers, who is just . . . sad. He's just sad all the time in his brave "I'm okay, really" way, and Bruce doesn't like it and wants the world to be a better place for this man who tries so hard. So Bruce suggests a little field trip to DC so they can see all the museums and monuments (he imagines Steve is a Smithsonian man. Steve likes museums all right, but is more interested in Bruce's interest in them than the museums themselves, really, but Bruce is convinced that Steve must love them).

I think part of the inspiration was that I went to DC while writing the third part of this series--@mydaroga and I went to con.txt. together and then DC. That was my first time, and I kept thinking what Steve would think of everything. Consequently, the parts of this fic I have written are Bruce and Steve looking at monuments, despising American history and considering the potential of the experiment that is America, and being sad about politics. It's kind of too full of itself and thinks itself too important, but I do love me some Steve being sad.

Then they were going to part ways so Bruce could see Betty and Steve could go to Arlington; this series was started before Winter Soldier, so he still thinks Bucky is dead. Then after seeing Betty, Bruce was going to get nabbed by Ross and given the serum, and while Bruce is blissed out at the thought that he might be able to die (since the serum removes the Hulk), Steve finds out and fights a tank single-handedly to save Bruce, and Bruce is very, very disappointed. Steve is disappointed in Bruce for wanting to die, and Bruce is annoyed at Steve for not understanding him; they drive back to NYC in silence, and it's not a very happy fic.

[rollercoasterwords]

Hey I see ur thing about zombies and I would like to share this TikTok about a girl writing a zombie screenplay about the true origin and mythology of zombies, which is quite different than anything that exists in the media

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFkw8fqM/

ahhh thank you for sharing!! i'm on my computer let me see if i can put it as a link here

but yes to quickly summarize for anyone who can't watch the video - the original zombi comes from Haitian folklore, and rather than being a cannibalistic, bloodthirsty monster it was a reanimated corpse forced to continue to work even after death. the zombi as a cultural figure representing the horror of slavery was extremely important both during the Haitian revolution and in postcolonial Haiti.

and because i can't shut up about zombies i'm gonna ramble a little about zombie history but i'm gonna put it under a cut to try and be slightly less annoying lmao

okay so i referenced this in my last post about zombies but the transformation of the zombie into the cultural figure most people know it as today was a process that took place over the 20th century and is deeply entwined with colonialism. like, the U.S. occupied Haiti in what essentially amounted to a neocolonial project (bc the u.s. loves neocolonialism) from 1915-1934, and that's how america was first introduced to the mythology of the zombi. and then in White Zombie the Halperin brothers took the Haitian myth of the zombi and stripped it out of the cultural context of slavery and turned it into a narrative of the Good White Heteronormative American Couple vs the Evil Foreign Voodoo Doctor. and it was that movie where the "zombie" was introduced to an american audience.

and so for a while the zombie maintained its roots of like, being a reanimated corpse that is controlled by a living being wielding some form of dark magic. and then in 1968 we get Night of the Living Dead, and the thing is--the monsters in that movie weren't zombies when it was first released. Romero introduced america to a horde of cannibalistic corpses, created by radiation from an exploded space probe, and it wasn't until after the movie was released and became popular that people began to conflate romero's living dead with the bastardized version of the zombie that already existed in american media. romero himself didn't actually embrace the term zombie until ten years later, when Dawn of the Dead was released in 1978, and so that's when this new imagining of the zombie really began to coalesce, completely detached from its cultural origins in slavery and now transfigured into a bogeyman for any cultural "Other" that americans were being told to be afraid of at any given time.

and so really the only shared link between american zombies and haitian zombis was

reanimated dead bodies

ego death - no soul/identity/human consciousness

and the thing is, even those two links have been broken down over the past four decades. like, now the only link that seems to hold true across zombie media is cannabilsm, which wasn't even part of the original zombi folklore.

and like. another thing is. zombies as a monster have historically been very much bound up in colonialism and xenophobia and have been used, in many ways, to reinforce fear of the cultural Other. like, so much zombie media is deeply steeped in nationalism, in heteronormativity, in xenophobia, etc. etc., and part of that is just horror--horror as a genre, for all its potential to undermine societal norms, can just as easily be used to reinforce dominant systems of power by playing into fears about marginalized groups. but this is part of why the shift in zombie narratives over the past...idk. 10ish years? interests me so much. because now we're finally starting to see some zombie media that says any goddamn thing that isn't just "the point of Fight Zombie is to Rebuild New Society that looks just like Old Society because that is what makes us Human." and we're finally starting to get some zombie media that critiques dominant power systems instead of just playing into their hands, which is something that the original myth of the zombi did that was just completely stripped away in the colonial introduction of the zombie to american media.

anyway! i think i'm completely losing my train of thought at this point and just following my brain as it hops into different rabbit holes, but in conclusion -- yes, the origins of the zombie are frequently erased and that is not a good thing!! horror is such a fraught genre and to really understand the monsters we see and the ways they change throughout history we have to understand where they come from!

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 260

American Nightmare/Heaven Sent

“American Nightmare”

Plot Description: after several victims are shipped to death by an unseen force, Sam and Dean begin to suspect a deeply religious family that lives off the grid

EXCUSE ME?? We’re getting season 2 flashbacks in the recap?? Back to when Sam had psychic powers???

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: yeah, I just don’t see myself as someone who would receive the stigmata

Mmmm, fake stigmata. She had no side wounds

Dean, no. Do not discount your feelings on this. It’s WEIRD to have your mom back like this, and it’s NORMAL to feel awkward about how things are going and how she left

Ugh…these writers do know how to twist a knife some days. Turns out the dead woman worked for child protective services and when the boys asked her former subordinate if she had any enemies she said “you don’t make a lot of friends when sometimes the best thing you can do for a family is split them up” in front of DEAN?? Yeah, he’s mad about that

You get used to the suits when they’re pretending to be fbi agents, and clergy uniforms when they’re pretending to be priests, but you never quite get used to the chunky sweaters when they have to be child psychologists or cps workers

Is……is that the dead daughter?? Actually alive and locked in the basement???

This family is so fucked up.

Dean, don’t do this. This random Wiccan woman is not the problem here.

Pfffffft, Sam not even really knowing if he’s psychic any more

What if the mom’s lying about if the daughter caused the accident?

SHE PUT RAT POISON IN THEIR FOOD??? And stabbed the son????? Bestie, your daughter is not the devil, you were going to murder your whole family.

Awww. Dean’s done some thinking about how Mary’s thinking

Oh…I remember that tattoo from a different episode. Ugh. The London Men of Letters are so fucking annoying.

“Heaven Sent”

Plot Description: trapped in a world unlike any other, the Doctor faces the greatest challenges of his lives

I’ve got an hour and 20 minutes to watch this 54 minute episode…

I wish they’d cut down on his soliloquies, though I suppose with Clara no longer around he doesn’t really have anyone to talk to

Ooooooo, he is unnerved by whatever’s following him

He’s got some…um…interesting philosophies “if they threaten you with death, show them who’s boss. Die faster”: how to deal with being in a torture chamber

So……and I can’t believe I’m gonna say this. In fact, I hate that I will…the TARDIS is also a little bit the Doctor’s mind palace. He uses it differently than Sherlock, but the same basic concept is there

I’m sure, in due time, this’ll be interesting…but I’m just not feeling it. It’s just the Doctor being clever to an imaginary audience on his side of the fourth wall who it seems he’s pretending is Clara

The setting is the most interesting thing. He’d in this castle that keeps jumbling around and resetting every so often

God…..but I want to look up and see that many stars

Is…the thing following the Doctor the Hybrid (half time lord, half dalek)? Following him around the castle like some Ghost of Christmas Future-ified Minotaur?

He might not be the only person to lose someone but he is among the very few to seemingly lose everyone

Old man vs 20 ft thick wall. Who will win? The answer may surprise you: the creature that’s been following the old man

Oh this prison is inhumane. Gallifrey clearly doesn’t even have a Geneva…

Can’t believe he’s been stuck in a time loop for 7000 years

20,000 now??

This montage had taken us billions of years into the future and he’s mourned Clara and spoken to her like she was right there with him every day of it. Sometimes grief be like that

Oh…the Hybrid is not literal half dalek….perhaps it’s because the Doctor has been told over and over he’d make a good dalek. Maybe because he killed all the time lords…

[liu-anhuaming]

Okay after watching the first two episodes of 《乘风破浪2023》 (sorry, I refuse to call it 乘风) here's who I'm paying most attention to and some other initial thoughts:

(under a cut bc there's some spoilers)

龚琳娜 is as much of a delight as I expected, I am so fucking pumped to see her dance in future episodes. I actually followed her on 微博 already, and she'd been posting about taking dance classes, so a fee weeks ago (before I knew she was gonna be on 乘风破浪) I had been thinking it would be cool to see her on the show

蔡少芬 is someone I'm not too familiar with, but the fact that she was the empress is 《甄嬛传》 makes her instantly iconic, so I'm excited to see more of her. She seems really funny too

I've only ever seen 谢娜 in the role of host, so it's nice to see her breaking out and doing something a little different/unexpected

I became familiar with A-Lin/黄丽玲 through her time on 《我是歌手》 but I didn't really listen to any of her music after that. I already know she's a good vocalist, so I'm looking forward to seeing her again and getting more familiar with her (and maybe finally listening to her music too)

谢欣 had a really breathtaking initial performance, even though she didn't sing. While I'm curious to hear her sing, she's also such a good dancer that I'd be fine just watching her dance

美依礼芽 seems to be a talented singer and I lived her first performance. I totally didn't expect her and 龚琳娜 to pair up for the first round, but I am super excited to see them work together. Definitely the performance I'm anticipating the most for next week

芝芙/Chi Pu is someone I'm totally unfamiliar with, but she seems nice and I'm curious to see what she does.

As for my other thoughts:

It's a little too early to say much, but most of the changes they've made seem pretty minor. The only exception is the name of the show. I don't get why they felt the need to shorten it to 《乘风》 when 《乘风破浪》 was already a shortened version of the original title 《乘风破浪的姐姐》. I'm still gonna call it 《乘风破浪》

Also, who is this man? Why did they make one of the panelists an American man who doesn't speak any Mandarin ()? Why have I already find him deeply annoying after only seeing him maybe three times?

I feel like this season is trying really hard to appeal to international audiences, what with how many international contestants they have. I don't have very strong opinions on this, other than shock that Korean songs are allowed on Chinese TV again?? But I just don't see the point of this dude (Josh Cumbee) to be on the panel. Idk, maybe he has fans, but if someone came up to me and said, "Hey, you should watch this Chinese show, Josh Cumbee is on it", my only reaction would be "who the fuck is Josh Cumbee". Maybe I'm being too harsh on Josh, and it's possible my issue is that I just dislike him bc he looks annoying, but whatever

Aside from this, I don't have much to say about the panel other than I'm sad to see Ken's not on this season. This isn't a critique so much as a comment, and maybe a lament? He was such a big part of the first three seasons that it's jarring for him to be gone this year. I'm gonna miss him :(