#I'm American but from the wrong part of the country though I have been to the west multiple times with my family

[artemismatchalatte]

My favorite genre of country music: YEE HAW, YOU FUCKING CHEATER!!!

bonus if it's sung by an angry woman!

[eowyntheavenger]

Hi! I saw your post on telling Americans to vote, and I was wondering what you think of posts from people from other parts of the world who are calling Americans evil for voting for Biden because of his support for Israel. I've seen a few already. They seem to be completely convinced that Americans deliberately voted for Biden specifically to side against Palestine and no other reason, and spread the general (pretty ignorant and hateful) message of "Americans are evil because of the actions of their government and because they collectively refuse to vote for a president who is good and not simply 'the lesser of two evils'". It frustrates me because they seem to think they're experts on US politics, culture, and society and have all the answers, but it also makes me concerned because it reminds me of the whole Russian bot thing from last time. Like, I'm 99% sure the people reblogging these posts aren't Russian bots (don't know about the OPs though), and they unquestioningly believe this. What do you think of this and how would you go about addressing this issue? Do you think it's possible to get them to understand how little they actually know about the US and how they're actually promoting a message that makes things worse for everyone? I've also seen less scathing posts that are just disheartened and don't seem to believe the democrats are truly better to vote for than the republicans and so it's just two sides of the same coin. To be fair, I think that sort of feeling is only further encouraged because there didn't really seem to be much if any progress made with Biden, not even back to square one after Trump moved the country so far backwards. I think most Americans really wish the elections actually had good candidates and they could pick the best of two goods, but are frustrated and stuck with the current system and don't know how to actually get to the point where there are good candidates. (Though personally I think voting for the one who isn't actively trying to make themselves a king with unlimited terms is a decent start. I can understand the frustration though.)

Hi! Thanks for the ask. This stuff worries me too. I've gotten comments on my posts like that too, telling me/other Americans that we're evil for voting for Biden.

But I've seen a much larger number of comments and posts from people outside the United States BEGGING us to vote for Biden. I literally get tags like that on my posts EVERY DAY urging Americans to vote blue. So I think that's valuable context, even if it doesn't solve the problem of the "I hate everybody who votes for Biden" crowd.

And yes, it's definitely a shitty argument on their part to claim that people voting for Biden are specifically siding against Palestine. Literally every single person I know in real life and online who plans to vote for Biden has been criticizing and protesting his policies on Palestine.

In terms of convincing the anti-voters that they're wrong, honestly, I don't know. They don't listen to reason and they seem intent on spreading despair. Some of Biden's policies have been terrible (Willow oil-drilling project), some of them have been downright evil (military aid to Israel), but I'm a rational person and I know that Trump is worse in every respect.

I've tried debating them. It's been pointless every time. They genuinely don't know how the government works, which scares me. Common takes include: 1) a genuine lack of awareness of how pro-Israel Trump and the right wing are, combined with magical thinking that a virtually unknown third party candidate can win the presidential election, 2) truly impressive mental gymnastics blaming Biden for the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and 3) continuing the mental gymnastics to blame Biden and the Democrats for anti-trans policies...

I guess my advice is to either ignore them and move on, or debunk things when you have time/energy? It's easier said than done, I know. There's nothing more annoying than someone being stupid on the internet, especially when they accuse you of stuff that just isn't true, and especially when they're spreading dangerous misinformation or voter-suppression rhetoric.

Like you, I'm highly suspicious of anyone who advocates AGAINST voting, or against voting blue. And I agree, many of these people are not bots, like you said, but I call them useful idiots, because they're doing the bots' work for them.

The one thing you said that I'm going to push back on is "there didn't really seem to be much if any progress made with Biden." Biden's actually made lots of progress on a variety of issues, and reversed some of Trump’s damage, it just doesn't get a lot of fanfare and it’s unfortunately happening at the same time as Republican gains in state legislatures and while they control the Supreme Court. But Biden and his administration have:

• invested billions in green architecture and clean energy, including making sure federal investments benefit low-income communities

• introduced new fines for companies' methane emissions

• introduced a plan to cut the federal government's greenhouse gas emissions by 65% by 2030 (that includes the military, which is a huge emitter)

• passed a huge bill for improving the country's infrastructure, including bridges, roads, broadband and more

• introduced first-ever national strategy on gender equality and equity and pushed Congress to pass the Equal Rights Amendment

• fought for women's reproductive rights after the overturn of Roe v. Wade

• put more women, people of color, and women of color on the federal bench than any of his predecessors combined

• nominated Kentaji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court

• boosted funding to historically Black colleges

• ordered the DOJ to end the use of private prisons by the federal government

• pardoned thousands of people convicted on federal marijuana charges

• created a White House office of gun violence prevention

• passed the Respect for Marriage Act, guaranteeing federal rights and benefits for same-sex couples

• rolled out a series of actions to protect the rights and safety of the LGBTQ+ community, including protecting queer and trans foster youth, improving access to mental health services, and addressing the rise in hate crimes

• challenged discriminatory state bans against gender-affirming care and trans athletes

• called to support trans youth in State of the Union address and restored the White House tradition of recognizing Pride Month

• changed passport rules so that people can obtain a passport with no gender marker

• examined efforts by each federal agency to advance LGBTQ+ rights around the world

• reversed Trump's transgender military ban

• protected the rights of incarcerated trans people

• forgave billions in student debt, repeatedly, and introduced penalties for college programs that trap students in debt

• slashed bank overdraft fees

• expanded guaranteed overtime pay for millions of people

• made union-busting harder

• prevented discriminatory mortgage lending

• made efforts to expand the child tax credit, which could lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty

• cracked down on agriculture monopolies to support farmers and small businesses

• made it so the government is going to start taking drug companies' patents away if they don't make affordable drugs

• made over-the-counter birth control pills available for the first time

• lowered the cost of hearing aids and expanded access to them

• spent millions of dollars on students' mental health

• reversed discriminatory healthcare rules

• reinvigorated cancer research

• announced plans to replace all leaded pipes in the next ten years as well as combatting lead exposure abroad

• changed rules for how people can get aid after disasters so they can get more protection and immediate payments more easily

• introduced new data privacy rules protecting people from tech companies

• pushed the federal government to monitor AI risks

• maintained steadfast support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression

• maintained steadfast support for Taiwan in the face of Chinese intimidation

• strengthened ties with allies in Asia and the Pacific Islands

• pledged climate change assistance to low-lying Pacific Island countries

• literally IMMEDIATELY after being elected, Biden fortified DACA, rejoined the Paris Agreement, and ended Trump's discriminatory "Muslim ban", ended the Keystone XL Pipeline and fossil duel development in wildlife monuments, (same as last link) rejoined the WHO, strengthened COVID-19 response measures on a variety of fronts, re-included non-citizens in the U.S. census, and passed executives orders on racial equity in the federal government

And I'm sure there's more I left out.

There are also things Biden does that literally don’t make the news, but matter a lot, like funding the Postal Service, and continuing to have a State Department so we can conduct overseas diplomacy (Trump tried to defund the USPS and wants to purge the State Department and fill it with loyalists).

[qqueenofhades]

Do you think part of what makes people feel like voting isn’t worth it because things don’t get better under democrats is because we can’t see what would have happened? Like I see a lot of people saying “well biden hasn’t made america much better so there’s no point” but it’s like they don’t understand that under a republican they would actively do everything they could to cause more harm. It’s like they don’t understand that 1. The president can’t do much, and 2. IT WOULD BE WORSE. like they don’t understand the possibilities. Idk people just frustrate me

I'm sorry, as I know you're just relaying what these people think and not claiming so yourself, but the whole "things don't get better under Biden/Democrats" line to which we are subjected so very, miserably often is a lie!!! It is demonstrably a lie! It is peddled by people who deliberately live in their echo-chamber leftist misinformation bubbles and either don't read the news, don't accept anything less than the Magical Socialist Revolution Now, and don't think partial or incremental progress (aka the only kind of progress that exists) is valid. "Biden hasn't single-handedly fixed everything wrong with America and the world after the most damaging presidency ever to exist and 250+ years of flaws, while other countries actually are their own actors with agency making complex choices, so we shouldn't vote for him" is a bullshit lie and I'm tired of it!!!

(Again. Sorry. This is not directed at you. This is just my frustration with this entire ridiculous situation speaking.)

We have had multiple elections now where people voted for Democrats, which resulted in abortion protections, protections for LGBTQ people, the biggest climate legislation ever to pass Congress/be signed into law (the Inflation Reduction Act), vast improvements in the job market, executive actions both large and small, improvements in labor and the economy, a general democratic system, a defense of the rule of law, a warning against fascism, and everything else that Trump trampled on in 4 years and will finish the job of doing if this godforsaken country is either right-wing-zealot or left-wing-zealot enough to put him back into office. (Like, people. Google is free. You're welcome to look up the improvements Biden has actually made, but that would harm your Narrative.) So much of this misinformation is also peddled by people who are proud that they don't have a clue how the American government works and/or deliberately lie about it: see all the claims that it was Biden's fault for not magically stopping a Trump-stacked SCOTUS, selected for the express purpose of overturning Roe, from overturning Roe. Because the president could just unilaterally overturn the Supreme Court with no problems at all if He Really Wanted To, I guess. Even if that is literally not the way it has ever functioned in history.

All the noxious Republicans in state legislatures passing anti-trans/anti-abortion/anti-voting laws ARE NOT SOMETHING BIDEN CAN STOP. If you're going to criticize him for not doing something, for God's sake at least make it for something he can do (like not calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, though I would argue he's already taking a more nuanced approach than the entirety of the American establishment during the War on Terror). And then vote for him when/if he follows it up, not just throw your hands in the air and scream about how you Can't Possibly Sully Yourself (especially when there is some very selective support going on here and a deliberate white-washing of how many orders of magnitude worse absolutely everything else in America and the world would be under Trump. So.)

I'm tired of it. I'm really, really tired of it. I've been trying to cut back on my politics posting because my mental health is bad right now and I often feel like a broken record screaming into the void. But. Yeah. Anyway. Whoof.

[utilitycaster]

I'm glad to see you mentioning how disconnected the PCs are from Marquet! I'm a little surprised that I haven't seen more discussion of this in the fandom at large (although maybe I'm looking in the wrong places), since it was a point of discussion at the very beginning of the campaign in a couple of private PoC tabletop/LARP groups I was in. The consensus in the aforementioned groups at the time was that maybe the cast didn't feel comfortable representing characters coming from cultures that were explicitly based on real world PoC cultures (but the decision to have almost everyone be an "outsider" in a PoC-coded culture had unfortunate Orientalist overtones). This was very, very early campaign (like e10 maybe), though, before we really knew the trajectory of the plot (or that they'd spend so little time in Marquet).

It definitely came up a lot early on and I think a lot of the people who felt this either left Campaign 3 quite early and said "this isn't working for me" or else said, as I did, that it is what it is.

I think my issue here is that like...Imogen and Dorian are the only Marquet-born characters and while I have complicated feelings about how people see Imogen (see my previous comments about the bizarre bordering on creepy glorification of a very white-coded Southern culture that have spread into like...white anglophone but not United States portions of the fandom) she and Dorian are both very much coded to North American cultures (Imogen, accent aside, honestly fits any rural agrarian portion of the country and honestly reads closer to the great plains than the south, and Dorian is influenced by Native American culture). I actually do think that Taliesin did a good job making Ashton feel like they were part of Bassuras (and they aren't from there originally, but did grow up there culturally), but the fact is I've seen multiple people ignore that "Bassuras" is specifically taken from Tagalog (and that Makenzie de Armas was one of the Marquet designers) and hc it as Central American rather than Filipino despite Matt explicitly saying it's the latter.

I do think that the answer, if the cast was not comfortable playing Marquesian characters (and I am not a POC so take this with that grain of salt, but I also think, with some effort and some sensitivity work, they could have done so, particularly since Marquet is inspired by but not one to one), the answer should have been to either be clearer this wouldn't be centered in Marquet and would simply start there which would have lowered those expectations and to perhaps plan an EXU in Marquet that does primarily star actors who are from north Africa, or western, southern, or southeast Asia; or just set the campaign in Issylra or something. I get that Marquet is more central and cosmopolitan than Issylra by far, but we're now in an awkward position where we might have a campaign set mostly in Fake North America; a campaign set virtually entirely in Fake Europe/debatably central/northeast Asia; and a campaign that was ostensibly set in Fake SWANA/SEAsia but really was mostly about the moon. Like, the cast doing a thoughtful but perhaps imperfect go at Marquesian characters would have, at least in my opinion, been preferable.

If it helps I think the way Matt and the worldbuilders describe Marquet it doesn't feel (to me) overly orientalist and the fandom has definitely had way more "do you see this shit Edward Said" moments than the cast, despite the fact that only half the characters had spent significant time in Marquet. Really, the narrative issue is "the characters don't feel tied to this place or invested in the same way in this plot because the plot isn't tied to this place", and the unfortunate overtones come from the fact that it was the Ostensible Marquet Campaign that got the plot that's not really about Marquet.

(as someone running Netherdeep - I will say that helps. The bulk of that story is in a lovingly and sensitively reworked Ank'Harel. I'm hoping TLOVM also does a better job than C1 with Ank'Harel.)

[motionpicturedemise]

Zero's medal, New Mecca's origins, and near-fatal head trauma

Spoilers for all of Katana ZERO ahead. if you haven't played it already, do that now, I'm dead serious when I say it's one of the greatest games of all time.

When I first decided I'd post meta about this game, honestly, this isn't the one I expected to start with. Hey, sometimes inspiration hits, and...

I'm joking. That's a different rant entirely. (yoshiP voice) please look forward to it. I think the best place to start with this one is New Mecca itself, and what that name entails. It's no secret that KZ takes large inspiration from both Judaism and Islam, the latter of which is more relevant today.

The implications of a literal new Mecca are both fascinating and out of my wheelhouse. I encourage any Muslims, who certainly know more about it than me, to elaborate. As it stands, I'm going to leave it at these few screenshots.

The Psychiatrist:

Leon von Alvensleben:

And of course, Headhunter:

This really isn't the main point of this rant, but it's related enough that I feel justified in mentioning it. Now, let's see Zero's service medal.

Thanks to the nature of KZ as a pixel-art game, we don't have much to work with here. It's gold with a purple ribbon, that's the most we're gonna get.

During the scene at the bar, we have an NPC put a name to it, and this name is what kickstarted the entire post.

A Distinguished Service Crescent. This, to my knowledge, is not a real medal in any country. That makes sense, considering, to my knowledge... New Mecca isn't real. (If it was, we'd have bigger problems on our hands.) This name did remind me of the real-life medal known as the Distinguished Service Cross, which has three meanings and appearances between countries.

To the left, the USA's medal, which is the second highest military decoration just behind their Medal of Honor. The center, Australia's medal, the highest of their Distinguished Service awards. The right, the United Kingdom's medal, which is only awarded for service at sea.

But none of these look like Zero's medal, do they? Let's take a look at Distinguished Service Medals instead, same order as above.

No dice. At this point what I'm about to say is going to surprise absolutely nobody, but the only real-life lookalike I can think of is the USA's Purple Heart.

Now, this sounds absolutely nothing like the Distinguished Service Crescent the NPC mentions, but let's account for 1. artistic liberty, 2. multiple inspirations, and 3. the fact that he might've been wrong. (It's not as if KZ has the most reliable narrators in the first place.)

Part of the reason it might be named as such in game is to draw the direct comparison to our real world medals, named after the cross. Why has it been replaced with a crescent, though? Recall the name of New Mecca, and how the crescent has long been a symbol of of Islam.

Most Americans know what a Purple Heart is given for: being wounded or killed by an enemy combatant in the line of duty. Given that Zero is still alive to receive it, only the former is important. Things are starting to come together.

During the final scene with the Psychiatrist, he entirely ignores you if you ask if the medal is real. At first, I assumed this could be Zero coming to doubt everything he's been told, which is reasonable. Then, once I realized the medal is based off of a Purple Heart, I thought it was real after all.

Finally, I realized just how much the Psychiatrist had Zero's life under control. Zero knows what this medal means, what it implies, and the whole course of the game is discovering how much of what he believed to be innate is caused by his medicine.

Chronos, the drug that he's been forbidden from learning about at every turn, that he's been given non-answers about this whole time, that gives him the power of a god. It's not so unreasonable to assume the medal was used to attribute Zero's memory loss to a head injury, as opposed to the truth of it being yet another side effect.

It's worth noting which parts of the screenshots provided are rendered in purple, and the fact that NULL itself is written in the same color. More on the color usage of KZ later.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading the deranged ramblings of a madman. Lord knows I'm not done talking about this game.

Thanks to @chemicalbrew for encouraging my madness, Muffins (no tumblr) for cooking this up with me, @dynal for listening, and everyone in The Apartment, Nepenthe, and Paradox of Lucidity for cheering me on.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/750157841851203584/httpswwwtumblrcomolderthannetfic749685852364?source=share

i'm sorry i slipped up on the pronouns, i've been having trouble following this, but given that others also slipped up in replies like, does it make my points moot?

i also think people are missing the point about "being descended from an aristocrat who lost their head" i'm well aware that many other people in france lost their lives in the reign of terror, that it cut a broad swathe of society and included a lot of non-aristocrats and people who were in favor of the initial revolution as its victims, including, eventually, ringleader robespierre himself.

i don't know what exactly happened and if they're stanning robespierre that shows a poor undestanding of the revolution regardless. but it's not "because the people who are calling them out are french" that is the issue. it's "because the people who are calling them out know their history and xjz is being offensively wrong about it" that's the issue. like, if xjz WERE french, would their robespierre fandom somehow be ok?

i just think we need to think more critically about why certain historical events are considered to "belong" to particular countries over others, or why being part of a culture is considered a form of expertise on a historical event sometimes and not other times. an event that is out of living memory, though, and where there's no documented psychological history of generational trauma (which generally only happens with a genocide that wiped out the majority of a particular population, or a centuries/generations-spanning event - which apply to the holocaust and american slavery respectively, which have evidence of generational trauma, but neither of which apply to the french revolution. also the holocaust remains within living memory, and at the very least people who personally directly knew holocaust victims will continue to be alive for some time, but that is not true of the french revolution)

and i mean, even referring to these previous events.... i've seen jewish people say obviously wrong things about the holocaust and black people say obviously wrong things about US slavery and seen people who weren't those groups correct them, and (on tumblr, of course) had the first people try to claim they can't be wrong because of X identity group. don't we agree that's kind of goofy?

at the end of the day, while certian events are more sensitive to some groups than others, you're right about history because you KNOW HISTORY and not because of your ethnicity or nationality. and i'm going to reiterate: french people in 2024 have no particular personal connection to the french revolution, at hte very least that wouldn't apply to lots of people in other countries who are also descended from or related to its victims lol. but you know maybe after a certain point, just being related to someone who was persecuted there doesn't give you some special magic blood connection. maybe it's meaningful if that was a big part of your personal family history, but that's a case by case basis and can't be "decided" just by knowing some fact about it. i have a friend who is related to marie antoinette and she found this out by searching her family name on wikipedia and finding out they were aristocrats in her country of origin and one of the married into the hapsburg family. i don't think that is a particularly meaningful connection.

and i also just think we need to be more critical as progressives whenever people get overly touchy on blood/nationality/ethnicity as the ultimate marker of anything, for reasons that hopefully should be obvious

--

[numbknee]

Why do you think Kyman gets so much hate? I can understand some things about what people don’t like about it but some of the things they say, the harassment is so out of pocket. Especially on Tik Tok! It is like a battle ground out there and they all will shoot you down immediately if you SAY anything. I just wanna love Kyman without it seeming like a punishment 😭😭

Dude I totally feel you. It's so much easier to live and let live so I don't understand how these ppl have the energy to be so aggressively hurtful all the time. This has been said before ad nauseum but for god's sake, it's JUST a fucking tv show. I'm too old for this shit.

(longer explanation under the cut! like... extremely long lol I'm so sorry my thoughts about this have been building up for a while 😅)

I think the extremely aggressive kyman hate is a symptom of growing poor media literacy and the larger "purity culture" trend that's been present online for a while now. It's very reminiscent of American Evangelicalism or Puritanism, where members of the church have to follow a very specific set of rules for behaving and thinking and if you deviate from those rules in the slightest, you're shot down immediately by the community and shamed for being sinful and blasphemous, all to keep you on the "righteous path" and avoid burning in hell for eternity. This is why so many puritanical christians in the US hate themselves for doing what most of the world sees as normal behavior, and simultaneously force that self-hating worldview onto others to "save" them. (For example see this video by FD Signifier on youtube explaining how hardcore religious ppl/conservatives are doomed to be bad in bed because they see sex as "evil" when in reality it's a normal part of human behavior 😬 It's long but very good).

Though, it's important to note that ppl who think this way may not even be christian themselves, but the behavior is so pervasive in american culture that you absorb it even if you're not a puritanical christian. (for example, to quote Ian Danskin, athiests may think "I don't believe in god, but the god I don't believe in is Jehovah). Tons of the first generation of white USAmericans were exiled British puritans who were kicked out of their home country for essentially being self-righteous assholes and trying to force their shit worldview on everyone else lmao. And I think because so many online spaces are so USAmerican-centric, people from all over the world have started adopting that purity culture as well.

Now, South Park is extremely popular (duh). It's been around for decades so it has a ton of fans both old and new. Unfortunately a lot of new fans, especially young people, follow the show for very different reasons than the average normie/not-terminally-online viewer does. They take the characters out of their original context, use them like dolls to make their own stories and fan content, and ignore all the other blatantly controversial shit that's been going on in the show since day 1 (which is why so many exclusively make blasé creek fanworks imo). They want to keep their thoughts "pure" and only engage with content that's approved by the puritanical online community

It's extremely fitting but also sad that Cartman is the scapegoat for everything wrong with South Park, both in the show and in the real world. Either ppl don't want to acknowledge he exists, or ppl latch onto him and project all of that puritanical hatred toward him or anyone that likes his character. Hell, even I'M guilty of this kind of thinking before I watched the show and understood Cartman's character better.

Kyman in particular is a target BECAUSE it involves Cartman, but also because people boil it down to shipping a nazi with a jew which, at the surface level, seems horrible! But if you've ever actually WATCHED the goddamn show, you know that is an extremely reductive and inaccurate interpretation of their characters. It's horribly poor media literacy. These ppl CANNOT seem to comprehend that you can enjoy watching a character who's a "bad person" without condoning their actions, and that enjoying the shipping dynamic of such characters DOES NOT make you a bad person by proxy.

A huge role of fiction as media is to explore ideas that may be harmful in the real world in a safe way because... *gasp* it's imaginary!! It makes you think and experience emotions you may not have the opportunity for otherwise! However, in the eyes of puritans, the fact you're even thinking about something like that makes you a sinner. It's a thought crime, which is why they consider us mentally "sick" for shipping kyman. So, they send hate at the drop of a hat and publicly vilify kyman shippers to reinforce that behavior with each other, all to say "Hey look at me!!! I'm a Good Person! see how much of a Good Person I am??? I'm gonna go to HEAVEN, and YOU'RE going to HELL". Like I said before, it's not that they necessarily believe in heaven or hell, but that's the general root of the behavior. It's performative puritan dog-piling. Also, because they haven't even fucking watched the whole show, they conveniently ignore all the other horrible shit the show portrays because random kyman shippers online are easy targets while Matt & Trey are gajillionaires who are essentially un-cancellable for things they do on the show at this point because, to quote Trey: For anyone to go up and go "Did you see this thing on South Park? That was really offensive" someone's gonna be like "Dude shut up 😒 that's just South Park".

Geez man this got super fucking long lmao. But my advice is to please take care of yourself because, and this super cliché to say, but FUCK the haters dude 🖕🖕🖕 You're engaging with media that brings you joy and exploring interesting ideas with a community of awesome artists/writers/meta-analysts and more. This is supposed to be FUN!! Anyone who tries to take that away from you or shame you into stopping is a fucking immature, holier-than-thou asshole who needs to get a fucking life. The block button is your friend, so use it early and often. You have the power to curate your own online space, and you shouldn't subject yourself to dealing with these dickheads (this is a big reason why I don't have a tiktok lol)

Good luck dude, and keep on shipping kyman 😎🤘❤️💚

[theageofsims]

Please do not reblog, (a personal post)

Alright. Held my tongue long enough, yet I didn't think I'd even make a post, but here I am.

This has been a whole-ass damn day. I didn't fall asleep until 4:30am and it was like the demons were out playing pingpong in my head.

I'm sorry to everyone who cannot cope with this American bullshit once more. I'm an American, but I know I'm mentally strong enough to deal with this shit all over again, while I've seen others literally losing it before it was even declared "over".

Do I want to deal with it? Hell Fucking No, dude. Legit, Hell Fucking No. 😒

But I will say this -- try not to let it consume your day to day and honestly try to understand one another. I know it sounds crazy, but in the end it isn't worth it. My ass is already on a high dose of blood pressure medication and diabetic medication since last February -- so I don't need to be stressing myself out any more than the curve balls life has sent me since my dad died from stomach cancer about 2 and a half years ago.

You are going to have friends and even worse -- family, even immediate family, that you know voted the opposite way than you did.

Yes, he's this and he's that -- he's all of the above, but the truth is... A lot of people in this country and everywhere are. Does it make it right? No. Do people vote for people who say racist things because they agree with them? Yes, but also no.

I got people in my family who immigrated to the states way back when and they specifically voted for this man because of his take on immigration.

🤷🏽‍♀️ So go figure -- it literally takes all kinds.

I haven't touched the news in so long. My dad passed away and I kind of just didn't want to hear much about negativity and Lord knows the only place you can easily find that is by turning on the news.

When I heard Biden was out the running I said oh my God... And who is replacing him? When I saw Harris, I thought... Is this *really* going to happen?

I'm a biracial woman and I'm an American. I already know. I already knew when Hillary lost -- how could the wife of Bill Clinton lose an election? Growing up, personally, I didn't know one person that did not love the Clinton's even after what happened with Bill and that Monica chick.

When it showed who her running mate would be I said Lord let her please pick a white man because if she picks a woman, regardless of race, it will be over before it ever properly starts.

And the sad thing about all of this is I can not understand why race is still such an issue in the world -- but especially in America. There were so many times during this election I was like what the hell difference does it make if this woman identifies as black or not -- or both. What is the literal difference?

*Hard Sigh*

I can't even and there is no point because I've only voted 3 times in my life so far and ya girl is hard on the BLUE side -- not knowing if I can ever not be, but I did my part... We all did our part.

So as I said -- try to hold it together as best as you can. Thankfully we are a country that literally changes leaders every 4 to 8 years and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he will be able to run again... Though I'm not entirely sure because I am not deeply embedded into politics at this point in my life and I may never be.

Then again -- this all goes far beyond politics. I get it. This is far beyond red and blue, these are like core values and so forth. Unfortunately we all have a different moral compass and experiences really change people -- but so does fear.

I personally feel like the people I know that support him are so far deep into fear that could never possibly be and also sometimes fear that is based on complete ignorance and just complete confusion.

This man said they were eating people's cats out there in Ohio... I cannot even begin to explain how hard I laughed for WEEKS. When they have to reassure the public that people are not eating cats... How the hell are you supposed to react besides laughing?

I just can't.

But I wanted to post this because clearly I'm no stranger to hard times throughout my life, but also most recently with losing my dad, and now there's just more shit to have to deal with because changes may be coming directly or indirectly to me and the people I care about that didn't want him voted back in.

It's gonna feel like every damn day is Monday -- seriously.

But there is a way.

I remember a friend I worked with once said that she was struggling to talk to her best friend because her best friend was for what she was against, regardless of my friend being a Republican her whole life (she's older than me), but said if I choose to react to her in another way, how does it make me any different than them?

And I understood.

I have fought with one particular family member until the literal cows came home and in the end I realized that I can't change that person's views.

How do I deal with it? Well, I remember who they are and all they do for me, and how much love is there -- but I also tell myself that perhaps they're being this way because of fear that's being put on them or how they're maybe being influenced by the media and other people close to them that expect them to feel a certain way.

It's crazy. It all seems crazy, but I often think of that friend I mentioned who said what she said.

Anyway, hang in there guys -- through all the literal fucking warped bullshit that's soon to come if it hasn't come already, try to find the laughs (as hard as it may be and WILL be) and for sure, hang on to whatever hope you've got left. If not for you, then for someone who is going to need it.

[good--merits-accumulated]

More Dead Poets headcanons: historical (Belle Époque) edition

Is this just fully self-indulgence now? Yes. (Insert Starship Troopers gif: "I'M DOING MY PART!")

- Todd is the second son of a couturier who prefers writing fairytales about the dresses instead of doing business with them. He often slips away to go play in string quarters in little riverside bistros and sit in on writers' salons. Strictly speaking he doesn't need to sneak as nobody outside his family really knows who he is, but he does it anyway

- Neil is the contrastingly very high-profile son of a government minister who has seen Todd looking uncomfortable at various balls and recognises him one evening playing violin in the corner of a dingy little cafe, because HE'S also been sneaking out

- Charlie is a dilettante and hangs about with artists (to the dismay of his parents) and keeps the gossip rags well stocked. Neil became friends with him at fourteen out of spite for his parents then discovered that they got on extremely well and that was, as they say, that

- Meeks is a student at the newly-formed University of Paris, unfortunately dating these headcanons exactly to 1896. He spends his time working feverishly on investigating radio waves + using them in communication, a discovery he is unfortunately eventually beaten to by Guglielmo Marconi (yeah, the real guy). Meeks keeps up a significant correspondence both with scientific luminaries (on a first name basis with Max Planck somehow???) and the large amount of siblings he's left behind in a village near Drôme, spending all his allowance on ink and foolscap. (Yes, he speaks fluent Provençal!) Pitts is an American classmate (courtesy of his father working in the embassy), and does mysterious things with aniline dyes after classes in the shed at the bottom of his garden. They prudently don't ask

- Chris is one of Todd's father's clients who befriends him after he very succinctly tells her exactly what's wrong with the fabric and colour and silhouette of the dress her fiance ordered for her. Said fiance is Knox, who Chris is marrying not particularly out of anything more than a very lukewarm platonic affection, but more out of a desire to get out, now, and to decide on something, Now. Knox knows this but he's still convinced it will work out (?????). Ginny is Chris' best friend very explicitly disapproving about it the whole time, and half in love with her as well

- Cameron meanwhile is a pencil-pusher at the American embassy (he's French, though, not American) and befriends Knox and then Charlie and then everyone else through strange twists of fate. Secretly reads a lot of dime novels on the sly. Insists he doesn't

- For at least one glorious summer they all get out and go free. Meeks takes them all down to see his family and Neil goes careening down country back lanes on his (new, very handsome) bicycle, with Todd sitting precariously on the handlebars and laughing the whole way. Knox gets a barge ("Where from?" "Well, I came across it tethered, abandoned, just... over there." "Over THERE?" "Yes. What's the problem?" [DISTANT, EXTREMELY HEATED SHOUTING] "Ah, Christ.") and they all end up in the river one way or another. When they get back to Paris the quiet of the countryside has sharpened everything to even harsher brilliance and Charlie pulls them all to visit his artist acquaintances and they go to the bars out of the way where men can be seen with men and the air is thick with smoke enough that nobody can really see each other's faces, and Neil pulls Todd into a clumsy waltz and thinks, this is how it should always have been from the moment that I was born.

[thelampisaflashlight]

Choose Your Own Bea's Adventure 3

(Previous Part Here)

Looking back down at the trail once more, you weigh your options -briefly considering just ignoring the damage or simply turning back- before coming to the most logical conclusion...

You're going to have to call Mountain about this.

Although you've been in the country for two years now, you're not wholly acquainted with the wildlife here, and looking at the size of the impression in the soil, this has to be from something big.

Your brain provides you with a mostly unhelpful list of possibilities as you dig through your pockets for your phone.

Bear?

No.

Moose?

Also no.

A boat?

Too narrow.

Scrolling through your contacts, you find Mountain's number easily; It's the only contact saved into your phone without a name... and the only number marked as one of your favorites.

For as much of a thorn in your side as he tends to be, he is your co-worker, and, furthermore, he's more experienced with... basically everything than you are, though you're loathed to admit it.

Hovering over his number for a moment, you debate handling, once more, simply heading back to the cabin or pressing on and ignoring damage.

Instead, the sounds of an owl hooting causes you to fumble your phone and fate takes matters into its own hands and by the time you manage to catch the damned thing, it's already calling Mountain.

As you wait for him to pick up, you turn your attention back to the lake's edge, bringing your flashlight over the water.

The surface is still, but something about the deep, murkiness of the lake leaves you feeling...

"Hello?"

You jump slightly when Mountain's voice comes through the phone and have to fight the impulse to shout.

You cough to cover up the sudden nervous pitch to your voice.

"...Have you been by the lake recently?" you ask, "Just out of curiosity."

You hear a bit of shifting and a dull squeak in the background on Mountain's end.

"No, I haven't." he says, "Is something wrong?"

You glance between the water and the woods.

"Hypothetically speaking... If I were to say I was walking over to the abbey to get dinner, and I saw, like, a long, dragged out trail from the lake's edge that goes, I dunno, I can't really tell how far into the woods... that's, like, two foot wide... Would you know what caused that? And if so, should I be concerned?"

There's a short pause, and you can hear as the man inhales sharply before letting out a long sigh.

You brace yourself for the lecture you're about to receive, but it doesn't come, not yet anyway.

"...How far away from the cabin are you?" he asks, voice low, "Which side of the lake are you on?"

You look back in the direction of the cabin, you can just barely see the glow of the porchlight.

"Um, like, a football field? American football? That far." you reply, "I'm on the left hand side, right side if you're coming from the abbey."

You hear a "tsk" sound leave his lips.

"I need you to listen very carefully and-"

*boop*

You move your phone away from your ear, tapping at the screen frantically.

...God fucking dammit.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Adam Zyglis

* * *

General observations about the campaign

The disinformation efforts are in high gear and are compounded by difficult-to-interpret early voting numbers. Others have written extensively about how to interpret early voting (Simon Rosenberg and Jay Kuo). My overly simplistic interpretation is that we are seeing the natural phenomenon of regression to the mean in early voting as the distortions in early voting caused by the Covid lockdown in 2020 are no longer present. That makes percentage comparisons and trends between 2020 and 2024 misleading.

In general, the core data conforms to what the political moment suggests should happen: Democrats are seeing strong(er) results based on the overriding issue of the 2024 election: The abrogation of the right of reproductive liberty in Dobbs that demoted more than half of America’s population to second class citizens. (See Jay Kuo’s article, linked above).

Democrats overperformed expectations in nearly every election since Dobbs. But pollsters and pundits keep trying to model 2024 based on 2020 and 2016. Not only do those elections lack the post-Dobbs effect, neither of them involved a candidate who mounted a coup and incited an insurrection, was convicted of 34 felonies, withheld national defense documents after a demand for their return, and was found to be civilly liable for sexual assault.

None of the above is meant to dismiss the consistent signal in the polls that the election will be close. But the relative advantage generated by enthusiasm and momentum cannot be ignored—as most pollsters seem to do.

In an incredible gift to the Harris campaign, Trump's surrogates have been saying the ugly part out loud:

Speaker Mike Johnson admitted that Republicans still want to repeal Obamacare a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act. See Vox, Republicans are serious about cutting people’s health care

RFK Jr. speaks openly about managing multiple cabinet-level agencies and sub-agencies across the federal landscape. What could go wrong with a guy who dumped a dead bear-cub in Central Park, used a chain saw to decapitate a dead whale, and contributed to a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa? (How RFK Jr. Falsely Denied His Connection to a Deadly Measles Outbreak in Samoa – Mother Jones).  

The Trump-Vance transition chair, Howard Lutnick, (CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald), repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of vaccines in an interview with Caitlin Collins on CNN. Video: Kaitlan Collins spars with Trump-Vance transition co-chair about RFK Jr. and vaccines | CNN Politics.

And of course, Trump chose five days before Election Day to tell women that he is going to exert control over them “whether the women like it or not:

I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women [even though my advisors said it was] very inappropriate for you to say. "I said, 'Well, I'm going to do it, whether the women like it or not . . .

See Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Harris rips Trump for saying he'll protect women whether they 'like it or not'.

And on Thursday evening, Trump said in an interview with Tucker Carlson that Liz Cheney should have “guns trained on her” to see how she feels. He said:

“Let's put her with a rifle standing there with 9 barrels shooting at her. Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face."

The media should write about nothing else for the next five days. Trump is implying an execution of a political opponent. On Thursday, the Times and WaPo devoted front-page coverage to a non-story about Joe Biden condemning the comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” In comparison, Trump’s comments deserve 100X as much coverage—and condemnation.

The above missteps are damaging before we even get to the slurs and threats to wide swaths of Americans: Puerto Ricans, Black voters, Jewish voters, and anyone who opposes Trump's political agenda.

And Trump's effort to hold a press conference from a garbage truck was a public relations disaster because (a) Trump reminded everyone of the “floating island of garbage” comment, and (b) Trump visibly struggled to open the truck door and appeared to stumble due to lack of balance issues.

As always, we cannot rely on Republicans to defeat themselves, even though they are doing their best to do so. Indeed, it is unavoidable because the Republican platform (to the extent it exists) seeks to advantage millionaires and billionaires at the expense of everyone else. It is tough to build a winning message on that platform. Grievance and division will take you only so far. After that, you must appeal to people who want a president who will improve their lives. That isn’t Trump. It is Kamala Harris.

Trump has helped to crystalize the candidates' differences in the campaign's final weeks. That can only help Democrats up and down the ballot. As the saying goes, “Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.” Fortunately, Kamala Harris is both!

[Robert Hubbell Newsletter]

[magnetiix]

Thoughts on Culture and the RPC

((Happy Munday. I've been stewing on some thoughts for quite a while, and I feel like they have impacted me enough that this is something that needs to be said. This is probably going to get long, but I don't want to put it under a readmore because I don't want this to be a thing people skip over. I'll give a warning in advance that this will get personal, and parts of this topic are heavy and uncomfortable. But this is not a criticism toward anyone in particular; it is simply an assessment and expression of my experiences growing up and how they relate to an attitude I unfortunately find a lot in the RPC.

I make no secret of my heritage, but what some people may not be aware of is that I am a first generation American to two immigrants from very different cultures. And one of the first things I learned growing up is that I, or perhaps it's better to say my ethnic background, am very much unordinary in the demographic of the United States of America.

I find this to be doubly the case in the western Mega Man fandom.

((I am one of two people that I know openly to be of Chinese descent in the western part of the fandom, out of the 60+ people I have met and interacted with over the course of my experiences both within the fandom and, more specifically, within the RPC.

I'm not going to beat around the bush here. The attitude of western Mega Man fans towards Chinese culture is incredibly disappointing. It's not just Mega Man fans, though, and it's not just Chinese culture. It's the outlook that is present in the western world towards cultures that are beyond the scope of what they're familiar with, and that's not necessarily their fault either; this is an issue that stems from education or a severe lack thereof. It's a systemic issue.

What I do have a problem with is more specifically an attitude towards learning about other cultures. Too many times I personally have been told things along the lines of "I'm too afraid to be wrong or looking stupid," and this is why no research has been done into a culture of interest. Or, I'll be told things like "I don't know how to respond or engage in a way that's respectful."

Both of these things lead to people simply not asking questions or not engaging with a culture in a way that feels fruitful or constructive. And the more I've grown up and learned about my identity and how to embrace it, the more I've found this to be the case.

It's natural for people to generally avoid things that they know nothing about. That's human.

But in a country as culturally diverse as the United States, where the impact and significance of Chinese Americans in our history gets erased in our textbooks and shoved into footnotes, it's also a problem.

Another problem is how romanticized certain, select aspects of other cultures have become in American media. I'm talking folklore, myths and legends that get bastardized and popularized through media consumption. I'm talking about Japanese culture through the lens of anime. I'm talking creatures of Native American oral traditions that have become popularized as "cryptids". I can't speak on that much further as I am not of Native American descent myself, but I have seen and read enough about the general opinion of this to know that it is not well looked upon by the people these entities have been taken from.

And what I find from this phenomenon is an inherent disrespect for cultures and folktales that are still very much alive in the modern world, like treating such heroes and creatures of legend as something to treat more like a character of an anime to fangirl over or some cool, weird monster to make games out of, rather than an entity of great significance to a group of people. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable, and it's a thing I wish I'd talked about much sooner. I wish I hadn't swallowed my discomfort and said "it's okay".

These things can easily be solved. All it takes is mindfulness and an awareness of etiquette when interacting with cultures that aren't your own. Be proactive in learning. Show engagement. Ask questions when you're unsure of things. If you say you don't want to get things wrong, but you're not putting in the research or asking questions, that's more offensive to me than you having done research and getting something wrong by mistake.

((But on that note as well, it also shouldn't be my fucking job to have to push for and advocate this kind of thing so hard. I have a serious issue with how it has fallen to the hands of POC to edcucate others on their culture, and I have friends who are POC who share the same sentiment. Throughout history it has been shown that people don't listen to minorities. Why do you think these problems have arisen in the first place? It's very much not a case of "not trying hard enough" or "not putting one's ideas out there enough".

This is a call to be more proactive and mindful when engaging with other cultures, or of people sharing their cultures. Please, please do your own research. I am more than willing to share and educate about my culture; I make no secret of that, and those who know me a bit more intimately know I hold immense pride in my culture.

But I am also very, very tired. Several recent back to back experiences relating to how people interact with my culture or interact with me speaking about my culture have worn me down to the point of raw, genuine, nonstop fury over the weekend. I don't want to be silent on this.

If you're someone who simply doesn't have the time to commit to diligent research, rest assured this is not about you. I understand not everyone has the ability to put effort into research, and that's okay. But it is about those who are not proactive about learning about other cultures. Of course, I'm not exempt from this myself. As I type this I am reminding myself to be more engaged as well, and to put in the effort to connect to people about their cultures.

If you've reached the end and if you read all of this, thank you. It means a lot. And if any of this resonates with you or makes you uncomfortable, I ask that you reflect on how you've interacted with folktales and the like from cultures that aren't your own and take this message to heart.

As a reminder, I am always open to people asking me things, and I'm more than happy to share about my culture and such. As always, I am also open to hearing opinions from other POC in the fandom, and if they feel the same way. I just ask that you be more proactive about culture. Let me and others from different cultures know you're interested and want to engage, because otherwise it feels like screaming at a brick wall. Don't make us have to speak up first and express our frustration for you to say you want to learn. Because at the moment, I'm at the point where that feels like too little, too late.))

[themarginalthinker]

Tlb question for you! How do you think the boys met/turned into vampires? 👀

Oh boy, this is gonna get a little Long, lmao.

So, a preface: when we talk about the Boys in pretty much any of our works relating to the canon, we're using these basic 'universe rules' - ie, this is going to be their backstory for anything we write, unless specifically stated otherwise, the rules of the worldbuilding of our universe is what we're assuming.

Also, sorry if I don't include details or it seems like I'm missing things? I hope I'm getting this across. All their backstories are complicated, and some things make more sense in the story, but if you have any other questions, feel free to ask!

Alright, that aside:

Also - realized that this. Never sent?? Sorry about that too. Here you go!

David Williams: Appearance: 19, Year of death: 1879.

David was the son of farmers and those settlers pushing into the northern Great Plains just after the American Civil War. David was living in what would become Colorado (which was then literally just the Colorado Territory) when his parents both pass, leaving him and his sister Rebecca, only a year younger than him, on their own. David, being no one from no where, with few skills other than how to farm, ranch, and train horses, as well as having fairly disruptive dyslexia, cannot provide for the two of them much. Rebecca gets married to a wealthier man looking for a wife and leaves, David and her promising they'll see each other by next Christmas, when David has some money saved. That is the last time David ever sees her.

Not long after the separation, David does indeed try to get the money...and gets desperate, losing most everything in the process, turning more and more to petty crime to get by, until he messes with the wrong gang and it comes to a head. They chase him, shoot at him (our David's left hand is actually quite fucked up from being shot through just before his turning.) David ducks into an alley to hide, and something decides that this human will do.

Max has been in America for a little bit, and despite it being touted as 'the great frontier', he's found it actually rather full of other vampires already. Max wants a brood, for his own future plans, and well, no time like the present, no place like the here and now. David was simply...convenient. Nothing special. Just a checkmark on Max's to-do list.

But he becomes so much more as the years go on, and David suffers for all his sire's 'love.' For some of what that looks like, read the drabble 'Whiteout'.

Dwayne: Appearance: 20, Year of death: 1900.

Dwayne, as you may have seen, has no last name. This is because Dwayne doesn't use the English surname that was forced upon him, and only used the English first name because he quite literally cannot remember his birth name. Dwayne was born to the Haida people of the island groups off the coast of what is now British Columbia Canada. He was taken from his family and sent to a residential school. Dwayne doesn't speak much of any part of this time of his life, though the scars, both physical and mental, remain to this day.

Dwayne too was somewhat on the lam when he was turned. Dwayne at the time was running people and goods places, usually outside of the law, across country borders, or with few questions asked. They paid him, and that's what mattered. He was then paid, one night, by a young man with strawberry blond hair and the palest eyes Dwayne thinks he's ever seen, to run him away from here. As far as Dwayne and the dollars he pays are willing to take him.

Dwayne does, because he never asks questions, and he tries to take the boy, whose name he learns is David, wherever he wants.

Long story short, because we ARE trying to save a little for the story lol, Dwayne is intercepted by Max, looking for his runaway Childe, and the rest is sorta unfortunately history. Dwayne to Max is...a punishment for David, ie 'look at how you cursed this one with your bad decisions' and also now something to hold over David's head. 'I gave you someone to keep you company, a friend, a brother, a broodmate, and I can take him away just as easily.'

Dwayne will always think that letting him live was Max's greatest mistake.

Jasper Kelly, ie, Thorn: Appearance: 19, Year of death: 1935.

This one gets a little fun, because we get to play around with a character who was only in the scripts, but we do turn into an incarnation of a movie character - Max's dog.

Jasper, ie Thorn as he prefers to call himself, is the son of people living in a Hoovertown in the Great Depression - which is to say, a fantastic hunting ground for vampires. Slight problem with this however: Thorn isn't a human.

Nope! See, here's where the fun worldbuilding stuff comes in. Berd and I decided that if vampires exist in this world, well, so too must other creatures, it's only fair. So - werewolves. I'll spare you our version of them, but long-story short, they can change at will, into full wolf shape, but Thorn can't. Thorn, as it turns out, is hit with like, the most recessive of recessive genes whammy, and he cannot shift! On top of that, he's an orphan, so all throughout his childhood, he kept getting shuffled from house to house, whoever would take him.

Thorn believes his ability to turn into a big blond-white 'dog', is just his special vampire power, and in a way he's right. But it's actually from the fact he was a non-shifting werewolf.

Paul Harris: Appearance: 19, Year of death: 1957.

Paul is a preacher's son, born in Massachusetts and having spent all 19 years of his living life there. Paul was raised a good son. An obedient son. A dutiful servant of God and his father. Paul is the oldest child and only boy out of six other children. (Paul sometimes, when he's drunk and in his caustic moods, comments that 'if his mother hadn't nearly died pushing out the last one, the old man would never have climbed off her...')

For all that though, Paul's life was one of undiagnosed (it was the 50s) emotional and learning problems, and while he remains so, we headcanon it's likely Bipolor, or adhd with extreme mood swings, which wasn't helped with the Protestant upbringing and homelife.

Paul meets David, Dwayne, and Thorn when they roll into town under Max, who is there for his own business. David takes a shining to Paul not so unlike how he will in the future with Michael, the pair falling pretty damn fast and pretty damn hard. David can see Paul as something that wants to break out, knows the glorious creature that he could unleash, and Paul is desperate to break his own choking lead. 'The Taste of Butter' drabble here should give you a fair idea of what that looked like ;) Paul is murdered-but-it-didn't-stick by his own father, and kills the man for his first kill.

Paul is, however, not Max's Childe. He's David's. His first one, and the tension between David and Max is starting to pull..rather taught.

Marko Bianchi: Appearance: 18, Year of death: 1980

I know the fandom is split down the middle with Marko being the baby of the pack, and Marko being David's second in command and second oldest, but aaaa we chose this! Marko is a child of the 70s and 80s, and queerer than a 3 dollar bill to boot. His father died when he was younger, and his mother remained single and raised him through his teen years very well, though not without Trouble. As the child of first-generation immigrants, and again, deciding to be fairly open about his orientation, Marko was...targeted for a lot of stuff. He learned to bite before a strike, so to speak.

It comes to a head, however, when Marko discovers that as many unfortunate people in the Community did, he caught the virus. And it terrified him like nothing else in this world.

Cue the blonde stranger - Paul. Now, Paul at this point for Story Reasons, is on his own in San Jose, a town close to Santa Carla, and set his sights on Marko. He's drawn to him, and Paul goes with the whims of fate. Marko doesn't know who Paul is, or why he doesn't leave when Marko tells him what's up, or why he keep encouraging all of the worst tendencies in Marko, but he does.

A bad night, a bad fight some idiots picked with the pair (though trust me, there's a lot more to it than that), and Marko becomes Paul's Childe.

A little drabble associated with this is this one, where Marko is. Contemplating things.

Anyway,,,, sorry it's so long! As I said before, Berd and I are writing our Lost Boys masterfic YCCM, and these backstories will all be fully filled in with time, and likely make a bit more sense. Thank you for the ask, and if you have any more questions, just ask!

[gryphis-eyes]

I wanted to ask your opinion on this because you're French and know a lot about your country's folklore.

I am an American witch who has never been to France, though I'm going to change that someday. However, I am a francophile who has been studying French history, culture, language and folklore for years now. The only reason I ended up believing in magic was because of that sense of awe I got when I looked at pictures of French forests and read French history and folklore.

So I wanted to know, would it be wrong if I took inspiration from French folklore for my magic practice? I own a huge stack of books written in France, I'm learning the language and the history of the individual regions that the folklore comes from and I'm adding to my collection all the time. And if it's alright for me to do it, is there anything in particular I should know or keep in mind on my journey?

Merci beaucoup de votre attention.

Bonjour~

There is absolutely nothing wrong in wanting to take inspiration from our folklore and I would even say that you can as well call upon the fairies/witch and other "named entities"

Think of Melusine or La Vieille (an equivalent of Cailleach) nothing stop you from calling onto them

By named entities I'm not talking about fairy folk in general but more of the specific ones, like La Velue or Graoully. I'm part of the people who believe that the spirits are bound to their lands but nothing stops you from calling onto specific ones.

As for the extra advices I'd say that you can also check the folklore from Belgium since we share a lot (it's mostly centered around witches, one of the most famous is Quintine), the England one share a lot of similarities as well I'd highly recommend Gemma Gary for the practice.

I don't remember if I told you about him but Claude Lecouteux made a lot of books on the folklore and I think a lot of his books have been translated in english!

For that last advice I don't think I have to say it because it's kinda obvious lol but stories from Bretagne will be your best friends !

Bon courage 🌹

[taylortruther]

This isn't about gender politics but it's somewhat about politics (?) you can absolutely ignore this if you want btw. I'm not from the US but this whole Brittany thing made me wonder, do people in the US actually cut their friends off if they don't align with their views on politics or is this just like an internet thing? Don't get me wrong I know all about Trump and wouldn't support him either, but we got our own share of awful politicians in my country (way worse I'm afraid) and unless someone's a full on bigot or just a complete asshole about it, we don't really cut people off. If they can have an objective and calm conversation with me about it then we're good. Obviously my closest friends have similar political views as me, but I don't think I've ever cut someone off because they showed their support through an instagram like (?). I don't know anything about Brittany though so this isn't about her specifically, she could be the devil I just wouldn't know, but it's not like she's out there with a maga hat campaigning with him (which is where I would definitely draw a line). I'm asking just in general. The whole discourse made it seem like agree to disagree just isn't on the table which like fair but it made me curious.

i'd say the vast majority of people don't cut out family or very close loved ones, and it's a very typical american experience to avoid talking about politics at the dinner table, or at work, or whatever, so you can maintain relationships. but i will say trump has been an extremely polarizing figure - trump and vaccines have been huge issues that have really affected A LOT of people's personal relationships over time. like it's become way way way more common to hear stories about couples divorcing or breaking up, or people limiting contact with parents, specifically because of political differences or vaccine differences.

i feel really lucky that my parents are democrats and understand the political climate, because i haven't had to make the choice to cut them off or limit my interactions with them. and for issues we agree on, we don't fight, we can discuss and i can usually change their minds lmao.

personally, i wouldn't want to be publicly associated with a trump supporter, but it's not super unusual that taylor has republicans in her circle. i think most people do unless they are ardent liberals or leftists. i have the ability to pick those people out of my life, for the most part! i think the closest situation i'm in is a friend whose bf/soon to be fiance is a republican, but he's at least anti-trump. she's my most centrist/apolitical friend, so it's not entirely unsurprising.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/738220559674064896/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost73804804026?source=share

This whole Greek thing should probably be put to bed, it's completely derailed the question from the original post, but I think the point of the previous person's defense of academics is being completely lost here, and also was in the replies to their previous anon.

They're specifically talking about historical, not present, aspects of a culture. That's why they pointed out that Greek mythology hasn't been the religion of Greece in thousands of years. I think it is more than fair to say a non-[ethnicity] academic who has spent years studying a particular part of that country or group's HISTORY likely knows more about THAT HISTORY than just a random person who is living in that country or part of that group now.

To use the Japanese example since they brought it up: Would it be controversial to say that a British/Ethiopian/Chinese/American/Argentine/etc. academic who specifically has a Ph.D. in history (or East Asian studies or whatever) and does research on 19th-century Japanese history, likely knows more about the Meiji Restoration than some random Japanese Tumblr user who does not have any educational background in history beyond what everyone learns in grade school there? I feel like hardly anyone would take issue with that, and that's a lot closer to what's being argued here, except here we are talking about an even more distant time period.

Or like, let's flip this: would non-historian Brits here disagree that a non-British academic who specifically studies, say, the English Civil War likely knows more about it than they do?

That's very very different from saying that people have a different expertise and experience of *current* aspects of that culture - where yeah, academics should respect that expertise that comes from actually living in and directly experiencing that culture (and though it's had issues with that in the past and still has some issues, IME academia these days generally tries to do that - a lot of what people who study current cultures "study" is just talking to people who live in that culture, recording what they say and analyzing that. It's not always perfect, but I think there's a bit of a strawman being made out of academics by people in some of the replies who aren't actually as familiar with that kind of study as they think they are and are drawing on cultural stereotypes, similar to the "historians hate queer people" shit that circulates on Tumblr from time to time).

(Also, let's not pretend that there isn't a history on Tumblr of people playing the game of "I know X history because I'm of X ethnicity" and no other qualifications, and then saying stuff that's verifiably wrong)

That said, even with current aspects of the culture, not all of it is created equal. Someone brought up "it's like weaboos acting like they are experts on Japanese culture" (or something like that) and yeah that's stupid, but along with that there is a big difference between someone who studies something as academic research and just watching a lot of anime, there ARE non-Japanese people who study anime both in academia, and outside of it but with similar degrees of intensity, who probably know more about *anime specifically* than your average Japanese person off the street. Most anime isn't all that "mainstream" in Japan, and it's also an art form and industry with its own convoluted history and standards and practices that require lots of specialized focus to *fully* understand for *anyone.* It's not that different from saying that like, a Japanese film studies professor who focuses on Hollywood film likely knows more about the U.S. film industry than your average American off the street.

I think a lot of how people talk about culture on here doesn't really take into account the complexities of all the different pieces that make up a culture, and that they're not all one and the same.

--