#because they don't have that sense of foreignness

[jesncin]

I'm known for my Superman fancomics, but Martian Manhunter truly is my favorite superhero. Not because J'onn is better written or anything (he's very much underutilized and flawed as a character) but because the way his character evolves really speaks to me.

Alien invasions, alien body snatchers, alien shapeshifters? All of that came from the American fear of immigrants. Foreigners "invading" your home, "stealing" your jobs, marrying into the country, wearing clothes to assimilate into American society? Not expressing themselves the "right" way, all this so they can "plant more of their seeds" on the quest for "world domination". Horrifying right.

A character like Martian Manhunter is clearly built from these fears, but the incredible thing about how his character evolved is how he became a story of empathy. So much of modern J'onn stories are about his fascination with human kind and his desire to understand them. This narrative was further strengthened by Black creatives- especially Carl Lumbly (bringing his immigrant experience into his performance of J'onn in Justice League) and David Harewood (bringing conversations of racism to the forefront in his version of J'onn in CW Supergirl).

The alien who doesn't pass as human the way Superman does and has to shapeshift into layers of identity to be passable, still picks a marginalized form because he identifies with it. Personally, I deeply relate to being the outsider even among marginalized spaces and having to put up so many masks to pass as some nebulous norm. Being less palatable. The unfeeling alien trope meant to terrorize people in the Cold War days? Well when J'onn struggles expressing himself in a way normative to Earth, fans identify with that feeling of alienation as a form of neurodivergence. "He's just like me!"

All this to say. Absolute Martian Manhunter simply isn't doing it for me. Yes the art is stellar. But the "wacky sci-fi" aspects of J'onn aren't why I love him so much. I actually don't care about John Jones being some government white guy feeling alienated and described as a "martian" from being a workaholic or whatever. All this feels like a nothing burger step back from the narratives built about J'onn. And in the larger meta sense, an insult to the Black creatives who brought the most endearing aspects of J'onn's character to the forefront.

[marimayscarlett]

At this point, I have given up on Till. He clearly doesn't care about his image and how he's viewed regardless of the situation, so why should I care?

He's been a lost cause for many years now, and his Dubai/Russian friends will never stop enabling him for as long as he's around them, and that's simply not going to end.

My only concern is that he's further hurting the band as a business and the band as a family...but...that is between them 6. We can only observe and hope for the best outcome.

Hi 👋🏼

Till's behavior has stirred up quite a bit of dust - whether it’s with the Row Zero situation, his stay in Dubai, or now his visit to Mar-a-Lago. And that brings us to the heart of the matter.

This man is 62, an adult, in full control of his senses and his time. Logically speaking, he can, of course, do whatever he wants. But once an action is taken, there will inevitably be a reaction - that's how the world works. I think what many people find unsettling can be boiled down to a few things:

1. Till has undeniably changed a lot over the past decade. He has surrounded himself with a certain entourage, spends time in Russia, Dubai, and now the U.S. If he wants that, fine, but when compared to his public persona in earlier years, there really is a striking discrepancy.

2. The message his actions send in the eyes of others. Trump is a highly controversial figure, with views and actions that, while shared by many (otherwise, he wouldn’t be president again), conflict with values one would hope Till does not have, whether regarding foreigners or women (both areas where Trump has made his stance very clear with some infamous quotes) in the past. Of course, visiting someone's estate doesn’t necessarily mean one admires them, but at the same time, it raises the question: Would I go there if I really don't like Trump? Probably not. Because some things you can't separate. The history of this estate and Trump is so intertwined and recent - it's not like it's a historical sight with a 500 year history in the past, so with some distance to today.

3. Till has just come out of a massive scandal - one that still resonates deeply here in Germany and weighs heavily on many fans who stood by the band. I think a lot of those fans had the expectation that he would "pull himself together," that he would be aware of how his public actions are perceived.

Of course, we, as fans who disapprove of his behavior in Dubai and now in the U.S., are doing something similar to those who judged him in 2023: we’re imposing our moral compass on him because our values differ greatly from what we see in his actions. And because we hope that some part of the Till we once knew still remains.

I've let go of this. To me, it seems like he doesn’t care how he comes across, doesn’t care about the band's image. And I find that disappointing.

[ishparpuaqib]

a substantial number of Croats seem to believe "Croat" belongs to the same category of exonyms as "German" and "Albanian", simply because "Croat" doesn't sound very much like Hrvat. in fact, English "Croat" is derived from Serbo-Croatian Hrvat through Mediaeval Latin Chro(b)at—this makes "Croat" an exonym in a rather trivial sense, the same way "Serbia" is the English exonym of Srbija

now—is there a quick and easy way to specify when one is speaking of exonyms not in the general, trivial sense of "foreign name" (inclusive of exonyms derived from endonyms like "Serbia", "Croatia" or "France"), but specifically in the sense of those exonyms that have nothing at all to do with their subjects' endonyms (like "Germany", "Albania" or "China")? if there is, I don't seem to be aware of it

(and then there are the fun edge cases like "Japan", which is derived from a reading of 日本—just not the native Japanese one, except the Sinitic reading most often used in Japan is actually cognate with the reading that ultimately produced "Japan")

[sweaterkittensahoy]

STILL MARCH 26, 2025:

The internet archive link has gotten ganked; i do not have a non-paywall version of the article to share in its place.

The White House is now claiming that no "war plans" were shared in the group chat. They are trying to say that "attack plans" are not the same as "war plans."

Let's talk about #2 for a second. Let's talk about Operation Security (OPSEC) for a second.

Let's talk about how I actually have experience in OPSEC training as a technical writer because my job is to write about whatever the company I work for builds. In my time at various jobs I have worked on American military objects and military objects for US allies. Currently, I don't do either. I work on huge fucking batteries and the cabinets they come in, and all that shit is proprietary.

As a technical writer, when it comes to OPSEC training, there is no difference between military information and proprietary information. It's all the same training. It's pretty easy, honestly. You don't use unapproved communication sources (like Signal), and you don't send information without confirming where it's going (like to the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic), and you don't fucking lie if you did something that led to information possibly being stolen or seen by parties without clearance (like create a whole group chat without confirming phone numbers. Or, in the example always used in my training, by working on proprietary information on a plane without a screen cover.)

It ain't fucking hard. Just imagine everyone around you wants to gossip on your shit and cover your shit.

There is NO difference in "war plans" vs. "attack plans." This is an attempt to create a difference so that all the dudes currently in the soup pot can get away without getting cooked. Waltz has apparently taken responsibility as the one who created the group chat, but truly, every single fucker who was part of that chat should resign or be fired immediately.

But Trump doesn't want to have to reset his entire fucking foreign policy cabinet. Because who the fuck would he replace them with? The best guy he has in his corner is JD fucking Vance, who proved in those messages he'll question Trump behind his back but not to his face. His second best guy is Marco Rubio. Who you would think had the OPSEC training and common sense to know better than to participate in a clearly unsanctioned chat group about bombing Houthis. And yet.

And yet.

Trump won't admit he's staffed his cabinet with fucking arrogant cocksores because he is King Arrogant Cocksore. And MAYBE Waltz will step down to sacrifice himself on the altar of "Look, we handled it!" But none of those other cunts will.

Wars are made up of attacks. Every attack is part of a war. You cannot disconnect the two to save your favorite ass kissers.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE HEGSETH (It's important you remember this dude's job is to, like, know how to handle a crisis): That reporter is totally a discredited loser (paraphrase).

Me: HE'S EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AT THE ATLANTIC.

Sean: Oh, okay, so it's completely real, which I already knew but cool.

[yibennianyaji]

It’s always bothered me that all of the Parent Trap movies are contemporary to their own production rather than period pieces. Das Doppelte Lottchen was published in 1949, and while I’m sure that even then separating infant twins was not the norm, the whole concept of divorce was much less socially acceptable. It was the sort of thing people didn’t talk about, so there was more space for them to do objectively crazy things in response to it. Not to mention that the idea of children having minds and inner lives of their own and thus, a right to know their siblings and parents is also relatively recent. It makes much more sense that people would think this was a semi-normal thing to do if you set it in that period than in late 90s America.

[nekohrine]

ace culture is listening to a fun popular song and not relating to a single lyric

[ayara-resara]

.

[abigailnussbaum]

This is why it's always bothered me that all of the Parent Trap movies are contemporary to their own production rather than period pieces. Das Doppelte Lottchen was published in 1949, and while I'm sure that even then separating infant twins was not the norm, the whole concept of divorce was much less socially acceptable. It was the sort of thing people didn't talk about, so there was more space for them to do objectively crazy things in response to it. Not to mention that the idea of children having minds and inner lives of their own and thus, a right to know their siblings and parents is also relatively recent. It makes much more sense that people would think this was a semi-normal thing to do if you set it in that period than in late 90s America.

Lawyer: How would you like to handle the custody agreement?

Parent: I want my wife to take one of my infant daughters to the UK and I’ll take the other one and we will never see each other again.

Lawyer: You want to fucking what?

[sallykie]

I've decided. I don't like the HTTYD movie sequels' xenophobia era. I don't think the themes should have gone that way.

[leatherbookmark]

i went ????? huh?? what??? us??? but then i remembered america exists

[hypermascbishounen]

Ime It's pretty easy to tell when an author doesn't care about your experiences as a queer audience member, but about how they personally look telling your story for you to other people.

Like, it's on a scale. There's definitely stuff that's well intentioned if a bit clumsy, vs stuff that's deeply cynical "praise me for including u, faggot". And sometimes there's also people really just trying to tell their own story and struggling.

But overall, I think a lot of it comes from a really cowardly position of just fully ceding ground to bigots on media interpretation. Because the idea that queer things aren't canon or real unless you fully halt the story to spell it out to the audience in painstaking detail, is also the position of every homophobe who denies queer subtext/implications in any work they happen to think should be about them by default. (It's also basically the position of erasing queer people from history and treating cisheterosexuality as default, but that's a deeper topic).

I simply do not think looking at a work bleeding with queer subtext so dense there's no cisheterosexual explanation for parts of the plot, and then declaring it "not canon" and thus not "real" representation, compared to a work with what amounts to shallow tokenism, is a progressive stance actually! Sometimes shit is just gay, and not admitting that is asinine. I think at best, people who've internalized "queer subtext is invalid" often go into writing not knowing how to show and not tell, when it comes to character identity or relationships - things that often go poorly when *just* told.

If it's really that difficult, and you're personally lucky enough to not have to deal with censorship(reminder that ability to publish uncensored queer work is often more just privilege than being particularly brave or creative), you can put it in a character bio.

at a phase in my life where when i get the sense a book is trying to offer me Representation (TM) i hiss and scream and start kicking and ripping bricks out of the wall. this character's Coherent Identity And Articulation Of Their Issues had Better fit in with the rest of the worldbuilding (it won't)

[langernameohnebedeutung]

Lae'zel's character and her entire situation at the beginning of the game becomes so much more funny when you find out she's 22. It makes so much sense. Imagine you're 22 and you're exposed to this dangerous toxin or chemical or something - but not to worry, you learnt that this can be easily fixed, you just need to dial 911 real quick. Common knowledge. Everyone knows that. You learnt that in kindergarten, it's up there with fire alarm drills.

But the people you're stuck with have no concept of modern medicine and when you say "let's go to the hospital" they will say shit like "i think they kill people at the hospital" and "we should ask this swamp lady" or "this guy over there told me about this homoeopathic healer kind of guy but he got abducted" or "this random bard wants to help" and "I'm not going to dial 911 because I don't want the government to know my home address" or "maybe we should consider a deal with Satan". And then a bunch of them KEEP consuming the chemical because it makes them "stronger". One guy might explode for unrelated reasons. You have a few days before this situation is getting critical and suddenly they're solving crime and doing general charity for the community.

And FOR SOME REASON you still try to help these idiots and you STILL want to help them get the cure even though they all keep insisting the "doctors" at the "hospital" might try to "kill them" and they don't have insurance. And you keep telling them to just. go. to. the. hospital. before the time runs out and you all die very horribly of a very treatable condition.

And also you're 22 in a foreign country and you're responsible for shepherding this gaggle of idiots who are all ranging anywhere from 24 to 240 years old.

[extendedpain]

-

[trainsinanime]

I've seen a number of people worried and concerned about this language on Ao3s current "agree to these terms of service" page. The short version is:

Don't worry. This isn't anything bad. Checking that box just means you forgive them for being US American.

Long version: This text makes perfect sense if you're familiar with the issues around GDPR and in particular the uncertainty about Privacy Shield and SCCs after Schrems II. But I suspect most people aren't, so let's get into it, with the caveat that this is a Eurocentric (and in particular EU centric) view of this.

The basic outline is that Europeans in the EU have a right to privacy under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an EU directive (let's simplify things and call it an EU law) that regulates how various entities, including companies and the government, may acquire, store and process data about you.

The list of what counts as data about you is enormous. It includes things like your name and birthday, but also your email address, your computers IP address, user names, whatever. If an advertiser could want it, it's on the list.

The general rule is that they can't, unless you give explicit permission, or it's for one of a number of enumerated reasons (not all of which are as clear as would be desirable, but that's another topic). You have a right to request a copy of the data, you have a right to force them to delete their data and so on. It's not quite on the level of constitutional rights, but it is a pretty big deal.

In contrast, the US, home of most of the world's internet companies, has no such right at a federal level. If someone has your data, it is fundamentally theirs. American police, FBI, CIA and so on also have far more rights to request your data than the ones in Europe.

So how can an American website provide services to persons in the EU? Well… Honestly, there's an argument to be made that they can't.

US websites can promise in their terms and conditions that they will keep your data as safe as a European site would. In fact, they have to, unless they start specifically excluding Europeans. The EU even provides Standard Contract Clauses (SCCs) that they can use for this.

However, e.g. Facebook's T&Cs can't bind the US government. Facebook can't promise that it'll keep your data as secure as it is in the EU even if they wanted to (which they absolutely don't), because the US government can get to it easily, and EU citizens can't even sue the US government over it.

Despite the importance that US companies have in Europe, this is not a theoretical concern at all. There have been two successive international agreements between the US and the EU about this, and both were struck down by the EU court as being in violation of EU law, in the Schrems I and Schrems II decisions (named after Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist who sued in both cases).

A third international agreement is currently being prepared, and in the meantime the previous agreement (known as "Privacy Shield") remains tentatively in place. The problem is that the US government does not want to offer EU citizens equivalent protection as they have under EU law; they don't even want to offer US citizens these protections. They just love spying on foreigners too much. The previous agreements tried to hide that under flowery language, but couldn't actually solve it. It's unclear and in my opinion unlikely that they'll manage to get a version that survives judicial review this time. Max Schrems is waiting.

So what is a site like Ao3 to do? They're arguably not part of the problem, Max Schrems keeps suing Meta, not the OTW, but they are subject to the rules because they process stuff like your email address.

Their solution is this checkbox. You agree that they can process your data even though they're in the US, and they can't guarantee you that the US government won't spy on you in ways that would be illegal for the government of e.g. Belgium. Is that legal under EU law? …probably as legal as fan fiction in general, I suppose, which is to say let's hope nobody sues to try and find out.

But what's important is that nothing changed, just the language. Ao3 has always stored your user name and email address on servers in the US, subject to whatever the FBI, CIA, NSA and FRA may want to do it. They're just making it more clear now.

[guiltyidealist]

That does explain why Google couldn't just translate it on one go. It did do that. It perceived everything except "fakir" as French and gave "rest of the ____". Fakir by itself it took as Turkish and gave "poor". I got my translation by splicing those translations together. Together they made sense and I didn't investigate it further

"Le repos du fakir" (2003), Stéphane Argillet and Gilles Paté

[sturionic]

Donald Trump Is Not Joking About Annexing Canada: A Fucking Timeline

December 3, 2024: Trump's quip about Canada becoming 51st state was a joke, says minister who was there (CBC News 🇨🇦) <- This is when it could have feasibly been a joke

January 7, 2025: Donald Trump is quoted in a press conference directly stating his intentions to annex Canada (New York Times, timestamp 0:45 🇺🇸) <- This is where Americans should have stopped telling Canadians it's just a joke

REPORTER 1: Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada? DONALD TRUMP: No. Economic force.

February 7, 2025: Trudeau says Trump threat to annex Canada 'is a real thing' (BBC 🇬🇧) <- This is where the Commonwealth starts to take it seriously

Trudeau suggested Trump has floated the idea of taking over Canada and making it the "51st state" because he wants to access the country's critical minerals. "Mr Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing," the prime minister said.

February 9, 2025: "Trump's national security adviser: 'I don't think there's any plans to invade Canada'" (NBC News 🇺🇸) <- CANADIANS NOTICE THAT THIS IS NOT A VERY STRONG DENIAL OF POSSIBLE MILITARY FORCE

February 10, 2025: Trump Confirms He’s Serious About Wanting Canada As 51st State (Forbes 🇺🇸)

Fox News host Bret Baier asked Trump whether Trudeau was right in telling business leaders the U.S. president’s threat to absorb Canada is a “real thing,” to which Trump agreed with Trudeau and responded, “Yes it is.”

February 12, 2025: ‘Trump effect’: How US tariffs, ’51st state’ threats are shaking up Canada (Al Jazeera 🇶🇦) <- This is where the rest of the fucking world outside America starts to take it seriously

February 18 2025: CBC releases podcast episode: "What if the U.S. invaded Canada?" (CBC's Front Burner 🇨🇦)

March 4, 2025: Canada Eyeing NATO Ally's Nukes To Deter Trump 'Threat': Candidate (Newsweek 🇺🇸), British nuclear weapons can protect Canada against Trump, says Trudeau party candidate (The Telegraph 🇬🇧)

“I would be working urgently with [European Nato allies] to build a closer security relationship… in a time when the United States can be a threat,” said [Canada's] ex-foreign minister and finance minister at the final Liberal leadership debate last week.

March 4, 2025: Prime Minister Trudeau: "What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us” (CTV News 🇨🇦)

March 7, 2025: BC Premier David Eby: “We know the president in back rooms with Canadian officials has said he wants to redraw the border" (Global News 🇨🇦)

Eby: "If this president wants to annex Canada, he should save his breath to cool his soup, it is never going to happen.”

March 7, 2025: How Trump’s ‘51st State’ Canada Talk Came to Be Seen as Deadly Serious (New York Times 🇺🇸) <- This is where American news media starts to treat this as maybe possibly not a joke

March 9, 2025: U.S. Congress bill aims to prevent funding of invasion of Canada (CTV News 🇨🇦) <- This is where you should understand that military force is ON THE TABLE

March 11, 2025: Canadian opinion of U.S. falls sharply; 63% take Trump's threats 'very seriously' (National Post 🇨🇦)

March 13, 2025 (TODAY): Trump threatens to acquire Canada, Greenland while next to NATO chief (Global News 🇨🇦)

“To be honest with you, Canada only works as a state...This would be the most incredible country visually,” [Trump] said. “If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it, between Canada and the U.S., just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many many decades ago, and it makes no sense.” -Donald Trump

And hey, just for fun, let's contrast that with another quote:

First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy...I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. -Vladimir Fucking Putin, the year before launching an attack on Ukraine, which everyone also said he was joking about and definitely wouldn't do (2021 essay, Kremlin official website 🇷🇺)

I know you're overwhelmed, Americans, but please stop saying this is a joke. Canadians are anticipating an invasion, possibly within the year. This is not a fucking drill.