#briarpatch

[nellarw95]

Happy Birthday Rosario 🥳🎂🎈🎁🎉

Rosario Isabel Dawson

May 9,1979

Buon Compleanno 🥳🎂🎈🎁🎉

9 Maggio 1979

[pauliecstuff]

Brer Rabbit thanks Ron DeSantis for keeping Splash Mountain going! @rondesantisfl @waltdisneyworld @disneyparks @disney @disneyanimation @disneyland @tokyodisneyresort_official @disneycaliforniaadventures @disneylandparis @hkdisneyland @shanghaidisneyresort #Briarpatch #brerrabbit #rondesantis #disney #waltdisneyworld #disneyworld #splashmountain #tianasbayouadventure #princessandthefrogride #art #cartoon #caricature #exaggeration #satire #lively #animated #savesplashmountain #dontsavesplashmountain #disneyride #disneyart #disneycartoon #disneyanimation #cause #roughsketch #ruffsketch #message #thanks #webelieveinyou #brers #longlivethebrers https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn_TDldMoQJ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mumblelard]

before bbq naptime and boba called dibs on the easy chair or oh no brer boba don't make me take a nap on this soft old couch

[raurquiz]

#happybirthday #davidpaymer #actor #moritzbenayoun #startrekpicard #mapsandlegends #nightofthecreeps #stateandmain #getshorty #theamericanpresident #ingoodcompany #carpool #oceansthirteen #dragmetohell #HorseGirl #Briarpatch #BadTherapy #dave #TheMarvelousMrsMaisel #minx #startrek56

[yarnsofyore]

Briarpatch Magazine | Feb 2000 | Canada

[mitchellkriegman]

Requiem for a Rabbit Despite what you’ve heard - it’s tragic. With the end of Splash Mountain at Disney World, the last popular iteration of Bre’r Rabbit has been been vanquished to the cultural dumpster. The original versions of the Bre’r Rabbit tales came to America from Africa. Bre’r Rabbit was the first truly collective creation of Africans in American. These classic stories are as compelling as “Winnie the Pooh” or Kipling’s “Jungle Book,” or “Aesop’s Fables” with a really important distinction - the Bre’r Rabbit stories are American. Africans have always used stories to inspire young people, to entertain and teach social and moral values. As families were tragically split apart, the tales provided a comforting world of characters as well as an entire African Cosmology that children encountered wherever they ended up, regardless of their dire circumstance providing the spirit of their elders, their culture. Besides being smart-ass clever and funny, Bre’r Rabbit is like Charlie Chaplin and other classic scamps and tricksters. Where do you think Bugs Bunny comes from? Is there any better story than the one about Bre’r Rabbit and the Briar Patch? It’s about turning the table on your oppressors to get the advantage and gain freedom. I know what you’re thinking... what about Uncle Remus — isn’t he synonymous with “Uncle Tom?” s never part of the Bre’r Rabbit stories. In 1880 a white journalist, Joel Chandler Harris created the fictitious slave character of Uncle Remus, to put the stories in a colonial frame. Despite being painted with a racist brush, the stories triumph offering models for succeeding over adversity and oppression. Br’er Rabbit still has true smarts. In the words of Zora Neale Hurston, he could “hit a straight lick with a crooked stick,” he could “make a way out of no way.” Why can’t our culture treat this subversively original, vibrant, snappy-ass character with respect? Drawing by the great @mulliganjimmy #splashmountain #brerrabbit #zoranealehurston #hitastraightlickwithacrookedstick #disneyworld #briarpatch #africancosmology https://www.instagram.com/p/Comyd0buBIx/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[noodleincident]

The olives in Mexican food is a West Coast thing! Basically the Spanish "Missions" had olive trees and they ended up becoming an established ingredient in some places. I think the Yucatan also uses them.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. i'll allow it but its upsetting. more reasons to avoid the west coast imo

[snekdood]

anyways,

i only brought that vegan thing up bc thats usually what makes ppl dismiss my opinions on animals on here.👍

im sorry that i and many other people will likely never not see equipment as a descriptor for just inanimate objects.

[grymmdark]

Actually, the Pittsburgh potty is about sewer lines as well as containing mining messes! Sewer lines back up into the lowest fixture in the house, so having a basement toilet means that it'll back up in the dirty basement rather than your nice clean house. I have one in my basement all the way out in idaho because our house is old.

It's pretty smart!

oooooh that makes a lotta sense. i guess if you spend all day in the mines/steel mill with probably no bathroom to use let alone bathroom breaks you'd probably be backin that thing up on the regular lmao

[jazzrj]

A thought provoking moment.

[kinetic-elaboration]

October 12: Briarpatch 1x10

My Briarpatch re-watch is complete. I really enjoyed it and the ending was very satisfying!

I think this ep really showed off how well-cast everyone was. Seeing Alan Cumming just deliciously slurping up the scenery was great, but everyone just hit their noir toned roles so well. It was really satisfying even though or perhaps especially because it was so often over the top.

For example: “I’m the most terrifying thing in the world. A lady with a job. And I’m good at it.” That was?? Actually amazing? Feels good to hear her say it.

The episode did suffer a little bit from “has 10 finales” disease, in that the last 20 minutes easy--everything from the Confrontation Scene on--was just one ending after another. Oh, what a poignant conclusion. Oh wait! Oh, what a poignant conclusion. Gotcha--there’s more! But there were a lot of loose ends to tie up and personal notes to hit.

The intro, interspersing Dill’s plan with the actual plan being carried out, was so well-edited. I love that technique in general. I did find some parts of it a little bit hard to follow, even on a second viewing. For example, she told Spivey they were going to align themselves with Brattle, and got him to agree to that to her. He was supposed to break things off with Raytek at the same time. Presumably to get her to do something. But Dill also relied on Spivey still prioritizing his own skin, and trying to keep his alliance with Raytek anyway. At that point, Dill knew that Raytek was the second bomber. Was she trying to draw her out as Spivey’s backup? Which didn’t work, she actually came as Colder’s backup but it turned out the same? I presume that’s it. Although on the other hand, she knew the real estate deal was off, so maybe this was more about Spivey than Raytek?

Spivey she was just misdirecting entirely by letting him think she was really going to let Brattle go. To be honest, I’m not sure how she was expecting that to play out, if Colder hadn’t shown up. I guess use Brattle to get to Colder, and then let the FBI, who were never called off because she never had any intention of stopping the Senator at all, would get Brattle.

It’s a bit confusing and I would like it explained to me lol.

Another thing I really liked was that in this show about selfish people all working to their own selfish ends, where there really aren’t good guys and bad guys but just different types of bad guys who are more or less sympathetic, and our main character is a classic anti-heroine, everything still tied itself up in a morally satisfying way. It didn’t just throw up its hands at the end and say, well, everything is grey anyway so nothing matters! Rather, it had a very clear sense of what bad acts were, in this narrative, especially bad, and it punished the perpetrators of those acts accordingly.

Specifically, the cardinal sin of the story is hurting, betraying, using, or abandoning Felicity. Raytek, Spivey, and Colder all failed her in some way. And none of them get what they want. They are all roundly punished: Raytek and Colder with death, and Spivey with prison. (Brattle is also killed but he’s just an all around Bad Guy, so that’s unsurprising.) The Senator, on the other hand, is no peach, but he essentially gets what he wants: Spivey’s arrest will be a big win for him, Allegra is asking for almost nothing in exchange for not releasing the tape, and we can fairly well assume he will at least win the nomination for the Presidency. He was willing to kill Allegra! He’s pretty awful! But he wasn’t involved in the Felicity story. It would be unrealistic for everything to end happily ever after, in such a story, or with neat, clear lines where the deserving win and the wrongdoers are punished. Corruption is everywhere, at every level, and so many people are just selfish and awful and power hungry. So yeah, a corrupt, selfish, power hungry politician lives to fight another day. But Dill got justice for the person she came to avenge. That’s a happy ending, and it’s a morally satisfying ending.

It helps that there are a couple of just honest-to-goodness good people here, too, and that they unequivocally prosper. I’m thinking of Singe and Cindy, of course.

Dill as the anti-hero has a fitting ending as well. She is, of course, also complicit in Felicity’s death, and she says so many times. She’s guilty in the exact same way Spivey is: the only thing we ever saw was each other. But she has a self awareness that he never has, not even at the very end. And, critically, she doesn’t completely win. I see Dill’s ending as happy, yes, especially by her own definitions--she can drive again, she no longer fears her past, she’s free both of the burdens of her past but of everything, and she’s in control of her destiny again. And yet, her main reward is simply escape, and a blank slate. She doesn’t prosper, specifically. I’m not sure I’m explaining this correctly, especially since she’s never wanted the sorts of things, money and power etc., that the other characters want, so to say she doesn’t gain power or influence or whatever isn’t saying much. Still, I see her ending as more reaching purgatory than reaching heaven. Like the Master and Margarita in The Master and Margarita (weird comparison I know lol).

As Candy Bar tells her in the previous ep, you can’t beat the system, and the only morally pure thing to do is to leave it altogether. That’s what she does. She uses her blackmail to buy her freedom and also her escape from the whole immoral system. The system continues--the Senator on his way to the White House--she isn’t a hero, she didn’t bring the whole house of cards down. And it’s certainly arguable that her decision to leave entirely is actually morally pure. But then she was never a hero, right?

I also loved what the show did with the central conundrum of a murder mystery where the victim is important to the detective--the central conundrum of any narrative that starts with the death of someone close to the main characters--that the audience will never know that deceased character properly. We have to be TOLD what the character meant to other characters. We have to be TOLD what she was like. We have to be TOLD why we should care that she’s gone. I think Six Feet Under is a good example of this: the show starts and ends with major deaths in the Fisher Family but Nate’s death hits completely differently than Nathanial’s--because we know who Nate is.

Briarpatch’s solution to this is to fold it into the plot. Yes, Felicity looks like just a plot device, and not least to Spivey and Dill, who are brought together by her death just to spend 10 episodes doing their will-they-won’t-they, toxic-most-important-person dance. The audience forgets that Felicity was important to their relationship too. And Spivey and even Dill forget this at times too: as she tells him in their final scene, he’s wrong to say it was always the two of them. It was always THREE. He can’t look at her now and say that they can still win, because the only thing that has ever mattered is that Spivey and Dill come out on top. He betrayed the third person, and Dill can’t forgive that.

Never mind that it’s never really been Spivey and Dill anyway. It’s just been Spivey, Spivey, Spivey.

That she simply walks away while he’s holding the gun on her, a moment foreshadowed by her walking away from the kid with the gun, was really excellent.

The insistence of both Spivey and Colder that they are the good guys was VERY interesting in this overall context of a morally grey noir genre, with a morally grey anti-heroine at the center, whose ending was recognizing her own complicity in the evils she’s avenging and then walks away. Does Dill get to ‘win,’ comparatively, because she is honest with and about herself? Why is it so important to Colder and Spivey to see themselves as the good guys? Because it allows them to justify their bad acts? Colder is a quintessential “nice guy” who is absolutely devoid of any moral core at all, and completely delusional about it. It hasn’t been as obvious throughout with Spivey, but it’s certainly been simmering under the surface with him.

Contrast these two men to Raytek. She never says she’s a good person. She says she is a problem solver. She gets things done. She never worries about the cost because she has a larger goal in mind: fix the town, even if it means using people, double-crossing allies, lying, manipulating--even murder. These aren’t good or bad acts. They’re just steps in a plan. Nothing matters if you win.

Colder and Spivey have much weaker self-images. Colder is completely delusional. He’s completely separated his actions from his understanding of himself. He IS a good guy, and so everything he does is, by definition, something a good guy would do. And he kills Felicity over it--because she challenged his idea of himself and his idea of her. “She wore your sister’s face, but she was a different person. There was something twisted and evil inside and I had to kill it so I could keep loving the real Felicity” is a really chilling line.

With Spivey, again, it is subtler, but I thought there was something really sad about him facing Dill one last time and being completely unwilling to let go even a little bit from his own narrative. He was the good guy and he and Dill were united against the world and everything would work out for them eventually.

It helped that he could always blame Brattle for everything. And Brattle really did mess him up, and I do think meeting him again pushed Spivey back into that really dark mental place that years of abuse had created in him.

Or maybe it’s just as simple as, he will always care about himself most. He will always be selfish, to the very last.

It was definitely interesting to see a relationship, in Dill and Spivey, that WAS deep, and old, and multi-layered, where they DID love each other, as some combination of friends and family and lovers, where maybe in a sense they WERE soulmates, but they were also deeply twisted and bad for each other. Their relationship was so deeply unhealthy. It was all of those things at once.

[crippled-peeper]

@briarpatch-kids

[blorbologist]

Nursery Rhymes as Told by Briarpatches | Greypool

“I’m Greykit now, Mom,” said Greykit, when they were nestled back home. Fallowtail stilled. “Greykit, is it?” she asked, her voice frail. “I - I hadn’t known so much time had passed. You’ve both grown so big, but names -” “Can we get new names?” Palekit piped up, muffled by Mom’s fur before she twisted to face them. “I don’t wanna be Palekit anymore.”  “Why not?” Mom gently prodded.  Her lips curled into a tiny snarl - a perfect likeness of Hailstar’s, earlier. “It’s stupid and windy and I’m not a Windclan cat.”

[Set in @fatal-rewrites-warriors's rewrite of Warriors, found here]

--

"Greykit and Palekit," Reedfeather declared. "Welcome home, lovelies."

His daughter could not see his expression from between his paws, but she could see those of the strange cats around him. They were wrong - not a single familiar face in the crowd. They all smelled wrong, too, like the wind had stolen their scents, not like the musty comfort of Mom. All strangers.

One face frowned - the huge tom padded forward and sniffed the sisters with a scarred nose. The kittens shied away. 

"I’d keep those ideas to myself, boy. The kits are too young to be named.” The tom rose up to squint at their father. “Especially adapting to so many changes, the stress could do them in.”

The kitten - was she Pale or Grey? - felt her father stiffen behind her. “Riverclan could not keep them from me, Hawkheart - neither will Starclan,” he said. 

“Besides,” he added quickly, “they’re stars-given, for Heatherstar’s lost litter. Surely they wouldn’t take such blessings from such deserving cats?”

Hawkheart curled his lip. “Deserving... certainly.”

He padded away, vanishing into what looked to the kitten like the round, gaping mouth of a dead fish. She recoiled further into her father’s belly fur for something, anything, familiar.

But he wasn’t. She did not know the texture of his fur, or his not-smell, or his nasally voice, or how he licked her ears. She hated having her ears touched - Mom knew that. 

“I want Mom,” she whimpered. “I don’t like it here, I want Mom - please, can we go home?”

[Keep reading on AO3!]

[thecreaturecodex]

Sahkil Tormentor, The Vermilion Mother

"RedQueen v.2" © ArtStation user Dalisa Art, accessed at their page here

[Sponsored by @alquitranofmystara. The Vermilion Mother is not the first sahkil tormentor I've written, but she is the first canon one. I've seeded this entry with a lot of references to my original works. The name I give as her true name, Mystricia, is the genus name for the nutmeg tree, which is potently toxic and hallucinogenic.]

Sahkil Tormentor, the Vermillion Mother CR 25 NE Outsider (extraplanar) This creature appears to be a horrifying combination of crone and carnivorous plant the size of a small tree. Her face is contorted into a horrible rictus and her skeletal wooden limbs end in terrible claws. Her hair is a sea of fronds, each one of which ends in a red bud that opens to reveal a fanged mouth.

Vermilion Mother Bloody Blossom, Mystricia, The Red Weed Concerns fecundity, overgrowth, psychoactive plants Domains Charm, Evil, Plant, Weather Subdomains Decay, Fear, Growth, Lust Worshipers drug addicts, evil druids, sarmaks Minions beldams, plant monsters, sahkils (especially pakalchis and qoloks) Unholy Symbol a hand covered in creeping red tendrils Obedience Ingest a toxic plant, or sow the seeds of a toxic plant in a place intended to be safe. Gain a +4 profane bonus on Fortitude and Will saving throws against effects from plants or plant creatures. Boons 1: sickening entanglement 2/day; 2: curse terrain 2/day; 3: green caress 2/day

The Vermilion Mother is the sahkil tormentor that represents the fear that animals have of losing control to plants. Everything to an annoying weed making a noble’s lawn ugly to that same noble getting addicted to opium and running their province into the ground is under her jurisdiction. As such, her cult has an unusual makeup. Many of her followers are druids who wish to use plants to overrun and destroy unnatural edifices. Others are hedonists seeking out new and unusual highs, who often become junkies that pray to her to make their trips longer and their side effects less severe. Perhaps the strangest of her worshipers are a cult of sarmaks, which consider one of the plants native to their planet, the ground-creeping red weed, as a physical embodiment of the Vermilion Mother’s influence.

The Vermilion Mother enjoys making combats with her drawn out and painful. Whenever she chooses, she is surrounded by an aura of grasping, hindering vegetation that she can move effortlessly through, and often isolates foes further with quickened walls of thorns. Her gaze causes a profound ennui, and creatures who see her often simply give up and let her tear them limb from limb. Her breath is a potent hallucinogen, and those affected have strange and terrifying hallucinations before they fall into a coma, their perceptions locked completely within their own body. Her claws break off and reform in the flesh of her victims, creating runners of razor-sharp vines that erupt into bonethorns once they have stripped away enough muscle and other tissue.

The Vermilion Mother’s true name is Mystricia, which is a closely guarded secret known only to her closest allies. The Vermilion Mother is the eldest of a trio of allied neutral evil demigods which act as something between a witches’ coven and a family. The other two are the daemonic harbinger Decied and the green (wo)man Briarpatch, both of whom also delight in ecological devastation and the introduction of new and strange lifeforms to an area. Although the Vermilion Mother is oldest, she is not the most powerful, but her advice and experience are respected by both of her fellows. She and Mahathallah have similar purviews and a cordial, but distant relationship.

The Vermilion Mother       CR 25 XP 1,640,000 NE Huge outsider (evil, extraplanar, sahkil) Init +12; Senses darkvision 60 ft., greensight, Perception +42, tremorsense 120 ft. Aura overgrowth (100 ft.), unholy (DC 28)

Defense AC 43, touch (-2 size, +1 dodge, +8 Dex, +22 natural, +4 deflection) hp 565 (29d10+406); fast healing 15 Fort +27, Ref +28, Will +30; +4 vs. mind-influencing effects, paralysis, polymorph, sleep, stunning DR 20/epic and good; Immune charm, compulsion, death effects, disease, fear, poison; Resist cold 30, electricity 30, sonic 30; SR 41 Defensive Abilities floronic, freedom of movement

Offense Speed 50 ft., climb 30 ft. Melee 2 claws +42 (2d6+15/19-20 plus grab and implant), 4 bites +42 (1d6+15/19-20 plus bleed) Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. Special Attacks bleed (1d6),breath weapon, look of fear, rend (2 claws, 2d6+22), spirit touch Spell-like Abilities CL 25th, concentration +35 Constant—freedom of movement, unholy aura (self only) At will—blasphemy (DC 27), charm monster (DC 24), confusion (DC 24), control plants (DC 28), fear (DC 26), greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs only), nightmare (DC 27) 3/day—green caress (DC 27), empowered horrid wilting (DC 28), mind fog (DC 25), serenity (DC 28), quickened waves of fatigue, quickened wall of thorns 1/day—control weather, dominate monster (DC 29), overwhelming presence (DC 31), rival’s weald (DC 29), summon sahkil (any of CR 20 or lower, 100%), weird (DC 31)

Statistics Str 40, Dex 27, Con 38, Int 25, Wis30, Cha 31 Base Atk +29; CMB +46 (+50 grapple); CMD 69 Feats Blind-fight,Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Dodge, Empower SLA (horrid wilting), Improved Critical (bite, claw), Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Quicken SLA (waves of fatigue, wall of thorns), Staggering Critical, Stand Still, Step Up, Stunning Critical Skills Bluff +42, Climb +38, Heal +42, Intimidate +42, Knowledge (arcana, geography, religion) +36, Knowledge (nature, planes) +39, Perception +42, Sense Motive +42, Stealth +32 (+40 in wooded areas), Survival +42, Swim +31; Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in wooded areas Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Common, Druidic, Infernal, speak with plants, Sylvan, telepathy 300 ft. SQ easy to call, emotional focus, freeze (as tree), sahkil tormentor traits, skip between

Ecology Environment any land (Ethereal Plane) Treasure double standard Organization unique

Special Abilities Bleed (Ex) Bleed damage from the Vermilion Mother’s bites stacks with itself. On a critical hit, the bleed becomes 1 point of Constitution bleed instead. Breath Weapon (Ex) The Vermilion Mother can breathe a 60 foot cone of toxic powder once every 1d4 rounds. Creatures caught in the area are exposed to the following poison: Vermilion Powder—contact; save Fort DC 38; duration 1/round for 4 rounds; effect 1d8 Wisdom damage; cure 1 save. A creature that is suffering ability damage from vermilion powder hallucinates and babbles. It treats all creatures it can see as having concealment, and has a 20% chance to fail to speak correctly, including command words and spell components. The save DC is Constitution based. Floronic (Ex) The Vermilion Mother gains a +4 racial bonus on saving throws against mind-influencing effects, paralysis, polymorph, sleep and stunning effects. Implant (Su) Each time the Vermilion Mother deals damage with its claw attacks, its victim must attempt a DC 38 Fortitude save to avoid becoming infested by its seeds. If the victim fails, the seeds sprout into vines that swiftly propagate through its body, erupting from wounds and ripping through undamaged flesh, dealing 2d12 points of slashing damage per round at the start of the infected creature’s turn. An implanted creature can remove the vines with any spell or effect that cures disease, and the vines die if the host takes 20 or more points of fire damage in a single attack. A creature that has a skeleton and that dies while implanted is consumed over the course of 2d6 rounds, after which a new fiendish bonethorn under the Vermllion Mother’s control rises from the remains. A new bonethorn created in this manner from a Large or larger body can animate only a Medium-sized portion of the skeleton, resulting in strange, partially skeletal hosts that have similar statistics to a bonethorn grown from a humanoid host. Burning or otherwise completely destroying the victim’s body before the spores complete their consumption prevents it from becoming a new bonethorn. This is a disease effect. The save DC is Constitution-based. Look of Fear (Su) 30 ft.; Will DC 36, shaken 1 hour. A creature that succumbs to the Vermilion Mother’s look of fear is filled with ennui and cannot take actions. It can make a DC 36 Will save each round to remove the ennui effect, but is still shaken if it succeeds this save. The save DC is Charisma based and includes a +2 racial bonus for the Vermilion Mother’s emotional focus. Overgrowth Aura (Su) The Vermilion Mother is surrounded by a dense network of magical vegetation in a 100 foot radius. This functions as the overgrowth effect of the plant growth spell, except that it moves with the Vermilion Mother. Creatures with the plant type and sahkils can move through this foliage normally. The Vermilion Mother can suppress or resume this aura as a swift action. Sahkil Tormentor Traits (Ex/Su) The Vermilion Mother is a powerful unique sahkil. She gains access to the following abilities

Immunity to charm and compulsion effects, death effects, disease, fear effects and poison

Resist cold 30, electricity 30 and sonic 30

Telepathy 300 ft.

The Vermilion Mother’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons she wields, are treated as epic and evil for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction

Once per day, the Vermilion Mother can summon any sahkil of CR 20 or lower with 100% chance of success

The Vermilion Mother can grant spells, as listed in her divine information

Speak With Plants (Su) The Vermilion Mother can speak with plants, as per the spell, at will as a supernatural ability.

[cripple-council]

recently gained the spoons to be on tumblr again!! would love recommendations for a mini sjw interested in disability justice and also fermented internet chaos

-friendly neighborhood creature on wheels (may bite when agitated)

hey! here are some blogs i can think of rn that i like :)

@compassionatereminders

@cane-you-dig-it

@briarpatch-kids

@talkethtothehandeth

@bebsi-cola

@wheelie-sick

@crippled-peeper

and more but my memory is shit am i can’t remember usernames lmao

[mitchellkriegman]

Requiem for a Rabbit Despite what you’ve heard - it’s tragic. With the end of Splash Mountain at Disney World, the last popular iteration of Bre’r Rabbit has been been vanquished to the cultural dumpster. The original versions of the Bre’r Rabbit tales came to America from Africa. Bre’r Rabbit was the first truly collective creation of Africans in American. These classic stories are as compelling as “Winnie the Pooh” or Kipling’s “Jungle Book,” or “Aesop’s Fables” with a really important distinction - the Bre’r Rabbit stories are American. Africans have always used stories to inspire young people, to entertain and teach social and moral values. As families were tragically split apart, the tales provided a comforting world of characters as well as an entire African Cosmology that children encountered wherever they ended up, regardless of their dire circumstance providing the spirit of their elders, their culture. Besides being smart-ass clever and funny, Bre’r Rabbit is like Charlie Chaplin and other classic scamps and tricksters. Where do you think Bugs Bunny comes from? Is there any better story than the one about Bre’r Rabbit and the Briar Patch? It’s about turning the table on your oppressors to get the advantage and gain freedom. I know what you’re thinking... what about Uncle Remus — isn’t he synonymous with “Uncle Tom?” s never part of the Bre’r Rabbit stories. In 1880 a white journalist, Joel Chandler Harris created the fictitious slave character of Uncle Remus, to put the stories in a colonial frame. Despite being painted with a racist brush, the stories triumph offering models for succeeding over adversity and oppression. Br’er Rabbit still has true smarts. In the words of Zora Neale Hurston, he could “hit a straight lick with a crooked stick,” he could “make a way out of no way.” Why can’t our culture treat this subversively original, vibrant, snappy-ass character with respect? Drawing by the great @mulliganjimmy #splashmountain #brerrabbit #zoranealehurston #hitastraightlickwithacrookedstick #disneyworld #briarpatch #africancosmology https://www.instagram.com/p/ComYOlFOqb6/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=