#british tc

[classiccarsincyprus]

Triumph 2000 TC

[droptmastyx]

British cars show, Sanford FL.  MG T-series goodness.  

[tonycamonte]

for a british columbian there is no greater joy in life than watching first blood and saying hey ive been there oh my god ive literally been there. ive been there too woahhh ive been there thats crazy ive beeen there

[ginge1962]

Outlier Volume 3: Survivor Guilt featuring reprints of the strip from the 2000AD stable!

Story & art by T.C.Eglington + Karl Richardson.

[rwking01stuff-blog]

Antarctica Dream Adventure 8 - Drygalski Fjord

This is our third day at South Georgia Island in our Antarctica Dream Adventure. South Georgia is the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. As we progress on the expedition we are told that areas of South Georgia are being closed due to the detection of birds with avian influenza and to help reduce the spread of the disease. The expedition leader is…

[myheartisonthetrain]

tw heavy topics (?)

ß and Mj are my retreats when i js hate everyone else. i'll never hate them. no matter what they do, any real bad thing about them i'd love just the same, i look for the humanity in people and bad qualities prove that. they remind me that the stuff i got yelled at for as a kid was normal and i wasn't wrong or stupid or lazy or attention-seeking, i was just trying to make sense of the world :( bad qualities are simply the mistakes you never fixed, and admitting that you might not be able to fix them is the strongest thing you can do because you're refusing to be labelled as an inconvenience to others.

my parents were making sense of the world too, i forgive them, but it's hard feeling indifferent and like i'm confined to a container. "i just want to make sure you're safe!! i'm not gonna be there to safeguard you!! and what'll happen when people see you in that state!?" just say you need me to lie to you and tell you i know what i'm doing so you're no longer terrified of me making mistakes. say you need me to comfort you like your own inner child. i don't care what you project onto me anymore as long as you're honest about it, i won't let myself feel like an inconvenience anymore.

[motorsportverso]

PROGRAMAÇÃO DE CORRIDAS DO FIM DE SEMANA DE 08-09\04+SEGUNDA FEIRA(10\04\2023)

Sabado-08\04\2023

01:30-GTWC AUSTRALIA-BATHURST-CORRIDA 1\RACE 1

07:45-GTWC AUSTRALIA-BATHURST-RACE 2

10:00-FRANCE HISTORIQUE GRAN-PRIX-PAUL RICARD

13:45-Super turismo RS-GUAPORÉ

17:30-Nascar Truck Series-Dirt Bristol-HEAT 1-Twitch.Tv

17:45-Nascar Truck Series-Dirt Bristol-HEAT 2-Twitch.Tv

18:00-Nascar Truck Series-Dirt Bristol-HEAT 3-Twitch.Tv

18:15-Nascar Truck Series-Dirt Bristol-HEAT 4-Twitch.Tv

19:00-Nascar Cup Series-Dirt Bristol-HEAT 1-Twitch.TV

19:15-Nascar Cup Series-Dirt Bristol-HEAT 2-Twitch.TV

19:30-Nascar Cup Series-Dirt Bristol-HEAT 3-Twitch.TV

19:45-Nascar Cup Series-Dirt Bristol-HEAT 4-Twitch.TV

21:00-Nascar Truck Series-Dirt Bristol-Bandsports

09/04-Domingo

04:00-FRANCE HISTORIQUE GRAN-PRIX-PAUL RICARD

07:10-FFSA TC-Nogaro-Corrida 1\Race 1\Course 1

09:10-Alpine Elf Eurocup-Nogaro-Corrida 1\Race 1\Course 1

10:25-FFSA GT-Nogaro-Corrida 1\Race 1\Course 1

12:40-TC FRANCE-NOGARO-Corrida 2\Course 2\Race 2

20:00-Nascar Cup Series-Dirt Bristol-Bandsports \TWITCH.TV (site do Bandsports)

21:00-Nascar Cup Series-Dirt Bristol-Bandsports

[hellsitegenetics]

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, DStJ, PC, FRS, HonFRSC (née Roberts; 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013), was a British stateswoman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the position. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

String identified: agat a Tatc, a Tatc, G, , t, C, , C (é t; 13 ct 1925 – 8 A 2013), a a t tata a Cat tca a t t t g 1979 t 1990 a a t Cat at 1975 t 1990. a t gt-g t t t 20t ct a t t a t t t. A t, t cc c tat ca a Tatc. A t at t " a", a ca tat ca acat t cg tc a a t.

Closest match: Muscardinus avellanarius genome assembly, chromosome: 21 Common name: Hazel dormouse

[veganthranduil]

(This is a slightly re-worked version of my 2021 Terror Camp talk on the subject. You can request access to past recordings via the TC email.)

In a show full of unapologetic imperialists, Harry Goodsir, beautiful cinnamon roll (too good for this world, too pure), is often exempted from the scrutiny that other characters are subjected to, based on his ‘innocent’ nature and his good intentions. I argue that precisely these characteristics that are most formative for his imperialism, but that his imperialism is not legible to us because it is the same form of imperialism we* still practise today. As the character who seems most modern to us because he is, in many ways, quite liberal, he serves as a prime audience surrogate to excuse, and to question our excuses of this imperialism.

We may think of empire as an unapologetic entity, too large to deny its own existence. The fact of its violence is all-encompassing. In the eyes of those who suffer from under it, the empire cannot be ignored—but there are also those who depend on its invisibility for the functioning of their world. This is a story about how the empire hides itself from itself, through the story it tells about itself.

The origins of empires fall together with the historical emergence of liberalism in the 18th century. Mehta (1999, p. 194) writes on this co-emergence:

“It is tempting to see the triumph of liberalism and the concurrent extension of the empire as either discontinuous facts that do not relate to each other or as plainly contradicting each other, and therefore casting doubt on the authenticity of the former. The thesis of discontinuity misunderstands the role of liberalism generally, and especially in this period. From its very inception in the seventeenth century, liberalism had been much more than a mere political doctrine with a local reach. By the early nineteenth century and with added vigor through the course of it, it was a robust mindset with a confidence in its global vision. This liberalism did not mysteriously get transformed into some demonic urge to rule the world the instant the British ventured beyond their shores. [...] liberalism and empire were tightly braided threads such that their separation would have resulted in the fraying of a well-woven mental and political tapestry.”

At the same time, liberalism, in its elaborations as a theory, is at odds with many aspects of empire. Liberalism, on the one hand, relies on the resources and globalisation provided through colonisation. On the other hand, the liberal tradition purports that its values—individual self-determination, basic rights, democracy, or tolerance—hold the world over. These liberal values extend rights that the empire violates and denies. This is not to say that liberalism has not also served as the argument in struggles of liberation and for rights. The language of liberalism can be used to challenge liberalism and demand inclusion, just as the language of liberalism can be used to dismantle it. Suffragists successfully did the former. The globally resurgent radical right is succeeding in a strategy of normalisation that is achieving the latter. What I am saying is that within liberalism, which is caught between needing the empire for its political survival and being at odds with the fact of empire in its moral system, there is a particular rhetorical trick that hides the empire from liberal eyes. Even today, we western liberal subjects deflect when it comes to the existence of this connection.

I use Jeanne Morefield’s concept of “imperial deflections” (Morefield, 2014). She defines an imperial deflection as “drawing critical attention away from the liberal empire’s illiberalism by insisting upon its fundamental character.” It’s a bit like a magic trick: showing you the card by acknowledging the empire’s illiberal acts, and then drawing the attention away from it. Morefield examines British liberal thinkers around WWI and US liberal thinkers post 9/11 to show how the liberal justifications of empire are surprisingly similar in both instances. In both pre-WWI Britain and post 9/11 America, liberals insist it is impossible for them to act illiberally—because they have always been liberal, because they are at heart liberal, or because the long arc of history bends towards a liberal society in both cases. It is these deflections we can see Goodsir employ in the show, at different times, and with different degrees of success.

Goodsir as an Audience Surrogate

At numerous junctures in the show, we are encouraged to view the world we are presented with through Goodsir’s eyes. He, like the viewer, has never been to the Arctic, and approaches it with a sense of wonder. The audience is encouraged to empathise with him through small moments that endear him to us (such as when he insists that he, too, can haul the boat-sledge in 1x02 and promptly falls over, inexperienced at hauling as he is.) In episode 1x02 Goodsir as a viewpoint character also becomes explicit when we hear his testimony after what happened to Lieutenant Gore. Although all members of the sledge party are interviewed offscreen, it is his point of view that we hear and believe, and that helps us makes sense of what we just saw happen. The fact that the captains interviewing him are sceptical of his account just solidifies putting the audience in his corner.

What most solidifies Goodsir as an audience surrogate, however, is his ideology and therefore his position in the show as a “modern” character. My argument is that it’s precisely Goodsir’s liberalism that allows us to identify with him.

Goodsir as a Liberal Subject

Goodsir’s role as a scientist (an anatomist first, and then also a doctor) position him closest to Post-Enlightenment liberal ideas about scientific progress, rationality, and also a new form of masculinity. Goodsir is a decidedly “modern” character, especially when contrasted with other characters: Goodsir is less set in his ways than most of them. While describing the bear prints, for example, the captains are dismissive of his description while Goodsir is sceptical but not dismissive of the idea that the bear could have tracked them to the ship. (He is, of course, very set in other ways, for example in his total embrace of class hierarchies.) He is also positioned in contrast to Stanley’s overt racism when Stanley refuses to perform surgery on Silna’s father.**

Goodsir’s approach to life is informed by his belief in science. We are given little hints throughout the show that approaching things from a detached, scientific angle gives him comfort. When David Young dies, Goodsir is distressed, but the first thing he does is check Young’s pulse. Similarly, he can perform Young’s autopsy only after covering his face, reducing him from “person” to “body.” His account of Gore’s killing, likewise, is focussed on the observable details and reads more like a scientific report than a report from a man who witnessed a traumatic event.

This rationality and distance from emotion is also indicative of an alternative masculinity. The show contrasts Goodsir’s liberal masculinity with the more familiar “male warrior” masculinity of the sailors that surround him. In episode 1x03, Goodsir’s demand of an escort back to the ships is played for a laugh, though immediately undercut when the Tuunbaq does attack the hunting blind, leaving him the character with the more realistic risk assessment. Goodsir embodies an alternative hegemonic masculinity: a liberal masculinity that expresses itself not in outbursts of aggression but in a distancing from emotion. When Goodsir seeks to test his lead poisoning theory, for example, he entices Jacko with gentle words to eat from the food he suspects to be poisonous. He is aware that—should his theory be correct—he is killing the monkey. We are reminded of his gentle words to David Young and realise, perhaps, that his gentleness is not backed up with a deep concern for the person/animal he speaks to. In both cases, the knowledge that can be extracted from dead bodies supersedes sentimentality. Neither masculinity, one might extrapolate from that, offers a way out of the predicament these men find themselves in. Neither can serve as the basis of a new kind of living with each other.

Goodsir’s Liberal Deflections of Empire

Goodsir’s character is an interesting case of nominative determinism. There obviously was a historical Harry Goodsir, but this is not the man we are looking at. We are looking at the fictional “good sir” who was, at first glance, written as the only good man among imperialists. At second glance, however, his name itself becomes an imperial deflection. While other characters make their investment in empire clear from the beginning, Goodsir’s is perhaps harder to spot. Sir John has already failed at one imperial endeavour and is adamant to prove himself. Fitzjames’s stories illustrate that he has no qualms with the mission of empire. But at various points in the show, Goodsir is seen to express discomfort with the logic of action that imperialism dictates. He wants to save Silna’s father (even though he ends up making things worse for him and the crew in the long run.) He expresses discomfort at the treatment of the body of Silna’s father, while he himself tries to be respectful of Inuit customs (though, once again, making things worse by burying his charms with him.) When Francis wants to ask Silna how to kill the Tuunbaq, Goodsir does not translate the question, perhaps out of a sense that “these matters are quite private in her culture.” It is because of this discomfort that Goodsir becomes the prime apologist of empire. The other characters do not feel like they have anything to be sorry for, and therefore do not need to invent justifications. Goodsir employs these justifications at various moments in the show, but two instances stand out for their similarity in phrasing and context, and the differing extent to which Goodsir believes them.

The first instance of an imperial deflection is when Goodsir brings supper to Silna. She has just been kidnapped by Hickey, Hartnell and Manson. When Goodsir introduces himself to Silna, he has a first moment of realization of the meaning and scope of empire and his place in it. He explains their purpose (“For our economy. For trade.”) and seems to have a moment of self-awareness that those are neither good reasons for dying nor for killing. A moment later he points at himself, hoping to introduce himself. “Goodsir,” he says, which is both his name and also an insistence that while the policies that brought him here may be flawed, the men sent to die were good men, not deserving of the scorn we direct at them for the imperial policy they carry out. “This is not how Englishmen act,” he says, despite evidence to the contrary that Englishmen have, in fact, just acted this way. This is the first instance of a textbook liberal deflection: insisting on the character over the actions of empire. What does it matter for Silna that he means well? The helplessness is emphasised by the abrupt ending of the episode after Goodsir’s desperate introduction.

The second time Goodsir insists on the character of Empire over its actions is in quite a different context. A hunting party has just massacred an Inuit family, people that Silna knew, and now Silna is being exiled from Terror Camp. Goodsir knows that it’s safer for her to go, but selfishly wants her to stay. He feels for her, and perhaps feels he must offer some sort of apology for the behaviour of his co-nationals. Then he tells her: “I wish you could come to England and see for yourself. It’s not like we are here. People there are good.” Once again, he insists on the fundamental character—the “English” character—of the empire that exculpates them from the crimes they commit abroad. But even in the speaking, he appears to realise the futility of this deflection. This second deflection is followed by a word spoken in Inuktitut for which no translation is provided.*** Silna reacts with a small smile and a nod of her head. The choice not to subtitle or translate Goodsir’s last word to Silna can be read in various ways, but it remains first and foremost a place to which we—the liberal audience at home—cannot follow Goodsir, who has been our surrogate up to this point, implying perhaps that he has taken a step that we have yet to take in confronting our own imperialism.

Both of Goodsir’s deflections follow violence done to Silna (or threatened against her.) In the first instance, it’s her kidnapping by Hickey and his associates for which Goodsir first apologises, then makes excuses; in the second instance it’s the violence that will be done to her should she return to Terror Camp, as well as the violence done to other Inuit. In both cases, it’s Goodsir’s job to draw attention away from the liberal empire’s illiberal actions by insisting on its liberal character. The extent to which he succeeds—or fails—opens up these liberal deflections of empire for us. Goodsir is not an uncritical liberal audience surrogate. I watched The Terror for the first time during the March 2020 lockdown, and hearing “For our economy. For trade.” hit hard for me as a person living under a capitalist system where economic necessity is continuously valued over human life. Goodsir realises, in justifying, the hollowness of some of his justifications, even as he fervently holds on to others.

Goodsir stays alive long enough to witness all the ways that Englishmen may act, and is made to participate in them. His disillusionment with his co-nationals at the end is nearly complete. But his commitment to liberalism, I would argue, remains.

In the end, Goodsir returns to science. His final vision is that of the beauty that no doubt inspired his career, the wonder that he told Crozier he still feels. But it’s also a vision that remains within the ordered boundaries of the liberal empire: the specimens are foreground on a white background, they are separated from nature, standing contextless and only for themselves. Goodsir’s final vision is that of the liberal imperial project, realised.

* When I write “we,” I am, of course, aware that not everyone reading this falls under the umbrella of Western liberal subjects that this “we” assumes. Like Goodsir as an audience surrogate, this “we” hopes to function as a mirror of reflection for our own deflections of empire. I do not understand myself as a “liberal,” certainly not in the sense that most US-Americans use the term. I see liberalism as the bedrock of how we do politics in the 21st century. In that sense, we are all “liberals.” From the position of someone who is a “liberal,” as a subject of a liberal democracy, I do not exempt myself from the category of people that has, at various points in their lives, made excuses for empire, knowingly or unknowingly. These rhetorical strategies, so ingrained in how we talk about who we are, make it all-too-easy to fall into the trap of convincing ourselves that there is something redeemable at the heart of our empires. We must make these strategies explicit to recognise their falsity.

** Stanley’s refusal did not come out of an assessment of the futility of the procedure, which might have spared Silna’s father further suffering. In that sense, both Goodsir (in his belief that his knowledge can save the man) and Stanley (in his racist refusal of medical aid) fail Silna and her father, because neither of them centre the well-being of the man.

*** I am aware that you can find this translation in many metas written about it. Do not come into my comments to tell me what it means. I looked it up.

Bibliography

Bell, D., 2014. What is Liberalism. Political Theory 42, 682–715.

Hooper, C., 2001. Masculinities in International Relations, in: Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations, and Gender Politics. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 79–116.

Mehta, U.S., 1999. Liberalism and Empire. A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London.

Morefield, J., 2014. Empires Without Imperialism: Anglo-American Decline and the Politics of Deflection. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

[waitmyturtles]

Thinking About QL Fandoms and Markets For Indian Queer Media

Alright, ::rubs hands together::, let's see if this old auntie can get the link history of this thread straight first.

@impala124 originally wrote in an ask to dear @lurkingshan about Shan's thoughts on a developing fandom for Indian queer media.

Shan subsequently asked a few of us on the internet, brown Asian and/or otherwise, to weigh in, which @starryalpacasstuff did here. Starry's piece has a few great reblogs with media resources that everyone should scurry to check out.

The inimitable @neuroticbookworm then decided to show us her literary Tae Bo skills and dropped an absolute MONSTER of a must-read regional media and industry analysis here. (Let me emphasize that this is a MUST-READ PIECE if you're interested in Indian media.)

I'm going to use NBW's piece as a reference throughout my weak-ass response tea here, because she covered almost everything that needed to be said about why there ISN'T a robust or developed fandom on the internet for Indian queer media. So go read that first, and if you forget to click back here, it's all good, because I'm just gonna offer some unorganized macro-level thoughts at this point.

****

I'd like to first amplify a number of themes that @neuroticbookworm made clear in her piece about the "media industry in India." I'm only putting that phrase in quotes not because NBW wrote it (she didn't), but because it's a wholly inaccurate phrase.

1) INDIA IS *NOT* A SINGLE, UNIFIED CULTURAL MONOLITH. Remember your early social studies classes on early civilizations? The Aryans, Harappa, Mohenjo Daro? Those specific civilizations arose in the north of the Indian sub-continent, and not a lot of social studies spaces outside of Indian classrooms give love to the other regional areas in India -- like, say, all of South India, hello -- that belong to other civilization definitions.

To be grossly overgeneral, ancient civilizations in the northern subcontinent were known as Aryan civilizations, while those of the southern subcontinent were known as Dravidian civilizations. We see these differences today in the food we brown people eat, and ESPECIALLY in the languages we speak. Tamil (a Dravidian South Indian language) couldn't be farther away from Hindi (a North Indian language emanating from Sanskrit).

2) While the prominent political nationalists of India (😐) would like to have you believe that all Indians are monolithically similar -- or rather, SHOULD be monolithically similar by way of all Indians speaking Hindi, consuming Hindi media, and erasing religious diversity (🤬) -- nothing could be farther from the truth of our incredibly diverse and complicated subcontinent. We Indians are regionally, and therefore culturally, diverse in a great myriad of ways, way beyond our food, language, and religious preferences.

[For my non-Indians and non-Asians reading this, think about the two dishes you see the most on Indian restaurant menus outside of India. Chicken tikka masala and tandoori chicken, right? That's typical "Indian" food to the untrained eye. CTM is a British dish borne from immigrant South Asian chefs; and tandoori chicken was created by North Indian Punjabis. My own Indian origins are half-half (lah), I'm half-South and half-North Indian (with some SE Asia thrown in there, boleh!). My brain fucking freezes when I speak to someone who thinks the extent of "Indian food" is CTM and TC, and I have to explain, for the millionth time, the basics of the incredible array of South Indian vegetarian food that I grew up eating and loving.]

Thus, what I'm trying to say is, when we say the word "INDIAN," there are some questions that a curious listener should be tuned into asking to get specifics about just what kind of "India" or "Indian" the speaker is speaking of. I'll often get the question, "but WHERE in India are your parents from," from tuned-in Asians, who want to know specifically about my regional background.

VERY SO OFTEN IN POPULAR DIALOGUE ABOUT "INDIAN MEDIA," THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTION OF THE CONVERSATION IS THAT THE SPEAKER IS ONLY SPEAKING ABOUT HINDI-LANGUAGE MEDIA, WITHOUT RECOGNIZING THAT REGIONAL AND/OR NON-HINDI LANGUAGE MARKETS MIGHT BE MAKING MEDIA, EVEN POPULAR MEDIA, FOR THEIR SPECIFIC REGIONAL MARKETS AND AUDIENCES WITHOUT AS MUCH OF A GLANCE TO THE DOMINANT HINDI-SPEAKING NORTH.

NBW says this brilliantly in her incredible piece, which delineates the major differences in the MANY regional and even sub-regional media markets of India, that produce a VAST array of media in the languages of the regions, markets, and audiences that this media serves.

On a personal note, when I was a kid, I only watched old South Indian films subtitled in English that my South Indian dad found. My North Indian mom watched them with us happily. We didn't do Bollywood in my house because frankly, dad hated those films and wasn't into them. Now that I think about it, it's probably because those Hindi films didn't bear a single resemblance to the cultural and life he lived growing up in South India.

3) Alright, so we have established that in terms of media, to speak about "Indian media" as a monolith is utterly incorrect, and just, go back to NBW's piece to get an excellent analysis of the details of that situation.

NBW does a bang-up job highlighting important pieces of regional media throughout her post, and like I mentioned before, there are multiple lists of media in the reblogs Starry's piece linked above ( @silverquillsideas notes in her reblog of Starry's piece that two important films come out of the state of Bengal, a market that us Indians should certainly pay attention to in particular.)

I therefore might posit that there might not actually be a unified "fandom for Indian queer media."

IT IS CLEAR from the reblogs of the various pieces that we've written over the last few days, that us Indians who love QLs certainly don't INHERENTLY know, universally, about ALL the queer media, across the subcontinent, in the MANY languages we speak, that has been made.

We have a lot of learning to do across our own regional identities.

I'd argue that, instead, from an organic growth perspective, that regional media markets in India would respond to THEIR OWN AUDIENCE'S AND MARKET'S DEMANDS and create queer media WITHIN THEIR OWN REGIONS

a) if their market(s) demanded it, AND b) if there was either pre-production funding, or a guarantee of net revenue from the airing of such media.

A fandom doth not create media.

It is filmmakers that create media.

And those filmmakers need

✨ MONEY ✨

✨ MONEY ✨

✨ MONEY ✨

to make media.

Some regional markets will, by nature, be willing to take risks on a filmmaker's desire to make queer media. Those projects could succeed, or could fail. Badhaai Do is one of the best examples of a Bollywood breakout piece that gained even some international attention, and certainly attention ACROSS the subcontinent.

But I want to emphasize this point about

MONEY.

The question that we're pondering is, why isn't there a more prominent fandom for Indian queer media and/or QLs?

@twig-tea made note, in her reblog of Starry's original piece, about the importance of accessibility and subtitling, an important note not just for international audiences, but for regional Indian populations that don't speak the same language(s). Accessibility allows fans to watch the media of their own markets, and markets outside of their boundaries.

But even bigger than this is, before we even get into accessibility, is: the filmmakers need money to spend to MAKE projects, and in an ideal scenario for themselves and/or their studios, they then need to (hopefully) make a PROFIT to demonstrate a sustainable desire and demand for the media they're producing, a profit that could hopefully be re-invested into more and new queer media projects.

Let me not get into all the obstacles in which filmmakers, queer or otherwise, might run into issues with production fundraising for a queer-centered project. We Indians know about our conservative, often violent, obstacles.

NBW does a fabulous job in her piece discussing what COULD be made by way of queer media that COULD gain a stronger cultural foothold over time across the subcontinent.

4) A fandom, most often, develops as a response to media already created. A fandom, HOWEVER, *IS*, often, in today's digital age, often recruited to fundraise for projects they want to see! GoFundMe, right?

I think it was @impala124 in a reblog that mentioned that there's already a "market" for Indian QLs. But we've established now that there are actually many unconnected regional media markets in India that can't be assumed to be glommed together.

If a fandom WANTS to see a particular kind of media, in their own specific regional market, it's certainly well within its rights of speech to create internet buzz for it.

But I think we as fans also need to take responsibility for a better understanding of the economics of media creation, and to be patient as queer media is produced across the subcontinent, and to simply do our best to hype it up on the internet when we can, so that commercial sponsors and potential production funders can then pay attention to what us fans want -- and what we're willing to pay for.

And let me be honest, this is a *tremendously difficult proposition* for a field of media that's just really small against the giant, mainstream, well-funded media markets of India. And this field of queer media would be guaranteed to face crippling and disgusting conservative criticism as it gains more of a prominent cultural foothold -- as we are seeing in South Korea literally at this very second.

Looking on the economic bright side: we see in Thailand and in Japan that QLs make MONEY. Shit, not just Japan being into Japanese QLs, but also, Japan is so into Thai QLs that the major Thai channel and studio, GMMTV, has a distribution deal with the Japanese channel TV Asahi to air Thai QLs in Japan. MONEY, BABY! INTERNATIONAL DOLLAS. Great Sapol, of the QLs Manner of Death and Wandee Goodday, just wrapped a stint in a mainstream Japanese drama, and I'll assume that's because he's hotttt and talented gotten a lot of attention in Japan from his previous Thai QL work, as well as his lengthy resume in Thai mainstream media.

The hunger for QLs is there in these two major national markets, and the Thai and Japanese audience markets have proven that the demand for content for these countries can be economically fruitful. So the media markets of these two (much smaller than India) countries are pumping ever more money into production, and filmmakers are responding with more QL content than ever.

We have not even begun to contemplate reaching that tipping point in India, across our regional markets, yet. Again, NBW offers some creative paths forward that will take time to develop.

Fuck, I mean. Imagine Bollywood looking towards Thailand and its branded pair formula as an inspiration to develop queer media. (IMAGINE.) Get two super popular Bollywood actors together in a branded acting coupling/partnership. Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan doing India's version of What Did You Eat Yesterday?. In aprons! Making keema and rajma and chapatis. ShahSaif (SaifShah?!). KhanKhan. How would that go down?

It's a proven economic formula in Thailand. And that's just one example. We're well familiar, separately, with how Japanese QLs gain traction in bigger media spaces for its audiences, with media being adopted for the screen, as they mostly are, from popular yaoi and yuri mangas.

India and its regional media markets need some proven economic formulas within its regional markets to prove that queer media can gain culturally important footholds across the mindsets of various audiences -- and to prove that those footholds can produce profits.

The fandom element in this is that the regional fandoms, while creating buzz, could also prove to be important economic factors to a regional queer media industry being able to survive, and maybe even thrive.

Assuming that I am speaking to a mostly progressive group of fans here: we can only hope for this, and we must support the queer media that the subcontinent currently produces, IN *ALL* THE LANGUAGES (!!!!), to demonstrate to producers that Indians, wider South Asians, and even non-South Asians, WANT THIS MEDIA. We want it, we SHOULD want it, and damn it, we should SPEND OUR MONEY on it, to show our appreciate to the filmmakers taking risks to make this media.

I'm out! I need a chai and a samosa and a dosa.

[togstitch]

Okay points from an Indian girl.

There are flights from Amritsar to Delhi and from Delhi to pondicherry, it should've taken less than 1 day, there were already at the airport. Probably even cheaper cheaper than train tickets.

Also you don't just get on a train without a ticket, they don't let you in, specially in cabin seats mostly because there are rarely any embty seats and if you do the prices are insane because it's the price of the ticket and the fine of boarding without ticket (you can bribe the tc though). The whole train sequence felt like one of those "incredible India" tourism ads (if you know you know) i can believe seeing an elephant but a tiger???? Nah they were shot to almost extinction by the colonists. You simply won't see one near a train track.

Also how long is thier visa for???????

As an Indian with a habit of visiting old castles, temples here, it's absolutely wild to think that not only did they find a temple that was fully unguarded but also unregistered with the heritage department.(There is usually a fence at least even if they are abandoned ) I also can't believe the guide brought 2 BRITISHERS and just left them at the temple😭😭. I bet the police would give him a reward for ratting them out.

So many crimes😭😭😭 really liked the episode mostly because it felt like vicariously living through someone else, there is a fort near my college and we simply weren't allowed there for 6-10 years, it was structurally unstable or something and recently it has been partially opened and i really really really want to go into forbidden area. But i will get arrested for trying.

[callmearcturus]

my mother just flung her tablet at me like "READ THIS" and are you joking

It turns out that Cruise has been saving cinema in one way or another for more than two decades. Long before Hollywood was on the brink of collapse in the aftermath of the pandemic, there was a small British film that was struggling to get funding. Guy Ritchie’s directorial debut, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels had been independently produced for less than £1million in 1998, but no one wanted to distribute it. Following a card sharp who gathers his friends together to pull off a dangerous heist to make good on a debt to a notorious crime lord, it’s a fast-paced, fast-talking comedy full of the kind of stylistic flourishes that became the director’s trademark. 

For potential distributors, however, it was unsellable. Reflecting on the post-production period, producer Matthew Vaughan told Mark Kermode that the best deal he could get was for the film to go straight to VHS. After some pleading, he got a deal that would have put the movie in only two theatres in the UK. In a last-ditch effort to save the movie, he called up one of his producing friends in the US.

“I rang up Trudie Styler and I said, ‘Trudie, do me a favour,’” He remembered. “‘Can you get Tom Cruise to come to this buyers’ screening in America?’ And she went, ‘Are you mad? You use stars for the premieres.’ And I said, ‘No. There’s never going to be a premiere of this.’ And Cruise, to his credit, turned up in this tiny little screening room on the Sony lot, and it was hysterical because you had all these mid-level executives sitting there, and Cruise walked in. He saw them all sit up and pay attention, all getting on their phones, and suddenly, all these senior executives joined the screening. At the end, Tom got up in front of everyone and said, ‘This is the best movie I’ve seen in years, you guys would be fools not to buy it.’”

I am thoroughly Meh on Lock, Stock, but I will drop everything to watch Rock N Rolla which is an all-time favorite and would not exist if not for Lock, Stock doing well.

jfc thanks TC I guess?????????

[silvyysthings]

Timing again!!

they planned their pap walk from the pj yesterday for the release today of her vogue cover. She needed that attention so people would read the vogue article and search for clues about her couple in that itw. And that article is not journalism is just an advertisement for her and her brand. Lucky TC has been mostly kept out of that rubbish. But they’re clearly paying him for her rebrand. Because if you’re soo sooo private (as to wear a mask next to her) why would you sell your name out to that family?

British Vogue cover where he and his team allowed her to talk about him non stop

Yes dm already had the photos it's clear

[ginge1962]

Outlier Volume 2 - Dark Symmetries featuring more reprints of this excellent story from 2000AD - given away free with Judge Dredd Megazine No.393, March 2018.

[rwking01stuff-blog]

Antarctica Dream Adventure 6 - Grytviken, Old Whaling Station

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A controversial pipeline meant to transport natural gas across northern British Columbia has passed a major milestone. On Monday, TC Energy announced it has finished installing pipe on its Coastal GasLink pipeline project. "That means that all 670 kilometres of pipe has been welded, coated, lowered into the trench, rigorously tested, and backfilled," the company said in a release. First planned more than a decade ago, the pipeline will carry natural gas from near Dawson Creek in the province's northeast to a massive LNG Canada processing facility in Kitimat on the West Coast, where it is to be liquefied and shipped to Asia, opening up new markets for Canadian producers. [...] While the pipeline has buy-in from several elected First Nations bands along its route, it has faced high-profile opposition from a group of hereditary chiefs who assert that Wet'suwet'en territory has never been ceded to the federal government and that pre-colonial governance structures are still responsible for the land. In November 2021, 29 people were arrested over two days of police action in Wet'suwet'en territory as RCMP moved in on a resistance camp, known as Coyote camp, that had been occupying a key work site for Coastal GasLink, a number of whom are now facing charges of criminal contempt.

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada