#but still UK...so tangentially related?

[too-antigonish]

Sunday Confessional: Feeling English…

I'm having feelings about the UK in general and England in particular because one of my distant English cousins just passed away. She lived a long, full life and reached a very ripe old age, but over the past few years I've very much wanted to visit her in person (it's been decades since I last saw her) and now I won't be able to.

Worth Clough Cottages where my 4x great-grandparents lived. Built 1814 by Lord Warren-Bulkeley for the miners at the Lord and Lady Coal Pits.

Part of my family came from Stockport to the US in 1862. They were coal miners in Poynton (now part of "Greater" Stockport) when the Lancashire Cotton Famine hit because of the American Civil War. What to do? Pull up stakes and become coal miners in America! Which was having a Civil War!

Wisdom of the move and its timing aside, the funny thing is that the folks who stayed in England and the folks that went to America stayed in touch. In fact we're still in touch 163 years later! I have copies of letters from the original siblings from the 1870s. I have newspaper clippings about various voyages across the Atlantic for visits in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1939, just before the start of WWII, two of them—David and Marjorie—came for an extended stay. I have the photographs.

1939 Picnic: English cousins with the Illinois cousins in California

Then came the war. David wrote lots of letters about what things were like in the UK and how he thought the US would have to join the fight. Of course we eventually did. My grandfather ended up in the army and was stationed in England and later in various parts of Europe. He spent all of his leave living with the English cousins and got to know them very, very well indeed.

After the war there were many letters, packages (especially while there was still rationing in the UK), and as often as possible, visits in both directions. One of those visits included me. It was the last trip that my grandparents were able to make to the UK. We spent three weeks in various parts of England, Wales, and Scotland but a full week of that time was spent staying with the cousins—who by now had moved to Bradford and Derby.

House in Bradford where my cousins lived

It was an amazing trip—even if we did spend what I thought was a rather excessive amount of time touring historic coal mines. This was perhaps because my beloved grandfather was only one generation away from the original family business and the side of his family that hadn't mined coal in Poynton? Well, they mined coal in Merthyr Tydfil. 

Still, I managed to see enough of the above-ground part of the UK that you could probably attribute my undergrad in medieval studies to that single trip alone. Coming home, the US was just so painfully *new* and I've never quite gotten over it.

For a whole variety of complicated reasons, I haven't been able to make it back to the UK since. I'm still holding out hope that this will change at some point because I'd *really* like to visit again someday! Until then, I'll do video calls and trade photos with the remaining cousins and we'll see how much longer we can make the 163 year streak last.

Baby Antigonish. At the Bingley Five-Rise Locks on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. Steepest flight of locks in the UK.

[duckprintspress]

Fandom Lexicon: S

This one is going up a day early, because I’ll be vending all tomorrow (June 22nd 2024) at the Johnstown NY Toying Around Block Party! And here we are, with the letter S, which has the most entries of any letter in our entire lexicon.

View the entire Lexicon posted thus far!

See something incorrect? Notice an entry we’ve missed? Let us know!

Lexicon Entries Beginning with S: (read more)

S[#]: Abbreviation for “season (number).”

SALS: Abbreviation for “ship and let ship.” A different way of saying “you do what makes you happy, it’s none of my business.” See also: DL;DR, YKINMKATO (pending). Read more about the term “SALS.”

Sapphic: An umbrella term for women or women-aligned people who love women, regardless of the sexuality of the women in question. See also: Achillean. Read more about sapphism.

Schmoop: Cavity-inducingly sweet or cute. Typically refers to either scenes within, or the entire setting of, a fanwork. See also: fluff. Read more about schmoop.

Schroedinger’s [Thing]: A thing that may or may not exist so long as we do not attempt to confirm. Reference to Schroedinger’s Cat.

Scrunkly: Cute, but not in a conventional way; scruffy, ill-kempt, messy. Example: Eddie Munson.

SD: Abbreviation for “super deformed.” See also: chibi.

Sealioning: A type of trolling in which the troll demands evidence to “prove” a counterargument, but no amount of evidence will actually convince them. Read more about sealioning.

Secret Masters: A term for the people who run everything; in fandom, this has often been used to reference show runners. Sometimes, it abuts with antisemitic tropes. Sometimes, it leads into illuminati and other conspiracy theories. See also: TPTB (pending).

Self-Insert: When an author writes themselves into a story as a character, typically the protagonist. Often conflated with, but not actually synonymous to, a “Mary Sue.” Not to be confused with reader insert fics. See also: Gary Stu. Read more about self-inserts.

Self-Pub: Shortened term for “self-publishing” and “self-published books.”

Selfcest: When two versions of the same character engage in sexual relations (or are simply sexually attracted to each other). For example, a character has traveled back in time and meets themselves. Tangentially related to the “would you fuck your clone?” meme, and therefore sometimes called “clonecest.” Read more about selfcest.

Seme: In Japanese mlm fandoms, the seme is the character who sexually tops. See also: uke (pending). Read more about the term “seme.”

Sex Pollen: A fic trope in which a character inhales/consumes an airborne aphrodisiac and is overcome with sexual need. Read more about the sex pollen trope.

SFF: Abbreviation for “science fiction and fantasy” as genres.

SFW: Abbreviation for “safe for work.”

Shelfie: In book-loving circles, a shelfie is a photograph of someone’s bookshelves, often showing them attractively organized.

Ship: Shortened version of the word “relationship.” Believing that two or more individuals are/should be/would be good/terrible/interesting/hilarious in a relationship with each other. Typically used for romantic/sexual pairings, but can refer to platonic ones as well. Generally, romantic/sexual ships are denoted with a slash, hence slash becoming a synonym for shipping, and platonic ships are denoted with an ampersand. The verb form refers to the act of treating two or more characters as being in a relationship with each other. Shipping is one of the cornerstones of transformative fandom. Read more about shipping.

Shitpost: 1. Something shared on the internet that is intentionally provocative in some way. 2. Something shared on the internet that minimal effort was put into and that should therefore not be taken seriously. 3. A pointless, silly post that is still relatable in some way that causes it to go viral. Read more about shitposts.

Shoto: Shortened version of “shotacon.”

Shotacon: A Japanese genre that focused on young or young-looking male characters, often sexually. See also: lolicon. Read more about shotacon.

Shou: In Chinese mlm fandoms, the shou is the character who bottoms sexually. See also: gong.

Shoujo: A Japanese genre of YA stories that usually feature groups of young women who are friends, adventure, romance (most often between teenaged characters), and are aimed primarily at teenage women. Examples: Hana Yori Dango, Fruits Basket, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura. Read more about shoujo.

Shounen: A Japanese genre of YA stories that usually feature large casts of young men who are friends with each other and often engage in match-based story lines (for example, sports events, arena fights, etc.). Aimed at teenage men. Not to be confused with shounen ai. Examples: Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto. Read more about shounen.

Shounen-ai: A Japanese genre of mlm stories, usually with the relationships less explicit than in yaoi titles. Approximately a synonym of BL. Not to be confused with shounen. Read more about shounen-ai.

Slash: Gay fanworks, most often mlm. Sometimes used for wlw, or those works may be called femslash. Read more about slash.

Slow Burn: A story that contains a romantic/sexual element that takes most of the work’s word count to resolve. Can be used on works of any length but is most applicable on longer ones. Read more about slow burn.

Smushname: A smushed-together ship name, as in when parts of two or more character names are combined to create a new name used to refer to that ship. For example, Spirk means “Spock/Kirk,” Bingliushen means “Luo Binghe/Liu Qingge/Shen Qingqiu,” etc. Read more about smushnames.

Smut: Works that include explicit sex scenes. Read more about smut.

Snert: A term used to refer to someone as an asshole. Originally aimed at teenagers, it supposedly stands for “Snot-Nosed, Egotistical, Rude Teenager,” though there are variations on that and there’s no agreed-upon definition.

Sockpuppet: A fake account created on a given platform to present as someone other than/in addition to oneself. Not typically done in good faith. Also is used as a verb. Sockpuppeting is the act of creating multiple fake accounts to cheerlead someone, bully someone, advertise someone, etc. Sometimes shortened to just “sock.” The most famous instance of fandom sockpuppeting is the Ms. Scribe affair. Read more about sockpuppets.

Songfic: A fanfiction story written around (and usually including some lyrics from) a specific song. Read more about songfics.

SPAG: Abbreviation for “spelling and grammar.” A term often used when discussing copyediting, as in, “I edited for SPAG.”

Spam: Rapid/repeated activity or content sharing that may be annoying to others. Typically associated with low value/low effort content/activity, but volume and speed are the more important defining traits. Also used as a verb. Read more about spam.

Spam Liking: Going through someone’s social media account and “liking” many of their posts in rapid succession. Some people love when others do this, others feel it’s rude or even creepy. These differences in opinion are often generational and/or related to the platform being used (for example, spam liking is often considered fine on Tumblr but inappropriate on Instagram.)

Spec Fic: Shortened version of “speculative fiction,” the overarching genre that includes science fiction, fantasy, modern paranormal, horror, ~punk, and related subgenres.

Speedrun: Performing a lengthy activity in a time frame often deemed implausible or impossible by conventional measures by taking advantage of media-relevant shortcuts (for example: taking advantage of glitches, skipping nonessential episodes, and reading plot summaries). Originates in video game fandoms, where people speedrun to complete a game as quickly as possible. Read more about speedrunning.

Spiders Georg: A humorous way to refer to a statistical outlier who should not be counted when compiling data. Refers to a Tumblr post about a spider who eats 10,000 spiders a day and throws off the average spiders eaten a day statistic. A thing might be called [Thing] Georg if its behavior is exceptionally outside the ordinary and the person making the reference is amused by it. Read more about Spiders Georg.

Spork: 1. Outdated: To lovingly encourage a fanfic author to please write more (of a specific thing or in general). 2. The practice of mocking bad fic. Read more about sporking. 3. Noun: a fanwork created as a parody of a specific bad fic. 4. A combination fork and spoon.

Squee: A high-pitched happy noise, typically made in relation to a character, ship, or individual, but can also be in response to good news. Read more about the term “squee.”

Squick: Content that an individual would prefer not to interact with and/or finds uncomfortable. Not to be confused with a trigger (pending). See also: YKINMKATO (pending). Read more about squicks.

SSC: Abbreviation for “safe, sane, and consensual.” A term used by the BDSM community to define a baseline of expectations for sexual activities. See also: PRICK, RACK. Read more about SSC.

Stan: An unusually obsessed fan. Coined by Eminem in 2000 in a dark song by the same name. Often said to be a portmanteau of “stalker” and “fan.” Despite its dark origins, this work is often used as a light-hearted self-descriptor. See also: tinhat (pending). Read more about stans.

Strikethrough: Refers to when, in 2007, Livejournal performed a mass deletion without warning of accounts that it found objectionable, with devastating results for fandom. Coined because deleted accounts on Livejournal are marked with a line/strikethrough over their name. Read more about Strikethrough.

Sub: 1. A submissive in a BDSM Dom/Sub relationship. 2. A topic-focused messageboard (“subreddit”) on Reddit.

Super Deformed : An art style that puts extreme emphasis on certain body parts. For example: large chests, large heads, long legs. See also: chibi.

Superhell: A reference to the Big Empty in Supernatural, where angels go when they die. It is “superhell” because it is worse than actual hell (also present in the show), and in reference to the show title. Has come to be used synonymously with “a place where gay characters go to be disappeared from canon,” as in a variation on the “bury your gays” trope. See also: eeby deeby.

Sus: Shortened version of the word “suspicious.” A term with a complex history that became extremely common after the game Among Us became popular.

SW: Abbreviation for many things, with the most common being “sex work” and “Star Wars.”

SWERF: Abbreviation for “sex-work-exclusionary radical feminism.” A form of radical feminism that is anti-sex work and anti-sex workers and explicitly excludes sex workers from their activism. Fuck SWERFs. See also: TERF (pending).

[threebooksoneplot]

love this podcast so much! this is probably a bit of a nuts ask but i just wanted to let you guys know that you've genuinely helped me in real life- I was approached by two Mormon missionaries today (i live in the UK so it was Unexpected to say the least) and for the entirety of the conversation I was remembering how you mentioned on one of your episodes (99% sure it was you guys) about how being on missionary is most Mormons' first experience of the wider world so you should do your best to be polite etc. all the context you gave genuinely helped me navigate the conversation so much lmao, you guys are entertaining AND educational 10/10

oh wow!! daaaamn, good for you!

and yeah, that sounds like something we would say. I (G) can't seem to dig up receipts right now but the tl;dr is that oftentimes, door-to-door evangelism of the kind mormon missionaries and jehovah's witnesses engage in is less effective at converting people, but highly effective at reinforcing to the group's members that all outsiders are Cruel And Sinful and therefore you should never leave The Church because that's where the only good and kind people are.

but also, like, 90% of the time the reason I (G) try to be kind to mormon missionaries is because they're like 20 and have never been allowed the simple joy of a macchiato (but must try to fill that void with vile concoctions of dr pepper, gummy worms, and half 'n half, apparently.)

also, let the record show that "being kind" does not mean showing any interest whatsoever in converting to mormonism, or leading them on to that effect! but it costs $0 to wish them a nice day and be a shining example of how wearing spaghetti straps does not in fact lead to sacrificing live goats to satan.

anyway. we're proud of you, anon! glad you like the ole podcast 🤠

—G

yeah this is awesome to hear!! and even to add onto this, that sort of advice is pretty good to utilize just in general when talking to people from these ultra-conservative, super-sheltered (and yes, usually religious) upbringings. like G said, you don't need to lie to them and make them believe that "oh yeah totally i'm absolutely going to see you this sunday and I sure will consider changing the entirety of my belief system/morals!" but, yknow, just be kind. it's good to do even for Normal Regular people you see on the street. but this isn't sesame street so I won't start that brand of schoolyard lecture.

semi-related, but a little tangential: my super-strict catholic high school used to invite mormon missionaries to come and 'speak with' specific religious classes (usually the TrulyCatholic bitches took these) every year. and every year we heard about how "lol the ridiculous mormons keep coming and being nice to us to try and talk about their religion as if we're EVER going to change our minds and believe in their FAKE and WRONG version of christianity?? isn't it so stupid that they're so patient and kind to us even as sister catherine anne stands back and lets us bully—I mean, debate these guys? anyways I wonder when the morons—I mean, mormons, will stop coming back. 😌💅"

and to this day I still think about those guys! because I never understood their willingness to come back every year, and I could not fathom why they were consistently so nice. learning more about mormonism through this podcast has really helped my ex-catholic ass look at the outside world and be like "oh, we were the assholes. I mean, I knew that already, but shit." and tbh i'm sure they honestly loved coming to my school, because nothing will solidify your own stance/opinion on a group of 'outsiders' than a mob of privileged ravenous catholic teenagers. anyways, let that be a refrain for you on your new day-to-day: don't be like the catholics, be kind. amen 🙏

—shannon

[queen-beefcake-sqx]

re: last post — it drives me insane when people get mocked for learning more about a specific topic because it tangentially relates to something they like. ESPECIALLY if the thing that lead them there is cringey. Like! Don’t be an asshole to people for broadening their horizons!

I’ve joked about this before but growing up I was VERY bad at geography. Like, laughably horrible. I once unironically told my parents I wanted to visit Italy to see the Parthenon. I thought Russia was part of Europe. It was BAD, especially as someone who was otherwise very advanced compared to her peers in other subjects.

Then the manga site I used got a hold of the Hetalia scanlations and YEAH, in hindsight, bad media. But it did send me down rabbit hole after rabbit hole. “Why are these countries friends? [spends hours reading about Greek-Japanese relations] Hold up HOW did WWI start?? [reads about the assassination of Archduke Ferninand] Where the FUCK is Sealand? [squints at wikipedia article on Sealand and other micro-nations]”

This culminated in a massive fanfic where I spent TEN WEEKS following national and international news about the Gulf Oil Spill so I could accurately depict the socio-political issues happening. I STILL remember where the majority of our help came from (UK, Canada, and strangely Denmark) because I spent so much time researching for this dumb fic about modern US-UK tensions written when I was like sixteen.

Like yeah it’s embarrassing to admit “Yeah I like geo-politics and studying world history because I got really into Hetalia as a teenager” but it’s true! And just because I got into it because of a piece of media I liked — a bad piece of media I liked, even — doesn’t make the interest any less intellectual than a poli-sci major reading the international section of The Times every day.

[absolutebl]

Duck daddy, I'm having an identity crisis! I am someone who, despite being generally awkward at life, can't handle awkward in media. I will literally cover my face or leave the room if a show is too awkward, although I seem to do better with Asian shows, possibly because there is more of a disconnect when it's not in my own language. But now I'm also liking high school setting! I've NEVER liked that before except in some manga! I thought Takara kun to Amagi kun was a one-off because they're so impossibly cute, but I just watched Kieta Hatsukoi and I found that unbearably precious too!!!!!! High school is like the DEFINITION of awkward, what is happening to me? I think now I'm just old so I see them as precious little babies flailing around at life, less relatable than college or adult awkward. I think you've said you prefer high school setting as well, what are the best ones?

Ah ha! the dreaded

Cringe Factor!

These are shows that make me wince from embarrassment for the character. It took me a long time to get used to it in BL, even though it is a hallmark of origin yaoi somehow it's easier to take in print. It’s not just the uke either, in Cherry Magic the second couple gives the seme all the cringe. 

Best High School BLs With Cringe 

Light On Me (2021) Viki - it’s Korea so the cringe it more awkward than it is frenetic, but on the basis of the dildo scene alone. Full review.

Takara & Amagi AKA Takara-kun and Amagi-kun AKA Takara-kun to Amagi-kun (2022) Gaga and Viki - Amagi is one of the best executions ever from Japan who specialize in this archetype, and I have more to say about this drama coming up in a full review. 

My Love Mix Up AKA Vanishing My First Love AKA Kieta Hatsukoi (2021) Viki - Aoki is a completely adorable absolute chaos bi disaster muffin of Japan’s First Order of the Frenetic Uke Brigade. We’d bow before the king but he climbed into a trash-bin with a banana 20 minutes ago. 

Mr Heart (2020) Viki - Korea’s version is always a little different, but pretty much this is their best effort at classic BL awkward uke cringe.

Sorry sorry, this is uni. I forgot. 

Make it Right (2016) YT - Fuse, one of Thailand’s best example of this archetype is a lot more subtle than what we get from Japan, but trust me he is the same kind of chaos monkey. 

Love Sick (2014) YouTube  - the OG of Thai BL and perhaps Noh is a bit more earnest and warm hearted than he is loopy, but wait tell you get him drunk. I think he still qualifies as a more subtle version. 

Great Men Academy (2019) grey - this is body swap and so maybe nto really BL, but Jamie’s portrayal of Love certainly fills this archetype. 

(Taiwan doesn’t love cringe outside of straight dude comedies and comic relief besties.) 

Tangential Archetypes that often cause cringe 

Disaster Bis 

Chaos Muffins

Adorable Bean Nuggets 

Himbos 

(source) 

[mcmansionhell]

Coronagrifting: A Design Phenomenon

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled content to bring you a critical essay on the design world. I promise you that this will also be funny. 

This morning, the design website Dezeen tweeted a link to one of its articles, depicting a plexiglass coronavirus shield that could be suspended above dining areas, with the caption “Reader comment: ‘Dezeen, please stop promoting this stupidity.’”

This, of course, filled many design people, including myself, with a kind of malicious glee. The tweet seemed to show that the website’s editorial (or at least social media) staff retained within themselves a scintilla of self-awareness regarding the spread a new kind of virus in its own right: cheap mockups of COVID-related design “solutions” filling the endlessly scrollable feeds of PR-beholden design websites such as Dezeen, ArchDaily, and designboom. I call this phenomenon: Coronagrifting. 

I’ll go into detail about what I mean by this, but first, I would like to presenet some (highly condensed) history. 

From Paper Architecture to PR-chitecture

Back in the headier days of architecture in the 1960s and 70s, a number of architectural avant gardes (such as Superstudio and Archizoom in Italy and Archigram in the UK) ceased producing, well, buildings, in favor of what critics came to regard as “paper architecture.” This “paper architecture” included everything from sprawling diagrams of megastructures, including cities that “walked” or “never stopped” - to playfully erotic collages involving Chicago’s Marina City. Occasionally, these theoretical and aesthetic explorations were accompanied by real-world productions of “anti-design” furniture that may or may not have involved foam fingers. 

Archigram’s Walking City (1964). Source.

Paper architecture, of course, still exists, but its original radical, critical, playful, (and, yes, even erotic) elements were shed when the last of the ultra-modernists were swallowed up by the emerging aesthetic hegemony of Postmodernism (which was much less invested in theoretical and aesthetic futurism) in the early 1980s. What remained were merely images, the production and consumption of which has only increased as the design world shifted away from print and towards the rapidly produced, easily digestible content of the internet and social media. 

Architect Bjarke Ingels’s “Oceanix” - a mockup of an ecomodernist, luxury city designed in response to rising sea levels from climate change. The city will never be built, and its critical interrogation amounts only to “city with solar panels that floats bc climate change is Serious”  - but it did get Ingels and his firm, BIG, a TED talk and circulation on all of the hottest blogs and websites. Meanwhile, Ingels has been in business talks with the right-wing climate change denialist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. (Image via designboom) 

Design websites are increasingly dominated by text and mockups from the desks of a firm’s public relations departments, facilitating a transition from the paper-architecture-imaginary to what I have begun calling “PR-chitecture.” In short, PR-chitecture is architecture and design content that has been dreamed up from scratch to look good on instagram feeds or, more simply, for clicks.  It is only within this substance-less, critically lapsed media landscape that Coronagrifting can prosper.

Coronagrifting: An Evolution

As of this writing, the two greatest offenders of Coronagrifting are Dezeen, which has devoted an entire section of its website to the virus (itself offering twelve pages of content since February alone) and designboom, whose coronavirus tag contains no fewer than 159 articles. 

Certainly, a small handful of these stories demonstrate useful solutions to COVID-related problems (such as this one from designboom about a student who created a mask prototype that would allow D/deaf and hard of hearing people to read lips) most of the prototypes and the articles about them are, for a lack of a better word, insipid. 

But where, you may ask, did it all start?

One of the easiest (and, therefore, one of the earliest) Coronagrifts involves “new innovative, health-centric designs tackling problems at the intersection of wearables and personal mobility,” which is PR-chitecture speak for “body shields and masks.” 

Wearables and Post-ables

The first example came from Chinese architect Sun Dayong, back at the end of February 2020, when the virus was still isolated in China. Dayong submitted to Dezeen a prototype of a full mask and body-shield that “would protect a wearer during a coronavirus outbreak by using UV light to sterilise itself.” The project was titled “Be a Bat Man.” No, I am not making this up. 

Screenshot of Dayong’s “Be a Batman” as seen on the Dezeen website. 

Soon after, every artist, architect, designer, and sharp-eyed PR rep at firms and companies only tangentially related to design realized that, with the small investment of a Photoshop mockup and some B-minus marketing text, they too could end up on the front page of these websites boasting a large social media following and an air of legitimacy in the field. 

By April, companies like Apple and Nike were promising the use of existing facilities for producing or supplying an arms race’s worth of slick-tech face coverings. Starchitecture’s perennial PR-churners like Foster + Partners and Bjarke Ingels were repping “3D-printed face shields”, while other, lesser firms promised wearable vaporware like “grapheme filters,” branded “skincare LED masks for encouraging self-development” and “solar powered bubble shields.” 

While the mask Coronagrift continues to this day, the Coronagrifting phenomenon had, by early March, moved to other domains of design. 

Consider the barrage of asinine PR fluff that is the “Public Service Announcement” and by Public Service Announcement, I mean “A Designer Has Done Something Cute to Capitalize on Information Meant to Save Lives.” 

Some of the earliest offenders include cutesy posters featuring flags in the shape of houses, ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home;” a designer building a pyramid out of pillows ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home”; and Banksy making “lockdown artwork” that involved covering his bathroom in images of rats ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home.” 

Lol. Screenshot from Dezeen. 

You may be asking, “What’s the harm in all this, really, if it projects a good message?” And the answer is that people are plenty well encouraged to stay home due to the rampant spread of a deadly virus at the urging of the world’s health authorities, and that these tone-deaf art world creeps are using such a crisis for shameless self promotion and the generation of clicks and income, while providing little to no material benefit to those at risk and on the frontlines.

Of course, like the mask coronagrift, the Public Service Announcement coronagrift continues to this very day. 

The final iteration of Post-able and Wearable Coronagrifting genres are what I call “Passive Aggressive Social Distancing Initiatives” or PASDIs. Many of the first PASDIs were themselves PSAs and art grifts, my favorite of which being the designboom post titled “social distancing applied to iconic album covers like the beatle’s abbey road.” As you can see, we’re dealing with extremely deep stuff here. 

However, an even earlier and, in many ways more prescient and lucrative grift involves “social distancing wearables.” This can easily be summarized by the first example of this phenomenon, published March 19th, 2020 on designboom: 

Never wasting a single moment to capitalize on collective despair, all manner of brands have seized on the social distancing wearable trend, which, again, can best be seen in the last example of the phenomenon, published May 22nd, 2020 on designboom:

We truly, truly live in Hell. 

Which brings us, of course, to living. 

“Architectural Interventions” for a “Post-COVID World”

As soon as it became clear around late March and early April that the coronavirus (and its implications) would be sticking around longer than a few months, the architectural solutions to the problem came pouring in. These, like the virus itself, started at the scale of the individual and have since grown to the scale of the city. (Whether or not they will soon encompass the entire world remains to be seen.) 

The architectural Coronagrift began with accessories (like the designboom article about 3D-printed door-openers that enable one to open a door with one’s elbow, and the Dezeen article about a different 3D-printed door-opener that enables one to open a door with one’s elbow) which, in turn, evolved into “work from home” furniture (”Stykka designs cardboard #StayTheF***Home Desk for people working from home during self-isolation”) which, in turn, evolved into pop-up vaporware architecture for first responders (”opposite office proposes to turn berlin's brandenburg airport into COVID-19 'superhospital'”), which, in turn evolved into proposals for entire buildings (”studio prototype designs prefabricated 'vital house' to combat COVID-19″); which, finally, in turn evolved into “urban solutions” aimed at changing the city itself (a great article summarizing and criticizing said urban solutions was recently written by Curbed’s Alissa Walker).

There is something truly chilling about an architecture firm, in order to profit from attention seized by a global pandemic, logging on to their computers, opening photoshop, and drafting up some lazy, ineffectual, unsanitary mockup featuring figures in hazmat suits carrying a dying patient (macabrely set in an unfinished airport construction site) as a real, tangible solution to the problem of overcrowded hospitals; submitting it to their PR desk for copy, and sending it out to blogs and websites for clicks, knowing full well that the sole purpose of doing so consists of the hope that maybe someone with lots of money looking to commission health-related interiors will remember that one time there was a glossy airport hospital rendering on designboom and hire them. 

Enough, already. 

Frankly, after an endless barrage of cyberpunk mask designs, social distancing burger king crowns, foot-triggered crosswalk beg buttons that completely ignore accessibility concerns such as those of wheelchair users, cutesy “stay home uwu” projects from well-to-do art celebrities (who are certainly not suffering too greatly from the economic ramifications of this pandemic), I, like the reader featured in the Dezeen Tweet at the beginning of this post, have simply had enough of this bullshit. 

What’s most astounding to me about all of this (but especially about #brand crap like the burger king crowns) is that it is taken completely seriously by design establishments that, despite being under the purview of PR firms, should frankly know better. I’m sure that Bjarke Ingels and Burger King aren’t nearly as affected by the pandemic as those who have lost money, jobs, stability, homes, and even their lives at the hands of COVID-19 and the criminally inept national and international response to it. On the other hand, I’m sure that architects and designers are hard up for cash at a time when nobody is building and buying anything, and, as a result, many see resulting to PR-chitecture as one of the only solutions to financial problems. 

However, I’m also extremely sure that there are interventions that can be made at the social, political, and organizational level, such as campaigning for paid sick leave, organizing against layoffs and for decent severance or an expansion of public assistance, or generally fighting the rapidly accelerating encroachment of work into all aspects of everyday life – that would bring much more good and, dare I say, progress into the world than a cardboard desk captioned with the hashtag #StaytheF***Home. 

Hence, I’ve spent most of my Saturday penning this article on my blog, McMansion Hell. I’ve chosen to run this here because I myself have lost work as a freelance writer, and the gutting of publications down to a handful of editors means that, were I to publish this story on another platform, it would have resulted in at least a few more weeks worth of inflatable, wearable, plexiglass-laden Coronagrifting, something my sanity simply can no longer withstand. 

So please, Dezeen, designboom, others – I love that you keep daily tabs on what architects and designers are up to, a resource myself and other critics and design writers find invaluable – however, I am begging, begging you to start having some discretion with regards to the proposals submitted to you as “news” or “solutions” by brands and firms, and the cynical, ulterior motives behind them. If you’re looking for a guide on how to screen such content, please scroll up to the beginning of this page. 

----

If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to my Patreon, as I didn’t get paid to write it.  

[protectgeorgeweasley]

A set of reflections on a rainy writing day

Writing dialects from the UK is wild because:

-I'm not a prescriptivist, so we write our accents lexically here. [Nor am I a linguistics expert. It was a special interest a while back.]

-Every once in a while, something totally innocuous will have a completely unanticipated meaning, which is usually met with the utmost kindness and amusement by any readers from the UK. [Thank you.]

-Since I use a completely different set of slang in my daily life, sometimes I have to de-Americanize my writing. This has varying levels of success.

-Sometimes I have to part with really, really funny puns because the words aren't used in quite the same context, and it wouldn't be in character for George to say. This is especially heartbreaking because George is funny and I am middling at best in real life with humor, and the amount of befuddlement I've endured trying to write a clever person is excessive. I am not clever. I'm not. I'm an anxious ball of fettucine noodles that got left in a pot overnight and congealed.

-- [subpoint to the above, not related to dialect writing] I have so much social anxiety, that this blog has 80+ drafts that have never been posted of things I've thought to share with you all, then gone "oh, no. That might be too annoying/too personal/too awkward."

-the number of times I've googled "British word for [insert term here]" is astonishing. My instincts for when I need to google this phrase are spotty as well. Americanisms, therefore, do sneak their way in. [Tangentially--I know some people have British friends who read for specifically this type of thing. However, my writing schedule a mess, and I cannot subject someone else to its nonsense without feeling high levels of anxiety.]

-I'm still not positive about how "kip" is used grammatically/syntactically. I can't sort out the pattern in the syntax, so I've been fumbling with like two examples as a template this entire time. [I am an imposter.] [Truly. Is it "take a kip?" "Kipping?" "He's having a kip?" I do not understand.]

-So many words for raincoat. I love it. Never change.

-I do not live there, so I have less personal understandings of different regions and their quirks. I also don't know how new some words are in comparison to others, how far slang terms travel, and who would be more or less likely to use them. So, I've got to look all that up when I employ new slang or expressions.

-I tend to over explain in daily conversation. You might imagine, then, the pretzel that Cockney rhyming slang turns my brain into.

-"a bit" is used so often. It screams at me from the page. I stare at it, sometimes, wondering if it's repeated too much. Then I listen to someone from the UK talk and change my mind. [This is not meant critically or unkindly; every dialect has words it uses more than others.]

-Little references to things like soap operas, theme parks, or highways are the result of extensive research sprints, and there is one reader who consistently notices these things and every time they do, I nearly cry for joy.

-Wellies is my favorite word of theirs/yours. I love saying it. I love reading it. I love thinking about it. Wellies are a symbol of some of the most pure, joyful parts of existence to me. To have a set of shoes for walking through the rain/mud is to be cared for and to have your needs anticipated and to be prepared, and all of those things make me feel safe.

-I can't decide whether we're using British spellings or American. [Sorry if the back and forth between "color" and "colour" is driving you up the wall. It feels like I'm being fake if I use "colour," but I have physical difficulty using "colour" in written notes and things because that's not how the character would spell it. I know that it's most important to just be consistent. Yet here we are. Adrift in a sea of "o" and "ou," without a compass.]

-I've seen many jokes about British people not liking hugs. I've done my best to understand and acknowledge this while politely showing it the door within the context of Lumos, because 2020 and every year that's followed it has needed more hugs.

[doberbutts]

Only tangentially related to the toy terrier discussion, but I've been researching Toy Manchesters recently so I wanted to add that English Toy Terriers aren't necessarily known as Toy Manchester Terriers all over. Over in the UK (and I believe Europe in general?), English Toy Terriers are still considered a separate breed from Manchester Terriers. But here in the US and Canada, the English Toy Terrier and Manchester Terriers were combined into one breed with two size varieties, with the English Toy Terrier becoming the Toy Manchester Terrier.

I also wanted to add that maximaldog.com (run by AMTC's health chair) and mosaic.manchesters on TikTok (run by AMTC's public education chair, tho she breeds the standard variety) have been neat places with some extra Manchester information to absorb beyond the breed club website, in case someone else decides to look into the breed.

Interesting! Thank you for the additional information!

[yogpetshame]

Why havent the Yogscast ever teamed up with big streamers or youtubers to expand there fan base? like i feel they have there own bubble on youtube and twitch and really only allow a small amount of people in. This is odd as they are a business and in all fairness they arent doing as well as they once were, right? The second question is more around the drama with the Yogscast, like why havent YouTube drama pages picked it up? Do you think theyre scared the Yogs might flag the video or something?

Ummmmmm... I don't blame you for forgetting since they do it so irregularly, but they collaborated with Game Grumps in 2018 and 2020. They also have a vague business connection with Rooster Teeth that I still don't really understand beyond that it mainly seems to be ad based.

As far as why they've never managed to have a local UK presence... If we want to spitball ideas other than Turps being a jackass and his departure probably involving him taking his contact list home with him...

I want to sit and refresh you on the current Blizzard controversy but it's extremely lengthy so if you're not familiar just stick a pin in this page, go do as much reading as you care to, then come back.

Okay- so the Yogscast has always leaned heavily on Blizzard. Even when Blizzard had nothing to show for them. If the WoWfugee/Uninstallafell incident had predated the more important sex predator shit they still wouldn't have shifted focus because they have a narrow view of the industry and basically only seem to be able to notice games that were made in the west or were tangentially related to Blizz. Even "is this an out of season April Fool's Day prank" would not have dislodged the Yogscast from Blizzard's wrinkled teat.

The problem is, just like weathering crises as a Yogscast fan makes a fan base of idiots, the Blizzard stans are not exactly an invite-only crowd nowadays. The other games they pick out, like Gmod, are too generic and frequently seen on other channels to make crossovers worth anyone's time.

There's also that last factor that Lewis and Turps loved to bring up which I don't really believe- "it's hard to schedule people." You know when you tell someone, "we should hang out sometime" and they go "yeah totally, let's make plans soon" and then neither of you does anything? That's the Yogscast on networking.

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

May 14, 2020 Update.

LOL, I better update the last few days. 

The super-private couple updated People on what they did for Archie’s birthday. I don’t know about you guys, but I actually found this rather sad. Archie’s “best friends” are the dogs. Sigh.

https://people.com/royals/meghan-markle-made-archies-first-birthday-cake-and-his-two-best-friends-were-there/

The Oprah Magazine got the scoop on their “socially distant” Mother’s Day with Doria. Gee, I wonder who the source is. It’s a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in an enigma...

https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a32465756/meghan-markle-mothers-day-doria-archie/

They did a charity phone call and the decor of the Tyler Perry house is exactly as we pictured.

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a32480138/meghan-markle-button-down-blouse-zoom-call/

And, speaking of the Tyler Perry house. It turns out you can see it from a nearby hiking path, so the harmless put up the world’s ugliest privacy “fence.” I guess this was the only house they were offered and they kind of had to put up with the hiking path.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8308771/Prince-Harry-Meghan-Markle-erect-screens-Tyler-Perrys-18million-LA-mansion.html

And Meghan wanted everyone to know that she really does have “A-list neighbors,” or rather Tyler Perry does since they are just crashing his pad.

https://www.hellomagazine.com/homes/gallery/2020051489841/meghan-markle-prince-harry-famous-neighbours-la-home/1/

Then Sebastian Shakespeare confirmed Blind Gossip’s diary scoop. Lots of mentions to The Working Actress blog. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8317077/Meghan-Markle-kept-DIARY-time-UK-friend-claims.html

Very Private Meghan’s friends went to Vanity Fair to explain that she wasn’t writing a tell-all because, lol, Scobie’s “best-selling” book is already a tell-all. My take on this is that Meghan is shopping her diary, but she doesn’t want the rumor to eat into sales of Omid’s book.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/05/meghan-markle-rumors-diaries-tell-all

We also got a blind possibly about Meghan losing a role.

https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2020/05/blind-item-3_14.html

In possibly related news, Ava DuVernay has been working on New Gods and “potential casting ideas” are starting to take shape.

https://batman-news.com/2020/05/07/ava-duvernay-confirms-all-widow-will-appear-in-the-new-gods-movie/

Blind Gossip also has a blind that could be about the Harkles or Kimye. I think it’s interesting that most of the guesses are about Kimey because “the Markles are used to being together all the time.” LOL, they actually aren’t, but their press makes it look like they do.

https://blindgossip.com/the-war-of-the-yellers/#more-100584

Katie Nicholl’s heard from Harry’s “friends” that he is rudderless, but is trying to stay in contact with the military.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/05/prince-harry-v-e-day-invictus-games-message

Katie Nicholl said that the brothers “reconnected.”

https://www.etonline.com/prince-harry-back-in-touch-with-prince-william-after-his-move-to-la-146449

Will mentioned Harry in his letter to The Diana Award, so maybe that’s what they “reconnected” about.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAK5Ne8HGEB/

They don’t seem to be reconnecting about the Diana statue, though.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8304209/The-saddest-casualty-William-Harrys-feud-Dianas-statue.html

In tangentially related Sunshine Sachs news, Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas are wearing matching half-heart necklaces for their pap pics. I guess you can’t teach a dog new tricks. I actually laughed out loud when I saw this because it’s such an unlikely thing for Ben Affleck to do. LOLOLOL.

https://www.usmagazine.com/stylish/news/ben-affleck-girlfriend-ana-de-armas-wear-matching-heart-necklaces/

That’s it. Sorry for the absence. I’ll answer some anons and return tomorrow. LOL, it’s crazy how much content these two still produce even though hardly anyone cares anymore.

Oh wait, I almost forgot that the Shahs of Sunset guy confirmed the post-suits ghosting and gave some insight about how “woman among girls” Meghan behaved in high school.

https://www.eonline.com/news/1151624/shahs-of-sunset-s-nema-vand-says-meghan-markle-toyed-with-his-heart-as-a-teen

Have a good night!

[themusicsweetly]

Re: her “Sam who” cap. She got it in Vegas, brought it back home to the UK and then brought it with her to LA. I think she took the pic the same day she did the Skype panel for the New Jersey Con -if you look at gifs and videos of the panel you can see she was wearing the same white tank top and the same earrings, and was sitting on the same bed/couch- and posted it so randomly, and after she liked that particular quote Karolina shared, because she was missing him after her visit in SA. 💞

[Anonymous said] : When I sent you that ask about her “Sam who” cap I didn’t know all hell would break loose today. Wow! Such good timing… I still stand by what I said, though. I love that she’s taking that hat all over the world with her, and that her post was her way to say she misses him right after she liked *that* quote from Karolina.

Hey there Anon! Thanks for dropping by with some great info!

Someone else who was at the panel told me the same thing about the earrings and the couch, so I’d say this is legit. From Vegas to the UK to LA… that seems like a hat with special meaning if it’s going to get that kind of milage!

I definitely don’t think it was a coincidence that her posting this pic came right after her liking that beautiful Jorge Luis Borges quote. I don’t really see any other reason she wouldn’t share this the day it was given to her in Vegas, or the day of the Skype panel in New Jersey, unless she was holding on to it as something just for herself or something she only shared with the one person who matters. She could have been looking through her personal photos missing her Everday Partner reminiscing and decided to post it because it’s one of the photos that 1) we haven’t seen before and 2) is relatively “safe.” 

Either way, I love that she posted it. I love that she clearly loves teasing him because she just knows him that well. And I love that he publicly responded not very long afterward!

And I couldn’t agree more with your second ask. She’s missing him, plain and simple. That’s the only thing I’m reading into and not something that I feel is a tangential, barely related topic. She’s also been liking a lot of his posts recently, or posts about him and his philanthropy, activism, and, yes, his health-related activities. I love how supportive she is of him in his endeavors and that she always acknowledges how much hard work he puts into everything he does. Just beautiful to see 💜

[hellsbellschime]

Did you watch the Challenge yet? What did you think of Josh & Laurel's decision?

LMAO I am legitimately surprised that it took three episodes for the Americans to turn on each other, although I’m surprised that Wes of all people didn’t see it coming. Josh is a fucking idiot who is way overplaying his hand, yeah he’s making big moves but he’s a bad player, and you don’t want to be drawing a lot of attention to yourself when you’re pretty much a layup. He wants to make a name for himself and he’s probably just angling to get a call for another season but he’s so annoying and bad at the game, it’s just hilarious to me that he’s all like OH I’M MAKING MOVES NO ONE ELSE IS BRAVE ENOUGH TO like no dude no one else would do this because it’s a horrible move with no upside for you personally. I’m interested in how this might blow back on Laurel too because obviously she’s one of the best girls on the team but there are a lot of people who would like to see her gone and she gave them a reason to go for her. 

And this is only tangentially related, but I’m still dying over the US’s choice of Turbo over CT because it seems like they just handed CT a ticket to the final on a silver platter. The US team was always going to self destruct fast because these are all crazy ass vets who are now going to come at each other as soon as possible now that the dam has kind of broken. But even if someone on the UK team wants to vote in CT or if the US team wants to vote him in, no one on his team is really going to beat him at anything. It’s just hilarious to me that these people know how to play the game better than everyone but they legit cannot stop themselves from shooting themselves in the foot. We’ll see how it goes but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the vets who didn’t want CT on the team wind up going out of the game before he does. 

[marveltaughtmetoread]

I mean the comment is wrong on all fronts but the one my whiteself is best qualified to respond to, is 'suburbs' and how that's somehow supposed to be less diverse

He grew up in London, England

Not a city in America, but London

We don't really have suburbs, we have random spots after the postcode stops being a London one where you are like 'is this the countryside' and it's a thoroughly confusing experience, as well as commuter towns but those are the very edges of London, and Tom lived in a borough of London, a borough other Londoners would recognise as London, also known as not the edges

The outer London boroughs, which I am not even sure is what you can class Tom's borough as, are just slightly less busy than the centre of London, they still have great transportation links, you still wouldn't use a car, if you can help it, and still have a population density higher than literally any other city in the UK, so you still are considered and feel part of London, it's just not the centre

It's nothing like American suburbs, which from every description I have ever been given sound like they are only tangentially related to the city, the UK doesn't really have suburbs but the nearest equivalent would probably be commuter towns, which Tom didn't live in

I cannot stress this enough, but Tom lived in London, he did not live in a commuter town or past the edges of London, I obviously can't check what part of his borough he lived in, but the borough itself is a London one, it might be an outer London borough but it's still a London borough, so it may be considered a 'suburb' in America but it ain't one here

Do you know what my definitely outer London borough, that Americans might also consider a 'suburb' was like, in terms of demographic, it was one of the most diverse regions of London, so you definitely can't just assume it gets more white the further out it gets, it doesn't work that way in London

And whilst yes the UK, in general, is overwhelmingly white, London is not

London, like half of its entire population are immigrants and that's people who have moved here in their lifetime, not even counting people like me and my best mate who are second or third generation, I go to my grandparents village and I am the least British person there, by a long shot, I go home and I am just part of the crowd, my London identity is certain

And then you get to the population of London that is non-white, just under 50% of the London population is white, that means the majority is not, it's a very slim majority, but a majority it is

He probably grew up surrounded by people of colour

Far from being uncomfortable with their presence, as the Twitter user clearly assumes is the default, I would expect the opposite

A side effect of growing up a Londoner is I went away for Uni and I noticed how overwhelmingly white the city I moved to was, and I was uncomfortable with it because it was not something I was used to

And when I go home, get on the tube and immediately see the London demographic, and I feel at peace because it means I am home

For me, because I grew up in London, I assume I am going to be surrounded by people of colour and get surprised when that is not the case

And this Twitter user really just assumed Tom lived in 'suburb' and that meant he would have been surrounded by a mostly white population, and made assumptions based on that, but the very start of assuming London 'suburbs' are anything like American ones, and assuming London 'suburbs' would have the same demographic as an American suburb is flawed

(and that's before getting to everything else wrong with the tweet)

Twitter just gives people the confidence to post shit like this huh

[marlinspirkhall]

Back in the 60's it was legal to keep many animals as "pets" in the UK, so they think the wallabies escaped back then and have been flourishing in the wild ever since. It seems it's still legal to keep wallabies as farm animals here.

Via [TheConservation.com] @Lccaonpictus93 @thonoir

They don't know how many wallabies we have in the wild for sure, but they know there are 1700+ living on the isle of man, and the colony near us was "thought to be extinct" because there hadn't been any sightings since the turn of the millennium, but clearly no one told Duncan that. the good news is, there are probably at least 100 nearby.

Tangentially related, in 2019 two wallabies escaped from a farm.

"I lost my pet kangeroo", says local British man

"haha that's a hoax", I think, scrolling through my local Facebook feed, but then:

[ravy-nevermore-archive]

So on that note, I’d love to talk about something else that @kittenfair​ brought up in her post (at the risk of enraging Cloud Strife fans everywhere, lolll no biggie a super small fandom I’m sure) but I didn’t want to derail that thread because this is quite a tangential thought—

Why is that relevant? A quick googling has informed me that the average heights of men in Japan (between 2004-2013) is 5′7 - I’m gonna guess it was probably around that or shorter back in ‘97. This is, not coincidentally, a familiar number - it’s how tall the OG says Cloud, our protagonist, is. So for the original team creating this game, the protag is average height, your “relatable” everyman. Now, if they wanted to make the villain tower over him? 6′1 isn’t bad at all! In fact, that’s a solid seven inches taller. Huge gap. Saying Sephiroth is 6′1 establishes him way taller than Cloud.

For some reason it’s a little harder to google up the average male height of the total human population without it being broken down into specific regions, but this webpage has some nice infographics that make their (albeit somewhat edited down) data a bit easier to visualize. Let’s look specifically at this one:

From the countries they selected, 5′4.75″ is the lower boundary and 5′11.25″ is the upper boundary, making the mean 5′8″ and the median of this somewhat arbitrary selection 5′9.25″. Wikipedia’s more complete chart has 5′2″ as the lower boundary in Indonesia with 6′1″ as the upper boundary in the Dinaric Alps, making the worldwide mean height for men 5′7.5″. (You can’t really find an accurate median or average from this data.)

You can maybe see where I’m going with this. Cloud is not actually a shrimp. This is a post about body image and our skewed perception of it.

Even more damnably, I’d like to call attention to Livestrong’s (still somewhat arbitrary) selection of countries, ordered by height rather than alphabetically as they have done:

India: 5 feet 4.75 inches China: 5 feet 5.75 inches Mexico: 5 feet 5.75 inches Japan: 5 feet 7.25 inches Brazil: 5 feet 8.25 inches Australia: 5 feet 8.75 inches Canada: 5 feet 9 inches Russia: 5 feet 9.25 inches France: 5 feet 9.25 inches Italy: 5 feet 9.25 inches America: 5 feet 9.5 inches The UK: 5 feet 9.75 inches Spain: 5 feet 10 inches Greece: 5 feet 10.25 inches Germany: 5 feet 11.25 inches

I’ve highlighted two countries on this list, and they are the US and Japan. The US is highlighted because Livestrong is an American website and specifically addresses their article to American audiences, but also because the US tends to influence a lot of worldwide culture, and I think especially in our fandom on Tumblr, which is also a US-based website. But I've highlighted Japan because, of course, that’s where the source material we’re discussing (Cloud Strife’s height) comes from.

Out of this list, is there anything you might notice about places where the average height is lower than 5′7″ and places where the average height is higher than 5′7″? Because I am noticing a very eurocentric trend.

Here are some other countries with the smallest average male heights from Wikipedia’s list:

Bolivia: 5′3″ rural India: 5′3″ Vietnam: 5′4″ Nepal: 5′4″ Malaysia: 5′4.5″ Sri Lanka: 5′4.5″ Nigeria: 5′4.5″ India: 5′4.5″ Peru: 5′4.5″ Bahrain: 5′5″ Baghdad, Iraq: 5′5″ North Korea: 5′5″

Here are some of the countries with the tallest average male heights (they have multiple entries so I’m not going to list specific heights, but these are all in the 5′11″–6′0″ range):

Netherlands Sweden Denmark Norway Germany Iceland Serbia

So, when we say that 5′7″ is short, could it possibly be that what we’re saying is that 5′7″ is short for white people??

Now, granted, Cloud is arguably white despite coming from a Japanese game. Then again, he is arguably Japanese because Japanese character designers have a habit of creating visually Caucasian characters who we simply have to accept are Japanese/Asian “Because They Say So.” But he’s mostly perceived as white, I think, which might be why nearly everyone looks at him and his height and goes, “omg, he’s so short??”

Except...even among white people, he’s not all that short. If you consider that the average men in the US and UK are around 5′9″–5′10″, and the average men in Australia and Canada are around 5′8–5′9″, 5′7″ is only an inch shorter than that. (And I have chosen these four countries because stats say that’s where the highest percentage of my followers are from, with the overwhelming majority being US-based.) And idk about you guys but even if the difference of an inch is statistically significant, on an individual basis I never stand next to someone an inch or two shorter than me and go “wow wtf you’re so much shorter than I am.”

But...did you know that the average male heights in these countries was even that short? I live in the US and I usually observe people anecdotally marking the distinction between “short guys” and “tall guys” around 6′0″, which is a laughably unrealistic “goal” IMO. There’s also a reblog meme that goes around the Tumblr RP community now and then significantly proclaiming “reblog if your muse is shorter than 6′0″!” like that’s some kind of distinctive feature even though most humans are under 6′0″.

So where do we get these unrealistic standards from?

“The Average Height of a Model”

According to industry standards, fashion models are preferably tall but not too tall. Elite, a top modeling agency, specifies height requirements on its website. Women must be between 5 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 11 inches tall. Men must be between 5 feet 11 inches and 6 feet 3 inches. Models who want to enter the Ford Supermodel of the Year Search, should be at least 5 feet 8 inches.

I used to work in a department store, and specifically for a while I sold ladies’ clothing in the “special sizes” department: “Petites” and “Women’s.” (That’s code for “short” and “fat,” which by the way are separate distinctions and there are in fact some clothing sizes that are both W and P, although good luck finding even W or P in most stores.) The technical definition of a “petite” woman, in US clothing sizes, is a woman under 5′3″.

According to Wikipedia, the average US woman is 5′3.5″.

But the average fashion model? Is 5′9.5″. And how many women do you hear in the 5′3″–5′5″ range bemoaning how “short” they are? I am 5′1.5″ and I can tell you I hear a lot, because it never slips by me unnoticed because I need to catch my eyes before they roll out of my head and you tend not to miss that.

Around here at least, men are less likely to be caught complaining about their supposed physical deficiencies than women because it’s considered unmanly to do so, but if you listen long enough and hard enough and gain the confidence of enough men under 6′0″, you might just hear a recurring insecurity expressed about the failure to reach that height and about consequently “being short.” That’s not altogether unwarranted, because, disgustingly enough, more often than I hear men expressing a preoccupation with being 6′0″ or not, I hear it from women who say they won’t even consider dating a man under 6′0″.

This is significant because of the next thing I’m going to bring up, which is the part that is going to make the Cloud Strife fandom v angry with me. 😂

Why is Cloud infantilized so much for being “short”??

Unlike the other questions I’ve posed here, I’m not asking this to set you up because I have a proposed answer ready. I am honestly baffled and a little disturbed by this. If it isn’t right to sexualize Tifa because her breasts are large (and it’s not), then why is it acceptable to treat Cloud like a cute little baby child almost precisely because he’s the shortest man in the cast? And more importantly, how does that make actual men who are 5′7″ or shorter feel? (You can come at me about “male fragility” but I hold that all humans have feelings that are worth considering even if they fall into privileged groups.) I can tell you as a woman under 5′2″ that I am sick to death of being infantilized for it, and that’s while falling into a demographic which is supposed to enjoy being thought of as “cuter” or whatever. I don’t, btw, but at least I’m not openly derided and thought of as “less of a [my gender identity here]” than I would be if I were a short man (ooo, there’s some intersectionality we never talk about).

So, a proposition for your consideration: If you tend to associate Cloud with being cute and diminutive, maybe pause and ask yourself if these feelings are influenced by his height and culturally instilled notions of shorter men being thought of as less manly, and if these assumptions do not warrant being challenged. It’s no less than I would ask anyone to do of assumptions about Tifa being hypersexual possibly having anything to do with the size of her breasts.

I welcome respectful discussion, but please note if I feel your contribution is more about arguing with me than about actually making a thoughtful contribution to the topic, I will reply on my personal blog @ravys-ravings rather than trouble my followers with unproductive bickering.

[forcryingoutbat]



Work Is Dead and I Am Sad: An exploratory essay on Samuel Wyn Morris' portrayal of Enjolras in the 2021-2023 UK Tour

I think there's a general agreement that with Enjolras as a character, one of his defining characteristics is his passion, but that's not always portrayed in the same way. He's pasionate about justice, against corrupt systems that crush all the lower people, and bluntly speaking, about the world being way less shit.

But something that I thik shines through with Sam's portryal is how much he genuinely cares about people. Yes, people in the sense of every person who he sees he wants to help them, and also in the sense of en mass The People who deserve to be able to live happy lives. But somethin I think that really stands out, is you can see how much he cares about his friends. I am absolutely and resolutely for an Enjolras who actually seems to like the people he chooses to surround himself with.

I always love seeing it during ABC Cafe. He smiles and is amused at his friends antics even when they're joking around and teasing him, before pushing everyone back on track to the important subject at hand. It's also very clear following Gavroche's death. The moment after you see him mourning, and it never feels he's sad because Someone needlessly died, he's heartbroken because *Gavroche* died. He wasn't a just a suporter, or just a boy, he was a friend. Similarly, during the final battle, his final words ring with so much emotion, so much anger that it's come to this, that they've dared hurt the people he cares about.

On another note, I don't believe i can sufficiently put into words just how incredible his voice sounds. The range and depth absolutely astounds me every single time, and trust me, I have seen this show many, many times.

I'm sure I can add more to this, but I'm still very emotional. But yeah, give me an Enj who likes his friends.

NB: also he has rather excellent hair

NBB: he blew grantaire a kiss during Drink With Me at the muck up. That's only tangentially related, but it's important everyone knows that.

I'm bored at work, thinking about Sam Wyn Morris as Enjolras and *this close* to saying screw it to passing the time by writing an essay on why I love his version so much