#culture ramblings

[crazycatsiren]

Just a quick not friendly reminder: someone who has apologized for past mistakes, made amends for past actions, and clearly no longer holds past beliefs, is a far better person than one who digs up old dirt and uses a person's past that no longer exists against them.

[writerofstuff]

Dead Boy Detectives was surprising.

It surprised me when, instead of Crystal dropping in and fracturing Charles and Edwin's thirty years of friendship, they went with Crystal sinking into the fold of Charles and Edwin's friendship and becoming an important and unique addition to the group.

It surprised me when, instead of Gay Boy Pining Over Straight Best Friend, they went with Gay Boy Realises Feelings For Straight Best Friend And Confesses Almost Immediately with a bonus of Straight Boy Accepts Confession With Surprising Grace And Nothing Changes, Not Really.

It surprised me when, instead of making the female characters repetitive and semi-rational and ultimately less powerful, they went with characters who are smart and selfish and kind and cruel and strong and flawed and oh, they happen to be female too.

It surprised me when Charles liking Crystal did not affect one bit of how much he loved Edwin.

It surprised me when Jenny talked about spinsters with cats and Niko did not bat an eye.

It surprised me with Edwin and Niko. It surprised me with, we have forever to figure the rest out. It surprised me with Crystal's kindness, Jenny's empathy, the casual and absolute, the good you do will come back around.

Dead Boy Detectives was surprising. One day, I hope I can sit back and watch another show and none of this has to be surprising anymore.

[oobbbear]

I want to post this here too because I’ve seen it happen a few times

Please understand that there are cultural differences and language differences, if you see this happening let the person clarify what they meant, that person might just not be familiar with words the western side of the internet use

[bitter-hibiscus]

There's not a single thing you could say to convince me that Bruce and Tim are gothamites. Look at this fucking map

Bristol is so far removed from the heart of Gotham that there's quite literally no way it shares many, if any, cultural traits with Gotham. That's not even counting the insane wealth disparity that makes the ways of life (and therefore culture and habits and dialects and food) completely incomparable. Tim and Bruce aren't gothamites, they're Bristol brats, and I fully believe nobody in Gotham would accept them calling themselves gothamites. Especially with the size of the Wayne Estate.

Edit bc a lot of you are reblogging this base post instead of the additions in the notes: Turns out I am a victim of fanon and Tim only moved to Bristol after Bruce took him in. Tim can call himself a gothamite. Bruce cannot

[violetsandshrikes]

this poor woman ended up in hospital because she ate cayenne + cinnamon coated orange (unpeeled) because there’s a health and wellness influencer with millions of views who recommends it for digestion - she burned her oesophagus

i always saw a few really good other additions of similar things on the comments

please be so, so careful taking advice from these people online, as many of them are not formally trained or educated, brand ambassadors, deep in pseudoscientific rabbit holes and unfortunately, there are many out there who struggle with disordered eating habits

(not mentioned here but another one worth noting: i have personally known people who have burned their oesophagus with viral apple cider vinegar shots and drinks. don’t do that. a burned oesophagus is not fun)

[mush-dooms]

hey so I actually don't think you should be breathing that much, like don't you already breathe enough? it isn't a good look to be inhaling and exhaling that much. idkk I'm just worried about your health, you know how many toxic chemicals are in the air :/ if you want I can surgically take out one of your lungs so that you won't breathe as much! you'll feel much better :) omg do you see that guy over there trying to catch his breath that's so funny haha he's breathing so much hold on I'm gonna film him real quick so my friends and I can all laugh at him later! hey so I heard about this new thing called "suffocation" and it's supposed to help you not breathe as much isn't that great? I mean yeah people die from that but at least we found a cure for the breathing epidemic! btw all of this is so normal

[demaparbat-hp]

Golden Boy (and Silver Girl) for the Kintsugi AU.

[foldingfittedsheets]

No one made any distinction to me when I was growing up when a word wasn’t English. Andale was just another way to be told ���hurry up,” and I was certain other parents told their kids, “Watch your cabesa,” when getting into the car. I laughed myself sick the first time I saw Dragon Ball Z because a ladies name was Chi Chi and I only knew that meant boobs.

All my moms family was brown and I desperately wished I was too. I wanted beautiful black hair like my mom and dark skin that didn’t burn. I didn’t like when people asked my mother if she was my nanny when they saw us together. I didn’t like that people told me I looked like my dad. They just meant I was pale.

I’d proudly announce to people that I was Mexican and become furious when they gaped or disbelieved me. My dads side has no cultural roots. When questioned my dad shrugs and says, “English maybe? I dunno.” I just wanted to be Mexican growing up. Alas, I’m only a quarter descendant of an immigrant family who vehemently didn’t want to be Mexican.

My great grandmother announced that we were American now, not Mexican. She embraced American culture as much as possible, while never learning English. My nana was put into school and punished anytime she spoke Spanish. She got caught halfway between both languages. Forced to spend her childhood raising her younger siblings she never learned to cook tamales with her mother and her friends.

When she had her own children she didn’t teach them Spanish. She used it to gossip with her own friends about them on the phone and resisted teaching them more than to come running when she shouted “Araña!” to kill a spider for her.

Thus came my mom, with her brown skin and dark hair, adrift from her culture but treated as lesser by her adopted one. My great grandmother would rejoice to see me as her descendant, white, ignorant of Spanish, the perfect American she wanted her family to be.

When I was born my nana shouted, “What’s that red on her?” only to realize it was my hair. She delighted in her palest grandchild, telling me often I was her favorite.

I’m used to the disbelief now when I tell people I’m Mexican. I can laugh and show pictures of my mom. My friend from work joked to me that I’m always coming out of the closet, over and over, because both my minority statuses aren’t as visible as her black skin.

I was recently lamenting this to a white southern friend the same one I cast psychic damage on during a DnD day. “I wish I could feel more connected to my culture, but I’d be such a fraud pretending my life is the same as other Hispanic people.”

“Skin color doesn’t matter,” he announced blithely to the choked outrage of our Indian friend in the kitchen, “You’re just as Mexican!”

I regarded him in astonishment and said, “I think skin color matters a lot. I am Mexican, but I don’t have the same cultural roots or experiences of people who are perceived as Mexican. My family didn’t pass the cultural heritage down. I think a lot of immigrant kids feel this way but it’s different for me.”

He rambled about how I’m just as valid and I quietly disregarded his advice. I could try to reconnect with my roots, but I know I’d just be another white girl pushing into a POC space.

Instead I make tamales by myself, sweating over the steaming corn husks, and I snap at people who make racist jokes about my family to me, feeling safe because my skin is the same color as theirs.

[fairandfatalasfair]

"Edwin can help" says Charles.

Crystal raises an eyebrow at him. He smiles sunnily.

"Edwin would sell me to Satan for one corn chip," she says.

Edwin, from his spot at the desk, lowers his book enough to give her a longsuffering look. "This feels like one of your obscure internet references," he says. He still says "internet" like the word doesn't belong in his mouth.

Crystal gives him a bland smile. "The internet isn't obscure," she says. "You just don't know anything about it because you're a million years old."

"One hundred twenty four," he says, because he's a pedantic little shit.

Charles is chuckling in the corner, because he has low tastes and thinks Edwin being a pedantic little shit is hilarious.

"At any rate," says Edwin crisply, "As a fugitive from hell, negotiating with Satan would hardly be in my best interests. Also, as a fugitive from hell, I have no interest in seeing anyone sent there unjustly, much less someone I have grown... attached to."

She feels her smile warm a little at that, and turns her head so that Edwin won't see. Love you too, Edwin.

"Finally," he concludes, "I am dead, with no need to eat, and therefor have no use for corn chips. This accusation does not make sense."

Crystal chokes at the affronted dignity in his voice, but pulls her expression back under control, only turning back to Edwin when she's sure she can look disdainful without her lips twitching. Charles dying of laughter in the corner isn't helping, but she manages.

"It's a meme," she says loftily.

Edwin's longsuffering expression turns pained. "Half the time, I am sure you are making these things up to aggravate me," he informs her.

She isn't, but only because the reality aggravates him plenty without any embellishment.

"Is it working?" she asks, and finally lets herself laugh when he picks up his book again and glares daggers at her over the top of it.

[kingsandbastardz]

So for basically my whole life I'd grown up with and was resigned to accept that the chinese concept of formal/nice clothing of my and the previous generation has been western clothes. So at any awards ceremonies or performances, entertainers would show up mostly in western suits/dresses and maaaaaybe you'll spot the occasional cheongsam if they're going for a Wong Fei Hong vibe. Which, you know, kinda sucks if you have any concept of western cultural imperialism in asia.

So when the hanfu revivalist movement started, I was waiting to see when it would enter the mainstream -- my hope was for fashion designers to integrate traditional/dynastic elements into their work and make it common place enough that I can buy this shit online for ME. Because I WANT.

Though some of the designs can be a bit hit or miss, I am LOVING what various stars and entertainers are wearing out and about now.

Anyway - here's a collection of Xiao Shunyao's modern hanfu inspired/hybridized stage outfits from the last couple years. For his MLC performances, his stylists seem to be borrowing inspiration from his Di Feisheng and possibly other character costume silhouettes.

I'd been seeing a few comments about how his outfits play with gender - and some of his outfits do! But I think the interesting thing to discuss is from which standard is he playing with gender? Because from a western perspective, the things he does with his western suit tops, belting on top of the jacket for a tightly cinched waist, and the addition of a trailing skirt = femme. But if you're talking from a hanfu-hybridized pov, that's just a modern take on hanfu and having any of those elements is not inherently femme and would often read masc to me.

So these things aren't necessarily gendered because they exist traditionally in chinese men's clothing or costume designs (ie video games, comics, historical fiction illustrations and film, etc, so therefore in the modern lexicon of masculine/acceptable for men):

presence or lack of a skirt

silky, velvety, gauzy or sparkly material choice, esp in formal or stage clothing

short or long length of skirt

embroidery

flowers/floral/bird designs

folding fans

certain styles of makeup

beading, gold, tassels, jewels

non-chunky jewelry

headbands

widely flowing silhouettes

What XSY's stylists are doing with some western clothing items are interesting. I'm convinced there have been one or two western jacket tops made of thinner material that they're folding over the front, and belting down instead of buttoning (which then matches with his other outfits that are designed specifically to do this). Then they're adding a skirt, cloak or bracer element to it.

The western portions often bring a military minimalist feel which they balance with a more gauzy material in the skirt or cloak portions.

Things I think are playing with gender:

row 1 - image 1: red di feisheng-inspired outfit

The lace-up girdle is there to match the bracers in both material and style. And it's positioned to be similar to the heavy belt that Di Feisheng wears. HOWEVER. That style of girdle/corset-like clothing item can't be divorced from the modern idea of sexy leather corsets. So imo, this waist piece on that outfit was a choice. Especially when paired with his allergic-to-collars-higher-than-his-sternum necklines. And if you take into context how masculine yet female coded his character is in the drama, the whole look evokes that.

row 2, image 1: black western suit with belt on top, hat, cloak, black boots and not-visible but also a black tassel fringe skirt

Hat and cloak moves the intention of the outfit from western toward a more Asian slant, because alone, it looks like a western black suit with western heeled boots, cinched waist with a lady's belt (seated photoshoot) and western style tassel skirt. The suit top consists of a vest and a shrug-like sleeve portion that appears masculine at first glance. But take the shrug and pair it with the tassel skirt (I can't find the red carpet photos but here is a better view of the skirt when seated), and I think you got a look that's both intentionally edging toward the femme in a western sense but also confusing matters by hiding within the parameters of both western and chinese traditional male styling.

row 2 - image 2 : white asymetrical western jacket styled in a front fold-over style, gauze skirt, trailing pearl embellishments

The more traditional leaning version of this is the white outfit in row 3 that he wears to the Hi6 Hello Saturday variety show -- the skirt portion on that outfit is one I'd consider non-gendered. Row 1, images 2 and 3 are examples of masculine/neutral uses of gauze that plays with flow of form but isn't inherently femme. This stage outfit is very western-appearing masculine suiting, until you hit the skirt which is giving me long ballerina tie-on skirt with the additional swan/mermaid pearl strings. Imo, another example of deliberately using traditional masculine styling but switching it up with the combination of material choice and make that is feminine.

row 2, image 3: black space military boots, black suiting, black -silver ombre sequin trailing skirt and white gauzy shawl with black floral design

The over all design is going for a masculine military-feel. (think this outfit for shen langhun) But instead of a thicker military cloak, it's replaced with a woman's gauze shawl and a skirt that trails behind him very much like the back of a woman's formal fish-tail gown when he moves around. If you take into context Wang Herun's outfit is a white-silver sequined dress cut in a way to also give a space-military-queen vibe, imo they both coordinated their outfits to balance out with both femme and masc qualities.

Thoughts? I'm curious what others think about this.

While I wait for the CNY photoshoot for XSY's red and black look, here's him with his stage collaborators with a nice range of skirt lengths, period influences and material choices. The woman in the center is the one with the most military-fighter design out of the bunch. The dudes are all in variations of formal-wear-with-good-kicking-boots (and lots of crotch space).

[gabriel-shutterson]

Thanks @dradelcra

[galactic-rhea]

Do you know how shows always have teens taking care of a babydoll as some sort of homework? Like, I don't know if americans really do that. But Imagine if the Jedi do.

So they give the padawans these baby dolls to take care of for Idk how much time and Anakin, being Anakin, just...is unfairly good at it. He names the baby doll Jinn and imagine Obi-Wan having breakfast with Anakin who's pretending to feed the baby doll thing and just...staring because it's extremely uncomfortable.

Then Obi-Wan shares a tea with Quinlan or idk, any other Jedi and he's looking over at Anakin who is in the background with a damn stroller, while Quinlan's padawan (Ayla, if I'm not mistaken?) already lost one arm of her doll and just left it there on a corner because of course a normal teenager would find this boring. And Obi-Wan is starting to get desperate because "Is this normal? Is this because he wasn't raised in the temple? Is this a Tatooine thing?"

And then the day when the assignation ends finally rolls over and Obi-Wan is relieved because finally he won't have to see more of the absolute horror that is watching a young teenager acting like a great single parent to a doll. And for the first time so far, Anakin gets the best calification ever. But THEN they tell him to retrieve the damn doll and Anakin goes all puffy like "I CAN'T JUST GIVE JINN AWAY"

And the masters are like...trying to placate this teenager who suddenly is having the weirdest reaction they have ever seen and they call Obi-Wan because how they deal with a meltdown over a doll? But Obi-Wan being Obi-Wan just says one of these attachment speeches and extends his hand to ask for the doll and Anakin is already shaking while everyone is like wtf is wrong with this kid. And Anakin just...stright up starts running, that's right, he kidnaps the doll he has been taking care of for what, a month? two months?

So you have the hilarious image of Anakin running with a doll and Obi-Wan running after him yelling at Anakin because of course they would do that.

And I don't know how or what, but then they come closer to some shaft in the temple or maybe a balcony somehow and Obi-Wan tries again to tell Anakin is just a kriffing doll, padawan, isn't alive at all! And Anakin trips and loses the grip on the doll, so the baby doll falls down the shaft.

Cue to Anakin looking in horror sending waves of loss through the force as the babydoll falls while everyone else is just...confused, utterly confused.

[nevereclipse]

i want casual, everyday autism in shows. i want autistic characters who need sensory symmetry, who casually mimic anyone's touch on one side of their bodies on the other (or who have friends who do it for them). i want a friend with flashcards or signals for when their friend loses speech. i want people on video calls and body doubling when they do jobs. i want people having conversations without eye contact. i want excited stimming. i want to see someone getting really excited about the tiniest thing thats related to a safefood or a special interest. i want casual, everyday autism.

(edit: october 22, 11:04am - "nonverbal" -> "nonspeaking") (edit: october 24, 9:44pm - "nonspeaking" -> "loses speech")

[cami-cosmos]

I'm glad self-inserts and mary sues have been (for the most part) accepted by fandom. Or, at the very least, they aren't as hated on and attacked as they were in the past.

In the ye olde days™, 12-year-old me was absolutely terrified of making a "mary sue," to the point that I wouldn't post anything I made. Even worse, the characters I did make were dull and boring to achieve "realism." God forbid would I even THINK of making a character that was anywhere close to me as a person. Luckily, I was able to grow past this and started making art that made me happy, no matter what others might think. But what about the other 12 year olds who saw that their OCs were "bad" and got discouraged? There's so many people out there who stopped engaging in art simply because they made an OP character.

Creating characters is about expressing your creativity and feeling a connection to your art. It's going to be a different, unique experience for everyone. For one person, that might mean making a gritty, realistic OC. For another, it could be making a perfect version of themself to ship with a character they like. If making that "bad" mary sue is what makes someone happy, let them do it! Focus on what makes you happy and thats what matters. (live and let live basically).

Basically, if you want to make a character, DO IT!! Make that Undertale self-insert that dates Sans! Draw your neon pink alicorn princess pony! Feed your inner-child and create what makes you HAPPY!!!

[birbbones]

So I'm not the one to ask for help so I've been very hesitant on sharing, but got some news last week that I will be homeless by June (and no, this is not an awful april fools joke, I am panicking here).

Some of you in the vulture culture community know last week and a bit ago I had an accident resulting in losing consciousness, breaking my neck, and experiencing a seizure for the first time. I've been having ongoing brain issues (we removed a lot of cerebral fluid in December that was causing increased pressure and testing the fluid to rule out infection, diagnosed with IIH), and last month I've been having heart issues.

Referrals have been made to a cardiology specialist, as well as the first fit clinic. But it's looking like I will probably have to go private to get listened to / get the care I need ASAP. Couple with the fact I will be homeless by June, it's a really terrifying situation. I have contacted local councils, independent living schemes, shelter, private landlords etc and feel like I've been let down. I'm awaiting a doctors appointment with a NHS advisor on the 10th, where I'll be showing them my list of resources I've used, and to see if they are able to help find anything.

I reluctantly made a justgiving page, on the advice of my friends, and while I hate asking for help, I am honestly quite scared and uncertain about my future.

If anyone can share the link, reblog this post, or even donate some change. It would mean a lot.

Thank you for your time, I'm sorry for posting this here but I don't know what else to do. I will be continuing to work on the skull index, as its such big passion project of mine along with the help of my team. Its a great distraction.

[gretahayes]

comics fans are so funny. you ask them for a rec/reading list for a character and they give you everything you need to read to be an expert on said character but in the tags or as a sidenote they’ll be like "all of these are horrible writing with shit characterization of everyone else, except for these three select issues, and they’re not even plot relevant at all" like who else is in this kind of hell