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britneyshakespeare · 1 year ago

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So yesterday I read "Slimed with Gravy, Ringed by Drink" by Camille Ralphs, an article from the Poetry Foundation on the publication of the First Folio in 1623, a major work without which most of Shakespeare's plays might very well have been lost today, possibly the most influential secular work of literature in the world, you know.

It's a good article overall on the history and mysteries of the Folio. Lots of interesting stuff in there including how Shakespeare has been adapted, the state of many surviving Folios, theories of its accuracy to the text, a really interesting identification of John Milton's own copy currently in the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the fascinating annotations that may have influenced Milton's own poetry!!! Do read it. It's not an atrociously long article but there's a lot of thought-provoking information in there.

There's one paragraph in particular I keep coming back to though, so I'm just gonna quote it down here:

...[T]he Play on Shakespeare series, published by ACMRS Press, the publications division of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University... grew out of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s plan to “translate” Shakespeare for the current century, bills itself “a new First Folio for a new era.” The 39 newly-commissioned versions of Shakespeare’s plays were written primarily by contemporary dramatists, who were asked to follow the reasonable principle laid out by series editor Lue Douthit: tamper in the name of clarification but submit to “do no harm.” The project was inspired by something the linguist John McWhorter wrote in 1998: “[the] irony today is that the Russians, the French, and other people in foreign countries possess Shakespeare to a much greater extent than we do … [because] they get to enjoy Shakespeare in the language they speak.”

Mainly it's the John McWhorter thing I keep coming back to. Side note: any of my non-native-English-speaking mutuals who have read Shakespeare, I would love to know your experiences. If you have read him in translation, or in the original English, or a mix of both. It's something I do wonder about! Even as an Anglophone reader, I find my experience varies so much just based on which edition of the text I'm reading and how it's presented. There's just so much variety in how to read literature and I would love to know what forces have shaped your own relationships to the stories. But anyway...

The article then goes on to talk about how the anachronistic language in Shakespeare will only fall more and more out of intelligibility for everyone because of how language evolves and yadda yadda yadda. I'm not going to say that that's wrong but I think it massively overlooks the history of the English language and how modern standard English became modern standard English.

First of all, is Shakespeare's language completely unintelligible to native English speakers today? No. Certain words and grammatical tenses have fallen out of use. Many words have shifted in meaning. But with context aiding a contemporary reader, there are very few lines in Shakespeare where the meaning can be said to be "unknown," and abundant lines that are perfectly comprehensible today. On the other hand, it's worth mentioning how many double entendres are well preserved in modern understanding. And additionally, things like archaic grammar and vocabulary are simply hurdles to get over. Once you get familiarized with your thees and thous, they're no longer likely to trip you up so much.

But it's also doubtful that 400 years from now, as the article suggests, our everyday language will be as hard to understand for twenty-fifth century English speakers to comprehend. The English language has significantly stabilized due to colonialism and the international adoption of English as a lingua franca. There are countless dialects within English, but what we consider to be standard international "correct" English will probably not change so radically, since it is so well and far established. The development and proliferation of modern English took a lot of blood and money from the rest of the world, the legacy of which can never be fully restored.

And this was just barely in sight by the time that Shakespeare died. This is why the language of the Elizabethans and Jacobeans is early-modern English. It forms the foundations of modern English, hence why it's mostly intelligible to speakers today, but there are still many antiquated figures within it. Early-modern English was more fluid and liberal. Spelling had not been standardized. Many regions of England still had slight variations in preferences for things like pronouns and verb conjugation. We see this even in works Shakespeare cowrote with the likes of Fletcher and Middleton, as the article points out. Shakespeare's vocabulary may not just reflect style and sentiment, but his Stratford background. His preferences could be deemed more "rustic" than many of his peers reared in London.

Features that make English more consistent now were not formalized yet. That's why Shakespeare sounds so "old." It's not just him being fancy. And there's also the fact that blank verse plays are an entirely neglected art nowadays. Regardless of the comprehensibility of the English, it's still strange for modern audiences uninitiated to Elizabethan literature to sit there and watch a King drop mad poetry about his feelings on stage by himself. The form and style of the entire genre is off.

But that, to me, is why we should read Shakespeare. We SHOULD be challenged. It very much IS within the grasp of a literate adult fluent in English to read one of his plays, in a modern edition with proper assistance and context. It is GOOD to be acquainted with something unfamiliar to us, but within our reach. I'm serious. I do not think I'm so much smarter than everyone else because I read Shakespeare. I don't just read the plain text as it was printed in the First Folio! The scholarship exists which has made Shakespeare accessible to me, and I take advantage of that access for my own pleasure.

This is to say that I disagree with the notion that Shakespeare is better suited to be enjoyed in foreign tongues. I think that's quite a complacent, modern American take. Not to say that the sentiment of McWhorter is wrong; I get what he's saying. And it's quite a beautiful thing that Shakespeare's plays are still so commonly staged, although arguably that comes from a false notion in our culture that Shakespeare is high literature worth preserving, at the expense of the rest of time and history. It is true that his body of work has such a high level of privilege in the so-called Western literary canon that either numerous other writers equally deserve, or no writer ever could possibly deserve.

The effort that goes into making Shakespeare's twenty-first century legacy, though, is a half-assed one. So much illustrious praise and deification of the individual and his works, and yet not as much to understanding the context of his time and place, of his influences, forms, and impacts on the eras which proceeded him. Shakespeare seems to exist in a vacuum with his archaic language, and we read it once or twice in high school when we're forced to, with prosaic translations on the adjoining page. This does not inspire a true appreciation in a culture for Shakespeare but it does reinforce a stereotype that he must be somehow important. It's this shallow stereotype that makes it seem in many minds today that it would be worth it to rip the precise language out of the text of a poet, and spit back out an equivalent "modern translation."

#this is just a stream-of-consciousness rambling. ignore me if im not making sense which im probably not #long post #text post #rant #shakespeare #also to clarify on that last point i am not shitting on the art of translation. AT all.#into other languages that is. nor am i knocking all modern adaptations of shakespeare's works #made with good intent. and also if you enjoy modern translated english shakespeare a la no fear shakespeare #genuinely good for you! that series has helped a lot of people and im glad for them to have that resource #HOWEVER. i WOULD like to challenge the idea that that is the best way to READ shakespeare #i think it's simply a shortcut.#and by all means take a shortcut if what you're reading shakespeare for is the plot. especially if youre new to him!#i DO on the other hand think it is entirely possible for any general reader to eventually be able to read shakespeare #in other types of editions. with the plain text and academic footnotes or annotations.#i do think enjoying the poetry of the works is as enriching as the characters or plot #in fact in the case of characters. the intricacies of the poetry of course enhance them!#you know. like i think the challenge is more doable than we ever really talk about in the mainstream #when you read him in high school you most likely had your english teacher holding your hand through every line #that's basically what the literal prose translations do too. in my opinion.#at least a la no fear shakespeare because those aren't meant to be performed like an equivalent art.#the translations are clarification.#again i think it's entirely possible to adapt the language of shakespeare and even a worthwhile project #but that's not. you know. the thing on the shelves to be read.#we can all still read shakespeare and we are all smart enough to do so.#if we think of early-modern english as another dialect rather than a whole different language #and there are so many mutually intelligible yet very distinct dialects of english around the world today #(the literature of which is also well worth reading) and if one seems approachable. well they all can be.

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aeide-thea · 2 years ago

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very much an off-the-cuff post so there may well be bugs, i'm still workshopping my thinking here, but—

i seem to see posts fairly regularly in which a member of some marginalized group A is objecting to attempts by less marginalized group B to make connections between discrimination against A and harm experienced by B (the main thing i have in mind here is when people attempt to align themselves with visibly-trans people by pointing out the ways that transphobic legislation also impacts gnc cis people, theatrical crossdressing, &c, but there are definitely also examples along other axes)—

and like. the main objection i've seen from A is 'why do they have to connect my experience to their experience in order to care about it? why can't they just agree that i shouldn't be discriminated against as a matter of, like, compassion for fellow humanity?'

and this reaction does honestly always just seem a little, idk, naive to me?? like, i don't know, it's gotten very popular ime to complain about normies' clumsy attempts to Understand Instead of Just Accepting [this feels potentially linked to like. the way many of us now prefer silently clicking 'like' to producing our own original, maybe clumsy, responses? but don't @ me on that point], probably because a lot of the time they aren't genuinely seeking to Understand but just to point out all the ways our queerness &c doesn't fit their received (unexaminedly conservative) understanding of the world, which feels to us (very reasonably!) like renewed pressure from the establishment to make ourselves fit that established framework, and so we resist… but at the same time, idk, maybe i'm just outing myself as lesser-than-thou here, but for every sort of person i was raised to distrust and have since arrived at genuine loving acceptance/appreciation of, it's involved first coming to understand their frame of reference at least a little? not to say that there isn't a place for shutting up and listening while you're still working to understand, because there definitely is! but i do kind of think this idea that's become popular in certain liberal circles of like, 'you don't have to understand my experience, you just have to respect it,' is fine and true for keeping peace with strangers, but really isn't a recipe for winning friends or influencing people—it's a recipe for keeping people at arm's length where they can't hit you. and then people turn around and want to apply that rule to coalition-building, and get all shocked-pikachu-face when others seek to identify more active points of connection.

...

another ~Radical Objection to Liberal Approaches~ i've seen, though often not specifically in this context (of discussing the way attempts to oppress A have knock-on effects for B), is like—'there's no point in deconstructing their logic because it's fundamentally illogical! insert that sartre quote abt anti-semites!' and like. no, there's absolutely no point in debating their logic with them. but fundamentally when people assert a logical resistance to bigoted positions they are not doing it to Own The Bigots, imo, or at any rate shouldn't be; they're (we're) doing it to reaffirm the basis of their/our own camp's position, namely, we see your knee-jerk fears and reject them; we substitute instead a patient allegiance to logic, that reasons its way into compassion.

that said, obviously there's a conversation to be had here about, like, platforming bad positions, and to what extent deconstructing them is implicitly platforming them! but. i do think that complaining that logic won't win over bigots is missing the very fundamental point that the logic isn't for the bigots: it's for us. we're talking to ourselves; we're affirming ourselves. and yeah, we need to understand that this sort of intra-party discussion doesn't, on its own, constitute sufficient activism! messages need to be communicated beyond the bounds of the party! but i do think i disagree that there's no place for it.

#anyway i'm just sticking this all under a cut bc it got very long and i didn't arrive at a nice tidy overarching conclusion #but i guess i just think like. i'm not convinced that resisting people's attempts to understand a struggle as linked with theirs #is ever going to be a strategy that makes any sense—#i just think it's coming from a place of woundedness that wants its pain to be Seen and Matter In Itself #and not get ignored until someone else is also impacted #and like. that's SO emotionally valid! god! but also like. that's feelings and not a basis for politics???#and the second point here—#which honestly could've been its own post; i was just thinking abt the two points together bc i saw a post that made them together—#really feels to me like. showing up at an internal org meeting and then complaining that it doesn't constitute effective public messaging #like yeah‚ people pass posts around on here that aren't gonna convince conservatives #but like. (a) how much convincing of conservatives do you really think is gonna happen on tumblr anyway?#and also (b) then make your own posts that *are* angled at convincing conservatives! or‚ you know‚ do something that isn't posting!#(in b4 'some of us have disabilities' yeah‚ me too! i emailed my representatives the other day! there's stuff you can do!)#but like. everybody just wants to critique other people's efforts (and obviously as per this very post i'm not immune!)#when it's like. most of what we're doing *isn't* activism—what it could be is the tentative social basis for a real coalition #on which activism could then be founded #but most of us would rather suspiciously snipingly in-fight than let these tentative social filaments thicken into binding ties!#anyway. a great example of a post by someone with adhd that will probably be prohibitively difficult for other ppl with adhd to read!

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ctommyisnt · 1 year ago

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Dude sexuality is so crazy like. I’m absolutely 100% bi and I consider myself bi and tell everyone im bi because I AM bi. It’s just how I feel! However I’m definitely (by the definitions of the terms) pan by technicality because it’s like, don’t care as much about the gender just ✨ people ✨ but I don’t consider myself pan in any means. It’s ALSO crazier because I don’t like the bi flag (not a fan of cool toned colors) and adore the pan flag but like. I’m not pan lmao ITS SO CONTRADICTORY I LOVE IT

#I think actually wait while writing this I’ve had a breakthrough #obviously labels are made up and you can do whatever #but I feel like (going by vibes) bi people (me) DO view attraction with regards to gender #like they can obviously be attracted to and ARE attracted to people who do not go by binary #I feel like that in my case I definitely view gender as a way to judge my attractiveness if that makes sense #but the pan vibes are more ‘attraction REGARDLESS of gender’#which I don’t have those vibes so I feel more bi #I’m probably just making shit up but I’m a logical person and my logic brain likes this explanation so honestly just ignore me #I am 100% not an expert and if you consider me one I’m so sorry for your loss go read a book #(talking to you bestie)#anyways don’t even get me STARTED on gender

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clair0se · 1 year ago

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i got tagged by @memorycycle and i'm grinning! this 5 things that make me happy was like, helpful to remember :3

1. listening to music and singing to it! especially when it's a song that feels better to sing in the lower range of my voice. easily the best part of driving and it's even more special if i'm not driving. just sitting at home and the activity i'm doing is listening to an albummmm <3

2. celeste! not even just the parts where i finish a cool thing (although those are of course high points) but i loveeeee labbing strats! that's a huge part why i wanna do 100% blindfolded because that's about as big of a strat finding task as i can think up. and seekers are like girls to me, they're such a fun mechanic and i love working on deathless strategies with them

3. manual labor is also something that i genuinely enjoy. it's nice that it comes with a paycheck obviously, but i love my job right now at fed ex! i'm noticeably stronger and have more muscle to show! there's also just something very grounding to me to be able to not have all of my worth placed on my ability to think. like, being brain is nice, but also being able to be reliable for grunt work stuff makes me feel like a person and i like that!

4. i love finding ways that i like to express myself because it's always changing. this is probably just a growing up thing, but as i'm more able to care about what i want and not what i want others to perceive me as, i get happier. so i'm like, less scared of hair on my body. less scared of my voice fluctuating. and on a less trans note, less scared of being honest to say no if something is not the kinda way i'd prefer. oh and in the category of expressing myself, piercings! put them holes in my body :3

5. finally, i love to learn things. even if it's not the most highest of the things that i really care about, it's just so cool to recognize how much knowledge we all hold and even cooler that i get to be the recipient of that smart from someone else's brain! and learning things helps me! it makes my life easier to navigate, it makes my food yummier, it makes other people more interested in me, it makes me feel less small. yay

hi! mrow

@dykemelon @applepikmin @furryfag @effemimaniac @just-a-little-moth

#not in a particular order becauss that would have probably made me blow up #also #if i tagged you and you don't want that you can run me over with a truck or something i think that probably makes sense and is sensible #and thankiesss for tagging me gabe c:#i saw the post before seeing the tag notif so when i was reading the tags i was like ''i wonder if i'm here?'' and then i was! yippee :3 #and again. ignore me if you would've rathered not having been tagged by me. i just think all of you are neat

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dreamcast-official · 1 year ago

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hm.

#eli.txt #i think the reason i feel so shit over The Whole Deal is like. god. i just miss talking to them.#sometimes it felt like they were the only person who cared about what i had to say. they were the easiest person to talk to in my life.#and like. basically overnight. they were so distant for what i thought was no reason. and they did not care about me anymore.#i know they were justified in acting that way and its not like they suddenly hate me and dont care about me but god.#thats what it feels like. thats what it fucking feels like!!!!#i didnt just lose my boyfriend i lost one of my best friends and it fucking sucks. it feels like no one is going to put up with me anymore.#idk i dont feel nearly as comfortable talking to Anyone anymore. because when am i gonna know i made a mistake.#how am i gonna know i made a mistake and they suddenly think i hate them and it leads to something like this. how am i gonna know.#and like!! it looks To Me like their life got so much better without me being an active part of it. and i feel like i have just gotten worse #AND THEY WONT FUCKING TALK TO ME! I KEEP TRYING TO MAKE CONVERSATION AND THEY DONT TALK TO ME! AND LIKE.#I KNOW I FUCKED UP BUT IM FUCKING TRYING TO MAKE UP FOR IT CAN YOU PLEASE JUST LET ME TRY. TALK TO ME. I MISS YOU.#I LOVE YOU. NOT IN THAT SENSE ANYMORE BUT I STILL CARE FOR YOU. YOURE MY FRIEND. FUCKING TALK TO ME.#I KNOW NO AMOUNT OF SAYING IM SORRY CAN FIX IT BUT IM TRYING TO MAKE UP FOR IT. PLEASE JUST DONT IGNORE ME LIKE THAT.#god i just feel like maybe i meant nothing. maybe theyve just already moved on entirely and i was never anything.#maybe im the only one who still hurts. yknow. i dont think they care about me anymore.#which i could fucking deal with if they just said that instead of flat out ignoring me.#god i just feel like shit. what if i keep fucking up the same way what if i lose everyone the same way and in the end im alone.#i would probably deserve it. if i keep messing up this bad maybe i deserve to be alone.#i know thats not true. but i feel really bad right now. im not thinking.#no one is going to put up with me the way they did. they already dont.#god. im so tired. i wish they would fucking talk to me.

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 2 years ago

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Poked my head into some of @mysticdragon3md3′s thoughts regarding popularity with DimiClaude fanon and am happy to say I’m here to Talk (tee em).

I also saw the post from the user saying why they were falling out of love for the ship, and... yeah. The people they’re talking about, the generalized group of people who do certain things, definitely bother me as well.

I love that you pointed out Claude is not flirty and is just playful. It’s not the DimiClaude fandom alone unfortunately with that though - it’s the entire fanbase that views him as a flirt. And, according to Twitter, a slut. Yeah. Yeah. I know what they... “mean”... but it is still not him.

Them being annoyed with each other is also fanon and a very strange one. Never in Houses did Dimitri come across as being annoyed or bothered by him. In fact, they have friendly banter! Dimitri doesn’t get specifically exasperated at Claude, but that’s just more so how he is as a person and he sometimes doesn’t understand playfulness. That said, he does not berate Claude the way he berates others. There’s one instance I can think of where he berated Claude and that was in the DLC when they were talking to Aelfric for the first time.

In Hopes, same deal in AG. In fact, he’s quite fond of Claude in AG. GW itself was a well discussed mess in a lot of ways, and even then as a ship they didn’t have a lot of negativity. If nothing else it was an odd opposite, because even as enemies when Claude admitted he couldn’t defeat Dimitri alone, Dimitri just basically laughed, smirked and walked away. That’s like... the worst of their relationship in GW and it’s extremely mellow.

I think part of the problem some dmcl fans are facing are the fanon version of the ship rather than what they’re like in canon. It is definitely true that part of the dmcl fandom has absolutely warped the ship into being something it really isn’t and never was in canon. There’s also this whole thing about Dimitri being the dominant, feisty one with Claude being the uwu blushy one and it’s just... not them. Not as a pair canonically, and not individually. When Dimitri gets “dominant”, he’s, uh, not in a good mental state. It’s a mental illness that makes him like that and personally I’ve never appreciated seeing people use it for a kink for a ship. Normally I’d say people can like what they want, but I get the feeling a lot of dmcl fans have absolutely pushed their views onto others and driven fans away.

I will also say have absolutely, 150% come across those kinds of fans. The ones who refuse to listen to anyone else, but if your headcanons don't vibe with them then you’re just completely “wrong”. Not only do they portray the canon characterization poorly if portraying it at all, but they tend to also bring it down a racist route, which is... beyond ironic considering they should be the last ship that deals with that based on their characters and stories.

Engage kinda went wonky with a good few things regarding the previous lords, so I don’t see Dimitri being like that as some kind of definite canon. Actually, even in Heroes their interactions are friendly and calm. The “worst” banter they had was their swim alts, while on the opposite end we have the brave alts who apparently hang out together outside of the castlegrounds, and for so long that they can’t be of any help in a search for someone (which like lol how long you gotta be gone to have no idea and can’t help at all lmao).

I think people see outside-Houses canon scenes like those and just... decide it’s their actual canon. Dimitri is not, in any way, actually mean to Claude in canon. That is unfortunately a very popular fanon. In Houses especially, when Dimitri doesn’t know Claude well in the mock battle he’s more like ummm hey Claude your defenses are open what are you even doing, more than being like ugh Claude you’re so annoying. In the real version of that mock battle though, a good few months had passed and their battle quotes are significantly more approachable and they clearly have respect for each other. Dimitri knows Claude likes to fuck around and be goofy sometimes, and he picked up on that and played along with it in the JP version (in the English version he simply picks up on it, but there’s no anger whatsoever and it’s just more oh okay I get it).

As far as Engage goes, ultimately I just see it more as an extremely condensed version of their mannerisms, and yes, they for some reason, especially in the localized versions, try to keep up the whole rival shtick when Dimitri never even felt that way about Claude, and he never gets truly annoyed at Claude. Ffs, in canon Dimitri literally drops everything after retaking his home from the Empire/TWS, and runs to go save Claude. Literally. The next day. While Claude is a little tsun about it (!), Dimitri is just “come on let’s go hurry hurry no slowing down pick up the pace we are saving Claude”, and that’s basically him the entire chapter except with the Arundel specific stuff. When he talks to Claude one on one, there is literally not a single shred whatsoever in any plausible way or in any damn universe any tension from Dimitri to Claude. He just wants to know he’s okay and relaxes once he knows Claude isn’t hurt. I mean literally, no, like... that’s them, in canon, in their Natural Habitat together and I have no fucking clue how the portrayal of them in fanon got so insanely warped beyond recognition.

Also, Engage kinda dropped the ball with a lot of stuff with the other lords. Hell, they’ve been unable to keep Ike’s character consistent throughout all of his non-canon appearances (Awakening didn’t seem too bad, but Fates was pretty awful for example. They can’t seem to really understand the character they’re writing anymore, and idk if it’s just because the writers have changed and such/aren’t the same as Tellius’ games had, or they just don’t care to keep him consistent).

They also try to make Sigurd sound wise and super helpful in every single solitary iteration of him outside of FE4 which is honestly just obnoxious as fuck lmao. Sigurd was naive, foolish, overly trusting, and far too kind and gentle for his own good. It ultimately was what led to him following orders blindly, having blind faith that his king was righteous and would give him the right orders (without realizing the court was very much in disarray during his absence and with several other prominent court figures away because of the war). Sigurd was too quick to believe in the good in humanity and that things would work out, and it led to him not realizing how wrong he was until it was way too late and he had to take shelter in a foreign country to avoid having to fight the same people’s armies who had the court’s ear.

Basically Sigurd is nothing like they write him to be in every. single. solitary. iteration. outside of FE4.

(SPOILER here just in case you care lol. Or anyone who is reading this. Or if you’re someone who somehow does not know about the biggest known spoiler in the whole game) He has one little section of potential dialogue (i.e. it’s triggered by a very specific condition) that shows somehow ghosty Sigurd has grown more wise and understanding ??? while being dead ??? and somehow learned while being dead that the world do be full of grief and Stuff. (END SPOILER)

So they pretty much took like, two lines of dialogue from FE4 and made it Sigurd’s entire fucking character forever in every single game he’s been in since. If nothing else, let that be your insight on never to trust content you see outside of a character’s original game. At that point it’s simply fanservice because they don’t even know their own characters. If they wanted to write even a semblance of Actual In Game Sigurd’s Personality And Not Two Lines Of Dialogue That Are Completely Optional And Quite Honestly HIDDEN, it would be very easy and reasonable to do so. They choose not to, and then we get what they did with Houses’ lords.

Another portrayal I see too often is that Dimitri and Claude... argue??? I won’t lie, their Heroes summer alts was the very first time they even seemed to “argue”, and it was mostly just goofy nonsense that means nothing because they’re literally alts in swimsuits, and it wasn’t really them being vicious at each other. Meanwhile in canon, they’re always very calm and able to talk through their problems - even in fucking Hopes in the GW route. Even in the worst possible circumstances for them to be in, that is, as enemies, they were still able to talk it through. Barring Claude’s written in idiocy so he could be a mouthpiece for Edelgard and do her bidding by invading the Kingdom (which was literally nothing but plot convenience because Actual Claude would’ve reasoned his way out of doing that), even in the worst possible situation, they still called a truce and still worked things out verbally, calmly and peacefully.

Point being, this whole cat fight dmcl portrayal isn’t even remotely close to their canon selves, and normally I’d say, you know, like what you want and enjoy your ships how you want... but it’s pretty much almost entirely the people who view the ship that way that uh, attack people who don’t agree with them or insult them/laugh at them for seeing the ship differently. These are the people who make you feel bad, for enjoying a fictional ship of two pixelated characters kissing, because you don’t like the concepts in their head more than the way you’ve interpreted the canonical characters.

To be totally frank, I have a visceral hatred for the fanon portrayal of dmcl because it makes Dimitri out to be terrible and makes Claude some kind of punching bag for Dimitri in various forms. There comes a point where it’s like, you ship something and then there’s the point where you ship two characters you made up in your head, who aren’t the same characters you first started to ship, because you’ve warped them so extensively that they became nothing but a person’s OCs with their faces and some similar backstory elements at best.

#DCB Comments #not sure what else to put this as but yeah... the dmcl fandom is not that large tbh and #what it does have is extremely divided and a lot of the fans can be completely ignorant of how poorly they handle Claude #especially in a franchise that already poorly handled him re: Hopes #but also I know exactly the kind of people you're talking about... and they're also hypocrites so.#they're the ones who shit on others for having different views of the same ship and decide you are inarguably ''wrong'' for your takes #also mind you if you call 'em out for that they get uwu mad and it spirals from there bc then they gotta vent to their #uwu friends who do the exact same things they do. can you tell I'm literally speaking from actual experience?! :D #like yeah I get it... a lot of the dmcl fandom in particular is gross about Claude #I personally prefer Dimitri as a character for a lot of reasons but when I began shipping them I didn't love Claude /as/ much as now #shipping them got me to look more into Claude as a person and I started loving him more as well #thanks to loving this ship I got to know him more and understand him more /and/ that made me love the ship more #also like it's one thing to have AUs and modern AUs in fics and stuff... bur just don't do... you know... things worth side eying #also if you have to change the dynamic of the ship to make it how you like it then you... probably don't actually like the ship itself #it's the same as with people warping characters to create a personality put onto a face #it's what a lot of Edel stans even do. they make up who they want her to be instead of seeing her for who she is #and they like the made up version of her more than the actual version so in that sense they don't really like who she is in the canon #not all of them are like that and some DO like her for who she is (which could be... arguably WORSE in her case lol)#but it's the same thing with ships. they alter the dynamic and just want to use the pretty faces #which by itself would be fine ig. confusing af to me but fine. not fine anymore though when it starts becoming an actual fandom problem #ppl take ''fandom drama' too lightly most often imo. I don't think ppl realize this kind of bullying over the internet #has a lasting impact and that seeing words on a screen doesn't make them any better or worse than how they'd be irl #in a sense it makes it more cowardly if anything bc ppl fear no repercussions for what they say :/

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nicepersondisorder · 2 years ago

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killing and violence (wrist pain is back)

#okay so im aware most of my joint pain will probably go away as soon as i start exercising a bit more #it might not but theres like huge chance it will #BUT consider this: exercising is also fucking painful #i cant even jog normally bc every step i make while running feels like i just jumped from the high ground and landed on my feet #i might try do some stretching at home i guess. but im usually too tired & fatigued for it </3 #man i wish i had enough energy to exercise #jogging sounds nice and i do like walks. i just never have energy to walk longer than for 15 minutes #well. jogging wont help my wrist pain but thats because its an old mistreated injury and im not sure it can be fixed anyway #ughhh.#honestly everything that is wrong with me is the consequences of my actions #and if i made some typos or skipped words accidentally in this long long tag rambling. just ignore it #its 1am and ive slept only 3 hours the night before so yeah. i might make less sense than i usually do #not like i usually make any sense but whatever #☆.txt

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sherlock-is-ace · 2 years ago

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#midnight thoughts before going to bed (feel free to ignore)#but today i realized two major things about myself and my mental illness #1. i was reminded that when you have an anxiety disorder your body has a hard time telling the difference between anxiety and excitement #and suddenly my whole life made sense lol #the amount of times i didn't do something that i really wanted to do because it caused me MAJOR anxiety #and it was probably excitement actually but my body went into full fight or flight mode #and 2. i realized that my masking is actually causing me physical pain #like this is of course of i am actually autistic. i still feel like i can't say i am cause i have no right you know?#but objectively i'm like 98% sure i have autism #ANYWAYS masking is usually just forcing eye contact or not stiming in public (as much)#but today i realized that when i hear loud noises or too many at the same time my instinct is to cover my ears #but i don't because that's ''weird'' or will make people ask questions that i don't really know how to answer #so i don't cover my ears i just sit through it in actual pain and hope for the best #and the worst part of this is that when i say ''masking in public'' i mean in my own damn home #because of my mom and the fact that she doesn't believe i have issues #i think it's my fault tho i shouldn't have mentioned my self diagnosis while we were watcing the good doctor (and later attorney woo)#because those two are her only reference for what autism is/looks like and i'm not like that #i mean for the most part... the good doctor was the reason i realize i might be autistic #and woo's struggle with revolving doors hit a bit too close to my heart lol #but anyways...#i need to deal with my out of control anxiety #and i'm pretty sure i am autistic...#those are the conclusions of this post lol #angel talks #personal

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juicydangler · 5 months ago

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oh yeah, foreshortened future is a whole thing with PTSD, can also occur with depression and possibly as a downstream effect of time blindness in ADHD (although find me a person with ADHD who isn't traumatised, we have confounding factors here) and it's why I can get snarly about people telling me to live for today, you could die tomorrow, yolo, live like you're gonna die young, etc. bc worrying about or planning for the future is actually a positive sign that I can conceive of a future at all and I worked really hard on that. Not being able to believe that I might survive has actually had ruinous impacts on my entire life and I don't appreciate anyone trying to undermine my efforts to repair it no matter how well-meaning.

The thing that made a tangible difference for me (YMMV) is writing my tomorrow-self a note before I go to bed every night. It's not exactly leaving myself a to-do list, although it usually includes reminders of things that need doing, and it's not journaling although it often includes reflections on the day I just had, it's more like a short letter addressing myself tomorrow as someone who will in fact exist. Like, my particular case was severe enough that waking up every day was kind of a surprise (at some points severe enough that going to bed was too, like what do you mean a whole day happened and I'm still here) so that's how small I had to start, but over time making regular efforts to see the next day as a reality I will probably have to deal with has allowed the growth of a longer sense of my own existence into the future, now I can almost imagine a whole year of existing, even if it gets a bit blurry after about three to six months. As a result I can sometimes do things like preventative care, maintenance, make and keep multiple appointments, deal with things before they become a crisis, finish projects that take more than a few hours, file paperwork on time, you know, live like I might actually live.

love ppl online being like "ur literally 30" like do u think thats not gonna happen to you??

#dear diary #I'm just gonna glide over the part where I misplaced the book for a couple of years and backslid #I don't even read the notes half the time but that's not the point #if it was just about remembering to do the dishes I'd just make a to-do list #the point is that tomorrow is a reality I will probably have to deal with #so maybe I should do the dishes before I go to bed #also this is something you will not find in any listicle about How To Live With A Sense Of Foreshortened Future #all very clearly written by untraumatised people who aren't even tangentially MH professionals let alone trauma-informed ones #they're all like just eat well and cuddle your pets uwu #try journaling abt your trauma and reflecting on your feelings uwu practice mindfulness uwu HAVE YOU TRIED YOGA UWUW #nevermind that eating well isn't that simple when you can't manage groceries bc you don't comprehend being alive for a whole week #or that mindfulness is actually contraindicated for PTSD these days bc it can literally make it worse #or that have you tried yoga is my CIA hypnoprogrammed robot assassin activation phrase #or that none of that shit actually helps this specific problem #like how the fuck is journaling about the past supposed to help me conceptualise the future? it fucking doesn't #so basically you can safely ignore those they're useless #fix your broken leg by going on a hike levels of useless #literally Homestuck helped more #like I'm sure there's other things that work other than this but you won't find them on a list made by anyone #whose entire understanding of mental healing begins and ends at take a nice bath with a scented candle and you'll feel better

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inbabylontheywept · 1 month ago

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The Motherfucking Lizard King

No one at work trusts my boss.

He's smart. He works hard. He's not trustworthy. He hasn't actually fucked anyone at work over, but he's ruined his last two marriages with affairs, and got dumped by his third fiance when he wouldn't sign a prenup. The fact that we all know this is just a hazard of working in a small town.

Anyway: The thought process of the people in the lab is that if he screwed over his first wife, and his second wife, and was probably planning on screwing over his third wife, it would be insane for him not to screw us over. After all, what kind of idiot treats their employees better than their spouse?

I dunno. His kind, I guess? He's had a few chances to fuck us over, and he hasn't taken them. Opposite really. When our parent company was doing furloughs, he stayed in the office almost a hundred hours, talking and talking and talking his way up the corporate ladder. And in the end, no one at our site got furloughed.

He's pulled strings like that before. And it baffles me, right? Because it really does make zero sense. He'll move the heavens and the earth for us, but his wife and kids are afterthoughts. It feels like any moment, he's going to look into the mirror and realize how stupid that is. It feels like I'm betting on him making the same stupid mistake again, and again, and again - like it would be less cynical to believe he was, eventually, going to stab me in the back. But he hasn't yet, and as far as I can tell he's been making that mistake for close to fifteen years, and it's already cost him everything it can. If he was going to learn, he would have by now.

So my position on him is that if he wanted to date someone I cared about, I'd warn them off. I don't trust him there. But I tentatively trust him to be my boss. Maybe one day he'll stick the knife in and twist, and everyone will say Ah, Babs, we warned you, but for now, I accept that he's doing a very predictable, very irrational thing, and I've made my peace with it.

---

My job has glue traps.

No one likes the glue traps, but we don't have a lot of options. Poison's banned by state law, spring traps are banned by company safety, and several non-lethal options tried in the past failed to work. The mouse problem can get pretty bad if it's ignored, and there's some real health hazards in that. Our site has never had a positive hantavirus test, thank God, but the big base about a half hour away has. That guy's gonna be on oxygen the rest of his life.

If a mouse gets caught, we just euthanize it. But more than mice get stuck. Lizards can wander into those traps too, and the people working there have different feelings about the lizards. They don't pose nearly the same kind of risk mice do. They're chill little guys, and they keep the moths away, and they're just

You know. They're friendly. There's something to be said about walking into a room, and hitting the light switch, and seeing two little guys on the wall start to do pushups as soon as they see you.

People used to just euthanize the lizards too, but I had pet leopard geckos as a kid and I couldn't take that so I wound up googling how to free animals from glue traps. Now, when a lizard gets stuck in a trap - which happens once or twice a week - I get some vegetable oil from the breakroom, and a little plastic fork, and I'll spend fifteen to twenty minutes just kind of gently prying the little guys out.

I have a team of technicians that help me operate one of the larger machines. They're real blue collar guys, ex-airforce, and they make me look like a little kid. Being an engineer means they'll look to me as a leader sometimes, which is a wild experience. And I started helping the lizards for my own conscience, but one of the crazier consequences of it has been that it seriously boosted my leadership cred. Because those guys see me, and they go: Hey. If he's willing to fight for a lizard, he's gotta be willing to fight for me.

I cannot overstate how nice that is. Most engineers that want to make a change to a maintenance practice, or try an upgrade, they have to work their asses off to get the techs to buy in. But I can just ask. They already trust me to do good. They know I'm new, and they know I'm not the smartest engineer in the building, but they also know I'm the one who gets lizards out of the glue traps.

And just because of that, they're willing to follow me.

---

My boss has a meeting every month or two. It's typically basic house cleaning stuff - reminders about routines we've gotten lazy on, and updates on future projects. Maybe some warnings about problems coming from higher up in the company.

People are, in my opinion, a bit too cynical about the meetings. It stems from people not trusting our boss, which again, I understand, because it would make so much more sense if he wasn't trustworthy. It's a testament to the man's incredibly unhealthy priorities that he is. But as we made it to the end of the meeting, one of bullet points was:

Do NOT mess with animals in the building.

So I looked at my techs, and they looked at me, and when he got to the point, he was so scathing I actually just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. He said basically that he'd heard some reports about someone in the building handling animals that found their way in and got stuck, and that he just wanted to emphasize how insanely inappropriate that was, not to mention dangerous, and that if he needed to speak to anyone about it again, there would be severe consequences.

I was willing to just take the shame and move on. I was. But one of my techs is old. Old enough he could've retired two years ago. And his actual literal goal is to one day get angry, yell at someone, and storm out. That's how he wants to retire. So instead of biting his tongue like everyone else, he stood up and said: I hate the glue traps. You hate the glue traps. We all hate glue traps. But we've all sat here for years, ignoring the little things that get stuck in them, watching them die, and then Bab's comes in, and he is the first person in decades to give enough of a shit to start pulling the lizards out. And I don't want him to stop.

Get humane traps or shut up but we are not going back to the old way of just letting things starve.

And my boss actually froze up. He got all wide eyed and stared at Marc, and then the other techs jumped in, and there was a very small but intense rebellion in the meeting and my boss kept trying to interrupt while getting absolutely bowled over by this gang of angry middle aged air force vets, and eventually he just went

I will speak with Babylon about this afterwards! After! And then he will speak with everyone else, but I have more points to cover.

So they went silent, and my boss rushed through the last five minutes, and we all adjounred. The techs really didn't like that I was going in alone - they thought our boss was going to try and shout me into compliance. Marc in particular was like, Look, if he tries bullying you, stand your ground, and if he threatens anything, just come get us, and we'll give him hell.

So armed with that, I went to my boss's office. I sat in the chair across from him, and he kept his composure for maybe five seconds before just flopping back into his chair.

I had no idea you were saving lizards, he said, but I'm glad you are. I always hated seeing them die in the glue.

I wasn't expecting that. I was about to ask him what the comment from the meeting was about then, but he answered that before I even got the chance.

A snake got into the building last week, and - someone picked it up and chased a coworker around. Turns out that coworker was severely afraid of snakes, and now it's a shitshow. We're a small site, and now I can't ask those two to work together anymore, to say nothing about how the snake fared after all that. Being upset about that is a reasonable thing, right?

And he gave me a look like he actually wanted an answer, so I said Yeah, totally, chasing a coworker around with a snake is a dick move. Especially if that coworker is already afraid of snakes.

And he said Exactly! and then we sat there a few moments longer. He looked so incredibly tired that I did, actually, feel kind of bad for him. And then he somehow managed to sink even further into his chair, and said

Look, I know I'm not a good guy. But I'm not evil. I'm not some sort of crazy asshole that's going to demand that everyone watch lizards starve to death. When you go back downstairs, could you try to pass that on? That I'm not evil?

I said Sure because it wasn't a hard request, and he looked relieved. I actually made it halfway out before I realized I had a question.

Who grabbed the snake? I asked.

Not supposed to talk about it, he said. But whoever comes to mind first is probably right.

ThatGuy? I asked. And he looked me in the face, nodded his head yes, and said No.

---

The techs seemed a little disappointed that they didn't get to storm the boss's office, but were otherwise in good spirits. They were actually a little bit embarrassed to hear about the snake story - apparently, it wasn't much of a secret. It'd just slipped their minds because it happened three weeks ago.

We did maintenance after that, the same basic repairs we did every week. The meeting had been stressful and it was a relief to work with my hands. When the parts were reinstalled, everything cleaned and smooth and ready to go, Marc found me again.

You know what the lesson of today is? he asked. And there were quite a few answers to that that I could have taken - from don't assume the worst of people to be careful with how you spend your trust - we all need it more than we think.

But instead I said what? because I wanted to hear what his answer was going to be.

That I got your back, he said. Then he clapped one very, very large hand on my shoulder, gave it a good squeeze, and walked back to dosimetry lab.

---

The next day, Marc gave me a package and told me to open it in my office. I was suspicious, but I followed the request.

Cardboard gave way to a small baggie, obviously full of fabric, which opened to reveal a t-shirt that read

"I Am the Motherfucking Lizard King."

I looked at it, I loved it, and then I got an idea. I went to my boss's office and knocked on the door. When he opened it, I asked him if he would be willing to allow something very unprofessional to happen for morale building purposes.

How unprofessional? he asked. I held the shirt up in answer. He gave the shirt a short look over and snorted.

You can wear it on weeks without customers, he said. Which just so happened to include that week.

I'll pass on that it came with your blessing, I replied, and he looked oddly relieved.

Thanks, he said. And then I went downstairs.

---

The techs were very, very happy to see the shirt. And while my boss's reputation remains in tatters, and probably will be until he moves (or dies), the next time there was a meeting, there was quite a bit less complaining about how mere presence. Which is, I guess, a start.

We'll see if he squanders it.

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weaselle · 3 months ago

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i want to talk about real life villains

Not someone who mugs you, or kills someone while driving drunk, those are just criminals. I mean VILLAINS.

Not like trump or musk, who are... cartoonishly evil. And not sexy villains, not grandiose villains, not even satisfyingly two dimensional villains it is easy to hate unconditionally. The real villains.

I had a client who was a retired executive for one of the big oil companies, i think it was Shell or Chevron. Had a home just outside of San Francisco that was wall to wall floor to ceiling full of expensive art. Literally. I once accidentally knocked a painting off the wall because it was hanging at knee height at the corner of the stairs, and it had a little brass plaque on it, and i looked up the name of the artist and it was Monet's apprentice and son-in-law, who was apparently also a famous painter. He had an original Andy Warhol, which should have been a prize piece for anyone to showcase -- it was hanging in the bathroom. I swear to god this guy was using a Chihuly (famous glass sculptor) as a fruit bowl. And he was like, "idk my wife was the one who liked art"

I was intrigued by this guy, because in the circles i run this dude is The Enemy. right? Wealthy oil executive? But as my client, he was... like a sweet grandpa. A poor widower, a nice old man, anyone who knew him would have called him a sweetheart. He had a slightly bewildered air, a sort of gentle bumbling nature.

And the fact that he was both of these things, a Sweet Little Old Man and The Enemy, at the same time, seemed important and fascinating to me.

He reminded me of some antagonist from fiction, but i couldn't put my finger on who. And when i did it all made sense.

John Hammond.

probably one of the most realistic bad guys ever written.

If you've only ever seen the movie, this will need some explaining.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, and i read it shortly thereafter. In the movie, the dinosaurs are the antagonists, which imo erases 50% of the point of the story.

book spoilers below.

In the book, John Hammond is the villain but it takes the reader like half the book to figure that out. Just like my client, John is a sweet old man who wants lovely things for people. He's a very sympathetic character. But as the book progresses, you start to see something about him.

He has an idea, and he's sure it's a good one. When someone else dies in pursuit of his dream, he doesn't think anything of it. When other people turn out to care about that, he brings in experts to evaluate the safety of his idea, and when they quickly tell him his idea is dangerous and needs to be put on hold, he ignores his own experts that he himself hired, because they are telling him that he is wrong, and he is sure he is right.

In his mind, he's a visionary, and nobody understands his vision. He is surrounded by naysayers. Several things have proven too difficult to do the best and safest way, so he has cut corners and taken shortcuts so he can keep moving forward with his plans, but he's sure it's fine. He refuses to hear any word of caution, because he believes he is being cautious enough, and he knows best, even though he has no background in any of the sciences or professions involved. He sends his own grandchildren out into a life-threatening situation because he is willfully ignorant of the danger he is creating.

THIS is like the real villains of the world. He doesn't want anyone to die. Far from it, he only wants good things for people! He's a sweet old man who loves his grandchildren. But he has money and power and refuses to hear that what he is doing is dangerous for everyone, even his own family.

I think he's possibly one of the most important villains ever written in popular fiction.

In the book, he is killed by a pack of the smallest, cutest, "least dangerous" dinosaurs, because a big part of why we read fiction is to see the villains face thematic justice. But like a cigarette CEO dying of lung cancer, his death does not stop his creation from spreading out into the world to continue to endanger everyone else.

I think it is really important to see and understand this kind of villainy in fiction, so you can recognize it in real life.

Sweetheart of a grandfather. Wanted the best for everyone. Right up until what was best for everyone inconvenienced the pursuit of his own interests.

And my client was like that too. His wife had died, and his dog was now the love of his life, and she was this little old dog with silky hair in a hair cut that left long wispy bits on her lower legs. Certain plant materials were easily entangled in this hair and impossible to get out without pulling her hair which clearly hurt her. When i suggested he ask his groomer to trim her lower leg hair short to avoid this, he refused, saying he really liked her usual hair cut.

I emphasized that she was in pain after every walk due to the plant debris getting caught in her leg hair, and a simple trim could put an end to her daily painful removal of it, and he just frowned like i'd recommended he take a bath in pig shit and said "But she'll be ugly" and refused to talk about it anymore.

Sweet old man though. Everyone loved him.

#villains #my life

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