#it's not just a homogenous “other”

[sciderman]

I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with so much Iranian hate and drama <:[

oh anon. hate to break it to you (a lot of people make this mistake) but iran and iraq are two entirely separate nations.

and also i think reducing it to the words "hate and drama" kind of doesn't cover it, anon.

[ducktracy]

The Invader was probably my favorite character in the movie, at first I was confused why Marvin wasn't playing the alien antagonist role, but by the end this guy really stood out on his own

THE INVADER IS A LOT OF FUN! tbh i didn’t really have any strong feelings on him at first (pig and duck bias), but i was able to appreciate him a lot more in my latest rewatch in the theater. it would have been neat to see Marvin in his place, especially since Duck Dodgers (the show) shows that he does have the capacity to be a serious threat, BUT i love how limber and exaggerated his animation could be. i think he fits the hysteria of the film well while also preserving the more slow, creeping moments. i love Marvin and would have loved to have seen him (again, rip to the Duck Dodgers film proposed in the ‘90s), but i ultimately think The Invader was the best call because a) the “synergy” and recognizability of Marvin could maybe be a bit distracting and take away from any threat he posed, and b) his whole thing is that he’s an absolute dweeb!! Chuck Jones originally named him Antwerp because he looks like an ant and he’s a twerp! and as the story of the film survives now, i think casting an entirely new character was the best bet for preserving the sort of intimidation they were wanting to go for

[chalkscrub]

revisiting my roots as an artist - never sketching, never planning, and going straight to the inks. and also drawing traditionally again. with some digital colours

speaking of my roots as an artist, so many people say my art is cute/storybook/wholesome vibes which is funny cause i started off drawing a lot of bloody evil gorey demon things. 14 y/o me would not be happy with me for going down the route i ended up taking - i wanted to be edgy.

[un-pearable]

the kyoshi flashback in Avatar Day and the sheer scale of ba sing se in comparison to…. literally everywhere else in the world really has me thinking about the politics that lead to such distinct “nations”. it makes way more sense for a land as vast as the earth kingdom to have once been earth kingdoms with local land disputes between feudal lords - as we see with the conflict kyoshi ended - only for a world-spanning war to have driven first the lords to unite under ba sing se’s banner for protection, and then as the war continued, increasing waves and waves of refugees and oma shu standing as the only remaining hold out due to their unique position (top of a mountain - most other earth kingdom towns we see are in valleys) such would explain how many ruins and ghost towns we see throughout s2 but also the improbability of a land that big to be unified under a single leader for that long

[aptericia]

I was looking through the tags in that "are you White" poll, and it was really interesting how many people said they were "technically" half & half but only considered themselves to be White.

And thinking about it, most of the mixed White-and-non-White people I know irl (especially White-and-East-Asian people) also identify only as White. My sister looks very similar to me and says she doesn't feel comfortable identifying as PoC, even though I use the term for myself. Although culturally I'm not very Asian, I have had people assume I'm not from the US, assume I can speak other languages, and assume all sorts of Asian stereotypes about me such as that I'm nerdy or care a lot about food. I think White and Asian people alike see me and understand that I am "their race", but also know that I am "other" in some way.

Idk I just find it really interesting and I wonder how common an experience that is... I feel like I've fallen a bit into the trap of thinking that all half-White people (in the US and Canada anyway) have somewhat similar experiences to me, and it's both disorienting and pretty cool to be reminded how incorrect that is.

[dravidious]

I am a huge stickler for balance in video games. I sometimes see people say stuff "if you balance it too much it'll be bland!" and I wonder if we mean the same thing when we say "balance". What I mean is this:

Say you're playing some Final Fantasy game or something, with various party members to choose from. You look at the options for party members and, after weighing each one's strengths and weaknesses, you find that one of them is overall better than the others; their strengths are much stronger and their weaknesses are insignificant. And likewise, one of the characters is overall weaker.

In this scenario, any player who's goal is to win (i.e. the vast majority) will always pick the stronger character, and will never pick the weaker one. And this... just kinda sucks, right? The point of providing options is to let players choose, but if there are options that are overall superior or inferior then it isn't a very interesting choice. Not much of a choice at all when there's a clear correct answer.

And yeah obviously there's exceptions, like an underpowered joke character that's impressive to win with. But those are just that: Exceptions. Usually, underpowered options may as well not exist, and overpowered options make it pointless to pick anything else. But I had a thought today about something that looks like bad balance, but kinda isn't.

Say you're playing some Final Fantasy game or something again, but this time you don't get to pick your party members. You just have a fixed party that you can't modify. Once again, one of the party members is overall stronger than the rest, and another is overall weaker.

This is "unbalanced", but not in the usual way. Usually, you wouldn't use an underpowered character, but that's not an option here; using this character isn't an choice, it's a mandatory part of the game. And normally, a character being overpowered would mean that other characters wouldn't get used, but ALL the characters get used, so that doesn't happen.

At the heart of my hatred for bad balance is how it ruins choices. I want to be able to look over all the options and choose the ones I like best, but when there's a blatantly correct choice, I either have to accept that I don't get to choose, or intentionally handicap myself, both of which feel awful. Balance isn't about making everything equal, it's about making every option a valid choice.

[mangled-by-disuse]

talking to friends about The Horrors, specifically the Trumpian Horrors, and, like

the more I consider it, the more I think that the best thing we outside the US can do - for ourselves, for the world, and for America as well - is to just holler to the fucking rooftops that AMERICA IS NOT THE WORLD.

By which I mean:

we do not let politicians, media, and our own social circles convince us that American issues are the only issues worth discussing;

we challenge politicians, media, and our own social circles on the politics of appeasement;

we challenge ourselves on the assumption that laws passed in the US affect us directly, and we do not place ourselves in American shoes;

we focus on our own shit. Not because it's more important, but because we need to remember that it still exists. Our eyes cannot be on the USA while the legislative and political rights in our own countries are eroded from under us.

we look to the rest of the world. We get used to viewing people who don't look like us, talk like us, or even like us as an equal and crucial part of the political landscape.

WE ARE LOUD ABOUT THIS. In politics, in activism, in social contexts, in our own assessment of our own politics, we remember and hold up that America is NOT the centre of the world, and that American hegemony is NOT inevitable.

This is not because I'm trying to undermine American struggles. This is because the Trump administration is strengthened and bolstered by every other country that chooses to suck the cock of American supremacy in the desperate attempt to maintain the last remnants of the old imperial order.

It is up to everyone in the world to challenge that, and to say: yeah, this fucking sucks, and we want America to be better, but we don't need America.

There are other markets. There are other allies and potential allies. There are other global powers (Personally I think we should try to dismantle global powers entirely, but, you know, one battle at a time) and there are other political shifts.

So much of the current rightward swing in the UK, at least, is directly modelled on MAGA to the point that it's the same movement, to the point where the branches of that movement feed power and influence to one another. You know what has consistently been one of the more successful tactics? Fucking reminding people that they are not, in fact, offering solutions to the problems Britain faces, because these are American solutions and we are not America.

idk it feels stupid to say this. it feels stupid to have to point out that Not Everywhere Is America, and it feels even stupider to think that this is something that needs pointing out to the systems of power. But the more I think about it, the surer I am that one of the tentpoles of American power, and therefore of Trump's power (in the US as well as beyond it!) is just... the willingness of so much of the world to say: yeah, sure, everything is America.

WE ARE NOT AMERICA.

AMERICA DOES NOT HAVE TO CONTROL US.

idk. maybe it won't change shit. but maybe yelling that at international power structures loudly enough - making noise about issues that are not American, focusing our efforts outside America, challenging American supremacy on the global stage - is, in fact, the most useful thing we can do.

[sallykie]

I've decided. I don't like the HTTYD movie sequels' xenophobia era. I don't think the themes should have gone that way.

[isthereintruthnobeauty1968]

fun potential what with so much of the ds9 cast being nonhuman people for worf to mention some relatively obscure human cultural thing offhand and kira/jadzia/quark/odo/etc assuming it's a klingon thing

[voluptuarian]

You know, very rarely do I run into accounts of historical cannibalism that are completely new to me. But I did today and I'm frankly completely taken aback by this

Fro the article: "The Guangxi Massacre comprised a series of lynchings and massacres in the Chinese province of Guangxi between 1967 and 1968, during the Cultural Revolution. The official record shows an estimated death toll between 100,000 and 150,000. Methods of murder included beheading, beating, live burial, stoning, drowning, boiling, and disemboweling. In specific areas, including Wuxuan County and Wuming, Nanning, hundreds of incidents of human cannibalism occurred—even though no famine conditions existed. According to records that have been made public, at least 137 people were eaten, with thousands of people having participated in the cannibalism... In 1993, The New York Times stated that the incidents reported from Guangxi were apparently the most extensive episodes of cannibalism in the world in the last century or more. They were also different from any others in that those who took part were not motivated by hunger or psychopathic illness. Instead, the actions appeared to be ideological: the cannibalism, which the documents say took place in public, was often organized by local Communist Party officials, and people apparently took part together to prove their revolutionary ardor."

[arctic-hands]

Oh the bane of wanting shoes that fit your vibe but you're disabled and need to prioritize comfort over aesthetics and also you're at sub-sub-poverty levels of our abysmal SSI

[montanamp3]

tatimaxxing (something big just happened to me but i can't talk about it on this blog because ive posted face)

[godsworstson]

having a culturally diverse friend group is so fun because how else would I hear badly translated jokes that make no sense in any other language or watch drunk people fighting in two different languages

[starlit-mansion]

i actually am living for the shot in the arm the movie is going to give william fanart

[lemongrablothbrok]

The new art style is bad and the showrunners should feel bad.

They De-Tumblrized Ms. Frizzle

[pyrrhiccomedy]

when people pop off with some ass take like "why should I have to put my pronouns in my profile or signature or whatever, my name is Tom and I have short hair and am wearing an oxford shirt in my profile pic, figure it out" I always think

so do you just not talk to people from other countries for your job, ever?

like, some people don't, and you can follow the flowchart to a different part of the argument about why pushing back about pronouns is stupid, but I e-mail people in Singapore and Dubai and Japan and India every day. A lot of those people have names that are probably their local equivalent of "Tom," but I have never seen them before and I have no idea if that's a girl's name or a boy's name. They usually have profile pics too. I don't know how common short hair is for women or long hair is for men in their country. I don't know if that style of shirt is more common for men or more common for women. I'm not writing this from some homogenous whitebread oasis, either, I live in New York City, it's just simply not possible for me to know the common names in every language of every country where the people I need to work with, live.

just put your stupid pronouns in your signature, some exasperated project manager in Mumbai will one day appreciate it