#reasons to dislike the british if you're french

[boreal-sea]

Israel is less than 80 years old and is a coloniser state. I'm sick of people saying Israel existing as a settler colonial state is only bad because of the genocide of its natives. Dissolve the nation of israel now, invasion is NOT the same as 'moving in jewish citizens where they want to have a home uwu' moving in doesn't involve all the shit israel does

If you disagree with any of that, you're fucked up. If you agree, thank you.

Sick of seeing posts on tunglr that are like "well i may believe the state of israel has the right to literally invade and displace but i don't like bombs uwu" anyone can feel free to call me anything u want because of that and put words in my mouth because of that

Btw while I'm at it, fuck right wingers fuck america fuck the uk and fuck colonialism. Fuck anyone who blames israels colonialism on jews and not geopolitics and imperialism. No tolerance for antisemitism or conspiracy shit. No tolerance for Free Palestine and stuff being called antisemitic. No tolerance for "free palestine from the evil (((jews)))" either

Ok im done

Free Palestine

Everyone learn the difference between "Israel are twisted colonisers" and "Jews suck" now pls

It's fascinating timing that you sent me this and I saw it literally seconds after I made a post stating I openly support the Palestinian Right to Return.

I do honestly think that the way the modern state of Israel was created was wrong. I understand the complex sociopolitical influences behind it - and I also understand some of the more emotional logic behind it including, "the Holocaust just happened and no one wanted to save us by taking us in, so could we please have a place where we'll be safe?". So I get why some people are still really pro-Israel existing in some way, because it is promoted as the only place in the world Jewish people are safe.

But going in, evicting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and saying "this is Israel again and you're not allowed to come back", that wasn't the way to do things, and I can't honestly understand why anyone today, looking back on that, would agree it was the right choice.

At the end of the 1800's and early 1900's, Palestine was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Jewish immigrants to Palestine prior to WWI were not particularly welcomed by the Ottoman Empire, even though their numbers were well below 100,000 individuals. After WWI, the region was controlled by a mix of the British and the French. Britain, at that time, declared a wish to create a Jewish state in the region for a multitude of reasons. Dislike of Jews in Palestine continued, even though no state of Israel had even been adopted yet. But that declaration by Britain paved the way for the eventual forcing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 and continuing thereafter.

Even though I'm converting, I don't have any desire to visit Israel as it is right now. The actions its government are taking right now is, to me, unconscionable and I could not support it by visiting. The government of Israel has become the oppressor in the region.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Cajun Spice 1989 Cajun / Folk / Zydeco

Well, folks, it looks like our first comp of this new year is taking us on a trip down to southern Louisiana, aka Acadiana, where Cajun music, in some form or fashion, has been a fixture of the region's culture since the latter part of the 1700s. And if you've ever wondered why Cajun people are called Cajuns in the first place, it's because they originally hailed from Acadia—what are now parts of maritime Canada, Québec, and northern Maine—and if you chop off the front 'A' from 'Acadian' and then say the remainder of the word quickly enough, what you'll inevitably end up saying is 'Cajun.' Simple as!

But why the Acadians didn't end up staying in Acadia was because of a terrible war, namely the Seven Years' one, whose resolution saw the French-speaking territory left in the hands of the British. The British then forced the Acadians into exile and a lot of them ended up migrating all the way down south to lower Louisiana, where, despite France having ceded the land to Spain by that point, they were still welcomed anyway.

So the reason why Louisiana has the most French speakers out of any other state in the Union, rather than the states that border the French-speaking provinces of Canada itself, is pretty much because of that period of Acadian migration. Pretty interesting, no?

But now we forge on to more modern times:

Although Cajun music predates Louisiana's admission into the Union, it didn't really gain much in the way of a national traction until the middish-1980s, which was a time that had also seen America writ large develop a fixation with Cajun food as well. And if you're going to really try to enjoy the cuisine, what better ambiance to pair it with than that same culture's music, right?

Which brings us to this little late 80s comp from roots and world music label Rounder Records here, who, in the earlier part of the decade, had really started to develop their own Cajun stable of artists. Rounder had released a few comps that consisted purely of both Cajun music and its sister genre of zydeco before this one, but all of those releases had originated from the 70s, and almost all of them also consisted of only two or three acts each. This 1989 release, on the other hand, Cajun Spice, was the first one from Rounder to be issued since Cajun music had really started to draw interest in the US outside of Louisiana, and the list of musicians on it was far lengthier too.

But now here's the bad news: it took until getting a few songs deep into this comp for me to finally realize, that out of every instrument that I've ever heard in my life, the one that I might have a most visceral dislike for is the accordion. And that might make my German ancestors furiously turn over in their own graves, but there is just something about the type of sound that emanates out of those strange contraptions that feels so extremely lame and corny to me. And I know that I'm probably not alone in feeling this way, but guess what the lead instrument in Cajun music happens to be. Yep, that's right. The accordion! 😩

Now, I'm sure it's one thing to actually go down to Acadiana and immerse yourself in the culture for a night of good fun, which would include getting down to this unique form of folk-dance music that's found a way to keep on existing, but outside of a setting like that, I don't think I wanna hear much in the way of accordion-led music ever again. At the very least, I've definitely had my fill of it for this year alone 😅.

But with all of that said, and despite my personal distaste for this stuff in general, I can still tell that the tunes on this album are very well-made. The musicians are clearly gifted and what they're playing is definitely infectious...if you can find a way to stand it, which I really can't. But if you're way more tolerant of a prominent accordion than I am, or if you already like Cajun music, or if you're just interested in hearing it for the first time, then I definitely recommend this album. AllMusic gave it four and a half out of five stars and I can definitely see why, because all of it is clearly quality stuff.

No highlights.

[amphibious-thing]

Thanks for the insight!

The they/them thing is very much a recent phenomenon. The take seems to more or less be that we should use gender neutral pronouns for her because we can't really know her true gender or how she would identify and what pronouns she would use had she lived today. My stance is that, whenever possible, we should use the pronouns a historical figure was last known to use. When writing in English post-1777 d'Eon used she/her for herself so thats what I use for her. (see British Museum D,1.272 for an example)

D'Eon's comment about on comes from one of the drafts for her autobiography. And while I do understand that on is more akin to one than they/them from the context of this statement she seems to dislike it specifically because it's gender neutral. Unfortunately I only have the English translation (The Maiden of Tonnerre) but this is the section I'm talking about:

The pronoun one is stupid. One cannot give birth when one would like. Did not the misfortune that befell the learned Popess Joan during her fine procession at St. Peter's in Rome occur all of a sudden like thunderbolts from the Vatican to the great scandal of the whole Church and of all the honorable devout women who were witness to the fine miracle that took place because of an improperly situated bulge?

A translation note clarifies:

The French word on is a third-person pronoun referring to others without designating any person in particular. It can be translated as "one" in such expressions as "one says" or "one does".

D'Eon seems to be saying that on is stupid because you're either male or female. Which seems like an odd statement not only considering who is saying it but also because she says this in the very next paragraph:

I did what I said I did. Hardly had I succumbed to the power of society when God came to my aid and the Lord lifted me up and gave me the strength not to turn red upon seeing my name erased from the catalogue of men and inscribed on the list of women; and moreover, I saw with my own eyes, without crying, the captain of the dragoons inducted into the religious order of the Daughters of Holy Mary and into the company of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting.

It's important to understand the context; d'Eon's autobiography was written for an audience who believed d'Eon was afab and is thus written from that perspective. While we know d'Eon was amab thats not what d'Eon was telling the entirety of France and England. D'Eon claimed that she was afab but that her parents had raised her as a boy for inheritance reasons. She lived as a man until the secret of her female sex was discovered and she was forced to live as a woman by Louis XVI and while she was reluctant at first she ultimately realised that she must live as a woman because that was her true nature and and God's will and ultimately what made her happy.

The problem is that as soon as you know d'Eon had a penis the whole story unravels. How much of what d'Eon says in her autobiography is true and how much is fiction?

My guess is that d'Eon is overcompensating here. Throughout these drafts she repeats the lie that her "true sex" was discovered. Here she is talking about Pope Joan who according to legend was a female pope whose sex was discovered. This in some ways mirrors the fictionalised story of d'Eon's life. My guess is that she is basically saying on is a stupid pronoun because sex is binary and immutable. The subtext being also remember I have a vagina. D'Eon wanted the public to see her not just as a woman but as a cis woman.

However the comment still seems a bit odd to me as the pronoun one isn't really used to denote nonbinary gender/third gender and from what you and the translation note says I gather this is also true of on. So why did d'Eon dislike on? This is what makes me wonder if there was something more to it. Like maybe people had be phrasing things oddly to avoid using gendered language for her. But this is pure speculation. It might just be a terrible segue or a random thought and I don't even know if this makes sense in French.

TBH this post wasn't that serious I just thought it was kinda ironic that the clearest statement d'Eon seems to have made about pronouns (that I'm aware of) is that on is stupid seemingly because its gender neutral yet it feels like so many people these days use gender neutral pronouns for her.

do we really think that Geneviève 'the pronoun on is stupid' d'Eon would be super stoked about people using they/them pronouns for her

[historic-old-guard-lover]

Does Boooker still loathe the English ?

TL;DR: Probably. The would-be French and would-be English have invaded, fought, and demeaned each other for pretty much the entirety of the last century (1066 CE to ~1914 CE). Even if Booker doesn’t really care about international politics despite being born during a time when the countries were actively fighting, he still would have been raised to look down on them as Protestants. And it’s not hard to find a reason to dislike the British *cough* destructive imperialism *cough* in the pursuit of spices that they don’t use *cough* and they made speaking their language globally important *cough*. (aside: France has a bad history of Imperialism, too, so Booker doesn’t have much of a moral high-ground) Let’s take the shortest tour through French-British conflict that I can give you. There will be a a few names, but please know that I already cut out hundreds of them.

What kicked off this epic mutual dislike? A literal bastard Frenchman with inadequacy issues. Beginning in October of 1066, the soon-to-be-famous William the Conqueror got tired of just being the bastard son of the Duke of Normandy (northernmost France) who secured the duchy for himself and decided to invade and conquer his distant cousin’s country. As you might have guess from his moniker, he was successful and had himself crowned King of England by December of that year. It helps to remember the distinctions between all those pesky pieces of the British Isles:

[ID: Euler diagram showing geographic (green) versus political (blue) labels.]

William conquered England, below, and then had the Pope approve of his new position by Easter. Yes, you heard correctly. This guy had such an inferiority complex that he became the internationally-recognized monarch of a neighboring country within a year. For the next hundred odd years, Anglo-Norman and not Old English was the official language of England. The whole British Imperialism thing starts to make a little more sense: they had it done to them first and they lost badly. Eventually, William’s (still Normand) descendants known as the “Plantagenet Kings” stretched themselves a little thin trying to claim all of France as their kingdom as well and decided to re-brand themselves as English and reinstate Old English as the official language to cope. And yes, this is those Plantagenets who will give rise to the Yorks and Lancasters who will cause the English War of the Roses where all the royalty kills each other for power and leaves the Tudors to come to power. But we’re not there yet.

[ID: picture of the British Isles and Northern France which shows the lands controlled by William the Conqueror by 1087 in pink. Notably, he controlled only England and not Wales or Scotland.]

Before the Normand royals of Britain all kill themselves, they have to stir up international drama. Edward I claimed in 1295 to the members of parliament that the King of France planned to invade England and extinguish the English language. Yes, this was a NORMAND king who was doing the same thing a generation or two ago. Then in 1346, his still-Normand grandson Edward III forged an ordinance from Philip VI of France calling for the destruction of the English and presented it to his parliament. This little performance kicked off the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453 CE). It’s towards the end of this major conflict that the royals decide to incite civil war, by the way, because they really were too dramatic to live. Just so you know, I skipped over TWELVE WARS between William the Bastard’s (yes, a real moniker) invasion and the Hundred Years’ War so that this article wouldn’t drag on forever. By the time that the Hundred Years’ War is over, the (Welsh) Tudors are on the English throne and, excluding that time the English invaded France in 1475, the two nations decided to stop trying to conquer each other. This is Europe, however, and they’ll continue to be fighting each other through proxy wars at least twelve more times before we get to the 1770s. A lot of this proxy fighting happens over Italy, in case you’re interested.

If you thought that 700 years of nearly continuous armed conflict (a decade or two doesn’t really count as a break in the long run) wasn’t enough to justify the hate between England and France, you’ve underestimated the power of religion. France hosted the (what we call Roman) Catholic Papacy in Avignon from 1309 to 1376. France is to this day a VERY Catholic nation, with up to 88% of its population belonging to the Church if you count lapsed members. Between William (1066) and the 1770s, a little itty bitty religious movement you might have heard of called the (Protestant) Reformation shook Europe when the German Princes decided they were tired of listening to this Roman Pope dude, so they supported this funky little scholar-monk-priest name Martin Luther whose students eventually said fuck it, the papacy is trash let’s start our own church. Christians, being Christians, took this as a new thing to hate about each other despite the fact that most of the doctrine is still the same and whether you were Catholic or Protestant became very important to people from the mid-1500s CE onward. In comes the man with many wives, Henry VIII. He was king while the German Princes were revolting and decided he wanted a divorce from his first wife. The Pope said along the lines of unless you give me a good reason, it’s a no from me and Henry replied something like the fact that I want to marry a younger woman is reason enough, I’m going to make up my own damn church and I get to have as many divorces as I want and then he established the Church of England. And then he went on the have six wives (and one mistress whose bastard he acknowledged) who were either beheaded or divorced except for the last one. I personally regret he never got to the full eight-piece set he must have been going for. Since 1534 when Henry VIII first flaunted papal authority by divorcing his wife, the French and English have also had the pleasure of hating each other over religious differences.

[ID: French corsairs with booty and British prisoners in 1806, depicted in a later painting by Maurice Orange from the Wikipedia page on French state-sanctioned pirates called “corsairs” that I didn’t have the space to get to in the article.]

Booker is born and grows up in a France that is funding the American Revolution and stealing from their trading ships (because fuck the British). This whole “America” decision destabilizes the country, leads to the popularity of the guillotine, and sets the stage for Napoleon Bonaparte (who, fun fact, was actually average height because the French decided to change the length of an inch for a while and if you think otherwise, it’s British propaganda). It helps to understand that the English and French had entered what we now call the Second Hundred Years’ War, this time started by the English trying to depose the French King, where they’d been skirmishing with each other from 1689 until Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815. When I say that the diplomatic strategy was “fuck the British,” this is what I’m referring to. There were very few rules that couldn’t be broken in pursuit of disadvantaging France’s island neighbor and vice versa. As a poor person, he definitely hated the French monarchy but he probably equally hated the English because, again, fuck the British defined the 1700s CE. Booker ends up conscripted in part because of the British (and in part because of Napoleon being a little too power-hungry). I think our depressed Frenchman has enough room in his heart to hate both the British and Napoleon...and neither has given him a good reason to stop hating them. UK-French relations arguably only normalized because of the increasing threat that Imperial and then Nazi Germany posed. Even during WWII, however, the British dragged their feet to begin helping the French eject the Nazis and let the Americans lead that front (which was only 200-something years late repayment for helping with their Revolution, but who’s counting?). I have no guesses as to what Booker thinks of the EU, but the Brexit debacle is just another reason to resume disliking the UK for someone who unabashedly disliked them for two hundred years. Oh yeah, and they’re God-damned Protestants to boot. (note: that’s from a Catholic perspective, not mine)

[sk1fanfiction]

the many faces of tom riddle, part six or 5.5 or whatever this is because frankly there's not enough tom to analyse here and that's a damn shame

-what exactly is a backstory?-

Okay, I thought saying that I dislike Tom Hughes as a fancast for Tom Riddle would be my most cancellable moment, but here goes. I think I'm about to piss people off again lol:

*sobs* I was really disappointed in The House of Gaunt. Which is perhaps a function of my high hopes for it, but eh...

Boy, oh boy do I have opinions. I'm not going to tell you not to read it if you liked everything about the movie (which is a valid opinion), but just so you're aware, I have opinions.

(When don't I?)

However, before I say absolutely anything else, I have to say, gorgeous. The production is stunning.

Stunning, in fact, is the major issue with the film for me. It's just overall too pretty.

We open with the scene that Dumbledore shows Harry through the Pensieve in Half-Blood Prince.

At about a minute or two in — the Gaunt Shack looks less shack and more stately cottage overgrown with ivy (like the Riddle house!), and Gaunts themselves, especially Merope, whose actress is super pretty, are nowhere near as hideous, dirty, or impoverished as they should be. Instead, the whole thing is giving landed gentry when it should be giving Scary Peasants, and while I love the Miss Havisham aesthetic as much as the next girl, it’s definitely not canon and Morfin and Marvolo are not nearly as intimidating as I hoped they would be — and definitely not anything near to the magical family that Tom Riddle was so disgusted by. I just wish there’d been more squalor and — ugh — at first it's a small gripe — let’s see what happens with this change. It could be interesting to explore the idea of having functional Gaunts, so I hope they’ve done it for a reason and they address it.

(Spoiler alert, they don’t address it)

Merope, pretty and well-dressed, if a bit witchy-looking for a small village in the 1920s. Compare with the right panel.

The only Gaunt who comes off as sufficiently off-putting is Morfin.

Actually, on second thought, I can’t overstate how much Marvolo’s adaptational meekness bothers me. I have no idea why they decided to make his character soft-spoken when he doesn’t even sound intimidating. This isn't to say soft-spoken can't be intimidating; it's to say that Marvolo is trying too hard to be genteel, instead of grand and eccentric, which is quite OOC for him, and we don't know a lot about him.

Now that I’m a third of the way in, I’m not sure why they bothered with this scene in the first place. It doesn’t really add anything to Lord Voldemort’s story that can’t be summed up in a few lines of dialogue.

A battle between the Aurors and the two male Gaunts ensues. The production is great. It looks really cool, but there's a reason it wasn't in the book.

It doesn't add anything to the plot, or character development, which is a real shame in a thirty-minute film.

I thought it was a nice detail how two of the Aurors were from Beauxbatons, but it really jarred me when the British Auror leading the mission called them “French guys” — I don’t think people would have said that in 1926.

This isn't (just) me being pedantic as per usual. Admittedly the above graph shows only the prevalence of 'guys' in the written corpus, but you can see that it isn't really used until the 80's, and only starts gaining speed in the 00's. It's definitely not used in the 20's.

Also, halfway through and no Tom Riddle Junior. Sad. When it’s eighteen minutes into a thirty minute film and the title character hasn’t been born yet (it’s subtitled Lord Voldemort Origins), that’s possibly a pacing issue. Doing 2-5 minutes of this maximum and replacing the rest with baby maniac Tom at the orphanage or Hogwarts would have fixed it. If this film is supposed to show Tom's origins or backstory, it might have just missed the mark.

Additionally, Merope being super pretty is an issue. About nineteen minutes in, after Marvolo and Morfin have been arrested, she waltzes up to Tom Riddle Senior in the woods, all seductive... they gaze at each other… there’s sexual tension… he’s into it… she’s into it…

But Tom Riddle Senior being into Merope completely tanks a major plot point — Tom is r*ped, and the circumstances around which said crime happens is contingent on Merope being unable to seduce him without the love potion. If Tom was into Merope in the first place, he might not have even known when she stopped giving him the love potion and he wouldn’t have freaked out and left, and if he didn’t freak out and leave, Merope wouldn’t have died, sold the locket to Borgin and Burkes, and Tom wouldn’t have been born in Wool’s Orphanage. All changing the story of Lord Voldemort into something very different.

Maybe I'm seeing things from the wrong angle. But telling a story already told in an odd way doesn't clear up a character's backstory. Rather, it muddies the waters.

But, we are still meant to believe that this story should follow canon, because directly after Tom and Merope make goo-goo eyes at each other, we skip ahead thirty years later. Yes, that's right. We skip to Tom Riddle Junior/Lord Voldemort, age 29.

Real footage of Tom Senior making goo-goo eyes at Merope.

Twenty minutes in and one long scene of a robed man ascending the steps of a castle with his entourage... has Tom finally made his appearance?

Oh good, it is him. Finally.

We’ve been treated to a Masquerade Ball, where the early Death Eaters are in attendance, and yet some posh blonde woman with a nice haircut pops up besides Tom (who’s wearing a mask), and calls him Tom. Strange. Shouldn’t he be Lord Voldemort by now, if he’s started to gather followers?

OH GOD, it’s Hepzibah Smith?

I can almost forgive the Gaunts, but the fact that she’s dressed as a tasteful rich lady, and not as an affected old, wrinkly, flirty woman with a powdered wig is sacrilege.

I’m also quite upset that Tom’s wearing a full-face mask — every time he speaks, it gives me uncanny valley vibes — if only they’d had the mask only covering the top or one side of his face so we could see some expression.

(When you only have thirty minutes, you'd think you'd allow Lord Voldemort, aka the title character with less than ten minutes of screen minute, facial expressions... especially when Voldemort never canonically wore a mask.)

Not only is Hepzibah horribly out of character, but she and Tom have zero chemistry. Gone is her tittering, and gone is Tom’s disgust, and gone is the flirting on both sides. It’s simply an heiress carrying out a business deal with a guy in a mask. There is no dynamic. No atmosphere. In fact, I much prefer this sequence in Origins of the Heir. While I also, me being me, disliked Tom's overall portrayal in that film (and me being me, I often dislike Tom's overall portrayal in the canon films), that scene is pretty well done. One of the most memorable things about this scene in the book is his facial expressions; he looks hungry, greedy, his eyes glint red -- none of which are present here, because we can't see his face. And because of that, the scene feels very flat.

WHY IN THE EVER-LOVING FUCK WOULD ARROGANT AS FUCK TOM RIDDLE EVER TELL HEPZIBAH THAT THE ‘RAGGED-LOOKING WOMAN’ IS HIS MOTHER?

(Apologies. That was my unfiltered reaction at that very moment and I chose to share it with you.)

Not only that, but Tom slashes her throat in the middle of the ballroom, pretty much. Which I'm not tooooo mad about, because although pre-Voldemort Tom did try to be stealthy about murders, this is evidently post-Voldemort Tom, so all bets are off, really. Although I really didn't see that one coming.

On the positive side, the following fight scene where Tom mows down a squad of Aurors in about thirty seconds is possibly more threatening that canon Voldemort’s ever been, minus the duel with Dumbledore.

And after only six minutes of Tom existing (there's a duel in a sexy French Versailles-looking corridor, but it's kind of boring. Tom wins, obviously.), we cut to 1981, with James and Lily, who’s holding a bundle who we must assume to be Harry — Voldemort confronts them in an alley, instead of their home.

Not only that, but he murders James and Lily, and doesn’t even seem to notice Harry’s existence at first, only returning for him as an afterthought rather than the whole purpose of the attack. I mean, we know it's not, but it feels like Voldemort killed them all because he's petty (he is, but that's not the point) instead of, you know, Actual Plot Reasons Like a Prophecy.

Hello, canon? Where are you, my old friend?

And I’m not saying everything has to follow canon, but just… why not write a story that fills in the blanks in Voldemort’s origins rather than rehashing what we already know in such an odd fashion? In fact, although I have my gripes with Origins of the Heir, at least it tries to depict pre-Voldemort Tom in some way and expands on canon. I just feel like The House of Gaunt stuck too close to canon for my taste, at least. Although it's visually stunning and the acting is great, it (1) doesn't feel like part of the quirky, dysfunctional and sometimes gritty, or at least grimy Harry Potter Universe, and (2) it fundamentally doesn't develop Tom/Voldemort as a character at all.